18

Chauncy Plateau

Tairngoth, Glengarry

4 November 3134

Alexia Wolf tensed over the controls of her Uziel, unable to shake the jangling nerves that often plagued her in combat. The examiner in charge of screening freeborn applicants for Clan Wolf had promised her it was nothing. The trembling of a hunter scenting blood. Alexia knew only that the prickling sensation crawling over her scalp had been at its worst just before she failed her Trial of Position, when her testing partner turned on her, and had never once heralded good news.

“Here they come.” McKinnon’s voice was dry and leathery, and calm for a man about to step into the teeth of battle.

It was all the warning she received from McKinnon or her own nerves. The Shrike they had detected moving up on their position—waiting between Dunkeld and the local Jade Falcon military reservation—was coming fast with only a pair of Nacon armored scouts as company. Stormhammer spotters had a vehicle column and a Shadow Hawk IIC about a kilometer back, also looking for the open plateau on which the Tharkan Strikers waited. With Colonel Petrucci hitting three targets within close proximity, McKinnon had judged—correctly—that the Jade Falcons would push units from their Acropolis base toward the city. In an audacious gamble, the Paladin pushed far ahead of the main strikes to counter any reprisal by the Jade Falcons. Alexia brought her company along for support.

The plateau was a backdoor route into Dunkeld. It was also the site of an old battlefield, where some now-forgotten mercenary command had fought against occupying forces. Rusted hulks littered the landscape for a dozen kilometers in every direction, creating a background magnetic-resonance disturbance where a company of Stormhammer machines could hide itself. Their angle of attack wasn’t the best, and in short order the Falcons might overwhelm their position, but at the moment the advantage belonged to the Skye forces.

Alexia caught an electric blue flash out of a stand of scaly firs, recognizing the capacitor discharge of a Gauss rifle. A silver blur smashed into the Shrike’s left shoulder, shoving it around. Stabbing lances of red energy followed as McKinnon threw chivalry to the wind and followed up his ambush with lasers. His Atlas shouldered aside tall trees as if they were young saplings, and strode into the open.

“Striker Team One.” Alexia opened up communications, switching her sensors from passive over to active. “Advance and fire.”

A light Pack Hunter broke cover from a nearby quarry, leading out a Kinnol and two Hasek MCVs, which staggered into a line-abreast foreign formation. Alexia stood her Uziel away from a pile of rusted vehicle frames. Her PPCs had enough reach to throw some additional damage at the wounded Shrike, but not until McKinnon cleared her line of fire.

A lesser MechWarrior would have fallen under the Paladin’s savage ambush. The Shrike’s pilot was apparently made of sterner stuff. Staggering to one side, the ninety-five-ton machine quickly got a solid stance back beneath it. Turning, it levered forward both of its ultra-class autocannon and belted out extra-long pulls from each. Slugs tipped in depleted uranium hammered at the Atlas, ripping long gashes through the assault ’Mech’s pristine armor.

McKinnon spent another Gauss slug at the Clan machine, but this time the Shrike was ready. It lit off jump jets, spoiling the Paladin’s aim with a short, sideways hop.

Landing, it again chewed through nearly a half ton of ammunition, spraying out high-velocity streams of death. The razored metal sliced away tons of armor from the Atlas’ front, raining it down around its feet in shards and impotent splinters.

Alexia powered into a run, trying to clear McKinnon’s Atlas and grab an angle of attack on the Shrike, but not soon enough. The Atlas staggered. Unbalanced from the hard-hitting assault and losing several tons of armor in a handful of seconds, the lordly machine could not hold to its feet, even under the masterful touch of a veteran warrior. It fell, crashing back into the same stand of firs from which it had emerged.

Which left Alexia head-to-head with a machine that outclassed her by forty-five tons!

Her nerves rang loudly as the Shrike turned its full attention to the Uziel. Not only that, but the Nacon scout vehicles were throwing themselves into the fight, buying time for the Falcon MechWarrior. One Nacon peeled away as a brace of particle cannon from the Haseks crisscrossed argent streams in front of it. The other took a scalding strike from the Kinnol main battle tank, leaving globs of molten composite burning between Caterpillar tracks.

Alarms screamed for Alexia’s attention as missiles spiraled in on her position, blasting holes into her armor protection. An offhand stream of autocannon fire picked at the Uziel’s lower torso as the Shrike walked its fire from the downed and struggling Atlas over to her.

“That warrior has skills,” Sire McKinnon warned her over the command frequency they shared. “Wary.”

She had no time for wariness. But a little good fortune was always appreciated. Twin blasts of argent lightning slashed out from her PPC barrels, coursing across the field, snaking into a tight braid until one stream of energy could hardly be distinguished from the other. Both carved into the Shrike’s left arm, burning deep through the damage already caused by the Atlas’ Gauss rifle.

The arm hung limp and silent at the Shrike’s side.

It bought Alexia Wolf a reprieve from the same debilitating fire that had scoured McKinnon’s Atlas, though for not much more than a moment as a pair of Jade Falcon Skadi VTOLs jumped above the tree line and added their fast-flying autocannon to the Shrike’s reduced firepower.

One of the VTOLs buzzed her backup line, worrying the Kinnol MBT, which had a hard time returning fire. Gnome battlesuit troops spread out from the Haseks, but they could do little except take cover as well.

The second VTOL chipped at McKinnon’s Atlas, now back on its feet and limping forward to join Alexia in pressing the retreating Shrike.

The Jade Falcon column had gained the plateau, and the enemy MechWarrior throttled into a reverse walk to close ranks. The Shrike’s ultra-class autocannon hammered more of Alexia’s armor into useless scrap. An arriving trio of Skanda light tanks sniped from long range, more hot metal spanging against the side of her machine. They ran defense for a pair of SM1 Destroyers and a late-arriving Shadow Hawk IIC.

Alexia toggled for an all-hands broadcast, but McKinnon seemed to sense it and whispered, “Wait for it,” over their command frequency.

A Tribune command vehicle lumbered up from the back of the Falcon column, bringing a Kelswa assault tank and a handful of hoverbikes with it. They looked to be the last of the enemy forces. It was hard to tell, with the magres interference and her HUD a jumble of overlapping signals. The interference working in favor of the Stormhammers now also worked in favor of the Falcons.

“But we were here first,” Alexia Wolf whispered to herself.

She gave herself a soft count of ten, just to be sure. Then, engaging her voice-activated mic, she ordered, “Striker Team Two, slam the door!”

From a shallow valley leading off of the plateau, a second lance of vehicles stormed up and into the right rear flank of the advancing Falcons. Two JES missile carriers, spreading warheads about them right and left, led the charge. A pair of Condors followed, adding in their own missile packs and challenging the Destroyers with medium-class autocannon.