Victor keyed the radio. "Galen, use those jump jets and pop up for a look on our back-trail. The main Clan body has to be somewhere nearby."

"Roger." Static sliced through the frequency as the Crusader'sion jets lifted it high into the air. "Victor, I have a large Clan force moving toward our DropShips. They have detached 'Mechs in our direction."

As the Crusaderdescended again, Victor switched over to broadbeam frequency and addressed all his people. "Heads up. Nova Cats are between us and our ride home. Let's move."

* * *

Coming up over the hills that had hidden them from the scout Stars they ambushed, Victor saw the plains of Teniente become a circle of hell. Using spotting telemetry from two of the Revenants' smaller 'Mechs, the fire-support lances arced LRMs up over the hills and rained them down on the Nova Cats. The explosions made the ground shake and lit the night with eye-burning fireballs.

At the lead of a sprint lance, Victor's Daishiplunged down the hillside. He slammed into a Clan Dasher,dumping the smaller 'Mech on its back in a cloud of shattered armor. Half-twisting, he pumped a Gauss rifle round through its chest and left it lying on the ground with short-range missiles pouring from the hole.

A Clan Loki,black except for the blue blaze on the center of its torso, stepped through the missile fire and leveled its guns at Prometheus.The autocannon in its left arm lipped flame as it hammered the Daishi'sright leg with a burst of slugs. The Gauss rifle in its right arm sent a silver ball streaking straight into the right side of Victor's 'Mech, spinning it around and sending it crashing to the ground.

The Prince braced for the crash and smiled when no sparks shot through his cockpit at the impact. Pushing off with Prometheus'left arm, he levered himself up enough to point his 'Mech's right arm at the Loki.He dropped his targeting crosshairs onto the OmniMech's outline, but before he could trigger his large pulse lasers, a 'Mech moved up on his right side and engaged the Loki.

Renny Sanderlin's Hunchbacklet go a salvo from its Kali-Yama autocannon. The line of destruction traced from right to left, starting at one shoulder and ending at the other. Along the way, it blew through the Loki'shead and cockpit, decapitating the enemy war machine. Recoiling from the attack, the Lokipitched backward and landed in a tangled, misshapen heap.

Victor started to radio Renny another thank you, but fire blossomed on the Hunchback'sright flank. The FedCom reeled wildly to the left, armor shards spinning into the air. A laser cut through the resulting cloud of smoke and the Hunchbackstumbled across the Daishi'slegs, slewing Victor around, as Renny crashed to the ground.

Twisted away from facing the direction of the attack, Victor still saw the Thorthat had blown Renny's 'Mech to scrap. Facing the wrong way!As the Thorstalked forward, Victor tried to crank his 'Mech's right arm around to target it. Out of my arc! I'm dead!

The Thorpointed its left-arm autocannon at Victor. The pilot swung it into line with the back of Prometheus'head, as if to dispatch a wounded animal. It took one step closer, guaranteeing a kill, then jerked as if that last step had landed it on a live wire. As Victor watched, its center-torso armor went from black to red and then white. It melted over a round hole at the Thor'sheart, then the last vestiges of four large laser beams flashed through the opening.

"What in hell?" Victor brought his 'Mech to its feet as the Thorfroze, then slowly toppled to the side. "Whoever got that Thor,thank you very much."

A distant radio call filled with static answered him. "It was my pleasure, Victor Davion."

"Hohiro, is that you?"

"It is, Revenant Leader. The 311th Pesht Regulars are joining up now." In the distance, Victor saw the Kurita 'Mechs sprinting into view. "We would hate for you to think, on your first visit to the Combine, that we would let anything untoward happen to our guests."

36

Sian

Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation

8 May 3052 (Day 8 of Operation Scorpion)

Though hardened by years of viewing the results of his mother's depravity, Sun-Tzu was shocked to see her and his father, Tsen Shang, in this way. It was not their nudity—he had seen his parents naked on various occasions—nor was it the apparent reconciliation that had placed both of them in the same bed. Tsen Shang, who had never been able to explain his attraction to Romano, had told Sun-Tzu that she would never kill him, and he would always return to her whenever she asked.

What surprised Sun-Tzu was the violence and obvious surprise that twisted their bodies. Tsen Shang had slipped out of bed, his legs apparently tangling in the sheet as he had made a dive for the bedside table. His attempt had toppled the table and spilled the laser pistol he sought onto the floor, just centimeters from his outstretched fingers. The carpeting beside his right hand had been slashed clear down to the floor by the razored fingernails on his three fingers as he clawed his way toward the pistol.

The laser wound in Tsen's back looked surprisingly bloodless. If not for the one thin ribbon running from the wound across his spine, the blackened circle could have been mistaken for an infected insect bite. It hardly looked sufficient to have stopped a man of Tsen Shang's size, but from its location, Sun-Tzu knew it had burst his father's heart.

He stood up from his examination of the body and wiped his hands on the legs of his trousers. "Given that you died trying to protect my mother, I suppose you died happily. Here, on Sian, that is unique indeed."

Looking at his mother, Sun knew the opposite had been true of her. Slumped back against the headboard, she looked as though she must have drawn herself up like a cat to hiss at her assailant. Fury still locked her face in a hideous death mask, but the position of her body made her look more piteous than frightful. Even so, Sun-Tzu could not help feeling more relief than sadness at her passing.

Sun-Tzu folded his arms across his chest to suppress a shudder. Romano's assassin had been most careful, the laser having struck his mother squarely between the eyes. Part of him recognized the wound's stigmata as being that of the Biblical mark of Cain, but he rejected that as an explanation for the shot. He knew his mother would have railed against her assassin and would have bragged that she could destroy

him using the powers centered in her third eye. What better proof that she was mad?

Even as he became confident of his reconstruction of what had transpired in his parents' bedchamber, the allusion to the mark of Cain haunted him. Cain was a fratricide, if I recall my mythology correctly.He knew his mother had ordered the death of her sister and he strongly suspected her of having had her own father killed. A symbolic gesture, then?

Immediately he knew who had slain his mother and father. "How fitting, how appropriate." He knelt once again and scooped up his father's laser pistol. He savored the cool smoothness of its grip and reveled in its weight. He knew where he would find the murderer and he resolved to thank him before he completed the job his mother's assassin should have done on New Avalon.

As he stalked through the corridors of the palace, he felt his heart begin to pound louder and faster, though he recognized it as anticipation, not fear. Avenging his parents would be his first action as the new Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation. According to his plans, his accession to the throne was decidedly premature. Nor had he anticipated the death of his father, though he had acknowledged the possibility that he might have to destroy Tsen Shang after he had eliminated Romano.