A trio of missiles burned low above his shattered cockpit. A fourth impacted on his Marauder's leg. The stricken machine lurched wildly. He twisted at the Marauder's controls, but the heavy machine failed to respond. Sparks spat and flared across the instrument panel, and red lights warned of heat overload, of circuit cards melting, of weapons system failure...

* * * *

Throughout the city, the Verthandians were joining the fight. For ten years, they had remained helpless and voiceless as the Kurita fist tightened on their world and on their city. Now, though, the savage battle gutting the centuries-old heart of the University had brought them out in a rising tide of fury that would not be stemmed. Wild-eyed Blues threw down their weapons and ran in the face of that onrushing crowd. Kurita Brownjackets did the same, or else opened fire with a hopeless, desperate ferocity before they were overrun and torn to shreds.

Weapons were scooped from the pavement or torn from the grip of bloodied hands. A lance of Kurita BattleMechs pressing toward the University paused as the mob swept around the University Plaza and surged toward Kurita positions south of the University Gate. When the lance turned and opened fire with machine guns and lasers, they opened bloody gashes in the mob's body. Hundreds, thousands of shrieking civilians continued to press forward, vaulting infantry barricades and rushing past the feet of the helpless metal giants.

Everywhere, Kurita soldiers found themselves isolated in small, struggling knots as the Loyalist militia melted away and the numbers of frenzied civilians storming through the streets swelled. Bottles filled with oil and gasoline and stoppered shut with rags took flame and arced smoking through the air. Clots of flame and black smoke wreathed BattleMech limbs and lower torsos. The four embattled ‘Mechs reversed course and began moving away from the University. To a half-screamed demand for information over the Kurita combat net, they reported that the streets of Regis were lost, that they were falling back.

In the streets two blocks to the east, the four Kurita ‘Mechs encountered rebel ‘Mechs smashing through the city gates. Three of the four pilots decided that the cause of House Kurita could best be served on Verthandi if they took up positions outside the city... considerably outside the city. The fourth pilot remained where he was, his Orionwreathed in flames, his dead hands still clutching the controls.

Throughout the city of Regis, Kurita ‘Mechs and men began retreating. BattleMechs are never at their best within the confines of buildings and narrow streets, and now the civilian mobs were threatening to slaughter every Kurita Brownjacket in Regis.

The tide was turning.

The Courtyard was strangely quiet For a moment, Grayson wondered if he'd gone deaf, exposed as he was to the crash and thunder of heavy weapons. Then, gradually, he became aware of the roar of flames gnawing at the vitals of the broken Warhammera few meters in front of him. The Jennerand the other fresh Draco ‘Mechs were still there, but they had stopped their charge, had turned...They were retreating!

Why?

He reached out to hit an override panel and caught sight of his own arm, blood-crusted and blistered. He was becoming aware of the heat now, wafting off the hot metal of the Marauder,crowding its way into his lungs, sending shrieking agony across the exposed parts of his skin that were already horribly burned. Then shock, long held at bay, rose in a comforting, black embrace, drowning the pain, sending him hurtling forward into darkness.

* * * *

Ramage helped pull him from the Marauderminutes later. At his side, smoke-blackened and victorious, was Tollen Brasednewic.

The Free Verthandi Rangers had arrived, quite literally in the nick of time.

40

 

Hours after the battle in the streets of Regis had ended, two Kurita LeopardClass DropShips landed at the spaceport ten kilometers north of the city. There was little the rebel forces could do to stop the landing, for the spaceport was still protected by several Kurita ‘Mech companies and by a large number of ground troops. In the days following the Battle of Regis, tens of thousands of additional Kurita troops trickled into the spaceport area from towns and outposts all over the Verthandian Highlands. A tent city of refugee troops sprang up along the landing pad area, and grim-faced Kurita soldiers lined the entrenchments and hastily constructed fortifications of the spaceport perimeter.

There were Kurita BattleMechs everywhere. The Draconis Combine ‘Mechs on Verthandi still outnumbered the rebel ‘Mech forces. No one doubted for a moment that a determined thrust by the Kurita ‘Mechs could lay utter and complete waste to Regis, the entire Bluesward, and to every town, village, and mine between the Silvan Basin and the Southern Desert. Yet, the Combine forces made no move. The entire planet had turned against them, and both their line troops and Mech Warriors were afraid to leave the crowded huddle of the narrow spaceport perimeter.

Nor were the outnumbered Verthandian forces prepared to assault the spaceport. Though victorious, the rebel forces were still scattered, poorly equipped, often poorly fed and leaderless. More, they were exultant with the victorious climax of a hard-fought campaign that had lasted for two Verthandian years. There was a natural tendency to view further combat as something of an anticlimax.

Not one of the young men and women hemming in the encircled Kurita veterans was willing to die now,with final victory in sight. If they could rid themselves of the hated invader through negotiation rather than combat, so much the better. If negotiations failed, the Kurita invaders could sit where they were and die of the starvation and disease that had already begun to stalk their ranks. If that death didn't appeal to them, they could charge the Free Verthandi lines instead, and die under the rebel guns surrounding them.

"Fight to the death" is a grand-sounding phrase, but in reality, war rarely comes to that. Sooner or later, the two sides usually decide to talk rather than fight.

Several days after the DropShip landings, one of the Leopardslifted on roaring belly thrusters and shaped orbit for Verthandi-Alpha. When it returned, it carried Admiral Kodo himself, the new military commander of the Kurita forces on Verthandi. In name at least, he was also the new Governor General of the planet, until some trace could be found of the vanished Nagumo.

Verthandi seemd to have a new importance as a crossroads for galactic traffic. Three days after Kodo's arrival, a fleet materialized out of hyperspace at Norn's zenith point. Hurried radio consultations quickly identified the newcomer's identity. It was the First Tamar Fleet, warships, DropShips, and two battle-ready regiments of ‘Mechs in the service of the Lyran Commonwealth.

In the van of the fleet was the jump freighter Invidious.Its DropShip Deimosset down at the airfield close by the walls of the city. Captain Renfred Tor was on board with five more BattleMechs and a small army of recruits for the Gray Death Legion.

Grayson's arms were heavily wrapped and bandaged, but he was well enough to meet Tor when he stepped off the DropShip ramp in the shadow of the University's fire-ruined Tower. Tor restrained himself in greeting Grayson for fear of causing him further injury, but he made up for it in his enthusiasm at seeing Lori and Sergeant Ramage again.

"It went just like you suggested in your message," he told Grayson, his face split by a broad grin. "It took some doing, but I finally interested Ambassador Steiner-Reese in what was going on here. The vanadium samples didn't impress him much at first, but I eventually convinced him."