TEXT: BattleCorps
  DJINN OF DESPAIR
  Kevin Killiany
  Chapter Eleven
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Jungle foothills 
  West-northwest of Chevalier Base 
  Despair, Ender’s Cluster 
  Lyran Alliance 
  29 October 3057
  Lex pushed her Nightsky, counting on momentum to carry her 
  across slipping mud as she dashed along the skirt of the hill. She 
  kept a screen of trees between herself and the plodding river of 
  tonners.
  “You can’t beat them to the base,” Chevalier said from behind. A 
  constant litany that had begun the moment he’d realized what she 
  intended. Not begging, not cursing, not arguing—he was doing 
  his best to persuade. “Even if you do get there, you can’t stop the 
  stampede. All you’ll do is get killed.” 
  Lex tried to block his words out as she dodged around rock out-
  crops and trees too big to push through. Scavengers and predators 
  alike dodged out of her way with outraged squawks and challeng-
  es.
  “Don’t throw your life away,” Chevalier said. “You’ll save more 
  lives if you’re there to help the survivors.”
  “I can stop this ’Mech, kill you, and be moving again in twenty 
  seconds,” Lex answered. “Shut up or die.”
  She thought she heard his mouth snap.
  “Atreus to Eighth Lyran,” she broadcast. “Atreus to Chevalier 
  Base.”
  Nothing.
  She continued to call. Every few minutes she repeated Sardella’s 
  orders and warned of the stampede. Just because she couldn’t 
  hear didn’t mean no one heard her.
  “Aldicott to Atreus,” the voice wove through the static.
  “Go, Aldicott.”
  “You’re just passing below me,” Aldicott answered. “I had ghost 
  readings on something big and something little down your way. 
  Just faded toward the base. Can’t do better than that.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  “Understood.”
  Her screens were clear. Whatever Aldicott had seen was invis-
  ible at this level.
  “What kills me kills you,” she said. “Any idea what’s ahead?”
  “I don’t know BattleMechs.” Chevalier’s voice sounded genuinely 
  frightened. “Two tall man-shaped ones, the one with no arms, and 
  a small, fast man-shaped one.”
  “Aldicott, prisoner tallies four unknown ’Mechs,” Lex broadcast. 
  “Add a scout to the ones we know.”
  “Glad too,” Aldicott’s voice was faint. “Good luck.”
  “Good hunting,” she answered.
  To her right the megaherd seemed to swell, the nearest crash-
  ing through the trees of the hillside. She was near the leaders, the 
  front ranks spreading out to alleviate the pressure of being pushed 
  from behind.
  If I could turn them now...
  Lex squelched the thought. One ’Mech was almost certainly not 
  enough. Trying to change the river’s course this close to the base 
  would at best fail and at worst start the stampede.
  Her geolocator insisted she was zigzagging hundreds of meters 
  from her line of travel, and her other sensor readings shifted ran-
  domly. But by balancing what she could see and what she knew of 
  Despair with the data on the screens, Lex kept a straight course.
  Heavy metal. Gone. Back. Gone. Her weapons lock alarm hooted 
  as her thermals registered a fire bloom directly ahead.
  Lex threw the yoke over, risking her Nightsky’s right ankle actua-
  tor in a desperate dodge left. She heard Chevalier cry out as he 
  thumped against the equipment locker.
  Her Thar-Hes 8A counted ten short range missiles, grouped four 
  and six, as flame and earth geysered from where she’d been. A 
  single medium laser lashed out, tagging the Nightsky’s torso just 
  below its right arm.
  Commando, decided the targeting computer even as her sen-
  sors refused to lock.
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Unwilling to risk her damaged large pulse laser, Lex angled her 
  ’Mech directly toward where the elusive ’Mech seemed to be. Not 
  waiting for good tone, she fired. Steam and smoke billowed as her 
  clean misses torched peat and ferns.
  A six-flight of missiles, and this time her computer was paying 
  attention—solid lock at extreme range for her mediums. Lex broke 
  stride, dodging back, then surged forward at full acceleration.
  Caught by the feint, the Commando jockey wasted his SRM-4 
  volley behind her. But again his laser hit where his missiles missed, 
  slagging armor from the Nightsky’s chest. Dangerously close to 
  the holes dug by the Cyclops autocannon, but no significant dam-
  age.
  Lex triggered the medium pulse lasers. The paired beams con-
  verged on the center of the scout ’Mech’s torso, deforming the 
  unshuttered missile tubes. No explosion, fresh loads had not cy-
  cled, but the launcher was useless. 
  His firepower halved, the Commando pilot broke to Lex’s left, 
  running up an arroyo too narrow for the Nightsky to follow safely.
  “Aldicott, one Commando minus its six rack headed your way,” 
  Lex broadcast. 
  Without waiting for a reply, she resumed her run. Still leery of 
  panicking the tonners, Lex wanted to put more distance between 
  the Nightsky and the leading edge of the megaherd before cutting 
  south.
  The hillside to her left steepened into a cliff. An open fissure 
  vented a dense mist her sensors insisted was equal parts magne-
  sium, hydrochloric acid and wood.
  Lex doubted the wood was there, but she cut back to a walk. The 
  fissure could as easily open beneath her Nightsky’s feet. Another 
  hundred meters and—
  A shape loomed out of the gloom.
  Lancelot. Ten tons heavier, almost two meters taller, and right on 
  top of her. Both arms came up as the sixty-ton ’Mech targeted her 
  with its large lasers at contact range.
  Her axe low for balance on the uneven terrain, Lex took a long 
  step forward and twisted the Nightsky’s torso left. The large laser 
  on her right arm extended beyond the hand actuator, but it was 
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  never intended as a melee weapon. Nonetheless, she drove it for-
  ward with all the power the myomer musculature was capable of, 
  aiming for the deadly particle projection cannon just right of the 
  Lancelot’s centerline.
  The jolt of impact threw her against her harness. Lex heard a 
  thud and grunt behind her as she slapped the trigger panel with 
  her open hand.
  Light flooded the cockpit. Flashback from her two mediums scor-
  ing across the larger machine’s chest, then a white-light sunburst 
  as her big gun’s housing flew apart. Part of her mind registered 
  the omni-directional flare did little damage, but she didn’t waste 
  time thinking.
  Swinging her axe upwards, she caught the underside of the 
  Lancelot’s right arm with the forearm blade of her Nightsky’s axe. 
  She pivoted as the blade rose, lifting the bigger ’Mech’s large laser 
  over her canopy. 
  The pirate fought the turn, the underside of its large laser’s hous-
  ing crumpling against the uranium axe. The Lancelot’s torso laser 
  fired, destroying Lex’s right side medium. But the big ’Mech’s PPC 
  fountained impotent blue sparks, its emitter port a ragged scar 
  around the ruin of the large laser. 
  Which was no longer attached to the Nightsky.
  To save his large laser, the pirate pivoted his ’Mech to her right, 
  lifting its right arm up and away from her blade. 
  Its gyro already struggling to compensate for the loss of the 
  right arm, the Nightsky nearly overbalanced. Lex fought the yoke 
  and pedals, twisting the BattleMech right and continuing the axe’s 
  upward swing. Momentum and inertia kept her upright.
  Facing downhill, shoulder to shoulder with the pirate ’Mech, Lex 
  shifted her Nightsky’s mass left and swung her uranium axe in a 
  savage backhand blow. Two and a half tons of dense metal shat-
  tered Starshield armor designed to deflect energy fire.
  Grey-green coolant spewed.
  The pirate’s near-side arm was trapped between the BattleMechs, 
  its torso laser was pointed uselessly out over the valley and the far 
  side arm could not traverse enough to hit the Nightsky. Leaning into 
  the blade, Lex shoved, putting the full weight of her ’Mech into driv-
  ing the axe toward the Lancelot’s gyro. The pirate twisted his ’Mech’s 
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  torso in a desperate attempt to break free that ripped cable and myo-
  mer. A fresh geyser announced the loss of another heat sink.
  Lex felt precious seconds slipping away. The leaders of the mega-
  herd had almost reached her position. She had to reach Chevalier 
  Base, mount a defense. But if she broke away from the Lancelot, 
  the pirate could cut her down with his lasers.
  There was no choice.
  Lex stepped back, yanking the axe free. Before the pirate could 
  react, she struck a second backhand blow, shattering the already 
  damaged right arm laser. The Lancelot backpedaled, trying to get 
  position to bring its left arm laser to bear. Its torso laser wasted its 
  power on the ruined stub of the Nightsky’s right arm.
  Lex drove forward, raining overhand blows to the bigger ma-
  chine’s upper torso and shoulders. The pirate twisted and bobbed, 
  fighting to keep his cockpit from beneath the blade. 
  Then, as abruptly as he had attacked, the ’Mech pilot quit. The 
  Lancelot’s left arm dropped, pointing at the ground, and the pirate 
  pressed his open and empty hands against the forward canopy.
  Lex raised her axe.
  “He surrendered!”
  Lex nearly jumped out of her skin at Chevalier’s shout. She’d 
  forgotten he was back there.
  Tripping the release, she brought the uranium blade down, split-
  ting the large laser’s housing from end to end.
  “So he stays surrendered,” she said.
  With the first wave of the megaherd only a few hundred me-
  ters behind, Lex kicked her Nightsky forward. Striking out across 
  swamp and jungle, she ran for Chevalier Base.
  v v v
  Sardella had been right about missing the action at Chevalier Base. 
  In fact, he and Caradine had been forced to retreat to higher ground 
  when the megaherd stampede threatened to head their way.
  Retreating from sixty-ton animals in a ninety-ton assault ’Mech 
  was something he’d never imagined doing. But cattle ranching 
  
  BattleCorps
  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  had taught him stampedes had more to do with avalanches than 
  animals. His Highlander would be salvageable after being tram-
  pled by a few hundred panicked tonners, but when the kicking and 
  tumbling was done there was a good chance the parts of him that 
  broke free of the harness—if the harness held—would need to be 
  hosed out of the cockpit.
  What had frustrated him in that maddeningly slow climb—a 
  Highlander made no speed up a steep and muddy slope covered 
  with dense jungle—was Leutnant Caradine. 
  Her Thorn massed less than half the average tonner, and with its 
  already severe damage he doubted it had the structural integrity 
  to survive being trampled. But, though her light ’Mech could make 
  it to safety at three times the best speed of the Highlander, she 
  had refused to break formation.
  Sticking like a twenty-some-ton shadow, she had backed her 
  ’Mech uphill in his wake—her two remaining lasers aimed down 
  slope. Covering his back in case the megaherd came their way. 
  Sardella had never seen anything more comic on the battlefield, 
  and few things more noble. He chose not to point out she was be-
  ing an idiot and focused on getting them both above the danger 
  line as quickly as possible.
  Finding a level shoulder of hillside, he judged they’d come far 
  enough and turned to look down toward the Base. And saw only 
  trees. The jungle growth was too high and thick to see through.
  And teaming with heat signatures. Thousands of creatures—
  ranging in size from a few kilograms to a few tons were racing 
  out of the lowlands. His sensors’ acuity fell off too quickly to be 
  sure, but his impression was they’d left the really big animals half 
  a kilometer behind—which bothered him not at all. There was no 
  such thing as being too far from a stampede.
  He only wished he could see what the tonners were running from. 
  Obviously Franks—and maybe Twindle and Jarhaal and Dimitri, if 
  she’d arrived—had come up with something that drove away ton-
  ners but he couldn’t think what.
  Aware that on Despair his sensors were blind or lying or both, 
  he nonetheless focused them toward Chevalier base—a narrow 
  band to push as far as possible through the soup. There seemed 
  to be a lot of heat and smoke. Had his people started a forest 
  fire?
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  “Sir,” Caradine interrupted his thoughts. “Heavy metal at five 
  o’clock. Approaching. I get no identify friend/foe.”
  Switching from narrow beam to three-sixty, Sardella instantly 
  saw a seventy-ton heavy and a medium of undetermined mass 
  closing slowly on their position. 
  “No transponder confirmed,” he said. Any Florida or Eighth ’Mech 
  would have an active TFF—dark meant pirate.
  Though not necessarily hostile pirates. According to his sensors, 
  the heavy ’Mech—which his targeting computer decided was a 
  Guillotine—had its weapons powered down. He couldn’t be sure 
  of the medium walking directly behind it.
  Pivoting in place, he brought his weapons to bear. Which put 
  him on Caradine’s flank.
  Now I’m fire support for a Thorn.
  The Guillotine hesitated as it reached the last screen of trees 
  before the small clearing, then came ahead slowly. Its arms were 
  held akimbo—elbows jutted out and weapons aimed at the ground. 
  Their position must have made navigating through the jungle dif-
  ficult, but there was no mistaking the intent. 
  With its flared shoulder armor, a Guillotine couldn’t hold its 
  hands up to signify surrender.
  Sardella recognized the heavy ’Mech’s fresh battle scars as la-
  ser, canon, and axe damage. That last prepared him for Aldicott’s 
  Hatchetman stepping from behind the Guillotine, but not for the 
  condition of the Florida ’Mech.
  The high crest above the cockpit—including the silver globe of 
  the sensor array and the communications pod—had been sheared 
  away. The cockpit was open to Despair’s toxic atmosphere, which 
  meant Aldicott had to be burning in the fumes. 
  From the angle of the damage, Sardella judged the Guillotine’s 
  large laser in physical contact with the command pod. 
  No wonder the Florida can’t keep their ’Mechs up and running.
  Aldicott raised his hatchet, bringing the broad side of the blade 
  close to his canopy. He followed the salute with a sweeping mo-
  tion, using the hatchet to indicate the direction of the base.
  “Good afternoon” and “Shall we go?” Sardella translated.
  
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  Djinn of Despair • Page 
  Turning his sensors to the lowlands, he saw most of the tonners 
  had gone and none of those present were running.
  “Caradine, you have point,” he said. “Let’s go see what’s for din-
  ner.”
  
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