A good thing, because a brief glance was all she got before a crossfire of lasers and autocannon converged on her location. The lasers scorched the soil at her feet while hard-hitting slugs beat a damaging tattoo across her Jag’s lower waist. The fire had come from two machines painted the blue and gold of Federated Commonwealth RCTs. A Behemoth assault tank and an Enforcer.
Their second salvoes went after a Panther painted dark, cerulean blue. Nothing she recognized. Another mercenary, or a wayward Capellan perhaps.
All told there seemed to be about a dozen ’Mechs and half that number in vehicles jousting over the black-scorched ground. The DropShip laid out suppression fire from its upper weapons bays. PPCs stabbed down at the non-allied BattleMechs. They left the FedCom warriors alone. Wave after wave of long range missiles pounded machines into scrap and battered the ground into ruin. More than a few, Kelly felt certain, would spread Thunder munitions out into an ad hoc minefield.
Kelly stepped in front of Roland’s Penetrator, protecting it while holding her fire. FedCom RCT forces had the advantage on the field. And so long as a mercenary did not target her, she would not target them. Dialing over to the protected frequencies of the Third Donegal, she waited to see what sense her captain could make of the situation, listening in as he identified himself.
“Captain Mills?” The reply washed out in static as the lightning blasts of several PPCs ionized the local atmosphere, one from a nearby Caesar. It made communications difficult. “We…no Mills listed…deployed to Gan Singh.”
Deployed or not, Roland’s name should be on the Guards TO&E. And Kelly recognized the voice, even through the communications haze. “Jollena?” First mate Jollena Marksower, from the Lamprey. “Jolly, it’s K. Kelly! And Roland. You have two tired Guardsmen here looking for evac.”
Only one of the Lamprey’s ramps was still down. Secondary bay. Big enough to hold a couple of BattleMechs, if they could get them aboard.
“K?” There was a pause. The nearby Caesar turned its weapons toward the Guardsmen, and Kelly drilled out return fire with her autocannon as a way to shove it back. “Kelly Van Lou, what in the Archon’s name are you doing out here?”
“Taking a sightseeing tour! What the hell does it look like?” Kelly had heard the shock in the veteran spacer’s voice. How badly had wires been crossed if their own DropShip crew did not know what forces were on planet? And where was the captain? “We need a safe route to board, and good covering fire.”
The same Vindicator from earlier dodged out of a tight situation and ran back toward Kelly’s position. It hesitated as she drew her crosshairs over it, lighting it up, then deliberately turned its back on her to challenge a pursuing Jenner. Over an open channel, an accented voice let them know “If you want a piece of the DropShip, form up southwest and get ready to cover our drive.”
“We’re getting more than a piece of it,” Roland said coldly. “Stay out of our way and we may find room for you.”
It wasn’t exactly their call to make, of course, but Kelly approved. A tentative agreement was better than nothing. The DropShip crew had already made some kind of pact with the FedCom, after all.
“Suit yourself, then.” It sounded more like a threat than an allowance.
Then again, a hot battlefield was not the best place to make new friends.
“K,” Jollena finally returned, “pull up northwest and come straight in at the ramp. We’re out of here in five, so move it now.”
“Straight at the ramp?” she double-checked.
“Move it!”
The Caesar and a blue-and-gold painted Rommel also shifted in that direction, but not so close to prevent the Guardsmen from moving. Roland led. Kelly stalked at his side, uneasy.
“It would be a lot easier if you brokered a truce between the FedComs and the mercs,” she said over an unsecured channel. She warned off a too-close Panther with a quick stream of light autocannon fire digging in at its feet. “Make a second trip. Offer to send back a larger DropShip.”
“Not happening, Kelly. Way too much bad blood now.”
Kelly nodded. “Captain feel the same way?” she asked.
“Just get up here,” Jollena ordered. “We’ll deal with the mercs next.”
It all hung on one word. Next. Not later or eventually. Also with the obvious cease-fire arranged between the Lamprey and the Guardians, and the way in which the mercs had tried to warn them. It all added up.
After a week of non-stop fighting and several days of only being able to trust the men and women at her side, Kelly’s paranoia had grown acute. Sharp enough to recognize the trap being laid out for them as they moved into range of the DropShip’s weapons. The last DropShip on Gan Singh.
Every man for himself.
“Roland. Roland, fall back now!” The dry, metallic taste of fear crept into her mouth. Slamming her throttles against their reverse stops, she backpedaled the JagerMech.
Almost too late. The DropShip’s weapons hammered down around their position as the Caesar and its support tank pushed forward. A pair of PPCs slashed at the legs of Kelly’s ’Mech. Aligned crystal steel melted and splattered over the already-scorched earth of Gan Singh.
Missiles hammered around the Penetrator, but not so bad as the Thunder-deployed minefield would have been had they walked into the Lamprey’s waiting embrace.
“Kelly?” Roland staggered back, getting out from under the DropShip’s weapons. “What?”
“Cast-offs. AWOL.” No difference now. “They’ve quit the Donegal Guards and they’re not going to want us telling tales about them. Treeline, now!”
Her commanding officer was not one to bandy about with the order of
