Gravity did the rest.

“Down,” Evan croaked after the simulator quit bouncing him against the simulated street. “Kurst is down.” His wireframe schematic showed heavy armor loss across his entire lower torso and damage to the gyroscopic stabilizers. He also counted three warning lights—two for ruptured heatsinks, and another for a ruined jump jet.

Evan worked his controls, half rising, half stumbling into a side street, taking out the overhead traffic signals with a swinging arm. He regained his bearings quickly.

“Backing away north, nor-east.” Away from his infantry reinforcements. “Elemental company, move zero-nine-zero for new rendezvous point.” The move would tie them together only a half kilometer shy of the staging Fulcrum heavy hovertanks. Evan couldn’t call on them for additional support, but he trusted the computer’s AI to make some decisions on its own.

Which it did in the next few seconds as the Shen Yi put its weight to use, driving through a nearby apartment building rather than take the longer way around. Joined by a squad of Hauberk infantry and more fearsome Fa Shih, the BattleMech led the drive forward. The Schmitt and remaining Demon stuck to the street, chasing around the corner the same way Evan had come.

Evan reacted without thought, recognizing the danger in an instant. Close quarters with the Shen Yi and the Schmitt, pressed up against a row of high-rise apartments, it was a no-win situation. He stomped down on his steering pedals, lighting off his remaining jump jets and leaping into the air, right out of the Shen Yi’s line of fire.

Too late for the apartments, though. The programmed Capellan reached out with lasers and missiles again, gouging deep into the building. Evan twisted the Thunderbolt about in midair, feathered his jets early and soft-landed it atop the high-rise.

Like an archer looking down from a parapet, he had a commanding view and clear firing lanes. He put a Gauss slug into the Shen Yi’s shoulder and peppered its head and chest with missiles, staggering the mighty machine. Then, before anyone could track him, he stepped backward off the building. Firing three short bursts from his jets, Evan landed in a ready crouch on the next street over.

“On the run,” Evan said for the sergeant’s benefit, delaying and distracting as he tried to put his plan into effect.

Throttling into a forward run, Evan pounded down one street, over again, and then raced forward as he brought his Thunderbolt in among the armored infantry. They moved as one unit then, the Elementals scurrying around him like soldier ants. Turning back to the west, they paraded into a large intersection, gaining it just as the Shen Yi came up another block west with the Demon and Hauberk, and the slower Schmitt one long block south protected by Fa Shih.

And only two blocks short of the militia Fulcrums.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered to the computer, levering up light gauss to engage the closer Shen Yi.

His gauss missed again, careening off the angular shoulder armor and leaving behind nothing worse than a bright crease in the dark-painted metal. Missiles rained down on the Confederation machine, blinding it in a wreath of fire and thick, gray smoke. Taking their cue from his targeting, the Elemental infantry leapt forward, swarming toward the sixty-five-ton scrapper, letting loose with backpack missiles and the short-range stabbing lasers that replaced their left hands.

And on his HUD Evan saw the Fulcrum hovertanks finally begin to move forward, coming down the street behind him as the limited AI put them on self-preservation, proactive assaults. By his HUD markings, they engaged the Shen Yi.

“Yes!”

With his infantry and the Fulcrum hovertanks tying up one force, Evan was left to slow down the Schmitt with its Fa Shih entourage. The assault tank had paused, waiting at the far intersection in a yellow island of streetlamp light. It waited for not much more than a second, though, before it began its slow, unimaginative drive forward, weapons ready.

Missiles punched out from the Schmitt’s launcher, hammering into Evan’s Thunderbolt. A pair of warheads found the ruin of his torso cavity, scoring the reactor’s shielding and damaging more internal components. Vents dumped more heat into the simulator pod, raising fresh sweat on his legs and arms, stinging at his eyes.

Evan moved down the narrow street, kicking a streetlight post, which sheared off at its base. Missiles… gauss… missiles again. He watched his ammunition rates fall into critical levels. He needed another few dozen meters, just enough that his jump jets could put him over and behind the assault tank, but the Schmitt wasn’t giving it to him.

Missiles and lasers pasted his BattleMech, shredding more armor from the Thunderbolt’s right leg, side and arm. The tank slowed its advance, and then began to grind backward with the Fa Shih in tow.

Seventeen attempts at this scenario, dozens of spectator monitoring and hundreds—more!—in case study reviews and this was the first case Evan could think of where any member of the Confederation assault force retreated!

“No you don’t,” he whispered, pushing his throttle forward just a touch more. “Come back here and hold your ground.” He goosed his throttle again. “You’re the assaulting marauders. Assault!”

“Cadet,” a new voice bled over his comm network. Not Sergeant Cox. “Shen Yi has been taken. Demon neutralized and Hauberk falling back.”

No time to worry about what had happened to Sergeant Cox. “On my position,” he ordered. “Forward at the Schmitt.” He throttled into a full-out run that the assault vehicle could not hope to match. “Six… five… four…” Suddenly, he was pounding down the street at better than sixty kilometers per hour, kicking aside parked civilian vehicles and charging down on the tank’s position.

Right into the spread of mines laid by the Fa Shih.

The first explosion blossomed underfoot at the count of three, shoving him to the left. The Thunderbolt’s shoulder dug into the side of a building. A second mine detonated directly under the flat of his spade-footed machine, jerking the sim pod in a rough shake. Evan cursed his eagerness, having overlooked one of the basic functions of Fa Shih battle armor: their ability to pay out portable minefields.

Another explosion, and his wireframe darkened about the left foot. He had to get off the ground now, now, now!

Cutting in his jump jets, Evan rocketed up in his Thunderbolt, gliding forward on streams of fiery plasma. Up two stories… three. He leaned forward to get every last meter, trying to get behind the Schmitt where he’d drill into its back with one of his remaining Gauss loads.

He wasn’t going to make it.

The minefield had goaded Evan into his jump too early. The smarter move would have been to break off the attack and regroup with his support team. BattleMechs were fearsome machines, but a supported ’Mech using combined-arms tactics was twice as deadly. Evan knew that. But never before had the simulated Confederation forces used it to their advantage quite so well. Overwhelming firepower and ruthless tactics. That was their game, as programmed by Republic trainers.

An assault vehicle did not retreat, and hold back its most damaging weapons until an overeager Republic warrior jumped into its trap.

Showing an almost casual confidence, the Schmitt powered forward again, tracking Evan with its rotary autocannon. Fire licked out several meters past the end of each barrel as it spat out long, lethal streams of metal. Catching him in the air, the slugs gouged new craters in his right arm, shoulder and down into the already mangled armor that protected his gyro and fusion engine. The pod hitched… stuttered… listed heavily to one side as Evan fought to control his jump, bring his arm around for one last gauss shot, and crouch into a semicon-trolled landing.