CHAPTER THREE

Plains of Red Stone

Bone Norman

Jade Falcon Occupation Zone

27 June 3071

Star Colonel Idris grunted as another fusillade of small Gauss slugs rattled against his Hellbringer’s armor. The Ice Hellion Khan’s Kit Fox was amazingly fast, or at least it seemed so. The clinical—pragmatic—part of his mind knew that the ’Mech wasn’t any faster than any other of its class, and that he was just seeing the machine under the control of a masterful MechWarrior, but the thinking, feeling part of his brain refused to believe it.

He could not hit the stravag thing.

Around him, the other warriors of his Trinary were learning what it meant to face frontline Clan warriors in top-of-the-line equipment. MechWarrior Beckham’s spectacular death in the original rush had left his Horned Owl in wreckage, but MechWarrior Glandra’s Pinion was giving the Hellion Shadow Cat a run for its money. The other Eleventh PGC warriors weren’t learning fast enough—while Idris watched, Colby’s Locust IIC collapsed beneath a barrage of laser fire from a Hellion. And Rood’s damnable Kit Fox was still weaving a path through the werewillows.

Idris smiled. He was going to lose this Trial. He knew that. All that remained was to make the Hellions pay for every Falcon life lost. He touched a preset on his control panel to send a prearranged signal. His smile fell into a slight frown as he re-gripped his controls. Despite his foreknowledge, the act had felt dirty.

I should not have done this. He wanted to tell himself he was talking about the signal, and the trap that signal triggered, but the pragmatic part of his mind took over again. He should not have led his Trinary into battle. Idris had known the Khan’s own Binary on the field was a trap, but the trap was too sweet to not trigger.

Especially when it overlapped his own.

His ’Mech’s sensors pinged as they recognized a new contact. Several new contacts, from the sounds. Idris glanced down, expecting to see the many smaller green carets he expected, but there were no icons in the places he looked. He fired the Hellbringer’s right-side PPC toward where the Kit Fox would be, not really trying to hit. He was buying time to find the new contacts. If the Star Commanders had not hidden in the correct positions…

Red icons clustered at the very edge of his tactical scanner.

Ice Hellion icons.

Ice Hellion ’Mechs.

The red icons sped across the display. Idris knew if he twisted the Hellbringer around he’d see the white-and-blue painted shapes of the fresh Hellion Trinary bounding across the plain. So. This is the Hellion trap.

The Hellbringer staggered beneath an impact. Idris clutched his controls, but the sixty-five ton OmniMech staggered several steps. According to his sensors, the Gauss slug that had struck his ’Mech had been a full-sized round from the Hellion Shadow Cat that had been dueling the Falcon Pinion.

She broke zellbrigen. Idris stared at the damage report, not believing his eyes. But that means—and then he laughed, full and deep and filled with surprise. Of course.

With the melee opened by the breach of zellbrigen, the Hellion ’Mechs were free to attack any other Falcon ’Mech they chose. The two unengaged Falcons charged forward, desperate to get into play before the Hellions withdrew.

And thus they preserve their honor, Idris saw. The new contacts would charge in and, with no dueling to hold them back, tear the Falcon Trinary apart. Idris opened his mouth to order a withdrawal, but snapped it shut before speaking.

New green icons appeared on his HUD. 

His own trap was springing.

And it is not as if I were going to win in the first place.

Connor Rood was sweating. 

It wasn’t the heat inside the Kit Fox’s cockpit, though that would be a factor once he got close enough to burn the Hellbringer with his medium lasers. He sweated because Star Colonel Idris had to have seen the Ice Hellion reinforcements, and he wasn’t ordering his Trinary out of the melee. There was disgrace in leaving the Circle of Equals—not that they could, really, since they’d declared all of Hapsburg their Circle—but if the Falcons withdrew, the chances were good that the Hellions would let them. It was one of the not-spoken-of-but-commonly-accepted traditions of wide-area Trials. 

But the Falcons were standing firm. Pushing forward, even, with the two new combatants sending long-range PPC and missile fire toward Star Captain Lira’s Shadow Cat. Rood eyed the Cat’s battered hull with a critical eye but judged her okay; potting the Hellbringer had opened the melee he’d wanted. And put a hefty hole in the Hellbringer’s armor for me.

He swung the Kit Fox around, intent on closing the range. Despite the releasing of zellbrigen, he still wanted Idris. The Star Colonel had proven himself an even more resourceful officer than Rood had suspected, and if he could take the man bondsman, the Hellions would benefit from his service once he earned his way back into the warrior caste.

All I need do now is take down a ’Mech more than twice the mass of my own. Rood smiled at the thought. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done so. He manipulated his controls until the crosshairs for the HAG-20 were over the Falcon ’Mech’s heart and then rubbed the trigger. The Kit Fox shook as the bundled capacitors fired.

It shook too much. Alarms shrieked to life.

All around a flurry of red carets appeared on his HUD. 

Elementals.

Idris had set his own trap.

Rood smiled. His esteem for the Falcon Star Colonel went up another notch. If they both lived through this, there was no way the young PGC commander would not become his bondsman. A man like that … a man like that I can use.

If they both lived through it.

Switching his aim, Rood let go of the HAG trigger and brought his lasers live. A Point of five Elementals—the three-meter tall, genetically-modified Clans infantrymen in powered combat armor—were already leaping toward his Kit Fox on silver-flamed jump jets. Rood knew why they were coming his way. He was a Khan, true, and the honor that Point gained in taking his ’Mech down would send them far in the Falcon touman—it’s armed forces.

But even more, at thirty tons, a Kit Fox was an Elemental Point’s natural prey.

If he let them get close enough.

He fired his lasers in two pairs of two. Rood’s first burst both caught an armored infantrymen in the abdomen. One ER medium laser hit his armor would stop—but not two. The man’s severed body fell to the ground in two places.

The second pair of lasers fired a second later, but only one hit. That one hit clipped the left arm off of one of the Elementals and tumbled him to the ground, but the man was back on his feet a moment or two later. The damage-dampening capabilities of the Elemental battlesuit were fearsome. Even without an arm the combination of the mysterious HarJel and a cocktail of drugs and stimulants kept the pain and shock at bay.

The other three Elementals landed in dust-puffing crouches and immediately leapt into the air again. This time six short-range missiles burped from their shoulder-mounted launchers, two from each suit, at the apex of their jump. Rood twisted the Kit Fox to the side, trying to clear their trajectory, but he couldn’t avoid three of them. They blasted plate-sized divots from the tough armor over the OmniMech’s shoulder actuators. 

The HAG indicator blinked green, indicating it was reloaded. Rood snarled and brought the big gun around to bear on the charging infantrymen. He didn’t use the same care in aiming that he used with an enemy BattleMech; the battlesuits were too small and moving too fast. Instead, he tried to feel where they were going to be when the slugs arrived. He fired.

Two of the Elementals—including the one-armed monster—exploded beneath the impact of the hypersonic slugs. The rest disappeared beneath a convenient werewillow.

“Great Father,” Rood whispered. He was breathing heavy, far heavier than could be justified by a surprise Elemental assault. Then he realized why. How could they have known to place those Elementals so near? How had they known where I would be, where they could attack? There hadn’t been any plan to his movement, no schedule to intercept… Rood slowed the Kit Fox’s throttle and turned away from where the Falcon battlesuits had taken cover. Then he smiled. Of course.

They had planned the ambush, and then waited for the opportune time to strike. They had waited for him to walk into their trap. All this time spent on the march, all this time that had been frustrating him and making his Hellions restless, had been spent waiting for a prize large enough for the expenditure of a Falcon Trinary.

And Khan Connor Rood was prize enough for any Jade Falcon.

When he looked into his HUD, the caret for Star Colonel Idris’ Hellbringer was still within range. Rood kicked his pedals, cranking the OmniMech around, and drove the throttle forward to its gate. Idris was trading fire with one of Star Captain Adam’s Ice Ferrets, using his two PPCs to answer the Ice Ferrets’ one.

This man is valuable. Rood was more convinced than ever to make him a Hellion bondsman. He triggered the HAG again, blasting armor from the Falcon Hellbringer’s left side.

Idris spun the ’Mech and fired, a single PPC shot that Rood didn’t have a chance to brace himself for. It took the Kit Fox low in the right side, smashing the pitifully-thin armor protecting the Kit Fox’s insides and nearly destroying the OmniMech’s extralight fusion engine. The ’Mech staggered, off-balance from the strike and the heavy damage. Waste heat, vented by the damaged shielding, flooded Rood’s cockpit and his cooling suit vibrated as it went to full capacity trying to keep his body cool in the much-higher-than-sauna temperatures.

“Freebirth,” Rood muttered. A quick scan of his console confirmed what he’s suspected. The right side of the Kit Fox’s torso was gone; with it had gone the control runs for the HAG-20. The weapon was still there, but it was dead weight now. All he had left were the four ER medium lasers in the Kit Fox’s left arm, and with his heat burden those were dangerous.

Next time, Rood told himself, I take a bloody damn Gargoyle. 

If there was a next time.

Despite the alarms, and the heat, and the taste of blood from where he’d bitten his tongue, Star Colonel Idris of the Jade Falcons was smiling. He’d seen his PPC strike the Khan’s Kit Fox. He knew what kind of damage such a strike did to such a ’Mech—he’d faced many in Trials, since the Jade Falcons favored the OmniMech as well. One more strike, and the Ice Hellion Khan was done for. One more strike, and the sacrifice of his Trinary—probably the Cluster, if I kill their Khan—would be worth it.

The Kit Fox had much of its teeth pulled, but it wasn’t hobbled. It leaned forward and sprinted toward him at just under 100 kph, and he let it come. The other Hellions were distracted with their own battles, and Glandra had managed to draw the pair of Ice Ferrets that had been sniping at him toward her own Pinion. The port PPC was still recharging, but the right side weapon was ready. He lined up his shot and fired, but missed low. The Hellion Kit Fox came charging through the cloud of debris and smoke unslowed.

Idris stopped the Hellbringer and reversed his throttles, starting the ’Mech walking backward. He needed to keep the Hellion Khan at range; without his HAG, all he had were lasers, and Idris’ PPCs far outranged those.

But the Kit Fox was much faster. He eyed the PPC recharge indicator.

The Hellbringer rocked as the Kit Fox entered the useful range of its quartet of medium lasers. Idris rode the motion as destroyed armor fell from his ’Mech’s frame with a wry grin. The Hellions were an audacious Clan, but their audacity often wrote claims their warriors couldn’t keep. The Khan of the Hellions cared nothing for his heat burden. 

Fresh alarms sprang to life in his cockpit.

He had almost no armor left.

Only one task remained.

He brought his crosshairs to bear on the Kit Fox.