Fortress Republic, page 13
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
“If it worried him so much, why did he abandon us?”
“He does not say. Though I believe it was the only way to finally test his creation. His social reengineering. And he left behind several contingency plans to deal with possible failures along the way. But the Blackout, that he did not predict. So we are thrust into his greatest nightmare with very little to help guide the way. Only a last-effort fall-back position.”
She nodded at the screens, and the information they held. “Fortress Republic.”
It was all there. The troops they had available. The resources, both public and secret, that could be leveraged to complete the plan. Pull up the drawbridge! Fire the nearby woods!
“Now I need your help,” Jonah said. He gestured with his tea cup at Emil, who had moved to a computer interface to adjust the program that shifted the borders on The Republic map. “We need your help. And that of some paladins. A few knights. As many political leaders as we can trust.”
Héloïse shook her head. “There won’t be many of them. Especially as you begin redrawing the borders of Prefecture X. Our political fences built good neighbors, all right. Not counting the extra boost in impetus you will hand to our exiled Senators, you’ll meet resistance across the board.” Standing, she crossed to the wall of plasma screens. Stared at the shifting border. “Dieron being the most obvious problem.”
It was a treat, watching the mind of his chief of staff at work. Héloïse had a gift for politics the same way paladins Heather GioAvanti or David McKinnon had such a natural feel for the battlefield.
He stood and followed her over to the screens. They were joined by Emil, who continued to study, crosscheck, and make subtle adjustments to the computer models. And pretended badly that he was not listening.
“Why Dieron?” Jonah asked. He had his own idea of where the trouble spots were going to flare. Dieron did not rate. It was already within the fence of Prefecture X’s border.
“Because Lord Governor Copland and Prefect Nakano won’t want to give it up, and we are going to lose it.”
“Are we?” Jonah asked his ghost paladin.
“Yes.” A simple declaration.
Héloïse rubbed her hands together, warming to the analysis. “The Draconis Combine, on the Coordinator’s order or not, has retaken eight . . . ten worlds surrendered to The Republic during our formation. We may yet win a peace with them, but it is naïve to assume that any brokered deal would not include Dieron and possibly Altair as well. They want back their fortress world. Their lost military district.”
That bumped Dieron towards the top of the list, then. “So any strategy has to take increased Combine aggression into account. All right.”
She studied the map. Saw where the border stretched, bent, consumed. “Now Imbros III might be possible. Okay . . . Okay . . . Zollikofen, sure. That’s Paolo Yngvesson. You can buy him or bully him. But Denebola, that’s your biggest key.”
“Why is that?” Emil asked, caught up in the analysis despite his earlier misgivings at involving Héloïse. Involving anyone, Jonah knew, until it was too late.
“Because Lord Governor Roxanne Waters believes the sun rose and set on Devlin Stone. Stone rescued her father out of the Zaniah reeducation camp, and he helped champion any reform no matter how unpopular. Show her an excerpt from Stone’s private journals, and she’ll make water flow uphill for you. And Prefect Buralli is a cousin. Between them they’ll carry Lipton, Chara, Oliver . . . maybe Zavijava, but politics on that world are Byzantine on a good day. They can even put pressure on Pollux in Prefecture VII. Devil’s Rock, though, will be a problem.”
“Devil’s Rock is non-negotiable,” the ghost paladin said. He offered no explanation. Jonah already knew, and Héloïse simply accepted the demand at face value.
“Well, don’t expect much political coverage on that. Hall and Elgin . . . okay. Nanking? With the local BattleMech factory, you’ll need Prefect Sebhat in your pocket, in the early stages at least. Politics will take a back seat.”
“Emil?” Jonah asked.
The ghost paladin clasped hands in front of him. His dark eyes rarely blinked as they studied the map, and the force-strength tables on one of the other screens. “We’ve already begun concentrating troops on our ‘staging worlds.’ Hsien. Connaught. Milton. These are the prefectures where our line regiments have been least affected by the growing conflicts. And Northwind, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Northwind?” Héloïse asked.
He hesitated. “Originally we looked at Small World or Errai. But Northwind is heavily pro-Republic and has another good recommendation.” He pointed at the screens, drew an imaginary line from Liberty to Markab, passing right through the Northwind system.
Emil turned towards her, distracting her, for which Jonah was grateful. “The alliance of exiled Senators is picking up strength, especially in Prefectures III and VII. Their most vulnerable point is the fragile link tying Liberty to Markab.”
“Senator Derius to Conner Monroe, the new Viscount Markab.” Héloïse nodded back towards the holographic projector. “Which is why Tara Campbell will follow up our reconnaissance-in-force. To take down Derius. That will go a long way to settling any final unrest in Prefecture X. But . . . what about Monroe?”
A touchy subject with Jonah and Héloïse knew it. He heard the hesitation in her voice. Monroe had been a knight—popular and successful, a rising icon in his own right—before pressure brought to bear against his father forced Gerald Monroe to suicide. As if Jonah would not already carry that black stain to his grave, he had to live with the fact that it had ruined another good man as well.
And because of it, Conner Rhys-Monroe might be one of the most dangerous men alive in The Republic.
“We know Sir Conner has been working closely with Senator Vladistock, and approached half a dozen others including Ozawa’s Senator Usuha.”
“The paladins are dealing with him?”
“Lady Ariana Zou is on it.” He took a long sip from his tea. It had settled into the perfect temperature. On the lower edge of hot. Ripe and golden. “She was sent to Northwind as well.”
“A bit junior for such an assignment?”
“She’s a paladin,” was all Emil said. He turned back to the screens.
“She is,” Jonah admitted, despite Emil’s subtle glance. “But she’ll have help. Julian Davion came to me, and volunteered his Davion Guards to pursue an alliance between The Republic and the Federated Suns. I sent him to Northwind as well. Callandre Kell is with him. And I received immediate requests from both Magnusson of the Dominion and Yori Kurita to have their BattleMechs released for travel with the Guards. Julian has been making friends, it would seem. His ability to draw together such a varied pool of talent, and from what we saw last month, we couldn’t have a stronger piece set on the board in our favor.”
“His orders are to engage the Senator?”
“My request was that he work with Paladin Zou or on his own authority to maintain the peace and stabilize the area.” Levin tapped a heavy knuckle against the nearby screen. “He’ll draw out Conner Monroe. Of that, I have little doubt. A vital role . . . and unfortunate.”
“Sir?” Héloïse and Emil asked at the same time, with slightly different inflections. Hers an actual question. His, a caution.
One he heeded. Partly. “Julian has been a friend of The Republic. He represented Prince Harrison’s efforts faithfully and well. But this time, he’s acting without a strong mandate. How that will affect his ability, we have no way to tell. We’ve sent along what help we can, including our strongest endorsement. But the rest is in the hands of fate.”
“Can’t that be said of all our endeavors?” she asked.
“True enough. A moment of regret that has passed.” Jonah drank down the last of his tea, which was quickly turning bitter as it cooled, and grimaced. “It is simply a fact of our position, that we must abandon so many good men and women. What Julian might have been—should have been—no longer matters. What matters now is what is. And we’ll have no room for regrets.
“Soon Julian Davion will be among the many . . . on the outside, looking in.”
14
News of troop movements within Prefectures VII and VIII continue to come in. Garrison forces pulled back, concentrated on only a few, select worlds. And the office of the exarch still refuses to comment.
—Kasey Black, The Military Morning, KMLT, Terra, 4 August 3135
Northwind Academy, Northwind
Republic of the Sphere
7 August 3135
The red desert protocol stretched barren plains of hard-packed, cracked earth and upthrust ledges of red, crumbling rock between the Senate loyalists and Julian Davion’s overmatched motley force. No large hills. No dangerous ravines. An occasional, shallow arroyo that might fill with raging waters during a desert storm but were, at the moment, dry as Julian’s parched, scratchy throat.
Vegetation was sparse. Barrel-shaped cacti painted in their own camouflage of sage and ochre-brown. Tinder-dry brush that burst out of shadowed crevices to bake under an angry sun and break free. A stiff wind pushed these skeletal tumbleweeds across the desert, jumping them off ledges and occasionally swirling them up into the air on a short-lived dustdevil. Driving them under the feet of marching BattleMechs, or into the fans of armored hovercraft where the high-speed lifters slashed them apart like grass under a mower’s blade.
Laser fire cut across this no-man’s-land, sparking rainbow flashes in the wavering, heat-baked air. Missiles arced up on gray contrails, bleeding their exhaust across a hazed, pixelated sky. Particle projector cannon hurled Zeus’ own lightning back and forth.
“A terrifying beauty,” Julian whispered. He licked sweat from his upper lip and blinked away the burn stinging at the outside corners of his eyes. “Faith defend, why are we so attracted to the terrible light of war?”
“Wakarimassen?” Yori Kurita asked. And, “What was that, Jules?” at the same time.
Not quite so soft as he’d thought. The voice-activated mic built into his bulky neurohelmet had picked up at least part of his muttering.
For better or worse, he was saved from an answer as warning alarms wailed for his attention. Filling the cramped space of his cockpit with shrill, biting tones to give him a casual second to react before a seventy-five ton Tundra Wolf lumbered far enough forward of the loyalist line to slash a scarlet blade across the front of his Templar. The blow shoved him backward as the laser boiled away armor composite. Molten droplets splashed against his upper legs, cooling quickly to a dull silver wax, and raining down to the ground where they would (normally) smolder and crisp into cinder-coated slag.
Throttling into a backward walk, Julian pulled back to escape the Wolf’s follow-up barrage of long-range missiles, the warheads falling short to erupt across the desert’s rocky floor in a violent line of fire, smoke, and flying gravel. He was less successful against the enemy’s advanced tactical missiles, which drilled in on low, flat arcs to hammer him across the shoulders and slammed two warheads into the side of the Templar’s head. His cockpit bucked hard to one side, the straps of his restraint harness digging in at shoulders and hips, pressing the quick release buckle into his abdomen like a hard fist.
“Pressing hard from the southwest,” Julian broadcasted across the Guards’ common frequency being shared with Yori Kurita and Lars Magnusson. “Swinging wide. Hold the line!”
Planting one of the ’Mech’s shovel-bladed feet hard behind him, he slammed his throttle forward and quick-shifted from a backward walk to a forward run. Wrenched against his control stick, dragging his crosshairs against the left-hand side of his viewscreen, he caught the advancing Tundra Wolf in the middle of a turn, holding relatively motionless.
The targeting reticle burned the long, lingering gold of a hard lock as his targeting computer adjusted for the slight oblique. The Templar’s arms shifted by a fraction of a degree.
Just enough.
Easing into his triggers, the barrels ending each of the Templar’s arms glowed with a cerulean nimbus. Julian’s communications system crackled with distortion as twin arcs of manmade lightning burst from the particle cannons, streaming downfield over tailings of a collapsed ledge and a large patch of burning tinder-brush to slash along the Tundra Wolf’s right side. Burning deep into the leg, the arm. Ripping blackened wounds into pristine armor.
Hardly enough to drop the Clan-designed machine, it at least made the other MechWarrior think twice about a weakly supported advance. The Demon and a pair of VV1 Rangers trailing along in the Tundra Wolf’s wake were not so impressive as Callandre slid her SM1 Tank Destroyer into the Templar’s shadow.
“Got your back,” she said. On his heads-up display, Julian saw a few other Guard units swing away from center, following Callandre’s lead.
Failing to notice what that did to Yori Kurita’s side of their abbreviated line.
The Wolf hesitated, right on the edge of effective range. Julian hot-cycled his PPCs to lash out again. Then again. Drilling megajoules of destructive, blazing-white energies into the machine’s centerline, then slashing low across both legs.
That decided his opponent, who back-throttled for the safety of his own line while Julian and Callandre Kell continued a flanking swing out to the south and west of Julian’s entrenched force. A classic stand-off, with the Guards (and friends) holding to a strong central position, ready to choke the loyalists should they try to swarm forward and swallow them whole.
Also known as the “chicken bone” defensive strategy.
A strategy that fell apart not ten seconds later, as Julian got caught out of position with his fusion reactor spiking high into the amber band. The Templar moved sluggishly, its myomer musculature and joint actuators addled by the high-heat conditions. Sensors crackled with a light frost of static. Waste heat dumped into his cockpit, blasting at the back of his neck, his arms, and flash-drying his sweat into a white scale.
Julian swallowed, dry and painful, and traded another long-range salvo with the cautious Tundra Wolf. His particle energy streams were joined by a Centurion’s hammering autocannon and the blood-red laser from an advancing Joust.
At that point he first took real notice of the swinging line. The Davion Guards had shifted away from center, following his leading probe and stringing themselves into a long, westward-leaning crescent. Thinning their ranks to the south and east . . .
. . . where the Rifleman on the far side of the loyalist line led a sudden, devastating charge, backed by a pair of Enforcers and half a dozen medium weight, fast-strike tanks.
“Beware!” Yori shouted over the channel, followed by a string of Japanese curses.
Julian had no idea what Yori Kurita said, but guessed it was neither complimentary nor hopeful. He read the same looming disaster on his HUD that she saw forming in front of her Grand Dragon. The enemy commander had played it well. The Tundra Wolf’s hide-and-seek game with Julian had pulled him farther and farther out of position, while the loyalists waited to see if the Guards held or—as they had done—shifted their track to pull way from the supernumerary forces added to their roster. Leaving Yori Kurita and Lars Magnusson with no eastern flankers, and now without much backup as the loyalists collapsed against the eastern end of Julian’s line.
Jumping his throttle forward, he shifted his march to suddenly slash back across the front of his own troops. But sluggish. Slow. “Lars! Push wide now, now, now. Draw them after you. Yori, with him. Turn the loyalists. Guards, at them!”
He snapped off the commands as fast as he could, sensing more than seeing the only possible escape from the mistake his allied force had made. If his plan could be wrenched into place in time. If Lars and Yori trusted him as a commander. If his own warriors could be expected to react as strongly for a temporary ally as for one of their own.
Too many ifs.
Lars did break hard to the east, his sixty-five ton Arcas shuffle-stomping through a rill of red rock and gravel. His lasers fired as he sniped at the Rifleman, cutting a shallow wound over the other ’Mech’s chest and then the right leg.
But that was as far as his plan held. Yori hesitated, drawn between her own desire to charge forward against her enemy and Julian’s order to divide their forces in front of a numerically superior opponent. She shuffled a few steps east. Paused. Traded her PPC and long-range missiles against the Rifleman’s rotary autocannon, and came out the worse for it as the hammering slugs ripped terrible wounds up both sides of her Dragon. She staggered back, cut east, and then held again as Lars moved farther and farther away. The Ghost Bear was completely unsupported.
And Julian’s warriors did move, but not as he’d hoped. They slid further west still, in a comfortable hook to come up on his side, forming a new line behind him rather than pincing across the middle.
Which forced Julian to take a steeper angle into the midst of the nearest loyalist forces. Still attempting to salvage a standoff, risking a minor defeat against a spectacular rout. Losing his wager.
The Tundra Wolf powered right for him, lasers biting out with a savage, scarlet edge and missiles slamming down all around Julian’s position. They were joined by a Pack Hunter as well as a pair of Hatchetmen (of course the loyalists had been given Hatchetmen!) and supported by a sudden swing of JES strategic and tactical missile carriers. Julian stepped straight into a firestorm.
A wreath of fire and black, sooty smoke obscured his forward screen, and gravel pattered against his armor as hard as any autocannon slugs.
A deep, burning wound across his centerline carved deep into his engine shielding, and temperatures jumped again as more heat dumped across his neck and shoulder. The Templar stumbled.
His PPCs slashed out hard, one of them drawing a terrible scar from the Tundra Wolf’s left shoulder up and across its face. But too late. It was his last act of defiance, as two JES strategic carriers overwhelmed him with overlapping missile barrages, more than two hundred warheads slamming into the rocky terrain, walking blossoms of fire and shrapnel up his legs and chest, pounding with violent hammers across his shoulders and head and forcing him first to his knees, then flat out in a long, metal-grinding skid with his Templar’s chest to the desert floor and a fury of enemy firepower drawing down a violent curtain.
