BattleTech: A Splinter of Hope

Philip A. Lee

Part I

REMAGEN CRUCIS MARCH MILITIA HQ

REMAGEN

CHIRIKOF OPERATIONAL AREA, CRUCIS MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

3 SEPTEMBER 3147

While the summit’s attendees gathered, First Prince Julian Davion watched a recorded scene on the small screen in front of him: the keen edge of a dao sword glinted in the air, high above the neck of a kneeling elderly woman he knew all too well.

Julian hadn’t set foot on New Syrtis, the Capellan March capital, in quite some time, but even the minor cosmetic changes in this footage imbued the scene with a surreal air. Though the date stamp on the footage was more than two years ago, he could ill conceive that this was the same Saso Square he had visited many, many times before.

Instead of Federated Suns BattleMechs flanking the path leading from the FedCom Civil War Monument to the Saso Statehouse, he saw Capellan Confederation ’Mechs stand sentinel while others patrolled nearby streets in search of insurrectionists. Instead of the round sword-and-sunburst iconography of House Davion gracing the Statehouse’s facade in the backdrop of the footage, an all-too-familiar triangular emblem of House Liao replaced the original. Inside the stark-green Confederation insignia, an upraised arm held a curved scimitar, the blade’s tip breaking out from the triangular border with hostile intent.

Below the Capellan emblem, the masked soldier held his dao aloft in perfect mimicry of the House Liao sigil. Below the blade, Duchess Amanda Hasek knelt in her finest courtly attire, her hands bound to either side of a block of wood. Despite the Damocles sword of a hated foe more than a meter above her neck, she struck Julian as surprisingly calm, a sinner who knows she is ultimately responsible for her own crimes.

Few members of House Davion agreed with her politics, with her rabid, outspoken loathing of the Capellan Confederation. Her decision more than forty years ago to instigate the disastrous Victoria War without then First Prince Harrison Davion’s approval had sealed her fate, and the Confederation’s long-awaited reprisal against the Hasek family’s homeworld was her well-deserved recompense. But this was too far.

Julian had never initially been destined to lead the Federated Suns, but the duchess had seen great potential in him and groomed him to be a contender for the throne. He owed this woman—his surrogate mother, his mentor—a good many things, including his current position as leader of the Federated Suns.

A man royal in bearing and military in garb—Daoshen Liao, Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation—rose to the platform and addressed both the accused and the crowd assembled before the square. Though Julian kept the sound muted for courtesy while waiting for the rest of the attendees to arrive, he could have quoted the Capellan’s speech verbatim.

“For war crimes perpetrated against the celestial sovereignty of the Capellan Confederation,” Daoshen mouthed with a smug smirk, “I find you guilty as charged on all counts.

“The sentence is death.”

With a slow nod, the Chancellor signaled to the executioner. The dao descended as a curtain of silvery light reflecting off the blade. Blink, and Julian would miss it.

Something twisted inside Julian’s chest, as though some part of him died along with her every time he watched the gory, decapitated form of his mother figure slump gracelessly to the platform.

He paused the playback on the Chancellor’s satisfied grin, the look of a fox strutting out of a henhouse with feathers stuck between his teeth.

This was the reason for what he was about to do. For what needed to be done. Revenge was such a pedestrian word. This feeling in the First Prince’s breast went far beyond mere vengeance. This was a matter of putting things right, resetting the equilibrium between the Suns and the Confederation.

But he could not make this decision lightly. Only last September had he and Daoshen’s envoy—the Chancellor’s younger sister, Sang-shao Danai Liao-Centrella—brokered an armistice between their two nations. The truce had justified itself at the time: the Confederation was cowering under the phantom threat posed by the Republic of the Sphere, while the Draconis Combine continued conquering world after Federated Suns world, including the Draconis March capital of Robinson. Soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns retreating from New Avalon meant the Draconis Combine had captured House Davion’s capital and two march capitals. The nation had spiraled into deep recession, and according to this summit of his top political and military advisors, the best economic stimulus was to retake one of the capital worlds. Like deer ticks, the Dracs were hooked too deep into New Avalon and Robinson, which left New Syrtis the easiest nut to crack. All he needed do was approve the proposed campaign. Loath as he was to break his ceasefire with the Capellan Confederation, Julian saw a certain amount of wisdom in the action. However, every time he considered the long-term implications of breaking a pact signed by his own hand, the thought sat heavy in his guts, as though he’d swallowed a Gauss-rifle slug whole.

Julian looked out across the assembly hall. All the necessary personnel were now present. The Prince’s Champion, Erik Sandoval. The Prince’s Intelligence Advisor, Jennifer Dawes. MIIO Director Gary Harding. Field Marshal Anastasia Zibler. Colonels Sortek and Rhys. Everyone of consequence from the Suns’ government-in-exile, the AFFS, and the intelligence arms. Satisfied, he deactivated the handheld screen and called the summit to order.

“Friends and family, colleagues and brothers and sisters-in-arms,” he began, “I have decided the time has come to start rebuilding our great nation. Since my coronation as First Prince of the Federated Suns, many of you have compelled me to see virtue in an attempt to retake one of our lost capitals, to rekindle the faith and spirit of our people into a blazing pulsar for the whole galaxy to see. As a man of conscience, I have wrestled long with the matter of breaking truce with our Capellan neighbors. However, circumstances being what they are, if we are to do right by our people, now is the time to seize the initiative and restore freedom to those worlds that the Capellan Confederation snatched away from us in their bid for dominance.

“The time has come to execute a campaign for New Syrtis.”

He paused to gauge reactions across the assembly. Expressions ran the gamut between unabashed patriotism to quiet condemnation. Among them, he imagined Amanda Hasek standing in cool approval of his proclamation.

This is what I would have done, he could hear her apparition say, had I control of the Federated Suns.

“As First Prince,” he continued, “the armistice with the Capellan Confederation is mine to break. Because of this, I have decided to lead this assault personally. No one else should bear culpability for my actions.”

Julian activated a podium control, and a breakdown of his invasion plan projected onto the wall screen behind him. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present Operation CERBERUS. This campaign calls for three task forces, code named Chimera, Orthus, and Hydra. The objective of Phase One is the envelopment and isolation of New Syrtis from the rest of the Confederation. Phase Two entails the assault on the march capital itself.

“Now, let’s poke some holes in this, and see where we can patch them.”

Julian acknowledged Harding’s upraised hand, and the MIIO director rose to speak. “Your Grace, is this invasion the best allocation of our military resources? We have a standing truce with Daoshen Liao, and MI6 agents on Sian report that he spends more time jumping at Republic shadows than trying to wage further war against us. Would it not be more prudent to focus our military efforts on the Draconis Combine instead? Snatching back Robinson or New Avalon from the Dragon’s clutches would strike a deeper moral victory for our people.”

Julian shared a knowing glance with his champion, Erik Sandoval, before answering. “Director, we are already at war with the Combine. Coordinator Yori Kurita knows this. The Combine’s warriors know this. Even now, they sit in entrenched and fortified positions, expecting—no, daring us to fight them. They are more than ready for us. The Confederation is not, and we can no longer squander the advantage of surprise. If we can ever hope to stand against the Combine in the future, liberating New Syrtis now is the key.”

CERBERUS RALLY STATION

NEW DAMASCUS

CHIRIKOF OPERATIONAL AREA, CRUCIS MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

19 SEPTEMBER 3147

From across the bargaining table inside the canvas tent, Captain Malerie Faulkner was unimpressed with this new Federated Suns liaison. It took a lot to impress soldiers of distant Clan pedigrees. This scrawny lackey, sent straight from First Prince Julian Davion himself, had to be a pencil pusher, a desk rider, not an actual warrior worthy of the title. Mal knew soldiers, and this sorry excuse for a uniform probably had a law degree, not a diploma from some MechWarrior academy or other.

She disliked lawyers. Such a dishonest, two-faced profession. She would much rather have solved negotiations the way her Clan ancestors did: put up your dukes, and the winner dictates the terms. Don’t like the terms? Win the rematch. So much simpler than listening to sales pitch after sales pitch.

Thankfully her boss, Major Tallula Zheng, seemed to pay more attention. As executive officer of Tally’s Talons, Mal could voice concerns about a contract, but the decision to accept terms was ultimately in Tally’s court. Tally, the battalion’s golden-haired matron, gave the Davion lackey a glare that would’ve withered a lesser man. Mal frown-smiled to herself, slightly impressed at his resilience. But only slightly.

“No, no, no,” Tally said, knifing her hands in an x in protest. “Our contract expired on the seventeenth. Under the terms we negotiated with your office, the Talons are now free agents, able to pursue whatever course of action we desire.”

Lackey tapped his sheaf of papers atop the table to align them and straightened the sleeves of his olive-drab uniform jacket. “We understand that, Major. However, your presence here on New Damascus puts us in a precarious position. Your participation to this point required you to possess partial operational knowledge of our movements—”

“—and,” Tally cut in, “our contract doesn’t include a non-compete clause.” She waved a hardcopy of the contract at him. “I never sign one that does. Non-competes put a serious damper on future mercenary employment.”

“Be that as it may, we are offering to extend your current contract plus an additional ten percent.” With a hopeful curl to the corner of his mouth, Lackey slid a paper across the desk.

Tally shared a knowing glance with Mal. They’d acted out this charade often enough that they could do it in the middle of the night after being roused by a proximity alarm. “Faulkner, what do you think of this?” She gestured her jaw toward the new draft. “Does it look good, or should we hit up the Chancellor, see if he’ll give us a better deal?”

Mal echoed her CO’s nonchalant posture and made a good show of pretending to read the new contract. All the legalese was bound to be the same as the last contract: a self-righteous prick like Julian Davion lacked the necessary guile to pull off any kind of deception. People like him were known for keeping their word, even to a fault.

Mal crossed her arms and shook her head. “Twenty. We want twenty percent, or we walk.”

Tally hooked a thumb Mal’s way. “What she said. If you want me to take our business to the Capellans, then say so. No pay, no play.”

An exasperated huff escaped Lackey’s throat. He gathered up his papers and stood. “Uh, if you’ll excuse me for a moment…” Without waiting for an answer, he slid a perscomm from his uniform pocket and stepped out through the tent flap.

Mal leaned closer to the tent flap as though that might help her eavesdrop on the call Lackey was obviously making out of their earshot. She caught the indecipherable muffle of Lackey’s end of the conversation, but much to her irritation, that was all.

Only the Feddie’s upper half reappeared through the tent flap. “My humblest of apologies, but I have something to attend to. I will return shortly.”

Tally frowned once Lackey departed. “Ah, he won’t be back. Shall I see if the Cappies are actually hiring these days? Or would you rather strike out to the Free Worlds League, hit up a province or two? The Clan Protectorate would probably hire us.”

Moments later, the tent flap parted, and in strode three uniformed soldiers, the foremost a man Mal had only ever seen in photos and vids. Throughout her mercenary career, she had dealt with the occasional dignitary, noble, and celebrity. Every time she came across someone even remotely famous, the same thought struck her: these people the galaxy placed up on pedestals were mundane, ordinary folk just like her. Sans makeup or image retouching. Rough around the edges. Fame and celebrity—the mortal equivalent of godhood—were nothing but manufactured concepts.

But this man—

Mal’s stomach seized upon seeing his countenance in person. Her brain knew he was mere flesh-and-blood, but this man, with short golden hair, arresting blue eyes, an honest, clean-shaven face, and an aura of regality—he filled the tent with a kind of palpable majesty she had never before witnessed, as though his otherwise average build dwarfed the roomy space. Something about him suggested—no, demanded—respect, but quietly rather than by bluster.

Now this was a true warrior.

“Captain Sharma tells me you are considering not re-upping,” First Prince Julian Davion said. Even the timbre of his voice was real and honest, unmodulated by the reverb and resonance typically saturating stately speeches given by monarchs and other interstellar politicians. “I would respectfully wish to know why.”

The accusing tremble in his eyes sent a wave of guilt through Mal. “Our…our contract has expired, Your Highness. We are…merely exploring our options.”

The First Prince approached the table and rapped knuckles in thought atop its fiberplast surface. “Thus far, your battalion has performed admirably as part of Task Force Hydra. My House troops are familiar with you, and you have worked well with them during combat exercises. You form a solid, cohesive force, one I will need for the days ahead.”

Boots on the tabletop, Tally tipped her chair back on two legs, far enough Mal worried she’d fall backward. “Frankly, Your Highness, it’s not a matter of what you need. It’s a matter of payment. Are you prepared to pay us what we’re worth?”

“At the risk of sounding desperate,” said the First Prince, “I don’t have time to scour the Inner Sphere for competent mercenary battalions on such short notice. Name your price.”

Mal broke her gaze from Julian Davion long enough to wordlessly confer with her CO, then turned her attention back to the First Prince. “Twenty-five percent above our original contract,” she said. “Plus combat bonus.”

His throat contracted almost imperceptibly. Twenty-five meant a substantial amount of money, and even Mal knew the Federated Suns’ coffers were running on fumes.

“Done,” he said with a definitive nod. He extended a hand—bare skin, ungloved—and Tally shook it, firm and businesslike.

Mal narrowed her eyes just enough to not reveal her jealousy.

CYLLENE FOREST

TAYGETA

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

25 NOVEMBER 3147

The planet was lost. This much Sang-shao Eliza Zhao knew without a doubt, long before she’d had occasion to fire a single one of her Tian-Zong’s weapons.

Both hands clenched around her ’Mech’s controls, she squinted against the actinic blue flare of an incoming PPC bolt her optics couldn’t quite compensate against. The approaching black-and-gold Prefect wasn’t aiming at her ’Mech, but the resolute steps of its defiant advance alarmed her.

Not two days before, the Enemy had come screaming down from the sky like yaoguai demons, combat-dropping on prepared positions in strategic places across the planet. Government buildings, spaceports, maglev transport hubs, supply depots—anything at all that could put her command off its game.

In retrospect, multiple factors had doomed their defense from the start. After the successful drive toward New Syrtis two years ago during Operation CELESTIAL REWARD, Chancellor Daoshen Liao had ordered Zhao’s Dynasty Guard regiment to Taygeta for a period of refit. Rumors of an incoming Federated Suns invasion force within the Confederation’s borders goaded Zhao to put her troops on high alert, but the refit wasn’t entirely complete yet. To worsen matters, the Dynasty Guard represented the best offensive regiment among the entire Capellan Hussars brigade. Her command could fight defensive battles when absolutely necessary, but to truly shine, they needed to go on the attack.

The advancing Republic of the Sphere troops never even gave the Guard a chance to rally and spearhead an assault into the invaders’ lines. Their sheer mass forced her to make the hard choice between letting her command get pulverized between the hammer of these so-called Dawn Guards and the regiment-plus anvil of unmarked, primer-gray mercenary BattleMechs.

What in the Chancellor’s name did the Republic care about a relatively unimportant former Feddie world so far away from the Republic’s impenetrable Fortress-wall border?

She snap-fired her own light PPCs at the target of opportunity and continued backpedaling into a stand of trees along with the rest of her augmented lance. More Dawn ’Mechs crested the rise ahead, their torsos tracking in her direction. Two flights of Schracks in Republic colors shotgunned across the angry sunset in search of easy fodder along the Dynasty Guard’s line of withdrawal. Two platoons of Behemoth II tanks rumbled up into view, turrets traversing for targets. Three squads of Republic-painted Taranis battlesuits emerged from beside the Behemoths.

The array of Republic troops before her only confirmed her suspicions about this invasion’s outcome. Now it was merely a matter of how to conduct this defeat. It would come from no real fault of her own, but the Celestial Wisdom would not see it that way if she ordered her soldiers to pull out and head for another planet. Her duty was to ensure she and her regiment gave as good an account of themselves as possible, leaving full, off-planet retreat as the very last contingency.

In the old days of the Succession Wars, the desperation of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces often saw units embrace “hopeless battle syndrome” and fight to the death, even in the face of insurmountable odds and guaranteed destruction. Daoshen Liao and his predecessor were far less frivolous with Capellan lives, but retreating now, when so many of her regiment and the enemy still remained operational, would be viewed as a dereliction of duty.

Though the Chancellor harbored a near-pathological fear of the Republic—an understandable sentiment, given the disaster of the Capellan Crusades nearly four decades ago—Zhao did not. Republic troops were no different than any other. With all due respect to the Celestial Wisdom, no military was truly invincible. No army lacked a weakness. As commander of a prestigious Capellan Hussars regiment, she was not about to kowtow to these invaders, not yet.

She would tear them apart, limb from limb, before ever deserting her station. For all she knew, the Strategios, CCAF High Command, could already have reinforcements en route, and abandoning her post now would doom her relief. In a fleeting moment of whimsy, Zhao imagined the familiar silhouette of Yen-Lo-Wang descending from orbit and landing in a cloud right before the terrified Republic troops. But Danai Liao-Centrella, Zhao’s longtime friend and owner of the legendary Centurion BattleMech, was currently on Sian, trying to make some sense of the tactical disaster on Marlette that had claimed the lives of countless CCAF troops.

Amusing as it would be to witness incoming Republic forces cower at the sight of a single BattleMech, Zhao knew she had to damage her enemy’s war-making capacity as much as possible before she could justify retreat. The Celestial Wisdom would expect no less from her.

She adjusted her aim on the nearest target downrange, a battered Scapha hovertank, and the Tian-Zong’s frame shook from the tremor of a Gauss rifle discharge. Faster than a snap of the fingers, an obscenely sized hole plowed through the Scapha’s glacis armor. The tank stilled.

She was about to order a strategic fighting withdrawal when a voice from her regimental command channel piped up into her neurohelmet’s earpiece.

“Sheng One, this is Two,” Zhong-shao Bogdanovich, Zhao’s executive officer, transmitted from his sixty-five-ton Vandal nearby, just out of her sight line. “We have received a priority-one message.”

One of the dead tank’s companions replied with a rotary autocannon blast. Zhao’s cockpit bucked from explosive shells impacting across her ’Mech’s torso. “A little busy here, Two.”

“It’s from Sian, sir.”

Zhao’s fingers loosened on her controls. The Confederation capital meant two things: orders either from CCAF High Command—or from the Celestial Wisdom himself.

Neither possibility appealed to her.

Another flight of Schracks tore across the rapidly darkening sky.

“Give me the short version.”

Bogdanovich transmitted the official verigraphed communiqué, which displayed on Zhao’s command readout. The orders came straight from the Chancellor himself:

Sang-shao, you are hereby ordered to disengage and report to New Syrtis ASAP.

Zhao clenched her jaw and fired off another salvo of Gauss-rifle fire along the encroaching tank platoon. One nickel-ferrous slug cratered the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt clods. The other instantaneously transformed a large, majestic tree into a sawed-off stump.

The planet was already lost, but the relief a retreat order should have elicited did not come. A profound sense of hollowness inside made her feel as though obeying the Chancellor’s order would still be betraying his trust in her command ability.

“All right,” she replied, her voice hesitant. “Give the orders for a full fighting withdrawal from the planet.”

Part II

OVERLORD-CLASS DROPSHIP KINGSMAN

ZENITH JUMP POINT, TAYGETA

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL THEATER

CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

4 DECEMBER 3147

The briefing room hushed as Julian took his place among the assembled officers. All eyes turned in his direction; some with pride, some with concern, others with an air of curiosity. The mixture of pride and concern, he understood—what military operation could occur without some measure of patriotism tempered by a healthy amount of trepidation?—but he doubted he would ever get used to people regarding him with a sense of awe.

You’ve been behind the wall of Fortress Republic, he could almost sense them thinking. You know what’s on the other side. You know what’s coming. Such sentiments elevated him, the first person to gain access to the closed-off Republic since the JumpShip-impenetrable walls went up in 3135, to an almost mythical status throughout the Federated Suns. No one knew how he had gained entry—in truth, Julian wasn’t entirely certain himself—which only added to his mystique.

But all of their unspoken accusations were right. He did know what lay beyond Fortress Republic’s wall; he did know what was coming. All the more reason to prosecute this campaign now, while there was still time to consolidate the Suns’ gains.

Without wasting time or mincing words, he outlined the approved invasion plan for the commanders and staff officers of the regiments that composed Task Force Styx. Questions were asked and answered, concerns were raised and addressed, all per standard protocol.

A quiet descended on the meeting before Colonel Siobhan Sortek, Commander of the First Davion Auxiliary and Julian’s XO for the operation, spoke up.

“Your Highness, where will you be in all of this?” Siobhan already knew the answer, but she wanted the others to know as well.

“I will go in alongside the other troops,” Julian said. “No special bodyguard detail this time. The last thing we need is the Maskirovka easily figuring out where I am in our formations.”

“And if bad luck were to strike?” asked Admiral Ryan Davion-Coles III of the Fifth Crucis Lancers.

“Then that is the price I must pay for breaking this peace.” He scanned the room and saw no further questions or objections. “All right, you all have your assignments. Task Force Styx is set to jump in six hours.

“Godspeed to you all.”

DROPSHIP KINGSMAN

LUNAR ORBIT, NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

4 DECEMBER 3147

Through the viewport on the Kingsman’s bridge, Julian marveled at the vista arrayed before him. At the screen’s edge, a bright-orange K5IV star blazed in space. A tiny black dot on the orange dwarf’s face indicated the transit of one of the system’s planets, but he only had eyes for the fourth planet in the system.

A sunlit, bluish-white ball hung in the blackness. At this distance, New Syrtis resembled an icy marble with an equatorial strand of tans, greens, and the occasional black scar. Even from lunar orbit, wounds inflicted during the Word of Blake Jihad seven decades ago were still visible, and here he was, coming to inflict more.

At the edge of the planet’s predominantly white disk hovered the cratered lump of New Syrtis’s solitary moon, Varnay’s Star. The satellite’s gravity-neutral L2 Lagrangian point had served as a pirate point for half of Task Force Styx’s in-system jump. So much rock also obscured most of four regiments’ worth of JumpShips from aerospace patrols, but even that only bought them enough time to uncouple the DropShips and make a hard burn planetside.

At the peripheries of the scene, he witnessed other JumpShips disgorging their payloads. Spheroid DropShips bearing the sword-and-sunburst emblem of the Federated Suns peeled off from the elongated interstellar vessels like pearls from a broken necklace, and they rotated and maneuvered in a kind of quiet, slow ballet Julian always found fascinating.

Somewhere out in the dark, at the planet’s own L2 point, three other regiments were debarking from their JumpShips. Not only did they serve as a distraction from the rest of Task Force Styx, but they also represented Julian’s insistence that the invasion force be split in two, in the event one front turned horrendously wrong. During previous campaigns, his most ardent critics had accused him of holding too many AFFS troops in reserve, leading to the wholesale slaughter of under-supported mercenary units, so it pained him that those three regiments exposed in New Syrtis space were irregulars. The decision ultimately boiled down to logistical matters, but his critics would never see it that way, no matter what justification he or his staff gave.

“Begin decoupling,” the Kingsman’s captain ordered. The distant clunk of the docking-collar release resounded throughout the whole ship. Bulkheads trembled. Seconds later, before Julian had a chance to strap himself in for planetary insertion maneuvers, a battery of alarms and warning lights filled the bridge.

“Incoming contacts!” the sensor technician reported. “Multiple bogies approaching on an intercept course! I’m reading two assault DropShips with fighter escort.”

Damn. Julian shook his head. The Capellans had taken the wrong bait.

Captain Chastain strapped into the command chair. “Evasive maneuvers!”

The Kingsman’s hull shook like a rung bell around them. Julian scrabbled around for a handhold to keep from floating off in microgravity. “Anything I can do, Captain?”

Chastain ground his teeth. “With all due respect, Your Highness, I advise you to get the hell off my bridge and into your ’Mech. If those Cappies have more friends on the way, we may need to perform an orbital drop to get you planetside in one piece.”

Explosions and laser fire bathed the bridge with blinding brilliance. Julian squinted away the scintillating light and braced himself against the bulkhead until the Kingsman stopped shaking.

“Go, sir!” Chastain chided.

Julian ducked into the corridor and didn’t stop until he reached the cargo bay and slid into the command couch of Arthur, his Templar III. He sat in the cockpit and prayed Chastain and the Kingsman’s crew could make it through the Capellan aerospace storm.

UNION-CLASS DROPSHIP MAXILLA

PLANETARY ORBIT, NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

4 DECEMBER 3147

In the claustrophobic darkness of her sealed cockpit, a shudder worked down Malerie Faulkner’s spine. An armored reentry shell obscured her forward view, reducing the entirety of her world to the soft illumination emanating from her OmniMech’s control panels. Trapped in an orbital shell, sensor blind, and with spotty communication—this was the part of a combat op Malerie hated the most. On the ground, she would feel confident enough behind the armor and maneuverability of her seventy-ton Flamberge to approach all but the heaviest of enemy units, but up here her fate remained at the fickle mercy of the Maxilla’s crew and the Fortune Charlie regiment’s combat aerospace patrol.

How did her fearless geneparents deal with it? They didn’t have to—mostly. The average combat trial for a Clan MechWarrior usually occurred on terra firma, within a clearly delineated Circle of Equals. Rare were the times Clan warriors needed to make orbital drops, but they did perform them, and they did so with a kind of grace Mal lacked.

She wasn’t quite Clan, though. Much as she wanted to emulate their honor and quest for battlefield glory, distant genes from someone of the Folkner Bloodline and the beat-up, refurbished OmniMech she had purchased represented the only tenuous links to her heritage.

The shell trembled around her, hard enough to yank her stomach around. From what radio chatter she could make out, the Maxilla had engaged braking thrusters to maneuver into low New Syrtis orbit. Any moment now—

The Maxilla’s drop controller piped into her slim neurohelmet. “All Talons units, brace for drop! Dropping in five…four…three—”

Mal yelped. Her cockpit and insides lurched as she—drop pod, OmniMech, and all—disgorged from the Maxilla a second earlier than announced. Her world spun uncontrollably, end over end over end.

Radio chatter exploded into pandemonium. Something had gone wrong. Dead wrong. And her pod was tumbling toward the planet. She swore.

Hyperventilation steamed up her neurohelmet’s faceplate faster than its defoggers could compensate. Her temples pounded. Bright, pulsating spots danced before her eyes until she couldn’t tell spots from control-panel lights.

A single strong but distorted voice cut through the noise. “Talon Two!”

Tally…

“You still with me?”

Relief flooded Mal’s senses, but even hearing her friend and commander’s voice couldn’t stall gravity or negate physics. “Aff,” she croaked.

“Maxilla was hit.”

“Figured…” Mal managed between ragged breaths. “Uh, still tumbling blind here….”

If she didn’t do anything soon, she would careen into the planet with the force of a meteorite. Trapped in this coffin, unable to witness her own impending death, then instant vaporization. Not a glorious way to go, Clan descendant or otherwise.

Heat—blistering, unquenchable heat—and the stink of hot metal filtered into her shaking cockpit. On the outside, the hurtling drop-pod shell had to be blazing from reentry friction.

Tally said something over the comm, but the roar of reentry, the static of radio blackout, and the drumbeat of her heart swallowed her words.

Mal knew if she ditched the shell too early, reentry would melt her to slag. Too late, and she’d have no time to reorient herself before—

Seconds ticked by while she envisioned herself as little more than a smoking black streak plowing through a layer of continental ice.

No time…no time…. She had to do something, or the next few moments would be her last.

“Freebirth….”

She clenched her eyes shut and shook her head to alleviate disorientation. Somewhere in that moment, everything quieted away until she could hear nothing but her own heartbeat in the blast-furnace heat.

The temperature fell just a few degrees, but her brain still jumbled around in the pod’s spin. In a fit of desperation, she braced herself to be flash fried and then engaged the manual pod release. A white line of daylight split down the center of her canopy, banishing the darkness as the shell panes obscuring her view blasted away and spiraled into the atmosphere like sheet-metal slabs shot from a cannon. The ground whirled below her, then became sky, then ground again—

—sky—

—ground—

—sky—

—ground—

Mal wanted to throw up, but there was no time. Her stomach could wait until they were on the ground.

She fought her control sticks and attempted to use her sense of balance to twist the seventy-ton meteor out of its spin. The ’Mech was too heavy, and its pseudo-wing assembly was not designed for actual atmospheric flight.

She pulled back on her controls and screamed to force the Flamberge’s right foot forward. Then she slammed down on the corresponding foot pedal hard enough to feel the gears working beneath the cockpit floor. The whole ’Mech shook and pitched backward as the jump jet ignited. Mal felt like a Hell’s horse had bucked her in the chest, but at least she had finally stopped spinning.

Now all she needed to do was land the damn thing. Some of the other Talons had already made safe landings in the snow, so she stabilized her descent with the left-foot jump jet and used the pseudo wing’s lackluster aerodynamics to steady herself. All she had to do was survive this landing.

She sucked in a deep breath, and her unsteady world snapped into razor focus. Muscle memory replaced fear. The warrior within took over as she screamed her angry resolve toward the swiftly approaching ground.

MAWREDDOG DRIFTS

NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

4 DECEMBER 3147

All things considered, some battered leg armor and a knee-actuator malfunction was a fair price for Mal’s survival, but the resultant limp kept her from ranging too far ahead of Tally’s damaged Shrike. The feed mechanisms of the ninety-five-ton ’Mech’s paired Ultra-class autocannons had suffered damage during the drop, and Tally was not happy about that, not one bit.

“This wouldn’t have happened if His Highness hadn’t dangled us out as bait,” she confided over a private channel as they advanced toward the rendezvous point.

“Tacnet says the AFFS contingent got hit hard too,” Mal offered.

“Convenient, wouldn’t you say? Did they actually get hit, or is this another case of ‘Let’s not get attacked but say we did’?” The major drew a deep breath. “I won’t believe anything until I see their official repair assessment forms.”

Magnetic resonance sensors picked out a column approaching through the swirling whiteout conditions— friendlies, according to IFF transponder codes. As the Talons’ command lance approached, Mal zoomed in her view and recognized AFFS colors.

A good many of them already bore blackened scars of heat and smoke. One among them, an eighty-five-ton Templar III bearing arctic camo and Davion livery, had somehow managed to make it through the landing relatively unscathed.

Mal narrowed her eyes, unsure what to believe.

Eliza Zhao had long suspected Chancellor Daoshen Liao was a divine manifestation, but not until she looked up and watched hundreds of invading troops dropping from the skies did she confirm it. No matter that she loathed falling back while most of her command remained operational; the Celestial Wisdom had been downright prescient in his insight that the Enemy would strike here on New Syrtis, and that the Dynasty Guard’s seemingly premature relocation from Taygeta was the best use of her regiment’s preserved strength.

From her Tian-Zong’s cockpit, Zhao gazed up through the swirling snow at the last of the descending BattleMechs and smiled. Two triples of maroon Transit aerofighters knifed across the blue expanse as easy as lines drawn across a page. Together their lasers scythed through a pair of falling ’Mechs—a pod shell that had not yet jettisoned despite its altitude and some heavy ’Mech she couldn’t ID at this range. The pod fractured and burst apart into a roaring fireball in midair. The heavy went limp and tumbled head over legs before impacting in what she imagined was a satisfying crunch and explosion at the crash site. Smooth as could be, the blocky Transits arced around for another pass on the beachhead the invaders sought to establish.

A small wave of triumph coursed through her shoulders. Her troops had executed their orders beautifully thus far. Good muster and response times, mercifully few casualties. Even the other on-planet forces, the Home Guard, the Warrior Houses, they had all deferred to her leadership.

It was all textbook, which meant something would go wrong. Disaster was long overdue.

Ovoid and spherical DropShips, more than she could easily count, descended to the rolling, icy plains on columns of superheated-plasma thrust. The sun-and-sword insignia of House Davion was emblazoned larger than life on each one of these vessels. Carbon scoring and craters pitted a good many of the emblems—a tangible result of the Chancellor’s mandate to step up aerospace patrols—which she took as a good omen. But vigilance was still the order of the day: divine insight and good omens alone did not win battles.

As Zhao understood it, the Celestial Wisdom’s divine insight captured the broad strokes of history, and she could hardly believe a consciousness spanning thousands of worlds could be expected to zero in on the minutiae of a roiling battlefield. Such a feat was beneath him. That was why he surrounded himself with competent and able military leaders like her, like Danai, like Strategic Military Director Sang-jiang-jun Isabelle Fisk or Warrior House Grand Master Gang-shiao-zhang Jiang Hui—all commanders who could translate his will and forge it into victories.

“Sheng One,” Bogdanovich transmitted on the command frequency, “scout elements report contact with the Enemy.”

The encroaching blizzard peppered her tactical radar display with noise, but she could still see the shape of the conflict. The sensation demonstrated her understanding of the Celestial Wisdom’s insight: small details coalesced into larger ones until she could no longer discern the discrete elements of Third Battalion’s recon company.

Time to leverage her regiment’s specialty on these presumptuous Davion swine.

“Pull them back and move in the heavier elements of Second Battalion,” she ordered. “Let’s go on the attack. Formation Tiger-Six.”

There were too many invaders to make a truly effective assault run against the Enemy’s LZ with the forces currently under her command, but every piece of hardware she could deny the Fedrats now would mean one less they could unleash later. She knew why the Enemy was here: they wished revenge for their former march capital, for the beheading of that warmonger, Duchess Amanda Hasek. Theirs was a campaign of blind retribution led by a young truce-breaker, and it would not succeed.

The command frequency clicked on again. “Sheng One, this is Barduc Three-One.” Sao-shao Kenzer from Third Battalion. “The Enemy plowed through our pickets on a flanking maneuver. You have a heavy column heading your way.”

Zhao studied her radar and swore. The noise had obscured the Enemy’s approach, and her troops would be forced on the defensive yet again. “All Sheng units, prepare for incoming.” She kept her voice as level and emotionless as possible to avoid undue panic. “Left flank. Engage and withdraw to favorable position.”

Yellow-starburst muzzle flashes from distant autocannon fire cut through the swirling snow haze. Emerald and ruby beams from unseen attackers stabbed in her direction. Visual sensors couldn’t quite pick out the incoming ’Mechs from the blizzard, but the marching machines positively glowed on infrared and mag-res.

“Here they come!” Bogdanovich announced.

Zhao eased up her throttle lever and cut the seventy-five-ton ’Mech to the left, out of the immediate fire lane as more laser beams whined nearby.

On radar, she couldn’t help noting a small cluster of Davion ’Mechs hanging slightly farther back from the flanking vanguard’s foremost brawlers. They seemed to be watching the battle evolve, rather than actively engaging First Battalion and her command company. While on the move, she ratcheted up her Tian-Zong’s visual sensors to magnify the knot of heavy and assault ’Mechs. There, out in the haze of blowing snow, lumbered a Templar III painted in the grays, whites, and blues of arctic camouflage.

This was a relatively new model, a rare sight on recent battlefields. Intel indicated that mid- to high-level commanders favored this chassis, which meant she was likely looking straight down her sights at a person of import in this invasion force.

According to Maskirovka reports, the First Prince, damn his soul, was personally leading this attack on Capellan sovereignty. Other reports claimed Devlin Stone, former exarch of the Republic of the Sphere, had personally gifted Julian Davion with one of these eighty-five-ton machines. So if this was all true…

It was an impossible shot, but she lined up her reticule with the distant cockpit and fired one of the Tian-Zong’s shoulder-mounted Gauss rifles regardless. Her ’Mech bucked from the recoil.

A gust of snow obscured Zhao’s optics. When it cleared, the Templar no longer appeared on her scopes. Like a specter, the First Prince and his entourage had vanished into the blizzard.

Part III

TASK FORCE STYX LZ

MAWREDDOG DRIFTS, NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

5 DECEMBER 3147

Though the worst of the blizzard conditions had lifted, wind still howled outside the mobile HQ—a ghostly reminder of the people they had already lost during planetfall and while securing the LZ from Capellan hostiles. Extreme temperatures would make the going harder from here on, but Julian had planned for such possibilities.

For the final time before the task force disseminated, he had gathered the leadership to review the plan and work out any final challenges caused during planetfall. The mishmash regiment of various smaller merc commands, code name Fortune Charlie, had lost a pair of vital DropShips, which hamstrung Charlie’s mobility enough to necessitate target reassignment. As luck would have it, Julian’s revised plan also assuaged some of his guilt regarding the unintended segregation of his troops during the in-system jump. Now most of Styx’s objectives belonged to a good, even mixture of mercs and AFFS regulars.

Julian called the meeting to order and brought up a topographical map of the Mawreddog continent in the HQ’s holotank. “All right, here’s the game plan. At ohsix-hundred hours, we’ll begin staggered deployments to our respective targets.

“First up is the ducal mansion.” A red triangle flashed with a dotted-line route between the task force’s LZ and the estate grounds that were once the ancestral home of the Hasek family. Julian zoomed in the map to show a wireframe representation of the manse and its grounds. Though a squad of Death Commandos had collapsed the estate during the abduction of Amanda Hasek, the command center beneath it remained intact and thus represented an important military objective. According to intel, the occupiers had since rebuilt much of the structure in Capellan-style architecture.

“Admiral Davion-Coles and Colonel Sortek will lead the Fifth Crucis Lancers and the First Auxiliary, respectively,” Julian continued. “This is where preliminary intel places a good number of Capellan nobles and dignitaries—including the new governor of New Syrtis, Shonso Balian Armando—so I would expect stiff resistance from the Dynasty Guard, and possibly one of the Warrior Houses.

“Our next target is Saso Spaceport.” The holomap panned over to the outskirts of New Syrtis’s capital city. Abstracted representations of Confederation-marked DropShips dominated the locale. “Control of outbound space travel is paramount to prevent Capellan troops from easily refueling their DropShips or fleeing to summon reinforcements. Colonel Rhys will be taking the Second Auxiliary, and the Illician Lancers’ Fifty Ninth Striker will be accompanying them.

“Colonels Rhys and Bradley, this will be a tough fight, but it is absolutely vital that we maintain a tight grip to prevent information from leaving this planet. If Daoshen can commit sufficient reinforcements before we are ready to face them, then that might jeopardize this whole campaign. Understood?”

The two regimental commanders gave silent nods, and Julian continued.

“Following right on their heels will be the Twelfth Vegan Rangers. Colonel al-Nahib, you will be in charge of securing the Saso Statehouse.”

He paused a moment at the holomap’s representation of Saso and pictured the Statehouse in his mind, just off the square where the duchess had been beheaded after her kangaroo-court trial. More than once he’d imagined himself leading the charge to the center of the capital, his Templar III’s lasers and particle projector cannons shredding every single Capellan defender present into mangled wrecks.

That was why Julian had assigned the objective to someone else. He never considered himself a wrathful, vindictive man, but tempting fate would be the first step down that long and counterproductive road. The injustice done to Amanda Hasek had partially goaded him here to New Syrtis, and that was more than enough.

Julian drew a deep breath before proceeding. “We do not foresee heavy resistance, as the Capellans will likely occupy themselves defending targets of far more military significance, but to truly reclaim the Capellan March capital, we must take and hold the Statehouse.”

Della al-Nahib nodded. “Understood, sir.”

“That leaves the final objective, the target of the utmost importance to the successful prosecution of this campaign.” Julian zoomed the holomap out to a seemingly empty area on the Mawreddog continent before descending below the topographical surface. A subterranean network of caverns terminated in a massive underground military installation. “The First Davion Guards will spearhead our assault on the Cave, and Fortune Charlie will accompany them. Also, I will personally lead this attack from the field.”

He glanced around the room at General Edward Nanava of the First Davion Guards, then at the major leadership of Fortune Charlie. “The Cave is not just a command-and-control facility. It also provides the Capellan leadership an easily defensible redoubt to withdraw into should our campaign be successful. Because of this, we must take the Cave as soon as possible, to not only deprive CCAF leadership of the ability to easily coordinate their defense, but also to leave them no easy place to run and hide.

“If we can secure all of these positions, New Syrtis will return to the Suns’ fold. Now, any questions?”

Major Zheng from Fortune Charlie raised a hand to shoulder height. “Will Charlie be taking point for the Cave assault, sir? We lost a lot of good people on the way down, and I’d prefer not to be first course into the meat grinder this go-around.”

Julian had expected some pushback to Charlie’s last-minute reassignment. Charlie would make good scouts in the cave network, but the Tally’s Talons commander raised a good point: there was zero reliable intel on what Capellan defenses the vanguard would be walking into. The more he was seen to value AFFS troops over irregulars, the less apt mercs would be to sign on with the Federated Suns in the future. And with the state of the AFFS as it was across the whole nation, Julian needed reliable irregular troops to cover gaping strategic holes. Much as he wished otherwise, he needed to make a concession, at least this once.

“The First Guards will lead the charge,” he explained. “Charlie is assigned to rearguard and mop-up duties unless complications arise.”

Zheng nodded her approval, as did all of the other Charlie commanders.

After the strategy meeting broke, Colonel Sortek pulled him aside for some privacy. “Your Highness, before you go, we should we talk about what happened out in the Drifts.”

Julian scoffed. “There’s nothing to talk about, Siobhan. A Capellan shot at me. Nothing to concern ourselves over.”

She shook her head, and worry sank into her furrowed brow. “The problem is that whoever it was only took a shot at you before we lost them.”

“Then you’re saying I need to be a little more discreet? My cousin Victor once piloted an OmniMech known Sphere-wide, and he never shied away from combat. Why should I do anything different? I’m not about to cower and hide, not from this. This is my invasion, my truce to break. My enemies have a right to know whose resolve they face.”

Siobhan swallowed, and her expression softened as she touched him on the shoulder in a platonic display of longtime camaraderie. “Highness, I understand. We all have great things to live up to. I am just…advising that you take a more prudent position on the battlefield, that’s all. We cannot afford to lose you.”

Julian nodded. “I will keep it under advisement. Now go see to your troops. Dismissed.”

MAWREDDOG DRIFTS

NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

5 DECEMBER 3147

Her ’Mech marching through ankle-deep snow, Malerie had to dial down the volume of the command channel in her neurohelmet to keep from rupturing her eardrums.

“Where in the actual hell does he get off?!” Tally shrieked from her nearby Shrike. “I mean, who does he think he is?”

Mal thought to respond with some quip about who died and made Julian king, but thought better of it and held her tongue. Tally didn’t appreciate humor from anyone when she was off on a tear like this. Better to let her blow off steam now than let it build and explode under pressure later on, so Mal contented herself with the pleasant monotony of the march, the trance of traversing a vast, snowy landscape. The rolling white hills lay completely untouched except for the ’Mech footprints of the Fifth Crucis Lancers, who were trailblazing a path for other task force regiments whose objectives lay in the same line of advance. Despite the tirade blatting in her ear, she found the scene almost peaceful, the rhythmic thud, thud, thud of her Flamberge’s footsteps hypnotic.

“You know that bastard was going to assign us to point before I said anything,” Tally went on. “You know it. And knowing Cappies, they probably have those tunnels mined all the way to their final chokepoint. I don’t mind a fair, honest fight, but Cappies aren’t above dirty pool. They’ll bring down that whole damn cave before they let a Davion have it.”

“So he extends us a carrot,” Mal said, shrugging despite the snugness of her cooling vest. “What’s the big deal?”

“‘What’s the big deal?!’”

Stravag. Mal should’ve kept her mouth shut.

“I’ll tell you what the big deal is. The First Prince doesn’t want to hire actual professional soldiers. He wants cannon fodder. Forlorn hopes. Sacrificial lambs to buy his own precious troops a higher survival rate. But make no mistake: mercs don’t get paid to die. We get paid to fight. If he wants people who’ll throw their own lives away on the cheap, I know plenty of Capellan citizens who aren’t doing anything useful with theirs.”

“Looking on the bright side, at least we’re not in the van this time, aff?”

“Aff, this time. But next time?”

“And we qualify for the combat bonus—”

Tally snorted. “All the combat bonuses in the world don’t matter a single damn if you never live long enough to spend them.”

Mal sighed. Her friend and commander wasn’t wrong, but of the pair, Tally always worried about the money; Mal just wanted to fight. If she hadn’t crossed paths with Tally after the Blackout, Mal probably would’ve ended up fighting arena duels on Solaris VII, as much as the thought disgusted her. Something about winning while the whole Inner Sphere watched seemed to ruin the integrity of the contest. Having integrity, as was once explained to her as a child, meant doing the right thing even when no one was watching. Especially when no one was watching. Of course people on camera would do everything they could to win. True glory and honor lay in the purity of the act, not in how spectacularly it was performed. So Mal preferred honest battlefield combat, where eyewitness anecdotes and after-action reports, not broadcast spectacles, shaped her reputation as a MechWarrior.

Mal twisted her OmniMech’s torso away from the advancing column and leaned her cockpit upward a few degrees to watch a dazzling aurora ripple like a ribbon in the ionized atmosphere. “What do you suggest we do?”

The line quieted for a moment. Too long, Mal figured.

“I’ll think of something,” Tally said at length. “I just…I just need to stew for a bit.”

The channel closed. A pang of guilt stung her, as though this were all her fault.

Less than five minutes of rhythmic, soporific marching later, the command frequency shared by all task force regiments still on this continent squawked to life: “All units, all units, enemy contact at grid zero-three-niner-five-niner. Watch your flanks.”

Mal shook off her reverie and snapped into combat mode. A quick cross reference of her radar and tactical maps showed contact all across the column’s northern flank—the nearest falling dangerously close to Charlie’s position.

She traversed her Flamberge’s torso toward their exposed flank only seconds before the silhouettes of a reinforced Capellan lance stormed down over a nearby embankment. A quartet of light and medium ’Mechs and a pair of Regulator hovertanks popped up into view and scattered before she could get a solid bead on them. Targeting analysis of the insignia marked the harriers as the Fourth McCarron’s Armored Cavalry— masters of mobile warfare, Mal recalled from reviewing the intel brief.

The harassers loosed a coordinated missile salvo and swept a barrage of coruscating laser fire across the Talons’ flank. Instinct took over, and Mal stomped her foot pedals. The Flamberge arced skyward on jump-jet plumes, leaving her stomach somewhere back in the snow. She adjusted her trajectory to land right in front of a twenty-ton Locust careening her way too fast to change course. Mal unleashed two dozen missiles at point-blank range. Only wreckage emerged from the resulting bouquet of fireballs. The Flamberge shuddered as jangling bits of still-moving Locust collided and bounced off its shins before coming to rest in the snow.

“Negative, negative, Charlie,” an insistent voice protested over the radio. Comms IDed it as one of the Fifth Crucis Lancers battalion commanders. “All Charlie units are to disengage and continue on to target.”

Mal backpedaled closer to the avian outline of Tally’s Shrike, which had traded shots with one of the attacking Assassins. “Say again, Cross Three-One?”

“We’ve got you covered, ma’am,” the Suns major responded. “Disengage and continue on to target. We aim to get you to your destination in one piece.”

“Acknowledged, Three-One.” Mal withdrew from the next incoming light lance until more Crucis Lancers ’Mechs spilled in to cover the gap in their lines.

The First Prince might not care about preserving mercenary lives, but his troops certainly did.

DUCAL MANSE ENVIRONS

NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

5 DECEMBER 3147

Following her command lance, Eliza Zhao threw her Tian-Zong into a hard run to duck behind cover as a pair of Chippewas in Davion colors tore through her skies. The desert air stilled during the long seconds after the fighters’ payload dropped free of their hardpoints and succumbed to the planet’s gravity. Then the world became fire and damnation: a curtain of flame launched skyward and rippled outward as the cluster bombs devoured everything in their path.

Chips of shale hailed down on Zhao’s canopy before clattering and tumbling out of sight. She growled and shot a recklessly aimed Gauss slug at the lead fighter, then cursed the waste of ammunition when the shot vanished into the stratosphere. The aerofighters were circling around for another pass, and she could not afford to squander any more of her limited ammo reserves.

“Status report,” she radioed.

Her three lancemates responded with minor damage, but the Enemy deserved complete annihilation for blasting even one Capellan armor panel out of place.

During the Chippewas’ initial flyby, she had assumed the Fifth Crucis Lancers’ air support was targeting the ducal mansion her regiment had been ordered to defend. Since the CCAF liberated the planet from the Federated Suns almost four years ago, the Chancellor-appointed governor had appropriated the ruins of House Hasek’s ancestral mansion and rebuilt it as his own private estate. Hours ago, Shonso Armando and his entourage had fled to the estate’s military-grade command bunker in hopes of weathering the Davion attack. If the Enemy wanted to deal a deep blow to the planet’s administration, they could do so by bombing the entire mansion into dust, but these last few runs demonstrated that the invaders aimed to hurt Zhao’s troops, not the mansion. They wanted the estate for themselves.

Zhao chinned her helmet mic and radioed the sang-wei of her fire-support company directly. “Get me AA fire on those Davion birds, now!”

A few moments later, orange muzzle-flash plumes from a distant Partisan platoon’s autocannon arrays stabbed the sky. One of the banking Chippewas wobbled in flight as though pummeled by an invisible pugilist. Just when the fighter seemed it might right itself, a gout of flame burst up and through its fuselage in a spray of spinning armor plates. Thrusters winked out, and the aircraft twisted silently in flight. Zhao knew it was doomed, so she turned her attention to more important matters.

The Fifth Crucis Lancers and an unmarked Davion regiment—the First Davion Auxiliary, according to intel—were hammering her lone regiment all along their line of engagement. She was no stranger to being outnumbered—inferior numbers only demanded more creative employment of her assets—but her skin simply crawled at being forced on the defensive yet again.

My kingdom for an offensive engagement.

A quick study of her tactical displays showed lance and company commanders reporting points of failure across several places in her battle line. Pickets were being overrun. Aerospace runs were plowing holes large enough for Davion brawlers to exploit.

Zhao ground her teeth. “Sheng Two, what’s our status at the Igloo?”

“Everything reports secure, Sheng One,” Bogdanovich responded.

She scanned the radar readout one more time and made a judgment call. Perhaps the Celestial Wisdom would find it in his heart to forgive her.

“Give immediate evac orders to all VIPs from the Igloo. Get them loaded up and ship them to nav point Ài.”

“Sir…?”

“Just do it.”

“Yes, sir. Relaying evac orders now.”

Zhao sank back into her command couch and watched three squads of Fa Shih battle-armored infantrymen on guard disappear inside the majestic wood-and-marble mansion. Then she turned her attention back to the battlefield.

Matters had worsened. Limping Dynasty Guard ’Mechs fell back toward Zhao’s position, until she could see their incoming Davion pursuers with visual sensors. The incoming ’Mechs carried heavy firepower toward the ducal mansion. Hovertanks powered across the sandy landscape with relative ease. Grenadier battlesuits dismounted from their OmniMech rides.

Maintaining range, Zhao fired at random targets of opportunity as she fell back toward the relative safety of the main manor house. A lucky light-PPC shot tore open a Davion Fulcrum’s skirts, robbing it of mobility. Paired Gauss slugs struck a charging Centurion at center mass and flung the ’Mech flat onto its back. Another PPC lance vaporized a Grenadier trooper on the spot.

Amid the chaos of controlled fallback, a new blip appeared on radar. Sound dampening in the Tian-Zong’s cockpit ensured she saw rather than heard the pair of Karnovs swooping in toward the estate grounds. The rotorcrafts’ gray camo blended well with the clouded sky. Like phantoms, they descended out of harm’s way, their downdraft destroying a beautifully landscaped garden of hardy native vegetation.

Zhao kept one eye on the VTOLs in her rearview while offering the Enemy as much resistance as she and her command company could offer. Less than thirty seconds after touchdown, she caught sight of a dozen or more dignitaries hustle across the ruined garden and into the Karnovs’ cargo bays, and the three Fa Shih squads followed. Both boarding ramps buttoned up, and the aircraft took to the skies.

“Igloo evacuation complete, sir,” Bogdanovich reported.

“I see them. Initiate fighting withdrawal to our rendezvous point.” She switched comm channels and said, “Dàngong One, fire mission at the following coordinates.” She rattled off a string of numbers to the distant artillery team. “Fire for effect on my mark.”

“That’s danger close, sir,” Dàngong replied. “Are those the correct coordinates?”

“Affirmative. Just do your job, soldier.”

She did not have long to wait. Less than a minute after beginning her withdrawal, apocalypse whistled down atop the Hasek ducal mansion. A series of blinding fireballs replaced the majestic angles of its regal Capellan architecture. When the fire died down, little remained standing, only a few blocks that looked like a series of broken teeth in the jaw of a servitor begging in the street.

“Dàngong, again. Full spread.”

“Sir?”

“Bring it down, Sang-wei. Bring it all down.”

Zhao and her command lance withdrew from the site of carnage, snap-firing weapons at every moving target that came within range. In her head, she counted off the seconds since giving the order, knowing how efficient the distant artillery teams would be in serving their Chancellor on the battlefield. She knew how long it would take them to reload, how long the shells’ flight times would be, and by the Celestial Wisdom, they would be prompt.

Every second bought Zhao’s troops more time to fall back, more opportunity to goad the pursuing Enemy into the kill zone….

Right on time, hellfire whistled from the sky, catching pursuing hovertanks and battle armor unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast radius centered on the mansion’s remains. Everything burned to cinders, until not a single brick or marble slab remained standing. And if the ordnance had done its job, the military bunker beneath the estate had been buried beneath so much rubble the Enemy would likely spend months excavating to reach it.

Despite the strategic retreat, Zhao allowed herself a smile. The imagined howls of Davion commanders were more than a satisfying trade.

Part IV

MAWREDDOG DRIFTS

NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

6 DECEMBER 3147

Julian saw the Cave, code name Root Cellar, on Arthur’s scanners long before he and his First Davion Guards reached the outer approaches. The average aerial observer would have difficulty finding the subterranean stronghold’s cliff-side entrance, especially amid the glacial landscape, but Julian knew its location well. However, the latest recon flyovers showed that the planet’s current owners had undertaken some creative renovations since AFFS troops last controlled the base. Instead of seeing a virtually invisible entrance that called no attention to itself, he noted that the Capellans had dug in to the snow and ice like a tick on a beefalo. A series of trenches and revetments paired with heavy gun emplacements radiated out from the only access to the underground complex. In aerial imagery, the long, sweeping arcs of the layered defenses reminded Julian of stylistic radio waves emitting from a broadcast dish formed by the cliff.

In centuries past, the Haseks had relied on New Syrtis’s relative distance from the Capellan Confederation border to provide security for the Cave. Now that New Syrtis sat on the Confederation’s front lines, the CCAF had decided to beef up the installation’s defenses, which made Julian’s job all that much harder. Given a long enough timetable, slicing through these exterior defenses would be a foregone conclusion, but if they failed to take the Cave before Capellan reinforcements showed up, they would have to abandon the mission and defend themselves. Everything hinged on this outcome. Even if they could break through the outer defenses, Julian imagined the nightmares the Capellans no doubt had waiting for them in the underground tunnels. Artillery or an airstrike would’ve cleared out all but the worst of the conventional troops awaiting Julian’s arrival, but necessity shot down that plan. A misfire could potentially collapse the cavern leading into the side of the cliff. The base itself could endure siege tactics for months, but if heavy ordnance caved in the entrance, his troops would be forced to spend precious time digging their way inside.

Brilliant flashes of laser fire and autocannon discharge in the distance testified that the real battle for New Syrtis had finally begun.

“Scepter One,” General Nanava broadcast in Julian’s neurohelmet radio, “This is Scepter One-Two. Forward lances report contact with the enemy at objective Root Cellar. As we expected, we’re up against elements of the Fourth McCarron’s Armored Cavalry. Conventional forces are reported as elements of the fledgling New Syrtis Home Guard.”

Julian mentally paged through what he recalled of the DMI brief on the defending forces. Commander of the Fourth MAC, Sang-shao Lindsey Baxter, was a young graduate of Capella War College and the granddaughter of Capellan war hero Marcus Baxter. Her tactics favored mobile warfare, which meant the Fourth wouldn’t wage a stand-and-fight defense. Baxter’s youth and her likely desire to live up to a tall legacy meant she might try something reckless to prove her worth to the Strategios. All of these were weaknesses a shrewd battlefield commander could exploit.

Ahead, the Guards’ recon lances swept in to flay entrenched infantry and defiladed tanks, then retreated behind friendly lines while relief lances of heavier BattleMechs provided them covering fire. At this distance, the return fire from Capellan field guns resembled nothing but an ineffectual light show of low-caliber tracer rounds. In stark contrast, heavier weapon cupolas buried into the cliff wall on either side of the Cave entrance blasted autocannon fire indiscriminately at any AFFS units that dared come within range. Julian saw at least one light ’Mech, a thirty-ton Javelin, take a fusillade of explosive shells to the torso and pirouette into the snow with smoking craters in its front armor.

Far ahead, the main thrust of the battle raged on. Davion and Capellan ’Mechs collided amid LRM smoke trails and autocannon barrages from Po tanks, and machine gun fire from Ying Long infantry.

What had not long ago stood as a serene example of order now descended into unbridled chaos. But after several minutes of intense fighting, the Capellans were starting to fall back. Julian zoomed his visual magnification and caught a few Fourth MAC BattleMechs performing a fighting retreat into the underground complex.

“We’ve got incoming!” someone shouted on the regimental frequency. “Arty, up on the ridge! All units, evasive action!”

Plumes of fire ballooned up from the ground, close enough that Julian felt the ground quake even in the relative safety of his ’Mech’s command couch. More shells screamed down from the sky. Some burst in midair, turning the frozen snowscape into the very vision of hell itself. One exploded less than a dozen meters in front of Julian’s advance, but he continued through the wall of flame as it engulfed his visual sensors for a moment before dissipating in the frigid clime.

The armor-damage wireframe readout in his instrument panel barely showed scratches on Arthur’s paint, but that mattered little. Out there, in the middle of the battle, in a well-armored BattleMech and surrounded by a full command company of his most trusted First Guards officers, the First Prince of the Federated Suns had never felt so utterly exposed in the face of an enemy.

He had told himself every day since approving Operation CERBERUS that if he died during this campaign, such was his fate. This assault was meant to be his crucible, to prove once and for all his worthiness to lead and revitalize a nation quickly sliding toward the brink of oblivion. He told himself his presence on the front lines was needed for morale, to inspire his troops. If he died, the fate of the Federated Suns would fall to another. But if he triumphed…

He barely heard the radio over the tumultuous noise inside his head. “Scepter One, this is One-Two. We’ve got a problem here. A huge problem.”

Julian swallowed and gripped his BattleMech’s controls. “Go ahead, One-Two.”

Nanava didn’t need to respond. Through the dissipating smoke, he could see what the general meant.

An entire squadron of dark-green Transgressor heavy aerofighters careened overhead, each one laden with a full payload of ordnance.

Those bastards were going to collapse the entrance to the Cave.

Several hours into the tedious march toward Fortune Charlie’s objective, Malerie began regretting her battalion’s assignment. Fighting for sure footing against the uneven, snow-covered terrain was bad enough, but she started believing the Talons would never see true combat during this campaign. Sitting in the cockpit of an incredible war machine such as this for so long and not shooting at anything massing more than a handful of tons seemed to betray her heritage. Her Clan ancestors were bred specifically for combat, each one honed from birth to be a living weapon capable of fighting any battle, regardless of the situation or venue or handicap. She had half a mind to try contacting the First Prince himself and demanding that the Charlie battalions be rotated to the vanguard just so she could once more feel that life-or-death connection with her forebears. You don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to fire, she fantasized telling him. She’d learned that lesson early in her own training. Right then, her Flamberge was the pistol, she the trigger. And unless something hostile wandered into her scopes soon, she felt liable to accidentally subject her lancemates to friendly fire.

Enemy. Friend. Someone. The target no longer mattered. She lifted and balled her left fist, and shook it, imagining herself looking like a stim addict with an itch she couldn’t quite scratch.

Transmissions from the First Davion Guards filled her ears. In their distant, partially garbled communications, the sweet song of battle called to her. Explosions, whooshes, shouts, squeals of tortured metal—all combined into the din Mal lived for. She should be the one out there beating on the Capellans, not the Davion Guards.

From amid the consternation on the task force channel, she picked out a desperate transmission: “All Root Cellar units! All Root Cellar units! Incoming enemy aerospace on bombing vector to primary target! Priority-one target. Engage at will! Repeat: Priority-one target! Engage at will!”

Combat instinct kicked in, and Mal’s eyes dove into the tactical map illuminating one corner of her instrument panel. IFF transponders tagged a squadron of Transgressors arcing in from the outermost fringes of her map’s range. Resolution of their line of attack crossed both Charlie’s and the Fifth’s lines. In precious seconds, the squadron would be right over Able Company—prime pickings for her restless trigger finger.

At that moment she wished the Cappie birds were within range of the RFL-8D Rifleman from Baker Company, but the Talons companies were spread out to hell on this march.

“All Charlie Three-One units,” she radioed her company, “This is Three-One actual. Target incoming birds at three o’clock! Fire at will!”

A rush of glee filled her as she steadied her ’Mech and primed her medium lasers and SRM launchers. With practiced skill, she raised her ’Mech’s clawed arms and zeroed her rangefinder and reticule on the lead Transgressor. Magnification showed its wings and fuselage pregnant with the rounded profile of high-yield ordnance. Altitude was good. Range was good. She led the target to get good tone, flicked up the safety catch over her firing stud, and—

“Belay that, Three-One,” Tally’s voice cut in over the channel. “Hold your fire!”

But it was too late. The primal took over, and Mal crushed the trigger to silence the tone lock, her teeth grinding in bloodlust.

A quartet of emerald beams stabbed heavenward, punching straight through armor. Enough missiles caught the fuselage, and after an eerily silent moment, the fighter vanished in a spectacular midair fireball when the payload detonated.

She wasn’t alone in flouting orders though. A half dozen other Able Company laser beams in varying hues coursed upward through the snowy sky like memorial tributes of past tragedies. Some caught the remaining Transgressors, but the rest of the Capellan birds soared by unscathed. Within seconds, the survivors had already diminished into little more than specks on her horizon. In the distance a concentrated torrent of lasers and autocannon tracer rounds tore the rest of the bombers from the air.

“What the hell, Mal?” Tally screeched at her over their private frequency. Her Shrike trundled over beside the Flamberge and shouldered into Mal’s side, hard enough for the ninety-five-ton ’Mech to jostle her seventy-ton machine slightly off balance, but restrained enough to not stove in armor panels they’d have to pay to replace later.

Mal recovered, using control sticks and her own balance via neurohelmet feedback to steady the Flamberge’s gait. “My finger slipped,” she said. “And maybe I was bored.”

“If we were an actual Feddie outfit, I’d have to write you up for that.”

Mal didn’t care what Feddies did. She had another official kill on her record and had lent the Talons’ employers support for a critical objective. A reprimand from someone who would never fire her was the least of her concerns. “Good thing we’re not Feddies then. Or Cappies, for that matter. Anyway, we all make mistakes. It’s a fact of warfare.”

“Riiiiight,” Tally replied. “But things like this are the reason I’m the major and you aren’t.” The line quieted again for a few seconds too long. “Those birds were loaded for bear. What if that had come down right on top of us, with its ordnance still armed?”

But it hadn’t, Mal wanted to say. You know I’m a better shot than that.

“Pull another stunt like that, Captain, and I’m docking your pay. Got it?”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Mal mocked with practiced military precision.

She closed the channel and grunted. Tally could dock her pay all she wanted. Money was inconsequential, a fringe benefit. All Mal really wanted to do was fight. Her geneparents would’ve wanted that. And she could see the real action flaring far, far afield from Charlie’s current area of operations.

At least shooting down that now-burning column of smoke in the distance silenced the itch again—for the moment.

GOVERNMENT QUARTER

SASO, NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

7 DECEMBER 3147

The clogged streets of Saso were utterly crawling with Fedrat mercenary troops.

Everywhere Eliza Zhao turned, more of the Enemy filled her Tian-Zong’s scopes. Down one street, a Davion foot infantry platoon traded laser-rifle fire with Fa Shih battlesuits from Warrior House Hiritsu’s infantry battalion. The opposite direction, a jungle-camo Wasp bearing the insignia of the Twelfth Vegan Rangers touched off its jump jets and sailed out of sight.

Directly along the boulevard in front of her, a grumbling platoon of Patton tanks in a similar camouflage crept into view from behind a reflective blue-glass skyscraper. Their turrets traversed Zhao’s direction—an immediately hostile gesture—but their chattering autocannon fire was not meant for her. A pair of Warhammers from her command company ran in ahead of her and opened fire. The Pattons’ concentrated barrage barely dented the lead Warhammer’s armor, and the cowardly drivers hiked in reverse to avoid PPC retribution.

Cretins, all of them. These Fedrat mercenaries had no grasp of basic military doctrine. Their green-andbrown jungle camo just made them easier targets to spot among the Government Quarter’s predilection toward light-colored structures.

As if to confirm her unspoken critique, the Wasp she spied a moment earlier landed in the center of the boulevard, crushing a well-manicured median under its feet. The two Warhammers ahead of her twisted their torsos and unleashed enough short-range missiles to tear the light ’Mech into smoking pieces.

Somewhere deeper in the Government Quarter, the main body of Warrior House Hiritsu’s BattleMech battalion was fighting a doomed holding action against a full regiment of these wretched Davion mercenaries seeking control of the Statehouse.

After the fiasco at Shonso Armando’s manse, Zhao’s Dynasty Guard had seen to evacuating the shonso to a more secure location. She would have preferred a redoubt like the Cave, but aerospace recon and the tacnet reported that at least two full regiments of Fedrats and their mercenaries had steamrolled their way through the Home Guard and into the subterranean complex. In coordinating the planet’s defense, Armando had assigned Zhao to relief efforts in Saso, and from the look of things, she had finally caught up with the Twelfth’s rearguard elements. Now all that remained was to relieve some pressure on House Hiritsu by lancing this mercenary boil.

“Janshi Prime,” Zhao transmitted over a heavily encoded frequency relayed through Armando’s temporary mobile HQ, “this is Sheng One. What is your disposition, over?”

“Sheng One, this is Janshi Prime,” replied the wise and patient voice of Shiao-zhang Xun Kuang, his voice heavily distorted from the encryption. “Our southern flank along Statehouse Boulevard is under heavy fire and in danger of faltering. Please advise.”

“It seems these Davion dogs are unfamiliar with the fearsome reputation of our Warrior Houses,” Zhao replied, unable to suppress a smirk. “We must remedy this deficiency.” A quick survey of her tactical map showed an estimated distribution of forces across the Government Quarter, and she quickly formulated a plan. “Stand firm, Janshi Prime. Reinforcements are en route. I’m uploading you our path of advance. Do what you can to meet us at map coordinate Ài Lè, and we can catch the bulk of their battalion between us.”

“Acknowledged, Sheng One. Who shall be the hammer in this plan, and who shall be the anvil?”

Zhao chuckled. “Why not both of us be hammers?”

“Understood. May the Celestial Wisdom guide your hand. Janshi Prime out.”

A moment of reflection on Kuang’s words reminded her of the Chancellor’s divine prescience. Had he not the forethought to pull the Dynasty Guard from Taygeta’s defense, then the intact ducal mansion would be back in the Enemy’s hands, and Warrior House Hiritsu would have waged this battle alone, a battle they might not survive otherwise.

More infantry fire from the periphery distracted her attention from the road ahead, but only for a moment. Ballistic rifles pinged harmlessly on her Tian-Zong’s armored skin, and she marched forward one seventy-five-ton footfall at a time, ignoring the mute, openmouthed protests of Enemy soldiers that couldn’t sprint out of her path fast enough. Together, she and her command lance pressed down the main thoroughfare leading through the Government Quarter. At the terminus of this artery, the rotunda of Saso Statehouse waited, slightly hazed from both distance and smoke.

She clenched fingers around her controls and ensured all the weapon safeties were disengaged. Then she keyed the regimental channel so she could address the entire Dynasty Guard at once. “All Sheng group battalions, this is Sheng One. Coordinate full aggressive push toward coordinate Ài Lè. Give no quarter, no mercy. We must cleanse this Davion taint from our hardwon soil and ensure no weeds remain.”

All across the line, Dynasty Guard BattleMechs surged forward, Zhao right in the middle of them. Her lancemates softened up an Enemy Griffin foolish enough to wander into range down the boulevard, and her paired Gauss rifles and light PPCs finished the job. Supersonic slugs tore the Enemy ’Mech’s right arm off at the elbow, and beams of charged particles shredded the remaining torso armor. Sparks and a plume of gray smoke billowed out from the hole in the Griffin’s chest. The Enemy ’Mech fell hard. Even from the relative safety of her cockpit, Zhao felt the ground tremble the moment all fifty-five tons of Griffin struck pavement.

Another Enemy joined the dance, a Vulture Mk. IV, followed by a Thunderbolt. Neither of them would stand a chance.

Zhao designated the first target, the Thunderbolt, by firing her PPCs and blasting two deep furrows in its forward armor. Her lancemates closed the distance, as much as the street and abandoned cars would allow, and opened fire in a bright display of lasers and detonating missiles. Within seconds, the Thunderbolt went down to the pavement with a thump, cut off at the knees. Its partner suffered a similar fate as Zhao’s lance dismembered the Enemy ’Mech with ruthless efficiency.

Her lance operated as a disciplined, well-oiled machine. They needed no radio chatter to coordinate their attacks. Subtle, practiced movements and sports-style playbooks told the rest of her unit what their next action should be without wasting precious time and distraction with radio contact unless absolutely necessary. The complete lack of radio chatter also tended to unnerve the Enemy, and anything that set them ill at ease was a weapon for her arsenal. None of these cowards deserved mercy. Their very presence on this planet was a personal affront to the Celestial Wisdom’s sovereignty, and Zhao and her troops saw to it that every Enemy ’Mech charging down along the boulevard fell to the onslaught of Capellan guns.

Upon reaching the foot of the Statehouse, Zhao caught sight of a quartet of battered and abused ’Mechs limping into view before them. Caught up in the hyper-focus of battle, she raised her ’Mech’s arms to fire before her instruments blatted confirmation of friendlies. Her fingers relaxed. The armor of the sixty-five-ton Shen Yi in her sights had been so badly damaged she could just barely see hints of metallic green and black— House Hiritsu’s colors—left in the ’Mech’s paint.

“Looks like the Enemy is in retreat,” Shiao-zhang Kuang radioed from his Shen Yi.

“Indeed.” Zhao glanced at her 360-degree vision strip to gauge the scope of devastation behind her. Smashed and broken bits of ’Mechs, burned-out husks of tanks and IFVs, mangled battle armor shells, and the paste of crushed foot soldiers littered their wake.

It was not enough to ensure victory for control of this planet. Not nearly enough.

“Now,” she said at length, “we must hunt them all down.”

Part V

THE CAVE

NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

7 DECEMBER 3147

Deep underground, Julian felt the whole chassis of his ’Mech shudder through his seat. A cloud of dust shook loose from the cavern ceiling, and pebbles of bedrock rained down against his canopy. He winced, not from the suddenness of the sensation, but what it represented. He could already imagine the report that would inevitably trickle down through the command chain: another explosive surprise laid by the Capellans, another ’Mech down—the sixth one in the past hour.

This vast network of underground tunnels represented the Cave’s greatest defensive strength. The honeycombed bedrock formed a virtual warren able to confuse even the most relentless of attackers. Without an accurate map, it was easy for an assault force to get hopelessly lost while defenders harried from all directions, picking off the enemy one at a time. During his enrollment at the New Avalon Military Academy, Julian had participated in theoretical tactics simulations just like this, including one based on the Cave itself; however, that project had focused solely on defense and used a purposefully fanciful model of the cavern system’s layout rather than an accurate representation, for reasons of operational security.

“Scepter One,” General Nanava radioed from his Stalker, “this is One-Two. Forward elements of Scepter Two report another plug. We’re plotting another route around it.”

Julian had expected minefields, ’Mech traps, and other surprises, but just as dangerous were the unexpected number of tunnels the Capellan combat engineers had flooded with ferrocrete to block passage. These plugs changed the whole architecture of the cave system by turning parallel tunnels into a single chokepoint, or creating other such dangers that rendered unit coherency damn near impossible. Given enough time, a lance of ’Mechs could break through a blocked tunnel, but time was not on their side. Julian’s tac maps were constantly updating based on reconnaissance data—if they updated at all. Down here, communication relied on data relays passing from ’Mech to ’Mech, like an old-fashioned game of telephone. “Understood. Any word on that last explosion?”

“Yes, sir. A leftenant from Two Batt, Baker Company. Broke her arm in the fall. Medic says she’ll have to wait for medevac to an aid station until we sort this place out.”

Julian screwed his eyes closed and shook his head, neurohelmet and all. “Acknowledged. Mark the minefield and continue on forward.”

As a matter of habit, he checked his six in his vision strip. In infrared, he saw the command company of Charlie Three picking up the First Guards’ slack. Tactical and safety considerations placed the command elements of both units near the middle of the combined formation, to better thwart headhunter units looking for easy prey.

Major Tallula Zheng’s dark-gray Shrike and her XO’s Flamberge brought up his rear. The Shrike’s paired autocannon hung limp from the birdlike ’Mech’s left arm, their ammo feeders in tatters. The Flamberge progressed with a noticeable limp, and one of the vestigial wings atop the ’Mech’s shoulders had bent just enough off true to be noticeable at a glance.

The other two members of the Charlie Three command lance bore similar yet largely cosmetic scars. All of this represented damage sustained during the initial drop, not combat, and the operation’s timetable could not afford a stop for repairs until the Cave was secured. Zheng had expressed her disapproval, but the needs of the op took precedence over the desires of one mercenary commander.

“Charlie Three actual,” he radioed, “What’s your status? How are we looking back there?”

“All quiet on the home front, sir,” Zheng replied after a beat of silence. “Too quiet, in my professional opinion.”

“The van is quiet, too.” Julian overlaid his current tunnel map over the archived map and noted places where, in the unaltered layout, enemy units might be able to trickle through the outermost parts of the network and prepare a flanking maneuver. In his NAMA project, he’d had considerable success with such a tactic. “All right, I want you to probe the coordinates I’m transmitting. Spread out and keep your eyes open. Could be they’re trying to circle around us, catch us in a pincer.”

Before Zheng could respond, Nanava’s voice cut into the transmission. “Sir, we’ve got contact at multiple points. Fourth MAC with House Kamata support.”

“Stick together and hold position. Don’t chase after them. That’s what they want.” Julian flicked back to the Charlie frequency. “Charlie Three, acknowledge receipt of last transmission?”

Charlie’s line deadened with static.

“Charlie Three, this is Scepter One. Please respond.” The tunnels could easily bounce signals, but Julian had a direct line of sight to the recipient. He glanced at the rearview of his vision strip to witness the Shrike dart forward into a lumbering run. In a frigid rush of horror and instinct, he twisted Arthur’s torso and stomped foot pedals to wheel around…

But not fast enough. Twin ruby beams of laser light blotted out his rearview vision long enough to deliver untold megajoules of heat to the eighty-five-ton ’Mech’s vulnerable rear armor. Whooshing plumes of gray smoke announced the imminent arrival of a long-range missile salvo. Each warhead impact rattled him in the seat and jostled the ’Mech forward.

Alarms echoed throughout his cockpit as he fought the controls and his own sense of balance to keep the Templar III on its blocky feet. He swung around as fast as the gargantuan war machine’s physics allowed and confronted the traitor.

The incendiary fire of anger and the cold sting of betrayal mingled in his heart. As he took in the line of his would-be killers, it dawned on him anew that the Shrike, the Flamberge—all of the Charlie Three ’Mechs in immediate sensor range—bore no scars from battle with the Capellans. All their damage had occurred during the initial drop.

“You misunderstand, Your Highness,” said the garbled voice of the Shrike’s pilot. “The pincer has already caught you.”

Malerie couldn’t believe the words coming out of her earpiece.

During the march beneath the bowels of the Mawreddog continent’s massive ice shelf, Tally had hopped onto their private channel and casually said: “We have a contract to take out the First Prince.”

Mal blinked, nonplussed, certain she was experiencing communications failure or the beginnings of some kind of battlefield fugue. She felt as though the nearby Shrike had reached out with its taloned right hand and wrenched her guts out through her abdomen.

“Here’s the deal,” Tally said when no response was forthcoming. “That ‘combat bonus’ you’ve been seeing since New Damascus? It’s from a Capellan contract I negotiated to secure the future of this unit.

“Look, you know the Suns don’t give two flying figs about us. We’re just warm bodies to them, meat shields. And their behavior during this campaign so far has convinced me I made the right choice. This isn’t Operation CERBERUS. It’s Operation GET BEHIND THE MERCS.”

Mal’s throat contracted. Ahead, she could see the steadily marching form of the First Prince’s Templar III, its back exposed to this person hired to kill him. Stomach acid burned the back of her throat. Beyond his dashing looks, Mal didn’t really trust the First Prince, not completely, but that was immaterial.

Such a dagger-in-the-back move was a direct breach of contract. It was dishonorable.

UnClan-like.

Chatter of incoming Capellan forces filled the task force channel. It all mutated into so much noise as steam and rage built up inside her. Because of Tally, her supposed friend, Malerie Faulkner would be branded a traitor to the contract they had signed with the Federated Suns. The Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission would blacklist the Talons, and no other reputable employer would ever hire them after this.

But even worse, the Confederation hadn’t truly hired mercs in almost a decade. By trying to cheat the Davions, all Tally had done was ensure the entire regiment would become indentured slaves in the Capellan military. Tally had mortgaged their future for a lifetime of servitude to a totalitarian regime ruled by a deluded dictator.

Mal heard the command to attack, but her brain refused to comply, as though some connection had broken inside. The surreal image of the Shrike discharging its large lasers and missiles into the Templar III’s rear seemed torn straight from a dream. Armor vaporized and blasted away from the First Prince’s slowly turning ’Mech as the rest of the Talons turned their weapons toward Julian Davion’s entourage.

Such a dishonorable, dezgra action would have sent her ancestors into a raging fury.

The First Prince and his command company returned fire, but Mal only had eyes for the Shrike’s winged, avian silhouette.

In any other terrain, she would’ve launched skyward on jump jets to gain superior position, but the low height of the cavern would spell suicide—which meant the Shrike was also earthbound.

Instead, she throttled up and lifted both of her Flamberge’s arms. The barrels above and below each taloned hand screeched with lasers that raked welts across the Shrike’s flank. A full two-dozen missiles with varying warhead types arced away from the shoulderand wing-mounted launchers. New craters appeared in the assault ’Mech’s hide.

“Traitor!” Tally squealed.

Mal ground her teeth at the irony. “Dezgra stravag!” She redlined her throttle to close the range, cursing the actuator limp that slowed her.

The Shrike’s weapons turned on Mal, the Templar all but forgotten amid the swirling melee. But Tally was too late to fire. Mal angled all seventy tons of her war machine toward this backstabbing coward who had ruined her—had ruined all of them—and braced for impact.

In a deafening clank, the two ’Mechs collided, Flamberge shoulder to Shrike chest. The heavier Shrike reeled back on its heels but stood firm. Mal threw her throttle in reverse to line up another salvo, but the claws on the Shrike’s right arm snatched the left-hand flange of her pseudo-wing assembly.

Whiplash jerked the Flamberge to a halt. Mal fought her joysticks to wrench away, but Tally’s myomer-fueled grip was far too strong. The squeal of crushing, tortured metal filled her cockpit. Through her canopy she saw the beaklike projection of the Shrike’s head, of neurohelmeted Tallula Zheng sitting in her own command couch. Their eyes met for the merest of moments, but in the other woman’s gaze Mal witnessed the blind fury driving her traitorous desperation.

Claws extended, Mal bashed her ’Mech’s right arm into the Shrike’s head. Its beak crumpled. Her claws clamped down with incredible force until she felt something snap deep within the Shrike’s chassis. She withdrew the arm, leaving a hole surrounded by mangled metal and cracked ferroglass. The Shrike went limp. Its still-clenched claws nearly tore off the Flamberge’s pseudo-wing before letting go and crumpling face first to the cavern floor.

Mal backed up, with no time to reflect on what her battle lust had accomplished. All around her, the Guards and Talons traded fire in desperation and confusion. No matter which side she fired on, the other would brand her a traitor.

The coruscating particle beam from a Talons Griffin staggered the Flamberge and wrenched Mal back into the moment. She turned to reply in kind, but missiles from another direction exploded across her torso. Lasers sublimated armor. Autocannon shells blasted ceramic-steel armor fragments into the air. Within seconds, Mal felt reduced to a speed bag, pummeled from every quarter, thrown about her cockpit over and over again until physics and gravity won their battles.

The remains of the Flamberge’s left leg exploded away from the chassis, and Mal went down to the dirt, hard. Her neurohelmet smashed into a bulkhead, and white exploded across her vision. Next thing she knew, her whole existence lay sideways, her cockpit positioned to stare right into the gaping, twisted hole betraying where the fallen Shrike’s head once was. Mal’s warrior instinct and the bloodlust pulsing through her veins urged her to try standing the ’Mech up on its remaining leg, but a groggy glance through her cracked canopy showed the Talons running distracted around her.

An unfamiliar, static-laced voice emerged over the comm to confirm her suspicions: “Task Force Root Cellar, this is Cross One, en route to your position. Figured you could use the help.”

The Fifth Crucis Lancers were out there somewhere in the caves, pulling the heat off the trapped First Davion Guards.

Mal aimed her prone ’Mech’s right arm at the distracted Griffin. Her paired pulse lasers stabbed her target and tore a gaping hole in its weaker rear armor. Tactical missiles from her torso launchers struck armor, but a few tunneled through the gap and detonated inside her target’s exposed structural supports. The Griffin bent backward as though struck in the spine by a massive club, and it hit the ground hard enough for Mal to feel the tremor through her seat.

Her body shook again, this time from the icy chill of adrenaline fading from her blood.

What have I done? What have I done?

She’d killed one of her oldest friends for breaking their code of honor. She’d shot down another Talon in self-defense. But the Davions would mark her a traitor, regardless.

The battle swiftly shifted and moved away from her prone position, forcing her to follow the progression from her crippled ’Mech via radio chatter. The First Davion Guards and Fifth Crucis Lancers had trapped what remained of the Talons and Fortune Charlie between them, and any Charlie ’Mech that refused a stand-down order was cut down with prejudice.

With a missing leg, Mal had no choice but to crawl— away from the battle, past the broken husk of Tally’s headless Shrike. But which way to go? Capellans ahead, Davions behind. Escape was impossible. She was doomed no matter how the cards fell.

Within ten minutes of clawing her way across cavernous ground, three First Davion Guards ’Mechs approached, their every barrel and missile tube pointing her way.

The middle ’Mech: a Templar III.

Julian Davion. The one who’d gotten her into this mess in the first place.

Warrior reflex lifted her Flamberge’s arm toward the trio of ’Mechs.

“Charlie Three-One,” the First Prince himself spoke into her helmet’s headset. “Stand down. Repeat, stand down. That is a direct order. Comply or be fired on.”

Warrior blood pulsed hot in her veins, but she knew better than to pointlessly throw her life away on a moment like this. A true warrior remained prepared to fight any battle at any moment, but the smart ones knew when to fight and when to stand down.

Mal knew which category she fell into.

The Flamberge’s arm lowered.

RUINS OF JOHNSTON INDUSTRIES

CILITREN HAZARD ZONE, NEW SYRTIS

SIAN COMMONALITY, CAPELLAN CONFEDERATION

21 DECEMBER 3147

All of it, the whole planetary defense, was coming apart like so much crumbling foundation.

Eliza Zhao matched her Tian-Zong’s pace with the rest of her command company, but traversing the cratered, irradiated remains of an old Jihad battlefield along the equator proved more difficult than anticipated. Demolished buildings and other unidentifiable rubble lay hidden beneath a thin layer of windswept dust in blackened, seventy-one-year-old nuclear blast craters. On the positive side, the worst areas of radiation levels had thankfully faded decades ago, and the craters themselves provided excellent defilade positions for what few armor companies remained of the Dynasty Guard Calvary regiment, but Zhao found little else to celebrate as she fell in alongside Bogdanovich’s Vandal.

Two weeks ago, the Cave, their primary stronghold after the ducal manse’s destruction, fell to the Enemy, and the headhunting attempt on the First Prince himself had failed spectacularly. Trapped in the tunnels, most of the mercenary headhunters had been pulverized between the First Davion Guards and the Fifth Crucis Lancers. Together, the First and Fifth had forced the Cave’s beleaguered defenders to retreat through a hidden egress tunnel.

Three days ago, House Hiritsu, still recovering from the devastating assault on Saso’s Government Quarter, abandoned the Statehouse in the face of a renewed attack by Davion auxiliaries. The loss of Saso stung, but with Shonso Armando and other important dignitaries evacuated to safer locations, all was not yet lost.

However, the final straw had come just before dawn, when an urgent communiqué from the shonso woke her with word that his mobile HQ was under attack. The detached Dynasty Guard ’Mech company and accompanying infantry platoons were facing one of the Davion auxiliary units. Before Zhao could even get properly dressed and mount her ’Mech to give her troops aid, the enemy had overrun the HQ position, and Armando was reported missing and presumed dead. Of the company and its support elements, only four heavy ’Mechs and three squads of Fa Shih battlesuits managed to limp back to the Dynasty Guard’s cantonment.

Other regiments fared no better. The fledgling New Syrtis Home Guard had largely been wiped out during the battle for the Cave and the defense of Saso. The Fourth MAC had suffered difficult losses during their retreat. House Hiritsu had already gone to ground. House Kamata had returned to Sian under orders from the Chancellor himself. Of all the planetary defenders, only the First MAC remained in favorable condition, and they were too far afield to offer Zhao meaningful assistance.

The cratered ridge where she and the remnants of her regiment had gathered was proof that the Davionistas could be hurt. In 3076, Taurian Concordat forces had bombarded the equatorial regions, leveling countless major cities. What better place to make a last stand than the monument to one of the Enemy’s most bitter defeats?

She held few illusions about their chances, but one chance in a thousand was more favorable odds than no chance at all. Better to try and fail than to never try. And try they had, several times.

If only she had held the line back on Taygeta. If only she’d made that shot on the First Prince’s ’Mech. If only they had repelled the Fifth Crucis Lancers at the Hasek manse.

If only. If only. If only…

The Confederation was on the verge of losing its most important conquest in centuries, and she knew that burden lay squarely on her own shoulders.

Danai, she thought, what would you have done differently were you here?

But Danai, many light years away on Sian, could not answer her.

A spume of black dust on the gray horizon announced the imminent arrival of Enemy tank platoons kicking up irradiated dirt. Seismic sensors warned of an indeterminate number of approaching BattleMechs. The sky remained clear of Davion birds solely due to the residual radiation interfering with fragile aerospace avionics.

Zhao crested the crater’s lip and came to a halt; Bogdanovich’s ’Mech stood shoulder to shoulder with her.

“Sheng One,” her XO radioed, “forward scouts confirm elements of the Second Davion Auxiliary on attack maneuver.”

Zhao ground her teeth. History often represented last stands as defensive engagements: a vastly outnumbered ragtag group attempting to stand their ground against an unstoppable military juggernaut. She was tired of constantly being forced on the defensive during this campaign. The Second Auxiliary would expect the Guard to either stand firm or withdraw.

As more and more olive-drab ’Mechs and armor fanned out around the craters, she flexed both control sticks in white-knuckled fury. There would be no preemptive retreat order this time, not from the Celestial Wisdom, not from her, not while she still drew breath.

If she indeed had only one chance in a thousand, she would be that one chance amid countless thousands. She would take every asset at her disposal and make these Davion fools realize the gross error they had committed in crossing swords with her.

This was her destiny. This was why the Chancellor had placed such trust in her command here. If she could not win on New Syrtis, then no one could. This battle belonged to her. It was already written in the stars.

Zhao inhaled deeply through her nose and straightened her spine with pride. “Formation Tiger-Six,” she dictated. “Now.”

“Sir—”

“Do it!”

As one, her Tian-Zong and the other Dynasty Guard ’Mechs dashed down from the crater’s lip, weapons lighting up the dull sky. But the Enemy came through the ruined wasteland like a storm, like the wrathful fist of an angry god.

Gray trails from countless defiladed LRM launchers streaked over Zhao’s head and blasted holes in the Davion lines. Hidden artillery rained down death.

Each Enemy ’Mech or tank that fell to Capellan rage counted as another small victory. Enough small victories, and they would carry the day.

Zhao punched a single Gauss-rifle slug through a twenty-five-ton Osiris she suspected was spotting for Enemy artillery. A precision PPC shot gored through the tracks of a Rommel tank trying to get a bead on her, and she crushed a lone battle-armored trooper beneath a clawed foot. At her flank, Bogdanovich’s Vandal scored devastating hits on a wounded Blackjack, which toppled to one side from a shattered knee.

Amid her regiment’s charge, the well-oiled machine of Zhao’s command lance made every shot count. The artillery bombardment and LRM salvoes had done the job well, softening up the opposition just enough for her charge to take maximum advantage. All they had to do was make that advantage last.

If she won this engagement, she could fight on to win the rest of the battle. If she won today’s battle, she could press onward to win the entire campaign. One engagement at a time. That was all she needed…

“Sheng One,” Bogdanovich’s transmission crackled in Zhao’s ear, “we have incoming.”

Zhao toggled to magnetic-anomaly sensors, which showed the outlines of several ’Mechs ascending the other side of the crater slope.

Large ’Mechs.

Scouting reports hadn’t expected them to arrive so soon. Somehow, they had outmaneuvered her.

A 100-ton Devastator bristling with Gauss rifles and PPCs appeared at the top of the rise, and sensors showed three more heavy or assault ’Mechs on its heels. All of the Devastator’s arm- and torso-mounted weapons traversed toward her—

Zhao didn’t give the brick house of a ’Mech time to react: she already had shots lined up on it while maintaining her forward momentum. All of her Tian-Zong’s weaponry opened fire. PPC bolts scorched the Devastator’s untouched hide. Both of her Gauss-rifle shots left visible dents in her target’s torso armor and forced the ’Mech to pivot drunkenly in mid-stride to fight the tug of gravity…

“Fall, you Davion bastard…” she hissed, just above a whisper. “Fall…”

But the Enemy held firm as its lancemates crested the rise to join it.

Zhao caught an argentine flash—

—She woke in a bleary panic to an alarm-filled cockpit, dark except for a soft control-panel glow. Her inner ear told her the Tian-Zong had landed face first, burying her entire canopy in the blackened, irradiated soil, obscuring the calamitous action going on around her.

Her five-point safety harness secured her in her seat while dangling her above the command console like a marionette. She lamely reached out to do something, anything, on her control board, but everything seemed too far away.

A dark circle plopped right in the middle of her tac map. Smaller dots followed.

Plip. Plip. Plip.

Zhao looked down the length of her torso, saw the shrapnel poking out of her ribs.

Fingers twitched. Vision blurred. Cold.

So cold.

So—

Part VI

GOVERNMENT QUARTER

SASO, NEW SYRTIS

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL AREA, CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

18 JULY 3148

AFFS Leftenant Malerie Faulkner adjusted her Flamberge’s scopes to zoom in on the reported disturbance, but too many skyscrapers blocked her view. For all intents and purposes, Saso’s Government Quarter seemed no different than on any other day. Pedestrians filled sidewalks, and street traffic pulled out of her lance’s way as though the quartet of ’Mechs were emergency vehicles with wailing sirens, but nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye. Apart from the occasional blown-out storefront or partially collapsed building—all unrepaired scars from last December’s battle over the Saso Statehouse—the downtown atmosphere seemed like a typical lazy Sunday morning.

Mal wandered toward Statehouse Square, shaking her head at the slight limp in her ’Mech’s gait. Even months after repairs, she still felt a slight hitch in its stride, most notably on the left side. The damage was something not even a prince’s ransom could fix, apparently, since one of the necessary parts had proved difficult to come by this far beyond the Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone. Had she accepted the offer to join Julian Davion’s personal entourage, Julian’s quartermaster might’ve been able to pull some strings, but being that close to the First Prince meant she’d probably die of boredom before ever seeing true, frontline combat ever again. Rare exceptions like the Cave betrayal aside, nobles seldom got shot at, so the closer her proximity to the First Prince, the further away from battlefield action she would likely be. And if she wasn’t on the front lines, why bother being a MechWarrior in the first place? She wasn’t born to just sit on a garrison somewhere; she and Tally took offensive-combat contracts more often than anything else for that very reason. Someday she might accept promotion to command her own battalion, but for now she focused on earning her way through the AFFS ranks the hard way and remaining a field officer for as long as she could.

“You see anything, L-T?” Sergeant Hitchens radioed from his Caesar.

“Neg, Sergeant.” As soon as Mal rounded the corner onto Statehouse Boulevard, she didn’t need optical magnification to confirm why Captain Witherspoon had called them in.

In the shadow of the sword-shaped Civil War Monument, a multitude numbering in the hundreds, or possibly even thousands, clogged the quad across Statehouse Square. Law enforcement in riot-control gear hemmed in the protesters as best they could, but with so few versus so many, the higher-ups had reason to believe the situation could escalate faster than a lit match dropped into a black-powder keg. The picketers, as free citizens of the Federated Suns, had every legal right to protest, but Captain Witherspoon felt sending a few BattleMechs to put the fear of God into them would be both productive and fun. All they had to do was shake the ground a little, rattle the sabers, and make sure no one did anything stupid.

Zooming in her view of the crowd revealed a number of placards bearing a varied array of witticisms and amusing anti-Davion sentiments:

You can’t spell D-a-v-i-o-n without N-o

Julian Caesar: Davion Megalomaniac

Bring Back the Celestial Wisdom

“Confederated” not “Federated”

Mal didn’t believe for a second that these were actual longtime citizens of New Syrtis legitimately dissatisfied with the planet’s recent change of ownership. No one would put it past Daoshen Liao to recruit fake protesters just to grind the AFFS garrison’s gears.

“Sergeant,” Mal broadcast to her lance, “you want the honors, quiaff?”

“Neg, L-T,” Hitchens replied, chuckling at his own mimicry of her quaint Clan affectation. “You can have first crack at it.”

Didn’t matter to Mal one way or another, but the sooner this was done, the better. She took pole position, and the rest of her lance fanned out behind her along the boulevard to maximize their physical presence and present a wall of steel that would steamroll anyone who did anything outside legal bounds.

Mal lifted the Flamberge’s clawed arms just enough to leave the impression that their mounted pulse lasers could easily pick off targets if pushed too far. She triggered her external speakers and keyed up her neurohelmet mic. “Attention citizens of—”

A brilliant fireball consumed Statehouse Square in mid-sentence. The entire Civil War Monument disintegrated with enough concussive force to rock the Flamberge on its heels and tremble nearby buildings in the shockwave of a deep thunderclap Mal felt in her bones. For a single instant, the mushrooming incendiary cloud dominated her vision and sucked horrified air from her lungs. Then just as quickly, the incandescence dissipated, leaving a haunting afterimage despite the ’Mech’s flare compensation filters.

She counted herself lucky that the purple specter she couldn’t blink away hid the worst of the carnage from sight. There had to be hundreds, thousands of incinerated bodies down there, both civilians and police alike, strewn about her ’Mech’s feet—but she couldn’t see them, didn’t want to see them.

That wasn’t all. The smoke left behind was wrong somehow, like someone had futzed with the tint of her visual sensors.

“What the devil…?” Hitchens radioed in disbelief.

Mal switched into fight-or-flight mode, but there was nothing to run from, no one to fight. A quick scan of the quad showed nothing but soot-blackened paving stones, a multitude of the dead, and the skeletal remnants of the Civil War Monument sticking upward like a rude gesture.

She dialed up her magnification and swept back and forth across screaming, fleeing survivors. The Guards occasionally trained for disaster relief, but this went far beyond such a limited scope. She lingered on one fleeing couple, and the man crumpled, spat up blood. His companion turned, crimson pouring from her eye sockets. Within seconds, their bodies stilled.

All around them, others met similar fates.

Mal choked down stomach acid. She knew her ’Mech’s environmental sealing would protect her and her lance, but all of these people—

And then the wind picked up. Snatched up the smoke. Tossed it adrift into the atmosphere to rain over the rest of the Government Quarter, over the whole stravag city.

She stared dumbfounded at the smoke, paralyzed and helpless—unable to run, unable to solve anything with customary ’Mech-on-’Mech violence.

The wind kicked up again, carrying more of the lethal plumes with it. Beyond the smoke, far in the distance, a shape took form, the recognizable silhouette of a Cataphract painted in black with crimson trim.

More smoke blew in over the shadow, and just like that, it vanished from visual sensors, leaving Mal wondering whether she’d imagined it.

Magnetic anomaly sensors confirmed her sanity: a faint signature rippled at the very edge of maximum detection range. Whoever this pilot was, it wanted to be seen.

“Talon Two and Three,” she radioed to her lance, “scout for hostiles at the coordinates I’m uploading. Talon Four, contact emergency services. Some of those civvies might still be alive.”

Seconds stretched into minutes, long minutes with no activity save the commotion of rescue vehicles choking through the gaseous smoke. Mal craved a normal stand-up fight, but no attack came from any quarter.

The radio chirped through the somber, aggravating silence. “Talon One, this is Three. I’ve got no readings. Whoever you saw out here must’ve gone to ground and powered off.”

Mal ground her teeth. “That’s what I was afraid of. Just keep looking. We’re going to find whoever was responsible for this and bring them to justice.”

THE CAVE

NEW SYRTIS

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL AREA, CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

3 AUGUST 3148

Not five minutes off the DropShip all the way from Remagen, Julian stormed into the Cave’s command center and demanded answers based on the reports he had received upon arriving in-system. New Syrtis had been declared secure back in February, and in his absence, matters had devolved from decent to bad to worse. Now, a more personal touch was needed. The recovery of the Capellan March capital was the first vital step toward economic and military recovery, and for all those who had bled and died on this planet, he was not about to let the situation fall apart so soon.

General Nanava, Admiral Davion-Coles, and a number of aides and attachés had joined Julian in the conference room to review the situation in depth.

“We’ve had further developments since you’ve been in transit, Your Highness,” Nanava said. “Here’s what we know.”

He activated a wall screen and paged through several disturbing holoimages of the devastation that had rocked Saso almost two weeks ago. “On the eighteenth of July, a bomb in Statehouse Square destroyed large portions of the Statehouse, claiming the life of Governor Bakema and several thousand protesters gathered nearby. The bomb released a potent nerve agent into the atmosphere, and the estimated death toll is upwards of two hundred thousand.”

The holo changed to a silhouetted BattleMech partially obscured by smoke. “This still is from Leftenant Faulkner’s battleROM footage, captured moments after the attack. Remind you of anything, Highness?”

Julian’s stomach churned. The flat black paint that seemed to suck in light brought to mind field manual images of Death Commandos, the crème de la crème of the CCAF. Instead of being trimmed in customary Liao green, however, the ’Mech sported lines of stark scarlet.

“Since then,” the general continued, “The Guards have encountered these ’Mechs in the field on at least a dozen occasions. We’re not quite sure how or when these Death Commandos—or whoever these jokers are—got on-planet, but one thing’s for sure. They’re good. I’ve lost a lot of good folks trying to take out these bastards, and all they do is rile up the populace. Problem is, there’s never very many of them, so it’s like trying to swat a gnat with a fishing net. Damn things give us the slip almost every time. The few we have managed to take down, though…”

“Let me guess,” Julian said, grinding his jaw. “False tooth cyanide capsules, and equipment with no identifying markers.”

“Affirmative. Classic Maskirovka tactics. But the admiral has a different theory.”

Admiral Davion-Coles smoothed the front of his uniform and paged through a few other holo slides. Julian recognized the images: Confederation ’Mechs locked in combat with opponents bearing the seal of the now-conquered St. Ives Compact. The devastating Capellan-St. Ives war, fought between 3061 and 3063. One of the holopics centered on an explosion with a profile and coloration similar to the Saso blast.

“Analysis of the nerve agent indicates a chemical similarity to the agent used in the Black May attacks in 3062,” Davion-Coles said. “Those attacks were associated with a dangerous Thuggee cult led by the Chancellor’s now-deceased aunt, Kali Liao. Though the cult was allegedly destroyed during the Jihad, it is my belief that its remnants are now operating in our midst.”

Julian frowned. “Do we have any evidence to support this?”

The admiral brought up another series of images. Julian was no stranger to the horrors of war, but this—this turned his stomach. A whole street filled with civilians of all ages, each one brutally murdered until the gutters ran with blood.

“Sir, this is from the town of Ross. Residents woke up to find hundreds of their neighbors dead in the streets, each one showing signs of ritual mutilation. There were no messages, no apparent motive, no witnesses.”

A second holopic came into focus: a similarly grisly scene, only in a smaller, snowier, more rustic locale. “This was just a few days ago, when someone stumbled into this no-name shantytown out in the mining belt. Maybe two hundred transients, all dead to a man. Same MO as before.”

Julian avoided staring at the images for as long as he could get away with. “So we’re either looking at copycats, the real McCoys, or Capellan PSYOPs tactics.”

“Far as I’m concerned, Highness,” said General Nanava, “I don’t care what they are. These aren’t just your run-of-the-mill guerrillas. They’ve got the populace running scared, thinking their community might be the next victims, which just makes our job all that much harder. There’s been riots, suicide bombs, the works. Got so bad that Leftenant Governor Ralston had to declare martial law just to keep the peace. And that’s when you come in.”

Julian regarded his commanders. “Then we deploy to the field, draw them out.”

Admiral Davion-Coles shook his head. “Highness, if it were only that simple—”

“You misunderstand me, Admiral,” Julian cut in. “I’ve not come all the way from the Crucis March just to hide in a command center. Make it known that I am here, deployed along with the First, and I am certain our mysterious friends will come calling within hours.”

General Nanava’s eyebrows lifted. “Sir?”

“It’s done, General. See to the preparations. We fought hard to retake this planet, and I’m not about to let some death cult terrorize the very people we just liberated.”

“I only fear there is more to this than random acts of terrorism and sabotage. We need to follow these cultists—or whoever they are—back to their nest and eliminate—”

“Apologies, Admiral,” interrupted a mortified, out-of-breath leftenant as she charged into the room. “Colonel Brody’s on the horn. First Battalion’s barracks are under attack.”

Julian and his commanders all exchanged glances. “Opposition?” asked Davion-Coles.

“It’s those same bandits we’ve been tracking, sir.” “Force strength?”

“Unknown, but they’re out in droves. More companies than ever reported. Seems like they’ve all come out of the woodwork this time.”

Julian nodded at her. “Thank you, Leftenant. Tell the colonel to stand firm. We’re on our way.” After she scurried out, he said, “It seems news of my arrival has certainly traveled fast.”

Nanava offered a grim smile. “Looks like you got your wish, Highness.”

Before Julian could respond, the same leftenant barged back in, even more breathless than before. “Sirs, we’ve got incoming from a pirate point. Force estimate of at least two regiments.”

Julian closed his eyes a moment. “How long do we have?”

“Twelve hours until their DropShips reach combat-drop altitude.”

Not nearly enough time to prepare proper defenses, as far as Julian was concerned.

His fists clenched.

There was never enough time.

APPROACH TO AFFS CANTONMENT

SASO, NEW SYRTIS

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL AREA, CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

3 AUGUST 3148

The blocky feet of Yen-Lo-Wang touched down on the snows of New Syrtis, heralding the arrival of Sang-shao Danai Liao-Centrella from orbit. She braced for impact, allowing temporary jump-jet pods and the ’Mech’s leg shocks do their job. The moment her stomach settled and firm ground jostled her command couch, she jettisoned the jets and leaned forward into a run. The fifty-ton Centurion loped forward into the fray as though the storied ’Mech owned the space around it. Even her nearby troops seemed to give her a wider berth than when on noncombat maneuvers.

Fear was a powerful ally in battle, and she always used it to her advantage. To many, this galloping Centurion, serial number FS1010-031X, was the purest symbol of Capellan pride and tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. Three generations of Solaris VII arena fighters had piloted the ’Mech, and its previous owner, her cousin Kai Allard-Liao, was still considered among the greatest MechWarriors in history, thirty-five years after his death. Even the greenest of recruits recognized the power and presence of Yen-Lo-Wang, the Chinese god of death, king of the nine hells, and Danai perpetuated the legend.

“Forward!” Danai commanded. “Tear them to ribbons!”

Through a hail of laser fire and missiles, the command company of the Second McCarron’s Armored Cavalry formed up around her and pressed their advance down the slope leading toward the growing fray, firing long-range weapons downrange at targets of opportunity. Seemingly all around them in the sky overhead, spherical Union DropShips bearing the Capellan Confederation emblem descended on columns of plasma thrust.

In the distance, arctic-camo ’Mechs engaged black ’Mechs trimmed in red. The Fifth Crucis Lancers were faltering under the onslaught, and the newly arrived First Davion Guards balked in the face of three Capellan ’Mech regiments. By the look of how the battle was progressing, the Death Commandos that had hidden near the radiation belt had done their job well.

Her longtime friend Eliza Zhao had been the one to suggest hiding elite partisans on the planet in case the defense crumbled, but it was Danai who had brought it to the attention of her elder brother, the Chancellor. Daoshen embraced the idea with glee. Two years prior, Julian Davion had made the CCAF look the fool on the Crucis March world of Marlette, and Danai herself had met with the novice First Prince on Daoshen’s behalf to broker the armistice between their two nations. Now the Enemy had fallen victim to Daoshen’s own “Marlette Deception,” but in miniature.

The trap sprung, Danai had no trouble justifying her decision to deploy the Second MAC to New Syrtis. She would’ve come even without support. For her, this campaign meant more than simple revenge. The Enemy had racked up a balance—for the Marlette Deception, for breaking their truce, for the death of Eliza Zhao— and she aimed to collect, with interest.

Some of the Enemy ’Mechs turned to greet her and the other newcomers, which was exactly what she wanted—to draw off their fire while the Dynasty Guard battalions circled in from behind Danai’s screen and attacked the Fifth Crucis Lancers’ cantonment itself as the McCarron’s Armored Mosquitos executed a bombing run. MechWarriors could spend extended periods in their ’Mechs if necessary, but rob them of a place to barrack, and watch morale crumble. The best way to defeat an army was to attack its heart—or at the very least, to stab them as close to the heart as possible. Until the First Prince lifted his head high enough to be seen, this was the most devastating option. A victory here would not win back the planet, but it would be a start.

By the look of Enemy ’Mechs faltering across the line, the surprise maneuver had worked very well. The Dynasty Guard’s charge on the Fifth’s rear pulled enough attention away that the Second MAC could storm in with relative ease.

With little consideration for her safety, Danai barreled straight down the slope. She raised Yen-Lo-Wang’s tall, curved scutum shield and charged down the hillside along with her lancemates, hatchet raised high. Others called her methods foolhardy, but she delivered results. Even the weapons of overconfident MechWarriors seemed to miss her when she approached. Few pilots expected an opponent to drive straight toward them, guns blazing, no holds barred. Such a maneuver was usually suicide, which was why it worked so effectively for her. When a freight train is coming your way, you get off the tracks or get hit. Only the most foolish chose to stand and fight, and those that did rarely lived to tell the tale.

Danai painted her first target in her HUD, a daring twenty-five-ton Gunsmith that darted across the battlefield to take potshots at her from short range. She felt Yen-Lo-Wang shudder from recoil as twenty long-range missiles ripple-fired from their launch tubes. A split second before the smoke tendrils reached their target, she triggered her Clan-made heavy large laser, gouging a blackened hole dead center on the Gunsmith’s side armor. Enough warheads found their way through the melted breach to detonate inside. The Enemy ’Mech’s limbs locked, and the dead machine plowed face first into the snow as though it had suffered a cataleptic episode.

Adrenaline from the kill coursed through her like a double jolt of espresso. Without slowing or hesitating or even wasting time to gloat, she traversed her torso in search of another target while her lancemates sought out their own.

A forty-five-ton 7S Hatchetman unleashed its nine-tube multi-missile launcher in her direction. Not bothering to raise her shield, Danai shrugged off the hull-rattling short-range warheads and replied with a long-range salvo of her own. The Hatchetman staggered in mid-step. Clearing smoke revealed the blast had torn off one of the lateral fins from the ’Mech’s head. Danai growled and juked in the Enemy’s direction.

But the Enemy pilot hesitated in the face of Death.

And, like so many others, that was his undoing.

With open-mouthed rage, Danai swung Yen-Lo-Wang’s hatchet full force as she passed, cleaving straight through the Hatchetman’s ruined fin. The ’Mech’s head crumpled and tore free, and the god of death rushed on to its next target.

New Syrtis would be theirs again, she vowed, even if she had to destroy every one of these Davionistas with her own two hands.

Part VII

CILITREN HAZARD ZONE

NEW SYRTIS

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL AREA, CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

17 AUGUST 3148

Malerie didn’t relish the prospect of marching through an irradiated wasteland. All craters and pits, the ruins of a city stripped bare by nuclear fires decades ago. During the march to attempt a counterfeint against the Capellans, she occasionally needed to sidestep her Flamberge around the twisted wreckage of a BattleMech. Most of these wrecks bore Confederation insignia—casualties from last year’s fighting.

“Baker Company,” Captain Witherspoon broadcast to Mal’s unit, “We’re approaching enemy lines. Stay sharp. Just remember that the Second Auxiliary beat the Cappies here once before. And if an auxiliary regiment can beat them, then we sure as hell can too.”

Mal stepped around another wreck—a blackened and melted Tian-Zong ground facedown into the soil—and took her place in line with the rest of her lance. She rotated her ’Mech’s torso to scan the battlefield. Far to the northern flank, she spotted a familiar ’Mech amid the others: a lone Templar III painted in dark-gray camouflage like the rest of the regiment. Her experience in the Cave last December had burned that ’Mech into her memory, so there was no question who had accompanied them to the battlefield.

In her estimation, the First Prince was not the shrewdest of military strategists, but even she had to admit the planet’s defense would have faltered long ago had he remained back on Remagen. Julian Davion acted as a potent morale booster, something the remaining Davion troops sorely needed for this battle.

“Here they come!” Witherspoon warned. “Attack pattern alpha-three. Good hunting!”

Like revenants returned from shallow graves, the enemy ’Mechs cresting the rise of a distant crater seemed to rise up from the ground. So many of them approached that Mal had to let her sensors identify and designate targets. Many lesser MechWarriors would have buckled under such an assault, but Mal had war in her blood. Her hands never wavered on the controls.

“Falchion Three and Four,” she radioed her lance, “take down that Sha Yu! Two, you’re with me on the Victor!”

A chorus of acknowledgements replied. Laser and PPC discharge flared downrange toward the forty-ton Sha Yu. Missiles and autocannon savaged the eighty-ton Victor’s armor. Laser flashes from near-misses whined past her cockpit, but Mal drove on, almost unaware of that stravag hitch still in her left leg.

Between shots, her attention would occasionally flit over to the distant Templar III just long enough to ensure it remained in the fight. As the old saying went, if you saved someone’s life, you were responsible for them from that moment onward. Her ingrained sense of honor found that hard to shake, even in a pitched battle like this.

“Taking fire!” Hitchens shouted, transmission crackling with interference.

Large-bore autocannon rounds drilled straight through the sergeant’s cockpit, leaving behind a fragmented, smoky mess of support beams.

Mal gritted her teeth, but refused to waver in the face of the incoming Victor.

From Arthur’s cockpit, Julian zeroed in on another target of opportunity and mashed the triggers. The ’Mech bucked as recoil from his paired Clan-tech PPCs blasted charged particles downfield to pulverize armor plating on a distant Vindicator. He braced for return fire, but none came. The melee had already devolved into such chaos that the Vindicator pilot probably couldn’t tell which ’Mech had fired the shot. Julian hung back and let his lancemates finish off his target, which afforded him a moment to gauge the fight’s prognosis.

Even before this battle had begun General Nanava, Admiral Davion-Coles, and he all knew the offensive was ultimately doomed, but that was no reason to quit, not just yet. For nearly two weeks, the First Davion Guards, Fifth Crucis Lancers, and a smattering of hastily trained militia had held out against three Capellan line regiments and nearly three companies of Death Commandos, despite the loss of important support facilities and supply depots. Recent thrusts across this no man’s land had resulted in a stalemate, and this final push was meant to break Capellan morale while holding out long enough for off-planet reinforcements to arrive.

If the SOS he’d sent had managed to get out, that was. Without a working hyperpulse generator on New Syrtis, he had no guarantee the message had even gone beyond this system. His troops could be holding out for nothing, and Julian knew it. The regimental COs knew it. Deep down, he believed even the lowliest grunts knew it. But still they fought on—because of his presence among them. This resolve was why he’d refused to hole up in the Cave’s warrens and fight a losing war of attrition.

Better to take to the field with even a splinter of hope than let that hope shrivel up and die.

With little warning, a ninety-ton Yu Huang manifested at the top of the rise. Julian swallowed. Its large-bore autocannon posed a hazard for even an assault ’Mech like his. Before Julian’s lancemates could head off the threat, the Yu Huang stampeded in his direction, with eyes only for him.

Julian triggered every weapon at his disposal, but the Templar III’s lasers, PPCs, and missiles that struck seemed to leave little more than dents and carbon scoring across the sunburst design worked into Yu Huang’s sturdy torso. Julian backed up to create range while waiting for his lasers to recharge and missiles to reload. The Yu Huang pressed forward and unleashed its large-bore autocannon square into Arthur’s chest.

Julian reeled from the hit and prepared to answer in kind—

Something caught the corner of his eye—a tiny orange glow in the dull gray skies overhead, a point of light like a firefly. It elongated and flared in brightness and intensity like a meteor hurtling earthward.

This was no meteor, however.

A blur descended, and the Yu Huang vanished in a quake that rocked Julian’s ’Mech. From the steaming impact crater rose the blocky silhouette of a ninety-five-ton Peacekeeper, looking for all the world like a god reborn in its white-and-orange livery.

Julian smiled.

The Dawn Guards had arrived.

Despite the armored shell of Yen-Lo-Wang projecting a confident aura of victory around her, Danai was quickly losing grasp of her battlefield patience.

As the Chancellor’s sister, she had claimed authority of this operation and commanded the might of three full BattleMech regiments, yet somehow these Davion swine insisted on waging their losing battle. And unless the First Prince had turned coward and hid in some bolthole, he would be out here in this cratered wasteland, trying to prove to his troops he wasn’t above fighting alongside them. She only needed to remove him from the equation, like the general in a game of xiangqi. Take out the head, and his troops would surely break.

But then the Enemy’s reinforcements had arrived. Their unit insignias matched those Eliza Zhao had reported fighting back on Taygeta, but this time they bore Davion colors, not RAF.

It was no matter. These new troops could not stop her from carrying out her brother’s wishes. They would fall just the same.

From her position on a cliff above the blackened ruins of Cilitren, she observed the lay of battle against her tactical map. Aerospace reconnaissance supplied what data she could not glean from visual sensors. Once she found where the First Prince was hiding and eliminated him, she would join the fray and erase from existence any Davions who graced Yen-Lo-Wang’s gun sights.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” she singsonged under her breath to the map.

As if in response, her command channel clicked on with an incoming transmission. “Sang-shao,” her XO radioed, “Sao-shao Vogel reports spotters have IDed the potential location of primary target. Transmitting coordinates now. Please advise.”

Danai focused on the blinking crimson x on her tac map. She traversed Yen-Lo-Wang’s torso to face the marker and dialed up her zoom until she could see into the distance below. Her view danced across the writhing orgy of destruction and chaos until she caught sight of a blocky assault ’Mech whose arms bristled with laser and PPC barrels: a Templar III with a gaping hole blown in its right side.

She keyed her mic. “Current status of air support?”

“Mosquito Squadron is on station and awaiting orders.”

Danai mapped the aerospace squadron’s prospective flight plan in her map. “All right, keep Vogel’s spotters on the target, and coordinate fire mission with Mosquito Squadron and the Gypsies ASAP.”

“Acknowledged.”

She clapped her hands together and stared daggers at the zoomed-in Templar, the source of so many of her nation’s problems. “I have you now,” she whispered to the distant ’Mech.

She monitored background chatter on the regimental frequency as her XO called in the air strike. All of the xiangqi pieces were moving into place. Now, only one piece remained—the god of death.

Danai throttled Yen-Lo-Wang in reverse, away from the cliff and back down the incline. Above, the skies roared with the coarse thunder of incoming fighters. She smiled, hefted the Centurion’s hatchet, and advanced down toward the city ruins to collect her prize.

Like winged demons of apocalyptic prophecy, a half-dozen Mĕngqín aerofighters swarmed across Mal’s view, temporarily distracting focus away from her opponent. These Mĕngqíns, no mere interceptors or superiority fighters, were laden with heavy ordnance. Since both sides’ support bases and aid stations lay far from the battlefield, the only remaining targets of military significance within bombing range were BattleMechs.

And the First Prince piloted one of those BattleMechs.

Mal shifted her focus toward the Templar III, which fought alongside the newly arrived Dawn Guards. She angled her Flamberge upward to get tone on the lead Mĕngqín, but was too late.

The aerofighters’ bullet-shaped payload unhooked and dropped in slow motion.

On instinct, Mal stomped a foot pedal and leaned into a hairpin turn. In the back of her mind, she knew she’d never beat a bomb in a footrace, but that only spurred her on faster. If she could only reach the First Prince soon enough to shield him, push him away from the worst of the blast—

The Flamberge stumbled in midstep—that damn hitch in the left leg! She felt something slip and give out in her hip actuator, and seventy tons of OmniMech plowed into the dirt, shoulder first. Before the dust could settle, she looked up from her cockeyed position to see the Templar running hard, too slow to avoid what was coming.

The world exploded into blinding fury and heat Mal could feel even from inside her cockpit.

When the fire dissipated, the brutalized Templar sank back onto its haunches, but it remained upright amid a fresh graveyard of Davion ’Mechs wrecked by the blast.

Through the pulsating afterimage, she caught something out of the corner of her sideways canopy: a hatchet-wielding Centurion bearing the Second MAC’s colors.

Yen-Lo-Wang.

The god of death was coming for them both.

Mal struggled to rise, to fight back, but the hip couldn’t confidently support the weight.

Instead of charging in to finish them off, the Centurion held its position among the cratered landscape, as though waiting for something.

Moments later, the ground around the Templar III erupted in fiery plumes of artillery bombardment. The smoke cleared, leaving the First Prince’s ’Mech slumped back, crumpled, pitted, unmoving.

Mal slammed her fist on the dashboard hard enough to feel a bone break in her hand. Even if she had been able to react a few seconds earlier, it wouldn’t have mattered. The artillery would have just killed them both.

Awareness came to Julian in flashes of dream.

—broken cockpit glass—

—a curtain of eclipsing flames—

—sparks and flashes, heat and pressure—

—the cacophony of a tortured battlefield—

Through a floating delirium, his right leg tingled as though waking from paresthesia. He tried to move it in his command couch.

Gazed down.

Saw the endo-steel beam that had erupted from his left shin, the bar large enough to obscure the rest of his leg from view.

He reached out to touch the beam, to separate dream from reality—

A blackened char covered his extended hand. At least two fingers were partially missing. Burned, cauterized stumps remained.

But despite the ashes, he felt no heat.

Everything went cold—then blackness stole him away.

Beyond the spidery crack in Mal’s canopy, through a veil of smoke, the menacing silhouette of Yen-Lo-Wang approached the fallen Templar III. Mal didn’t need a malicious imagination to know that the enemy MechWarrior planned to either ensure the First Prince’s death or otherwise desecrate his body. Capellans did not believe in half measures.

Some small spark within her wanted to believe Julian Davion had survived, despite the devastating barrage his ’Mech had suffered. If even a shred of life remained in that blackened shell of a ’Mech…

But Yen-Lo-Wang and its executioner’s ax raced closer to the Templar’s craterous ruin with each passing second.

Once more she fought her controls to stand, wincing at the broken bone in her right hand. All seventy tons groaned upright, but she knew from the Flamberge’s drunken motions she would be unable to keep it upright for long.

She stomped both foot pedals hard enough to feel them strain and wiggle beneath her boots. The ’Mech shot skyward on tongues of plasma, and Mal steered in mid-jump to train all of her weapons to bear on the Capellan champion below. The bent pseudo-wing ruined her intended trajectory, but she corrected in midair as best she could.

“Falchion Lance,” she radioed, “follow my lead! Protect Scepter One at all costs!”

Mal touched down with the force of an earthquake—right along Yen-Lo-Wang’s path. Right before the incoming maw of the god of death.

Though she outmassed the Centurion by twenty tons, this close Yen-Lo-Wang seemingly dwarfed her Flamberge. In the stretched seconds after landing, a shudder shot up her spine. How many opponents had this ’Mech destroyed in its long history? How many total MechWarriors had its famed pilots killed in combat? Hundreds? Thousands?

Honed warrior instinct beat down this fear like a sledgehammer.

Mal raised her ’Mech’s arms and lit off all of her still-functioning pulse lasers and tactical missiles, heedless of the lancing fire in her broken hand as she squeezed the trigger over and over, regardless of whether the weapons had finished cycling or reloading. Yen-Lo-Wang’s scutum shield caught most of the blinding explosions and pulsating strobes of laser light, but a few beams and warheads scored and pitted armor on the advancing Centurion’s arm—

The same arm swinging back its massive hatchet, in prelude to a strike.

Yen-Lo-Wang’s weapon descended with the frightening precision of a Solaris VII champion.

Mal instinctively moved both mechanical arms to shield her cockpit—

A great and terrible clang resonated throughout her entire body.

She must have blacked out for a split second, because the god of death was already yanking the embedded blade from the wound in the Flamberge’s torso, just below her cockpit. Fragments of armor and internal structure tore away, tumbling to the irradiated ground. Sparks showered through her cockpit. Internal smoke dimmed the cockpit and clogged her lungs.

Neg! She would not go down like this, not until she knew the First Prince was safe.

Like her Jade Falcon ancestors had done, Mal screeched through the searing agony in her broken hand to clench her triggers and fire every available weapon at point-blank range. High-yield tactical missiles erupted from the Flamberge’s torso and struck hard enough to stagger Death itself.

Yen-Lo-Wang took a single step backward to put some distance between them. The mangled wreck of its hatchet hung limp from a ruined hand, and a blackened missile-blast crater marred the Centurion’s otherwise pristine head.

Mal’s warrior blood urged her to pursue her backpedaling foe all the way through the nine hells, but unexpected missile tone shrieked in her ears. A score of hot-loaded long-range missiles ballooned out from Yen-Lo-Wang’s torso. Explosions rattled across every quadrant of the Flamberge.

A surge of lightheadedness smeared and tunneled Mal’s vision. Radio chatter filled her ears, but she couldn’t make out the words.

Warmth spread across her chest. She chanced a look down. Shrapnel had punched through her cooling vest. Green fluid mixed with red and pooled in her lap. A chilled wave of nausea struck her.

The Flamberge stumbled two steps forward in pursuit, but the hip actuator gave out entirely. The ’Mech fell to one knee. Mal struggled to stay upright, but the damage to her ’Mech—no, to herself—was too great for even a Falcon descendant to overcome.

Like the rumble of a conquered beast striking the earth, seventy tons of metal collapsed with teeth-rattling force, never to rise again.

Through smoke and blood haze clouding her vision, Mal’s lancemates advanced past her fallen wreck, in fast pursuit of the king of the nine hells. Scintillating laser beams and autocannon shells drilled furrows at Yen-Lo-Wang’s feet, none scoring hits. Seemingly from nowhere, a wall of Capellan steel swarmed in before the legendary ’Mech, intercepting Mal’s lance and covering Yen-Lo-Wang’s withdrawal down a nearby slope. Two Capellan ’Mechs, four, eight. No matter how hard her lancemates fought, the screen proved impenetrable.

She winced and smiled, blood dribbling down her chin. Didn’t matter whether Julian Davion still lived. Malerie Faulkner, proud descendant of Clan Jade Falcon, had retained her honor by forcing the Capellans’ champion into retreat, away from the First Prince’s downed ’Mech.

She closed her eyes. I’ve done my duty. Now Julian must do his.

And if Julian was indeed gone, like her twisting gut warned, she could imagine worse company in whatever afterlife awaited warriors like her.

Mal clenched both fists around her Flamberge’s control sticks and let the encroaching coldness claim her.

Julian awoke on a gurney in a darkened room, an IV drip nearby.

A shadowed figure waited for him.

“Ah, Highness.” The voice of General Nanava echoed as though distant and underwater. “It is good to see you back with us. We were afraid we had lost you.”

Julian tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea killed that idea. “How…how bad…?” he managed to croak between dry, cracked lips.

Nanava sighed. “I won’t lie to you. The surgeons… ah…had to take the leg from just below the knee. Your physicians will go over all of that with you in time.”

The leg—the one he’d dreamed about the beam impaling—it still tingled like it begged to be woken up, like it was still attached to his knee. He tried to sit up to see the extent of the injury, but the drugs made everything too liquid and syrupy to comprehend, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness.

GOVERNMENT QUARTER

SASO, NEW SYRTIS

TAYGETA OPERATIONAL AREA, CAPELLAN MARCH, FEDERATED SUNS

30 AUGUST 3148

A fitting place for a summit, Danai thought as she strode into the conference room with her entourage of regimental staff and Death Commando bodyguards. She had adjusted her officer’s cap to better conceal the bandage on her forehead, but not even a CCAF infantry–style cape could hide the sling holding her broken arm close to her torso.

For this conference, Julian Davion had chosen a site within view of the nerve agent attack. Through the bulletproof transpex of the extravagant room’s large bay window, Danai could look out onto the still-chaotic ruins of Statehouse Square, centered on what remained of the FedCom Civil War Monument—now a memorial site for another unspeakable tragedy.

Her lips thinned into a grim line as she surveyed the scene. She had possessed no operational foreknowledge of the Death Commandos’ role in the terror attacks on the populace, but she would have a stern talk with her brother over this matter. There were many ways to win wars, and the wanton murder of civilians—some of whom had doubtless been loyal Capellan folk!—was unconscionable. She knew Julian planned to use this vista to gain her sympathy vote, but she would have none of it.

A Davion general guided in a wheelchair bearing the First Prince—what was left of him, at least—and sat him at one end of the rich mahogany table dominating the center of the room. Danai had met with Julian Davion before, in the wake of the disastrous Marlette Deception, but this blonde, blue-eyed figure seated before her in plain AFFS fatigues and days of untouched stubble was a different man than the one she had once treated with: a shadow, but a strong and resolute one. Her attack on the Cilitren battlefield had not killed him, but instead it had done quite the opposite: this man was very much alive, despite his wounds.

“So, Your Highness,” she said, “here we are again, negotiating yet another ceasefire.” She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her eyes with accusative curiosity. “Tell me, have you finally lost your taste for conquest? Or do you plan to break this new truce less than two years after we forge it? Assuming we do reach an agreement to suspend hostilities here, that is.”

Julian adjusted in his wheelchair, and a twinge of pain visibly stung his eyes—whether from battlefield injury or her pointed, truthful barbs, she could not be certain. “You are well within your rights to be angry, Sang-shao Liao-Centrella. But I will not apologize for my actions. This invasion was undertaken to secure my nation’s future in the face of unremitting war against the Draconis Combine.

“But let us not belabor the point. True, your regiments had us on the ropes before we agreed to meet, but you know as well as I that you agreed to temporary armistice because you cannot hold this planet with the forces at your disposal. Your brother has focused the lion’s share of his military attention on the Republic, in anticipation of the Fortress wall coming down and Republic troops swarming the Confederation. Therefore, unless I have grossly misjudged the Chancellor’s state of affairs, he has denied your request for reinforcements. Also, the people of this planet who, for countless generations have been free citizens of the Federated Suns, have also taken it on themselves to rise up against your troops in any way they can.”

He fell silent for a beat and took a breath that seemed to pain him. “So tell me, Sang-shao. Tell me my assessment of this situation is wrong.”

Danai swallowed down her first retort to his accusation. He was right on all counts, but she would not openly admit as such. Her upbringing in the courts of Sian had taught her this political dance all too well. If only all matters of state could be solved at the controls of a BattleMech, she lamented. “As an official spokesperson for the Celestial Wisdom, Chancellor Daoshen Liao is prepared to hear your proposal for a temporary ceasefire.”

Julian sighed, but his pale demeanor remained firm. “Very well. For now, the Federated Suns will retain control of New Syrtis and all of the planets my troops have occupied in advance of the New Syrtis invasion.”

He activated a holomap showing the Davion-occupied territory surrounding the planet, with several planets marked in Federated Suns yellow amid the sea of Capellan Confederation green. “I will allow you and your regiments to depart safely to Capellan space, where you can bring my formal proposal for a truce to Sian.”

Danai considered him with a level stare. She had expected a proposal of this sort, but was it wise to accept? Since breaking the truce, Julian had claimed a small handful of Sian Commonality worlds in addition to New Syrtis—but what was the loss of this planet compared to the looming threat of Republic invasion? If she fought to hold on to New Syrtis, would spending her troops here, without hope of reinforcement or resupply, ultimately risk the Confederation losing Liao, Tikonov, or other major worlds to the inevitable Republic invasion?

The First Prince inhaled and exhaled slowly before continuing. “You and I both know the Chancellor needs this ceasefire just as much as I do. I have other wars to fight, Sang-shao, as does your brother, and us continuing to tear each other apart now will only make both of us easier targets for our enemies down the road. Remind him of that when next you see him.”

Danai nodded. She buzzed with delight, but refused to let it reach her eyes. Brokering this peace, however temporary it might inevitably be, would further elevate her star in her brother’s eyes, and among the Capellan nobility and the CCAF High Command.

“Then we are in accord,” she said at length. “I will speak with the Chancellor on your behalf. In the meantime, I suggest you discover what this truce will ultimately cost you.”

A faraway look haunted the First Prince’s unblinking eyes. “Believe me, Sang-shao, I already know.”

About the Author

Philip A. Lee is a freelance writer and editor whose many writing contributions to the BattleTech universe include more than a dozen pieces of short fiction and various sourcebook writing. He has also contributed fiction and sourcebook material for the Shadowrun, Cosmic Patrol, Valiant Universe Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder, Steamcraft, and more. He lives in Dayton, Ohio, with his wife and four cats. To learn more about his work, look for @joechummer on Twitter and visit philipleewriting.com.

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I am a true Jade Falcon…

The leader of Clan Jade Falcon, Khan Malvina Hazen, is known throughout human-occupied space as a merciless tyrant hell bent on shattering and reforging the entire Inner Sphere in her own bloodthirsty image. The next target for her scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners Mongol Doctrine is the Lyran Commonwealth world of Coventry: a persistent stain on the Jade Falcons’ history, and a system defended by legendary Lyran heroes.

But not all Falcons subscribe to Malvina’s twisted cult of personality. Ordered to take Coventry at any cost, Galaxy Commander Stephanie Chistu has no choice but to follow her orders and conquer the planet in Malvina’s name. Stephanie wishes to see her Clan victorious, but no victory is worth the Jade Falcons losing their very soul. To stand up to Malvina’s tyranny and find an honorable path for her Clan’s future, Stephanie must balance the razor’s edge between duty and honor—or she will die trying.

1

UPANO

JADE FALCON OCCUPATION ZONE

20 JANUARY 3148

Khan Malvina Hazen of Clan Jade Falcon leaned back in the tall brown leather chair in her office and narrowed her gaze at newly appointed Galaxy Commander Matthias Pryde of Gamma Galaxy. She looked down on him despite his taller height—courtesy of her seat being elevated and his being lowered. Matthias was uneasy, she could see that in his face. She had summoned him without any pretext. His nervousness fed her, forcing her to suppress the smile she wanted to show. Fear is what makes the Jade Falcons powerful. Even fear of ourselves makes us stronger.

People had good reason to fear her. She was not just a Khan, she was a visionary. Her adoption of the Mongol Doctrine made her dangerous in the eyes of her fellow Clans. The lower castes and the civilians of captured worlds were not human in her thinking. They were mere chattel, just resources for her to use or crush as she saw fit. Crushing them instilled the fear that she knew made her Warrior Caste strong again, stronger than it had ever been. For years we allowed the Traditionalists to rule and under them we became just one of many. Now we stand to crush the Lyran Commonwealth. Shattering one of the Great Houses, grinding it under my heel, will cause others to submit. Those that do not would simply be killed. Any form of resistance will be eradicated, burned, and their ashes scattered into nothingness.

“Take a seat, Matthias.” She gestured to the smaller, hard wooden chair opposite of her desk. “I can have Cynthy get you something to drink if you want. She likes catering to my guests.”

His eyes darted to Cynthy, the young girl Malvina had taken under as her prisoner and personal toy. Cynthy wisely averted her sunken eyes from both of them. I trained her well. Matthias’s gaze on her clearly made him more uncomfortable. He slowly turned back to look at her as Cynthy bowed her head and backed out of the office, closing the door slowly, quietly, as she had been trained to do.

“That is not necessary, my Khan.” He managed to gain more composure. “May I ask why you needed to see me?”

“Matthias, let me ask you. What is the greatest threat that the Jade Falcons face?” Her question was bait, and both of them knew that.

“The Lyran Commonwealth is less of a threat than another Clan, especially the Wolves.”

“Neg,” she replied coolly. “That is pedestrian thinking. The Wolves are an annoyance, persistent, but too soft to be a true menace. When we become the ilClan by conquering Terra, they will be the first to feel my wrath. No, Matthias, the greatest threat to our people is that they will drift into their old ways of thinking. The doctrine that I have ushered into our culture is one that will lead us to endless victories—to Terra, then to the rest of the Inner Sphere. That can all be undone by the knee-weak Traditionalists. Their very presence creates a threat to our future, a drift back to misguided ideals of what constitutes honor.”

“The majority of our people follow your vision.”

“I agree. At the same time, there are those that refuse to commit fully to our doctrine. Tell me Matthias, who do you think is the most staunch Traditionalist?”

He paused in thought for a tedious moment. “There are several that come to mind. The one I would worry about the most is Galaxy Commander Stephanie Chistu of Delta.”

Malvina leaned forward, resting her elbows on the obsidian desk top and steepling her fingers. I agree, but I want to see what he thinks. “Tell me why.”

Pryde’s face tightened, careful of the words he chose. “She says nothing against our Mongol Doctrine, not publicly. She simply does not follow it. When presented with opportunities to impose herself over lesser castes, she does not. Chistu does not have to say anything. Her actions are a beacon to others. They see her, and realize she can resist your will with no consequences. In some respects, she is teaching them how to resist the doctrine. Her example is a threat because others watch it and seek to emulate it. And her extracurricular activities are, dare I say, unbecoming a warrior.”

“Exactly!” Malvina replied, pounding her black bionic fist on the desktop. “I have not crushed her because she would only serve as a martyr to the other Traditionalists. At the same time, she must be dealt with.”

“What do you have in mind, my Khan?”

Malvina reclined in her chair again, locking her gaze with Pryde. “Do you know the worst thing you can do to someone that refuses to follow the path you lead them on?”

“Neg.”

“You make them take that path on their own accord. Stephanie Chistu loathes the Mongol Doctrine. I intend to force her to follow that doctrine of her own accord. I will make her become the very kind of leader she holds in disregard. I will make her walk a path of my choosing, by her own decisions. If this is done, those that look to her will see what she has become. Their precious beacon will be snuffed out.”

“It can be done, quiaff?”

“It can and will be done. That, or she will perish in battle. Either way, I will get what I want. Moreover, I have the perfect place to make it happen.”

Galaxy Commander Stephanie Chistu stood before the anvil and hit the glowing hot metal bar with the hammer. The metallic ringing from each impact was so strong that it made the metal glow brighter for a moment. She rode the recoil and let the hammer drop again and again, pulling the metal on the anvil and changing its shape slightly with each hit. The key was to let the weight of the hammer do most of the work. Sweat stung the corners of her eyes and she adjusted the soaked hat that covered her cropped black hair.

She paused and looked at the metal, studying its new shape for a few seconds, then slid it into the coals of the forge. This forge, which the local artisans had graciously offered to her, was different than ones she had used before. It was much easier than hauling such gear with her from post to post. Stephanie did not mind the smell of coke or the roaring heat of the forge that soaked her body.

Making knives and swords was not the typical hobby for a warrior, but she considered herself a bit of a different kind of warrior. Working with the metal, giving it shape and form, was strangely satisfying and relaxing— despite the upper body workout. It was hard to explain to her peers, how it gave her solace and allowed her to think. Some scoffed at her choice of relaxation. Chistu ignored them. What I do off duty is my concern.

This blade was not exceptional in its artistry, but there was something about it that appealed to her. It was nearly ready to quench, sharpen, and polish. It was eloquent, not a hunting blade, but more than capable of killing. It takes two things to make a knife special. One is its creation, the other is what is done with it. There is something about this blade that tells me it has a particular role to fill, something special.

Using the tongs, she pulled the metal out and swung it back to the anvil, hammering furiously at it again until it eventually cooled to a dull gray color. Each blow rang not just in the air, but in her body as well. Each strike gave her incredible focus and concentration. Working with scalding hot metal forced discipline. She had earned her burn scars early on from the process.

This blade was taking a long time, but it would be worth it in the end. I am not a destroyer like others of my caste—I am a creator.

After three minutes of carefully placed hammer blows, she turned to put the metal into the forge, and saw Khan Malvina Hazen standing there, arms crossed. Behind her stood her “pet” Cynthy. Stephanie placed her project on a cooling rack.

Malvina was not an imposing figure like many warriors. This meant that she and Stephanie looked each other eye to eye. Hazen’s hair was ash-blond, almost silver in color, worn long, with a single braid draped over the shoulder of her black uniform. That uniform, the black dress attire, was one of the ways to identify those that followed her Mongol Doctrine. It was meant to intimidate, but on Chistu it was wasted.

Cynthy looked like a broken child—Stephanie could see it in her dark-rimmed eyes and shrunken cheeks. Perhaps “broken” is the wrong word. “Abused” may be more fitting. Malvina gloated at how badly she treated her. She embodied what the Inner Sphere would be like under Hazen’s rule. Seeing Cynthy there, two paces behind her Khan, almost quaking in fear, only tempered Stephanie’s ire. She uses her as a living symbol of what she plans for the Inner Sphere…a symbol of fear.

Khan Hazen sneered. “Look at you. Working at a blacksmith’s forge like a common bellycrawler. This is not a true Jade Falcon warrior pursuit. Your time might better be served attending one of my doctrine sessions. I wonder at times if you have the heart of the Falcon in your chest.” Malvina’s words dripped with contempt.

Do not react to her tone. I will not be taken in by her bait. “I find that the forge gives me time to think. It works my upper body and at the same time it gives me mental focus. Do not mistake my time here as anything other than a means to relax. I am every bit a warrior.”

“It is beneath a warrior to have such hobbies. You set a poor example for others in my eyes.”

Her doctrine blinds her. It oozes from her pores. There is more in life than battle. “Warriors are more than actors on the battlefield, my Khan. Almost all have some sort of hobby. When it comes to mine, I would suggest that you lack an understanding of the process. The combination of the heat, the hammer, the anvil, and what they can create. Working in unison, dull metal becomes something of use—be it an implement of war or a decoration.”

Malvina reached for the new knife blade with her bionic hand, but was stopped when Stephanie lightly tugged at her sleeve. “My Khan, the metal is hot.”

“It is not glowing.”

“It does not glow until it reaches four hundred sixty degrees centigrade. While it does not look hot, it would burn through your hand in a matter of seconds.”

Hazen slowly retracted her hand. “You know a great deal about the ways of a blacksmith for one that was reared as a warrior.”

“I pride myself on mastering new things. This hobby constantly challenges me and forces me to learn new forms and techniques.”

“What kind of blade are you making?” she asked, clearly feigning interest.

I will play along. It is best to do so when combating another’s ego. “I do not know for sure, my Khan. Each blade takes on its own life during the creation process. I start with an idea in mind, but what the knife becomes is more a product of the fire, the anvil, and the hammer rather than my intent.”

If she understood, Khan Hazen did not show it. “We have one thing in common, the fire you play with. Fire is the cure for the Inner Sphere, I have foreseen that. Worlds will have to burn so that our new society can grow from the ashes.”

The way she spoke chilled Stephanie, but she was careful not to show it. Her Mongol Doctrine will kill billions. It violates the teachings of Nicholas Kerensky. Warriors exist to protect the weaker castes, not to burn them. Yet others follow her flag blindly because she promises to be the ilKhan, and the Jade Falcons to be the ilClan.

“The fire is only part of the equation in shaping the metal,” Chistu responded. “The anvil, the positioning of the hot metal, the striking of the hammer. They must all work in unison to create.”

“I am only concerned with the hammer. That is what it is to be a Jade Falcon. We pulverize our enemies.”

“As you say, my Khan,” Stephanie replied. Trying to argue my point with her would be lost. She forms her opinions and twists the facts to fit her beliefs. That is one of the weaknesses of the Mongol Doctrine. Stephanie knew the truth. The hammer was only one part of the equation. The anvil and the positioning of the metal, merged with the right strike, were what gave the metal shape and meaning. I would try to explain it to her, but it would only frustrate both of us.

“You are indeed every bit a Jade Falcon that I would have command one of my Galaxies, quiaff? There are times I wonder where your true loyalties lie.”

“Make no mistake my Khan, I am every bit a Jade Falcon.” Perhaps even more than you…

“We shall see,” Malvina replied. She uncrossed her arms and handed a noteputer to Chistu.

The Galaxy Commander put her hammer down on the anvil and killed the blower to the forge, taking the device. The background sound of the fan all but disappeared, suddenly making everything else louder. “Coventry, quiaff?”

“Affirmative,” the Khan said. “I take it you are familiar with the last battle our Clan had there, quiaff?”

Stephanie nodded as she eyed the long list of orders. Every Jade Falcon knew of Coventry and the events that had transpired there. Her Clan’s defeat in 3058 had spawned the Whitting Conference, and the forging of a Star League that struck back at the Clans. It was a world that had set many things in motion, including the demise of the Smoke Jaguars and an infernal peace with the Inner Sphere.

The orders she read were long, detailed, and incredibly specific. Raze Whitting, leave no structure standing? Eradicate the Coventry Military Academy? Tactical nuclear weapons use authorized? These were military orders unlike any she had ever seen. Usually orders to field commanders were a few lines at best. This was three screens worth of specific acts of destruction and carnage.

To Stephanie Chistu, they were acts unbecoming a Clan warrior, let alone a Jade Falcon.

“Khan Hazen,” she said, considering her words carefully. “These orders…”

“Are quite specific. I want House Steiner to bleed on Coventry. I want them to die there at our hands. I want to erase our past failure there. Nothing is to remain to remind anyone of our prior defeat there. You will be the instrument of that destruction.”

Malvina’s words stung Stephanie. Changing history was a vile act, usually done by weaker minds. We should never be afraid of our past to the point where we desire to change or destroy it. Our past is not a scar, but a reminder of where we have come from. “Victory can be achieved without these acts of deliberate destruction.”

“You believe that, quiaff? I do not. Conquering Coventry is a mere footnote in The Remembrance if you do not take the actions I have outlined in those orders.”

For a moment, Stephanie held her words and returned her gaze to the noteputer. “The authorization of nuclear weapons…it is unnecessary.”

“I believe it is, even as a last resort. If you are unable to achieve conventional victory on Coventry, per your orders, these weapons will ensure it. Burn those foolish enough to stand against our Clan.”

“The Jade Falcons would become the Smoke Jaguars if such weapons were employed—especially against the lower castes.”

“That is one perspective. Another is that the lower castes do not deserve honor, leniency, or mercy. The bellycrawling Spheroids are a cancer that must be removed before our new society can take shape. We saw in the last campaign for Coventry that civilians took to BattleMechs right off the factory floor and fought us. Why should we risk the precious lives of trueborn Jade Falcon warriors to such people? The nuclear weapons are part of your contingent, Galaxy Commander Chistu. It is not up for debate.”

She would have me be a butcher to millions. That is what she wants to turn me into…an icon for her misguided doctrine. “Perhaps another Galaxy should be used my Khan, with a commander more…attuned to your thinking on this matter.”

“You would refuse a direct order of your Khan, quineg?” There was a hint of caged fury in Hazen’s voice. She anticipated my words and is prepared. “Negative, Khan Hazen. I am not refusing. Given the details you have in these orders, it is clear your interests might be better served with another commander leading this kind of assault.”

Khan Hazen said nothing for a moment, but her stare spoke volumes. “I am the leader of Clan Jade Falcon, and one day all of the Clans. These are the kinds of missions that we will be undertaking—now, and until we are the ilClan. These kinds of missions are who the Jade Falcons are under my leadership. If you are unable or unwilling to follow orders, you will be replaced with a commander who will.” It was not a threat, not from Malvina Hazen. It was a promise.

For a millisecond, the escape route was tempting. This was not the way to wage war that Stephanie believed in. At the same time, the thought of her command and the people loyal to her being subjected to a new commander more to Malvina’s vile tastes made Stephanie wince. I cannot put my people through that. “Neg, my Khan. Replacement is not desired, nor do I wish replacement. I will comply.”

That made Malvina grin thinly, something that did not calm Stephanie’s emotions. “Excellent. I am sending along Star Colonel Yaroslav and two Clusters from Gamma Galaxy to assist you.”

Yaroslav was a known warrior, an ardent supporter of the Mongol Doctrine. He will be Malvina’s eyes and ears, there to spy on the slightest deviation of my orders. “It is not necessary, but I would be foolish to refuse any support you may be willing to offer.”

“Exactly.”

“What are the defenders of Coventry that we know of?”

Khan Hazen seemed nonplussed as her grin evaporated. “Hardly anything at all. The Seventeenth Arcturan Guards are posted there. They have some experience, but have recently been reinforced with relatively green replacement troops. I would rate them as average to below-average. There is the Coventry Military Academy, whose cadets lack any practical battle experience. If history holds true, the Coventry Metal Works will also field some defenders.”

Chistu knew the full account of the last time the Jade Falcons hit Coventry, and remembered that even green units could fight furiously when pressed. “We should be more than a match for them. I will not discount that the Lyrans will throw in reinforcements, given the strategic nature of the planet.”

“We have less intelligence regarding House Steiner’s reserves. Our recent assaults have stripped them of their capability to easily respond to attacks. The lack of defenders on Coventry suggests that they have sent their reserves to Donegal, according to the Watch’s estimates. If they do send troops in to try holding Coventry, I doubt it will be a force of any merit. The Lyrans are teetering on the edge, Galaxy Commander. You may be all that is needed to tip their precious little House over.” Stephanie doubted the Lyrans were teetering, but did not desire the inevitable argument. “Anything else, my Khan?”

“Per your written orders, you are to maintain an effective fighting force at the completion of the operations on Coventry. This is your paramount objective. The Exiled Wolves still prowl, and I need your Galaxy able to respond to any opportunities they might exploit. “You are to deal House Steiner a blow it cannot recover from. I anticipate our enemies will see our presence there and come searching for blood. I want your force to come through this relatively intact, or a victory on that blasted world will mean nothing to me. Understood, quiaff?”

Chistu nodded. “Affirmative. When do we depart?”

“Three days from now.”

She moved the metal she had been working on to the cooling rack and hung up her work tongs. “Then I have much to do.”

“Aff, you do,” Khan Hazen said coolly. She did a pristine about-face and left Stephanie alone at the forge. Behind the Khan, her damaged toy Cynthy followed.

Star Colonel Jagger Thastus studied the noteputer for several minutes, his mouth slightly agape. His black hair bore a hint of premature gray in his sideburns, which made him look easily a decade older than he really was.

Stephanie Chistu watched him carefully. He was one of her top field commanders, leading the First Falcon Striker Cluster of her Galaxy. She and Thastus had bled on the same ground many times. Moreover, he shared her opinion of Hazen’s Mongol Doctrine.

“The Khan is setting you up,” he said. “She is forcing you to act in her proxy and to wage a kind of war that is unbecoming a Jade Falcon.”

Chistu nodded. “Agreed. Though I would encourage you to hold your tongue from this time forward. The walls have ears.”

“And she has saddled us with Star Colonel Yaroslav of Gamma. He is here to do one thing: report on our adherence to her blasted orders. A spy, through and through.”

“I have no doubt you are correct,” she said. “That is something we cannot change any more than her command to take tactical nuclear weapons with us.”

“You are not seriously considering using them, quineg?”

She shook her head. “Neg. I have no choice but to take them. Taking and using, however, are two different things.”

Jagger studied the intel data on Coventry for the better part of three minutes before speaking again. “On paper, this should be an easy conquest. The Seventeenth Arcturan Guards are a good unit, but hardly able to successfully engage a force as large as ours. That is, of course, if the Watch has gotten their intelligence correct.”

Her half-cocked grin told him she felt differently. “While Khan Hazen sees me as some sort of threat, I doubt she would send such a large force to Coventry unless she expected the Lyrans to send in reinforcements. No matter what that estimate says, Coventry is as much a symbol to the Commonwealth as it is to us. They will not let it go without a vicious fight.”

“Perhaps she is right in sending those nuclear weapons with us then.”

“Neg,” Stephanie replied quickly. “Taking the world by burning its cities, people, or defenders leaves no honor. It would serve as a rallying cry for the Commonwealth. One can almost hear Trillian Steiner screaming, ‘Remember Coventry!’ if I use such weapons, and rightfully so. I will not give them the moral high ground in this fight.”

“Then you will be at odds with our Khan,” Jagger said coyly.

“So be it.” She cannot take the Jade Falcon out of my soul. I will find victory for our Clan and our people, without tarnishing my honor.

2

LCAF COMMAND POST OBADIAH TOCKERT

VORZEL, COVENTRY PROVINCE

LYRAN COMMONWEALTH

22 JANUARY 3148

General Roderick Steiner stepped into the command bunker of the Obadiah and was greeted by sentries that immediately snapped to attention and saluted. He saluted back as he entered the Strategic Operations module. I have had people saluting me for some time, but not this many. Such was the price of being the General of the Armies of the Lyran Commonwealth. He had never asked for this office—his cousin Trillian, the Archon, had thrust it upon him.

As the officers in the room parted before him, opening a path to the main holographic display table, Roderick gave the officers supporting nods and a thin smile of encouragement. He had to. The Lyran Commonwealth had been suffering strings of defeats and fighting increasingly desperate battles against Clan Wolf and now their old nemesis, Clan Jade Falcon. A big part of his role, as he learned over time, was to keep the officers’ morale up.

I don’t know how my grandfather dealt with all of this attention. Adam Steiner had first fought the Jade Falcons back during their initial invasion in 3050, and he did so again as Archon of the Commonwealth. Now I command all of the armies that remain of our state. I wonder if I’m going to be the last General of the Armies—a small black footnote in some future history book.

One officer did not step aside. His chiseled chin and muscular frame topped with blond hair made him stand out. Hauptmann-General Jasek Kelswa-Steiner.

Seeing him, Roderick stepped forward and extended his hand. “Imagine meeting you here, General Steiner.” It feels funny to say “General Steiner”—almost as humorous as being called that myself. He had lived under an assumed name for most of his early life. Only circumstance had finally made Roderick reveal his true last name and linage. Since then, his life had become totally different. Sometimes I long to be Roderick Frost again.

Jasek flashed a smile and shook his hand firmly. “A distinct pleasure, sir.”

“You can drop the ‘sir’ with me. We’re family, even if distanced by a few marriages,” Roderick replied. “What you’ve done in the Arc-Royal Defense Cordon has been outstanding. I would offer you a commendation, but you already have most of the medals we can give.”

Jasek glanced down at his ribbons and grinned slightly, then turned his blue eyes back to Roderick. “Like you, I don’t do this for the glory. I do it because it is the right thing to do.” It was not a casual comment on the part of the hauptmann-general. His storied journey of command was one of legend. Starting as a part of the Republic’s military, his Stormhammers had been a beacon for Steiner loyalists in the Republic. His original goal had been for an independent Skye, but the twists and turns of the tornado of Steiner politics had brought him back into the Commonwealth’s fold. Trillian, his cousin and current Archon, trusted Jasek, and that was more than enough for Roderick.

“I’m glad you were able to get here,” Roderick said, gesturing to the holographic display. The pair of them moved to it.

“No offense, Roderick, but why are we here? Vorzel is not a strategic world.”

“It is now,” the General of the Armies replied. He looked at the officer manning the holotable controls. “Captain—” his gaze dropped to the officer’s name plate, “—Belcher, pull up a star map, a hundred and fifty light years centered on Vorzel.”

The man’s fingers flew across the controls, and the image appeared in the space above the table. The front was frightful. Tharkad, the capital of the Commonwealth, was bordered by Jade Falcon–controlled worlds. The Falcons had been bloodied there, badly, but they would strike again; it was merely a matter of time.

Roderick gestured to the map. “LIC reports that the Falcons are staging their forces on Upano.” He pointed to Captain Belcher, who nodded and highlighted Upano with a pulsing green dot in the air before them. “Jasek, using Upano as your staging world, if you were Malvina Hazen, where would you strike to deliver us a devastating blow, one that would hurt is the worst?”

“That’s easy. Two of our provincial capitals are in easy range for an assault—Coventry and Donegal.”

Captain Belcher made the worlds pulse Steiner blue at their mention.

“Exactly,” Roderick replied. “One or two jumps, and you can hit those worlds. The real question is which one?”

Hauptmann-General Kelswa-Steiner studied the map. “I would venture Donegal. You take that world, you essentially cut off a significant portion of the Commonwealth.”

Roderick crossed his arms, his gaze on the map, then back to Jasek. “True, but Coventry has a history with the Jade Falcons. It was there they were given a stunning defeat in 3058. That defeat led to the Whitting Conference, the formation of the Second Star League, and the events that followed. In many respects, their defeat on Coventry has to be one the biggest blemishes in the history of their Clan—hell, all of the Clans. I would imagine they’d do almost anything to erase that stain from their damned Remembrance.”

“So you think they’ll hit Coventry?”

Roderick shrugged faintly. “We don’t know for sure. I seriously doubt they will strike at both planets. Malvina Hazen understands initiative and momentum in warfare. She will want a sure victory, complete and utter—regardless of which target she goes after.”

“This Malvina Hazen is not like any other Clanner we have fought,” Jasek said.

“You are the master of understatement, General,” Roderick agreed. “Her way of waging war—taking no prisoners, deliberately targeting civilians, wreaking utter destruction…it plays to our absolute worst fears of what the Clans can be.”

“She relies on those fears as part of her arsenal. I cannot imagine what the Inner Sphere would be like under Jade Falcon rule with her as the ilKhan.”

Roderick could imagine it. It was the stuff of nightmares. Hazen would grind her heel down on anyone she considered inferior, which was most of the population of the empire she might forge. Human rights would be a thing of the past. “The only good that comes from her arriving is it can galvanize the troops to fight to the end. They’ll know that surrendering to her Mongol Jade Falcons is a death sentence.”

“Of all of the enemies our people have faced, we have never fought one hell bent on our deaths,” Jasek replied. “Even the Word of Blake was not as brutal as she, and that says a lot. So, how do we deal with this jade scourge?”

“Simple. We stage here, between the two high-probability targets. When she makes her move, we sweep in with your Fifteenth Arcturan Guards RCT and my Second Royal Guards. She will be forced to commit more troops to try wiping us out, killing any other offenses—or she will lose and we will cut off her momentum. I have ordered scouting JumpShips in both systems poised to jump here and get word to us immediately as soon as their ships show up.” Gone were the years of fast HPG communications between worlds. Now there was a time lag every time a foe made a move. ComStar and the Republic both owe all of us more than the darkness we find ourselves in.

“I prefer option two,” General Kelswa-Steiner said. “In that first scenario, we could end up dead.”

Roderick smiled slightly. “‘Ours is not to question why…’”

“What does the LIC say about her leading the attack?”

Roderick’s grin faded slightly. “There is a high probability that Malvina will be leading the attack. Frankly, I am hopeful. If it is her, we have an opportunity to cut the head off the snake and throw the Jade Falcons into some turmoil with the loss of their Khan.”

Jasek chuckled. “You may be the only person in the Inner Sphere that wants Malvina Hazen to show up.”

Roderick pondered the fantasy of facing off against Hazen in one-on-one combat. The leaders of two armies fighting a battle to determine the fate of a war—there was a certain romanticism about it. He also knew it would never happen with the Jade Falcon leader. She saw him like everyone else, unworthy of her attention. Her reckless disregard for humanity has shown us all the darkest side of the Clans. “I don’t want her to show up per se. It just might open an opportunity that we couldn’t pass up.” Roderick turned his gaze to the map. “What is the status of the Fifteenth Guards?”

Jasek Kelswa-Steiner pointed to Captain Belcher. “Pull up our TO&E if you would, Captain.” After a few seconds of fingers flying at the controls, the organization and equipment chart for the Fifteenth Arcturan Guards appeared. “As you can see, Roderick, we are almost completely refit. The replacement troops are a bit green, but our veterans are putting them through the paces right now.”

Roderick studied the data, nodding approvingly at what he saw.

“You mentioned the Second Royal Guards RCT?” General Kelswa-Steiner queried. “Did you bring them all?”

“I did,” Roderick replied, handing a data cube to Belcher, who pulled up the TO&E of the Second Royal Guards. “The only problem was their CO. She had taken ill.”

“Judith? That’s terrible. Nothing bad, I hope.”

He shook his head. “It’s not good.” Cancer never is.

“Who’s commanding them then?”

“I am,” Roderick said.

There was a pause between the two men as Jasek studied Roderick’s face, possibly wondering if he was joking. “Roderick…you are the General of the Armies.

A General of the Armies hasn’t led troops into a battle in ages.”

“I am aware of that,” was all Roderick could say. “That doesn’t change anything. They are under my personal command.”

Jasek’s face reddened slightly. “Sir, if I may speak freely—”

“Always.”

“Sir, if we lose you, it hurts the Commonwealth a hell of a lot more than losing another general.”

Roderick had anticipated the rebuttal. He lowered his voice so that only he and Jasek could hear his words. “Two things drove this decision, General. One, to be blunt, we don’t have a deep pool of officers to dip into to fill the slot—not with the experience needed to lead a RCT. Second, I am more of a field officer than a ‘General of the Armies.’ That is where my experience is. It’s where I feel at home. If I am going to send troops in against Malvina Haven’s forces, I want our people to know I am there not just in spirit but with them on the field.”

General Kelswa-Steiner considered what he said before speaking. “I understand. It’s just a hell of a gamble.” “I like to think it will help morale. Truth be told, I want a shot at Malvina if she shows up in person.”

“You and I will have to square off for that right,” Kelswa-Steiner replied. “We can’t lose sight of the obvious. The Jade Falcons are not the true threat. She is the real enemy we have to worry about.”

“I hope you’re right. LIC says a lot of troops follow her banner. Based on my experience, every Jade Falcon is a deadly enemy to contend with. No matter what, if she is not there, she will send in one of her best.”

“Where do you think she’ll hit?” Jasek said.

“Donegal makes such a tempting target that it should be there. Malvina knows that too. I think it will be Coventry.”

“Ja. They came and died there before,” Jasek said. “I would make a play for Donegal myself, but I think emotions trump logic when it comes to the Falcons.”

Roderick nodded. “Malvina Hazen is recasting the Jade Falcons into her own twisted mold. Part of that has to be erasing the failures of the past. Coventry represents that past. I think that will drive her more than strategy. The Jade Falcons under her have no room for Coventry in their history.”

“No matter where she strikes, one thing is for sure,” Jasek said with a wry grin. “She won’t be expecting two Steiner generals hitting back.”

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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BATTLETECH: A SPLINTER OF HOPE

Cover art by Florian Mellies

Design by Matt Heerdt & David Kerber

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