The bastards. She would show them. She would show them all. She didn't care what they thought...and if she was half-machine, she was a machine with purpose—a killing machine.

The names they called her still hurt, but that was deep down where she could keep the pain and never let it show.

* * * *

The flight of Davion Sparrowhawkscleared the cloud-tops, contrails streaking aft from their wing and tailtips in the thin, icy stratosphere of the Folly. The rising sun tinted the cloud layer orange-gold and edged the fighters in red.

Lieutenant Adam Valasquez greeted the sun with a shout and laughter. "Yo! Red Flight! This is Red Flight Leader! Are y'all with me?"

A chorus of voices sounded in his earphones, and his combat screen showed green lights for each of the six ships in his command. This was the day he'd been waiting for, ever since he'd heard that the Liao bastards had taken Redfield. He'd known then that he would get to lead the Hellraisers against the best pilots the Capellan Confederation could throw at them...and a beautiful day it was for it, too.

The SPR Sparrowhawkwas an ideal first-response space defense fighter. With its high rate of thrust, the craft could clear the planet and meet the enemy well out in space while heavier fighters were still being readied on the ground. Valasquez harbored no illusions about the place his Red Squadron would hold this day. They would take the whole first brunt of the Liao fighter attack on themselves, hoping to blunt that attack, to turn it aside, to so delay the enemy's approach that heavier line fighters could reach the enemy formation before it had a chance to reform.

Such challenges required a special temperament, a special cast of mind. Many of Valasquez's friends thought he was crazy. The rest were certain of it Valasquez himself would be the last to deny the charge. It was part of an image he cherished and went out of his way to foster.

"Let's haul it, Hellraisers!" he shouted over the com circuit. "We got some tail to kick!"

There was a volley of rebel yells and cheers as he shoved his stick to full throttle forward. Savage acceleration kicked him back into his seat, and the SPR-HS clawed into the darkling sky. Then, one by one, the other ships of Red Squadron spewed white flame as they leapt skyward after their leader.

* * * *

Pilot Uchita Tucker was the first to spot the oncoming flight of Davion spacecraft.

"Dagger Leader, this is Dagger Two. Bogies at one-eight-zero, straight in line with objective. Range seventy-five thousand, closing." She kept her voice glacially level, coldly precise.

"Dagger Squadron, Dagger Leader. Look alive, boys and girls. The long ride's over, and the fun is about to start Arm your weapons." There was a snap and a hiss as Dagger Leader shifted from the general combat frequency to a private ship-to-ship channel. "Tucker, this is Captain Chen. A warning: stay tight and close, no hotdogging, no lone-wolf berserker tactics, got it? You stay with the flight, and hold tight to my wing. If you sideslip or lead me by more than ten meters from my port wingman position, I will personally burn you down—got me?"

Uchita's left hand—the flesh-and-blood one—was trembling, her breath searing in her chest. The familiar blood-lust burned behind her eyes, dulling the pain of her body's long captivity. Her right hand closed around the joystick between her knees. "Got it...Captain."

Her left hand killed her ship's thrust To Uchita's eyes, the other five Thrushfighters of Dagger Squadron appeared to be accelerating past her, away from the planet and into deep space at rapidly increasing speed. This was only an illusion, though, created by the fact that her ship was no longer decelerating at thirty meters per second squared and was now hurtling planetward more quickly than her still-slowing fellows. Machine-precise fingerings of her attitude jets flipped the tail-first Thrushend for end, then steadied the ship while Stein's Folly filled her forward canopy with green and orange splendor.

"Tucker!" Chen's voice screeched over the private circuit She palmed the comm switch, cutting the voice off in mid-threat Let him burn her down...if he could catch her. She was going to kill Davions.

Her heads-up display sprang into sharp illumination in front of her eyes. Red pinpoints of light projected the positions of the approaching Davion fighters, as steadily dwindling decimal numbers recited the closing range.

Kill them, she told herself. Kill them all!

2

Ghostly fingers of radar had first detected the approaching Liao ships, which the Sparrowhawk'stracking computer painted as a ragged circle of five white pinpoints of light on Lieutenant Adam Valasquez's heads-up display. There were other enemy ships further out, he knew—at least three more six-ship squadrons and a small fleet of massive OverlordClass DropShips—but these five were the leaders, the ones charged with opening the way for the landings certain to follow. Their jettisoned fuel tanks had made a blazing display of meteoric fireworks in the chill, twilight skies above Steindown's north pole; he'd seen the images relayed from DESTra's cameras. That they'd been willing to burn that much reaction mass to hump the void between the jump point and Stein's Folly at a crushing three Gs could only mean they were coming to stay, hoping to catch the ground defenses unprepared. Those Overlordsfarther out carried thirty-six BattleMechs apiece. If they got through...

But the Overlordswere someone else's responsibility. Heavy assault fighters still being readied at Steindown's port would be the ones to vector against the Overlordsin hopes of burning them down before they could release their deadly cargoes. These five leaders were the targets for Valasquez's squadron. They had to be burned so that they couldn't soften the Davion ground defenses or provide air cover for the BattleMech drop. After they were out of the way, well...

Valasquez rubbed his gloves against his thighs in a futile effort to wipe away the sweat trickling across the palms of his hands. He'd never had a chance at an Overlord.They were big...terrifyingly big, and heavily armed and armored, but...

"Red Flight, this is Red Leader. Steady up, now. We've got 'em right where we want 'em. Just keep cool and stay tight On my command...three...two...one... punch it!"

The squadron of Sparrowhawkscut in their overthrust as one, vectoring for the oncoming Liao ships. There had definitely been six enemy craft—the usual complement of a battle squadron—but now Valasquez read only five. He almost widened his scan, but decided against it for fear of losing the fix on the targets he had. That missing ship...a malfunction, perhaps? A drive failure could leave an aircraft helplessly plunging on into space at the velocity it retained when the drive died. The sixth ship might already have plunged into the skies of the Folly's pole and burned hours ago, following the trajectory of the empty fuel tanks. He spared a thought for the pilot, a passing shudder for the man's terrible death.

At 3.5 Gs, the Davion Sparrowhawksclosed on their targets.

* * * *

Uchita had not burned. Three times she had made high-G burns to correct her vector, slowing her ship and clearing the radar-swept line between Dagger Squadron and the outbound Davions.

She was still not in visual range, but her computer had painted wire-frame plan and elevation view diagrams of her targets in green lines on her number two computer screen, while her main screen displayed the enemy squadron's arrowhead formation. The Davion fighters were easily recognizable without computer identification—six stubby Sparrowhawks,the twin lances of their paired Martell medium lasers extending forward like the antennae of some grey, squat insects. Range figures flickered across her heads-up display. Her own trio of Kajuka Type 2 lasers had a maximum effective range of over 50,000 kilometers, but she was determined to hold her attack until the very last possible second. She was at 12,000 kilometers now and closing at 300 klicks per second.