Hearts of Chaos

by Victor Milán

  She went to Wolf Girl's side. Wolf Girl lay on her back. Blood bubbled from her lips as she breathed.

  Her right hand groped. Cassie took it. It squeezed with a crushing grip. Cassie bent forward, kissed Wolf Girl on the forehead.

  The hand relaxed.

  Then Cassie was on her feet and searching the dead guards for fresh magazines.

  * * *

  The Shadow Hawk crouched behind a train engine. Its expendables were gone but for the paltry short-ranged Streak two-rack missile launcher in its head. Under attack from two directions, what remained of Gavilan Camacho's command was being driven back on the administrative complex in the middle of the TTC compound. .

  "All Caballeros," he broadcast, "this is Falcon, in the TTC yards. We can't hold on much longer. We need help. Please respond."

  He quit transmitting, knowing he would get no positive response.

  "Falcon," his headset announced, "this is el Cuco, coming on-line. Arrow IV volley, ready in three-zero seconds. Please light me up a target."

  Gavilan stared at his board as if it had suddenly grown green fur. "Dolores? Señora Gallegos?" In Diana's O-Bakemono?

  "You can just call me Red, Falcon," the woman's voice responded. "Now, how about that target designation?"

  "I've got one," came Raven's voice. "A Quickdraw. The son of a bitch who killed John."

  "The power is on the way. !Diana, la Capitana, y venganza!"

  * * *

  "Tai-i," came the worried voice of Talon Sergeant Miura, "my sensors show you are being illuminated by Target Acquisition Gear for an Arrow IV missile system."

  Young Toyama laughed. "I have it too, Gun-san. It's absurd. The gaijin don't have anything like—"

  The huge missile struck the Quickdraw between the shoulder blades and split the 60-ton 'Mech like the blow of an axe.

  * * *

  Howard Blaylock strode toward the elevator banks as fast as his long legs could carry him.

  It's not all lost, he kept telling himself. I just had to get away from those crazy women for a while. My guards can handle them, and that martial nitwit Kusunoki can handle the mercenaries once he gets his crap-kettle commanders kicked back into shape.

  Everything's fine, he told himself. Everything's under control. The mercs and those militia scumbags are going to shoot their whole wad here and now. All that'll be left is the mopping up—and what a lot of fun that's going to be ...

  "Got a big date, Howard?" A tall black-clad figure stepped into sight from a lounge area to bar his path.

  "Can't figure what else you'd be in such a hurry for, romantic cuss that you are."

  He stopped. "Captain MacDougall," he said. His voice was steady, though his throat and lips were dry.

  She smiled. Her hands are empty, thank God. She was wearing a laser pistol in a low-slung holster, though. God knew why the governments of the Inner Sphere allowed anybody but regular-army soldiers to carry them.

  Cow her. "Listen, bitch," he shouted, letting spittle fly. "Get out of my way, now. That way maybe I'll be nice when I have time to deal with you!"

  "I love it when you sweet-talk me, Howard," she said.

  "O.K." He held up his hands—and shuffled a couple of steps closer. "O.K., I'm sorry. I'm under a lot of stress. I lost control for a moment there. But can't we just talk about this like two adults, you and me?"

  "Sure, Howard."

  "Swell." He reached behind his back, so smooth he could barely believe how good he was, and his hand came up with his little sneaky-pistol—

  Magically, Lady K's laser was already out and leveled." He saw a red flash.

  The beam punched through his forehead. It flash-boiled the fluids in his brain, causing them to expand, rupturing his skull and forcing his eyeballs out of the sockets.

  She looked down at him. Bits of puffed-out brain showed here and there where they'd pushed through his skull. They looked like steamed cauliflower.

  "And that's the best form of therapy," she whispered, holstering the weapon.

  No sooner had it slid into place than a mighty explosion blew in the window facing the courtyard and slammed her against the wall.

  * * *

  "Kali!"

  Cassie raced forward, skidded the last several meters to her friend's side on her knees. Lady K lay along the base of the wall with one arm outflung and a trickle of blood running from the side of her mouth. Cassie grabbed at her right wrist, which hung across her chest, to feel for a pulse.

  "Oh, Kali, please don't be dead," she moaned. "I'm glad you killed Blaylock and I'm sorry I was mad at you and please don't be dead!"

  Lady K's eyes snapped open. "HDLC, honey, gently!" she said in a raw-throated croak. "I'm not dead. Just resting my eyes. And you don't have to apologize for being mad."

  Her voice got dreamy and she shut her eyes. Cassie sat on her heels feeling the tears pour down her cheeks. Outside, the sounds of a 'Mech battle roared like the worst thunderstorm to hit Port Howie in a century. The BattleMech force from Tower of the Elephant Elementary had arrived.

  "You look like you ought to be dead!"

  "The way I feel it'd be an improvement. Now, you better motivate out of here, before a second missile comes flying through the hole that first one made—"

  "No! I won't leave you!"

  Kali opened her eyes again. "Where's the Pretty-boy?"

  "He went off to rally his troops."

  "Somebody's got to get him." Kali coughed, spat blood.

  "Oh, God, you've got a punctured lung."

  "No I don't. I bit my damned tongue, and swallowing blood's making me sick to my stomach. Now, listen up, girl: you've got to get him. You understand? The bad guys still outnumber us by I don't know how much. They'll only quit if you nail Kusunoki. That's our only chance."

  "But what about you?"

  "Even with Blaylock... dead," Kali said, her speech becoming slurred and labored, "I don't want... to live if we lose."

  Cassie nodded. "All right. I can steal a motorbike, head him off before he makes a klick."-

  "No ... good. He took ... the Naginata. Not even you're ... superhuman enough to bring a ninety-five-ton 'Mech down ... on command."

  Cassie sucked down a deep breath, started to tell her friend that she was the expert dismounted 'Mech-buster here.

  Then she stopped herself and exhaled. Because Lady K was right She was a brilliant improviser. But that wasn't enough to rely on now. She was usually able to pick her spot for 'Mech-hunting, set things up to her advantage before ever taking action—the Christmas Eve fight at poor Percy's party had been a fluke, and she knew it This time she couldn't count on extraordinary luck—and she had no leeway for laying traps.

  "But what can I do?" she practically sobbed.

  "Look out... the front... window."

  * * *

  Downtown Port Howie's in a hell of a mess, Mouse Omizuki thought, bringing her boomerang-shaped Shilone down low above the Admin Center to try to sort things out.

  The streets north of the big structure boiled with BattleMechs. No way could she sort out who was a target and who was a fellow servant of the Dragon. She took her ship around to the east toward where another air battle was raging. She wanted to be out there, shooting down the ground-attack aircraft that she knew from listening to her fellow pilots' chatter were laying such hurt on the ground forces. But she'd been ordered to support the security elements around the Admin Center, so she banked and came back in again even lower, and so slow she had to use her downward-angled thrusters to keep airborne.

  It was still a bitch trying to pick 'Mechs out of city-center build-up, much less figure out who was who. She was focused on the ground, which meant she wasn't watching her three-sixty 'display.

  The Shilone rocked twice, as if somebody had struck it twice with a very large hammer. Her pulse spiked as her eyes snapped to the three-sixty view strip. Her drive flame was about twice as big as it ought to be, and there was a little tiny insignificant white toy airplane with a r
ed-painted nose apparently hovering over her left wing.

  "Son of a bitch." Her board lit up red all over. When the board went that red in that big a hurry in a temperamental torch job like this, you punched out right now, and hoped that was soon enough to keep the doomed bird from taking you along to oblivion.

  Mouse punched out. Right now.

  Her 65-ton Shilone soared gracefully out over the bay and blew up. Well, there goes my career, she thought.

  But that was followed immediately by the thought, That isn't worthy of a warrior. And then: Oh, screw it. I spend my whole adult life training to serve the Dragon as best I can, and some FedRat hotshot in a wind-up toy and that fruitcake Kusunoki blow it all to hell in about six seconds.

  I wonder if the bishonen will let me have a broom-handle to swat gaijin 'Mechs with when he busts me back to. Recruit-for-Life in the Dragon's Toejam.

  Noise was beating up at her like heat waves from below. She looked down.

  "Oy, vay iz mir," she said, lapsing into the secret speech she'd learned as a child, which it was death to use around outsiders. She was well and truly over the TTC yard. And the 'Mechs slip-sliding away from it along slushy streets looked suspiciously to her—now that she had a certain amount of leisure to study them—like machines belonging to the thug Black Dragons and Kusunoki's fair-haired MechWarrior boys and girls.

  She tried working the Shrouds of her parafoil chute to see if she could get clear of enemy territory. But there were a lot of fires burning down there, some of them in what used to be BattleMechs, and the winds were swirling. It would be all she could do to keep from coming down in a 55-ton oil-drum fire. Frak.

  Well, at least! can stop wondering if Kusunoki'll stick me in a field brothel for the Towne Guards, she thought.

  As she floated toward a semi-ruined cluster of buildings, a nasty little Wasp with a black-striped yellow torso came shooting up on its jump jets to look her over.

  "Whoo-ee!" a voice boomed from a loudspeaker. "Check it out! They're dropping us supplies by air!" The voice spoke with an impossibly ignorant-sounding rustic accent that Mouse thought had to be fake.

  "Let's get a look at you, honey," the 'Mech jock said, easing down beside her. "Ain't much in the face, but looks like you got the body to make up for it."

  She shot him a finger. He laughed and let his 'Mech drop planetward into a swirl of steam and dust. She hoped he'd misjudge and splatter himself, but no such luck. He touched down as if being lowered from the hand of God himself.

  A moment later her boots bit the ground. She ran a few steps, was pleased when by force of sheer will she was able to keep from falling over. She hit the quick-release button for her chute. It went billowing away across the switching yard as a party of burly civilians in laborers' clothes approached her, spanners in hand.

  "Hey, now, boys and girls," that hateful voice said. "Play nice."

  The group stopped and looked nervously up at the Wasp. It was amazing how huge even the smallest BattleMech looked when you didn't happen to be in a superpowerful war machine yourself.

  "But she's one of them" one of the welcoming com-

  mittee said. -

  The 'Mech twitched an upraised forefinger at them. "Now, that's where you're wrong. She's a girl. Pretty-Boy Kusunoki don't like girls. That means she and he ain't exactly like this." The 'Mech's left hand crossed its fingers.

  The laborers looked at each other. Their necks may have been wider than their heads, but they could see the holes in this logic.

  "O.K., how about this?" The Wasp's head, adorned with paired antennae like antlers on either side of its head, looked at Mouse. "Do you surrender to me, Lieutenant Junior Grade William Payson of the Seventeenth Recon Regiment? So that I can stomp into a red throw rug any person or persons attempting to do you bodily harm? Think about it, then say yes; I got me a war to get back to."

  Mouse took off her helmet and threw it at the ground. It bounced back and cracked her on the shin. She kicked it.

  "All right," she said. "I surrender. And the Combine can shoot me for a traitor if they bloody well want to, but I am not going to work for that no-good bishonen bastard any more!" And she sat down and began to cry.

  * * *

  Tim Moon was feeling good. The Shilone was his second kill this sortie. But he'd burned up all but one of his missiles, so it was time to start thinking about heading to the airfield the Rangers had set up on Route 55, several klicks behind the Caballeros' jump-off point of the morning. He could refuel, catch a quick nap while the armorers were stroking his machine gun and hanging new missiles on the racks, and be back hunting in an hour.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a flick of purposeful movement: a Crusader, down between a couple of high-rises, raising its outsized right forearm to bear on his Voss. He put the nose down and pushed the throttle forward, hoping to get out of the 'Mech's field of fire, limited as it was by tall buildings.

  Long-range missiles swarmed all around his bubble cockpit. One exploded with a loud crack just off the tip of his left wing.

  He grimaced at the shrapnel-holes torn in the wing of his beautiful little airplane. He felt and heard wind whistling into the cockpit. Apparently the fuselage had taken some damage too. But there were no red warning lights burning on his dashboard, and the Voss was handling fine.

  He coughed. His mask was pulled to the side, unneeded for the moment. He covered his face with his fist, coughed again. As he did, he realized that the left side of his chest felt numb.

  His glove was bright with blood when it came away from his mouth.

  "Now, Timmy-my-boy," he said aloud, "this isn't a good thing."

  31

  Port Howard

  Aquilonia Province, Towne

  Draconis March, Federated Commonwealth

  23 April 3058

  Unimpeded by combat, stepping without hesitation on the civilian traffic when it got in the way, Tai-sho Jeffrey Kusunoki headed his Naginata east toward destiny.

  Kusunoki was not a genius. He wasn't even very, bright. But in that as in many ways he resembled one of Napoleon's marshals: he was utterly courageous, charismatic, decisive, had a strong grip on the basics of war, and kept his head in action. Also he was lucky.

  Despite the setbacks he had suffered today, infuriating as they were, he felt good. As Lady K had, he realized a fundamental truth: he still had the big battalions. His regulars were still holding the gaijin out of the city, if only barely; he was able to follow the battle in some detail, thanks to the powerful C3 computer built into his Naginata. He was heading for the fight for the wrecked highway interchange. If he could reach his troops there he could rally them, and if he could rally them they could beat back the money-troopers. Then they could whip the gaijin back from the eastern perimeter, and finally march back to smash the curs who had sneaked into Port Howard in a paltry attempt to thwart the Dragon's will.

  Such a victory would surely enable the Coordinator to overcome his white-livered counselors and come out openly in support of the seizure of Towne. Kusunoki's action here would be merely the first pebble of a landslide that might sweep away the decadent Federated Commonwealth, and the money-obsessed Lyran Alliance as well.

  He came over the top of a hill in a district of row houses to find a huge BattleMech blocking his path at the foot of the hill, two hundred meters away.

  He stopped. The machine looked familiar somehow. With a shock he realized it was the captured Atlas that had been standing out in front of the Admin Center for months.

  But it has a fused knee! How could it get here ahead of me?

  Kusunoki was not as current in the saddle of a BattleMech as he might have been; he had spent the last few years coasting on his reputation, in some respects. But he knew at once what must have happened: the Atlas's not-particularly impressive speed—which was the same as his Naginata's—had not been impaired. And he had moved with a degree of caution, keeping alert for ambushes and other hazards. If he got stuck in a firefight—or if his 'Mec
h's foot went through a weak point in the road and he blew out a leg actuator of his own—he would never be able to rally his forces in time to rescue the eastern defenses.

  If the other 'Mech pilot had been willing to push his machine with utter recklessness, regardless of the risks entailed, he might well have spotted Kusunoki a head start and still beaten him here.

  How did he know which route I'd take? the General wondered. Then he noticed a small white speck in his three-sixty vision-strip. He rotated the 'Mech's torso for a look first-hand, and his suspicions were confirmed: it was one of the indigenous fighter craft, painted white with a red nose and trim.

  He faced back toward the Atlas. It stood unmoving, its skull face seeming to stare through his curved windscreen and into his soul.

  "Get out of my way," he said over his loudspeaker. "I have no time for you."

  Slowly, painfully, the BattleMech limped into motion up the street toward Kusunoki. The General raised the Coventry Star Fire 15-missile rack built into the Naginata's right arm and fired.

  His lack of current practice showed. He had forgotten to adjust for the downward angle. Most of the salvo missed high. The single hit blew a divot out of the armor on the Atlas's upper-right chest, but failed to penetrate.

  The Atlas gathered speed. Already it was within minimum range for his LRMs. He could fire them, but they would not arm—which meant they would bounce harmlessly off the Atlas's legendary tough Durallex Special Heavy armor.

  Thanking the Buddhas that his 'Mech mounted an extended-range PPC, which had no minimum range, he raised the Naginata's left arm and fired.

  Blue lightning shot out and struck the center of the Atlas's chest. The great machine rocked back briefly, as if feeling the impact, then trudged on.

  Kusunoki kept the firing stud mashed down. The Atlas's chest armor glowed red, yellow, white, began to drip, began to run, then began to boil away in clouds. The ponderous machine advanced inexorably.

  Why doesn't he shoot? Kusunoki wondered. Perhaps his weapons were non-functional, perhaps the pilot was acting out some peculiar personal code of honor. One way or another, the Atlas made no attempt to attack or to defend itself, just waded upstream against fire.