Fire at Will

by Blaine Lee Pardoe

  “Acknowledged. Any sign of the other ships?”

  “We haven’t spotted them yet, sir.”

  “Keep looking. First battalion, form up on me. Second battalion, you have our right. We are going to find a place to cross this river and make our move on the city from the southwest. Once we take this city, this part of the war comes to an end.”

  Bernard angled his Xanthos toward the Zanzibe River. He hoped the fighting had left at least one bridge, or that he could find a ford shallow enough to cross. Otherwise, this was going to be a long march.

  To the Southeast

  A blast from the SM1’s massive tank-busting cannon tore into Roderick’s right side. The shells exploded and rocked back his Rifleman IIC like a boxer being hit with a haymaker punch. His head throbbed as he fought to maintain his balance and keep the BattleMech upright, staggering back two steps before regaining his equilibrium. The damage display lit up yellow with a few spots of red. The SM1 hovertank had ripped deeply into his armored hide, adding to missile damage he had received earlier.

  “Somebody want to help me with that SM1?” he asked, waiting for his autocannons to cycle.

  “On it, Hauptmann,” said Jamie Kroff. Looking downrange, he saw her Violator burst from the tree line at a full gallop. Without slowing, she broadsided the SM1. Her massive anti-’Mech drill whirred to life. She lifted it upward and plunged it into the SM1. The drill threw shreds and shards of armor in every direction as it burrowed into the tank. It almost pulled her down, but she managed to make her Violator hold steady. Soon he could no longer see her BattleMech’s fist and Roderick realized that she had burrowed right through the tank.

  It dropped hard down on its hoverskirt and smoke rose from the hole as she pulled out the drill. Her Violator had pockmarks from numerous hits. It was still standing, and from where Roderick sat, that was nothing short of a miracle. “Thanks for the save.”

  “Sir, these guys are bugging out,” Trace Decker cut in on the comm channel. “They were just hitting us and suddenly turned tail and ran out of here at flank speed—thank God.”

  For a moment Roderick said nothing. Apparently the fourth battle of Burkettsville was over—which he considered good news. I’m running out of flanking moves and rear areas to strike at. He could think of only a few things that would cause the First Regulars to turn away. At the moment they had his unit on the ropes. Most of Burkettsville was already trashed from the attack they had repulsed the night before. He had used his presence there as bait to lure in the Regulars. They kept coming, and his troopers kept finding new ways to batter them.

  Fires burned from the refinery. At least we put some of the oil to good use. He gave himself a mental pat on the back as he thought about the concealed trenches full of fuel that had been ignited during the assault. It had caught and eliminated a handful of vehicles and infantry squads, and had redefined the battlefield. Of course, the cost had been the Regulars destroying Burkettsville with long-range artillery.

  And now the First Regulars were moving away— why? Then it came to him. Was it possible? Switching to the channel reserved for communication with other Lyran commanders, he dared to wish for the impossible. “This is Sword One to any Lyran unit on Tamarind—come in.” He paused. “Any Lyran unit, this is the Broken Swords, please respond.”

  Static greeted him. He waited, then repeated his request. Again, only static came back to him.

  “What’s the word, Hauptmann?” Trace asked.

  Were the reinforcements finally there? If so, why not respond? “I’m not sure. Let’s get in some quick repairs and rearm. I want our VTOLs up. Have them follow the Regulars. Let’s find out where they went and why.”

  Bernard stopped his Xanthos at the sound of the voice. Roderick Frost was alive. He shouldn’t be, but somehow he was. Nordhoff froze for a moment, stunned with disbelief and fear. Awkward didn’t even begin to describe this situation. If Frost survived this operation, there would be questions about his late arrival. While he didn’t care about the implications to Duke Vedet, Bernard did not want to be branded as having left his fellow MechWarriors to die in the Tamarind wastelands. No matter what his victory, everything else would be tainted by that suspicion.

  “Sir, we are beginning to pick up ground activity from the forward scouts,” Hauptmann Lanz signaled. The sound of his voice drowned out Frost’s broadcasts and galvanized Bernard into action.

  “What are you getting?”

  “Seismic shows BattleMech activity. Someone is definitely skirting the edge of our sensors, sizing us up. Estimates from the scout lances show one to two battalions in strength.”

  Not only had Roderick survived, but the First Tamarind Regulars Regiment had not been crippled in the field. The outlook on Tamarind was getting worse by the minute. The temperature in his cockpit seemed to be slowly rising; then he realized it was just him. Roderick would want answers or, worse, retribution. Even the reach of Duke Vedet might not be enough to save him.

  “Find me a shallow spot and let’s get across that river with everything we’ve got.” The priority was to take on the defenders of Tamarind, then deal with Roderick Frost.

  His command tent was a hard-shell dome that could be broken down quickly. One of the segments had shattered under a piece of shrapnel and its shards now were held together with repair tape. The air stank of the oily diesel fumes from the fires. The Regulars thought that Burkettsville was important to Roderick. The truth was, he used it as bait to lure them into a series of traps.

  “So, we have confirmation?”

  “They are on the ground to the north and west of here,” Trace said, leaning on his crutch. His BattleMech had been blasted out from under him days ago. He’d nearly been crushed in his cockpit, but had been lucky and managed to punch out. The landing was how he had wrenched his knee. “From what we could detect, Lyran transponders show about two battalions in strength, possibly less.”

  Doesn’t sound like much. They were most likely counting on our destruction sucking up more of the Regulars resources. I hate to disappoint them by being alive. Trillian sat at the collapsible table, apparently concentrating on his words. The shower a few days ago had done much to restore her spirits, though she seemed distant to him, like there was something she was holding back. “We’ve got what—a company strength, at best?”

  “Sounds about right with our losses today,” Trace said wearily.

  “It’s their turn at the dance,” Jamie Kroff added. Her forehead bore a brilliant purple bruise from when her neurohelmet had been damaged during an attack two days earlier. “We were left here alone to deal with these guys for weeks. Time the Third Lyran Regulars bled a little.”

  He understood her feelings; in fact, he felt the same way. Regardless of why they had been delayed, these were comrades in arms. They were all Lyran warriors. Their dying didn’t help Melissa or the war effort one bit. “What do the Tamarind Regulars have?”

  “About two battalions plus at least two or three companies of local militia that have been pulled into service. They’re probably a little low on ammunition, and just about everything they have has been damaged. Their experienced troops are prisoners or casualties. Now they’re most likely tapping veterans or putting inexperienced troops into equipment they don’t know how to pilot.”

  Nordhoff is outnumbered and probably doesn’t even know it. He rubbed his forehead in thought. “They are ignoring communications from us,” he stated, and shot a glance at Trillian. Her face betrayed nothing but she did nod her head, indicating that she understood why.

  “They don’t want our help,” Kroff added. “Let them deal with the Regulars.”

  “This isn’t a democracy, Leutnant,” he fired back with a quick show of temper. “I will make the call regarding what this unit does and doesn’t do.” His eyes fell on Colonel Wehner, who gave him a reassuring nod. He appreciated it. His soldiers and MechWarriors were tired of fighting, running and fighting some more.

  Trillian stirred, then rose
to her feet. “I recommend a brief recess, Hauptmann Frost,” she said deliberately. “I would like to speak with you before you choose your next move.”

  Roderick checked his chronometer. “Everybody take five. See what else you can have the repair crews fix. When we move, we’re going to need every hunk of junk mobile.” The officers limped, shuffled and wearily dragged themselves out of the tent. Finally it was just him and Trillian.

  “We don’t have a lot of time, Trill. What do you know?”

  “I’m willing to bet that Duke Vedet held off sending reinforcements here to sabotage your efforts and my negotiations. I also know that if he or his proxy Nordhoff wins the fight here on Tamarind, Vedet will claim it as a victory not just for the Lyran Commonwealth but also for himself. He could use that kind of victory to position himself for a bid to unseat Melissa and become archon—and we’ve already got evidence that he’s heading that direction.” Her words were direct and coldly blunt.

  “You’re usually a little more fun at parties,” he replied sarcastically. His joke fell flat. Given his own exhaustion, he understood why.

  “I have a confession to make, Roderick. There was a reason I tapped you to create this unit, your Broken Swords. I was counting on you securing a victory here. I was counting on this being a victory that House Steiner could claim as its own, with no interference from Duke Vedet.”

  He began to look repentant as she spoke. “Trillian, I am down to a shadow of a company of troops. Most of my men and women are wounded. We have enough ammunition to prosecute a short fight, and then we are bone-dry, even accounting for our salvage. How can I ask them to go into battle one more time? I’m not sure that even I believe we can do any good. Maybe we should let the Lyran Regulars take up the slack.”

  She hesitated, and he thought it was one of the few times he’d ever seen her at a loss for words. “ You can’t ask them. You’re right. But there is someone who can. Someone you’ve spent your whole life avoiding. Roderick Steiner can ask.”

  He took a step back. “Trillian, what you’re asking me to do . . .”

  “Is only what you’ve always known you would have to do. Your troops are dead on their feet. But if they knew you were Roderick Steiner—if they knew who your grandfather was—it would be enough to send them forward just one more time and win the victory. You have to try. If not for Melissa, or me, then for your grandfather.”

  He bowed his head. He knew she was right. Damn her, she was always right. “You and Melissa are asking a hell of a lot.”

  “That’s what family does.” She said nothing more. She didn’t have to.

  His officers reassembled around the folding table and all eyes focused on Roderick. “We could just let the Third Lyran deal with these buggers. I know it’s tempting—we’re just about spent in every way we can be. But we’re not going to step aside. We’re going to let the distraction they are providing work to our advantage. We are going to drive toward the capital, turn and hit the enemy in the rear with every ounce of strength and ammunition we have left. We’ll leave oneDropShip in reserve for our wounded. The other will shuttle us to a new LZ right smack in their back pocket.”

  “Sir,” Kroff began to protest.

  “No debate. This is my command,” he said, cutting the air with his hand.

  Trace joined in. “Our troops are dead on their feet, sir. I don’t know how I can ask them to fight again.”

  “If they need motivation, I can give you what you need. There’s a reason this unit was formed. It wasn’t just because we were misfits and I was the biggest misfit of all. No. Archon Melissa chose me for a reason. “ He looked at Trillian, who nodded once, firmly. “She chose me because she wanted this victory to be for all the Lyran people. She wanted a victory delivered by a member of the family. By a true-blue Steiner.”

  His audience was enthralled. “I and my family have lived under the name Frost for two generations. My father and I wanted to make our own marks on the universe and not be judged, for good or bad, on our family ties. The name I was born with is Roderick Steiner. My grandfather, Adam Steiner, was one of the Commonwealth’s greatest generals and a former archon. So I’m not asking you as Hauptmann Roderick Frost to go into battle one more time. I’m asking you as Roderick Steiner. Fight at my side, and you are fighting alongside the entire Lyran Commonwealth and centuries of history.”

  “You can’t be a Steiner,” Trace said wonderingly. “You were hung out to dry a year and a half ago. They wouldn’t let that happen to one of their own.”

  “But I am a Steiner, and living proof that with enough money and the influence of the archon, even a person’s name and relationships can be effectively buried. The price I paid for anonymity was that I couldn’t curry favors when I got in trouble. What happened on Algorab happened. I could have asked the archon to intervene, but I didn’t. Pride apparently is a family trait as well.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “So you want us to tell our personnel that they should throw themselves into battle one more time because they’re being led by a Steiner?” Kroff asked.

  “Damned straight. I’m going with or without them. I have to. Obligation is part of the price of the blood I carry. If your troops need motivation, tell them that the archon’s cousin is their CO. Tell them he wants them to write their own page in the history book. This might be their one chance to take part in something— well, epic.”

  Leutenant Kroff looked at Trillian. “Is this true?” “Yes,” she said proudly. “He’s my cousin and my best friend. You already know that you won’t find a better man to lead you into a fight. The only thing that’s changed is now you know you’re following the grandson of Adam Steiner, one of the best generals our family ever produced.”

  Trace limped forward on his crutch. “I’ll be damned! Sir, there’s a Thor we captured and have already refit. You get me a block of wood for the left pedal and I’ll run it using the crutch if I have to.”

  “You’re with me, then?” Roderick’s face shone with pride and gratitude.

  They rose to their feet, determined grins on every face. Trace Decker summed it up for all of them.

  “Who am I to deny myself a page in the history books? Who knows, one day you might be archon.”

  General Nordhoff had made a long sweep to the east toward Zanzibar. He had managed to get about five kilometers north in the middle of the arc when they hit. The First Tamarind Regulars Regiment was not crippled, at least not in numbers. They came at him en masse. Most of their vehicles were cobbled-together messes. Every one of them showed the damage of fighting with Frost’s men, but they were all functional.

  He lost one company in the first twenty minutes of the fight. He had tossed them forward to buy time to pull back. Now, with the river behind him, there was no place left to go. Attempting to ford the river under fire was suicide. Bernard hated making a stand where he was pinned down, but he had no choice.

  An artillery round went off to the right, engulfing an M1 Marksman tank in its blast. The tank backed away from the crater it had been sucked into when the round went off, smoke wisping around it as it retreated. The Marksman tank tried to track a fast-moving Tamarind Tamerlane strike sled that slid in behind it. The medium lasers of the Tamerlane blasted the rear of the Marksman; then it turned and headed farther to the rear of his force, looking for more targets. Reckless! His shock troopers fired at it, pitting its armor, sending it scampering. Either the Duchy had elite troops, or these men and women were green and downright dangerous as a result.

  A warning tone sounded as incoming missiles slammed into his quad-legged ’Mech. The Xanthos rocked hard to one side and Bernard struggled to keep the ’Mech standing.

  A moment later there was a crimson burst of light from a pulse laser against his other side that inflicted damage near two of his hip actuators on the right side.

  The two massive autocannons on the back-top of his BattleMech locked on to a Black Hawk running across his field of vision. He fired the mom
ent he had a lock tone and burrowed a dozen armor-piercing rounds into one massive hip joint. The squat, birdlike ’Mech tipped over, which made him grin until a pair of short-range missiles erupted against the front of his Xanthos. Flames roared upward and he cursed as the heat in his cockpit began to rise. Inferno rounds. Nasty, gell-filled rockets intended to toast a ’Mech rather than actually destroying it. Heat was a potent weapon against BattleMechs. He cursed as he backed up a few paces, closer to the river.

  The Marksman at his side sent a gauss rifle round downrange, hitting a Duchy Legionnaire. The slivery slug hit its left arm and tossed it back with such fierce kinetic force that it must have severed the myomer muscles in the elbow actuator. The arm dropped limp at the large ’Mech’s side, yet it pressed forward.

  The fighting was a confusing mess. Bernard surveyed the landscape and saw, in the distance, even more Duchy forces pressing forward. Damn . . . so many of them. He watched as a Partisan antiaircraft vehicle downed one of his Balac VTOLs. It careened wildly into the ground and exploded on impact. Another one of his tanks, an SM1 tank buster, hit the Partisan with an autocannon burst that ripped the vehicle in half. A tire burst out and bounced away. Bernard watched it until it disappeared in the melee.

  The Black Hawk regained its feet and his sensors told him that not only was it still operational, but its weapons were charged. It unleashed a salvo of laser energy at the Marksman tank, and this time the tank was not so lucky. The lasers seared black marks all over the vehicle. It threw a tread and ground to a halt in the sandy soil.

  An errant short-range missile plowed into Bernard’s Xanthos, hitting low on the rear right leg. It was a minor hit, but it got his attention. We have to get out of here. I have to get out of here.

  “All troops, draw back the line. Form a pocket on the river!” he bellowed into the microphone. Meter by meter, the Third Lyran Regulars gave their ground.