Erik’s final IndustrialMech conversion ended the Steel Wolf Mech’s flight, spending its banked capacitor charge through a power amplifier to light off a large laser. A ruby beam stuttered a half-powered lance into the ForestryMech’s left arm, severing the autocannon at its elbow joint. The modified IndustrialMech toppled awkwardly, crashed to the valley floor, and skid out of sight behind the tailings.

Standing the Hatchetman up from its crouch, Erik called for his infantry and armor as blossoms of fire erupted all around him. The JES carriers peppered his location with long-ranged missiles, throwing enough ordnance up-slope to trigger a possible rockslide. Erik rode out the jostling, trusting the regenerative feedback loop created between his neurohelmet and the Hatchetman’s massive gyroscopic stabilizer to keep him upright, then throttled forward into a careful down-slope walk. His autocannon barked out more hot metal, and the torso-mounted extended-range laser stabbed several megajoules of scarlet energy into the lead Big Jess carrier. Not enough to do any real damage. Didn’t have to be.

While dismissing the mine shaft entrances from his earlier plans, what Erik had counted on was that the infantry would miss the blind draw—a narrow cleft in the pass’s south wall which opened up into a fair-sized canyon, and inside which he had hidden a heavy complement of armored vehicles.

A pair of SM1 Destroyers barreled out of the blind canyon, leading Erik’s flanking charge as they struck into the forward head of the column. Long licks of fire and smoke burst from their assault-class autocannons, ripping into a Joust tracked vehicle that lay directly in their path. The Joust’s engine erupted, bursting the side armor and blowing the turret skyward on a column of greasy fire. The scrapped mass of metal fell hard on the side of one SM1, grounding its skirt in a long, dragging scrape. It rebounded, and both Destroyers wheeled over to race for the rear of the column, spending thousands of rounds into lightly armored support vehicles on their way.

Behind them came a squad of Demons, a Behemoth, Erik’s elite hoverbike unit, and two Maxim heavy troop transport vehicles carrying Hauberk and Purifier infantry. Most began spitting laserfire and missiles before even clearing the draw. More convoy trucks erupted into flaming debris.

Momentarily thrown back on their haunches, the Wolves rallied faster than Erik would have thought. The JES carriers charged forward, missile systems belching out flight after flight of armor-pounding warheads. One of the Swordsworn’s MiningMech conversions got in their way and was left scattered in pieces over a blasted stretch of smoking ground. Another two Miners were pressed back into a nearby shaft and then sealed in by carpet-fire missile barrages.

Elementals vaulted from the backs of several convoy trucks. A point of five battlesuit soldiers seized onto the sides of a Maxim, ripping through plate armor and breaching the troop pen. They spent several of their backpack missiles into the interior before the Hauberks inside managed to stagger out and engage them point-blank.

Erik’s men struggled and died at the hands of the genetically bred infantry.

Off the pass wall and throttling up into a run, Erik dodged his Hatchetman around one particularly large pile of tailings and met one of the JES carriers coming around from the other side. With its LRM racks severely hampered at close range, the carrier pivoted on diamond-track treads and raced for open ground.

The Hatchetman was faster, cutting it off in only five long strides. Erik’s autocannon opened up several gaping rents in the carrier’s armor. Then he raised the right arm, which carried the massive titanium hatchet from which his BattleMech took its name. The hatchet fell once, twice, each time crushing large wedge-shaped bites into armor.

His third strike split open one of the launchers, and live munitions rolled and tumbled out to litter the floor of Siren’s Pass.

Erik’s laser touched off spilled fuel. One warhead burst open still in its launch tube, then another. Erik spun the Hatchetman away, racing for distance. The horrific explosion of the JES carrier and its payload of missiles shoved the Hatchetman with a brutal fist to the back. The BattleMech sprawled forward in a facedown slide, shaking Erik against his restraining harness like a rag doll caught in the teeth of a mastiff.

A growling mastiff.

Tearing… trembling… buzzsaw teeth…

His tongue throbbed in pain and he tasted a hint of blood in his mouth, but it was the sound of tearing metal that shocked Erik back to life. Shaking off his dizziness, he blinked away the dark threat of unconsciousness as he recognized the shriek of a diamond-edged powersaw against armor. His armor. It was a sound he was unlikely to forget, having been under the blade of a ForestryMech one other time before. That time of his earlier disgrace.

The ForestryMech. Felled during the opening moment of battle, its pilot had apparently collected himself well enough to dive back into the fray. Missing its autocannon-arm, the gray machine still had use of the massive, tree-killing blades by which it primarily practiced its trade. With one foot stepping down on the broad ax-head of Erik’s hatchet, the WorkMech used the powersaw to sever the haft and take from Erik his most potent close-in weapon.

Most potent, perhaps, but not his only weapon.

Thumbing an activation stud on his right-hand control stick, Erik released his BattleMech’s grip on the ruined hatchet. Shoving that hand against the ground, he propped himself up enough to lean in with his torso-mounted autocannon, thrusting the barrel into the ForestryMech’s armored crotch. He pulled his trigger, holding it down, spending thousands of eighty millimeter, high velocity rounds. Lethal metal tore into the ForestryMech’s gyro housing, boring through the stabilizers and then hammering away at the engine shielding above that. Fuel oil mixed with hydraulic fluids spilled down in a black gush of ’Mech blood, staining the lower legs of the ForestryMech which staggered and then toppled back.

Climbing slowly back to his feet, Erik surveyed the wreckage his forces had made of Star Colonel Torrent’s foraging column. Some of the Steel Wolves’ faster vehicles had broken past his one remaining Destroyer, fleeing back the way they’d come. A few of the supply trucks had escaped as well, mainly because of their large initial numbers, and were hardly worth chasing down with valuable military assets.

The rest lay in ruins, smashed, broken and burning from one side of Siren’s Pass to the other. Sharp winds fanned any flame into crackling infernos and lifted the oily smoke higher up the mountainside. Even through the cockpit’s sound suppression, Erik could still hear the wind’s whistling echoes. He counted two down MiningMechs, two others lost behind a cave-in but easily rescued, a lost Maxim and several dead Hauberk infantry, and a destroyed SM1. According to the reports which now bled in over one another, his Purifiers had captured one JES carrier and some supply vehicles.

“Now we’ll see where things fall,” he whispered out loud, just quiet enough not to be picked up by the neurohelmet’s voice-activated mic.

The price had run slightly higher than Erik had wanted to pay, but the loss to Star Colonel Torrent would be galling. It would bait him to some kind of action. And whether the Steel Wolf commander came for Erik in Hahnsak, forcing him to call in his new allies for protection, placing them in between himself and danger, or went straight for Kyle Powers himself, the Swordsworn position on Achernar would only improve. But by how much? That was the question.

Erik’s answer was just as easy. By however much he could squeeze from the situation. His uncle, his family, his people, expected no less of him.