Tactics of Duty Read online

  VICTORS!

  With the steady clank-clank of shifting actuators, a towering shadow emerged from the open door, a ten-meter shape more humanlike, and more menacing than the ugly little UrbanMech. Alex recognized that heavy-shouldered, roundheaded silhouette immediately and wondered where in all possible hells Wilmarth could have found hardware like that.

  The Victor, eighty tons of armor and death, creaked and whined clear of the open 'Mech bay doors. Close behind the first came a second Victor, its head turning as it surveyed the battle wreckage of the courtyard.

  Victors! It had been all Alex could do to take down that single, lightweight UrbanMech. Two Victors ... stopping them was not something a pair of lightly armed humans could even attempt.

  "I think, lad, we'd best get the hell oot' here," McCall said.

  "Couldn't have put it better myself, Major. Let's move!"

  But the Victors were crashing toward the barbican as fast as their massive legs could carry them.

  Escape was impossible....

  BATTLETECH

  LE5490

  TACTICS OF DUTY

  William H. Keith, Jr.

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

  London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

  First Printing, August, 1995

  1098765 4 321

  Copyright © FASA Corporation, 1995

  All rights reserved

  Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover: Romas Kukalis

  Mechanical Drawings: Duane Loose and FASA art staff

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA BATTLETECH, FASA, and the distinctive BATTLETECH and FASA logos are trademarks of the FASA Corporation, 1100 W. Cermak, Suite B305, Chicago, IL 60608.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN BOOKS USA INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

  Prologue

  Ryco Pass

  Glengarry, Skye March

  Federated Commonwealth

  0952 Hours, 17 April 3056

  Laser fire flashed, a dazzling strobe of ruby brilliance searing through the swirl of smoke and dust. Close!

  Alexander Carlyle's ARC-4M Archer, seventy tons of towering, twin-fisted, steel-edged destruction, lurched across soft and uneven ground, each step a test of uncertain footing. Ryco Pass was an arroyo through the arid, near-desert terrain southeast of the Glengarry town of Halidon, a wide, steep-sided gully with a floor that was silt-soft layers of powdery, bone-dry sediments and sand washed down from the distant Teragorma Hills by snow melt and flash floods. Firmly packed beneath, the upper layers were soft enough to shift and give beneath each of the Archer's ponderous steps, threatening to pitch the lumbering, heavy 'Mech to the ground.

  Alex, his neurohelmet relaying the feedback of impulses necessary to let him keep his twelve-meter-tall combat machine balanced with each swing of a leg or arm, countered the uneven ground without having to think about it. His full attention was locked on four steadily advancing blips scattered across the gully less than two hundred meters ahead. He couldn't see them yet, not with his naked eyes, anyway—his "Mark I eyeballs" as old Davis McCall might say.

  The battle had been raging off and on, a broken and disjointed running engagement, for the past twenty minutes now, and smoke hung in the still air like white, filmy curtains. But a 'Mech's other electronic senses could see what human eyes could not. The enemy was just ahead now, screened by battle smoke, their four-'Mech vanguard well in the lead of the main body.

  "Gold One! Gold One!" crackled over Alex's tactical channel. "Lad, what the blazes are ye doin'?"

  That thick Caledonian burr was Davis McCall, the big, blunt, heavily muscled veteran who was Alex's number two in the Command Lance.

  "Gold Two, this is Gold One," Alex called back. "You've got the unit, Davis."

  As if Davis McCall hadn't been running things all along, him and the other old hands from the Gray Death Legion. "Negative, lad! Ye dinnae need t' do this!" Alex didn't answer, save to increase the lumbering speed of his Archer down the broad, steep-sided gully. He did need to do this. There was no other way.

  For hours now, the Gray Death Legion, under Alex's temporary command, had been battling for its life. Rebel forces—his warbook program had them pegged as elements of the Fourth Skye Guards under the command of General Kommandant von Bulow—had caught the Legion at daybreak in Halidon, mauling them severely. Somehow they'd managed to break contact and retreat, but von Bulow had shown an uncharacteristic zeal, doggedly pursuing what was left of the Legion without stopping to rearm or resupply. The General was obviously convinced he had the Legion forces on Glengarry right where he wanted them, and he wasn't about to open his fist and let them slip away.

  But Alex was determined that the Gray Death Legion would escape; its secret base in the Glencoe Highlands lay just a few tens of klicks further to the southeast. If they could reach that sanctuary, if they could find just a few precious hours to repair the worst of the damage suffered in the trap at Halidon ...

  Alex could see only one way to slow von Bulow's relentless advance. The Skye rebel forces must be nearly as spent as the Legion was right now ... they must be! The pursuing MechWarriors would be tired—and they'd be cautious, despite von Bulow's urgings to press forward and run the Legion's survivors down. All Alex had to do was give them a hard, hard push right where they weren't expecting it.

  Long-range missiles howled overhead, scrawling white contrails down the Glengarry sky. Explosions thundered in the distance as the Legion rear guard continued trying to break contact. Alex ignored the missiles, ignored the continuing flash and pulse of 'Mech lasers.

  One hundred meters, and closing. Any moment now ...

  There! Movement, highlighted by the targeting crosshairs projected onto Alex's HUD by his Archer's Instatrac Mark XII targeting computer. Data cascaded down the right-hand side of the HUD, repeating columns of text flickering across the secondary monitor. The pursuers were light and medium 'Mechs, probably an ad hoc pursuit unit thrown together from the remnants of the enemy's recon and medium lances. A VND-3L Vindicator and a Commando, those two alone massing as much as Alex Carlyle's Archer. And spread out to left and right were a thirty-five-ton WLF-2 Wolfhound and a forty-ton Assassin, armored monsters confidently closing in for an easy kill.

  With his Archer out-massed more than two to one, Alex's lone hope was that those four had already suffered combat damage, either
in the melee as the Legion rear guard had opened up on them just moments before, or hours ago, at Halidon. Zooming in with his Archer's long-range optics, he scanned the approaching enemy for signs of damage and was rewarded by the sight of torn and cratered armor. Yes! There was still a chance!

  The problem was, Alex was already low on LRMs, with just twenty-eight rounds left in his Archer's tubes, and one more reload of twelve in reserve. When those were gone, he would have to rely on his lasers ... and on the brute-force slugging power of his already battered Archer.

  Range and targeting data scrolled down the border of his HUD. Alex pivoted his Archer's torso left while maintaining its dead run toward the enemy. Reacting more by instinct than by any certain knowledge of target acquisition, he punched the firing key, triggering a spread of Doombud long-range missiles. A dozen contrails scratched curving white lines across the intervening space, the missiles' white-hot motors showing briefly as a cascade of dazzling stars before they slammed home against the Vindicator's upper works.

  Alex was already shifting targets before his first missile struck; as orange bursts of flame and hurtling bits of scrapped armor exploded from the VND-3's chest and right arm, a second barrage was already shrieking toward the COM-5S Commando standing close beside its heavier consort. Doombuds blossomed, their ghastly orange petals unfolding faster than the eye could follow, slamming the Commando back with a jack-hammering salvo of blasts high on its chest.

  For a deadly instant, the battlefield was wreathed in an impenetrable fog of boiling smoke and showering dust. Alex heard the dull chunk of a Doombud magazine slamming home in his Archer's right torso launcher, and the wink of red-glowing discretes told him he'd just loaded his last twelve LRMs.

  No matter. Alex Carlyle was caught now in battlefield madness, a wild and unreasoning berserker's lust that drove him on, unthinking, heedless of the enemy's greater numbers or his own 'Mech's weakness. He heard a full-throated scream of pure, raw fury sounding over his neurohelmet's com receivers, and it was seconds before he recognized the shriek as his own war cry. Continuing his wild charge, he crashed at full speed into the battered Commando with a mighty clash of steel on ringing steel.

  The Commando, outweighed almost three to one by the Legion Archer, hit the ground flat on its back with a jolting crash, its fall throwing up a pall of roiling dust. Alex paused, triggering a third missile barrage, clearing the last of his right-side tubes with a point-blank volley into the Assassin advancing from the right, before slamming one huge, armored foot down onto the Commando's torso.

  Flame spurted from ruptured seams as short-ranged missiles stored within the 'Mech's hull detonated, the first blast of a rippling chain-reaction of flashing, thundering detonations that threatened to knock Alex down as well. He spun sharply right, recovering his balance on expertly flexing knees, unloading a pair of laser bursts into the Assassin as he moved. The Assassin, its right arm already badly damaged, seemed to crumple in that withering salvo of coherent light. Its right arm, the one mounting a Magna 400P medium pulse laser, was torn wide open from elbow to shoulder. Internal wiring and power feeds sparked and flashed in a cascade of short circuits as the arm went dead, dangling uselessly by the 'Mech's side as the target damage readout on Alex's primary monitor showed compete power failure to its actuators.

  Laser fire struck the Archer from behind, but Alex ignored the attack, loosing another barrage into the Assassin already in his sights. The Assassin went into a crouch, and Alex's readouts showed a sudden build-up of power; the Assassin pilot was readying for a jump. Lumbering forward, Alex triggered a final volley of lasers at point-blank range, slashing through the Assassin's already mangled armor. Closing in to touching distance, his Archer's steel fist rising high overhead, he brought the arm down in a hammerblow that connected with the Assassin's back and armored left shoulder with an ear-tearing shriek of tortured metal. The Assassin tried to respond with a left-armed swing of his own, clumsy and badly timed. Alex blocked it, then smashed his right fist into the other 'Mech's torso. Stricken, the Assassin dropped to hands and knees as though in submission before the blind and battle-maddened fury of the rampaging Archer.

  But before Alex could finish the job, more laser bolts slammed into the Archer from the rear. Others narrowly missed his 'Mech and burned away bits of the stricken Assassin instead, so closely were the two 'Mechs engaged. Alex pivoted hard, pushing away from the fallen Assassin. The Wolfhound was fifty meters away, the large Cyclops XII laser in its right arm loosing a dazzling beam that slashed high across the Archer's chest.

  Alex's heat levels, already high after his long run to meet the rebel vanguard, soared at the raw caress of the laser. Ignoring the warning discrete flashing across his instrumentation, he triggered his last twelve missiles, hurling them in a close-packed swarm straight into the Wolfhound's center of mass. Explosions flared, white-hot flashes of vaporized metal and hurtling bits of shrapnel. Alex followed up with a salvo of laser fire, snapping off shot after shot after shot, before turning once more, this time to deal with the rebel Vindicator.

  The last of Alex's luck—like the effects of surprise won by his suicidal dash into the enemy formation—was very nearly used up. At forty-five tons, the Vindie was the heaviest of his four opponents and arguably the most dangerous. He'd hoped to knock it down a notch or two earlier on, but the lighter rebel 'Mechs had blocked him, and now the Vindicator was raising its massive Warrior particle projection cannon.

  It was extremely close range for a PPC—possibly too close. Alex lunged to the side, hoping to sidestep the deadly weapon's aim, but the Archer was too big, too slow, too battered by earlier damage. A searing blue-white bolt of ball lightning burned into his empty left missile rack, vaporizing the hatch, shredding electronics and circuit relays like tissue. The blast sent an electromagnetic pulse surging through the Archer's primary feeds and power couplings; blue sparks curled and twisted off his instrumentation, as outside, the excess charge grounded itself in jaggedly forked bolts of lightning.

  "Warning! Warning!" a computer's voice sounded in the cockpit. "Major damage to primary coils and power feed. Major damage to relay circuits. Shutdown imminent. Shutdown—"

  Reflexively, savagely, Alex slapped the shutdown override and manually engaged his backup relay net, buying himself ... how much time? Seconds? As much as a minute? The damage was bad, the heat build-up deadly. Words written in flame-red LED alphanumerics scrolled across his HUD, recommending that he eject.

  He loosed four laser bolts in rapid-fire succession squarely into the Vindicator at close range, took two unsteady steps forward, and triggered four blasts more. Clumsily, the Vindie tried to swivel its head, bringing its single medium laser to bear, but Alex circled right, sidestepping, forcing the Vindicator to rotate its torso, then its entire body, in an attempt to track the Archer, and all the while Alex was slamming bolt after bolt of coherent light home, ripping away whole slabs of armor, smashing the exposed cylinder of the laser mounted on the side of the helmet-like head, bearing down on scabbed and heat-blackened strips and plates on the enemy 'Mech's side and legs where it had taken hits earlier and must already be weakened.

  The Wolfhound's lasers fired from behind and Alex's right knee buckled, sending his combat machine crashing full-length to the ground. The jolt slammed Alex so hard that his vision went red for an instant and the concussion nearly knocked him senseless, despite the padded harness anchoring him in his cockpit seat. Rolling, he tried to raise the 'Mech, but both the Wolfhound and the Vindicator were closing in now, confident of a kill....

  Missiles streaked in from the left, exploding against the Vindicator's leg and torso armor. For the briefest of instants, Alex thought that one of his foes had accidentally fired on a comrade; "friendly fire" was always a deadly and terrifying possibility in a close-in dust-up like this One. Swinging his torso left as he levered into a sitting position, he was startled to see the billowing dust cloud and flaring plasma jets of a Shadow Hawk—one of his Shadow Hawks,
which meant it was either Sergeant Propst or—

  "Alex!" a familiar voice, young and adrenaline-edged, called over the Legion's tactical channel. "Alex, what in the name of Blake are you doing?"

  "Get clear, Davis!" Alex yelled as the Shadow Hawk grounded, its legs flexing deeply to absorb the impact. As the enemy 'Mechs turned to face this new and unexpected threat, he brought the Archer upright and at the same time pivoted the torso about until his targeting cross hairs slipped across the image of the battered Vindicator, turned now to expose its profile and rear. Laser light flared; armor on the Vindicator's side and shoulder exploded in a white haze of metallic vapor. "Damn it!" Alex yelled again. "Davis! Get out of there!"

  But Davis Carlyle Clay was not so easily or casually dismissed. Straightening, the Shadow Hawk turned to the left, the long, heavy muzzle of the Imperator Ultra-5 autocannon mounted over the 'Mech's left shoulder dropping into line with the Vindicator. With a thunderous slam-slam-slam of high-velocity, high-explosive shells, Clay's autocannon barrage walked across the Vindicator's chest and legs, smashing and twisting already damaged armor, tearing, gouging, ripping man-sized chunks free and hurling them through the smoke-clotted air.

  Davis Carlyle Clay was Alex Carlyle's number four in the Legion's First Battalion, First Company Command Lance . .. and his best friend. Young, impulsive, a born warrior if you could overlook his recklessness, Davis was the son of one of the original MechWarriors recruited into the Gray Death Legion. His name reflected the interweavings of friendship and camaraderie within the Legion; he'd been named for Major Davis McCall, another of the Legion's old hands, and for Grayson Carlyle, the Legion's founder.

  Alex's father.

  And now Davis was squared off almost toe-to-toe with the Vindicator and the Wolfhound, trading shot for shot for shot in a furious exchange of sizzling laser bolts. Clay's Shadow Hawk, Alex knew, was already bone-dry for long-range missiles. That salvo a moment ago had probably emptied the last of his SRMs, and he must be running low on autocannon mag reloads by now as well. When his last high-explosive round was expended, he'd have nothing left but the laser mounted on his right forearm. His 'Mech had been badly worked over at Halidon, too, and there were great, blackened craters and scars pocking the machine's torso and upper works. Under the deadly, concentrated fire from the two Fourth Skye Guard 'Mechs, Clay's Shadow Hawk appeared wreathed in a coruscating aura of red and gold light as the dust scuffed into the air mingled with smoke, growing thicker and more opaque. In the shifting, uncertain light and haze, the Hawk appeared to be bleeding ... as steaming, dark green coolant gushed from a half-dozen rents in its armor. Davis Clay's 'Mech must be on the verge of going into heat shutdown as well.