A Silence in the Heavens (21 page)

“Right. On your way.” The Sergeant faded back into the underbrush.

“Sounds like we have our orders,” Jock said.

“Let’s move, then,” Will said. He slung his pack onto his shoulders, picked up his rifle, and headed off at a trot for the staging area, with Lexa and Jock running beside him.

At the staging area, there were indeed trucks waiting, and hot food too, trucked in. A medical corpsman had an aid station going under a tent flap rigged from the side of one truck; a chaplain was holding services at another truck, standing up in the truck bed so that he looked down on his makeshift congregation.

“Either of you need any of that?” Lexa asked.

“What I want is some of my mum’s homemade berry tart,” Will said. “That’d make me right. But since what we have is army meat and army bread—”

“—which comes from no known animal or plant—” Jock chimed in.

“—every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a feast,” Lexa finished. “Here comes an officer; maybe he knows something.”

The officer in question—a Major with a bullhorn—took the chaplain’s place on the back of the truck as soon as the service was finished.

“Listen up, people,” he said. “I want everyone with anti-armor weapons and ammo up in the lead vehicle.”

He gestured to his left. “If you have antiarmor, move up there now. If there are more than will fit, take the second truck, and the third, and so on.” He paused. “If you have anti-air weapons, I want you in the middle truck, that’s truck side number six–zero–four, right here where I’m standing. Move there now.” He paused again. “Everyone with unused demolition charges or special heavy weapons—heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, mortars, move to the rear of the convoy. Last truck, people. Fill in forward from there. Move now.”

The Major paused yet again while Will chewed on the army bread. It wasn’t fresh, but it wasn’t tasty either.

On the other hand, it had a shelf life measured in decades, and contained the minimum daily requirement of almost everything except fun.

The Major’s voice came over the bullhorn one more time. “Everyone else, pick a place on one of the remaining vehicles. Go there. The column is pulling out in five minutes.”

The truck to the left of the middle vehicle was empty. Will nodded in that direction and said to the others,

“You heard the man—let’s get on board while there are still seats. Maybe someone on the truck can tell us where we’re going.”

“If you ask me,” said Lexa with pessimistic relish, “this is all an absolute disaster, and the only place we’re going is straight to hell.”

“Why do you say that?” Will asked as he climbed over the tailboards. Bench seats lined the sides of the truck. He headed forward to where the back of the cab would provide some shelter against what looked like was turning into a vile evening.

“We’re advancing to the rear in glorious victory against a foe that is routing forward in utter disorder,” Lexa said. “At this rate the Steel Wolves are going to be in the capital by daybreak. No one knows what we have or where we are—including our own side. Our units are all broken up. If I was calling this ‘every man for himself’ how wrong would I be?”

“Not very,” said Jock. “It looks like it’s the three of us against the world.”

“Then the world had better watch out,” Will said.

The truck soon filled up with more men and women, some with full kit, others carrying nothing more than a rifle and a satchel of spare charges. In fewer than the promised five minutes the humming note of the truck’s engine lowered and they lurched forward. The spot against the back wall of the cab proved to be a good one. Will, Lexa, and Jock only got wet on one side when the clouds opened and the rain poured down half an hour into their trip.

45

Plains north of Tara; the Fort

Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

N
icholas Darwin sat atop his Condor tank, relishing the cool evening air after a day spent in the rank, stuffy confines of the tank’s interior, and listening to the communications chatter among the Warriors of his command. A light mist drifted down from the cloudy sky, cooling his skin, and the faint whiff of ozone from the Condor’s main gun told of a battle won. Anastasia Kerensky would be pleased.

“Resistance is crumbling, Star Colonel,” Star Captain Greer reported over the command circuit. “We are taking light small-arms fire only. No heavy guns. No sign of enemy ’Mechs.”

“Very well,” Darwin said. “Exit the valley.”

He turned to the communications operator in the Condor tank. “Send a signal to Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky: Route secure. Preparing to advance.”

“As you command, Star Colonel,” said Greer, and the communications officer said, “Message sent.”

Darwin swung back down into the body of the tank. Time to start moving again.

“Once we are on the plain,” he ordered, “take formation. Skirmishers forward, hovercraft on the flanks. I do not desire surprises.”

“What about the Highlanders, Star Colonel?” asked Greer.

“The Highland line is broken,” Darwin said. “Bypass the ones who will not surrender. We can mop them up later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ezekiel Crow closed the office door behind him and leaned back against it with a heavy sigh of exhaustion.

The departure from his usual unbending posture spoke volumes to Tara Campbell about the depths of his fatigue. She herself was propped half standing, half sitting on the edge of the room’s heavy wooden desk.

One more minute spent standing tall and unwavering, she was convinced, would have had her toppling like a felled tree.

Tara and Crow had met in the Prefect’s small office in the depths of the Fort in order to go over the latest battlefield intelligence reports. By unspoken agreement, they had left the Combat Information Center in order to have that conversation in private. There was no point in making other people into unwilling eavesdroppers on a discussion that might damage their morale.

Tara still had her freshly updated data pad in her hand; the Paladin made a weary gesture in its general direction.

“What do we have by way of reinforcements?” he asked.

“Nothing we didn’t have last night,” she said. “Mostly those Tyson and Varney retrofit ’Mechs. But they are all in the city now and moving west.”

He nodded slowly, not looking at her, his gaze fixed on something out beyond the toes of his boots. “It’s enough to let us set up a line half a day out. If we hold, we can at least give the civilians time to evacuate.”

“What do you mean—‘evacuate’?” she demanded. “Do you honestly think we’re so outclassed it’ll come to that?”

“I don’t want anyone to come home to find their parents shot in their beds,” he replied, tight-lipped. He looked up at her then, his blue eyes intent and blazing. “Yes, move them out. All the available transport that isn’t needed for the fighting—that isn’t crucial to the fighting—should be ferrying noncombatants away.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“If you want to sleep at night afterward.”

“I’ll give the order.”

He looked back down at his feet, as if embarrassed by his own sudden vehemence. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

“It’s all right,” she said. There was an awkward silence. Then Tara cleared her throat and consulted the data pad again. “The aerospace fighter wing out of Halidon will be overhead by dawn if they can make it through at all. The weather doesn’t look good.”

“Radick and his Steel Wolves aren’t going to give us until dawn,” Crow said. “After fighting their way through the pass, they’ll be too hungry for that.”

“We’ll do what we can.” Tara made some adjustments to the data pad and called up a rough, diagrammatic map. She passed the data pad over to Crow, saying, “I know a good place to do this. Halfway from here to the mountains. Look—I’ve got it marked.”

Crow took the data pad and glanced over the contents of the display. “What’s the ground like?”

“Low rolling hills, mostly,” Tara said. “We can draw up our forces along this north-south ridgeline, with the tanks hull-down just over the crest. There’s a stream along the bottom of the ridge that might slow down some of their tracked vehicles.”

“Speaking of slowing them down . . . has there been any new word from Colonel Griffin?”

She shook her head. “You were there for the last one.”

“Then we have to assume that he has fallen, and make our plans accordingly.”

“He promised me the time,” she said. “He’ll deliver it whether he’s fallen or not.”

She forced herself to stand up straight and pull her shoulders back, in what she hoped was a convincing facsimile of a ready-for-anything posture. “And if his time isn’t going to be wasted, you and I need to get into our ’Mechs and start the army moving.”

46

Plains north of Tara

Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

T
he approaching storm brought darkness unnaturally early to the plains north of the capital. Lowering clouds obscured the sunset and hid the twilight stars from view. Shifting, unpredictable gusts of wind disturbed the still air at irregular intervals, throwing up dust and leaves into miniature whirlwinds that swirled briefly in the headlight glare of passing vehicles, then fell apart.

The Northwind Highlanders had set up their advance command post in the gymnasium of an abandoned consolidated secondary school. The small farming and grazing communities of the plain had emptied out upon hearing that the Wolves were in the northern pass; the capital was packed with refugees.

If we fail now, Tara Campbell thought with an inward shiver, the whole city is vulnerable. And we cannot evacuate everyone in time. No matter how hard we try.

She said nothing aloud, however; Michael Griffin and Ezekiel Crow, who stood with her at the communications center—a fine name for what was in reality no more than a collection of modular consoles set up at one end of the gymnasium underneath the game clock and the scoreboard—both understood the situation without having her betray her own nerves by mentioning it. And Crow, at least, who knew firsthand what could happen when enemy troops ran wild in a city, would not appreciate having those memories stirred up without need.

One of the consoles beeped and spat out a printed sheet. Michael Griffin retrieved the paper and scanned it, frowning. Griffin had sustained several broken ribs in the last minutes of the battle for Red Ledge Pass, and his
Koshi
would lie on the field of battle until one side or the other won the war and brought the crippled

’Mech in for repairs, but he had refused to leave the front lines.

“Meteorology reports bad weather coming,” Griffin said.

“We didn’t need Meteorology to tell us that,” Tara said. “Do they have anything more specific?”

“There’s a major storm system coming up from the southeast; it should hit the local area around dawn. The forecast calls for high winds, heavy rain, thunderstorm activity, and localized flooding.”

Ezekiel Crow said, “That’s not good weather for ’Mechs and armor.”

“That’s not good weather for anything,” Tara said. She tugged distractedly at a strand of her yellow hair—when she was a little girl, she’d believed that the harder she pulled, the better she thought, and in times of stress her fingers believed it still—and came to a decision. She turned to the communications tech on duty and said, “Broadcast a message on the open channel. Tell Prefect Kal Radick that we want to parley.”

Griffin stared at her. “We want what?”

The Colonel was visibly taken aback by her proposal, as was Ezekiel Crow. Tara made haste to reassure them.

“I want to propose a temporary ceasefire until the storm system passes. That’s all. Fighting conditions aside, we can always use the extra time.”

The signal went out, and within minutes, Tara and Ezekiel Crow were in a Fox armored car, heading out for the designated meeting place—a set of map coordinates in the midst of open ground not held by either army.

The drive from their temporary headquarters took close to an hour, even at speed. Nobody wanted the leader of the Steel Wolves any closer to the Highlander lines than that, even for a parley, and by the time they reached the gridposition, it was full night. They exited the Fox, leaving all the vehicle’s lights on and blinking as per the arranged signal, and waited.

The Wolves were prompt. Only a few minutes passed before Tara saw a vehicle approaching from the north—another Fox armored car, this one bearing Steel Wolf insignia. The Fox came to a halt a few meters off and two people got out, a woman and a man. They drew closer—and Tara repressed shock, keeping her face still with effort.

The man was not Kal Radick. Tara knew enough about Steel Wolf gear and uniforms to see that he wore the insignia of a Star Colonel, but not that of a MechWarrior. The woman, though—with her dangerous good looks, nobody was ever going to call that one the Angel of Anyplace, or try to make her over into a recruiting-poster darling, and for an instant Tara felt a wash of pure, irrational envy. Things in the Steel Wolves had clearly changed faster than the Highlanders’ intelligence reports could keep up with, because the woman was the one in charge.

“Galaxy Commander,” Tara said. It was a good thing, she thought, that she’d trained in diplomacy from toddlerhood on up. She could keep a calm face and a polite voice no matter what the circumstances. “Am I to infer, then, that Kal Radick no longer leads the Steel Wolves?”

The woman gave a curt nod. “You are. I am Anastasia Kerensky.”

Hell, thought Tara. A Kerensky. Stay calm, and don’t ask what happened to Radick. She probably cut his throat and ate him boiled for breakfast.

Her answering nod was as brief as Kerensky’s had been; perhaps even a fraction briefer. When she spoke, her voice was cool and steady. “I am Tara Campbell, Countess of Northwind and Prefect of Prefecture III.

My companion is Paladin Ezekiel Crow.”

Crow had donned plain civilian attire for the parley, thus avoiding rank insignia entirely—a tactful move, ensuring that he did not undercut Tara’s authority as Countess and Prefect. Polite as ever, he bowed and said, “Galaxy Commander Kerensky.”