Ardan was on the Exeter 'sbridge, which was linked to the bridge of the Sword of Davionby an open vidlink. The Exeter 'scaptain, Harvey Danelle, was shaking his head as he examined the banks of monitors, then turned from the screen to face Ardan. "I think that scares me more than an assault wave of enemy ships incoming at 5 Gs."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"That's right, sir. No-damn-thing. Our fighters turned up a blank at the jump station. There's nothing there...and nobody." He checked his monitor screens again. "The patrols are returning. It looks as though Liao has left the jump point to us."
Ardan worried at this piece of information for a time. It was possible that the entire Liao space strike force was concentrated at the opposite jump point—but foolishly unlikely. Radar and IR sweeps of the entire system had so far produced equally negative results. So, it looked as though Maximilian Liao's defense of Stein's Folly would be concentrated near the planet itself.
The word finally came from the Avalon.Throughout the fleet, DropShip brackets opened, and grapples dropped silently clear. The DropShips began drifting away from their JumpShips like seeds scattered from slender pods. Once clear of the JumpShips, and refueled now from the stores of reaction mass aboard each larger vessel, the Drop-Ships calculated vectors and accelerations and began the long boost toward the Folly. Behind them, metal foil parasols two kilometers wide began unfurling against the stars, as the strike force fleet began the process of recharging for the next jump.
From jump point to star was .9 AU. From star to planet was .37 AUs. Simple geometery gave a distance between jump point and world of a hair under 1 AU, or over 67 hours of travel at a constant 1 G.
Ardan had been over the figures in his head many times already.
Each person in the fleet, Ardan included, now bore the expectant and frustrated attitude of one waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Standard doctrine called for a defending force to meet an invading fleet as far off from the planet as possible, to inflict as much damage on the incoming fleet before the DropShips had a chance to release their precious 'Mechs or to land and disembark them.
The first attack wave came forty-two hours into the passage, long after the DropShips had flipped end for end and begun their deceleration. Davion Corsairand Stukafighters launched from their DropShips and accelerated at high-G toward the assault formations that were spreading across the fleet's screens.
Hours passed, an impossible agony of time in which to remain charged with the expectation of immediate fury and death. Beyond the drive flares of the DropShips, ComInt scans registered distant targets and stabbing lances of energy. Screens on the Exeter 'sbridge told a story of exultant life and fiery death in tiny clots of moving, colored lights.
The Exeter 'scaptain grunted. Ardan looked up from the plot screen at him. "You're not happy, Harve."
"You're right. It's too easy."
"We've lost three."
"Damn it, Ardan, their whole air-space reserves should've been there...should've been waiting for us at the jump point! I think we're being suckered in."
Ardan nodded. It would make sense if the Liao ground commander were preparing a surprise—such as luring the Davion invaders into dropping on Steindown and boxing them in from the hills. The problem was, what if there were other, less obvious traps in the offing?
Ardan watched another amber light—a Liao Thrush—flash white and die, and dreaded failure.
Deceleration complete, the fleet entered low orbit over Stein's Folly. In the entire passage, only three enemy fighters had broken through the Davion Stukasand Corsairsand made high-speed runs through the DropShip fleet. One DropShip, the aging UnionClass Alphecca,suffered minor damage to her fire control systems, but with no casualties among the MechWarriors of A Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Crucis Lancers, sweating out the attack aboard her.
Davion forces commanded the space approaches by the time the DropShips entered orbit. Battlegroups of Stukasrefueled aboard their base DropShips, rearmed with bombs and air-to-ground missiles, then plunged into the goldtipped clouds of the Folly's atmosphere. Reports continued to be relayed from the Stukaflights to the fleet: enemy 'Mechs observed in Stein's Folly and at the Highland port; Liao heavy 'Mechs observed and bombed on the coast road west of Travis; no fighters observed on any of the spaceport fields; ground anti-air defensive fire seemed light...
The Exeter 'scaptain appeared on the steel latticework deck of the 'Mech bay, where Ardan was making a final systems check of the towering, eighty-ton Victorin its outboard launch niche. The 'Mech itself was almost lost in the forest of tubing, cables, wire, and ablative plate that cocooned the machine.
"I came down to wish you luck, Ardan" Danelle said.
"Thank you, Harve. Any change?"
The older man shook his head. "Maybe...just maybe, we've got them cold."
"Uh-unh. Not Maximilian Liao. He's got something up his sleeve." Ardan smiled, a tug against one corner of his mouth. "A dagger, perhaps."
The Exeter 'scaptain looked at him closely. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, sure. Nervous. Scared to death...How should I feel?"
"Before being booted into space in one of those junk piles? Nervous and scared widess, I should think."
"Harve...what if I've guessed wrong?"
"Then you live with it...or die with it, whatever comes. Your course is set now. Fretting won't change it...except maybe to work the odds against you when you need to be at your best."
Ardan looked up at the Victor.A grey-coveralled technician waved to him from the cockpit, signalling that the instrumentation checked out and the 'Mech was ready for launch.
"Twenty minutes to drop," the Captain said. "You'd better snug in."
"Right And...thanks. Thanks for everything."
"All part of your better Davion Travel Service," Danelle said, but he wasn't smiling.
Harvey Danelle stared up at Ardan as he climbed a slender ladder to the Victor'shatch and squeezed himself in. Young Sortek's moodiness concerned him. He'd seen too many 'MechWarriors overcome by depression or black or thoughtful moods—and more often than not, those were the ones who failed to return. Silendy, he said a kind of prayer for Ardan's safety.
The landing plan called for an atmospheric drop rather than a drop from space. With the Drop Zone so perilously close to sea, jungle, and rugged mountain, absolute precision was necessary. One by one, the main drives of each DropShip flared, killing velocity, dropping the ships into the upper fringes of the Folly's atmosphere.
Sealed into his cockpit, listening to the babble of voices coming across his comchannels, Ardan could feel the gradually increasing thrum of air against outer hull, the occasional lurch and bump of high-altitude turbulence, or the jar of a maneuvering thruster burn. He fought down his seething emotions, and attended to the nearly automatic tasks of preparing for drop. He had already stripped off all clothing except for his boots and shorts—his Victor'scockpit was going to be a sauna in very short order—and donned a light cooling vest, taking care with the connections between the shoulder pumps and the coolant reserve in the small of his back. A Kelvin Triple-0 Lancer 3 mm laser pistol went into a holster, and he tightened the web belt it hung from around his waist. The new combat knife was strapped by its scabbard to his calf just above his low-cut boot top. The canister of survival gear went into a flat pouch hanging from the belt.