PRESTON WAS SCREAMING AGAIN, TOSSING ON HIS CUMFOCOT AND THRASHING THE COVERS WITH HIS FEET. I REACHED OVER TO SHAKE HIM. HE BEGAN THRUSTING WILDLY WITH HIS ARMS, TRYING TO WARD OFF SOMETHING IN HIS NIGHTMARE. "PRESTON! STOP IT BEFORE YOU WAKE EVERYONE IN CAMP!" HIS FOREHEAD WAS COVERED WITH SWEAT NOW. HE'D STOPPED SCREAMING. NOW THE SOUNDS THAT CAME FROM HIM WERE LIKE TINY FRIGHTENED MOANS. MUTTERING TO MYSELF I GOT UP. STANDING OVER HIM, I WATCHED FOR A MOMENT, THEN GRABBED HIS ARMS TO AVOID DAMAGE FROM HIS RESTLESS MOTIONS , I SHOOK HIM. "WHAT! No!..UH. OH. Tim. YEAH. THANKS. I'M HERE NOW. I MEAN, I'M AWAKE." "NONE OF MY BUSINESS, BUT ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TELL SOMEONE ABOUT THOSE DREAMS. YOU 'RE GETTING THEM EVERY OTHER NIGHT NOW. AND YOU'RE GETTING JUMPY OUT THERE." "I KNOW, I KNOW. IF I COULD TELL ANYONE, IT WOULD BE YOU..." "LET'S GO DOWNSLOPE FOR A BREATH OF AIR." THE MOON WAS RISING. ITS COPPER DISK COLORED THE WAR-BATTERED LANDSCAPE LIKE BLOOD. I TRIED NOT TO, RESENT BEING WAKED up. THE SLOW HARSH BATTLE FOR THIS WORLD WAS TAKING ITS TOLL ON ALL OF US. PEOPLE SNAPPED AT You. GEAR AND NERVES WERE WEARING OUT. I HAD THIS TENSION RASH THAT WAS DRIVING ME NUTS. I SCRATCHED AT IT ABSENTLY. IT WAS HOT AND STILL. I DIDN'T LOOK AT PRESTON, JUST AMBLED ON DOWN THE PATH. I PICKED UP A STICK AND STARTED POKING AT ROCKS. "UH, Tim?" "UMM." "IT'S JUST THAT ... IT'S A STUPID DREAM. BUT IT SEEMS SO REAL." "YEAH? WHAT HAPPENS?" I KEPT MY VOICE CASUAL, KEPT POKING AT ROCKS. "IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN A LOT OF WAYS. IT SORT OF STARTS IN THE MIDDLE..." We were moving out to take up an ambush position. Most of the lance was there. I'd taken a little damage in the last two weeks, nothing much. Some armor off the center torso. That left leg actuator was acting up again. I was hot in my Mech, but my gauges read all right. I was pushing my way through a tight clump of live oaks when... "Blue Three, behind you, the Thor!" If anybody ever says that to me for a joke, I'd deck him. But only after I cut his heart out. "Behind you! Behind you, there's three of them!" They were kidding, I was almost positive. We had heard that only the Jade Falcons used these seventyton jump- capable mobile assault 'Mechs while what we were facing here on was the main thrust of the Wolf Clan. We knew that. They had called to identify themselves before the world was attacked. Our newest intelligence indicated that when they did this bizarre information ritual of theirs, they never lied. So these were Wolf 'Mechs.Thors - they intimidated even me. They stood taller than any other Mech on the battlefield, they were the deadliest Mechs we'd ever faced because of their quick response and varied-range firepower. Yes, I could see one off to my right exchanging fire with Lt Ramirez, while behind me there was the sound of jump jets! I turned my Zeus, extending my left arm to fire my PPC. On my screens shone the familiar glow of a PPC about to discharge. Not mine. I got my shot off. I suppose it hit. I didn't see because all of a sudden that actuator froze. My left leg halted mid-stride while my right leg kept going. I fought to stay on my feet, swaying uneasily. All of his shots hit. They all hit me. His Gauss Rifle, his LRM, and one of those long range Clans' large lasers.As my damage sensor panel began to glow like a Christmas tree, I got my hand on the button. Engine hit, a bad one! I smelled acrid smoke, coolant, something that smelled like melting myomer. My left leg lurched and gave way. As the Zeus began its long tumble, I heard my lance leader. "Blue Three, that fire's near your ammo! If you can hear me, punch out! PUNCH OUT!!" My thumb went down. I curled into my couch as the canopy blew. The air was cold and rushing, full of little bits that stung as they flew into me. I held my breath; I didn't want to breath in minishrapnel or coolant gas. The Zeus exploded just as my chute jerked me out of my falling arc. I hung like a weight in the air. The afterwind of the explosion knocked me sidewise and I bounced upward! Then gravity took over. I was jerked against the chute straps. I was falling. Faster than I should have fallen. I looked up into the chute. One panel was nothing but sky. I've never hated the stars until I saw them through that torn chute. The wind shfted the hole about until I saw Ramirez' attacker down on one knee, then the hating stars leered at me again. I hung there, falling. The chute panel caught against the magflap, swayed, closed. I fell still, but the fall was now controlled. I took a deep breath. Adrenalin eased its feargrip on my muscles. I got ready, got ready again, looked to see when I would be landing and rolled with the landing. So quickly, it was over. I lay exhausted in the billows of my chute. Already the winds were tugging at it. I was still close to my burning Zeus, too close. The engine hadn't blown yet! Adrenalin released, and I found I could move again. One foot, other foot. Find the catches that release the chute. Keep the emergency pack. Keep the sidearm. Regret the candy bar I was going to put in the pack but forgot. It felt like desertion, to run away from my Mech now. But there was nothing I could do to stop its continuing destruction. If I got caught close to the explosion there was a lot a cascade of hot shrapnel could do to stop me. I jogged away. Pick a direction, any direction, as long as it's away. How different the terrain looks from the ground. Where was that range of mountains I'd oriented on, coming into this skirmish? Lost somewhere behind the trees. The forest blocked my line of sight now that I was at infantry level. Whoom! Before my mind had registered that that shock was a loud noise, that that loud noise was an explosion, that that explosion was my 'Mech, that there was probably shrapnel searing through the air in my direction, my reflex lunge had taken me behind a boulder and half-buried under a damp rotting log. "Good choice," my mind thought as it caught up. "At least this log won't catch fire. What direction is the main force of the explosion? Am I hit yet?" But no, I didn't seem to be hit. The blast path was over thataway. Several smaller trees were uprooted. A couple were blazing. A bush near me was smoking from the impact of a hot fragment of ... of what had once been my Zeus. I forced my sense of loss below the surface of my consciousness. Time enough to grieve; time enough to think what to do after the battle. Right now I was in a field with BattleMechs weighing upwards of seventy tons. They were moving at running speed, much faster than I could ever go. If one of my friends stepped on me, he'd be real sorry if he ever found out. Or she. Lydia, especially... You know how we both feel about Lydia. And how chicken we both are when it comes to telling her so... But I'd be a little red squirp on the bottom of some Mech's foot, liberally mixed with mud and used coolant. Not appealing. I'd always fancied dying at ninety in someone's bed. Preferably not my own. Or nobly, taking out the King of the Pirates in Mech to Mech combat. Or...not while standing daydreaming with my mouth gaping open in the middle of a battlefield. Somebody was exchanging fire with a third Thor way downslope. Was that you? The Thor was shooting his missiles right out of the air! How could it do that? I didn't see the other two Mechs from our lance anywhere, but Lydia's Victor thundered by, too close for comfort. I saw her leveling her autocannon to fire at the same time as her SRM-4 volleyed, and wondered if she were close to overheating. Lydia always pushed her heat limit. But if I was close to Lydia, and if Lydia was shooting, then somebody was probably shooting at her... I dove back under cover. Just in time. The bolt from a large laser sizzled along the ground. It was missing her, but it fragmented the smouldering bush to my left. Lydia dodged left; she was fifty meters away now and still coming. I rolled myself down a tiny slope behind a rockpile. I hoped she'd choose to avoid the uneven footing. She ran straight for me, but lengthened her stride to avoid the slippery pile. She came within meters of me. My knees were trembling by the time she got past. Now hug the ground, guy! The woman you yearn for didn't kill you this time, but the guy who's trying to kill her just might!" This time it was a miss from his Gauss Rifle that sent rock spraying all around me. As rock fragments jagged down, I covered my head with my arms and thanked whatever gods there were for the longer cooling vest that Lt Ramirez had insisted we wear. I got a tear across my back, a little skin gone. It smarted a bit. Without the vest, I think I'd have lost a kidney there. I felt fond of my kidneys just now, fond and very protective. Speaking of Ramirez! Speaking of Ramirez, that bucket of misaligned repairs he calls an Awesome fired all three PPCs as his attacker fired an SRM salvo. Two rounds hit, which left four unaccounted for..one over to the north away; one to my right; one seemed not to explode anywhere, just to wham into the ground behind him. One, oh mother, one hit the other side of the rockpile and I was rolling again, down the slope just however it went. Whatever scraped or banged couldn't be anything worse than the force which shook me into the air and slammed me down again. I lay with all the breath knocked out of me for a long moment. Legs ... still there. Head not hit. Lungs, raw, but not seared; only the edge of the hot gas had hit me. Arms...still worked. One of my ribs screamed when I moved. Have to be careful with that. I could see further now. That mass was a hill, and that one was Ramirez' Awesome, and that gleaming column was the leg of the Thor which had been down and was now up and preparing to fire! I screamed a warning nobody could hear as he sighted on Ramirez and fired his short range missiles. The battle scene was lit from above as two of his rounds exploded harmlessly in midair, while four of them smashed into Ramirez' cockpit. The Awesome swayed. My attention was forcibly drawn away as the flash revealed a nearer threat. Lydia was behind me now. She had landed awkwardly, twisting her Mech's torso to maintain balance. She stayed there an instant too long. Her attacker, Thor Number Three, must have got a good lock on her. He sent a salvo of missiles into the thinner armor of her back. Her Victor shuddered as the missiles hit: armor cascaded to the ground in tiny shards. Tiny to a Mech, that is! Jagged splinters as long as my arm were landing all around me, point first, deep into the ground. Then she was up again, fast and accurate. When Lydia was good she was a delight to watch, I thought. She ... circled the Thor, constantly catching him off balance. Even though that super armor of theirs cut down the damage of each hit, if she hit him enough in the same place, she'd make a hole. These 'Wolf Clan' BattleMechs were good, but if you hit them hard enough, we had learned, you could take them. I had ceased hugging the ground now. I was standing, standing staring in the midst of all that hellish fire. I knew that this would be my death fight, a fight in which my opponents would never see me, a fight in which I could no longer strike a blow. Fey, they call it on my homeworld. A state of other worldly sight. Prophecy. Knowledge of your fate. I was in this state of exalted knowledge. There was no room in me for fear now, simply because there was no hope of survival. Lydia was on a roll. She was beautiful in a terrible way, leaping the Victor as if it could not fail and could not fall. I knew she must be playing the edge of her heat counters like a gambler plays with chance, risking and winning each time. She landed. She fired. She was airborne again, as rocks impacted around me, shattered into the air by Thor Three's missile salvo. The surging fire of her jumpjets matched the flame in my heart. How proud I was of her piloting. No wonder I had never had the courage to speak of private matters to this warrior queen! I wondered suddenly if she had been as lonely as I, if she had also found it difficult to speak... Spitting flame, far too fast for me to evade, Lydia was coming down. Her Victor's trajectory lead straight to my hillside. I won't be a smear after all, I thought, I'll be a streak of carbon. Nobody will ever find my body. I saw her large laser hit home on the crumpling Thor. That was the last mortal thing I saw. Flames washed my visor. There was a moment of terrible agony... "THAT'S WHEN I WAKE UP, WITH YOU SHAKING ME. ALWAYS AT THAT SAME POINT." HE WAS STILL PALE, HIS EYES HUGE WITH REMEMBERED FEAR. NEVER MIND. I KNEW HOW TO BRING HIM BACK. I KNEW JUST WHAT TO SAY. "LOOK, GUY, THERE'S SOMETHING YOU NEED TO TELL YOURSELF NEXT TIME YOU HAVE THIS DREAM. SOMETHING THAT'LL EXPLODE IT LIKE THE FLARE ON A TRAINING BALLOON! YOU DON'T PILOT A ZEUS ANY MORE!! REMEMBER, 'LIGHTNING' GOT BLOWN SKY HIGH IN THAT AMBUSH WHERE WE PICKED UP THE TITAN? YOU HAVE A TOP-OF-THE-LINE MECH NOW, BUT IT ISN'T A ZEUS. SHOOT, I'M PROBABLY GETTING SOME OF YOUR OLD MECH IN MY REPAIRS WHEN WE GET BACK TO BASE! YOU DON'T PILOT A ZEUS! THIS CAN'T REALLY BE HAPPENING TO YOU!" I SWEAR HE GREW THREE INCHES AS HE STRAIGHTENED. "THAT'S RIGHT! IT'S BEEN TWO YEARS SINCE I PILOTED ONE." HIS FACE LOOKED LESS HAUNTED NOW. IT BEGAN TO LIGHTEN WITH LAUGHTER. "AND WHEN I WAS PILOTING A ZEUS, I'D BARELY NOTICED LYDIA! SO IT SIMPLY CAN'T BE TRUE! DOES NOT COMPUTE!" HE STRETCHED, CRACKED A HUGE YAWN "I THINK - AWWWW THINK I CAN SLEEP NOW, Tim. THANKS. THANKS A LOT." "ONE FOR ALL, ALL FOR ONE. ALL THAT DREK," I SAID LIGHTLY. I'M NO GOOD AT ALL WHEN THE CONVERSATION TURNS EMOTIONAL. "LET'S GET SOME SLEEP." EARLY, FAR TOO EARLY, WE WOKE To LYDIA's BRIGHT CONTRALTO. "GOOD NEWS IS, COFFEE'S UP. BAD NEWS IS, SO ARE WE. UNFRIENDLIES ON THE WAY, AND WE GET TO PLAY WELCOMING PARTY. POWER UP AND MOVE OUT, GUYS!" MERCIFULLY, SHE DID HAVE COFFEE READY. WE FILLED OUR HOT BOTTLES AND CLIMBED INTO OUR MECHS. As WE POWERED UP (AND I TRIED TO WORK THE KINKS OUT OF A BALKY LEG ACTUATOR), RAMIREZ FILLED US IN ON THE SITUATION. "Tim, VILLIERS ISN'T BACK FROM HO, SO YOU'RE BLUE THREE THIS MORNING. PRESTON is BLUE FOUR. THE WOLFSHEADS WERE SPOTTED HEADING DOWN THE CENTRAL VALLEY EIGHTY KLICKS AWAY. Two OF THOSE STRANGE MIXED LANCES. ONE IS SUPPOSED TO BE THREE THORS AND TW) KOISHI. THE OTHER IS SOMETHING LIKE A MAD CAT AND A VULTURE, TWO OF THOSE BIG THINGS WE HAVEN'T DECIDED WHICH NAME TO USE YET, AND WHAT LOOKS LIKE A LOCUST.THE HEAVY LANCE - I GUESS WE'LL CALL IT THAT - IS ON THIS SIDE OF THE VALLEY. THE LIGHTER LANCE IS DOING A RECON AHEAD OF THEM, AWAY FROM us.. THE SIGHTING IS THREE HOURS OLD. DON'T RELY ON ANY OF IT BUT THE MECH TYPES! USE EXTREME CAUTION. DO NOT ENGAGE IF YOU CAN AVOID IT. THERE'S A GOOD PLACE FOR A ROCKSLIDE AT THE FAR END OF THE VALLEY. OUR JOB IS TO SLIP BY THEM AND PREPARE A THUNDERING WELCOME." I WAS TIRED AND WIRED AT THE SAME TIME. WE SPLIT UP, HUGGED COVER, POKED CAREFULLY FOR SURPRISES AS WE PROCEDED. WE SPOTTED A KOISHI; IT DIDN'T SPOT US. WE WERE GETTING PRETTY CLOSE TO THE NARROWS OF THE VALLEY. I PUSHED INTO A CLUMP OF OAK TREES WHICH COULD HAVE SCREENED A MECH, SHOULDERED MY WAY OUT, AND THEN... BLUE THREE, BEHIND YOU! THE THOR!" As PRESTON's FEAR-LADEN GROAN CAME OVER THE COMM, AS MY ZEUS TURNED FAR TOO SLOWLY TO SIGHT WITH ITS PPC, AS MY UNKNOWING LOVE LYDIA SET HER VICTOR FLAMING IN A JUMP TO AUTOCANNON MEDIUM RANGE, I KNEW JUST WHO IT WAS THE DREAM WAS MEANT TO WARN. NOT PRESTON, BUT HIS BEST FRIEND, THE ONLY ZEUS PILOT LEFT IN THE LANCE. IT WAS A WARNING OF DOOM, JUST AS HE HAD FEARED. NOT HIS DOOM. MINE. Back to BattleTechnology 15 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1992 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