AUTHOR'S NOTES: Chapter 7—the other half of the battle. It may be a bit before I update and finish this off—it's end of semester, and I have papers to grade! (Really. No more Madden for a bit.)
Don't feel bad if you get confused…it's supposed to be confusing. This is just a bloody melee.
REVIEWER'S CORNER:
SulliMike: Yep, it's getting pretty nasty. (Just wait until the next story arc.)
Flashpoint: Sorry that the weekend turned into a week. I'd like to say that I was busy doing constructive things, but…that would be a big fat lie. I got Madden over the weekend. Frickin' time sink. (Worse, it starts me thinking, "Hey, wow, a football game would be a KEWL Trial of Position!")
Kat & Mosin: I admit that I second-guessed having Sheila use those weapons--she gives kind of a lame excuse in this chapter--but hey, she's not a Mary Sue. She makes mistakes. We'll see if this turns out to be a fatal one.
Panzerfaust: See my comment above, though certainly the Snowbirds would agree with you. Some of them, anyway.
Hoya: Sheila does offer something of an explanation for it, along the lines of your comment. Again, even I'm not sure it was the right thing to do…
MUSIC CORNER: "Battle of Hoth" from The Empire Strikes Back, "Force Ten" by Rush, and "Information High" from Macross Plus (especially the line "No more child's play and no more toys" for Maysa).
Star Commander Hannifan had watched in horror as the gas cloud drifted over the 352nd; his Star was far enough away to be unaffected. He had recovered from his shock in time to see the charge, recognize that he had to do something immediately, and order a charge of his own, directly at the Snowbirds' flank. He fired everything he had: a Gauss Rifle and a spread of LRM and SRM missiles. The SRMs went wide, but the Gauss struck a huge, squat 'Mech in the shoulder and chest. It spun and almost slipped, then steadied itself, turned, and came right at him. Two Gauss shells tore into his right leg and a PPC smashed into his right side; he desperately twisted to keep his Man O'War upright, only to go down for good as another Gauss took the right leg off at the knee. The two Palladiums, Marion Rhialla and Alfred Dennison, marched forward, veterans who had fought together for nearly thirty years and knew every nuance of the other's movements. They began to rake the Star with fire, ignoring the return fire as if it was rain. Hannifan's Star hesitated and began to edge backwards.
Kahvi Falx had made the charge with the others, finding herself screaming "Banzai! Banzai!" in a fit of madness she could not stop. The sight of her Dragon bearing down on a Fenris had actually caused the Clansman to break and run, and she had laughed hysterically at the sight, then turned and fired a flight of LRMs at a Mad Cat that was similarly fleeing. She realized too late that the Clansman had not been retreating, only getting some space, and while her missiles cratered armor, it didn't do much more than get the Mad Cat's attention. Now it advanced on her. She backpedaled and her fingers came down on the triggers for another round of missiles—only to hear silence. Her magazine was exhausted. She fired her autocannon, but the Mad Cat shrugged it off. His return laserfire ate greedily at the Dragon's limbs, and Kahvi was now sure she was going to die.
Cecilia Masterson had been out of LRMs before the battle even began; now she waded into combat with grim determination. A Man O'War—the Wolf assault 'Mech was ubiquitous—was closing in on Sheila's flank, and Masterson fired a large laser at it to get its attention. It succeeded, and she raised her Zeus' arms, challenging the Clan MechWarrior in no uncertain terms to come and fight. The pilot accepted. No tactics were left: they simply went straight at each other, lasers blasting armor away. Neither 'Mech was designed for this sort of close-in fighting; despite their titanic size, both were not really armored for it. Alarms warbled in Masterson's cockpit and she ignored them. She wanted revenge for her lover, and she would not be denied it. The Clan MechWarrior stopped, suddenly realizing she was up against someone who had no intention of stopping. The split-second hesitation gave Masterson her opening: she drew back the arm that held her empty LRM launcher. Defiance Industries, who had designed and built the Zeus, had always intended that their machine would have a fall-back weapon in case things got close. The core of the launcher was a solid piece of armored steel, and Masterson shoved it into the hole her PPC had made in the Man O'War's chest, smashing through engine plating and into the gyro. The Clan 'Mech folded over the strike and tried to pull back, but the Zeus' arm was trapped inside. CeeCee didn't mind: she raised the PPC arm and brought it down on the Clan 'Mech's head. Both 'Mechs went down as the Rasalhagian began to simply beat her opponent to death.
Erik Kerensky had seen his front line and his beautiful plan come apart, but while he was angry at that, he knew the situation could be salvaged. The Snowbird charge had spent itself, and if he could rally his troops, he could simply overwhelm his opponent. "Trinary Command forward!" he ordered, and the Star walked into the melee to shore up Tobi's center. Kerensky looked around for Arla-Vlata's distinctive Shruiken, but couldn't find it.
"Erik Kerensky, if you are on this frequency, please reply." The voice sounded in his helmet. It wasn't familiar, and it didn't use his callsign.
"Who is this?"
"Senefa Malthus. I am on your left flank." He turned and saw a Thunderbolt standing there. "I challenge you to a Circle of Equals."
"Traitor! Why should I indulge you?"
"Fine." A flight of missiles spiraled in at him; he brought up his left arm to take the hits.
"All right, Jade Falcon bitch," he snarled. "Today you die!"
Unseen in her cockpit, Senefa only smiled.
Some groups stayed together, either because they had no choice or because they naturally gravitated towards one another. The Drakon twins naturally kept close, fighting as one, brother and sister. Combined, they barely weighed more than the Man O'War they had picked out because it wore the single stripe of an officer, but Star Commander Hak found himself hard-pressed to stave off their attacks. Most Wolf MechWarriors were switching to different variants of the Man O'War rather than its primary configuration, as they had found that two light autocannons, two SRM-6 launchers, and a single, almost afterthought small laser left them at a severe disadvantage. Hak had stubbornly refused to change. Now he realized his mistake. He fired on one Blackjack that hit him with laserfire, only to be slammed to one side in the cockpit as the other darted in and opened fire with an huge autocannon the Blackjack wasn't supposed to carry. When he turned to engage that one, the first Blackjack once more sliced into him with lasers. He backed off, but the two Davids pursued Goliath relentlessly.
Seeing a fellow Wolf in trouble, MechWarrior Cloyce ran in to blast one of the Blackjacks, only to be blown to the ground by Bien Canonizado's Victor. He in turn was attacked by a Puma, which in turn was hit by Felisanna and her Wolfhound. Her earlier exuberance in the pit was gone; she had forced the grief over her mother to one side, and now fought with an almost frightening calm. Bien was the last person left in the galaxy she cared about, and she would willingly die so that he might live. The little battle swirled inside the greater one: four Snowbirds against three Silver Wolves, neither side asking quarter nor giving it.
Maysa Bari was also quite calm in battle, but then she always was. She was not so naïve to doubt that death shadowed everyone on a battlefield, but even the desperate fighting of the pit had not really touched her. She cried when she heard of the deaths, as she always did, but once back in battle, it was time to go to work and she approached it in an almost businesslike fashion. Maysa would simply select a target and begin taking limbs off or punching through the torso, dodging the return fire in her slow Rifleman without even thinking about it. Only once, on Vantaa, had she been a little worried she might lose. As she hit a Mad Cat, placing three ruby beams at the same spot on its left side, she clinically examined her damage and determined that one more good hit would go through the armor. The Mad Cat turned and fired, and Maysa stepped to one side. But the simple shift didn't work this time: two Clan lasers chopped into her left shoulder. An alarm shrilled that the armor was breached, but Maysa flicked a glance towards her damage monitor and continued to fire. The Wolf warrior had twisted the tubular torso of the Mad Cat, so she merely concentrated on that side, once more stripping the armor from that location. This time the Clansman let fly with missiles: Maysa dodged those, only to find that the Mad Cat had anticipated her move. The next shots took her left arm off at the shoulder.
"Oh no!" Now she was in real trouble; her trusty Rifleman had never taken damage like this, and Maysa knew she was up against a foe of equal skill. She pulled back, looking for her mother or Sheila or someone to help, but there was no one around that she could see, and the Mad Cat pressed its advantage. Missiles pounded her torso, but then she saw the Clan 'Mech's arms swing around and point directly at her head. Maysa screamed and slammed both control sticks right, even as she fired her remaining lasers. Her screams continued as she experienced something else that was new: she fell. The seat padding and her straps saved her from injury, but the impact was bad enough. It stunned her for a moment, and when she shook off the creeping blackness of unconciousness, she realized she was still alive. Oooh…that hurt, she thought woozily. Where's the Clanner? The Mad Cat didn't finish her off, so she assumed that it had thought her dead and moved on to different prey. A quick check showed that her Rifleman was battered and missing half its weapons in the now-gone left arm, but she was still operational otherwise. Carefully, she positioned her 'Mech for the textbook example of how to stand up a Rifleman: roll over on one side, gather the legs beneath the 'Mech, push off with one arm, and stand. She got as far as the rolling over before she was confronted with the sight of a fallen Crusader. The markings revealed it as Robert Copeland's, but the head was a smashed ruin, and she felt bile rise in her throat as she saw the bloody smear that five minutes before had been the cheerful liasion officer.
And for the first time in her life, Maysa Bari froze.
Sheila had seen Maysa go down, and her heart had skipped a beat, but she saw the Rifleman move, roll over, and stop. That would have to wait, she decided, as yet another Man O'War came at her; she wondered if the 352nd Assault Cluster had simply bought a whole production run. This time, however, Sheila was not alone: she dodged a PPC bolt that would've taken her head off, flayed more armor off her opponent with her medium lasers, then smiled grimly as the Clansman staggered under a full impact of thirty missiles. Next to Sheila was Mimi Stykkis and her Crusader, and the two fought together as if a year had not passed, Mimi had never been in a hospital, and this was just another Nagelring exercise. Covering their flank was Fabian Cynmar's Catapult, its Arrow IV launcher exhausted and he just fighting with his secondary battery of quad medium lasers; he had no business being in a melee, but saw his commander needed help and responded. Covering their rear was Megan O'Reilly's Wolfhound; she had already dispatched a Fenris who had tried to circle around for a back shot. The haphazard square moved as one, all four MechWarriors feeling curiously more alive than ever, their senses tuned to an almost supernatural level. The Man O'War backed off, looking for easier prey, and Sheila gave herself a whole second to survey the battlefield.
Maysa was still down; beyond the Rifleman she saw the legs of a Crusader. Next to the Crusader was the Mad Cat that had attacked Maysa, its head wrecked. Just beyond that, a Thor, having had enough of the battle, was limping away, pursued ponderously by Tooriu's Awesome; a Fenris ran past and Tooriu almost casually backhanded it to the ground with one sweep of the PPC's barrel. A hundred meters to the Thor's left, Chuck Badaxe's Atlas and Maria Thyatis' Wolverine was taking on a Gladiator. To Badaxe's left, a Mad Cat was viciously kicking Ariel Munroe's fallen Phoenix Hawk LAM. Continuing on, Sheila saw the impromptu Circle of Equals that had sprung up around the Drakon twins, Felisanna, and Bien; just beyond that was the real Circle of Equals where Senefa squared off with who had to be Erik Kerensky. A Man O'War burned brightly near there, and Sheila saw Kahvi's Dragon go down under a fusillade from a Mad Cat. She motioned her ersatz lance in that direction. There was no point trying to figure out or control this battle: it was chaos, it was madness, it was war.
Max saw what his opposite number in the 352nd had done, or thought he did. He had sent in his lights and mediums to get Max to commit and deploy, and now unleashed a solid core of heavy 'Mechs and the biggest machine in the Clan arsenal. The only other explanation was that the Clan commander had lost control of his Stars. Either way, the initiative had swung back to the Wolves, and if he didn't do something fast, it would stay that way. "Burke! Mike!" he shouted. "Take on that Mad Cat! Everyone else, stay on the others! I'll take that Daishi!" He had no illusions that a handful of medium 'Mechs could hold off even a damaged Man O'War and a thinly-armored Loki, not to mention the smaller but still lethal Pumas, Fenrises, and the Black Hawk. But he had to try, and pray that he got a break.
He got one. Marijoan Shaw was a superb warrior and knew her Elementals well, but the sheer weight of metal was against her: now in the battle was Henri Fromage's 75-ton Von Luckner. It was an ancient design, but it was a main battle tank designed exactly for this sort of battle. Fromage simply ground forward, daring any Elemental to try and stay in range of the tank's main gun, a massive Autocannon/20 that could literally vaporize a battlesuit. They worked their way around, only to find themselves engaged by murderous fusillades of laserfire from the two Ontoses and missiles from the SRM carrier; trying to jump behind left them vulnerable to the Hawkslayer, firing cluster rounds that couldn't kill an Elemental, but could certainly snatch them from the air and send them hurtling out of control. With four more of her people down, Shaw ordered her Star back into the woods. She paused, aimed, and fired her laser, and was rewarded when it blew the track off the SRM carrier. She hopped on her jumpjets towards safety, when a SRM round from the Von Luckner hit her in the right knee, spun her around, and slammed her to the pavement. She felt her leg snap on the impact and gritted her teeth; though the Elemental suits were equipped with automatic painkiller injectors to keep the Elementals fighting to the point of death, she had disconnected hers, afraid of the drugs clouding her judgement. Now she wished she had them as she painfully pulled herself beneath the inert Manticore. She fired her machinegun at the Von Luckner as it rumbled by, but she might as well have thrown rocks.
Fromage proved that his unlikely name wasn't entirely made up as he hurled French curses at the Clans and engaged the Loki. Though a heavy 'Mech, the Loki was an all-or-nothing design based around a huge array of weapons and speed, sacrificing armor. It paid for it now: Fromage's autocannon left its left arm hanging by a a few myomer strings, while its front armor was pounded by SRMs. It was further hammered by LRM barrages from the Sturmfeur and the Ontoses, and though its return fire peeled armor away in huge chunks from the Von Lucker, its MechWarrior pulled away to the north, trying to put some distance between the 'Mech and the suddenly dangerous tanks.
The Daishi now turned to engage the tanks, but then turned back as Max ran towards him, obviously seeing the Battlemaster as a bigger threat and a more worthy adversary. That gave Max a split-second to fire first, and he opened fire with everything he had. The PPC and medium lasers raked the Daishi's bulbous torso and underslung arms, and the SRMs spiraled in to inflict more damage. Yet the assault 'Mech seemed to shrug off the damage, reared back, and opened fire itself. Max brought up his arms to defend himself, and four large laser bolts flayed nearly all the armor off, while autocannon shells chipped away at his legs. The sheer force of impact nearly knocked even the 85 tons of Max's 'Mech to the ground. Son of a bitch, Max thought, feeling fear clawing at his stomach, I barely even rattled that big bastard, and he nearly blew my arms off. One more volley like that and I'm going to be in deep shit. Worse, Max knew, the Daishi could easily destroy him, then go on to obliterate the rest of the company in succession. The only thing that could stop a Daishi was pack tactics from a lot more 'Mechs than he had, or another 100-tonner like Marion Rhialla's Palladium or Chuck Badaxe's Atlas, and even then. Even retreating wouldn't help; there was nowhere to run.
And Max knew what he had to do.
He slammed the pedals down, sending the Battlemaster forward at top speed. He saw the Daishi's massive weapon arms point directly at him. For what we are about to receive was the only thought that came to mind, and a split-second shot of Sheila's face. Then the entire world seemed to light up: only the canopy's automatic polarization saved him from being blinded. Lasers completely shredded the Battlemaster's front armor and blew apart the PPC, leaving the autocannon shells to tear away a medium laser and several heat sinks. He didn't bother returning fire, focusing entirely on the aircraft-like cockpit of the Daishi that slowly filled his canopy. The Clan warrior realized abruptly what Max was going to do and tried to get out of the way, but the one weakness of the huge assault 'Mech was its lack of speed.
Max crashed into the Daishi, turning at the last second to take most of the hit on his right arm. The ferro-aluminum bone broke, but momentum was now Max's best friend and greatest enemy: both 'Mechs slid across the road in a shower of sparks, the guardrail snapped like a rubber band, and then both went over the cliff, landing on the tree-choked slope and sliding down in a gruesome, 185-ton toboggan ride.
Max had anticipated this and had indeed planned on it. He kept the Daishi under him as they careened crazily down the near-vertical slope, smashing into boulders and trees. Several smaller rocks flew up and smashed into his canopy, but as bad as the ride was, it had to be worse on his opponent. The 'Mech's arms flailed around, unable to stop the descent but also unable to come around to bear against the Battlemaster: the Daishi's designers had simply never anticipated a desperate opponent knocking it over a cliff, then putting it into a bear hug on the way down. Max looked through his starred canopy and saw the Clansman through his. The other man was fighting the controls, trying to do something, knowing that bottom of the canyon had to be coming in seconds. He reached up and grasped the ejection seat handles, then dropped his hands, knowing that ejection now would only ensure he died that much sooner—the seat would fire into one of the trees they were crashing through or into the ground. Their eyes locked for a moment, and Max clearly saw the Wolf warrior smile at him, then sketch a salute.
Then they hit bottom.
The Daishi struck a haphazard line of boulders, each the size of a small 'Mech, that lined the canyon floor. It stopped instantly, the entire top half of the 'Mech crushed. Max had anticipated a jarring impact, but what he hadn't thought of was that the Battlemaster would be flipped bodily into the air. It actually turned a somersault and landed face-up on the other side of the narrow canyon. Max was sent forward in his straps and then slammed hard back into the seat. His helmet struck something solid and very hard, and everything went black.
Maysa Bari was still frozen. Her mind willed her hands and feet to move, but nothing happened. She couldn't take her eyes off Copeland's body.
"Oak Two to anybody! I need help!"
Maysa blinked and looked up, beyond the Crusader. She could make out Mary Scott's Puma, which was having some trouble fending off yet another Fenris. She saw it circle around the Puma, getting in place for a lethal rear shot. "Get up, Maysa," she told herself. "Get up!" As if she was immersed in mud, Maysa forced her right arm to move, then her legs. The Rifleman slowly stood, and as she got to one knee, Maysa raised her remaining arm to fire. The two large lasers spoke and splashed red across the Fenris' flank, not enough to destroy it but certainly enough to make it back off a little. She finished standing her 'Mech, shook her head to get the sweat out of her eyes, then went back to fighting.
Though nearly unseen—except in hurried glances by friends and foes—Erik Kerensky and Senefa Malthus continued their battle within the battle. It was a nearly equal fight: both were superb MechWarriors, and if Senefa's Thunderbolt surrendered fifteen tons to Kerensky's Man O'War, it was actually better armored. It was also far more heat efficient: Senefa constantly fired her weapons every chance she got, while Kerensky, using the PPC and laser-equipped Alpha variant of his machine, had to constantly leave off firing one or two weapons or risk shutdown. Already, the shooting had slowed his machine enough that Senefa pressed another advantage: mobility. She could jump, and the Man O'War could not.
Even with that, the simple fact that Kerensky's Clantech weapons could hit harder than Senefa's Inner Sphere versions had tipped the battle to his favor. Senefa had long since exhausted her LRMs and now was relying on her Gauss Rifle and medium lasers. She had landed a medium laser shot to his head, then taken one of his arms off, depriving Kerensky of half his weapons, but the other arm still had twin PPCs that were tearing her apart. Already he had penetrated the armor on her right side and blown most of the Thunderbolt's left foot off, causing her to limp around the field. She could handle a pounding better than he could, but there was only so much even the most resilient of 'Mechs could take.
They circled each other at nearly pointblank range, looking for an opening to finish the fight. Earlier, he had taunted her, calling her a traitor and worse, but Senefa simply ignored him. In a battle like this, she completely ignored all other factors. Senefa was even unaware she was smiling, something she always did in battle but never noticed. Kerensky was no longer taunting.
The Man O'War suddenly brought its remaining arm up. Senefa feinted left, then dodged right, the blue bolts passing harmlessly by, but her own Gauss shot missed as well, and her medium lasers only flecked some armor away. She tried to get around to his vulnerable left side, only to be taken by surprise as Kerensky suddenly lunged at her as if to charge. Senefa instinctively fell back and stumbled a little on the stub of her left foot, and the Wolf commander saw his opening. He fired both PPCs again, risking the extra heat. Both connected: one blasted the remnants of Senefa's central torso armor away, while the other lanced completely through her 'Mech. In the wake of the PPC blast, a few steel balls clattered to the ground, what remained of her Gauss rifle ammunition. That meant she had one last shot left, and then all she would have would be her medium lasers—which would be almost impossible to kill a Man O'War with. Worse, if he hit her once more in the chest, it would likely destroy her 'Mech.
Senefa suddenly had a wild, mad, Sheila-like idea. She took one step backward as if retreating, ducked to avoid a single PPC bolt—Kerensky was trying to downheat—then dashed in, not even bothering to fire back. The Man O'War's arm tracked in the wrong direction, snapped down, but it was too late: Senefa seized it with her left arm, knocked it out of the way, and then rammed the barrel of her Gauss Rifle into the Clan 'Mech's shoulder, firing. There was a real chance that the Gauss shell would not have enough velocity to penetrate, but it did, and did so perfectly, blowing the shoulder joint apart to leave the arm dangling by a few wires; she finished the job by simply ripping it free. She gave the Man O'War a small shoulder shove and stepped back for real this time. "Kerensky, it is over. Surrender. You have no weapons left."
"I will never surrender to a traitor!" Kerensky screamed, and charged her in one, last desperate gambit to destroy them both. Senefa did not retreat, but slid to one side, then put every ounce of power she had into swinging the Thunderbolt's left arm. The armored battlefist smashed through the cockpit, actually knocking the Man O'War off its feet, where it slammed to the now-muddy ground.
Star Captain Tobi saw his commander go down. He made a hasty scan of the battlefield, not seeing many Wolf 'Mechs left. The Snowbirds looked considerably bad as well, but among their ranks he saw an Atlas and an Awesome; coming up on the left were the two huge machines that carried Gauss Rifles and PPCs and had driven Hannifan's Star off. The 352nd Assault Cluster was simply losing a battle of attrition, and with Kerensky down, he was in command and had to do something which he hated to do.
"Stampede Alpha One to all Silver Wolf elements. Pull back. Reform at grid square 54-40."
"Alpha One, Pack Bravo One." It was Star Commander Wenter Kisiel. "You are ordering us to retreat? Where is Silver Wolf One?"
"Silver Wolf One is dead. Retreat. We have to save what we have left."
Kisiel acknowledged reluctantly. One by one, the 352nd began to break contact. Tobi began to count Wolf 'Mechs and came up with a count of sixteen.
Sheila saw the Wolves begin to retreat. "Snowbirds!" she ordered. "Hold fast and cease fire! Let them go." The firing slowly died down as the Clan Omnis retired behind a ridge. "Rifle Six, bring your people up and let's start finding survivors." Kinosh's infantry came out of the tunnel and began to swarm over the battlefield. They ignored Clan wreckage at first and went for Snowbird 'Mechs. Sheila did some counting of her own: four Snowbirds were down on the field. She walked from wreck to wreck. Troms Fiordur was already out of his Warhammer, smoking a cigarette on the remains of his machine and looking more bored than hurt. Kahvi Falx was put on a stretcher, wounded but conscious; Ariel Munroe had somehow survived the ruin of her Phoenix Hawk LAM and was also alive, though unconscious and badly hurt. Robert Copeland was dead. Kinosh's infantry also found Clan survivors, six of them.
She organized most of the remaining Snowbirds in a defensive line, but the Wolves did not appear to be planning an attack. Sheila hoped not, because she wasn't sure if the Snowbirds could hold off an attack. The only 'Mech that appeared undamaged was Tessya Blackthorn's Wasp, and that was only because she had kept the 20-tonner out of the fight, sniping at targets when they presented themselves. All the others, Sheila included, had taken heavy damage, and some were missing limbs or parts of legs. It looked more like Sheila commanded a mass of zombies rather than a military unit.
"Snowbird Actual, this is Rifle Six. We have found the enemy commander. He wishes to speak with you."
Sheila really didn't feel like talking to Erik Kerensky at all, but certain customs had to be observed. So neighborly we are to the people who try to kill us. "I'll be there in a few minutes," Sheila sighed.
"Be quicker than that, Snowbird. He's dying."
Wonderful, Sheila thought. She supposed she should be ashamed of herself for wishing the Clan bastard would die before she got there so she didn't have to deal with a deathbed confession, but was too tired to care. She parked the Shruiken next to the wreck of Kerensky's Man O'War and Senefa's Thunderbolt. The ex-Clanswoman was waiting for her on the ground. "Why did you dismount, Senefa?"
"Sergeant Kinosh needed some help." Senefa thumbed back towards her 'Mech. "In any case, I am down to two medium lasers." She looked towards the Man O'War. "Erik Kerensky wishes to speak with you."
"I don't know what about," Sheila told her, but walked in that direction nonetheless. She shivered, only now realizing it was cold; the adrenalin from the battle had worn off.
Kerensky lay under a blanket, with two SLI infantrymen standing nearby, as was Kinosh. Kneeling next to him was a Clan MechWarrior, wearing the rank of a Star Commander. The blanket was already soaked in blood, and even without seeing more than the shape of his body beneath the blanket, Sheila could tell Kerensky was badly mangled. Looking at the wreckage of his 'Mech's head, Sheila could see why. "I'm sorry, Commander," Kinosh began, "he refused a medic—"
"I'll talk to him." Sheila bent down, squatting next to Kerensky. "Star Colonel Erik Kerensky, I'm Lieutenant Commander Sheila Arla-Vlata."
His gray eyes took her in, flicking from her face to her artificial arm. "You will forgive me if I do not shake hands," he said weakly but defiantly. "I just wanted to see the face of the freeborn bitch who destroyed my Silver Wolves through treachery."
This was surprising, Sheila wondered silently. Her relations with defeated Clan warriors so far had been cordial, considering. Far from a deathbed confession, Kerensky wanted one last opportunity to spit on her. "Terribly sorry you think it was treachery, Star Colonel," Sheila said with fake sorrow. "Besides, you were never in any danger from that gas. It was a four hundred year old nonpersistent blood agent that probably was inert anyway. I knew your 'Mechs would automatically detect it and seal off any open air vents. But I figured that you Clanners, with your honor and all, would never be trained to fight in a chemical environment."
"Dishonorable money whore!" Kerensky might have said more, but was cut off in a spasm of coughing that brought up thick, dark blood.
"I'll be sure to give your opinions on the honor of war to the people of Turtle Bay and Front Royal," Sheila snarled back. "If I can find any alive, that is."
"That was not Clan Wolf!" the Star Commander protested. "That was the Smoke Jaguars and Jade Falcons! We do not condone such acts!"
"You did when you agree to help them invade us." Sheila stood. "If you've got nothing but insults, Star Colonel, I'll be on my way."
"I just wanted to tell you that this is not over." Kerensky grinned through bloody teeth. "I dispatched a Trinary and all my Elementals to wipe out your southern force. That battle should be over by now. When Star Commander Willic Vickers is through killing everyone in that force, he'll march north and destroy you." Sheila went pale. Kerensky saw it and laughed, which died away with his life.
"Kinosh," Sheila said quickly, "can our wounded be moved?"
"Not MechWarrior Munroe," Kinosh replied. Knowing what Sheila wanted, she added, "I'll stay here and evacuate everyone to the tunnels."
"Thanks, Sergeant." Sheila stabbed a finger towards the Star Commander. "What's your name?"
"Star Commander Hak, Charlie Striker—"
"I don't care about that." Sheila pointed to the distant ridge. "Get your ass over that ridge and find the senior surviving officer. Tell him I'll grant him hegira if he agrees not to attack us and orders this Vickers fucker to break off his attack. Sergeant Kinosh here is taking the other prisoners with her. If they're attacked while we're gone, she'll gun down every one of the prisoners, then blow up the Star League cache inside Mount Brecon. We've got enough explosives in there to send this mountain into orbit, quiaff?" It was a lie, but Hak didn't know that.
"Aff," Hak nodded frantically.
"Now get the hell out of here." Sheila watched him go for a moment.
"Hegira, Commander?" Kinosh asked.
"Clan custom of honorable retreat. Get to it, Sarge. Leave that bastard where he lies." She motioned at Kerensky's corpse. She began hurrying to her 'Mech.