“Ariel’s central location makes us a natural data and communications hub, as well,” Farrow was saying. “Every major banking institution and information distribution network has a presence here—administered by their people, of course, but staffed by ours.”
“Are you implying you have access to all of that data?” Nikol asked. “Or that you have information on the inner workings of neighboring worlds?”
“Oh, good heavens, no.” Farrow’s genuine shock was nearly comic. “I meant that if the Lyrans or the Wolves discover how central Ariel is to the administration of the Marik-StewartCommonwealth, they will loot us, expecting to find a trove of vital information.”
Nikol did not bother to disabuse the viscount of his misconception. The Wolves and the Lyrans were bent on acquiring real estate—worlds they could shape in their own image. Data of the sort Farrow described would be of tertiary interest to them at best.
Now, if Ariel were a clearinghouse for military information…
It was easy to see what had happened. Viscount Farrow had appealed to Anson’s administration for defense that he thought was glaringly vital, and had been ignored. As the man responsible for the safety of a world with no military assets, he’d then turned to the only other ruler he thought could possibly help.
Taken out of context, there was nothing about the planet Ariel that would inspire the Oriente Protectorate to come to the world’s aid. But Ariel as a symbol—the first world of the Marik-StewartCommonwealth to reach out to Captain-General Jessica Marik…
“My instinct is to help,” Nikol said aloud. “But your position—as you said, central to the trade of the Marik-StewartCommonwealth—presents certain political and logistical problems.”
“The politics I will leave to you, Minister-General,” Farrow assured her. “But logistics are our lifeblood. In fact—”
The viscount stopped, as though surprised at what he had been about to say. Nikol watched the internal struggle play itself out on his mobile features. Farrow, she decided, was a man ill-suited to politics or poker.
“Our position on so many worlds does give us certain insights,” Farrow said at last. “Nothing that would violate our employers’ trust in our discretion, but a firm sense of where the winds are blowing.”
“I understand,” Nikol prompted.
“Even without the Lyran-Wolf invasion—” the viscount stopped himself. Visibly adjusting what he’d been about to say, he added: “Given the current situation, it is likely that Captain-General Jessica Marik may soon find she has a need for Ariel’s services in coordinating the administrations of several worlds in this region.”
38
Plains of Al Jizah, El Giza
Duchy of Andurien
16 June 3138
Thaddeus Marik slammed sideways, the harness digging into his flesh as Kriegaxt rocked under multiple missile impacts.
Seven hits, the tactical computer informed him, and the wire-frame schematic of his Warhammer IIc 4 mapped minor armor losses along the right torso. Collapsing plumes of dirt testified to eight misses. From their pattern, the missiles had been descending when they struck.
More important, his tactical scanner showed no enemy ’Mechs. Turning to face the direction from which the missiles had come, he saw only rolling grassland stretching to the horizon.
That’s not grass, Thaddeus corrected himself, then smiled at his own literal-mindedness.
The purple fronds of what the locals called heather—some rising as high as his ’Mech’s knees—bore no resemblance to grass. But the rippling waves of resilient plants yielding beneath the breeze would have been familiar to prairie dwellers on a hundred worlds. Grassland was as good a name as any.
The rolling terrain was more significant than the vegetation covering it. The composition of the soil did not block sensors, but the topography confused the tactical computers. The folded earth created false horizons below which the computers did not scan; since the angles varied with every fall and rise, the computer’s automatic algorithms did not compensate effectively. Valleys and ravines were often invisible until they were too close to ignore.
Replaying the sensor log, Thaddeus was not surprised to see fifteen long-range missiles rising out of solid ground. Something in a narrow arroyo had launched an indirect barrage. No doubt the sniper had already vacated the position, moving to another vantage point, but Thaddeus pointed Kriegaxt at the missiles’ point of origin and shoved the throttle forward.
“Ex-one-alpha to Ex-one-company,” he broadcast on the tac channel.
“Copy, one-alpha,” a crisp alto voice responded immediately.
Sergeant Alma Peterson, commanding Boxer lance, Ex-Force First Company, Thaddeus identified.
He didn’t know who had first called the Coventry Expeditionary Force “Ex-Force”—a name that sounded too much like a B-vid action serial for his tastes. But it was obvious that his people enjoyed the name, maybe precisely because it was so cheesy, so he adopted it without comment.
It’s the little things that bind a unit together.
“Snakes in the valley,” he reported. “Repeat, indirect enemy contact, apparent ravine in grid tango-seven. Moving to investigate.”
“First Boxer lance moving to support,” Peterson said. “ETA one forty.”
Thaddeus double-clicked a standard affirmative.
Boxer-one was four mediums, all jumpers and all faster than Kriegaxt. He couldn’t have asked for a better support mix in this situation. Still…
Eyes scanning the deceptively rolling ground ahead of him, Thaddeus advanced on the missile launch-point. Fully aware that going into single combat made as much sense as the warden taking a personal role in the ground search, he intended to settle this skirmish before the other BattleMechs arrived. That gave him—he glanced at the chronometer—one minute and thirty-two seconds.
Though he couldn’t see it, he knew the ravine the sniper had fired from was now in range of his own brace of ATM-6s. A status check confirmed that the variable-ordnance short-range missile launchers were feeding from the high-explosive magazine. Perfect for laying down a devastating carpet of fire. But he wasn’t going to risk an indirect salvo.
The tactical situation on El Giza was complicated by hundreds of civilian settlements scattered about the prairie. The First Expeditionary had already stumbled across one community of several hundred civilians hidden from sensors by a fold of earth. Thaddeus could not imagine how they sustained themselves—he saw nothing that looked like organized agriculture, much less industry—but entire villages seemed to dot the landscape. Or would, if they weren’t universally located at the bottom of invisible valleys.
Worse, the lack of trees meant the buildings were constructed of local adobe over frames of metal scavenged from who knew where. This gave a distinctly military spin to initial readings whenever the sensors first detected a village.
He didn’t think a MechWarrior would use civilians as cover, but Thaddeus had seen too many things that shook his fundamental beliefs in the last decade. He would not fire without visual confirmation of his target and risk blasting a village simply to avoid weathering another flight of long-range missiles.
In the days of the First Star League, El Giza had been a major trade nexus and Defense Force base on the border between Capellan space and the Free Worlds League. The regional center of communication and entertainment industries, it had boasted a thriving academic culture, with scholars from all over the rimward half of the Star League attending its many universities.
With the collapse of the Star League, the military, intellectual, industrial and economic resources that had made the world a cultural mecca became its greatest liability. A rich prize, the world had changed hands violently a dozen times before the Free Worlds League wrested control away from the Capellan Confederation. By then the planet had been effectively destroyed; what had not been plundered had been razed to deny rivals any advantage.
As a valueless backwater, El Giza had passed through the Ji
had unscathed—or, more accurately, without suffering further destruction. As far as he knew, even Daoshen Liao’s obsession to “reclaim” all worlds formerly Capellan did not extend to this barren planet.
The Duchy of Andurien considered the world strategically valuable if not intrinsically. Near the major trade hub of Mosiro, this was the base of operations for the Fourth Andurien Cavalry—a grandiose name for what was essentially a heavy mixed company tasked with pirate control. A gutted world and tiny military presence would be bypassed in most campaigns, left for the occupation forces to deal with. However, their proximity meant the Fourth Cavalry was in a position to support the Second Andurien Guards on Mosiro.
And Mosiro was the Ex-Force’s objective. A vital industrial and transportation center, the world was the economic lynchpin of the coreward third of the Duchy of Andurien. Taking Mosiro was key to cutting off the Duchy’s ability to make war against the Protectorate.
While Thaddeus was confident the First Expeditionary could defeat the Second Guard, sound strategy dictated they neutralize the Fourth Cavalry on El Giza before engaging Mosiro’s defenders.
The Fourth Cavalry comprised light, fast machines, well suited to fighting raiders but no match for the heavier assets of the First Expeditionary in a stand-up fight. Which is why the Anduriens had used their speed and mobility to disappear when the Covenant Worlds’ forces arrived.
What surprised Thaddeus was that they did not withdraw completely from the planet. Making a stand alone against the superior Covenant force made no sense strategically or tactically. The Cavalry should have joined the Second Guard at its first opportunity—and Thaddeus had made sure they had the opportunity. Instead, they had dug in, harassing the Marik troops from concealed bases.
The tactic had slowed the Oriente advance for a few days while they dug out the Cavalry, but the Duchy force was being destroyed piecemeal. The cost was far too high to buy Mosiro a few extra days. But Thaddeus dared not leave the Cavalry at his back, so the Second Guard was getting nearly a week to prepare for his assault while he rooted out their cousins on El Giza.
The staple scene of holovid war stories since time immemorial, in which a DropShip pinpoints all enemy assets from orbit, was a fiction of the entertainment industry. Even with the most sophisticated sensors available, a DropShip could miss a major base unless it knew where to look. The problems increased exponentially when hunting for scattered units determined to elude scans. Planets were big. An effective search required coordinating orbital scans from DropShips with aerospace flyovers and straightforward walking the ground and looking. And Thaddeus, warden of the Covenant Worlds, required some time in the cockpit of his BattleMech to work out the frustrations of command.
The ground dropped away before him. Lost in thought, Thaddeus was a half second late in responding and yanked back on the stick, throwing the machine’s center of gravity past its heels. He brought a leg back in time to prevent a fall, but the lip of the bank crumbled under the weight of one heel. The MechWarrior shuffled quickly, working to keep his eighty-ton BattleMech from tumbling into the ravine.
Anywhere else an erosion gully like this would be a raw scar. How fast does this heather grow?
Alarms hooted as heavy metal boiled out of the ground to his left.
Stepping back from the precipice, Thaddeus swung his left particle projection cannon to bear without turning the BattleMech’s torso. The blue torrent of hyperaccelerated particles crossed paths with four flickering ruby firestorms. Heat filled his cockpit as the combat computer reported four solid hits, medium pulse lasers melting armor from his arm and side.
The computer identified the birdlike shape racing to cross behind him as a Men Shen.
A fifty-five-ton machine with twice the speed of the Warhammer, armed with four pulse lasers and a long-range missile rack and guided by a sophisticated Beagle Active Probe sensor system, the Hellespont-built machine was a perfect pirate fighter. Or raider. What it was not good for was going toe-to-toe with an eighty-ton bruiser like Thaddeus’ Kriegaxt. The Fourth Cavalry pilot would use his superior speed and maneuverability to bring down the larger ’Mech.
Or try to.
Not bothering to follow the faster machine’s flight, Thaddeus snap-pivoted the Warhammer’s torso right. Dead-reckoning the course and speed, he triggered both ATMs, laying down an oblique pattern of twelve high-explosive missiles across the Andurien’s path.
None of them hit, of course, but the Men Shen squatted back on its odd double-kneed legs as the pilot threw his machine back and sideways to avoid them. In the heartbeat it took the BattleMech’s myomer muscles to overcome inertia and change direction, the machine was standing still.
That moment was all his targeting computer needed to get a lock.
The twin lightning bolts of his Warhammer’s paired PPCs flashed garishly against the purple of the heather. They converged on the Men Shen’s left hip assembly, just ahead of the laser mounts; two solid hits only meters apart. Armor exploded away as the ’Mech staggered.
Wreathed in the oily black smoke of burning myomer, the Andurien planted his good leg and pivoted to face Thaddeus. Fifteen long-range missiles launched the same instant as twelve short-range missiles left the Warhammer’s tubes, but their longer acceleration curve meant the LRMs were still in the air when the Men Shen’s forward-thrust cockpit disappeared beneath a firestorm of high-explosive impacts.
TEN HITS, Thaddeus read from the tac screen just as the Andurien’s posthumous retaliation hit.
Twelve explosions walked across Kriegaxt’s chest and shoulder, destroying the right-side missile launcher and staggering the machine backward. Fighting the tillers, Thaddeus kept his machine upright.
“Ex-one-alpha, this is Boxer lance,” the young voice sounded in his ear. “We have you on visual. What is your status.”
Thaddeus eyed the Andurien BattleMech in front of him. The forward third of the machine had simply come apart, structural members peeled back as though his salvo had triggered some sort of internal explosion. He’d never heard of that effect and wondered at its significance.
Half your missiles entered through the cockpit, he reminded himself. Don’t overthink this.
“Ex-one-alpha?”
“Affirmative,” Thaddeus answered. “Tally one Men Shen down. No sign of any others. Not that that means much out here.”
“Concur, one-alpha,” Peterson answered. “First Cat lance reports what appears to be the remains of a city bordering grid zebra fourteen. Looks like it hasn’t been lived in since the Star League.”
Thaddeus rotated his BattleMech until he was facing north-northwest, toward zebra fourteen. From the vantage of his low rise at the edge of the ravine, he could see a smudge as broad as his thumb along the horizon. It looked to him like nothing so much as a ridge of dirt.
“Meaning Sergeant Morris thinks there’s something inside.”
“That’s affirmative, sir.”
“The ravine this Andurien was using to sneak up on me looks like it leads back toward his location,” Thaddeus said. “Let’s follow it and see what he’s found.”
39
Amur, Oriente
Oriente Protectorate
30 June 3138
Jessica Marik fought the urge to rise out of her seat and twirl.
She’d almost danced when she’d heard the Lyrans had attacked the Marik-StewartCommonwealth. Now she wanted to declare a day of dancing in the streets.
Anson Marik is dead!
The words were a tuneless song singing through her head as she reread the report.
A gust of wind rattled the windows of the solarium, startling her. She glanced through the insulated glass surrounding her, surprised to see the garden subdued in shades of green and russet and washed in the watery sun of autumn. News of this import should have caused the garden to burst into full spring regalia; her spirit demanded bouquets and birdsong.
As if in answer, a lone mockingbird swooped from cover to pounce on some unsuspect
ing insect. She watched for a moment as it stalked across the grass. Every few steps it rose to its full height and spread its wings, hoping to startle another potential prey into revealing its presence by fleeing.
There’s a metaphor there, but I’m not sure for what.
Jessica’s only regret at Anson’s passing was that the arrogant pustule would not be alive to see her ascend the throne of the reunited Free Worlds League. If he weren’t already dead, that would kill him.
She smiled as the mockingbird pounced on another bug.
“The Lyrans claim he died begging for his life,” Philip observed, reading his own copy of the report. “Anson never begged for anything in his life.”
Jessica’s smile grew warmer as she considered her husband’s profile while he read, oblivious of her observation. Technically her ex-husband now, though the only changes to their relationship had been for the better.
Philip often observed with some satisfaction that he was able to spend much more time with his wife since “leaving” Jessica. His seclusion in the family quarters of the palace gave him greater access to her than when he’d been traveling about as her representative. The only regret he expressed about his “missing” status was the loss of his beloved thrice-weekly golf game.
“More to the point,” Jessica said. “If he’d been alive enough to beg, the Steiners would have kept him alive enough to be used for propaganda.”
“The Marik-Stewart news feeds say he went down fighting, a gun in each hand,” Philip read.
“I would think a gun in one hand and a leg of mutton in the other more likely.”
“Jessica,” Philip reproved mildly. “We need to show some respect for the dead.”
“I have no intention of showing respect for a boor who made clear at every turn he despised me when alive,” Jessica said. “Privately. Publicly, of course, there will be a poignant yet not maudlin declaration of our grief as we proclaim a day of mourning.”
To Ride the Chimera Page 20
