Lloyd Marik-Stanley Aerospace School
Republic of Kasnov-Greenland, New Olympia
Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League
1 January, 3015
I was in trouble.
Of course I was in trouble! What had my boneheaded local self thought would happen? Tricking a noble cadet into a Mech lucha libre match with a family heirloom SLDF neurohelmet on the line, and then having the temerity to win? To humiliate an egotistical noble-born Mechwarrior wannabe just before he graduated and went on to his deserved fame and glory? While being a scruffy no-account child of a half-civilized former bandit intendancy? And a torch pilot, no less?
Por supuesto, he was going to come after me with all the highborn clout he had! My molars ground together as I stood at ramrod attention in the ready room, still soaked by the sweat 216's laser mount 2 had drawn from me to during our strafe and strike runs, followed by a vigorous session of DACT doing it's best to wring every last drop of moisture from my body after that. I was heartily regretting not sucking down one of the hydration packets following landing, but I had just been feeling too good with my post-flight high to pay it much mind.
Now I was feeling shaky, and my head was pounding. It wasn't doing anything good for my temper as I stood in a clammy flightsuit and listened to an Allison instructor bloviate about my moral failings and the lacking honor of my school. The pulse pounding in my temple wasn't solely due to my dehydration. I couldn't even blame the rivalry. I had been the one to break the good will between the academies, really.
"…and I say, I really must question what kind of school you're running here if a second-year cadet thinks that he can get away with stealing the property of another school's cadet, on a communication flight no less."
A muscle in my jaw jumped as he accused me of theft. He wasn't done yet.
"Not to mention his gloating about his perfidy to a pair of first year cadets outside the commandant's office," said the stuffed shirt with no signs of slowing down.
"Weren't you supposed to be a Mechwarrior?" asked Captain Loren "Cliffhanger" Kumari in a colorless tone. Captain Kumari was widely reputed to be one of the best, and strictest instructor pilots at LMS. We cadet volunteers had gotten to see another side to her, but Cliffhanger was nowhere to be seen today.
The stuffed shirt sputtered to a halt. "Excuse me, I am a Mechwarrior! What do you mean by that?"
"You sound like a barracks-JAG hopeful," said Kumari, crossing her arms. "And I have been excusing you plenty, Captain Halkias. Both for wasting my time, and the insults. Now be quiet. You have been allowed to come here to hear the debrief out of courtesy and so LMS can investigate any irregularities in our cadets' behavior. Not so you can make an address to a hallucinatory parliament." Ignoring his attempts to gather up a response, Captain Kumari turned to us. "Cadet Tomlison, Cadet Zalman, at ease and be seated. We will go over flight data first."
I didn't do as I wanted. I didn't slouch in the comfy ready room seat. This clearly was not the time. Captain Kumari may not have been happy with the Allison instructor, but I was still under investigation. I sat up straight as I plugged my battleROM chip into the provided slot in the chair's arm table. The screen behind the brown-skinned woman lit up with Terri and my HUD cams, as well as an integrated moving map synthesized from both of our HSD screens.
"We will start with the flight out to Darienbad," said Kumari with a look at her clipboard. "I have here that you two were to engage in a low level run through Ambrosia Canyon, followed by a simulated pop-up recce over the peak of Mt. Elysium." She turned her green eyes to me. "Cadet Zalman?"
"Yes ma'am," I replied, using the controls on my seat to run the data forward to the relevant section. "Following takeoff with full bags and a reconnaissance pod each, Hermes flight proceeded to the entrance to Ambrosia Canyon, flying within airspeed limits for drop tanks and camera equipment. Reaching that," the HUD cameras inverted and pulled down into the impressive weather and wind carved Ambrosia Canyon, "we inverted and executed a full formation throttle run lima lima through the canyon."
Ambrosia Canyon was LMS's preferred route for low level flying practice, much like the UK's Mach Loop, or the USA's Rainbow Canyon. Also like the Mach Loop or Rainbow Canyon, outdoorsy New Greenlanders who were fans of ASFs loved to camp along the rim of the canyon, as they could look down and be above an operating ASF while on the ground. We pilots loved it, because it was such a fucking rush to be below ground level, surrounded by blurring rocks as you pushed yourself just as fast as you could go. The risk of death was overblown, and besides, if you did screw up, you weren't going to know it for long.
"Flight spotted three observer sites," I said. It wasn't critical information, and you were supposed to, by the letter of the regs, be focused entirely on your run down the canyon. But LMS instructors were clear, it was good awareness training, and if there was one quality a ASF pilot needed above all others, it was situational awareness. "Upon reaching the Elysian branch at Alpha Mike Five Seven, flight executed formation change during the entrance to the branch, with Hermes Two taking lead in Sabre 216." On the screen, now Terri's HUD cam had my double torch in front of her, as opposed to her Stingray's single torch lighting mine.
"That looked reckless," sneered Captain Halkias.
Kumari gave him a poisonous look. "Cadet Tomlinson, reasoning?"
Terri nodded, and took over control of the video and data. Running it back to our entrance to the Elysian branch, she swapped the HSD feed for a tactical view that we tended to use to breakdown air combat maneuvering. It provided an excellent representation of the size of our fighters and the canyon. "Ma'am. FWLM doctrine says that in a pop-up recon pass, lesser armored ASFs should ingress first, so as to benefit from maximal surprise. To achieve this, it was necessary for Hermes Two to take tactical lead. As flight lead, I made the call that the entrance to the Elysian branch of Ambrosia Canyon, as seen here," the maneuver played out on screen again, making it clear that we had enough maneuvering room, "was the optimal location to execute the lead change." The flight proceeded on screen, showing the canyon tightening up around us, and even forcing us to split around a column of rock to maintain adequate clearance. "As you can see, further down the Elysian branch, there is little room for maneuvering."
Kumari nodded. It was the correct answer after all. "Why did you not use the split around the column as your lead change opportunity? Zalman?"
I took up the controls, winding back to the column pass, and placed the virtual camera in my Sabre as we split around the rock, looking at Terri's Stingray. Or, rather, at the rock, as it was in the way. "That would be an unsafe maneuver ma'am. This would put us out of visual contact, and a blind maneuver could lead to a collision. We do not begin the pull to rejoin until we have eyes on again…here," I said, as the virtual fighters cleared the rock.
Kumari smiled, just a bit. She took control of the data, fast winding us to our run up the mountain. "Very good. Tomlinson, why did you not execute the change during the climb up and over Mt. Elysium?"
"While there would be more maneuvering room, ma'am, I judged that the increased thrust from Hermes Two's Sabre during the overtake could generate a greater noise and thermal signature, degrading the element of surprise." Kumari nodded, but Terri went on. "Further, if Hermes Two shocked me by overextending on the overtake, I might be forced to engage overthrust to maintain formation cohesion, which is contraindicated."
"Excellent thinking, Tomlinson. I see here that there were no issues with the pop-up and that the recon holography's fidelity was acceptable. You were then to proceed to Darienbad Airport."
"Yes ma'am. Following egress from the training range, Hermes transited to Darienbad Airport. Landing was uneventful. We preceded as briefed to Allison Mechwarrior Institute and delivered the noteputer with plans for the next cooperative SERE exercises. We were then asked to wait for AMI staff to deliberate on the contents of the noteputer, so that we could return with the edited plans." Terri smiled. "Of course, we complied."
I did my best to keep from smiling as well. Of course, AMI would snub the LMS cadets by making them wait around for days cooling their heels. It was expected. So expected, that it was an excellent way to schedule in a leave over New Year's Eve. A leave that you got to fly right before and after. The best kind. Sure, we were supposed to stay in barracks at the airport, but since it was non-time sensitive communications, our orders had been written so that we could find lodgings in town if we wished. Terri had wished, and I hadn't been about to say no. That was when she and local Gideon had swung into action, tracking down a likely looking noble AMI cadet and goading him into a Mech punch up. We hadn't decided on Listz beforehand, he just fit the bill. Someone with enough clout to sign out a pair of Mechs for some informal training, arrogant or ignorant enough to discount a Southwestern accent, and testosterone poisoned enough that he'd make a bet on beating me Mech on Mech.
I figured that it'd end up being for a forfeit of some kind. Something embarrassing like admitting the fictional superiority of Mechwarriors over fighter pilots like I believed in the Lorix Creed, or maybe washing his Phoenix Hawk. I was planning on using it to extort more seat time in his Pixie on my next leave. Instead, the jackass had offered up his heirloom SLDF neurohelmet against a date, which meant night, with Terri.
I didn't have the right to wager that, but Terri didn't even let me open my mouth before she accepted for me. A few hours later and I was showing him just how embarrassing life could be when jump jet assisted lucha libre took you to the woodshed, combat veteran or no. And I pulled my prize right off his head, that had to be emasculating.
Really, Terri practically draping herself over me post-match was just adding insult to injury. Que idiota, local me. How had I thought this was going to work out fine?
Captain Kumari cleared her throat. I realized that I was supposed to pick up the report following our climb out of Darienbad. Halkias looked ready to spit poison, given the captain hadn't yet questioned us on our antics in the city, but was focused on our flight performance. "Cadet?"
"Apologies, ma'am." I nodded at the display. "Following our climb to altitude, we transited to the Hephestus's Forge training range…"
I felt myself slip back into the cockpit as I watched the recordings.
Garden of the Gods
Republic of Kasnov-Greenland, New Olympia
Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League
1 January, 3015
I scanned the sitrep range control had squirted to us, playing the part of an allied FAC. Our orders were to interdict a soft-skinned supply and troop convoy. We were also to strike Mech targets of opportunity active in our killbox. No hostile air activity had been reported. Pretty much as expected, given what hung under our wings. The one-ton bombs would put a hurting on unwary Mechs, and the multiple ejector racks of smaller bomb were well suited for shredding thin-skinned transports. I could have wished for proper cluster munitions, but you worked with what you had.
It also looked like we weren't going to get a proper talk-on this time. Not unexpected. ASF drivers spent quite a bit of time marauding behind the lines, and FACs could be few and far between. Seemed like that was what we were simming today.
It was almost nostalgic, really. The Eighteenth had been dumb enough to come at us through Hephastus's Forge. The bombs under our wings hadn't been painted blue then.
I looked up out of my cockpit over to Terri's Stingray. The 60-ton fighter was carrying an exact doubling of my warload. Each wing had two MERs hanging below it, along with a single bomb each. Two more singles nestled against the fighter's wing roots. Her centerline station held a large droptank. Technically, she had a pair of stations left, but she'd already lost a full gravity of safe thrust. There was no need to sacrifice another half a G for two more drops. As it was, Terri would be sluggish.
"What do you think, lead?" I asked.
Her helmeted head turned to regard me, before she went heads down in the cockpit. "I think the likely axis of advance for the convoy is here," she said, as a north to south road highlighted itself on my HSD.
"Copy, concur," I replied. It only made sense. Logistics convoys tended to stick to roads. More efficient, and they frequently lacked true all-terrain capabilities. Unfortunately, we were ingressing from the east. "South to north or north to south sweep?"
"South to north. We're closer to it, and the road doglegs east in the south. Makes sense for us to be approaching from the frontlines or slightly off it." What Terri didn't say was that one of our friends, Itchy, had flown an interdiction strike very similar to this in this area, with a similar profile.
I nodded. "Copy. Am I weaseling?"
Terri sighed. "You're weaseling."
I smiled. It only made sense, though. Terri would be too sluggish until she got her bombs off to really dance with ground fire. Which meant I got to go find the welcome committee. To quote an early Weasel EWO, You Gotta Be Shitting Me. Terrifying job, only for those with gonads of germanium.
There were a lot of less than pleasant facts about flying a light fighter. The survival statistics sucked, the cockpits tended towards cramped, they guzzled gas like no-one's business when you twisted their tails, and the Gs were brutal. On the other hand, we got to do all the fun flying.
"Sure thing boss." I rolled my Sabre partially inverted and applied back pressure to the stick. "Going to combat spread and lima lima."
As I rolled out above the broken karst and began the sweep, it occurred to me that what I was doing wasn't properly a Wild Weasel profile, or even an Iron Hand flight. Sending down a light ASF to poke the hornet's nest while a heavier airframe sat top cover had more to do with tactics of scout and gunship hunter-killer helicopter aeroscout teams. "Future of the 80s," I mumbled below my breath as my eyes searched for motion in the rocky terrain, following the road.
As I looked, my fingers danced on my HOTAS, switching the HUD to ground attack mode, and called up the 150 kilogram bombs. A CCIP pipper joined the symbology for my lasers' boresight. Setting salvo to two, I popped the Sabre up over a ridge only to see multiple rising dust clouds. "Hermes Two, tally multiple dust clouds. Looks like we got em, Lead." I started planning my attack, raising my nose for better geometry. A hairpin turn ahead of the lead cloud suggested itself.
Terri took a moment to confirm my sighting from her perch. "Concur. Weapons free, cleared hot."
"Rolling in." I suited action to words, placing the death dot of the CCIP pipper on the bend of the road just ahead of the lead truck. I shifted the salvo up to four, and the ripple to half a second. As the range decreased, my mind calculated the closing rates of the convoy, myself, and my bombs if I let them fly free right that moment. Right about… "Pickle," I called out, pressing the weapons release with my thumb. My fighter shuddered four times, rocking back and forth almost subconsciously as small bombs fell from the MERs.
P-ping! The sound of the LRHAWR snapped me into action. "Mudspike!" I called, voice rising even as Betty warned me that I was being locked on to by a Garrett D2j Targeting and Tracking System. "Multiple mudspikes!" I amended, as the LRHAWR pinged again and again and Betty kept telling me about all of the TTS that were painting me.
"Missile, missile, missile!" sang out Terri as a cloud of LRMs rose out of a fold in the ground, looking to swat me from the air.
"Defensive," I grunted as I broke and pulled down for the dubious benefits of terrain masking. Flak rounds burst in the air above the hill I was using for cover. Thankfully, they didn't buffet me. Of course they didn't, they weren't real, projected by the systems of the training range.
Couldn't have told it by the adrenaline singing in my ears. Or apparently, Terri's. "Types Rifleman, Partisan, LRM Ontos, two times Stinger, Shad," she reported. "Running in on Rifleman. He's showing back." Three beats passed as I did my best to pretend I had disappeared. "Pickle."
I shot out from a fold in the hills, and got a great view of the simulated Rifleman taking a pair of one ton bombs to the back. One landed behind the thin skinned ADA Mech and staggered it, shattering limb and back armor. The other exploded inside the Mech, turning it into a fireball and a pair of pinwheeling arms. Fuck those things in particular. "Shack!" I crowed. "Nice kill!" I toggled ripple to instant and gave the Partisan four more small bombs as it swung its guns up to engage Terri. "Pickle!"
The computers didn't give me quite the dramatic results Terri had gotten from the Rifleman, but the smaller bombs cratered armor, bent autocannon barrels, and appeared to have stunned the crew. I saw none of this as I roared over this at full throttle, confirming that my first drop had bottled the convoy up at the bend.
The Ontos rippled off another sixty LRMs at me, but had misjudged my intentions as I rolled up and onto a vector for the end of the convoy. Only a lowly trio of missiles managed to get a sniff of me, 'exploding' against the spine of my fighter without setting off the Master Caution.
"Pickle," called Terri again as she punished the Ontos for its impertinence with another pair of one ton bombs.
"Pickle," I replied, giving the end of the convoy my last four 150 kilo bombs at half-second ripple. Climbing like a bat out of hell, I looked back over my shoulder to observe the strikes. Not perfect, but plenty good enough. "Shack, shack. Convoy's pinned, ADA dead or damaged."
"Copy. Reattacking ADA. Two, target Shad, then hunt the bugs. Pickle." A stick of 150s burst across the Partisan and Ontos, obscuring them in smoke and flames.
"With pleasure." Rolling inverted, I spotted the Shadow Hawk attempting to bring its autocannon and LRMs to bear on Terri from a ridge top. "Oh no you don't," I breathed as I pulled into a dive. My finger tightened on the trigger and my medium lasers speared out to converge on his rear armor. Heat washed up over me from mount 2's fault, but it was worth it. Laser three spent itself on the armor over the Shad's spine, but lasers one and two stripped the armor from over the autocannon's backpack, freezing the weapon between its ready and transport positions as molten aligned crystal steel armor splattered into the control systems, setting myomers and optronic fibers aflame. The Shad spun to face me, snatching its wounded back away from my guns, and raising its missiles and laser to engage me. "Pickle," I snarled, letting the bombs come off my wings before I fed in rudder and stick, rolling away from his missiles.
My bombs hit him in the chest and face. He might have survived the strike, but the electronic umpires judged that the Shad's notional pilot couldn't keep his feet, and the medium mech fell off the ridge onto its head. As I climbed away from the shattered Shadow Hawk, searching for the Stingers, the Ontos went up like a volcano as Terri's lasers and PPC touched off its LRM reloads.
With that, it was all over but the shouting. The Partisan crew abandoned their immobilized vehicle as soon as Terri's PPC froze its turret solid, and a shoot out between a Sabre and a Stinger was monstrously unfair to the Mech. I got to dictate the terms of the engagement, had three times the effective firepower, and was the harder target by far.
I was sweating heavily by the time that we formed back up, convoy burning merrily behind us with clean wings. Mount 2 was keeping things toasty for me, quite the odd experience in a cool-running Sabre.
Lloyd Marik-Stanley Aerospace School
Republic of Kasnov-Greenland, New Olympia
Marik Commonwealth, Free Worlds League
1 January, 3015
"…checked in with Hermes 2 about his thermal rejection problems," said Terri. "He ran a diagnostic and confirmed he was still safe to continue on with the program…"
Captain Kumari's com beeped, and she held up a hand to stall Terri, taking the incoming call. "Kumari." Her brow wrinkled. "Yes. Yes. I'm debrief with him now." She glanced over at Halkias.
"Yes, our guest is here too. What?" Kumari let out what had to be a curse in a language I didn't speak. "Yes. Yes. No. Fine. Kumari out." Lowering the comm from her ear, she paused for a second before turning to the Allison instructor. "You may leave."
Halkias frowned. "We aren't done here Captain."
"Captain Halkias," she said, over-enunciating the words. "You may leave, or you will be made to leave. What needs to be discussed has nothing to do with your purposes here. I will call you when we resume."
"See that you do," he spat, stalking out of the door.
Kumari shook her head and looked back at me. She looked sad. "Cadet Zalman, do you wish Cadet Tomlinson to leave? We have to talk."
A lump settled in my stomach. "Terri can stay," I said on autopilot. You trusted your wingthing.
Kumari didn't even appear to notice my improper use of Cadet Teresa Tomlinson's nickname. "During your stay in Darienbad, you received a high priority message with a civilian header. I assume you did not open it."
I shook my head slowly. "No ma'am. I was on exercise and didn't want to risk a demerit."
"That seems like a case of closing the paddock after the horses have left," observed Cliffhanger with the ghost of a wry smile. "But you would have been within your rights."
Told you, mouthed Terri.
Es verdad, I returned silently. "I assume this has something to do with that message, Captain?"
"Yes." Kumari leaned against her desk. "I'm afraid, Cadet Zalman, that your father has died."
I blinked. It wasn't good news, but he hadn't been a real person to any part of me. A bit of backstory, or an old love of my mother's, neither of us had met the man. "Zikhrono livrakha," I said on reflex. "Alav ha-shalom." I shook myself as Kumari and Terri looked at me with concern. "I'm sorry Captain," I explained, "But I never met my father. I'm sorry I'll never get that chance now, but I don't feel like I really lost anything. My mother on the other hand…"
I trailed off. There was something in the Captain's eyes. "Eema?" I asked, barely able to get out the word.
Kumari blew out a breath. "We've lost contact with several Liberation Units. Lieutenant Ariel Zalman is listed as missing in action."
The world crumpled in on me.
Kumari kept talking. "We're done for now. I'll review your battleROMs, cadets. There's a lawyer here to speak with you, Zalman. Tomlinson, get him there."
Terri led me from the room. Nothing seemed real.
"Eema," I said again.
"I've got you Gid," whispered Terri.
I didn't believe her.