He shook his head. "Let her bring them all. It doesn't matter." A predatory smile tugged up at the corners of his mouth. "She's come to us, to ourbattlefield. It is her first big mistake and she will pay for it with her life."
35
Arc-Royal
Federated Commonwealth
11 September 3055
Phelan hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt and smiled as he monitored the communications link between the Red Corsair and the Kell Hound base at Denton. His nephew Mark looked suitably nervous in what was obviously an oversized uniform. "What do you mean asking me what we have to defend our base? The Hounds aren't here."
"You wear the uniform of a warrior, child," the Red Corsair snarled. "Which are you: a coward soiling a noble uniform, or a warrior who will defend what is his."
Mark's eyes blazed with an anger Phelan knew was not feigned. "We'll meet you. The Scouts have two light lances. We'll meet you on Denton Flats." Mark shook a fist at her. "You'll be sorry."
The Red Corsair laughed from Phelan's auxiliary monitor. "I doubt that, pup. Corsair out."
The auxiliary went dead for a moment, then a system traffic display filled it. The Red Corsair and her two DropShips were burning into Arc-Royal at a fairly leisurely pace that would leave her warriors rested and ready to fight. Estimated time of arrival was two hours away, which meant Phelan and the rest of the Kell Hounds had to stay under cover until the ships had grounded.
Phelan touched the keypad on his Wolfhound'scommand console and got a troop-strength estimate for the Red Corsair. The DropShips definitely had a fighter screen that consisted of eighteen aerospace fighters. Preliminary data analysis suggested that their flight profiles precluded the inclusion of bombs. That meant the Hound Pound could still work, but the fight would be nastier by half than they had originally anticipated.
He opened a land line to Dan Allard. The laser-based signal went out over a fiber-optic cable running through the dark recesses of the National Defense bunkers in the Clonarf Mountains. "Things look good for the moment from here, Colonel. We need to have our fighters on standby."
"Done. I've integrated what's left of your honor guard into the First Fighter Battalion. That brings them up to strength. Star Captain Carew suggested it."
Phelan smiled. He is doing his best to earn his shot at a Bloodname."Good. What is the word on Geist?"
"Security reported in about ten minutes ago. He's still going over the material he got from the university. Bates says the man's seen more stars than all the prize fighters in history." Dan smiled. "In return I guess I should ask you if Star Colonel Ward has stopped complaining yet about his assignment."
You believe I don't trust Geist and you don't trust Conal. Little do you know, Dan, that our feelings about both men are closer to your position than not.
Old Connaught, though only forty kilometers north of Denton, was separated from it by the foothills of the Clonarf Mountains. The mountains themselves, which formed a semicircle around Denton to the south and west of the settlement, were where the Kell Hounds remained hidden. North of the foothills stretched a broad river valley. Through the middle of it ran the kilometer-wide Kilkenny River. Twenty kilometers north, up a gradual and well-wooded incline, Old Connaught sat on the shore of Lachlan Lake.
Conal and the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma had been placed in the woods. They were close enough to the M-5, the major highway running south of Old Connaught, and the bridge crossing for the Kilkenny, that they could be brought into play if the Red Corsair landed north of the mountains and south of the river. Ideally, though, she would ground both her DropShips in the Denton area, leaving them out of the fight entirely.
"Conal has taken some satisfaction in the fact that he is defending the city, but only because I told him that a weapons subassembly plant was located there." The Clan Khan laughed lightly. "I would not worry, Colonel, the Thirty-first Wolf Solahma will not be a problem."
"I hope not, Phelan." Dan let the concern in his voice bleed out through his eyes. "I remember what they did to Zimmer's Zouaves. I won't let that happen here."
* * *
By the time the Red Corsair's DropShips had become visible, eight light 'Mechs had moved out of Denton and taken up battle positions in the Flats. Harry Pollard kept his Valkyrieout in front and raised the 'Mech's left hand when he thought he was far enough outside the fabricated town. "This is it, guys," he said into his microphone, but he knew none of the others could hear him.
The suicide squad pilots were a mixed lot, none of them spectacular, but all of them experienced. Three were old pilots who suffered from inoperable cancers. They had traded their service in the Hounds for payment of their medical bills and the care of their survivors. It was their chance to go out with dignity instead of dying by pieces in a hospice somewhere.
The other five were, like Harry, former pilots who had been serving long sentences in Arc-Royal penal institutions. The trade they wanted to make was more simple: survive and get pardoned. Any kills would be paid for with a 10,000 C-bill bounty—all of which would go to pay back their victims. It wasn't so much, but it was preferable to rotting in a cell.
Harry licked his Tips. He'd jumped at the chance to get back into the cockpit of a 'Mech. Even though his lawyer had defended him against a manslaughter charge with a plea that Harry had killed while under the influence of alcohol, Harry knew it was a lie. He'd rationalized the defense because the guy he had stabbed was a idiot and anything was better than being locked up in a cage that denied you your freedom. He jumped at the deal Phelan Ward offered him because it got him out of one cage and into another—a cage Harry thought of as freedom itself.
Clark, a rat-faced man who had once used an ice pick on someone who owed him some small change, had put the chances of their surviving longer than fifteen seconds at one in a thousand.
The odds were right, but the time was a gross overestimate.
Harry saw the Red Corsair's fighters roll out of their formation and set up on an attack run. With his left hand, he turned his 'Mech toward the incoming fighters. He swung his crosshairs skyward, but aimed below the line of attack on which the planes had set up. He watched the range counter as it rapidly reeled off the meters. When range dropped below a kilometer he punched his feet down on the Valkyrie'sjump-jet pedals and launched his 'Mech skyward. At the same time he saw a gold dot light up in his crosshairs and he hit all his triggers.
A suffocating blanket of heat cocooned around him in the 'Mech's cockpit as gravitational forces pounded him down into the command couch. He smiled as the LRMs streaking out of the left side of his chest corkscrewed into the lead fighter. The missiles exploded as they walked up and over the Rogue'snose and cockpit, but he knew they had not crippled the craft. Still, the boxy Roguebroke off its run and Harry counted that as a victory.
Triumph quickly soured in his mouth as the second Rogueand the pair of Tridentsfollowing it stayed on target. None of the other 'Mechs attempted his maneuver. As he watched from his vantage point, they did nothing while the fighters came in on their strafing runs.