Blood of heroes

by Andrew Keith

  But this was no enemy.

  "Sorry to bother you, Dad," his daughter said, giving him a tentative smile as she entered the office. "But I figured you'd be locked away in here."

  DeVries studied Caitlin with an upraised eyebrow. "What's with the military rig, Kit?" he asked. She had changed out of her dress uniform, but was still wearing cadet grays. "Don't tell me you've forgotten how to wear civvies?"

  She came through the door, shaking her head. "We've got orders to cut the visit short and take the emelt back to Brander. I leave in another ten minutes, so I wanted to say goodbye."

  He frowned. "Back to Brander already? But you just got here last night. I thought you said they'd let you have a few days ..."

  "Something came up, Dad. It's all hush-hush, but orders are orders." She shrugged. "Guess it's back to the salt mines for us cadets."

  DeVries didn't answer right away. First there had been the mysterious coming and going at the Day of Heroes ceremony. Then most of the Gray Death's high command had been out of touch all afternoon, even when he'd tried to contact their acting CO about his request for some 'Mechs to root out the outlaw band that had been terrorizing Carrick, a subject the Legion people had been hot about a week back. Now the cadets were being ordered back to Brander early, and with no reason given. . . .

  DeVries realized suddenly that he'd been staring at his daughter without really seeing her. He cleared his throat. "Look, Kit, tell you what. Why don't I put in to have you assigned to the Residence for a little while. Aide or liaison or something. Your class can get along without you for a week or two, can't they?"

  She looked uncertain. "I don't know, Dad. There must be a reason for these new orders."

  "If there's a real need, you can be back at Brander in a few hours. But let me pull a few strings to keep you here in the meantime." He forced a smile. "What's the use of being governor if I can't use my influence to keep my daughter around for a few days, hmm?"

  Caitlin nodded, smiling. "I guess they won't miss me that much. Alex has already been detached as an aide to Major McCall."

  "Well, if it works for the colonel's kid, it works for mine too. Go on back to your room and I'll see what I can do. If I can't manage it, I'll let you know in time for you to catch the emelt."

  He kept up the smile until Caitlin was out of the room, frowning again once the door had shut behind her. Something was going on, and he aimed to find out what it was. In the meantime, he wanted Caitlin safe at the Residence. He'd always opposed her decision to sign on as a Gray Death MechWarrior cadet, but she was stubborn and he'd finally given in. That didn't mean he'd given in entirely. If trouble was brewing, he'd protect Caitlin.

  Still frowning darkly, DeVries called the Gray Death headquarters to arrange for the new orders. Then he put in a call on another line to the Planetary Guard duty officer, instructing him to start a full check of the current situation on and off Glengarry. DeVries would find out what was going on in short order, or find a new staff come morning.

  He was determined to protect Caitlin, of course, but he was just as determined to protect himself and his position. And information was the best kind of armor he could think of.

  * * *

  The Gray Death's command center buried deep below the Residence on Castle Hill was well stocked with the high tech instruments of modern warfare—detection gear, bank after bank of computers, battle simulators, communications consoles, and all the rest—but the very heart of the facility was a quiet room paneled in genuine oak imported from Terra. A massive table and plush chairs dominated the conference chamber, the display screens and computer monitors discreetly hidden behind drapes at either end of the room. This might have been the inner sanctum of some powerful corporation, except that the group assembled there were uniformed men considering the news of an approaching armada.

  Better than twelve hours had passed since the Gray Skull had first sighted the intruders, and it was now dark again outside. But there was a timeless quality to the Command Center that defied concepts of day and night. Everyone at the table had been working for hours now, but the planning and discussion was still going strong. In the absence of solid information the Gray Death Legion's senior officers had to prepare for a variety of contingencies while their specialists in the control area outside continued to gather intelligence and process probabilities—all in the hope that they might be ready for whatever would come next. It was an impossible task.

  Alex Carlyle felt out of his depth. While the discussion continued around the table, he contented himself with staying quiet and listening to McCall and de Villar run the meeting. The rest of the cadets, together with the soldiers and technicians from the Brander WTC, had already been dispatched by emelt back to the training facility, where Tech Major King would take command in McCall's absence. The departure of his classmates had left Alex feeling distinctly alone, but he took some comfort in the fact that Caitlin DeVries had also remained behind here in Dunkeld. McCall had distractedly approved a request filed by her father just before the emelt was due to leave.

  "We've milked the burst from the Gray Skull for everything its worth. The unit markings on those fighters weren't anything I've seen before, but the fuselage insignia is a revival of the emblem the Skye separatists used back in thirty-four." Captain Ethan Radcliffe, the young, aggressive commander of the Legion's armored company, had been drafted to serve as S-2 in the absence of the usual intelligence officer, Major Khaled. He looked tired and a little disreputable after a long shift hunched over a computer terminal trying to evaluate the information Captain Rodland had transmitted before the JumpShip's escape. "Computer gives it a ninety-four percent probability. They're almost certainly Free Skye forces . . . rebels. No way of telling from here how good they are."

  "There's a hell of a lot of them, that much is sure," Lieutenant Longo commented. "Seventeen DropShips minimum. That's no raiding party. Those boys mean business."

  "Their lead ships have been ideed as carriers," said Captain Julio Vargas, senior officer of the Gray Death's aerospace fighter contingent, and uncharacteristically subdued. Like most fighter jocks he had a reputation as a hotshot in the air and a womanizer on the ground, but today he was all business. He'd helped Radcliffe with the threat estimate, focusing primarily on the enemy aerospace assets. "They've got three Leopard CV-Class fighter-carriers over and above the one that launched the attack on the Gray Skull. That's eighteen more fighters if they're all fully loaded. No way we can challenge that in space. No way."

  Aerospace fighters were like BattleMechs in many ways, the product of a high tech, man-machine link capable of outperforming any conventional air or space vessel in a combat situation. The Gray Death had two companies of fighters on its TO and E, but one was attached to Khaled's battalion off-planet. That meant Vargas had six fighters on hand to deal with perhaps three times that number aboard the intruders' fighter-carrier DropShip—not to mention others possibly held in reserve aboard other DropShips in the intruder fleet. The handful of conventional military aircraft in the arsenal of the Glengarry Planetary Guards was no match for aerospace fighters even under ideal conditions.

  That left no question as to who had aerospace superiority, which was the first requisite to any major planetary invasion.

  "What about the rest of the fleet?" The question came from Captain Guillaume Henri Dumont, the elegant, dapper CO of de Villar's First BattleMech Company. "Any more information yet?"

  Radcliffe shrugged. "Best estimate gives them three 'Mech battalions—nine Union Class DropShips, twelve 'Mechs each. There are a couple of smaller ones, too, maybe Leopards. They might be fighter-carriers, or they might be carrying extra 'Mech lances. There's no way to tell until we get a visual ID. They've also got a pair of troop transports and what we think is a cargo ship with extra supplies and ammo to support the op." He paused. "We've also identified a Fortress Class DropShip. Given that Free Skye insignia, it's probably the Asgard."

  "Asgard," McCall repeated, letting out a low
whistle. "I dinna like the sound of that."

  The Fortress Class DropShip was relatively rare in the Inner Sphere these days, a dinosaur that was falling into disuse because of the scarcity of spare parts. But in the days, before the Union, House Steiner had outfitted a number of old Fortresses to serve as command ships for the Lyran Commonwealth's largest and best-trained strike forces. Though slow and hard to repair, the Fortress ships had the twin advantages of heavy armor and a mix of weapons that included powerful ground support artillery. In space and on the ground alike, a Fortress DropShip was a ready-made strongpoint.

  Only one was stationed in the Isle of Skye, the Asgard. It was headquarters ship for the Duke of Skye's regiment of Huscarles, and everyone knew that Richard Steiner, the current Duke, had joined the camp of the Skye separatists.

  "Then we can probably figure on the Tenth Skye Rangers," Dumont said, managing to sound languid and unconcerned. "Good outfit. Usually based on New Kyoto watching the Marik border."

  "I'd say that was likely." That came from Captain Eddie Ross, who commanded the elite armored infantry company attached to de Villar's battalion. Ross was a native of the Skye March, and had served in the Tenth Skye Rangers for a time before gambling debts had made his homeworld too hot. Of everyone in the conference room, he was probably the one man who best understood the politics of the region—assuming, Alex reminded himself, that the man himself wasn't in sympathy with the separatists.

  "I wondered about it when the Tenth wasn't ordered to join the rest of the expedition at Ford. Most of the regiment was recruited on Skye, and the unit's definitely in Duke Richard's hip pocket."

  "It might not be the duke's forces at all," said Lieutenant Andrei Denniken. In the absence of Grayson Carlyle and the rest of the command lance he was ranking officer of the

  Gray Death Companions, the colonel's own company of MechWarriors. Denniken was a confirmed optimist, but even he didn't sound convinced of his words. "They might be a different bunch of separatists. Or even outsiders using the Free Skye insignia as a smoke screen."

  "Enemies from outside wouldn't have penetrated this far without being challenged," de Villar said flatly. "And a Fortress Class DropShip does suggest the Asgard and the Huscarles. Best to assume we're up against Duke Richard's boys. If not, we can all be pleasantly surprised. But I don't think we will be."

  "Question is, what do they want from us?" Captain Hannibal Simms of Hannibal's Cannibals, de Villar's Second 'Mech Company, leaned forward across the table as if in emphasis. "Have they started a rebellion? And where the hell do we stand if they have? Maybe it would be best if we tried to stay out of the whole mess, at least until the colonel gets back."

  "Our contract is with the Federated Commonwealth government," Major John Owens, the blunt-featured commander of the Legion's Third Battalion, put in. He was an infantry soldier, not a MechWarrior, and his unit was made up of a mix of armor and groundpounders. Owens was something of a heretic in his poor opinion of BattleMechs, the universally acknowledged kings of the battlefield, but it was for that very reason that Grayson Carlyle had recruited him during the last expansion of the Legion to its present strength. Carlyle himself had started his career proving that a well-trained, well-motivated force of infantry could take on 'Mechs and win, a philosophy that continued to be a major part of the Gray Death's fighting philosophy.

  "Yeah, but does that mean the FedCom?" Simms shot back. "Or House Steiner?"

  "And who really represents House Steiner now anyway?" Ross asked. "Duke Richard might not be in the main line of descent, but people in the Skye March look to him before anybody else. And he's been taking the line that Katrina and Melissa were traitors to the old Commonwealth for agreeing to the Davion alliance, and therefore should be repudiated as the heads of House Steiner. Remember, Katrina overthrew Archon Alessandro, and claimed the throne because she was his older sister's daughter. Richard's the son of the younger sister, so his claim is really just as valid as Melissa's or Prince Victor's. If you allow that reasoning, then Richard has as good a claim on the top spot as anyone. He'll find plenty of people to say it's better."

  De Villar held up a hand. "Enough . . . enough. We can't afford to get bogged down in this."

  "Tis a tangle, and that's a fact," McCall said. "I dinna think-"

  The buzz of an intercom cut him off. De Villar tapped a key recessed into the table top before him, and a curtain drew away from a monitor screen on one wall. The Nordic features of Lieutenant Freida Bergstrom, another lance commander from the Companions, filled the screen. "Major, we're monitoring a general transmission from the intruder fleet."

  "Pipe it through," de Villar ordered.

  The monitor swirled with color for a moment, then settled down to reveal a heavy-featured man in the midnight blue and red tunic of House Steiner's armed forces. His insignia identified him as a captain-general.

  "I know him," Ross said. "He was chief military adviser on Duke Richard's staff ..."

  "People of Glengarry, I am General-Kommandant von Bulow of the Free Skye Expeditionary Force and rightful Baron of Glengarry," the man began ponderously. Alex noted his use of a rank designation completely outside the accepted Federated Commonwealth structure, despite his insignia. Presumably Duke Richard had organized his new military force to purge it of any Davion elements. "By order of His Grace the Duke of Skye, the Skye March has been declared in an official state of emergency. Forces of the Federated Commonwealth have committed wanton acts of violence against citizens of the Skye March on Kimball II and elsewhere. In response to these actions His Grace has signed orders declaring the Isle of Skye free and independent of the illegally constituted Federated Commonwealth."

  The general paused for a moment, his eyes cold and staring. "Pursuant to the proclamations made by His Grace, I call upon all citizens of the Skye March to cooperate with the military forces under my command. Our intention is to secure the worlds of the Isle of Skye against Davion aggression. These measures are purely defensive in nature, and will not interfere with the peace and prosperity of any world under His Grace's provisional government. The only ones who have anything to fear from my command are the lackeys of the corrupt New Avalon regime, which has perverted the traditions and justice of the Lyran Commonwealth and the glorious House of Steiner."

  That brought a snort from across the table. Vargas, Alex thought, or perhaps Owens. Von Bulow continued in the same slow, heavy tone. "To the soldiers of the Gray Death Legion mercenary regiment, we extend the hand of friendship and Duke Richard's offer of continued employment under the auspices of the Provisional Government, according to the terms of your contract with the Steiner family, which dates to before the illegal Federated Commonwealth alliance created by renegade elements of the family. Your renowned Legion has a long tradition of cooperation with House Steiner, and His Grace welcomes the opportunity to continue that mutually profitable association despite this current crisis."

  The general smoothed his tunic before continuing. "My fleet will take up orbit within the next seventy-two hours. By that time, I expect to receive communications from the civil and military authorities on Glengarry to arrange for a smooth transition to the administration of the Provisional Government of the Isle of Skye. We hope to avoid any clash with the lackeys and hirelings of Davion, but resistance will be met by overwhelming force. And in the end, it is the citizenry of Glengarry who will suffer most from such a clash. The path of cooperation is by far the preferable choice.

  "All glory to His Grace and to the cause of freedom!"

  The screen went dead, and the assembled officers sat in silence for a long moment.

  "Well," Lieutenant Denniken said at last. "At least we know we were right about what we're up against."

  "I'm not sure it helps much," de Villar said. "The Tenth Skye Rangers are damned tough opponents. They outnumber us, and they'll have other troops in support. They'll also control the planetary approaches, with a free hand to land any time and any place they please." He shook his h
ead slowly. "Where does that leave us? How do we organize a defense? Hell, do we even organize a defense in the first place? Ross here has a good point about the legal questions."

  " 'Tis a policy decision," McCall said quietly, his eyes on Alex Carlyle. "Not a military matter at all, at all. D'ye nae agree, young Alex?"

  Alex swallowed and nodded slowly. "I suppose so, Major," he said.

  "If your faither was here ..."

  "My father would say that the contract was with the Federated Commonwealth government," Alex said with a confidence he didn't feel. "Prince Victor is heir to both House Davion and House Steiner, but how can we be sure Duke Richard is involved? For all we know, von Bulow might be a renegade. One way or the other, whether he speaks in Richard's name or not, the declaration puts him in rebellion against Glengarry's lawful authority."

  "I agree," McCall said quietly, nodding. "And that being the case . . ."

  "That being the case," de Villar picked up McCall's line smoothly, "we're left with the original question. If we intend to put up a fight, how do we organize against everything they've got?"

  No one answered, but a moment later the intercom buzzed again. "I have Governor General DeVries requesting a line to you, Major," Bergstrom said.

  "Right," de Villar responded. "Put him through." He looked around the conference room. "We'll need all the help we can get from the local boys if we're going to keep these bastards from taking us. Let's see what ideas the esteemed Governor General has, eh?"