A Call to Arms

by Loren L. Coleman

  And soon.

  Through his sweating ferroglass shield, Erik watched as Steel Wolf infantry concluded their sweep of the first few shaft entrances, calling them clear and scrambling to the next set of dark openings even as the main patrol worked their way down out of the knife-edged Tanager Mountains. A converted ForestryMech led the way, flanked by two JES strategic missile carriers. A line of supply and support vehicles trailed behind them in column formation, ready to rape the B’her valley agrocombines of foodstock and machinery, and at sound military positions several infantry carriers and light armor paced the column. The JES’s slowed a bit, no doubt on alert with magres imaging throwing back so many metal-lode returns. Ore, abandoned dump carts, an old drilling rig—there was too much clutter for them to read solid outlines and Erik’s forces had been in place long enough for thermal shadows to cool on everything except his Hatchetman’s fusion engine. That took them several critical seconds.

  He saw the carriers finally react to his presence, accelerating forward and swiveling their turrets against his position. Trembling with pent-up adrenaline, Erik banked the BattleMech’s fusion fires to life, checked that he was selected to force-wide comms and ordered, “Now, hit them now!”

  Priorities had been assigned earlier. His quartet of missile-equipped conversions rained fire and destruction down on the lead ForestryMech, Erik not wanting to take any chances against the design. His ultra-class autocannon hammered out eighty-mil slugs at double any normal rate of fire, chewing through armor with good-sized bites as the ForestryMech raced for the cover of a large pile of tailings.

  Erik’s final IndustrialMech conversion ended the Steel Wolf Mech’s flight, spending its banked capacitor charge through a power amplifier to light off a large laser. A ruby beam stuttered a half-powered lance into the ForestryMech’s left arm, severing the autocannon at its elbow joint. The modified IndustrialMech toppled awkwardly, crashed to the valley floor, and skid out of sight behind the tailings.

  Standing the Hatchetman up from its crouch, Erik called for his infantry and armor as blossoms of fire erupted all around him. The JES carriers peppered his location with long-ranged missiles, throwing enough ordnance up-slope to trigger a possible rockslide. Erik rode out the jostling, trusting the regenerative feedback loop created between his neurohelmet and the Hatchetman’s massive gyroscopic stabilizer to keep him upright, then throttled forward into a careful down-slope walk. His autocannon barked out more hot metal, and the torso-mounted extended-range laser stabbed several megajoules of scarlet energy into the lead Big Jess carrier. Not enough to do any real damage. Didn’t have to be.

  While dismissing the mine shaft entrances from his earlier plans, what Erik had counted on was that the infantry would miss the blind draw—a narrow cleft in the pass’s south wall which opened up into a fair-sized canyon, and inside which he had hidden a heavy complement of armored vehicles.

  A pair of SM1 Destroyers barreled out of the blind canyon, leading Erik’s flanking charge as they struck into the forward head of the column. Long licks of fire and smoke burst from their assault-class autocannons, ripping into a Joust tracked vehicle that lay directly in their path. The Joust’s engine erupted, bursting the side armor and blowing the turret skyward on a column of greasy fire. The scrapped mass of metal fell hard on the side of one SM1, grounding its skirt in a long, dragging scrape. It rebounded, and both Destroyers wheeled over to race for the rear of the column, spending thousands of rounds into lightly armored support vehicles on their way.

  Behind them came a squad of Demons, a Behemoth, Erik’s elite hoverbike unit, and two Maxim heavy troop transport vehicles carrying Hauberk and Purifier infantry. Most began spitting laserfire and missiles before even clearing the draw. More convoy trucks erupted into flaming debris.

  Momentarily thrown back on their haunches, the Wolves rallied faster than Erik would have thought. The JES carriers charged forward, missile systems belching out flight after flight of armor-pounding warheads. One of the Swordsworn’s MiningMech conversions got in their way and was left scattered in pieces over a blasted stretch of smoking ground. Another two Miners were pressed back into a nearby shaft and then sealed in by carpet-fire missile barrages.

  Elementals vaulted from the backs of several convoy trucks. A point of five battlesuit soldiers seized onto the sides of a Maxim, ripping through plate armor and breaching the troop pen. They spent several of their backpack missiles into the interior before the Hauberks inside managed to stagger out and engage them point-blank.

  Erik’s men struggled and died at the hands of the genetically bred infantry.

  Off the pass wall and throttling up into a run, Erik dodged his Hatchetman around one particularly large pile of tailings and met one of the JES carriers coming around from the other side. With its LRM racks severely hampered at close range, the carrier pivoted on diamond-track treads and raced for open ground.

  The Hatchetman was faster, cutting it off in only five long strides. Erik’s autocannon opened up several gaping rents in the carrier’s armor. Then he raised the right arm, which carried the massive titanium hatchet from which his BattleMech took its name. The hatchet fell once, twice, each time crushing large wedge-shaped bites into armor.

  His third strike split open one of the launchers, and live munitions rolled and tumbled out to litter the floor of Siren’s Pass.

  Erik’s laser touched off spilled fuel. One warhead burst open still in its launch tube, then another. Erik spun the Hatchetman away, racing for distance. The horrific explosion of the JES carrier and its payload of missiles shoved the Hatchetman with a brutal fist to the back. The BattleMech sprawled forward in a facedown slide, shaking Erik against his restraining harness like a rag doll caught in the teeth of a mastiff.

  A growling mastiff.

  Tearing . . . trembling . . . buzzsaw teeth . . .

  His tongue throbbed in pain and he tasted a hint of blood in his mouth, but it was the sound of tearing metal that shocked Erik back to life. Shaking off his dizziness, he blinked away the dark threat of unconsciousness as he recognized the shriek of a diamond-edged powersaw against armor. His armor. It was a sound he was unlikely to forget, having been under the blade of a ForestryMech one other time before. That time of his earlier disgrace.

  The ForestryMech. Felled during the opening moment of battle, its pilot had apparently collected himself well enough to dive back into the fray. Missing its autocannon-arm, the gray machine still had use of the massive, tree-killing blades by which it primarily practiced its trade. With one foot stepping down on the broad ax-head of Erik’s hatchet, the WorkMech used the powersaw to sever the haft and take from Erik his most potent close-in weapon.

  Most potent, perhaps, but not his only weapon.

  Thumbing an activation stud on his right-hand control stick, Erik released his BattleMech’s grip on the ruined hatchet. Shoving that hand against the ground, he propped himself up enough to lean in with his torso-mounted autocannon, thrusting the barrel into the ForestryMech’s armored crotch. He pulled his trigger, holding it down, spending thousands of eighty millimeter, high velocity rounds. Lethal metal tore into the ForestryMech’s gyro housing, boring through the stabilizers and then hammering away at the engine shielding above that. Fuel oil mixed with hydraulic fluids spilled down in a black gush of ’Mech blood, staining the lower legs of the ForestryMech which staggered and then toppled back.

  Climbing slowly back to his feet, Erik surveyed the wreckage his forces had made of Star Colonel Torrent’s foraging column. Some of the Steel Wolves’ faster vehicles had broken past his one remaining Destroyer, fleeing back the way they’d come. A few of the supply trucks had escaped as well, mainly because of their large initial numbers, and were hardly worth chasing down with valuable military assets.

  The rest lay in ruins, smashed, broken and burning from one side of Siren’s Pass to the other. Sharp winds fanned any flame into crackling infernos and lifted the oily smoke higher up the mountainside. Even through the
cockpit’s sound suppression, Erik could still hear the wind’s whistling echoes. He counted two down MiningMechs, two others lost behind a cave-in but easily rescued, a lost Maxim and several dead Hauberk infantry, and a destroyed SM1. According to the reports which now bled in over one another, his Purifiers had captured one JES carrier and some supply vehicles.

  “Now we’ll see where things fall,” he whispered out loud, just quiet enough not to be picked up by the neurohelmet’s voice-activated mic.

  The price had run slightly higher than Erik had wanted to pay, but the loss to Star Colonel Torrent would be galling. It would bait him to some kind of action. And whether the Steel Wolf commander came for Erik in Hahnsak, forcing him to call in his new allies for protection, placing them in between himself and danger, or went straight for Kyle Powers himself, the Swordsworn position on Achernar would only improve. But by how much? That was the question.

  Erik’s answer was just as easy. By however much he could squeeze from the situation. His uncle, his family, his people, expected no less of him.

  Erik expected no less of himself.

  13

  The Challenge

  Steel Wolf DropShip Lupus

  Achernar

  2 May 3133

  “I will allow the death of Star Captain Laren Mehta to be recorded as a fitting warrior’s end, though my review of the battle-rom footage is not nearly so generous, Star Colonel. Mehta should have held cover over your insertion. That is the last bit of charity I expect you to need from me.”

  The voice floated in from Torrent’s office, calm and steady yet still possessing a rough-edged threat that promised that this was a man used to giving orders. Every word had been chosen with care and the smallest pause followed after each as the speaker overenunciated, making certain that he would always be clearly understood. It was a voice for the Senate floor, command-level staff meetings, and battlefield frequencies all three.

  Leaning over the washbasin of his office’s small, attached lavatory Torrent glared at himself from beneath angry brows. He had no need to watch the holographic message again, having spent enough time in Prefect Radick’s company to know that his commander’s face betrayed no personal thoughts. He left it playing so that Kal Radick’s orders would set themselves firmly in his mind, and as a reminder that Achernar was only one stepping stone toward the Steel Wolves’ ultimate goal. On the far bank waited Tikonov, Duke Aaron Sandoval, and control of Prefecture IV.

  Torrent’s lip twitched up into the beginning of a snarl, which he quickly suppressed. Palming a handful of oily gel, he smeared it back over his head. Thick, black stubble scraped against his hand. The unscented gel smelled caustic, almost rancid.

  Picking up the curved blade at the side of his washbasin, Torrent raised it to his scalp and set the laser-sharpened edge against his skin starting at his widow’s peak. With a long, slow pull he shaved it back—careful, calm—over the crown of his pate. Softened to wire brush stiffness, the stubble rasped against the knife’s edge. He took another stripe to the left of the first, then used the side of the basin to scrape the knife clean of gel and shavings.

  “Now. You should remember enough from our planning sessions to know how much I value Achernar and Ronel. Colton Fetladral’s report, which I have attached, proves that we underestimated the dedication of Katana Tormark’s forces and the resolve of CEO Bannson to resist our offers of alliance.” A longer pause, for effect Torrent felt certain. “That man has a private agenda, I swear.”

  Torrent contemplated the edge of his blade. It glinted a cruel, steel blue in the lavatory’s dim light, and reminded him of his previously delicate position on Achernar balanced between the Swordsworn and Republic. A position that had changed overnight. Jacob Bannson was not the only one with a hidden agenda, he knew. Sandoval. The name crept back into his thoughts. Erik Sandoval. Returning to his morning ablutions he shaved another rasping strip from the side of his head, careful of his own ear as the blade whispered against it. The personal maintenance forced Torrent to calm, focus.

  “Still, Bannson remains of secondary importance so long as Katana Tormark continues to devil our worlds. The Dragon Lady professes complete ignorance, of course, but I know that it is she. One of her suicide samurai buried a Visigoth into the bridge of Fetladral’s Bloody Hunt during his insertion run.” A chime sounded in the office as someone rang through from the corridor. “It never recovered.”

  Torrent leaned back through the door, called, “Come.” He cleaned his blade again, and then went to work on his right side.

  He knew it would be Nikola Demos, and he knew the holographic image that the armor-driving star captain walked in on. It was the kind of image that haunted every ground-force commander. Even him. A once-graceful Gazelle-class DropShip, though you could never tell from the strewn, fire-blackened wreckage that was left of it. In one terrifying moment following the Miraborg-death of an aerospace fighterpilot, Colton Fetladral lost a star of converted WorkMechs, an armor binary, and any chance of taking Ronel.

  Without help.

  “It comes down to this,” Kal Radick promised. “Choosing between taking a harder line with the enemy I know, Aaron Sandoval, and the enemy I do not know as well, Katana Tormark. In this, I must choose Tormark. She is an accomplished military leader with an aggressive force backing her. It is of long-term importance that we convince her to stay on her own side of the Prefecture border. In fact, opposing her in this manner will cement our position on Achernar as well. In the end, we prove that what we are doing is both prudent and sound in directly occupying important worlds.”

  Cleaning his blade one last time against the basin’s edge, Torrent returned the wicked little knife to its scabbard at the small of his back. Grabbing a damp towel hanging nearby, the star colonel draped it over his scalp and rubbed away the remaining gel as he stepped back into his office. Nikola Demos stood defiantly near his desk, arms akimbo, staring at the diminutive projection of Galaxy Commander Kal Radick. She had pulled her gleaming black hair severely back from her face, giving her a hard, hawkish profile. Her dark blue eyes held no warmth for the orders she sensed—even from just a short lead in by the Steel Wolf leader—were coming.

  “This change in priorities comes at an awkward time and through no fault of your own. Star Colonel Fetladral concedes that his victory shall be your victory. Your victory, Star Colonel Torrent, is mine. Anything you might accomplish on Achernar will only add to our honor. You have my greatest confidence.”

  Nikola Demos turned as the holographic message winked out, recycled, and then began again with the Steel Wolf icon floating ominously over Torrent’s working desk. “His greatest confidence? Great Father! What about the occupation force?”

  “Shifted to support Colton Fetladral,” Torrent acknowledged as he thumbed off the holovid player. He moved with a slow economy of motion, deliberate and controlled. “We are abandoned.”

  “Can we still win?” Nikola jumped right for the neck, seizing hold of the problem and dragging it to the ground. “Can we take Achernar?” She pressed her mouth into a thin, hard line.

  Torrent felt his lip curling again. “Before or after Erik Sandoval’s Swordsworn gutted your foraging unit?” He felt the white fury building up within him again. Overriding the impulse to lash out, knowing that Nikola Demos had, in fact, set a sound escort for the B’her Valley raid, Torrent moved behind his chair and exercised his muscles against the back rest.

  “We might,” he said slowly, evenly. Although they could never hold onto Achernar if Aaron Sandoval pushed out against them from Tikonov. The Steel Wolves would have opened up the world for the Swordsworn to take. “Perhaps. If we can split the alliance between Swordsworn and Republic.”

  “How will you do that?”

  Torrent relaxed his grip on the chair back, turning his mind away from Erik Sandoval and the Swordsworn’s ambush even as he turned away from Nikola to grab his uniform jacket off a hook. “By destroying the man who forged it,” he said. Sandoval would
be dealt with, in time. Before that, Torrent would deal with Knight-Errant Kyle Powers.

  Achernar Militia Command

  Achernar

  The world shook and Raul Ortega bolted upright in his bed. Achernar’s furious, late-morning sun slammed into the window of Raul’s base-assigned quarters, slashing by the cheap, vinyl blinds to stab blinding pokers into the forefront of his brain. Light birdsong and the rolling crush of heavy trucks—those were his first coherent impressions of the morning. His tongue felt thick and gritty. His mouth tasted like the birds had nested in it. There was no good reason to wake up feeling so awful, but about a dozen poor reasons.

  Each one had come served in a shot glass.

  The door rattled in its poorly hung frame as someone outside pounded again, gave up, and simply barged into his room in the company of more painful sunlight. “Dogs and togs, MechWarrior. Going to be a busy day.” Tassa Kay.

  Raul groaned, fell back to his pillow in a flop that, he felt, conveyed his sense of enthusiasm for Tassa’s early company. He pulled the top sheet over his head, which lasted all of five seconds before his visitor stripped his bed in one brutal yank. Raul scrambled to cover himself, then realized that he had gone to bed in slacks and socks and a white undershirt.

  “I do not have the time or patience to play, Ortega. Get up or get left behind.”

  More awake this time around, Raul blinked some moisture into his eyes, noticed that Tassa also looked a little less polished than normal. She had pulled her hair back into a severe tail, secured by a leather tie. She wore camouflage pants and a black tank wrestled over firm breasts. Her eyes were well shielded by a pair of leather-wrapped, reflective aviator’s glasses, the kind that rested right up against the brow and let in very little light.

  Memories from the previous night came staggering back as he stumbled from his bed in the studio-style apartment to the kitchenette sink. Cold water slapped against his face and on the back of his neck helped put them back in order. He had matched Tassa Kay shot for shot, trading tips, technical facts and history in between rounds of Glengarry amber. Even half-drunk, Tassa had said very little about herself. Raul remembered something about her meeting Evan Kell of the famous—or infamous—Kell Hounds. More about her fighting alongside Exarch Redburn. She had seemed curious—pleasantly so, even—when Raul told her about Jessica Searcy and their differing opinions on duty to the Republic, and. . .