“Blake’s Blood it’s still there!” one pilot gasped.
“Cut that out,” Kirk growled. “The damned thing was built to survive hits like that – but we’ve rocked it on its heels so let’s get in there and finish it off before it recovers.”
Sure enough, the massive warship was only manuevering sluggishly as the first fighter groups of the second wave converged through the scattering debris blasted free by Kylie’s attack. Titanic flashes of light lit space as turrets turned and terrifying firepower was turned upon the impudent attackers, but Kirk only saw two fireballs inside his formations – clearly the more optimistic view of the warbook’s scanty information on the battleship anti-fighter capabilities had been correct: the vessel didn’t have much. Most probably the primary defense had been the aerospace complement – most of which were no longer in evidence.
Even so, the fighters were barely chipping at the paintwork. “Get in closer,” Kirk ordered and led his squadrons forward at a hard 3-G burn, heading for the rear and the – hopefully vulnerable – damaged engines. Another, larger group was boring in towards the nose and what looked like the command section of the hull, but the Lyran Guard fighters were still shaking themselves into formation for the run. Meanwhile, a wing from the Ninth Fed-Com’s aerospace brigade were taking losses as they closed in on the broadside arc, exposing themselves recklessly to close in to their weapons’ most effective ranges.
The crosshairs on Kirk’s HUD went gold and he triggered the lasers and PPC of his Stingray, salvaged from a long ago campaign along the Marik border. Tons of armour shattered under dozens of weapon impacts as every fighter in Kirk’s wing unleashed every weapon they could bring to bear and he could see the Fed-Com wing doing the same along the big ship’s right flank. But still, the behemoth simply refused to show any sign of damage and more fighters died under brutal fire from weapons intended to break armour belts heavier than entire dropships.
Miraculously, one Vulcan sailed out of a fireball after taking a capital missile hit to the nose and despite the loss of a wing, a Kell Hounds Stingray continued to fire doggedly, but not everyone was so lucky. A Corsair on his wing left formation, verniers firing erratically as the control computer failed, overheated by the sustained weapons fire. And of course, some fighters simply disappeared in the fiery deaths that had marked the end of a pilot’s life for a thousand years or more.
Within moments the leading fighter squadrons converged upon the Jade Falcon battleship and added the danger of collision to the risks as dozens of fusion thrusters roared in close proximity, fighters ‘skidding’ and sideslipping as they tried to keep the ship in their fire arcs without killing their fellow pilots. Kirk skimmed his own fighter along the very spine of the enemy vessel, the airframe creaking as he spun it through one hundred eighty degrees, his own spine complaining almost as audibly, and opened up on the ship’s bow, fire from the only now in range Lyran Guards slashing past him and into the ship.
Kirk growled as he saw that the Texas seemed to be still fighting. In fact, the ship looked no more damaged than the Major’s pocket telephone had the time that a young Caitlin Kell had decided to ‘polish’ all the pocket electronics in a tray outside the Kell Hounds’ secure briefing room with sandpaper. At least from the rear he had been able to see the damage caused by the nuke. Sliding the Stingray into an S-turn away from the lethal mix of fighters around the ship, he spared a finger to switch channel from aerospace command to the operational command net.
“Colonel Allard,” he reported. “The warship appears to be immobilised, but it’s shrugging off everything else that we throw at it. Respectfully, we need some more options.”
.oOo.
Nicolai Malthus’ Thor was on the ground and Galen brought the right foot of his Crusader back before swinging it forward in a savage arc that terminated just below the ribs (no metaphor, since there were analogous structural members supporting the torso). Seventy tons (well, probably below sixty-five given ammunition expenditure and general damage) of warmachine rolled under the impact. Metal folded with a protesting scream and Victoria could see that the associated arm flopped in the familiar manner that indicated loss of control over the myomers.
She fired her PPCs into a cluster of Elementals that were trying to interfere. One shot missed – at a hundred metres, the focusing of the beam from the left hand model wasn’t quite right. Something to look into later. A second hit a suit that must have already been damaged because it literally exploded, spreading metal and burned flesh out around a small crater. The last shot struck cleanly but the blasted infantryman was still moving despite being smacked around the chest with what amounted to a bolt of lightning. Cheating batard. Victoria would love to know how the Clans built armour that could take a clean hit from a Donal PPC and keep moving.
Victoria planted her Marauder’s hoofed foot on top of the infantryman and he squelched satisfactorially. Across the drill grounds, the remaining Clan Mechs were being cut down by overwhelming numbers as the other two thirds of the Tenth Lyran Guards arrived.
“We hit it with a nuke and two hundred fighters and it’s still alive?” she asked in genuine surprise. “Blake’s Blood that thing is built well.”
Dan Allard’s voice crackled across the radio. “Aside from admiring the achievements of the Star League’s engineers, we need to do something about that ship. It’s still blocking our launch trajectory.”
“Is it in position for orbital bombardment?” asked Akira Brahe, the commander of the Kell Hounds’ Second Regiment.
“Not according to Janos’ calculations,” Dan assured them.
“This is Storm Five,” General Milstein cut in. “We’ve defeated their ground forces. Is there any possibility of negotiation?”
Victoria chuckled. “Galen, be sure not to kill your football over there. I think I need to talk to the man.”
A Victorian Age (BT AU)
Moderator: LadyTevar
Re: A Victorian Age (BT AU)
Star Colonel Malthus was not, unfortunately, in a position to talk to anyone. At some point during the kicking that Galen had delivered, the Clan mechwarrior’s straps had parted and when infantrymen broke the cockpit open the man was comatose, sprawled in a bloody heap across his command console. There was reasonable hope that he would awaken... eventually.
Instead, Victoria had to make do with Adam Steiner’s other bete noir among the ranks of Clan Jade Falcon. The princess amused herself as she waited for the Star Colonel to arrive by guessing at names for other such Clans. She already know of Wolf. Perhaps there was a Clan Black Cat out there. And if so, would it be unlucky to have them cross her path. For someone, no doubt.
Kristen Redmond’s face was trying to display defiance as soldiers hustled her out of the personel carrier that had rushed her to the improvised rendevous – an open-sided tent just inside the campus gates. It was easy to make out the shock however. Around them were the signs left by the battle... and it would be plainly evident to the woman which side had emerged triumphant. After all, she was still a prisoner.
“Good evening,” Victoria said, disturbed despite herself at the first sight of one of the redoubtable Clan warriors in the flesh. It was doubtful if Redmond had ever been pretty, but the scar across her face and the distinctly different colour of the eye within the socket bisected by the injury made it clear that the original optic organ had been destroyed somehow. Adding the metallic pseudo-tattoos and Redmond resembled little more than one of the reckless bands of reavers that boiled in out of the Periphery from time to time. She would have fit in perfectly alongside a mugshot of Paula ‘Lady Death’ Trevaline.
But then, for all their advanced science, in some ways the Clans didn’t seem so very different from an ambitious band of pirates.
Redmond glanced around, feigning anger. “Who is in charge here?” she demanded.
Victoria’s own eyes narrowed. “I am in charge. Sit your ass down.” She pointed imperiously at the seat that had been prepared for the captive.
“You?” The mechwarrior’s lips curved in derision. “Impossible. You are tiny.”
It was always useful to have skills applicable outside of the cockpit, Victoria noted. The Mauser and Gray was pointed at Redmond’s nose in the wink of an eye, a well-practised quickdraw that she had practised for hours as a child under the tuition of her bodyguards. “God made man and woman, Colonel. But it was Samuel Colt who made us all equal.” She spun the weapon in her hand, rather flamboyantly and then replaced it in her holster. “More simply: I won, you lost.”
The two women matched glares for a moment and Redmond conceded the point, sinking into the chair, leaning slightly forwards. “Very well. What do you want of me?”
“Information of course. One of my cousins tells me that it counts as ammunition and I find it almost as valuable.” Victoria leant against the field table and eyed her prisoner. “I’m sure that you’ve grasped that Nicolai Malthus’ force has been defeated, just as you were. The garrison forces that were placed at Old Exeter have also been defeated. We now control the surface of Somerset. In orbit however, we are stalemated.”
Redmond nodded. “We wondered how long it would take for your warfleet to arrive,” she said. “The Falcon’s Nest will not be defeated easily.”
“I noticed that. Impressive that they’re still fighting after my pilots nuked it.”
The scarfaced woman’s face went an unfetching shade of grey. “You used a nuclear weapon?”
Victoria shrugged. “Yeah. Well I couldn’t exactly smuggle a battleship around in my field kit so a nuke was the next best option…”
“You savage…” the former Star Colonel murmered, her eyes focused on something other than Victoria. “We were right to come here, to protect the Inner Sphere from you.”
“Now you’re just overreacting,” replied Victoria casually, her mind ticking over options as she took the measure of the older woman’s disgust at the tactic. “Come on, it’s a warship. The Ares Conventions are pretty clear that I’m allowed to use nukes against one of those. It’s not like I’m flattening cities with orbital strikes. Now that would be pretty barbaric, wouldn’t it?”
Redmond lowered her face. “Those actions have caused much recrimination among my people. They will not be repeated.”
“You’re right. They won’t be,” Victoria told her flatly. She took a deep breath. “However, that’s not my immediate concern. Your friends up there have been crippled, but they are still in position to threaten my dropships if we take off. And I’ll give them credit, destroying a ship that size with only aerospace fighters will take time I don’t feel like wasting. In a situation like this, where both sides lose by continuing the fight, what is the position of your people on negotiation?”
“We do not approve of waste,” Redmond told her, speaking slowly and cautiously. “If neither side will accept hegira, then -”
Victoria held a hand up to pause the explanation. “‘Hegira’?”
“The right to leave a battlefield unharmed. Bondsmen are released by both sides, but the victor retains all other spoils.”
It took only an instant for Victoria to weigh that option and find it wanting. “As if. Continue.”
“‘As if’?” Redmond asked instead, apparently confused by the slang.
“A derisive way of saying no,” the young Kommandant explained. “An abbreviation, if you will, of ‘as if I would do such a thing’. So, failing Hegira...?”
“Ah. Then it is usual to bargain forces to minimise losses. It is, obviously, a mark of disgrace to have to do so after combat has already been joined, but preferable to the waste of both sides being destroyed.”
Victoria nodded. “Some sort of proxy battle then? And who would make such a bargain with me? The senior officers on this planet are all... what is your word? Bondsmen, isn’t it? And it does not seem that that whoever commands your proud Nest wishes to speak to us.” She smiled somewhat ruefully. “We have tried, you see. But it seems likely that their radio antennae have been damaged by the battle as there has not been the least response.”
Redmond frowned and then shrugged. “Have you tried contacting them via this planet’s hyperpulse generator? I recall the unit aboard the Falcon’s Nest is buried deep within the hull and would probably remain operational.”
“There you go. I knew that you would be helpful,” said Victoria, somewhat patronizingly. “I’ll have a word with ComStar about that. One useful thing about those double-dealing batards is that they doubledeal with everyone. I’m sure that they have crawled their way into regular contact with your superiors.”
“What will you do to me now?” Redmond asked her somewhat bitterly. “I know that you barbarians have no equivalence to being bondsman but you have made it clear that you will not release your prisoners.”
Victoria gave her an amused look and picked a radio handset from the table. “Galen, this is Victoria. Over.”
A moment later Galen’s voice crackled over the radio speaker, only slightly distorted by static. “This is Galen, over.”
“Apparently the illustrious Clan Jade Falcon fitted a hyperpulse generator to their ship and Redmond reckons there’s a good chance that it’ll be operable. Have someone go twist ComStar’s arm into setting up a communications channel, would you?”
“I live to serve,” the Hauptmann replied sardonically. “Galen out.”
With that matter dealt with, Victoria picked up a field stool and sat down upon it. “Now, Kristen Redmond, we talk. I’m a little vague on this bondsman business of yours, so maybe we do have some equivalent way that you can make yourself useful. That would be pleasent, since the alternative is wasteful.” She used the last word deliberately and saw a subtle tension fade from the clan warrior’s posture. So avoiding waste was a fetish to these people, just as she’d guessed from Redmond’s earlier words. “Perhaps the most immediate question is the one you just touched upon.”
There was a pause, Redmond’s brow furrowing as she realised that she was clearly expected to respond but was unsure how. “I do not understand.”
“Precisely.” The princess smiled slightly. “We clearly have significantly different cultures and we do not understand each other. You are going to help me to understand your people.”
“I see. What do you want to know.”
Hmm. Probably too early to press for military information. “Well, let’s start at the beginning. Your origins. You’re obviously human, but no civilisation I’ve ever heard of within the Inner Sphere. So where did you and yours branch off from the Tree of Man?”
Redmond frowned as she worked through the question in her mind. Clearly, Victoria noted, florid oratory was not something that Clan Jade Falcon considered a common practise. The mechwarrior’s final response however, astonished her.
“We are the weapon of the resurrected Star League,” Redmond recited, clearly from memory. “Honed to a razor’s edge by the Trials, by the Remembrance, and by the Words of the Great Kerenskys, our sires, our saviours.”
Instead, Victoria had to make do with Adam Steiner’s other bete noir among the ranks of Clan Jade Falcon. The princess amused herself as she waited for the Star Colonel to arrive by guessing at names for other such Clans. She already know of Wolf. Perhaps there was a Clan Black Cat out there. And if so, would it be unlucky to have them cross her path. For someone, no doubt.
Kristen Redmond’s face was trying to display defiance as soldiers hustled her out of the personel carrier that had rushed her to the improvised rendevous – an open-sided tent just inside the campus gates. It was easy to make out the shock however. Around them were the signs left by the battle... and it would be plainly evident to the woman which side had emerged triumphant. After all, she was still a prisoner.
“Good evening,” Victoria said, disturbed despite herself at the first sight of one of the redoubtable Clan warriors in the flesh. It was doubtful if Redmond had ever been pretty, but the scar across her face and the distinctly different colour of the eye within the socket bisected by the injury made it clear that the original optic organ had been destroyed somehow. Adding the metallic pseudo-tattoos and Redmond resembled little more than one of the reckless bands of reavers that boiled in out of the Periphery from time to time. She would have fit in perfectly alongside a mugshot of Paula ‘Lady Death’ Trevaline.
But then, for all their advanced science, in some ways the Clans didn’t seem so very different from an ambitious band of pirates.
Redmond glanced around, feigning anger. “Who is in charge here?” she demanded.
Victoria’s own eyes narrowed. “I am in charge. Sit your ass down.” She pointed imperiously at the seat that had been prepared for the captive.
“You?” The mechwarrior’s lips curved in derision. “Impossible. You are tiny.”
It was always useful to have skills applicable outside of the cockpit, Victoria noted. The Mauser and Gray was pointed at Redmond’s nose in the wink of an eye, a well-practised quickdraw that she had practised for hours as a child under the tuition of her bodyguards. “God made man and woman, Colonel. But it was Samuel Colt who made us all equal.” She spun the weapon in her hand, rather flamboyantly and then replaced it in her holster. “More simply: I won, you lost.”
The two women matched glares for a moment and Redmond conceded the point, sinking into the chair, leaning slightly forwards. “Very well. What do you want of me?”
“Information of course. One of my cousins tells me that it counts as ammunition and I find it almost as valuable.” Victoria leant against the field table and eyed her prisoner. “I’m sure that you’ve grasped that Nicolai Malthus’ force has been defeated, just as you were. The garrison forces that were placed at Old Exeter have also been defeated. We now control the surface of Somerset. In orbit however, we are stalemated.”
Redmond nodded. “We wondered how long it would take for your warfleet to arrive,” she said. “The Falcon’s Nest will not be defeated easily.”
“I noticed that. Impressive that they’re still fighting after my pilots nuked it.”
The scarfaced woman’s face went an unfetching shade of grey. “You used a nuclear weapon?”
Victoria shrugged. “Yeah. Well I couldn’t exactly smuggle a battleship around in my field kit so a nuke was the next best option…”
“You savage…” the former Star Colonel murmered, her eyes focused on something other than Victoria. “We were right to come here, to protect the Inner Sphere from you.”
“Now you’re just overreacting,” replied Victoria casually, her mind ticking over options as she took the measure of the older woman’s disgust at the tactic. “Come on, it’s a warship. The Ares Conventions are pretty clear that I’m allowed to use nukes against one of those. It’s not like I’m flattening cities with orbital strikes. Now that would be pretty barbaric, wouldn’t it?”
Redmond lowered her face. “Those actions have caused much recrimination among my people. They will not be repeated.”
“You’re right. They won’t be,” Victoria told her flatly. She took a deep breath. “However, that’s not my immediate concern. Your friends up there have been crippled, but they are still in position to threaten my dropships if we take off. And I’ll give them credit, destroying a ship that size with only aerospace fighters will take time I don’t feel like wasting. In a situation like this, where both sides lose by continuing the fight, what is the position of your people on negotiation?”
“We do not approve of waste,” Redmond told her, speaking slowly and cautiously. “If neither side will accept hegira, then -”
Victoria held a hand up to pause the explanation. “‘Hegira’?”
“The right to leave a battlefield unharmed. Bondsmen are released by both sides, but the victor retains all other spoils.”
It took only an instant for Victoria to weigh that option and find it wanting. “As if. Continue.”
“‘As if’?” Redmond asked instead, apparently confused by the slang.
“A derisive way of saying no,” the young Kommandant explained. “An abbreviation, if you will, of ‘as if I would do such a thing’. So, failing Hegira...?”
“Ah. Then it is usual to bargain forces to minimise losses. It is, obviously, a mark of disgrace to have to do so after combat has already been joined, but preferable to the waste of both sides being destroyed.”
Victoria nodded. “Some sort of proxy battle then? And who would make such a bargain with me? The senior officers on this planet are all... what is your word? Bondsmen, isn’t it? And it does not seem that that whoever commands your proud Nest wishes to speak to us.” She smiled somewhat ruefully. “We have tried, you see. But it seems likely that their radio antennae have been damaged by the battle as there has not been the least response.”
Redmond frowned and then shrugged. “Have you tried contacting them via this planet’s hyperpulse generator? I recall the unit aboard the Falcon’s Nest is buried deep within the hull and would probably remain operational.”
“There you go. I knew that you would be helpful,” said Victoria, somewhat patronizingly. “I’ll have a word with ComStar about that. One useful thing about those double-dealing batards is that they doubledeal with everyone. I’m sure that they have crawled their way into regular contact with your superiors.”
“What will you do to me now?” Redmond asked her somewhat bitterly. “I know that you barbarians have no equivalence to being bondsman but you have made it clear that you will not release your prisoners.”
Victoria gave her an amused look and picked a radio handset from the table. “Galen, this is Victoria. Over.”
A moment later Galen’s voice crackled over the radio speaker, only slightly distorted by static. “This is Galen, over.”
“Apparently the illustrious Clan Jade Falcon fitted a hyperpulse generator to their ship and Redmond reckons there’s a good chance that it’ll be operable. Have someone go twist ComStar’s arm into setting up a communications channel, would you?”
“I live to serve,” the Hauptmann replied sardonically. “Galen out.”
With that matter dealt with, Victoria picked up a field stool and sat down upon it. “Now, Kristen Redmond, we talk. I’m a little vague on this bondsman business of yours, so maybe we do have some equivalent way that you can make yourself useful. That would be pleasent, since the alternative is wasteful.” She used the last word deliberately and saw a subtle tension fade from the clan warrior’s posture. So avoiding waste was a fetish to these people, just as she’d guessed from Redmond’s earlier words. “Perhaps the most immediate question is the one you just touched upon.”
There was a pause, Redmond’s brow furrowing as she realised that she was clearly expected to respond but was unsure how. “I do not understand.”
“Precisely.” The princess smiled slightly. “We clearly have significantly different cultures and we do not understand each other. You are going to help me to understand your people.”
“I see. What do you want to know.”
Hmm. Probably too early to press for military information. “Well, let’s start at the beginning. Your origins. You’re obviously human, but no civilisation I’ve ever heard of within the Inner Sphere. So where did you and yours branch off from the Tree of Man?”
Redmond frowned as she worked through the question in her mind. Clearly, Victoria noted, florid oratory was not something that Clan Jade Falcon considered a common practise. The mechwarrior’s final response however, astonished her.
“We are the weapon of the resurrected Star League,” Redmond recited, clearly from memory. “Honed to a razor’s edge by the Trials, by the Remembrance, and by the Words of the Great Kerenskys, our sires, our saviours.”