Tactics of Duty

by William H. Keith

  "Actually, it was Wilmarth's chief liaison with the FedCom military," Robert said. "A poisonous toad of a man called Folker."

  "Folker?" McCall said, eyes narrowing. "Tha' would nae be a particular toad named Kellen Folker, would it?"

  "Major Kellen Folker," Ben said, nodding. "That was him. What, you know the man?"

  "He was nae a major when I knew him last," McCall said.

  "But then, neither was I. Yes, I know 'Killer Kellen' vurra weel indeed."

  "Is that good?" Alex asked. "I mean, can you talk to him, get him to let us in to see the governor?"

  "I'll see what I can do," McCall said slowly, thoughtfully. "It may be tha' our acquaintanceship will do just that little thing "

  "Yes?"

  "Unless, of course, one of us kills the other one first."

  12

  The Citadel

  Caledonia, Skye March

  Federated Commonwealth

  0920 hours, 1 April 3057

  They drove the groundcar up the winding road toward the crest of Mount Alba. Alex sat in the front passenger seat, checking their hand weapons, while McCall sat at the stick. Though not deliberately looking for trouble, both men were wearing combat fatigues and load vests instead of the civilian garb they'd worn the day before. As McCall had pointed out to his brothers that morning, civilians had already tried approaching Wilmarth with no appreciable success. Now they would try a more military approach.

  They'd already passed several no-trespassing signs and a concrete pylon that almost certainly housed remote sensors. As the mountain's crown of black walls and turrets rose before them, Alex had the distinct impression that they were being closely watched.

  "So where did you meet this Killer Kellen guy?" Alex asked, probing.

  "Furillo."

  "That was back, when? Before you joined the Legion."

  "Aye. Tha' would hae been aboot '17, maybe '18. Tell me, lad. Hae' y' never heard of th' Guardians a' Cameron?"

  Alex considered the name. "I don't— Wait. Merc unit? Had a cutesy rep?"

  "Tha' they did. A strange bunch, tha' lot."

  Hundreds, perhaps thousands of mercenary units were scattered across the Inner Sphere, augmenting the military forces of the various Great Houses and of individual worlds, and dozens more appeared every year. Some few—the Gray Death and Jaime Wolf's Dragoons were two—had survived and even prospered during the past few bloody decades. Many had vanished utterly, disbanded when they couldn't meet their contracts or pay their bills, or else been so badly crushed in combat that they simply never recovered.

  The rest struggled on, desperate for munitions, for new equipment, for new men. A handful, in an attempt to provide some unifying motif for their units, adopted unusual dress, recruiting standards, philosophies, or even hobbies intended to distinguish them from the rest. Most combat vets cast a baleful eye on such gimmicks. Alex had heard of one unit that collected archaeological artifacts. Another supposedly recruited only beautiful women, though that story was almost certainly apocryphal, one of the stranger popular myths that floated through the MechWarrior community.

  "So what was their gimmick?"

  "Their CO had this strange notion a' warfare," McCall replied. "Chivalry. Honor. Fighting for lost causes, even when th' employer could not pay."

  Alex nodded. Chivalry will get you dead was a favorite expression of Sarge's, back on Glengarry, though there were those even in this day and age who still thought that war was a kind of glamorous contact sport, synonymous with terms like "honor" and "glory." Most of those people, Alex reflected, had never faced a real 'Mech on the field ... or else they were politicians or wore a general's rank insignia. In the popular mind, BattleMechs were frequently linked with such concepts, at least on worlds that hadn't suffered repeated invasions by 'Mech armies that reduced their cities, factories, and farms to smoking ruin. Among the uninitiated, and for a few veterans who gloried in the image of single combat, Mech Warriors remained modern knights of the battlefield, jousting with one another in one-on-one tests of bravery and skill.

  "As a result," McCall continued, "th' Guardians dinnae do so weel, a' least in a financial way."

  What was left unspoken, though, was the obvious fact that McCall had joined the unit in the first place, years before.

  Alex remembered the story he'd told on himself of sneaking off to New Edinburgh Spaceport to watch the DropShips lift. Gimmick or not, the Guardians of Cameron must have appealed somehow to an impressionable young Caledonian.

  It was a side of Davis McCall's nature that Alex had never seen revealed before.

  "And this Kellen Folker guy?"

  "Aye. He was one a' th' auld hands, when I was just fresh oot a' trainin'. There was a wee bit of a dust-up between him an' me on Furillo. We were fightin' Marik tech raiders, a drop-an'-snatch aimed at a power plant factory ootside the capital. Killer took some rounds from a wee village an' went berserk. Burned down half th' town, killed God knows how many civilians. The Guardians' CO would nae have him in th' unit after that."

  "You said there was a dust-up between the two of you. That sounds personal."

  "Oh, aye, it was. I was in his lance, a raw newbie in my first real fight. I was th' one tha' testified against him at his court-martial."

  "Ah."

  "I've heard of him from time t' time since, even run into him once or twice, on Gladius an' elsewhere. He had the rep a' bein' a hard-cast freelancer, a merc who'll do anything for C-bills enoo'."

  Alex thought about the charge he'd heard leveled at McCall by his brother the afternoon before, about being unwilling to help his family without being paid for it. The accusation seemed even more unfair and uncalled-for now than it had then.

  "Tell me, Major. Uh ..." He stopped. How could he ask the man such a question?

  "Oot wi' it, lad. I think I know wha' you have on your mind."

  "I'm not sure how to say it in a diplomatic way."

  "You dinnae need t' play th' diplomat wi' me. I've known you an' your father both for too long."

  "Mmm. I was just wondering how ... how completely you can trust them? Your family, I mean."

  "A fair question. There's been aye some bad blood there, over th' years."

  "We're using them for our home base ... the radio." They'd set up their transmitter equipment that morning in the loft of a McCall barn. If and when the Gray Death arrived, they should be able to make contact—or pick up an automated transmission with a recorded log of everything that had happened up until that point.

  But the possibility of betrayal to the government forces was very real.

  "I don't believe they'll try to exchange me for Angus, if tha' is what you mean," McCall said. "They hate Wilmarth, as I'm sure you heard. Perhaps they hate him enough t' even trust th' likes a' us."

  "I hope so."

  "It's a fact, lad. The Scots like t' fight among themselves. When there's no other clan to trounce a' th' time, they'll tear a' one another within the family like nestling cragclaws. But threaten them wi' an ootsider, an' look out!"

  The groundcar rounded a final bend in the road, slowed, then stopped. The Citadel rose directly before them now, on the far side of a bridge spanning a rock-bound gulf some fifty meters wide and thirty deep. A trooper in black and yellow armor stopped them with an upraised hand; others advanced with weapons at port arms. Alex reached unobtrusively for the laser pistol holstered to his thigh, but McCall caught the motion. "Easy, lad. Keep your hands where they can see 'em."

  One soldier, with the sleeve chevrons of a sergeant painted on his old-fashioned kevlar armor, walked up to the driver's side of the car. "Okay, you two," he growled. "Where do you think you're going?"

  "Why, t' pay a wee social call on th' governor," McCall said in a cheerful voice. "An' t' say hello to an auld comrade-at-arms, if he's still here."

  "And who might that be, Scotty?"

  "Major Kellen Folker," McCall replied. "Though we used t' call him 'Killer.' "

  The sergeant'
s swagger dwindled a bit at that name. "And your name, sir?"

  "Major McCall. Of the Gray Death Legion."

  The sergeant looked at Alex, who met the visored gaze evenly. "Captain Alex Carlyle," Alex said without being asked. "Also of the Gray Death."

  "A moment, please, sirs," the sergeant said, and he took a step back as he used his armor's comm unit to talk to someone in the Citadel. After several tense moments, during which the guards surrounding the car fidgeted with their weapons, the sergeant stepped forward again. "You can go on through," he told McCall. "Someone will meet you in the gatehouse."

  "Aye, thank you, lad."

  The car moved slowly across the bridge, as double gates slid aside for them directly ahead. The gate tower was the tallest and most imposing of the wall defenses, rising fifty meters above the foundations and flanked by evil-looking turrets boasting quad-mounted high-speed autocannons that tracked the two men as they approached.

  Up close, though, the crumbling facade of the outer walls suggested that the owners of this place had stopped trying to provide proper upkeep a long time ago, and that almost certainly meant that the technology, too, had been allowed to decay. As they passed through the gate and into the shadowy interior of the barbican, Alex saw numerous open recesses in the stone walls to either side that once must have held sensor arrays or cameras, but which now were vacant. In some cases, it looked as though wires had been stripped out of conduits, probably for the resale price of the metal or fiber optic cables.

  Most of the soldiers waiting for them in the gatehouse were like those outside, wearing mismatched and ill-fitting pieces of black and yellow kevlar. One, though, was a tall, imposing figure in the full dress finery of a Federated Commonwealth major.

  "Weel, noo, Killer," McCall said as he and Alex climbed out of the car. "It's been a year or two, hasn't it?"

  "Well, if it isn't the Boy Scout" the other said with a gravel-rough voice. Though clearly older than McCall by at least ten years, his hair and neatly trimmed beard were glossy black. "What the hell brings you to this jerkwater dirt ball?"

  "It's my home, for one. Your new boss in there for another."

  "The Governor?" Folker snorted. "He's not my boss."

  "Aye, you're wearin' a new uniform, I see. FedCom?"

  "And senior military advisor to the Governor of Caledonia." Folker brushed lightly at the staff command insignia on his breast, above the rows of campaign and service medals. "As you can see, Davis, I've improved my station in life considerably. Your weapons, please."

  "Eh?"

  "Your weapons. Leave them here. No one goes into the Governor's presence armed."

  McCall reached for his belt buckle. "Nervous type, eh?"

  "These are dangerous times, Scout. Fanatics have tried to assassinate the man three times already. There's a revolution brewing on this world, or hadn't you heard?"

  "Oh, I'd heard all right." McCall handed his gun belt to a guard.

  Alex removed his gun belt as well. "What's that, kid?" Folker demanded, pointing at a sheathed combat knife clipped hilt-down to Alex's combat vest.

  "Vibroblade," Alex replied. He patted his right breast pocket. "And in here I have a monothread. You want those too?"

  "Nah, keep your toys," the man said, grinning. "Lasers and slug-throwers make the old man jumpy, but, believe me, you'll never get close enough to use a blade on him! This way, gentlemen, if you please."

  "Wha' aboot you?"

  "Eh? What about me?"

  "Don't you leave your sidearm here too?"

  "That rule is for natives, and for strangers. I happen to be one of the Governor's most trusted aides."

  "Oh, aye? An' just what is it you aid him with?"

  Folker drew himself up a bit straighter. "I am here, gentlemen, as special military liaison to the Governor of Caledonia. Basically, that means I am his military advisor. I've been helping him train his militia, repair his 'Mechs ..."

  "An' wi' you bein' a fine an' experienced Mech Warrior as weel ..."

  "Yes, I've piloted his 'Mechs. Usually I take his Wasp out."

  "Aye, I thought I recognized your style when I saw a vid of a Wasp in New Edinburgh a few weeks back."

  "What, the riot in Malcom Square?" Folker chuckled. "Yeah, that was me. The rabble really ran, didn't they?"

  "Aye, tha' they did. Most of 'em."

  "Were you in the Wasp we saw in the city yesterday, Major?" Alex asked.

  "I usually have more important things to do than arresting malcontents, boy. I was guiding the operation from the Citadel, here."

  Accompanied by Folker and an escort of four armored troopers, they passed through the gate tower and entered the courtyard beyond. "God in heaven!" Alex murmured, stunned. McCall said nothing, but Alex could see his fists clench, the tendons standing out stark white and taut on the backs of McCall's hands.

  The bodies of half a dozen men hung in the courtyard, impaled through the back or beneath the jaw on upright, three-meter-tall iron stakes. Some of the bodies had been exposed that way longer than others; the stink in the air was suffocatingly heavy and sweet. One stake held nothing but human heads, threaded on rusty iron one atop another like beads on a needle. The ones at the bottom were nothing but shiny white bone; the ones at the top were fresh, still possessing hair and skin and staring eyes.

  Compounding horror with horror, numerous people— soldiers, technicians, even a few civilian laborers, giving lie to what Robert had said about "folks around here"—were going about their business in the shadow of those grisly trophies as though nothing whatsoever was wrong. Two soldiers were leaning on a wall within three meters of one bloody stake, swapping stories punctuated by bursts of raw laughter.

  Standing over the scene of horror was a single BattleMech, the black and yellow Wasp they'd seen the day before.

  The old Star League fortress's inner keep was the governor's residence proper, a thick-walled bastion topped by weapons turrets and commo antennas. Inside, past an antechamber and several layers of office suites and administrative personnel, sliding doors opened on a long, gloom-shadowed audience chamber with two lines of stone pillars and a vaulted ceiling that reminded Alex forcibly of the interior of some ancient stone cathedral. Perhaps this place had once been a chapel for the Star League troopers stationed here; pews and altar had long ago been removed, however, and the Governor used it now for meeting supplicants and for entertaining guests.

  Especially, Alex thought with a hard-edged black humor, the entertaining. The place was a horror-house, with skeletons and mummified corpses shackled to the pillars like macabre sentries standing at their posts to either side of the worn red carpet running down the center aisle. Another, fresher corpse hung from a strand of piano-wire, slowly turning, as naked and bloody as freshly butchered meat. Alex had heard that people hung that way died from slow strangulation, rather than a quick, clean snap of the neck. What kind of sick monster was this Wilmarth, anyway?

  At the far end of the room, the governor's seat was raised like a throne on a pedestal set on a low stage. Towering overhead and behind the throne, a close fit even in this high-ceilinged room and dominating the entire chamber, stood a black and yellow Locust, its unexpected presence indoors giving it a shadowy, demonic look.

  As they approached the throne, several paces behind Folker, Alex saw a new horror that nearly made him miss a step. With a hiss of indrawn breath, he touched McCall's elbow.

  "I see them, lad," McCall said in a low murmur, walking smoothly down the red carpet. "Take it in stride. Don't show it botherin' ye."

  Take it in stride? How? Two prisoners, a man and a woman, had been brought to the chamber for execution where, just a few meters away, Nelson Wilmarth sat enjoying his midday meal. Stripped, bound, gagged, they stood barefooted on half-meter-thick blocks of ice, with piano-wire nooses cinched around their throats and the free ends drawn taut and secured to a wooden beam high overhead. Neither dared move, though Alex saw their eyes shifting toward him, desperate, plea
ding. The woman, already straining high on the balls of her feet to keep the deadly, slicing pressure off her throat, was trembling with cold, exhaustion, or fear—most likely all three. Alex doubted she would be able to keep her precarious footing on the fast-melting ice block much longer. The man beside her stood rock-steady, though his bare legs had a ghost-blue pallor to them.

  "Well, Major," Nelson Wilmarth said from behind the table. "Is this the man you told me of? Your old comrade?"

  "He is indeed, sir. Governor, may I present Major McCall and his aide, Captain Carlyle. Gentlemen, this is Nelson Wilmarth, Federated Commonwealth Governor of the Caledonian system."

  Nelson Wilmarth was a ponderously fat, sallow-skinned man with dark eyes, unkempt hair, and dough-soft features almost lost in layers of sweat-sheened fat. The table before him was piled high with food, and he seemed to be enjoying his meal with rather carelessly messy gusto.

  "Charmed, gentlemen, I'm sure," Wilmarth said, wiping his mouth with the back of one fat hand. "Carlyle. That would be the son of the leader of the notorious Gray Death Legion?"

  "That's right," Alex said. He jerked a thumb at the two prisoners. "You sadistic bastard! What the hell is the meaning of this?"

  "Easy, lad," McCall said. "Gently, noo—"

  "Rebel scum," Wilmarth said, shrugging. "Taken just yesterday, as a matter of fact. They were instigators of a demonstration near the spaceport, and I decided to make an example of them."

  Alex looked at them again. He didn't recognize the man, but he was suddenly aware that he'd seen the dark-haired woman before—wearing a red headband, a T-shirt, and Caledonian trews as she addressed the crowd near the spaceport.

  "Damn it, you can't do things like this?"

  "Really?" Wilmarth seemed unconcerned by Alex's outburst. "As Governor of this world, boy, I have both responsibilities and a certain measure of power. It is my responsibility to keep the peace here for the Federated Commonwealth by any means I deem necessary. And that includes, Major McCall, putting your older brother on trial for inciting a riot, endangerment of public morals, and treason. I assume that he is the real reason that you are here, of course, and not the likes of these two."