She landed the Ryoken II unharmed on its feet, then buffeted the Paladin’s Blade with one massive metal arm and laughed to see him fall, roll, and come back to his feet.

“That had to have hurt,” she said, and powered up the twin lasers on the Ryoken II. “Now see how you like this.”

The Blade turned and ran, heading back uphill toward the Highlander lines. The strokes of lightning that played across the sky illuminated its progress with a jerky, strobe-like light. The Ryoken II’s hammer blow and the Blade’s resulting fall had crippled the lighter ’Mech, and its normally graceful gait was clumsy and wavering.

Anastasia let out a whoop of savage delight, and gave chase.

Lightning flashed and zigzagged over the battlefield as Ezekiel Crow took his Blade up the long slope at a deliberately stumbling pace, with Anastasia Kerensky’s Ryoken II close at its heels. He gave ironic thanks to the deity he had not believed in since Chang-an burned that the Clans professed to be above deception and subterfuge.

They weren’t, of course—in Crow’s judgment, there was no man or woman living who was above deceit—but their disdain for the use of such tactics tended to make them exceptionally bad at recognizing deception in action. In her zeal to follow and finish off what she perceived as a damaged and failing ’Mech, Anastasia Kerensky gave no sign of realizing that his Blade, for all its tantalizing closeness and limping gait, nevertheless managed to stay ahead of her pursuing Ryoken II all the way up the hill.

Crow reached the crest line of the hill with a safe lead on the Ryoken II, and as soon as he was over the top and out of Anastasia’s sight he put the Blade into a fast sprint. For what he was going to try next, he wanted to put plenty of downhill distance between himself and Kerensky.

Lightning flashed again overhead, multiple strokes coming close together, turning the Ryoken II into a stark picture in black and white as it strode inexorably into view on the crest line. Another blaze of lightning. Crow lifted his right arm and shot the Blade’s extended-range medium laser into the air over the Ryoken II’s shoulder. Lightning flashed again overhead—and the stroke followed the laser’s trail of ionized air back down toward the nearest high target: Anastasia Kerensky’s ’Mech.

Trails of electricity crawled over the Ryoken II’s armored surface like blue and purple worms. It took one step downhill, then another—slower and more awkward—before its systems seized up completely and it stiffened, toppled, and fell.

Tara Campbell felt the impact of the MiningMechs’ short-range missiles as a series of explosions rippling up the Hatchetman’s left side, staggering her and driving her sideways. The Warrior in the ForestryMech saw his opportunity and charged, his ’Mech’s huge chainsaw roaring.

That chainsaw could slice right through the Hatchetman’s light Durallex armor. He’d be going for her ax, Tara thought, and she didn’t dare lose her primary weapon. The displays from her left side sensors were flickering, and the Imperator autocannon on that side was definitely jammed—all she had left there was the left arm itself. In a pinch it would make a good club, but nothing more than that.

She turned to face the onrushing ForestryMech, lit it up with her Defiance extended-range medium laser, then started the Hatchetman pacing into its charge in long, ground-eating strides, following the laser beam in. She was peripherally aware of the two MiningMechs to her right, both of them running toward her with the peculiar lumbering gait of Industrials.

Tara smiled grimly. The Warriors in the ’Mechs didn’t know it, but they were at a disadvantage. Unless they’d trained in fighting together, in fighting as a team, she was free to treat everyone around her as an enemy, while the two of them had to worry about hitting her while at the same time not inflicting damage on each other by accident. Moreover, her plans and her actions would be instantaneous while they had to take time to communicate among themselves.

The ForestryMech was almost upon her, and she upon it. She jumped, cutting in her jets as she rose, and leaped over the top of the ForestryMech, kicking it in the head as she went over. The angular momentum of the combined jump-and-kick nearly tumbled her, but the Hatchetman’s gyros held her steady as she landed directly behind the ForestryMech.

Before the Steel Wolf MechWarrior could turn, Tara spun the more agile Hatchetman around, and the great metal ax lashed forward and down. The blade cut into the shoulder joint on the ForestryMech’s right side, shearing through the layers and ropes of steel and myomer and rendering its chainsaw useless. The ’Mech still had its autocannon, but if she could stay behind it…

She couldn’t. The Miners were here now, rock cutters raised. Tara turned to her right, to the closest one, and lashed out with the hatchet. The MiningMech stepped back out of reach, then pressed forward again—the MechWarrior was going for Tara’s hatchet arm with his rock cutter, and now it was Tara’s turn to step back. The movement brought her no escape from danger—it took her instead into the range of the second MiningMech, which promptly seized the opportunity to start gnawing away with its rock cutter at the Hatchetman’s already damaged left side and arm.

Time to call for assistance. Three on one was all very well, but pride was for fools.

“Paladin Crow, get over here,” Tara said into her ’Mech-to-’Mech comm link. “I’ve got some fresh carrion for you.”

Meanwhile, she had to stay alive and keep fighting. The longer she kept this trio of ’Mechs engaged, the less damage they could do to other Highlander units who couldn’t take the damage. She couldn’t get her hatchet around to strike the nearest MiningMech—she had the other MiningMech coming up behind her, and the ForestryMech on her right side was turning to shoot at her with that little Whirlwind autocannon.

Little autocannon or not, at this distance the ForestryMech couldn’t miss—not when its target was close enough to practice ballroom dancing with—and at such close range the Whirlwind’s ammo would chew through the Hatchetman’s Durallex armor as if it wasn’t even there.

Nothing for it, then, but to attack. She turned her ’Mech’s laser against the MiningMech in front of her, switched the targeting on, and aimed for the head and the sensory bundles. She followed up the laser with an ax swing to the right, against the already damaged ForestryMech. This time she aimed low, for a leg, and struck her opponent in the hip. The blade of the hatchet crimped metal in what should have been moving parts—but which wouldn’t be moving any longer.

She brought the hatchet back up to the ready position and jumped again, landing a short distance behind the ForestryMech. She pressed the Hatchetman’s left arm against the ForestryMech’s torso and pushed.

With its crippled leg, the ForestryMech couldn’t maintain its balance. It fell, tumbling to the ground beneath the legs of the MiningMech that Tara had just been fighting.

She struck out again with her hatchet, not caring now if the MiningMech’s rock cutter came too close, and hooked the ’Mech’s left arm. The MiningMech had only machine guns in that arm—no threat to a BattleMech. She pulled back on the hatchet arm in the same direction the MiningMech had already been going.

In her Hatchetman, she only outweighed the MiningMech by ten tons—little enough, so that she had to use wrestling tricks rather than raw strength to force the other to fall. But fall he did, with his legs entangled in the fallen ForestryMech. Tara leapt up, aided by her jump jets, and brought the Hatchetman’s forty-five-ton mass crashing down with both heels in the center of the MiningMech’s back. MiningMech and ForestryMech were reduced to a tangle of crumpled metal that would take repair technicians weeks to sort out and fix.