"Or maybe..." He shrugged, breaking his military demeanor with a gesture of shoulders and hands. "Maybe I only ran into stragglers, but I'm quite sure that the ‘Mech I faced was that of the mercenary leader himself, the one the prisoners identified as Grayson Carlyle. It was a Shadow Hawkcertainly, and we know of only one ‘Mech of that type with the rebel forces.

"General, I had no way of knowing whether I faced one Shadow Hawkand a couple of stragglers, or the entire rebel column, turned to ambush their pursuers. After we destroyed one of the AgroMechs, I thought we might at least capture the rebel leader, but the enemy defense was unexpectedly determined. When one of my lance's ‘Mechs was destroyed, and other of my ‘Mechs had taken severe damage, I realized the entire lance was in danger, especially if there were more ‘Mechs that I hadn't seen coming around my flanks. I ordered the retreat.

"I take full responsibility for the defeat and for my actions, General. But I swear...by heaven, by hell, by all the black holes of space...that I made the best command decisional could. If I were faced again with the same situation, I couldn't make any of those decisions any differently."

Nagumo leaned forward over his desk, his fingers steepled before him. "Actually, Colonel, I tend to agree with you."

"S-sir?"

"If you had blundered ahead, not knowing what was waiting for you in the jungle, and lost your entire lance...yes, I probably would have had you shot...and withoutthe benefit of a court-martial! As it was, we'll have to make the best of it. Your request for court-martial is denied. Don't worry. My report of this action will fully support your own."

"Thank you, General."

"Don't thank me yet! We still have to find some way of salvaging this...this debacle, before our Duke arrives.”

“We haven't much time."

"We have no time! Not if we have to comb the jungle for these ragtag rebels and their mercenary friends!"

"We might determine where they are going and make a Drop-Ship strike."

Nagumo's eyes strayed to the full-color map that filled the wall of his office opposite the window. It was a composite map assembled from dozens of satellite photos of the Azure Sea and jungle areas taken at different times to create a cloud-free mosaic. It showed considerable detail, but could not penetrate the blue-green opacity of the jungle vegetation.

Laid over the map was a network of dotted lines that marked the locations of known and probable jungle trails learned from documents seized at the Fox Island complex. His people were still sifting through the mounds of papers and computer files taken in the raid. With equal diligence. Dr. Vlade and his assistants were still sifting through the minds of prisoners taken on Fox Island. More trails, caches, or hidden bases might yet emerge in days or weeks to come. There was no way to predict what future intelligence discoveries would emerge. For now, though, the jungle remained impenetrable and closed.

"There are thousands of hectares of jungle out there, and an army of BattleMechs could be swallowed up without a trace." Nagumo's eyes narrowed. "The mercenaries are our biggest threat."

"Their training has obviously stiffened the main rebel army."

"More, it's given them a rallying point. I wonder..."

"My Lord?"

"I was wondering about their ship, the one that ran the blockade and brought the mercenaries to Verthandi in the first place.”

“It was destroyed in a storm."

"Was it? Our air patrols reported debris on the beach at Hunter's Cape, but not enough to indicate the wreckage of something as massive as a DropShip,"

"Our orbital stations would have detected a spacecraft lifting off, even in a storm. Certainly nothing lifted above atmosphere."

"I know." Nagumo closed his eyes, sighed. He was so tired. "Our strike at Fox Island should have finished them...rebels andmercenaries. No BattleMech unit can exist without its support units...Techs, ‘Mech repair cradles, heavy machinery, cranes, spare parts...Without all that, those ‘Mechs will begin to fall apart within days. They'll run out of ammunition after the first skirmish. They'll overheat and shut down with the first long, hard march. That is why your failure to close with the enemy column in the jungle is not so serious as it might have been. Without their precious Fox Island, the enemy is dead! But I wonder. If the DropShip survived..."

"But how, my Lord? They didn't lift off and it no longer sits at Hunter's Cape."

"Never mind, Colonel. Never mind. If their DropShip survives, it will have much equipment to replace what they've lost at Fox Island. But they can never replace the Techs and other trained personnel we took there, or the supplies. What's more, by capturing the members of the Revolutionary Council, we have broken the back of the rebellion. All that remains are bands of ragged bandits cowering in the jungle."

"Your orders then, my Lord?"

"We'll search for them and for that ship, just in case. If the ship survives, that's where the mercs will be, tied to it by lines of supply and the need for maintenance and repair. If the ship was destroyed, they must come to us...eventually. Even if the ship survived somehow, they must still come to us...eventually. Our best hope is to wait until they decide to hit us again somewhere...and catch them then."

"Would they be stupid enough to attack us after losing their base?"

"They could have other bases out there," Nagumo saidk sharply. "I would. Most important, though, they haveto attack us, or they don't have a rebellion. A ragged band of half-starved, half-armed rabble squatting out in the jungle is not a rebellion! Not when we control the cities, the spaceports, the farms, the factories— everything, in fact, of any importance at all on Verthandi!

"No, we keep vigilant. We should increase our air patrols over the sea, I think, and maintain an especially close satellite watch on the jungle between Regis and the Azure Coast. By the time Duke Ricol gets here, we'll either be able to report Verthandi secure, except for these bandits out in the wilderness...or we'll have met them on ourground...and beaten them!"

25

 

Lying between the jungle and the endless sea, Westlee was a fishing village of centuries-old stucco huts and houses jumbled together along winding streets. From the heights above the town, the sea was a spectacular sight, haze-shrouded beneath an overcast sky, but struck to fire by Norn's red-gold rays slanting through the clouds. Rock cliffs dominated the far side of the bay, sheer walls cloven by the gash that was the opening to Ostafjord. Farther out, half-hidden in grey mist and fiery gold was an island of black rock. It heaved skyward through the fog, its bulk casting sharp-edged shadows through the low-lying mists to the west.

Tiny beneath the mass of the fjord headland, unnoticed in skyfire and fog, the Phobosrested in the shadow of rock, grounded on a shallow beach and draped with unkempt tatters of canvas and camouflaged netting. Above the village, a solitary Stingerstood watch. After coded electronic passwords were challenged and exchanged, Grayson's Shadow Hawkstepped from a jungle logging trail into the moming sunlight.

The long march was over. The rebel column had travelled on the day after the skirmish near Fox Island, stopped briefly to rest and to jury-rig repairs on several of the nearly disintegrated AgroMechs, then pressed on into the night The night march was necessary because Grayson knew their only hope was to put more distance between the rebel column and the enemy than the enemy believed possible.