Battletech shell games a.., p.1
Battletech: Shell Games: A BattleTech Novella, page 1
BattleTech: Shell Games
A BattleTech Novella
Jason Schmetzer
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Notable BattleMechs
More BattleTech Fiction by Jason Schmetzer
Battletech Glossary
BattleTech Eras
The BattleTech Fiction Series
Prologue
MONOLITH-CLASS JUMPSHIP ARIADNE
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
4 MARCH 3149
In less than the blink of an eye Paladin Max Ergen was nowhere, and then he was somewhere. Iron discipline kept him from lurching toward the rail when his stomach twisted and bile rose in his throat, but he couldn’t hide the clench of his jaw and the repeated dry swallows to keep his gorge down. It was even harder with no gravity.
“Emergence complete, Paladin,” Commander Rebecca Stane reported.
“Thank you,” Ergen said after another burning swallow. “The rest of the flotilla?”
“Formal reports are still coming in,” the JumpShip’s executive officer said, “but so far everything looks good.”
Ergen nodded carefully. “Very good.”
Stane glanced at him. Her chocolate skin reflected the lights of the panels in front of her, but she barely smirked knowingly at him before returning her attention to her displays. Ergen had known Becca Stane for ten years. She knew about his jump sickness. She’d been the one to tell him what it was, and how it was nothing to be ashamed of.
Ergen swallowed again. He wasn’t ashamed.
But a Paladin of the Republic didn’t show weakness if he could help it.
“Confirmed,” Stane said a moment later. “All First Army vessels are present and accounted for.”
“Very good,” Ergen repeated. He looked into the holotank as green icons and pennant numbers flickered to life around the blue dot representing the Ariadne. “And our hosts?”
“Nothing nearby,” Stane said, “but we’re still collating reports.”
“And we’re where we’re supposed to be?”
In response, Stane touched a control and gestured to the tank. “See for yourself, Paladin.”
Ergen smiled and looked. The smooth ball of a planet seen from distant orbit shone in the display. He heard as much felt the reaction of the Ariadne’s combat information center crew at the image; JumpShips weren’t ever supposed to come near planets and their deep, clinging gravity wells.
JumpShips were spindle-shaped interstellar carriers. They normally traversed hyperspace in instantaneous jumps from system jump point to system jump point, distant areas above and below the planetary ecliptics where gravitational distortion was practically zero. Fat-bodied DropShips, heavy interplanetary vessels, carried people and cargo from inhabited planets to jump points. The journey normally took days of constant acceleration and deceleration.
Those days would have made Max Ergen’s mission impossible.
Which was why a planet hung in the display.
In special cases, when the planets and moons literally aligned, special temporary jump points were accessible. Called pirate points, they were short-lived, and greatly increased the risk of damage to a ship’s drive. In drastic cases, whole ships were lost. Many JumpShip captains were loath to run the risk. Ergen suspected that was why he was here in Ariadne’s CIC with the XO instead of on the bridge with Captain Maureen Tzo.
You’re being unkind, he chided himself. She’s a professional naval officer. She’s not being petty and keeping you out of her playground.
Sure she’s not.
“New contacts,” a plotting rating called out.
Ergen looked at the man, then back to the holotank, where a rash of red icons had appeared.
“Becca?” he asked, forgetting where they were.
“The welcoming party, Paladin,” Commander Stane said. “Looks like two squadrons of fighters and a pair of carrier DropShips.”
“Close?” They didn’t look close in the holotank, but Ergen was a ground combat officer. He wasn’t used to judging distances in space.
“Thirty minutes or so,” Stane said, after a moment. “Jones?”
“Twenty-eight point nine for a zero-zero,” the plotting rating confirmed.
“Almost dead on,” Commander Stane said, grinning.
“Close enough,” Ergen said. He considered. “Is that enough to delay the drop?” He didn’t think so, but he’d learned a long time ago to trust the experts when he wasn’t certain of something himself. It might be one of the most—possibly the most—important lesson he’d ever learned.
Stane snorted. “You’re going to put more DropShips in the air than that.”
“Very well.” He swallowed again, with finality, his jump sickness forgotten. “Signal the DropShips. We drop as planned.”
Stane looked at another rating, who touched a control and then nodded back at her. “Sent,” she said.
“Then I better get moving,” Ergen said. He nodded to Commander Stane, and met the stare of every rating who turned from their console to look back at him. Then he pushed himself back and toward the lift.
Behind him, the shining orb of Dieron still shone in the holotank.
1
ALDINGA
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
5 MARCH 3149
“You need to be careful who hears you say that,” Thad Mogami warned. The slender MechWarrior looked around the mess hall, then leaned in and winked. “Words like that get you sent to the Legion.”
Yuki Tanaka did his best not to roll his eyes. “You just got here from the Legion.”
Mogami straightened and spread his arms. “So you should believe I know what I’m talking about.” He turned around and looked at the two women sitting at the next table. “You two should believe me, too.”
Tanaka turned and looked over his shoulder. Both women were fit, average height, with short dark hair. They could be mistaken for sisters, and even though Missy Hogun was four years older than Emi Volkov, they looked the same.
“That you came from the Legion of Vega?” Volkov asked. She looked Mogami up and down. “I believe it.”
“No question,” Hogun said. “Now sit down, or we’ll send you back.”
Tanaka chuckled and turned back to his food. The ’Mech regiments of the Legion of Vega had never quite shed their reputation as a dumping ground for low-testers and malcontents. In the bad old years of the Succession Wars they had been just that, but in the modern Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery, they were just another group of regiments.
Unless you asked them. Then they were proud of their heritage.
“Never,” Mogami declared. “I will never leave the Second Dieron Regulars. I just got back!”
“Here he goes again,” Hogun muttered.
As Mogami stepped toward the next table, Tanaka tuned him out. He pushed at the oatmeal in his bowl with a thick-handled spoon. Mogami was a joker, but there was a kernel of truth in his warnings. Tanaka glanced at the next table, where a shaven-head man sat alone with his toast.
Even if the rumors were true—even if Hal Respeth was an informer for the Internal Security Force—it didn’t matter. Yuki Tanaka didn’t give a rat’s ass about politics. He was a soldier. He was loyal. He didn’t worry about proving that to anyone else except himself, not anywhere except in his ’Mech.
Tanaka shook his head. That was more clear evidence that his dear departed mother was right: he was an idiot. He took a sip of his tea and pushed his oatmeal around a little more.
This wasn’t news to anyone who knew him.
On the table, his comm chirped at him. He frowned down at it as he read the short message.
“What the—” He closed his mouth as he heard every other comm in the mess hall chirp. He looked around at the other dozen or so people looking down at their devices.
Mogami blinked and frowned. “For real?” he asked.
“Must a be a drill,” Volkov said.
The comms chirped again.
Tanaka looked down. This is not a drill.
“Oh, come off it, Respeth,” Mogami grumbled. “Your ISF buddies are screwing with my breakfast.”
Hal Respeth stood up, turned to face the room, and drained his mug. Tanaka could smell it from where he sat: coffee. As far as he was concerned that was even more evidence Mogami was a moron; what sensible ISF informer would drink something as clearly un-Combine as coffee?
One who doesn’t want to look like an informer, Tanaka’s mind filled in.
Damn it.
“Looks real to me,” Respeth said. He nodded to Tanaka. “With your permission, Tai-i?”
Tanaka ducked his chin. “Go.” He stood up as well. “Get moving, people. If this is a drill, you’re already ruining your response time. And if it’s not…” He grabbed up his bowl and mug and stepped to the side to drop them on the counter. “Then you’re ignoring your duty.”
Respeth was first out the door, but the other MechWarriors of Tanaka’s company—C Company, First Battalion, Second Dieron Regulars, otherwise known as the Red Ring Stalkers—filed out quickly. Tanaka hung back, letting them all precede him. Mogami hesitated, to be the only other person in the room as they moved toward the corridor.
“You know I was only joking, right, Tai-i?” Without his audience, Mogami actually looked almost nervous. “I can carry my water, sir.”
Tanaka slapped the MechWarrior on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t have asked for you if I didn’t know that, Thad.”
Mogami drew up short. “You asked for me?”
“You think I just let them put anyone in my company?”
Mogami’s mouth worked, but he said nothing. He stared at Tanaka for a moment, then nodded and turned to run out the door.
A little white lie never hurt anyone, Tanaka’s mother’s voice told him. Shame that was a big black one then. He’d actually protested—a little—when the MechWarrior was reassigned to his company.
“Shut up,” Tanaka whispered at his past.
DRAGON’S ROOST
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
5 MARCH 3149
The frenzied running and whispers Kambei Okamoto heard when he entered the command center did not lessen his burning sense of annoyance. He stood in the doorway, unnoticed. The door had dilated open without a sound.
The holotank showed a rash of red icons in orbit around Dieron. He was too far away to read the ID codes and find out who they were, but at that moment it didn’t matter. He had other people to tell him details like that. What mattered was that an enemy had come to Dieron.
Beneath his annoyance, Okamoto felt a nugget of anticipation.
Finally. A chance to change the status quo.
Okamoto’s uniform bore the kanji symbol for the number five with a bar beneath: the rank of tai-shu. He was Warlord of Dieron in the gunji-no-kanrei’s service, one of the handful of men and women who decided the fate of the vast Draconis Combine. Absent the presence of Kanrei Toranaga or the Coordinator herself, Okamoto had no superior, social or military, on Dieron.
Which meant this opportunity was all his.
He stepped fully into the room. “Status!” he barked.
The whispering stopped as every officer and enlisted technician in the room came to attention. Okamoto stood there for a long moment, holding them at attention for punishment. The command center was to be a place of quiet professionalism. A place of directed effort and pure duty. The frenzy of the previous few minutes was anathema to that.
“As you were,” he commanded.
“Tai-shu,” a small man said, coming toward him. Sho-sho Erwin Hijana was his chief of staff. He was middle-aged, with the paunch that came with it, and smart if deferential eyes that rarely looked up to meet his Warlord’s. “Reports are still coming in.”
Okamoto nodded and walked toward his own desk, a clear, polished teak affair on a raised dais, set away from the bustle and consoles of the rest of the room. He climbed the two small steps and set his ceremonial katana across the desk, hilt toward him. The room was still silent enough that he heard the soft tap of the tsuba hitting the lacquer.
“Reports are always coming in,” he told Hijana as he sat. “What do we know so far?”
“Multiple enemy JumpShips at a pirate point,” the sho-sho said. He gestured behind him with a flick of his wrist at his waist, toward the holotank. “They have destroyed a picket DropShip and squadron and begun detaching DropShips. Many DropShips.”
At Okamoto’s touch, a small repeater holo built unobtrusively into the desktop flared to life, showing him a personal, miniaturized version of the main holotank. He set his palms flat on the desktop and leaned forward, eyes flicking back and forth between icons.
“This is no raid,” he murmured. There were far too many DropShips for that—two score or more, large BattleMech carriers and thick-bodied armor transports. He saw codes for assault DropShips and fighter carriers as well, and the cloud of red was already descending.
“Who are they?” When Hijana didn’t answer, Okamoto looked up at him. The sho-sho was staring at the top of Okamoto’s desk. “Sho-sho?”
“No transponders,” Hijana said, “and the signals intelligence we’re getting, we don’t believe.”
“Because…?”
“Because it’s impossible, Tai-shu.” Hijana steeled himself and gestured at a tech in the pit behind him. A few of the red icons in Okamoto’s desktop holotank flickered to a brighter luminosity, and small two-dimensional data boxes appeared next to them.
“Impossible,” Okamoto muttered, squinting. He read one code: Castrum-class DropShip San Diego, it read. 100,000 tons. A scrolling box of weaponry and burden began to float upward. One line of text caught his eye: Homeport: New Earth.
Okamoto frowned. That can’t be right.
“Check your sensors,” he told Hijana. “And the records. Immediately.”
“Already done, Tai-shu.”
Okamoto looked up. “Check them again.”
“Hai, Tai-shu.” Hijana bowed fractionally and scurried away, back into the tech pit.
New Earth was a Republic of the Sphere world, near the core worlds, very near old Terra herself. For the past decade and more that world had been cut off, hidden behind Jonah Levin’s damnable Fortress Wall. No one understood how the Wall worked. All they knew was that any JumpShip that tried to jump into the former Prefecture X, the core worlds of the Republic, either vanished or reappeared horribly warped. Nothing had gotten in or out of the Republic since, and those worlds abandoned outside it had been slowly scavenged by the realms nearest—including the Draconis Combine and the Dieron Military District.
That ship couldn’t be there.
But if the records and the scanners were right, it was.
But it couldn’t be. That would mean the Wall—
“Status change,” a voice in the pit cried out.
Okamoto ignored his desktop holotank. He stood and leapt down, striding toward the large, main holotank, his sword forgotten behind him. The red icons of the hostile JumpShips and DropShips were pulsing as their transponder data lit up. The ships, in the span of just a few seconds, had all lit off their identification beacons.
All the codes read republic of the sphere.
Okamoto stared, all traces of annoyance and anticipation forgotten.
The Wall must be no more.
The Republic was back.
A few short decades ago, Dieron had been a Republic world.
And now it was back.
“Shit,” Okamoto whispered.
ALDINGA
DIERON
DRACONIS COMBINE
5 MARCH 3149
“You’re joking,” Tanaka said, a dozen minutes after leaving the mess hall. “Ma’am,” he added.
“’Fraid not,” Sho-sa Miriam Detwiller replied. “Wish I was.”
“Shit.”
“Pretty much what I told the chu-sa,” Detwiller agreed.
“Shit,” Tanaka repeated.
“You already said that.” The battalion commander looked past Tanaka at the assembled ’Mechs of the Red Ring Stalkers. “Your people ready?”
“Of course,” Tanaka said. What else could he say to that?
“You’d tell me if they weren’t, right?”
“Sho-sa. They’re ready.” He didn’t need his mother’s voice telling him he hadn’t answered the question he was asked.
“Get them up and out, then. Briefing will be en route.”
“Hai, Sho-sa,” Tanaka said. He nodded respectfully—the Second didn’t salute or bow, since all that did was pick out officers for snipers—and turned toward his ’Mech.
It didn’t make sense. And he wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it to his troops.
As the hulking shape of his ’Mech got closer, Tanaka tried to work out the story. He needed to make sure he told it in a way that would build the company’s morale up, not shatter it. The will of his people to believe they could do anything was precious, and it was no one else’s responsibility than his own to protect and fortify.
