Benjork nodded with understanding. As a cub he had been warned it was not always the enemy who made battle plans unravel. He signaled Sean ahead but paused, cockpit open, until the damaged ’Mech limped up. The youngster opened his cockpit and raised his visor, face set for a dressing-down. Benjork gave him the small smile he allowed for special occasions. “You will fight last in line,” he said, and the MechWarrior winced. “Not because you stumbled. Any of us—even I—could have been given that fate. No, your mining drill is broken. You should not fight in a melee. Stand back and use your rockets and Gatling. You are one of the best with them. Use them well.”

“I will, sir,” came quickly as Benjork closed his cockpit and made his way to the front of his command.

They were now beyond the ridge, but a shallow fold in this land of scrub brush and yellow dust hid them from the Special Police. Benjork used his periscope to check out the battle. His team was where he wanted it—behind the ’Mech line, almost even with the Black Hawk and to its right.

The Lone Cat halted his troop and checked the time. He had three minutes to wait, to let his hot engines cool. He whispered a prayer that Sven and Mick and Johnny had done good work and might enjoy dreams that would tell them much.

The weapons’ fire increased. Periscope up, Benjork saw change. The riflemen had spread out, up and down the dry creek and were now moving forward on their bellies from bush to bush, rock to rock, closing with the sharpshooters. The Black and Red ’Mech MODs now stepped off the distance to the dry wash.

Not the Black Hawk, though. It stayed well back. Shooting its lasers more frequently, it slashed streaks in the rocks or started fires in the brush. That must encourage the poor creeping infantry. Now they crawled through hot, blackened ash where concealment once had been. Time to end this.

Benjork broke radio silence with a firm, “Hicks, attack. Repeat, attack. Militia ’Mechs, charge! Charge and zigzag!”

Beside him, the militia pilots slammed their throttles forward, and green and gray ’Mechs charged into battle. Benjork charged with them, covering the hard-packed ground to the top of the rise with long distance-eating strides. As he topped the rise, the battle came into full view.

On his far right, Lieutenant Hicks led the charge of the gun trucks down the wash, dust blowing, Gatlings roaring. The second gun truck loosed a rocket volley at the surprised ’Mech MODs. One rocket struck a glancing blow on the chest armor of an AgroMech. The shaped charge left a long slash. Paint smoking, the ’Mech backpedaled and the other Black and Red ’Mechs suddenly took notice of the new fighters on their battlefield.

A Special Police rifleman stood up to run. A farmer in the rocks drilled him before he took a step. Other riflemen returned the fire. Here and there a Police crawler began to crawl backward.

One enemy ’Mech MOD stumbled as all of them turned to face the gun trucks. The Black Hawk fired off two fast laser blasts. One sent Hicks’ gun truck sliding sideways into the wall of the dry wash. It bounced over a large rock, went halfway up on its side, then slid down to right itself. The old rancher steadied his rifle and put a bullet into the cockpit of the Black Hawk. The round ricocheted off, but it was still a hit at that range.

The Black and Red ’Mech MODs struggled to change the front from the rock pile to the increasing number of gun trucks firing machine guns, rockets and antiarmor grenades at them.

“Hold your fire,” Benjork told his ’Mech team as they trotted forward, apparently unnoticed. When the Black Hawk to his right continued stabbing out with his lasers at gun trucks, the MechWarrior chose to take a major risk.

“Militia ’Mechs: Halt in place, target two missiles on a Black and Red ’Mech MOD, and fire immediately. Then charge them for all you’re worth.” It had been Grace’s suggestion that the first round be fired at the halt. The idea had sounded good then.

Now Benjork throttled to a halt with the rest. “Sean, Maud—with me. Target the Black Hawk.”

In a ragged line, eight charging ’Mech MODs came to a halt. Without further orders, rockets rippled out from them, taking the Black and Reds on their flank. Some rockets corkscrewed across the sun-drenched sky. Others slammed into enemy ’Mechs, shredding armor. One smashed into the magazine of an AgroMech’s autocannon. The armor held out against the explosion, but bolts must have sheared. The magazine was knocked up against the ’Mech’s cockpit, and its stream of fifty-millimeter bullets quit chasing a gun truck.

Benjork turned to face the Black Hawk as its driver became aware of the new threat on its flank. “Sean, Maud—fire two rockets,” he ordered as he emptied his right rocket pack. Far out on the left, the limping ’Mech with the damaged drill also joined in the shooting, sending four rockets straight and true into the Black Hawk’s backside, and following them up with a series of short bursts from his thirty-millimeter Gatling gun.

The Black Hawk stumbled back as missiles hit him from the other three, shredding armor, but doing no major damage.

“Everyone get moving!” the Lone Cat shouted, slamming his ’Mech into five quick steps forward at a right angle. Sean and Maud jinked their own way as the Black Hawk salvoed off one of his four quad-packs at each of them. The missiles hit where the three of them had been, but the limping ’Mech hadn’t moved fast enough. The militia pilot took a full salvo on his ’Mech’s chest, knocking it flat on its back.

Benjork had no time to count his losses. He led his three remaining ’Mech MODs against the Black Hawk, forcing it back even as its laser flashed over them, heating them up. Missiles slashed rock, sent up plumes of dirt, and burned sagebrush around them. Still, they advanced and the Black Hawk backpedaled.

Off to their right, the eight other ’Mech MODs charged at the remaining eleven Black and Reds, trading thirty-millimeter tungsten slugs as they moved. One enemy ’Mech caught a group of dismounts before they could disperse, cutting them down in one bloody clump. A second Black and Red sent a burst of machine-gun fire slashing into a gun truck, gutting it and throwing its crew to the ground like rag dolls.

But the Militia ’Mechs were hammering the Special Police, too, sending them stumbling back. With the Black Hawk otherwise occupied, the ’Mech MODs clumped up, leaderless. A pair of rockets took a damaged ’Mech at short range, slashing off its arm with a machine gun and setting fire to its ammo. The ’Mech burned, sending black smoke up in gusts. Another Black and Red fell, its knee smashed by thirty-millimeter shells.

Now the gun trucks rained grenades and cannon fire on the backpedaling mob. A gray Militia ’Mech closed with a Black and Red, bringing its mining drill to bear on its enemy’s chest. The Special Police pilot had no stomach for that, and popped his canopy immediately, hands up.

Allowing himself a tight grin, Benjork concentrated on the Black Hawk.

It didn’t seem to care much for what it saw. Firing off another full volley, it turned in place and shot into the air. Even as Benjork yanked his ’Mech into a left turn to throw off the missiles, he followed the Black Hawk’s jump, trying to lead it with short bursts.

Behind him came more stuttering fire followed by, “Damn!” in a high-pitched voice. “My bloody gun’s jammed up on me.”

“Try sh-short jerks on the trigger, Maud,” Sean said.

“I’m trying, I’m trying.”

“Get all the power you can get out of your engines,” Benjork ordered. “We’ve got to catch that Black Hawk. He can still snipe at us—pick us off one by one if we leave him alive.”

“I’m f-following you,” Sean said.