Ghost War mda-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “No, but I do think the guarantees that have been banked with ComStar have put Lord Germayne here in something of a liquidity crisis.” She gave me a nod. “I promise you a quarter of what I’ve already got against anything he offers you.”

  “Done.”

  Bernard stopped rubbing his shins and rubbed his hands together instead. “Tell me, how do we get him?”

  “Okay, look, Alba already knows the plans Emblyn’s people are working. You can leave the details of all that to her. You don’t need to know, and you don’t want to know. Also, I’m not going to ask you what resources you have or anything like that. I’m just going to suggest things and if you have the stuff you need to make it work, just make it work. If I don’t know logistics and timetables, you can’t blame me if something screws up. Alba, I have scouted some dead-drops and we’ll set up a servicing plan for them. If I hear anything that will interfere with plans I’ve suggested to you, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good, I was going to suggest that.”

  Lord Germayne frowned. “Yap, yap, yap, just like some little Kurita mutt. How do I get Emblyn?”

  “Here’s the whole package. It comes in two parts. First, Emblyn’s people have not claimed credit for either the sewers or the fire. They’ve hesitated because governmental critics are playing up the conspiracy angle and that makes the government look bad. Once some group pops up to claim credit for things, the government’s assertions are proved true and the citizens will realize their government is under attack. So, step one, you have people create some sort of anarchist group that issues some manifestos and claims credit for the attacks. You promise more attacks to come in the future.”

  Bernard’s impatience deepened the frown. “I’ve still not heard what I want to hear.”

  Alba made a gentle gesture to calm me, and I nodded. “Second step: you have to hit him hard, in a place that will embarrass him. You can’t kill innocents, since that pattern has already been established. You want to nail a big target that will cost him a lot of time, money, heartache and prestige.”

  The man’s eyes lit up. “I know the place. Perfect.”

  “Great, whatever. I’ll assume you have the resources to do the job. It’s going to be important for you to make sure your little liberation front or whatever you call it takes credit for your action, and comes up with a consistent reason why they hit Emblyn. It will take the shine off him from recent activities and will drive him nuts, since he knows your people didn’t do the first attacks, but he can’t stand up and say anything about it because his only proof is that he was behind the original attacks.”

  The idea of Emblyn being hoist on his own petard clearly thrilled Bernard. “Yes, this will work. Dolehide…”

  “I’ll make it work.”

  “Give me the details. I want to be driving one of the ’Mechs.”

  I shook my head adamantly. “No you don’t.”

  “Oh, I do.”

  I sighed. “If you do that, you completely destroy every possible advantage you could gain here. You have to be held above and apart. Think, you hit a target hard, what will Emblyn do?”

  “Hit back.”

  “Right, just as hard, or harder. And who is going to be the person stepping in to resolve the matter by force of arms? You will, with your handpicked cadre of warriors whom you have brought here at your own expense to guarantee the peace and tranquility of your nation. If you go on this raid and something happens to reveal your presence, you lose everything. You need to be somewhere else, rather conspicuous.”

  “I need an alibi.” He got a feral grin on his face. “Obvious and visible.”

  “Exactly.” I stood. “I’m leaving you two to this. There’s a back way out, right, the same way they came in so Neime-yer’s people across the street don’t have a holo of him?”

  Alba nodded, then got up and came around the desk. She stepped over Teyte. “I’ll be right back, my lord.”

  “Fine, I’ll be here thinking.”

  We left him to that arduous task. She guided me down two flights and out through a hole that had been knocked through the basement wall into the storage for a restaurant next door. “Up the stairs, out through the kitchen, and you’re clear.”

  “Good, thanks.” I shook her hand. “I hope you can make this work with little interference from him.”

  “I will.” Her hand tightened on mine instead of releasing it. “When Teyte wakes up he’s going to want you very dead. He’ll hold off because Bernard will see you as useful. Teyte will work against that and when he succeeds—however he succeeds—you will be killed.”

  “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

  Alba gave me a curious smile. “But they run the planet, and they will rat you out to Emblyn. His reach is longer than theirs, and he’ll be even more vindictive.”

  “It’s a chance I’ll take. It’s not easy playing both ends against the middle, but it can be profitable.” I nodded a salute. “And, as you know, anyone who fights for anything other than money is a fool.”

  30

  Oderint, dum metuant.

  Let them hate, so long as they fear.

  —Accius

  Emblyn Palace Resort, Garnet Coast

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  15 February 3133

  It should come as no surprise that Bernard chose the Palace resort as the target for his strike. I’m fairly certain Alba pointed out that it was also patently obvious, but there were few other places that would create such a splash with so clear a chance of minimizing casualties. Because the resort was not yet open, very few people would be on site at night. With a bit of warning, the building would be empty before a ’Mech assault could bring it down.

  What impressed me was how quickly and easily the Germaynes created the Basalt Socialist Union and started it claiming responsibility for some attacks. They claimed the sewers and the fire, and tossed in a couple of other things that the government had taken heat for in the past. I found that very clever in that it cleared the government’s plate and gave the BSU a longer history, which made it that much more menacing.

  Gypsy was immediately thrown into an uproar, since part of our plan had been to claim credit and shape public opinion. I carefully pointed out that we’d still be able to do that, and rather easily. “Look, we both know the Germaynes have issued these statements to bolster their claims and to take the heat off the government. We know we can destroy their claims because we can provide the Constabulary with technical details about the explosives used and a dozen other things that only we would know. We can take back credit and expose this as a government effort, if we so choose. Moreover, the government is clearly trying to lay claim to these events so they can use the BSU as a cover to take a poke at Emblyn and get away with it.”

  Gypsy and I then went through a version of my talk with Bernard and Alba. I let him figure out Bernard’s most logical target and we agreed that it had to be the Palace Resort. Because there was a constant stream of transports and the occasional DropShip making short hops into and out of the resort’s landing area—bringing in construction material and other bulk items—delivering a light company to the site was relatively easy. We figured that a pair of BattleMechs and ten vehicles commanded by Catford would do the job. Emblyn Holdings Limited had a license for a lance of ’Mechs for weapons evaluation purposes, since one of his small companies did produce munitions. They’d been painted up in gray, with an Emblyn Eagle in black splayed over the chest or flanks. A platoon of infantry came in disguised as workers.

  I got frozen out of the whole military operation, and that was okay with me because I had a very fine line I had to walk. I worked mostly on setting up the JPG strikes and helping Elle create the “real” guerrilla movement on Basalt. We chose “Freedom from Want” as our title, and used FfW as a logo. With that name we could justify anything, decry anything as evil, and we’d be set.

  We knew that exposing the BSU would be tricky and would
have to take place in two steps. Catford, as Emblyn Security, would stop the BSU attack on the resort. An investigation would be launched, likely by Colonel Niemeyer or his northern compatriots. Right after that we’d hit JPG, claim responsibility, and release to the investigators details that proved we were responsible for everything else. We would then be able to disavow the earlier attacks that the BSU had claimed, pointing anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the BSU was a smokescreen to take pressure off the corrupt Germayne regime.

  Elle impressed me with how hard she worked. Not only had she collected a bunch of rumors and scandalous stories about the current government, but she’d done the same for Emblyn. The latter we analyzed so we could prepare counters to them, whereas the former pointed out the vices we could expose to embarrass the Germaynes. She was not only thorough in her research, but rather insightful about how to employ what she had discovered.

  I left the disinformation campaign to her and prepped to travel north to the resort to witness the battle. How did I know when the raid was going to take place? Well, Bernard had gotten it into his head that he needed an alibi and he was very inspired. He agreed to go on a live, late-night Tri-Vid show hosted by a comedian who had scored a lot of points off Bernard gags even in the short time I’d been on Basalt. Reading between the lines of reports about this appearance, I gathered the host had been a long-time thorn in Bernard’s side, so everyone was salivating to watch the encounter.

  Before I went north I employed a dead-drop to leave a message for Alba to warn her that something was going on in my camp and that I was afraid they had caught wind of the raid, so she should abort it. I wrote the message out, folded it neatly, put it in an empty beer can—Diamond Negro, just for the record—and dropped it beneath a small bridge in one of the downtown parks. I then proceeded to a corner and drew an X on a lamppost with some chalk, to let her agents know there was a message at the dead-drop.

  And, of course, I did this late enough in the day that the message would never be found in time. I made one call after that, then got on the shuttle and made my way to the resort. Eluding security was relatively simple since most of the guards were underpaid locals entranced by the ongoing construction. I took a hovercab to the site, walked in with a small case and said I’d been sent to see the construction supervisor. Once I’d signed in, the rental guard started to escort me, but I told him I knew the way and he let me go.

  I entered the resort and made my way to the restaurant. To get there I had to open the lift’s control panel and cross two wires, but that did no permanent damage, so my passage went unnoticed. During the subsequent evac search of the building—which followed a fire drill—a guard did appear and ask if anyone was up there. I remained silent and the closest he got to finding me was filching a bottle of Castel Del Lestrade ’28 Cabernet/Merlot.

  Now, if he’d gone for the Chardonnay, I’d have been found out.

  Sipping some of the ’24 Chardonnay, I watched as a storm rolled its clouds in above, mirroring the gathering forces below. From that vantage point I could easily imagine myself to be Ares, ancient god of War, delighting as Humanity sought to slay one another. Humanity was far removed from the days of infantry armed with sword and spear, and the type of slaughter that would ensue might not only delight Ares, but would please Hades no end also.

  There is nothing natural about modern combat. I watched the BSU forces come in from the east. They brought two ’Mechs, one armored lance of Scimitars, another of Fox Armored Hovercars and a pair of Demon Medium Tanks. The platoon of troopers they brought in rode on the Foxes, but hopped off and formed up into four squads once the vehicles entered the resort property via the construction road through the jungle. Everything had been painted or uniformed in dark browns and greens to make them tougher to see. While I had a set of nightvision goggles with me, I didn’t put them on because the jagged flashes of lightning strobed brightly enough for me to watch their approach.

  The centerpiece of their force was a Firestarter. While the ’Mech was not a big threat in combat, against the building in which I stood, it could do a lot of damage. While I was fairly certain Bernard would have preferred having the Palace pounded into rubble, having it go up as a votive offering to the gods would be spectacular and in keeping with the pyromaniacal leanings the BSU had already claimed.

  Their other ’Mech was a Panther, which could move quickly and sported an extended-range Particle Projector Cannon. That weapon and the pair of short-range-missile launchers in the ’Mech’s torso made it formidable in combat, while its jump jets and armor gave it maneuverability and longevity in combat—at least while matched by a comparable ’Mech.

  I do have to give Catford credit. While I thought he was an egotistical giant and an intellectual dwarf, he was very good at setting up an ambush and executing it. He’d done a great job anticipating what Germayne would throw at him, and matched their forces almost exactly. He’d culled Gypsy’s resources for the best pilots and equipment. That, coupled with the advantage of surprise, gave him a gross advantage. His choice of ’Mechs heightened that advantage. His first shot, targeted and timed perfectly, doomed the BSU effort from the start.

  A pair of Condor Multi-Purpose Tanks—hulking tracked vehicles with lots of armor and an LRM launcher in the turret—joined a Catapult in launching their full missile payloads at the Firestarter. They’d been fed targeting coordinates from one of the construction shacks because they were waiting in the foundation pit for Tower Three. The launches rivaled the lightning, and sixty missiles arced out at their target. Explosions wreathed the humanoid ’Mech, blossoming red and gold. Armor shattered and rained down in semi-molten fragments. Its left arm whirled away in a twisted mass of metal while the Firestarter staggered. It sank to its knees, then flopped back, lashed by sheets of rain.

  Everything on both sides opened up at that point, with red, green and jagged blue beams slicing through the storm. Some pilots, as always happens, shot at phantoms. The artificial lightning of the Particle Projector Cannons looked anemic compared to nature’s wrath, but they carved steaming furrows in armor. The BSU Panther coordinated its attack with the Scimitars, choosing one enemy to beset. Their pilots fired fast and accurately, trying to take out Catford’s lance of Joust Medium Tanks before they could mow down the infantry with their machine guns.

  Turf rooster-tailed high into the air as the Jousts raced forward. Their turrets traversed to cover targets and the large laser each vehicle sported spat out thick beams of green light. The Panther’s chest armor boiled away, leaving angry smoking scars, but the pilot kept his ’Mech upright. It shot back with its PPC, and the Scimitars joined in by launching a dozen SRMs at just one of the Jousts.

  The BSU strikes savaged the left side of the Joust, peeling the armor back as if it were made of roofing tin. The PPC raked across it and then down. The azure beam sliced through the track, which whipped off like a snake in agony. The Joust spun around to the left, presenting its front armor to its attackers as the three other tanks in the lance raced on.

  Another exchange would have likely killed the Joust, but before the Panther could attack, the Catapult and Condors rained fire down upon it. One moment it was standing there, looking strong and terrible. In the next, fire and smoke surrounded it like a magician about to disappear. As the light evaporated, a transformation had occurred, for in the place of a proud war machine there remained a battered hulk. One arm had been torn completely off, the other snapped at the elbow, and the ’Mech had dropped to one knee. Torso armor had vanished and structural members glowed in a twisted body.

  The stricken ’Mech’s head nodded forward, then the body slowly sagged in on itself. It looked as if the Panther’s corpse might remain frozen in that position, and I had visions of it resting in the Boneyard on Terra. Then fire lit the cockpit; the faceplate blew out as the pilot ejected. He rode his command couch’s jet out, but started from a bad angle, so he hit the turf hard and tumbled. The couch came apart and so did he while, behind
him, the force of the ejection toppled the Panther’s body.

  The BSU troops must have known from the first they were in trouble, but they were game. The Scimitars made runs at the Emblyn tanks, unloading their short-range missiles, lighting things up with their lasers, then scurrying like roaches exposed by lightning flashes. By luck or skill, they combined with the Demons to take two more of the tanks out, even though the last Joust’s machine guns scythed fire through the BSU infantry, killing all but a handful.

  Catford clearly found the Scimitars and their valiant effort a personal affront because he moved his Jupiter into the battle when it really wasn’t needed. The hundred-ton BattleMech strode into the firefight much as its namesake might have three millennia before. Watching it, I could not help but feel a thrill, for the forces before it would be all but powerless to stop it, and he could kill them at his will.

  And killing was what he wanted to do.

  The Jupiter is a humanoid ’Mech with autocannons in each arm, ER PPCs, and LRM launchers in the torso. When it walks, the ground trembles. It is both wonderful and terrible, the reason Stone wanted ’Mechs restricted, and yet the means he used to destroy the enemies who defied the restriction.

  The Jupiter turned almost casually toward one of the Scimitars. The PPCs fired, thrusting blue energy spears into the tank’s right flank. Armor disintegrated and the chassis glowed white before it melted into molten metal puddles. The turret sagged and collapsed, before the SRM magazine touched off. A gout of fire flipped the turret into the air, where it was lost in the darkness.

  The BSU troops began to withdraw, but their effort was too little, too late. Missile barrages struck at fleeing targets. One of the Fox Armored Hovercars simply ceased to exist when the Condors and Catapult deigned to notice it. The explosions left a crater where it had been, with its armor and shell reduced to shrapnel.

  Of the BSU force, only two of the Foxes got away. Catford would have gone after the escapees, save for the intervention of other forces. The forces that came in were the Garnet Coast district Public Safety Department troopers. They arrived in helicopter and infantry carriers disgorging officers in battle armor. Before I’d left Manville I’d phoned an anonymous tip into Niemeyer’s division that something would be going down that night at the Resort. Their intervention meant that surviving BSU troops were rounded up for questioning, which was bound to cause the Germaynes some trouble.