"Thank you, soldier."
"Begging the Lieutenant's pardon, but not all of us have ties here. I for one have no family on Trellwan, and if you're going offplanet, well, I'd like to come along."
"What's your name, soldier?"
"Manning, Lieutenant."
"You'll be more than welcome, Manning. How about the rest of you? Will you trust me in this? We can't fight a BattleMech regiment alone. Why, we wouldn't even survive in the wilderness alone for long. But if we can get offworld and reach a Commonwealth naval base, I can bring back help. Believe me, the Commonwealth doesn't want the Draconis Combine here on Trellwan!"
"The Commonwealth wasn't that interested in us when they brought Hendrik's bastards in!" came a voice from the back of the crowd.
"No, and they won't be any more interested in you now! They've got problems of their own — elsewhere. But they're damn sure not going to want the Kuritists sitting here massing their fleets and 'Mech battalions! Now... will you help me?"
There was a terrifying silence, while Grayson thought, My God, I've lost them. Then Manning waved his TK in the air. "Count me in, Lieutenant!"
Then another Militiaman stepped forward, and another. The private who'd protested that he had a family moved up, and then the cavern was ringing with the shouts and whoops of Grayson's troops. Maybe, Grayson thought, as he looked down into their shouting faces, maybe we'll be able to pull it off.
* * * *
Renfred Tor marched with fourteen men past the outer barracks and onto the apron of the spaceport field. Each of them wore the dark green and gold of Trellwan's Royal Guards.
A number of Royal Guards had joined Grayson's ragtag unit at Thunder Rift, men who'd fled the takeover when those in power began evening old quarrels with those in their own ranks. Grayson didn't fully trust them yet, and they were also the target of black looks and unpleasant grumbling from many of the Militiamen who had lost homes or family when the Guards had taken over in Sarghad. For now, the former Guardsmen were kept within the Rift, assigned to the shrunken support company, where they could be kept out of harm's way — and watched.
Their uniforms had come in handy, though, as a disguise for the men in Tor's special party. The DropShip Captain led his tiny command across the uncomfortabaly open field between the barracks and the Invidious' DropShip. There were weapons trained on the party, Tor knew. Standard operating procedure called for weapons to track any person or group approaching a grounded military ship. As they got closer, he could see the orifice-dimpled sphere of a beam turret twisting within its mount on the hull to keep them in its line-of-sight. He marched his men into the wind shelter of a supply shed several hundred meters from the ship, halted them, had them face front and stand at ease.
He hoped they looked like just another squad of Green Coats.
The Duke was using a lot of Royal Guards, both in the city and at the port. The alliance with them made sense. If Ricol could count on the men now in power in Sarghad — Stannic and his supporters — then the Duke would be free to use his entire force elsewhere. But the Lancers knew none of the passwords or codes that might now be in effect.
Their one advantage was that the situation in Sarghad was bound to be hopelessly confused at the moment, with so many changes being put into effect so quickly. It was likely that as yet there WERE no passwords or special codes. If so, they had to move now if there was to be any chance of success at all.
Clipped to his ear, Tor wore the remote earphone to the transceiver at his belt. He was conscious of the faint background hiss of the open channel, a channel that observation over the past hours had shown was not heavily used. Everything depended on the message he would get through that earphone within the next few moments.
The DropShip loomed above them, filling the sky with the massive swell of its rounded hull. For the first time, Tor got a good look at what they'd done to the vessel when they'd installed extra weapon mounts. He winced at the carelessness with which armor plate had been burned away, but knew he couldn't dwell on that now. What Tor needed to know right now was where was that bloody signal?
The Green Coats and their Kurita allies had occupied the Castle, of course, but they hadn't moved in and set up their headquarters there. That was one stroke of luck, at least. What Grayson and his men were attempting to do would have been far more difficult, perhaps impossible, if the Duke and his staff had taken over the Command Control Center. Ricol appeared to be still operating out of the DropShip, which bore the red chevron of his flag. That meant the Castle's Command Center should be deserted. Grayson was in there now, working to tap into the spaceport's computer net If he could just tell the computer network that Tor and his people were expected aboard the DropShip...
But where was his signal?
* * * *
Grayson waited in the corridor outside the Command Control Center. His Guards Lieutenant uniform had gotten him this far past gangs of men installing electronics equipment throughout the Castle. Heavy power cables snaked everywhere, and heavy beam and missile weapons were being installed at strategic points across the face and upper deck of the fort. Semiportable consoles were being hooked up in the Vehicle Bay and in a number of the Castle's larger rooms. It looked as though the Red Duke was planning on moving in to stay.
The confusion within the Castle's passageways was complete. Each party of men, each squad of soldiers seemed to have their own assigned tasks, and paid no attention at all to anyone else. No one challenged Grayson, though once a man in the red and black uniform of a Draconis captain ordered him to report to Major Kraig for a runner assignment. Grayson guessed that the Captain had been given the unwanted duty assignment first and was now passing it down to the first subordinate he saw. Grayson saluted smartly with his best Guards' salute and requested permission to complete his messenger duty... on his Lordship's business.
The Captain had muttered something unintelligible and waved him on. A junior officer looking for a way to duck an assignment would not closely question anyone — even an indig — purporting to be working for the Duke.
Grayson had reached the Command Center in good time, only to find a work detail in there. He hovered outside the open door several moments, considering what to do. There were six men inside the Center, astechs belonging to the Red Duke's 'Mech regiment, from the look of it Their leader was a full Tech wearing an armband with the black-on-red dragon of the Combine and a heavy-looking service machine pistol holstered on his hip. Considering the array of tools spread out on the floor and the way they were dismantling a communications console, it looked as though they planned to be there for a while.
Grayson walked into the Center and directly to one of the computer access consoles in the middle of the room. He kept his face impassive, worked to keep his breathing steady.
The Tech noticed him. "You! What are you doing here?"
Theoretically, of course, any command officer of any service outranked full Techs, who were generally sergeants or warrant specialists in rank. But Grayson knew enough of the way the Combine worked to realize that not even a Combine astech civilian was going to obey orders from an indig officer.
Grayson did his best to look unsure of himself— a young junior officer in the presence of his betters."Yessir! I was sent up to check out the computer net access from here. Major..." he groped for the name. "Yes! Major Kraig wants to know if there was any damage to the banks."
The Tech scowled. "That was all checked out two days ago."
"I don't know about that, sir. I have my orders..."
"Why would the Major put an indig greenie like you on the job? What do YOU know about Commonwealth computers?"
He pulled himself up with what he hoped looked like pride. "I was on the astech force that helped set them up, sir. That's why the Major wanted me to come down here."
Admitting that he had worked for the Commonwealth garrison was a big risk, but it was the only way Grayson could explain his knowledge of these machines. He was counting on the fact that
technnical personnel throughout human space operated in a subculture all their own, independent of the politics of the men who gave them their orders.
The Tech considered Grayson a moment with narrow, suspicious eyes, then waved carelessly toward the consoles. "Just stay out of our way. We'll be changing the access codes in the system after a while, and we'll throw you out on your head then, got me?"
"Y-yessir!" The codes had not yet been changed! He might be able to pull it off!
Doing his best to ignore the workers behind him, Grayson switched on the power and tapped out the key sequences that put him into the system. He was probing the control network that kept track of ships incoming and outgoing, and kept the spaceport control tower informed of the Castle's military decisions and activities. When the Commandos had been garrisoned here, the Trells had controlled the spaceport, and the network had been used for communication and for gaining special clearance for military flights He suspected that the Combine controlled all port activities now. Yes, there was a new program controlling the network. The logo on the screen indicated that the system was under the direction of Combine Military Command.
Any computer system that will be used by many people with varying levels of training must be designed so that even inexperienced personnel can operate it Grayson tried various words and phrases that asked the system itself for help, and found himself logged into the flight scheduling sequence as "Tower Control 1." He caught his breath, but no alarms went off. The screen waited patiently for him, filled with command options. Taking a deep breath, he began working.
It took Grayson ten minutes of careful searching and experimentation to find what he was after. A launch was scheduled for local dawn, 2.3 standard hours from now. The launch was identified simply as "FRTR DRPSHP ALPHA" rather than by the name of one of the Duke's warships. That must be Tor's DropShip. It was scheduled to rendezvous with "J-FRTR: NADIR" in 52 hours. The freighter's destination was listed as Luthien, capital world of the Draconis Combine.
Cargo schedule... fuel schedule... orbital windows unrestricted... transit vectors and delta V... ah! Payload manifest! The DropShip was listed as carrying 1215 tons of cargo — grain, spices, hardwood, art objects, loot from the raids on Sarghad, all of it. There were 34 passengers listed as "Supercargo - Security Detention." Those must be more prisoners, people taken when the Duke moved into Sarghad. Hendrik's people, maybe? That didn't feel right. General Varney and other loyalists? That sounded more reasonable, but there was no way to find out. Tor would have to use his own judgment there. The security detail was five men under the command of a Gharlit, Levin; Corporal; Regimental Security Forces. Their weapons were listed as pistols and tranq guns only. Good. Firefights on board ship could be hairy.
And, what was this? A special passenger? A Captain Yorunabi, with VIP clearances and status. Who might THAT be? Grayson wondered. Whoever he was, the special passenger would be Tor's responsibility.
Working swifdy now, he began typing. A new unit had been assigned to board FRTR DRPSHP ALPHA, fourteen men under the command of Claydon; Sergeant; Trellwan RylGds."
He had settled on the name while discussing the plan with Renfred Tor. None of them knew how plausible it would be to have a squad of local soldiers boarding an outbound freighter, especially as they had no idea of its destination. Might it be headed for Luthien? If so, what would Trell Green Coats be doing on a ship bound for Luthien? In this, as in so much else, Grayson was relying on the studied lack of curiosity and the obedient, It's-none-of-my-affair military mind.
He entered the information, then let his breath out in a long, unsteady sigh as he saw his data appear on the screen. Grayson stole a glance across his shoulder. The astech party was hard at work dismantling the com console. Keeping his back to them, he slipped a small transceiver out from under his tunic, and thumbed it to a pre-set frequency.
All he said was, "Go." They had kept it simple and noncommittal because of the danger that some listener would pick up the broadcast and triangulate its position. A red light flashed twice on the handset: message received. He tucked the transceiver away and turned back to the computer. With his primary mission accomplished, he set to work searching for one more set of data he wanted to examine, and this would be his one and only opportunity to find it.
* * * *
Renfred Tor pulled out his earpiece and gave the command to his men. They'd been standing at attention in the shelter of a hydrogen tank for the past eight minutes, waiting for the word to come from Grayson. Now he had given the signal, and it was time to move.
The fifteen men swung out into the chill wind and marched toward the DropShip. The beam turret still tracked them as Tor led them into the spotlit glare from the powerful lamps casting their harsh light across the main entry hatch. Elsewhere, the lights ringing the port paled under a slowly lightening sky. The port buildings, gantries, and storage tanks were all visible now, gray shadows in the twilight.
A pair of sentries stepped from the shadows. "Hold it right there. Where do you think you're going, Green Coat?"
"Orders," Tor said. Steam boiling from the DropShip's vents fumed and churned in the spotlit pools. "We were told to report aboard before launch."
"Let's see 'em."
Tor let a trace of anger creep into his voice. These were Draco sentries, not Trells, and there was no way he could threaten or bluster his way past them. But he might be able to take advantage of the fact that the oldest of the two sentries was half Tor's age, and looked green.
"I have no written orders, soldier. I was ordered..." he stressed the word, "ordered to report aboard this DropShip by the tower officer. You want to take it up with him?"
There was uncertainty in the sentry's face, the universal fear of the military's lower echelons of having screwed up somewhere. But his voice was tough. These WERE just Trell indigs, after all. "We'll just see about that,"
He used a hand transceiver to call the DropShip's bridge. His muttered conversation was inaudible to Tor and his men shifting from foot to foot in the predawn chill. The sentry looked up suddenly. "Sergeant... Claydon?"
"That's right,"
"Nobody ever tells me nothin'." The sentry waved them on as the outer hatch swung open. "Move it. Get on board. You Greenies're expected, it seems."
Too easy, Tor told himself as they filed on board. They had to be even more on guard now, for things could change at any moment. He reached down and unobtrusively unhooked the safety strap across the top of the Gunther MP-20 riding on his hip.
27
Grayson stared down into the computer display, his hands clenched in white-knuckled fury at the data he'd retrieved. He had tapped into the biog extract files, the same files left behind by Carlyle's Commandos when they'd withdrawn from Trellwan during that night of blood and fury. Learning the information in these files had been an important part of Grayson's training during the past years, but there were far too many names and faces for him to remember them all.
BattleMech combat was intensely personal warfare. The theory was that a warrior would have a better chance in combat if he knew something about the man he faced. In you knew, for example, that a certain MechWarrior favored close-in combat, it might give you the edge if you opened fire at long range and worked to keep him at a distance. The files included the histories of thousands of MechWarriors from across known space, living and dead, friend and foe. Even friends were recorded, for it was not unusual for friends to become enemies in the era of the Successor States.
The face staring back at Grayson from the screen was one he recognized. It was the long, swarthy face with dark eyes and an abbreviated beard circling lips and mouth, the face of the man he had seen during the attack on the Castle so many weeks before. The files identified the man as Baron Harimandir Singh, a Captain of the Red Hunter Special Operations Group. His biog stated that he had been born on Chekaar, that he was an accomplished Weapons Master particularly skilled in hand-to-hand and small unit tactics, and that he was also a renowned MechWar
rior with a long list of kills. Most important, he was the right-hand man of Hassid Alexander Ricol, Duke of Chekaar.
Even with the proof before his eyes at last, Grayson could scarcely believe it. He had first looked up the computer entry on Duke Ricol, hoping to learn more about the leader of the Kuritist invaders. The Red Duke, it turned out, was a MechWarrior well known to the enemies of Kurita's Draconis Combine. He favored a 75-ton Marauder painted red with black trim, and was known by friend and foe as the Red Hunter.
The background data had referred Grayson to the entry on Colonel Singh, who, it reported, had served with Ricol for at least fifteen standard years. Grayson remembered the name Singh from Lori's story about how she had come to Trellwan, and again from Griffith's dying shout during the battle in the Castle's Vehicle Bay. Now he understood the connection between the face he had seen during the battle for the Castle and Duke Ricol himself.
Though Singh was a MechWarrior, he served more often in his capacity as warleader for the Duke's special ground operations group. His BattleMech was a Crusader, a 65-tonner, painted in the same red and black livery as Ricol's Marauder. The computer projected the 'Mech on the screen. It was large, humanoid, with LRM launchers and 8cm lasers packed into each arm.
So there had never been any bandits from Hendrik of Oberon at all. The entire situation — the attack on Carlyle's Commandos, the raids on Sarghad, the timely arrival of the Red Duke — all had been arranged as part of an elaborate ploy.
The reason for the hoax was easy enough to figure out. If the Red Duke had simply attacked Trellwan outright, the Commonwealth would have fought back. Even if the Kurita forces had won, they would have been ruling a conquered, hostile planet that required a sizeable garrison to keep the peace.
Instead, they had sabotaged the negotiations with Hendrik and stirred up the Trell population against the Commonwealth. Thus, the Combine invaders would be transformed into liberators who arrived to save Trellwan from the ravages of Hendrik's pirates...
Decision at Thunder Rift Page 23
