Over Terra,

March 15, 2777

There is a terrible beauty in an orbital combat drop—all the wonder of a League-Day firework display, all the thrill of a performance by the Nova Hawks (the SLDF's premier Aerospace Demonstration Team), and all the stunning choreography of a Russian Ballet on a stage more than fifty klicks on a side and extending more than a hundred high. ECM—jammers, strobes, decoys, and the rest—provide a high-tech electronic orchestra. Warning alarms and the whine of weapon discharges add an aural component to their purely electronic counterparts. Drop-pods exploding open to rain down their cargos, the black-balls of exploding flack and larger explosions of missiles, the ruler-straight glow of air ionized by lasers and the jagged lightning-like stroke-flash of PPCs serve as highlights. All the while hundreds of 'mechs are falling from the sky like dark birds against the insect shadow-clouds of infantry making sub-orbital free-fall drops.

Assault shuttles make their own drops. The initial ones not carrying anyone at all save their crews, but furiously kicking out a cargo of tinsel-foil chaff, bright IR-flares, small remote transmitters that ape the electronic broadcast of an entire lance of recon 'mechs, and even more ECM transmitters that only add to the confusion. The follow-up wave makes a mad rush for the ground in a frantic effort to disgorge infantry and tanks, while the third wave with its load of infantry, tanks, and mechs circles overhead.

Dropships are the heavy bass drum and timpani to the assault shuttles' snare drums. There one of the Marine's Tripoli-class gunfire support dropships—little more than a remote weapons platform that can been dropped (once) off shore and armed with one of the biggest gun system ever put on a wet-naval vessel (or dropship for that matter)—angled away from the primary drop zone, while the driver of Leopard dove for the ground, probably intending to make a semi-controlled crash in an effort to get his lance of 'mechs down as quickly and safely as possible.

Throughout the chaotic dance aerospace fighters added a visual descant, whirling and twirling and never taking a straight line and all the while flashing silver-edged wings. Red-trimmed blue Spads and Rapiers of the Marine units, wing-shaped Swifts with their canted tails (indicative of the Super-606 variant) painted the distinctive red of the 332nd Fighter Group, and a red Zero moving too fast to make out the black crest of the Kuronami—the 'Black Wave' of the DCMS that had defied the Coordinator rather than submit to a man who shielded himself with hostages—danced with the Rimmer's Doomwhales, Krakens, and Saberpike (these last a Rimmer clone of the Gotha complete with Hegemony tech inside) aerospace fighters.

Then the beauty turned into the all-too-familiar nightmare as a drop cocoon exploded into a fireball rather than the deliberate mech-disgorging flower-blossom. The high-pitched scream wasn't an ascending firework, but the death-scream of a 'mech-jock who just lost his boosters and was pinned in his command couch by g-forces and unable to even manually bale out, transmitted live over the com-system. The Leopard far below me turned into a shredded hunk of metal but didn't explode, a red-painted Dictator wasn't so fortunate and a whole battalion of Dracs went to meet their Ancestors.

I acknowledged Captain Willis' order and glanced at my radar but the lance commanders were already shifting their formation and we had a looong way to go before dirt so I thumbed over to the Regiment/Battalion command push just in time to watch the indicator light for Light-Colonel Deski wink out.

"Eyes!" I said, snapping back to the company push. "Eyes for Steelhorse."

"Seventy-degree mag, high, falling fast," was the almost instant report and I threw a visual onto a secondary monitor and skewed it around. The dropship looked intact, there was some scoring from glancing energy weapon hits, and a few pit-marks from ballistics; otherwise the hull looked untouched. The drive plume told a different story. Instead of a thick pillar of exhaust Steelhorse was riding down a weak and feeble column of flame which meant Colonel Deski and his entire command staff were already dead, it'd just take a bit longer before the Reaper could collect. Major Holburton's indicator still burned and the Colonel was still on the line so maybe we weren't all—

My radar warning receiver shrieked in my ear and I twisted in time to see an unfamiliar fighter with a House Amaris' shark-motif paintjob lining up on me. I could see its PPCs charge…

And then it was so much scrap headed for the dirt but I was falling faster.

I checked my altimeter, goosed my jets to change my alignment slightly, then hit them hard to change my descent profile for anyone watching on radar. At the peak of my burn I cut loose the first part of my drop pack and three heavily stealthed drones dropped away. Each drone carried a mix of remote sensors and ECM emitters and would scatter their cargo widely. Assuming enough of the others had gotten their cargo away we'd leave a wide sensor network for the follow-on waves, even if we were slaughtered.

Another fighter, this one a conventional air-breather made a run at me and this time Bun Bun squealed to me as the targeting reticule flashed green and I thumbed over to the secondary drop pack and thumbed the pickle. Ten free-flight rockets with fragmentation warheads burst from their disposable launch tubes which released their shackles and fell free from Bun Bun as soon as their cargo had been released. The pilot was good, almost good enough, and in fact was able to keep the rockets from damaging the airframe itself, or even the missiles hanging on its racks. But I still heard the deep, concussive thuds of the air-sucking engines blowing their innerds out the back.

Bun Bun cheerfully tootled a kill as the pilot of the stricken craft ejected.

The cheerful toot turned into a warning cry and the computer that served as Bun Bun's brain threw an image capture from one of the remote sensors up on a secondary monitor. Anchoring a line of Tigershark, Rampage, and Mako battlemechs was a quartet of Behemoths. I didn't need to see their paintjob to know that we'd just dropped into at least one of the elite Republican Guard's brigade-sized 'regiments'; they were the only one who had the Makos.

But as bad news as they were, the Behemoths were worse. Fortunately it didn't seem like the Usurper had very many of them, and the ones he did have seemed to be little more than an initial production run for prototyping and testing. Equally fortunately they didn't seem to be very mobile, but only because their leg actuators had a tendency to freeze at inopportune moments which made them little more than semi-mobile bunkers. Albeit bunkers armed with a pair of gauss rifles, a pair of large pulse lasers, and a small pulse laser…and layered with more armor than a 'mech of any size had any real purpose carrying. There hadn't been more than a company of the things spread out over all of Mars and now we had an entire lance of them in what was supposed to be a diversionary attack.

I designated targets for the last eight packs of rockets for Bun Bun to engage as soon as we touched down, slaved the autocannon to my right eye and activated the jaw trigger so I only had to clench my teeth to fire it, and brought up the arms in independent mode before wiggling back in my seat. The contact points of the neural-interface suit along my spine, arms, and legs were suddenly cold and uncomfortable and I resisted the urge to loosen the suit. There wasn't time, and besides, the suit not only was much more efficient at cooling me than anything anyone else had, but it could protect me against small arms fire, and the full-body neural-interface gave me much more control over Bun Bun than hand controls and neural-helm alone.

I flipped upright, pushed the pedals to their stops, then stomped hard for a full burn on my jets. I felt the shudder of the rockets streaking free more than I felt Bun Bun ground, but I'd already flipped my arms out and gave a pair of Jackrabbits a burst of point-blank laser/PPC fire, and stitched a three-round burst across another. A bar of light flashed past me, making these the laser-armed 'Joker' variant. One of the two simply stopped in the middle of the battlefield, only to be flattened by a 'mech three times its weight landing on it, while the other displayed the heat-flash of a breached engine compartment, then sort of sagged in the middle as too many structural members melted.

"Bushwhack elements report." And then, because Captain Willis hadn't yet and miracle of miracles all three lances had grounded without a loss. "Formation Victor, Jace take point, thataway," I said, indicating a likely knot of 'mechs. "Captain Willis, come up Bushwhack-Prime." I changed to the battalion push. "Captain Willis, come up Bushwhack-Prime."

"Captain Willis is down," someone I didn't know replied.

"Dead?"

"Neg, his 'Mech spilled. He's alive but out of it."

B Company, Mech Battalion, 3d Cav (Brave Rifles) was mine for the moment.

"Major Holburton," I continued, "Bushwhack -5. Bushwhack has grounded."

No response, try another push.

"Major Holburton, come up Bandit-Prime."

Again no response. Fuck.

"Ambush, Charger, Diablo, come up Bandit-Prime," I ordered as I spurted the jump jets just enough to clear the ground and jammed the left ones to jink me out of the scope of anyone lining up on me.

One by one Ambush-two, Charger-one, and Diablo-three came up and that was it. Two second-looies and a Master Sergeant. Okay, so I was a first LT which didn't make me so much higher than the two lieutenants, and I was a former Sergeant so even the later wasn't a big deal, and, hell, by this time we'd already seen so much battle that such junior ranks didn't really mean a whole heck of a lot. On the other hand I was supposed to believe that every company commander and above, including the battle staffs and security details for both Colonel Deski and Major Holburton were dead or disabled, and all the company XOs (save myself) had gone with them?

I cut to the battalion-wide. "Bandit-elements, Bushwhack-Five is assuming control. Action North. Do not become decisively engaged. Blow through and circle."

A Tigershark—basically a Rimmer Phoenix with advanced heat sinks, endo-steel skeleton, and extra-light engine that made room for a second PPC, upgraded both SRM-2 to Streak-capable launchers, and added an Anti-Missile System and Guardian-series ECM—touched down literally in front of me. There are times when a 'mech might have to engage another half-again its mass, and there are ways of doing so when they come up. Right when said 'mech is going to engage a line that out-masses and out-guns it is not the former, and by stopping right in front of it is not one of the later. I mean, he was so close that I was able to use Bun Bun's arms to bat away his own arm-mounted PPCs and put a round of 40mm SCC armor-piercing explosive-cored autocannon ammunition right down the inboard tube of the other 'mech's SR-2 Streak Launcher.

The launcher blew apart and Bun Bun flashed a diagnostic report (minor cosmetic) on a monitor as the other launcher managed to do its job. I kicked out with Bun Bun's leg and the force-feedback amplifiers let me feel the satisfying crunch of the Phoenix's knee actuator faithfully mimicking a human knee's reaction to a similar kick. Energy weapons at point-blank range cut it off at the knees and I skipped over him, the jump jets in Bun Bun's left hip reduced the cockpit to a molten ruin.

Bun Bun tooted at me and flashed VI on a secondary monitor, then, before I could punch in a query, showed the death of the fighter. This was followed by the two Jackrabbits, a Tigershark blowing apart under the rocket barrage, the third Jackrabbit dying as the last autocannon round came in at just the right angle and pierced the armor-plast of the cockpit screen before detonating inside the small chamber, and then my most recent Tigershark.

Not on the ground for five minutes and I already had six kills. Not a record by a long stretch but a pretty good start to the day's work.

We hit the main line—or at least the first line—and then things became too confused for Bun Bun to straighten out for me, at least not in real time. My people were heading in the more or less right way and I snapped off shots at enemy 'mechs as I saw them. I saw lasers stab into a Mako and it disappeared in a cloud of smoke as the missile magazines making up nearly a third of its mass promptly exploded. Three light-weight medium 'mechs, one with the gold bands on the ankles of a member of the Order of the Spur, set on a Rampage even larger than Bun Bun. My own weapons lanced into the back of another that had set its sights on a 'mech from A Company.

I found the Regimental push and called up my Boss. "Colonel Chaffee, Bushwhack Five. Landing Zone is not, repeat not secure."

"Report, Bushwhack."

"The Primary is guarded by Republican Guards. Looks like one of the heavy 'mech regiments. I have not made contact with Major Holburton or other Bandit-element COs. Bushwhack-six is disabled, I do not know status of other company commanders and XOs."

Bun Bun screamed at me and the threat warning display lit up like a Christmas tree. I twisted my 'mech's torso around. It was enough to make the hit scrape by rather than hit directly, but it took off a third of my left torso armor with it and the armor on the damage display lit up with a lurid yellow. Bun Bun's PPCs lashed out—the range was too long for lasers—and the Behemoth didn't even flinch as one got a direct hit and a moment later Bun Bun screamed as armor shatt—

Discontinuity