The fighter battle that Danelle had been describing still raged among the clouds quite far off. Ardan was alone, except for the radar images of the other 'Mechs in his unit being fired out of the hurtling DropShip as it receded toward the southeast. The ship's course helped to orient him. There was the Highland Peninsula, bloated, huge, and ragged under scattered clouds, stretching down to a cobalt, island-dotted sea. Streaks of fire marked other DropShips on their run low over the Peninsula. Those would be Lees and the Capellan March Militia, making their diversion—and the Liao ships rising from Steindown to meet them. Clouds obscured the isthmus as well as the vast expanse of the Ordolo Basin, which was almost under Ardan's feet now. Mountains extended toward him from the east. As nearly as he could tell, he was dead on course.

He had ejected at 16,000 meters and been in freefall for seconds that dragged like hours. His altimeter flickered the dwindling meters as he kept his hands solidly planted on the controls that would trigger his rockets. His 'Mech had no parachute. Fire his jets too early, and he would run short of fuel for jumps in combat. Wait too long, and his comrades would scrape what was left of his Victoroff the flank of those mountains. God, but they looked close!

At 1,000 meters, he plunged into the clouds. Fog whipped past the Victor'sforward screens, completely disorienting him. The plummeting 'Mech was bucking some now, too, as it encountered the turbulence of a growing storm within the cloud. I thought this was supposed to be the dry season, thought Ardan, and felt anew that twinge of fear. Suppose...?

He burst through the belly of the upper cloud layer. Green patched with ragged white spread out in twilight beneath him. Eight hundred meters. He was level with the highest of the mountain peaks. He fired his jets, dialing up their thrust gradually. If thrust came too suddenly, the connectors to the 'Mech's backpack assembly could shred like paper. The effect on Ardan would be similar to a crashlanding into those mountains at terminal velocity. His descent slowed—to eighty meters per second...forty... ten...Treetops groped at his feet. His jets were firing steadily now, gulping fuel at a ravenous pace, but slowing his headlong plunge and lowering him toward the surface of a broad, flat field. A quick glance showed him the vapor plume of three other 'Mechs close by. Good. They'd not scattered much.

At fifty meters, he examined his chosen landing spot again. It looked like an irregular field covered with bright green vegetation, bordered by a tangle of swamp growth. He wasn't certain, but this site might be farther north and west into the Ordolo Basin than he'd planned. His designated DZ was further east on a barren slope along the flank of the mountain ridge. Still, judging by the lay of the ridge, he wasn't more than a kilometer or two off. Ardan began his final landing sequence.

Odd. From thirty meters, the ground looked peculiarly flat, with no depressions or irregularities at all. And the color...Panic struck him like a blow. He was committed now to a landing, but he had a horrible premonition that the deceptively solid-looking surface below him was, in fact, the surface of a marsh or pond covered by weeds or algae scum. If he hit that at ten meters per second in his feet-first landing mode, the eighty-ton Victorwould plunge straight to the bottom of the marsh, driving itself so deeply into the mud that he would never be able to free himself, and would never, ever be found.

He twisted his attitude controls wildly forward, sensing the pitch of his 'Mech through his helmet. The 'Mech splayed out, arms out, belly down, once again in the sky-diver's position he'd assumed after first ejecting from the DropShip.

The world stopped for that last, hurtling instant. If he'd guessed wrong, if that invitingly-solid swatch of land was, in fact, solid, his spread-eagled 'Mech would slam face on into the ground at ten meters per second. The Victorwould be wrecked, and he would almost certainly be killed.

The field swooshed up to meet him, and he fell into it with a roar like exploding artillery. The impact wracked Ardan against his shoulder restraints and left him gasping for breath in his helmet. His 'Mech had driven through the surface of the swamp and face-down into the mud, of course, but his spread-eagle position had kept him from driving too fast, too deep. BattleMechs do not float. Nevertheless, he was not swallowed by the ooze. Driven by the full power of his 'Mech's leg and arm actuators, he moved, first one arm, then one leg, the other arm, the other leg. He could see nothing but sticky blackness through the Victor'sforward screens, now spread out disconcertingly under where he hung suspended from his pilot's seat, but instrument lights showed that his backpack was awash above the viscous mud.

His headphones caught a burst of rapid speech, garbled but from a transmission close by. Good! His antennae was clear, too.

"This is Gold Leader, down and in need of assistance." Speaking slowly and distinctly into the slender microphone suspended in front of his mouth as he scanned the assigned combat frequencies, Ardan forced the words into some semblance of control. God, there had to be someone down close by. He'd seen other Mechs near, just before he'd hit.

Right now, he almost didn't care whether it was Davion or House Liao forces that found him. For the moment, everything seemed to take a back seat to simple survival.

"Gold Leader calling, down and in need of assistance. Does anybody copy?"

"Gold Leader, this is Green Three." The reply washed over Ardan like ocean breakers, leaving him weak with relief. "I copy," said Green Three. "I have you in sight. Stand by for a cable."

Following carefully explicit directions from his rescuer, Ardan closed the Victor'sleft hand around a tow cable that the other 'Mech fired across the back of his machine. In moments, Green Three had braced the heavy cable around a low, spreading swamp tree more massive than any 'Mech, and Ardan was using the cable to work his way, meter by painful meter, toward solid ground.

It took almost half an hour to get free. Not only was the cable slick with mud and algae slime, but Ardan had the use of only his left hand because the Victor's right arm mounted a Pontiac 100 autocannon instead of manipulators. At least a dozen times during that slow, wet crawl, Ardan wondered what he would have done had he been in, say, a Marauderor Sep's WarHammer.Without hands, he would have been helpless, and every movement would have carried his machine deeper into the ooze.

At last, feeling solid ground under his feet, he brought the Victorup to its knees. His rescuer, a hulking Crusader-D,helped him to his feet. "You're a sight, sir," the Crusader'spilot told him, "but I'm awfully glad to see you! I think I'm lost!"

"You're not half as glad as I am, pilot," Ardan said, his voice unsteady, his hands trembling slightly on the Victor'scontrols. "Who are you with?" He'd already picked out the emblem of the 17th Avalon Hussars on the Crusader'sright leg.

"Code group Red Dog. Seventeenth Hussars, sir. Company A, First Battalion."

"Company A...that's Morrison's Marauders, right?"

"Right, sir!" He could hear the surprise in the boy's voice. Senior officers rarely knew the details of the units in their command, but Ardan was different. He'd spent long hours studying the stat sheets of all of his tactical commanders, down to company level.

The Crusadergestured toward the east "I think we were supposed to come down someplace closer to that ridge over there, but I've been having trouble finding solid ground heading in that direction."