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Battletech meets Jurasic Park
by Demun God |
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Graham City Spaceport, Guiasar
Free Worlds League
20 December 3065
The dark blue police cruiser drove up to the security gate at the spaceport and stopped at the signal from one of the Mobile Fire infantry standing guard.
"Papers." The guard simply said.
The driver handed over the forged documents with a smile. The trooper did not look amused as he accepted the clipboard. After scribbling something on the forms, the guard handed back the clipboard, "It should take you less than an hour to get them stored and back here. If you are not back in within the hour, you will be hunted down and shot, understand?"
The black-haired man put up his hands in submission, "Whoa, whoa. Why the harsh treatment here, trooper. Have I given you any beef?"
The trooper grimaced with anger. Pointing to the huge egg-shaped DropShip behind him, "Look pal. That is my only ride home. I do not want to be stuck on this dirtball any longer than I have to be. Got me?"
"Fair enough."
"Now go."
Donovan pressed on the accelerator, and headed out to the DropShip. Raymond Blackstone, sitting in the passenger's seat smirked, " 'Fair enough', huh?"
"Well, I wanted to say 'Then why the hell don't you get the hell off this 'dirtball' ', but I didn't think that would have done us any good."
"I would have just shoved a stick of C8 up his butt," This from Officer Vicki Klashnikov, Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist.
The documents had said that 'newly acquired' arms and ammunition were being put aboard Mobile Fire's Excalibur-class DropShip Jackhammer for safekeeping. In reality the two crates in the trunk had enough explosives in them to keep the DropShip from ever lifting off again.
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"OK, it's been ten minutes. Let's go!" Sheraton commanded into his neurohelmet.
The technological marvel known as the 'neurohelmet' basically tied the MechWarrior to his or her Mech. While the helmet was linked to the cockpit of the Mech, via wires and cables, neural receptors within the helmet transferred the pilot's natural balancing abilities to the to the gyroscope, which controlled the contracting and expanding of myomer bundles attached to the Mech's internal structure. Compared to a human being, myomer bundles are the muscles of a Mech, while the internal structure is the skeleton. The gyroscope is the nerve center that brings everything into fluid motion. The helmet allows MechWarriors to move their 20- to 100-ton rides with a certain gracefulness rather than a blocky, robotic movement.
The 70-ton Guillotine moved in, followed by Police-Sergeant Frank Harrison's 50-ton Hunchback. Standing by were three police cruisers packed with heavily armed police and SWAT personnel. The plan was to draw the Mech guards away from the Central Police Station, in an attempt to break the three auction-bought armored vehicles out of the pen. If the police were going to wage any kind of war, they would need all the firepower they could get.
If the civilian population saw that their police force was making a show of force to take back the city, maybe this would encourage them to join in a resistance movement. If the resistance movement got big enough, the mercenaries would have no choice but to leave, as Guiasar would become 'unmanagable'.
This attack would hopefully start a chain reaction.
"OK, Frank. Time to get dirty. Welcome to war." Sheraton said, nonchalantly, as he scanned his scensors.
"Roger that, Sarge." The nervousness filtered through Harrison's thick southern accent.
"Enemy Mechs moving to intercept, Officer Harrison."
"Confirmed Sarge. I got a Blackjack and a Hatchetman. Looks like they's tryin' to surround us."
"Make your shots count, Officer. We have to live here."
"Roger."
Even though the Guillotine outweighed the heavier of the two enemy Mechs by 25 tons, they had good maneuverability and could easily get in the heavier Mech's rear area, to work on its thin back armor. City fighting was the ugliest type of Mech combat. Almost every MechWarrior hated it. Being closed in, surrounded by buildings, it cut down the reaction times of the pilots, allowing for armored vehicles or even simple infantry with shoulder-fired rockets to get the drop on the supposed 'Kings of the Battlefield'. MechWarriors usually preferred wide, open fields, where they could bring their long-range firepower into play, and keep the enemy at a respectful distance. Only pilots of purposely-built Mechs with close-range, heavy weapons, such as the Hunchback or Hatchetman, had any inkling of a liking for urban environments.
The Blackjack, with its long-range, light autocannons opened this battle. Some of the depleted-uranium rounds from the Mech-sized, rotary machine guns, stitched up the side of Harrison's Hunchback, cracking a few bits of armor off. The rounds coming from the light autocannons, the second lightest weapons in a Mech's arsenal, beat only by regular heavy-caliber machine guns, were more of an annoyance to Frank, who wished he could return fire, but at this range, his weapons had no chance of hitting. The shots that missed Frank's Mech stitched a line across the front face of an office building, bits of brick and glass windows shattering at every impact.
Most of the civilians in the local area started vacating the area, as soon as they realized a BattleMech battle was about to rage. Frank had no time to see if that was true of all civilians, knowing there would be some out there who couldn't draw themselves away from the dangerous awe of a Mech fight, even if it was right in their own backyard. The police Mechs made short steps, making the appearance that they were advancing on the station, while the Mobile Fire Mechs were making long strides to meet them, before they could reach their intended target. Police Sergeant James Sheraton scoffed, "God, we could just take these guys!"
"We's got our orders, Sarge." Harrison reminded him.
Sheraton grimaced under his helmet visor and continued the fight. The Hatchetman moved in closer, moving down 12th Street, then turned onto Lyndon Byers Avenue, squaring off against the Guillotine. The two Mechs looked like two giant gunfighters, as the 45-tonner leveled its shoulder-mounted heavy autocannon while the 70-tonner raised its arm-fixed large laser. The mercenary Mech's upper torso shuttered as the autocannon's shells fired off, the few rays of sunlight twinkling off the casings as they were thrown out of the ejection port and bounced around on the ground. At the same time, the police Mech's left armed recoiled, as a ruby beam shot from its muzzle. The merc was dead-on, as the shells walked across the Guillotine's chest, the last round chipping armor away from its right elbow. The MechOfficer's shot was also true, the large laser burning a deep diagonal gash across the Hatchetman's lower torso down onto its left leg.
Meanwhile across the block on Graham Boulevard, Frank was having a hell of a time, trying to get to the Blackjack. The merc pilot knew that the Hunchback was famous for its Mech-killer autocannon, and didn't want to be anywhere near it. Everytime Frank advanced, the Blackjack would take a few steps back and fire off its light autocannons. Frank was getting the worst of it. As a few attacks by the light guns didn't do more than scratch paint, a constant barrage by them would soon add up to significant damages. Frank had managed to fire off his medium lasers twice, in a comical attempt to give out at least half as much as he was getting.
"Sarge, I know this is down-right sad ta say, but them autocannons is chewin' me up bit by bit. He's stayin' outta range of muh' guns."
Sheraton greeted his teeth, knowing the Hatchetman would be an easy kill, but orders were orders. Sheraton rolled his eyes with that thought, "OK, Officer Harrison, pull back."
"Roger, Sarge."
With that command, Frank stopped advancing and slowly started walking his Mech backwards down Graham Boulevard. The merc Mech stopped retreating, and began giving chase, rattling off shots with its autocannons the whole way. The multi-level buildings made visual and electronic scanning difficult, so it was a total shock to Frank, when, as the Blackjack crossed over 13th Street, a huge arm ending in two medium lasers reached out, impaling the merc Mech at the shoulder, in a shower of armor, smoke and a few small jets of flame. Sheraton grinned evilly, as he pulled the firing studs for both lasers. In an explosion of white and orange, and chunks of armor, the Blackjack's shoulder actuator exploded from the inside out. Its arm spiraled away from it in the explosion, causing the two Mechs to separate. Sheraton looked at his damage display on a secondary monitor, showing him what he already knew. Upon quick visual inspection, he saw that both medium lasers had been mangled beyond repair.
But it was a hell of a rush.
Harrison's Mech slowly came to a stop, shocked at Sheraton's physical attack.
"Harrison, move out!"
Frank worked the joysticks to get his Hunchback moving again, still speechless. Sheraton easily caught up to Frank as the two Mechs moved back down Graham Boulevard.
"Sarge, what happened to the Hatchetman?"
"I got a lucky leg shot. Made him fall into that new attorney's office."
There was no complaint from Frank.
The two Mechs allowed the merc Mechs to catch up to them. Sheraton gave the signal to the awaiting cruisers.
"Let's go!" the SWAT trooper in charge yelled.
Amidst squealing tires and smoke rising from the rear wheels, the three cruisers fish-tailed onto the police compound's driveway. They smashed through the fenced gates and headed torwards the back parking lot. Mobile Fire troopers opened fire while police officers stuck their guns through the cars' windows and returned fire. One car slid to a halt twenty meters from the pen, and took the brunt of the fire from the Mobile Fire troopers. As the police officers huddled behind the car, the vehicle itself got ripped to shreds by the incoming small arms fire. Another cruiser slid to a halt almost directly in front of the Mech bay doors. The third vehicle stopped on the other side of the mangled gates, to secure an escape route.
"Move it! Move it! Let's go!" the SWAT trooper was yelling, just before being raked across the legs and falling clutching his bloody knees, yelling in a horrified panic. Police officers ejected from the three police cars, spraying bullets in all directions, trying to give themselves cover fire, until they could reach some kind of solid cover.
A solid stand-off fire fight ensued, as the officers slowly made their way to the vehicle pen. Two of the officers shot off the locks. Shouldering the gates aside, the four officers from the nearest police car made their way to the first Harasser. Some of the officers could see the Mobile Fire troops moving further away from the pen, but thought they were retreating, seeing as how the police had gained control of one of the armored hovercraft.
But then reality hit, as the Harasser went up in a small mushroom cloud of an explosion, spraying the immediate area with burning fuel and shards of armor. One surviving police officer was directly in the path of the liquid flame, turning the man into a flailing human torch. He was cut down in a hail of gunfire.
Errant short-range missiles went off, a few slamming into the rear of the main police building. The police officers stopped firing and stared, horrified at the sight before them. To make matters worse, the officers from the other two police cars, heard a familiar low, metallic grinding sound, and looked torwards the Mech Bay. A hopeless feeling hit every raiding officer as a Vulcan strode from the between the bay doors. The purposely-built anti-infantry Mech wasted no time in raising its huge metal foot and slamming it down on the police cruiser parked nearby. It then turned and raised its left arm to spray the idling police raider vehicle near the pen with a 40-foot long stream of white-hot plasma. The car instantly ignited, as combants on both sides shielded their eyes from the glare. Two of the few surviving police raiders ran back to the car next to the gates and gunned the vehicle's engine heading out of the gates, back onto Graham Boulevard. A line of heavy machine gun fire sparked and ricocheted off the driveway, chasing after the fleeing vehicle.
The Vulcan didn't have time to go after it, for fear of stepping on friendly troops. Instead, nonchalantly, the light Mech strode over to where the surviving police officers had taken cover and sprayed the general area with an almost endless stream of heavy-caliber machine gun fire. The police vehicle skidded around in a long fish-tail, back onto 12th Street. As the driver turned back from looking over his shoulder, to make sure the Vulcan wasn't following, he had just enough time to slam on the brakes. The car slid sideways, and the young woman froze in fear, instinctively covering her face and head with her arms. The officer in the passenger seat immediately jumped out. Outstretching his hand, he spoke in quick breaths, "Ma'am! You shouldn't be here! Come with us!" The woman, too scared to resist, slowly moved torwards the rear door. The officer quickly helped her in then jumped back into the passenger seat. Before he had closed the door, he shouted, "Let's get the hell out of here!" |
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