BattleTech MechWarrior Dark Age 05 Truth and Shadows 2003

by Martin Delrio

  Three Fox armored cars with Steel Wolf markings waited there, as she'd expected, their armored sides wavering in the hot air from their engine exhaust. By the chewed and battered look of the Foxes' armored sides, they'd already seen some hard fighting since moving off the DropPort landing field. Their extended-range medium laser cannons glittered menacingly in the morning sun, and Tara knew that both the lasers and the Voelkers 200 machine guns-two of them per Fox, for a total of six-would be on her in a moment. That much burning light and hot metal flying through the air had a chance of disturbing even a Hatchetman, if someone got lucky.

  She used her own extended-range laser on the farthest hovercar, and was gratified to see it go up in flames as the beam punched through its armor and struck the vehicle's power plant. The nearest hovercar was spinning for a getaway, its crew reacting to the sudden appearance of a BattleMech in their midst. She slashed at it with her ax, cutting into the edge of the vehicle. It sank to the ground, the raw metal of its side scraping against the pavement and sending up a shower of bright sparks, shining brighter in her still-running IR view screen.

  Putting the Hatchetman into a squat, she worked the 'Mech's huge left hand under the vehicle's skirt, and heaved it over onto its side. That one was out of the fight, though not beyond salvage. The remaining armored hovercar was withdrawing from the fight and heading away at top speed.

  Tara Campbell used her 'Mech's jump-jets to leap into the air and gain height-of-eye for a firing position. At the top of the leap, she took aim and cut loose with the laser. The Steel Wolf hovecar exploded, even as it turned and fired its lasers and machine guns both in a hopeless final attack.

  Beam and bullets together passed harmlessly above her head as she came down from her jump and swatted the overturned second hovercar with the flat of her ax. The blow crushed the body of the vehicle down to a little more than half its former height. Now that one was beyond salvage, too.

  Time to leave, she thought. All that bursting through walls had sheared off her 'Mech's external antennae, reducing comm range and adding static to the reports she could hear. She turned the corner, heading back toward the Highlander lines.

  And there, waiting in the alley that ran beside the Spring Bearing Plant, was a Tundra Wolf - seventy-five tons of jump-jetted, laser-fisted, missile-toting nasty, with the ravening silver-metal wolf's head of the Steel Wolves emblazoned across its torso.

  Hatchetman and Tundra Wolf jumped simultaneously and met in the air, ax smashing against armor, then tumbled to the ground. Tara Campbell pressed her 'Mech in close, going for a grappling attack. The medium lasers in the Tundra Wolf's right arm pressed against the Hatchetman's torso on the left side, firing hard, burning into her armor. Tara kicked left to push the attacker away, then spun, sweeping her ax around in a desperate attempt to cripple the other 'Mech's legs.

  Then, without warning, the Tundra Wolf was surrounded by a cloud of fire and smoke as a Pack Hunter's particle projector cannon discharged at close range against its back. The Tundra Wolf jumped away, leaping over Tara's head-not attacking, but running, heading at speed back to the Steel Wolves' main force.

  "Don't follow!" came Captain Bishop's voice over the 'Mech-to-'Mech circuit. "It's a trick.

  There isn't going to be a flank attack."

  "My comms are fuzzy; say again all after 'It's a trick'?" Tara Campbell's heart was pounding loudly in her ears after the exertion of battle and the narrow escape; that, and the damage done to her 'Mech's communications gear during the recent fighting, made her doubt what she had heard.

  "There isn't going to be a flank attack," Captain Bishop repeated. "We've been sold out. By a goddamned Paladin of the goddamned Sphere, if you can believe it. There isn't any mercenary support. Farrell and his troops aren't here to help us- they're here to kill us."

  "Understood. No flank attack. Thank you, Captain."

  Tara Campbell reached out a hand and switched off the Hatchetman's radio, cutting the 'Mech- to-'Mech connection before Captain Bishop could reply. She would have to turn the communications gear on again soon- people would be waiting for a word from her, and she was still the leader in charge of their defense, even if the unthinkable had happened and they were all betrayed- but for a few minutes, at least, she could grieve for her own, more personal betrayal inside the privacy of the Hatchetman's unrevealing metal shell.

  44

  Field HQ

  Northwest Sector

  Tara

  Northwind

  February 3134; local winter

  Captain Tara Bishop and the Countess of Northwind approached Colonel Ballantrae's headquarters, and shut down their 'Mechs. They climbed out and walked, sweaty and weary, into the building.

  Captain Bishop once again had reason to be glad that she'd brought along her winter greatcoat.

  The Countess, without one, would have been shivering inside a minute if one of the junior officers hadn't rushed to lend her his. Bishop supposed that having people do things like that for you or maybe just expecting without thinking about it that people would do things like that for you, was one of the perks of being brought up from birth as the future Countess of Northwind.

  Not that Captain Bishop would have changed places with Tara Campbell at the moment. There were bad ways and worse ways to have a blossoming romance turn ugly, Bishop supposed, but having your new man abandon not just you, but the entire planet you and he were supposed to be defending- that one set a standard for low behavior that was going to be hard to match. You had to give the Countess credit, though; none of it showed in her face. Any tears she might have shed, had all been shed in the privacy of the Hatchetman's cockpit, and 'Mechs had no eyes to weep.

  "Repair what you can," the Countess said to Colonel Ballantrae, first thing on entering. "We'll need to fight again today. Reload. And Captain Bishop has some news."

  Bishop knew a cue when she heard one. "The mercenaries are refusing to join our fight against the Steel Wolves," she said. "They say that they're doing it or rather, not doing it, on the orders of Paladin Crow."

  The Countess added, thin-lipped, "Which raises the question: Where is Crow?"

  "I've been asking that same thing ever since you left," Ballantrae said. "I have a sighting from very early this morning, the blocking force in the center. He passed through the lines toward the DropPort, in his Blade. He hasn't come back or been seen since."

  "So he's gone over to the Steel Wolves," Captain Bishop said. "Who'd have thought it?"

  Ballantrae shook his head. "Maybe. Or maybe not. A civilian DropShip lifted from the port around forty-five minutes later."

  The Countess of Northwind's lips curled back in a snarl. "Running away. Leaving us to our fate, after first making sure that we couldn't win."

  "It's always possible that he left Northwind in order to bring help," Bishop said, in the interest of fairness. "With the HPG net down, we can't just send out a message calling for aid. Somebody has to go look for it in person."

  "Stop making excuses for the man," the Countess said. "You yourself told me that he'd ordered Farrell's men to fight against us."

  "We don't know for certain that he gave those orders," Bishop said. "Just that Jack Farrell said he did."

  "And Ezekiel Crow hired Jack Farrell. The mercenaries were his idea from the beginning."

  "The devil take him, then," said Colonel Ballantrae. "Him and The Republic of the Sphere. If this is how they treat their friends, we're better off without both of them."

  "Northwind against all?" The Countess's voice was bitter. "What makes us better than the Steel Wolves then?"

  "Damn," said the Colonel, with feeling.

  "We're going to catch up with Ezekiel Crow," the Countess promised. "When we do, he and I will discuss the matter. And after our discussion, there'll be need for only one cup and saucer at teatime." She drew a deep breath, and Captain Bishop could sense her resolve to consider the subject closed. "On to other matters, then. What about General Griffin?"

  "He
's signaled that he's rolling," Colonel Ballantrae said. "With everything that he's got, or at least, everything that he can send."

  "How much?"

  "Without the gear that's too heavy for air transport- not enough for a pitched battle against the mercs and the Wolves, out in the open."

  "Not enough to save the city, then," the Countess said. "But enough to break us out, maybe, and let us hole up in the Rockspires until the Highlanders offworld can launch a counterattack."

  "Any reports yet of attacks from Farrell's mercs?" Bishop asked Colonel Ballantrae.

  The Colonel shook his head. "That's a negative."

  "When will Griffin be here?" the Countess asked.

  "Twelve hours."

  "I once asked him for a day," she said. "Now it's time for me to give him that day back."

  "What do you mean?" Bishop asked.

  "I'm going to talk to Anastasia Kerensky, woman to woman," the Countess said. "Send her the message. Ask for a parley."

  45

  Steel Wolf Field HQ

  Tara DropPort

  Tara

  Northwind

  February 3134; local winter

  So far, Ian Murchison had spent the battle for Tara in the sick bay on Anastasia Kerensky's DropShip, talking shop with the Steel Wolf medics to keep his mind off what was going down outside, and helping with the casualties as they came in. That much, at least, he could do without a conflict of loyalties-injured flesh was injured flesh, no matter which side it belonged to. So far, casualties had been light. The Steel Wolf medics didn't say, but Murchison understood enough to know that this meant only that the big push into the city was yet to come.

  He was assisting a Steel Wolf medic named Barden in the messy job of inserting a tube into a sucking chest wound when Anastasia Kerensky strode into the sickbay. He didn't register her appearance until they had finished punching through the patient's chest wall and inserting the tube.

  Then he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, her arms crossed, glaring at them impatiently.

  Barden sketched a salute, not even a Steel Wolf Clansman was foolish enough to give the full thing when his latex-gloved hand was still slick with blood and other bodily substances. Murchison for his part, gave the curt but respectful nod he'd come around to using in lieu of anything more formal and military.

  As usual, it seemed to satisfy her. "Bondsman Murchison."

  "Yes, ma'am?"

  "Make yourself presentable. The Countess of Northwind summons me to parley, and I want you standing with me when she comes."

  "Stage-dressing, ma'am?"

  Across the examining table from him, Barden looked shocked. Murchison, however, had come to understand that the only way to keep Anastasia Kerensky's respect-and her respect, so far as he could tell, was all that had kept him alive in the first place-was to push back as hard and as often as custom and the broad gap between their ranks allowed.

  "An object lesson, Bondsman. Get moving-we have not got much time."

  Anastasia's impatience was enough for Barden to let Murchison clean up and change in the sick bay locker room, and to bring him clean clothes to replace the bloodstained scrubs that he'd been wearing when she arrived. His hair was still damp from the shower when he joined her outside the sickbay door, but she only flicked her gaze up and down him once and said, "You will do. Come."

  The parley turned out not to be live and face-to-face at all, but done over real-time tri-vid link- neither commander, it seemed, was willing to leave her own territory, and the streets of the city did not offer much in the way of open neutral ground. Despite Anastasia's impatience, the setup took time.

  The Steel Wolf technicians set up their tri-vid cameras and sound equipment in her field headquarters out on the DropPort landing field, with a full-size display unit that looked too big to have come with the DropShips at all-Murchison suspected that the techs had appropriated it from one of the passenger waiting lounges in the captured DropPort concourse.

  Finally, the prep work was finished. Anastasia Kerensky took her position standing on an X that the Steel Wolf technicians had marked on the landing field tarmac, with Murchison standing a little behind her and to the right.

  The Steel Wolf technician in charge said something in a low tone over her headset voice pickup-presumably to her Highlander opposite number-and then, more loudly, "On the air in three.

  Three . . . two . . . one . . . time."

  The display unit clouded, swirled, and cleared to show the Countess of Northwind and another officer-some kind of aide, Murchison supposed-standing in an impressive stone-and-wood great hall that matched pictures Murchison had seen of the Fort at Tara. The Steel Wolf tech fiddled with her controls and brought the image up closer, until Anastasia and the Countess might have been standing only feet apart.

  Anastasia Kerensky said, "Countess."

  "Galaxy Commander." Tara Campbell's voice and expression gave away nothing; Murchison couldn't tell from her demeanor whether the day was going well or ill for the Highlanders in the city.

  "You called for this parley. Say what you have to say-we waste time, otherwise."

  At this, Tara Campbell gave a grim smile. "I wasn't born yesterday, Galaxy Commander. Your troops will appreciate the breathing space as much as mine. And we can always go back to killing each other when we're done." She seemed at this point to notice Ian Murchison for the first time, and spoke to him directly. "You're no Steel Wolf, man- not with that Northwind face on you. What's your name?"

  "Ian Murchison, ma'am. Medic for Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals."

  "Interesting," said Tara Campbell. "And how did the Galaxy Commander come to add a Balfour-Douglas medic to her collection?"

  "The same way that I plan to add Northwind," Anastasia Kerensky said. "Ian Murchison is my Bondsman, taken in battle."

  "Going back to the old ways, are you?" Once again, the Countess's gaze shifted to meet Murchison's. "I'm sorry I can't do anything for you directly, Ian Murchison. Deal honorably with the Galaxy Commander- and if she fails to deal honorably with you in return, I'll add that to the score I have with her when the time comes to settle all our debts."

  "Yes, ma'am," Murchison said- but Anastasia was already speaking, overriding his voice with a hot edge of temper in her own.

  "I will deal honorably with my Bondsman because he is my Bondsman, Countess, not because of any fear I have of you! And I tell you again, stop wasting my time. Do you wish to surrender?"

  "Hardly, Galaxy Commander. Do you?"

  "You know full well that I do not. What is your purpose, then?"

  Tara Campbell said, "I'm offering you a deal. You and yours can depart from here without pursuit, and we'll call this round a draw- there'll be no retaliatory attacks on Clan Wolf enclaves or Clan-influenced worlds, and no sanctions in the Senate, and the Steel Wolves can go on wreaking havoc anywhere they like so long as it isn't Northwind."

  "Do you think that I am a fool?" Anastasia was still angry; Ian Murchison could see the hot color in her cheeks. He wondered if Tara Campbell had deliberately insulted her, or if the slap at her honor had been made in the heat of the moment, after the Countess had seen a fellow-Highlander wearing a Bondsman's cord. "If I win here, I have all that, and without leaving an enemy at my back.

  No- but because I am a generous and civilized person, I have a counteroffer. Stand down, disarm your forces, and surrender Northwind to me, and you can keep your rank as Countess and your castle in the mountains, so long as you go to it and stay there and never bother me again."

  "No."

  "You are outnumbered and unprepared to resist. One more time: will you surrender?"

  "You already have my answer."

  "Then I tell you, Countess," said Anastasia Kerensky, "I will conquer your planet, and I will kill you, and I will take your pretty stone castle and I will make it into the stronghold of Clan Wolf on Northwind, and the day will come when no one will remember that a woman named Tara Campbell ever set foot in that
place. Do you understand me now?"

  The Countess of Northwind was pale as white marble, even in the tri-vid display, and her eyes were like cold blue fire. "You can try, Galaxy Commander, you can try." She made a quick slicing gesture with one hand, directed at someone off-display. "Tara Campbell, out."

  46

  Landing Zone; Jack Farrell's Mercenary Encampment

  Plains North of Tara; Plains Outside Tara

  Northwind

  February 3134; local winter

  "Offload! Offload! Move it, people!" "Soon's everyone's out, push the bird off the edge of the runway. We have another coming in, three minutes, guys. Move!" The sky was clear, and the landing field between the Rockspires and the capital city of Tara was crowded. Soldiers, all of General Griffin's troops, were forming up in ranks, units regrouping, ready to march.

  The airport itself looked trampled and trammeled, in all parts and all ways. The troops had even stripped the newsstands of hot dogs, bottled water, and popular magazines. In front was chaos, only organized if one was able to recognize a certain by-the-numbers chaos that a well-trained military can sustain for as long as necessary to get the job done.

  Squads were out requisitioning everything that could roll on wheels and carry troopers or equipment for a push toward the city. Others were securing checkpoints and communications gear.

  Above everything, the voices of sergeants with lungs of brass and vocal cords of leather pounded out orders-go here, do that, get ready, stand by, check your gear, move out! Move move move! You aren't getting paid by the hour!

  General Griffin with his 'Mech-one of three they had, the other two being unarmed ConstructionMechs that the newly arrived forces had requisitioned on the spot, was helping to pull newly arrived aircraft off the field and out of the way, so that the ones still incoming could land.

  Nothing else besides the 'Mechs had the speed or the power to do the job, and Griffin as the commanding general had nothing else to do, and no decisions to make at this point.

  His battle plan, like all battle plans, resembled nothing so much as a spring-wound toy. Griffin had set it into motion, and now he could only watch as the plan lurched forward on its own. Maybe later-since no plan lasts beyond first contact with the enemy-he would need to choose again between possible courses of action. But until that time came, he could work with his hands like a stevedore.