Exodus Ch. 02

 

Sanglamore Academy

Skye

Lyran Commonwealth

10 March, 2767

 

               “Ok people, there’s the main nav point. If I were Duclair, I’d try to set up an ambush by that creek. There’s rolling hills on either side and plenty of cover. We’ve done this before. What do we do when we figure out where Duclair is laying his trap?” The voice of Cadet Roger Ruby, who was acting as company commander for this simulated exercise came over the comms.

               Carli Benedict flexed her fingers on the control sticks of the simulator for the ‘Mech she was running, a Lyran favorite, the -2D Commando. She knew what was coming next.

               “Spring the trap,” came a chorus of responses over the channel. They were all final year cadets now, and they knew their stuff. They had run missions like this several times before, but now, with graduation looming, the practice rotation had gotten just a little bit more intense to close out the final semester.

               Of course, that wasn’t the only thing looming. Now there was the very real prospect of a war facing them when they graduated. For some of the cadets, the ones bound for the SLDF, this was nothing new. Most of the SLDF was currently deployed in the Periphery, engaged in putting down the various uprisings that had come in the wake of actions over the last few years by First Lord Richard Cameron.

               Carli, however, was not bound for the SLDF. Her commission would come in the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces. The Lyran state was at relative peace, and she had assumed her first assignment would be a rather easy one. But all that had changed in the last few months, with the apparent news that the Camerons had been deposed as heads of the Star League and the Terran Hegemony was now ruled by the former Rim Worlds Republic leader Stefan Amaris. He had declared himself Emperor of the Amaris Empire. To Carli’s mind, it wouldn’t be long before he declared himself the new First Lord, and that could mean war.

               For that matter, she thought, it should be war. There was no way that the leaders of the Great Houses could stand to have the Star League run by a Periphery Lord. That wasn’t the way things were done. The Camerons ruled, just as the Steiners ruled the Commonwealth. That was just the way of things.

               “Jaeger Nine, you know what to do. Go stir up some trouble over there. We play it like always. Everyone else, follow behind at two klicks. Duclair won’t know what hit him.” The order came over her comms.

               “Confirmed, Jaeger Actual. We’ll kick the hornet’s nest,” she replied. She flipped her comms over to her lance. “Alright Recon Lance let’s go. Standard formation, we’ll just bull-rush into that creek and spring Tony’s trap. Remember, keep moving, our objective is just to flush them out, make them waste their trap on us while the big boys hit from behind. Got it?”

               She received a chorus of affirmatives from her lance subordinates, and the lance moved forward in formation. Her lance consisted of a pair of Commandos and a pair of Wasps. They closed the distance to the nav point with relative ease. The simulator barely put out any heat as her ‘Mech ran cool, and the terrain of gently rolling hills posed no obstacle to the lance as they advanced, keeping careful watch for any sign of enemy activity.

               As they neared the creek, they climbed a gentle sloping his and the tree coverage thickened somewhat. They reached the crest of the hill and stopped momentarily to survey the scene. Below them, a gentle creek ran fairly straight, and with few rocks or outcroppings. On the other embankment were more trees and another slope. If this was anything like all his other traps, Cadet Tony Duclair would want the trap sprung when Carli’s team was down in the creek. By forcing him to spring the trap on only the recon elements of their company sized detachment, Cadet Ruby hoped to foil the enemy plan and send them into confusion.

               Carli’s lance descended into the gentle valley of the creek and pushed through at full speed and began climbing the opposite hill. There was no enemy fire, and no sign of enemy ‘Mechs anywhere on scanners.

               “Recon Lance, hold.” She stopped her lance as they reached the crest of the hill. There was still no sign of the enemy. She keyed her comms for the commander. “Jaeger Actual, we have no sign of hostiles here. I’m through the creek and up on the other side and we still see nothing. Orders?”

               “Stand by,” was all re received in reply.

               Something was very wrong now. There was no sign of the enemy, and her sensors now could scan nearly to the objective. Where were they?

               Suddenly, the sound of weapons fire crackled over her external pickups, but from behind them, in the distance. It took her only a second to realize that the sounds must be her own friendly forces engaging the enemy behind them. Somehow the enemy had gotten behind them.

               “Recon Lance, turn around, they slipped behind us somehow. We have to get back to the main body and add our weight to their forces or else they’re cooked.”

               Her lance responded and they bounded at full speed back the way they came. They crossed the creek and back up the opposing slope, and were only near a kilometer away from their main body. But the distance was enough. She flipped to the company wide frequency and heard several curses as comm discipline was momentarily lost.

               Her lance pressed forward at their best speed, her two Wasps even igniting their jump jets to clear the woods faster than her Commando could. By the time that the fight appeared on their screens, the main body of friendly forces depressingly showed only two active blue blips and a host of red swarming them.

               The fight was lost. There was nothing to do but a hopeless fight against incredible odds. She pounded a fist into the side of her command couch. She hated to lose, and she was not going to surrender, but what good was there in a hopeless fight?

               Then it hit her. “Jaeger Eleven and Twelve, turn tail and run for the objective. Best speed to the objective, nothing else matters.”

               “Sir?” A confused query replied.

               “The objective is wide open. We can’t win, but if we can slow them down enough, you two can get there and blow it before they can catch you.”

               Assured of the plan, her two Wasps dutifully turned and ran back in the direction of the objective. Only Carli and her other Commando continued forward. “Jaeger Ten, if you see any fast movers, hit them. We don’t have to win, we just have to slow them down.”

               Her warning was prescient, as the first mech to come within range was quickly tagged as a Locust. It was heading straight for her, which was fine by her. As it entered range for her Medium Laser, she pulled the trigger and fired a bolt of light at the bird-like ‘Mech. She scored only a glancing blow but earned the ire of the enemy warrior.

The Locust seemed to slow slightly and take aim as it fired, its own Medium Laser scoring a solid hit and coring into the armor on her left leg. The slight slowdown might be her only chance at hitting the speedy Locust. She fired both of her SRM racks at the enemy, sending ten missiles corkscrewing toward it.

Only three of the missiles hit, pecking armor from the Locusts’ frame but doing little to stop it. The enemy mech picked up speed once again, bounding straight towards her. At these speeds, they would close almost instantly. The Locust wasn’t planning to charge her, she figured, but instead run past her and hopefully track down her two Wasps now heading for the objective.

As it closed to near point-blank range, it plinked away at her with it’s Machine Guns but kept its course. At the last minute, as it was about to run past her, she stuck her wounded left leg out and tripped the Locust.

The weight of the enemy ‘Mech hitting her already damaged leg sheared her ‘Mech’s leg off at the knee, but it was enough to destabilize the Locust, which unceremoniously fell to the ground, planting its laser in the ground and tumbling over.

Her own ‘Mech hit the ground on it’s back, and the simulator pod shook her as vigorously as it could. She only hoped that the ride down had been rougher on the Locust pilot.

Fighting off the ringing in her ears, she struggled to bring her ‘Mech up to a crouching position to try to take stock of the battle, but just as she did, her ‘Mech was rocked by fire from the main body of the enemy force. An Autocannon round slammed into the chest of her mech, knocking it backwards, but not enough to save it from a savage of laser fire from several enemies. Her cockpit went black and the simulator rocked her for one final time, signaling that some other catastrophic damage had claimed the life of her ‘Mech.

She leaned back and pulled off her neurohelmet, running her hands through her sweat drenched hair. This was the worst part, the waiting. She sat in the blackness for what seemed like an eternity until a horn sounded the end of the exercise, and the seal of the simulator pod cracked open to allow a rush of cool air into the cockpit.

She climbed out into the blinding light of simulator bay, shivering slightly now that the heat of battle had subsided, and her cooling suit had cooled her down. All around her, her teammates were repeating the same procedure. She was only interested in the last two pods in the line, where two men, the pilots of her Wasps were extricating themselves from their pods. She made her way over to them.

“Well, did you guys scrag the objective or not?”

Their smiles told her all she needed to know.