5

They arrived too late.

From the ridge west of Durandel, the BattleMech company looked down on a horror of destruction. Multiple, roiling columns of smoke boiled into a sky now heavy and black under the pall from a hundred smoldering fires. Grayson swept what had been the town of Durandel with his scanners once . . . twice ... a third time, but could find no building still intact, no sign of life. The village had been systematically destroyed, almost building by building. The new 'Mech repair facilities on the east side of the town were gone, leaving only desolation and ruin. The Legion's fortress, Helmfast, built into the cliff face above the north side of town, was shattered, with only isolated portions still standing among gaunt, laser-charred and missile-broken towers. Black smoke curled up from behind the remnants of the castle wall.

A low moan sounded over the combat channel. Who? It didn't matter. They all felt the same way, shared the devastation of this loss. The knowledge that they had come too late to prevent this senseless yet calculated destruction burned within them.

"Clear the circuits," Grayson said, surprising himself with the bitterness of his own words.

In close formation, the DropShips Phobosand Deimoshad decelerated on ravening tongues of fusion flame, dumping velocity under 4 Gs of thrust as they'd backed down into Helm's atmosphere. The sense that something was wrong, critically wrong, had been reinforced with every hour closer to their target.

The two DropShips had been challenged three times on their high-speed run toward Helm, but no AeroSpace Fighters or DropShips had been in positions to launch an intercept. It was soon clear that all the in-system ships were Marik forces, making it more and more likely that some sort of civil war had broken out on Helm. The knowledge had hounded Grayson's people forward, like men and women possessed.

It also made possible their wild flight in-bound. DropShips and AeroSpace Fighters patrolling the approaches were slow in their challenges, and apparently willing to ignore the pair of DropShips as they began the final leg of their deceleration in toward Helm. When they were challenged by the DropShips Lancelot,Captain Use Martinez, the intense and raven-haired commander of the Phobos,had announced that the Marik ship was in position for an intercept. When the Lancelot'ssecond challenge had come, Martinez responded with a blistering string of oaths, claiming to be inbound on the Duke's business.

With the Marik ship barely 12,000 kilometers distant, the Phobosand the Deimoshad fallen past Lancelot'sorbit with no further challenges, and not so much as a query about which of several possible dukes the tiny flotilla served.

Then had come the final maneuvers for landing. Storm clouds swirled and billowed above the dead sea plain below Durandel as the Legion's DropShips streaked across heaven into Helm's ionosphere. With Marik fighters belatedly closing on atmosphere-skimming trajectories, the two Legion DropShips had applied a last, thundering bellow of deceleration and plunged into the cloud cover. Martinez in the Phobosand Lieutenant Thurston in the Deimoshad timed their approaches perfectly. The ships set down less than twenty kilometers from Durandel, just on the other side of a low ridge west of the settlement. That the ships had been tracked on radar was certain. Grayson was still hoping that any Marik observers would assume that the two DropShips either bore VIPs too important to bother with formalities such as transmitting IDs, or had pilots too stupid or too careless to identify themselves.

It might buy them time. Once on the ground, they would have to trust their ability to move fast enough to keep Marik ground forces guessing. The Phobosand the Deimoswould be the weak points of the plan. Once grounded, they could not move. Martinez and Thurston would have to find rough country where something as large as two DropShips could be hidden, at least for a time.

Grayson knew, however, that time would soon be an even greater enemy to the Legion than the unknown forces they could hear over taccom wavelengths on the ground.

After an unopposed landing, Grayson deployed the command lance and the fire lance forward. The recon lance and Captain Ramage's company had remained to guard the landing zone. His command lance consisted, as always, of Lori's Shadow Hawk,Kelmar Clay's Wolverine,and Davis McCall's Rifleman,as well as his own Marauder.The fire lance was headed by Lieutenant Khaled in his Warhammer.Isoru Koga and his Archerhad been in the fire lance for the past eight months, and Sharyl with her Shadow Hawkhad come in from the recon lance when Stennman was killed. Charles Bear in his Crusaderhad replaced Jenna Hastings.

An hour after touchdown, they reached the crest of the ridge and were looking down into the smoking ruin of their home.

"Captain!" Lori said. She used the lower of Grayson's two ranks deliberately. It would serve no good purpose to alert possible listeners that a regimental commander, a Colonel, was here. "Movement at 3200, bearing 095!"

Grayson ranged in on the indicated coordinates. Over three kilometers distant and almost due east, his Marauder'sscanners picked up the indicated target and outlined it in green light on his HUD.

"I see, it, Lieutenant. They're still here."

Bastards,Grayson thought. The settlement's murderers moved through the rubble yet, slowly and deliberately. Perhaps no one had informed them of the DropShip landing so close at hand. Perhaps they knew and didn't care, thinking the landing meant the arrival of more Marik reinforcements—or more scavengers come to nestle down at the settlement's corpse.

Machines moved in the rubble. Grayson could make out the lithe shape of a Phoenix Hawkand the hulking form of a Griffinfarther out. The Phoenix Hawkwas mindlessly kicking at a section of ferrocrete wall that was still standing. Two kicks, and the wall toppled over in a cloud of dust, rubble, and splintered stone. The Griffin,moving with slow deliberation, stooped and began to use its metal hands to paw through the rubble of what had once been the community's astech barracks. Was it searching for loot? For survivors? Grayson didn't know. Indeed, a kind of numbness had paralyzed his mind and will, as well as his hands. He could only stare in horrified fascination at the raped and ravaged village.

There were more 'Mechs moving through the ruins farther off: a pair of Stingersand a Wasp.

Grayson's eyes flicked between his HUD and a console monitor giving him updated information from his long-range passive scanners. He had seven . . . no . . . eight targets moving within scanner range. With the exception of the 55-ton Griffinand a pair of 45-ton Phoenix Hawks,all the machines picking through the steaming rubble appeared to be lights— Stingersand Wasps.Grayson's lightest 'Mechs were the pair of 55-ton Shadow Hawks.

The anger that had been boiling somewhere deep within him came rushing out now, a roaring in his ears and a quickening of his heart. Murderers!The Gray Death would sweep down on them like avenging angels, angels of death.

"We'll take them," he said over the command circuit. "Lances . . . weapons up! Arm! Deploy!"

The targets in the rubble of Durandel were unsuspecting, so absorbed were they in dismembering the last vestiges of the town. One of the Stingershad uncovered a prize, a huddled group of people hiding under a blanket of sheet tin near the foundations of a demolished warehouse. The Stingerhad just gestured those survivors out into daylight with a wave of its hand-mounted medium laser when motion or some other warning shouted across the pilot's command circuits brought the BattleMech's head up and around. Grayson's 75-ton Marauderstrode througha standing wall, sending chunks of rubble cascading across the street as the almost-prisoners scattered in screaming terror. The Stinger'spilot hesitated, then started to bring his 'Mech's laser up. Too late. Twin lasers caught the Stingerfull in the right torso and arm, leaving smoking scars gouged across armor and soft, internal structure.