by Victor Milán
They had almost reached the broad caldera of a long-dormant volcano, a place where DropShips could put down to rescue the MechWarriors and their dependents. A Star of tigres had lunged ahead of the pack and was pressing hard, even as the first ships were landing.
Don Carlos well remembered the thrill of despair and terror as the first fast-striding Clan Puma broke free of the rocks and raced down upon the laggard survivors. The rest of the mixed Star followed close behind, eager for the kill. And he recalled with pride and grief the way Patsy's Phoenix Hawk, la Capitana, suddenly flew out from between the knife-toothed lava cliffs, rich in metal ores, which had concealed it from the Clanners' better sensors. She had been firing her weapons point-blank into the Puma's head from above even before the pilot's gene-engineered reflexes could react.
The Smoke Jaguar MechWarrior was probably dead before the Phoenix Hawk's right foot smashed through the weakened top armor of his BattleMech's head. And then Patsy was in the midst of the Star's surviving four 'Mechs, which had been forced by the terrain to close their formation, and was slashing about like a mad thing. She was giving the tigres no chance for the one-to-one duels they favored—in particular, no chance for one of the enemy 'Mechs to engage her while the others raced to destroy the descending DropShip. She made them all fight her.
She made them kill her.
Again Don Carlos relived the agony of his BattleMaster's ponderous progress, watching as the Omnis blasted Patsy to pieces. By the time her Phoenix Hawk's cockpit was hammered into a smoking cavity, the rest of First Battalion was within range.
Patricia Camacho was swiftly avenged. Don Carlos himself held the Star commander's Mad Cat by the arm while he roasted the pilot alive, pressing the muzzle of his PPC against the transpex canopy and firing until his own heat soared well past the red line and his cooling system overloaded. He had been forced to eject to avoid being cooked himself.
The overeager Star of Clansmen were slaughtered. The shell-shocked DCMS and Seventeenth survivors boarded the DropShip, carrying with them the mostly intact Mad Cat as a final defiant trophy. It went a little way to assuage pride battered by their swift, inevitable defeat.
But nothing could ease the loss of Patricia.
And nothing could ever lessen the pain of knowing why the Regiment's most brilliant pilot and beloved officer had chosen to die.
Don Carlos sat amid his thoughts in the compact but comfortable Mad Cat cockpit, and did not hear the voices calling his name.
24
Masamori, Hachiman
Galedon District, Draconis Combine
15 October 3056
The communicator's chime whipped Lainie Shimazu instantly from sleep. She rolled over and hit the button. "Shimazu."
"Tai-sa, this is the ready room. We're monitoring Civilian Guidance Control traffic down there. The deka report a major firefight in the Hachiman Taro Compound. Explosions and gunfire, perhaps missiles."
"So the Word of Blake is heard from." Lainie swung long legs off the futon and sat up. Chandrasekhar Kurita had denied the rumors of a new hyperpulse breakthrough, and indeed disavowed any interest whatsoever in hyperpulse technology. No one expected the Word of Blake fanatics to buy it.
Behind her bare back, her nocturnal companion stirred. She ignored him. Just now she couldn't even remember his name.
"Bring the Regiment to Condition Yellow. I want First Battalion hot and online. Everybody else stand by. I'm on the way. Shimazu out."
She stood up, looking around for her panties. Her partner was sitting up in bed blinking sleepily at her through his shock of black hair.
"What do you think you're doing?" the young man demanded. He was from a good Masamori family, long, lithe, and tanned. All of it, the tan, the muscles were a product of the gym, not the hard soldier's life. He was basically a toy.
"Out," she said, in no mood to explain. "Business."
"If I haven't worn you out too much for you to even think of leaving," he said, stretching so she could admire the play of muscles under his sleek expensive hide, "then get back here."
"I told you, it's business," Lainie said flatly.
He bounced naked to his feet, handsome face twisted in fury, one hand cocked to strike. Her eyes went from almost-black to maroon. He stopped, standing with his feet tangled in the bedclothes and his fist drawn back.
"If you hit me," she said, "I'll break both your arms and have my men throw you naked in the street."
"You can't talk to me like that, you whore! I have connections."
"Who will rapidly become disconnected if they learn you've been coupling with a no-class eta bitch." By the time the young man's impulse to violence had passed, Laine had pulled on her panties and gotten a white cotton tee-shirt from her drawer. Her heavily padded Mech Warrior cooling gear stood by the wall like an ancient suit of samurai armor. It would not be the first time she'd driven her Mauler wearing nothing under it.
She pulled the tee-shirt over her head and faced the youth, whose name she suddenly remembered. "You were adequate, Yuki, but you were starting to become a bore. Run on back to your little rich girls and forget all about me. I'm an officer in the DCMS. Any kind of cheapjack juvenile revenge you try to run on me will only blow up in your pretty face. Cut your losses and go."
He glared at her a moment, then seemed to simply deflate. He turned away to find his own clothes.
She began to clamber into her 'Mech-jock suit. He had already ceased to exist for her.
* * *
"We've received word from HTE Security," Gordo Baird's voice came, smug and hateful, into Cassie's headset. "Their people on the south wall report no activity at all. You're leading our reserves on a wild-goose chase, Lieutenant Suthorn."
Cassie grunted. With the bike parked up against a fabrication building, she was on foot, peering up and down the perimeter road along the south wall. A few other scouts had arrived on their bikes and stood hunched over next to her.
Blue patrols were moving along the base of the wall. A four-man squad trotted toward the little knot of Scouts. They didn't seem to have spotted the mercenaries yet.
"Guess that's it, Cass," said Staff Sergeant Willard "Drygulch" Dix, a rangy blond Hillbilly from Galisteo. Even the Hillbillies' Cowboy brethren often dismissed them all as slow-witted. Dix had a drawling, deliberate mode of speech, but Cassie knew better than to make that mistake about him. "Best be getting back north."
"Mierda de tow," Cassie said. "Why would there still be so many Blues at the other end of the Compound from where the action is?" She shouldered her assault rifle, leaned around the corner, and fired a single shot into the middle of the blue-jumpsuited chest in the lead.
The security guard sat down hard, losing his rifle. The other three dove for cover in the shadows of the Fab building. A moment later, so did the one Cassie had shot.
"He ain't bleedin', Drygulch," Jimmy Escobar said.
"Body armor," the sergeant said. "Blues don't wear no body armor!"
Cassie switched circuits on her communicator. "All units, we have infiltrators coming across the south wall. Be advised some are dressed as HTE security. Challenge any Blues you see—if they're in body armor, they're ISF."
"Tiburón's still not responding." Gavilan Camacho had no sooner settled the neurohelmet over his head and shoulders than the words crackled in his ears. "We got us a situation at the south wall. Infiltrators breakin' in, some of 'em wearing Blue uniforms."
"This is Falcon," Gavilan said. "I'm assuming command."
That was a questionable call, since fellow Force Commander "Maccabee" Bar-Kochba had seniority on him. But Second Battalion was stood-down this shift, its people chowing, taking care of maintenance, or pulling rack time. The Rabbi was not on the net yet himself. He was probably still climbing the ladder to the cockpit of his Warhammer. He wasn't as young and spry as he used to be.
Taking no chances, Gavilan rapped, "All active 'Mechs, check in with me."
Responses rattled back with gratifyin
g crispness. That was one thing about the Caballeros. They gave endless backchat under whichever of the good Lord's suns happened to be shining on them, but when the hammer came down, they got right to business.
Bronco was pretty fully committed to the north wall breach. Several of Cochise's 'Mechs were already engaged up there as well; incoming fire from the Blake raiders forted up in the workers' housing north of the Compound was rapidly beginning to slacken as the awesome firepower of a dozen BattleMechs was brought to bear on them. Second Battalion was only just settling into their 'Mechs. Most of Adelante was up, though, and ready to go.
I'm going to show them how it's done, Gabby thought. His father had been leading from the rear for too long. Gavilan would never dream of questioning his father's courage, and would call out anybody who did. It was just that the old man had grown too cautious of his children. He preferred to remain on top of the action as much as possible, instead of in the hot red core of it.
"Follow me," Gabby said, and set his Shadow Hawk into a run toward the south wall. The impact of the 'Mech's footfalls jarred his tailbone even through his seat padding; the Shad had a gait like a mule. No Shadow Hawk he'd ever been in had a smooth ride at running speed, but Red-tailed Hawk was worse than most.
The scouts who first spotted the ruse were hollering for help. The fake Blues had them massively outgunned and were driving them back. Worse, some of the intruders had already gotten past them into the Compound.
He came in sight of the wall. In his enhanced vision, muzzle flashes flickered like hyperactive fireflies from the inside of the ramparts. Too slow, he thought, then gathered his 'Mech into a crouch and jumped.
The roar of the jets filled his ears as the 'Mech soared forward over the low South Fab buildings. He bit his lip beneath his mustache, fighting to keep his machine steady in an unexpected crosswind. Bullets from the wall ahead of him ticked off the Shad's armor like the beaks of hens scratching for millet.
Gabby wasn't terribly proficient at jumping a 'Mech. Probably because he didn't like jumping 'Mechs, except maybe for the fearsome ninety-five-ton Clan Gladiator. He liked big 'Mechs, the heavier the better. No like his sister, leaping all over creation in her Phoenix Hawk.
Only thing was, Daddy wouldn't let him drive one. Don Carlos insisted that his son should be a mobile commander. No Atlas for him, or even his father's old BattleMaster.
The SRMs that darted at him from the top of the wall took him by surprise. Coming into the net late, he wasn't expeering the intruders to fire at him with 'Mech-class weaponry. None actually hit him, but they did startle him into backing off the jump-jet trigger ever so slightly.
Enough so that he dipped down, caught a toe on the roof of a Fab, and flopped facefirst into the building with a rending crash.
* * *
"The public wants to see things blowing up, Archie," Mariska Savage said in a patient voice.
"The public also wants human-interest stories," Archie Westin replied, equally patient. The two had the most reasonable disputes any Southwesterner had ever seen; they were the wonder of the Regiment. The pair were with Zuma, Diana Vásquez, and a pair of blue security troopers, overseeing a score of the Regiment's children in the underground infirmary that was providing shelter during the alert.
"If the fight keeps up, or comes to us, we can get all the action your heart desires," Archie explained. "This is our perfect chance to humanize the Seventeenth for our audience, show that mercenaries are something other than coldblooded fighting machines like the 'Mechs they ride."
Diana smiled. She had a baby in either arm, and was crooning comfortingly to them. The older children sat calmly among the examining tables, playing with toys. They showed no sign of fear at the muted racket from outside; they were Caballeros too.
Zuma laughed and clapped his hands. "I like that, Arch. That's pretty good." The Chief Aztech had an autoloading shotgun tucked under his arm. Father of six kids, he, like Diana, spent a fair amount of his free time working in the nursery. His own children, along with Diana's son and most of the Regiment's other youngsters, were out at the Sportsplex. They would only be moved into the Compound if the whole Regiment transferred there.
"Archie," Mariska said in mock exasperation, "if you're going to wax poetical, at least wait till I get the audio recording up and running."
Archie laughed. "Why don't you do that? I'll see if I can remember what I said."
Grinning, the camerawoman was just unlimbering her holocorder when a pair of Blues, a man and a woman, came trotting down the steps. The two security guards already in the room glanced at them. The older one frowned, started to approach the newcomers.
The female raised her machine pistol and fired a brief burst into his stomach.
The noise was shattering in the confined space. Several children began to cry. Good Southwesterners, they were all flat on the floor before the tears began to flow.
"Consider yourselves hostages," the male newcomer said. He had blond hair and black eyes with pronounced epican-thic folds. "If you remain calm, no one will be—"
Zuma had let the shotgun slide down so that the pistol-grip fell into his hand. Now he raised it and fired one-handed, the blast catching the female fake Blue in the midriff and slamming her against a black-topped counter. Her head snapped back against a metal towel dispenser. She dropped to her knees.
Moving with mongoose reflexes the male intruder shot the remaining Blue as he reached for his holstered sidearm, then pivoted to hose bullets at Zuma from his assault rifle. The Chief Aztech ducked behind an examining table. It would be mere seconds before the jacketed rounds punching through the pedestal's thin metal found him.
Archie Westin hit the gunman in a creditable body slam and drove him back into the wall. The assassin dropped his assault rifle as Archie drove a fist into his belly.
The man's body bent only slightly in response; the ballistic-cloth armor he wore under the blue HTE Security jumpsuit absorbed most of the blow. He kneed Archie hard in the groin, then sent him reeling back with an elbow slam to the face.
Zuma popped up again and shot the man in the belly with the shotgun. The intruder roared; even with the body armor, the load of 00 buck had to cause incredible pain. He whipped out a tanto-style dagger, started forward.
The Chief Aztech walked three more blasts up the man's body. The final one struck him in the face and dropped his headless body flopping to the floor.
Archie had picked himself up again. He had one of the fallen Blues' sidearms in his hand.
"Don't move!"
The voice was a ghastly hiss between bloody lips. The female commando sat with her back to a wall and a pistol stuck in the ear of four-year old Lucy Aragón, who was in the main Compound for treatment of a bad case of measles.
The blue jumpsuit's belly had been ripped open to reveal a black DEST commando suit beneath. Her face was a mask of blood. The corner of the towel dispenser had opened her scalp, and she might also be bleeding from the mouth from the effects of Zuma's shotgun blast. But her blue eyes blazed i with fanatical fervor to match any Blakie's.
"Drop your guns or the girl dies," she said.
Diana Vásquez stood up from behind a table, still holding an infant in her left arm. Her right arm was by her side. Her lovely Madonna's face was fixed.
The assassin looked at Zuma. "Do it," she said.
Diana Vásquez' right hand snapped up. The motion caught the commando's eyes. She turned her head to look.
The compact autopistol in Diana's hand fired as it came online, the bullet hitting the woman in the left eye. Her bloody head jerked back, the last dying barrage of neuro; transmitters making her hand contract, spastically firing the pistol three times. But impact had jerked the gun away from Lucy's head, and the only damage was the chunks of white acoustic tile the bullets gouged from the ceiling.
Mariska Savage, who had recorded the whole scene, dropped her holocorder and ran forward to scoop up the hysterically crying Lucy. She turned accusingly to th
e two Caballeros.
"The children could've been killed!"
Diana lowered her pistol. "They shouldn't have threatened my babies," she said.
"But you put the children at risk."
While they argued, Zuma quickly examined the bodies to make sure the intruders weren't shamming. Then he hit the intercom button on the wall to report what had happened to HTE Security Central. Now he was kneeling over one of the two authentic Blues, shaking his head.
He looked up at the camerawoman. "We didn't risk nothin', Ms. Savage. If they had taken us hostage, Don Carlos would've pumped a couple hundred liters of gasoline in here and fired down a flare. Or somebody else would have."
Savage gasped and turned gray. "We don't negotiate for hostages," Zuma said. "We rescue them, or we bury them. Ain't no middle ground."
Savage looked at Captain Diana Vásquez. The other woman was soothing the children, making sure none of them was hurt, but she caught the camerawoman's look. She nodded.
Archie had managed to pick himself up and stood with his back to an operating table, kind of bent in the middle and massaging a cheekbone that was already beginning to show a bruise. He looked at Savage and both shook their heads. It was obvious they shared a common thought: these Caballeros were in some ways as alien to their ultra-civilized Federated Commonwealth outlook as the Clans.
* * *
"SRMs incoming!" crackled into Cassie's headset. The Cowboy-accented caller didn't identify himself; usual commo discipline for the Seventeenth. "Falcon is down!"
"No lie," remarked Sammy Chato, ducking back as a long burst sprayed cement chunks from the Fab wall beside him. A moment before, the scouts had all been dodging a rain of debris from the junior Camacho's swan dive.