Although not in the chain of command, Raul defaulted this time to Tassa’s authority. She had the strongest ’Mech on the field and she had been involved in a cat-and-mouse game with these two Steel Wolves for the better part of the day. He spent more of his precious ammunition at the Pack Hunter she’d assigned him, tried to split it away from its partner.

The other ’Mech reminded him that it had teeth as it sliced a particle cannon across Raul’s left arm, blasting away armor and cutting into the myomer and mechanical joint. The Behemoth saved him further damage by putting a gauss slug just over the Pack Hunter’s shoulder, making the pilot think twice about getting too close.

Able to go one on one with the other enemy BattleMech, Tassa used her jump jets to grab a side-deflection shot. At the height of her arc, she laid into the Hunter with both PPCs. One carved a glassy trail into the ground behind it. Her second shot burned into the Hunter’s leg, spilling a ton of molten armor over the Dales.

Tassa dropped down in between two of the Maxims, staggered back toward Raul’s position with infantry missiles chasing after her, pockmarking her armor with ragged holes.

“Rotten, waddling lilliputaner-nadels!” It sounded German to Raul, and hardly complimentary. Her next few curses he couldn’t begin to place.

“If those were Elementals,” Raul admonished her, “you’d be ripped into shreds right now.”

“If those had been Elementals, I would have taken out the infantry carriers much—blazes!”

Tassa’s Ryoken disappeared from view as fiery explosions blossomed over her head and shoulders and the ground around her exploded in a series of unnatural geysers. Raul knew from recent experience what had caused that, and found the Blackhawk cresting a hill on their near left flank, launching missile spreads from short range.

“Damn Sandoval, you were supposed to hold him up.” He watched as Tassa limped out from underneath the cloud of smoke and debris, her Ryoken stripped down to a walking skeleton. “Jessies on the Hauberk battlesuits. Condor …Six,” he pulled its operations tag out of his HUD code, “distract the Shandras.”

Raul left the Behemoth to its own choice and threw his Legionnaire forward at the Pack Hunters, leaving the Blackhawk in Tassa’s hands. He’d had no time to check Tassa’s status or form any plan more complex than engage and overcome. All he knew was that allowing the Pack Hunters to link up side-by-side with the Blackhawk spelled a complete rout for the militia forces. Tassa’s Ryoken had the only weapons capable of putting the missile-capable ’Mech down quickly. She was either fit to take it, or they were both as good as dead.

Doubting that Tassa wasn’t good enough to cover his back was never an option.

Whatever the two Pack Hunters had expected with the arrival of their larger brethren, it certainly had not been a full-push offensive. Raul’s Legionnaire was just as fast as they were, and given a few second’s lead he covered ground in long strides to set himself between the Hunters and the ’Hawk. His lasers spat ruby arrows at the smaller machines. His rotary autocannon chewed down through his reserve bins as he peppered first one ’Mech with armor-piercing slugs, then the other.

The Behemoth added some misery of its own as it spread missiles from its twin Holly racks over the shoulders of one Hunter.

Tassa had stumbled up into a loping run, shaking off the assault with characteristic speed. Her PPCs stabbed out angrily once, and again. On the second salvo, her beams fused into a single, hard-hitting strike that rocked the Blackhawk back on its heels.

Raul’s Legionnaire shuddered as a PPC cut down through his left leg, slicing through myomer but missing any critical mechanisms. He emptied his rotary’s drum with one last, long pull. Then committed himself to a slow walk forward with lasers still flaring bright, bejeweled energy. He kept one eye on his rear-facing monitor the entire time.

Wading through the Blackhawk’s return fire, shrugging aside more missiles and hard-stabbing lasers, Tassa blasted two, red-tinged wounds across the ’Hawk’s chest and then hit it with the two Streak six-packs she’d held in reserve. A dozen of the wide-bodied missiles burst from their box launchers, drawing gray lines of corkscrewing smoke from her Ryoken to the Steel Wolf BattleMech.

Only two missiles missed, scraping by to either side of the Blackhawk’s head. Half of the rest burst into large fireballs against the ’Mech’s chest, some burning new damage deeper into the engine and gyro housing. A pair of missiles slammed into the bulbous cockpit, cracking ferroglass and no doubt shaking the warrior hard against his restraints.

Raul gave credit for the Blackhawk’s fall to one of the torso-striking missiles, though. The way the entire BattleMech shuddered and drunk-staggered to one side, he knew that it had cracked through the gyro housing to upset the high-speed gyroscopic stabilizers inside. The Blackhawk toppled to one side, burying half of its raptor-like profile in the earth. Tassa stood over it, weapons ready to cook the MechWarrior alive should he try to rise again.

That was enough for the Pack Hunters. The fall of the larger ’Mech, and watching Raul’s slow, purposeful advance, sent them in full flight north. Monitoring them on his HUD, they did not begin to slow down for a good half kilometer. The remaining Steel Wolf armor and infantry followed at only a slightly slower pace.

“You have anything left?” Tassa asked.

“A pair of lasers and maybe an ounce or two of armor.” Raul checked his wire frame, saw that he wasn’t far off the truth. “And if I’m reading my sensors right, our friends just picked up the Blackhawk’s support team.” He counted three Condors and an SM1 Destroyer deploying at the far reach of his sensors, giving the Pack Hunters a secure flank. They must have forced Erik Sandoval back into the Taibeks. Raul supposed he should thank the noble for delaying them as long as he had.

“They aren’t going to stand by and let us drag our trophy back to River’s End, then.” Tassa held her vigil, though, waiting as the Condor glided up and sent two armed guards out to take the fallen MechWarrior prisoner. “Pity,” she said, once the man was secure.

Then she raised up one large, metal-taloned foot and crushed the cockpit into ruin.

Raul had never thought to see someone treat a BattleMech with such disregard for its worth. “Tassa! What are you doing?”

“Sending a message,” she shot back. “If the Steel Wolves are going to keep playing in Achernar’s backyard, they are going to lose toys. Star Colonel Torrent needs to know that it is time to get serious or go home.”

“How do I know you’re hoping he ‘gets serious’?” Raul asked in a resigned voice. Still, he couldn’t help his sharp thrill of excitement at the other MechWarrior’s resolve.

The way her Ryoken swiveled around toward him, it was easy for Raul to imagine Tassa staring at him through the ferroglass shield, her head bent quizzically to one side. “If you actually believe that Torrent will just pick up and leave, you are going to be sadly disappointed. Trust me. If he is a Kerensky, then he is not the type to leave empty-handed.” Then she turned to follow after the Condor, slowing only to keep pace with the sluggish Behemoth.

They were still in radio contact, but Raul could tell she meant it as one of her infamous parting shots. “She does that a lot,” he whispered, careful of the voice-activated mic. Then he throttled up for the long walk back to base.