17
The New Barracks
Tara
Northwind
January 3134; local winter
The city of Tara marked the start of the new year with a grand military review presenting the defense forces of Northwind to the civilian population. Planetary Legate Finnegan Cochrane stood in the reviewing stand as the people's representative. Paladin Ezekiel Crow and Countess Tara Campbell were, for once, among the participants in the parade rather than the dignitaries watching it: their Blade and Hatchetman 'Mechs, and Captain Tara Bishop's Pack Hunter, brought up the rear of the parade, coming after the infantry units and the armored cars, the tanks and the artillery, the converted Agricultural and Mining 'Mechs.
The parade had at last made its ponderous way through the streets of the city and back to the New Barracks. Tara and Crow had taken the first opportunity to change out of their 'Mech combat gear and back into working uniform, and had left Captain Bishop behind to handle the final details of parade cleanup-one of advantages of having an aide, Tara reflected, was that you could occasionally shift the boring stuff onto somebody else for a few hours.
She and Crow walked side by side in companionable silence across the open ground between the Armory and the main Barracks complex. After a while the Paladin said, "Please tell me that I won't have to listen to bagpipes again for a very long time."
"You mock our great cultural heritage," said Tara, laughing. "Everybody on Northwind likes the sound of the bagpipes."
"I don't. I'm not certain I would even call it music."
"It's not music-not just music, anyhow." She pulled her face into an exaggeratedly serious expression. "According to my old cultural anthropology tutor, the sound of the pipes is 'an auditory stimulus designed to evoke an altered state of consciousness.' He meant that it gets the battle fury of our ancestors roaring in our veins."
"My ancestors, however, have decided that it gives them a headache."
The back-and-forth joking had taken them up the steps and into the main bachelor officers' quarters of the Barracks complex. Tara, in her persona as Prefect of Prefecture III, had a suite of rooms there as well; the door opened with a touch of her hand to the lock. She entered the suite, Crow following, and waved the Paladin to a guest chair. Then she went over to the sideboard, which held a heavy crystal decanter etched with the regimental crest and a set of matching tumblers. The decanter was full of a dark amber liquid.
"It's past noon," she said, "and I've spent the past six hours marching-marching, would you believe it! -in a Hatchetman BattleMech. Care to join me?"
Crow shook his head. "Thank you, but no."
"That's right. I forgot. You don't." She poured herself a modest one finger of whiskey and stoppered the decanter. Taking the chair across from Crow, she stretched out her legs and contemplated the toes of her boots. Her mood was changing; she was coming down off the post parade and bagpipes high, and crashing hard. "And the people on Northwind would be shocked if they found out I did. Don't ever let anyone decide that you're the people's darling, my lord Paladin. It's damned wearing."
"You carry it off well."
"I've been practicing since I was barely old enough to walk." She sipped at the whiskey. Crow said nothing. She said, "They depend on me, and I worry all the time that it's not going to be enough."
"Last summer-"
"Was only the first time. They're going to keep on coming-if it isn't Anastasia Damn-her-eyes Kerensky it's going to be the Swordsworn or the Dragon's Fury or some other group of heavily armed opportunists." She took another sip of whiskey. The strong fumes crawled up her nose and clawed at her throat as she drank. "And it doesn't matter how impressive we look on parade, we don't have enough men and women under arms to keep on fending them off."
"If you're concerned about the size of the Northwind garrison, you could always withdraw the Highlander units from planets such as Small World and Addicks."
"And leave those planets bare? No."
He shrugged. "It was a thought. If you're unwilling to call in the off-world forces, you'll have to recruit at home."
"We've been. But it takes time. And I don't know how much of that we've got."
"Have you considered hiring mercenaries?" he asked.
"Not really."
Distaste must have shown in her face and voice because he looked at her curiously. "Why not?"
She was silent for a moment, marshaling her thoughts. "I'm-uncomfortable-with the idea of negotiable loyalties. I can't imagine it for myself, and I suppose I have trouble believing that such people are trustworthy."
"Not exactly a reasonable position, considering the history of your own regiments."
"Touchi." She acknowledged the hit with a wry smile. The Northwind Highlanders had fought for pay on worlds all over the Sphere, making a name for themselves as tough and competent mercenaries long before they returned to defend a world of their own. "It takes a kind of honor, I suppose, to hold to the letter of a contract in spite of all opposition. But setting aside my personal prejudices-which I'd do in a heartbeat if I thought it might help me protect Northwind-won't do me any good as long as I've still got to deal with the problem of money. Hiring mercenaries takes a lot of ready cash, and with the economy as shaky as it is, I don't know if I could persuade the Council to take the plunge."
There was another stretch of thoughtful silence. Then he said, "There is a workaround."
"Tell me."
"If you are willing," he said slowly, "I can engage mercenaries using my authority and funding as a Paladin of the Sphere, and Northwind can accept their aid without having to negotiate with them or pay them directly."
"Can it be done quickly? There's no point, if it can't be."
"If I let the word propagate by fast DropShip, we should get a response within a month or so if we get a response at all."
"All right, then." She exhaled on a long sigh and tossed back the last of the whiskey in her glass. "Do it."
18
Fort Barrett
Oilfields Coast
Kearny
Northwind
January 3134; dry season
In spite of the winter season, the day-to-day weather on the Oilfields Coast of Kearney was warm. The planet's equator was so close here that there wasn't much difference between one season and another in any case-instead of spring, summer, fall, and winter, the climate varied between wet and dry. This was the middle of the dry season, and no rain had fallen since the end of September.
The noonday sun beat down from a cloudless sky on the men and vehicles assembled near the gates of Fort Barrett. Anyone who was hot now would be hotter still when they were marching with a full pack-or strapped into the cockpit of a 'Mech.
Brigadier General Michael Griffin, who would be riding the 'Mech in question, looked at the assembled force with a critical eye. Griffin's Koshi, repaired and rearmed after taking heavy battle damage at Red Ledge Pass, would be at the rear of the column, where the dust stirred up by its heavy footfalls would not destroy visibility for the other units. He would be shadowed, as he had been at the battle for Red Ledge Pass, by his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Owain Jones, in a BE701 Joust tank.
The rest of the force was a mixed lot, made up of units chosen for what Griffin hoped would be the optimum combination of strength and mobility: a reinforced company armed with a mix of Thunderstroke Gauss and laser rifles, plus a heavy weapons platoon of Cavalier battle armor; an additional scout/sniper platoon mounted on Shandra scout vehicles; and a pair of attached Balac Strike VTOL aircraft.
This assignment would be harder in some ways than defending the pass had been. On that occasion, necessity had chosen his forces for him-a mix of what was ready and what could be spared- and his task, while difficult to carry out, had been simple enough to understand. There had been only one road by which the enemy could come, and only one thing for Griffin to do about it: a brutal business, but not, ultimately, one that taxed the mind.
This time, though, was
different. For a reconnaissance in force he needed mobility, in order to search out the enemy; but- because the most likely way of finding the enemy was by running into them- he also needed to bring along sufficient firepower to fight his way out of trouble. Too light a mix, and he would risk being chewed up before he could get word back to headquarters. Too heavy, and either the noise and dust of their advance would alert the enemy to run away, or they would encounter overwhelming numbers of the enemy and lack the speed to escape.
Griffin hoped he'd judged it right.
"Here's the situation," he said aloud. He had a field map of the Oilfields Coast unrolled and lit up on the front chassis of the Joust tank, currently parked near the left heel of Griffin's BattleMech.
The task force's company and platoon leaders had gathered at the feet of the Koshi for the briefing.
"As most of you probably know," Griffin continued, "we've had a sighting of Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky in downtown Fort Barrett. Regimental intelligence says that Kerensky is unlikely to be onplanet without some kind of backup from the rest of the Steel Wolves- and those DropShips that landed last summer in New Lanark may have left Northwind, but they never showed back up on Tigress. Headquarters wants to know where they are, so we're going out hunting."
He tapped the red dot on the map that marked the location of the Kerensky sighting. "We'll be doing an expanding square search, taking this for our center point."
Lieutenant Jones looked at the map. "That's a lot of territory to hunt for one person in," he observed.
"We're not looking for Kerensky anymore," Griffin told him. "We're looking for those DropShips. Which are a hell of a lot bigger and harder to hide."
The major who commanded the reinforced company asked, "What about all the parts of the search area that are open ocean?"
"We'll be doing periodic overflights with the attached Balacs, but our best bet is going to be the coastal flatlands south of here." He lit up the area in question on the map. "It's empty territory, more or less-the soil's not fit for growing anything and the rocks don't have any minerals in them worth digging out."
"When we find the DropShips, what do we do then?"
"In an ideal world, we'd send headquarters a message marking their location, then hunker down somewhere outside of the blast zone and let people who have more firepower than we do take care of things from there." Griffin turned off the map and rolled it up. "But since this world is far from ideal, we'll probably find ourselves fighting our way out of trouble at some point before we're done."
He handed the map to Lieutenant Jones, then stepped over to the entry ladder of the Koshi.
"All right, people- it's time to mount up and head out."
19
Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals
Offshore Drilling Station #47
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
January 3134; dry season
Ian Murchison spent the rest of a sleepless night thinking hard about the task Anastasia Kerensky had assigned to him, and about what he had seen and heard that late night on the observation deck. The two were not necessarily connected-a man's behavior could have many reasons-but someone who was looking for a single bent needle in a bin full of straight ones could do worse than to start out by examining the first specimen that looked off-true.
When Star Captain Greer missed breakfast as well as the morning head count, his absence-and subsequent failure to appear-caused a certain amount of disturbance. Ian Murchison soon found himself being questioned by one of the other Steel Wolf officers, a Star Captain named Jonath.
Murchison couldn't remember if he had ever seen him before or not.
The interview seemed to be mostly a formality; Jonath came up to Murchison's office in order to ask his questions, rather than dragging Murchison down to the drilling station's one-cell brig. As an acknowledged Bondsman of Anastasia Kerensky, Murchison had more or less free run of the oil rig in any case. There were some places, such as the communications room, or the access points for the motor whaleboat and the emergency life rafts, that had guards posted, and he was routinely barred from those. But otherwise . . . this far out from land, where could he run? In keeping with this general attitude, Star Captain Jonath's questions were the routine inquiries of a man seeking to round out an already established picture.
"Where were you between"-Jonath consulted his data pad-"1830 and 0600 last night?"
"Here. Finishing up the day's paperwork." It sounded as if dinner the night before had been the last time Star Captain Greer was on public view. Murchison had been there as well-it seemed that the Wolves found it less trouble to allow a Bondsman to eat with the general mess than to treat him as a prisoner and feed him separately-which gave him a bit of protective coloration for the lies he was telling now. It was just as well, he reflected, that his habit of taking a late-night stroll up on the observation deck to clear his mind before bed had never become general knowledge among his captors. "Then I closed up the sick bay and went to my quarters for the night."
"Did you see Star Captain Greer during that time period?" Jonath asked.
"No," said Murchison.
He waited for a follow-up question about being called back to sick bay to patch up Star Colonel Darwin, but none came. It looked like the Star Colonel had not reported his fight with Greer to anyone, which Murchison found more than a bit odd. Based on his admittedly limited experience with Steel Wolf Warriors and their fights, under normal circumstances Darwin would have been far more likely to tell the whole story to the first person who would listen, and the second and third persons as well.
If, that is, the altercation had been a legitimate fight, by whatever rules the Clans used to determine such things. The fight itself had undoubtedly been fair-Greer had been the bigger man, as well as being armed when Darwin wasn't, and had made the first aggressive move. However, Murchison remained more than half convinced that the killing of a fellow officer done by night and kept secret afterward qualified as murder or something like it even by Wolf standards.
"It could be death by misadventure," he volunteered to Star Captain Jonath, thinking that he might as well throw some general confusion into the air.
"What do you mean?"
"Accidents happen, and this isn't a forgiving environment. People can stumble in the wrong place, or fall at the wrong time, and go over the rail into the water and not come back up."
Jonath looked a bit disconcerted. "Bodies float, surely."
"Not for long," said Murchison. "The big hungries come and get them."
"Big- I see."
"If you check the drilling station logs, you'll find that a worker named Ted Petrie vanished the same way back in February of '32." Murchison didn't add that fifty feet of heavy chain had vanished the same night, or that Petrie had had a record of sexual harassment and petty theft and was not beloved of his workmates. Nothing had ever been proven, after all.
"I will check that."
Jonath closed his data pad and left. Murchison stayed at his desk and waited until enough time had passed for the Star Captain to have left the managerial level entirely. Then he retrieved a data pad of his own from a desk drawer and wrote in it for some time. When he was done he left the office, locking it behind him, and went in search of Anastasia Kerensky.
He found her, as expected, in the main operational control room of the oil rig. Several other Steel Wolf officers were present as well-not Darwin, though, which Murchison considered was probably significant. If he didn't want his injury to be discovered, he would have needed to find an excuse to absent himself from the Galaxy Commander's company.
The Steel Wolves had transformed the rig's control room into a military command center. Not much effort had been required-mostly, they had moved in a number of portable communications and data consoles, and had covered the main work table with a large tri-vid field map of the Kearney continent. Murchison glanced at the map in passing and recognized the Oilfields Coast, with what looked like Balfour-
Douglas #47 picked out in red. The presence of several other red dots, not far away, puzzled him for a moment, since Balfour-Douglas had no oil rigs in that area that he could remember. He put the question aside; he had, for the moment, other and more pressing thoughts.
Anastasia Kerensky looked up from the map as he entered the control room. "Bondsman Murchison. Should you not be in your sick bay?"
"I have the accident and casualty reports you requested, Galaxy Commander," he said, and proffered his data pad.
She raised an eyebrow. "You work fast."
"It's nothing conclusive- I don't have the personal resources to follow up on a lot of the things I've listed- but some of the data might be worth looking into further."
"Your work is not unappreciated, Bondsman Murchison." She took the pad. "I will look into the matter myself- careless accidents should not be allowed to hamper our operational efficiency, and those responsible will be punished appropriately."
The comment, Murchison thought, was as good as a dismissal. He gave what he hoped was an appropriately nonservile but respectful response and made a quick and silent exit. He wanted to be well out of range before Anastasia Kerensky read his report, in case the Galaxy Commander was the sort of person who liked to shoot the messenger.
20
The New Barracks
Tara
Northwind
January 3134; local winter
Paladin Ezekiel Crow had his quarters in the New Barracks, in the building designated for housing long-term important visitors. He occupied a suite of rooms very much like the ones reserved for the Prefect whenever he or she was on-planet, and that Tara Campbell was now occupying: one inner room for sleeping and one outer room for working and socializing, with sanitary facilities off the first room and a cooking and dining nook off the second, all done up in a bland offend-no-one style.
BattleTech MechWarrior Dark Age 05 Truth and Shadows 2003 Page 8
