BattleTech MechWarrior Dark Age 05 Truth and Shadows 2003 Page 16

BattleMechs were never inconspicuous, but at the faster pace, their approach would rattle windows and send a tremor through the ground.

  "Let them know we're coming," the Countess said over the 'Mech-to-'Mech circuit. "No surprises that way. Sneaking up on a man who's in the middle of a gunfight is a good way to get yourself shot."

  Bishop felt the beads of sweat begin to trickle down her forehead as the Pack Hunter's cockpit warmed up. The sensor screens were all bright; the gauges read nominal; the weapons were fully charged and ready.

  "I don't know about you," she said, "but I want to kill something."

  "I want to see what's going on for myself, first," the Countess said. "I'm not a hundred percent sure that what our man was reporting as an attack isn't really a retreat-in-force."

  "We can only hope," Captain Bishop said.

  They were closing in on the area of the fighting now. Their own troops were well dispersed, dug in, and ready. Kerensky's Wolves would need luck as well as skill and masses of steel to break through, just as the Highlanders themselves would need luck to hold-luck, because compared to the Highland forces, the Wolves did have masses of steel. Not only that, but their reputation was ferocious.

  Captain Bishop wished she could say the same about the Highlander forces currently holding the planet's capital. They had some experienced troops, after last summer's engagements in the Rockspires and on the plains above Tara, but-thanks to that same fighting-they didn't have enough.

  Not with the Wolves howling for blood. That was why the Countess had worked with Paladin Crow to hire Farrell's mercenaries in the first place, in order to take up the slack until recruitment and training could fill the empty spaces.

  Another few moments, and they were through the line and into the thick of the fight. The Countess fired at a Condor tank with Steel Wolf markings, then jumped away from the return volley of short-range battlefield missiles that the Condor's support troops launched back at her.

  "Infantry's getting uppity," Captain Bishop observed.

  "That's because they can get in close," the Countess said. "We're in a built-up area. They can go above us, get below us, and move out of sight until they're close enough to do real damage."

  "Sneaky bastards."

  "You won't get any argument on that from me," the Countess replied. "Have you spotted anyone yet besides our own people and the Wolves?"

  "Negative. Command and control says: nothing from the mercs."

  "Right," the Countess said. Her voice was taut. "Bishop, get over to the mercs' encampment.

  Find Farrell, ask him where the hell he's been. Get things moving. And if you happen to see a burned out Blade 'Mech along the way-" "If I do, I'll deal," Bishop said.

  She turned her 'Mech and started it loping away. As she ran, behind her, the Countess's Hatchetman swung its massive, depleted-uranium ax at a wall, breaking it into a hundred pieces and showering the rubble down onto the invading infantry below.

  Then the Hatchetman jumped, and Captain Bishop couldn't see it any more.

  40

  Fort Barrett

  Oilfields Coast

  Kearney

  Northwind

  February 3134; dry season

  "Will, Jock, Lexa," Master Sergeant Murray said. "Sit down, then."

  Will and his two friends had not been back at Fort Barrett more than half an hour before they found themselves summoned to Murray's office-a cubby off the squad bay. Even inside that enclosed and windowless space, they could hear and feel the air around them vibrating at a steady low rumble as aircraft after aircraft took off from the base's landing field, bearing troops to New Lanark and the relief of Tara.

  Will glanced over at Jock and Lexa. His conscience was fairly clear-there hadn't been much chance for trouble, going south along the coast and back, and he hoped that theirs were too. His stripes were still too fresh to rip them off now. But an invitation to sit was a good sign.

  "What's up?" Jock began, but Murray had his back turned and was pulling a bottle of whiskey from a desk drawer, along with four battered china teacups.

  "I know the three of you are friends," Murray said, pouring liberal doses of amber fluid into each of the cups. "Fought together, came up through the ranks together."

  "Aye," Jock said, "that's true," and Will and Lexa nodded.

  The three of them accepted the filled teacups, and Will sipped at his carefully. It was good liquor-strong and peaty, and meant for thoughtful drinking. If a man wanted merely to get drunk, he spent his money on cheaper stuff.

  "And I hear that you're familiar with the Rockspires," Murray said, looking directly at Will.

  "There's some that say I am," Will agreed.

  "The captain has something special, and I can't think of anyone who'd be better," Murray said.

  "You can always say no, of course, but if you're the soldiers that I think you are- then you'll be platoon sergeants, and that's an honor for ones so young as you."

  Will was getting a bad feeling. A smiling, friendly sergeant, serving drinks and offering an opportunity for advancement . . . he kept silent and waited for the hook at the end of the fishing line.

  "Well, then," Murray went on, "knowing the Rockspires as you do, and knowing that the Countess has her castle there, I'm sure you'll be honored as well to be the ones to hold it until she comes to set it up for a new headquarters."

  "Things are that bad, back in Tara?" Lexa asked.

  Murray nodded. "So I think."

  Will hesitated a moment, to hear if Jock or Lexa had anything more to say, but when he looked over in their direction, he saw that they were watching him already, as if waiting for him to speak. He realized that he'd been elected group spokesman without being informed of the vote.

  "If that's how it is," he said, "then we're in. For Northwind. And the Countess."

  Murray gave a satisfied nod. "You'll have a company, and the captain himself will be with you.

  Your aircraft leaves in half an hour. And leave your kit behind, all but what you can carry in a fight.

  You won't need it."

  "Good thing I never wasted my paycheck on a pair of those open-toed pumps," said Lexa.

  "Who knew that I'd be in the army for the rest of my life?"

  She slugged back the whiskey and set the empty teacup down on Murray's desk. A second later, Will and Jock did the same. As they left the office, Will noticed that Murray hadn't touched his own drink.

  41

  Jack Farrell's Mercenary Encampment

  The Plains Outside Tara

  Northwind

  February 3134; local winter

  Captain Bishop knew the way to One-Eyed Jack Farrell's headquarters, off to the west of the city. The Pack Hunter was fast and it was not long before she found herself approaching a roadblock on the city's west side, with a Scimitar MKII locked onto her and tracking.

  "I'd like to talk with Captain Farrell," she said over the 'Mech's external speakers.

  "He's up the road a ways," the trooper at the roadblock replied. "You want to leave your 'Mech here?"

  "I don't think so."

  The troops had a whispered conversation. One of them picked up a field phone and called away on it. After a while he got a response.

  "Boss says to come on through," he said. "Up the road, Jack'll see you."

  Bishop took the Pack Hunter up the road until she found Jack Farrell sitting at a table by the roadside, his massive Jupiter 'Mech towering empty beside him.

  "Come on down," Farrell said. He had a deck of cards in front of him, and was dealing himself a hand of solitaire. Except for his clothing-winter-cammo field gear and a marksman's fingerless gloves-he looked much as he had when she first met him, playing poker aboard the DropShip Pegasus.

  Bishop hesitated a moment. Then she gave in and retrieved her winter greatcoat from the cockpit locker. Shrugging the coat on over her shoulders, she popped open the 'Mech's hatch and climbed down.

  "Take a load off," Jack said, gesturing to the seat
in front of him. He scooped up the cards, shuffling them idly without looking at them. "What can I do for you?"

  Bishop remained standing. "I'm looking for a bit of information," she said. "Has anyone seen Paladin Crow?"

  "Yep." Jack shuffled the cards, cut them, then shuffled again.

  "Well, we're waiting," Bishop snapped. "There's an attack going on right now. You're supposed to be doing an envelopment past the right flank."

  "Beg to differ," Jack said. "We talked with Crow, all right, and we've got a contract."

  Bishop began to feel a sinking sensation in her stomach. "What exactly does the contract say?"

  "Well, parts of it are private."

  "I believe it's our business as well . . . but never mind. Mostly I'm concerned about the fact that you're ignoring orders from the Paladin. You're supposed to be leading an attack, not sitting under a tree playing with yourself."

  Jack chuckled. "But we are fulfilling our contract. Our orders are to sit here, although trees aren't specifically mentioned."

  The uneasy sensation in Bishop's stomach turned without warning into a sickening drop, as though the ground she stood on had fallen away, leaving only the gaping pit beneath. This was worse than mercenaries acting . . . well, like mercenaries. This was-"The Paladin ordered that?"

  "Yep."

  She kept her face unmoved and her voice down in its normal register, even though the effort it took was hard enough to hurt. "I'd like to talk with him."

  "Can't do that, either," Jack informed her. "He went through the lines up to the DropPort this morning. DropShip took off half an hour, forty-five minutes later. He's gone. Leaving us to honor our contract."

  "I can check on that, you know," Captain Bishop said.

  "I know."

  "And what, specifically, is your relationship to the Highlanders supposed to be?"

  "Specifically," Jack said, "we're supposed to make sure you don't retreat out of the city to the west. We're to hold you while the Wolves hammer you. Nothing personal, I promise."

  "The Paladin is gone," Captain Bishop said. Has deserted us, she wanted to say; has turned traitor and handed us over to our enemies-but there was no point in speaking of treason to mercenaries.

  "Let's work out a new deal."

  Jack shook his head. "He's gone, but the contract's still in force. How would it look if we started ignoring contracts? We'd never get hired by anyone again. Tell you what, though, you're a good kid. You've got a spark to you. And you have a 'Mech. How'd you like to join up with us? Nothing wrong with being on the winning side. Good pay and good chow, too."

  "I'm honored," Bishop said, letting the tone of her voice explain that she was actually nothing of the kind. "But I don't think I'll take your offer. How about we cut for it? You get the high card, you stay here. I get the high card, you come with me."

  "I don't think much of that," Jack said. "It's one thing in a friendly game. It's another thing when a contract's on the line. But like I said, I like you. Get back in your 'Mech, and you have safe passage back to your own lines."

  Captain Bishop bit her lip against a reply. The offer was a generous one by mercenary standards, and if Farrell didn't realize how much of an insult it was by her own, now was not the time to teach him. She stalked back to her Pack Hunter in stiff-shouldered silence.

  "Don't forget what I said," Farrell stood and called after her. She paused with her foot on the bottom rung of the 'Mech's access ladder and looked back at him as he continued. "We can always use sharp kids.

  "At least, we shouldn't be fighting each other," he added. "I could use a few more like you."

  Then he sat again, and redealt his cards.

  Captain Bishop ascended the ladder to the Pack Hunter's cockpit and spun the hatch closed. As quickly as she could, she put back on the cooling vest and neurohelmet and ran through the primary and secondary security sequences. She had to get back to the city as fast as she could and break the bad news to the Countess.

  She pushed her Pack Hunter up into the upper range of its speed, keeping it near a hundred kilometers per hour as she took it in great loping strides toward the northeast, where the Highlander line was being pressed. She hadn't used much ammo so far this morning, and her temperature level was fine. She turned to the battle circuit, looking for a place where the timely arrival of a Mech might make a difference.

  The amount of radio traffic near the waterworks sounded like things were getting hot down there. She altered her course more to the east, then keyed up a call to the Countess.

  "My lady, I have news that's best delivered face-to-face. Where shall we meet?"

  No answer came back over the link.

  42

  Fort Barrett

  Kearney

  Northwind

  February 3134; dry season

  General Griffin paced through his temporary headquarters at Fort Barrett, his aide, Lieutenant Owain Jones, by his side.

  "I liked fighting on other people's worlds more than I'm enjoying fighting on this one," Griffin said. "And when it's all over, I'm going to declare it a priority to make damned sure we have enough heavy-lift capacity to carry our 'Mechs and armor around without DropShips."

  "That's a great project for next year," Jones said. "As it is, we've got everything that'll fly all the way to Tara with a soldier on board commandeered. The troops are embarking right now, and Fort Barrett's commander is complaining that we're stripping the continent of defenses."

  "If he keeps on complaining," Griffin said, "you can tell him from me that if we don't take everything we can from Kearney, we won't have a world to defend, let alone a continent."

  Griffin came to his quarters-a cot walled off with temporary dividers behind a set of file cabinets, since Fort Barrett's visiting officers' quarters was currently as overcrowded as everything else-and pulled his own combat pack out from under the cot.

  "Where do you have my 'Mech?" he asked Jones.

  "Leaving from south of Benderville by heavy-lift VTOL," Jones said. "It should get to the landing zone before you do. And I took the liberty of dispatching a holding force to Castle Northwind.

  They're already airborne."

  "Good job. But that'll signal the Wolves that we're on the move, so we have to get the rest of this show on the road too. We don't have enough airfields between Tara and the mountains to land everyone, and I don't want to scatter my forces. We'll deal with it as it happens. Give the order to saddle up and ride."

  43

  Tyson and Varney 'Mech Factory

  Northwest Sector

  Tara

  Northwind

  February 3134; local winter

  Prefect Tara Campbell and her Hatchetman were prowling the grounds of the Tyson and Varney 'Mech Factory industrial park, hunting 'Mechs.

  The Steel Wolves had almost as few of them as the Highlanders did, she was sure of it. Ever since Devlin Stone's reforms had taken most of the individually or family owned 'Mechs out of the picture, full-scale BattleMechs had been uncommon and difficult to obtain. Battlefield seizure was always a workable method-she'd gotten a report of one Wolf 'Mech captured only this morning. The explosives that took it out of action had damaged it too badly for the Highlanders to get any immediate use out of it, but perhaps something could be done with it later.

  If, she thought, there was a later.

  She jump-jetted over a building-the Tyson and Varney Workers' Assembly Hall-looking around at the top of her trajectory to see with her own eyes what the map display represented. There.

  The Steel Wolves had a group of three Fox armored cars in position behind the T&V Spring Bearing Plant. Their missiles would be of limited use here inside a built-up area, but if the fighting ever moved to the open ground outside the city, she'd prefer not to face the speedy little vehicles.

  She touched down briefly on the street, then made another jump, this time to the top of the Spring Bearing Plant. A downward swipe of the Hatchetman's ax, and an eight-meter hole opened up in the r
oof. She felt a momentary remorse for the destruction she'd just caused, but didn't let the feeling slow her down. Tyson and Varney could always rebuild their factory later if the Highlanders won this fight; but if the Steel Wolves took over Northwind, the workers at T&V would be building IndustrialMod BattleMechs for Anastasia Kerensky if they were lucky enough to be working at all.

  She jumped down through the hole in the roof, into the Spring Bearing Plant.

  Dark in here, was her first thought. The plant's interior lights were all off. She switched her viewscreen display over to infrared. Quiet in here, too.

  The steady stream of background radio chatter had ceased, and she realized that the steel in the plant's walls, and in the huge machines used to press spring bearings, distorted magnetic signatures and degraded communications. Well, her commanders would have to work without direct contact for a while.

  The trio of Fox hovercraft that she'd spotted earlier had been located to the east, and that was straight ahead of her. She started off in that direction. The Hatchetman's jump-jets would be useless in here, and the overhead was low enough that she had to walk the 'Mech down the length of the room in a half-crouch, and there was no way that she'd be able to take it through the doors at the end. She put on more speed and used the 'Mech's forty-five-ton bulk to go crashing through the wall into the next room.

  That was more fun than it probably ought to have been, she thought, just before the infantry group she'd broken in among started hammering. The Gauss rifle rounds went plinking off the 'Mech's Durallex armor. Then one of the Steel Wolf troopers brought up a shoulder-launched missile, firing it in an enclosed space without regard for the danger the rocket blast presented to him and his mates.

  The Hatchetman shuddered around her when the missile hit. Tara lashed out with the ax in her 'Mech's right hand and the infantry scattered, diving into holes and corridors too small for the Hatchetman to follow them.

  Well, that was the way of it. She sprinted for the far wall, striking it with her ax just a moment before impact to make a hole she could squeeze through, and crashed into the newly created opening, dropping and rolling, taking light damage but damage none the less, as she broke through into sunlight.