Bad Moon Rising (Tall Tales)

=Bad Moon Rising- By JA Baker=
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You ask the average person on the street about Mercenaries, and the chances are they'll think of one of the more famous units: the Light Horse, the Dragoons, the Hounds or the Highlanders. And that's what centuries of books and TriVids have told the great unwashed the average Merc is.
But let me throw a few numbers at you.
40% of all Mercenary units are destroyed or dissolved within their first six mothers of operation, and 60% of those who survive will never make it past their first year. So, out of every 100 units founded, only 36, little over a third, will see their second year. Some will be destroyed on the battlefield, absorbed by larger units, become House units after falling into the trap of Company Stores, or otherwise fail to secure a well paying enough contract to pay the bills. And while I've never commanded more than a Lance, I can tell you that the paperwork even a company of BattleMechs and their attendant support staff can generate could crush an Atlas. Wages have to be paid, so do taxes, rent, food bills, insurance and JumpShip fees. Ammunition and spare parts have to be sourced, along with people to run maintenance, as even without seeing combat, the average BattleMech can need upwards of 60-hours of maintenance per week. More if it's a particularly old or troublesome model. The average mercenary commander is less Jamie Wolf and more a stressed-out cubicle drone up to their eyeballs in spreadsheets and invoices.
Just one bad job, one mission where you rolled snake-eyes, and you can find your whole world spiraling out of control.
So, when someone offers you a nice, fat contact to play hired muscle for some Lord with more money than sense, it's not surprising that the 'average' mercenary would be on it like a drowning man reaching for a life-vest. That's what happened to the unit I was with, and forgive me if I don't mention any names, as some of the people involved have deep pockets and no qualms about silencing someone they seam to have dishonored them or their families.
We were in the Draconis Combine, not long after ComStar took the Clans out to the proverbial woodshed for an arse whooping on Tukayyid. Our unit, two companies of 'Mech and a third company of mixed armor and infantry for support, had been assaulted by the Smoke Jaguars after our previous CO had thought it a great idea to take a job on Wolcott, and led us into a woodchipper of a battle on a subcontracted raid. He at least had the good crace to get his head blown off, leaving the XO to pull the survivors out of the fire and back to the DropShip. All in, we lost an entire company of 'Mecha, destroyed or so badly damaged that they were little more than walking scrap, but that was nothing compared to the physiological impact of being tossed around like toys in the hands of children throwing a temper tantrums.
We'd been little more than a live-fire exercise for the Jaguars, and that left us with an unfortunate desire to make someone, anyone, hurt like we'd been.
That led us to taking a job with the Lord of a planet, neither of which will be, for reasons already stated, named. He effectively wanted a little extra weight to throw around, but his official bodyguard unit had been stripped away to replace losses on the front lines. So, despite the Combines longstanding hatred of Mercenaries, he went looking for some hired muscle. We were apparently big enough to look impressive before the hoi-polloi, and desperate enough to get our hands dirty if he ordered it, and after what we'd been through, we were more than willing to take his money just so he could act like he had a big swinging dick. And the going was pretty good for the first year or so: some people find garrison duty far from the front lines dull, but those people have seldom gone up against the Smoke Jaguars. We took the opportunity to rest up, repair and refit our surviving 'Mechs and vehicles, and replace losses both material and personnel wise. Not that we were sat on our arses the entire time, mind, as our new benefactor liked to show us off like a prize hunting dog, having us form an honor guard every time anyone of any importance popped-by.
But, see, the Little Lord didn't actually control the entire planet.
That's not exactly unheard of across the Inner Sphere: lot of planets are home to land-holds and grants that are both technically and legally outside of the planetary rulers domain. Sometimes they're held by a prestigious Mercenary unit or some highly decorated old warrior. Others are the private fiefdom of some business interest or another. All that matters is that there was about 20% of the planet that was outside of his control, and that vexed him. And looking at it as an outsider, I could understand why, as the land in question was some prime real estate, with plenty of natural resources going untapped. Certainly would have boosted his yearly income an noticeable amount.
But the problem was, getting control of that extra bit of land was easier said than done.
See, back during the diaspora, the first people to settle the planet in question had been a lose coalition of peoples whose ancestors had this long history of being kicked off the land they lived on by other people. But humanities exodus to the stars would, they hoped, finally give them a place to call their own that nobody would take from them. And when they found themselves part of the newly formed Draconis Combine, they'd petitioned Shiro Kurita himself to try and protect their claim. So he'd sent people to survey the planet, and they came back and said that the people living there were only using 20% of its available land. And so, in a very un-Kurita like decision, Old Shiro decreed that the land they were currently using was their in perpetuity, and signed an official treaty to that effect and everything. Given that this was signed by the very founder of the Combine, no Coordinator since has felt the need to counter-act it. After all, 80% of a planet is still an awful lot of land.
Now of cause there are ways around annoying little things like laws and treaties, often bloody ways, but the Planets HPG happened to be located within that 20%, so simply 'disappearing' the people wasn't an option. Nor was making them sign over the rights with a gun to their heads, as the planets HPG station was in the all-important 20%, and they were watching. The Lord tried to get them to move closer to his estate, but they fed him some obvious BS about geophysics and stellar alignment, so that was a no-go. What that left us with was essentially acting like massive dicks in the hopes that they'd eventually get the message and sign over the land for about a quarter of what it was worth on the open market, which was what all our esteemed employer was willing to pay.
"So," I hear you ask, "how exactly does one go about convincing a people with the law and government on their side to sign over their ancestral land for a fraction of what it's worth?"
Well, I'd be lying if I said I'm glad you asked, because I'm not exactly proud of what we had to do.
See, despite the land being under their domain, planetary defense was still the prerogative of the DCMS, and with most of them up on the Clan boarder, that meant that it was a certain understrength mercenary unit who got the job. As such, we had the right to perform security patrols and conduct training exercises with the local militia wherever and whenever we wanted. And when your boss tells you to take all of your BattleMechs and tanks and APC's and conduct a mock attack across some farm land that just so happens to be just days away from harvest... you take all of your BattleMechs and tanks and APC's and go ruin some poor bastards entire years work. Then you conduct a week-long live-fire training exercise that cuts off the only access to a town, leaving them dangerously short on supplies. And then you do a couple of dozen other things to make life as difficult as you possibly can for the people you're trying to influence, all while making sure that you're just inside the letter of the law.
ComStar can watch. They can give you dirty looks. But ComStar can't bring it up with the MRCB as you're only fulfilling your contract.
Perfectly legal and completely immoral, so perfect for "mercenaries", so far as the Combine is concerned.
Well, after about a year of trying to act like the biggest bunch of jerks outside of the Clans, and we'd gotten exactly nowhere. Which wasn't exactly making our employer happy, and it's a universal constant that shit rolls down hill. So he starts to make our lives difficult: pay started arriving late or in less than the agreed upon amounts. Again, all done within the terms of our contract, if you actually go read the fine print. Then supplies are delayed, support staff reassigned, lines of credit with local businesses cut short. All designed to make it clear that he was not happy with our apparent lack of progress in getting him his land. And desperate as we were, we knuckled down and redoubled our efforts, a few members of the unit getting dangerously close to crossing the line and giving ComStar grounds to call in the MRCB.
I'd like to state, for the record, that I personally never did anything illegal. Just so we're clear.
So we step up our nuisance operations: run security sweeps and customs inspections where none were needed, churn up some more farm land with our 'Mecha and vehicles, generally act like the house guests from hell. And they just sit there and take it. I guess that, after all their various ancestors had been through, people sticking to the letter of the law like us were exactly what I said, a nuisance.
Then the inevitable happened: a couple of our ground-pounders got a little out of hand, some locals objected, and when the dust settled, we had twenty locals dead, twice that in the hospital, and ComStar crawling up our arses. The CO did the only thing she could, and cut those responsible loose, let the local law enforcement deal with them. Didn't have to: our contract gave us means, immunity and jurisdiction, and our employer was more than willing to sign off on what happened being the result of local criminals trying to interfere with legitimate operations. Only thing is, the MRCB isn't stupid, and ComStar had all the evidence they'd need to have us stripped of our accreditation. That happens, and you've got a choice between signing a on with someone looking for a unit willing to do whatever's asked of them, or head out into the Periphery and see how things work out for you there.
Neither of those appealed to us, so cops got their pound of flesh.
But now it was personal: Regardless of the circumstances, the locals had cost us some of our own, and our blood was up. Some of us tried to keep a level head on our shoulders, but it's all too easy to get drawn into pushing back. So we stopped playing nice, stopped actively stopped trying to cause collateral damage and instead set about inflicting as much as possible. And it's really easy to cause damage, even in the lightest of BattleMechs, given how easy it can be to "accidentally" step on or knock over a car, or even a house. Oh, sure, there's insurance for that sort of thing, but it can take a long time for the paperwork to go through.
Unfortunately, we weren't making many friends among the locals, even those who didn't live on the all-important 20%. Word gets around when you have a reputation for trashing peoples places, and soon some local businesses stopped wanting to have anything to do with us. Bars stopped serving us, shops closed or jacked up their prices when they saw us coming, people crossed to the other side of the road rather than pass you on the street. You can start to feel real lonely real quick, times like that.
It was pretty clear that things were getting close to boiling over, so there was a understandable amount of relief when one of the local leaders called for a sit-down meeting. ComStar provided us with a neutral location, and we acted as "escorts" for the Lords representatives. Thankfully, things started off okay: about twenty or so people, all sat around a table, talking. The locals made it clear that, after thousands of years of being pushed off their various ancestral lands, they weren't going to be moved on again, while the boss' rep makes it clear that he wanted access to the mineral wealth they were sitting on.
And this was when things got.. weird.
One of the locals leans back in his chair, closes his eyes and says something in a language that nobody on our side of the table understands, but silenced everyone on his side. And not just silenced: some of them looked damn right worried at whatever he said, like he'd just admitted to farting in the Coordinators face or something. Then, without opening his eyes, he starts to spin this yarn about how humanity wasn't the only thing to leave Terra during the diaspora. Other things, ancient, nameless things, had followed them to the stars. One such thing was on that planet, and it was only by keeping out of its way that the people were able to live in peace. But if the Lord got his way, there'd be a price to pay.
Now, I've been from one side of the Inner Sphere to the other, and I've seen some truly crazy shit on planets that you wouldn't see anywhere else, but I had never seen anything remotely like what he talked about.
Anyways, it soon became clear that we weren't going to be coming to an agreement any time soon, so we called it quits for the night. As we're getting ready to leave, one of the locals came up to me and, in hushed tones, warned me against taking the same route back that night: said something cryptic about a Bad Moon Rising. I thanked her for her advice, assuming that some of the less patient locals were planning a little ambush. Well, we had a lance of BattleMechs and a company of tanks and IFV'S, when all the locals had was civilian vehicles and small-arms. Certainly not a fair fight, even if they'd had the element of surprise on their side.
I spread the word to keep eyes open and weapons hot as we started back to base, passing through a wide, forested pass between the HPG station and the Lords palace. It was a beautiful landscape, but the locals seemed to avoid it at night, preferring to take longer routes through the mountains than the more direct highway. Fortunately, it was massively reinforced to support even BattleMechs on the march, so I had the two Wolfhounds out front, my Centurion in the middle with the representatives limo, and our Valkyrie bringing up the rear, with the vehicles spread out around the VIP.
Everything was going smooth as silk until we were about halfway through the pass, and I even I was starting to think that we were on a Snipe Hunt, when the wind suddenly picked up, thick clouds rolling in out of nowhere to blot out what little natural light there was. Not that it meant much, as I could easily switch over to inferred, night instantly turning into a mass of blue, red and orange. I warned everyone to keep sharp, but the wind was starting to pick up to the point where I had to really start concentrating on keeping myself upright. Last thing I needed was to fall over and crush the people I was supposed to be protecting, so against my better judgement, I gave the order to spread out a little more, giving everyone more room to maneuver.
We kept on moving through the pass, our pace reduced to a near crawl as we struggled with the wind that seemed to be coming from every direction, making it increasingly hard to keep balanced. I was actually glad that we hadn't brought any of the bigger 'Mech, as despite their increased tonnage, they tended to be even more susceptible to high winds due to their increased cross-section. The radio was filled with chatter about the wind, how it was stirring up dust and debris to the point where it was hard to see two meters in front. Even by combining night-vision, inferred and magnascan, I felt link a drunk stumbling around in the dark.
Then my Centurion lurched forward suddenly, almost as if I'd taken a hit to the left shoulder. I quickly compensated, cursing the fool who'd chosen the rout without first checking the weather forecast, even if it was, you know, me. Then one of the tanks reported being knocked almost back to front by something that felt and sounded more like being kicked by an Atlas than the wind. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, and you don't last long as a mercenary without developing good survival instincts. And right then and there, they were screaming at me to get the hell out of there. But it wasn't like I could just leave the Bosses rep sitting there all alone, so I swallowed down the bile that was starting to rise up my throat and ordered the convoy to pull over and hunker down, deciding it was safer to sit out the storm than to try and risk pushing forwards. The others happily agreed, the tanks and IFV's forming a close circle around the limo, packed in tight enough to provide mutual support against the wind. Us 'Mech Jocks had to settle for crouching down in a small drainage ditch that provided at least some protection from the elements.
I don't know if you've been alone in a confined space during a storm, but it isn't as much fan as you may think. Most BattleMechs are designed for function over form, with only a passing thought towards pilot comfort. As my old Centurion had seen more that her fair share of action down the years, so what creature comforts there had been were long gone. All I could do was grab a can of self-heating coffee and try to keep warm. Not that the storm seemed willing to help, as if anything, it seemed to be getting worse, having gotten to the point where we couldn't even pick up the steady pulse of the navigation beacon from the HPG station, the wind was kicking up so much static interference. Which was odd, because I couldn't see any rain, let alone lighting, and it takes a hell of a lot to drown out a beacon that's traceable from high orbit.
But that wind though, it just kept getting worse and worse and worse, unlike anything I've ever seen. Even crouched down with the left arm out to support me, my Centurion was getting pushed around like you wouldn't believe. Hell, I've done combat drops into a contested LZ that were less bumpy. And there was something about how it seemed to be coming from every direction at once, almost as if we were inside a tornado. Only we were in the wrong part of the planet for those, which is one of the reasons why the HPG had been built so close by.
Then it happened: a voice over the radio, screaming that someone was trying to open the hatch on their tank. That set everyone off, snapping us out of the semi-relaxed state we'd allowed ourselves to drift into. Seasons and weapons went active, searching for any signs of hostiles, but absolutely nothing could be seen. Yet even over the noise of the wind and the interference, I could hear the sound of the hatch unlocking then being ripped open, followed by the high pitch whine of a discharging laser pistol and the terrified screams of someone staring death in the face. Confused voiced filled the radio, asking if anyone knew what had happened while I tried desperately to identify which of our tanks had been attacked.
Any ideas I had about rallying the others to form a coherent defense ended when my Centurion was lifted up into the air and sent flying across the road and into the trees beyond. It landed exactly like you'd expect 50-tons of metal and myomer to, which is to say, badly. Despite my head ringing like a bell on Christmas morning, I managed to get it up into a seated position in time to see the Valkyrie open up, sending 10 LRM's corkscrewing off in almost every direction. One flew over my right shoulder, only just missing my cockpit, and exploded upon hitting something behind me.
That was the signal for all hell to break lose, with people firing seemingly at random.
I don't know if you've ever seen a unit simply loose their collective shit, but let me tell you, it ain't pretty. Weeks of pent-up stress and strain let go like a coiled spring, filling the night with smoke and flame. Nobody was aiming, not really, and I saw more than a little friendly fire, even as I struggled to get my com system back up and running. Then I saw a Packrat get picked up as if by some invisible hand and slammed down hard on top of a SRM Carrier. The explosion went on and on and on as the missiles cooked-off like firecrackers, leaving no hope of survivors. One of the Wolfhounds stumbled through the explosion, arms flailing as if its pilot was trying to fight against something they couldn't see. Whatever it was ripped the cockpit open, the flash of the pilots discharging sidearm clearly visible six times, followed by a seventh as they appear to take their own life.
Now, in the years since, a lot of what I remember about that night has been put down to the concussion I'd suffered when my 'Mech went down, but despite what they try and tell me, I know what I saw. I saw battle hardened mercenaries, people I had seen hold open the jaws of death to escape a trap set by the Smoke Jaguars, people who'd long ago accepted that they weren't going to see old age, fight like cornered rats against an enemy they couldn't see. A few tried to pull a fighting retreat, backing up the highway, putting down covering fire, only to be pulled apart one by one, their dying screams echoing across the radio.
I don't remember passing out; I think that's kind of the point, but I do remember being pulled from the wreck of my Centurion a little after dawn the next day. The rescue team was entirely made up of locals, led by the woman who'd tried to warn me against taking the highway the night before. The trail of carnage was spread out across almost two kilometers, with the bunt-out, broken wrecks of the escort strewn seemingly at random. The only vehicle missing had been the limo carrying the representative, which had taken off like a rat out of a trap soon as the shooting started, not stopping before it reached the apparent safety of the HPG station.
They were the only other survivors.
Accusations flew back and forth between us, our employer and the locals, everyone trying to blame everyone else, with me stuck in the middle. I was questioned, interrogated and called a Liar, but ComStar recovered the Battle ROM from my 'Mech, among other. Less fortunate units, what they were able to recover supported my recollection. Even if nobody could officially explain exactly what happened. In the end, it was put down to a freak electrical storm making our equipment report hostiles where there was none. Friendly fire did the rest.
Officially.
Unofficially? Well, we never took that highway again at night, and the Lord dropped his plans to grab that extra land.
Far as I'm concerned, the locals can keep it: they at least know to keep the hell away from whatever it is lurking out there.
The End
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