Austin worked on his ranging displays and sucked in his breath. The Legate might have most of his military might pitted against the Atlas, but enough moved in fast on the Palace to seize it. Or to destroy it and anyone inside.
Austin had hoped his father had successfully escaped during the past few days, but seeing this much firepower coming to bear argued against it.
The worst sort of war—civil war—blossomed like an evil weed all around him.
The flash of laser cannon filtered through his optics from the direction of the Palace, followed closely by the gut-shaking thunder of a concussive blast from a Gauss rifle round. Tortorelli had dispatched a Behemoth tank to spearhead the attack.
They want my father dead, he realized. Elora and Tortorelli weren’t going to capture him, put him on trial as a traitor, and have a public execution. They wanted him removed from power permanently. Now. Austin took some satisfaction from this. It meant the MBA and the Atlas were giving more resistance than he had expected. This also chilled him because it meant Elora and the Legate no longer worried what Jerome Parsons might report.
Myomer muscles protesting from lack of movement over the years, Sergeant Death lumbered off, waveringly at first, then with growing stability. Austin settled in and found driving the venerable ’Mech easier than his training in the simulator. But that was as it should be. Problems were thrown fast and furious in the computerized version to test his mettle and train him for any problem that might crop up in actual combat.
Feeling as tall as the ten-meter Sergeant Death and twice as invincible, Austin kicked into top speed and headed directly for the expansive grounds surrounding the Palace. The ranging and targeting computer swamped him with input.
Sensory overload got worse when warning bells sounded an instant before a laser rocked him. Sheets of molten steel boiled up from his armored torso. He instinctively turned to keep the attack from concentrating on a single spot. Austin craned about and saw the source of the attack. A combined attack force had been driving hard to reach the southern Palace gates and had come across him instead. A VV1 Ranger Infantry Fighting Vehicle raced toward him, its machine guns chattering impotently as its four lasers raked him viciously.
Austin was hardly aware of the mental process he went through before his right hand spat a deadly burst of autocannon rounds that raked along the ground and hammered hard into the Ranger. His left index finger curled back and ten LRMs lashed out.
The Ranger shuddered under the impact of the salvo and then slumped to one side. Austin launched a second barrage that blew the vehicle apart. Without thinking, he immediately targeted two APCs behind the Ranger. Repeated fire from his autocannon took them out quickly.
He swallowed hard. Those personnel carriers had been loaded with human beings. He might have known some of them—some might have been former members of the FCL. Then Austin found himself fighting for survival. A company of battle-armor-clad soldiers surged forward, intent on swarming around the Centurion’s legs and destroying his capacity to walk, using their lasers and LRM 5s.
He kicked as if he had stepped in something sticky and sent a few of the soldiers flying, but Austin saw their unrelenting attack was succeeding. Heavy projectiles, explosives, even laser assault—all chewed away at his armor and eventually damaged some of his sensors. He had less to fear from loss of the StarGuard III armor than he did from loss of his controls. The soldiers expertly nipped like terriers at his most vulnerable spots.
Austin fired the autocannon and mowed down a rank of battle armor and infantry moving toward him. He lifted the sights and locked on to a medium Condor tank. Another long burst blew it up. Then he swung about, only to stagger heavily.
A Gauss rifle round from the Behemoth caught him squarely in the center of his armored chest. He stepped back and the step became a stagger. His head spun as he fought to hold the Centurion upright. As he struggled, he triggered the autocannon. He started to step forward, but a stream of shells hammered his right leg. He saw damage warnings flashing all around him, but the right leg was the most serious. Austin loosed another hailstorm of autocannon rounds and still he was under attack. The Hauberk-battle-armored soldiers fired their SRMs directly into his vulnerable leg. Salvos of fire ripped away armor, tore armor, blasted armor. He got a few of the soldiers but not enough.
His Centurion had taken too much damage to the right leg. He toppled to the ground with a bone-jarring crash as it gave out under him.
Stunned for a moment, Austin finally blinked his vision back to focus on his targeting screens. Soldiers in Hauberk battle armor rushed forward, intent on destroying him with laser and missile.
He flopped about onto his back, lifted his right arm with the autocannon, and… nothing. Austin cried in frustration and jerked back hard on the trigger that should have sent deadly kilos of depleted-uranium shells ripping through the ground troops.
Nothing. The autoloader had jammed.
Digging in his heels and kicking up a huge dirt cloud, he tried to swing about on his back and use his torso-mounted laser on the soldiers before they reached him. He would not be Gulliver to their lilliputian might.
And Legate Tortorelli’s troops wouldn’t simply tie him down. They would kill his Centurion; they would kill him.
Austin fired his laser and ionized a wide corridor through the dust cloud. He fired his laser again and again.
Then nothing happened for a third blast that would have taken out a squad of soldiers.
“Damn, no! Don’t do this to me!” he raged. The charging unit on the Photec laser indicated a short. He could get the weapon on-line again but had no idea how long it would take for even a partial charge.
He changed tactics, concentrating on getting to his feet rather than fighting.
He sat up and almost got his feet under him when Sergeant Death was rocked by another missile barrage. He crashed back flat on the ground, seeing nothing but the sky above. Austin refused to give up and die. His father needed him. The Republic needed him. He couldn’t let Elora triumph.
With a sweep of his arm, he knocked away two infantry soldiers and rolled onto his side. From this view he saw death staring him in the face. A Condor lowered its cannon and began the firing cycle that would send a torrent of shells into the middle of the Centurion cockpit.
35
Palace of Facets, Cingulum
Mirach
9 May 3133
The distant thunder of detonating missiles brought back unpleasant memories for Sergio Ortega. The entire Palace shuddered down to its foundations as Condor tanks sighted in, trying to penetrate the defenses Master Sergeant Borodin had established, but Sergio knew even the cleverest, toughest defense gave way eventually under severe enough punishment.
He had thought his days of being a warrior were past.
“To murder thousands takes a specious name, / War’s glorious art, and gives immortal fame.” Those ancient words echoed in his head. And it would be Elora whose fame was sung. He had been a fool to think she would hesitate to attack once Envoy Parsons arrived with the BattleMech and placed it in Marta Kinsolving’s command—for “demonstration purposes.” He had not considered a cornered rat and its similarity to his Minister of Information.