Seated together at the far end of the table were the most recent additions to the Legion, Jeffrie Sherman and Sue Ellen Klein. Only the day before. Tor had found them in a Galaport bar, sole survivors of an AeroSpace Fighter wing that had gone alone into action at the Steiner world of Sevren against overwhelming odds. When their destroyed unit was dropped from the Commonwealth's rolls, they'd come to Galatea looking for work with a mercenary unit that needed fighter support. The best of it was that they'd brought their battle-scarred but fully-operational Chippewa fighters with them. One of Invidious's DropShips could carry a pair of AeroSpace Fighters, and so both had promptly been mounted in the port forward cargo bay of the Phobos. Erudin insisted that running the Draconis Combine blockade around Verthandi would not prove difficult, but Grayson was glad those fighters would be along for the ride.
Finally, seated between Captain Tor and Ramage was Use Martinez, an attractive, black-maned woman who was Tor's First Officer and senior DropShip pilot. Though she'd been with Tor for the past five years, Grayson had still not gotten to know her well, for she had remained aboard the Invidious throughout his campaign on Trellwan. Though she was loud, even brassy, Grayson was willing to trust Tor's assessment that Martinez was superbly competent when it came to handling a DropShip. She had volunteered—if that was the word for her loud insistence—to ferry the Gray Death down to Verthandi past the Kurita blockade.
Grayson watched each of them as they read the contract, feeling a growing sense of inadequacy. He'd been raised in a close-knit mercenary regiment that had been a kind of extended family for him, with his father at the head. Though it always took a while for newcomers to be accepted, they eventually became part of the family, too. Now, Grayson was head of a family of his own. He wasn't comfortable with so many newcomers at once. Nor did they seem much more comfortable with him. That was going to have to change, and change fast, if they were to trust his leadership in combat and if he were to trust them to carry out his orders. This group of strangers would have to be molded into a functioning unit whose members could rely totally on one another. Where to begin?
Papers rustled again as each of the nine set the contract copies aside and looked to Grayson. He searched their faces for some emotion, but found little he could read. McCall was grinning, which was usual for him. Yorulis exchanged some private joke with Debrowski.
Well, Grayson thought, the speech-making can't be put off any longer.
"I've told you what I know about our ticket," he began. "It's not a hell of a lot. You can see on your copies of the contracts the terms of our agreement with Citizen Erudin."
"Aye," said McCall. "tha wee laddie's aye neckit deep in fertilizer, frae tha look a' things."
Grayson arched an eyebrow. Not for the first time, he wondered if they would ever be able to understand the big Caledonian over the combat circuit in battle.
"As you say, McCall—I think." There were several chuckles from around the table, and Grayson relaxed a bit. "This looks like a rough one, people. We're supposed to train and organize a rebel army that has spent the last ten years getting kicked back into the jungles of this place called Verthandi. The contract calls for a minimum of 900 hours in-system, with extensions to be negotiated with the Revolutionary Council as the situation dictates. It specifies that we are to avoid contact with the enemy 'if possible', but we all know that's something of an empty promise. If we run into Kurita ‘Mechs, we'll have ourselves a fight, contract or no.
"The terms are generous enough. We're being hired to transport Citizen Erudin and the gear he's purchased here on Galatea to Verthandi, then remain there to train his people in ‘Mech and anti- ‘Mech warfare for 900 hours. As payment, Citizen Erudin has posted 150,000 C-bills as advance bond with the ComStar agency in Galaport. We're are authorized to draw on that for preliminary expenses, plus another 600,000 CBs, which will be released to us upon completion of our contract period."
"Generous?" A sour look passed over Delmar Clay's face, as he sliced the air with his hand. "Seven-hundred-fifty thousand to be divided among more than 180 people is generous? That’s about 4,000 apiece.. if we get back to spend it."
"Ha! We don't even get that, Del," Use Martinez said. She made a slashing motion with her finger across her throat. "Our expenses come off the top first, remember?"
Piter Debrowski leaned forward, his hands clasped before him as though trying to contain his eagerness. "Hey, it's still more than we'd get sitting in a Galaport bar!"
The youthful earnestness in Debrowski's voice pained Grayson, though the boy was only three years his junior. Debrowski and Yorulis represented a special problem in pulling the unit together. The two of them had signed on together. Both had trained with Lyran Commonwealth line BattleMech regiments, though neither had been good enough to secure one of the rare ‘Mech pilot vacancies in their training regiment. After months of repeated tries, each had made his way to Galatea, Yorulis from Morningside, Debrowski from the Commonwealth's capital world of Tharkad. They'd met on Galatea and teamed up in the hope of doubling their chances of finding a pair of open billets.
Grayson noted the barely restrained eagerness in their faces. This was their chance, possibly their only chance, and he could see they were determined to prove themselves. The biggest question, of course, was how they would react the first time into combat. That, after all, was the final test for any Warrior.
Grayson leaned back from the table and spread his hands. "I never promised any of you a fortune. If we stay on with these people for more than 900 hours...if we actually have a chance of beating the Combine forces cold - maybe we can negotiate more. For now, this seems to be the best we could do."
Clay snorted. "Three quarters of a million was all Erudin had with him, and he was out shopping for mercs?"
"He had other expenses, Mr. Clay. His supplies are being loaded aboard the Phobos now." Grayson looked around at the others, his gaze resting for an extra beat on Lori who seemed still to be studying the contract printout. "People, this is your chance to back out...any of you. If you don't like the terms, if you don't like the assignment, tell me now."
Yorulis laughed. "Sounds great to us, Captain! Count us in!"
Grayson swiveled his seat to face the other newcomers to the Legion. "How about you? Khaled?"
So far, Hassan Ali Khaled had made the close-mouthed Delmar Clay appear talkative. His heavily lidded eyes looked almost reptilian. "It is not my place, Kolarasi, to advise you. You have my bond. I go where you lead."
The answer was less than satisfactory, but Grayson knew he was not likely to get more from the man. Khaled was decidedly an unknown factor in the unit's ranks.
Let it go, he told himself. He looked toward the far end of the table at Sherman and Klein. "How about you two?"
"We're with you. Captain" Sherman said. Grayson noticed that the young man's hand now covered Sue Ellen's on the table before them. Grayson felt a small, sharp pang inside and stole a quick glance again at Lori, but her eyes still did not meet his.
Romances and BattleMechs don't mix, he thought humorlessly. The relationship between those two would be something he'd have to watch. Or was he still feeling hurt because Lori had backed off from him? He still didn't understand her reasons, except that she'd asked for time. It’s none of my business, he told himself. Unless it starts affecting the operation of the unit. Then I'll damn well make it my business!
"Lieutenant Martinez, how long until you're ready to boost?"
The DropShip skipper grinned. "Any time, Captain...once our new employer gets his precious junk stowed aboard. The ‘Mechs are all slung and webbed in, and we've topped off our reaction mass tanks. Ten hours, I'd say."
"That's it men, people. Ten hours, if you want to back out. Sergeant Ramage, Captain Tor...you've been over this with your people? Good. I'll want a final report for each department no later than T-minus two hours. Now, let's take a look at the Verthandi map...."
* * *
In the end, none of the 186 members
of the Gray Death Legion chose to remain on Galatea. The prospects of another billet were too lean. Almost exactly ten hours later, the DropShip Phobos arced heavenward on a pillar of fire, her course shaped toward the Jump-Ship balanced on softly thrusting ion jets at the zenith jump point of Galatea's star. Passage took nine days.
At the Galatean jump point, the Phobos was secured to her docking ring along the rapier-thin length of the Invidious's drive spine. Her crew and passengers remained aboard, though they had access to the slightly less cramped facilities of the aging freighter.
Grayson found Lori in the observation lounge. The slight but constant nudge of the ship's ion thrusters had ceased and the Invidious was in free fall toward the Galatean sun, a fiercely brilliant, barely discernible disk 10 AU distant. The sun was visible now that the ship's solar collector had been furled and stowed for jump. Around them, vast powers surged and thrummed, building toward a computer-ordained climax. Somewhere, an electronic voice gave warning of transit in one minute.
Grayson drifted into the small room, catching hold of a stanchion to arrest his movement. Lori hung motionless beside him, clinging to a handhold on the bulkhead. Weightless, there was no down or up. They looked out upon Galatea's sun, whose arc-glare banished the stars even across a billion and a half kilometers.
White light touched her blonde hair with silver. Grayson thought she looked tired. "Hello, Captain," Lori said, but she did not look up at him.
"I hoped I'd find you here." She sighed. "It's...beautiful."
"Lori, what's wrong? You're looking worn to a frazzle."
She did look at him then, twisting her body around the anchor of her handhold. There were circles under her eyes. "Oh, nothing, Captain. Trouble sleeping, I guess."
'Too much work?"
She didn't answer at first. "Captain..." She almost reached out.
"Gray...I don't know if I can face it again."
"You'll do fine, Lori." He hated the platitude even as it passed his lips. He didn't know that she would... and neither did she.
Grayson wasn't sure what had happened to Lori on Trellwan, except that it had been a deep, perhaps horrifying shock. He did suspect that it had to do with a critical moment during the battle when her Locust had been sprayed with liquid fire. She'd called out to him over their combat frequency and he had heard her, kilometers away. He'd turned from his own battle, hurrying across rugged terrain to where Lori's small band of ‘Mechs and troops was holding out against the Red Duke's legions. His arrival had scattered the attackers and ended the battle. The fire on the Locust was out, and Lori was safe.
But she had changed. Before that battle, they'd been so close. Afterward, she had become...had remained...distant. He'd approached her before their boost-off from Trellwan, and she'd asked him for time to sort things out, to heal.
The warning voice gave a ten-second alert. The power feed to the Invidious's jump drive built around them. She released her grip on the handhold, the slight motion setting her adrift into Grayson's arms.
"Gray, I'm..."
Jump! Vision blurred, an inner twisting assaulted their senses. Time became timelessness, an endless suspension of now, as space opened around them, a funneling black maw...
"...afraid."
He moved apart from her, his hands still grasping her shoulders. Outside, the sky had changed, the diamond brilliance of Galatea's sun wiped away and replaced by the closer, dimmer glare of a sullen red dwarf. That would be Gallwen, first stop in a long chain of jumps that would take them to Norn.
Grayson swallowed hard, forced himself to draw a deep, even breath as his head cleared itself of the transit effects. Jump affected some more than others, but it was never pleasant.
"We all are," he said, when he could finally speak.
She looked away from him, her shoulder-length hair a swirl of gold in zero-G. Damn! he thought. I'm talking in platitudes again! But what is it she's afraid of?
He decided to risk confronting her. "Lori, was it the fire? You told me once your parents died in a fire on your homeworld...on Sigurd."
"I don't know." Red light illumined tears in her eyes, tears unable to fall in the absence of gravity. "I don't know. I have...dreams. I wake up and can't get back to sleep. Captain, I'm afraid I'm going to fold the...the next time. I'm just no good...."
His fingers closed tighter on her shoulders as he held her at arm's length. "That sort of thinking isn't going to get you anywhere, young woman! It's only natural that you get the wobbles after the close call you had. But you'll be fine, once you have your ‘Mech around you, once you're doing what you've been trained to do. Do you think the rest of us aren't afraid?"
Gently, she broke free, drifting back until her hand found the bulkhead grip. "I'll...be all right, Captain. I just need...time."
Was she upset because he'd gotten too close? Perhaps she thought his coming here had been a romantic advance, a hope that they would get to talking, that she would come into his arms. Well? Hadn't that been why he'd come? He couldn't deny it. And she had come into his arms. But what had gone wrong between them?
Perhaps the best thing for now was to keep up this strictly professional wall. She needed time, and he needed an efficient second-in-command. The new MechWarriors, that's where their minds should be focused. How was he going to handle them, weld them together into an effective unit? Yorulis and Debrowski, young and inexperienced. Clay and Khaled, silent and secretive. McCall, a stark individualist unafraid of speaking his mind... unintelligibly. As the Legion's Exec, it would fall to Lori to help him bring those people together as a combat team.
"You need sleep," he said, all business. 'Talk to Tor's medic. He might have something that'll help you sleep." She started to protest and he sharpened his voice. "That's an order! I can't have my Executive Officer wandering around with circles under her eyes!" She shrugged and turned away. "Yes, sir. As you say." He watched her move from the observation lounge, pained by the dullness of her response, concerned that nothing was resolved.
Lovely as she was, as much as he would have liked to resume the pleasant closeness their relationship had held before Thunder Rift, the fact remained that he did need her first as his Exec. Her depression worried him.
* * *
Lori returned to her cramped quarters aboard the Phobos without visiting Invidious's sickbay. She had already tried various sleeping drugs, and now detested the dullness they imparted to mind and body, the false sense of well-being, the empty leadenness of the sleep they brought.
Besides, drugs could not change the growing ache she carried within her. She'd admitted to Grayson that she was afraid, but she had not admitted all. Let him think she was afraid of combat. She did fear death or injury, as any sane person feared the hell of BattleMech combat. Like the others, she had learned to submerge such fears; you acted, and you let your training and your mental preparation carry you past the numbing paralysis of fear.
She was afraid, but it was a fear of her own feelings and not a fear of combat. The hell of it was, she wanted to be able to confide in Grayson, wanted to recapture the closeness they once had shared, but somehow she could not. There was a barrier between them, and she knew that it was she who had changed, not him.
Lori did not know what that barrier was, though. She was afraid of her own feelings, because she dared not probe too deeply within to examine them. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the cabin bulkhead, and it was as though she were gazing into the face of a stranger.
5
The Invidious materialized in normal space at the Norn system's zenith jump point, 1.28 AU from the star. Norn was a K2 class star, cooler, smaller, and redder than Sol of man's birthworld. Three worlds circled the primary, along with the usual collection of asteroidal debris and cometary junk. Centuries before, Scandanavian settlers had named those planets for the three fates of Norse mythology. There were cloud-shrouded, hot, and poisonous Skuld. There was distant, glacial Urth of frozen ammonia seas and methane gales. Arid between these
extremes of fire and ice was Verthandi, nearly the size of Terra and circling close to the inner boundary of Norn's ecozone. Here, water remained liquid, but its sun's long days and high percentage of infrared made a desert of most of Verthandi's surface.
From the zenith jump point, Verthandi was visible only as a bright, silvery star at an angular separation of 23° from Norn. The Invidious hung suspended there, her sensors alert for the telltale flutter of fusion drives or starship power plants. Citizen Erudin had told them that the Combine forces did not routinely patrol the system's jump points, but much could have changed during his months of absence.
As she began her slow slide down Norn's gravity well, the Invidious was silent, listening for the emissions and active search signals of Combine craft. There was considerable radio and microwave traffic from the region immediately around Verthandi and from Verthandi's single, giant moon, but the space close to the Invidious was clear. Slowly, the ship's jump sail began to unfurl, running out before Norn's streaming wind of light and charged particles. Her transferral net began gathering energy, as transformers converted it to hypercharge and shunted it to her paneled accumulators, readying the ship for her next jump.
"I don't like it," Tor said. He stood with Grayson in the conduit-lined, metal-webbed passageway along the Invidious's spine, close by the locks leading through the DropShip docking rings and into her paired riders. Deimos and Phobos were commercial inter-system freight haulers, similar in design and capacity to the standard Union Class military DropShips of every Successor State, but lightly armed. The weapons had been added to unarmed hulls, and so the Deimos and Phobos were not as well armored as the DropShips they outwardly resembled.
Using spray gear adapted to zero-G and vacuum, work crews had been painting Combine dragon insignias and a new name and numbers on the Phobos's flanks during the journey from Galatea to the Galatean jump point. They'd worked feverishly, but none of Grayson’s staff dared guess how successful that deception would be. Computer ID scans and transponder broadcasts would identify a DropShip approaching a planet long before patrolling fighters could get close enough to eyeball a suspicious vessel. If they were challenged in flight, however, that could get serious. While still on Galatea, Grayson had thought long and hard about whether or not they might need better DropShip weapons, but there'd been no more money to purchase them. Having exhausted their meager resources, he and his men had no future now except for what they could win for themselves on Verthandi.
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