The Trell stepped off the ladder and felt the blade at his throat before he sensed the man behind it. "Hunter!" he choked out "Hunter!" The attacker's grip loosened.
"You're Stefan?" The voice was curiously level.
The Trell nodded, rubbing at his throat. Squads of attackers dressed in close-fitting black garb raced past. One of them stopped before Stefan, his face totally obscured by featureless black plastic, a silenced submachine gun in his gloved fist The black canvas bag across his back bulged with menace.
"You're the traitor?"
The Trell nodded again, uncertainly. The attacker's accent was foreign and hard to follow, his manner unexpectedly harsh.
"Come."
In the passageway, there were only twisted, blood-soaked bodies and the silent forms of black-garbed attackers. The one Stefan knew must be the leader gave nearly silent commands and signals to crouching groups of commandos, sending them off down branching corridors with lethal efficiency.
"Put this on." The leader handed Stefan a light-weight breathing mask from a pouch. It was even harder to see the black shadows in the pale amber tint of the mask's amplifier goggles. Blood," he saw, became a slick and lustrous black through the goggles, and the passageway took on an eerie quality in the ghostly light. "The Command Center. Lead us."
Stefan nodded. "Two levels up. This way!"
The attack was heralded by the rasp of an alarm klaxon and the shuffle of boots across bare tile.floors as squads of men raced to their positions. From above, the woman's voice continued the patient announcement, "Alert, alert. Security penetration in sectors five and six."
"I've lost the Repair Bay," Riviera said. "Commlink's dead."
Griffith's scowl deepened, twisting the scar on his face as his jaw clenched, then relaxed. "Tell the Captain. Ari, let me have your chair."
Ari stood up, and Griffith slipped into his vacant chair beside Riviera.
Grayson pulled another chair from a nearby console and pushed in next to the Weapons Master. "Griff, who is it? Why are they attacking us?"
"I don't know, lad, though my first guess is the Trells. Riviera, put the garrison on full alert. Then patch me to the patrol monitors. I want to try and raise the patrol in town."
Grayson felt a numbing confusion. Certainly, the Trells had not been happy when news of the coming treaty with Oberon had leaked out, but he found it hard to believe that it was they who were storming up from the Castle's Repair Bay. How had they broken in? Those vast, sliding doors were proof against the hammerings of an 80-ton 'Mech. Nothing short of a small tactical nuke long forbidden by treaty and practicality could breach them.
He fixed his eyes on the image still being transmitted from his father's Phoenix Hawk. The DropShip was so close now that it filled the entire screen with black metal, though the ranging data across the bottom of the screen indicated the ship was still 90 meters away. Then he saw a port opening near the base, spilling harsh light across the ferrocrete paving.
"Griff!" The cry was torn from Grayson's throat. A ramp had dropped from the brilliantly lit opening, and soldiers were pouring out of it. The screen flared white, and the open commlink spat static as a high-energy beam swept across the Mech's antennae.
"Base!" I'm under attack!" Captain Carlyle's words were static-blasted and harsh. "Particle beam from a turret on the ship!"
The computer readout on a nearby monitor shifted and flickered, showing a sudden surge of power within the Phoenix Hawk, rapid movement, a double blast from the machine's powerful, arm-mounted lasers. The 'Mech's internal heat rose four degrees in as many seconds.
The Captain
shifted, blurring screen images. It was difficult to follow what was happening on the monitors. Grayson couldn't really SEE anything but gyrating snatches of the port structures and the pulsing flash of detonations. The computer readout alongside the image monitor told more of the story to those, like Grayson, trained to read it
Carlyle's Phoenix Hawk was a middleweight as BattleMechs go, and shared the humanoid pattern of most 'Mechs. It mounted a massive laser riflelike in its right hand. The 'Mech also mounted smaller lasers and antipersonnel machine guns in the extended duralloy vambraces of each forearm. The readouts showed those weapons systems powered up and swinging into line, showed turrets on the grounded freighter bracketed by crosshairs and the steady flicker of range and target acquisition date.
The left arm laser beamed invisible, coherent light across the DropShip's lower hull plates and baffles, and a weapons turret fragmented in flame and hurtling chunks of metal.
"Acknowledged, Captain." Griffith's voice was steady as he answered Carlyle's statement that the Phoenix Hawk was under attack, but beads of persipiration had broken out along his eyebrows and mustache. He paused to read a printed message flickering across one of the monitor screens. "Security Chief Xiang's on his way from our shuttle. He'll be in position to support you in two minutes!"