Fortress Republic, page 27
part #18 of BattleTech : Mechwarrior Dark Age Series
Heather sipped her own tea, for politeness’ sake if nothing else. Then, “I’m sure you appreciate that your paladins—any representative of the military, in fact—will receive a suspicious welcome. At best. Geoffrey Mallowes was a very popular duke with wide-spread family ties.”
“And Mallowes led the Senate’s treachery against The Republic,” he said. “Which is why Skye concerns me so much. I can’t have a direct threat rising too soon, and it is the most likely region to mount such a challenge.”
The two paladins traded glances.
“Can it be prevented?” he asked as a soft knock fell against the office’s outer door.
Héloïse Montgolfier cracked the door open, slipped inside and shut it softly behind her. Her green eyes were heavy with news. She clasped her hands behind her and leaned back against the wall.
“What resources would we have, and to what lengths would you authorize us—the one of us—to go?” Heather asked in return.
“Not much. And you will be acting upon whatever authority you can muster for yourself.” He shook his head, the only apology they were likely to receive. “You cannot expect any political cover from Terra.”
“How far are you asking us to pursue this, then?”
A glance traded with Héloïse. “As far as necessary. And maybe a step beyond that.”
Gareth slumped down against the divan’s stiff backrest. “You are that worried for the Isle?”
Jonah spread his hands. “It is our most uncertain quarter,” he said. And caught the warning glance from his chief of staff. “What?” He saw her frown towards Gareth, and Heather, and waved that concern aside. Too late for such worries these days. “What has happened?” he asked. But already a sinking feeling promised that he knew, he knew.
Héloïse nodded. “Harrison Davion has just died.”
28
In a move more stunning than the slow build-up of military forces on Acamar, every last soldier was mustered aboard ship this eve and left in a series of DropShip launches that shook the ground and rose dozens of bright, blinding stars into the gathering dusk. The Republic, it would seem, has abandoned us.
—The Evening Report, Acamar, 15 September 3135
Midlake Transfer Station, New Hessen
Federated Suns
20 September 3135
This woman was insane!
Caleb clambered over the rubble of the fallen wall at Danai’s side, choking on a haze of dust and smoke, and half-falling down the far side as the jagged spill of cinderblock and ferrocrete shifted beneath their weight. Dusk was settling into evening, the worst of all possible lighting. There was no way to be certain this side of the overland shipping station was even clear of infantry. A gun nest? Razor wire strung low to the ground or in shallow trenches into which they could fall. Deep pits with bayonet blades sticking up from the bottom. Anything might lie ahead of them.
What he could see: A series of long, low warehouses. A distant switching yard crammed with boxcars standing along on spur rails. A MASH van tucked away behind the nearest building. The tall outline of a Praetorian command crawler.
And there! Distant flashes on the horizon, accompanied by hollow thumping. Followed a few seconds later by a series of sharp, insistent whistles. Growing louder. Shrill!
The air was screaming. Warning him!
He threw himself forward, falling into the shallow, smoking crater of a recent artillery strike. Danai landed heavily on top of him. The gravel and scorched clods of earth were still warm to the touch. It smelled of cordite and fire and sweat. His sweat, her sweat; after the last two weeks it was hard to make such a distinction.
Danai crabbed over until she lay half atop Caleb, half beside. Studied the tortured ground ahead, preparing to make a run for it. The incoming artillery fire hammered down in five, six . . . seven sporadic bursts. Bright columns of flame tore into the ground and zipped shrapnel and gravel through the air.
“Now!” Danai said. Her voice sounded husky and strained. “Twenty seconds.”
Timing an artillery barrage was playing with fire. And shrapnel, and immense concussive forces. Still they scrambled back to their feet. Danai held the Intek laser rifle across her waist, covering the open ground to one side. She led the sprint.
“Crazy. Faith defend.”
Caleb glanced back once, searching . . . then followed. He gripped their one survival knife in his left hand. He thumbed the lower edge of the blade, testing it. Feeling the cold metal slip into his skin again, and again. Had to be sure. If the blade went dull, he had to know at once. Be ready to toss it aside and then take the rifle Danai carried.
The one she had taken off the infantry trooper, and had never let him touch.
The only power she had over him now that his body was on the mend. Fewer blackouts. Fewer moments where the darkness rolled in and swept over him in a cold sweat, and all he could think about was Mason Lambert. Who had abandoned Caleb back on that battlefield. He must have! Unclipping his restraint harness (and then fastening them up again?) to climb out of the shattered M1 Marksman.
Going for help. That was the only thing that made sense. Mason had run for help, to Lord Faust or even New Hessen’s uncertain field commander. Caleb had to believe that, because he knew (he did!) that his friend would never have left him alone and hurt and dying if he could help it. There was no distance Mason would not go for him. No secrets that could not be shared. No deed so terrible that it would affect the two of them in any way.
But where was he?
“Not here,” Caleb whispered. Some middle-of-nowhere transfer yard where rail cars were switched and cargo warehoused and tractor-trailer trucks might be brought up a service road to load up cargo for local towns.
A local command post for Republic troops, by all signs.
One under attack! By Liao or Federated Suns forces, neither he nor Danai knew. And she did not seem to care.
Insane . . .
Into the shadow of the nearby warehouse, pressing themselves up against a wall of heavy metal sheeting, Danai reached back for the front of Caleb’s uniform and pulled him along the wall towards one corner and into a narrow alley between two such buildings. Caleb grabbed her wrist but did not wrench her grip free. Hesitated. Glanced back over his shoulder.
“There is no one back there,” Danai hissed. Mistaking his search for concern about a Republic patrol following up on their heels. “We’re clear.”
Or they were. Twenty days of running, of hiding. Bathing in muddy creeks as they cut cross-country. Leaving behind two towns where they picked up some food, and he might have left her then if she hadn’t seemed so sure of where they were going. So determined.
If she hadn’t grabbed his uniform and hauled him along. Him, a prince—the . . . the prince—of the Federated Suns. Baggage.
He tested the edge of the knife again, felt it slice a shallow groove into the edge of his thumb.
“There is something back there,” Caleb insisted. Just not Mason. “And ahead. And to either side. Danai, what are we doing here?”
They hurried up the midnight alleyway, feet scuffling against asphalt as behind them artillery fire ripped along the walls and this time found one end of the warehousing as well. Metal shrieked as the blast ripped it apart. The ground trembled, and Caleb felt small pinpricks stab up into the soles of his feet.
Tested the blade. Cold. Sharp.
He slowed, tugged her back to him harder than he’d intended, coming body-to-body with her in the darkness. Only a dozen paces or so from the near end now, a spill of red emergency light washed into the narrow causeway and showed two side doors to the warehouse on either side of them. One of the doors hung halfway off its hinges.
Shouts ahead. The grinding of armored tracks against ferrocrete. And an almost-familiar rattling sound that took Caleb a few extra heartbeats to place. Tank treads clawing their way over railroad tracks.
“What are we doing here?” he asked again. “Assaulting a Republic post with a laser rifle and a knife?” Cold. Sharp. “We should be circling north. Find a flanking patrol of whomever is attacking—your forces or mine (his! he bet on his!)—and seek rescue.”
“I haven’t been trying to get rescued, Caleb.”
A red bolt of pain lanced between his temples. “Are you mad? Not trying—”
But Danai turned away. Turned her back on him. Led them carefully down the alley, pressed up against the side of the building as they approached the mouth. Crouched at the corner, she gestured out into the open yard. A wide, flat expanse littered with blocky boxcars and tankers, and a few military vehicles crammed in between the several spur lines.
. . .cold. . .
And no, she hadn’t been trying to get rescued. What she had been doing was just what it appeared. Tracking the Republic forces as they moved across country and looking for their staging posts. Correction: one of their staging posts. Not for their main force, but an auxiliary—likely a temporary maintenance facility or salvage center.
The kind of place that might be tucked away on a rural route, at a transfer station like this one.
What Danai had wanted all along rested out in the yard on the back of a J100 salvage-recovery vehicle—a large crane-and-winch system on a heavy tractor cab, capable of hauling even the heaviest ’Mech onto its large, flatbed trailer.
A sixty-ton Centurion? Not much of a problem.
Yen-lo-wang.
“Your ’Mech? That’s what this has been about?” The reason she had dragged him across a good portion of New Hessen’s backwoods?
“It’s mine and I’ll have it,” Danai bit back. Real fervor in her voice now. “You had your chances to bail out. You chose to stick. And I appreciate that.” She glanced back. “I do.”
More shouting. And men running across the yard close enough so that Caleb heard their boots pounding against the asphalt and kicking through cindercone gravel even over the distant echoes of autocannon fire and pounding missiles. Though the artillery had finally stopped . . .
“The ’Mech,” Caleb repeated. Still trying to wrap his mind around the fact. And when she had pulled him out of the ruined Marksman, had it truly been for his benefit, or was she seeking a bargaining chip to help ransom herself and her BattleMech off of New Hessen if necessary? He felt cold sweat beading on the back of his neck. His grip tightened on the knife. “You were more worried about Yen-lo-wang.”
Which should not have been as surprising as it was. A storied ’Mech with a long history associated with the Liao dynasty. Of course she had come for it.
. . .sharp. . .
Danai shrugged. “A girl has to have her priorities,” she said. Not exactly unkind. “I’d like to think that—”
Whatever she had been about to say, a storm of fire and brimstone pouring out of the sky and into the northeastern corner of the expansive switching yard interrupted her. Half a hundred missiles ripped through another part of the high, heavy wall that protected the transfer station. A coruscating whip of blue-white energies slashed in through that opening, along with white-hot tracers from heavy autocannon fire.
Then the crimson and bright-blood tint of laser fire, spearing down from the heavens as a pair of night-cloaked VTOLS thundered overhead. Strafing through the yard. Finding the fuel tank on a VV1 Ranger parked over near the tall command crawler. The vehicle burst into flame, coloring the station in a flickering yellow-orange light.
By the light of that initial fireball, Caleb counted three Warrior H8 attack helicopters come slashing over the yard’s main gate. Missiles rained onto the guardhouse. A few warheads hammered down around the MASH truck, the J100 salvage vehicle.
Around Danai’s precious Centurion.
“No!”
She leaped forward, but Caleb caught her by the back of her tan windbreaker and hauled her back. And a good thing, as secondary volleys of missiles from outside the yard walls suddenly pounded down in overlapping waves. Tossing one boxcar off its wheels. Slamming into the corner of the warehouse and ripping free several long strips of metal that whipped out across the open yard like a storm of mangled blades.
She struggled briefly, but Caleb managed to get an arm around her chest and put her into a lifeguard carry. Hauling her back away from the firestorm, he kicked open the sagging warehouse door they’d crawled past earlier and shoved her inside. There wasn’t a great deal of room. Crates and barrels stacked floor to ceiling, draped with tarps and canvas wraps. Just enough of the red emergency lighting from outside eked in through the open door to let him find Danai’s shadowy outline.
“That’s my machine out there!”
“And a major push by someone who doesn’t like The Republic very much.”
Caleb blocked the door with his body. Held the knife down at his side, thumb pressed hard against its lower edge. He felt the blood well up. It dripped slowly down the length of the blade to spatter against the side of his combat boot. In the warehouse, with the firefight outside muted by thick, steel walls, he could hear the gentle pat, pat, pat of the blood drops striking leather.
“Damn you, Caleb Davion. Get out of my way.”
She levered the Intek laser rifle forward. Actually pointed it at him. She dared!
“I will not. It’s death on a platter out there, and you know it.”
She scoffed. “Trying to save me, Caleb?”
It seemed so unreasonable? Hadn’t he held off his own gunner in the middle of their battle, when the Marksman’s Gauss rifle could have punched through her cockpit and killed her? Why did people question his motives at all times—and now above all others? Question his bravery. His commitment. His sanity!
. . . coldandsharp . . . coldandsharp . . .
“If I must,” he said. “I’ll hold you here for the same reason you pulled me out of the M1. I might need a bargaining chip.” That’s all she was to him now. An asset. He kept telling himself that.
Never trust a Liao.
Danai stepped at him. Thrust the barrel of the laser rifle towards his gut. “Step aside,” she said, voice cold and flat.
He stepped right back at her. No longer caring. Letting the madness of the moment sweep him away with sudden power. A prince of havoc. Cold sweat stained his neck, turning hot very quickly.
The barrel pushed against his lower belly. He stared straight back at her. “Shoot,” he taunted.
She didn’t. He sensed her hesitation even before the pressure against his gut relaxed marginally. Knew she had surrendered to him.
Finally! From the moment he’d met her aboard the Stargazer, that had been what he’d wanted. Her surrender. After learning her true identity, having it thrown in his face at the Exarch’s Ball, he’d accepted that it would—could—never happen. The insult and the humiliation were too great. The divide too wide between their heritages.
But she was Liao! And Liao should be used to surrendering to Davion demands after so many centuries!
He knocked the rifle aside, tearing it from Danai’s grip in a swift, violent motion. He stepped up against her, pinning her back against a canvas-draped wall of crates with the knife up near her throat and his thumb still riding that magic edge (was it still sharp? Oh yes, yes it was, cold and sharp!). His skin flushed and crawling with tension. Every muscle vibrating, the pounding of his own heartbeat overpowering the sounds of nearby battle.
A thunderous ovation.
He crushed his mouth down against hers. Tasting the dirt and sweat of their travels on her lips. And something sweet as well. Overripe, like bruised plums. The taste and the scent of her overpowering him.
“Caleb . . . no . . .”
But she did not mean it. He felt it in the tremble of her body as it responded to him. This was how their game had originally been meant to play out, and they both knew it. With her (fear) complete surrender. One hand bunched into the fabric of her tan windbreaker, holding her in place, he tasted her again. Remembered her earlier comments, and took them for his own.
This was his.
And he’d have it.
Midlake Transfer Station, New Hessen
21 September 3135
In the waxing hours of morning, with dawn’s arrival pulling back the shroud of night and coloring the sky with bloody reds and deep, burnished gold, Erik Sandoval-Groell walked his Enforcer III up to the Phoenix’s lowered ramp.
An Excalibur-class DropShip, the large, egg-shaped vessel towered over the ruined Midlake Transfer Station like God Himself had reached into some city to pluck up a skyscraper, carried it across New Hessen and then planted it again over the wide, expansive yard. Erik knew The Republic force that had held the transfer station until only a few hours ago had likely seen it as much the same thing. God’s own fist lowering out of the sky. Blazing with fire. Dropping ramps so Erik could lead out fresh troops in support of the forces he’d deployed earlier with Brevet-Colonel Hedges. Their third in a series of quickly planned operations.
This one netting Erik the true prize to be found on New Hessen. The man who waited at the foot of the DropShip’s ramp, surrounded once again by a full contingent of armed security agents and (now) a second line of battlesuit infantry as well.
Caleb Hasek Sandoval Davion.
The Federated Suns’ new prince watched as Erik’s armored column limped back aboard. Counting the Swordsworn crests proudly displayed on every vehicle, and catching the three or four left of the troops Erik had borrowed from Count Brisham Vicore. Like the DropShip, which did not display a sunburst crest but rather a design that centered the silhouette of a Phoenix Hawk against an inferno of flames twisted into the wide outline of a large bird.
Erik throttled down, bringing his Enforcer to an easy halt. He set it in a wide-legged stance and deactivated all command functions, which locked out weapons and sensors but left open the maintenance protocol that would allow a technician or junior Mech Warrior to walk the Enforcer up into the DropShip’s massive bay when it was time.
He had better things to do than wait in line.
Shelving his neurohelmet into its overhead cradle and then popping an egress hatch, he thumbed a control stud and spilled the chainlink ladder out of its storage compartment beneath the hatch. He clambered down, and moved (slowly!) to greet the prince.
