TO: Captain Simon X. Beckner. Third Battalion. Second Free Worlds Guards

FROM: Colonel Josiah Kimbolton. Commander, Second Free Worlds Guard

SOURCE: Bella I, 16 November 3020

Your failure is inexcusable. You are hereby relieved of duty. Report to Atreus 27 November for a board of inquiry.

TO: Colonel Josiah Kimbolton, Commander, Second Free Worlds Guards

FROM: Captain Simon X. Beckner. Third Battalion. Second Free Worlds Guards

SOURCE: En route to Atreus. 18 November 3020

Sir. I feel strongly that you've misinterpreted the Kincaid affair by characterizing it as an utter failure.

One lance covered the Techs at the West District station, though they ultimately faced no opposition. The remaining unit covered the causeway, the only rational way to come at the Kincaid estate.

The jump Mechs of Snord's company evidently walked the ocean bottom from Marggarf's Harbor to the Kincaid peninsula. Reaching the seaward shelf, they hit their jets and landed behind us. The tactic was flawless; no one deals with the slime that planet calls an ocean. Joseph Petralona's entire lance folded in the first exchange.

When the other Irregulars crawled out of the ocean, I could not countenance further losses, sir Not for that junk.

I think the exchange was a draw. Snord allowed us to come back tor the damaged 'Mechs. after all. Snord just took back what he said was his. Kincaid's collection, right down to the Eisenhower hand towels.

TO: Janos Marik, Captain-General of the Free Worlds League

FROM: Captain Cranston Snord. Commander, Cranston Snord's Irregulars

SOURCE: Clinton, 27 November 3020

Rhonda says thanks for the dog. She swears it was the King's favorite, a fourth birthday present. Glad to have it back.

Weather's here. Wish you were beautiful. Au revoir, Janos.

LEGION TEAM

-William H. Keith, Jr.

Rec Two...watch your six!’

The words brought a thrill of terror and then action. Tracy Maxwell Kent dropped her Phoenix Hawkinto a crouch from which it could momentarily take to the sky.

‘Belay that, Two!’ The voice in her helmet earphones was crisp, sharp with command. ‘Break and roll!’

She overrode the charging sequence on her 'Mech's jump jets. Rocket explosions slammed the ground at her Phoenix Hawk's feet as she threw her 'Mech forward from its crouch and into a clumsy side roll. A burst of static through her commo gear marked the passing of a high-energy particle beam a few meters overhead. Gravel skittered out from under the combat machine as she slewed it sideways part way down the slope of a landslide spill, the massive Harmon laser in the 'Mech's right hand seeking a target. Computer-generated traceries flicked across her HUD as she sought a target lock. Nothing...

‘Thanks, whoever you are,’ Tracy said quietly into the microphone set into her neurohelmet's chin guard. ‘Where are they?’

‘Up the slope from you, to your right.’ the voice said. ‘'Range one-twenty...elevation three-oh degrees. They're in the boulder field.’

As Tracy shifted her Hawk'shead, computer imagery outlined each element of the landscape as it drifted past her cockpit windshield. Upslope from her position, she could see the boulder field, an ancient tumble of glacial leavings, some the size of a small house.

There was a click in her headphones and the hiss of static as her benefactor shifted to the general command frequency. ‘Skull Leader to all Skulls,’ the voice continued over Channel One. ‘We've got bogies playing hide-and-seek at Castle Seven-Bravo. Recon Two, hold your posit. Fire Lance and the rest of Recon, move in...fast! Command, follow me. Let's move!’

Skull Leader!It was only then that Tracy realized that the voice over her headset had been that of the Old Man himself. ..Colonel Grayson Carlyle. In the sudden shock of the ambush, she hadn't recognized him. Like most of the newer members of the mercenary Gray Death Legion, she still held the unit's young commander in something close to awe.

The Colonel must have seen movement in the rocks and realized the hidden ambusher was drawing a bead on her 'Mech's lightly armored back. The enemy had been smart, triggering a salvo of missiles while laying his PPC along a line just above her head. Her first instinct would have been to cut in her jump jets, which would have sent her smack into that line of particle cannon fire. The Colonel was watching me,she thought, a little wildly. He may have just saved my life!

Where washe, anyway? She checked the tac deployment screen on her control panel and spotted the blips of green light moving over the electronic contour line map glowing on the screen. It looked as though the Colonel and his lancemates were trying to circle behind the ambushers, trying for a clear shot at them from the yet higher slopes beyond the boulders. The rest of the company was far behind, strung out along the narrow path winding down through the mountains. It would be long, long minutes before they arrived to help.

With her Mech partly sheltered by the gravel spill, Tracy cautiously levered the machine's torso higher, searching first with her own eyes through her windshield, then through the electronic senses of her 'Mech's scanners. Electronic imagery was more sensitive than Human eyes but also more easily deceived by ECM Jamming and decoys. Still...nothing...

Then something caught her eye to the left of the boulders, perhaps sunlight glancing off the beveled edge of an armor plate. The next moment, white light blossomed, scorching gray rock, and gravel erupted in front of her windshield as the PPC aimed man made lightning at her Mech's exposed head. Hot gravel rattled like shrapnel off her Phoenix Hawksarmor as she dodged and lurched backward. The loose rock under her Mech's feet and knees gave way. and she slid feet-first and belly-down, scraping down the slope in an avalanche of skittering stones and billowing dust.

The jolt of landing jarred Tracy's teeth even through the padding ot her helmet and her seal harness Damn! There goes the new paint job...

Her Mech. dubbed the Dutiful Daughter,had only recently been overhauled, refurbished, and painted in the mottled tans and yellow browns that would blend it into the desolate landscape of Shionoha. The gravel slope must have scoured the Daughterstorso down to gray metal.

She was up and moving again now, circling to the left and scrambling up the slope once more. She didn't want to reappear in the same spot. With luck, the enemy sniper would assume that he'd scored a fatal bull's eye on her Phoenix Hawkscockpit.

‘Skull Leader to Skulls,’ Grayson's voice barked. ‘They've seen us. boys! Watch it!’ Static hissed as PPC beams ionized air and deflected radio waves. The explosions nearby spoke of missiles loosed, of boulders shattered by arcing high explosives.

On her tac screen, four green blips scattered beyond the spaghetti tangle of contour lines marking the boulder field. The enemy 'Mechs were not visible, would not be visible until a friendly 'Mech got a clear fix on them and transmitted their positions over the tactical computer net. From the movements of Carlyle's 'Mech and the others, though, it was clear that they were taking fire.

Reason it out, girl,Tracy told herself, dark eyes narrowing in concentration behind the visor of her neurohelmet. The snipers must have assumed you were dead and swung around to the near side of the boulders to engage the Command Lance as it closed in.

The situation unfolded itself in her mind. The hidden enemy would have been waiting for them in a secure ambush among the boulders. They probably hadn't spotted the rest of the Recon Lance as yet, having seen none of the Gray Death Legion's 'Mechs beyond her own. She had been on point as the Legion wended its way into these barren, rugged hills. After the enemy had popped her, they must have realized they were being flanked and swung about to take the Gray Death's Command Lance. Right now, they would be above her, under cover on herside of the big boulder, with their backs to her.