Operation Excalibur, page 27
part #31 of BattleTech Series
"What've we got?"
"Looks like a convention up there. You know, Colonel, I think the Star Republic's starting up a collection. I don't think I've ever seen that many JumpShips gathered in one spot, or herded so close together."
Three days earlier, they'd picked up the vid broadcast from Hesperus II announcing the official creation of the Free Star Republic. The Europa was at full thrust at the time, and Grayson wasn't in any shape to take more than a passing interest in the transmission, but during the next low-G break, he'd replayed the broadcast.
Actually, he'd replayed it several times, but for strictly nonprofessional reasons. Most of the time, the cameras in the group of reporters in the Defiance Industries's Bay 70 had been aimed at Gareth, at his new 'Mech, or at Daniel Brewer, but there'd been a handful of times when the transmitting camera panned across the media people and caught Lori, McCall, and Jon Frye standing together at the rear of the group, listening closely.
God, he missed her....
Despite the distraction, the import of Gareth's announcement had not been lost on him. Gareth was obviously moving, and moving quickly. Grayson only hoped that he and the Legion could move more quickly still.
As he floated on the Europa's flight deck between the pilot and copilot stations and looked out through the cockpit's forward windows, he realized he was seeing a confirmation both of Gareth's speed and of his determination. There were five JumpShips hanging in space at the Hesperus nadir jump point, three Merchants and two Invaders. All had their collector sails fully deployed and aligned with the distant, fierce sun, which lay over six billion kilometers below the Venturis of their station-keeping drives.
Solar collection sails were space-black, the obvious effeet of a material designed to trap every photon of energy that struck it rather than lose anything to reflection. Long ago, however, the custom of placing corporate logos or national emblems on the insides of the sails, the side facing the ship and opposite the starward surface, had arisen—first among the Great Houses, then among the lesser states and organizations that also owned Jump-Ships. Since most collector sails were well over a kilometer in diameter, they made excellent displays of the vessel's registry and allegiance.
The livery displays on the JumpShip sails ahead indicated that two of the five were civilian vessels, owned and operated by civilian shipping or transport corporations. Two more were unmarked and were probably privately owned, free traders or independent transport contractors. The fifth JumpShip bore the fist-in-sun device of the Federated Commonwealth on the inside of its space-black sail. There was no way to tell whether that JumpShip was still in FedCom service, or if it now worked for the Lyran Alliance; energy collection sails were huge and delicate things, and removing the old livery and replacing it with the new was a tricky and time-consuming process, one best done in a well-equipped shipyard. It had been three months since Katrina Steiner's speech, but it was likely that at least half of the JumpShips now in her service still bore the old FedCom colors.
"Where are we in relation to the Olympus?" Grayson asked. That was the most important question right now. According to the data Yoshitomi had provided, Gareth's people were keeping the captured JumpShips under the recharge station's observation.
"Have a look," Charlene said. She touched a thruster control; Grayson felt the slight thump through the hull as a jet fired, followed by a brief, slight surge of acceleration. Europa yawed to starboard under the kick, and Grayson watched the gathered JumpShips and their vast, circular sails, all aligned the same way and bearing on the distant spark of the Hesperan sun, slide to the left. A second, opposing thump killed the yaw, and the stars and ships arrayed outside were motionless once more.
Centered in the view now, just beyond the gathering of JumpShips, was an Olympus Class recharge station.
It was a huge construction, easily three times the length of even the Overlord Class JumpShips nearby, a ponderous, massive collection of parts and structures and fairings, a deep-space station fully a kilometer and a half from station-keeping thrusters to bluntly rounded prow. Like a JumpShip, it had an energy-collection sail deployed aft; like a JumpShip, the station was balanced on an invisible stream of charged particles providing thrust enough to keep it aloft at the star's jump point without actually having to be in orbit around the distant star. Over six billion kilometers from the south pole of the Hesperan sun, the station and the ships gathered at the jump point felt the star's gravitational field as a force of .000008 G, an acceleration of about eight-hundredths of one millimeter per second squared. For all practical purposes, that was zero-G. If you released something in midair in your cabin, you had to watch it a long time to realize that yes, it was falling, albeit very slowly. Still, even at that low acceleration, you could fall thirty thousand kilometers in a week, and a long, long way in a century or two. That was why all jump-point facilities—like the JumpShips that parked there for a week or more at a time and unlike conventional space stations that orbited a star or world— had to have station-keeping thrusters.
The idea behind recharge stations was simple. They hung in space at the jump points, continuously collecting energy from the local sun and storing it in array upon array of lithium-dithorium-iridium storage cells. JumpShips newly arrived in-system could be quick-charged directly from those cells, either by a power conduit physically connecting station and ship, or through less efficient beamed microwaves. The process allowed JumpShips to make the next leg of a multisystem jaunt after a delay of only hours instead of days.
Unfortunately, there weren't many Olympus stations left. Once, during the Star League era, there'd been hundreds of them, one apiece at least for the zenith and nadir jump points of every important system in the Inner Sphere, and the majority of the less important systems as well. Few had ever been directly attacked, since the stored energy reserves could be used by attackers as well as defenders, and, as technical abilities and training began to slip with year upon passing year of unrelenting war, everyone recognized the importance of these technological treasure-troves. Many, however, had been the targets of covert raids aimed at looting them of precious communications gear, computers, or electronic circuitry. The sensor suites and long-range scanners of a number of the big stations had been deliberately sabotaged or damaged in sneak raids, with the idea that blinded, the hovering behemoths could no longer serve their owners in a reconnaissance role.
Far more, though, had been lost through the years to mechanical failure or human error. None of the huge stations was less than two and a half centuries old, and equipment failure was inevitable. The trouble was that it had become harder and harder with the passing, war-torn centuries to repair or replace malfunctioning parts. When a plasma thruster failed on one of the Olympus stations, it was doomed unless the thruster could be brought back on line within a very few months. Hundreds of the massive Olympus recharge stations had perished through the years when their drives had failed and the local star's gravity, held for so long at bay, again took command.
Those that remained were snowing their years.
Another vessel was visible now, adrift between the Olympus and the Europa. It was another Leopard Class DropShip, thick-bodied, boxy-looking, with stubby wings and a tiny bridge mounted high up on top of the blunt prow.
"We're in position to dock with the Io" Charlene said. "Shall we?"
"By all means," Grayson replied. "How about the station? Have they noticed us?"
"Ohhhhh, yes," Charlene said. "They've been calling every few hours for the past day or so, mostly by optical maser or high-gain maser. We've been maintaining radio silence, feigning LOS and no laser receptors."
Grayson nodded. The second half of the Europa's six-billion-kilometer-plus odyssey had been made with the DropShip's main drives aimed almost directly at the station, its plasma thrusters going at full blast. Radio signals couldn't penetrate the cloud of charged particles, which created a loss-of signal cone, or LOS region, astern of the ship. Laser comms and masers could usually punch through the cloud, but not all DropShips possessed communications gear that sophisticated and expensive.
"I imagine they're trying radio again now."
"As a matter of fact, Colonel," the bridge commtech said, "they're flagging us again. Want to hear?"
"Pipe it through. Let's hear what they have to say."
"... class DropShip! You are ordered to communicate with this facility at once. If you approach to within one hundred kilometers without proper authorization, we shall fire on you. Do you copy? Over!"
Grayson accepted a hand mike from the comm tech and held it to his mouth. "Olympus Station, this is the DropShip Europa. We read you. Go ahead."
"DropShip Europa, this is Olympus Station. What are your intentions here? Over."
"Olympus, this is Major Walter Dupré, aboard the DropShip Europa. I am here as Field Marshal Gareth's personal representative, to assist in putting down a mutiny aboard the DropShip lo. We do not intend to approach your station at this time. Over."
There was a long hesitation. "Europa ... does this have anything to do with the reports of fighting back on Hesperus II? Things sound pretty confused there, and they haven't told us a damned thing."
Grayson chuckled into the microphone. "It's always that way, isn't it? We left before the trouble started, but we heard about it, what, yesterday, I guess it was. We were going to ask you what was going on."
"Maybe someday somebody will tell us who won," the voice from Olympus Station said. He sounded a bit exasperated. "Listen, in view of the hostilities back on Hesperus II, we're going to have to check out your story. Or do you have an authentication code for us?"
"Negative on the authentication code, Olympus. Like I said, we left a week before any trouble broke out back there, and we didn't expect to need it. But you can check out the story with Field Marshal Gareth if you like. Give him my name ... Walter Dupré Or use my voice for authentication. They can compare it with my records back in Maria's Elegy and tell you it's a match."
"Roger, Europa. We'll do that. Meanwhile, we'll have to ask you to stay clear of this station."
"Roger that. We understand. While we're waiting, we're going to see what we can do with the Io over there. Call us when you hear from Gareth. Over."
"Roger that, Europa. And good luck. Olympus Station out."
The other five men and women on the tiny bridge watched Grayson intently as he handed the mike back to the comm tech. "Okay, people," he said brightly. "The clock is running. We have eleven hours, fifty-two minutes before they find out I'm not Walter DupréV'
"We're committed now," Charlene said.
The six billion-plus kilometers from Hesperus II to the jump point could also be measured by the time it took light to cross that gulf—356 minutes. It would take that long for the recharge station's query to make it all the way back to Hesperus, and that long again—assuming that the battle there didn't delay the response even more—before Gareth's reply could crawl back to the jump point. Almost twelve hours.
Grayson hoped it would be enough.
22
Defiance Industries Complex, Gate 2
Maria's Elegy Hesperus II,
Rahneshire Lyran Alliance
1305 hours (local), 21 December 3057
Autocannon fire thundered and spat, slamming rounds into the scoured-bare face of the cliff just above the partially opened doorway and sending a cascade of broken rock down across the opening. Lori crouched lower in her Zeus, making herself as small a target as possible behind the barricades as the cracking fire walked lower. Several rounds howled over her head, detonating inside the tunnel behind her.
Access to the Mount Defiance plant was sharply limited by terrain and by the high stone walls ringing the courtyard. That was deliberate, of course, a means of funneling would-be attackers into a narrow kill zone in front of the gate, enabling a handful of BattleMechs inside the tunnel mouth to hold off a much larger force outside. So far, the engineering behind the factory approaches had proven to be nothing less than brilliant. BattleMechs and 'Mech fragments littered the blasted and cratered stone court outside the gate, some still burning, others reduced to charred and twisted skeletons of endosteel and ferrofibrous armor.
They lay in cords where they'd fallen. A 20-ton Wasp and two 40-ton Cicadas. They'd been part of a light 'Mech reconnaissance lance, sent up the hill to probe the gateway two days ago. A 30-ton Valkyrie, a 55-ton Shadow Hawk, two 55-ton Wolverines, a 75-ton Marauder. The Shadow Hawk and one of the Wolverines were still burning, part of a major 'Mech assault only a few hours earlier. Oily black smoke hung above the courtyard like a blanket. The Hawk lay sprawled on its back, one great, metal hand still clutching at the sky. Nothing was left of the Marauder but the digitigrade legs, still standing upright, and part of the torso chassis. Its power plant had blown while it was trying to rally the Ironhand 'Mechs for another all-out assault, and the fragments of its torso and arms were scattered all over the court.
And not only 'Mechs littered that courtyard of death. A company of hover armor had made an assault seven hours ago during the depths of the Hesperan night, howling up the sloping road that wound up the face of the mountain from the town below. That had been akin to target practice; the sturdy Pegasus and several Packrat scout cars had brewed up one after another as highly accurate blasts of laser or PPC fire and volleys of rockets had swept like a fiery hailstorm across the stone pavement. Several of those were still burning too.
And the courtyard itself had been all but completely razed. Walls had been smashed, towers and radar masts toppled, gun turrets exploded like overripe fruit. The guardhouse that had been the focus of the initial assault three days before was gone, with nothing but a scar on the ground to mark where it had been.
The Legion was holding, was still holding after three solid days of combat. Casualties, overall, had been light—five 'Mechs knocked out of action in the whole battalion, and twenty-seven men killed or wounded. Enemy losses included at least twenty 'Mechs destroyed so far, dozens of vehicles, and no one could guess at how many troops. Lori didn't expect their luck to hold; Major Frye, maneuvering his Third Battalion in and around the town of Maria's Elegy, had blocked two major thrusts toward Mount Defiance but had reported a buildup of Star Republic 'Mechs near Morningstar Spaceport.
Morningstar, unfortunately, had not fallen to Frye's attack three nights ago. That hadn't been his fault, or the fault of his people. An infantry patrol had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the warning had alerted an Ironhand BattleMech company that was likewise out of position. A lucky break for Gareth there, and a bad one for the Legion.
In combat, as Lori knew very well, even the best-laid and rehearsed and simulated plans always went wrong somewhere. Generally, the victor in a battle was the side that makes the fewest mistakes.
A flurry of rockets—small, shoulder-launched stuff— hissed through the air from the rubble a hundred meters off and banged noisily away at cliff and barricade. Several large boulders, weakened earlier in the fighting, were dislodged by the relatively small detonations and crashed down the cliff face to the right of the gate in a thundering avalanche of dirt and rock. Lori pulled back slightly, using the gate's archway for shelter in case the avalanche expanded, but the rockfall swiftly died away. A few more like that, she thought, and we won't have to worry about keeping them out. We'll be sealed inside.
The key to the Gray Death's battle plan was to keep Gareth's 'Mechs out of the main Defiance Industries complex, and they were managing that by barricading each of the three main gates capable of admitting BattleMechs to the primary facility.
In fact, the blockade had been a lot more difficult to master than that. The Defiance Industries facility—just this one plant in this one mountain—consisted of literally hundreds of kilometers of passageways in a three-dimensional maze that honeycombed much of the mountain, connecting no fewer than 150 major caverns and bays and countless smaller rooms, workers' barracks, storage areas, and workshops.
What the Legion's First Battalion had done was grab the central core of the plant, which was accessed by only the three outer gates. Interior passageways, however, would give access to the central core, both for troops and for BattleMechs. Lori had deployed the infantry—'Mech-hunter platoons and commando squads from her armor/ infantry support battalion—to several dozen specific points throughout the fortresslike interior of the factory complex, following a plan worked out on computer using the data transmitted by Yoshitomi. Road blocks had been set up at key intersections, designed to trap or at least slow 'Mechs trying to infiltrate the Legion perimeter. Roving patrols searched for infiltrating infantry and served as mobile reinforcements for roadblocks calling for help.
There'd been several pitched battles inside the factory complex already. Lori hated that—each battle caused more damage to the factory, and with enough damage the complex would become useless to both sides. Some clashes, however, were inevitable.
The trick was to try to keep the enemy 'Mechs outside. Once Gareth managed to slip even a few BattleMechs into the maze of tunnels and chambers within the heart of the mountain, sooner or later each roadblock, each Legion 'Mech fire team, would be isolated, pinned down, and crushed in turn.
At first, the Legion forces had relied on the huge double doors of the gates themselves, watching enemy movements outside both over the security cameras already in place and through microcameras positioned by Gray Death commandos during the first hour or two of the assault. Soon, though, Ironhand engineers had braved auto weapons fire from firing slits and bunkers, rushing forward to plant shaped charges against the outsides of all three gates. The explosions had sprung the gates, knocking them off their tracks and forcing openings big enough for one or two 'Mechs to pass through at a time. Ironhand 'Mechs had rushed the openings then, trying to shoulder their way inside.
