With no time for niceties and not about to take another biting return, Raul risked the heat and blasted the Pack Hunter. Lightning scoured armor away from the other ’Mech’s chest and upper arms. If the Steel Wolf warrior thought that he’d get so lucky twice, though, Raul dissuaded him of that notion as autocannons ripped in and mangled the Hunter’s gyroscope into scrap. The Pack Hunter quivered, staggered awkwardly to the left, and then collapsed like an unstrung puppet.

Its companion ’Mech, having cut in jumpjets to sail over the Tribune, altered trajectory and landed between two APCs, one of which it overturned with a vicious point-blank PPC blast and the second with a well-placed kick.

The militia infantry was doing its part, providing a scattering of small, hard-to-hit targets. Raul saw two Hauberk squads sacrifice themselves in an assault against the Steel Wolves’ ConstructionMech so that a Cavalier Specialist troop could seize and take control of the Mod.

“Two!” Colonel Blaire called out over the officers’ channel. Two ’Mechs in as many minutes. And then in the next moment, the militia lost their final WorkMech Mod to the Swordsworn front. Still, “About even,” he judged.

Raul nodded. “Now let’s see if we can’t finally tip things our way for once.” He tied in a frequency routinely used by Customs Security. “Palos, is everything set?”

CSO Palos Montgomery jumped right in. “All set, Captain.”

“Do it,” Raul said.

A longer order wasn’t needed. Alarms wailed for attention, and Raul managed only half a turn before Star Colonel Torrent finally caught up to him with full weapons blazing. A series of lasers, one large, blood red lance and four smaller, scarlet arrows, splashed away armor from all along Raul’s right side. Missiles exploded in a series of thunderclap detonations, walking up the Jupiter’s tall form, blossoming fireballs at the knees, waist, chest, and then finally slamming two short-range missiles into the BattleMech’s head.

Ferroglass squealed, fractured, and then burst inward as flaws and stresses finally gave way to the concussive warhead. Shards sprayed and struck Raul along the side of his neck and chest. One hand slipped from the Jupiter’s controls and the towering leviathan toppled off to its right side, surrendering itself to gravity and the tarmac’s rough embrace.

Raul had a split second to remember his promise to Jessica that he’d come through the battle safe and whole.

Then he didn’t even have that as the cockpit slammed forward and darkness swam over him.

River’s End/San Marino Spaceport

Achernar

18 March 3133

The wire-frame damage schematic of Erik’s Hatchetman showed critical armor loss down the entire left side. Back on his feet now, he blasted several hundred rounds of eighty-mil into a nearby Steel Wolf Condor and continued his backward retreat to the city’s edge. He considered calling up the reserve force he had left guarding the HPG station, but then decided to hold them back as his final ace.

“Here they come again!” his remaining Mod pilot warned.

Running in pack formation, the five armored hovercraft bent around to continue their saber-dance tactics. Led by one of the deadly SM1 Destroyers, flanked by two Condors and another pair of JES tactical carriers, they would slice in at an angle, burn off a salvo of autocannon, lasers and missiles, and then turn out again to slip away before any concerted effort could be made against them.

Not this time.

“Grady, get in their way.” Erik ordered the MinerMech forward. “Stall them.”

Then he cut in his jumpjets, venting plasma down into the Hatchetman’s Luxor reaction chambers and burning skyward on glowing jets. The Hatchetman arced up in a short hop, falling just short of the SM1 while the gray and black Miner rolled forward on the far side to try and force a stand.

Just a little too late, Erik was forced to turn against one of the trailing Condors rather than taking a swing at the lead vehicle. His titanium hatchet cut down, smashing into the front of the hovercraft and forcing a stall.

With the glider’s momentum arrested, Erik trained in an autocannon and ripped several long stripes of hot metal into the Condor’s ruined front. He saw blood spatter over the interior cockpit ferroglass as his cannon tore holes through the forward shield and riddled the crewmen inside.

He would not be allowed to enjoy his brief victory, however.

The SM1, showing a veteran’s touch on the controls, swung around the backside of Grady’s MinerMech. Running forward on momentum alone, the Destroyer banked and cut its drive fan, rotating in a free-powered turn and using its assault-class weapon to show Erik exactly what an autocannon could do. A firestorm of flame and lethal metal burst from the twelve-centimeter bore, blasting into the Miner’s lower back and erupting out the front in a gut-coring strike that left the Miner dead on its feet.

With a kind of slow grace, the six-meter tall machine drifted to one side, then toppled over to lay still.

Permanently.

A pair of JES carriers rained several score missiles over the retreating SM1, but it sailed out from under most of the damage and then powered after its three remaining lancemates.

“We can’t compete,” Erik spoke aloud, but mostly to himself. Not spread out in a skirmish line, waiting to be picked off by the deadly Destroyer. “Fall back,” he ordered. “Regroup, regroup!”

No sooner was the order given than a new crisis erupted over the communication net. “Station guard, station guard. We are under attack.”

Erik stabbed at the comm panel, toggling for his reserve frequency. “Who is attacking?” he shouted. Who was left, not already involved at the spaceport battlefield?

“Sir… sir. Mix of infantry emplacements in the facing buildings. More on the roof. Armored tanks—militia vehicles, lord—have seized the intersection. Legionnaire! BattleMech on the grounds!”

Reading his HUD, Erik counted only one Legionnaire, and that one at the far side of the fighting from his position. “Where did it go? What happened to the Legionnaire we chased out of the city?” Caught up against the pressing Steel Wolves, he had made the dangerous assumption that it had finally fallen in battle.

His Behemoth driver—now the ranking second-officer on the field—answered. “Blasted the hell out of our Praetorian and escaped back into the city, Lord Sandoval. While you recovered.”

Erik had seen the battle-damaged Praetorian still moving in the backfield, but there had been no transmissions and he had written that off to Eus not really knowing what to say in the midst of such a heavy-scale fight. Thirty seconds. Maybe sixty. That was as long as Erik had been distracted, picking himself up after the fall.

Fortunes changed that quickly in battle.

Ortega. It could only be Ortega.

He spent several more critical moments trying to disengage, moving back for the city’s edge. A pair of Steel Wolf Destroyers cruised in, forcing him back, and then a lone Condor delayed him in a sacrificial run that eventually traded itself for one of the Swordsworn Marksmen.

Finally, turning for the city’s edge and throttling up to the Hatchetman’s full running speed, Erik gazed over some of the large industrial centers nearby at the top crescent of the HPG compound’s titanic dish. If he moved quickly, sent his faster hovercraft ahead and left the Behemoth on guard at their backs…

A solid plan—it might have worked.

It all fell apart as the first eruption of fire and smoke rose up into the sky, climbing the HPG superstructure.