BattleTech: Blood Will Tell by Jason Schmetzer

Author:Jason Schmetzer [Schmetzer, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2023-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

18

FORT LEXINGTON

HALL

REPUBLIC OF THE SPHERE

28 MARCH 3149

“Ruskaya!” Heather Teng shouted. Her Gravedigger was too goddamn slow! She had the throttle to its stop, but the balky ’Mech just lumbered along as its top range.

“No contacts,” Voltikov reported. His voice was cool, but he was clipping his consonants. That was how he demonstrated stress. Both his Anubis and Heather’s Gravedigger had been far enough back from the blast that it had only rocked them with blast wave. The two Roadrunners…

“Ruskaya,” Heather repeated.

“Sao-wei…” croaked MechWarrior Beatrice.

“Stan!” Heather looked for his ’Mech.

The two ultralight ’Mechs had been nearest the truck when it exploded. She didn’t know if that had been the assailant’s plan or if they just gotten lucky. But whether chance or design, the blast had been ruinous to the 15-ton machines.

Roadrunners had barely any armor; they were high-speed, surgical units designed to move and not get hit. Being in the blast zone of an improvised explosive device was not in their design document.

“I’m okay,” Beatrice groaned. His ’Mech was on its side, an arm and a leg missing. Sparks shot from its actuators, and huge gaps were visible in its remaining armor. “I’m okay,” he repeated, slurring his words a little.

“Just hang on,” she ordered. “Voltikov, get on the radio and get us medics!”

“On it,” the taciturn MechWarrior replied.

“Ruskaya,” Heather said. Her ’Mech had finally reached the blast zone. The crater where the truck exploded was still black and smoking, sending a column of black smoke into the sky. She swept the wreckage with her sensors, but the Gravedigger didn’t see anything it thought was a threat.

There was no reply from her fourth MechWarrior.

Cold, icy hands gripped the strings to her heart.

She’d never lost a MechWarrior before.

Swallowing, Heather turned the Gravedigger in place, giving her sensors a chance to look carefully in every direction.

“Enid,” Beatrice mumbled.

“I said stay there!” Heather shouted. “That’s an order, MechWarrior!”

“S-rest,” he slurred.

“Voltikov?”

“I got the duty desk at Fort Lexington,” the Anubis pilot said. “They’re scrambling the reaction force and sending medics.”

“How long?”

“They didn’t say.”

“Then goddamn call back and ask!” she screamed.

“They want a threat assessment, Sao-wei.”

Heather cut her mic, cursed, and then glanced at her threat board. It was clear. She toggled the channel open again. “No threats.”

“What about the driver?”

“What about him?”

“He could still be in that building, waiting to trigger a second strike.”

Heather twisted the Gravedigger around. The fuel point looked empty and the hover vehicles that had pulled out earlier were already gone over the horizon. She dragged her targeting reticle down, aimed, and squeezed the trigger for her autocannon. The gun burped a sleet of submunitions. The fuel point was far out of what would be normal range for targeting another ’Mech or any other moving target, but buildings don’t dodge.

The quintet of tungsten-alloy penetrators slashed into the thin-skinned building. One of them struck sparks hot enough to ignite the hydrogen reservoirs used to refuel fuel cell vehicles. The fuel point vanished in a blue-orange fireball.

“No threats,” Heather repeated.

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