"On her way," a sergeant shouted as a blonde with a first-aid box raced into the church. She was beside the radio operator a minute later.
"A few steps will need watching on the way down," was her only comment about the trip up. She took over caring for the radio operator as L. J. gently removed the equipment from his bloodstained hands.
Mallary righted the table, and the Chief again spread out the map.
L. J. checked the radio, found it still on A"s allotted command frequency and called Art. "XO, you there?"
"Yes, but I"ll never enjoy the smell of a bakery again," he said. "We"ve got wheat and corn burying half the company. We"ve got hovertanks on their backs like turtles. We"re digging troops out as fast as we can." From the sound of heavy breathing, Art was doing that while talking. "Is anything else headed our way?"
"I"m up a church steeple in the center of town. I can"t see past the smoke in your sector."
"Fourth Platoon, get an observation post on the other side of that d.a.m.n river," came as a distant shout over the radio. "I"ll get back to you as soon as I know anything. We"re kind of busy, sir."
"Stay busy. The Aid Station is still en route. I"ll have them join you as soon as possible," L. J. said. Then he called the company support column under the Adjutant.
"Eddie, A Company is bleeding from an explosion."
"We saw the cloud. For a second I wondered if there was a Blakist around here throwing atomics."
"No, just more dual use of civilian stuff," L. J. growled. "They need your medics and supplies, and I need the artillery. Someone"s shooting at us with long-range stuff sighted on preselected targets."
"They haven"t done that before."
"First time for everything."
"We"ll put on all the speed this road will allow."
"See you soon," L. J. said, and switched frequencies. D Company was flashing. "Hanson."
"Chang here, sir. They"ve got quite a demonstration going on the west side. I make it a dozen "Mechs on the next ridge. They"ve got infantry. Some I can see. A whole lot I can"t. Gun trucks with machine guns and grenade launchers. I"d say they"re at battalion strength at least. I"m digging in to defend, sir, but if they start spreading out, they can overreach both my flanks."
L. J. stared off to the west trying to see what at least one ridge hid from him. Could these guys maneuver? If Chang hit them, would they fire and fall back? Maybe trip over themselves? h.e.l.l, Chang was only outnumbered three to one; he should be able to take a bunch of green civilians.
L. J. started to click the radio, then remembered this might be the group that had at least one attack, maybe two under their belts. Sure, they"d only chewed up Black and Reds, but they"d taken fire and still chewed them up.
"Chang, probe "em. See if you can make them do something. Charge. Retreat. Something."
"I"ll get back to you, sir. What was that big bang?"
"A Company is up to its ears in popcorn," L. J. said.
"Okay, sir. Excuse me for asking. I was just curious," said the man, who didn"t believe the answer he got and wasn"t going to push his CO. L. J. didn"t have time to set the record straight. C Company was flashing. He changed frequencies.
"Sir, there are an awful lot of bad guys on my front. Right now they"re not doing much more than looking at us look at them, but "Mechs keep walking over a ridge and walking back. There could be four of them, there could be forty."
"How are they armed?"
"d.a.m.ned if I know, sir. We haven"t exchanged fire yet, but those look like large-caliber multibarrel machine guns and something that gives off an IR signature."
"They had one of them in Falkirk when I fought them. Field burner or something."
"It"s the "something" that I worry about. What was that racket back in town, sir?"
"Grain elevator exploded. Buried A Company in hot corn."
"Grain elevators do tend to explode if you don"t treat them with respect."
"A missile hit didn"t meet with this one"s idea of respect. D is on your left facing a battalion-sized force.
I"ve got Chang probing it. You up to probing the force on your front?"
"No reason why not. We"ve got them where we want them and outnumbered one to three. I"ll do a bit of tapping, see if they run like they"ve been doing."
L. J. wouldn"t bet on that, but a commander did not share negative comments with his subordinates. "Go for it."
George Stillwell grinned to himself. The Roughriders were coming out. He would have made the same mistake. No company of mercs could back down from a battalion-strength bunch of rabble. Problem was, the Falkirk militia weren"t rabble-not after what George and the other MechWarriors had put them through.
Standing in the front seat of a gun truck, he signaled to the rest of his platoon. "Follow me." He could have had the Condor tank they"d captured, but he"d always argued that it wasn"t the fancy toys, but the guts of the guys behind the guns that mattered-not that all of the folks behind the guns following him were guys. It made for an interesting team.
His gun truck bounced over brush and rocks as it shot forward, three more swinging out in rough echelon as they zigged and zagged behind him. Gunners hung on to their 20mm Gatling guns attached to the roll bars on the enemy side of the trucks. Missileers steadied their single launchers on the same bar to the right. Stillwell pointed his driver at the far right of the troops advancing from Kilkenny. "Swing wide of thatCenturion . It has several ways of ruining our day."
The driver did. TheCenturion tracked them as they crossed right to left across its front, then burned sagebrush behind Stillwell"s truck with its extended-range medium laser. It and a Demon medium tank adjusted their course to confront Stillwell"s team. Infantry squads in Gnome and Cavalier battle armor spread out around them.
"Good deployment," Stillwell breathed. If he wasn"t careful, they"d cut him off and up. "But I"m just here to do some raiding and scaring," he said, and reached for the mike. "Task Force George, see if we got their range."
Behind him, 20mm rounds reached out for the Roughrider team. Some hit, but only at extreme range.
No damage.
"Hold your fire. Let"s see if we can draw them off." He pointed for his driver, and the turn got wider. In the distance, the Roughriders began a careful pursuit. "Ah, so you fellows have heard about the way our moles dig." Stillwell grinned-he was driving a gun truck for the same reason.
Only after Stillwell"s task force drew even with the Roughrider line did the enemy task force step up the pace of its pursuit. "You don"t want me getting behind you now, do you?"
Now that the Roughrider task force was in slow but earnest pursuit, Stillwell pointed his driver to do a hard right, and he led the platoon in what must have looked like serious flight. The Roughriders, true to their name, put the hammer down and came hot after him.
Which didn"t bother Stillwell at all as he topped a small rise and dropped out of sight. Hardly visible in the draw that ran through the shallow valley, eight jeeps sat ready, Gatling guns and rockets balanced on their roll bars. At the sight of him, infantry vanished into their fighting pits. Task Force George was now complete: three platoons of gun trucks, two of infantry.
TheCenturion used its height to snap off some Gauss rounds and LRM volleys to send George"s gun trucks seriously into random S-turns. George timed his next move to the arrival of the Roughrider task team at the crest of the hill.
"About-face!" he shouted, and his four gun trucks did hard U-turns and gunned from cover. From trucks and hidden infantry, rockets reached out to slash into the Roughriders.
"Charge!" George yelled. Zigzagging, racing for all they were worth, guns blazing and rockets flying, the trucks advanced. Militia infantry fired off rocket after rocket, marking their fighting holes, but the Roughriders were hardly interested in them.
The Roughrider infantry took hits but held their line long enough to fire off a volley. Then they backed across the hill. Firing off lasers and short- and long-range missiles, the Roughrider"s BattleMech and tank covered for the infantry withdrawal, but flying shards of armor showed they were paying a high price.
Finally theCenturion backed up, firing even as its legs disappeared in defilade. Lastly, the tank roared out of the valley in reverse, firing all the time.
There was no question in Stillwell"s mind that he would not lead his task force across that ridge into whatever trap the Roughriders were setting for him. Cheers from the troops were softened by the LoaderMech behind Stillwell holding up a single rocket.
"This is my last, sir."
The gunner beside her laughed nervously as he dug two 20mm sh.e.l.ls out of the box magazine attached to his Gatling gun. "I was about empty, too."
"Then let"s get out of here before they know we bamboozled them," George said, joining in their laughter.
The wheeled trucks did a fast turn around the valley to collect their dismounts, and then Stillwell let them lead the way to the rear, his platoon going last. His final glimpse of the battlefield showed the Roughriders he"d fought regaining contact with the rest of their company as another team of gray gun trucks was just starting to circle their flank.
Ten klicks back, they drove into a resupply park under the happy management of Auntie Maydell from Falkirk. She laughed as George described their little ambush, but shook her gray head at the empty ammo boxes. "We can"t keep this up much longer."
An infantry girl pointed at the five-kilo satchel charges in the bottom of the truck. "We were ready to take them down with those if George here had let them get close."
Maydell and George exchanged glances. "Grace better figure out a way to end this or it"s going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.l.l.s-up," George said.
"Not my way of putting it," Maydell sniffed, "but I do think she"d better put a stop to this before it gets past us all."
L. J. flipped the radio switch. "Hanson here."
"Art here. There"s something on the other side of that river. They put a lot of fire on the guys who tried to cross to set up an OP on that side. We don"t have a listening post over there yet, but we"re sure taking fire."
"Art, B Company is coming up behind you. I"ll have them cross the river well out and swing behind your troublemakers. I"d like to pocket a few of these shooters for a change."
"I feel a strong urge to talk to them myself," Art said.
"How bad is it?"
"That explosion blew out the panels on the silo pretty hard. I got a Joust tank that had everything sheared off right down to the turret armor. Quarter-inch steel sheets can do a number on tires, tracks, you name it. Then that d.a.m.n smoldering corn comes flowing at you like lava, and all you want to do is run but you can"t. We"ve dug most of our troops out but I don"t think I have a vehicle or "Mech with a stone"s worth of offensive power. MyArbalest had one laser sliced in two by flying metal, something"s sticking out of my right rocket launcher and I have no lights at all on my left one. Never thought all this damage could come from just walking by a d.a.m.n pile of food."
"We"re learning to respect a whole lot of new stuff, Art. Let me know when you see B Company."
Chief and Mallary eyed the map. They had only two markers for enemy battalions; they promoted a COMPANY marker toBATTALION as L. J. dialed up B Company.
"Fisk, how long before you get up here?"
"I"ve got Kilkenny in sight, sir. Least I do if Kilkenny is the town with all the smoke."
"That"s us. We have reports of battalion-sized forces of unknown quality on our left and front.
Something blew up the granary on our right and is resisting any effort by us to probe it. I"m a.s.suming another battalion. Until A Company can pull itself together, I need you to secure the right flank with a minimum force and serve as my reserve."
"Understood. We"re nearly there, sir."
"Swing a platoon out to the other side of that river and see if you can cut off a few hostiles. I"d love to have a heart-to-heart talk with a couple of them."
"I"ll do my best, sir."
The medic hollered for a wire-cage stretcher so she could get the radio operator down. Two troopers carried one up, along with several coils of rope. Once the wounded man was safely strapped in, they lowered him down the outside of the still-swaying steeple.
"That man"s earned his wound medal," the Chief said as the radioman kept silent even when the wind twisted the stretcher around and hung him facedown, fifteen meters in the air.
"A lot of people are," L. J. said as he glanced to the east, where smoke still filled the sky. It was getting late; there was less than an hour of daylight left. L. J. would not send his troops on a night pursuit across ground previously held by this enemy-not with their proclivity for turning holes in the ground into busted "Mechs and hurt troopers.
Graf and Chang reported in. Both C and D Companies had engaged hostiles on their front who withdrew in good order, only to have more show up on their flanks and threaten their rears. n.o.body was breaking. n.o.body was running. L. J. called off the attacks. Graf and Chang began a retrograde of their own as the sun sank toward the mountains to the west.
It was no better on his right, either. Fisk did swing out a platoon, but the hostiles seemed to be expecting that. The platoon came under immediate fire. A large chunk of A Company was now in the field hospital set up just this side of the burning granary. With A dismounted, L. J. wasn"t in a position to pull back even if he wanted to.
He headed downstairs with Mallary. It was time to do a walkaround of his battalion. Let the troops see the skipper, and let the skipper see firsthand the mess he"d gotten them into. He had just powered up his Koshi when the command van"s undercarriage collapsed in a shower of slugs.
Grace sat in Pirate as she had since noon, when the first reports started coming in of Roughriders approaching Kilkenny. Her "Mech almost touched the ceiling of Flaherty"s Dance Emporium. How Ben had gotten the bigAtlas to d.a.m.n near sit under its not-tall-enough roof was something she did not want to know. A half-dozen "Mechs MODs stood waiting along the dance floor, like some gargantuan line dance. At the back end of the hall, infantry held in place the section of wall they"d blown out to get the "Mechs in. At the other end of the hall, Betsy and more infantry made ready to blow another hole. Two blocks away stood the steeple Grace had used to plan this new battle.
Betsy reported that Hanson was up in the steeple now. May St. Peter, St. Patrick and St. Michael keep him from using it as well as Grace hoped she had. Reports from lookouts scattered around town and brought by messengers through the sewers said that the fighting outside Kilkenny was not going the Roughriders" way. Except for that, Grace was deaf, dumb and blind.
Atop hisAtlas, Ben stirred from his nap. "It is time," he called to Grace.
"Time to move out," she called to the other "Mechs. The room hummed with electronics and began to fill with smoke as engines coughed to life. Grace made sure her neurohelmet was in place, then checked her cooling vest. She followed the new checklist, but her two gyros stuttered and did not sync. She let them spin for a minute, then shut them down and restarted them. This time they synced. "Watch them," the gal who"d had Pirate told Grace. "If you take a hard step or knock into a building, the gyros go crazy. I"ve gotten to where I can restart them real fast."
Grace was probably nowhere near as fast, but this was her fight and Grace would fight it herself. She tapped her radio. "Form two lances. Back four go out the back way and support us as planned. You two behind me, follow Ben. Understood?" They answered in the affirmative. Grace crossed herself.
"Let"s go."
There was a soft explosion as Betsy blew out the east wall of Flaherty"s place. Beside her, two guards kept a short balding man on a tight chain. Betsy gave the "Mechs a jaunty thumbs-up as they strode forth into what Grace hoped would be the decisive battle for Alkalurops.
Two blocks away a command van stood just outside the Congregational Church. Troopers in Roughrider tan looked up in surprise. Grace gave the van a short burst, but thirty-millimeter tungsten penetrators do not just flatten tires and blow out a radiator. The undercarriage of the command van was shredded. Behind the van a familiar-lookingKoshi and anArbalest got moving just as Ben sent an SRM volley at the two.
Grace quickly moved to the left side of the street, Ben began to lumber down the center, and the other two "Mechs took the right. The Roughrider "Mechs backed up, zigzagging in a random fashion to complicate the bigAtlas" firing solutions. Ben squeezed off SRM volleys at random intervals, but only one struck a glancing blow to theKoshi .
TheKoshi returned fire, sending rockets at theAtlas . One miss bounced Grace off the building beside her, and her gyros lost sync. Stalled, she managed to restart the pair and get moving just before the Arbalest burned the place she"d been standing with a laser burst.
Grace fired a short burst, sending sparks and shards of armor flying from both "Mechs, to tell Ben she was still in the fight. The Roughriders concentrated on theAtlas as they backed up, failing to notice the four "Mech MODs behind them until a barrage of rockets exploded around them. TheArbalest spun even as it danced right. Grace had a good guess what messages were flying between those two. If she was going to keep them from jumping out of this, she had to act now.
She mashed herLOUDSPEAKER b.u.t.ton. "This is Grace O"Malley, Alkalurops Defense Forces Commanding Officer," echoed off the walls of the two story buildings around them. "I wish to talk to Major Loren Hanson of the Roughriders."
"This is Major Hanson," blared back at her. "I am not prepared to discuss my surrender with you."
"That"s fine, because I wish to discussmy surrender."
"Yoursurrender?"
"Yes."
"Is this some kind of trick?"