"See that you do, sir. Good day."
Ardan was momentarily startled by Ran's sudden change of tactics. He had sounded so sincere that it wasn't until they were walking from the chamber and Ardan caught a wink from the Strike Force Commander that he realized that Felsner's last words had been an act.
"You old smoothie," he murmured, pitching his voice low so that only Ran could hear.
For answer, Felsner rolled his eyes toward the ornate and gold-trimmed ceiling. It was a relief to get into the fresh night air of Dragon's Field once more.
10
No soldier looks forward to a strike against a major city, because street-to-street combat can turn a skillfully defended urban area into a death trap. Nevertheless, when word trickled down the Davion line of command that the strike force would not be dropped into Steindown and the spaceport as originally planned, the troopers and Mech-Warriors greeted the news with complaints and grumbling instead of relief.
Soldiers are a superstitious lot, and have been ever since the first savage threw the first rock. They have an automatic tendency to suspect that the enigmatic and godlike decisions coming down from the remote High Command might somehow alter fate, putting a man here,directly in the path of an incoming round, instead of there,where he could have survived. After all, it was not usually the higher-ups who had to put their butts on the line. Even the veteran NCOs, who might have breathed a small sigh of relief that they would not be dropping directly into a hot strongpoint, could only shake their heads and curse the blind fumblings of Higher Authority. Why couldn't those brass-heavy paper pushers leave well enough alone, without stirring everything and everybody up?
But the changes were made. Admiral Bertholi reported that new navigational fixes had been recorded for three distinct peaks in the ridge around Jordan's Pass, and the drop zones could now be positively identified and homed on. Unit commanders down to individual lance commanders and platoon leaders reported that troop assignments had been re-set, new 'Mech assembly points positioned and confirmed, and primary targets reassigned. Contingency planning and logistical support evaluations were continuing, but these chores could be carried out aboard the DropShips. Within twenty hours of the visit by Ardan, Lees Hamman, and Ran Felsner to Duke Michael's field headquarters, the first DropShips carrying Felsner's 5th Crucis Lancers had already boosted from Dragon's Field and were hours outbound on their way to the system's nadir jump point.
Ran himself had remained behind to parry any possible official or bureaucratic delays Hasek-Davion might create because he was displeased. The Capellan March Militia were still ostensibly under the Duke's command even though they had been temporarily reassigned to Lees Hamman by Prince Davion himself. Though powerless to stop the invasion, the Duke of New Syrtis could find myriad ways to hamper the assembly and loading of his own troops. An order to loyal unit commanders simply to slow down the boarding process or to lose the clearance orders for a vital shipment of munitions could delay the unit's departure for days, even weeks.
Felsner's solution was equally simple, though risky. He made sure that Michael would not interfere with the new plan for the counterinvasion by solemnly informing the Duke that after all and after careful consideration, the Davion commanders had decided to stick with the old plan.
Ardan considered this strategy dangerous as well as dishonest, knowing that Hasek-Davion would be furious and humiliated when he finally learned that they had lied to him. Having an influential and powerful nobleman like the Duke of New Syrtis for an enemy was not going to be amusing. It was these wheels within wheels within wheels, rather than the prospect of battle, that was keeping Ardan awake at night.
But he was too busy to worry for long. Once his own unit was scheduled for loading, he found himself in a running, three-sided battle with the Dragon's Field Technical Officer and the Chief of Procurement.
A JM6 JagerMechin Company C, 1st Batallion of the 17th Avalon Hussars, died right on the landing field in the shadow of the UnionDropShip it was preparing to board. An old, old fault in a leg servounit finally shorted an actuator circuit board too often patched instead of replaced.
The leg locked, freezing the 'Mech in place and blocking access to the DropShip's number one hold.
Though replacing a circuit board is not particularly difficult, the repair meant removing the JagerMech'sleg at the knee, a procedure that required a field repair gantry or a full maintenance facility, at least. The 17th's field gantries were already broken down and stored, and Procurement refused to provide a new circuit board unless the crippled 'Mech could be brought to the maintenance center some two hundred meters across the field. A request for a deployed field gantry was refused: why should that gear be broken out when maintenance blocks were open just across the field?
Unfortunately, the base Field Technical Services Division could spare no transports for the three hours' work needed to lower the 'Mech onto a flatbed crawler and carry it across to Maintenance. Proper authorization to redetail a transport and crew had to come from the base commandant, and he was at an official briefing with His Grace the Duke and would not be available until that evening—or possibly tomorrow. So sorry, they said, but we are really very busy and could you call back later? Or you might check with the Logistical Staff at Pallos, eighty klicks from here. They might have a transport, and if you could get authorization...
Meanwhile, the other three 'Mechs of the JagerMech'slance were scheduled to board through the blocked hatch, and the entire loading schedule was falling behind. After two hours of fruitless tail-chasing, Ardan arrived at the only possible solution. He had the two heaviest of the waiting 'Mechs drag the crippled, sixty-five-ton JM6 across the field to the maintenance center and leave it there, laid carefully and squarely across the accessway leading to the building's underground VIP garage.
If the major in charge of the Technical Services Division wanted to get home for supper that evening, the 'Mech would have to be repaired that afternoon, transport or no transport.
It was, and loading proceeded almost on schedule.
As boost time approached, the scene became even more chaotic and hectic. The port facilities of Dragon's Field were a hive of activity focused on the squat shapes of the DropShips— Unionsand Overlords,mostly—resting in their blast pits surrounded by the lacelike traceries of loading gantries and crane supports. Somehow, hundreds of tons of food, water, munitions, and spare parts had to be directed from storehouses around the planet to the proper ship at the proper time.
The physics of mass and mass distribution were unforgiving of the schedules and problems of ship supply officers. If each ton of supplies was not positioned precisely, the ship would not respond as expected when the captain later tried to cut in a control jet to vector clear of incoming missiles or to maneuver through a turbulent atmosphere. Worse, if those tons of supplies were not stored in the proper order, ground troops queuing up to draw ammo might be told that their supplies lay somewhere on the far side of 400 tons of dried meat and a case of JagerMechleg actuator circuits.
Finally, after three days of grueling work, the last 'Mech was somehow winched into its transport niche and locked down, the last liter of reaction mass had been pumped into tanks and the hollow, partitioned spaces between bulkheads and decks, and the last squad of infantry had filed aboard and found the narrow, padded ledges that would be their homes for the next several days. Lees had departed the day before with the Capellan March Militia. With the threat of official delay from the Duke's office removed, Ran boosted to rejoin his unit hours later.