Lethal heritage

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The comtech hesitated. "We aren't sure, sir. The Diabolis has moved into the area, which means communications are all fragmentary. Hauptmann Jungblud appears to have some contact at his forward position and has engaged in fighting. Leftenant-General Milstein says it looks to be fringe elements of the garrison force as they move toward the plain. All our other reports say a full regiment and a half of 'Mechs are moving to beat the storm into the plain."

  Though the explanation sounded correct, something nagged at the back of Victor's mind. It's more than my dislike of Morgan assigning Leftenant-General Milstein as my safety valve. I can't have Milstein pull a Hawksworth on me. "Thank you, Comcenter." He switched over to another channel on the landline. "Kai, this is Victor. Have you been monitoring the situation at the Gash?"

  "Affirmative."

  "Assessment?"

  The hum of dead air filled Victor's neurohelmet as Kai considered his reply. "I think, Kommandant, that the Clans are probing the Gash to see if we've left it undefended. The use of power armor could be an attempt to get through and into our rear. Depending upon the numbers of the infantry, they'll be able to overwhelm our forward company of 'Mechs—especially if they're fighting with Clan 'Mechs— and then blow through our infantry."

  Victor winced. "That's likely to be nasty." He glanced at his map and punched a command into the computer that magnified the section of the map nearest the Gash. "We have a mobile hospital unit in Sector 0227. Get your lance over there and report back to me on the situation. The hospital is sitting right on top of a landline junction box, so you should have no problem getting through."

  The enthusiasm in Kai's voice survived transmission intact. "Thank you, Vic. Talk to you in an hour."

  "One hour. Got it." Victor stopped his hand in mid-motion just as he was about to shift his radio back to the link with the command center. "Kai, be careful. That Hatchetman you're riding has neither the firepower nor the armor you're used to with Yen-lo-wang. I hope like hell you won't need it, but remember that baby's whole head assembly comes away when you eject, so your torso has to be up."

  Kai laughed. "Just like my uncle's Wolfhound. Caution noted and appreciated. Will advise as soon as I arrive on scene. Allard out."

  Victor switched his radio back over to his command center. "Taccom, Davion here. I've detached Allard's scout lance for a recon of Sector 0227. Patch him through to me when he has a report, but I want you to monitor it as well. I'm going to break off here and head down to the plain. I'll join up with Hauptmann Cox and Alpha Battalion."

  "Acknowledged, sir. Leftenant-General Milstein urges you to be careful. ETA of enemy is thirty minutes at their last clocked speed and position."

  "Roger. Davion out." Victor hit a button on his console and the fiber-optic landline splice reeled itself back into the compartment on his 'Mech. As his eighty-ton BattleMech rose to its feet, a wind buffeted it. The Victor began to sway, but the gyros linked via the neurohelmet to the Prince's own sense of balance steadied the humanoid machine. With the 'Mech's left hand, Victor patted one of the stone monks on the leg, then lumbered his machine forward and down into the valley.

  Below him, the Plain of Curtains spread out like a coppery field of fired clay. From his vantage point, he saw the shifting walls of sand that raced over that baked slab. Juggernaut winds twisting into the valley through the mountains drove the sand before them in haphazard patterns. Where they collided, the writhing walls of sand degenerated into red-gold dervishes that battled each other until they collapsed into scarlet piles of dust.

  Beyond the Plain of Curtains lurked the Diabolis. The huge, whirling funnel of dust and debris appeared, for the most part, to be a black cylinder. Victor detected motion in it, but because of the distance and the storm's size, the walls appeared to be spinning at a painfully slow rate. Even so, the height to which streaks of red had risen in the black cone spoke of the power in the creeping storm.

  I know the winds in there have been clocked at more than 350 kph. The Ninth F-C's inertial guidance system and independent clocks are going to be the only things that drop them in on us on time. Victor glanced at his own clock. Twenty minutes to engagement.

  He hurried his 'Mech down the trail hammered flat by the feet of many other killing machines, then cut away from the trail about five hundred meters above the valley floor. As he passed a checkpoint, a 'Mech emblazoned with the flaming arrow insignia of a "pathfinder" waved him toward the front of the Lyran Guards formation. There he found Galen Cox's Crusader standing beside a Wolfhound painted in the red and black of the Kell Hounds.

  Victor opened a radio link with the two 'Mechs. "Lieutenant-Colonel Allard, I've sent Kai to check on the possibility of a Clan probe into the area of the Great Gash. They may have some power armor coming through there, and perhaps a lance or two of 'Mechs."

  Dan Allard's reply rumbled through the speakers in Davion's neurohelmet. "I'll have Colonel Brahe drop a lance back to cover that chance. The only good thing about that news is that it means they probably aren't going to come through the Sharkteeth. I think I can have Scott Bradley bring the Second Regiment down into their staging areas now."

  Victor nodded to himself. "Excellent idea, sir. We just have to make sure they don't commit too soon. We want the Falcons in and engaged with the First Regiment before we surprise them with the Ninth F-C and the rest of the Hounds."

  A note of amusement worked its way through Dan's mild rebuke. "As per the plan, Kommandant. Don't worry, I remember." The Wolfhound turned from the other two 'Mechs and began the final descent to the floor of the plain.

  Galen's 'Mech pointed toward the far end of the valley. "Our spotter at the valley mouth just said the Falcons are on their way. He reports a scattering of their unusual 'Mechs— Thors and Lokis and something he tagged Fenris—among other, more conventional designs. It appears they don't let their garrison troops use the good stuff."

  "Until now, we hadn't given them any reason to suspect that they needed 'Mechs on their conquered worlds at all." Victor glanced at his secondary monitor. "All we have to do is hold them for an hour and then the Ninth will close the trap. We'll have them and will have handed them their first defeat in this war."

  "Good God willing and the pass is held," Galen murmured.

  Victor turned his 'Mech to face the Plain of Curtains. "Look, Galen ... the Falcons' point-lances have found the Hounds."

  The undulating curtains of wind-whipped sand played a deadly game of hide and seek with the BattleMechs. The reddish dust all but hid the scarlet torsos of Kell Hound 'Mechs until the Falcons were almost upon them. At pointblank range, the invaders' targeting edge meant nothing, reducing the battle to a contest that would be decided by the opponents' sheer firepower and the strength of their defenses.

  The initial exchanges ran in favor of the Kell Hounds. Because of their superior numbers, they concentrated their fire on a single target and were able to cripple it with a salvo or two. The Falcons, in keeping with what Victor saw as their standard battle doctrine, picked out individual targets and attacked them to the exclusion of all others. The Falcon scout groups withdrew quickly at first, but slowed their retreat as the Kell Hounds failed to follow and their own reinforcements moved up.

  The Kell Hounds pulled back in the face of the whole Falcon host. When various individual Falcons sprinted out away from their lines, the Kell Hounds shot them up. The Falcon commander quickly reined in his people, and the invaders began a controlled advance, willing to let the mercenaries choose their own time and place to die.

  Victor's eyes narrowed. They'll make their move soon. The Hounds don't have much room left to pull back further. Once they engage solidly, then we can call in the Second Regiment. A smile lit his face with boyish delight. I think this is actually going to work!

  Victor saw a blue button blinking urgently on his command console. As a wave of black and red sand washed away all sight of the battlefield, he punched it. "Davion here. What is it?"

  Panic filled the comtech
's voice. "Leftenant-General Milstein says to pull out, sir. Do it now!"

  Victor couldn't believe his ears. "What? Why? We're set to start ripping them up!"

  "Kommandant, Milstein here. You have to pull back. Your position is vulnerable, very vulnerable."

  Victor's temper flared. "Explain it to me, dammit, man. What the hell has happened?" We're not going to replay Trellwan here!

  "We just got a clear transmission from Hauptmann Jungblud. His company was hit by armored infantry and 'Mechs—a regiment of each! These were not garrison 'Mechs—repeat, not garrison 'Mechs. They were Clan frontline machines, Kommandant. Jungblud's company is destroyed and we can't raise the demo teams."

  Milstein's voice faltered. "It's over, Highness. The Clans are pouring through the Gash."

  36

  Sector 0227, Twycross

  Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth

  10 September 3050

  Because the winds had sucked away the oily black smoke from the burning armored personnel carriers, the first clue Kai Allard had about conditions in Sector 0227 was the SRM that slammed into his Hatchetman's chest. Fired by one of the half-dozen armored infantrymen, the rocket exploded against the 'Mech's left breast. The resulting shower of armor shards took away the Lyran Guard insignia, but the missile failed to hurt or stop the Hatchetman.

  Kai dropped the crosshairs for his autocannon onto the nearest figure and jammed his right thumb down on the firing button. The BattleMech twisted slightly to the right as the autocannon mounted in its right breast erupted with a hail of fire and metal. The supersonic slugs blew completely through the infantryman, then ricocheted off the canyon walls in a shower of sparks.

  The enemy's armored suit and its remaining missile exploded, but Kai had already turned his attention to other targets. He directed the medium lasers slung on the underside of his 'Mech's forearms at more of the metal-covered invaders. One eluded the ruby beam while the other, trapped between the APC and a small cinderblock building, just melted away.

  Perhaps believing the spindly-legged 'Mech a weak foe, one warrior in powered armor leaped up toward the Hatchetman's head. He never reached his destination, as Kai employed the most unusual element of the Hatchetman's weaponry. The titanium-sheathed, depleted-uranium blade of the hand-held warclub that gave the 'Mech its name swatted the Jade Falcon from the air like an insect. The warrior flew, arms and legs spreadeagled, into the canyon wall, then slid lifelessly to the ground, blood and black fluids leaking from the rents in his shell.

  Like a vengeful god among arrogant mortals, the Hatchetman pounced on the remaining Jade Falcons. As the Hatchetman crushed the life from one with its left hand, the autocannon ripped yet another apart. The last enemy warrior, aware that he was doomed, launched two SRMs into other APCs. Kai's lasers vaporized him seconds after the vehicles exploded.

  Kai opened a radio link with the rest of his lance. "Get up here. Things are not normal. I just had to put down six of their Toads. Keep your eyes open and be careful." He looked out over the chaotic scene. "It's a mess up here."

  Located in the middle of a canyon approximately two hundred meters wide and four times that long, the medical station consisted of two large tents on either side of a smaller truck storing the diagnostic machinery and supplies. Because of the high walls around the canyon, the air remained relatively clear, defended from the fury of the Diabolis. Curling around to the east, at a point opposite the hill Kai had climbed to reach it, the canyon narrowed down into the westernmost portion of the Great Gash. From there, the Gash traveled three hundred meters upward at a gentle slope, with the mountain shoulders rising up another four hundred meters on either side of the narrow pass. At the point where the pass began to slant back down to the east, explosives had been rigged to shut down the pass if needed.

  Streaming back from the pass and the heights around it came Commonwealth soldiers all tattered and torn. Some ran in panic, with no idea of where they were or where bound. Others, regardless of their own injuries, helped lessfortunate comrades to the makeshift hospital. More than one soldier carried the limp body of a friend in his arms, and Kai knew that there would be no help for many of them.

  Kai dropped his 'Mech down to one knee and used its free left hand to corral a soldier. He flicked his external speakers on with the touch of a button. "Report, Sergeant Detloff," he said, reading the man's name from the patch on his uniform. "What happened?"

  The man shuddered and seemed to struggle to speak. "They got through us, sir. We finished planting the explosives and all, and then they were all over us." His hand dropped unconsciously to the empty holster on his right hip. "Nothing stopped them."

  The images of unarmored men trying to stop the Jade Falcons with small-arms fire sent a shiver of dread through the Mech Warrior. "Did you blow the pass?" Even as he asked, Kai knew the answer. They couldn't have done it. With all those explosives and that much rock moving, I'd have felt it on the way up. The non-com confirmed Kai's deduction with a head-shake.

  Kai opened up the external microphone and increased its gain slowly. The feedback built into a piercing shriek that blasted through to even the most shocked of the warriors in the valley. Flipping it back off, he keyed up his helmet mike. "Get your people into the APCs and other vehicles. You're pulling out. Those of you who can walk should help the others or carry as much of the hospital supplies as possible."

  Focusing back from the eye-slit viewport to his holographic display, he saw the rest of his lance arrive on the scene. "Jeff, Maggie, use your 'Mechs to clear out these burning APCs so they can get to the good ones. Harry, keep your Hunchback near the trail leading down. You're point man for getting this convoy out of here."

  "Roger, Leftenant." The vindicator and Trebuchet moved toward the burning vehicles while the barrel-chested Hunchback stood sentinel at the canyon entrance. Though each of the 'Mechs had only one manipulative hand, their terrific strength enabled them to move the damaged APCs easily.

  Kai's heart sank as he looked out his viewport. Oh no! They're not having trouble, but I'm about to.

  Stalking from the hospital in a blood-spattered surgical gown, Dr. Deirdre Lear headed straight for the Hatchetman.

  Four or five meters from its base, she jammed her fists onto her hips and glared up at the polarized eyeslit. "I don't know who you think you are, but this hospital is going nowhere!" She pointed a finger back at the twin tents. "I've got people in there who will die if they're moved."

  The MechWarrior nudged the armored body of a dead Jade Falcon with his ax. "Your people will die if they don't move, Doctor."

  "You're here with your guns. Protect us until I can stabilize these people."

  Kai dropped the Hatchetman to one knee and laid its left hand flat on the ground. "Please, Doctor, join me inside the cockpit. I would prefer that our discussion not be aired in public."

  A look of revulsion washed briefly over her face, but she conquered her emotions and stepped into the mechanical hand. Kai slowly brought the hand up to shoulder height, with the edge of the palm resting against the 'Mech's left shoulder. "There's a hatch at the back of the neck. I'm opening it now. Please climb around and in." His fingers danced across the keypad on the right side of his command console, opening the hatch with a hiss of pressurized air.

  Deirdre entered the cockpit warily. Without turning to face her, he pointed to a jumpseat folded up against the right side of the pilot's compartment. "Please be seated. I apologize for the lack of accommodations: we don't often have passengers."

  "I don't plan to be here very long." She sat down, and he felt her angry eyes boring into him.

  He brought the Hatchetman back to its feet and resealed the hatch. "Please strap yourself in. You can get a headset from the compartment by your right shoulder. Plug it into the jack there and we can talk normally."

  She strapped herself in and connected up her headset. "You might as well leave the 'Mech down."

  Kai shook his head and concentrated on the holographic d
isplay. "I don't think so, Doctor. This is a war zone and a stationary 'Mech makes an inviting target." He flipped his communications system over to the external speakers. "Sergeant, gather as many men as you can. You're going back up there to seal the gap."

  The soldier shook his head warily. "Can't do it, sir. The Leftenant had the magcard that controlled the detonator."

  "Where is he?"

  The man looked to be on the verge of tears. "I don't know. He was one of the first hit."

  Kai frowned, sweat burning into his eyes. "What did you use for explosive?"

  Detloff shuddered. "Pentaglycerine. Lots of it. We had to shut down the vibrabombs to keep from setting off a sympathetic blast."

  The MechWarrior's head came up. "Then an autocannon burst against the walls or a missile ought to set it off."

  "Sure, if you're of a mind to commit suicide." Detloff looked straight up at the Hatchetman. "Even an Atlas couldn't climb out from under that much rock, much less survive the burying."

  Kai slammed his fist against the command couch's right arm. "Dammit, you better get back up there and find that magcard. You have to. Sealing the gap is our only chance to keep the invaders from killing Victor Davion." Please, God, get Victor away and clear ...

  Fire returned to the soldier's eyes. "Yes, sir." He turned and grabbed two other men. They, in turn, recruited several more as they headed off toward a narrow trail up the canyon wall.

  Deirdre's cold voice demanded his attention. "Excuse me, but I thought you brought me in here to discuss defending my hospital?"

  As Kai turned around, he saw recognition on her face the second their eyes met. "That's what I'm trying to do, Doctor. I'm trying to buy you the time, but the only way to do that is to seal the gap. The Gash has been mined and is set to explode, but they can't set off the explosives unless they get the card."