“Hold your fire. Let’s see if we can draw them off.” He pointed for his driver, and the turn got wider. In the distance, the Roughriders began a careful pursuit. “Ah, so you fellows have heard about the way our moles dig.” Stillwell grinned—he was driving a gun truck for the same reason.

Only after Stillwell’s task force drew even with the Roughrider line did the enemy task force step up the pace of its pursuit. “You don’t want me getting behind you now, do you?”

Now that the Roughrider task force was in slow but earnest pursuit, Stillwell pointed his driver to do a hard right, and he led the platoon in what must have looked like serious flight. The Roughriders, true to their name, put the hammer down and came hot after him.

Which didn’t bother Stillwell at all as he topped a small rise and dropped out of sight. Hardly visible in the draw that ran through the shallow valley, eight jeeps sat ready, Gatling guns and rockets balanced on their roll bars. At the sight of him, infantry vanished into their fighting pits. Task Force George was now complete: three platoons of gun trucks, two of infantry.

The Centurion used its height to snap off some Gauss rounds and LRM volleys to send George’s gun trucks seriously into random S-turns. George timed his next move to the arrival of the Roughrider task team at the crest of the hill.

“About-face!” he shouted, and his four gun trucks did hard U-turns and gunned from cover. From trucks and hidden infantry, rockets reached out to slash into the Roughriders.

“Charge!” George yelled. Zigzagging, racing for all they were worth, guns blazing and rockets flying, the trucks advanced. Militia infantry fired off rocket after rocket, marking their fighting holes, but the Roughriders were hardly interested in them.

The Roughrider infantry took hits but held their line long enough to fire off a volley. Then they backed across the hill. Firing off lasers and short– and long-range missiles, the Roughrider’s BattleMech and tank covered for the infantry withdrawal, but flying shards of armor showed they were paying a high price. Finally the Centurion backed up, firing even as its legs disappeared in defilade. Lastly, the tank roared out of the valley in reverse, firing all the time.

There was no question in Stillwell’s mind that he would not lead his task force across that ridge into whatever trap the Roughriders were setting for him. Cheers from the troops were softened by the LoaderMech behind Stillwell holding up a single rocket.

“This is my last, sir.”

The gunner beside her laughed nervously as he dug two 20mm shells out of the box magazine attached to his Gatling gun. “I was about empty, too.”

“Then let’s get out of here before they know we bamboozled them,” George said, joining in their laughter.

The wheeled trucks did a fast turn around the valley to collect their dismounts, and then Stillwell let them lead the way to the rear, his platoon going last. His final glimpse of the battlefield showed the Roughriders he’d fought regaining contact with the rest of their company as another team of gray gun trucks was just starting to circle their flank.

Ten klicks back, they drove into a resupply park under the happy management of Auntie Maydell from Falkirk. She laughed as George described their little ambush, but shook her gray head at the empty ammo boxes. “We can’t keep this up much longer.”

An infantry girl pointed at the five-kilo satchel charges in the bottom of the truck. “We were ready to take them down with those if George here had let them get close.”

Maydell and George exchanged glances. “Grace better figure out a way to end this or it’s going to be a bloody balls-up,” George said.

“Not my way of putting it,” Maydell sniffed, “but I do think she’d better put a stop to this before it gets past us all.”

L. J. flipped the radio switch. “Hanson here.”

“Art here. There’s something on the other side of that river. They put a lot of fire on the guys who tried to cross to set up an OP on that side. We don’t have a listening post over there yet, but we’re sure taking fire.”

“Art, B Company is coming up behind you. I’ll have them cross the river well out and swing behind your troublemakers. I’d like to pocket a few of these shooters for a change.”

“I feel a strong urge to talk to them myself,” Art said.

“How bad is it?”

“That explosion blew out the panels on the silo pretty hard. I got a Joust tank that had everything sheared off right down to the turret armor. Quarter-inch steel sheets can do a number on tires, tracks, you name it. Then that damn smoldering corn comes flowing at you like lava, and all you want to do is run but you can’t. We’ve dug most of our troops out but I don’t think I have a vehicle or ’Mech with a stone’s worth of offensive power. My Arbalest had one laser sliced in two by flying metal, something’s sticking out of my right rocket launcher and I have no lights at all on my left one. Never thought all this damage could come from just walking by a damn pile of food.”

“We’re learning to respect a whole lot of new stuff, Art. Let me know when you see B Company.”

Chief and Mallary eyed the map. They had only two markers for enemy battalions; they promoted aCOMPANY marker toBATTALION as L. J. dialed up B Company.

“Fisk, how long before you get up here?”

“I’ve got Kilkenny in sight, sir. Least I do if Kilkenny is the town with all the smoke.”

“That’s us. We have reports of battalion-sized forces of unknown quality on our left and front. Something blew up the granary on our right and is resisting any effort by us to probe it. I’m assuming another battalion. Until A Company can pull itself together, I need you to secure the right flank with a minimum force and serve as my reserve.”

“Understood. We’re nearly there, sir.”

“Swing a platoon out to the other side of that river and see if you can cut off a few hostiles. I’d love to have a heart-to-heart talk with a couple of them.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

The medic hollered for a wire-cage stretcher so she could get the radio operator down. Two troopers carried one up, along with several coils of rope. Once the wounded man was safely strapped in, they lowered him down the outside of the still-swaying steeple.

“That man’s earned his wound medal,” the Chief said as the radioman kept silent even when the wind twisted the stretcher around and hung him facedown, fifteen meters in the air.

“A lot of people are,” L. J. said as he glanced to the east, where smoke still filled the sky. It was getting late; there was less than an hour of daylight left. L. J. would not send his troops on a night pursuit across ground previously held by this enemy—not with their proclivity for turning holes in the ground into busted ’Mechs and hurt troopers.

Graf and Chang reported in. Both C and D Companies had engaged hostiles on their front who withdrew in good order, only to have more show up on their flanks and threaten their rears. Nobody was breaking. Nobody was running. L. J. called off the attacks. Graf and Chang began a retrograde of their own as the sun sank toward the mountains to the west.

It was no better on his right, either. Fisk did swing out a platoon, but the hostiles seemed to be expecting that. The platoon came under immediate fire. A large chunk of A Company was now in the field hospital set up just this side of the burning granary. With A dismounted, L. J. wasn’t in a position to pull back even if he wanted to.

He headed downstairs with Mallary. It was time to do a walkaround of his battalion. Let the troops see the skipper, and let the skipper see firsthand the mess he’d gotten them into. He had just powered up his Koshi when the command van’s undercarriage collapsed in a shower of slugs.