The first gray 'Mech launched two flights of LRMs at the slowly spinning Blackjack.Moving at ten times the damaged 'Mech's speed, the lethal rockets slammed into it mercilessly. Explosions wreathed both legs in golden-red flame, then a silver corona ripped the fireball in half. As the brilliant light of uncontrolled jump jets vanished, taking the Blackjack'slegs with it, the airborne 'Mech's arms flailed helplessly to counter the backward somersault the missiles had given it.

Phelan tried to turn away as Jack's 'Mech tumbled to the ground, but he could not tear his eyes from the display. The 'Mech's leg stumps slammed into the ground first, scoring deep furrows in the planet's surface. The sudden stop reversed the 'Mech's rotation and smashed it face-first against a rusty hillock. Armor flew whirling in uneven clumps, then the Blackjack'sdomed head sheared off. It bounced halfway up the hill as the torso flipped and twisted awkwardly. The Blackjack'sbody ripped itself apart as the autocannon ammo nestled in its breast detonated.

Hot, salty tears poured down Phelan's cheeks as he cut his 'Mech to the right. The first 'Mech's twin lasers burned parallel tracks through where he had just been, reducing iron ore to glowing slag. There, dammit, you missed! You're not invincible.

Something inside his head screamed at him that what he was doing was suicidal, but another part of him didn't care. Yet his awareness of the hideous threat posed by these unidentifiable 'Mechs made him key a dump of his battle recorder's data and create a simultaneous battle-feed to a widebeam broadcast. He pumped extra power into the broadcast, draining it away from the Wolfhound'srear-arc medium laser. "Trey, Kat, anybody. I hope like hell this makes it out. Get clear. This data is more important than getting killed to avenge either one of us."

Phelan dipped the Wolfhound'sleft shoulder as if preparing to cut back that way, then broke even more sharply to the right. The 'Mech he faced again sent two laser blasts sizzling through the space he should have occupied.

"Your average is falling, friend, and your heat has to be building up." Phelan glanced at his own heat levels and found them hovering on the edge of the yellow cautionary zone. "You can dish it out with all those weapons, but that means you can't be carrying much armor. Now let's see if you can take as good as you give!"

The computer's range indicator put Phelan at 350 meters and closing fast. Phelan planted the Wolfhound'sright foot and cut to the left, then only two steps later, planted the left and dashed straight in at his target. The other pilot, determined not to miss a third time, had spread his 'Mech's arms apart to have one weapon available no matter where Phelan moved—as long as it wasn't straight up the middle.

Laughing triumphantly as the enemy's large lasers flashed past on either side, Phelan dropped his targeting sight straight on the 'Mech's jutting beak. He stabbed his thumb down on the large laser's firing stud and tightened his fingers on the buttons for the medium lasers. Got you!

The large laser hammered into the enemy 'Mech's left side. It peeled back armor, and for a moment, Phelan hoped against hope it had pierced the 'Mech's armored hide. As his medium lasers stitched the 'Mech's left arm and leg with stinging ruby bolts, his heart began to sink. All I'm getting is armor! But that's impossible ... Any 'Mech hauling that much of an arsenal should have paper-thin armor. It's crazy.

The gray 'Mech's two gunnery-pods converged and focused on the Wolfhound.The dual large lasers vaporized all the armor on the Wolfhound'sbroad chest the second they touched it. Phelan's computer barely had time to update the diagnostic display on the secondary monitor when four medium lasers, two mounted beneath the larger lasers on the arms and one each on the sides of the 'Mech's chest, impaled the Kell Hound 'Mech.   ,

Searing waves of heat swirled up through the Wolfhound'scockpit as the lasers destroyed the magnetic shields controlling the 'Mech's fusion-reaction power plant. A rainbow of warning lights ignited the command console and a warning siren began to sail. "Reactor detonation inescapable," shouted the computer. "Eject, eject!"

Phelan slapped his right hand on a large square button. He heard two explosions beneath him and felt them jolt up through his command couch and pound his insides into aching jelly. An invisible hand jammed him down into the couch and snapped his helmeted head back against the padded headrest. A roar filled the cockpit, drowning out the warning siren's screams, and the Wolfhound'sescape module lifted free of the 'Mech's doomed torso.

Phelan jammed his right foot down against the pedals at the foot of his command couch. That boosted thrust through the control jet on the right side of the Wolfhound'shead, hurling the escape pod up and to the left. He pushed the burn for three seconds, then poured on the left thrust to get as much altitude as he could.

Below, on the asteroid's surface, the headless Wolfhoundlumbered forward. The fires burning in its chest silhouetted the 'Mech's skeleton. Then a roiling ball of argent plasma freed itself from the engine casings and engulfed the Wolfhound'storso. In a flash of blinding silver fire, it consumed the 'Mech from the knees up and let the lower legs trip and pinwheel across the ochre plain.

Phelan fought against the Shockwave of the fusion engine's explosion, but it shook the Wolfhound'shead furiously and upended the muzzle. It also caused the escape pod to prematurely deploy its parafoil, which failed to expand properly in the thin atmosphere and became fouled as the pod slowly flipped up and over in a lazy imitation of the dying Blackjack.

Phelan pulled his feet off the thrusters and snapped the gyrostabilizers on line with the press of a button. The asteroid's inhospitable surface filled his viewports as a massive spark arced across the command console. Controls flickered and monitors died in a puff of acrid white smoke. As thick as it was, the smoke could not obscure the vision of the asteroid as it grew larger and larger.

Stabbing both feet down on the thrusters, Phelan threw his head back and braced for a collision. Hope it's just the monitors that shorted out, not the jets themselves. This better work!

Phelan Kell never found out if his effort did succeed, for the escape pod's third bounce across the surface tossed him against his restraining belts and one of them parted. Slewed half out of the command couch, he could do nothing to help himself as the fourth bounce smashed his neurohelmet against the command console and blackness stole his sight.

BOOK II

Claws of the Beast

9

ComStar First Circuit Compound, Hilton Head

Island North America, Terra

15 September 3049

Myndo Waterly, Primus of ComStar, extended a hand to her visitor. "The Peace of Blake be with you, Precentor Martial."

The tall man genuflected with the same crisp motion he might have used to salute another warrior. Then he took her hand, allowing her fingers to curl over his index finger, and raised her hand to his lips. "Thank you, Primus," he said, straightening up. "And with you as well."

The rarnrod-straightness of his stance made her marvel at his body's power despite age and the traumas inflicted in a long career. The black thong of his eye patch circled his head, holding his flowing white hair in check and covering the empty socket of his right eye. The crow's feet radiating from his left eye might have hinted at his age, but the sense of inner peace Myndo read in his stance contradicted it.