BattleTech: Divided We Fall: A BattleTech Novella by Blaine Lee Pardoe

Author:Blaine Lee Pardoe [Pardoe, Blaine Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2023-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

General Brubaker stared in disbelief at his communicator. “Are you telling me that as of right now, I cannot contact anyone in Gamma Regiment?”

Major Whyte nodded. “Nor Charlie Battalion of Beta Regiment or the Spider’s Web,” he said. “They all report to Colonel Crews, and all got the same message.”

Rage washed over the Dragoon’s General and he pounded his fists on the table. “Where in the hell is Crews?”

“Off the grid,” Lieutenant Tuttle said. “Along with Star Colonel Kerensky and Lieutenant Sheridan.”

He wouldn’t have cut off Gamma without a reason. “They won’t respond unless we send the right prefix code. If you send it more than twice, the system locks you out. We built War Plan R to ensure any compromise of our communications system could be locked out.”

“I can have the programmers try and break it,” Lieutenant Sternglass said.

“You can’t,” the General replied. “It was designed against that. God damn that man!” he paused and drew a long deep breath. “What about our JumpShips and DropShips?”

“Communications are locked down with them as well, General,” Major Whyte said. “We do have control over the comms satellites, and are re-tasking them to get a view of what Gamma is doing. We know orders went out after War Plan R, but we have no idea what they are.”

General Brubaker sighed. “That’s not necessary. He’s probably mobilizing Gamma for immediate departure.”

“Sir?”

“They call it ‘mutiny,’ Major. If he is with Kerensky, then they’re planning on taking Gamma Regiment plus her other attached units to join Clan Wolf.” For a millisecond, his anger cracked just enough to allow him to mentally acknowledge how cunning a plan it was on the part of Crews. That’s what I always liked about you, Nicholas—you’re a heroic sonofabitch.

“We cannot allow them to leave the system,” Whyte warned.

“I am well aware of that, Major,” Brubaker snapped. “We have to contain this as much as possible. If Tai-sa Akamine catches wind of this, it will ignite a whole new level of pain for me to deal with.” The Combine would consider us being in breach of contract the moment Gamma jumps out of system. “We don’t have any means to get over to the Southland Continent?”

“No, sir,” Lieutenant Tuttle said. “All aerospace elements, including your DropShip, are on the bigger spaceport there. We’re talking twenty-plus hours travel by civilian air just to get over there.”

“Kerensky had a DropShip—is it still at the spaceport?”

“No sir. And the radar logs don’t show where it went.”

Sheridan is good—damned good. Now that Brubaker had accepted his situation, his mind functioned like the well-oiled military machine it was. “He might already be gone. We need to find that DropShip. In the meantime, we don’t have a lot of BattleMechs on this island, we need to round them up. Sternglass and Tuttle, that’s on you.”

“Yes sir,” the pair of Lieutenants said.

“We need to find Crews before he does anything else,” the General said.

“His personal locator is offline, so is Sheridan’s,” Whyte said, only fueling the Dragoon CO’s anger even more.

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