"Hey," the Blitzen's cargomaster said, prodding the hanging hammock. "We're on final approach, sleeping beauty. Time to rise and shine."
The hammock swung quickly and deposited its occupant on two legs in front of him. Dawn eyed the DropShip's cargomaster blurrily as she ran her fingers through her cropped hair. She hadn't spoken to anyone during the whole trip, accepting whatever rations they brought her and only leaving the small cargo bay to shower. The rest of the time she'd spent working out her muscles or practicing her mental exercises.
"We are landing, quiaff?"
"We're about twenty minutes from touchdown at Galaport. For you, the end of the ride."
She stared dully at the man. They had not executed her, but Dawn wished they had. What would she become now that she'd been stripped of her caste, stripped of her welcome among her Clan and her kind?
"Fine, don't talk," he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his dull gray jumpsuit. "Listen, little lady, somebody paid a hefty price to get you out of the Clan Zone. I don't know why, and I don't wanna know. You can be a Clan spy, assassin, or whatever you want. I'm just being paid to deliver you to Galatea."
"I am not Clan," Dawn said, but her voice sounded disembodied, as if she were listening to a recording of herself instead of speaking the words.
"Sure you are. You look Clanner, talk Clanner, and those clothes. People will spot them a mile off. Just do me a favor, pretend you never heard of me or this ship."
"I am no longer Clan," she repeated dully.
"Whatever," the man said, shrugging to show his utter disinterest. "Just don't tell anybody I smuggled you out. They'll want to tar and feather me."
"Others would harm you because you helped me?"
"Of course they would," he replied, moving past her to check some cargo nets.
"Explain," Dawn said, clasping her arms overhead to stretch out her shoulders while the man went about his work.
"What's there to explain? You and the rest of your Clan gang show up one day and start invading three of our governments without even so much as a 'hello'. Rasalhague is gone almost altogether and you Clan-heads have taken over a big piece of what was the FedCom and the Combine. If the locals knew I'd voluntarily transported a Clanner here, they'd hang me high, right after they got ahold of you."
"We came to restore the Star League," she returned.
"More like force it down our throats," the cargomaster said, making notes on his electronic pad of the goods that were tethered along the walls of the bay. "What makes you think that's what any of us wants?"
Dawn stopped what she was doing and stared at the man. "Of course you do. We are the descendants of General Aleksandr Kerensky, a man that even your people revere. He and his son Nicholas foretold of our return, commanded us to one day come back to the Inner Sphere to restore what your people had carelessly destroyed. We came to restore the hope of the future."
"Not from where I'm sitting, sister," the cargomaster returned. "All I've seen of your so-called vision is an invasion force that brutally wiped out whole regiments. I don't think the Kerenskys would have wanted it that way, not at all."
"You must not speak of the great Kerenskys in such a manner," she said fiercely.
The cargomaster of the Blitzen glanced up quickly. Being trapped in small quarters with an angry Clan warrior was not how he'd pictured his day or life going.
"I meant no harm," he said, gulping slowly. "I forgot how you Clansmen are sensitive about the Kerenskys."
Her fury waned slightly. "As I said before, I am no longer Clan."
"You keep sayin' that"
Dawn felt a rush of mixed emotions. She was no longer a Steel Viper. That was Clan law. But in her own heart she would always be one. What they had taken away was just words. They could not strip her of who she was. One day, Dawn would win back her place, restore her honor. I must. It is our way.
Dawn stared blankly across the room, remembering the Judgment. "It was"—she chose her words carefully—"a misunderstanding. It is not something I wish to discuss."
"Well, like I said, somebody was willing to pay a bundle to have you hauled away, and to here."
"You speak as if Galatea were an evil place."
The cargomaster shrugged. "No, not evil. Galatea used to be known as the Mercenary's Star. But that was a long time ago. Now it's just a rough, tough place where washed-up MechWarriors or those living outside the law can find a place."
She sensed Brett Andrew's hand in sending her to Galatea. The Clans viewed the mercenary warriors of the Inner Sphere as an icon of the corruption of the former Star League. Paying some member of the merchant caste to bring her here, a place that sounded like a trash heap for the worst of the Inner Sphere's mercenaries, was his way of sealing her fate. Dawn knew that, and drew strength from her anger. You believe you are grinding salt into an open wound, Star Colonel Brett Andrews, but instead you only make me stronger. One day you may be sorry.
"I do not know your ways or customs, only those that have shaped me. I will survive because of who I am."
"Your people threw you out, did they?"
"Aff. They have banished me from my caste."
"So, what will you do now?"
Dawn tipped her head slightly. She had not thought much about her future. In her meditations, her thoughts had been of the past, of her shortcomings and perceived failures. She had relived Tukayyid a thousand times during the trip from Jabuka. She had also replayed the battle of Cumbres over and over again. Dawn had even tried the tactics she was accused of neglecting and found no change. Only senseless death and destruction as she had run through each scenario in her brain. Her fate had been sealed even before she set foot on that Kerensky-forsaken planet.
Now she was going to have to deal with the present and the future. For a Clan warrior, doing that usually took no thought. A warrior served her Clan and sought to win a Bloodname, the highest honor, the greatest glory to which a warrior could aspire. A Bloodname guaranteed that one's genetic legacy became part of the Clan breeding program to create future generations of warriors. That was lost to her now. All the rules were suddenly changed. She was in the Inner Sphere, a place of barbarians. Worse, a place populated only by freebirths. Castes meant nothing to these people. Dawn was no better than the lowest member of the Labor caste, the most humble gardener or waste remover. No, perhaps even lower because as yet she had no means of survival. The concept was hard to understand, as difficult to grasp as the need for money in order to survive.
"I do not know what I will do," she said, some of the vigor draining from her voice as she contemplated the unknown, a darkness as mysterious as the deepest space.
"You'll do all right. You're a 'Mech jock. Someone will hire you."
A mercenary? For Dawn the thought was nearly alien. Is this what I have become? One day I am living with the vision of the great Kerenskys to lead me. The next I am fallen lower than even a bandit. Her mind balked at the thought that her people had denied her so completely that she was not even as good as a member of the despised Bandit caste.
"Yes. I will do what I must to survive." As she walked over to pack her carry-on, Dawn was remembering the story of two water snakes so often repeated to her and her sib-mates during their cadet days in the sibko. One snake lived in the marsh, happily enjoying its natural watery habitat.
The other lived in the lane, where it had to content itself with puddles occasionally left by the rain. The first snake implored his cousin to come to the marsh where life was not only more pleasant but safer. The second snake refused, saying he could not leave a place to which he had become so accustomed. A few days later a heavy wagon came down the lane, crushing him to death under the wheels.
Dawn knew she could not cling to what she was accustomed because it was gone, stripped away. If she was to survive, it would be by striking out into the unknown. And survival was all. It was her only hope of proving herself, of finding a way to restore her honor, of one day finding the way back to her
Clan.
10
New Hedon
Herotitus
The Periphery
1 May 3057
Duncan leaned up against the old chain-link fence and looked beyond it as Rod Trane studied the city map they'd purchased from a street vendor. A lone BattleMech, a worn and weary Warhammer dating back at least two centuries, stood on the other side of the fence. In its time, it had probably been a good war machine even though much of the high technology of the Star League had disappeared or been destroyed in the Succession Wars at the time of its construction. Its technology was Antique and primitive by current Inner Sphere standards, and almost childish against the mighty weapons of the Clans. The proud Warhammer had probably fought on dozens of worlds before ending up retired on Herotitus, never having to face the juggernaut of the Clans, whose captured technology had helped the Inner Sphere recover some of the technology lost since the fall of the Star League.
Nearby was a pair of Galleon tanks that were probably even older, still pock-marked from damage they had taken in some old fight or war. Instead of being repaired, the laser scars had simply been painted over. The Warhammer showed similar old damage, and seemed to carry more paint than armor.
"This is it?" Rod Trane asked.
"Yessir, the lead element of the First Herotitus Defense garrison. Impressive, isn't it?" Duncan glanced over at some nearby buildings, which were little more than makeshift barracks. The mercenary in him noted that the communications lines were exposed and unshielded, and that the garrison didn't even boast a bunker for protection should they need defense. A properly organized strike could take out this facility in a matter of seconds.
"If the raiders hit this place, the city won't stand a chance. The weapons on that 'Mech are a decade out of date."
Duncan squinted at the old Warhammer, impressed that Trane knew his weaponry well enough to tell at a glance that the 'Mech's PPCs were outdated models. "They'll be grossly outnumbered and outgunned. The other lance we saw at the south edge of town had only three light 'Mechs. Given their positioning and the layout of the roads and buildings, they'd be lucky to even have time to power up before they get toasted."
"We could warn them," Trane said.
Duncan nodded. This was one of the few times the two had seen eye to eye. "But if we did that we'd be tipping our hand to the raiders. They might go to ground, hide out, and it'd take months to track them down again."
"I know that," Trane said. "But how can we let innocent people die when there's a chance to save them?"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, warning them wouldn't make much difference. So far these fake Knights have always struck in at least company strength. Even with their infantry, the garrison around New Hedon couldn't fight, much less survive, that kind of firepower. The best they could hope for is a running battle or to take out a few of the raiders. In the end the results would be the same."
Trane nodded. "The SAFE briefing said the planet's detection gear doesn't provide full coverage. If I were planning a raid, I'd drop outside their scanning area."
"My thoughts exactly," Duncan replied. "They're posing as the Knights to stir up trouble for the Captain-General or the Free Worlds League. I'd have them hit the city from several angles, using the main avenues to converge near the spaceport. That would create the illusion that there are even more of them." He walked over to Trane and pointed to the most logical routes on the map.
Trane took his pencil and circled the spaceport. "The garrison probably wouldn't have a chance to rally. And by the time they did they'd be facing a full company in the center of town. The confusion of an attack from so many angles would keep them from being able to concentrate their efforts. They'll come piecemeal and die that way, one by one."
"How about the escape route?"
"I'd have the DropShips land at the spaceport and pick us up as soon as the defense had been knocked out, or meet us outside the city for a fast getaway."
"My thinking as well. When I was running a merc unit I always went for the fast getaway on raids. Stick around too long and the cowboys show up with the cavalry in tow. So, where do you think we should position ourselves?" Duncan said.
Rod Trane looked around the massive lot where the Warhammer stood silent guard and then out at the city beyond and around them. "If we're right most of the fighting will be at the spaceport. Let's head that way."
No sooner had he spoken than a rumble shook Galaport's warm, humid afternoon air. Duncan looked around and then up into the sky, thinking it was thunder. But all he saw were thin white clouds blocking the world's white sun. No sign of what caused the sound.
And that scared him.
Glancing over at Trane, he saw him also scanning about for the origin of the sound. "It's happening, isn't it?" Duncan said.
"Those were explosions, autocannon rounds going off," Trane replied, stuffing the map into his belt.
"Damnation!" Duncan spat out, but neither sound nor movement came from the garrison force even as another rumble and roar tore the white sky over the city. This time it seemed closer, like a summer storm sweeping toward them, only this was no rainstorm, it was a torrent of war and destruction. It's happening too fast. Hell, they might never even get the call to mount up if they're caught too much by surprise. "Trane, we've got to do something."
"Yes, but what?"
Duncan looked over at the Warhammer, then slowly back at Trane. "Steal the Warhammer!"
"We can at least get closer to the fighting and observe," Duncan said, looking for a place to climb over the fence. "If we're lucky, take one of them in the process."
"I'll pilot," Trane said, and without another word both men began to climb the fence. It swayed and buckled slightly under their weight, but held until they cleared the top and dropped down on the other side.
In less than thirty seconds the two had sprinted to the Warhammer and climbed the footholds up to the cockpit. Duncan squeezed into the tight space first, and was nearly overcome by the stale odor of centuries of sweat. The bulky cockpit panels and gear protruded forward into the cockpit, not leaving much room for Trane as he bent his long frame to fit into the small space.
Duncan wished he were at the controls, but this wasn't the time to argue with Trane, especially given the condition of this 'Mech. Trane was fitting the bulky, old-style neurohelmet over his shoulders and looking for the sensor tabs that would attach it to his body as Duncan hit the preheat switch on the 'Mech's reactor. "Wonder if they have security protocol in place."
"Never realized just how creaky these old models were," Trane said, manually adjusting the neurohelmet contacts. Under them the fusion reactor of the Warhammer started to throb to life. A low hum filled the cockpit and the entire 'Mech seemed to vibrate. "Blast it, they've got security in place." Both men knew what that meant. The 'Mech could be started up, but it couldn't move or fire until the proper security code and movements were fed into the 'Mech's computer system.
Even as Trane was uttering those words, Duncan was wasting no time. He'd crawled around to the front of the cockpit and begun to work under the 'Mech's foot pedals. Trane was trying to activate some of the switch controls in the cockpit, but more out of frustration than any hope that he was wrong about the security system. "What are you doing?" he said irritably.
"Working on the security box," Duncan said from under Trane's feet. Duncan knew that sometimes BattleMechs stored the encrypted security code sequence in a small box under the cockpit controls.
"If you pull the box, the 'Mech will lock out and we won't be able to move." It was a standard security feature and one that had prevented the theft of more than a few 'Mechs in the history of warfare in the Inner Sphere.
"I know that," Duncan said, finding the box and examining it under the glow of the few cockpit control lights that were on. "But I also know a few tricks." He pulled out a small object from his pocket and wrapped his hands around the top of the box near its juncture with the computer system. "Try it now!" he grunted
, straining from the position.
Trane attempted to move the 'Mech and suddenly found that he could swing the right arm with its massive PPC. As he continued to work the controls, the huge machine lurched with a screeching of metal like an old machine protesting being roused from its slumber. So much for security, Duncan thought with satisfaction
"How did you do that?" Trane asked, switching on the heat-sink system and revving the fusion reactor to even higher levels of output. The humming that filled the cockpit increased and all the control-system lights flickered to life around him.
"One of the things you learn being a merc in the Periphery is how to work with this older equipment." Duncan held up the small object, revealing it to be a magnet. "Put this on the feed line at the same time you try to startup and there's a thirty-second lag in the security system loading. That buys enough to time to start, and the protocol won't load once the 'Mech is up and running."
"I've never heard of such a thing," Trane said as Duncan squeezed back into the space behind him. Trane's hands were a flurry of motion across the control panels, stirring the machine to life. Every 'Mech cockpit was similar, but placement of gear was always slightly different. This being an older model of Warhammer made finding everything even harder, but he quickly mastered the controls.
"Of course not. It only works on these antique 'Mechs and it's not the kind of thing guys like you ever need to know."
"Are you riding shotgun?"
Duncan squirmed back behind the command seat, barely fitting and forced to kneel in the tight space. "Not by choice," he muttered, wedging his body in even more tightly than before. The heat level in the old Warhammer rose slightly as the 'Mech began to lumber forward. Though they'd been lucky to find the neurohelmet sitting in the dank cockpit, neither one of them would have a cooling vest In a prolonged battle, he and Trane could roast if they fired everything they had. The old 'Mech's technology pre-dated the invention of double heat sinks and more efficient weapons. "Activate the short-range sensors," he said.
Star lord Page 12
