WABS Chpt 1

Act 1 - Anger

With A Bared Sword

Chapter 1

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New Avalon Institute of Science, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Commonwealth
18 June 3052

Prince Victor Steiner-Davion was slammed against his restraints as his Victor was shaken violently by the firepower slamming into it.

It could have been worse - he had seen the salvo coming in and fired his jump jets so most of the laser fire only slashed briefly across the 'mech before the other mechwarrior lost track and wasted most of the pulses of coherent light against the buildings behind the Victor.

Victor Assault 'Mech

The autocannon tracked well though and the armor outline on one of the prince's multi-function displays outlined sections of the torso in orange, one step short of the red that would have marked an imminent armor breach. Pretty bad though.

Victor knew the 'mech shooting at him, almost as well as he did the one he was riding. He didn't know the man inside it as well as he'd thought though - he'd thought that he had time to catch the enemy offguard from behind and work the rear armor before he had to pull back into cover.

He'd been wrong - the other man had been backing up rather than advancing, which meant that he - the veteran of the Clan front - had been out thought!

That didn't stop him from bringing the Gauss Rifle in the right arm of his Victor around and slamming a shot into the heavier 'mech. It missed the back - no 'mech could have thick armor anywhere and rear armor was usually an area that had to be compromised - and skipped down the weapon pod of the right arm before slamming into the upper half of the limb.

Armor cracked under the impact but Victor knew that it wasn't enough on its own to disable the limb and the moment he landed, he had his own 'mech running for cover, risking his own rear armor as he scurried behind the shelter of more buildings.

He heard crashing sounds as the larger mech thundered through the office building on the corner, trying to cut the distance by powering through obstacles. A mistake, in the prince's not-so-humble opinion. The sheer motive power of an assault 'mech could be intoxicating, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't be slowed even beyond their normal low top speed by going through buildings.

In fact, it opened an opportunity.

Victor turned at the corner he had reached and fired everything before he ducked behind it. Every shot hit, which was what he would have expected when firing at an immobile target. Lasers, missiles and another gauss slug crashed into the lower floors of the second building on the street, a tower of glass that was certainly not rated to deal with that level of abuse.

Thirty floors of steel and glass crashed over and into the building that Victor's opponent was battering his way through. Both structures clashed and a hundred tons of war machine was buried under thousands of tons of debris.

"You son of a bitch!" the other mechwarrior shouted.

Victor laughed. "That's our mother you're talking about, Peter!"

His younger brother's frustrated shout was as much exultant and angry as the Dire Wolf forced its way free. "What a machine!" he yelled.

The elder of the pair was still retreating, he didn't want to take another battering salvo. Cut up two streets and circle around. Fighting a Clan omnimech head on was risky even if you had a 'mech of comparable mass. His Victor gave up twenty tons and this wasn't a battlefield where weight of numbers could be brought to bear.

The buildings had too much metal for magscans, there were fires spreading as the result of Peter's earlier missed shots… that meant both needed to rely on seismic sensors for anything outside of line of sight. Those didn't work well when your own 'mech was in motion, so Victor adopted the move - pause - move pace common to mechs in urban combat. It was also not very useful in cases where the target you were looking for wasn't moving - finding Peter would depend on luck as much as good tactics.

His younger brother didn't have battlefield experience, but he was a student at one of the Inner Sphere's best military academies - the same one that Victor had graduated from - and such institutions did everything they could to pass on the lessons that real bloodshed would without the same cost in human lives. It would be a mistake to underestimate the younger prince.

Victor wasn't surprised that his brother's mech wasn't on the same street he had led him onto after using the Victor's higher speed to circle around the block - the Dire Wolf wasn't as slow as to have not even reached the corner. And while playing chase me around the same route was tempting, it was possible Peter would see it coming and wait in ambush.

Or just take a different turn and get lost in the buildings. That was surprisingly easy, even with the sophisticated sensors and navigation systems of a battlemech.

Instead, Victor made it three dimensional, jumping his Victor again up onto the top of a parking garage. The heavy ferrocrete crunched under the eighty tons of battlemech, but it didn't crush. He had to wait a moment for the jump jets to replenish their tanks of air before superheating the contents so that it erupted out of the vents and hurled his 'mech up and into the air again.

His target was a towering mall that had a roof over two hundred meters above the street - higher than he would have been able to reach in a single jump. While it wasn't as heavily reinforced as the parking garage, the roof had heli-pads for the delivery of large loads by air, avoiding the traffic below. They might not be intended for something as heavy as the Victor but there was a significant margin of error built in for safety reasons and hopefully Peter wouldn't spot him up here.

Victor scanned the horizon, hoping the altitude would reveal a clue about his brother's location. If he was being careless of buildings, he might be able to find Peter just by following the trail of destruction.

The risk was being seen himself. Remembering to look up wasn't an easy lesson though, most mechwarriors were focused enough on the height of their own cockpits. If Peter hadn't internalized that yet, Victor might have a chance to get shots down. The Dire Wolf's cockpit was shielded from above by a heavy armored cowl but Victor might be able to get a shot into the damaged arm - severing that would reduce the disparity in firepower between them.

The first sign that he had underestimated his brother again was a thermal bloom from the shadows cast by a multi-level freeway. Victor tried to backpedal but it was too late.

All five of the Dire Wolf's large lasers smashed into the building below him and severed structural members. The floor gave way below the Victor and he didn't have the traction to do more than stabilize his fall with his jump jets before the sides of the hole in the building began to cave in on him.

Victor gritted his teeth as the simulator slammed him up and down, reflecting collisions with floor after floor - both those he was crashing down on and those falling on his head.

Dire Wolf Assault 'Mech

When the Victor came to rest, it was buried to the waist and as much as the Dire Wolf needed to cool off from the use of so many lasers at once, it could do so on the move. Victor was still trying to get his 'mech loose of the wreckage when the Clan omnimech loped into view.

"The boot's on the other foot now!" Peter crowed, and opened up with everything in his arsenal.

Victor just closed his eyes as his ride was blasted into smithereens by the simulated firepower of his own 'mech. When he opened them again, the simulator's displays were all blank except for the smug 'You died' report.

With a groan, the prince hit the power down control and the simulator pod leveled before lowering back into the rest position. Conscious of safety rules, Victor waited until it had done so before removing his helmet and unbuckling himself.

Peter had exited his own pod before Victor. Judging by the sweat on his arms and shoulders, the simulator had pumped hot air in to reflect the conditions inside an alpha striking Battlemech. The smirk on his face was galling but Victor decided to be the bigger man.

"Well done," he said simply, offering his hand.

His brother's smile faded slightly at the lack of reaction but he accepted the hand. "No excuses."

"A win is a win," Victor forced himself to say. "It was well done. You're learning the right things at the Nagelring."

"Thanks." And then self-control broke down. "Soon I'll be the one showing the clans what for!"

"Maybe not that soon." The ComGuards had won the Inner Sphere a fifteen year truce and while it wouldn't stop the two sides from testing each other's strength, the Federated Commonwealth wasn't ready for the sort of counterattack that would be needed to retake their lost worlds. Besides Kathy wouldn't graduate for another year and Peter was two full years behind the elder of their two sisters.

"Having fun?" a familiar voice asked and both brothers looked up, seeing their father's best friend looking down at them from a gantry above the simpods.

"Just showing Victor some moves, Uncle Ardan!" Peter boasted.

The balding Field Marshal leant on the rail. "I hope you learned a few things as well, Peter. In the future it may be you on the receiving end of Clan weapons."

"It's not the machine, it's the mechwarrior inside!" the younger man exclaimed. "Isn't that what you always said."

"For many things, yes." Ardan Sortek looked down at them and shook his head. "But the differences between our 'mechs and those your father and I fought were nothing compared to what we face today. It was a good victory and you earned it," he continued as Peter's face fell, "But I doubt we will be able to acquire another of those omnimechs, much less enough to put them on the field in enough numbers to level the playing field."

"The Dragoons can build them!"

"In small numbers," Victor told him. "And they will want to use them for their own rebuilding before they sell to outsiders. They took heavy losses on Luthien."

"Fighting for the Kuritas." His brother shook his head. "I'll see you later. I think I need a shower."

Victor laughed and mimed holding his nose. "I wasn't going to say anything."

Peter punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Thanks for letting me use a sim of your 'mech."

"You can try it for real on the firing range," he offered. Losing dad was hitting them all hard. Making allowances for Peter being a brat was… probably easier than some of the trials he'd face in the future. And not just the Clans' custom of trials by combat for everything.

His brother's face lit up and he dashed for the shower room.

Victor went up the steps onto the gantry and looked after Peter. "Was I ever that young?" Only five years separated them.

His father's champion laughed kindly and after a moment, Victor's cheeks flushed as he remembered incidents from his own time at the Nagelring, or at NAIS during his exchange year. Out of kindness, Ardan didn't bring any of those up though. "I was," he said instead. "And I think your father was too, even if I didn't see him much when he was at NAMA."

Victor nodded. The New Avalon Military Academy had been House Davion's preferred academy since the SLDF took over Albion centuries ago. Even after the fall of the Star League, it had been a matter of pride for Davions to mostly use their own academy. His father had used the school as the base from which to build the New Avalon Institute of Science, with the academy becoming the new institution's College of Military Sciences.

"It's an impressive machine," Ardan changed the subject, indicating a screen where the final moment of the training match was still on display, Peter's borrowed 'Prometheus' looming over the fallen Victor. "I have to admit, having used a Victor myself, I was rooting for you. I guess it wasn't meant to be though."

"They aren't all powerful," Victor admitted. "Keeping it running is a nightmare - we've gone through almost all the spare parts the Dragoons provided. Fortunately it doesn't use the more advanced armor and structural materials that the Clans use so we can make some substitutions but it's fortunate Hohiro let us take some salvage from Teniente or I'd have to retire Prometheus after one more battle."

"I would imagine the Clans have an easier time," the older man observed, "But logistics matters a great deal. I'm glad you learned that lesson young - your staff work preparing for the counterattack on Twycross was and not just for your age or rank. I've seen Marshals who didn't prepare as well for operations."

He ducked his head at the compliment. "I had a good team."

"So did the Marshals I mean." Ardan sighed. "Of course, there is always more to learn. That's true for all of us, your father included. Your sister also seems to understand it. Hanse was crowing about her work with Coventry and Corean when we last met."

"Oh?" Victor guessed from context that it meant Coventry Metal Works and Corean Enterprises, two of the Federated Commonwealth's most respected battlemech manufacturers - but what did Kathy have to do with them?

"Didn't she tell you? She and her class put together a working plan to standardize parts across Commando and Valkyrie production as part of the upgrade kits being sent out. In the long run it will save us billions. Even now, it's cutting hundreds of tons from supply shipments."

He blinked. "Impressive." The two designs were among the most common light 'mechs in use by the AFFC, often operating in pairs. If they could operate off common stockpiles for parts then it would be a small but significant easing of the massive logistic struggles faced by operating combat units across a realm that numbered - had numbered - a thousand star systems spread across a thousand light year axis. "She mentioned working on her dissertation."

Ardan shook his head. "That will be something new, I think. Something for her final year. Hanse was looking forward to it." He looked away awkwardly for a moment.

"Perhaps we'll find time for her to tell me about it," Victor mused, thinking about his schedule. It was, understandably, packed. There was so much to do and the one thing all the wealth of even two royal families could not buy was more time.

The old man nodded in agreement. "We'll find the time. I look forward to working with you. Hopefully I can at least ease the process of taking up your father's duties."

It was the prince's turn to look away awkwardly. Apparently, Ardan hadn't been filled in yet. "Actually…"

"Actually?" his father's best friend asked, turning a familiar jovial-but-inquisitive look towards Victor.

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