War so often came down to a simple numbers game.

“We had better find out for certain,” he told Lysle, calling her over as he dropped down to the command vehicle’s door. He finished his drink in a pair of large swallows and handed the empty container and his headset to an aide. “If the JumpShip is back early,” he said to himself, “it cannot be good news.”

It wasn’t. Meeting Bogart and Lysle outside the command vehicle, returning the man’s salute and accepting the verifax from him, Noritomo pressed his thumb to the reader and waited while a DNA check unlocked the datafiles inside. It took him two minutes, scanning through the datafiles, to see the new mess The Republic had created for him.

“Idiots. Stravag incompetents. What did they hope to accomplish?”

Reading over his shoulder, a feat not too difficult for a woman her size, Lysle scrunched up her face with distaste. “Ryde. Summer. Glengarry. One planet taken: Summer. Two factory lines and a munitions depot destroyed. The loss of three Stars’ worth of vehicles. I would say they accomplished quite well.”

“In a purely tactical appraisal, that would be correct.” In fact, if Malvina had not cost the raiders a Union–class DropShip, knocking it out of the air with an Alamo, the balance would tip even farther into The Republic’s column. By one way of thinking, it was too bad she caught it on the way down, not on takeoff. Adding a Stormhammer company to the totals might have made for a solid Falcon victory.

A numbers game.

“But why sting at us with raiding assaults?” he asked. “What is the reason behind them?” He did not ask out of confusion, but to make his officers think. Think like the enemy.

Bogart caught on first. “Factory production and stockpiles,” he mused, tapping a meaty finger against a square chin. The freeborn commander was a very short man with bronzed skin, large, wide shoulders, and a shaved head. Slender at the waist but with oversized legs and arms, he reminded Noritomo of a shortened version of a mythological beast—the Minotaur. “Delaying tactics?” he asked.

“Exactly. They hope to buy more time to ready Skye against Malvina’s return.”

Lysle shrugged, accepting the noteputer from him. “I still fail to see the problem, Star Colonel. We salvaged Ryde, according to these reports, with heavy losses to both sides. Glengarry is a wash. Summer…” She read the file again. “It looks as if we have given up Summer to reinforce Zebebelgenubi.”

“Which means that Malvina Hazen does not plan to wait. Zebebelgenubi is more important than Summer only for its proximity to Skye and targets deeper within Prefecture IX.”

He paused, thinking it through. “She will see this assault as an insult. A personal affront, given that her own ’Mech was so badly damaged in a short battle. She will launch for Skye sooner, not later.” He shook his head. “She will strike without us, and use every terror tactic at her disposal to break the spine of Skye once and for all.”

Pandora’s evils, unleashed. With their ill-conceived raids, the Skye defenders had sealed their doom and ruined his plans. Noritomo needed more time. Now he was not going to get it.

“She might yet summon us up,” Lysle offered.

“With enemy forces inbound? She will wait to see how we conduct ourselves.”

Bogart shrugged, a gesture that used most of his upper body. “Then we smash these Republicans. And we charge for Skye as soon as Galaxy Commander Hazen calls us.”

Yes, definitely bull-like. But the freeborn warrior had said something that struck a chord with Noritomo. “Aff, we can only ready our defense and show our leaders that we are still worthy of battle. Smashing the inbound force—Lyran or Republic—will go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.”

“They are Republic,” Bogart said, sounding very certain of himself. Too certain. “And if we truly wish to shock them, we should ignore their batchall, quaiff?”

The question struck Noritomo like a closed fist. “What did you say?”

“Their batchall? It is in the datafiles.” He nodded at the noteputer held in Lysle’s large hands.

There was a file he had not opened, and it was not linked through the menu of daily reports, which was why he had missed it the first time. And it was labeledBATCHALL , which was the formal bidding practice used between Clans to limit the waste of war materiel. With all the trouble Noritomo had wrestled because of using Clan traditions, here an Inner Sphere faction was recognizing the wisdom of Clan ways? It seemed too good to be true.

He opened the file. Appended to a simple, direct question, which was the entire body of the main text, was a personal bio of the sender. Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner. Stormhammers, commanding.

There was even an abbreviated list of his accomplishments, arranged in a similar fashion to a Clan codex: Champion of Nusakan. Victor at Zebebelgenubi. Defender of Skye.

And if there was any doubt that Kelswa-Steiner understood Clan practices, the short message was even written in the same formal fashion that began most Jade Falcon batchalls: With what forces does Clan Jade Falcon defend its interests on Chaffee?

Noritomo Helmer smiled. This was just what his people needed.

20

Longview

Cowlitz County, Chaffee

8 November 3134

Pushing along the river’s edge, gaining a foothold on the blacktop-covered dockside, Jasek anchored his Templar against the water’s edge and quickly called up his Archon’s Shield battalion to cement the Stormhammers position. After chasing Noritomo Helmer’s troops for half a day, Jasek had every intention of forcing the Clanner to abandon his hit-and-fade tactics, and to stand and fight for the city of Longview.

This certainly looked to be it. A double line of Falcon tanks held the center of the waterfront complex, flanked by a pair of modified SalvageMechs. The light autocannon replacing their left arms belted out a few long-range shots that picked and pecked at the forming Stormhammer line. A fifty-five-ton Gyrfalcon and a light Stinger teamed up at the water’s edge, directly ahead of Jasek’s position. They stood in front of a trio of Demon medium tanks.

Jade Falcon VTOLs buzzed over the lumber mill, weaving around in a complex dance to disguise how they might break away at a second’s notice to strafe the ground-bound troops. Fortunately, Jasek had been able to peel away two two-fighter elements from the air battle raging above the cloud cover. They would arrive in moments. When they did, his line had better be set.

“Colonel Vandel. Dress up our backfield and push those Kelswas up onto our right flank. Buy the Steel Wolves some time to deploy.”

“That’s some valuable coin we’re risking,” the Lyran officer warned him over a tight command circuit.

“They’re good for it.”

At least, Jasek hoped so.

So far Anastasia Kerensky had held to her word, following his strategy so long as he gave her complete tactical freedom. Her parallel push to his had caught several Jade Falcon warriors unprepared, even though he had bid her forces into the batchall fairly, if under the name of the Stormhammers. She was responsible for rolling up the western wing and he had opened the way into Longview. Even-up.

Now, on the far right, an Eyrie was already trading close-in blows with Leutnant Gillickie’s Storm Raider. But as the Kelswa tanks moved up with their ’Mech-killing Gauss rifles and the Steel Wolves after them, the Eyrie fell back among two Behemoths and the only Elemental forces that Jasek had yet to see of Helmer’s bid Star.

Joss Vandel’s mobile HQ crawled up into the seam that separated Stormhammer from Steel Wolf. “If we had kept Third Company and not left them with the Steel Wolf auxiliaries guarding our DropShips, we’d slaughter the Falcons.”