by Mike Moscoe
That included pictures of Kilkenny’s lampposts strung with corpses. Fortunately, Fetterman had old photos he had not sent Santorini, so the demand had been met without too much trouble.
Grace staggered in chains down Landers Row in Allabad, toward the Guild Hall, renamed the Leader’s Chancellery. In the brick-paved plaza in front of the clock tower, Santorini waited in full uniform, more shining silver than black serge. Imperious, he sat atop his Ryoken II, cockpit open to the slight breeze. Some poor lackey had been hooked to the outside of the BattleMech, sixteen meters up, to hold a parasol lest the morning sun that had now cleared the canyon wall above Allabad beat down uncomfortably upon the Leader. The scene was like some ancient vid of rajahs and elephants and slaves.
Grace struggled to keep such thoughts from her face.
“Take a good look at what happens to anyone stupid enough to cross your Leader.” Santorini’s voice boomed from an oversized speaker mounted on the chest of the Ryoken II. Up and down Landers Row, other speakers blared the same. Not surprisingly, the Net was back up and carrying this spectacle. Grace was counting on that. “Look at what everyone can expect who gets in the way of the future of my worlds.”
Worlds, now, Grace thought. This guy really is on a trip.
“You sure this was part of your dream?” Ben whispered from beside Grace. Jobe and Chato struggled along on her other side. Behind them, Victoria and Danny shuffled in step, heads defiantly high. It was probably the first time in their lives that those two Highlanders had been together on anything. Sven worried Grace. Pale as new snow, he stumbled along, helped by Betsy and George Stillwell. Grace had been willing to let Sven skip the prisoners’ walk, but he’d insisted. It was Syn Bakai who refused to risk breaking a nail, so Hanson had reported her killed while attempting to escape. Her lovely body was lashed to one of the following tanks, per Santorini’s orders. Grace hoped Syn had forgotten her sunblock and burned tomato red.
Then again, they might all soon be red—red with their own blood. Not all calculated risks paid off as calculated.
Hanson led the Roughriders from his Koshi twenty meters ahead of Grace. Mallary’s and Art’s Arbalests stalked along, two steps behind him with Eddie at their elbow, keeping Ben’s Atlas close. The crowds lining the sidewalks were deathly silent. Children stood close to their parents. Grace had remarked at all the Black and Reds standing guard along the side of the road. Ben whispered that they weren’t there to keep the crowd from the victory parade, but rather to make sure that people didn’t slip away. Santorini wanted everyone to see his triumph.
So did Grace, but for a different reason.
Grace kept her eyes down, a properly dejected and defeated foe, but from under her eyelashes she studied the force arrayed around Santorini. His most dangerous BattleMechs were the Legionnaire to his left and Jupiter to his right. There were a smattering of Centurions and Catapults in the next rank around the big three. But over half of that dozen were ’Mech MODs formed in a square with an open front to the road. Behind them, in none too straight a line, were two dozen Mech MODs with nothing like the conversion package Sven and Mick had put together. Grace figured Santorini must have every Black and Red ’Mech on the planet here. Behind that, machine gun–armed jeeps and civilian trucks formed a line. I wanted all the bad apples in one place, Grace reminded herself. Well, I’ve got them. Now all I have to do is survive them.
As Hanson strode by his client’s viewing point, Santorini treated them to the horrible thing that passed for his smile.
That brought Grace even with the Leader. She shot him a look of pure hate. The loudspeakers caught his cackle of a laugh as he pointed her out to his two subordinates. One of them—Grace thought it was the Jupiter driver on the right—said, “I’d shoot her where she stands for that look.”
Santorini put his hand over the mike in front of him, but Grace still heard. “But that would take away the impact of a trial and formal execution,” said the other one.
“What more can we get?” the Jupiter driver shot back. “We’ve got the biggest crowd this hick town’s gonna give us. We’ve got cameras taking this live around the whole planet.”
“Good point,” Santorini said, taking his hand off the mike. “Hanson, stop the parade a moment.”
The mercs came to a halt in perfect one-two cadence. At Hanson’s order, all faced left. Grace shrugged. She hadn’t really expected a nice formal court hearing. So much for Plan A. Unlike some people, she did have a Plan B. She turned to face Santorini as the rest of her command group shuffled themselves into a line beside her.
“You have committed high treason against your Leader. Do you have anything to say for yourselves?”
Grace stepped forward. “We made a mistake,” she shouted up at the Ryoken II.
“I can’t hear you,” Santorini said. Obviously delighted, he waved her forward with one hand as he jacked up the gain on his mike with the other. Grace took another five steps forward, the others trailing behind her by a step or two.
“We made a mistake,” she repeated as Santorini pointed the mike in her direction. Her voice reverberated around the plaza. Behind her, the crowd shuffled unhappily.
“Of course it was a mistake to betray your Leader,” he boomed, the mike back in his face. “I promise unlimited prosperity to the people who support me. I will make Alkalurops a mighty capital that will stand side by side with Terra, New Avalon, Atreus, Luthien and Tharkad. Why would you oppose me?”
This was where it got tricky. Grace took a few more steps toward the Ryoken II and raised her hands—not exactly pleading, but if Santorini took it that way, let him. “I mistook your generous offer for a landgrab.”
The guy in the Jupiter scowled at “landgrab” and turned to Santorini, but the Leader had been titillated by the raised hands and “generous offer.” “So now you realize your Leader is a generous man, and that following me will make the citizens of Alkalurops into a powerful people.”
“You have certainly shown us what fear is, O Leader,” Grace said, hoping the last tag would mislead Santorini. Behind her, the crowd was now murmuring. Beside her, Ben covered one hand while the other worked the key into the lock of his handcuffs. Grace edged forward, holding Santorini’s attention.
“Just look at the power I brought you,” Santorini said with a wave to the BattleMechs and ’Mech MODs around him. The guy in the Jupiter eyed the crowd and adjusted his neurohelmet. The man in the Legionnaire lolled at ease in his black-and-silver uniform. He made a thumbs-up sign to Santorini, and the Leader preened. “Those who considered Alkalurops a backwater will learn to fear us. I have the BattleMechs. I will lead you. We will rule the stars.” Grace took tiny steps forward. Like snails, she and hers moved closer to Santorini. The right fist of the Jupiter edged up, its two autocannons not yet aimed at anyone, but clearly that one did not like the way things were developing and was taking preventive measures of his own.
“We should have recognized you for what you were,” Grace shouted. “But you came to us as a minor businessman just looking for a place for someone greater to put a headquarters. We couldn’t see your ruthlessness, your drive for power and your determination to trample in the dust anyone who opposed you.”
A long spiel, but Santorini was lapping it up, even rewarding Grace with that sham he used for a smile. Hatred roared from every fiber of her being. She swallowed it, told him what he wanted to hear, and edged forward.
“I’m glad you’ve finally realized the error of your ways. Fighting me is hopeless. I knew you’d see that,” Santorini said, his confidence unshaken. “It was only a matter of time. What surprises me is that you folded so easily. I thought you had more backbone. Or is it you, Hanson? Is there a ruthless streak in you that you’ve kept well hidden? You and your men must dine with me tonight. The conversation will be very interesting.”
“Thank you, sir,” L. J.’s voice came across thin but undistorted. The Net was fully up—even the Roughriders’ radios were on it.
; Santorini leaned forward, but his Ryoken’s gyros made no complaint. He’s locked it down, Grace realized. That BattleMech is little more than a statue. She noted the extra options that gave her as she listened carefully.
“I notice you have worked your way closer to me. Good. It will give me a better view. Hadrian, you’ve been dying to use that autocannon. Blow them away,” he ordered.
The Jupiter pilot grinned. No surprise there.
“Now!” Grace shouted.
Across the Net came, “Forward, Roughriders!”
Everything happened at once. Behind Grace, the prisoners pulled glass bottles of clear liquid from under their clothes. With a short hop and skip that took them right out of their chains, Jobe, Chato, MechWarriors and mechanic lofted their bottles in high arcs to smash on Santorini’s Ryoken II.
Among the Roughriders, MechWarriors brought lasers, missiles and miniguns to bear on the Jupiter. Tank turrets rotated, and shells, missiles and lasers slashed at it.
But Hadrian was ready if Santorini was not. Neurohelmet already on, he slammed his BattleMech into reverse, hopped it into a turn even as he sealed his cockpit, and urged his Jupiter off at a run, all thought of playing his autocannon over Grace and the other prisoners forgotten.
The Jupiter left Santorini behind, pounding on his controls, trying to close his cockpit. Bottles splattered gas over the ’Mech’s front. One shattered in the cockpit, spraying shards of glass that cut Santorini’s face and interrupted his frustrated pounding. Doesn’t the eejit know any of his controls? Grace asked herself even as she took her own step forward to lob a thermite bomb. Betsy had one, too. They arced up last. One hit the ’Mech’s chest, igniting the gas with a whoosh. The other glanced off the descending cockpit hood. It spat fire even as it tumbled into the cockpit. Santorini’s scream was cut off as the cockpit sealed. A moment later the explosion inside blew the cockpit hood out. There were more screams, muted by the roar of the flames.
“Enjoy that, you bastard,” Betsy shouted at the fire. “You deserve worse. Don’t anybody shoot at him.”
Grace was more worried about people shooting her. She’d hit the ground after hurling her bomb, wanting to get as much out of the line of fire of lasers and missiles and slugs as the cobblestone pavement allowed. She made a grab for Betsy to pull her down, but the woman knocked Grace’s hand away.
Ben had a better idea. He swung a leg out, sweeping Betsy’s legs out from under her. She showed her gratitude by diving on Ben, fists swinging. Anyone but Ben would have been in for a thrashing, but the Lone Cat parried blow after blow, laughing like some kind of maniac as the roar of rockets and cannon washed over them. Somehow Betsy came to see the humor. Her blows came more slowly and fell more softly until her own laughter joined Ben’s.
“We killed the bastard!” Ben shouted.
“We killed the bastard,” Betsy finally said. Looking up, she shivered. “And he is as dead as the very deadest.”
He was dead, and the other Black and Reds were running. It was every man for himself among Alkalurops’ late masters. The big Jupiter knocked over a LoaderMech, stomped a gun truck, and ran, a hail of rockets following it. The black-and-silver-uniformed driver of the Legionnaire who had been at Santorini’s left didn’t react fast enough. Facing a Roughrider Legionnaire, its huge autocannon already rotating and leveled at the other’s open cockpit, the pilot’s hands went up. His “I surrender” came in a small voice.
There was at least one for the hangman.
“Damn, all these lovely BattleMechs just standing around for the taking,” Danny said. “But I know which one’s gonna work for me.” He bounced to his feet and headed for a gray ’Mech MOD among the Roughriders’ victory trophies. He went up the ladder fast, giving Grace an answer to what Scots wore under their kilts. The driver popped the canopy and handed Danny the MechWarrior’s own neurohelmet. Only when Danny was ready to plug in did the driver unplug his own helmet. The ’Mech MOD swayed for a second as control passed from driver to MechWarrior, then steadied. Danny settled into the control couch as the driver dropped down the ladder. Behind Grace, Ben was doing the same, replacing Eddie in the Lone Cat’s giant Atlas.
Still lying on the ground, Grace called up, “Good luck,” as the hatch on the Atlas sealed. Eddie hit the ground and trotted over to her, fixing a radio to his belt. “Here’s a radio for you,” he said. “You’re Roughrider A-8.”
Grace settled the headset in place as she snapped the radio to her waistband. “This is Grace O’Malley,” she said. Damned if she’d use a Roughrider call sign. “Loren, you available?” She turned to take in the scene around her.
Heavy weapons were silent now. Merc infantry trotted from their carriers to take control of the town and stalled BattleMechs and MODs that didn’t make it out in the first crush. For a second, Grace watched the Ryoken II burn. When the flaming lump of what had once been a ruthless madman collapsed below the lid of the cockpit, she turned to see Ben and Danny trotting off in their ’Mechs. Hanson’s Koshi stood in place with his two other command staff BattleMechs, towering over her, while providing cover and protection to her little sacrifice team.
Then it hit Grace, like fresh air when she popped Pirate’s cockpit after a long, hot day—I’m not going to die today. She’d walked into Allabad, fully prepared to die if that could start the battle that would free her people. I’m not dead. Santorini is—horribly. She craned her neck to look up at Hanson’s Koshi and keyed her mike on the Roughriders’ command channel, a mere mortal standing before giants. “Why is everyone running?”
“Because there’s an under-protected DropShip parked at the spaceport,” Hanson said dryly. “Listen, Grace, this contract has been a big enough disaster without me having to tell the Colonel that I let a bunch of bozos run off with our armored DropShip.”
“Leave me some of my MODs and your infantry,” Grace said. “I’ll police this mess and send patrols after the runners.”
“And I’ll secure the port,” Hanson said.
“Danny and I will lend Grace a hand,” Ben said over the command channel, “chasing ’Mechs running amok in Allabad.”
With few orders and no debate, they organized themselves. Hanson led his mercs across the Alhambra River and out of town. Ben led Danny into town. Betsy led the infantry as they assaulted BattleMechs and MODs, and disarmed gun trucks that had smashed into buildings, ’Mechs or each other. Everyone had a task.
Benjork Lone Cat stalked the Jupiter. The one who fought in that BattleMech had power and the will to use it. That one had to die before he slaughtered innocents in his flight. Already, Ben had seen evidence of his prey’s desperation. In its haste to escape, the Jupiter had salvoed both fifteen-LRM pods to punch a gaping hole in a three-story building across the street from the Guild Hall. People were pulling crumpled bodies from the wreckage as he and Danny raced past.
Benjork followed the Jupiter by the gashes taken out of buildings as it swung around tight corners, but the panicked flight ended after just a few blocks. Then he caught glimpses of the Jupiter by the two or three meters it towered over the two-story buildings of Allabad. But central Allabad was mainly three- and four-story buildings, and that was where Hadrian quickly headed.
That took him away from the spaceport. What dream paths does this one follow?
“I found the Jupiter,” came over the emergency guard channel in a thick brogue.
“Where, Danny?”
“Two blocks ahead of you, three closer to the canyon wall. Ben, he has hostages.”
That did not slow down the Lone Cat, though it did drive his thoughts like a cold wind across a barren tundra. Hadrian had not fled to the spaceport. No, he went looking for his own ticket off-planet. Cold. Very cold.
“Freeze. Both of you,” came in a tense voice on the guard channel as Benjork turned a last corner and found himself a long three blocks from the Jupiter. It towered over a pickup with a man at the wheel, a woman on the seat closest to the Jupiter and two small children between th
em.
A block closer, Danny’s gray ’Mech masked the Atlas’ line of fire. “Back up,” Benjork ordered. “Give the Jupiter space.”
“Yeah, give the madman the space he wants. You do that, and while you do, think about why you were dumb enough to chase me.”
“We protect these people,” Danny said as he backed away.
“Protect them? These people were fine,” Hadrian shouted, jostling the truck with the Jupiter’s huge fist. “Just fine before you made me take them for my ticket out. Now, don’t you do nothing that will make me hurt them. See how you’ve scared that cute little girl? Woman, make her shut up.”
The mother tried to soothe her daughter as the man held his baby son closer. This would neither take long nor end well. Nothing that combined a desperate, high-strung man and children could last long.
Benjork stretched out his ’Mech’s right arm as Danny came close. The Highlander stopped as they touched. Good man.
“Mr. Hadrian, you can’t get out of here,” Danny said.
“You dumb-ass, I’m not Mr. Hadrian. I’m Mr. Hadrian Heckie to you,” the Jupiter pilot spat while the Lone Cat measured the distance between them. Here, the yellow rock of the canyon wall kept the wind away. The Jupiter was a huge target, but Benjork was interested only in the cockpit.
“Then what, Mr. Heckie, do you want us to do for you?” Danny went on with dogged kindness in his voice.
“I want out of here. You will take me to the spaceport and put me on the next DropShip out of here—and I want you to wave real nice as it takes off with me. You hear?”
The Lone Cat checked all his targeting readouts. They said he had the Jupiter’s cockpit dialed in to the last possible decimal place. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and looked at the target without the errors that machines and eyes bring. For a long moment he meditated on what he would do, then opened his eyes and made a fine adjustment with his joystick.
