Battletech Welcome to the Jungle

Outside Silver’s Rest, Sevren, Sevren System,
Radstadt Prefecture, Rasalhague Military District, Draconis Combine
January 6th, 3016

Julia Steiner breathed in and out as she swept her eyes over the enemy formation. Her attention settled on a damaged Dragon, and Gungnir’s guns tracked smoothly on target. She could almost feel the targeting systems determining the elevation her LB-10X would need to reach the ‘Mech only now encroaching on her weapon’s long range.

The crosshairs blinked rapidly with the sound of a good tone for her shot. Much as she would have liked to claim strategy as the reason for having consistently fired after the rest of the Command Lance, that was largely a happy accident. Good training meant she had taken advantage of opportunities, but she still didn’t have the timing quite down yet.

As her new Thunderbolt’s right foot hit the ground, she shifted her weight forward. Not far enough to cause the Battlemech to trip, but enough to make the butterflies in her stomach dance a jig. Her forefinger squeezed the trigger while her thumb mashed the button on top of her right joystick. Gungnir shuddered from the punishing recoil of the autocannon and missile launch as the right side of her ‘Mech erupted in fire and smoke, and just incidentally let the recoil push her fully upright again.

Olivetti’s work on the -6S was impressive, but the gyro wasn’t quite managing to compensate for the changed weight distribution in the new limbs. She’d tracked that down as the problem by talking to both the test pilot who’d used the ‘Mech before her as well as Weber’s -5R pilots who didn’t have a similar problem. Olivetti reportedly had the design team working on the issue, and in the end it was just a programming fix. In six months or a year, they’d have an updated ROM to tweak the software, and nobody would be able to tell there’d ever been a problem.

But for now, Julia rode with the feeling that she had been shoved on the right side by a giant whenever she pulled the trigger. Still, it wasn’t all bad; she used the recoil of her flight of fifteen LRMs and the burst of cluster shells to present her left side armor toward the enemy once more. She doubted that the fight would reach the range where those 5cm lasers and flamers would be needed so there was nothing vital in that side of the Mech besides her cockpit, and that was heavily armored and securely positioned enough to be at minimal risk against the weaponry the Combine was currently bringing to bear.

Abruptly, the red dot that marked the DRG-1N in her tactical display winked out, and she smirked. As her missiles flew into the fireball, it was clear from the mushroom cloud and pinwheeling shrapnel that the Combine Mechwarrior hadn’t managed to dump the ammo in time, and at least one of the submunitions had found a magazine in the Drac Mech’s exposed side-torsos. She mentally tipped her hat to Foehammer; his lance had opened up the fast Heavy with slugs and ERPPCs and those glowing rents in the shattered armor had made for an excellent target for her follow-on fire.

Automatically, she scanned the tactical overview, looking for more wounded prey; they’d started the battle outnumbered nearly two to one. They needed to cut the odds against them as rapidly as possible.

“New target: Beemer on the right. Trigger, step back and break contact. Stick, I need you on the line.” Weber’s voice sounded in her ears on the lance frequency. She acknowledged as she moved up to allow the damaged Banshee to fall back out of effective weapons range. It wasn’t pretty; the right arm had massive avulsions in its thick hide, and the remaining plates were entirely compromised. Beyond that, her rear-facing cameras showed craters all over both side-torsos. She took a deep breath and toggled over to link into the Lance tactical net for volley fire on targets.

Her thumb flipped the switch on the stick to draw slug instead of cluster rounds for her next burst of autocannon fire, since she would be cracking armor if she hit rather than exploiting cripples. She could all but feel the subliminal whine of the high-speed ammunition feed drawing more 95mm APFSDS shells from the magazine on her right side out to the breech of Gungnir’s primary weapon.

Her eyes flickered to the tactical overview of the multi-battalion engagement.

The DCMS commander was pushing hard, trying to get his Mechs into effective range against the fewer but more technologically superior Lyran heavies. On either flank, the armor screen he was relying on to keep the Medium mechs busy was dying like flies -- as she watched, another Goblin winked out -- and apparently the enemy had no idea that he was sticking his neck into the noose.

Her lips quirked.

It seemed that Gaius Terentius Varro had been reborn over there, as her father would have acidly commented. The formation of the two forces at this moment would have been familiar to Hannibal Barca on the bloody field of Cannae in the summer of 216 BC. The DCMS was charging ahead recklessly toward the center with their heavier Mechs, only to be steadily enveloped by the more maneuverable Lyran machines on the flanks.

Her missile launcher gave a good tone for lock, so once more she pivoted, snap-firing at the Battlemaster and using the punishing recoil to screen the more critical right side weapons as she ducked and weaved through enemy fire aimed at her. Gungnir shook and shuddered from missile impacts, paired with some light autocannon fire, but his thick hide held strong.

“New target: the other Beemer.” Alistair said, then followed the command a few moments later with “All stop. Full reverse and hold them at range.”

Julia’s grin showed all her teeth as she sidestepped, fired and then began the planned fighting retreat. While ‘no battle plan survives contact with the enemy’, Levy’s company was almost in position to pivot and fire into the exposed flanks of the Drac Battlemechs pushing at them. Now all their line company had to do was to survive and keep the enemy tied down for weight of numbers and superior range to finish crushing them in the fire sack as the anvil to Levy’s hammer.

The last of the Goblins was burning and Wayfarer Company was turning on the Scorpions with lethal intent. They looked to be moving into the closing stages of the engagement.

Then the blue dot of Mechwarrior Jasper’s Banshee winked out on her TAC display. Her eyes shot sideways in time to watch when his Mech collapsed with the boneless sprawl of negative neurohelmet contact. The whole right side of the ‘Mech’s head was a mess of armor cratered by missile impacts, but the underlying structure didn’t seem to be too badly damaged. There was a chance it was just damage to the computers.

But not a good chance.

The only consolation was that the last of the Combine’s Assault Lance was down as well.

“New target: Crusader,” Alistair growled then clarified, “the one beside the Grasshopper.”

The one that had been shooting at Trigger, and had switched to targeting her.

Still walking in reverse, waiting for more ammunition to be hauled up from Gungnir’s magazine, Julia caught the moment Captain Levy’s Company turned to engage.

Keeping the mission in mind, they appeared to be focusing on the remaining Dragons. One fell, cause indeterminate. A second seemed to trip over nothing in particular. Probably actuator damage. That was difficult to compensate for when moving at a sprint.

Of course the Combine troops didn’t stop their attack, but it did seem poised to further divide their fire. The Archer and Crusader pair that had been firing on the Warriors’ Command Lance torso twisted to take the Mediums under fire.

Then her weapons finished cycling and she was very busy indeed.

Anticipating coming under heavy fire once again, Julia fired, then sharply reduced the throttle before pushing it back to the stops, all the while swerving left then back to the right. The combination was damnably difficult to control, but the outward effect was much like a running back shortening his stride to fake out an incoming linebacker. It wasn’t something she would have tried in such a new BattleMech without the SLDF Neurohelmet helping smooth over the gyro’s objections, but the result was worth the trouble.

Her computers lit up with weapon tracks passing on both sides of her, and she had an excellent view of LRMs from the Crusader and Dragon trying and failing to correct as their sensors realized at the last moment that her ‘Mech wasn’t where they were expecting him to be.

She shot a glance at the Crusader they’d been targeting and found it trying to push itself back to its feet. Her computers highlighted the left side-torso and identified a massive armor breach there. As she watched, She saw the contents of the magazine there begin raining to the ground as soon as the machine was sufficiently vertic-

Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention as, down the line, Alistair Weber’s Banshee reeled, molten armor dripping from Shiroyama’s cheek.


Blinking spots from my eyes, I fought to maintain control for a moment in the wake of the impacts. Somebody on the Combine side had seemingly noticed that we’d had to pull one Banshee off the line, but none of our heavies and made the call to focus on the Assault ‘Mechs. Whether they’d concluded that my Banshees were equipped with more Lostech, or they’d come to the mistaken conclusion that they were under-armored was immaterial.

I’d taken hits from what were probably the pair of AC-10s on the enemy Lance’s two Orions, then managed to avoid a Thunderbolt and an Archer’s missiles only for the sneaky son of a bitch to add an 8cm laser once my course stabilized.

“Fucking -2Ks!” I growled out then triggered my radio.

“Sequential fire into that Crusader, then move to other targets in the lance!” I ordered. That should allow us to put the bastard down without wasting fire. A glance at my armor state told me what I already suspected. Another hit to the head and I was going to be having a bad day, the hit hadn’t been perfect, but it was square enough to compromise all the forward-focused armor and only the thin plates facing the rear were intact. I mentally marked the Archer’s pilot as the marksman of the Lance, though.

The Orion’s AC-10s had pretty clearly been aimed for my center mass, and they’d both drifted onto opposite sides of my Banshee’s torso, and most of the missiles from the one with the LRM rack had gone wide. We needed to finish up with the Lance we were currently targeting.

As my guns cycled, I opened fire on the Crusader, then moved to evade. I raised my ‘Mech’s right arm to cover my vulnerable cockpit as I stepped through the limited evasion allowed by our slower reverse speed. My evasion was still enough to throw off most of the enemy fire. Both the Orion’s shots went wide, though the enemy Thunderbolt’s laser scored just below the autocannon impacts on my left torso and the missiles struck my raised right arm. I was still in the yellow in both locations, though the enemy’s accuracy was definitely improving as the range closed.

A quick glance showed the Crusader was flat on it’s back this time with its left leg from the knee actuator down missing. A second member of the Lance, a Rifleman, had drawn fire from Foehammer on our flank and looked to be in sad shape, light as its armor wa-

I blinked at my display as Julia fired at the staggering enemy ‘Mech, and the forward-mounted cockpit abruptly became a crater before the remains of the war machine dropped to the ground in an uncoordinated tumble.

I was getting a demonstration of the difference between skill and experience today. I might be a better shot on the range, but Julia seemed to be much better at avoiding tunnel vision and she was absolutely ruthless at recognizing and exploiting opportunities. That said, we needed a new target, and the Dracs were running low on those.

“Foehammer, call your target,” I stated, jumping frequencies with a thought.

“Grasshopper,” he replied immediately. “Need you on their heavier metal.”

Which was a point. I’d targeted the Crusader’s Lance because they’d been firing at us, but the Archer, Thunderbolt, and Orions were all bruisers. Foehammer could clean up the Grasshopper and Dragon.

“Agreed,” I replied, then switched back.

“New target, Oni-VA,” I called out, using the slang for the ON1, Orion. The -K model was the more dangerous one at range, but the -VA model dropped the LRM launcher for a second SRM launcher which made it more dangerous inside three kilometers. I really didn’t want it lingering long enough to make use of it’s knife-fighting armament.

My conversation with Foehammer, brief as it had been, had eaten up much of the spare time in weapon charging cycles. It was only a few moments before my guns came up, but I opted to hold my fire to get re-synced with the rest of the Lance. It also let me devote more time to dodging, so I was watching as the Archer that had scored the headshot on me got blindsided in turn by Heavy Company’s Fire Support Lance.

His thermal signature, already warm from having once again added an 8cm laser to his missiles, suddenly spiked to nearly white hot as first energy weapons, then missiles peppered his ‘Mech’s boxy torso.

Then, as he fought to keep the ‘Mech on its feet, it suddenly collapsed. I immediately brought my throttle to full stop. I wasn’t about to leave as perfect a target as an overheated ‘Mech unengaged.

I leaned forward to depress my torso guns and brought the crosshairs to rest on the top of the forward-swept cockpit and began to squeeze the triggers.

Then the cockpit hatch was flung violently open, and the Mechwarrior all but flew up out of his machine.

I relaxed my trigger fingers and looked for a new target. The Orion I’d called as my Lance’s target was already down, cause indeterminate. That made the ON1-K the next priority. It’s combination of AC-10 and LRMs more threatening than the Thud it shared a Lance with.

Deciding to take advantage of the stable firing platform, I swung my crosshairs to cover it, only for it to throttle back and disengage its targeting systems. A quick glance revealed the same thing happening across all the remaining Combine BattleMechs. For just a moment, it didn’t compute. Then I was scrambling for the Battalion frequency.

“Combine forces are surrendering. I repeat, Combine forces are surrendering. Keep them covered, but do not fire unless fired upon!” I ordered. “We will be accepting their surrender. I repeat-”


Some minutes prior

Gunsho Erik Nilsson grimaced as his Orion’s LRMs failed to penetrate the torso armor of the Lyrans’ insane Super-Banshee. Even when the Chu-i’s 8cm laser struck it in the head, it barely staggered.

Whatever sorcery had been worked on them to turn a centuries-old joke into a proper Assault Mech hadn’t made them impervious to harm, but somehow they’d doubled the armament without slowing the ‘Mech appreciably. That had to mean that their armor was weaker than standard, right?

At least he hoped that was the logic under which his Chu-i had commanded them to focus on the Assault ‘Mechs when the order to charge had come. The other option was that the young fire-breather had simply fixated on the largest, most prestigious target.

Nilsson was wondering what the damn point was. Their Lance’s ‘Mechs contained no PPCs, so they hadn’t even been able to engage the Lyrans for the first part of the battle.

Hel! Even the word ‘battle’ was a misnomer; this was a slaughter.

Such accurate fire from range was unheard of, and two thirds of the enemy ‘Mechs on the field weren’t registering in the Warbook. One or two might have been Frankenmechs, but two companies? No. The Lyrans must have stumbled on an SLDF cache, which meant Lostech.

What they ought to have done was hammered the Mediums to put as much of that technology right back out of action as they could manage. To lose his Family BattleMech or fall in battle depriving the enemy of an irreplaceable asset wasn’t his first choice, but would at least have been worthy of recognition. Recognition that would keep his family safe and perhaps even grant them higher status and thus better cover from the ISF. He could’ve held his head high when he met his forefathers in Valhalla, even without an honor guard, if that were the case.

Instead, Sho-sa Hasegawa had barely gotten some order to begin emerging from the chaos of the surprise attack before his Awesome had been shot down and Tai-i Kouda’s Lancelot had been felled in the first exchange.

By the time Tai-i Omori in his Dragon on the front lines had realized what was happening and asserted control, most of a company was already down. If the Tai-i had a plan other than dying gloriously for the Dragon, he hadn’t bothered to inform a lowly Gunsho.

Tyr’s weapons finished cycling, and Nilsson fired again, this time aiming to exploit the damage he had done to the left flank of the Banshee, but the Lyran was good. A pivot and a torso twist had his own salvo as well as Berggren’s burst of autocannon rounds sailing wide.

The Chu-i’s single flight of missiles was likewise avoided, though Wallin had more luck. His 8cm laser did some more damage to the left flank armor, but still failed to penetrate, and his missiles only blew a few craters in the Banshee’s raised right arm.

In return, the Crusader the Lyrans had been firing at went down again, this time with its leg all the way off. Judging by the way it didn’t stir, it seemed Johansson was either unconscious or wished he was.

Then his own lance was abruptly lit up by the Banshees’ targeting systems.

Not knowing who was going to be the target, and with his heavy autocannon and LRM rack he was a good candidate, Nilsson moved to throw off incoming fire as soon as he’d completed his salvo.

He was briefly relieved and then ashamed of it as Berggren’s Orion shuddered under a hail of impacts before falling. The angle was wrong to see exactly what damage it had taken, but the lack of movement was ominous.

Then he caught motion in his peripheral vision and glanced to the right rear where the Chu-i’s Archer had fallen behind the rest of their gun line. Adding the 8cm laser the way he had been had overheated his myomers and slowed him down. It had also marked him as a target.

The Lyran’s fire support lance, a quartet of suspiciously fast, well armed ‘antiques’ seemingly dating from the Age of War, had seemingly marked the officer’s Archer as a cripple and targeted it. As he watched, a veritable wave of missiles crashed down onto the Archer, eclipsing it behind a cloud of smoke and shattered armor fragments. The ‘Mech, movement already jerky with overheating, staggered out of the detonations, and fell.

Switching to thermal revealed why. His engine shielding had clearly taken serious damage from the bombardment. The Archer was running so hot that he was surprised the ammunition hadn’t cooked off in its magazine.

Chu-i Hori seemed to agree, because even as Nilsson watched, he came scrambling up out of the cockpit like his hair was on fire.

Nilsson grinned as he saw it. No need to die for the fucking Dragon now!

“Well, boys, our officer ordered us to follow his lead, and he just surrendered. Power your targeting systems down, and let’s see what terms the Lyrans are offering,” he said.

Without Berggren looking over people’s shoulders or Moritz in his Crusader skulking around, ready to report any hint of disloyalty to the ISF … seemed any of the real Rasalhague boys looking for a quick trip to Valhalla today had already found it. Nobody else was inclined to keep up the fight. Not when the Lyrans had kicked the stuffing out of the Battalion so quickly.

The Lyrans rapidly agreed to reasonable terms: ComStar to act as a neutral party and inter both Family ‘Mechs and Mechwarriors until they could be ransomed or exchanged, personal effects to go with them after a search for weapons. The commander even volunteered his own medical facilities to see to the injured, which rumor had led Nilsson to believe was unlikely.

He’d known the most outrageous stories the Voice of the Dragon told about what the Lyrans would do to captured Combine soldiers were lies, but that still left room for quite a bit.

That, in turn, led to some consideration as he waited for the Lyrans to get around to collecting him. He knew he could make a case for ‘just following orders,’and probably avoid any retaliation against his family, but this might be an opportunity too…

So when a hovercraft with Lyran-blue markings and unfamiliar heraldry pulled up to collect him, he was gratified to see that the vehicle was still empty.

None of his fellows heard him when he said, “I am Gunsho Erik Nilsson and I’d like to request asylum.”


The surrender had proceeded more smoothly than I’d been expecting until I realized that, through sheer luck, we’d actually decimated the Combine command structure early in the fight.

Well, ‘realized.’ I’d been told by the man in a POW’s jumpsuit now sitting across from me in one of the Implacable’s small conference rooms. Erik Nilsson wasn’t what I’d pictured when someone said ‘Samurai.’ Tall and blond with a tidy beard, he looked more like one of Julia’s distant cousins than a Combine native. Though, maybe that was the point. Drop him on pretty much any word in the Commonwealth and he could disappear into a crowd and never be seen again.

“So you want to defect from the Combine. Why?”

There were probably weirder ways of inserting a spy, but I expected LIC to be their usual suspicious selves. Barring some James Bond level of oddness, I didn’t think he’d be sneaking anything by them. Besides, he was …

“Fuck the Combine. Bastards have never done a damn thing for Rasalhague.”

… blunt as a table knife.

“Hard to do anything for Rasalhague if you’re on the wrong side of the border,” I temporized. Another strike against him being a spy was the fact that he didn’t even seem to be trying to hide anything.

“Letting the ISF think I’m dead keeps my family safe,” he said with a shrug.

“Which is why you want us to swap the destroyed head from the -VA onto your ‘Mech?”

“Yes. I’d also like to leave a message in a drop location inside the chassis to clue my parents in,” he said.

“Only if you don’t mind doing it under observation,” I shot back.

He shrugged. I glanced over at Julia who returned my nonplussed expression. My call then.

“I’ll get both Orion’s moved, then. ComStar’s local office in Landing is thoroughly busy with the situation in the city, so they shouldn’t be in a position to notice anything. We’ll list … Berggren, you said?”

He nodded.

“Berggren, then, as the one who ordered the surrender. Surprised you’re willing to throw him under the bus that way.”

“He was one of the ISF informants. He can get fucked,” Nilsson responded with snort.

Honestly, if that was the case, I couldn’t really blame him. 40k Commissars were funny as memes, but if I was stuck in most any Imperial Guard regiment? I’d make sure the first thing I did once a fight started was blue-on-blue the Commissar.

“Alright, then. We’ll keep you confined to quarters until somebody from LIC can take you off our hands,” I told him, then stood and reflexively extended a hand.

He seemed surprised by that but returned the handshake. He had a good grip for somebody from a relatively normal-gravity world.

“Huh, you really are in charge. I figured you were just fronting for Miss Steiner over there,” he said, indicating Julia with a nod.

That I hadn’t expected. I’d just introduced her as my liaison officer. Nilsson might be blunt, but he wasn’t stupid. While I was trying to shift gears, Julia spoke up.

“I’m afraid you have it backwards,” she replied with a chuckle, “I actually am the LCAF Mercenary Command liaison officer for Colonel Weber here.” She extended her hand in turn.

“I’ll make sure that LIC keeps this quiet and sends their best available person.There are some benefits to having this last name when you need the wheels of bureaucracy to grind in your favor. I’m sure you know how that goes, Mechwarrior Nilsson. In any case, welcome to the Commonwealth.”

“Well, I’ll see about making myself useful,” he replied, taking her extended hand and, surprisingly gallant, placed a kiss on the back with a bow.

“I’m sure you will,” Julia said, and for the first time I felt a hint of Katrina’s presence from her. Her expression remained pleasant, but her tone conveyed that he had better, ‘or else’ strongly implied.

I managed to keep control of my grin until one of the guards escorted him back to his ‘cell.’


A/N: Thanks again to Seraviel, Lordsfire, and Yellowhammer for beta reading, idea bouncing, and canon compliance checking. This chapter is vastly improved by their efforts.

West towards New Cartris, Sevren, Sevren System,
Radstadt Prefecture, Rasalhague Military District, Draconis Combine
January 6th, 3016

Chu-i Imada frowned and finished off the last of his second can of coffee, long since gone cold. It was early, and he was operating on far too little sleep, but those were the perils of a scout’s task. Especially when the damn hovertank jocks that should have been sharing the load decided to charge headlong into an ambush.

For a moment his frown deepened, and then he sighed, working his shoulders as best he could in the tight confines of a Locust cockpit to remove the tension that was accumulating there.

The hovertank crews’ desire to get to grips with the enemy was admirable, and far better than the cowardice that so often struck peasant infantrymen or combat vehicle crewmen who should have been focused on the honor of serving the Dragon. In that, the Sword of Light were well-served by the conventional forces who had been attached to fight beside them on Sevren.

However, proper Samurai would have recognized the need for patience and calm analysis instead of thoughtlessly pursuing a target simply because it was retreating.

The poor impulse control of the peasants had meant they were expended. Judging by the speed with which the pursuit had been rejoined, undoubtedly they had been expended for little return.

Unfortunately, there were simply not enough Samurai to go around. The same need to have competent scouts was what had his overstrength Lance out scouting the route ahead today: this invasion was no mere raid to be seen off with a single charge.

The Lyrans’ perfidious spies would be revealing themselves, and one could hardly expect a peasant to recognize one of LIC’s typically insidious traps.

The last thing they needed was to lose a Lance or, worse yet, a Company to some sabotage before they could rejoin the Sword of Light for the assault to push the Lyran dogs back off Sevren.

His unit hadn’t spotted anything yet, but perhaps that was to give them a false sense of security? Certainly the best opportunity for any trickery would be once they entered the mountainous section of the route.

Again, Imada had to refocus himself. Exhaustion was understandable, but could not be permitted to impact his duties. He reached over and removed another can of coffee from the warmer. He would push through the same way he had pushed through long nights studying at Sun Zhang.

Still, as the sun began to rise behind them, he found his attention wandering back to the previous day’s events.

He had to give the Lyrans credit, they did appear to have finally learned that stomping around in big, slow ‘Mechs wasn’t always the best solution. The Rasalhague men who had led them into the trap may have overstated the Lyrans’ prowess to excuse their poor performance, but Samurai had been felled by them as well. Including the Tai-i.

These were not the typical unskilled Lyran plodders. Even so, the DCMS soldiers who’d given their lives to trap the enemy Company had no doubt taught the dogs, overconfident after their successful ambush, that there was a great difference between a planned attack on poorly armored hovercraft and fighting determined, well fortified troops on ground of their choosing.

The Chu-i was idly speculating about how badly the fast, well-armed, and thus surely under-armored Lyran machines would have fared against the ambush when a priority communication made him straighten in his seat.

“Chu-i Imada,” the message began, and it took him a moment for him to recognize Tai-i Omori’s voice. “You are hereby ordered to make best speed for New Cartris. The Lyran Lucrewarriors were not deterred by our ambush, they simply allowed us to think they had been while they concentrated their forces and waited for their sabotage to hobble our conventional assets.”

He had been preparing to object to the Tai-i issuing him orders. For all that he was a higher rank, they were not in the same chain of command. The latter half of the message dissuaded him from any such comment.

“Hai,” he replied as adrenaline began to kick in. He wanted to ask how the sabotage had been accomplished. Had his men missed something? Before he could think of how to ask, the other officer continued.

“I will be transmitting my combat data to you for as long as I am able. It seems apparent that the Lucrewarriors have significant amounts of Lostech equipment. It is imperative that this data makes it into the hands of the Sword of Light, Chu-i.”

And by his tone, the Tai-i knew that he would not live to see the duty accomplished.

“I accept this task,” he replied formally, though his heart desired only to charge toward the distant battlefield. “We shall make our way at best speed.”

Tai-i Omori gave a grunt of acknowledgment and dropped the communication. Moments later, his Locust began to receive the data feed.

With firm resolve, he reached out and changed his radio to contact his Lance.

“Men, we move at best speed for New Cartris! We have critical intelligence to pass on to the Sword of Light!”

As the acknowledgments came in, he throttled up to the best speed his Lance could sustain. That it was not his own best speed was frustrating, but it would be shameful to leave his command behind. Besides, they were mostly Rasalhagueans, without oversight from a proper Samurai, they would be all too willing to surrender or otherwise dishonor themselves and him by association.


The Chu-i wished that he had a second pair of eyes so that he could keep one set aimed at the sky. Not long after Tai-i Omori had ceased to transmit, a squadron of Lyran ASFs had flown by well overhead and out of range.

The Warbook had identified them as Centurions, Interceptors unsuited for ground attack missions, but their appearance had resulted in a very tense hour while he waited for dedicated Strike platforms like the Chippewa to stoop down on his very light Lance.

Thankfully, either they hadn’t seen his unit on their overflight, or the Lyrans were unconcerned about a half-dozen BattleMechs seemingly fleeing the battle.

While it galled him to benefit from such a charade, if the Lyrans attributed their own cowardice to him and his men it would aid in the success of his mission. He would bear it until his orders were fulfilled. Then the Sword of Light would make them pay.

And perhaps, just perhaps, his service would be remembered when he met the qualifications for membership.

Any further speculation on his part was interrupted by a call over the radio from Sorenson’s Wasp out on the left flank.

“Sir, I just caught a glimpse of something to the rear,” he reported.

Imada frowned. They had been a couple dozen kilometers ahead of the rest of the force thanks to their scouting duties when they began, and in the last hour they had covered nearly eighty more. Thanks to that, they were finally entering terrain that was worth the name, with rises worthy of being called hills. He had been shifting their heading enough to avoid skylighting his force for any pursuers, but that hadn’t actually shifted his unit’s course much from the least-time course to the roadway cut through the Neo Caucuses.

Abruptly, he remembered the overflight. If they’d called in his unit’s position and heading ...

“Adjust course, directly north!” He snapped. He’d been avoiding the roadway, hoping to likewise avoid any Lyran spies, but if his position was already known, his only chance would be to make better speed than any pursuit. Again, he considered leaving the rest of the unit behind. His Locust had a higher top speed than even his fellow Light ‘Mechs.

After a long moment, he dismissed the idea. He was an officer, and he would remain with his men.

Unfortunately, the course change appeared to have been made too late. As the kilometers passed, it was rapidly apparent that the pursuit was catching up.

“Hovertanks. J. Edgars,” Sorenson, now the rearguard, confirmed after a long moment.

They were not as powerful as the Saladin, Saracen, and Scimitar that the Combine favored, but they had the twin advantages of speed and, thanks to their Fusion Engines, endurance.

That, however, made for another question. If anything, their closing speed was too slow. A J. Edgar should have been twice as fast as a Wasp at full speed, but they were only overhauling slowly.

That suggested that the Lance that was following them had a healthy appreciation for the innate superiority of the Battlemech.

Imada turned his eyes to the heavens and sent a prayer to his ancestors. Please, oh please, let the cowardice of those clerks and shopkeepers be their undoing. he asked. Let them hesitate in the face of their deaths, he asked.

And for a time, it seemed that they would. They lingered, four kilometers distant, outside the range of any weapon on the field with his lone Valkyrie’s LRM launcher out of action.

Then, out of the dust cloud they were kicking up, he began detecting magnetic signatures. Suspecting a second Lance of hovertanks, he was not terribly concerned. Numbers might make the enemy confident, but his Mechs had better ability to absorb damage. Any knife fight must certainly end in his favor, even if there were a couple more Hovertanks than ‘Mechs. Surely most of the enemy force must have been expended sparring with the Combine’s own Maxims?

Then the readings firmed up as the targets closed, and the Warbook identified them, not as hovertanks, but as BattleMechs. First labeling them Commando -1As before changing its mind and identifying them as being the new -1B that had appeared last year, before surrendering and labeling them as unknown variants.

The fact that they were equipped with 8cm lasers was troublesome. Worse, however, was their speed. Somehow they were closing much more quickly than they ought to have been able to, and the Chu-i’s mind went back to what Tai-i Omori had said about Lostech.

“Attention, Combine Mechwarriors,” a Lyran-accented voice came across the airwaves, transmitting in the clear, “This is Captain Schmidt of Weber’s Warriors. We outrange and outnumber you,” the voice continued, and Imada could see that both were true. In addition to the half-dozen Commandos, a handful of other signatures were hanging back in the dust cloud at the edge of his sensor range.

“We call on you to surrender. Perhaps luck will favor you more another day,” the Lucrewarrior concluded, and Imada could only sneer.

Mercenaries were demanding their surrender? The gall!

“Prepare to evade fire,” he ordered his overstrength Lance. “The Lucrewarriors accuracy will not be great at this speed and this distance. Our message must be given to the Seventh Sword of Light! Wait for them to close the range, and we will turn on them and scatter them before us. Even Lostech can only do so much, and with their oversized engines, their armor must be weak!”

A chorus of affirmatives answered him, and he let his silent contempt act as answer to the Lyrans behind him.

After a long moment, the ‘Captain’ seemed to realize he was not going to get a response.

“So be it, then,” he said and targeting sensors came on line.

“Break!” Imada called, and his subordinates obeyed. 8cm lasers were theoretically accurate out to five kilometers, but the enemy Commandos were six kilometers away, and the relative velocity of both units would degrade their accuracy even more. By moving to evade, they would deny the enemy the ability to use massed fire to score lucky hits against a clumped target. Or so they thought.

Impossibly accurate aimed fire sought out Sorenson’s Wasp and hammered into its lightly protected flanks and rear. The left arm detached, flying high into the air. The Mech beat it to the ground as its Gyro failed under the assault.

“Again,” the faithless grifter’s voice polluted the airwaves, “I call on you to surrender. You accomplish nothing with this defiance.”

This time, Chu-i Imada answered.

“We serve the Dragon, Lyran dog! We accomplish more in one hour of service than bootlicking Lucrewarriors like you accomplish in your entire lives! We will never surrender to the likes of you!” He shouted, enraged.

“Thank you for volunteering,” the voice, Schmidt said again, and Imada realized he’d been holding a straight course while he spo-


A/N: Thanks again to Seraviel, Lordsfire, and Yellowhammer for beta reading, idea bouncing, and canon compliance checking. This chapter is vastly improved by their efforts.