"LEFT! ON THE LEFT THEY'RE COMING AROUND!" came the screech over the comm.
It was Peridot Altain, the youngest of their outfit. Her Blackjack 'mech rotating its torso toward the mass of roiling black that swept in toward them, its Diverse Optics Sunbeam ER L Lasers sparking to life with white hot fury, briefly pushing the tide backward. A stream of curses punctuated by the launch of Streak SRMs from each side torso cast the blizzard swept ruins in stark relief as the warheads struck ground inside the strange blackness that surrounded them.
A talented 'mech pilot for her age, Peridot had signed on with the cormorants from her home in the Federated Suns with such bright enthusiasm and vigor, and knowledge of the 'mech her family had gifted her.... it was such a cruel twist that she would die here with them, her career had only just begun. It was the fate of all Mercenaries, eventually, but she had shown such promise that she might make it some years yet. All the same, it was a testament to her prowess she'd lasted this long.
Cerise grimaced, surveying the limited map of the battlefield, the ice storm had swept in days ago, blanketing the already perilous ruins in darkness. The shadows had arrived not long after, surrounding their ersatz base.
Inchon Lance hadn't stood a chance. They had been the furthest out, getting ready to rotate back in to be replaced by Silver Lance on extended patrol. Most of them were swept away, torn apart, before they could get their 'mechs online. Captain Mathius was the only one who had gotten their 'mech online from Inferno. He had set his Catapult 'mech to go critical, then detonated his ARROW IV missiles in the launch tubes, the resulting firestorm of fusion and fission detonations was what alerted those closer to the Cache, and temporarily drove back the hungry darkness. Their deaths gave the remaining three Lances and support personnel the time they needed to prepare.
Or so they thought. Silver Lance had gotten online first, already prepped ahead of the rotation, and their lighter 'mechs quicker to spool to power, Lieutenant Durant took them, and a small column of Pegasus hovercraft to the cratered remnants of the forward post. The Raptors and Ravens feathering their jump jets across ruined bunker rooftops.
She had watched their sensor feeds as they closed in, seen how the shadows seemed to defy the light of the running lamps.. she wrote it off nothing at the time, one saw strange things in their line of work, and errant shadows weren't something to be worried over.
Then, as Silver Lance made it to the smoking crater that had been Inchon's position, the shadows had surged forward, shards of blackened crystal accelerated from deep in the masses, peppering the 'mechs and hovercraft. They fought hard. Durant was a devil behind the controls of his Raptor, his Lancemates equally proficient with their own 'mechs as they scythed hot death from autocannons, SRM launchers, and lasers into the swirling horde. They tried to screen the retreat of the Pegasi. It was here, that they learned, that the ECM systems of the Raven 'mechs seemed to have an affect on the strange shadow creatures, distracting and enraging them. The first Raven was brought down hard, its cockpit pierced by spikes of obsidian crystal, Sargent Illene Iovis, mercifully, died instantly.
The second Raven managed to rush into the inky swarm, Corporal Danet spitting oaths and promises of vengeance. His mech was torn open, sundered by the crystal, and an unseen force that moved with the shadows. His final screams had echoed across all their comms, as had a chilling cackle and snarl from an unknown source... His death had not been in vain, whatever these monsters were, they had breached the Raven's fusion engine as they shredded it open. Its blinding blue detonation giving Lieutenant Durant and Corporal Iconasa the time to pull back with the handful of remaining hovercraft, the armor of their mechs mauled, and laden with crystal fragments.
The fusion detonation seemed to give whatever the monsters were pause, the remnants of the column and Silver Lance able to regroup with Ganymede and Omicron Lance at the base of the mountain, the heart of the base.
They dug in, squads of infantry troopers with Inferno Launchers spreading across the upper floors of the structure rising around the massive blast door leading into the Cache, the remnants of Silver Lance taking positions atop the ferrocrete monolith itself where they could rain Streak SRMs from on high, and TAG mark targets for heavier missile strike from the mercenary's remaining Catapult from Ganymede Lance, positioned further up the mountainside for the clearest strike potential.
Omicron and the closer ranged members of Ganymede spread themselves around the handful of repairs bays they had managed to reactivate with the cache's power systems, Cerise's custom Marauder, a Grand Dragon, an Awesome, a King Crab, Peridot's Blackjack, a Rifleman, and a Wyvern, and what was left of the Pegasi detachment and a pair of Manticore tanks. Fields of fire interlocked, targeting systems sharing telemetry.
It would have been a feat in itself for an enemy assault force to dislodge them, Clanner or Inner Sphere alike. What they faced, however, played by no doctrine or force of arms they were familiar with...
The Pegasi were the first to fall. Running blistering trails along the outer edge of the line, trying to hold the shadows at bay by laser fire and SRM burst. Fast as they were, the intensifying storm around them forced them to a crawl lest the be swept away. Their already damaged hulls shattering one by one under hails of crystalline shrapnel and the engulfing mass of darkness. They gave a good account, for each hovercraft to fall, they made the black swarm pull back for precious moments as supporting fire from deeper in the defense rained destruction.
As the last of the Pegasi skittered to a halt, its hull perforated and smoking, the line tightened. The Manticores taking position and unleashing the fury of their Parti-Kill PPCs and a withering barrage of SRM and LRM fire, blanketing the surrounding ruins in plasmic fire and Inferno gel as Ganymede and Omicron Lances converged around the chokepoints.
The awesome display seemed to give their foe pause, the creeping shadows pulling away from the wall of searing flame, giving the remaining mercenaries precious moments to breath.
It would not last however, as the monsters again surged as the snow smothered the light. The Manticores let loose again, but the shadows did not yield a second time, many being reduced to crystal splinters under the barrage of the tanks and 'mechs behind them, and yet they came. The tanks rolled backward, continuing to spit energized death and fire, but they were soon overtaken. The thick hides offering the crews better protection than the Pegasi had, but they too would succumb in time.
As the first began to belch flame, the second surged forward into the smoke and crystal attackers, inspired by Captain Mathius's earlier sacrifice or Sargent Danet's suicidal charge, Cerise might never know, even as they rolled forward she'd ordered them back into the line... as they overloaded the PPC's capacitor, and fried their stored ammunition. tons worth of Inferno gel, and the remnants of the final particle discharge flooded the corridor between buildings with liquid fire.
The shadows withdrew, the storm lessened.
All was silent for some hours afterward. None of their remaining 'mechs had fallen, but they'd lost many friends and colleagues who had served gloriously with them on many contracts, that had survived the fury of warzones great and varied...
Cerise did not allow them to relax, the monsters were still out there, whatever they were. They would be back. And the Cormorants would be ready to fight again. To Eat the Path. To defy the fate the gods had lain upon them.
One by one, the MechWarriors would begin to fall again.
First of the surviving Cormorants was Lieutenant Martinet, his Grand Dragon forced to its knees by a broadside of crystal spikes before the cockpit was torn open and the outer hull of his war machine and the snow bellow was painted crimson. His screams worse even than Danet's.
"Crystaaaaallls......" a guttural voice whispered over the comm line, before his flatlined vitals cut his feed from the network.
Corporal Iconasa went next, diving back into the fray from on high, landing with a crunch atop a mass of shadowed crystal that had managed to circle behind Cerise's Marauder, Raptor spitting fire, large lasers singing and bringing light to the darkness. Her mech took the shattering spear of purple energy that had been meant for their leader's back. Iconasa didn't even have time to scream as her 'mech detonated in fusion fire, rattling the surrounding mechs and burning outer layers of ablative.
The shadows had retreated again under the intensity of the miniature sun of the reactor overload, the survivors pulling back closer still toward the mechbays, and the cache doors.
A few hours more of respite, and they became beset once more. Captain Dil's Rifleman took a crippling spike of crystal through a knee actuator, the myomer internals seizing, the 'mech's right arm PPC mount soon being torn free by a scathing charge of a crystal monster. Instead of tearing out his cockpit, the beast seized on the remaining leg, and dragged the 60 ton mech into the storm, the Captain cursing and screaming, before Cerise forcibly disconnected her from the comm net, not wanting the torment of hearing her death.
The movement of the shadows changed after that, their pattern shifting, yet no longer attacking. The remaining mechwarriors withdrew to the last line, just before the cache blast door. They took it in turns to use the automated gantries to repair perforated armor and cracked weapon casings as best the centuries old machines were able. Star League technology, to its credit, was quite durable even after so long without use.
The mercenary band formed a final defensive circle around the cache door, watching, waiting. Time moved at an agonizing crawl as they popped stims, determined to stay awake and fight on.
Out of the blizzard came warped yet familiar forms. At first glance, seeming to be 'mechs, but resolving into tortured
caricatures of such proud weapons of war. Shifting, creaking in the howling wind. Warrant Andeline lost their nerve and fired their Wyvern's Tronel XIII LP Laser into the nearest shadowy form, it absorbing the righteous fire, before returning the favor, the wicked parody of a Hunchback 'mech letting loose a volley of purple fire that took the head of the Wyvern off in a shower of sparks, and Andeline with it.
Lieutenant Durant and Peridot shattered the false 'mech with their combined fire, as Captain Yung's Awesome rumbled forward, the 80 ton behemoth letting loose its trio of Longtooth ER PPCs, each shot shattering another dark menace, it was met halfway by the towering falsehood of an Atlas, sparking arcane flames cracking and sloughing great chunks of the Yung's mech away. He rammed the other behemoth at full acceleration, and unloaded all three PPCs pointblank, blowing out the center of the shadowy mech, before the remnants collapsed in on him with a horrid vengeance. Ruptured crystal throwing itself into the weakened armor of the Awesome's center torso, sending its fusion engine critical. The blast dispelled a score of smaller shadow 'mechs, yet on they came.
Lieutenant Durant was felled by a hurled lance of crystal that shattered his mech's gyroscopic stabilizers, the 25 ton raptor toppling from its position atop the cache bunker with a thunderous crack of metal and stone. The final impact painting the inside of his cockpit in gore.
A starburst of purple flame speared the catapult further up the mountain, but did not inflict any visible damage... the screams of the pilot, about shadowy beasts inside his cockpit, tearing at him, proved the far more insidious nature of the burst. The Catapult came tumbling down the mountain, its pilot still screaming, before it impacted the top of the cache's bunker walls, tearing an immense chunk out of the bastion, and pulping any unfortunate infantrymen that had been posted with their Inferno launchers in the section now gone.
Three mechwarriors remained. Cerise pouring pulsing strobes of light into the hordes with her Marauder, skating left and right with the mech's jump jets to avoid fire as equally deal it. Peridot, screaming her terror as she emptied her SRMs and ran her lasers hot. Silas Jedidiah, in his King Crab, weathering strike after strike of monstrous fire and crystal projectiles, sending his hatred back in righteous turn with the screaming roar of twin LB 20-X autocannons and the blinding streak of Binary Laser fire from the side torso. The few remaining infantry pouring on their payloads of Inferno missiles to give the mechwarriors what little support remained... then the shadows faded back once more, and silence reigned.
It would be twelve hours before Peridot's fateful scream of their return...
"Cormorants!" Cerise snarled through her neurohelm's comm, "It has been an honor! Its time we face the part of the job we all know comes in time.... I ask of you to hold yet longer! Slake your gluttonous thirst for war before you yet die! Eat the Path! Deny the gods fate yet more!" she triggered a command routine, the cache's door receding with a tortured shriek of rusted and half frozen mechanisms.
"Support infantry, fall back into the tunnels, blow your entry points. Altain, Jedidiah, with me into the cache, keep firing!" she called, skating her Marauder backward on its jumpjets into the yawning black chasm of the ancient facility, Peridot and Silas following.
The shadowy mechs paused at the threshold, standing dumbly as they took the continued fire from the retreating trio. Cerise could have sworn she saw a flash of crimson, green, and purple staring back at her over the shoulder of one of the false machines, the leering gaze nearly sending the hardened commander into a hysteric fit, then a horrific howl ripped through the storm and the tormenting gaze shifted.
In the distance, Cerise saw it, lumbering into the backline of shadow mechs, tearing them to pieces one by one with Hellstar and laser fire, autocannon belching doom with each further step... the shadows turned, and began to fire on the challenger to the field, charging and striking, yet the black beast marched on.
In that moment, Cerise knew true terror, for the first time in her life. She'd heard the stories. It came in the blackest of night, to the unsuspecting, the unweary, and more. It came to rend and kill and feast. The Black Marauder had tasted fear, and come to seek its source. It would take them, no matter how hard they fought. Even as the shadow mechs descended upon it and broke across its carapace of obsidian. Its maw yawned wide, jagged slavering teeth on display.
She triggered the subroutine again in a panic as they retreated further. The massive bunker doors grinding to a close, sealing them in the cache. What they had once thought salvation, would become the site of a new ordeal, as outside, the King of Shadows dueled with the Devourer.
Author's Note
so.... Star League cache somewhere vaguely in the Frozen North, an uncertain point in the MLP and BT/MW timelines, Sombra out to wreck some serious shit, a woefully unprepared mercenary company getting steadily decimated... and the Black Marauder hungering.
Is it the real Black Marauder? Some other fear feasting creature come to challenge sombra for the MechWarriors souls and fear? who knows, I sure as hell don't.
This idea's been stewing for some days, and just wouldn't get out of my head. No this has no connection to the other story I'm currently working on.
I'm leaving it currently marked as 'unfinished' as I may write a second chapter for this when inspiration strikes again.
.... anyway, if there's a lesson in this anywhere, being a MechWarrior isn't all its cracked up to be, is probably it. Or better yet, keep at least one dropship in orbit with the damaged JumpShip, so they can't be forcibly grounded by a magical blizzard.
This has NOT been edited as yet. It may be over time.