A Call to Arms
Page 18
Raul knew a moment of hope—a moment of denial—when the Jupiter shifted as if adjusting its weight to stand back up. A trick of the rain. The great machine twisted around on its knee, showing him the horrible, red-wealed scar that now ruined the cockpit. Then it pitched forward and slammed facedown into the desert mud. He knew that Powers was dead. Knew it in the same way he felt the Sphere Knight enter a room—down in his gut. This time it was a hollow feeling, the loss of something Raul had come to rely on in recent days. The sinking sensation as he realized that the entire battle—the expectations of a watching planet—had just settled on his own shoulders.
“Down! Jove is down!” A frantic call from the JES carrier’s crew shook Raul from his stunned lethargy. “Captain . . . Captain Ortega, we’ve lost Sir Powers.”
They had. But Raul would not let them lose Achernar in the same battle.
Before he had even considered a proper tactical response, the Mech Warrior pulled into his primary triggers. Medium lasers stabbed ruby knives into the Tundra Wolf’s side while his overhead rotary spent a long, lethal stream of fifty-mil slugs hammering into the Tundra Wolf. The autocannon roared out hundreds of rounds. Two hundred. Three. Four, five, six . . .
And jammed. Pressed too hard too fast, the spinning barrels locked up with a grinding screech of metal against metal.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Raul cursed himself silently as the Tundra Wolf shook off his desperate attack and swiveled around to come at him over the ruined Jupiter. The BattleMech stalked forward like a predator in search of prey, slow and with malicious intent. Its large laser sliced in at Raul’s Legionnaire, splashing armor off of his right arm. An earth-shaking spread of fifteen separate missiles pummeled Raul’s ’Mech and the surrounding desert floor. Two individual warheads slammed in on either side of his cockpit, like a one-two punch, shaking Raul against his harness and leaving behind the taste of blood from a bitten lip.
To add injury to Raul’s insult, the AgroMech opened up behind him to drill through his back armor. He stumbled forward, recovering just in time to save himself from a three-story drop to the desert floor.
Reactor alarms spoke their general discontent into the cacophony of sirens and audio alerts as the stream of hot metal chipped away at the engine’s physical shielding. Failsafes threatened to dump a dampening field over the fusion chamber, but Raul slapped at the override to keep his ’Mech up and fighting. He turned to present fresh armor against the converted AgroMech, and worked to clear his jammed weapon.
“Purifiers, get control of that Agro. Jessie-one, worry the Wolf.”
Throwing a hovercraft against the Tundra Wolf would not have been Raul’s first choice, but he had to buy himself a few critical seconds. He worked the ammunition dump on the autocannon, clearing the jammed breach. Status lights blinked from red back to green as he stood up under another withering assault, again from both sides as the remaining AgroMech and the Tundra Wolf worked him over with autocannon and missiles.
Then the AgroMech went down with half a dozen Purifier battlesuits clinging to its back, ripping through armor and engine, and the tactical carrier launched a full spread of short-range missiles into the Tundra Wolf’s face.
They bought Raul the extra few seconds he needed to set his feet firmly beneath him, pulling his targeting crosshairs over the Tundra Wolf’s blocky outline.
Short pull. Long pull. This time Raul varied the way he ate into his ammunition reserves, careful of the weapon’s needs. When he needed to rest the rotary, he chopped at the tall BattleMech with his trio of lasers. Between the damaged shielding and his nonstop fire, temperatures in the cockpit climbed slowly but steadily through the yellow band and into the red. And all the while Star Colonel Torrent worked him over with more missiles, and more. A pair of medium lasers. Missiles . . .
Torrent had lost his large laser!
The realization slapped Raul back into a semblance of coherent thought. He had not been weighing his chances, or worrying about what the best strategic opportunity might be. In those first moments after the fall of Sir Powers, all Raul could think of were Tassa’s earlier words. They wouldn’t fail. They couldn’t. He understood her better now. Kyle Powers had drawn a line in the sand—right here. And right here was where Raul had unconsciously decided to hold that line until he broke under Torrent’s guns.
But now he glanced more frequently between his targeting and a readout on the star colonel’s ’Mech. One of his autocannon salvoes had crippled the laser, and both shoulder launchers looked to be off-line as well. Also, Kyle Powers had done a number on the Tundra Wolf’s armor before falling to its weapons. Raul counted three deep rents in the upper chest, one of them glowing with the golden hue of the BattleMech’s internal fires.
The Legionnaire stood up under all the abuse Torrent could give it. Another glancing blow to the cockpit. Left arm chewed down to a twisted, skeletal stump, right leg fused into little better than a BattleMech peg leg. Sweat poured down his face, stinging at the corners of his eyes, his lips. Every gasp for breath pulled hot coals down into his lungs. He outlasted the Jessie as it finally grounded out after a series of hammering gauss slugs from the M1 Marksman. He ordered his own Purifiers after the tank, intent on capturing it for the Standing Guard, but never once took his eyes off the rock-steady Wolf. The desert shook with natural thunder, and the rain beat down hard enough to drum a deafening roll over his head and shoulders. The Legionnaire’s ruined right leg trembled beneath Raul, threatening to give out at any second, but he held his BattleMech up, squinted through the pouring rainfall, spat out another set of ruby darts and then lashed out again with an extra-long pull from his autocannon. If Torrent wanted him, he’d have to be willing to trade ’Mechs. Maybe trade lives. It was a decision Raul was ready to make.
Star Colonel Torrent, apparently, was not.
The Tundra Wolf took an actual step backward, then another. Then, with a violent lurch that seemed able to convey the star colonel’s anger as well as his frustration, the seventy-five-ton BattleMech showed Raul its back, high-stepping over the Jupiter’s stilled legs and then kicking in with its MASC equipment to put immediate distance between the two MechWarriors.
His finger already crimped around the trigger, pulling it back into the control stick grip, Raul hammered another several hundred rounds into the back of the Tundra Wolf, but against fresh armor there was no real chance to harm it. The M1 Marksman drove in between the two, guarding the star colonel’s flank. Raul called off the infantry, ready to save lives now that Torrent had bowed out of the challenge.
Now that Kyle Powers and at least one armor crew had already paid the highest price for the Republic’s pyrrhic victory.
“Raul? Hey, Ortega!” Tassa’s voice, filled with a healthy amount of respect and enthusiasm. “You did it. Do not ask me how, but you actually backed off Star Colonel Torrent.”
Breathing shallow, trying to pull oxygen out of the cockpit’s reactor-baked air, Raul slumped back into his chair and let the automatic safeguards shut down his reactor. Panel lights died, leaving him one red-tinted backup and the rain-dampened gray which filtered through his ferroglass shield. Drenched in sweat, utterly spent, his arm felt like dead weight as he tied his comms system into the battery reserves.
“Torrent got what he wanted,” he said, voice cracking. Raul swallowed dryly, tasting blood from his bitten lip. “I just denied him the trophy.” And ran the cost up on the Steel Wolf commander as well, with one converted WorkMech destroyed and another captured.
“Take the victories you can get, Raul. There is not much more to a MechWarrior’s life.”
Raul nodded to the darkened cockpit, his neurohelmet pressing down with insufferable weight against his shoulders. Kyle Powers had put a similarly low price on his own life with the way he had fought the battle, and Raul couldn’t help but believe that the Republic had lost more than it gained this day.
“But there should be, Tassa.” He stared out into the rain. “There should be.”
Spectators
River’s Run Flatlands
Achernar
4 March 3133
Rain continued to pound the River’s Run Flatlands just as it had hammered through the Taibek foothills and Agave Dales. Sand-choked rivulets streaked the ferroglass shield of Erik’s Hatchetman. Desert wash flooded the old river course that raged along as if the river had never been diverted to better serve the city of River’s End.
“Something coming through, Lord Sandoval.” Michael Eus had commandeered a spot inside the heavily armored mobile HQ vehicle. His voice cracked on Erik’s title. It might have been the static of transmission. “Erik . . . sir! Knight-Errant Powers has fallen. Patching through the trans—”
One of the HQ techs cut Eus off, splicing the intercepted transmission onto Erik’s command frequency. A Republic soldier reported back to base, informing Colonel Blaire that Kyle Powers had been gravely injured—possibly killed—in battle. A tingling chill walked up Erik’s spine. Listening to those reports of the challenge battle’s final moments, he pulled his Hatchetman out of the column line and stomped it up to the crest of a small, mud-slick rise. A deep roll of thunder cheered the Republic. Rain applauded against the elongated head of Erik’s BattleMech for the assembled Swordsworn force.
A half dozen converted MiningMechs continued their dedicated march alongside the old riverbed, rolling along on tank-tread feet. A Behemoth, two Condors and a squad of four Jousts followed, leading a double-wide column of command and support vehicles. Nearer to the column’s rear the mobile HQ pulled out of line as well, leaving its place next to a MIT 23 M.A.S.H. unit, grinding to a halt in between Erik and his tail-end military force. Ranger scout vehicles mixed in among infantry carriers. A squad of veteran Demons rolled along, unconcerned, while JES carriers wove in and around the back of the column as if eager to move up when called.
Everything he could muster in a timely fashion when Michael Eus brought his uncle’s orders to him.
Enough to hold River’s End. He hoped.
“More time,” Erik whispered to himself. Another week of attrition among Republic forces would have helped. Two would have been better.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Nothing, Michael.” Erik scolded himself for forgetting the voice-activated mic. “I was worried about the time. The river is forcing us into a long detour.” Not exactly true. Even without the flashflooded watercourse, Erik had planned to swing far around the militia-controlled base to come at River’s End from the east.
“Estimated time of arrival is still holding at fifteen hundred hours. I can pass along an order to increase our pace.”
Erik bristled, feeling his anger rising in the warm flush that spread along the nape of his neck. “I can give my own orders when I am ready to, Michael. Continue to monitor the Republic military bands.”
“Yes, Lord Sandoval.” Michael was properly respectful, even though he paused before answering.
Well, what should Erik expect from a man who had stepped forward as his uncle’s soldier, bought and paid for? Michael Eus had brought the Duke’s orders to Erik personally, a coded verifax commanding that all Swordsworn forces move against the Steel Wolves at once or otherwise confound Star Colonel Torrent’s plans so that Kal Radick’s faction could not send more support to Ronel.
“Keep them tied down on Achernar.”
That had been Aaron Sandoval’s order. Standing in full regalia, no doubt about to attend a highly visible—as highly visible as one could get without HPG service—function as Lord Governor, the Swordsworn’s leader nodded imperiously. No questions clouded those bright, cerulean eyes. This man was the master of all he surveyed.
“Do not allow Torrent to withdraw for Ronel, Erik. Do not allow him to seize control of the local HPG station. Kal Radick does have a working, JumpShip-based hyperpulse generator. If we allow him to establish the spine of a communications network, our Swordsworn will be hard pressed to resist him. Listen to Michael Eus. He has been my eyes and ears—and occasionally my hands—on Achernar since before your arrival there. He will have suggestions.”
And Erik had been cautious of Eus being suborned by Legate Brion Stempres.
“Have you been in touch with our friends inside River’s End?” Erik asked over his private channel to Eus. Reports from the Sonora Plateau had trailed off, confirming that Kyle Powers had indeed been killed in combat. Martyring himself, by all indications. “Our reception is readied?”
Michael’s voice bled confidence through the transmission. “News agencies friendly to your uncle’s—to your agenda are on hand to put a positive spin on our arrival. Industrial areas owned by Taibek Mining, Steyger Railways, and the Fronc Granaries are cleared. Together they form a defendable staging area and can house all equipment inside warehouses. Logistical support in food and ground services has been put into place.”
Which, when all added together, would give Erik a fair base of operations on the outskirts of River’s End, in between the city proper and the militia’s outlying command post. It might even buy him a measure of goodwill among the populace. Good PR never hurt.
But he would still have preferred another week.
Throttling his Hatchetman into a forward walk again, pacing the column at fifty meters, Erik shoved the thought aside and tried not to let his uncle’s interference worry him. Even such surprises as Michael Eus’s perfidy were to be expected in the long-reaching game the Sandovals played, though it was hard not to feel slighted, in at least some sense. Duke Aaron Sandoval was not here, not in person, and Erik was. That counted for something more than a title. Erik should not—and would not—be made to feel the part of a spectator. No. He remained on the board and in play.
A knight. At worst, a pawn. That idea appealed to him at some remote level, and Erik felt an upward tug at the corner of his mouth. A pawn in Caesar’s game.
And pawns that survived to the final rank became powerful pieces indeed.
River’s End
Achernar
Jessica Searcy bit down on her lower lip. Not hard enough to draw blood. Just enough for the pain to reign in her emotions.
Heavy, golden curtains drawn across her living room windows filtered Achernar’s already gray day down to gloomy twilight. She sat on the couch, feet pulled up beneath her, trivid remote balanced on one leg. Her left thumb rested down against the memory timer. A mug of forgotten coffee cooled on the end table as she pressed in, backing up the once-live holo footage, eased back for a moment, then brushed the feathertouch sensor once more so that the entire scene played out again, and again, as she watched with dry, aching eyes.
Watched Raul Ortega kiss another woman.
Jessica had it memorized. She wasn’t even certain anymore what she looked for in the trivid’s memory buffer. She caught Raul’s slight recoil over something said or gestured. Then the red-haired woman grabbed the front of his MechWarrior togs and pulled him in to plant a hard kiss on his mouth. That was hard enough on her. But it was Raul’s hand coming up, cupping the back of her head with desperate need, that stabbed a shard of ice into her heart every time.
He broke it off, finally, but with no obvious look of regret or shame. Words passed between the two, trampled by a news anchor’s voice that Jessica had long since muted. She didn’t need anyone else’s imagination filling in the blanks. She didn’t need to see again Raul’s half-amused smile, the determination behind his dark, dark eyes. Didn’t need it. Not at all.
Biting down harder, Jessica backed the footage up again.
17
New Deal
Achernar Militia Command
Achernar
6 March 3133
Night’s chill grasp clutched at the morning, unwilling to let go even as the northeastern skies brightened to a pale rose. Raul Ortega glanced around at the few dozen ranks of soldiers and civilian contractors—reserves mixed in among standing guard, logistics among infantry and tank crewmen. Only the MechWarriors and Brion Stempres st
ood separate, ten paces out from the nearest row, filed by rank from Legate Stempres and Colonel Blaire through to supernumerary Tassa Kay. Raul’s place was in the middle, between Captains Diago and Charal DePriest.
They stood in silent reverence as lottery-chosen technicians extinguished the fusion-flame funeral pyre and removed the ashes of Knight-Errant Kyle Powers.
Raul turned back to the service and shook his head, slowly, carefully, keeping his opinions to himself. There were hardly enough warm bodies to fill one side of the parade grounds. Yet he knew that except for a skeleton watch crew in the command post, all on-base personnel had turned out for Sir Powers’ funeral. Blaire had even gone so far as to secure Star Colonel Torrent’s assurance that the Steel Wolves would also observe thirty minutes of respectful silence in honor of the fallen Sphere Knight. There would be no military maneuvers. No alerts.
And there still were not enough bodies to turn out a decent honor guard.
Twelve hundred and thirty-odd beating hearts. Gooseflesh prickled up Raul’s arms. This was the Republic’s strength on Achernar, and lucky to have it, he knew. There were worlds of The Republic that no longer knew the necessity of fielding a BattleMech, even for show. Some which no longer supported a garrison of any type, having lived for so many years under Devlin Stone’s umbrella of peace and prosperity. As rents tore through the fabric, spilling drops of blood onto their soil, would those worlds be better off, or worse?
How many citizens would prefer to bow their heads to an occupying force rather than suffer as Achernar was suffering? How many residents simply did not care?
Twelve hundred and thirty-odd.
Raul wouldn’t even wager money on the ultimate loyalties of everyone present. There were more Steel Wolf sympathizers, he felt certain. Two infantry squads had all but attached themselves to Tassa Kay’s mixed-arms lance for no other reason than out of respect for her bondsman, Yulri. Some Swordsworn armor jocks stole an SM1 Destroyer on hearing of Erik Sandoval’s occupation of River’s End, running to his side as if the young noble’s treachery—and Brion Stempres’s legitimizing it—wasn’t bad enough.