The Price of Glory

by William H. Keith

“All of us?" Ramage asked.

  "Any that want to can remain with Invidious," Grayson said. "Anyone who wants to come with us to Helm, can."

  "That will be everyone," Lori predicted. "But what can we do!”

  Grayson's shoulders slumped as he realized the enormity of what he was suggesting. One company against . . . what? "I don't know," he said quietly. "First off, we find our people and see that they're safe. After that, we try to find out what the hell's going on. We'll improvise as we go along." He turned to Tor. "You, Ren, will get this ship out of here as fast as you can recharge."

  "Now wait a minute. My people have a stake in what-ever's happening on Helm, too."

  "And we all have a stake in keeping the Invidious safe. The ship is irreplaceable. I want to know that she's out of the line of fire."

  With only about twelve JumpShips produced by all the Successor Houses every year, each time a starship was lost to battle, accident, or lack of maintenance, civilization came that much closer to a time when the lanes between stars would be sundered, isolating the worlds of man from one another, possibly forever. For that reason, even warring factions were careful not to carry their fights to the starships.

  Men were not always reasonable beings, however, and Grayson wanted to take no chances.

  "You'll jump for Stewart," Grayson continued. "The Duke there is a good man, a fair one, and he has ears at the Captain-General's court on Atreus. He's always dealt with us fairly. Maybe he'll be able to tell you what's going on."

  "Maybe . . . but you'll be here, in the thick of it."

  "We'll handle this the way we did at Verthandi. We'll set a specific time and date for you to jump back in-system. We'll be waiting to broadcast a tight-beam zip-squeal. We'll let you know our condition, and what we want you to do about it."

  "I won't have any DropShips," Tor said.

  "No, but we will." Grayson looked at the others, each in turn. Now that they had a plan, a course of action to pursue, he felt somewhat better. From the expressions on the others' faces, he knew they did, too. "The rest of us will go in on a High-G, minimum-time run. With luck, anyone in orbit will think we're just another flight of DropShips who have forgotten to transmit their ID. We'll look for a place to set down as close to Durandel as possible." He shrugged. "After that, we'll see."

  5

  They arrived too late.

  From the ridge west of Durandel, the BattleMech company looked down on a horror of destruction. Multiple, roiling columns of smoke boiled into a sky now heavy and black under the pall from a hundred smoldering fires. Grayson swept what had been the town of Durandel with his scanners once . . . twice ... a third time, but could find no building still intact, no sign of life. The village had been systematically destroyed, almost building by building. The new 'Mech repair facilities on the east side of the town were gone, leaving only desolation and ruin. The Legion's fortress, Helmfast, built into the cliff face above the north side of town, was shattered, with only isolated portions still standing among gaunt, laser-charred and missile-broken towers. Black smoke curled up from behind the remnants of the castle wall.

  A low moan sounded over the combat channel. Who? It didn't matter. They all felt the same way, shared the devastation of this loss. The knowledge that they had come too late to prevent this senseless yet calculated destruction burned within them.

  "Clear the circuits," Grayson said, surprising himself with the bitterness of his own words.

  In close formation, the DropShips Phobos and Deimos had decelerated on ravening tongues of fusion flame, dumping velocity under 4 Gs of thrust as they'd backed down into Helm's atmosphere. The sense that something was wrong, critically wrong, had been reinforced with every hour closer to their target.

  The two DropShips had been challenged three times on their high-speed run toward Helm, but no AeroSpace Fighters or DropShips had been in positions to launch an intercept. It was soon clear that all the in-system ships were Marik forces, making it more and more likely that some sort of civil war had broken out on Helm. The knowledge had hounded Grayson's people forward, like men and women possessed.

  It also made possible their wild flight in-bound. DropShips and AeroSpace Fighters patrolling the approaches were slow in their challenges, and apparently willing to ignore the pair of DropShips as they began the final leg of their deceleration in toward Helm. When they were challenged by the DropShips Lancelot, Captain Use Martinez, the intense and raven-haired commander of the Phobos, had announced that the Marik ship was in position for an intercept. When the Lancelot's second challenge had come, Martinez responded with a blistering string of oaths, claiming to be inbound on the Duke's business.

  With the Marik ship barely 12,000 kilometers distant, the Phobos and the Deimos had fallen past Lancelot's orbit with no further challenges, and not so much as a query about which of several possible dukes the tiny flotilla served.

  Then had come the final maneuvers for landing. Storm clouds swirled and billowed above the dead sea plain below Durandel as the Legion's DropShips streaked across heaven into Helm's ionosphere. With Marik fighters belatedly closing on atmosphere-skimming trajectories, the two Legion DropShips had applied a last, thundering bellow of deceleration and plunged into the cloud cover. Martinez in the Phobos and Lieutenant Thurston in the Deimos had timed their approaches perfectly. The ships set down less than twenty kilometers from Durandel, just on the other side of a low ridge west of the settlement. That the ships had been tracked on radar was certain. Grayson was still hoping that any Marik observers would assume that the two DropShips either bore VIPs too important to bother with formalities such as transmitting IDs, or had pilots too stupid or too careless to identify themselves.

  It might buy them time. Once on the ground, they would have to trust their ability to move fast enough to keep Marik ground forces guessing. The Phobos and the Deimos would be the weak points of the plan. Once grounded, they could not move. Martinez and Thurston would have to find rough country where something as large as two DropShips could be hidden, at least for a time.

  Grayson knew, however, that time would soon be an even greater enemy to the Legion than the unknown forces they could hear over taccom wavelengths on the ground.

  After an unopposed landing, Grayson deployed the command lance and the fire lance forward. The recon lance and Captain Ramage's company had remained to guard the landing zone. His command lance consisted, as always, of Lori's Shadow Hawk, Kelmar Clay's Wolverine, and Davis McCall's Rifleman, as well as his own Marauder. The fire lance was headed by Lieutenant Khaled in his Warhammer. Isoru Koga and his Archer had been in the fire lance for the past eight months, and Sharyl with her Shadow Hawk had come in from the recon lance when Stennman was killed. Charles Bear in his Crusader had replaced Jenna Hastings.

  An hour after touchdown, they reached the crest of the ridge and were looking down into the smoking ruin of their home.

  "Captain!" Lori said. She used the lower of Grayson's two ranks deliberately. It would serve no good purpose to alert possible listeners that a regimental commander, a Colonel, was here. "Movement at 3200, bearing 095!"

  Grayson ranged in on the indicated coordinates. Over three kilometers distant and almost due east, his Marauder's scanners picked up the indicated target and outlined it in green light on his HUD.

  "I see, it, Lieutenant. They're still here."

  Bastards, Grayson thought. The settlement's murderers moved through the rubble yet, slowly and deliberately. Perhaps no one had informed them of the DropShip landing so close at hand. Perhaps they knew and didn't care, thinking the landing meant the arrival of more Marik reinforcements—or more scavengers come to nestle down at the settlement's corpse.

  Machines moved in the rubble. Grayson could make out the lithe shape of a Phoenix Hawk and the hulking form of a Griffin farther out. The Phoenix Hawk was mindlessly kicking at a section of ferrocrete wall that was still standing. Two kicks, and the wall toppled over in a cloud of dust, rubble, and splintered stone. The Gr
iffin, moving with slow deliberation, stooped and began to use its metal hands to paw through the rubble of what had once been the community's astech barracks. Was it searching for loot? For survivors? Grayson didn't know. Indeed, a kind of numbness had paralyzed his mind and will, as well as his hands. He could only stare in horrified fascination at the raped and ravaged village.

  There were more 'Mechs moving through the ruins farther off: a pair of Stingers and a Wasp.

  Grayson's eyes flicked between his HUD and a console monitor giving him updated information from his long-range passive scanners. He had seven . . . no . . . eight targets moving within scanner range. With the exception of the 55-ton Griffin and a pair of 45-ton Phoenix Hawks, all the machines picking through the steaming rubble appeared to be lights—Stingers and Wasps. Grayson's lightest 'Mechs were the pair of 55-ton Shadow Hawks.

  The anger that had been boiling somewhere deep within him came rushing out now, a roaring in his ears and a quickening of his heart. Murderers! The Gray Death would sweep down on them like avenging angels, angels of death.

  "We'll take them," he said over the command circuit. "Lances . . . weapons up! Arm! Deploy!"

  The targets in the rubble of Durandel were unsuspecting, so absorbed were they in dismembering the last vestiges of the town. One of the Stingers had uncovered a prize, a huddled group of people hiding under a blanket of sheet tin near the foundations of a demolished warehouse. The Stinger had just gestured those survivors out into daylight with a wave of its hand-mounted medium laser when motion or some other warning shouted across the pilot's command circuits brought the BattleMech's head up and around. Grayson's 75-ton Marauder strode through a standing wall, sending chunks of rubble cascading across the street as the almost-prisoners scattered in screaming terror. The Stinger's pilot hesitated, then started to bring his 'Mech's laser up. Too late. Twin lasers caught the Stinger full in the right torso and arm, leaving smoking scars gouged across armor and soft, internal structure.

  Grayson took another step, making certain that the unprotected humans were safely out of the way, then triggered both lasers again, this time adding the lightning fury of his twin PPCs to the barrage. Blue lightning sparked and snapped across the target. The Stinger's right arm, already shattered, went spinning through the air, its laser still clutched in its metal fist. The 'Mech sagged backward, its gyros shrieking, smoke pouring from multiple, gaping holes in the light 'Mech's armor. Grayson added his autocannon to the barrage, and 120 mm shells slashed and chopped explosive mayhem through the Stinger's ravaged framework. Chips of armor broke free under the explosive hail and spun crazily through the air. Grayson strode in ever closer, his autocannon hammering away, spent shell casings ringing and clanging across the outer hull of his machine.

  There was a flash and then a puff of smoke. The Stinger's blocky head opened as panels broke free from one another, and the 'Mech's pilot rocketed into the sky. A far brighter flash buried in the 'Mech's torso rent metal already twisted and smashed, scattering smoking fragments on the street.

  Another 'Mech, a Wasp, strode into Grayson's field of fire. He pivoted his Marauder on its forward-canted leg mount, bringing both weapons-heavy forearms into line. PPC and laser fire lanced across the street, striking the Wasp and driving it down and back. Grayson saw that the Wasp had already been damaged by laser fire to its side and back.

  The Wasp recovered, managing to swing its Diverse Optics medium laser into line with Grayson's cockpit.

  Coherent light washed across the Marauder's outer hull, but the heavy machine's optics blanked out light that would have seared Grayson's eyes, and the massive outer armor plate dissipated the heat harmlessly. Grayson's Marauder took six quick steps across the street, its ponderous forearms sweeping up and around. Like a massive club, the Marauder's right arm smashed against the Wasp's left arm and body. Armor plate buckled with a human-sounding shriek, and the Wasp tumbled backward into a crumbling pile of rubble. Three more shots from Grayson's PPCs, and the Wasp was still, a fire burning among the charred remnants of wiring and conduits exposed in its cratered center torso.

  To make sure it would never rise again, Grayson unleashed one last barrage of PPC fire into the metal corpse. For the moment, he was beyond remembering, beyond reason. A berserker's rage had come upon him, a rage for vengeance, a rage to kill and kill and kill again until he had hunted down every last one of his people's murderers and their killer machines. His Marauder stalked the ruined streets of Durandel, changing the Marik 'Mechs suddenly from predators to prey.

  The madness had overcome them all. Grayson came upon Lori firing bolt after blue-tinged bolt of laser light into the twisted hulk of a Phoenix Hawk that lay sprawled in the wreckage of a house. Delmar Clay's Wolverine charged the Marik Griffin in a fight that was almost even, until Bear's Crusader and Khaled's Warhammer joined Clay in an orchestrated nightmare of laser fire that all but shredded the enemy Griffin. As the Griffin went down, it was Lieutenant Khaled who guided his Warhammer close enough to send one massive, armored foot smashing down on the Griffin's cockpit. That pilot would not survive to pillage other towns. Once the Marik 'Mechs realized their danger, they tried to escape. Ironically, it was the rubble in the streets of the town they had destroyed that blocked them, and channeled them in directions that Grayson's raiders could predict—and intercept.

  The battle, if such it was, was over in fifteen minutes. Not a single Marik 'Mech survived.

  It was only after the last enemy Stinger had exploded in a pyrotechnic flash of light, sound, and shredded metal that Grayson realized he could barely see through the heavy HUD visor of his neurohelmet because his tears were half-blinding him.

  He was still crying as the 'Mechs of his company rendezvoused in the center of what had been Durandel's market square.

  * * *

  The Marik DropShip Assagai fell into orbit around Helm. She was an old League Class ship, one outfitted as an orbital headquarters and communications relay vessel for Marik planetary operations. Dish antennae deployed from communication equipment bays high up near the armored bulge that marked the ship's bridge maintained two rigid lines of sight. One was directed at the gleaming brilliance of the ice-bound planet below, while the other was directed outward into deep space, toward the jump point where silently pulsing jets of hot plasma held the JumpShips Rapacious and Huntress in place against the gravitational pull of the local sun.

  The Assagai's captain was a veteran of many years' service for Janos Marik. During his forty-eight years in space, Fenric Javil had seen more than his share of radar tracks.

  Weightless, he floated above and behind the boy who manned the Assagai's number two deep radar. His arm extended past the boy's head, one bony finger probing at the green screen. "Those tracks, son. What d'you make of 'em?"

  "Uh—entry tracks, Captain," replied the youngster strapped into the radar watch seat, his voice shaking a bit as he spoke. He'd hoped to escape Captain Javil's notice a while longer.

  "Entry tracks is right. Whose?"

  "I heard a query from Lancelot as they went by sir. They . . . they didn't answer."

  "They didn't? And didn't you find that suspicious?"

  "Sir . . . the guys on Lancelot said it was a pair of generals going in for a tour, see? And Shiggy said ..." The boy's voice faltered and his eyes widened as he realized he had somehow slipped into the trap of speaking familiarly with the Captain.

  Javil's eyes tracked across the bridge to meet the dark eyes of another deep-radar watchstander, eyes that suddenly ducked back behind a console as their owner abruptly became very busy.

  "By 'Shiggy,' I assume you mean Junior Lieutenant Shigamura? Tell me, son, what did Lieutenant Shigamura tell you about those targets?"

  "He . . . that is . . . that the . . . the targets were just bigwigs popping in from the new JumpShip, sir."

  "New JumpShip?" Javil's eyes closed slowly. When they opened, it was with a snap that was nearly audible and a bellowing roar that rang through the bridge. “W
hat goddamn JumpShip?”

  "Sir, Shiggy . . . Lieutenant Shigamura, I mean . . . he got an echo on deep radar that might be a new JumpShip under deployed sail at the nadir jump point. But he said it must be a new arrival to the fleet from Marik . . . maybe Duke Irian himself ..."

  "Shigamura! Front and center!"

  A second watch officer swam across the bridge from where he had been attempting to become invisible at his post.

  "Mr. Shigamura! Would you be so kind as to explain how it is that an officer aboard a Free Worlds warship, in the middle of a complex military exercise against a possibly belligerent world, could be so ... so careless as to note the presence of an untagged JumpShip in this solar system and not report the fact to me? Or to the Exec? Or to the senior officer of the watch? Or to say any goddamned thing to anybody at all?"

  "No, sir! I mean, yes, sir! I mean ..."

  "Quiet! Do I further understand that the two of you tracked a pair of unidentified DropShips in from this untagged JumpShip and let it pass right under our noses without demanding an ID of it? Or telling somebody?"

  "S-sir, things were pretty confusing, right then," Lyster said. "JumpShips had been dropping in and out at the jump points for the whole watch, and we thought it was more of the same! I don't think I've ever seen so many ships in one system before . . . merchant vessels trailing the military DropShips . . . and then there was the scuttlebutt that the Duke of Irian was coming. When those two Dropships didn't respond to Lancelot's ID call, we thought ..."

  "You thought! When I want a goddamned junior lieutenant who can think, I'll goddamned well commission my wristcomp! Or a cockroach down in the galley! Good God, between the two of you, you idiots don't have the brains of a Kalidasan mosslug! You're not here to think! You're here to watch your radar screens and sing out when you see something—anything! Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yessir!" The two chimed in chorus.

  "Another goddamned ass-brained malf like that and I'll put the pair of you out the airlock! Now back to your posts! And next time you see something that just might be an enemy ship slipping in to blow us all away to hell, sing out!"