A loud, screeching signal howled into his neurohelmet for a second or two before the computer cleaned it up. “Hello! Hello!” The voice, which Dan had never heard before, hesitated with the words and almost succumbed to converting the l’s into r’s. A Kuritan!
Dan did not reply. With the Valkyrie’s arms, he motioned to his people to spread, and they quickly moved into the positions he designated. Dan marched his Valkyrie past Cat’s crouching Panther, and continued a bit farther on down the corridor. On ahead, through a brightly lit archway, he knew he’d see the large docking bay.
Again the voice burst into his ears. “Hello? We know you are out there. I am Sho-sa… So sorry, that’s Major Tarukito Niiro. I am the tactical commander for this operation. You will reply. Yes, please?”
Dan typed furiously on his console keyboard. He shot a tight-beamed message back to Cat, with instructions to pass it on to the other Kell Hounds. The messages designated the points where he wanted each Kell Hound stationed, and the amount of time he allowed for each one to obtain his firestation. Now to buy us that time.
“Hai, Sho-sa Niiro Tarukito-san. Konnichi wa.” Dan smiled to himself. “I and my regiment are here. What can I do for you?”
“Excuse me, but to whom am I speaking?”
“Captain Daniel Allard.”
Tarukito’s voice came back, almost apologetic. “And your regiment is…?”
“Unimportant, Sho-sa, but large enough to destroy any command you have.” Dan inched the Valkyrie a bit farther down the corridor. “As I asked before, what can I do for you?”
“You can surrender to us the Archon-Designate, Melissa Arthur Steiner.”
Dan felt chills down his spine. He forced levity into his voice to put off the Kurita sho-sa. “I am afraid I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about.”
“That is a pity.” The Draconian sounded truly sorry. “Please, Captain Allard, continue down the corridor. Consider yourself under a flag of truce. You have my word.” Tarukito’s voice lightened. “I call your bluff, Captain.”
Dan advanced far enough to see the ship bay. The Bifrost floated freely above the bay deck. Supported by a forest of landing stanchions, the Silver Eagle rested beneath it on the bay deck itself. Surrounding the elegant DropShip, Dan saw a ring of Panthers. At the Silver Eagle’s nose, a Warhammer and a Crusader supplemented the smaller Kurita ’Mech force.
Dan froze. Something about that Warhammer. It just feels…familiar? A feeling of dread clawed at his mind. There’ve got to be twenty Panthers out there, and then those two heavies. Outnumbered and outgunned. Melissa better escape cleanly.
Dan narrowed his eyes. “I see your force, Major. Very admirable. I trust they will die as well as the Panthers we destroyed on our way in.”
The Kurita voice took on an air of superiority. “Perhaps, Captain Allard. As I can see from the markings on your Valkyrie, you are a member of the Kell Hounds. You have lied. You have no regiment.”
Dan stiffened. “What I don’t have is the Archon-Designate.”
“That is unfortunate.” A Panther raised an empty hand and patted the Silver Eagle’s hull. “If you do not deliver Melissa Steiner to us within one hour, we will destroy the Silver Eagle and every person aboard.”
Chapter 55
SOLARIS VII
RAHNESHIRE
LYRAN COMMONWEALTH
26 MAY 3027
Trapped on a ledge, with a Firestarter at his left hand, an UrbanMech on the right, and a Rifleman facing him across a crevasse, Justin knew what Philip Capet expected from him. If caught in the same position, you’d give up, wouldn’t you, Capet? You’d surrender and die. You’d make it easy for me, wouldn’t you? And now you expect the same from me.
Justin laughed defiantly. “You’re still no tactician, Capet!”
He stepped his Rifleman forward, and dropped into the crevasse.
The ’Mech shot down like a streaking meteorite for twenty meters. The impact of metal feet hitting the slightly inclined crevasse wall slammed Justin down into his command chair and crushed the heavy neurohelmet into his shoulders. His jaw smashed shut, and he felt tiny tooth chips grind beneath his molars.
He fought to control his balance and, with it, the balance of the sixty-ton monster encasing him. The ’Mech’s left toe caught in a narrow crack. Legend-Killer slowly began to twist toward the right, but Justin arched his back and wrenched his shoulders around to the left. The Rifleman tipped backward and crashed flat against the stony slope.
Damn! he thought. I feel as though I’m wrestling an entire mountain!
Dust and debris shrouded the sliding ’Mech in a gray cloud. The sharp, keening sound of metal scraping against stone and the trail of sparks and armor chips eloquently informed him of the damage being done to his ’Mech’s already-inadequate rear armor. Justin scanned his monitors for any other problems, then flinched as a piece of stone kicked up by the ’Mech’s feet ricocheted off his viewscreen.
All too quickly, the ground stopped Legend-Killer’s sled-like descent. The collision with the crevasse floor threw Justin forward in his safety harness. It burned and pinched as it restrained him, then flung him back into his command chair. The dust cloud swirled around and settled over the Rifleman.
Justin scanned the ’Mech’s monitors and cursed. By sliding down on the ’Mech’s back, he had totally shredded the rear armor. Dammit all to hell. Tsen Shang could cut through that armor with his fingernails. I can’t let any of them get behind me.
Proximity alarms filled the cockpit with screamed warnings. Justin looked up. From above, the Firestarter was descending on a jet of ion flame. Justin shook his head. Idiot. Battered and bruised I may be, but tinder for a pyre I’m not.
Twin laser beams from Legend-Killer’s arms lanced up between the legs of the other ’Mech. The beams liquefied the armor covering the Firestarter’s groin, then pulsed on up into the ’Mech’s torso. There, they punctured the fuel cells of the two torso flamethrowers like needles bursting overfilled balloons. Fire spurted in ragged jets from the Firestarter’s shoulder joints and neck, then a fireball ripped the ’Mech apart and sprayed Ishiyama with flaming debris.
Justin heaved Legend-Killer to its feet and marched the ’Mech forward amid the burning blizzard. Apparently damaged during the long slide, the left knee joint froze up, and Legend-Killer stumbled forward. Justin regained his balance just in time to keep the ’Mech from falling on its face.
He frowned and executed a diagnostic program. The auxiliary monitor flashed to life with a schematic of Legend-Killer’s left knee. It showed a chunk of ferrocrete lodged in the joint. If this ’Mech had hands, I could pull it free, Justin grumbled inwardly. Unable to repair the damage, he jammed the left leg against the crevasse floor, then pivoted forward on it. Limping badly, he jogged the ’Mech into a tunnel mouth.
A hail of autocannon shells swept the valley floor behind him, but only succeeded in blasting Firestarter detritus into even smaller scraps of waste metal. Fragments of ferrocrete peppered the rear of Justin’s Rifleman, but did no real damage. After a short pause, another long burst of fire rattled through the artificial valley.
That’s the UrbanMech. He’s got a ten-shot-burst autocannon, as opposed to the five-shot popguns our Riflemen carry. Justin narrowed his eyes. They have to assume my back armor is in sad shape. Given Capet’s rudimentary cunning, that means they’ll try to trap me between them so that one of them can get a shot at me. The UrbanMech has the jump jets to get it down here. How stupid is that pilot?
Justin opened a radio channel to Capet. “Find a spot with ample camera coverage, Capet, because I’m coming up to kill you.” He closed the line before Capet could answer, then allowed himself a quiet laugh.
Justin limped his ’Mech deeper into the tunnel. While still in view of the crevasse, the tunnel opened onto a passage running parallel to the crevasse. He swung the Rifleman right, just barely around the corner, and turned it so that its back pressed against the corridor wall
paralleling the crevasse. I’ll give him ten minutes. If he’s not down here by then, I’ll just have to take my chances up above.
Justin heard the echoed report of jump jets as the UrbanMech landed in the crevasse. A tiny laser beam—the UrbanMech’s other weapon system—splashed against the opposite wall of the corridor. He’s cautious, but not cautious enough, Justin thought grimly.
He pivoted Legend-Killer on its frozen left leg. The huge ’Mech swung around and filled the tunnel mouth, its guns snapping into line with the smaller UrbanMech. Then Justin let loose with every weapon the Rifleman had.
The large lasers cored through the UrbanMech’s heart like ruby drills. Shards of hot armor careened off the tunnel walls and whirled through the air. Fire and steam flared from the huge hole in the ’Mech’s chest as one of the medium lasers stabbed through and destroyed everything it touched. White heat erased the ’Mech’s midsection on Justin’s infrared display as engine shielding evaporated.
Autocannon fire smashed armor on the ’Mech’s dwarfed left arm, and shredded armor on the right side of the UrbanMech’s torso. The other medium laser in Legend-Killer’s chest slashed into the torn armor on the UrbanMech’s right side. It blasted away what little armor remained, then shot needles of fragmented ruby light into the ’Mech’s chest, which ignited everything they touched.
One light spear hit the autocannon magazine, and detonated the first of the caseless explosive shells waiting to be fed into the UrbanMech’s Imperator-B autocannon. When that shell burst, it sowed white-hot slivers of metal throughout the magazine.
The uneven flashes of light popping from within the UrbanMech’s chest spat metal and fire. One explosion tore the autocannon off and sent it skittering back into the crevasse on a jet of ochre flame. More explosions dented the UrbanMech’s torso armor from the inside, then punched out to freedom. The whole top half of the ’Mech snapped open like the lid on a jack-in-the-box, and a column of flame shot up to engulf the tunnel roof.
The explosion’s shockwave rocked Justin’s unsteady Rifleman. Pieces of debris sizzled through the air and hammered Legend-Killer with a fury that suggested the UrbanMech wanted revenge for its death. Justin, shaken by the explosion and stifled by the volcanic heat-vortex swirling in his cockpit, struggled to keep the Rifleman standing. He stumbled the ’Mech backward and came to rest with its back to the corridor wall.
The diagnostic program redrew the knee joint and beeped urgently at Justin. Well now, he thought. There is a silver lining in this whole sordid cloud. Something—the shockwave or a piece of UrbanMech—had dislodged whatever had previously jammed the Rifleman’s left knee. Waiting for his heat levels to drop to acceptable levels, Justin chuckled silently to himself. Even when you cheat, Capet, you still can’t get it right.
Justin spun the Rifleman and sent it lumbering off to the left. Taking the first ramp leading up, he mounted it at a nearly reckless pace. He sped on through intersections after only the most cursory examination. He altered his course almost at random, but always continued upward.
Slow down, Justin, he told himself. Haste will get you killed. Capet will want to hit you from behind. You must take more care. Justin smiled slowly as an idea blossomed in his mind. Perhaps you can turn his desires against him.
Justin opened a radio channel to his foe. “Come out, Philip. Stop hiding.”
“Hiding? I anxiously await your arrival.”
Justin narrowed his eyes. “I found myself unavoidably detained a bit earlier. I felt compelled to watch the UrbanMech explode. It is a pity you were not there.”
Capet’s laughter sounded hollow. “I’ll catch it on the replay. I warned him you Capellan bastards are sneaky.”
Justin nodded. “That we are, Capet, but you’ll never understand the true depth of our brilliance in that department.”
Justin turned his ’Mech to the left and entered a narrow tunnel that gradually sloped upward through the shadows. As he started into it, the darkness shrouded him. Inching along slowly and laboriously, Justin became uncomfortable, for the tunnel was too narrow. He had no room to turn.
As though Capet had read Justin’s mind, he suddenly stepped his Rifleman up to block Legend-Killer’s line of retreat. “It’s all over, Justin Xiang. Good riddance.”
Even as Justin brought Legend-Killer’s guns up and over to cover Capet’s ’Mech, the other man’s Rifleman blazed away with everything he had. Before his weapons could blast into their target, however, Capet’s inhuman scream of rage echoed throughout Ishiyama. In the laser’s backlight, the ghost painted into the logo on Legend-Killer’s breast seemed to mock Capet’s ambush with a fool’s grin.
Capet’s two large laser beams hammered into Legend-Killer’s right side. Chunks of armor shot away on vapor jets as the energy beams instantly converted ceramics and metal to gas. One of the Rifleman’s medium lasers pierced the gray, swirling cloud and destroyed a medium laser on Legend-Killer’s chest. Capet’s other medium laser boiled armor from Legend-Killer’s left breast, while the autocannons puckered and chipped armor on the left arm and leg of Justin’s ’Mech.
“That’s right, Philip,” Justin said with a laugh, “I marched Legend-Killer into this little trap backward. Just like a treacherous Capellan to pull a trick like that, eh? And so like a stupid Federat to fall for it.”
Justin ignored the dozen warning lights flashing for his attention. He concentrated on his phantom left arm and watched the golden crosshairs that it controlled drop onto the box of glass and metal jutting out from between the Rifleman’s shoulders. The gold cross drifted down into place, then flashed in syncopation with Justin’s racing heartbeat.
“Philip, in your last moment, try not to dwell on the thought of failure…”
Justin commanded his left arm to fire its weapons.
The large laser washed over the Rifleman’s head like a tidal wave devouring a sand castle. Its scarlet cylinder blasted armor from the head of Capet’s ’Mech, and the pilot’s canopy exploded into a million fragments that melted to the ground in a burning rain of glass.
The medium laser in Legend-Killer’s left breast hissed through the air and blasted again into the other ’Mech’s head. More armor and internal structures sailed into the air. For the first time, Capet’s Rifleman shuddered, as though stunned by the impact. With that, Justin knew that Capet had been knocked unconscious.
With no regrets, Justin watched the autocannon shells careen through the Rifleman’s head. What little had survived the energy weapons now fell to the autocannon’s projectiles. The final shells continued their flight through to where the Rifleman’s head had been and ricocheted deeper into Ishiyama.
Justin nodded slowly as the headless Rifleman wavered, then crashed to the ground on its back. “So falls the Prince’s champion,” he said, being sure the broadcasters would pick up his words. “Can his master’s fall be far behind?”
Justin stared at himself in the glass. The gold-and-black silk robe delivered to his locker room after the fight fit him perfectly. Cut to just below his waist and tied with a gold sash, the robe felt comfortable and yet looked formally proper. The gold embroidery over the shoulders and down the sleeves hinted at tiger-stripes, which echoed the stylized tigers on each breast and the larger tiger sewn around the midsection.
He read the card once again. Your actions bring honor to us all. Though unsigned, Justin easily recognized the holographic “chop” sealed to the card as that of Tsen Shang.
Justin opened the locker room door and hesitated. Two lean, lupine-looking Capellan youths in leather tunics stood by the door. One smiled courteously as he restrained some unruly fans, while the second one bowed. “Zao, Justin Xiang. I have been sent to conduct you to a friend.” The youth’s gaze flickered over the robe and silently revealed the “friend’s” identity.
Justin nodded his head graciously. He followed the tongsman through the underground maze of tunnels honeycombing the foundation of Ishiyama. Kurita guards allowed them to pass through several
limited-access doorways before they reached a back entrance to the building. The tongsman opened the door for Justin. Across the rain-slick alley, the MechWarrior recognized Tsen Shang’s Feicui.
A rear door slid open and Justin stepped into the aircar’s dark interior to join Tsen Shang on the wide leather seat. The tongsman climbed into the driver’s seat. At a nod from Shang, the driver engaged the engine, and the car rose on its cushion of air.
“Congratulations, Justin. I am most proud of your efforts. I dare say that sentiment is shared by everyone in Cathay.” Tsen Shang smiled. A muffled pop sounded as he carefully worked the cork free from a bottle. “I trust you liked the House Palos vintage I sent to you after the Armstrong fight.”
Justin smiled. “I did, indeed.” He brushed the fingers of his right hand against the robe. “And I very much appreciate this robe. My mother’s family crest also bore a tiger.”
Shang carefully poured wine into two glasses, then settled the bottle into an ice-filled bucket built into the bar opposite their seats. “Exactly the reason I specified that design.” He handed Justin a glass and brandished the other one himself. “On behalf of the entire Capellan Confederation, I thank you for your efforts.”
Justin nodded and they both sipped from their glasses. “What else do you know about me?”
Shang shrugged, but the warm smile on his face never faded. “As a member of the Maskirovka, I know all there is to know about you—at least, all that is important. You would be amused, I think, by our assessment of your part in the battle on Spica in 3016. Had any bookies gotten our agent’s report, you would have been a long-odds favorite in all fights. Our agent did not like you at all.”
Warrior: En Garde (The Warrior Trilogy, Book One): BattleTech Legends, #57 Page 37
