Part 813: Let's Read: D.R.T. - Part 5
Let’s Read: D.R.T. Part 5: Journey to the Center of the BookChapter 8
DropShip Bristol, Pirate Point 3A/Lu2334Zulu
Wolcott System, Draconis Combine
17 February, 3057
There are 32 chapters in this book. We will not see an enemy `Mech until at least chapter 19. We won’t meet our antagonist until chapter 21. This book is 281 pages long, and we won’t see the antagonist until page 178. If it feels like I’m driving this point hard, it’s because more than half of this book is pointless filler followed by painfully hilarious anticlimax. I’m belaboring the hell out of this point to make one of my own: it’s going to be hard as hell not to skim the next eleven chapters.
Also, I am 90% certain that Wolcott is more than one jump from Luthien. I could be mistaken, but I don’t think so. In fact, let’s just check Sarna.net…
Yup. I’m right. Wolcott isn’t even within two jumps of Luthien. I’d say it’s right on the border between 3 and 4, so yeah. No way in hell the Black Thorns made it there in a day, and even less chance that the Draconis Combine has been using Luthien as a staging ground. I don’t blame the book for this, though, since there was no official map of the Inner Sphere, beyond the extremely general ones, for quite a long time.
All sperging aside, the JumpShip Ellyohippus, which is meaningless but implies some sort of horse (or perhaps someone named ‘Elly’ who happens to look like a horse) arrives in Wolcott safely and immediately launches the Bristol. Anyway, after they’re not immediately attacked Rose tells everyone to stand down and immediately starts pondering why he feels so uncomfortable on the Bristol’s bridge when normally he has no trouble being a complete asshat.
D.R.T. posted:
The fact that he was ill at ease on the bridge of the Bristol always struck Rose as odd. In other trips aboard other such ships, he’d been known to give various captains a severe dressing-down for one reason or another.
Dick.
Anyway, he goes to visit Captain McCloud on the bridge because otherwise this chapter would have consisted of “The Black Thorns arrive on Wolcott and nobody has any idea how close McCloud was to being shot.”
Rose walks right onto the bridge but OH SHIT CLAN FIGHTERS ARE ATTACKING… someone else. The ISF operatives immediately try to change course and speed to distract them since even though the Bristol’s shitty equipment can see the Clan fighters, the Clan fighters can’t see the Bristol for some reason. BattleSpace is a weird, weird game. Anyway, since the Clans have no qualms about not immediately murdering the hell out of any JumpShips they come across McCloud immediately countermands the ISF operative’s orders because she’s feeling contrary and/or Jeremiah’s sociopathy is rubbing off on her.
Even though the Bristol should have plenty of fuel to reach Wolcott, she doesn’t detour prompting the ISF agents to stand up. So Jeremiah draws his pistol on them to keep them from shooting McCloud dead on the spot. Jeremiah? You’re the one who wanted to work for the Draconis Combine.
D.R.T. posted:
“You are usurping my command rights,” complained the pilot.
McCloud laughed. “And I thought this was my ship.”
“But this is my mission. I am here to make this very type of decision. That is why I’m on board.”
“Then consider this mutiny,” said McCloud evenly.
There are not enough facepalms in the world for this scene. Anyway, one of the Clan fighters makes the break towards the jumpship and you’re probably wondering: what can one fighter even do to a ship at least 152 times its mass? Well, the Ellyohippus is an Invader-class JumpShip and mounts either two PPCs or two Large Lasers. A Clan Kirghiz fighter in its least-popular configuration mounts three ERPPCs and five LRM-20s. A Kirghiz could blow a JumpShip in half in three or four passes.
It’s a pity this fighter is almost certainly “only” a 75 ton Sabutai, one of the variants of which mounts 2 Ultra AC/20s and an LB-20X in addition to secondary armaments. So yeah. Congratulations, Captain McCloud, you very likely got one of the few JumpShips in the Inner Sphere with a lithium-fusion battery killed. In a universe run by sane people, no JumpShip would ever touch the Bristol again as long as it was still captained by Rachel McCloud.
In this book? I’m sure this will have no lasting repercussions whatsoever. In fact, I expect McCloud will be rewarded for her idiotic decision by the end of the book.
Chapter 9
DropShip Bristol, Wolcott Spaceport
Wolcott System, Draconis Combine
17 February, 3057
Fuck you, Jeremiah Rose. Fuck you.
No.
Just, no. Fuck you, Author, it takes five days or more to reach a planet. They did NOT land on Wolcott on the same day they arrived in the system just, fuck you. Anyway, Jeremiah Rose is pretty convinced House Kurita is going to arrest them all as soon as they land, but in a surprising display of benevolence that doesn’t happen. House Kurita wants to give McCloud the benefit of the doubt for now.
Rose immediately stomps off the Bristol in his Masakari. His Masakari prime with four ER PPCs and an LRM-10. The Masakari he can’t customize because the Black Thorns didn’t capture enough equipment to modify. The Masakari the Black Thorns would’ve been too technologically inept to customize even if they had. I’m saying Masakari every sentence because the book is using Masakari every sentence. Masakari, Masakari, Masakari. Annoying, isn’t it?
Masakari means Broadaxe, which makes sense if you think of it as a bigger Warhammer. It’s one of the most deadly `Mechs the Clans have, an 85 ton walking war crime waiting to happen.
And it’s piloted by Jeremiah Fucking Rose.
Anyway, the rest of the Black Thorn `Mechs show up and Badicus O’Shea is finally mentioned 76 pages into the book. 76 pages is far and away too long not to have the Awesome Scottsman around. Oh, and even better the book reintroduces all the characters INCLUDING RIANNON WHOM WE HAVE ALREADY SPENT THREE CHAPTERS WITH.
You can’t see it, but I have a red mark in the shape of my hand in the center of my forehead. I think D.R.T. is the only Battletech novel that assumes you’re skimming this shit to find the fighty bits.
The Black Thorns are lead to a bivouac (my word, not the book’s) in an abandoned factory on the edge of a swamp. The other manufacturers thought it was daft to build a factory on the edge of a swamp, but they built it just the same. Then the Clans blew it up.
So the Black Thorns are moving in, and with any luck it’ll sink into the swamp and take them with it.
Rose then text-dumps about parking spaces of all things while parking his `Mech, then dismounts and gives a two-sentence speech and orders Ajax (the Raven pilot, also one of the only good characters in these novels) to go sweep the compound for bugs. O’Shea then cracks jokes about volunteers in the military. I missed you, Badicus. If this book were entirely you snarking at Rose behind his back, it would be the best thing.
Rose then orders, um. What’s his name. The most boring guy in the unit. Antioch Bell, that’s it! He orders Antioch Bell to secure quarters for McCloud and her crew so they don’t get abducted by crazy Clan cultists and blown up.
The Draconis Combine send a guy to give them the keys to the base, and in true Kurita fashion he treats the Black Thorns like a hunk of dogshit he’s just discovered on the bottom of his shoe. I like him already.
They then endeavor to hire some local cooks and sentries because let’s face it, the Black Thorns have fuck-all for actual personnel. This book is already making me homesick for the 17th Recon Regiment who not only have a full regiment of `Mechs and enough technicians to support them, but a full battalion of combat infantry as well. Anyway, the chapter ends pretty unceremoniously.