General Christifori didn’t hesitate. He unleashed the remaining pulse lasers at the suddenly stationary target. The scarlet bursts of light stitched the frontal glacial plate of the round cockpit. At first they seemed to do no damage at all, then the cockpit popped like a balloon. It imploded under the burst and instantly charred black inside. Smoke billowed from the holes made by the laser bursts, wisp-like, marking the end of the ’Mech. The heat in his cockpit had risen slightly, enough to make him start to sweat for the first time in a few minutes.
“Scratch that tally-ho I called,” he said on the comm channel.
“Roger that,” came back Katya’s voice. “We just managed to drive out that Demon tank that was pulling the hit and run. Chalk that up to the White Tigers. Fraser has the MA devices running. Anyone scanning this area of the city without our filters is going to think that we have another twenty ’Mechs running around here.”
“I wasn’t planning on this militia,” Archer said as he angled his Penetrator down a wide boulevard. Some small arms fire, mostly manpack PPC’s, danced out ahead three blocks, signs of another firefight.
“Orders sir?”
“Let’s give them something to see. Katya, deploy into the city. Let them see you,” he said.
The ’Mech appeared a few moments later. He saw it first on his tactical display. It was massive, a Daishi. Lumbering down the street, in its blue and white paint scheme complete with silver piping, he saw it approach and felt the streets rumble slightly under each thundering footstep. The plan had been to deploy the ’Mech and a few other decoys. This one was special, and Katya was piloting it.
The ’Mech was painted to look exactly like the one piloted by Prince Victor.
“Got you on my scopes,” he said.
“Roger that,” she replied, firing a burst down the street in the direction where he saw fighting. Apparently from her angle she had a shot. “Looks hot down there.”
“Yes, it does. You head down that street, I’ll take your flank. Let that enemy infantry get a good look at you before you open fire. Then blast them.”
“Why the pause?”
He juked his Penetrator out to the middle of the open street for a better angle as he watched a missed short range missile snake into the air, run out of propellant, then drop into the side of a building, blasting a hole in the fifth floor. Flames lapped up from the hole.
“I want them to have time to signal their command that Prince Victor is on the field. Then they need to be put down. You have a war to win,Highness.”
He heard her chuckle.
• • •
Jackson Davion stared at the image that was being relayed from the suburb of Portsmouth. That was the ’Mech—that damned Daishi. Prometheus. He had seen it before, studied the images from other battlefields. Too many other battlefields. It meant something. Victor. He was there, in Portsmouth. Reports from his sentries and infantry troops with scanning gear indicated there was at least three regiments operating there, possibly more.
Yes, it could be deception. That was why he had called in Simon Gallagher.
“So, is that him?” he asked, stabbing his finger at the freeze-frame image of the massive BattleMech.
“I have reports of a highly painted up and modified Centurion leading the strike on our satellite relay facility at Reamuth.”
“Yen-lo-wang?” Kai Allard’s deadly ’Mech.
“If the reports are accurate, and I have little reason to doubt them,” Gallagher replied. “Taking out that facility is the kind of mission that Victor would send his trusted friend to lead, don’t you agree?”
Jackson said nothing for a moment. Instead, he stared at the image of Prometheus looming on the holographic display in front of him. He wanted to believe that this was a diversion, a ploy. But it appeared to be a direct assault. Moving in the Fourth Avalon Militia had stalled the assault, bought him time to confirm who it was. Victor, Christifori, and the others had been in the city for an hour now. There was still time to drive them into the sea.
“Final recommendations, Simon?”
The older man flinched. “I believe this is the main assault.”
“So do I,” Jackson replied. That is what makes me nervous. “Very well.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What I’m supposed to do: my duty. I’m sending our front-line units straight at Portsmouth. I will crush them because if I don’t, Victor will do the same to me.”
• • •
Archer pivoted at the waist. There was a slight metallic grind as his Penetrator performed the maneuver, the result of a piece of armor that had been splayed back from a barrage of missile hits. Smoke rose from several places over Portsmouth, black, churning, rising high into the air. The streets had been chewed up from the feet of ’Mechs and the carnage of battle. Craters pockmarked the ferrocrete all around where he stood, some still spilling out grayish white smoke.
“Sit Rep,” he commanded.
Thomas Sherwood’s voice came back in a crackle in his ear. “Forester’s company reports that Reamuth is green.” Green, as in obliterated.
“Losses?”
“Too many. The Militia may be a hodgepodge unit, but they were tough. I’m down a full lance sir. Falling back in good form to the city now.”
“How’s the new ’Mech?”
Sherwood chuckled, a rarity for him. “Let’s just say I always wanted to try out the arenas of Solaris. This was the next best thing. I just wish my nephew had a holoimage of me in the cockpit of this beast.”
Another voice cut in. “This is Ranger One,” came back the ragged voice of Captain Kraff. “Militia units have fled the city. I’ve lost half of my company either down or dead. You’d think the Militia was trying to tell us to leave or something.”
Major Gett came on line. “Second Battalion losses are less, we’re running at 20% down. I’m pleased to report our sectors are
