BattleCorps

ARCADIA:
CRESCENT MOON
Jason Schmetzer
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

Summerville
Arcadia
Lyran Alliance
11 September 3068

Hauptmann Isaac Porter ignored the smells. A MechWarrior be-

came inured to odor after enough years in the cockpit. A ’Mech
stank like burnt lubricant, or ozone, or decades of sweat after it
had been dried, and wetted, and dried, and wetted. The air in the
maglev terminal smelled burnt, but beneath the burnt tinge was
the watery scent of copper.
The smell of blood.
A spot of roughness made him look down. The bracelet he held
was simple, as jewelry went: a simple gold band chased with plati-
num. He ran his finger across the engraved letters again until he
found the scratch, between the S and the O. Porter frowned, rub-
bing his calloused thumb across the sharp metal.
A child’s shout made him look up. Jasper Stark embraced
two small girls at the end of the terminal. He was crying as he
hugged both of the four-year-olds. Porter blinked back his own
tears. His daughters were grown and gone. Both of them to
Gienah.
Where it was safe.
“Hauptmann Porter?” a man asked. Porter turned and faced the
militia officer. “The Colonel requests your presence at headquar-
ters, sir,” the aide said. “They’re coming back.
Porter squeezed the bracelet. The edge, dull and rounded, cut
painfully into his hands. A deep breath filled his soul. He slipped
the bracelet into a pocket.
“We’d best not keep them waiting,” he said.
He squeezed Stark’s shoulder on the way past. The MechWarrior
didn’t look up. He was too busy weeping across a sheet-covered
stretcher while an orderly held his daughters away from the shat-
tered husk that had been their mother.

v v v
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

“Damn it, Purcell!” Porter shouted. “Suppress that Centurion on

the right!” He struggled with the Merlin’s balky controls. The slug-
gish ’Mech turned ponderously. Porter stared into his HUD, willing
the targeting reticle to turn green. The Merlin came around, finally
unmasking his LRM battery. He fired.
The quintet of missiles exploded harmlessly on the desert floor
a dozen meters behind the charging medium ’Mech. Porter swore
and tugged the Merlin the other way. The Centurion had missiles,
too. Isobel’s bracelet, hanging from a cord at the edge of his HUD,
swung as the Merlin changed course.
“I can’t hit him, Hauptmann.” Purcell called. His was the heavi-
est ’Mech in Porter’s provisional lance. The problem was that the
rookie couldn’t hit a damn thing with his Archer’s missiles.
“Then scare him off!” Porter said. He brought the Merlin into the
shadow of a stand of oakwood trees and halted there. None of the
mercenary ’Mechs had a line of sight to him, so he was safe for
a moment. His eyes flickered across his HUD and tactical display
while his mind digested the icons and tried to paint him a picture
of what was going on.
He missed Stark and Reeves.
A platoon of militia ground armor anchored the Arcadian line.
The four tanks, two squat Demolishers and a pair of LRM Carriers,
held steady behind a small hillock. Sergeant Patterson’s Carrier
was smoking, having expended half its load of Thunder ammuni-
tion. Porter smiled as he found the red icons of the two mercenary
’Mechs—both heavies, a Thunderbolt and a Grasshopper–-that
had been caught and disabled by the heavy minefields.
Purcell and Radcliffe, the two rookies filling out his lance, both
flanked the armor platoon. Purcell’s Archer was firing, but not
steadily. His missiles usually landed within a hundred meters of
their targets. Radcliffe was using his JagerMech’s cannons spar-
ingly, only sniping with the light forties at targets that presented
themselves.
Richard was running his Wolfhound ragged trying to tie up the
other four mercenary ’Mechs. He sprinted across the field, trying
to tag the enemy Caesar with his laser.
Porter eyed the Caesar.

v v v
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

“It was this bastard.” The Colonel froze the image, showing an
orange-painted, seventy-ton Caesar. The image was from a civil-
ian holocamera, one that they’d recovered from the wreckage of
the maglev. The Colonel raised the remote.
The shaky, garbled holo lurched into motion. The Caesar walked
sedately toward the camera. Porter imagined the other people in
the maglev car; probably at least one child, more interested in
what was outside than what was in, would be pointing the garish
machine out to his parents.
A flash of silver flickered between the ’Mech and the camera.
Porter’s analytical mind knew he’d just seen a gauss rifle shot. The
camera shook and went blank. Isobel’s bracelet felt cold in his
pocket.
An orange Caesar.

v v v

The Merlin rocked as the Caesar’s PPC chewed on the armor pro-
tecting the ’Mech’s right leg. Porter rocked in his seat, letting the
gyro feed from his own sense of balance through his neurohelmet.
Isobel’s bracelet swung like a pendulum, tapping against the un-
yielding ferroglass canopy.
“Bring him right, sir,” Richard called. Porter glanced at his HUD
display. The Wolfhound was hiding behind another clump of oak-
woods. If he could draw the Caesar another hundred meters to the
right, Richard would have a shot without exposing himself to the
rest of the mercenaries’ fire.
“Right,” Porter breathed. He stopped trying to get a solid target-
ing lock for his PPC and instead slammed his feet on two pedals
to either side of his console. Jump jets mounted on the rear of the
sixty-ton ’Mech picked it up and hurled it a hundred and twenty
meters right. He punched out an LRM barrage at the apex of his
jump, more to keep the Caesar interested than to do any real dam-
age. The missiles missed wide, but the Caesar stomped after him.
“Patterson,” he called as he grounded. “Hit the ground between
me and the Caesar. Full barrage.” The green icon representing
the Thunder LRM Carrier blinked in acknowledgement. A moment
later Porter watched a whistling cloud of missiles explode a dozen
meters over the space between him and the charging Caesar.
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

The Caesar halted, then cut to its right, toward Purcell and
Radcliffe. Porter pounded his console. He’d just removed himself
from the battle.
“Richard, get after them,” he said.
Porter prepared to jump back across the newly-laid minefield,
but before he could stomp the pedals again a flight of missiles
arrowed in and tugged at the armor over the Merlin’s left arm. He
twisted the heavy ’Mech’s torso around. The Centurion was com-
ing up fast.
“All right,” he muttered. “If you’re stupid enough to give up
ten tons, come on in.” The Merlin’s targeting scanner slid over
the Centurion easily enough. The PPC pinged readiness, and he
squeezed the trigger, adding a freshly-loaded barrage of missiles
as well.
The Centurion dodged the missiles, but the snarling incandes-
cence of the PPC dug hungrily into the armor over the medium
’Mech’s chest. The sleet of ions exploded against the tough armor,
knocking the Centurion a step off-kilter. Porter snarled in satisfac-
tion and brought his arm-mounted medium lasers into play.
The big Luxor autocannon in the Centurion’s arm barked fire at
him. The Merlin lurched as it lost more that half a ton of armor
from its left leg, but it stayed on its feet. The swarm of missiles
that blasted a small oakwood to red-tinged toothpicks was close,
but not close enough.
“They’re pushing,” Richard said. Porter caught a glimpse of him
rushing back across the field. One of the Snakes they’d tangled with
yesterday—looking a great deal healthier–-trudged after him. Sparks
flew as the mercenary raked the Wolfhound with its cannon.
The Merlin was sluggish, but Porter still managed to get off two
laser shots that tagged the Centurion. One hit high on the merce-
nary’s right arm; the other, thrown off by a ditch the Merlin’s wide
foot didn’t quite fill, slashed across the Centurion’s right knee.
“Let them push,” he called. The Centurion’s cannon fire tore
up the landscape but missed the Merlin. “They’ll just run into
Patterson and his boys.”
“You better tell the kids to back off, then,” Richard said.
Porter pushed the Merlin into a run to get a small bunch of trees
between him and the Centurion. His tactical display showed the
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

two ’Mechs bunched up with the tanks. He toggled to a different

channel.
“Purcell, let them through.”
“But—”
“Do as you’re ordered, soldier!” Porter shouted. “Let the tanks rip
them up for you, then hit ‘em while they’re busy with the armor.”
“Yes, sir,” the rookie said. The icons for the Archer and the
JagerMech spread out a little, giving the mercenaries a seeming
gap. Porter stared at the red icons, waiting.
They took the bait.
The Snake chasing Richard broke off and sprinted toward the
gap. The Caesar, slower and further back, started that way. Porter
grinned and brought the Merlin out from behind the trees. The
Centurion would go, too, but Porter was in the way.
Another burst of cannon fire destroyed the trees where he’d been
standing. The Centurion was barely two hundred meters away.
The laser in its torso flashed, igniting the scrub behind the charg-
ing Merlin. Porter was too close for the Centurion’s missiles.
Porter fired.
The PPC hit the weakened armor over the Centurion’s chest and
shattered the last of it. His right-arm laser scorched the armor over
the Centurion’s right arm without doing any appreciable dam-
age, but the other laser traced the PPC’s route. It flickered into
the Centurion’s interior. Something exploded within the medium
’Mech’s frame. Something else exploded. Many more some-
things.
“Ammo hit,” Porter murmured. He turned the Merlin away as the
rest of the Luxor’s ammunition exploded, gutting the Centurion.
“One down,” he called.
“Here they come!” Radcliffe called. The thunder of the JagerMech’s
autocannons shook the transmission. “All they’ve got left, sir!”
Porter started the Merlin into a run. The sixty-ton ’Mech got
faster with every step as its heat sinks bled the waste heat he’d
gathered during the last exchange into the air. A haze of smoke
cleared as he came up over a rise and there was the Caesar, but
something further back caught his eye.
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

The Snake and its companion, a fifty-ton Hunchback that had

stayed out of the fighting so far, crested the hill the tanks were hid-
ing behind. Porter knew what the mercenary MechWarriors were
thinking: all they’d seen was an LRM Carrier. They could expect
to see three more of them, since it was common practice to have
armor platoons use the same vehicle. The Hunchback led, think-
ing to use its big Kali Yama autocannon against the long-range
vehicles.
Porter grinned a wolf’s grin.
Patterson’s Demolisher escorts tracked forward until their tur-
rets bore on the Hunchback. Each of the eighty-ton tanks carried
two of the same class cannon the Hunchback did. The Hunchback
lurched to a halt, its torso twisting back and forth, as if trying to
decide which tank to shoot at.
The Demolishers didn’t hesitate. Four massive 185mm cannons
blew the Hunchback off its feet and down the hill. The red icon on
Porter’s HUD flashed twice and switched to a black crosshatch—
the Hunchback was dead.
“Purcell, Radcliffe, hit ‘em now!” Porter angled around an out-
cropping of rocks and triggered his missiles. Only two the slender
projectiles hit the Caesar, but it was enough to get its attention.
Patterson rolled forward enough to blanket the space behind the
Snake with mines for ninety meters. The Demolishers traversed
their turrets to bear on the medium ’Mech. Patterson’s other LRM
Carrier unloaded all three batteries at the Caesar, still about two
hundred meters back.
“I’ve got you, you bastard,” Porter whispered, too quiet for his
microphone to pick up. “Target the Caesar, Richard!”
The Caesar ignored the Merlin. It took four steps forward and un-
leashed its arsenal at the tanks. The Carrier that had bombarded
it a moment ago exploded as the combined power of the Caesar’s
PPC and gauss rifle immolated the armor across its front glacis.
Patterson began to track frantically backward, unwilling to expose
his tank to that kind of fire. His final barrage of mines scattered
wide as the tank dropped back over the hill.
The Snake was also quickly backing away. A half-dozen mis-
siles popped out and struck at the left-side Demolisher. The tank’s
heavy armor absorbed the damage easily. The accompanying
burst of cannon fire struck sparks, but it was the dense sliver that
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

cut the Demolisher’s left track loose that did the real damage. The
already-slow tank became a pillbox. Its return fire missed to the
right as the crew shook under the barrage.
Its consort blew the Snake’s left leg off at the hip.
“We’ve got them!” Purcell called.
“Hit the Caesar!” Porter ordered. He fired his missiles again. His
hands strained at the Merlin’s controls, wishing he could push the
’Mech faster. The range fell, but it was still too far for his PPC.
“I’m bingo!” Purcell called. He had spent his entire load of ammu-
nition. Porter had a passing thought to wonder if the rookie had
succeeded in hitting anything, but was too busy to consider it.
“Then mind the tanks!” Porter said. He snap-fired the PPC as soon
as the indicator turned green. The Caesar absorbed the shot with-
out visible effect and twisted its torso. Even from a distance Porter
saw the white flash of the gauss rifle firing. The Merlin shook with
a massive impact, throwing Porter against his restraints. He saw
the azure lightning of a PPC bolt as the Merlin fell beneath more
fire, and then his head smacked the inside of his helmet.
And then it was dark.

v v v

The Colonel offered him a drink, but Porter shook his head. His
fingers turned Isobel’s bracelet over in his hand. The Colonel set
the empty glass on the edge of his desk and sat down.
“Isaac,” he said. “I don’t want this turning into a revenge thing.”
He took a sip of his whiskey and then set the glass on the immacu-
late blotter. “For anyone.”
“Isobel wasn’t the only dependent on that train,” Porter said. The
bracelet was warmer than it had been at the terminal. It had been
in his pocket.
“That’s why I’m talking to you. Stark is out.” He frowned and
stared at his glass. “His wife died on the train. He can hardly stand
up, and he’s got two girls on his own now. I’m putting Reeves with
the cavalry. I need some heavy firepower with the scouts, as a
reaction force.”
Porter closed his eyes. “Who am I getting, then?”
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 

“Purcell and Radcliffe.”

Porter snorted. “You’d do better to give me Stark back, Colonel.”
He fingered the bracelet and then slipped it back into his pocket.
“I can hack it.”
“I can’t have officers out chasing vendettas.”
Porter looked up from the desk. “I won’t,” he lied.

v v v

The Hunchback was down.

The Centurion was down.
The Snake was down and thrashing.
The Caesar was backing away from the line.
Porter’s fingers trembled on the controls. He maneuvered the
Merlin around a shell crater and kept on toward the orange Caesar.
The indicators for all of his weapons were green. His lips pulled
back from his teeth. He looked to Isobel’s bracelet.
Static crackled for a moment in his helmet. “All militia units, pull
back!” The Colonel’s voice was high. “I repeat, pull back!”
Porter cursed and slapped his com board. “But we’ve got
them!”
“Porter! Get back here now! We need to regroup. Kirkpatrick’s
pulling out! That bastard is running. We just got confirmation
from the Port. His DropShips are already outbound. He didn’t even
land! We need to get everyone together and get ready for the rest
of the Mariks.”
Red crept into the edges of his vision. He twisted his controls,
holding so tightly that the friction burned his calloused palms. The
Merlin’s weapons beeped readiness.
He shoved the controls forward, kicking the Merlin into a run.
“We’re coming,” he said. “As soon as we’re finished here.” Porter
stabbed the circuit closed.
The Caesar shifted slightly to face him. The orange-painted,
seventy-ton ’Mech backed away, keeping its weapons and armor
facing its harrowers. Porter stared at it, ignoring everything else.
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 10

The roar of his LRMs firing shook Porter out of his fugue. He
watched the missiles spiral close but miss to the left, exploding
harmlessly among the scrub. The range fell slowly, too slowly.
The Caesar could back up almost as fast as the Merlin could run.
Orange-white tracers flew past the Merlin. Radcliffe had his
JagerMech pacing the Merlin. Porter felt a moment’s guilt at the
low opinion he’d held of the rookie. The kid knew what was im-
portant.
The light cannon fire scratched the Caesar’s armor but lacked
the mass to penetrate. The Caesar shifted slightly on its torso ring
again, this time to face the JagerMech. It fired.
The blur of the gauss round flashing past made Porter jerk in his
seat. The heavy slug smacked the JagerMech in the dead-center
of its barrel chest. The armor held, but only just. The Snake had
done some damage before it died. Radcliffe kept the balky ’Mech
on its feet, its barrel-arms leveled while the cannons cycled.
The Caesar’s PPC reached across the field and punched the al-
ready-distressed armor, almost exactly where the gauss round
had struck. The JagerMech’s chest plate shattered, staggering the
machine. Radcliffe screamed in pain, his voice distorted by the
circuit and the electric feedback tingle of ammunition exploding
within his ’Mech. The JagerMech disintegrated.
“God damn you!” Porter shouted. He leaned the Merlin away
from the falling JagerMech and triggered his missiles again. This
time the five warheads all struck true, blasting the thick armor on
the Caesar’s legs. The heavy ’Mech stumbled but didn’t fall.
Porter watched the range counter. 550 meters. 545.
540.
He squeezed the PPC trigger savagely. The hellish beam co-
alesced meters from the weapon’s barrel and slammed into the
Caesar’s right chest. The ’Mech staggered. Blue-white tendrils of
electricity skated around the ’Mech, reaching their fingers deeply
into the rents in the Caesar’s armor.
The gauss rifle exploded.
The Caesar fell, and didn’t move.
Richard and Purcell reached him a short time later. He was lean-
ing the Merlin over the quiet form of the Caesar. The destruction
BattleCorps Crescent Moon • Page 11

of the gauss rifle had been violent enough to destroy the shielding
for the 280 extra-light engine, forcing the Caesar to shut down.
“Hauptmann?” Richard asked. “We’ve been recalled.”
Porter watched the Caesar. The cockpit hatch was still sealed.
Either the mercenary MechWarrior was unconscious, or he was
unwilling to exit. It hadn’t taken the Merlin long enough to get
there that he could’ve slipped away.
The Merlin’s right arm moved. He trained the medium laser on
the Caesar’s cockpit canopy. He fired. The cockpit armor held, but
the ferroglass was cracked and melted.
He fired again. Blood-red light reflected from Isobel’s bracelet.
“It’s done,” he whispered. He turned the Merlin away and limped
back toward Summerville. “It’s just us, now.”