“Get out.”
“All in good time. I came here with a purpose, you know.”
“If I let you tell me about it, will you leave?” He made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. “Go ahead.”
The man reached into the pocket of his uniform tunic and pulled out a card with a name, a rank, and an address printed on one side, and a string of numbers neatly handwritten on the other.
“This is the number for your account on Terra. The agreed-upon funds are there and waiting for you to access them.” He laid the card down on the tabletop next to the wineglass and rose to leave. “As is a bonus of one stone for each Republic citizen killed in the fighting. You see, we are not ungrateful.”
And the smiling man was gone.
He waited, trembling with rage, but the smiling man did not come back. The anger built and built. At length he got to his feet, moving slowly and deliberately. He was holding so much anger, he thought, that moving too fast might break him. He wrapped his fingers carefully around the neck of the empty wine bottle.
“Toasted my name.” He spoke to himself in a steadily rising whisper. “My name. My name.”
He lifted the bottle and threw it against the back wall of the wineshop so hard that it shattered. A few seconds later, the wineglass followed it.
“Not any more.”
The wineshop waiter was staring at him, and he knew it was time to leave—leave the shop, leave the city, leave the world. Daniel Peterson had died on the first day of the fighting in Chang-An. When he figured out who he was now, he’d give himself another name.
He almost left the smiling man’s business card behind on the table. In the end, though, he picked up the card and took it with him. Because it didn’t matter who he was going to become.
He’d always need the money.
28
South of Benderville
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
February 3134; dry season
By noon, the cockpit of Brigadier General Michael Griffin’s Koshi was hotter than a steam bath. Despite the best efforts of generations of designers, the ’Mech had not yet been built that didn’t leave its pilot sweating like a pig. Griffin had been drinking water steadily since early morning, along with extra rations of the specially formulated drinks issued to regular troopers during desert maneuvers, and to MechWarriors any time an extended stay in the ’Mech’s cockpit was required.
It was nevertheless a good thing, Griffin thought, that he wasn’t planning on a brisk bout of hand-to-hand combat any time soon. He knew from experience that after marching the Koshi with the task force all day long, he would leave the cockpit at nightfall feeling—as his grandmother would have said—like he’d been beaten all over with a broom handle.
At least the polarized ferroglass viewports cut out the worst of the glare bouncing off the miles and miles of water and sand that passed for scenery along the Oilfields Coast. The soldiers outside would need protective goggles, which some of them would not wear because of the discomfort or because of the reduction in their field of view, and heavy-duty sun-screen, which some of them would, inevitably, forget. At nightfall, both groups would complain of eyestrain and sunburn, and would rest poorly. Then the next day, it would all begin again—and still they had found no sign of Anastasia Kerensky.
A fruitless search under uncomfortable conditions, Griffin thought, wasn’t going to do any good for morale. But orders were orders, and there was nothing to do but go on.
The radio in the ’Mech’s cockpit crackled. A moment later, a voice came through on one of the secure channels.
“Command, this is Balac Two.”
“Go ahead, Balac Two,” Griffin replied.
“I have an aircraft on visual.”
Griffin felt a stirring of excitement. Were the task force’s long hours of heat and discomfort finally about to pay off? A man could always hope.
“Do you have an ID on the aircraft?” he asked.
“I make it a Donar Assault Helicopter.”
The Donar was a known Steel Wolf unit. Even better, the identification matched with the aircraft the boy had described the night before. Thank you, youngster, Griffin thought. I think we’ve got a hit.
Aloud, he said, “Good work, Balac Two. Have you been spotted?”
“I don’t think so. Looks like he’s doing a routine patrol.”
“Any sight of something that might be a DropShip?”
“That’s a negative. No DropShips.”
“The Wolf has to have come from somewhere. Stick with him, Balac Two; see if you can follow him home.”
“Yes, sir. Balac Two out.”
Brigadier General Michael Griffin was happy. Outside the cockpit of the ’Mech, all he could see was deep blue water out to the horizon on his right hand, and grassy brown sand hills out to the horizon on his left, and the rutted dirt track that was the grandly named Kearney Coastal Highway stretching out ahead. But somewhere beyond all that, at last, lay the object of the past several days’ tedious search—the hiding place of Anastasia Kerensky’s DropShips.
He raised his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Jones on the command circuit. “Balac Two’s spotted our Wolf.”
“High time,” said Jones. “Shall I put the troops on alert?”
“Continue reconnaissance here on the ground, but have them ready. There’s no guarantee the Wolf won’t come after Balac Two and bring his buddies with him.”
Time passed. Griffin sweated, from tension as much as from the heat of the ’Mech’s cockpit. The only thing moving within his field of vision that wasn’t the Highlanders themselves was something four-legged and reptilian throwing up a flurry of sand off next to the road. Griffin, native to the Kearney coastline, recognized the signs of a scaley-bogle going after slower-moving prey.
Good for him, Griffin thought. He’s going to eat tonight.
The radio crackled again. “Command, this is Balac One.”
Balac One was the VTOL taking the seaward leg today, while Balac Two did the landward search. “Go ahead, Balac One.”
“I have Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals Offshore Drilling Station Number Forty-seven on the horizon.”
“Any sight of the DropShips, Balac One?”
“Negative, sir. No DropShips in sight.”
“Give Balfour-Douglas a flyover, see if you can raise them. Maybe they’ve noticed something that we haven’t.”
“Yes, sir. Heading toward Balfour-Douglas now—wait a minute. Sir, I have Balac Two and the Wolf both on visual, heading this way.”
Quickly, Griffin opened a second circuit. “Balac Two, this is Command. Have you been spotted?”
“Negative. Looks like our buddy’s in a hurry to get home.”
Griffin frowned. The Wolf was heading out to sea, toward Balac One and away from the landward-searching Balac Two. Not the direction he’d have expected for a VTOL returning to base, not unless—“Damn,” he said under his breath, and keyed both of the secure circuits back open.
“Balac One, Balac Two—he’ll be heading for the VTOL pad on that Balfour-Douglas rig. Shadow him—don’t let him spot you—see what’s up out there and report back to me.”
Anastasia Kerensky’s on-planet field headquarters, close enough to be vulnerable to a quick strike out of Fort Barrett—General Griffin was already juggling troop numbers and battle scenarios in his head as he made ready to pass the word along to his aide.
We haven’t yet found the DropShips, he thought happily, but maybe we’ve found the next best thing.
29
Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals Offshore Drilling Station #47
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
February 3134; dry season
Ian Murchison stood looking out across the water toward the Kearney coast. It wasn’t his usual hour for spending time on #47’s observation deck—bright noon, with sunlight dazzling off blue water and a breeze blowing off the land, and the scavenging sea-birds wheeling and calling overhead—but this was not, even in his current circumstances, one of his usual days.