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32
Palace of Facets, Cingulum
Mirach
9 May 3133
“We’ve got an important mission ahead of us, Master Sergeant,” Sergio said grimly to Dmitri Borodin. “How many of the old FCL are in the Palace?”
Borodin gri
“More’n you might think, Baron. Don’t know how it happened,” Borodin said with a wide grin, “but I just happened to be writing up the duty roster, and more than half of the best of the best are here instead of somewhere else.” Borodin laughed self-deprecatingly. “Then there’s me.”
“You’ve done so much already, Master Sergeant. Alerting me last week to the missing explosives helped more than you could imagine.” Sergio touched his Span-net phone but did not pick it up. “Have you found where Austin went?”
“He lit out and just vanished, Baron, after you told him the Envoy was coming back. Can’t blame him. Tortorelli’s guards were out for blood because he made them look so bad. I been huntin’ and askin’ around for the last couple days.” Borodin shook his head. “It’s like the ground opened up and swallowed him.”
“But there hasn’t been even a rumor that Tortorelli’s troops have caught him?”
“Not a whisper. If anything, just the reverse. Quakes been comin’ down from on high because of everyone’s failure to find the lieutenant. The Baronet, I mean, Governor.”
“That’s all right,” Sergio said, knowing the master sergeant thought of Austin first as an officer. He knew his son could take care of himself, but wished he were here now, just as he wanted Manfred Leclerc at his side. Sergio had long since learned, though, that he could not always get what he wanted.
“Remove any of Tortorelli’s guards who won’t help defend the Palace,” Sergio said. “Don’t kill them. Lock them up in the east-wing cellar. The wine cellar doors are thick and impossible to open without explosives if you lock them.”
“What? Let them have your good wine, Governor?”
“It’ll keep them quiet,” Sergio said, liking the way the sergeant thought. “Seize control of the heavy machine guns Tortorelli placed at the doors. If you don’t have enough FCL soldiers to man them all, fall back into the Palace corridors until you can defend junctures in the halls with the troops you do have. I can give you a map, if you need it.”
“Governor, I been guardin’ you for goin’ on three years. There’s not much of the Palace of Facets me and the rest haven’t explored, just to know where danger might be, mind you.”
“Don’t worry about destroying the Palace. Keep yourselves safe.”
“Governor, we’ll keep ourselves safe, you and the Palace, too.” Borodin snapped a salute and hurried off, bellowing orders as he went. Like a Pied Piper, he drew soldiers dressed in the drab green of Tortorelli’s infantry from odd corners along the Great Hall. Sergio recognized them all as having been in the First Cossack Lancers. This part of his plan had worked well.
Tortorelli had got careless assigning troopers because he thought all those at the Palace were loyal to him. Sergio intended to have made significant progress toward neutralizing him and Lady Elora Rimonova before the Legate realized anything was wrong with his pet prisoner.
Sergio closed his eyes for a moment and then pushed regrets away. He had ignored Elora and her ambitions and it had almost cost him his world. By the time he realized she intended to wrest Mirach from The Republic, she had grown far too powerful to simply remove. Worse, Sergio had never confirmed whether or not she had forged an alliance with Kal Radick.
If these so-called Steel Wolves descended on Mirach because of her, Sergio feared nothing would be left but Elora’s ambition. As matters now stood, Lord Governor Sandoval had declared against Tortorelli and Elora, sending his Envoy with a BattleMech to restore order. And Kal Radick had not been heard from at all.
Sergio knew a show of force by Sandoval’s BattleMech would never succeed, not in and of itself. More had to be done, and he needed to be free of his gilded palace/prison guards now to do it. He had allowed the First Cossack Lancers to be transferred away to free Manfred Leclerc to work with the MBA and watch their ’Mech program closely. The transfer had the added advantage of lulling Elora into a false sense of complacency, thinking he was unprotected and vulnerable.
But he had lost so much. His older son. Ha
Sergio dropped into his chair and picked up the Span-net phone Marta Kinsolving had given him, using the most sophisticated encryption equipment AWC had, intending to place the call he had started earlier. He put down the phone when Master Sergeant Borodin rushed back to report.
“All secure, Baron. We got a dozen from the Home Guard to join us. Me or at least two FCL vouch for them.”
“That’s good enough for me, Master Sergeant,” Sergio said.
“You see the newscast she’s putting out?” Borodin spoke as if the words burned his lips.
Sergio quickly viewed what the Ministry of Information was broadcasting. He sucked in his breath at the sight of the Atlas trapped in downtown Cingulum, surrounded by heavy tanks and badgered by battle-armored troops. The BattleMech strove to contain the Legate’s forces without destroying the buildings—and killing the populace—but Sergio knew that was an impossible mission. Either the horrific fighting machine used its weapons or it would be repeatedly attacked by heavy tanks and battle-armored troops trained to harass and bring down even such a fierce fighting machine.
Sergio knew he had indirectly hampered the BattleMech’s deployment by insisting that deaths among the civilian populace—and the military—be kept to a minimum, but they were all citizens of Mirach.
A monitor on his desk flickered as Elora’s face appeared. There was a wild look about her he had never seen before, reminding him how dangerous it was to corner a rat. Trying to escape, the rat might fight more ferociously than anyone expected. He had to allow her a chance to back away and stop the carnage.
“Surrender, Sergio. You ca
“There must be some reason you want me to surrender, Elora,” he said. “If all went your way, you’d ignore me. Or kill me. What’s wrong? Is there a chance the BattleMech will break free and come to the Palace to stand guard? That would show the people of Mirach that the Lord Governor still supports me.”
“I’m trying to save your miserable life, Baron,” Elora raged.
“I won’t give up,” Sergio said. “I’ve ordered my personal guard to defend the Palace and the sovereignty of my office. My only regret is not understanding the depth of your ambition earlier. So many have died needlessly.”
“Too little, too late,” she sneered. “If I know you, you probably ordered the soldiers not to shoot, to try to bore my soldiers to death.”
“Yours?” Sergio asked mildly.
“Are you going to give up, Baron?”
“No.”
“The Legate’s best tank battalion will reduce the Palace of Facets to a hundred-meter-high pile of debris.”
He glanced over at Borodin. The master sergeant looked grim as he listened to a radio report. He silently mouthed, “They’re bringing up the Behemoths. South of the Palace.”
“This is your only chance, Baron. All you have to defend yourself is a few traitors with rifles.”
“There might be more,” Sergio said. “The Atlas is on its way to the Palace.”
“The BattleMech is trapped,” Elora said, sneering. “So are you. And both of you will be destroyed completely!”
The line went dead.
Sergio swallowed hard as he stared at the news broadcast. Elora was right about the BattleMech. The Atlas tried to elude the Condor tanks pecking away tenaciously at it—and it couldn’t. Even if the MechWarrior put the ’Mech into full power and headed for the Palace, it could never arrive before the Behemoth moving up inexorably from the south opened fire.