TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  THE DRAGONS  
  OF DESPAIR
  by Kevin Killiany
  Chapter Ten
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 2
  Partial transcript,  
  IDCN (InterDepartmental ComNet) 
  exchange 
  logged 14 August 3057 
  Detective Sarah Willard, Major Crime Unit 
  Badge 4667
  LabRatt33: What are you doing online? I thought gumshoes 
  spent all their time hanging out in sleazy strip bars.
  Det4667: That’s private dicks. I’ll be doing that after I retire. 
  Right now I’m typing up some cases and had to check some-
  thing through Central. 
  Det4667: You working or just cruising porn sites?
  LabRatt33: Both. I’m an efficient multitasker able to work one-
  handed.
  Det4667: TMI, Davey boy.
  LabRatt33: You want TMI, check out my video feed. 
  LabRatt33: I think I got something for you on the D’Marco case.
  Det4667: Like what? Analysis of the soup cleared him. None of 
  the trace chemical tags for a MindMASC dump. Whatever he 
  dropped in those vats was something else.
  LabRatt33: Maybe. Maybe not. 
  LabRatt33: I’ve been experimenting with some MindMASC 
  samples from evidence.
  Det4667: Going to have to turn you in, Davey. Been nice working 
  with you.
  LabRatt33: Very funny. You may have the gun, but I know thirty-
  seven ways to make you lose your mind that don’t leave a 
  trace.
  Det4667: Too late. Brass beat you to it. Have you seen the new 
  incident reports? 16 screens!
  LabRatt33: Okay then, how bout you got the gun, but I know how 
  to make your case against D’Marco?
  Det4667: How?
  LabRatt33: You want the full report now or wait till AM?
  Det4667: Morning, i’m off the clock. Give hilites.
  LabRatt33: D’Marco moved his operation to that soup factory 
  because he knew something we didn’t. We knew the chemi-
  cal tags to look for when MASC got dumped in water, right?
  Det4667: Right. And none of them were in the soup. 
  Det4667: Get interesting, Davey, it’s late.
  LabRatt33: Well the soup in the vats was boiling, right?
  Det4667: Simmering. 
  Det4667: I’m about to log off, Davey.
  LabRatt33: Drop your MASC in a pot of boiling water and you get 
  a whole different set of chemical markers.
  Det4667: ?
  LabRatt33: It breaks down differently. Different chemical fallout. 
  Different set of tags. And every one of the traces you get 
  from dropping MASC in boiling water was in that soup. 
  LabRatt33: You got him dead to rights.
  Det4667: You married, Davey?
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 3
  Chevalier Planetary Evaluation Base 
  Despair, Ender’s Cluster 
  Lyran Alliance 
  19 October 3057
  The Chevalier scout car stood empty at the edge of the aban-
  doned village.
  The late afternoon sky filled the clearing with a flat, dim light that 
  robbed the scene of color and shadows. The details were clear 
  enough, though, even without low-light augmentation. Empty 
  scout car; empty village.
  Chevalier scout cars were modified general-purpose construc-
  tion vehicles with their passenger compartments sealed against 
  the hostile environment of Despair. They were sturdy and use-
  ful, their heavily studded balloon tires carrying them efficiently 
  through bogs or over rocks. Their several hard points and power 
  take-offs enabled the mounting of a variety of tools.
  However, the seals, gaskets, and other hostile-environment 
  modifications were finicky and fragile, prone to damage and 
  failure. Nick had told Lex at least a third of the scouts were in 
  for repairs at any one time. A statistic that reminded her of the 
  Florida’s BattleMech assets, though she didn’t share the similarity 
  with the scientist.
  That Chevalier Base was equipped with these GP workhorses 
  rather than proper exploration vehicles indicated something 
  about either the priority of the mission or the financial resources 
  of Ender’s Cluster.
  The passenger compartment of the abandoned scout car was 
  open to the elements, the clam shell doors spread to their widest 
  extent. This in itself was not unusual. The cabin was too small to 
  house an air lock. The crew—wearing hazmat suits at all times—
  had to open the vehicle to the elements when leaving or entering, 
  then purge the corrosive air once it was resealed.
  Lex kept only one eye on the empty vehicle as she surveyed the 
  surrounding area. The light enhancing screens gave a phosphor 
  green patina to the grey on grey on grey clearing and the dense-
  ly tangled trees beyond. She was sure this was the same village 
  they’d seen in the recording, though the buildings seemed fore-
  shortened and the beaten path to the river was now to her left.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 4
  The fern-like vegetation had already reasserted itself, covering 
  the vehicle’s tracks and any trace of whatever else had been here. 
  Knowing whether the scout car had been following a search pattern 
  or had driven straight from the base would have been useful intel.
  Lex was aware of Caradine leaning forward out of the equip-
  ment cubby, craning her head to look out through the edges of the 
  canopy. She realized the other MechWarrior was doing her best to 
  cover their flanks while she took in the scene in front of them.
  There was no apparent damage to the car. An empty tripod and 
  open equipment bag implied the occupants had been interrupted 
  while setting up recorders or sensors of some sort. Of course the 
  robust flora had eradicated any indication of what had happened, 
  but Lex took some comfort from the fact there were no dead scav-
  engers in evidence.
  “There’s something wrong about the village,” Caradine said. 
  “Over and above being empty, I mean.”
  Lex looked again at the loose arrangement of buildings—few-
  er than she would have thought from the recording—and had to 
  agree. Aside from the fact that they were clearly abandoned, there 
  was something not quite kosher about the layout.
  Lex grunted.
  Stepping the Nightsky ahead dead slow, she moved to the clos-
  est building.
  Looking down from above, she could see the brown and with-
  ered foliage that formed the covering had been laid across the 
  walls, not secured to the structure at any point. Nor was the roof 
  solid. The branches had been arranged in a criss-cross pattern and 
  spaced twenty to twenty-five centimeters apart—close enough to 
  provide the interior with more shade than light, but open enough 
  to let in rain. Or starlight, if there had been any on Despair.
  “Sekhakh,” she said under her breath.
  “What?”
  Gently sweeping her axe across the roof, Lex pushed the branch-
  es aside, revealing the bare interior.
  She grunted again.
  “Your communication grid seems to be down,” Caradine said. 
  “What are you looking at?”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 5
  Lex quirked a corner of her mouth at the prod. Meeting Caradine’s 
  eye, she indicated the buildings with a tilt of her head.
  “These should be temporary structures—never made of stone—
  and I know many people who would argue about the number of 
  walls,” she said, “ but these are ersatz sukkot. Booths. A very old 
  and very human design.”
  “Meaning the village is a counterfeit,” Caradine said, following 
  Lex’s reasoning. “I’m beginning to have more respect for Buena’s 
  emphasis on cultural anthropology.”
  Lex said nothing, scanning the jungle around the edges of the 
  clearing for any signs of life or motion. Or metal.
  Caradine made no comment as she double checked the sensor 
  readings. Lex had no idea whether the other MechWarrior would 
  attribute her extra care to thoroughness or fear.
  Her own honesty forced her to admit it was indecision. On 
  Penance she had been forced into a fight before she’d even real-
  ized there was a threat. Now, knowing there was an enemy, she 
  found herself preoccupied with options, afraid she was overlook-
  ing something.
  There were dozens of tiny body heat signatures indicating wild-
  life in the underbrush, all under a dozen kilos in mass. None were 
  near the trail to the river. She was willing to bet a soil analysis 
  along the “beaten” path would reveal a liberal layer of poison to 
  ensure nothing spoiled the illusion of permanence.
  As sure as she could be they were alone, Lex focused on the 
  empty buildings in the middle of the clearing. All of the fronds 
  and branches making up the roofs were in the same state of de-
  cay—just as they had all been green in the recording. In a living 
  village the colors would have varied as houses were built and 
  roofs rethatched individually. And waste. There was no dump, no 
  midden, no evidence of long-term occupancy.
  But there was trash—melon husks and shells from some snail-like 
  creatures perhaps half a meter long—and what was clearly animal 
  waste. Dung deposited indiscriminately among the buildings and—
  Lex confirmed with a glance—inside at least one building as well.
  The “natives” were tool using animals, not tool makers. 
  Nonsentient river hunters who used sticks and rocks—no doubt to 
  pry out or crack open some shelled bottom dweller. Like the giant 
  snails. Otters on Terra did as much.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 6
  Presented with hand axes and spears, the creatures would carry 
  them, even use them efficiently, without having the wit to com-
  prehend they were made things. Finding food in buildings, they 
  would be content to occupy the dwellings, strolling the streets like 
  residents, for as long as the provisions lasted.
  It was doubtful the creatures they’d been calling natives were in 
  the same intellectual league as neopithecanthropus. Given what 
  little Lex had seen of the level of evolution on Despair—and the 
  condition in which they’d left the “village”—Doctor Chevalier’s no-
  ble ‘homme d’oiseaux’ probably had more in common with Terran 
  magpies than primates.
  A brief and carefully staged recording of selected scenes—par-
  ticularly when accompanied by a senior scientist’s breathless 
  testimony—could fool even an expert. Had fooled experts. But no 
  one could see the site in its entirety and mistake it for a viable 
  community.
  “Somebody figured out the hoax,” Caradine said, startling Lex 
  with how closely their thoughts had run together. “Or at least sus-
  pected enough to break the quarantine to come out and check.
  “My money’s on your gentleman friend, Doctor Severin.”
  Chevalier Base scuttlebutt network could teach ComStar a few 
  tricks, Lex reminded herself. She just hadn’t realized Caradine was 
  jacked into the net.
  More to the point, the other MechWarrior was right. If anyone had 
  come out here to investigate the village, it would have been Nick.
  Lex made a tight scan of the ground around the scout car and equip-
  ment. No metal fragments, no scraps of environmental suit. Chances 
  were good he was intact when whoever took him took him.
  She felt a flutter of hope and fear high in her chest.
  Conflicted; that’s me.
  “Nothing here changes our mission profile,” she said aloud.
  “Yes it does,” Caradine sounded surprised. “Now there are ci-
  vilian prisoners—prisoners who may be used as hostages. That 
  changes all the parameters.”
  “Our objective is the same,” Lex countered. “Find where these 
  ‘Mechs are coming from and secure the safety of Chevalier Base. 
  Rescue is tertiary.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 7
  Caradine said nothing as Lex negotiated the village.
  “Want to risk a message?” Caradine asked as they entered the 
  trees on the far side of the clearing. “Britto and Aldicott should 
  both be on the move by now.”
  Meaning in a position to countermand my bad decisions.
  Forcing down her resentment, Lex considered Caradine’s sug-
  gestion. And rejected it.
  “If they run a standard pattern along my last vector, they’ll be 
  closing on where we think the enemy base is at about the same 
  time we are,” she explained. “If they decided to cover Chevalier 
  and wait for our report, they aren’t going to be close enough to 
  make a difference.
  “Either way, there’s no need to broadcast our position. Time 
  enough to start communicating when we see the lay of the land.”
  She pushed the BattleMech, making the best speed she could 
  through the boggy terrain.
  “You have an active ECM suite,” Caradine said, reading the 
  Nightsky’s instrument panel.
  “Yes,” Lex answered shortly.
  She was certain straining forward while perched on the edge of 
  the equipment shelf in a moving BattleMech could not be remotely 
  comfortable—particularly given the strains and bruises Caradine 
  must have suffered during her escape capsule’s tumbling flight. 
  But the other MechWarrior gave no indication of distress as she 
  surveyed everything within and without the cockpit.
  “Then how come you showed up so clearly on the picket sen-
  sors?” Caradine asked.
  “I had the ECM off when I thought we were the only ‘Mechs on 
  the planet,” Lex explained. “I didn’t want to be mistaken for any-
  thing else.” 
  For a moment she left it at that, focusing on driving the ‘Mech. 
  Here the jungle and swamp vied for supremacy; the underbrush 
  was deceptive and the footing treacherous. She was hard pressed to 
  maintain their fifty kph pace while keeping an eye on the sensors.
  “And,” she said, annoyed her own nature wouldn’t let her remain 
  silent, “I didn’t think to turn it on when I saw the intruder.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 8
  Caradine said nothing.
  Lex slowly let out her breath. She’d been braced for a patroniz-
  ing pronouncement forgiving her for the tyro screw-up.
  “I also switched the counter measures off briefly when I started 
  after you,” she added. “I wanted the picket sensors to get an ac-
  curate vector.”
  “But you’ve had it on since.” 
  Lex sensed Caradine’s nod as she approved the tactic.
  “You think the Crockett can detect us?” Caradine asked.
  Lex pulled the assault ‘Mech’s profile up on an auxiliary screen.
  “There are six different sensor suites that can be fitted,” she said, 
  trusting Caradine to see the relevant data box. The rough terrain 
  left her with no hands free for pointing. “If it mounts the original 
  Scope 30, the pilot’s going to have a fair idea where we are even if 
  he can’t get a hard lock. Anything newer than Star League tech in 
  this soup and he might know we’re around, but he’ll have to rely 
  on visual to spot us.”
  “Let’s hope for new and cheap.”
  “We know they have at least one piece of lostech,” Lex said. “Or 
  maybe something new. I don’t know of anything short of a small 
  nuke that can put out an EM pulse like the one that wiped my sys-
  tems.”
  “I think I’ve figured that out,” Caradine said. “There was no EM 
  pulse.”
  Right. The Nightsky jerked slightly in response to Lex’s unin-
  tended pull on the yoke. The ‘Mechs that beat you were real, but 
  I’m still an hallucinating coward.
  “You were slaved into the Base sensor net on patrol, right? Of 
  course you were, we all were,” the other woman was saying. “Which 
  means your systems were tied into the nearest picket array.”
  “Yes.” Lex snapped the word off.
  “What if these guys needed the net to be blind along this vec-
  tor?” Caradine continued. “They couldn’t destroy the picket. Even 
  if they made it look natural, we’d just cover the area until it was 
  replaced.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 9
  Lex said nothing. She wanted to ignore Caradine, but the other 
  MechWarrior’s mouth was perhaps a hand span from her ear. Lex 
  focused on the jungle ahead, trying not to grip her controls too 
  tightly.
  “But if they could reprogram the picket’s computer to ignore spe-
  cific ‘Mechs or certain types of activity,” Caradine said, “They could 
  do what they wanted and the Base would be none the wiser.”
  “They’d have to be hardwired to the computer to do that,” Lex 
  said, annoyed she couldn’t resist pointing out the flaw in Caradine’s 
  scenario.
  “Exactly.”
  Lex resumed saying nothing.
  “So what if their programmer was hard connected to the array 
  when you linked up?” Caradine asked. “If he was accessing the 
  system, he’d know you’d spotted him—data flowed both ways. 
  But he was in a position to isolate that picket from the rest of the 
  net and, since your system was essentially slaved to the picket, 
  take you out too without you realizing.”
  Beyond the canopy Lex could see only jungle; the boggy ground 
  seemed to rise ahead of them. They were in a shallow hollow, 
  out of easy sight and passives reported no active sensor signals. 
  Taking a chance, she brought the Nightsky to a halt.
  Lifting her hands from the controls, Lex turned to face Caradine, 
  leaning away so they were at as comfortable a distance as the 
  cockpit would allow. She was glad her complexion hid the hot 
  flush of shame she felt. She couldn’t think of an artful way to apol-
  ogize for what she’d been thinking.
  “That’s a lot of ifs,” she said instead.
  “It’s only one,” Caradine countered. “What if you caught the re-
  programmer mid-operation?”
  “They sent a ‘Mech to reprogram a computer?”
  “They may have sent the ‘Mech to cover the tech doing the repro-
  gramming,” Caradine said. “Or the tech may have had an armored 
  ATV and just fed your image back to you when he saw you’d pinged 
  heavy metal.”
  Lex tried to remember the image she’d seen on her screen. Could 
  she have been fooled by her own reflection?
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 10
  “None of us were using protocols to defend against a real enemy, 
  one with tech,” Caradine said. “We were all running with our de-
  fenses down and our systems wide open because it was easier to 
  interface with the civilian net with the safeties off. Even our comm 
  was piggy-backing on their net to cut though this soup. If he was 
  good and fast, he could tie you up before you knew it.”
  Lex shook her head.
  “That still doesn’t explain the EM pulse.”
  “There was no EM pulse,” Caradine repeated. “He was hardwired 
  to the picket array. He ran an electrical charge through to fry the 
  system.”
  “That’s nonsense,” Lex answered before she thought to edit her 
  response. “Without a physical connection, there’s no way for that 
  charge to have reached my ‘Mech.”
  “But your tactical computer had a split second to see it coming,” 
  said Caradine. “Hooked to the other computer it registered the jolt 
  as an incoming EM pulse—”
  “Auto safety,” Lex cut her off, the light dawning. “It shut down to 
  protect itself.”
  “And rebooted to factory settings,” Caradine said. “Which 
  means.”
  “Any memory that hadn’t been hard saved was wiped,” Lex fin-
  ished. “And with security protocols off, the continuous back up 
  wasn’t running.”
  Another thought struck her. 
  “My comm system—”
  “Different circuit,” Caradine said. “It was still up and slaved to 
  the blind loop until you blasted the picket array.
  “It’s like that story you told on the way in,” she added. “About 
  people looking to the stars when it was really vegetables.”
  “Missing the truth because the distractor fits our expectations,” 
  Lex said, wondering how many times she was going to have to 
  relearn that lesson.
  “Right.”
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 11
  “But, safety protocols were up since then,” Lex said. “How’d you 
  get led off?”
  Caradine looked away and Lex was startled to realize the other 
  woman was embarrassed.
  “My Hatchetman doesn’t have this sophisticated Guardian,” 
  Caradine said, indicating the control panel with a nod. “I thought I 
  saw something—I did see something—and didn’t want to risk giv-
  ing away my position with radio chatter.”
  “So that was you double clicking?”
  “I figured sooner or later you’d get pissed off and come see what 
  I was up to,” Caradine said. “I just didn’t figure on you having such 
  a long fuse.”
  She went after an unknown bogie without back-up? Explains why 
  she didn’t mention my screw up.
  Straightening around, Lex set the Nightsky in motion. Following 
  their original vector, she boosted speed to make up for the min-
  utes they’d lost while she worked through her satori.
  “There’s at least one other BattleMech on the field,” she said, and 
  explained about the double laser scar along the flank of the tonner 
  cow that had flamed her. “Neither the Flashman nor the Crockett 
  mounts a close pair of medium lasers.”
  “If all their ordnance is as old school and big enough to intimi-
  date a tonner,” Caradine said. “Twin mediums means a Guillotine 
  or an Exterminator.”
  Lex nodded. A Victor was also possible, but that assault ‘Mech 
  was rare this far from Davion space—and expensive. Given the little 
  information they’d gleaned from their limited observation of the en-
  emy’s apparent resources, Caradine’s thinking mirrored her own.
  She didn’t want to meet either heavy, but if she had to, she hoped 
  it was the Guillotine; it was the larger and better armed, but it was 
  built for head to head combat on open ground. The Exterminator, 
  on the other hand, was designed for covert warfare and mount-
  ed an electronic countermeasures suite every bit as good as the 
  Nightsky’s. Plus a light polarization screen that would play hell 
  with visual spotting.
  With a seasoned pro at the controls of an Exterminator, there 
  was a good chance she’d be down before she knew what hit her.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Dragons of Despair • Page 12
  On the heels of that thought came a sensor beep.
  Heavy metal on the move, a few degrees left of their course.
  Lex cut the active sensors and throttled back. Halting the Nightsky 
  next to a towering stand of what looked remarkably like cypress, 
  Lex mentally willed the reactor to cool rapidly and reduce her ther-
  mal image as she studied the data.
  Passive sensors reported an active targeting array swept over 
  them and moved on.
  “That’s your Crockett,” Lex said. The TarHes computer had 
  already made the identification, but she’d double checked—com-
  paring the numbers with the profile.
  “On an active search pattern,” Caradine agreed, reading the pas-
  sive sensor screen. “He’s not looking for my pod. He’s hunting.
  “He knows you’re out here.”
  
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