He was trotting, no hint of weariness now, despite the hour. Even in boot camp, everyone had known that sooner or later there was going to be trouble—where from, though, was another question, and one that recruits weren’t expected to have an answer to.

Probably because nobody else had an answer, either, Will thought as he found his place on the paved strip where the scout/sniper platoon mustered. But it looked like they were going to get one now.

Jock Gordon was already there on the strip, a big man standing easy. He was the youngest son from a farm family in the grain and dairy country to the northeast, and had joined the Regiment because he’d grown bored with working on land that was already divided up among his three older brothers.

Will took position beside Jock. A moment later Lexa McIntosh fell in beside them.

“What’s the word?” Lexa asked. She was a hell-raiser from the Kearny outback, gypsy-dark and barely tall enough to make the recruiters’ minimum, but a dead shot with any weapon she could lift high enough to aim. As one of the unit’s expert marksmen, she carried a Starfire ER laser rifle instead of a Thunderstroke Gauss.

“You know as much as I do,” Jock said back. “One minute there I am, dreaming of home and the love of a good woman—”

“And I’m not good enough? I like that, I do.”

“—a good woman who won’t come after me with a combat knife the first time she thinks I’m looking at someone else, and the next moment I’m out the door with a pack on my back and a rifle in my hand.”

Their questions were answered a moment later. A Sergeant climbed to the top of a truck and shouted, “Company, ten-SHUN!”

Instantly, the Highlanders stopped talking and snapped to attention.

“Listen up,” the Sergeant said. “Here’s what I know. About two hours ago the Steel Wolves brought their DropShips into the Northwind system. Now, maybe the Wolves came here to drink tea and have a friendly chat, but if they didn’t, then we’re going to kick their sorry asses off our planet. By squads, mount up. We’re moving out.”

He pointed to the truck at the head of the column behind him. “First company, Platoon A, squads one, two, and three get in truck one. Make sure your safeties are on. Go, go, go.”

He continued down the list, naming the squads and packing them into the trucks. As each truck filled, it pulled away and started down the road.

“And to think that I joined up because the judge said ‘Three years with the Regiment, girl, or four in jail,’” Lexa said. “If I’d had any sense, I’d have told him, ‘jail,’ and still be asleep in my bed tonight.”

“If the Steel Wolves are coming, jail won’t be any safer,” Will replied. “At least this way you’ll get to fight back.”

Then their unit was called: “Scout/snipers, Unit Four, mount up. Move it, people. We don’t have all day.”

“Nor all night, either,” Jock Gordon said as he swung himself over the side of the truck, the last of their platoon to climb aboard. His words were covered by the sound of heavy engines moving from an idle to a roaring full power. The truck lurched, and they were on their way.

Will looked at his watch. Less than a quarter hour ago, he’d been asleep. Now he was on his way to war.

25

The Fort

City of Tara, Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

“The DropShips are down.”

Tara Campbell knew that she must have slept at least occasionally during the almost two weeks it had taken for the Steel Wolves to make it from the jump point to Northwind’s planetary surface. She wasn’t wearing the tartan bedroom slippers anymore, for one thing, although she couldn’t remember either going back to her quarters or changing uniforms. What rest she’d gotten, however, hadn’t come often enough or lasted long enough to keep the weariness out of her voice.

She didn’t even want to contemplate what she looked like. Michael Griffin and Ezekiel Crow hadn’t gotten any more sleep than she had, and in the dim light of the Combat Information Center—illuminated at the moment only by a map display showing the entire continent of New Lanark—both men appeared drawn and haggard. The pale light made the circles under their eyes seem even deeper.

“It was bound to come to this eventually,” Crow said. “The Senate and the Exarch knew it. Their only questions were who would attack and when—and whether Northwind could stand against the assault.”

“They’ll find out soon enough what the Highlanders are made of,” Tara told him.

“Flesh and blood,” Colonel Griffin said. He was pacing again, his hands clasped behind his back. “Entirely too much of which will have to be spilled, no matter what happens.”

“Do we know yet if it’s Radick who’s brought the Wolves to this party?” Crow asked.

“They’ve been canny with their message traffic,” Griffin said. “What little chatter we’ve managed to intercept doesn’t refer to the Galaxy Commander by name, only by rank.”

Tara shook her head. “That’s not like Kal Radick. He likes his Bloodname too much to keep quiet about it.”

“How sure are you of that?” Griffin asked.

“I’m not sure of anything,” Tara admitted. “Except for this: The enemy is down on the surface of my world, they want it, and they can’t have it.”

Crow pointed to the map of New Lanark, where a mass of flashing red glyphs—the symbols for grounded DropShips, for known troop concentrations, and for observed ’Mech and vehicle types—clustered together on the salt flats west of the Bloodstone Range of the Rockspires.

“From where the Wolves are now,” he said, “they can strike through the mountains here, at Red Ledge Pass, then take this city, and the rest of the world with it, in the space of a day. Our time to stop them may be measured in hours.”

“Then we’ll have to meet them here,” Tara said. “Outside the city.” She manipulated the screen to put a ring of blue light around the capital. “There’s our line: just past weapons range from the built-up areas.”

“It’s going to take ’Mechs to stop them,” Griffin said, still pacing. “And the Tyson and Varney rush retrofits only came out of the construction hangars the day before yesterday.”

“How long will it take them to get from the factory to the battlefront?” Tara asked.

Griffin contemplated the map with the expression of a man doing sums in his head and not liking the answers. “Moving at full speed and abandoning any ’Mech that overheats and can’t keep up the pace—a day and a half, minimum.”

“We don’t have a day and a half,” Ezekiel Crow pointed out.

“We will,” Tara said. “Colonel Griffin. Take whatever forces you need from the troops already on alert, and delay the Steel Wolves in Red Ledge Pass. Buy me thirty-six hours. That’s all I ask.”

Griffin halted in his restless pacing. “Thirty-six hours? You’ve got them.” He saluted, turned, and strode from the Combat Information Center.

Crow turned to Tara. “You do know that you’ve probably just sent a man to his death,” he said.

“More than one man,” Tara replied. “But he’ll do what he says. It’s up to us to make sure that it won’t all be for nothing.”