A new alarm sounded over Tracy's headphones, shriller and more urgent. She ignored it. concentrating on the Griffin centered in the projected crosshairs of her HUD. Her thumb closed on the firing button for her large laser, but nothing happened. Dead! All her controls were dead!The HUD flickered and went out. her cabin lights dimmed, even the hum of the cabin cooling systems dwindled with a mournful lowering of pitch. Her eyes moved frantically from display to display across the control panel. The heat had been too much. The Dutiful Daughterwas shutting herself down!

The Griffin remained standing in the line of her raised laser, but she was helpless to fire, to move, to do anything at all. All the Griffinspilot needed to do was bring his Mech's PPC up and trigger it. It was unlikely that the Daughterwould survive another direct hit.

The flash of explosive bolts around the Griffin 'sarmored head took her by surprise. Magically, or so it seemed, the Kurita 'Mech's head unfolded, curved slabs of armor falling away from the cramped and smoke-filled cockpit. A second flash edged the cockpit's interior with orange flame, and the Kurita pilot rocketed into the air as his ejection system triggered. She watched in disbelief as the pilot's election seat braked on small but savagely flaring rocket jets into the dust a hundred meters beyond the immobile form of his abandoned Griffin .Smoke continued to gush from the ruptured armor of her erstwhile opponent.

She had won!

‘Tracy! Are you all right?’ Carlyle's voice was broken by worry and fatigue.

‘Fine, Colonel. The Daughter shutdownon me, but I nailed that Griffin .’

A shadow fell across her windscreen, and Tracy became aware of a hulking mass near her Mechs right side Pulling off her neurohelmet. she cracked the Dutiful Daughtersoverhead hatch, gasping as cold air boiled through the opening into the cockpit. It was chill in the mountains south of the Shionoha capital, the wind carrying the bite of the glaciers higher up in the mountains of Tsintao. She squeezed herself upright in the hatch and saw Carlyle's 75-ton Maraudersfew meters away. Behind her, the other 'Mechs of the Command Lance—Kalmar's Shadow Hawk,Clay's Wolverine,and McCall's Rifleman—picked their way down past the rock field. Oily smoke clawed the crisp air beyond the boulders, where at least one more kill burned.

‘O.K, people,’ Carlyle's voice sounded over her' cabin speaker. ‘Close up tight. We've got a long way to go before nightfall.’

Camp that evening was in a sheltered circle of glacier-tumbled stone among the foothills of the Tsintao mountains. It offered the protection of a natural fortress against roving Kurita 'Mechs during the night, and a convenient staging area for their strike against the enemy spaceport the following morning. Eight of A Company's 'Mechs were parked around the perimeter, their weapons trained on the gray shadows and blacknesses of the surrounding terrain. The Command Lance machines plus six 'Mechs of the training reserve company occupied the center, close by the Colonel's tent. Beyond, to the south, the mass of the Tsintao Mountains loomed jagged against a star-gloried sky.

Tracy received her summons to report to the Colonel before she had completed her final check-out of the Dutiful Daughterssystems. Except for the savaged left arm, the damage was not bad, and her Tech-experienced eye told her that it would take only a few hours to repair the arm laser in a decent refit facility. Her fears for the 'Mech's paint job had been well-founded, but that was corrected easily enough, too. When the Daughterwent in for her refit, she would get a new coat of paint Tracy was already looking forward to the task, for it would give her the opportunity to paint a Griffin 'ssilhouette on the hull to record her day's kill.

All in all. she was quite pleased with herself as she locked down the Daughterand set off through the dark toward Colonel Carlyle's tent

‘MechWarrior Tracy Kent, reporting as ordered, Colonel.’

Her salute was precise and correct. Though the Legion did not go in for military ostentation, she still had the habit of her earlier training The ingrained ritual helped steady her.

Carlyle studied Tracy for what seemed like a long time, and she became more and more uncomfortable under his stare. He sat back on his camp stool behind a folding table piled high with charts and local maps, examining her with a precise concentration that was unnerving.

If only she'd taken the time to change out of the scanty briefs, tattered cooling vest, and boots that she'd worn aboard the Daughter!She knew how to make herself attractive, but at the moment, her skin was streaked and smudged with alternating layers of sweat-caked dirt and grease, and her long, dark hair was plastered across her face and back in unkempt and grimy mats. She folded her arms uncertainly across her chest and waited. What could possibly be going through the Colonel's mind?

‘You came to us from the Blackguards,’ he said at last.

‘Yes, sir.’ He knew her combat record as well as she did. What was the problem?

‘And...I believe you lost your brother.’ He spoke gently, almost hesitantly, but the words burned all the same.

‘Yes...sir.’ The words were bitten off and sharp. She was determined not to let the emotion show.

‘So you have it in for the Kuritans.’

Those bastards!she thought angrily, but aloud all she said was, ‘Why do you say that, Colonel?’

Carlyle crossed his own arms. ‘We had a problem today, you and I.’

‘Sir?’

‘I ordered you to pull out...not to face that Griffin one on one. You stayed put and slugged it out.’

She wondered briefly why he had waited until now, instead of bringing it up right after the battle. Then she realized he must have waited deliberately, so that he could talk with her away from the rest of the company. She was grateful for the courtesy, but then decided he was condescending to her. And that was one thing Tracy Maxwell Kent would take from no one.

She threw back her head. ‘I won.’

‘Bull!’Carlyle roared the word, and Tracy took a step back, startled. The Colonel got up from his stool and leaned forward, his hands on the edge of the map table. When he spoke again, his voice was low but full of tremendous power. ‘That scrap of yours came right down to the wire. The only damn thing that saved your skin was the fact that the Griffin pilot couldn't have known you were shutting down! He figured you were about to pot him another one and punched out. If he'd have hung on for one more good shot, you'd have been more than frozen out of the fight. You would have been dead!’

‘But he didpunch out...’

‘Are you telling me you were relying on luck?’

‘No. sir. I mean...’ She stopped, confused. Grayson Carlyle was known across the Lyran Commonwealth for his luck...and the luck of his mercenary unit. ‘Don't you. Colonel? Rely on luck. I mean?’

‘God help me, no! I use it, if it comes around, but I also remember that there're two kinds of luck, good and bad. If you want to live in this business, you learn not to gamble on fifty-fifty propositions. You can do that only so long before the odds catch up with you!’

‘Yes, sir.’ Tracy spoke stiffly, without emotion. She had come to this tent expecting congratulations, and instead she was getting a lecture.

The Colonel read her mood and frowned. ‘You joined us on Helm.’ he said.

‘Yes. sir. Your Exec recruited me on Galatea.’

‘You've been piloting Mechs ...what? Two years now?’

‘Something like that.’

It was a long and complicated story, and in any case, she was sure that Carlyle already knew her file.