At the request of
@Genolution, here is what I had written for the update before growing sick of it and deciding that it was both too much and wasn't working. I could have salvaged it with extra effort and some judicious editing down, but I think what I wrote in 30 minutes last night works better anyhow.
As you might expect from this description, there has been a less than the usual amount of editing on the following short story.
Olaus' Eastern Outskirts, Skandia
Skandia Province, Free Rasalhague Republic
15 October 3049
The sky above Silvia was the colour of fresh-spilt ink, the oceanic expanse of brooding black bearing down on her with an almost physical force as columns of superheated air stabbed into its belly and set it roiling. Safely ensconced within the cockpit of her Dire Wolf, MechWarrior Silvia Canto had a front-row seat to the energies that tormented it, a pillar of blue-white light suddenly piercing the wall of heavy clouds and landing further east behind a hill backlit by a flickering orange glow, before vanishing just as quickly. Counting the seconds, Silvia grimaced as the airblast buffeted her mech far sooner than she would have liked, her neurohelmet's HUD wavering and skin prickling as the NPPC's electromagnetic energy washed over her mighty war machine.
"Stravags," Silvia muttered as the display steadied itself and the sensation fled, the purple tinge to her vision reminding her that the polarising filters built into the transparent armour of her cockpit window weren't perfect despite centuries of Clan science.
Waiting impatiently for the night-vision systems to regain their sensitivity and for her vision to recover, a gravelly voice hashed by static broke into Silvia's earpiece. "That was close, quiaff?"
"Aff, lead," she growled back at her Star Captain's question, the man's affection for the rhetorical just as grating now as when she'd joined the star three months ago. "Two klicks, maybe less."
"The target has moved towards us, then."
"Yes."
If he heard the hunger in her words through the NPPC-induced interference, Star Captain Av Weaver didn't bother acknowledging it, the elderly warrior instead setting his Dire Wolf jogging towards the blast site. Automatically moving to follow him, her S configuration easily able to keep pace, Silvia instinctively glanced at the display that hovered at the edge of her vision before cursing as she remembered what had become of her fellow warriors.
Honourless curs, she thought as she looked to the sky, the much-hated mechbusters nowhere to be seen.
"No aerospace assets," the old man proclaimed over the radio as if she could have missed it. "They must be worried about getting caught in the blast radius."
"Aff," Silvia agreed as a sudden pulse of anger arose within her at the memory.
In the air long before the Smoke Jaguars' had even set foot on Skandia, the air assets of the Rasalhagians and their ORDI allies had dogged the Alpha Galaxy's steps as persistently as a Clan Wolf warrior. Striking from the moment they'd emerged from their dropship to the south of Skandia's capital to their destination to the east, the eclectic mix of ASF had harried their small force until only Silvia and Av remained. Only now—hours into the battle for control of the capital—had the vexatious swarm left them to their own devices, the Drakons and their allies no doubt making some other Clan Warrior's life a living hell as they had Silvia's three unlucky starmates.
Swallowing the feeling, itself almost strong enough to make her abandon her duty and rush, headlong, for the planetary capital, Silvia looked past her captain's mech and let her eyes play over the rapidly approaching hill, the grassy rise growing closer with each thunderous footstep. A gently rounded eighty-metre hill, the earthen rise would give her captain a commanding view of whatever battlefield lay beyond and allow him to provide long-ranged support while she rushed in with her deadly close-range armament.
Baring her teeth at the thought of the glory she could win, she was still staring at the red-orange glow crowning the hill's crest when another pillar of blue-white light shot down from the heavens, the crackling bolt of artificial lightning turning night to day and throwing stark shadows in all directions.
Letting out a strangled yelp as her mech's night-vision display flooded green-white, Silvia was only a few moments into her count when Av Weaver's voice suddenly roared through her radio. "Contact!"
Machine-like, the young MechWarrior sent her hundred-ton assault mech slipping sideways without a second thought, a missile slashing through the air where her cockpit had been before vanishing in the distance behind her. Ignoring the thrill of adrenaline that coursed through her veins, Canto chastised herself for her lapse in concentration even as she set her mech twisting and turning across the grassland, the honourless defenders' follow-up attacks going wide an instant later.
Her hands moving of their own accord—years of training turning the skills of mech combat into pure instinct—she shot back with her sole ER large laser and grinned savagely as a squirt of flame appeared halfway up the hill; her wavering HUD no hindrance to her accuracy.
Fools! The Smoke Jaguar thought as a cluster of bodies flew from the pyre and vanished into the darkness beyond, streamers of sparks describing their arc as if they were a comet's tail.
Then, far quicker than she thought possible, the NPPC's airblast arrived, and her mech lurched to the side as if kicked in the chest, her teeth snapping shut with a violent click. Letting slip an irritated growl, Silvia glanced up from the site of her victory and felt a frown tug at the corners of her mouth as a mushroom cloud boiled into view.
If the fools in orbit aren't careful, they'll kill more of us than the foe has!
As if raging against her unvoiced thoughts, a sudden horn blast arose, unseen, from somewhere beyond the hill. Catching her mech in mid-stride, the mournful dirge hit her with a physical force, rolling over the Dire Wolf like a sheet of rain and sending a dull rumble through her chest. A moment later, a pale blue glow arose from behind the hill, and her HUD began to waver.
"Host-" was all Silvia managed to breathe.
Crackling and writhing with almost frantic speed, the noise of it pounding painfully in Silvia's head, a pillar of lightning shot from the ground without warning, the brilliant beam shooting skywards even as lesser braids sent a thousand thousand knives into the belly of the cloudscape and rippling across its surface. Brighter than the moon, the sun, and the stars put together—louder even than the clarion cry that preceded it and the squeal from her radio that accompanied it—it was as if some perverse trainer had flicked on the light switch the day after revelry and started slamming pots together: the noise-speckled green-tinged dark vanishing before a searing light; the whole of the world thrown into stark relief as a cacophony raged.
Acting of their own accord, Silvia's hands cut off the night-vision feed, banishing the images from her cockpit windows and revealing a noonday-bright plain. Drinking in the sight as only a warrior could, Silvia could see every detail of the hill that rose before her, its rounded slopes covered in tall grass and mossy stones, its crest crowned with a thin strand of scraggly bushes, and the wild zig-zag of trenches, their inhabitants lit as bright as day. Then the roaring, raging torrent died away, and the inky night—perfect, unblemished, and broken only by the rumble of distant thunder—raced back in to fill the void, Silvia's ears ringing with absence and her radio spitting and hissing with a sound akin to meat aflame.
There was a pause as Silvia worked her jaw, her aborted query to her Star Captain falling from her tongue. And then four slender sapphire scalpels suddenly shot from Weaver's Dire Wolf, the quartet converging partway up the hill before ripping sideways as the experienced warrior twisted his mech from side to side. Though wan and limpid compared to the apocalyptic fury she had just witnessed, great flaming gouts spewed into the air from one side of the hill to the other as the dull crump of explosives told of trench stockpiles put to the torch.
Already wired with adrenaline, Silvia didn't hesitate, the young MechWarrior throwing her close-assault mech into a sprint as Weaver split left without a word between them.
Pride at their efficiency warring with her distaste for the aged warrior, Silvia resolved the vexation by firing her autocannon as she raced past, the thump-boom-thump-boom of her AC/20 pounding in her ears and the temperature of her cockpit climbing. A heartbeat later, a storm of explosions erupted across the hillside as dozens of submunitions detonated, each glowing orange flower sending out a lethal spray of shrapnel as they bloomed.
Watching the violence she had unleashed with unbound joy, Silvia let out a whooping warcry as she charged forward, the blazing fires illuminating humanoid figures sprinting from trench to trench, each orange flower seeing squads of them drop like marionettes with their strings cut as her autocannon continued to bark.
One step. Two steps. Three steps. As the Dire Wolf's feet left the earth for the fourth time, Silvia released the firing stud and pulsed her jump jets, sweat prickling across her brow as a burp of fusion flame hurled her hundred-ton mech into the sky like a rocket. An instant later, the hillside seemed to explode as the infantry huddling in the trenches opened fire, streamers of bullets lunging for her cockpit.
Too slow, surats! She thought as the storm of missiles and tracers ripped past a hairsbreadth beneath the Dire Wolf's feet, a pulse of her jump jets seeing her mech slide sideways through the air even as she reactivated her night-vision systems; a quick tap at her console dialling down their sensitivity.
Reaching the apex of her fusion-powered leap—the darkness vanishing as the Dire Wolf's night-vision sensors once more piped their sights onto its displays—Silvia returned fire on the defending infantry, pulse lasers strobing as she filled the air with light. A moment later, sapphire beams shot beneath her feet as Weaver lent his strength to hers, another trench line going up in flames as the Star Captain proved unnervingly accurate.
Seemingly unconcerned by the firestorm falling among them, the defenders shifted their fire to meet Silvia, a sound like hail on metal filling her cockpit as hundreds of anti-infantry rounds slammed into her armour. Gritting her teeth at the racket, Silvia cut her jump jets entirely and let herself plunge through the sheet of bullets, the noise vanishing as she crashed back down to earth.
Just as planned, the fusion-assisted leap had taken her all the way to the hill's base, the infantry entrenched upon it now well within range of her arsenal. So close to them, only a few hundred meters away, she could easily make out the familiar ursine shape of their skulls through the emerald glow of her night-vision display, their steel teeth and claws gleaming in the firelight.
"Machines," she muttered in disgust. At least they're good for killing, a part of her added.
A grin splitting her face at the thought, Silvia flicked open her radio and snarled to Weaver, "Mine!"
Cherry-red streams spilt from the Dire Wolf's torso-mounted machine guns as Silvia jammed down on the firing stud, her mech's external mics faithfully transmitting the tearing-cloth sound to her ears as the weapons let loose. Sweeping from side to side as she twisted and turned, the tracers tore into the defenders, thumb-sized rounds separating limbs from bodies and torsos from legs. Acting with almost indecent haste as she poured lead into trench lines and exposed squads alike, the infantry dove for whatever cover they could find and returned fire, a handful of missiles exploding against the Dire Wolf's armour before Silvia answered the temerity of those responsible with a hail of bullets.
Blood singing in her veins, she almost missed her radio crackling to life.
"Infantry coming over the peak," Weaver warned dispassionately, a quick peek showing Silvia two dozen lanky figures rising over the black line that demarcated hill and sky.
Roaring like the creature whose name her Clan bore, blood rushing in her ears, Silvia strode among the remaining defenders like a god of war and activated her A-Pods, a wall of lethal shrapnel bursting forth and scything down those too slow or stupid to duck. Smiling at the devastation she had caused, her chest heaving and heart pounding, Silvia turned her mech towards the approaching infantry only to freeze as a wave of explosions suddenly erupted around them, the infantry vanishing in a blizzard of noise and fire as shells from Weaver's autocannons detonated around them.
"Those were mine!" Silvia hissed as the last explosions died away, a scan of the hillside revealing only an uneasy peace underscored by the quiet rumble of distant thunder, fury at his interference setting a fire in her belly.
A wet leopard chuckle was the Star Captain's response, his voice following close behind. "You seemed busy, quiaff?"
Silvia pursed her lips at the man's lazy jibe, her mech stepping towards his Dire Wolf before halting as she caught herself. It had only been two months since she'd joined Weaver's star, and already she could picture the slight smile behind his words. It was infuriating!
As if reading her mind, her captain's voice returned.
"My apologies, Warrior Canto," he said coolly as his mech began to move toward hers. "You were correct. They were your kills."
All at once, the heat within her deflated, a wordless huff escaping her and her heart slowing its mad dash. It had been a long time since last they'd fought under Zellbrigen—the Clans' system of honourable combat—but still, the change chafed at her instincts. It was galling to fight this atrociously inefficient war. To waste time, and mechs, and lives, and not even earn the satisfaction of knowing that you triumphed because you were the better warrior.
"Is the target close? Have you been able to reach the main force?" She asked as another bolt of artificial lightning rained down from the heavens and plunged past the hill.
Landing to the northeast, out of sight though not out of mind, the shockwave arrived a second later, her mech rocking back and forth under the oven-hot airblast as a grating squeal sounded over the radio.
"Neg," Star Captain Weaver admitted after the static cleared, his tone inscrutable as he brought his mech to a halt beside her Dire Wolf. "Too much interference. Too much noise. Damn the surats."
About to grunt in rare agreement, a sudden blast of noise brought Silvia short, the familiar funerary dirge booming from the opposite side of the hill. Already painfully loud the last time she heard it, this time it was almost overwhelming in its volume, a low thrumming now audible in the brassy roar that set a rumble in her chest and seemed to constrict her throat. Turning her mech eastward and peering up towards the peak, Silvia paused as she spied a pale blue glow growing in intensity with every heartbeat, the Dire Wolf's displays turning to unreadable mush as the electromagnetic torment grew too much for them.
There was a sound that was no mere sound and a light that was no mere light.
With all the grace of a hammer blow, an explosion of light and noise blossomed on the far side of the hill, night once again banished as an evil sun was born beneath the clouds. Unseen but felt, booming and crackling like a thunderstorm compressed and sped up, the target's weapon rained destruction on some unwitnessed friend, sheer proximity setting every hair on Silvia's body standing on its end. A moment later, it was over, and a silence underscored by the protests of much-abused computer systems rebooting and the crack of lighting settled over them.
As gently as the year's first snowfall, an unease grew within Silvia as she listened to the distant murmurs, something about the thunder scratching away at the back of her mind. Quiet and steady, the thunder drummed over her, the dull rumble interspersed with hollow cracks that pricked at her nerves. Slowly, a knot forming in her gut with every passing moment, Silvia finally grasped what was wrong, all but slapping the console in front of her in her haste to activate her radio.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Came the reply, the Star Captain's rough voice tinged with confusion, Weaver's hesitation a leash around her neck. "You left nothing alive."
The thunder intensified, the distant rumble louder, as if it had suddenly raced closer. Behind the hill's peak, yellow-white lights began to flash in time with the largest booms, the hollow crack of supersonic rounds rising above the clamour.
"The storm?"
"Not a storm.
Artillery."
The grasslands burned.
From horizon to horizon, a vision of hell stretched before Silvia, the sea of yellow-green grass consumed by fire fronts kilometres wide and growing with every passing moment. Here and there, dotting the shifting sea like accoutrements on the table of some indolent Spheroid lordling, ruined Jaguar mechs lay amid the grass, twisting braids of smoke and fire spilling out of their scorched interiors and joining the vast thunderheads that rose around them to form columns that seemed to hold up the sky. Tormented by the heat of the flames, cyclones of superheated air spun out across the burning expanse, the rattle of innumerable bone-dry stalks combining into a single unending hiss that rolled over the land and into the ear.
Her eyes flicking from place to place—her pupils wide despite the hellish orange light that filled the world with its unnatural glow—Silvia struggled to take it all in, an involuntary shiver running down her spine despite the warmth pervading her cockpit.
"Bearing zero-seven-five," Weaver commanded crisply, the old man's voice punching through reality's haze as efficiently as a pulse laser through steel despite the interference that smoothed the edges of his burr. "Distance five klicks. Do you see them?"
Releasing a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, Silvia gave a start at the sudden intrusion before moving to obey, a twitch of her head settling her mech's telescopes on the given point. Pushed to their limit, it took the mighty war machine's sensors a moment to peer through the hash of smoke and flame, swirling embers giving way to the familiar mottled grey-black armour of her Clan.
"A Heavy Binary!" She barked before catching herself as an eclectic mix of medium and assault mechs marched out of the conflagration to join the vanguard of heavies. "No, a Trinary and change!"
Weaver made a noncommittal noise; the electrostatic interference filling the air smothered it with hiss, pops, and crackles.
"Check their markings," the older man added a moment later. "It's the Keshik, plus some stragglers."
Scoffing, derision at the idea of the man's aged eyes outdoing her own racing through her mind, Silvia zoomed in on the nearest machine despite herself, her stomach suddenly lurching as Galaxy Commander Dorian Wirth's name resolved on her HUD in ghostly green letters.
Striding boldly forward through the burning sea like demons, the flame-licked mechs of the Jaguar's Spirit Keshik stalked with leopardine grace towards the unseen eastern horizon, the pall of black smoke smothering their target as efficiently as any sensor jammer. Composed of the best warriors the Clan had to offer and outfitted with the best technology it could devise or take, the Spirit Keshik served as both bodyguards to the Khan and the tip of the spear for the heaviest assaults.
"Ha," Silvia answered, perhaps a little less brashly than she had intended, "that will be more than enough, quineg?"
Weaver, seeming to miss the question, grunted. "Elementals, too. A Binary's worth, at least."
Excitement pulsing through her veins in harmony with her heartbeat, Silvia grinned as the toadlike elementals bounded into view. Squat and fat compared to the graceful form of Clan battlemechs, the Jaguars' heavily armoured ground troops were more than a match for any Spheroid machine in small groups, their surprising speed and heavy short-ranged armament allowing them to tear through armour as if it were tissue paper. Fearsome combatants in their own right, a Binary's worth—sixty-plus, she counted quickly—plus four Stars of mechs was as potent a force as any she'd fought alongside.
Her heart swelling with pride at the sight of the Spirit Keshik, Silvia was about to urge her Star Captain to join with the distant Jaguar force when the man's stoic, almost indifferent tone finally percolated to the forefront of her mind. Quite at once, rage flared in her breast, and the pulse of blood in her veins transformed into a thunderous roar as her pulse began to race.
"You do not sound very impressed, Star Captain," Silvia ground out, a supreme effort of will required to keep her voice level despite the sudden thunder in her ears. "That is the Spirit Keshik, the pride of our Clan!"
Weaver grunted once again before speaking. "They are just another unit in the Touman, Warrior Canto."
Stiffening at his formal tone, a small voice warning her that pushing too hard might see them enter the Circle of Equals—a not altogether unwelcome outcome, another voice reminded her—Silvia nevertheless persevered.
"It is the Keshik, Weaver," she insisted. "They embody everything the Clan stands for—honour, strength, uni-."
"Enough!" He exclaimed sharply, the fire in his voice silencing Silvia as effectively as a gunshot.
Bristling at the man's manner, her jaw twinging as she worked it in frustration, Silvia nonetheless held her tongue as the throbbing at her temple reminded her where the boundary between praiseworthy forthrightness and punishable insolence lay with the Smoke Jaguars. Her time in the sibko had taught her much, not least how far a Kit could push against the Clan's hierarchy before the Kit Masters would respond.
For a long moment, the man said nothing; the only sound to reach Silvia's ears was the endless dry rustle of burning grass stalks. Then, just as quickly as Av's anger had flared, it seemed to vanish, a long exhale bubbling through the tenuous radio line between them.
"I know, Warrior Canto," he said. "I was not clear. They are the Keshik. Better, yes, Deadlier, yes. But not every part of the Jaguar is a tooth or a claw. Learn this fact, hold it tight within your mind, and you will go far in the Clan."
Better exam of mechs reveals that it's a mixed force from several trinaries, but the entire spirit keshik is there. Also discuss mech types.
Silvia exclaims that the Khan must be leading it and that weaver should contact them. Weaver says he's been trying the entire time but there's too much electrostatic interference and they need to get closer.
NPPC blast lands in the smoke to the east and the light from the blast backlits the spidery shape of the mawler. Talk about how it's been their target since they landed and how Silvia longs to be the one to bring it down. Khan force reroutes towards revealed mawlr.
Silvia realises that they're deliberately advancing from this angle in the hopes that they'll be able to stalk towards the mawlr without it spotting them.
They rush down to join the attacking force. On the way down they see an automata force preparing to attack the redirected clan attack force which can't see them since they're dug in.
Engage defenders at long range, alerting the Jaguars to the impending attack and allowing them to engage despite being caught stretched out.
Crush the defenders with minimal casualties despite there being a lot of them this time armed with petrusite weapons and the Jaguars sending off only a small attack force to deal with it.
Silvia and weaver welcomed into the attack and told the stakes. Also told that, since they've engaged hostile infantry, they have to assume the mawlr knows where they are.
On queue:Horn blast from mawlr stirs the wall of smoke covering it and it emerges from the smoke. Description of feelings.
Scattered Jaguars start moving towards the MAWLR and other defenders make themselves known.
Silvia gets knocked aside when another NPPC blast lands on the MAWLR's shields as a result of the blast. Shot does breach the mawlr's shields though.
Silvia pauses in trying to get up when the MAWLR fires its gun to the sky and sees secondary braids strike mechs that have approached too closely.
Silvia gets up at weaver's urging (she thinks it's stupid that he stayed with her), and then they advance to join the main force.
Weaver's mech explodes as they move to punch a hole through one ring of defences with other Smoke Jaguar mechs.
Khan Osis jumps on Silvia's shoulder to direct the final charge.
Short ends with the mawlr charging its gun while it's pointed at silvia.
