Fortress Republic, page 25
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
Smart. They could bank east or west, lost behind the smoke, and Conner’s warriors would have no idea from which direction they’d next come.
Wave Two slammed down hard and brutal in the next second as artillery fire from distant emplacements walked a hard line of destruction down the backside of the loyalist position.
Like patrons at the back of a crowded restaurant set suddenly ablaze, the units covering Monroe’s back pushed forward in a frantic surge to escape the fire and shrapnel and rain of scorched earth.
“That’s it,” Julian said. “Block up on my position and press forward. Cut them off from the city. We don’t want a knock-down brawl, not today. We want Janiper.”
He saw the blue-friendly icons on his HUD pulling in around him. Spreading out carefully to the north and west to cordon off access to the city. Yori’s Dragon now hooked into the line near Magnusson. The Ghost Bear Arcas backing up Julian’s swinging fist. Dragon’s Fury and a few Republic vehicles hanging in there.
All of them.
But one.
“Calamity!”
He didn’t need to read the iconic tag SM1-K to know who it was out there, running roughshod over his orders and careful planning. Her Destroyer blasting forward at one hundred thirty kph. Chasing the second gunboat!
The Yellow Jacket, no longer king of the skies with the arrival of Julian’s aerospace fighters, had gotten low and fast in a hurry, scraping the earth as it sped through the open ground separating the First Guards from the loyalists. Looking for the treeline on the far side of the treatment plant, was Julian’s quick guess, where a VTOL could hover in close, safely, and an aerospace pilot would be suicidal to approach. A single treetop snapped across a dipped wing and the Sparrowhawk would be pulled down into the tall timber.
But even shedding altitude for a slight pickup in speed, the nose-heavy gunboat was no match for the raw speed of Callandre’s Destroyer. She cut the distance down quickly, before the enemy even knew she was there, slapping onto its tail with her assault-class autocannon, burning a stream of hot metal and white-sparking tracers into the stabilizing rotor.
The Yellow Jacket spun off in a wild arc, clipped the side of the treatment plant’s main building and came right back at the Destroyer.
Julian caught his breath, expecting a collision, but the gunboat fell heavily to one side of the hovertank, breaking up over the open graywater pools. While Callandre skated across the shallow ponds, throwing back a tall roostertail, the gunboat splashed down hard and erupted in a dampened explosion that threw tall sheets of water in every direction and spattered the side of Callandre’s Destroyer with great, sticking globs of gray muck.
“Crap!” she said. And was a single processing treatment away from the literal truth. But it was only a heavy, sludge-like mud.
She swept around in a wide arc, sliding right back into the western line a moment later as if she’d never left.
Julian was too relieved to have her back whole and alive to worry about a rebuke. Not then. He stomped forward, trading long-range PPC blasts against the Rifleman’s rotary autocannon. Worried less about the missile range of Monroe’s JES carriers (as they crawled back farther and farther to the west) than he was about the ex-knight’s targeting ability.
Already Monroe had sliced deeper into the Templar’s wounded leg and hammered away enough armor from his right side that Julian worried for his engine shielding, his primary weapons systems. It slowed Julian down. Bought Monroe and the bulk of his forces some grace time, letting them organize a well-ordered retreat.
Finally, Julian waved off his forces. Pulled them back into a double-thick line that guarded all approaches to Janiper.
Letting the loyalists go.
“It’s just going to get harder,” Callandre said, skating her Destroyer up at the side of his Templar. “Monroe didn’t come to Ronel to get thrown back again. He’ll bunker down at Richmond. Gonna be difficult to pry him out of there.”
He knew that. He also knew his First Guards were still feeling their way forward, acting under The Republic’s visiting foreign powers act. Working so closely with the Dragon’s Fury, and Yori Kurita. Accepting Lars Magnusson, and Paladin Ariana Zou with her small Republic support lance. They had responded as well as he could hope. But as a commander he believed in pressing his gains only when the reward far outweighed the risk.
Today, the risk was too great. He’d trade Janiper against a possible knock-out blow. Marshal his strength while waiting for just the right time.
The first man to attack blindly is the first man to run out of ideas. Harrison had taught Julian that. Battles were usually won in the planning stage.
Today, they had planned for Janiper. And they had it.
Julian tied in his senior officers, the mobile HQ crawler and Yori and Lars as well. “We’ve got what we came here for. There’s a heavy fire burning down half of Janiper’s industrial sector, it sounds like. Haul our reserves forward. I want a double-strength patrol on the city’s edge, and everyone else pushing for the city to see what we can do to help contain the damage.”
“We do not pursue?” Yori asked.
“Negative. We’re into plus-hours now on the mission clock. Freewheeling an assault is too dangerous.”
“Tough call.” Callandre again, keeping her argument alive but never, never challenging Julian publicly as she might in private.
It was a tough call. And it was his to make. As a leader, there was no other way to approach it. Julian listened to his officers and advisors. His allies. He weighed the risks and considered all sides. But in the end, it was his decision.
Harrison had taught him that as well.
“Not so bad,” he said then. “Conner Monroe is our enemy, but he’s no Capellan warlord. He’ll bunker in around Richmond, likely, but he won’t make us tear the city down to get at him. No Republic knight could put people at such risk. Ariana?”
“That would be my read as well, Julian. You can let him retreat. For the same reason, he won’t push for a desperate assault against Janiper now. He’ll let you come to him.”
“Hai. Wakarimas.” Yori voiced her quick approval as well. “It would seem, then, that we are of an accord.”
“Bargained well and done,” Lars agreed.
Callandre was hard pressed to gripe against the consensus. She did, though, in an overly pleasant tone that made a mockery of her agreement. “Well. Since the new Star League has ratified, I see no reason to continue pushing for an amendment. But the member from the Lyran Commonwealth reserves her right to say ‘I told you so.” ’
Julian couldn’t help the thin smile that crept over his mouth. He hadn’t heard such a formal bitchiness in Callandre’s voice since the week following their one and only attempt at a “date” back in their shared year at the Nagelring. He wondered if she even recalled the awkwardness they had endured. He wasn’t about to let it fester now, though. Not again. Never again.
He twisted his Templar to one side, leaning it over in an exaggerated bow as if taking a good long look at her muck-splattered Destroyer. “You know, Callandre. I never thought I’d say this about you.” He arched back, leaning the Templar away again. “But you smell.”
26
For the first time, a pro-Kurita rally has dared show itself on Markab. In an impromptu parade, citizens and residents marched on New Bristol’s city center. They handed out leaflets and called openly for a return of the Dragon. Officials high in the planetary government are “very concerned.”
—Erin DeSalvatore, On the Streets, Markab, 2 September 3135
Richmond, Ronel
Republic of the Sphere
14 September 3135
Storming out of a side entrance to ComStar’s local HPG station, pushing ahead of the new security contingent that had quickly learned to give this Senator some leeway, Conner Rhys-Monroe shoved into the gusting breeze that pushed the steel door right back into his face.
Needing something to focus his frustrations against, he added the toe of his dress boot to the problem and kicked the heavy door open, far enough so the zephyr caught it and slammed it back against the wall. The gust pinned it against the building’s red brick façade.
He exited into a little-used side lot, walled off from Richmond’s main avenue of State Street by a tall cinderblock barricade, though it stood open onto a large, private park stretching back several blocks behind the station. Blacktop dove into fields of tall, pale grasses gone to seed and stunted cherry trees in desperate need of water, their leaves curled and browning. A few decorative evergreens, and bark-covered flower beds sprouting with weeds.
Winds barreled in from this open side, spinning dust and trash and the dried husks of cherry tree leaves across the open lot. Dust devils whipped at the edge of his long, black leather duster, pulling it out behind him, and stung his eyes with grit. Limbs shook and treetops tipped over. A can rolled and clattered across the blacktop, was lost beneath one of the dark SUVs waiting for Conner and Melanie and their respective security agents.
Conner squinted as he studied the nearby fields. He could easily imagine it as it must have looked at one time. A well-manicured lawn kept green by hidden sprinklers, drifting deep in pink cherry blossoms in the spring. A refuge. Once. Maybe the ComStar acolytes made half-hearted attempts to keep it under some kind of control, but landscaping had ceased being a priority for several years now by the looks of things.
“No time for the finer points,” he said. “Not anymore.”
A small group filed out of the door behind him, men and women in dark suits fanning out in a protective circle. One woman wore a stylish, dark blue overcoat, clutching the collar closed tight at her neck with one hand, the other holding a leather handbag against her chest.
“Shouting into the winds, Conner?” Melanie Vladistock moved in behind him, using him for a temporary windbreak. The winds tugged and twirled at her long, reddish-brown curls. “An apt metaphor if ever I saw one.”
“Talking. Talking into the winds. To myself.” One of the dark suits held open the rear door of the closest black SUV, waiting in frozen pantomime. He’d wait all day if Conner made him. “It seems for all our efforts, that is all I can do at the moment. Talk to myself. No one else is listening.”
“Someone is,” she said. Watching the tops of nearby buildings. Holding her handbag up to shield her face from the gusting winds and the grit. “I’d feel better inside the car.”
“Of course.” He swept his hand to indicate both of the waiting SUVs. “Would you prefer your vehicle with bullet holes, or without, Senator?”
Irritation flashed in Melanie’s dark eyes, but she hardly missed a beat stepping towards the closest of the two vehicles—the one with gray-steel gouges showing in the dark paint and a frosted divot in the rear passenger window. “Oh, with. Naturally.
“You know,” she said as he followed her into the spacious interior and the agent slammed the door solidly behind them, “you drive your security agents crazy. I’m not exactly pleased with you at the moment, either.” She looked past Conner, through the smoke-tinted glass with its thin spider-strands of cracks. “That could have gone better back there. I didn’t appreciate being left behind.”
“When you are making a point by storming out of a room, it detracts from the effectiveness when you wait for a woman to gather her handbag.”
“Really?” Melanie asked. Dropping several degrees of warmth. “And how long does it take to gather a handbag?”
“A question men have been asking for centuries, is my guess.”
She tried to stay mad at him. Gave it a real effort, he saw. Biting down on the inside of her cheeks. Taking a few deep, steadying breaths. But then her demeanor cracked and she smiled. Then laughed.
He liked hearing her laugh. It was the only silver brightening an otherwise tarnished week.
“Conner. You bring a certain something to being a Senator. It may be sophomoric, but it suits.”
With a quiet rumble, the vehicle’s engine fired to life. With an easy grace the two-SUV caravan wheeled out from the lot and through a guarded gatehouse to merge into light traffic. He noticed Melanie did not sit close to the window, even though the armored ferroglass had proven its worth very recently. She shifted closer to him instead.
“May I ask what threatening the local ComStar officials gained us back there?”
“I did not threaten. I accused them of taking direction from Terra. To keep us isolated, from what little there is to stay connected with.”
“You’re worried about Lina Derius.”
“I’m worried about Liberty. And Ozawa. And what’s happening back on Markab. This whole Faith-cursed alliance of Senators that relies on constant and accurate communications. Yes, I’m worried about Lina.”
If that was a flash of jealousy darkening Melanie’s face, Conner might have told her not to worry. But he didn’t. He left her to work out her own feelings and insecurities. He had enough trouble with his own. Wrestled with them constantly. As now.
Meanwhile, Melanie leaned forward and busied herself with the suburban vehicle’s small bar. Nothing much more than a cooler for one bottle of wine, and half a dozen plastic flasks with a sample of the usual suspects. Two local bourbons. A tequila. Whiskey (Glengarry Black Label). Northwind vodka. Sake. The plastic bottles tapped together as she dug one of them out and poured heavy splashes of crystal-clear alcohol into two thick-based highball glasses. She left his sitting on the non-skid counter and settled back into the plush, leather wrapped seat with her own, cradling it with both hands.
The elusive scent of the alcohol—spicy?—mixed with the warm scent of leather interior and Melanie’s perfume.
“I am, too. Worried. Though more for a lack of reports from our agents on Northwind than anything out of Prefecture X. But, as to that, I see two possibilities. Lina is unable to respond. Or she is unwilling to respond. Do you believe she has hung us out to dry?”
He gave it a moment’s thought. Shook his head. “No. She needs us more than we need her at this point, trapped as she is within Prefecture X, too close to Terra and the exarch’s reach. And did you see the face of Demi-precentor Burns back there? When I suggested he was taking orders from Terra?”
“When you—”
“Something to that effect.” Conner waved aside her correction. “He stared off into the corner. Not to avoid me. Worried for his own people and his station. I think Terra may have cut them loose.”
Melanie took a sip of her drink and wrinkled her nose at it. “But ComStar’s base of all operations resides on Terra.”
“Exactly. These people are on their own, for the moment at least.”
“And yelling at them?”
He spread his hands in an open shrug. “Gets them thinking about the allies they might need to start making out here. I convinced Subhar Usuha of that.”
“You practically held a gun to his head.”
“Whatever works. Everyone needs friends.”
She stewed on that a moment, and Conner looked out the tinted, cracked ferroglass to watch gray-faced buildings fall by the wayside as the two-car caravan sped through Richmond for the south side military grounds. The one his loyalists had taken away from the Dragon’s Fury.
The garrison post that Julian Davion would now try to wrest away from him.
“So,” she finally asked, “what if your . . . conversational techniques convince ComStar, and others, that they do need allies. And they decide to lean in favor of Davion and his motley force?”
He shrugged. “I’ll learn to duck more often.”
“That’s not funny, Conner. You were lucky the sniper was likely some yokel with his hunting rifle. Next time, they might have military grade weaponry. One sabot-loaded bullet and it’s all over.”
He thumped a fist against his thigh. “All right. You and this floating security perimeter surrounding us have to get it into your heads that I’m not going to let that bother me. I get the idea that most Senators are more than a little self-conscious about their security. But that is not me. I routinely take the field in a ’Mech where some of the weapons aimed at my head will do worse than spill a little blood. It is a very real possibility I might be brought back in a shoebox. Enough ashes to fill a small jar, or a bloody paste scooped into bucket. You think a single rifle shot is going to scare me?”
“Fired from an apartment building in broad daylight? It should.”
“If they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.”
That set her back for a heartbeat or two. Melanie put the drink into a holder built in the door panel. “Excuse me?”
Now where . . . Conner leaned forward, mouth suddenly dry. He’d spoken out without thinking, dredging the words from deep in his memory. They left an acrid taste behind. Like fresh gunpowder.
“Something my father once told me,” he said. “After his first death threat. Got a lot of those, from time to time, you know. I imagine you do as well.”
She nodded. “And my staff takes them fairly seriously.”
“So did my father. To a point. But he never let it stop him from going where he needed to go and doing what needed to be done. When I asked him about that—I think I was fifteen, sixteen at the time—he said, ‘If they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right.’ I’d forgotten that.” Until now. Missing his father roiled inside Conner like a cold hand tying knots in his guts.
“You must be doing quite a few things right lately.”
“That’s military. That’s different. But the guy with the rifle.” He raised a hand to the window, traced one finger along the thin crack that spread through the smoked glass. Tapped the finger against the small, frosted white star of the bullet impact. “That was a personal thing. Political.”
“You think military operations aren’t political? They don’t count?”
He hesitated. Started to speak. Hedged.
Finally, “If Julian Davion were sitting in this car right now, I’d never worry for a second that he might draw a gun and shoot me in the head.”
