43

Belgorod

Terra

Prefecture X

April 3134; local spring

“What’s the status of the battle?” Tara Campbell asked her aide-de-camp over the Highlander command and control circuit. She herself was nearly done with reload and field repairs on her battered Hatchetman.

“We’re getting reports of Steel Wolves at our rear,” Captain Bishop reported. “Condors and JESs, coming in groups of three. Kerensky must have sent the hovers around our flanks.”

“What do we have back there?”

“Light stuff. That’s about all.”

“Call back our Scimitars,” Tara ordered, cursing herself meanwhile as seven kinds of fool for not leaving heavy security in the rear. It would be just like Anastasia Kerensky to try a sneak attack from behind while everyone was watching and guarding the front. “All of them. They’re the quickest stuff we have. Tell them to mix it up with the Wolves, slow them down, until we can get something heavier back there.”

The field repairs were done, and Tara remounted her ’Mech. “Captain Bishop,” she said, as soon as she’d dogged down the entry hatch and strapped herself into the command seat. “Where exactly are you?”

“South of your location,” Bishop replied. “I have a magnetic signature on Kerensky, and I’m going to take her.”

“Understand—you’re pursuing Kerensky. Carry on. Stay in touch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“One more thing—there may be friendlies beyond your position. They won’t know you’re coming. So be careful.”

“That I will. Bishop out.”

Calling for infantry and heavy armor was all very well, Tara Campbell thought, and the best she could come up with on short notice, but there was no way she would make it back to the rear of her lines herself in time to fight the hovers. And with the relative speeds involved, very little she could do about the light armor that was harassing her forces elsewhere. Nevertheless, she had to do something—in a pitched battle, one did not waste a Hatchetman on standing around and waiting.

“Control, this is Prefect Campbell,” she said on the tactical net. “I need some armor to punch through the Wolves’ front line. I believe they’ve stripped it of units in order to make a run around our flanks.”

“We don’t have much,” Control replied. “Our heavies are mostly bogged down.”

“If our heavies are bogged down, then so are theirs,” Tara said. “Give me infantry, then, as much of it as we’ve got.”

“What we have will be moving to your location,” Control said. “Pop a beacon they can home on.”

“Beacon, aye,” Tara said. “I’m moving west. Guide on me.”

“Control, roger, out.”

Tara walked west. She moved slowly, picking a way for her ’Mech over the sloppy ground, avoiding the lowest places where the ground glistened with surface water.

This is a hell of a place to fight, she thought. I hope no one else has to do it ever again.

“Looks like some excitement away south,” Will said to his fellow Sergeants over the tactical radio. “Somebody’s just popped a flare. We’re scouts. I say we take our platoons and check it out.”

“You’re the one with the ideas,” Lexa said over the same circuit. “Who’s going to cover our asses with Command and Control?”

“Watch me,” Will said. “Control, this is Scout Two Three. Radio check, over.”

“Two Three, Control, roger, over,” came the tinny-sounding reply.

“Two Three, scouting southward, over.”

“Roger, out.”

“You see?” said Will. “No problem.”

“Now that we’re covered if anyone says that we left our appointed duty station,” Lexa said, “what are we going to be looking for down there?”

“I’ve got a feeling,” Will said. “Something tells me that our people will need some eyes on the ground, that’s all.”

The ground ahead of Tara Campbell was clear. Nothing on it moved or stirred. Then the reason came to her in a flash. The Wolves were out there, waiting in concealed positions, ready to shoot at close range with their heavies as soon as she came in range. Maybe they couldn’t move, but they could still shoot.

I’ll have to do something about that, she thought, and considered the possibilities.

Bogged-down armor—no infantry support.

Sitting ducks.

Dead meat.

She could handle any infantry she found. Her laser was good for that. Her own infantry was coming up fast, and they would blind the bogged-down tanks with smoke and fire, even with mud if they had to. Then her ’Mech could swing into action with its hatchet, close-up and personal.

“Listen to me, people,” Tara said to the infantry as they arrived, some of them in armor, and others—remnants of a scout-sniper company—in plain mud-caked fatigues. “We’re going to knock a hole in the line up ahead, and force the Wolves to pull back to deal with us. Things might get thick. Stick with me, I’ll stand with you, and we’ll do it all together.”

Will Elliot passed by a M1 Marksman with Steel Wolf markings. Its turret-mounted Lord’s Thunder Gauss Rifle swung right and left, blind but still menacing.

Before the tank could fire, the Countess of Northwind’s Hatchetman ’Mech strode up on the tank’s left side. The tank wasn’t going anywhere. Its treads had chewed great ruts in the steppes, effectively creating its own antitank ditch, in which the Marksman was now stuck. Battle damage had rendered its sensors dark and inoperative, blinding it to the Countess’s approach. The massive ax at the end of the Hatchetman’s right arm rose and fell, crushing the Marksman’s turret and snapping off its rifle.

“That’s our Countess,” Will said to the troopers in his platoon. The Hatchetman was already ranging on ahead, seeking more tanks to kill. “Guide on her, and move forward.”

44

Belgorod

Terra

Prefecture X

April 3134; local spring

Captain Tara Bishop had reached the point of interface between the three armies that occupied the field. She had the ’Mechs she’d been looking for in visual ahead of her: One Jupiter, one Ryoken II, one Tundra Wolf.

The two smaller ’Mechs were ganged up on the Jupiter. The Jupe was holding its own at the moment, though how long that might go on was anyone’s guess. A pair of enemies could do an even better job than a singleton at the wear-it-down-and-overheat-it game.

The sensors of Bishop’s Pack Hunter crackled with the shadows of particle pulse blasts. She checked her own heat gauge, and saw that she still had some reserve.

Now that she was in visual range, she recognized the Jupiter as One-Eyed Jack Farrell’s, and no mistake. Jack knew her, and she knew him. They’d fought and she’d won, back on Northwind—and only the two of them knew that Jack Farrell had thrown the fight.

“Payback time, Jack,” she whispered. “You saved my bacon, now I’ll save yours.”

If she wanted the element of surprise, she needed to take out the Tundra Wolf with one shot. That meant just one thing: Alpha Strike.

She opened the shunts to put power from the reactor directly to her particle projector cannon, and carefully dialed in her aim point on the Tundra Wolf. Then she fed raw power to the cannon, getting it ready.

And—now.

The cannon shot its bolt of energy, the already devastating punch increased by the raw power she’d poured into it. The Pack Hunter instantly went into shutdown, frozen in place by the energy expenditure needed for the strike, but the shot it had fired was away, and it was on target. The particle beam connected with the Tundra Wolf.