Still it was not enough for Malvina Hazen.
“Star Colonel Helmer. Dress up your lines. Shore up my flank. You are …falling back again.”
He pulled his Gyrfalcon up short as lasers cut back and forth in front of him, crisscrossing in deadly volleys. The too brief flare of missile exhausts gave only a few seconds’ warning before a trio of warheads slammed into the ’Mech’s right leg, throwing a hitch into his stride.
Dropping crosshairs over a fleeing Scimitar, he sliced ruby lances across its rear. A solid kick in the ass that should keep it moving.
“Helmer?”
“Aff, Galaxy Commander.”
Noritomo checked his map screen. Hazen’s command worked the point of the Jade Falcon spearhead, and had pushed far forward of the main lines. Dangerously so. It would have been better—smarter—to await reinforcement by Galaxy Commander Malthus, who pushed down from the northwest, crossing behind Noritomo’s position. Malthus rode command in a Tribune mobile headquarters, slow but certain, and had an assault Star for escort. A strong “swing” of force strength.
More missiles cascaded over his position, erupting around him in fire and shrapnel. Noritomo tied the Gyrfalcon’s autocannon into his triggers and spread more destruction along the confused lines.
“A few loose ends which need tying up,” he said.
“If your flank collapses… it is your career… we will be tying up.” She was panting. Overexerting herself as she drove forward against Tara Campbell’s Highlanders and the small Lyran contingent.
“We will hold,” Helmer promised.
He traded weapons fire with a Joust. His cut deeper, harder, slicing down through diamond tread and snapping the belt. A double squad of Hauberks moved up to support the crew, buying them time to evacuate the ruined vehicle. Some Elementals jumped in too quickly and paid for it as they were overwhelmed by strength of numbers.
“We need more than that, Helmer.”
The Falcons needed more? Or had Malvina adopted the royal we? And did it matter, at this point?
“I have a fresh Trinary ready to swing in behind your position at your order,” he offered, damning the need. He toggled a switch, calling them forward.
His Cluster retained nearly seventy percent of its operational status due to his judicious bidding and constant resupply, but that force was now spread over too great a distance to leverage its full strength. He had this one Trinary he had hoped to use to shore up against any counterthrust. His entire reserve, built from those careful expenditures as he drove back Kerensky and her Steel Wolves. The damage his warriors had inflicted on them in the last week was impressive, but like her Black Widow namesake, the woman seemed to have the lives of a cat.
Malvina did not care for the hows and whys. “Send them to me. It looks like we are facing– stravag!”
The Clan curse was all the warning Noritomo received. Malvina cut out in a burst of static, and he was still trying to patch back through to her when the Stormhammers struck from a nearby wood.
Four… five lances. More, possibly. Threat icons littered his HUD in a tangle of red identification tags. Light tanks and personnel carriers hammered into his front, slicing across to separate his battle Cluster from the besieged Steel Wolves and Tharkan stragglers. Heavy armor and a few limping ’Mechs followed.
A Catapult. An Ocelot.
A converted ForestryMech.
A pair of Fox armored cars skated up on their drive fans, slamming in on either side of a wounded Kinnol and pinning it in place. Their light weapons could only pick at its armor. An SM1 Destroyer powered up after, slid around behind, and gutted the Kinnol with two savage blasts of autocannon fire.
Another team tried that with him, spreading a line of Infiltrator battlesuits around him, jamming two Demons in against his legs. The Ocelot raced forward with a JES tactical carrier in support. Noritomo kicked out violently, caving in one Demon’s cockpit with a well-placed foot. His weapons spat long streams of death at the Ocelot, pairing up autocannon and lasers. It staggered the thirty-five-ton machine, but did not drop it.
Then, hearing the metal strikes of armored claws grabbing into his armor, Noritomo lit off jump jets and rocketed up and out of the potential trap.
He carried a pair of swarming Infiltrators with him, the infantrymen clinging desperately to his ’Mech’s legs. One fell off just short of the ground, and was buried beneath the Gyrfalcon’s left foot as it landed. The other was peeled away by a pair of nearby Skandas, using their lasers like surgical scalpels. Noritomo held a small island of sanity in the growing chaos. A few tanks and a Shadow Hawk IIC rallied to him as his reserve Trinary slammed into the fight behind him. He pulled in a Condor as well, and some Elementals.
He could hold. He felt that in his bones. He’d prepared for this. But the Jade Falcon spearhead looked as if it had been blunted as well. Comm traffic among senior warriors was frantic. On his tactical map, he saw identification tags for Malvina’s command roll backward, several of their icons fading as battle damage took its toll.
Her Shrike held up, it seemed, but no telling for how long.
If Malvina Hazen fell, the Jade Falcon desant fell with her.
Lasers and particle cannon flared around him, spearing into and out of his small formation. A JES strategic carrier rolled up, added its four-pack of LRMs into the mix, spreading overlapping waves of fire and destruction over a Stormhammer Hasek MCV. Return fire was just as savage all along his battle line, but discipline held. These were his people, his warriors whom he’d readied for battle and promised honor as well as glory.
And now Noritomo Helmer had to abandon them.
“Bogart, rally and hold. Lysle”—he spotted her bright tag circling in on his left on his heads-up display—“gather two points of Elementals and load them on the fastest APCs you can find.”
He read off a list of warriors, gathering in the Shadow Hawk, the Condor—not the JES carrier—and some Skandas. Also a pair of nearby hoverbikes he could use as pathfinders. He sent the hoverbikes, moving fast and furious, out in front and then led the column charge himself as he broke from the battle and pushed northeast.
Only to find a Ryoken II and a Catapult blocking his way, holding the entrance to a shallow river valley.
The Ryoken was familiar enough, even through his streaked ferroglass shield. Anastasia Kerensky. The Catapult bore markings from the Stormhammers’ Tharkan Strikers. So did the small handful of tanks that gathered around the feet of the avatars.
Before weapons had a chance to fly, Kerensky’s voice tripped over the open frequencies. “What forces challenge for this valley?” she asked in mocking tones.
Stravag woman. She was toying with him, obviously enjoying herself as she sought to batchall in the middle of a firefight. She could certainly hold him up. And would have, except for Beckett Malthus.
“Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus issues challenge,” the Falcon leader said calmly, his command crawler edging up behind Noritomo’s massed troops. He brought a Warhammer IIC and a trio of assault tanks with him. Their very presence seemed to enforce an eye of calm in the battle’s maelstrom. The main firefight pushed slightly to the southwest as the assault Star formed up. “Face me, Anastasia Kerensky, or not. But Star Colonel Helmer is passing through.”
“Bargained well and done!” The Ryoken II wasted no more time in formalities. It leaped forward on jets of plasma, particle cannon streaming out, attacking the largest threat, which was the Warhammer IIC.
“Ignore them!” Noritomo ordered, watching as the Ryoken arced overhead, leaving him an easy run for the valley. The Catapult might slow him, but it could not stop him. “To the Khan!”
It was the first time he had used Malvina Hazen’s adopted title. It brought with it a shiver, and the desired effect. With the defenders’ attention divided between his force and Malthus’ assault Star, there really was no chance of stopping him. His small force slammed through the Stormhammers like a sledgehammer through brittle wood. Hardly a fai
r fight—with little honor to be gained for sure—but against the danger to Clan Jade Falcon as a whole, he could let that go.
It cost him one Skanda. And it left an open path to Malvina Hazen.
Noritomo Helmer had unfinished business with the Stormhammers’ leader, it seemed.
Tara Campbell’s Atlas staggered to one side, crippled by a Gauss slug that hammered in over its left knee, crushing the joint and the lower-leg actuator.
Bending her wounded knee down against the ground, she saved herself from a nasty fall. Pulling her crosshairs from the fallen Shrike, she grabbed the Kelswa assault tank and fed it back a Gauss slug of her own and followed up with paired lasers as well as a six-pack of short-ranged missiles.
The desperate salvo ripped armor from the length and breadth of the ninety-ton assault vehicle. Then a squad of Lyran Rangers bulked forward, spreading a line of Infiltrators around the wounded tank while two Rangers escorted an engineering unit. The struggle was short and fierce, and left the Stormhammers in control of the wounded Kelswa. The Infiltrators escorted it back while the Rangers took one pass each at the rising Shrike.
Then they got the hell out of the way of the assault ’Mechs.
“Tara, fall back. Rally to Miliano!”
Jasek had all but thrust her small command lance aside as his Stormhammers took over the central line. He was insistent. He was also beginning to annoy her.
“Not …finished. Yet.” Her breath came in ravaged gasps as her fusion reactor spiked yet again and drove the cockpit temperatures up another few degrees. Sweat poured from her face and ran in heavy beads down her bare arms and legs. Only the cooling vest kept her going, lowering her body’s core temperature.
Jasek’s Templar struggled forward against a blistering Jade Falcon defensive line. Mostly medium lasers and light autocannon, but when rallied against a single target, it could do a great deal of damage. A pair of Manticore II tanks and a Hasek mechanized combat vehicle chased after him, prodding at the hole he opened up in the Clan lines.
“You’re not going to do anyone any good by running that Atlas into the grave. Tamara, take care of this!”
Tara levered her BattleMech up from the ground. It swayed dangerously. He was right, and he wasn’t, all at the same time. There wasn’t much fight left in McKinnon’s Atlas. Armor was shredded, and damage to the engine shielding was making it a walking bomb, ready to be lit off by one solid core shot. But without her, the Falcons would collapse around Jasek and tear him apart. Hiram Brewster’s Zeus and elements from the Archon’s Shield held Jasek’s immediate left flank. But the Rangers were spread thin on the right, with Tamara Duke’s small Wolfhound holding the integrity of the allied lines in its iron fists. Instead of shielding Tara’s Highlanders from the pressing Falcon advance, the Stormhammers had simply shoved aside the point of the spearhead. It brought some relief, but not enough.
Not while Malvina Hazen continued to stand.
“Live with it,” Tara gasped out. “Going …to stay.”
Damning her heat curve, she cut loose with a savage alpha strike yet again. Her next-to-last Gauss slug took the Shrike in its right arm, snapping it back and spoiling some of its return fire. Her lasers missed wide as the heat stress on her electronics caused a failure in her targeting system. The power draw spiked her reactor’s centerline temperatures, and waste heat bled through her BattleMech’s chest.
Too much. And she was a heartbeat too slow on the override. “Heat safeties engaged,” the synthesized computer voice warned her. “Shutting down.”
“No, no, NO!” Tara slapped again at the override, knowing it would do no good.
Her targeting system winked out, followed by her monitors and the holographic heads-up display.
No targeting reticle. No power draw for lasers.
Her indicators on the reactor’s status slowly levered down to zero as its deep thrum stifled to a whisper, and then nothing.
Even over the thunder of artillery and exploding missiles, the chopped roars of autocannon, she heard the pinging sound of cooling metal. Like seconds of a clock, ticking away, as she waited for heat levels to drop down far enough for a safe start-up. In a dark cockpit, Tara Campbell gripped dead control sticks and stared out through her misted ferroglass shield, into the night, waiting.
Waiting for the end.
When Tara’s Atlas went dark on his HUD, Jasek knew a moment of pure panic that had nothing to do with being a military commander and everything to do with personal worry for Tara Campbell. Thinking the ’Mech had been destroyed, he twisted his control stick against its limit stop and wrenched his Templar around to see.
The machine stood there, frozen and silent.
Powered down on a live battlefield.
Malvina Hazen’s Shrike paused for a long heartbeat, as if considering the dead ’Mech a ploy. Then she drilled long pulls from both of her autocannon into the immobile target. Jasek’s crosshairs swung around far too late to stop her.
At short range, against one hundred tons of standing metal, there was no way for her to miss. If she’d been thinking clearly, she would have taken the head clean off the assault ’Mech. Her rage or her recent fall had shaken such an idea from her, though. Instead, the streams of lethal metal tore into the Atlas’ left arm, shoulder, and chest. It shoved the entire side back at an awkward angle, tipping the machine off-balance. No working gyroscope, no myomer control to shift an arm or bend forward against gravity.
The Atlas fell back in a lazy spin, crashing down onto its already damaged left side.
Which was painful enough to watch. More painful a few seconds later when the Jade Falcons rallied around fresh reinforcements and blistered the Templar with lasers and missiles and hammering autocannon that shook the ’Mech as if it had fallen into a cement mixer. Twisted about, distracted, Jasek felt the Templar start to go over, and worked his arms beneath him as he rode gravity to the ground.
“Jasek!” Tamara Duke’s worry was clear in her voice. “Parkins, forward and shield!”
She sent her exec’s lance up to give him some covering support. Another lance was peeled back to guard the Atlas as well. Jasek pictured it in his mind, and thought about how vulnerable Tamara’s position was with her Wolfhound and a short lance to support it.
There wasn’t a lot he could do about it, though, as he worked the controls to pick his Templar up from the ground. He had more pressing business with the Gyrfalcon that had shoved its way forward, and the fresh Star of mixed vehicles that spread out behind it. There was never any doubt in his mind that Noritomo Helmer had arrived. Even under the green light cast by the hovering flares, he knew this ’Mech. After their run-in on Chaffee, it had come to a rematch on Skye.
But this time Jasek did not stand alone. Vic Parkins stepped up into part of the hole Jasek’s Templar had left, and threw his Kelswa in front of a Falcon Shadow Hawk. Twin Gauss rifles flashed a blue discharge and railed nickel-ferrous masses into the ’Mech’s chest and shoulder.
The other warrior held his ground, and stabbed back with powerful red lances. Add in the fat-bodied ATMs that corkscrewed down at the wide-bodied tank, and Parkins had taken about equal to what he’d dished out.
A line of Stormhammers vehicles staggered forward, some disgorging infantry onto the field. More weapons traded back and forth. More molten composite splashed over the damp ground.
From a half crouch, still trying to get his feet fully beneath him, Jasek traded weapons salvos with the Gyrfalcon. His PPCs lashed out with a furious wash of energy, blasting away armor. Lasers and missiles chopped in afterward, but did little more than carve away more protective plating.
Helmer had the better end of it. His lasers cut like surgical tools, opening up the left side of Jasek’s chest, destroying his targeting computer. Autocannon walked hard-punching slugs from his right knee up across his hip, stripping away more armor, throwing a shake into his gyroscope.
Jasek staggered, nearly fell again.
The intense firefight, p
oint-blank and bloody, was taking its toll faster than anything they had seen in nearly twenty-four hours of combat. A missile barrage scattered several Stormhammers Infiltrators across the ground, lifeless and still. Their Hasek MCV roiled smoke into the air, tinted a sickly brackish green by the overhead flares. In minutes, two Falcon Skandas lay burning and overturned, and the Shadow Hawk had lost an arm thanks to a second Gauss strike in the same shoulder.
Malvina Hazen’s Shrike bulled its way forward, crashing streams of lethal metal into Tamara Duke’s Wolfhound, trying to move it aside. Tamara’s lasers were no match for the assault ’Mech, but she stubbornly refused to budge. She raced to her left, then right, but never once took a step backward.
“Another minute,” Jasek said, being pummeled from three sides while he struck again and again at the Gyrfalcon.
“We’ll hold. Parkins, back to me. Parkins!”
Without his targeting computer, Jasek’s Templar and Helmer’s ’Mech were nearly evenly matched. The Templar’s stronger armor was mostly nonexistent by this point. Helmer was not taking advantage of his greater mobility. They slugged at each other, both running dangerously into the red. Taking a warning from what had happened to Tara, Jasek dialed back on some of his lasers to preserve his heat curve.
As if thinking of the Highlanders’ commander sparked some kind of reaction, the Atlas’ icon warmed back to life on his tactical display.
“Parkins,” Tamara shouted her order. “Acknowledge!”
Jasek blinked sweat from his eyes, ignoring the burn as he quickly collated HUD and tactical monitor.
There was Hauptmann Parkins’ Kelswa, holding a patch of ground with no enemies around it. But the man did not fall back.
Tamara’s Wolfhound–her Eisenfaust—starting to lean his direction, away from Malvina Hazen’s Shrike. But too late. Too late.
And a gold triangle. The identification tag readAS7– K2(TC) . Tara Campbell.
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