CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN

A Battletech Short Story

By Sentinel 28A

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I had posted on my DeviantArt page that I wasn't going to be updating for a bit due to Real Life circumstances, but what do you know…the muse bit and here we are. Probably will still be a few weeks before I do more, though. Finally some action in this chapter, though not too much 'Mech action; this chapter should show the value of artillery in Battletech and how powerful 'Mechs really are.

Some quick shout-outs in here to Red Dawn and The Pacific, the latter of which I just watched last week. It's very, very good if you haven't seen it—but it shows war in all its disgusting brutality, so make sure you don't watch it while eating dinner. Also, a quick thanks to whoever made Google Earth, because it's neat using the Atmospheric filter to check out Louisa's line of march, from her perspective in the dark.

BTW, this is a nice, long chapter to tie you over until next time.

REVIEWERS' CORNER:

Not a lot of reviews this time. C'mon folks; that's the only way we writers can know what we've done wrong and/or get our egos stroked…

Rogue: Not sure what the prancing comment was about (in-joke?), but yeah, thanks for the compliment. Since the first person who usually reads these stories is my dad, who is not a gamer, I tend to write as if the reader knows nothing about Battletech. Glad it worked anyway. (Besides, I had to throw in the cooling vest joke.)

ACDoubleEdge: Well, I'm no Michael Stackpole, and we write in different styles, kinda. (I got to meet Stackpole two years ago, and he's a pretty kewl dude.) Kai is a bit of a crybaby at first, but he's a badass by Lost Destiny, though he doesn't really mature IMHO until Assumption of Risk. As far as Arrow IVs go, get in close and nail his TAG 'Mechs. Though if the guy is just deluging you with Arrow IVs every game session, I wouldn't game with him. Arrow IVs are fairly rare and shouldn't be used in every scenario; you may have a power gamer on your hands. Once you get on the same mapboard with the Arrow IV carriers though, they're basically dead meat.

MUSIC CORNER: "Angriff" from Das Boot (no one does claustrophobic like Klaus Doldinger), "Battle at Devil's Den" from the Gettysburg soundtrack, and "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" by Blue Oyster Cult for some old skool rock.

15 Kilometers North of Belgrade

Virentofta, Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

11 September 3070

The column had to move at the speed of its slowest machine, namely the heavy tanks of Pryce's platoon. Even so, ten kilometers went by quickly and in silence. Louisa jumped when she heard the impact of heavy rounds, and she whirled her head in that direction, causing the Nightsky to do the same; the targeting sensors of the 'Mech were slaved to her neurohelmet, automatically moving the head to where the MechWarrior was looking. Then she remembered: the Sentinels and the Virentofta Militia were laying artillery strikes up and down the line, covering Task Force Valkyrie's approach. The bombardment was weighted on the Three Forks area, in the hope that the Word of Blake would concentrate there, with secondary fire missions laid on Clarkston; the Toston ford was left alone. Hopefully the Blakists would not be watching that. She couldn't see the artillery strikes actually hit, her view of the river blocked by the Horseshoe Hills that masked her advance, but she could see the western horizon light up, reflected off the low clouds. The rain had stopped, finally.

Louisa wondered about the people she was rescuing, and hoped the artillery bolstered their spirits. It must be terrible, she thought, being surrounded with only a shred of hope that they would be rescued. Louisa had never been surrounded or besieged, and never wanted to be. If she had been the 63rd, she would have packed it in long ago: rifle infantry and some old tanks against Word of Blake Manei Domini and Celestial 'Mechs. Then again, the rumor was that the Blakists weren't terribly interested in prisoners. It occurred to Louisa that she didn't even know the name of the commander of the 63rd. The militia had been told help was on the way, but Louisa hoped Kahvi hadn't mentioned the fact that TF Valkyrie was small, or under the command of an inexperienced 25-year old. Louisa shuddered, realizing for the first time the responsibility now on her shoulders. My God, she thought, how does Mom do it? Every time she goes into battle, she knows she's responsible for all two thousand of the Sentinels. No, wait—she's responsible for ten thousand of us, if you include the techs and the DropShip crews and the families of everyone. No wonder she's got a bad temper or that she's always getting sick, or that Dad always looks so worried. The thought of the 63rd's families—also now riding on Louisa's shoulders—was enough to almost make her key the radio, inform Priss Musashiya that she could have command of the task force after all, and go home. Almost.

For that matter, Louisa continued, her mind unable to help wandering, I don't really know much about the Word of Blake. The Clans she knew—only too well. They were a known quantity now, though she could remember in the dark days of the Clan War when no one knew anything about them. But she knew little about her enemy. There was a few things—the Word of Blake was the fanatical offshoot of ComStar, who once controlled all communications in the Inner Sphere; they adhered to the old ways of worshiping technology, virtually replacing God with the founder of ComStar, Jerome Blake; they wanted to turn back the clock to the days when only ComStar had access to Star League technology, when only ComStar could say who could write what to whom, when they still had control. She knew the Blakists were fanatics, willing to kill anyone who didn't believe what they believed, fought with the devotion of fanatics, and would even resort to using chemical weapons, bioweapons, or, horror of horrors, nuclear weapons. With the Clans, there were rules. The Blakists had none. Still, even in her first encounter with the Clans, Louisa had had far more knowledge than she did now. All she knew was that the Blakists wanted to kill her and hers, and that they could bleed, and she supposed that was enough. Her lips quirked into a half-smile. Isn't that how it's always been? The line doggies like me, we don't know anything about our enemy, other than he can die and we have to kill him before he does the same to us?

She wondered if her counterpart across the lines, in his or her 'Mech, sweating out the random death of an artillery barrage, was having the same thoughts. Or did the cybernetic enhancements the Blakists supposedly had take away their humanity too? Did they find solace in the words of their leaders that they were right, and that the Inner Sphere must be purified in the flames of war? Or did they just want to go home, like she did right now?

Her radio crackled to life and Louisa was happy for it, because it ended her thoughts chasing each other around her head. "Green Six, this is Axe Actual." She tensed: it was Kahvi Falx. Something was up. Although she was commander of the Snowbirds, Kahvi never used the callsign Snowbird Actual: that was still, and always would be, Sheila Arla-Vlata.

"Go ahead, Axe."

"Be advised, we've just had a report of enemy infantry in your area, at grid 111-46."

Louisa's eyes went to her map display. Shit, that's right on my line of march. She peered closer, noting the name of the area. Poison Hollow. That figures. "Roger. Strength?"

"Believed to be one platoon, occupying a farm."

"Understood. Any further orders?"

"Negative. Charlie Mike. Good luck. Axe Actual, out." Charlie Mike: Continue Mission. Well, it wasn't like I was planning to turn back over a platoon of infantry.

She switched over to the company net. "Wolf Six, did you hear that?" Musashiya would have been listening in.

"Roger that. Probably a picket unit."

"Concur." She hadn't expected the Word of Blake to throw out a picket line that far away from the river, though; it was a good eleven kilometers deep. Maybe that's where they were basing their raiding parties out of in the mountains? Louisa asked herself. "Wolf Six, advise that they're probably Manei Domini."

"Roger that. What do you want to do?"

"Bypass 'em."

"Roger." Musashiya seemed unsure.

Louisa didn't know why; she had no intention of stopping and deploying to clear out a platoon of infantry, which would take time she didn't have and cause casualties she couldn't afford. Rifle fire wouldn't do anything but scratch the paint of her vehicles. They might have SRMs, her mind warned her. Barring the proverbial lucky shot, an SRM wouldn't stop a 'Mech or a tank; even the Lynx could handle a few hits. There was something she was missing, though. Mortars? Maybe; that won't stop us, though. Laser rifles? No, still not enough. But what am I—then it hit her. Radio. They'll have a radio.

She switched frequencies. "Throwback, this is Green Six. I have trade for you."

The voice of Makkari Norea, the commander of the Sentinels' artillery, came back. "Roger, Green Six. What can I make go away?"

"Fire mission, grid square 111-46. Fire in…" she consulted the clock on her instrument panel "…two minutes."

"Roger that." In her mind's eye, Louisa could see the artillery pieces of the regiment swing their turrets around to lay their guns on Poison Hollow—the Chaparral missile batteries, the 155 millimeter Snipers, the earth-shaking 203 millimeter Long Toms.

"Green Six to all Valkyrie elements," Louisa addressed the task force. "We're coming up to a farm in Poison Hollow, occupied by Wobbies. Do not stop and engage only as necessary. Repeat, do not stop. We're not here to play tag with Manei Domini. Let the arty earn their pay. Out."

Her computer chirped for her attention. On the map screen, she saw that she had passed the phase line, and the computer helpfully reminded her that she needed to turn northwest for Objective Gina. TF Valkyrie was now officially in enemy territory. She looked into the darkness beyond her canopy to see if she could see the farm. Louisa switched to infrared, and spotted her objective. There were smaller heat sources, and one large one. Well, well, she mused with a savage smile, you're not invincible, Wobbies. You've got a fire going. Bad, bad. Raw recruits know better than that. Cold, huh? You're about to get a lot warmer. There was no sign they detected her, but that would change in moments. One heard 'Mechs long before they saw them.

"Shot out," Norea radioed. A second later, Louisa involuntarily ducked as the freight train noise of an incoming artillery shell roared overhead. A sharp explosion bloomed on her viewscreen, and she quickly turned off the infrared. Dirt and mud shot into the air on the opposite side of the farm. "Throwback, Green Six—drop twenty and fire for effect!"

Norea's reply was overriden as missiles arced from the farm directly at her. Louisa brought up her right arm, and the night lit up again as the missiles detonated against the arm's armor. "Green Six to Valkyrie! Contact right—enemy infantry!" she radioed. "Engage but do not stop!"

Artillery now struck amongst the farmhouses, this time setting off a secondary explosion. Laser fire stuttered from the surviving houses and from fighting holes dug around it, along with more missiles. She twisted the Nightsky around, aimed the large laser, and sent a single red bolt into a house already burning from the artillery. Figures raced out and fell behind her; she hated turning her back on the Blakist infantry, but barring a lucky hit, her rear armor would hold. Her eyes darted around the instrument panel: one monitor faced to the rear and lit up as Habersohn lashed Poison Hollow with his lasers, the Black Hawk tearing through the infantry. Another display showed that both Dunn and Misumaru had shifted to the left, keeping away from the Manei Domini. A Valkyrie was not built for that sort of fighting, and Dunn's Spider was too thinly-armored.

Dirt exploded in front of her, and she instinctively shifted away from it. Mortars! Again, this was a small threat to a 'Mech, but since mortars plunged, she stood a good chance of being hit in the head. Despite her own orders, Louisa stopped to look behind her. This made her a good target, and two more SRMs flew in her direction, but they had been hastily fired and fell short.

Louisa winced and smiled at the same time. Poison Hollow now came within range of Pryce's tanks and Musashiya's assault 'Mechs. The former caused the Manei Domini to increase their efforts and fire, but the volume of return fire was titanic. The Schrek's triple PPCs and the Ontos' octuple medium lasers were exacting a heavy price on anyone who fired, and Musashiya added her lance's firepower to the tanks. "Valkyrie elements, Green Six," Louisa radioed, seeing Mido's Mauler launch a salvo of missiles. "Do not fire any ballistic or missile weapons. Conserve your ammo for the big stuff." Then she shifted frequencies, telling Norea to cease fire.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the battle ended. Poison Hollow was now silent, a burning ruin. If any Manei Domini had survived the deluge of combined arms fire and artillery, they were being very quiet. A single, thin laser beam fired out and splashed against Pryce's Demolisher; the point where it had come from was blasted into glass by Kagome Sentinel's Masakari. After that, there was no more firing.

That wasn't too bad, Louisa thought. She got a quick sitrep from her task force. No one had more than basically a scratch. She gathered up Valkyrie, got them back in formation, and continued moving northwest.

Suddenly it was quiet. It never ceased to amaze her how quiet things could get after a battle. In a 'Mech, the pilot was insulated by thick armor, and thus felt a battle more than they heard one, aside from warning beeps and warbles from the 'Mech's battle computer warning of threats and damage. Even so, in the dismounted battles Louisa had been in, and there had been several, it always seemed so quiet after a battle, as if the participants were stunned at what had just happened. The battle of Poison Hollow had lasted less than five minutes.

Louisa pulled her Nightsky to one side and halted, telling Habersohn to keep moving. She watched the column move past, counting tanks and 'Mechs. Musashiya's Awesome drew even with her. "Everything okay, Green Six?" the other woman tightbeamed to Louisa.

"I'm okay, Wolf Six. Just checking the column—making sure everyone's still with us."

"Green Six, everyone's just fine. Trust your lance and platoon leaders, huh? We've done this before." Musashiya paused. "Besides, I already checked. Go back to the head of the column—ma'am."

Louisa chuckled to herself. "Roger that." She turned, ran the Nightsky near to full speed, and easily caught up with the command lance. Musashiya was right. She had veterans under her command; if any of them had fallen behind, they would have let her know. And Musashiya was her second-in-command: she knew her job too. I've got a lot to learn at this company command stuff, Louisa mused. Another reminder of her inexperience, but a good one, and one to file away for future reference.

"Green Six, Green Four," Hitomi Dunn radioed. "I'm at Garden Gulch. Proceed?" Dunn was serving as lead scout, exactly what her Spider was designed to do.

"Charlie Mike," Louisa sent back. "Green Two, stay close to Four. Green Three, hold back here with me." Louisa switched frequencies. "Valkyrie elements: hold here for three minutes."

There was a click, and from her communication gear, Louisa saw that Musashiya had come online for a second, then signed off just as abruptly. Louisa smiled, knowing now that the situation was reversed: now Musashiya had to trust her and not to question why Louisa had halted Valkyrie short of Garden Gulch. The reason was simple and had just occurred to her. If the WOB had an outpost at Poison Hollow, then they might have something in the gulch as well—a small infantry listening post, or a scout tank or something. If the LP or tank spotted the entire Valkyrie column, the Blakists could probably figure out what its purpose was and move to stop it. But two 'Mechs, especially a Spider and a Black Hawk, might be dismissed as a scouting unit on a quick recon, something defensive.

Despite herself, Louisa moved forward a little bit and looked down Garden Gulch. Calling it a gulch was a bit of an understatement: it was closer to a canyon. In the weak light of Virentofta's moons, diffused by the clouds, she couldn't see very far: the night and the forest tended to blend together, though the gray granite of the mountains shone through. Checking her map display, Garden Gulch wound tightly through the Horseshoe Hills—again, a misnomer; what the locals called hills were in excess of 2500 meters high, or over 5000 feet as they measured it—then smoothed out as it approached the Vingaard River, until the hills flattened considerably. If the WOB was going to hit her with an ambush, it would be in the first two kilometers.

She checked her chronometer. The three minutes were up. Rather than radioing, she simply turned and waved at Pryce's Demolisher. A quick blink of his headlights acknowledged the signal. Valkyrie started moving again.

As she moved down the thin trail, her radio came to life. "Green Six, Throwback. We're shifting position. Give us ten before you call us back." Norea was moving his artillery, to keep the WOB from triangulating where his pieces were and counterbatterying him.

"Understood, Throwback. We're going to be out for a bit too; we're going to lose LOS." LOS stood for line-of-sight; once Louisa was below the Horseshoe Hills, the mountains would block her signal. Under normal circumstances, Louisa could bounce her communications off of a satellite in orbit back down to Norea, but communication satellites were usually the first target of an invader, and Virentofta was no different. She thought about sending a radio message to the 63rd Battalion, but decided against it, for fear the WOB would pick it up. She would wait until they got closer. Her Nightsky suddenly shifted dangerously to the right, and Louisa instinctively slammed the control sticks left and stomped the left pedal, bringing her 'Mech back to an even keel. Whoops, she thought. Better pay attention to what you're doing, Louisa. These things don't pilot themselves.

"Green Six, Green Two!" Dunn's voice sounded excited. "Enemy contact! I got a hit from my Beagle!" The Sentinels had retrofitted their Spiders with Beagle Probes, sensor suites that could pick up hidden enemy units.

Louisa brought her Nightsky's right fist up, the age-old infantryman's signal to halt. Yurika moved out, the missile ports on her Valkyrie opening up; Louisa could just make out Habersohn's Black Hawk about a kilometer ahead, stopped. Of Dunn there was no sign. "Green Two, spot report," Louisa said, trying to keep her own voice under control.

"Wait one, Six…" Dunn trailed off, then her voice blasted into Louisa's headphones as she shouted, "Got it! It's a Skulker!" Louisa's mind instantly processed the information: a Skulker scout car, not much more than an armored truck, but one bristling with sensors. "He's hauling ass!"

"Get him, Two!" Louisa accelerated forward, using the hatchet to brush aside or knock down trees. She could see Habersohn and Yurika doing the same thing, but they were out of position. Louisa spotted movement, and her HUD instantly targeted the Skulker as an enemy, reporting dutifully that she was still out of range as well. The scout car was bouncing down the slope, but whoever the driver was, he was good and was dodging around trees that would slow a 'Mech. It was up to Dunn.

Luckily, Hitomi Dunn was up to the job. She loved to fight, and now was her chance. As the Skulker slewed around to head down the gulch, her Spider suddenly rose on silver flames in a perfectly timed jump. She landed in a small clearing just ahead of the scout car, and opened fire. Her two medium lasers wouldn't do more than scratch a opposing 'Mech, but against a thinly-armored scout car, it was perfect. The lasers scored sparks across the Skulker, which swerved hard, glanced off of a tree, then tried to get around Dunn. She hopped forward, drew back, and landed a solid kick to the side of the Skulker. The car, already overbalanced, tipped over, slid for a few meters, then began rolling down the hill until it slammed into a boulder. Dunn picked her way down the slope and stood over the Skulker.

Louisa lost sight of the two in the trees; she was afraid to use her own jumpjets in the thick woods. By the time she got there, Dunn was still standing over the Skulker, but the scout car's hatches were open. Two bodies, one hanging halfway out of the hatch, smoked in the chill night air. Louisa threw Dunn a nasty look. Dammit, Hit Me, you triggerhappy bitch! We could've maybe taken them alive—

"Hi, boss," Dunn tightbeamed to her. "Sorry about the mess. Two guys jumped out. I told them to surrender, but they didn't. Had to burn them down." Louisa bit back her words. Dunn probably had acted correctly. The Blakists could be as bad as the Smoke Jaguars and the Kuritans when it came to surrendering.

She looked over the Skulker. It looked mostly intact. There might be something inside she could use. She hesitated as Habersohn's Black Hawk arrived, pushing aside a tree that had been splintered by the Skulker's ride down the mountain. She thought about having him take a look, but shook her head. Never ask someone to do something you're not willing to do yourself, her mother's voice echoed in her head. "Green Three, I'm going to go check out the Skulker."

"I don't think that's a very good idea," Habersohn sent back.

"Hitomi killed everyone already. I won't be gone more than five minutes. There might be intel in there."

"Leave it for the infantry—" Habersohn cut himself off. The infantry would take too long to get up here, and the one disadvantage of the speedy Lynxes was that they couldn't negotiate thick woods like this. "Well…take Dunn with you, anyway. I'll overwatch."

"Let Priss know." Louisa took off her helmet and grabbed her coat out of the locker, and her pistol as well. She opened the hatch and shivered as the cold air hit her. She checked the pistol, stuffed it into her coat, and climbed down the telescoping ladder. Once on the ground, she signaled for Dunn to dismount and follow her. The Kuritan woman was down even faster than Louisa had, not even bothering with the coat. "Did you bring a-" Dunn smiled, answering Louisa's unfinished question by holding up a titanic Sternsnacht heavy pistol and a hand grenade. "Okay. Cover me."

As they jogged to the overturned Skulker, Louisa had second thoughts as she remembered that she was commanding a company. As a lance commander, dismounted operations occasionally made sense; it was stupid for a company commander to do it. Sure, her parents had done it during the Clan War, but both Sheila and Max had admitted that some of the chances they had taken were plain stupid youthful overconfidence. Louisa stole a glance at Dunn. No, I can't back out now. Well, here goes…

Louisa took hold of one of the Skulker's armored tires and pulled herself onto the side of the car. Her stomach gave a quick, involuntary heave at the sight and smell of the scorched bodies; a medium laser didn't leave much of a human being but a blackened ruin. Louisa fought down the bile in her throat, and looked into the compartment.

She looked into the barrel of a pistol. The hammer came down with a click.

"Shit!" Louisa threw herself back a millisecond too late. No bullet hit her or even sang past her. "Fucking shit—there's someone in there—"

"Not for long!" Dunn straightened the pin on the grenade.

"Wait!" Louisa ordered. If Dunn tossed the grenade into the Skulker, she would burn everything inside of it. Hesitantly, pistol first, Louisa peered into the crew compartment. Once again, there was the click of a pistol, but no bullet. She looked closer, and saw the pistol's owner: a young woman, her face bloody, her hands shaking. "Drop the gun," Louisa growled.

"No!" the woman shouted, and put the pistol to her own temple. She pulled the trigger again, eyes screwed shut, and again there was nothing but a click. The woman burst into sobs as Louisa dropped down into the compartment and snatched the pistol away. A quick glance told her the reason why the pistol hadn't worked: it was unloaded. She threw the gun out the hatch.

"Driver's dead, boss," Dunn said. She was hanging upside down, the Sternsnacht pointed at the driver's compartment. The spray of blood across the cracked windscreen where the driver's head had been propelled into it confirmed that.

Louisa reached down and searched the woman. She was still crying and put up no resistance; she also had nothing on her. Louisa saw the rank tabs on her shoulder. If the Blakists' ranks were anything like ComStar, this woman was an Adept, making her either a noncommissioned officer or a low-ranking officer. By her youth, Louisa guessed the latter. She gripped the Blakist under her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. Between Louisa and Dunn, they pulled the Adept from the Skulker; Dunn then shoved her to the ground, where she landed next to one of the charred bodies. The woman recoiled in horror at what was left of a man she had been chatting with only minutes before, turned away, and vomited.

"Hitomi, cover her." Louisa almost added that if the Adept made any threatening moves, to shoot her, but figured that Dunn would interpret that order liberally. Instead, she began searching through the crew compartment. Most of it was wrecked; rolling down the mountain had smashed equipment. She found another body, crumpled in the corner; this Adept was male and had been catapulted into the ceiling. By the strong smell of coffee and food splattered around the interior, Louisa guessed that the crew had been caught completely surprise; the driver had probably gunned it before the crew could even strap in. There was also the smell of gasoline and oil, and given that the engine was probably smashed, the computers, assuming they even worked, were useless. Louisa was about to give up when she spotted a map. She grabbed that and pulled herself out of the Skulker.

Dunn had jumped down and was covering the Adept, who was on all fours, shuddering and still gagging. Dunn grinned up at Louisa. "I thought the Wobbies were supposed to be superpeople or something. This bitch can't even handle a little fried long pig." She toed the burned corpse.

Louisa ignored that and knelt next to the woman. "Who are you?"

"A-Adept Lisa…Lisa Adams." The Adept fought visibly for control. "Serial number—"

"I don't care about that. What was your mission? What's your unit?" Adams shook her head, so Louisa thumbed back the hammer on her pistol to emphasize her point, though it was still aimed at the ground. "Adept Adams," she said evenly, not raising her voice, "I will kill you if you don't start talking."

"The Ares Conventions—"

Dunn kicked her viciously. "Never heard of them!" she shouted.

"Hitomi!" Louisa snapped. "That's enough." She speared Dunn with a glance, not at all liking what she saw in the Kuritan woman's eyes. She returned her attention to Adams, trying a different tack. "What's your rank, Adept?" She said the last in her command voice.

Adams responded instantly, conditioned to instantly obey commands. "Adept-I Delta." That told Louisa at lot. It meant Adams had only been an Adept for a year, explaining her youth, and that her primary job was military intelligence. She risked looking back at Dunn; the raw hate on the latter's face broke down what little resistance was left. "I'm assigned to the 7th Division. We were out here on recon duties…Poison Hollow reported being under attack and…"

"Did you get a radio message off?"

"No. We were waiting to hear from Poison Hollow and the Manei Domini—and then we spotted the 'Mechs and were trying to get closer when the Spider…Thomas, mercy of Blake, Thomas…" She looked at the corpse and broke down again, burying her face in the grass and sobbing.

"God in heaven." Louisa straightened up, feeling sorry for the woman—girl, really; she couldn't be more than twenty, Louisa guessed—despite herself. Once, after a bad nightmare of Vantaa, a ten year old Louisa had asked her mother when the Clans stopped being scary. Sheila had replied it was when she had looked into the face of a wounded Jade Falcon MechWarrior on Twycross, and saw fear. The holovids didn't show things like the scene in front of her. Prisoners were always supposed to have some sort of quiet dignity, the honorable opponent; Louisa admitted that she had seen the Blakists as some sort of faceless fanatic fit only to die beneath her guns. Adept Adams had thrown up everything in her system, was crying uncontrollably, and smelled as if she had urinated on herself as well. So. They have feelings too. Louisa wasn't sure to be happy about that—that her enemies were not ten feet tall and made of radiation—or sad, because it personalized them. That she didn't need, if she was going to keep her sanity.

"SLI's here," Dunn said, and Louisa saw David Harris leading a squad come around the Skulker, puffing with exertion.

"Morning, Major," Harris said. His grin faded at the bodies. "Got a prisoner?"

"Yeah." Louisa paused, not exactly sure what to do with the girl. They couldn't let her go, and they couldn't just shoot her out of hand, though Dunn clearly wanted to. "I guess we'll have to take her with us. Tie her up or something."

"Yes, ma'am." One of the infantrymen produced a roll of duct tape and used that to bind Adams' hands behind her, and tape her mouth shut. She didn't resist. For added measure, Harris ripped the laces from the Adept's boots; if Adams tried to run, her boots would rapidly come off, and trying to walk through the Virentofta mountains without boots was asking for frostbite. They led her down the hill. "LC Musashiya's got the column stopped," Harris told Louisa. He paused as well. "I think she's pissed."

"I'll be down in a minute. Go on, Lieutenant." He threw her a salute and headed after his men. Louisa thought about having Habersohn finish off the Skulker, but decided against it; maybe they could drag it back when the mission was over. She stuffed the map inside her coat, then saw that Dunn was inspecting the body that hung from the Skulker's hatch. "Hitomi, let's mount up."

"Okay, boss." She shook her head. "Man, where did the Wobbies find this guy? He's got two hundred C-Bills worth of gold in his mouth. I thought even the Deep Periphery planets quit doing that." Louisa noticed the knife in her hand. The grenade had been left on the Skulker.

"Don't you even think about it, Hitomi."

"About what? Doing some gold mining?"

Louisa walked up to her. "Hitomi, I do not have time for your shit. Mount up now, or I swear I will Dispossess your ass right here and make you walk back to Belgrade. Sergeant Weltjens is a qualified MechWarrior. You can be replaced." Dunn blanched; being stripped of her 'Mech was the one thing that frightened her. She sheathed the knife in her boot and snatched up the grenade. "Gold mining. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Louisa snarled as she walked past.

Dunn narrowed her eyes, though she didn't quite meet Louisa's gaze. "They do that, you know. The Wobbies. I heard they did it on Dieron. When they weren't committing genocide, anyway." It was Louisa's turn to go a little pale. Dunn's family was on Dieron.

But she couldn't let that go. "We're not like them, Hitomi. There's a big difference between the Wobbies and us."

"Yeah. We live here." Dunn turned her back on Louisa and walked to her Spider.