PROLOGUE

Grady Plateau

Somerset

Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

13 June 3071

I thought it would have been Wolves.

Star Captain Greta Hazen was warrior enough to admire the clean lines of the enemy formation. She’d seen enough parade formations; trained enough fledgling warriors. She knew the purpose of drill and discipline, knew the value of that discipline on the battlefield.

The ten white Clan OmniMechs standing in a line abreast across the soft lowlands of the Grady Plateau were light and fast. None was heavier than forty tons; it would take two of them to equal the mass of her own sixty-five ton Hellbringer. But she had still always thought she would meet her death against Clan Wolf. I fought on Tukayyid. I fought in REVIVAL.

I did not survive these twenty years to die against an Ice Hellion.

The 452nd Garrison Binary was Greta’s last command. She had known that when she accepted the post. It was a step up from solahma duty, but not even the horrific losses the Clan had taken in the last twenty years could overcome the sheer remorseless advance of time and age. She was too old for a frontline Cluster. The Jade Falcons were not the Inner Sphere, and there would be no glorious death in the throes of decrepitude for Greta, as there had been for the Black Widow. She would earn her death here.

The chronometer advanced down to the agreed-upon time and passed it. She held her Hellbringer steady, certain that the other four ’Mechs of her Star would be doing the same. The Hellions’ rushing attacks were always swift and sudden—the slaps of children throwing tantrums—but they’d soon sort themselves out. The Hellions had a disgusting view of zellbrigen, allowing their warriors simultaneous attacks in the first round. The warrior who struck the first blow against an enemy was allowed the honor of engaging them, but until that first blow was struck Greta could expect fire from as many as five Ice Hellion ’Mechs. 

Not that she was worried. The Hellbringer’s armor would take the first shot, and then she’d have her target. It irked her sense of propriety to allow the Hellions that first shot, but to do otherwise chanced removing the dueling rules of zellbrigen and opening the Trial to a general melee. In that arena, the lighter, faster Hellion Stars would win. Individually, her solahma warriors had a chance against their opponents; with the Hellions working as a pack, they’d have little hope. Not that it matters. If we win this Trial, another Star will just challenge us. There is no way my ten ’Mechs are holding Somerset. Not with an entire Cluster in orbit.

In a way she felt impotent, and the incongruity of the emotion made her smile. A BattleMech like her Hellbringer knew no equal save another ’Mech. Fusion-powered, with missiles, lasers, and high-speed autocannons, it could level an entire world, given enough time and ammunition. It could annihilate a city block in moments. ’Mechs were the pinnacle of mankind’s ground-based warmaking, and she controlled sixty-five tons of one.

The Hellions have so many more tons. And they are younger. In the age-obsessed Clans, younger warriors were more fierce. Few Clansmen lived long enough to accrue the experience that made older warriors wily and dangerous. 

Few lived as long as Greta had.

Three of the Hellion ’Mechs appeared to be targeting her. She let her heads-up display settle over the leading ’Mech, a twenty-five-ton Mist Lynx. She set the Hellbringer’s feet, wondering if it would be missiles or beams. Either way, the Mist Lynx was out in front, and if the stupid Hellion wanted to bet twenty-five tons against sixty-five, Greta was not going to dissuade her. A corner of her eye, long-accustomed to the observation necessary in a successful Star Captain, gauged the rest of the Hellions’ intentions. It appeared as if she and MechWarrior Harald, in the decrepit, twice-rebuilt Conjurer, were the initial targets. That was all right; Harald was a skilled gunner, and his ’Mech’s pulse lasers would give him an edge in targeting the speeding Hellions.

Her radio crackled to life. “Star Captain Greta Hazen.” She looked down. The signal was coming from the Mist Lynx in the lead. “I am Star Commander Julius of the Taneys. I challenge you to a duel of warriors.”

Greta considered. She had no qualms about fighting the Mist Lynx, of course, but she was wary. Why would Julius abrogate his peoples’ own rituals? Zellbrigen certainly allowed him to challenge her, but the Hellions were famous for their charges. Many other Clansmen—sometimes even Greta, if she thought about it—assumed the Ice Hellions, who favored lighter, faster ’Mechs than most Clans, used the charge as an excuse to break zellbrigen. Dueling rarely favored the lighter machine, unless the terrain was somehow in the lighter ’Mech’s favor. Forcing the melee let the Hellions work as a team.

And that let them win.

It does not matter. Greta keyed her com. There is no way I am going to keep this world anyway. “I accept,” she said, and cut the channel. The Mist Lynx kept coming, running flat-out, but its companions slowed. The range fell to just over a kilometer. Greta squeezed her controls again, waiting. She started the Hellbringer walking forward, not so much anxious to begin combat, but just to get the sixty-five tons moving.

A part of her mind ignored the coming Trial. She knew how to fight a ’Mech. The duel would take her entire concentration in a moment, but until just then she could think, and her eyes were seeing not only the HUD and the landscape and the blue-painted Ice Hellion OmniMech, but also a map of the Falcon occupation zone. If the Hellions had struck here, at Somerset, then they were most likely trying to carve out an occupation zone of their own from the worlds the Falcons had taken and held from the Federated Commonwealth, the Lyran Alliance, and the Steel Viper Clan. A kernel of anger burned to life in Greta’s gut.

She had fought to earn those worlds. In blood and tears and sibmates, Greta Hazen had paid for Somerset and the other worlds. That the Hellions—perhaps not the weakest of Kerensky’s Clans, but among that number—wanted to take those worlds was an affront to her honor. Not the Clan’s honor—Turkina feared no Hellion—but to Greta’s.

The PPC-tipped arms of the Hellbringer came up as the Mist Lynx hurtled into range. She brought her awareness into the cockpit, focusing on the speeding ’Mech and the coming combat. To live or die the next few minutes were all that mattered.

But still, a small voice whispered in the back of her mind, the Khan will make them pay. They will not hold Somerset for long. She remembered a Watch report she’d seen, as senior Falcon officer on Somerset, some weeks ago, claiming the Ice Hellions were coming. She’d dismissed it, and that dismissal marked Greta’s shame. But the Falcon would recover, and the next generation of trueborn warriors would reap the Falcon’s revenge.

Because ready or not, the Falcons had known the Hellions were coming.

The distance between the two ’Mechs dipped beneath the PPC’s maximum range. Greta squeezed her primary triggers. Both PPCs flared into coruscating blue-white hell-beams.

Greta Hazen knew she was defeated.

She smiled.