Loren L. Coleman - BattleTech - MechWarrior - Dark Age 08 - Fortress of Lies

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com
1
Aloha Agricultural District
Glastonbury continent, New Aragon
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Prefecture V, The Republic of the Sphere
1 September 3134
The bombs fell on New Aragon, their shock waves sending out ghostly rings of tortured air. Aerospace
fighters streaked overhead, black arrows against a red sky, bloody with the smoke and dust of three
weeks of unending battle.
The ground was pocked with craters, the huge footprints of forty-ton BattleMechs and lined with tracks
recording armored battles decided days before. In the near distance, wrecked tanks smoldered, trailing
black smoke. Crushed battle-armor lay scattered on the raw earth like broken eggshells, black jelly that
might once have been men oozing through the cracked metal.
Thankfully, Erik Sandoval could not smell the battlefield in the filtered air of his cockpit. Only the stink of
his own sweat, the ozone smell of overheated circuitry, and the tang of hot metal reached his nostrils.
This, reflected Erik, was the terrible beauty of war. The unspeakable wonder, the sights that could never
be forgotten, burned into the brain to emerge in the nightmares of old men and women—those who were
foolish enough, or unlucky enough, to live that long.
Such was the loss of perspective that came from thirty-three days spent primarily in the cockpit of a
’Mech, striding high above the battlefield. It came from watching lesser combatants scrambling ahead,
from forgetting your humanity, and simply becoming a walking, twelve-meter-tall engine of destruction,
facing more targets than you can shoot—more targets than you have time to chase down or ammo to kill.
Small targets that shoot back, sometimes with enough force to sting even a mighty BattleMech. Small
targets that, if a MechWarrior got sloppy or inattentive or simply overwhelmed, could even kill him.
A movement caught Erik’s eye, and he pivoted hisCenturion, gyros whining. The weakened left leg,
damaged in a brawl with a modified MinerMech three days earlier, caused his humanoid ’Mech to limp
slightly. In the distance, the upright insect form of a green and goldSpider BattleMech strode from behind
a hill—a shaft of sunlight glancing off its bubble cockpit, carbon scoring streaking its extended wings. It
moved rapidly to Erik’s right, perhaps not seeing him. He zoomed in with his optics, placed his targeting
reticles over the exposed flank and squeezed off a laser burst.
There was a flash, and a jagged streak of molten armor appeared across theSpider ’s right shoulder. A
hiss of disappointment escaped Erik’s lips. He’d been aiming for the damaged lower torso, hoping for a
critical hit on the reactor. A week earlier he might not have missed, but such subtleties of battle were for
fresher warriors and fresher ’Mechs. At this range, he knew he should have been glad to get a hit at all.
TheSpider whirled and began running backward, lasers flashing with return fire—a clean miss—the
House Liao pilot perhaps rattled by the unexpected attack. The ’Mech spun again and sprinted away
from Erik. The broad wings sprouting from the ’Mech’s shoulders presented a tempting target, but Erik
knew where the machine’s critical systems were hidden—knew the distinction between an easy shot and
a victorious one.
He considered following up with a missile before remembering that his tubes were empty. He’d been
leading his formation back to the command DropShip for resupply, repair, and perhaps a warm meal and
a few minutes of fitful sleep. That would have to wait now.
So would the kill shot. TheSpider was fast. He had to slow it down if he hoped to do more significant
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damage. Erik thumbed back to his lasers, targeted, fired another shot. A flash against theSpider ’s lower
right leg left glowing traces but did only superficial damage. TheSpider fired its jump jets, staggering into
the air from amid a cloud of plasma-blasted debris. It managed to make it to the top of the nearest hill
before the jets flickered and died, dropping it heavily to the ground. The ’Mech stumbled, and for a
moment Erik thought it would fall. Then it got its footing and vanished over the hill. He instinctively
reached to shove the throttle forward and give chase.
“Commander.”
TheSpider was fast, but given its damage, and possibly disabled jump jets, he should be able to
overtake it.
“Commander.”
After weeks of hard-pressed fighting, the forces of House Liao were on the run. In the far distance, a
dark sphere rose over the horizon, trailing a column of almost blindingly brilliant fire. It was anotherMule
- class DropShip fleeing New Aragon. Targets, once lined up from horizon to horizon, were now hard to
find. This might be his last chance to take down a ’Mech before—
“Erik!”
He blinked and ran his tongue across his dry and cracked lips, feeling the edge of the day-old stubble
growing above them. He blinked again, rewinding the last few moments in his brain, finally recognizing the
voice crackling in his headset.
“Captain Cutler?”
“Begging pardon, sir, you’re ranging awfully far forward of the formation. We can’t offer much cover for
you back here.”
“Cover?”
“Yes, sir. The patrol is spread out pretty far, and we can’t watch your six and protect our armor at the
same time. Can you give us a few minutes to close up?”
“Formation.” He took a deep breath, shook off the tunnel vision that had locked his entire being on the
fleeingSpider. “Sure, Hank. He’s too badly damaged to be worth the chase. Besides, he’s doubtless
forming up with some friends. I’m out of missiles and too hot for that kind of skirmish.”
“Yes, sir. Here come the bikes.”
A pair of hoverbikes flashed by on either side, curving in front of him to pass each other and begin
counterrotating orbits around his position. They were ungainly-looking things, but fast and hard to hit,
capable of lightning in-and-out harassment attacks on an enemy. One of the riders flashed a quick salute
as he zoomed in front of Erik’s ’Mech.
A moment later they were joined by two squads of Purifier battle armor arching in gracefully on jump
jets. They settled in front of him like a flight of tan-and-green wasps, leaving just enough of a gap in their
formation so he could move past them, if necessary, without trampling them under his ’Mech’s thundering
feet.
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The wheeled and tracked vehicles would be farther back, he knew, still scrambling to catch up, another
squad of Purifier battle armor guarding their flanks. He looked at the hill where he’d last seen theSpider
and sighed.
This was modern war. There had been a time, long before he was born, when countless ’Mechs would
have ruled the battlefield, when two ’Mechs meeting in combat would have squared off, like colossal
gladiators, for a fight to the death.
That day was gone. Once he had established The Republic of the Sphere, Devlin Stone had done his
best to create a state based more on commerce than on warfare. He had never been entirely successful,
but during his tenure as Exarch, many BattleMechs had been decommissioned or scrapped, and even the
capacity to manufacture replacements had nearly been lost. Now ’Mechs were rare, too precious to
send out alone, vastly outnumbered by more conventional armor, attack vehicles, and infantry. Now a
Mech Warrior, even a commander, had to think like a team player, trusting others to watch his back and
compensate for his valuable ’Mech’s few weaknesses.
Erik dreamed wistfully of those lost times and wished he could have lived then, when MechWarriors
were royalty, needing to trust only themselves, fully in control of their own destinies. But that was then.
’Mechs and their pilots were still the kings of the battlefield, for their relative scarcity. But there was a
subtle change in how they were treated. Now the tankers and infantrymen knew that battles were rarely
won by ’Mechs alone, and with this knowledge came a growing sense of their own importance. A few,
when well lubricated with liquor and when they thought they were out of earshot of any MechWarrior,
would even voice the idea that they didn’t need ’Mechs at all.
It was a foolish notion, of course, though perhaps only a little more foolish than pining for days long
gone. For the foreseeable future, winning battles would require a balance of forces, each playing their
role. Even as Erik was nostalgic for the old times, he was a realist. These men and women who entered
the battlefield without the awesome armor and firepower of a ’Mech well deserved his respect.
To Erik’s mind, the military was a unique social order. While there was a clearly defined chain of
command, in a sense all warriors were, on some level, equals. They had all paid their dues of danger,
pain, and fear. They had stood together, literally or figuratively, shoulder-to-shoulder on the field of life
and death.
Even the greenest and most untested recruits had pledged their lives to that service, and the smell of
death waited for them up the road. There was a brotherhood and sisterhood of arms that no civilian
could ever really understand. From the lowest private to a battle commander, they were bound by blood.
Yet it was from the role of commander that Erik now saw this war against the Liao incursion, and it
chafed at him. He longed not just for the days of old, but the freedom to fight as a true warrior. If ’Mechs
were too rare to risk alone on the battlefield, his status made him even less expendable. He did not hold
himself apart from the men and women under his command—not at all. Rather, he was held apart from
them.
Erik checked his heading back to the DropShip, and started a wide turn that the formation would find
easier to follow. A row of cracking noises worked their way up the side of his ’Mech, from waist to
shoulders, the last making a loud report against the ferro-glass canopy next to his head.
Small-arms fire. Nothing to trouble a ’Mech, but close enough to be worth his attention. The squad was
too close to the grounded DropShip, and he didn’t like to see this level of enemy activity. He thumbed his
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com to address the whole formation. “I’m picking up some plink, from the south-southeast I think.
Bikers, watch yourselves. Let’s get the scout car out there for a look. I’ll watch your six. The rest of you
group up and hug cover.”
“Yes, sir.”
He recognized the voice as Dallas, pilot of the formation’s Fox armored car. The unit moved past him on
the right, hoverskirts flapping as it turned, sun glinting off its bubble cockpit. He throttled up to follow,
taking a slightly different path to cover more ground and give him a clear shot at any threat.
The low rolling hills offered ample cover for enemies, allowing for attack from almost any direction. The
flat expanses between had once been swampland, before the early settlers drained most of the planet’s
two major continents through a vast network of trenches, dams, and artificial waterways. Small streams
were everywhere, and many of the lowlands still flooded in the spring rains.
He saw movement along the horizon, but it was only a fleeing herd of Geef, thousand-kilogram grazing
amphibians whose appearance fell somewhere in a combination of toad, buffalo, and alligator. These
were probably from a commercial herd, escaped as the result of fighting, or perhaps released by their
owners to fend for themselves until the hostilities were over.
New Aragon was no stranger to war. Agriculture, ranching, and the ecosystem itself had only just
recovered from the damage done by Blakist chemical weapons decades earlier.
Now war was here again. It was unclear if it had come to stay.
TheCenturion ’s limp was more pronounced at this speed, making the cockpit lurch with every second
step. He could hear the frayed fibers of synthetic muscle in the bad leg twang, like an amateur plucking
randomly at some huge guitar. The heat indicator, which had been falling since his last laser shot, now
began to slowly climb again. That shouldn’t be happening. Clearly there was damage somewhere that
wasn’t showing up on his diagnostics.
His eyes scanned ahead, looking for the hidden infantry that was the likely source of fire. A stand of
trees, most smashed and broken off to stumps by earlier action, offered an excellent potential hiding
place, but a gully to his right and some rocks uphill beyond the trees were also possibilities.
He heard the chatter of a light machine gun in his helmet’s earphones, and sparks danced across the
cockpit of the Fox. “There they are,” yelled Dallas, “in the rocks.”
“I’m on it,” said Erik, turning theCenturion to wade through the stand of fallen trees. He put his
crosshairs on the rocks, but could see no obvious target. “Get me some infantry support here, and get the
tanks in position to pound those rocks.”
There was a whistle as theFox disappeared in an explosion of earth and shattered metal. Just that fast,
Dallas was gone. “Artillery!” Erik swung the humanoid ’Mech’s torso looking for a target, but the artillery
was likely out of sight behind one of the nearby hills. “Bikers, get out there and find those guns!”
“Incoming!” Cutler’s voice broke in. “Incoming!”
Erik pulled up a rear camera, and saw explosions around and among the armor. “Damn, damn. Spread
out! Make them work for it!”
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The column began to scatter, but it was too late for an M1 Marksman Tank that was nearly swallowed
in an explosion. When the dust began to clear, he could see one front track flopping loose, the other
track on that side apparently frozen. The unit spun helplessly in a circle, the still functional turret restlessly
searching for a target.
A movement far below alerted him to a more immediate threat. From the trees, soldiers in Purifier battle
armor swarmed. While several units trapped him in a circle of laser fire, two others fired their jump jets to
leap onto his ’Mech. He managed to lash out with the ’Mech’s right arm, smashing one out of the air with
a satisfying bang, but the other landed on his right shoulder, too high for him to easily reach. He lost sight
of the unit. Then there was a loud hammering at the hatch behind him.
They’re trying to take my ’Mech!
Helplessly, he looked around. Neither his weapons nor his arms could reach his tiny tormentor. Then he
had an inspiration.
His ’Mech began to run, breaking free of the circle, heading directly for the rocks that had been his
original target. If the machine gun opened fire on him, all the better. They’d be more of a threat to the
Purifier than to him. If not, he’d overrun them.
But that wasn’t his primary intent. Through the neurohelmet that controlled the ’Mech’s balance, he
stopped fighting the limp and leaned into it, causing the ’Mech to lurch and stagger sickeningly with each
step. He began flailing theCenturion ’s massive arms, twisting the torso, swinging it forward and back.
His stomach lurched at the chaotic motion of the cockpit. How much worse must it be for his
“passenger”?
He couldn’t reach the infantryman on his neck, but he could slam the arms wildly against the ’Mech
itself, making the entire structure ring like a massive bell. He cringed as the sound stabbed into his ears,
overwhelming the noise-canceling effect of the headphones. He could feel it in his chest, in his bones.
He dug the ’Mech’s heels in, simultaneously whipping the torso from side to side, slamming into the
stops at either extreme. Then he swung theCenturion forward at the waist, almost toppling it. Above him
he heard a scrambling noise, followed by a thud, as the Purifier, its hold loosened by the movement and
noise, flipped over the ’Mech’s head. The infantryman tried to fire his armor’s jump jets, but it was too
late, and his attitude was all wrong. He landed at an angle and crashed hard into the ground.
The trooper struggled weakly to rise, but Erik was moving again. It was only a second before he
dropped his right foot on the struggling man and pressed down. The ’Mech’s foot settled onto the rocky
ground.
Erik turned. The other Purifiers were fleeing as fast as their jump jets would take them. The artillery fire
had stopped, and he heard one of the bikers calling in a bearing on their location.
In the confusion, they were moving right toward Erik’s formation, and Erik would quickly be within
range of their guns, helpless. While not as satisfying as taking out a ’Mech, Erik would be happy to settle
for taking out what must be several units of House Liao artillery. To his right, he could see the crew of the
crippled M1 transferring to an Armored Personnel Carrier, as the rest of the column charged after the
artillery. He radioed in a recovery unit for the M1. Then he fired theCenturion ’s jump jets. The nozzles
in the ’Mech’s legs blasted out streams of glowing plasma, sending the ’Mech in a high arc over the
formation, allowing him to take point. At this moment, Erik Sandoval wanted to kill something. He
wanted to kill a lot of somethings.
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Duke Aaron Sandoval leaned back in his couch overlooking the DropShipVictory ’s command center.
In the center of the crowded room, a holotable flashed three-dimensional maps of the ongoing battles, the
view changing every ten seconds or so as the display rotated through the various hot spots scattered
around New Aragon’s two continents.
Around the room, a dozen combat controllers sat at individual consoles, relaying orders and situational
data to the field commanders. The room buzzed with many voices talking at once, yet it was also
strangely calm as each controller focused intently on their own console.
A few supervisory controllers walked the room, observing and stopping to intervene with some detail.
Occasionally a runner would come through to hand a document or a cup of coffee to one of the
controllers.
From Aaron’s seat, he could look down on the controllers and their consoles, as well as on a ring of
holodisplays that surrounded his position. He seemed quiet, but nothing escaped his attention.
There was one overarching pattern: The red icons representing House Liao forces were all on the
retreat, falling rapidly back to beachhead areas where DropShips waited to spirit them away, or to the
spaceport in the capital city of Argos, still nominally under their control.
To a casual observer, the victory for Duke Sandoval’s forces seemed decisive and overwhelming. But
the Duke fully appreciated how fragile the situation was. As House Liao forces fell back nearly as fast as
the Duke’s forces could follow, they collapsed their own supply lines in front of them, even as his were
stretched ever thinner.
House Liao seemed on the verge of withdrawing from the planet, but Aaron had studied just enough
Aikido to know how an attacker’s own energy could be turned against him. The greater it was, the more
it could be used to the attacker’s disadvantage. His troops—his SwordSworn—were pushing hard to
keep up with the retreat.
The door to the room slid open with a hiss, and a handsome woman with streaks of gray in her
shoulder-length brown hair entered the room. She wore a trim black suit with pale blue piping; loose
sleeves framed her carefully manicured hands. Her perfume was musky and, to Aaron’s taste, rather
unpleasant. Apparently the scent was quite popular among both women and men on New Aragon, but he
had heard some of his troops jokingly refer to the scent as “swamp cabbage.”
Her makeup was immaculate, but she looked tired. Like many people, she apparently had trouble
sleeping under stress, a problem Aaron had never shared. Ostensibly, she had no business in the
command center. This was a military matter, not a civilian one. Another military commander might have
asked her to leave, especially at such a critical juncture, but Aaron’s political sense would not allow it.
New Aragon would not always be at war, and Marilou Grogan was the planetary governor, after all.
He repressed a sigh. She remained his major stumbling block to bringing New Aragon under his
influence—a possibility that had seemed remote when they’d first arrived. To Aaron’s distress, he
discovered that Prefect Shun Tao, Prefecture V’s supreme military commander, had stationed himself on
New Aragon in order to be closer to the line of resistance against House Liao’s invasion.
While Shun Tao was in no position to refuse Aaron’s aid, he was a fierce Republic loyalist, and
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justifiably suspicious of the Duke’s motives. Aaron was well outside his own Prefecture, meddling
without invitation from the local government. From Aaron’s standpoint, it was as though he’d been
caught with his hand in the candy jar. Their relationship had been chilly, and Aaron knew that his
presence on New Aragon would be welcomed only so long as his forces were militarily necessary.
Then there had been an astounding reversal. The official reports said that Shun Tao had been wounded
in early fighting. The Prefect had been evacuated from the planet, and simultaneously the Prefecture’s
forces had begun pulling back, abandoning the world to the House Liao advance. Aaron suspected there
was more to Tao’s withdrawal than that. Perhaps the man had been recalled, or had simply cracked
under the strain.
Though he was too pragmatic to put much stock in such things, Aaron could not help but think of it as
divine intervention—a sign that his campaign was meant to succeed. He would repel House Liao’s
aggression, and bring many new worlds under his banner, ultimately to pledge them to the renewed glory
of House Davion, from which his family had drawn power and prestige. The Republic, though a noble
experiment, was rapidly proving itself a failed one, and Aaron wanted to be ready when its remains were
divided.
But every journey was a series of steps. Divine intervention or not, the traveler could stumble, or even
fall. First, he had not only to win New Aragon, but to gain its continued allegiance to his cause. The
ongoing battle with Liao would justify the alliance for the foreseeable future, but Aaron hoped for more
than that. He could see The Republic crumbling around them, Prefecture V more than most. If the people
of New Aragon could not count on their own Prefect and Lord Governor for protection and stability,
they would turn elsewhere. Hopefully they would turn to him.
Much could go wrong. Much had gone wrong already. Aaron tried not to let it concern him. His
grandmother had been fond of telling him that, “For the wise, each failure teaches fifty lessons, and with
each setback comes fifty opportunities.” He had always tried to live his life by those words, seeing each
day, good or bad, as a springboard to an infinity of bright tomorrows.
This philosophy had led many to criticize him as being a reckless dreamer. He suspected that some even
thought him mad. He didn’t care. He had noticed that those criticisms became more muted each time his
power and status increased.
With Shun Tao out of the picture, a new range of possibilities had opened, and Aaron was quick to
position himself in response, establishing relations with the remaining local powers. He’d had no trouble
with the Legate, New Aragon’s military commander. He’d immediately seen the Duke’s forces as the
saving grace they were, and he had no desire to try and step into the Prefect’s shoes. Aaron had put him
in charge of operations on the other continent, and the Prefect willingly placed himself under Aaron’s
authority, a neat arrangement that kept him out of Aaron’s hair.
The Governor, on the other hand, had no real authority over the military, which was Aaron’s immediate
concern, and yet she was too politically valuable to ignore. Should their forces be successful in this
theater, Aaron would later have need of the resources, manufacturing capabilities, money, and public
support that were within her sphere of influence.
Yet she remained a cipher to him. The extent of her loyalties to The Republic and her own Lord
Governor were unknown, and it was unclear to Aaron whether she would respond better to diplomatic
seduction or simple intimidation. Perhaps he would try a little of both.
A narrow aisle separated the raised platform, on which he sat, from the rest of the room. She walked
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purposefully over to stand in front of him. He glanced down at her and smiled what he knew, from hours
of practice in front of a mirror, was a reassuring smile. “Things are going well, Marilou. With luck, we
may have the capital firmly back in our control by tomorrow afternoon.”
She flinched slightly when he used her first name. She evidently did not enjoy his familiarity, but was in
no position to object. It was the sort of subtle display of power and authority that the Duke enjoyed.
“I would prefer to be in the capital myself, instead of cowering here in your DropShip.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And do what? Get yourself shot? I don’t know if you’re more concerned about
your people or political appearances, but trust me, neither of them would have been served if you’d
stayed in the capital and gotten killed or captured. Nothing will speed the return of New Aragon to
normality when this is over than a big parade through the center of Argos to the Capitol Building,
celebrating your triumphant return.”
“If your intelligence reports are accurate, one wing of the Capitol is a burned-out hulk, and the dome has
collapsed. Some celebration that will be.”
He grinned. “Then you’ll stand on the ruined steps, praise the courage of the New Aragon people, and
vow to rebuild, bigger and grander than ever, with a memorial park for the war dead right in front.”
She pursed her lips and considered. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you, Duke Sandoval?
Even the New Aragonians who are dying out there can be stacked up as a neat political platform.”
He frowned slightly. “You make me sound cold, Governor. We fight the best war we can fight, and
nothing will bring back those who perish. I’m merely practical. Their sacrifice can be given additional
meaning, if it helps to strengthen our Republic in its time of trouble.” He studied her face at the mention of
The Republic. He saw no reaction; perhaps she wasn’t a loyalist after all. He thought perhaps that her
first loyalty might be to herself. If so, that was good news. Greed and self-interest were readily exploited.
He smiled.
“If I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that any disaster, no matter how grim, can be given a political
spin,” he said. “There are no defeats—only opportunities. There are no casualties—only fallen heroes.”
“I won’t be happy until I have my capital city back, no matter the condition that it’s in.” She studied the
maps, her face showing a great deal more comprehension of the abstract symbols than he would have
expected. She blinked, then looked up at him with a slight frown of puzzlement. “Couldn’t you have
taken the city already? It seems that you have more than enough forces in place in the suburbs.”
He nodded. “But if I were to take the city, logically my first action would be to sweep up along the
north-south arteries and take the spaceport.”
The frown deepened. “And? That seems like a good thing.”
“The spaceport is speeding their retreat. If I took it, the forces in the area would be cut off. They’d have
to try to retake it and make a fighting retreat to another staging area, or House Liao would have to
redeploy forces to support them.”
“Still, shouldn’t you then be able to crush them?”
“In theory, if everything went perfectly, I could wipe out a good part of their forces and put a dent in
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their aggressive advance across this part of space.”
“Again, this seems a good thing.”
“It’s a trap. Even if it wasn’t intentionally set, it’s just as easy to fall into. I have no reserves left to back
up such an attack. None.”Or at least none that could be moved without leaving us critically
vulnerable somewhere else. “If things didn’t go as planned, or if some of House Liao’s retreating forces
doubled back to hold Argos, then this entire war could turn in the course of a few hours.” He looked into
her eyes. “Youdo want your planet back, don’t you?”
Her eyes widened as she grasped the situation. “Of course I do. I’m sorry, Lord Governor, for
questioning your judgment. Of course I’m grateful that you’ve come to our aid. With the Prefect
injured—perhaps even dead—and our own forces overwhelmed, your unexpected arrival was little short
of a miracle—one I’m not inclined to question. I’m just tired, and concerned about my people and my
planet.”
And about getting your cushy office back as well, I’ll wager.Duke Sandoval smiled slightly and
turned his attention back to the holotable.
She stood there for a moment. Then, realizing that he was quite through talking, she walked over to the
railing where she could observe the holotable.
Aaron relaxed a bit. They were getting close to the issue of what would happen if the battle turned on
them—something he didn’t want to get into with the Governor. That was, of course, the difference
between her and him. This planet was everything to her. To Duke Aaron Sandoval, it was—it had to
be—merely one strategically placed chess piece in a game that spanned light-years and many star
systems.
Taking advantage of the chaos that had reigned since the collapse of the Hyperpulse Generator—the
faster-than-light HPG interstellar communications network—House Liao forces had swept across the
outskirts of The Republic, having taken nearly half of one Prefecture, and encroaching on a second. They
had succeeded in conquering a handful of worlds and thrown countless others into panic and chaos.
Sandoval’s game was not to protect any particular world, but to kill House Liao’s momentum, bloody
their noses, and hope that forces could be rallied to stand against them.
New Aragon was simply the right world at the right spot on the stellar map: a place where the Duke’s
limited forces would be enough to turn the tide of battle, and where winning that battle might be seen as
having real importance. It was The Republic’s last remaining sizable military base in the region, the rest
having fallen to the Liao invasion. Alone, unprepared, it was powerful enough to put up a good fight, but
nothing more. Now, thanks to the Duke’s forces, the invaders were being repelled, and the base might
now serve as a staging area for a counterattack.
The next twenty-four hours would be critical. By then, New Aragon would either have expelled the bulk
of the invaders or would be facing another round of battle that could not be won.
If that reversal came, Aaron had little doubt as to what he would do. While he didn’t mind playing the
role of gallant savior of New Aragon, the world was merely a pawn. And pawns were—regrettably for
them—expendable.
To the Duke’s mind, such decisions weren’t cruel. Cruelty required malice, and he had none. He was
simply concerned with the greater good of House Davion. If New Aragon could be saved and brought
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Loren L. Coleman - BattleTech - MechWarrior - Dark Age 08 - Fortress of Lies.pdf

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