Bred for war
Of the five line clusters Mattlov had brought to Morges, she had enough 'Mechs to bring just three of them up to full strength. Yet even that was illusory because her supplies were running low, which meant most of her 'Mechs and almost all of her aerospace fighters were operating without loads for more than half their weapons. The Peregrine solahma unit had fallen so quickly and easily because its close-in weapons—SRM launchers and heavy autocannons—were without ammunition.
While the four garrison units that had held Broken Hope were untouched in battle, Phelan assumed they were suffering similar ammunition shortages. He also guessed that their BattleMechs had been used to rebuild other 'Mechs that had taken partial damage at Carson Rift and Archangel. Though the garrison troops were respected within their Clan, they were subordinate in status to the line units and the fate of their equipment was out of their hands.
A light started to flash on his command console communication panel. He punched it and was surprised to see Angeline Mattlov's face appear on his primary monitor. "Star Colonel Mattlov. To what do I owe this communication?"
The woman looked highly indignant. "I knew you held the Clans in contempt, Khan Phelan, but I never expected you to totally flout our ways. You attack without first inquiring what forces I shall use to defend my position."
"I have done no such thing, Star Colonel. The condition of your DropShips tells me that you are not going to evacuate even part of your force, therefore I assume you are defending with all of it. Do you forget that you were the aggressor here? A string of misfortunes does not turn you into the defender. I am under no obligation to tell you anything about my force, and you have done nothing to make me inclined to be generous to you. If you wish to leave, however, I could be persuaded to withhold the coming assault."
The old woman recoiled as if she had been slapped. "If you mean to suggest we would run ..."
"Hardly, Star Colonel. You have better than a half-dozen Clusters here. Go back to the Clans. Yours is probably the only Falcon Galaxy with any command integrity left. If you love the Clans half as much as you believe I hate them, you will realize your duty is to leave here."
"My duty is to destroy you."
"Then your fate is to die here." Phelan narrowed his green eyes. "Let your people know: survivors will be permitted to live, but they will never become bondsmen to our Clan. If they want to live as warriors they will live as mercenaries."
Phelan hit the communications button and cut off her reply. "Wolf One to Wings Leader."
"Wings leader here."
"Carew, two runs. Have the Hounds keep them off you."
"Roger. Wings Leader out."
Phelan took one last look at the snow-shrouded buildings that had once been mankind's only meager foothold on the ice continent. "You may want to die here, Angeline, but I have no desire to join you."
* * *
Orbiting above the battlefield, Caitlin Kell watched as the flight of Wolf Clan fighters looped out over the ocean to the west of Broken Hope. The aerospace fighters turned and headed due east, intending to strafe Falcon positions in a line parallel to the Wolf and Hound BattleMech front. As they prepared to do that, the Falcon DropShips launched flight after flight of aerospace fighters into the sky.
"Raven flight, we're on the lead element," she heard Captain d'Or announce. "Go to it."
With her wingman Spider Hearst following, Caitlin kicked her Stingray toward the first Falcon flight. She knew the Jade Falcons were aware of the mercenaries' presence, but they had made no attempt to drive them off. Refusing to fight anyone except other Clansmen seemed somewhat suicidal to her, but she was not a Jade Falcon. If their stupidity was going to make her job easier, so much the better.
She centered her crosshairs on a Clan Visigoth. When she got a target lock she triggered the PPC in the Stingray's nose and the large lasers in either wing. The PPC's blue lance skewered the Visigoth's slender fuselage, coring armor and destroying a heat sink. The lasers' green scalpels carved armor from the right wing and engine cowling.
Caitlin broke right and saw the flashes of Hearst's weapons as he attacked the same Visigoth. More armor peeled away from the right wing, fuselage, and engine area on the fighter. Caitlin's computer reported a spike in heat emissions from the fighter, so she assumed Hearst had gotten another heat sink as well.
As the Visigoth bounced to the left and started to dive away from them, Caitlin hauled her stick back and to the right, inverting her Stingray and, diving straight after him.
The Visigoth might have a bigger power plant and more thrust, but the Stingray was far more maneuverable. While the Visigoth's move would have shucked off the pursuit of most other fighters, Caitlin hung with it and targeted the wounded craft again as it began to level out.
Her PPC and one of the large lasers raked away all but a thin coating of armor from the 'Mech's fuselage, splashing another heat sink and destroying a thrust vector louver. The other laser nipped the tip off the right wing, which combined with the louver problem to start the Visigoth shaking in flight.
One more pass and I'll have it. "Caitlin, break left!"
Without thinking she slammed her stick to the left, kicking the Stingray into a tight barrel roll. As the horizon spun and then leveled out again, she saw a storm of green laser bolts shoot past her right wing tip. A second later another Clan Visigoth dove through that space and Hearst flashed past on its tail.
Hitting the rudder pedals, Caitlin slewed her ship to the right and dove after Hearst. He covered me. Now it's my turn to cover him.
* * *
Ground-bound, Phelan could only watch as the aerospace fighters above him wheeled, dove, and turned. He knew his sister was up there and, though the Stingray's swept-forward wings made for a distinctive silhouette, the aerial action moved too quickly for him to pick her out. Good hunting, Cait. Don't let them even scratch your paint.
As the Kell Hound fighters scattered the two dozen fighters the Jade Falcons had launched, the Wolves' air forces came sweeping in and down on Broken Hope. The Falcon DropShips lit the sky with red, green, and blue beams as they fired their energy weapons, but the Wolf fighters threaded their way through them, then poured fire down on the small settlement. Wave after wave of fighters strafed the ground, reducing Falcon 'Mechs to fire-blackened skeletons and sowing Broken Hope with uncounted explosions.
"That must be the hottest time that town's ever seen," commented someone over the radio network.
Before Phelan could snap an order for silence, he heard his father's voice. "Be quiet! What's happening to the Jade Falcons is neither funny nor wonderful. It's a tragic necessity to prevent more of our own from dying. Before you feel so inclined to gloat, you'd do well to remember our own friends and comrades we've lost here."
Phelan keyed his radio. "Thank you, Colonel. Heads up, everyone. Wolves are coming in for their second pass. Once they're through, we go in."
* * *
Spider finally sent his Visigoth down in flames. The Clan fighter exploded when it hit the ice over the bay and left burning pieces scattered all over the ice pack. Spider turned off to the right and stayed low to the deck while Caitlin opened her turn, pulled back on her stick, and kicked the overthrusters in. Like a rocket she shot up and rose beneath a Falcon Sulla lining up to make a pass on the Wolves as they began their second strafing run.
Caitlin fired as she pulled up and through the Sulla's six. One of the large lasers drilled green fire into the engine cowling while the PPC and other large laser burned tons of ferro-aluminum armor from the slender fighter's left wing. None of the attacks damaged more than armor, but Caitlin's auxiliary monitor showed a fifty-eight percent reduction in the left wing's protection. Another shot or two there and that wing comes off.
The Clan pilot immediately stood his fighter on its left wing and began to break to the left. Anticipating his next move, Caitlin inverted her Stingray. When the Sulla went over into a barrel roll and pulled out, heading west, Caitlin started a dive, then pulled a
hard turn to the right and bounced right up behind him again.
Her PPC sliced into the left wing again, reducing all but the last bit of armor to vapor. The large lasers bored into the engine and fuselage. An explosion and the appearance of a yellow vapor cloud told Caitlin she'd gotten one of the ship's heat sinks. That was useful, but she didn't expect the dogfight to continue long enough for heat to become an issue.
Then the Clan pilot dove.
Caitlin followed him down to the deck and through a turn back north again. As he leveled out, she began to smile. Broken Hope won't offer you cover. Then she looked off her starboard wing and saw the flights of Wolves coming in on their second strafing runs. Oh, hell! To make matters worse, the Sulla bore in at two of the Falcon DropShips, making her a target for their fire as well.
Committed to her flight path, she dropped her crosshairs onto the Sulla and triggered all of her Stingray's weapons. I'll run hot, but that's the least of my problems right now.
The PPC sent a shaft of artificial lighting into the Sulla's right wing, stripping armor off in sheets. One of the two medium lasers missed, but the other combined with the two large lasers to rake through armor on the fighter's fuselage. Two more heat sinks burst in yellow clouds. Another explosion on the left side of the craft jetted debris into the air, but Caitlin wasn't able to mark the source of that damage immediately.
She juked her Stingray up and a bit to the starboard. While that did take her closer to the incoming Wolf fighters, it moved her away from the DropShips. She also knew the Sulla had to move right to get through the gap between the DropShips. Through her course would take her wide of him, she would be able to pounce on the other side of the DropShip wall.
What the hell is he doing?
The Sulla shuddered when it should have drifted right. The tail fin cut around hard to the right in a move to swing the plane around and drive it to the right, but all that managed to do was to make the fighter begin bucking. The left wing came up, letting Caitlin see that the thrust-vectoring outlets on the left side of the Sulla had been fused shut, which explained the difficulty in maneuvering to the right. Unfortunately, as the left wing came up, it caught too much air and started to invert the fighter. At the same time the momentum imparted by the desperate tail flap adjustment pushed the fighter around so it was traveling belly-first along its line of flight.
The needle-bodied Sulla slammed into one of the Overlord Class DropShips, shearing the fighter's nose and cockpit off. That half of the plane pierced the DropShip's hull and ricocheted around inside the bridge level. The aft half of the fighter spun wildly through the air, rising briefly, then hammered into the ground and exploded. Pieces of it spread all over Broken Hope, mixing with all the other debris.
Caitlin threw her stick hard to the right and stood her Stingray on the tip of its right wing. Hauling back on the stick, she pulled her fighter around until she was running directly at the waves of Wolf fighters coming in. Easing the stick forward again, she stayed up on her right wing, presenting as narrow a target as possible for the Wolves, and shot out beneath their flight path. Once she cleared their line, she righted her ship and began a long turn out over the bay.
Gaining altitude she looked back at the settlement, but she could see little more than fires amid the clouds of black smoke. "Spider, where are you?"
"Angels Eleven, Cait. We're clear."
Clear, yes, thank God. She took another look at Broken Hope, then started to climb. Down there it's hell itself.
* * *
To describe what the Wolf BattleMechs found opposing them as resistance was to exalt the Jade Falcon response to their advance. The strafing runs had been devastating. Laser and PPC fire reached out from the defensive lines to attack the Wolves, but it was sporadic at best and always answered with overwhelming return fire. As the Wolves and Hounds closed in on the sooty settlement, Phelan gave the order for his troops to use suppressive fire. A nearly constant steam of red, green, and blue beams crackled through the crisp air, pinning 'Mechs behind defensive embankments.
As Phelan moved into the Jade Falcon position, a cold chill ran down his spine. The aerospace fighters' lasers and PPCs had vaporized armor and snow into a black fog that condensed almost immediately. It coated BattleMechs with an onyx flesh that fouled sensors and blinded pilots. Twisted black rivulets had been frozen as they ran from the legs of 'Mechs—looking like necrotic ivy rooting slain 'Mechs in place.
Every Falcon 'Mech he could see had gaping rents in its armor. Many had lost limbs and weapon systems. Some 'Mechs stood covered in black ice with their canopies open. One Falcon 'Mech had squatted down and used the flamers built into it to keep a small building burning. A knot of dejected Falcon pilots stood huddled between the'Mech's legs for warmth and protection.
Phelan stopped his Wolfhound and keyed his external speakers. "Where is Colonel Mattlov?"
Most of the pilots shook their heads, but one or two pointed off deeper into Broken Hope.
Phelan pushed on, with the rest of his Cluster moving forward and around him to forestall any of the Jade Falcons attempting to win the battle by taking him down. Phelan knew, as did the attackers and all the defenders, that the battle was long since over, but he also knew that if he left himself open, the Falcons would try to kill him. They were Clansmen after all, and that was the way of the Clans.
On Tukayyid and other worlds Phelan had seen greater destruction of a 'Mech force, but no other place had seemed so desolate and cruel. As the wind rose, it drove the smoke away. Granules of black ice washed over the landscape, building dark little snowdrifts that covered the bodies of fallen 'Mechs. He realized that new snow would soon cover over all evidence of the battle, preserving it, broken and lifeless, in this sterile and barren place.
Back toward the edge of the bay he found Colonel Mattlov. Her Daishi trailed its right leg behind it, the limb attached only by the myomer fibers dangling from the hip. The metallic femur had been melted away by fire from the fighters on their strafing runs. The rest of the 'Mech's armor was in little better condition. Angeline's hunched 'Mech looked like a wounded animal that had been gnawed on by a herd of scavengers.
Up in the cockpit of his 'Mech, Phelan looked down at Angeline Mattlov in her 'Mech. He could see from the snow and ice how she had dragged herself two hundred meters in the direction of the DropShips. He opened a radio frequency to her. "It is over, Colonel."
"Never, freebirth." Mattlov's 'Mech levered itself up on its right elbow and thrust its left arm at him.
Phelan drifted his 'Mech to the left, letting the pair of PPCs and pulse lasers shoot through the space where he had been standing. Dropping his crosshairs onto the Daishi's left shoulder, he fired all his weapons. His large laser melted the thick myomer muscles that had once given the stricken 'Mech's left arm movement. The trio of pulse lasers mounted in the Wolfhound's chest stabbed a cloud of ruby laser needles into the joint itself, changing the ferrotitanium bones from a dull silver to a brilliant white before they evaporated. The arm dropped away, bouncing off the 'Mech's left thigh before landing in the snow.
"Next I'll take your leg, then your other arm."
"If you had any honor, you would engage me in single combat."
"We have been engaged in single combat, Angeline. You and your forces were pitted against me and mine." Phelan's Wolfhound opened its arms to take in the mix of Wolves and Hounds surrounding them. "You were out-matched, out-maneuvered, outwitted, and out-fought. The only thing single combat would accomplish would be your death, and I do not feel inclined to grant you such release."
"Then you are a coward." Anger heated her words. "You have betrayed everything for which the Clans stand, but who could expect more from an Inner Sphere freebirth? The Clans exist to create the best warriors and you weaken us. You are every bit the traitor Stefan Amaris was."
Phelan felt the muscles in his jaw clench. "I have not betrayed the Clans, Angeline, but the Crusaders have. You say the Clans exist to produce the best wa
rriors, but is that not merely as a means to an end? In founding the Clans, Nicholas Kerensky set us on this path as the means by which we, the Clans, would one day be strong enough to protect the Inner Sphere. Our ancestors left the Inner Sphere to escape the power struggles that tore the Star League apart, and Nicholas charged us with the duty of defending the Inner Sphere against threats from without.
"The Crusaders are that threat, Angeline. The Crusaders have decided that the Inner Sphere has debased itself so it is no longer worthy of our protection. The Crusaders would come in and deprive the people of the Inner Sphere of their freedoms—the very things we were charged to protect and preserve."
"You are a fool, Phelan, and think me a greater fool if you think I believe you understand what it is to be a member of the Clans. We are who we are. We are warriors. We were bred for war, and three centuries of such breeding has created a people who are not only worthy of reestablishing the Star League, but capable of doing it."
"Yet I, someone born in the Inner Sphere, was able to rise to the pinnacle of the strongest Clan there was."
"Only because Ulric shielded you."
Phelan couldn't help but laugh at that. "There you are, Angeline. More evidence that damns you. Even in defeat you cannot accept the fact that I have done more, better and faster, than you or any other product of the Clan breeding program."
"You are a Wolf and a Warden. That hardly makes you of the Clans."
"It could be as you say, Angeline, but if it is true, then it is the Clans' loss." Phelan slowly shook his head. "You believe the purpose of war is to raise the level of combat to new heights. Only those who win, who excel, who distinguish themselves are allowed to breed. You would make it some martial form of Darwinism, part of humanity's evolution.
"But war is not something beneficial. There is one reason for war, and one reason only. It is why we fought here. It is why Natasha and Ulric and all the others fought against you Jade Falcons in your occupation zone. It is the reason the Inner Sphere has fought against the Clans. That reason is freedom.