He reached past Elora and got a command line to his battalion commander.

“Captain Mugabe, full attack. Hit the Palace with all you have.”

“Sir!” came the reply. “Repeat your order, please.”

“Destroy the Palace of Facets,” Tortorelli said decisively. “Take no prisoners.”

“Understood, sir,” came the reluctant reply. But Tortorelli saw Mugabe obeyed. She was his top tank commander. She moved into position rapidly and her Behemoth fired a Gauss round that crashed into the Palace’s facade with horrific results.

“He won’t surrender,” Tortorelli repeated. “Did I do right, Elora? Should I have ordered the Palace and everyone in it reduced to rubble?”

“I can announce that he has already surrendered,” Elora said, more to herself than to the Legate. This appealed to her. When she moved in with her cameras, any fight on the Governor’s part would then appear to be violation of a truce.

“Yes, that is splendid. There isn’t much time left for him, so do make it sound sincere,” Tortorelli said. Elora fixed him with her cold stare. Was he being sarcastic? She couldn’t tell because he turned and went to the screen so he could watch the destruction moving like a tsunami across Cingulum. Tanks sniped at the Atlas, and battle-armored soldiers continued their persistent attack, in spite of increasingly heavy losses from the BattleMech’s crushing feet and sweeping arms as it tried to escape.

But nothing matched Elora’s feeling of accomplishment when fifteen minutes later, her news anchor interrupted the live-action fighting to read the report of Governor Sergio Ortega’s unconditional surrender.

The stage was now set for victory. If the Baron fought, he would be seen as treacherous. If he didn’t, he died.

Governor’s Park, Cingulum

Mirach

9 May 3133

Here goes nothing, Austin Ortega thought. He had worked steadily for five days and had programmed the neurohelmet to respond to his brain waves, then had set access codes to permit him to fully power up the BattleMech. He had brought ammo from a warehouse and, using a small, motorized carrier, had struggled to load LRMs stored in an underground bunker. Several technicians would have done such work, but Austin had relied on his own training and a considerable amount of innate talent.

And he had invested more physical exertion than he cared to think about, every muscle in his body aching. It had been a hectic, strenuous five days.

Sergeant Death had gone from an inert tower of metal to a reborn fighting machine in less than a week under his careful ministrations.

It just goes to show what a sturdy ’Mech the Centurion is, he thought with a sense of accomplishment. Then a moment of grief washed over him. Dale had been wrong about the old BattleMech.

“This is for you, big brother,” Austin declared. He fastened his neurohelmet, strapped himself in, and gripped the joysticks. His feet pressed into the pedals and Sergeant Death came alive. A heavy metal foot moved forward and crushed down, destroying the marble floor in the rotunda. As the BattleMech swung about, an electrical junction box at floor level exploded amid a shower of sparks and loud whistles and electronic screeches. Austin piloted the Centurion forward, crashing through the western wall of the museum without breaking stride. Lath and bricks fell all around, creating small clicking sounds against the metal hull.

Visual observation vanished amid the dust cloud he created. Austin switched to instrumentation. He was pleased to see that the targeting and ranging equipment was operational. When he powered up the Corean Transband-J9, he was disappointed to hear only static. Austin had hoped to contact the Atlas, coordinate an attack, and establish an unbreakable defense around the Palace.

Adjusting the targeting radar, he saw that the Atlas was more than twenty klicks away in the city. Small flares around the other BattleMech showed how furiously Tortorelli’s medium tanks engaged it. The Atlas MechWarrior depended on surgical shots at the Condors and ignored what Austin saw as the real goal: the Governor.

“Centurion to Atlas, come in Atlas. Do you read?” Austin tried several different channels, all offering no response. Before long, he gave up trying to contact Sandoval’s pilot. It took increasing attention on his part to step past displays on the museum grounds and not destroy everything as he stormed toward the kilometers-distant Palace.

Austin worked on his ranging displays and sucked in his breath. The Legate might have most of his military might pitted against the Atlas, but enough moved in fast on the Palace to seize it. Or to destroy it and anyone inside.

Austin had hoped his father had successfully escaped during the past few days, but seeing this much firepower coming to bear argued against it.

The worst sort of war—civil war—blossomed like an evil weed all around him.

The flash of laser cannon filtered through his optics from the direction of the Palace, followed closely by the gut-shaking thunder of a concussive blast from a Gauss rifle round. Tortorelli had dispatched a Behemoth tank to spearhead the attack.

They want my father dead, he realized. Elora and Tortorelli weren’t going to capture him, put him on trial as a traitor, and have a public execution. They wanted him removed from power permanently. Now. Austin took some satisfaction from this. It meant the MBA and the Atlas were giving more resistance than he had expected. This also chilled him because it meant Elora and the Legate no longer worried what Jerome Parsons might report.

Myomer muscles protesting from lack of movement over the years, Sergeant Death lumbered off, waveringly at first, then with growing stability. Austin settled in and found driving the venerable ’Mech easier than his training in the simulator. But that was as it should be. Problems were thrown fast and furious in the computerized version to test his mettle and train him for any problem that might crop up in actual combat.

Feeling as tall as the ten-meter Sergeant Death and twice as invincible, Austin kicked into top speed and headed directly for the expansive grounds surrounding the Palace. The ranging and targeting computer swamped him with input.

Sensory overload got worse when warning bells sounded an instant before a laser rocked him. Sheets of molten steel boiled up from his armored torso. He instinctively turned to keep the attack from concentrating on a single spot. Austin craned about and saw the source of the attack. A combined attack force had been driving hard to reach the southern Palace gates and had come across him instead. A VV1 Ranger Infantry Fighting Vehicle raced toward him, its machine guns chattering impotently as its four lasers raked him viciously.

Austin was hardly aware of the mental process he went through before his right hand spat a deadly burst of autocannon rounds that raked along the ground and hammered hard into the Ranger. His left index finger curled back and ten LRMs lashed out.

The Ranger shuddered under the impact of the salvo and then slumped to one side. Austin launched a second barrage that blew the vehicle apart. Without thinking, he immediately targeted two APCs behind the Ranger. Repeated fire from his autocannon took them out quickly.

He swallowed hard. Those personnel carriers had been loaded with human beings. He might have known some of them—some might have been former members of the FCL. Then Austin found himself fighting for survival. A company of battle-armor-clad soldiers surged forward, intent on swarming around the Centurion’s legs and destroying his capacity to walk, using their lasers and LRM 5s.