BattleTech: Angry Voices In The Dark by Loren L. Coleman

Author:Loren L. Coleman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Published: 2011-03-24T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Convincing the Combine crew to take another detour was no mean feat for Christine, considering what they had gone through the last time. She passed quickly through reason and logic to outright threats, asking each in turn how their commander would look on them when Christine began to use her local influence to affect everything from food shipments to the supply of parts coming in for the garrison. They could be slowed, or lost. Prices could jump up drastically.

She could do it, and what’s more, they began to believe she would.

The foresting project was a forty minute run for the hovercraft; northwest of Mountlake but south and far to the east of Terrace. It was the same commercial venture she’d been on her way to inspect earlier, before the madness began. She spotted the clearcut easy enough against the lush hillside, and within minutes they were watching one of the slow-moving ForestryMechs strip and cut down a tall cedar with the giant chainsaw mounted on its left arm. They trailed the ponderous machine as it carried the fresh-cut tree back to the main logging site in powerful hydraulic claws. While possessing nowhere near the grace or power of Erik’s fusion-powered battle machine, a ForestryMech was impressive in its own right.

An idea she meant to prove.

The cockpit smelled of greenwood and alcohol, a mix she knew would not be appreciated by the company’s home office were she to report it. The seat had long ago lost its neo-leather cover, shredded padding now duct-taped into place. One large knot of silver tape pressed into Christine’s left kidney as she buckled herself into the seat with a basic lap-belt restraint. She threw her hair clip aside and pulled the bulky neurohelmet over her head, resting it down on the padded shoulders of an over-sized safety vest. No worries about voiceprint security or passwords. Gunning the throttles, the ForestryMech’s internal combustion engine roared as the stacks belched dark wisps of smoke at Mara’s blue sky.

Stomping down out of the hills, loping the ForestryMech along at its best speed, it took Christine two hours to again make the Broomstick Plains. Erik would be moving by now against Terrace. She had hoped to cross in front of him, putting herself between his plans and the House Kurita garrison. No joy.

She stumbled across a large swath of torn ground showing armor tracks and the shovelblade footsteps of Erik’s Centurion heading north. Falling in behind them, she coaxed another couple of kilometers-per-hour out of the ForestryMech in her race to catch up.

Out of the corner of her left eye she spotted the handheld microphone for the ‘Mech’s civilian band comms bouncing in its cradle. She had passed a message through the hovercraft crew to the local garrison commander, Chu-sa Midora Jiro, advising him to monitor the lower frequencies. But were Erik’s people also scanning that low into the band?

“Since when did Erik concern himself with something as trivial as Mara’s civilian interests?” she asked the cramped cockpit, locking the throttle lever in place and snatching up the mic.

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