It had been Duke Ricol who had conceived the plan four years before, one that had burned Ricol's name and face into the memory of one young Grayson Death Carlyle. That plan had begun while a combined-arms mercenary force consisting of a BattleMech company and several platoons of infantry prepared to withdraw from a small and relatively unimportant world called Trell I, or Trellwan, near the Kurita border. A pirate raid struck the world in a surprise attack that destroyed the mercenary force and conquered the world's principal city and star-port. With the civilian populace ground under the heel of the conquering marauders, it was planned that a House Kurita 'Mech force would eventually land, secure the city, and destroy the pirates. The citizens of the liberated city, it was thought, would be grateful to the Kurita forces who had rescued them, and disdainful of the Steiner-hired mercenaries who had let them down—who had, in fact, been preparing to depart the planet just as the pirate raiders had struck.
The mercenary force had been Carlyle's Commandos, and its commander, Captain Durant Carlyle, had died during the initial landing of the pirate force. Grayson had been injured, and left for dead while the remnants of Carlyle's Commandos fled the planet. Stranded on Trell I, Grayson ultimately discovered that the pirates were in league with Duke Ricol in a clever ploy to conquer a world and the hearts of its people in a single operation.
It was on Trellwan that the Gray Death Legion had been born, child of Grayson's determination to win vengeance against the bloody Kurita Red Duke.
Grayson had won a small measure of vengeance on Trellwan. He had won a second measure of revenge on Verthandi, a world nominally under Ricol's suzerainty, though the planet's actual ruler had been a Kurita Governor-General named Nagumo.
Since then, Grayson's driving need to avenge his father's death and the destruction of Carlyle's Commandos had dimmed. Perhaps it had been tempered by the growing realization that what he had here and now—the Gray Death Legion, and friends like Ramage and Lori—were more precious to him than vengeance on a minor Kurita duke.
Now, though, mention of the Red Duke's name roused memories, thoughts, and emotions that Grayson had thought long-buried. His eyes bored into King's as though trying to open the Senior Tech's soul. "What . . ." He had to stop and bring his voice under control. "What is Ricol's interest in me now?"
"You needn't be modest, Colonel." King regained a small measure of his accustomed confidence, perhaps realizing that Grayson was not going to kill him outright. "His Grace has been interested in you since Trellwan. You created a BattleMech force out of nothing . . . and went on to beat a much larger 'Mech force with it, singlehandedly. On Verthandi, you were even better. What did you have there? Something like a company of 'Mechs?"
"Seven. Plus the local militia."
"And then you trained the rebels and the militia, with almost no equipment at the start. The Verthandians could never have won free without your help."
Grayson crossed his arms, watching King warily. "So what's your point?"
"I told you the other day about what I had learned in town. I was not able to tell you who I learned it from."
"Yes?"
"The local agent for the Combine is a woman named Dierdre Ravenna. She operates several business establishments in Helmdown, including a place up in the fancy Gresshaven District. Like Moragen and Atkins, she keeps an eye on things locally for House Kurita.
"But she also knows Duke Ricol. You see, Ricol has been interested in Helm for a long time."
"Helm? Why?"
"According to Deirdre, a number of Kurita nobles and officers have been intrigued by the place. You see, they've all read the report Minoru Kurita made at the conclusion of the Helm Campaign in 2788. And they reached the same conclusion you did, in the same way you did. The Star League cache had to be here. It couldn't be moved . . . and yet it was gone when Kurita arrived with his battle fleet. It has not surfaced in almost three centuries. Therefore, it has got to be around here . . . somewhere .”
"And Ricol was one of those nobles."
"He was. He also had an advantage over the others. He is wealthy and powerful, even for a Duke, and he maintains a JumpShip—the Huntress—as his personal vessel. And don't think he hasn't been keeping an eye on you ever since you bested him—again—at Verthandi last year.”
"You."
"Me. He sent me to Galatea a year ago, with instructions to seek you out, impress you with my technical skills, and to join the Gray Death Legion." King smiled. "I didn't realize you would make me Senior Tech . . . and your own personal Tech as well. That was an unexpected bonus. When His Grace realized that you were being granted the Helmfast landhold, that you would become, in fact, the key to the lost Helman cache, he grew very interested, indeed."
"All of which brings us to the key question," Grayson said. The exhaustion was returning, now that the shock of revelation had ebbed. He rubbed his eyes, then looked up at King. "Why are you telling me all this? If you want me to tell you where the cache is so you can tell Ricol, forget it."
"You know where it is?"
"If I do, don't think I plan to tell you."
"Somehow, I didn't expect you to. But I do think I can help you."
"How?"
"Come with me."
"Where?"
"To Helmdown."
"How?"
"I have the necessary papers. We can dress as businessmen, run into Helmdown, see who we have to see, and then leave."
"To see this Deirdre person?"
King looked Grayson up and down, as though measuring him. "I want you to talk with Duke Ricol."
* * *
"You don't trust me."
Lori stared across the headquarters tent at Grayson, shook her head, and said again. "You don't trust me."
"It's not that, Lori." The pain in his soul was like a knife's twisting. "It's better if you don't know, that's all."
"But you calmly walk in here and tell me that if anything happens to you, I'm in charge . . . and to go through with the plan as we've discussed? God, Grayson ... I love you! Doesn't that count for anything?"
"Yes, Lori. It does. And it's why I . . . why I can't go into it, right now."
He had wrestled with his conscience all the way to the tent after he left King to ready the "demilitarized" skimmer. His moral dilemna had suddenly become more complex. It was unacceptable, from Grayson's point of view, to negotiate with either Garth or Rachan. It had occurred to him that finding the cache and offering it to either of those men, with certain safeguards, might be a means of guaranteeing the safety of the Legion: the Star League weapons in exchange for the safety and freedom of the regiment.
How could he even bring himself to do such a thing, though? Rachan—with or without ComStar's knowledge, but certainly with Garth's connivance—had slaughtered millions of civilians merely to seize those weapons. For Grayson, giving someone like Rachan the weapons in exchange for the lives of even his own people was like dealing in the blood of those murdered civilians. To do so would go squarely against everything that Grayson Carlyle was. The only alternative, it seemed, was to destroy the Star League cache and await the onslaught of Garth's legions. Once the cache was destroyed, there would be nothing left but a final, hopeless battle in which the Gray Death must certainly meet destruction.
He had tried to convince himself that the Marik forces might leave the Legion alone if the cache were destroyed and there was nothing left to fight for, but Grayson realized finally what a delusion that was. If he destroyed the cache, Rachan would guess that Grayson knew of the whole plot. Grayson's death, and the death of every man and woman with him, would be absolutely necessary to keep quiet the fact that Rachan—and possibly ComStar itself—was involved in the massacre on Sirius V.
It was a dead end, then. He might preserve the unit's honor, but he could not preserve their lives.
Now the equation had become even more complex. King thought that Duke Ricol might have a way out for the Legion, and Grayson knew what price Ricol would demand for his he
lp.
Should he bargain with Ricol? Grayson was still wrestling with the moral aspects of that question. For nearly four years, he had thought of the Red Duke as his father's murderer. Yet Ricol's stratagem on Trellwan had been a legitimate ruse of war. If Grayson looked at it that way, Ricol had simply been trying to minimize casualties among his own forces and the civilian populace of Trellwan by arranging it so that Trellwan's inhabitants would not want to rise against their conquerors.
Where was the right all this? What was right? What would Grayson's father have wanted him to do?
There was no clear answer yet, but if Grayson told Lori where he was going and who he was going to see, her protests would make the decision that much more difficult. At that moment, Grayson realized how much he did love Lori, no matter how poorly he expressed it to her. Because he did love Lori, he could not tell her where he was going and what he was planning. Lori's hurt at his own hurt would keep him from doing what he had to.
"I love you, too, Lori. More than I can say. And I would tell you ... if I could." He shrugged. "But I can't. All I can say is . . . please . . . trust me." Grayson knew there was a chance he would not come back, but it was remote. From what King had said, he was sure that Ricol did actually want to talk to him, that it was not a trap. But to see Ricol, he would have to enter Helm-down once again, and Garth's fleet was nearly upon them.
"Don't forget that I need you as the Legion's Exec to get things rolling here." He shook his head sharply, cutting off her protest. "No! You've got to see to rounding up any last survivors that might be hiding out there in the woods. You'll have to saddle up the regiment, have it ready to move. Strike the camp, and be ready to go an hour after sundown. I should be able to do what I have to do and return by then. But if I'm not back, you must get the regiment on its way. If I know I'm going to be late, I'll adjust my course accordingly, and catch up with the column along the way. You can have one of the trainees pilot my Marauder, so it'll be with you when I get in."
Lori smiled softly. "Are you sure you shouldn't take your Marauder with you . . . wherever you're going?"
Grayson took Lori in his arms. She resisted at first, then molded herself to his body, clinging to him with all her strength. He raised her chin, then sought her mouth with his. They kissed, long and lingeringly. "I must go. But I will see you . . . tonight, I promise."
23
"Your Grace." Grayson gave the bow proper for a MechWarrior in the presence of a man of Ricol's station.
Duke Hassid Ricol was an impressive figure, as tall as Grayson was, but broader across the shoulders, with larger, heavier hands whose grip took Grayson's in a powerful clasp. He still wore the same, thick full black beard, and his teeth were very white against the beard when he smiled.
When Grayson had met Ricol before, the man had worn the full-dress reds for which he was famous, but such garb would be too conspicuous here on Helm. He was dressed instead in the ruffled blouse and richly patterned trousers of a merchant. His high-topped boots were also ornate and expensive, the mark of a wealthy man showing his worth through tasteful ostentation.
Grayson was fully aware that Ricol used clothing, as he used all else, for his own purposes. He had heard once that the dress reds were the Duke's way of instilling awe in those he ruled, a kind of psychological advantage because men's minds so easily associated the color red with blood, danger, and death.
So, too, the ornate civilian dress had let this Duke of the Draconis Combine ground his DropShip, stroll through an occupied city, and visit this house on Gresshaven's hill without attracting the least bit of unfavorable notice—and without giving anyone a clue as to his real identity.
"I am glad to see you again," Ricol said, "though you probably don't believe that."
"I have endured a number of surprises of late, Your Grace," Grayson replied. "One of the biggest was learning that you were here.'.'
"Events . . . required it," the Red Duke said. "Things were happening too quickly for me to oversee their progress from elsewhere."
Ricol's ship the Huntress was in the Helm system, had been insystem for nearly five days, but no one had questioned it. The Marik forces gathering now at Helm numbered dozens of ships, ranging from the Rapacious and her consorts at the jump point, to DropShips like the Assagai and transports such as those on Helmdown's landing field. Like most modern military organizations, the Marik government relied on private merchants and traders to carry the vast amounts of food necessary to provision a fleet as large as the one that had descended on Helm during the past week. The Huntress, and the DropShips with her, were carefully disguised as lightly armed merchanter vessels. Ricol's DropShip Alpha, grounded now at Helmdown's landing field, would excite no more comment than any other civilian merchanter now in port. And Ricol himself looked the part of the Alpha's merchant-owner.
Deirdre Ravenna stood across the room. A tall, handsome woman, she was one of Helmdown's best-known courtesans. She did not look like a spy, Grayson thought, but then, neither had Atkins or Moragen ... or King, for that matter. He glanced across at King, seated comfortably in a soft chair and wearing the semi-formal civilian trousers and tunic he had chosen for this visit to the city. What is a spy supposed to look like? Grayson wondered.
"It was a surprise to learn that His Grace has been so close, all along," she said. "I thought my reports were being taken by occasional merchants . . . gods! How many hundreds of light years? And then Alard comes to me with His Grace's ring and tells me that the Red Duke has spent the last two months parked right next door!”
Grayson shook his head. This was not the way Dukes, not even Kurita dukes, behaved. He reached up and touched the thin packet resting in an inside pocket of his tunic, the papers Ricol had provided so that King could bring Grayson for a meeting. This was not the way Kurita dukes behaved at all.
"Why, Your Grace? Why the interest in me?"
Ricol smiled, stroking his beard with one massive hand. "A fair question, but not one I can answer easily. Suffice it to say that when Alard reported to me that Helm was to be the price of your service to House Marik against Liao, I became extremely interested in you. I had reason—strong reason—to believe that the Star League arms cache was still here . . . within your landhold. If you were to become lord of this . . . this treasure, then perhaps I could win a chance at it."
Grayson remained skeptical. Ricol's answer had not answered what he really wanted to know, which was why the Duke had decided to assign King to keep an eye on him in the first place. Certainly, Ricol would have had no way of knowing that Marik was going to give the Helm landhold to Grayson before the fact!
"What made you think I would help you?"
Ricol pursed his lips, as though considering. "I didn't think you would, actually. Not willingly. But my studies had convinced me that something very, very big was going on in this sector. From what my agents could gather from the ComStar hyperpulse generator traffic, the Order was showing a keen interest in Helm. Let's just say that I decided the Huntress ought to be nearby, just in case an opportunity presented itself."
"That would have to be one hell of an opportunity," Grayson said. "If I'm reading you right, you were planning a snap raid in the middle of a joint ComStar-Marik recovery of the Star League cache!"
"That is precisely what I was planning. At the same time, I knew that you would not simply stand aside and let them take it, and I felt that perhaps you and I would be able to come to some . . . arrangement. I was more certain that the situation was . . . ah . . . fluid when I received word that you had been declared an outlaw." Ricol looked narrowly at Grayson. "I have known you, have fought against you for four years. Colonel. I did not . . . I do not believe the stories I heard about your massacre of a surrendered city."
The transformation in Ricol's face at the mention of the Tiantan massacre was startling. The man's bushy black eyebrows came together like miniature thunderclouds, and there was a wintry look in his dark eyes.
"I could not believe the repor
t at all at first." The Duke's voice matched the look in his eyes. He reached across to a low table where a bowl of fruit was displayed, and pulled a large, ripe xenogrape from the golden cluster. "A city, already surrendered . . . destroyed as callously as a man crushes a grape." His thumb and forefinger closed on the grape, spattering yellow juice across his fingers. "Pah!"
The thundercloud passed, and Ricol looked momentarily embarrassed. He wiped his hand on his blouse, then continued. "When Alard here made contact with me through Deirdre the other day, and told me you couldn't possibly have done the things of which you were accused because he had been with you the whole time, I decided it was time to come to Helmdown personally. They were using tactics on you that I had every reason to believe would . . . fail. And I don't want to see these city killers win."
"All very flattering ..."
"It's not meant to be flattering, Colonel! Even if I had time for such foolishness. I know it wouldn't work on you any more than attacking your reputation would!"
"I stand corrected. What is it you want?"
"Isn't it obvious, by now?" the Duke said drily. "I would like a share of whatever you find in the Star League cache." King had already explained to Ricol that Grayson seemed to know the cache's location. Ricol had not questioned that certainty.
"And in exchange?"
"I will intercede with the force at my disposal in an attempt to rescue the Gray Death Legion. I will provide transport for your regiment to ... to wherever you would care to go. I will also provide transport for whatever treasures we can recover from the cache."
Grayson only nodded, still not sure what he wanted to reply.
The Price of Glory Page 23