begin another: a lively, driving air that they played with such panache as to almost make up for their lack of skill.
Tara found herself nodding her spike-haired head in time. “What’s that tune, Colonel? It sounds familiar.”
Hanratty’s homely face split into a gap-toothed grin. “That’s the ‘Garryowen,’ marm,” she said. “We’ve our unit nickname from it. And might I ask that you call me Brigid, if the Countess pleases; I forget I’m no longer a major, the rank’s that new.”
The Seventh’s commander had gone with Jasek and his followers—and a sigh of relief, if scuttlebutt were to be credited. He was a hard-core, Lyran-loving hardass. Whereas the Seventh’s grunts were overwhelmingly Anglophones.
Tara nodded to the woman’s request. “If you’ll call me Tara,” she said.
“But how the devil will you know which one I mean?”
“Tone of voice,” Tara Bishop said. “We’re used to it; we’ll know. Or just call me TB, ma’am.”
The colonel shrugged.
With a final stomp of broad metal feet that rang on the pavement and rattled Tara’s teeth, Ballantrae brought theCougar to a halt ten meters from his Countess. He raised the ’Mech’s right arm in the stiff-armed Highlander salute.
“Countess Campbell, ma’am!” boomed from the ’Mech’s loudspeakers. “Colonel Robert Ballantrae and Task Force Bruce reporting as ordered,ma’am !”
TF Bruce was a scratch company of First Kearnies and Fusiliers, with nearly an equal number of Republican Guard newbies recruited on Terra after the Steel Wolves’ defeat. Tara wondered how glad the latter would be to be restored to the presence of Master Sergeant McCorkle, who had been the bane of their existence until crash-dispatched with his Countess and her aide and a bare-bones staff to Skye to begin shoring the defenses remaining after the defection of Jasek Kelswa-Steiner.
She returned the Highlander Colonel’s salute smartly. “Welcome to Skye. The strength of our arms is The Republic’s!”
The Highlanders gave back the slogan with the enthusiasm of men and women who had fought to make it real.
Behind her back, though, Tara thought she heard snickers from the assembled Seventh troopers.
It did not betide particularly well. But it was small surprise. The Seventh Skye Militia was not only the planet Skye’s largest intact military formation. It was also legendarily the largest collection of sad sacks and screw-ups in the planetary armed forces. And a hotbed of Free Skye subversion, to boot.
Alkaid
Prefecture VIII
The Republic of the Sphere
14 June 3134
The rotary-wing VTOL seemed to stumble in air as a double-speed burst from the Ultra autocannon in the left arm of Aleksandr Hazen’sGyrfalcon caught it full in the nose. Its fuselage vanished into a comet of yellow flame that continued to streak against the merciless white desert sky trailing black flame, its rotor still spinning above it, until a plane-topped column of wind-graven sandstone halted its careen.
“The defenders of Alkaid are brave,” he said over his general frequency channel. “But we outmatch them.”
This time he had issued a batchall. And more: it had been accepted.
Reviewing Alkaid’s history, reports from Jade Falcon intelligence and intercepts of radio traffic from the surface on their seven-day transit from the pirate point whose coordinates had been provided by Jade Falcon merchants, Aleks and his analysts had calculated their strategy carefully. Alkaid possessed a small but proficient defense force. More to the point, it possessed a history of successful guerrilla resistance against the brutal fanatics of the Blakist Jihad, who had seized the spaceports and beaten down its conventional defenders.
Aleks wanted no rerun of Chaffee. Nor did he believe thedesant could afford it—nor the grand long-term plans he had had such a hand in shaping. It was imperative to subdue Alkaid as expeditiously and yet as completely as possible. Aleks faced a fight for a far more populous world after this one, as well as a tight timetable leading to the three-pronged attack on Skye itself. And his Clan needed Alkaid for a base and more. Unlike Chaffee, Alkaid, also hot, also dry and even higher-gravity, possessed strategically significant resources in the form of vast chemical extraction and processing operations. All qualms or compassion aside, the Jade Falcon plan required Alkaid be subdued with minimal disruption, either of the physical plant or the workers who made it run.
With a full Galaxy at his command, Aleks could have seized the world in a coup de main, simply dropping ships to seize the spaceports at the industrial center of Moravska Ostrava and the planetary capital Verstigrad in the far north, and Nobadi on the southern supercontinent of Inahalia. Such an expedient would have put the bulk of Alkaid’s slightly more than one hundred million population under his guns.
Aleks instead chose a plan he deemed less liable to produce unnecessary destruction. Even before his DropShip fleet shaped Alkaid orbit, he was blanketing the planet with a challenge to Governor Chandler Neville and Legate Renee Zollern to block his entrance to Moravska Ostrava from a landing spot forty kilometers into the desert with a militia battalion, which he promised would enjoy at least a two-to-one numerical advantage over the attackers. He assured the authorities—for the consumption of the populace, to whom the powerful communications gear inboardRed Heart helpfully beamed the whole negotiation—that he had no intent of disrupting Alkaid’s normal way of life or imposing Clan values. All he asked was submission, with all resistance ceased, should he win the battle.
The local authorities went for his deal. They weren’t eager to get smashed flat by the preponderant force
Aleks could bring to bear. The cost of losing would be tolerable. And the local militia might actually win—the old overwhelming Clan superiority was history, whereas the old overbearing Clan arrogance was not. Who knew; the invaders might just bid themselves into bringing too small a force.
As it happened, Aleks himself won the enthusiastic bidding for the honor of carrying out the attack, with his tender of but a single Trinary—armor, Elementals and conventional infantry, stiffened by three ’Mechs and two points of VTOLs. That bettered the deal he had offered the local authorities.
It also raised the possibility that the defenders’ hopes for Clan overconfidence might be borne out.
“Galaxy Commander," said a voice in his ear. “This is Red Eye One. We have visual contact.” Aleks’ kicker back was that he had selected only hovercraft for his vehicles, for their superior mobility over the uncertain Alkaid terrain.
“They lead with Scimitars and hoverbikes. They appear to deploy only all-ground-effect vehicles, even as we do."
“Well done, Warrior Till,” Aleks said to his scout.
He laughed. This will be a battle of maneuver, he thought. Just as I intended. The Alkaidians mean to take advantage of their knowledge of local terrain; against that I oppose our proficiency. That the Turkina’s Beak Galaxy had never heretofore been notorious for its proficiency did not dampen his eagerness to join battle. Instead,challenge whetted his appetite.
“Second Star Points One and Two, skirmish forward,” he commanded. “MechWarrior Nina, join them in yourEyrie . Engage them, hurt them, pop smoke and withdraw at speed.” All according to the plan he had sketched to his troops in advance.
“But, Galaxy Commander,’”Nina responded, “it would be dishonor to flee."
“One of two things now happens,” Aleks said levelly. “You will carry out your orders as a Falcon Clanswoman. Or you will swap ’Mechs with me, you will provide fire-support in myGyrfalcon and I shall carry out your orders in your machine.”
“But, sir—”