The five teams rendezvoused inside a half-collapsed and abandoned adobe building. Several horses and a single, battered jeep stood outside, all a part of the escape plan. Sallahan's group was second to arrive, preceded by the team sent after Jase Torgensson.
Marcus stopped Nihail when he tried to explain that Jase wasn't in his room. "He wouldn't have been,"
Marcus said. "He'd be with Ki-Lynn." That involved a little more explanation, but Nihail seemed satisfied and lapsed into a determined silence.
The team sent after Jericho came in next, missing two of their four people. "Ran into patrol of the jinn," Nihail said. When Marcus asked, he learned that jinn was apparently the Arabic term for minions of the devil, al Shaitan. Shervanis doesn't get good press in the Rashier Caliphate, he thought, and settled down to wait for the other Angels.
A fourth team finally brought in Ki-Lynn Tanaga at gun point.
She bowed formally to Marcus. Not that he would ever require it, but he knew that it mattered to her. "Gomen nasi, Commander. Jase had not yet returned from the feast. I could not convince them to wait while I retrieved him."
Marcus looked over to where the four-man team talked in hurried Arabic to Nihail. One man held a compress to his face, and when he removed it to speak Marcus could tell by the swelling and angle that his nose was broken. A dark glance toward Ki-Lynn told him what his comm officer wouldn't. "S'all right, Ki. They had a separate team for each of us because of our scattered locations. Just bad luck is all." He doubted that Ki took much comfort from the words. Inwardly he railed against the fates and tried to come up with some plan to return and rescue Jase.
He completely forgot to worry about Thomas, until a lone warrior rushed in to speak with Nihail. The team leader dragged the man over to Marcus. Deciding that Thomas, too, was now a prisoner of Shervanis, Marcus thought he'd already imagined the worst. So when Nihail said, "Your ship is attacked," without preamble, it hit him like a PPC blast. "Many machines." The other man said something else and Nihail translated. "Unable to take off. Most of crew escaped in flying vehicles and are safe. Second ship down in foothills to south."
The information all swam about in Marcus' head until one statement surfaced above the others. Second ship? No! Marcus shouldered his way past Nihail and several other Astrokaszy warriors and rushed outside. From the roof of the jeep, he jumped up onto the small adobe structure and stared off to the southwest.
The telltale flare of the Fortress Class DropShip burned bright and steady several kilometers off. It held position at what Marcus estimated at some three hundred meters off the ground, while every few seconds he caught the quick flash of light from a hull-mounted PPC as it stabbed down at the desert below. Marcus felt frustration welling up inside him. Charlene wasn't supposed to attack unless sent for. Or until such time she could assume him incapacitated. Even an attack on the Heaven Sent should have been verified by him first. Only one other possibility, in Marcus' mind, could have brought her down.
He spun on Nihail, who had climbed up with a few of his men and Jericho. "Who are they fighting?"
"They fight the cursed Shervanis. He who would enslave our world to his—"
Marcus cut him off with a wave. "Yes, but what forces? What BattleMechs? How many?"
Nihail spoke with the messenger who'd remained on the ground. "Many, he says. Several dozen. Machines with Shervanis' unholy dark sun insignia and others bearing the mark of al Zaitan's henchman—a dark and armored figure."
The Marian Hegemony raiders! "No," Marcus yelled at the skyline. "Dammit Charlene, no!" Nihail's man had said the second ship had grounded in the southern foothills, but the Pinhead now flew a supporting high-cover, which meant the BattleMechs were already on the ground and engaged.
"Nihail, I need that jeep and a radio. One that can broadcast in the upper bands for combat. I've got to get out there."
The dark-robed warrior shook his head. "Not possible. We fall back to second plan. Head north and make it to hidden landing area for helicopter." Marcus started to turn away, but the other man grabbed the front of his uniform and hauled him back around. "Listen to me, sahib. Caliph Rashier will help you. He is only man can help you now. I will take you to him."
Marcus swept up his left arm and broke the man's grip, face flushed warm in the cool desert night air. "Because of your caliph's help I have two people still unaccounted for in the palace. I'd go back for them except right now the ones out on the desert need me more. I'm going out there." He glanced toward the distant fighting. "Those ships hold everyone and everything that makes the Angels what we are. I will not abandon them."
Not abandon them. Marcus' last words echoed harshly in his mind. Was he more afraid of losing his people, or losing his DropShips and the equipment they contained? Whatever the truth of the matter, he was too close to things to know the answer right now. Either way, he had to get out to that battlefield.
"You serve your friends best by coming with me," Nihail said. "If your people live through the night, Caliph Rashier can help them."
"It's that if that worries me. I'm going out there, Nihail. Did your Caliph give you orders to shoot me if I resisted?" Marcus matched gazes with the other man until Nihail's dark eyes dropped. "Didn't think so."
Marcus walked across the flat roof, moving past the other two Astrokaszy warriors who had come up after Nihail. He caught the movement in his peripheral vision, just a fraction of a second too late to avoid the majority of force behind the blow. The rifle stock caught him just above the ear, knocking him to his knees as the blackness swirled around him in sickening waves.
The second blow brought the darkness down on him with smothering force.
27
City of Shervanis, Shervanis Caliphate
Astrokaszy
The Periphery
29 June 3058
Thomas Faber fought his own battle with consciousness as feedback through the neurohelmet he wore spiked pain deep into his brain. The Clint's control sticks trembled with violent force as he waded through another single-story building, the 'Mech swaggering drunkenly from side to side. Then he broke free, leaving behind a pile of collapsed rubble to stand between him and the pursuing Dervish. A single long-range missile clipped him in the right shoulder, barely enough to give the medium 'Mech a shove. Amaali, the dancing girl he'd won from Shervanis, whimpered with fright where she crouched in the tight space behind his command couch. Thomas set his teeth against the pain from the neurohelmet and coaxed the Clint to better speeds.
Thomas never learned exactly who the people were who'd helped them escape from the palace, except that they were from Caliph Rashier and they had weapons to back up their orders. They'd led him and the girl down a series of narrow palace corridors and straight into a small cluster of Shervanis' guards. Relieving one of the robed warriors of his Rorynex submachine gun, Thomas whisked Amaali away and through another series of twisting passages and turns until they were far from the site and just as thoroughly lost.
Then the shouting and alarms had started to sound.
Thomas had waylaid the next guard they came across. By luck they'd somehow taken a turn that was only a short passage from a small 'Mech park holding two of Shervanis' BattleMechs. Thomas had tackled one of the guards, whose tolerance for pain was far weaker than his desire to become a martyr. After assuring Thomas that the voice-recognition program had long since ceased to function and the Clint could be started up with its code phrase alone, Thomas had left the man unconscious and bound.
For as long as BattleMechs had been around, there had been means to prevent their theft. Voiceprint identification and "key" code phrases had been the standard methods for decades, ever since neurohelmet technology had been refined. Before that, neurohelmets had been so fine-tuned to the individual's brain waves that no one but the regular pilot could use a particular helmet without suffering from painful feedback.
Just Thomas' luck that the Clint's neurohelmet and control circuitry dated back that far and then some.
The Clint stumbled as a salvo of eight LRMs slammed into its rear-left torso, chewing through to the foamed-titanium bones of the machine's internal skeleton. The 'Mech dropped to its knees as Thomas used the Clint's left hand to steady it against the wall of a nearby warehouse. A wave of static washed through his mind, followed by throbbing pulses behind his eyes.
He was trying to make it to the outskirts of the city. Almost there, he thought, wrestling the 40-ton machine back to its feet. The larger buildings of Shervanis' abandoned industrial district rose just ahead, the two-and three-story warehouses promising some protection from the trailing Dervish of Shervanis. A few hundred meters beyond that would be the edge of the city and freedom. Hold it together a few more minutes, Thomas. Almost home.
Not that he really knew what to expect once he cleared the city. His sensors had already identified a Fortress Class DropShip pulling back from a high-cover position near the city's edge, heading south into the badlands. It had to be the Pinhead, but did that mean the Angels were in retreat? The unit's BattleMechs were riding on different frequencies than he could monitor, and neither DropShip had answered him on the general bands.
I've got to get out there, Thomas thought. Get out there and into his 'Mech. With feedback from the helmet making his vision swim, he doubted he could even hit the Dervish except at point-blank range. Now was not the time for heroics, not when the Angels might need him. He swiveled the Clint's torso and snapped off one shot with the AC/5 that was its right hand—not really trying to hit but hopefully keeping the Dervish from thinking him totally helpless.
As if in response, another flight of LRMs hit the Clint. Five missiles gouged more internal framework from his left torso, knocking out the medium laser there. Six others speared him in the center back and drilled in to tear away at the shielding to the fusion engine. Thomas kept control of the ungainly 'Mech, but the sudden spike on the 'Mech's heat scale told him he was in trouble unless he did something right away.
Thomas quickly brought the jump jets on line. The Clint rose into the air, venting plasma through the jump-jet exhaust ports in its rear torso and legs as Thomas angled for the city gates in the distance. Amadli screamed, but Thomas couldn't do much about that right now. Trying to fly forty tons of metal through the air was trouble enough. Compounding the problem was the neurohelmet feedback and the fact that he wasn't used to piloting a jumping 'Mech. It wasn't even that he hoped to bring the huge battle machine down on its feet; he'd be happy just finding a way to soften the landing.
Plunging down into a two-story warehouse wasn't quite what he'd call a soft landing, but to a BattleMech it offered two separate barriers of resistance before coming into contact with unyielding ground. The roof caved in under forty tons of BattleMech belly-flopping into a pool of brick and cement. Even though it threw him against the restraining straps hard enough to bruise, the final jarring of the Clint hitting solid ground was much lighter than Thomas would have expected His primary display showed black so he switched-over to thermal and then magscan. I'm in a basement. That explained the softer landing; three floors had worked to absorb the impact, not two. Still, his damage schematic showed a shoulder actuator out in the Clint's left arm and a few tons of armor shattered across its entire body. Thomas tried to get the 'Mech to its feet, but he was apparently buried under fallen rubble.
With the 'Mech lying face down, Thomas actually hung suspended over his control panel by the seat's restraining straps. He pulled the heavy neurohelmet off his head, and turned to check on his passenger. Amaali was sobbing hysterically, obviously shaken and nursing a small cut on her chin from having been thrown against the control panel, but seemed mostly fit. He started to hit switches, damping the fusion engine as fast as he could. Separated from the pursing Dervish by several hundred meters and at least two buildings, he knew the Clint would no longer register on sensors. With the 'Mech now buried within the warehouse debris, the only thing that could give him away was the magnetic field that help contain the fusion engine at his BattleMech's heart. He couldn't help thinking that he'd landed in a perfect hiding place.
Thomas hated the idea of being out of the action, but he just couldn't see trying to reach the outer wall now. The Dervish would be on top of him before he could extricate himself, and the neural feedback was coming dangerously close to impairing his judgment. Maybe it would be best to lay low here for a while, then make his run when it was least expected. All that was left to do now was the thing he would find hardest.
Waiting.
* * *
Fleeing through the hills south and west of Shervanis City, Charlene Boske's demi-company of Angel 'Mechs skirted the edge of the badlands as they fought to swing around the main force of Hegemony raiders and regain the flatlands to the north. Charlene Boske, her Phoenix Hawk one of the faster machines, brought up the rear. She swung wide around each hill, constantly breaking away and merging with the others as she drew the pursuing raiders off first to the right and then the left.
She was buying time, though for what Charlene no longer knew. All that could save them now was a miracle, she thought as Paula Jacobs' voice bled through the background noise again, accompanied by another light wash of static.
"Repeat, I've lost Flanker Two and Three," said Paula from her Valkyrie. "They blew the leg clean off Kelsey's Jenner, but I think she punched out. Geoff is gone. That damn Awesome tore his Panther apart and then deliberately kicked in its head."
Charlene bit down on her lower lip as she listened to the report on Flanker lance. The warm, salty taste of blood started to leak into her mouth. She pivoted the Hawk on its right foot, spinning nearly a hundred and eighty degrees with almost reckless ease, to fire her large laser at the pursuing Lynx. The emerald beam of coherent light cut a molten swath across the raider 'Mech's upper chest and head. It wasn't enough to penetrate, but she knew the Lynx pilot would be momentarily shaken. Riding out her momentum, Charlene leaned her Hawk forward into a run and slid in between a pair of hills. That bought her a moment's respite. Nothing more.
Charlene and the rest of the Angels had stayed behind in the Pinhead while Marcus and his team went down to the surface of Astrokaszy in the Heaven Sent. When the other DropShip had reported unknown forces attacking the city, she'd expected some order from Marcus to support one side or the other. The Angels would either topple Shervanis if he was working with the raiders, or they would assist him and gain his favor. She'd ordered the Pinhead down, holding off at two kilometers until the word was given. Then came word from the Heaven Sent that it was under attack by a company of Hegemony raiders who'd emerged from the city. Charlene had immediately ordered Captain Stanislaus to land the Pinhead south of the Heaven Sent’s position, and then she led the other eight Angels and three MAF MechWarriors out to lend immediate assistance.
Don't kid yourself, she thought now as she worked her way around a new hill to link back up with her unit. You didn't think of anything but avenging Brent, and now it's cost the life of another Angel. An image of Geoff Vanderhaven's warm smile rose unbidden from her memories, and she dismissed it with a violent shake of her head. She still had eleven lives depending on her; she could grieve later.
Charlene knew Marcus would never have committed the Angels so rashly. Even before the Pinhead had landed, the Heaven Sent reported itself airborne but with heavy damage to thrusters—they hoped to clear the area, but couldn't be sure. The raider company had moved off to meet the Pinhead, and another six raider 'Mechs had emerged from the city to support them. Charlene had kept half her twelve 'Mechs at the edge of the hills, supported by the Pinhead now flying low-altitude cover, sniping at the approaching raiders. Then Paula—in command of the other six BattleMechs left her by Marcus—reported another company of raiders pushing in from the north. Paula had been trying to get in behind the raiders, and now found herself being viciously shoved back.
Charlene's vengeance-inspired offensive had turned into a game of strike-and-fade among the low hills southwest of Sherv
anis. The raiders pressed them from two sides, and then three. They controlled the higher ground and methodically herded the Angels in front of them. Charlene managed to keep the Angels from being forced into the broken rock and ravines of the badlands, worried about such treacherous and unfamiliar terrain, but was unable to otherwise regain the initiative. She lacked Marcus' intuitive grasp of the battlefield. There were too many factors to juggle.
The absence of raider aerospace support, for one. It bothered her, but she wasn't about to complain. Ensign Keppler, the MAF fighter pilot who'd accompanied them to Astrokaszy, was flying reconnaissance in his Sparrow-hawk and occasionally dipped in for a strafing run, but it wasn't enough to turn the tide of battle. That much Charlene knew. She also knew she'd better do something— and now.
She opened the commline. "Flanker Lance, fall back at top speed. Regroup." She gave the order even knowing it could be a problem. Flanker Lance was a bit more north of the badlands than Charlene's force. If they couldn't break away and regroup fast enough, they'd get caught between the raiders engaging them and the ones following Charlene. "We'll hold the door open as long as we can," she promised.
"Hawk One, please repeat." The radio stripped most of the emotion from Paula's voice, but Charlene could still hear the confusion. "I said that Kelsey might have punched out. Repeat, Kelsey still alive. I need support to push the raiders back and extract her." Toward the last, Paula's voice edged into high-pitched tones that worried Charlene. The one thing she didn't need was for her flanking commander to get rattled. But I can't make her understand because normally I wouldn't agree with leaving an Angel behind either. Damn you, Marcus. Damn you for not being here. "Flanker One, we can't afford an extraction at this time. We've got to pull back now. Rendezvous at once. Hawk One out." She hit the switch for private communication with the DropShip. "Pinhead, we need immediate pick-up. Find the nearest area to land and beam the recall signal to everyone."
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