He twisted his attitude controls wildly forward, sensing the pitch of his 'Mech through his helmet. The 'Mech splayed out, arms out, belly down, once again in the sky-diver's position he'd assumed after first ejecting from the DropShip.
The world stopped for that last, hurtling instant. If he'd guessed wrong, if that invitingly-solid swatch of land was, in fact, solid, his spread-eagled 'Mech would slam face on into the ground at ten meters per second. The Victorwould be wrecked, and he would almost certainly be killed.
The field swooshed up to meet him, and he fell into it with a roar like exploding artillery. The impact wracked Ardan against his shoulder restraints and left him gasping for breath in his helmet. His 'Mech had driven through the surface of the swamp and face-down into the mud, of course, but his spread-eagle position had kept him from driving too fast, too deep. BattleMechs do not float. Nevertheless, he was not swallowed by the ooze. Driven by the full power of his 'Mech's leg and arm actuators, he moved, first one arm, then one leg, the other arm, the other leg. He could see nothing but sticky blackness through the Victor'sforward screens, now spread out disconcertingly under where he hung suspended from his pilot's seat, but instrument lights showed that his backpack was awash above the viscous mud.
His headphones caught a burst of rapid speech, garbled but from a transmission close by. Good! His antennae was clear, too.
"This is Gold Leader, down and in need of assistance." Speaking slowly and distinctly into the slender microphone suspended in front of his mouth as he scanned the assigned combat frequencies, Ardan forced the words into some semblance of control. God, there had to be someone down close by. He'd seen other Mechs near, just before he'd hit.
Right now, he almost didn't care whether it was Davion or House Liao forces that found him. For the moment, everything seemed to take a back seat to simple survival.
"Gold Leader calling, down and in need of assistance. Does anybody copy?"
"Gold Leader, this is Green Three." The reply washed over Ardan like ocean breakers, leaving him weak with relief. "I copy," said Green Three. "I have you in sight. Stand by for a cable."
Following carefully explicit directions from his rescuer, Ardan closed the Victor'sleft hand around a tow cable that the other 'Mech fired across the back of his machine. In moments, Green Three had braced the heavy cable around a low, spreading swamp tree more massive than any 'Mech, and Ardan was using the cable to work his way, meter by painful meter, toward solid ground.
It took almost half an hour to get free. Not only was the cable slick with mud and algae slime, but Ardan had the use of only his left hand because the Victor's right arm mounted a Pontiac 100 autocannon instead of manipulators. At least a dozen times during that slow, wet crawl, Ardan wondered what he would have done had he been in, say, a Marauderor Sep's WarHammer.Without hands, he would have been helpless, and every movement would have carried his machine deeper into the ooze.
At last, feeling solid ground under his feet, he brought the Victorup to its knees. His rescuer, a hulking Crusader-D,helped him to his feet. "You're a sight, sir," the Crusader'spilot told him, "but I'm awfully glad to see you! I think I'm lost!"
"You're not half as glad as I am, pilot," Ardan said, his voice unsteady, his hands trembling slightly on the Victor'scontrols. "Who are you with?" He'd already picked out the emblem of the 17th Avalon Hussars on the Crusader'sright leg.
"Code group Red Dog. Seventeenth Hussars, sir. Company A, First Battalion."
"Company A...that's Morrison's Marauders, right?"
"Right, sir!" He could hear the surprise in the boy's voice. Senior officers rarely knew the details of the units in their command, but Ardan was different. He'd spent long hours studying the stat sheets of all of his tactical commanders, down to company level.
The Crusadergestured toward the east "I think we were supposed to come down someplace closer to that ridge over there, but I've been having trouble finding solid ground heading in that direction."
"What's your name, trooper?"
‘MechWarrior Donald Fitzgerald, sir. Number three in Fire Lance O'Hanrahan."
"Well, Donald. What say we find ourselves some Marauders. Morrison's Marauders, that is...not the other kind."
"YesSIR!"
The two ‘Mechs moved toward the southeast through swamp and open forest The terrain was not the impassable tangle of bogs Ardan had been dreading, nor was it as dry as the planetological tapes had suggested it should be during the local dry season. He finally decided that the pool where he'd nearly lost himself was one of a large number of small, irregular, and ill-defined lakes and ponds that sprinkled the entire upland stretch of the Ordolo Basin. The name "Lost Lakes" came to him, and Ardan realized he'd found at least one of them. Seeing a small cascade of rainwater shower from the broad leaves of a tree as he brushed past, he remembered that even during the dry season, it rains periodically in a jungle. The lakes would be larger and deeper now, the ground softer, so soon after a tropical rainstorm.
The mud sucked at the feet of his Victorwith every step Ardan took. If this was dry weather, he decided to definitely take a pass on visiting the Ordolo Basin during the rainy season.
13
As travel grew easier, Ardan's radio also began to pick up a constant stream of chatter from a number of different units. It sounded as if a battle had erupted just to the east. "Green Two, Green Two!" one voice called with sharp urgency. "Break right, the bastard's behind you!"
"Copy! Hot damn, where'd he come from! Watch it, Blue Twelve! There's a Pantherzeroing on you, five o'clock!"
"Break left, Seven! Break left! Oh, damn!”
“Here he comes. Steady, steady! Hose him down!”
“Mayday! Mayday! She's going to blow! I'm punching out!"
Ardan and Fitzgerald hurried their pace.
The two 'Mechs broke free of the forest and entered the battle almost simultaneously. The ground had been rising steadily as they made their way further and further east. Perhaps three kilometers from where Ardan had landed, the forest gave way to an uneven plain covered with blue grass knee-deep on the 'Mechs. The eastern horizon was dominated by the ridge, a low and mostly wooded line of steep-sided hills or eroded mountains, none more than 800 meters high. The plain stretched toward the ridge across perhaps ten kilometers, and the area had become a killing zone as 'Mech struggled wildly with 'Mech.
In the distance, a low line of bunkers with green-mottled, camouflage roofs told Ardan what had happened. There'd been a camp here, probably a full battalion of Liao 'Mechs and possibly an air lance, too, placed well clear of the city and in position to close off the neck of the Highland Peninsula once the counterinvasion was grounded. Instead, part of the Davion drop had come down squarely in the middle of the Liao camp.
A TDR Thunderboltseemed to rise out of the grass 200 meters in front of Ardan, an illusion created by its sudden move from a hidden fold in the ground. Ardan had only an instant to recognize the raised arm-and-sword against the inverted green triangle on the 'Mech's bulky torso. The 'Mech's right arm heavy laser was swinging down in line with Ardan's cockpit