personal6

12

June 3, 3000

Morten Protectorate

Chitti

Jenki

Karren Simkins was one of the few female mechwarriors in the Morten Mech Army. Less than 6% of them were, for a variety of reasons, most notably women in general wanted to have babies…while Karren wanted to shoot people. Living the domestic life would have been a prison for her, so she'd taken her chance when House Morten put out an open invitation for anyone to train to become a mech warrior when they'd taken over Foniss 5 years ago.

She'd been taken off her homeworld to their Embassy Estate in the Federated Suns and spent more than the next year trying to do what others had done in less than 6 months. Karren was not a natural mechwarrior, but she was determined and would not quit as several others had. Eventually she improved her skills enough to qualify for the active roster, officially becoming a mech warrior and immediately undergoing moresimulator training as she waited for a mission.

Her first one had been garrison duty on a world called Turnix, spending some 6 months there, then she'd been sent back to the Morten estate for more training, then sent out again, this time to a hellish world called Hotspot to garrison it for another 6 months stint. She'd gone on two other garrison missions, each without any sign of raiders or other trouble, before having been posted to Chitti for the same garrison duties.

Each mission had her paired with different House Morten mechwarriors, so with each rotation she was making new acquaintances and a few new friends. She didn't feel like an outsider anymore after having gone through her second mission, and now she was one of the 'old guys' from the point of view of the younger recruits fresh out of their training.

Her scores on the COF were better than theirs…barely…but with all the downtime during garrison duty, she and the other mechwarriors would train in unit drills in the simulators, do real patrols and some live fire drills where applicable, and then spend the rest of their time working on the COF to improve their individual skills.

And she was getting better. Slowly. Like turtle slow, but then again, the symbol of the Morten Protectorate was a turtle shell, and one of her instructors had pointed that out to her, saying it didn't matter how many years you spent training, it mattered what your skills were the day you went into combat, and that she could outperform the most promising mechwarrior that practically knew how to pilot since birth if she gradually accumulated the same skills over the course of her life and then got paired up with that mechwarrior on his first mission.

The COF was pretty much proving that point true, and it was how everyone was basing their social positions within the units. Nobody tried to dual fight with people to prove how good they were anymore. That was seen as foolish. Morten mechwarriors were not here to spar, they were here to accomplish missions…and those missions would have a wide variety of requirements beyond mere dueling.

COF mission #31 was a dueling mission, so you got to practice that there against a simulated series of opponents. You had to take down the first mech to pass it, but then a second would arrive and you'd have to fight it out with whatever armor and weapons you had left. Karren had taken down the first mech after a lot of trying, establishing a score for that mission, but she hadn't been able to take down two in a row. Not yet anyway. It was something she and a lot of other mechwarriors were working on, with the highest score on #31 belonging to their Mech Commander.

He'd taken down 7, somehow, before being destroyed.

So dueling was just one skill of many, and you were judged by how good you were across the board, especially since the House Morten mechwarriors almost always fought as a team.

As they would be doing today, for right now she was sitting in a Warhammer inside a dropship doing a quick hop and drop from their mech bay on the planet to a nearby city where an invading dropship had landed some 8 minutes ago.

Jenki was one of the smaller cities on Chitti, which had a population of 28 million…which was a bit larger than her homeworld. The invaders, who had not identified themselves, were not heading to the mech bay or nearby spaceport in the central city of Habalak, so her Company of mechs had to load up and chase after them while another Company was doing the same elsewhere. The enemy had brought two dropships down from the star, and they were splitting up and heading to what targets she didn't know, but they were not coming here to directly engage the planetary defenders.

Karren was strapped into her cockpit seat, but kept her helmet off as she grit her teeth fighting against the high gs the dropship was pulling in order to get them up and over to the landing zone…which would be near to wherever the invaders landed. They were probably mercenaries and not raiders, but there was no way to tell at this point.

She felt the last of the high gs…more than 5 at some points given this dropship had been modified for speed to target operations…diminish as the dropship slowed to land, setting down with a thud as she was able to see through a remote camera link the view outside. They were in an urban area.

Karren pulled her helmet on and waited for orders as the single available ramp immediately began to lower, which was visible to her far right in the confined nook her mech was held in. The techs immediately began removing the restraints on it as she powered up the reactor to full.

"The enemy looks to be going for the Arjcor Manufacturing facility," her Company Commander said over the comm as his mech began walking out first. She was number 7 in order, based on their COF scores, and they always exited in order to avoid pileups in the tight confines of the reduced-sized dropship bay, which was still fully loaded with 12 mechs. "Single file run to the site, get there with all speed. Civilian casualties already reported. We'll group up when we're there."

"Shit," she said, waiting impatiently for the other 6 heavy mechs ahead of her to pull out of their niches and head for the ramp. She followed as soon as she could, staring at the back of another Warhammer piloted by Leon Kline as it walked off the ramp ahead of her just as she put her first metal foot on it and accelerated going down. Her Warhammer took off running at its top speed of 64 kph across the now torn up grass of a city park where the dropship had set down, then turned to follow Kline onto a road with cars swerving onto side streets to get out of the path of the mechs as they headed for the smoke climbing into the sky a few kilometers to the east.

The enemy dropship was located on the other side of the manufacturing facility, so if this was a run and gun on multiple targets, they'd hopefully meet the enemy mechs head on rather than chasing their heels the whole way.

"ID on the dropship and mechs indicates they're Markinson's Brigands, so we're dealing with mercenaries that probably have a lot of combat experience," Commander Jorginson warned. "Expect a nasty fight. They're in medium mechs, but it looks like we've got equal numbers. Force a fight as soon as possible. They're torching the plant."

"Come on, come on, come on," Karren urged her mech to move faster as it plodded down the streets, leaving shallow indents on the not-so-thick pavement. These bastards were shooting up helpless people. Let them try another mech and see how they liked it.

Ahead of her she saw weaponsfire as the Commander got within range of one of them, and on her tracking screen situated on the right side of her control board she saw twelve dots of her own Company's mechs illuminated on a map of the city. The first red dot…which were Morten colors…was near an enemy blue dot…which immediately started moving the opposite direction.

"They're running!" he said. "Chase them all the way back to the dropship if we have to, but get them away from the factory. Henry, take the long way around."

"Copy that," the third mech in line said as it broke at the corner of the manufacturing complex and began to work his way around the far side. He'd pick up any other mechs over there that weren't running yet, but the other 11 mechs seemed to be chasing the one in sight, which was now joined by two others that turned from shooting into the block-like buildings and ripping them apart and fired a few shots at the Commander's Rifleman before turning tail and running as well.

Jorginson was firing back though, and he was racking up hits on the last mech in line until it passed by another and a fresh one became the one in his targets. Nobody else had a clear shot as they zigzagged their way through the streets towards the enemy dropship zone, then a few more dots appeared on her screen.

"Split up and engage. Sanders and Vik with me, everyone else turn back and nail the trailers."

Karren immediately slowed her mech to a stop, then pivoted around in the tight streets to avoid hitting the nearby buildings and started to head the other way as Henry had flushed out three of them on the far side of the complex. They had a chance to intercept, but these lighter mechs had a slight speed advantage in some cases. Mediums could usually outrun heavies, but not by much…and with the city streets being the only options to get back to their dropship, it meant the Morten Company had a good chance of cutting them off or making them divert away from their ride out of here.

As long as one of her mechs had the enemy in sight their dot would stay on the screen. Get out of sight and it would disappear. She could guess where they were headed, but there were several street options to take in the grid-like pattern, so she was running her Warhammer up a middle one waiting for them to turn to the right and cross her path, for they were two blocks to her left and at least one block ahead. Her fellow mechwarriors were getting split up now as they took different routes to try and close in, as the three enemy mechs were doing the same, and eventually one of their Shadow Hawks passed across an open intersection before her in the blink of an eye.

Karren snapped off a single shot with one of her PPCs and nothing else, knowing they were inside a city and any misses could hit civilians in the buildings or on the streets. The bolt of energy clipped the shoulder of the mercenary, but then it was gone from view running to the right faster than her mech could move.

When she turned the corner, however, it was still in range and had very little maneuvering room, making some 86 kph and weaving ever so slightly, but it wasn't enough to keep her from unloading on its rear armor with her other PPC and her two medium lasers.

Armor plates exploded off the back of it, then when her other PPC recharged she took the very easy shot and expanded on one of the existing holes, seeing a gout of fire shoot back out and spray armor bits with it…but the mech continued to run forward and was still gaining distance.

Karren kept up as much as she could, but her medium lasers were starting to get less effective as she fired them again before the mech turned another corner and got out of her line of sight. She kept running straight, however, heading towards the dropship that she knew it would eventually head back towards.

She ignored the other mechs and went straight towards it, coming out near a parking complex that had scattered cars everywhere, and a Union-class dropship sitting in the middle of the paved area, but with no cars underneath it. The engines must have blown them aside prior to landing.

Karren put two PPC shots into it, then moved backwards around the corner of a building as return laser shots peppered her mech and some hit the nearby structures.

"Damn it," she said, knowing there were probably people in there.

"Karren, heads up!" Henry said, with her seeing a blue dot pop out onto the street behind her some 300 meters away.

She spun her mech around and blocked the center of the street, then carefully fired both her medium and small lasers at it before it turned to the side and disappeared the same way the other one had went as she ran forward chasing after it. She got to the intersection before Henry did, and slowed as much as needed to make the turn…then fired both PPCs into the 35 ton Panther that added to damage already done.

The mech exploded, with one arm flying into an apartment building and the rest of the mech face planting into the street.

Karren stayed back for a moment, wondering if the fusion core was going to breach. When it didn't, she walked her Warhammer up to it and looked for signs of movement.

"If you're still alive in there, open up and come on out," she said, over both the comm and the external speakers.

The top of the mech's head moved, with the hatch tilting open and puking out a man and a decent amount of smoke onto the street…with the man immediately starting to run towards one of the nearby buildings.

"Shit," she said, holding her fire so not to blow up the building itself. "Commander, I've got an enemy mechwarrior loose on the street. He just ran into a building."

"Stay put and watch the street, then find the police channel and have them come get him."

"Do you need help with the dropship?"

"No. Do not shoot it when it gets into the air. I don't want it crashing back down onto any buildings."

"Understood," Karren said, seeing it lift off a few minutes later and rush into the sky heading for orbit.

The police vehicles came into view not long after it got out of weapons range of the surface, and Karren began walking her mech back towards their own dropship, finding that they'd also bagged the Shadow Hawk she'd damaged earlier. Twelve enemy mechs had hit the Arjcor factory, but only 10 had made it out. She hoped they'd been paid well for the strike, because replacement mechs were not cheap…or so she'd heard. Did these mercenaries expect to hit the factory and get out without the Morten mechs responding so fast? If so, they'd made a serious miscalculation.

That said, as she walked her Warhammer back past the manufacturing complex Karren could see the significant damage done. Fuel tanks had been set ablaze, whole sections of the facility were shot up enough they'd have to be replaced rather than repaired, but the agromech production complex was so large they'd only been able to hit about a tenth of it. The rest was untouched.

So it wasn't exactly a complete loss for the mercenaries.

People had started to wander out into the streets, as had more vehicles on the ones that weren't clogged with debris…all of which immediately turned around and got out of her mech's way as the Morten Company rendezvoused back at their dropship and slowly climbed onboard for the hop back to their mech bay.

Or not.

"Back inside the dropship now!" the Commander ordered. "The other mercenary unit isn't running. They're playing cat and mouse around the Lake Hindri docks and already took down one of our mechs. We're going directly for their dropship."

"Hell yeah!" Karren said, but not over the comm, as her Warhammer sped up a bit as she headed to the open ramp and took her turn getting back inside. A few minutes later the clamps tightened over her mech and the dropship lifted off for another fast hop and drop to a location some 2,400 kilometers away…

Two days later a pair of jumpships entered the Nadir jump point of the Polvice system, finding a Mule-class dropship waiting near their position. Four dropships disembarked and began heading for the distant planet, with the jumpships utilizing their charged batteries and jumping back out again…with a pre-arranged rendezvous set for a few weeks later.

"Looks like this is the real thing," Captain Vodo said to his crew. "Sound acceleration alarm."

All the decks within the dropship, including the spinning gravity disc, got 15 seconds of warning to get themselves situated someplace safe, or at least oriented correctly, before the converted pocket warship began accelerating at some 3gs toward the track of the four dropships, intent on rendezvousing with them at an angle as they likewise continued to accelerate.

But the Jade Mushroomhad a head start, for it was sitting between the jump point's center where the enemy had arrived and the planet, meaning they had to pass by it at least once even if they accelerated to crazy speeds that he would not subject his own ship to. They could handle 3g for a short duration, but the engines could take them up to 6gs at maximum burn on low fuel, and 4.5g with full fuel tanks.

A standard Mule-class dropship had a maximum thrust of 2.5g, but a pocket warship needed to be able to go faster than that, so the engines had been reworked, as had the structural components within the ship. Sometimes mercenaries also reworked their dropships for more speed to outrun pursuit, and the Union-class dropships that they had were also supposed to have a top acceleration of 2.5g…but at the moment they were burning at 1.7g, probably not too concerned since they had a 4 vs 1 matchup ahead of them, despite the Mule's greater size.

But if they were running standard weapons on those Unions, Captain Vodo was confident he could at least knock out one of them. A Mule was a much older dropship type, and while considerably fatter than a Union, its weapon load was less than half and it carried less armor. The Mule was considered a 'civilian' craft, while a Union was designated as a military mech carrier…though Unions were also the bread and butter of dropships and had multiple configurations for civilian use as well.

But the larger hull size of the Mule had allowed House Morten to rework the interior, not for cargo carrying, but to make a tiny warship out of it. And it now carried more armor than those 4 unions combined, with about half their total weaponry…and it had the engines of a racehorse.

What it didn't have was much of anything else. No aerospace fighter berths on this one, though other Morten designs had them. It didn't have any cargo space, and barely had room for a small boarding/rescue shuttle. This ship was designed as a jump point bully, and it only seemed fair that Captain Vodo warn the intruders what they were up against.

"Attention unidentified dropships. You are entering a restricted system with assumed hostile intent. This is Captain Vodo of the Morten Protectorate warship Jade Mushroom. Cut your thrust and open your comms. I'd prefer not to have to gut a dropship in the vacuum of space, but I will if I have to. Unless you've heavily modified your engines, you're not going to outrun us," he said, strain in his voice lessening as their acceleration pulled back as they began to match courses and let the mercenaries catch up to them at a reasonable speed.

"Mule dropship," a gruff voice replied back. "Stay out of our way if you want to live. We're not here for you."

"May I ask who you are?"

"We're the Yellow Jackals and we've been hired to hit the planet. Stay out of our way and we'll ignore you."

"My job is to get in your way," Captain Vodo said amicably. "Did your employer neglect to mention this system had a pair of pocket warships defending it?" he asked, referencing the other one at the Zenith jump point.

"A Mule with upgraded engines hardly counts as a warship," the mercenary said mockingly, "even if you put some extra weapons on it. I'd prefer to land without a scratch and settle this with mechs, so just stay out of our way and we won't have to gut you. Fair enough?"

"I'm afraid not. We have our duty, and I can't promise I'll be able to take out only your engines. But I canguarantee that I'll take down at least one of your dropships before you hit the planet."

The mercenary laughed. "You're welcome to try."

The comm shut off, and Captain Vodo shook his head normally as the thrust dipped to under 1.5gs and kept falling as they matched tracks. "Well, I tried. Adjust course to hit the rear ship, and try for engines only."

It took another 8 minutes before the Jade Mushroom slid in at an angle to the four Yellow Jackals as they were accelerating faster than warship was now, essentially passing them on the 'road' to the planet as the Morten dropship slid in from the side ahead of them at a slower speed but still outside weapons range. They pulled in directly behind them, then accelerated at 3gs again until they caught up and started shooting at the trailing ship with a barrage of missiles designed to stay out of the fiery cone of exhaust and angle in at the last moment towards the engines from the side.

As soon as the missiles hit, the other three dropships cut their thrust and began to turn around, bringing the bulk of their weaponry into range as the targeted dropship continue to accelerate through the middle of them.

"Take us around the outside, David. We're not going through that gauntlet."

"Yes, sir," the helmsman said, altering thrust to the right to slip around the single Union on that side of the pack.

"Target weapon systems only for now, engine shots preferred when you get the chance," Captain Vodo said as a PPC blast hit his ship and destroyed a bit of their armor as 3 of his own fired back at the Union in question. "I want prisoners. Slow to match with target and slug it out until I give the word, then prepare to accelerate hard towards the planet."

His crew waited stoically as they slowed and just exchanged fire with the enemy dropship as the three others tried to maneuver around to get into weapons range. By the time they did and the Captain ordered the Jade Mushroom to shoot off outside of their weapons range, one entire side of the enemy Union was blackened with damaged hull plates and multiple holes in it where weapons batteries had been.

"They're venting atmosphere, but not much," Lieutenant Killman said at the sensor station. "I think they locked down in time."

"Engines?"

"Still functional."

"Alright then," he said, seeing the other three ships form a line ahead of the damaged one. "Bring us around behind them again, then close to weapons range on the closest one."

"They're all in approximately the same spot, Captain. Which one do you want?"

"Go with the left one. And bring our opposite batteries into alignment this time. Keep our damaged hull plates away from them."

The Jade Mushroomcame back in again, this time much faster, and the Captain made a firing pass rather than slugging it out, losing one large laser battery this time to the combined mercenary firepower, but they managed to take out half of the target's medium lasers and two of its large lasers while eating missile fire from all four ships.

He activated the comm again. "Yellow Jackals, time to rethink your position. By now you see we clearly outgun any one of you, and our hull armor is thicker. You can't run from us either. Stand down and we won't force a surrender. You can just wait here until your jumpship returns and go home."

In reply, the four Unions turned towards Polvice and started accelerating that way again.

The Captain buried his face in his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose for a long moment of silence as the crew waited for his next order. When his face came up, it was rigid.

"Which of the two ships has the most hull damage?" he asked.

"This one," the sensor officer said, indicating the one in the middle left position as they flew in a horizontal line together. "They put both damaged ones in the middle."

"Gentlemen, if we let those ships land on the planet, we put a lot of other people in jeopardy. If they won't back down and we can't get in close to disable them without getting our own ship shot to hell, then we have to crack an egg. Target the intact one on the left. Make a firing run, then flip over and decelerate hard to bring us into slugging position. All batteries are to target the same location. Punch a hole into their cargo bay."

"We'll get it done," Lieutenant Vickers said, in charge of fire control, as he tagged the spot on the enemy ship he wanted hit, knowing that he might have to alter it if the ship rolled or otherwise tried to evade.

The Jade Mushroomaccelerated back up to 3gs…with the helmsman knowing never to exceed that thrust unless specifically ordered to by the Captain…and quickly caught back up to the group as weaponsfire from all 5 dropships crisscrossed the rapidly closing space. The upgraded mule then flipped over, showing the enemy its engines briefly as it slid by and slowed ahead of them…now facing their engines with its forward hull as they started to flip over themselves, not having expected the hard braking maneuver.

In that delay, the pocket warship opened up with all batteries in range, including a full missile barrage as its armor took damage from the 4 Unions…and punched a hole right through one of the 4 mech bay doors as the dropship tried to swivel to spread out the damage, but the Morten gunners adjusted their firing to keep hammering the same spot until it finally gave out, with the ship immediately listing as the atmosphere exploded out the hole like thrust from an engine.

"Get us clear," the Captain ordered, "continue to return fire."

The Jade Mushroomlost another two laser batteries in the exchange and more outer hull plates, but the extra thickness was protecting them. Captain Vodo was about to try and talk some sense into them again when the other three dropships suddenly split up, accelerating at their top speed of 2.5gs in wildly different directions that he knew would eventually all turn back towards the planet…giving them three different targets to chase rather than a unified one.

Meaning they'd conceded losing at least one dropship, maybe two, but they intended to get the others to ground rather than surrendering them all.

"Hail the damaged one."

An angry voice came through this time, but Vodo didn't think all the anger was directed at him.

"Hold your fire. We surrender," he said, biting out the last word with difficulty.

"They left you behind," Vodo said simply. "You should have taken my offer and all left intact."

"What now?" the enemy Captain demanded.

"What's your ship's status?"

"We've got air up here, but the cargo bay is depressurized and the control lines to our engines are not responding. We've got thrusters working, but that's it."

"Kill your list with them and stay put. If you've got life support enough to last, sit tight until we get another dropship up here. If not, get in your escape pods and we'll pick you up now."

"You can have the mercenaries," the man said, nearly spitting the word. "My crew will remain onboard."

"You're not part of their unit?"

"No. We're an independent contractor…or were."

"We'll sort the fate of your ship out later. Get the mercenaries into the pods and you just float here until we send someone back for you. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"And no delays. We still have to chase your friends."

"They're not associated with us, so I don't care. The mercenaries will be off the ship as soon as I can arrange it."

"If they don't go, I can poke another hole in the hull."

"They'll go if I have to use my sidearm. Prepare to pick up lifeboats."

A few minutes later, as promised, the first of the lifeboats shot off from the hull of the damaged ship, followed by 3 others out of the 7 total the dropship carried. The Jade Mushroommaneuvered to dock with each, then had the crewmembers that were dual trained as infantry take the mercenaries from the dock to the brig one at a time, disarming those that had thought they could maybe take over the ship from within.

Fighting in zero g was quite different than on the ground, and the few skirmishes that took place ended up with wounded mercenaries and nothing else. The others divorced themselves from any notions of taking over the pocket warship and floated through the hallways under guard without any further issue, then were stuffed inside tiny isolation cells designed for just such a situation.

With no space station built near the jump points, the pocket warships had to be little islands of their own out here, and if they were to board ships they needed someplace to stick prisoners. They had room for some 28 prisoners, unless they doubled them up in the cells, but out of this wounded dropship they only pulled 19…12 mechwarriors and 7 support staff.

"Captain, is that all of them?" Vodo asked over the audio link.

"It is now. The others died when the cargo bay depressurized."

"I see," he said as the lifeboats drifted away from his ship. "Is your situation stable?"

"It appears to be. We have three lifeboats remaining if it's not."

"Hold tight for now. We'll be in touch later."

"We're not going anywhere."

"What is your name, Captain?"

"Jared Chordive."

"Captain Chordive, thank you for being reasonable."

"I didn't have much choice in the matter."

"True, but that doesn't stop some people from being obstinate, and you could have played for more time to let the other dropships get a bigger head start."

"They're not my concern, my crew is."

"Did you lose any of them?"

"Two."

"My apologies, Captain. But I'm afraid this is what sometimes happens when you work with mercenaries. They're loyal to themselves and their employer, not so much their rides. We'll speak again later," he said, signaling to cut the comm. "Put us on the most direct line to Polvice and accelerate to 3g for ten minutes, then back off to 1g and give me intercept points."

The Captain sat in his chair at a weird angle, for the gravity disc was still spinning from their brief respite as they accelerated. Going beyond 3g would require them to stop it entirely, but it had been designed to stay active during straight line thrust, though they'd had to deactivate it during combat or otherwise the gyroscopic action would never have allowed them to flip heads for tails in any appreciable amount of time.

That wasn't needed now, so they began accelerating at 3g as the Captain suffered through it in his now reclined chair in silence, not trying to speak or monitor anything. When it finally abated he felt fatigued, but not injured. However, if those other dropships continued at 2.5 g for a considerably longer amount of time, their crews might be.

"Where do we stand?" he asked, with the spin of the gravity disc having slowed to almost nothing at this point, and all the stations on the bridge swiveled to use the constant thrust as gravity instead.

"We can intercept the closest one in 2 hours and 23 minutes if we maintain 3gs Captain, or less if they continue their course and slow down. If not, we're not going to catch them, even with the angle difference, with anything less than 1.9g all the way to the planet."

"They're playing a one-upmanship game," he announced to the crew. "They'll hold 2.5gs as long as we will. We can catch them if we want, but we'll have to damage ourselves in the process. They'd rather be damaged than caught in space."

"Captain, we can intercept in less than an hour at 4gs."

"If that was down to a few minutes I'd consider it, but no. They got their head start and they'll run it all the way to the planet. We'll follow them in and hold in orbit. We'll catch at least one on the way out and the Golden Mushroom can intercept the others on the way back to the star. At best they'll get one dropship out, but if Captain Billings scares off their jumpship when it comes back, none of them will be leaving. Inform our sister ship when we clear the star and send a message to Polvice letting them know we've got prisoners and they've got three dropships incoming with Yellow Jackals."