Charal pulled up a new screen. “Yulri’s secret proves that he is from a promising red-redname, and has risen slowly but certainly through the Steel Wolf ranks. Most of his greatest trophies have come on the coattails of Star Colonel Torrent, though. He’s a follower.” She frowned. “Although that doesn’t debate his offers to stab his former commander.”
“What’s that?” Powers asked.
“It seems that Star Commander Yulri is making repeated offers to bolt sides and d-dance for The Republic.” Charal huffed out an exasperated sigh. “Is very insistent on it, in fact.”
Powers frowned, his eyes glossing over as if looking inward through mental files for some explanation of the Steel Wolf’s behavior. “Maybe it’s time I met with this prisoner,” he finally said. “Colonel Blaire, if you would accompany me?” To everyone else he said, “We’ll meet again after lunch, and discuss plans for a stronger defense of Achernar. Thank you.”
Raul rose with the others, waited for the Knight-Errant to pass behind him before stepping away from the table intent on Charal DePriest. He had just laid a hand on her arm when Kyle Powers called from the doorway, “Mr. Ortega? I’d like you to accompany us as well.” Powers was out the door before Raul responded.
He nodded at the Knight’s back, but did not follow immediately. He met Charal’s unsteady gaze with concern. “Are you okay with this?” he asked.
“Okay with what, Raul?” Charal blinked hard, as if clearing her vision. Her sapphire eyes did have a glossy look to them.
“You should have the Legionnaire back. It was your ’Mech before you got hurt. I”—he swallowed hard—“I don’t want to give it up,” he admitted, “but it’s not right to keep you sidelined.”
Charal smiled sadly. “I appreciate that. I nod.” She screwed up her elfin face into a frustrated scowl, then slowly eased it back toward a disciplined, false calm. “The hopscotch diagnosed me with… with Nonfluent Aphasia. It’s a brain dysfunction that interferes with my speech patterns. I substitute worms without meaning to.”
Hopscotch? It took Raul a few seconds to understand what Charal meant. “The hospital?” The other MechWarrior nodded. “Is it serious?”
“It’s a brain dysfunction, Raul. My neural connections are a bit spilled up.” She glanced away from him. “I’ll never pilot a real BattleMech again.”
Not when a finely tuned neurohelmet might read her crossed brainwaves and trip up one of the near-priceless BattleMechs. But a converted IndustrialMech, with its much more basic neurocontrol system, that she might be allowed to pilot. If the situation was desperate enough to allow her on the field. Raul winced. “I’m sorry, Charal.”
“You’re a fine pilot, Raul. I’m glad it’s you.” She nodded after the absent command officers. “You do… gold… by Achernar.”
Not sure what else he could say to her, Raul simply nodded and left. Her words chased him from the briefing room. Do good by Achernar. That was what she had meant to say. And he was trying, dammit.
He was trying.
11
Calm Before the Storm
Achernar Militia Command
Achernar
1 March 3133
The arrival of Knight-Errant Powers acted as a shot of adrenaline for the entire militia. Leaning back in his chair at the on-base officer’s club, listening as Jeffrey McDaniels regaled the table with yesterday’s scuffle between Fourth Armor and the Steel Wolves, Raul Ortega took its measure from the spirited conversations warming up the lounge. He couldn’t hear more than snatches of two or three at a time, not over the general background buzz of conversation and the upbeat guitar solo someone had coined into the music system. By the sweeping gestures and excited flush lighting each face, he could tell that, like McDaniels’s, most were telling of recent battles—but now the stories had an air of pride-in-service rather than the anxiety that had colored the tales of holding actions of only three days before.
At the next table over, a pair of fighter pilots shouted down a VTOL squad as to which had made a larger impact on that first, desperate day of the Steel Wolf assault. They held up wildly bent straws and folded napkins to represent airborne craft, dogfighting each other and strafing an array of salt and pepper shakers set out over their table. Some armor jocks had claimed most of the dance floor, pushing chairs around in tank formations, and a trio of bulked-up infantry lieutenants hovered at the nearby bar, adding the sweet aroma of their cigars to the already-thick air while discussing battlesuit tactics.
Recital night at the O-club.
McDaniels dropped heavily back into his chair. Thirsty from all his talk, he picked up a tall glass of iced juice and drank heavily. He’d hit his four-drink limit early with highballs of Glengarry Reserve, making up in quality what he couldn’t get in quantity. Raul continued to nurse his second margarita, enjoying the sweet ice and tangy bite of bar-stock tequila.
“You’re sure?” he asked his friend. “Morgan and Brightfoot?” The two men who were still missing in action from the spaceport mess Raul had been helping clean up… was it only six days ago?
Major Eligh Chautec nodded, backing up McDaniels. “Gun-cam footage doesn’t lie. I know their faces. By the Unfinished Book I should, they were such thorns in my heel a few years back.” Chautec had commanded Achernar’s armor corps when Colonel—then Major—Blaire was still overseeing the RTC. Chautec’s steel gray hair had streaks of black in it still, though they were hard to find with his hair cut into a tight flattop. “Always bothering after a transfer to active duty. They weren’t good enough then, and they weren’t good enough yesterday.”
Not if McDaniels’s story was to be believed, and the ‘captured’ reservists had been put back into the field under Star Colonel Torrent’s command. Driving Shandra scout buggies wasn’t a huge vote of confidence in their abilities. Especially when they try to tangle with McDaniels’s crew in an M1 Marksman.
“Jeff had no choice,” Chautec said. One man dead—Corporal Morgan—and Brightfoot retreating with severe damage.
Clark Diago and Tassa Kay rounded out the small table of officers. Tassa sat with her chair partially pulled back, as if trying to disassociate herself from the men. Diago stared at his wedding band, the gold all but glowing against his caramel-colored skin. “Better to know what happened to them, I guess.”
McDaniels didn’t seem so certain. “Say that when it’s one of your MechWarriors turning coat.” He realized belatedly that all three Achernar BattleMech pilots were, in fact, represented at this table. “I meant one of the conversion pilots.”
Raul dipped a finger into his drink and flicked a drop toward his friend. “Right.” He smiled as he said it.
“We’ll set it all to rights soon enough,” Chautec promised. Weathered hands gripped a hammered-metal beer stein—made out of the armor of his first tank, if the unlikely tale were to be believed. “We knew—we know—that we have Swordsworn and Steel Wolf sympathizers mixed in with the Standing Guard. But most of them continue to follow orders and do their jobs. Likewise, Torrent must have Republic-loyal troops under his command who are torn between what they know is right, and orders coming direct from Prefect Kal Radick. If we can hit Torrent hard enough near his base for a change, and isolate some of those men and women—”
“You will have your head handed to you,” Tassa interjected.
Raul downed the last draught of his margarita and waved the empty, bowl-shaped glass at a passing waitress. “Here she goes again,” he whispered, never loud enough for anyone else to hear. Tassa glanced at him from the other side of the table—a coincidence, although Raul still felt a sizzle of heat pass between them.