Chapter 1

No matter where you are or what you call it, somewhere not far from the front lines, you'll find a place where service men relax and indulge in beer, coffee and other forms of liquid refreshment, if any can be found. Be they House troops or mercenaries all soldiers like a beer at the end of a trying time. The company and the beer helps them to relax and unwind, to realize that they are still alive and did in fact live through the hell that is called battle.

The past 36 hours had been very trying. Our forces had been involved in a number of engagements, skirmishes and battles. (The major difference between an engagement and a battle is the number and size of the forces involved.) My crew and I had been shuttling supplies since shortly after the first shots were fired. Now all of the Mechs were back to full ordinance bays and a small reserve was on hand. We had finally been told we could stand down and relax.

Sean Casey, my gunner and I were taking that well earned breather by having a couple of brews before we sacked out. We were about ready to leave when three others joined us.

"Hey Leofa, what's this crap Whitey's been telling us about you guys taking out a Mech?" demanded one of the three. "Took it out with your J-27!"

A J-27 is an ordinance transport. While it is armored, the armor will only stand up against light infantry stuff. Even a heavy machine gun can punch through it with little trouble. It is also armed, but only with a machine gun, again good against infantry and little else.

"No, we left the '27 behind. Didn't want to get it shot up," I answered off-handedly.

"You're saying you guys took out a Mech? Just you?" he came back in disbelief.

"No, we finished it off," Casey replied with a grin. "We only get half credit."

"You're getting credit for it? Whitey wasn't bullshitting us? What happened?"

His shock was total. We were getting credit for a partial Mech kill so we had to be on the level.

Casey again answered, "We were coming back through the pass when I saw something move. Mick pulled #14 into one of those ravines so it wouldn't get shot up. He had Whitey man the turret while he and I went out to investigate. We found a Locust, found out it was the one that gave Pruitt such a hard time. That modified job? It was shot up but not out. Probably shut down from overheating and had played dead. Shot up like it was Pruitt thought it was a kill and left it."

Heat is the worst enemy of a Mech. Movement of any kind such as walking, running or jumping causes heat. Move and fire and you cause more heat. Fight a battle and heat management becomes a major problem real fast.

Special devices called heat sinks have been developed to flush heat out of the system. You could only put so many of them on a BattleMech. That great big towering machine, the most awesome weapon yet designed for battle is a delicate trade-off. This much armor versus that many weapons with those many heat sinks. Can't cool it fast enough it shuts down. But the coolest Mech around is no good if it can't fight. If it fights it needs protection so you have the trade-off.

"Anyway the pilot was trying to make some field repairs so he could limp it back and we convinced him not to. That was all."

"Oh, you caught him out in the open then?" one of them asked.

"Well no, he was in his cockpit," answered Casey.

"But he didn't have the hatch closed or anything, right?" he continued.

"No, it was closed and he was trying to start up the fusion engine," said Casey.

"Well how did you convince him to stop? I mean he was buttoned up and about to leave."

"Oh, that was easy. We got close and Mick hit him with an inferno round. That popped the heat back up and while he was doing that I was taking out heat sinks with my laser rifle. Takes several hits but up close and him not moving it was just target practice. I AM a gunner, remember!" stated Casey.

"My god, a laser rifle and an inferno launcher against a Mech! I thought Whitey was bullshitting for real."

Before they could continue with their questions Casey and I got up and left. I was too tired for much more and I didn't know any of them that well any way. Crewing on a J-27 is more a punishment detail than a volunteer job. The crews are there for a few days to a couple of weeks and then are back to their regular outfits. Casey and I had been here for two months, longer than any other crew but then we were crazy. We were actual volunteers.

The next day during a late breakfast Casey got to talking.

"You know Mick, I been thinking about that Locust. If they could modify it, why couldn't we modify #14?" #14 was our '27.

"Modify it how, Case?" I asked.

"Well they pulled the side mounted machine guns off and replaced them with medium lasers. You know some of those things are smaller and more compact than others. Weigh about the same when you take into account the ammunition but are smaller. We could stick one in the turret where our machine gun is just like they did," he replied.

"Two questions come to mind right off. Why would we want to and how would we cool it?" I questioned.

"Mick, I'm a gunner. With only that machine gun up there in the turret I feel about as exposed as the man who went to church and forgot to put on his pants. As far as cooling we could run some coolant tubes into it like some of those hover craft do."

"Sean I think you're dreaming, I'd like to have some decent weapons but I don't think we could rig a medium, not and keep it cool."

"Let me think on it a while longer," was all he said.

We reported back to our section and started checking over #14. After a continued period of rough treatment as we had just given it I wanted to make sure we weren't about to throw a track or encounter some other equally crippling malfunction. Casey and I take pride in the fact that #14 has never failed to make a delivery due to abusive treatment, lack of maintenance or improper maintenance. We spent the rest of the day going over our vehicle. I noticed that none of the other crews were there checking their vehicles, neither was Whitey.

That night after supper Sean came looking for me. "I got it figured, look." he said as he tossed me several sheets of paper. "Coolant is pumped from a large drum to the weapon. From the weapon it goes through two large radiators behind which we have fans. Final stage it goes through an air conditioning chiller unit and back into the drum. We forgot about power. Lasers are usually powered off of fusion engines which produce more power than a Mech uses anyway. With a set up like this we can power the weapon and cool it."

The more I checked over his diagram the more convinced I was that this crazy scheme would work.

"Where do we get all this stuff? You know Sgt. Mackey is not going to let us draw it from supply," I asked.

"Mick, we've been running back and forth passed the best supply store there is. We take it off the battle field. Who's going to know or even care? We take what we need. We overhaul it and install it."

"Sean let me sleep on this, I'll get back to you in the morning," was all I said.

The next morning I joined him for breakfast. "When we finish here we need to do a short shake down on #14. I'm still not satisfied with that left track."

Sean picked up on what I was saying immediately. "And I suppose you want me to load the big tool box on just in case we throw the blasted thing, also," he answered in a disgusted tone.

"Not only that, I want you to off load the missile racks also. We aren't taking the trailer, there's no problem with it. Just the tractor," I replied. I could see other crews nearby shaking their heads at us. Now there would be no questions from them when we left.

When we got to the vehicle yard something new had been added to #14. As we stood admiring it Sgt Mackey, the Transporter Section chief, joined us.

"It's official so I had them paint it on. Strange to see one of those on a '27," he said.

There was half of a Mech kill flag painted on each door of #14. It was now a warrior machine.

We unhitched the trailer and using the loading derrick off loaded the missile racks. We then pulled forward and loaded on and lashed down the large tool box. With a wave to the others we slowly pulled out of the yard and headed out towards the recent battle.

As we entered the area of the pass it was obvious that much work had gone on out here as many of the shot up Mechs were no longer present. Most of the vehicles were still here though. The Snakes had laid down an artillery barrage that had taken out several vehicles that normally would have been left alone, a MASH unit, several scout vehicles and a couple of coolant vehicles. Coolant vehicles were considered a prize and were rarely fired on except when they were shooting at something else and the coolant vehicle got in the way or like these, in an area artillery barrage.

We started by checking over the coolant vehicles. Two of them were hover craft with the pumps, tanks and hoses attached. We found two of the small recirculating pumps which appeared to be functional. These were used not only to keep the coolant moving but to keep the tanks cold. We removed one of the Hover fan nacelles, the high speed motor moved lots of air. Off of one of the other vehicles we found a large capacity heavy duty radiator that would suit our purposes as well as a large, heavy duty generator. From the MASH unit we pulled the air conditioner. Finally from 'our' Locust we removed one of the side mount lasers. It was an Argra 3L, small and compact. We even removed the targeting computer as the range of the medium was three times what we were accustomed to firing with only the machine gun.

Just to be on the safe side we removed a lot of other small stuff that any maintenance man was always needing. All the way back Sean was like a kid just waiting to play with his new toys. There was an empty storage shed that Sean knew about for unloading his treasures. We off loaded all this and a few other goodies that we had picked up. Sean stayed there to start checking out our acquisitions while I took #14 back to the yard. I stopped off first at the vehicle repair facility to drop off the other parts that we had picked up. This would explain what we had in the rear of the tractor if any one asked, if nothing else it was parts that they could use to repair our own vehicles. Vehicles got parts and supplies after the Mech boys got what they needed or thought they needed. I told them that I had 'found' them and they just grinned and asked no questions.

Two days later everything had been checked over and we were ready to make the switch. Another two days and we had the laser installed. It was easier to use the derrick on the J-27 to lift off the turret and then pull the machine gun and replace the laser from the top. I don't know where he had acquired the skills but Casey was amazing. It appeared to work. It tracked like it should. We didn't fire it but the targeting computer seemed to work. A flick of a switch and the two power generators and the fan started up, just like it was supposed to do. Now we had to test it.

Outside appearances of #14 had not really changed that much. It now looked like we had a cooling shroud on the barrel of the machine gun. The coolant etc, we had covered with some sheet metal that we painted to match and made us

Chapter 2 »