Текст книги " The Price of Glory"

Now Langsdorf was back, and the word was that the eight 'Mechs he had left behind at Durandel would never return. There were vague hints and dark rumors, the usual mix of fantasy and maybe-fact inherent in all military scuttlebutt. It was said that enemy DropShips had grounded near Durandel, and a regiment of renegade mercenaries had wiped out all eight of Gordon's comrades-at-arms.

Almost before Gordon could absorb the magnitude of this personal disaster, new orders had come again. He had been ordered to attach his Locust,along with Fred Kilpatrick's Waspand Hernando De Cruz's Stinger,to part of the 12th White Sabers and to move out against the rebels at Durandel.

He followed orders, but with a growing hatred. Because of the jamming, there was no way to talk things over with De Cruz or Kilpatrick, though he was sure the other two felt as he did. Not that he would have wanted to discuss all this over a comm frequency! The thoughts Wilcox bore in his heart bordered on outright mutiny.

As they approached the target area, Langsdorf had used arm gestures of his Warhammerto deploy the troops, and Gordon had found himself and his two friends in the center of the line, with the heavies of the 12th Sabers on either flank. What was the man trying to pull? It was obvious that the renegade meres had deployed in entrenchments along the slope of the ridge facing them, that the enemy was dug in and waiting for them. Could it be that the Colonel was actually trying to eliminate every last 'Mech of the Hammerstrike Company? They'd started off one short of a full company, and then eight had been junked at Durandel. That left the three of them, light 'Mechs all, and Langsdorf was sending them right up the enemy's center, where his firepower and armor were bound to be thickest. The man must be crazy!

Then Gordon was too busy to think. The hillside had been a warren of cleverly dug and concealed trenches and bunkers. Though no single strongpoint masked enough firepower to seriously threaten even his Locust,the danger was acute, the battle an endless, nerve-twisting fight against fear and an unseen opponent, against rugged ground and hidden pitfalls and the sweat streaming into his eyes. A missile launcher had lightly damaged one leg of his Locust.The troops who had fired on him bolted from cover, then raced up the hill. Gordon's anger had surged out in a need for release. His hands had closed on his machine gun controls. He'd tracked his heavy Sperry-Brownings up the hill after the fugitive mercenaries, and triggered a long, satisfying blast that cut them down kicking. An enemy machine gun had answered from the crest of the ridge, and he had engaged it, trading round after rapid-fire round.

He didn't see the enemy sapper on his combat view-screens until it was too late. He'd spotted the man racing away from under his Locustseconds before an explosion all but severed the 'Mech's foot. He had pulled off his neurohelmet and replaced it with a combat helmet. Dressed only in shorts and combat boots. Gordon's only body protection was the dark visor that would shield his eyes on a battlefield where stray laser beams were still flashing low across the ground. Anxious to find that sapper, eager to kill, he climbed out of his crippled machine while cradling the Rugan subgun.

It was strange, some detached portion of his mind told him, how his hatred of Langsdorf had been channeled into an all-consuming hatred of the enemy. Had that,after all, been Langsdorf's idea, to take men already so angered at the deaths of their comrades that they would pilot their 'Mechs into the very heart of the enemy's defense, and in the fury of their attack, buy time for Langsdorf to flank and surround them? The DropShips, by all accounts, lay just on the other side of this ridge, a place marked as Cleft Valley on the Company's orbital recon maps. Langsdorf's 'Mechs must be over there now, fighting among the renegade's DropShips in an all-out attempt to take them before the enemy's main force returned from Durandel.

He had seen the enemy sapper an instant before Kilpatrick's Wasphad fired two SRMs into the enemy's trench. He recognized the man's tactical vest, the camouflage pattern of his combat helmet. It was the same man he'd glimpsed on his screens just before his Locusthad been crippled.

Gordon hoped the enemy soldier was not dead. Killing him with the submachine gun—or better, with his bare hands—would be far more satisfying than the deaths of the two running soldiers on the hill. His anger was out of control now, a torrent raging against the injustice that had cut down eight of his friends and left him stranded on a fire-swept hillside light years from his home.

The thought of home moved him forward. He had a sister and a mother and his fiancee Mirinda all on Marik, loved ones whom he had not seen in three years. Sometimes, the desire to see them was so intense that he could almost taste it. Yet here he was, twenty light years from home, hurled blindly into combat against murderous renegades by an insensibly stupid Colonel who didn't even know Gordon's name.

There were tears coursing down his cheeks as he hefted the subgun in his sweaty, trembling grip and started down the hill toward the still form of his enemy.

"You bastard," he said. "You filthy bastard ..." The mercenary lay unmoving, face down in the grass. Gordon was about to raise the subgun to his shoulder, ready to empty his 40-round magazine into the man, but something made him pause, then walk cautiously forward.

The man's tactical vest had torn across his back, and his tunic was bloodstained and torn. A ragged gash across the man's left shoulder was thick with fresh blood. Gordon reached one arm out, took the man's right arm, and rolled him over. The mercenary's chest rose and fell with his breathing. His face was a mass of caked blood. Bubbles swelled and popped under his nostrils as he breathed.

Gordon did not even note the passing of his anger. It wasn't that the hatred was gone, and it certainly was not that he no longer wanted to kill. Somehow, though, the soldier's blood mask had transformed him from target to human being. Gordon groped at the wounded man's throat for a pulse.

The dark eyes snapped open through the drying blood, and with a speed that Gordon could not quite comprehend, the man's right fist came up, one knuckle extended in what should have been a killing blow to Gordon's throat. The man was weak enough, and just slow enough, that the blow caught the edge of Gordon's combat helmet, knocking him backward.

He kept his feet and his grip on his Rugan. He fumbled, though, as he tried to bring the SMG around to point at the enemy. Moving with a speed Gordon did not think possible for a man so badly wounded, the blood-masked mercenary surged up from the ground, the wicked, black blade of a combat knife materializing almost magically in his hand. The man stepped inside the firing arc of Gordon's weapon and slashed with the knife. Gordon didn't even realize he was wounded until he felt something hot splash across his bare chest. He looked down, startled, and wondered why the whole world was turning red.

Then he was on the ground, on his back looking up at red sky through red trees. "Damn you, Langsdorf," he tried to say, but the words wouldn't come. Then red faded to black and he died.

* * *

Captain Ramage leaned against a tree, holding himself upright as he stropped the blade of his knife on his trousers. He felt sick and weak. The wound in his back throbbed in agony. From the feel of it, his tactical vest had absorbed most of the blow from a piece of shrapnel the size of his fist. The material had torn, but it had reduced the projectile's speed to the point where it had gashed the flesh behind his left shoulder—and not carried away his entire arm. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

His face felt stiff and cracked. The concussion of the SRM explosions had burst a blood vessel in his nose, and he knew that what he felt was dried blood. I must look a fair sight,he thought. It's a wonder that Locust pilot didn't run screaming at the sight of at me.

Consciousness had been returning with a slow, burning pain in head and back when the enemy trooper had rolled him over. Ramage had opened his eyes to see the insect-visaged helmet of the Locustwarrior bent close to his own face, a vicious Rugan submachine gun gripped tightly in his left hand. Ramage had neither hesitated nor favored his own wounds. He had launched himself into combat, ignoring the tearing pain in his shoulder, ignoring all but the need to kill this enemy as quickly and as silently as possible. His first blow had failed to kill; it had been a difficult thrust requiring precision and accuracy. Being flat on his back and scarcely able to see should have made it a nearly impossible thrust. Through blind, dumb luck, the blow had staggered the enemy enough to give Ramage an instant's grace. He had forced himself to his feet. The wound in his back shrieked white agony with every movement, as he pulled out his knife while rushing inside the soldier's fire arc, and then slashed the man's throat.

Waves of sick dizziness lashed furiously at his mind, and Ramage thought he would faint from the pain alone. His movement had torn something open in his back. He could feel the fresh trickle of blood down his spine, could feel fresh damage grating under the blood with each move he made. The stabbing pains in his left side that accompanied each breath suggested that he had cracked at least one rib as well.

To take his mind from the pain and nausea, he looked around in an attempt to assess the tactical situation and his chances for survival. Meanwhile, the battle raged on. His ears told him that much as he'd first begun climbing back to awareness. The whole crest of the ridge above him to the east was a mass of flame and thundering explosions. From the sound of it, Marik 'Mechs had gained the top of the hill and were fighting there with the Gray Death recon lance.

When he caught the deep-throated thunder of a DropShip's autocannon, Ramage knew that the Deimosand the Phoboswere also in the fight. They would be hard-pressed to target in that narrow trap of a valley, but deep trouble awaited any Marik 'Mechs unlucky enough to wander into their field of fire.

His ear caught another sound, the familiar thud of a 120 mm autocannon. The timber of those rounds was the same as the 120s aboard the DropShips, but the rate of fire was slower, more measured. Ramage had heard the sound often enough to identify the gun immediately as the autocannon slung across the dorsal hull of Grayson's Marauder.The volume of explosive thunder from the far side of the hill convinced him that the entire company must be committed to the battle.

Ramage would have cheered had he not been so close to fainting. Everything would be O.K. now. The Colonel had made it in time!

He heard another sound through the cacophony of battle, the grinding of engines from another direction. Clinging to the tree for support, he turned to see a pair of low-slung wheeled vehicles moving slowly along the base of the hillside. He recognized the model. They were modified Packrats, 20-ton, eight-wheeled combat cars mounting complex, omnidirectional broadcast antennae. Those cars carried no weapons, but proper use of the electronic countermeasures gear they packed into those low, squarish bodies could be enough to turn the tide of battle.

Ramage's experienced eye could see that they were not being properly used, however. Those two Packrats should have been set up far from one another at opposite ends of the battlefield. They would have been just as effective sitting on the crest of the next ridge to the west, instead of venturing so close to the battlefield. Where they were now, any stray BattleMech, even some isolated trooper left behind by the flow of battle, could damage the vehides enough to stop their broadcasts and to clear the tactical frequencies again.

More movement and the rustle of thrashing underbrush brought Ramage's head around again. There were the Marik soldiers, hundreds of them! He saw a wheeled APC making its way steadily up the slope, and heard the keening whine of a hovercraft off through the trees and smoke to the south. With the west face of the ridge secured, the Marik infantry was moving up and bringing the ECM vehicles with them. Why? The soldiers he could see were advancing with grim determination up the slope. It couldn't be that they were going to try to tangle with the Colonel's 'Mechs. What then . . . the remnants of Ramage's infantry?

Something turned to ice in the pit of Ramage's stomach.

The DropShips?

So far, the Marik infantry had not noticed him. He had to do something. But what?

He bent over to retrieve the Rugan SMG from the dead pilot's fingers and nearly passed out. He couldn't stop an army with a submachine gun, but it steadied him a bit to feel the cool plastic surface in his hands. The Rugan fired 80 caseless rounds, and from the heft of the weapon, the magazine must be full, or nearly so. One glance at the dead pilot's scantily clad body told Ramage that hewas carrying no spare magazines. Perhaps there were some at his disabled 'Mech.

An idea stirred within Ramage's pain-dulled mind, and he struggled to capture it. The Marik pilot's Locustwas parked where he had left it, hunkered down among the scrub brush and trees partway up the west face of the hillside. With the damage to its foot that Ramage himself had inflicted, that 'Mech would not be going anywhere soon. Ramage had a nodding acquaintance with BattleMech operation through his work with the Gray Death.

That Locustwas still a potent weapon, intact except for the damage to its right foot.

Step after painful step, he made his way back up the slope, using the SMG as a walking stick, making his way from tree to tree. He was afraid that if he fell, he would be too weak to get up again.

Ramage knew more about the operation of Locuststhan he did about most other BattleMechs because of his friendship with Lori Kalmar. They had first met back on Trellwan, when the two of them had joined the fledgling 'Mech force that that was to become the Gray Death Legion. Except for Ramage and Grayson, Lori had felt isolated among the other unit members, who continued to treat her with suspicion long after she had defected from the forces of their enemy. He had used what technician's training he could muster to get her Locustbattle-ready, back before the final, climactic battle at Thunder Rift.

The Locust,like all other 'Mechs, would have a computer-oriented cutout to prevent unauthorized personnel from using the machine. However, the cutouts in all but the largest, heaviest 'Mechs would disengage the 'Mech's fire control or drive systems only after the machine had been completely shut down. It was unlikely that the Marik pilot had done so, considering how much time it took to power up a dead 'Mech, and so Ramage thought its control and fire systems might still be operational. As he drew closer to the still form of the machine, he could hear the gentle hum from its power routers and cooling fans. The 20-ton 'Mech was still idling, and its boarding ladder dangled where the pilot had left it. Though Ramage's shoulder throbbed with pain, he grasped the chain link ladder in one hand, set his boot onto a rung, but then nearly sagged to the ground as he tried to pull himself up.

Mustering all his will, he tried again. With the Locusthunkered down this way, its dorsal hull was only three meters off the ground. As Ramage made his way up one dizzying, swaying, pain-ridden rung after another, those three meters might have been three hundred.

Or three thousand.

When he paused, panting and clinging to the chains, he could feel the warm blood flowing down his back again. At the rate his clothes were becoming soaked with blood, Ramage wondered how long before he would pass out from loss of blood alone.

Vaguely, he heard shouts, someone yelling something about the Locust.When he swung the chain ladder around enough to look back down the hill, he saw Marik soldiers charging through the clearing. They would know he was not a Marik MechWarrior by his uniform and tactical vest, not to mention the blood and his evident weakness.

A bullet sang off the metal hull beside him, which somehow galvanized Ramage into action again. He continued his climb, until at last he could roll over onto the dorsal hull of the Locust,clinging to the machine by dropping one arm and one leg into the open cockpit. He was lucky that the pilot had elected to open the broad, swing-panel dorsal escape hatch instead of the smaller hatch at the rear of the vehicle. Ramage would not have been able to maneuver to squeeze through the smaller regular hatch.

He dared not stop now for fear of passing out before his task was complete. More bullets spanged against the Locust'shull. He unslung the machine gun from his right shoulder, pointed it toward the noise and flashes, and let loose a long, rippling burst of heavy-caliber autofire. Though he couldn't see if he'd hit anything, the running man-shapes down the hill were gone now, and so the Marik troops must have been driven to cover by his fire. Ramage dropped down into the Locust'sseat and checked the controls.

With the damage to the 'Mechs foot, he didn't dare try to set the BattleMech in motion. He didn't even bother bringing down the pilot's neurohelmet from its rack above and to one side of the seat. The neurohelmet would have to be tuned to his own brainwave patterns for him to use it, and its primary purpose was to provide sensory feedback on the 'Mech's attitude and balance anyway. None of that would be needed for what he had in mind.

The controls were identical to those in Lori's old, Sigurdian Locust.He touched a control and felt the vibration as the chin turret directly under the cockpit swung 90 degrees, sharply to the right. A screen on the instrument console showed him the target feed from the Locust'smedium laser. He could see the troops cautiously moving forward again. Beyond them, brightly lit in the clearing at the bottom of the slope, he could see the two Packrat ECM vehicles, with soldiers swarming around them.

Ramage keyed two buttons, bringing up the screen's targeting display and charging the Martell medium laser. A green light flashed full charge; a second winked readiness. The firing computer closed the target brackets down around the near vehicle. Ramage adjusted the aim up off the heavy armor along the combat car's flanks, and brought the Omni-D antenna into the tracking lock.

Got it! His palm slapped the big red button on the right-hand steering rip. The laser fired, the glare brilliant through the tinted combat screen of the Locust.

White fire washed across the ECM car. Without waiting to see if he had scored critical damage on the machine, he traversed the Locust'sturret, further right and higher. The second combat car was moving, making a tight turn to get out of the line of fire of this unexpected menace. Green lights flashed, and Ramage's hand came down on the firing switch again. A hit!

The first car was moving now. There was damage to its upper hull, but the antennae appeared intact. Ramage retargeted, locked, and fired. Chunks of metal hurtled from the antennae, leaving twisted wreckage dragging on the ground behind it.

Just then, something big and heavy hit the Locust'souter hull, and smoke boiled in through the still-open escape hatch, but Ramage didn't care. The exertions of the last few minutes were catching up with him in a violently tossing storm of blackness and nausea. The pain was fading now, mercifully, but the dizziness was whirling him up and around and down into oblivion. He wondered whether he had damaged the second Packrat's antenna enough to break the enemy's ECM jamming. He started to reach for the controls again in order to find out.

Somehow, that small movement was just too much for him. He could see his hands dimly through sweat and blurring vision and blood and smoke . . . but he just couldn't make them do what he wanted. Then it no longer mattered, for he couldn't see anything at all.