The Price of Glory

The hollow thunk of bullets striking armor rang through the van. Within seconds, the two 'Mechs would have their fires under control, and the Legion people firing infernos at them would be out of ammo. Marik infantry must be in the area already. They had to go now!

Grayson hurried to the van's forward room. Time to go or not, something was nagging him about the map display he had seen there. He studied the maps for several long seconds. The Legion had no up-to-date satellite scans of the area, had nothing, in fact, but old hardcopy maps of the land south of Durandel to the Nagayan Mountains. His hope was to force-march the Legion by night, starting the following night, travelling across the Dead Sea Flats and reaching the Nagayan Mountains before sun-up. In the Nagayans, they might be able to elude their pursuers a while longer, for the land there was broken with wild, forested stretches, isolated glacial valleys, and rugged passes. If they could confound their pursuers by destroying this mobile headquarters, then make the trip in a single night, they just might be able to buy some time.

A current satellite scan, complete with computer enhancement, would help.

Reaching a decision, Grayson sat down at one of the terminals. He was skilled with computers ever since his days as a teenaged apprentice with his father's mercenary company. The computer was an Omnistar 4000, a standard-military issue type that took both keyboard and voice input. He had worked with them often before, and so he sat down and rapidly began to type.

"Colonel!" DeVillar's voice came from the next room. "Colonel! She's ready to blow!"

"Don't light her off yet," Grayson said, still typing furiously.

The Lieutenant stuck his head through the i

Grayson punched a final key, then waited. The map projections on the wall screens winked off, plunging the room into complete darkness except for the glow from the terminal displays. A slotted box nearby bleeped, and a narrow memory clip rose from the slot with a slight whir.

"Right!" Grayson grabbed the clip and turned to face DeVillar. "Let's go!"

Grayson left the van first. DeVillar pulled the igniter ring on one of the satchels, and followed.

Outside the Thunderboltburned furiously against the night. Gunfire lanced among the trees, and here and there, the still, bloodied forms of dead men sprawled in the wierdly flickering light of the flames. The Archerhad doused the fires that had fallen on it, and was now sweeping the woods with laser fire, the beams blue-white and sun-brilliant in the darkness. Perhaps its pilot did not realize that Legion troopers had broken into the headquarters van, for the 'Mech's back was to the van and its pilot was directing his fire toward the woods to the north, in the direction from which the inferno rounds had come.

The Thunderboltstill burned, the fire roaring across its already damaged right arm and shoulder, flaring hotter and brighter as each move force-fed the flaming fuel with more oxygen. In the woods to the south, Legion troops fired with machine guns and small arms, plinking useless rounds against that thick-armored hide in an effort to distract its attention away from the trailer close beside it.

It almost worked. The gunfire from the woods ceased when Grayson and DeVillar burst from the rear of the van. The Thunderboltthrashed around to its left, then paused as its pilot caught sight of two men racing through the half-light away from the headquarters. From the corner of his eye, Grayson caught a glimpse of the left arm coming up, caught sight of those twin barrels embedded in the armor above the battle machine's wrist.

Then the Thunderbolt'spaired machine guns were firing, licking the air around them with tracers that danced and wavered into the woods ahead. Grayson and DeVillar threw themselves face down as the Thunderboltdescended on them from behind. Grayson rolled over, looking up at death. The Thunderbolt'sfire was almost out now, and there were no more inferno rounds coming in. Bullets whanged and keened off the armor from the south as soldiers tried futilely to turn the machine. It took another step, towering into the night, machine guns levelling for a second, final burst.

20

Then the night exploded with a brilliance far exceeding that of a burning BattleMech. Flame mounted into the sky, consuming the mobile headquarters. DeVillar and Grayson rolled face-down, covering their heads. A hurtling wall of flame belched from the open door like the blast from a flame thrower, searing the night just above their heads. A chain of explosions ate its way through the van as DeVillar's munitions erupted in a succession almost too quick to follow. Then the reserve of diesel fuel sealed in a tank underneath the cab blew off with the force of a high-explosive bomb.

The Thunderbolt,standing with its back only meters from the explosion, was thrown to the ground like a toy. The fact that that toy weighed sixty-five tons made the ground tremble, and the crash competed with the roar of the exploding van. One outflung metal arm whooshed through the air as the BattleMech toppled forward, its fist gouging into the soft ground three meters from Grayson's feet. Grayson and DeVillar were on their feet again in an instant, racing for the woods.

By the time the Thunderboltpilot regained his senses enough to bring his machine to its feet, the two men had rejoined their unit in the woods, and the Gray Death assault force was already slipping away to a rendezvous many kilometers to the east.

Once the immediate danger was past, Graff changed his piteous air for defiance. Perhaps the fact that his captors had bound and gagged him instead of killing him outright had made him bolder. While the assault team was racing back to their new encampment in the hills above the Dead Sea Flats, southwest of Durandel, they had kept Graff under close guard. They had him now inside the large bubble tent Grayson had been using as a headquarters, tied to a chair in the middle of the floor.

Grayson could see calculation glitter in the man's eyes, and knew precisely what he was thinking: If the commander of the Gray Death Legion is keeping me alive, it's for a good reason . . . probably his own survival! He won't dare hurt me if he thinks he can use me to save his own skin!

Graff's words confirmed Grayson's thought. "So, what makes you think I'll tell you one damned thing? You're history ... all of you. You must know by now that the Duke of Irian is almost here. He'll arrive in another day, and then your pathetic force will be hunted down and crushed!" Suddenly, his tone turned conspiratorial. "Of course, if you want to make a deal, maybe I can help you! There's still time, you know, before the Duke gets here with his army! I can talk to Langsdorf, you know."

Grayson felt sick as he listened to the man's attempts at manipulation. McCall stood behind Graff, his arms folded, his normally smiling features twisted into a frown. Clay paced by the door, darkness etching his features. Khaled sat on a stool in a far corner, cool and unexpressive as ever. Lori sat behind the table they had set up nearby, and rubbed at her eyes.

"Are we going to step on this worm, Gray ... or what?"

"I vote for 'Or what,' " Clay said. "A slow, lingering 'or what.' "

"Aye." McCall added. "Colonel. Just gi' me thirty wee minutes wi' tha' laddie, an' . . ."

"Quiet, all of you," Grayson said. He leaned forward until his gray eyes were level with Graff's brown ones. "Graff, to tell you the truth, I don't think you could buy me a ride into town, much less any kind of deal." He reached forward and flicked one of Graff's collar rank tabs. "What kind of pull does a Captain have over a Colonel?"