“You never know, Mr. Doles.” He shrugged uneasily. “You just might.”
20
The San Marino
San Marino Spaceport
Achernar
11 March 3133
The San Marino Spaceport’s siren wailed a deep, mournful bawl, chasing low notes and then a higher, louder tone with its synthesized Doppler effect. It rolled over sun swept tarmac, echoed off the flat hull of a grounded Kuan Ti–class DropShip, and was turned into a flat background drone by the Praetorian’s thick armor. Erik Sandoval-Groell barely heard it anymore. There were too many other things on his mind, each one of them having to do with defending the spaceport from a Steel Wolf assault.
“I want an update on the waterworks raid,” Erik demanded, his command chair sliding across the vehicle’s interior on an articulated arm. He knuckled the back edge of a sergeant’s helmet. “And get me some kind of trajectory on those DropShips. They aren’t up there for the view!”
“We’re getting on top of it now, Lord Sandoval.”
A mobile HQ, even one of the vaunted Praetorians, was no place for a Mech Warrior Erik belatedly realized. Six meters tall and nearly as wide, the massive, sixty-ton half-track maneuvered in the backfield behind the Swordsworn’s full protection and still Erik felt exposed, vulnerable. A dozen staffers worked the vehicle’s command deck, manning consoles and talking over one another, sweating through their uniforms; a more claustrophobic environment than a BattleMech cockpit could ever be. Erik’s hands itched for control sticks and the touch of weapon triggers under his fingers. He wanted targeting data and crosshairs.
He wanted—he suddenly decided—out of the mobile chair.
Slapping the quick-release on his harness, Erik all but launched himself from the seat as he made for the Praetorian’s front. The drivers’ station took up most of the forward ferroglass shield, but there was an observation seat and gunner’s console to one side, domed in at the mobile HQ’s forward corner, which allowed Erik an eyes-on appraisal of the battle.
Why the open view should give him a sense of relief, Erik didn’t know. Except for two JES strategic carriers that flanked the Praetorian for protection, most of what he could see involved distant ground shadows and flashes of laserfire while speed-blurred darts tangled in the skies above. Without a head’s up display there was hardly any telling his own forces from those of the Steel Wolves or the Republic militia. He knew that the Swordsworn held a rough line across the spaceport’s sun-blasted landing field, committing half of its available defenders from River’s End including four of his six remaining WorkMech conversions. The balance, including his own Hatchetman, waited inside the city’s industrial sector or continued their watch over the local HPG station, giving him a strong fallback position and all the leverage he needed to keep the militia in line.
In fact, quite literally in line. Layered in between the enemy and his own people, and also wrapping around one flank of the Steel Wolf formation, was Achernar’s Standing Guard. Although minus a large contingent drawn away by a morning raid against the Brightwater river control facility, the militia still outnumbered his Swordsworn by almost two to one. It had taken some work, drawing them into the gap between his people and the Steel Wolves, which Erik had accomplished by surging ever backward onto spaceport grounds. Eventually, one of their Legionnaires had slipped into the break with a double-squad of vehicles, forcing a stand rather than allowing the Steel Wolves a stronger approach to the spaceport. Erik had quickly spread his forces thinner, slipping several squads onto the Republic rear lines, tying the formations together but, more importantly, cementing the militia in place. But would it be enough?
So long as the militia soaked up the balance of any casualties, it hardly mattered to the Swordsworn or to Erik.
“Sir!” A call for him, drifting forward from the command deck. “Lord Sandoval, we have those updates.”
Rather than abandon the observation deck, Erik slipped into the vacant gunner’s seat and tucked the comms headset up into his right ear. “Gunner’s channel seven,” he yelled back, dialing himself over to the correct frequency. “Report.”
“DropShips.” The aerospace monitor was first in queue. “They’ve completed a turn at apogee. Without a secondary course correction, they will drop right on top of the spaceport in less than ten minutes.”
A metallic dryness crept into Erik’s mouth. So the big push was for the spaceport. Or at least, that was what the Steel Wolves wanted them to believe. “Do we have intel on the Brightwater raid?” he asked, wanting confirmation.
The Brightwater river control facility stood halfway between River’s End and the Tanager Mountains. The Steel Wolves had targeted it once already, and been rebuffed. This morning’s raid had looked to be a stronger push, led by Star Colonel Torrent himself. Despite the facility’s importance—able to force a drought on River’s End or, during high rains, possibly flooding the city by opening sluice gates—Erik had let the militia handle it. Cautious of his position, the smaller on-planet force but in control of the capital itself, he had to allow attrition to work in his favor.
Another staff sergeant waited with the news. “All indications are that the raid was diversionary. MechWarrior Kay is down. May be dead. Before she fell, she reported back that several of the APCs were empty, and what they first pinged as armored tanks were actually convoy trucks.”
Erik had followed Tassa Kay’s efforts on Achernar’s behalf with something akin to jealousy. Piloting an impressive ’Mech, successfully inserting herself into the Republic’s order of battle, she was the wild card of which he could never be certain. If she was indeed down and out, then he was well rid of her.
But what mattered now was this battle, and how to handle the incoming DropShips. The vessels represented a significant amount of firepower, and even with the militia’s help and his own reserves he doubted they could be stopped. “I need a run-down on all available forces. Give me units and numbers.” He wanted his own terminal, and was half-tempted to walk back to the command deck and appropriate one.
Then he realized he had one, right in front of him.
Listening to the follow-up reports with only half an ear, Erik strapped himself into the gunner’s place, firing up all sensor bands and targeting consoles. A laser-painted HUD leapt up onto the ferroglass shield, drawing icons in gold, neural blue, and enemy red. What he saw gave him no more information than an aide could have fed him on the command deck, but it felt better. He read the battle with a practiced eye, gauging strength, calculating odds off the cuff and coming up far short.
Shaking his head, Erik once again gave way to caution and the certainty of his current position within River’s End. “Operations. Begin to stagger back some of our stronger units. I want one of our converted Miners limping off the battlefield in minutes. Make a good show of it. Have a unit press forward on the attack, and then fall back the second they draw any hard resistance. Prepare for full evacuation on my command.”
If Star Colonel Torrent wanted the HPG, he would come for it in a fight on Erik’s terms, not his own.
Raul Ortega shifted around in his seat, throwing his own sense of balance behind the Legionnaire’s fifty tons. The BattleMech twisted at the waist, bent forward, and rocked back off the left-side edges of its square-shod feet.