TSD: 3049-10-04 — Local: 16:03
Galatea, Galatea System — Continental Route 7 (Approach to Choke Cut / Grid KJ-146)
The land ahead tightened.
Route 7 ran straight for kilometers through scrub and broken stone, then folded into a narrow throat carved through an old rock face—two walls of dark basalt rising like teeth, the road squeezed down until a single stalled truck could turn a convoy into a sitting animal.
Kel watched it through the Zeus's forward viewport and through sensor overlays that painted angles and ranges in clean geometry.
No emotion. No drama.
Just a problem shaped like terrain.
"Mara," Kel said over comms, voice calm. "Confirm decoy status."
Mara answered immediately, crisp. "Decoy trailer is in the expected position and broadcasting the expected transponder. Real package is relocated and masked. Only you, me, Tessa, and Hess have the mapping."
Kel: "Good."
Tessa's voice cut in from the support truck channel, tight with concentration. "Hip temp is elevated but stable. Keep it smooth through the cut. No hard pivots unless you have to."
Kel: "Copy."
Hess came on the net, less confident than earlier, the forced steadiness of a man who'd realized he'd been outplayed on his own route. "Security wing is in position. APCs will block the far end on your mark."
Kel: "Hold until I call it."
Sienna's voice arrived a beat later from the left flank, clipped and focused. "Visual on Coda's transport. It's shadowing us at distance, staying high ground. He's got at least one escort vehicle."
Kel didn't ask how she felt about it. He didn't need reassurance.
"Track only," Kel said. "Call any change."
"Copy."
Elin, from the med vehicle, quiet but present. "If this goes loud, I need a clear lane for casualty evac."
Kel: "You'll have it."
A small pause—then Mara again, lower. "Kel… the recovered node is pinging. He's checking the line."
Kel's gaze stayed on the cut. "Let him."
He'd built the trap the way you built a firing line: not with hope, but with control.
The convoy rolled closer. Engines droned. Tires and treads ground over cracked pavement. Heat shimmered faintly above exhaust stacks. The air smelled like dust and diesel and the electric tang of fusion reactors warming.
Kel moved the Zeus with the restraint of a veteran. Each step was deliberate. Each shift of weight was gentle enough to spare the wounded actuator. The assault 'Mech's mass was a promise and a threat—eighty tons of authority that didn't need to rush.
At the mouth of the cut, Kel stopped.
"Convoy," he said, calm and absolute. "Hold."
The trucks slowed. The line compressed. Brake lights blinked red through the afternoon haze.
Hess's voice came back immediately. "Why are we stopping? We're exposed—"
Kel didn't raise his voice. "Because he wants us to stop. We're going to stop correctly."
Silence.
Then Mara, tight. "Node just received confirmation query."
Kel: "Answer it."
Mara's fingers clicked on her end—data work turned into weaponry. "Sending," she said.
A second later, her voice sharpened. "Ack received."
Kel looked into the cut like he was staring down a barrel.
"Coda's coming," Mara said quietly. "He just committed."
Kel didn't smile. He didn't feel triumph.
He simply moved the next piece.
"Hess," Kel said. "Block the far end. Quiet."
Hess: "Copy."
Two Vantrell APCs rolled out of concealment at the far exit of the cut, turning sideways just enough to make the lane seem cluttered—like routine yard vehicles repositioning. Not a barricade. Not yet.
Just friction.
Kel keyed another channel. "Tessa. Execute tag swap confirmation."
Tessa's reply came a fraction late, like she was working while talking. "Done. Decoy is loud. Real package is silent."
Kel: "Good."
He waited three breaths.
Then: "Convoy. Ease forward into the cut. Maintain spacing. No one breaks line."
Engines growled again. The convoy crept into the throat of rock, the sound of it changing as basalt walls took the noise and threw it back.
Inside the cut, everything felt closer.
No long sight lines. No easy flanks. Just rock, road, and whatever decided to show its face.
Kel moved the Zeus in last, anchoring the rear like a door closing.
And then the trap sprang—exactly where he'd expected it to.
A maintenance loader rolled out from a recess halfway through the cut, forks raised, its paint dirty and convincing. It lurched sideways as if its driver had lost control and was trying to correct—too late.
The loader's bulk slammed into the road at an angle that would have blocked the convoy's midline perfectly.
Would have.
Kel had already anticipated the play.
"Security wing," Kel said, calm. "Disable the loader."
One of Hess's APCs fired a tight burst into the loader's tires and steering assembly. The machine shuddered, forks dipping, and collapsed into a half-block instead of a full wall—enough to create chaos for a convoy that panicked.
Kel's convoy didn't panic.
Because Kel didn't.
"Convoy hold," he said. "Maintain spacing. Drivers, stay in cabs."
Mara's voice was sharp now. "Contacts—multiple. Ridge tops. Both sides. Heat blooms—light 'Mechs and vehicles."
Sienna cut in. "Coda's transport is moving—he's dropping into the north ridge access. He's close."
Kel felt the line between "escort" and "kill zone" snap tight.
"Now," Kel said.
The basalt walls lit up with muzzle flashes.
Scorpion tanks crested a ridge above the cut and fired downward. Shells sparked against APC armor and the sides of trailers. A hovercraft screamed across the top edge, trying to drop smoke into the throat. Two light 'Mechs—one a Spider again, the other a Jenner—appeared in silhouette, fast and confident, aiming to pin the Zeus and let the grab team work.
And the grab team arrived—right on cue.
Two "work crew" trucks pulled up tight to the decoy trailer, rear doors popping open. Men in coveralls and helmets spilled out with practiced speed, mag-clamps and cutting tools already in their hands. They didn't shoot at drivers. They didn't spray the convoy.
They moved straight for the one trailer broadcasting loud and proud.
They moved like professionals.
Kel watched all of it from inside his cockpit—clean, cold awareness.
"They're going for the decoy," Mara said.
Kel: "Let them commit."
Hess barked, "We can hit them—"
Kel's voice stayed calm and final. "Hold."
The grab team slapped clamps onto the decoy trailer and began cutting the lock mechanisms, trying to pop the doors fast enough to pull the crate in under a minute.
Kel waited until every man who mattered was on the wrong side of cover.
Then he moved.
The Zeus stepped forward into the cut's center, its shadow swallowing half the lane. The actuator complained—heat and resistance—but it held under controlled motion.
Kel rotated his torso and fired the Large Laser up toward the Scorpion tank turret line.
The beam carved across armor, boiling paint and metal. One tank backed away, turret ring smoking. Another fired anyway, shelling the Zeus's left torso—sparks and vibration, armor flaking.
Kel didn't flinch.
He shifted his aim to the Jenner trying to flank down the ridge access.
"Range," Mara called.
Kel already had it.
AC/5 thumped—one clean, disciplined shot.
The shell hit the Jenner's chest plating and forced the light 'Mech back mid-step, its pilot correcting hard to keep balance on uneven rock. Kel followed with a medium laser burst—not to kill, to make the pilot think.
The Jenner hesitated.
That was enough.
"Security wing," Kel said. "Suppress ridges. Keep grab team boxed."
Hess's APCs responded—turrets chattering, smoke launchers popping, creating a layered curtain that cut the grab team off from easy retreat without sealing them in a death trap. Kel was giving them one thing on purpose:
A way to survive—so they could be captured.
Sienna's voice snapped in. "Coda is in the north ridge access. He's watching. He's got eyes on the decoy."
Kel: "Keep tracking. No engagement."
"Copy."
Mara's tone tightened. "Node pinging again—he's checking status."
Kel: "Answer."
Mara did—her trap feeding his confidence.
The grab team leader barked something Kel couldn't hear over the comm net, but his body language was clear: Hurry.
Their cutting torch finished. The decoy trailer doors swung open.
And there it was—crated and strapped, heavy, sealed.
They reached for it.
Kel spoke one word. "Now."
Hess's men surged.
Two APCs rolled forward like jaws closing. Security infantry spilled out, weapons aimed, stun batons and shock nets ready. The grab team froze for half a second—surprised by resistance that wasn't sloppy.
Kel used the Zeus to complete the enclosure.
He stepped forward—slow, controlled—and planted the Zeus's foot near the grab team trucks, not on them. The ground trembled. Dust fell from the basalt walls. Men looked up at eighty tons of war machine and remembered they were made of soft things.
Kel keyed external speakers—not loud, not theatrical.
"Down," he said. "Hands visible."
No insults. No threats. Just command.
Most of them obeyed.
One didn't.
A man raised a pistol toward an APC driver's slit.
Kel fired a short burst from the medium laser—into the man's weapon hand area, not center mass. The pistol exploded into fragments. The man screamed and dropped, clutching a ruined glove and burned fingers.
Elin's voice snapped in, angry. "Kel—"
Kel's reply was calm. "He'll live."
Silence for a beat.
Then Elin, clipped: "Send him to me."
Kel: "You'll get him."
The Spider on the ridge tried to jump down into the cut, desperate to rescue the grab team.
Kel tracked it smoothly.
AC/5 hesitated—again. A warning stutter, the feed guide catching for half a heartbeat.
Kel didn't force it.
He switched.
Large Laser.
The beam slammed into the Spider's leg the moment it landed, cutting armor and biting into structure. The Spider stumbled, jump jets flaring wildly to keep it upright, and then it jumped again—away, abandoning the team.
The Jenner backed off too, its pilot deciding the job wasn't worth dying in a choke point for a crate that might already be lost.
Scorpion tanks withdrew behind the ridgeline smoke.
Within minutes, the fight bled out—not into victory music, but into the quiet, exhausted reality of surviving.
The grab team lay on the ground with hands visible, boxed by APCs and watched by rifles.
Kel held the Zeus steady at the center of the cut like a gate no one could pass.
"Status," Kel said.
Mara answered first. "We captured the grab team. Coda is still mobile. He's not running blind—he's… repositioning."
Sienna came in, tense. "He's pulling back. He saw the grab fail. He's moving west ridge line—fast."
Kel didn't chase. Not yet.
"Hess," Kel said. "Secure prisoners. Secure decoy crate. Do not open it."
Hess grunted. "Why not open it?"
Kel's tone stayed even. "Because we don't know what he expects us to see inside. We don't give him information."
Mara's voice tightened. "Kel… there's one more thing."
Kel: "Speak."
Mara hesitated, then said, "The receiver handshake—when Coda pinged—looked like ComStar formatting. Not identical. But… similar."
That landed heavy without needing to be dramatic.
Kel kept his voice calm. "Copy."
He let the word cover the weight.
ComStar didn't have to be involved.
But if they were—even indirectly—then this wasn't just corporate theft.
This was a knife fight inside the rules of the Inner Sphere, where paper cut deeper than lasers.
Kel looked at the decoy crate sitting open in the trailer bay, straps cut, seal visible.
Even without opening it, he could see the outer banding—clean, professional.
And the mark on the seal wasn't a corporate logo.
It was a simple printed glyph, stark black on white:
A circle with a vertical line through it—like an eye with a spine.
Mara saw it too. "That's not Vantrell," she said quietly.
Hess swore under his breath. "What the hell did my company move?"
Kel didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Because the question had finally become the shape he recognized from his father's last days:
Someone important is lying, and the lie is worth killing for.
Kel keyed comms again.
"Sienna," he said. "Do not chase Coda. Shadow him until you risk isolation, then fall back. I want his direction and his habits."
Sienna's voice came back, immediate. "Copy."
Kel added, calm and firm, "You did exactly what you were supposed to."
A pause on the line—then Sienna, quieter, "Copy," again.
Kel cut the channel before the moment could become anything else.
He wasn't cruel.
He just didn't let emotion steal bandwidth.
"Mara," Kel said. "Get every byte from the node and the grab team transmitter. I want names, routes, and any MRB codes they touched."
Mara's voice regained its clean professional edge. "Already doing it."
"Elin," Kel said. "Triage. Keep them alive."
Elin: "Copy."
Kel turned his attention inward for a beat—feeling the Zeus beneath him, the actuator heat, the steady hum of the fusion plant, the faint ache in his shoulders.
He breathed once, slow.
Then he spoke to the convoy like a commander who understood that calm was contagious.
"Convoy," Kel said. "We're moving again in ten. No one breaks formation. We finish this contract."
Hess started to protest—then didn't.
Because Kel had just proven something important in a choke point:
He wasn't a kid with an inherited assault 'Mech.
He was a mercenary commander.
And whatever was inside that real crate—silent, hidden somewhere else in the convoy—was now protected by something better than luck.
It was protected by discipline.
---
After-Action Snapshot (Mara Saito)
Ambush location: Route 7 choke cut (KJ-146)
Enemy assets: Scorpion tanks, hovercraft smoke layer, light 'Mechs (Jenner, Spider), grab team trucks
Enemy objective: seize decoy trailer / extract sealed crate under "package window"
Result: grab team captured; enemy withdrew; handler "Mr. Coda" observed and tracked (not engaged)
New intel: receiver handshake resembles ComStar formatting pattern (inference); seal glyph recovered on decoy crate exterior