Dangerous Amateurs
Murphy’s Laws of Combat: Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs.
Major Lee Shadowsword is proud of his troopers’ reputation on the battlefield and unconcerned of their reputation off it. However, that leaves him in a bind when a visiting dignitary with notoriously high standards wishes to inspect his troops.
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Elidere IV
3137
Lee Shadowsword reclined on his deck chair and closed his eyes. His leather aerospace pilot’s jacket was slung across the back of the chair while his combat shirt was simply dumped on the floor. Only a small tattoo on his right shoulder, of a silver dragon rampant, identified him as a mechwarrior of the mercenary company, ‘Crucis March Rangers.’ The summer sun shone down on him while bird song filled the air and he felt a sense of peace and contentment as he relaxed in a way that the last year of combat had rarely allowed. Abruptly, 6 loud bangs shattered the peace. Lee groaned and rolled onto his side as he opened his eyes.
10 meters away a tall young woman with short auburn hair held her revolver in a death grip as she fired round after round towards a trio of tin cans set upon a wooden fence. Despite the noise and thunder, none of the cans were so much as disturbed.
“Your too tense Diana.” Lee commented, resignation clear in his voice. “You need to relax.” They had been at this for several hours now and had only had to replace the cans a dozen times in total. In fact, Diana had used up all the ammunition they had brought out with them and had only just got back from fetching more from the armoury.
Diana grunted something noncommittedly as she reloaded her revolver and took careful aim. Six more shots followed and still the three cans remained stubbornly on the fence.
“Face it Diana, your just no good at this.” Lee said with a sigh as he rolled back onto his back and closed his eyes. “It requires patience and diligence and maybe even a little grace, qualities you simply don’t possess.”
“Are you saying I’m not graceful?” There was an edge of danger in Diana’s voice that made Lee open his eyes. She stood beside his chair, looming over him, and he suddenly remembered she was a nearly a foot taller than him and significantly more muscular.
“Diana, wait.” Lee protested as she grabbed him off his chair and hoisted him into the air. She laughing as she threw him over her shoulder like a sack of coal, holding him so he hung upside down behind her.
“Say I am gracefully,” she demanded as she laughed. “Say I’m the most gracefully mechwarrior in the regiment.”
“Diana…you have all the grace of a.” Lee struggled for breath as Diana swung him up so she could hold him across her broad shoulders. “…all the grace of an Urbanmech with a busted gyro.”
Diana laughed loudly. “You’ll pay for that,” she declared as she heaved Lee up as if she was going to shoulder press him.
“Sergeant Major Gibson, put the Major down!” a voice barked at them and Lee suddenly found himself dumped on his feet. Quickly he grabbed his jacket and threw it on, major’s pips flashing in the sunlight.
“Colonel Evans, sir, what brings you to Stalker Battle Group’s dispersal this fine morning?” Lee said smoothly as he snapped to attention. It took a measure of discipline to not add ‘and on a Sunday’, to the end of that question.
“You are supposed to be the senior officer and NCO of your entire battlegroup and I find you brawling like green squaddies!” Colonel Evans shouted as he looked Lee and Diana up and down, finding fault with everything he saw. Despite a long drive to the dispersal, Colonel Evans’ uniform was spotless. Like all assembled he wore a silver dragon badge on his right shoulder, but instead of the jaeger flash Lee and Diana wore on their left shoulder, Evans wore a red sabre flash. Behind him, his second in command stood silently, his face impassive.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourselves?” Evans demanded.
“No excuse sir.” Lee replied, keeping his eyes straight forward.
Colonel Evans growled but finding no resistance to push against, he had little interest in continuing. “As to why I am here. For reasons that escape me, Baron Yamamoto, ruler of this world as vassal of the Draconis Reach, wishes to inspect your unit. Like myself he believes that a clean and well turned out soldier is an effective soldier.” Evans stopped and looked Lee up and down once more, his disapproval obvious. “You are to get your battle group inspection ready before his arrival. I expect you to impress him. Brian will bring you up to speed.”
With that Colonel Evans turned and stalked back to his car leaving his second in command to handle the finer details.
“Sorry Lee, I didn’t get any more warning than you did.” Brian said quietly once he was sure Colonel Evans was out of earshot.
“Happens.” Lee replied simply. “Wouldn’t have made much difference anyway.”
“Probably.” Brian agreed as he scratched the ghost emblem patch on his left shoulder. “But, the boss isn’t wrong, Baron Yamamoto inspected Sword Battle Group yesterday and found fault with their turn out.”
Lee swore. “Found fault with the spit and polish brigade?”
“The very same.” Brian confirmed with a slight smile. Before being promoted to the Command Group he had been part of Shadow Battle Group and took more than a little guilty pleasure from seeing their rivals humbled.
Lee lent in. “If Sword couldn’t make the grade, what do you expect from Stalker?”
Brian shrugged. “That you try. The Baron will be here in three hours regardless.”
Lee swore again.
“I think prayer might be useful.” Diana injected.
“Aye,” agreed Brian sympathetically. “Look you’ve got to forgive the boss, he’s under a lot of pressure with this and more than a bit embarrassed after Sword’s inspection. Do what you can, and I’ll run interference as best I can.”
“Thanks,” Lee said. “We’ll do our best.”
“Knew you would.” Brian smiled. “Good luck Major. And Miss Gibson, try not to break any of our own mechwarriors, we’re shorthanded as it is.”
“Yes sir, only break enemy and regular mechwarriors, got it.” Diana replied happily.
Brian laughed. “Very good, carry on,” he said as he walked back towards the staff car.
Lee and Diana waited until the car was moving before saying anything else.
“What the hell are we going to do.” Diana demanded. “We can’t get ready in 3 hours, we couldn’t be ready in 3 days!”
“You are going to round up the battle group, get them sobered up and half way presentable.” Lee replied as he started the long walk back to the dispersal proper. “I will be in the hanger, send any officers and senior NCOs you find to me.”
“It’s Sunday, the troopers will be scattered to the nine winds, it will take at least two hours just to assemble them.” Diana complained as she followed him. “And even after I get them all back here, assuming I can, then what are we going to do?”
“You have an hour.” Lee replied firmly. “And then we will work on our miracle.”
Twenty minutes later, Lee walked alone into the mech hanger as he tried to figure out how he could possibly pull off said miracle. He was proud to be part of Stalker Battle Group and even prouder of the battle honours they had earned, but smart and well turned out were not phrases anyone would use to describe his troopers. Frankly calling most of them scruffy would be both a high compliment and a damned lie.
Lee looked up at the first mech in the line. Superfluously it resembled a Shadowhawk and indeed that was the base chassis with its angular triangular armour plates and over the shoulder cannon mount. But, under the armour it was a totally different beast, a short-ranged skirmisher that could fire accurately with two Snub Nosed PPCs while jumping 240m, all backed up with a Triple Strength Myomer powered right hook that could decapitate an assault mech. The company called them ‘Vengeances’ and they were notoriously difficult to pilot. It took a special kind of mechwarrior to get the most out of a Vengeance, requiring a strange hybrid of mechwarrior and fighter pilot, someone who was arrogant enough to push the mech right to the edge of the performance envelop, to spar with mechs far large than their own and to instinctively know when to the switch to melee for the knockout blow. It took a pilot who was comfortable making their own decisions, who could operate effectively without direct oversight from their chain of command. Such pilots were inevitably rogues with independent streaks a mile wide, you couldn’t expect them to be angels in the barracks and in Lee’s opinion any attempt to make them so would degrade the edge they desperately needed in combat.
Lee walked down the line of 9 Vengeances, each different from the other, each cobbled together from salvage and spare parts, their disparate appearance a reflection of their pilots turn out. Passing the last Vengeance, Lee walked up to his own mech. Where the other mechs were disparate, this one was unique. Like the Vengeances, his Chieftain resembled a Shadowhawk and did use many of the same parts. However, it was a custom build, a ‘kit’ mech from a long-gone era when such things were possible. Only 8 had ever been built and this was the last; first built in 3063 and extensively modified since. It was as manoeuvrable as a Vengeance, but it wasn’t a true skirmisher, rather it was a brawler with a quad bank of medium pulse lasers mounted in the torso, freeing up both arms for punching while a solitary Snub Nosed PPC in the shoulder provided token ranged firepower.
There was only one other mech in the line up, Diana’s. At 80tons, Gilgamesh was nearly 50% heavier than any other mech in the company and had originally been a Charger, but it resembled no Charger that Lee had ever seen. Its chest was studded with medium lasers and short range missile tubes while much of its rear torso was covered in the numerous jump jet vents needed to develop the immense thrust required to throw all 80tons of the mech 240m through the air. No other mechwarrior but Diana could handle it properly, no other mechwarrior would want to try, yet it suited her and in her hands, it was deadly. In a way it was a one mech representation of Stalker Battle Group, an unorthodox mech, piloted by a highly unorthodox mechwarrior, that was none the less extremely deadly if handled right.
“What are you thinking sir?”
Lee turned to see the Infantry Company Sgt Major, George Zhu, watching him. The oldest man in the battle group, his grey hair was cut short and mostly hidden by a black beret.
“I’m trying to figure out how I am going to get this company inspection ready in the two and a half hours Mr Zhu.” Lee replied. “Any suggestions would be appreciated.”
George cocked his head to the side and thought out the issue for some time. Stalker Battle Group’s infantry contingent typically looked more professional than their mechwarrior equivalents and George prided himself on being the smartest looking infantryman, yet even his clothing diverged greatly from the regimental standard, consisting mostly of custom or customised kit, even his beret carried three different unit badges. At length he spoke. “Perhaps it might help if you reframed the Colonel’s orders sir. He ordered you to get the battle group inspection ready, but what was his intent?”
Now it was Lee’s turn to think deeply. “To impress Baron Yamamoto,” he said after some time.
“And that is the rub, this battle group won’t impress anyone if it is inspected.” George paused. “But, I remember seeing Baron Yamamoto when he was in exile on Robinson. He was at a parade the Duke had thrown in his honour and the only thing that seemed to impress him more that spit and polish was a spectacle, and that we can do.”
Lee smiled and laughed. “We can at that. Thank you Mr Zhu, I know what we have to do.”
Two and a half hours later, Baron Yamamoto rode in his personal car, escorted by Colonel Evans and his second in command. It had been a long ride to the dispersal down bumpy only partially tarmacked roads and he was bored. Colonel Evans was trying to explain who it was that they were going to see and their impressive track record, but he was only half listening to the Colonel talk. He would judge the worth of these mercenaries for himself, not by their own outlandish brags. A strange sound caught his attention and he whipped round to star out of the window.
“What is that?” he said, interrupted Colonel Evan’s lecture.
Caught flat footed, mid-sentence, Colonel Evans paused in surprise and looked out the window, squinting against the glare of the sun. In the distance a derelict Dragon was propped up by a stout steel gantry.
“It’s a derelict we set up Sir. For target practice.”
“Not that.” Baron Yamamoto snapped. “That sound.”
“What sound?” Colonel Evans replied, struggling to conceal his annoyance with the Baron’s tone. Then he heard it, the sound of wood shattering and then the thud of something heavy impacting the ground.
“Sounds like a mech.” Colonel Evans said just before two Vengeances leapt out of the woods to their left, jets of plasma trailing behind them. They landed a mere 90 meters from the car, the vibrations of their impact causing the car’s passengers to be thrown about in their seats. The mechs took three quick steps and then lit their jump jets again, jumping clear over the car as they fired their PPCs into the Dragon. The Baron marvelled as the electrostatic discharge caused his hair to stand on end, but then another impact jolted the car as a second pair of Vengeances jumped out of the woods to the right, vaulting over the car and firing another 4 bolts of man-made lightning into the target before bouncing away into the cover of the woods.
From the cockpit of his Chieftain, Lee watched the company carry out their routine, each wing pair approaching the Baron’s car from alternate sides before leaping over it as they fired into the derelict Dragon. Lee was instead approaching from behind the car with Diana tailing just behind him. He wiped the sweet from his brow, trying to ignore the heat in the cockpit as the ‘TSM Activated’ alarm rang in his ear. Quickly, he caught up with the car and activated his jump jets, throwing his mech forward and directly over it, landing right in front of the Dragon, triggering an alpha strike as he did so. The heat in his cockpit soared as all his mech’s weapons fired, carrying away the Dragon’s right arm even as he lashed out with the Chieftain’s left battle fist, smashing the Dragon’s head clean from its shoulders and sending it bouncing across the grass. Immediately, he activated his jump jets again to get out of Diana’s way. Gilgamesh landed moments later, its left foot lashed out, smashing through the Dragon’s leg and then through the gantry behind it, sending the whole ruined target crashing to the ground. Then she too fired her jump jets and hurtled off after Lee into the cover of the trees.
The mech company made it back to the hanger just as the Baron’s car turned into the dispersal. They rapidly got their mechs into line, rushed through the shutdown procedures and damn near threw themselves down their mechs’ rope ladders to stand beside their mechs. Lee watched the car pull up in front of the hanger just as the infantry company’s tilt rotor Karnovs flew over the hanger at treetop level, the battle armour jumping out the rear, using their jump jets to slow their descent as they formed a line opposite the mechwarriors with the Baron and his entourage in the middle.
The car came to a halt and the Baron and his escorts stepped out. Before anyone could say anything, Sgt Major Zhu stepped forwards and took off his suit’s helmet.
“Three cheers for the Baron! Hip Hip!”
“Hurrah!” The troopers replied enthusiastically, delighted to be given a chance to show off their skills, even more delighted to do so in front of the Regiment CO.
“Hip Hip!” Sgt Major Zhu shouted again.
“Hurrah!” The troopers cheered, though Lee was too busy watching the guests’ reaction to cheer loudly himself. The Colonel looked livid and somewhat embarrassed as he tried to apologize to the Baron. The Baron though, was grinning from ear to ear while talking animatedly to anyone within earshot. Lee was a bit out of practice with his lip reading, but he was pretty sure he’d made the sort of impression he had need to. He smiled in satisfaction.
“Hip Hip!” Sgt Major Zhu shouted once more.
“Hurrah!” That one, Lee joined in with gusto.
