PART FOUR

Forcing the Pass

Northwind, Early Summer 3133

26

Western slopes of the Bloodstone Range

Rockspire Mountains, Northwind

June, 3133; local summer

The sun had only been up for an hour, but already the salt flats were growing warm. The atmosphere on the flats was dry—bone-parchingly dry—and the wind that swept down off the distant mountains bore the smell of unfamiliar blossoms.

For Anastasia Kerensky, the arid, windswept landscape made a welcome change from the confined spaces of a DropShip, and long days spent breathing canned and stuffy shipboard air. Not everybody saw it that way—the specialists who worked the Steel Wolves’ battlefield electronics were already grumbling about dust and corrosion—but Anastasia didn’t care. She wouldn’t be keeping her forces in a holding position on the salt flats long enough for it to matter.

For the moment, however, she had set up her command post in a large tent not far from the grounded DropShips. The tent was open on two sides, letting in the morning breeze while still providing shade. A portable map table was already up and running, its heavy power cords running from the tent to a humming generator nearby.

The grounded DropShips showed up on the map as dots of yellow, surrounded by clusters of other symbols, also in yellow, representing the various elements of the invasion force. This part of New Lanark had no cities or towns big enough to show up on the invasion map, but Anastasia knew that even in the howling wilderness there was always someone—a hermit trying his best to avoid civilization, or a naturalist looking for some new breed of bird or beast or insect, or just a pair of young lovers hoping to find a private place to pursue their further acquaintance.

One way or another, even if at a distance, the locals had to have seen the DropShips come down. Complete interdiction of ground-based communications was impossible. By now, the Prefect and her Northwind Highlanders would know where the Wolves had landed, and would be mustering troops to meet the threat.

The grumbling of engines ran underneath Anastasia’s thoughts in a steady drone. She looked up for a moment and smiled at the sound: The tanks and artillery were disembarking now, growling out of the open maws of the DropShips and forming up into columns on the wide expanse of the salt flats.

She went back to looking over her maps. Inside another hour, at the most, the Steel Wolf BattleMechs would have left their berths aboard the DropShips and would be prepared for the march. The capital city of Tara lay a day away on the far side of the Rockspires. Her decision to avoid the main Tara DropPort had paid off so far, in that the Wolves hadn’t taken any hits or losses to their DropShips on the way down.

The aerospace fighters she’d sent to keep the Highlanders too busy to take out the grounded DropShips weren’t going to be so lucky. Some of them, perhaps most of them, would die. Still, they were doing a vital job, and they knew it; and for the survivors there would be honor, advancement, and an increased chance of having their personal genetic legacy carried forward through the Clan’s breeding program.

Their morale, when they left for the attack, had been excellent. They would keep the Highlanders pinned down and distracted, spread out so loosely over the planet that the Prefect would never be able to gather them all in time.

Inside a day, Anastasia thought, she and her Wolves would be on the opposite side of the mountains, and within a half day more, the Fort at Tara would be hers.

The Highlanders would realize then that further resistence was futile. She could negotiate from a position of strength, or she could forgo negotiation entirely in favor of hunting the Northwind armies down like rats, whichever she pleased.

While she was still thinking, she heard the sound of booted footsteps approaching, and looked up. It was Nicholas Darwin coming to join her, looking eager and alert. His uniform was clean and sharply pressed, the insignia of a Star Colonel fresh and gleaming, and he wore his cap tilted in the rakish tanker style. Anastasia paused a moment to regret that during the weeks on the DropShip she had not seized the chance to enjoy his company. Now that they were out in the field, her chances would be even fewer.

If Darwin shared Anastasia’s regret for lost time he was not letting it show, anymore than she herself was. He paused the regulation two paces off, saluted, and said, “Galaxy Commander. The tanks and artillery are landed and ready. We await your orders.”

“Excellent,” said Anastasia.

She pointed to the display on the map table. A red line snaked through the mountains and out into the plains on the other side.

“Carve me a road,” she said, “from here to Tara. The remaining infantry and the ’Mechs will follow as soon as they can—but you will have the responsibility of taking the lead. Go through the mountains and secure an assembly area for us on the plains north of Tara.”

“Yes, Galaxy Commander,” Darwin said. He saluted again and turned to go.

“Wait,” Anastasia said. He halted, and she came around the table to stand next to him. Letting her accent slide downward into Tassa Kay’s casual but friendly imprecision, she added, “Just one thing more.”

Darwin turned back. “And that would be—”

“This,” she said.

She took his face between her hands and kissed him deeply. Her left hand was still wrapped in a pressure bandage, a souvenir of her fight with Kal Radick, and her fingers felt stiff against the soft flesh of Darwin’s cheek.

“When this campaign is over,” she told him, “I am going to take over the Prefect’s quarters—lock, stock, and pretty tartan sashes. And I am going to want somebody special to help me with staking my claim to the bed. So do not get killed if you can help it.”

She released him then, and he stepped back.

“You certainly believe in incentives, Galaxy Commander,” he said, and saluted once again before turning to leave the tent.

She watched, still smiling, as he strode over to the tank column assembly area and climbed to the top of his Condor tank.

“Warriors!” he called. His voice carried over the din of steel on steel and all the other sounds of DropShips unloading. “We have been given the honor of taking point on this operation. We drive east and south. Your orders are simple: find the Highlanders; engage them; destroy them. Speed is what Galaxy Commander Kerensky requires of us, and we will give it to her. Mount up. Follow me.”

With that he dropped inside the turret of the tank. The mighty engines thundered to life, and the fifty-ton vehicle spun in place, its hoverjets working to point the tank’s nose toward the jagged mountains looming gray blue on the horizon. From where she stood in the command tent, Anastasia could hear Darwin’s voice coming over the tank’s external speaker system: “On my command. Forward. Stand by. Execute.”

At the command “execute,” the hoverjets on the lead tank, and on the others drawn up behind it, impelled the vehicles into forward motion. The column of tanks and artillery headed eastward toward the distant mountains, quickly coming up to speed and eating up the ground at over sixty-five kilometers per hour—a spear, thought Anastasia Kerensky, cast to pierce the very heart of Northwind.