Fortress Republic, page 20
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
The tank commander could do little else but wait.
Wait for the launcher to cycle a new set of warheads into their tubes, and then fire off a second flight to keep the Po busy. A second set of fiery blossoms.
Wait for reports to come in from his scouting flankers, who were circling around through the tall pines to find out how large a Capellan unit they had discovered within the Nashton Hills—a back door on Jarman City, according to the report Caleb had read from Brevet-Colonel Hedges.
Wait to see if the M1’s legendary armor would fail now, of all times, filling the crew compartment full of hot shrapnel.
He didn’t want to believe that. God would never be so cruel to a prince of the Federated Suns. The angels marched at Caleb’s side!
And soon, he would notch another important victory on his belt. His third in the last seven days, since taking command of New Hessen’s armored corps. Since stepping Brevet-Colonel Hedges into a supporting role before the young officer (maybe, possibly, likely) ran this campaign into the dirt and buried it alive.
On his screen, a second set of targeting crosshairs edged into view, tracking quickly now as the main turret swung around to match the bearings on the left-side MRM ten-pack. He saw a three-tank set of Demons chase after one of the Capellan Shandras. A distant Regulator pounding Gauss slug after Gauss slug into one of his disabled Fulcrums, hammering it down into scrap.
Then the Po, with its low, classic profile. Box-shaped back end and the “trash-lid” turret centering its autocannon with a ten-centimeter bore directly at them. He was tempted right then to wrest full control away, take the killing shot himself. And might have, if Rolph hadn’t been on the edge of his trigger.
The crosshairs did not quite match, but close enough, when the rail gun sliced out a large, ferrous slug at hypersonic speed. A silvery blur. The Po rocked laterally, jumped one side off the ground. Left a long, terrible gash in the rising deck on which the main turret sat.
Mason crowed and glad-handed Caleb on the back of the helmet, knocking the prince’s head forward. The one man in all of the Inner Sphere who could have gotten away with such an act. He grinned with feral humor.
“Again,” he yelled. Released control of the missile launcher. Allowed Rolph to add it back to the full spread. “Maverick. Hit it again!”
Rolph did, spreading two flights of medium-range warheads across the Po’s side even as the other tank drove hard forward in a desperate bid to get out from under the Marksman’s heavy weapons. The autocannon barrage trailed off, striking only an infrequent rhythm now.
The Gauss slug punched through the deck riser this time in a devastating riposte. The concussive force alone was enough to rattle skulls and certainly burst the eardrums of the crew inside. Then the shrapnel and shards ricocheting through the cabin . . .
The Po sat, silent. No targeting system tracking on the Marksman. No active emissions of any kind.
No more autocannon slugs hammering in at the—
WHUMMP!!
It seemed to Caleb as if God himself had reached down to pick up the Marksman, raised it above the battlefield several meters and then let it drop back down heavy on its left side. It rocked back over to slam down hard on both tracks. His head whiplashed, helmet smashing against the back of his padded seat hard enough to draw a gray veil over his vision for a moment. Then the hard bounce. His jaw came together hard, teeth clacking in a rifle shot loud enough to echo in his ears.
Mason hung halfway out of his chair. One strap on his safety harness had broken away from the left shoulder, and his faceplate had cracked against a nearby console. “That wasn’t a Po,” he offered, humor dry despite the blood flecks staining his lips.
“I know, I know,” Caleb yelled back.
“Sire?”
Ferguson. From the driver’s controls far forward in the tank’s long body.
“I know it isn’t a Po,” he snapped.
“Yes, sir . . . Sire!” The sergeant sounded confused.
Rolph didn’t. “Not a Po,” he agreed, trumping the distant calls of alarm. Caleb’s scouting forces. His few infantry skirmishers were trying to regroup at the rear of their column. “ ’Mech! Breaking through the trees right on our six!”
Before he could say another word, or Caleb give the order, Ferguson cut the M1 hard left to spin fresh armor towards whatever Capellan machine had managed to get behind them.
“Got a . . . targeting info calls it . . . Hatchet . . . no . . . Centurion . . . what-the-hell?”
With Ferguson spinning the tank in a full turn and the turret already cranked over, the new machine slid under Caleb’s sights quickly. A cold, hollow dread eating away at his guts turned to black ice as Rolph’s hesitation and the targeting computer’s confusion realized Caleb’s fear.
Not God’s hand. Not the God. Just a god.
An Asian deity. King of the nine hells, if he recalled correctly. Painted dark green and ocher, with a square-faced scutum and axe held in a high, overhead grip.
Yen-lo-wang.
“Danai.”
Danai Liao-Centrella. Doing her Capellan best to kill him. Her missiles spread out a fresh volley, slinging the warheads in low and thick to slam in near the treads. Just short, in fact, into the same crater she had carved a moment earlier when the missile detonations had scooped up the ninety-five ton machine and dropped it several meters back.
The heavy laser riding over her right shoulder and side speared out in dark, deadly orange. Slashed across the M1’s profile, slagging away armor with the faint shriek of tortured metal and boiling gasses. Alarms rang out, warning of an armor breach. One of the tank’s sensors detected a drop in the cabin’s positive atmospheric pressure.
Two toggles and Caleb could have taken control. Full weapons. The ’Mech right underneath the M1’s primary reticle. Rolph had frozen, seeing the large machine bearing down on them. Caleb knew he had the time. Had the angle. Knew he could dish it right back at her.
Did she realize it was him? Even know he was on planet?
“Wouldn’t matter if she did!” Mason yelled. “Caleb! Dammit.”
“It might matter. It could!”
“Sire, is everything . . .”
Before Ferguson could question him, the shouting if nothing else had shocked Rolph back to action. Missiles spread out from the launchers, clipping Yen-lo-wang across the large shield, pushing past to slam a few warheads centerline. Smoke roiled out of the fissure. Too many craters in that armor to have been freshly paneled. And the ’Mech limped when nothing they had done had so much as touched a leg.
Caleb reached for the toggles. (To direct aim at the vulnerable points, or stop Rolph from heaping on more abuse?) Even he wasn’t sure why, and even as he did so it was too late. A new slash of silver blurred on his screen.
The Gauss slug slammed into Danai’s modified Centurion, at the junction where shoulder met main body. Too close to the cockpit. Too close to her.
His hand slashed across the communications panel without hesitation or thought, cutting over to a general frequency often used to negotiate terms of a cease-fire. Surrenders. Challenges and taunts. He rode out a heavy pummeling as the Centurion’s heavy laser carved more armor from the M1’s profile. More warheads danced across their deck.
Caleb called out the only name on his mind. “Danai!”
Hobbling forward at a steady pace, Yen-lo-wang nearly upon them, arm up and axe held high, ready for a deathblow, something stilled the Mech Warrior’s hand. His voice? The familiar call of her own name?
A hesitation. Just enough for Rolph to cycle his weapons. Punching out with the M1’s Gauss rifle. Shooting a silver mass into the upraised arm right at the elbow. Wrenching the entire arm back, too far, mangling the joint.
“Maverick, leave off! Leave off! Mason, go take the turret.”
“Sire?”
Mason shook his head. “I’m with Rolph. Drop her, Caleb. Drop her now.”
“No!”
He cut out Rolph’s turret controls, taking remote control from his commander’s chair. The corporal, shocked, beat on his now-useless equipment, screaming his prince’s name again and again as the fifty-ton BattleMech loomed over them. The screen Caleb relied on for targeting dimmed as Yen-lo-wang’s shadow fell over the outside camera eye.
Three stories tall. Broad-shouldered.
Wreathed from behind in a kind of holy fire . . .
Which blossomed full and angry as the Centurion stumbled forward. A few stray warheads slipped around from the far side, dropping down onto the Marksman’s long deck, their explosions resounding through the cabin like the ringing of a giant gong.
“What the—incoming!” Rolph yelled.
Caleb saw it too. A dark haze against a bright blue sky. Missile contrails, feeding out from half a dozen or so warheads. Then another set. And another.
Cascading down. Crushing through the plate armor on Yen-lo-wang. Cratering deeper into the M1’s ferro-fibrous composite. The tank shook with a fresh palsy. Rolph yelled, his voice rising high and shrill into a painful howl as the telltale pinnggg-ping! of shrapnel bounced around somewhere within the crew cabin.
And from behind Danai’s Centurion, a new BattleMech lumbered up into view. Long-legged and gangly, with five lasers built into upswept shoulders and a blunt ’Mech-sized taser built into the right hand, the Morrigan knifed jeweled daggers into the back of Yen-lo-wang. A Republic machine. Bearing the crest of the Fifth Hastati Sentinels.
It was the choice of a moment for Caleb to twist his controls, slipping the turret to one side of the wounded Centurion. Centering golden crosshairs right into the Morrigan’s chest and hauling back on the triggers to put one of his few remaining Gauss slugs on dead centerline.
Only now did the BattleMech seem to know he was there. It staggered back a pace, then put a firm leg behind it and pushed forward once more with weapons training down onto Caleb’s M1. Lasers pulsed out with scarlet daggers as overhead a swarm of missiles dropped in overlapping waves.
Pounding and pummeling. With Thor’s own hammer.
The missiles cracked the M1’s deck, pouring fire and smoke and the scent of scorched earth into the cabin.
The impacts rocked the huge machine back and forth. Back and forth. Then it tipped high up onto one side as a full score of warheads blew off the left-side track. The tank hung there, suspended for one frantic heartbeat, as the last wave of missiles hit.
Then God’s hand did reach down and scoop up the Marksman. Spun it around in a sickening turn, and dropped it again with a mighty fist beating down hard.
Shaken like a rag doll, neck lit up in terrible pain, Caleb flopped forward as his harness buckle snapped and he slid down onto the cabin’s warped decking. He landed in a tangle of limbs and straps and (ironically) an evacuation pack. The gray curtain pulled across his vision once again. Growing darker. Leaving him with one last glimpse of the jump seat. Mason’s seat. With four perfect straps still tightened down over an empty chair.
Leaving him alone.
Not even with the whispers of angels to comfort him.
21
Ningpo has fallen! Barely three weeks into the new campaign, the Capellan Confederation has seized another world. The decisive victory is credited to heavy civilian interference with local defenses. A few critics have also decried the light garrison force defending the world, claiming the exarch is not doing enough.
—General Release, //news//battlecorps.org//, 21 August 3135
Genève, Terra
Republic of the Sphere
31 August 3135
In his eight months as Exarch of the Sphere, Jonah Levin had seen his paladins disappointed, angry, elated and sorrowful.
He remembered them vengeful, as they had been after the betrayal of the Senate. Wroth, to lose one of their own. And then hopeful again with the birth of a new paladin in Ariana Zou.
He had known suspicions of them, even on the day of his election as an unknown paladin left dark stains on the conclave. And days of reward when good men and women had stood up, despite any personal agendas, to trust his leadership and help him steer The Republic for what little remained in the way of safe waters.
But in his two hundred fifty plus days since taking office, Exarch Levin had never felt so close to losing the elite conclave, The Republic entire, to an outright mutiny.
The Chamber of Paladins was in full uproar, sure enough—with knights leaping to their feet in the Gallery, some arguing and shoving back their neighbors in brief and bitter feuds. A few dozen kept their heads, and some even kept their seats, though most still had action steeped in their blood and moved quickly to try to calm their brethren. Stepping in between the more aggressive gatherings, calling out for calm, for peace.
But not even the paladins were listening much to such a caution. Fifteen of the elite, nearly the full assembly, each manned his own station on the chamber’s main floor, reacting as befit his or her own temperament.
Anders Kessel was expounding loudly, of course, and on the verge of insubordination as he cried out for “the loss of Stone’s dream.”
Gareth Sinclair, young and hot-blooded, jumped quickly (too quickly?) to Jonah’s defense, eschewing the paladins’ private messaging system to argue the merits in a boisterous rebuttal to Kessel’s grandstanding. David McKinnon sided with Gareth, though more to oppose Kessel, Jonah guessed, than from any devoted consideration of the merits of the exarch’s plan.
Heather GioAvanti stood in stunned silence, staring questions at the exarch before bending her attention to her private messaging board. Already rallying support among her peers in a quick show of leadership. But support for him, or against?
Thaddeus Marik knelt before his station in prayer. Tyrina Drummond and Janella Lakewood had moved to the Gallery gate, drafting half a dozen of the knights in attendance to hold the rest back from the floor. Keeping the disturbance contained if not calm.
And Maya Avellar wept openly, unashamed.
Having begun the chaos, Jonah waited out the worst of it. From the exarch’s dock, where he presided above and before every assembled man and woman, he had control of the entire room as needed. Locking it down. Summoning support. He considered using the built-in public address system to rise above the din, but adding to the escalating chaos and his followers’ distress did not seem a well-reasoned course of action.
Meanwhile a hundred angry voices echoed back down from the chamber’s gilded dome, adding to the cacophony, while on the other side of the giant ferrosteel wall Genève went about its business, unconcerned and unknowing. And so things might have continued.
But Jonah, having given them their head, now reined his people back in slowly but surely. With deliberate care, he reached down to tap one of the holographic buttons he had preprogrammed. A single light in the overhead dome faded to black.
He gave that a slow count of three. Then tapped the next.
Another light.
The next. And the next.
Slowly, overhead and around the room where glowing panels were spaced evenly against the walls, Jonah walked across his controls, blanking out the lights. A very few dimmed to a preset gloom that he had chosen specifically for its ambiance. Most, however, he let go completely.
Before he’d finished half of them, the furor had died down to those with (they felt) the strongest arguments. Two more, and even Anders Kessel had closed his mouth and turned to watch the exarch, who did not slow down or pause to acknowledge the sudden shift in noise level. With deliberate care he shut or dimmed every light in the room but one. The final one. The one backing his dock, leaving him a silhouetted outline to the paladins and knights assembled this day.
“That concludes our floor show,” Jonah said. Not a bit humorous.
His calm sarcasm chastised the men and women charged with The Republic’s defense more effectively than any tirade. Many of them hung their heads. Many knights.
The paladins all met his gaze. Every one. And Jonah returned a careful spotlight to every one of them, even to the absent stations where Ariana Zou and Kaffyd Op Owens were represented in spirit if not in the flesh. He let them stand forth once again from the knights who watched, who judged, and who would act based largely on their example.
“If you can say you did not see such drastic measures approaching, then you were willingly blinded by your own fantasy and not by this office. For weeks I have opened up files, sent you careful reports, and culled all the necessary facts out of the chaff of government to help prepare you. To let you see. I, and a small handful of advisors, have now taken this as far as we dare.”
Anders Kessel leaned forward, hands gripping either side of his personal station. “Exarch. While I believe we would all agree that dark times are upon us, your proposal smacks of defeat. That we should give up.”
“It is not my plan, but one of Devlin Stone’s carefully prepared contingencies,” Jonah reminded them. He swallowed hard, knowing his greatest opposition would come from Kessel. But in a way he welcomed it. Desperate measures should be challenged. Should be debated. “We are not giving up, Paladin Kessel. We are enacting a strategic retreat.”
“But so many worlds?” Maya Avellar asked. Shook her head. “So many worlds . . .”
“With your forces spread out across several continents, and facing potential enemies that are, let me remind you, numerically superior, who among you would endeavor to hold an entire world? Or even more than a single base from which to concentrate, prepare, and then strike back at those who first prove themselves the greatest threat?”
He had several of them nodding along now. Having moved past their initial shock at his announcement, that The Republic had moved into its death throes and was in danger of failing altogether, some were once more beginning to think like military leaders. Like the great generals and far-sighted leaders each had proven themselves to be.
It was no mistake that The Republic’s founder had established a governmental system based on martial prowess and a risk-versus-return mindset. Only in military operations could such a cold and clinical detachment eventually reign.
