"Cha, were we ever that green?" Kelly asked aloud.
"Green as what?" Sam wanted to know. "You, Tyb? Nobody was ever that green."
Watching Trahn's Raven clip the corner of Hut 32 yet again, Kelly shook his head. "I wasn't this bad."
"Ah, the blessings of a failing memory," sighed JJ. "We were all that bad or worse."
Kelly sighed, too. Had Veck, when he was given a batch of green recruits, felt this frustrated and worried?
* * *
Three days later, Kelly rose before dawn. He was ready, if not eager, for yet another long, grueling, frustrating day of trying to turn his greenies into MechWarriors. After showering, he left Sam working on her physical therapy exercises and hiked over to his office to find that the brass had gotten up even earlier. Awaiting him was a message from the Phantom Major declaring Second Lance active again.
The elapsed time between that declaration and the first assignment was about three nanoseconds. The timing said less about the lance's readiness for combat than it did about the high command's eagerness to get units into the field.
Kelly looked over the assignment. At least the major had shown enough sense to make it a shakedown run. The Vigilantes were to take a recon turn to the east, down into the channel-cut prairie between the Red Elk River and the Caroloco. Intel had several points they wanted investigated on the ground: possible supply dumps, scout outposts, and the like. The 'Mechs were being sent because they were the nearest recon force. It was their speed and all-terrain capability that was wanted, not their combat power. Intel said that there were minimal enemy combat units in the area, and those were truck-born infantry.
"Ought to be a milk-run," Sam commented upon hearing of it.
"Assuming Intel's right," Kelly said.
"Aren't they always?"
This time it seemed that they were. The Vigilantes moved through their sweep zone without any sign of hostile activity, which suited Kelly fine. He found himself less eager for contact with the enemy as long as he had half-trained fledgling MechWarriors under his wing. JJ seemed less satisfied with the lack of action.
"So what are we doing out here?" he asked. "There's nothing but prairie and tumblebrush and sheeple ranches out here."
"Lots of sheeple dung," Sam said, demonstrating her piloting skill by standing her Commando on one leg to mime wiping the excrement of the bioengineered animals from its left foot assembly.
There did seem to be nothing of immediate military interest in the area. It was nominally County Shu territory, but the local population had a history of short-lived independence movements. It had never been a significant issue because the area was so sparsely populated. Even the Duvics showed little interest in exploiting the nonexistent defenses in the region as a way to cut around the committal battle lines. The Intel assessment that had gotten the Vigilantes out seemed to be an over-reactive concern on the part of some paranoid ferret. So far they'd found no more sign of the reported Duvic infantry than week old tire tracks that might or might not belong to Duvic trucks, and all of Intel's supply dumps had turned out to be sheeple feeding stations. There was one last site on the list and distant observation showed it to be a small and rundown ranch, a bit bigger than the feeding stations they'd scouted, but showing no more military activity.
Kelly led the way in. He saw a man notice the 'Mech, stare for a moment, then move into the low adobe structure that was probably the residence. A moment later, the man emerged again along with several more people. Kelly couldn't be sure, of course, but they all looked like sheeple ranchers. Some started to wave.
When the lance's Commandos emerged from the stand of pine trees that had covered their approach, the welcoming committee reacted. They ran away, scattering across the ranch compound. Most headed for a long, low barn, a few into the house and a couple just lit out toward a stand of adapted acacia trees on the far side of the ranch.
As Kelly's Lineholder closed to a hundred meters, the barn contingent reemerged, mounted. They spurred their horses away from the oncoming 'Mech. Two swung by the residence to pick up a couple laden with bags who ran to meet them, then urged their overburdened mounts to join the exodus.
Still unable to see even personal weapons, Kelly vetoed Snell's suggestion that the fleeing ranchers be taken down. This was nominally County Shu territory, and even with a disruptive history, the civilians couldn't be presumed hostile, despite running from comital forces.
"This isn't right," Sam opined.
"The guilty run when no one's chasing them," said JJ.
"You don't have to be guilty of anything to run from a war machine stomping into your yard," Kelly pointed out. "Still, I don't like the way it sits either."
He told Trahn to keep a close watch on her sensors and set Sam and JJ on overwatch, while he and Snell dismounted for a ground sweep of the ranch. For all his time spent with Sam and JJ, Kelly felt better about having the newcomer Snell as a partner for dismounted work. Outside his 'Mech, Snell neither looked nor acted like a greenie, and he handled his Rugan K12 SMG with easy familiarity.
They started their sweep moving in along the lambing pens. A couple of gravid sheeple bleated unhappily about their presence and strange smells. Kelly forbore making his own comments about smells.
"House," Snell whispered as he scanned the horizon.
"Got it." Kelly, too, had caught a glimpse of motion in the dark interior, but his interest also was seemingly directed elsewhere. Whoever was in the house knew the MechWarriors were there, but there was no reason to let the lurker know he was spotted. There was also no reason to stay in the open since the lurker could be armed.
"You go right," he whispered back. "Now."
The two former groundpounders raced for the building. Kelly slammed his back against the wall, breathing hard. Snell was there, too.
The house remained quiet.
A few short finger motions established the plan. Snell nodded understanding. Kelly swung to the edge of the open doorway, crouching with his Rugan ready. Snell went through, moving as fast as possible to clear the doorway. Kelly followed him into the untenanted room.
No one was present, but they were watched. Cold glass eyes stared at them from every direction. In true rustic fashion, the place was decorated with taxidermed animals and animal heads.
The room was in disarray, as though the residents had been grabbing things for a fast getaway, as indeed they had. But someone was still here. Someone had attracted their attention. There were four other rooms to the residence. They found their man in the third, a bedroom. He was hiding in the back of a closet, beneath a tumble of blankets.
The man was dressed like a local, but Kelly noticed a medallion swinging under the lamb's wool vest. He pulled it out to see what it was. The shiny disc with its techno decoration was a familiar, though personally distasteful, symbol.
"Word of Blake."
The captive snatched it back and tucked it away. "I am a believer in the Blessed Blake's word. That is no crime."
Kelly looked into that arrogant face. The skin was lined around the eyes and mouth, from habitual frowns, Kelly guessed. But he didn't have the weathered look of a sheeple rancher.
"You're not from around here, are you?"
The man said nothing. He only deepened his frown and presented a passport.
Kelly thumbed through it. "Roman diMassi?"
"That's what it says, isn't it?"
The name wasn't familiar, but something about the man's face was. Or was it the way he held himself? "Have we met before?"
With an exasperated sigh, the Blakist looked away. "I don't think so."
The man's aggrieved tone triggered a memory. Kelly hadn't exactly met this man before, but he had run into him. Or to be more accurate, had been run into by him. This was the Blakist he'd collided with back in Dori at Club Hoodedoo when he'd been looking for Namihito.
What in god's name was the Blakist doing out here?
"Traveling. Sight-seeing," diMassi claimed. "Bringing the
blessed word to the unenlightened."
"Your potential flock scattered like guilty crows when we showed up. You too. Why was that?"
" 'MechWarriors are men of violence. Is it any wonder that honest folks flee from them when they come astride their war machines?"
Kelly had said something similar himself. But these people had waved first, then something changed their minds about being friendly. It couldn't have been anything that the Vigilantes did, because they hadn't done anything but walk toward the ranch.
"Are you planning on holding me?" diMassi asked.
"For the moment we have to," Kelly told him. "We have reason to believe that there might be some enemy activity in this area. You sure the folk here are honest?"
The Blakist seemed to consider for a moment. "Well, since you mention it, no, I am not. Though I cannot see men's hearts, Commander. I do know that they were eager to hear my words and receive the wisdom of the Blessed Bla—"
"Okay, okay. Save the sermon. The fact that the ranchers fled raises suspicion. We will be searching this place for evidence of sympathizer activity. Your pardon, but your hiding from us is suspicious as well."
DiMassi exploded in protest. When Kelly could finally get a word in, he said, "Try and see it from our viewpoint, sir. It would be gracious of you to allow us to search you."
"As an ordinary citizen, I cannot claim diplomatic privilege against such an outrage." The man's attitude was bitter and outraged, but he submitted. They didn't find anything suspicious on him. "Satisfied, Commander?"
Bridling at the Blakist's surly attitude and suffering a nagging feeling that he was missing something, Kelly wasn't satisfied at all. "I am just trying to do my duty as I see it, sir."
Lips pursed, diMassi glared at him.
Kelly wished he really did have a reason to haul the man in, preferably clapped in irons. But he didn't. And though he did have grounds to question diMassi, unfortunately, he didn't seem to be doing a very good job. At the least, he needed cooling time.
Kelly opened lance commo. "JJ, I got somebody I want you to talk to."
While JJ was trying to interrogate diMassi, Kelly called Sam down, too, and sent her with Snell to check out the rest of the ranch. He sat in the house's main room, chilling from his encounter with the Blakist and brooding over the nagging concern that something wasn't right at this ranch.
It was diMassi that seemed most out of place. The Blakists sought converts all right, but they spent most of their time in the population centers and places where there were significant technology concentrations. A sheeple ranch wasn't that sort of place at all. What did sheeple ranchers have to offer the greedy Blakists?
Nothing Kelly could see.
So what was diMassi out here for? The ranchers abandoned him, not exactly the behavior of newly converted believers. Even so, if diMassi was an innocent bystander, why hadn't he run with the others?
He claimed that he hid because he was afraid, but his attitude when they'd hauled him out of his hiding place wasn't that of a frightened man. The Blakist had more the air of someone who'd been inconvenienced and put upon by his social inferiors.
Something was missing.
A tactile memory came to him. When he'd fingered diMassi's medallion, he'd felt a hollow in the back, an indentation the size and shape of a computer storage disk.
Might diMassi's remaining to be caught be due to his taking time to hide a hypothetical disk? If he'd delayed leaving in order to do so, he might have found himself trapped by the Vigilantes' presence.
Colonel Bua would certainly be interested in any data an out-of-place Blakist thought necessary to hide from comital soldiers.
So if it did exist, where would it be?
A hole dug in the adobe of the closet where they had found diMassi? Too obvious for someone as duplicitous as Kelly suspected the Blakist of being. Somewhere else then. Kelly looked around the room. The cluttered place afforded innumerable hiding places.
The departing inhabitants had practically ransacked the place while grabbing whatever it was they had taken with them. Anything might be caught up in the debris, but that stuff was too loose to be a secure repository for anything important. So where could it be?
The glass eyes of the room's mounted specimens seemed to mock him, glittering in cold amusement at his puzzlement.
The heck with you, he told them. Especially you, he said to the canted form of a crested accipiter.
Canted? Someone might have brushed against the stuffed bird as it sat on its wall-mounted perch. It would have to have been someone very tall because the branch gripped in the accipiter's claws would poke Kelly in the forehead if he ran into it.
He walked over for a closer look. Tucked under the bird's talons, he discovered a shiny data disk with techno decoration that matched diMassi's medallion.
So, diMassi did have something to hide.
He popped the disk into the comp at his belt only to have the machine almost immediately announce that it was baffled by encryption. Kelly wasn't surprised that the small machine couldn't deal with the disk. He ordered a brute force copy, figuring that would preserve any data that might be damaged by decryption attempts by his 'Mech's computer, or even Intel's machines should the Lineholder's brain be insufficient.
But then he had another thought. The Blakist had hidden the disk to keep it away from them. The best intelligence was intelligence that the enemy, or even just a potentially hostile agency such as Word of Blake, didn't know you had. With the copied data, he didn't really need the original disk to turn over to Colonel Bua's ferrets.
He slipped the disk back into its hiding place and did his best to make it look undisturbed. He was just finishing up when a shaky voiced Sally Trahn announced over the lance channel.
"I've got a bogey, probable bandit on scan."
Kelly didn't think there was any probable about it. He ordered diMassi tied up as he ran back to his Lineholder. Once in the cockpit, he took a look at the feed from Trahn's Raven.
"Confirm bandit. Everyone, mount up!"
"Lord, help us!" Trahn wailed as Sam, JJ, and Snell were scrambling into their 'Mechs. "It's a heavy! And he's closing fast."
34
Mirandagol District
County Shu, Epsilon Eridani
Chaos March
19 April 3062
Kelly got his Lineholder moving to intercept. Trahn, either game for the play or unwilling to be left behind, strutted the Raven at his side. It would be a few minutes before the others could get strapped in and follow.
"Talk to me, Trahn. What are we headed for?"
"I got a glimpse of it on the horizon and didn't recognize it, so I fed the image to silhouette recognition program. Computer gives 70 percent probability that it's an Axman."
"Only 70?" An Axman had several elements that made for a distinctive silhouette. The computer should have little trouble recognizing it unless something was missing. "Let me guess. No ax."
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
"I'm the commander. It's my job." No need to tell her that to the best of anyone's knowledge there was only one Axman on planet, the bandit machine that lacked an ax.
"So what do we do, Commander?"
The two of them outmassed an Axman. The rest of the Vigilante Mechs would more than double the heavy metal heading against the bandit.
"We catch him, if we can, and take him down."
He passed the same word to Sam and the rest, adding that he didn't want anyone getting too close to the Axman' s front. "He's got a monster autocannon in a torso mount that'll hole any one of you. Stay to his flanks or come in on his rear, but keep to cover till you're close enough to score."
"What cover would that be, boss?" Sam wanted to know.
The prairie didn't offer much to walking battle machines that stood six or more meters tall. The occasional stand of trees, like the one currently shielding their approach, was about it. Kelly checked his topographical map. There wasn't much in the way of trees along the con
verging vectors of the 'Mechs.
"Right. Spread wide and encircle then, but stay out of reach of that cannon."
"Two left, two right?" asked Sam.
"Negative. Two left. You and Snell. JJ to the right. He'll probably peg my Lineholder as the biggest threat." It was, after all, only ten tons lighter than the Axman. It was faster, nearly as heavily armored, and carried a long range punch the Axman lacked. "Trahn, you fall back behind me and prepare countermeasures to give us electronic cover."
The Commandos emerged from the relative cover of the pines first. Sam reported the Axman spotting them. A flash of laser fire from the hostile confirmed her report. The Vigilante 'Mechs were too far away for effective return fire, so they dodged and cut wider. Being fast and nimble, they managed to avoid being hit.
Kelly's Lineholder cleared the trees and he got his first look at the hostile. He dropped the crosshairs of his targeting system onto the 'Mech to enhance his view. The Axman started to turn, reacting to his appearance, just as Trahn's electronic noise came on-line and Kelly triggered both LongFire V LRM racks and his Blaze-Fire laser.
The ruby beam of the laser sliced nothing but air. Most of the missiles streaked past as well, though Kelly saw at least four of them slam home in a tight grouping on the Axman's left shoulder assembly. Not particularly good shooting, but it got the Axman's attention as proved by the two searing beams that passed over the Lineholder's shoulder and shattered a centuries old pine.
The Axman's pilot seemed to grasp the danger of his situation instantly. He turned his 'Mech and accelerated away on a course that made JJ's flanking maneuver an exercise in futility. That sent him nearer to Sam and Snell's Commandos, but it also put him on course for the nearest bend in the Red Elk River and the badlands that opened up on the other side of the river.
Kelly started after the fleeing Axman. JJ rushed forward too, turning his swing around into a charge at the Axman's back. He closed near enough to launch a salvo of missiles at about the maximum range he could expect a hit. While that deadly flight was still in the air, the bandit, in a display of piloting virtuosity, swiveled his 'Mech's torso as the Axman charged forward. Blazing fire erupted from the Axman's arm weapons and the Devastator cannon spoke.
Initiation to War Page 21