She reduced both tanks and the hovercraft to smoking rubble within the first fifteen minutes, but the infantry proved more recalcitrant, harassing her ’Mech with rifle fire and grenades in an attempt to distract her from a fire team with a laser cannon that was maneuvering for position. The simulated game of high-firepower tag that resulted went on for almost half an hour, and had not yet reached a conclusion when the communications rig inside the simulator buzzed and crackled.

“…Colonel Michael Griffin…” it said, between bursts of static.

The outside sound pickup wasn’t as good as it would have been in a real ’Mech; the audio portion in a simulation came over the internal system, and the simulator’s designers had paid more attention to blocking out external noise than they did to admitting it.

“…important news.”

Red Ledge Pass

Bloodstone Range of the Rockspire Mountains

Northwind

November, 3132; local winter

Will Elliot whistled under his breath as he made his way down the snow-covered Red Ledge Pass. The party of well-heeled bankers and industrialists he’d been nursemaiding through the backcountry for the past two weeks had climbed aboard their chartered VTOL craft and headed home to their offices and factories on Northwind’s equatorial continent. He was free and on his own, at least until he reached the trailhead and the offices of Rockhawk Wilderness Tours.

The tourists had offered him a ride in the VTOL, but that would have meant flying with them into Tara and taking ground transportation back out again. Add in all the time he’d have needed to spend waiting for connections, and hiking was actually faster, even on snowshoes in midwinter.

Besides, Will Elliot liked mountains, whatever the season, and he didn’t like cities. Today was a fine bright day, the sky a pure blue so intense it almost hurt the eyes, and the snow beneath it a glittering, purple-shadowed white. The air was cold and resin-scented, and Will thought that if it had been any cleaner it would have squeaked when he breathed it.

The trail emerged from the trees and looped around a jumble of boulders mottled with the dark red and green of the hematite and magnetite ores that gave the Bloodstone Range its name. From this point Will had a good view of the Red Ledge road, a strip of macadam barely wide enough for two regular vehicles or one ForestryMech, winding along snakelike at the bottom of the narrow defile. The pewter blue waters of Killie Burn, too swift-moving to freeze over, ran beside the road.

His view didn’t last long; the trail led around the rocky outcrop and back into the shelter of the forest. Will continued to follow the sometimes obscure signs and blazes for the next three hours, coming at last in late afternoon to the trailhead.

Rockhawk Wilderness Tours occupied a rustic log building near the paved lot where trail hikers parked their vehicles. Will’s old BannsonBuilt truck was still where he’d left it two weeks ago; he paused long enough to shuck off his backpack and heave it into the rear of the vehicle, and his snowshoes after it, before continuing across the lot to the office. He’d stop in long enough to collect his pay for the tour just completed, maybe have a cup of coffee that hadn’t been boiled to death over a campfire; then he’d drive home.

The front room of the office felt hot and stuffy by comparison with the cold air of the trail. The young woman who did Rockhawk’s filing and computer work looked up as he came in.

“Old Angus wants to see you,” she said. She nodded her head toward the inner office. “In there.”

Will stuffed his knit cap and his insulated gloves into the cargo pockets of his parka and hung it up on one of the wooden pegs that lined the office wall. “Did he say what for?”

“Not to me,” she said. “Robbie was in here bitching again earlier, though.”

Robbie Macallan was Rockhawk’s other full-time guide. He was also the boss’s son, which he fancied gave him a license to complain about minor inconveniences.

“Good thing I missed him, then,” Will said, and passed on through to the inner office.

Angus Macallan had started Rockhawk Wilderness Tours in 3093 with himself as owner, office clerk, and sole employee. His first stroke of good fortune, securing work with a fishing-mad scion of House Kurita who wanted to try his luck with Northwind’s mountain finnies, had been the start of an expanding network of regular offworld clients.

Advancing age had taken Angus Macallan off the trails, forcing him to leave the heavy work to Robbie and Will, but he still had the rugged frame of the outdoorsman he had been. He was standing at the double-glazed office window, looking out at the snow beneath the trees, a tired expression on his weathered features. Robbie must really have given him an earful about something, Will thought.

“Are the boys from Halidon safely off?” Angus Macallan asked.

“Aye,” Will said. “Smiling and happy, the lot of them, and wanting to come back in spring for the pebblefish.”

“That’s good.” Angus left the window and went back over to his desk. “Sit down, Will.”

Will complied. Old Angus had something on his mind, that was clear—there was nothing for it but to listen until he’d talked himself out. Just the same, Angus’s next words confused him.

“You know the trouble they’ve been having with the HPG network.”

“I’ve heard about it,” Will said. “Mum’s unhappy that she’s missing the last episodes of For Clan and Honor.”

“Yes. Well.” Angus traced a pattern with his forefinger on the wooden desktop. “If the network never comes back up… we have to make plans for that, you understand.”

So that’s what Robbie was going on about, Will thought, but didn’t say it aloud. No good, after all, ever came of criticizing a man’s son to his face.

“I understand,” he said. “Some things will have to change.”

Angus looked relieved. “I’m glad you see it that way, because without the network, we’re going to lose most of our offworld bookings. Oh, a few of the regulars may still come back, but when it takes sending mail by ship to make all the arrangements, how many new clients do you think we’ll be seeing?”

“There’s always more clients like today’s. Right here on Northwind.”

“And thank God for them,” Angus said. “They’ll keep us from going under, if we’re careful… but we’re going to have to be very careful.”

“Aye.” Will kept his voice incurious and noncommittal. Whatever bad news Old Angus was working himself up to deliver, he’d get there in his own good time, and hurrying him wouldn’t make it any better.

Angus sighed heavily. “We can’t afford to keep on going with two guides, Will, and that’s the long and the short of it. Not with the offworlders mostly gone and not coming back. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

“So I’m to go, and Robbie’s to stay.”

“It’s nothing against you. It’s just that with the times the way they are…”

“I know.” Robbie was a whinging bastard, was what he was, but he wasn’t bad enough at his work that Old Angus would let him go and keep someone who wasn’t family. “You’ll put in a good word for me if I need one?”

“You can count on it.” Angus looked a great deal happier now that he’d shifted his burden of bad news onto someone else’s back.

“Thanks,” Will said. He stood up. “I just need to get my money for this time, then, and I’ll be gone.”

“Sheila has it ready for you,” Angus said. “The same as always.”

“Aye,” said Will, “the same as always.” He went back into the outer office without bothering to close the door gently behind him. “Old Angus says you have my pay,” he said to Sheila.

She pulled a long brown envelope out of the paperwork rack next to her computer and handed it to him. “It’s all yours. What did the old man want?”