Creative Writing

[Sukerkin]

Whilst hoovering out the contents of one of my hard drives in one of the more elderly PC's on my network, I came across a 'project' that, whilst I've never quite forgotten about it, I had forgotten where it was stored.

It's the embryonic beginnings of a novel based upon the games I and some of my friends had played using the BattleTech system. I have more written ... somewhere ... but what I have found is the opening fragment of the first chapter, in terms of the stories chronology at least (I recall that the actual opening chapter was further forward in the time-line and that this bit was intended to be a 'flash-back').

This is about twenty years old, so, as you might expect, parts of it don't feel as polished to me as I would like, looking back on them with another couple of decades experience in how to string the written word together .

Anyhow, have a read, if you feel like spending a bit of your life on it, and see what you think.

I don't know what the character limit per post is here, so I shall have to experiment and break it up accordingly ...

... I'm surprised, it all fitted into the one post! The fonts are not what they should be but that is hardly a surprise. Hopefully it's still readable.

 

[Sukerkin]

Headquarters Office of Captain (Brevet Major) Sarah Lindon
City of Columbus Tor
Kennard
Bryceland PDZ
September 3031

The knock at her office door brought the blond woman’s head up from the screen of the laptop computer perched on her desk. Next to a dishevelled heap of disks and a neat stack of papers, a quarter full pot of coffee steamed gently on its attendant hotplate, the vapours competing for airspace with the jasmine scented blue streamers wafting from an incense burner in the opposite corner. The kinked and twisted power cord of the computer wound around the hotplate and stretched across the room to the socket in the wall on her left. Sagging to about knee height, it trembled slightly from her last series of keystrokes, seemingly ready to fulfil its secondary duty as a trip hazard for the unwary at a moments notice. The wood of the desk was mostly stripped of its varnish, attesting to the long, hard, service the utilitarian piece of furniture had provided. It contrasted sharply with the new turquoise paint that glossily layered the walls and the green shortpile industrial carpet on the floor.

That new paint was probably the main reason for the pained look in the strong featured woman’s face; it’s fumes, combined with the rash of reports on her desk, had worked to give her a thumping headache. Narrowing her dark-amber eyes and gritting her small, even, teeth, she took a steadying breath.

“Come in Nakano!” She snapped. “What is it now!”

The brass doorknob squeaked a little as it turned and provided a wonderfully sour counterpoint to the chorus of the hinges and the rasping graze of the bottom of the door over the fuzz of the carpet.

‘There is no harmony in this place’ she sighed to herself ‘It’s a bedraggled mess of the new and the old … just like us. It needs time to settle, to find its centre … just like us’.

To her surprise, however, rather than the lantern jawed face of her muscular Executive Officer, Cornelius Nakano, her annoyed gaze met the laconic green eyes of Leftenant Raquel Pointdexter-Davion. Even at this early hour, the trim Mercenary Relations Liaison Officer was properly attired in her dress blues, the white peaked cap tucked neatly under her left arm and her curtain of curled red hair bound up in a bun that did her slender face no favours.

“Good morning Major Lindon.” She gently smiled as she pulled off a smoothly precise salute. “I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the day but I’ve just received an important communiqué from the local Comstar facility. It’s a verigraph from New Avalon bearing the Princes’ seal and, as it came to me first, I think you can guess that it has a higher than normal significance for your contract.”

The pain in her head gave Sarah an extra jolt at the thought of extra operational orders being piled on her already. She felt a surge of resentful anger that her employer should present such to her so soon after the upheaval of relocating her Companies’ base to Columbus Tor. The obvious pleasure in Raquel’s voice though, along with her use of Sarah’s contractual rank of Major, rather than the one of Captain she actually used, gave Sarah pause enough to damp down the acerbic tone she instinctively started to reply in and inject a little forced jocularity instead.

“Couldn’t it have waited Leftenant? I’ve got a great deal of vitally important paper shuffling to do before mess-call!” She grinned wearily. “I swear, relocating a battalion generates more reports than a Sword of Light hot drop!”

“I know Major and believe me, verigraph or not, I wouldn’t have brought this to you immediately if it wasn’t written in Hanse Davion’s own hand.”

That narrowed Sarah’s eyes again. If the Prince wrote this himself then either these were operational orders, but of immense importance, or something serious was going to happen to their contract.

“Well, it can’t be bad news Leftenant, otherwise you wouldn’t be looking so pleased with yourself. So what is it?”

Raquel smiled again, to such an extent that on a person of lesser elegance it would have been called a grin. She extended the message case to Sarah.

“I think it’s best if you read it yourself Major. I’ve already thumbed my ML authorisation on it. Just thumb the Recipient box.”

Sarah gave an answering smile, warmer with genuine humour this time.

“And implicitly accept the orders within as contractually binding you mean. It’s a good job I trust you Leftenant! Of course you realise that if this isn’t the good news you seem to think it is, you could end up carrying out the next raid I send Taya’s Redlegs on by yourself!”

She waved the white and gold Comstar pouch at Raquel in a mock threatening fashion. The Liaison Officer’s relaxed response was reassuring.

“The L’oiseau Jeune is at your disposal of course Major, though I would remind you that she is Davion property and reckless endangerment of her and her pilot are grounds for contractual review. Not the noblest of ways to end this units career I think you’ll agree.”

After executing a slow half bow, she gave her Lindon’s Company cap badge a deliberate buff with her right hand sleeve without removing the hat from under her arm. Knowing Sarah Lindon so well allowed her to be sure that the Major would pick up the subtle cues her actions represented. The bow, neither deep nor quick, as from one friend to another, was to negate the formality of her words, showing them to be a joke. Keeping the dress cap where it was whilst choosing to shine the Lindons’ badge, rather than the one denoting her rank in the AFFS, signified that she anticipated no change for the worse in relations between the mercenaries and the Crown and indicated a certain degree of pride in her association with Sarah’s forces.

Maybe it is good news after all. Sarah mused. Well, only one way to find out.

Opening the pouch, she drew out the hard white plastic case within. Adorned with the gold emblem of Comstar in the centre, it had three rectangles of gold along the bottom edge. Looking not at all high-tech, they were in fact highly sensitive fingerprint identification devices. The ones on the left and in the middle had already been used by the Precentor at the Comstar station and by Leftenant Pointdexter-Davion to acknowledge their receipt of the message. Raquel’s also meant that she, in her role as the representative of the Federated Suns Mercenary Relations Office, had opened the case and read the message to satisfy herself that the contents were genuinely from the Court of New Avalon. The case had been resealed afterwards by the Comstar official to ensure that no other than the intended recipient got to see the message.

Suppressing her residual worries, Sarah extended her right thumb and pressed firmly on the final unused gold rectangle. A faint click from inside the case rewarded her efforts as the intelligent circuitry analysed her print, compared it to the one in its small database and decided that she was authorised to receive the contents it guarded. If it had concluded she was not the one for whom the message was meant, wires inside the case would have instantly flashed the message into charred powder and a beacon activated to alert any nearby Comstar personnel that a message had been compromised.

Lifting the lid, Sarah saw that the case was lined with anachronistic red velvet and that the shiny material of the verigraph was attached at its corners to an equally anachronistic sheet of velum by four sizeable medallions of red wax. Into each of these was impressed the seal of Hanse Davion, Prince of the Federated Suns. She looked up enquiringly at Raquel but the Leftenant had assumed an ‘at-ease’ posture, eyes fixed on the wall behind Sarah’s head. She still managed somehow to look both proud and smug at the same time without having a noticeable expression of either emotion.

Touching her index finger to the appropriate spot on the verigraph brought the apparently blank document to life. A holograph of the Sunburst and Sword emblem of the Federated Suns swelled into full colour, providing a backcloth for the hand-written text. Scribed in a gold ink, the even, copperplate, script glowed as if backlit. Though she had never seen the Prince’s hand before, other than his signature on the various official documents of the Companies contract, she had no reason to doubt Raquel’s word that he had written this himself.

It opened with the usual pleasantries that are attendant on anything written by a nations’ ruler to a commoner in his service. Skipping past these, Sarah got to the meat of the despatch; letter was too small and menial a word for a communication such as this.

[FONT=&quot]For outstanding loyalty in the service of the Prince and aggression against his enemies in the defence of his realm, his Royal Highness bestows upon Lindon’s Company the following boon:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] For each Mechwarrior, a land grant of 10 sq. km. on Kennard, generating not less than 25,000 cBills p.a.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] For each Lance Leader, a land grant of 500 sq. km. on Kennard, generating not less than 50,000 cBills p.a.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] For each Company Leader, a land grant of 1000 sq. km. on Kennard, generating not less than 100,000 cBills p.a.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] For the Battalion Commander, a land grant of 5000 sq. km. on Kennard, generating not less than 500,000 cBills p.a.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] These grants, totalling 11320 sq. km., generating an annual income of 1,900,000 cBills, encompass an area approximately 110km by 103km, wherein the household of Lindon’s Company are free to dwell, subject to the laws of the Federated Suns, until such time as Lindon’s Company are no longer in the service of House Davion. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To properly protect these lands whilst they are in action for the Prince, Lindon’s Company are required to raise a militia from the population of Kennard, training them in the use of personal and anti-armour weapons and in the use and tactical employment of AFV’s. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]It is His Royal Highnesses pleasure to supply the military material for a battalion (336 men) of Foot Infantry, a battalion (336 men) of Jump Infantry and a battalion (336 men) of VTOL Drop Infantry along with the 28 Spartan APC’s and 16 Aufstellen VTOL’s they will require for transport. Additionally, 4 Skimmer hovercraft will be provided for long range, low visibility, reconnaissance purposes. Sufficient munitions will be supplied for all conceivable training purposes plus combat stocks.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Further, a battalion (48 vehicles) of light armour will be supplied at a later date to complete the roster for a small militia regiment (see appended Table of Equipment). This is to be known as the Lindon 1st Hussars in honour of Sarah Lindon, Commanding Officer of Lindon’s Company mercenary ‘Mech battalion. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sufficient munitions will be supplied for all foreseeable combat needs and the Crown shall act as Paymaster but fuel requirements for the internal combustion powered units will have to be met locally. It should be noted that His Royal Highness must regretfully rule that these units remain the property of the Federated Suns.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Yours gratefully in recognition of the vigour Lindon’s Company has shown and continues to show in combating the Kuritan enemies of freedom[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Hanse Davion[/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

Glancing through the detailed breakdown of equipment to be supplied, Sarah couldn’t help but be impressed by Davion’s generosity. The infantry weapons alone were far above the norm she would have expected for what was intended to be a home defence militia unit. Though some of the more to be anticipated assault rifles and machine guns were to be delivered, there were also such exotic and potent weapons as Zulu SRM launchers, Diamondback Gyrojet rifles and even man portable PPC’s mounted on light exoskeleton suits. The AFV’s the Prince promised were a highly varied selection ranging from wheeled scouts, like the Packrat, through fast hover tanks of various types, including the Blackbird and Churchill designs she’d heard about, to heavy hitting tracked vehicles, primarily Manticores and Hunter T’s. There weren’t going to be many of each type available but the mix seemed designed to give the resultant force a high degree of flexibility in deployment and tactics.

‘Good Lord! I don’t want to seem ungrateful Hanse, but how the hell am I going to get all the trained personnel to man and maintain this stuff. It’ll take years before much of it can do a great deal more than provide expensive targets for anyone who attacks Kennard!’

Her headache came back with a vengeance as she began to anticipate the sheer logistical mountain that would require scaling to put the Prince’s wishes into action.

“This is quite an impressive adjunct to our ‘Mech lances, Raquel, not too mention a sizeable incentive to obedient service from the land grants”. Sarah allowed a shading of suspicion to tinge her words, hoping to draw some discernible sign from the Liaison Officer as to the background reasons behind the largesse. Her reward was to see a marginal lowering of Pointdexter-Davion’s eyebrows.

‘Disapproval of my insinuating there’s a hook in this gift? That’s a positive sign at least. Let’s try being a little more explicit.’

“I can’t help but wonder though if your illustrious relative has some extra service in mind that he seeks to pander us into by giving us an official home on this world”. Deliberately not phrasing it as a question took the potential offence out of the words, making them a speculation for the Leftenant to answer or not as she saw fit.

Regardless of her intent, however, Raquel’s gaze sharpened a bit more at Sarah’s words.

‘I’d better watch myself on this.’ The Major noted to herself with mild rebuke. ‘Hanse is family to her after all, distant relation or not, and it is a very generous move on his part. I don’t want to upset her now when for all this time she’s been nothing but fair and up-front with us; right from the start of our contract in fact’.

“I can assure you, Major, that Prince Davion has no ulterior motive in providing Lindon’s Company with this visible sign of his respect for you. None that he has confided to me at least. It is simply that, out here near the Rim, he knows that your duties may call you away from Kennard, for some time on occasion, and sought to provide you with some assurance of having a home to come back to, rather than the ruin a pirate raid could leave you with”. She held herself more stiffly than she had been previously, allowing the tiny change in body posture to display her obvious affront at Sarah’s ingratitude. The marginal chill in her light soprano voice was further testament to her opinion of the Major’s rudeness.

“Forgive me Raquel. I did not intend to sound so ungracious and I apologise for the way my clumsy fishing has offended you”. Sarah executed a subordinate bow of her head, respectfully taking her eyes off the Leftenant for a second whilst she spoke to show that she was sincere. “I was curious as to why Prince Davion had shown us such a clear sign of trust, nothing more. I did not mean to imply, as I so obviously have, that there may be something other than honour for us in his gift”.

Pointdexter-Davion’s eyebrows unknit at this and the tiniest hint of colour rose in her cheeks. She returned Sarah’s gesture of contrition.

“I think it is I who should apologise for my asperity, Sarah. I should have remembered that the last time you received a ‘gift’ from your employer was from the hands of the Co-ordinator of the Draconis Combine and that it cost the Company many lives. I was so pleased that my unit was being honoured by our employer that I could not see how you could speak so suspiciously after being given so much”.

Sarah was pleased, despite her discomfort at having committed a social faux pas, to hear the Leftenant include herself so emphatically as part of Lindon’s Company.

“The Betrayal is no excuse Raquel, neither is the fact that I have a headache like a Banshee’s footfall from all this new paint. I sounded ungrateful and I’m sorry. But truly, I only wanted to know what was behind the establishment of the new unit. It’s going to cost an awful lot of money to ship all that kit out here and pay wages for personnel to be trained to use it. It just seems a trifle superfluous when the Prince is already paying us to protect this region for him”.

An inner voice warned her that she was being somewhat dogged in her pursuit of a hidden reason behind the Princes largess but she couldn’t stop herself from digging. She knew it was a legacy from her service under the despotic Kuritan government, where almost every move was an exercise in layered meanings and potentially fatal political manoeuvring. Understanding that didn’t make it any easier to rein herself in however. The Betrayal had seen to it that it would be a good long time before Sarah Lindon could take any action at face value made by someone in a position of control over her people.

Raquel seemed to have her indignation under control ‘though and gave a faint smile of reassurance to tell Sarah that she understood the root of her suspicions.

“It is true that the investment represented by the material that the Prince is having shipped to us comes to a total of several million C-Bills. But you do have to remember Major that this is by no means a large sum by the standards of the Federated Suns military budget. I think perhaps you are being swayed by the quantity of the equipment being sent rather than it’s value”.

She held a level gaze, engaging Sarah’s eyes directly in a way that could be considered rudely challenging between a subordinate and a superior officer but between friends was a signal of truth.

“Would you be so concerned if the Prince had seen fit to send a single ‘Mech as a gift for you personally? That would represent a gift of equal monetary worth but would not serve our employers stated interests half so well. I believe he truly seeks to reward our unit for the loyalty we have shown in pursuit of those interests and chooses to do so in a way that will also do duty as an example to other units of what good service can bring.”

Sarah schooled herself to relaxation. Sniffing after underhanded motives behind the actions of her employer did honour to neither him nor the Company. And the Leftenant’s words did make a good deal of sense.

“You’re right of course Raquel. I’m seeing shadows and machinations where there is only an honest display of trust. I should remember that the emblem on the flag we serve has changed and the meaning of actions carried out by the one whose flag it is are different from those of the one the Company used to obey.”

The Leftenant gave a small nod of pleased acceptance at Sarah’s words.

‘One last push Sarah then for God’s sake leave it alone. Understanding may come later and there really seems to be no harm for the unit buried in this present’.

“Politics is still politics ‘though, however worthy the practitioner. Is it only the endowment of the land grants that required this letter to be in the Prince’s own hand? Or is he sending another message as well?”

Raquel’s features twitched fractionally and Sarah couldn’t tell if it was anger or humour that made her eyes shine that little bit brighter.

“You’re right of course Major. These gifts are given in honest recognition of the Company’s performance of its duties and that is their primary purpose. However, your insight matches my own as to why it’s been drafted by Hanse himself. I think he’s letting it be known to the brass in the AFFS that it’s not just Line units that can win Royal favour”. She conspicuously allowed two fingers of her right hand to delicately trace over both the badges on her cap. Letting them linger on her AFFS insignia told Sarah that mercenaries were not yet held to be the equal of the forces of the Line.

‘And probably never will be’ Sarah thought ‘After all, it’s common knowledge that we serve for money whilst the Line is driven solely by loyalty’.

Raquel continued after the minuscule pause.

“As you know, the Federated Suns treats its mercenary units far better than other realms do and this is a deliberate policy with the full support of the Prince behind it. It’s not purely altruistic … after all” she quirked her mouth ironically “politics is politics”.

Sarah returned the half smile, acknowledging the hit.

“It is the considered judgement of those in power over us that war is coming. It’s either going to be Liao or Kurita, possibly both and the AFFS is going to need all the ‘Mech assets it can lay it’s hands on when it comes. The MRO has it’s own part to play in this as it’s our job to make sure that the mercenary units worth having stay with the AFFS. Hanse needs outfits like Lindon’s and he’s making it clear that he intends to keep them. If that means some heavy weight overt gestures then he’s willing to make them. At least that’s my read on this; and I think that’s the poison in the chalice that’s disturbing you”.

 

[granfire]

liek, totally kewl!


Seriously!
When are you going to finish it?

 

[bushidomartialarts]

Frikkin' sweet. I don't know what's cooler -- that you posted this, or that you made me think of BattleTech for the first time since college.

RIP FASA

 

[granfire]

well, it does not qualify, but I put this here anyhow:
http://www.nanowrimo.org/

(you can't start before 0:01 November 1st)

 

[Sukerkin]

I found another bit .

This was all hand-written the first time round and I'm not sure how much I ever typed up (on a BBC Micro :lol and, years later, transfered into Word. It'll be an interesting excercise to see if I can find more of it (in any format). I have the ringbinder that contains the story summary and 'cast' so I might attempt to (re)write some more to link together whatever bits I find.

This part was going to be the start, or at least it was a contender for that role. That's why there's a fair bit of scene-setting that feels a bit heavy-handed to me now.

 

[Sukerkin]

Union Class Dropship "Nelson"
Kennard System
Bryceland PDZ
October 3036

The melodious 'Stand-By' tone was abruptly shouldered aside by the harsh pulsing of the sixty second 'Alert' klaxon, an acoustic lash to the backs of the already scurrying Tech-Teams that tended, like Butler Fish around sharks, to the huge but sleek forms of a pair of Stuka aerospace fighters. Emblazoned on the upper surfaces of their broad wings, the red and gold Sunburst and Sword of House Davion proclaimed the allegiance of the spacecraft to the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns; largest and most militarily capable of the Successor States that fought almost continually over the fractured corpse of the centuries dead Star League. On the tails of the Stukas, above the "First In, Last Out" motto of Thackstones Battalion, was painted the flag-like insignia of the Third Crucis Lancers 'Mech Regiment.

Senior Aerotech Fraser bent his head down and to the right, raising his hand to press his comset tightly to his ear as he strove to make out the message coming his way from the bridge. An apparently simple task, this was made hard by the persistent whines and clangs of lifts, hoists, munitions tractors and starter carts that thronged about the Stukas. The clutter shrank the perceived size of the hanger bay but it was huge enough for the curve of the dropship’s hull to be obvious. The reflected and cross-mixing echoes from that armoured surface made for a confusing barrage on the ears. Fraser expelled a sigh of long-suffering irritation and tried to dull the cacophony by covering his left ear.

"Say again, Leftenant."

"Launch Bay Alpha, prepare for evac in thirty seconds." The calm voice of Leftenant Sarah Reece, Fighter Operations Officer for the Nelson, repeated her order.

"Roger, Leftenant." Fraser flicked the slender comset mike down from his mouth and began bawling orders to his subordinates, giving the time-honoured thumbs-up to the suited and helmeted pilots, already seated in the fighters, as they, in turn, acknowledged receipt of their down-loaded launch orders and confirmed a 'green board' on all system checks.

Within twenty seconds, the Stukas were clean of the skein of electrical cables and fuel umbilicals that had bound them to their mothership. Within thirty seconds, the deck was clear of men and equipment, the hardware having been rolled back to its accustomed niches in the hangar walls and locked down, the Techs safe behind solid pressure doors.

"Locked and clean," Fraser informed the bridge, "Free to purge".

In the bay, long, slatted vents snapped open and the thrumb of powerful vacuum pumps could be felt through the steel decks as the precious air in the hanger was sucked into the dropships emergency reserve tanks. A standard precursor to the opening of the inner airlock doors, this was a wise precaution, preventing a self-inflicted explosive decompression if the armoured slabs, that were the outer fighter bay doors, should be damaged or improperly sealed.

In the softly illuminated bridge of the dropship, Leftenant Reece sat at her accustomed launch control station, watching the LCD monitors inching towards zero, registering bar by bar the waning pressure in the fighter bay. Trying to smother her enervating impatience, she waited for the green light to tell her that the Decompression Safety Locks could be over-ridden.

Behind her, a figure ceased its prowling from station to station long enough to growl tersely, "Get those fighters out there, Sarah!"

Captain Philip McNamara rested his hand on her shoulder briefly to take the severity out of his words but it did little to relieve Reece's tension. Her thoughts raced through the control sequences her fingers twitched to punch in as soon as she got her green light and she at scratched the back of her hand reflexively.

'Great!' She thought, 'My first scramble of the tour and 'Steel Eyes' is hovering over me like Death!'

The hand patted a few times reassuringly and the growl lightened with a smile.

"Easy Leftenant, my apologies. We didn’t burn in this hard for this long to miss our intercept window but it’s not as if the SOL’s’re coming at us ... just yet”. He chuckled. “’Though that may soon change! You can't hurry physics. Launch when ready." And with that, Death's shadow moved on to haunt other stations, increasing alertness wherever he paused and betraying his own tension, to those who knew him well, only by the gravel in his voice.

At last Reece got the signal she needed and her fingers flickered over her console with a Flamenco's flourish.

"Alpha Wing, running out to gantries now." She spoke into her headset mike as she commanded the inner doors to open and the Drop Cradles prepared to move the Stukas into the locks.

The launch bay vibrated silently as the one hundred ton fighters drifted, apparently effortlessly, along cogged rails, into their drop positions and were temporarily entombed between two sets of doors.

"Welcome to the Twilight Zone!" Pilot Officer Leftenant Simon 'Handlebars' Hampton said dryly over the intercom to his wingman. Involuntarily he looked to his left, even though a meter thick bulkhead of steel and ceramic separated the slightly diverging launch channels, imagining the scene on the other side of the wall. There the clean lines of the Stuka would be stroboscopically revealed by the flashing amber 'Launch Warning' lights as it patiently waited to be thrown into space. In his minds eye, he pictured its pilot, Sylvia Von Porter, calmly mirroring his actions as he ran through the final list of computer moderated checks on his crafts ordnance, engines, life support systems, electronics and a host of other items of lesser importance.

Her voice a saccharine parody of wonder, 'Squirrel Cage' Von Porter replied to her superior.

"Somehow I don't think we're in Kansas anymore!"

"I wanna go home!" Hampton cried in mimicry of childish petulance.

"But you are home!"

Hampton terminated their traditional, tension-reducing, pre-launch 'attitude check' with a pained groan.

Reece's serene voice came over the ship wide command frequency.

"Now hear this, attention all hands. Cutting thrust to main engines in ten seconds..."

The almost unnoticed bass rumble of Nelson's powerful drive was abruptly silenced and the waiting pilots’ felt their bodies react to the cessation of acceleration induced 'gravity'.

" ... Alpha Wing. Gantries locked. Five seconds to launch; four; three ..."

The outer doors cracked open as if in response to her words and as her countdown reached "one" the cradles lurched forward, the claw-like grabs releasing the fighters to shoot away from the vast, curving, three and a half thousand ton bulk of the Union class dropship. For three seconds they travelled straight and level to carry them to a safe distance from the Nelson. Then their engine venturies sputtered yellow as reaction mass was fed to the Stukas fusion reactors. In moments lances of blue flame sprang into life, the fighters instantly rolling to turn away from their mothership, twisting vertically, with smaller jets flickering over their wing surfaces, and streaking on overthrust along their intercept vector.

With the launch, and its attendant dangers of accident, thankfully behind him, Hampton checked his data-link monitor, absorbing the pictographic icons fed to him by the Nelson's sensors. It showed him two pairs of fighters, flagged with their type and current course, curving away from two other Union dropships, identified as Hood and Rodney, and converging with him and his wingman. Behind the dropships, now restarting their engines with launch operations completed, and at a range of several tens of millions of kilometres, the computer showed the massive, wand-like, shape of the Invader class jumpship Apollo. It was from her that the dropships had parted with such indecent haste after entering the Kennard solar system and had begun to burn sunwards at in excess of one and a half G.

Almost superimposed on the image of the Apollo on the monitor was another jumpship, this one of Merchant class, flagged as being on contract with the Kuritan Eighth Sword of Light 'Mech Regiment. Or at least that’s what the Naval Intelligence weenies reckon the Shipping Registry says Hampton snorted to himself Who knows how up to date that is!

He clicked onto the ship-to-ship frequency that tied him in to Von Porter.

"Alpha Two, check your data-link. Here come the cavalry. Marshall and Thompson are on their way with friends."

There was a brief pause and then Von Porters reply came through, having first been routed via Nelson's Command Radio Network.

"I thought we were the cavalry, Alpha One."

"Glory hound!" Hampton snorted. "Take a long look at that second jumpship at the Jump Point. She's the reason for the past couple of days of 'Hurry-up-and-wait'. The good old Eighth Sword of Light; you can always rely on them to be where they're not wanted!"

Pause.

"House Kurita, what a surprise!" Hampton heard Sylvia mutter, in a sarcastic tone that suggested that it was anything but a surprise that the Draconis Combine was behind the tense bustle that had sent them diving in-system at such body and mind taxing speed.

Hampton opened his mouth to continue his speculations, then clicked his teeth together as the Command Frequency chirped for attention.

"McNamara, Nelson." The Captains clipped tones were all that was needed to carry his displeasure. "No non-essential chatter Alpha One. Punch up your launch plot. Standby to receive Immediate Action SitRep."

"Alpha One, aye Nelson." Hampton toggled his primary display, which painted up his pre-computed course across the Kennard system. At the terminal point of his intercept vector, a good way short of Kennard itself, the computer hung a small cluster of icons, shown in red with a tiny black dot that was supposed to represent the Kuritan dragon symbol, but actually looked much more like a black dot than anything else. The newly received vector markers showed that a small group of the Kuritan units had broken away from the main body and were accelerating towards the inbound Third Crucis ships.

"Eighth Sword fighters and dropships. How marvellous!" Hampton heard Sylvia murmur absently via the intercom. "Burn in at heavy G's so we're good and tired and then throw us at a dozen Shologars and two Overlords. What a wonderful life! Who'd be an aerospace pilot ...."

Hampton smiled to himself at Sylvia's soft-spoken tirade. She had a habit of talking constantly to herself during transit time and usually left her intercom open whilst doing so, allowing the other members of the flight to talk to her if they wanted. It didn't bother him and she soon quietened down when the action started; then, as the cliché runs, she let her guns do the talking and loved every perilous second of it. Manoeuvring into the thickest clot of swirling enemy fighters she could find at every opportunity is what had earned her the nickname 'Squirrel Cage'; an ancient airmans descriptive phrase for the chaotic tangled knot of speeding flying machines a pitched air battle could weave.

Still, he'd better shut her up. If McNamara was feeling stressed he knew better than to aggravate him.

"Stow it Sergeant!" He snapped with mock severity. "The Captain wants quiet."

Over in her Stuka, a couple of thousand metres to port and slightly behind Hampton's, Von Porter bit off her stream of words with a start. She’d been reprimanded before for her “persistent in-flight chattering” and it wasn’t the sort of thing a pilot wanted repetition to cause to ‘stick’ to her service record .

"Sorry sir. Alpha Two out." With a firm deliberation she made sure that the radio was definitely off-line and then her contrite expression dissolved in a small laugh at Hampton's 'all-present-and-correct-sir', Officer of the Line, impersonation. All for McNamara's benefit of course. Many times she had heard Hampton loudly proclaim in the mess hall, well away from the Captain's ears needless to say,

'"What does a former 'Mech-driver know about the finer points of Aerojock communication protocol anyway!"'

McNamara was an outstanding tactician and dropship Captain, right enough, and the Mechwarriors that the Nelson carried had every confidence in him - a legacy from his years as a Major commanding a battalion in the Third Crucis Lancers. But he never seemed able to get to grips with the way fiercely independent and individualistic Aerospace pilots thought or behaved. Comprehending that just because the Aerospace wing under his command wasn't all snap and salutes, spit and polish, didn't mean they weren't good at their job, seemed to be beyond him. To survive out here with nothing between you and vacuum but an armoured glass canopy took more than a sharply pressed uniform and a smart parade.

The triple beat of the Command Data Link signal interrupted the flow of her thoughts and she turned her attention to the Tac monitor as the computer began bringing up data for display.

It showed Baker Wing, from the Hood, moving up to take a position underneath and to starboard of Hampton. Charlie Wing, from the Rodney, flashed over the top of the resultant diamond shaped formation and, with a synchronised double snap roll, took station high, port and slightly behind - in what was expressed in airmans parlance as the 'Eight O'Clock High' position. Jets feathering over control surfaces, the new additions to the formation cut their acceleration back to the pace of the heavy Stukas and matched vectors.

They took a few seconds to patch in to the Flight Communications Net. This used very low power, narrow beam, transmissions between the three Wings to negate the risk of the enemy detecting and tapping in to their signals.

"Alpha One, Alpha One. This is Baker One. Are you receiving? Over."

Knowing that with such formal communication protocol the transmission could only have come from Leftenant Kaye 'Squiffy' Marshall, Sylvia looked over to where her slender, dart shaped, fifty ton Corsair sat.
A close support, ground-attack specialist, Marshall had learned the hard way that disciplined radio procedure was of paramount importance in co-ordinating strafing runs; shooting up your own ground forces was not the best way to win friends and influence people! And she never failed to follow the book when it came to communications, even on routine patrols. It was in sharp contrast to Von Porter's more lackadaisical style and had been the cause of more than one heated argument between them. Sylvia ruefully admitted to herself that, more often than not, those arguments were her fault, for, no matter how she tried to resist, she just couldn't help baiting Marshall.

Fortunately, Hampton had more self-control.

"Baker One, Baker One. This is Alpha One. Glad you could join us. Over."

"We just happened to be going your way, Alpha One, and thought you might appreciate the company. Over."

"Roger that, Baker One. Over and out."

Sylvia grimaced. All those 'Over's' and 'Over and out's' drove her crazy. Once you'd tied in to the circuit, you knew who you were talking to and could manage a conversation quite well enough without cluttering it up with unnecessary cues. And in a dogfight there just wasn't time for it, things just happened too quickly.

Next on the net came the throaty voice of Leftenant Priscilla 'Ginger' Thompson, the good humoured, red haired, pilot of the N30 Centurion that led Charlie Wing.

"Alpha One. Charlie One checking in. How do you fat boys stand going this slowly? I can feel my jets coking up as we speak!"

Sylvia smiled at the jibe. The Centurion, and the Sparrowhawk formatted with it, were almost twice as fast as her Stuka but were less than a third the size.

"Good afternoon, Charlie One. We may be slow but its us you'll be hiding behind when the action starts. So be nice or we'll leave you to it!"

"No fair, Alpha One. You're the air-to-air boys, that's your job. Give me a nice safe bombing run against a forest of Triple-A any day. I'll leave all that flashy dog-fighting to you and Squirrel Cage if you don't mind."

"Not today, Ginger. You'll have to earn your pay honestly instead of cargo hauling high explosives. You're a fighter pilot, not a truck driver!"

Hampton was referring to the strange fact that it tended to be the smaller, faster aerospace designs that made the best bombers rather than, as common sense might dictate, the heavy craft. The powerful thrust to weight ratio of fighters like the Sparrowhawk meant that they could be loaded up with prodigious bomb loads and still retain a measure of speed and agility.

"OK troops, listen up. You’ll be pleased to know that our primary task for today is not to play tag with the Eighth Sword’s dropships. They’re just holding station and, going by what comms we’ve had from Lindon’s so far, they’ve already laid their eggs and are now providing air support for their ground forces. What we’ve got to do is disrupt that air support so that Lindon’s can re-deploy and dig in until our boys get there to help out. Those Sholagars are loaded up to the Nines with bombs so, at current vectors, we should intercept before they make orbit. Two to one odds would be bad news if they weren’t in bomber configuration but we’ve got a heavy edge just now so let’s make the most of it. I’ve heard ground-pounders are allergic to high-explosive and shrapnel so they’ll be real happy to see us if we make sure none gets dropped on them today!"

Hampton paused to let anyone who wanted to to have their say. The anticipated silence meant that everyone knew what was expected and were waiting for him to finish up.

"However, as you can see, Lindon’s uninvited guests have thrown up a fighter screen to prevent our interfering. That means we’ll have to deal with them first and quickly or we’ll be taking on the bombers after they’ve made their attack runs and they’ll be fast and agile again. After our long burn inbound, we’ve got a lot of energy that we don’t want to lose yet, so we’ll be making loose turns at very high speed and we can’t afford to make too many of them. Baker and Charlie Wings, engage with your wingmen and concentrate your fire on single targets as you pass through their formation. To protect your rear, Alpha Wing will follow behind and finish what you started. Don’t worry too much about their manoeuvrability; they need to try and stop us so they have to come at us reasonably straight otherwise we’ll just blast on through.

We won’t make intercept for a little while yet so lie back and enjoy the view. Just don’t go to sleep ... that means you Ginger! Snakes are slippery, especially Eighth Sword Snakes, so watch your Tac and don’t lets get surprised."

Hampton was rewarded by an exaggerated yawn from Charlie One. He suppressed a smile as a tiny flutter of reaction mass over the Centurions starboard wing tipped it into a slow, lazy clockwise roll, as if the ship, rather than its pilot, had dozed off in boredom at the ‘sedate’ pace.

 

[granfire]

I would rep you but I have to spread the love around some more

keep writing, please!