"You see," Grayson said as Brasednewic continued to gape up at the armored monster towering over him. "We weren't completelytrusting. Think we're crazy?"

* * * *

Time was precious now. Brasednewic's band numbered fifty men and women and included five swift, flat-bottomed swamp skimmers that would be of help unloading cargo from the wreck of the Phobos.Grayson posted the Wolverineand the Riflemaninland, at the edge of the jungle. While their electronic senses strained for the first hint of approaching Combine forces, Lori set to work in the Shadow Hawk,using the ‘Mech's powerful arms and hands to help with the unloading.

They'd only had time to unload the three heavies after they'd crashed. The other four ‘Mechs, Lori's Locust,a Stinger,and two Wasps,all appeared to be intact in their shipboard cocoons, but were still sealed in storage bays. Besides these, there was a small mountain of weapons, gear, and supplies to be unloaded onto the beach. According to the rebels, a second clock was ticking away besides the one that would eventually bring Kurita forces to the crash site. Verthandi-Alpha, large and close, was the cause of Verthandi's extremely high, twice-daily tides. Those tides were not as severe here above 70 degrees north latitude as they would have been close to the equator, but they were bad enough to sweep hundreds of meters up the broad, flat beaches of the Azure coast. The Phoboswould be nearly submerged by the time high tide arrived in only three hours more.

Rebels and mercenaries worked frantically. Once the Stingerand one Waspwere broken free of their bays, Hassan Khaled and Piter Debrowski saddled them up and brought them out into the light Now they worked together to free Yorulis's Waspfrom its cradle, as a steady line of rebels and mercenaries used swamp skimmers and rafts to haul ashore the last of the Phobos'sstored supplies. With Lori temporarily in command of the Shadow Hawkand with time short, it was decided to leave her Locustaboard the DropShip for now.

"Captain!" Lori's voice over the earpiece snapped Grayson to new awareness. "Incoming...by air!"

"What is it?"

"Looks like a DropShip on its way from Regis," Lori said, "and there's a pair of fighters flying escort."

"That's confirmed. Captain." The second voice was Martinez, from the bridge of the Phoboswhere she was supervising the first steps of damage-control for the craft. Whether or not the ship would ever fly again was an open question, but if they couldn't buy Martinez and her Techs some time, there was no chance at all. "We have them on the doppler radar up here. Range, eighty kilometers. ETA, two minutes."

"Right. Now, abandon ship!" The grounded hulk of the Phoboswould be a prime target for aircraft.

"But Captain, we have auxiliary power up to three lasers! We could provide back-up."

Grayson thought furiously. He weighed the value of three additional lasers in the coming fight with enemy air support against going back on his first order, then made his decision.

"O.K. Do it. Get your non-essential personnel under cover, and be ready to bail out if your armor starts coming apart." He doubted that the enemy would shoot the Phobosto pieces, for the DropShip was too valuable a prize. What they might do was to try to take out her lasers once they knew she was operational. "One more thing, Use. You fire on my command. Got it? Hold your fire until I give you the nod!

"You got it, Skipper!"

He shifted his communicator to the general combat frequency. "Scramble, everyone! We've got two minutes to visitors!"

Crates of supplies were left lying on the beach while swamp skimmers laden with troops pulled out of the swirling surf and skidded on cushions of air across sand and mud into the jungle. BattleMechs lurched from the water and strode swiftly off the beach. They left great, crisscrossing trails of footprints, each as long as a man was high, but there wasn't anything that could be done about that. Grayson had hoped that the incoming tide would erase the prints, but they'd run out of time. The Dracos would have learned soon enough that ‘Mechs had been aboard the downed DropShip and that they'd escaped. Now they'd learn about it slightly earlier than Grayson had originally hoped.

He turned and sprinted across the beach toward the jungle. "Lori!" He gasped as he ran. "Pick me up!"

The Shadow Hawkappeared against the treeline, moving with a ponderous, deliberate lope that ate up the ground between ‘Mech and running man. The Hawk'svisor canopy was open, a chain-link ladder dangling across its chest. Grayson caught hold of the ladder and swarmed up the battle machine's front as Lori turned the Hawkgently to face the jungle and began moving back toward cover.

The Shadow Hawk'scockpit was cramped even when only its pilot was squeezed into the control seat beneath the tangle of conduits and cable connecting the pilot's neurohelmet to the control receptors along the cockpit overhead. When the ladder was winched in and the visor canopy sealed shut, there was but a slim strip of space behind and to the left of the pilot seat. Grayson wedged himself into that crevice, his head ducked low to clear the coolant pipes, mounting lugs, and wiring bundles for the emergency escape charges. If things got rough, if the ‘Mech was knocked down or was forced to run with him aboard, he would be in serious danger. The Shadow Hawk'scramped cockpit was still preferable to the open beach. From here, he would also be better able to direct the battle.

Lori sat in the chair, her hands on the console controls, her head and cascade of blond hair completely covered by the grotesque, black-visored mask of the neurohelmet. It was already stuffily warm inside the close space, and Lori had stripped to boots, briefs, and Tshirt in preparation for the even greater heat to come. As the ‘Mech lurched its way forward, Grayson clung to overhead struts with both hands, telling himself to ignore the pleasant sight of her bare legs and to concentrate instead on the instrumentation above them.

Shadow spilled across the ‘Mech's armor-embraced canopy. They were among the trees at the jungle's edge.

"Just in time," Lori said, her voice muffled from inside the helmet.

He tried without success to read what emotion might be in her words. He was worried about how she might face this, her first combat since Thunder Rift, but that had not been the reason why he'd joined her. There'd not been time to free her Locust,and so he needed to be aboard a ‘Mech himself to coordinate the battle.

"If we spotted them, it's likely they spotted us," he said, "but they'll have to work to find us."

"The ship's radar echo might've blended in with the trees and water," she said, "and the tide's coming in awfully fast. If we're lucky, they might not even see—"

"No such luck," he said, interrupting. Outside, thunder pealed, and a pair of sleek SL-15s banked low over jungle and beach, stooping to circle the wrecked DropShip.

"They've found us!"

10

Grayson reached over Lori's shoulder, stabbing at the frequency settings on the com console. "McCall! This is Carlyle!" he said.

"McCall, aye," the Caledonian responded. "A'm trackenit tha' beasties, sair."

"Hold your fire until you've got your best shot. And concentrate on the aircraft, not on ground ‘Mechs. We're counting on you for anti-aircraft cover."