BattleTech : Mechwarrior - Dark Age 01 - Ghost War (2002)

  Elle returned the kiss, slipping her fingers into my hair, and holding my mouth on hers until, I'm guessing, the groans from the bar had reached a piteous enough note. I gasped, as did she, then she licked her lips and smiled. "I'm happy to see you, too, Sam."

  "And you weren't waiting in my room because?" "Colonel Niemeyer of Public Safety obtained a court order to plant listening devices in there.

  The order was sealed, of course, but . . ." She bridged her fingers and cracked her knuckles. "I can't cut off the data flow, so you had to be warned."

  "I'd actually assumed someone was listening in, so all I do is sing in the shower."

  "You might talk in your sleep."

  "Good point. Did I on Helen?" A flicker of annoyance tightened her features. "Let's not talk about Helen, shall we?" I nodded, then looked at her carefully. "Tell me, then, what else is going on. It's something more urgent, else you'd have left me a note I'd figure out."

  Elle lowered her voice and leaned into me, nibbling at my left earlobe as she whispered.

  "Gypsy has authorized a mission two nights from now. It's at the Hanse Highway and Thirty-ninth Avenue. He wants to hit a communications switching station. It will take communications down for the Heights. Catford didn't like it initially, but he thinks he can make it work with a few hovercars."

  I let myself laugh as I thought. I didn't know the city that well, but Hanse Highway had exits every fifth street, so the closest there was Fortieth. That would make getting out difficult if things went bad, since heading east on Thirty-ninth would lead directly into the twisting, hilly warrens of the Heights. Catford was right to not like the situation, and it was rather typical of him to think he could change things to his favor somehow.

  I whispered back to her. "Why tell me?" "I thought you might be able to take a look and give me your thoughts tomorrow night. If the plan can be modified, it should be. Things are going so well, we don't want to lose control now."

  I pulled back and looked her in the eyes. "You're risking a lot. If you have to tell Gypsy to abort, you'll need to tell him you told me his plans."

  "If we need to abort, he won't care. If we don't, he won't know."

  "Fair enough." I thought for a moment, then nodded. "I'll check it out and meet you here for breakfast day after tomorrow."

  Elle frowned. "Why so long?" "To know if the plan is going to work, I need to study the area and that will be a day and night job. Order something filling for me, and lots of coffee, very strong." I gave her another kiss, just for appearances sake. "You were right to bring this to me. No disasters this late in the game."

  As I told her, figuring out what sort of plan would work to take the place out would take a lot of work. I got up bright and early the next morning, packed a day bag with some clothes and a pair of nice digital binoculars, then took a hovercab to a rental agency. I procured a Cabochon Hovercar which, I was assured, was the most popular model on the planet because of its safety construction.

  That meant it was small, boxy, heavy, sluggish, cheap, ugly and unlikely to attract any notice at all. In an accident I'd be protected enough not to die, though the embarrassment of being caught in it might just do the job.

  And I did pay extra for insurance. I did that on a whim, but some of Elle's uneasiness had transferred itself to me. I normally am not superstitious in the least, so I hate it when I get "feelings" of impending doom. Still, whenever I do I take appropriate action to combat them, and I can't think of many situations where that has been the wrong thing to do.

  I drove around the site, which was Basalt Public Digicom Routing Station No. 8. The brick building rose to two stories for most of its rectangular length. The front had a single story and lots of windows, serving as a store where service could be purchased and bills could be paid. It had a small

  parking lot in front, and a longer one on the south side. The highway passed in front of it, elevated to twice the height of the building, and Thirty-ninth Avenue paralleled the long north side. A wire fence surrounded the perimeter and cameras mounted on light poles monitored everything, but beyond that I saw almost nothing in the way of security.

  In my recon effort I constantly checked to see if I was being watched, but I couldn't detect any surveillance on me. I felt fairly confident that I was clean, but did periodic sweeps in case someone ran across me accidentally and started to follow me. Starting at No. 8, I worked out in a spiral, noting the location of Constabulary precinct houses, fire houses and anything else that looked suspicious-which wasn't much in this mostly Davion section of town. I could have noted any buildings suited to housing BattleMechs-there were certainly a few of them-but their exact locations were not important. The fact that they existed within my search area was not a good sign, but any 'Mechs or troops hidden therein could only be brought into play if the mission failed to get in and out quickly.

  I watched throughout the day, pausing only to get lunch and then supper at nearby restaurants where workers from the center ate. I didn't pick up much in the way of gossip. The heaviest shift traffic was during daylight hours. It nearly filled the employee lot, but the second shift appeared to be nothing more than a few security personnel. This boded well for minimizing casualties, and calling in a bomb threat to the plant just prior to the strike might guarantee all security personnel exited the building.

  In fact, such a call coming in from FfW folks disguised as bomb removal teams would work really well. They could go in, wire the place, then come back out and say it was badly compromised. It goes up, they light out, and the damage is done without anyone getting hurt. I liked that idea and would certain pass it on through Elle so Gypsy could employ it.

  By early evening it became apparent that the site was not quite as badly situated as I had feared.

  While it was not close enough to the highway to let that be a fast escape route, Thirty-ninth Avenue had such light traffic that heading west into the city would be easy to do. While I did not like Catford as a person, his defense of the Emblyn Palace did show some tactical sense. If he timed the strike for sometime after midnight, things could work.

  In fact, Catford had the attack go off at 12:06 A.M.

  While I watched.

  My mind began to race as a trio of hoverbikes-military gradehoverbikes-came screaming up Thirty-ninth, cut south and bumped up over the curb. They came into the smaller parking lot and pointed their lasers at the building. In unison the pilots cut loose, sending coruscating beams of ruby energy into the switching station. The glass windows melted as if they were ice. Things inside the store combusted instantly, but did nothing to stop the beams.

  The hoverbikes waggled back and forth, like children squirming. Their beams played side to side, working up and down. I couldn't see how deeply they pierced the structure, but one lanced out through a side wall while the others touched off more fires. Secondary explosions shook the building and one or two alarms that began to wail shut off immediately as some vital equipment melted.

  More important than what they were doing, however, was the sudden advent of Public Safety Department agents in Hauberk battle armor. In teams of three they ran from nearby buildings. The heavy armor, painted an urban gray that worked well to camouflage them in the night, gave them bulk and deadliness. Unlike the way such armor appears in Tri-Vids, no lights illuminated the agents' faces.

  They remained dark and brooding-no less sinister even without the bulk of the LRM launcher packs they would have carried on a battlefield.

  As two troop carriers appeared around the corner from Thirty-ninth and began disgorging troops, a voice boomed from one of the power-armor teams. Despite the distortion, I recognized it as Niemeyer's voice. "Stop! Police! You're under arrest. Don't make us . . ."

  Even before he could finish, two more hoverbikes raced north on the access road that paralleled the highway. Their forward-mounted Gatling cannons vomited fire and metal, scything through armored troops. One laser lanced scarlet fire through a troop carrier. The vehicle exploded, casti
ng silhouetted figures in grand arcs through the night sky. When they landed, they crumpled and lay still.

  Niemeyer's troops returned fire. The unarmored officers had little effect, save to play bullets over the hoverbike hulls. One driver did shy, turning his vehicle, so a small laser beam from one Hauberk armor suit burned into his spine. That hoverbike jetted forward, then crashed into a hovercar parked on the side of the road.

  More explosions shook the switching center and part of the building sagged. As the roof collapsed, jets of flame shot out the black scars in the front. Burning debris gushed out, then rained down in a hellish snow. Lasers flashed, burning red and green, bullets flew, striking sparks and spinning men to the street.

  Then, from atop the highway, a dozen and a half LRMs arced down and sowed fire over the parking lot. The first hoverbike flew into the air, tumbling end over end. The pilot went one way, bits and pieces another, until the burning hull smashed down. The fans shredded themselves, spitting shrapnel into the air.

  The second hoverbike just evaporated while the third went spinning out of control. It plowed into armored troops, which scattered like toys. A second gout of flame from the center washed over that vehicle. The pilot vanished and the hoverbike burned.

  The launch of missiles from a Catapult had shattered the FfW assault. The 'Mech came running along the highway, closing almost to a range where his missiles would not work. I assume that was because he wasn't going to launch again, but this assumption was misplaced. Fire blossomed in the left shoulder launcher and, at this range, he couldn't miss what he was shooting at.

  I hit the accelerator on the Cabochon and whipped the wheel around. The vehicle shot across the battle zone and edged around one of the burning hoverbikes. Turning right, I cut the back fan to drag the rear. Sparks shot from behind me as the hovercar slowed, then I killed the forward fan and ducked my head.

  Had one of the LRMs hit me dead on, no matter the Cabochon's safety record, I'd have been clean dead. The explosions playing toward me ripped up reinforced roadway, snapped light poles and blew fencing apart as if it were cheesecloth in a gale. The closest bounced the hovercar a meter in the air, and the landing left an imprint of the steering wheel on my forehead. The shrapnel took the roof off and shattered the windows, but the side panels were enough to deflect a lot. I felt a sting in my legs as some of the safety panels spalled off, but the pain told me my legs were still there, which I counted as a plus.

  Most importantly, however, the Cabochon shielded Niemeyer and his crew. The only reason to shoot again was to kill him, and the only person who would want him dead would be Bernard. That put Bernard or his agent in the Catapult andthat started all manner of things running around in my brain.

  Niemeyer popped up on the passenger side and, though his face was hidden behind smoked glass, I could almost see his eyes widen when he saw me.

  "Get your men in here, we're going NOW! " "No."

  "It's your ass that thing wants dead. Leave and your people are safe." I kicked both fans on.

  "Get in unless you want them to die."

  Snarling, he boosted a wounded man into the backseat, piled another on top, then tore the passenger door off the Cabochon. He knelt on the seat as I hit the accelerator and spun the hovercar around. I drove toward theCatapult , then under the highway overpass. We emerged going fast, cutting back and forth across lanes. I figured it was an even-odds shot that we'd get a couple of flights of missiles once we were in range, so I hit the first small cross street, and then another.

  "If he's going to shoot us, he'll wipe a lot of real estate."

  Niemeyer grunted. "Bernard?" "My guess. In the morning media he'll have saved Public Service operatives from an FfW ambush. Someone sold the FfW to him, and you to him."

  "And we were sold to FfW. Set up." His right arm swung and snapped the jagged roof post off.

  "Next right, then along Fiftieth to the hospital."

  "With all speed."

  "Yeah, with all speed." A low growl sounded from him. "Just the way my world is going to hell."

  35

  He who wants to kill a snake must aim for its head.

  - Danish saying

  Manville, Capital District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  24 February 3133

  We reached the hospital quickly and both of Niemeyer's people were rushed into the trauma center. He should have been looked at first, but he wasn't going to let them drug him until his men were out of danger or while there was a possibility that I might get away. I gave him my word I'd not leave, which he laughed at. He had me join him in a trauma room, where the doctors took care of both our shrapnel wounds.

  In the trauma room I looked down at my bloody trouser legs. "See, no running away for me anyway."

  He just grunted as they began to peel him out of the armor. His chest plate had been punctured and the armor on the right shoulder had been ripped away. No gashes there, but a licking tongue of flame had clearly toasted him a bit. Interns pulled shrapnel from him and applied sutures, while medtechs slathered unguents on the burns.

  Interns similarly worked on me and, like Niemeyer, I passed on anything more than local anesthesia. He didn't want to pass out and I didn't want to become a babbling idiot. While I had enough evidence to have Bernard arrested, and enough circumstantial evidence to have Emblyn picked up, it would have been for minor offenses. The prosecution would have dragged on while the war for Basalt continued. The winner would pardon himself and the loser would likely be executed for minor crimes.

  Minor crimes all wrapped up as a treasonous conspiracy.

  Aside from grunts and the occasional hiss, Niemeyer and I fell silent. The doctors talked, forceps clicked and shrapnel clanked into metal pans. I pushed all that and the little tugs and pinches away. I needed to gather my thoughts because Niemeyer would be on me hard and fast. I had to figure out what I was going to tell him.

  I couldn't tell him the truth. My claims of being a Ghost Knight would be looked upon askance and, with the HPG network down, couldn't be verified by anyone on Basalt. While I could send reports in through local staffers, they would just treat them like agent reports. While mine might be accorded higher priority than others, there would be nothing in their handling to compromise my identity.

  Regardless of that, I still didn't have enough evidence to put the principals away. With Bernard willing to kill Niemeyer and his men, arrest became a moot point. There really wasn't an authority on the planet that could stop him, unless it was someone who was going to terminate him. And, if that were to happen, there would be nothing to stop Emblyn from completing his takeover of the world, since all the attacks had left the people's trust of the government in tatters.

  Bernard had successfully hit on one point that seemed like a way out of the LIT trap. His appearance at Number 8 to smash the attack-much akin to Reis' antics on Helen-elevated him to the image of a strong, central authority figure with the power to hit back at the enemy. If he were able to capitalize on this political asset, it would make him very strong.

  The problem with LIT is that halting such a campaign is like nailing gelatin to a wall. Yes, Bernard did stop one attack, though not until it had done an incredible amount of damage. Not only did it take out Number 8, but it devastated a contingent of Public Safety Department officers. While their deaths would ratchet up the public's concern, and would invest Bernard's calls for vengeance with some power, Bernard could never command enough in the way of troops to put a stop to the FfW attacks. He couldn't have troops everywhere all at once, and absent that, some sites were going to be vulnerable. Without completely subverting the system of civil liberties guaranteed by The Republic, Ff W could not be stopped.

  I realized that thinking about that was getting ahead of things. In the hovercar with Niemeyer we'd hit on the core understanding of the raid that I needed to sort out. Gypsy had planned the raid and turned it over to Catford to execute. Someone had sold the raid to
Niemeyer, though the chances of my learning who that was from him were zero. The same individual might have sold Niemeyer back to Catford, but I doubted that. Catford could have easily had troops in reserve waiting for trouble. If nothing else they could have been used to cut off pursuit or secure an alternate escape route and Catford was cunning enough to deploy forces to do just that.

  I already knew that Bernard had people in Public Safety on his payroll, so they clearly sold the operation to him. I wasn't sure if the guys working for Bernard would have expected him to try to assassinate Niemeyer. If they suspected Niemeyer was watching them, they might have. That was really another moot point since Bernard could have had dozens of reasons to want Niemeyer dead, right down to not realizing he was there and just wanting Public Safety bodies to blame on Ff W. The idea that killing Public Safety officers might move his agents up in the organization could not be discounted either.

  Elle was a wild card in the mix. She'd clearly told me the operation would be going off twenty- four hours later than it did. Gypsy could have moved the timetable up, though Catford likely would have balked at that. Gypsy could have misled her for whatever reason, or she could have lied to me. It didn't make much sense for her to do that, but that fit with the odd nature of the conflict here.

  Bernard's escalation of things did make sense-frightening sense. His action, while unilateral, would show FfW to be an enemy of the state in a very direct and threatening way. His military reaction to their effort-as opposed to Niemeyer's law enforcement one-made them into a military threat. Calling up the Basalt Militia and arraying them against FfW could now be easily done. With inside knowledge of what FfW was doing, he could hurt them, giving his forces an advantage if Gypsy decided to stage a military coup.

  As I thought it over, it seemed to me inevitable that things would come to some BattleMech slugging match worthy of a Solaris championship. Frankly, that solution would have suited me well, since it would have limited the size of the conflict, confined it to an arena, and would have chosen a winner without ripping apart the lives of a lot of folks.