Masters of War

by Michael A. Stackpole

  This particularly vexed Verena for two reasons. First, it made her wonder what Peres saw that made him hesitate in giving her orders. Didn’t he think she could lead? Had he disagreed with Colonel Bradone’s hiring of her in the first place? Was he sending Abbie Dannik down to replace her, and how soon would she arrive?

  Those and a thousand other doubts assailed her, but she shunted them aside. Not only did she not have time for them, but she had Kennerly to keep track of them and a billion more. He constantly picked at her, which in one way was a good thing. It gave her impetus to deal with her other duties and do them well.

  The second reason the lack of orders disturbed her was that she knew how the Clanners could be beaten. She’d seen it in the way the Mad Cat had crested that hill and continued to come on. The pilot had been happy to chase after a company of ’Mechs, even outdistancing other, faster ’Mechs under his command. While that showed courage, it also showed a complete lack of forethought, and she could exploit it.

  She’d talked with survivors of the initial action and they confirmed her opinion. Bradone and the Animals had set up a classic ambush. They’d allowed the Clanners to move into position where the mercenaries could catch them in a cross fire. They’d been under orders to target the smallest of the Clan ’Mechs, hoping to take them out of the battle immediately, and they had killed one Uller in the initial exchange.

  In keeping with ages-old doctrine, the remaining Clanners had driven hard at the ambushers. If they had gone to ground and looked for cover, it would have been bad, so they moved and attacked. They hit the Animals hard and Smythe’s Mercury got blown to bits right away. The Animals withdrew in good order, exchanging fire and setting up the Clanners for the Demons’ secondary ambush.

  That ambush hadn’t gone off as planned because the Clan pursuit had come on so fast. If the Animals had been farther into the basin, the Demons could have hammered the Clanners and the Animals would have had the option to form up and come back at them. That would have been Colonel Bradone’s call, however, and in his absence, Verena had gone with the original plan.

  Even if Kennerly hadn’t made his snide suggestions, Verena would have chosen to act. She could read the political flows within the unit. Here she was, the most recent hire, the officer placed in charge of the least desirable unit. Colonel Bradone had died, and some people harbored a suspicion she’d let him die—simply to absolve an officer they’d loved of having done something stupid or having caught the bad side of luck. Unless she gave them a reason to think of her as a leader, they never would. The unit would fall apart and that meant the Clans would succeed in taking Baxter.

  Even as she started to plan, old demons assailed her. She knew the grand strategy: Keep the Clans occupied, harry them, wait for reinforcements. Hit and run was the order of the day, but the patrols she’d sent out failed to elicit any interest from the Clans. The troops in South Allshot seemed content to pacify the city and prepare defenses against an assault.

  We cannot bleed them if they will not come out and play.

  Verena wrestled with the problem of getting the Clans to join battle. She recalled all manner of historical battles and tried to map them over the situation in South Allshot. The original plan for hitting Clan troops in the stretch of wasteland between the city and the spaceport went for naught because the Clan troops simply didn’t head back to the spaceport.

  Verena’s eyes narrowed. “I know this plan will work.”

  “Would you fall prey to it, Captain?”

  She blinked. “I am not the one we are attacking.”

  “But the answer is important.” He arched an eyebrow. “Are you counting on the Clan leader being stupid?”

  “No, I am counting on him being a Wolf.”

  “Ah, and what would that entail?”

  “I do not think you would understand, Kennerly.”

  He opened his arms. “If you can’t explain it to me, Captain, then perhaps you don’t understand it well enough for your judgment to be trusted.”

  Verena raked fingers back through her short hair, relishing the scratching along her scalp. “To be Wolf is to be the consummate predator. Hunting, war, it is your element. It consumes you. It informs everything you do. You are not separate from it, it flows through you, and you react. You act and react in accord with it. It is intuitive, instinctual. Because of his training and culture, the Star colonel we are fighting against cannot possibly act any other way.”

  Kennerly canted his head. “But you were raised in the same culture, albeit the enclave form. Why can you think past it? Can you, or do you merely think you can? What’s in your gut, Captain?”

  She stared at the dark-haired man, hating him more than she ever would have thought possible. She wanted to say a thousand things, but the words couldn’t escape the black hole growing in the pit of her stomach. What was in her gut? Nothing. Nothing but doubts. If she were truly worthy of being a Wolf, why would Anastasia have sent her away?

  Verena shivered, and Kennerly laughed. The contempt in his voice shocked her. It also interrupted her thoughts and stopped her from spiraling down into doubt. What Anastasia thought really had no bearing on the current situation. She knew what had to be done, and how to beat the Clans. That was all that was important.

  “Let me tell you this, Kennerly. In my gut I know he will fall for our trap.”

  “You don’t know anything in your gut, Captain, you can only feel in your gut.”

  “Semantic games.” She tapped a finger against her temple. “I know we will beat him. I feel it, too, else we would not be undertaking this operation.”

  “I hope you’re correct, Captain.” He snorted. “If not, the Demons will all die, and likely the Animals with us. Is it a risk we really have to take?”

  “It is an opportunity we cannot pass up.” She nodded toward where his Clint stood. “Mount up. It will be dark soon, and we have a ways to go before things heat up.”

  * * *

  The Union-class DropShip looked beautiful, all lit up with ground lights. The ovoid craft sat on the ferrocrete landing pad at the Allshot spaceport all alone. Once the Clans had secured their landing zone and chased the Animals from South Allshot, elementals had moved in and taken control of the spaceport. The DropShip had transferred there, refueled and was ready to lift off at a moment’s notice.

  Though its primary purpose was to move ’Mechs and cargo from the ground to an orbiting JumpShip, the DropShip did serve a secondary purpose. In this case, it secured the spaceport. It bristled with weapons, and the chance of a raiding force managing to destroy it was very small.

  And the odds of capturing it were even longer. DropShips had been captured in the past, but only under highly improbable circumstances, and certainly none Verena could duplicate on Baxter. Yet despite the impossibility of taking a DropShip, every warrior dreamed of being able to beat the odds. Taking a DropShip was a holy grail that haunted dreams, and the idea of losing one spawned nightmares.

  Verena double-checked her secondary monitor. Her troops were all in position, just beyond the effective range of the DropShip’s weaponry. The ship grossly outmassed her command, but the ’Mech force matched up well in terms of weaponry. Her ’Mechs actually outgunned the DropShip, but its thick armor more than evened those odds. It could kill some of her ’Mechs with a single shot, whereas the DropShip would take a lot of killing.

  She keyed her tactical frequency. “Remember, grazing attacks. We keep moving, we soften it up. It is more important that you don’t get hit than that you hit. Long range for the first pass. Then we tighten it up.”

  She raised her Koshi’s right arm, then brought it down. “Go!”

  Verena smiled and kicked her ’Mech forward. The Badgers cut into range, moving across the spaceport’s southeast quarter. Klaxons immediately sounded and lights blazed, but they only reached far enough into the darkness to illuminate her ’Mechs as fleeting shadows. Turrets on the DropShip swiveled and one PPC fired. The blue beam slashed a fiery path
through the grass in front of her.

  She swiveled her Koshi’s torso and triggered both her medium lasers. The red beams stabbed through the night. One scored armor below an LRM launch bay while the other missed wide. Heat flashed through her cockpit, but drained away almost immediately; then she shot again and burned more armor.

  The other Animals had the same success, and in response the DropShip launched missile flights. The missiles exploded, lighting the night, chipping away at armor but failing to bring anything down. No pilot reported more than superficial damage, and they knew to pull out of the attack if they were in serious jeopardy.

  At a point half a kilometer past where she’d begun her run, Verena turned her Koshi around and started back along the line of attack. She twisted her ’Mech’s torso to the right and began another grazing run. More armor dripped from the DropShip and ground crews began clearing vehicles away from the area.

  She smiled. The ship’s captain had divined her strategy. By moving as they were, her troops could concentrate their fire on one portion of the ship’s hull. To counter her efforts, all he had to do was bring the ship up and turn it. She would then have to batter fresh armor, or shift her attack to again hit the weakened side.

  And if he puts his damaged side facing west, we will know . . .

  It was always possible that the captain would simply launch the DropShip and pull out of the area, but she was fairly certain that would not happen. If he did that, the Badgers could take control of the spaceport. The Wolves would then have to take it back, and aside from being an embarrassment, it would also be costly.

  Besides, the DropShip had lured the Badgers out of their hole, and Verena could imagine the Clan leader had intended it as bait all along. With its formidable weaponry, it could tie up the Badgers for a while, and would make one heck of an anvil.

  A light blinked on her communications console. Verena switched over to that frequency. “Confirmation. Five ’Mechs leaving South Allshot, incoming your theater. ETA ten minutes. Confirm Mad Cat, Vulture, Black Hawk and two Pumas.”

  “I copy. Animal Lead out.” Verena keyed a sequence that shot the scout’s data reports to all the ’Mechs in her command, and then she switched over to the tactical frequency. “We have incoming. Stick with our plan. They are coming hot and heavy. No heroes, no one being stupid.”

  Verena started her third run, heading northeast again, and away from the ’Mechs coming in. The rest of her unit moved with her, like ducklings following their mother. No one betrayed any unease, despite the LRMs raining down in their midst.

  Panic tried to take root in her guts, but she refused to let it. Doubts assailed her, and it was easy to imagine all the things that could go wrong with her plan. The Clan ’Mechs coming after them could kick out a lot of firepower, and if the Badgers got trapped between them and the DropShip, there wouldn’t be enough left of them to hammer into an urn for their ashes.

  At the far end of the run, Verena curled out to the east. The Badgers came with her and formed up in their lances. She led the medium lance, with the lights on each wing. Carter held the right, Pennington the left. Both wings drew back, leaving the center exposed, but still beyond the DropShip’s range.

  Then, to the southwest, the Wolves appeared. Lights flashed on, illuminating the ’Mechs. It was bravado to do that, but also psychological. While ’Mech scanners could present data over a variety of spectrums, just being able to see your enemy in his strength and glory could unhinge an enemy.

  “Steady, people. Stick with the plan.”

  “Right, Captain. The plan.” Pennington’s voice wavered. “We pull back, they break off, right?”

  “That is the plan.”

  “And if they don’t follow it?”

  Verena gripped her targeting joysticks. “Then we find out who the best warriors on this rock really are.”

  14

  Henderton, Yed Posterior

  Former Prefecture IX, Republic of the Sphere

  14 January 3137

  Alaric had relished the surprise in Anastasia Kerensky’s voice. “That is correct, Colonel. I asked how many troops you were bringing in your Trial of Possession for Yed Posterior.”

  “My troops and I are coming in as part of the bargain for your Trial of Possession, Star Colonel.”

  “Then you are in error, Colonel Kerensky. I have won my trial. I possess the capital of Henderton, I have destroyed the militia.”

  “But the seat of government was transferred to Swofford on Graysea Island. The militia there is intact and you have landed no troops there.”

  “And they have abandoned any attempt to contest my possession of the world. I have been shipping material off it for days now.” Alaric allowed himself a smile. “I will give you twelve hours to consider your bid, Colonel. Yed Posterior out.”

  He killed the radio and exhaled heavily. At least I bought another twelve hours.

  He suffered under no illusions about how dire his situation was. The operation to clean out the tunnels had gone very well. Most all of the Yedder ’Mechs had been destroyed and the infantry had been scattered, rendering further resistance wholly ineffective. Even so, the fight had cost him a Ryoken and had inflicted heavy damage on two Pumas. They had been able to affect repairs on the Pumas and had combined the ruins of two marine salvage ’Mechs into one serviceable machine. That gave him two Stars of ’Mechs and a Star and a half of elementals with which to defend the world.

  His decision to declare victory had been born of simple expedience. He did not know much about Anastasia Kerensky. She was a Kerensky. She had been raised among the Exiles. She would have Clan sensibilities and their sense of honor. By forcing her to declare a Trial of Possession, she would then have to figure out how much in the way of force she would bring. He expected she would leave the two militias out of it, which still meant he would be going up against the Wolf Hunters.

  The data files she sent concerning her force yielded a lot of interesting information. Alaric wondered what hidden gems Donovan would have unearthed, but he did not dig very deep. The Wolf Hunters worked as a combined-arms battalion, with a company of medium and heavy ’Mechs, a mobile artillery company, and a fast-strike company of light ’Mechs and small troop carriers. The unit also boasted a company of infantry, but they had not been brought along for the fight on Yed Posterior.

  That is an error she will regret.

  It struck Alaric that the peculiarly sloppy wording the indigs had used when bargaining with him had been a careful ploy. The plan for defending the worlds became clear. The garrison forces were to fight a rearguard action that would deny the Clans the one thing they needed: speed. They were buying time to be reinforced and for other forces to flood the area to cut off the Wolves from Terra. As a plan it had merit and had proved enormously frustrating.

  In part Alaric was pleased because it played into the misdirection part of his overall strategy. The more time it took for the Clans to advance, the more time others had to react. They would plan and move, tying up assets that would make the Wolves’ lateral move into the Commonwealth much easier. In this way his strategy was working very well, almost too well.

  The fact that he might not survive to see it come to fruition perturbed him. Alaric did not allow himself to think he would die. He considered it unlikely. If I was going to die, the Hunchback would have killed me. He didn’t feel the specter of death dogging his footsteps.

  Nor did he feel wholly confident for the future. Even if he did survive, the battle for Yed Posterior was a disaster and would set him back in any competition with Bjorn and Donovan. And my mother will be furious as well.

  Despite his sense of doom, he organized his defenses for the planet. The Yedders had actually showed him how it could best be done. He’d prepare the tunnels, then force Anastasia to come down and find him. His elementals had rigged explosives, other tunnels had been blocked, so only he and his warriors possessed a working map of the maze. Once the enemy came down into the tunnels, their numbers w
ould mean nothing and the close fighting would rip them to pieces.

  The real question is whether we can inflict enough damage to make Anastasia withdraw. Given her history he was inclined to bet against that possibility, but then, her Wolf Hunters were relatively new. While hardly made up of green troops, they’d not worked together that long, and the artillery company would be singularly useless in the tunnels.

  Alaric juggled the numbers and began to see a glimmer of hope. We might win, at that.

  * * *

  He tried to maintain that positive view even after speaking to Anastasia again.

  Her voice had an unpleasant edge. “I accept that you control the planet, Star Colonel. With what will you be defending?”

  Alaric smiled. “With everything I have, and any reinforcements I can get.”

  “Glib, Star Colonel. You are defending with two ’Mech Stars and two Stars of elementals?”

  “Approximately, yes.”

  “Splendid.” She almost seemed to purr. “I am coming with three battalions, two militia and my Wolf Hunters.”

  “What?” Alaric shook his head. “You can’t . . . you cannot do that. That is not honorable.”

  “Ah, clearly you have mistaken me for someone who cares about honor. You bid low because your courage, your honor and your ingenuity can win you a place in your Clan’s breeding program.” Her voice became cold. “I only care about being paid, and I get paid more when I win. We are incoming, four hours.”

  “I see, Colonel. Very well.” Alaric forced calm into his voice. “I look forward to engaging you in combat.”

  “No, you do not, Star Colonel, not in the least. Kerensky out.”

  * * *

  From deep in the tunnels, Alaric watched over links to the local holovision networks as the mercenaries came in. Kerensky had not been entirely without honor, as she sent one militia unit off to Swofford. The other militia unit and the Wolf Hunters landed in an Overlord-class DropShip and an Intruder-class DropShip. The Intruder brought the mobile artillery and other vehicles, while the ’Mechs marched in good order from the Overlord. They formed up at the spaceport’s perimeter, looking down toward the seaside and the warehouse district that the Wolves had flattened.