“Leutnant-colonel.” It was one of her pathfinders, scouting the back trail to make certain they did not fall back into an enemy trap. “We have the city’s outskirts in view.”

Coming up against a hard wall, then. Alexia dropped her crosshairs over a distant Koshi and spread two loads of long-range missiles through the air. Her Catapult rocked back under the missile exhaust, then forward as she hunched over.

The missiles slammed down around the Koshi’s position, driving it back. But not for long. Not when it was joined just outside of her best range by a pair of Skandas and a Thor. All along her thinned line, the Falcons massed in pairs and clumps. They would be coming again. Soon. And the Stormhammers would not be able to stand against them.

She was realist enough to admit it to herself. The Clans raised practical warriors who spent their lives judging very carefully the subtle win-loss percentages of any battle. Failing her Trial of Position on Arc-Royal had reinforced that skill. There she had fought for herself, and that had not been enough. Here Alexia believed she had found a larger cause, but that did not confer on her aerospace support or a company of heavy armor, which was what she needed.

“Light forces roll forward, engage, and skirmish. Prepare to fall back on our main line.”

She sent a practiced glance to her HUD, her tactical maps, and the view outside her cockpit ferroglass. She could buy another hour. Perhaps two—no more than two. “Air support. If you can get those Yellow Jackets back in the air, now is the time.”

Her VTOLs were the only aerospace forces she had under her command. Or was likely to see. The bulk of Skye’s aerospace corps was working to keep enemy DropShips grounded, to prevent the Falcons from redeploying their forces caught at New London.

The problem was, they had hoped to trap a lot more than they had.

It was her own fault as much as anyone’s. She had agreed when Tara Campbell judged Miliano safer from attack than Norfolk or Roosevelt Island. So had GioAvanti, whose family held widespread local interests, and Jasek, who had discussed it with his commanders in meetings before Glengarry and Chaffee. A larger city. More manpower to hold it. Everyone expected the Falcons to spend all their forces against the capital.

Using a high-atmosphere nuclear detonation to disrupt ground forces? Never. Not in the Clans she’d grown up learning about.

The Koshi began its run down through the valley that separated the Falcon position from her own, trailed by the Skandas and then the Thor. The lighter ’Mech had exceptional scouting abilities; no doubt it was looking for hidden battlesuit infantry or dug-in tanks. She almost wished she’d tried a trick of that nature. The maybes were piling up. So were the bodies, though, and any unit left in the no-man’s-land out there was not coming home.

“Forward and engage on my mark,” she ordered.

Throttling into a stiff, bowlegged walk, she pulled her crosshairs over the Thor. Her plan was to brush through the light machines and try to inflict some heavy damage on the larger ’Mech before being forced to run. It was a good plan. But someone else had it as well.

Twin streams of high-energy particles slashed out of a blind draw on the Thor’s left, ripping deep wounds along the BattleMech’s side. The machine rocked over on one foot, then teetered back.

For a second, Alexia wondered how one of her inexperienced warriors had slipped behind the enemy line. And had managed to stay hidden.

Then she realized that one couldn’t have. If nothing else, she knew she’d not lost track of one man or woman on the field today.

Another savage assault as PPCs blazed out arcing lashes to flail and strip the Thor of two more tons of armor. This time the seventy-ton machine went down, falling with a crash that Alexia thought she felt half a kilometer away. A Ryoken II stomped into view, its icon lighting up her HUD as it switched to active targeting sensors. That kind of accuracy on passive sensors?

More icons popped at nearly the same time, identifying Demons and Condors and even an SM1 Destroyer. All tagged with Steel Wolf marks.

“Not just for breakfast anymore,” a familiar voice crackled over the communications net.

“Thor s?” Alexia asked, perplexed at Anastasia Kerensky’s comment. Surprised at her very appearance on the battlefield. She didn’t waste the happy occurrence, though. Her missiles arced out and fell in desperate waves over the Koshi and the Skandas.

“Jade Falcons. In the old days, they would never have come back to Skye for a second bite. I guess somewhere along the way they grew a pair.”

And if Kerensky had been impressive coming at the Falcons with her sensors sidelined, as she drew a new bead on the shaken Thor she showed a true artist’s touch. Her PPCs slashed out in short, accurate cuts, blasting damage in behind each knee actuator and the shoulders as well. In a matter of seconds, she had incapacitated a seventy-ton BattleMech.

Alexia envied the other woman her skill, but did not let it get in her way. She claimed a Skanda and drove the Koshi into retreat by slamming a half dozen warheads into the side of its head. The Mech Warrior’s ears would still be ringing the next day. Turning, she lent savage support to a pair of Stormhammer VV1 Rangers who had corralled a green-painted Demon between them.

Another coordinated assault, and the Demon ground to a smoking halt.

All along her line, machines stomped, rolled, or skated forward. Alexia had no need to tell them to press. They simply did. Lasers sliced angrily back and forth. Autocannon hammered and the lightning of particle cannon struck out with furious insult. In an instant, the battle had shifted in the defenders’ favor.

Heavier machines rolling up behind the Strikers’ first wave and Steel Wolves on their flank? The Jade Falcon commander knew better than to push a suicidal position. Machines reversed in their tracks, or cut out on long, arcing escape paths. There was no panic. No rout that could be exploited. Chasing them would only open up Alexia’s people to a new counterstrike.

She was happy enough surviving the day with what was left of her command. Of Jasek’s people.

“We heard you weren’t interested,” Alexia said, feeling the first drain of battlefield lethargy settling into her aching muscles. “What changed your mind?”

“Oh, you might be surprised the things I’ve heard in the last few hours. Colonel Petrucci has been yammering reason after reason at me, even while we were under radio silence. But really only one thing he said mattered to me even a little.”

“What was that?”

Pause. “It’s something that can wait,” the Steel Wolf leader said, giving nothing away.

If Kerensky preferred to keep her cards close to her vest, Alexia wasn’t in a position to argue no matter how much the Clan warrior interested her. Besides, she wanted to get back to base camp and see to her wounded and her damaged equipment. There would be more battles, harder battles, and she had to be ready with whatever the Jade Falcons had left to her. It wasn’t much.

“Fair enough,” she said in agreement. “Bargained well and done.”

But watching what was left of her Tharkan Strikers limp back toward the city, and how much materiel was being left on the field for the recovery vehicles to salvage, a nagging concern ate away at her confidence. She amended her offer. “Just don’t take too long.”

Sutton Road

The Warhammer IIC was the undoing of every tactic Tara Campbell threw at the Clan warriors.

She matched her Kelswa assault tank against the Jade Falcons’ Schmitt. A Destroyer to chase their Bellona, and hoverbikes to harass the Pegasus. Her Highlanders always held an advantage in speed or armor, and usually in firepower as well. She had the majority of the enemy crews flustered and making mistakes. It wasn’t the kind of matchup you got very often against a Clan opponent, but then, she had prepared fairly well for this kind of engagement.