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Duwc's away go go go ! Please sir can I have more!

Chapter Fourteen

Liz reached the top of the ridge and stopped, leaning against the tall pine to renew her wind.  The vision of the Hell they had just left still played across her thoughts as she paused, and her stomach lurched again.  Not next time, she swore.  Next time, I won’t be weak; next time, I will show no mercy to those scum.  She turned just in time to see Daniel clutch his chest and fall.

She flew down the slope like a gazelle, dodging the rugged pines, the thick vines threatening to trip her with every step and send her plunging down the hill.  Thorns tore at her skin as she ignored their pricks and she slid to a stop next to the old man on her knees, sending fallen leaves and underbrush flowing away from her.

“Sergeant-Major, Daniel, talk to me, dammit, Kobrowski, TALK TO ME!”

Daniel groaned and his eyes fluttered open.  The skin of his face was bone-white, clammy and cold to the touch.  “Capt’n,” he whispered, his words slurred and half-mumbled.

“God damn it, Daniel, don’t scare me like that—where are you hit?”

“Not shot, Capt’n.  My . . .  my heart.”

Liz looked down at him, her eyes growing wide in dawning horror.  She tore the ruck she wore from her back and began rummaging for the med-kit.  Opening a pack of aspirin, she placed two under his tongue, and a slight bit of color came back as they dissolved into his blood, and eased the crushing pain.  He looked up at her, his face calm, but sad.

“Don’t worry none, Capt’n, Lizabeth.  It don’t have my meds.”

Liz cradled the old non-com’s head  in her lap, her eyes filling with water.  “I’ll get you back to the cache, Dan, just you hold on, please hold on.”

“It’s my time, Capt’n.  Ran out of my heart meds a month ago.  We don’t have any . . . any more.  You need to go along, now lass.  Go along now, before they come.”

“I won’t leave you, Dan, I won’t.  Don’t you die on me, you damned old fool.  Why didn’t you tell me you needed medicine?”

“Cause you would have gotten yourself killed, Capt’n.  It’s my time, girl.  I’ve seen ninety springs in my time, and it’s time to pass on.”

Liz began crying—not Daniel, not after everything else.  Not after Tim, and the First Lord, and the Regiment.

“My time, Capt’n, not yours.  Just do one last thing for me, girl.”

“What’s that, Dan?”

The old non-com looked her square in the eyes, and though his voice was weak, the will behind it was not.  “Remember your oath, girl.  You are the last.  The last of the Regiment.  Our honor . . . is . . . now your honor.  Swear it to me, girl.  NOW.”

Liz stroked his sweat-lined face, tears washing down her cheeks.  “I swear it, Sergeant-Major Kobrowski.  I will keep the honor of the Regiment, until the day I die.”

“May it be a long time yet, girl, may it be . . .” his voice trailed off and his body went limp in her arms.

September 2, 2768
Portland, Oregon Province
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

“Liz?”

The soft voice pulled Elizabeth Hazen from her vivid memory, and she snapped instantly awake, shuddering at the dream that had received through her subconscious.

“Go, Vince,” she whispered into the microphone.

“Target in sight, you are good to go anytime—he’s already ordered a hooker for the night and she’s due to arrive in fifteen.”

“Our honor . . . is . . . now your honor.  Swear it to me, girl.  NOW.”

Tears leaked from her eyes and Liz shook her head.  “Negative, Vince—go with the alternate,” she forced herself to say, as she shrank back down on her hells and hugged her knees close against her chest.

For a moment, there was only silence, and then Vince asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she answered through gritted teeth.  “Frank, take the shot.”

Three rooftops away, Frank Weatherby centered his crosshairs on the Rim Colonel walking up the steps to his second floor apartment.  His scope zoomed in on the man’s face, and then he slowly squeezed the trigger.

BAM rang out the rifle shot in the early evening darkness.  “Target down,” whispered Frank’s voice over Liz’s earpiece.

She nodded to herself.  “Renedevous at gamma, people, move it.”

As Elizabeth Hazen, the last survivor of the Royal Black Watch Regiment stood and began to walk away, she saw her younger brother through the wetness of her tears.  “I won’t become them, Timmy, I won’t.  I will preserve our honor, bro; we will win this war with our soul intact.”  And I won’t ever let you down again, Sergeant Major, she thought.  Not again.

Fantastic!

September 4, 2768
Planetary Surveillance Command HQ, Fort Lewis
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

Saul did not look up from his desk at the sound of the knock on the door of his office.  “Come!” he snarled, as he continued trying to compose yet the latest report to Internal Security on the progress being made against insurgents world-wide—and why the satellite system was proving relatively ineffective at locating them.  He snorted in derision—as if the network had been built to track small bands of guerillas in the first place.  They were damned lucky that they got half the information Planetary Surveillance sent their way; especially since more often than not they screwed up on their end.

Of course, Saul thought with a smile, part of that might be that he was skewing the data in a manner designed to bleed IntSec white.

“Major, sir,” he heard Zach’s voice, and Saul set down his pen and looked up.  “I have finished analyzing those insurgent attack patterns you requested,” the young man said very deliberately.

Saul nodded, and drew in a deep breath.  “Close the door, Senior Chief, and take a seat,” he said as he opened a desk drawer and removed a device, rapidly attaching leads to his phone, and then pressing two buttons.  A green light appeared, blinked three times and began to steadily glow.  A countdown timer appeared on a small display, starting at 3:00 and began to wind steadily down.

“All right Zack, all their bugs will hear now is that recording—what is the emergency?”

“I think you need to see this, sir,” the techno-geek said quietly.  “My trojans and sleepers intercepted it this morning—and it ain’t good, sir.”

Zach passed a secure data-pad across the desk, one with the network function permanently disabled—removed as a matter of fact.  Saul frowned and scanned the pad, his face going white with shock.  He began to look at the information more closely, but then deliberately saved the data—Zach already had, but it never hurt to be extra-safe, not with this—and set down the pad.  He leaned back in his chair and took a second to think.

Finally, he nodded as he made his decision.  Before now, everything had been deniable, but once he passed this on he would be past the point of no return.  So be it, he thought.

“Thank you, Zach.  Signal Olds and Ghost—though the secure system you set up—that we all need to meet ASAP.”  He glanced at the timer, and it was steadily counting down:  5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then the green light went out.

“Well, it’s not what IntSec was hoping for, Senior Chief, but it’s better than nothing.  At least we know they are not operating in any recognizable pattern.  Good work, is there anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“Dismissed.”


September 5, 2768
The Red Light Brothel, Greenwood
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

Saul looked over the selection of scantily clad women—and several young men—with an approving eye as he and Zach stood in the center of the reception room of the whorehouse. You are here on business, he told himself sternly, and not this kind of monkey business—but he smiled as he thought that.

The madam approached the pair.  “Welcome, gentlemen.  How may we serve you, tonight?”

“I have an appointment with Danielle, ma’am.  The name is Weiling.”

The madam nodded.  “Of course, Mr. Weiling, everything is prepared.  Is it his first time?” she asked nodding at Zach.

“Yes,” Saul smirked, actually enjoying Zach’s discomfiture.  “I thought I would reward the Senior Chief for his hard work over the past few weeks—and I have heard that Danielle is perfect for teaching the young and inexperienced.”

“Oh, but she is, Mister Weiling.  This way, if you please.”

The two Rim soldiers were lead through a bewildering labyrinth of hallways and doors, until they arrived before a stout wooden door.  “She is inside, Mister Weiling—enjoy the bar in the suite, while Danielle takes care of your friend in one of the adjourning rooms.”

“My thanks,” Saul said as he pressed a handful of bills into the woman’s outstretched hand.  He knocked on the door and carefully opened it, squeezing inside after it stopped half way, with Zach following behind him.

Vince closed the door behind the pair, throwing the bolt closed, and Saul nodded at Liz and Malachi as he crossed the room to the bar and poured himself a tall glass of scotch.

“Well, Major, here we are,” said Liz as she sipped on a club soda.  Malachi had an open beer is his—and Bernie, like his twin Vince, held nothing other than a sub-machine gun.

Saul sat down and pointed Zach to the last remaining free chair, where he sat as well.  “Show them, Zach,” he said glumly.

The surveillance tech pulled two data chips from his pocket and passed them across to Liz and Malachi, who loaded them into their own data-pads.  And Liz gaped in shock, while Malachi simply said, “Holy shit.”

Saul waited as they paged down, and down, and down, until finally both finished reading the documents and set their data-pads down, as if they were radioactive.  And then he nodded.

“It is not the actual operations order, at least, but whoever summarized did a damn fine job of including the details of when and where the landing zones are.  Plus the troop strength, plus their distraction and diversion attacks—the whole ball game is right there, people.  Kerensky has designated it as Operation Ragnarok.”

“How the hell did you get this, Saul!” snapped Liz.

“Tell them Zach, and explain to them why you are leaving with Liz tonight,” Saul answered as he took another deep pull of the whiskey.

“Well, I forged an order for Internal Security to tap and download all computer, voice, and video communications and information at the Imperial Palace.”

“YOU WHAT!” shouted Malachi as he came out of his chair.  “Are you insane, Zach?”

Liz just stared at the young man, who looked down at the floor.

“It was an internal order, eyes-only IntSec, and I made it look as if it was sent by von Strang.  No one in IntSec is going to question that—and the order explicitly said that the Emperor had ordered a backup off-site storage of the data.  But I put a back door into the server specified four months ago, so I could read any of the data without leaving a footprint.”

“And I routed my access through three different satellites and sixteen cities—I don’t think they could trace me, even if they found it.”

“You don’t think they could trace . . .” Malachi sat down his beer, and then he walked to be bar and came back with a bottle of vodka.  He shook his head and chuckled—almost hysterically, in fact.  “Mama wanted me to be a cook, well, she’s gonna see me in the kitchen before I die, because, boy, von Strang and fat-boy are gonna boil my ass in oil if they discover this!”

Liz held up her hand.  “What’s done is done, Mal.  I am more concerned about what this means for the SLDF.  Amaris is pulling the majority of his troops home—and massing them in the landing zones.  This will be a slaughter, even before the Regular Army exits its DropShips.”

“Yeah, they’ll lose a hundred percent of the first two or three waves—probably three-quarters of the follow-on, if they don’t abort early.  Which will leave Kerensky in orbit, with no choice but to bombard, which means we are all royally screwed,” Mal said glumly.  “I’ll probably freeze to death during the nuclear winter afterwards, unless my battalion is in the target zone of those battleships, in which case I’m human popcorn.”

“Not necessarily,” Saul said reluctantly.  “We may have a way to get the information off Terra and to the General.”

Liz stared at Saul for several seconds.  “I sense a but coming here,” she said.

And Saul nodded in agreement.  “Last week, IntSec captured one of the last living Blackhearts still on Terra.  He is being held at the penitentiary at Walla Walla until his execution, which is scheduled for the Friday—three days from now.  If anyone has a way to get past Amaris security and get off-world, it is the Shadow.”

“You cannot be serious, Saul.  You are talking about breaking the Shadow out of a maximum security IntSec facility—with less than seventy-two hours to plan the op.  It can’t be done!”

“Yes it can, Captain Olds. Your orders are for you and your company to reinforce IntSec at Walla Walla, Mal; you and an attached company of light infantry under Liz.  I had Zach print out another forgery with von Strang’s signature, so they shouldn’t be questioned—all of the papers are in order.  Once there, you will eliminate the guards and get the Shadow clear, and find out if he does have any means of getting this information off the planet.  Understand this, Mal, you are out in the cold after this—you and your troops both.  You’ll have to ditch your ‘Mechs and extricate on foot with Liz.”

“Planetary Surveillance will be able to track us in minutes, Saul.  It can’t be done,” Mal said again.

And nodded his head once more, finishing the tall glass.  “Leave that to me.  It’s time to go all in, and I haven’t come this far to back out now.  Besides, I’ve always wanted to send my bosses and esteemed colleagues to hell—now is as good a time as any.”

Liz closed her eyes.  “You know you can’t let yourself be taken, Saul.”

“I know, that’s why the belt has ten kilos of plastique in it, Liz.  Trust me; Planetary Surveillance will not be a factor.”

September 8, 2768
Internal Security Close Detention Facility 4, Walla Walla
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

“I have to clear this with Colonel Hertzog, ma’am—I wasn’t told to expect reinforcements.”

Liz nodded in agreement, keeping her face absolutely free from showing any emotions.  “Quite right, trooper; I have new orders for Milo as well,” she finished as she tapped the side of a secured documents case.

“Wait here, ma’am,” he said politely as he returned to the kiosk next to the massive gate.

“Zach,” she whispered, “you did get that order uploaded to the facilities terminal, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.  “Seventeen minutes ago.  I made it seem like von Strang really doesn’t want this Shadow breaking out before his execution.”

“Someday, you and I are going to have to have a little talk about what you can and cannot do on your own initiative, Zach.”

Liz stopped speaking as the guard came back, his face looking a little relieved.  “Ma’am, Colonel Hertzog confirmed that he just received orders of your command’s arrival.  I don’t think the ‘Mechs will fit through the gate, though,” he finished as he stared at the bulk of Mal’s massive Thunderbolt, and the fifteen other ‘Mechs arrayed behind it.  The five two-and-a-half ton trucks lined up following Liz’s jeep were miniscule in comparison.

“Oh, the Dragoons are providing external security, trooper.  They will be roaming the perimeter.”

“Just wanted to make certain, ma’am.”  He guard waved his arm and the gate slowly opened.  Bear placed the vehicle in gear and it accelerated up the ramp and into the courtyard beyond, trailed by five trucks.

As each vehicle came to a halt, several men and women—each wearing a Rim Worlds uniform—bailed out of the trucks and began unloading weapons and equipment.  Liz stepped out the jeep and walked towards the doorway heading to the Warden’s office, when suddenly that door opened and Colonel Milos Hertzog began walking towards her.

“I understand you are carrying dispatches, Major?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.  Right here, sir,” the guerilla commander answered as she drew his pistol and fired two shots into the Rim Worlder’s throat.  The snap of her pistol sent the rest of her team into overdrive, and suddenly a fusillade of shots rang out throughout the compound.  One of the guards on the prison walls lifted his rifle, but then a stream of blazing inferno gel splashed across him from one of Mal’s ‘Mechs outside.  The power sub-station exploded as yet another ‘Mech fired a class 20 autocannon into it, and heavy machines-guns and flamers began to killing the rest of the on-duty guards in the towers.

“Five minutes, people!” Liz shouted into her radio microphone, as she crouched behind the fender of the jeep, and unloaded the rest of the pistol’s magazine into the first two guards to come running out from the barracks.  She dropped the empty weapon as Bear slammed a fully loaded R-11 into her free hand.

“Full mag and one in the spout, Liz!” he yelled.

She lifted the weapon to her shoulder and the assault rifle barked as she began to service targets, two rounds at a time.  Another explosion tore open one of the stone walls, and out of the corner of her eye, Liz saw Vince and Bernie rush into the cell block where the captured Blackheart was being held.


September 8, 2768
Planetary Surveillance Command HQ, Fort Lewis
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

“Sir, IntSec Detention Facility 4 up near Walla Walla has just gone off the air.  Satellite surveillance is detecting a firefight within the facility walls and BattleMechs firing at the facility from outside,” one of the surveillance specialists barked out.

Saul Weiling stood and walked to the very center of the room.  “Listen up people,” he sang out.  “Put your heads between your knees and kiss your asses good-bye, you miserable sons-of-bitches!”

Even as the staff looked up at him, Saul closed his eyes and squeezed the button wired to the detonator in his explosive vest.

The resulting explosion gutted the primary facility for coordinating surveillance activities in North America, blinding the Amaris forces and buying the Ghosts of the Black Watch a little more time.

 
September 8, 2768
Internal Security Close Detention Facility 4, Walla Walla
North America, Terra
Empire of Amaris (Terran Hegemony)

Liz was on her fourth magazine when suddenly she heard Vince over the radio, “The package is clear!”

“All right, Ghosts!” she yelled.  “Disengage by the numbers, and let’s get out of dodge!”

Ignoring the vehicles that they had arrived in, the guerillas fell back down the ramp, as two ‘Mechs tore the gates off their hinges.  With the ‘Mechs giving covering fire, they kept going, even as a passenger bus suddenly pulled off the access road and its doors opened up.  One by one, the Ghosts boarded the bus, until only Liz was left.  “Break off, Mal,” she broadcast, as the doors scissored shut behind her.

“Roger that,” the former Rim Worlds MechWarrior broadcast over the hash of static.  “Rendezvous at Gamma Three.”

“Gamma Three, and Godspeed,” Liz answered.

The bus pulled on the provincial highway and began to accelerate.  Suddenly, it slowed and took a sharp turn, pulling into a rest area adjacent to the river.  Lisa Buhallin was waiting there, along with an old riverboat that had seen better days.  But it floated, and it worked.

Quickly, the Ghosts transferred to the boat, and set off downstream towards the Columbia River.  Liz made certain they were not yet being followed, and then went below decks to join the rest of her team.  They wouldn’t be on the boat for long—but it never hurt to keep an eye open.

As she descended the ladder, into the belly of the boat, she heard Bernie’s booming voice, “Oh captain, my captain, may I have the pleasure to introduce you to the  . . . Shadow!”

Liz smiled and turned around to look at an older man, perhaps in his sixties, his hair mostly gone, and few strands left all grey.  He worn a prison jumpsuit, but he smiled.  “I hate that nickname, Captain who-ever-you-are.  Antonius Zalman at your service,” he said as he bowed.  “Late of the Star League Special Intelligence Section, and retired for the past ten years before Amaris made the mistake of invading my home.”

Liz shook her head, and turned to face Bernie.  “This is the feared Shadow, the Blackheart that has von Strang all up in arms?  Did you get the right prisoner?”

Zalman chuckled.  “I’m retired, my dear, not dead.  At least not yet, and oh I have been such a bad, bad boy since the Rim Worlder’s took over.  Never underestimate one of us blackhearted scoundrels.  And since you must have a reason for breaking me out of prison before my execution—good timing by the way—what can a reformed Blackheart do for you?”

Liz stared at the old man for several seconds and then finally nodded.   â€œOk, we need to get a message off-planet to General Kerensky.  Can you help?”

Zalman grinned.  “I never refuse a pretty ladies request, my dear.”

Finally more thought ferrets or a sneaky Ice Hellion kidnaped you.

September 8, 2768
Hawkins General Hospital, Hawkins
North Continent, Asta
Terran Hegemony

“Captain Truscott, next time you need to try and not to get shot!” Cassie yelled out as she ran into the hospital room ahead of Stephen.  The First Lord of the Star League shook his head in gesture of amusement as his daughter jumped up on the edge of the hospital bed and hugged the injured soldier.

Absalom blushed fiercely, and then he gravely looked at the little girl.  “I’ll have to give that try, ma’am.”

“Good,” she said as she sternly fixed her face in a glare that reminded Stephen of the look that Marianne often got, “because I don’t want to keep visiting you in a hospital room!”

“The doctor’s tell me you are doing very well, Absalom,” Stephen spoke quickly, moving away from the reminder of his dead wife.  “Regiment will probably get you back in a couple of days—and I think Colonel Moreau has a few choice words he would like to share with you; something about wrecking a ‘Mech that can’t be replaced and that he had to scrounge like Hell in order to steal in the first place!”

Truscott winced, but Stephen waved aside the apologies before they could be voiced.  “It is a small price to pay for saving the life of General Steiner, trooper.  Well done.”

“Thank you, Sir.  How is Jennifer—ah, Margrave and General Steiner, I mean—doing?”

“She’s well,” Stephen answered with a chuckle.  “In fact she is talking about giving you a real thank-you for pulling her out of that situation, once you have fully recovered.  I did warn her, though, she had best not put you back in the hospital—she’s a feisty one.”

Absalom blushed again, and Stephen laughed.  Cassie, even as bright as she was, missed the joke and simply looked puzzled at the two of them.

“Any word on what happened with her Zeus, Sir?”

The First Lord stopped smiling, and his face turned somber.  “It was sabotage, Captain.  The memory module that General Steiner recovered from her cockpit proved that beyond a doubt, and we have the tech who arranged this accident on video in the hanger the night before the exercise.”

“Good,” said Truscott.  “Maybe we can make him talk and work back up his chain of . . .”

“We have the video, but the tech himself turned up the following morning dead in a Hawkins alley—his throat slit.  Someone cleaned up after themselves very nicely.”

“What I don’t understand, Sir, is why did they take a shot at General Steiner?  I mean, she’s not on the list of the Top Ten People Amaris Hates, is she?  Seems like if it is a Rim World cell on planet, they should be taking shots at you, or Minoru, or General DeChevilier or Admiral Kirkpatrick or Lord Kerensky—not a Steiner general officer.”

Stephen slowly nodded.  “Agreed, and we are looking into it.  But for now, we know that some cell is still operating on Asta—and all security has been increased across the board.  Unfortunately, I’d like to stay and chat some more, Captain, but Cassandra here has an appointment to get a flu shot.  She did insist that we stop by to say hello on the way; and I think that she thought I would forget her appointment if we began to talk shop.”

Cassie sighed and looked down at the floor.  “It was worth a try, wasn’t it?”

“That it was, Cassie, that it was.  Come on, then; time to get stuck.”

Cassie sighed theatrically and turned back to Truscott.  “And you,” she said, wagging a finger at the injured officer.  “You stay out of trouble, right Daddy?”

“Right you are.”