Then Jonathan’s gray eyes slitted. Something happening further inland… Intrigued, Jonathan nudged out a series of light, controlled bursts from his jump jets, correcting for his approach. The curve of Saffel’s horizon flattened as he lost altitude and then the ’Mech slid right as a sudden howl of air rushed over his ferroglass canopy. He was aware of a squeal of metal, a slight creaking as winds driven from inland toward the sea by gravity pummeled the Panther. Gravity palmed his body, and he worked at pushing air in and out, but still relished the way the rumble of his jump jets swelled to merge with the roar of atmosphere. He was God, descending on a pillar of flame.
His eyes skipped to the ice field again. What the devil?… Oh, he saw the tanks; three Destroyers and three Bellonas pockmarked with ugly black scorches, like the splattered bodies of huge tarantulas, runny with molten armor. A smoking crater on one where a PPC bolt had cored away the turret—but that Bellona was still in the fight.
But then, there was the fourth Bellona, the one dropping back. That, and a flipped ice-sled, a spool of gray smoke canted seaward by wind. But still too high to… Reaching left, he flicked his infrared sensor active, studied his secondary viewing screen. Blinked.
Men.
Six pairs, twelve in all, in battlearmor. Inner Sphere standard, not Kuritan, and yes, he remembered now, the only scheduled infantry drop was for Iwanji, not here—and now! More heat, very intense, and Jonathan jerked his eyes from his infrared to the view beneath his canopy. Fire, spurting from the Bellona’s flamer, licking the ice in a rough parabola back and forth as the wind snatched at the pillar of fire, now feeding it, now nearly guttering—and a good thirty meters shy of the Raiders troops.
Melting the ice. But why? How could that…?
“Hey!” A shout in his helmet, loud enough to hurt: Kyle in the Locust. Momentarily disoriented, Jonathan was about to reply, when Kyle continued, nearly frantic, “Sakamoto-san, what’s wrong? Can you hear me? Please respond!”
Jonathan had made only two mistakes his entire life. An infinitesimal error of such little consequence twenty years ago that he wouldn’t discover the magnitude of his lapse for some time to come. Another, not long ago, but also small, negligible. But now, he made his third. As the frequency filled with the panicked gabble of Kyle trying to raise Sakamoto, and now from the DropShip wanting to know what was going on, Jonathan realized that he hadn’t kept track of his dear warlord and that would not do. His eyes snapped from the men, and cut right, then down…
There, far below and directly over that blue sea: Sakamoto’s No-Dachi. Not leading the charge but spinning on its back, arms and legs splayed, the sun glinting off its blade as the No-Dachi spun and tumbled—the dying points of a doomed star.
The job. Whistler was hot as hell, cooking from anxiety and exertion, even as pulverized ice showered over his armor. Whistler’s tongue flicked to his upper lip, and his mouth filled with the taste of wet salt. He concentrated on the feel of the sonic drill, the peculiar brrrrr of vibration he felt even through the armor. The job, just do the job. He was aware of the Bellona, glanced up once, saw the wall of fire, knew that the trough the tank was digging between them and the BattleMaster was widening and deepening, like a moat. Blinking away sweat, Whistler squinted at his depth gauge, read that the sonic drill had made it down thirty meters, and thought that, okay, this was pretty good. All he needed was ten, fifteen meters, and then they could load in the charge…
There was so much noise from the drills, and Whistler was so intent on the job, he didn’t really hear McClintock at first—just a blat of sound that was and then wasn’t. But then everyone was shouting, and then Whistler looked up, saw that they were all pointing up and east. Swinging his head up, Whistler saw the yellow-orange blasts from jump jets from two other ’Mechs, felt his stomach go cold—and then saw something else, in the east, above a shimmering wall of flame as the Bellona kept on, its pilot oblivious to the ’Mechs falling from the sky…
And to the one hurtling toward the sea, fast as a meteor.
“Mother of God,” Whistler said.
Falling, tumbling, twisting, the ’Mech bulleted for the sea, hit—and shattered.
Carillan Sector, Iwanji, Saffel
“Damn you, Sterling, get out of here!” Parks throttled up, pushed his Jupiter into a lumbering trot. Not enough to outrun a DropShip, but that wasn’t the point. If he could just clear the trees, he could lob his remaining LRMs, give Sterling a fighting chance and then…
A clot of troopers reared up at the grove’s edge, just to his right, and instead of canting left, he lowered his Jupiter’s cockpit and charged. He saw the troopers flinch back in surprise, then settle to ready their shot just as he veered and crashed into a trio of sycamores the troopers had been using for cover. Hesitation—then the trees gave, falling away from his cockpit, torn earth and exposed roots sheeting over ferroglass; the roar grinding out the troopers’ screams.
He was so busy looking right he forgot to look left. His alarms shrilled as an armor-piercing round bored into the rear housing of his left PPC, perilously close to his left rack. The impact made him stumble, and he came down hard on the weakened left leg actuator. No need for the DI’s report; he felt the leg crumple, heard the grating of actuators. Parks screamed in fury as his Jupiter toppled like a felled tree. Desperate to avoid landing face-first, he twisted, threw the Jupiter’s right arm out to break his fall. To his horror, his autocannon barrels on that side snagged, then broke off under the punishing weight driving the Jupiter down, down…
A shrieking yelp that knifed his brain, and then Sterling’s Ocelot sailed over the Jupiter’s canopy, both pulse lasers snap-firing. Her strategy came clear in an instant as the downed foliage and felled trees ignited in a roar of flame and black smoke that momentarily hid him from view.
Parks had no time to give his thanks. He was in the clear now, even if he was cantilevered, left rack useless unless he could get it turned around… Straining, knowing what he was about to do but doing it anyway, Parks rammed his Jupiter’s torso hard left. His heat scale rocketed into the red, and the DI bawled out a warning, then began countdown to auto-shutdown. “Frac that!” Parks roared. Moving at lightning speed, he punched in the heat lockout override code on his keypad, and then he kept pushing, pushing…
“Please,” he grunted, praying that his power wouldn’t go, knowing he was going to die; this was so stupid, this was cockeyed, but it was the only way, the only way! “Please, please, please!…”
There was an unearthly scream, a shrill of metal as the Jupiter’s right elbow joint gearing sheared, buckled, snapped. Instantly, Parks was falling, his ’Mech crashing onto its back. He might even have blacked out for a second but no more than that. Now, blue sky overhead, then smoke, and then the DropShip looming closer, and then balls of gray smoke from some circuitry giving up the ghost, making his lungs seize… but no matter; the whole thing had taken no more than ten seconds and nothing mattered anymore because he still had power and there was this last thing he had to do.
Coughing, gagging, fighting for breath, Parks brought his targeting HUD up at the flick of a finger, acquired and touched off his last volley of fifteen missiles—at the precise instant that J. Sterling, probably hoping to save his ass, jumped again.