Hanson Doles met Raul at one of the two dozen service desks, taking over for a customer service agent who wore the white mantle so commonly known on Achernar as the duty uniform of Stryker Productions. There was no way to tell if Doles was a ComStar corporate officer or part of the local affiliate in charge of caring for the massive station—as before, Doles wore a simple suit, although Raul noticed up close that the showing tail of his breast-pocket handkerchief was monogrammed with the globe-and-antennae logo of SPL. They sat on opposite sides of a glass-topped surface, a small monitor sitting between them on a swivel-base.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ortega. May I see some identification, please?” His voice was cultivated for calm assurance, but the man did not even try to disguise the suspicion that clouded his hazel eyes. “And for a requested secondary verification, can you provide the verbal key? ‘The Swordsworn are not necessarily here to help…?’” he began, trailing off into the question.
After so many security and I.D. checks, Raul began to question whether he was really himself. Then he remembered one afternoon at the Officer’s Club. “They were just here first,” he finished, wondering how Janella Lakewood had known of his conversation with Kyle Powers. He must have passed it along to her. Which meant that Powers had been looking ahead toward his own injury or death days before Torrent challenged him.
“They are still here, Mr. Ortega.” The way Hanson Doles pitched it, Raul felt certain the man was simply voicing his own negative opinion of the situation. “Thank you for your patience. You may use this terminal to view your message. I have a dedicated earpiece for you,” he passed over the plug-shaped device, standing, “and if you would sit in my seat, no one else should be able to view the screen. When the message has played through, a computer glitch will erase it automatically.”
Raul stood, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and then moved slowly around to the working side of the desk. “Do you perform this kind of service often?” he asked.
“Twice since Kyle Powers’ arrival on Achernar. Before that, the records show our last reception of a heraldic code to be more than five years ago.” Doles moved off with casual aplomb, stationing himself several meters to one side.
Heraldic! Of and for the Knights of the Sphere. Raul slipped into the vacated seat, hands itching to reach for the video controls but stayed by a touch of nerves. Lady Lakewood wanted something from him. He wondered if he had anything left to give after this last chaotic week. Exhaling sharply, Raul reached forward and tapped the playback controls.
He expected trumpets and regalia, Heraldic crests, the public trappings that usually followed around a Knight of the Sphere. Instead, Janella Lakewood winked into existence without flourish or fanfare, the picture flat and dark. The transmission had not even come in as a holographic message.
It was difficult to tell, with so little detail besides her face and shoulders captured by the camera, but Raul thought it very likely that Lady Janella had used a BattleMech cockpit vidcam to record her message. Her thick, black hair looked matted, as if she had only recently removed her neurohelmet. Her green eyes were bloodshot with dark circles beneath from lack of sleep. Even so, she radiated something, even through a transmission that had originated forty light years away. Competency, perhaps. Trust.
“Raul Ortega.” She nodded at the screen. Even through a poor recording, she showed an animation that had Raul believing she stared back at him, knowing him on sight. “I have, only a few short hours ago, learned of Sir Kyle Powers’ unfortunate and tragic death. I will confess to you that I did not immediately see the necessity for Sir Kyle to sacrifice himself in the manner he chose. Not for Achernar alone. Not in these dark times which will demand so much of every Knight, citizen and resident. So let me begin by assuring you that if his death has led to any amount of personal guilt or shame, it should not. Kyle looked beyond the battle. Beyond, even, the challenge for Achernar. What he did, and the way in which he did it, fostered a continuing rivalry between two Steel Wolf commanders. This has aided Ronel—and myself—directly, as well as assisting any future efforts against Kal Radick’s growing faction.”
It was a lot to take in over a very short count of words. Raul had felt some guilt over the loss of Kyle Powers. Lady Lakewood’s efforts to assuage that guilt helped, but also showed how little Raul himself actually knew about the enemy, the situation on other Republic worlds, and even about the Sphere Knights. Wanting to think over her words, he reached forward and tapped the view-screen’sPAUSE key.
It flashed twice, but Janella Lakewood simply shook her head.
“Do not worry if you don’t understand everything I tell you at once, Mr. Ortega. We do not have a lot of time, and I have several directives with which I hope you can assist. First and foremost, do not trust Legate Brion Stempres. If he has not shown his true colors by now, he will do so at the most inopportune time. Stempres is a Sandoval man, bred and bought.”
Raul nodded, mainly to himself. His eyes roamed back toward the main lobby, where a distrustful sergeant continued to glance over with dark suspicions. “That has become more than apparent,” he said aloud.
“Which is as we feared, but could do nothing about.” Janella Lakewood could just as easily have been answering Raul’s comment. “If he is actively working against Republic interests, you may be forced to collaborate, for the sake of remaining involved. Do not let this discourage you, Raul. I have already forwarded by JumpShip a report to the Exarch on such possible tactics. You will be absolved.”
With the last few days on his mind, and this morning in particular, Raul shook his head. “I may be past absolution.”
“We are never past the need for absolution, Raul. When everything else is lost, forgiveness is often the first step toward vindication.”
Shocked by her direct response to his outburst, Raul gazed long and hard at the screen where Janella Lakewood waited for him to work it through in his mind—and believe it. “Yes,” she finally admitted. “This is not a recording. But do not say anything unless critically necessary. It is better if no one suspects that I am personally tasking you with orders.”
A warm thrill ran down Raul’s spine, firing out through nerve endings and quivering his muscles with new tension. He tried to picture in his mind the convoluted programming necessary to hold a real-time conversation between planets. Janella Lakewood sitting in her BattleMech, transmitting on a coded channel with the Ronel HPG station. The fragile connection as two HPG antennae synched up perfectly for transmission and reception both. And the expense! Stryker Productions on this end (ComStar, or a second affiliate on hers) could not batch and send messages so long as the two of them tied up a dedicated channel. They had to know.
Raul glanced sidelong toward Hanson Doles. He, at least, had to know.
Deciding to risk some amount of privacy, Raul scratched at his upper lip—as if deep in thought—and talked behind his hand. “Stempres has handed Erik Sandoval the keys to River’s End. He controls the capital and HPG.”
Janella nodded, understanding. “Still, better him than Star Colonel Torrent. I hate to give up access to one of our few working stations, but with Ronel falling to the Steel Wolves in ten to fifteen days, we cannot allow Kal Radick easy access to so much potential intelligence.”
Ten to fifteen… Raul swallowed past a tight throat. Janella Lakewood was admitting that the Steel Wolves would take Ronel. She said it matter-of-factly. “But to simply hand it over to the Swordsworn…”
“Damned if we do,” Lady Janella agreed, “but, believe me, damned faster if we don’t. Can you trust me enough to believe this? I need eyes and ears and willing hands on Achernar, Raul. Kyle Powers thought you able. More, he was highly impressed by your instinctive sense of honor and duty. His report promised that you felt your way through things as much as reasoned through them. That is why you were selected to fight alongside him. That is why I am contacting you now. Do what you have to do to keep the Steel Wolves from completing their own, private HPG circu
it. If you can keep it out of Swordsworn hands, so much the better.” Raul lifted his hand again, but she shook her head. “No, don’t tell me your ideas or plans. I am not in any position to advise you at this time.
“Serve the Republic, Raul. Serve the people of Achernar. When necessary, and you will know when that is, serve yourself. I wish I could invest in you some additional authority, to help you carry out my orders, but I cannot. That would be premature at this time. Use what talents you have and what authority is appointed to you, and work toward the better end.
“That is all any of us can do right now.”
Raul faked a cough. “But if I need to contact you…”
“I think you know who can help you. Be confident, Raul, be calm. But above all else be cautious.” She nodded one last time, both encouraging and accepting.
“Strength and honor,” she saluted him in farewell.
Static bled through and erased her image as the real-time network fell apart before his eyes. Raul took the earplug out, set it on the desk. Hanson Doles was beside him as he stood up.
“Was your service satisfactory today, sir?”
Raul shook his head. “Not particularly. There was a great deal of static and I couldn’t hear much of it. I believe it may have fallen apart there at the end.”
“I understand. We will try to recover the data for you.” Raul received the impression that this would be the equivalent of Hanson Doles trying to recover dropped eggs using a hammer. The only thing ever recovered would be bits and fragments. “Will we be seeing you again soon?”
Raul glanced around at the mostly-empty offices, and back at the bottleneck being squeezed ever tighter by the inside post of Swordsworn infantry. The entire draconian routine smacked of population control as practiced by House Liao, not the supposedly free nation of House Davion’s Federated Suns. Were the Sandovals willing to give up their supposedly long-cherished ties in the very pursuit of them? Perhaps. Which was one more reason why Raul should fight to keep Achernar out of their hands as well.
“You never know, Mr. Doles.” He shrugged uneasily. “You just might.”
20
The San Marino
San Marino Spaceport
Achernar
11 March 3133
The San Marino Spaceport’s siren wailed a deep, mournful bawl, chasing low notes and then a higher, louder tone with its synthesized Doppler effect. It rolled over sun swept tarmac, echoed off the flat hull of a grounded Kuan Ti–class DropShip, and was turned into a flat background drone by the Praetorian’s thick armor. Erik Sandoval-Groell barely heard it anymore. There were too many other things on his mind, each one of them having to do with defending the spaceport from a Steel Wolf assault.
“I want an update on the waterworks raid,” Erik demanded, his command chair sliding across the vehicle’s interior on an articulated arm. He knuckled the back edge of a sergeant’s helmet. “And get me some kind of trajectory on those DropShips. They aren’t up there for the view!”
“We’re getting on top of it now, Lord Sandoval.”
A mobile HQ, even one of the vaunted Praetorians, was no place for a Mech Warrior Erik belatedly realized. Six meters tall and nearly as wide, the massive, sixty-ton half-track maneuvered in the backfield behind the Swordsworn’s full protection and still Erik felt exposed, vulnerable. A dozen staffers worked the vehicle’s command deck, manning consoles and talking over one another, sweating through their uniforms; a more claustrophobic environment than a BattleMech cockpit could ever be. Erik’s hands itched for control sticks and the touch of weapon triggers under his fingers. He wanted targeting data and crosshairs.
He wanted—he suddenly decided—out of the mobile chair.
Slapping the quick-release on his harness, Erik all but launched himself from the seat as he made for the Praetorian’s front. The drivers’ station took up most of the forward ferroglass shield, but there was an observation seat and gunner’s console to one side, domed in at the mobile HQ’s forward corner, which allowed Erik an eyes-on appraisal of the battle.
Why the open view should give him a sense of relief, Erik didn’t know. Except for two JES strategic carriers that flanked the Praetorian for protection, most of what he could see involved distant ground shadows and flashes of laserfire while speed-blurred darts tangled in the skies above. Without a head’s up display there was hardly any telling his own forces from those of the Steel Wolves or the Republic militia. He knew that the Swordsworn held a rough line across the spaceport’s sun-blasted landing field, committing half of its available defenders from River’s End including four of his six remaining WorkMech conversions. The balance, including his own Hatchetman, waited inside the city’s industrial sector or continued their watch over the local HPG station, giving him a strong fallback position and all the leverage he needed to keep the militia in line.
In fact, quite literally in line. Layered in between the enemy and his own people, and also wrapping around one flank of the Steel Wolf formation, was Achernar’s Standing Guard. Although minus a large contingent drawn away by a morning raid against the Brightwater river control facility, the militia still outnumbered his Swordsworn by almost two to one. It had taken some work, drawing them into the gap between his people and the Steel Wolves, which Erik had accomplished by surging ever backward onto spaceport grounds. Eventually, one of their Legionnaires had slipped into the break with a double-squad of vehicles, forcing a stand rather than allowing the Steel Wolves a stronger approach to the spaceport. Erik had quickly spread his forces thinner, slipping several squads onto the Republic rear lines, tying the formations together but, more importantly, cementing the militia in place. But would it be enough?
So long as the militia soaked up the balance of any casualties, it hardly mattered to the Swordsworn or to Erik.
“Sir!” A call for him, drifting forward from the command deck. “Lord Sandoval, we have those updates.”
Rather than abandon the observation deck, Erik slipped into the vacant gunner’s seat and tucked the comms headset up into his right ear. “Gunner’s channel seven,” he yelled back, dialing himself over to the correct frequency. “Report.”
“DropShips.” The aerospace monitor was first in queue. “They’ve completed a turn at apogee. Without a secondary course correction, they will drop right on top of the spaceport in less than ten minutes.”
A metallic dryness crept into Erik’s mouth. So the big push was for the spaceport. Or at least, that was what the Steel Wolves wanted them to believe. “Do we have intel on the Brightwater raid?” he asked, wanting confirmation.
The Brightwater river control facility stood halfway between River’s End and the Tanager Mountains. The Steel Wolves had targeted it once already, and been rebuffed. This morning’s raid had looked to be a stronger push, led by Star Colonel Torrent himself. Despite the facility’s importance—able to force a drought on River’s End or, during high rains, possibly flooding the city by opening sluice gates—Erik had let the militia handle it. Cautious of his position, the smaller on-planet force but in control of the capital itself, he had to allow attrition to work in his favor.
Another staff sergeant waited with the news. “All indications are that the raid was diversionary. MechWarrior Kay is down. May be dead. Before she fell, she reported back that several of the APCs were empty, and what they first pinged as armored tanks were actually convoy trucks.”
Erik had followed Tassa Kay’s efforts on Achernar’s behalf with something akin to jealousy. Piloting an impressive ’Mech, successfully inserting herself into the Republic’s order of battle, she was the wild card of which he could never be certain. If she was indeed down and out, then he was well rid of her.
But what mattered now was this battle, and how to handle the incoming DropShips. The vessels represented a significant amount of firepower, and even with the militia’s help and his own reserves he doubted they could be stopped. “I need a run-down on all available forces. Give me units and numbers.” He wante
d his own terminal, and was half-tempted to walk back to the command deck and appropriate one.
Then he realized he had one, right in front of him.
Listening to the follow-up reports with only half an ear, Erik strapped himself into the gunner’s place, firing up all sensor bands and targeting consoles. A laser-painted HUD leapt up onto the ferroglass shield, drawing icons in gold, neural blue, and enemy red. What he saw gave him no more information than an aide could have fed him on the command deck, but it felt better. He read the battle with a practiced eye, gauging strength, calculating odds off the cuff and coming up far short.
Shaking his head, Erik once again gave way to caution and the certainty of his current position within River’s End. “Operations. Begin to stagger back some of our stronger units. I want one of our converted Miners limping off the battlefield in minutes. Make a good show of it. Have a unit press forward on the attack, and then fall back the second they draw any hard resistance. Prepare for full evacuation on my command.”
If Star Colonel Torrent wanted the HPG, he would come for it in a fight on Erik’s terms, not his own.
Raul Ortega shifted around in his seat, throwing his own sense of balance behind the Legionnaire’s fifty tons. The BattleMech twisted at the waist, bent forward, and rocked back off the left-side edges of its square-shod feet.
“Can we expect relief from these strafing runs anytime soon?” The militia had only a pair of Stingrays over the spaceport field, and they were being shoved around like schoolyard children at recess. The one-two punch of ground-fire and aerospace fighters had thrown him off balance twice since Erik Sandoval pulled back his antiaircraft-capable vehicles.
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