Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  "Yes, Lord, but the north end of that lake spills out in a series of waterfalls that drop a hundred meters or more into the Grimheld sea. Also, the lake itself receives a seasonal waterfall of considerable power that is just about to begin at this season. There will be no escape for them in THAT direction."

  "Hmm... good... good." The Duke swung back to face his subordinate, his hand scratching at the base of his heavy black beard. "I want those rebels, Singh. Dead or alive, I want them."

  "Are they really so important, Lord?"

  "One of them is. This Commonwealther you've told me about, young Carlyle. If he were to survive, to get off planet, he might piece together enough of what has happened here. He could turn the Commonwealth's eyes toward Trellwan again, bring a relief fleet before we were ready to meet them. Singh, think of it! A sweep in on Tharkad from a base deep within their own Periphery that they don't even yet suspect. Complete surprise!

  "If Carlyle warns them, our advantage is lost, and we are reduced to defending an otherwise insignificant ball of rock blessed with unusually wretched weather, and for no good purpose at all. This world is useless as a base without the advantage of surprise!"

  "Yes, my Lord."

  Ricol turned back to the map and studied it for several moments. "You have helicopters?"

  "I do, my Lord. Four are down for repairs, but there are a pair of Warrior H-7 attack ships, and a Karnav UR transport. We have been using them for reconnaissance flights and for quick trips between the Castle and the port."

  "I can contribute two more Warriors. Not enough for that jagged wilderness, but they will have to do." He pointed to the mountains north of Mount Gayal, then to the plains and mountain foothills to the east. "I want these areas patrolled, starting at once. Something as large as three BattleMechs should be easy enough to spot even in rugged terrain, and they MUST be there. There is no other intelligent choice for them. When we find them, we'll flush them out with two or three 'Mech Lances. We'll take them wherever they hide. And Carlyle will die."

  "Yes, my Lord."

  "See to it Singh. I have work to do."

  Singh saluted, fist raised to heart, then snapped it up and out, stiff-fingered. Ricol turned his attention to a small computer screen on his desk.

  Carlyle was an unexpected complication in the Plan, but it was such complications that added spice to the Great Hunt. Perhaps the Red Hunter himself would lead the ground pursuit of these rebels. It had been too long since he had personally taken the con of a 'Mech in battle. The thought stirred Ricol's blood, and brought a dark smile to his bearded face.

  25

  As the Locust proceeded up the rambling eastern slopes of Mount Gayal, the ground became progressively rockier and more broken. Trellwan's fierce, week-long storms had gouged out deep gullies that twisted and wound down the mountainsides. It was still dark, but the eastern sky showed a hint of pearl gray along the horizon, marking the beginning of Trellwan's long twilight. Sunrise was still two standard days away. Though still night, the temperature was rising, and had been ever since Far Passage a week before. Snow clouds hovered above the mountains, and the icy peaks glinted in the predawn light

  Inside the Locust, it was hot and growing hotter. Lori had boosted the power output of the 'Mech's reactor as the terrain grew steeper, and the heat sinks were struggling to keep up with the system's waste heat Grayson had propped open both the inner seal and the outer hatch, but the opening was not enough to cool the cockpit. He'd long since removed his uniform jacket and shirt, and Lori was down to a light, short-sleeved pullover and her briefs. Sweat beaded her face under the neural helmet, and molded the shirt to each swell and curve of her torso. Her legs were long and sleek.

  It was hard not to notice how attractive she was, even in the heat of that cramped cockpit.

  Lori turned her head and caught Grayson's gaze. "Forget it, Lieutenant," she said. She sounded tired. "I'm not interested."

  "Neither am I, Sergeant. Neither am I. Just drive, huh?"

  Grayson thought he detected a flash of hurt in Lori's eyes before she turned back to face the IR imaging screen. The Locust continued climbing, its broad, flanged feet making their way on the treacherous ground using Lori's own sense of balance.

  A warning light flashed on the console.

  "Aircraft," Lori said. "Coming in from the south... low and fast"

  "O.K. We make like a rock." He reached behind him and pulled the hatch shut cutting off the trace of cold air seeping in from outside. "Shut down the sinks."

  The Locust hunkered down, its back-canted legs folding under to lower the cockpit to within a few meters of the ground. As they sank to earth, the surrounding boulders seemed to rise from the ground all around them, sheltering them. With the heat sinks closed off, the 'Mech was no longer dumping excess heat into the cold atmosphere. Its hull would still be hotter than the surrounding boulders and detectable on an infra-red scanner, but geysering plumes of heat would no longer act like white-hot flares to attract a searcher's attention.

  They waited. Though the Locust was no longer moving, the power plant was still running, and there was no way to rid the machine of heat. The temperature soared to 45 degrees. Grayson allowed Lori and himself a swallow of tepid water from the cockpit water tank, and mopped his face with his shirt. How much longer would this go on? Lori didn't look like she could take much more; She sat slouched in the seat, her hand on the 'Mech's machine gun controls, her eyes half-closed and her lips parted.

  "Do you want me to take the controls awhile, Sergeant?" Despite himself, he whispered. There was no way that helicopter could detect their voices, but the sense of an enemy very close, listening, was hard to fight.

  She shook her head. "No. I'd rather... be DOING something. Anything."

  He nodded, and sagged against the support of an overhead handhold. If only there were room in the cramped, space for him to sit down, too...

  The imager revealed the aircraft —, a lean, streamlined Warrior helicopter. Grayson could make out the missile pods extended from the craft's flanks. It passed them, hugging the terrain as it moved up the flank of the mountain two kilometers to the east of their hiding place.

  "Didn't see us," Lori said unnecessarily.

  "Give it a moment. It was moving too fast to have a ground party following, but there might be a second aircraft"

  Fortunately for Lori and Grayson, there was not After a small eternity of sweltering stillness, she opened wide the Mech's heat dumps, and the machine levered to its feet and resumed its climb.

  To the north, a narrow ridge spur connected Gayal with the main body of the mountains. The Locust's course had taken it along the eastern flank of Gayal on the far side of the Castle, then up the ridge and along its crest. From this vantage point, they could look southwest across the valley and see the lights of the spaceport spread beyond the Castle. Beyond that were the day-brilliant lights of Sarghad.

  They paused there while Grayson used the 'Mech's telephoto starlight optical scanners to zoom in on the activity at the spaceport. Even without magnification, he could see frantic activity there. Two DropShips had grounded. Huge, massive, and squat, they were larger than the Invidious' DropShip, which crouched by itself in a far corner of the field. Movement was dimly visible around the base of each ship, and the silvery specks of hovercraft and other vehicles could be made out against the darker ferrocrete. At full magnification, Grayson and Lori could see steam being vented from the ships in the glare of the port lights, and the silent, purposeful confusion of repair and refueling operations. Orderly rows of troops moved among the crisscross of gantry struts and loading platforms, and Grayson counted at least twelve 'Mechs of various types and weights drawn up as if for inspection.

  He zeroed in on the age-streaked body of the Invidious' DropShip. "That's our key to getting off this planet," he told Lori. "We have to figure out a way to take her, and then use her to take the starship."

  "If the starship is still there to be taken. What are they doing?
It looks like they're loading her."

  Grayson agreed. He was at the very limit of resolution for the Locust's optics, but it appeared that a number of people were moving up a ramp into the DropShip's holds. Vehicles seemed to be loading crates or containers of some sort, and there was an air of purposeful activity that Grayson knew marked preparations for a launch.

  "We'll have to hurry if we want to catch a ride on THAT one," he said. "Looks like they're planning to lift — and soon."

  "We'd have to do something quickly anyway. In another 60 hours it'll be daylight."

  "And then 30 standard days until it's dark again." He pulled at one ear thoughtfully.

  They were rapidly running out of options.

  * * * *

  The temperature within the cavern of Thunder Rift was somewhat warmer than the near-zero chill outside. The thunder for which it was named had not yet begun, but a steady spatter of milky droplets trickled from the mass of ice and snow that could be faintly made out at the Rift's opening far above. The steady, rhythmic patter of droplets falling into the black water below filled the cavern with cold, wet echoes, and the promise of the roar of an avalanche of water when the Thirday thaw began.

  For the past 20 hours, the remnants and tatters of the First Trellwan Lancers had been wandering in from the dark and cold in a ragged stream. Grayson had Lori and Sergeant Ramage moving among them, taking a census and trying to bring some order to the confusion. Fires burned along the shores of the lake, each with its own cluster of men and women in Militia fatigues or, rarely, the green of the Royal Guard. Beyond the warm glow of the fires, sentries moved among the predawn shadows, watching for the approach of the enemy.

  So far, the Lancers could muster a Wasp and the Locust, and radio contact had been made with the Stinger, which was just now coming across the ridge north of Gayal. The combined strength of the two combat companies was 51 men, while 23 astechs from the support company had made it through. Also present were the vehicles the refugees had arrived in — five armed HVWCs, a pair of HVTs, and half a dozen scout hovercraft.

  It was hardly a well-equipped fighting force. Most of the combat troops had brought their weapons, but the group had almost no food. Many did not have cold weather gear and were half-frozen by their trek up from Sarghad in open-topped hovercraft. Ammunition was in short supply for the projectile weapons, and backpack chargers for the handful of laser weapons would have to be charged off the hovercraft power plants, for there were no portable generators at all.

  Renfred Tor had arrived aboard one of the hover transports. He walked with Grayson along the lakeshore some distance away from the campfires. The movements of individuals near the fires cast gigantic, misshapen shadows across the waterworn surfaces of the Rift walls.

  "Lori tells me you have an idea for how we can take the Invidious" Grayson said. He was wearing a cold weather jacket over his Guards uniform, but he kept his hands tucked into its pockets. Grayson had no gloves, and the air temperature was low enough to freeze his fingers. 'Tell me about it."

  Tor crossed his arms and looked down at the sand. "It's possible, but it won't be easy."

  "I was sure of that, too. I got a good look at the spaceport coming up."

  "The problem is, we can't just fight our way through the 'Mechs they have lined up on the port tarmac. Once we get aboard the DropShip, it's going to take two standard days to reach the jump point."

  "You're saying they would warn the Invidious before the DropShip got there."

  Tor nodded. "As soon as the DropShip lifts off with our people aboard, someone in Duke Ricol's forces is going to radio the Invidious and let the stationkeepers up there know that we're coming. They'd have two days to prepare for us, or they could simply jump to some other system."

  "What if the Invidious is still crewed by Hendrik's pirates?"

  "We can't count on that. Hell, we don't even know whether Ricol came in at the zenith or nadir jump points, but I doubt that he'd leave a potentially hostile starship just floating there, undisturbed."

  Grayson paced the wet sand with Tor, thinking. Every star system had two jump points, the zenith point above the star's north pole, the nadir point below the south. The distance of the point from the star depended on the star's mass. For a class M2 red dwarf like Trell, the jump points were located about seven-tenths of an astronomical unit out — a hair over 100 million kilometers. A DropShip travelling from Trellwan to the jump point at a 1G acceleration would make the trip in two-and-a-half days.

  "Where is the Invidious, Tor?"

  "Nadir point"

  "And your crew?"

  Tor sounded less certain. "Most of them should still be aboard. At least, there weren't that many ship handlers among the bunch of Hendrik's people who came aboard, so they'd need my people for stationkeeping, if nothing else."

  "So, Duke Ricol could have put his own people aboard, but your crew is probably still there."

  "Unless he spaced 'em." There was bitterness in his voice.

  "They won't have had reason to do that. Not yet, anyway." Grayson decided to change the subject "It looked like they were loading people and cargo aboard your DropShip at the port. Any idea what that might have been?"

  Tor shrugged. "No idea at all. They could be loading food and loot from their raids on Sarghad. Or maybe Ricol plans to ship Hendrik's people back to Oberon." He spread his hands, exasperation pulling at his long face. "There's just no way to tell from up here!"

  "Hmm, yes. But I think I know how we can work it so that we can find out what's going on, and pick up a ship for ourselves in the bargain."

  Grayson and Tor continued their hike along the shores of the black lake, absorbed in plans and calculations. In the cavern, the meltwater dripped ever faster from the ceiling, the spray reflected in the firelight like falling stars.

  BOOK III

  26

  Local dawn was only hours away. High, cold streaming clouds already reflected Trell's bloody light from below the eastern horizon, and the spaceport was emerging into faint visibility after days of gray predawn light,

  Grayson Death Carlyle confronted his command. There were 59 combat troops now, and 28 in the technical support company, all the men who had managed to escape from Sarghad. They'd brought with them stories of riot of green-coats burning homes and shooting Militiamen, or Militia forces fighting back and being dispersed by the arrival of Kurita 'Mechs. They watched Grayson now with expressions ranging from hope to despair. Behind them the Wasp and the Stinger crouched in silent deactivation The Locust, with Lori at the con, patrolled beyond the mouth of the Rift, standing sentry.

  "I'll say it again!" Grayson raised his voice and caught the faint echo from the rock walls behind the assembly "Our one hope is to get off this planet, and the only way we can do that is to take that DropShip!"

  There were mutters and grumbled conversation, but most returned Grayson's direct stare with stunned and uncomprehending looks.

  "Lieutenant..."

  "Speak up!"

  A private in a grease-stained Militia uniform edged to the front of the crowd. "Lieutenant, Trellwan is our home For most of us, that is, we CAN'T leave!"

  There was muttered assent, and someone called out "That's right!" There were hostile looks on many of the faces in front of him, confusion or worry on many others.

  Preoccupied with his own schemes and desires, Grayson had not really foreseen resistance from his men. "Do all of you feel that way?" he asked.

  The response was more muttering, the shuffling of feet, and downcast eyes.

  "The situation in Sarghad is not good," Grayson said. "Our scouts who came in last period say the whole place is under martial law. The Green Coats are in total control of everything, and Militiamen are being rounded up and shot."

  A disbelieving voice rang out. "All of them?"

  "No, not all. Most of the Militia are confined to their barracks now, and I gather General Varney is being held prisoner in the Palace. But the Militia people who are protesti
ng the new orders — they're disappearing. And the Duke's men are helping the Green Coats. Their troops are at the Palace, the hospital, and at the Visor broadcast stations..."

  "Lieutenant, lots of us have family down there. We can't just abandon them!"

  Grayson felt his control, his authority slipping. These men and women, most of them, had borne with him through the hardships of training and organization, and had followed him into both victory and defeat. He had been thinking of this new Lance as his family, and had assumed that they all felt as he did. Obviously, he had miscalculated.

  Kai had once lectured Grayson on why men fight. "A man fights for many reasons," he'd said. "Most of all, he fights for his buddies on either side of him on the firing line, and that's where his loyalty lies when the heat is on.

  "But it's home and family that puts him there on the firing line in the first place."

  Grayson could tell by the atmosphere, by the dark murmuring and darker looks, that these people were not his to the point that they would abandon home and family to follow him offplanet. He'd imagined the entire Lance getting offworld, of warning the Commonwealth of the dagger unsheathed at its back, of finding whatever was left of Carlyle's Commandos and rejoining them. Failing that, he and his men would perhaps form'a mercenary unit to continue the fight against the dark coils of Draconis.

  But for most of those he led, there was nothing to fight for offworld, no promise there but the very slender one of safety from Stannic's pogroms and the Red Duke's 'Mechs. And so, Grayson would just have to change his strategy.

  "I won't ask you to leave your homes," he said, "but if we could get offplanet, if we could capture the JumpShip, we might be able to find help, to come back with a stronger force and kick the Kuritists back to where they came from."

  A single voice broke the uncomfortable silence. "And if you get your ship, how do we know you'll come back for us?"

  Another Militiaman stepped in front of the crowd, half turning to face them. "The Lieutenant's always done right by us, hasn't he? If he says he'll come back, I believe him!"