Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  Adel stirred in his chair. "You lack confidence yet, youngster. Surely the Deliverer of Sarghad can be certain of his own accomplishments?"

  Grayson turned to him with scarcely concealed impatience. "I can be certain we've been lucky so far, General. I can also be certain that three light 'Mechs are not going to get very far in a contest with heavies. General, do you have any idea what you're asking of us?"

  "The people are expecting victory, Grayson," Stannic said. "In a way, your successes are working against you. After the capture of those two 'Mechs at the spaceport, they're wondering why you haven't gone on to take the Castle."

  "Take the Castle!" Grayson hadn't expected that one. "Take the Castle — with three 20-ton 'Mechs?"

  Varney stirred, his expression concerned. "What would you need to storm the Castle, Grayson?"

  Adel snorted. "Seems to me the Castle was taken away from the Commonwealth garrison by three 'Mechs... and with four 'Mechs guarding it!"

  "General, I don't think we need to get into needless recriminations," Varney said. He glanced at Stannic, then back to Grayson. "We're not ordering you, to attack, Grayson. But we would like to see some plan of action, some constructive use for the Lancers. See if you can work up a study, and have it on my desk in, shall we say, 70 hours?"

  "But General..."

  "Now, son. When you become a leader of men, you find out that everything you touch becomes political."

  "Political? What do politics have to do with it?" Grayson had never cared for politics, had always been impatient with any system that produced more words and paperwork than anything else.

  "I don't know if you realize it, son, but you and your Lancers are the focus of a lot of controversy just now."

  Grayson shook his head. "I've been too busy."

  "I should think so. But there are people who call themselves the Peace Party, and they have support on the Ministerial Council... people who argue that we have to make terms with the bandits."

  "Terms!"

  "Don't sputter, boy," Adel said. "You'll get spots on the furniture."

  Varney cast a disapproving glance at Adel. "General, if you don't mind, I wonder if you would excuse us for a moment?"

  The Guard General's jaw set in a hard line, but he relaxed after a moment, stood, and nodded to Stannic and Varney. "Very well. This is all nonsense anyway... you realize that, don't you? Stannic, you, of all people, ought to know better! You were a Guards officer before you became a politician! The Lancers must be put under a single, unified command, and it is the Guards who have the political clout to oversee their operation."

  When Adel had left, Grayson said, "He doesn't like me, does he?"

  Varney shrugged with a twitch at the comer of his mouth. "He's powerful, with powerful friends. He would like to control the 'Mech Lance."

  "Why?"

  "Because it represents more power. Grayson, I asked him to leave so that I could tell you frankly, without getting into a debate with General Adel, that there's a lot of trouble in the Defense Ministry over the Lancers. There are factions upset about the presence of offworlders in the unit..."

  "I'm an offworlder, General!"

  "... and many who protest your use of known bandits. This woman — Kalmar — her presence on your staff is generating one hell of a storm. And now I understand you have a requisition in to use another captured bandit... Enzman?"

  "Garik Enzelman. He knows as much about ‘Mechs as Sergeant Kalmar does."

  Varney shook his head. "I tell you now, Grayson, the government is not going to be able to tolerate your use of prisoners of war in such an important military capacity. Really, son, you've got to see it our way."

  "And with all respect, sir, you've got to see it mine! Kalmar and Enzelman represent valuable, Tech-trained resources. They know 'Mechs inside and out, as well as any Tech! We'd be stupid not to use them. General, I don't have anything else to work with!'

  "That may be... that may well be. Grayson, I've got to give you all the support I can, but what I'm trying to say is that you've made enemies, powerful enemies who would like to see the Lancers handled differently... or eliminated completely. You've generated one hell of a lot of problems in the Palace with these offworlders. It gives the opposition ammunition... know what I mean?"

  "What the General is trying to say," Stannic said, is that there are political careers at stake here, people who will rise or fall depending on whether your Trellwan Lancers succeed, fail, or just sit on their backsides and do nothing. We need action, successful action, and we need it fast, or we can't justify the expense or the controversy over this offworlder thing at the Ministerial Hall."

  "I thought the King himself was behind the Lancers!"

  Stannic smiled, but the look in his eyes was grim. "Even the King couldn't buck the tide if it turned on us. And son, if we lose this fight, so do you. Your Lancers won't survive if the government cuts its support. God help you if you screw up! Got me?"

  Grayson wasn't sure what it was he had gotten, but its touch was ice-cold.

  * * * *

  The cold was bitter, an iridium blade carving through sneak suits and bone and marrow, borne on a keening wind. The air was so dry it leached moisture from exposed skin, but intermittent flashes of distant lightning revealed heavy snow clouds above the mountains to the north. It was the dark of mid-Secondnight. Trellwan was approaching the sun again, but this would be a Far Passage, with the sun high in the sky on the far hemisphere, while Sarghad remained gripped in sub-zero night.

  With Far Passage would come the Secondnight storms, and then the gradual warming of Thirday. But that was a week of standard days away.

  The team of men clothed in night-black slipped along a frost-rimmed ridge on the perimeter of the parade ground below the Castle. Lights on poles strung along the fenced perimeter cast stark illumination over the ferrocrete apron, and isolated the looming black mass of the truncated stone pyramid above them. There was activity in the open Repair Bay. Figures moved there, visible through the broad glass walls bathed in red light.

  Grayson signalled to Sergeant Ramage: Move up. He used no words, as there might be sonic detectors nearby, listening with computer-controlled filters to eliminate the yowling wind and pick up a whispered conversation. Ramage nodded and moved forward with cautious, uneven actions calculated to fool sensors set to detect the sounds of ordinary movement

  Grayson's mouth was very dry, and only partly because of the bitter dryness of the air. He realized that never, not even during the firefight in the Castle's central control, had he ever been so scared.

  He had come up with the plan Jeverid's General Staff and the Council Ministers wanted, having worked it out during long sessions with his senior staff sergeants, Lori, Ramage, and Larressen. The plan approved, the four of them had then worked even longer and harder to select and train an assault force of 50 picked men.

  Their targets were the Castle and the slumbering hulk of the Shadow Hawk. Sarghad's military intelligence insisted that the 'Mech had been damaged by thermite grenades during the delaying action at the spaceport, but was now almost repaired. Grayson's force would gain entry to the Repair Bay, clear it with small arms fire and grenades, plant powerful thermite melters at key points on the Shadow Hawk's armor, then withdraw into the darkness. With luck, the 'Mech would be hopelessly ruined for anything but spare parts. Even enough damage to require another few hundred hours of repair time would be worth almost any cost in men and equipment. And when he thought of it that way, Grayson knew he had to lead the mission himself.

  "You can't," Varney had said. "You're the whole reason for this Lance! Without your specialized knowledge of 'Mechs and 'Mech tactics.

  "Lori Kalmar has precisely the same knowledge," he'd said. That was not entirely true, for she'd not had Kai Griffith to train her in small unit tactics, but this wasn't the moment to quibble. "She can carry on if I don't come back."

  "No woman is going to lead this unit, Grayson. Especially not an offworlder!"r />
  Varney had continued to protest, but in the end, Grayson simply insisted on going, and that was that They would have gotten no work from him locked into a District HQ cell, and nothing short of that would keep him from leading his team. He reasoned that his training suited him for the mission, while troops would respond with an extra measure of effort if their CQ was in the fight with them.

  Thanks to Griffith, Grayson was an expert in commando tactics, but the men in his command were still green. As recently as four standard-day weeks ago, most of the soldiers on the team could not properly use camouflage, could not sneak-stalk an enemy sentry, could not even load and fire an automatic weapon in anything less than five seconds. Grayson had been training in small unit tactics and techniques when he was fifteen, and training under the sharp eye and sharper tongue of Sergeant Griffith. He'd balanced the risk of letting them proceed with the mission on their own with the risk that he would be killed, then decided the gamble was worth it The chance of success would be increased by his presence, his direction, and the steadying influence of knowing the CQ was watching.

  Grayson's training had included a wide variety of weapons, martial arts training that blended several very old and effective fighting traditions, as well as training in moving swiftly, silently, and with precise navigation. He was sure of his skills, even glad of the opportunity to exercise them again. Why, then, was he terrified?

  He licked his lips, and the pain of the cold on wetted lips steadied him. He had been scared in the firefight in the Castle, but numbed almost into insensibility by his father's death. He had been frightened during the street battle when he'd dueled with the Wasp, when he'd stalked and confronted the Locust, but he'd been sustained by the hunger for revenge. The desire had dulled, become lost in the piles of administrative details that needed Grayson's attention. He had been afraid during the one-against-one 'Mech battle, but real 'Mech combat was so like simulator combat that, except for the heat, it had been easy to lose himself and his fear in the dance of the giant machines.

  But now Grayson Death Carlyle lay on frozen ground outside the gaping maw of the Castle, and trembled inwardly. The other operations had all been more or less forced on him by the needs of the moment. This mission had been ordered by the high command, and he was not yet convinced that it was a necessary one. Worse was the fact that he was leading 50 men against a fortress designed to repulse a battle force of laser turret-armed DropShips and a regiment of heavy Mechs.

  That a force similar in size to his Lancers had taken the Castle before was no comfort. That attack had come as a complete surprise and had been aided by a traitor within the Castle walls. Grayson had no traitor to assist him, nor could he be sure that the enemy did not expect him.

  There was something else, too, something nagging at the back of his mind. He had been worried about how they would enter the Castle. Formerly, the doors had responded to his palm print, but the Castle's new occupants must have changed the computer security ID system by now. At best, doors would admit him, while triggering an alarm on the screens in Central Security. They had brought explosives to breach a door, if necessary.

  Strangely enough, the Repair Bay doors stood wide open, shimmering as the castle's inner heat spilled into the cold air outside. It was almost too easy; a volley of fire to cut down the pair of sentries just inside the door track, a sudden rush, and they would have their target. Grayson could make but the form of the Shadow Hawk lying flat on the work pedestal below the tangled webwork of the repair Bay gantry.

  Maybe that was what the worry was. It looked too easy. Griffith had always warned him to expect the unexpected, to be convinced that danger usually existed where one least expected it. What hidden danger might be gnawing at his awareness here? There was always the danger of betrayal, of course. The attack on the Castle had burned that lesson into his very being. Still, the only ones who knew of the present attack were those at the highest levels of the Defense Ministry, and they were united in the need for a Lancers victory. He thought momentarily of Stefan, of other bandit agents among his own men, but then dismissed the idea. That Stefan had been the one to attempt Grayson's death suggested that there were very few such agents in the city. No, most of the spies among his ranks belonged to the Guard or to the Militia.

  He pulled out a fist-sized transceiver, lengthened the antennae, and scratched the transmitter three times, click pause clickclick. He waited, straining to hear above the wind. The answer came, click pause, click, pause clickclick. Had he heard a rapid flurry of clicks, it would have meant that the Marauder was no longer under Sergeant Larressen's observation as it patrolled the perimeter of the spaceport, but was on its way up the road to the Castle. The signal received indicated that the Marauder was still where he'd watched it ten hours before. There was no way it could reach the Castle in less than ten minutes. That gave Grayson plenty of time.

  A short-ranged tactical receiver in his left ear scratched out another code, clickclick clickclick, clickclick. That was Ramage, in position up ahead, reporting that the way was clear, with no sign of traps, hidden troops, or unexpected weapon emplacements. Listening to the signal, Grayson idly watched the silhouette of a heavy-coated sentry shrug and slap himself, as though trying to get warm.

  The enemy might decide to close the Repair Bay doors any moment, and so the Lancers had to move now. Grayson pulled his weapon around on its strap into position in front of his chest. It was a Rugan submachine gun that fired large, slow rounds at 1000 rounds per minute from a blackened magazine protruding far below the handgrip. The weapon was of local manufacture, and not as trustworthy as the Commonwealth weapons Carlyle's Commandos had carried. Long hours on a firing range behind the armory had convinced him that it would be a serviceable general weapon for a sneak raid. Grayson remembered to set the selector for three-round bursts. The Rugan packed 80 caseless rounds into that long magazine, but those would be gone in five seconds on full auto.

  According to the plan, it was Grayson's shots that would signal the attack. That left it in his hands whether to go ahead with the operation or not. An abort would be signalled over the tacradios each man wore. An attack would be launched by the death of the two sentries.

  He took a moment to slow his breathing, to swallow the dryness in his throat, to blink the sting of the wind and the fear from, his eyes. He didn't care about the victory the Sarghadian government needed. This would be another strike against the people who had killed his father, slaughtered his friends, betrayed a trust. He brought the bulky, suppressor-muffled snout of the Rugan to the point, sighted, and tightened his finger on the trigger.

  The gun spat and the sentry 70 meters away jerked backward like a puppet on a suing. Grayson swung the weapon toward the other sentry, but it was already too late. Fire from a dozen submachine guns rattled and shrieked through the arctic air. The blast hit a second sentry and a running bandit Tech, whirled them about and hurled them down. Then, black shapes rose from the shadows on either side of Grayson's position and surged toward the open Bay doors.

  They were committed.

  21

  Fifty black shapes tan across the parade field lit by the pole-mounted floods, firing as they went. Their suppressed SMG bursts snapped and hissed, sending those in and around the Repair Bay scrambling for cover or knocking them to the ground where they had been standing.

  Grayson stepped across the boundary between the parade ground and the Bay. The familiar cavern, red-lit and murky, yawned above and around him. directly before him was the ten-meter form of the damaged Shadow Hawk.

  "Collier!" He yelled, waving. "Senkins and Burke! The door! Demo team... move!"

  Three soldiers raced for the door leading to the Castle's central passageways. Five men shouldering heavy satchels pounded past him and up to the raised deck supporting the disabled 'Mech. A burst of fire spat from above, and something whipped through the air beside his head. Before Grayson could react, the shots were answered by the harsh chatter of a subgun close by. A figure pitc
hed off the top landing of the spindly ladder zigzagging up to the Bay Control Booth and fell with a dull splat on the ferrocrete 20 meters below.

  Grayson turned to the man who had just fiied. It was Larressen. "Thanks," he said. "Go with the Demo Team, Sergeant. I'll be with the security force."

  Larressen nodded and swarmed up a ladder to where the demolition team was making its way toward the torso of the grounded 'Mech. Grayson trotted across the floor to where three privates crouched by the door to the passageway. Steel chocks had been driven into the door guides to keep it open, and a squad-portable, bipod-mounted machine gun sat with its barrel probing across the door sill into the corridor beyond. Burke lay flat, the MG stock at his shoulder. The others covered him with automatic rifles. "Anything?"

  "No, sir." Corporal Collier was the security team leader. He gestured down the corridor to the next sealed, airtight door. "Just let them poke the tip of their noses through there and we'll nail 'em!" He paused, fumbled, and added a belated "sir." Collier looked younger than Grayson, but seemed to have the knack of handling men. Grayson patted him on the shoulder, then turned to go.

  Rumbling thunder crashed from the repair deck, a groaning, tearing-metal protest, as men scattered and someone screamed. Grayson stopped in his tracks, paralysed by shock and dawning horror. The Shadow Hawk, a sleeping giant under the glint of red lamps, was stirring, trembling, slowily raising itself upright. The black-clad figures of the demo team were leaping from that suddenly shifting torso. Sprawled on the ferrocrete where the huge machine's movement had flung him lay the man who had screamed.