Well, to no one's surprise, my play has been indefinitely postponed due to this global pandemic. In the meantime, I bring you the next part of A Reckoning
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Fort Basil Radick
Cameron, Strana Mechty
July 26, 3039
Fraser instantly recycled the targeting system. Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Alright. He keyed his radio. “CONTROL, FOUR-ONE has a major system failure. Request change of vehicle.”
Nothing. Fraser re-sent his message twice more for no reply.
Crap.
He was just about to call Natasha when his radio sprang to life.
“FOUR-ONE and FOUR-TWO, squawk status and exit ‘Mech Bay.”
So, the receiver was working, but not his transmitter.
“FOUR-TWO is green, exiting ‘Mech Bay.”
Fraser needed to do something right now. He looked out of his canopy at Natasha across the hanger. She was speaking rapidly into her radio while looking at him with concern.
So, the receiver is only selectively working.
Fraser tapped the side of his neurohelmet with one hand while giving Natasha the thumbs down sign with the other.
“FOUR-ONE - squawk status and exit the ‘Mech Bay.”
Fraser began to shut down his ‘Mech. Natasha started to make hand signals at him, but Cadet Hiriam’s Timber Wolf passed between them at that moment, and he couldn’t see her anymore.
“FOUR-ONE, report your status immediately!”
Fraser finished powering down and unstrapped himself from his command couch. He popped the hatch, and now he could hear Natasha screaming orders to the Techs.
“Warrior,” called the Tech as she re-extended the gangway, gesturing for Fraser to exit his ‘Mech. He’d barely done so when the Tech dived into the cockpit.
“What happened, Dechan?” yelled Natasha from the hangar floor. Fraser looked around to see an impressive collection of senior officers approaching. Fraser quickly crossed to the Bay elevator and rode it down. He’d barely reached ground level when the first of the senior officers reached him.
“What is the meaning of this, candidate?!” screamed Galaxy Commander McKibben, jabbing his finger into Fraser’s chest hard enough to rock him back on his heels.
“My ‘Mech’s targeting system is down. When I tried to call it in, I discovered the radio was also down. This ‘Mech is not combat ready,” Fraser reported, forcing himself to speak calmly and looking McKibben levelly in the eye.
McKibben snorted. “That is exactly the sort of excuse I would expect from a degenerate savashri Spheroid freebirth! You -”
“Galaxy Commander - stand down.” Ulric Kerensky was suddenly at McKibben’s shoulder.
“My Khan,” began McKibben, spinning around, but whatever he’d been about to say was cut off when he saw the expression on Khan Kerensky’s face. Fraser also had to resist the urge to take a step back, given the anger visible on the senior Khan’s face.
Ulric lifted his head and barked “Technician!”
The suddenly nervous Tech scrambled from the Timber Wolf’s cockpit and leaned over the railing.
“Aff, my Khan.”
“What is your evaluation of the problem?”
“My Khan, malicious code has been sliced into the battle computer. It reported the targeting system as ready during the start-up automated check and commanded the battle computer to shut down targeting the first time it was manually activated. There was also a command to disable the transmitters of both radios.”
“So when Fraser faces his first opponent, he loses his targeting and the ability to tell anyone about it,” interjected Natasha. Fraser could suddenly see the family resemblance between her and Ulric in the identical set of their faces.
“This is preposterous!” shouted McKibben.
“Is it?” barked Natasha.
“Technician - who prepared this ‘Mech for the Trial?”
The Tech looked down at her tablet. “Senior Technician Pollux.” She pointed at a man standing over McKibben’s shoulder, who promptly quailed as many pairs of eyes turned to him.
“I was acting on the Galaxy Commander’s orders!” he shrieked even as two Elementals belonging to Khan Kerensky’s escort closed in on him.
“Pollux, you coward!” snarled McKibben. He lunged for the Technician, but was restrained by one of the Elementals.
“You bastard,” hissed Fraser. “You think a Spheroid has no place amongst the warriors of Clan Wolf? Face me in combat, if you dare, Lionel McKibben. Right here, right now!”
“The challenge of an untested whelp is worthless, Candidate!” barked McKibben.
“He is right,” conceded saKhan Mehta, with some disgust. “Dechan Wolf - your heart is that of a warrior, but you need to prove it in the Trial. Once you have done so, I will gladly sanction your Trail of Grievance on my authority as saKhan of Clan Wolf.”
“Bargained well and done,” Fraser spat with a curt nod. Turning to McKibben, he said “I have fought and killed MechWarriors from the ‘degenerate Inner Sphere’ who had far more honour than you. You are not fit to polish their boots.”
Then, deliberately turning his back on the shouting Galaxy Commander who was being hauled away, he asked the assembled senior officers. “What now?”
“The trial must go ahead,” said Cyrilla Ward, whom Fraser hadn’t noticed until now. What went unspoken was the fact that they were on a deadline.
“They keep spare ‘Mechs on hand as contingency cover,” Natasha told him. She snapped her fingers at the Tech. “You! Take Candidate Dechan to the back-up ‘Mech.”
“Aff, Star Colonel, but…”
“But, what, Technician?” Natasha demanded.
“Galaxy Commander McKibben did not bother ordering us to prepare more ‘Mechs when you and Candidate Dechan were added to the Trial.”
“Are you saying that there are no other ‘Mechs available on this entire base? That is ridiculous!”
“Neg, Star Colonel. I mean to say that there are no more Timber Wolf-class OmniMechs readily available. We cannot swap like-for-like.”
“Then what the ****** is available?”
Five minutes later....
“******.” Fraser stared at the machine before him. Half a dozen Techs and AsTechs were scrambling all over it to prep it for him. As he watched, Long Range Missiles were being speed-loaded through a hatch at the rear of the left torso. An AsTech was closing up another loading port on the left arm where ten rounds of 105mm LB-X ammo had just been rammed home.
Standing ten and a half meters tall, the Summoner was clearly designed for function over form. Five tonnes lighter than the Timber Wolf, it was more humanoid in form, though the cockpit was off-set to the right to accommodate a weapons pod mount on top of the torso.
This particular ‘Mech had clearly seen better days. Armor patches were visible across the entire ‘Mech, there were old fluid stains running from various ports and the weapons pods were the only parts of the OmniMech that looked new and polished.
Most of the vehicle was painted only in a red-brown primer, but the legs were a faded emerald green. Fraser suspected that this machine had been captured from Clan Jade Falcon, a theory that was strengthened when he noticed a oblong patch of primer on the left shin of the ‘Mech, situated in the right place and of the right size to cover up a Clan Jade Falcon badge.
Fraser’s Tech - her name-tape proclaimed her to be “Yolanda” - hauled herself out of the cockpit, flashing a thumbs-up and a smile as she did so.
Fraser nodded back at her, and turned to the highly-ranked posse that had followed him.
“I guess this is second time lucky,” he proclaimed with a shrug, trying not to show the anger he was feeling at the situation. Natasha, he noticed, was making no attempt to hide hers. He was almost certain she was muttering oaths under her breath that had no place in polite society.
“Better get going Dechan Wolf,” saKhan Mehta told him.
“Aff, saKhan.” Fraser saluted and jogged into the Bay.
Once Dechan was strapped into his new ride, he found cause for optimism. The Summoner might have looked like a piece of crap from the outside, but it was well maintained, despite the obvious wear and tear he saw inside the cockpit.
Also, despite being five tonnes lighter than the Timber Wolf, the Summoner was equipped with jump jets, giving it a wider movement profile than Clan Wolf’s premier heavy-class OmniMech. In fact, in some ways, it was like the bigger brother of the classic Shadow Hawk medium-class ‘Mech in which he’d begun his Dragoons career.
I can work with this, Fraser thought as he finished his own careful, personal double-check of the comms and targeting system.
“FOUR-ONE is green, proceeding to exit.”
It was barely thirty seconds, during which he gave the Summoner’s actuators as much of a workout as he was able, before he was lined up beside Cadet Hiriam. The young cadet was glaring daggers at Dechan from inside his own cockpit, obviously upset at having his rite of passage delayed.
Save your anger for your actual opponents, Fraser thought as he took a final look around.
Ahead, the huge, reinforced doors to the Hangar had been opened, showing a wide expanse of ferrocrete apron. Directly opposite him was a large sign labelled “Trial Grounds” with a prominent arrow.
Parked on either side of the doors were a pair of ‘Mech Recovery low-loaders and their tractor units, a grim reminder that at least two ‘Mechs would not make it back under their own power.
“FOUR-ONE and -DEUCE, follow signs to Trial Grounds and hold at Start Line. Acknowledge.”
“CONTROL, FOUR-ONE acknowledges.”
“CONTROL, FOUR-TWO acknowledges.”
Fraser throttled up to a walk, pacing Hiriam’s Timber Wolf. As they followed the tarmac, Fraser rolled his shoulders and neck, working out some of the built up tension in his muscles.
Center - the focus word came unbidden to him from years of long practice. He could feel his focus narrow down to the essentials at the pair of OmniMechs reached a fork in the apron. An illuminated sign reading “41” told him which fork to take. A few seconds later, he reached the end of the tarmac. A signal light bar, flashing red, told him where to stop. Beyond the tarmac was the pitted and scarred grey-green landscape. Eight hundred meters to his left, Cadet Hiriam had halted at his own stop line.
A chirp from his Summoner’s battle computer announced the arrival of their opponents. Coloured in neutral yellow for now, he saw the sextet of contacts on his main display split into trios and position themselves opposite him and Hiriam.
“All participants are in position,” crackled Control. “Trial will commence in five… four… three… two… one…”
The light bar went green.
Fraser slammed his throttle to its stops, taking the Summoner up past eighty-five klicks per hour.
On his HUD, his first opponent went from neutral yellow to hostile red. Data flooded his displays.
Target: Ice Ferret-prime.
45 tonnes. ER-PPC in the left arm, backed up an ER Small Laser and Streak SRM-2 for close range work.
Also closing rapidly - as it would since it’s top speed was around 130 klicks per hour.
Fraser’s lips pulled back in a half-smile, half grimace. He’s only got one good option, he recognised. Get close and get behind me. Already he could see the medium-class ‘Mech extending it’s left arm toward him.
Fraser mirrored the action with his own right-arm mounted particle cannon. The crosshairs on his HUD slid over the profile of the onrushing Ice Ferret, glowing scarlet to indicate he was out of range. A counter projected over the top of his opponent rapidly scrolled down the range.
850m… 825m… 800m… 775m…
Outreach, Sarna March
Federated Commonwealth
January 03, 3033
“Does the base LARP club know you’ve stolen their gear?” Fraser grumbled. There was no convenient mirror for him to examine Tom West’s handiwork, but he was sure that he looked pretty dumb.
For his latest session in “optimisation training” (as West called it), Fraser had been summoned to the base’s smaller gym. Tom West greeted him with a small heap of wearable… things that he wasted no time in strapping to Fraser.
On his head he wore a padded sparring helmet with some sort of rail attachment across the forehead. Mouthguard, elbow pads and knee pads were added. Then it got strange. An adapted infantry load bearing harness was cinched to his torso. Something that resembled a side-handle baton or tonfa was snapped into a clip atop his left shoulder, the longer arm projecting straight out in front of him. A second side-handle baton was placed alongside his right arm, with his hand gripping the short arm while a strap just under his right elbow secured the longer arm of the baton.
“Very droll, Dechan,” smirked Tom West in reply as he checked the fit before stepping back and nodding in approval.
“Okay, you’ve had your joke-”
“Not a joke, Dechan.” West was all business now. “This is a training exercise developed by my former Clan -”
“The Nova Cats.”
“Yes - developed to help MechWarriors hone their connection to their machines. Notice anything about your rig?”
Fraser shrugged, looking over his get-up. “Wait… this is like - you’ve turned me into my Shadow Hawk?” The stick perched on his shoulder was reminiscent of his ‘Mech’s 80mm autocannon, while the one strapped to his right arm approximated the position of the Martell Medium-class laser.
“Exactly.” West stooped down and fished several small bean bags out of the sack at his feet. “And with the rest of this gear, I can produce a reasonable facsimile of most other ‘Mechs.”
Dechan nodded and raised his right arm “If you reversed this...stick, you could simulate the PPCs of, say, that new Warhammer you’re getting.”
“Hey, you’re a fast learner, who would’ve thought,” nodded West with a lopsided grin. Using his foot, he tapped a box with a diagonal hinge-line. “Add one of these to either shoulder, and you’ve got the Warhammer’s SRM and searchlight. Open them along the hinge-line strap ‘em to your front and you’ve got an Archer’s LRM racks.”
West turned and walked about ten metres away, then suddenly spun and flung one of the bean bags at Dechan.
“Hey-!” Fraser tried to twist out of the way, and with his combat-honed reflexes, he almost made it. The bean bag glanced off his chest. Even that glancing blow was hard enough to let Fraser know that whatever those bean-bags were filled with, it was damned heavy and he probably didn’t want to get one of those full force in the head. Before he could say anything else, West had sidestepped and launched another bag at him. Fraser crouched and ducked under the incoming missile, almost overbalancing due to the stick projecting from his shoulder changing his centre of gravity. Then he had to leap sideways as a third bean bag smacked into the floor right where he’d been a millisecond earlier. Unfortunately, that put him right in line for the fourth bag, which slugged him hard in the right shoulder and spun him around enough that he had to throw out his right arm to steady himself.
“Feel how hard you’re working to stay on your feet?” asked West as he picked up the scattered bags.
“Yeah – but I already did PT this morning,” groused Fraser as he warily watched his friend.
West stopped and faced Dechan. “Look, Dechan, do you know why this is called ‘Optimisation Training’?”
“You needed a snappy name?”
“It’s because we’re trying to give you every possible advantage we can when you go there,” West replied, jerking his head vaguely up and to the right. “You’re a damned good MechWarrior, Dechan, and you’ve got almost as much combat time as one of the Others your age would have. You don’t have as much dueling experience, but that’s Colonel Kerensky’s problem. My job is to take the good MechWarrior that you are, and give you the one-percent improvements in any area I can to help you take your game to the next level.”
West sighed. “You know why I’m such a good shot?”
“Your genes were selected for it, I suppose,” Fraser shrugged.
“Partially. The other part is the one-percenters. I’m about one percent faster at identifying targets, one percent faster at reacting to them, one percent more precise in targeting, one percent steadier in aiming – it all adds up, Dechan.”
Dechan nodded. “So, which one-percent are we working on here?”
“Ah, that would be taking you one percent closer to your ‘Mechs manoeuvring limits,” grinned West as he hefted a bean bag. “Ready?”
