The Price of Glory

Grayson listened to Atkins' diatribe with growing horror. "I give you my word, Atkins, this is the first I've heard of this," he said when the Davion agent had run out of breath.

"And what is the word of a renegade merc worth these days? I hear they're still digging frozen bodies out from under the rubble. They're finding survivors, too. That you can believe. You might have wiped Tiantan off the map, Carlyle, but you missed enough people that they'll be able to nail you flat out on the ground! And God, I hope they do it . . . if I don't do it first!"

"Hey! Listen to me, man! We took the surrender of the city! We turned command over to the Duke of Irian! We talked to the man's headquarters from the jump point days later, and everything was fine!" Grayson's horror took an even keener edge at the memory of his communications people aboard the Phobosunable to find the Tiantan transmitter carrier wave, and that no one in the Duke's command had wanted to talk with him. He remembered the peculiar behavior of Lord Garth, and struggled to fit that behavior into the pieces of the puzzle that he was hearing now.

"You're saying someone set you up?" Atkins said. "For God's sake, Carlyle, why would anyone do a thing like that? Listen! Your 'mechs were holographed! Your DropShips were holographed! I've seen them, with the Tiantan domes burning on the horizon behind them! The story's been ru

Grayson shook his head. In point of fact, BattleMechs were not generally equipped to picked up televised signals. The Deimosor the Phoboscould have done it, but there had been no reason at the time. They had been too busy dealing with the Marik forces at Durandel . . . and later, at Cleft Valley.

"I don't care what was photographed," Grayson said. "Photographs, even holographs, can be faked by computer manipulations."

"Your 'Mechs were seen attacking the ruins, Carlyle."

"Witnesses can be bought, dammit! Or they can be misled! My God, someone is trying to destroy the Gray Death by turning us into outlaws . . . and I can't get anyone to believe me!"

"I don't think anyone is going to believe you," Moragen said quietly. The disdain was heavy in his voice. "You were assigned here as our protector, but that kind of protection we can do without! And I can assure you that House Steiner will want nothing to do with a man or a unit capable of such a monstrous act!"

"The same goes for House Davion, Carlyle. I won't even put in the request, because I know what they would say. Hanse Davion doesn't associate with renegade city killers!"

Grayson thought that Atkins was about to attack him then and there, but the big man seemed to relax slightly. "You can take your filthy so-called regiment and hike it," Atkins said. "Civilized warriors will have nothing to do with you now. Get out of my sight!"

Grayson turned to Moragen, but the small man folded his arms. "I suggest you leave, Carlyle. I am not a violent man, but your actions at Sirius V ignore every tenet of modern warfare ... of common decency! There was no reason to destroy that city ... no reason to massacre those people! Your actions have placed you outside the pale of civilized men . . . and of law."

The silence that followed was as cold as the glacial ice on the mountaintops of Helm. The behavior of the Marik BattleMech forces on that planet was explained at last. The Conventions of War dictated certain formal ways for troops to behave toward one another in war, but renegades—city killers—they were beyond the pale of even unspoken and unwritten laws.

Wallenby had been silent, too, as he led Grayson back to the stairs to the surface.

"Wallenby . . . you believe me, don't you?" he said, stepping out into the light. There was no response, for the old man had already vanished back inside the warehouse, leaving Grayson alone in the lengthening shadows of the Helman afternoon.

17

Grayson waited as long as he dared at the rendezvous, but when Alard King did not show up, he returned alone to the Valley of the Araga.

Upon his arrival, word spread quickly through the encampment along the banks of the Araga River. The Gray Death Legion had been proclaimed as renegades—an outlaw regiment—and the Marik forces were trying to hunt them down. It was small consolation, but now that they knew the "truth," other pieces of the puzzle no longer seemed so strange. They understood Colonel Langsdorf's unorthodox tactics of seizing Durandel's military and civilian leaders, the sort of treatment usually reserved for renegades or rebels, and not for respected military adversaries.

When Alard King returned to camp nearly three hours later, he was piloting a stolen civilian skimmer, and bearing the same news as had Grayson. And more.

"I think I know why Marik is interested in this planet," he'd said, and so Grayson had called a meeting of the regiment's senior people.

"We all know that the Star League was the last time mankind even came close to having a single interstellar government," King began. "Many of the Houses we know today . . . Kurita, Marik . . . they were part of the structure of the League."

"Some of them thought they werethe League," Clay put in.

"Yeah, well, in 2786, Minoru Kurita started the First Succession War by declaring himself First Lord."

McCall folded his arms. "We all ken our history, laddie."

"Helm was an important target when Kurita led his fleets against the Marik Commonwealth. There was a League naval base here, at Freeport, and a storehouse of military weapons intended for the League forces.

"Now, when the Star League dissolved, there was quite a vicious political fight within the Free Worlds League over who would get those weapons. Kurita moved to grab them while the squabbling was still going on."

"Yes?"

"They weren't there."

"That's right," Grayson said. "They were probably moved someplace else, after being split up into a dozen smaller caches that fell, one by one, to various contestants in the war."

"Maybe." King smiled. "That's what everybody thought."

"Go on."

"Minoru Kurita's troops scoured the planet, but they could find no sign of the League weapons cache. Certainly, it had been moved out of Freeport. In frustration, Minoru nuked Freeport and left it in radioactive ruins, then nuked most of the other major population centers, leaving Helm a dying world.

"Kurita wrote a report on his action for his council back on Luthien. He proposed what you did . . . that the cache had been removed."

"So?"

"So, the cache couldn't have been moved!”

“Why not?"

"Think about it! We're not talking about ten or twenty BattleMechs. We're talking about hundreds! Enough for a regiment . . . for ten regiments! No one knows how big that cache was! Tanks! Heavy artillery! Ammunition! Do you know how heavy a 'Mech repair gantry is?"

"I have some idea," Grayson said drily.

"The garrison commander on Helm was a House Marik officer, a major in command of an engineer battalion. Apparently, he was a Star League idealist, too, one who wanted to see the League reborn to its old glory.

He had already put off the various Marik commanders by suggesting that they settle among themselves who had the proper authority to remove the weapons before he relinquished control to them. By invoking chapter and verse of certain military articles, he was able to stop them from walking in and carrying everything off."