Aaron glanced at the ’Mech and considered his options. A ’Mech was a one-person vehicle. He should be able to squeeze Deena into the cramped cockpit in the space behind his command couch, but there’d be no room for Paxton. The Black Hawk had been left in midservice, cockpit hatch open, missile bays empty, the missile loading hatch on the right arm open. Down the catwalk, the crate for a replacement gyro sat open and empty, having been hastily tied down to the metal grating before liftoff. Draped over the edge of the crate were blue padded packing blankets.

He pointed. “Paxton, grab those and get down to that missile hatch. Climb inside, slam the hatch, and try to wrap yourself in padding. It’s going to be a rough ride. Deena, you come with me.”

Her eyes went wide. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to jump,” he said calmly.

“You’re insane!”

“Then stay here and die.” He climbed over the railing and dropped down next to the open hatch. “I’ll miss you. You’re the best valet I’ve ever had.”

She hesitated only a moment before climbing down after him. He was already in the cockpit, strapping himself in. He fitted the neurohelmet over his head with one hand, flipping switches to initiate an emergency startup sequence with the other. It was a risk, cold-starting the ’Mech’s fusion reactor like this, but there was no choice. If it didn’t work, they’d only be as dead as if he hadn’t tried.

He glanced over to see Paxton, a huge bundle of blankets under one arm, climbing into the missile hatch. He reached down into a compartment next to his seat and pulled out one of the headsets sometimes used to communicate with ground crew in the field.

“Deena, throw this down to Ulysses.” He tossed the headset over his shoulder and heard Deena grab it, then throw it down. Ulysses caught it one-handed, then ducked down and shut himself inside the ’Mech’s arm.

Deena squeezed in behind Aaron.

“Dog that for me,” he snapped, then heard the door cycle shut, and Deena grunt in the tight space.

The ’Mech started to come alive around them. The computer lit up. “Voice authorization required.”

“Duke Aaron Sandoval,” he said, followed by his code-phrase, “The hand is the sword; the sword is the hand.”

“Authorization recognized. ’Mech systems on-line.”

The ’Mech shifted around them, hard-points clunking against the restraining clamps. There was no ground crew to release them. He pushed the throttle forward and wiggled the stick. There was a whine, followed by a series of reports as the clamps snapped one by one.

“Captain, this is Duke Sandoval. Open ’Mech launch chute one.”

“Damn,” was the only reply, except for another muttered curse he couldn’t understand. The bay lurched around them, and he could feel the DropShip descending again, more rapidly this time.

“Captain, this is the Duke! Open that launch chute!”

“We’re… busy up here.”

“Open the chute!”

No answer.

He jockeyed the ’Mech’s controls to move them forward. He could see cracks in the main bay door in front of them, sunlight streaming through some of them. Meters above, he could see the main door actuators, one broken loose and waving as the ship rocked.

He activated the twin lasers on either side of the cockpit. He aimed manually and fired. The actuators began to glow red, then white.

They snapped, and abruptly the entire bay door peeled away, leaving them standing in front of a gaping hole in the hull. Hurricane-force winds ripped around them, sucking out anything that wasn’t tied down, with the exception of the fifty-ton Black Hawk.

He could see the gulf below them, the shallows dappled with patches of pale green, the deeper water in blues ranging from pale to indigo. The water looked perilously close.

He hated to land in the water. The ’Mech would survive, if he could land softly enough, but he wasn’t sure Paxton’s compartment would be watertight under the circumstances. He doubted it. The bodyguard could drown before they reached land, and that would be a regrettable loss.

The ship rolled on its axis, and on the horizon Aaron could see a large island, one shore ringed with high-rises, the other with warehouses and docks. In the middle, another spaceport sprawled, dotted with huge freighter ships.

Aaron tried to remember the maps he’d seen of New Canton. What was that island called? Barosa? It was the planet’s major transfer point for bulk space freight, as cargo was transferred to and from oceangoing ships and barges that serviced the rest of the planet. The island looked far away. Then Aaron noticed a light-colored finger extending out from the island in their direction.

A reef.

“Ulysses, we’re going wading. I’ll do my best to keep you dry, but this is going to be a hard ride.”

“Do it,” was the unhesitating reply.

There was another explosion below them, and the ship started to roll over. The hatch in front of them turned downward to face the whitecaps on the waves below. Instinctively, Aaron stepped the ’Mech forward and they dropped into open air.

He let the ’Mech free-fall to get clear of the DropShip. He glanced up through the canopy. Above them, he could see the ship starting to roll as another thruster sputtered. They had to get out from under it.

A Black Hawk was a powerful ’Mech, but if a thirty-five-hundredton DropShip landed on top of it, it would still splatter like a bug.

Whatever primal part of his brain the neurohelmet tapped into was ahead of his conscious mind. The gyros whined as the Black Hawk tumbled forward. He aimed his crosshairs in the direction of the reef, then hit the jump jets.

His stomach did a flip as the ’Mech went from free-fall to three Gs in an instant. It didn’t help that the angle of acceleration was nearly at a right angle to the surface of the gulf that was rapidly coming up to meet them. He realized he was looking down into a huge circular shadow on the water below, a reminder that, although he could no longer see the DropShip, it was very close behind him.

He watched the heat indicator climbing, and a cluster of yellow lights appeared on the jump jet status panel. It was fortunate, he thought, that he valued mobility on the battlefield so highly. He’d used much of his money and influence to have the Black Hawk fitted with experimental jets that increased power and firing duration by about sixty percent, but he was going to need to push them well past their limits today.

It helped that the ’Mech was running light, with no missiles in its ammo bays, but Aaron had no idea if that would be enough.

He heard Deena grunt and gasp as she tried to find a less painful position, and he reached up to swat her hand as it strayed too close to the yellow-and-black striped ejection handle over his head. It occurred to him he could probably survive by ejecting right now, but the ejection would kill Deena, and Paxton would fall to his death.

He reached over and flipped the command couch breaker toOFF . There would be no accidents.

She spoke. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

“That remains to be seen.” Aaron glanced out at the water below. He saw his ’Mech’s shadow now, well separated from that of the DropShip.

Wind whistled past the cockpit. This would have to be far enough. If he waited any longer, they’d never survive the landing.

The Black Hawk rolled back again as he pushed the jump jets into overload. Red lights began to flash on his panel. Burning insulation stung his nose and eyes. The cockpit started to feel like a furnace, but that would be the least of their problems when they were in the water.

“Hold on,” he heard himself say.

Aaron had gone skydiving in his younger days, and his instructor had warned him not to trust his eyes when it came to opening his chute. “Your eyes will fool you until it’s much too late, and then I’ll have to pour your high-blood out of your boots.” He knew that things would look fine, and suddenly he’d realize how close the ground was, and it would come up to smack him.