Leaning back in his big, overstuffed chair, Sun-Tzu swiveled it around and looked at the dappled green camouflage of the ivy leaves that had overgrown the French doors of the office. Hanse Davion and Justin Allard would never have been daunted by an ally's reluctance to act. I need something that will prove I am more than a junior partner in this, but not something so great that it will draw all the military retaliation against me. I need a symbol worth going after and a reward that will strengthen me if I obtain it.
Sun-Tzu nodded as an idea burst into his brain. Thirty years before, Hanse Davion had successfully subverted the Northwind Highlanders—one of the Capellan Confederation's prime military units—by returning to them their homeworld of Northwind. The loss of that planet to the Davions years earlier had left the Highlanders feeling somewhat orphaned. With his generous gesture, Hanse Davion had won the Highlanders away from the Capellan Confederation, robbing House Liao of some of its best warriors.
Sun-Tzu had established a network of agents on North-wind, but had not used them as he had used the Zhanzheng de guang on other worlds where he was funding its cells. He intended to use his network there to threaten or kill Highlanders or their kin should Victor ever decide to employ the unit against the Capellan Confederation. His success on Northwind had resulted in the creation of similar secret networks on Caph, Keid, New Home, and Epsilon Indi.
"If I activate those networks to stage coups, Thomas will be inclined to expand his umbrella and push the war further." The Chancellor steepled his fingers. "Thomas will see that I am not without resources in all manner of places. We can take this war further than he imagines, and win back worlds lost to the Davions from before even Thomas was born. This shall be done."
Charleston, Woodstock
Green Harmony Republic, League Liberation Zone
Climbing in through the hatchway in the back of the Warhammer's head, Larry Acuff shrugged himself out of the hooded great coat he had worn while waiting to move. He pulled the hatch shut behind him and spun the wheel to lock it into place, then punched the button that would bring the 'Mech's engine to life. Vibrations as the engine ignited the fusion fire bled up through his heavy boots and started his cold toes aching.
He folded the coat up and stuffed it into the locker behind his command couch, then squirmed into a seat on the couch's padded surface. As he plugged his cooling vest into a socket alongside him, the first burst of coolant circulating made him shiver. Larry knew he'd relish the coolness once they engaged the first regiment of Smithson's Chinese Bandits.
He drew the heavy neurohelmet from an overhead shelf and settled it down onto the padded shoulders of his cooling vest. Hanging down from the helmet's chin like a wispy beard were four biomed leads. Larry threaded each one through their loops on his cooling vest and clipped them to the monitor patches on his thighs and upper arms. He snapped on his restraining belts, then tightened his helmet's chinstrap, securing the neurosensors against his skull.
Computer monitors came to life all around him in the tiny cockpit. One reported on engine performance and another fed him all kinds of weather data, but the primary monitor, the one that gave him weapons status and condition remained blank. Dropping his jaw to key his microphone, he said, "Computer on, initiate cross-check."
"Voiceprint identification complete. Welcome aboard, Hauptmann Acuff. Please proceed with phrase identification and verification."
Because voiceprints could be faked, BattleMech security was maintained through a two-step process. Each pilot's voice was verified, then he was asked to repeat a phrase that he personally had programmed into the 'Mech's memory. Torturing the pilot or extensive probing of the 'Mech memory might elicit the phrase and make the 'Mech vulnerable to theft, but to actually steal a 'Mech would require an operation of such sophistication that the theft of actual line-unit 'Mechs was a thing possible only in holovid dramas. "War can look for its victims elsewhere."
"Verification obtained. Weapon systems coming up now." The primary monitor filled with an outline of his Warhammer. The extended-range PPCs, one in each arm, reported operational. Next the short-range missile launcher on his 'Mech's right shoulder came on line, followed by the medium lasers, machine gun, and anti-missile launcher in the 'Mech's torso.
Again he keyed his radio. "Trey Battalion leader all green. Company commanders report."
All three of his leftenants reported in with fully operational companies. Including his command lance, Larry had forty 'Mechs in the battalion. Though the troops were all militiamen who had seen little actual combat, they were well drilled and better skilled than most militia pilots. This was because most had grown up piloting AgroMechs on the large farms for which Woodstock was known. They might not know the deep jungles near the core of the southern continent as well as they did the fields around Charleston, but they were certainly more at home in them than the mercenaries Thomas Marik had dropped onto the world to support WELFARE'S revolution.
"Let's move out slow, Trey Bat. Don't pull your heat sinks on line until given clearance. Slow and steady wins this race."
* * *
When Kommandant Phoebe Derden-Pinkney learned, through a WELFARE broadcast, that Smithson's Chinese Bandits were incoming, she moved quickly to set up her defense. The Bandits were known as a formidable unit, but they had undergone changes since their early days of fighting for the Lyran Commonwealth. Thirty years before, attrition had reduced them from two regiments to one, with their aerospace fighters only a memory. Under Thomas Marik they'd been brought back up to two regiments, but still lacked fighter cover. The newness of their recruits also somewhat diluted their talent.
Leaving transport of the Woodstock Reserve Militia Regiment to the continent's interior to Larry and her other battalion commanders, Phoebe had decided to learn all she could about Colonel Ada Gubser, the Bandits' commander. Doing that had turned up what she felt was the key to beating the mercenaries. "You kill soldiers, you defeat commanders," she'd told Larry.
Back when the Federated Commonwealth had first taken Zurich, Ada Gubser had been a Mech Warrior in the first battalion of Trimaldi's Secutors. The Fourth Deneb Light Cavalry Regimental Combat Team had hunted the Secutors down and finally trapped them in Ling's Cusp, a rocky stronghold that was the shell of an extinct volcano. Gubser had been captured but released after the war. She joined Smithson's Chinese Bandits and rose to command of the first regiment.
Ling's Cusp was the only truly defensible position for a whole unit on the southern continent, though the uneven land around it made for some excellent tactical fire zones. The Reserve had headed into the interior and vanished, leading everyone to believe they had taken up a position in the Cusp to wait for the Bandits to attack.
The Bandits, working from Gubser's antiquated memories of the Cusp area and conditions, moved in slowly. Gubser wanted to position her troops in a way that created enough pressure to deny the Reserve units their supplies. That would create a need for the Reserve to break out of the Cusp, at which point she could engage them on a battlefield of her choosing, instead of trying to ease them out of the Cusp. Even the Davion forces back in the Fourth Succession War, with their nine-to-one advantage over the Secutors, had been cautious about charging into the Cusp.
Gubser had set her Bandits up in a formation that made it difficult for the Militia to attack. Her forward force was about five kilometers ahead of a line of hills that was to be the real line of defense for her camp. This put the forward troops a little over ten kilometers east of the Cusp's opening. The forward force was a tripwire unit that would fall back to the line of defense, delaying the Reserves enough to let the rest of the Bandits come up to their line and pick the Reserves apart.
The Bandits' actual camp was another five kilometers due east behind their hills, around the settlement of King's Down. The Bandits had cut all communication lines out of the town and set up checkpoints on the roads leading into and out of King's Down. Believing themselves secure, the mercenaries were spending most of their time
in carousing and otherwise enjoying themselves in King's Down.
What the mercs failed to realize was that the agrocombines had laid out a fiberoptic communications network of their own that independent of the old communications system the Liaos had installed. Also unknown to the Bandits, the Reserves had allies in town who were reporting on their activities through agricultural field stations. Updates on Bandit activity came in so reliably that most of the Reserves were more hooked on listening to what was going on in King's Down than the politically correct soap operas WELFARE was broadcasting from the capital, Recital City.
The Bandits' whole position had been oriented toward the Cusp and relied on sophisticated devices to help warm them of the approach of the Reserve 'Mechs. Foremost among these were small electronic sniffing units. Similar to smoke detectors, they picked up on the presence of 'Mech coolant in the air. Where there are 'Mechs, there's coolant boiling off or being pumped into heat sinks. Pick up on a concentration of coolant and you've located your enemy.
The problem for the Bandits was that the presence of coolant did not always mean 'Mechs were about. While Deuce Battalion of the Reserves had taken up residence in the Cusp, justifying the defense in depth Gubser had used, One and Trey Battalions had gone to ground in the jungles to the southeast of the Cusp, roughly ten kilometers southwest of King's Down. Because the prevailing winds of September blew in from the northwest, they carried the scent of coolant to the monitors from the Cusp, but blew away the coolant scent from the two hidden battalions.
And leaving open buckets of coolant hanging in the trees and dripping near the sniffers also produced readings sufficient to convince the Bandits they had a full regiment of 'Mechs trapped in the Cusp.
Moving those same buckets to a position more northerly also convinced the Bandits that the Reserve had sprung loose and were trying to flank their position to the north. The Bandits reacted immediately, as did the Reserve allies in King's Down, and by the time the Bandits had begun to push north, One and Trey Battalions had started their own march north.
* * *
Off to the northwest Larry saw hellacious flashes of light illuminate the sky, then he heard Phoebe's voice coming through his earphones. "One Lead to Trey Lead, Deuce has engaged. Go hot. Good luck."
"Roger, Lead." As per the plan, Deuce Battalion had come boiling out of the Cusp as the Bandits moved north. Either the tripwire force would try to hold so the other Bandits could wheel and come in through the north, or they'd pull back and hope the rest of the Bandits made it to the defense line in time to make the plan work. Trey Battalion's job was to get to the Bandits' defense line first and use it against them.
"Bring your heat sinks on, Trey." Larry hit a switch on his command console that set his Warhammer's heat sinks working. He caught a faint whiff of coolant and saw the heat levels reported on his auxiliary monitor begin to dip. Another switch brought up the holographic display that stuffed a three-sixty view of his surroundings into a one-sixty-degree arc in front of him. A gold crosshairs floated in the middle of the display, responding to his movement of the joystick on the right arm of the command couch.
"Move it people. We want to get to those positions before the Bandits do. He smiled as his Warhammer began to pick up speed. "They invited themselves to our dance, now it's time to make them pay for having so much fun."
26
I have never met or heard of troops who can withstand a night attack from the rear.
-Bernard Newman, The Cavalry Came Through
Daosha, Zurich
Zurich People's Republic, League Liberation Zone
26 September 3057
All around her on the crowded hoverbus, Cathy Hanney saw other people who looked the way she felt. The revolutionary government had wasted no time in instituting the regimentation of society. Fuel and food were rationed and power allotted on an as-needed basis that forced Daosha's civilian population to turn their lights out by ten o'clock at night. The hospital had already seen casualties from two incidents of fire caused by people using various portable stoves and other dangerous means to heat their homes after the power was shut down.
The physical privation was tolerable, but Cathy knew it was the reason she felt so tired and dull. Rick Bradford had tried to suggest that sleep, a hot shower, and a cup of espresso would straighten her out, but the latter two were nowhere to be found on the planet, and sleep refused to come. She knew that was partly because of the depression into which she'd sunk, but possessing the clinical knowledge to diagnose her condition did nothing to cure it.
She knew the depression had begun when Noble Thayer had failed to call her on the eighteenth. They'd had no special plans, but they usually stayed in touch by phone. When Cathy tried to call him, she got no answer.
The next day Ken Fox had come looking for her at the hospital. "If you see Noble, tell him not to go back to the apartment. Seems like he really made some people mad." He wouldn't say more than that, only that she was better off not knowing, then he'd vanished as well.
Noble and Fox weren't the only ones disappearing. People who came to the hospital gossiped in the waiting room, and a lot of tears were shed over stories that sounded horribly similar: a knock at the door. People's Security Committee officers asking for someone in particular, then carting him or her off for a "debriefing" from which that person never returned.
Every time she began to think Noble might have been arrested by the security forces, she felt a vise tightening on her heart. It's like they say, you never know what you have until it's taken away from you. She hadn't realized how attached she'd become. She and Noble had been intimate, but the fact that they didn't live together had given her an illusion of independence—an illusion that his disappearance shattered. Looking back she could see how she had gradually fallen into his orbit—and enjoyed every minute of it.
She leaned back in her seat, glancing idly at the placards riding above the hoverbus windows. Xu Ning, looking stern as rendered in stippled grays, glared down at her. "State Security begins with YOU!" the advert told her. Those posters had chilled her when they'd appeared overnight in the buses, but Cathy noticed that in the next one over some street artist had given Xu Ning floppy bunny ears. She would have smiled or laughed except that the hard stare of a woman in the olive drab uniform of a revolutionary bureaucrat killed the mirth in her heart.
The bus fishtailed slightly as the driver reduced the speed on the forward fan and bumped the vehicle against the curb at Cathy's stop. She got up and descended from the bus through the back door. She turned away quickly as the bus powered up, but most of the debris had been blown away when the bus came to a stop, so her legs only got pelted with a little sand.
Cathy glanced up the street toward her apartment house, giving a little sigh as she tried to decide what to do next. She could go straight home and hope to find a message from Noble on her digital answering service, or she could head back up the street to the corner grocery and see if they had anything approximating fresh fruit for her to take to the hospital. The fact that a derelict sucking on a bottle sheathed in a paper sack had taken up residence in the shade alongside her building almost sent her toward the store, but the bottle reminded her of some returnable ones she had waiting to go back. They wouldn't get her much, but with inflation running rampant, anything was something.
Pulling her sweater tight around her against the first cool breeze of evening, Cathy started toward her apartment house. At first she paid little attention to the gleaming black limousine that had silently pulled up at the corner. Then she smiled to herself, thinking that Noble might somehow be a passenger in the vehicle, but the smile died when the doors opened and two Security Committee members stepped out.
The one from the driver's side, a man with a crooked nose, pulled his cap on and smiled at her. "Excuse me. Are you Cathy Hanney?"
Cathy nodded. "I am. Is there something I can do for you?"
"We hope so, ma'am." The man's tone would have been casual enough to put Cathy
at ease had not his partner been fingering the butt of the gun on her hip and moving around toward Cathy's back. "We need your assistance in a investigation."
Cathy glanced back at the woman standing between her and the stairs to her apartment, then turned to the man again. "What sort of investigation?"
"I can't tell you that right now, Ms. Hanney. We have to discuss this down at headquarters."
"No, I don't think so." Cathy looked back the way she had come. "Leave me alone."
"Can't do that, ma'am. You're coming with us. Don't try to run." He shrugged easily. "If you do, we'll shoot you in the legs. You're going to tell us what we want to know anyway, so why get yourself crippled first?"
Charleston, Woodstock
Green Harmony Republic, League Liberation Zone
This is nothing like Solaris. Standing with his 'Mech's feet about five meters below the crestline of the hill, Larry Acuff brought the crosshairs around and dropped it onto the outline of one of Smithson's Chinese Bandits Shadow Hawks. A gold dot pulsed in the middle of the crosshairs, but he refrained from triggering his weapons. He glanced at his secondary monitor and waited until the computer reported that most of his company's 'Mechs had target locks. "Fire at will!"
With the words of that command he tightened up on the triggers beneath his index and middle fingers. Heat exploded in the cockpit as he fired both PPCs and his lasers. Like bright blue lightning the PPC fire burned through the darkened distance between the two 'Mechs and drilled into the Shadow Hawk's right flank and chest. Fluid gobbets of melted armor flew from the 'Mech as the sudden evaporation of a ton and a quarter of armor unbalanced the war machine. The laser's ruby lances skewered the turning 'Mech in both the left and right flanks, carving into the right side of its chest down to eggshell-thin armor.