Blood of heroes

by Andrew Keith

  "After today, you can say that?"

  "What about today? What are you talking about?"

  "Laddie, you arrived here in the nick of time. An hour later and we would hae been doon for the count."

  Alex nodded. "I was just thinking that. Don't try to convince me that I had anything to do with winning today. We were lucky, pure and simple."

  "Aye, 'twas luck. Luck and the fact that the Free Skye people decided tae surrender at Loch Sheol instead of fighting it oot. Laddie, if that woman up there had held on for ainither hour, Dave Clay and I would be daid along with everyone else doon here. And you would have walked right into those enemy 'Mechs here wi'oot us tae provide a distraction. Do I hae the rights of it?"

  Alex nodded slowly. "I guess so. Yeah, I suppose it wasn't all luck."

  "Weil, then, if you gie it up here, what fight will von Bulow be able tae show up at in the nick of time and turn the result against Victor Davion? What Free Skye stronghold will hold oot because of it? Resistance tae a foe is never in vain, laddie. Von Bulow may hae more troops than we do, but the Davions hae aye more. That means the Free Skye troops will soon be fighting a campaign like ours here, trying tae shift scant resources tae where they're needed most. But if they dinna hae the use of these troops here—if they come tae fear us tae the point of calling for more—then think what that does tae the rest of the war effort."

  Freya de Villar had appeared in the doorway behind McCall. "He's right, you know," she said somberly. "What you said earlier, about the price we've paid. Maybe no one knows that more than I do—I'd give anything to have them back again. But they died for something important ... for their home. Glengarry is our home now, and Cris and Cristiano died fighting to keep it from falling into the hands of those barbarians. So, the way I see it, as long as one of us, just one of us, is willing to fight against the odds, the war on Glengarry will go on. And if that helps stop Ryan and Richard Steiner's damned rebellion, then it's worth doing. Even if we have to pay the price that they've paid . . . that I've paid."

  She turned away, and neither Alex nor McCall answered her.

  Finally Alex spoke again, low-voiced, more to himself than the other two. "Barbarians ..." Grayson Carlyle had often talked about holding back the barbarians at the gates. It was a losing battle, he had once told his son, but it was a battle they had to keep on fighting. "If we let them win, the Federated Commonwealth falls apart. Civil war. Anarchy worse than anything we had before the Clans came. And the barbarians like Von Bulow, the ones who spend their men's lives like so many pawns on a game board, they win the bigger victory. There won't be any lights left to save man from the dark age they'd give us."

  "Aye," McCall agreed softly. " 'Tis that which your auld faither has always said we're fighting against." He chuckled without humor. "If you were like von Bulow, laddie, you wouldn't care about the ones who died. But if you were like him, they wouldna follow you in the first place."

  "Mac, I don't know if I can be the kind of leader the Gray Death needs," Alex said. "I've made a hell of a lot of mistakes already, and I'll make more . . . and mistakes cost lives. What right do I have to send people out to die fighting my battles?"

  The Caledonian shrugged. "What right does Victor Davion hae? Or Richard Steiner? You're a leader because your faither was. And because, whatever you think aboot it yourself, you hae what it takes tae make men willing tae die for you. 'Tis a powerful responsibility tae bear, and it can be too damned much sometimes. But let me turn the question around. What right do you hae tae turn your back on your responsibilities? You hae a cause worth fighting for, and the chance tae make a real difference . . . and the talent to motivate people tae follow you. Coltbridge proved that, if nothing else did. You can sit on the sidelines, though you ken fu' weil that there's work tae be done. Or you can do the work and tak the consequences, the bad and the good together. That's something only your conscience can decide."

  Alex turned his eyes back to the east, to the rising sun. McCall was right. He had been letting his decisions come from others for too long now. McCall had talked him into taking charge after de Villar's death, and again after Dunkeld. But the doubts had come from outside, too. He hadn't wanted to accept the responsibility for the men who died. That wasn't a part of the "glory" of war, thinking about the friends or comrades who would never come back from the battlefield.

  That responsibility, though, cut both ways. If the Gray Death couldn't make any difference to the war, then continuing the fight for honor or glory or because others might disapprove of surrender or retreat was foolish. But if they could make a genuine difference by fighting on, the equation wasn't so simple. More than just the Legion could be lost if he didn't fight. Some things demanded that warriors shed their blood . . . like holding back the tide of anarchy if only for a few years more.

  His decision, and no one else's, right or wrong.

  "All right," he said. "We'll fight . . . we'll fight von Bulow every step of the way, with everything we've got and for as long as we can." He paused. "But we should let anyone leave who wants to, Mac."

  "You'll give DeVries the ship?"

  Alex shook his head. "No . . . anyone who wants out can take to the hills, like DeVries said they could if we pulled out. But I think we'll be needing the Europa, Mac. I've got an idea for tackling Halidon after all, but it needs the Europa to make it work ..."

  A guard in the kilts of the Planetary Guards opened the door at the rear of the governor's emelt car. Caitlin DeVries swallowed and stepped through. Her father looked up from the desk that had replaced the ordinary passenger seats that were normally there.

  "Caitlin . . ." He trailed off, looking wistful. "I'm . . . I'm glad you came."

  "I almost didn't, Dad," she said slowly. "After everything's that happened ... I didn't think I wanted to see you again."

  He looked away "I know. I know, Kit. I bollixed everything up, and us most of all."

  "Alex told me about the JumpShip. And said he couldn't agree to it."

  He nodded. "He called me a little while ago. Stupid pride . . . Why cant any of them see reality?"

  "And why can't you allow anyone else to have principles, Dad? I believed it when you said you wanted to keep the war away from Glengarry. You think peace is more important than anything else, and maybe if more people thought like that, we humans wouldn't spend so much time and effort trying to tear ourselves to shreds. So you put your devotion to peace ahead of the Legion, ahead of the fealty you owed to the Carlyle family . . . ahead of me, even. Why can't you see that other people value their own principles, whatever those might be, just as highly?"

  "It's different ..."

  "No, Dad, it isn't. The Legion happens to stand for order in the face of chaos, and that's a pretty damn good principle too. You talk about seeing reality? Well, war is reality. Aggression. Petty ambition. Alex and the others know that most people out there don't share your dedication to peace, so they fight to keep some kind of order. That's seeing reality, if you'd like."

  He sighed. "They've convinced you, at least."

  She nodded. "Yes, Dad, they have. It killed me having to choose between you and the Legion. Being a MechWarrior is something I've wanted for as long as I can remember. And I have friends in the Legion, good friends like Alex and Dave. But you're my father, my blood." Caitlin paused, studying her father's face, but hardly seeing him for the tears threatening to spill from her eyes. "But I also believe in what the Legion stands for, Dad. And you're the one who taught me to put my principles first."

  Roger DeVries took his daughter's hand. "I pleaded with Carlyle to make you leave them, Cay," he said slowly. "But he said it was your decision to make, not his . . . and he also said you'd already made it."

  She nodded and wiped her eyes.

  "Knowing you're out there fighting, that you could be the next one to die . . . that tears me apart. I want to be able to reach out and protect you, and I can't." DeVries stood up slowly and took a tentative step toward his daughter.
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  "But whatever I think about your choice, however much I wish you'd give it up . . . Cay, you're doing what you believe in. I'm proud of you for that."

  Father and daughter embraced, and for a few moments there was no war or the thought of it. Only a peace that had been a long time coming.

  Epilogue

  Gray Death DropShip Europa

  Dunkeld Aerospace Port, Glengarry

  Isle of Skye, Federated Commonwealth

  13 April 3056

  "The last 'Mech is loaded up, Colonel."

  Alexander Carlyle looked up at Lieutenant Fowler's drawn features and nodded. "That was quick work, Captain," he said with a thin smile. "How soon until we can lift."

  "Ten minutes, Colonel."

  He looked around the DropShip's control room. The crew was busy with the final pre-launch checklists. None of them seemed concerned at the prospect of another battle with the invaders. If anything, there was an air of anticipation, almost of eagerness, on the bridge. If the Legion was going to fail, they would fail together, fighting to the end. That was what counted now.

  The Europa had returned to Dunkeld by flying low over the mountains from her secret hiding place and making the dash for the capital while the bulk of the enemy fleet was on the far side of the planet. She'd leave the same way, carrying the Companions and Lieutenant Obote's fire lance from Dumont's Dreadnoughts. The rest of the Legion, under the command of Davis McCall, were headed by maglev to the Free Skye base at Halidon with Davis McCall in command. The DropShip would, everyone fervently hoped, give them an unexpected edge in the battle to come by putting the Legion's force down on the enemy flank, where they could launch yet another patented Gray Death ambush, like the ones at Dunkeld and Loch Sheol and Coltbridge.

  They might not win. The terrain and the numbers were both against them this time. But for Alexander Durant Carlyle, the doubt and indecision were over. Freya de Villar had been right from the start. As long as one of them was willing to fight, the war on Glengarry would go on. The Gray Death would hit von Bulow's men at Halidon, and again after that, and again until they'd pushed the invaders off their homeworld for good ... or until everyone in the Legion had died trying. And Alex would lead them, win or lose, because his place was with his father's people . . . with his people.

  And when this war was over, when the rest of the Legion returned to Glengarry to relieve the survivors or to bury the dead, Alex hoped his father would be proud of what they had tried to do.

  He realized Fowler was still there, waiting for him to speak again.

  "Well, Captain, looks like it's time we lifted. The Legion is waiting for us . . . and I don't intend to let them down."

  "Yes, sir!" Fowler said with a grin. He turned away. "All hands to launch stations! Prepare to lift ship!"

  Within minutes the Gray Death DropShip Europa was rising from the Dunkeld spaceport on a pillar of fire, the Gray Death Legion's course set for battle—and for the unknown.