by Unknown
43
Eastern Slopes of the Bloodstone Range
Rockspire Mountains, Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
Nicholas Darwin saw the smoke before he could hear the sounds of combat. “Has any of the infantry reported?” he asked.
“We are getting scattered reports,” the communications operator said. “There is at least one ’Mech.”
“Class?”
“Reports range from light to heavy.”
“What kind of resistance?” Darwin asked. “And where is the smoke line on the map?”
“Resistance is definitely heavy,” said the Condor’s sensor operator, and indicated an area on the tank’s battlefield display. “The smoke line is here.”
“Very well.” Darwin opened up the general command circuit. “Draw up a skirmish line, and on my command, volley fire, blind, onto the smoke line. Then advance, taking all targets under fire as they appear.”
Whoever was holding the pass for the Highlanders was good, Darwin reflected as he gave his orders. Now that he had seen the area at the mouth of the pass, he had to admit that he would have chosen the same site himself for a defensive line. So either the enemy commander was very clever, or he and Darwin were both equally stupid. Now that battle was engaged, there was no way to tell except by fighting it out.
“Now,” Darwin said. “Volley.”
With a whoosh and a vapor trail that rolled white across the lines, the missile launchers fired.
“Now—” he started to say again.
“Incoming, sir!”
From the area ahead that had just been their target, a line of arced vapor trails were approaching. Then flowers of fire began to blossom in the air.
“Short-range antitactical defenses up,” Darwin ordered. “Wolves, we are moving forward. Our armor will take anything that does not break the heart.”
The valley had been pretty.
Then the explosions came.
“Our right flank reports heavy pressure,” Lieutenant Jones said, “and they’re low on ammo.”
“I’ll be up there,” Griffin said. “Get a report from the SP guns while I’m away.”
Then he was running, jumping, running again, to the right flank.
He passed dead men and broken machines, but did not stop. Then he was at a scree slope, and the traces of fire, pulses of energy in the air, the dazzle of lasers, and the crump of ordinary kinetic shells, filled his sensors and his inputs.
A Condor hovertank showed up to his left on the cockpit display. He twisted, sent a battery of SRMs at the Condor, then jumped before it could target him. On external comms, he said, “Highlanders! Rally here.”
Infantry emerged from foxholes and from covering terrain. He couldn’t see their expressions from his position high up in the Koshi ’s towering frame, but judging from their overall body language and the quickness of their response, they were scared but resolute. Not bad for new, mostly unblooded troops, he thought—and the ones who lived through today would be new and unblooded no longer.
“We’re going to back slowly to the center,” he said, “and then make a fighting retreat. With me.”
As he spoke, he directed another battery of missiles, this one from his right arm, at a sensor trace near the edge of his maximum range. “I’ll cover you, and hold here long enough for you to get away.”
The troops shifted back, one of them, a tall man, raising his Gauss rifle and firing from the shoulder at something Griffin couldn’t see even as he set out toward the rear.
“Good idea,” said Griffin. “The best defense is a good offense.”
He started running toward the attacking Wolves. Time now to confuse them. Make them turn to one side or another. Keep them away from Tara. He checked the time readout on the cockpit chronometer as he ran.
The Countess had asked for twelve hours more. So far he’d given her eight. He could do another four . . .
the readouts for ammo said that his left arm was down to what was in the pods, then no more reloads. Heat wasn’t bad, though.
A Schmitt tank lay in his path ahead. Something the Steel Wolves had brought along for fighting in the streets of Tara, no doubt. Well, it wouldn’t get there.
Griffin jumped, and aimed for the turret of the tank. His impact with both feet blew two of the tires on the vehicle’s left side. That would slow them down. He rolled off toward the back of the Schmitt, avoiding its flamers. He was too close for the long-range missiles to lock on to him. And unlike the infantry, he could ignore its machine guns.
A set of shocks up his right arm and across his back reminded him of the Schmitt’s autocannon. While the tank might be immobilized it could still reach out and hit him.
He dodged around a rock wall, and came face-to-face with an SM1 Tank Destroyer. He sent a battery of missiles into its turret. He turned before he could see what damage he’d inflicted, saw the crippled Schmitt, and sent two more missiles into the tank’s rear armor. The hatches blew off and a smoke ring of oily black shot from the top. That one, at least, wouldn’t be repaired.
Griffin headed back for the Highlander lines at a run.
“Retreat, fall back,” he said over the command circuit. “Drop back to rally point one. Set up hasty defenses.
Every man—take out one Steel Wolf and we’ll call this day ours.”
He looked at the countdown clock. Hold out three hours and forty minutes more. He would. He had to.
It was the damned Koshi, Darwin thought.
He had seen the Highlanders falling back and had rejoiced, knowing that when they abandoned the fight the way would lie clear for the main body of the Steel Wolves to pour through the mountain pass and out onto the rolling plains north of Tara. But the seeming rout had not lasted; the fleeing infantry had halted and reformed their battle line and were once again standing fast.
The MechWarrior in the Koshi was everywhere along the line, courting heat overload with reckless abandon, using his jump jets and his hundred-plus kilometers per hour maximum speed to take himself to wherever the fighting was thickest and the infantry needed the most support. He was the heart and soul of the Highlanders’ resistance, and Darwin knew better than to hope that the Koshi ’s superior heat efficiency would fail in time to give the Steel Wolves any help.
He keyed on the command communications circuit. “Star Captain Greer. Take whatever forces you need, and kill me that Koshi .”
The Highlanders’ new defenses were holding, but Michael Griffin knew better than to expect that his own luck would do likewise. The Koshi had to be one of the most tempting targets on the entire battlefield, and the enemy commander had to have guessed that the Highlanders’ MechWarrior was the leader responsible for their deceptive rout and fresh resistance.
The massive volley of short-range missiles that came down on his position was not unexpected—the level of overkill was almost a compliment if you looked at it the right way—but the simultaneous disabling hits to the Koshi ’s left leg, right shoulder, and torso were more at once than the ’Mech’s internal stabilizing systems could take. The cockpit instruments blinked and faded, the footpedals and pressure controls ceased responding, and the Koshi ’s entire massive body swayed and fell.
The command couch took the greater part of the impact, leaving Griffin mostly unhurt, though he would have bruises later and perhaps a broken bone or two—if he lived long enough to count them, he thought, struggling with the couch straps. The cockpit displays were all either down or wavering erratically, but what he could see of the field outside with his own eyes didn’t look promising.
Missiles hadn’t been good enough for the enemy commander, when it came time to take out the Koshi . The Wolves had sent in a follow-up crew of Elemental infantry to make certain the MechWarrior inside didn’t get out alive.
Griffin reached for the slug pistol he kept in the Koshi ’s cockpit for occasions such as this. He couldn’t do much damage with it, not to genetically enhanced warriors in powered armor,
but at least he could go down fighting.
Then the bright beam of a laser cut across his field of vision, and he heard, dimly through the Koshi ’s metal hull, the ripping noise of machine gun fire and the crunching sound of a long-range missile impact. The Elementals scattered and backed off, and a moment later Griffin heard the sound of hammering on the Koshi
’s cockpit hatch.
“Colonel Griffin, sir!” a voice was shouting. “Lieutenant Jones says to get your ass out of there and into his Joust before the gorillas pull together and come back to try again!”
Griffin checked the cockpit chronometer—amazingly enough, it still ran. Fifteen minutes left, he thought; close enough. We’ve done it.
The infantry had held the line.
PART FIVE
Northwind, Early Summer 3133
The Battle for Tara
44
The plains north of Tara
Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
Rain had been spitting down in a desultory fashion ever since the middle of the morning; now the clouds were growing thicker and the wind was picking up. Will Elliot, along with Jock Gordon and Lexa McIntosh, paused by the side of the road to take a breath before moving on.
Will hadn’t slept in a day and a half now—and the half day most recent had been full of fire and speed, shooting and running, hitching rides along with Jock and Lexa on any vehicle they could find after the scout car assigned to the three-person team developed too much yaw from a near miss. The Highlanders’ holding action at the mouth of Red Ledge Pass had turned into a long retreat, a retreat prevented from becoming a rout only by Colonel Griffin’s solid example and careful orders. At one point a rumor had flown through the Highlander ranks that Griffin’s ’Mech was down and the Colonel was dead, but the sound of his voice giving orders over the command circuit soon put that idea to rest.
“When do you think it’ll be over?” Lexa asked wearily. She was leaning against a boulder and working the tangles out of her dark hair with a pocket comb. What she hoped to accomplish that way Will couldn’t imagine, since she was as covered with sweat and ground-in dirt as her two comrades, but since it seemed to make her feel better he forbore to comment.
“It’ll stop when we’re dead or they are,” he told her instead. He checked the power pack in his Gauss rifle.
Close to redline—and he only had one more replacement in the cargo pocket of his fatigues.
“Damn—where’s Central Supply when you really need them?”
“They got lost, same as everyone else,” Jock said.
“I’m not lost,” Will said. “Tara’s up ahead a day or so, depending on how fast we run. Closer, if we get a ride.”
“There’s no safety if we run.”
“If you wanted safety,” Will said, “you should have stayed home on the farm. Let’s see if the Sergeant has any orders for us. If he doesn’t, maybe we can make our own fun.”
“Promises, promises,” Lexa said, sliding the comb back into her pocket and pushing away from the boulder.
“If you ask me, finding a place to sleep sounds like a fine idea,” Jock said.
Will shook his head. “Only if I wanted to wake up under the foot of a Steel Wolf ’Mech. Now—”
“We’ve got trucks.” A man from the Northwind Fusiliers came up the road at a half run. “Radio silence, everyone. Trucks. We’re falling back. Rally point is at grid position nine–one–forty–three. Pass it on to everyone you see.”
He continued running down the road and out of sight. The three comrades looked at each other.
“So what’s that all about?” Lexa asked.
“I don’t take orders from a Corporal in the Fuzies,” Jock said.
“All right, people,” Sergeant Donohue said, appearing suddenly out of the underbrush on the shoulder of the road. Unlike almost everybody else Will had seen in the past few hours, the Sergeant didn’t look either tired or rumpled, and Will wondered, not for the first time, if the man had his uniform tattooed onto his body.
“Why aren’t you saddling up? We’ve got some trucks to catch.”
“What’s the word, Sarge?” Lexa asked. “Where are we going?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.” The Sergeant looked around. “Where’s Corporal McCloud?”
“Last I saw, up at the observation post,” Will replied.
“Right. On your way.” The Sergeant faded back into the underbrush.
“Sounds like we have our orders,” Jock said.
“Let’s move, then,” Will said. He slung his pack onto his shoulders, picked up his rifle, and headed off at a trot for the staging area, with Lexa and Jock running beside him.
At the staging area, there were indeed trucks waiting, and hot food too, trucked in. A medical corpsman had an aid station going under a tent flap rigged from the side of one truck; a chaplain was holding services at another truck, standing up in the truck bed so that he looked down on his makeshift congregation.
“Either of you need any of that?” Lexa asked.
“What I want is some of my mum’s homemade berry tart,” Will said. “That’d make me right. But since what we have is army meat and army bread—”
“—which comes from no known animal or plant—” Jock chimed in.
“—every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a feast,” Lexa finished. “Here comes an officer; maybe he knows something.”
The officer in question—a Major with a bullhorn—took the chaplain’s place on the back of the truck as soon as the service was finished.
“Listen up, people,” he said. “I want everyone with anti-armor weapons and ammo up in the lead vehicle.”
He gestured to his left. “If you have antiarmor, move up there now. If there are more than will fit, take the second truck, and the third, and so on.” He paused. “If you have anti-air weapons, I want you in the middle truck, that’s truck side number six–zero–four, right here where I’m standing. Move there now.” He paused again. “Everyone with unused demolition charges or special heavy weapons—heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars, move to the rear of the convoy. Last truck, people. Fill in forward from there. Move now.”
The Major paused yet again while Will chewed on the army bread. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t tasty either.
On the other hand, it had a shelf life measured in decades, and contained the minimum daily requirement of almost everything except fun.
The Major’s voice came over the bullhorn one more time. “Everyone else, pick a place on one of the remaining vehicles. Go there. The column is pulling out in five minutes.”
The truck to the left of the middle vehicle was empty. Will nodded in that direction and said to the others,
“You heard the man—let’s get on board while there are still seats. Maybe someone on the truck can tell us where we’re going.”
“If you ask me,” said Lexa with pessimistic relish, “this is all an absolute disaster, and the only place we’re going is straight to hell.”
“Why do you say that?” Will asked as he climbed over the tailboards. Bench seats lined the sides of the truck. He headed forward to where the back of the cab would provide some shelter against what looked like was turning into a vile evening.
“We’re advancing to the rear in glorious victory against a foe that is routing forward in utter disorder,” Lexa said. “At this rate the Steel Wolves are going to be in the capital by daybreak. No one knows what we have or where we are—including our own side. Our units are all broken up. If I was calling this ‘every man for himself’ how wrong would I be?”
“Not very,” said Jock. “It looks like it’s the three of us against the world.”
“Then the world had better watch out,” Will said.
The truck soon filled up with more men and women, some with full kit, others carrying nothing more than a rifle and a satchel of spare charges. In fewer than the promised five minutes the humming note of the truck’s engine lowered and they lurc
hed forward. The spot against the back wall of the cab proved to be a good one. Will, Lexa, and Jock only got wet on one side when the clouds opened and the rain poured down half an hour into their trip.
45
Plains north of Tara; the Fort
Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
Nicholas Darwin sat atop his Condor tank, relishing the cool evening air after a day spent in the rank, stuffy confines of the tank’s interior, and listening to the communications chatter among the Warriors of his command. A light mist drifted down from the cloudy sky, cooling his skin, and the faint whiff of ozone from the Condor’s main gun told of a battle won. Anastasia Kerensky would be pleased.
“Resistance is crumbling, Star Colonel,” Star Captain Greer reported over the command circuit. “We are taking light small-arms fire only. No heavy guns. No sign of enemy ’Mechs.”
“Very well,” Darwin said. “Exit the valley.”
He turned to the communications operator in the Condor tank. “Send a signal to Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky: Route secure. Preparing to advance.”
“As you command, Star Colonel,” said Greer, and the communications officer said, “Message sent.”
Darwin swung back down into the body of the tank. Time to start moving again.
“Once we are on the plain,” he ordered, “take formation. Skirmishers forward, hovercraft on the flanks. I do not desire surprises.”
“What about the Highlanders, Star Colonel?” asked Greer.
“The Highland line is broken,” Darwin said. “Bypass the ones who will not surrender. We can mop them up later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ezekiel Crow closed the office door behind him and leaned back against it with a heavy sigh of exhaustion.