Chapter 14: Breakout

September 25th, 3025

Unclaimed Space

Kimi System

Lance Leader Kai Lau, or Captain Lau as he was known on this planet, suppressed a surge of irritation as the airplane crossed the hardened glass of his cockpit canopy. Irritation was a weakness that clouded judgment, and was therefore unacceptable.

It was no surprise that Kimi's Lord Commander did not trust him, the information he had provided, or the Capellan Confederation that he represented. Trust was earned the hard way, over time and through sacrifice, as he'd learned himself; he had gone through over a decade of training before being entrusted with command of his own lance.

Unfortunately, that lack of trust meant the Lord Commander wanted to confirm Kai's estimates of 'Mech speed, and if the mercenaries down there had half a brain between them, they had to be wondering how these supposedly primitive people knew where to look for them. At the very least they would be more cautious – at worst they would have a rough idea of their current predicament.

Still… no, despite the setback, his plan did not rely on the element of surprise. They were boxed in. If they broke out into the open, the Lord commander's tanks would engage them and he would close in from behind. And if they turned to try for the ridge, he would pound them from above and fall back before they got into range, and it would be the tanks coming in from behind. This was ideal terrain for the Catapults. It would get messy in a jungle knife fight, but there was no hope for escape if they chose that path.

He nodded. Yes, they were well and truly trapped.

…

Wolf forced his white-knuckled hands to relax on the controls of the Blackjack. The Mongoose had made a circuit and confirmed just how bad it was. Ahead of them in the plains were two battalions of tanks. Their heaviest vehicles would count as light tanks in the Inner Sphere, and their light tanks would be hard pressed to fight off current scout vehicles. But there were over seventy of them, and between them they mounted the equivalent of dozens of AC/5s and even more AC/2's.

And above them, just behind the ridge, were two Capellan Catapult K2's, with four Fleas that were quick and nimble enough to be hard to hit, acting as spotters. It was the perfect setup.

Catapults were aptly named, being nothing more and nothing less than a modern take on the concept established before man had gone to the stars. With a concept that simple, once the underlying 'Mech had been designed it remained more or less unchanged from its introduction almost five hundred years ago. The fact that they were still in use was testament to the simple and effective core design of an indirect fire support 'Mech. Two Holly LRM-15's gave the Catapult a good punch from a distance, and they didn't need to see you (or allow you to see them) to be able to hit you. Because up close fighting was something Catapults did only when everything had gone wrong, their "arms" were nothing more than stub pylons to mount the LRMs. Still, that didn't often become a problem, as the Heavy 'Mech had a cruising speed of 40 kph and four Anderson Propulsion 21 JumpJets gave it a jump range better than many lighter 'Mechs, making it difficult to close the range on it with anything lighter than a medium 'Mech. And nothing lighter than a heavy 'Mech really wanted to catch the thing with backup weapons of four medium lasers.

Perhaps worst of all for their current predicament, Catapults were used to their best effect in mountainous terrain, where they could reach perfect firing positions, unleash on you, and fade away jumping from ridge line to ridge line. And with a spotter, they could drop the hammer and fade without ever letting you get a shot of return fire.

And with a veritable army of tanks at his back, his only real option was to walk right into that, with his only advantage being the Mongoose's Beagle. There weren't any stealth units it was originally intended to combat, but it was hands-down the best sensor system in the field, and probably on the planet.

He forced himself to take a long, slow breath as the first rays of dawn cracked over the horizon, illuminating the early morning mist while exotic birds cawed in the distance. "Alright lance, you know the plan. Let's go."

…

MechWarrior Asher suppressed a yawn and checked his sensors for what felt like the thousandth time in the last few days, and adjusted his course to maneuver his agile Flea around a large cluster of trees while maintaining his assigned position, just within sensor range of his lance mates. Together they swept the woods to make sure the targets didn't change course and try to break past them.

After days of nothing, a blip showed up in red and he frowned down at it, puzzled. The comms crackled to life. "What the—" cut off by static. He jerked his eyes up, exhausted reflexes triggering, and jerked sideways on his joystick.

Glaring green lasers seared out of the trees in a blinding barrage, tearing into his right leg. The half-second of warning saved his life, pulling the light 'Mech out of the path of yet more lasers. Alarms blared, the status readout flashing lurid red, and the temperature spiked dramatically.

Asher wrestled with the controls, struggling to keep the Flea on its feet as it staggered drunkenly while melted armor streamed off its damaged leg, throwing the 'Mech off balance while the gyro struggled to compensate for the abruptly uneven weight distribution. This bought him just enough time to see four separate 'Mechs approaching.

On raw instinct he reached between his legs for the ejector lever. He had just enough time to curse as he remembered the Flea's designers had saved weight by cutting out the ejection system entirely before the 'Mechs opened fire once more.

…

Kai frowned as two of their four spotting Fleas disappeared. So, the mercenaries had made their choice. And has he'd feared, the lord Commander's actions had given away that they were being watched. It did not explain how they'd located and ambushed the slippery Fleas so perfectly. Could the Lord Commander have betrayed them? No, they would not have communicated with the thieves, and even if they had, they could not have provided precise enough locations to enable such ambushes. The remaining Fleas, now alerted to the danger, should be feeding him firing information any moment.

Still, it bothered him. Even primed, knowing the moment of the engagement, their sensor systems weren't any better than his. They shouldn't have been able to cleanly take down two light 'Mechs moving at speed in almost exactly the same moment. It shouldn't be possible. Unless… unless they'd stolen something that could see them.

He keyed his comms gear. "Scout lance, fall back immediately." If they had such technology, then they could see the scout 'Mechs before he could see them. With that advantage they could blind him completely, making him engage directly where they could bring their numbers to bear. Pulling the Fleas back would prevent him from smashing them on the whole approach, but he could still drop devastating fire as they tried to make the last, steep climb… but only so long as he could keep those Fleas alive. Even scrambling away, their sensors were better than hiding behind a ridgeline. He closed his eyes and forced himself into a calm, meditative state. Battle was coming soon… very soon.

…

Longtooth was sweating bullets as she settled her Wasp into position. It had been a mad dash to reposition, but the sensor data from the Mongoose showed another Capellan Flea just about to come into range. Her hands settled on the joystick's firing controls.

The scout 'Mech hesitated a moment, almost as if it could sense the targeting systems on it, then abruptly turned and sprinted back uphill. She bit off a curse. "Slant, Longtooth, our target just broke and ran." Someone over there was quick on their feet, and that wasn't good.

"Longtooth, Slant. Same here. You know the plan—run them down." She acknowledged and eased onto the throttle, lurching the steaming 'Mech back into motion. This is going to hurt.

…

MechWarrior Fa gasped for air, hands clenched on her joystick and throttle, while sweat dripped down her forehead. The Flea sprinted, dodging between the trees with frantic haste. The missile lock warning blared yet again, and she flinched, jerking the joystick to the right.

The light 'Mechs gyro strained to compensate, its automated systems fighting to keep from her accidentally stumbling into the underbrush until the urgent intent from her neurohelmet overrode it. The 'Mech dug in its left foot and launched to the right, ricocheting slightly off a tree that disintegrated into splinters while branches from taller trees banged against the cockpit. A lurid green laser slashed past, burning a hole through the trees and slashing across the 'Mechs flank for less than a heartbeat, leaving slagged armor dripping into the dirt where leaves burst into flame.

The desperate maneuver worked, and the intervening trees cut the missile lock not a moment too soon. She kept running as a flight of LRMs meant for her erupted off target, setting the forest on fire.

Another, much larger flight of LRMs darkened the sky, and this time she permitted herself a grim smile, because they weren't aimed at her. She could feel the ground tremble through the Flea's legs as a full sixty LRM's exploded in an inferno behind her.

Her sensors pinged as the trailing light 'Mechs raced through the smoke continuing the chase, and her missile lock warning began to hum once again.

…

Kai watched the smoldering, blackened remains of the mountainside impassively. The mercenaries had made their move, and it had proven more effective than he would have thought. Whatever SLDF detection system they had stolen had allowed them to destroy two of his Fleas before they realized the mercenaries were aware of them. Then they'd chased his remaining two spotters all the way back up the mountainside, destroying one of them and leaving the other a steaming, crippled wreck.

That meant that both Catapults had to creep over the ridgeline, making them somewhat vulnerable, in order to get missile locks. But their maneuver hadn't been without cost. It wasn't as planned, but the mercenaries had turned and faced relentless bombardment all the way up the mountainside. Yes, the Fleas had been running, which made their targeting information less effective than it could have been, but as he watched the still smoking mountainside, it seemed that it had been good enough. By his sensor readings they'd done significant damage to the mercenaries' light 'Mechs, and just as important given that his Fleas were knocked out, they'd burned down everything up to three hundred meters out, giving the two Catapults clear firing lines. Without the lights to flank them, the mediums would have to accept the damage and come straight at him.

He glanced down at his ammunition count and frowned. Perhaps it was just as well the spotters were spent. They could not sustain indirect fire support much longer anyway.

The mercenaries might, might, be able to break through if their discipline held, given how many more of them there were than the mission plan called for, but doing so would come at a terrible cost. And in the end they were mercenaries, not soldiers. They would break, and the Lord Commander would reclaim his prize. Unless something went terribly wrong, he would succeed in his mission. Whether he lived to tell of it was of far less concern.

…

Wolf looked over his diagnostic readouts with a wince. Their strategy was effective, but brutal. The Catapults were extremely solid 'Mechs, so dependable they had stayed in service century after century, but they had one key weakness as a fire-support 'Mech – they only carried two tons of LRM ammunition, or eight reloads for each launcher. They were brilliant for short, intense fights, but any prolonged engagement made them completely reliant on an ammunition supply train, which they didn't have here. And they'd fired somewhere between four hundred and four hundred and fifty LRMs, nearly their entire complement, on spotty targeting data from Fleas more intent on surviving than getting solid locks, making them close blind carpet fire. Still… that was a lot of LRMs.

The light 'Mechs, the only ones capable of keeping up with the Fleas even while they ran evasive patterns, had taken a beating doing it. They'd rotated them out, keeping only two at a time in close pursuit, but their armor was just about gone, they'd lost two arms, and one pilot was frantically working to repair a busted leg actuator. If they didn't have it up and running in the next twenty minutes they'd have to scuttle the 'Mech and try to squeeze the pilot into another cockpit without restraints.

Still, the plan had worked. He'd been hoping for a clean sweep on the lights, but his number two, Behemoth, had pointed out that even if it didn't work, letting the Catapults burn through their ammunition on low percentage blanket fire was attacking their key weakness.

More than one eyebrow had been raised when Behemoth's muscle bound form stepped over to help with the planning, but he was grateful she was there. He had a tendency to get a little too clever, a little too fancy, and her down-to-earth, no-nonsense practicality had prevented him from more than a few mistakes over the past few years.

So the Catapults were running low on ammo. That left the two of them and their combined eight medium lasers against five Medium 'Mechs. If they concentrated their fire, they could take down one of them, maybe two, but in the end they would go down… so long as his people didn't break ranks. It was asking a lot of people thrown together over the last two days, but it was also their only way out, and everyone knew it. That had a way of bringing people together. And as Behemoth would say, this was no time to get cute. They'd all advance in a single firing line.

Still, he couldn't help but try to edge things a little in their favor. The Catapults didn't have arms, so they could only fire in the direction they were facing. The moment they engaged, the lights would sprint past them and hit them from behind. It was a high-risk maneuver for them, as stripped bare as they were, but then, none of them wanted to take the fire of one of the heavy 'Mechs, so the more fire they could put on them, the better.

He took one last breath, then nodded firmly. "Lances, Wolf. You know the plan. Let's get moving. Sumo, Behemoth, take the center. Slant, you're on the left, I'll take the right. Glitch, stay on my right, but you're off the line. You've acting as our fire-support with your longer-range weapons. Maneuver as you need to get a good shot. Lights, break past us once we've engaged and get on their flanks. If they turn to face you, just run, don't worry about fighting back. All Acknowledge."

He listened as the voices rolled in, some steady, some nervous. So long as they didn't break, the outcome of this fight was inevitable – the only question was whether the Capellans would withdraw, and if they didn't, how many mercenaries they would take down with them.

"Alright. They'll probably hold their remaining LRM's until their ideal range, so don't get surprised by them. No matter what, keep moving forward. Get in close, they don't have arms so we'll have the advantage in a brawl. Slant, Behemoth, remember to dial it back to sixty kph or so, don't get too far ahead of the line. All units, advance."

The remaining blackened trees shuddered as three hundred tons of destruction started to move. Behind them a small explosion marked the end of the Wasp's life as its pilot scrambled up the other Wasp's exterior ladder, then jumped into motion, easily catching up.

…

Kai forced himself to take steady, calming breaths. He would fight with honor for the Dai Da Chi Warrior House. He tapped his comms. "If you see the stolen Mongoose, concentrate all fire to disable it, and we can still complete our mission. Fight well. The Confederation is watching."

Out of the tree line they came into the charred, open area approaching the ridge line, and he couldn't help but feel a grudging respect. The mercenaries outgunned and outnumbered him, but it took courage to march a medium or light 'Mech into range of a heavy 'Mech, regardless of the numbers. He had not given them a choice, but they had accepted the inevitable and marched forward more quickly than he would have expected. There were four, no, five medium 'Mechs in a loose firing line. He nodded approvingly at the tactic. He would probably take down one or two of the lighter weapon platforms, but by accepting those losses instead of skulking about they were almost assured of victory. Strange. He did not expect to see such discipline from mercenaries.

He brushed the thought away and focused on the task at hand. The medium 'Mechs were faster, but over such rough terrain the Catapults should be able to effectively perform a fighting retreat, hopping back to avoid close range with their heavier weapons. That made the greatest threat their fire support. The Vindicator was hanging back and swinging wide, waiting for the main line to engage to remain a more difficult target, but the Blackjack was on the line itself in the open. So, he would have a chance to see just how good their discipline was – would they break?

"Concentrate all fire on the Blackjack."

…

"I've got them, ducking behind the ridge line."

Wolf glowered as he, too, saw them on the Mongoose's sensor feed, poking their weapons over the ridge. The maneuver protected their legs, but thankfully the Catapults' medium lasers were mounted just below the cockpit on the torso, meaning that more than half of the 'Mech bodies were still exposed.

"Concentrate fire on the right Catapult."

Even as he spoke, sixty LRM's launched into the sky. Alarms screamed and he hauled on the controls, juggling his speed and twisting his torse to the side. It wouldn't do much against direct line-of-sight fire from elevation on an open field, but it might—

The 'Mech jerked backwards as an endless, rolling explosion of light and deafening roar washed over him. Every sensor blanked, overwhelmed, and the forty-five ton beast staggered back a step, then a second. Armor plating rained down, stripping the 'Mech bare. Eight medium lasers seared in, punching holes through the smoke and tearing deep into vulnerable structure and Myomer muscle beneath.

Wolf sat limply in the command chair, stunned, as the Blackjack blindly resumed his last command and started to advance once again. Lasers, autocannons, and missiles ripped back and forth. He blinked furiously, trying to refocus on what was happening. Alarms howled and warnings blinked furiously as he grappled with his overwhelmed brain. Then through the fog came an urgent command. "Wolf, eject now!"

Without thought he reached down between his legs, grasped the ejection handle with both hands, and yanked upwards.

More thunder, this time inside the cockpit itself, as explosive bolts blew the roof off the cockpit and a half-second later the thrusters beneath his seat fired. He was plastered back into his seat, clinging on for dear life as he felt like he was going to be ripped out of his restraints. A swarm of black, lethal missiles streaked past, so close he could feel the heat of their passage, and then the rockets cut out, the chute launched out of the back of his chair, and after a stomach churning two seconds of freefall back to earth, the chute caught the wind and he was falling at a slightly less breakneck pace.

As the seconds trickled past he regathered himself and started to process what had just happened. That had been close. Very close. If that person, who he strongly suspected was Behemoth, hadn't called out to him… the thought railed off as he saw what remained of the Blackjack far below.

The 'Mech lay toppled to one side, half of its torso ripped apart and the left arm and leg simply gone. At least some of the autocannon ammunition had cooked off, leaving holes in the remaining armor from the inside out on the right side. They might, might, be able to recover it. He turned back to the fight, shying away from the thought of losing his 'Mech, and tried to see what was happening. His view was limited as he drifted lower, but he still had a fair view. The remaining 'Mechs continued their relentless advance, pouring in fire on the heavier Catapults, and the light 'Mechs had made their move, leaping out on both sides. He couldn't help but feel a surge of pride as Behemoth kept them together, kept them fighting. They could do this.

Then the command couch crashed down, stunning him once again, and he slipped under.

…

Behemoth breathed a small sigh of relief as Wolf's ejection seat fired, then refocused. "Lance, Behemoth. Keep moving! And keep firing!" The range clicked down to 250 meters and closing, and the lights charged out, sprinting on two sides to envelop them. The move seemed to spook the Capellans, as both Catapults shifted to the right, rotating their torsos to—

"Mongoose, break and run, they're focusing on you! Everyone else, get them now!"

She followed her own instruction, squeezing the trigger again and her shoulder-mounted autocannon bellowed, scoring a glancing hit while her LRM's peppered down. Recoil managed, she shoved the throttle open, bringing the Shadow Hawk up to full speed while she squinted, trying to make out the targets through the glare of lasers and missiles. There!

With the Mongoose back on the run, the Catapults had refocused their fire. "Slant, they're on you! Jump!"

The Phoenix Hawk didn't hesitate, soaring into the sky just as a flurry of lasers slashed at him. Two bit into his left leg, blasting off sheets of armor, but the rest sizzled harmlessly on the ground. With just a hundred meters to go the Catapults shifted aim onto her, their lasers burning rivulets of melted steel into her trusty Shadow Hawk. But at last the range was down and she focused, taking mental control over her 'Mech from the computer. It took far more concentration, but it allowed more dexterity than the computer could handle. She coiled then exploded up into a leap over the ridgeline, firing her head-mounted SRM-2 into the larger 'Mech.

Both Catapults tried to fire their jumpjets and fall back, but only one of them made it—the other staggered as a damaged jumpjet fizzled out.

"Everyone on the runner, I've got this one." She didn't check to see if they obeyed, instead putting all of her attention on the grounded Catapult as she closed in. The 'Mech outweighed her by a fair margin, but it was designed to be a second line unit—it had no arms, and its weapons were all mounted directly on the torso, unable to be aimed without turning the entire upper half of the 'Mech, which made hitting anything at close range difficult.

The Capellan didn't seem fazed by these disadvantages. It stretched in a snap-kick. She slid left, feet skidding on the hillside, and punched the side of the cone-shaped torso. The 'Mech rattled as her fist crunched home, destroying one of the lasers on that side and threatening to tip over the off-balance 'Mech.

The Catapult struggled to get its feed under it and, to Behemoth's surprise, tapped on its remaining jumpjets, skipping backwards and giving it enough upward push to slide its legs back beneath it. She was good, whoever she was. The maneuver kept her off the ground, but it also made her an easy target.

Behemoth squeezed the triggers, sending an autocannon shell, more SRM's, and a laser into the Catapult before charging again. The heavy 'Mech was driven back a step, swiveling its torso to bring its lasers back into play, and opened fire. She shielded her torso with her right arm and closed in, bodily tackling the Catapult. The Capellan kicked desperately and mashed her jumpjets again, but their combined eight was too much and the Catapult toppled over backwards with an earthshaking thud.

The heavy 'Mech thrashed wildly, but Behemoth clung grimly to its legs, and without arms it was helpless to pull itself back upright. She dragged herself bodily over the Catapult to threaten the cockpit and force the pilot's surrender. She raised her fist over the cockpit just as it exploded. The ejection seat launched the pilot nearly horizontal to the ground, risking a messy death, but sending her far out of range back down the mountainside towards the local garrison.

Behemoth extricated herself from the tangle of 'Mechs with a grunt and took in the field. Lasers were still flashing down the far side of the hill, but the Mongoose's sensor showed the last Catapult was heavily damaged, limping away on a gimp leg and down a jumpjet. While she watched an eye-watering PPC blast from Glitch's Vindicator connected with the torso, arcing electricity over the 'Mech and blinding it for crucial seconds.

Slant's Phoenix Hawk leaped in, machine guns blazing away, sending 12.5mm projectiles into the Catapult. Though nearly useless against 'Mech armor, they wreaked havoc on the internal Myomer muscles of a 'Mech once exposed, and sparks flew as something critical inside gave way. Both legs went limp as the 'Mech's spine was severed, sending the machine toppling, after which the emergency shutdown turned off the fusion reactor.

She nodded in approval, then glanced back at the sensor board. Even with the Mongoose, however, she wasn't picking up the last Flea. Well, they weren't in any sort of shape to chase it down, and without backup it wasn't a threat, either. Time to regroup, and hope that Wolf was still in one piece.

…

Wolf woke with a start, jerking against the restraints before remembering where he was and looking around. The ejection seat had kept him in one piece, but it was designed to keep him alive, not to be gentle, he felt like he'd been run over by a truck.

He hit the release on the straps and his shoes crunched in the blackened dirt. He leaned on his knees and coughed on smoky air while the unmistakable karump-karump of missiles erupted in the distance. There was no way to tell which side they belonged to, but at the moment it didn't make much difference to him. Win or lose, his battle was over.

With that thought his body began to shake, trembling hard enough that he had to sit down in the dust as the adrenaline pumping through him abruptly drained away. He closed his eyes and focused on evening out his breathing. After a few moments he'd recovered enough to take in his surroundings.

He'd landed maybe a hundred meters away from the Blackjack. That wasn't too bad, considering the strange vortex of air currents when missiles were ripping back and forth. It wasn't unheard of for ejected pilots to swirl around and land right on top of the smoldering wreckage of their own 'Mech.

It was the work of a moment to unloop the Rugan K12 submachine gun from the back of the command couch and strap it around his waist before setting off for the 'Mech. The incredible noise, violence, and heat of combat had scared off all the wildlife for kilometers, but there was no sense hanging around and waiting for them to come back.

The walk took longer than he'd expected, in part thanks to still shaky legs and in part due to the shifty, disintegrating mess of charcoal that was all that remained in the Catapult's carpet bombing on approach.

He had to slide down the last few meters to reach the Blackjack at the bottom of a small crater. His heart seemed to freeze inside him for a moment as he finally caught sight of it. He'd known it would be bad, but this…

The Blackjack's left leg had been nearly severed from laser fire, then snapped off by mass missile fire. Without a leg it had fallen on its left side, crunching the left arm and exposing the autocannon ammunition to still-raining LRM's, which exploded while still inside their firing feed lines, shredding the internal Myomer artificial muscles and framing.

The right side of the 'Mech wasn't in much better shape. The raw concussive power of that many missiles had cracked and broken off armor plating, and the impact of the fall hadn't helped. No 'Mech was ever a total write-off; there was always something that could be salvaged. But this… there wouldn't be much. He gingerly clambered up into what was left of the head, hands cautious on the still warm metal. The top of the head was simply gone, blown off by the explosive bolts that fired a half-second before the ejection system to give him a path out of the dying 'Mech, and then blown open by LRM's. Gingerly, he eased himself over the lip and landed inside, standing on what had once been the wall.

It was a mess. The explosive bolts had rattled everything around, but the high-intensity, short burn rocket of the ejection system had ravaged the cockpit. Information readouts were cracked, the throttle snapped off, and the joystick simply melted.

Amanda. For a while he simply stood there, unexpected emotion crashing through him. He'd seen more than his fair share of destroyed 'Mechs, but this… this was all he had left of his home. Generations of his family had fought, liked, and died right here in this cockpit. It was more than his machine, it was a member of the family… and it was gone. He thrust the emotions aside, tamping them down to worry about later. His people were still out there, fighting to get out of the trap he'd walked them into, and it was still his job to get them out. And he was still stuck on a hostile world with a native population that really, really disliked him and the people he was being paid to help escape with the treasures they'd plundered. He needed to get back to it.

The cockpit was a charred mess, but the ancient 'Mech designers had realized that if you ejected you probably needed the emergency supplies in the 'Mech, so they'd taken the ejection system into account. Behind the gaping hole he'd been sitting in less than thirty minutes prior were the small, sealed supply cabinets. Though blackened, the tough composite plastic had mostly held up despite its age.

After a few minutes he'd extricated most of the food supplies, a tablet computer, some extra magazines for the Rugan, a first aid kit, and packed it all up in a backpack and headed back outside. He could already hear the distant thumps of 'Mechs on the move, and it wasn't long before he saw Behemoth's Shadowhack crunching over the hillside. He let out a breath of relief and watched them approach. It wasn't often he saw them from ground level, and he couldn't help but feel a hint of intimidation. One flick of a joystick and that machine wouldn't hesitate to, quite literally, step on him.

After a moment's hesitation the Shadowhawk bent to a knee and the cockpit unsealed. A thin, nylon rope fashioned into a ladder fluttered down, followed shortly thereafter by Behemoth's hulking frame. Once back on the ground, she gave him a nod and reported. "Good to see you in one piece, Wolf."

He nodded. "How'd it go?"

"I pinned one of them, and the pilot ejected. They can't fight in melee for shit. That may be salvageable. The other fought on the run, and it took a hell of a beating before it went down. The Flea got away."

"Casualties?"

She shrugged. "Aside from you? The lights are pretty banged up soaking all the LRM's the way they did. We may lose the other Wasp. The Mediums took some hits, too, but the worst was Sumo. He tripped in a gully and went down. He won't admit it, but I'm pretty sure he's hurt. Still, we got off fairly lightly. They were busy concentrating their fire on you."

Wolf couldn't help but wince slightly at the reminder. "They bet that if one of us went down immediately, the rest would break, or at least hesitate long enough that they could break contact and force us to crawl over each hill expecting an attack the whole way." He looked Behemoth in the eye. "That didn't happen, in large part thanks to you. Nice job, Behemoth. And thanks for the reminder to eject."

The corner of her mouth quirked in what might have been a smile, but she simply nodded in acknowledgement. "So what now? You want to squeeze in?"

"No. With two Wasps down, the Crimson Lance is already using the rumble seat in the Phoenix Hawk and doubling up in the Mongoose. If you get into a fight, they'll have to hide or risk killing their pilot without a rumble seat. It's not a sure thing that you'll be clear all the way to the landing sight, so you'll need every Medium 'Mech ready to fight. No, I'll be fine here. Take the lance and keep moving. Break out into the open, avoid the tanks as long as you can, and then come back for me once you meet up with Sumire."

Behemoth hesitated, unhappy about leaving behind the Company's commander, but not quite willing to offer up her own 'Mech.

"Go on, Behemoth. No time to lose. And besides, I want to say goodbye."

With that she nodded and jogged back to the waiting Shadow Hawk, climbed up, and the hulking pile of armor and weapon systems turned and marched away.

Wolf, for his part, returned to the ruined cockpit and set up camp. It was protection from the elements, unlikely to attract wildlife for a while, and most importantly, it was home.