Warrior: Riposte (The Warrior Trilogy, Book Two): BattleTech Legends, #58 Read online

  Three medium laser ports dotted the ’Mech’s chest left, right, and center to form three corners of a triangle pointing up toward the ’Mech’s head. Dan’s smile seemed to match the lupine grin on the ’Mech’s head. Reminiscent of ancient Terran-Egyptian portrayals of gods, the ’Mech’s wolf’s-head design gave it an aggressive, fearsome aspect. Dan saw immediately that its ears served as sensor and communications pickups, and he mentally congratulated the designer for the way he had perfectly melded form and function.

  Dan turned toward Morgan. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Morgan smiled openly. “It’s a brand new design, Dan. It’s a Wolfhound. It’s yours.”

  Dan shook his head. “Mine?”

  Morgan nodded solemnly. “For what you did for Patrick.” Morgan looked at the Wolfhound, then pointed toward the hangar doors behind. “Go on. Try it out. Your lance is waiting for you out there. They’re in four Panthers… See what you can do.”

  Dan saluted smartly. “Yes, sir, Colonel!” He grinned. “With pleasure.”

  Chapter 22

  ARC-ROYAL

  DISTRICT OF DONEGAL

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  3 MARCH 3028

  Dan eased the lever bar down across the hatch and felt his ears pop as the Wolfhound’s cockpit became pressurized. He knelt beside the hatch and smiled to see the dim outline of the control couch by the light of the hangar leaking in through the ’Mech’s polarized eyes. He reached over the door and flipped a switch that fired up the ’Mech’s fusion engine.

  A sturdy thrumming began under him in the Wolfhound’s heart, and the energy lit bank after bank of switches, buttons, and monitors throughout the small cabin. Reaching out, he punched a glowing green button on the ’Mech’s command console. The radio crackled to life.

  “Clovis, do you read me?”

  “Roger, Dan.” The smile Dan visualized on the dwarf’s face came through over the radio. “Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Clovis coughed lightly. “OK. The first thing you’re going to want to do is change into a cooling vest and other appropriate garb. You’ll find a small locker built into the back of the command couch. It should have all you need.”

  Dan swung around and opened the narrow locker. From inside, he drew out a quilted vest made of a lightweight material designed to pull sweat away from the body. Threaded through the garment were flexible tubes of coolant that would protect the pilot somewhat against the tremendous amounts of heat a ’Mech can produce in battle. The tubes ran beneath the layer of ballistic cloth body-armor that formed the vest’s outer covering. A power cord meant to be plugged into the command couch dangled from the vest’s left flank.

  Dan frowned as he stripped off his jacket and shirt. “Clovis, it occurs to me that this locker occupies the same space normally used for the ejection rockets.” He peered deeper into the locker and winced. “I like having all this survival gear in here, as well as a change of clothes, but I think I’d like to be able to blast out of my ’Mech so I could use it.”

  Clovis’s laughter echoed through the cockpit. “Cat bet me twenty ComStar bills you’d ask that question right off the bat. Dr. Banzai incorporated the Hatchetman’s unique ejection system into the Wolfhound design. The whole cockpit assembly comes away. No canopies to blow only half-away or cockpit walls to knock the command couch off course.”

  Dan winced as a twinge of pain lanced through his left shoulder. Remembering the collarbone broken when he bailed out at Styx, Dan laughed. “I think I like this design.”

  “Roger. Let me know when you’ve plugged in, and I’ll run you through the ignition sequence.”

  “Roger.” Dan slipped into the vest and tightened it down. Finding two adhesive sensor pads in a small drawer of the locker, he stuck them onto his bare upper arms. Then he quickly removed his dress trousers and boots and replaced them with shorts and a pair of plasteel boots that covered his legs to the knees. He pasted two more sensor pads on his body—one on the outside of each thigh—shut his clothes up in the locker, and slipped around into the command couch.

  Dan used switches on the couch’s right arm to raise the back and lower the feet until he felt comfortable. After plugging the cooling vest cord into the socket on the side of the couch, he popped open a panel on the couch’s left arm and pulled out four cables. He snapped the clip-ends of the wires to the electrodes centered in the sensor pads, then threaded the wires up through the loops on the cooling vest. Letting the plugs hang down at his throat, he then belted himself into the chair.

  Dan reached up behind his head and pulled the neurohelmet down from its perch. After settling the heavy metal and plastic headgear onto the cooling vest’s padded shoulders, he plugged each of the sensor wires into the sockets at the helmet’s throat. Dan adjusted the helmet until he felt the neurosensors press against the correct spots on his head, then centered the wedge-shaped faceplate so that he could see all the command console’s sensor monitors without any difficulty.

  Dan punched a button and toggled the radio receiver, then adjusted the volume to eliminate the static hiss. After keying his mike, he said, “All strapped in, Clovis. Give me the rundown.”

  There was pride in Clovis’s deep voice. “It would normally take about two days to have you matched to that monster, but we pulled some readouts from the salvaged Panther you used on Northwind. I’ve also added a program with a feedback loop in it to your computer.”

  Dan punched the radio’s visual feed on to the auxiliary monitor. Clovis smiled at him. “The program monitors your performance and checks it against what’s considered your normal mode of operation and your best and worst past performances. It reallocates power and processing time to assist your weak points, and augments your abilities if you’re dead on during a particular battle.”

  “In other words, your program will fine-tune the Wolfhound into me?”

  “Right,” said Clovis. “The double-checking also allows the computer to shut down the ’Mech if the performance profiles vary too wildly from the norm. That way some hotshot using a chip-base EEG filter can’t come in and steal your ’Mech.”

  Dan’s chuckle echoed through his helmet. “Beautiful, but let’s get this monster on the road. What’s my check code?”

  Clovis’s voice became somber. “No greater love…”

  Clovis’s words recalled to Dan the sacrifice Patrick Kell had made on Styx. No greater love hath one man for another than to lay his life down for his fellow man. Dan swallowed against the lump rising in his throat. Such old words, yet with so much truth to them… “Thank you, Clovis. Well chosen.”

  Dan hit a button on the console. “Pattern check: Captain Daniel W. Allard.”

  A low hum rose in Dan’s helmet, then formed itself into computer-synthesized speech. “Voiceprint pattern match obtained. Proceed with initiation sequence.”

  Dan spoke around the thickness in his throat. “Code check: No greater love.”

  The computer spoke again. “Authorization confirmed. Welcome aboard, Captain. Full control is now yours.”

  Dan smiled as the computer shunted power to all the weapon systems. The ’Mech’s primary monitor flickered to life, and the computer quickly filled it with a schematic of the Wolfhound. Then on the secondary monitor there came a computer-generated image of the surrounding landscape on the scale of two-and-a-half centimeters to a kilometer.

  Whoa. This is some new stuff, Dan gloated to himself. “Hey Clovis! Do you want to explain how I got this map?”

  “Well, Dan, right now, you’re getting a feed from the Arc-Royal Meteorological Society satellites. The mapping program works from freely available data like that, or from any survey maps you want to download into the system.”

  Dan thought for a moment. “If I were to get a line from a military satellite, would it include enemy units on the images?”

  “That would depend on what they were sending out to their units. I don’t know if my interpreter pro
gram can handle all the different data a military unit might send out. If we can sample their signals and crack their scrambler, we can modify the program. Right now, it will receive military data from the Commonwealth and the Fed Suns.”

  Dan leaned forward. “According to this I have three—no—four medium lasers. I saw three ports on the chest.” Dan squinted. “The fourth fires into my rear arc.”

  “Keep them off your back. The large laser in your ’Mech’s right forearm will keep your enemies worried at long ranges.”

  “Roger that, Clovis.”

  Clovis hit some switches and started the hangar bay door opening. While Dan turned the Wolfhound to face it, he brought up the ’Mech’s full holographic combat display. It surrounded him with 360 degrees of vision. By manipulating the joysticks capping the arms of the command couch, Dan maneuvered twin golden crosshair sights over the display. The crosshairs dropped to half-intensity as he sighted something outside the fire arcs for his weapons.

  Clovis’s voice buzzed into his head. “The three thumb buttons on the left joystick trigger the chest-mounted lasers. Be careful, because they don’t have a safety override. If you cross your ’Mech’s arms over its chest and then shoot, you’ll wound yourself.”

  Dan laughed. As though fighting the enemy isn’t dangerous enough. “Thanks for the warning. The buttons on the right stick fire the larger laser and the after laser, right?”

  “Roger.” Clovis held up a hand and Dan saw he’d crossed his fingers. “Luck, Captain.”

  “Thanks, Clovis.” Dan stepped the Wolfhound out into the night. Well, Rover, let’s go out and see if either one of us has what it takes to destroy a Panther lance all by ourselves.

  The computer painted the Panthers’ heat silhouettes on the display in shades of glowing green. Easing the Wolfhound’s right arm up, Dan worked the targeting crosshairs onto the farther of the paired humanoid ’Mechs. He brushed his thumb against the firing button, and the crosshair blinked on and off, confirming a sensor lock.

  Dan punched the button. The large laser’s bloody beam skewered the Panther’s spine, blasting chunks of ceramic armor from the back of the sleek ’Mech’s back. First the Panther began to spin, then stumbled and crashed to the ground.

  Radio chatter filled the Wolfhound’s cockpit as his computer locked onto his foes’ frequency and cracked their scrambling routine. Dan recognized Meg Lang’s voice instantly. “I’m hit. Gyros are out. This baby is down for the count.”

  A strong male voice broke in. “Dammit, Eddie! He’s behind us. Swing around with Gwyn. Dan’s probably got this frequency. Shift to pattern two.”

  “Roger, Lieutenant.”

  You’re smart, Austin Brand. I’ll give you that. Still, you won’t catch me between two forces. As the radio hiss died, Dan glanced at terrain map. Pulling the Wolfhound back and around to the right, he marched it between two low hills, then up a narrow ravine. This brought him out in front of where the two Panthers had stood when he ambushed them.

  He raised the Wolfhound above the ravine rim just enough to give his chest-mounted lasers a clear shot. Through scrubby underbrush and between slender tree trunks, he saw the Panther he’d downed earlier. Meg had managed to gather the ’Mech arms under it and had raised the machine to a sitting position.

  Dan shook his head in wonder. Without gyros, that’s a major accomplishment. I really hate to do this to you, Meg. Smiling, he opened a tightbeam channel to the Panther. Just as he was about to speak, a chill ran down his spine.

  First rule as a MechWarrior—trust your instincts more than your instruments. Dan flipped the scanner display from infrared to magnetic anomaly detection. Two magscan images replaced the single heat silhouette on his holographic imaging system. It showed him Meg Lang’s wounded Panther, lying in the brush beyond the seated Panther. She had crawled it there and shut down its generator.

  Even as Dan dropped the crosshairs onto the seated ’Mech’s profile, Brand pivoted the Panther on its left hand. Its right fist, which was wrapped around the grip of a particle projection cannon, swept up. The PPC’s glowing coils pulsed once, spitting out a jagged bolt of man-made electricity.

  Dan twisted the Wolfhound to the right, but the computer recorded a hit. As the primary monitor showed most of the armor on his left arm evaporating, Dan felt both anger and relief coursing through him. Dammit! This baby can take a lot of damage! That shot would have crippled my Valkyrie and might well have torn the arm clean off!

  Dan keyed the radio as Brand valiantly tried to raise his Panther. “Nice ambush, Austin… almost.” He aligned the crosshairs with the Panther and then punched his firing buttons.

  Two of the medium lasers ripped parallel scars through armor on the Panther’s left flank. Fragments of computer-projected armor spun away from the scanner image in a whirling explosion. The third medium laser sliced into the armor covering the PPC, but failed to cripple the weapon. The large laser slammed heavily into the Panther’s chest, half-dissolving the armor over the short-range missile launch tubes located on the ’Mech’s heart.

  Heat levels in the Wolfhound spiked into the yellow zone on the monitors. Because the battle was not being fought with live weapons, and all the damage occurred only in the computer’s memory, the scorching waves of heat Dan would have experienced in combat did not wash up into the cockpit. Still, Dan saw the primary monitor’s status downgrade his top speed as the ’Mech labored to rid itself of the simulated excess heat.

  Dan ducked the Wolfhound back down into the ravine. They know I’ve hit Brand. Studying the map, he decided that they must have found this ravine and were probably tracking him now. He smiled grimly. The Wolfhound’s designer had obviously built this monster to engage Panthers because there was enough armor on it to survive a couple of PPC shots. Better to be the hunter than the hunted.

  Dan worked the Wolfhound back through the ravine in the direction from which he’d come. Taking a sharp corner, he moved down into a spot where the ravine widened as a stream cut across. Haunting flashes of magscan images danced on his display. Dan dropped the Wolfhound to one knee, raised the right arm, and targeted the golden crosshairs at the ravine mouth across from him.

  When the lead Panther was impaled on Dan’s sights, he triggered his large laser. As sheets of armor vanished from the ’Mech’s right flank, the Panther twisted to the left to protect its wounded side and then ducked back beneath cover.

  The twin ignitions of ion rockets splashed silver brilliance through the woods behind the wounded Panther. A second Panther arced up through the night like a shooting star trying to reclaim its place in the heavens. Dan tried to track it, but the ’Mech moved too swiftly. It grounded itself off to his left.

  He frowned. It’ll try to flank me while its partner tries to pin me down. Wait a minute… Dan stared at the display and saw the Panther he had expected to flank him begin to work back toward its partner. Something’s not right here.

  Suddenly, as the two ’Mechs facing him moved from cover, Dan realized what they were doing. The image of Brand’s ’Mech appeared at his back and raised its PPC.

  “Good bye, Captain Allard.”

  Chapter 23

  ARC-ROYAL

  DISTRICT OF DONEGAL

  LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

  3 MARCH 3028

  The Wolfhound’s rear-arc laser lanced backward and pierced Brand’s left flank. The computer, simulating the effect of a laser bolt on an SRM magazine, painted explosion after explosion over the outline of the ’Mech behind the Wolfhound. As the explosions cleared, they left nothing of the Panther’s image behind.

  Both the other Panthers launched flights of SRMs at the Wolfhound. The missiles scattered impacts on and around the ’Mech, scoring armor but doing no serious damage. The wounded Panther’s PPC shot lashed the Wolfhound’s already-damaged left arm. Alarm lights flared to life in the Wolfhound’s cockpit as the computer reported that limb completely severed at the shoulder.

  Instinctively shifting his weight to bala
nce the ’Mech, Dan dropped the large laser’s sights onto the wounded Panther. Good! Give me your wounded flank. He stabbed the firing button, sending a spear of cohesive light into the injured ’Mech. The last of the armor shown on the computer image vanished, and the ’Mech shuddered as it suffered serious internal damage.

  The flanking Panther’s PPC blast sliced armor from the Wolfhound’s left leg, but a quick glance at the primary monitor told Dan that the leg armor had not been fully breached. Mindful of the rising levels on his heat monitor, he did not return fire at the Panther that was still whole.

  The Wolfhound’s feet dug into the gravel streambed as Dan sprinted straight at the undamaged ’Mech. The pilot raised the Panther’s PPC for a simple shot at the charging Wolfhound, but the speedy war machine closed the gap before the pilot could trigger the weapon.

  Dan laughed as the Wolfhound swept in beneath the PPC’s effective minimum range. SRMs burst from the Panther’s chest and managed to blast away the last remnant of the Wolfhound’s left leg armor. Heedless of the damage the missiles had done, Dan targeted the Panther and fired everything he had.

  The medium lasers converged on the Panther’s chest, chipping away every shred of armor over the ’Mech’s heart. Enough of the energy blasting away the armor leaked through to destroy the SRM launcher. The large laser in the Wolfhound’s right forearm stabbed into the Panther’s right shoulder. The holographic display showed layers of armor exploding from the ’Mech’s limb, leaving it nearly naked.

  Dan continued past the Panther, then dug the Wolfhound’s left foot into the ground and whirled. His spin and its agility of execution caught both Panthers by surprise. Expecting a free shot at his back, the farthest Panther had risen from cover while the ’Mech Dan had just savaged managed a turn to aim its PPC at the fleeing Wolfhound.