“Lockouts released,” the computer responded. “Legionnaire is now weapons-able.”

And with a live BattleMech at his command, and the memory of Tassa’s lips still warm on his mouth, Raul was finally ready for battle.

He hoped.

Sonora Plateau

Achernar

10 May 3133

Ahard deluge hammered down as if weapons fire had opened mortal wounds in the skies over Achernar’s Sonora Plateau. Fat water drops carrying desert grit splashed against the Tundra Wolf’s ferroglass shield, pushed into horizontal bands by sharp, gusting winds, smearing the landscape into a gray watercolor. Sight was hardly an issue, though, as target-lock warnings screamed for Torrent’s attention, giving the star colonel a scant three seconds’ warning before a new rain of warheads fell over and around him. Blossoms of fire tore into the armor mantle protecting his right shoulder and gouged new craters over the ’Mech’s left leg. Geysers of smoke and earth erupted down a line right in front of the seventy-five-ton Tundra Wolf, throwing up blackened, smoking dirt that pattered down against his cockpit’s ferroglass, mixed with streaks of actual rain and clotted against the shield.

Torrent sidestepped his Tundra Wolf several meters to the left, anticipating the follow-up. A single, coruscating particle beam blasted through the gray downpour but passed wide to the BattleMech’s right. One PPC less than the Jupiter could have—should have—used.

Light damage and a defensive enemy posture. That was Torrent’s immediate assessment.

Still, he throttled back, wary of the Jupiter’s long reach and not quite ready to commit to a full press. His extended-range laser stabbed blood-red energy into the assault ’Mech’s side, carving a deep, angry wound into its armor. The whistling screams of hard-burning propellant slashed by his left ear as the Tundra Wolf’s shoulder-mounted launcher spread a score of missiles into the air. His computer counted better than half of the missiles peppering the Jupiter’s lower legs.

It wasn’t enough to goad Kyle Powers into a premature advance, though. Trusting to his assault machine’s impressive armor, the Sphere Knight ignored Torrent’s assault to turn his weapons against a second Steel Wolf, inviting return fire from both warriors.

Torrent grinned at the implied insult—that he was not worth the Knight-Errant’s full attention. Grinned, and continued to orchestrate an envelopment.

His Tundra Wolf held the center of the Steel Wolf line. Of course. Early on in the shaping battle, just after his Elemental infantry lost their Maxim heavy transport vehicle to the Jupiter’s PPCs, Torrent had swung two AgroMech conversions, each modified with medium-grade autocannons, wide to the left and right. Now they were almost on the direct flanks of the Jupiter and Legionnaire, waiting for his orders. He had kept the M1 Marksman tank and his surviving Elementals in close, putting them on his Tundra Wolf in vanguard positions. Once his AgroMechs tore into the Republic flanks, his abbreviated unit would be the jaws snapping for their neck.

Kyle Powers seemed to invite the encircling maneuver. He kept the much-faster Legionnaire pacing alongside his Jupiter, and never too far away. The two Republic ’Mechs protected a Saxon hover transport, which waited in their immediate backfield, while both JES hovercraft carriers ran a picket line out front, daring any Steel Wolf to close on against their short-ranged missile barrage.

Torrent would dare, but he would do it on his own terms.

One of the Jessies limped along on damaged lift fans, the result of an earlier run-in with an AgroMech conversion. It was the key to Torrent’s plan. He opened up a channel to his Marksman, identified the JES carrier as its primary target, and then traded another salvo with Powers’ Jupiter.

Again the Knight-Errant divided his fire, spending new flights of LRMs and a single PPC on Torrent while he used his second PPC and half of his ultra-ACs to back off the advancing left-flank AgroMech. The Steel Wolf pilot did not return fire, under strict orders to leave the Knight to Torrent. Instead, the AgroMech’s autocannon hammered fifty-mil slugs into one of the tactical carriers, chasing after as the hovercraft spun and dodged back for the right side of the field.

With calm deliberation, Torrent opened an all-hands channel. “Begin,” was his only command.

Like hunting dogs cut loose from their leash, the AgroMechs vaulted forward on huge strides, coming in with autocannons belting out long swatches of destructive power. Catching the SRM-toting JES carriers in a blistering crossfire the wounded hovercraft stuttered and paused, losing armor and precious time.

It was all the Marksman needed.

Packing a Lord’s Thunder gauss rifle, the M1 turned its rail gun against the damaged JES. A one hundred kilogram nickel-ferrous mass slammed through the air with enough kinetic force to shatter rain into bands of spreading steam. The gauss slug smashed into the hovercraft’s turret. Impact peeled back the turret like an opened can, ruining one of the launchers and exposing the crew quarters.

A second salvo accelerated a new mass into the lift skirt, punching through to shatter vanes and drive gears. The front edge of the carrier caught the sloppy ground and flipped the vehicle up into a spread of medium-range missiles. Several warheads speared through the damaged turret, erupting deep within the carrier. Raw destructive force bulged the sides of the vehicle outward, erupting through seams, ports and panels to eviscerate the hovercraft. It twisted and rolled across the ground, digging up large globs of mud and earth and flinging them like dark blood spurting from an opened artery.

Star Colonel Torrent slammed forward his throttle, pushing his Tundra Wolf past its usual best running speed of sixty-five kilometers per hour. Geared with myomer accelerated signal circuitry, the MASC-equipped machine was capable of short sprints nearer to eight-five. The storm-ruined plateau made such speeds dangerous, but Torrent never doubted his own ability to control the BattleMech as he pushed past his Elementals and the M1 for a head-to-head match with Kyle Powers.

The Knight certainly didn’t miss Torrent’s charge, though standing true to form Powers again divided his attention between Torrent and the charging AgroMech. Torrent doubted that it would have mattered even if Powers had known—or guessed—that the AgroMech pilots were under strict orders to leave the Jupiter alone. The Jupiter’s dark silhouette moved to put itself in between the AgroMech and the surviving JES carrier, ready to bear the brunt of the offensive and protect the lives of men under Powers’ command.

What Torrent had predicted, and counted on.

The Tundra Wolf was an impressive design, especially at seventy-five tons. But Torrent had known from the start that it would all come down to closing with the Jupiter at point-blank range if he were to have a real chance of bringing down the Sphere Knight.

A PPC blasted away armor from over his BattleMech’s chest, splattering molten composite to the wet desert floor where the bright embers quickly congealed into black-crusted, steaming puddles. Warheads threw a risky stutter into his pace, and a single missile clipped the side of his cockpit shield, scarring a long, deep fracture into the ferroglass.

Torrent kept his attention divided between his HUD and the gray-scale picture resolving itself on the other side of his mud-streaked shield. The Legionnaire and remaining JES carrier had stopped one of his AgroMech’s cold, holding it off with blistering counterfire. The Republic’s Saxon APC burst forward as well, thrown into the fray on the side of the smaller of the two BattleMechs. Torrent ordered his M1 in to assist the besieged AgroMech. It looked more and more like Kyle Powers was ready to accept the duel of single combat. Warrior to warrior, the way it was meant to be.