A Warhammer!
39
Lori hurried through passageways heavy with writhing smoke, trembling to the thunderous blasts from outside. The corridor twisted back through the building, leading, she was sure, into the Administrative Complex, the cluster of buildings around the base of the University's Central Tower. The smoke grew thicker as she ran deeper into the complex. There were no other people here, save the occasional still and bloody forms of Kurita soldiers or Regis Blues caught by mobs of freed prisoners.
She stopped, sagging against a wall, coughing hard. Which way? A moan and the sound of someone else coughing attracted her attention. She hurried forward and saw a woman on hands and knees, struggling through smoke so thick it burned the eyes and turned throat and lungs to fire. A nearby wooden door burst open, and flames exploded into the corridor just beyond the woman. Lori almost turned away, but the woman's struggles were growing weaker, more aimless. Lori was caught, frozen for an instant's struggle within her. Then she moved forward. She hadto help.
And she found that she could. The confrontation with the Kurita interrogator had broken through some barrier within her. She'd recognized that when her feelings for Grayson had welled up in her in a way that had not been possible until now. And that was the key.
It seemed that she had feared, not the fire, but that sense of helplessness she'd first known the night her parents had died. Helplessness, not fire...and not Grayson himself, had been the barrier that made her a stranger to herself. Her helplessness had been acted out in all too vivid a fashion when Nagumo's interrogators had strapped her to that table, had kindled a torch and advanced on her, leering...But Grayson had come...and she had joined him in the fight. The barrier, like prison gates flung wide, was gone now.
Breathing in shallow gasps, Lori rushed to the woman's side as flames roared close. She pulled one of the woman's arms across her own shoulders and half-carried, half-dragged the limp form, backing away from the fire. After awhile, the smoke grew so heavy that Lori dropped to hands and knees herself, pulled the woman across her back, and crawled in the direction that instinct told her was the way outside. The smoke was not so thick close to the ground.
Instinct proved correct. A door led to a veranda where Lori could sprawl against a mound of rubble, gulping down air. The woman lying beside her recovered slowly. It was Sue Ellen Klein, apparently unhurt, but haggard and dazed. Her uniform was torn, and her arms and hands stained with blood.
Beyond the rubble barrier, the clash of armored giants continued, their weapons like lightning and thunder and hell's own fury.
* * * *
Powerful, confident, undamaged thus far in the struggle, the
Warhammerof the Command Lance, Company A, First Battalion, 3rd Strike Regiment, strode past the blocking wreckage and into the center of the Court. The
Bannockburn
A deafening explosion smashed Grayson forward in his control seat, and blue fire scalded his bare left arm. He spun the Marauderand faced a new threat. Another Archer,the odd, forward-thrusting shape of a Jenner,and a pair of Stingerswere crowding through the entrance to the lower level. A Wasplimped heavily, showing where an anti- ‘Mech commando had struck it with a satchel charge, but the tunnel’s defenders had not been able to withstand this new rush.
He fired, PPC lightning flickering across the Archerand the Jenner.Machine gun fire rattled across the open cockpit panels, and Grayson backpedaled the Marauderout of the line of fire and into the Courtyard proper. The Warhammertargeted him at once. Twin PPC bolts splashed across the Marauder'slegs, and Grayson screamed as his face burned in the light. He returned the fire, still screaming, saw his bolts striking home in coruscating flashes of fire and glittering fragments of metal.
The Courtyard was filled now with BattleMechs struggling in the smoke. An Archerbattled hand-to-hand with Clay's Wolverine.Grayson's captured Marauderand McCall's Riflemanstood back to back atop the burning ruin of the Courtyard barricade, as the enemy BattleMechs advanced from two directions. The Shadow Hawkjoined them, firing bolt after point-blank bolt into the torn and broken armor of the advancing Warhammer'storso.
A new roar crashed and rumbled from overhead, and something heavy smashed into Grayson's open cockpit. He looked up, startled. The Central Tower of the University was wreathed in fire, and smoke was billowing from open windows halfway up its height.
More debris fell, splashing into the Courtyard. The fire,Grayson thought. The fire in the lower levels! It must have spread! There was enough wood in the framework, under all that stone, that the whole tower must be in flames by now. The place was burning down over our heads and we didn't even notice!
The Kurita ‘Mechs closed in.
* * * *
Tollen Brasednewic had planned to lead the hundred-odd men of his original band to the Uppsala Mountains to continue the fight, but he never left the Fox Island camp. Instead, he listened to the growing thunder in the distance, a thunder barely audible above the keening of the jungle chirimsims. The words he'd exchanged with Grayson Carlyle still burned...the humiliation still burned...But what was right?
He'd painted his refusal to help as a matter of honor as well as practicality. The rebel army—those men and women beyond his original small band—would no longer follow him, not after that mercenary offworlder had publicly criticized him. Inside, though, Tollen wondered if he were more enraged by the fact that his relationship with Carlotta had become public. With that, Old Family and Immigrant alike would be reluctant to follow him now.
Wouldn't they? And was it honor or pride...or his own unreasoning fears that kept him from finding out? The truth of the matter was that he didn't knowif any in the Verthandian rebel army would follow if he gave the order to attack Regis.
Somehow, his anger against Grayson Carlyle had become a smaller thing. As the sounds of battle rising from the capital became more urgent, he gathered his original band and gave orders to saddle up a company of hover transports and move out. They would travel south, toward Regis, not to the west.
The main body of the rebel army had been waiting in some confusion ever since word of the Gray Death's commando raid had spread among them. Individual company commanders had been uncertain what to do. Even the Verthandian ‘Mech lance, led by Rolf Montido, had done no more than gather along the edge of the Bluesward at the crest of the Basin Rim. With neither orders nor clear leaders, they'd been helpless.
When Brasednewic swept past them in the lead hover transport, Montido's Dervishrelayed the signal. All units...follow!And the Free Verthandi Rangers had swept down on Regis.
By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, the Gray Death ‘Mechs that had been arrayed outside the walls of the AgroMech factory had been driven back into the University Compound. Brasednewic had barked orders over the rebels' combat frequency. They couldn't afford to get pinned down in a firefight outside the University. Instead, the column split, each side swinging toward a different gate in the city wall. With luck, at least one column might be able to force its way through to join the fighting inside.