By now Jonathan was nearly even with the BattleMaster, coming up on the right side, and instantly he straight-armed his PPC, cutting loose with a blast of supercharged energy. The crackling bolt, bluer than the sea just behind, chewed through the Destroyer’s skirt, spilling its air, and the SM1 flipped once, twice, three times before Jonathan hit it again. A mushroom fire-cloud boiled skyward as autocannon ammo ignited, and the Destroyer blew apart.

The roar of the explosion nearly covered the others, but Jonathan heard them just the same because they were the ones he was waiting for: a rapid-fire, staccato whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump! Not from behind, where the Locust, on its spindle-thin legs, was already sprinting for them; and not from the remaining tanks that were, even now, racing back for their base; but from his right, where the men had finished their work.

A voice, male, not Kyle in his Locust but the BattleMaster’s pilot: “What the…?” The ’Mech’s torso swiveled; Jonathan caught a glimpse of amber light, the stark silhouette of the MechWarrior, green shadows darkling over gray vest and bare skin. “Who…?”

And then the first shock wave hit as the ice protested, groaned—and began to break away.

DropShip Dragon’s Pride

Carillon Sector, Iwanji, Saffel

The words hung in the air like ghosts and were so thoroughly stunning that Tai-sho Carol Worridge’s brain clicked out for an instant. Sakamoto, dead! If she hadn’t heard it with her own ears, listened as Black Wind’s pilot shouted out his report, she’d never have believed it.

She came back to herself and looked around the bridge. A decision; they were waiting for her to lead them in battle. Yes, a battle—but with whom?

A small voice that she recognized as conscience freed from tyranny: Follow your heart. Follow your honor.

And then suddenly everything fell into place, and she knew what she must do. She turned to the communications officer. “Open a channel. Get me our troops.”

Carillan Sector, Iwanji, Saffel

“STERLING!” Parks bawled, and in the two years she’d known him, Sterling had never heard so much anguish in the man’s voice as she did then. “NO! Get out of the way, GET OUT OF THE WAY!”

But she couldn’t answer, didn’t have time because she was twisting in midair, executing an aerial pirouette, twirling, the DropShip now behind and the missiles arrowing for her face. And then she did something Andre Crawford swore up and down ought to work, in theory. She brought all her lasers to bear, aimed for an intersection point, and snap-fired them at once—and prayed like hell her armor was as good as the manufacturer said.

The laser fire coalesced into a fiery ball of ionization just as the missiles arrived. There was a tremendous blast as some but not all of the missiles detonated. A hail of raining armament boiled around her, and she was engulfed in a roiling ball of gas and fire. The flash was so bright her polarizing filters couldn’t snap into place quickly enough. But it didn’t matter. Her helmeted head snapped back, banging against her couch, and she was aware of a sensation of flying faster than a laser beam. She screamed—a long, drawn-out wail that cut out as her Ocelot crashed into the grove, snapping trees like twigs amid a tidal wave of sound.

Then she must have blacked out because, when she came to, she was looking through a veil of smoke from dying circuitry that burned her eyes. But she wasn’t blind; no, there was no mercy for her here.

Because she saw the DropShip, still coming, well enough.

Dovejin Ice Cap, Saffel

Jonathan lumbered past the still-dazed and disoriented BattleMaster. Then time dilated and drew out, but not with the satisfying click that so often happened because, this time, Jonathan was the victim.

He was already past the BattleMaster, nearing the widening fissure in the ice, or so he imagined. The vast, nearly featureless white of the ice pack obliterated landmarks, made things seem infinitely far away. The ice was quaking more violently now, rippling and bucking like something come to life. Off-balance, the Panther swayed, and Jonathan instinctively moved to correct. The next shudder sent him pitching forward, coming down hard on his Panther’s right knee and outstretched right hand.

This probably saved his life because in the next instant missiles etched seams in the air directly over his canopy. The Bellonas were opening fire, and now the Destroyers got in on the act, punching out round after punishing round of autocannon fire at the Kuritan ’Mechs. The Raiders’ infantry had done their job at the cost of their lives, and clearly the tanks were to ensure that no one, not even they, left the ice pack. Risking a glance over his shoulder, he saw the missiles streak for the Locust, detonate along one of those spindle-thin legs, and then the Locust was reeling.

His alarms screamed and, jerking round, Jonathan caught the flashing sputter of tracer fire. He threw up his left arm in a reflex, and the uranium-tipped rounds ripped into the Panther’s elbow, at the joint. He’d silenced his DI and hit the heat lockout override, but he knew the arm was severely damaged; the only saving grace was that his PPC was wedded to his right. But the muzzle of his weapon was jammed into the ice, useless to him, and he was out of time for fighting. No more mistakes, no more errors! Even as he heaved back, struggling to right himself, his mind was racing: Have to get up, get up, get up!

The chasm ahead was pulling away from the glacier, and doing so with a preternatural swiftness that was otherworldly: first a half meter, then two, now four. The violence of the ice’s movement was so great the tiny forms of the troopers who’d planted their directed charges specifically to accomplish just this were jittering like insects on a hot skillet. Jonathan saw three hurtle into the yawning abyss; two more clung to the edges and were in shadow… Shadow? Yes, of course, he saw it now; the horizon shifting down, pushing up, the ice shelf where he stood calving away…

“Go, go, go!” he screamed, not to the BattleMaster, whose pilot now seemed to grasp what was happening; not to the Locust, limping badly now, his advantage of greater speed gone, his jump jets discarded. No, Jonathan screamed at himself to get moving, move! Desperately, he banged his PPC to life; blazing hot energy puddled the entrapping ice, and he yanked free. Heaving his Panther to its feet, he threw out blasts of PPC fire in the tanks’ general direction as a diversion, the bolts going wide, and Jonathan not caring, not thinking but pushing his Panther into a flat-out, lopsided run. He felt the jarring impact as a missile clipped his Panther’s already-injured left arm, smashing through armor at the left shoulder, and suddenly that arm was no longer functioning. The impact pushed him back, to the right, and for a heart-stopping instant, as the view from his cockpit was replaced with blue sky, he thought his ’Mech would crash to the ice to lie on its back, like a helpless, overturned beetle.

Then time ran out for all of them, every last one.

With a terrific, alien groan, the mammoth ice block sheared away from its anchoring glacier. What nature would have done in another five years, or ten, now occurred with weird, supernatural speed. The sounds were deafening and almost indescribable—a bellowing roar; a massive, throaty rumble like a volcano belching out flame and molten rock from a heart of fire. Violent shudders rocked the tanks and ’Mechs; two tanks too close to the brink simply teetered back and then vanished, one still spitting out laser fire that harmlessly punched the sea.