BattleCorps

ARCADIA:
MORNINGSTAR
Jason Schmetzer
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

Summerville
Arcadia
Lyran Alliance
10 September 3068

Scarlet laser fire chased the Jenner back to the Arcadian lines.
Jasper Stark moved his Enforcer closer to the edge of the boulders,
in case Reeves needed support as he broke into the scrub where
the rest of the lance waited. Richard’s Wolfhound moved up be-
side him, the long arm of its extended range laser leveled.
“In case it’s too far for you,” he beamed to Jasper. He almost
heard the chuckle in the other MechWarrior’s voice. The Enforcer
carried a laser of similar power, but its range was a about a hun-
dred meters less.
“Knock off the games,” Hauptmann Porter said. His Merlin was
on a rise behind them. Smoke whispered from the warm launch
tubes of his LRM-5. He’d been covering the Jenner’s retreat.
“One lance,” Reeves said. His Jenner cut through a break in the
rocks and stopped within thirty meters of Jasper’s Enforcer. “The
heaviest is an Anvil.” The Jenner hunched down. If it had been a
man Jasper would have said it was trying to catch its breath, but
he knew Reeves was letting the ’Mech’s myomers relax, trying
to bleed off more waste heat. It was hot outside of Summerville
without the lake to keep things cool.
“And the rest?” Richard asked. His arm-mounted laser tracked
slowly across the field. An icon on Jasper’s heads-up display
flashed orange—probably hostile, but unconfirmed without a line
of sight.
“Two Snakes,” Reeves said. “And something smaller, I didn’t get
a good look at it.” The Jenner straightened and turned to face the
enemy. “What now?”
The Merlin strode down from its rise. “Now we go show them
why they’re not welcome on our world.” The sixty-ton BattleMech
stepped clear of the boulders and waited. Jasper stepped his
Enforcer out to flank the heavy ’Mech. He saw Richard and Reeves
move out behind them, ready to fling their lighter, faster ’Mechs at
any targets of opportunity.
Kelley and the girls smiled at him from the 2D picture taped to
his command console. The photo had been taken six months ago
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

during a furlough to the Straits. The beaches there were almost

transparent, like walking on quartz instead of sand. Jasper reached
out and stroked the picture, running his gloved fingers across his
daughters’ dimples.
“I love you,” he whispered…
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

Ten Hours Earlier

Jasper glanced over to see if the hauptmann was looking be-

fore he picked up the communicator again. Kelley’s shrill voice still
spewed from the small earpiece. He held it to his ear and winced.
“Listen,” he said, interrupting her tirade. “I can’t talk now. Take
the kids to your mother’s, and don’t stop for anything.” He pulled
the communicator far enough away to see the tiny microphone,
wishing it were a flatscreen so he could see her face. “I love you,”
he said, and disconnected.
“Stark!” Hauptmann Porter said. “Let’s go.” He waved him to-
ward the laager. Jasper’s lancemate Hal Reeves fell in beside him
as they trotted toward the waiting ’Mechs.
“Kelley again?” Reeves asked.
“You’d think after this long she’d know what it’s like to be mar-
ried to a MechWarrior,” Jasper said. He forced himself to smile. “I
guess not.”
Reeves looked at him. “She worries, pal.” He squeezed Jasper’s
shoulder. “She’s allowed to.”
A rumbling crash fell across the field. Everyone stopped moving
and looked up. Porter began bellowing immediately, but no one
heeded him.
Stars appeared in the twilight sky, bright streaks that crossed
the dusky blue expanse, trailing gray smoke. Jasper shivered, re-
membering the last time he’d seen DropShips coming in. It had
been years, but the Mariks were back again. That time it had been
to rescue the Captain-General’s sister’s ’Mech unit.
This time they came to conquer.
“Let’s go,” Reeves said. He pointed to the shallow depression
where their ’Mechs were parked. The wide snout of Reeves’ Jenner
poked over the ground. Behind them, Jasper barely heard the bull-
horn of the maglev as it pulled away from the base. It was carrying
the families—Kelley—to shelters in Summerville.
“Godspeed,” Jasper whispered.
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

Summerville
Arcadia
Lyran Alliance
10 September 3068

The Snakes came first, the twin ’Mechs painted a garish orange
and charging straight at the Arcadian lance. Porter growled across
the airwaves. “Easy meat, boys,” he said, and fired.
The Merlin’s PPC took the right-hand Snake high in the shoulder.
The whorl-spun blast ripped most of the armor from the medi-
um ’Mech’s left arm. It staggered, shedding plates like lice before
straightening. It had fallen a dozen meters behind the other Snake.
“That’s showing them,” Reeves called. Richard made a noncom-
mittal noise and stepped left. The Wolfhound’s extended-range
large laser took the same Snake on the right shin, but the ’Mech
kept coming.
“These aren’t Mariks,” Porter said. He started his Merlin at a
walk to the left, trying to throw off the Snakes’ aim. Both enemy
BattleMechs targeted him with their cannons. The Merlin rocked
under the impact of a dozen submunitions, but didn’t go down.
Jasper kept one eye on his HUD’s range counter. Both of his weap-
ons maxed at 450 meters… the Snakes were passing 470. He brought
the Enforcer’s arms up, targeting the already-damaged ’Mech. 460.
455.
His finger tightened on his left-hand trigger almost without con-
scious thought. The large laser that replaced the Enforcer’s left
hand flickered briefly, flashing a scarlet pulse of light at the orange
Snake. A puff of smoke and an angry red weal on the ’Mech’s torso
armor were reward enough. He shouted in triumph and brought
his other arm into play.
The Snakes broke apart, one going left, the other right. Behind
them a smaller ’Mech charged forward. It was a slender ’Mech, but
moving at speed, and a massive barrel protruded from its body.
“Shit,” Reeves said. “That’s a Talon, boys.”
Jasper shifted his aim and took up the slack on his trigger. His
eyes flicked to the range. Still a little over 600 meters. Much too far
for his Federated autocannon.
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

But not for the Talon.

The Enforcer rocked as the light ’Mech blasted him with its PPC.
Jasper’s displays skittered into static for an instant, shaken by the
electrical discharge of the PPC strike. When they reformed, the
schematic showed more than half a ton of armor stripped from
his left arm.
“Keep steady,” Porter said. He tracked back and right, keeping in
a rough line with the rest of the lance. “And get moving!”
Jasper jerked his yoke to the side and darted the Enforcer right.
Richard kept with him, his Wolfhound staying in Jasper’s shad-
ow. The red flare of his laser brushed past Jasper’s cockpit as he
sniped at the enemy ’Mechs. Reeves darted forward, staying with
Porter and the slower Merlin.
“Watch for the Anvil,” Porter said. “Concentrate fire where you
can. If we can bring one or two of these buggers down, maybe
they’ll back off.”
Pain in his mouth made Jasper stop grinding his teeth. The Talon
bent around and moved toward the Merlin, leaving the damaged
Snake to Jasper and Richard. The Wolfhound burst forward, leaving
the slower Enforcer behind. Jasper grinned, recognizing the tactic.
If they could make the Snake split its fire, so much the better.
He vented his frustration with the Talon on the damaged Snake.
Orange-painted armor shards fell like rain as Jasper’s autocannon
slammed round after round into the left side of its torso. Richard’s
laser punched at the thicker armor over the Snake’s center, but
didn’t penetrate.
Jasper released his left joystick and keyed a quick query into his
computer. Schematics for the Snake popped into the lower-left
quadrant of his HUD. He searched the display, looking for one nug-
get of information. He found it.
“Go for the torso,” he sent to Richard. “It’s got an extralight
engine. If we can knock out enough side armor, we’ve got him.”
Taking up the controls once more, he bent the Enforcer’s right arm
around and snapped a shot off with his large laser. He missed.
The Wolfhound stumbled as the Snake caught him with a burst of
cannon fire. Richard cursed over the frequency as Jasper watched
the ’Mech hobble to cover. One of the slivers of dense metal had
penetrated the thin armor over the Wolfhound’s knee, robbing it
of some speed.
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

“Soon I’ll be as slow as you,” Richard said. He twisted the

Wolfhound at the waist and snap-fired his large laser. The bolt
took the Snake high in the torso again.
If Jasper had been driving the Snake, he’d be staring at the dam-
age schematics and considering his options. One or two more
hits from any of the Enforcer’s or Wolfhound’s weapons would be
enough to damp his fusion engine. Jasper wouldn’t want to face
two-to-one odds with an exposed reactor.
Neither did the Snake’s MechWarrior. He jolted the ’Mech to a
halt and began backtracking. Jasper chuckled and pushed the
Enforcer into a trot, trying to pace the other ’Mech.
“Stark,” Richard said. “Wrong way.” The Wolfhound pointed.
Porter had gotten the worse of the exchange. The Snake on
his side of the field had kept its distance, chewing at the heavy
BattleMech’s armor with its cannon. The Talon was still running,
stabbing its particle cannon into the mix whenever its mount faced
the Arcadian ’Mechs.
The Anvil had gone toward the largest ’Mech. As Jasper watched,
the heavy enemy machine ignored Reeves’ medium laser attack
and struck at the Merlin with both large pulse lasers thrusting
over its shoulders. Porter’s machine twisted beneath the barrage
of green laser pricks, finally falling to one knee beneath the on-
slaught of light.
“Best speed,” Jasper said, turning away from the stricken Snake.
“Use what you have left, Richard.”
“Get out of the way,” the other MechWarrior said. Even hobbled,
the Wolfhound was faster than the Enforcer. Richard passed Jasper
at the run, his laser already tracking.
“The Snake is the killer,” Porter said. His voice was strained.
Jasper watched the Merlin rise, shaking. It fired its own PPC at
the fast-moving Talon when the light ’Mech strayed too close. The
iridescence was duller than the Talon’s own weapon, but the dam-
age the same. The light ’Mech retreated with the armor over its
right thigh sparkling and shattered. “I’ve got the armor for the
Anvil, but that blasted cannon is picking me apart.”
Jasper adjusted his course around a small copse of trees and
then inched the throttle to its stops. The other Snake, the less
damaged one, twisted away from a flank-speed assault by Reeves
in his Jenner. The Arcadian had risked exposing himself to the
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

enemy machine and its deadly Streak short-range missiles, but

no fat-bodied SRMs followed him away. His lasers worried at the
armor over the Snake’s right arm.
“Get out of there,” Jasper called. He clutched his controls, firing.
His laser cored the armor over the Snake’s right leg, but his cannon
fusillade nearly missed, barely catching the crook of the Snake’s
left arm. Jasper swore. Nothing had hit the medium BattleMech’s
torso.
But now he had the MechWarrior’s attention.
Still running as fast as the Enforcer’s legs would carry him,
Jasper heard the clunk of the autocannon reloading and brought
his ’Mech’s right shoulder down. He leaned the fifty-ton ’Mech to
the right, trying to make the Snake’s pilot work at his aiming.
Richard, a hundred meters closer, fired all of his front-facing
weapons. The Wolfhound’s large laser missed, spending its fury
on the scrub between the Snake’s legs. The three torso-mounted
medium lasers probed at the armor over the Snake’s center tor-
so, right arm, and left leg, but didn’t penetrate. The Wolfhound
slowed even more as the barrage littered the ’Mech’s insides with
waste heat.
“Watch out, damn it!” Porter shouted.
The Talon appeared out of the backfield and caromed into
Richard’s Wolfhound. The ’Mechs were evenly matched in mass,
but the Talon was moving more than twice as fast as the slowed
Wolfhound. Richard’s ’Mech crashed to the ground and slid ten me-
ters across the landscape. The Wolfhound’s left arm snapped off
at the elbow, taking that and the hand and wrist with it. The Talon
staggered, but didn’t fall, and continued its charge past Jasper’s
position. The two lasers it beamed at him missed, but shook him
out of his surprise.
“Richard!” he shouted. The Enforcer felt sluggish, still dealing
with the small amount of heat gained during the last few seconds.
He couldn’t get near the fallen Wolfhound before it shuddered and
began to climb to its feet.
“At least it missed the important arm,” Richard muttered. There
was pain in his voice, but he turned the Wolfhound toward the
enemy, and away from home.
“You three hit the Snake again,” Porter ordered. “I’ve got the
Anvil.”
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 

The Merlin staggered into a trot toward the Anvil, the heavy
mercenary ’Mech twisting away from Porter. The hauptmann
fired his lasers, each medium beam cutting deeply into the armor
over the Anvil’s right arm. The Merlin’s machine gun chattered,
but Jasper saw the bullets kick up dust instead of sparking off of
armor. The Anvil twisted around, trying to bring its large pulse
lasers to bear.
Porter fired his PPC.
The high-energy ions hammered the armor over the Anvil’s left
knee. The force of the impact slammed the joint straight in mid-
stride. The heavy ’Mech’s toe caught when the leg came down
and flipped the Anvil to the ground with a crash. The pair of large
pulse laser shots flickered harmlessly into the sky.
“Nice shooting!” Jasper called. He tracked the Snake as it ran
across the field, toward where its brother ’Mech had retreated.
Taking half a breath to steady his hands, he squeezed his right trig-
ger. The Federated autocannon boomed, pounding slug after slug
into the weakened armor over the Snake’s right chest. His laser
stabbed at what was left of the armor on the Snake’s right arm.
Richard’s laser cut into the armor Jasper’s cannon had just muti-
lated. The beam lanced deep into the Snake’s interior, and Jasper
was rewarded with a beep from his scanners. A section of his HUD
switched to infrared to show him a new blossom of waste heat.
Richard had tagged the Snake’s reactor shielding.
Reeves chased the Talon. He was staying close enough that the
speedier ’Mech couldn’t get its PPC to bear while Reeves fired his
lasers as fast as they could cycle. The Talon shed armor from its
arms and, most threateningly, its rear torso. It finally retreated af-
ter the first Snake, with the second Snake limping after both.
The Anvil had climbed to its feet and smashed Porter to the
ground with another barrage of light. Jasper and Richard turned
toward the heavy ’Mech. It turned away from the struggling
Merlin as soon as Jasper washed his targeting scanners across it.
It paused, as if taking stock of the field.
It ignored the Merlin and fled.
“Let ‘em go,” Porter said. He brought the Merlin to its feet and
faced the dwindling ’Mechs. Richard limped up to stand beside
him. Reeves moved slowly back, letting the Jenner sink its waste
heat. Jasper stood still, a hundred meters or so from the Merlin.
BattleCorps Morningstar • Page 10

His chest was heaving as he gasped for breath he hadn’t realized

he was short of.
“Back to the barn,” Porter said. “As soon as I report.” The Merlin
was still for several moments. It was only because Jasper was
watching the skyline past the heavy ’Mech’s shoulder that he saw
the Merlin shudder.
“Hauptmann?” he asked.
“Jasper,” Porter said. Jasper looked at his console in surprise.
The hauptmann was on a secure channel. “Was your wife on the
maglev?” The officer’s voice was hard, emotionless.
“Kelley,” Jasper said. “And the kids. They got out last night.”
Porter’s voice broke. “My Isobel, as well,” he said. “Jasper, they
hit the maglev.”
Jasper swallowed. He looked at the photo taped to this console.
He swallowed again. His HUD was clear of red icons; the merce-
naries had escaped.
“What’s the word, sir?” Reeves asked. Jasper heard the words
but didn’t listen as Porter told the rest of the lance. Another signal
burned to life on Jasper’s console.
“Jas,” Reeves said. “Maybe they missed it. Maybe it’s a mistake.”
The Jenner took two steps closer to the Enforcer, but no more.
“Jasper. Are you listening to me?”
Kelley and the girls smiled at him from his console. Jasper
squeezed his eyes shut, ignoring the tears that watered his cheeks.
He breathed.
“I hear you,” he said. The Enforcer started back toward the base,
leaving the torn, littered battlefield behind.