----- Sixty-Seven Hours Later -----
Date: March 5, 3025 [See Notes]
Location: Stein’s Folly
Title: The Sword and the Dagger
Author: Ardath Mayhar
Type: Novel
Synopsis: The Davion task force pushes through light resistance, continuing to worry Captain Danelle aboard the FSS Exeter. All told, the task force has lost three aerospace fighters and taken light damage to the Union-class FSS Alphecca.
Once the fleet is in low orbit, the MechWarriors prepare to execute combat drops, after which the DropShips will land and allow infantry and armored vehicles to disembark. Captain Danelle wishes Ardan good luck as he straps into his Victor.
As the DropShips descend, Captain Danelle reports 112 inbound Capellan fighters rising from twelve hidden bunkers around the northern continent. He notes that they initially vectored on an intercept course over Steindown (where the landings were originally planned) and are having to burn hard to correct their intercept course to the new AFFS approach vectors.
The AFFS ‘Mechs execute an atmospheric drop at 16,000 meters, rather than one from orbit. As a result, they don’t use drop capsules, but are blasted out surrounded by a cloud of metal chaff and fragments of ablative plating, presumably intended to intercept incoming projectiles and lasers, and confuse tracking systems. Rather than executing the standard position of legs-down and jump jets to maximum to decelerate, Ardan spread-eagles his Victor in a head-down position, like a skydiver. At 800 meters, he fires his jump pack thrusters. At 30 meters, he realizes he’s heading for a landing in a swamp, and frantically adjusts his pitch to land face down, in the hopes of not sinking into the mud too deeply.
A 7th Hussars Crusader (MechWarrior Donald Fitzgerald of Company A, 1st Battalion) arrives on scene to assist, but it still takes half an hour to winch the Victor out of the morass. Together, they strike out southeast through the swamp/forest surrounding the Ordolo Basin’s Lost Lakes in search of friendly forces. They come across a battle raging in the midst of a Liao battalion’s campsite. Ardan wades into the fray, joining Fitzgerald in engaging a Liao Thunderbolt and a Warhammer. He discovers, to his horror, that the muddy landing has jammed his AC/20, but manages to defeat the enemy machines without it.
Ardan meets up with his XO – Eric Garrand, who reports the 17th is down and scattered, with 40 percent reporting in. Liao forces are falling back to the south. No word as yet from the 5th. Ardan listens to additional reports coming in, and soon hears that 85 percent of the 17th has reported in. He begins working on clearing the mud from his autocannon with his survival knife, but is interrupted by a Garrand’s warning of incoming Liao aerospace fighters. A veteran Liao Thrush (Uchita Tucker?) swoops over the clearing and unloads Inferno bombs, taking out a Stinger and Fitzgerald’s Crusader.
Ardan orders the 17th to disperse to avoid mass casualties from additional bombing runs, and begins a push towards Jordan’s Pass. In the dense forest, he loses sight of his unit. Gold Seven reports contact with an enemy Rifleman. Ardan hurries to engage, but is waylaid by a Capellan Zeus, which cripples his already damaged Victor. He ejects, but his seat slams into an overhanging tree branch, sending it careening off across the swamp. Wounded, Ardan watches the Zeus blast the Victor’s carcass for good measure, then move off to rejoin the main battle.
Finding himself alive, but with a concussion and a fractured arm, Ardan discovers both his laser pistol and survival kit gone. He takes an inflatable sleeve out of the ejection seat and uses it to immobilize his arm, then, upon reaching the shore, passes out.
Notes: Ardan notes that the transit time from the jump point to the planet at 1G is over 67 hours, so the combat landings take place just under three days after the AFFS task force’s entry into the system.
The naming conventions for the DropShips in this chapter (FSS Avalon, FSS Alphecca, FSS Exeter, FSS Deneb) would seem to indicate that the AFFS prefers to name DropShips after star systems. However, Alphecca is on the Lyran/Combine border, and is not a FedSuns world, unlike Exeter and New Avalon. Deneb could refer either to the FedSuns world of Deneb Kaitos or the Combine world of Deneb Algedi. Do you suppose there’s an FSS Botany Bay in the Davion fleet? Or an FSS Luthien?
Interestingly, the escort fighters are described as being Stuka and Corsair-class, without any mention of Sparrowhawks, Sabres, Lightnings, Hellcats, or Thunderbirds. Given the role of the Sparrowhawk in the FedSuns’ utter domination of the CCAF at the Great Lee Turkey Shoot, one would think there would be more of them in the task force.
Like many MechWarriors, Ardan is packing heat in the cockpit. He sports a Kelvin 000 Lancer 3-mm laser pistol (he initially refers to it as a Kelvin Triple-0 Lancer, but after his ejection it’s called a Kelvin Double-0 Lancer. So it lost an 0 in the crash? ^-^). None of the RPG sourcebooks give stats for the Kelvin 000 Lancer. The use of millimeter measurements for the aperture echoes the occasional use of centimeters for the apertures of ‘Mech class weaponry, where Small Lasers have been said to have 3-cm barrels, Medium Lasers 5-cm barrels, and Large Lasers 8-cm barrels (correspondingly matching up with their damage output). Would that imply that a 3-mm barrel laser pistol would have an output of 0.3 BattleTech damage? (TechManual lists standard Laser Pistol damage at 0.21, so perhaps the Kelvin 000 Lancer’s 3-mm aperture gives it an even higher damage output than the Sunbeam, which does 0.28 damage.) If so, it probably has very few shots and terrible range in exchange for that level of stopping power. No wonder the Lyrans took a liking to Ardan, if he’s packing a laser pistol that would make Thomas Hogarth proud.
Jordan’s Pass is almost certainly named for FASA president and BattleTech co-creator Jordan Weissman.
