Fortress Republic, page 14
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
One final glance at his tactical display showed Callandre following into the furious assault, right behind him.
Which was the point at which the simulator’s programs simply gave up on him. Unable to match the kind of beating he would take as the Templar ground to a halt beneath such a furious assault, his screens simply blanked out as the computers turned their resources to those warriors still active on the allied side of the battle.
Cursing, Julian slapped at the toggles on his communications board. Cut it from IN-SIM mode to COMMAND-STRAT.
“Give me a live feed!” he ordered the technicians overseeing the training session.
Slowly, his HUD warmed back to life, then the large monitor screens that had simulated a BattleMech cockpit’s ferroglass shields. But instead of looking face-down into fire-blasted earth and cratered ledges, he had a “God’s Eye” view. As if the Templar’s head had been torn away from its body and set as a stable platform eight meters over the desert’s battle-scarred floor and the smoking ruin of his Templar (and Callandre’s overturned Destroyer). A true ghost in the machine. He could spin about effortlessly, zoom in on any part of the battle, and request wireframe schematics on any of the combatants. He just could not interact with his people.
So he sat there, and watched them get torn apart. Hands clenched into fists with fingernails cutting small crescent-shaped bruises into his palms.
The Tundra Wolf was not faring well, staggering forward against heavy fire, but having taken down the larger Templar its purpose was certainly fulfilled. Still, there was no denying the Wolf’s strength as it laid into one of the Davion Guards’ Centurions and, with the aid of those same missile carriers, laid it out for scrap as well.
“Damn,” Julian whispered. “What a waste.”
On the far side of the field, where the charge had begun, there wasn’t anything left to cheer about either. Lars had managed to pull the Rifleman after him, finally, but his Arcas wasn’t much more than a walking skeleton of its former strength. And what few Guard units had rallied to their allies’ side were blasted apart and burning, raising dark pillars of oily smoke into that hazed, pixelated sky.
Only Yori Kurita remained as any threat, laying about her with her PPC and a trio of medium lasers—two firing against any vehicle eager enough to slip into her rear quarter. A VV1 Ranger and a Fox armored car had already discovered the folly of that. Both lay overturned and out of the battle.
But now the loyalist Enforcers came at her head-on, with two Condor multi-purpose tanks as well as a Hasek MCV spilling out a squad of heavy, Hauberk infantry.
“Mine!”
Yori throttled forward, no longer caught between conflicting orders, or trying to uphold a battle plan gone to the devil. Her Dragon spat out a gout of fire and smoke as missiles launched from the forward-thrust profile. The right-arm PPC chased after them, laying open the skirt on one of the Condor hovercraft, spilling the air cushion in a violent exhale and sending the craft tumbling end over end until it blossomed into an orange and yellow fireball.
The Enforcers got some of their own back as they caught Yori in a tight crossfire. Their autocannons hammered out with thunderous applause to strike sparks and shards of armor composite from the chest and shoulder and arms of her Dragon.
The barrage staggered her charge. Slowed it. But could not stop her now that she had sixty tons of determined machine aimed right for them.
Five hundred meters . . . Four hundred . . . Three . . .
Like metal filings drawn to a magnet, both Enforcers collapsed against the Grand Dragon. Bending the loyalist line. Opening up a new break through which the Guards might have rallied and—if nothing else—turned a coordinated enemy offensive into a free-for-all slugging match.
“After her,” Julian urged his unit. “Follow, follow, follow.”
But he saw the moment come, and go.
Two hundred meters. An upthrust ledge of red stone sloped away from the desert floor, rising away from the Dragon and towards the Enforcers where it finally gave way to a seven-meter drop. The two loyalist ’Mechs slipped in tight towards the side of the ledge, possibly thinking to hunker down and wait for the Dragon to deliver itself at point-blank range where their greater maneuverability and close-in weapons would give them a definite edge. Letting their Hauberk infantry and remaining Condor challenge the Dragon’s approach. Turning to cover either direction, ready, no matter which way she came around.
But Yori Kurita stormed right up the slope and over the far side. Julian held his breath.
“BANZAI!”
A seven-meter sheer drop. Surrendering sixty tons of machine to gravity was not going to end well for Yori. But rather than worry for it, the Combine samurai embraced it. Full-throttle and not one ounce of hesitation this time.
A throaty yell.
An extra-long stride that pushed the Dragon well over the crumbling edge.
Out just far enough to stomp a thick, wide foot right into the face of the nearest Enforcer. Delivering a kick that crushed through armor composite and ferroglass and the titanium framework beneath. Caving in the cockpit, and continuing on through one side to tear away half of the Enforcer’s head.
The Enforcer toppled over backward, falling as fast and as hard as the simulated gravity could pull it down.
Yori’s Grand Dragon listed in mid-air, came down on its left side right on top of her victim.
The MechWarrior in the remaining Enforcer, stunned, took two extra heartbeats before he moved in against the downed machine, weapons blasting and ripping down through shattered armor and cutting free a severely twisted leg.
Julian saw that not one of his Davion Guards had moved a meter in Yori’s direction during the entire charge.
Not one.
“Call it,” he ordered. And shook his head out of frustration as the screens blanked once again, technicians shutting down the simulation.
He sat there a moment in the near-dark, an outline of the cockpit’s escape handle backlit by a small blue LED, and worried once again how he could ever—ever!—integrate Yori and Lars into the battle order of his First Davion Guards. Whatever possessed them, either one, to volunteer to accompany him to Northwind, it no longer mattered.
Everyone had their reasons. His in keeping with Harrison’s final wishes. The Guards in following him, possibly to Caleb’s displeasure. Callandre Kell in taking her temporary leave from the Kell Hounds.
“All that is left,” he decided, reaching for the handle, “is making it work.”
15
As the news of Harrison’s tragic state reaches further into the Federated Suns, you can expect more outbursts like the one that happened today in Jarman City. Anger and frustration, and the overriding question of why Prince Harrison left New Avalon in the first place during such troubled times.
—The Daily Planet Editorials, New Hessen, 6 August 3135
DropShip First Sun
Zenith Station, New Hessen
Federated Suns
9 August 3135
It was one of Caleb Davion’s smaller fantasies. Just on the edge of propriety. Not necessarily difficult to arrange, but—for whatever reason—one he had never indulged in by chance, nor had he gone to any lengths as yet to plan ahead.
And it might have continued in that manner, had she not come to his private cabin aboard the First Sun so late. Brought along a nippled bottle of Pajarito Smooth Agave (with the pickled cutworm floating inside) and two bulbous glasses with zero-G seals. Been so close to a KF drive jump.
At the time the first cautionaries rang out over the ship’s PA system—three long, baleful tones meant to alert, not alarm—Caleb was splitting the worm with a great deal of appreciation and rising interest. Sorry to see it slip into her glass on one of the final pours, he’d watched her hold it up to the light in his spacious berthing compartment, staring through the golden, glowing amber swirl. In microgravity, the Smooth washed around the inside of the glass with a captivating oscillation.
Then Sterling had swirled it down into the bottom with a practiced motion, and sucked it all quickly through the wide drinking straw. Swallowing the Smooth but catching the worm between her teeth, looking the question at him.
By the time of the second, near-jump alarms, his skin burned as raw and as deep as his throat where her hands touched, explored. She tasted of Smooth. When he buried his face into her luxurious, blue-black hair, he smelled the lavender of her shampoo as well as the light tang of sweat damp behind her ears. Her breath came in short, sharp rushes in his ear. Long, silver-painted nails clutched like talons into his shoulders.
He chewed on her hair and swam in her clean, honest fragrance, warm and drunk and powerful.
And they’d jumped.
Caught between heartbeats, between breaths, Caleb sank into his partner as they were both suspended in that one interminable blink between stars. As the JumpShip Avalon-One powered up its KF drive and tore a rent through space and possibly through time as well. Twenty-eight light years, from Tigress to New Hessen, the Invader-class star traveler carrying the First Sun and the Blood Raptor as well as a Leopard CV escort. Twenty-eight light years ad coitus, with the stars swimming around inside Caleb’s head like some great galactic waltz.
Or, possibly, it was just the Smooth.
It wasn’t as he’d ever thought it would be, this fantasy. Like the golden shock aftertaste of the best Pajarito Agave, reality slammed back in at the base of Caleb’s skull. A swell of weight and warmth that shook through his body and out his arms and legs to the very tips of his fingers and toes, and then collapsing back into one final spike of excitement that hollowed him out. Left him barren and dry, floating above the world in a tangle of (sweat-slick) skin and damp sheets as his blood pulsed loud and strident in his ears. A steady ringing of (sirens) and the distant shout of voices—
—yelling in his ear, “Battle stations!”
Hands clutched at him, wrestling him around in the sudden zero-G environment as vertigo washed him up against the cold, metal bulkhead and Caleb tried to form words around a thick, numb tongue.
“What?”
“Battle stations!” Sterling McKenna shoved herself away, clawed past the safety net that surrounded Caleb’s shipboard bunk space and drifted free into the room. “We are under attack!”
The First Sun shuddered in a series of light tremors, then bucked once in the telltale hitch that even Caleb knew was a DropShip detaching from a JumpShip docking collar. He clutched at the safety netting, pulling it aside and himself halfway out of his rack before Sterling twisted in the air to see him.
“Wait!” she called. Too late.
When the DropShip’s fusion drive lit off, gravity returned in a rush that made the earlier vertigo seem a blessing. Because suddenly “down” was a concept at the whim of the main drive and maneuvering thrusters. And it caught Caleb half in and half out of his bed, legs tangled in the zero-G netting as his body was wrenched down suddenly and firmly. His head bounced hard against the deck. He could have sworn he heard it shatter like a glass ball.
Sterling landed cat-graceful on her hands and the balls of her feet.
She scrambled to one side and grabbed up the one-piece body suit she’d worn beneath her uniform. Hitched her long, well-toned legs through, and quickly peeled the rest of the suit up her hard body and slipped arms through the tank-style straps. She pulled her long hair out, and had it tied in a loose knot before Caleb had recovered so much as a sock.
“Who . . . who would attack me? Here in the Federated Suns?”
“They are attacking the vessel,” Sterling said. Shoved a jacket and pants in his direction. Pulled her own boots on over bare feet. “Soon as we jumped in-system. Had the Zenith Station under patrol. But they made a mistake, filthy surats. Aff, they made a grave, grave mistake.”
Caleb smelled golden Agave. Buttoning his shirt, he glanced around. Saw his glass bulb (or Sterling’s, it could have been) rolling on the floor back and forth near the bulkhead. Nearby, a spreading puddle leaked around broken glass and a lacerated, sopping, red label.
The Pajarito Smooth. It had floated away from the table, and smashed itself against the deck when gravity returned. That’s what he had heard earlier. Not his head breaking.
Though he still wasn’t certain that hadn’t happened as well. He pressed the heel of one hand against his temple. “Ahh. Someone silence those infernal bells!”
“When they stop ringing, the ship will be locked down.” Sterling leaped for the berthing door. Punched the faceplate of a small lockpad. “You may want to be on the bridge when that happens,” she said as the door whisked open under pneumatic pressure.
The ship lurched sideways again, swinging around onto a new course. Caleb grabbed for a stanchion. Sterling rolled with it, literally, tumbling through the door and slinging herself by the frame into the corridor.
“Wait! Where will you be?” he called after her. But no answer came back.
He grabbed for his boots. Cursing the Raven Khan and the fates and the broken bottle of Smooth, the heady scent of which burned his sinuses with liquid fire. It was another thirty seconds before he stumbled out the door and into the corridor, yelling for Mason. Carrying his boots and jacket and trying to tuck his shirttail in one-handed.
As fantasies went, this one would certainly need revisiting!
Though by the time they made it to the bridge, Caleb liked to think he had reassembled himself after their disconcerting arrival in the New Hessen system. Dark hair smoothed back. Boots yanked on and trouser legs tucked inside. Only one button on his jacket not properly fastened, and that because he’d popped it off while wrestling with it during another awkward ship’s turn.
Mason Lambert did not look much better. Red-eyed from interrupted sleep. A faint shadow of beard darkening his chin. His friend rubbed gingerly at the knot swelling beneath his left eyebrow, spreading into a dark bruise along part of his forehead (that same ship’s turn).
Stumbling through the open door, Mason caught himself on a stanchion just back of the captain’s chair. Caleb pulled the bridge door closed behind them. An armed marine slapped at the quick-release buckle holding him into an acceleration chair and leaped forward to help Caleb secure the manual dogs before Mason could turn to help.
“Prince Caleb!”
Captain Shaun Marti twisted around to stare back over his left shoulder. Instead of the usual spacer’s pallor, he had tanned arms and a freckled face, acquired under the suns of a hundred different worlds. Dark eyes. A broad, generous mouth good for smiling, for frowning, and for pulling into a thin line of displeasure at seeing the prince on his bridge.
“Sire, I recommend you return to your stateroom at once.”
“Not bloody likely,” Mason muttered. Still holding onto the stanchion, eyes closed.
Caleb left his friend to his recovery. “What is happening, Captain? Who dares to attack us?” He spoke slowly and clearly, preferring not to slur his words. The taste of the Pajarito Smooth sat on the back of his tongue like acid now.
The First Sun’s captain obviously knew better than to waste time arguing with his lord and master. Having voiced his objection, he waved Caleb into the empty chair next to him. Likely reserved for the executive officer during noncombat exercises, it was safer than fighting the shifting gravity of a vessel under combat maneuvers.
“Liao,” Captain Marti said once Caleb was securely buckled down. The four-point harness bit in at his shoulders and all but cut off the circulation to his legs. “An Okinawa-class DropShip and two Lung Wangs. A dozen aerospace fighters.” One of the ship’s officers crowed and the sound raised a small cheer on the bridge from those around him. The captain smiled, thin and serious. Nodded. “Make that eleven.”
“Liao? In the New Hessen system?” he asked.
Shaun Marti nodded. “Again.”
Again? Then Caleb remembered some of the talks at Thonon-les-Bains. The conversations he’d overheard while resting up from some late night party or other. “That’s right. Julian came through here on the way to Terra. And there were Republic troops as well. I thought they threw some irregulars back into the Confederation.”
“Apparently it didn’t take,” Mason said. “Another job left half-done. What do we have in the air?” he asked Marti.
But the ship’s captain was busy taking a report from his communications officer. “Tell them to launch the ready fighters whether she clears that bay or not!” he ordered.
“Captain?” Caleb prodded. “Our forces?”
“Half a dozen Corsair heavy fighters, already deployed, and two ready-flight Daggers I’m trying to shove out the airlock aboard First Sun. Our Leopard CV is dogging one of their Lung Wangs. Khan McKenna’s Bloody Raptor has engaged the second.”
He gestured onto the bridge’s wall monitor, currently split between a live camera looking out onto the vacuum of space and a tactical display showing four large icons playing chase on the other side of the local Recharge Station as well as two wasp-shaped bodies being protected by their respective guardians. Avalon-One by First Sun, and a Merchant-class vessel by the Okinawa.
Between the two JumpShips, a host of small, dart-like craft danced and circled in a silent ballet.
“Give me the odds,” Caleb said. Aerospace was not his specialty. Like any good warrior, give him real earth under his feet any day. Here, he was better working in the abstract.
The captain shrugged. “Five to seven,” he said. “Against.”
“Swinging about,” the navigator said, calling out the move without so much as a by-your-leave. “Aft thrusters dark. Fore-port jets on burst.”
