BattleTech : Mechwarrior - Dark Age 02 - A Call to Arms (2003)

by Loren L. Coleman

  Torrent nodded. "Preparing for an underground resistance," he said, "ora surprise attack."

  Demos dismissed that with a wave of her hand. "Give them exactly what they had when we took the spaceport, and I will still lay five-to-seven odds in our favor."

  "And if the Swordsworn and militia actually join forces?" Torrent asked.

  "If they work together seamlessly, under one authority? Five will get you eight." She smiled

  "If Sandoval hangs back again, and does not engage? The morale hit alone will improve our odds."

  The commander could not resist his indulgent smile. "Nikola, looking to recoup your earlier losses?"

  "Aff, Star Colonel. I would. Except that I find Achernar's position to be a poor wager, and I have learned not to bet against you regardless."

  Torrent rose, leaning over the table and fixing each of his advisors in turn with a hard stare

  "Always a good lesson," he said. A predator's grin slowly crept up on his face, stretching the edges of his wide, wide mouth. "Now, let us go teach it to Achernar."

  River's End General

  Achernar

  Every tri-vid on the floor-likely in the entire hospital-was turned on to the announcement.

  Jessica Searcy caught snatches of the beginning from every door as she made her rounds, then finally stopped in a room once she understood what was happening. A public address by Star Colonel Torrent of the Steel Wolves: another challenge.

  "For the safety of all," Torrent was saying, "I ask that you remain indoors and away from the spaceport, the industrial sector, and any location where our opponents have gathered. That Prefect Kal Radick's orders have been ignored, rebuffed, forcing us to bring violence to your world, is a tragedy.

  Do not let it visit unnecessary hardship on you or your families. Do not come in between the Steel Wolves and their prey."

  The hard glint in Torrent's dark eyes, his savage appearance with the shaved head and white, white teeth-Jessica shivered with a cold thrill. This man meant exactly what he said. And more. The warning was meant for the militia as well as any civilian. The Steel Wolves were coming for Sandoval and his Swordsworn forces.

  Coming tomorrow.

  "Dusk," Torrent promised. "Our forces may be met at the spaceport or at any venue between us and our goal. As the challenged party, that decision belongs to your defenders. It is the final decision they may make. All of mine against all of theirs. That was the bargain struck. That is the bargain they must now live up to.

  "Bargained well," he said without warmth, "and done."

  The video cut back to a long shot of the San Marino spaceport, and the Steel Wolf DropShips commanding the field. Then it switched back to a news anchor, and Jessica slipped from the room.

  Questions paraded through Jessica's head and her legs shook with sapped strength. She leaned back against the wall in the deserted corridor. One way or another, it looked as if tomorrow was going to decide the fate of Achernar. Had Raul had enough time? Would the militia wait and form an underground resistance, or move to meet the threat now, while they could?

  Did she truly believe anymore that her resident honor saved her from taking a stand, if not for The Republic, then at least for Achernar? As Raul had said, there was no glory in war. But there was duty. Didn't she have the duty as well, citizen or no?

  It was a very lonely question, and the empty hall at River's End General contained no remedies.

  If it was answers she wanted, she would have to look elsewhere. And she would need one other thing, she knew then.

  Help.

  From the person least likely to give it. And the one she should be least likely to ask.

  24 - Ascending Jove

  Achernar Militia Command

  Achernar

  18 March 3133

  Achernar's sun was barely a hint on the northeast horizon, a pale smudge hardly discernible against the black of night when Raul Ortega arrived in his jeep at the command post staging grounds.

  Warehouse and hangar doors had been rolled open, spilling yellow fluorescent light across the blacktop in deep, yellow pools. Headlamps and spotlights on two score of military fighting vehicles brightened up the staging grounds to an artificial dawn. Technicians and logistics corps ran everywhere, servicing equipment and turning out every last tank, battlesuit and VTOL.

  Tassa Kay and Clark Diago met him near the pool of utility vehicles, coming up together as Raul shucked off his jacket and stripped from a jumpsuit to the cockpit-ready gear of fatigue shorts and a gray cooling vest. The pre-dawn chill bit at him, puckering his lean arms with gooseflesh. Clark clapped Raul on the shoulder, gave him a stiff shake.

  "The old man wants a word."

  Tossing his gear into the jeep, Raul slapped some warmth into his arms and then nodded Diago ahead of him. "Your team ready to go?" he asked Tassa, falling into step with her.

  She thrust her chin at the two nearest of eight military VTOLs. "Both of those are loaded- overloaded, in fact-with gear and good men. You are certain that this will work? This is not your newest attempt to deny me a separate command?"

  "Deny you? Tassa, I'm counting-desperately counting-on you making rendezvous with . . ."

  Raul trailed off at her poorly hidden grin. Suckered. He licked his lips. "Just don't go haring off after Erik Sandoval before I give the word, all right? And remember, that's a fifty-tonner you're in today.

  Don't expect it to hold up like your Ryoken, and bring it back in as intact as you can."

  "You still don't trust me."

  He shrugged. "I don't know you."

  "You know me," Tassa said. And this time her words carried on more than one frequency.

  Raul smiled, but not with the same amount of interest he might have once.

  The two of them had stepped lightly around their brief liaison since Tassa's recovery under Jessica's care. Raul knew that-while the passion was there between he and Tassa Kay-there wasn't the emotional bond he truly wanted. In between planning sessions and on-site reviews these last few days, Raul had tried to mention that to her. Talk to her. Tassa had shrugged off his attempts, working first at becoming healthy and then gearing herself up for today's battle.

  Though he still wasn't certain whether to feel relieved or slighted that she had set him aside so readily.

  Bright, hard white lamps drew them through the maze of vehicles and personnel to the militia's Tribune-model mobile HQ. Colonel Blaire waited for his three MechWarriors under a rollout canopy, studying a contour map of River's End and the surrounding area. The old officer carried himself in full field uniform today, with sidearm and sword. You couldn't tell, until he tried to walk, that he balanced on a prosthetic leg. Once the task forces moved off on their objectives, there wouldn't be a fighting man left to command inside the base perimeter. Blaire would follow Raul's larger force, offering them the direct benefit of thirty-six years of military experience.

  Raul had readily accepted. He knew they'd need all the help they could get.

  Blaire glanced up from the map, on which he had drawn force lines and time indexes for every stage of the day's maneuvers. "It's a very dangerous game we're playing today, Raul." He shrugged.

  "Ah hope you're certain."

  A smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. "You can court-martial me if it doesn't work. Sir."

  "Give me one of your kay -det grins, Captain, and Ah'll wipe it off with low-wattage laser.

  You're the one sitting in the jaws of the trap. If it doesn't work, you'll be dead."

  Raul smiled fully, though no humor touched his dark eyes. "There is that."

  The colonel gave each one of them a once-over, then nodded his approval before pulling Raul aside. "You know what we're up against and what we have to do today. If you need to make any last- minute changes to the force allotments, now is the time."

  He didn't think twice about it. He barely thought once. "I trust each member of the task force with their part today, Colonel."

  "All right. Ah
trust you, and that's good enough. Post," he ordered the younger man. To Raul's back, he said, "And you make Kyle Powers proud of you, Captain."

  Raul nodded, but kept quiet. Jove waited.

  Powers' Jupiter waited on the far side of the Tribune, standing on wide-spread feet next to the paired Legionnaires. While not at full capability, with two autocannons out of commission and still suffering some targeting glitches, the one-hundred-ton assault 'Mech nevertheless loomed over both nearby machines, in height and in raw, physical presence. It was painted in the same colored bands as before-a layering of tans, yellows, and faded reds. Raul's gaze was still drawn first to the great red spot that swirled in a storm over the right breast of the BattleMech.

  Which may be how he missed Jessica Searcy at first glance, standing at the foot of the Jupiter.

  "Jess?" Raul stopped flat in his footsteps.

  Setting aside the way his heart pounded against his chest, he could not help but think there was no way his fiancée-ex-fiancée-should be here. Not with the base locked down on full military protocol.

  When Tassa walked on by, trading a nod of encouragement with Jessica, shock won out over decorum.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  Her sharp, answering glare barely kept from cutting into his skin. "Tassa cleared me onto the base. Civilian contractor, temporary warrant officer commission." He hadn't noticed the small, golden caduceus shining on the collar of her paramilitary jumpsuit. He did now. "I'll be in charge of a M.A.S.H. truck. You soldiers have a way of keeping doctors busy."

  M.A.S.H.? Jessica was on board for the maneuvers? "I really wish you weren't here." Also not the best way to reopen a conversation. "I can . . . appreciate what you are trying to do here-lord knows we'll need your skills before today is done, but I don't need to be worrying about you out there."

  "Don't you mean, you don't need to be worrying about me,too ?"

  Raul held no illusions about whom Jess was referring. She wasn't going to make this easy on him. And it was no less than he deserved. But, "No. I don't mean that at all. Counting every crewman, infantryman, and specialist on the field today there will be over two hundred warm bodies, and I can't afford to worry about any of them. I can only trust them to be there, doing their jobs, because this is how we've all chosen to serve."

  She nodded. "Then you can trust the same from me. Yes? Isn't this what a citizen does? Take that extra step?"

  Hearing his own argument thrown back at him, and now of all times, left Raul speechless for several seconds. Was she doing this to impress him, or prove something to herself? Either way, it wasn't necessary. Tassa had proven to him over the last month that you did not have to be a registered citizen to carry yourself with honor. And if comparing his fiancée with a one-time liaison was not a way to tie himself into knots right before battle, Raul wasn't sure what else qualified.

  "Jess, you've been a citizen your entire life in any possible way that it matters. You've always had the right side of that argument. Why are you doing this now?"

  Biting down on that lower, pouting lip, Jessica gave in. "Because it was the only way to see you, and wish you luck." Flustered, she clasped one hand around the back of her neck and shot him a new, withering glare. "I'm not through being mad at you yet, and I don't want you to cheat me out of my due by getting killed out there today. And don't get wounded either, because then I'd have to think too long about whether or not to put you back together, and that wouldn't be fair to someone else who deserves help. What's more-"

  Stepping forward, Raul held up one hand to cut off her building tirade, placed the tips of his fingers against her lips and readied himself to be slapped again for daring to touch her. She stood mute, the beginning of tears softening her glare, and he leaned in close with eyes never once wavering from hers.

  "Thank you," he said simply, choosing only to acknowledge her first, better wishes. Backing his hand away from her mouth to his own, he kissed the backs of his fingers as if she might feel it through the brief, earlier touch. "Today we'll need all the luck we can get."

  "I haven't forgiven you yet, you know."

  "I know. But there is always the possibility, and that's enough to keep me safe." He stepped aside, reaching for the chain link ladder that hung down the inside of the Jupiter's leg. "Not one wound, then. I promise."

  "Maybe a little one," she said to his back. Raul thought he heard a trace of actual humor in her voice. "Couple of painful stitches, and a good scar."

  It wasn't much, as far as good wishes went, but Raul would take what absolution he could get.

  Lady Janella Lakewood had been right about that, too. One was never past the need for forgiveness.

  "I'll see what I can do," he said, and then scaled the ladder for his new cockpit, three stories up.

  25 - Early To Rise

  River's End

  Achernar

  18 March 3133

  Star Colonel Torrent habitually rose before dawn on Achernar, his diurnal rhythm set to the twenty-three-hour Tigress clock. Here, he always seemed to have more time than he needed. Most days Torrent wrote it off to an impatience instilled in him over the course of the protracted campaign.

  This morning, though, an urge drew him down to the Lupus's 'Mech bay and his readied Tundra Wolf.

  One last round to search out any forgotten thoughts before the evening battle. Before victory.

  The bay's cavernous interior was still on the half-lights order for nights, which Torrent immediately countermanded. Darkened overhead panels flickered and then shone brightly. A few night-duty technicians made a busier show of loading munitions through the back of a Catapult.

  Torrent ignored them for the open bay door, checking that two sentry vehicles-Scimitars, as it happened-properly blocked the access ramp.

  That was where the alarm found him.

  The metallic gong of a shipboard general quarters alarm sent the Star Colonel sprinting for his BattleMech, preferring to learn of any danger with seventy-five tons of myomer and armor wrapped about him and his fingers on the triggers of a Longbow missile XX-rack and Series 7 laser. This was what had drawn him down here so early, he knew, scaling the gantry and gaining quick access to his cockpit. With practiced efficiency he released dampening fields from the BattleMech's fusion reactor and cycled through a dozen prestart checks.

  A comms headset held up to the side of his right ear connected him with the DropShip's bridge.

  "Torrent."

  "Star Colonel. Remote listening posts have contact with a militia column, coming down out of the base heading east-southeast."

  Achernar's militia thought to steal a march on the Steel Wolves? He cast aside the communications set and drew down his neurohelmet from its resting shelf. Plugging himself in, he asked, "Any response out of River's End?" he asked.

  "Neg, Star Colonel. River's End is quiet."

  MechWarriors Verin and Rheese made the 'Mech Bay within seconds of each other, scrambling for their pair of Pack Hunters. Torrent sped through his security procedures, answering with identification and his verbal key without being prompted. "To each, his own," he said, putting emphasis in a slightly different place than the ages-old saying.

  His computer released full control about the time his ready-scouts checked in from the ground.

  A pair of Shandras had beat him out from another bay, but then Torrent had cleared a BattleMech in less than three minutes from alarm to his first, confident step. He would be the first officer on the scene, and if the militia thought to seriously challenge him here, now, he would be first to draw blood. today

  By the Great Father, he swore it would be true.

  And it would be, because even from the bottom edge of the ramp, calling the Scimitars to him on an auxiliary channel, his HUD lit up with a chaotic jumble of enemy icons. Legionnaire. Joust. A trio of JES tacticals. He read the IFF tag codes with a veteran's ease. DI Schmitts. Two Giggin APCs, no doubt brimming with armored infantry.

  Jupiter.

&nb
sp; Torrent read it again. JP3-a. The same tag his computers had assigned to Kyle Powers during their Trial of Grievance. The Knight had returned from the dead-or at least his BattleMech had.

  Switching to thermal imaging, he centered his crosshairs over a distant red smear and then called up magnification on an auxiliary monitor.

  There it was, standing at the edge of the spaceport tarmac where the razed military field bumped up against the larger civilian side. Torrent smiled. "And today I thought my best victory would be over a Hatchetman." If the militia wanted to gift him with another kill on the Jupiter, Torrent would oblige.

  His Pack Hunters had cleared the bay, and from all three of his DropShip's vehicles and infantry poured, along with a converted ConstructionMech and an AgroMech, Star Captain Demos in her personally modified SM1 Destroyer. All that Star Colonel Torrent had left to him on Achernar.

  Enough to deal with the militia and still take River's End away from Erik Sandoval.

  "Form on me, line abreast," he ordered, strutting the Tundra Wolf forward toward the far end of the field. "No one fires until I have chosen my target." He wanted the Jupiter, of course. If the militia pilot would agree.

  He dialed over to a common military band, one which all Republic forces scanned. "I am Star Colonel Torrent, of the Steel Wolves. Who challenges for the San Marino Spaceport?" Not that he expected a true call to Trial, but the forms had to be observed. So Kal Radick expected, and so Torrent of the Kerensky bloodline would do.

  The militia had shaken itself out into an inverted wedge, inviting him in toward the center by placing a line of weaker tanks and infantry carriers there, surrounding a Tribune mobile HQ. It was on the closer flank, though, where the Jupiter stepped out.

  "Captain Raul Ortega, Achernar Militia. We do not challenge, Star Colonel. We are here to force you from Achernar, or whittle you down to size so that Lady Janella Lakewood will wonder where all your forces went."

  The bluff was so transparent that Torrent was inclined to dismiss it for bravado. Still, with thirty seconds to close, he allowed himself the caution of turning over the threat in his mind. By his count, the militia mustered two BattleMechs and one converted ForestryMech, a trinary's worth of tanks-what the regular forces might call a strengthened company-and an estimation of twenty-five battlesuit squads. With the Swordsworn fighting alongside them, working fist-in-gauntlet, perhaps. But not like this. Not now.