Evil man, Evil Evil man. You can't leave it there
Okay then, I won't. Usually post about this time anyhow.
Wait what the hell.... Fidelis?!
Jumping the gun a bit, isn't it?
* * *
Dersidatz
Blantleff, Marian Hegemony
11 May, 3070Furey crept through the derelict city, Python held in both hands, squelching through the mud under the steadily drumming rain. Thunder and lightning echoed and re-echoed, some of it natural, some of it manmade—or BattleMech made. Visibility was nil. He could barely make out the cliff-top silhouette of the
Volga, a long line of black against a background of slate grey. He shivered—he’d left the bulky cooling jacket and gauntlets in the cockpit, now he only had a pair of shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and his boots, now rapidly filling with rainwater. The rain stung his skin like ice.
The battle had devolved into chaos. Lasers cut the air back and forth, flying in every direction. Leviathans moved in the dark, tectonic footfalls shuddering the ground, giants suddenly rearing before him. A
Hercules shape, cannon jutting from its chest, firing its blinding light at something Furey couldn’t see. Adelaar, maybe? The rain closed in again and it was gone.
A Purifier suit detached from the wall in front of him, its gargoyle shape illuminated by the blue-white light glowing from the scorpion-tail shape of a support PPC. Its two poison-green eyes regarded Furey a moment, as if considering. A flash of skin-tingling lightning briefly blinded Furey, and when he could see again the suit was gone, leaving only a pair of smoking, smoldering feet.
Move. He had to move. To stay out here was death. He had to find that signal.
Furey jumped into a building through a broken window as he heard the roar of an engine behind him, peeked over the bottom of the sill to see a Chevalier tank go hurtling by, armor alight with fires in half a dozen places. The ground shook as a
Centurion came striding after it, chest-mounted laser stabbing into the ground just behind the tank. Then a
Crab appeared at the far end of the road, and Furey threw himself down on the floor. He began frantically crawling away from the wall and window.
Outside, the
Crab fired, lasers burning the air, rain hissing furiously as it evaporated in the beams. One hit the building Furey was in, slashing through the wall, straight through the room, through the wall on the opposite side of the building, and sending hailstone-sized fragments pelting down on Furey. It was followed by the deafening crash of a Luxor autocannon as the
Centurion returned fire, almost directly outside the window.
Furey covered his head, trying to crawl on his elbows, cursing, praying, to what he wasn’t sure—fate, luck, destiny, the God of Narrow Escapes, anyone, anything. In answer to his prayers, another beam blasted into the building, shaking more masonry down onto him. He would have cursed, but the air was getting too hot to breathe.
Furey risked crouching, made a run for the door on the opposite side of the building. He had almost reached it when a blast wave slammed into his back and hurled him face-first into the mud outside. Furey lay a moment, gasping, spitting out muddy water, trying to shake the ringing from his ears.
He pushed one knee up, then the other, nearly fell when another shockwave blew over him. Finally got his feet under him, looked up and saw nothing but clear ground between him and the
Volga. No cover, no obstacles. Achlys was still out there, somewhere, probably looking for him, and she would know where he had gone down. Would she guess he was headed for the ship?
But there was a Smoke Jaguar signal inside. Might mean Showers, and Showers might mean … other people. He wouldn’t hope.
Just go.
He slipped, staggered, slid, ran towards the hulk of the ship. Towards the black maw of a rent in its side at the ground level, passing a familiar metal slab with its ‘No Step’ label. The rain was drumming louder, more irregularly. Furey slowed. No, not rain. Another crack of sound from somewhere inside the bowels of the ship. Definitely not rain.
Furey kept his pistol up and ready as he edged into the ship, as though it were a bloodhound, pulling him reluctantly along as it strained at its leash. Smelling blood. The ship interior was hard, dark and smooth, the sudden lessening of rain a blessing. But somewhere in there was gunfire, the screeching sound of gyrojet rounds mixed with the sawblade song of assault rifles and the air-sucking bellow of a gauss rifle. Furey slid forward, fast as he dared, then faster, shrugging off caution.
Through a room once used by the Marians as a mess hall, metal tables thrown on their sides and strung across the room into a makeshift barrier, pockmarked with laser burns and holed by gunfire. Furey vaulted over, found three red-clad bodies on the other side, and a man leaning against the wall. Arman, chin down against his chest, shotgun still cradled in his arms.
Furey knelt, checked for a pulse. Grimaced and stood, listening intently. Staccato gunshots rang into the room. Furey was moving again, feet almost noiseless on the deck plates.
A frog-like shadow lurked at an intersection in the corridor, clutching a gyroslug carbine, its back to him. A red body lay sprawled in the middle of the intersection.
A white moon of face, with a dark crater of mouth twisted around when Furey was two steps away, and Furey fired twice, drilling the man through the roof of his mouth, through the forehead, pitching the body out into the intersection. As soon as it hit, there was a burst of rifle fire, and bullets stitched into the body.
“Hardcase!” Furey yelled. “Haven’s company. Furey!”
A moment of tense silence followed. “Oh yeah? When’s Haven’s birthday?”
“What? How the hell should I know?”
“Just checking. Advance.”
Furey turned the corner and found Irons at the end of the hallway, in a white-walled room, his boxer’s squashed nose and puffy ears sticking up from behind something that looked vaguely like a hospital bed inserted into the hole in a massive metal donut.
“Irons! Am I glad to see a familiar fa … person. Where is everyone?” Furey asked. He returned the Python to its shoulder holster, bent down to retrieve one of the carbines. Checked the magazine, slid it back.
“After Haven disappeared, Bor ordered a breakout,” Irons explained. “Went okay at first, then they hit us with reinforcements, led by some devil-woman.”
Furey looked up from the carbine. “Woman?” Knowing already who it would be.
“Yeah, crazy fast. She got Arman, another guy, maybe one or two of the techs. I dunno. We were scattered, everyone just trying to save themselves. Think Bor and Bulldog made it. Dunno about Callahan.”
Furey went very still. “What. About. Callahan?”
Irons caught himself, took a breath. “Oh, yeah, she was here, man—”
“She was where?”
“Her and a couple of the techies, and that clanner, Showers. All made it here and—”
“Where did she go?”
“Lost track of her when we split up think she was heading for the freight elevator—” He pointed, and then Irons was talking to Furey’s back, as he charged out of the room.
“Ah, ok, great then,” Irons called after. “Guess I’ll, uh, just stay here and guard the retreat.” Glanced around the room, now oppressively dark and empty. “Shit,” he muttered.
The walls, rooms, passages passed before Furey’s eyes in a blur. Here and there, bodies, in Word of Blake red, mercenary green or the Hardcase grey and orange. He stopped and bent over each one. No, not her, no, no, not her either.
A Word of Blake militiaman, shot three times in the chest, coughed and gurgled as Furey passed. He crouched beside the man. “A technician, orange-red hair, blue spiral tattoos. You see her?”
“Water,” the man croaked.
“Did you see her?”
“Water,” the man repeated, but his eyes moved to one of the side corridors.
“I have what you need right here,” Furey said grimly, and shot the man in the head. A gyro-rocket round at point-blank range did not leave much behind.
He ran down the corridor.
At the end, there was a room, like the bottom of a great elevator shaft, square and high-walled, the corners lost in shadow, going up and up and up, only a faint spotlight illuminating the center, from some hole or crack in the hull, much higher up. Rain dripped down from that height, puddling the floor. Some of the elevator struts had failed, shattered and fallen, forming a kind of rough circle of broken steel.
And in the center of that steel and light, she stood.
Furey blinked, sure his mind was playing tricks on him. The vision did not waver though. It was her—orange-red hair, blue-veined skin, baggy uniform two sizes too big. It was her. Standing still and rigid, alone in the pool of light.
“Phoebe? Phoebe!” Furey called out, advancing into the room. “You … You’re alive. You really … you’re alive! You’re here. You’re really here! What are you doing here?”
Mutely, she shook her head, standing perfectly still. Her eyes quickly flicked left, then right. A warning.
From the shadows behind and on either side of him came the metal slide of carbines being cocked.
“What a
jolly little reunion this is, my little lovebirds,” said the voice of Achlys. “We haven’t been like this since the courthouse and my dear, departed brother. We have so much catching up to do.”
Furey looked up. Achlys was perched on a narrow beam, about four meters above the deck, one leg dangling lazily down, a laser pistol held in one hand. Her smile was tight and humorless.
“Surrender or she dies, clanner,” Achlys said.
From the shadows of the room, a pair of Word of Blake Militia soldiers advanced, carbines at the ready. Footsteps said there were two more behind him. Slowly, Furey lowered the carbine, ignoring Phoebe frantically shaking her head, and let it clatter to the deck.
“Oops, did I say ‘or’ she dies?” Achlys giggled. “Silly old me, making a mistake like that. Surrender
and then she dies. You too, of course. Oriax and his bizarre clan fetish can go hang.” She nodded to the two men behind Furey. “Bind him.” Achlys raised her index finger and tapped her bottom lip. “Now, which of my lovebirds to kill fir—”
Furey felt hands reaching for his arms. Let his right hand drop to the butt of the Python pistol holstered under his left arm, angled it up without bothering to draw it, and fired it twice, directly backwards. Then twisted, hammering his left elbow into the man he’d just shot, sending him staggering into the second man behind him.
Drew the gun, firing as it came flying out from the holster. Once, twice to the left of Phoebe, then swinging right, firing two more times, taking the man in the chest and throat. Still moving right, to the second man behind him, so close the barrel almost touched him, shot him twice through the heart.
Then was lifted off his feet as something slammed into the side of his chest. Achlys—she’s dropped down, kicked him. Like a jackhammer. She stood right in front of him, drawing back for another blow. Furey raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Click, click. Empty magazine.
Achlys grinned nastily. “My turn,” she said. She hit him once, almost playfully. It was like being hit by a bear. Furey’s head snapped back, his vision blurred and distorted. “Ready for more?” Achlys drew back her fist again.
Phoebe cracked her on the back of her skull with a meter-long shard of steel, swung two-handed. Achlys staggered forward, spun around. In time for Phoebe’s second swing to catch her on the other side of her head.
Achlys fell to her knees, head bowed. Phoebe raised the steel bar over her head and brought it whistling down on the base of the woman’s skull. Achlys slumped to the ground.
Phoebe looked down at the body, chest heaving, waiting for it to move. Then she dropped the bar with a clang and was in Furey’s arms.
“Look at you. You’re a mess,” she chided. “The fearless explorer.”
“Natives seem a bit hostile,” Furey slurred, blinking hard, trying to get his vision back. “Glad to see my daring rescue is appreciated.”
“Is that what it was?” She put a hand on either side of his face and kissed him long and hard. “Now, how a bit of daring escaping?”
“Showers,” he began. “Don’t look at me like that. There was a signal, from inside this ship. Showers said he found something, something powerful. The man’s as reasonable as a Stephan Amaris fan club, but he might have something we can use to escape. You know where he went?”
Phoebe frowned, then nodded. “Medical section,” she said. “He disappeared, up near the bow.”
“Okay, just a moment.” Furey cast around for a gun.
And saw Achlys push herself slowly, unsteadily back to her feet. Blood ran from her scalp, painting her face in streams of red. “Going so soon lovebirds?” she asked. “We’re only just getting started.” She raised a hand to her skull in exploration, and Furey watched as the bone gave wetly under her fingers.
“On second thoughts, run,” shouted Furey, and they fled down the corridor.
“This way,” urged Phoebe, taking Furey’s hand, leading him back through the twisted maze of hallways and rooms, over the blasted corpse of the man Furey had shot, into the medical lab, with Tranh still lying on the floor, blood puddling beneath her stomach, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. Behind, they could hear Achlys screaming in rage, calling for her men.
“Come on!” Phoebe shouted, dragging Furey into the darkened corridor between the operating rooms. The corridor ended in a blank wall of dirty, battered steel. “Okay, so where is he?” she demanded to Furey.
“I don’t know!” Furey protested. “His signal was coming from inside the ship, that’s all I know.”
“Well, we’d better figure out pretty damn fast before miss flathead finds us,” Phoebe began hammering on the steel wall. “Look for secret doors. And mind your damned language.”
“You keep looking for a door, I’ll find a weapon,” Furey glanced left and right at the rooms at either end of the corridor, then plunged into the one on the right.
Phoebe heard Furey give a startled yell, then curse, then bellow “YEEES!”
She found him blinking up at her from the bottom of a hole in the floor. “I think I found where Showers went,” he told her, brightly.
“And they say Smoke Jaguars aren’t known for their intelligence,” she groaned, then lowered herself into the hole, onto the downward-sloping tunnel beneath. “Why couldn’t my boyfriend be from one of the smarter clans. Like a Wolf, they’re smart aren’t they? How about a Jade Falcon? What do they do?”
“Die heroically, mainly,” Furey started down the tunnel, waving her after him. “Come on, this must be a way out. Only reason Showers would be down here.”
The tunnel wasn’t long, but what they found at the end was a bit of a surprise.
A huge cavern. A massive tunnel leading to daylight. At their feet was the body of Captain Frazier Haven, hands still clasped over a blackened hole in his abdomen, on his face a look of pure, profound irritation.
In the center of the room, looming like a statue, stood a BattleMech.
