Mercenary's Star

by William H. Keith

  Hands went up around the table: Lori and McCall together, Khaled an instant later. Clay looked at those three, shrugged, and put up his own hand. Sergeant Ramage looked worried. "Captain, I can't speak for all my people, you know that. A lot of the Legion people: would be delighted to get off this dirtball."

  "I daresay we all would, Sergeant"

  "I also know a lot of them have gotten close to the rebels these past few weeks, I don't think anyone wants to see them slaughtered by Nagumo's bastards." He raised his hand.

  Martinez put up her hand, too. "I still don't care for the indigs," she said, "but I don't want to scuttle poor old Phobos, especially after all the work and heartache I've put into her!"

  Debrowski was the only one left. He looked thoughtful, then added his hand to the rest. "I'll vote with the rest of you. Jaleg was my friend. Somehow, I don't want to just leave him here, as though it had all been for nothing."

  "So we know what we want to do," Martinez said, "but we still don't know how. I mean, we go out and win the war, right? How?"

  Grayson folded his hands together, steepled his forefingers, and studied them. Despite his shower, they were black with ground-in grime. He wondered if he'd even gotten off all the blood.

  "In one way, Piter is right," he said at last. "We're not going to win, not in the long run. We could spend years in this jungle, knocking off Kurita supply depots and patrols. But the Combine is going to keep right on tunneling men, ‘Mechs, and supplies into Regis, and Nagumo's ‘Mechs are going to keep right on hunting for us. Sooner or later, they'll get lucky."

  Clay scowled. "So what'll we do?"

  "We start by doing what we've been doing, only a lot more of it. We hit the Dracos every chance we get to remind them there's a rebellion on. We build training camps in the jungle, organize training cadres, do everything possible to arm, equip, and train local forces wherever we can find people who want to fight We've got an army big enough to fight the Dracos... if we can just mobilize it"

  "A lot of them are Loyalists," Martinez pointed out

  "The majority are in the middle, uncommitted. It's that way with any fight, of course...but we're going to have to find ways to reach them. I think a lot of the Loyalists will come over, too, if they're given the chance.

  "But the first thing we do is put together the message that we're going to beam at the Invidious when Captain Tor pops back in-system." He looked at each of the others. "We'll have him fetch us some help."

  "Who?" Lori asked. "Another bunch of merc ‘Mechs?”

  “No...something Free Verthandi needs more right now than a whole BattleMech army.”

  “What's that?”

  “Recognition."

  26

  Sergeant Ramage gritted his teeth, took another turn of the nylon line about his gloved hands, and set his feet to the ferrocrete wall. His boots scraped faintly as he hauled himself hand over hand up the face of the three-story building.

  From the valley on the far side of the building came the sound of gunfire. A moment before, he'd been crouched among the boulders on the crest of the ridge, watching the first moves of the Verthandi Rangers as they swarmed up over the Basin Rim, but he could see nothing now. The attack was going well so far, he knew. Rebel laser and autocannon fire had slashed into the scattered force of light enemy ‘Mechs gathered on the edge of the plateau, catching them by surprise.

  One hand found the top of the wall close beside the grapnel, which had lodged behind it. He eased his head up, took in the expanse of the flat, open rooftop. Against the far wall, he saw a pair of sentries whose backs were to him and whose eyes were glued to the viewpieces of their electronic binoculars. Sentries...or perhaps Techs from inside the building. They wore heavy automatic pistols in low-slung belt holsters, but neither carried a rifle or subgun.

  That made sense. The base was supposed to be part of the Verthandian government's chain of military outposts along the Basin Rim. The flag waving just below the spidery struts and braces of the station's massive deep space antennae was the green, red, and gold banner of Verthandi... Loyalist Verthandi, the Verthandi that danced to the tune of far Luthien. Yet, the two men observing the battle wore the severe black of Draconis Combine officers.

  Advisors, then. Or watchdogs. Ramage wondered how much Nagumo trusted the native forces under his command. The two were intent on the panorama of the battle spread out below them. Neither noticed as he carefully drew the sonic stunner from its holster under his arm, switched off the safety, and drew down on the pair of them.

  His weapon gave a sharp, warbling hum once...twice. The two Kurita officers crumpled onto the roof without a sound, and Ramage hoisted himself up and rolled across the rim of the parapet. He saw a wooden trap door and stairs leading into a lighted room below, but there was no sign of other officers, sentries, or soldiers. Turning toward the anxious rebels waiting in the shadows at the base of the building, he gave a thumbs up sign.

  As the hand-picked team of ten commandos climbed the rope after him, Ramage stepped over to check the bodies of the two officers. Both were unconscious and would be so for hours. Chancing a peek over the wall, he saw the head and shoulders of an immobile Panther directly below him, the reason he'd chosen to enter the building up the back wall and down from the roof. That Kurita BattleMech sentry was there to prevent a direct assault on this deep-space transmitter station, an attractive rebel target. Its destruction could interfere with Kurita space fleet operations and communications, and it would be expensive to replace.

  He spared a second to look down at the battle. With the sun so low on the southwestern horizon behind him, the battlefield was already in the shadow of the com station's ridge. Flashes of autocannon fire stabbed repeatedly through the gathering gloom, and the funeral pyre of a loyalist Wasp glowed like a flare. There were perhaps a dozen Loyalist ‘Mechs on the field, more than the rebel scouts had reported, and many support units as well. Yet, the rebel assault was going well anyway. Five rebel ‘Mechs were sweeping forward onto the field, plowing through the Loyalists' center. Ramage easily recognized Montido's big Dervish among them. Meanwhile, the three heaviest Legion ‘Mechs—the Shadow Hawk, Rifleman, and Wolverine—stayed on the edge of the Basin Rim, pouring round after high-explosive round into the scattering defenders.

  At a soft noise behind him, Ramage whirled, stunner up. It was only Gundberg and Willoch slipping over the wail, followed by Chapley, Sorenson, and six more commandos clambering up the rope close behind. Their faces showed relief that the Panther had not come around the corner of the building on a check-and-see.

  The ten Verthandians hauled up the grapnel rope and began unshouldering their assault rifles. Willoch handed Ramage his. Not knowing what waited on that third-floor roof, the sergeant had not wanted to make the climb encumbered by a rifle.

  Tight-lipped and silent, Ramage deployed his men with nods and hand gestures. The next step was to get inside the building. He reholstered his stunner, clicked back the bolt on his TK to bring the first round into the chamber, flicked off the safety, and advanced toward the open trap door, rifle probing ahead.

  Ramage got there just as a third Kurita officer was coming up the steps. Painfully young, he wore the collar pips of a junior lieutenant and carried three brimming cups of coffee in two hands.

  Ramage stopped his finger before it could complete the trigger squeeze, swinging the butt of the rifle up instead. Planting the stock against the boy's sternum, he gave a firm shove that sent officer, cups, and coffee clattering backward down the stairs. Ramage followed feet-first, not bothering to use the steps. He landed with a knee-jarring crash close beside the shrieking heap of the Kurita Lieutenant.

  Three other Kurita officers were in the room, just turning from the communications consoles that ringed the ferrocrete- walled room. His TK bucked three times with carefully placed four-round bursts that picked up the black-uniformed figures and flung them against the consoles in one-two-three order. The Lieutenant's wailing ceased abruptly as the
smoking muzzle of the TK swung down level with his nose.

  "You!" Ramage barked. "Any more?”

  “D-down... downstairs..."

  Five of his men descended the steps, rifles ready. Ramage gestured them toward the door leading to the first floor, but that door flew open before they could reach it. The narrow confines of the building's upper story rang with the chatter of automatic weapon bursts and small arms fire. Two Kurita soldiers pitched back from a wooden door suddenly pocked and splintered by bullets, and Chapley went down, arms clasped across his belly. Three other commandos slammed the door shut and dragged a table across to brace it while the fifth guarded the prisoner. Ramage slung his rifle and hurried to the com station.

  The console was similar to those he'd used aboard the Invidious and the Phobos. For that matter, it was like those he'd used on his homeworld of Trellwan. The main panel was already warmed up and tracking, the antennae trained on the Norn system's zenith jump point.

  He'd thought it would be. If Captain Tor had kept to his timetable and his promise to return in 900 hours, he should have jumped in-system sometime earlier that afternoon, certainly within the past three hours. The arrival of the Invidious would have sent an electromagnetic pulse racing out from the jump point at the speed of light. A little over eleven minutes later, that signal would have raced through near-Verthandi space, triggering computer-guarded alarms on planetary bases and ships. It had been Grayson's guess that every deep-space tracking antenna on Verthandi would have immediately been trained on the newcomer, beaming challenges and listening for a reply.

  He was right. A computer screen at Ramage's right hand showed what little was known about the newcomer. It was a freighter, its IFF transponder code that of an independent trader. Mass was estimated at 80,000 tons. Its solar collector sail was already unfurled, but thus far, no communications had been received.

  Ramage smiled. It could only be the Invidious, right on schedule.

  He found another com channel and adjusted a setting. Holding a microphone to his mouth, he pressed a transmit key. "Skytalker, Skytalker, this is Climber One...Do you read me?"

  The voice that came back almost immediately was Lori Kalmar's. "Climber here, Skytalker. I read."

  "Jackpot! I say again...Jackpot! Ready to feed on kilo hotel seven seven niner thuh-ree."

  "Got it, Climber. Channel open. Here she comes."

  Grayson had appointed Lori to the task of carrying the precious, recording tape once it had been cut in the Phobos's communications center. Grayson's Shadow Hawk was needed for the battle with the Loyalist defenders, for a stray hit could put a key antenna out of commission at a vital moment. Ramage was not able to carry the tape himself in something as risky as a ranger assault. Besides, no one in the rebel forces could know what sort of equipment they might find in a communications center supposedly belonging to the Loyalist government, but more likely staffed by Kurita ComTechs. To carry the transmitter gear needed to play the tape into the Kurita equipment would have seriously encumbered the commandos.

  Though Grayson was certainly listening in, it was Lori in her Locust who had carried the tape and listened for Ramage's signal. She had followed the battle line but remained hull-down below the crest of Basin Rim, with only her transmitter antenna protruding above the ridge. On Ramage's signal, she had transmitted the signal to the captured Kurita com gear, where Ramage fed it into the station's recorders. Having compressed the message to a fiftieth of a second's zipsqueal, he then brought his finger down on the button that sent the signal flashing out toward the zenith point at the speed of light.

  He looked up from the console. There was a thudding at the door, which shivered, raining flecks of splintered wood. Four pale faces looked across at Ramage.

  He shrugged. "I don't think we're going back the way we came, boys." As if to back him up, there came a blast of light and sound from overhead, then a cascade of dust and smoke down the steps into the room. Three of the five commandos that Ramage had left above dropped into the room, their faces ashen, their knuckles white on the grips of their weapons.

  The Panther outside had been alerted to their presence.

  Ramage had cycled the recorded message as a zipsqueal loop going over and over, and he kept it playing now, sending burst after burst of computer-coded data into the sky. It would be eleven minutes before the first signal reached the Invidious, and eleven minutes more before any possible reply could make the return trip. He doubted that they could last over twenty-two minutes to hear it.

  The north wall thundered, a sledgehammer of sound that rang in his ears and jarred dust from the bare ferrocrete blocks. The hammering blasted again, and the commandos looked wildly at one another. Would the Panther actually tear down the com station it was supposed to protect in order to get at the raiders inside? The thunderclap of sound exploded a third time, and the meter-thick walls visibly trembled. Apparently it would.

  "Climber, this is Skytalker Leader." Grayson's voice was barely audible over the ringing in Ramage's ears, but he was very glad to hear it.

  "Climber here! Message away!"

  "I copy, Climber. What's your situation?"

  The room thundered again. "Not good. The neighbors want to come in and play. We're trapped on the third floor...no way out."

  "Try to hold on. Climber. We're in the thick of it out here and can't win through."

  "Acknowledged, Skytalker. We'll...hold." There was nothing else to say. The raiders had known that once they were discovered, their chances of rescue were not good. In endless planning sessions, Grayson and the others had argued insistently that Ramage not sacrifice himself. Ramage was equally insistent that he was the logical one—the only logical one—to lead it. He couldn't be budged, and Grayson had finally given in.

  To transmit their coded message to the Invidious, they needed a deep-space transmitter. The Phobos had one, but they didn't dare use it. That could have given the enemy positive proof that the ship still existed, as well as a means to triangulate her position. The only alternative had been to—"borrow" was Grayson's word—a Kurita transmitter.

  For a long minute, the Ranger commandos looked at one another silently, wondering what was next. Splinters spat and flew as submachine gun fire chewed at the door, then bullets shrieked through the room. Gundberg kicked backward, blood pumping, dead before he hit the floor.

  Ramage cursed and levelled his TK at the closed door. The assault rifle bucked and thuttered on full auto, breaching the door in a dozen places and filling the air with more spinning chips and splinters of wood. Someone started screaming on the far side of the door, as more bullets began chewing through the wood from the other side. This blind firefight carried on for another ten seconds, then died away. There were several head-sized holes in the door's wood now. What would be next, Ramage wondered, a grenade or gas? Keeping low, he darted across to a position just beside the barricaded door. Perhaps from there, he could see the approach of someone with a grenade, and do something about it.

  There was a noise outside, like the roar of a DropShip launch, and then the lights went dead. As the room became pitch-black, chunks of sound-proofing sprayed down from the ceiling on the defenders, a fifty-centimeter-thick support beam groaned and cracked, and ferrocrete blocks rained down from above. A twenty-kilo chunk landed squarely in the middle of the communications console, shattering glass and plastic and briefly lighting up the dark with a shower of sparks. There'd be no more broadcasting for the raiders, but that worry was behind them now. Looking up in horror, they saw that the Panther had fired its jump jets and was standing now on the roof overhead!

  Another explosion of dust and broken stone, and an armored fist one meter across plunged down the stairway, fingers spreading wide like the legs of some monstrous beast. The gigantic metal fingers closed on a shrieking, kicking flurry of motion that jerked once and went limp in its crushing grasp. Ramage and the others looked away as the mangled body of the Kurita prisoner plopped wetly back to the rubble-strewn floor. The
gigantic metal fingers opened again, nighmarish in the dust-choked gloom, searching, groping.

  The hand jerked away, shattering more of the ceiling as it withdrew. From outside came the deep-throated stutter of an autocannon, and the blasts and shrieks of rapid-fire, high-explosive mayhem from overhead. The crash of a BattleMech falling to the ground close beside the building was unmistakable, louder than Armaggedon and heavy enough to shiver the com station’s walls yet again. After that, it was very quiet.

  The stairs were shattered, and the only way out now was through the door. When they'd heard nothing for several seconds, Ramage and the others pulled the upended table aside and kicked away the ruin of the door. There were three bodies on the platform at the top of the stairs outside and smoke wafting up from below. Rifles ready, the raiders ventured down the steps, two of them supporting their gut-shot comrade.

  The second floor was deserted, and another stairway invited. Another floor down, and late afternoon light poured through a partly missing and rubble-choked front wall. Grayson's Shadow Hawk stood outside, not far from the vast metal corpse of the Kurita Panther, now minus its head.

  A transport skimmer whined to a stop close by the shattered wall. "Hop in," Grayson's voice said through his ‘Mech's external speaker. "Let’s go home!"

  On the battle plain below, the rebel ‘Mechs were already withdrawing, leaving columns of smoke and guttering fires where three enemy ‘Mechs and a half-dozen support vehicles lay in heaps of charred wreckage. Another Loyalist ‘Mech, a Griffin, stood frozen in place, the top of its head blasted open where its pilot had decided to leave the fight with precipitous haste.

  Ramage grinned and signalled his troops. "You heard the man! Let's make dust!"

  Chapley died during the trip back through the jungle.

  27

  The elevator door opened on the lowest sub-basement floor, and Nagumo stepped out, light from the overhead fluoros catching the intertwining loops and circled dragons of gold at cuff and collar. Two stiff-faced troopers in full dress flanked him, their hands never far from their holstered automatics.