Opalescent Reflections
Full House
Chapter 15
Wolf’s Den, Liezen
Clan Wolf Occupation Zone
2 October 3058Dropships were hovering over Liezen’s deserts, mech’s and elementals dropping into the sand as fighters circled above them. They were all painted slate gray, only Zeerga emblems marking them as anything other than Wolves.
That was most likely the point, Ulric thought as he watched. “Get me a count,” he requested.
“Reports are coming in,” Evantha told him. The elemental was clinging to the back of his Gargoyle, along with four other elementals handpicked to provide him with a staff. “There are seventeen cluster-sized drops, exact strength still being identified.”
Ulric frowned, unable to scratch his beard due to the neurohelmet. The last intelligence before the Zeerga left the homeworlds left them with fourteen Clusters: five in each of the frontline galaxies, four in the second-line Omega Galaxy. Three additional clusters…
He had offered safcon, simply to keep the battle under control. The Star Admiral of his own Naval Star was confident of defeating the Zeerga warships, but less so about preventing a bombardment. If it was too hard for Radick to get her forces to grips with him, the possibility existed that she would resort to other means.
The Leviathan transports had some armament and despite - or because of - their ramshackle cargo and passenger facilities, they might be able to absorb massive amounts of firepower without losing mobility. And the Texas-class battleship Nicholas Kerensky had more armor than any other class of warship built by the Star League. Nuclear weapons had been considered, but there was no data on where the Zeerga had placed their genetic repository. If a nuke struck that, the repercussions would be a nightmare. The only precedent was annihilation, even if the circumstances were drastically different.
“It only took them four months to get here,” he said out loud.
There were chuckles of contempt from the Wolves listening to the command net, although honestly it would have been at least five or six weeks before the news of his location had spread across the worlds the Zeerga had been raiding. Then at least that long to regroup and get here… today was a little later than he had estimated but not by very much.
The Wolf forces had responded to those raids, returning to Liezen as quickly as they could when they arrived too late. Not all of his forces were here at the sprawling Kungsarme base Ulric had taken over at his headquarters, but that was alright. That was part of the lure. Any trap needed bait.
“They are down. Slightly over nine hundred ‘mechs, more than fifteen hundred elementals,” Evantha reported.
Ulric wasn’t sure how much of the difference between earlier estimates and the current strength were made up of fresh cadets who had never seen battle and bondsmen taken from Sigma and Theta Galaxies. Most likely Radick and Ward had blooded cadets fresh from the sibko in their earlier attacks.
“Khan Marialle Radick,” he called out on the channel used for the limited negotiations earlier. “Welcome to the Wolf’s Den. This will be our circle of equals.”
“We stand ready,” the woman known as the Death Vixen declared. “Come out and face the warriors you betrayed, Ulric.”
“I see no reason to give up my current tactical advantage,” Ulric answered.
“What sort of Khan cowers behind a fortified base?” challenged Vladimir Ward. One of the elementals traced the signal back to an Adder in the Cluster that was nearest to Ulric’s position, while Radick had an Executioner in the next Cluster over. “You expect a few turrets to protect you from us, quineg?
Ulric chuckled. The Clans rarely fortified a facility. If it was lost in a trial of possession fought outside it, the weapons would do nothing anyway, so it would be a waste. “We stripped the facility of armament after we took it from the Kungsarme,” he reminded them. “Otherwise they would have fallen into the hands of some insurgent. Zeerga may favor open plains but Wolves have dens. Come in and get us… Or wait out there until the supplies in your ‘mechs run out.”
“I should not have expected any honor from you,” Radick snarled.
“And I never expected much intelligence from you. When you bid every warrior you could bring with you, you ceded me the choice of battlefield. You thought I would choose ground that did not favor me, quineg?”
Fortification was an art, and while the Clans did not favor it, Ulric had access to Inner Sphere manuals and warriors trained to appreciate it. According to Phelan and others with academy experience, the Wolf’s Den was well designed. Even with the turrets stripped of their weapons, the walls and bunkers were still intact and would channel attackers into killing zones that could be fired on from sheltered firing positions from multiple angles.
“This will not save you,” the young Khan warned.
“Here they come,” warned Evantha.
Ulric grunted in understanding. The Zeerga formed a rough crescent around two sides of the Wolf’s Den and he didn’t need to see them move in, he could hear them, feel them. The rumble of hundreds of mechs moving was unmistakable. More than one galaxy deploying to a single battle was rare - the point of bidding for trials was to keep battles on this scale from happening. “Tell Phelan that it is time for him to get moving.”
The first shots were fired over the walls of the base - mechs standing on the walls that were shielded from the hips (or sometimes shoulder) down by the mass of ferroconcrete, unleashed salvos into the advancing Zeerga, whose return fire sometimes struck home but more often hit the walls.
Up in the sky contrails marked the efforts of the Zeerga to get above the walls and fire down at the Wolves, only to be intercepted by their Wolf counterparts. That would leak, whoever won in the end, but that was why Ulric had every Naga he could deploy armed with anti-air missiles rather than artillery.
Alpha Galaxy’s fire was reaping a harvest, but they were taking losses. Ulric watched and said nothing, leaving the command of each section of wall to the officers. They could see the ‘mechs and elementals closing in. They knew the ranges and they could see the damage being accumulated on the ferrocrete in front of them. Much like the armor on a ‘mech, the outer wall was intended to ablate attacks - not to withstand them indefinitely.
Before long, the trinaries started to fall back towards the second line of defenses, linking up with the bunkers where their elementals were waiting, along with the two clusters of Beta Galaxy that had returned so far… along with another surprise.
As the first breakthroughs took place, Ulric moved his Gargoyle forwards to join that line.
“My khan,” Evantha warned.
“I need to be there,” he said simply. “We need them focused on me.”
A cluster marked as the Third Zeerga Guards smashed directly through the damaged wall, heavy and assault mechs battering holes with their guns, hammering them wider with their limbs and emerging into the C-shape… and emerging into the open center of the bastion only to find another wall ahead of them,
Shots hammered into them and then the flood of medium and light ‘mechs that followed, carrying the Zeegra elementals. The battle armor jumped free and swarmed forwards to try to reach the Alpha ‘mechs under the covering fire. In response, Wolf Elementals opened up with their SRMs - not enough to kill their Zeerga counterparts but weakening armor and distracting them.
Ulric reached the corner of the firing line and opened up on the elemental force with his autocannon and SRMs. Again, he wasn’t going to inflict many kills, but Elementals with compromised armor or missing limbs would struggle against their counterparts.
At the other corner he saw white-painted tanks doing the same, Wolf’s heads painted over the ComStar badges. Missiles and autocannon swept across them as the Zeerga ‘mechs saw vulnerable targets, but as Omnimechs charged towards the vehicles, lasers and PPCs from the wall crashed into their ranks, the Wolf mechwarriors of Alpha Galaxy keeping their munitions for in reserve until the range was point blank.
When they did open fire with that reserve of firepower, Zeerga numbers were cut in two…
But more of them poured through and now the black and white ‘mechs were trimmed in gold. Radick’s Gold Keshik.
Her Executioner leapt over the choke point and a Gauss Rifle cracked the turret on a Brutus.
“ComGuards?!” she snarled and the assault ‘mech opened up on an SRM Carrier with its lasers, tearing the thin-skinned machine apart.
“Phi Garrison Galaxy,” Ulric replied urbanely on the same channel. “Blake’s Wrath - we have a large number of bondsmen from the ComGuards.” Most of them were not willing to fight for Clan Wolf - but after the Zeerga destroyed a second enclave, smashing through the city to reach the HPG, a compromise had been found. Phi Galaxy would exist only for this battle, survivors repatriated to surviving enclaves when the Wolves won.
If the Zeerga won, then Ulric would not be able to uphold the contract, but that victory would be over Phi Galaxy’s dead bodies so it hardly mattered.
Radick wheeled on him. “Ulric!” she challenged and the Executioner charged towards him, myomer accelerator circuitry activating to send the larger assault ‘mech charging at more than eighty kilometers an hour.
“Evantha! Take over!” he shouted and backed the Gargoyle around the corner before the first salvo from Radick could crash into his armor.
The five Elementals leapt away from him, leaving the two Khans to duel in the narrow corridor between two armored walls.
The close quarters favored neither of the pair of ‘mechs - the towering Executioner was hard to miss at this range and it was equipped with large, slow-cycling weapons intended to reach out and slay targets at long distances. Ulric’s Gargoyle was more compact but its primary armament was SRMs and LB 5-X autocannon, both of which were excellent for targeting vehicles and elementals, but less good against the thick armor of an omnimech. The small laser in the chest was the weapon that did the most pinpoint damage.
Ulric was well used to this though and had his own ways of employing the weapons against ‘mechs. As both mechwarriors tried to use the limited traverse available to them to avoid fire, he focused his crosshairs on the upper body of the Executioner. Volleys of SRMs and cluster munitions blasted against the upper chest and shoulders of the larger assault ‘mech, some of each pattern striking at the skullface and shaking the cockpit behind it.
The taller and wider omnimech had less ability to dodge and Radick would be bounced against her restraints by every impact. No one could take that forever - sooner or later either she or the delicate electronics would suffer for it.
In the meantime, her own gunnery was little less precise. Gargoyles were common enough in the Wolf touman that she must have had a good idea of their strengths and their weaknesses. In this case, it was that the weapons were almost all mounted in the arms.
The Zeerga’s second salvo ripped open the armor across the right arm of the Gargoyle and the second smashed the elbow and the cabling that let Ulric connect to the weapons there.
Raising the arm that held the other half of his arsenal, the graying Khan pointed it like a lance at the Executioner’s cockpit and fired everything, but a sudden impact knocked the arm to the side at the last instant and both missiles and cannon shells astray - engaging her MASC, Radick had closed just close enough to bat at his arm with the muzzle of her gauss rifle.
A second later the Executioner’s twin lasers fired squarely in the center chest of the Gargoyle, cerulean beams of energy shaving away two thirds of the armor plating in instants.
Ulric swept his one remaining arm around, keeping the Gauss Rifle from being brought to bear on the weak spot, but Radick was ready for him and her jump jets flared to life.
Ninety-five tons of battlemech arced up into the air and one massive foot crashed into the compromised armor plating, the knee barely missing the snout of the wolf-like head Ulric had had retrofitted years ago.
“Armor-breach!” the automated system warned. “Reactor damage. Shielding compromised.”
Ulric had been sent staggering, barely keeping the Gargoyle on its feet. He spun the ‘mech through ninety-degrees to cover the damaged chest with the right shoulder as Radick settled her Executioner smoothly onto the ground behind him.
Before he could bring the guns around, the Zeerga ‘mech unleashed everything it had and alarms went off as the right side of the chest was ripped apart.
A new alarm shrilled and he had barely enough time to brace himself before the ejection seat tore the entire head of his ‘mech free, hurling it skyward as the reactor containment failed and superheated air exploded out of the Gargoyle’s chest.
As the Gargoyle’s severed head rocketed up into the sky, Ulric had a brief bird’s eye view of the battlefield. Unlike a normal ejection, he had his sensors with him and the screen in front of him dutifully updated with new data.
He saw the green carets of the Wolf forces in the Den were riven into pockets. Red markers showed Zeerga forces flowing through breaches in the lines, taking flanking shots that winnowed them further, but driving deeper and deeper into the Wolf’s Den.
But they were in stars, binaries and trinaries, most often depleted by casualties and battle damage - not formed clusters of troops. Not, in short, like the fresh forces of Epsilon Galaxy who were moving out of the hangars and barracks they’d been hidden in to avoid being spotted by Zeerga dropships and aerospace fighters. Guided by reports from technicians monitoring the network of redundant sensors that would let the Wolves move confidently through the chaos of what was essentially street-fighting.
And nor were they in the good order of Phelan Ward’s Theta Galaxy, who were flowing out sally ports from tunnels that exited the fort kilometers outside of the obvious perimeter. A position that put them right in the rear of the Zeerga’s rear guard… who were mostly focused on trying to get into the fortifications as fast as they could - fortifications they had compromised to the point they’d be little use in keeping the mass of second-line warriors and Rasalhague volunteers from following them.
Then the cockpit began to descend and Ulric clutched his seat in anticipation of the landing.
As programmed, the thrusters expended their last fuel in the seconds before impact, softening it. It was better than a normal parachute landing but he was flung against the restraints in much the way he would have if his Gargoyle had fallen. Still, he was alive.
Removing his neurohelmet, Ulric disconnected his mechwarrior suit from the plugs that connected coolant lines and medical sensors to the cockpit’s systems. He knew roughly where he was, it shouldn’t be hard to get into a bunker or one of the underground passages. The Wolf’s Den was as much dug into the ground as it was built upon it.
Opening the hatch, Ulric was about to exit when a sixth sense alerted him to throw himself backwards, dragging the canopy closed again. A moment later, machine gun fire hammered into the Gargoyle’s decapitated head and it was all the Khan could do to dog the hatch before the impacts shook it open.
He stared up and saw the towering shape of Marialle Radick’s Executioner, distinctive with the scarred armor around and on the deathshead face, looming over him.
“Khan Ulric,” her voice rang out. “You cannot escape me.”
Reaching down to the comm panel, Ulric activated the loudspeakers. “You have the firepower to have finished me, Khan Radick.” The machine guns had damaged the canopy, but the Executioner’s lasers could have penetrated easily. The gauss rifle would have torn it apart completely. “What do you want?”
Radick laughed cruelly. “I am not offering you your life, Ulric. Just a chance to make amends. Accept defeat and renounce the creation of the Zeerga. As one clan, there is no more need for Wolf to kill Wolf. Do this, and I will not move to reave your bloodright, nor to purge your bloodline.”
“You may not,” he said doubtfully. Radick might not, but Vladimir Ward was likely less forgiving and he must have considerable support to be her saKhan.
“As the winner of this battle, I will not be overruled,” she told him proudly. “I will lead the Wolves to greatness - once you are out of the way. Why mar that for the sake of petty vengeance?”
Where was this foresight when you forced my hand, he wondered. “My radio isn’t powered by a fusion reactor any more,” he warned her. “I will need you to reduce power to your ECM or the signal may not get through.”
Radick’s voice was triumphant. “Understood.” He could hear the background sounds of her adjusting her controls. “You are clear to address our Clan.”
Ulric set his comms to general broadcast. “This is Khan Ulric Kerensky,” he announced clearly. “I hereby transfer command to Galaxy Commander Phelan Ward.”
Marialle Radick screamed in rage and the frequency was drowned in static as she went to maximum jamming. She knew perfectly well what Ulric meant by appointing an abtakha former-mercenary to take over the lead in the battle. It meant no compromise.
Looking up through the cracked glass of his canopy, Ulric saw the foot of her Executioner descending.
“You lose,” he whispered, with his last breath of air.
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