Starfire (short story)

This article is about the story. For other uses, see Starfire.


Starfire
Story information
Author William H. Keith, Jr.
Pages 8 (11 with 3 pages of full-page artwork)
Type Short story
Product BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction
Content
Era Succession Wars era
Timeline 10 - ca. 13 October 3028 (main story)

The short story Starfire was published in BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction.

Plot summary[edit]

Following the discovery and dissemination of the Helm Memory Core it turns out that the locations of old SLDF caches can be gleaned from the data. In order to secure one such cache, SLD 601, before anyone else can recover its treasures, the Lyran Commonwealth sends a detachment from Hansen's Roughriders to the periphery system of Rosetta (technically, the Ptolemy binary star system) in all haste, dubbed "Operation Prometheus". Chris, the first-person narrator and mission commander, used to pilot a Warhammer for the Roughriders and before that a Centurion with House Steiner's House Guard but apparently has not brought a 'Mech himself.

Their (apparently modified) Union-class DropShip, the Ramblin' Wreck under Captain Carleton, carries two 'Mechs (an Atlas and a Cicada), two Patton tanks and a platoon of light infantry. Like everybody else on the mission, the narrator does not get along well with Julian Kirkpatrick, the Atlas pilot who frequently challenges his authority with his overblown ego and poor manners.

As they are inbound, planetologist Beth Ann Lindstrom and the narrator discuss available data and find that Rosetta, a moon of a near-brown dwarf gas giant, is a marginally habitable "geological mess" in a rather unusual planetary system. It is recorded as "variable", but they fail to understand why, as it is tidally locked to the gas giant; they figure this won't be relevant for their quick objective raid. An old Star League colony of domes and half-buried habitats still exists on the moon's dark side, and local traffic control challenges their DropShip shortly after arriving in-system, to which they respond with a cover story.

The target depot is located on sulfur flats on the moon's "day side" facing the gas giant, 3,000 km from the nearest settlement. They ground their DropShip in a rocky area just over two kilometers from the site and deploy, with Mike Connelly's Cicada sent out for patrol while Kirkpatrick's Atlas is used effectively as a WorkMech to dig into the sulfur crust at the foot of the mountains after a flow of molten sulfur, presumed to have resulted from volcanic activity, had sealed off the depot's entrance long ago. After forty hours of working in shifts they have gained access to the depot, well below the sulfur surface. Chris observes vintage Star League era 'Mechs in the depot including a Griffin, Shadow Hawk, and several Riflemen. The real prize however are thousands of intact HHM Starfire Mark 2500 missiles in crates marked M-2500, thought by the narrator to be "the lost Holy Grail of military technology" that will "change the course of modern warfare."

Just as they prepare to recover their find, Connelly reports that local forces are approaching with Pegasus hovertanks. He is ordered to fall back to the dig site, where the Atlas, tanks and DropShip can provide cover fire, but the faster vehicles keep harassing his retreating 'Mech. One fires an SRM volley that hits close to the cockpit and, among other damage, wrecks the comm system. Connelly eventually manages to bring his damaged Cicada back to friendly lines, but it turns out he was heavily wounded and is barely conscious. At the sight of his fellow MechWarrior being carried away by medics, Kirkpatrick—who was already itching to leave his post on the firing line and meet the hovertanks in battle—finally snaps and moves out to destroy the hovertanks, ignoring orders to come back. Staying beyond his effective weapons range, the much faster hovertanks lure the lumbering Atlas further out until it suddenly breaks through the sulfur crust and is stuck in liquid sulfur beneath, like a man breaking through thin ice.

At this point the mercenaries realize the true meaning of the frequent earthquakes they noticed earlier: The Rosetta system is experiencing a once-in-150-years constellation right now where the moon heats up more than usual, to the point where the thick layer of sulfur covering the area is melting from below. (The smaller star of the binary, Ptolemy-B, is approaching its closest position to the gas giant but since this would not significantly heat up the moon it wasn't considered a danger before. Later analysis on the return trip shows that it also causes tidal stress within the gas giant that in turn results in the gas giant emanating considerably more heat than normal—and that overlooked factor leads to temperatures of 120° Celsius and liquid sulfur floods on Rosetta's day side every 150 years, which apparently surprised the SLDF engineers as well and was the reason why the depot was lost in the first place, and why the dayside was subsequently abandoned by the colonists.)

In an attempt to help Kirkpatrick and his stricken 'Mech, the narrator mounts up on the damaged Cicada and races out, but cannot prevent the Pegasus hovertanks from wrecking the helpless Atlas which ultimately perishes in an ammunition explosion. With the surface literally melting from under them and the dig site being flooded with liquid sulfur, the dig team abandon their mission and retreat to the DropShip empty-handed.

On the return trip, they learn of the outbreak of the Fourth Succession War, making a follow-up mission seem unlikely in the near future. The narrator mourns for Kirkpatrick, acknowledging his bravery "even if he was an idiot," and privately also wonders if the Pegasus hovertanks had used recovered Headhunter Missiles against them, as the SRM volley that had almost killed Connelly had been an unlikely and notably lucky shot where many if not all SRMs had hit the 'Mech just below the cockpit and penetrated the armor.

Featured characters[edit]

BattleTech[edit]

BattleMechs[edit]

Vehicles[edit]

DropShips[edit]

Featured places[edit]

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