Take command of Farrell’s mercenaries. If we can hit the Wolves from two directions at once before they get too deep into the city, we’ve got a good chance at pushing them back onto their ships.
The Countess was right, he thought. Bringing the mercenaries into action was the solution to the current problem. The regimental forces in and around Tara would not be enough by themselves to meet the attack. Anastasia Kerensky would have brought more Wolves to the battle this time than she had before—all of the ones who hadn’t gone home to Tigress, augmented by those who had left Tigress over the past months for an unknown destination. The Highlanders needed the mercenaries to make up their missing numbers, if the streets of Tara were not going to become another Chang-An.
He could still stop it, Crow thought; he could… but other words also echoed in his mind, words not spoken but printed in cold black type on a sheet of good white paper:
Anastasia Kerensky wants Northwind. See that she gets what she wants.
The letter contained no threat; whoever had written it hadn’t seen the need. The information alone was enough to convey the desired message:
Keep Anastasia Kerensky from taking Northwind, and all of this becomes known.
When he reached the Armory he found it brightly lit despite the late hour, its windows and skylights glowing yellow against the dark. The whole building was full of furious activity, roused to action by the word from the port. Crow made for the ’Mech hangars, mostly empty until recent months, now filled with modified Industrial and Forestry and MiningMechs. There were only three real BattleMechs in the lot—Captain Bishop’s Pack Hunter, the Countess’s Hatchetman, and Crow’s own Blade. Not much, against the forces the Wolves would bring to bear.
The mercenaries would have more, he thought, and called the roll of them in his mind: a Spider, a Firestarter, a Mad Cat III, and Farrell’s own Jupiter.
Those would be enough, if they were used.
His Blade waited in its hangar. To the guard outside, he said: “Paladin Crow, on the Prefect’s business. I’m taking the ’Mech.”
The Blade was probably his fastest way to the mercenaries, no matter what he decided to say when he got there. Ordinary vehicles—even tanks and armored cars—might be stopped and questioned, blocked and delayed. But nobody would force a ’Mech to halt; and even if somebody were foolish enough to try, Crow’s Blade would be recognized, and people would assume he was on business too important to be stopped.
He climbed into the cockpit and dogged the hatch shut behind him. While the ’Mech’s fusion engines and musculature were warming up, he quickly stripped down to his shorts, donned the cooling vest and neurohelmet, and slipped into the command chair. As soon as he’d gone through the primary and secondary security protocols needed to gain full access to the ’Mech’s controls and capabilities, he switched the viewscreen over to IR mode. He’d need the infrared for taking the Blade through the city streets in the dark, and the cockpit’s polarizing windows would mitigate the risk of getting blinded by flares and searchlights.
Another touch of the controls awakened the Blade’s fusion engine to full life. Crow brought the ’Mech out of the hangar, taking it past the New Barracks and past the Fort, into the streets of Tara. Soon the Blade was striding down the main road leading out of the city into the countryside beyond. Farrell’s mercenary units had not yet been dispersed to garrison duty, but were still in their holding encampment; at the Blade’s cruising speed of seventy-six kilometers per hour, it would not take Crow long to reach them.
Then he would have to decide what he was going to do.
Giving over Tara—the city and Countess blurred together in his mind, until he wasn’t certain which would be the more poignant loss—giving over Tara to the Steel Wolves would mean betrayal and bloody slaughter.
It’s not as if you aren’t used to it already, said the voice of reason, cold as always in the back of his head. Anastasia Kerensky wants Northwind, and the person who sent you that packet of damnation wants for you to give it to her—or have Paladin Ezekiel Crow unmasked to The Republic of the Sphere as the Betrayer of Liao.
How is that going to be different, he asked the voice of reason, from having him branded as the Betrayer of Northwind? Either way it brings me down. Is that the true goal—are Anastasia Kerensky and Countess Tara Campbell both nothing but pawns in somebody else’s game to checkmate me?
The idea was not impossible. He’d said enough and done enough over the years that anyone involved in the upper levels of The Republic’s politics could guess that he aimed high. And no one could rise to join the ranks of the Paladins, from whom the next Exarch would be chosen, without making enemies.
The line of thought brought a surge of irritation along with it. Later, he told himself, later he could sort out who had the whip hand over him, and why. But not now, not when the Steel Wolves were landing at the port and– Farrell’s mercenaries are at your disposal–what Paladin Ezekiel Crow said and did in the next few hours would decide the course of the battle to come.
Anastasia Kerensky wants Northwind. See that she gets what she wants.
There was something not quite right about that. Why should Anastasia Kerensky want Northwind, other than for the usual motives ascribed to the Clans: glory and reputation and a famous name? Why should she make a try—twice—for Northwind, instead of concentrating her attentions on places like Small World and Addicks? The Countess of Northwind had gotten it right, months ago when The Republic of the Sphere first sent him to Prefecture III: Northwind was the gateway to Terra.
Kerensky doesn’t want Northwind, he thought. Kerensky wants Terra, just as the Clans have always wanted it. Seizing control of humanity’s home planet would allow her to fulfill what the Clans believed to be their manifest destiny, and it would make her—what was the word they used?– ilKhan. Northwind was just the springboard.
The idea made sense, and chilled him even in the heat of the Blade’s cockpit. After Anastasia Kerensky had finished with Northwind, when the Highlanders’ homeworld was no longer a threat at her back, then she would strike at Terra.
He’d reached the gates of the mercenary encampment while pursuing these thoughts, and was stopped by soldiers on gate guard with Gauss rifles, backed up by an SM1 Tank Destroyer.
“Halt and identify yourself, MechWarrior!”
A ceremonial threat, given muscle by the SM1. Crow replied over the Blade’s external speaker: “Paladin Ezekiel Crow. I need to speak with your commanding officer. At once.”
From the Blade’s cockpit, he saw the gate guards put their heads together for a quick consultation. He didn’t wait, but began unstrapping from the control seat and getting ready to climb down. The gate guards would have recognized Crow’s name by now as that of the person who held the mercenaries’ current contract. If Farrell were not already waiting by the time Crow reached the ground, he would be arriving in haste soon after.
In fact, Farrell showed up at the gate as Crow was stepping off the bottom rung of the access ladder. “Paladin Crow,” he said. “To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”
“The Steel Wolves have landed at Tara DropPort.”
“Huh.” Farrell didn’t look particularly surprised. “You’re the one that’s giving the orders, Paladin. What’s the word?”