Chapter 25b
Apocalypse Now
Coromodir
7th March, 3025
The Void
Before the Killer Whales had gotten a quarter of the way a second volley of them had been launched in time for the Jovian missiles to cross paths with the incoming Killer Whales, plunging into the atmosphere like the angry fists of a god. The people of Coromodir could only look up and fear for nuclear fire before the missiles all plunged on their targets and the hillsides lit up with globes of incarnadine plasma fire that surged and roiled leaving nothing but molten ruin in their wake, the silo bunkers inadequate protection against the boiling plasma warheads.
That was not however going to prevent the two waves of nuclear missiles headed for the Legacy. On the bridge of the vessel Spire stepped forwards. "Gunnery. All close in weapon systems to fire at will."
Across the hull of the Legacy hydra batteries came online next to vulcan mega-bolters as interceptor lascannons were powered and multilasers came online. The first barrage of missiles crossed into interception range and space exploded into a cacophony of light an blazing firepower. Sweeping crisscrossing line of power reached out and missiles began to fall one after another, each prey to the destruction before the last three reached the shields. The first two struck with blinding light as they initiated against the curtain of energy, the eruptions of radiation creating a hole large enough for the third to reach the hull.
Those of the Inner Sphere shouted in fear, including Spire, not really believing that the ship could withstand such power. "The machine spirit reports no damage." The engineer on the bridge declared as he interrogated the machine spirit. "Defensive fire resuming."
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Santiago
The strategy room came alive with cheering as three of the nukes found the vast monster of a ship, the blinding white light met with a chorus of exaltation and celebration. Backslapping and calls "Death to Arano!" rolled around the chamber like crude Solaris fans at an afterparty. "Silence!" Santiago shouted as he paled. "Get me a better picture of it's hull!"
The party died down and settled into a horrified silence as they all witnessed the defences blare into life once more as the second salvo entered range. Laser and ballistic fire blanketed space and missiles began to fall under the onslaught, this time none of the barrage making it through the intense point defence of the leviathan sized warship. As the last missile fell, so too did the mood within the bunker as Dropships began to spill from within the monster.
"Victoria. They're coming." He said leaning back.
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Victoria
The field of battle lay before them and the loyal Directorate Guard stood ready to make battle. Hundreds of Battlemechs ready for war, recovered from Amaris' cache. In the head of the Spider she watched as a heavy Battalion charged onto the plateau and prepared to prevent the dropships from landing. Looking up she saw it still, that small object in the sky that was in truth such a monster of a ship. Where had her cousin come across such a monster? The pinpricks of growing light of the dropship fleet almost obscured it as they entered atmosphere and made for the plateau made her smile as the Arrow IV launchers prepared to fire on th...
A prick of bright light. "Bombardment unit! Disengage DISENGAGE!"
Victoria shielded her eyes as did most others that realised what was happening before it was too late as the column of light plunged into the plateau followed by shot after shot after shot. There was no restrain or precision to her senses this time as the ground quaked beneath their feet under the titanic bombardment, plasma plumes hundreds of metres in diameter or more plunged into the bedrock and the temperature, even tens of kilometres away was rapidly approaching unbearable as the saturated bombardment dropped shot after shot. It stopped and Victoria was surprised to discover that it had been under two minutes. But before her the entire plateau glowed a cherry red at the edges to a blinding white where there were direct strikes. Of the heavy bombardment lances not a single trace of them remained. There was no transponder from ejected pilots. No sign they'd ever existed in the first place.
Across their forces people began reporting the external heat on their mechs was in excess of eighty degrees celsius, and the few infantry battalions out there were reporting casualties from the heat. Victoria looked up at the ship once more, clear of the obscuring light of a dropship descend and wondered when it would fire again at the gathered forces they'd assembled.
"Lady Kamea!" She said into the communications channels, broadcasting it was widely as she could. "I challenge you to face me on the field of battle. Face me in the arena if you dare. Your best against mine!!" She said as she began heading for the 'arena' where mech combat proved who was the better warrior. "The fate of the Directorate and your Restoration to be decided where it will count for the most. Where I will prove to you once and for all that you could never defeat me!"
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We marched down the ramp as the Directorate forces parted way before us, unwilling to get in the way of Victoria's ultimatum as Kamea had broadcast her acceptance of the terms of battle. I, for once, didn't hold the fore of the march. Kamea took the lead as we all knew that I had doctored our force composition as carefully as possible for the battle to come.
Kamea's knight bore a Thermal Cannon alongside its Avenger cannon, and the carapace bore its rocket launcher. Glitch's certastus marched with Shock lance and shield, Dekker and Ostergaard were both sporting the Volkite Chierovile and Hekaton Siege claw. What I had not made public knowledge was that on the Lazarus I had Trotter re-install the rad-cleanser into the siege claw.
Raju had no special changes to his armaments, but the Preceptor of Death. All three Carapace hardpoints had Siegebreaker cannon turrets, and the Volcano Lance remained as it should have been. But temporarily the Plasma Decimator had been stripped off and replaced with the Thundercoil Harpoon. I knew that Victoria had something big, and augur readings suggested there were two more of whatever it was with her.
Other than that, she had a reinforced lance of assault mechs. Star League relics most likely given the force composition of the enemy units we were moving through. "Maintain safe separation." Kamea said, having taken command for this part of the restoration. For this she was the queen bee. The Sword of Restoration.
The Arena... felt small. As we headed into it, I took up position preparing to overlook as Dekker and Ostergaard carefully lumbered forwards. In truth it was not all that small, but when across the 'coliseum' I could see them, three of the Spider mechs from Mechassault 2 I knew it was about to be the hardest combat we'd had since our arrival. The other five mechs were inconsequential, speedbumps in the way compared to those monsters. Arano paused and it was easy to understand why.
"Surprised to see me cousin. Your little Restoration will end today." The centremost spidermech stepped forwards a couple metres its mandibles clacking.
"Yes cousin. It will. With the restoration of the Aurigan Coalition." Kamea responded as the Telemon stepped forwards. And Raju opened up his own communication circuits.
<"Victoria. Bitter little Victoria. You fight and you fight for a cause your fool of a father charted. You commit atrocities to try and make his sickness become fact when it never can."> His launcher raised elevation, <"You do not even understand the predicament in which you find yourself do you. You were such a bright child, such a skilled warrior, and yet you seem to have lost that to the ideologue and blind fanaticism. Look before you. Facing you is Lady Kamea Arano, spurned heir to the Aurigan Coalition. Commodore Samuel Ostergaard, the man whose son you murdered to deceive the Concord Navy into supporting you, Warden, whose death you tried to orchestrate by begging for Capellan intercession not counting your attempts to kill him at the Coronation."> His voice remained monotone as he marched forwards. <"But you will have to contend with all that. And I.">
"And who are you, a goldsmith who thinks he can play mechwarrior?" Victoria said, the Dreadnought's systems washing any trace of Raju's voice.
<"I am Raju Montgomery. The Mastiff. Loyal hound to Lady Kamea Arano. The subject of torture by you and others in the Icebox for something approaching three years. And thanks to the Warden and the Lathe technology I stand here. FOR IN DEATH I STILL SERVE!"> Missiles roared from his weapons rack as the Aracnos Las-Storm began to blaze with light and the battle was on.
Plasma fire from their sustained PPCs blazed white light across the coliseum as it began and the lethal ballet began in earnest. The Volcano lance discharged as I blasted one of the Star League Atlas' apart head torn to pieces as my triple turrets began blazing away at another of the mechs as I broke into full stride, but the speed of the Spider mechs was surprising and almost frightening as thy charged into the arena and my people were scattered. Lady Kamea unloading her rocket battery towards Victoria's mech. The Avenger cannon screaming as it unloaded a hellstorm of projectiles at it as she tried to lumber into cover.
LRMs blazed into the sky as the spidermechs all unloaded on anything that came close and the volume of fire almost caught Glitch out of position. The third Spidermech charged Dekker and hurled the Lazarus back twenty metres from where it had begun. The move had proven unwise however as Dekker climbed up and both Chieroviles from the Styrixes unloaded on it. Ostergaard closing and tearing one of the machines legs from it even as he continued to fire the Graviton-gun into its innards.
I turned suddenly confronted by the second SpiderMech, unable to aid Dekker as the third began unloading its beam PPC at the Styrix. I saw and understood the agony he was now in as the ionic flare shield was finally overloaded and the Knight began to take horrendous damage.
Seemingly out of nowhere Glitch came charging out from behind one of the giant stone pillars and the Shock Lance discharged. PPC fire deflected off the Ion Gauntlet Shield as the power weapon cleaved through the spidermechs skull, splitting it open like an egg, the thunderclap impact of the charge shoving the machine back from the combatants.
Victoria paused then, turning on her machines axis and discharged her entire weapons load at Dekker and I couldn't help but watch as the Styrix detonated its atomantic reactor going critical. Glitch screamed in pain as she saw it happen and Ostergaard turned, and then turned back, just in time to avoid taking more fire from the lesser Star League era mechs.
"Warden! It is time that the world learned your people can die! And once I have broken your precious Kamea, it will be your turn." Victoria said glee in her voice over what she managed to do. Raju marched forwards into her guns, his weapons blazing and I saw then the mistake Victoria had made.
Raju, Kamea, Ostergaard and now Glitch. The three people she had wronged the most were now squarely aimed at her. But they were all in different places, a separation that Victoria could not avoid, no matter which she faced she would be exposing vulnerable elements of the SpiderMech.
I turned my attention away from that to my own duel with a Spidermech as the enemy Star League era mechs pricked ineffectually at the threads of my attention, leaving me to simply pass control of the turrets to the machine spirit to slay them while I concentrated on the fight ahead.
It's PPCs blazed and my ion shield flared as I discharged the Volcano Lance, the Spidermech backing off as if uncertain, or even panicked, by the sudden assault. As the light from its own assault faded I saw the glowing score-line burned down the side of the machine as I marched in at full stride, the Spidermech was faster than I was, but the Arena did not leave much room to retreat using such a machine.
And then I discharged it, the Thundercoil Harpoon ripped out and punched deep into the SpiderMech, destruction trailing in its wake as it bit and held, power arced out across the chain and into the Spidermech as I began reeling it in, the legs fighting to gain traction as my turrets blazed at the mechs trying to intervent, an Atlas being carved apart when four Siegebreaker shells found themselves buried in its centre torso. The struggling Spidermech desperately fought to engage it's PPCs but with the electrothaumic generator unloading its discharge into it the machine failed to keep the system on line long enough to fire.
"Time to die traitor." I said as I planted the Volcano Lance against its head.
With a blinding white discharge I fired and the explosion lit up the coliseum.
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Victoria
How was it possible, with the destruction of one of their Knights they should have folded in grief at the 'invincible' machine being felled. And yet now four machines tore ad me with every movement, from the gangly one coming in and unleashing that terrific spear, to the strange thermal weapon on Ostergaards machine. All the while Raju burned at me with laser light as he moved in more lumbering than the others. But Kamea.
Kamea danced around the field, allowing herself to be used as bait as I tried to put her down, the one death that should end this conflict once and for all and show the Aurigan people with whom the true strength lay.
Leaping back I cleared room between us as best as possible without leaving the arena, but there was no real room to get! I managed to escape the melting power of the heat rays carried by Ostergaard and Kamea, as well as away from that Shock Lance, but even now I watched as damage reports kept rolling in as Raju's weapon continued to rip away at my protection.
"Victoria. Surrender." Father's voice came over the channel and I was so surprised I stopped moving, even as more fire ploughed into this ancient machine built by Amaris' supporters.
"We cannot. The people need us!"
"Victoria, listen to me. We have already lost!" I blazed out with the PPC beams once more and clipped Kamea's machine, sending it spilling to the ground. "They have more mechs on the ground than we do! They have more ships. They have more men... and do you believe that the mercenary will hesitate to turn that monster ships gun on us!"
Fire from Raju blasted off one of my machines legs and the strange spear punched into my side as the rest of my people were surrendering, shutting down their mechs. But father was right. The war could not be won yet.
"I surrender." I declared and slammed the shutdown lever.
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Justice and Judgement. - The Next Day.
"You realise that you can't do anything to us little Kamea, we've surrendered and have to be trea..." Santiago said as Ostergard stood there with the Volkite pistol from my armoury.
"I realise a great deal more. Such as the fact we find you, and your daughter guilty of High Treason, attempted regicide, murder, war crimes most numerous. In fact, we've even had noticed passed to Comstar laying the destruction of their compound at your feet, utilising a small tactical nuclear device to destroy it and try and prevent your use of nuclear weapons for going public." Kamea said as she sat on the Throne.
I stood behind the throne, wearing powered armour. Miranda stood next to me wearing much more comfortable clothing. But equally well protected.
"A year ago. I would have simply imprisoned you. Perhaps turned you over to the Taurian Concordat for your crime against them. Instead, I have a representative of Protector Calderon instead whose son was also murdered by Lady Victoria," Kamea sat, stone-faced, "I was once a naive little girl. I once trusted you far too much," Her implants rattled as she shook her head, "Unfortunately for you Santiago Espinosa. I have seen the dark side of your cold and limitless ambitions." Her words boomed as they were broadcast across the city.
"I have seen the Aurigan people funneled into concentration camps. I have seen nobles who resisted you who were reduced to inhuman wrecks destroyed by psychological conditioning. I have seen you utilise the horror of nuclear weapons." She didn't stand but signalled that I should step forwards. "I will not dishonour our people with the claim that you should stand trial, because we all know your crimes, and the evil with which they were carried out."
This time her voice took on a tone, cold, hard and final.
"Santiago Espinosa. You are hereby sentenced, as befits your Nobility, to death by beheading." Santiago's face took on a shocked terrified expression.
"Lady Arano! That is not right, we do not execute our ow.."
"You have shown me what it means to tolerate poison in the well. That there is a difference between disagreement and blind ambition. You are only getting off so leniently because of your rank. A right Lady Victoria does not benefit from." Kamea turned to Victoria.
"In order to satisfy the Justice codes of both the Aurigan Directorate, and the Taurian Concordat. For your crimes of murder, for your complicit nature in the gas attacks, for your crimes of high treason. I sentence you to death by the hands of Commodore Samuel Ostergaard of the Concordat Navy," Victoria kept her head high, but tears at the corner of her eyes manifested, had she known she'd have fought to the death, especially if she knew what was about to happen, "To represent our part in that Justice, with many thanks to Duke Kane Giordino of the Raven Guard and the new Lathe Nation, I have loaned the Commodore a Volkite pistol."
Santiago tried to break out of his restraints and Victoria's eyes boggled as she attempted to back down the stairs.
"There will be no appeals. No trial. No defence. Duke Giordino, if you would please restrain my Uncle, I would prefer he watched." The hardness was there tinged by cruelty. The reconditioning we all went through left us no room for tolerance or mercy for treason. I took him by the arm and spun him around as Ostergaad blasted a microsecond shot into the back of Victoria's feet and stepped back as she screamed in agony.
The pistol was levelled again and discharged. The screaming turned to a boiling jet of fire screaming from her open mouth as the Volkite weapon did its evil job. "Know Director. Know my pain and wallow in the pit of your own making!" Ostergaard said.
Kamea nodded at me and Santiago turned as he saw trotter pass me the Executioner. His eyes went wide with terror as he saw the vast two-handed Chainsword. "This is inhuman, you have no right to..."
A sweep of the weapon, its teeth screaming, separated his head from his shoulders.
I turned to Kamea and passed her the weapon. "Now Lady Arano, if you don't mind. I'm going to get some bloody sleep.
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Kane's Legacy
Glitch
I was heading for the mess when I passed his temporary quarters. Samuel Ostergaard sat leaning against the wall staring into a bottle. I knew how he felt, losing Dekker after all this came as an unexpected shock. But for Ostergaard it had been even more, and so, despite not really giving a shit I found myself rapping my knuckles on the doorframe.
He made some noncommital noise and I entered anyway, sitting down across from him. "I don't understand." He said, still staring into the bottle. "Why don't I feel anything..."
"Probably because we're disconnected." I said, I never felt entirely complete when separated from the Lionheart anymore.
"At first I felt satisfaction at killing the bitch that murdered my son, but now... I just feel empty." He said looking at her for a moment before taking a swig and passing the bottle. "And the machine... I love it... and am terrified of it. I am not myself within it. Something dark rises up and I just can't separate myself anymore."
I nodded, not really understanding. Wasn't that the fun?
"Trotter told me that all the machines are different, that in hindsight they should never have put me in a Styrix. That it's machine spirit had an insane lust for blood." He sobbed lightly. "I thought I wanted that. But 'justice' has been done, my son avenged, the conductor of the atrocities dead, and now i'm terrified of the machine. That if I join with it again i'll lose myself."
The man was breaking, grief coming to the fore, possibly for the first time since his sons death. The thoughts of vengeance and hate being in force for so long that he couldn't let himself grieve.
"So resign with the Concordat Navy. Join the Raven Guard. Ask Kane to transfer to another machine." I said, "Hell, I have a feeling that things are going to mean ever more than we have before. This wasn't really an end."
"What'dya mean?" The words were sort of slurred.
"This wasn't an end. This was just the beginning Ostergaard, Victoria, Santiago. They were part of a treacherous con. And the Raven Guard were secured at great expense to make it all happen. But Lady Arano just wants to restore her Coalition. A petty periphery state." It was easy to speak of the goals, all of us talking quietly in the corridors of the Legacy. Of the rumours filtering down. "Kane, he's not stopping here. Kane intends to build an empire. To go above and beyond. Tomorrow we depart for the co-ordinates the Locura provided us."
"You want me to just give up my responsibilities with the Taurian Concordat so easily, this was a special.."
"This was a spec-ops? We always assumed it was. But wasn't it Calderon that had your son doing black-ops deliveries to the Directorate to begin with. Wasn't he the one that put your son where he could be betrayed so thoroughly?" I pressed, he was a good man.
"I think i'd like to drink alone for now Glitch. So if you don't mind, get the hell out.