TEXT: BattleCorps
  THE BITTER TASTE 
  OF HOPE
  PART TWO
  Steven Mohan, Jr.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Maelstrom, Swing Circle Spaceport 
  Swing Circle, New Port Royal 
  Tortuga Dominions, Periphery 
  28 February 3066
  Tracy Malfont had always found hope to be a cruel suitor, con-
  stantly promising better things in its beguiling voice, only to 
  disappear at the worst possible moment, leaving her frustrated 
  and bereft. When that happened, her stomach dropped and she 
  realized she’d done it again. 
  This time she wasn’t quite there.
  Yet.
  Malfont stared at Castor’s tactical schematic projected on the far 
  bulkhead, her gaze drifting over the jumble of icons and arrows 
  and objectives, not quite able to believe any of it was real. Castor 
  had depicted a three-pronged ’Mech assault backed by support-
  ing fire from a couple of Manticores. Each of the three lances 
  was marked with a red triangle and a name. Castor’s lance was 
  in the center; Thomas, the former Smoke Jaguar, on his left; and 
  Sakutaro Ishihara on his right. All very nice.
  Except they only had the one lance groundside.
  Colorado Henderson shifted in his seat and shared a skepti-
  cal look with Comfort Sawyer. She was a beautiful woman with 
  skin the rich color of freshly-cut cedar and long, silky black hair. 
  Comfort was a good MechWarrior, but she was no schemer. She 
  usually ended up following the strongest personality in the room 
  and right now that was Henderson.
  Unless Malfont decided differently.
  Malfont leaned forward. “Just where are the other two lances 
  coming from?”
  “They’ll be along when they’re needed,” said Castor mildly.
  “From where?” snapped Henderson. “From a pirate point? The 
  Tortugans have a Union sitting at the nearest pirate point. We’re 
  not going to take them by surprise.”
  Castor opened his mouth, but Henderson cut him off. “And 
  even if we somehow got the other two lances down, so what? 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Standard doctrine says the attacker needs three to one numerical 
  superiority. At best, we’re even.” He stood and stalked towards 
  the schematic. “But we’re not really even, are we?” He pointed at 
  the seven DropShips distributed throughout various parts of the 
  spaceport, each one marked with the colors of a different pirate 
  band. 
   “If we even get close to winning, the Tortugans will simply enlist 
  the help of the ’Mechs hiding on these ships,” said Henderson.
  “They don’t have any loyalty to the Dominions,” snapped 
  Castor.
  “But it’s their goods that are being traded in the Bazaar. And the 
  Fusilier commander will promise them a cut of our equipment 
  once we’re defeated. There’s no way this can work.”
  “Except we will attack on the second day,” said Castor.
  Malfont blinked. “Excuse me?”
  “What!?” snapped Henderson. “By the end of the first day a third 
  of the trade goods will be gone.”
  Castor gestured at the wall. “And perhaps some of these 
  DropShips with them. So we will have less opposition.”
  “It’s crazy,” snarled Henderson.
  “Which is precisely why it will work,” said Castor. “No one’s ex-
  pecting it.”
  Henderson snorted and stalked out of the room, slamming the 
  hatch behind him. Sawyer scrambled to follow.
  Castor stood there, eyes wide, jaw hanging slackly open and 
  suddenly Malfont realized he was totally at sea. Caught in a trap 
  of his own making and her along with him. And who could be 
  surprised? For all his royal blood, Castor was nothing more than 
  an English teacher, after all. Malfont felt her stomach drop. Once 
  again she’d bet on the wrong horse. 
  Once again she’d fallen prey to that merry trickster named 
  Hope.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  New Monster Wildlands 
  Outside of Safi, Harira 
  Federated Commonwealth 
  2 September 3055
  Second Company, Second Lance was on routine patrol in the 
  forest a good twenty, thirty klicks beyond the city. Tracy Malfont 
  (she’d given up her married name when she’d given up Duncan 
  Garner) pushed her Javelin into a walk. She was moving along 
  the edge of the forest, just above the river. She was up ahead of 
  the rest of the lance about six klicks, but then she was a scout and 
  that’s what scouts did.
  Her neck hurt from the long patrol. She stopped for a moment 
  and stretched luxuriously. She closed her eyes and imagined the 
  back rub she’d get from Sam after the patrol, felt him kneading 
  the tight muscles of her neck, her shoulders, moving down to her 
  back…
  It was a delicious fantasy, but she and Sam had to be careful. Her 
  divorce wasn’t final yet and Harira was a conservative world. She 
  didn’t need a scandal, especially after her run-in with Sonders.
  Still it was wonderful to remember the feel of his warm hands 
  tracing the curves of her body, the taste of him on her lips, the 
  press of his body on hers—
  Her fantasy was interrupted by the sudden warble of an alarm 
  signaling that someone had locked fire control radar on her ’Mech. 
  Malfont’s eyes flew open.
  She flashed on a humanoid ’Mech, painted black with a touch of 
  shocking blue—the colors of Fuchida’s Fusiliers. The ’Mech’s hands 
  ended in gun barrels rather than hands. Probably an Enforcer. She 
  watched the medium ’Mech raise its right arm.
  Just as the autocannon fire hammered into her chest, knocking 
  her backwards. 
  She took a step back to keep from falling.
  And fired a pair of lasers at the pirate. Emerald fire scoured paint 
  off the other ’Mech’s chest and melted some of the underlying 
  armor. She quickly side-stepped to the right, narrowly avoiding 
  the spear of ruby light from the large laser that was the Enforcer’s 
  left arm.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  “I am under attack,” shouted Malfont over the lance’s tactical 
  channel. “Need immediate assistance.”
  “Coming,” answered Sam. “Sitrep.”
  Coming. She did the math in her head. She was about six klicks 
  away from the rest of the lance. Sam’s Thunderbolt was the slow-
  est. Say he could do forty kph in the heavy forest, that put help 
  about nine minutes out.
  The Enforcer stalked towards her, its lasers setting fire to the 
  thick bracken that grew in the shade of the great trees.
  Nine minutes.
  A stream of heavy metal slashed through the forest, stripping bark 
  from trees, ripping off branches, searching for her BattleMech.
  Damn. Needed to buy time.
  Her radio crackled and Sam’s insistent voice filled her cockpit. 
  “Sergeant, report your situation.”
  She moved right, twisting out the path of the oncoming 
  Enforcer.
  “Wait one,” she snapped.
  The Enforcer’s autocannon raked Malfont’s left hip, shattering 
  armor and sending it raining down into the woods. She turned 
  towards the river and hit her jump jets, launched the Javelin into 
  the sky.
  It was a risky maneuver, but she was outclassed by the Enforcer 
  and it didn’t help that she’d let him get in the first shot.
  She careened toward a cottonwood, popped off her right bank 
  of jets for a second and just managed to brush by the tree, taking 
  half its branches with her. A scarlet blast of light fired the tree as 
  she whipped past.
  She tucked into a crouch and dropped down onto the river 
  bank.
  Then straightened up and turned.
  “Sweet mother of God,” she whispered.
  “What is it, Sergeant?” asked Sam.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  A force of ’Mechs were moving down the riverbank, maybe six 
  or eight, all painted black with shocking blue trim. She picked out 
  a Dervish and a JagerMech and a Charger. Way too much weight 
  for her to handle.
  She speared the lead Panther with emerald fire, aiming for the 
  knees. Maybe if she could knock down the ’Mech on point she 
  could slow the rest of the column. 
  “Two One, this is Two Four. I got one mike mike on the rise above 
  the river and major force moving along the riverbanks, over.”
  She back-stepped down the bank, trading fire with the Panther.
  “Say number and composition of major force, over,” said Sam.
  “Maybe six or eight, lima mike to alpha mike. I will draw them 
  south along the river. Recommend you move north, turn, and hit 
  them in the rear.”
  “Acknowledged, Sergeant. ETA seven minutes. Out.”
  Out.
  That one word said it all. She was on her own for seven minutes. 
  Sweat trickled down the side of her face. Had she really only man-
  aged to burn two minutes?
  She hit the Panther again and the light ’Mech stumbled and fell.
  The Charger stepped right past the fallen ’Mech and fired its la-
  sers at her. So much for using the Panther to slow down the rest 
  of the column.
  Malfont gritted her teeth. If Sam and the lance were going to 
  hit these guys in the back, she had to draw them south and she’d 
  barely moved a hundred meters from her original posit. 
  Her cockpit temperature spiked as the Charger splashed mono-
  chromatic light over her chest. She rode out the assault and then 
  she pivoted on her right foot and pushed the Javelin into a lope, 
  the best she could do over the uncertain terrain.
  She ducked past a bend in the river, buying herself a few sec-
  onds. Ordinarily, she could’ve outrun a Charger easily, but the 
  loose alluvial rocks were slowing her down.
  Where the hell was Sam?
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  She was moving towards him, so he shouldn’t be too far out. 
  She clung to that thought as she followed the riverbed through a 
  curve to the left.
  And ran into a long straight-away, three hundred meters at least. 
  She pushed her speed up a little. Had to make it to the next bend 
  in the river.
  She was halfway to her goal when the Charger appeared behind 
  her, with a straight shot at her back. The warble of an alarm told 
  her he had her in his gunsights. She hit her jump jets, trying to 
  throw off his firing solution.
  She glanced at her rear monitor as her Javelin descended 
  through its arc.
  She saw a flash of emerald light as the Charger fired its quintet 
  of lasers.
  The massive ’Mech’s assault shook her just as she descended, 
  savagely tearing her balance from her. She came crashing down 
  in a bone-jarring fall that smashed her against her couch.
  Her last thought as darkness swept down upon her was that 
  Sam never came.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Maelstrom, Swing Circle Spaceport 
  Swing Circle, New Port Royal 
  Tortuga Dominions, Periphery 
  1 March 3066
  Malfont sat in her small stateroom trying to think of a way to 
  convince Castor to abort this op. After witnessing the meeting 
  with Ox, she was afraid to even bring it up. Castor wouldn’t lis-
  ten to her. And the result was likely to be as big a disaster as that 
  meeting was.
  There was a rap on the hatch.
  She looked up. “Come.”
  The door opened and Colorado Henderson stepped inside, closed 
  the hatch softly behind him. 
  He looked at her and she looked at him.
  “This is never going to work,” he said softly.
  She sighed deeply. “I suppose you have an alternative.”
  Henderson leaned against the hatch; there wasn’t much room 
  in the small space. “Assuming that the other two lances actually 
  show up, we let them press the attack. We find a reason to hang 
  back, not leave the spaceport. The fact that your boyfriend blew 
  the meeting with the deck master should help us there.”
  Malfont clenched her jaw, but said nothing.
  “We embark the Maelstrom and go. This is our DropShip, Tracy. 
  I’ve already talked to Captain Vincent. He’s onboard.”
  “And what if the other two lances don’t show?”
  “Then it’s three against one.” Henderson’s voice was flat and 
  merciless.
  Malfont didn’t like it, but it was the only way out of the box. The 
  only question was why she hadn’t seen it before. Why Henderson 
  had to think of it.
  And the answer, of course, was that she’d been blinded by 
  hope.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  She looked up at Henderson and their eyes met. He raised an 
  eyebrow and she nodded.
  And that was all that needed to be said.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 10
  Battalion Conference Room, Safi Militia Base 
  Safi, Harira 
  Federated Commonwealth 
  12 September 3055
  Everything about Room 62A terrified Malfont. It was an im-
  mense space with perfect acoustics, so that even a cleared throat 
  or the scrape of a chair was magnified into something immense 
  and menacing. But in this place of perfect sound there was noth-
  ing but a measured, malevolent silence—the weight of judgment 
  hanging heavily above her suspended on an invisible thread.
  Seconds from crashing down.
  The room was furnished with hard, wooden chairs laid out in 
  neat rows with no allowance for any imperfection. A single large 
  table draped in green cloth rested near the far wall, the trio of of-
  ficers behind it as hard and wooden as the chairs upon which they 
  sat. All save for Captain Sonders, whose lips twitched with a smile 
  he was trying to hide from his fellow board members.
  But none of that was the worst part, not Sonders, not even the 
  sword laid out on the green table, carefully pointed away from her. 
  No, nothing in the room scared her more than the man sitting in 
  the witness chair.
  Sam.
  He sat ramrod straight, face stiff, eyes locked straight ahead, un-
  able to spare anything for Malfont.
  Not even the courtesy of a glance.
  From her left, Malfont heard the sound of a chair being pushed 
  back and the grunt that accompanied a man rising from the table. 
  He was small. Everything about the JAG officer was small—his thin, 
  cadaverous frame, his sallow skin, the little hands that reached up 
  to adjust his glasses, a small, bookish man with nothing big about 
  him.
  Except his voice.
  “Leftenant Aiken,” said the lawyer and his voice rolled through 
  the makeshift courtroom, an expertly wielded weapon as deadly 
  as anything Malfont had ever faced on the battlefield.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 11
  Deadlier, because this weapon she didn’t know how to counter.
  He moved across the room as he spoke. “This court martial has 
  heard how Sergeant Garner—” (he put a little twist into the word 
  to remind everyone that she was still a married woman, a mar-
  ried woman cheating on her husband) “—engaged the pirates. We 
  have seen the evidence of that engagement in the grave damage 
  done to her BattleMech’s armor.” He stopped. “Her BattleMech’s 
  rear armor.”
  He started moving again. “Sergeant Garner’s after action report 
  indicates that she was attempting to draw the pirates south so you 
  could engage their rear. Is this in fact what happened, Leftenant 
  Aiken?”
  Sam licked his lips. “No, sir.”
  Malfont’s breath caught in her chest.
  “Perhaps you could suggest an alternative explanation for that 
  day’s events,” said the JAG.
  “It wasn’t her fault,” said Sam rapidly, “she just—”
  The JAG held up one of his little hands. “Please, Leftenant,” he 
  said in his booming voice. “Just tell us what happened.”
  “She was terrified,” said Sam. “Obviously terrified. I could hear 
  it in her voice.”
  And Malfont heard her voice again, from the recording taken 
  from Sam’s cockpit recorder that they’d played earlier, heard her-
  self saying Sweet mother of God.
  “She wasn’t able to give me a clear sitrep.”
  “Sergeant, report your situation.”
  “Wait one.”
  “She must’ve turned and fled.”
  “She claimed that you were supposed to back her up,” said the 
  JAG.
  And that’s all it was—a claim—because Sam’s recorder didn’t 
  include a record of her suggested battle plan and hers had been 
  damaged in the crash.
  Sam shrugged helplessly. “We weren’t sure where she was…”
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  “And when you did arrive at her original position, there was no 
  enemy force.”
  Sam shook his head, cast his eyes down. “She didn’t stand to 
  hold them.” 
  “Isn’t it true,” asked the JAG, “that your lance were the last de-
  fenders between the pirates and the city?”
  Sam raised his head. “Yessir.”
  The JAG’s great voice dipped low, so that Malfont had to 
  strain to hear it. “And how many people died in the raid on Safi, 
  Leftenant?”
  “Two hundred fourteen.”
  “Two hundred fourteen,” repeated the JAG in a horrified whisper, 
  drawing the number out forever.
  And right then Malfont knew it was over. She’d been condemned 
  by her commander and her lover. She didn’t have to wait to see 
  which way the sword would point after the board met. It was 
  over.
  And the hell of it was, Sam was the real coward. Sam who hadn’t 
  dared face a superior pirate force, Sam who’d run away and passed 
  the blame to her. Sam who’d lied in open court to save himself.
  This was the man she’d let herself fall for.
  And during it all, during his testimony and the questions asked 
  by her lawyer and even when Sam rose stiffly to his feet to stride 
  out of the court room, he had never once looked at her. Not once.
  She had been truly and utterly betrayed by a man for whom she 
  would’ve sacrificed her very life.
  If only he’d asked.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  Maelstrom, Swing Circle Spaceport 
  Swing Circle, New Port Royal 
  Tortuga Dominions, Periphery 
  2 March 3066
  Malfont was standing on the DropShip’s bridge when it hap-
  pened. It was zero five hundred and dark out, but Castor still had 
  made them get up the hour before and don their cooling vests. 
  Ordinarily, she would’ve waited for battle in the cockpit of her 
  Quickdraw, but since she didn’t really expect anything to happen 
  she made her way to the Maelstrom’s bridge.
  So she stood there, alone with the bored deck officer, sipping a 
  cup of bad coffee, staring out into the darkness.
  The radio crackled. The ship was guarding the New Port Royal 
  command frequency and Malfont expected some routine report 
  or instruction from the spaceport. Instead she heard the confused 
  shouts of men and women all talking over each other. She turned 
  to look at the radio, a wave of ice suddenly seeping through her 
  gut. She knew that sound.
  It was the sound of combat.
  A flash of light split the night, the violet whip crack of a PPC bolt, 
  west-southwest, maybe two klicks out.
  She slammed the coffee down. “Deck officer,” she shouted. 
  “Move your primary telescope to three three five relative and tie 
  into the main screen.”
  “But, I—”
  “Do it,” she snapped.
  She had to know what was really happening.
  Tense seconds ticked by, punctuated by the flash of killing light. 
  In the direction of the Bazaar.
  The screen flickered. For a moment she wasn’t sure if the tele-
  scope was tied in because all she saw was a black screen. 
  Then an emerald beam of light seared the screen.
  In that flash of light she saw all she needed to see. Smashed land-
  ing lights and a Union with its landing ramps deployed, ’Mechs 
  stalking out of the DropShip.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  One of them a Stormcrow marked with a wicked, curved blade. 
  A khopesh.
  Malfont pulled her personal comm out, pressed a button. Raised 
  it to her lips. “Henderson.”
  “Yes?”
  “The other two lances are deploying.”
  “It doesn’t matter, Tracy,” said Henderson. “Changes nothing.”
  But Malfont looked out at the flickering lights in the night and 
  wasn’t so sure.
  But before she could say anything, Castor’s voice erupted from 
  the 1MC: “All MechWarriors to their ’Mechs.”
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  Swing Circle Spaceport 
  Swing Circle, New Port Royal
  The purple sky was shot-through with streaks of amber and or-
  ange and gold in the east before Castor’s lance took the field, the 
  sun rising on what would most likely be the last day of Malfont’s 
  life.
  Castor was out first, his fearsome Banshee painted a lustrous 
  black. Malfont followed in her leopard-spotted Quickdraw, then 
  Comfort in the mirror gold Wasp, and Henderson last in his 
  Centurion, painted with the stripes of a Lionfish.
  Malfont’s radio crackled as they debarked. “Remember the plan,” 
  said Henderson over a special encrypted channel available only to 
  her Black Scarabs.
  “Stay away from the Bazaar,” said Malfont.
  “That’s affirm,” said Comfort.
  Castor’s massive Banshee turned to look back at Malfont, its de-
  monic face staring at her Quickdraw. She had a bad moment as 
  she flashed back to Randis, when Castor’s ’Mech had stood over 
  her shattered cockpit ready to kill her in an instant.
  “Time to move out,” Castor snapped. He stalked toward the low-
  slung ferrocrete box that was the port’s commercial terminal.
  “What’s he doing?” asked Henderson over their secret comms 
  channel.
  “Aren’t we going to attack the Bazaar?” asked Malfont over the 
  lance’s channel.
  The mad English teacher chuckled. “Whatever gave you that 
  idea?” Then he stepped past the building’s edge.
  v v v
  The DropShips were right where they were supposed to be, 
  which would have been the first break of the op, if some damned 
  fool hadn’t gotten to the Mule’s guns early. 
  Mark Castor-Davion stalked his massive Banshee past the long-
  slung ferrocrete box that was the port’s commercial terminal and 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  just had time to ID the targets: Mule at three five zero and 200 
  meters, Union at zero four zero and 400, and the Overlord at three 
  three five and half a klick. 
  The second Mule was off to the right.
  We caught ‘em on the ground, Castor thought. Now if we can 
  just keep them there.
  And then he saw the bright flash of weapons fire coming from 
  the Mule’s starboard quarter. Missile launch.
  Two seconds: one, two, and Castor’s Banshee staggered under 
  the hammer blow of a full flight of LRMs. Lucky for him he was too 
  close for the warheads to arm.
  He had just braced himself when the DropShip’s medium lasers 
  opened up. Scarlet fire washed over his forward armor and tell-
  tales blinked from green to yellow. Castor, acting on pure instinct, 
  fired his torso-mounted PPCs as he stepped back behind the cover 
  of the terminal.
  He flashed up a quick still from his gun cams, took a run at BDA. 
  A black scorch marked the Mule’s armor five meters forward of 
  one of the lasers, but the other was a charred, smoking wreck-
  age. 
  Not bad for firing blind.
  v v v
  “Blake’s blood,” shouted Henderson, “he’s engaging the Mule.” 
  Malfont heard the panic in his voice. The fear.
  “Wait. That doesn’t—” Comfort stopped abruptly. “That doesn’t 
  make any sense.”
  And it didn’t. The Mule already had off-loaded all of her trade 
  goods and she was of little military value. Malfont frowned, think-
  ing, What are you doing, Castor?
  v v v
  Castor’s satisfaction was quickly dashed by Sakutaro Ishihara’s 
  grim voice.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  “Red One, this is Red Two. I’ve got visual on bad guys. I count 
  eight ’Mechs, some Fusiliers from the housing facility to the north-
  east, some debarking Lady Death’s Union, over.”
  Castor gritted his teeth. “We’ve got to put them down quickly.”
  “Hai,” said the former Combine officer.
  Ishihara’s and his lances were working their way around the mas-
  sive warehouse a klick to the west. The plan was for Castor’s lance 
  to secure the Mule while Ishihara gained position at the building’s 
  northern edge. The rest of Red Khopesh was ripping apart the 
  planetary capital in an attempt to draw off as many of the Tortuga 
  Fusiliers as possible. 
  At the right moment Ishihara’s lance would charge east and 
  Castor’s would charge north, converging on the Overlord from 
  multiple bearings in order to minimize the amount of concentrat-
  ed fire the immense DropShip could bring to bear.
  It was a lovely plan. 
  Only one problem.
  The Fusiliers hadn’t fallen for it.
  Time to improvise.
  “Red Three, Red One. I am in need of your special talents, Star 
  Commander.”
  “Go ahead, Red One.” There was no doubt in the voice of Star 
  Commander Thomas, formerly of Clan Smoke Jaguar, but the boy 
  still sounded impossibly young.
  He’s not a boy, Castor reminded himself. He’s a killing machine.
  “Disengage and move your lance north and west at best possible 
  speed. Your objective is the Death’s Consorts Union. Take down 
  any unfriendlies you encounter.”
  “Aye, sir,” snapped Thomas. “Red Three, out.”
  There. That would give the Fusilier ’Mechs something to think 
  about.
  Now to do something about that friggin’ Mule.
  v v v
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  Castor’s Banshee moved up to the edge of the terminal, firing at 
  the Mule. Malfont edged up behind him, trying to figure out what 
  in Blake’s name was going on. She looked left and saw the tower-
  ing ovoid shape of the Overlord in the distance. Looked right and 
  saw the other Mule.
  Just in time to see a Freedom 900 hover jeep dart out of the 
  DropShip.
  Malfont blinked. What the hell?
  The vehicle spun away from the Mule, racing for the east end of 
  the terminal. It was quickly followed by several more jeeps emerg-
  ing from vessel, but these vehicles just stopped, as if they had no 
  concern for the battle raging all around them.
  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Colorado shouted over their pri-
  vate encrypted link.
  He was right. It didn’t make any sense.
  And then it did.
  “Castor has a Mule,” Malfont whispered to herself.
  “He’s gone insane,” Comfort howled.
  “No,” said Malfont. “You’re just thinking like a pirate. And Castor’s 
  not a pirate.”
  “What is he then?” demanded Henderson.
  An avenging angel, she thought. She wheeled, sprinted away 
  from the terminal, suddenly understanding everything. Why Castor 
  had bungled the meeting with Simonian. Why he’d proposed an 
  attack that couldn’t possibly work. What the jeep was for.
  “Tracy,” Henderson shouted, “what are you doing?”
  “Shut up,” she snarled. She stalked her ’Mech toward the 
  Maelstrom, just swinging wide enough that she could see the 
  DropShip’s hidden side.
  And the empty hover jeep parked next to one of the access 
  ramps.
  “Henderson, this is Vincent.” The panicked voice cut into the 
  Scarab link, confirming her worst fears. “We’re under attack, some 
  kinda spec ops team. At least four of my people are down—”
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  Henderson cut in, talking right over him. “What the hell are 
  you—”
  “—hold the engine room. We’ve barricaded the bridge, but they’re 
  cutting through the bulkhead. No wait—”
  Malfont heard the deadly hum of a needler and then the line 
  went dead.
  v v v
  “Castor, this is Riston,” said the deep voice over Castor’s private 
  channel. “Objective is secured.”
  That report brought a grim smile to Castor’s lips. “Excellent work, 
  Leftenant. Tell Captain Wong to standby for lift orders.”
  “That’s affirm, sir. Riston, out.”
  Castor reached forward to make another very important call.
  v v v
  “We gotta get out of here. Gotta get out. Head back to the 
  Leopard.” Comfort had completely lost it. She didn’t seem to real-
  ize there wasn’t a Leopard to go back to.
  Henderson was completely silent, making Malfont wonder if 
  he was thinking or if he’d shut down altogether. She wasn’t sure 
  which one would be worse.
  Right then Castor’s black Banshee stepped around the terminal’s 
  corner. 
  One look at that demonic face was enough to send a shiver of 
  dread down Malfont’s spine. Despite the warmth of her cockpit 
  she felt cold. The mad genius had been there all along.
  And he was pissed.
  “Listen up,” Castor snarled over the common channel. “I don’t 
  have any more time to screw with you people. By now you know 
  I’ve taken down the Maelstrom. You will follow my orders or I will 
  leave you to pirate justice on this godforsaken world. Clear?”
  And suddenly Malfont was back on Randis, on fire as he bent the 
  delicate bones in her wrist almost to the breaking point. Back on 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 0
  Randis, as his Banshee stood over her smashed cockpit, her life a 
  hair trigger from its end.
  Malfont’s mouth was bone dry, but she managed to choke out, 
  “What do you want?”
  But Castor didn’t answer her. He just turned and sprinted back 
  towards the Mule.
  After a second she followed.
  v v v
  Castor selected the command channel. “Infantry, hold back. 
  You will proceed on my order only.” This was one of those rare 
  instances where the ’Mechs were here to support the ground-
  pounders rather than the other way around. “Command Lance, 
  we will charge the Mule on my mark. Malfont and Henderson go 
  left and spread out, but keep off the port quarter. No need to take 
  any more fire than we have to. Comfort and I will go right. Nail her 
  guns and no need to be pretty about it. Goal is fire suppression, 
  people. Questions?” 
  Henderson began, “I don’t think we should—”
  “Good,” Castor snapped. “Go, go, go.”
  He charged past the terminal and moved right, firing his PPCs as 
  he went. Comfort followed right behind him in her Wasp.
  Malfont jumped her Quickdraw and came down pouring laser 
  fire into the Mule’s aft Autocannon/5. 
  It took a full twenty seconds before Henderson moved in to back 
  her up.
  Castor clenched his jaw, but he didn’t have time to worry about 
  that now. Comfort was pouring laser fire into the starboard aft 
  SRM launcher, so he targeted the medium laser and took it out 
  with a double PPC blast.
  “All secure left,” reported Malfont.
  A gout of orange flame erupted from the Mule’s LRM ports. “All 
  secure right,” said Comfort.
  He stalked his Banshee right to the edge of the DropShip’s hull. 
  He saw a Spider painted black with shocking blue trim, the Fusilier 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  insignia—a pair of loaded dice in a golden goblet—prominent on 
  its fuselage. Castor fired, lasers this time, splashing emerald fire 
  across one of the light ’Mech’s legs.
  The skittering mechanism drew back, like a roach startled by the 
  flick of a light switch.
  That’s when the other shoe dropped. Castor felt the low-frequen-
  cy vibration through the ferrocrete and his Banshee’s legs. It was 
  the thrum of massive power. He wheeled around.
  The Mule was retracting her cargo ramps. The ‘Ship’s captain 
  had obviously begun the immediate launch procedure.
  Castor was about to lose his cover.
  “Infantry forward, now.”
  Castor stalked toward the nearest cargo ramp and grabbed it. 
  For a moment he struggled against the DropShip’s winches as he 
  tried to hold and the Mule tried to pull.
  Then he jerked the ramp right and heard the satisfying screech 
  of gears grinding themselves into scrap.
  The ramp jammed right where it was.
  Which ought to give the Mule’s captain something to think 
  about. The big commercial DropShip had a well-known design 
  flaw. Mules that tried to take off without fully stowing their cargo 
  ramps had the unfortunate tendency to blow up.
  The thrum of the engines suddenly shifted down. The Mule’s 
  captain was reconsidering his options.
  Castor stalked left and stopped at the next cargo hatch. He ripped 
  into the roll-up door, tearing it loose.
  “Castor, what do you think you’re doing?” Henderson demand-
  ed.
  Castor fired his lasers into the cargo bay. Turned to see half-a-
  dozen soldiers in a motley collection of mismatched power armor 
  leaping out of hover jeeps and running forward. Two were in 
  Inner Sphere Standard, another in a Gray Death Scout, a fourth in 
  some kind of unholy amalgamation of three different kinds of ar-
  mor. There was even a Clan Elemental. Behind them was a second 
  squad, this one without armor.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Castor crouched and laid his Banshee’s right hand flat on the 
  deck, palm up. The dozen soldiers stepped aboard.
  He stood and slowly turned toward the hatch, careful not to drop 
  anyone. He placed his hand inside the damaged hatch and the sol-
  diers scrambled off. The armored troops went first, disappearing 
  into the DropShip’s dark interior.
  “What do you want with a damned Mule?” Henderson barked.
  “Just to borrow her guns for a while,” said Castor. “Now. Shut. 
  Up.”
  He switched frequencies, dialed in Captain Tsung’s private chan-
  nel. “Two objectives. Keep the Mule from lifting and capture her 
  guns.”
  One of the soldiers turned and looked up at him, the tiny figure 
  framed by the broken hatch. “Want us to make the Fusiliers’ life 
  hell?”
  “That’s affirm.”
  The tiny soldier saluted and disappeared inside.
  His radio crackled. “Red One, Red Two.”
  “Go ahead, Sakutaro.”
  “Mark, we’re in position. I’m seeing lift indications on the 
  Overlord.”
  Dammit. That meant it was now or never.
  Castor edged left until the Overlord came into view. The Mule 
  was a commercial DropShip, lightly armed. Not so, an Overlord. 
  He licked his lips. Maybe three hundred meters. A twenty second 
  sprint into the teeth of the monster’s guns while taking sustained 
  fire on his right flank from at least two lances of enemy ’Mechs.
  Disastrous odds.
  If they could take out the ’Mechs, the odds might improve from 
  disastrous to merely very bad.
  Castor took another step left, trying for a better view of the en-
  emy ’Mechs.
  Right then the Overlord’s guns opened up. The impact of mul-
  tiple lasers slicing into the ferrocrete tarmac knocked Castor’s 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Banshee off-balance. He staggered backwards, eyes locked on the 
  smoking, five-meter crater the Overlord had just burned into the 
  ferrocrete.
  Damn.
  Safe behind the Mule, Castor closed his eyes and took a deep, 
  shaky breath. He’d hoped they wouldn’t have to charge into those 
  guns. Against that massive firepower they’d take fifty percent ca-
  sualties.
  If they were lucky.
  Castor had spent the better part of his adult life as an English 
  professor, but he’d grown up as a Davion on Lee. He’d received 
  enough military training to know that what separated brilliant bat-
  tlefield commanders from their peers wasn’t careful planning. Any 
  idiot could lay out a sensible plan. 
  Victory belonged to those who could think on their feet when the 
  plan went to hell.
  And the way to do that was to take whatever opening the enemy 
  offered.
  Castor sprinted right, heading away from the Overlord’s over-
  whelming firepower. “Command Lance, follow me.”
  The Spider was back, cautiously creeping along the Mule’s edge. 
  The startled Fusilier pilot managed to get off a wild shot from his 
  twin lasers, before Castor’s assault ’Mech was on top on him.
  Castor’s eyes flickered down, caught a flash of silver where 
  his earlier attack had burned the paint from the Spider’s leg and 
  melted the armor underneath. Acting on instinct, Castor balled his 
  Banshee’s right hand into a fist and smashed it into the damaged 
  limb.
  The Spider’s leg snapped off and the unbalanced ’Mech toppled 
  to the deck. Castor didn’t even break stride, he was already mov-
  ing around the crippled Mule. A quick glance at his rear monitor 
  showed him that Malfont’s Quickdraw had paused to finish off the 
  Spider.
  That made it seven to four, better odds than they’d get against 
  the Overlord.
  Castor moved right and flashed on a Guillotine and an Assassin 
  near the Mule, looked like they were following the Spider around. 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Beyond them on the tarmac were an UrbanMech and a Whitworth. 
  A couple hundred meters away a massive Cyclops was descending 
  the Union’s cargo ramp. If Ishihara’s estimate of two lances had 
  been right there’d be one or two more hidden by the DropShip’s 
  bulk.
  Castor laid a double PPC shot into the Guillotine and backed 
  around the Mule.
  “Castor, Tsung.”
  “Go ahead, Captain.”
  “We have secured the Mule. By the way, there’s a Charger work-
  ing his way around the DropShip to your left.”
  “Excellent work. First target is the Charger, followed by the 
  Guillotine, and the Cyclops.” Sudden inspiration hit. “And get me 
  a lift status on that Union.”
  “Yessir.”
  Castor moved a bit further right and took a lick of fire for his 
  trouble. He back-stepped, lashing out with his twin PPCs as he 
  moved back into the Mule’s shelter. As he moved out of danger, 
  he caught sight of the culprit: a Firestarter painted bone gray 
  with black trim. A dagger driven through a skull with red glowing 
  eyes. 
  The emblem of Death’s Consorts.
  The light ’Mech didn’t pursue. Apparently the pilot wasn’t eager 
  to get killed walking into a trap. Instead he was content to hold 
  back and prevent Red Khopesh from threatening their DropShip, 
  without actually jumping feet first into the fight.
  Well, no one ever said Lady Death’s people were stupid.
  So his lance was fine—as long as they didn’t come around the 
  Mule and try to advance.
  Great.
  And right then, Castor got his next bit of bad news, carried to 
  him through the soles of his feet.
  v v v
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Malfont felt the massive low-frequency vibration racing through 
  the tarmac, felt it in the sway of her Quickdraw’s legs, felt it as a 
  tremor in her bones.
  Only one thing in human space could deliver that kind of force.
  She side-stepped left, peering out from behind the shelter of the 
  Mule and saw the Overlord lifting off. Molten orange exhaust gas-
  ses poured out of the massive DropShip’s main engines, pounding 
  the tarmac and shaking the world. For an impossible second the 
  Overlord just hovered there, a scant three, four meters off the deck, 
  trapped in place as the DropShip’s thrust perfectly balanced the 
  downward acceleration of her 9700 tons.
  And then the thrust got ahead of gravity and the monster began 
  to move, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, until the mas-
  sive DropShip was nothing more than a bright white line drawn 
  across the cobalt sky.
  So much for Castor’s brilliant plan.
  The Overlord’s berth was scorched black by the great ship’s 
  passage and the air was roiled by the heat of the lift-off, blurring 
  reality.
  Malfont blinked.
  As she saw a quartet of heavy hitters racing through the blurry 
  air left behind by the Overlord’s departure, led by an Atlas painted 
  blood red.
  v v v
  The whole world was coming apart around him. Castor needed 
  a break and dammit he needed it now.
  Fortunately he got it.
  He ducked around the right side of the Mule and saw that the 
  Firestarter had been joined by the Consorts Cyclops. For a moment 
  Castor’s guts turned to ice as he stood facing the great machine 
  not 200 meters from his position.
  And then the assault ’Mech stumbled forward as a flight of mis-
  siles slammed into its rear. Castor looked right and saw Thomas’s 
  Stormcrow standing there with his lance in tow.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  A grim smile touched Castor’s lips. The odds were changing and 
  not in the pirates’ favor.
  The Death’s Consorts commander faced a dilemma. He could 
  not take off without abandoning his ’Mechs in the field, but if he 
  stayed he risked losing his DropShip. And if he tried to embark his 
  ’Mechs, both they and the DropShip would be vulnerable.
  And so the Union just sat there, waiting.
  But as soon as the Death’s Consorts commander realized he was 
  outnumbered on the ground, he’d lift.
  And if Castor waited too much longer, the Tortugans were going 
  to finally apply enough force to bring this little party to an end.
  Had to act now.
  He selected the command channel. “Thomas, throw everything 
  you can at the ’Mechs closest to the Union.”
  “Aff,” said the former Smoke Jaguar.
  “Red Two—” Castor began.
  “Already on it, Mark,” said Ishihara. “We’re moving in on the 
  Union’s left flank.”
  “Then I’ll take right,” said Castor. “Infantry follow the command 
  lance, we’ll lead you in.”
  And then Castor darted past the limn of the Mule, and charged 
  right into the teeth of the DropShip’s guns.
  v v v
  “My God,” breathed Henderson over their private channel, “he 
  can’t be serious.”
  “You bloody well better believe he’s serious,” snapped Malfont. 
  “And I don’t doubt he’ll leave your ass here if you don’t follow 
  him.”
  “He can’t—” began Comfort, but Malfont didn’t stop to hear what 
  she had to say.
  She was already following Castor in.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  v v v
  Castor juked from side to side, firing as he ran, more to keep the 
  enemy ’Mechs down than in an attempt to do any damage. The 
  real problem wasn’t the ’Mechs anyway.
  It was the Union.
  The Union was built to carry ’Mechs into battle and it was heav-
  ily armed. They were not running up on a lightly-armed Mule here. 
  This was a deadly combatant.
  So Castor ran through a hail of autocannon fire punctuated by 
  emerald laser beams and the violet lightning bolts of particle pro-
  jection cannons. He weaved through enemy ’Mechs, trying to 
  make it harder for the Union’s gunners to hit him.
  He charged past the Firestarter.
  Just as the light ’Mech collapsed under the misdirected fire of 
  the Union’s lasers.
  Castor’s armor flickered from green to yellow to red in seconds.
  There was nothing to do for it but run.
  v v v
  Malfont hit her jump jets, then feathered them, jerking her 
  Quickdraw to one side.
  For an instant her eyes flickered left.
  In time to see the golden head of Comfort’s Wasp dissolve under 
  the Union’s massive firepower. The Wasp toppled forward, like a 
  decapitated prisoner.
  And the gunners sought out their next target.
  v v v
  Castor watched one of the jeeps erupt into an orange fireball, 
  but the rest of them made it through and then his infantry was 
  swarming up the Union’s ramps.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  v v v
  And then somehow the rain of fire from the Union stopped. 
  Malfont blinked, unsure of what was going to happen next.
  “Well come on,” Castor shouted. “We don’t have all damn day.”
  “But—” said Henderson.
  “Embark the Union,” Castor roared.
  Malfont glanced back. The Maelstrom was already lifting, as was 
  the Union adorned with the Grizzly emblem.
  Sure, she thought. She recognized this part of the game. Time 
  to get out of Dodge.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 
  Captured Death’s Consorts Union, Boosting 
  Toward Pirate Point 
  New Port Royal System 
  Tortuga Dominions, Periphery 
  2 March 3066
  She found Castor in the wardroom standing in front of the view-
  port, his back to the hatch, staring out at the stars. The officer’s 
  mess was a small space dominated by a laminate table whose 
  designers had made a half-hearted attempt to make it look like 
  real wood. The table was big enough to accommodate six people 
  at a time. One of the chairs on the near side was tipped over, a 
  dead woman sprawled on the deck, her life soaking into the beige 
  carpet.
  He must’ve heard the click of the hatch, because without turning, 
  he said, “We’re going into the jump point hot. You need to strap 
  yourself in.”
  He was barely holding it together. Malfont could hear it in his 
  voice.
  “Sure,” she said casually, “if you want to be alone with your new 
  friend here, just say so.”
  That broke him. He bowed his head, but still did not turn. “I—” 
  his voice cracked and he stopped. She heard him draw in a shud-
  dery breath. “I gave the order. To kill—” He shook his head, drew 
  another deep breath. “Kill everyone aboard.”
  “I hate to be the one to break this to you,” she said gently, “but 
  that’s what pirates do.”
  He shook his head again, but said nothing else.
  A moment of silence hung between them.
  “I thought you would be on the bridge,” she finally said.
  “Better people than me are guiding this ship. Best thing I can do 
  right now is stay out of their way.”
  “And you’re not even curious?”
  He shrugged. “We’ll either live or we’ll die.”
  And right now you don’t really care which it is, she thought. She 
  took a step into the wardroom and shut the hatch softly behind 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 0
  her. “Let’s make sure I have this all straight. You never planned 
  to hit the Bazaar. That was just a diversion, for both my people 
  and the Tortugans. You put the other two lances down in the 
  Grizzly Union and put someone out in front who had done busi-
  ness with the Dominions before, just like you did with me and 
  the Maelstrom.”
  “You’re not the only pirate that’s worked this corner of space.”
  “You wrecked my deal with Simonian because you didn’t really 
  want a slot in the southwest quadrant. You wanted to stay where 
  you were, close to the real target: the Overlord.”
  “Yep,” he said.
  She shook her head. “Which is why you were willing to give 
  up your Mule and the cargo on the Grizzly Union. Because you 
  thought you were getting an Overlord.”
  “Sounds about right.”
  Her voice tightened. “And you put a strike team on my ship, killed 
  four of my people, because you thought we would betray you.”
  He finally turned around, his gaze bright and cold. “You did be-
  tray me.”
  “Because you didn’t tell us your plan,” she snapped. “Because 
  we thought you had gone crazy. We thought you were going to 
  get us all killed.”
  She saw a muscle pulse in his cheek. “I don’t have to tell you a 
  damn thing.”
  Malfont took several deep breaths. “All right. You don’t have to. 
  But will you?”
  Castor folded his arms across his chest.
  “Why didn’t you tell us about the plans to take the DropShip?”
  Castor was a man, a sensitive man in unbelievable pain, but 
  underneath all that there was a part of him that was cold and me-
  chanical and it was this part of the man that raised an eyebrow 
  and flashed her a look that said, “What a stupid question.”
  Malfont exhaled slowly. “You only trust two people in this entire 
  force: Thomas and Ishihara.”
  
  BattleCorps
  The Bitter Taste of Hope • Page 1
  “You’re wrong. I only trust one: me. But I understand Thomas 
  and Ishihara well enough to use them.”
  “Okay. So when do I get off probation?”
  “When I understand you as well as I understand them.”
  She flashed him a crooked half-smile. “I’m not really that hard 
  to understand.”
  “Really?” That eyebrow again.
  “I’m the woman who always holds on to hope—even when she 
  shouldn’t.”
  Castor let out a little snort that might’ve been a dry chuckle, then 
  he turned around again.
  The captured Union buckled and shimmied as some distant ene-
  my tried to take her out. Malfont took the force in her legs, swaying 
  with the deck, not really worried. She had survived up until now. 
  What else could the bastards do to her?
  After a minute she went to stand by Mark Castor-Davion and 
  together they watched the stars.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/The Bitter Taste of Hope Pt2 - Steven Mohan Jr.pdf