Star Adder Campaign #2: At the Gates
Warning: the following contains adult languageBook 1: Hell
Chapter 1: At the Gates
Arcadia
Aschel Plateau
14 June, 2821. 0933 hours (local time)
The bay doors opened on the massive spherical drop ship, and sunlight poured into the steel jungle that was the ‘mech bay. The stale air that had been recycled thousands of times during the 11 days since they had left Strana Mechty gassed out from the slightly over-pressurized interior and ventilating fans began to draw in the warm, dry air of Arcadia’s badlands.
Star Commander Kensington Talasko’s brown eyes squinted slightly as the intense yellow sunlight filtered through the dura-blast crystal that was his window to the world from the cockpit ten meters above the ground. The terrain was forbidding and, tactically speaking, was less than ideal. The rock outcroppings and hills in the middle distance blocked line of sight and gave the enemy troops cover until they were closer than he was comfortable with, a little over 600 meters was what the range finders on his Black Knight were saying. “Look sharp,” he said, the microphone that extended from his neuro-helmet picked up his voice and transmitted it to the other four members of the 17th Cavaliers.
He felt, more than saw, the shifting of the unit behind him. It was that last minute settling of the mind into a state where it was ready for battle; the detachment that overrode empathy so that training and reflex would rule the body when the enemy became target, not man or woman. Without actively thinking about it, his eyes wandered across the console and HUD taking in the status of weapons and support systems, motive systems, coolant, engine function, and satellite feed. Red carrots began to appear on the black field that was the relay from the overhead drone feed, its grid of green light indicating ranges and topography.
“Fuckin’ Hoorah!” Meng Ajete’s voice cracked back over the comm-link as identifiers appeared next to the carrots on the feed and a separate screen began scrolling through data and wire schematics as it identified each of the enemy units.
“Maintain discipline,” Kensington snapped as he watched the scrolling list of names: Black Knight, Champion, Ostroc, Ostsol, Rifleman, Shootist, Thunderbolt, and Warhammer. This was going to be a nightmare of a fight. The enemy force was less than a klick away, and closing at speed. He had no idea what the quality of these troops was; their intel on specific opposition was sketchy at best. His job was clear though, get his troops out there and deal with these interlopers so that they could establish a base camp. With one last look at his topographical display he decided on a plan and gave the command, “Forward.”
Seventy tons of ten-meter tall, humanoid-shaped armor, bristling with sensors, lasers, and a particle cannon powered by a miniature sun that might explode like a super nova if its magnetic casing was breached, marched out of the dropship and down the gang-plank to the rocky, arid ground below. Behind him, Meng Ajete’s 75-ton Marauder seemed to almost bounce with anticipation as it followed him out, its arms twitching back and forth as though sniffing for targets. “Meng, stay with me, we’re heading for that rock formation about 500 meters to the north.”
“Ayo, boss,” Meng responded, then cleared his throat and replied more seriously “Aye, sir.” It was almost as if the young man had seen Kensington’s raised eyebrow. He had gotten the look often enough that he probably had. Meng had tested into a slot for a Star Commander, he had the skills, but Khan Truscott had put the brakes on that. The Khan wanted experienced soldiers with patience and an even disposition in the command slots. He expected this campaign to be ugly and messy, despite the countless days and nights he had spent planning for every possibility and contingency. Ajete was a maestro with a targeting reticle, but he probably couldn’t lead ants to a picnic.
“Mirela, I want you to take up position in this depression just to the left since all the high ground would leave you wide open and make you a perfect target.” He and Mirela had been serving together a long time. He’d been a newly christened lance commander in the Star League Defense Forces when Mirela Gena had been assigned to his fire support lance. She almost hadn’t made it through the warrior trials during the second exodus, but her understanding of suppression fire and missile defense would make her an invaluable asset during this campaign. He couldn’t remember having ever seen her happier than she was when he told her that she had been assigned one of the Archers out of the Brian Cache that had formerly belonged the 146th Royal Battlemech Division.
“That’s what I call a firing lane,” Mirela responded to the order. “I think I’ll have to thank the dropship captain for arranging such a perfect landing zone.”
“I thought you’d appreciate that; happy hunting.” He turned his ‘mech to the left and walked toward the very depression he was talking about. “Renee and Alison, 600 meters due east of us is a large rock formation with a saddle in the middle of it. I want you to make for the shadow of that rock with all possible haste. If you can get there before they enter this valley area, we’ll have them caught in crossfire while Mirela rains a little fire down on them. Once they’ve broken and run, we can get down to the business of setting up a perimeter and establishing base camp.”
“Aye, sir,” the ladies responded in unison. He knew they had a tough job to do. The terrain between here and there was broken and uneven, and the Crusader and Shootist they were taking down there weren’t exactly speed demons. The two ‘mechs were an oddly matched pair, the blocky shape and large gun of the Shootist as opposed to the fluid lines with tall structures of the Crusader. The two worked well together though. Renee led the way so that she could keep the clear lanes of fire in front of her and soften up opponents as they came. In the event of a close encounter, anything inside 300 meters, Alison would step forward and absorb the incoming fire while decimating anything that got close with the wicked 20 cm Autocannon in her left arm.
Off to the south the sky was turning an ugly shade of gray that promised some pounding rain for somebody later today or tonight. He wouldn’t say no if it made it all the way over here; he liked the rain despite the fact that it negated the benefits of range enjoyed by the higher quality equipment they had been outfitted with for this campaign. Surely the petty, destructive, selfish factions they had abandoned when they chose to join Nicholas had all but ruined most of whatever they had been able to hang on to. They were just here to do clean-up work. At least that’s what he hoped. He had been involved in some guerilla campaigns early in his career, and he hated fighting guerilla wars and dealing with insurgents. As they moved into position, he clicked over to the command frequency to see what was going on outside their little bubble of operations.
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The three exhaust ports glowed white hot as escaping gasses thrust through them and propelled the ungainly form of Star Commander Daniele Irons’ LTN-G15b Lightning into the upper atmosphere. She took a moment to study the radar screen and take in the situation. The 10 aircraft that made up the 12th Aerial Assault Quasar were all intact, most having suffered nothing more than cosmetic blemishes with the exception of the two Chippewas. During the enemy’s assault on the dropship formation, the Chippewas had been the lead screeners and they had taken a pounding. They gave as good as they got though, and had taken out two of the blues and one of the browns- they still weren’t sure which faction was which, so she just thought of them as blues and browns.
The hodgepodge of baby shit-brown aircraft had scattered like pigeons being attacked by eagles when the rest of the Quasar dove into their midst. Before they knew what had hit them, two of their numbers were going down in flames and another had just ceased to exist. The rest turned tail and flew as fast as their engines would take them. For the moment they were scattered all over the sky, but she could see the remaining five were trying to get into some kind of formation. “Points two and three, harry those arple-colored bastards all the way home, I don’t want them circling around. Pershaw, you’ve got command.”
“As you will, Commander,” Point Commander Zivko Pershaw responded, a touch of humor coloring his serious response. She isolated the aircraft onto their own command frequency and flipped them over to it rather than dignifying his response with an answer.
Six new blips appeared on the radar. The IFF system tagged them as being part of the larger group that had harassed the drop ships on the approaches to the invasion lanes, but not part of the group they had just scattered. She glanced at the identifier markings that appeared next to the new blips: a Vulcan, an Eagle, a pair of Rapiers, and a pair of Hammerheads. She thought for a moment and then made a decision. “Starskiy, you and Amoyan get back the Shining Hope and get patched up. We may need you later, so have them slap on some replacement armor and refill your ammo pods.”
“Your will is my command, oh qu...mmander of mine.” Erin Starskiy’s voice was a little fuzzy through the roar of the massive engine that powered her 90-ton flying wing.
“Stop being a smart-ass and get back to the ship before Amoyan’s craft falls apart around him.” She was getting used to the ‘as you will’ remarks, but she detested being referred to as queen. There were no queens, no hereditary titles, no aristocracy except the aristocracy of talent in Nicholas’s clans. Her maiden name was no fault of her own, and she hadn’t been Daniele Queen for 8 years. Apparently she was going to have to beat a reminder into Mz. Starskiy later.
“Commander Phoushath, you and Nix break left; Earle and I will take the right. I want you to circle wide and come back in against their flanks while we try and come down on top of them.”
“Roger. Break left, circle wide and flank. Willco.” She shook her head in resignation, even Phoushath was in on the joke now. She put it out of her mind and focused on the task at hand. The Hammerheads were the smallest and most fragile of the units, though by no means should they be thought of as weak. The single 180 mm cannon in the nose would wreak havoc on anything it got close to, and they were fast enough to get close to a lot of things you would rather they didn’t. “Earle, I want those Hammerheads taken out first. They should go down fairly quickly and it will even up the odds.”
“Willco. Following your lead.” Daniele shoved the throttle forward and streaked toward her prey, not bothering to see if Airman Hiroyuki Earle had followed; she knew he had.
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The opponent knew the terrain and how to take advantage of it. Kensington swore under his breath as his Black Knight started up the slope out of the depression that was more like a crater really. The lead units of the enemy were just coming around the farthest rock formation; he and Meng were not going to have time to make it to cover before they engaged the enemy. As if reading his mind, Meng raced up the slope and fired at the first valid target he could lay a reticle on before he was even clear. The Ostroc was a step faster than Meng had accounted for though and the cerulean lightning of his Particle Projection Cannon scored the ground just behind it. Realizing that they had valid targets, the enemy returned fire and all Hell broke loose.
Coalescent beams of light, screaming shells, and a hail storm of missiles streaked down range toward their position. Since he hadn’t yet cleared the rim of the crater they were in, he watched most of the enemy fire tear up the ground level above and in front of him. Unfortunately, Meng was in the middle of most of that mess. The computer relay that fed constant status information to his console showed that by the grace of the great Kerensky, most of the ordinance seemed to have missed. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when there was the crunching sound of auto-cannon ammunition ripping through ferro-fibrous armor, a sound he knew all too well.
“Motherfucker!” Meng screamed out. Kensington’s readout showed a yellow spot where the Marauder’s head was. “You stravag son of an Amaris-whore,” the 75 ton machine turned to its right as it reached the flat ground above. “I’m going to…” The azure lightning of the twin PPC’s lanced out from the machine’s low-slung arms as the auto-cannon on its shoulder spat out depleted-uranium shells.
“Sergeant Ajete!” Kensington’s voice shut down all other traffic on the com-link as he isolated his hot-headed junior pilot. “Fall back to the…” The command became a moot point as a beam of blue lightning cored through the cockpit mounted atop the massive war machine. Time slowed to an eternal crawl as Kensington watched the cockpit hatch blow off the top of the mech. Nothing followed it though, which meant that either the ejection seat hadn’t fired, or there wasn’t enough of it left to fire. Since the hatch had blown, he knew it was probably the latter.
“Torch them, focus all fire on the lead elements.” The command went out over the general command frequency.
“But, sir,” Renee Mikino started to question. He watched as a silvery streak slammed into the shoulder of the still upright Marauder. There was a hellish screech of metal on metal, then the shoulder joint separated and the arm dropped to the ground. With no pilot to counteract the effect of the 10 ton loss, the mech leaned to one side and smashed to the ground like a felled tree.
“Just do it! Fire at will.” He didn’t have time to explain that they were now outnumbered 2-to-1, that the enemy was still outside the dropship’s effective weapons range; that they had just lost 25% of their long range weaponry, that his plans had relied on Meng taking out two ‘mechs on his own, and that these guys were much better than he expected them to be. He tried to live up to Kerensky’s ideals of individual prowess and the idea that combat between two warriors was the highest form of battlefield honor. Renee lived it; it was part of who she was. She was the ideal of what Nicholas dreamed his clans would become, but she had no head for team tactics. He was an old-school strike team pilot, he had cut his teeth on wolf-pack tactics, and it was too late to do anything but fight their way out of it now.
He jammed his fingers down on the firing studs and felt the welcoming heat boil up out of the ‘mechs fusion powered heart as lasers and PPC lanced out to slag armor off the wing-like arms of an opposing Champion. The air was obscured with smoke as the doors covering the two 20-rack long range missile launchers on Mirela’s Archer snapped open and delivered their payload of destruction. Then the sound and fury of combat engulfed him as he felt the peppering of missiles on the black and blue armor of his death machine.
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Daniele Irons preferred the quiet calm of space, preferred the infinite view of stars in the vista of endless black. She didn’t want to see what the warring factions had done to the beauty of this once virgin planet. She wanted to stay in space and appreciate its emerald and sapphire beauty. The enemy wasn’t there though, they were here in the thin upper-atmosphere above this god-forsaken planet that she had gladly left so many years ago.
She didn’t have time to contemplate any of this though as she banked left and felt the pull of gravity and centripetal force pushing her against the straps of her seat harness. “Split high-low,” she commanded as she dove a thousand feet. Most pilots preferred height, and for a blue sky pilot that was probably true. But she was born to be a pilot in the great black sea of space, where everything was relative and there was no true up and down. To her, coming up from the bottom was no different than diving down from the top. Gravity was her foil though, it did say there was a difference between climbing up to claw at an enemy and diving down into him; she counteracted it with more speed and made sure her weapons were online and ready to fire.
At 2000 meters she led her target and thumbed the silver stud on the flight control stick. There was a soft ’chunk’ as the Gauss Rifle in the Royal Division Lightning spat forth the 5 centimeter sphere of ferro-nickel alloy at super-sonic speed. Her target rolled and tried to avoid the wicked little ball of death, but it skipped across his wing, crunching and disintegrating a ton of armor in the process. To her disappointment there was no secondary explosion, and the craft did not move in unexpected ways or directions.
Then something happed that she wasn’t expecting. Normally, both pilots would turn and follow Hiroyuki. That had been her experience through the years the two of them had flown together. The opponent usually chased him so as not to give up the advantage of height or leave an opponent in their rear as they chased her. Instead, the pilots also split and appeared to be maneuvering for a pair of one-on-one dog fights.
“Hm, honorable opponents.” She smiled, settled her hands on the controls, and dove in preparation to loop around in a hammerhead maneuver and follow him. If they were truly honorable, she wouldn’t have to worry about someone sneaking in behind her as long as she kept her eye on the one in front of her. He shot past her in the opposite direction, the shot from his massive auto cannon seeking her where she had been, not where she was going. A quick glance at the radar told her that Phoushath and Nix were lining up for their own little fight with a pair of Rapiers. That meant her opposite was probably cruising around in either the Eagle or the Vulcan that seemed to be patrolling the area rather than participating in a combat mission. At least she had her next target; now it was time to get to work.
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Kensington sprinted to the shadow of the outcropping that he had designated as the target for himself and Meng. Meng’s destroyed Marauder lay in a pile of scrap metal and myomer fiber in the middle of the field now. He thumbed the knob on his joystick that opened the com-link to the team. “Renee, how are things going for you and Allison?”
“Good , sir. We’ve got another hundred or so meters of open ground to the objective and there are some good spots that will provide cover for sniping.“ There was a sudden crackle, followed by a series of small pops- the sound of missiles exploding against armor. He moved out of the shadow and peered around the edge of the rock in time to see thirty contrails of white smoke connect Renee’s Crusader with the Humpty Dumpty shape of an enemy Ostroc.
The clouds of missile smoke were obscuring his vision of the battlefield, but that was nothing new. A glance at his sensor screens and readouts confirmed his worst fears. The second lance was rounding the hills at the far end of the firing lane. The Ostsol disappeared from the target tracking system. Apparently, the pilot had decided to use this hill as cover the same as he had. That was fine, if he couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see him; he’d just have to make sure it didn’t sneak up behind him. He re-ignited the lightning of his PPC and reached out for the Champion that was hiding in another depression some 350 meters away and firing at his star mates.
“Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!” Alison, the normally quiet ‘mechjock, was screaming over the com. Renee was screaming as well. Both were interrupted by a thunderous ‘boom’ that shook the ground and vibrated through the length of his mech’s body.
A glance at his external optics screen showed the Shootist face down on the ground. “What’s going on? Alison, you okay?” It was taking a rather focused effort to keep his voice level. This was going to Hell in a hand-basket in a hurry.
“That motherfucker destroyed my fucking gyro.”
Shit. This was serious trouble. They were outnumbered almost 3 to 1 on the ground now and there was no back up here. Best case scenario was probably ten minutes until the 87th could get here, and apparently they were under fire as well. Two beams of green light appeared outside his cockpit view screen and his status readout showed a loss of a third of a ton armor on left side while his target tracking system showed the sudden appearance of the Ostroc from behind the rock. “Galaxy, this is Thunderstrike actual, can you read me?” He swept his arm across and down as lightning and green fire leapt from his right arm toward the interloper; some of it caught and the figure’s left flank armor, which liquefied and spilled to the sandy ground.
“Roger Thunderstrike, this is Galaxy.”
The calmness of the communication specialist infected him, and he replied in kind. “We’re getting hammered out here; down two units, outnumbered 3-to-1. Any chance of getting some kind of back up?”
He glanced at his radar, Renee’s Crusader seemed to be standing stock still, as though covering the downed body of her sister-in-arms. He punched up his enhanced optical display as he fired an off-hand laser at the Ostroc that had suddenly appeared and was trying to flank around his right side. It took him a second to realize what he was seeing. The pilot access ladder was hanging down the Crusaders left side and a figure appeared to be scrambling up it. He breathed a sigh of relief to see that Allison wasn’t going to become so much battlefield fertilizer like Meng had. He backed up a few steps and began angling to his right where there was a gap in the rock formation that would provide him with some much needed cover.
“Thunderstrike, this is Galaxy Actual. Your position is precarious. Tell all units to fall back to the dropship’s umbrella. I’ll get you some covering fire.”
“Aye, sir. Fall back to the dropship, cover fire inbound.” He relayed the message to his surviving team members and dropped his targeting reticle on the Ostroc as his targeting tracking system warned him about the Ostsol coming over the rocks to his left.
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“Galaxy, this is Iron 1, over.”
“Iron 1, Thunderstrike is in trouble. They need covering fire so they can withdraw.”“Roger, Galaxy. Straffing runs by series. Out.” Daniele checked her instruments. She was at about 2000 meters, and she was going to have to drop ¾ of that to get to an altitude where she could do anything useful. She was also closest to the battlefield. “Quasar, the tanks are in trouble. We need to pull their bacon out of the fire. Earle, we will strafe in series six to seven hundred meters east of point 3. Phoushath, your point keeps the blues occupied. If any of them follow us down, make them pay.”
Daniele nosed her Lightning over and dove 1500 meters in 10 seconds. Her ears felt like they were exploding they were popping so fast and her craft shimmied in the incredible atmospheric resistance. This was why she preferred flying in space, there she could move twice this fast without so much as a shiver. Her readout showed that her partner was following, but at a much more leisurely pace. One of the blues was also following her down, also with a bit more sanity in his flying.
She leveled out a bit as she lined up for run and her ground radar flared to life. The IFF markers showed that the 17th Cavaliers were in a butt-load of trouble. There was no where she could get a good run and pick up two or three of them. Her screen popped a warning that a Rifleman was down there as well, and she made a mental not to avoid it. She lined up on one of the enemy markers and dropped another 250 meters. Lock sounded and fired everything she could. She was already past the target by the time the Gauss shell impacted so she had no idea if she’d even hit anything. That wasn’t the point though, she was trying to make the enemy cautious and buy a little time.
After she crossed the battlefield, she pulled back hard on the stick and climbed almost straight up. “Captain,” Hiroyuki Earle’s voice came across her com, “somebody followed you down. Immelman over 180 and you should be able to hit him just as he comes out of his run.” That was the advantage of a good wingman, and why she made sure Hiroyuki followed when she’d been given her Star Captain’s bars.
She rolled over and saw that the Hammerhead had indeed followed her down. She watched as his single massive canon spat forth its shell and watched it explode several meters off target. As he pulled up to avoid the ground she lit him up; lock tone sounded and she fired. Lasers and Gauss ripped into her target, it was like shooting skeet. He pulled up and smoke poured from his craft. Not finished, but probably done enough for this fight. She’d let the Hellcats finish him off.
As she was circling around the battlefield and lining up for another run, she saw her wing lining up behind a Star Adder Black Knight that she realized must be Captain Talasko. ‘Don’t pull the trigger early on this one,’ she thought. She and Kensington had been classmates in their first years of military academy before they split off into their specialty training, and he had introduced her to Michael Irons. The thought was pushed aside as she watched the exchange of fire below. Hiroyuki was half a second too late to prevent whatever was in front of Kensington from laying into him with all the fire it could. When the smoke and Hiroyuki cleared her line of sight, the Black Knight was on the ground and the enemy was limping into the shelter of the rocks.
At the east end of the battlefield, the big boys had cleared the obstructing rock and were threatening whoever was at that end. She lined up and prepared to drop down and make someone’s life a whole lot shorter.
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Renee Mikino had found herself a nice little nest. To her right was large rock formation that covered her right flank, and the ground in front of her was uneven and raised enough to provide cover against incoming fire. The Holly LRM-15 rack in her left arm finished cycling and the board went green. She hit the fire button and let her missiles streak toward the two-tone blue Champion that had taken out Allison’s Shootist.
“Yes,” her friend hissed in triumph as several of the missiles found their mark. “To your right,” Alison said. Sure enough, a Black Knight was popping its head over the hill. She triggered the Holly rack in the right arm to keep the Champion in place, and backed off another 50 meters to keep the hill between her whatever else was over there with that Black Knight. “I think it might be time to get out of here.”
“I agree.” The ground around her exploded as something impacted the ground from overhead and her system registered the presence of a Hammerhead ASF. “Definitely time to get out of here.” She backed away from the hill and back toward the dropship to the west. She certainly wanted to get under the umbrella of its fire. A Warhammer peeked around the hill and said hello with the twin blue lightning of its paired PPC’s. One of them scored across her left side and the other pounded the already shredded armor of her torso. Heat boiled up out of the fiery heart of her ‘mech and made the floor plating uncomfortably warm.
She replied with everything she had that could get a lock. Missiles impacted all over the sharp planes of its chest, but nothing spectacular happened. She backed off a little farther and continued to fire at a slower pace to account for the shattered engine shielding. The Warhammer stayed where it was though, and when several score of missiles arced out and tore up the ground just meters from the monstrosity’s feet she understood why. It didn’t want to get into the range of the dropship’s guns. With a sigh of relief, she continued to back away, turning slightly as she did so to avoid a large crater-like depression.
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“Captain Talasko, do you copy.” The voice was nearly muffled by the sound of wind from the other end of the connection.
“I copy, who is this?’“Sergeant Michaels. I’m your ride back to the dropship. Can you make it to the small canyon west of you?”
A glance at his board showed that he didn’t have much choice. His engine shielding was shot to shit, and it was hotter than hell in his cockpit, even with the escape hatch open. “Yeah, I’m on my way.” He unbuckled himself from the command couch and grabbed the Mauser 960 assault system that he always kept clamped to the console. The radar didn’t show any mech’s immediately on top of him, apparently that last flyover had chased the Ostroc away for the moment. He slapped the shutdown switch and crawled out of the hatch. “See you later old girl, we’ll get you patched up as soon as we can.”
Old Blood and Guts, the 11th Armored Assault group was inbound and would be here shortly. The rest of the 12th Aerial Assualt was also inbound, and the enemy had held up just beyond the dropship’s weapon range. At least they had some kind of cover, but they were well and truly fucked if the enemy turned on them before they could reinforce their positions. He ran as fast as he could to cover the 100 meters to the canyon mouth. As he did a single laser shot scored the ground ten meters to his right. “Honorable, my ass,” he shouted and dove behind some rocks. He could see the jeep about another hundred meters away and ran to it rather than bringing it into range of, he glanced over his shoulder to see the Ostsol that had been harassing him peeking over the rocks behind him, that low-life son of a bitch.
“Sergeant, give me the comlink,” he commanded as he drew level with the jeep. He snatched up the microphone and pulled up the proper channel. “Renee, Mirela, if you aren’t already retreating, get a move on. Pull back to the drop ship. The opponent seems unwilling to test the dropship’s weapons and reinforcements are inbound.”
Both pilots replied in the affirmative that they were already underway. He changed channels and found the com channel being used by the aero-jocks. “Daniele, was that you that came screaming over my head and lit up that Ostroc?”
“Hiroyuki,” came back the one word reply. “I was busy trying to keep the rest of you alive,” she teased him.
“I owe you a drink. When we get a chance to get some sleep, come see me if you guys are dirt-side. I’ve still got a couple bottles of the Cameron Vineyards ’67. I figure I owe you at least that much.”
“At least; don’t get ahead of yourself though. It’s going to be a long day before any of us get any rack. Gotta go, wounded birds to chase down.”
“Good hunting,” he replied and flipped back to his team channel. It was going to be a damn long day. When they got back to the dropship, he’d jump in and help the techs to see about getting the Crusader and Archer back up and in fighting shape. His Black Knight wasn’t going anywhere as long these stravag-bastards hung around.
“Stravag-bastards?” Sergeant Michaels questioned.
Talaslo realized with embarrassment that he must have been muttering out loud. “Yeah, stravags, those 6-legged rat-like things on Strana Mechty; ugly, vicious, scavenging beasts that will eat their own young if food is short. I think that pretty well describes all of these petty warlords and their soldiers.” He leaned forward and ran his hand over the gash in his right leg that he had suffered when his ‘mech went down. It wasn’t too bad; it might not even need stitches.
“Stravags,” the sergeant replied thoughtfully. “I like it, I think it’s an apt description. Mind if I steal it?”
“Steal away, sergeant. Steal away.” Clear of the canyon, the jeep turned and sped toward the dropship.
Next entry: Chapter 2: Run
