FOREWORD
by Loren L. Coleman
The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
~Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi
Forgive me. I can’t help quoting from dead Russians these days.
Occupational hazard.
Before you begin to think that writing (or editing) somehow requires a degree in foreign literature, I should try to explain.
You see, the anthology you hold in your hands right now is just the latest link in a long chain of events that stretches back over four years. Longer, really, if you start at the point where my writing career and the BattleTech fictional universe collided. Not quite the Big Bang, but at least a medium-sized one.
We met. We fell in love. We enjoyed a lot of fights together.
Well, wars, actually. Planets were invaded,. Military forces hammered at each other. Empires rose and fell. It was a lot like high school dating.
At that time (four years ago) I was presiding over what felt like the end days of BattleTech fiction. FASA Corporation had closed its doors, and my final hurrah was to wrap up twenty-plus years of fiction novels with a final trilogy. The year was 3067 (by the BattleTech timeline). I barely managed to bring to a close the Steiner-Davion civil war, tying up as many loose ends as possible. I typed “THE END” and sent off the file.
But we weren’t finished.
The creative people in charge of BattleTech—and I was privileged enough to be considered one of them—had set up so much more. There was the Word of Blake Jihad about to kick off, which would have included nuclear holocaust, ravaged star systems, assassinations, and the dissolution of the Free Worlds League just to name a few highlights.
Happy times.
Alas, it seemed not to be. WizKids had already put into place their time jump to the Dark Ages era. The publisher (Roc Books) voiced no interest in continuing a “Classic” line. Everyone seemed content to burn out the Civil War, and let wounded princes lie.
It was frustrating, and I complained (albeit softly) to those who would (and were forced to) listen. There just didn’t seem to be an answer. So I let it rest. Though I did keep thinking about it, certain that there had to be something more. I stewed. I planned. I waited.
Patience.
And time.
Because then something strange happened on the way back from New Avalon. I came up with an idea. The idea, as it turned out. And, with some friends, I started up a small internet venture known as BattleCorps.com.
BattleCorps.com became the home for the “Classic” fiction universe. A way to get out those final (important!) stories, and to keep playing in the world where I had spent a great part of my career. It took over a year to fully launch the site, going live in the fall of the year 2003 (by the real world timeline).
Those first months were full of battles won and lost. Fortunately, I did find other writers who were just as devoted to the new campaign.
Our early stories roamed the entire timeline, the breadth of the Inner Sphere, and even managed a quick detour to the Clan Homeworlds. We explored the boundaries of loyalty and treachery. Of personal honor and cowardice. Of military excellence and political subterfuge. Enlisting soldiers, civilians, politicians, pirates.
Warriors, all.
These are the stories you will read in this anthology.
A collection from our starting months. Beginning with a handful of abandoned warriors, embroiled in the desperation which surrounded the forming Chaos March. Ending with a new, never-before-published story in the ongoing tale of one of the Inner Sphere’s most beloved characters, Aleksandr Kerensky.
The warrior who taught me to love (and quote) dead Russians.
Like I said. An occupational hazard. And as such, let me leave you with one final thought:
Upon the brink of the wild stream
He stood, and dreamt a mighty dream…
~Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin
A RACE TO THE END
by Loren L. Coleman
Gan Singh, Chaos March
12 October 3057
It might be the last DropShip on Gan Singh.
Their final chance.
Wrenching at the controls of her JagerMech, Leftenant Kelly Van Lou struggled forward against the tangled jungle that covered most of the continent of Pandora. Shrill alarms wailed in her ears. Broken fronds streaked her ferroglass shield with green smears as sporadic laserfire burned through the leafy canopy around her.
Ruby-bright energy splashed armor from her BattleMech’s shoulders, its arms, its chest.
She tasted the warm, dank air, poorly filtered by her cockpit’s life support system.
Missiles corkscrewed in from her right, slamming into a palisade of majestic cypress and thick-boled banyon strung with creeping vines. A few warheads dropped low against her legs, shredding the angular guards that protected her knee joints and lower actuators.
Her stride hitched, stumbled, and then caught up as she shouldered her way into a marshy glade. Planting her spade-shaped feet into the loamy, black soil, Kelly checked her HUD and found Hauptmann Roland Mills—her company commander in the Third Donegal Guards, and her friend—still limping along half a klick behind. Well out of danger. Tightening up on her triggers, she snapped up both long-barreled arms and went looking for trouble.
Long licks of bright yellow-flame flashed out of her Jag’s autocannon as she spent hundreds of rounds into the greenery, implementing her own plan of deforestation. Twenty-mills riding over powerful, ultra-class Nova fifties, the hot metal chewed through thick vines, splintered tree branches into kindling, and rained pieces of shredded fronds over the ground. The powerful, cutting streams walked destructive lines in a narrow arc, reaching out, searching for either of the two ’Mechs in between her and the DropShip.
She found the missile-casting Dervish when a leafy screen of branches exploded under her devastating assault. Autocannon slugs hammered in against its chest, as if drawn by the gauntlet and sword set over a Davion sunburst. The insignia was one Kelly knew well—had called an ally only a few days before, but none of that mattered now. In scant seconds the proud crest of the FedCom Corps had been chiseled away to a battered ghost of its former glory.
Too
