The physical force of impact rocked the Demon onto its right-side wheels, shoving the vehicle over several meters, while the focused energy in the beam cut and tunneled its way through armor. The vehicle poured on speed, racing out from under Tassa’s weapons. She tried to chase after it with her torso-mounted lasers, but the scarlet shafts cut down into the ground just short of their intended target.

The Demons slid in behind a screen of JES Tactical carriers and Elementals.

“Damn and blast!” Tassa yelled, then followed it up with curses in Deutch and a language Raul did not recognize. He checked his comms, saw that she was at least confining her transmissions to the MechWarrior’s-only circuit.

“What happened to the Condors?” Raul asked, gasping for breath in the oven-temperature cockpit. According to his HUD, they had abandoned Tassa to chase after some Hauberk infantry and a Joust. That didn’t sound like Republic Guard tactics, splitting your offensive force.

“I ordered them off,” Tassa admitted. “Those were our kills, and we missed both.” More curses.

“Lieutenant Ortega, this is Recovery Team Three. Thanks for the timely arrival.”

Raul muted Tassa’s input to prevent her anger from bleeding over into the support frequencies. “Welcome,” he swallowed new life back into his throat. The taste of sweat burned on his lips. “Now get out of here ASAP.”

“We need five more minutes and we can have the Behemoth operational again. Can you buy us that amount of time?”

“That’s hardly been the problem.” Tassa was back, her anger mostly spent. “The Steel Wolf ground forces are not pushing too hard unless they catch us off guard. We can hold a line here.”

Raul had noticed much the same thing. “Probing attacks,” he said, catching his breath as the Legionnaire’s heat levels settled back into a bearable range. “This entire assault was designed to throw us off guard while the main force lands. They’re taking the opportunity to test our strength.”

Already the enemy was shifting forces to the west, back into the area from which Raul had originally come. “Maybe we should take this chance to test theirs,” Tassa said. Without waiting to see if he would follow, Tassa’s Ryoken hit a long stride, stalking out toward the Steel Wolf lines.

Not to be left behind, Raul throttled up into a loping run. She was right. It didn’t matter that this was not the main Steel Wolf push. The enemy was down on-planet, and it was a MechWarrior’s duty to face the enemy.

Even when they had been part of the same army.

Jagatai Aerospace Fighter

Achernar

Add one Rapier to Star Captain Laren Mehta’s list of kills. The wingman.

It had taken him longer than estimated to break apart the two-fighter element chosen as his targets. He accepted help from no one, determined to bring down the enemy flight leader on his own skill. But then he had latched onto the tail of the wrong craft!

He knew it within seconds—the uninspired way in which the pilot tried to shake him, twitching and rolling through the air as if Mehta was a raw cadet, to be fooled by such basic feints. Almost he pulled off, to go hunting better game. Almost. When you had the killing position, riding high in their six, you didn’t throw it away out of ego. You splashed the enemy first, and then you moved on.

The Rapier had no aft-mounted weapons, and so it could only try to run. Laren Mehta played for the pilot’s fear and inexperience, often letting his victim extend out just enough that he could bracket the other fighter with lasers and long-range missiles. As soon as he tightened up again, switch to the assault-class autocannon and scrape away more armor with flechette submunitions.

Finally the Rapier pilot dove for the ground, playing chicken with the star captain. Mehta hung in right behind, having played the game with braver men than some free born sparrowheart still hovering in the flight leader’s shadow. Five thousand meters. At four thousand his own wingman peeled away, maintaining a high watch. Three thousand. Two.

The Rapier pulled up, right into Mehta’s crosshairs.

The Jagatai’s autocannon started at the nose of the enemy craft and chewed large holes all the way back along the fuselage. High-velocity metal shattered the cockpit canopy, filling the tight space with flesh-cutting shrapnel, and then finally trailed off into the aft thrusters. The Rapier rolled belly-up and fell toward the ground even as Mehta rocketed by under a full power dive.

Laren Mehta yanked back hard on his stick and pulled for full flaps, digging into the air for every ounce of lift he could find. His altimeter read four hundred meters by the time it started to crawl back upward again. Seconds to spare.

A victorious howl died stillborn in his throat as Ripper Flight’s Star Commander Xera claimed the Rapier lead.

“Verify!” he snarled, clutching at his throat mic.

“Aff,” came an immediate response. “Rapier lead is burning, Rapier lead… has crashed.” She paused, as if uncertain how much info her Star Captain was asking for. “Ripper Flight lead is operating solo. Wingman is down.”

Still, an impressive victory for her codex. Not his. He glanced down at the octagonal data crystal, strapped to his wrist right over the pressure point. Mehta was one of the few pilots he knew who did not wear gloves, preferring to feel the full response of the OmniFighter.

Star Commander Drake had also reported in with one fighter withdrawn. That was one OmniFighter crippled and one destroyed for three confirmed enemy kills. Seven, if VTOLs and ground vehicles were counted. Not a terrible day’s work. And according to his HUD, the enemy fightercraft had ceded control over the battlefield to Mehta’s force. With the arrival of a second pair of Stingrays, the militia had three fighters and half a dozen VTOLs circling around the battlefield edges like jackals waiting to pounce on a weakened stray. Mehta would not give them that chance.

“Keep clear skies over the battle, but do not chase down enemy Stingrays. Star Commander Xera, fly high alert and take command as you see fit to throw back any advance.”

“Aff, sir!” She saw her elevation as a promotion. And it was, of sorts. Drake was the senior Star Commander, but Drake didn’t have a squadron leader under his belt today. “Where will you be?”

Laren Mehta checked to make certain his wingman was back, holding position off his left wing. He dipped his nose down, and started a long, gliding dive down toward the ground battle.

“Hunting,” he told her.

There was other game to be tracked, and just as big as an enemy squadron lead.

River’s Run Flatlands

Achernar

Sweat beaded on Raul’s bare arms and legs, trickled in tiny rivulets down his face, and stung at the corners of his eyes. His breath came in short, burning gasps as his lungs fought to pull oxygen out of the baking air. His reactor levels hovered almost constantly at the border between the yellow caution band and warning red. Only his MechWarrior’s vest, circulating coolant through fifty meters of sewn-in tubing, kept his body core temperature down and prevented heat-induced blackout.

No time to rest or allow the Legionnaire’s heat levels to relax, Raul ran his ’Mech forward to keep pace with Tassa Kay’s Ryoken. The two of them had pressed further forward than any other Republic unit, in sight of the Agave Dales although there was still no contact with Sandoval’s Swordsworn. Not that they needed him anymore. The Steel Wolves seemed committed to their hit-and-fade strategy, which surrendered any advantage to the two Mech Warriors’ blitzkrieg offensive. All they had to do was keep their eyes open for OmniFighters and targets of opportunity.