CHAPTER SEVEN
Zenith Jump Point
Falcon’s Beacon
Deep Periphery
29 September 3071
The screeching klaxon brought Star Captain Fordham out of a sound sleep. He slapped at the five-point harness holding him into the zero-G sleeping pack strapped against his cabin wall and pushed toward the intercom panel. He’d been captain of the Star Lord-class JumpShip Admiral Garrett for six years. Moving in microgravity was like breathing to him.
“Report!”
“Sir, we have a jump signature. Danger close.”
Fordham’s eyes widened as his mind pushed the last vestiges of sleep out of his awareness. “ETA?”
“Minutes.”
“Big, then.” Fordham thought, trying to remember the patrol schedules of the Ice Hellions’ other deep space patrols. There were too many, and the invasion had shot them all to hell in any case. “How close?”
“Danger close, but not overlapping.” An incoming JumpShip created a large IR signature before it emerged from hyperspace. The size of the signature was dependent on the number of DropShip collars vessel mounted and the distance it had traveled.
“All right. Send the flotilla to general quarters and get the CAP warmed up. I am on my way.” He toggled the intercom off and pushed away from the wall with his fingertips. His uniform jacket was across the room. He kept his fingers in contact with the wall and brought his toes up, intending to push off and snag the jacket on the way. The intercom pulsed again.
“Fordham.”
“It is here,” the watchstander said.
“It?”
“A Whirlwind.”
Fordham leapt for his hatch, jacket forgotten. “IFF?”
“Emerald Tornado, sir.”
Fordham keyed the hatch open. There weren’t that many active Whirlwinds in service with the Clans. He recognized the name. This particular destroyer was in service with Clan Jade Falcon. The very Clan his brother and sister Hellions were busy attacking in the Inner Sphere. The very Clan he was bringing all these megatons of supplies forward from Hector to support. “The CAP?” He slid out his open hatch into the corridor.
“The pilots are not even to their birds yet, sir.”
Fordham kicked, hard, for the lift. He’d worry about stopping against the back wall of the lift, assuming the door slid open quickly enough. If he hit too hard there was a good chance he’d break something, maybe get an injury he’d feel for the rest of his life.
But that seemed like a minor concern at the moment. Especially when his life might be measured in minutes.
Whirlwind-class destroyer Emerald Tornado
Falcon’s Beacon
Deep Periphery
29 September 3071
Star Admiral Carlos Binetti was trying to focus on the holotank and shake off the residual disorientation from the jump at the same time. The tank had to be on the fritz. There couldn’t be that many JumpShips at Falcon’s Beacon. It was a Watch outpost; maybe a Star of warriors and support staff and some warehouses. Founder’s bones, it wasn’t even on half of the old maps!
“We are getting IFF,” a technician announced. Binetti glanced at the man, then looked back into the tank. The images there flickered as names and flags were appended. “Sir—”
The JumpShips were Ice Hellions.
Binetti’s eyes snapped into focus. Behind him, he heard Emerald Tornado’s captain, Star Captain Charlotte von Jankmon, bark orders. “Secure from jump stations. Set condition one throughout the ship!”
Ice Hellions. Here.
“Star Captain von Jankmon,” he said. “I do not want a single one of these stravags to leave.”
“Roger that, sir.” Charlotte von Jankmon was a small, angry-looking woman. She kept her hair shaved to a centimeter’s length, which did nothing for her round face and plain brown eyes. Not that she cared. In the eight months since Emerald Tornado had left Ironhold Binetti had not once seen nor heard of her coupling with anyone. She was a naval officer and little else.
And right now he needed the officer.
“Signal the Ice Hellions,” Binetti ordered. “Standard batchall.”
Von Jankmon came to float near him. “If they scatter,” she whispered, “some of the DropShips may outrun us.” The DropShips—some of them—would have higher available acceleration than the Whirlwind, and Emerald Tornado could only chase in one direction. With 360 degrees in three axes available, most of the DropShips would evade capture. Binetti grinned. Not that they would. There was nowhere they could go without their interstellar JumpShips, and those couldn’t maneuver.
He looked at von Jankmon. Her eyes flicked around the tank, cataloguing ships and classes. Binetti had been in WarShips for his entire career, but no one read a holotank like Charlotte von Jankmon. “Mostly merchies.”
“Escorts?”
“CIC will have the numbers,” von Jankmon said. “I only see a couple of Broadswords.”
“Very well.” Binetti licked his lips. “In that case, Star Captain, fight your ship.”
The smile that blossomed on Charlotte von Jankmon’s plain face was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with beauty. She twisted away.
“Spin up the drive, Hayes.” Her voice was almost giddy. “It is time to go catch us some guppies.”
Zenith Jump Point
Falcon’s Beacon
Deep Periphery
29 September 3071
By the time Fordham reached Admiral Garrett’s bridge, he’d already made his decision. He swam out of the lift toward his central command chair and climbed into the familiar cradle. The bridge crew—largely technician castemen—were dutifully paying attention to their consoles. The large holotank forward was showing a tactical display. The flock of Ice Hellion JumpShips showed as blue arranged in a loose sphere; the solitary red icon—Emerald Tornado—was near the center, but not quite.
The red caret moved toward the center. Apparently the Falcon commander had realized his mistake. Fordham pressed a key on his tactical screen that would pulse the CAP aerospace fighters—their icons might be lost in the clutter. He looked at the holotank, watching for blue flashes. There were none. What the—
“Where is the CAP?”
Suleiman, the technician manning the radar plot, turned his head to look at Fordham. “None have launched yet.”
“None—?” Fordham closed his eyes. This actually worked better for his plan, but the sheer fact that his combat aerospace patrol fighters hadn’t left their tubes galled him. They had drilled the entire jump series from Hector. These same fighters had participated in the capture of the small Watch station on Falcon’s Beacon. Had they become so complacent with one paltry victory?
Perhaps we deserve this defeat.
A tone sounded behind him. “Sir, we are receiving the Falcon’s batchall.” Castro’s voice was flat. Fordham smiled, looking at his chest. “I can forward it to your station—“ Fordham cut him off.
“Concede.”
“Sir?”
Fordham looked up, eyes staring into the holotank at the floating blue icons. The defenseless—or nearly so—JumpShips of his flotilla. His charges. His responsibility. “Tell the Falcon commander we surrender.”
“Yes, sir…” Castro’s voice was hesitant, but Fordham heard him keying the message into his console. Fordham didn’t look. He didn’t want to see the words that destroyed his career—maybe his Clan—prepared.
The lift door opened again. Fordham looked, saw his second-in-command hurtle from the lift. Star Commander Vicenzo caught a technician’s chair back to arrest his flight and looked at the holotank. “Founder’s bones,” he spat. Vicenzo was a young warrior, barely two years out of his sibko. His hair was too long for space, but he refused to cut it. Instead, he kept it pulled into a short, tight ponytail that pulled at the skin on his forehead. He looked at Fordham, nodded once, and then stared back into the tank.
“Where are the escorts?” He frowned. “Where are the CAP fighters?” He tugged himself around to face Castro at the communications console. “Castro, order the escorts launched. Find out why the CAP is not in space.” Without waiting for a reply, he looked at Fordham again. “Have we received a batchall?”
Fordham nodded.
“Terms?”
Fordham opened his mouth, but Vicenzo looked past him. “Castro, I gave you an order,” he said. “Send the orders.”
“I have surrendered.”
Vicenzo’s mouth hung open. He blinked several times. “You what?”
“I have surrendered the flotilla, Star Commander,” he said, emphasizing the younger man’s rank. “It is done.”
“Sir—” The word came out half-strangled. A flush crept up Vicenzo’s pale skin, from his neck first but then crowding around his temples and across his face. “You cannot just give up.” He gestured to the holotank. “You know as well as I do that the supplies on those DropShips are the lifeblood of our Clan. Without them…”
“We cannot fight a destroyer.”
“But—”
“We. Cannot.”
Vicenzo exhaled. “You have killed our Clan.” He looked stunned, dazed, as if he’d taken a blow. And perhaps he had, to his pride and his tidy mental framework of the universe. Fordham had the same reaction on the lift, but he’d been alone and had more years—more disappointments—than Vicenzo to make him familiar with the sensation of loss of control.
Vicenzo shuddered. “I will not let you,” he said, sudden steel in his voice. “I will challenge you to a Trial of—”
“Tell me how to do it, then!” Fordham shouted, and regretted it.
No one moved on the bridge. On one level, none of the technician castemen were going to involve themselves in an argument between two of the warrior caste. On another, more personal, level, no one had ever—ever—heard Fordham raise his voice. Now they watched the older Clansman climb out of the cradle of displays and restraints in the command chair and push off toward his second.
“Tell me,” he growled. “Tell me how I can fight a WarShip when the fighters have not left their bays. Tell me how I can take a handful of light DropShips—’Mech carriers, not assault ships—against a destroyer. Tell me how I can do those things—from rest!—when I am facing a WarShip whose weapons outrange mine by a factor of ten?” He grabbed a stanchion and stopped, face-to-face and chest-to-chest with Vicenzo.
“Tell me,” he said.
Vicenzo gobbled.
“To. Fight. Is. To. Die. It is that simple.”
Doctrine grabbed ahold of Vicenzo. “But to just give up…”
“Our deaths earn the Clan nothing. We fight, we die, and none of these supplies reach our warriors in the Inner Sphere. We surrender, and none of these supplies reach our warriors in the Inner Sphere.” Fordham squeezed the stanchion, hoping no one would notice the shaking tension in his arms. “Tell me.”
Vicenzo looked from Fordham to the holotank. His eyes unfocused—Fordham, watching closely, saw his pupils dilate—and Fordham knew he was seeing through the hull, through time and space, to where the Ice Hellion touman was fighting and dying.
“The Clan—” he said, but stopped.
Fordham nodded. “Our defeat was certain the moment that destroyer left hyperspace.”
Vicenzo didn’t hear him. “The Clan,” he said again.
Cabletown
Steelton
Clan Ice Hellion Occupation Zone
29 September 3071
The pain was not real. Tanda Ho Jang knew that, but watching another of her brother warrriors’ death sent pangs through her soul. No part of her body was hurt, but pain was an artifact of the mind, and her mind screamed with impotence. With pain. Familiar pain.
And beneath, a hint of shame.
I should have challenged Damon Hawkins then.
The past two weeks had been a pure form of Hell. The bidding against the Hell’s Horses had been handled by Galaxy Commander Hawkins, but the fighting had involved all of the Clusters of Delta Galaxy before it was done. Not that Damon Hawkins had lived to see it—his Warhawk had been destroyed during the first skirmish, felled by a Point of Hell’s Horses Gnome battlesuits. Star Colonel Scott Moore had taken over the Galaxy as the senior officer, and they had pressed the attack.
The attack they were never supposed to make. Tanda didn’t let herself think about the alliance with the Hell’s Horses they’d almost certainly sundered by coming here. It had been Damon Hawkins’ decision, and he was dead.
It fell to his officers to deal with the aftermath.
Her own Third-third Striker Irregulars had performed as well as she could have expected. The only Cluster in the Ice Hellions’ touman to embrace the assault ’Mech, the Thirty-third was a hammer most Ice Hellions never expected to use—and few opponents expected them to field. The Hell’s Horses had their own share of assault ’Mechs and the doctrine to use them, but across those two weeks the Hellions of Delta Galaxy had pushed them back, until there was nothing left but the spaceport in Cabletown. The Horses were withdrawing, and after the first horrible orbital battle, the Ice Hellion’s didn’t have the strength to stop them.
The debris from the exploding Kit Fox had barely struck the ground before the Ice Hellions’ killers, a pair of Epona hovertanks, sped through the smoky cloud toward her. Both of the OmniVehicles were in the beta configuration. Big-bore Ultra autocannons barked at her, but neither of the streams of high-explosive shells hit her ’Mech. Tanda pushed the pain down and snarled at the heads-up display. Come this way, plastic toys. She shoved her OmniMech’s throttle forward and forgot about her pain.
Her Ebon Jaguar, sixty-five tons of fighting death designed by the now-dead Smoke Jaguar Clan, shoved itself into a running lope. Her crosshairs flickered as the tanks came into range. She chose the port-side tank as her first target and fired. Paired extended-range large laser beams flickered out, painting the tank’s bow in brilliance for half an instant before the hovertank’s thin armor succumbed and crumpled. The Epona went from an angular, graceful assault tank to a rolling fireball. She screamed in triumph and jerked the controls to the side, bringing the charging OmniMech around to face the other tank. It had sped in close while its Pointmate died.
Short-range missiles roared from its launchers and peppered the Ebon Jaguar with explosions. Tanda rode the shocks, concentrating on the keeping the ’Mech on its feet. If the Epona was close enough to hit her with Streak short-range missiles… She slammed the Ebon Jaguar’s clawed left foot down and spun, bringing her torso-mounted autocannon to bear. She looked for the flicker in her crosshairs, saw it—
—the Ebon Jaguar shook as its 200-millimeter Ultra autocannon vomited fire—
—the Epona disappeared beneath the hammer of the big rounds—
—and it was gone.
Tanda breathed deeply. The air in her cockpit was hot, fresh with the smells of her sweat and overworked cooling conduits. Her skin was rubbed near-raw beneath her combat suit, battered by sweat being evaporated by heat and the replaced by new sweat.
She was tired.
“Star Colonel Ho Jang.” Tanda blinked. A blue-white Ice Hellion Stormcrow had appeared alongside her Ebon Jaguar. She queried its IFF and raised an eyebrow at the ID.
“Star Colonel Moore.”
“There are indications the Hell’s Horses are leaving,” Moore said. He sounded as tired as Tanda felt. “One more push, one more Trial. We can take their DropShips as isorla. That might make up for…” Tanda heard the sneer of disgust in his tone, “this.”
“You really think anything will make up for this?”
Tanda released her controls long enough to shake her hands vigorously. Her fingertips tingled with fresh blood, new sensation. When she gripped her controls again she felt the trembling motion of the Ebon Jaguar’s restrained power. One last push.
“The batchall is yours, Tanda.” The Stormcrow turned away. “As is the honor.”
Tanda signaled her Trinary commanders and throttled up toward the city. She would do it, because it was duty. And duty was much.
But there is no honor on Steelton.