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The Locustpaced along the floor of the canyon with Grayson at the controls. It felt as though a lifetime had passed since he'd last been strapped into the Mech Warrior's hot seat. As he gripped the controls and leaned into the reassuring weight of the neuro-impulse helmet, he knew how right it was that he'd trained for it half of his life.
After spending endless standard days at his report-smothered deck in the dim recesses of the city Armory, Grayson felt alive again.
His hands rested lightly on the weapons controls and maneuver overrides. His electrode-padded and cable-heavy helmet picked up neural impulses relating to routine movement and balance, while a sophisticated computer built into the cockpit seat translated those signals to the 'Mech's four-meter walking stride. The Locustwas an extension of his body.
The popular warrior mythos held that MechWarriors actually became their 'Mechs, that there was a personality transfer from man to machine, that the machines moved and fought because the Mech Warrior's mind was directly controlling them. None of this was true, though certainly the neuro-impulse helmets had been a first promising step toward combat systems doing just that. What the helmet did do was to direct the machine in such routine tasks as maintaining its balance, which left the pilot's mind free to deal with analytical tasks such as sorting out friend from foe and engaging in combat.
"Striker One, this is Striker Two, do you read?"
The voice in his helmet speakers was electronically filtered and reproduced, and required practice to understand. Transmissions were beamed on an extremely narrow frequency band in order to penetrate enemy electronic countermeasures and to defy hostile code breakers. Often, such transmissions were made in battlespeech, an artificial coded language known only to the users, but there'd been no time to design and teach one to all who would need to know it. Computer scrambling should make the transmissions intelligible only to the Lancers. At least, that's what Grayson hoped.
He bit down hard to flex the masseter muscles below and in front of his ears. Sensors in the helmet read the flexing's electrical signature, and opened a cha
"Striker Two, this is One. Go."
"We're in position below the fence. No patrols... no suspicious activity."
"Good. Keep alert."
The assault force's movement up the wadi in broad daylight had been a calculated risk. The raiders had helicopters, and there was no guarantee they didn't also have a military surveillance satellite capable of counting rivets on the Locust'sdorsal armor. The Locustwas shrouded in folds of camouflage netting, and Grayson was operating the heat sinks at their lowest settings to cut down the 'Mech's IR signature. What the assault team was really counting on was luck. Careful observation of the bandit bases at the port and up Mount Gayal at the Castle suggested that they held the Trell armed forces in very low esteem and were not maintaining a proper watch on the approaches to their encampments.
"Striker One, this is Three."
"Three, this is One. Go."
"No activity at the Castle. I have the Marauderin clear sight It's still parked on the parade field outside the Repair Bay doors."
"Right, Three. Keep on them."
The Locust'scockpit was so small that he could touch opposite bulkheads with outstretched arms. The viewscreen formed a 180-degree strip across the front of the tiny room, showing the sharply stratified layers of water-deposited sediments in the walls of the cha
Perhaps the dominant feature of the cockpit was the smell, a sharp, sour tang that seemed to emanate from deck, bulkheads, and seat despite scrubbings and liberal dousings with chemical absorbents. The Locust'son-board logs and equipment installation dates showed that this particular 'Mech was over a century old. The distinctive odors of sweat, fear, and battle fury of 40-some pilots had become as much a part of the cockpit as the armor encasing it. The smell was unpleasant, but already fading from Grayson's awareness.
It was getting warm inside the cockpit. A tiny blower behind Grayson's head struggled with the impossible task of cooling the pressurized space, but before long, it would be unequal to the 'Mech's heat build-up. Grayson had already stripped to briefs and a light tunic of net fabric. Though he was not uncomfortable yet, very soon it would become much worse.
Grayson looked down through electronic eyes at the troops... his troops, he thought. Their TK assault rifles had come from the armory that was now the Lance's HQ (though the proper forms had never been approved by the Militia supply staff). Grayson had only obtained the weapons because he knew that a thousand of those sleek auto-fire weapons had been given to the Militia by Carlyle's Commandos. The men were bundled against the cold in camo-mottled winter combat jackets and gloves unofficially liberated by Sergeant Ramage from the Guard supply depot across from the Palace.
He worked his jaw muscles twice, opening a line.
"Striker Two, this is One. Give me a feed."
"Right, One. Patch in."
An image window unrolled across the viewscreen. On the rim of the wadi above him, a scout poked the sensor end of an optical-fiber remote sca
"That's our target," Grayson said. He opened the cha
"No alarm, sir. All quiet"
"It won't be for long. Striker Two!" He could see the tac-force strike leader, Sergeant Ramage, touching the microphone at his throat "Yessir!" Move out! Now!"
The small body of troops surged up the slope of the wadi, using ropes that had been set from the rim by the scouts. On schedule and according to plan, Platoon A moved toward the spaceport's outer fence.
Grayson took a deep breath and tasted the sour air of the cramped Locustcockpit. He opened another combat cha
"All set here, Lieutenant." Sergeant Larressen was shouting, the electronically-rendered tones of his voice oddly spaced. He must be yelling above the keening of his HVWCs.
"We're ready here. Let 'em know you're there.”
“On our way, sir!"
It had taken a direct appeal to King Jeverid to free up much of the equipment the Lancers needed, including eight battered but serviceable hovercraft weapons carriers, five-man machines like those he had seen and ridden in the battle in Sarghad. Three of them mounted auto ca
"Lieutenant! This is Striker Two!"
"Go ahead, Two." Grayson paced the Locustalong the gully as he spoke. There was a place farther along where the slope was less steep than the spot where the ground assault force had scrambled up. On his viewscreen, the layered red and ocher strata of the arroyo's wall lurched and tilted as the Locuststrode along its gravel floor.