“There!” The Bounty Hunter now, to his immediate left. “Ten, twelve and two, sixty true! Fighters!”

A surge of adrenaline kick-started Crawford’s heart. No, no, not now, not now! The familiar red grid of his targeting system winked onto his HUD even as he was scouring the sky. There they were, big as life and a hundred times as deadly; five fighters, their contrails stitching through the blue sky like the weave of an exotic blanket.

Five. Crawford had to close his eyes a second. Oh, my God. How had they known where to find them? Maybe not such a mystery; the sea was the only place left to run. His people were sitting ducks.

He pivoted his ’Mech, saw the Lilliputian figures of his troops jumping off and scrambling over the meadow like flushed quail, making for the path down to the beach—and safety. “Measho! Get my people into the DropShip! Go, go!”

And then he was turning, springing forward, Chinn and the Bounty Hunter on his heels and fanning out, dashing into open terrain to draw the fighters’ fire. Overhead, the fighters—three Sholagars and two heavier, less maneuverable but deadly Onis–broke formation the way streamers from a sparkler track in multiple trajectories, rolling, banking, swerving, spiraling through the dome of the sky in a dance of death.

“No, you don’t; oh, no, you don’t!” Crawford’s lips peeled from his teeth in a snarl as he fired his lasers, scoring the air with ruby-red destruction. It wasn’t the kind of fight he did well or liked best; no way was he going to be able to punch or kick those fighters from the sky, but if they were going to die, he’d go out with a bang.

To his right and left, Chinn and the Bounty Hunter were angling off, their weapons blazing; and then Crawford caught the hum of lasers from behind him, the staccato fire of autocannon, saw flashes of tracer fire sputtering across the sky, and knew the DropShip was in the fight. He left his external mikes on, heard the scream of long-range missiles whirring overhead, and he let loose with both lasers. The fiery streams crossed in an intercept: a fireball pillowing in successive bursts as the lasers caught the missiles, burning them from the sky. Shrapnel whizzed in a starburst, arcing in all directions; Crawford felt the explosive thunder boom in waves along the ground, shimmying up his ’Mech, rattling the cage of his cockpit.

A fighter—the Oni that had launched the strike—broke right as the DropShip opened fire again. Autocannon slugs carved the left wing from the fighter’s nose. The Oni’s remaining engine roared and the plane banked hard right and then twisted into an inverted spiral, somersaulting like an acrobat that’s missed the high wire, angling for the ground, fiery nose first, plowing into a Sholagar immediately below. The fighters splintered; flaming debris showered down, igniting the meadow grass in a wide parabola, and Crawford watched in horror as the Sholagar’s fuselage, its cockpit trailing fire, bulleted for the beach.

“No!” he cried, spiraling left, snap-firing both extended-range large lasers at once. He missed… but then an arrow of blue energy unfurled like the tongue of a fiery snake—the Bounty Hunter, to Crawford’s right. A PPC bolt slammed into the Sholagar ; the saucer-shaped fuselage tumbled left and wide like a tiddlywink and burst, harmlessly, against the sea.

No time for thanks; there were too many fighters, and Crawford was running hot as it was. Too many. Crawford wasn’t bothering with aim so much anymore as keeping a spray of laser fire arcing through the sky, varying his angle and trajectory so the fighters had to keep dodging. Two down, three to go—but they were still too many. Crawford’s systems shot into the red. Through his external feed he heard something that chilled the blood in his veins; the dying shrieks of his men, trapped on the cliff.

Then fire cored into his ’Mech’s damaged left leg: an Oni on an attack run. A slag of armor melted away, puddling onto the grassy meadow. The grass was tinderbox-dry, and in a flash, there was smoke and lapping flame as the fire spread. Crawford’s ’Mech lurched; a warning alarm shrilled as the lower leg actuator balked, then froze. The cockpit temperatures soared, and his DI began to tick through the autoshutdown. Cursing, Crawford flipped to manual, brought his weapons back online. No matter what, no matter what… Then something in the cockpit fizzled in a spurt of flaming sparkles that dazzled his eyes. Clots of smoke wove a gray miasma that bound his throat and stung his eyes—and then he had an idea.

“Chinn, Hunter! Angle off, angle off!” Then, as the two BattleMechs sprinted right and left, Crawford flipped his flamer to high and scoured the grass as far as he could in a wide, guttering arc. There was a dry crackling sound like the crinkle of cellophane as the grass ignited. The wind coming from the sea did the rest, snatching pillars of churning black-and-gray smoke and sending them boiling into the sky as the grasses caught, spewing fire and ash. A Sholagar that had been close behind the Oni on a strafing run punched through a black wall of smoke, and the Bounty Hunter hammered the fighter with a burst of Gauss rifle fire that was so close it made Crawford’s ears ring.

Just two fighters left now: an Oni and a Sholagar. But Crawford had lost visual as the sky disappeared behind a pall of smoke. All the fighters had to do was arc up and then come in from the sea, but it bought them a few more precious seconds.

Then he heard Chinn’s sobbing breath in his ear: “Andre, I’m down to my last rack; my temperature’s molten, and I’ve lost my left large laser. We’ve got to get down… now.”

“I know. Measho, what’s your status?”

Measho’s reply fuzzed with static. “Nearly there… you’ve… down… now!”

“On my way!” shouted Crawford, but he knew he was lying. I can hold them off, let Chinn and the Hunter… But then it was as if some fickle god wasn’t quite done, because the wind changed direction for an instant, nudged aside the dark, obscuring curtain of smoke, parting it down the middle like a hot knife slicing butter. And then Crawford gasped, unable to believe his eyes.

There, far away, was a balloon of dust and dry grass boiling across the meadow—and then, in the next instant, the dust resolved, coalesced… into a Schmitt tank. The vehicle roared across the field, wheels churning earth and grass as the tank raced for the fire that was still raging across the field. But the tank wasn’t firing, and in another instant, Crawford saw why: its missiles were spent, and men clung to the turrets in a hodgepodge of arms and legs, and for dear life. And that one, unmistakable sign: that damn ten-gallon snapping to and fro like a banner.

Buck, my God, my God , they made it, they…

And then Crawford saw the fighters break their attack wedge and streak for the tank. No, no, no! Already pivoting, Crawford switched to an open channel. “Buck, Buck! Head for the fire, head for the fire, we’ll cover you, we’ll…”

A scream of fury spiked into his brain. “Nononono, no, you DON’T!!” And then Antonia Chinn was racing across the field, plunging into the smoke and fire.

“Chinn, no!” Crawford roared, but he was too slow, his ’Mech too battered, the lower leg actuator groaning with effort. “Chinn, come back, that’s an order!”

But Chinn’s Thor sprinted across the flame, eating up distance and moving with speed and terrible grace that were at once deadly and utterly beautiful. Chinn’s voice crackled with urgency. “Crawford, go! I’ll cover you! Get out of here! Go, go!”

“Toni, you can’t, you…!” His throat, raw from smoke, closed off, and he choked.

Before he could suck in another breath, he heard the Bounty Hunter say, “Go, Crawford,” and despite everything, Crawford heard an eerie, preternatural intensity that was absolutely lethal with menace and determination. “You can’t do any good anyway. Leave her to me.”