Alexia wrestled her Uziel around, planning a rendezvous with Team One. “We can hope.” She panted for breath, waiting for her cockpit temperature to fall back toward nominal levels. “It is still a long way back to the DropShip.”

But the Falcons seemed content to gather protectively around their wounded giant. Temerity? From Clan warriors? Or had she come across someone a bit more important than she realized? “Who do you think is in that monster?” she asked.

“The Shrike? That was Galaxy Commander Hazen, unless I miss my guess. A bit off her game from the battleroms I’ve reviewed, but still pushed it too close for the oddsmakers.”

Malvina Hazen? “You might have said something.” And what? Alexia would have traded a few of Jasek’s followers for a shot at the Falcon leader? Maybe.

“I didn’t want you distracted.” The Skye forces had gained nearly a kilometer from the battlefield and the Falcon warriors. They could begin to relax. “If she had given us an opening, I would’ve taken her.”

“You’re welcome,” Alexia said in clipped tones, not caring for the insinuation that she would have been unable to make the same judgment, or the same effort. Jasek had warned her about him when they divvied up on Seginus. “Not that you needed a helping hand or anything.”

“It was a nice brace of shots.” The beginnings of a compliment, and as far as the Paladin was willing to go apparently. “Just goes to prove that we’re part of a brave new world.”

“How is that?” Alexia asked, wary.

“In my younger years, Lyrans couldn’t shoot that straight if their own lives depended on it.” She heard the mocking smile in his voice. “Give them both hands and a map—they’d still manage to wound themselves in the foot.”

“I am not a Lyran,” she said hotly. But she wasn’t Clan either. Not anymore.

McKinnon seemed to pick up on that. Lumbering his Atlas after her, he asked, “Well, what are you, then?”

Letting his question hang unanswered, Alexia lapsed into a determined silence. One she planned to hold for the next several kilometers, and maybe even all the way back to Skye. It was a serious question, and it needed answering, she knew. But there was no need to discuss it with McKinnon. She barely had been able to dance around the subject with Jasek.

What was she?

That, she thought, was what she was still trying to decide for herself.

19

Longview

Cowlitz County, Chaffee

6 November 3134

Longview’s industrious river port was a near-perfect training facility, even if it smelled of stagnant water and wet sawdust. A warehousing district. A lumber mill. The dockyards. It was wide open enough for BattleMechs to move unhindered among vehicle formations. Stacks of logs that had been floated downriver and the most monstrous piles of sawdust Noritomo Helmer had ever seen provided cover for smaller ground forces. The buildings—some larger than ’Mech hangars and all constructed to demanding local codes—could take more than their fair share of abuse. Emergency vehicles stood by to put out any accidental fires from errant lasers, and Noritomo had offered good terms to repay any permanent damage from Clan coffers.

Not only were the local politicians getting used to Jade Falcon aegis, they welcomed it as a new source of income for the sagging economy.

From a command vehicle parked dockside of the lumber mill, Noritomo sipped at a citrus-flavored energy drink and judged the Star-on-Star battle taking place along the waterfront. The simulated battle was going well, with Lysle on the ground directing a mixed Star of Elementals and converted SalvageMechs against a mechanized striker unit—two M1 Marksman tanks supported by a trio of Demons. So far the Demons were doing a good job harassing her Elementals, herding them away from the center of their line. The M1s had a rougher time of it, intimidated by the SalvageMechs, which continued to pound away at them with light autocannon.

In a real battle, those vehicles would be scrap metal by now and the crew nothing better than hamburger. A poor showing.

He hadn’t expected a great deal more. The M1 crews were all new arrivals on Chaffee, more weeding out of the desant’s standing forces. Not a Bloodnamed warrior among them, and several were freeborn “orphans.” The only upside was that Malvina Hazen’s comments—attached to their codex—lacked the same fire with which she’d banished Noritomo to this secondary staging world. Cursory and curt, she’d reposted the crews to Chaffee to be “trained and readied.” Which meant she had some idea of what he was up to, and even approved. If that was the case, he saw no reason to let up now.

“Another week,” Noritomo said to Lysle as he canceled the exercise. He held a wireless headset up to the side of his face rather than wearing it. “Double-duty rotations which will include refresher training in how to match against IndustrialMechs.”

The Elemental jumped up onto a tall pile of lumber, taking a commanding view of the waterfront’s blacktop. She waved her acknowledgment with one arm lifted above her head, then paused.

“Is that Bogart?” she asked, her voice deep and strong even through the transmission.

It was. Noritomo turned away from the ferroglass windows and checked an auxiliary monitor. The Star colonel’s staff had failed to see the VV1 Ranger, which slalomed carefully between some nearby cargo containers, sneaking up on the blind side of the command vehicle.

He very nearly smiled. The freeborn tank commander was one of the rare finds Noritomo had made while putting together his new battle Cluster. A loner who had left his real name behind him, taking a one-name moniker as did many freeborn when trying to make their way in a Clan’s trueborn-dominated military, Bogart had a knack for delivering stopping-power assaults just when you were ready to write off his light armor as a mere diversion.

“Light him up,” he ordered a nearby warrior, who slid into the gunner’s seat. The warrior tracked the command vehicle’s lasers around to drop crosshairs over the Ranger’s front grille. The high-pitched whine of target lock would be twice as loud inside the Ranger.

Standing in his seat, Star Captain Bogart bowed his surrender to Noritomo. The VV1 pushed forward at a regular pace now, weaving rapidly between the last few containers and breaking into the open.

“He is early with the dailies,” Noritomo said, glancing at a nearby display on which glowing red numerals read as a twenty-four-hour military clock.

The “dailies” were his intelligence briefings, brought back from Glengarry on one of five commercial JumpShips dragooned into his service. They actually came in every other day on a very simple rotation. A JumpShip leaped into the Glengarry system, recharged at an expedient pace, then picked up whatever intelligence Beckett Malthus saw fit to share before it jumped back to Chaffee. Without a working HPG, such a “pony express” system was the only way to keep up on Jade Falcon movements.

“Perhaps our friends have pushed forward more quickly than we thought.”

He frowned, unused to sarcasm from Lysle. “You mean the forces sneaking in-system? They are still two days out. Our aerospace forces will hit them tomorrow.”

“They could increase their rate of approach.”

They could, but Noritomo doubted it. You did not rush to battle when you had the superior force. IR signatures had indicated that at least three JumpShips had breached the Chaffee system using a nonstandard pirate point only four days out instead of the usual eight days it took to reach the zenith or nadir jump points. Three vessels. Republic or Lyran, it hadn’t much mattered to him. If he assumed an average carry of 2.5 each, the assault force would bear down on him with between six and nine DropShips. His aerospace fighters and two assault DropShips might cut the margin down somewhat, but he fully expected to be at a disadvantage against whatever landed on Chaffee.