McKinnon spent another Gauss slug at the Clan machine, but this time the Shrike was ready. It lit off jump jets, spoiling the Paladin’s aim with a short, sideways hop.
Landing, it again chewed through nearly a half ton of ammunition, spraying out high-velocity streams of death. The razored metal sliced away tons of armor from the Atlas’ front, raining it down around its feet in shards and impotent splinters.
Alexia powered into a run, trying to clear McKinnon’s Atlas and grab an angle of attack on the Shrike, but not soon enough. The Atlas staggered. Unbalanced from the hard-hitting assault and losing several tons of armor in a handful of seconds, the lordly machine could not hold to its feet, even under the masterful touch of a veteran warrior. It fell, crashing back into the same stand of firs from which it had emerged.
Which left Alexia head-to-head with a machine that outclassed her by forty-five tons!
Her nerves rang loudly as the Shrike turned its full attention to the Uziel. Not only that, but the Nacon scout vehicles were throwing themselves into the fight, buying time for the Falcon MechWarrior. One Nacon peeled away as a brace of particle cannon from the Haseks crisscrossed argent streams in front of it. The other took a scalding strike from the Kinnol main battle tank, leaving globs of molten composite burning between Caterpillar tracks.
Alarms screamed for Alexia’s attention as missiles spiraled in on her position, blasting holes into her armor protection. An offhand stream of autocannon fire picked at the Uziel’s lower torso as the Shrike walked its fire from the downed and struggling Atlas over to her.
“That warrior has skills,” Sire McKinnon warned her over the command frequency they shared. “Wary.”
She had no time for wariness. But a little good fortune was always appreciated. Twin blasts of argent lightning slashed out from her PPC barrels, coursing across the field, snaking into a tight braid until one stream of energy could hardly be distinguished from the other. Both carved into the Shrike’s left arm, burning deep through the damage already caused by the Atlas’ Gauss rifle.
The arm hung limp and silent at the Shrike’s side.
It bought Alexia Wolf a reprieve from the same debilitating fire that had scoured McKinnon’s Atlas, though for not much more than a moment as a pair of Jade Falcon Skadi VTOLs jumped above the tree line and added their fast-flying autocannon to the Shrike’s reduced firepower.
One of the VTOLs buzzed her backup line, worrying the Kinnol MBT, which had a hard time returning fire. Gnome battlesuit troops spread out from the Haseks, but they could do little except take cover as well.
The second VTOL chipped at McKinnon’s Atlas, now back on its feet and limping forward to join Alexia in pressing the retreating Shrike.
The Jade Falcon column had gained the plateau, and the enemy MechWarrior throttled into a reverse walk to close ranks. The Shrike’s ultra-class autocannon hammered more of Alexia’s armor into useless scrap. An arriving trio of Skanda light tanks sniped from long range, more hot metal spanging against the side of her machine. They ran defense for a pair of SM1 Destroyers and a late-arriving Shadow Hawk IIC.
Alexia toggled for an all-hands broadcast, but McKinnon seemed to sense it and whispered, “Wait for it,” over their command frequency.
A Tribune command vehicle lumbered up from the back of the Falcon column, bringing a Kelswa assault tank and a handful of hoverbikes with it. They looked to be the last of the enemy forces. It was hard to tell, with the magres interference and her HUD a jumble of overlapping signals. The interference working in favor of the Stormhammers now also worked in favor of the Falcons.
“But we were here first,” Alexia Wolf whispered to herself.
She gave herself a soft count of ten, just to be sure. Then, engaging her voice-activated mic, she ordered, “Striker Team Two, slam the door!”
From a shallow valley leading off of the plateau, a second lance of vehicles stormed up and into the right rear flank of the advancing Falcons. Two JES missile carriers, spreading warheads about them right and left, led the charge. A pair of Condors followed, adding in their own missile packs and challenging the Destroyers with medium-class autocannon.
For a moment, the plateau was a tangle of chaotic firefights. Missiles rained down on both sides of the Jade Falcon line, geysering dirt and rock and scorched brush into the air. A few fireballs blossomed over a line of Elementals, scattering the infantry into hiding places.
Lasers slashed back and forth.
A Gauss slug from McKinnon’s Atlas smashed into the front of a Skanda, crumpling its slanted nose and crushing the barrel of its light autocannon. Another Gauss shot clipped a hoverbike, sending it end over end in a death roll.
Alexia combined her long-reaching PPC fire with more from the Haseks, sending bolt after bolt of man-made lightning snaking across the flat ground to open a hole for Team Two, which continued to pound on the Destroyers.
The SM1s were no pushovers, though. Powering about on a cushion of air, the assault hovercraft drifted backward, turning their twelve-centimeter cannon against the lighter Condors, smashing back with raw force. In a display of devastating unity, both Destroyers concentrated fire on a single Condor. The hammering streams of metal ripped open the crew compartment, cutting through men and materiel both, then reached deep into the engine to rupture the fuel tank.
Greasy flames erupted back through the compartment, finishing off any crew missed by the hail of slugs. The Condor slewed around to the left, out of control, and piled into a short stack of boulders.
The vehicle flipped over onto its side and was still rocking back and forth when a secondary explosion finally tore it apart.
“Welcome them home,” Alexia called out, and every one of her units turned its firepower on the Falcon line right where the Jessies and the remaining Condor would cross. The Destroyers, still drifting backward in their own retrograde maneuver, sailed right through her sights. She pulled the crosshairs over, waited for a solid lock on one, and sliced another pair of PPCs across its skirting.
Air spilled out from beneath the SM1, and it settled hard against the ground before the lift fans shattered and spun the entire vehicle back up into the air and around in a violent pirouette.
The three remaining vehicles of Team Two skated through the hole and raced home to their brethren.
“All units, prepare to withdraw.”
McKinnon’s Atlas had advanced far enough to retake point position against the Shrike. “We aren’t done yet,” the venerable Paladin reminded her.
No, they weren’t. The Falcons were massing behind the assault ’Mech and the Shadow Hawk IIC. The fight wasn’t out of them by a long shot. And the Shrike was too damned fast for an assault machine. If the Stormhammers withdrew now, it would catch them and deal some serious hurt.
As if summoned by thought, the Shrike leaped forward on jets of plasma, bringing its medium-range weapons into range and hammering again at the Atlas. One of the Skadi swift attack VTOLs followed after it, but a spearing laser blast from McKinnon severed its tail rotor. The craft corkscrewed into a steep bank, erupting into a ball of orange fire.
Still, the Shrike came on.
Jasek’s Stormhammers weren’t so numerous they could spend their forces casually. But Alexia recognized a tactical necessity when it kicked her in the teeth. McKinnon had called this play and she’d backed him, and the Jade Falcon assault ’Mech was determined to call the bill due.
McKinnon had closed down her fire lane again—wanting the Shrike for himself or simply trying to push her toward backing up her own people first, it was hard to say. Well, maybe it wasn’t, given the old Paladin’s opinion of non-Republic troops. But his Atlas was limping, which put him already at a disadvantage and would slow the Strikers down on their coming retreat. She would not leave McKinnon behind, no matter if he would or wouldn’t return that favor personally.
She knew what she had to do.
“Team One, advance by pairs and alternate fire at your best target. Team Two…�
� She bit down hard on her tongue for a few heartbeats. It wouldn’t be pretty, what she had to ask those hovercraft to do. “Two, slide back around. Try to isolate the Shrike and by the Great Father, watch your backs in there.”
She pushed her own throttle to the forward stop, racing the Uziel ahead at better than ninety kilometers per hour. She followed an oblique line after the Atlas, trying to get a clear shot past McKinnon.
The Shrike worked its own angle against her, shaving the Atlas down one ton of armor at a time while keeping the awesome machine between them. The Kelswa assault tank crept up in the shadow of the Falcon Shadow Hawk, both machines ready to add their larger weapons into the fight. McKinnon had to see his danger.
Didn’t he?
Twin Gauss rifles on the Kelswa flashed with their capacitor discharge, ramming a pair of nickel-ferrous slugs into either leg on McKinnon’s Atlas. The Shrike fed several laser blasts into the maelstrom, then walked a flight of missiles up the assault machine’s body. One warhead clipped the side of its head. McKinnon’s progress stopped dead, as if his hundred-ton monster had struck an invisible wall. It teetered back, seemingly on its way back to the ground, but then rocked forward in a smooth hunching motion that most Mech Warriors could only dream of pulling off in such a heavy machine.
Still tipped back on its heels, the mighty BattleMech looked as if it had managed a perfect balancing point. With a cross-body shot, McKinnon punched a Gauss slug into the side of the Kelswa, shattering armor into fragments of its former strength.
Then he bent one knee, drawing his Atlas forward into an easy crouch that let Alexia see the advancing Shrike.
It wasn’t the cleanest shot she’d had today, but it was the best she was going to get at the moment and her instincts knew it even if her brain hadn’t quite caught on. The leutnant-colonel speared both arms forward, blasting out twin forks of azure lightning that passed to either side of the Atlas’ head, giving McKinnon one hell of a show no doubt. The spitting arcs drew into the side of the Shrike, feeding into previous wounds to reach deep, deep into the left torso.
And found the ammunition magazine for the autocannon.
Striking approximately five tons of heavy munitions with several kilojoules of rampant energy had the kind of effect one might think. Several thousand rounds cooked off in less than a second, and thousands more a fraction later as a chain reaction ate up the machine’s entire left side. Special construction channeled a great deal of the horrendous violence out through prepared blast channels, but Newton’s laws were still in effect. The Shrike pitched forward and around, slamming its left side into the plateau’s hard earth and digging a deep furrow with what was left of its shoulder. A twist of soot-laced smoke rolled out of the ’Mech’s ruined back.
Alexia could only imagine the cement mixer treatment the feedback of such a large internal explosion had visited on the MechWarrior inside.
Not enough to put the assault machine down for good, unfortunately. The Shrike moved almost at once in an effort to regain its feet.
McKinnon was up and backing away, using his last few Gauss shots to worry the fallen MechWarrior about the possibility of a lucky head hit. Alexia Wolf called off Team Two before they tried to pounce on the struggling assault ’Mech. They would have found the Kelswa assault tank too close for comfort, and ready for them.
“I think we’ve given them enough to think about,” McKinnon said on their private channel. His Atlas veered away from the Falcon line, attracting the JES missile carriers and the remaining Condor to its side. The Shadow Hawk IIC tried to rally a new drive, but a gut-punching Gauss hit took most of the fight out of it.
Alexia wrestled her Uziel around, planning a rendezvous with Team One. “We can hope.” She panted for breath, waiting for her cockpit temperature to fall back toward nominal levels. “It is still a long way back to the DropShip.”
But the Falcons seemed content to gather protectively around their wounded giant. Temerity? From Clan warriors? Or had she come across someone a bit more important than she realized? “Who do you think is in that monster?” she asked.
“The Shrike? That was Galaxy Commander Hazen, unless I miss my guess. A bit off her game from the battleroms I’ve reviewed, but still pushed it too close for the oddsmakers.”
Malvina Hazen? “You might have said something.” And what? Alexia would have traded a few of Jasek’s followers for a shot at the Falcon leader? Maybe.
“I didn’t want you distracted.” The Skye forces had gained nearly a kilometer from the battlefield and the Falcon warriors. They could begin to relax. “If she had given us an opening, I would’ve taken her.”
“You’re welcome,” Alexia said in clipped tones, not caring for the insinuation that she would have been unable to make the same judgment, or the same effort. Jasek had warned her about him when they divvied up on Seginus. “Not that you needed a helping hand or anything.”
“It was a nice brace of shots.” The beginnings of a compliment, and as far as the Paladin was willing to go apparently. “Just goes to prove that we’re part of a brave new world.”
“How is that?” Alexia asked, wary.
“In my younger years, Lyrans couldn’t shoot that straight if their own lives depended on it.” She heard the mocking smile in his voice. “Give them both hands and a map—they’d still manage to wound themselves in the foot.”
“I am not a Lyran,” she said hotly. But she wasn’t Clan either. Not anymore.
McKinnon seemed to pick up on that. Lumbering his Atlas after her, he asked, “Well, what are you, then?”
Letting his question hang unanswered, Alexia lapsed into a determined silence. One she planned to hold for the next several kilometers, and maybe even all the way back to Skye. It was a serious question, and it needed answering, she knew. But there was no need to discuss it with McKinnon. She barely had been able to dance around the subject with Jasek.
What was she?
That, she thought, was what she was still trying to decide for herself.
19
The two most essential foundations for any state… are sound laws and sound military forces.
The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli
Longview
Cowlitz County, Chaffee
6 November 3134
Longview’s industrious river port was a near-perfect training facility, even if it smelled of stagnant water and wet sawdust. A warehousing district. A lumber mill. The dockyards. It was wide open enough for BattleMechs to move unhindered among vehicle formations. Stacks of logs that had been floated downriver and the most monstrous piles of sawdust Noritomo Helmer had ever seen provided cover for smaller ground forces. The buildings—some larger than ’Mech hangars and all constructed to demanding local codes—could take more than their fair share of abuse. Emergency vehicles stood by to put out any accidental fires from errant lasers, and Noritomo had offered good terms to repay any permanent damage from Clan coffers.
Not only were the local politicians getting used to Jade Falcon aegis, they welcomed it as a new source of income for the sagging economy.
From a command vehicle parked dockside of the lumber mill, Noritomo sipped at a citrus-flavored energy drink and judged the Star-on-Star battle taking place along the waterfront. The simulated battle was going well, with Lysle on the ground directing a mixed Star of Elementals and converted SalvageMechs against a mechanized striker unit—two M1 Marksman tanks supported by a trio of Demons. So far the Demons were doing a good job harassing her Elementals, herding them away from the center of their line. The M1s had a rougher time of it, intimidated by the SalvageMechs, which continued to pound away at them with light autocannon.
In a real battle, those vehicles would be scrap metal by now and the crew nothing better than hamburger. A poor showing.
He hadn’t expected a great deal more. The M1 crews were all new arrivals on Chaffee, more weeding out of the desant’s standing forces. Not a Bloodnamed warrior among them, and several were freeborn “orpha
ns.” The only upside was that Malvina Hazen’s comments—attached to their codex—lacked the same fire with which she’d banished Noritomo to this secondary staging world. Cursory and curt, she’d reposted the crews to Chaffee to be “trained and readied.” Which meant she had some idea of what he was up to, and even approved. If that was the case, he saw no reason to let up now.
“Another week,” Noritomo said to Lysle as he canceled the exercise. He held a wireless headset up to the side of his face rather than wearing it. “Double-duty rotations which will include refresher training in how to match against IndustrialMechs.”
The Elemental jumped up onto a tall pile of lumber, taking a commanding view of the waterfront’s blacktop. She waved her acknowledgment with one arm lifted above her head, then paused.
“Is that Bogart?” she asked, her voice deep and strong even through the transmission.
It was. Noritomo turned away from the ferroglass windows and checked an auxiliary monitor. The Star colonel’s staff had failed to see the VV1 Ranger, which slalomed carefully between some nearby cargo containers, sneaking up on the blind side of the command vehicle.
He very nearly smiled. The freeborn tank commander was one of the rare finds Noritomo had made while putting together his new battle Cluster. A loner who had left his real name behind him, taking a one-name moniker as did many freeborn when trying to make their way in a Clan’s trueborn-dominated military, Bogart had a knack for delivering stopping-power assaults just when you were ready to write off his light armor as a mere diversion.
“Light him up,” he ordered a nearby warrior, who slid into the gunner’s seat. The warrior tracked the command vehicle’s lasers around to drop crosshairs over the Ranger’s front grille. The high-pitched whine of target lock would be twice as loud inside the Ranger.
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