The Price of Glory

"Yes sir! And . . . sir?"

"What?"

"It's good to have you back!"

* * *

Harris Graff pulled his Assassinup outside the main 'Mech port under the towering overhang of the DropShip Phobos.He broadcast his ID, which brought a response from one of the bridge officers aboard. "Graff? What is it you want?"

"Major malfunction here, Lieutenant. My coolant seal's blown, and it's leaking like a stuck grivit. My Lieutenant said I could come back and have it patched up by your Techs."

"Stand clear, then. We're opening up."

With a loud sound of metal scraping metal, the massive 'Mech port ground open, its steel-treaded ramp extending out to the ground like an extruded tongue. Techs gathered on the main 'Mech bay deck, looking curiously at the lone Assassin.

Graff started the 'Mech up the ramp.

* * *

Janice Taylor crouched in the weeds 200 meters from the Phobosand watched the Assassinmove up the ramp into the 'Mech bay, then turned away to watch the woods around her. She had been born and raised on a Kurita frontier world called Verthandi. While a professor of history at Verthandi's prestigious Regis University, she had been witness to the bloody revolution against the planet's Kurita overlords. In one attempt by the planetary governor to restore order, she had been chained up with fifty other female captives, and marched under the ready guns of Kurita BattleMechs out of the city. Their destination was to unknown points offworld, where they would doubtless have become chattel joy girls through out the Combine.

It had been Grayson Carlyle and his men who had liberated the captive women. From that day on, Janice Taylor had become a member of Sergeant Ramage's Special Ops Force, and had participated in the last, wild battle to free Verthandi's capital from the Kuritans. When victory and independence had been won, she chose to follow the Gray Death Legion elsewhere among the stars.

Janice still wondered about her decision. Her first determination to fight had been born of a love for her world and a willingness to give her life to free her homeland from monsters like the Governor General Nagumo who had ruled it. She did love her world, and her people, and because of that love she often wondered why she had left.

She thought she might know now, though it had taken her a year to see. Verthandi's freedom had been purchased at a terrible cost of lives of friends and loved ones, and thousands of other Verthandians whom she didn't know but who had also been caught up in the struggle to free their world and had paid the final, highest price possible for freedom. In the end, of course, one lone rebel world like Verthandi could never hope to stand against the armed might of the Draconis Combine. Victory had come when House Steiner had recognized in the rebels' victory at Regis a means for the Lyran Commonwealth to win a political victory without firing a shot. Verthandi's independence was one that existed on paper only, the end result of treaties and concords between House Steiner and House Kurita.

Janice, a student of history, knew how fragile that independence was. She had been saddened during those last days on her homeworld to watch the newly won freedom become one more bargaining chip in the three-way negotiations between Steiner, Kurita, and Verthandi's new government.

With liberty only a few days old, there had been people willing to trade away the blood-purchased freedom in the name of expediency—or profit.

And that, she decided, had been why she left. Janice loved her world and her people, but she could not have borne the sight of her countrymen, trading away their victory through cupidity.

She had found a new home of sorts with the Gray Death

Legion. For a time, she had even believed herself in love with the regiment's young commander, Grayson. It had been with some bitter i

Janet knew that she still loved Grayson Carlyle, but perhaps in a different way. Maybe that was why she couldn't leave.

A sound brought her around, the TK assault rifle high in her arms. There were men moving throughout the woods, but her section had been ordered to secure a close perimeter around the two DropShips to prevent anyone from approaching too close unchallenged. Someone was approaching the perimeter through the dense underbrush a few tens of meters in front of her.

"Halt!" she challenged. "Identify ..."

But she got no further. A burst of submachine gun fire tore through the brush, chopping the air just above her head. Reacting with reflexes and training instilled in her by Captain Ramage's endless training sessions, she dove for the ground, rolling hard to her right. She immediately bounced to her knees to fire a short, spattering burst toward her attackers, then hit the ground and rolled again. Something hurtled through the air and thumped among the bushes to her left, where she had been a moment before. She rolled again, then hugged the ground. The grenade exploded with a sharp concussion that set her ears to ringing and shredded the tops of the grass reaching just above her head, but the explosion left her untouched. Men in combat armor were rushing through the brush now, firing as they came.

She was close enough to see the troops' eagle insignias on the right breasts of their armor. From her position flat on the ground, she triggered her TK in quick, three- and four-round bursts. Two of the soldiers kicked forward and fell to the ground. A third skewed around and opened up with a long, rolling blast from his submachine gun, blazing away across a ninety-degree arc that clipped branches and leaves far above Janice's head. She fired again and brought the man down. Now other Marik soldiers were charging out of the trees. Dozens were already between her and the Phobos.

Janice opened her personal transceiver to the Phobos'stactical cha

There was no answer, but machine gun fire was blazing now from the open hatch. The troops replied, and a ru

There was an explosion inside the DropShip bay, then the thunder of more explosions in a tightly confined space. Smoke belched from the open hatchway. Janice watched in dawning horror as ten Marik troopers raced across the open ground, mounted the ramp, and raced up and into the 'Mech bay itself.

More Marik soldiers followed. Janice opened fire, but the soldiers ignored her, so fixed were they on their target—the mercenary DropShip. Others of her squad fired from hiding places nearby, cutting down eight . . . ten . . . fifteen Marik soldiers, but more jut kept on coming.

For a long time, there were no targets.

Then the Marik BattleMechs returned—the big, damaged Thunderbolt,the Archerstill trailing debris from one forearm, a Pantherthat limped and looked as though its torso had been peeled open with an explosive can opener. They came in firing, not at the DropShip, but at the Gray Death troops in the brush and weeds outside. Janice saw Vince Hall cut down by a laser burst twenty meters away. As smoke from burning bushes roiled across the valley between her and the advancing 'Mechs, she decided it was time to withdraw.

There seemed to be no reaction from the Deimos,half a kilometer off to the north, but she did note with a curdling chill that as many as the Phobos'sweapons as could be brought to bear were twisted around to point north.