Powers’ Jupiter waited on the far side of the Tribune, standing on wide-spread feet next to the paired Legionnaires. While not at full capability, with two autocannons out of commission and still suffering some targeting glitches, the one-hundred-ton assault ’Mech nevertheless loomed over both nearby machines, in height and in raw, physical presence. It was painted in the same colored bands as before—a layering of tans, yellows, and faded reds. Raul’s gaze was still drawn first to the great red spot that swirled in a storm over the right breast of the BattleMech.

Which may be how he missed Jessica Searcy at first glance, standing at the foot of the Jupiter.

“Jess?” Raul stopped flat in his footsteps.

Setting aside the way his heart pounded against his chest, he could not help but think there was no way his fiancée—ex-fiancée—should be here. Not with the base locked down on full military protocol. When Tassa walked on by, trading a nod of encouragement with Jessica, shock won out over decorum. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Her sharp, answering glare barely kept from cutting into his skin. “Tassa cleared me onto the base. Civilian contractor, temporary warrant officer commission.” He hadn’t noticed the small, golden caduceus shining on the collar of her paramilitary jumpsuit. He did now. “I’ll be in charge of a M.A.S.H. truck. You soldiers have a way of keeping doctors busy.”

M.A.S.H.? Jessica was on board for the maneuvers? “I really wish you weren’t here.” Also not the best way to reopen a conversation. “I can… appreciate what you are trying to do here—lord knows we’ll need your skills before today is done, but I don’t need to be worrying about you out there.”

“Don’t you mean, you don’t need to be worrying about me, too?”

Raul held no illusions about whom Jess was referring. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him. And it was no less than he deserved. But, “No. I don’t mean that at all. Counting every crewman, infantryman, and specialist on the field today there will be over two hundred warm bodies, and I can’t afford to worry about any of them. I can only trust them to be there, doing their jobs, because this is how we’ve all chosen to serve.”

She nodded. “Then you can trust the same from me. Yes? Isn’t this what a citizen does? Take that extra step?”

Hearing his own argument thrown back at him, and now of all times, left Raul speechless for several seconds. Was she doing this to impress him, or prove something to herself? Either way, it wasn’t necessary. Tassa had proven to him over the last month that you did not have to be a registered citizen to carry yourself with honor. And if comparing his fiancée with a one-time liaison was not a way to tie himself into knots right before battle, Raul wasn’t sure what else qualified.

“Jess, you’ve been a citizen your entire life in any possible way that it matters. You’ve always had the right side of that argument. Why are you doing this now?”

Biting down on that lower, pouting lip, Jessica gave in. “Because it was the only way to see you, and wish you luck.” Flustered, she clasped one hand around the back of her neck and shot him a new, withering glare. “I’m not through being mad at you yet, and I don’t want you to cheat me out of my due by getting killed out there today. And don’t get wounded either, because then I’d have to think too long about whether or not to put you back together, and that wouldn’t be fair to someone else who deserves help. What’s more—”

Stepping forward, Raul held up one hand to cut off her building tirade, placed the tips of his fingers against her lips and readied himself to be slapped again for daring to touch her. She stood mute, the beginning of tears softening her glare, and he leaned in close with eyes never once wavering from hers.

“Thank you,” he said simply, choosing only to acknowledge her first, better wishes. Backing his hand away from her mouth to his own, he kissed the backs of his fingers as if she might feel it through the brief, earlier touch. “Today we’ll need all the luck we can get.”

“I haven’t forgiven you yet, you know.”

“I know. But there is always the possibility, and that’s enough to keep me safe.” He stepped aside, reaching for the chain link ladder that hung down the inside of the Jupiter’s leg. “Not one wound, then. I promise.”

“Maybe a little one,” she said to his back. Raul thought he heard a trace of actual humor in her voice. “Couple of painful stitches, and a good scar.”

It wasn’t much, as far as good wishes went, but Raul would take what absolution he could get. Lady Janella Lakewood had been right about that, too. One was never past the need for forgiveness.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and then scaled the ladder for his new cockpit, three stories up.

25

Early To Rise

River’s End

Achernar

18 March 3133

Star Colonel Torrent habitually rose before dawn on Achernar, his diurnal rhythm set to the twenty-three-hour Tigress clock. Here, he always seemed to have more time than he needed. Most days Torrent wrote it off to an impatience instilled in him over the course of the protracted campaign. This morning, though, an urge drew him down to the Lupus’s ’Mech bay and his readied Tundra Wolf. One last round to search out any forgotten thoughts before the evening battle. Before victory.

The bay’s cavernous interior was still on the half-lights order for nights, which Torrent immediately countermanded. Darkened overhead panels flickered and then shone brightly. A few night-duty technicians made a busier show of loading munitions through the back of a Catapult. Torrent ignored them for the open bay door, checking that two sentry vehicles—Scimitars, as it happened—properly blocked the access ramp.

That was where the alarm found him.

The metallic gong of a shipboard general quarters alarm sent the Star Colonel sprinting for his BattleMech, preferring to learn of any danger with seventy-five tons of myomer and armor wrapped about him and his fingers on the triggers of a Longbow missile XX-rack and Series 7 laser. This was what had drawn him down here so early, he knew, scaling the gantry and gaining quick access to his cockpit. With practiced efficiency he released dampening fields from the BattleMech’s fusion reactor and cycled through a dozen prestart checks.

A comms headset held up to the side of his right ear connected him with the DropShip’s bridge. “Torrent.”

“Star Colonel. Remote listening posts have contact with a militia column, coming down out of the base heading east-southeast.”

Achernar’s militia thought to steal a march on the Steel Wolves? He cast aside the communications set and drew down his neurohelmet from its resting shelf. Plugging himself in, he asked, “Any response out of River’s End?” he asked.

“Neg, Star Colonel. River’s End is quiet.”

MechWarriors Verin and Rheese made the ’Mech Bay within seconds of each other, scrambling for their pair of Pack Hunters. Torrent sped through his security procedures, answering with identification and his verbal key without being prompted. “To each, his own,” he said, putting emphasis in a slightly different place than the ages-old saying.

His computer released full control about the time his ready-scouts checked in from the ground. A pair of Shandras had beat him out from another bay, but then Torrent had cleared a BattleMech in less than three minutes from alarm to his first, confident step. He would be the first officer on the scene, and if the militia thought to seriously challenge him here, now, he would be first to draw blood today.

By the Great Father, he swore it would be true.