Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  The training itself was far more involved than Ericksson's statement made it sound. It was after that conversation in the caverns that Grayson met the Free Verthandi Rangers, the people his unit was supposed to train. Like most rebel armies, this one was a mixed lot There were a few grizzled veterans from the rebel field army who had volunteered to learn how to fight ‘Mechs. Most, however, were fresh-faced and idealistic young men and women, some no more than twelve or thirteen standard years of age. Harriman Olssen, son of the rebel Council's Olssen, was all of fifteen.

  Grayson had been the son of the commander of an independent BattleMech mercenary company, and his earliest memories were of BattleMechs and the special men and women who piloted them. He had been only ten when he'd been formally inducted into Carlyle's Commandos from the household of family members, technicians, and specialists who formed the body behind the regiment's fighting head. For ten years after that he had studied, worked, fought, and sweated under the tutelage of Weapons Master Kai Griffith and others, honing mind, body, and reactions into the blend of skills a Mech Warrior needed. He had trained his body hard, sharpened his mind. Mental disciplines akin to those of the ancient martial arts had taught him to become one with his weapons, whether they were bare hands, laser, or BattleMech, allowing him to bring mind and body into subtle union. He had still been a Mech Warrior Apprentice when disaster fell. On Trellwan, his father had been killed, the Commandos scattered, and Grayson himself had been stranded on an enemy-garrisoned world because everyone thought he was dead.

  Not every unit went to the same lengths to train their prospective Mech Warriors. Many used some variant of a military academy, a series of courses lasting between three and six standard years. Yet it was true that the basic skills necessary for maneuvering a BattleMech in combat could be mastered in a few weeks of intensive training. Entire ‘Mech armies had been fielded by young pilots who barely knew how to trigger their weapons. Needless to say, the battle records of such green armies were not impressive, save in the length of their casualty lists. Yet Verthandi's Revolutionary Council wanted the Gray Death to prepare just such an army, a small one, for slaughter.

  Grayson was bound by the word of his contract. Here in the Caves, he was supposed to teach this gang of mostly boys and girls the art of BattleMech warfare. For the first time, he seriously regretted ever having signed that contract.

  * * * *

  At sea, the storm continued, lashing at the jury-rigged Phobos. Winds and rain threatened to nudge her yawing, pitching, twenty-degree list into the final lurch to the bottom. Use Martinez sat at the controls, watching seasickness overtake one of her engineering Techs on the canted deck. She averted her eyes at the last moment to study the pressure gauges for the hot water boilers that the Caledonian had helped design and wire, all the while cursing unintelligibly. With the drunken stagger of the ship and the mingled stinks of fear and vomit assaulting her senses, her own stomach was none too steady at the moment.

  Steam pressure was still holding as throbbing pumps gulped in sea water and funneled it past the Phobos's drive reactor. Steam and hot water continued to thrust the DropShip unsteadily through the foaming sea. At times, they seemed to be barely making way, but they were moving. As long as the storm lasted, they were also safe from hostile, prying eyes.

  She muttered something vicious.

  "Ma'am?" The sick Tech looked up, his face pale and drawn, his arm wedged against a support beam to steady himself against the ship's motion.

  "Nothing, Groton. Nothing. Remind me to order an all-hands evolution when we make port. This ship stinks, and we're going to have a scrub-down, fore and aft!"

  Groton looked, if possible, more miserable than before. "Aye, Captain."

  She checked the repeater screen, which showed a computer-generated map of the Azure Sea and the point of light plotted on it by the ship's internal tracking system.

  "God help me," she added, more to herself than to the Tech. "If we make it, I won't know whether to curse that bastard Carlyle for being a genius, or curse myself for following him into this mess!"

  * * * *

  "I don't care what you've been told or taught, a BattleMech is not invincible!"

  Sergeant Ramage paced a narrow track in front of the twenty-odd Ranger trainees gathered to hear his lecture. They were seated on the sandy floor of the cave entrance. At their backs, the sky was overcast, but showed signs of revealing the afternoon sun. The Order of the Day was that ‘Mechs and large concentrations of people were to remain under cover. Looming behind Ramage was the bulk of a Stinger, and his lanky frame reached barely halfway up the Stinger's armored leg to its knee.

  Grayson leaned back against the slick wetness of a boulder at the cave entrance, folded his arms, and listened closely to Ramage's performance. Grayson himself had trained Ramage. The career infantry NCO had formerly been a sergeant in the planetary defense militia on Trellwan until Grayson had taught combat tactics to him and the other Trellwanese. Ramage was doing a good job, Grayson decided. He was a lively instructor, and his voice and gestures communicated that enthusiasm. He'd already established a rapport with his students.

  Grayson could find no fault with the Verthandians' willingness, determination, or courage, either, which had been put to many a grueling test in the last three weeks. The students had been organized into lances, with one Gray Death veteran trooper from the combat platoon acting as lance corporal to three Verthandians. Company, platoon, and battalion command elements were formed of mixtures of mercenaries and natives, for the Verthandians would have to fight under their own officers when the time came, not under the offworlders. Recruit officers learned side by side with their enlisted counterparts.

  The Gray Death's technical platoon was involved as well. Sergeant Karelian was in charge of organizing the Verthandian Techs into military technical squads. Fortunately, the Verthandians were well-trained in a wide range of mechanical and technical skills. The Legion would definitely not lack repair and maintenance personnel.

  Grayson's big worry was the combat recruits. There were two separate groups of them. One consisted of those who knew how to pilot ‘Mechs and now needed to learn how to do so in combat. That group was small and select; Grayson had met all of its members and given several lectures, as had all the Legion's MechWarriors. They were an eager group. Several among them, including tall, rangy Collin Dace and Rolf Montido, were experienced combat warriors. Others, like Vikki Traxen, Nadine Cheka, Olin Sonovarro, and Carlin Adams, had only recently learned how to pilot a ‘Mech and had never been in combat at all.

  Ramage had taken the second group in hand as his personal charges. They were to be the nucleus of the Verthandian ground forces, trained in anti- ‘Mech commando tactics and transformed into an elite force. Though far larger than the first group, many had already dropped out, choosing to remain instead in the regular rebel army. Enough remained that Ramage had subdivided them so that some were at practice while he gave demonstrations to others.

  The class that Grayson was observing happened to be composed entirely of young people, with none older than nineteen standard years, and some as young as thirteen. That morning had seen them wading, crawling, swinging, and mostly running through the obstacle course Ramage had set up outside the cave, followed by several hours of the digging that Ramage had promised. After a hastily gobbled midday meal, now was the time for lessons of a more academic nature.

  Ramage stopped in mid-pace and fixed a teenage girl with his fire-bright eyes. When he suddenly pointed at her, she gasped. "You!" he said intently. "You, by yourself, could bring down the biggest big game of all, ninety tons of fighting steel! If you keep your heads, you can be the masters of a battlefield, not..." He paused to jerk his thumb over his shoulder at the Stinger behind him. "Not these big lummoxes!"

  He feigned surprise. "You don't believe me? O.K., watch this."

  Ramage walked across the cave floor to a pile of supplies and crates close to where Grayson was standing. He picked up a can
vas bag the size of a large travel case, winked gravely at Grayson, then returned to his lecture position in front of the Stinger. The bag itself was festooned with slender hooks of black wire, and had a length of cable capped by a plastic cylinder with a pull ring dangling from it.

  "This," he said, "is a satchel charge. It contains four two-kilo blocks of C-90 plastique, four detonators, and a fuse igniter with a six-second delay. Now, pay attention, because I'm only going to do mis once." He touched his throat mike. "Jaleg? Move out!"

  The audience heard no reply because Ramage was wearing an ear speaker, but the Stinger looming behind him abruptly stirred, shifted, then spun to the right. The massive right foot came up off the ground, swinging forward.

  Ramage shouted to be heard against the creak-rumble of joint flanges and internal driver rods. "Imagine that I’ve been hiding in the bushes here!"

  The Stinger's right foot came down in minor chords of thunder. Its left foot shifted, swung forward.

  Ramage was already moving, running toward the ‘Mech's right foot with the satchel charge trailing by its strap. He planted one foot on the crevice between two joints in the ‘Mech's ankle armor, swung his next foot onto the top of the ‘Mech's foot The ‘Mech's right foot was moving again now, and Ramage used the assist from the mechanical foot's motion to propel him up the front of the ‘Mech's leg. His feet and left hand found purchase on armor joints and the narrow throat of a heat sink orifice. His other hand was bringing the satchel charge up and around in a side arm swing. Catapulted by the strap, the charge hurtled at the Stinger's knee joint just as a gap opened between the armor plates of knee and upper leg, where the machine's thigh and lower leg protective flanges rode over the main knee bearing.

  The gap was small, too small to admit so large an object as the satchel. Several of the satchel's wire hooks caught on the joint's moving parts, meshing with them as the joint closed with the ‘Mech's forward motion. The rest of the bag snagged on the Stinger's knee and hung there. Ramage grabbed the ring dangling from the cable and jumped. The ring came free in his hand, leaving a wisp of smoke trailing from the bag as the Stinger continued its stride. Ramage landed in the sand with an acrobatic roll and was up on his feet and running back toward the demonstration area without a pause. Behind him, there was a sharp crack, and white smoke gushed from the satchel on the BattleMech's leg.

  The Stinger came to a halt A moment later, the upper hatch on the ‘Mech's head swung open, and Jaleg Yorulis squeezed his torso up out of the tiny cockpit. "I think I'm dead!" he called, and the trainees laughed and applauded.

  "That," Ramage said, dusting sand from his khakis,"is called kneecapping. Unfortunately, my commanding officer won't let me use real C-90 on our own ‘Mechs because he says it's too hard to clean up the mess." He rolled his eyes at Grayson and was rewarded by more laughter.

  "If that had been real plastique on a real ‘Mech," he continued, "I guarantee you that that ‘Mech would have been hurting bad when the explosives went off. At the least, it would have been limping. With luck, I could have torn its leg off at the knee and sent the whole critter toppling to the ground, crippled and useless. If I'd wanted to substitute a thermite detonator and a couple of plastic bags filled with CSC or just plain gasoline and oil, I could have engulfed the whole lower torso of the ‘Mech in a fireball. Not as effective as an inferno round, of course, but I promise you that ‘Mech's going to be having heat problems, right about then.

  "Now don't think what I did is easy! Every ‘Mech has its own individual weak points. What I just did wouldn't have any effect at all on a Marauder. Their legs are too well-armored. But for some

  ‘Mechs with weak knees—Stingers and Wasps, for instance—this tactic can be deadly. Commandos, especially, are good targets for kneecapping. They've got a gap between thigh and knee where you could stuff the whole satchel, without using the hooks! Almost always, you can cripple 'em. Yes...question?"

  The girl he'd pointed at earlier stood among the other trainees, her slim arms behind her back. "But how are you supposed to get that close, sir? You said you were hiding in a bush, but wouldn't the ‘Mech see you?"

  "You have no idea just how hard it is to see anything when you're buttoned up inside. Hell, it's hard enough seeing other ‘Mechs, much less people! Yes, they have IR sensors and all-round vision scanners. Some also have motion sensors and computer scanner interlock, but usually a BattleMech is looking for other ‘Mechs or something big enough to kill him, like fighters. He's probably too busy to watch for lone infantrymen. Even if he sees somebody crouching in the bushes, nine times out of ten, he's going to discount the guy as harmless. If he doesn't, the secret is to work in teams. If the ‘Mech goes after you, you run and decoy the ‘Mech while your buddy gets him from the rear. You just hope your buddy can run as fast as you do right about then!"

  There was more laughter at that. "O.K., take ten," Ramage told them. He skirted the group as it started to break up and walked over to Grayson.

  "Sounds like you're having a good time," Grayson told him. Ramage looked grim. "Look, Captain, can I level with you?”

  “Of course."

  "This is all one malfin' big screw-up. You realize that, don't you?"

  Grayson closed his eyes. He'd seen this coming for the past several days. "What do you mean, Sarge?"

  "Dammit, Captain, we're grooming these...these kids for a slaughter! How can we possibly train them to hold their own in a fight against Kurita's ‘Mechs in a few short weeks?"

  "Now Sergeant..."

  "Did you hear me back there? The whole point was to tell them how to do it.. to let them know they could do it. But good God, if I told them the whole truth, they'd know better than to go chasing after enemy ‘Mechs on the battlefield!"

  "Some of them have been doing just that They're in the middle of this war, too. And they volunteered."

  "Of course, they volunteered...when their friends and older brothers and sisters did! God help me, they're swallowing everything I feed them. Take on a ‘Mech with a satchel charge? Sure, it's been done. But they don't know how often some hotshot ‘Mech pilot does see someone hiding in a bush and goes ahead and steps on the guy because he just might be carrying an inferno launcher, satchel charge, or a portable SRM—or just for the hell of it!"

  "Sounded tike you were giving them a pretty encouraging lecture, just the same."

  "God help me. God help me! I'm giving them the same lecture you gave me back on Trellwan, and I'm sure you heard it from your instructors back when you were in training. Sure, an ordinary guy can take on a BattleMech with his bare hands and a few kilos of plastic explosive...but damn it all! The one guy that makes it is going to do it over the bodies of how many of his buddies? These kids don't know what war is like! We'll fill their heads with glorious notions of bringing down BattleMechs, and they'll try. But most of them are going to end up very dead!"

  Grayson looked past Ramage toward the students, who had gathered around the Stinger's foot to watch Jaleg pull the canvas bag free of the knee joint, laughing and shouting suggestions to the' dead ‘Mech Warrior miraculously come back to life.

  Beyond the Stinger and its audience, under the glare of overhead fluoros, Grayson could make out Lori Kalmar's slender form, dwarfed by the dinosaur bulk of a green-painted LoggerMech. At this distance, he could not hear her over the dull roar of machinery echoing through the cave, but the animated movement of her arms suggested she was presenting the ‘Mech's pilot with a royal dressing down. The ‘Mech's right forefoot was locked behind its left forefoot, and the apprentice seemed to be having trouble untangling them. Still deeper into the cave, a boiler-room crash marked a ‘Mech-to- ‘Mech practice confrontation as Debrowski sparred in his Wasp with one of the Verthandi Rangers' Stingers. The Stinger was flat on its back, looking up at the mercenary ‘Mech.

  "You're right," Grayson said finally. "Of course you're right. I agree with you, but so help me, I don't know how to answer it yet. I'm working on it, but I don't know what we
can do that'll keep us from murdering these kids...and satisfy the clients, too.”

  “Damn the clients!"

  "Damn it all, Ramage, do you think I'm doing this for the money, too? It happens there's this small matter of our own survival, Sarge. Like whether we're ever going to get off this jungle rock!"

  He looked away, beyond the mouth of the cave and into the jungle beyond. He was breathing hard, and felt his hands knotted at his sides. It nagged at him that he'd not yet heard from the Phobos, though the Revolutionary Council had assured him that their people would relay word as soon as anything was known. If the DropShip had made it to a safe harbor, it was going to take months of work— not to mention considerable stores of repair parts and a long stay in a drydock repair facility—before she would fly again. And the Phobos was still their only ticket off Verthandi, providing her repairs could be completed. It was a vicious circle, because that would not be possible until the war was won.

  "If we don't find a way to help these people win their war," Grayson added, "Governor General Nagumo is going to find us, and it'll be our lives and theirs."

  "You're sayin' better them than us?"

  "No! It's not them or us, it's them and us! If we don't figure something out, Nagumo is going to come for all of us pretty damn quick, even if he has to uproot this jungle tree by tree to do it I just don't know what to do about it, yet"

  Ramage shook his head. "I've read the contract, too, Captain, and I'll be damned if I can see a way out. Maybe we should turn the army on the rebel command! They might be able to take them!" He raised his hands, as if fending Grayson off. "All right, I'll keep feeding them the lessons. But you'd better find some way to keep them off the field for another three or four years, because as of now, any Kurita ‘Mech would grind them up like so much raw meat."