Текст книги " The Price of Glory"

Автор книги: Уильям Кейт

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23

"Your Grace." Grayson gave the bow proper for a MechWarrior in the presence of a man of Ricol's station.

Duke Hassid Ricol was an impressive figure, as tall as Grayson was, but broader across the shoulders, with larger, heavier hands whose grip took Grayson's in a powerful clasp. He still wore the same, thick full black beard, and his teeth were very white against the beard when he smiled.

When Grayson had met Ricol before, the man had worn the full-dress reds for which he was famous, but such garb would be too conspicuous here on Helm. He was dressed instead in the ruffled blouse and richly patterned trousers of a merchant. His high-topped boots were also ornate and expensive, the mark of a wealthy man showing his worth through tasteful ostentation.

Grayson was fully aware that Ricol used clothing, as he used all else, for his own purposes. He had heard once that the dress reds were the Duke's way of instilling awe in those he ruled, a kind of psychological advantage because men's minds so easily associated the color red with blood, danger, and death.

So, too, the ornate civilian dress had let this Duke of the Draconis Combine ground his DropShip, stroll through an occupied city, and visit this house on Gresshaven's hill without attracting the least bit of unfavorable notice—and without giving anyone a clue as to his real identity.

"I am glad to see you again," Ricol said, "though you probably don't believe that."

"I have endured a number of surprises of late, Your Grace," Grayson replied. "One of the biggest was learning that you were here.'.'

"Events . . . required it," the Red Duke said. "Things were happening too quickly for me to oversee their progress from elsewhere."

Ricol's ship the Huntresswas in the Helm system, had been insystem for nearly five days, but no one had questioned it. The Marik forces gathering now at Helm numbered dozens of ships, ranging from the Rapaciousand her consorts at the jump point, to DropShips like the Assagaiand transports such as those on Helmdown's landing field. Like most modern military organizations, the Marik government relied on private merchants and traders to carry the vast amounts of food necessary to provision a fleet as large as the one that had descended on Helm during the past week. The Huntress,and the DropShips with her, were carefully disguised as lightly armed merchanter vessels. Ricol's DropShip Alpha,grounded now at Helmdown's landing field, would excite no more comment than any other civilian merchanter now in port. And Ricol himself looked the part of the Alpha'smerchant-owner.

Deirdre Ravenna stood across the room. A tall, handsome woman, she was one of Helmdown's best-known courtesans. She did not look like a spy, Grayson thought, but then, neither had Atkins or Moragen ... or King, for that matter. He glanced across at King, seated comfortably in a soft chair and wearing the semi-formal civilian trousers and tunic he had chosen for this visit to the city. Whatis a spy supposed to look like?Grayson wondered.

"It was a surprise to learn that His Grace has been so close, all along," she said. "I thought my reports were being taken by occasional merchants . . . gods! How many hundreds of light years? And then Alard comes to me with His Grace's ring and tells me that the Red Duke has spent the last two months parked right next door!”

Grayson shook his head. This was not the way Dukes, not even Kurita dukes, behaved. He reached up and touched the thin packet resting in an inside pocket of his tunic, the papers Ricol had provided so that King could bring Grayson for a meeting. This was not the way Kuritadukes behaved at all.

"Why, Your Grace? Why the interest in me?"

Ricol smiled, stroking his beard with one massive hand. "A fair question, but not one I can answer easily. Suffice it to say that when Alard reported to me that Helm was to be the price of your service to House Marik against Liao, I became extremely interested in you. I had reason—strong reason—to believe that the Star League arms cache was still here . . . within your landhold. If you were to become lord of this . . . this treasure, then perhaps I could win a chance at it."

Grayson remained skeptical. Ricol's answer had not answered what he reallywanted to know, which was why the Duke had decided to assign King to keep an eye on him in the first place. Certainly, Ricol would have had no way of knowing that Marik was going to give the Helm landhold to Grayson before the fact!

"What made you think I would help you?"

Ricol pursed his lips, as though considering. "I didn't think you would, actually. Not willingly. But my studies had convinced me that something very, very big was going on in this sector. From what my agents could gather from the ComStar hyperpulse generator traffic, the Order was showing a keen interest in Helm. Let's just say that I decided the Huntressought to be nearby, just in case an opportunity presented itself."

"That would have to be one hell of an opportunity," Grayson said. "If I'm reading you right, you were planning a snap raid in the middle of a joint ComStar-Marik recovery of the Star League cache!"

"That is precisely what I was planning. At the same time, I knew that you would not simply stand aside and let them take it, and I felt that perhaps you and I would be able to come to some . . . arrangement. I was more certain that the situation was . . . ah . . . fluid when I received word that you had been declared an outlaw." Ricol looked narrowly at Grayson. "I have known you, have fought against you for four years. Colonel. I did not . . . I donot believe the stories I heard about your massacre of a surrendered city."

The transformation in Ricol's face at the mention of the Tiantan massacre was startling. The man's bushy black eyebrows came together like miniature thunderclouds, and there was a wintry look in his dark eyes.

"I could not believe the report at allat first." The Duke's voice matched the look in his eyes. He reached across to a low table where a bowl of fruit was displayed, and pulled a large, ripe xenogrape from the golden cluster. "A city, already surrendered . . . destroyed as callously as a man crushes a grape." His thumb and forefinger closed on the grape, spattering yellow juice across his fingers. "Pah!"

The thundercloud passed, and Ricol looked momentarily embarrassed. He wiped his hand on his blouse, then continued. "When Alard here made contact with me through Deirdre the other day, and told me you couldn't possibly have done the things of which you were accused because he had been with you the whole time,I decided it was time to come to Helmdown personally. They were using tactics on you that I had every reason to believe would . . . fail. And I don't want to see these city killers win."

"All very flattering ..."

"It's not meant to be flattering, Colonel! Even if I had time for such foolishness. I know it wouldn't work on you any more than attacking your reputation would!"

"I stand corrected. What is it you want?"

"Isn't it obvious, by now?" the Duke said drily. "I would like a share of whatever you find in the Star League cache." King had already explained to Ricol that Grayson seemed to know the cache's location. Ricol had not questioned that certainty.

"And in exchange?"

"I will intercede with the force at my disposal in an attempt to rescue the Gray Death Legion. I will provide transport for your regiment to ... to wherever you would care to go. I will also provide transport for whatever treasures we can recover from the cache."

Grayson only nodded, still not sure what he wanted to reply.

Ricol glanced at the corrected local time function on his expensive-looking wrist computer. "I warn you, we haven't much time. Garth's ships will be grounding at any moment. I don't know where your people are now, Colonel, but if they are heading toward the cache, it's going to be a race, even now. Garth's orbital surveillance will be certain to pick up your force's position sooner or later. You will not long be able to disguise the cache's location once you reach it."

Grayson paced the luxuriously furnished room, thinking. What Ricol proposed made perfect sense. The Legion's crisis gave the Duke the opening he had been waiting for. Ricol would get a share of the Star League weapons, and Grayson and the Gray Death Legion would have a ticket offplanet. It was the perfect solution for all involved. There was only one problem that Grayson could see. Could he, in fact, trustDuke Ricol?

To do so meant turning upside down all his previous beliefs. It had been Ricol's treachery—or so Grayson had always read it—that had killed his father and destroyed his unit. And Grayson had always associated Ricol with the Draconis Combine and House Kurita, a regime known across the Inner Sphere for its callousness, its brutality, and the Machiavellian nature of it politics. If such a government could not be trusted, how could such a man be trusted?

Yet Grayson had been struck by Ricol's reaction, moments before, to the massacre of Tiantan. The black emotions in the man's face and voice had been genuine, of that Grayson was certain. Ricol was a warrior, not an actor. He was bluff and blunt when he spoke, and seemed to prefer silence on other points rather than to lie.

But was that enough? Could shared horror at a callous and bloodthirsty act provide the basis for mutual trust? Ricol would, after all, also have to trust that Grayson would keep his part of the bargain if he was to commit ships, men, and 'Mechs to combat.

"How many 'Mechs do you have with you, Your Grace?"

"One company. I know it's not much ...”

“One company! Twelve 'Mechs? With how many DropShips?"

"Six." Ricol smiled. "Understand, Colonel, that all but five of those DropShips are empty.I had . . . ah . . . other ideas for them, than dragging my BattleMechs into Marik space!"

Grayson laughed. Other ideas, indeed!

Suddenly, Ricol's admission provided Grayson with the final piece of the puzzle he needed for his decision. To impress Grayson, the Duke could have promised a regiment of 'Mechs to rescue the Gray Death Legion. He could have found a way to promise a rescue, all the while planning to land and grab the cache himself. Yet, he had admitted to having only a single company, and why.

"Your Grace, if I do nothing else, I intend to make certain that the destroyers of Tiantan don't benefit from this."

It was long after sunset when King and Grayson raced southeast across the North Highland Plains, leaving the lights of Helmdown behind them. Their session with Ricol had taken longer than expected. Not that there had been problems with the negotiations. The Red Duke understood that there was no clear guarantee that Grayson would even be able to get into the Star League cache—at least, not without bringing down half a mountain on top of it. He was willing to gamble on Grayson's being able to get in and find something worth taking, though. He did not even quibble, as Grayson had expected, over the number of BattleMechs and other equipment he would get. "That," Ricol had said, "is premature, at best. We don't know what you will find when you enter. We don't know what we will have time to remove when you get in. We don't know where the enemy will be, or in what force. We may be fortunate merely to escape with the lives of you and your regiment." He had shaken his head and smiled. "But, gods of space, what a victory if we win our gamble! There'll be plenty for both of us and we can divide it up later."

"Oh, so you're cutting us in for a share?" Grayson had asked.

"My young friend, if this cache is what I believe it to be, there will be far more there than you or I together could ever use."

Grayson had grown serious. "I want my regiment . . . intact."

"And that I will endeavor to provide."

It was the strategic details of the latter point that had proven time-consuming. Grayson had pointed out that some fifty of his people were prisoner, at last report still held aboard the DropShips in Cleft Valley. Grayson was not sure why they had not been moved, though he suspected that Langsdorf hoped to use them to draw the Legion out of Durandel to battle. The prisoners would not be moved so long as Langsdorf believed that Grayson was still there. When he discovered that the Gray Death had gone, the captives would probably be moved to Helmdown. Or worse, killed.

What Grayson wanted was for Ricol to plan a raid to recover the DropShips. That would not be easy, and could be quite costly in both men and machines. Grayson had pointed out the logic, however. If the Deimosand the Phobos,could be freed along with their crews, they could go to the place temporarily being called the Rendezvous, a yet-to-be selected landing site somewhere in the vicinity of the weapons cache. That would allow Grayson's people to load aboard their own ships, while Ricol filled his empty DropShips with whatever they could recover from the cache.

Ricol's two JumpShips would carry a total of eight DropShips; his own six, plus Grayson's two. The Huntresswould carry the Deimosand the Phobosto the neighboring star system of Stewart, where the Legion's ships could be dropped off to rejoin Captain Tor and the Invidious.The Gray Death Legion would then go its way, while Ricol's squadron returned to Kurita space.

In its broad outlines, the plan was simple, but it became a monstrously complex nightmare to consider the individual details. How was a landing zone for the Rendezvous to be chosen? How would it be marked? How could Ricol's twelve BattleMechs hope to capture the Deimosand the Phobosfrom a watchful foe? What if they arrived at Stewart, only to find that the Gray Death Legion's evil reputation had preceded them, resulting in capture of the Invidiousand its crew being taken prisoner? What would happen if Grayson brought down the ceiling while trying to penetrate the Star League cache? And what would be their signal? Though Ricol was willing to offer the Legion a ride off Helm, one way or the other, they needed a signal so that Ricol would not risk more than two DropShips for the Legion's rescue, should the cache be destroyed. The most complex planning revolved around freeing the Legion's two DropShips.

Ricol had no 'Mechs on Helm as yet, but he did have an infantry company numbering ninety men, plus a lance of Galleon tanks. Ricol was certain that this relatively small force could debark by dark from the Alpha,and make its way past the spaceport perimeter without exciting undue comment. The spaceport was alive with Marik troops and vehicles; a few more, passing unobtrusively in the dark and would have a good chance of leaving Helmdown and moving quickly toward the east. By itself, this force would be no match for the DropShip's weapons, but after Grayson studied the orbital recon maps that Ricol had brought along, he was able to propose a plan. It was a difficult and dangerous one, but offered the Legion its best hope of recovering the DropShips, the 'Mechs and equipment aboard them, and their fifty comrades still held prisoner there.

It was already three hours past sundown by the time Grayson and King left Helmdown. Their parting with Ricol had been abrupt to the point of rudeness, if only because the plan to recover the DropShips required perfect timing, and that timing was already endangered by the lateness of the hour. The Legion column would be an hour on the road already, and it would take at least three hours more to catch up with them.

Grayson and King were almost two kilometers south of town when the night lit up above them. They pulled their skimmer off the road to watch as sun-brilliant flares of light descended, one at a time, clearing to sky in columns of flame and thunder.

The DropShips of Lord Garth's fleet were landing.

24

For Lori, the day had been charged with a choking grief mingled with barely restrained fear. She knew with a certainty that transcended the laws of physics that Grayson would not return at the appointed hour.

She had tried to brace herself for his failure to show long before it was time for the regiment to leave. Even as she'd watched Grayson and King speeding toward the northwest hours before, she had told herself they might be late returning. Then again, many times during the preparations to break camp, she reminded herself of how many things could go wrong. Finally, when it came time for her to give the orders to board 'Mechs and load the column's civilians aboard the odd assembly of armored vehicles and cargo transports, she told herself not to panic. King had produced those travel papers he claimed to have picked up from his "contact" on his previous visit to Helmdown. The fact of those papers and his refusal to reveal who those contacts were had made Lori deeply suspicious of the man. She had noted, too, an undefined but quite noticeable difference in the relationship between Grayson and his senior Tech. Somethinghad changed between those two. What?

As Helm's orange sun set behind the low ridges to the west, Lori watched the bustle of activity on Durandel's plain spread out below her from Helmfast's bluff. Lights mounted in the Legion's BattleMechs had helped the loading operations continue as the twilight deepened into night. An eerier, piping wail rose suddenly, sending chills racing up her spine. It was the signal for recall. Their last chance to round up any of Durandel's survivors who might be hiding out in the woods. Patrols had been out all day, searching for survivors, but it appeared that every one of the Legion's surviving warriors and dependents had been recovered.

Grayson! Why did you do this to me!

She checked her chronometer. It had been almost two standard hours since Helm's sun had set. Rising from her overlook, she made her way back to where her Shadow Hawkstood, huge and silent against the night. The Hawkhad been Grayson's ever since he'd taken it on Trellwan. He'd passed it on to Lori after her 20-ton Locusthad been destroyed at Verthandi. She paused, hand on the 'Mech's cold armor, trying to stir some feeling of Grayson's presence, his warmth, but there was nothing beyond the chill of the metal and the noises of Helm's night animals.

Ashamed of being so weak, Lori hurried to the chain link ladder dangling along the Shadow Hawk'sflanks and began swarming up the rungs toward the cockpit, ten meters overhead.

It was time to give the order to march.

* * *

All together, the muster rolls showed 612 survivors among the Techs, trainees, infantry, service personnel, and dependents of the Legion who had been at Durandel. These were piled into and onto a long, clattering line of vehicles, most of them salvaged from wrecked and damaged hover cargo transports recovered from the ruins of the settlement. These vehicles formed the main body of the convoy as it began to move south. At the rear of the column were the surviving armored and military transport vehicles, including those that had escaped at Durandel and those that had been salvaged from the wreckage. The survivors of the regiment's two infantry companies had been reassembled into a single combat company numbering 130 men and women who rode guard for the convoy's rear.

The unit's eight BattleMechs had been deployed, with Lori herself in the rear, McCall's Riflemanranging far out to the front, and the remaining six 'Mechs deployed three to each side of the convoy, as flankers. The convoy's speed was limited to fifty kilometers per hour. Though some vehicles could make better speeds, most could not. Grayson had insisted that the convoy stay together throughout the march.

They had been travelling for only five minutes when McCall gave warning over the taccom frequency.

"What do you have, McCall?"

"Motion, Lieutenant," McCall replied. "Bearin' a' one-niner-five, at a range a' aboot two hundred meters. Lieutenant ... ah read it as a man, movin' on foot."

A scout,was Lori's first thought. A Marik scout. Langsdorf must have thrown scouts out to warn of our movement! Damn . . .

"Command to all units," she transmitted on the general command frequency. "We have a possible infantry sighting on our front. Be alert for ambush." In the dark, small units of troops masked against infrared observation could be deployed across a 'Mech force's path, waiting in ambush with shoulder-fired infernos and short-range missiles. It would take very little indeed to cripple the convoy's march.

"Lieutenant ..." McCall's voice came again across the private tactical frequency.

She heard relief in his voice . . . and something else. "What is it, Davis?"

"Two more survivors, Lieutenant. Heard tha' recall but couldnae reach the encampment in time. They just stepped from the weeds an' flagged me doon ..."

Lori sank back in her seat, weak with relief. They were not ready to fight a battle . . . not now . . .

"And Lori ..."

"Yes?'

"Let's bring Delmar in on tha' channel. We should ae' tell him his lassie an' bairn are ae' safe an' sound!"

The news of the rescue of two more survivors of Durandel brought cheers and laughter across the general com circuit, and Lori heard Delmar's whoop of joy when McCall told him that Terri and his son were safe. Her own face was wet under the mask of her neurohelmet when, moments later, the convoy began moving again, southward and into the night.

* * *

"Colonel! Wake up!"

King nudged Grayson in the ribs, dragging him back to a sleep-sodden wakefulness. Grayson's neck and back were stiff from the hours of stolen sleep in the passenger seat of the skimmer.

As Grayson and Lori had worked out the Legion convoy's route south, Grayson knew when the convoy was leaving Durandel, and how fast it would be traveling. It should have been a simple matter of the math to know where to steer across the empty grasslands of the North Highland Plains in a direction to intercept the convoy on its way south toward the mountains.

There was a considerable gap between theory and reality, however. The plains were large, and even so huge an organism as a convoy of 'Mechs and skimmer transports snaking south across the prairie was vanishingly small among so much open space. As for a lone, two-seat skimmer, it was positively microscopic.

Grayson blinked himself awake. King had stopped the skimmer, and the night closed in around them. The sky was bright with stars. He recognized Aldhafera, one of the brightest stars in Helm's sky, high in the east. The dusting of faint stars of the Milky Way outlined the low, dark mass of the far horizon.

"What is it, Alard?"

"This is the place, Colonel. They should be here . . . now. I don't see 'em."

Grayson stood on the skimmer's seat and took a long, hard look into the darkness, first to the north, then to the south. Which way? If the convoy had already passed, it would be to the south now. If he and King raced at top speed, they might catch up with it. If, however, the convoy had not come this far yet, then it would be still to the north.

Grayson climbed out of the skimmer, took a small electric hand torch from King, and made his way through waist-deep prairie grass. Several meters from the skimmer, he stopped and studied the ground.

Hovercraft made little permanent impression on vegetation such as this tough, sturdy prairie grass. Their passage could have been detected on barren, dusty, or sandy terrain, where their fans tended to sweep broad swatches of loose soil or dust from rocks and to overturn lightly rooted vegetation. On these plains, an army of hovercraft could pass without leaving a trace.

A BattleMech, however, was something different. Weighing from twenty to a hundred tons, depending on the type, with all of that weight concentrated across only two foot pads in most models, 'Mechs tended to leave a lasting impression along any path that was not packed to the consistency of poured ferrocrete. Grayson struck out through the darkness, his torch probing this way and that, for a distance of about a hundred meters. It was possible that they could have missed the track; and that the trampled ruin of the convoy's passing might lie just another hundred meters farther east, but Grayson did not think that was the case.

He knew Lori's skill as a navigator. Further, he knew that Lori would not have left Durandel even one minute earlier than she absolutely had to when he had not returned on time. She was too good a soldier to delay the convoy by waiting for him, but she would not have left earlier, either. There was always the possibility of minor problems slowing down the column, however. When travelling with so many civilians, there were bound to be delays.

Grayson was certain that the convoy must still lie to the north. In fact, he was willing to stake his life on that certainty.

He started back toward the skimmer, but King's voice reached him midway. "There, Colonel! I see them!" McCall's Riflemanhad loomed out of the darkness from the north like a walking mountain. In another ten minutes, Lori was sobbing in his arms, with neither of them caring that they were hemmed in by tens, by hundreds of others of the Legion.

* * *

The Gray Death sentry could not see what all the commotion was about. He only knew that the convoy had stopped and that there was considerable excitement up ahead somewhere. Several soldiers ran past him, but he remained where he was, at his post.

Graff the traitor sat in the back of the hovercraft, and the sentry eyed the man warily. If it were up to him,Graff would be history. There didn't seem to be a whole lot of sense in dragging the prisoner along with the Legion to wherever it was going. What did the Colonel and the other high-ups plan? A big trial followed by a showy execution? That wouldn't help the poor bastards back in the DropShips, and it wouldn't help the Legion get off this dirtball of a planet.

The sentry shifted in his seat. The hovercraft's pilot had gone off to check on what had stopped the column. That wasn't according to route discipline, and so the sentry hoped that he wouldn't catch hell because the pilot had chosen to disregard orders. He looked at Graff, and Graff looked back.

Graff's eyes shifted past the sentry's shoulder, widening slightly. "Looks like he has big news," the prisoner said.

The sentry turned, expecting to see the hovercraft pilot returning. Instead, the prisoner's hands flashed down across his face, bringing the chain of his handcuffs biting into the young man's neck. He struggled, tried to cry out, but the pressure grew to an unendurable agony of pain and a shrieking need to breathe. The prisoner was strong. He wrenched the sentry to the side, dragging him from his seat. The sentry hung suspended over the side of the hovercraft, his booted feet kicking helplessly against the plenum chamber skirts, centimeters above the ground. The sentry's last clear thought was that he was really going to be in trouble now. Then the night closed in with a whistling clap of thunder, and he died.

Graff released the body and climbed across into the driver's seat. The ignition was still on, the turbine fans purring with disengaged power. He had to get away, had to! He would be running a risk trying to bolt through the perimeter, but he knew how weak the Legion forces were. There were only three BattleMechs along the entire west perimeter of the convoy, and they were widely spaced. If he sent the hovercraft racing into the night at top speed, he would catch them all by surprise, especially as they seemed to be occupied with some problem up ahead. He might escape into the night-before they even realized what was happening!

Graff was actually more worried about what Rachan would do to him if the ComStar agent ever learned how much Graff had told Carlyle. Somehow, Rachan did not strike him as being the most forgiving of men. Efficient, yes. Ruthless . . . yes. Forgiving . . .

He engaged the plenum fans and guided the hovercraft in a tight, in-place spin, facing west. The night beckoned. He opened the thrust vents and felt the skimmer race forward. Behind, over the whine of his vehicle, he heard a shout, then a gunshot. By then, he was enfolded in darkness as the wind whipped his hair, and wild laughter burst from his throat. He was free!

Graff knew couldn't go back to Helmport, for Garth and Rachan would be there soon. They might even be on the ground already! No, there was another place Graff could go, and the warning he would bring might put Rachan in a more forgiving mood.

As soon as he was well clear of the convoy, he swung the hovercraft's nose toward the north.