Grace quickly moved to the left side of the street, Ben began to lumber down the center, and the other two ’Mechs took the right. The Roughrider ’Mechs backed up, zigzagging in a random fashion to complicate the big Atlas’ firing solutions. Ben squeezed off SRM volleys at random intervals, but only one struck a glancing blow to the Koshi.
The Koshi returned fire, sending rockets at the Atlas. One miss bounced Grace off the building beside her, and her gyros lost sync. Stalled, she managed to restart the pair and get moving just before the Arbalest burned the place she’d been standing with a laser burst.
Grace fired a short burst, sending sparks and shards of armor flying from both ’Mechs, to tell Ben she was still in the fight. The Roughriders concentrated on the Atlas as they backed up, failing to notice the four ’Mech MODs behind them until a barrage of rockets exploded around them. The Arbalest spun even as it danced right. Grace had a good guess what messages were flying between those two. If she was going to keep them from jumping out of this, she had to act now.
She mashed herLOUDSPEAKER button. “This is Grace O’Malley, Alkalurops Defense Forces Commanding Officer,” echoed off the walls of the two story buildings around them. “I wish to talk to Major Loren Hanson of the Roughriders.”
“This is Major Hanson,” blared back at her. “I am not prepared to discuss my surrender with you.”
“That’s fine, because I wish to discuss my surrender.”
“Your surrender?”
“Yes.”
“Is this some kind of trick?”
“I am a miner, Major, not a murderer. I wish to end this killing. If the only way I can is to discuss my surrender, that is what I will do. Haven’t I earned the right to talk surrender terms?”
“You have done that,” he said as the cockpit of his Koshi opened. “You could write a book on Fabian tactics.”
“Why write a book that others would just use against me?” Grace said as she opened Pirate’s cockpit. “My infantry leader has some data files she thinks you might like to review.”
“You mean my maid, Betty Rose?”
“A gal takes whatever job she can,” came with a laugh from behind Grace. Betsy was advancing along the sidewalk, machine pistol in one hand, a large ’puter in the other. Behind her trailed two guards with a very reluctant Field Marshal.
“I recognize the guy behind you,” the Major said.
“I thought you would,” Betsy called up to him. “Want to come down here and ask him a few questions? I think you’ll find him both entertaining and possibly lifesaving.”
16
Allabad, Alkalurops
Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere
2 September 3134; local late summer
Grace was hot, filthy and tightly chained. Not her idea of a good time, but Santorini had sent very specific instructions on how he wanted his prisoners decked out for his victory parade. Hanson had obeyed. Hanson had obeyed every order Santorini had issued since the collapse of the opposition.
That included pictures of Kilkenny’s lampposts strung with corpses. Fortunately, Fetterman had old photos he had not sent Santorini, so the demand had been met without too much trouble.
Grace staggered in chains down Landers Row in Allabad, toward the Guild Hall, renamed the Leader’s Chancellery. In the brick-paved plaza in front of the clock tower, Santorini waited in full uniform, more shining silver than black serge. Imperious, he sat atop his Ryoken II, cockpit open to the slight breeze. Some poor lackey had been hooked to the outside of the BattleMech, sixteen meters up, to hold a parasol lest the morning sun that had now cleared the canyon wall above Allabad beat down uncomfortably upon the Leader. The scene was like some ancient vid of rajahs and elephants and slaves.
Grace struggled to keep such thoughts from her face.
“Take a good look at what happens to anyone stupid enough to cross your Leader.” Santorini’s voice boomed from an oversized speaker mounted on the chest of the Ryoken II. Up and down Landers Row, other speakers blared the same. Not surprisingly, the Net was back up and carrying this spectacle. Grace was counting on that. “Look at what everyone can expect who gets in the way of the future of my worlds.”
Worlds, now, Grace thought. This guy really is on a trip.
“You sure this was part of your dream?” Ben whispered from beside Grace. Jobe and Chato struggled along on her other side. Behind them, Victoria and Danny shuffled in step, heads defiantly high. It was probably the first time in their lives that those two Highlanders had been together on anything. Sven worried Grace. Pale as new snow, he stumbled along, helped by Betsy and George Stillwell. Grace had been willing to let Sven skip the prisoners’ walk, but he’d insisted. It was Syn Bakai who refused to risk breaking a nail, so Hanson had reported her killed while attempting to escape. Her lovely body was lashed to one of the following tanks, per Santorini’s orders. Grace hoped Syn had forgotten her sunblock and burned tomato red.
Then again, they might all soon be red—red with their own blood. Not all calculated risks paid off as calculated.
Hanson led the Roughriders from his Koshi twenty meters ahead of Grace. Mallary’s and Art’s Arbalest s stalked along, two steps behind him with Eddie at their elbow, keeping Ben’s Atlas close. The crowds lining the sidewalks were deathly silent. Children stood close to their parents. Grace had remarked at all the Black and Reds standing guard along the side of the road. Ben whispered that they weren’t there to keep the crowd from the victory parade, but rather to make sure that people didn’t slip away. Santorini wanted everyone to see his triumph.
So did Grace, but for a different reason.
Grace kept her eyes down, a properly dejected and defeated foe, but from under her eyelashes she studied the force arrayed around Santorini. His most dangerous BattleMechs were the Legionnaire to his left and Jupiter to his right. There were a smattering of Centurion s and Catapult s in the next rank around the big three. But over half of that dozen were ’Mech MODs formed in a square with an open front to the road. Behind them, in none too straight a line, were two dozen Mech MODs with nothing like the conversion package Sven and Mick had put together. Grace figured Santorini must have every Black and Red ’Mech on the planet here. Behind that, machine gun–armed jeeps and civilian trucks formed a line. I wanted all the bad apples in one place, Grace reminded herself. Well, I’ve got them. Now all I have to do is survive them.
As Hanson strode by his client’s viewing point, Santorini treated them to the horrible thing that passed for his smile.
That brought Grace even with the Leader. She shot him a look of pure hate. The loudspeakers caught his cackle of a laugh as he pointed her out to his two subordinates. One of them—Grace thought it was the Jupiter driver on the right—said, “I’d shoot her where she stands for that look.”
Santorini put his hand over the mike in front of him, but Grace still heard. “But that would take away the impact of a trial and formal execution,” said the other one.
“What more can we get?” the Jupiter driver shot back. “We’ve got the biggest crowd this hick town’s gonna give us. We’ve got cameras taking this live around the whole planet.”
“Good point,” Santorini said, taking his hand off the mike. “Hanson, stop the parade a moment.”