Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  Erudin spat into the sand. "Army? Captain, the Resistance is made up of maybe eighty or a hundred 'armies' wandering all over Verthandi's northern latitudes. I think the biggest must number something like a thousand men and women, but they're scattered among towns and plantations throughout the Vrieshaven District. The smallest numbers exactly one—usually some lone scavenger who likes to slit the throats of drunken militiamen in Regis alleys. They—"

  A signal keened in the speaker in Grayson's ear. "Hold it," he said. "Here they come."

  * * * *

  Autorifle slugs cluttered through the air a meter above his head, and the deeper-throated wham of a hunting rifle popped a geyser of sand near his feet. Just as Grayson was thinking that guerrilla soldiers might not have the luxury of indulging their curiosity, someone began bellowing an order to ceasefire. The charging rebels dropped in their tracks, wary of a trap, weapons ready.

  "Hold your fire!" Grayson yelled. He remembered training sessions with Weapons Master Griffith in his father's regiment, and it all seemed so long ago. He shook himself. Was it only one standard year since those days?

  "We're friends," he continued, holding his arms out from his sides, showing that he was unarmed. "We want to talk."

  "It's a trick. Colonel," a voice barked from behind a sand dune. There was a crack and something hot plucked at Grayson's sleeve.

  "Hold your fire, dammit!" another voice replied. "Dober, put that thing up!"

  "I'm Captain Carlyle, Gray Death Mercenary Legion," Grayson continued. He had to stifle the tremor at the back of his throat, and his knees felt weaker now than they had after the crash. He wanted very much to drop to the sand, out of sight, but he knew that any sudden movement would unleash a storm of gunfire. "We were brought here to help you!"

  Excerpt From Chapter 9

  BATTLETECH

  08605

  MERCENARY'S STAR

  William H. Keith Jr

  FASA Corporation P.O.Box 6930 Chicago, IL 60680-6930

  Cover Art by: David R. Deitrick

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright © 1987 FASA Corporation. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  BATTLETECH is a Registered Trademark of FASA Corporation.

  Prologue

  Those who have never seen a BattleMech up close can never comprehend the raw power and mechanical precision of these ten-meter tall, armored giants. The smallest weigh 20 tons and can stride across uneven ground—or leap over it—with a speed and grace that belies their mass and complexity. The heaviest ‘Mechs weigh 90tons or more and are equipped with enough weaponry to defeat a regiment of more conventional infantry.

  It is only desperation that could drive unarmed and unarmored humans to challenge these dreadnaughts in open combat, and that is exactly what happened on Verthandi. This planet changed hands in 3016 when the forces of House Kurita defeated the Steiner defenders at the battle of Harvest in that year. Among his demands, Lord Kurita claimed sovereignty over the seemingly unexceptional Steiner world of Verthandi, located in the border reaches of the Tamar Pact region of the Lyran Commonwealth.

  Until that time, Verthandi had been a peaceful world of small villages set among blue-green hills. It was an agricultural world of lumber and coffee plantations scattered over the broad and fertile area known as the Silvan Basin, with quiet resort communities lying along the tropical coast of its Azure Sea.

  The capital city of Regis was governed by Verthandi's ruling Council of Academicians, a democratic body elected from among the senior professors of government at Regis University. There was a local militia to investigate the rare crime, but war, politics, and interstellar intrigue were remote from the Verthandians' day-to-day life.

  Then House Kurita descended with its iron-mailed fist, and life on Verthandi would never be the same.

  —Janice Taylor, Shapers of Men and Destiny, Avalon Free Press, 3031

  Book 1

  1

  The night sky churned with smoke and fire, reflecting the lurid flames over the dying village. People ran, hastily grabbed possessions clutched to their chests or carried in baskets, their shadows vast and outlandish where the fires cast them across broken pavement There were shrieks and screams, babbled shouts and imprecations, a smattering of gunshots, all enfolded in the roar of the blaze devouring the village of Mountain Vista.

  The MAD-3R Marauder turned ponderously, its weapon-heavy forearms dropping into line with its next target The sign above the building's broad, plate-glass windows proclaimed it to be a farm and plantation supply store. Fleeing civilians overflowed from the walkway in front of the store and spilled out into the street Engulfed in flames, an overturned groundcar illuminated the panic and sent reflections dancing along the store's miraculously unbroken windows.

  The death machine's right particle cannon flared once, the air between gun and target ionized by a charged beam of eye-searing brilliance. One window shattered under the touch of man-made lightning. Then something inside the building—stored bags of fertilizer, perhaps—detonated with a concussion that jarred the pavement under the ‘Mech's feet. The remaining windows exploded outward into the street, broken glass, splintered wood, and shards of ferrocrete block into the street, cutting through the mob like a vibroblade through unprotected flesh. The building's upper three stories seemed to hang suspended for an instant then settled one atop the other on the ruin of the ground floor. Rubble and debris rattled against the Marauder's legs a hundred meters away as billows of smoke and dust rolled across the bodies of the silent dead and the shrieking wounded.

  Valdis Kevlavic grinned with savage satisfaction inside the heat of his neurohelmet. The Marauder responded to his soft urgings, completing its turn and lurching with ground-chewing strides toward the heart of the town. Infrared scanners fed him green-colored images that blurred into white where the heat of multiple fires etched dazzling traces on his viewscreen. Human figures fleeing from the Marauder's wrath became eerie green shadows that ducked, twisted, and flitted across the screen. Kevlavic triggered the Mech's autocannon, felt the solid chunk of fresh ammo carousels snap home, heard the thundering chatter of rapid-fire death from the weapon mounted just above his cockpit. White flashes stitched across the pavement, chewing through those fleeing green shadows with bloody abandon.

  This demonstration should please Regis Central, Kevlavic thought. There had been many reports that Mountain Vista was a staging area and refuge for raiders in the Regis area. Many of those shell-torn corpses were no doubt rebel, though Kevlavic cared little whether they were or not. The whole valley from Regis to the Silvan Basin arid as far east as the Verdant Mountains would see what resistance to Lord Kurita meant. Mountain Vista's destruction would make other communities think twice before offering shelter or aid to Verthandi's rebel vermin.

  Something whanged off the Marauder's tiny, armor-bound cockpit window, leaving a bright-smudged star on the tough plastic. Kevlavic calculated trajectories, swung his machine, and spotted movement on the IR scanner. The sniper was hiding in a shattered church tower, his perch a little lower than Kevlavic's cockpit. The sniper's rifle, an old hunting weapon of some kind, flashed again. Once more, the bullet smeared uselessly across the ‘Mech's canopy. Kevlavic urged the Marauder forward. As his machine loomed over the broken-off steeple, he could see the sniper cowering inside. Scarcely more than a boy, he was obviously terrified, but wore the same camouflaged military fatigues favored by rebels in the Verthandian jungles. The boy threw his rifle down and raised his hands above his head. The ‘Mech's external mikes picked up a shrill string of pleas for mercy, of surrender.

  Not for the first time, Kevlavic wish
ed that his Marauder had proper ‘Mech hands as he slowly raised the machine's left forearm to where the heavy, twin-barreled vambrace was less than a meter from the boy's side. Then he snapped on the external speakers. His voice, thunder-loud through the amplifiers, made the sniper cringe. "In the name of the Governor-General of Verthandi and of the military forces of the Draconis Combine, you’re under arrest! Climb on!"

  The rebel understood. He scrambled across the rubble of the steeple and grabbed the handholds welded to the Mech's metal forearm. Even an enemy sworn to die rather than surrender would think twice when faced with execution by a 70-ton Marauder. Moving slowly and with precision, Kevlavic swung his captive up out of the steeple's ruin and over the street. Crouched there in alleyways, ruined buildings, and anywhere else they could find the illusion of cover, people were staring up at the monster machine silhouetted against the burning town. Kevlavic smiled. Good, he thought. To be effective, terror demanded an audience.

  Slowly, deliberately, Kevlavic's Marauder kicked the broken church into rubble, then swept laser fire across people fleeing its collapse. The captive clinging to the Marauder's arm screamed again, pleading with Kevlavic to stop. The church crumbled with a final roar and a billowing cloud of dust

  Kevlavic flicked the massive forearm once, twice. The captive shrieked and clung to the handholds, his legs kicking over empty air. Kevlavic brought the ‘Mech's right arm across. The PPC muzzle, still hot from his shot at the farm store, trailed smoke as he moved it. The captive shrieked again as hot metal brushed him, then wailed as he kicked and thrashed down the eight-meter drop to the pavement

  The sniper was still screaming, writhing against the partial immobility of a broken back, as the Marauder's huge foot slowly descended on him.

  2

  As many times as he'd been over it, Grayson could not see what more could be done. Devic Erudin's offer was the only one the Gray Death Legion had received during their whole six months on Galatea. Unless he could get work for his unit, he'd be forced to disband so that his men could find other work among the larger, better-equipped mercenary units. Galatea was a hiring center for mercenaries from across the Lyran Commonwealth and beyond. Merc units or their representatives gathered here to look for work, and Galatea was where governments sent their representatives to seek out and sign up mercenary fighters.

  The problem was that mercenary units were so common and most could muster full, twelve- ‘Mech companies or even entire regiments. The Gray Death Legion numbered a mere five ‘Mechs upon arriving on Galatea. Only two of these, Lori Kalmar's Locust and Grayson's own Shadow Hawk, were piloted by combat veterans. As the weeks passed, five more ‘MechWarriors had signed on, and two of them brought ‘Mechs of their own, raising the Legion's strength to seven. The unit had been able to hire Techs and support troops, too, then put in the time to drill these troops and to acquire salvage parts to repair and re-equip the ‘Mechs.

  Renfred Tor, Captain of the jump freighter Invidious, had met and recruited a pair of AeroSpace pilots to fly close tactical fighter support for the unit in space or during ground combat. Meanwhile, Sergeant Ramage was transforming the ground troops into a unit well-trained in anti- ‘Mech and ‘Mech-support infantry tactics. Now, the unit numbered just 186 men and women, including all the crewmembers of the aging Invidious, the Techs, astechs, and ground infantry they'd brought from Trellwan, and the handful of experienced men they'd been able to recruit here on Galatea.

  Grayson knew that it would all be for nothing if he could not find a patron, and quickly. Precious few employers were looking to sign up a unit of less than two full lances, especially a newly organized one with only a single campaign under its belt. After six weeks, Grayson had spent most of the money that the grateful government of Trellwan had awarded him for freeing them from the tyranny of House Kurita's Duke Hassid Ricol. After paying the Galatean port fees and buying salvaged parts for the ‘Mechs, fuel, food, weapons, and ammunition—not to mention bribes for port officials, which was the only way to get through the bureaucratic red tape—Grayson barely had enough left to pay the troops. In fact, just two weeks before, he had stopped paying the unit in C-bills and had begun to issue them promissory notes instead. No merchant in Galaport would accept a unit's own notes as payment for anything, and very soon, neither would the Legion.

  Grayson had first met Erudin in one of the Galaport strip's innumerable bars. The place was named "Marauder Bill's", though some earlier patron had shot out the "B" in the neon sign, leaving only "Marauder ill's". Renfred Tor had made the first contact with the man and then later brought Grayson along to meet him.

  Marauder Bill's—or ills—was typical of a hundred similar establishments within a kilometer of the Galaport gate. Outside, it was all grime-coated, sun-baked, age-peeling whitewash, the cracked facade shimmering in Galatea's desert heat. Within, it was dark and marginally cooler, with the sounds of raucous laughter and conversation punctuated by the clatter of glassware and an occasional drunken fistfight. Erudin had been sitting way in the back, well away from the pools of stagelight in which naked dancers writhed and away from the crowd of heavily armed mercs maneuvering for spaces at the bar and central tables.

  Nothing about the man suggested that he might be a warrior. He was a full head shorter than Grayson Carlyle's rangy height, his pale eyes magnified grotesquely by thick-lensed eyeglasses. Those glasses identified him as native of a planet lacking the technology for corneal implants or myopicorrective surgery. Lostech was the word that had been coined for such a place, a world that had begun the long fall from civilization to savagery during centuries of unremitting warfare. The word now applied only to those worlds that had lost the most. After all, the whole Inner Sphere of known Space had suffered a similar decline in technology and the destruction of scientific knowledge.

  What sort of commission might await Grayson and his mercenary band on a Lostech world?

  He kept that thought to himself as he accepted Erudin's hand. "You must be Grayson Carlyle," the man said conversationally enough as he stood up. Though his appearance was bookish, the small man's handclasp was strong, and there was a look of quiet determination about him. "Your pilot here has told me a very great deal about you."

  "Well, he's told me nothing about you, Mr. Erudin, so you have me at a disadvantage."

  "Citizen Erudin, if you please, Captain," Tor said. "He's the leader of a dandy little revolution a few tens of lights from here."

  Grayson had cocked an eyebrow at that. "A few tens of light years" suggested the region along the Lyran Commonwealth's border with the Draconis Combine. Such border areas between the various great Houses were always tense enough to keep mercenary units, arms merchants, and whole fleets and armies busy, with planets trading hands along the frontier with monotonous regularity.

  "Not the leader, no," Erudin said, seating himself. "I am the representative for Verthandi’s Revolutionary Council, however. We are fighting against House Kurita, and we need help... need it badly."

  "I should damn well think so," Grayson had remarked. Just then, they were interrupted by a young lady dressed in more fake jewelry and feathers than clothing, who offered to take their order. Tor had ordered something called lugen coladas for everyone, but Grayson broke in to say he wanted only a glass of ice water, then turned to study Tor's contact as he picked up his tale.

  Verthandi was the second of the three-world system of Norn, but the name meant nothing to Grayson. Why should it? There were so many worlds...Verthandi had once been a peaceful world, Erudin explained, its countryside devoted to agriculture. Verthandi had also been well known throughout much of the Commonwealth for its university at the capital city of Regis.

  "That all changed, though," he said. "Ten years ago, there was a major Kurita offensive...."

  Grayson nodded. "At Dahlgren, yes." He'd been there himself, though only a boy of ten at the time. That had been the year he'd formally become a Warrior's Apprentice in his father's regiment, Carlyle's Commandos. He cou
ld still remember his father's anguish when one of Kurita's Sword of Light regiments had dropped onto the Commandos' rear in the battle of Dahlgren. They'd had to retreat or face annihilation. "The Commonwealth formally ceded a number of border systems when they lost Dahlgren, isn't that so?"

  "Verthandi was one of them," Erudin said. "The first thing the Combine did was to establish a naval base on our moon, Verthandi-Alpha. We had been totally reliant on the Lyrans for military support. Outside of a few freighters and merchantmen, we had nothing in the way of ships—not even for a short hop to our own moon."

  Grayson nodded again. Verthandi was a Lostech world if its people were that dependent on others for transport and commerce. He knew, too, that House Kurita would not have encouraged them to become more independent, but would have shifted the Verthandians' dependence toward itself. Worlds dependent on them for trade and high-tech gadgetry were unlikely to become rebellious.

  Erudin took a deep breath. "The next thing we knew, they'd landed troops, engineers, and heavy equipment. Their surveys had suggested that Verthandi might be rich in certain metals, and they began mining for the stuff." He shrugged. "We'd never paid much attention to such things. We kept to ourselves, governed ourselves. Galactic politics and the Succession Wars were rather outside our grasp, I'm afraid."

  Grayson's lips curved, more grimace than smile. "The Draconis Combine does not take well to the idea of self-government. They prefer to help."

  "Help themselves, you mean," Tor said.

  "That's what it amounted to," Erudin said. "Our planetary forces fought them, but they merely brought in more troops and seized our spaceport and Regis, the capital. They ordered new elections and saw to it that their own people took most of the Council seats. They opened mines in the Southern Desert, working them with people rounded up at gunpoint from various communities. We fought back, of course." His thin shoulders rose and fell in a hopeless shrug. "We fought back. We kept fighting back...but when they brought in the BattleMechs, we couldn't keep the fight going. The Dracos burned whole towns, leveled villages. Any home suspected of harboring rebels was burned, and the families of rebels were shot or sent south to the mines.