Laser fire from the Toads at the mouth of the Gash burned through the air. Commonwealth soldiers clawed the ground and the 'Mechs returned fire, scattering the Jade Falcons without doing much damage. While people panicked and broke past him, Kai started the Hatchetmanrunning toward the Gash. When the enemy infantry resumed their attack, his charging 'Mech became an obvious though elusive target.

"Jeff, get everyone out of here!" he ordered his second in command. Kai dropped the targeting crosshairs onto a manlike outline and directed a withering stream of autocannon shells at it. He watched the shredded body reel away, then shifted his course so the Hatchetman'seleven meters obscured the team working its way up the side of the canyon. Detloff, you better find your Leftenant! I'll buy you that time, if I can ...

Terror flooded Deirdre's voice. "What are you doing? Are you mad? Let me out of here!"

"Wish I could, Doctor. I wish I could. Hang on." Kai stabbed both feet down against the jump jet pedals on the command couch and the 'Mech leaped up into the air. As the gee forces slammed him back down into the couch, he felt as though his stomach had been left on the ground. He watched his altimeter clicking off meter after meter on the scale, then at 30 meters up and 150 forward, he cut the jets. "Lean forward and grab your knees, Doctor. The landing will be nasty."

He hit the jets hard at the last second, and the retroblast knocked over several of the Falcons. The Hatchetmanlanded solidly, bent at the knees to absorb the shock. Then, like a bear beset by wolves, it lunged forward to wreak havoc among the pack of armored figures.

The Hatchetman'slasers swept over the invaders, making armor sizzle and run wherever they touched. The autocannon always found a target, and the sheer physical impact of the projectiles often knocked one flying warrior into another. As for the hatchet, it crushed and maimed those it did not cleave through outright as it scythed back and forth through the knotted mass of the enemy.

Kai's initial rush pushed the invaders back into the mouth of the Gash. There, bunched together, he found them less difficult targets. With fist and foot, he crushed them and continued to batter his way through them. He scraped them from his back and shoulders against the pass's stony walls, leaving the glittering broken corpses to mark his trail.

To Kai, a warrior born of warriors, this battle was everything he had ever trained for. Deep in his heart, he knew the moment he jumped his BattleMech into their midst that he would die. Everything he had learned about the Jade Falcons and their fantastic infantrymen told him he was doomed. He also knew that if he could stay alive long enough, he could pull the battle away from the hospital, giving his comrades a chance to escape and Detloff a chance to blow the Gash.

Something seemed wrong, and as the battle continued to work its way, meter by meter, back through the Gash, that realization seeped into his brain. The sheer ferocity of his attack had shocked the Jade Falcons and driven them back. Though their attack had pitted and ravaged most of his armor, he had given them no chance to think or to plan or to aim. Just as his weapons attacked their bodies, his unquenchable fury attacked their spirits.

They broke and they ran.

The Hatchetmancharged after the fleeing man-things, but Kai did not truly try to catch them. Even before his 'Mech took the last few steps to the crest of the Gash, his assessment of the battle began to take shape. You never should have done this. You risked Deirdre's life unnecessarily. You went off without thinking and nearly cost your lord an invaluable piece of military equipment! If your luck ever runs out...

Cresting the mountain gap, his mouth went bone dry. "Blake's blood! It's all over."

Seated behind him, Deirdre peered down into the gap at the same moment. Her voice sank into a little-girl's whisper. "Oh, God, what have you done?"

Below them, marching upward in two orderly columns, came a full regiment of Jade Falcon BattleMechs. A few of them showed signs of combat, but only in the blistering of paint on the muzzle of a laser or the soot stains near an autocannon's ejection port. The few remaining infantrymen dashed between the legs of their larger brethren, and in a couple of cases, their armor seemed to meld itself to the BattleMechs.

Kai unconsciously started his battlecomputer scanning the machines below. He saw matches for the configurations Victor had labeled as Lokiand Thorflash by, but dozens of other designs appeared on his auxiliary monitor without identifiers. A small counter up in the monitor's corner kept track of the number of 'Mechs scanned and stopped at forty-five.

It might as well be forty-five hundred for all I can do against them. I hope like hell Detloff is in position.Kai switched his scanners over to vislight and boosted magnification on the area where the Sergeant and his men should have been to blow the pass. Oh no!Instead of Lyran soldiers, he saw two Toads. One of them raised a broken body in a Commonwealth uniform and defiantly tossed it down to the floor of the gap.

With the magnification on his scanner, Kai saw enough to identify the body as Detloff's. I killed him. I killed him and his men. It's all over, isn't it? There is no way I can win ...As that thought drifted through his head, it dragged along a memory he had almost forgotten. He considered the course of action it counseled, then nodded slightly to himself.

"Doctor, please do exactly as I ask when I ask you to do it." He flipped two switches on his command console. One filled the cockpit with a red glow and the second slid back a panel on the right arm of his command couch. Sliding up and locking into place, an illuminated blue button rested beneath his fingers. "Do you see that panel by your right knee?"

She nodded, then asked in a small voice, "Do you mean the one labeled 'Magnetic Containment Circuitry'?"

Kai nodded once. "Open that panel please. When I tell you to, pull each and every circuit board as fast as you can. There will be sparks and smoke and a siren, but just keep pulling. Don't worry about damaging them. Just get them out of there."

He punched a button on the communications board, setting up a widebeam broadcast to those below. He lowered his voice into a growl and infused his words with a confidence and arrogance he did not feel. "I am Kai Allard-Liao. I am a killer of men."

He opened the Hatchetman'sarms wide. "This pass is mine to ward. I offer those who wish to challenge me a warrior's death, but I beg an indulgence of those who would accept my offer. Your smaller companions have forced me to exhaust my autocannon ammunition and they destroyed one of my lasers." He brought the 'Mech's hands together to grip the hatchet's haft. "I have only this club with which to defend myself. I will kill you all, alone or in groups."

He snapped off his mike line to the outside. "Get ready, Doctor."

Deirdre stared at him incredulously. "They'll kill us. I thought you wanted to surrender."

Kai's voice came hard and even. "I will do whatever it takes to survive, but I also have obligations and duties to perform. Sergeant Detloff and his people died because I ordered them into dangerous territory to blow the gap. If I surrender, if I do nothing, these super-'Mechs will sweep through, destroy the refugees fleeing from the hospital area, and then will fall on our lines from the rear."

His voice softened slightly, but its intensity did not diminish. "I regret getting you into this. I don't expect you to understand why all this is happening, but I want you to know it's the only way. Before this is over, my hands will be stained with more blood, but better their blood on my hands, then the blood of my friends on theirs."