hugging itself against theShrike ’s right side. It was outside the arc of Malvina’s long-range missiles, not that she could use them at touch range, below and to the side of where her shoulder-mounted lasers could reach. And to Malvina’s sudden, tooth-grinding fury, the machine was also too close to bring her autocannon into play: the muzzles just clanked impotently against theHatchetman ’s side armor.
Then her mood broke like a glass rod. She laughed. “Very well, Countess Tara Campbell,” she said aloud. For she also had recognized her opponent: by the signature machine with its Highlander emblem of armored fist upholding a sword by its bare blade, and the odd swatches of blue-green plaid painted on its armor. And also by the enemy MechWarrior’s un-Spheroid-like prowess and bravery.
She put her ’Mech’s right arm over the other’s back.Squeezed. “If you will not let me shoot you, I will crush you!”
The cockpit filled with blue glare.
Listening to the creak of crumpling armor plate and watching the red lights blinking in her display that warned of theHatchetman ’s structure beginning to fail under the awful, inexorable pressure, even as her mind clicked through a list of possible options ofwhat to do next —nothing promising, here—Tara Campbell had a flash in which to wonder if she’d done the right thing by opting to tackle a BattleMech that had to be nearly a hundred tons with her forty-five-tonHatchetman .
The answer still seemedyes . Reports indicated Malvina’s hawk-headed monstrosity was unusually fast for a ’Mech its size. Unfortunately, theHatchetman was slow for a ’Mech ofits size. And while the Falcon’s arsenal was nothing special for an assault ’Mech—what one might expect from a heavy, or even a really burly medium—it was more than sufficient to shred Tara and her ride in seconds if given the chance. Even though Tara was sure she’d taken out at least one of those big Ultra autocannon with her first chop. Mostly.
With an almost musical but nonetheless alarming sound, the armor housing over her left-shoulder actuator began to buckle.Getting tight, here , she told herself. She considered punching out, but wasn’t sure the ejector would do anything more than blast her right into Malvina’s BattleMech. She realized she was humming the Seventh theme, “Garryowen,” tunelessly through clenched teeth....
Blue light surrounded her. She raised her close-cropped head to see the Falcon ’Mech’s head haloed in blue radiance.
“Is this a private dance, TC,”Tara Bishop’s voice said over her radio, “or can I cut in?”
Malvina uttered a wordless falcon-shriek of pure rage. She had been so engrossed in the not-unpleasurable task of crushing Tara Campbell to death that she had neglected to watch her three-sixty vision strip. Now an enemyPack Hunter stood but meters behind her.
The Spheroid machine was two-thirds the man of the inconsiderableHatchetman, a bug, to be swatted with little thought. But it was a bug with a deadly sting: a Ripper Series A1 extended-range particle projector cannon. Which it was currently blasting into the back of theShrike’s head.
A fast hunter-killer, the Spheroid lightweight was more built around the PPC than mounted with it. It still could not sustain continuous firing without its internal heat soaring until emergency overrides shut down its fusion plant. The MechWarrior evidently didn’t care, but was gambling all on this single throw.
Where do the bellycrawlers get such warriors?Malvina wondered. Shedid care. The heat in her cockpit was rapidly becoming more than even she could tolerate.
Still clutching theHatchetman in a literal death grip, she pivoted Black Rose’s torso counterclockwise, dragging the forty-five-ton machine as a man might a clinging child. At the same time, she opened out with her right arm. She could shoot this puny interloper with her remaining 10- centimeter gun, and if that—or thermal buildup—did not knock it out of action she could quickly follow with lasers and LRMs.
The hideous blue glare inside the cockpit winked out as the tip of her left wing momentarily cut the particle beam.
She smiled. To kill two such redoubtable warriors, one the renowned Tara Campbell, within seconds of each other should merit several stanzas in the Jade Falcon Remembrance. Not to mention securing the conquest of Skye at a stroke. . . .
At once Tara Campbell knew what her aide and friend was doing:Alpha Strike . She had the PPC locked on and would fire it until shutdown. And she was in trouble even before Malvina brought her autocannon to bear. Tara saw at least two Gyrfalcon ’Mechs making for the little machine, firing as they ran.
“TB,” she called, “behind you! Break off now!”
Silence answered. Tara quit holding onto the enemy BattleMech’s arm. Instead she put her hand on the jump-jet housing beneath its right wing and pushed. The oddParasaurolophus -like crest sweeping back from herHatchetman’s head bent upwards in the middle. But she writhed free.
Tara Bishop’s beam went out. HerPack Hunter blazed like a torch on Tara Campbell’s infrared display from the terrible heat that had closed down its systems.
“Tara, punch out!” The Countess ordered desperately as streams of ’Mech weapons fire converged on the inert machine.
Malvina fired her autocannon. ThePack Hunter was knocked backward by explosions.
Tara turned to bring her own 10-centimeter cannon to bear. HerHatchetman rocked back to the recoil of an ultrafast burst.
The Black Rose’s beaked cockpit exploded into black smoke and red sparks. The winged great ’Mech crashed to earth like a building collapsing.
As thePack Hunter fell the top of its head blew off. Tara Bishop ejected.
Tara Campbell turned to strike the enemies who had savaged her friend. They were already back-walking, shooting this way and that at Republican mobile forces beginning to converge on them.
Tara’s neurohelmet crackled with a sudden cloudburst of reports. Already being driven back, the Gyrfalcons now retreated as word of their invincible commander’s fall spread like fire. They went firing, in good order, as befit Clanners. But they went.
Away over the shattered apartment roof-line, a parachute blossomed. Tara Bishop’s zero-altitude ejection system had functioned as designed, and by lucky accident launched her like a mortar round in the direction of safety.
If, of course, she was still alive tobe safe. Tara’s heart twinged. So many had died today. But TB was her friend.
“Countess!”a voice cried on the First Kearny net. To her surprise she recognized the voice of Lieutenant Gelb, recently promoted to command of a heavy armor lance.
“More devils! They’re coming out of the woods!”
It was not approved radio discipline, but it worked. Tara looked around to see the muzzle flashes and brilliant colored beams of many heavy weapons, clearly vehicle- and ’Mech-borne, stab out from among the trees. She gave the order to withdraw.
It tasted like the ashes cast up from beneath the feet of the advancing enemy ’Mechs.
33
New London Skye
15 August 3134
“Excuse me.”
At the softly spoken, almost diffident words the short, round-bellied man with the red muttonchops whirled. He still had a pair of black formal socks, gel-soled for comfort, clutched in a cheese-white hand. He had been on the verge of stuffing them into his valise on top of a hastily packed jumble of clothing and effects.
“Who the blazes are you?” Chief Minister Augustus Solvaig demanded. The fighting to the west was audible as a constant mutter of distant thunder, punctuated by distinctcrumps .
“No one,” said the man who had invaded the bedroom of the chief minister’s surprisingly modest bungalow on New London’s northwest side. “Just a fool. A knave, if you like.”
Eyes bugging from his pale, pitted cheeks, Solvaig sized him up. He didn’t look like much, only slightly taller
