Smoke filled the Manticore’s interior, burning Kommandant Rhinestag’s eyes in a way that the sulfur-tinged air of Ryde never had. Boles’ intercom had blessedly melted and gone silent, so the tank’s crew wasn’t subjected to the hiss and popping of melted plastic any longer, but that was hardly a relief. The sound of Boles’ screams as he had burned alive, trapped in his seat, still echoed in their ears.

  “I’ve got no power!” the PPC gunner shouted.

  “He’s coming back around,” someone else called. Rhinestag forced his burning eyes opened and glared at his screen, where the damned tan Wolverine was raising its laser again. He wondered for a second which one of them would die next.

  His map board had burned out half a minute ago. He had no idea where they were.

  Please, he prayed, please, let it be enough.

  Static squirted through his helmet, drowning out his panting.

  He closed his eyes.

  He smiled.

  Far enough, he told himself.

  Arlansson’s sensors screamed for his attention, throwing his aim off in the last millisecond. The laser’s fury again spent itself in the inert ground, injecting another infinitesimal fraction of heat into a planet’s crust already flush with too much. New sensors were painting his Wolverine.

  ’Mech-grade sensors.

  Not again, his mind screamed.

  Galen Cox settled his crosshairs over the leading Wolverine and waited for the gold tone. When it came, he squeezed his triggers, sending thirty long-range missiles erupting from his Crusader’s launchers. Exhaust washed across his cockpit, momentarily blinding his sensors, but he had seen enough.

  We’re in time, Bets, he told the shade he saw in his mind. The woman smiled, nodded, and vanished.

  Two shades remained, peeking out of a compartment Galen had built in his heart. He pushed the Crusader through the exhaust cloud, unmasking its powerful sensors to sweep across the field. He paused, checking to see if the green icons were still behind him.

  “All Caimans,” he said, “Caiman Six. Sink your teeth in, boys and girls.”

  His MechWarriors running past him, Galen pushed his throttles to their stops and followed.

  The shades of his parents, he imagined, looked on with pride.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Landing Zone Nurikabe

  Lesser Dasentica Continent

  Ryde

  Skye March, Federated Commonwealth

  5 October 3046

  As soon as the rest of the Caiman company emerged from the arroyo where they’d hidden themselves, the line of Kuritan ’Mechs pounding on the militia armor slowed and stopped, almost as one. Had his mind not been so completely on the battle, Galen would have laughed. He’d never seen a more obvious display of tactical surprise on a battlefield, anywhere. And I probably won’t ever again, he told himself.

  The Caimans managed to close two hundred meters before the first Combine ’Mech lurched into motion. It was the big Wolverine from the ambush yesterday. It took four steps backward and then turned, running back for the cover of the DropShip.

  Now Galen did laugh. Another ambush. Much more of this, he thought around chuckles, and they’ll have to rename this planet Ambush. He slowed the Crusader’s run long enough to drop his targeting crosshairs over the retreating Wolverine and fired again, but this time his missiles all spent themselves on the ground behind the retreating medium ’Mech. Valerie Osage’s Charger pounded past him as he slowed, it’s own missile launcher belting out warheads toward a scarred Panther. The score of missiles fell around and on the thirty-five ton ’Mech, clouding it in smoke.

  “Not too close to the DropShip,” he warned, “until we’ve reduced the ’Mechs.”

  “And if they retreat inside?” Leftenant Wu asked.

  “Then they’ve reduced themselves,” Galen said.

  The missile launchers in his ’Mech’s arms reloaded with a final chunk. He kept up the Crusader’s steady advance, dragging his reticle across his HUD, looking for a likely target. He saw a stubborn Trebuchet, moving slowly with the characteristic limp of a busted hip actuator, and drifted in that direction. The medium ’Mech saw him coming and fired, two LRM launchers identical in capacity to the batteries in the Crusader’s arms. More than half the missiles missed, but the others connected. Impacts shook the sixty-five ton ‘Mech, but Galen held it steady. His own crosshairs burned gold, indicating a lock.

  He fired back, sending thirty missiles of his own. The two ’Mechs were evenly matched in long-range firepower, but Galen had two advantages. Or rather, three.

  The first was that his ’Mech was faster. He could close the range faster than the Trebuchet could open it, which would let him bring his medium lasers and short-range missiles into play.

  Second, he was heavier by fifteen tons. Much of that difference in weight was made up of armor and structure, which meant that even if he and the Trebuchet traded blows one-for-one, he would come out ahead. The Trebuchet pilot knew that, which was why he was hobbling backward as fast as he could.

  The third of Galen’s advantages was most telling. He wasn’t alone.

  Sergeant Bellona Rodrigo, a Federated Suns native from the distant border world of Tancredi IV, had held her eighty-ton Victor to its maximum speed ever since Galen had given the order to advance. Now she was close enough. The Victor barely slowed.

  Raising her ’Mech’s right arm, Rodrigo trigged the massive Pontiac 100 autocannon that filled the limb. The reports hammered the very air, so loud that Galen heard them through his cockpit insulation, through his helmet baffles, from 100 meters away. The weapon was among the most powerful a ’Mech could carry, and the Victor, a prominent assault ‘Mech in the Federated Suns, was designed to bring it to battle as quickly as possible.

  Rodrigo’s fire struck the already-battered Trebuchet in the chest, blasting it off its feet and smashing it to the ground. The ’Mech twitched once on the ground, like a man shocked with electric current, then lay still.

  And that’s why they’ve named it one of the AFFC’s standard assault ’Mechs, Galen told himself.

  “Good job, Bellona,” he sent.

  Her reply was a double-click of the microphone.

  Her ’Mech never slowed.

  Fritofsson snarled as the hovertanks fled back the way they’d come. He slowed the Grand Dragon’s speed and called for the rest of his company to do the same. The Basans weren’t built to chase the fleet tanks.

  “Report kills,” he ordered, and then grunted when his eleven MechWarriors reported only three hovertanks destroyed. And I had to destroy one of those.

  He keyed his microphone on the battalion channel, but all he heard was static. “All right,” he called. “Hold here for a moment. Watch your scanners for the Lyran ’Mechs. They have to be out here somewhere.”

  A hammering thunder echoed around the DropShip, loud enough that Fritofsson heard it through his cockpit’s walls. He frowned, and keyed a channel to the DropShip.

  “—they’re too far away, I tell you!” someone was shouting.

  “This is Basan One,” he said, loudly, hoping to cut off whomever was speaking.

  “What? Oh, Tai-i. You should probably get back around to the other side.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the Lyran ‘Mechs, sir,” the speaker aboard the DropShip said. “They’re over here—over there—I mean, they’re on the other side of us from you. And they’re shooting at the chu-sa.”

  Fritofsson closed the channel. “Around the DropShip!” he shouted. He slammed his throttles forward, kicked the Grand Dragon’s foot into the ground as a pivot, and headed back the way he’d come at a run.

  A fast run, for a ’Mech of sixty tons. But Fritofsson cursed every step.

  It will never be fast enough.

  The Wolverine shivered as another flight of long-range missiles erupted into the ground near him, but luckily none of the warheads connected. Arik Arlansson felt the ’Mech shiver and wondered if it were the missile impacts or his own unease, transmitted faithfully through his neurohelmet to the ‘Mech’s DI computer.

  In any case, it must stop. He spun, safely under the DropShip’s missile umbrella, and took stock.

  Four of his ’Mechs were already down—including Senza’s Trebuchet, which had been all-but-annihilated by the Lyran Victor. His own Wolverine was still damaged, and the two Panthers that had sheltered with him had both been savaged as well.

  He looked farther afield, counting eleven—no, twelve Lyran ’Mechs. One of them, a tan-painted Panther, was obviously a salvaged machine. Arlansson felt a moment’s fury that one of his own ’Mechs had been recovered and turned against him, but he suppressed it. The Lyrans undoubtedly had access to better repair facilities and manpower than he could muster from a single DropShip.

  It could be worse, he told himself. They might have repaired the damned Banshee, instead.

  “Fritofsson,” he said, keying his com. There was no response save static. “Basan One, come in!” More static.

  “Dragon’s scaly balls,” he swore, and keyed a different channel. “Patch me through to Basan One,” he said on the DropShip channel without waiting to see who answered.

  “Just a moment, Chu-sa,” one of the DropShip’s crewmen said. “He’s already headed your way. It will take just a moment to match the frequencies—“ There was a blip of static, then a carrier hum.

  “Gunnar?”

  “Chu-sa!”

  “It was a feint, Gunnar,” Arlansson confessed. “I walked right into it.”

  “We had hovertanks on this side,” Fritofsson said. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “So ka?” He shook his head. That doesn’t matter, you old woman, he raged at himself. “Get around here, and we can still take them. We’ll lure them into the DropShip’s envelope and use its turrets to crush them.”

  “Hai!” A pause. “Less than a minute, Chu-sa.”

  “As fast as you can.”

  Arlansson tried to think. This was obviously the Lyrans’ last push, and the tactician in him saw why they had tried. So far, with the exception of the first skirmish, they hadn’t backed down. They’d won the last engagement clearly, and then held onto the initiative.

  I should have seen it earlier, he realized. When they came back after that first skirmish. These are not the Lyran tactics they taught us about. These are more aggressive…more like fighting the Davions.

  Then he blinked.

  The Davions…

  The two realms had cooperated during the Fourth Succession War, of course, and even again during the War of the 3039. But that war had been a loss for them, and most of the DCMS officers Arlansson listened to and respected had little faith in the so-called Armed Forces of the Federated Commonwealth. There was little chance, those officers said, of the stodgy Lyrans and effete Davions mixing in the same units. The two were incompatible.

  Arlansson looked again at the ’Mechs slowly coming closer. An Atlas, as common a Davion ‘Mech as a Steiner one. A Cataphract, a Liao and now Davion machine, but that could have been salvage or even an exchange. Pure Lyran Hatchetman ’Mechs. Longbows.

  A Victor.

  A Victor.

  “What if they are truly integrated,” he whispered. Despite the lies about propaganda that ISF always shouted about. What if it were true?

  Alarms screamed at him, startling him out of his reverie.

  A half-instant later, the Wolverine rocked with missile impacts.

  Galen grinned a wolf’s grin. The Snake CO had miscalculated. He was only a couple hundred meters from the DropShip, not boarding but safely beneath its missile umbrella. He’d just been standing there, thinking—but also not thinking.

  Any AFFC ’Mech that ventured that close to the DropShip would get smashed by missile and cannon turrets. There was little chance of that. None of the Caimans were stupid enough to get that close.

  But the Caimans had LRMs, too, with ranges of hundreds of meters. And even if they were out of range of the DropShip—and out of the DropShip’s range—the Snake ‘Mechs weren’t.

  He waited for the Crusader’s LRMs to recycle.

  You have two choices, he thought at the Snake CO. You can come out here and fight us, or you can get in your ship and get the hell off Ryde.

  He wondered how long it would take the other guy to decide.

  “Chikusho!” Arlansson swore. I am an idiot, only fit to govern a hospice full of invalid old women, he told himself. When did they teach you about ranges at the academy? The first day? On the entrance exam?

  “Chu-sa—” one of the cadets began, but Arlansson cut him off. The blunt nose of Fritofsson’s Grand Dragon emerged from around the DropShip.

  He had only moments to decide, but in those moments years raged.

  He could withdraw, and save his cadets and what remained of the battalion. It wasn’t too late to board ship. The Overlord was old, but its armor was thick and it would hold long enough for them to get away. He could return to Dieron, and tell the Red Duke…what? Tell him he’d spent half the battalion and more, to accomplish nothing? There would be no honor in that, no place for his cadets or himself.

  Iie. I cannot do that.

  He gripped the Wolverine’s controls. If he could not retreat…

  The rest of Fritofsson’s company arrived around the DropShip.

  He raised the Wolverine’s arms.

  “Banzai!” he cried, and his voice echoed across the land from the ’Mech’s external speakers.

  In his head, he heard the cacophony of all thirty-three cadets shouting, days ago in the ’Mech bay. He heard generations of his ancestors shout.

  He lurched the battered ’Mech forward.

  Galen saw the ’Mechs leap forward, and knew. He knew there wasn’t time for speeches or orders. He knew there wasn’t time to think, only time for the company to fight as he and the hauptmann had trained it.

  “Hit ’em!” he shouted.

  And the rest was all flashes and bangs and rattling death.

  Standing half out of his broken Manticore’s turret hatch, helmet held tight against his head to protect his ears, Kommandant Joachim Rhinestag saw two groups of ’Mechs slam into combat with his own eyes for the first time. It was nothing like he’d ever seen on the HV, or ever could have imagined.

  The noise was indescribable.

  He watched Cox’s Crusader start forward, its body language haughty but confident. Missiles ripped from its launchers in screaming bunches, bathing it in smoke and fire. The new group of Drac ’Mechs did the same thing, firing weapons and running forward, trying to close the range to bring more weapons to bear.

  It was horrific. It was beautiful. It was elemental.

  He coughed, a wracking cough that stabbed pain from the ribs he was sure were cracked and prayed weren’t broken. The back of his hand, when he pulled it away from his mouth, was caked in sweat and grime and ash, but thankfully no blood.

  He sat down, hard, on the edge of the hatch coaming.

  And he watched.

  Leftenant Wu Min knew his place was in the rear. His Longbows were slow and not designed to stand in the line. So when the rest of the company charged forward, he hung back, but urged his two Hatchetman jocks forward.

  “Get up there,” he’d told them. “Get it stuck in.”

  The two medium ‘Mechs, axes at the ready, had run forward.

  Wu had looked at Sergeant Hayes, who piloted Three Lance’s other Longbow, and gestured with his ’Mech’s barrel-shaped arms.

  “We don’t get paid to bring any missiles back,” he told him.

  Then he’d settled the support ’Mech’s stance and started firing as quickly as the massive LRM batteries would reload.

  Gunnar Fritofsson had never believed his grandfather’s tales of Ragnarok and Valhalla, of circling valkyries and magic hammers. Instead, he had latched on the warrior aspect of the dragon, just as his father had.

  Now, piloting a Grand Dragon across a snowy, smoke-backed field, with giants waiting for him, he wondered for an instant if the old man might not have been right.

  Then the time for wonder was over, as a Victor with twenty tons on him fell out of the sky on jump jets. He twisted the Grand Dragon to the side, throwing his body against his restraints as he flat-out willed the ’Mech to move—and barely succeeded. The big autocannon in the Victor’s right arm fired and missed. Fritofsson was happy to accept the two burn scars from the Victor’s paired medium lasers if it meant avoiding the crushing hammer of the autocannon.

  He was too close for his own missiles, and his one medium laser stabbed ineffectually at the assault ’Mech’s armor. Fritoffson stepped his ‘Mech closer, closer, until he was almost grappling with the Lyran ‘Mech. He reached out, questing with his left arm, and captured the Victor’s right. A ’Mech’s actuators lacked the finesse for the arm lock Fritofsson would have used were it his own flesh and blood arm around another man’s, but the second he bought was enough.

  He brought the Grand Dragon’s right arm up and put the muzzle of his PPC under the Victor’s chin. The assault ’Mech broke his arm hold, the massive barrel swinging into line with his own viewports.

  “I am coming, Grandfather,” he whispered, and squeezed the PPC trigger.

  He had the barest perceptible hint of a massive impact, tinged with blue light, and then nothing.

  Staff Sergeant Canne watched with his own eyes from the open turret hatch, ignoring the frigid wind that ripped at his exposed skin like a thousand miniscule scalpels. He saw the Victor and the Grand Dragon embrace, saw their arms move, saw the flash of PPC fire and heard the boom of the Victor’s big cannon at the same time, and then both ’Mechs fell, smoking.

  “Mary, mother of Christ,” he whispered, and crossed himself.

 

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