For a moment, the plateau was a tangle of chaotic firefights. Missiles rained down on both sides of the Jade Falcon line, geysering dirt and rock and scorched brush into the air. A few fireballs blossomed over a line of Elementals, scattering the infantry into hiding places.

Lasers slashed back and forth.

A Gauss slug from McKinnon’s Atlas smashed into the front of a Skanda, crumpling its slanted nose and crushing the barrel of its light autocannon. Another Gauss shot clipped a hoverbike, sending it end over end in a death roll.

Alexia combined her long-reaching PPC fire with more from the Haseks, sending bolt after bolt of man-made lightning snaking across the flat ground to open a hole for Team Two, which continued to pound on the Destroyers.

The SM1s were no pushovers, though. Powering about on a cushion of air, the assault hovercraft drifted backward, turning their twelve-centimeter cannon against the lighter Condors, smashing back with raw force. In a display of devastating unity, both Destroyers concentrated fire on a single Condor. The hammering streams of metal ripped open the crew compartment, cutting through men and materiel both, then reached deep into the engine to rupture the fuel tank.

Greasy flames erupted back through the compartment, finishing off any crew missed by the hail of slugs. The Condor slewed around to the left, out of control, and piled into a short stack of boulders.

The vehicle flipped over onto its side and was still rocking back and forth when a secondary explosion finally tore it apart.

“Welcome them home,” Alexia called out, and every one of her units turned its firepower on the Falcon line right where the Jessies and the remaining Condor would cross. The Destroyers, still drifting backward in their own retrograde maneuver, sailed right through her sights. She pulled the crosshairs over, waited for a solid lock on one, and sliced another pair of PPCs across its skirting.

Air spilled out from beneath the SM1, and it settled hard against the ground before the lift fans shattered and spun the entire vehicle back up into the air and around in a violent pirouette.

The three remaining vehicles of Team Two skated through the hole and raced home to their brethren.

“All units, prepare to withdraw.”

McKinnon’s Atlas had advanced far enough to retake point position against the Shrike. “We aren’t done yet,” the venerable Paladin reminded her.

No, they weren’t. The Falcons were massing behind the assault ’Mech and the Shadow Hawk IIC. The fight wasn’t out of them by a long shot. And the Shrike was too damned fast for an assault machine. If the Stormhammers withdrew now, it would catch them and deal some serious hurt.

As if summoned by thought, the Shrike leaped forward on jets of plasma, bringing its medium-range weapons into range and hammering again at the Atlas. One of the Skadi swift attack VTOLs followed after it, but a spearing laser blast from McKinnon severed its tail rotor. The craft corkscrewed into a steep bank, erupting into a ball of orange fire.

Still, the Shrike came on.

Jasek’s Stormhammers weren’t so numerous they could spend their forces casually. But Alexia recognized a tactical necessity when it kicked her in the teeth. McKinnon had called this play and she’d backed him, and the Jade Falcon assault ’Mech was determined to call the bill due.

McKinnon had closed down her fire lane again—wanting the Shrike for himself or simply trying to push her toward backing up her own people first, it was hard to say. Well, maybe it wasn’t, given the old Paladin’s opinion of non-Republic troops. But his Atlas was limping, which put him already at a disadvantage and would slow the Strikers down on their coming retreat. She would not leave McKinnon behind, no matter if he would or wouldn’t return that favor personally.

She knew what she had to do.

“Team One, advance by pairs and alternate fire at your best target. Team Two…” She bit down hard on her tongue for a few heartbeats. It wouldn’t be pretty, what she had to ask those hovercraft to do. “Two, slide back around. Try to isolate the Shrike and by the Great Father, watch your backs in there.”

She pushed her own throttle to the forward stop, racing the Uziel ahead at better than ninety kilometers per hour. She followed an oblique line after the Atlas, trying to get a clear shot past McKinnon.

The Shrike worked its own angle against her, shaving the Atlas down one ton of armor at a time while keeping the awesome machine between them. The Kelswa assault tank crept up in the shadow of the Falcon Shadow Hawk, both machines ready to add their larger weapons into the fight. McKinnon had to see his danger.

Didn’t he?

Twin Gauss rifles on the Kelswa flashed with their capacitor discharge, ramming a pair of nickel-ferrous slugs into either leg on McKinnon’s Atlas. The Shrike fed several laser blasts into the maelstrom, then walked a flight of missiles up the assault machine’s body. One warhead clipped the side of its head. McKinnon’s progress stopped dead, as if his hundred-ton monster had struck an invisible wall. It teetered back, seemingly on its way back to the ground, but then rocked forward in a smooth hunching motion that most Mech Warriors could only dream of pulling off in such a heavy machine.

Still tipped back on its heels, the mighty BattleMech looked as if it had managed a perfect balancing point. With a cross-body shot, McKinnon punched a Gauss slug into the side of the Kelswa, shattering armor into fragments of its former strength.

Then he bent one knee, drawing his Atlas forward into an easy crouch that let Alexia see the advancing Shrike.

It wasn’t the cleanest shot she’d had today, but it was the best she was going to get at the moment and her instincts knew it even if her brain hadn’t quite caught on. The leutnant-colonel speared both arms forward, blasting out twin forks of azure lightning that passed to either side of the Atlas’ head, giving McKinnon one hell of a show no doubt. The spitting arcs drew into the side of the Shrike, feeding into previous wounds to reach deep, deep into the left torso.

And found the ammunition magazine for the autocannon.

Striking approximately five tons of heavy munitions with several kilojoules of rampant energy had the kind of effect one might think. Several thousand rounds cooked off in less than a second, and thousands more a fraction later as a chain reaction ate up the machine’s entire left side. Special construction channeled a great deal of the horrendous violence out through prepared blast channels, but Newton’s laws were still in effect. The Shrike pitched forward and around, slamming its left side into the plateau’s hard earth and digging a deep furrow with what was left of its shoulder. A twist of soot-laced smoke rolled out of the ’Mech’s ruined back.

Alexia could only imagine the cement mixer treatment the feedback of such a large internal explosion had visited on the MechWarrior inside.

Not enough to put the assault machine down for good, unfortunately. The Shrike moved almost at once in an effort to regain its feet.

McKinnon was up and backing away, using his last few Gauss shots to worry the fallen MechWarrior about the possibility of a lucky head hit. Alexia Wolf called off Team Two before they tried to pounce on the struggling assault ’Mech. They would have found the Kelswa assault tank too close for comfort, and ready for them.

“I think we’ve given them enough to think about,” McKinnon said on their private channel. His Atlas veered away from the Falcon line, attracting the JES missile carriers and the remaining Condor to its side. The Shadow Hawk IIC tried to rally a new drive, but a gut-punching Gauss hit took most of the fight out of it.