"This is Command One-one," Grayson said, speaking into the neurohelmet's mike. "Coming on line."
"Command One-one, this is Endeavor Tactical Command. We have you on-line, 'Mech Bay One, and ready to march."
"Request debarkation queue interrupt, command priority." Grayson continued to run through the checklist as he spoke, switching on systems, bringing the Victor from standby to full operational combat mode. Left arm twin lasers .. . powered up and check. SRM 4s, tubes loaded, safeties on. Check. Gauss rifle ... power on, magnetics engaged, safeties on. Check. Matabushi Sentinel targeting/tracking system ... operational, powered up, diagnostics clear, DropShip telecommunications relays engaged. Check. Communications, go ... though the jamming would render his Siphur Security Plus unit useless more man a few kilometers out. Good enough for close work, though. Check.
"Command One-one, Tactical Command. You are clear for immediate debarkation. You may march when ready."
"Roger that. Command One-one, moving."
Gently, Grayson set the ponderous, eighty-ton 'Mech in forward motion, taking one step clear of the support gantry, then another. Spinning about in their hoods, warning beacons on the gantry walkways flashed and pulsed at the Victor's knee level, sending crescent-shaped smears of bright yellow illumination chasing one another across the irregular surfaces of deck and gantry and other 'Mechs, clearing the bright yellow munitions trucks and fast-moving technicians and 'Mech crews from his path. A half-dozen steps took him across the open deck and up to the elevator, which was just rising into place to accept the Victor's weight. Stepping aboard, Grayson used the 'Mech's left hand to steady himself on a support strut. With a high-pitched whine of machinery, the platform trundled down its framework, dropping Grayson into daylight. He emerged from beneath the vast and overhanging loom of the spherical DropShip on the floor of the landing pit. A ferrocrete ramp just ahead rose forty meters to the landing field outside the pit.
Data flickered across his monitors and down the right side of his HUD. Three hostile 'Mechs had been detected, two north of the terminal—but he knew about them already—and another that had broken onto the landing field and was approaching the DropShip Defiant, about three kilometers east from Grayson's position.
That 'Mech appeared to have been stopped, and the Legion's defensive perimeter had walled it off. Much closer to Grayson's current position were the Wasp and the Locust, both of which at last report were still attacking the panicked mob in front of the terminal.
He had to stop that slaughter.
He fired his jump jets, and the thunder echoed across the spaceport, the air dancing and shimmering in the wash of heat from his Venturis. Slowly, the huge 'Mech rose into the sky, drifting past the port's observation tower and just clearing the terminal roof. He came down, flexing the 'Mech's knees and increasing the thrust at the last moment, trying to keep the stress off the Victor's bad hydraulics.
Ahead, eighty meters distant, the black and yellow Wasp loomed above the panicked crowd of civilians. Grayson moved forward, walking slowly but with meticulous deliberation, taking care not to step on anyone. The Wasp turned to face him, and Grayson could see something in its attitude that seemed to reflect the puzzlement its pilot must be feeling. Wilmarth's people had no doubt been told that the Legion would be fighting on their side, but the Victor's menacing advance must have him wondering.
At the last moment, the Bloodspiller pilot panicked and began backpedaling his Wasp, its medium laser swinging up to fire. Grayson fired first. With a shrill, harsh chirp and then a thundercrack that shattered glass for hundreds of meters around, the Gauss rifle mounted on his right arm accelerated a massive nickle-iron slug with a core of depleted uranium to hypersonic velocities.
The round slammed into the Wasp's upper right torso, opening a gash of a crater, ripping off the right arm entirely and sending it spinning end over end across the street. The shock staggered the little 'Mech and nearly knocked it down. Correcting his aim, Grayson sent a second hypersonic screamer squarely into the Wasp's center of mass. The impact picked the twenty-ton machine up and dropped it on its back; it slid across black pavement, striking sparks for ten meters before it came to rest.
Grayson advanced closer, his Gauss rifle raised and ready for another shot, but the Wasp was already dead. Blue lightnings played in the two holes in its chest and danced from the severed power leads dangling from its shattered shoulder.
"Striker, Striker, this is Command One," Grayson called over the infantry channel. "Let's have this one open."
He should be close enough, still, for radio contact with Lafferty "Command One, Striker," Lafferty's voice replied, barely audible through the squeal and hiss of static. "A team's on the way."
Grayson stood above the fallen body of the Wasp. The question was whether or not the pilot still lived. The Wasp's pilot might know something about that Nighthawk-clad man who'd fallen into the canyon before the Citadel....
Something made him stop. Thinking furiously, he called up a map on his tactical display. That intruder at the spaceport had come from a different direction than these other two. The Wasp and the Locust could have been a diversion, of course, and yet ...
"Tactical Command, Command One-one," Grayson called. "What do you have on a hostile intruder moving onto the spaceport field, uh, that would be map coordinates three-five-one by one-one-two. Over?"
"Command, Tactical. Negative on hard data yet for the intruder. It appears to be a jury-rigged Agro. It was moving toward the Defiant when the shooting started. The Defiant returned fire, and it has moved back, possibly damaged, though we can't tell for sure. We have a lance out that way now, investigating."
"Tactical Command, this is Air Show One," another voice called. "We have the intra—"
The transmission was lost in a fresh burst of static.
Damn! What was going on out there? Grayson was filled with a sudden, deep forboding. A jury-rigged AgroMech?
Davis McCall ... and Alex. If they needed to reach the DropShips fast, there weren't that many ways to pull it off ...
... save, possibly, to rig up an old AgroMech to carry you across the open ferrocrete at a fast clip. Hell, the demonstration could have been the diversion, set to keep Wilmarth's people busy while they made their break.
"Air Show, Air Show," he called. "This is Command One-one. Do you copy?"
"Command, this is Air Show One." The voice was badly broken by static. They had to do something about this jamming! He lost several words in the surf-crash of white noise. "... attack ran. I'm going in!"
"Negative, Air Show! Negative! Do not attack! Repeat, do not attack the AgroMech!"
The only reply from Carla Staedler in her Corsair was the hiss of static.
* * *
Lieutenant Carta Staedler pushed the stick of her CSR-V12 Corsair forward, watching the horizon swing up above the nose of her fighter as she plunged toward the spaceport field like a swooping bird of prey. The battlefield was spread out beneath her gaze like a gameboard, all small, neat pieces, not yet soiled and cluttered by the smoke, burning buildings, and scattered wreckage that marked a battle later in its evolution. The jamming had just cut her off from Legion Tactical Command, but that scarcely mattered now. She could see the Gray Death 'Mechs forming up to her left, throwing out a defensive line between the intruder and the grounded DropShips. Directly ahead, the spaceport terminal appeared to have taken several hits from the militia BattieMechs still moving through the plaza. The real threat, though, to her mind, was the lone, toylike AgroMech stilting its way across the spaceport landing field. Carta had been an aerospace pilot assigned to the Gray Death Legion DropShip Endeavor for only two years, now. She'd made her lieutenancy just six months ago, after the Glengarry campaign, but she'd been a DropShip aerospace jock long enough to pick up the cardinal rule of that breed: always protect your DropShip! Even an AgroMech could do serious damage to hatchways and seals and communications gear if it managed to get too close to a grounded Dropper.
&nbs
p; Target acquisition ... the HUD cross hairs dropping across the target, then flashing to signify a lock. She flipped the switch that engaged both medium and large lasers, bringing them on line. Target lock! Fire!
Her thumb came down on the firing switch, and the AgroMech, so toylike as the Corsair bore down on it in glorious, booming thunder, was engulfed in flame....
23
New Edinburgh Spaceport
Caledonia, Skye March
Federated Commonwealth
1451 hours, 13 April 3057
The AgroMech had frozen in place, one leg raised clear of the ground, the other three locked and unmoving. Agricultural machinery had to be tough, but was rarely built strong enough to stand up to combat.
For several moments, McCall and Alex had stayed where they were, watching the relentless advance of two Legion 'Mechs across the spaceport—a Vindicator and a Griffin. Alex was pretty sure from the numbers and hull markings that the Vindie was Sergeant Kilroy's First Company Combat Lance machine, but who was the Griffin!
And just as he realized who that 'Mech's pilot must be, McCall grabbed his shoulder, pointing to the south. "Trouble, lad! Punch out! Now!"
Alex saw the oncoming aerofighter just as a stuttering barrage of laser bursts bracketed the AgroMech, shearing through one of the legs as cleanly as any vibroblade. The balky internal-combustion engine burst into flames and thick, oily smoke.
Flexing his knees, Alex fired his Nighthawk suit's jump jets. The cockpit filled with swirling smoke and superheated air, and then, jets howling, he was sailing across the tarmac just as a Gray Death Legion Corsair, its needle nose painted with a vivid shark's face, thundered low overhead, hurtling north.
Where were those BattleMechs? There! Shifting his weight to the right, he adjusted his course slightly, then increased his speed....
* * *
"Launch! I've got a hostile launch!" Caitlin yelled over the intercom. She'd seen the AgroMech explode. Pieces of the thing were still raining down across the black ferrocrete pavement of the spaceport. At the last possible instant, though, something had streaked up out of the agricultural machine and veered straight toward her Griffin. It was moving too slowly to be a missile, though it could be some sort of remote control device. She pivoted her Griffin's upper torso right, raising her right arm as she turned to acquire the target The thing was coming too fast for her to dodge out of the way, but she might still knock it down with a burst of autocannon or laser fire.
Then she realized what she was seeing. "Negative! Negative on that launch! Don't fire!"
Even thirty meters away, the Nighthawk suit seemed to blur its own outline and was difficult to follow with the eye. It was moving much more slowly now, and Caitlin could make out the man's overall form and recognize the design of the suit.
"All units!" she announced. "I've got one of them! I've got one of them!" It wasn't exactly a concise or informative report, but everyone in the unit would know what she was talking about.
One of the men posted to Caledonia had just been spotted.
The man-shape slowed to a hover, the last bit of thrust from his jump very nearly exhausted. Nursing his dwindling thrust across those last few meters, he closed on Caitlin's Griffin, then collided with her upper torso with a metallic clang.
Caitlin found herself staring into her own face reflected in the shiny visor of the Nighthawk's helmet. Then the visor slid up, and she was looking into Alex's clear, blue eyes.
"Caitlin!" he yelled, his voice picked up on her external mikes. "Caitlin, I know you must still be mad, but please don't shoot me! I've changed! Really I have! ..."
Grayson urged his Victor forward. He was too far away to pick out details, but he'd seen the low, strafing run by the Corsair, seen the explosion of the AgroMech that was now sending a greasy black pall into the blue afternoon sky over the starport.
"All units!" a voice said over his headset. 'This is Caitlin DeVries! I've got Alex here! He's safe!"
Something sagged deep within Grayson, and the Victor very nearly faltered. Alex ... safe ...
Somehow, he kept his voice level and his response to business. "Caidin! This is Colonel Carlyle. Any sign of Major McCall?"
"Negative, Colonel. Alex says they were together. He thinks the Major jumped the same time he did, but he didn't see for sure."
"Did you see anything?"
"No, Colonel. I just saw Alex jump clear an instant before that junker exploded."
Davis couldn't be dead. Not from friendly fire! No, it wasn't possible ...
"All Legion 'Mechs, keep an eye out for Major McCall! He may be out on the ground somewhere, and he may be hurt! Advance the perimeter line and try to find him!"
Grayson had brought his Victor around the terminal, passing through the spaceport perimeter fence, shredding steel mesh like so many threads. Now, he urged the big 'Mech ahead, angling toward the smoking ruin of the AgroMech. Overhead, two Corsairs circled.
"God, Colonel," a woman's voice said, blasted by static. "I'm sorry! I thought I had a fire order!"
"Don't worry about it, Air Show. Just keep the real hostiles off our backs while we complete our search!"
"Roger that! The enemy Locust appears to be withdrawing. He may have been frightened off by your 'Mech deployment."
"Frighten him some more, if you can do it without hitting any civilians in the street."
"Roger, Command One-one."
And then Grayson saw him, a lone figure made fuzzy by the chameleon armor he wore. The figure was moving across the endless black flatness of the spaceport field, walking away from the smoking pyre of the AgroMech.
Grayson edged his Victor closer, until he towered two meters above the Nighthawk-suited man. "That had better be you inside that suit, McCall," he said, using his eternal voice circuits rather than the radio. They should have agreed on tactical frequencies before the mission, Grayson thought with some small disgust. Neither McCall nor Alex would have been able to radio the 'Mechs directly, and with the jamming, they'd been too far to get a clear signal through to the DropShips.
"Aye, sir," the figure said, and he raised his visor. "It's me. But I'm afraid m' wee bairn here is a bit th' worse for wear!"
He turned around, and Grayson saw that the entire backpack unit, housing power supply and jump jets, had been mangled by the Corsair's laser beam.
"I got aboot three meters clear a' the AgroMech," McCall continued, "an' suddenly, this bluidy thing was nae workin' a' all! I ended up heels over head, wi' the 'Mech goin' up in flames aboot me!"
"Just so you're working, Davis. I don't think I could manage without you. Welcome back to the Gray Death!"
Four hours later, the Gray Death was in complete control of New Edinburgh, the spaceport, and the approaches to Mount Alba and the Citadel. Grayson returned to the Endeavor and there, in the DropShip's small conference room, he at last clasped the arm of Davis McCall and fiercely embraced his son.
"To say I'm glad to see you two would be pushing the art of understatement a bit far," he told them. Both men looked drawn and haggard, and McCall's arm was immobilized in a sling. "What the hell happened to you, Davis?"
"Th' wee bastards winged m' arm, sair," McCall said, letting his burr drip the broad Highland vowels and rolled Rs. "But it takes more than tha't' downcheck th' likes a' me."
"Five days ago, I was ... shown a vid of someone in a Nighthawk suit kneecapping a Victor, then getting hit by laser fire while he was evading. Was that you?"
"Aye, sir, it was, I'm ashamed to admit. I must be losin' m' touch, for the Sasunnach to hae their way wi' me like tha'."
Grayson smiled. "I thought I recognized your combat style there, Major. Well, I'm glad you made it, glad both of you made it. Davis ... I owe you an apology. I shouldn't have sent you here in the first place. Not the way things have worked out."
"Actually, they've worked out vurra well, Colonel. We got my brother out a' th' governor's vacation home, Alex an' me. Thanks t' tha', I may be on speakin' terms wi' a
' least some of my family noo."
"Some of them, eh? Well, that's good news." Grayson turned to his son. "Alex? You're looking . . . well." He couldn't quite put his finger on the difference, but there was one. His son seemed more confident, more self-assured than he had in many months.
Alex grinned at him. "Maybe I just got some priorities straight." The grin faded and he shook his head. "There's some bad business going down around here, Dad. They wanted the Gray Death to come here, and I think they meant to use us against the local population, to keep them quiet and in line."
"More than that," Grayson said, noting his son's use of the word us. "I received direct orders this afternoon to raze the city and turn our weapons against the people. I don't know what's going on here, but it looks to me like someone—Folker or the Governor—wanted the Legion implicated in a massacre."
"Like Sirius V all over again," McCall said, rubbing his bearded chin with his good hand.
Grayson nodded. Decades ago, a faction within House Marik had caused the Legion to be blacklisted and disgraced by cracking the dome of Tiantan on Sirius V, a poisonous hellhole of a world, in a plot to seize the Legion's landhold on Helm. Success all too often bred enemies, and when those enemies were both powerful and greedy they would go to any lengths to secure what they wanted.
"Y' know, sir," McCall added, "I believe it goes a wee bit higher than Wee Willie. Folker is a cheap thug who struck it big time, God knows why. And Wilmarth is insane."
"Is that a clinical diagnosis, Major?"
"Near enough. The man kills for th' fun of it an' enjoys power for its own sake."
"You could say that about a lot of MechWarriors."
"The Major's right, Dad." Briefly, and with an obvious effort, Alex began describing what he and McCall had seen during their visit to the Citadel two weeks ago.
"He rules by sheer terror and arbitrary bloody-mindedness," Alex concluded. "My impression was that Folker was providing any efficiency this government might have and that he was acting on orders from someone else."
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