"Hey, hey," a soldier said with a nasty laugh. "Look-a-here, look-a-here! We caught us a prize, we did! Get those hands up! Behind your head!"
"Looks dangerous," another said. He shouldered his assault rifle and started toward her. "I think we'd better search her!"
"Yeah! C'mere, baby. We gotta check your uniform for concealed weapons."
Grayson set the rocket launcher aside, stepped over to where a sergeant stood watching, and pulled the pistol from the man's hip holster. It was a Stetta auto pistol, with a selector switch that let it fire single shots, bursts, or wildly inaccurate full-auto mayhem from an extended grip magazine holding 100 caseless rounds.
He snapped the selector from safe to full auto, pointed the muzzle into the air, and pulled the trigger. The snapping chatter of the deadly little weapon, shocking in the confined space between buildings, slopped the soldiers where they were, spun them around to face him.
"The first one to touch her dies." He waited, the weapon smoking in his hand. Though the challenge was a bit melodramatic, it had the desired effect. Every eye was on him.
"You!" He pointed the weapon at the two who had started toward the captured pilot. "Back to the vehicles. MOVE!" They scrambled to obey. "You!" He picked another soldier at random. "There's a blanket in my vehicle. Get it."
The trooper dashed back to the PPC carrier on the double to retrieve an orange rescue blanket that had been folded on the floor of the welldeck. Grayson took it from him, walked over to the girl, and draped it over her shoulders. Aware of all eyes upon him, he was careful not to touch her. "It's okay," he said, "put your hands down. We won't hurt you. I promise."
The spell was broken, as his impromptu unit began cheering and capering in the street. They had captured a 'Mech intact! Grayson had to shout now to be heard above the clamor. "Sergeant!"
The man snapped to attention. "Sir!"
"Detail two men to guard that 'Mech!" He put the safety back on the pistol, but tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. "I'm going to borrow this, if you don't mind.”
"Yessir!"
"Now I need someone to take me and the prisoner to your headquarters. I'd better talk to your bosses before this make-believe goes any further!"
* * * *
Lord Harimandir Singh contemplated the ruin of his career. How could it have happened? Five 'Mechs and two companies of troops had stormed a defenseless city, and what had been the outcome? One 'Mech destroyed. Another captured. A third limping into the Repair Bay with fused pedal servoactuators and the right-leg jump-jet electronics melted into scrap, the liquid-mercury fuel core leaking great silver globbets that dripped down the leg and scurried across the deck like mice. Hell, his chief Tech, pursed his gloomy features and shook his head. The Waspmight need an entire leg replacement. The damage was severe.
And 32 of his troops had not come back. Stragglers were still checking in, though, and so perhaps the final butcher's bill might not be that high.
Three 'Mechs down out of five and ten percent casualties in his battalion. What the bloody hell had happened? It could only be that the local forces had had some help. The crippled Wasp'spilot had reported that the indigs were organized differently from the way they'd fought during Singh's initial probe of the city's defense just a few hours before. Was it possible, he wondered, that their earlier inept defense had been a ruse to draw him into a trap?
He quickly rejected that line of thought No commander would throw lives away on such a slender chance. Anyway, it would be harder to get professional troops to act stupid than the other way around. Besides, Vallendel's Marauderhad smashed through the light assembly of armor and ground troops that had met him on the north rim of the city. There had been nothing different there, no new strategy or secret defense to turn the tide against the attackers. Most of those troops had scattered and fled through the city streets without even firing a shot
No, it was more likely that King Jeverid had brought in mercenaries to stiffen his defenses, but Singh couldn't fathom from where these forces had come or when they had arrived. And where had they been during the earlier attack? Or during the attack on Carlyle at the Castle? It was possible that a mercenary training cadre was operating in the city and that Jeverid possessed at least one competent as fighter unit. Though that might explain things, Singh wouldn't feel comfortable until he learned who these mercenaries were.
Briefly, he considered withdrawing from the Castle to the ship or abandoning Trellwan entirely. But that would contradict the Red Duke's Plan, not something a member of the Duke's entourage ever did lightly. No, he must consider this a setback, but the Plan would still succeed. It had to. If it didn't, even after all these years of faithful service, it might be HIS head on a pike above the parade ground. The thought was not comforting.
Singh would contact his agents in Sarghad and learn what he could. Perhaps, in the end, it would work out best if there werea mercenary unit in the city. Mercenaries could always be bought. Some of history's most splendid victories were the result of carefully timed changes in a selected Merc unit's loyalties.
* * * *
Grayson Death Carlyle enjoyed being the hero. Forty hours after the end of what was already called the Battle of Sarghad, he was a guest at the Palace, having been fussed over by grooms and servants, attended by the Palace physician, and received a spectacular change of clothes. He checked the fit of the trim Guards Lieutenant uniform in the wall-sized mirror in his suite. Not bad, he decided, tugging the short jacket into place. The ornate gold chasing and piping across the dark green, triple-looped aiguillette and the ceremonial sword were a bit gaudy, but it wasn't bad at all.
He and his female prisoner had been taken to the headquarters of General Varney, Commandant of the Sarghad Militia Military District. The girl had been hustled away into the depths of the building for questioning, but the lieutenant who was officer of the day had been less certain what to do with Grayson.
Here was a young man dressed in rags and caked with mud and grime, armed with an automatic pistol and leading a MechWarrior prisoner in a blanket. The man claimed to be a stranded member of Carlyle's Commandos, and the soldiers with him claimed he had just single-handedly won the Battle of Sarghad. The officer quickly realized that immediate and confident action was called for. He called his superior officer. Let HIM decide what to make of it all!
Grayson had been passed rather quickly up the line of command from the lieutenant to a captain to a major to a colonel to General Varney's chief of staff and finally had been introduced to the General himself. None of these Militia officers had quite known what to do with him. The story was spreading through the city that an offworlder, an officer of the garrison that had betrayed Trellwan, had stayed in Sarghad and organized the heroic defense of the city.
Grayson was rapidly becoming a political issue. In the end, the army officers did the safest thing. They gave him food and much-needed sleep, brought in a doctor to tape up his ribs and attend to his reopened head wound, and presented him early the next work period to King Jeverid's military council. By the end of the period, he had had a private audience with Jeverid himself and been invited to stay in the palace as a guest of His Majesty while preparations were made for the victory celebration.
As he examined his new Guard's uniform with continuing wonderment, Grayson was still not sure whether he was supposed to be an actual member of the Palace Guard now or not. He had, not been formally inducted into anybody's army, but the uniform had been ordered at His Highness' command so that he would look the part, at least, of a hero. Bureaucratic details, the King had said, could be fussed with later.