We'd just finished our contract on Cassias. I had a few days to kill before lifting off-planet, and Pete's Place seemed like a good place to start. Sometimes I think there must be a factory someplace that manufactures port town dives like Pete's to spec. You know the kind of place: dark, not overly clean, with neon ads on the walls, overpriced rot gut in the patrons, and from someplace overhead music throbbing like PPC thunder. It was quiet when I went in, though, with only one old soldier sitting at the bar watching Pete wipe down the counter. Even though he was in civvies, I knew that this was a man who moved from world to world, fighting for a living. How? Like calling to like, I guess. When you hang out with them long enough, you get so you can pick them out of a crowd at 20 meters. I greeted Pete, bought a drink, and started to search the pockets of my fatigues for a smoke. The soldier noticed and passed over a pack and a lighter. I thanked him, sat back, and made the conversation the situation called for, all about the weather and, inevitably, perhaps, the problems of life. He seemed to want to talk, and I didn't mind listening. I've learned over the years that you learn more when you listen rather than talk. His name was Sam Williams, he told me, and he'd been a Tech for 35 years. "That's a one hell of a lot of Mechdrek," I said, and he chuckled. I'd served with the MechTech gang a time or two when times were lean, and I had more than a MechWarrior's usual charge of sympathy for the bolt twisters. It was a filthy job. "Mechdrek" is the composite of lubricant, coolant, grease, and sealer compound that has to be drained from a 'Mech's slider assemblies and joint capsules every time the beasts are serviced. But don't ever let anyone tell you that Techs aren't worth their weight in unalloyed platinum. "I enjoy it," he said. "The metal jockies get on my nerves... but I like it. Or I used to." There was pain there, but I didn't know what. I wondered if I should get him on a different track. "What unit are you with, Sam?" He eyed my unit flashes and grinned. "For the past fifteen years I've been Colonel Hurvich's personal Tech." I nearly spilled my drink. No wonder the guy was in civvies! Colonel Hurvich? Hurvich's Hurricanes? The Hurricanes were a merc unit with a pretty fair rep. And the last I'd heard, they were working for House Kurita. Two weeks before, I'd been fighting them toe-to-toe less than 500 klicks north of where we were sitting. "I ... ah ... thought the Hurricanes had pulled out." We'd beaten them, in fact, in a running battle just outside of Johannas. It had been a tough fight, and my Wolverine still showed the scars. Hurvich's men were good. "So they did," he replied. "We almost had you guys at Johannas. Pulling that flanking maneuver at Dry Wells was a good move." "That was my company," I said carefully. What was a Kurita Tech doing here? "Company A, Andrews' Avengers." He nodded. "Thought so. The Colonel knew he couldn't hold that hill above the town once your company came tearing through our flankers. He had to wheel north and save what he could." There was a long pause while he tossed oft the last of his drink. "it wasn't much." "What do you mean? Our salvage parties pegged only five 'Mech carcasses after your people pulled out. That was out of... what? Thirty-six 'Mechs?" "Thirty. Right. But it cost the Colonel Max." "Who," I asked, "is Max?" I wasn't sure I liked the direction in which this conversation was going. It was strange enough to be sitting there talking to a man whose buddies I'd been shooting at recently. It was a lot stranger to hear the bitterness in his voice and to wonder if he was thinking that my unit, Andrews' Avengers, was to blame for his misfortunes! I glanced over my shoulder a time or two, suddenly uncomfortably aware of a large, dark, and empty room at my back. I suggested we take a fresh round of drinks to a booth--one in the corner where I could have my back to the wall and he agreed. Who's Max? "Max," he explained as we sat down, "is an AS7-D assault 'Mech. An Atlas. He's old, but I've spent the past five years totally rebuilding and fine-tuning the systems and chassis. Hell, Max is better than new, now. Some of the parts are getting hard to find, and it took some doing to get them. I've spent so much time with him, he's like a person to me. I don't know where the name came from, He's just... Max." "He was at Dry Wells." "That's right. He was the Colonel's 'Mech." "Was?" "The Colonel's luck broke with Dry Wells, when we had to abandon our port at Johannas. Now I'm delivering Max to a cheap slimebucket of a captain." I waited. Williams appeared to be considering whether or not to go on with the story. "When we lost Johannas, we lost our ride home," he said. "A JumpShip was supposed to be in-system to pick us up in another month, but when we lost the port, the Kurita forces had to pull out faster than expected... and they didn't have room aboard their precious JumpShips for the likes of us... oh, no!" I nodded sympathy. It was a raw deal, and one I'd heard before. All too often, a mercenary unit was at the mercy of an employer who controlled the JumpShips upon which interstellar trade--and combat-- depended. House Kurita was notorious among merc units for tossing them to the wolves when it suited them. "Anyway, there was this one captain with the Kurita regulars who had it in for mercs in general and us in particular. It happened he had ships... or rather, his family did, and he'd arrange for transport for us... if we met his price." "Ah!" I was beginning to understand. "And his price was?" "Max." His mouth twisted in a bitter halfsmile. "And me, of course, to look after him." "So what are you doing here? Your unit must have boosted a week before we took the port." "They did. They're on their way home by now. No, I'm waiting around here with Max for our new owner to show up." "You don't sound very happy about it." "Happy? No. You don't know what this guy is like. I was happy with the Hurricanes... but now I belong to Captain Ferlando Sandoval of the Proserpina Hussars..." Sandoval Electric shocks rushed down my spine and I could feel my hackles rise at the mention of that name. Oh, yes, I knew the Sandovals quite well. You see, I'm from Delacruz, and the Sandovals control that planet. Control? The word "own" is closer to the truth, since they control three quarters of the industry there. Oh, the name of the Planetary Chairman is an old Kurita pol named Murasaki, but 8 of the 12 men on the Council are Sandovals, and Murasaki himself is a brother-in-law to the old patriarch. My father was with the planetary militia, and it was a guy named Jose Sandoval who had accused him of working for the Davion underground on Delacruz in order to get my mother for himself. She died less than a year after my father met with his "accident," and I was out and growing up the hard way in the streets of Puerto de las Estrellas before I was 15. I was 18 that night in a bar much like the one we were in now, when I heard Rega Sandoval running off at the mouth about what a great man his uncle Jose was. Okay, so maybe it was too public a place to disagree with the guy... but when he pulled that knife I'd had to defend myself, right? The authorities had cleared me of his death by ruling it self-defense, but the Sandovals didn't see it that way and declared a Blood Feud on me. I'd had to leave in a hurry... and managed to take Rega's Wolverine with me as part payment for my troubles. It had been a long, bloody road from Delacruz to the Federated Suns, where I'd found a slot with Andrews' Avengers. Sam had me by the arm. "You all right, guy?" "Yeah, but I sure could use another drink." Sam bought the next round. I managed to stay calm on the outside, but inside I was seething. Is this some kind of a Sandoval trap? Can I trust this guy? How can I get to the Sandovals one more time? Maybe it was the look in his eyes or the way he said "Sandoval," like it left a bad taste in his mouth, but I decided I could trust Sam. "So I'm stuck," he said at last. "I don't have the money to do anything but go along. All I really know how to do is work on 'Mechs." "No money? You have an Atlas. With a BattleMech, who needs money? You could sign on with any company on the planet... if you didn't mind switching colors from snakes to Davion." "It's not quite that simple. Not that I'd mind hitting back at Sandoval, see... but he's got Max locked down tight." He frowned. "They've got him hidden and under guard. You know, these past couple of days I've thought about turning him over to your people, believe me... but he's protected. Believe me, he's protected." "Hmm. An Atlas? I can imagine. Why don't you tell me a bit more?" He did. There are conventions to warfare, of course. If there weren't, we'd have gone the way of the dinosaurs half a thousand years ago. Those conventions are direct and common sense, most of them: you don't use nukes; you don't slaughter civilians; you honor your solemn agreements with the enemy. Cassias had been a divided world for several years. It's located in Davion space, right enough, but there'd been a vipers' nest of Kuritists squatting on its north continent and nothing Davion had done had been sufficient to shake them loose. Cassias' planetary militia had kept the nest from spreading, but it had been Andrews' Avengers, and a few shiploads of other House Davion merc units which had finally started rolling back the Kurita line on the planet. Our victory at Dry Wells and Johannas had been the blow that settled things. There was still a big Kurita base on the planet, up in the frigid Thorvingian Wastes, but it was only a matter of time now before we starved them into submission. In the meantime, we held Johannas and the lands around it. Though the northern continent was on a Davion world, its people had been under the Kurita yoke for a long, long time, and the people in power had been Kuritists;... at least outwardly. There'd been no revolution when we marched into the city, merely a changing of one set of masters for another. Who could tell whether those cheering crowds really saw us as liberators? Some of them, certainly, would stand to lose their positions of power, should our stay become permanent. It's things like that that make me glad I'm a warrior, and not a politician. I was also glad that Andrews' Avengers were scheduled to pull off planet soon. Guerrilla wars with unhappy civilians can be lots more unpleasant than any stand-up 'Mech fight. Our agreement with the Johannas Proctors was simple and concise and designed to prevent a guerrilla war. We would not interfere with their laws or with their leadership. We would refrain from looting and pillaging and the other ancient perquisites of conquering armies, and we would provide them with protection from vindictive Kurita snakes. They, for their part, would happily rejoin the Davion fold. Max was awaiting his new owner, locked away in a privately-owned warehouse in the center of town, a few blocks away from the spaceport. He was guarded, it seemed, by Sandoval's men, at least a platoon's worth of hired thugs loyal to Sandoval's C-bills. "He's disguised as a heavy-duty lifter," Sam explained. "We tack-welded sheet metal to break up his outline and make him look bigger and bulkier than he is. The weapons have been dismounted, of course, and are stored in separate boxes labeled as machine parts." "So what was the point?" "There'll be an independent trader calling at the port in a few days. Actually, it'll be Sandoval's own, private DropShip freighter. He'll present a letter of credit to the warehouse for his property... stuff that's already been signed over to his name, including several dozen crates of machine parts and one heavy-duty, industrial lifter. He'll just walk Max out to his ship, load on the crates, and off he'll go." Just like that. An Atlas! One hundred tons of incomparable fighting machine! Sam was right. Max was safe where he was. An Atlas made mighty tempting loot, but there was no way Colonel Andrews was going to sanction a raid on a privately owned warehouse in the center of town. An all-out raid sounded too much like looting, and looting a city after it had formally switched sides was a violation of the Conventions. More to the point, the Colonel didn't need hostile locals in his rear, not when he still had a Kurita fortress ahead of him, in the tundra to the north. Trouble like that in the middle of town was a sure way to win popularity with the natives. The more I thought about it, though, the itchier I got. I'd known one guy once who had his Stinger shot to scrap around him. He ejected and walked away without a scratch... then turned a laser pistol on himself and burned out his own brains. That 'Mech had been all he had, and when it was gone, he'd had no more reason for living. A BattleMech, any BattleMech, was pure, raw treasure... the whole reason and purpose for some men's lives. And an Atlas was even more than that. "Maybe it needn't work out just that way," I said slowly. "How much is that letter of credit going to cover?" "A million Cbs." I whistled. "It'll look like a legal transaction and let him load his cargo without a customs check or the other formalities. Actually, it'll be payment for Sandoval's local agents." "Who are they?" He shrugged. "Don't know. Someone in the local underground. There were several rival gangs under the Kuritists, and I imagine it'll be business as usual under Davion now." "Hmm. Maybe... maybe..." "What do you have in mind?" "I'm not sure... but maybe we can arrange to find a new home for Max ... one on this side of the Kurita frontier." "Hold it! You want Max, sure ... but if you want him, you take me, too." I nodded. "If you're as good a Tech as you say you are, that'll be no problem." Hell, the Colonel was always complaining that he didn't have enough Techs. I went on to explain what I had in mind. I could almost see the thoughts moving across his face. Is this guy for real? Can I trust him, or is this some kind of trap? This could be the break I'm looking for! Can I do this ? "Can you make that sort of commitment?" "No," I said. "Honestly, I can't, But Colonel Andrews can. Let's take it up with him." With our lift-off so close, I knew the Colonel would be in his office at the spaceport compound. When we arrived, he was just finishing lunch and hadn't started back to work. He looked Sam and me over as we entered the office and said, "I think I'm in trouble." I introduced Sam and sketched out my plan. The Colonel listened carefully, not interrupting. When I'd laid the whole thing out, he asked Sam a question or two, then said, "Would you mind waiting outside please, Sergeant Williams?" As the door closed, he said, "You've come in here with some wild schemes in the past, but this has got to be an all-time high even for you! I mean, we're not talking a few spare parts of questionable origin here, or a little contraband! We're talking about an Atlas and one million C-bills, man!" "I know it's a lot, Colonel, but I think we could pull it off. I have 300,000 of my own to put in, and we can use my Wolverine as collateral for the rest. And just think what we could do with an Atlas in the company!" I paused, scared like I'd never been in my life. The 300,000 was my entire share for the Cassias operation... and the Wolverine all I owned. But an Atlas... His eyes narrowed. "Daryl, just what do you know about this Williams character, anyway?" I knew what he was thinking. We'd not seen the Atlas. It could all be a scam, with a wild story as bait. In fact, the more I thought about it, the shakier Sam's story sounded. "I've got a feeling about him, Sir." "Oh, God..." "I think Sam's on the level. I can manage the money. I'll need some help from some of the guys, though, to pull this off and keep it inconspicuous..." "You're going to walk an Atlas down the street, Son? That doesn't sound inconspicuous to me!" "We'll keep a low profile," I said. "We'll have to keep the Atlas out of sight, so the locals don't know it's stolen. I think we can work it out." The Colonel put his hands on his head, leaned back in his chair, and looked at the ceiling. I didn't say anything more, not when he was in his deep thought mode, After the longest couple of minutes I've ever spent, he said, "Okay, you're on. And I tell you what I'm going to do. You, Daryl, are in charge of this operation. The responsibility is yours." "Me, Sir?" "You, Sir. And God help you if you're wrong, because I sure as hell won't..." I picked up Sam on the way out, and went to look up my brothers. Well, they're not flesh-and-blood relations, but they were like family to me when I joined the Avengers. We'd pulled a scam or two in our time. MechWarrior David Dayril was our disguise and camouflage expert, and to the rest of the company, we were the twins, Daryl and Dayril. Larry Castelano was our forgery expert... the guy people in other units came to with Cbs in hand whenever they needed to forge a pass to slip into town. Glenn Adams is our resident computer expert. Options Me, I'm the scrounger and contact man. The four of us made quite a team and had pulled quite a few, shall we say, unsanctioned operations, and not all of them against the enemy, There was the time when the Colonel needed a KR valve fitting for his Warhammer's fusor and there were none to be had, anywhere. Well, that construction gang at the port was hardly using that loader of theirs at all, and we knew it used a KR fitting and... But then, that's another story. I found them at the barracks and filled them in on the details. Glenn frowned and turned to Sam. "This... ah... cargo consignment that Sandoval is paying a million Cbs for... it has an inventory number, right?" "Yes." "You have it?" Sam fished in his jacket pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and handed it to Glenn. "Give me a second," he said, and he turned to the computer he had set up on the empty packing crates he used for a desk. His fingers clacked across the keyboard for a few moments, as his screen showed a succession of cryptic symbols and lines of code. We took a seat to wait because Glenn had us and the rest of the world tuned out. "Huh," he said at last. "Huh, what?" David asked. "Now that's really sneaky." "What the hell are you doing?" I asked. "Running a program I call 'Phantom,"' he replied. "I thought we might be able to use it to crack the inventory control program at the warehouse." "You're tapped into that warehouse's computer?" Sam asked. He looked a bit bewildered, as though he was beginning to wonder what he'd wandered in on. "Sure," Glenn said. "I've had this line in for weeks." "Aha!" I said. "That's where you've been getting the imported scotch!" "Nowhere but. They'll never miss a few bottles." "We have a little business on the side," I explained. "Some of the boys in the other units pay well for a bottle of the good stuff, every so often. Glenn here has been having it shipped to them direct... but I didn't know where he was getting it from." . "Yeah, well, I figured we could do the same thing with Max, but it won't work here." "Why not?" "They've got a trap in the programming. An alarm. And damned if I can see a way around it." He went on to explain how the warehouse program worked. "This thing works on two levels. You bring your letter of credit in from the bank, and a guy in the warehouse office scans the transaction number and the value into the computer. The computer checks with the bank to make sure there's enough money there to cover the transaction. It also checks the transaction number with a transaction number already stored in its memory. If it matches, it releases the merchandise. That's the first level, where it reads things." "Okay, so it can read," I said. "That transaction number... that's the problem, isn't it?" "Right. It's the number on Sandoval's letter of credit, and we don't know what it is. We'll have a transaction number on our own letter of credit, but it won't match what's in the computer. "Normally, the way to handle that would be to break into the warehouse computer and change the number to ours. Then, when the computer scanned the number on our letter, it would match. But there's a second level to the warehouse program." He pointed to the screen, where a meaningless ramble of letters and numbers portended something of significance to Glenn. "That son- of-a-gun is set with an electronic tripwire. We try to rewrite that code, and it'll send an alarm." "To who, the local Proctors?" He frowned. "I don't think so. Just a sec..." His fingers clattered at the keyboard again, blanking lines of print and causing new ones to appear. "Nope," he said after a moment. "it goes to an unlisted terminal in the city. I've got a search program running, but it'll need some time to track down an address." "Can we get around it?" "Hmm. Getting in to change the number is no problem at all. Stopping that alarm... that's the problem. I'd have to take over the whole port warehouse computer from here, and I just don't have the megs for that. Now there's another approach..." His eyes glazed over as he thought the problem through. "Yeah. I can't stop the alarm, but I might delay it for a while by messing with the port communications system computer." "For how long?" "Good question. Twenty... maybe twenty-five minutes. I can make it look like a terminal's down and the back-ups are blown... but that won't stop them forever." Sam nodded. "That would be enough time. The warehouse is only a few blocks from here." "Yes, but everything would have to go perfectly, and we'd be cutting it mighty fine. If we have to start jogging that sucker back here, we'd attract a bit of attention." I thought a moment. "Glenn, how long would it take you to change that number?" "Not long. Four or five minutes to access through Phantom, a few keystrokes to change the number." "So, we go to the warehouse with our letter of credit. We send you a signal just before we go inside. You change the number and start doing your wizardry with the alarm. We walk in like Sandoval's agents, collect Max, and walk him back to the ship. Anybody sees us, we're just another cargo consignment, bought and paid for, on our way to the port for loading." "Maybe," Glenn said. "But sooner or later, that alarm is going through. And reinforcements will be on the way." Larry had pulled out a map of the warehouse compound. His finger probed along the tangle of streets and alleyways surrounding it. "Could we block them off somehow?" "It'd have to be some distance away from the warehouse," David said. "If they see Max strolling into the port, they'll guess for sure where he's gone." "It'd help if we knew where the alarm was going," Larry said. Glenn's computer chose that moment to bleep as its search program came to an end. I peered across Glenn's shoulder and saw the listing of an address. "You have but to ask," Glenn said. "Allied Import and Export. Fourteen thirty Delta, Chiarro Quadrant..." "Jimmy the Geek," I said. "Part of the, shall we say, underground color..." "I'm shocked," David said. "The company you keep..." "Hey, Twin, I'm the contact man, right? Where do you think we arranged for those surplus lasers they needed over in Captain Langley's company?" "Sandoval must trust him," David said. "Sandoval doesn't trust anyone," I replied. "But a million Cbs will buy a lot of loyalty, and a lot of manpower. He must have his gang watching the place." "With reinforcements a few minutes away if that alarm is triggered," Glenn said. "Neat. Slick and neat." "Okay," I said. "Let's make arrangements with the Colonel. We'll need men and equipment for this one." My mind raced from possibility to possibility, weighing each in turn. Blocking the road sounds good, but how? A truck? Wouldn't take long for them to move. A wreck with a truck? That's more like it. What if they just walk around it? Fire? Explosion and fire? Don't get carried away now. We could always shoot 'em. Yeah... real low profile, that. How about a hover truck piled high with cargo? Override the safety system and cut one side of the blower system, dumping the cargo. That sounds okay. They might still push past, but some of our boys could be on hand... give 'em an argument... No! They could be chasing the guy that stole the Colonel's truck! I'll need to get a bunch of the boys to go along. Have to clear it with the Colonel. Yeah... that might work... But it had to go off that night. Had to. The Colonel had done some checking with some contacts of his own over at the Port Authority, and learned that the independent DropFreighter Estreffita was due in port tomorrow at local dawn. We had that long to beat Sandoval to his treasure. I had the letter of credit in my hand late that afternoon as we walked along the street towards the warehouse entrance. The Colonel had come through on that one, arranging for the selling of my Wolverine to another merc commander and transferring that money and my share of the Cassias profits to a ComStar facility in town. It felt strange. That letter of credit for one million C-bills represented everything I had in the world, and I was about to trade it away on the wildest gamble I'd ever taken. I was beginning to understand what that dead Stingerpilot had felt like. If this failed, I'd be without a 'Mech... dispossessed. It was not a happy feeling. And the second thoughts crowded into my mind. This is too easy. We've missed something! This has got to be a trap! The scariest part of the whole set-up was the fact that we had to get Max away clean, without being seen by anyone who could tie us to Andrews' Avengers. Did Jimmy the Geek have his goons patrolling the streets around the warehouse, or was he relying on the booby trap in the computer system? I kept turning the things that could go wrong over in my mind as Larry, David, Sam and I made our way through the streets of Johannas towards the warehouse. Warehouse Then Larry pulled us up short with a hand signal from the corner ahead. "Security guard," he said. "That's one of the Geek's apes," David said. "I've seen him before, hanging around looking ugly the last time we were there." "Think he'll recognize us?" I asked. The thug was standing in front of the warehouse door, looking a bit stiff and uncomfortable in the blue pants and jacket of the Cassian Proctor's Security Force. We could try to bluff our way past him, but if he recognized us, people would put two and two together once it was discovered that Max was gone. Another figure, this one in rough civilian clothes, detached itself from the shadows by the warehouse and moved across the pavement to the side of the guard. "I'll bet that guy with him has the same boss," I said. "I'll bet money they're hanging around to watch the warehouse." "What are we going to do about them?" David asked. "We can't just blast them." Sam opened the flat, metal case he was carrying and pulled something tucked the object into the waistband of pants underneath the jacket he wore, and closed the case. "I'll take care of them," he said. "Two of you give me a 10- second count, then follow me. One of you stay here and cover us." Then he vanished around the corner. I caught David's eye, questioning, then shrugged. I guess we have to trust him. We gave Sam his 10 seconds, then followed after him, while Larry drew the deadly little hold-out automatic he always carried and prepared to cover us. As we swung out onto the street in front of the warehouse, Sam glanced back at us over his shoulder, then hunched forward, clutching his case tighter, walking a little faster. As he got closer to the two men, they turned to face him, suspicion heavy on their dull faces. "Officer!" he called. "Officer! Those two men have been following me! I think they want to rob me!" The two shifted their attention from Sam to us as the Tech stepped behind them, as if looking for protection. The security guard's hand was already dropping toward the massive black holster strapped to his hip. Then Sam reached under his jacket and brought up a stunner. We heard the weapon buzz twice in rapid succession, and the two goons slumped to the street. "Very nice," I said. "Quiet, too." I glanced nervously at the empty windows lining the street, wondering if anyone there had caught our performance. "David... you and Larry take a walk around the area and see if we have any more company. Sam... give me a hand." We dragged the two slumbering goons off the street and hid them under some trash in an alley next to the warehouse. Larry and David were back a moment later, giving us the all-clear. There seemed to be nothing about to tie us to the scene. I keyed my comline open. "This is Red Dog leader to Group," I said softly. "We are in position. Do you copy?" "Roger," I heard Glenn's voice in the earplug receiver in my ear. "Phantom is running." Five minutes to access the warehouse computer and change the transaction number. Twenty minutes more before the alarm would go out. If we were lucky. My plan wasn't looking so good, now. Larry and David spread out across the street, taking their look-out positions. The next part of the show was up to Sam and me. And Glenn, back at the compound, pecking away at his keyboard. "Phantom to Red Dog leader," Glenn's voice said after an agonizing wait. "We have a go!" That was it! We entered the warehouse. A bored-looking clerk sat behind a desk window near the entrance. I tried to assume an expression of boredom as profound as his as I walked up to the window and handed him the paper. "Morning, Sam," the clerk said as he took the credit letter from me. "Thought you weren't coming in to pick up your stuff until tomorrow." "Change of plan," he said. I heard the tightness in his voice. The clerk inserted the letter in the scanner on his desk and tapped out a command on his console. Nothing happened. I had a sinking feeling in my middle. Who is scamming whom? Just how much do we know about Sam ... former Kurita Tech ... employee of the Sandovals... ? The clerk smacked the computer with the flat of his hand, then tried again, and the screen lit up with confirmation. "Just have to know how to talk to these things," he said. "First passage to the right, second cage to the right. Need any help?" "Nope," Sam said. "Need transport?" "Nah... that's why I brought this metal jockey along. All I have to do is keep him from wrecking it." We threaded our way through the warehouse. Wire mesh cages rose on every side, most piled high with crates and shipping containers, cargo consignments awaiting transport off Cassias to other worlds, or to other parts of the planet. Sam led the way to the cage where he had stored Max. I don't think I'd realized, until that moment just what a job we were trying to pull off. Max was big... a literal mountain of metal, twelve meters tall and filling the cage. I could see where the cage door had been cut and reworked, just to walk him inside. Sam started to reach for the lock to the cage door, then stopped. "Someone was messing with this," he said. "I put some powder with a static charge on the lock and frame when I was here last, and it's gone now." "The watchman, making his rounds?" I suggested. We were five minutes into our 20-minute countdown already. "Maybe." He put his case on the floor and opened it. "You think it's our friends?" "I hope so," he replied. "We certainly don't need anyone else in on this." He removed a small pouch with tools in it from his case. He selected one and pushed it into a corner of the lock frame. It popped open and he looked inside. "Someone has added a little extra something." "Sam, I don't mean to bother you or anything, but the clock is running." "Yeah, yeah, I know." He went to work on the lock. It took him only a moment to cut some wires and touch two of them together, producing a solid click from the door. It felt like hours. He smiled as he touched a control and watched the cage door slide open with a whir of electric motors. "Another alarm trigger," he said. He replaced the tools, then pulled a small device from his case, a rectangular box with a pair of antennae protruding from it. "Sam..." "I know." "Ten minutes, Sam!" "I know." He made a sweep of the cage interior, passing the antennae across Max, across the cage walls. "Time!" I whispered. We were already behind our schedule, the minutes flicking past. "Time!" "I'm going as fast as I can." I looked up at Max, towering above us. Up close, his disguise was useless, a collection of sheet metal plates and assorted junk lightly welded to arms and legs and torso to disguise the combat machine's outline, the whole concoction painted a neutral gray. I could just barely make out the tracings of an older camouflage pattern concealed beneath the most recent coat of paint. Sam looked up at the cliff of metal. "What have you got?" "A tracker," he said. "Something electronic and active to make my sniffer here go 'bleep.' Bring me my case." He selected a tool, a pair of forceps wrapped with insulated wire, and used them to remove something that looked like a blister in the paint on Max's foot. Gingerly, he carried the bubble of paint across the cage, slipped it through the wire, and placed it on a cargo container in the cage next to ours. "Let them track that," he said with a nasty smile. "All clear now. Let's go!" Sam put everything away in his case, slung it from a strap across his shoulder, then led the way around to Max's left leg. He opened a panel, touched a control, and the boarding ladder slid down out of the tangle of metal above us. He started climbing and I followed after, hand over hand, up past the monster machine's legs, past the clutter of sheet metal around his torso, curving in across the back left shoulder to where Sam was unlocking the massive hatch in the back of Max's head. We were sixteen minutes into the count. The hatch swung back with a hiss, he scrambled in, and I squeezed in after him. If this is a trap, now is the time to spring it, I thought. Sam reached across the pilot's seat and tapped in an access code. "I'm setting it for a new operator", he said. "You'll have to tune it yourself." I slipped into the seat, reached over my head, and brought the massive neurohelmet down on its spaghetti tangle of wiring and cables, positioned it over my head, then lowered it into place. I hesitated as I reached for the power switch. He could be an assassin. This could all be an elaborate set-up, just to get me. Who? The Sandovals, of course. Blood feud! Jose Sandoval could have set the whole thing up, just to cook me. If he's an assassin, I'm dead meat. I glanced to where Sam was crouching next to me, studying the control readouts with a superhuman intensity. And if not, I've found a good friend! Atlas I hit the switch. The familiar surge of power, of sensation flooded through my helmet. Console displays lit up, oscilloscope waveforms fluttered, meshed, then coalesced, as Max's computer sought my brainwave patterns, and conformed to them. Through the neurohelmet, through the nerves in my inner ears, I sensed Max's own sense of balance, sensed his body coming alive around me. I breathed again. Sam was shouting in my ear. "Just take it real easy with Max! He handles like a dream!" I nodded, letting my hands get the feel of the controls in front of me. Gently, I guided Max into a stoop, stretching his arms out and down to gather the crates stacked along one side of the cage. There were three of them, heavy, bulky things. Max straightened with his load as if it were a stack of empty cardboard boxes. I tried a tentative step, then another. I made him duck as we stepped through the enlarged cage door and into the warehouse proper. Twenty minutes! Please God, just a little longer... I keyed open the com. "Red Dog Leader to Red Dog One. We're coming out." "Red Dog One to Leader," David's voice replied in my helmet. "It's clear. Come on!" Step upon ponderous step, we made our way through the dimly-lit warehouse, careful of the wooden crates in Max's arms. Late afternoon sunlight spilled in from a widening gap in the wall ahead as the clerk at the desk opened the main warehouse door. On the street, I caught sight of Larry and David moving across the street. There was no one else about. "Max moves like a dream," I said to Sam. "Good God, I think we're actually going to pull this thing off!" He grinned and nodded, but then another voice was cutting in on the com frequency, urgent and sharp. "Phantom to group! Phantom to group! The message has been delivered! I say again... THE MESSAGE HAS BEEN DELIVERED!" I glanced at my wristset. We were 22 minutes into the countdown, and Glenn, our first line of defense, was out of the fight. Now it was up to the rest of the company to delay reinforcements as long as possible. We still had a long way to go. "Shadow One to Group! We have a target, on the move! A brown, open-top hovercraft with six big dudes in it. Point Alpha is the destination. I say again, Point Alpha! ETA... Shadow Two's position in thirty seconds' Do you copy, Shadow Two?" "Copy, Shadow One." "Hound One to Fox One. We're on! Let's go!" "Fox One to Hound One. Moving! Don't chase too close!" "Roger that, Fox One." "Shadow Two to Group! Target passing. ETA Point Alpha, one minute!" I could follow the entire scene by listening to the radio chatter, playing it out just as we'd planned it that afternoon back at the port. Two of the guys from our Command Lance were Shadow One and Shadow Two... the lookouts to warn of the approach of reinforcements. Fox One was one of the company trucks, piled high with crates of scrap metal, being driven as though it had just been stolen from the spaceport compound. Hound One was our own muscle, a couple more Company A MechWarriors and a dozen riflemen from our support platoon, pretending to chase the truck thief. Most carried handguns, with a scattering of laser pistols and stunners. "Fox One... I'm going in... now!" "Hound One to Group! The Fox has crashed across the street. Nice scatter on the cargo. We're moving up now... Fox One is out of the truck. Ah! Here come the clowns!" I had Max up to speed now, striding through the streets towards the port gate. Here and there, townspeople along the street gave us incurious glances as we thundered past. Giant lifters and LoaderMechs were common sights along the back streets of any spaceport town. They'd never seen anything like Max before, of course... but then, he wouldn't look entirely out of place. "Shadow One to Group! More company coming! Two more hovercraft... and these guys mean business!" "Hound One to Shadow One. What do you have?" "Can't tell, Hound... but there's lots of them. I see armored vests and assault rifles." "Proctors?" "No uniforms, Hound. Just guns and mean expressions. Shadow to Group! I see a couple of portable SRMs!" "Oh, drek... " My blood went cold. Petty thugs and gangsters we could handle, but it sounded like a small army was converging on the scene we had staged at Point Alpha. Handguns against assault rifles was not a good thing... and if those jokers were carrying portable rocket launchers, too... The port gate was just ahead. A few more steps, and I'd be through, with no one the wiser. "Hey! Those guys are shooting at us! Watch it!" "Hound One to Group! Hound One to Group! We are under attack! I see two... no, three light civilian hovercraft. Assault rifles and lasers! Watch it! Get down ... !" A confused gabble came from my helmet speakers. I could hear the distant crackle of gunfire over the comline, could hear the nerve-tearing shriek of someone wounded. "Hound Two to Group! Hound One's been hit! One enemy hovercraft has slipped past our position and moving to our rear! The others have us engaged from the front!" The whole plan was coming apart as I listened. They had most of our company back there, cut off and surrounded! "Red Dog Two to Group! Enemy hovercraft at the warehouse now! It's cutting back on Fox and Hound from the rear!" Gunfire chattered. "Red Dog Two to Group! We are under fire!" I brought Max to a halt, stooped, and gently set the weapons crates on the street at the feet of an astounded woman pedestrian carrying a baby. Then I brought him around and pushed the controls forward, urging the 100-ton behemoth into a lumbering run. I half expected a protest from Sam, but he remained at my side, clinging to the arm of my chair, silent and grim. He could hear the radio chatter coming from the cabin speaker, and knew the score as well as I. Fox and Hound groups were pinned in the street behind the wreckage of the truck, with two hovercraft in front of them and a third keening up the street at their rear, its blowers kicking up clouds of dust and paper trash from the pavement. I could see civilians scattering down side streets, could see two running figures which could only be Larry and David, trying to outrun the third racing hovercraft towards the company's position. "We don't have weapons," Sam reminded me. "I know." The third hovercraft's pilot must have seen Max coming. How could he miss us? The vehicle skittered around on sharply balanced air jets. I saw a flash from the craft's rear deck, saw a glowing speck arc towards my face, unravelling a twisting string of white as it came. The missile struck Max in his chest with a flash and a harnmerblow shock which scattered shreds of metal in a whirling cloud. A second SRM streaked towards us, close behind the first. "Hang on!" I yelled at Sam. Max lurched forward, arms and hands extended. The second blast caught Max on his shoulder, but he reached through the flame and shock, metal fingers closing on the hovercraft as its pilot twisted it into a desperate spin to the right. I saw figures leaping from the rear deck, saw one pale face upturned from the driver's compartment, eyes wide with stark terror. There goes our low profile, I thought. A laser rifle flared and ruby light flickered across Max's face. His hands came together. The hovercraft was a bulky toy less than a quarter of Max's height in length. I could hear the fans keening, could feel the craft's thin hull buckling in Max's grip as I raised the machine up off the street. Desperate gunmen scattered in every direction, leaving their weapons on the pavement. No one faces an Atlas willingly... even when they have a 'Mech around them. A dozen strides brought me up behind the company, still sheltering behind the barricade of the wrecked truck. Beyond, two hovercraft drifted, uncertain, as figures half-glimpsed through billowing dust scrambled for cover. Three more infantry-portable SRMs fired, their smoke trails streaking through the evening sky. With Max's thick hide, they amounted to pinpricks... but Max was one 'Mech and unarmed. Even he wouldn't last long if the city authorities began mustering their forces... or if these attackers had more reinforcements in reserve. I shifted the controls. Max brought the captive hovercraft up above his head. No weapons? I wouldn't say so. I snapped the arms down, sending the hovercraft flailing end over end across the barricade and smack into one of the attacking vehicles. Flames blossomed, blinding in the failing twilight, as oily smoke boiled into the sky. The surviving hovercraft sideslipped into a building front, bringing down a shower of concrete which bounced and powdered in the street. By the light of the flames, I could see the boys of the Avengers dropping back supporting the handful who were wounded. I stood guard with Max, covering their rear as they made it through deserted streets back to the compound. I could hear sirens in the distance through his external sensors, as the city Proctors closed in. The port storage warehouse Andrews' Avengers used for storing its groundside equipment gaped invitingly as Max strode through the spaceport gate and into the company compound. A small crowd had gathered inside to greet us... everyone, in fact, who had not been in on the operation in person. I saw the Colonel standing there, hands on hips, conveying a definite sense of disapproval. But the rest of the guys were cheering. Our quartermaster was there with a HandlerMech, a great, open framework of a machine with oversized arms and strut supports. "Lay that thing down, Daryl," I heard him call. "Then get the hell out of there. We don't have much time!" I guided Max to the ground. From flat on my back, I powered down, pulled off the neurohelmet, and cracked the hatch. Sam wiggled out feet first, and I followed. The Avengers' Tech crew was already busy, swarming across Max's torso like ants at a carcass. There wouldn't be time to disassemble him completely, but they were going to work at the bolts and fittings at his torso joint, where his legs and lower torso were joined to his upper torso by a broad, 3600 track. As I watched, a small company hovercraft keened into the warehouse, and I caught sight of the packing crates containing Max's weapons strapped to the deck. The Colonel came up beside us, fire in his eye. "Nice, low profile, huh?" he said. He was about to say more, but an infantryman came jogging up out of the gathering dark outside. "Company, Colonel!" he said. "They're on their way here!" "Snap it up, people!" he bellowed, and they snapped. Hissing and clanking, the LoaderMech backed Max's upper torso away from the lower. A second Loader appeared and helped 'Mech-handle the mass of machinery up onto a trailer platform, which trundled it away into the warehouse. A second platform hummed to a stop, and the two Loaders repeated the maneuver with Max's legs. Techs were already scouring the floor with handlights, looking for telltale traces of the operation, but there seemed to be nothing more incriminating than a few black patches of Mechdrek staining the pavement. And then the local police were there, just outside the warehouse, led by a pompous, be-ribboned and mustached official with authority written all over him. The Colonel strode over to meet them. Sam and I glanced at each other, then watched the display. We heard nothing but unintelligible shouts. There was a lot of hand waving on both sides. Sam nudged me in the side, and nodded towards a pair of locals off by themselves. One was discreetly waving the antennae of some sort of electronic device across the area, then shaking his head at his friend. I edged a bit closer. The Colonel is one of those individuals who can turn a lovely shade of purple when he gets angry. He was really hitting his stride now. All anyone could do was watch, and hope to stay clear of his path. "Whoa, there!" he said. Was it imagination, or did he manage to convey the impression that steam was coming from his ears? "Let me go over this just one more time to be sure I have it right! Some lowlife steals one of my trucks from this compound. My men chase him. The lowlife wrecks my truck and scatters garbage all over your street. A crowd of your security people show up and open fire on my men in your town. They claim they're responding to an alarm from a warehouse they've been hired to protect... claim that my people are stealing a 'Mech that doesn't look like a 'Mech... shoot my people... "Then they claim the missing BattleMech that doesn't look like a 'Mech is there after all, throwing hovercraft and smashing up your town... "MY GOD, WHAT KIND OF A PORT ARE YOU PEOPLE RUNNING HERE?" It did sound a mite improbable, the way he said it. The be-ribboned fellow looked a bit taken aback as the echo of the Colonel's shout rang back from the buildings around us. But the Colonel was just getting started. "You hire rabble and thugs to protect your warehouse! You claim my men stole somebody's BattleMech... while your men were shooting them down in the street! And now... this is the part I love... it's all my fault? You want me to pay for my truck, your buildings, their hovercraft, and somebody's missing BattleMech? You want me to turn my men over to you for questioning?" For a moment, I thought he was going to explode, and it looked like the man with the ribbons thought so, too, because he took a step back. Beyond the Colonel, I saw the quartermaster step from the warehouse and move his hand in a subtle "OK." The Colonel saw it and nodded. His voice dropped then to a deadly whisper, and I had to strain to catch what he said. "Take a look to your left, gentlemen. They looked, and so did I. There was a line of BattleMechs there... Johnny's Thunderbolt, and Casey's Stinger, and Glenn's Shadow Hawk. They moved, almost silent in the near dark, deploying across the field. "That, gentlemen, is what a company of BattleMechs looks like," the Colonel continued. "You're looking for a BattleMech? Take a good look!" "I ... I ... I'm sure we can come to a reasonable agreement," the official said. David's Wasp lumbered into view, taking up a position near the compound gate. "Oh, I'm very sure we can, Mr. Chief Proctor. You say an Atlas is missing? You claim that I have it here? Well, now, an Atlas is a rather large piece of machinery. You want to look through my warehouse, help yourself! Just remember... anything you unpack, you repack... and my boys are scheduled to boost out of this drekhole at 2300 local. You make me late and I'll forget about Conventions and turn my boys loose on your town. "I am going to deploy my Recon Lance around this area. You can search for your 'Mech, but any attempt to enter this compound in force, any threat against my boys, will be considered a hostile act... and I will act accordingly." He took a step back and raised his voice. "Recon Lance! Perimeter defense! Execute!" Larry couldn't resist the temptation to trigger his Jenner's jumpjets and vault the gate and the huddle of security people blocking it. David's Wasp and Glenn's Shadow Hawk were close behind, vaulting the fence and deploying in opposite directions. The official glanced at his companions. "Ah... we see your point of view, Colonel... and perhaps a mistake has been made. Ah... we will retire to ... ah... conduct our investigation and... ah ... act accordingly." "Do you want to search my warehouse for an Atlas?" "Ah... I don't think that will be necessary, Sir..." "Would you like me to turn out my pockets?" "No, Sir." They left. I started to turn to go myself, but I was too late. The Colonel caught my eye, and I saw the anger kindle there anew. "You. My office. NOW!" From his office window, I could see the hurrying shadows of my mates under the dazzle of the port lights. Our DropShip bay doors were open, and the last of our gear and supplies were being hustled aboard. There were Port Authority people there watching, of course... but they didn't seem anxious to interfere. The hulking shadows of John King's Thunderbolt stood alongside the bay ramp, and the authorities no longer seemed prone to argue. "It was a trap after all," he said as I walked in and closed the door. He tossed something onto his desktop for me to see. I picked it up. It was a shoulder flash, cut from someone's uniform. "Kurita regular infantry," I said. "David took it from the jacket one of those thugs was wearing under his armor. Most of them were locals, working for Kurita." He gestured at the patch. "But a few were Kurita officers." "They were watching Max?" "Don't look so surprised. You think small-time hoods would take that much interest in a 'Mech transfer? Or come armed like a small army?" "What... what did they want?" I felt weak. "Our best guess is that they were watching the Atlas until Sandoval arrived tomorrow. Then they would act in support." "Of what?" "What, indeed? Picture what would happen, as our 'Mechs deployed north to face the Kurita fortress up in the tundra country? Picture our boys guarding the port here, most of them out on the town, a few standing sentry go in light 'Mechs... Stingers, Wasps..." He jerked a thumb towards the DropShip, where loader platforms were wrestling a pair of huge packing crates up the ramp. Each crate must have weighed 50 tons. Then an Atlas appears, right here, smack in the middle of the port we're depending on for our supply line. What do you think would happen?" "It would be a massacre. All our supplies, ammo..." "All gone. Maybe our DropShips too, if the Atlas moved fast enough, before the alarm was given. Certainly our command control would be wrecked. The main Davion army, up north, would be cut off, just when the Kurita 'Mechs came boiling out of their fortress. Maybe they planned to bring in reinforcements, too. I don't know. There were several freighters due in tomorrow, along with Sandoval's. It's possible a sizeable contingent of the Proserpina Hussars could be on board, ready to disembark in the confusion." Realization struck me. "Then... then the locals are helping Kurita! The local Proctors, they were in on it!" "Maybe. Or maybe they were too scared to do anything but cooperate. I imagine there are quite a few Kurita agents still in the woodwork here." He shrugged. "It's not our problem. I'm putting this all in a report and turning it over to General Richardson at Cassias HQ. He can sort things out. I just pray to God we haven't left him with a guerrilla war on his hands." He spun from the window, looking me in the eye. "As for you, wouldn't you say things got a little out of hand tonight?" "Well... ah..." was all I could manage. Low profile... right? 'Keep the Atlas out of sight,' right?" "It seemed like the thing to do at the time, Sir..." "All I can say, Mister, is that it had better be one hell of a long time before you come in here with any more of your bright ideas!" Then the anger evaporated in a grin. "Unless it's something really good! Here." He brought out a bottle of imported scotch and a pair of glasses. "Let's have a drink... Lieutenant." We lifted on schedule and left Cassias behind us, boosting for our rendezvous with our regiment's JumpShip. I heard later that we passed a small fleet of DropShips inbound as we accelerated from orbit, and I hoped that General Richardson was ready for them. Of course, without Max, their plan wasn't likely to work. I could imagine Ferlando Sandoval, hearing the news that his Atlas was gone, getting madder and madder as he wondered who had done it. Someday, I'll meet him and let him know. I've made that promise, to myself, and to Max. Meanwhile, the Colonel has reshuffled our Company. I'm a lieutenant, now, commanding the Avengers' A Company Fire Lance. I haven't ridden Max into battle yet, but Sam has him tuned to perfection, sweet and sharp and rarin'to go. Me... an officer? Well, stranger things have happened. Back in Johannas, with Company A surrounded and the roof caving in, I'd felt the responsibility like a lead weight around my neck. Those gold lieutenant's bars carried the same responsibility... but somehow they didn't seem as heavy. Hell, I might get used to that kind of responsibility, sharing it with Max. I think we're going to make out just fine. Back to BattleTechnology 4 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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