The pattern of telltale lights shifted. Carlyle had slapped his override, was dragging the 'Mech's left arm up to bear on the Marauder.

"Boss!" Riviera shouted into the com mike. "Eject!"

The crosshairs centered on the looming Marauder,and points of light tracked inward along the line to merge at target center.

"You don't have the power!" Riviera's yell was shrill. Grayson felt a sick burning rise in his throat.

The events of the next few moments occurred in rapid-fire succession, but to Grayson, they seemed to crawl through a small eternity. The Marauderrushed forward, taking the Hawk'sfire across its lower torso in a flare of light and heat that swamped the IR scanners and left the image broken in a dazzle of computer-enhanced color.

"Got him!" someone at another console shouted. There was a ragged cheer that faltered as the monitor image shifted up, up, to show the Marauderstill intact and looming above the Phoenix Hawk,which lay helplessly on its back. Then, one massive forearm descended like an avalanche of steel. The monitor flickered to statis-chopped black before eyes or minds could sort out that pell-mell confusion of images.

An animal sound caught and broke in Grayson's throat as he came to his feet, his palms grasping at the monitor frame. "No!" he screamed. "No!"

Riviera's voice, meticulous in its control, rose above the hush of a room suddenly gone silent. "PXH-One, PXH-One, this is Control. Respond if you can. Over."

There was no answer, and the silence grew deeper. Grayson's eyes were burning, and he realized his face was wet with tears.

His father was dead.

4

"PXH, PXH..." Riviera's voice cracked. "Boss, are you there?

"Control, this is Xiang." The words were blurred by static and the thunder of continuing battle explosions. "The Skipper's had it. Nothing we can do. Those light 'Mechs are closing on us. We're pulling back."

The silence in Control dragged for several long seconds. Then Riviera leaned over the mike. "O.K., Rama. Fall back on the Castle. We're under heavy attack here."

"We'll try, Control, but they're between us and the Castle."

"Damn!" Riviera muttered. "Damn! Okay, fall back to the shuttle. Try to form a perimeter. I'll alert the Wasps."

A hand fell on Grayson's shoulder. He shrugged it away, looked up when it fell on him again.

Griffith's face was streaked with smoke and sweat, his uniform crumpled. The hand gripping the Gunther MP-20 was dripping blood from a nasty gash.

"We've got to go, Gray. Quickly."

"He's...dead." Shock had left Grayson feeling cold and dazed, with a hollow in the pit of his stomach.

"I know. Come on."

Riviera said, "Where's the Lieutenant? The... the Captain said he was to take charge, pull us offworld."

Griffith jerked his bullet head past his shoulder. "Downstairs. We're holding, I think, but there're too many of 'em."

Griffith turned and raised his voice to address the entire control room. "All right, listen up! We're going to move out down Corridor A to the Vehicle Bay. Lieutenant Hauptman is holding a perimeter for us there. Well be able to board HVTs and make it to the shuttle from there!"

"What about our families?" The lone voice cracked on the question that was reflected in the eyes of many of the technicians and soldiers around the room. Wherever stationed, Carlyle's Commandos carried with it a small army of support and technical people, including the wives, husbands, and children of many of the unit's members. Most of them were also members of the Commandos' support company, serving as medics, cooks, maintenance personnel, orderlies, or tutors for the childred.

"Already on their way," Griffith said. "Don't worry. We won't leave anyone behind. The Commandos take care of their own!"

There was a muffled cheer, then men and women began switching off their monitors and comgear as they filed toward the door.

Vogel stepped up beside Griffith. "Warrant, I will want a special escort and a hovercraft for myself, at once."

"Yessir, we'll take care of you. You'll come with the rest of us. I don't have the men for a special..."

"I expect my orders to be obeyed. Mister!" Vogel then pointed out a group of troopers standing awkwardly by the door, TK assault rifles in their hands. Their faces were grease-smeared and hollow-eyed beneath their large, plastic-visored battle helmets. "Those five. They'll do."

"They're with me, my Lord. They'll protect all of us on the way to the Vehicle Bay."

"Now listen here..."

The Gunther machine pistol came up, small and wicked-looking in Griffith's blood-streaked paw. "My Lord, SHUT THE HELL UP! And get in line with the rest of them! MOVE!"

The party passed into the corridor, the uneven echoes of their running feet filling the passageway with sound. The hallway took several turns past now abandoned and debris-strewn rooms, twisted down stairs to the Bay level two floors below, and angled across toward the Vehicle Bay. Grayson stayed by Griffith's side in the rear of the column, with the five young troopers. Vogel, he saw, was with Riviera and Ari up near the head of the group, but scowling at his offended dignity.

That'll mean trouble for Griff, Grayson thought. Trouble for all of us. His mind spun back to the explosion that had taken his father. How and why had it happened? The thought of his father's BattleMech lying in a twisted ruin out on the spaceport apron, tomb for whatever remained of Durant Carlyle's body, tore at Grayson's mind. He suddenly began remembering odd little moments. His father presenting him with apprenticeship orders when he was ten and the surge of still-remembered pride. His father's ashen face at his mother's funeral just before they'd come to Trellwan five years ago. His father discussing Grayson's education schedule with Ari and Griff in the officer's lounge here in the Castle just after they'd arrived.

Durant Carlyle had been a permanent, unchanging fixture in Grayson's life. Though always busy with the never-ending business of outfitting, supplying, and leading a House Steiner BattleMech Lance, the smile and the steady warmth in those eyes had always been there for his son.

Now they were no more. Grayson had taken them for granted, and their loss tore a wound so deep and so telling that he could not yet feel it. He could only repeat inwardly, numbly, "Dad..."

The Vehicle Bay was crowded with men, women, and children waiting to board the HVTs, transport hovercraft capable of carrying 25 or 30 people at a time. The plenum chamber fans were already turning, filling the room with the high, warbling hum of many engines.

A sergeant saluted Griffith as they entered the room "We've set scouts out down the road. It appears clear."

"IR and motion scans?"

"All clear, Weapons Master."

"Good. Maybe they didn't expect to be this successful. The road to the port may not be covered yet But I want the convoy covered by every HVWC we have." The weapons carriers were already moving, small hovercraft mounting missile launchers or beam weapons and carrying five or six soldiers each. The keening of hovercraft engines rose in pitch, and the first machines skimmed off their heavy rubber skirts and drifted through the open doors into the cold darkness outside.

Vogel was there. He seemed to have lost some of his bluster, but not his scowl. "I've had enough of this foolishness, Weapons Master. I want a hovercraft, a pilot, and a guard. And I want them now."