Part 1

A Theft in the Night

Four of the dogs were walking in unison next to the 55 tons Omnimech piloted by Scientist Emilio. He remembered how to do it from his youth in the sibko before he had tested down to the Scientist caste. He hoped nobody would learn of his actions taking the Septicemia out of the test hangar, but something had to be done. Half of his experimental dogs had been, well, dognapped by “animal rights activists”. A whole facility had been infiltrated, 2 guards killed and one of the dogs, Katya, had been left with a nasty gash on her side. Rhesus monkeys, mice and poultry had also been taken in large box trucks, but Emilio only cared about his dogs.

Each of the animal was worth more than the ‘Mech he was piloting. In 2 or 3 generations, things would even out and the price per unit would go down. But right now, the 2 litters the activists had taken were priceless. The leader of the pack, Vlad, barked and the translation came up on Emilio’s command console: “Thieves this way.” One click, one “go” command let the 4 Lupa ProtoMech loose while Emilio pushed his OmniMech to go at full tilt. His sensors caught the box trucks and their “escort”, a few IndustrialMechs armed with basic weapons to deter attackers.

“To the thieves who illegally claimed Clan Wolf’s property. This is Scientist Emilio Wolf. I demand you return our property and surrender for your judgement.” Emilio had not done a batchall in a few years. Well, quite a few years. He had hoped this would be enough to scare the eco-terrorists, but he did not keep his hopes up. Small bore autocannon fire was the only reply he got. Okay, the ER PPCs are on circuit 1, the medium pulse lasers on another one, I have enough heat sinks to… Autocannon shells hit Emilio’s right side, waking him back up. Adjusting the reticle and torso angle, he let out a particle slug towards a dump truck with legs (and a rather large gun). Emilio was surprised it actually hit, forcing one of the legs to buckle under the hit.

A Scientist Who Fights

One of the herding ‘mech rebuilt to combat standard (but not the fancy ones from the Aurigan Trade Alliance the Wolf had been buying in small amounts recently) was the first prey for the Lupa. Vlad gave the order to his pack members, with small pulse lasers and short-range missiles coming in flying from 4 separate directions. The pilot of the CattleMaster tried adjusting his positioning, but the impact sent it falling. The 25-ton IndustrialMech smacked the cabin of one of the trucks carrying the stolen animal, likely killing the driver on impact. Another volley of SRM hit the floundering mech, killing the ICE engine.

Emilio could not pay too much attention on what his dogs were doing. It had been about 15 years since he had been behind the control stick of a BattleMech. He was only surviving this because the MODs were about as bad as he was at shooting and piloting. He needed to avoid hitting the semi-trucks while his opponents could simply empty whatever weapons. Squeezing the trigger, darts of light pulsed towards the modified IndustrialMech, stripping more of the industrial plating off. Sparks started flying from the machine’s arm, the chainsaw falling off a second later.Emilio glanced at his armor reading. I tested down way before we got to the big live-fire exercises. Getting shot at is no fun at all, but these guys are not shooting anything dangerous.

A detonation next to his cockpit reminded him of something else. “You stravags will always think you are invincible”, the loud and obnoxious voice of instructor Helen Reisch resounded. “BattleMechs are incredibly powerful and tough, yes. But it only takes one stray round finding its way through your armor for you to die.” Emilio pushed his engine to the maximum speed possible, skirting the road on which the 2 remaining semi-trailers were barreling down. He needed to concentrate, think about what to do next. This was what he normally did. A scientist has all the time in the world to think about what he will do next, and testing hypotheses generally was not a life-or-death situation. Warriors did not have that luxury.

Vlad and his pack were assaulting a MiningMech. Heavily armed, the digging machine had hit Kady, Vlad’s mate, Lupa hard with an 95mm high explosive shell. The alpha wanted revenge, but Ruckus, his “second”, reminded him to stay on target for the mission. Ruckus understood that if they completed this exercise, they would get a massive number of treats. His motivations were clear as day to the other three combat-engineered war dogs, but they all agreed with it.

Kady had pulled back and was going to help The Owner with his own fight while the other three surrounded the MiningMech. Vlad flipped his short-range missiles to Crowd Control munition, canisters filled with tear gas. He knew it worked on humans walking around, he had been told that the big metal humans were not affected by it normally. But those were not the “real” big metal humans, those were the ones that were not used for fighting. He wanted to see if it worked on them.

Tear gas and smoke surrounded the MiningMech after the missiles detonated around it. It started moving erratically, as if stumbling. Ruckus was the one who had the great idea to slam against the back of the leg of the machine. The 65 tons machine simply fell on its back like a massive turtle, as pulses of red energy gashed through it. Vlad ordered the other two dog-wolf-coyote hybrids to concentrate on the autocannon mount to disable the one effective weapon it had against them. After a couple of seconds, the machine cockpit popped open with, the pilot holding his head in his hands and yelling something about surrendering. Maybe Ruckus’s tear gas missiles had something to do with it?

Emilio was quite happy to see Kady come to his aid, even though her Lupa was in bad shape. “How are you girl”, he asked with concern in his voice. “Good. Metal body is hurt, not me.” Kady was the second smartest of the dog, right after Vlad. Marcia, the other lead scientist on the project, had said she had higher “emotional intelligence”, whatever that meant. One of the IndustrialMech was now covered in a pepper spray cloud, courtesy of Kady and had stopped moving. Emilio lined up his crosshair and squeezed the trigger to fire everything he had on it, gutting the lumberjack ‘Mech as the particle bolt crushed the torso casing. The other LumberMech had to get close to fire its machine guns at Emilio and Kady, its massive chainsaw ineffective against machines that were faster than him.

Kady’s ProtoMech was getting peppered by 7.62mm rounds and Emilio did not want her to get injured anymore than she already was. By sheer luck (or talent, Emilio could not tell), he ripped away the chainsaw arm off LumberMech with his pulse lasers. He then put all his movement speed to contribution to give a massive shoulder tackle to the IndustrialMech, sending it flying as a trio of short-range missiles slammed into the cockpit casing, killing the pilot.

Stopping the Semi

The only remaining “threat” were the 2 remaining semis. “Kady, guard the truck that is immobilized. Vlad, Ruckus, Melissa, with me to stop the other two!” Unarmed and slower than the combat machines chasing them, the drivers stopped only a few seconds. Out of the first came out a young man in bad physical health (“How can a man be that thin”, thought Emilio) and an older Laborer in Clan Wolf overalls. From the other came out a young woman with weirdly colored hair and too much metal on her face. “Guard me”, Emilio gave as an order before lowering himself out of his ‘Mech to face the thieves. He had grabbed an old revolver, just to be careful.

Keeping the pistol as steady as he could, Emilio advanced towards his prisoners. The laborer was the first one to talk: “They forced me to do it, sir. I am not responsible for…” The woman cut him off, curtly: “Bullshit, Brisson. You’re the one who gave us the access codes to the facility. You won’t get out of this this easily.” Emilio honestly could not care less. All he wanted was his dogs back. One of the Lupa (Emilio could tell it was Ruckus by how it moved) crawled closer to the prisoners, a menacing snarl in its shape and coming from the external loudspeakers. “Is there a dog in this machine,” the skinny man asked. Emilio nodded while pointing his pistol at the three: “Yes, this is the reason I have been tracking you. Where are my dogs?”

The Laborer pointed to the back of one of the semi, and the three kept their hands up as they walked with Emilio to the back. Melissa, another one of the dog’s in a Lupa ripped the back door of the truck before they could get there. “Melissa, calm down! Your puppies are safe. I hope they are safe?” The strange woman spat on the floor: “We would never harm animals. What you are doing with your animal experiments is despicable and…” Emilio did a quick count as dogs jumped out of the back of the truck.

All sixteen are accounted for. The rhesus monkeys and rats running away he, again, could not care less about. Thankfully, however, the pups quickly rounded them up like good herd dogs… which he had never intended them to be. A positive in this. It seems that some of my modifications have generated positive side-effects which will be useful in future tasks for the animals.

“You are a despicable human being, exploiting and transforming these beautiful creatures for your own horrible needs”, the woman said with vitriol in her voice. Emilio had already captured how their relationship worked. The woman was the alpha, the skinny male was a gamma while the Laborer was likely just along for the ride. Life was weird like that. Emilio had hoped they would collaborate and let them drive the trucks back, but this was a lost cause. He would have to call the paramilitary police. That was the last thing he wanted. People would start talking, and that is not what he wanted.

As he grabbed his communicator to call in backup, the women lunged at him. The scientist had no idea how to react and dropped his pistol. In a second that felt like a decade, Emilio saw a knife in her hand, and he started moving backwards. 8 tons of ferro-fibrous, composite steel and myomer stopped the woman’s movement in an instant, Ruckus crushing her body under his ProtoMech’s front paws.

The skinny man panicked and started running off. Kady made sure this was the last decision he ever took, darts of coherent light melting him away. Emilio quickly readjusted and pointed the revolver at the Laborer, who did not move an inch. “I am not stupid enough to die for this. I will likely die for my involvement in all this, but I would rather die as a member of the Clan than as an idiot animal rights activist.” Emilio looked at him dead in the eyes: “Why were you doing this anyways?”

The Laborer sighed: “I have been working with animals my whole life. Raising cattle, pigs, things like these. These kids offered me a big lump of cash so I could start my own farm as a freebirth with forged IDs.” The Scientist could understand the motivation. Since being on Terra, some of his lower-end staff had been approached by legitimate and illegitimate organizations with offers that were hard to refuse. Improving your lot in life was a goal all members of the Clans should aspire to, if it was in service of the Clan. But that was not for everybody.

“What if I offered you a job instead? I do not think any of these will be talking any time soon, and if you are skilled at animal handling, I have need of people like you.” The laborer blinked twice, a confused look on his face. “We should not be sacrificing valuable ressources, quiaff? You handled yourself well in this ordeal, and while I cannot claim you as a bondsman, my laboratory needs people with your skills.” The loud turbofans of Anhur transports belonging to the paramilitary police were starting to deafen all of them, the fight having been reported to them by another source. “Bargained well and done, Scientist. I will be happy to serve the Scientist caste.” The two shook hands under the watchful eyes of 4 ProtoMechs.