by Ilsa J. Bick
Yori knew where this was going. Tormark would try to get her to wait. Tormark would join her in a cooperative effort. That’s where this was going. Oh, yes. It was plain as a PPC burst on a cloudy day. She thought to grab hold of her Dragon’s coattails.
Well, Yori thought not. “It seems to me that you’ve overlooked three very important points. One is the weather. The weather favors you, not them. They have no ’Mechs—”
“That we know of,” Tormark put in.
Yori rolled with it. “And the weather would only hamper an engagement further from base. Their people would be exposed to the elements. If they are forced to retreat, getting back will be twice as hard. They gain nothing by engaging you at a distance. But we have already seen action. We have recorded activity consistent with targeting locks. Our orbital surveillance confirms aerospace fighters in power-up mode on the tarmac of a physically separate facility ten kilometers northwest, and my plan already calls for dispatching aerospace fighters to provide a forward assist to my Triumph. We’ve detected towed artillery bracketing the valley, and I have ’Mechs deployed to the south . . .”
“Beyond the canyon. Beyond help and . . .”
Yori plowed through. “So you see we do know exactly where they are and what they are doing. I have anticipated them by deploying troops north and south to empty out the center where we will make our stand. We have the advantage of mobility, and an Avenger capable of both an aggressive assault and cover for my ground troops.” She heard her slip almost immediately then decided that there was no need to pretend that these troops were anything but hers. “Our situations could not be more dissimilar.”
She fell silent. Tormark said nothing. Yori’s DI chirped that her diagnostics were complete. Now all that remained was for her to communicate with the other members of her lance, a Shockwave and a lighter Firestarter, determine their readiness and then deploy her remaining forces: fighters first, then her lance, with the Avenger close behind.
Tormark said finally, “Let me tell you something. Every time I think about Tony Ito fighting for his life, I know that I’m mostly to blame, and I did my recon. Hell, we spent days in recon, figuring out exactly where to hit and why. We had inferior forces, but we had the element of surprise, and we’d figured out where people were hiding. Still, even with all that prep, the one thing that bothered me but which I never resolved was why the compound was where it was. That sand was a trap I didn’t foresee even when it stared me in the face. The best way to hide something is in plain sight. This situation doesn’t feel right. You’re not here, but this is like a ghost base, and I can’t believe that they’ve risked everything just to defend one base. Unless . . . unless the idea is to get you to throw everything in, commit to a full-scale assault.”
“Which I’ve done anyway. Which I’ve had to do.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve had to fight your way through, I don’t have a banged-up DropShip or casualties. But this isn’t right.”
“For you,” Yori said, deciding that she’d had enough. “I have all the indicators required to complete my assault, and I will launch. In your situation, yes, I would reconsider, and in that, we are of like mind. But we are not the same, Tai-shu Tormark, we are as different as night and day. I appreciate your concern, but I have an assault to launch, and a base to finish taking.”
And then she added, as a one-two sucker punch: “Kurita, out.”
* * *
“Well?” Crawford said. He’d heard only one side of the exchange. Wisely, Katana had chosen to don a headset. He knew from Katana’s face, though, the way her lips had thinned to a gash, that Yori had just blown her off. Stupid: Crawford knew better than anybody the price one paid for assumptions. “What would you like to do?”
Katana slowly massaged her scarred right hand with her left. “We’re going to make sure before we commit. This setup is too perfect.”
Crawford wanted to protest. He was spoiling for a fight like everyone else because Dieron had been a long time coming. Could Katana’s experience on Shaul Khala have left her gun-shy? Or was that whole thing with the mystics still bothering her?
Then his gaze dropped to her hands, and the hatch marks of scars tattooing her flesh.
Of course, it bothers her, you idiot. More than anyone, she’s ultimately responsible for everything that happens on her watch.
He looked from her hands to find her eyes on him.
“Not on my watch,” she said, in a preternatural echo. “So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
* * *
The last time Yori had done a combat drop was in training at Sun Zhang Academy. Then, she’d been terrified. Who wouldn’t be? A thousand things could go wrong in transit. Today was different. Today her forces had already known battle, had punched their way through and were now engaged in an action that would loose her into this Republic stronghold just as surely as an arrow piercing a heart.
Her Dragon scythed through the air, cutting gravity’s hold with two searing blades of superheated plasma. Her jump jets gave a throaty growl as they beat back the death that might claim her, and she felt their overwhelming power in the shudder that surged into her very marrow and made her heart seem to throb in unison.
Her prize unfurled below, a verdant carpet of evergreens intermingled with the jagged gray teeth of bare peaks that bit into a brilliant, azure sky. To her far right, a thin silver ribbon spooled east as a mountain river was diverted well away from the base which occupied the deep, broad well of a valley. She was pleased to see that the terrain was as depicted in Luthien’s sim, with one very important difference. The data upon which that simulation had been constructed was old, pre-Republic. That bowl was what remained of the river that had not only been diverted but was diminished in width, speed, and depth by three-quarters.
The reason why was north. A curved, gleaming, bone-white ferrocrete expanse of a gravity dam wedged at a natural chokepoint between thick towering swaths of granite. Behind the dam, a once-modest lake was now a vast reservoir—what they’d estimated from recon as two hundred and thirty-five kilometers long and a maximum of twelve kilometers at its widest point.
Beyond the dam, she spied twinkles of laser fire, the emerald bursts from PPCs, like a million fireflies glittering over the surface in a way that might have been called beautiful. A milling black mass that was her assault force was closing in, flowing over the terrain like a wave of ants bearing down on prey. Even from this distance, she could make out the burning hulks of a Mars assault vehicle and two Demons, looking like discarded toys, with flames scorching their Republic blue to sooty ash. The blocky carapace of a JESII, its right rear track coughing black smoke, was struggling to retreat, and before her eyes, one of her S-7s screamed past the JESII, loosing a quiver of MRMs before hurtling away. An instant later, the missile carrier’s racks pillowed in a series of catastrophic fireballs so intense and so searing the light hurt her eyes.
Yes, she had been right to do things this way, and now she was seeing the results.
Plow the road, my ass. What the hell did you think I was going to do? Simply launch an assault with my one lance and a samurai bellow?
Oh, there were obstacles. This wasn’t going to be a cake-walk. Despite the fact that she had maneuvered her forces to engage The Republic and draw them out from their base, this combat drop was the most dangerous portion of her passage to earth. She and her lancemates—Katanga in his olive green Panther to her left, the tongues of fire from his jump jets pulsing in rhythmic bursts to control his descent; and, two kilometers beyond Katanga, the crimson and yellow Firestarter keeping pace with its heavier mate, the Shockwave—none of them would be as vulnerable to attack from below or encounters in the air than at this moment.
The ground was coming up fast. She was low enough now that the planet had lost its natural curvature and flattened. Below her feet, a new flurry of orange firefly twinkles danced and darted in bizarre, swooping patterns. Pretty, under other circumstances, but she knew from the comm chatter bleed
ing through her internal speakers that the Blues had spotted them.
“Dragon Five Seven engaged offensive! Two bandits left two, nine klicks, medium!”
“. . . one two tally, visual, press!”
“. . . left, left! Dragon One Two, break left! Bandit your left seven, six klicks, low!”
Her mixed flight of three fast, very well armored Sholagars mated to three bullet-shaped Lucifers were pitted against two lances of Tridents and Zeros. The Sholagars were fast, twirling on their long axes like platters spun on edge, evading return laser fire from the flat wedges of the Tridents. She watched as one Trident broke right, rolled until it was nearly inverted and then pulled down sharply, hurtling nearly ninety degrees down and using gravity assist to increase its speed. A good strategy: The maneuver would spoil the Sholagar’s target lock as the defender accelerated and rolled, screaming into a tight nose-low spiral.
Ah, but her Sholagar did not disappoint. The pilot anticipated the moment that the Trident snap-rolled into the spiral. The Sholagar delayed his pull-down and then, as the Trident began his spiral, the Sholagar continued its level turn. The fighter rocketed to a point directly above the Trident and then began its own pull-down. The Trident lost visual as the Sholagar loosed an SRM. The missile dug a trough in the air, bulleting for the Trident’s right rear quarter then bursting into a cloud of hot orange and charred debris. Butted from behind, the Trident flipped end over end; the Sholagar swooped after. Laser fire battered the beleaguered craft, flaying through armor that boiled and bubbled.
A click in her helmet that coincided with the scream of an alarm signaling a target lock: “Yori-san! Bandit, bandit to your right! Look out!”
Heart leaping into her mouth, Yori jerked her attention away from the drama below to the sight of a fighter that her squadron had either not seen, or allowed to slip through. Not a Zero or Trident, but the arrowhead of an F-94 Stingray, closing fast. Before she could blink, the fighter let fly with spread of ten LRMs.
Her cockpit erupted in a squall of alarms. Yori had one choice. Pivoting fast, she throttled back on her jump jets at the same instant that she straight-armed her Dragon’s right PPC. Her intention was to loose a molten blue gout that would batter the Stingray at its most vulnerable point: the ferroglass cockpit. Take out the pilot and neutralize further threat.
But before she could fire, gravity howled up from the planet’s surface. It snatched at her Dragon’s sixty tons of endosteel and armor, grasped her ’Mech with greedy hands and yanked. Screaming, she plummeted toward earth, accelerating so fast that the red glow of crosshairs on her HUD’s target lock fizzled out. Wind howled over her canopy, and her head ballooned, growing hollow as her vision grayed.
Pulling gs, got to compensate . . . She grunted, tried forcing blood into her head, but she felt ill, sick to her stomach, and she was rolling, she thought, her body riding a swell and . . .
A voice, cutting in on her command channel that somehow, miraculously, she heard over the wail of alarms: “Dragon One Two, padlocked, engaged offensive! Tally one, left eleven, one klick high!”
Another voice, in answer, steely calm: “Dragon Seven Three tally, visual, press.”
What? Who? Her numbed mind pulled in the information, stitching the words together . . . Then blinding red streaks so bright they hurt her eyes flashed from left to right in her visual field. There was a moment’s silence then a boomboomboom!
The missiles! In her panic, she’d forgotten, but where were they, who had they hit . . . ?
Katanga now, urgent, tense: “Yori! You’re off center! It’s your right arm! You’ve thrown off your center of gravity, your legs are splaying, and you’re starting to roll! Do you hear me? Two Lucifers have engaged the Stingray! They destroyed five of the missiles, but you’ve got another five still on you, hang on, hang on!”
Gasping, she craned her head until she thought she was looking up, but something was wrong; it was like the sky was tilting because she didn’t have to look far to catch the glistening streamers released as the missiles detonated harmlessly. Or so she thought. No secondary explosions followed, no scream of debris raining around her cockpit as evidence that the missiles had, in missing her, found their mark in Katanga. In fact, it was as if she were settling into a chaise lounge on a beach, stretching to get a tan . . . an absurd thought, what was wrong with her?
No, no! Grunting, bearing down, shaking away stars from her vision to force blood to her head, she blinked away from the edges of unconsciousness. She was off-center, falling fast, too fast. Her body felt as if she’d been poured into a vat of molten endosteel: heavy, gluey, unresponsive. Marshaling her will, using every scrap of concentration, she hauled on her Dragon’s right arm, pulling it lower, lower, lower until it had crossed her vertical plane . . .
God, oh, God, oh, God, make this work, please, please!
“Clear!” she managed through lips that felt macerated and torn. For the first time, she tasted the rust of her own blood. She didn’t know the correct fighter lingo, and it didn’t matter. She just had to warn them . . . “Clear, clear, firing!”
More comm chatter bleeding through, the sudden BOOM of detonations high above, and now—oh, God, could it get any worse? She spied multiple arcs of tracer fire swarming all around—and knew that the towed artillery they thought might be squirreled away along the canyon’s rim were there. But if they were firing, and their distance was no more than a kilometer at best . . . !
“YORI!” Katanga screamed. “You’re too low! Do you copy? Whatever you’re going to do, do it, do it. Hit your jets, hit your jets!”
NO! She didn’t bother searching out her altitude because she knew she’d run out of time. Marshaling all her will, she tapped out a single burst from her PPC at the same moment that she battered on her jump jets.
The jets came to life, thundering through the cockpit like the eruption of an angry volcano. The sensation was like being simultaneously slapped on the back while getting kicked in the gut. Bile, hot and sour and foul, roared into the back of her throat, and she gagged, coughing out air and a mouthful of blood. Her visual field suddenly swung drunkenly, like the slow righting of a bobbing yacht, and suddenly she caught a glimpse of green earth and gray rock.
Katanga: “That’s got it, I’m with you! Hit it again, hit it!”
Banging out another rush of ionized energy from her PPC she jammed her jets to full power. This time she righted fast, almost too fast, and she barely had time to cut back as the view in her cockpit swirled. She saw green and gray and very little sky because she was that close to the ground. The gray rushed at her face, and then she realized that this was the western rim of the canyon. She recognized all those ledges, the ones in the Luthien sim, but she was too close to the rocks, her DI shrieking a proximity alarm as she angled her jets, trying to blast herself wide of the rock. As she passed, she glimpsed multiple flashes, like single fireworks going off one after the other, but then she felt the bam-bam-bam-bam-bam pummeling her armor, battering at her Dragon’s right leg.
Gauss rifle!
Slugs shattered her armor plating, ripped at myomer bundles. Something gave with a metallic groan she heard in her cockpit, and then there was another, much bigger spark and flash—but from above. Crying out in exultation, she raised her sweat-stained and bloodied face and saw her Avenger, with a lance of fighters flanking right and left, release another blistering torrent of autocannons. The armor-piercing, high-velocity explosive shells hammered her attacker’s position, pulverizing rock to rubble.
And then she was past, the battle still raging above. There was the sun at twelve o’clock high, spraying beams of light upon the stone canyon bottom, flattening her perspective, killing the shadows. And she was coming down fast, perhaps too fast, but no choice, no choice! She was only dimly aware that Katanga must be right above and to her left, but her frantic eyes searched out the altitude on her HUD. Those glowing digits whirring down, ticking out the seconds of her life, she remembered the foolish, seven-me
ter drop that had doomed her in a sim. She would not let that happen here, not here, not in the arena where she must win!
“NOW!” Grimacing in fear and fury, she throttled back, cutting her jets, praying they would cut out at the right . . . !
Her Dragon hit. She bounced against her harness then banged back into her command couch. Explosive bolts ignited beneath her undercarriage, jettisoning the now-useless jump jets. The chassis shook with the impact, and she could feel the heat practically bleeding through the deckplates of her cockpit. Sweat ran freely down her neck and arms, and soaked into the waistband of her shorts, but her cooling vest responded with a blast that made her gasp at the chill. And she saw the worst on her internal damage status screen. Those Gauss slugs had mangled her right lower leg actuator.
Then a blur of green to her left as Katanga touched down, his jets cutting out. Swinging right, she spied the Firestarter and Shockwave already down and moving in, and above were the Avenger and her fighters—blessedly, all six, including the two who’d bought her time and saved her life, transforming the canyon’s rim to a cratered waste.
She was down.
Parsonage Airspace, Dieron
“Pipe that back up to us again,” Katana said into the ship’s comm. She’d taken up position next to Tactical, her gaze intent upon the screen. Her flights of Zeros were neutral yellow icons against a green-grid schematic of the Blue’s base. They’d broken the kilometer barrier above the base, and yet nothing had changed. No challenge. Nothing.
The lead pilot said, “Akira Five One cleared, float.”
“Akira Five Two confirm, visual,” his wingman replied, and Katana watched as the yellow blips spread laterally. With so much snow and no gradation in light, shadows were nonexistent, the horizon taken as a leap of faith in one’s telemetry. What the pilots would do next—a low-altitude flyover of an enemy base—required a similar faith in the vigilance of the DropShip’s captain.
Although she didn’t doubt the woman’s ability to provide air cover—indeed, she was the one who suggested the idea in the first place—Katana looked the question her way. The captain caught her eye, and nodded.
