Only to have the Destroyer cut out the props and crank over its steering rudders, skimming around in an end-for-end flip that spread the damage out over more surface area, preventing any kind of penetration.

Worse, the end-for-end also pointed its own autocannon back the way of some pursuing Scimitars. The hard-pounding assault weapon chewed off the front of one lift skirt, spilling the craft nose-down into the earth and flipping it into a death roll that tumbled and tossed the high-speed hovercraft until it rolled itself out into the river.

“Why isn’t that tank crew on our side?” he asked no one in particular, clearing his feed jam.

And in case the hovercraft powered into a stop to reverse its path, Conner edged his Rifleman further out, treading over artillery craters and places where molten armor still smoldered against charred earth. The SM1 continued to skate backwards on its cushion of air, just out of reach. Drawing him after.

Which put him near the front of a scrambled line when suddenly the entire Davion force turned and wheeled into a stand of willow and poplar and tall, skinny alder.

He watched an Enforcer shoulder aside some of the younger growth, snapping the slender trunks in greenstick fractures to create a path for the following Praetorian command crawler. A set of Fox armored cars chose more careful routes, worried for their precious lift fans, but most armored vehicles crashed into the brush and forest with equal abandon.

Julian Davion’s Templar splashed through muck and water near the river’s edge, leading its own path of retreat and already with a fifteen, twenty second jump. Conner watched as the Destroyer he’d been chasing after snapped about end-for-end again, and powered in a long, sweeping curve that finally spread it out over the river with another SM1 and a JES hover-carrier.

The last men off the field were Cavalier battle armor. Racing for the forest’s cover, having missed hitching a ride on any of the APCs.

Conner had followed slowly, worried for a trap, still set to an easy walk as he had tracked after the Destroyer. It didn’t occur to him for several long seconds that Julian was actually pulling completely away.

It was another four or five before he realized why.

“Advance! All units, flank speed and follow!”

Too late. The feeling settled down inside the pit of his stomach, like freezing-cold glass. Too late.

The First Davion Guards massed only a bit lighter than his own force, but what he gained in raw firepower, they made up in mobility. By the time his people had made the far treeline, Cray Stansill was already yelling for assistance. Artillery support. Aerospace.

Except Conner had given up his aerospace fighter cover two hours before, flinging them back into Germany, into Spain. Spreading some of that wealth for Asia and the Americas as well. He ordered his Paladin Artillery Defense to shift position, again, calling fresh coordinates back to the distant positions. But it would take several slow minutes. The kind of time Stansill did not have.

Two strengthened companies slammed into the tall woods behind the Davion line. A few light tanks reported infantry ambushes, swarmed by Cavalier and Infiltrators. But not many. Not nearly enough to convince Conner that it had all been a ruse. Ordering his people forward, charging his Rifleman through the thinning stands, he crashed through the far side, onto a new riverbank where the Marne had turned back southward, and saw the devastation drawn out before him.

Julian Davion’s entire First Guard had abandoned cover and a firm operations line to join Campbell and Sinclair with all haste, and now moved forward under cover of artillery fire to steamroll Stansill’s entire field.

Throwing all their weight at the lesser half of the loyalist assault!

Shame burned on Conner’s face even as rage trembled in his muscles. He felt the urge to cut his force loose: best speed forward and save the day! But wars were not fought on emotions. They were fought, and won, and sometimes stalemated for another day, by cold, rational thought and the precision application of skill.

Too late, his knight’s training was returning. Too late he was beginning to see that the entire campaign on Terra had been doomed from the start. Whether the other senators had seen that, and used him, or trusted in Conner’s own righteous fire to make up the difference, it no longer mattered.

What mattered now was salvaging something—anything!—from this setback.

Because it was only a setback unless he handed Julian Davion the prize.

“Field Two, form on me,” he ordered calmly. “BattleMechs spread two and two to either side. Heavy vehicles backing a light skirmish line. Advance on my pace.”

And he kicked his Rifleman into a steady walk, already dialing for the channel he had never wanted to use.

The cooling rainfall meant nothing to Julian, trapped in a blazing cockpit. Heat rose by ticks and jumps as the Templar’s reactor spiked again, and again, driving temperatures well past any safety limits, deep into the red.

He gasped for breath. His vision swam with heat stroke and burning sweat. There was no looking for the shutdown override. He simply slapped at it every thirty seconds or so, cutting out the safety interlocks, keeping his ’Mech alive and commanding the field as his troops set about their massacre.

Which is what it was. A massacre. Based on the Federated Suns’ strategy that said, with two able enemies, concentrate force in one direction and unite disparate forces for (hopefully) a sound victory.

It didn’t go off without problems, though. The First Guards lost one of their own Centurions to a combination of enemy luck and friendly fire when an artillery barrage landed too close, and a JES carrier got off half its load before both machines crashed beneath a roiling ball of fire and smoke. The MechWarrior punched out, dragging his parafoil toward a distant MASH truck. The Jess was not so lucky.

After that, the next ten minutes belonged to the First Davion Guards and a strong company of Republic troops. Conner Rhys-Monroe handed it to them, advancing his line in a slow, steadfast manner. At the time, Julian considered it a setup to the knock-out blow yet to fall. A temporary period of grace.

And the allied forces would make good on it.

Gareth Sinclair teamed up with Callandre Kell to bring down the Catapult, then Callandre spun herself away from the main line to chase after a fleeing Stinger, which ran itself right out over the river. The twenty-ton ’Mech had no intention of facing down an assault-class weapon. It lit off jump jets, sailed out over deep water, and quite intentionally belly flopped into the Marne, going where no hovercraft could follow.

Calamity skated her Destroyer back to the main skirmish, cursing fluently in gutter-Deutsch the entire way. She’d have to settle for an “assist.” The Catapult’s “kill” would be claimed by Paladin Sinclair.

The center of the loyalists’ line caved as Tara Campbell led her line against Stansill’s Griffin. Julian blasted more armor from the side of the ex-knight’s machine before being forced to leave off. His heat, pushed too high too fast, addled his Templar’s control circuitry. The ’Mech responded sluggishly, but still with deadly force.

His PPCs cored through a Kinnol main battle tank, turning it into a smoking ruin.

Fast-cycling, spreading his arms wide, his next salvo blasted armor from a Hasek infantry carrier and all but scrapped a crippled Marksman.

Then a pair of gauss slugs cracked into Julian’s back and his left knee as a Kelswa assault tank rolled over and buried a line of Republic Cavaliers, training its big guns on the eighty-five-ton ’Mech.