Most Saturdays at the Coil are rather quiet. This was an exception. I was bent over the bar, which is not unheard of, but I wasn't doing it by choice. I had help in the form of two street punks who held my arms while a third worked on me with his fists. Two more toughs stood at the door, automatic shotguns in hand, while the taskmaster directed. On Solaris, this is what's called a hostile takeover. The head goon was a pretentious ex-street tough who now worked for an exiled Federated Suns Lord named Standish. Seemed some military hardware sort of drifted to Lord Standish's troops back during the Fourth Succession War. The Fox took exception when he found out and Standish judged it prudent to relocate quickly. Davion must have had bigger ships to lift because he didn't pursue Standish, just confiscated his holdings and merged his troops with the AFFC. I wonder if the old Fox set a trap for Standish? Wouldn't put it past him. In any case, Standish made it to Gameworld, the cesspit of the Inner Sphere, and started carving out a niche. Word on the street was that he was an arms broker, mostly hijacked militia stuff from all over the Sphere. But of late old Standish was getting hungry for a bigger piece of the action. Standish must have figured the Cobalt Coil was ripe for the taking. We aren't a big flashy place like Valhalla or the just opened Hangar Sixty Six, but we do a good business. Standish thought we'd make a good front for some sort of scam, so he dispatched Junior and the leg-breaker Brigade to make a business proposition: sell or die. Since the old lady, bless her ferrocrete heart, keeps well behind the scenes, the offer came to me, head bartender, with plenty of fists to get my attention. Junior assumed it was safe to rough me up even though he and his goons were outnumbered by the customers in the bar. When this sort of thing happens at just about any other place on Solaris, the customers watch, take bets on how many teeth the punchee will lose, and complain about the slow service. But the Coil's different. We're family here. The only real family a lot of us have ever known. And we don't like having our home invaded. Blake's Blood, I've seen people die rather than betray this battered mass of plywood and steel. But we weren't blindly suicidal about it either. The two by the door with the Saracen automatic shotguns covered the entire bar, but they were more for show than for effect. Junior didn't expect to use them and nobody was watching the customers. Nobody but me. I could see the emotions written on each face as they waited for an opening. A number of eyes sought mine, and I kept having to shake my head. It wasn't time yet. I'd let 'em pound me to scrap before I'd start a fight sure to get my people killed. We waited for a chance while the goons tapped my ribs and Junior repeated his master's offer to 'buy into' the Coil. Then it happened The door banged open as the delivery from the local Tsing-To Brewery arrived. The two guards spun towards the door and one of them, slightly more high-strung than the other, cut loose with his gun. The Saracen roared as it spit 12 gauge hardened plastic shot into the two kegs on the delivery man's dolly. Beer kegs are designed to take abuse, but not this kind. The thin aluminum shredded and a fountain of suds erupted, dousing the gunmen. That's all we needed. Before they could clear the beer out of their eyes, the two gunmen were hit by an assortment of shots, lasers, and throwing knives. Fortunately, no one lost his wits and used a flamer. The gunmen dropped like hover-sled hit by an autocannon. I wasn't watching. The goon in front of me had looked at the door. He didn't see my kick. The point of my right boot caught him square in the groin. Since I move beer kegs and such, I wear steel toed boots. He emitted a whistling scream and collapsed into a tight little ball. There was a thud and the man on my left fell. I risked a quick glance. Cambeal, a long time customer and a hell of a nice lady, smiled and saluted with the shattered remains of a bottle of sour mash. That left the one on my right and Junior. "They're mine," I shouted. The last goon I simply picked up and threw the length of the bar, silently thanking the daily sessions I spend at the gym. Then I crossed to Junior. He stood stunned, his mission reduced to wreckage in seconds. That's business for you. I pulled the Viper from my back holster (the idiots didn't even frisk me? Amateurs!) I put one slug into the floor, then stuffed the heated barrel into his mouth. A dozen other slug throwers were leveled at him. His eyes got as big as DropShip cargo doors. "Now you're going to take a message to Standish," I spat. "The Coil is not for sale. End of discussion. And our insurance carriers take a dim view of this sort of business dealings. I figure you'll probably make it back to your master before the Neon Crysanthemum kills you. Then again, maybe not." At the mention of the local Yakuza, Junior's face drained of all color and his eyes got even bigger. I carried him to the door and pitched him into the street where he joined the rest of the human rubbish, both living and dead. The regulars had taken care of them while I was explaining things to Junior. The beer deliveryman handed me the packing list. I signed and headed for the bar. I was halfway there before I remembered that Tsing To didn't deliver on Saturdays and sure as hell didn't send pressurized kegs. Someone who thought quickly had arranged the diversion. I had no idea who to thank. I was sure whoever did it wouldn't step forward to claim the honor; the Coil's that sort of place. So I headed for the board, paused to wipe a trickle of blood from my nose, then wrote "PPC's, Half Price." Everybody was feeling good after our victory, but this assured a party. A few old timers took off to act as runners, letting the rest of the regular crowd know it was half-price night again, and I took position behind the bar. Cambeal got in the first order. "How 'bout a replacement order before you get swamped?" she asked. I got a bottle of sour mash and checked the label. "Five Cb's"' I said. "What? It's not free?" "Is it my fault if you can't hold your liquor?" That got a laugh, and she switched to a Canopus PPC. I filled a tumbler half full of grain alcohol, topped it off with cherry brandy, and set it in front of her. "Where's the pearl? It's supposed to have a pearl dissolved in it," she said. "Fresh out. Settle for a dash of oyster sauce?" That got another laugh and set off the story telling. The subject of unexpected rescues sort of took command as afternoon blended into night. Wouldn't you know it, Cambeal topped us all. About three hours after sundown, there was a break in the story telling while I got the next round of drinks out. The bar was nearly full, and a lot of good tales'd already been told. Cambeal called for another PPC, this one a Steiner (how that woman could survive mixing her drinks like that I'll never know!). I set it down. She lifted it and toasted, "To electricity!", then downed it in a single gulp. That got our attention. Not just her odd toast, but that was her seventh PPC of the night and her speech was still razor sharp. So we listened, waiting for an explanation. She gestured for a refill. "Yes, to electricity," she continued. "To that humble flow of electrons that lights bulbs, cooks food, refines aluminum, and powers Mechs. It's all the same, whether it comes from a fusion plant, a solar cell, or a gasoline generator. Power is power, and not something ever to be ignored." That lesson was taught to me on a little Free Worlds League planet called Waterfall. Waterfall was well names. It's rather closed to Terran standard in gravity, solar intensity, atmosphere and the like. And it's got lots of water. But it's mostly mountains so you get lots of small, mountain lakes with vicious storms. The planet its tectonically quite unstable. This gives it lots of uplift so the mountains never really get worn down. Can't farm much of it, though a few species of native lichen produce very good natural dyes and pharmaceuticals. But Waterfall is basically a back-water planet that caters to rich Leaguers who like to climb. But Waterfall will never have a power shortage. It's got hydro-electric plants all over. In fact, if there was a cost-effective way to export power, Waterfall would have long since been rich. But there isn't. The Capros system is only four light years from Waterfall. I see a lot of you've heard of that one. The Capros star is a red dwarf, but there are two gas giants and a good sized asteroid belt in the system. The asteroids provide metals and the giants yield helium. So Capros produces JumpShip batteries. But ... solar collectors barely provide the energy to fuel the in systern industries, they can't spare much energy for battery testing. And no one wants to use untested batteries in a JumpShip. Think about it. A battery failure in mid-jump is lethal. Batteries are one of the least complex parts of a JumpShip, they're one of the most critical. A battery is essentially just a big tank full of liquid helium. But no captain wants a green battery, and they only last a couple of years. Ideally, each battery should be fully tested before use. You overcharge on by a t least 20%, and if it doesn't blow, monitor it for charge decay. It should hold 90% charge for ten days. But Capros doesn't have the power for that kind of testing. Waterfall does. It didn't take long for someone to figure this out. New batteries were shipped to Waterfall for testing. Crews could be given liberty while the batteries were checked and the ships could load a small, high profit cargo of dyes and drugs. Waterfall was never heavily garrisoned. It was never considered a strategic point; it's not the only place you find cheap power. But the last war changed some things. Since the Fourth Succession War both the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth have experienced an upsurge in industrial output. Someone ran short of batteries. That's when the Mercs got called. Quick Raid A while back, someone rounded up a bunch of mechwarriors. Someone with a lot of Federated Suns cash. Ten of us got selected, all with light, jump-capable Mechs. I was piloting a Stinger. We totaled four Stinger, four Wasps, and two Valkyries. Not exactly a heavy raiding force, but quick. We all got overhauls by experienced Techs, ammo, and about two thousand C-bs worth of replacement parts. We were promised a percentage of the haul-value. Wasn't till after we started out that we were given the details. We were hitting Waterfall to hijack JumpShip batteries. Rather than going after the loaded cargo ships, we were going after the power station where the batteries were tested. Yes, despite the Ares Conventions. Our JumpShip snuck into the Waterfall system by way of a radical Jump Point. We took five days to make planetfall, using un-powered ballistic orbits that slipped us past the few in-system watch posts. It worked. Our DropShips came in fast shortly after sundown and landed in a high mountain lake four klicks from the target. Our Mechs exited on the lake bottom, then headed ashore. We formed two teams, each led by one of the Valkyries, and started cross country. We didn't see a single eagle trooper on our march. But the climbing was a nightmare. We only had four kilometers to cover, but all of it was over some of the roughest terrain I've ever seen. Mechs, even light ones, were not designed for mountaineering. But we finally made it to our objective. Then all we had to do was to get in. The testing facility was inside a dam. And by 'a dam', I mean a ferrocrete wall over 700 meters high by one and a half kilometers long, with twenty landing sites built into the face, each of which was capable of handling a Union class DropShip. Some engineer did himself proud with this monster. It filled the space between two peaks, and when it was fully operational, it powered half the planet. There were twelve generating stations inside it, and six spillways. Only half of all that was still working. The sight of all that water foaming at the base of the man-made cliff was truly awesome and, at the same time, sad. It made you realize just how far we've slid since the collapse of the Star League. But we had our pay to earn, so we jumped into the lake behind the dam. The bottom was silty but our Mechs slogged through. As we approached the face of the dam, the current helped to keep the water clear, but it also tried to pull us off our feet. Yes, it was that strong. You could feel it tugging at your twenty tons of Mech, and you knew that if you were swept over, you'd go down one of the active spillways to die at the bottom, battered into rubble by thousands of tons of failing water. We lost one that way when the sand bar he stepped on shifted and he fell. The water took him. The survivors made it to the dam. We moved along it, looking for one of the abandoned spillways. We found it right where our maps said it would be, a huge steel shutter blocking it. Four of us took position and opened up with our medium lasers. Amid a swirl of bubbles that were lost to the currents, we cut an X in the steel wall. By the time we were done cutting, the inner lock was filled, so we just had to bend the metal into form a door. Once we were all in, we bent the metal sheets back and the two Valkyries used some special missiles they'd loaded in their LRM racks. The missiles spread a thick layer of industrial polymers that sealed off the laser cuts in seconds. Next, we shot a hole in the inner lock, waited for the water to drain off down the old spillway, and cut another doorway. Then came the fun part. The generating station was halfway down the dam. All we had to do was climb down the spillway and the spillway was basically just a giant staircase. But each stair was twenty meters high, and cavitation had etched huge pits in most of them. We jumped, one step at a time, and tried not to overdo our jets. That would smash you into the ceiling. A few machines fell. Luckily, they landed at most two steps below their targets. We stopped at mid-point of the spillway, and collected our frayed nerves. Then we turned to face the north way. Upon order, we all opened up with our lasers. It took three volleys to blast a big enough hole through the wall into the power station. Blake's Blood, was it big! Think of a sports dome big enough for aerospace fighters to dogfight in, and you'll have some idea of the size. The floor was lined with generators taller than our Mechs, their spinning shafts vanished back into the walls of the dam, their hum filling the huge artificial cavern. A maze of gantries covered their ceiling and walls. The metal framework was studded with cranes that could lift BattleMechs, which looked like toys at this distance. Rows of JumpShip batteries, like a child's blocks, lined the floor. A pair of giant blast gates that opened onto one of the landing points were centered on the outer wall. For a few moments we all just looked around, wondering what to do. For me, it was the only time I've ever been in my Mech and still felt small. Then a crackle of small arms fire reminded us of where we were. The few Techs and security personnel on duty at the station had decided to earn their pay. They were joined by four industrial Mechs that lumbered out of the shadows. It was pathetic. We'd been told not to use ballistic weapons inside the power station, but even with just our lasers, there was no contest. Concentrated laser fire slagged the 50-ton industrial Mechs. That broke the rest of the defenders' morale. They ran. It looked like the complex was ours until a single shout rang out from one of the Stinger pilots. Before the team leader could respond, one of the cranes struck. Its length of stressformed steel chain lashed across the cockpit of the team leader's Valkyrie, smashing it to fragments. We all opened up on the cranes; in minutes, all were smoking ruin. When someone pointed out that one shot at the control center would have done the job, as they were all slaved to remote control, we didn't care. With the last of the defenders routed, we moved to the blast curtain. We were not in the mood for delays now, so we simply shot it out. There was a small defensive force on the ship landing, but their weapons weren't positioned to fight an attack from the power station. We dealt with them quickly, then sent the pickup call. The DropShips would be coming in a few moments. By the best estimate, we had about forty five minutes before atmospheric defenses arrived. We then found out the main reason that Mechs were used for this mission rather than commandos. We got to help load the loot into the DropShips. We returned to the station to wait. Then it got interesting. Our first warning of trouble was the grinding of Mech armor on concrete. The our breech in the power station wall got a lot bigger as eighty-five tons of BattleMech forces its way through in a spray of rock fragments. It came through hunched over, then stood up. We nearly panicked. It was a BattleMaster. By the scratches on its armor, you could tell it had climbed up the spillway from the bottom, a grueling task considering that BattleMasters on have one hand. Most likely someone saw the rush of water down the spillway when we opened the water lock, though why someone would climb an assault Mech up a spillway rather than send aerospace fighters in through the landing point, I'll never know. But the whys didn't matter. Our light Mechs were suddenly faced with a heavy Mech piloted by an experienced warrior. Then he showed us just how good a gunner he was. The BattleMaster's right arm came up and the Donal Particle Projection Cannon fired twice in rapid succession. Twin streams of rapidly moving subatomic particles flashed out. Both hit the remaining Valkyrie. One blazed into the left leg; the second cored through the chest of the tottering Mech. The Valkyrie fell like a cold-cocked drunk. It hit the floor and didn't move. The BattleMaster stalked forward, the PPC charging coil glowing blue as red laser light flashed from the torso. A Wasp staggered back, its right arm hanging useless at its side. The BattleMaster triggered off a flight of short range missiles at less than ten meters range as it passed the damaged Wasp. All six hit. The light Mech swayed under the smashing impacts as a cloud of armor and missile fragments wreathed it. Then it vanished in a ball of gold light as its fusion engine exploded. We started fighting back with everything we had. The power station filled with lasers and dodging Mechs as we fought against the leviathan. And it kept blasting us, seldom needing more than a final barrage to destroy a target. Nobody was too careful with weapons. Stray shots took their toll on the generators and batteries ranked in the station. Batteries exploded, generators sparked as men and machines died. To this day I remember that fight as a series of disjointed images. A Stinger, sent too high on a jump, thrashing as it hung trapped in a net of cable beneath a ruined crane. A Wasp blundering into a spinning generator shaft and the turning metal cuffing through the Mech's leg like a medtech's saw. Lasers lashing into the BattleMaster as it battered a Wasp into fragments. Then the single most frightful thing I've ever seen. I'd just jumped my Mech, hoping to land behind the BattleMaster. But he saw me. The BattleMaster turned, tracking my flight, and stepped in to close. I landed, my back to a generator, with eighty five tons of hostile Mech facing me less than 30 meters away. In a moment of frozen clarity, I stared down the muzzle of its PPC. A faint nimbus of light shone around the charging coil. I could see scars all over the BattleMaster's body, but the armor was still nearly intact. A voice whispered in my ear, 'You are going to die.'" She paused to down a slug of her drink. We could see the tension in the lines of her face; a wet sheen covered her skin. Lots of us shared her remembered fear. Only an idiot never knows terror on the battlefield. And the truly fearless usually die quickly, victims of their lack of imagination. "Without pausing to think, I triggered my jets," she continued, her voice the only sound in the bar. "As my Stinger rose on a column of super-heated exhaust, the PPC bolt seared beneath me. I hit the ceiling and grabbed. I got hold of a handful of reinforced girders and hung on. The metal beams groaned with the sudden added weight of my Mech, but they held. Then I looked down and watched the death of the BattleMaster. The PPC beam was on target; it cut right through where my Mech had stood. But without my machine to absorb it, the beam went right on into the generator. It cracked the housing and lightning flashed back. You see, PPCs leave a charged ion trail in just about any atmosphere. The grounded BattleMaster offered the electricity another path, rather than the kilometers of wire it was supposed to run through. Electricity, like water, follows the path of least resistance. An arc of energy as wide as my Mech blazed along the ion trail into the BattleMaster. The arc twisted across the Mechs body for a few moments, leaving a trail of molten metal as it moved, while the BattleMaster twitched in a hideous parody of dance, the current convulsing its myomers. Then the remaining ammunition began to explode in a series of muffled blasts that resembled the popping of corn. It must have been CASE packed since it only ripped out the back of the Mech. Finally, the magnetic bottle holding the core collapsed, freeing the fusion reaction. A miniature star swelled in the power station as the BattleMaster blew apart! Plasma back-flashed into the generator, blowing it and overloading the online circuit breakers. The breakers went too fast, five more generators erupted with swarms of lightning bolts. The blast knocked me off the ceiling. I had the sense to trigger my jets as I fell. I didn't want to land in the pools of molten metal and cement beneath me. I smashed into the backwall. There was a burst of pain, then everything got dark. I came to about five hours out from Waterfall in the care of the shipboard medtechs. Aside from a number of scrapes and bruises, I had fractured an arm and two ribs. I got the low down from the other mercs on what had happened after I crashed. Our raid was a marginal success at best. We got away with thirty JumpShip Batteries at the cost of most of the raiding party. Five deaths. I suspect that the power station was effectively destroyed. At the least, it would never run at that level again. We all sweated about getting paid, but our unnamed paymaster came up with the Cb's, and even provided a few bonuses. After debriefing, we all returned to our lives. Well, most of us did." Cambeal finished her drink and called for another. "I've never been in a Mech cockpit since that night. Each time I try, I keep seeing that BattleMaster jolting through its hellish dance as it died. And I keep thinking I can hear the screams of the pilot, electrocuting in his command chair." She shuddered, then continued. "Now I run a small repair shop. But every time someone fires up an arc-welder, I have to leave. Electricity saved me once, but it's a capricious friend, always willing to bite any hand." There was a moment of silence as people thought about her words. Then the lights flickered. It was just the touch that we needed. A ripple of faintly nervous laughter trickled through the bar, and not less than five voices offered to stand the lady a drink. She smiled and said she'd accept, all of 'em. So I got back to work. I don't think anybody had seen me futzing with the power cable behind the bar. On Solaris, you do what you have to. Back to BattleTechnology 13 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1990 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com