Fan Fiction (I like battletech fiction)

The cockpit is a lonely place, filled with the scent of human misery.  Fear, desire, desperation, the exultation of a long day driving a machine past its operational limits.  It's hot as hell too, between the heat built up by driving the damn thing everywhere, to the overburdened heat systems generated by weapons fire, the cockpit of a battlemech can quickly became a place furnace that kills hopes and dreams

"Angel 1 to Angel Angel Lance, advance, moderate speed, let's get this valley scouted ahead of the rest of the company's advance."  Martha said quickly over the comms.  They were closing in eight hours of this, scouting across this barren wasteland.  The Captain had given them an operational directive to scout the valley by nightfall, and deal with anything that cropped up ahead of the main advance tomorrow.

"Roger that, Angel 1."
"Affirmative, I'm engaging my advanced sensor suite"
"I'm heading up to that hill top to see if i can get a better line of sight for a lookielou."

"Lookielou, what language are you speaking?"  Martha barked over the comm.  Jansen could never bother being precise with what he was saying or doing, and it drove her up the wall.  They were soldiers, on patrol, not cub scouts out looking for a camp site.

"Sorry, Lieutenant, I'm going to advance to that hill top to see if i can get a better line of sight for any tangos that may be lurking in this area."

That was better, at least she knew what he was actually doing now.  Huda moved his Owens into the Valley, using its Active Probe to look for hidden objects while Grigsby move his Phoenix Hawk in for support.  Jansen's Wasp was coming down from a jet assisted landing on that hill top when everything went to hell.  The radar lit up, with contacts all over the valley.

"Boss, I've got at least three squads of battle armored infantry snaking their way through those buildings at 9 o'clock, and i picked up at least three fusion reactors kicking to life."

"Any Idea what they are?"

"First two look familiar, I'm guessing its a Wolverine and a Spider, but i've got no idea about the last one, it's deeper into the valley.  Maybe Jansen's got a better angle on it."

"Jansen, what's going on up there?"

"I've got contacts, Boss, I make a Wolverine, one of the newer models, but the Spider i can see is a hunk of junk.  I see something moving around further down the valley, but i'm not sure.  I know its big, at least a heavy."

Martha nodded "All right, Jansen, drop a couple of volleys of infernos into those buildings and see if you can smoke out that battle armor.  I don't want us to get caught between them and their larger friends coming this way.  Huda, Grigsby, move into position to catch that Spider, then wheel around and catch the Wolverine."

She heard the acknowledgments from the rest of her lance as she turned her attention to the situation at hand.  Almost as an afterthought, she opened another channel back to her HQ.  "Angel 1 to Night Horse,"

"This is Night Horse, Angel 1, what's your sitrep."

"We've just entered the Gorock valley, encountering resistance.  so far counting three squads of battle armor, and short lance of mechs, a Spider, a Wolverine, and an unidentified heavy.  We are moving to engage."

"Negative, Angel 1, pull back, the other scouts are reporting stiff resistance across that line of advance 100 klicks in either direction."

"We can break them here."  She saw the buildings where the infantry had dug in catch fire from the inferno missiles that Jansen had lobbed their way.  They'd pulled back, out of the engagement zone after exchanging a couple of volleys of fire with the Wasp.  They were smart enough to know that even with the extra armor from their suits, they probably weren't going to match up with a battlemech in an open field.

Huda had wheeled his Owens into position and Grigsby was using a rocky outcropping to hide his position from the other side.  Radar would give a reasonable approximation of where he was, but without actual line of sight he was in a pretty good spot to get a sucker punch off.  She grit her teeth as her Enforcer moved into the open field.  She was going to bait them into the open so that her lance mates could pick them off.

Except they weren't advancing.  They were playing it very coyly, what were they doing?  She racked her brain for thirty long seconds before the sky answered for her.  They weren't charging in because that's not what their job for the day was.  They were there to bottleneck them in place.  Her sensors picked up the approach first, but her eyes weren't trusting them.  Four Aerospace fighters strafed the corridor of the valley they were in, ruby darts of energy slashing up and down the valley floor.  She pushed her 'Mech as fast as it would move, but she took a salvo across the right side of her mech, scoring hits across the arm and the leg.  She raised her Autocannon to take a shot at one of the fighters, but they were all ready leaving her effective range when the ground erupted.

Her Enforcer took two direct hits from the giant missiles.  Somewhere out there, someone had decided to fire artillery scale missiles at them.  Her 'mech went down as the missiles took out her all ready damaged right leg, and the last thing she saw was her mech's cockpit crashing to the ground at a high rate of speed.

Twenty Minutes Later

Martha slammed her helmet into the side of the simulator she'd spent the day in.  How could she have been so stupid to charge into that valley, she should have known better.  They'd let her stew in the heat of a powered down simulator for another twenty minutes before letting her out.  The instructor had no doubt marked the time of their engagement and the situation that led up to this.

"Damn it!"  She slammed the helmet into the wall again.

"Easy, Martha, it was a mistake any of us could have made."  Huda had popped the simulator open, and was in the process of peeling out of his cooling vest.  The heat must have gotten a lot hotter for him, he was ashen faced and coated in sweat.

"What happened to you?"

"The Infantry came back with flame throwers.  after you went down, the Wolverine baited me into a lightly forested position which promptly got set on fire.  I went down to a PPC shot from the Wolverine.

"How'd Grigsby and Jansen do?"

"We got our asses handed to us."  Jansen was speaking for Grigsby, who was busy cooling down the back of her neck with a wet cloth.  "After you and Huda got dropped, we tried to go on the offensive, and managed to drop that Wolverine, but that heavy ended our day."

"What was it?"  Martha's hands were still shaking, this was going to be a long, crappy debriefing.

"Warhammer, some sort of custom jobby, I've never seen anything like it."

"Whoever was driving it was no slouch, i swear i hit that thing with my lasers, but i don't think i scratched the paint."  Grigsby finally added her voice to the conversation.

"How'd you guys do?"  Martel asked them quietly.  They'd all been in the simulators today, all running the same mission, but each mission had some minor tweaks to it, so that not everybody had the same experience.  They knew that the instructors would vary the experience to make it more interesting, and a better learning opportunity.

"We got the Valley, got dropped by an ambush."  Jansen said quietly.  Martel's lance usually did better than them, and it irked him.

"We didn't make it to the valley, we got hit by a roving patrol of head hunters about 60 klicks outside of the target area."

"Sucks to be you."  Jansen smirked quietly.

"No, my little cadets, it sucks to be all of you."  Everyone snapped to attention, Chief Pryde had arrived.  "You all made at least one fatal mistake, and you're going to tell me all about it.  Debriefing room, 1 hour.  Eat your supper, then get ready for a long night of getting your asses kicked again.

"Yes Sir."  the cadets said in union.

"Dismissed."