Grayson frowned. Though he'd expected to encounter sentries in the ‘Mech maintenance area, he still wasn't sure of the best way to deal with them. He still didn't know.

"We've got to go through, Willoch. Your friends may be in trouble. We're going to go help them."

"But my orders, sir..." Almost he stepped aside, doubt vivid behind his eyes.

As Grayson was speaking with the boy, Ramage moved to where he was almost alongside the sentry. The blade-stiff edge of his hand descended, and McCall stepped forward in time to help catch the sentry and lower him to the ground.

"Better this way," Ramage said, answering Grayson's unspoken question. "If he lets us through, some stuffed uniform could order him shot for disobeying orders. He's a good kid, and I don't want him hurt."

"So you slugged him. Good thinking."

A stir of movement made Grayson turn. Clay, Yorulis, and Debrowski appeared from up the tunnel, breathing hard. "We had to dodge some rebel sentries," Yorulis said, "but we made it."

Grayson looked at each face in turn. "You all are still agreed on this?"

"Cap'n," McCall said. "We ha' nae much time."

The others nodded agreement. "Even if their plan goes off perfectly," Lori said quietly, "it could still end up a slaughter. If we're there, we might be able to steady them."

"At least we won't be feeling that we're sending them out to do what we won't," Clay added.

Grayson had been unable to persuade Thorvald or Ericksson of the folly of an attack on Regis. Nor could he persuade the rebel Council to allow the Gray Death to accompany the assault. They insisted that the mercenaries were too expensive to risk in open battle and must remain behind, safe, until Regis was secured. After that, the Legion's help would be welcome in restoring order in the city and in securing the Kurita prisoners.

Grayson had wrestled with the problem for most of the past three days. When the Legion had begun training the Free Verthandi Rangers, the students had been strangers. Grayson, Ramage, and all the rest had felt concern about seeing untrained youngsters thrown into battle, but it was the detached concern of professionals for inefficiency and waste.

Now, after six weeks, Grayson and his men knew those students as people. Realizing that the Legion’s fate was inextricably bound up with the fate of the Free Verthandi Rangers, Grayson felt responsible for those students because he been responsible for their training. He could not simply stand aside and watch them led off to face a situation for which they were not yet fully prepared. These were issues of honor and of personal accountability that went beyond the letter of the Gray Death Legion's contract with the Verthandian rebels.

"Ram, we'll see you when we get back. Until then, you're in charge."

"Luck, Captain."

The six Warriors hurried toward the main caverns and their waiting BattleMechs.

* * * *

It was 0210, and the BattleMech strike force of the Free Verthandi Rangers moved through the broad gully at maximum speed, which proved to be lamentably slow. Though the light BattleMechs could easily have covered the distance in half the time, the lumbering AgroMechs, especially the logging machines, were not designed for speed or maneuverability. This was especially true because the gully floor was not as smooth as Thorvald had expected. They were following one of the wide, winding flow paths carved by runoff water during the seasonal heavy rains. At those times, this and the hundreds of other arroyos carved through the Bluesward became filled with swift-running, muddy water that catapulted down to the swamps and rivers as thundering waterfalls. At other times, the gullies were dry. This one provided perfect cover for an approach to Regis, a sheltered canyon that would shield them from IR and other night vision devices mounted around the city.

Centuries of erosion had carved out a nightmarish tangle of exposed boulders and deep pits. Sometimes, like now, the watercourse broadened and became flat enough to easily traverse, but Thorvald and his men had to be continually on the lookout for sudden areas of broken ground. ‘Mechs with IR vision devices could usually see well enough, though interpreting what they saw was sometimes another matter. Most of the AgroMechs, however, were literally in the dark. They were dependent on low-power microwave transmissions from their faster companions to warn them of approaching rugged ground where a ‘Mech had to slow to a cautious crawl.

It was slow going, and time was running out. It had taken nearly an hour to free Adams' LoggerMech from its predicament on the basin rim road. Nadine Cheka's Stingerhad gotten stuck in undergrowth and loose soil just below the stranded machine. Her efforts to move up and out of the trap had set off another round of rockslides that threatened to sweep her and Adams' LoggerMech completely off the face of the slope. The problem had been solved by having a number of ‘Mech pilots climb out of their machines to pass a heavy cable down the slope to Nadine. With the other end secured to a towring on the Dervish,she had managed to pull her way hand-overhand up the slope, until at last her Stingerwas on the up-slope side of Adams' LoggerMech.

After that, the job was simply a matter of picking up the tow chain from Adams' ‘Mech and attaching it to the D-ring on Gunderson's ‘Mech. With the second LoggerMech taking the strain on the dragchain, Adams had at last been able to get enough purchase on the roadbed to pull his ‘Mech's right leg back up onto hard ground and to get it walking on all fours once more. Moments later, they'd emerged from the jungle and onto the rolling grassland of the Bluesward.

At 0045, Thorvald had transmitted a coded message toward the distant city; Attack delayed. Hold diversion until 0200. Attack will commence at 0245.

He'd waited a minute or two for an acknowledgement, but heard nothing. That caused a slight, nagging worry, but Thorvald refused to let it bother him. It could be an equipment failure, or perhaps the rebels were not in a position to answer at the moment. He certainly could not afford to stand there waiting for the reply, and he would not be able to hear the beamed microwave transmission while his ‘Mech was down in the gully. He decided that the best course was to proceed to the jump-off point outside the city. At 0200, he would listen for the code phrase, which would indicate that the diversion had been set off at the new time. If he did not hear the phrase then, he would consider aborting the attack. Thorvald felt that it would be foolish to abandon the mission over something as insignificant as a few minutes' delay in acknowledging a message.

The trek had gone relatively smoothly after that, at least until Vikki Traxen misunderstood what she saw on her IR scan and put her Locust'sfoot into a hole in the dry streambed, pitching her machine forward with a crash. Traxen was unhurt, but a driver cam in her Locust'sleft ankle had bent, and a coolant seal just above had ruptured. Her ‘Mech could walk, but with a quarter-speed limp, and she'd had to cut off coolant flow to the Locust's entire left leg. That meant further malfunctions for certain, as maneuvers with the straining leg drove the unit's internal temperature up.

Thorvald had sent Traxen limping to the rear, but only after losing another ten minutes trying to open an access panel to see whether the damage could be repaired. The fall had sprung the panel's lock mechanism, and they'd been forced in the end to use Collin Dace's Phoenix Hawkwith a raiser bar to pry it open.

Thorvald glanced for the fiftieth time at the digital chronometer set into his main console. Time was tight, but they could still pull it off.