BattleTech, page 7
Nagaaki looked up, the surprise on his face melting into suspicion. “You have not seen the original orders?”
She shook her head.
“Neither have I. He did not show them to me. Nor did he ask my thoughts on them until we were well into space.”
Fume’s interest and excitement rose, but she didn’t allow either to show on her face. “Perhaps you should get me a copy of those original orders. It is unusual that none of his councilors have seen them. Especially not you.”
“Or you,” Nagaaki agreed. He stood. “I will get back to you as soon as I can.”
Fume looked him in the eye. “What will you tell him about this conversation?” It was a foregone conclusion that eventually, Nagaaki would talk. The man was loyal to Yoshizawa, first and foremost.
“What would you like me to tell him?”
Or had been—up until this moment.
“That I am angry and confused. That I believe we need to withdraw and send a request for assistance. That I think his plan to capture Mason Ritza is no plan at all. There is no follow-through.”
Nagaaki nodded. He left as he arrived—in abrupt silence. Fume watched the closed door for a moment longer, then decided she needed to rest while she had the chance. She was certain things were about to get even more chaotic.
While it appeared she had both Nagaaki and Ona on her side, the fates were as fickle as the other officers. Ona was playing both sides of the fence, and Fume knew it. Nagaaki was another question. She did not know if she could trust him, but all she could do was wait and see.
9
THE VENGALIL ESTATE
LIEGEDEN, EMPORIA
FEDERATED SUNS
18 APRIL 3150
0005 HOURS
Time moved faster than Jasper expected as one thing after another cropped up to grab his attention. So far he’d checked in on Elias, Noah, and Kristen. Elias was still sick, but thankfully no sicker. Noah was up to his ears in patients but was no longer in charge, though he was still the senior hospital cadet volunteer. And Kristen, whose leg was on the mend, was already asking for his turn in the ’Mech-patrol rotation.
By the time Jasper went looking for Delany to report in, it was well into evening and the stars were out. He found her hiding in the kitchen, having a quiet cup of something with Serine. Pausing in the doorway, he asked, “May I come in?”
The head cook looked at Delany and she nodded. “All right, young man. As long as you take a cup of tea and ten minutes of no work.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jasper came in and sat at the kitchen table, giving Delany a once-over as he did. She looked tired, but not exhausted. Not beaten. Being in charge did her good. He looked for something not business-like to say as Serine gave him tea and sat down with them. The older woman’s face was a roadmap of laugh lines and hard work. She looked like someone’s grandmother. Probably was one to somebody.
He sipped his tea. Something minty, but not sweet. “I was up on the third floor. I found the sitting room. It’s very pretty.”
Serine thought for a moment, and then nodded. “The conversation room. It’s a good place to talk with friends, or to read if there’s no one else there. The library’s usually a bit noisy when the young ones are at their lessons.”
Jasper nodded, unable to think of anything else to say. He was never one for small talk. That was Nadine’s forte. She could make anyone feel like they were the most important person in the world, even if they were only talking about the weather. He missed her.
Delany swirled the almost-finished tea in her cup. “Do you have good news for me, Roux?”
Jasper flicked a glance at Serine’s face. The older woman sighed and shrugged. She then got up and left them to it.
“I do,” he said after she was gone. “I think. But we need a map to figure everything out.”
“How big of a map?”
“Detailed map of the surrounding area all the way to Stag’s Head.”
Delany’s eyes brightened. “Stag’s Head? That’s not too far. Not too far at all.”
“As the crow flies,” Jasper cautioned. “No one knows about the roads and anything else between us and them.”
“Right,” Delany said and stood. “Come with me. Thanks for the tea and solitude, Serine.”
Jasper threw back his tea, half-scalding his throat, as Serine waved a hand in their direction. He followed Delany out past her “command center” in the entryway. Ruby Ufford sat there now. The two cadets nodded to each other as they passed.
Jasper caught up with Delany. “What’s Ufford doing?”
“Manning the desk for stragglers. Estate workers and other civilians have been arriving. Some military people, too. She’s got the night shift to see them settled. Someone’s going to be at that desk twenty-four-seven. She knows what I want done with people as they come in.”
“Good idea. You can’t be there the whole time. We’ve got a job to do.”
Delany flashed him a smile. “Yes, we do.” She led him into one of the downstairs offices filled with dark wood and paintings of the large Vengalil family and turned on low lights as they entered. On the desk was a computer, which she turned on. “They gave me the passwords,” she said, answering his quizzical look.
“It’s working?”
“As well as it can with a bunch of infrastructure blown to hell. Mostly I’m looking at the maps Sana had on hand.”
Jasper looked around the office again. This was Lady Sana’s office? He had assumed it was Lord Nadeem’s. Probably because of the dark wood tones.
Delany gave a triumphant, “A-ha!”
He leaned over her shoulder for a moment to look at the map, then found a chair to drag over so he could sit next to her. He watched the screen as Delany mapped out a route from the estate to the foothills of the Stonehaven Mountains, the mountain range where Stag’s Head reigned.
Jasper tilted his head. “It’d take us two hours or so, if all was normal.”
“All is not normal. But, if we can follow the road most of the way, it should still be fine.”
“For ’Mechs, yes. We have jump jets and stuff. But what about the vehicles we’ll need to get the Ritzas from the foothills to the DropShip?”
“Point conceded. Do we know what vehicles and how many?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got Pohl and Delamere working on that. I told them to gather as many vehicles as they could get. The more we have in the fleet, the more we can confuse the enemy if they show up.”
“You’re planning on making sure that doesn’t happen, right?”
“As much as I can. When we talk in the clear, we’re going to mention timetables that are two hours later than what is actually planned. But, honestly, there might be some go-getters out there who will show up to the DropShip…or between the DropShip and the heir…early. I mean, if it was important to me, I would.”
Delany sat back. She stared at the screen but wasn’t looking at it. “Maybe we should only use ’Mechs to contact the DropShip.”
“That would require us to leave the estate, go a distance away, and then contact them. The enemy can pinpoint the communication signal if we do that from here too often.”
She nodded, clearly not happy about the situation. “I feel like it’s a little too complicated for what it needs to be, but all right. If everyone else is in agreement, then I am, too. What did the Ritzas say when you got ahold of them?”
Jasper gave her a quick summary of the conversation with Diamond and Lady Ritza.
Delany focused in on the map again. “All right. We plan to get a fleet of vehicles to the foothills at this point.” She pointed to a t-intersection that butted up against the foothills of the Stonehaven Mountains, just below Stag’s Head peak. “The road itself may not be in good shape anymore from the bombing, but it’ll be a good enough meeting place.
“Can you create an overlay of at least two klicks in diameter? That should give us a good idea of where to have the Endeavor’s Run land.”
She eyed him for a moment. “Right. If they’re outside waiting, they need to be a kilometer away or risk some sort of injury from the unprotected landing. The drive flare alone will set fire to everything within three hundred meters. Since there’s a prolonged burn during deceleration, the ground’s gonna slag at eight hundred degrees.”
Jasper watched the screen as Delany produced the circle and laid it out over different parts of the map. Just as he thought they had something, Delany made a face and muttered, “Elevation lines.” The lines appeared and crossed through where Delany had almost set the landing point.
Jasper pointed out a spot. “The actual landing point is the only spot that needs to be flat.”
“Would be good if the vehicles could fly. That’s a ten-meter jump in elevation. I think we’re gonna have to go south to keep it on the same basic elevation.”
He grunted his disappointment and approval.
Delany shrugged. “We’ll get there. It’s not like we actually know what the terrain looks like since the bombing. Let’s hope it was far enough away from the major population points to have been ignored. Also, we need to keep in mind that a DropShip is heavy. Anything like underground subways, sewer or drainage tunnels, or underground vaults could be crushed or cave in from the vessel’s weight. I mean, it’s like a building that’s on fire is going to drop on top of it.”
“Hopefully, none of that will happen. I’d like to think the Ritzas would’ve kept all this in mind for their siege compound. At least, their safe haven is protected by a DropShip’s inability to land in the mountains.”
She pointed to a spot two kilometers away from the t-intersection. “I think this will be our best bet. Over the open radio, call it the ‘Foot of the Stag’ or some such, and from your ’Mech, here are the exact coordinates. You’ll have to tell the infantry that’s where they’re going to end up. They have to get from here to the road below Stag’s Head, to this point.” She tapped the screen with a mostly clean fingernail before copying the coordinates to both of their commlinks. “Do you think they can do it?”
“They’ll do it or die trying. They asked if they were going to be evacuated, too. I told them no because the priority has to be the Ritzas. If we get the Ritzas on that DropShip, that’s all that matters. If they need to take off then, they must. Hopefully we’ll be able to survive long enough to see the FedSuns cavalry arrive.”
Delany nodded. “We will. Or die trying.”
The two of them exchanged knowing smiles. It was part joke and part truth; one they had said many times before but hadn’t realized the implications of it until this moment. This was what they had both signed up for as cadets—Blooded and Sponsored alike. They would do their duty to Emporia or die in combat.
Their moment of understanding was broken by the sound of automatic weapons fire on the Vengalil estate grounds, coming from right outside the office windows.
10
THE VENGALIL ESTATE
LIEGEDEN, EMPORIA
FEDERATED SUNS
18 APRIL 3150
0100 HOURS
Delany and Jasper both hit the floor as one of the glass windows shattered. From behind the desk, Delany reached up and turned off the computer, killing its light. At the same time, Jasper low-crawled to the doorway and slapped the light switch. Despite the room’s low light, it had obviously been visible from the outside.
After they plunged the room into darkness, Jasper waited until Delany crawled to his side then out the door, closing the office door behind them. Until then, he hadn’t considered working in a ground-floor office to be dangerous. In normal times, it wouldn’t have been, but this was wartime. The beautiful daytime view to the outside had given whoever was attacking the perfect shot at them in the dark.
The two cadets sprang to their feet and sprinted down the hallway, toward the entrance to the manor house. Jasper hung onto the shortwave backpack, wishing he had body armor on. Then again, if he was in a fight on the ground and not in his ’Mech, something had gone horribly wrong.
Nicole Tourneir met them in the entryway. She and Ruby had thrown the “command center” table on its side and was using it as a shield. She thrust a pistol at each of them. “Get to the hospital and protect the wounded.”
“But—” Jasper began.
Nicole pushed him in that direction. “You’re a MechWarrior, not infantry. Let us do our jobs. Protect the wounded!”
“Do it,” Delany commanded as she checked the pistol for ammo.
From outside, the muffled sound of the Locust’s medium lasers was music to Jasper’s ears. Delany pulled on his arm, and the two of them sprinted down the hallway toward the ballroom that had become the infirmary. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Nicole was correct. When a MechWarrior had to wade into battle without his ’Mech, everything had gone wrong. It was better to stay out of the infantry cadets’ way.
As they entered the infirmary, Hugh grabbed Jasper and pulled him behind a makeshift barrier of tables and chairs. Giselle did the same to Delany on the other side of the door. While the room was mostly dark, Jasper could see similar furniture barriers with cadets on either side of the other doors, watching and waiting. Someone had already drawn the curtains. There was no view to the outside.
That also meant there was no easy shot to the interior of the room.
Outside, the sounds of combat continued with explosions, weapons fire, and shouts of triumph and pain. Jasper looked at Hugh with wide eyes. “The ’Mechs!” He knew—knew—this was all a ruse to capture what few ’Mechs they had.”
Hugh shook his head. “Giselle set up the ’Mech patrol and a rotating watch. There’s a cadet in each ’Mech to shoot all comers.” He scowled at Jasper’s confusion. “Didn’t Delany tell you? We set up the watch schedule and patrol rotation on her order.”
Jasper shook his head. “No. We’ve been busy with other things.”
“The Ritzas?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Got a plan?”
Jasper nodded, keeping an eye on the gap between the doors, which looked out into the hallway. “Yeah. A basic one. When’s my watch?”
“Midnight.”
“Okay.” He hoped like hell he had a chance to take that midnight patrol. From the explosions, weapons fire, and shouts, that was in doubt.
Both of them stiffened as a bearded man they didn’t recognize, wearing dark clothing, crept down the hallway toward them. Hugh moved Jasper out of his way with a gentle hand and aimed his rifle at the unfamiliar man, who had something in his hands. Jasper shifted to the edge of the barrier, waiting on a signal from Hugh.
The report of Hugh’s gun was followed by a cry of pain and the clatter of something rolling into the room next to Jasper. On instinct, he kicked the small object back into the hallway and barely made it around cover before the grenade exploded in sound and heat.
It knocked him to his knees. More because of the concussive sound of it than the explosive detonation. Dust filled the entry of the room, followed by the acrid smell of smoke.
“Fire!” Delany yelled.
Through the haze and smoke, the only thing Jasper could think to do was open a window to clear the air or evacuate the patients or both. He looked around the barrier and saw some Kuritan soldiers. He didn’t know how many. Firing his pistol to drive them back, he saw cadets he didn’t know move in from the sides. They were infantry cadets and moved like they’d experienced something like this before.
Jasper got out of their way and skirted the edge of the room to reach one of the large windows. He flung the curtain back and looked for a way to open the window.
Outside, the scene was chaos incarnate. Bodies ran, ducked, and fired on one another. He could tell the cadets more from the lighter color of their clothing than their movement. In the dark of night, everyone looked almost the same. He couldn’t imagine having to fight the enemy like this on a daily basis.
Shaking that off, Jasper looked at the window. Each large panel was broken up into three sections. The bottom one looked like he could open it by pushing it outward. He shoved hard at the window. As he did, the wind whipped the smell of burning bodies and spent ammunition into his face. There was less smoke outside than there was in the room, but it still stung his eyes and nose.
A person appeared in front of him. It was a young man in a Kuritan uniform. Jasper had his pistol out and covered him before he realized what he was doing, but didn’t shoot. The enemy couldn’t be much older than him. With brown hair and blood on his face, he didn’t look like a crazed man bent on subjugation. His face was wet with sweat and something that looked suspiciously like tears.
The Kuritan soldier slowly raised empty hands.
Jasper didn’t know what to do. He knew this was the enemy. He should shoot and protect his own, but this was a person in front of him—not the faceless uniform of the enemy he was so used to mowing down with lasers from high up, in the safety of his ’Mech cockpit.
The two of them stared at each other in a frozen standoff. Jasper covered the Kuritan with a pistol. The enemy had his hands at chest height, raised in surrender. Jasper didn’t know what to do in the face of an enemy not actively attacking him. Shooting him now would feel like murder.
The face-off continued, and time slowed.
The enemy blinked first.
He darted his hand toward his chest pocket.
Jasper fired at him and missed.
A Ritza Academy cadet dove at the enemy from the side, knocking him over and away from the window. Jasper leaned out and watched the tail end of the scuffle that ended with a single gunshot to the throat. The cadet pulled herself to her feet.
“I hope like hell you’re a better shot in a ’Mech,” she said as she turned. Questa Blanc glared at him. “What in stag’s balls do you think you’re doing? How did you miss a point-blank shot?”
Jasper shook his head. “There was a grenade… Fire… I had to get the window open.”
