Outside the old Phoenix Hawk's head, the driving rain drummed its unintelligible music against gray painted armor. I sat eight meters up, among small houses atop a low hill on the outskirts of Coalston City. With a familiar whine, a blower motor died in the 'Hawk's spherical head. Rivers of water poured across the 'Mech's armored visor, totally obliterating the view from within. "Tolliver, my rain blower's shorted again; keep your eyes open in my sector." "Yes sir," Rich Tolliver's voice sounded tinny in my bulky neurohelmet as his own PHX-1 K's powerful Tek BattleComm's tight beam burned through the invaders' jamming. "I thought you got it fixed last time in." "I DID fix it, " I said, bringing up the systems status display on an auxiliary monitor. All the diagnostic indicators remained in the green. "Must be the motor this time." "Must be the quartermaster this time?" asked a sarcastic female voice from the Stinger two houses down. "Watch what you say and keep it quiet." I warned. When shaking the 'Mech's head left to right then up and down failed to produce a response, a few blows against a bulkhead that read "Made with pride by the People of Diplan MechYards in the year 2846." brought a sputter and hum as the blower resumed function again. A second later the I/R snapped on as well, painting its blue and orange version of reality across the armored transparency of the 'Hawk's fisheye canopy. "How 'bout that!" I said in amazement. Turning the head toward the flaming spaceport, I could hear the distant thunder of battle echo across the city. From my elevated position, the engagement looked like a swarm of fireflies dancing in a vague semi-circle, midway between the port proper and its associated industrial areas. Away from the melee,'Mechs, buildings, and anything else what would remain alight blazed in the rain. The fires left splotches of color across my HUD and illuminated the low rainbearing cloud with an orange glow. Some of thos: lights were my fellow 3rd Fremen, trying to break through the invaders, and from the sound of things, it wasn't going well. This past year had been a terrible nightmare for our newly born state. As if by some horrible cosmic irony: less than two decades after battling to control our own destiny, the barely human Clans began their bloody invasions. The first and third battalions of the 3rd were already gone, destroyed in the stillborn defense of the capitol, Rasalhague. Only the lack of jump-transport to the battlefield left us in the 2nd battalion stranded at our home base on Kandis, thus we escaped the death of the rest of our regiment, for the time being. Everyone expected the inevitable, and it came with the speed and violence that had become the hallmark of the Wolf Clan. The invaders jumped in at a pirate point only three hours out from Kandis II. Their massive DropShips burned past the pathetic fighter screen we could put up. We'd had just enough time to arm and move out into the city before the first fighters came screaming in. I lost Tommy Holman in the first pass, his Wasp reduced to a burning wreck amongst shattered buildings. The coming of night combined with heavy winter rains left their air support blind, giving us a chance to escape the city. Once free we could continue the fight as guerillas in the mountainous countryside of Kandis' northern continent. We hoped. Now our company stood watch in the western suburbs of Coalston City, holding open the left flank as the rest of the battalion and most of the local militia units threw themselves at the Clanners. We sat in our machines, surrounded by a grim silence as we awaited the Clan thrust to hit us. "Enemy at two o'clock!" hissed the radio. Looking down a street directly ahead of my position, I spied what looked like a dozen miniature 'Mechs, moving rapidly, weaving around and behind abandoned ground cars. Their ugly, evil look was reinforced by the eerie red glow their warm armor cast on I/R. I'd seen enough reports and holos to know what a single platoon of those nasty things could do to a lance as light as mine. It would be over my dead body if they lived long enough to do the same to my people. "Green Charlie to Green Alpha," I called, keeping the lead suit centered in my sights. "Go, Charlie," Kapten Reydun said eight blocks away. "I've got five armored infantry moving east on Eighteenth Street. They look like scouts, sir." After a second's silence, "Fire once, pull back two blocks, then hole up." Switching to lance frequency, I said "By the numbers, pick your targets. Be ready to move back two blocks." Checking the range, and bringing the 'Hawk's rifle-like heavy laser up, I sighted in on the first armor emerging from behind a delivery truck. "Fire!" For a split second, night became day as a blast of lasers lanced out to converge on the hapless figures. The sudden burst of light and heat overloaded the I/R, the screen 'blinked' to save my eyes from the blinding glare. The visor recovered and I could see charred bits of armor and men strewn around a blackened crater. The three surviving suits lit their jets and sailed backward over houses on brilliant torches. "Fall back," I said, snapping off another shot at the fleeing forms. We turned and ran. Our two Phoenix Hawks and single Stinger raced across roads and lawns, tearing up huge chunks of pavement and turf as we moved. Steam rolled off our'Mechs as droplets of rain hit hot metal and heat sinks, making us look like three noisy, giant ghosts. We ducked around and took cover behind a line of single story houses. Hunkering down beside some child's forgotten swing set, I scanned left. Tolliver's' Hawk knelt hip deep in an overflowing swimming pool. His machine's weapon-laden arms reached up to clear a whitewashed brick house. To the right Sara Galigler's cobbled-together monstrosity, which has the head, leg, and left arm of a Commando, lay prone across an overturned skimmer. Three hundred meters ahead, our old positions exploded as LRMs tore craters into the ambush site and obliterated nearby houses. Windows shattered and the ground rocked as multiple concussion waves spread outward. As the wind and rain carried the smoke and dust away, the bastard off spring of a Locust and a Warhammer stepped into a collapsed house. Behind it a score of other, equally improbable, war machines sauntered out of the gloom. "Green Charlie to Green Alpha. We've got a lance of uglies in the sixty-plus range, eastbound!" "Roger. Get back he..." The rest was lost in static as a brilliant azure bolt slashed into the roof ahead of my 'Mech. The flimsy wooden structure burst into flames and the unspent beam vaporized paint and armor off my 'Hawk's chest. "Lance, fighting withdrawal. Galiger, jump!" I ordered. Our Kurita model Phoenix Hawks, which sacrifice the original class 'back-pack jumpjets for thicker armor, started in a backward walk, keeping our still thin rear armor away form the bit of the superior Clan weapons. As the little Stinger had about as much frontal armor as our rear armor, it jetted up and backward first, potting careless shots as it went. As we backed across two rows of houses, the once quiet neighborhood was rapidly becoming a BattleMech hell. Paved roads were completely erased by missile craters, and houses reduced to scattered rubble by stray shots from both sides. In one volley, the huge bird-like 'Mech that had fired first at me released an impossible horde of missiles at my Phoenix Hawk. The explosions whacked my elderly vehicle, sending the machine staggering over backwards. My entire battery of lasers blasted armor on its thin legs, across a set-back missile pack, and down gun barrel arms. Its only response was to shoot what might have been an arm mounted autocannon as I clambered to my feet. By the time our machines reached the block where the command and fire lances had dug in, both of us had had armor shot or burned off. Tolliver's left shoulder was completely ruined. Severed myomers contracted in vain to lift the shattered joint. Looking about as I entered my position, the rest of the company was in good shape. The Kapten's Grand Dragon sat on its haunches, alternating between his arm-mounted PPC and snout- like LRM pack. The rest of the company was also enjoying remarkably little damage. Only Kalvich's Hunchback and Johnson's Ostsol showed the blackened paint and pitted craters of missile hits. That all changed as the enemy closed to within 400 meters of our line! The Clan 'Mechs opened up individually on a single 'Mech as if they all had a vendetta against each and every one of us. The hellfire was total as we tried to repulse the invaders and they tried to blast us to scrap metal. I had never seen such volume of fire come from a single lance in my entire career! Missile trails were speared and cut by beam and cannon. Our company answered as feverishly as overburdened heat sinks allowed. I lost track of the number of times I hit the shutdown override button and began to smell the characteristic smell of liners and insulation melting in the heat as the Phoenix Hawk reach the limits of its endurance. I was on the edge of heat exhaustion, my vision narrowed down to the golden sighting crosshairs and my nemesis' avian nightmare caught in the strobe-light of night combat. Hit after hit, my lasers cut armor off its hide, only to reveal a new layer of the seemingly impenetrable material. The monster staggered when a heavy laser bolt shattered a plas-glass plate in its nose. The smoking socket must have been its targeting system, for as it resumed its stride, its fire more often than not blasted craters far ahead of my 'Mech. They seemed to hesitate when one of their number, a'Mech looking for all the worlds like a misshapen Thunderbolt, went down with its head shot through by a lucky PPC hit. Apparently, they were impressed enough by our stand to switch tactics. They backed off into the darkness and smoke, content to pepper us with LRMs. Or wait for reinforcements. "Jacobs, take your lance and circle around our right flank; see if you can get in behind them." the Kapten said tiredly as a salvo of missiles streaked in over our hastily built fortification. "Hai, sir" I stopped sponging sweat from my face with an already soaked towel to fight my battered machine to its feet. We turned from the stacked ground cars and burning houses, and headed east past a Whitworth from the Fire Lance. Its entire body had been flayed open when its ammo bays had taken a direct hit. I think Sharps had been its pilot. We ran east about half a kilometer, dodging between houses that had escaped the destruction and started to circle north. As we reached the gates of a wooded park, the pitch of the fighting to the south escalated. The rain let up and I could see tracers and missiles arced up and down in the misty black sky like sparks from a bonfire. Lurching back and forth between columns of massive trees, I smashed down on the foot pedals to keep my speed up. The motion sensor shrieked a warning! I caught sight of two strange green 'Mechs less than ten strides to my right. Before I was able to start the slow down procedure, my 'Mech had raced out among the enemy lance, with one of them running hell-bent straight at me! With a deafening crash I ran headlong into the weird little 'Mech with arms attached above its head. The thing must have been very lightly armored as it practically disintegrated as I ran it over. Through my aft monitor all I could see left of it was a tangle of burning metal and broken limbs. Each side had overshot the other, trying for surprise. We jockeyed our 'Mechs to get around but the nimble Clanners pivoted about and got their shots off first. A laser sliced through my already perforated left forearm, producing a shower of sparks and debris. The status display for the laser mounted there flashed from green to black, telling of critical damage. I pumped my remaining lasers into a 'Mech with big feet and something like a hood over its aircraft-style nose. "Lance, don't let them get away! Fire at will!" A static scream filled my headphones as one of the enemy pilots activated an ECM system from close range. My PA would be useless with the racket outside, so I concentrated on targeting my weapons; there wasn't anything else to do but fight. The melee began in earnest as beams, missiles, and cannon blasted into 'Mech, tree, and ground. Another of the small 'Mechs went down, its guts burnt out by concentrated laser fire from Tolliver's Phoenix Hawk. The enemy 'Mechs appeared to be carrying mostly long range missile packs or other long ranged weapons, and so were having trouble bringing them to bear against our point-blank' Mechs. I stood directly in front of the hooded type and blasted it while it stood kicking at my shins and lobbing missiles overhead until it fell, cockpit a mass of fused and shattered metal. In the surprise of this impromptu battle, all thought to our earlier missions was forgotten as we desperately tried to sop the enemy from flanking our comrades. So far we were beating them, with three of their number down to none of us, but the Clan lance's technical edge was beginning to show through. Odd noises from beneath me became audible over the din of battle and red lights migrated across my worry board. The rest of the lance wasn't doing any better; both of the other 'Mechs were fast approaching CLG (Ed note: Combat Loss Grouping) threshold. They were wearing my weakened lance down with sheer volume of fire. Tolliver's crippled 'Hawk fell first, losing a slugging contest with a Clanner's'Mech. One of the enemy's compound arms connected with his battered head, shearing it off at the neck. Galiger's Stinger went down next, a dozen missiles burning into her waist just above the legs, shattering its hips and toppling the little 'Mech in a pile of jagged armor and amputated limbs. The two surviving Clan 'Mechs turned to my battered Phoenix Hawk and opened fire. A green laser bolt struck the 'Hawk's armor less chest just below the chin. It burned through the gyrostabilizer housing and slagged the delicate machinery and computers inside. With no sense of balance the 'Mech fell backwards against a tree with a thud. I realized my life would be measured in seconds as one of them raised a blackened muzzle level with my cockpit. The last thing I remembered was pulling the eject handle in front of my seat. I awoke a day later not in a Clan prison camp, but in a dusty, shattered basement bomb shelter. Apparently I had ejected just as the Clan 'Mech vaporized my cockpit. As I rocketed upward into a tree's canopy, it's branches snagged my ejector seat, hiding my unconscious body from marauding 'Mechs as they completed the job of smashing my 'Mech to scrap. After the battle, a group of citizens had found me and taken shelter there. It turned out that a large part of the Fremen and militia had actually made the breakout and were getting set up for what was for some ex-Tyr members a return to guerilla warfare. After a week I was able to link up with a team of militia infantry doing recon work near the city and make my way to the main encampment. Though Dispossessed and wounded, I was still useful enough to get a job as staff officer with one of the southern guerilla detachments. We had just built our camps and positions when word came that General Rhodes and most of our main force had been caught and captured by the Clanners. With the Wolves hot on our heels, we loaded what was left of out 'Mechs and personnel aboard thee last uncaptured DropShip and made a grudgingly reluctant retreat offworld. It is sobering to stop and think about this latest war, for nearly three hundred years we and our ancestors have been butchering each other to claim a neighbor's world as our own; all in a vast universe much of which we have yet to see, let alone fight over. All the while the Clans watched and waited from beyond the Periphery. I for one have more than defending the homeworld as a motivation of answering the call to war. Even if the Clans gave up now and crawled back under the rock they came from, the blood of so many of our beloved dead demands vengeance. And vengeance they shall have. Eric Jacobs is a native of Radstadt, born to the last survivor of a strong Kurita MechWarrior family that sided with Rasalhague during the Ronin War. In five years of service with the Kungsarme, he received a field commission to Loftnant, and was decorated twice forbravery under fire during duty on the Periphery. He is currently employed as a MechWarrior with an unnamed mercenary regiment on the Lyran side of the Clan front. Back to BattleTechnology 17 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