win now, even if I fall. Agree to end this now, and to depart Skye system at once, and the Falcons may withdraw safely, with all your weapons and gear. My word of honor as field commander of The Republic’s armed forces on Skye.”
An amplified chuckle greeted her. “Your honor I trust as my own, Countess Tara Campbell. But what of the Wolf who stands at your side?”
Reflexively,Tara glanced at the image of the modifiedRyoken II . Her reflex was to say,I will answer for her as well —although her desire was to say,take careof her . Either might provoke her volatile enemy to turn on her, sparking a three-way battle that could see the Steel Wolves in possession of Skye.
Aleks saved her. “In any event, I must decline your offer with thanks, Tara Campbell. When have you known a Clan warrior to count the odds? Let us play out this game.”
“On your head be it,”Tara said. She added in a quick hiss over the radio, “He’s mine.”
“I’d as soon pluck one Falcon as another.”The Countess could almosthear her archrival shrug. “Knock yourself out. I’ve got your back.”
Undeterred by having just received possibly the least-reassuring reassurance in the history of human speech, Tara Campbell keyed her command channel, and cried, “In the name of Devlin Stone—charge”
She obeyed her own command, throttling herHatchetman into a full-speed run right at Aleks Hazen’s unfamiliar ’Mech. A beat, and both battle lines followed. Nasty Kerensky had her speakers on. She was laughing.
Aleks Hazen’s armament was powerful: if he simply stood his ground and fired he could take Tara’s BattleMech apart with his weapons before she could reach him. Instead, he ran to meet Tara, unwilling to stand while his warriors charged. Or that was how intel analysts explained it later, backed by reams of sociocultural analysis by all the best experts.
TheHatchetman shook convulsively to autocannon impacts. Tara’s cockpit filled with red glare as if her foe’s large lasers were shining their hell light right inside, from all the telltales warning her of danger and failures. She kept the ’Mech moving forward first with consummate skill and then purewill as it stumbled, slowed.
But Aleks was not shy about closing with her. Her whole ferro-glass viewscreen seemed to fill with the image of that hawk head, almost lost in the glare of laser beams and muzzle flame. She cocked her huge hatchet back another few degrees and brought it down, falling into the rushing ’Mech as much as striking with it.
She saw blue lightning arc as it sank home in the cockpit’s center. Felt a terrific j ar of impact transmitted up theHatchetman ’s arm. Then another fearsome clangorous impact as the running ’Mechs collided.
Her vision blanked. She was falling—
Approaching up the slope behind the rushing Falcons like a latecomer to the dance, Paul Laveau saw what Tara, her ’Mech lying with its limbs all tangled with its erstwhile foe’s, could not.
At their beloved leader’s fall the Zetas went berserk. But rather than trying to generally engage the Republican battle line, they converged on their beloved commander’s fallen ’Mech. Their only desire now, Paul guessed, was to recover Aleksandr’s body and ward off the disgrace of having it fall into enemy hands—or, infinitely worse, Steel Wolf claws.
But vengeance did not fail to occur to them. A camouflage-painted ZetaShadow Hawk IIC closed quickly upon Tara’s prone ’Mech, preparing to destroy her with its powerful laser battery and advanced tactical missiles. Determination not to defile Aleksandr Hazen’s corpse was likely all that was keeping the Zeta MechWarrior from pummeling her already.
What the Wolf Bitch—There’s a woman who knows how to make an entrance!—might do or not do to save her enemy and ally was moot: she was dueling coolly with a pair of tanks and a light ’Mech of a design unfamiliar to Paul. Though his stolenPhoenix Hawk was an assault ’Mech, Paul did not trust its armament—a pair of 10- centimeter autocannon and a machine gun, useless here—to neutralize the Shadow Hawk before it killed Tara.
He jumped.
“Tara!” he called over his loudspeakers. “Move!”
Tara Campbell felt as if she had been beaten with bats, but her breathing was normal if hurried and no blood seemed to be coming out anywhere but her left nostril. Her vision blocks blinked once and came back on as her external audio pickups relayed a warning in a familiar—if impossible—voice.
“Paul?” she said. She was already responding. Using arm and hip actuators, she rolled herHatchetman right off Aleks’ fallen machine. Unfortunately, the depleted-uranium blade of her hatchet was stuck in the ’Mech’s head. Nor could her ’Mech readily let go. She found herself on her back, stuck tight as a Vulture stopped to take aim. Worse, a big FalconPhoenix Hawk IIC was jumping in its eagerness to be in on the kill. She rolled theHatchetman wildly, trying to bring its torso-mounted weaponry to bear on an attacker. It was hopeless.
ThePhoenix Hawk smashed the long slender “toes” of its feet through the top of the Vulture ’s fuselage, peeling open the cockpit in a death-from-above attack. TheVulture toppled to its right.
TheHawk, knocked off its jump-jet thrust-columns, somersaulted over an astonished Tara in her Hatchetman .
“Watch that last step, Countess!”the inverted ’Mech said to her in Paul Laveau’s voice. Its eighty tons landed on its winged back with a crash that lifted Tara’s fallen ’Mech half a meter off the ground.
The movement worked her hatchet free of the cockpit that served as Aleks Hazen’s tomb. She scrambled her machine to its feet.
Without concern for their own survival, every Turkina’s Beak BattleMech, vehicle, Elemental and foot soldier in view seemed to be converging on their lost leader—and Tara. For the moment, though, the avenging fury of their fire was focused exclusively on the ’Mech that had committed such an inexplicable act of treachery.
ThePhoenix Hawk IIC lay supine, arms outspread, immobile. Then it vanished amid a storm of dirt and sod thrown up by volleys of rockets, short range as well as long. Dazzling beams of colored light stabbed and crackled into the maelstrom.
Rippling flashes illuminated the cloud of dirt and smoke as ammo stored in the fallen BattleMech’s torso lit off. It had a CASE system to vent ammo explosions out the back—but the armored hatches covering the vents were jammed, pinned closed against the soil of Skye by the ’Mech’s eighty tons.
“Paul!” Tara screamed. But he was beyond her help now—and she needed help herself just now, as a Star of enemy ’Mechs, led by aBlack Hawk bearing what looked like Ghost Bear emblems as well as Falcon ones, switched fire to her. HerHatchetman rocked as an Elemental battle suit landed on her right shoulder and clung like a giant stinging insect. It began ripping open her cockpit armor with its manipulator.
A blue beam touched it from behind theHatchetman . The battle armor came apart in a ball of black smoke and red flame, surrounded by a buzzing blue corona. Tara felt her short hair stand on end from her sweat-wet scalp as side current from the particle beam fluxed through her cockpit.
The squat shape of a seventy-five-tonRyoken II materialized at the Countess’ shoulder. A metallic wolfs-head emblem laughed on its side armor. “That should ensure you keep your end of the bargain,” Anastasia Kerensky’s voice said in Tara’s headset. “Not that I trust your nai 've honor any less than that gallant, dead nitwit did.”
Shoulder by shoulder the two women, mortal enemies until mere moments before—and no doubt again, in not much more time—fought the fanatically onrushing Zetas. Step by step they gave ground. Not even Anastasia Kerensky’s Wolf pride mandated she throw her life away for the dead husk of a Falcon hero.
Firing died away on the scarred and smoldering hillside as the Zetas swarmed around Aleksandr Hazen’s ’Mech. ThePhoenix Hawk lay ignored by his side, a smoking, shattered wreck. Looking at it, Tara felt a stinging in her eyes.
Elementals tore open the smashed cockpit with their hand-like manipulators. Gently, they extracted the body of their commander. They gave it into the open right palm of theBlack Hawk with the Ghost Bear insignia, which knelt to receive it. Then they retreated among the houses of Weston Heights, where smoke and explosions indicated their comrades were skirmishing with the Steel Wolves BattleMechs hot-dropped in their rear.
Ever the cagey battle leader, Anastasia Kerensky had ordered only a handful of her troops dropped: just enough to threaten Aleks’ rear and make clear even to stiff-necked Jade Falcons that the battle here was lost. But not enough to weaken her attempt to pirate a few of the valuable Falcon DropShips. She was
content to leave the fighting for the moment to the Steel Wolves, and agree with Tara Campbell’s command to her exhausted Highlanders and Garryowens to cease fire.
When Aleksandr Hazen’s honor guard vanished, she turned her ’Mech to face Tara’s and popped the hatch. TheRyoken II was savagely scarred by beam and blast; its right hand, which Anastasia lifted in mock of the
