A bone-clattering BOOM! Parks’ body slammed forward, his harness digging into his skin. For one dizzying instant he thought he’d been hit again, then realized that the shot came from behind—and it wasn’t a shot. A quick glance at his status board showed that his DI wasn’t happy, but what was new? And then he got it at the same instant he registered the splintering crunch of wood. His Jupiter had crashed against trees. No choice. Hauling back on his throttle, he powered through.

Then brought himself up short. Wood. Trees. And infantry, on foot, lugging armor and launchers.

“You’re an idiot, Parks.” Leveling his right PPC, aiming low, he swept the trees. The sizzling energy beam shredded through trunks, touching the wood with fire. As the Kuritans ducked, Parks brought trees crashing through understory; the air filled with the groan of wood, the crackle of flame and the startled cries of unarmored infantry tumbling back.

A voice in his helmet, almost frantic with urgency. “Parks, Parks, talk to me!”

Sterling, in her Ocelot. “Yeah, I’m here,” said Parks, “in the woods, to your left.”

“What’s happening?”

“We’re just having a little bonfire.” Movement to his left, and he whirled, punching back a trio of troopers with a controlled burst of uranium-tipped slugs from his autocannon, trying to conserve his ammo. The hot metal battered trees and shredded the troopers, spun them in a dance that pulped their flesh and painted the leaves rust with blood. “And now I’m just about out of autocannon. I think I’ll resort to harsh language next. What’s your status?”

“Beat back that Cat. Lucky shot; sheared off its Gauss rifle right at the elbow. It’s pretty dinged up, only it jumped before I got a follow-up shot. But it’ll be back and they’re going to just keep on coming, Parks.” Sterling sounded winded, at the limits of her endurance and, in the background, Parks heard the fizzle of shorted circuitry. “I don’t know if…”

He cut her off. “You should get out of here.”

Dead air. Then: “Screw that, Parks.”

“Do you still have jump jets?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then get out of here. I outrank you. That’s an order.”

Another pause. “Parks?”

“Yeah?”

“Up your exhaust. We stick together and…” Her voice cut out.

Parks waited a sec, checked, saw the humped shapes of troopers coming, and knew he didn’t have much time to convince her. “Sterling?” No answer. “Sterling, you okay?”

Now she came back, her voice tight, fast. “Parks. Parks, look at…”

But he didn’t need Sterling to spell it out. Ironic; he’d never really have seen it coming if he hadn’t done a little reforesting. He’d have felt it—the last thing he ever felt, he bet—but he’d never have seen it: there, centered in a rough oblong of blue sky. A brilliant flash. The telltale streak of flame.

DropShip, closing fast.

Dovejin Ice Cap, Saffel

The scrubbers had done the best they could, but the Panther’s air was still clogged with the stink of old feces and clotted blood. Paltry annoyances. Jonathan was having the time of his life. After clearing the DropShip, they’d assumed formation to allow Sakamoto the honor of landing first, with the Locust and Panther on his left and right flanks, respectively. All in all, a glorious day for a drop: glittering ice edged on all sides by sea, in which smaller and more massive icebergs drifted, like mesas atop a featureless blue desert. The only clouds were black and oily, columns of smoke coming from the Raiders’ base due north, and the drama unfolding on the ice shelf to his left, two-twenty true and about a klick from the shelf’s edge: a BattleMaster hemmed on three sides by tanks; a crisscross of red and emerald lasers underscored by a sputtering flash of autocannon tracer fire; the BattleMaster clearly pulling its punches, abiding by orders to wait for Sakamoto’s arrival.

Then Jonathan’s gray eyes slitted. Something happening further inland… Intrigued, Jonathan nudged out a series of light, controlled bursts from his jump jets, correcting for his approach. The curve of Saffel’s horizon flattened as he lost altitude and then the ’Mech slid right as a sudden howl of air rushed over his ferroglass canopy. He was aware of a squeal of metal, a slight creaking as winds driven from inland toward the sea by gravity pummeled the Panther. Gravity palmed his body, and he worked at pushing air in and out, but still relished the way the rumble of his jump jets swelled to merge with the roar of atmosphere. He was God, descending on a pillar of flame.

His eyes skipped to the ice field again. What the devil?… Oh, he saw the tanks; three Destroyers and three Bellonas pockmarked with ugly black scorches, like the splattered bodies of huge tarantulas, runny with molten armor. A smoking crater on one where a PPC bolt had cored away the turret—but that Bellona was still in the fight.

But then, there was the fourth Bellona, the one dropping back. That, and a flipped ice-sled, a spool of gray smoke canted seaward by wind. But still too high to… Reaching left, he flicked his infrared sensor active, studied his secondary viewing screen. Blinked.

Men.

Six pairs, twelve in all, in battlearmor. Inner Sphere standard, not Kuritan, and yes, he remembered now, the only scheduled infantry drop was for Iwanji, not here—and now! More heat, very intense, and Jonathan jerked his eyes from his infrared to the view beneath his canopy. Fire, spurting from the Bellona’s flamer, licking the ice in a rough parabola back and forth as the wind snatched at the pillar of fire, now feeding it, now nearly guttering—and a good thirty meters shy of the Raiders troops.

Melting the ice. But why? How could that…?

“Hey!” A shout in his helmet, loud enough to hurt: Kyle in the Locust. Momentarily disoriented, Jonathan was about to reply, when Kyle continued, nearly frantic, “Sakamoto-san, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Please respond!”

Jonathan had made only two mistakes his entire life. An infinitesimal error of such little consequence twenty years ago that he wouldn’t discover the magnitude of his lapse for some time to come. Another, not long ago, but also small, negligible. But now, he made his third. As the frequency filled with the panicked gabble of Kyle trying to raise Sakamoto, and now from the DropShip wanting to know what was going on, Jonathan realized that he hadn’t kept track of his dear warlord and that would not do. His eyes snapped from the men, and cut right, then down…

There, far below and directly over that blue sea: Sakamoto’s No-Dachi. Not leading the charge but spinning on its back, arms and legs splayed, the sun glinting off its blade as the No-Dachi spun and tumbled—the dying points of a doomed star.

The job. Whistler was hot as hell, cooking from anxiety and exertion, even as pulverized ice showered over his armor. Whistler’s tongue flicked to his upper lip, and his mouth filled with the taste of wet salt. He concentrated on the feel of the sonic drill, the peculiar brrrrr of vibration he felt even through the armor. The job, just do the job. He was aware of the Bellona, glanced up once, saw the wall of fire, knew that the trough the tank was digging between them and the BattleMaster was widening and deepening, like a moat. Blinking away sweat, Whistler squinted at his depth gauge, read that the sonic drill had made it down thirty meters, and thought that, okay, this was pretty good. All he needed was ten, fifteen meters, and then they could load in the charge…

There was so much noise from the drills, and Whistler was so intent on the job, he didn’t really hear McClintock at first—just a blat of sound that was and then wasn’t. But then everyone was shouting, and then Whistler looked up, saw that they were all pointing up and east. Swinging his head up, Whistler saw the yellow-orange blasts from jump jets from two other ’Mechs, felt his stomach go cold—and then saw something else, in the east, above a shimmering wall of flame as the Bellona kept on, its pilot oblivious to the ’Mechs falling from the sky…