“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. Now that it’s daylight, they’ll be on the move for sure.”
“For what we are about to receive,” said Jones, “may the Lord make us truly thankful. How do you rate our chances of stopping them?”
“We don’t have to stop them. Just hold them.”
“For how long?”
“Until I tell you it’s been long enough,” Griffin said, and handed back the empty mug.
Lieutenant Jones faded away toward the mess tent, leaving Griffin thoughtful. He had time, he estimated, for catching a quick breakfast and tending to those early-morning personal chores that couldn’t be handled gracefully in the cockpit of a ’Mech. Then he would have to make an address to the troops. He couldn’t say much more to them than he had to Lieutenant Jones, but everyone would expect him to say something, even if they mocked his words later in private. Morale would suffer if he didn’t behave as expected.
After that, there would be nothing to do but climb into the Koshi and wait.
Two hours later, he was still waiting. The ’Mech, with its height of eye, gave him a good view of the plain and of the disposition of his forces, a view augmented by the symbolic map display projected in the Koshi’s cockpit.
Nothing showed up yet on actual visual, but the map display was already providing useful information. The scouts’ reports on the Wolf armor put their last confirmed location far back down the main road leading through the pass: On the display, the armored column showed up as a series of solid red lines. Their assumed position—dotted red lines showing where the column might currently be, given the known top speed of the reported units—was considerably closer.
Nearer still on the projected maps were the blue lines of Griffin’s own units, a few of them actually visible from the cockpit of his ’Mech. The bulk of them showed up only on the map, either because they occupied positions outside his line of sight or because they were concealed or under cover.
He could have wished for a better mix of units; what he had, while the best that the Countess and the Paladin could spare from organizing the main defenses, was far too light for his taste—mostly infantry, trained but unseasoned in combat. For support, he had self-propelled artillery in the center, missile-launchers on the flanks, and himself, in the Koshi.
The range of their weapons was marked out in pale blue on the map display, and their maximum sensor range in blue of an even paler shade. At some point the advancing pale pink of the assumed Steel Wolf formation—a formidable force, even if the scouts’ reports had been exaggerated by a factor of ten—would intersect with the pale blue. The resulting purple areas would show the locations of possible attack.
Then the sensors would make contact…
“Sir,” Lieutenant Jones’s voice came over the Koshi’s communications system. “Reply to your message to headquarters. The Prefect says, ‘Buy me time.’”
“There’s only one place today that’s selling it,” Griffin said. He looked again at the map, keying up the names of the units forming the heavy blue line that blocked egress from the mountains into the open plains that lay to the north of the capital city. “And I know what coin we have to use.”
“Nobody’s ever said that Highlanders don’t know the value of money,” Jones said. “If we have to pay, we’ll drive a hard bargain first.”
“Rest assured, Lieutenant, I’ll pinch every penny. But for now, it’s a waiting game.”
He ran down the weapons systems in his Koshi. Short-range missiles in the right arm, systems green. Check. Ammo full. Short-range missiles, left arm, systems green. Check. Ammo full. Active probe and target acquisition. Check, and check. Jump jets, ready, on line. Cooling max. Reactor in hot standby. Confirmed—everything was good to go.
With that taken care of, he began pacing along the defensive line that he had drawn up earlier, checking the lines of sight. With nothing but short-range missiles on board, he didn’t dare use the Koshi to take on the tank killers that the Wolves had in the lead. The ’Mech’s armor was good, but a lucky shot could still take it out… a lucky shot that would be more likely if the enemy could shoot at will without fearing countering fire.
He paced back to where a rocky outcropping shielded him from the front, and where his line of sight into the valley put everything within view in his range.
“Pass to all units,” he said on the command circuit. “We’re going dark. No active sensors. No electromagnetic communications from here out. Passive means only. Make the bastards guess where we are.”
“Why? What are you planning?” Jones asked.
“They’ll get here and we’ll fight them, whether they come early or late,” Griffin explained. “But why advertise where we are exactly? They can detect our sensors twice as far as our sensors will show us where they are. If they don’t know where we are, they’ll have to advance more slowly because we could be anywhere.”
“Right,” Jones said. “Well, I’ll stick close by you when the action turns hot.”
“You do that,” Griffin told him.
Lieutenant Jones was in a BE701 Joust tank, the better to keep enemy infantry off of Griffin’s ’Mech. A single trooper couldn’t do much against one of the big fighting machines—but infantry never came singly, that was the problem. They came in squads and platoons and companies, and enough of them in one place could swarm over even the biggest ’Mech like a cloud of maddened insects.
“Stay close,” Griffin said, “but stay behind me. Lots of stuff is going to be flying out the front, and I don’t want you to get in the way.”
“No worries there,” Jones said.
The light blue area on the display map faded back as the Highlanders’ active sensors switched off, leaving Griffin with still more unknown ground to fret about. The pale pink of the projected Wolf advance inched forward.
Time crawled by.
Griffin checked the chronometer in the ’Mech’s cockpit repeatedly, when he wasn’t scanning the land and the sky. The sun was well up by now, although clouds still lowered above the mountain peaks. More clouds gathered on the horizon behind him to the south and east—the bad weather that Meteorology had been predicting for some days now, though it wasn’t likely to arrive in time to interfere with his plans for the day.
On the map display, the pink mist of the Wolves’ possible position by now had met the blue mist of the Highlanders’ passive sensor range, and in some places had even met the darker blue of weapons range. Still, there were no contact reports.
No firing.
Nothing.
Michael Griffin waited.
41
Red Ledge Pass and the eastern Bloodstone foothills
Rockspire Mountains, Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
The morning sun burned through the clouds hanging over the narrow road through Red Ledge Pass. During the hours of darkness Nicholas Darwin had rested as best he could in the narrow confines of his Condor tank. Now he stood once again in the Condor’s turret, with the Steel Wolves’ armored column waiting for orders behind him like a hunting beast on a tight chain.
The feel of the air had changed in the night; even a city-bred offworlder like himself could sense the difference. The storm from the southeast that the meteorologists had fretted about was definitely coming, and he had to force the pass and take out the Highlanders’ resistance on the other side while the current weather held. The last thing Anastasia Kerensky needed was for her main tank column to get caught in a canyon during a flash flood.
The overnight delay had been bad enough. He should have taken Northwind’s capital city by now, or at least have been closing in on it. Instead, he was still looking at peaks on either side and narrow passes ahead of him—and to his frustration, the ’Mech that had stopped the column for the night had pulled out sometime in the hours before sunrise, denying him and his troops the satisfaction of taking it down.
Now, damn it, that same ’Mech probably waited for them somewhere on the road ahead, ready to
do its damage in daylight this time. Well, let it wait. Darwin was ready for it.
Anastasia Kerensky would reward success. He had no doubt but that she would reward failure, too—and he did not need that kind of reward.
“Forward,” he ordered. “Do not stop for anything.”
“What do we do if there are minefields?” Star Captain Greer asked over the private comm circuit.
“If there are minefields, Star Captain, then we will clear them by running over them at speed.”
“Sir?” The other man knew better than to question an order from his superior, but he was nevertheless able to infuse the respectful monosyllable with unspoken doubt. It was a useful skill for a soldier to have, and Darwin decided to honor it with an explanation.
“We can afford to lose a tank better than we can afford to lose time,” he said. “The Highlanders are gathering, calling in their forces, setting up their defenses. Can you not smell it on the wind?”
“Sir.” There was no direct agreement in that one-word answer, but no doubt or hesitation either—if the commander could smell it, the tone of voice implied, then that was enough.
Nicholas Darwin slammed his hand onto the armored ring around the Condor’s top hatch.
“Forward,” he said over the general circuit. “Leave the slower-moving vehicles behind to catch up with us. We are advancing. Maximum speed.”
“What about the possibility of ambush, sir?” Greer asked over the command circuit.
Still on the general circuit, Darwin replied, “When we come into range of the enemy, they will be in range of us. All units, forward!”
With a sound like a rising whirlwind, the powerful hoverjets of the Condor tank raised it from the valley floor and impelled it into motion.
Behind it, the column advanced.
“I don’t like it,” Will Gordon said.
In company with Lexa McIntosh and Jock Gordon, he currently occupied a position in a hastily dug hole on the side of a scree slope. The three of them had been sent there in the small hours of the morning, after driving back along Highway 66 at top speed in order to rejoin the main body of the Highlander task force. They had camouflaged their position as well as they could with branches and with tall grass, and had set up with their rifles looking across the valley to the west—the direction from which the Steel Wolves would soon be coming.
Now the morning sun shone down on their position through patchy clouds, warming Will’s body after the chilly night, but failing to lift his spirits.
“It’s too quiet,” he continued. “Like something big came through and scared all the game away.”
“I’m glad to hear that you don’t like it,” said Sergeant Donohue, approaching their position from the uphill side. He’d been inspecting the positions the ad hoc group had taken. “Battalion doesn’t like not knowing what’s out there, so they asked company. And company doesn’t know and didn’t know what was out there, and they didn’t like that. So they called all the platoons to ask. And the platoons didn’t know, so they asked the different squads if any of them had a clue as to what was out there. Nobody did. Unless you happen to know?”
Will shook his head. “Not a clue, Sergeant.”
“Wonderful, Elliot,” Sergeant Donohue said. “Because—since you and your pals did so well at playing find-the-Wolf last night—I’m tasking the three of you to go find out.”
“You were saying?” Lexa said to Will under her breath. “Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone?”
“Never tell a Sergeant that you don’t have anything to do,” Jock Gordon agreed. He shouldered his pack and picked up his rifle. “Radio silence, they said?”
“Yeah,” Donohue said. “Get the word back without using your squawk boxes if you can. But if you’re in a position where otherwise the Steel Wolves would reach us before the word did—then go ahead and use ’em. And if you’re about to get overrun, use ’em. Anything else, mum’s the word.”
“Speaking of mums, is yours still rolling sailors?” Jock said, but he said it so quietly that the Sergeant didn’t have to admit to hearing him. The three comrades picked up their weapons and headed off downslope and to the east.
“Any other bright ideas, Will?” Lexa asked after a few moments. “Seeing as you’re so full of the spirit of helpfulness this morning.”
“If we’re going to watch for the Steel Wolves, then we’re going to need a lookout spot,” Will said. “And I think I know a place near here where we can do some looking out.”
“Sounds good,” Jock said. “Not too far, I hope? We’ve been awake and moving all of a day and all of a night, and now it looks like it’s going to be all day again.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” said Lexa.
“A bitching soldier is a happy soldier,” Will said. “And if I don’t miss my guess, we’re going to have even more to be happy about before the morning’s up.”
42
Red Ledge Pass
Bloodstone Range of the Rockspire Mountains
Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
“Blocked?” Nicholas Darwin demanded of Scout Team Gamma over the tank radio. “What do you mean the road is blocked?”
“The Highlanders have used demolition gear to drop a cliff face across the road, Star Colonel,” said the crackling, distance-attenuated voice of the leader of Scout Team Gamma. “Nothing on wheels or tracks will go through until we clear it.”
“How long will that take?”
“Two hours at most. We have a MiningMech coming forward to deal with it.”
Two hours. Darwin looked at the sun, climbing ever higher into the sky. Time was passing, inexorably. Time that he did not have. “Will hovercraft be able to pass?”
“Neg, Star Colonel. The rubble is too uneven and too steep.”
“Then we will put the infantry over it,” Darwin said. He keyed on the general circuit. “Anyone with jump jets, forward. We are wasting the Galaxy Commander’s time.”
After two hours of hard labor, the block was cleared. Darwin watched as the first of the Steel Wolves’ wheeled vehicles made the narrow passage.
“Form up on the far side,” he ordered.
Star Captain Greer commented, “We haven’t heard from the infantry.”
“In these mountains that’s not surprising.”
Will and Lexa and Jock lay against a ridge, looking west toward the mountains. A shoulder of hillside that moments before had been bare ground now crawled with figures in Steel Wolf uniforms and battle armor.
“That’s them, isn’t it?” Lexa asked. She took a sight with her laser rifle at one of the figures and shook her head regretfully. “Way out of range yet.”
“Aye, that’s them,” Will said.
“I thought they had heavies with them,” Jock said. “Are you sure we’re looking at the main body?”
“This is the only way through,” Will said. “Let’s go back and tell the Sergeant what we saw. Maybe he’ll let us have our old shelter back.”
“Good plan,” said Lexa. “I like it.”
Jock nodded. “Let’s go.”
The three of them slid backward until the crest line concealed them, then stood and began to trot back to their own lines.
“We’ll probably get shot at by our own people on the way in,” Jock grumbled as they approached the encampment. “Everyone is that nervous.”
“Pessimist,” said Lexa.
Will ignored their byplay. He was still thinking about the enemy soldiers they had seen coming around the side of the mountain. “Who’d have thought the Steel Wolves would try this stunt with nothing but infantry?”
“Nothing but infantry?” Colonel Michael Griffin asked.
“That’s the report,” said Lieutenant Jones over the radio in his Joust tank. “And we have a fix on the location.”
Part of the map in the Koshi’s cockpit display went solid red. The enemy weren’t as far away as Griffin had hoped, but at least they were farther off than he had feared.
“Hold your fire until they’re within half of nominal range,” he ordered. “Then salvo-fire. Plaster the whole front.”
“We don’t have the ammunition to sustain that rate of fire, sir,” Jones cautioned him.
“I know that,” Griffin replied. “And you know that. But the Steel Wolves don’t know that, and I want them to think that they’ve walked into a meat grinder and I’m turning the crank. When they get here, fire as if we were sitting on top of a whole ammunition dump. The only thing worse than running out of ammo is having the enemy think that we’re low on bang juice.”
“Still… nothing but infantry,” Jones commented over his tank radio. “I wonder what that means? Could they be trying to draw us out?”
“Maybe,” said Griffin.
At that moment, a whole armored infantry platoon carrying flamers came jump jetting out of the sky, and Griffin abruptly had his hands full. He jumped downslope to a position beside a stand of trees. The infantry platoon’s flamers might heat him up enough to shut down the power plant—but not soon, not with a Koshi’s superior heat dissipation.
The Koshi’s exterior mikes picked up the sound of the guns on Jones’s tank opening up. Griffin pitied the infantry that had tried to close assault his aide. He jumped again.
He was still in the air when the first shoulder-launched missile hit him. At least the ’Mech’s gyros didn’t tumble, although the missile’s impact spun him around and turned his jump into a stumble-and-fall when he touched down.
“All circuits, go active,” he ordered even as he brought his ’Mech back to its feet. “I want sensors up and radiating.”
The area of blue mist on the cockpit map pushed outward as he complied with his own order. One look at the changed display was enough to reveal a map dotted with red spots, like a face with measles.
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