TEXT: BattleCorps
  THE LAWS OF 
  MOTION
  Jason Schmetzer
  
  BattleCorps
  The Laws of Motion • Page 
  Nadir Jump Point 
  Brim 
  The Kerensky Cluster 
  24 October 3066
  Structural members creaked in protest as Star Captain Herron 
  slammed his throttles wide open. The Sabutai threw itself forward 
  at its maximum four and a half gravities of acceleration, smash-
  ing Herron deep into the padded command couch that clasped 
  his body like a desperate swimmer. He craned his neck as far as 
  it would go, his eyes searching the void through the glare of the 
  Sabutai’s torch. He could almost see the DropShip behind him. He 
  looked away.
  His instrument panel flashed white and then shadows as the 
  DropShip exploded behind him.
  “Carrion Swoop is gone,” he reported.
  “Aff, Star Captain,” his controller said. “Proceed along marked 
  vector for escape.”
  “Aff,” he acknowledged. Green traceries drew themselves on his 
  heads-up display, threading a path through the debris field. His car-
  rier was eighteen hundred kilometers away. The beacon pulsed on 
  his HUD, but it was too far for even his genetically enhanced eyes 
  to see the hatchet-faced bows of the Conqueror. He programmed 
  the course and cut his thrust. There was no reason to hurry. The 
  stravag bandits would not chase him, not with the rich corpse of 
  Carrion Swoop to pick over. Even a shattered hull would yield valu-
  ables to those who preyed on the refuse of warriors.
  The Dark Caste vessel had appeared out of hyperspace and re-
  leased a pair of modified Leopard-class DropShips. The ancient 
  vessels had been modified as assault ships, as Carrion Swoop 
  soon found out. Before Herron, deployed on barrier combat air 
  patrol from the Conqueror, could reach them, each Leopard had 
  launched two Points of fighters and demonstrated a far greater 
  weapons load than a standard Leopard. The Union-C class Carrion 
  Swoop had not had a chance.
  And Herron had been too late.
  An alarm bleeped at him. He blinked his shame away and focused 
  on his radar panel. Four of the Dark Caste fighters were vectoring 
  to follow him. He laughed at their lunacy. Any surat could see he 
  
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  was headed for a WarShip. Conqueror made no attempt to hide 
  its emissions or its IFF. Anyone coming close enough would see a 
  proud vessel in the pristine white of the Snow Ravens. She had no 
  foes worthy of the name.
  And yet they followed. Herron frowned and punched in a more 
  detailed scan. He touched his yoke and brought the Sabutai’s nose 
  around, now coasting backwards. His targeting scanners locked 
  onto the signals and began prosecuting. A beeping, one tone per 
  second, filled his helmet as the PPC guidance computers searched 
  for a solution. Herron knew he was far out of range, but he did not 
  cut them off. A void formed at the base of his stomach. It was dif-
  ferent from the usual queasiness of zero-g.
  All four fighters boosted under six gravities of acceleration.
  Herron grabbed his stick with both hands and thumbed the 
  throttle. They would catch him before he reached Conqueror. A 
  smile drew his lips back from his small teeth. He flexed his hands, 
  his forearms. His gloved fingers tightened around the yoke.
  “Conqueror,” he said, “Bandits engaging.” He cut in the thrust-
  ers and spoke through the crushing weight of deceleration. “It 
  appears they wish a Trial of Position,” he muttered.
  “Confirmed, Star Captain,” his controller said. “Be advised, 
  Conqueror is moving to assist.”
  Herron chuckled. It would take too long for the lumbering cruiser 
  to reach him before the bandits engaged him. “Enjoy the show, 
  Conqueror.”
  Time slowed as Herron watched three indicators at once. One 
  showed his relative velocity; that indicator was counting down-
  ward more and more quickly. The second showed his attacker’s 
  velocity; that one was climbing. The third showed the distance 
  between them; that indicator was falling fastest of all. In order 
  to engage them, he had to let them catch up. So he was slowing 
  down.
  And they were speeding up.
  The Sabutai’s battle computer flashed an alert on his HUD and 
  overlayed his tactical data with a small wireframe schematic. 
  The computer had identified his attackers. Herron bit back an-
  other smile when he saw the designation: THK-63. Forty-five-ton 
  Tomahawk light fighters. Relics from a purloined Brian Cache, no 
  doubt. The vintage fighters, while bearing the pedigree of the Star 
  
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  League Defense Force, were no match for his OmniFighter. He 
  outmassed any one of them—almost two of them together—and 
  the difference in firepower was too radical to even figure. Herron 
  did grunt his disdain, but then brought his attention around.
  There were four of them, and they were faster. He dialed an un-
  encrypted frequency.
  “Attention, intruders. This is Star Captain Herron of the Sukhanov 
  bloodline, Trinary commander in the Brim Naval Assault Star. 
  Withdraw with your lives, scum, or feel the talons of the Snow 
  Ravens.” He did not expect a response, but protocols must be fol-
  lowed.
  “You turn back, tinspawn. Maybe we’ll let you go.”
  Herron did grin then, a predator’s grin that brought his lips back 
  and his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The dry whisper of 
  adrenaline in the back of his throat tickled. He activated a sec-
  ondary screen and traced navigation data with a light pen, still 
  watching the indicators drop with one eye. A plan formed. He 
  sketched it out and beamed a condensed version to Conqueror.
  They were only bandits, after all.
  
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  Herron cut his thrusters to maneuvering when the Tomahawks 
  reached the four-hundred-kilometer boundary. His targeting sys-
  tem painted each fighter with an alphanumeric ID tag and flashed 
  each on his HUD. At this distance the icons were clustered in one 
  place, but a toggle up on the magnification and he could bring 
  his crosshairs to bear on the lead ship. Herron manipulated his 
  controls, bringing the markers for his PPCs to hover over the 
  Tomahawk’s broad, delta-winged shape. He watched the range 
  counter drop, watched the targeting reticle, waiting for a flash of 
  gold. The computer chimed, three tones a second. He fired.
  The powerful particle cannons mounted under the Sabutai’s 
  swept wings erupted, channeling white-hot ions into the gulf of 
  space between the two craft. To a mudhead in a ’Mech on the 
  ground, four hundred kilometers was a ten-hour journey. In the 
  cold, comfortable reaches of space, four hundred kilometers was 
  an instant.
  The Tomahawk shuddered as both PPCs struck at the thick nose 
  armor, smashing more than half of it. It rotated slightly nose-down, 
  the impulse from the exploded armor acting as an impromptu ma-
  neuvering thruster. 
  The tones in Herron’s helmet changed decibel, but not pattern. He 
  squeezed another trigger. The Sabutai shuddered. The mammoth 
  Gauss gun slung under the OmniFighter’s nose flashed silently in 
  the vacuum as it hurled a small mass of iron at the bandit fighter. 
  Although frighteningly swift, the projectile was noticeably slower 
  than the energy weapons.
  “No evasion,” Herron whispered, just as the Gauss round 
  smashed into the already-savaged nose armor. It crushed a weak-
  ened member and careened through the Tomahawk’s cockpit. The 
  flash of released atmosphere was visible in Herron’s HUD. The 
  icon flashed and disappeared. One enemy down.
  Lasers flashed around him as the other Tomahawks opened fire. 
  Only one beam hit, a scintillating ruby brushstroke that wiped 
  some armor from the leading edge of his right wing. Herron 
  tapped a new counter into his display and juked right, using his 
  maneuvering jets to lift his fighter higher and push it lower, all 
  without changing his relative heading; slower, but still creeping 
  toward the Conqueror. 
  The Tomahawks slowed to three gs of acceleration as they closed, 
  and Herron pushed his own torch a notch higher, trying to keep his 
  distance. He switched his primary triggers from the heavy PPCs 
  
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  to the hyper-accurate pulse lasers mounted alongside. He kept the 
  Gauss rifle as his secondary, but tied the pair of rear-facing small 
  lasers into the third. If the engagement went as he expected, he 
  would undoubtedly have at least one of the fighters behind him 
  before it was over.
  “That’s just lucky shooting, tinspawn,” one of the Tomahawks 
  radioed. Herron ignored it, concentrating on watching the ap-
  proaching fighters. The range was down to under two hundred 
  kilometers, and they had ceased accelerating.
  More laserfire danced around his fighter as the Dark Caste pilots 
  opened up, each trying to melt enough of his armor and control 
  surfaces to make him a sitting duck. The killing blows, heavy 
  pulses aimed at his fuselage, were notably absent. Behind them 
  their DropShips feasted on the hulk of Carrion Swoop. These three 
  were after his OmniFighter.
  Herron took a deep breath and fired his torch. It appeared as 
  though he were charging toward them, when in reality he was 
  just slowing down and bringing them closer to his Sabutai. He 
  targeted the next-nearest Tomahawk and squeezed his triggers. 
  Verdant green laser light, much brighter in space without the both-
  ersome atmosphere of a world to attenuate the beams, rippled 
  across the venerable fighter’s fuselage. The Gauss round whistled 
  past harmlessly beneath the target, but Herron was satisfied. His 
  lasers were more powerful and more accurate than the bandits’. 
  He was more accurate than the other pilots.
  He was Herron of the Sukhanov line, pilot of Clan Snow Raven. 
  They were filth.
  The three light fighters split and blasted around to come after him. 
  They were victims of their own acceleration now, as he dumped 
  velocity and they sped away from him. Herron did not allow himself 
  any satisfaction. The Tomahawks still out-powered him, and they 
  had slowed much more quickly than he could. One of the fighters 
  flipped end for end and blasted at full military power, crawling to a 
  seeming halt and then arrowing after Herron’s Sabutai. The lasers 
  embedded in the Tomahawk’s wings spat coherent light again, this 
  time paring the armor over the Sabutai’s torch.
  Herron snap-fired the rear-mounted light lasers, but both ruby 
  spears missed wide. The other two Tomahawks were closing. 
  Herron looked at the newest indicator, watching the ranges fall. 
  Less than a thousand kilometers now. Not much longer.
  
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  Bracing himself, Herron jerked back on his stick and kicked his 
  thrusters to life, spinning his Sabutai end over end. Warning lamps 
  flashed to life as overstressed components snapped free under 
  the crushing weight of deceleration. The feed bin for one of his 
  Gauss ammo bins flickered to black, indicating a failure. Herron 
  ignored it.
  “We’ll take you bondsman, tinspawn,” the Dark Caste pilot said. 
  “We may be dezgra, but we are still Clan.”
  Herron grunted in effort, bringing the OmniFighter out of its turn. 
  One of the Tomahawks fell into place in his HUD, and he squeezed 
  the triggers. The Gauss rifle fired its last slug into the bowels of 
  the vintage fighter’s fuselage, opening a gap that Herron’s pulse 
  lasers exploited. The Tomahawk’s torch sputtered and died and 
  the ship went dark. Herron maneuvered away, leaving the crippled 
  fighter to follow the course Sir Isaac Newton had set for him over 
  a thousand years ago.
  “Two,” he whispered. He looked—six hundred kilometers. The oth-
  er two Tomahawks fell in behind him, and Herron concentrated on 
  staying alive. He knew, despite the differences in acceleration, that 
  he could outfly these surats. But he had to keep their attention.
  “You do not believe you can outfly a Snow Raven, quineg?” he 
  sent.
  Laughter echoed across the com lines. “I’d say we’re doing it 
  now, aff.”
  Herron pushed his yoke toward the console and dove the Sabutai, 
  hoping to coming around behind the Tomahawks. If they felt 
  threatened they would keep their attention focused on him, and 
  not look behind them. They couldn’t look behind them.
  Herron could not let them see the shark-toothed prow of 
  Conqueror angling toward them.
  Tortured metal screamed and tore as lasers probed his aft armor. 
  Herron brought his acceleration up to maximum and triggered his 
  rear lasers. He shouted in satisfaction as the light beams stabbed 
  glowing divots from the nose of one of the targets, but it did not 
  last. The next barrage of laser fire destroyed Herron’s rear-facing 
  weapons. It was up to Conqueror now, only 350 kilometers away. 
  Herron brought up a magnified view of the WarShip, the white 
  prow glistening in the gentle starlight. He was proud to be a Snow 
  Raven, beholding such a sight.
  
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  It was close enough.
  Four bright flashes sparkled on the WarShip’s hull. Herron 
  snarled and looked toward the Tomahawks. His eyes found them, 
  watched them. He juked, dove, did everything he could to evade 
  their fire. A few seconds more. A streak of light caught his eye, 
  and his head turned.
  The two Tomahawks exploded.
  Herron cheered, but kept his movement up. He knew the fighters 
  mounted enough armor to survive the missile strikes. Not tolerate, 
  perhaps, but survive. A Barracuda missile massed thirty tons and 
  carried a warhead the size of a small fighter. Attacking a forty-five 
  ton aerospace fighter with one might seem wasteful, but not to 
  the Snow Ravens. More missiles could be built; Herron’s lifetime 
  of training and genetic legacy could not.
  Such was the value of a trueborn Clan warrior.
  Only one of the Tomahawks emerged from the debris field. It 
  limped away on half-thrust, barely two gravities, trying to put 
  as much distance between itself and the WarShip as it could. Its 
  wings were shredded; Herron saw both wing-mounts empty where 
  there had been lasers before. He brought his Sabutai around and 
  matched the Tomahawk’s course and speed, but stayed twenty 
  kilometers back.
  “You should have withdrawn,” he radioed.
  “So much for your honor, tinspawn,” the Dark Caste pilot said.
  “My honor is intact,” Herron said. “You are a bandit. There is no 
  zellbrigen for bandits.”
  “Using a WarShip to kill a single fighter,” the bandit said, “would 
  never have been considered when I was part of the Touman.” The 
  Tomahawk shuddered and found half a gravity more of thrust. 
  “First the Ghost Bears, the Nova Cats, and now the Snow Ravens. 
  The Clans are falling.”
  Herron dropped back another twenty kilometers, until he was 
  safe from debris. “All that speed wasted,” he said. “You should 
  never have followed me out here. You should have withdrawn.” 
  He did not say what he felt. He did not say the skills the other man 
  had shown were worthy of respect. He didn’t say it was more than 
  he expected from a bandit. Instead he brought the Sabutai’s tar-
  geting computers back up, and warmed the PPCs.
  
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  “When I was a warrior,” the other pilot repeated, “it would never 
  have been done.”
  “When you were a warrior,” Herron said, “you should have 
  learned about the laws of motion.”
  He fired.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/The Laws of Motion - Jason Schmetzer.pdf