Meanwhile, the Pack Hunter’s PPC had carved both arms and a leg off the remaining AgroMech, silencing its small, stuttering autocannon and leaving the IndustrialMech prone and helpless.

His Scimitars still picked away at a fleeing Marksman, and Conner left them to it. “Forward,” he ordered the rest.

Breaking through the far side of the wood, he hauled his column back into some semblance of order. Morning was creeping toward noon too fast, and his timetable was in danger. He toggled for his command circuit. “Fields One and Three, report.”

Sir Cray Stansill commanded Field One, moving in from Chauny along the Oise River. His report was terse but complete. “No opposition. Senator. Pushing past Creil.” Which meant that Stansill was further along than any of them. Twenty… maybe thirty kilometers outside of Paris.

That was the good news.

“Field Three, Field Three!” The worried voice of Colonel Roger Thorne. His wide swing around Riems to come down through Champagne along the Marne had run into delays and several small holding actions by Republic troops.

“We have paladins in the field! Two of them, commanding forces out of Epernay. Light and fast, but we are still angling for Chateau-Thierry, avoiding contact.”

Damn straight. Conner had worried about that after receiving reports of the Paris exodus. VTOLs from the streets. Not fighters from the local airfields, which he had struck first and hardest with advance forces. VTOLs meant short hops. Fast-into-the-field.

If the paladins had any kind of force this far back from the border, they could rip apart one third of Conner’s assault force.

So far, their appearance had been limited to fast strikes. Harassment. But that could change in an instant.

“I’m sending you another squadron of air cover,” he told Thorne. Not that air cover had proven effective yet in blockading The Republic. “Set a rear guard and push on toward the city.” If it became necessary, he could join forces with Thorne and set a trap for the paladins. Near Meaux. If necessary. “Move!”

It was the weakest side of his assault, but also the most expendable. If he picked up survivors near Chateau-Thierry, and Stansill held to the timetable…

Yes. They were still fine. The Republic’s VTOL charge out of Paris showed a measure of undeserved confidence. Typical. Eight VTOLs counted lifting off the Rue d’Égalité. Three of them knocked from the sky or forced down.

One destroyed in the air.

Obviously, they had not considered his plan to use all available aerospace assets to secure air superiority. Let Levin guard Germany’s border. Let him worry about how to “contain” the problem he had helped create. Because it was too late.

Conner was already behind the exarch’s line, and was moving on Paris.

And there wouldn’t be much left in his way.

Five kilometers of heavy city traffic and then thirty-eight more of the winding, rural highway Callandre chased toward Meaux. All in twenty-two minutes flat.

A VTOL couldn’t have done much better, Julian decided. But he saved his reluctant praise. With the end in sight, he didn’t want to jinx his luck. Callandre finished power-braking the hovercycle to a dust-cloud stop on the dirt-and-gravel lot at the Meaux Country Fairgrounds. A lance of ’Mechs stood on the wide expanse, which would have been decorated with tents and carnival booths in season. Only two armored vehicles had been removed from the 4-H barns that stood year round. The rest were still tucked away.

Choking his way through the dirt and debris that drifted around them, Julian thanked her as he staggered away from the suicide sled.

“Could have done better.” She certainly didn’t sound pleased to be alive. “We lost two minutes in that trouble in Lagny.”

“If by ‘trouble’ you mean being chased through alleyways and across those sewage treatment culverts by two JES missile carriers and that Spider, you need to work on your definitions. Did you have to fire the laser?”

“Did I tag that Spider in his back? Stupid ’Mechjock, ignoring us. Bet he won’t make that mistake again.”

“Bet we won’t either,” he said, but with only the merest frown. It was hard to stay angry at Calamity for long. Especially when results were what mattered.

Of course, when Sergeant Montgomery and Leftenant Todd Dawkins of the First Davion Guards jogged up with a report of “Two ’Mechs and a short column of tanks heading this way, Lord Davion, from Lagny, five minutes.” Julian’s frown darkened.

Montgomery apologized with a shrug. “Looks like our secret’s out.”

“I wonder how that happened?”

Callandre untied the scarf from around her head. “Look, if your guys can’t keep things under wraps until we get here, that’s not our fault. Now what have you got for me?”

“What do you want?” Julian asked. But he knew. Just like he knew the grin lurking behind Calamity’s calm veneer. “Is two-lance with us?” he asked Montgomery, who nodded. “Give her Gamma-unit and tell Major Hastings that she’s allowed to freelance with Delta.”

“Major’s not gonna like that.”

“Tell him to stand in line. I’ve not been liking her for a lot longer.” But those were the kind of decisions one made. As …a leader. Julian held out a fist, which Callandre punched in traditional Nagelring form, then she left with the sergeant at a dead run.

Meanwhile, Leftenant Dawkins hustled the champion toward his waiting Templar. The junior officer was Julian’s personal intelligence aide, and likely one of Riccard Streng’s spies as well. “How the hell did they get behind us?” he asked.

“Near as we can tell, the loyalists dropped a mixed-force company on Paris as soon as the alert went out that they were on the move. Meant to contain and harass while the main push rolls down from the northeast.”

“So we’re trapped in between.” Julian seized the chain-link ladder suspended from his cockpit hatch and scaled up with practiced ease. “Got any good news?”

“Yeah,” Dawkins yelled up to him. “Looks like the main advance of the loyalists is swinging right down in our direction.”

Not quite what Julian had in mind.

Fortunately, a Davion Guards tech had already put Julian’s Templar through the reactor start-up procedure, which only left changing his dress uniform for MechWarrior’s togs, plugging in, and freeing the lockout on the gyro and his main weapons. An easy three-minute race. Julian shivered as the first slug of coolant raced through his vest, raising gooseflesh on his arms. Codes in and accepted. Templar taking its first ponderous step forward as an SM1 Destroyer skated out from one of the nearby barns.

If he’d had any doubts it was Callandre, the hasty insignia spray-painted next to the Federated Suns crest on the vehicle’s side gave her away. A V-shaped head, hastily colored in all black, and red slashes for eyes and mouth. Kell Hounds.

“I thought you divorced him,” he said, toggling for a frequency she’d monitor out of habit. One of the mercenary channels common to most systems.

“I did. But I stayed with the unit.” He could hear her grin. “They are family, after all.”

Any further conversation was interrupted by new warning alarms and his heads-up display popping half a dozen threat icons onto the field. The Spider pushed its way through some trees on the far side of the fairgrounds, followed by a Legionnaire. From around the nearer edge, where the country highway continued to bend around toward the front, an armored column raced forward on treads and tires and lift fans.

Julian imagined the sudden shock the other side received, suddenly facing a BattleMech lance of the First Davion Guards supported by an armored company.

Make that two armored companies, as the rest of the unit scrambled out from the nearby barns to draw up a ragged line of attack. It included a Mobile HQ and a MASH truck, as well as a pair of Behemoth II assault tanks and enough APCs to spread a full company of armored infantry across the fairgrounds.