Страница 31 из 69
11
Calm Before the Storm
Achernar Militia Command
Achernar
1 March 3133
The arrival of Knight-Errant Powers acted as a shot of adrenaline for the entire militia. Leaning back in his chair at the on-base officer’s club, listening as Jeffrey McDaniels regaled the table with yesterday’s scuffle between Fourth Armor and the Steel Wolves, Raul Ortega took its measure from the spirited conversations warming up the lounge. He couldn’t hear more than snatches of two or three at a time, not over the general background buzz of conversation and the upbeat guitar solo someone had coined into the music system. By the sweeping gestures and excited flush lighting each face, he could tell that, like McDaniels’s, most were telling of recent battles—but now the stories had an air of pride-in-service rather than the anxiety that had colored the tales of holding actions of only three days before.
At the next table over, a pair of fighter pilots shouted down a VTOL squad as to which had made a larger impact on that first, desperate day of the Steel Wolf assault. They held up wildly bent straws and folded napkins to represent airborne craft, dogfighting each other and strafing an array of salt and pepper shakers set out over their table. Some armor jocks had claimed most of the dance floor, pushing chairs around in tank formations, and a trio of bulked-up infantry lieutenants hovered at the nearby bar, adding the sweet aroma of their cigars to the already-thick air while discussing battlesuit tactics.
Recital night at the O-club.
McDaniels dropped heavily back into his chair. Thirsty from all his talk, he picked up a tall glass of iced juice and drank heavily. He’d hit his four-drink limit early with highballs of Glengarry Reserve, making up in quality what he couldn’t get in quantity. Raul continued to nurse his second margarita, enjoying the sweet ice and tangy bite of bar-stock tequila.
“You’re sure?” he asked his friend. “Morgan and Brightfoot?” The two men who were still missing in action from the spaceport mess Raul had been helping clean up… was it only six days ago?
Major Eligh Chautec nodded, backing up McDaniels. “Gun-cam footage doesn’t lie. I know their faces. By the Unfinished Book I should, they were such thorns in my heel a few years back.” Chautec had commanded Achernar’s armor corps when Colonel—then Major—Blaire was still overseeing the RTC. Chautec’s steel gray hair had streaks of black in it still, though they were hard to find with his hair cut into a tight flattop. “Always bothering after a transfer to active duty. They weren’t good enough then, and they weren’t good enough yesterday.”
Not if McDaniels’s story was to be believed, and the ‘captured’ reservists had been put back into the field under Star Colonel Torrent’s command. Driving Shandra scout buggies wasn’t a huge vote of confidence in their abilities. Especially when they try to tangle with McDaniels’s crew in an M1 Marksman.
“Jeff had no choice,” Chautec said. One man dead—Corporal Morgan—and Brightfoot retreating with severe damage.
Clark Diago and Tassa Kay rounded out the small table of officers. Tassa sat with her chair partially pulled back, as if trying to disassociate herself from the men. Diago stared at his wedding band, the gold all but glowing against his caramel-colored skin. “Better to know what happened to them, I guess.”
McDaniels didn’t seem so certain. “Say that when it’s one of your MechWarriors turning coat.” He realized belatedly that all three Achernar BattleMech pilots were, in fact, represented at this table. “I meant one of the conversion pilots.”
Raul dipped a finger into his drink and flicked a drop toward his friend. “Right.” He smiled as he said it.
“We’ll set it all to rights soon enough,” Chautec promised. Weathered hands gripped a hammered-metal beer stein—made out of the armor of his first tank, if the unlikely tale were to be believed. “We knew—we know—that we have Swordsworn and Steel Wolf sympathizers mixed in with the Standing Guard. But most of them continue to follow orders and do their jobs. Likewise, Torrent must have Republic-loyal troops under his command who are torn between what they know is right, and orders coming direct from Prefect Kal Radick. If we can hit Torrent hard enough near his base for a change, and isolate some of those men and women—”
“You will have your head handed to you,” Tassa interjected.
Raul downed the last draught of his margarita and waved the empty, bowl-shaped glass at a passing waitress. “Here she goes again,” he whispered, never loud enough for anyone else to hear. Tassa glanced at him from the other side of the table—a coincidence, although Raul still felt a sizzle of heat pass between them.
The back of his neck itched in a guilty flush, remembering his last rendezvous with the MechWarrior, and how he had learned the next day that Jessica had stayed out at the work site pitching in to help. Since then, his fiancée had gotten more involved in civilian efforts to support the military.
If Tassa sensed Raul’s discomfort, she didn’t let on. Instead, she glanced over at Chautec. “No offense.” She paused, then reconsidered, “Well, offense or not, Major Chautec, it is still a bad idea.”
“And why do you think so?” the major asked calmly, too seasoned a veteran to bite back in anger.
Tassa thought a moment, obviously deciding how—or if–she would answer him. With sudden commitment she rocked forward in her chair, her necklace charm swinging from her neck, leaned elbows onto the table and stabbed a finger down into the middle of a knot in the table’s wood grain. “Highlake Basin. Star Colonel Torrent has concentrated his forces here for their proximity to River’s End and the Swordsworn stronghold near Hahnsak. His advantage is that he can strike in either direction at a multitude of targets, carefully allocating his strength.
“But if you go after him where he is strongest, he will commit everything. All or nothing, Major. There will be no middle ground. Are you ready to strip River’s End bare of every last militiaman? Because you will have to. Is Blaire or Powers ready to do that?” she asked, cat’s-green eyes intent on Chautec.
So intent that she missed Kyle Powers’ approach from one side. “No,” the Knight-Errant said, obviously catching the last of her question. “I doubt that we are.”
All five men stood out of respect for the Sphere Knight, who had traded his bright, spotless dress uniform in for more practical gray utilities. His platinum hair looked ivory in the club’s subdued lighting. His only concession to rank was a collar pin that had been shaped like a forked ba
Tassa Kay reclined back into her chair again, making a point of not rising. Powers noted this with an amused smile that reached into his eyes. He waved everyone else back to their seats, then turned to pull a chair from the nearby table filled with Aerospace and VTOL pilots. Raul did not miss the way the pilots’ gazes followed the Knight Errant, filled with hope and maybe some hero worship as well. A touch of awe that Powers quickly set aside by ordering them a round and making a point to ask each one something personal. A name. Unit. Hometown. In thirty seconds he had them laughing and joking again, relaxing while they could.
Raul caught himself smiling, warmed by the Knight Errant’s care for men with whom he had never served.
“I’m afraid I have to agree with MechWarrior Kay,” Powers said, returning with his chair, seating himself between Major Chautec and Clark Diago. “Star Colonel Torrent is a trueborn. He’s also of the Kerensky Bloodname. That makes him a most dangerous adversary.”