The Price of Glory

blood brothers forged together as

drawn steel quenched in flame!

They stand by us in blood and fire

and share with us the cry:

"Home is the regiment, our family and our own!"

Then the song was gone, and there was only the rustle of wind among the leaves. The regiment remained for another full minute, then gradually dissolved, its members breaking away toward the tents, alone or in small groups.

But Grayson knew that the regiment remained.

19

The mobile headquarters rested just off the ferrocrete roadway ten kilometers south of Helmdown, its parabolic ante

At the rear of the long, heavy, eight-wheeled trailer, a door swung open between a pair of armed sentries standing watch, dropping a shaft of white light into the night and across the gravel on the ground. A lone man in a tattered jacket stepped down the ramp, returned the sentries' salute, stood for a moment staring out into the darkness, then began to walk forward past the trailer. The door closed behind him, chopping off the rectangular pool of light.

A Thunderbolt,brutal scars still marring its right arm and shoulder and the heavy laser mounted along the outer forearm armor plate, turned at the man's motion, then resumed its patrol of the area. An Archerstood guard on the far side of the trailer, silent and unmoving. The air stank with the foul miasma of the diesels, and the night trembled under their heavy rumble.

Grayson lay on his stomach in the dark, his black-painted face and hands and black Special Ops uniform invisible within the shadowy foliage from only a few meters away. A whisper of movement stirred next to him. Lori placed her mouth close to his ear, but her words were scarcely more than a subvocal murmured. "Only two 'Mechs. Six sentries. No patrols."

He nodded, letting her sense the motion in the dark. Their assault force had taken nearly three hours to creep into position at this spot, ringing the huge mobile headquarters van. They had taken special care to make sure that enemy PBIs—ground infantry—had not been deployed as roving patrols and to identify the locations of any sentries with absolute precision. Lori's report meant that the last scout had reported in. Six sentries, two 'Mechs, and no patrols, at least none out at the moment.

It was time to move.

Mobile headquarters vans were frequent fixtures with regiment-sized units, though some regimental commanders, such as Grayson himself, preferred to lead their regiments from the pilot's seat of a BattleMech. Certainly, a mobile headquarters gave a skilled tactical commander a valuable tool in conducting a battle or a campaign. Colonel Langsdorf, it seemed, commanded both ways: from his Warhammerwhen engaged in relatively small, localized actions, or from his headquarters truck when conducting a far-flung, widely dispersed operation. Langsdorf's search for the Gray Death Legion was becoming frantic in its intensity.

Using Davis McCall's D2j tracker patched into an amplifier salvaged in Helmfast's ruins, Gray Death communications Techs had picked up radar signals from a high-speed multiple source rapidly inbound toward Helm. A new, higher volume of radio traffic suggested that Langsdorf's superiors were even now decelerating for a landing on Helm. Perhaps they included Lord Garth himself. If that were true, Langsdorf's activity on the ground could mean a last-ditch attempt to capture or destroy the rest of the Gray Death before the Duke's arrival.

Grayson began to crawl forward, his passage leaving little trace as he crept toward the rear of the van. As per plan, he crawled to a point some twenty meters from the ramp, then froze in position. Around him, behind him, he sensed more than heard the sounds of other raiders moving into position.

Seconds dragged.

Any sudden motion would be detected by the motion sensors of the twin BattleMech guards. Any closer, and the infrared sensors on board the 'Mechs would pick up the raiders, despite the special clothing and paint that helped cut down their body-heat signatures on an IR screen. Scarcely daring to breathe, they waited in the darkness.

Grayson had explained that the raid was necessary, vital, in fact, if the Gray Death Legion was to have a chance of getting away. If they could somehow destroy this mobile headquarters that their scouts had spotted moving south from Helmdown that afternoon, the enemy's pursuit of the Legion could be hopelessly complicated. With luck, they might even catch Langsdorf here, though the Marik Colonel seemed to spend less time in the headquarters truck than he did in the field in his Warhammer.If they could catch him, though, they might be able to bargain with his second-in-command, to win time enough for a fair hearing, or a confrontation with their accusers.

There had been no shortage of volunteers after Grayson's speech from his Marauderat the Araga River. The problems did not begin until he had begun choosing who would go. He had ruled out any of the MechWarriors, insisting that they were not expendable and that this mission would very likely result in heavy casualties.

But Grayson nevertheless found himself facing a minor mutiny, one led, he suspected, by Lori Kalmar, but enthusiastically supported by David McCall and the other men and women of A Company. They told Grayson bluntly that if he were going to be considered expendable, then they allwere expendable and they allwere going on the raid. It had taken an hour of argument before Grayson would relent. He would lead the dangerous raid, but the warriors of A Company would join him, along with thirty troops chosen from among the ranks of Ramage's Special Ops force.

Now they waited near their target, motionless, soundless, listening to the raucous mixture of shouts and song that carried across the compound even above the rumble of the van's twin diesels.

The Thunderboltseemed to stiffen, its upper torso rotating slightly as it zeroed in on the sound. The heavy 'Mech's left arm came up, zeroing in on the noise, the stubby twin barrels of its paired Voelkers 200 machine guns protruding slightly above the steel-armored wrist. Light spilled from a searchlight mounted above the Thunderbolt'scockpit, glaring into the darkness. Grayson and his comrades were careful not to look at the light or what lay in its beam. They could not afford to ruin their night vision.

Grayson didn't need to look because he knew what the searchlight had caught. Three men wove their way arm-in-arm toward the van. They sang drunkenly at the tops of their voices, and clutched half-empty bottles in hands draped across each other's shoulders.

"Halt!" The amplified voice from theThunderbolt'spilot boomed into the darkness. "Halt where you are!"

"Hey . . . ya wa

"Aye, ye grand, fell Laddie!" There was no mistaking thatvoice "Ye'll be wantin' jes' a wee li'le drop ae scotch tae warm ye, an' we'd be aye honoredi' . . ."