BattleTech Legends: Blood of the Isle: A Dark Age Novel by Loren L. Coleman

Author:Loren L. Coleman [Coleman, Loren L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs

22

OVERLORD-CLASS DROPSHIP HIMMELSTOR

OVER HESPERUS II

LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

22 NOVEMBER 3134

Refusing with a sharp shake of his head to leave the bridge of the Himmelstor, Jasek weathered Kaptain Goran’s pointed stare and belted himself into the chair normally reserved for the ship’s executive officer. The DropShip’s command center was a beehive of activity as they approached atmospheric insertion over Hesperus II, with crewmen manning the different stations, calling out time checks, attitude adjustments, and range to target on a contact Jasek would feel better forgetting was even there.

“And I can’t convince you to go below,” the kaptain said, his voice rough and gravelly from decades of calling out orders. Thick-necked and heavy-browed, Eduard Goran was a fourth-generation spacer with family ties back to the Lyran Commonwealth.

Jasek gripped the arms of the command-style chair. “I will if you will,” he said easily.

The Stormhammers’ leader had had enough of “below” after four days under a high-gravity burn, ramping up and holding at the equivalent of 2.5 Gs. Except for short low-gravity periods where a skeleton crew made their rounds and everyone was allowed to eat or take care of personal ablutions, Jasek had been confined to quarters and strapped into bed, feeling as if his spine were threatening to snap in half. Hammered until his joints ached and every muscle felt bruised.

A “suicide sled” run, that’s what Goran had called it when Hesperus authorities approved Jasek’s request for a fast insertion lane. A Lyran Scout jumped the Himmelstor to a special Lagrange point in-system, near Hesperus III. Then the trial began.

After barely an hour of the rough treatment, Jasek could think of it only as a necessary evil.

Even with his personal JumpShip fitted out with lithium-fusion batteries, able to make the double-jump transfer from Chaffee’s Lagrange point to the Hesperus system in less than a day, this was the only way he hoped to get in and out fast enough to do Skye any good. Using a closer set of nonstandard jump coordinates was out of the question. Jasek had been willing to risk it—anything to save himself the eighteen-day insertion time—but Goran had flat refused. There were things worse than a deep gravity well protecting Hesperus II from unwanted trespassers.

And thinking of which... “She’s going to come down our port ventral side,” the ship’s sensor officer called out, and if it was possible to ratchet tension on the bridge up another few degrees, that did it.

Goran grunted. “Roll five degrees starboard. Bring her up on the main screen.”

There was no ferroglass viewport on an Overlord bridge. No “weather deck” bulkheads at all, in fact. The command center was nestled safely and securely in the DropShip’s centerline spaces where only a naval-class missile might hope to penetrate.

And if there hadn’t currently been a half-dozen launchers capable of throwing such a missile at the Himmelstor already locked on to them, Jasek might have felt fairly safe.

The screen, which had been filled with black space and bright stars a moment before, switched camera angles and found the fast-approaching world of Hesperus II.

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