"Red Two, what do you have for me?" Ramage was crouched in a hastily dug slit trench in the boulder-strewn woods near the valley where the Legion's two DropShips had come down. Behind him were the foothills of the Aragayan Mountains farther to the north. The communicator earpiece spat static at him, then cleared.

"Red One, we have incoming 'Mechs!"

The Lieutenant listening in on a separate headpiece next to Ramage raised his eyebrows. "Ours?"

"Not a chance, Dulaney," Ramage replied. "Not from that direction. Red Two! Red Two! Give me an ID!"

"Red One, this is Two! Company strength! We count twelve. Repeat twelve! We see a Warhammer . . .two Archers... a Thunderbolt . . .and listen, Red One! We see infantry and armored vehicles as well!"

This was bad, Ramage knew. All the 'Mechs that the Legion patrol had named were heavies, a match or more for any of the 'Mechs in the Gray Death 'Mech Company, and far superior to the four light 'Mechs in the recon lance pulled up alongside the DropShips.

"Red Two! This is Red One! Mount up and pull back. Keep us posted on their Twenty!"

More static crackled in their headsets, this time pulsing in a regular, almost hypnotic surge of hiss and pop.

"They're jamming," Ramage said, removing the headset. "I don't know if our patrol heard or not. But those 'Mechs they spotted are moving our way, and fast!"

"What does it mean, Ram?"

"It means they have the DropShips nailed and they're moving in to get 'em!”

“How long do we have?"

Ramage was already studying a map of the area unfolded across his knee. His forefinger marked a point on the map with a smear of mud. "Twenty minutes ... if that. We've got to get word to the Colonel!"

A quick check proved that all radio bands were clogged with the same melodic surge and hiss of enemy jamming. "Damn, and we don't have fiber optics strung yet, either." That meant no field telephones. He looked up out of the trench. "Runner!"

A young trooper in a gray-green camouflage smock dropped into the trench next to the two officers. Ramage switched on a recording device built into his wristcomp and hurriedly dictated his report on what Red Two had observed.

"Situation critical," he concluded. "I strongly urge that main body Gray Death 'Mech company be alerted using jam breaker techniques from DropShips. Estimate infantry and recon lances not sufficient to more than delay approaching forces if hostile."

He switched off the recorder, then pressed a button and caught the thumbnail-sized mini-clip that popped up from its recess, placed it in a small waterproof canister, and handed the package to the soldier. "This is for Captain Martinez, Lieutenant Thurston, and Lieutenant Roget," he said. "For their ears only . . . and urgent! Report back to me with their reply."

"Yessir!" The runner scrambled out of the trench and was gone.

Ramage moved over to where long-range infrared binoculars were mounted on a tripod at the edge of the trench, facing southwest. The land sloped gently in that direction, leading down out of the hills and woods and onto the broad sweep of the North Highland Plains.

Helmdown was in that direction . . . and the main Marik forces.

"I wish the Colonel were here now," Ramage said, more to himself than to Lieutenant Dulaney.

"Can they get a message to him?" Dulaney asked.

"Eh? Well, the transmitters aboard the DropShips will punch through the jamming, if anything can. And if the Colonel picks up the fringe of the jamming, hemight figure out what's happening on his own and high-tail it back here. He's a smart one, that boy."

But Ramage did not feel as confident as he sounded. Even if Grayson Carlyle immediately force-marched his two lances at top speed back from Durandel, they mightarrive in the area of the DropShips at about the same time as the 'Mech force that Red Two had spotted. And after a march like that, Grayson's men would be in poor condition for a fight, especially against an enemy force composed of heavy 'Mechs.

He adjusted the telephoto zoom on the binoculars, scanning the empty horizon to the southwest. No, things did not look good at all.

* * *

Grayson tried again. "Phobos, Phobos,this is Amber, do you copy? Over." He strained against the speakers built into the earphones of his neurohelmet, but could hear only a faint, distant hiss like the heavy surge of an ocean against its shore.

"Lori, what do you make of it?"

Across the ruined plaza, Lori's Shadow Hawkpaused in its slow and deliberate movements among the rubble, as though the battle machine itself were listening. "It's not natural," was her reply. "Deliberate jamming, Gray. I'm certain of it."

"That's what I thought, too."

The horror of finding Durandel deliberately obliterated had left the Legion's MechWarriors in a state of dulled shock. They were finding bodies now, forms crushed beneath fallen rubble or sprawled in laser-seared or trampled gore on the town's ferrocrete walkways. The survivors were emerging, slowly, as word spread that it was the Gray Death Legion's 'Mechs descending like avenging angels on the Marik BattleMechs that had occupied the town. Each survivor had a similar tale. Word had come five days earlier that a force under the command of Lord Garth, Duke of Irian, was landing at the Helmdown starport, that a great victory had been won at Sirius V, that the Gray Death was due some special, spectacular honor.

Durandel's leaders and Captain Baron, who had been left in command at Helmfast, had gone to Helmdown to talk with the Marik representatives.

They had never returned.

On the following day, the BattleMechs of the Hammerstrike Company of the 5th Marik Guards had secured Helmdown and swept into the countryside, seizing strategic crossroads and what few industrial facilities existed around the planetary capital. A clear but incomprehensible radio message had been received at Helmfast: "Your leaders have been declared in rebellion against the legal government of the Free Worlds League. Surrender to your lawful lords, or be destroyed."

After Captain Baron's disappearance, a young Lieutenant named Fraser had assumed command of the garrison. The recent chain of events had been so odd, so confusing, that it was a real possibility that the Helm invaders were not Lord Garth's people at all, but renegades, enemy raiders, or even the vanguard of some rebellious Marik faction. Helmfast had been given into Fraser's keeping. He would not surrender it without certain knowledge of who his attackers were, or what was the legal status of the Gray Death Legion.

Helmfast's first line of defenders consisted of the armored vehicles that had been under Baron's command until his disappearance. There was infantry, too, local Helman militia for the most part, called up to serve with the masters of the Durandel landhold. There were also MechWarriors at Durandel, including Lieutenant Gomez DeVillar, a Phoenix Hawkpilot named Kent, and several recruit trainees, but their 'Mechs had been packed aboard the Phobosmonths before to serve as reserve 'Mechs in Liao space.

Lieutenant Fraser met the Marik BattleMechs on the 66 plains west of Durandel, where the enemy 'Mechs crashed through the defender's line. The militia had remained in Helmfast Castle preparing for a siege, while B Company, the twenty vehicles of the armored company, and the infantry deployed.

So far, none of the survivors that Grayson interviewed had been able to give a coherent picture of what happened after that. Some reported seeing the Marik Hammerstrike Company deploying beyond Fraser's line. Most of the enemy 'Mechs were lights, but well-handled and well-disciplined. Though low, heavy clouds of drifting smoke tended to obscure what was happening, within thirty minutes, there were Hammerstrike 'Mechs firing into the walls of the castle and prowling through the streets of Durandel. There were reports of panic among the trainees of Company B fighting on foot, of the Marik BattleMechs sweeping like a whirlwind of flame and destruction through the lightly armed vehicles facing them. A doctor found working among row upon row of injured soldiers and civilians at the edge of the village said that he had treated a soldier who reported that a Marik Griffinhad crushed Lieutenant Fraser's Vedette light tank under its feet.