Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  "I'd say there is a very good chance that they'll come and destroy your town," Grayson replied. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

  The third Verthandian looked at his leader. "Kalev was right. Proctor Jorgenson. We should throw in with the Dracos."

  "And beg for their mercy?" Grayson tapped the holos with the back of his hand. "Is this the Kurita mercy you seek? Or their justice?"

  "You have left us little choice, offworlder," the proctor said. "You didn't even bother to consult with us before your attack..." Grayson considered the implications of consulting with the local civilians each time he contemplated an attack. "I apologize, gentlemen, for not consulting with you," was all he said, "but there simply was no time before the attack. And I fear we have little time to lose now before the Kurita forces gather in response to our action here." He turned to Lori. "Check and see how the loading is coming along. We move in one hour, ready or not"

  That shook the three of them. "What? Wait! You can't mean to leave us!"

  Grayson feigned surprise. "Why, I thought you planned to cooperate with Nagumo, to ask for his mercy. You can't expect us to remain while you and Nagumo dicker for our heads!"

  "You misunderstand us, sir," Proctor Jorgenson said. "We dislike the Combine as much as you do. More, I daresay. This is our world they have taken, not yours! But what chance do we have against a regiment of BattleMechs? At least stay and protect us, now that you've stirred them up against us! To abandon us now would be...criminal!"

  "Gentlemen, I would like to stay and help you, but that is simply impossible. My army is outnumbered. To be trapped here, in the open, by Nagumo's superior forces would be an invitation to complete disaster. We must keep moving."

  "But what are we to do?" The proctor's complaint was a thin wail. "We'll be killed!"

  "Do? Why...you could stay and make peace with Nagumo's Colonel, when he comes."

  Jorgenson's finger stabbed angrily at the holo- of the Marauder. "That is Nagumo's Colonel!" he said. "A moment after that young man in the holo surrendered, that monster dropped him to the street and stepped on him like an insect!"

  "Then you had better run..."

  "There are children in the town...women...old people...”

  “...or you can fight!”

  “Fight? With what?"

  Grayson turned to Tollen. "Colonel, we captured more weapons in that supply dump than we can possibly carry with us. Go find Sergeant Ramage. The two of you organize a detail to pass out weapons and ammo to anyone from Scandiahelm who wants them. Show them how to use them. But quickly! We don't have much time!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "And send a detail into Scandiahelm. We're going to need cargo transports to carry the loot. Hovercraft, if they have them."

  "You can't!" the moustached Verthandian said. "How will we get away..."

  "On foot, or in the vehicles we'll leave you," Grayson replied. "We won't take everything, and we’re leaving you more than enough guns and supplies. That ought to pay for a few hover transports."

  "Give us guns... is that it?" Jorgenson waved his arms, incredulous. "What good are guns against Nagumo's BattleMechs?"

  "Why, no good at all," Grayson said cheerfully, "but they'll be quite useful against the Governor's men. You'll find that Nagumo doesn't have ‘Mechs enough to garrison every village and hamlet on Verthandi. Why, he's going to be hard-pressed just trying to keep track of us."

  "But we're one village..."

  "Then dammit, man, talk to your neighbors! Get the other villages to help! East of here the entire Vrieshaven district is in open revolt! Join them! Get others to join you! You've got-—my God— what? A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand people on this planet? Against maybe a hundred ‘Mechs and a few thousand soldiers! There's no way they can hold this world if enough of you refuse to let them do it!"

  Jorgenson looked dazed. "You...you'll help us?"

  Grayson nodded. "I'll be back...or some of my people will. We'll help to train you, get you organized. We'll teach you what we know about fighting BattleMechs, what their weak points are. Believe me, you're not helpless! And you're not alone!"

  "You bastard," the third Verthandian muttered, bitterness in his voice. "You bastard! You've just been maneuvering us into your war!"

  "It's your war," Grayson said. "I'm just the hired help. But if you want the Dracos out, you'd better start fighting them yourselves!"

  The proctor gathered up the holos and slipped them back into the packet. "How long before Nagumo attacks us?"

  "I don't know. It may depend on whether or not this watchstation was able to get off a warning. Judging by their condition of...readiness, I'd say there's a good chance that it'll be days before anyone wonders why this place hasn't reported in. On the other hand, enemy fighters could be overhead in the next fifteen minutes."

  "Then I must alert the town... and the other towns in the region. And I have to talk to the people, see who will...Who will follow me. The rest, we'll have to see about moving them to caves we know of, in the mountains."

  Grayson looked up sharply. The proctor still looked afraid, but there was a new light in the man's eyes. He was not as old as Grayson had first thought.

  "I'll let you use one of my skimmers," Grayson said. He led the civilian delegation back into the sunshine. Brasednewic was nearby, directing the loading of cases of rifles and ammunition on the cargo rack of a mercenary skimmer. 'Tollen, I want to see you for a moment." When they were apart from the bustle of soldiers, Grayson spoke rapidly. "They're going to fight."

  Brasednewic cast a skeptical glance across Grayson's shoulder to where the three civilians waited in the shadow of Grayson's inert Shadow Hawk. "Yes?"

  "I want you to tell off a detail of your men, however many you think you'll need. Stay here with these people, get them organized and armed. Nagumo's going to hit this place in the next few days to make an example of them, and the village will need a cadre of veterans to stiffen them or they'll be done for."

  "You think of that now, after dragging them into this?"

  For one stark instant, Grayson’s anguish showed in his eyes and face. "Dammit, Tollen, what would you have me do?"

  "I...I'm sorry...Captain." He looked back at Jorgenson and the others. "It's hard. These are my people..."

  "I know, I know, and I'm a damned outlander who can't understand. But if you people don't start fighting your own wars, I'm not going to be able to fight them for you!"

  Brasednewic’s gaze strayed back to Grayson, then to the ground beneath his boots. "You don't understand," he said. "These are my people. I was born down there, in Scandiahelm. I lived here for most of my life. Some of us have been fighting our own war... as best as we know how."

  "I'm...sorry. I didn't know...."

  "What difference does it make? Anyway, you're right. But you have to understand that...not all Verthandians think that what we...the rebels...are doing is right. My own family, for instance."

  "Your family?"

  "My mother was killed in a rebel attack, oh... maybe a year after the Dracos came. I...I was already with the rebels by then. I didn't hear about it for another couple of years. But my father and brother, they joined the Loyalists.

  "You have to understand, a lot of people see the war as a chance to win out against the Old Families, as they're called. The Scandinavian families who hold most of the land and power on Verthandi."

  Grayson didn't know what to say. He'd never been this close to the true horror of civil war.

  Brasednewic shrugged. "It doesn't really matter anymore. My father was reported dead...lynched by a rebel mob...a year ago. I guess my brother is a Blue by now. He'd be old enough. I don't know where he is." He seemed to shake himself, to draw himself back to awareness of his surroundings. "As you say. Captain, a couple hundred of my people should be enough. We'll set up here, but with an HQ post back in the hills. I doubt that we'll be able to hold this place for long if Nagumo makes a determined push. But maybe I can ke
ep these people together, get them fighting with some kind of organization."

  Grayson nodded, then placed a hand on the rebel leader's shoulder. "I'm counting on you for that. Jorgenson mentioned caves in the mountains. Send a scout party up there and check them out. That could be the sort of reserve base we need. Oh, and I'll leave that Wolverine we captured."

  "We'll need a pilot for it"

  "I'll have Sergeant Ramage tell off some of his pilot trainees. Tell you what. We'll take the Panther and the Phoenix Hawk we captured, and leave you the Wasp and the Wolverine. But get them out of the area and hidden up in the hills as fast as you can. You won't be able to stand up to Nagumo with two ‘Mechs and a couple of half-trained recruit pilots!"

  Brasednewic was watching the three civilians and smiling as though to himself. "Not yet, maybe. But for the first time, I'm almost beginning to feel like we might have half a chance!

  * * * *

  The Union Class DropShip Xao entered Verthandi's atmosphere balanced atop a pillar of pulsing white fire. In recent days, the Xao had been engaged in orbital reconnaissance, a landing and retrieval operation to shuffle two platoons of infantry from their outpost at the edge of Vrieshaven back to the capital at Regis, and a supply run to Verthandi-Alpha and back. The ship had made the flight back with a unit detached from Admiral Kodo's command and assigned to special detached duty under Colonel Kevlavic’s personal command.

  Draconis Elite Strike Team 4 was typical of DEST forces used extensively throughout the Draconis Combine and was similar in concept to the elite commando units of other major Houses of the Successor States. Hand-picked from veteran units, put through rigorous physical and mental training courses that passed less than 5 percent of those selected, DEST unit personnel learned to use weapons ranging from Mk XXI blazers and poison-coated throwing stars to the plastic tip of a disposable stylus or their bare hands. They could make high altitude-low opening parachute drops from twenty kilometers up, swim for kilometers underwater using oxygen re-breather apparatus, scale sheer cliffs using special climbing gear, and penetrate the most closely guarded security zone with a bewildering array of miniaturized electronic lockpicks and scanners. Most could also pilot BattleMechs and had the codebreaking and electronic skills to penetrate a locked ‘Mech's security systems.

  DEST4 had been assigned to Nagumo's command as a support element, but so far had spent the campaign in their barracks on Verthandi-Alpha. DEST special forces were too valuable to risk on anything other than important, easily identified tactical targets, and there are few of those in any guerrilla war. Now, however, DEST 4 had a target.

  The Xao burned through Verthandi's stratosphere at a flat angle, shedding speed and heat in the roiling wake of its passage. For precisely thirty seconds, the ship's drives cut off and the spherical craft arrowed powerlessly through thin air. Two by two, silvery bubbles dropped from it, punching through the turbulence of the craft's Shockwaves and toward the cloud-mottled green and blue of Verthandi's polar basin, 15,000 meters below. After falling another kilometer, the bubbles split like ripe melons. They disgorged heavily armed and armored men who uncurled from the fetal positions they'd held inside their aluminum prisons and spread black-clad arms and legs to the stiffening wind of their fall. Above and behind them, the Xao's drives throbbed to life again, her passage marked by her white contrail of heated air against the icy blue.

  In free fall, the commando team used computer-linked visor displays to lock onto a pinpoint target that was hidden by clouds but calculated by triangulation from three navigational satellites in space above them. Those satellites painted the clouds above the target with laser beams invisible to the naked eye, but made visible by the electronics of the helmet visors. Steering with arched backs and outstretched limbs, the commando team assembled in rough aerial formation and drifted in the direction of the target

  At 500 meters, black nylon drogue chutes silently deployed and steadied each man, checking his fall. At 200 meters, the main chutes deployed with a succession of barely audible pops, night-black flying wings that each commando steered with deadly purpose through the lower cloud deck and out into the clear, sultry air above Fox Island. The clearing of the Ericksson Plantation was plainly outlined in the infra-red optics of their helmet visors, as were the pinpoints of green light marking sentries, technicians working under the overcast night sky, rebels out for a late-night stroll, or a romantic rendezvous at the clearing edge.

  The first commandos touched down in eerie silence, flipped their harness releases, and marked their targets. A sentry standing in the shadow of jungle growth gasped in surprise and collapsed as a Black-clad knife reached from behind and slit his throat. A technician walking from the warehouse that hid one of the island's ‘Mech maintenance sheds felt something hard and metallic thud against his ribs, then looked down in numb surprise at the four-armed throwing star protruding from his side. The blade's neurotoxin transformed the acetylcholine of his neural sheaths into something horribly else, something that spread with lightning speed from synapse to synapse throughout his suddenly dying body. The technician crumpled, unable to speak, to whimper, even to think.

  Gam Dober, Brasednewic's second-in-command, stepped out onto the veranda of the plantation house, blinking into the darkness. He thought he'd heard something—the whisper of running footsteps, perhaps. His eyes were adjusted to the light inside the house, and so he could make out nothing in the clearing except the gray-black sky and the darker jungle. A shadow rose from beside the veranda steps and vaulted the railing. Dober cried out in surprise, but a black-gloved hand stifled the sound while black steel slashed and stabbed. Dober was left weaving on his knees, hands clenched uselessly across the gash low in his throat, from which blood welled in an unstoppable, strangling flood.

  The shadow that stepped past him ignored the thud as Dober's body collapsed on its face. The veranda door was open. The DEST commando removed a small, metallic packet from a thigh pouch, twisted a control, and tossed the packet into the light. Instants later, the light through the door was replaced by a far brighter flash. Then a bang rocked the building and sent glass splintering out from a dozen windows into the night There were screams as a dozen men and women in various stages of casual dress or undress stumbled through the smoke onto the veranda, their blinded eyes seeing neither Doner's body nor the shadows crouched and silent in the darkness beyond. Laser beams lanced through the night and unprotected flesh with equal ease. Screams and shouted questions changed to the piercing shrieks of the dying and horribly burned. Somewhere in the darkness, a subgun yammered a harsh challenge that was answered by an exploding bomb.

  With every moment, more DEST troopers were landing on black and silent wings. At a sign from their leader, the black shadows scattered into the night, weapons at high port and ready. Several troopers rushed the mansion's door, then paused on each side of the rectangle now illuminated by the fire burning inside. On a silently communicated count, the black shapes swung around and through the doorway. A moment later, there were shots from inside, and another scream, then more shots and an urgent voice jabbering from an upstairs window, pleading.

  The leader bent his head, shutting out the sounds around him in order to better hear the reports filtering through the commo gear in his helmet. One of his scouts reported that they'd found the cave mouth indicated by the planetological reports, that the rebel ‘Mechs were there, unmanned, defenseless. A second report announced that the base radio shack was secure, the comtech on duty dead, the equipment fused into useless junk. A third informed him that a number of prisoners had been taken in the house, among them members of the so-called Rebel Council.

  "The one called Ericksson," the leader said. "Has he been identified?"

  "He was, sir." There was a pause. "He was shot trying to escape."

  The leader smiled behind his visor. Gunnar Ericksson was a popular leader, and detaining him could have led to unfortunate political consequences. Regis Central had ordered that he be quietly eliminate
d. The other rebel leaders would know as much as Ericksson had known, and could doubtless be persuaded to talk.

  He punched out a combination of buttons on the transceiver unit he wore on his arm. The carrier wave hiss of an open frequency sounded in his earphones. "Strike One to Strike Two," he said softly. His words were picked up by his throat mike and relayed through a listening satellite to a BattleMech com receiver, which by now should be only a few kilometers away.

  "Strike One, this is Two," a voice answered. "Strike Two in position. Situation report."

  The leader's grin broadened.

  "Assault Phase One affirmative, repeat, affirmative. We have complete surprise."

  "Excellent, Strike One! Is there resistance?"

  The leader looked down at a sprawled form on the ground and nudged it with his boot. It was a young woman, scantily clad and very dead.

  "Negative, Colonel. No resistance.”

  “And their ‘Mechs?"

  "I have a report that our scouts have found the caves. The ‘Mechs are unmanned and in our hands. We'll have the area secured soon. All other targets have been secured and neutralized."

  "Understood. We are on the road, on schedule. We'll be there in three hours."

  "Confirmed, three hours. Strike One out."

  Three hours. That meant the BattleMech company led by Colonel Kevlavic himself was on its way down the main road from Basin Rim and already past the area ravaged in the battle only two days before.

  Someone screamed as the silent twin swords of blazer fire struck him down. Farther off, the dull thump of a fuel depot igniting startled the night-calling wildlife into silence.

  Three hours? He looked down again at the rebel's body by his feet. By that time, things at the rebel base would be well in hand.

  23

  The rebel column had stopped for the night. Even along the broadest and firmest plantation trails and roads that crisscrossed beneath the trees, travel in the jungle was difficult, at best. The dark added little to their chances of concealing something as big, hot, and loud as a small army of BattleMechs when the enemy arsenal included infrared scanners and sonic trackers. Grayson and the other MechWarriors had stayed in their ‘Mechs, taking turns standing watch, sleeping, or relaxing. Outside, the rebel troops stretched canvas and tarps from the sides of grounded vehicles and slept in makeshift tents, while others strolled the dark camp perimeter, watching shadows.