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11
Salt Plains, on the outskirts of Armitage, Ancha
Prefecture III, Republic of the Sphere
13 January 3135
Usually, Chu-sa Andre Crawford was a pretty nice guy, with sparkling emerald green eyes and a curling mane of hair as deeply red as his Black Knight, “Phantom.” At the moment, though, Crawford was in the kind of crappy mood when you really, really didn’t want to cross him. So maybe it was a good thing that he was in his Black Knight because, in a cockpit, no one can hear you swear. Or see you sweat.
Crawford was doing plenty of both. He was miserable and angry and broiling. The outside temp was a blistering forty-five C. His cooling vest was performing at only thirty percent efficiency because he’d rerouted power to keep his circuits from frying and his ’Mech from freezing—kind of a perverse little oxymoron. He felt oily and dirty; even his couch was damp. He’d been chugging electrolyte replacement fluids by the liter every hour, something he hated doing because the potassium made the lemony concoction taste like liquid aluminum. And now, sha-zaam! He had to pee something fierce only he couldn’t because, well, honestly, he was kind of busy, what with trying to track down the enemy before the enemy found him.
So where are they? Crawford squinted at his infrared. Big waste of effort: As hot as a BattleMech got, the salt plains were hotter. His sensor was a monotonous red blob. Sighing, Crawford squinted out his ferroglass canopy and saw two things, one that he expected and another he didn’t like. The first was the plains: a featureless pan of bone white salt, the remains of an ancient sea. Unfortunately, the pan wasn’t flat. If it had been, finding their enemy would’ve been a piece of cake because there’d have been nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. As the briny seawater had evaporated, the residue hadn’t dried flat but rippled into uneven belts of calcium and sodium salts mounded into rock-hard hummocks. The plains themselves were ringed on three sides by rust-colored cliffs and studded with rock behemoths that seemed to bob on the white hardpan like icebergs. The flats ended in a bluff that, in turn, became a shifting, orange, sand-choked desert. There was no vegetation, and no water hereabouts. Above, the sky was a hard, steel blue, unmarred by anything save a lone bird that was so far away it looked like a black bead.
But it’s what he didn’t see that made him swear again. His eyes flicked up and right to the only thing on his HUD that was of any use out here: seismic distortion tracking and his Beagle. He looked, did a double take, and then swore like a sailor. “Chi
A click in his helmet, and a voice, hairy with static: “A klick west of your position, minus thirty-five, eight o’clock.”
“Ex-ACT-ly! And where are you supposed to be?”
Chi
“But not over a klick distant. What are you going to do if I take fire? Come roaring to the rescue? By the time you haul ass, I’ve taken major hits.”
“Look,” Chi
Unbelievable. Crawford’s jaw went slack. Sure, there had been talk. How Chi
“Listen, Chi
The blare of an alarm cut off his tirade, and Crawford jerked his attention back to his sensors. “Oh, Jesus!”
“Incoming!” Chi
But Crawford stopped listening because he saw it—no, them, too. First there was the swarm of six snub-nosed missiles cutting a seam in the sky, and then, in the next instant, a Republic Balac Strike VTOL rocketing up from its hiding place just beyond the bluff and arcing away in a scream of rotor wash. Then, there was movement on his left, and he swung the torso of his Black Knight around to see this new threat: a slate-gray Panther darting from the cover of a towering rust-red monolith protruding from the dead salt sea like a thick, severed thumb. There was a blinding blue flash as an azure bolt of PPC fire spurted from the Panther’s right arm.
“On my way!” Chi
She was too far away to be much help. She knew that. Crawford knew that. If the Panther didn’t kill him, the missiles would, PDQ; and if they didn’t, then the VTOL would swing around for another attack run, let loose with both racks this time and finish the job. Kind of whittled down the options right there.
Training and instincts took over. Quick as thought, Crawford spun right and hunkered into a crouch as the plasma bolt cut a bright gash in the superheated air just above his cockpit. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Whirling left, Crawford put on a burst of speed, the massive legs of his ’Mech pistoning, shattering rock and salt. He drove his Black Knight dead on for the Panther and anyone watching would’ve thought he was insane. Except now the missiles were right on his tail, and he was headed straight for the Panther. And you don’t have any choice now, big boy, you got to fire. Thumbing the kill button on his right joystick, Crawford dodged right, twisted, then blasted six laser bursts at the incoming missiles. At the same moment, a hail of eight missiles bulleted past his cockpit, followed by a series of muted explosions Crawford didn’t see but heard, and he knew: the Panther had fired and destroyed the incoming spread—not to help Crawford but to save his own butt.
It had all happened in less than ten seconds, and Crawford was already moving again, pushing his Black Knight to close the distance to the Panther. His enemies had the element of surprise, but Crawford was bigger, stronger and, even without Chi
If Crawford had another five seconds, he might have made it. But he didn’t have the time, and he saw disaster coming right before it arrived. The Panther whipped its right arm up so quickly it was almost a blur—or maybe it was a trick of the mind, Crawford’s perceptions dulled by fatigue and heat and the sudden grim realization of certain death, time dilating to showcase every moment. The Panther’s PPC crackled to life once more. Crawford felt a huge jolt that shuddered into the well of his seat, and his diagnostic interpretation computer flashed the information: a hit on Phantom’s left leg, just at the critical juncture between the upper and lower actuators.