“I’m not sure of anything,” Tara admitted. “Except for this: The enemy is down on the surface of my world, they want it, and they can’t have it.”
Crow pointed to the map of New Lanark, where a mass of flashing red glyphs—the symbols for grounded DropShips, for known troop concentrations, and for observed ’Mech and vehicle types—clustered together on the salt flats west of the Bloodstone Range of the Rockspires.
“From where the Wolves are now,” he said, “they can strike through the mountains here, at Red Ledge Pass, then take this city, and the rest of the world with it, in the space of a day. Our time to stop them may be measured in hours.”
“Then we’ll have to meet them here,” Tara said. “Outside the city.” She manipulated the screen to put a ring of blue light around the capital. “There’s our line: just past weapons range from the built-up areas.”
“It’s going to take ’Mechs to stop them,” Griffin said, still pacing. “And the Tyson and Varney rush retrofits only came out of the construction hangars the day before yesterday.”
“How long will it take them to get from the factory to the battlefront?” Tara asked.
Griffin contemplated the map with the expression of a man doing sums in his head and not liking the answers. “Moving at full speed and abandoning any ’Mech that overheats and can’t keep up the pace—a day and a half, minimum.”
“We don’t have a day and a half,” Ezekiel Crow pointed out.
“We will,” Tara said. “Colonel Griffin. Take whatever forces you need from the troops already on alert, and delay the Steel Wolves in Red Ledge Pass. Buy me thirty-six hours. That’s all I ask.”
Griffin halted in his restless pacing. “Thirty-six hours? You’ve got them.” He saluted, turned, and strode from the Combat Information Center.
Crow turned to Tara. “You do know that you’ve probably just sent a man to his death,” he said.
“More than one man,” Tara replied. “But he’ll do what he says. It’s up to us to make sure that it won’t all be for nothing.”
PART FOUR
Forcing the Pass
Northwind, Early Summer 3133
26
Western slopes of the Bloodstone Range
Rockspire Mountains, Northwind
June, 3133; local summer
The sun had only been up for an hour, but already the salt flats were growing warm. The atmosphere on the flats was dry—bone-parchingly dry—and the wind that swept down off the distant mountains bore the smell of unfamiliar blossoms.
For Anastasia Kerensky, the arid, windswept landscape made a welcome change from the confined spaces of a DropShip, and long days spent breathing canned and stuffy shipboard air. Not everybody saw it that way—the specialists who worked the Steel Wolves’ battlefield electronics were already grumbling about dust and corrosion—but Anastasia didn’t care. She wouldn’t be keeping her forces in a holding position on the salt flats long enough for it to matter.
For the moment, however, she had set up her command post in a large tent not far from the grounded DropShips. The tent was open on two sides, letting in the morning breeze while still providing shade. A portable map table was already up and running, its heavy power cords running from the tent to a humming generator nearby.
The grounded DropShips showed up on the map as dots of yellow, surrounded by clusters of other symbols, also in yellow, representing the various elements of the invasion force. This part of New Lanark had no cities or towns big enough to show up on the invasion map, but Anastasia knew that even in the howling wilderness there was always someone—a hermit trying his best to avoid civilization, or a naturalist looking for some new breed of bird or beast or insect, or just a pair of young lovers hoping to find a private place to pursue their further acquaintance.
One way or another, even if at a distance, the locals had to have seen the DropShips come down. Complete interdiction of ground-based communications was impossible. By now, the Prefect and her Northwind Highlanders would know where the Wolves had landed, and would be mustering troops to meet the threat.
The grumbling of engines ran underneath Anastasia’s thoughts in a steady drone. She looked up for a moment and smiled at the sound: The tanks and artillery were disembarking now, growling out of the open maws of the DropShips and forming up into columns on the wide expanse of the salt flats.
She went back to looking over her maps. Inside another hour, at the most, the Steel Wolf BattleMechs would have left their berths aboard the DropShips and would be prepared for the march. The capital city of Tara lay a day away on the far side of the Rockspires. Her decision to avoid the main Tara DropPort had paid off so far, in that the Wolves hadn’t taken any hits or losses to their DropShips on the way down.
The aerospace fighters she’d sent to keep the Highlanders too busy to take out the grounded DropShips weren’t going to be so lucky. Some of them, perhaps most of them, would die. Still, they were doing a vital job, and they knew it; and for the survivors there would be honor, advancement, and an increased chance of having their personal genetic legacy carried forward through the Clan’s breeding program.
Their morale, when they left for the attack, had been excellent. They would keep the Highlanders pinned down and distracted, spread out so loosely over the planet that the Prefect would never be able to gather them all in time.
Inside a day, Anastasia thought, she and her Wolves would be on the opposite side of the mountains, and within a half day more, the Fort at Tara would be hers.
The Highlanders would realize then that further resistence was futile. She could negotiate from a position of strength, or she could forgo negotiation entirely in favor of hunting the Northwind armies down like rats, whichever she pleased.
While she was still thinking, she heard the sound of booted footsteps approaching, and looked up. It was Nicholas Darwin coming to join her, looking eager and alert. His uniform was clean and sharply pressed, the insignia of a Star Colonel fresh and gleaming, and he wore his cap tilted in the rakish tanker style. Anastasia paused a moment to regret that during the weeks on the DropShip she had not seized the chance to enjoy his company. Now that they were out in the field, her chances would be even fewer.
If Darwin shared Anastasia’s regret for lost time he was not letting it show, anymore than she herself was. He paused the regulation two paces off, saluted, and said, “Galaxy Commander. The tanks and artillery are landed and ready. We await your orders.”
“Excellent,” said Anastasia.
She pointed to the display on the map table. A red line snaked through the mountains and out into the plains on the other side.
“Carve me a road,” she said, “from here to Tara. The remaining infantry and the ’Mechs will follow as soon as they can—but you will have the responsibility of taking the lead. Go through the mountains and secure an assembly area for us on the plains north of Tara.”
“Yes, Galaxy Commander,” Darwin said. He saluted again and turned to go.
“Wait,” Anastasia said. He halted, and she came around the table to stand next to him. Letting her accent slide downward into Tassa Kay’s casual but friendly imprecision, she added, “Just one thing more.”
Darwin turned back. “And that would be—”
“This,” she said.
She took his face between her hands and kissed him deeply. Her left hand was still wrapped in a pressure bandage, a souvenir of her fight with Kal Radick, and her fingers felt stiff against the soft flesh of Darwin’s cheek.