The guards returned to lead the conscripts to the shacks where they would spend the night. As the group left the gate, Fuhito looked back to see the men on duty at the gate take the leutnant's suggestion. En masse, the guards left their post and headed for the main barracks. Fuhito wondered if the Steiner MechWarriors were equally lax.
When they reached the shacks, the Lyrans separated their charges into groups and assigned them to huts. When only one group remained, the officer dismissed his men, urging them to warm up on some schnapps for him. The last group was almost completely composed of Combine soldiers, and Fuhito felt a sense of impending danger as the leutnant stood by the door, flashing a light into each person's face as he or she passed into the dimly lit interior of the hut.
"Oh, ho," the soldier exclaimed as he pulled one of the hunched figures from the line. He tugged the poncho's rainhood down, exposing the woman's head. Fuhito held his breath when he saw that it was Tomoe Sakade.
"Very nice. Maybe I was a bit hasty in deciding who I would spend the night with. There are quite a few privileges for those who are friendly," the leutnant told her, slipping a hand under her poncho.
In the faint gleam from the open door, Fuhito saw the Lyran's eyes go wide. He surmised that what the leutnant found in his groping for soft flesh was the hard metal of Tomoe's subgun instead. The man took a step back, but not fast enough to escape Tomoe's flashing hand. Her stiffened fingers drove into the man's throat. He collapsed with a broken trachea, choking on his own blood.
All the Kuritans froze, waiting to see if they were discovered. There was no sign that anyone had heard. The rest of their guards continued noisily toward the barracks. On the far side of the camp, a lone guard 'Mech prowled, its searchlight gleaming as it swept the perimeter.
"No more time to lose," Tomoe announced. "Kerai! Tetsuhara! Get your team together. You two, drag this garbage into the hut. Let's move!"
The Kuritans tossed off their ponchos. Fuhito counted heads, and found that some of his team had already been herded into the shacks. Quickly, he gathered them, twenty soldiers and twice that number of brave locals eager to do their bit for the Dragon. At the head of his thirty raiders, he headed for the Lyran barracks. Tomoe and Ninyu had already vanished into the night, gone to their own tasks.
Fuhito dispersed his men to cover all sides of the building, careful to assure that they were not visible should some Lyran glance out a window. He found himself a good vantage point overlooking the main avenue of the camp and waited.
Ten minutes later, twin explosions announced the success of Tomoe's team as the Strikers succumbed to limpet mines.
First of the Steiner troops out of the barracks were the negligent gate guards. Fuhito straightened from his crouch and fired his KA-23, cutting them down before they had gone twenty meters. Around him, spurts of flame appeared as his squad opened up. Bullets pocked the surface of the building, seeking and finding flesh whenever Lyrans attempted to leave the barracks.
Short-spaced crashes filled the air, the massive footsteps of the approaching Steiner guard 'Mech. The beat of those footsteps slowed as the machine neared the barracks court. Then it appeared from around the corner, striding slowly forward as the flames from the burning Strikers underlit the twelve-meter 'Mech, giving it the aspect of a hellish demon. Fuhito recognized the machine as a thirty-five ton Fire-starter,a dangerous anti-personnel BattleMech. The light 'Mech stalked across the court, searching. Its head-mounted searchlight probed the shadows. One of the recruits panicked, dropping his weapon and running away from the Fire-starter.The 'Mech's torso swiveled to face the man, and heavy slugs from the torso-mounted Deprus machine guns shredded him.
Fuhito stood motionless as the Firestarterpassed his position. Knowing too well that his motion might be visible on the pilot's 360-scanner, he threw a flare ahead of the machine and to its left.
The 'Mech blasted the spot where the flare burned as soon as the magnesium ignited. After a moment, the Firestarter'sguns fell silent and it stepped into the alley behind the barracks, seeking prey.
Watching its passage, Fuhito noticed a dark lump on a radio tower near which the machine had stopped. The shape moved, resolving itself into that of a clinging man, arm poised for a throw. A sputtering object arced across the space to impact at the side of the Firestarter'shead.
The bomb burst in a shower of flames, its jellied petrochem plastering the 'Mech's head. The heat and gummy liquid blinded the Firestarter'ssensors and apparently disoriented the pilot. Stumbling into a wall, the 'Mech knocked itself off-balance and fell.
As the Firestarterstruck the pavement, one of the canisters clustered around its right shoulder ruptured. The liquid inside erupted in a fiery paroxysm that engulfed the entire upper body of the 'Mech.
Fuhito was appalled. Those canisters usually carried extra coolant, necessary to protect the machine's actuators as the fusion heat of the reactor was channeled from the engine to the arm-mounted flamers. Instead, this 'Mech had carried incendiary chemicals that it could project as a clinging mass of fire to cripple and burn any enemy, including another BattleMech. A fiery death was the deep-seated fear of every Mech Warrior, a terror born in the sweatbox cockpits where they piloted their nuclear-hearted monsters. This man had wished that death for his opponents; now he roasted in his own cockpit, a victim of his own desire.
The loss of their giant guardian took the heart out of the remaining Lyran troops, who were waving a white rag from a door.
Fuhito left acceptance of their surrender to his sergeant. He stood watching the conflagration of the Firestarter,thinking dark thoughts, when Ninyu materialized out of the darkness behind him.
"Well timed, Tetsuhara- kun. You suckered him into position like it was some parade-ground exercise. It's almost as much your kill as mine."
Fuhito turned to him, feeling heat that did not come from the burning 'Mech. "No MechWarrior should die that way."
Ninyu shrugged. "He was a Lyran."
"He was a human being. Have you no heart?"
"My heart belongs to the Dragon. It holds no sympathy for those who stand against the Dragon." Ninyu's stare was as hard as his words. "Let's go. The hovercraft have arrived. All hands are needed at the warehouses."
Fuhito followed the black-clad man, mind numb.
The following hours of labor only numbed him more. As a MechWarrior, he was able to handle one of the industrial exoskeletons, and that put him in constant demand all along the waterfront. He was too busy to think.
Periodically throughout the day, Fuhito observed as Tomoe fielded supply requests from Steiner units, assuring anxious officers that their requisitions were being processed and that supplies were on their way. In point of fact, the Kuritans were taking those supplies for themselves.
The volume of Lyran demands indicated that Theodore's attacks were well underway. Combine forces were striking all along the front, hitting them hard and diverting attention from Cochus. As the day wore on, the Kuritan supply-raiders worked harder. They pushed themselves beyond fatigue, unsure of how much time they had. Every case of supplies would be vital to the continued resistance on Vega.
The cargo ships that had followed the hovercraft finished loading at dusk, the hovercraft themselves held in reserve for the expected arrival of Steiner troops. Fuhito had a few moments' rest as the last ship wallowed from the pier and before the first hovercraft could be brought in to be crammed with all it could carry.
It was late night, with only a dozen hovercraft left to load, when the scouts reported a detachment of Lyran tanks and infantry carriers headed for Cochus. Some Steiner officer had finally decided to look into why his supplies had never shown up.
Tomoe supervised the last, rushed loading, ordering Fuhito aboard with his exoskeleton before she took her own onto a hovercraft. Turbines whined to full power, lifting the craft for their run out of the bay and down the coast to Nevcason. The Combine raiders had nearly stripped the supply camp.