"I'd like to talk to you," he said.
"That's nothing new," she snapped. "That's all people want to do around here... is talk to me."
"Would you like to get out of here?"
Kalmar's head whipped around to face him. Her eyes, he saw, were very blue. "What is this? More interrogation?" Her voice was hard, but Grayson heard the tremble of tears hidden in it. "We've been through it all, O.K.? I've told you people everything I know!"
Grayson had learned Lori's story from the security dossier compiled from her long hours of interrogation. She had been born and raised in Sigurd, a bitterly cold and isolated world that was one of twelve in Hendrik's confederation. Her parents had died during one hellish night of fire and horror when the government forcibly convinced dissident forces on Sigurd that confederation with Oberon VI was in their best economic and social interests.
Lori had been saved by a neighbor, but only after seeing her parents die in the fire that gutted her apartment habitat. About a year after becoming a state ward (at age eight, or about thirteen by standard-year reckoning), she had applied to the Sigurd Defense Forces as a 'Mech apprentice and had been accepted.
Apparently, Hendrik's confederation did not have a combined military force. Individual worlds reserved some local defense forces for themselves, an arrangement that created the feeling of greater sovereignty. Lori's unit had been the Sigurd Independent Light Assault Group, operating directly under the command of Vice Regent Alisaden, a warleader who was also Sigurd's Defense Minister.
Lori had been an apprentice for over three Sigurdian years, which made her almost 19 standard years old now. Though well along in her training, she had not expected to go on active combat duty for several years yet. One night while standing duty as officer of the watch in the 'Mech center, the sergeant in charge of her school section had tried to persuade her to engage in extracurricular training on the floor. She'd resisted, he'd insisted, and she'd given him a final and definite "no" with a knee driven into a sensitive target.
One week later, her orders had come through. She was being assigned to a "Special Expeditionary Force" with three other Sigurdian trainees, under the command of a Harimandir Singh.
The circumstances were peculiar. Singh's JumpShip was unlike any she knew within the Confederacy, and the expeditionary force seemed to be part of a deal cut between Singh and Vice Regent Alisadren. So far as she could tell, the operation had nothing to do with Hendrik or Oberon VI at all. Singh himself served someone named Duke Ricol, whom she also heard referred to as the Red Duke.
Singh. Grayson had stiffened when he'd read that name. It was the word on Griffith's lips when he died. It was obvious the Weapons Master had recognized the bandit leader, probably from a biog data entry in the Castle computer. As for Duke Ricol, Grayson drew a blank.
Neither Lori Kalmar nor her companions, Pvts. Enzelman and Fitzhugh and a Corporal named Hassilik, had ever heard of Singh or the Red Duke before being assigned to their command. By the time the ship had rendevoused with a freighter at some nameless, worldless sun and they'd transferred across, Kalmar had learned only that Singh's mission was to gather mercenaries for an operation against a world she'd never heard of. It's name was Trellwan.
She was surprised to suddenly find herself a mercenary MechWarrior. She'd been too busy to think much about it, however. Lori Kalmar and her comrades had been kept hard at work moving and installing heavy weapons aboard the freighter's DropShips. Soon after that, the vessel had resumed its mysterious voyage across the stars.
During the trip, the three Sigurdians met and learned to fear their Lance commander, a Lieutenant Vallendel. Early in the voyage, they'd delegated Corporal Hassilik to go to Vallendel and protest their virtual kidnapping. They were homesick by that time, and utterly bewildered at being transported across tens of light years in the company of utter strangers. Ten minutes later, the assembled company had watched young Hassilik, naked and tied hand and foot, go out the airlock into space.
There were no more protests. They spent most of the passage working in the cargo Bay where the 'Mechs — a Marauder,a Stinger,and a Locust— were stored. They practiced what tactics they could on holographic map tables under Vallendel's critical eye, performing maintenance checks, and going over 'Mech operating systems. When the time came for the drop onto the night side of a world close by a mottled, dusky red sun, however, the unwilling mercenaries had not been included in the assault team. They'd watched from the freighter's DropShip as Vallendel and two of Singh's Techs had disembarked into a night of fire and terror.
They'd also watched Vallendel's Maraudersmash to pieces an aging Phoenix Hawkalready savaged by the weapons they'd helped install in the DropShip's hull.
"Why did they bring us here, anyway?," she'd asked. But no one was giving any answers.
Once the crew transferred to their new Trellwan base in an imposing black stone edifice built on a mountainside, her new masters had begun allowing Kalmar and her companions to exercise with the Locust,and with a pair of 20-ton Waspscaptured from the yet unidentified enemy. They were closely watched by the other 'Mechs; the Stingerwas generally detailed to keep a close eye on the Sigurdian's activities during patrols. It was clear that they were not trusted.
Kalmar's initiation into battle had come shortly after the first successful raid on the enemy city, where a number of prisoners had been captured and specific targets identified. It had also been her last
Her target had been the Palace. She'd received an accurate map of the Palace layout and the location of shelters where important members of the enemy government were expected to be hiding during an attack. She and her two companions were to attack the Palace, flush the ranking officers and members of the Royal Family, and, if possible, to capture them.
It all had gone wrong. Wes Fitzhugh had been killed in a battle with unarmored troops in the street, and Enzelman's Wasphad been damaged at the Palace Gates. Lori had been moving up from the rear to support them when Enzelman had limped past, heading north. "They're after me," he'd cried over the combat pircuit. "Cover me!"
She tried and succeeded. Garik Enzelman had escaped to the Castle, and now she was awaiting death at the hands of her captors.
"You can drop the pretense," she told Grayson. "I know you're going to kill me... eventually. I only surrendered because... because I didn't want to burn." She shuddered. "It's a horrible way to die."
"I didn't know about your parents," Grayson said gently. "I wouldn't have threatened you like that if..." He let the words trail off, acutely aware of how foolish he sounded.
"Look," he continued. "There is no trick. I'm not going to hurt you, and I'll do my best to see that no one else does either. And I'm serious about getting you out of here. I need a Tech to supervise the repair of a damaged Wasp."
"That's ridiculous. I'm an apprentice."
Yeah, right, he thought. But so am I. He wasn't about to admit it, however. "Which puts you way ahead of everyone else in Sarghad. Will you help?"
Her eyes were guarded. "What's to stop me from slipping off to my friends up the mountain? Or wiring a C-90 charge into your 'Mech's primary power circuit?"
"Oh, there'll be safeguards." He thought of his conversation with Varney and Adel, of the arguments he had mustered, and the promises he'd had to make. Kalmar was to be considered an enemy agent. She would be guarded at all times, and the astechs assigned to help her would have training enough to know if she were deliberately sabotaging the work. They'd finally agreed to Grayson's plan only because there seemed to be no other way to get the job done.