@snakespinner: Exactly. The spark for this story is asking why, if war really is hell, do people in BattleTech find it so hard to make peace (other than because it's a wargame setting...). One problem is that lack of impartial negotiators--like ComStar.
* * *
Tennyson’s Valley
They could see smoke rising from over the line of hills.
Justin kicked the throttle out to maximum, sending the Crusader barreling through the forested rise, then over the crest without pause.
The jouncing view out the ferroglass screen showed a long, narrow valley, dotted with homesteads and farms, veiled by a thick haze of billowing from a dozen fires. His HUD immediately began painting targets, six hostile BattleMechs, ranged in a wide circle around the edge of the village.
Justin loosed a double salvo of 30 missiles at the nearest ’Mech without waiting for a lock-on, then charged straight down slope. The missiles plunged down, detonating in a fiery shower around the ’Mech—a Locust—blasting off its antenna and one arm, while other warheads blew apart the roof of the house the Locust had been standing in front of.
“Pull back, JC, pull back!” Chen was shouting at him. "We're out—"
The Crusader plowed straight through the Locust, snapping it in half at the waist, legs and torso spinning in opposite directions. Plowed through the house on the other side, timbers snapping like toothpicks, walls bursting outwards in a hail of deadly shrapnel. Halting finally on the main road in the middle of town.
Justin could hear the distant hammering of Chen’s and Jackson’s autocannons, and the snap-hiss of particle cannon fire from White’s Vindicator, echoing and re-echoing down the valley. No time to worry about them. The MAD beeped for his attention, and his HUD painted the outline of a ’Mech bearing down on him. Justin twisted the Crusader to face it.
“—rounded Justin, you’re gonna get—”
A scorpion silhouette loomed through the smoke at the far end of the village, parting to reveal a black and white Marauder. Hank Payne, leader of the Game Over Gang. His machine was heavier than the Crusader, but optimized for long-range slugging. Justin charged forward, pumping out kilojoules of killing energy from each arm laser. He hit the secondary trigger and a dozen missiles corkscrewed in comet trails, slamming into the Marauder’s left arm and leg.
The Marauder leveled its blocky arms and spat brilliant red and green beams of light, blistering and cracking the armor across the Crusader’s chest. Justin felt a twinge of doubt—Payne had lasers, not particle cannon. Closing wouldn’t give Justin any advantage.
“—ehind you Jus—”
Justin slowed his charge, glanced at the 360-degree viewstrip at the top of his display. Just in time to see a Hunchback rounding the corner behind him.
“Shi—”
Justin threw the Crusader sideways, lurching behind the town’s church, just as the Hunchback’s massive shoulder autocannon roared to life, vomiting a stream of hyper-velocity shells. It twisted to track Justin as it fired, blasting craters in the road before striking the church. The church’s clock tower disappeared in a blizzard of fire, every window burst out in a shiny rain of killing shards.
Justin caught sight of huddled bodies inside the church an instant before the building collapsed in on itself, walls buckling outwards, roof crashing down with a thunderous roar.
The Hunchback marched through the swirling dust and debris. Its cannon roared again, blasting the Crusader’s torso, forcing Justin to stagger back a step. Red warning lights flashed on the armor diagram on his console. The Hunchback waded through his answering fire, shrugging it off without even a pause.
“—et out of there Justin!”
Particle and heavy cannon fire rocked the Hunchback. It twisted to one side, brought up an arm to shield its autocannon. The others in the lance, buying him time. He hesitated. He could take the Hunchback.
Laser fire pulsed by on either side of him as Payne's Marauder lumbered around the far corner. Armor slagged and ran from one of the Crusader's legs.
Gritting his teeth, Justin turned the Crusader, and ran.