Warrior: En Garde

by Michael A. Stackpole

  "You'll know it. Kell out."

  Patrick's voice faded, but Dan's unease did not. Is it just that Kurita 'Mech you can't identify, or is it something more?

  Dan scowled as he spoke. "What do you think, Salome? I don't like this anonymous signal business." He glanced over and saw a yellow light blinking on his console.

  Salome's sigh survived the computer scrambling. "Patrick's the boss. And that gives him the right to be secretive. Time's almost up."

  "I know. I think the Kurita commander is trying to reach me. Pass the plan of attack on to the others while I stall him.”

  “Roger."

  Dan switched his radio over to the frequency that the Kuritans had used before. "Sho-sa Niiro, you wished to reach me?"

  The Draconian voice was almost apologetic. "Hai, Captain Allard. You realize the time is almost up."

  Dan moved his Valkyrie to where he could see Tarukito's Panther. A slight bow of the 'Mech's head acknowledged Dan, who returned the gesture before answering. "I am afraid my people have not found the Archon-Designate in the hour you gave us. This was no surprise, for we believe she is safely on Tharkad. But if you wish to give us more time .. ."

  Tarukito selected his words carefully before answering. "I would have thought, given the reputation of the Kell Hounds, that you would not let all these people die just to play word games. I..."

  Tarukito's words died in a hiss of ion-static. One of the Pan-then, nearest the magnetically warded bay opening jerked and danced as though trapped in an invisible cyclone. Autocannon shells snapped the Panther's back like a dry stick, then touched off the SRMs housed in its breast. The thunderous explosion blasted Panther parts throughout the ship bay. Limbs whirled through the air to batter other Panthers, and an orange fireball curled up from the empty space that the destroyed 'Mech had occupied.

  The brilliant flames curled in upon themselves, then suddenly evaporated, as though by some magic. Standing where the Panther had stood, a Victor materialized from within the fire and smoke. It pointed its stubby right arm at another Panther as its autocannon consumed a second Kurita 'Mech with a voracious storm of metal.

  "You are right, Sho-sa Niiro," Patrick Kell growled over the radio. "The Kell Hounds would never let these people die. The Archon-Designate is already offworld and headed for our Jump-Ship. We're here to cut off" your retreat."

  Patrick, what the hell are you doing? Fighting the shock of Patrick's appearance, Dan snapped his radio over to the tactical frequency. "Move it, Kell Hounds! Hit them hard! Patrick's in the Victor." Dan dropped the crosshairs of his LRM battery onto a Panther, then stabbed the fire control with furious vengeance.

  The missiles arced away and blasted into the target, tattooing the Panther's right arm with fiery explosions. As the missiles peeled off sheets of molten ceramics, the arm was laid bare. The Valkyrie's medium laser lanced out and stabbed through the same arm. The blood-red beam sawed the limb off at the elbow, sending the PPC crashing to the ferrocrete deck.

  "Dan, I've got an equipment malfunction!" Austin Brand's voice filled Dan's neurohelmet. "Targeting computer is screwy!"

  "Cat, cover Brand. Austin, what's wrong?" Fear rode through Brand's reply. "I get no read on the Victor."

  Dan glanced at the Victor. He watched a half-dozen PPC bolts streak from Panthers all around the massive assault 'Mech, but none of them hit their target. They're too close. That's why they're missing. Even as the logical side of his brain offered that explanation, he rejected it immediately. I've got no thermal image of that monster, he realized suddenly. It's just like Morgan on Mallory's World.'

  Dan swept his crosshairs past the Victor as he sighted another Panther. He ignored the queasy feeling rising in him—for the cross-hairs had not acknowledged the Victor as a target—and triggered another flight of missiles at a Panther. These caught the Kurita 'Mech in the knees and forced it to stumble forward.

  Two more flights of missiles slammed into that Panther from Fitzhugh's Catapult, cloaking the enemy 'Mech in red, orange, and yellow smoke and fire. As the fire collapsed into a dense black smoke, it drifted away like a ghost, leaving a broken, lifeless Panther in its wake.

  Other Panthers now turned from the Victor to face the attacking Kell Hounds. Dan dodged a quartet of incoming SRMs, then spotted the Warhammer stalking back toward the Victor. It moved with a fluid grace that only one in a thousand MechWarriors could impart to such a massive machine. I know I've seen that 'Mech before. But where?

  Cat Wilson's Panther appeared at Dan's right. He triggered a shot that lanced out and smashed into a Kurita 'Mech's head. The azure energy lance blasted armor from the Panther like a storm tearing shingles from a house. The Panther shuddered, then stumbled. The MechWarrior in it, exhibiting incredible skill, twisted the 'Mech so that it would fall on its back, then punched out.

  Dan turned and shouted a warming. "Lasker, Panther at nine o'clock!"

  As Lasker's Panther spun back, it caught the PPC blast on its left arm instead of the weak back armor, but that did little good. The PPC bolt rippled up the arm and dropped melted armor in steaming clumps onto the ferrocrete deck. Lasker launched a flight of SRMs at the enemy Panther, but her haste had sent them wide of their target.

  Beyond her, Diane McWilliams's Panther reeled beneath the impact of enemy LRM barrages. Two sets of five missiles each plowed furrows through her 'Mech's breast armor. Eight more missiles scythed into the metal left leg and shattered the armor on its thigh.

  Twisted around by the blasts, McWilliams faced the Crusader that had attacked her Panther. She sent a bolt of blue lightning slicing into its chest, but it barely dented the thick armor over the 'Mech's heart. In reply, the Crusader sent two more flights of LRMs.

  "No, Diane, no! You're not in your Rifleman. Punch out." Helplessly, Dan watched the missile smash into McWilliam's Panther as the hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach told him what his sensors calmly presented as damage factors. The LRMs had ripped off the 'Mech's left arm and sent it skittering across the ferrocrete deck. More missiles then exploited the gaps previously blasted into the Panther's, chest. They scattered the remaining armor, then crushed the Panther's heart. The 'Mech exploded like a supernova.

  "Fitzhugh, take that Crusader! Now!" Dan swung his missile crosshairs beyond the Crusader and slid them over toward the Warhammer's back. Let's open you up!

  Suddenly Dan's mouth went dry. The way it moves ... It's stalking the Victor. It couldn't be . . . Dan raked his targeting joystick hard to the right, but the crosshairs refused to acknowledge the Warhammer's existence. Oh, my God! No! NO! He stabbed the radio switch. "Patrick, look out! The Warhammer, it belongs to Yorinaga Kurita!"

  The Victor's head came up and turned to acknowledge the approaching Warhammer. Contemptuously, Patrick pressed the autocannon's muzzle to the chest of a nearby Panther. Spear points of flame vomited from the gun, cleaving the target from left shoulder to right hip.

  The Warhammer raised its twin PPCs to send blue spears of incandescent fire stabbing at Kell's Victor. One beam scarified the armor over the Victor's right breast, obliterating the unit crest painted there. The second beam drilled through the armor on the Victor's middle. Armor chips blasted free on vapor jets, and rained down on the broken Panthers lying at the Victor's feet.

  Dan saw a thermal image flicker over the Victor for a half-second. Even that brief glimpse told him the true damage the bolt had done. Flashing through a chink in the Victor's armor— probably a weak plate over the wound Ardan Sortek had suffered in it—the PPC had blasted shielding from the 'Mech's fusion engine.

  The Victor was slowly cooking its pilot. "No!" Dan set his Valkyrie off at a dead run. Patrick, I won't let him do this to you!

  Dan watched with horror as the Victor ignored the Warhammer.

  It blasted another Panther into spare parts with its autocannon, then used its SRMs to finish off a wounded Panther. Its medium lasers stabbed out at the Crusader and carved armor from it even as the Draconian 'Mech reeled un
der an LRM volley from the Catapult.

  Four SRMs blasted into the Valkyrie as Dan streaked across the ferrocrete bay. The missiles exploded against his right arm and twisted his 'Mech around with the sheer violence of their assault. Fragments of armor trailed behind him, but a quick glance at the control console told Dan that his medium laser was still working. He used the spin the missile hits had given his 'Mech, and kept on running.

  The Warhammer again fired at the Victor, sending both beams lashing across the Victor's chest. Chunks of armor rode jagged blue spikes of lightning out and away from the assault 'Mech. They crashed smoking to the ferrocrete deck as though the hu-manoid 'Mech were a medieval knight shedding his breastplate. As the motor fell away, it left the Victor's chest, already burned by the first bolt, open and vulnerable.

  Dan saw the PPC bolt out of the comer of his eye, but it was too late to do anything. The turquoise shaft of man-made lightning vaporized the Valkyrie's right arm. Unbalanced, the Valkyrie began to fall, but Dan pushed off the ferrocrete floor with the Mech's left hand and righted himself. Nothing will stop me.

  Dan flipped the cover off a switch on his command console. He snapped the silvery toggle to the left, then punched the round red button glowing to life beneath it.

  "Ten seconds to abort sequence," the computer informed him.

  "Negative!" Dan slid his left hand down and armed his command chair's eject option. "Ejection on verbal."

  The thunder of blood pumping against his ears drowned out the computer's acknowledgement of his command. "No, Patrick! No!" he screamed in rage. "You have to fight it!"

  As though to prove what might have been, the Victor's autocannon mauled a Panther huddled in the Warhammer's shadow. The Warhammer, unimpressed with such bravado, again fired its PPCs at Kell's assault 'Mech. The forked bolts stabbed deep into the Victor, filling its belly with blue fire, and crushing its heart.

  Released from slavery, the dwarf star that had powered the Victor gnawed at its master's vitals. The radiation detectors on Dan's command console shot into the red zone immediately, and a heat silhouette whitewashed the Victor. The SRMs stored in its left shoulder ignited in the heat and were soon joined by a rolling series of explosions from what little autocannon ammo still lurked in the Victor.

  The Victor's faceplate exploded outward, but Dan cheered when he saw Patrick's command chair blast free of his doomed 'Mech. The chair righted itself on tiny jets, but did not rise quickly enough away from the Victor. A horrendous explosion shuddered the assault 'Mech and vomited a gout of fire and shrapnel through the Victor's open face. It caught the command chair and swatted it down.

  No! Dan looked away from the dying Victor, and despite the tears of anger and pain blurring his vision, he centered the Warhammer's broad back in his viewplate. You son of a bitch! I'll give you payback! Dan hit his jump jets and rolled the Valkyrie's head 180 degrees. "Eject!"

  Explosive bolts blasted the Valkyrie's canopy away. Unbearable heat filled the cockpit as rockets ignited behind the command chair. G forces smashed Dan back against his command chair as the rockets catapulted him out of the 'Mech. The computer reported "All systems go," but because of the Valkyrie's angle of flight, the command chair's foot clipped the 'Mech's chin and sent Dan spinning out of control.

  The one-armed light 'Mech crashed into the Warhammer's broad back amid a din of screaming metal and snapping ceramic armor plates. The Warhammer stumbled forward two steps and dropped to one knee as it tried to shake itself free of the Valkyrie. It twisted to the right, but the effort proved fruitless. The Valkyrie's left arm had hooked over the Warhammer's left shoulder and was now jammed between the 'Mech's head and the spotlight on its shoulder.

  Suddenly, the destruct mechanism that Dan had armed exploded deep within the Valkyrie, touching off a chain reaction in the LRM magazine. Pressed chest to back against flu. War-hammer, the Valkyrie's missiles blew through the light 'Mech's thinly armored chest and clawed explosively into the Warhammer's spine. The Warhammer arched its back as though in agony, then burst at the waist.

  The gyrojets on Dan's command chair flared to life and whirled the Warhammer out of his vision. They straightened his flight and propelled him toward a safe landing zone at the far end of the battlefield. As the chair jetted along, however, the magnetic fields holding the Bifrost aloft knocked the gyros out of phase.

  Dan's chair crashed hard to the deck. It skipped and rolled along, still aided by the chair's jets, then smashed into a ferrocrete wall. Rebounding once, it then headed in toward the wall again. Half-torn out of the chair's protective grasp, Dan screamed as his shoulder slammed into the wall. He heard something grind and snap, then a wave of black pain washed over him and dragged Dan down into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  As a doctor from the Silver Eagle tightened the sling strap running around Dan's chest, pain shot through his left arm. "Dammit, doctor," he said angrily, ignoring the pain. "Let me go see him!"

  The doctor frowned. "There's nothing you can do."

  Dan swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I don't care, you bastard. Let me go." Dan jerked away and stood. A wave of vertigo hammered him, but he fought against it. He stalked over to where they had cordoned off a small cubicle with rope and sheets hung between two Kell Hound Panthers. Dan pushed his way through the opening and bit back tears.

  Patrick Kell smiled at him weakly, his face ashen. Salome and Cat stood on the other side of the cot. "Glad to see you up, Dan." Kell's words were punctuated by pain-induced gasps and grimaces. "Knew they'd not keep you down long."

  Dan jerked his head back in the direction from which he'd come. "They're ready for you now, Patrick."

  The leader of the Kell Hounds shook his head, but forced a smile to his cracked lips. "Triage," he said. "I'm too messed up inside to survive, Dan. I can feel it. Let them save others." Agony molded Kell's face into a mask of torment, but he choked back the moans of pain. Patrick looked toward Salome. "Continue your report."

  "The Kurita forces retreated to their DropShip and returned to their JumpShips. They knew that they could not catch the Mac or the Cucamulus before they jumped out, which our ships will do in twenty hours."

  Dan turned as the curtains behind him shot open. Melissa Steiner dashed through and dropped to her knees beside the cot. She grabbed Patrick's left hand in hers and squeezed hard. "You can't die!" she whispered hoarsely. Following close behind her was Clovis, who stopped at the foot of the cot. Andrew Redburn, bandages wrapped around his chest and arms, closed the curtains and stood guard at the opening.

  Patrick lifted his right hand away from the bloody chest wound, which had reopened during the battle, and brushed away Melissa's tears. "No crying now, cousin. Can't have the Archon-Designate crying for a mercenary, can we? Don't want Takashi thinking you've got a soft spot." Patrick gritted his teeth as pain seized him.

  Melissa distractedly touched the bloody streak that Patrick's fingers had left on her cheek, then she narrowed her steel gray

  eyes. She looked up at the three standing Kell Hounds and Clovis, then down at Patrick Kell. "I want you to be first to know, Patrick Kell. I'm going to marry him. I'm going to marry Hanse Davion."

  Patrick smiled broadly, his pain momentarily forgotten, and squeezed Melissa's hands. "It'll be a grand wedding, Mel. Tell him he's a lucky man." He shook his head. "That'll be a big day. I wish I could be there."

  Melissa clutched his hands tightly. "You will, Patrick. You will be there."

  Kell nodded slowly. "In spirit, Mel, in spirit..."

  Pain contracted every muscle in Patrick Kell's body and bowed his back. He slammed back down onto the cot, then turned and stared through Dan. "Dan, tell him . . . tell Morgan I understand. Tell him I finally understand." Patrick Kell stared straight up at the 'Mechs standing above him. "Is it supposed to hurt this much?" he gasped painfully. He turned to Salome and with great effort made his voice clear and firm, lifting it somehow beyond the pain. "The command is yours, Major."


  His body contracted once more, then Patrick Kell fell into the sleep from which there is no waking.

  57

  Northwind

  Draconis March, Federated Suns

  5 June 3027

  Quintus Allard shook his head as Dan slipped his left arm from the sling. "I don't think that's a wise idea, Dan."

  Dan gritted his teeth against the sharp pain in his shoulder, then stared straight at his father and grinned. "Father, I've only broken my collarbone. It's almost healed." He raised his right hand to the spider-like electrode taped just below his left shoulder at the clavicle. "This little NAIS gem hurts more than the break."

  "Yes, but the electrical impulses speed the bone's knitting-together." Quintus took Dan's dress jacket from the valet and dismissed the man. He stepped behind Dan and held up the jacket so that his son could slip in his arms. "Colonel Kell's plan worked admirably."

  Dan nodded and let his father carefully slide the left side of his jacket up over his left arm. "Yes. Patrick realized he could not be certain that the passengers would make it to the Cu at all, but he also knew that the Kuritans would never leave the base unless they believed their quarry had fled. Patrick only told those of us inside the rock that the passengers would be loaded up to the Mac and headed out to the Cu. Because we were supposed to buy them time, the hour the Draconian commander gave us was a godsend."

  Quintus eased the red jacket up onto Dan's shoulders, then came around to help him button up the front. "But Kell also refused to trust the lives of the passengers to a JumpShip that was making a second 'hot' jump in a row. He told Lang and Baker to hide the passengers somewhere back inside the base while the Mac made a phantom pickup run."

  Dan nodded, then grimaced as his father fastened the dress jacket's tight collar. "Patrick jumped the Victor out of the Mac and into the docking bay as the Kurita time limit ran out. He told the Draconians that the passengers were already up and away. He also told them we were there to cut off their retreat."