From the head of the table, Morgan Hasek-Davion acknowledged with a nod Dan Allard, Chris Kell, and General Adriana Winston of the Eridani Light Horse. "Thank you for the briefing on mercenary resources and readiness. I share your concern about the way the invaders seize the 'Mechs of mercenaries they capture. I cannot indemnify you against losses in the name of the Federated Commonwealth, but I am willing to use my personal resources and influence to help restore BattleMechs to those who've been Dispossessed. This is obviously not a guarantee that everyone will return from the battles with a 'Mech—I cannot reward foolishness or incompetence—but I don't want to see good MechWarriors fall into the ranks of the Dispossessed, because of the whim of some enemy commander."

Daniel Allard smiled grimly. "Understood, Marshal, and greatly appreciated."

Morgan looked down at the far end of the table. "Victor, may we have your report from the Junior Officer Strategy Group."

Victor stood, sliding his chair back from the end of the table. "As directed, we studied all the information currently available on the invasion. As we all know, the invaders have superior 'Mechs that outgiin us and are heavily armored. Their range extends well beyond that of our 'Mechs, which gives them an almost unbeatable advantage on the ground. In the air or space, however, our aerofighters can reduce this range advantage because of superior mobility over groundbound 'Mechs, but the increased weaponry and armor still causes problems."

Victor punched a couple of keys on the keyboard he'd plugged in at his end of the table. Over the middle of the black briefing table, a computer-generated hologram came into focus. The left half of the object appeared in vector graphics, with a series of notations pertaining to design appended. Shiny metallic flesh coated the other half, giving the image a more humanoid appearance.

"Besides improved 'Mechs, the invaders have these armored infantry soldiers. Because they can jump significant distances and are exceptionally hard to kill, we've taken to calling them Toads. From the little we can see in holovids, the armor makes the infantry personnel immune to at least one shot with anything under a PPC or heavy autocannon in damage potential. We have nothing even roughly analogous to his branch of their army, and the Toads have actually destroyed scouting lances on their own."

Andrew Redburn, seated at Morgan's right hand, lifted a finger to draw Victor's attention. "Have you a rough equivalency rating worked out?"

Victor looked down. "Kai?"

Even though he knew the answer, Kai typed furiously on his noteputer. The machine's answer reconfirmed the numbers floating around in his head. "We estimate a point-two efficiency rating. That means a battle between one twenty-ton Locustand five Toads should leave 50 percent casualties for each side. When the Locusthas been destroyed, only two Toads will be dead." He glanced at the noteputer again. "This evaluation includes the following assumptions, however. First, that the Toads would be using nothing heavier than their SRMs and small lasers, and second, that the Locustpilot had significant trouble targeting the Toads because of their high mobility."

Victor resumed his briefing. "Despite the apparent superiority of their weapons and forces, we were able to come up with some strategies. Leftenant Allard produced these ideas through analysis of the available data. I'll leave it to him to explain the information."

Kai shot Victor a surprised look. His mouth going dry, he stood up slowly. Please, God, don't let me screw up.

"I, ah, didn't realize I would be doing more than answering questions today, so I haven't prepared a briefing document in advance. Remember, please, that all of this is really preliminary work. I mean, it's been checked over, but I've not had a chance to review it in light of the new data that may have come in over the last three hours, so I ..."

Morgan Hasek-Davion raised his right hand. "At ease, Leftenant. We'd just like to hear some of your observations. God grant us enough time that we won't have to fall back on strategies still in the gestation stage."

"Thank you, Marshal." Morgan's words reassured him, but Kai's heart continued to pound and his voice trembled slightly. His glance flew toward his Uncle Dan, who smiled encouragment. After typing a request for information into his noteputer, he took the keyboard from in front of Victor and called up a chart that replaced the Toad image over the center of the table.

"This is a chart of the apparent range advantage the invader's weapons have over us. As you can see, the ratio is roughly three to one—what we can hit at 100 meters, they hit at 300 meters. Their weapons are probably not more powerful than ours, but they can do damage at longer ranges because of better targeting systems."

Kai hit another button on the keyboard and two new columns sprang up next to the ones indicating effective range. The new columns stood roughly the same height. "These columns indicate the mean number of targets any one pilot shoots at in an exchange of fire. Y0u can see that our pilots average 1.312 targets per salvo, while the invaders average 1.097 targets per salvo. That may not seem like a significant variation, but it is. Looking at the modal data for our troops, based on figures from as far back as Galahad 3026, our pilots seem more comfortable with selecting more than one target in an engagement. Though this might be attributed to the closer range of battles typical of the Succession Wars, the invaders may prefer to concentrate on one foe to the exclusion of others. We must bear in mind, of course, that our universe of data for the invaders is limited, at best."

Chris Kell looked over at Kai. "Do you mean they prefer to fight one-on-one like the Kurita warriors—issuing challenges and the like?"

"No reports indicate challenges offered or accepted by the invaders during a battle," Kai replied, his anxiety beginning to fade. "It's my guess that the invaders have a highly coordinated method of attack. More likely, the unit commander allots targets, and the warrior considers it a matter of pride to finish off his own foe. We've seen them allowing a lancemate to personally finish a target even though it might be quicker for the whole unit to kill off the enemy."

The young MechWarrior typed another order into the computer. The chart reorganized itself into holograms of several items. "Because of this tendency to fight against only one foe at a time, and because of their increased range potential, it struck us in the Junior Officers' Group that decoys and sensor overloads could be effective against the invaders. It would mean modifying some anti-personnel type weapons and their distribution over fields of engagement.

"The first item here is the standard M-1423 pop-up mine. When stepped on, the mine shoots its charge into the air and then explodes. Normally, we include a shrapnel device and set it to explode a meter above the ground to kill infantry, but that would be ineffective against the Toads or 'Mechs. But if we use a white phosphorus explosive that would detonate ten to twelve meters above the ground, the explosion should burn out infrared scanner cells. Other charges filled with magnetized chaff and even paint could block magscan and vislight scanning devices."

A hastily typed command magnified the second item. "This is a standard training-course decoy. Back on Skondia, these are used to project the images of tanks and 'Mechs on the live-fire range. Seeding a battlefield with these, especially if they're modified to cycle on and off from within a 'Mech, would give the illusion that our forces are much larger. It would also give the invaders a legion of targets, only a few of which are legitimate. If nothing else, it would distract them and create difficulties in selecting targets. At best, a phantom army could soak off Toads or even a lance or two of 'Mechs long enough for us to withdraw or even lure the invaders into ambushes."