“We’ve had no recent infrared signatures,” she said, “so we think a merchant JumpShip dropped them a while ago, and they slow-coasted in.”

  Rafael nodded. It was a common enough technique used by pirates, mercenaries, or mercenaries simulating pirates. “They must have entered the atmosphere near the pole, we didn’t detect them until they cleared the southern mountains,” she added.

  “Do we have an ID?”

  The gray-haired woman shook her head slightly, then shrugged. A recently widowed single mother, she was already approved for retirement. With under thirty days of service left on the clock, hanging out in the EOC was supposed to be her easy transition into a civilian tech job- but raiders had a way of throwing plans out the window.

  “They aren’t broadcasting any IFF,” she admitted, “but they visually match the DropShips of a known mercenary unit named The Mercury Grenadiers. They constantly switch employment between the Lyrans and the Combine, doing dirty jobs the Houses don’t want traced back to them.”

  Rafael’s eyes narrowed as he leaned on the holotank, watching the DropShips come in low over the ocean. Just over an hour until landing, with an expected touchdown in Munich.

  “Who are they working for?”

  She shook her head. “No way to tell, sir.”

  He growled low in frustration, then used the controls to zoom in on the projected landing site. The site was a large, open field to the west of Munich. “Why there?” he asked. “The droppads are on the north side, nothing’s on the west side but the prison.”

  “Captain Avery,” Egorshiva said, referring to the intelligence officer furiously hitting his keyboard in the corner while skimming data, “believes they’re coming down in a two-up, one-back pattern: one will raid the city while the other two head south to hold us.”

  “Smart and doctrinal: tells us they’re professionals.” Rafael said. He cracked his neck, then smiled at the master sergeant. “In this situation, locking your flank on the water and trading space for time are exactly what the book says a ’Mech battalion should do against a standard ’Mech battalion.”

  He paused, and looked around the room, and a half-dozen sets of eyes looked back. A hungry smile spread across his face

  “But we’re not a standard ’Mech battalion.”

  The four ’Mech bays of the Eighth Recon Battalion were organized in a large square, all four three-story buildings opening onto a common ferrocrete pad. The bay doors were open, and a cool breeze flowed in off the lake. So far, only the battalion’s security lance had scrambled, heading for the pier: that in itself gave Minthe her first indication of where and what the problem might be.

  Right now, she was focused on her platoon: just like the drills, as soon as everyone arrived, they quickly changed, and Sergeant Macleod organized the work parties. Like MechWarriors, the standard armor uniform also contained a cooling system to protect the trooper from the vehicle’s heat. However, because fire was the deadliest of a tanker’s foes, their uniforms contained no nylon that could melt onto human flesh; instead, their uniforms would char when set alight, while, like expensive candles, the cooling tubes themselves would burn away without residue.

  Like MechWarriors, tankers wore field jackets outside the tank and shucked them as soon as they mounted up; leather tanker boots—with straps and buckles to tighten them, not laces that could burn away—a thigh-slung pistol, and fingerless half-gloves completed the uniform. Her hair brushed her shoulders as she moved from tank to tank, ensuring there were no mechanical issues while Sergeant Macleod conducted radio checks.

  The ’Mech bay was SLDF standard: the garrison built to accommodate any unit that might get assigned to Radstadt, it had a half-dozen ’Mech berths on each side. However, since the company only had eight BattleMechs assigned, the four ’Mech bays closest to the doors were converted to hold and maintain a pair of hovercraft each. Opposite from her four Zephyrs were the four 35-ton Lightnings of third platoon, their crews scrabbling over them as well.

  “Lieutenants, on me!” Captain Cantã bellowed from the middle of the bay. Minthe immediately turned and jogged over: running was not allowed, but an urgent jog to not keep the commander waiting was practically written into a lieutenant’s job description.

  Captain Cantã was in her MechWarrior cooling suit, but hadn’t thrown on the field jacket; besides the skintight suit, MechWarriors wore a full body, sweat-wicking underlayer, which included a hood that would completely cover the neck and then go over their heads and under their neurohelmets.

  Instead of the standard issue olive, black, or green, Cantã’s underlayer was a bright purple, in honor of her origins in the Free World’s League. Hailing from a distant corner of League space known as the Trinity Worlds, Captain Cantã had piloted CattleMechs since she was a child. By far the most talented MechWarrior in the battalion, when the Star League supply system accidently sent Eighth Recon an ultra-rare 60-ton Ostwar-2Mb instead of the near-identical Ostsol they’d requested, Major Pinho immediately assigned it to her.

  The Trinity Worlds were originally settled by cowboys and ranchers from the North American continent of old Terra, and that culture shone through: Cantã wore a brown Stetson cowboy hat brightened by a ring of silver and turquoise, and an honest-to-God revolver on a gun belt slung low. She was brilliant, motivated, lethal, and—Minthe had privately told Sun one night in bed—everything Minthe wanted to be when she made captain. Minthe got into the semi-circle with the other lieutenants around Cantã, studying her commander’s pose and attitude as she took Lieutenant Donald “Double-D” Dyrke’s status report.

  Dyrke only took a few seconds: one hundred percent operational was the battalion requirement before weekend release, so it took longer to brief personnel than equipment. Cantã swung her dark eyes on Minthe.

  “Minnie?” Minthe smiled slightly: the commander and her mother were the only ones she allowed to call her that, even Sun called her by her full name.

  “Ma’am, same as Donald,” she started, and then gave a snapshot of her unit within seconds: the tanks were up, the crews mostly sober. “Better than I’d expect for a Friday night.”

  Cantã flashed a wide smile. “It’s Saturday morning now.” Then her smile fell. “We have three DropShips heading for the Buffalo Plains, landing ETA in a little over an hour. Battalion’s moving now, Battle Plan One, and lucky us, we get the boats.”

  “Crap,” grumbled Lieutenant Dias, and the group laughed. Cantã’s Command Lance had her Ostwar, an Ostsol, and a pair of 40-ton Sentinels; Lieutenant Dias led Recon Lance, with a pair each of 30-ton Javelins and 35-ton Talons.

  Battle Plan One was rehearsed by the battalion at least once a quarter: practicing for a defense of Munich, most of the battalion would march overland toward the capital. However, one company would ride along with the security and artillery lances up the coast by landing craft, landing in one of several designated sites in order to flank the enemy or cut off their retreat. Docked at the garrison’s eastern pier were ten BattleMech Landing Craft, built by Hagan Industries. Like the ’Mech bays built to accommodate a standard company, the SLDF had assigned enough landing craft to the Radstadt support regiment to carry an entire standard battalion and command lance anywhere they might need to go on the water-rich world. Each craft capable of hauling a lance—or similarly-sized support element—they could hold eighty kilometers an hour, keeping pace with the fast-moving Light Horse BattleMechs.

  Every unit took turns deploying from the landing craft, and Dias had the not-uncommon trait among soldiers of being seasick: while fine on DropShips, he had legendarily spent his entire first deployment by Landing Craft out of his Talon and vomiting over the side. Since then, he’d wear a patch to help while on mission, but he would still be miserable for a day afterward.

  “Any idea where we’ll beach, ma’am?” Minthe asked. The two hovercraft platoons would escort the landing craft, watching for ambushes and sweeping the beachhead for opposition before the landing craft made their approach.

  “Right now, the boss is thinking Lotus Lane, but he’s playing it by ear until we know more.” Cantã shook her head, then looked at each lieutenant in turn. “Just like the drills, everyone: follow the major’s lead, listen to your sergeants, don’t be stupid.”

  Minthe grinned at the captain’s traditional advice; when Cantã released them, she turned and ran to her platoon—rules be damned—with a wide smile on her face and giving the overhand hand-signal to activate.

  As one, her platoon’s four tanks spun up their engines, Dyrke’s platoon a split second behind hers. The ’Mech Bay suddenly became an unrelenting cacophony, an almost physical wave of sound as the tanks’ undermounted fans sped up to speed and inflated the hoverskirts, all the noise echoing off the ferrocrete walls into an inescapable, overpowering roar.

  Using hydraulics, the entire armored front windshield pivoted up from a forward pintle as she approached; bounding up the Zephyr’s slanted hull, Rachel looked down into the two-seat cockpit of the tank. In the right-hand seat sat her driver, Private Emily Johansson, holding up Minthe’s helmet. “Here you go, ma’am!” she shouted over the fans.

  “Thanks, Schwesterchen,” Minthe replied, pulling it over her head. Resembling a narrow-profiled motorcycle helmet, as soon as she slid it on and locked the clamshell halves together, the integrated noise-canceling headphones instantly compensated for the outside din. Her visor was still slid-up in her helmet, but now at least she could talk and hear. She turned around to look at Black, the corporal sitting on top of the turret, legs dangling inside the hatch.

  “Corporal, we good?” she asked over the intercom. He gave her a thumbs-up, so she tapped a small switch on the helmet at her jawline, switching to the platoon internal frequency. The helmet could monitor several frequencies at once, but the default setting to talk was always the intercom: she had to push the switch in the appropriate direction to speak on different nets.

  “Chinook Four, check in.”

  “Cthulhu up,” Macleod replied.

  “Candyman up,” Corporal Scavone said.

  “Chock Block up,” finished Corporal Luana Blauvelt. Minthe switched frequencies again and waited, sitting on the hull with one leg crossed and the other hanging through the open canopy.

  Ten seconds later came the first step of a BattleMech, Captain Cantã moving her Ostwar forward and turning toward the bay doors in one smooth motion. She took it up to a full walk while broadcasting, “Ninth Recon Company, report.”

  “Chinook One, Chinook Two up.”

  “Chinook One, Chinook Three up.”

  “Chinook One,” Minthe said. By the time she’d activated her microphone, the captain and another BattleMech were already out of the bay, the third on their heels. “Chinook Four up.”

  “Good copy, Chinooks. Just like we drilled, by the numbers tonight,” Cantã said. There was a pause, and then, “Cyclone actual, Chinook actual, Chinooks heading to the pier, over.”

  “Chinook actual, Cyclone actual,” Minthe heard Major Pinho reply, and she finally slid down the visor. The visor’s internal HUD came alive, tagging the vehicles and BattleMechs as friendly, showing her the major was broadcasting on the battalion frequency, the distance and bearing to the piers, among a dozen other pieces of information. “No spotlighting fish off the barges, you know that’s illegal.”

  The last of the BattleMechs exited the bay, and the four Lightnings began to slide forward, pivoting for the door.

  “Rods and reels are stowed, Major, no fishin’ on the way out. No promises ’bout on the way back in.”

  A laugh. “Fair enough. Good hunting, Chinooks.”

  “Same to you, Chinook out.”

  As the last Lightning headed for the door, Minthe slid down into her seat, slammed the canopy close button and nodded at Johansson. As the canopy closed and sealed with a thud, the Zephyr started sliding forward; the young private spun it at the same time, so they were already aligned with the exit when they hit the centerline.

  “Nicely done, Emily,” Minthe said, then glanced at the time. Seven past midnight. We were dancing less than thirty minutes ago. “Let’s ride.”

  BUFFALO PLAINS, RADSTADT

  RADSTADT PREFECTURE

  RASALHAGUE MILITARY DISTRICT

  DRACONIS COMBINE

  3 JULY 2754

  Major Pinho brought his Ostroc to a halt and turned it southeast to watch the bandit DropShips descend. He had two companies on a thousand-meter-long line stretching across the southern edge of the Buffalo Plains, ten kilometers from the beach. So named for the herds that would roam through every so often—though Captain Cantã assured him they weren’t real Terran buffalos, not that he could tell the difference—the plains were left undeveloped as a security precaution against escaped convicts.

  Extending from the plains and into the lake was a long peninsula, capped by the Lotus Flower Correctional Institute, the largest prison facility in the Draconis Combine. Four-by-four kilometers in area, it was a series of approximately eighty 600-meter by 600-meter X-shaped buildings: the nearest dozen were wooden minimum-security prisons, and the majority were six-story ferrocrete gray structures holding in total more than a million inmates, including women and adolescents. In the dead center was a windowless, two-story, heavily fortified facility known as “The Black Tower” for maximum-security prisoners.

  Local legend told that the structure got its name because most of the max-security building was underground, a half-dozen levels well below the water table. It was said that when the power failed, the pumps would stop, and the prison would slowly fill, drowning the prisoners from the bottom up. Once drained, minimum-security prisoners would drag the bodies out for cremation, a reminder that they hadn’t suffered the same fate only by the benevolence of the Dragon.

  Not all the prisoners at Lotus Flower were from Radstadt: there were local prisons for that, which had surprised Rafael when he’d first assumed command of the garrison. Additionally, it was well known that the Combine had no compunctions whatsoever about executing prisoners, so he was shocked they even had a super-max prison. He’d been reminded by the outgoing commander, however, that not everyone needed killing, sometimes they just needed unplugging from their criminal networks. Most of the rest were political prisoners who often become martyrs to their cause if executed, so having them rot away on Radstadt served the Dragon in ways their deaths never could.

  The prison was a beacon of light, illuminating the lake: over the years, the wardens had used prison labor to dig out the sides of the eight-kilometer-long peninsula, so it now was only a half-kilometer wide from the plains to the front gate. Halfway along the peninsula—commonly called Lotus Lane for the four-lane highway running its length—was where the landing craft would beach. Captain Cantã, the battalion security lance, and the artillery would disembark there and head toward shore, trapping the DropShips in an L-shaped ambush.

  Above the DropShips, their long flames visible as they decelerated, he could see flashes of light. He switched frequencies and pinged his squadron commander, Captain Olga Mierzewska, on their unique frequency, one kept separate from the battalion net so the pilots weren’t distracted by ground chatter in the middle of a dogfight.

  She’ll check in when she gets a second, he thought. Within moments, the frequency opened.

  “Sir,” the pilot said, out of breath and her fatigue coming through the radio.

  “Quick sitrep, Olga,” he ordered.

  “Sir, these guys are good—we splashed two, but Beagle is RTB and Jacobs is MIA, SAR is out for him. Best I can promise you is neutral air.”

  He grimaced: the Light Horse was used to operating with air support, but a draw overhead was better than being strafed. “Just keep them off us, Olga, and we’ll be fine. Good hunting.”

  “Sir,” she said, and snapped the frequency closed.

  He glanced at the DropShips again, and then at the display monitoring their rate of descent and projected landing site, a wide green circle on his HUD. He clicked over the battalion wide frequency.

  “Five minutes until touchdown, everyone, then we take them.”

  “Fifteen minutes!” Captain Cantã sang out over the Chinook internal frequency. The landing craft were on a bearing heading straight for the long, well-lit stretch of Lotus Lane, with Dyrke’s Lightnings out front and the Zephyrs bringing up the rear; by the clock, they’d arrive about ten minutes after the DropShips landed. If everything went right, they’d be perfectly positioned to slam into the mercenaries’ flank.

  “Thank goodness we’re almost there,” said Johansson, and Black snorted in amusement at her expression over the intercom. Other than the fact Johansson dyed her hair raven-black; in uniform, she was almost a spitting image of Minthe, a cause for double-takes across the battalion.

  Out of uniform, however, she tended toward conservative sundresses and only drank on special occasions. She was sweet, caring, and so far out of place in the rough-and-tumble armor community she’d instantly been given the nickname Schwesterchen—“Little Sister” in German—by Corporal Blauvelt, and Minthe had claimed her for Chop Shop to keep a protective eye on her. She was Sambora’s roommate, and once Minthe had started laying into Black on the long drive across the lake—there being no secrets in a tank—Johansson had started yelling at him too, such an extraordinarily rare event it’d shocked both the corporal and Minthe into silence. She’d since calmed down, and was back to her usual self.

  “You hush, Gulliver,” Johansson replied.

  “You hush, Gulliver,” Minthe mimicked, a wide smile on her face.

  “Ma’am!” Johansson yelped, Black laughing over the intercom.

  “Just teasing, Schwesterchen, you know we love you,” Minthe said, reaching over and squeezing the girl’s shoulder, making her smile back before refocusing on driving.

  “Ma’am,” said Black, all amusement out of his voice. “Something funny’s going on with the DropShips.”

 

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