Operation Excalibur Read online

  "COLONEL!" A VOICE SNAPPED IN HER HEADSET.

  It was Orloffski, in the 80-ton Victor holding the gate with her at the moment. "I've got movement! On the left, one hundred meters!"

  Lori turned slightly, scanning the smoky ruin there. Yes, she saw them. 'Mechs were moving again beyond the spill of fire-blackened rubble that once had been the far wall of the courtyard. A Trebuchet hulked behind the tumbledown wall opposite. As it strode closer, it paused, left and right arms raised to volley-fire their three lasers in rippling spurts of brilliant white light. Other 'Mechs, shadowy figures in the clinging, opaque smoke, moved closer.

  Gunfire spat from the shadows as infantry tried to rush the gate under cover of their larger and more deadly comrades. Lori loosed a flight of missiles, the explosions tearing through the tight-knit clots of running men and scattering them like torn, ragged cloth dolls.

  Then the 'Mechs closed in....

  BATTLETECH

  LE5526

  OPERATION EXCALIBUR

  William H. Keith, Jr.

  ROC

  Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Roc, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, August, 1996 10987654321

  Copyright © FASA Corporation, 1996 All rights reserved

  Series Editor: Donna Ippolito Cover art by Roger Loveless

  Mechanical Drawings: Duane Loose and the FASA art department

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  Prologue

  DropShip Merlin, Approaching Glengarry

  Glengarry System, Skye March

  Federated Commonwealth

  1345 hours, 26 April 3057

  Field Marshal Brandal Gareth of the Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth had reason to be pleased. As the world of Glengarry slowly swelled in the DropShip Merlin's viewscreens, vast and mottled in the greens, blues, and ochers of a living world, reports continued to flow in from the robot probes, the advance DropShip landings, and the aerospace fighter scouts deployed in advance of the main invasion fleet.

  He was seated in Merlin's Ops Center, leaning back in an acceleration couch almost completely ringed by screens and readout panels, a high-tech spider at the center of a vast and far-flung web of constantly shifting reports and incoming data. Thus far, all reports from the fleet landing zones on Glengarry remained good. Aerospace Fighters were engaged with both air and ground defenses now, but the first DropShips had grounded more than two hours ago, and initial reports from the surface suggested that the defenders had been unable to deploy their 'Mech assets in time to effectively counter any of the landings.

  That, of course, was quite according to plan. Contested DropShip landings were relatively rare in modern Battle-Mech warfare; planets, after all, were big, generally offering the invader his choice of landing sites. At last report, Glengarry's defenses boasted only a single BattleMech regiment—the well-known Gray Death Legion—and one of the Legion's three 'Mech battalions had been diverted to the world of Caledonia as the opening move of Operation Excalibur. Gareth's invasion force, a reinforced regiment of three full 'Mech battalions plus a heavy assault 'Mech company, backed up by auxiliary infantry, support units, and an aerospace ground-attack wing, ought to be more than sufficient for a quick, clean, and efficient victory over the rebels.

  Rebels. He smiled at the unspoken word. Brandal Gareth was, above all else, a manipulator, a man who always put himself in control of the situation, in control of the people he worked with. For Gareth, people were assets, resources to be quarried, refined, and put to best use, whether they were his allies or his opponents. If the Federated Commonwealth had declared Grayson Carlyle and his Gray Death Legion to be rebels, mercenaries in direct violation of their contract, then it was because Gareth had deliberately maneuvered Carlyle into that position.

  Which left Gareth, as usual, in control.

  A flashing amber light in the corner of one of the smaller viewscreens announced an incoming priority call, flagged for Gareth's attention. He touched a key on the arm of his couch, accepting the communications link.

  "This is Gareth," he said. "Go ahead."

  A man's face appeared on the screen, peering out through the visor of a heavy neurohelmet. The winged-V emblem of the Fifth Hesperan Aerospace Wing, the Nighthawks, was prominent on the helmet's crest above his eyes.

  "This is Captain Umberto," the man said after a brief hesitation; the Merlin was still a quarter of a light second out from Glengarry, which meant a half-second pause between each statement and its reply. Umberto's teeth flashed in a tight grin. "Alpha Squadron of the Fifth. Looks like we've got the rebel bastards on the run, Marshal!"

  "Give me your tacsit," Gareth demanded. Umberto's image blurred and jolted. Part of the cockpit of his aerofighter was visible behind his head and the back of his ejection seat. Clouds wheeled through a deep, deep blue sky beyond the bit of the transplas canopy Gar-eth could see on the screen. "Sorry, sir," Umberto said after a longer space than the speed-of-light time delay required. "Picking up some heavy ground-to-air for a second, there. Okay. We're over the planet's capital. We've got scan traces on what we estimate as one battalion's worth of BattleMechs in this immediate area, mostly at the spaceport, and up the hill at the fortress. Fighting at the three primary DropShip LZs is light to nonexistent. I think we pulled it off, sir."

  Gareth nodded. It was supremely difficult to achieve anything like surprise in a planetary invasion like this one. This system's zenith and nadir jump points were positioned some twenty-eight light minutes from Glengarry's orbit, a five-day flight time for Gareth's incoming DropShips that gave the planet's defenders plenty of time to note the approach and prepare their plans. The true tactical surprise in an assault lay in the attacker's choice of DropShip landing zones, a choice that might not be made until literally the last few moments before the deorbit burn and atmosphere entry. Still, Glengarry was a Terralike world—not as big, but with smaller oceans and larger continents—with over 150 million square kilometers of land surface area.

  There was no way a few hundred BattleMechs could cover it all.

  "How about the locals' aerospace strength?"

  "There's not much in the air yet," Umberto replied. "I've lost one in my squadron so far. Glasky got nailed by PPC fire from that damned fortress. If they
've got space fighters down there, they're keeping them hidden in shielded bunkers or revetments."

  "Any sign of their DropShips?"

  "That's negative, sir. There are indications of a pretty extensive underground complex at the spaceport, and there could be some stored up at the fortress." The image jolted and blurred again. "Whoof!" Umberto grunted. "Wait one—"

  Distantly, Gareth could hear the crackle of radio voices, calls between the members of Umberto's squadron. "Watch it, Alpha Leader!" one voice cried. "Watch it! There's heavy fire coming from that secondary tower!"

  "I'm hit!" another voice called. "I'm hit and going down!"

  "Punch out, Alpha Five! Punch out!"

  The sky visible behind Umberto's head spun crazily for a moment, then steadied. "Make that two downed," the squadron leader said. An aerospace squadron—the equivalent of a 'Mech company—numbered six air/space fighters; Umberto's unit had lost a third of its strength already. "Sir, the ground defenses are wicked, mostly centered in and around the fortress. If they've got mobile assets down there, DropShips or fighters, we haven't seen 'em yet. It's, ah, possible, sir, that the enemy has some of their 'Mech forces and DropShips redeployed elsewhere in-system, and they're laying low."

  "Copy that, Squadron Leader," Gareth said, thoughtful. If the advance strike force's scanners had picked up only a battalion or so of Legion 'Mechs in the immediate area around Glengarry, that left another battalion, as many as thirty-six BattleMechs, unaccounted for. "Keep looking. Especially for those missing 'Mechs. We don't want any surprises after we're fully deployed."

  "Roger that," Umberto said.

  "Report to me directly as soon as you have solid intel. Gareth out."

  As Umberto's image flicked off, Gareth thought again about how big a world was ... and knew that those tens of millions of square kilometers of terrain—of forest and mountain, of ice cap and marsh, of prairie and tundra and city and even ocean—would help the enemy at least as much as it had already helped him. If the sheer size of the planet allowed him to pick and choose undefended landing sites for his DropShips, it also gave the enemy plenty of room to hide. No doubt the defenders of Glengarry were deliberately keeping the major portion of their forces under cover until they knew just how strong the invaders were.

  No problem. Gareth's forces would crush those defensive units they could find, then hunt down the rest company by company, even 'Mech by 'Mech if need be. The only real deadline was to complete the work before the rest of the Gray Death Legion returned from Caledonia.

  That portion of the plan, Gareth reflected with just a shadow of a frown, hadn't gone nearly as well. The news from Caledonia, relayed to the fleet by HPG a few days before, was not at all good. Not that the outcome posed any real problem to the larger plan; the Caledonian operation had been less certain to begin with, and, given the opposition, more difficult to carry off with complete success. By all accounts, the battle outside the small Caledonian village of Falkirk had been a disaster for Gareth's task force, under the command of the late Marshal Felix Zellner.

  But then, Zellner's orders had been to engage the Third Batallion of the Gray Death Legion, to destroy it if possible, yes, but more than that to keep it tied down while Gareth's real blow fell here, on Glengarry. Partly, of course, the diversion on Caledonia made Gareth's operation on Glengarry easier, with only two 'Mech battalions to face instead of three. The real significance of the battle between the Legion and Zellner's Third Davion Guards was that it gave Gareth's assault on Glengarry the legitimacy it needed in the name of the Federated Commonwealth.

  Of course, the FedCom government had no idea what was really at stake here and would not until it was too late. That thought, the certainty of the ultimate success of Operation Excalibur, was part of Gareth's feeling of almost exuberant well-being. So far, each piece of the plan had fallen into place with masterful precision. The situation with the rebel Jacobites on Caledonia had been engineered specifically to force the Gray Death Legion into a violation of its mercenary contract. Marshal Zellner and the Third Davion Guards had been sent in to support Caledonia's legitimate government—and to provoke a fight with the Legion, a fight that would brand Carlyle's mercenaries as contract-breakers.

  That provocation, it seemed, had worked only too well. According to the information he'd received so far, Carlyle had pulled off another of his tactical miracles, splitting his battalion in the face of a much stronger force and striking hard and unexpectedly from an unguarded flank. The attack, reportedly, had rolled Zellner's right flank into his center and left, creating a vast, struggling mass of BattleMechs that were easy targets for the attackers while the 'Mechs themselves were unable to maneuver or fire. The Third Guards had been virtually wrecked at Falkirk, and Zellner was dead, his mighty Atlas pounded to scrap. If only Zellner could have kept the fight going just a little longer ...

  Gareth sighed. He was a realist and content to deal with situations as they were, not as they should be. It would take time for the Legion's Third Battalion to make the passage from Caledonia to Glengarry, a minimum of three hyperspace jumps. While the jumps themselves were virtually instantaneous, it took anywhere from four to ten days after each jump to recharge a JumpShip's drive coils, depending on the energy flux from the local sun. Add to that the five days it would take the Legion DropShips to travel from Caledonia to the star system's jump point, and five days more for the trip from Glengarry's jump point to Glengarry, and the whole passage would take three weeks or more—plenty of time for Gareth's forces to complete their mission here. The Third Battalion would arrive at Glengarry sometime in mid-May, only to find its landhold firmly in Gareth's grasp. Carlyle and his "rebels" would have no option but to surrender.

  It was a pity, really. Carlyle had an exceptional mind, his unit a record unparalleled in the military histories of the Inner Sphere. The man was a tactical genius, with a list of military victories as long as a BattleMech's arm. If there were only some way to get him to join Operation Excalibur....

  Gareth swiveled his couch to look at another of the display screens ringing his work station. An unpiloted remote scanner was providing him with a direct visual feed from the planet, an aerial view of the city of Dunkeld. Above the city, on a low and rocky cliff, squatted the object of the invasion, the huge and dull-black sprawl of a Star League-era fortress, the headquarters and operations center for the Gray Death Legion.

  Soon that will be my headquarters, Brandal Gareth thought with a heady rush of anticipation. And then Excalibur can properly begin....

  1

  DropShip Endeavor Nadir Jump Point

  Gladius System, Skye March

  Federated Commonwealth

  1805 hours, 9 May 3057

  Alexander Carlyle listened to the soft, lonely peep of the vital signs recorder, the periodic hiss-click of the respirator, the low-voiced hum of the refrigeration units that kept the medical stasis capsule's interior at a chilly eight degrees Celsius, and he wanted to scream. More and more during these past few days, that sleek, oblong capsule with its coils of wires and power feeds had been taking on in Alex's mind the cool, dark proportions of a coffin. Live, he commanded, the thought loud in his mind. You're going to live, damn it! You've got to live....

  Damn ... damn ... damn! ... So far, he'd managed to put a careful mask over his feelings, but that mask was at every moment in danger of slipping, and as the days trickled past, it was becoming harder and harder to maintain it.

  Grayson Death Carlyle, his father, was encased inside the capsule's gleaming, ceramic and plastic embrace, his features, paste-white and death-still, just visible through the fogged transparency that covered his face. Half of that face, me left side, was further shrouded by the silver-gray metal of a bioplas woundseal; the right side was blotched and puckered by second-degree burns that were still only imperfectly healed. The Legion's medtechs had decided to put Carlyle into cryosuspension in order to stabilize his more serious injuries, even though the reduced heart rate and drasticall
y lowered body temperature slowed the healing of his minor wounds. "Right now," Medtech Ellen Jamison had told him days before, "all we can really do is try to keep him alive. We can't begin to fix everything that's wrong here on the DropShip. We need to get him back to Glengarry."

  Initially, Alex had been cushioned by a sense of unreality, a detachment that said this couldn't have happened to his father. Grayson Death Carlyle had always been such a vital, active, keenly intelligent man. To see him reduced to this state, neither wholly dead nor wholly alive, sealed helpless and unmoving inside the coffinlike shell of the stasis capsule ... it was as though Alex was being forced to witness the drawn-out death and decomposition of someone else, a stranger. This couldn't be his father. ...

  As the days passed, though, he'd gradually begun to accept the reality of the situation. With acceptance had come pain.

  No one blamed him for his father's condition, no one who'd been willing to confront him face to face, at any rate. Alex had spent much of the past two weeks trying to convince himself that his father's wounds were not his fault, and at times, at least, he'd been nearly successful. He knew now, for instance, that it wasn't his being late in hitting the enemy forces at Falkirk that had led to the elder Carlyle's brush with death.

  His father had been betrayed on the battlefield in the moment of victory by one of his own men, a mole evidently planted within the Legion by enemies as yet unknown. Grayson had been blasted at near pointblank range from behind, then seriously burned when he tried to climb out of the wreckage of his Victor. Most of the wounds he'd suffered had been the result of an unshielded near-miss by the PPC of the traitor's Zeus. He'd lost his left arm—removed by the medtechs shortly after the battle. Worse, at least from any MechWarrior's point of view, there was a possibility that he'd never be able to pilot a 'Mech again. No one, least of all Alex, was looking at any of that closely now, though, since there was still no guarantee that the medtechs would even be able to save his life. If they could get him back to the med facilities at the Legion's Glengarry base, then maybe ...