Blood of the Isle

by Loren L. Coleman

  Dawn was several hours past, though still newer than this Jade Falcon assault, which had begun a few hours past midnight. Muted light crept across the overcast skies. The brightening day drew back morning’s haze like a blanket of gauze being stripped away layer by layer. Jasek had a good idea what it revealed. BattleMechs stomping across ridgelines, pushing their way through stands of dark green pines and yellowed alders. Heads thrust toward the sky, masters of the battlefield. Their spade-shaped feet scarring the earth beneath them with deep prints chewing into dark, loamy soil. Vehicles and battlesuit infantry cutting back and forth over those tracks, racing forward to press an advantage, falling back as the enemy responded.

  It wasn’t lost on him that his Stormhammers were doing more falling back than racing forward. And from what Joss Vandel’s command staff had gleaned from reports by Tara Campbell and Anastasia Kerensky, they were seeing much the same as they tried to hold the allied flanks. Precious kilometers were lost with each burning vehicle, every life spent.

  Even without reports from his senior officers, Jasek knew the Jade Falcons had pushed forward stronger forces than anything the Stormhammers had seen in the last week. Seven days over which Jasek basically slept in his MechWarrior togs, rising to fight, finding time in which to review losses, and then grabbing a few hours’ rest before the next alert.

  He’d called for help from Tara Campbell, and she’d sent him what she could, he knew. But it hadn’t been enough. Not with the thin spread of men and materiel trying to safeguard Miliano, Second Bristol, Norfolk, and a half dozen other important sites.

  And with the allied defenders holding on by their fingernails, Malvina Hazen had obviously chosen to push her people for all they were worth.

  This could be the day, he decided, eyeing the toggle on his communications board.

  As a new threat pushed back against the Stormhammers, Jasek’s Templar rocked beneath a blistering attack of laser and autocannon fire. Sidestepping into some red cedars, shearing away thick tree limbs with wet greenstick fractures, he dodged away from the worst of the damage. A few new pits and pockmarks covered his BattleMech’s arms and shoulders. An angry red weal slashed across its left hip.

  A Gyrfalcon had slashed in with Skanda light tanks and a hoverbike squad as escorts. They held the narrow valley between two hillsides, cutting off Jasek from the lance he’d pushed up the opposite slope. Two JES strategic missile carriers and a Hasek MCV, and a Maxim with Gnome armored infantry.

  “Reverse track, Epsilon-four,” Jasek ordered his wayward crew. He alternated his left and right particle cannon, holding his heat curve to tolerable levels. “Push back to the south and regroup at grid four-two-five.”

  “Landgrave. There’s a ’Mech in our way.”

  “It won’t be there long,” Jasek promised. And hoped he could deliver.

  Skating along the edge of the tree line, Jasek used his particle cannon to grab the Jade Falcons’ attention. If it had been Noritomo Helmer in the Gyrfalcon, his job would have been much easier. Helmer had to be spoiling for a rematch after Chaffee. But this ’Mech had darker green paint and the blue eyes painted on its chest that he had come to recognize as an emblem of Malvina Hazen’s warriors. Jasek would have to convince this one to follow.

  The PPC shots he whipped over two hoverbikes did the trick. As the open-air vehicles tumbled into death rolls, the Clan Gyrfalcon leaped forward on jump jets to suddenly set itself between Jasek and its own support force.

  Its paired weapons, extended-range lasers over ultra-class autocannon, chewed up the forest surrounding Jasek. One stream of angry bullets hammered into his shoulder, spoiling his aim as he tried to flail more of his artificial lightning among the Skandas.

  A Kelswa assault tank rolled into the valley behind the Gyrfalcon, brought up to plug the gap.

  “Hold, damn it. Epsilon, hold.”

  Frustration and more than a little concern chewed at his confidence as he spent another PPC against the Gyrfalcon. Not only did the assault tank make it impossible to recover his trapped people, it had come up from the east where Joss Vandel was supposedly holding forward of Jasek’s position. Supposedly.

  Now a pair of Skadi swift attack VTOLs chased in behind the Kelswa. The armored helicopters buzzed up the opposite slope, discovered Jasek’s armored lance, and began hammering down at them with heavy autocannon and lasers.

  Recognizing the immediate danger, Jasek’s Hauberk infantry broke cover and swarmed toward the Gyrfalcon. Missiles chopped out from their backpack launchers. Their light arms flashed ruby darts at the fifty-five-ton ’Mech. It bought the Stormhammers’ leader a few seconds’ distraction. He dropped his crosshairs over the Kelswa, reaching at long range with both PPCs at once. His targeting computer made the shot possible, adjusting automatically for the deflection angle. Ionized particles cascaded into twin streams of energy, snaking down the hillside and carving deep wounds into the Kelswa’s thick armor.

  It was like waving a red cape in front of a bull. The Kelswa’s turret swiveled around, and twin pulses of bluish energy punched out two Gauss slugs that smashed in near Jasek’s position. One blew a cedar’s trunk into kindling, toppling the majestic tree which fell near Jasek’s right side with a ground-shaking crash. The other Gauss slug dug into the ground right at the Templar’s feet, spraying dirt clods high enough to patter against Jasek’s cockpit shield.

  The Gyrfalcon followed up with more autocannon fire, walking a hailstorm of slugs from Jasek’s left knee to his shoulder. Its lasers had already driven the Hauberks back, into the forest.

  Jasek retreated deeper into the autumn camouflage as well, teeth grinding together as his trapped unit called for help. He toggled for one of his private command circuits. “Colonel Vandel! If you aren’t holding in sector eighteen, regain control now.”

  No response. Joss Vandel had to have his own plate full.

  He saw just how full a moment later. Pushing back farther as the Clan MechWarrior chased up to the forest edge with weapons blazing, Jasek crested the hill and was able to look down into three different valleys where his Stormhammers fought to hold off the Jade Falcon offensive. The forested cover bought Jasek time. Seconds only, but enough to measure how the battle was progressing.

  Not well.

  On his right, the Archon’s Shield had all but surrendered initiative to a long column led by a Shrike and two converted SalvageMechs. To the left, Tamara Duke bridged the gap between Jasek’s position and the balance of Colonel Petrucci’s Lyran Rangers. Tamara was trading a great deal to hold that position. Jasek counted four . . . five . . . six vehicles burning on her side of the battlefield. Half that among the Falcon lines.

  He already knew what lay in front of him.

  He sensed the pressure building along the entire front. Messages that made it over his command circuits were short and often frantic. From his vantage point, he saw tall pillars of flame lancing skyward as missile barrages spread destruction in indiscriminate patterns. Autocannon chopped at the air, and jewel-bright colors flashed as laser fire mixed among the brilliant lightning strikes of particle cannon. And it was starting to look a little too one-sided.

  “Shield!” Jasek called again for Joss Vandel. “Push those Falcons back. We have forces trapped on the back side of”—he checked his tactical-map display—“hill four-three-alpha.”

  “Landgrave,” Vandel finally reported in. “The Highlanders and Hiram Brewster’s Guard have folded back on our far eastern flank. I’m getting pressure from two sides now.”

  It wasn’t an excuse. Jasek could see that his senior colonel was throwing units forward again, trying to cut off the Gyrfalcon’s position from further reinforcement. But it was a warning. There wasn’t enough left to the Archon’s Shield to stand up against the Falcons for much longer. They were spread too thin from so many hours of feints, stands, and forced retreats. As were all the Stormhammers. Spread thin and spending themselves to meet wave after wave of well-coordinated assaults.

  It was
a hard call to make. The hardest he’d been pushed to yet for Skye.

  “Artillery, lay down staggered fire at grid four-two-four. Three by three,” he ordered, calling for sets of triple strikes. “Then give our people sixty seconds to clear the area before you hammer that valley with anything you can. Epsilon-four. You know what you have to do.”

  It was a suicide run. Straight down the hill toward the waiting Falcons, and hope a few of the vehicles could break through to the rally point. But the Jessies were too slow, and Jasek knew it.

  So did the missile carrier crews. “We’ve swatted down one of the Skadis,” one of them reported. JES-47. Jasek couldn’t remember the man’s name, and suddenly felt a deeper loss because of it. “We’re going to hunker down and give missile support to the others as they make their break.”

  Jasek slammed a fist against his chair’s armrest. “You can’t stay on that hill.”

  “Landgrave, sir. You know we can’t make that kind of push. Not in these beasties.”

  He nodded reluctantly. “And we can’t come back for you.” Not without losing twice as many vehicles as they’d gain.

  “We’re POW anyway you look at it. We’ll take it on our terms. Holding at the bottom slope and spreading out an umbrella that’ll make the Clanners think the sky is falling in on them. Luck.”

  “Godspeed,” Jasek sent them. Snarling, he pushed forward to bring the Gyrfalcon back into range. Line of sight was tricky with all the trees, but not impossible. His PPCs danced through the forest, scourging the Falcon machine with lashes of blue white energy.

  Jasek slapped at the emergency toggle on his communications panel. “This may be it. Ready Operation Lodestone, but wait for my order.” Throttling into a forward walk, he tied in his personal command frequency and called up the Hauberks as well as the two Pegasus scout craft.

  Niccolò GioAvanti was on the other end of the channel. “Acknowledged. Where will you be?”

  “Giving these men every chance I can,” he said, and severed the connection.

  North Inlet Coastal Ranges

  Noritomo Helmer planned to give his warriors every chance possible.

  He stalked his Gyrfalcon down the draw. Arms lowered. Targeting system off. Trying to ignore the alarms of multiple target locks that rang loudly in his cockpit, drilling sharp holes into the side of his head. Every impulse in his body—his instincts and twelve years’ experience of duty—screamed at him to snap the toggles over, bring up his crosshairs, and drop them onto the wide-shouldered outline of the Ryoken II that waited for him at the end of the sloped canyon.

  “Formality always has its place in Clan tradition,” he whispered to himself, careful of his voice-activated mic. He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself of the idea. “She wants me to blink first.”

  Anastasia Kerensky, leader of the Steel Wolves, had refused long-distance comms to arrange this batchall. “I want to see your face,” she’d said, as she had every time in the last thirty-six hours.

  This was their third meeting, always on her territory with her warriors backing her up. A Mad Cat III and a pair of SM1 Destroyers were arrayed behind Kerensky’s Ryoken. Ready to fire at the first sign of his treachery, or as the first sign of hers.

  The narrow draw, with its high, shadowed sides, and the gunmetal gray sky hanging overhead left Noritomo feeling a bit claustrophobic. As if he walked his fifty-five-ton ’Mech down a very large barrel. Fifty meters was close enough that the two MechWarriors could stare at each other through ferroglass shields. He throttled back, bringing his ’Falcon to a wide-legged stance, and dialed in a common channel. Unsecured transmission.

  “I am Star Colonel Noritomo Helmer. I have added two of your warriors to my codex list of kills since our last batchall. With what forces do the Steel Wolves defend the North Inlet Ranges?”

  A jaunty wave saluted him from the other cockpit. In a way, he thought that Kerensky was somehow casually mocking him. Hi, Noritomo. “I am Anastasia Kerensky of Clan Wolf and the Steel Wolves. Star Commander Yulri will defend the North Inlet mountains.”

  Behind her, the Mad Cat III made a half-step bow.

  “He has chosen two SM1 Destroyers and a pair of Demon medium tanks to fill out his Star.”

  A hard-hitting force, and totally unexpected. Noritomo knew that Kerensky’s forces still had several tracked crawlers available, which were far better suited to the mountains than hovercraft and the wheeled Demons. He had anticipated a strategic challenge of position, playing heavy, slower forces against each other. By opting for fast-hitting firepower, she threatened to destroy anything he sent into the coastal ranges after her.

  Trying to get something back for the Stormhammers, perhaps. Or, just some good old-fashioned posturing. The collapse of the defenders’ line near Norfolk had left the Steel Wolves exposed on the western flank. While the Stormhammers retreated to a new rally point somewhere north of Miliano, Kerensky fought tooth and nail to hold her unit together in the face of his superior force. So far she had made each small engagement costly, but a high price paid with small units beat a medium price paid by his entire Cluster.

  And a victory was still a victory.

  Still, something pulled at the back of his mind. Something dangerous that he had taken to heart from his hidden books. He whom the gods would destroy, they first make complacent. He swiveled his camera views around, pulling the Mad Cat and the two Destroyers in closer on video. One of the SM1s had different markings!

  “Anastasia Kerensky, one of your Destroyers bears the Stormhammers crest.” Not all of the Stormhammers had retreated after Jasek Kelswa-Steiner?

  “Why, yes, it does. So do both Demons, if you must know. But since they were bid in as Star Commander Yulri’s supporting forces, their pedigree is subservient to his. How they were lent to me, and how many more I have”—which was the real question she let hang between them for a moment—“is for you to discover.”

  If he’d been a betting man, Noritomo would have guessed they were from the Tharkan Strikers, who had given Kerensky an earlier assist. Green troops, or close enough to make no difference. So she was conserving her own forces as well. So what?

  “Aff,” he agreed. “And I will.”

  He throttled into a backward walk, never turning his back on the enemy. Wolves were never so dangerous as when they felt cornered. “Bargained well and done. You will meet my forces soon.”

  Sooner than she expected. Noritomo had already brought forward the Star he intended to personally lead in this Trial. They were a touch slower than he would have liked, but one thing he had learned under Malvina Hazen was better a constructive blow struck quickly than a well-matched blow struck too late to do much but glance off a shield.

  Noritomo gave Kerensky’s people sixty seconds to clear the area. They retreated out of the canyon’s far end, spreading onto the small plateau his scout VTOLs had warned him about. “First Star, forward and attack,” he ordered.

  A Defiance Industries Schmitt and two Jousts, both captured in the Jade Falcon drives against other worlds, rolled forward. With them came a Cardinal transport, hovering overhead, ready to deploy Elemental infantry. Careful, so as not to outpace the slower tracked vehicles, Noritomo tucked his Gyrfalcon in behind the Jousts and followed them back down the draw, targeting system active, searching for his first victim.

  He whom the Gods would destroy . . .

  “Alert! Forces in near vicinity of draw’s exit!”

  The VTOL had jumped above the cliff face, taking the high road to come down on the other side. But without an express order to lead the charge, they too had hung back, and so their warning came late, just as the Jousts cleared the draw and piled into the cleared grounds where Kerensky and her forces had met him for batchall.

  Both of her SM1 Destroyers had circled back to flank the exit, and they used their assault-class autocannon to drive hot metal into the flanks of both lead vehicles. Armor, chiseled away by twelve-centimeter slugs, littered the ground. The Jousts slewed
over, the forty-ton tanks rocked nearly off their treads by the hard-hitting assault.

  Sooner than he had expected, as it turned out.

  But Noritomo had not brought his people through unprepared. Stepping out right behind the Jousts, he levered both arms forward and rammed several hundred rounds of eighty-millimeter slugs into one Destroyer’s front. Following up with lasers, he sliced deep, angry wounds into the hovercraft.

  The Schmitt rolled out behind him, turning in to the second Destroyer while both Jousts hooked back to slash with their own large lasers.

  The battle looked to be decided right there. But Star Commander Yulri had not expected easy prey, and he had known better than to sacrifice his assault craft. From a nearby stand of ponderosa pines, his Mad Cat III leaned out to stab lasers in Noritomo’s direction. Missile launchers belched gray smoke, dumping twin flights of long-range missiles into the air. The warheads hammered down around his position, chewing rock into gravel and sand, slamming into his Gyrfalcon’s chest and shoulders.

  One pair of warheads rang a one-two punch into the side of his head, shaking him against his harness, leaving him disorientated for several critical seconds.

  Enough for the Destroyers to power up their drive fans and skate for the safety of some rocky, scrub-covered hills. The Schmitt continued to pound at one of them, using its rotary autocannon to strip away more armor, but then the weapon jammed and fell silent and Noritomo had nothing able to catch the hovercraft, except for his ’Falcon.

  Lighting off jump jets, he side-skipped over in front of one SM1 Destroyer—the Stormhammers’ Destroyer as it turned out—taking its best punch and forcing it to swerve back in toward the Jousts. Still rattled from the missile strikes as well as the assault cannon, he eschewed autocannon and laid into the Destroyer with lasers alone. Both weapons sliced into the vehicle’s skirting, slowing it as the fender dipped down to drag the ground.