Cavalier's Gambit 2 -Ch 13-

Chapter 13

Warhorse kicked back online as whatever disruption that’d struck him faded. He’d only been out of commission for about five seconds but it’d felt like a lifetime.

The Walker powered back on and Wayne immediately struck into the command line to Wendy. With any luck Natalie had already gotten it up.

“Herald!” Wayne barked even as Cara, Sal, and Barbie started moving forward again. Weapons fire lancing out from them and continuing in their devastation of the enemies flank.

With everything that was going on, it seemed as if they hadn’t been able to even figure out that they were being flanked. Even as they lost Walkers, tanks, and infantry.

Shots from Mick continued to rain in from somewhere and Wayne could see them coming. The man often threw his targeting data to Wayne anymore just to cross-check whenever they set out.

His ‘living zero’ he called him.

“Yeah, Lord,” Wendy hissed, sounding as if she were speaking through clenched teeth. “If this is what I think you’re about to say, I know. Just… yeah, it happened. Still happening. Its’—”

There was a distortion then.

A loud hissing crackle that silenced anything Wendy said.

Wayne moved forward with his squad, firing into the Walkers that appeared and attempting to send them into the dirt, one way or another.

Glancing at his ammo count, Wayne was surprised to find he was all the way down to thirty percent on his main rifle, a single barrage of rockets left, that his energy weapon was a bit warm.

Only his heavy missile-launcher on his shoulder was untouched and he’d been holding onto those, as those munitions were likely going to be much harder to find.

They’d be the first thing to be fired by anyone in the fight and unlikely to be something he could salvage. While he had told everyone else to fire freely, he hadn’t been able to get a hold of replacement munitions of the missiles and load them in the dropship.

“—clear? Ah, I think it’s clear,” came Wendy’s voice over the comms. “Wa—Cavalier?”

“I’m here, Herald, just fighting our way through this wave of horse shit,” Wayne growled. “That fucking Bertson station went up. How fucked are we?”

“Fucked, Cavalier. Fucked,” whispered Wendy, sounding spent. “They didn’t lose their fleet-command ship, but the station was a big part of their backbone. Most of the communications were being relayed to the station as a hub to make it harder to intercept.

“Everything is shifted and just… there’s so much wrong.

“I can’t even tell you if our handler’s are alive as they might have been on the station to ‘be safe’. Same reason I left the station though and the same reason I didn’t want the rest of your company on it.

“It’d been a target after all. Turns out it was a big target. A really big target. They can’t even launch rescue vehicles to try and get people who were wearing suits right now either.

“They’d be shot at without ever knowing they were rescue boats.”

A Titan turned slowly to look at Wayne and his squad.

Even as it turned, Wayne’s mind sped up.

Sped up and began to ping wildly as it brought the full might of Warhorse into his grasp. Pushing the Walker’s targeting system to the brink of exploding through the sheer weight of Wayne’ smind.

Wayne fired off several of his shoulder mounted missiles at the damn Titan.

At the short distance they were in Wayne lined up the rockets with his AI’s assistance and fired off the whole barrage, though in a sequence.

Turning Warhorse slightly from right to left and firing them as the crosshairs all landed on the same point that the missiles had been shot toward.

His laser cannon was also firing repeatedly as his heavy ballistic cannon fired off in time.

As he strained the targeting system he had focuse the entirety of his salvo all at the center point of the Titan. The Steel-Glass cockpit that would be heavily reinforced.

Thick, deep inset, and able to withstand a great deal of damage.

Except Wayne was betting with all the punishment he put into a single exact point, the Titan pilot would get the hell out of there immediately, or the cockpit would fail. In either situation it was likely that the Titan wouldn’t be an issue.

Or so Wayne had thought.

The titan fired off several rounds from it’s massive ballistic weapon.

Somehow, Warhorse’s point defense system knocked one of the rounds out of the air. One of the others struck Warhorse in the left arm and obliterated the energy weapon there. A warning light went off immediately as the weapon crumpled like a popsicle stick under the hit.

Another round struck him high in the cockpit and there was a boom that shook Wayne pretty hard. Part of the Steel-Glass cracked and several fractures quickly spread across the front of the cockpit.

Wayne had kept firing as this happened of course, as did Barbie, and even Sal. Because he wasn’t going to balk in the same way that he had been hoping the Titan would.

It’d be ironic.

Ironic and deadly.

Wayne saw it when the cockpit of the Titan gave out and one of Barbie’s heavy ballistic rounds splattered the pilot like a ketchup packet hit with a hammer. Liberally coating the interior in a red sticky paste.

“Shields fucked,” reported Sal, and Wayne saw it. The man had taken a punishment that hadn’t just hit the shield, it’d torn it clean off. The Walker had it’s arm up, but there wasn’t anything coming down except for maybe a single foot of steel.

“I didn’t take much damage,” reported Barbie.

“Lost my energy weapon,” Wayne admitted as he looked down the line of Walkers and tanks moving up to the refinery. “We hit another Titan and that might not be something we can walk from without a loss. Those weapons had so much kick that I think I’m getting fresh air in here.”

Wayne leaned forward and sniffed at the glass and he realized he was right.

He could smell smoke, grass, and burnt things. His cockpit was no longer air-tight. It also meant the structural integrity was absolutely compromised and any hit that came in after this point was far more likely to give him the same fate as the Titan pilot.

Bologna flung through a commercial grade cow grinder, resulting in nothing more than a mess.

“Longbow, you see any other Titans in that lineup?” Wayne asked as they started moving forward again. Wayne, Barbie, Sal, and Cara now, were all firing at infantry and tanks that were around.

There were no Walkers in the immediate vicinity though, Wayne’s brief pause had created a break in the flanking maneuverer.

“Three of them,” Mick reported. “Two more further down, one is nearly immediately in front of you. I’ve been putting rounds into his cockpit, but I think they just find it annoying.

“The enemy is down to about twenty Walkers. They got in range of that damn corvette and it opened up on them. It’s getting pretty damn hairy but honestly boss, I think this isn’t the scary thing.”

Wayne grimaced and tried to look for Mick’s trajectory on his weapon.

Once found he trailed it back to the Titan.

It was a big one.

Easily a heavy classed Titan, it was imposing and disastrous looking.

There was no way that they could engage that without making sure they had a way to get out of range. If they didn’t drop it quickly, it’d just engage with its armaments and that’d be horrific.

“Everyone aim with me. We’re going to try and drill a hole in the back of that damn Titan. After that we’ll probably need to swap to tank busting or other things. Our munitions are already in yellow and it’ll go red when we get this damn Titan down.

“Longbow, keep plinking his cockpit. Squire, give that Titan a cluster on his cockpit. I want him distracted and maybe just a bit disoriented.”

There was a chorus of agreement to that and Wayne walked his people further off the line and to the left. Taking up a dangerous position behind the wave of the attack as all it would take is some of that high number of Walkers to turn and obliterate Wayne and his squad.

He dropped a reticle on the rear of the Titan.

“Set?” he asked, waiting. Everyone responded. “Fire.”

Cara, Barbie, Sal, and himself, all fired into the same spot.

Wayne was out of rockets, so he used several of his missiles from his shoulder mount. Emptying him all the way down to less than half left.

All the munitions and rounds hit on both sides of the Titan nearly at the same time. It looked as if it simply became an explosion. Cara continued to fire Yuna and Wayne fired his own version of the weapon as well.

All the rounds striking in the same spot.

As the fire and flames cleared, Wayne found the Titan was staring backwards at him and his squad. All they’d done was apparently cause the damn thing to become aware of their presence.

Wayne, Cara, Barbie, and Sal were all still firing, putting rounds into the front of the damn cockpit. With any luck they’d break through the damn Steel-Glass and send him to the ground.

It fired what Wayne could only describe as a damn artillery piece made into a ballistic rifle.

Twice, unfortunately.

The first round went wide, passing right over Wayne’s right arm.

Unfortunately the second shot came up and to the left and his Barbie in the shoulder. There was a hideous explosion  from her Dreadnought and the whole Walker shook to the left.

Then the Titan kept walking and fell forward. Slamming into the ground and walking against it as if it were still moving.

“Fucking hell,” hissed Barbie. “I’m alright but my shoulder joint is locked. My left arm mounts are all stationary now. Also, my ammo counters are all high-red.”

“Medium-red,” Sal reported.

“Empty,” Cara stated.

“Alright… we’re… fucking off,” Wayne growled and immediately spun around. They’d done all they could, took out a number of Walker’s by themselves, tanks, infantry, and two damn Titans. It was more than what one could expect for a medium-weight Walker squad. “This is fucked, they’re fucked, we’ll all be fucked if we stay, and I’d rather not get our assholes turned inside out so we’re gone.

“Herald, can your pretty face get me a line to that company dropship? We need refit and the onboard mechanics might be able to plug this hole in my shit and get Barbie’s arm moving.”

“Yeah,” Wendy said without sounding as if she were paying complete attention. “They’re already en route, honestly. I had them start moving the moment the station blew up. Because… I’m not risking you with this nonsense.

“From what I can tell, and hear, this whole thing is fracturing wildly. Faster and faster. House Bertson and House Zane seem like they want to escalate it even further rather than letting it stop or slow down here.

“Bertson is bringing in even more ships and Dropships. Apparently they’re not willing to let this theater end with a retreat. It really feels like they’re going to pivot to a core system as well after this.

“Confed is just… Confed can’t do or won’t do a damn thing. I have no idea anymore.”

“Right,” Wayne blew out even as his squad started to roll backward. “What does that do for our contract? We’re kind of in a weird spot since we were hired directly.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary, contract remains,” Wendy murmured. As she spoke, several more missiles came shooting into the area from likely a far distance. All of them were knocked out of the air by the corvette.

Several jets came by over head in strafing runs on the attacking Walkers even as they pushed onward.

“We’ll just end up given a new direction. If I had to guess, chances are it’ll be frontier defense work. There’s a massive front line across multiple systems and really that—”

A missile had streaked in from above.

Just about as if it’d been launched from a considerable distance, brought over the target with a glide function, then dropped straight down.

It came in with such an angle of attack and speed that Wayne barely had a chance to see it.

Simply nothing more than a flicker of motion that vanished into the valley.

Uh.

There was a thump and an explosion followed by an even larger explosion. Then another, and yet more.

Then it was as if the entirety of the world went up in a massive fireball that was so bright Wayne had to turn away.

Or he tried to at least.

The concussive wave from the explosion threw his Walker backward. Warhorse was quite literally knocked to the ground.

Flat on it’s back.

He had seen it briefly when Cara went tumbling away, Patchwork just not being able to withstand the force of it.

Even Barbie had been thrown to the side.

Wayne heard nothing. He could in fact barely breathe as well.

A horrifying odor and stink had forced it’s way in through the cracked Steel-Glass. Causing it to break more so.

An attempt to gasp only resulted in Wayne’s lungs spasming. As if the explosion had knocked the wind out of him.

Grabbing up the emergency repair kit under his seat Wayne struggled against gravity, his lack of breathing, and the continued rumble and boom of the refinery going off.

Jerking open the kit, Wayne unbuckled himself, stood on the back of his seat and looked up. He grabbed out the rapid deploy gell, spread a bunch of it only the curved side of the applicator that came with it, and smeared it onto the Steel-Glass.

He probably should’ve already planned to do this, but repairs in combat weren’t exactly a go-to unless you had no other choice.

Trembling, unable to breathe, and feeling light headed, Wayne applied the gel all over to teh cracks. Pushing it quite liberally into it with the applicator.

As the name implied, it was rapid application and deployment. It was hard to work with as once it left the tube it tended to harden within ten or twenty seconds.

Unable to wait even that long, Wayne put the cap back on, hucked the tube and applicator into the kit, and collapsed back into his seat.

He rapidly tore through the systems of his cockpit life-support and had it purge the air in his cockpit and cycle out fresh from the oxygen cannisters.

The feel of the air being ripped free and then being pumped in was startling.

Because he hadn’t even realized it, but the interior of his cockpit had been filled with a green gas. Once that’d blended in with the darkened interior as well as the partial shading of the Steel-Glass.

Now that it was gone though, it was obvious.

As was the green gas that covered everything nearby.

Wincing, Wayne struggled for breath.

His body still didn’t want to breathe. His diaphragm struggling against itself.

Finally, he managed a soft gasp.

“Report-in,” he got out in the com system.

“Alive,” hissed Cara. “Broken leg.”

“I’m fine,” muttered Barbie with a grunt.

“A-okay,” Sal reported.

“Banged up. Got launched,” answered Natalie.

“Untouched. But that explosion was a damn doozy,” stated Mick. “Fireball is still damn climbing. I got a bunch of pressure wave warnings. Ya’ll alright? Need to get you all medically checked to make sure there’s no vessels or shit that’s busted.

“Could be leaking into your fucking chest and not know it.”

Wayne nodded at that and forced Warhorse to its feet.

Looking around he saw the rest of his squad was doing the same.

“Dropship coming in right fucking now,” Wendy said. “Everyone get to where Longbow is. That’s a good open spot. He can provide over-watch as you do it, too.”

“Aye,” Wayne growled out as everyone started moving. “This whole thing is so fucked up, Herald. How bad is this shit?”

“Pretty bad. Maybe not as bad as House Zane but… different goals,” Wendy explained. “With everything that’s happened? This system is going to be a black hole for resources.

“A massive one.

“If they ignore it, they’ll lose the world outright to another house. If they work to invest in it, even at a minimal level, it’s going to drain resources. A lot of resources.

“The infrastructure is pretty blown out as well. They attacked train stations, depots, warehouses, highways, roads, it’s… yeah. They didn’t want to take the planet.

“They just wanted to break it so bad, that even house Bertson wouldn’t want to hold onto it.”

“Yeah,” grumbled Wayne. He’d met people who thought like that in real life. That it’d be better just to insure someone didn’t have something, than it would be to try and take it from those people. “I guess that makes sense. Really is fucked to hell and back though.

“Suddenly makes me more appreciative that the Dashi just wanted the worlds for their own. Rather than destroying them. That’s a lot easier to fix than what happened here.

“I mean, hell, Herald, how bad is this green cloud of fucking death. My skin feels itchy as hell and I think I need a fucking toxic no-no scrub as soon as I can. It was all over my skin.”

“I… yes, you’ll need a decontamination bath as well as a round of medical treatment,” Wendy stated and it sounded like she was typing at a keyboard as she said it. “I’ll make the arrangements for you to be given care as soon as you’re onboard the station.

“That’s within the time frame we need to get to you in.”

“Timeframe?” Wayne asked then coughed twice.

“To answer your earlier question, and your current question, exposure to the gas isn’t lethal, but it will break your skin down. Direct exposure will damage the skin down to the muscle. That’s bad.

“For the inhabitants of this world?

“It’s gonna be bad.

“For all those infantry units on either side?

“It’s… gonna be… extremely bad.”

“Oh, shit. Uh. Anyone I should be trying to evac infantry wise in the drop ship so we can take care of them?” asked Wayne.

“No. Anyone of rank or worth would’ve already been prepared for this honestly. You were protected because you’ve got your suit in the hatch behind you, which you should’ve been in, Cavalier… as well as your cockpit.”

Wayne knew she was right, he should’ve been in his suit but he hadn’t. Because in an oxygen rich environment, he figured, why even bother.

Now he had a good example of ‘why bother’.

Then he made a choice.

“This is Cavalier Hesh. My personal dropship is coming in to get the fuck out of here,” Wayne stated into the command channel. “Any infantry that’s exposed to this nightmare is going to need immediate medical evac. I’ll hold for ten minutes after touchdown to give them a chance to get on.

“It’s a company sized dropship so I can fit eighteen Walkers as well. No tanks. Maybe a hundred infantry. Pick who and what you want to save, Commander, but remember that I’m going to the Confed station. No guarantee who or what goes with me, will come back.”

There was no immediate response on the command line.

Nor did Wendy say anything but she would’ve been able to hear it. He hadn’t closed the channel to her when he’d gone into the other one.

“Received. Sending,” came the final response from the command line.

“Well,” Wendy chortled then sighed. “That’s about right for Cavalier Hesh I suppose. You should’ve seen the footage from Longbow’s view and Squire’s. It’s another PR push. Especially with those dual Titan kills.”

Wayne just shook his head as he watched the massive company dropship come shooting over the horizon. It looked impressively large to him. Easily five to six times the size of the Cavalier’s Redoubt.

“Tink is already coming to this station,” Wendy alerted Wayne. “I promised her I’d let her know the moment one of your Walkers took damage. That and it’s a station. She like’s stations. I got her a garage to work out of. Confed’s footing the bill.”

The company dropship banked freakishly hard, cut the engines, and settled down onto the ground outright. All twenty-four walker doors slammed open.

On the side of the dropship, he noted there was an emblem he’d never seen before. It wasn’t a company logo he’d worked with or any of the military forces.

It was in the shape of a heater shield as a whole. The background in general was a bright vivid red color

The top third of it were three starts in a triangle with the point upward.

In the center was a black horse with a knight upon it leaning forward. As if it were charging.

The lower third were several chevrons in the colors of the Mirkil colors specific to Josephine, greys and blues.

“Guess I have a house emblem,” Wayne remarked as he moved to the dropship, realizing it was his own almost belatedly. It was only obvious when one took it all together.

“Oh! Yes. J—the Lady put it together. Miss and I approved of it after a few changes. It’s who you are as a person and it’s easy to spot from a distance,” Wendy answered quickly. “We’re also putting out a whole line of merchandise. Most of the proceeds all go to you.”

Wayne moved onto the company dropship and turned around as he settled into position.

Looking out, he saw a number of infantry all rushing toward the dropship. Far more than he expected. There were no Walkers coming toward him.

The Commander had prioritized the infantry, over getting Walkers off world.

“Who the hell is the commander here?” Wayne asked Wendy. “I like them. I might want to hire them as a house guard commander. If I’ve got an emblem, a house, and the possibility of getting land, chances are… I’ll need my own military.”

“The Lady is already building you a House Force for that specific end,” Wendy admitted with a chuckle. “She seems particularly eager to surprise you with it, so you’ll need to play dumb a bit longer.”

Wayne nodded his head as the infantry streamed into the dropship.