It was a suicide run. Straight down the hill toward the waiting Falcons, and hope a few of the vehicles could break through to the rally point. But the Jessies were too slow, and Jasek knew it.
So did the missile carrier crews. “We’ve swatted down one of the Skadis,” one of them reported. JES-47. Jasek couldn’t remember the man’s name, and suddenly felt a deeper loss because of it. “We’re going to hunker down and give missile support to the others as they make their break.”
Jasek slammed a fist against his chair’s armrest. “You can’t stay on that hill.”
“Landgrave, sir. You know we can’t make that kind of push. Not in these beasties.”
He nodded reluctantly. “And we can’t come back for you.” Not without losing twice as many vehicles as they’d gain.
“We’re POW anyway you look at it. We’ll take it on our terms. Holding at the bottom slope and spreading out an umbrella that’ll make the Clanners think the sky is falling in on them. Luck.”
“Godspeed,” Jasek sent them. Snarling, he pushed forward to bring the Gyrfalcon back into range. Line of sight was tricky with all the trees, but not impossible. His PPCs danced through the forest, scourging the Falcon machine with lashes of blue white energy.
Jasek slapped at the emergency toggle on his communications panel. “This may be it. Ready Operation Lodestone, but wait for my order.” Throttling into a forward walk, he tied in his personal command frequency and called up the Hauberks as well as the two Pegasus scout craft.
Niccolò GioAvanti was on the other end of the channel. “Acknowledged. Where will you be?”
“Giving these men every chance I can,” he said, and severed the connection.
North Inlet Coastal Ranges
Noritomo Helmer planned to give his warriors every chance possible.
He stalked his Gyrfalcon down the draw. Arms lowered. Targeting system off. Trying to ignore the alarms of multiple target locks that rang loudly in his cockpit, drilling sharp holes into the side of his head. Every impulse in his body—his instincts and twelve years’ experience of duty—screamed at him to snap the toggles over, bring up his crosshairs, and drop them onto the wide-shouldered outline of the Ryoken II that waited for him at the end of the sloped canyon.
“Formality always has its place in Clan tradition,” he whispered to himself, careful of his voice-activated mic. He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself of the idea. “She wants me to blink first.”
Anastasia Kerensky, leader of the Steel Wolves, had refused long-distance comms to arrange this batchall. “I want to see your face,” she’d said, as she had every time in the last thirty-six hours.
This was their third meeting, always on her territory with her warriors backing her up. A Mad Cat III and a pair of SM1 Destroyers were arrayed behind Kerensky’s Ryoken. Ready to fire at the first sign of his treachery, or as the first sign of hers.
The narrow draw, with its high, shadowed sides, and the gunmetal gray sky hanging overhead left Noritomo feeling a bit claustrophobic. As if he walked his fifty-five-ton ’Mech down a very large barrel. Fifty meters was close enough that the two MechWarriors could stare at each other through ferroglass shields. He throttled back, bringing his ’ Falcon to a wide-legged stance, and dialed in a common channel. Unsecured transmission.
“I am Star Colonel Noritomo Helmer. I have added two of your warriors to my codex list of kills since our last batchall. With what forces do the Steel Wolves defend the North Inlet Ranges?”
A jaunty wave saluted him from the other cockpit. In a way, he thought that Kerensky was somehow casually mocking him. Hi, Noritomo. “I am Anastasia Kerensky of Clan Wolf and the Steel Wolves. Star Commander Yulri will defend the North Inlet mountains.”
Behind her, the Mad Cat III made a half-step bow.
“He has chosen two SM1 Destroyers and a pair of Demon medium tanks to fill out his Star.”
A hard-hitting force, and totally unexpected. Noritomo knew that Kerensky’s forces still had several tracked crawlers available, which were far better suited to the mountains than hovercraft and the wheeled Demons. He had anticipated a strategic challenge of position, playing heavy, slower forces against each other. By opting for fast-hitting firepower, she threatened to destroy anything he sent into the coastal ranges after her.
Trying to get something back for the Stormhammers, perhaps. Or, just some good old-fashioned posturing. The collapse of the defenders’ line near Norfolk had left the Steel Wolves exposed on the western flank. While the Stormhammers retreated to a new rally point somewhere north of Miliano, Kerensky fought tooth and nail to hold her unit together in the face of his superior force. So far she had made each small engagement costly, but a high price paid with small units beat a medium price paid by his entire Cluster.
And a victory was still a victory.
Still, something pulled at the back of his mind. Something dangerous that he had taken to heart from his hidden books. He whom the gods would destroy, they first make complacent. He swiveled his camera views around, pulling the Mad Cat and the two Destroyers in closer on video. One of the SM1s had different markings!
“Anastasia Kerensky, one of your Destroyers bears the Stormhammers crest.” Not all of the Stormhammers had retreated after Jasek Kelswa-Steiner?
“Why, yes, it does. So do both Demons, if you must know. But since they were bid in as Star Commander Yulri’s supporting forces, their pedigree is subservient to his. How they were lent to me, and how many more I have”—which was the real question she let hang between them for a moment—“is for you to discover.”
If he’d been a betting man, Noritomo would have guessed they were from the Tharkan Strikers, who had given Kerensky an earlier assist. Green troops, or close enough to make no difference. So she was conserving her own forces as well. So what?
“Aff,” he agreed. “And I will.”
He throttled into a backward walk, never turning his back on the enemy. Wolves were never so dangerous as when they felt cornered. “Bargained well and done. You will meet my forces soon.”
Sooner than she expected. Noritomo had already brought forward the Star he intended to personally lead in this Trial. They were a touch slower than he would have liked, but one thing he had learned under Malvina Hazen was better a constructive blow struck quickly than a well-matched blow struck too late to do much but glance off a shield.
Noritomo gave Kerensky’s people sixty seconds to clear the area. They retreated out of the canyon’s far end, spreading onto the small plateau his scout VTOLs had warned him about. “First Star, forward and attack,” he ordered.
A Defiance Industries Schmitt and two Jousts, both captured in the Jade Falcon drives against other worlds, rolled forward. With them came a Cardinal transport, hovering overhead, ready to deploy Elemental infantry. Careful, so as not to outpace the slower tracked vehicles, Noritomo tucked his Gyrfalcon in behind the Jousts and followed them back down the draw, targeting system active, searching for his first victim.
He whom the Gods would destroy…
“Alert! Forces in near vicinity of draw’s exit!”
The VTOL had jumped above the cliff face, taking the high road to come down on the other side. But without an express order to lead the charge, they too had hung back, and so their warning came late, just as the Jousts cleared the draw and piled into the cleared grounds where Kerensky and her forces had met him for batchall.
Both of her SM1 Destroyers had circled back to flank the exit, and they used their assault-class autocannon to drive hot metal into the flanks of both lead vehicles. Armor, chiseled away by twelve-centimeter slugs, littered the ground. The Jousts slewed over, the forty-ton tanks rocked nearly off their treads by the hard-hitting assault.