Текст книги " Lethal Heritage "

Kai Allard, seated at the far end of the briefing table, shifted uncomfortably. I never should have let Victor talk me into attending this liaison meeting. He should have brought someone like Renny Sanderlin ...If I'd known that going to meet Victor when he arrived would get me placed in one of the strategy groups, I might not have been so anxious to see him right away.

From the head of the table, Morgan Hasek-Davion acknowledged with a nod Dan Allard, Chris Kell, and General Adriana Winston of the Eridani Light Horse. "Thank you for the briefing on mercenary resources and readiness. I share your concern about the way the invaders seize the 'Mechs of mercenaries they capture. I cannot indemnify you against losses in the name of the Federated Commonwealth, but I am willing to use my personal resources and influence to help restore BattleMechs to those who've been Dispossessed. This is obviously not a guarantee that everyone will return from the battles with a 'Mech—I cannot reward foolishness or incompetence—but I don't want to see good MechWarriors fall into the ranks of the Dispossessed, because of the whim of some enemy commander."

Daniel Allard smiled grimly. "Understood, Marshal, and greatly appreciated."

Morgan looked down at the far end of the table. "Victor, may we have your report from the Junior Officer Strategy Group."

Victor stood, sliding his chair back from the end of the table. "As directed, we studied all the information currently available on the invasion. As we all know, the invaders have superior 'Mechs that outgiin us and are heavily armored. Their range extends well beyond that of our 'Mechs, which gives them an almost unbeatable advantage on the ground. In the air or space, however, our aerofighters can reduce this range advantage because of superior mobility over groundbound 'Mechs, but the increased weaponry and armor still causes problems."

Victor punched a couple of keys on the keyboard he'd plugged in at his end of the table. Over the middle of the black briefing table, a computer-generated hologram came into focus. The left half of the object appeared in vector graphics, with a series of notations pertaining to design appended. Shiny metallic flesh coated the other half, giving the image a more humanoid appearance.

"Besides improved 'Mechs, the invaders have these armored infantry soldiers. Because they can jump significant distances and are exceptionally hard to kill, we've taken to calling them Toads. From the little we can see in holovids, the armor makes the infantry personnel immune to at least one shot with anything under a PPC or heavy autocannon in damage potential. We have nothing even roughly analogous to his branch of their army, and the Toads have actually destroyed scouting lances on their own."

Andrew Redburn, seated at Morgan's right hand, lifted a finger to draw Victor's attention. "Have you a rough equivalency rating worked out?"

Victor looked down. "Kai?"

Even though he knew the answer, Kai typed furiously on his noteputer. The machine's answer reconfirmed the numbers floating around in his head. "We estimate a point-two efficiency rating. That means a battle between one twenty-ton Locustand five Toads should leave 50 percent casualties for each side. When the Locusthas been destroyed, only two Toads will be dead." He glanced at the noteputer again. "This evaluation includes the following assumptions, however. First, that the Toads would be using nothing heavier than their SRMs and small lasers, and second, that the Locustpilot had significant trouble targeting the Toads because of their high mobility."

Victor resumed his briefing. "Despite the apparent superiority of their weapons and forces, we were able to come up with some strategies. Leftenant Allard produced these ideas through analysis of the available data. I'll leave it to him to explain the information."

Kai shot Victor a surprised look. His mouth going dry, he stood up slowly. Please, God, don't let me screw up.

"I, ah, didn't realize I would be doing more than answering questions today, so I haven't prepared a briefing document in advance. Remember, please, that all of this is really preliminary work. I mean, it's been checked over, but I've not had a chance to review it in light of the new data that may have come in over the last three hours, so I ..."

Morgan Hasek-Davion raised his right hand. "At ease, Leftenant. We'd just like to hear some of your observations. God grant us enough time that we won't have to fall back on strategies still in the gestation stage."

"Thank you, Marshal." Morgan's words reassured him, but Kai's heart continued to pound and his voice trembled slightly. His glance flew toward his Uncle Dan, who smiled encouragment. After typing a request for information into his noteputer, he took the keyboard from in front of Victor and called up a chart that replaced the Toad image over the center of the table.

"This is a chart of the apparent range advantage the invader's weapons have over us. As you can see, the ratio is roughly three to one—what we can hit at 100 meters, they hit at 300 meters. Their weapons are probably not more powerful than ours, but they can do damage at longer ranges because of better targeting systems."

Kai hit another button on the keyboard and two new columns sprang up next to the ones indicating effective range. The new columns stood roughly the same height. "These columns indicate the mean number of targets any one pilot shoots at in an exchange of fire. Y0u can see that our pilots average 1.312 targets per salvo, while the invaders average 1.097 targets per salvo. That may not seem like a significant variation, but it is. Looking at the modal data for our troops, based on figures from as far back as Galahad 3026, our pilots seem more comfortable with selecting more than one target in an engagement. Though this might be attributed to the closer range of battles typical of the Succession Wars, the invaders may prefer to concentrate on one foe to the exclusion of others. We must bear in mind, of course, that our universe of data for the invaders is limited, at best."

Chris Kell looked over at Kai. "Do you mean they prefer to fight one-on-one like the Kurita warriors—issuing challenges and the like?"

"No reports indicate challenges offered or accepted by the invaders during a battle," Kai replied, his anxiety beginning to fade. "It's my guess that the invaders have a highly coordinated method of attack. More likely, the unit commander allots targets, and the warrior considers it a matter of pride to finish off his own foe. We've seen them allowing a lancemate to personally finish a target even though it might be quicker for the whole unit to kill off the enemy."

The young MechWarrior typed another order into the computer. The chart reorganized itself into holograms of several items. "Because of this tendency to fight against only one foe at a time, and because of their increased range potential, it struck us in the Junior Officers' Group that decoys and sensor overloads could be effective against the invaders. It would mean modifying some anti-personnel type weapons and their distribution over fields of engagement.

"The first item here is the standard M-1423 pop-up mine. When stepped on, the mine shoots its charge into the air and then explodes. Normally, we include a shrapnel device and set it to explode a meter above the ground to kill infantry, but that would be ineffective against the Toads or 'Mechs. But if we use a white phosphorus explosive that would detonate ten to twelve meters above the ground, the explosion should burn out infrared scanner cells. Other charges filled with magnetized chaff and even paint could block magscan and vislight scanning devices."

A hastily typed command magnified the second item. "This is a standard training-course decoy. Back on Skondia, these are used to project the images of tanks and 'Mechs on the live-fire range. Seeding a battlefield with these, especially if they're modified to cycle on and off from within a 'Mech, would give the illusion that our forces are much larger. It would also give the invaders a legion of targets, only a few of which are legitimate. If nothing else, it would distract them and create difficulties in selecting targets. At best, a phantom army could soak off Toads or even a lance or two of 'Mechs long enough for us to withdraw or even lure the invaders into ambushes."

General Winston frowned. "Given their improved technology in a number of areas, how can we know these decoys would fool their 'Mechs?"

"Good question, General." Victor smiled easily. "A report from Barcelona described the Jade Falcons ripping the local militia training course to pieces. Someone had left it up and running as they evacuated the base—more by mistake than because of any plan."

Chris Kell smiled wolfishly. "How'd they do?"

Victor sobered immediately. "Good enough that I'd prefer they shoot at decoys than at me."

Morgan leaned back in his chair. "Interesting. By equipping our own 'Mechs with override programs, the decoys wouldn't distract us.Also, by having some decoys functioning only on IR or magscan levels, we could create even more confusion." He grasped the arms of his chair and leaned back with a satisfied expression. "Thank you for your analysis, Leftenant. It gives us good material to work with. It would definitely require some preparation, though, which brings us to the biggest problem identified by the Senior Officers' Group. We have to know where the invaders will strike before we can go into action against them."

Kai, halfway into his seat, straightened up again. "Forgive me, sir, but that is not wholly true."

Morgan hesitated, then nodded quickly. "I see your point. All of these things could be deployed by air before we actually meet their forces. I stand corrected. Still, finding the enemy and learning where they will strike is a major problem."

Kai opened his mouth, then looked back at Victor. "Go ahead, Kai," Victor encouraged him. "It's your idea and one I support fully."

Kai swallowed hard. Why you believe in me I'll never know, but it means more than you can imagine."Forgive me again, Marshal, for speaking out of turn."

"No, go ahead, Leftenant. This is why we have these meetings. Perhaps our ossified brains missed something."

"Well, sir, we identified the same problem—that is, of having no way to anticipate when and where the invaders will strike. The action in the rimward area of the Commonwealth has provided us no pattern for attacks. The first wave hit twelve planets, then the next reduced itself to four. It's hard to say what the logic of that is, so we decided notto try to anticipate."

That admission brought startled looks from all the senior officers and mercenaries, but Kai plunged on. "We all know that the concept of a 'front' in interstellar war is really a myth. Supply lines do trace themselves through various systems, but because of the vast number of stars never deemed worthy of colonization, there are countless other recharging stations for Kearny-Fuchida drives all over."

Kai looked to his uncle. "Colonel Allard will recall, I believe, that the Kell Hounds used an uncolonized star as a recharge point twenty-three years ago in the rescue of the Silver Eagle.Marshal, you and General Redburn will also recall using uncolonized stars during the First Kathil Uhlans' invasion of the Capellan homeworld. Because of the threat of a drive failure, most transit routes are planned through inhabited systems so help can be obtained in emergencies, but we all know that's not the only way to get around."

"This has already been stated, Leftenant," General Winston broke in impatiently. "It's because of such systems that we have no way of knowing where the invaders will strike."

Kai nodded enthusiastically. "Agreed. The invaders hit us on inhabited worlds because they know that's where they'll find us. Conversely, the only places we know to find the invaders are on the worlds they've already taken. Because there is no front, we can ignore the worlds they've targeted in their current push, and hit the worlds they took most recently. We have to hit them where they are, and if we start to cut them off from wherever their supply bases are, their offensive will have to turn back on itself because they'll be losing ground every time they take a new world."

"It stands to reason that they'd use their best troops as their vanguard," Victor chimed in. "Their elite troops are conquering worlds, not garrisoning worlds already taken. We have to assume that their garrison troops are not as good as the conquerors. If we pit our elite units against their chaff, and avoid getting our good units ripped up by their elites, we can slow down their juggernaut."

Dan Allard winced. "What if their garrison troops are as good as their elite troops?"

"Then all the planning we do is for nothing." Kai shrugged helplessly. "They'll just rip us up, no matter what."

Morgan steepled his fingers and watched the two junior officers at the end of the table. "Your analysis and strategy are interesting, and at the very least, unusual. Not bad for just over a month of study and work. By the end of our time here, I expect a working proposal concerning this strategy, including likely units to be used and a suitable target."

Before he could issue any more instructions, a knock at the door interrupted him. A staff aide entered the room and handed the flame-haired Marshal a small yellow slip of paper. Morgan read it, then dismissed the aide with a brusque nod. He waited for the door to close before speaking. "Our time to plan has been cut down, my friends."

Kai felt a cold set of talons rake up through his middle. What has happened? What have the invaders done now?

Morgan pressed the paper flat against the tabletop. "I need your final reports in fourteen days. No less. The invaders have just hit Rasalhague."

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