“Thirty rounds,” the sergeant replied.

“Get an observer out, and start dropping Willie Pete on that ’Mech. I want him warm.”

The sergeant pointed to a man and made a come-hither gesture with his forefinger. The man, a private, approached.

“Hamish,” the sergeant said. “Since you’re my best observer, and since you don’t owe me any money, I have a special assignment for you.”

Quickly, he explained the situation to the trooper, who listened with a resigned expression and said, “I want a weekend pass when this is over.”

“I’ll think about it,” the sergeant said. “Right now, you need a place where you can see me and the ’Mech at the same time. The top of the Tyson and Varney water tower ought to do it.”

“Just the place if I want to get picked off by a sniper,” Hamish said.

“Don’t sweat it, Hamish,” another trooper said. “The Steel Wolves are all lousy shots.”

“I’m more worried about your lousy shooting than about theirs,” Hamish said, but he was picking up his kit as he spoke. “Give me a minute, and I’ll get you your fix on yon wee beastie.”

He loped off, and was soon climbing the access ladder to the top of the Tyson and Varney water tower. The sergeant fixed him with binoculars. Hamish raised his left hand, held up three fingers, then lowered it. He raised it again, with two showing.

“One round, thirty relative, range two hundred,” the sergeant said.

“Fire,” said Captain Fairbairn.

A trooper holding a round above the mortar let go, and turned away. The bomb slid down the tube, and launched with a thump and a thin cloud of blue smoke. It traveled slowly—a quick-eyed man could follow it in flight.

A crump sounded from the far side of the building.

“Wonderful things, mortars,” Captain Fairbairn commented. “Let you shoot over things, so you can’t be seen and they can’t shoot back.”

“Unless they’re tracking the trajectory on radar,” said the sergeant.

“We’ll worry about that later. Nothing we can do about it now.”

Hamish, on top of the water tower, pointed up, then raised two fingers. Then he pushed his thumb to the left and raised one finger.

“Add twenty, left one,” the sergeant said. Drop. Swish. Thud. Crump.

Hamish made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

“Willie Pete. Two rounds.”

Drop, swish, thud. Drop, swish, thud.

Hamish pumped his fist up and down, then indicated down one, left three. The mortar fire, the burning hot, sticky white phosphorus, went out of the tube, down toward the industrial mod in the far street. The ’Mech was picking up speed, based on Hamish’s corrections.

Captain Fairbairn left the mortar section to their work and hastened over toward the car park. There was the Behemoth II, with a haze of smoke shielding it. He could hear the sound of the ’Mech now, the heavy pounding of its feet on the pavement. It was moving fast. It was blinded by the white phosphorus smoke. Between two buildings to the north, it burst out, some burning phosphorus still clinging to its housing. The mortar battery had scored at least one direct hit.

And the ’Mech went running to the west, missiles and machine guns both firing, more heat building up from the burst of speed. Then the flamethrowers concealed in the building beside it lit off, gouts of red flame laced with black rolling over the ’Mech’s housing. The ’Mech’s machine guns—too damaged, perhaps, to continue shooting—fell silent.

The ’Mech turned, its pilot seeking an open path away from the heat, and the last of the screening smoke drifted away from the decoy tank. The Mining ’Mech’s pilot spotted the juicy target—a chance to take out a heavy. The ’Mech pivoted from the hips, the big rock-cutter in its right arm roaring to life, and strode across the open car park in the direction of the decoy tank.

Precisely halfway across the car park, the ’Mech vanished. First it was moving, then the pavement heaved around it, and then after the flying chunks of concrete came to earth there was a crater, but no ’Mech anywhere in sight.

Captain Fairbairn glanced at his watch. Twenty-one minutes precisely.

“Never become predictable,” he said aloud, to no one in particular. Then he made his way back to his own headquarters to report.

39

Tara

Northwind

February 3134; local winter

Captain Tara Bishop and the Countess of Northwind stripped to shorts and T-shirts in the ’Mech hangar adjacent to the Armory. Even though the walls of the hangar gave shelter from the wind, the cold February air raised gooseflesh on Captain Bishop’s bare skin. She bore it stoically, knowing that the cockpit of her BattleMech would have her sweating soon enough.

Most of her gear she stowed in one of the full-size lockers in the hangar, as did the Countess, but she opted to bring her winter uniform greatcoat with her into the ’Mech’s cockpit, even though the bulky garment scarcely fit into the tiny onboard locker. If she had to dismount from her ’Mech at some point during the upcoming evolution, she would be grateful for an ankle-length coat of heavy wool to go between her overheated body and the winter chill.

Captain Bishop settled into her Pack Hunter–a jump-jet equipped hunter-killer, mounted with a particle projector cannon and extended range lasers. The Pack Hunter was fast-moving and hard-hitting, a good ’Mech for bringing down enemy units in the open field. The Countess of Northwind preferred her Hatchetman, a close-in heavy fighter, armed with an immense, brutal ax. No so fast as a Pack Hunter, but deadly once it closed with a foe. The two ’Mechs would complement each other well.

Captain Bishop put on her cooling vest and neurohelmet, and began taking the Pack Hunter through the security protocols and start-up sequence. Shortly after she had finished, and had brought the Pack Hunter’s fusion engines all the way to life, she heard the Countess’s voice over the ’Mech-to-’Mech circuit.

“Up and out on three. One, two, three.”

The two ’Mechs turned and walked out of the bay into the morning sunshine. Captain Bishop swung the ’Mech’s arms as she strode along, feeling the power in the metal-and-myomer limbs that were so familiar, from long practice, that they seemed like extensions of her own body. She always felt at her brightest and most alive when she was in the cockpit of a ’Mech, and the prospect of action gave her a not-unpleasant adrenaline buzz.

She keyed on the ’Mech-to-’Mech circuit. “Bishop to Campbell, radio check, over.”

“Read you loud and clear,” the Countess’s voice came in return. “How me, over?”

“I read you the same. Want to go out hunting, Countess?”

Captain Bishop wasn’t certain, but she thought that she heard the Countess of Northwind laugh. “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.”

Before they had gone more than a few miles, the location of the heaviest fighting became obvious. A pall of smoke hung over the northern end of the town. Bishop and the Countess increased their speed, moving from a steady forward tread to a heavier, fifty-kilometer-per-hour jog. BattleMechs were never inconspicuous, but at the faster pace, their approach would rattle windows and send a tremor through the ground.

“Let them know we’re coming,” the Countess said over the ’Mech-to-’Mech circuit. “No surprises that way. Sneaking up on a man who’s in the middle of a gunfight is a good way to get yourself shot.”

Bishop felt the beads of sweat begin to trickle down her forehead as the Pack Hunter’s cockpit warmed up. The sensor screens were all bright; the gauges read nominal; the weapons were fully charged and ready.

“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I want to kill something.”

“I want to see what’s going on for myself, first,” the Countess said. “I’m not a hundred percent sure that what our man was reporting as an attack isn’t really a retreat-in-force.”