TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  Trial Under Fire
  Chapter 3 
  Into the Fire
  By Loren L. Coleman
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Trial Under Fire • Page 2
  Okay, I’m heading forward. Don’t be late!
  Roger that. Good luck, Dominic.
  Yeah, sure.
  All right, Lieutenant. Dominic Paine has moved ahead 
  to set up his ﬂanking attack against the ’Mech fac-
  tory. He will move in as soon as you begin your run, 
  meeting you at the second bridge. From there the two 
  of you can proceed to the island facility.
  And we’ve ﬁnally made progress on the codes re-
  covered from that destroyed communication’s facility 
  back on the beach. The data has allowed us to break 
  part of the Clan encryption system, tapping into some 
  of their radio chatter. The proper codes have been 
  entered into your BattleMech computer, so you will 
  receive a direct feed of Clan intentions from now on. 
  Here’s hoping it helps.
  Let’s end this.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Trial Under Fire • Page 3
  Tranquil, Clan Homeworlds 
  29 April 3060
  “…hurt… can not… Noooo…”
  The scream faded to static and then silence as the Thor’s missile 
  ammunition detonated in the over-the-shoulder launcher, tearing a 
  gash through its left side and setting off the main ammunition bin 
  by sympathetic explosion. A red-orange fireball ripped through 
  the interior of the Clan OmniMech, shattering its turret-style waist 
  and amputating both legs. 
  Its left leg flipped up and over the head of Connor’s Bushwacker, 
  landing in the river. 
  The right leg was thrown far to one side, into a nearby minefield 
  where it triggered several of the hidden explosive devices. 
  A twisted, misshapen frame of metal landed several meters off 
  to one side, all that remained of a once-powerful war machine. 
  One of the best Clan designs, piloted by a tenacious warrior. Star 
  Commander Freya had dogged their tracks for several kilome-
  ters.
  “Careless fool!” 
  A weak transmission, partly obscured by the static. The kind 
  Connor recognized as the Smoke Jaguar communications on 
  which his computer could now eavesdrop. There was no hiding 
  the disdain and anger coloring the voice. Unless he missed his 
  guess, that would be Star Captain Hasaan Furey who had been 
  referenced in other intercepted transmissions.
  Corporal Sorenson’s relief was just as evident. “Nice work, 
  Captain. You were right, we should have sidetracked to take her 
  down earlier today.”
  His lungs felt on fire. Gasping in breaths of the cockpit’s scorched 
  air, he choked on the ozone scent of burnt insulation from the 
  monitor which had shorted out. Just as well he was saved any 
  comment, with Dominic Paine interrupting. 
  “This is Gunner, moving in from the west. Where’s my sup-
  port?”
  Connor was running behind. A glance at the mission clock told 
  him just how many precious minutes he’d wasted dealing with 
  
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  the star commander. He had already taken out the site’s power-
  house—a fairly impressive plant, considering there was only the 
  one ’Mech factory, a large set of greenhouses and some storage 
  and barracks facilities to supply. But by now he should have been 
  meeting up with Dominic to hit the small offshore island on which 
  the factory was situated. 
  “Where are you, Dominic?”
  “Fighting off a Black hawk-Kurita variant and a Strider just this 
  side of the second bridge.” A brief pause and a wash of violent 
  static. “Check that—make it a Black hawk-KU only now. Damn! 
  That hurt. The better question is, where are you?”
  Making up time fast as he could. Running deeper into the small 
  outpost, Connor pulled up short as his Head’s-Up painted a threat 
  icon, the computer tagging it with the code for a Puma OmniMech, 
  primary variant. The computer couldn’t always tell OmniMech 
  variants apart, but the twin particle projector cannon made this 
  an easy ID. He didn’t need to glance at his armor schematic to 
  see that one solid salvo from those PPCs would score through 
  any location on his Bushwacker, his weak armor courtesy of Star 
  Commander Freya. According to the HUD, the Puma waited just 
  around the corner of the two-story greenhouse complex.
  He plunged through the glass wall, trying a short-cut.
  Star Captain Furey must have had the place wired for sensors. 
  “There is one inside the project,” he said almost at once. “Protect 
  those facilities!”
  Easier ordered than accomplished, with a fifty-five ton BattleMech 
  already loose inside the building and no way to come after it but to 
  smash your way through and engage. 
  The Puma tried to hedge, shattering one wall with a swipe of 
  the arm but not actually entering itself. A mistake, leaving Connor 
  the advantage of better cover—his Bushwacker nestled within a 
  screening growth of lush, food-bearing trees and plants. Only one 
  of the PPCs azure whips struck him, the man-made lightning melt-
  ing armor which runneled from his left torso to puddle among the 
  plants and start several trees afire. 
  The Bushwacker’s autocannon missed wide, smashing to tiny 
  shards another wall of the greenhouse; the feed mechanism fault 
  light flashed a quick warning and then went out. Again. 
  
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  Large laser and missile racks made up for the treacherously 
  undependable autocannon, scoring deeply into the Puma’s notori-
  ously-thin armor protection.
  The uneven exchange was enough to convince the Jaguar warrior 
  that he needed some cover, but too late. The light ’Mech throttled 
  into a run when Connor’s second strike slammed into it. Missiles 
  pockmarked leg and chest, the ruby beam of the large laser cut-
  ting in afterward and probing deeply into the center torso. 
  The Puma dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, shaking as 
  if with a palsy. 
  Large chunks of metal shot out the rent in the armor at high ve-
  locity, the gyro tearing itself to pieces in catastrophic failure. The 
  Puma tumbled gracelessly through a thick patch of quillar. Connor 
  turned his back on it to smash his way through several support 
  beams and the far outside glass wall. Behind him the greenhouse 
  facility collapsed inward like a broken house of cards.
  Furey didn’t require monitors. Wherever he was waiting, the de-
  struction of the greenhouse had to be easily visible. “Stravag!” 
  he cursed over Smoke Jaguar frequencies. “I will crush them my-
  self.” 
  But where was the local commander? And for that matter, where 
  was Dominic? Running out from between two buildings and over 
  the second bridge, the Bushwacker’s footsteps clanged against 
  the metal decking. The lieutenant saw the broken and smoking 
  form of a destroyed Black hawk, its cockpit obviously smashed 
  inward by a gauss round. Dominic’s handiwork, sure enough. But 
  no sign of the Shadow Cat.
   “This is Gunner. I’m over the last bridge and hitting the factory. 
  There’s an Orion over here!”
  Both questions answered at once. The Orion was an old Inner 
  Sphere design. Not on par with a Clan-tech OmniMech, but at sev-
  enty-five tons was only one step shy of an assault ’Mech and was 
  one of the larger machines he’d seen so far. Certainly the Star 
  Captain would be piloting it. 
  And with thirty tons over Dominic’s Shadow Cat, the Commando 
  MechWarrior was definitely outclassed. 
  Edging the Bushwacker over eighty-five kph, its maximum speed, 
  Connor ran the squat war machine over the coastal plains and to-
  ward the third bridge—too slow. Slender towers flanked access to 
  
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  the island factory, but the lieutenant paid them little heed as he 
  saw Dominic’s Shadow Cat in a deadly dance around the larger 
  Orion. The latter ’Mech moved slow but with lethal grace, always 
  on the verge of smashing Dominic’s Omni into scrap. The Shadow 
  Cat packed a deadly punch with its gauss rifle, but then the Orion 
  also massed twice as much armor protection as the smaller ma-
  chine. Connor pounded his Bushwacker across the bridge—never 
  fast enough—then dug his shovel-blade feet into the soft earth of 
  the small island as he raced up into the battlezone.
  Too late.
  Metal fragments littering the 
  ground winked in the late af-
  ternoon sun, testament to the 
  hard-hitting engagement. 
  The Orion’s left leg was 
  all but stripped down 
  to 
  titanium 
  skeleton, 
  and large gouges in chest 
  and right side told of other 
  gauss hits. But even as the 
  Bushwacker’s targeting reticle burned 
  the deep gold of hard lock, drawing 
  a bead with large laser and autocan-
  non, the seventy-five ton machine 
  struck back with a vengeance. 
  A flight of twenty long-ranged 
  missiles, launched from impossibly 
  close, scattered a flurry of jagged 
  holes over the Shadow Cat’s right 
  arm and body. Twin medium lasers 
  grouped into Dominic’s left leg, spot-
  welding the knee joint immobile. 
  Then the Orion’s eighty-milli-
  meter autocannon ripped into the 
  previous missile damage, hammer-
  ing at support struts and knocking the smaller OmniMech back. 
  The onslaught proved too much for the ’Mech’s gyro, and it 
  toppled backward into one of the auxiliary factory buildings. The 
  wall caved in behind Dominic’s Shadow Cat, and then everything 
  seemed to happen in slow motion as two stories of wood and 
  stone collapsed over the top of him. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Trial Under Fire • Page 7
  Burying the MechWarrior alive.
  “Dominic, no!”
  Connor mashed down his triggers, probing out at range with 
  his autocannon and large laser. He heard the remembered voice 
  of his academy instructor, “BattleMechs, they take a whole great 
  deal of killin’,” and figured the odds were better than fair that 
  Dominic Paine had survived the fall and collapse of the building. A 
  bit banged up and needing help to dig his way out, but alive. 
  He wouldn’t stand a chance, though, if the Orion blasted through 
  the rubble after him. 
  Star Captain Hasaan Furey had to be distracted—stopped.
  Despite the desperation, he pessimistically predicted that his 
  autocannon would fail or shoot wide—no need to ruin a perfectly 
  bad history now. The Mydron-manufactured weapon did not dis-
  appoint, the stream of depleted uranium slugs passing off the left 
  arm of the massive Orion. They chewed the corner away from the 
  main factory building and undercut one of the three main smoke-
  stacks enough that it started a slow topple. The ruby lance of his 
  laser, however, struck dead-on; sloughing away half-melted armor 
  plates from over the Orion’s blocky chest. 
  As if a bystander suddenly tapped on the shoulder, the titan’s 
  head first swung around in search of the annoyance and then 
  up came the left arm. The monstrous machine might have been 
  simply pointing directions out to someone, except for the flight 
  of twenty LRMs that suddenly speared out from the cylindri-
  cal launcher replacing the left hand. A quartet of missiles arced 
  too wide, but the majority of the swarm flew unerringly into the 
  oncoming Bushwacker and robbed it of forward momentum as 
  explosions blossomed in a staggered line leading from right leg 
  up over the body and then down along the left arm. 
  A single missile slammed in near the cockpit, rattling Connor 
  but not enough to throw off his own aim. Two small missile flights 
  from his own launchers answered the Orion’s challenge, pepper-
  ing left leg and arm. The extended-range laser speared directly 
  into the heavy ’Mech’s undamaged right side, splashing molten 
  armor against its hip and over the short grass that grew over the 
  island. 
  The autocannon misfired but did not jam—a small favor only 
  considering its lack of performance. 
  
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  A wave of heat slammed into Connor as the fusion reactor 
  spiked, its heat scale reading heavy into the yellow band but drop-
  ping fast. Given a few seconds, the young lieutenant could hope 
  to keep up his optimum curve and not suffer the sluggish reaction 
  by overheated myomer muscles or interference in his targeting 
  system. 
  Time was a luxury he did not own, however. He rushed in close 
  on the Orion’s left side, preferring to face off against the heavy 
  LRM system and arm-mounted medium laser than weather the 
  brunt of Hasaan Furey’s full attack, which could include another 
  laser and an autocannon—his presumably working. Of course, he 
  had to assume Furey to be an elite warrior, which meant he might 
  be able to coax the Orion around fast enough to bring all weapons 
  to bear regardless. 
  It turned the fight into a gamble, but against a twenty-ton deficit 
  Connor risked his life regardless.
  The Orion did try to pivot hard around. Connor read it in the ex-
  aggerated swing of the angular shoulders and cross-step of right 
  foot in front of left. Then the heavy-class ’Mech stumbled and 
  nearly fell. From Furey’s narrow recovery and the Orion’s awk-
  ward stance, the BattleMech’s hip joint had apparently frozen in a 
  half-extended position—some combination of Connor’s last mis-
  sile attack and the molten armor splattered by his large laser. 
  It cut into the machine’s movement considerably, able to keep up 
  with the Bushwacker but just barely so. It evened the field, pitting 
  Connor against a larger but critically-damaged BattleMech piloted 
  by a certainly more-experienced MechWarrior.
  At point blank ranges an LRM system rarely achieved a targeting 
  lock, and even then the missiles would have trouble arming in the 
  short flight. As demonstrated before, Furey did not seem to suffer 
  for those drawbacks. The cylindrical arm swung around, flashing 
  out with the sapphire light of a medium laser and a new flight of 
  twenty missiles that hammered mercilessly into the Bushwacker’s 
  upper body. Red warning lights strobed on the control panel 
  as one group of missiles breached the left side, tearing into the 
  Bushwacker’s supporting titanium skeleton and blasting away 
  feeding mechanisms for the shoulder-mounted missile rack. 
  Not that Connor would have tried to fire his own LRMs regard-
  less, but with a failing autocannon the damage continued to rob 
  him of any reliable firepower. 
  
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  “Last time pays for all,” he whispered, voice strangely loud in 
  the tight confines of his neurohelmet. 
  His targeting reticle already burning golden, he drifted it down 
  the side of the Orion to settle over the left leg. Opening up with 
  machine guns, the MechWarrior hammered away armor from the 
  left side and left leg as he watched his heat scale fall down into the 
  shallow end of the yellow band before toggling for his centerline 
  large laser. 
  The ruby lance sliced deeply, past the remnants of armor pro-
  tecting the Orion’s left leg. The beam did melt away enough of the 
  slag freezing the other BattleMech’s hip joint that it freed up, but 
  only for a split second as it continued to core deeper. 
  Myomer musculature parted like flesh beneath a scalpel, and 
  the laser ate into the ferrotitanium bones of the Orion’s skeleton. 
  The framework sagged, melted away and then finally telescoped 
  in on itself. The seventy-five ton machine toppled left, and this 
  time there would be no recovery. The left arm caught against the 
  ground first, adding enough a twisting force to turn the ’Mech and 
  plant its head cockpit-forward into the earth. The protruding cock-
  pit canopy smashed back, shattering the ferroglass and driving 
  the framework back into the pilot’s command area. 
  “Freebirrrr—” Furey’s final, static-laced scream of denial and 
  pain, cut short. Connor winced, imagining the Star Captain’s final 
  seconds.
  “Star Captain Furey, what is your status?” 
  A new voice, full of his own authority and not a little anger. Connor 
  did not recall hearing it in common chatter earlier. He spent little 
  time trying to actually place it; Dominic still needed help.
  No, he didn’t.
  The Shadow Cat was rising from the center of the building, 
  shrugging off one wooden wall that had fallen over its shoulder. 
  From Connor’s vantage point, the factory building looked hollow—
  though of course that made no sense. But then he couldn’t argue 
  with the way Dominic Paine simply stood and kicked his way free 
  of some light debris. Wood framework and plywood painted to 
  look like brick or stone or metal. Even the widows were painted 
  on—no glass or actual openings. 
  
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  Trial Under Fire • Page 10
  “Better be careful around these buildings,” Dominic transmitted. 
  “You’ll want a closer look at them. And at those towers flanking 
  the bridge.”
  Before Connor could ask after the MechWarrior’s comment, 
  the same voice as before interrupted. “Hasaan Furey, this is Star 
  Colonel Ratache Osis! You will respond now!”
  “He does not sound happy,” Sorenson said, the MFBs just now 
  crossing the third bridge onto the island. 
  The corporal seemed very satisfied with that idea. 
  Connor looked over the fallen Orion and then to his lancemate’s 
  erect Shadow Cat, a tight smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. 
  So, in fact, was he.
  “Figures, doesn’t it?” Dominic kicked at a support beam, one of 
  several that held up the façade factory wall. “All that work for a 
  decoy site. A Potemkin village.”
  For once, Connor felt the drain of Dominic’s pessimism. Out of 
  their ’Mechs while the MFB personnel worked to fix the machines 
  up—their own and a wounded but repairable Orion—the two 
  MechWarriors and Corporal Sorenson had walked into the open 
  back of the ‘factory’ building resembling a steel plant. 
  Three coal-burning stoves had been rigged up to provide lots 
  of smoke, funneled up into the wooden tower above to give the 
  impression of activity—the manufacture of armor, apparently. 
  Strobe lights set behind the few real windows in the ‘main plant’ 
  simulated the sparking of welders. 
  Only the towers flanking the bridge were real, and even more 
  disturbing.
  “Laser towers,” Connor said, shaking his head. “Naval-grade 
  lasers, ready to knock any DropShip from the sky that tried to 
  make a run against this decoy factory.” He exhaled long and hard, 
  glanced to Sorenson. “Now we know what happened to the Black 
  Hammer.”
  
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  Dominic looked worried. More so than usual. “This Galaxy 
  Commander Corbett doesn’t play by the usual Clanner rules. No 
  batchall? Striking at a DropShip from ambush rather than the glo-
  ry of BattleMech combat? Doesn’t this seem like a deviation from 
  standard Smoke Jaguar tactics and philosophy?” 
  He looked around to see if anyone shared his opinion. Connor 
  met his gaze evenly, giving no hints to his thoughts though they 
  mirrored Dominic’s. Sorenson avoided eye contact. 
  “Well, with those towers shut down, maybe we can get off this 
  hell-hole planet now?”
  The corporal shifted uneasily, and Connor speared him with an 
  intense gaze. Overall, Connor liked Thomas Sorenson. A burly six 
  foot with close-cropped blond hair and chiseled features, the man 
  looked more your stereotypical drill sergeant than an intelligence 
  analyst. Connor’s mental image typically saw them as thin, ferret-
  featured men who only told you what they thought you needed to 
  know. 
  Fortunately, the corporal didn’t hesitate to speak his mind, and 
  quite often had something worthwhile to say. But underlying the 
  corporal’s demonstrated competence, Connor sensed a vulner-
  ability. Sorenson was not an intell officer. He was used to taking 
  some direction from a superior, and that superior had been aboard 
  the Black Hammer.
  “You’ve already talked to Taylor,” he guessed. “Haven’t you?”
  Sorenson nodded. “And it’s very unlikely we’ll see him anytime 
  soon. I informed him of the laser towers right before joining you 
  two out here.” He held up one hand to forestall Dominic’s out-
  burst. “I am required to report all intelligence to my superior, and 
  in her absence to the operation’s ranking officer.” Dominic nod-
  ded reluctantly. “Captain Taylor won’t risk the Eclipse unless we 
  can prove conclusively there are no other towers.”
  “What about the rescue company?” Connor asked, bracing him-
  self for the bad news. He trusted Sorenson enough to know that if 
  there was any balancing facts, he would have volunteered them.
  “They’re being hit hard. They aren’t advancing fast enough, 
  and now they can’t withdraw either without taking serious loss-
  es. We’ll have to take the pressure off them by hitting the second 
  Operations Area ourselves. The real factories are down there.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
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  That perked up Connor’s interest, though Dominic appeared very 
  unimpressed about taking on a new mission. “Team Two found 
  something?” he asked, preempting another outburst by Dominic. 
  His mind began to plan the rendezvous. “If we can link up with 
  them, maybe find—”
  Sorenson interrupted, his face pale. “Team Two is dead, Sir.”
  “Dead?” Dominic barged back into the conversation. “You mean 
  out of commission? Captured?”
  Unhappily, the corporal shook his head. “They took out the 
  hydroelectric facility, and discovered entrances for two large un-
  derground complexes. But Clan troops caught them on the second 
  leg of their operation. Neither of them made it. The report we in-
  tercepted is fairly clear on that. No prisoners. As ordered.”
  “So now Taylor has only half the reasons to come in here and 
  rescue us.” Dominic shook his head. “Perfect.”
  “There are eight missing MechWarriors out there we might still 
  find,” Connor reminded his lancemate. “If Team Two made it out, 
  we know that Keith and Tessa are out there for certain.” The real 
  fear was hidden in Sorenson’s final comment, which Dominic had 
  missed. “Who gave the ‘no prisoners’ order?” he asked.
  “Near as I can tell, it came through this Star Colonel Ratache 
  Osis you heard on comms. The one who sounded most upset by 
  Furey’s defeat. However, from other communication intercep-
  tions, I believe those orders originated with Brendon Corbett. It’s 
  inferred. So is the fact that it’s Corbett who is leading the fight 
  against the Eclipse’s rescue company.”
  He nodded his appreciation for the blunt truth. “You’re doing 
  a good job, Thomas. Keep it up.” No reason to blame the mes-
  senger for the news, and he wanted it clear that Sorenson should 
  not worry about keeping him informed. “Have you plotted a route 
  down to the peninsula’s southern coast?”
  “I’ve located a dry river bed we can use for our initial approach, 
  about five klicks southwest around the headland. It avoids a few 
  military targets, which I think is wise at this point. I’ve already 
  monitored Ratache Osis’ order to increase the strength of local 
  garrison posts.” He paused. “Of course, that means the factories 
  themselves will be very well guarded.”
  Dominic smiled thinly at them both. “And it just keeps getting 
  better,” he said. “Every. Single. Minute.”
  
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  Three kilometers along the river bed, they found Tessa 
  McCaughnell. Or what was left of her.
  Near as Connor could tell, something had burned away part of 
  her deployment parachute system. A glancing blow from the na-
  val-grade lasers erected on the island? A mischance run-in with 
  an aerospace fighter patrol? Didn’t matter. Without the system’s 
  braking effects, Tessa’s Crusader had fallen harder than her jump 
  jets could compensate. 
  Both legs were partially buried into the earth. The upper leg 
  framework had been telescoped upward into the Crusader’s chest, 
  spearing the fusion reactor and causing catastrophic failure. There 
  wasn’t much left of the BattleMech. One arm, and the mangled 
  head blown a good hundred meters away.
  Why hadn’t she ejected? It was a question they would never be 
  able to answer. All the two MechWarriors could do was bury her 
  remains. No words were spoken over the gravesite.
  What was there to say?
  
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