13
City of Goldsburo
Bondurant
Stewart-Marik Commonwealth
4 October 3137
Bernard Nordhoff maneuvered his Xanthos around the building from which the attack had come. It was a five-story structure; the lower floors already showed pitting from previous attacks. The shots that had hit him had come from the upper floors, a wave of short-range missiles that had dug into the top of his ’Mech and ripped open the armor. None of the shots had reached his internal structure, but they had gained his attention.
Each thud of the missiles impacting on his BattleMech made his temples throb. The headache had been his constant companion for days now. Combat stress, hell—just sitting in the command couch for days at a time was enough to wear down even the most physically fit body.
His feet instinctively manipulated the foot pedals as he throttled to reverse. Compensating for his weariness, his years of training kept the ’Mech’s movements smooth and efficient. Sweeping his targeting reticle across the building, he watched the first wave of fire from his unit converge on the old brick structure. The façade of the building erupted with explosions and dropped down in a pile of debris, exposing rooms and warehouse floors.
An SRM squad on the fifth floor scampered back like rats. He saw them at the same time as the rest of his unit. Their random shots into the structure now converged on the fifth floor. One of the enemy fell, plunging into the spreading cloud of dust that had been the building’s front. Good. One less.
A wave of long-range missiles fired by Verheiden’s Catapult in Nordhoff’s six o’clock hit two floors below the infantry. The missiles channeled deep into the old building and exploded. The blasts shook the entire warehouse. Then, slowly at first, the building’s support structure gave way. It collapsed, the upper floors plunging straight down into the lower floors. In a few heartbeats the entire building collapsed. A cloud of gray-brown concrete dust rose up like a tombstone. There was no way the infantry squad could have escaped. The dust spread out and obscured his own vision, forcing him to switch to infrared tracking on his cockpit viewscreen.
Chalk up one dead squad. One less to kill later. I hope it was worth it.
“Stalker Actual to Stalker Four—good shooting, Verheiden,” he said into his neurohelmet’s microphone, his voice completely without emotion.
“Hell of a way to take a city—sir,” Verheiden replied.
Bernard wanted to laugh, but generals didn’t laugh. Generals led good men and women to their deaths. At least, that was what was happening on Bondurant. They had been tied down in the Banja Luka Lowlands for long, tedious days. Duke Vedet’s arrival as reinforcements had given them a momentary edge, but the duke’s insistence on rushing straight at the Irregulars and the local militia had turned the battle into one of attrition.
Nordhoff had devised a plan to seize the initiative. The Lyran forces had broken out of Banja Luka and moved to seize three nearby cities that he knew must be supply bases for the Irregulars. Two had fallen relatively easily—Westhaven and Chesterbrook. Goldsburo was a different story. Once again, the Silver Hawk Irregulars and the Bondurant Bombardiers had figured out the Lyrans’ strategy. By traveling along a dry riverbed, they had reached the city ahead of Duke Vedet’s forces and dug in. Now his forces were taking Goldsburo one block at a time and they were paying for it.
His viewscreen readjusted to a normal view after the dust subsided, and he looked ahead to the next block. Hanging on a banner—really just a sheet—was the silver and purple eagle of the Silver Hawk Irregulars. The citizens were blatantly defying the Lyrans again, as they had on previous worlds, mocking his troops’ deaths. On this world, Bernard knew things were different. On Bondurant, he had prevented the Irregulars from escaping, had forced them to dig in, to fight, to die. The local militia had suffered casualties, and the Irregulars were suffering too, even if it was one squad at a time.
“Stalker One, this is Guard One,” the duke’s voice sounded in his headset. Bernard no longer cringed when the duke spoke to the troops. Much as he hated the man’s arrogance, he had to concede that the duke had stayed in the thick of the battle, his Hesperus Guards bleeding alongside Nordhoff’s troops. Yet the duke still managed to prove that he wasn’t a true military commander by keeping a small cadre around him for protection during battle. Bernard knew the patches on his Xanthos testified to his own willingness to stand on his own.
As further proof that Vedet remained more a businessman than a soldier, the duke had found and taken multiple opportunities during their running battle to remind Bernard of their relative positions. A good military leader would not let such pettiness interfere in the struggle to win an engagement. It made him furious every time; every time he heard Vedet’s voice, he steeled himself to hear it again.
“Guard One, this is Stalker One, go.”
“General, my air recon on the north side of the city reported enemy activity in that area. Further recon in that direction has given me an unconfirmed report of a DropShip to the north. Are you aware of this?”
DropShip? His headache suddenly became more intense. No, he didn’t know. But without recon assets of his own, he would know this information unless the duke passed it along. Was this another jab at him, a prodding at his expertise—or were they both just tired? Bernard closed his eyes. “Negative, sir, this is the first I’ve heard of this. Do you have the coordinates?”
“I’m sending them to you now.”
His secondary display autoloaded the map of Goldsburo and the surrounding area. There were a number of athletic fields outside the city, and the DropShip had been sighted on one of them. He backed out the image of the map and saw the roads between the city and those fields. Two good, wide roads—perfect if you wanted fast egress.
The Silver Hawk Irregulars were going to make a run for it. Bernard was sure of it.
So where did that leave them? How could they best cut them off? He found an intersecting avenue that would work; if the First Hesperus Guards could shift there, they could block the Irregulars’ withdrawal. Just at the moment when he thought he had it figured out, he stopped himself. That’s exactly what they want us to do. He reminded himself that in every encounter with the Irregulars so far, they had succeeded in leading him into a trap. Not this time. Bernard backed up the image of the map again and spotted another road on what would be the Irregulars’ west flank. It was a longer route and a smaller road, but it would allow them to place troops behind the LZ. The only troops in position to take advantage of this potential cutoff were the Hesperus Guards: he just had to figure out how to make this move seem like the duke’s idea, so that he would execute it.
That road would be a tight fit. The duke and his Guards would be constrained and isolated. Anything might happen there . . . anything.
“Duke Vedet, I assume that your sighting of the DropShip means the Irregulars are preparing to make a break off-world. We cannot afford that. Do you concur?”
“I was thinking the same thing, General. I am in the northwestern suburbs. From here, I can break my Guards due north. There’re some good roads here, particularly the Verdun Pike. I can be on that DropShip in a matter of minutes.”
“Sir. The Silver Hawk Irregulars have achieved an ambush in every engagement—even when we were expecting it, they succeeded. I assume they expect to lure you into a trap on those main roads. My recommendation is that you take your Guards and head west, then north on the Maurveux Highway. It’s a longer route and a little more restrictive, but it will put you north of their LZ and let you hit them from a direction they won’t expect.”
“It would give us the element of surprise—for a change.”
“Affirmative. We are on the south side of the city slugging it out street by street with the Bondurant Bombardiers and a few of the Irregulars. I will disengage with my troops here and move up into the eastern suburbs. We will converge on the LZ, but you will get there first. Priority will be to take out that DropShip. Without it, th
e Silver Hawks are stranded here. We’ll catch them in the open and finish them off.”
There was a pause as Duke Vedet considered what he was going to do. Bernard began keying in the orders in anticipation of the duke’s agreement, keeping the transmission in the queue. “Sir, we need to move.”
When it came, the duke’s voice was crisp. “I will move my Guards as you suggest and make an end run on their rear. Don’t leave me out there alone, Bernard. That DropShip is a tough nut to crack if the Silver Hawk Irregulars are there.”
Bernard smiled, and hit the TRANSMIT key. “Don’t worry, sir. My forces will be there just as fast as we can. Listen for our artillery, then watch for us to the east.”
Duke Vedet’s Atlas moved down the road near the middle of his column. The Atlas was a slugger, built for assaults—not for speed. Maurveux Highway was not much of a highway, really, just a narrow, two-lane ferrocrete strip surrounded by hedgerows and old stumps, indications that it might once have been a prestigious area. He felt claustrophobic, especially in the massive Atlas. The heavily armored shoulders ground into the low trees along the roadway, shredding leaves and branches as he moved.
Both he and his lead unit were picking up activity at the edge of their sensor range, no more than faint ghosts. The transponders tentatively marked them as non-Lyran. He was confident it was the Mariks, but what he didn’t know was if his flanking move had caught them off guard and was forcing them to respond, or if this was itself a trap.
Bernard’s plan had seemed solid when he’d agreed to it, but it was possible that the Irregulars had once again outfoxed him—Nordhoff had been bested by them more than once already.
Paranoia lurked around the edges of his exhaustion; days of fighting had left him groggy. He resented that his unit commanders were holding up better than he was, no matter how hard he pushed himself. Of course, the MechWarriors he had chosen for his Guards had years of physical and mental conditioning to their advantage—he had spent those same years maintaining and managing his family’s empire. He was happy to acknowledge that military personnel endured a lot, but he was sure they had no idea of the stress and guile required in the battlefields he had been fighting on for years.
Now the instincts that he had used to build his family’s empire were telling him that the Irregulars were playing Bernard once again. Duke Vedet trusted his instincts.
“Guard One, this is Tiger One,” Hauptmann Klein signaled. “I have a definite contact on our right flank. A Warhammer is shadowing us. I marked her as a Silver Hawk in my battlecomputer a week ago.”
I was right! “General Nordhoff was wrong—they are shifting to catch us. All units, this is Guard One. On my command, we are going to turn to the right flank and move through these hedgerows to take out those Silver Hawks. We will bring an end to them once and for all.”
“Sir,” came back Klein’s voice. “What about the general? He’s expecting to link up with us.”
Duke Vedet blinked, trying to push away his exhaustion. “I’ll inform him as soon as we engage. Guards, on my word, wheel right!”
Bernard looked at his long-range display at the tiny icons marking the transponders of his own Regulars and the Hesperus Guards, and slammed his fist on the console as he listened to the duke describe his actions four kilometers away. Damn that man! The Silver Hawks were baiting him, and he had fallen for it! Bernard’s own scouts, a fast-moving pair of Rangers, had skirted the drop zone and had found the Overlord DropShip there, waiting for the Silver Hawks.
“Sir,” he pleaded, “you must disengage and return to the highway. We have the LZ pinned. The DropShip is there. But we have to combine our forces to have any hope of keeping the Irregulars on-planet.”
“I’m dealing with them now,” the duke snapped back. “General, divert your forces to my position. Get them here now, and we don’t need to waste manpower on that DropShip. It’s the Silver Hawks we want.”
“Sir—”
“Follow your orders, General!”
Bernard Nordhoff gritted his teeth. Damn that man to hell! Vedet technically outranked him; to defy him was to face court-martial. Even if Bernard could prove he was right, the duke had enough officers planted in the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces to ensure that justice would not prevail. “Regulars, we need to reinforce the Hesperus Guards. All units converge to the left flank, top speed. Get those Long Toms out to the front and lay down a rolling barrage across the following coordinates.” He jabbed in the firing coordinates, which matched Duke Vedet’s last known position. “Don’t bother with spotting rounds, just lay down a barrage as soon as you are within range!”
“Sir, there are friendly units in the area. They will be caught in the—”
“I know. Stop arguing and get your cans in gear. If you don’t lay down that barrage, we’re going to lose a lot of good people!”
The Silver Hawk Irregulars’ Warhammer had seen better days. A nasty gash tore up its right torso, the armor was pitted and peeled back from the wound where a particle-projection cannon had ripped open her hide. Autocannon hits from previous days marked the BattleMech with blackened burns and cratered armor plating. Regardless of its damage, however, the ’Mech was obviously still in the fight.
It fired down at one of the Hesperus Guards’ Jaguars , catching it on the right front leg. The four-legged BattleMech was moving so fast it simply hit the ground, furrowing the turf and ripping up ferrocrete fragments of an old industrial-plant foundation.
The duke took careful aim, angling his targeting reticle onto the enemy ’Mech. His Atlas rocked slightly from a long-range missile hit sent from an LRM carrier hiding on a side street. The barrage of missiles hit over the course of a full second, pockmarking armor up his left arm and leg. He didn’t waver. It simply took a few moments longer to lock on to the Warhammer.
He heard the tone in his neurohelmet and triggered his primary target interlock circuit, firing the massive PPC the Atlas toted with a whirring, high-pitched crackle of focused energy. The charged beam hit the Warhammer’s lower torso like a bolt of lightning, crossing its right thigh. He watched as the BattleMech reeled under the assault, staggering backward slightly, then slowly regaining balance. A blackened scar marked where the particle cannon had torn into the Irregular.
The Warhammer obviously saw the Atlas, but had tried to ignore it thus far. Not anymore. The Warhammer ’s arms both ended in PPCs. They lowered as the ’Mech twisted at the waist to face his Atlas. Suddenly, alarmingly, the duke realized this was a fight to the death. This time he was not facing a weak VTOL: this fight was with an enemy that might win. His skin rippled with fear and sweat broke out on his entire body. His fingers hovered over the trigger to fire his short-range missiles, but instead he discovered himself jogging the Atlas several steps to the right, as if to dodge the inevitable incoming attack or to seek cover in the open field.
Panic! It was the first time the duke had felt that emotion since he was a child. It was nauseating, hot, smothering. His ears rang as the Warhammer fired its PPCs at him. One went a little wide, crossing right in front of his Atlas. The other shot slammed into his center torso. Static filled his ears even over the ringing as the azure bolt discharged its excess static electricity in white-blue arcs in front of his cockpit. Vedet Brewster twisted his Atlas, but the movement was slow and cumbersome.
He drowned his panic by summoning up a wave of rage that this Marik-Stewart scum dare fire at him. He leaned forward to get his bearings. Wisps of gray smoke hung in the air, and through them the duke spotted the Warhammer moving slowly across his field of fire. Oh no you don’t.He locked on with his short-range missiles and waited for the instant that the targeting tone came to his ears. He fired the second target interlock, sending all six missiles into the leg of the Warhammer. They found their mark on the already damaged leg, each one exploding within a moment of the others, each one ripping off chunks of armor. Smoke billowed from one of the holes.
The Silver Hawk ’Mech slowed abruptly. The duke
hoped it would fall, that his battle with it was over. As it emerged out of the low smoke, he saw the leg of the Warhammer hanging limp at the waist. It’s not over. The ’Mech listed slightly to the side, dragging the mangled limb as it hobbled awkwardly along. Severed myomer muscles sprouted from holes all down the leg.
Duke Vedet moved his joystick to center the targeting reticle on the Warhammer as it tried to move away toward the flank. As he tracked the Warhammer, the duke saw one of his Hesperus Guards, a Galahad, take a wave of autocannon rounds from another defender. The depleted-uranium-tipped rounds punched deep into its arm, ripping off the limb and sending it spinning to the ground, crushing a large metal garbage container. He was distracted for only a moment; when he returned his attention to his primary target, he saw that the Warhammer was moving in on him. Far from running from the fight, this Irregular apparently was intent on killing him. Its menacing PPCs swept side to side, looking for a target lock.
Is this how I will die?
Suddenly there was a rumble . . . too loud and too sustained to be a thunderstorm. The ground around the Warhammer exploded. The Silver Hawk ’Mech wobbled for a moment, and as it began to fall its warrior punched out. The ejection seat blew clear of the cockpit and rose into the air as the ’ Hammer dropped. Another blast hit the ’Mech as it fell, blasting through its rear armor and gutting the fallen war machine.
Then a round hit the Atlas’ right foot. The upper part of his BattleMech lunged forward while his legs seemed to push back. The Atlas pitched hard forward, and the gyro worked furiously to translate signals from his neurohelmet to maintain the balance of the ’Mech. Another explosion erupted a mere ten meters from his BattleMech. A spray of shrapnel slapped into the ferroglass of his cockpit and pitted it. The cockpit canopy barely held together as he tried to get the ’Mech’s legs under it before gravity pulled it to the ground.
Gravity won. The Atlas slammed forward and Duke Vedet heard the sickening sound of armor plating moan and pop as he dropped face-first onto the ground. His lean body was thrown across the cockpit as he fell, the straps digging deeply into his shoulders and skin. He felt something wet on his chest and realized that his coolant vest had torn. Darkness swept the cockpit for a moment as he adjusted his view to only the lighting from his controls and display. Another rumble a few dozen meters away signaled another artillery round raining in.
Fire at Will Page 12