Sword of Sedition

by Loren L. Coleman

  The Regulator’s gauss rifle worried Conner most, and he trained both of his rotary autocannon against its low-profile silhouette. Pulling into his triggers, he sent several hundred rounds of hot fifty-caliber metal into the hovercraft, chewing deep into armor and the backside of its crew compartment.

  The turret swung over, but late. A single silvery blur and a hard-hitting shove against Conner’s left side as the nickelferrous slug crushed into his BattleMech’s shoulder. He heard the sickening crunch of shattered armor even through the cockpit’s sound suppression.

  But one shot was all the Regulator would get.

  Conner’s autocannon fire hammered at the fusion reactor’s physical shielding. He held down the triggers too long, and one of his autocannon suddenly fell silent under an ammunition jam. His second RAC, however, managed to finish off the Regulator. Golden fire burst through several deep rents and carved its way through the crew compartment. The fusion reaction expanded, gobbling up all the fuel it could find. Flesh, composite, metal—didn’t matter.

  The force of the explosion tore the turret off the tank and flipped it into the side of a Marksman, crushing its missile launcher and cracking wide gaps into the armor plating. A squad of Infiltrators swarmed up the Marksman’s side and thrust arm-mounted lasers into those gaps, filling the inside of the tank with lethal energy.

  Meanwhile, the Pack Hunter’s PPC had carved both arms and a leg off the remaining AgroMech, silencing its small, stuttering autocannon and leaving the IndustrialMech prone and helpless.

  His Scimitars still picked away at a fleeing Marksman, and Conner left them to it. “Forward,” he ordered the rest.

  Breaking through the far side of the wood, he hauled his column back into some semblance of order. Morning was creeping toward noon too fast, and his timetable was in danger. He toggled for his command circuit. “Fields One and Three, report.”

  Sir Cray Stansill commanded Field One, moving in from Chauny along the Oise River. His report was terse but complete. “No opposition. Senator. Pushing past Creil.” Which meant that Stansill was further along than any of them. Twenty . . . maybe thirty kilometers outside of Paris.

  That was the good news.

  “Field Three, Field Three!” The worried voice of Colonel Roger Thorne. His wide swing around Riems to come down through Champagne along the Marne had run into delays and several small holding actions by Republic troops.

  “We have paladins in the field! Two of them, commanding forces out of Epernay. Light and fast, but we are still angling for Chateau-Thierry, avoiding contact.”

  Damn straight. Conner had worried about that after receiving reports of the Paris exodus. VTOLs from the streets. Not fighters from the local airfields, which he had struck first and hardest with advance forces. VTOLs meant short hops. Fast-into-the-field.

  If the paladins had any kind of force this far back from the border, they could rip apart one third of Conner’s assault force.

  So far, their appearance had been limited to fast strikes. Harassment. But that could change in an instant.

  “I’m sending you another squadron of air cover,” he told Thorne. Not that air cover had proven effective yet in blockading The Republic. “Set a rear guard and push on toward the city.” If it became necessary, he could join forces with Thorne and set a trap for the paladins. Near Meaux. If necessary. “Move!”

  It was the weakest side of his assault, but also the most expendable. If he picked up survivors near Chateau-Thierry, and Stansill held to the timetable . . .

  Yes. They were still fine. The Republic’s VTOL charge out of Paris showed a measure of undeserved confidence. Typical. Eight VTOLs counted lifting off the Rue d’Égalité. Three of them knocked from the sky or forced down.

  One destroyed in the air.

  Obviously, they had not considered his plan to use all available aerospace assets to secure air superiority. Let Levin guard Germany’s border. Let him worry about how to “contain” the problem he had helped create. Because it was too late.

  Conner was already behind the exarch’s line, and was moving on Paris.

  And there wouldn’t be much left in his way.

  Five kilometers of heavy city traffic and then thirty-eight more of the winding, rural highway Callandre chased toward Meaux. All in twenty-two minutes flat.

  A VTOL couldn’t have done much better, Julian decided. But he saved his reluctant praise. With the end in sight, he didn’t want to jinx his luck. Callandre finished power-braking the hovercycle to a dust-cloud stop on the dirt-and-gravel lot at the Meaux Country Fairgrounds. A lance of ’Mechs stood on the wide expanse, which would have been decorated with tents and carnival booths in season. Only two armored vehicles had been removed from the 4-H barns that stood year round. The rest were still tucked away.

  Choking his way through the dirt and debris that drifted around them, Julian thanked her as he staggered away from the suicide sled.

  “Could have done better.” She certainly didn’t sound pleased to be alive. “We lost two minutes in that trouble in Lagny.”

  “If by ‘trouble’ you mean being chased through alleyways and across those sewage treatment culverts by two JES missile carriers and that Spider, you need to work on your definitions. Did you have to fire the laser?”

  “Did I tag that Spider in his back? Stupid ’Mechjock, ignoring us. Bet he won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Bet we won’t either,” he said, but with only the merest frown. It was hard to stay angry at Calamity for long. Especially when results were what mattered.

  Of course, when Sergeant Montgomery and Leftenant Todd Dawkins of the First Davion Guards jogged up with a report of “Two ’Mechs and a short column of tanks heading this way, Lord Davion, from Lagny, five minutes.” Julian’s frown darkened.

  Montgomery apologized with a shrug. “Looks like our secret’s out.”

  “I wonder how that happened?”

  Callandre untied the scarf from around her head. “Look, if your guys can’t keep things under wraps until we get here, that’s not our fault. Now what have you got for me?”

  “What do you want?” Julian asked. But he knew. Just like he knew the grin lurking behind Calamity’s calm veneer. “Is two-lance with us?” he asked Montgomery, who nodded. “Give her Gamma-unit and tell Major Hastings that she’s allowed to freelance with Delta.”

  “Major’s not gonna like that.”

  “Tell him to stand in line. I’ve not been liking her for a lot longer.” But those were the kind of decisions one made. As . . . a leader. Julian held out a fist, which Callandre punched in traditional Nagelring form, then she left with the sergeant at a dead run.

  Meanwhile, Leftenant Dawkins hustled the champion toward his waiting Templar. The junior officer was Julian’s personal intelligence aide, and likely one of Riccard Streng’s spies as well. “How the hell did they get behind us?” he asked.

  “Near as we can tell, the loyalists dropped a mixed-force company on Paris as soon as the alert went out that they were on the move. Meant to contain and harass while the main push rolls down from the northeast.”

  “So we’re trapped in between.” Julian seized the chain-link ladder suspended from his cockpit hatch and scaled up with practiced ease. “Got any good news?”

  “Yeah,” Dawkins yelled up to him. “Looks like the main advance of the loyalists is swinging right down in our direction.”

  Not quite what Julian had in mind.

  Fortunately, a Davion Guards tech had already put Julian’s Templar through the reactor start-up procedure, which only left changing his dress uniform for MechWarrior’s togs, plugging in, and freeing the lockout on the gyro and his main weapons. An easy three-minute race. Julian shivered as the first slug of coolant raced through his vest, raising gooseflesh on his arms. Codes in and accepted. Templar taking its first ponderous step forward as an SM1 Destroyer skated out from one of the nearby barns.

  If he’d had any doubts it was Callandre, the hasty insignia s
pray-painted next to the Federated Suns crest on the vehicle’s side gave her away. A V-shaped head, hastily colored in all black, and red slashes for eyes and mouth. Kell Hounds.

  “I thought you divorced him,” he said, toggling for a frequency she’d monitor out of habit. One of the mercenary channels common to most systems.

  “I did. But I stayed with the unit.” He could hear her grin. “They are family, after all.”

  Any further conversation was interrupted by new warning alarms and his heads-up display popping half a dozen threat icons onto the field. The Spider pushed its way through some trees on the far side of the fairgrounds, followed by a Legionnaire. From around the nearer edge, where the country highway continued to bend around toward the front, an armored column raced forward on treads and tires and lift fans.

  Julian imagined the sudden shock the other side received, suddenly facing a BattleMech lance of the First Davion Guards supported by an armored company.

  Make that two armored companies, as the rest of the unit scrambled out from the nearby barns to draw up a ragged line of attack. It included a Mobile HQ and a MASH truck, as well as a pair of Behemoth II assault tanks and enough APCs to spread a full company of armored infantry across the fairgrounds.

  “On my advance.” Julian throttled forward, pulling his crosshairs over the center of the Legionnaire. “Faith serve the Prince!”

  He pulled into his primary triggers, and twin bolts of man-made lightning streaked across the fairgrounds to slice the Legionnaire from shoulder to shoulder as the Federated Suns had struck their first blow on behalf of The Republic.

  The smoke from several forest fires spread thick black smoke into the sky north of Tara Campbell’s position, south, and east. Every direction but west, where Paris waited to see how The Republic fared this day, struggling against the Senate loyalists. Where too many heads of state were pinned in place by diplomatic propriety, and would be heading for deep bunkers built beneath the city if things did not go as planned.

  It wasn’t looking good.

  Running her Hatchetman back to the safety of her line, Tara dodged in behind Gareth Sinclair’s Clan-designed Black Hawk. He had abandoned a stand of flowering plum trees to cover her retreat. His extended-range lasers slashed with the efficiency of ruby scalpels. Arm-mounted four-packs tossed out a wide spread of fat-bodied, short-range missile loads.

  The missiles fell in overlapping waves around a fleeing Condor, hammering it hard across the front. They shoved the nose down into the earth. Momentum jacked up the Condor’s back, sending it in an end-over tumble that rolled and flipped the speeding hovercraft into a stand of burning pine.

  It rocked to a halt between two large trees, both aflame. Glowing cinders and ash drifted down over it in a final curtain.

  “Thanks for the assist,” Tara offered, panting as she caught her breath.

  The air inside her cockpit was dry and acrid and very hot. Laser damage to her centerline had breached the Hatchetman’s engine shielding, causing the ’Mech’s reactor to dump excess waste heat into sensitive control spaces. The taste of scorched insulation burned in her throat like hot coals.

  “Feel free to return—”

  Gareth’s reply was cut off as his Black Hawk was rocked back by twin gauss hits, taking one silvery streak in the right leg and another dead center in the gut. More than three tons of armor rained down onto the ground in shards and glistening splinters. The BattleMech stumbled back.

  Even off-balance, he still managed to spear out twin lances from his right- and left-arm lasers. They streaked back along the path of the gauss slugs, slashing at the thick composite armor of a Kelswa assault tank. Say what you wanted about Gareth Sinclair. Young, certainly. But every measure a paladin.

  Kicking the Black Hawk back at its best walking speed, Gareth pulled out of range.

  “—the favor,” he finished. Late.

  Between them, they commanded two strengthened companies from the tenth Principes Guards with a few units from the green Triarii Protectors thrown in to fill holes in the TO&E. They fielded the second heaviest force to set itself between the Senate loyalists and Paris. But it wasn’t enough.

  Not when Sir Cray Stansill had added a pair of Kelswa assault tanks as well as four Kinnol main battle tanks to his support forces—and knew how to fight the heavy armor.

  He set them as an anchor, wherever the fighting was heaviest, and wheeled his faster vehicles around them in flanking strikes. Stansill then shored up any weak points with a pair of twenty-ton Stingers, using his Griffin and his partner’s Catapult to spearhead the major offensives.

  For two hours now, the loyalists had consistently pushed Tara and Gareth around, coming one step closer to Paris with nearly every maneuver, or one step closer to linking up with the force commanded by Conner Rhys-Monroe.

  Either way, it helped the loyalist position.

  “We’re in trouble,” Gareth said.

  He turned his Black Hawk upfield, and used his large lasers to worry the loyalist line. One scarred a Stinger over its left arm, but did little more than drip molten armor down into dry brush, which immediately caught flame.

  Tara traded long-range autocannon fire with a Kinnol’s PPC. Pushed a pair of Cavalry attack helicopters into place to counter a run by some hoverbikes.

  “I’m figuring that out.”

  “No, I mean I just received word through channels. Maya Avellar never made it out of the city. Meraj Jorgensson is confirmed dead. His VTOL was destroyed over Louvres.”

  Avellar and Jorgensson. The two paladins who should have taken command at Senlis, bridging the gap between the Montataire defenses and Julian’s First Davion Guard at Meaux. No wonder the center had crumbled!

  The hoverbikes had broken around the Calvary copters’ strafing runs, and had reformed on the eastern flank. They harried and ran to ground a Shandra scout vehicle painted in the black and gold of the Tenth Hastati. It overturned and roiled greasy smoke into the air.

  “How soon until we can expect stronger reinforcements from the border?” She throttled her Hatchetman forward, overrunning a Triarii Marksman and chasing down the hoverbikes herself.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The border, Gareth. The border. Levin set a long line of field camps.” A pair of the hoverbikes drifted in too close, and Tara blasted one right through the engine cowling with her autocannon. It blew up, tossing the rider into a broken heap. “Where is the closest one?”

  “Across the border by now. The moment Conner moved into Belgium, all camps were put on alert and prepped to assault loyalist positions in Mannheim, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Cologne. We’re retaking Germany.”

  “At the expense of Paris?” A sinking sensation hollowed her out. Levin had told her . . .

  No, Levin had led her to believe that the line of field camps would collapse back around Paris. Had led everyone to believe. Which meant the senators sitting safely behind their protected lines in Germany may have left themselves vulnerable.

  Gareth’s Black Hawk stalked her direction, pulling the balance of their supporting forces behind it as the paladin shifted their entire line again. “They won’t be able to hold Paris. They might throw a sweat into the politicos, but we’ll have them safely hidden away in time.”

  And if the Inner Sphere leaders felt threatened by the loyalists, that didn’t hurt Exarch Levin’s entreaty at all, did it? Enemy of mine enemy. . . .

  Across the field, stomping through a small farm plot of early cabbages and wax beans, Cray Stansill’s Griffin marched up beside the Catapult and began summoning hard-hitting flankers like the Kinnol MBTs. They readied a new push. Always seeking to break through and open up the drive into Paris. Wanting only to brush aside the force under the joint command of Tara and Gareth.

  She’d see about that.

  Planting a wide-spade foot in front of her, Tara shifted the weight in her forty-five-ton Hatchetman to suddenly cut straight in at the forming enemy line. Calling her Cavalry VTOLs and a pair of Fu
lcrum heavy hovertanks in behind her, rallying a trio of VV1 Rangers who raced forward to flank her left side, she threw a fast-moving assault right into the teeth of the loyalists.

  “Tara? What are you doing?”

  Getting Cray Stansill extremely irritated with her, she hoped.

  By luck more than planning, she caught the Kelswa assault tanks shifting position, not covering the forward path and unable to clear the Stingers out of their own field of fire in time. It left the core of the loyalist force exposed to her quick strike.

  She hammered out with her heavy autocannon in rapid-fire bursts, joining a storm of hot metal to the scarlet lances spearing out of the Fulcrums. Her weapon chewed more armor away from the Catapult’s centerline, while two lances of burning light fused together near the machine’s elbow to completely sever the lower arm.

  The Fulcrums’ missiles arced and fell, arced and fell. Raining heavy fire over some APCs and exposed Purifier infantry, casting aside scraps of armor and scraps of personnel.

  “Back to our lines,” she called out, slamming her ’Mech’s throttle from full-out run to a backward walk.

  Momentum nearly threw the Hatchetman down on its face, but a hastily planted leg levered the walking machine backward. The tanks veered one way or another. The Cavalry copters pounced on a stray Kinnol, blowing the treads off one side to ground the tank.

  Return fire was hastily organized and haphazard at best. Lasers and a few flights of LRMs struck at Tara’s small force. Nothing too damaging. A pair of Condors flung themselves after her, but her trio of Rangers pinned down one of the hovercraft from either side and nearly ground it down to a halt, while a few daring Infiltrators bounded forward into the no-man’s-land.

  No prize to be won in this scrape. The trapped Condor reversed its drive fans, powering down into a dead stop while still under the protective umbrella of loyalist guns. The Rangers did not dare follow suit, and raced back for their line.

  Tara, though, was left with an easy broadside. Pulling crosshairs over the slowed Condor, she hammered out once, twice, and again to finally open up the Condor’s lift skirt. The tank limped back to the pack before she could finish it off.