"The mercenary and part of his force are in Liao space now. It may be too late to stop whatever terrible deed the man has planned. But we do hope to lure him and his band to a place where we can deal with him. His Grace is already preparing an overwhelming force to trap and deal with this monster.

"You, meanwhile, must seize the mercenary's land-hold. And you must be ruthless about it, single-mindedly and bloodily ruthless!" Kleider had smacked one of his fists wetly against the palm of his other hand for emphasis. "It may well be that the perpetrators of this scheme are among those at Durandel. Certainly, there are no innocents among them, for the mercenary leader would need the full support of his people before even contemplating such a scheme. No . . . you must notconsider these people to be innocents,Colonel."

Being a good, loyal soldier, Langsdorf had played his part. Langsdorf's father, Rolf Langsdorf, had been a personal friend and confidant of Janos Marik, had supported Janos in the recent, bloody fratricidal struggle between Janos and his brother Anton. As reward, Janos had named Rolf as Count Valik, with a patent of nobility that made Langsdorf's brother a viscount, and Julian himself a minor noble. Julian Langsdorf had been raised by his sternly correct father to believe that nothing was more important than absolute loyal and faithful service to one's liege lord.

Langsdorf opened his hands and looked at them, turning them under the light. He still believed that, but the shrieks and death screams of the slaughtered civilian of Durandel still rang in his ears. The enemies of the Captain-General hadto be rooted out . . . the perpetrators of such a monstrous scheme hadto be exterminated with utter ruthlessness . . . And yet . . .

Was there reason and purpose to such slaughter? He remembered the woman, half-naked and golden-haired, who had fled from beneath the shadow of his Warhammerwhen he'd smashed aside the walls of her house. He had had the woman in the sights of his Warhammer'sleft machine gun when he realized she was carrying a baby in her arms.

He had let her go, still torn between duty and morality.

It was one thing to destroy monsters bent on the destruction of his culture and his people, on tearing down the government and the lord he was sworn to serve. The indiscriminate machine-gunning of a defenseless woman and her child was another matter entirely. At that point, Langsdorf had turned over command of the operation to the Hammerstrike Company's Captain Prosser. He had returned alone to Helmdown, where he was greeted with the unconfirmed reports of landings by unidentified DropShips.

Langsdorf sat now in the cockpit of his Warhammer,leading his 12th White Sabers toward what Captain Javil claimed was an enemy DropShip LZ. He wanted desperately to speak with someone, but the same interference that was blanketing enemy communications was blocking his own. Things had started to go very seriously wrong almost from the beginning of the operation. First, there had been this struggle between loyalty and right, a struggle that threatened to paralyze Langsdorf by making him question each order, each movement, if only to himself.

Then had come word that eight 'Mechs— eight 'Mechs—of the 5th Marik Guard were out of contact and presumed destroyed in Durandel. The only clue to their fate was a confused radio message received by a regimental command listening post in Helmdown, a fragmentary and panic-ridden warning of unknown agencies hunting down the Hammerstrike Company. The transmission had broken off before the radio operator could get a confirmation on it. Then, only silence came from Durandel. Langsdorf had to assume that the 'Mechs he had left there under Prosser were destroyed. What he did not know was how and by whom.

The answer had come moments later, in the call from Captain Javil in orbit. He informed Langsdorf that a pair of DropShips had set down outside of Durandel, probably at about the time the Colonel's Warhammerwas returning to Helmdown. The news answered several questions, but was disturbing, too. It suggested that things were going very wrong, indeed. Had not Kleider promised that the first-line combat forces of the renegade mercenaries would be diverted to another system and apprehended there, that all Langsdorf would need to worry about was a handful of rebellious civilians, trainees, and third-rate troops?

Third-rate troops did not dispatch eight 'Mechs so quickly that they scarcely had time to call for help. The grounding of a pair of UnionClass DropShips meant that as many as twenty-four 'Mechs could be on the ground at this moment—far too many for his small combined unit to face. At the moment, assuming that all eight of the Hammerstrike 'Mechs were destroyed, he had fifteen 'Mechs at his command, and the majority of those were lights.

Langsdorf had assembled what 'Mechs he could—his own Warhammer,plus three lights left by the Hammerstrike Company at Helmdown when they'd left for Durandel, together with two full lances from his own 12th White Sabers. That would leave only three more 12th White Sabers 'Mechs to watch Helmdown, but he'd be needing as much firepower as possible to have a chance against the enemy DropShips.

The road between Helmdown and Durandel was broad and flat, and so progress was rapid. A pair of ECM ground vehicles detached from his infantry reserves raced alongside the 'Mech column, broadcasting the static that would scramble the enemy's radio transmissions. It would also tell the enemy of their approach, but that didn't matter. Langsdorf's Warriors already had detailed instructions, with little need for further communications once they were in the field. The jamming should hamper the enemy more.

With luck, his force would arrive at the DropShip landing zone before the mercenary raiders could even return from Durandel.

With luck, they had a chance.

* * *

Captain Ramage adjusted the focus on his ranging binoculars. Numbers flickered across the image plate within the eyepieces as the device probed targets with rangefinder laser beams. The far end of the gently sloped valley was already obscured by dust, making it difficult to get a precise fix on the most distant targets, but the nearest were only eight kilometers away.

Casting long shadows through the low-lying dust cloud, the two lead machines were moving at nearly eighty kilometers per hour. One was the odd, stilt-legged shape of a Locust.The other was a more human-shaped Wasp.

He opened the tac frequency and heard the harsh, rattling hiss of static.

"Runner!"

"Sir!"

"To Captain Martinez. At least two 'Mechs are closing on this position. Range eight, speed eighty.”

“Two 'Mechs! Eight-Eighty! Yessir!”

“Good! Go!"

Ramage looked up and down the line of the trench. Other soldiers crouched along its sinuous length every ten to fifteen meters, their weapons poking out beyond hurriedly erected front-cover masses of logs and rocks. Further up the hill behind him, and farther down in front, other slit trenches took advantage of the boulders, the low, scraggly trees, and whatever other scant cover the hill had to offer. In a few cases, the occupants had had time to create rough-and-ready bunkers, with logs and light armor plate covered with dirt providing overhead cover.

Eight kilometers, eighty klicks per hour. There was no arguing with the arithmetic. The two metal monsters would be on top of their position in one tenth of an hour— six minutes. The chances that Grayson and his pair of lances would make it back from Durandel in time were microscopic. Shadows loomed and moved with surreal menace deeper within the dust clouds across the valley.

Ramage tried to penetrate the murk. Three . . . four . . . six . . .