Patrick Kell stepped forward with a smile and extended a hand to Hauptmann-General Sarah Joss. "Welcome to Pacifica, Hauptmann-General. As always, the Kell Hounds are honored by your visit."
The Lyran officer, her long blond hair glittering with highlights from the dying sun, frowned. She looked beyond Kell at the collection of Techs and astechs in the Kell Hound unit dress uniforms. "I hope you have an explanation, Lieutenant Colonel, because I do not find this amusing at all."
Kell winked at her and cleared his throat to cover the sound of
Jones's stricken gasp, then turned to the man following behind her. "Colonel Sortek, how very good to see you again. Shall I introduce you to my staff?"
Pacifica's growing breeze drove dust along the ferrocrete of the spaceport and tousled Sortek's brown hair. He squinted and looked closely at the men and women standing with Kell. "They've changed since I last saw them, haven't they, Patrick?" Sortek offered Kell his hand and the two MechWarriors shook hands heartily.
Sortek immediately turned and brought Leftenant Redburn forward. "Patrick Kell, meet Leftenant Andrew Redburn."
Kell smiled warmly. "Welcome to Pacifica, Leftenant."
Redburn nodded and shook Kell's extended hand. "Thank you, Colonel."
Kell laughed. "Call me Patrick." He turned back to Hauptmann-General Joss. "Please don't look at me that way, General. I'm not doing this to embarrass you before these distinguished guests, despite the fact that the Kell Hounds hate duty here." Joss opened her mouth to protest, but Kell cut her off with a friendly laugh. "No. We've something more diabolical planned."
Kell turned to Nick Jones. "Captain Allard, please conduct the troops inside before a storm starts blowing." He nodded to the woman wearing Major Ward's uniform. "Mare, would you be so kind as to ask Major O'Cieran's jump troopers to roust the last radio outlet to see if it's reported the bait is down?"
She nodded and spoke into the radio microphone clipped near her left shoulder. Kell turned to his guests. "Smile, my friends, because the Kurita insurgents want to make sure you have a pleasant visit. We've jammed their audio pickups, but there'll be someone watching with binoculars to confirm your identities."
Joss frowned. "What did you mean by calling us bait?"
Kell laughed. "Kurita has had elements of the 2nd Sword of Light orbiting Chara IV for the past two weeks."
The expression on Joss's face darkened like the stormy Pacifica sky. "We scanned nothing from the nadir jump point."
Kell led his guests across the ferrocrete toward the 'Mech bays. "And you wouldn't, General, because they took care against that. The problem is that they did not take Captain Janos Vandermeer into account."
Sortek laughed. "Is that old pirate still in charge of the Cucamu-luslI though he'd be dead by now."
Kell shook his head. "He's too mean to die." At the blank stares of both Joss and Redburn, he quickly explained. "Vandermeer, over the years, has collected an enormous amount of information about alternate jump points. Most JumpShip captains use the zenith or nadir points of the system sun's gravity well to jump in and out of a system because that's where it's easiest to recharge the Keamy-Fuchida drives. But a safe jump point merely needs to be sufficiently distant from any object of mass in a system. Many of the early Star League captains used to bring in their ships much closer to a system's planets to save the DropShips time traveling to and from the planet."
Joss's grin lit her pretty face. "Vandermeer has the Cucamulusin a position where he spotted the Kurita vessels?"
Kell nodded. "That's a confirmed kill, General. The second your JumpShip appeared in system, Janos reported Kurita preparations." Kell looked at his watch. "Their DropShips are scheduled to land in three hours." He looked up at Sortek. "So, Colonel, did they ship you out on this tour just to look, or did your Prince give you a toy to play with?"
"What?"
Kell stepped into the 'Mech bay, and the three visitors stopped just inside the doorway. Kell waved his hand at the empty hangar. "The Kell Hounds own half the Kurita spies on Pacifica. We know the ETA, landing sites, and troop strengths for two of the three DropShips. As you can see, my hounds are out waiting for our visitors." Kell hid the situation's grim seriousness behind a smile. "Would you like to join us?"
Sortek laughed, but turned to Hauptmann-General Joss. "What do you think, General?"
Before she could answer, Kell cut in with one last comment. "Trust me, Sarah, this'll beat anything else Pacifica has to offer in the way of nightlife."
* * *
The Kiken'spilot brought the OverlordClass DropShip to a soft landing beyond the night-cloaked hills where the main body of the Kell Hounds waited hidden. Storm clouds boiled up and quickly filled the hole burned through them by the DropShip's ion engines. Thin threads of argent lightning crackled through the clouds as the energy released into the atmosphere built and flowed through the storm system.
The egg-shaped DropShip settled down on the moist ground in an artificial fog. Its weapons turrets revolved like bug-eyes on stalks as the gunners sought out any hostile targets. Air hissed from within the pressurized ship as the crew blew the hatches. Ramps descended from the 'Mech bays, allowing the 'Mechs to troop slowly from their steel cocoons. As the Kurita spies had reported, the Kell Hounds had no fighter cover up. As nearly as the Kuritans could tell, the Hounds did not know that their ships had landed.
Daniel Allard glanced over at his ops board for the fiftieth time to reassure himself that the "land-line" indicator remained lit. While it burned its cool blue, Allard's communications came and went without fear of interception on a slender optic fiber stretched out behind his Valkyrie.On the other end, Colonel Kell waited in his Thunderbolt.
"We have confirmation, Patrick. This is part of the 2nd Sword of Light. I've got a company of Panthers,a mixed medium lance of SHD-2K Shadow Hawkswith PPCs, and Griffins—twoof each."
Kell's voice crackled back into Dan's ears. "What else do they have, Dan? They should be unloading the heavy stuff now."
Dan studied his scanner displays again and swallowed hard. He toggled between the two reports the battle computer offered him on the scanner screen. "Here's the bad news, Patrick. I've got a Dragon,perhaps one of the new Grand Dragondesigns."
Dan ordered up magnification on his main monitor and keyed the reference number—0-931787-84-Xp-74d—into his battle computer. The cursor blinked down at the bottom of the screen, then the computer redrew the complete scanner diagram and added the stored information from that file. "I've got a match. It isa Grand Dragon,so it's sporting a PPC in the right arm and a third medium laser in the right torso." Dan looked up at a light flashing on the scanner display. "This is odd ..."
"What, Dan?" Patrick Kell's voice remained even, despite the commanding urgency in his words.
"The Panthersare forming up into a spearhead, with the medium lance on the west flank and the Grand Dragonin the middle. They're coming right at you, but the Dragon'snot moving. It seems to be waiting for something."
Kell's light laugh traveled to Dan ungarbled and brought with it the assurance of victory. "Perfect. The lighter 'Mechs are drifting out to establish a perimeter without the Dragon'sfirepower. Remember the plan, Dan. The Kuritans consider 'five' to be a lucky number and things in fives to be an omen. Let's take five 'Mechs out in the initial ambush, and it'll spook them. Coordinates transmitting .. . Now. Good luck."
"And to you, Patrick. Severing land line and returning to command of my lance." Dan punched the blue land-line button and it died. He radioed a tightbeam broadcast back to Brand, and his Lieutenant replayed it for Meg Lang and Eddie Baker. It provided them with targets for their initial attacks, and secondary targets after that. Dan quickly reviewed the assignments and shook his head. It would not be pretty.