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A Carver Homecoming
by David Wainio |
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Town of High Palms
Dorsal Islands,
Carver V,
Chaos March
September 26, 3057
Thinking that his homecoming was becoming rather sour he sucked up his courage and charged down the street toward his disappearing enemy. No one opened up on him as he made the parking lot. Rod veered far to one side of where the sniper had run. Might be more presents waiting along the tree line. The way his life was now surprises were always a bad thing. He tried to avoid them.
Having lived here all his life he knew that the botanical displays ringed an open lawn area with an old fashioned bandstand centered within. The grassy knoll was slightly elevated to allow a good view of the bandstand from any place on the lawn. It also served to impair his line of sight to the maintenance buildings beyond his current position. Behind them was a steep drop and a creek. Hunkered down behind a reassuringly thick palm tree Rod peered across the park. He’d lost track of his sniper and now the advantage was back to the longer ranged laser weapon. Depending on where he got hit, Rod figured he could take a shot or two without going down. He wasn’t eager to try his luck though.
He had a strong temptation to back off, make a quick check for ‘Mech traps, and call it a day. Report the sniper as having fled and the town ‘liberated’. But even as the thought ran through his mind he knew he wouldn’t do it. First, he had really come to hate the Liaoist guerillas. The Marik mercenaries weren’t high on his list either but they didn’t engage in the wanton cruelty of the Capellean irregulars. And this one smelled like a Liaoist to him. Second, when that DropShip arrived several of his own Fighting Five-Ones would be on hand to act as guides and he didn’t want one of them zapped by some freak Liaoist building a body count for his eventual meeting with their Death God. Or whatever it was they believed. He’d just see if he couldn’t hasten the other’s trip to the underworld along a bit.
Whoever this guy was he seemed to have spent some time checking out High Palms and laying his traps. So running here to the park would scan as a planned move rather than random choice. But why? Well, to kill him obviously. But from where? And how?
The bandstand. The elevated platform had an equipment room below and what appeared to be solid panels along the outer base where actually colored plastic that let light within. And with the proper equipment, would allow one to see out. Rod loaded a 30 mm grenade in the launcher attached to his left arm. After a comrade lost a leg when the launcher discharged at the conclusion of a jump when it fired straight down, no-one loaded them until they planned to use them. Additionally, he only had four grenades left and who knew when re-supply would ever occur for them. He always tried to expend his more readily available assault rifle ammo rather than the grenades.
Rod edged sideways and fired a quick burst into the lower panels of the bandstand. As expected a laser blast returned, scorching an ugly hole in his tree. He pulled back, steeled himself to do it, then leaned back out to the same side and fired the grenade launcher. The expected ruby beam failed to materialize and he watched his shot skim once off the grass and punch through the plastic to fall under the bandstand. A few moments later the blast blew out the rest of the panels and his training had him on his feet, running for the knoll top while his enemy should still be incapacitated. Or better yet, extremely dead.
Flopping himself on the ground he poked the rifle barrel inside the half sunken room and sprayed the area down on general principal before exposing his head to look within. Nothing. Bloody chum. The slippery bastard had retreated again, this time using the service tunnel to the maintenance buildings.
Gotta move, move, move! Rod didn’t remember which building housed the tunnel entrance but none of them had windows. If he could make the side of the closest one before his dance partner took up position he’d live to make it off the grass. He scrambled to his feet and got oriented in the proper direction and lit off a maximum jump burn.
It really wasn’t feasible to fire from the air during a jump. But Rod was searching the building area from above as he hit the top of his arc. He didn’t spot any movement though. He landed, letting the armor’s legs compress at the knees and absorb the impact. That was the biggest advantage to jump armor. Without it, you had to feather your thrust and slow before touching down. That meant more time just hanging. More time to get wasted. With jump armor you could pretty much drop like a rock once you got the hang of landing right.
Regaining his balance he sprinting the last bit of distance to the closest building. A laser flashed near him just as he made the safety of the corner. His playmate must have leaned around one of the other corners for a quick try at him.
He checked the counter on his rifle. Only six rounds left in the magazine. No use leaving them in the clip. Without looking he held his weapon out one-handed and fired the last rounds in a short burst in the general direction of his foe. Then he changed the
clips, being careful to secure the empty for reuse. Risking a quick peek he saw no one. So he slid along to the other side and peeked around that corner.
The grenade bit must have given the other guy ideas because a round object was in an arcing trajectory to land just beyond his cozy little corner. Rod really didn’t consciously make a decision. Some part of him knew there was a steep gully only meters across from him and some other part decided that that was where the rest of him was going. He pounded for the trees opposite from him as the grenade descended and hit the ground. Multiple popping sounds greeted his run and he felt something strike his right thigh just before he dove for the drop off. He hadn’t quite cleared the gully’s top when the grenade exploded, the concussion wave hastening his falling-dive. Immensely grateful of his full faceplate and totally armored body Rod crashed down onto his chest and half slid, half tumbled down the steep slope into the mud and rocks of the creek below.
Training drove his actions again as he immediately regained his feet and backed into an overhanging alcove for cover from any fire that might come from above. Automatically he checked the rifle to make sure the barrel hadn’t been fouled with mud. He didn’t remember doing it, but he must have made sure to hold the weapon up during his fall. Next he checked his leg. There was a small furrow along his thigh armor. It didn’t hurt actually. Looked like a small caliber round had smacked him. Then he remembered the popping sound. He must have been so close to the other guy that he opened up with a pistol. Probably had the gun in one hand and the grenade in the other. And speaking of grenades, he was not in a good place at the moment. Anything rolled down into the gully was stopping in the creek right at his feet.
He was right at a drainage pipe. Over a meter wide, it would allow him within. There was a safety grating but someone had pried it loose at an unknown time. The pipe came out a couple of hundred meters away at a metalworks if he remembered correctly. But there was no time to waste. Getting trapped within would cost him those body parts he was so eager to keep. Despite his hurry, Rod did take the time to fish out a small wedge with two small metal spikes sticking out the bottom. This he jammed into the muddy dirt at the tunnel mouth making sure that the side marked ‘this face towards enemy’ was pointed away from the tunnel. Then he jammed the lead from a motion detector into the back of the wedge and pointed the little sensor out the tunnel from it’s small wire stand.
His head and shoulders kept scraping the tunnel as he crouch-ran the tunnel length. Again, the armor saved him from any lost skin. As it turned out he didn’t need to worry much about getting a laser enema after all. The tunnel traveled upward slightly, enough that line of sight was lost to the entrance after around twenty meters. Fairly soon he could see daylight again. The bars where closed over this end but he was unwilling to push on the hinged section in case it was trapped. Using another small charge he backed down the tunnel and blew the hinged section free. There wasn’t a secondary explosion, which was a good thing he realized as he hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of burying this side of the drain tunnel by detonated a large booby-trap.
Kicking away the remains of the grating he emerged onto the grounds of the metal works. Ordinarily the tall fabrication buildings and storage structures would have been a sniper’s paradise. As several ‘Mechs had chosen this location to decide who was king of the island some time back there wasn’t much left standing in the way of tall structures anymore. One of the great machines was still here, apparently so damaged it wasn’t worth hauling off. None of the forces fighting for Carver could afford to let salvage go to waste so Rod figured that must be one thrashed BattleMech if it was still here.
He hoped it wasn’t radioactive. Supposedly the things had multiple safeties that prevented them from bleeding nuclear death all over everywhere when one of the great beasts was slain. While he had many handy gadgets attached to his armor, a Geiger counter wasn’t one of them. Much as he hated to do it, he’d just have to trust what they had told him in basic training about BattleMech reactors.
Rod contemplated the drain entrance as he paused to catch his breath from all the frantic rushing about he’d been performing recently. So far sniper-guy always had an out and was quick to use.Rod bet that he had accidentally fallen into the guy’s escape route, using it before the enemy trooper could. That’s what had brought them so close together at the park buildings when sniper-guy should have be looking to put distance between them. Sniper-gut must have been headed for this tunnel.
So what did that mean? Obviously sniper-guy would know where it leads. If he was still intent upon killing Rod then he’d head over this way looking for him. But from which direction and with what plan?
Rod’s eyes played across the area. If he was a sniper where would he go? Someplace high with a vantage over the entire yard would be best. The water tower. It was still standing. It wasn’t terribly tall but with the taller stuff now trashed it ruled the
roost. The tank was on a platform raised on wooden beam legs sunk into a long berm next to a deep pond. As a teenager, when the plant was closed on weekends he and friends would sometimes sneak past the rent-a-guards at the main gate and jump from it into the pond. An escape route of sorts if you looked at it a certain way. The ladder up was inside a plastic tube to protect a climber from the frequent tropical rain bursts while the dirt levee that ran along that side of the grounds would provide a screened access to the tank.
If he had enough time and enough explosives left it was time for his own surprise.
Eight minutes later he was next to a pile of rusting scrap metal from where he could see both the main gate and the water tower. He had his special macro-lenses out, a unit that he could hold over the upper part of his faceplate and look though. It was designed to mate with the plate’s curve. It was another five minutes before he caught a bit of motion on the tank.
Rod had to admit, the top of that tank was a hell of a spot to shoot from. From down here he’d have a very hard time hitting anyone up there with an assault rifle while landing a grenade on the top of the tank would be an even harder shot. And the odds where it would just roll off the slightly domed top anyway. After the near misses and frantic chases of their half hour duel this was going to seem almost like cheating.
Then again, it did all start when the sniping bastard had tried to shoot him from behind in the Casino. It looked like Sirina’s little handcraft had saved his life and won another little battle for the FedCom. He bet that would cheese her big time if she knew. About helping FedCom; not about saving his life he hoped.
No reason to wait until the enemy trooper finally found his hiding spot. Checking that his magazine was fully seated and the bolt charged, he flipped up a switch cover on a small black box resting next to him and hit the red button. Two explosive charges went off, busting the two support legs closest to Rod. Lacking jump jets, the sniper was left with no alternative course of action than letting gravity have it’s way with him. He tried to balance and ride the tower down, jumping away at the last moment and rolling to reduce the impact.
But Rod wasn’t having any more of that fancy pants acrobatics stuff. He was up and moving toward the tower as it first started to lean over. The sniper hand barely touched the ground when Rod started putting three round bursts into the rolling form. Even as the water broke free and sent the body tumbling in it’s wash Rod was still firing short bursts into the form. By the time it came to a stop in the mud it had been very thoroughly filled with holes. Blood was leaking from numerous punctures in the light combat armor as he approached. Rod could see that his antagonist was face down in a puddle – a position a living opponent was not likely to keep for long.
As he stood over his fallen foe he realized by the sniper’s hands that he was a she. A bit of back hair spilled out from under the back of the helm. Still attached to one side of her helmet was a token of good luck. Three sea shells that had been glued together and painted black with gold flecks. He was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. Knowing he had to look but dreading doing so, he reached down and gently rolled the body over so he could see her face. Rod suddenly felt very, very weary.
He peered at the pretty, Asiatic face for a moment. Then looked away across the metalworks, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular as he floundered for the decoration he had picked up from the Casino floor with one hand. Rising it in his palm he took a good close look at it now, realizing that it was simply a broken pottery shard. Probably from a dropped coffee cup. One life saved and another life lost on the whim of a broken mug. Rod wearily keyed his comm. He wasn’t even twenty one yet but he already felt very, very old. How did people like the Lieutenant or the Captain stand it.
Probably by using words like ‘neutralize’, ‘losses’, and ‘casualty’ for ‘dead and shot full of holes’ he realized.
“Jolly Roger, this is Scout, Over.”
“Scout, this is Roger. Go ahead.”
“Have neutralized sniper threat. No other enemy forces present. Will sweep for ‘Mech traps and advise. Over.”
“We’ll send you a support team for the trap sweep. Good job Scout. Jolly Roger Out.”
“Scout Out,” Rod replied.
Good job. Seemed a bit inadequate. But then again, what would be adequate to say?
He let the pottery chip fall onto the lifeless body at his feet. One of the sweep team could strip her gear. He started walking back towards the Casino again for the noteputer. Some day he was going to have to find out what had ever become of Sirina. He thanked God that today hadn’t been that day. |
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