“I don’t know what the hangup is, ma’am,” Bishop replied. Now was not the time to air her own visions of disaster, when the Countess undoubtedly had her own fears to deal with. “But I’m sure he’s got the mercs moving by now.”

“I’d be happier if I’d actually heard from Crow that they were moving,” the Countess said. “I’d be even happier if anyone had actually seen them moving. I’d be happier if… a lot of things.”

“We’d all be happier if the Steel Wolves took their anger-management problems elsewhere,” Captain Bishop agreed. “But they’re here, and we’re stuck in hurry-up-and-wait mode.”

She picked up the stack of messages from the comm board. Half-a-hundred requested the Countess’s action or reply. By now Captain Bishop knew which messages were the ones that the Countess really needed to see, and which were the ones that Bishop could initial and send back all on her own.

None of the messages were from General Griffin, and those were the ones she and the Countess were waiting for, with almost as much eagerness as they waited for Ezekiel Crow to walk back through the door with word that Farrell’s mercenaries were moving to flank the Wolves. Catch the Steel Wolves between the hammer and the anvil, with the Highlanders as the anvil, and the sparks they struck would send fire all the way back to Tigress.

“Have you considered sending out a scout/sniper unit to look for Kerensky?” Bishop asked, as she flipped through the messages.

“Considered it, decided against it,” the Countess replied. “It comes a bit too close to deliberate assassination, for one thing—not the kind of precedent I’m willing to set—and for another thing it probably wouldn’t work. If she isn’t at her field headquarters with Elemental infantry three deep guarding the perimeter, then she’s out on the line in that Ryoken II of hers, and it would take a bigger can opener than a squad of scouts and snipers to cut her out.”

A knock sounded at the door of CIC.

“Enter!” Bishop called.

A courier appeared, holding a message. “Ma’am,” he said to the Countess. “Compliments of Colonel Ballantrae, northern sector, and the Wolves are jamming our comms.”

“That explains quite a lot,” Bishop said. “The Countess’s compliments to the Colonel and is that all?”

“No, ma’am.” The courier offered her a message pouch. “There’s some kind of attack going on along the right flank.”

“About damned time,” the Countess said, as Bishop took the pouch and opened it. “That’ll be Farrell’s people. Tell the Colonel to stand fast, and allow any Steel Wolves who wish to do so to surrender.”

“That isn’t it,” Captain Bishop said. She’d opened the pouch and begun looking over the hard-copy messages that the courier had brought. “I’m seeing reports of a number of probing attacks in the northeast, but no reports of movement by Farrell’s mercs, or anyone else. It’s all—”

“Ma’am,” the messenger said. “The Colonel requests reinforcements. Or he can’t hold. Ma’am.”

“Damn,” the Countess said. She turned to Captain Bishop. “We can’t send reinforcements to the flank without weakening the center of the line. How do you feel about the two of us suiting up and adding some ’Mechs to stiffen the Colonel’s spine?”

Captain Bishop smiled, feeling the smile stretch into an eager grin despite her best efforts to remain cool and collected. “To think that when I pulled headquarters duty, I was afraid that I’d never get to see action again.”

“You shouldn’t have worried,” the Countess said. “You’re with me.” She turned to the courier. “Tell Colonel Ballantrae that help’s on the way. If you hurry, you’ll get there before we do.”

38

Northwest Quadrant

Tara

Northwind

February 3134; local winter

The Highlanders’ command post in the northwest quadrant had seen an increasing tempo of operations as night wore on into morning. First radio comms, then messengers brought word of attacks all along the line. The Steel Wolves weren’t yet pressing hard, but they were pressing hard enough, and in enough places, that any slackness on the part of the defenders could bring about a break in the line. And a break in the line could become the hole through which the Wolves would pour, rolling up the Highlanders right and left, attacking simultaneously from before and behind and on the flank, leading to a collapse of command and control over all of Tara’s northwestern suburbs.

And after the suburbs, the whole city, and after the city, the planet.

“’Mech approaching,” Corporal Shannon MacKenzie reported to her sergeant. “Industrial Mod of some kind.”

“One of ours or one of theirs?”

“Theirs, I think,” MacKenzie said. “Everything else coming from the east has been theirs. Why not this?”

“Because I’d hate to fry one of our own people. We don’t have enough ’Mechs as it is.”

Colonel Ballantrae had been listening to the Corporal’s report as well, with an expression of increasing grimness. Now he said, “Get me Captain Fairbairn.”

Corporal MacKenzie worked the field phone—a primitive model, working off of strung wire, but one not vulnerable to the Wolves’ jamming—then passed the handset over to the Colonel.

“Got him, sir.”

“Fairbairn,” the Colonel said. “There’s a ’Mech, up on Lombard Street. One of theirs. Take what you need, do what you have to, but stop it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Captain Fairbairn put down the field phone. “Well, Sergeant, if you had to stop a ’Mech, how would you do it?”

“Dig a pit, let it fall in. Works in the tri-vids, anyhow.”

“I like it,” Fairbairn said. “If our city utility maps are right, there’s a sewer up under the car park, west of the ’Mech construction hangars. Get demolition rigged under the street, enough to give me a five-meter-deep crater. Command detonated. Nothing showing on the surface. When will you have it?”

“When do you need it, sir?”

“Yesterday.”

The sergeant frowned for a moment in thought. “Um… twenty minutes, then. Sir.”

“Very well. Twenty-one minutes from now there will be a Steel Wolf ’Mech on top of your pile of demo. Blow it.”

The sergeant saluted. “Sir.”

“Very impressive,” Lieutenant Griswold said as the sergeant left. “Now, how are you going to get that ’Mech into place?”

“I have a couple of ideas,” Fairbairn told the lieutenant. “We can lure it, or we can drive it. Or some combo of the two.”

“Combo.”

“Right. Lombard runs north of the car park. We need a tempting target, on the south side of the car park.”

“And we need to make sure the ’Mech can’t use ranged weapons on it.”

“We can do that. There’s a disabled Behemoth II at the repair yard. Get it down on the south side of the square, facing south. Put a squad on it making smoke so it’s obscured until… 0827. At 0827, they will stop making smoke. Got it?”

“I think I see where you’re going,” Griswold said.

“Then get moving, Lieutenant. You don’t have a lot of time to round up a tow to put it in place.”

Griswold saluted in turn, and headed out.

“Last thing…” Fairbairn picked up the field phone again. “I need a section of flamethrowers on the north side of the ’Mech Factory car park. I want the north side and the west side of the park, and the side streets, covered. If they see a ’Mech, and they will, I want them to flame. Make it happen.”

Then he strolled from the storefront he’d been using as a headquarters to the street where a mortar battery was emplaced. Fairbairn walked over to the sergeant in charge.

“Good morning, sir,” the sergeant said, saluting.

“Good morning,” Fairbairn replied. He looked at his watch. “I have a problem you can help me with. There’s a Wolf ’Mech north and east of here. I want to drive it south and west. How much white phosphorus do you have?”