Part LIV - Section 3 of 3----------
The following evening, sat as a spectator on the rim of the old open-cast mine being used as an arena for the special exhibition fight, Fallstaff fought back the urge to go get some popcorn from the vendor nearby and hoped that Sampson, AKA 'Henry McCarty', was actually going to listen to Jackie Mroczkiewicz, AKA Jackie Brzęczyszczykiewicz, who would be coaching him via radio once the match started.
Jackie's cousin was sat behind him on the stadium bench seating provided, herself eating a corndog, muttering confusingly that it tasted like it might actually be related to her, as they waited for the announcer to start the event. Tens of thousands of spectators were sat in rows right along the edge of the pit, a fair percentage of the planet's entire population usually attending the games, as well as tourists from elsewhere.
Large screens of bullet-proof glass set up in front of the seating offered the crowd of spectators
some protection from stray shrapnel, though it wouldn't stop anything more than that so you had to trust the mechwarriors that would be fighting down below were careful with their aim, and a number of massive video screens were currently displaying images of the two mechs that were about to enter the arena from opposite ends to fight each other along, with pictures taken of their pilots just before they climbed aboard their machines.
Kirsten put down her corndog. "Did I tell you the cocky little bastard asked me and Jackie if there was any chance of a threesome as a special reward if he won?" she asked as an image of Sampson wearing his cooling suit appeared up on the screens.
Fallstaff groaned. "Going to put him up on a charge?" he asked. Both cousins outranked him, nobody was ever going to even promote Sampson to lieutenant, let alone any higher.
"Nah, I just advised he stick to banging high school girls and college freshmen that were dumb and inexperienced enough to be impressed by him because
actual women weren't" Kirsten replied.
"You realise he'll just take that as a
challenge right?" Fallstaff checked.
"Yeah" Kirsten replied with a sigh. "The worst of it is, much as I hate that man right now you've gotta
love that cooling suit" she said looking up at the image.
Concluding that Kirsten Mroczkiewicz had no taste in fashion, and hoping that she didn't pass on that defect to the multitudes of future Mroczkiewicz's that would emerge from the Iron Wombs in coming years, Rory Fallstaff wisely opted not to pass comment. "They flipped a coin to see which one would enter the arena first" he said as searchlights started to play through the air indicating the match was about to start.
"
My Lord's, Ladies and Gentlemen. Good evening and welcome to a special, one-night only exhibition match here at the Grand Arena on Illyria" a booming voice emerged from loudspeakers, their local Scandinavian accent a little softer than most. "
It's the weekend Illyrian Games fans, and this is Dagfin Fjellner bringing you the play by play. It should be an exciting match tonight, but before we begin let me thank our sponsor for this evening, NHCOMNET, the Niops Hegemony Communication Network" the announcer continued. "
NHCOMNET" he said grandly. "
Interstellar Communication without kooky superstition."
Both Fallstaff and Mroczkiewicz burst out laughing. "And with
that some poor ComStar precentor somewhere just suffered a stroke" Fallstaff said grinning.
"
Our first competitor tonight needs no introduction" the announcer continued, though he immediately went on to introduce him anyway, presumably because that was what they paid him for, "
Competing for the first time ever at the Illyria Games. The man, the mechwarrior, the legend. Two-time, back-to-back Solaris Grand Champion Peter Griggs!" the announcer practically thundered the name for emphasis as near-deafening music began to play from the speakers causing a few of the spectators to cover their ears, though that may have been as much because they didn't like Grigg's choice of music to herald his entrance into the arena than just the excessive volume.
Rasalhague Death Metal was
not to everyone's tastes, although it did have something of a following in the Illyrian Palatinate so that might have been why Grigg's chose it. As the hundred-ton
Atlas assault battlemech he was piloting stomped into the arena accompanied by fireworks its custom paintjob certainly suited the bombastic, thrashing music, black and red highlights accentuating the machine's already imposing appearance. The skull-like head of the mech made it look suitably monstrous to start with, sheer intimidation being one of the design specifications Aleksandr Kerensky had given for the thing when ordering the thing to be created, so making the twelve-metre tall machine look even more terrifying to behold was something a lot of
Atlas pilots went for.
Upon reaching his start position for the match Peter Grigg halted his battlemech and ran through the game-plan in his head one more time. He knew his opponent was riding a
Nightstar, an advanced machine undoubtedly tricked out with Niops lostech, and one he had also rarely encountered before because both the factories that had made them had been destroyed during the First Succession War.
The
Nightstar was a long-range sniper, even if the one he was facing had apparently swapped it's original ERPPC for an LB-10X autocannon, which meant he would want to close the distance as fast as possible because otherwise his
Atlas would just get battered to pieces by gauss-rifle slugs.
Close up however his Atlas would eat the thing alive. The
Nightstar used a high-tech XL engine which meant it couldn't absorb the punishment his own machine could, and having the ammo for that autocannon in their alongside the lightweight engine was a
really bad idea. Chances were that Niops had installed CASE on the ammo bins, they still had all the fancy SLDF gear that was gradually becoming extinct in the Inner Sphere, but CASE only
limited the damage caused by an internal ammunition explosion it didn't eliminate it entirely.
A few good AC/20 hits into the torso of the
Nightstar and not only would it's XL engine be destroyed, crippling the mech, the ammo might even go up sending pieces of assault mech hurtling up into the stratosphere.
You could kill a mech with a single headshot from an AC/20 but that wasn't easy to do. Aiming centre-mass was more reliable, the torso was much larger than the head, and with both an XL engine and ammo in there the
Nightstar would go down almost as fast from putting rounds into its gut as it would from a lucky strike on its cockpit.
Griggs smiled, this wasn't exactly Solaris but it
was nice to get back into the game, he thought to himself as music ended and announcer started speaking again.
"
Our challenger tonight, hailing from the Niops Association, graduate of their Gunslinger program, the pride of the SLDF, Henry McCarty!" the announcer roared as very different music began to play and more fireworks reached for the skies.
What started out seeming like easy-listening elevator music played softly with a funky beat a falsetto male voice began to sing as the
Nightstar stomped into the arena.
"
Listen to the ground
There is movement all around
There is something goin' down
And I can feel it""
On the waves of the air
There is dancin' out there
It's somethin' we can't share
We can't steal it"
In the cockpit of his machine Wilhelm Sampson grinned. "Saturday Nightstar fever baby" he said, knowing Jackie Mroczkiewicz was listening in on a secured channel as the ninety-five ton assault mech strutted in to the beat of the music.
As yet nobody else in the SLDF had figured out how he managed to get a battlemech to walk quite like that, although many others had tried, and failed, to emulate the weird bouncy stride. Apparently it had something to timing the electrical triggering of the myomers in the leg and foot exactly at the right moment, and also having good rhythm Sampson maintained.
"
That sweet city woman
She moved through the light
Controlling my mind and my soul
When you reach out for me, yeah
And the feelin' is right"
"
Then I get night fever, night fever
We know how to do it
Gimme that night fever, night fever
We know how to show it"
As the music faded away Sampson reached his start-point facing his opponent, a couple of hundred metres short of gauss rifle range as he switched on his targeting system. The
Nightstar was a late Star League design with very advanced computer-assisted aiming and he switched it over to long-range mode as he selected the
Atlas over yonder for the computer's attention.
All the bulky mining equipment in the open-cast-mine turned mechwarrior arena would give both mechs the opportunity to use cover, but Sampson knew if he chose his path carefully, maximising line-of-sight contact with his opponent, it would give him the best chance of getting in a few good hits before Grigg's in the
Atlas could properly retaliate.
"
Can I get a round of applause for both these brave gladiators out here to entertain us tonight" the announcer requested over the tannoy system. The crowd doing so and cheering as well.
"OKAY MECHWARRIORS. LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!" the announcer exclaimed. "
THREE, TWO, ONE, GAME ON!"
Sampson started to move forward as did Grigg's, although the former only wanted to get into gauss-rifle range as soon as possible and once he did so planned to try and keep his distance as long as possible while the man at the controls of the
Atlas would be trying to close down the range as quickly as he could.
Reaching effective range for his twin gauss rifles Sampson opened fire with the first shots of the match and the audience started to cheer once again as the crack of large-bore steel slugs accelerated to ludicrous velocities echoed off the walls of the mine.
In the
Atlas Peter Grigg's knew his machine wasn't the sniper that the
Nightstar was, those first two shots barely missed him, but that didn't mean he was incapable of firing back as one of the second salvo of gauss-rifle slugs whizzed past his machine close enough to leave a mark on the paint.
Battlemechs used for the tournaments on Solaris were often better equipped than those used by the Great Houses, customised machines with weaponry that was lostech in many places, and the LRM 20 missile launcher installed on Grigg's
Atlas was fitted with an Artemis IV Fire-Control-System. This gave the missiles considerably better accuracy and as Grigg's got into range he locked onto the
Nightstar in preparation for unleashing a barrage.
Or rather he
tried to lock onto the
Nightstar but as soon as the Artemis IV attempted to do so the
Nightstar instantly broke the lock.
"Dammit, he's got a Guardian ECM system fitted" Grigg's said aloud so his pit-crew listening in could hear him. "Probably swapped out some gauss-rifle rounds to find the tonnage" he reasoned. As designed the
Nightstar NSR-9J typically carried a whopping seven tons worth of gauss rifle slugs into action, which was frankly excessive for a battle, let alone a one-on-one tournament, so losing some to fit an ECM unit wasn't the worst choice.
You could still fire the launcher without an Artemis IV lock so Grigg's did so, knowing that he wouldn't get as many hits as he would have wanted but it was better than just letting the ****** in the
Nightstar plink away at him without response.
The volley of twenty LRM's launched by the
Atlas sailed in an arc through the air, putting on a good show for the spectators as they left a smoke trail behind them.
The audience got an even more exciting show just as the first missiles in the volley neared the
Nightstar because a concealed hatch on the thing snapped open and a tiny computer-controlled turret with its own targeting system popped out and began shooting at the inbound LRM's, those that wee hit exploding.
"
Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are seeing in action is an Anti-Missile-System" the announcer eventually commented in obvious surprise as the small-calibre multi-barrelled machine gun shot down a proportion of the LRM's before they struck the
Nightstar, minimising the damage the barrage could inflict. "
Niops lostech not seen in the battlefields of the Inner Sphere for nearly a decade" he added.
The loud 'clang' of a gauss rifle slug making contact with the
Atlas indicated that the
Nightstar had made its first hit on the
Atlas, that single impact stripping away nearly three times the armour off it than its handful of LRM's which got through the AMS fire had inflicted on its opponent.
Cackling maniacally at the control of his
Nightstar as the
Atlas continued to bear down on him Sampson keyed up his LB-10X which was now in effective range, selecting standard HEAP rounds for his first burst of autocannon fire.
Both gauss rifles mounted in his arms fired, their slugs along with the autocannon rounds hurtled through the space between the mechs, the faster magnetically propelled slugs reaching the target first, one making contact with another loud 'clang' just before the HEAP rounds exploded on impact near to where the slug had hit, tearing off more armour.
Grigg's was getting annoyed now, at least the
Nightstar couldn't run away. It was no faster than the
Atlas and they were penned in by the walls of the mine anyway. Fortunately the
Atlas could soak up punishment like almost no other machine, and once he got close he could dish it out a lot harder than the damn
Nightstar could.
Managing to get in a couple more good hits with his own longer-range guns before the
Atlas got close enough to shoot back with its gigantic AC/20 Sampson was satisfied with how things were going so far. The
Atlas had continued to throw LRM's at him all this time, and enough had gotten through the AMS fire that his
Nightstar was
far from pristine but the
Atlas looked a lot worse.
Finally close enough for his AC/20, SRM launcher and his two medium lasers, Grigg's custom
Atlas also had a pair of medium-pulse-lasers that he would have to be even closer to use, the former Solaris Grand Champion opened up with nearly everything he had causing the crowd to start cheering again.
Unable to deal with quite so many inbound missiles, the
Atlas was just the range where both LRM's and SRM's were effective and was firing both its launchers, the AMS on the
Nightstar, already running red hot and running out of ammunition, struggled to cope with such a target rich environment only stopping some of them from getting through.
Inside the
Nightstar Sampson could feel his machine taking an absolute battering but he ignored it as he continued to put round-after-round into the torso of the
Atlas.
Just as an AC/20 burst tore a big chunk of armour off the
Nightstar a gauss rifle slug from the
Nightstar itself did likewise to the slightly heavier machine, an already damaged section of its torso now stripped bare of ablative armour plate revealing the internals behind.
Sampson switched his LB-X autocannon over from standard shells to cluster rounds, essentially making it into a huge shotgun giving it a better chance of hitting something important as the
Atlas continued to close to medium-pulse-laser range for the end-game.
At least this close up the
Atlas couldn't use its LRM launcher as well, Sampson considered although that was scant comfort as the AMS ran dry, barrels glowing red after taking out it's last few SRM targets. Adding his arm-mounted medium pulse lasers to the fire he was pouring into the
Atlas trying to shred its internals Sampson noted that the
Atlas had a couple of those two which wasn't good at this range even though his own were better.
Eventually one of those big AC/20 shells was bound to get lucky and one triggered an ammunition explosion in the
Nightstar, what was left of the rounds for the LB-X autocannon going up in a rippling explosion that rocked the ninety-five ton machine to the side and would have destroyed it entirely if not for the CASE protection system, blow-out panels directing much of the explosion away from vital systems.
The
Nightstar appeared to stumble, arms dropping as it stopped firing, a puppet with the strings cut. Peter Grigg's yelled in triumph, that explosion right next to the mechs fragile XL engine would have crippled it, fancy CASE protection or not.
Grigg's brought his
Atlas around to face the cheering crowd, raising the arms of his mech in triumph.
When the cheering abruptly stopped and with his pit crew screaming in his ear Grigg's realised the enormous magnitude of his mistake.
The
Nightstar had smoothly straightened back up and was aiming its gauss-rifles and medium pulse lasers at him where the
Atlas had no armour left, one arm aimed just above the magazine for the AC/20, the other centred on his gyro.
"I can't
believe I got suckered like that" Grigg's muttered to himself, deciding that he didn't want to risk dying on this ****** rock in the periphery and hitting eject just as the
Nightstar fired.
Sampson whooped in triumph as the
Atlas exploded and collapsed to the ground. Switching on the external speakers on the
Nightstar and cranking the volume up as far as it would go he collected himself again before speaking. "
Disco is not dead" he declared to the crowd, voice booming around the arena. "
Disco is life!"
Kirsten Mroczkiewicz and Rory Fallstaff, officers of the SLDF and bloodnamed warriors of Clan Wolverine, looked at each other. "If he wants to try and find and nightclub later, don't let him wear the cooling suit" Mroczkiewicz said eventually.
----------
Note from the Author:The only reason why most people in the Inner Sphere might have even heard of the Illyrian Palatinate is the annual mechwarrior games held there. It's not exactly the Solaris Games but they have enough of a following to attract competitors from pretty far away, all hoping for a chance to earn money, salvage and maybe even a little fleeting fame and glory. Illyria using big open-cast mines as makeshift arenas just seems like something they would do (their economy is based on mining after all).
You wouldn't usually expect to see a competitor of the likes of Peter Grigg on Illyria but dangle enough money (or lostech) in front of him and you can get him to travel.
Wilhelm Sampson, AKA 'Billy the Kid', AKA Henry McCarty (cookie if you get the reference), is using a customised Nightstar that uses an Standard Fusion Engine and an LB-10X autocannon instead of a Star League era XL Engine and and ERPPC, Grigg has a somewhat less customised Atlas.
The Nightstar also has CASE protection, AMS and a Guardian ECM suite. It's lostech fever baby!
And yes, the all-white prototype cooling suit is indeed a direct reference to a certain movie. :D