[Evanmd]

In case it wasn't clear, the book is about a mercenary. Circa 3025. These characters have been kicking around in my head for well over a decade. It's nice to finally share their story.

CHAPTER ONE

August 3025

Ten was a mercenary, though Ten was not his real name. The nickname came from his rank—Captain, shortened to its last syllable—and had stuck so thoroughly that even people who knew better used it.

He was sure his parents wished that he would do something else, and that people would call him by his real name. Ten was a college boy; he had graduated from the University of Barrington. Even got honors too. His family was quite well-to-do, and there was the expectation that his future would be filled with important jobs doing important things for important companies. Instead, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. His parents would say things like Are you sure you wouldn't rather take the job on New Avalon? Don't you want to work on the next engineering breakthrough? What they really meant was Why are you wasting your life? We raised you better than this. Sorry to disappoint.

He got assigned to a planetary militia on a backwater planet and immediately decided his parents had very good points, but by that point it was too late. The militia sucked. His days were filled with self-important, lazy officers assigning busywork. There was also less than adequate equipment and training. The one positive was that he did train to pilot a 'Mech. He did pretty well with it too. After his three years were up, he decided that there was no way he was reupping and mustered out. He decided the best thing to do was compound his parents' disappointment and join the Agency Group, becoming a mercenary. The tattoos he'd accumulated didn't charm them either.

Mercenary work was a fairly simple existence if you reduced it to the essentials: negotiate, get shot at, shoot back, get paid, repair. Rinse and repeat. He didn't mind the repair part of the cycle, except for the actual repairs part. A repair bay clogged with the scent of scorched myomer mixed with the fumes from coolant felt like a hangover with none of the fun.

"Those aren't refurbished."

Six actuator-bearing assemblies sat in gray shipping foam beneath a clean purchase invoice and enough preservative grease to make the shipment look respectable. The data plates matched the purchase order. The housings did not match one another.

One had been polished until most of the scoring disappeared. Another had been painted while corrosion was still visible beneath the finish. A third had clearly been on fire.

Four years for a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering all so he could deduce that some idiot had dragged this actuator out of a burning dumpster and charged him actual C-bills for it. His parents would be so proud of the breakthroughs he was making.

Doc folded his arms beside the crate. "The invoice says refurbished."

"It says inspected too," Ten said.

Doc was the Agency Group's senior technician, an older man with slicked-back gray hair, extremely thick glasses, and a white lab coat permanently marked with grease. He leaned closer to the scorched assembly and squinted through the lenses.

"Maybe the inspector was very far away."

Devonshire, Doc's semi-attached right-hand man and junior tech, made a small sound through his nose and grimaced.

Ten picked up the burned assembly and turned it beneath the bay lights. Someone had removed and restamped the serial plate. The new number was almost straight too. Good work. Real pride in the craft.

"Please tell me we didn't pay them yet ... did we?" he asked.

"Only half," Devonshire said. "The balance on acceptance."

Ten dropped the assembly back in the foam. "Good. I don't accept them."

Around them, the repair bay continued working. Pneumatic wrenches hammered. Someone called for a diagnostic lead and received three different answers. Coolant vapor drifted around the feet of Ten's Centurion, making it look somehow more terrifying.

Ten felt someone push over his shoulder to look. It was Davies, Ten's lance mate and best friend. He had not been part of the discussion, which had rarely prevented him from joining one.

Davies studied the parts with grave concern. "Could put one in Reilly's Hunchback. It only needs one arm to do what she does with it."

Six meters away, Reilly—another lance mate and, yeah, something more—stood on a service ladder beneath her Hunchback's open cockpit hatch. She read a diagnostic tablet, not bothering to look down. Her middle finger was clearly visible. It looked good on her. Most things did.

Gallo sat on a tool cabinet beside his Catapult's left foot, coffee in one hand while a tech worked inside an open access panel above him. He had been listening and just shook his head. Gallo was the final member of Ten's lance: a tall Black man with thick muscles, a shaved head, and a quiet soul aged beyond his 26 years, so much so that many of the younger pilots had mistaken him for a man in his 40s. He rarely interjected in conversations, but when he did, people listened.

Doc continued examining the assemblies, clearly growing annoyed with all the people in his repair bay. He pointed toward the bay doors. "All four of you. Go somewhere else."

Ten moved out of Doc's way and opened the purchase order on his noteputer. Able Company needed four of the assemblies immediately and the other two as spares. Of particular concern was Davies' Blackjack, which had developed a vibration that he described as comforting.

Ten's dislike for the repair bay might only be matched by his dislike for parts acquisition. It was an endless parade of bullshit artists that required strict attention since the entirety of Galatea's supply economy fell between questionable and fraud. Somehow, he'd gotten stuck in this role. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned the part about the college degree during his interview.

Ten called the supplier, and a pudgy but cheerful face appeared on the noteputer: Pellen. He was a parts broker with the manner of a man who believed he could sell a life-support system to a dead man. Ten disliked Pellen. A lot. He wasn't sure whether being a parasite was a choice or if he was born that way.

"Captain," Pellen said, dripping with sweetness. "I assume the shipment arrived."

"It did."

Pellen saw Ten's expression. "Problem?"

Ten turned the noteputer toward the crate. Devonshire held up the burned assembly.

"Your refurbished parts are having some trouble with the refurbished part."

Pellen's expression became wounded.

"Surface wear is normal with reclaimed military components," he said. "Your technicians know that."

"They do," Ten said. "They also know when somebody removes serial plates."

Pellen didn't answer right away.

"Captain, I assure you—"

"Pick them up and bring six replacements when you come. Today."

"Six today isn't practical."

"Then refund the deposit."

"I don't see why we need to—"

Ten narrowed his eyes.

"Your reputation is shit, and I will make it shittier, but not before I have some of the bigger guys from infantry personally return them to you."

Behind Ten, Davies turned a laugh into a cough.

Pellen glanced offscreen while someone spoke to him. "I can get four units to you today. Two tomorrow."

"Six today. Tested. Ten percent off," Ten growled.

"Five percent."

"Twelve."

Pellen frowned. "You said ten!"

"Speak again and it goes up to fifteen percent."

Ten continued to look at Pellen with a withering expression, not speaking.

Pellen blinked and gave a fake smile. "Twelve percent, then." The call ended.

Ten found a level of joy in ruining Pellen's day, not that he didn't deserve it.

Doc took the noteputer from Ten, checked the delivery notation, and handed it back.

"The Boss called while you were negotiating," he said. "Readiness meeting at fourteen hundred. You are required."

The Boss was, well, the boss of the Agency Group. Technically, his rank was colonel, but nobody had ever actually called him that as far as Ten was aware. Nobody knew much about him other than he had been in a House line unit before this. There was an open bet as to which House he had been with that had grown to a substantial pile of C-bills. What people did know was that he brought the Agency Group into existence with nothing more than sheer force of will, and that brought respect.

Ten checked the time. Sigh.

"FTA," he said.

After swallowing his coffee, Gallo called, "You're not in the army anymore."

"Somehow they didn't get the message."

Davies lifted a hand. "I feel for you. ****** the Army."

Reilly looked at him. "You were never in the army."

"I support the troops," he said with an innocent look on his face.

Doc pointed toward the bay doors again. "Out. Now."

* * *

Before he made it out the door, Taylor, lieutenant of Able Two, fell in with Ten and walked to the end of the repair bay. They had first met each other in militia service on a Federated Suns border world. She had been good then. She was better now.

Her Wasp stood closest to the exterior doors, narrow beside the heavier machines. Behind it were the two Jenners and the Commando that completed Able Two, the company's scout lance. One of the Jenners stood on a maintenance cradle with its hip open for the replacement bearing.

Taylor spoke. "I heard about the nonsense with Pellen." Eavesdropped, more like.

"I want a full-speed trial before dark to see if the part checks out. Anything else wrong with the lance?"

Taylor chewed her lip and thought. "No. The other three are ready."

Taylor gave him a faint smile, saluted, and returned to the Jenner.

Able Three occupied the far end of the bay. Kasir's Orion stood at the center, with the Rifleman, Zeus, and Thug arranged around it. Kasir was checking the Orion's right-torso autocannon feed when Ten approached. He climbed down from the maintenance stand without being asked.

"Captain."

"The Boss called another highly exciting readiness meeting, so I need your status."

"The Orion is ready. The Zeus will be ready this evening. The Rifleman needs calibration after the feed work. The Thug is operational, but the left knee is near its wear limit. The lance can deploy." Kasir was matter-of-fact and consistently honest. If he said the lance could deploy, then it could deploy.

Agency Group troops had pulled him out after his Davion line unit was nearly annihilated. Kasir regarded joining the mercenaries as repayment of a debt. Ten had told him a rescue was not a loan. Kasir had listened politely and joined anyway.

"The replacement bearings are arriving today?"

Ten nodded, then continued his walk toward headquarters.

* * *

Agency Group headquarters sat outside Galatea City, set back from the hangars and close enough to the edge of a canyon so that its northern windows looked over open air.

Being involved in purchasing had earned Ten a place in managerial meetings. Lucky him.

The readiness meeting was gathering when Ten arrived. The three battalion majors were present, along with senior staff. Screens along the wall showed personnel strength, machine status, ammunition reserves, and transport commitments.

The Boss stood at the head of the table in an open-collared work shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Gray marked his hair. His face was cleanly shaven. He wore no uniform jacket or decorations. His presence communicated who and what he was.

The meeting dragged on until it was Ten's turn to give his report. He gave a brief readiness summary, and the meeting moved on. He hoped everyone else would be as efficient as he was. The less people talked, the quicker it was over.

The reports continued through Second Battalion and Third, which still existed mostly on paper. The Boss wanted a regiment large enough to survive a bad contract and profit from the good ones. The irony was that the only way to pay for the new 'Mechs was to find a war, and the only way to survive the war was to buy more 'Mechs. It was a perfect idiot loop of violence and debt.

The discussion shifted to retainers, personnel, technical shortages, fuel, ammunition, and the monthly cost of remaining on Galatea while waiting for work. Galatea was built around that wait. The Mercenary's Star had hiring halls, repair yards, brokers, bankers, recruiters, suppliers, and fixers. Its economy prepared people for wars taking place somewhere else and took a cut of their money before they left.

Finally, The Boss closed the folder in front of him. The meeting was mercifully over, and everyone shuffled out. The Boss caught him before he was out the door.

"Ten, stay."

"One of the contracts may become real tonight," The Boss said before Ten could ask.

"Which one?"

"Go have a drink. Be here at eight tomorrow. Bring your lance commanders."

* * *

Gritty's stood only a few blocks from Ten's apartment, nestled between a nice block of local shops and a street on the other side of which was that part of town. While it was physically removed from the war industry section of Galatea City, that didn't stop the war types from showing up to blow some cash. It had dark, moody lighting with a U-shaped bar in the middle of the room flanked by high-top tables and booths in the back. The pleasantly rowdy atmosphere made it a favorite amongst 'Mech pilots, techs, fixers, and low-end brokers. Tonight the cigarette smoke was pleasantly light.

Ten entered wearing the cleanest jacket he had found in his locker. Dust from the maintenance bay still marked his boots. He had considered going back to his quarters to change properly, but he didn't want to keep Davies and Reilly waiting. And The Boss had told him to go have a drink, so who was he to argue?

Davies, Reilly, and—surprisingly—Gallo sat in a booth toward the back. Davies had three empty beer glasses in front of him despite it being early evening. He also had a big smile. Ten slid into the booth next to Reilly. Gallo occupied the seat facing the entrance, somewhat detached from the other two. He did that everywhere, and Ten had stopped asking whether it was habit or preference.

"Are our 'Mechs going to fall apart?" Davies asked. "I don't think I have any duct tape left."

"We got the replacement parts, and so far, nothing appears broken."

Davies smiled. "Seems like we should toast, then. You don't have a beer, though. You should fix that, and while you're up, bring reinforcements." Ten got up and ordered himself a beer along with another round for the table and then returned.

Reilly's shoulder settled against his while Davies began arguing that any savings from Pellen's discount should be credited to Able Company's recreation budget. Reilly believed Davies should never be permitted near a budget. Gallo sipped his drink rather slowly and declined to give his opinion.

While Davies defended his proposal, Ten studied the room. Despite the generally rowdy clientele, if you looked closely enough, business was still being conducted. Near the front, a Lyran representative and a contractor sat over a closed portfolio, their conversation too quiet to hear over the din.

At the bar, another broker was talking to a young mercenary commander. The young man was light-haired, tall, and listening with an attention that suggested he was already suspicious.

Ten went to the bar to get another beer. As he waited, he heard the broker describe a security contract as straightforward, with limited opposition and favorable salvage.

The young man considered. "Define straightforward?"

Ten saw the folder between them and the broker's careful smile. Ten chimed in. "Usually means somebody left out a few important details."

The young man smiled. The broker did not and reminded Ten that the negotiation was private.

"You're at a bar. Private isn't on the menu," Ten said.

The bartender set down his beer. Before Ten could pay, the young man put down a few C-bills, then offered his hand.

"Grayson Carlyle."

"Ten."

"Thanks for the second opinion," Grayson said. Someone behind him called his name, and he began walking back to them, leaving the broker scowling.

"Good luck," Ten said.

Galatea produced dozens of such meetings every night, and by the time Ten got back to the table, he had already forgotten the man's name.

Gallo saw the interaction and asked who the person was.

"A young mercenary captain," Ten said.

Davies raised his glass. "To a long and profitable career."

The conversation moved on. They discussed the condition of Able Company and a fight in Baker Company's barracks that had begun over a card game and ended with one broken chair, a broken hand, and two people in the hospital. The person with the broken hand was named Rock. Davies intensely disliked him and thought this was very funny. Reilly thought he was an idiot. The night continued like this, with an increasingly drunk Davies telling a story about being thrown out of a casino. Each version added another security guard. Gallo corrected him only once, which only made Davies embellish the story more. While this was occurring, Reilly leaned closer against Ten. Davies continued to explain why a casino's objection to counting cards was an attack on mathematics.

Reilly shifted against him and asked whether he was thinking about the morning meeting.

"Trying not to."

"How's that going for you?"

Ten shook his head, and she gave him a brief look that said she understood.

He left before midnight because The Boss had said eight. Reilly left with him.

Outside, Galatea City remained bright with traffic and illuminated neon lights. The din of Gritty's vanished when the door closed behind them. Engines echoed between buildings. Music leaked from a basement club across the street. A recruiting billboard promised excellent pay, generous salvage, and advancement based on ability. Someone had scrawled ASK ABOUT RETIREMENT beneath it.

Reilly asked whether they were going to his place. Ten told her Davies had threatened to stop by without any warning.

"Sometimes when he gets bored after the bar closes, he will knock on my door to see if I'm still up," he said.

"My place, then."

They had been doing this—whatever this was—for years. Sometimes they spent most of a leave together. Sometimes months passed between them. Contracts, other people, and bad timing interrupted the pattern but never could seem to kill it.

After another block, Reilly asked what The Boss had kept him for. Ten told her a contract might be ready and that he knew nothing more.

At her building, Reilly keyed them through the entrance. The lobby was quiet, the night attendant absorbed in a screen behind the desk. She headed for the elevator, and Ten followed without either of them saying anything.

Inside her apartment, Reilly closed the door, locked it, and turned toward him. The conversation about contracts ended there. She caught the front of his shirt and kissed him with none of the casual restraint she had shown on the street.

Ten put the morning meeting, the supplier, and Davies out of his mind. He slid her jacket from her shoulders while she worked his shirt loose from his pants. They bumped into the small table beside the door, steadied it together, and kept going.

"Graceful," Ten said against her mouth. She bit his lip.

They reached the bedroom with most of their clothes already off. Ten pulled her down onto the bed, and Reilly drew him close. They had sex with an easy familiarity; it was unhurried at first, then less so.

Afterward, Reilly rested a hand at the nape of his neck, absentmindedly playing with his dark hair. Ten lay partly across her until she shifted beneath him and told him he was heavy.

"You seemed supportive a minute ago."

"Circumstances changed."

Ten moved to her side. Reilly pulled the sheet over them, put one arm across his chest, and switched off the light.

* * *

Reilly's alarm sounded at six thirty. She reached across Ten, shut it off, and remained where she was with one arm across his chest.

"You have a meeting," she said.

Ten kept his eyes closed. "Then why did you turn that off?"

"I don't like the noise."

The room was dim and cool. Traffic murmured far below the window. Reilly's long dark hair had fallen across half her face, and one bare foot hung off the side of the bed.

Ten suggested she attend the meeting for him. Reilly said The Boss would notice his new higher voice and breasts.

He got out of bed first and made coffee while she was still putting on her shirt and poured himself a cup. He couldn't find one of his socks and had to go back into the bedroom to look for it. When he came back, Reilly was sipping on a cup of coffee that looked very familiar.

"Thief."

Reilly gave an exaggerated hurt expression.

"Who? Me? So rude."

At the door, she told him not to volunteer Able for anything stupid.

"Never happen."

She kissed him once, then told him not to buy any more burned parts. Ten told her not to hit Davies before the briefing.

Reilly began shutting the door behind him. "No."

* * *

At seven fifty-five, Ten entered headquarters. Taylor and Kasir were already in the conference room waiting. He hated being the last one in.

The Boss stood beside the display wall, where a star map filled the screen.

"Able is going to Maxie's Planet."

The world lay inside the Lyran Commonwealth and close enough that it wouldn't take much time to get there.

"Sit," The Boss said.

The display changed to show six red markers: two cargo thefts, three raids on remote facilities, and one shuttle later found wrecked in the mountains. The planetary government was offering an anti-piracy contract.

Ten read the summary while The Boss spoke. Cargo had disappeared from routes crossing the same region. The remote facilities had been struck hard and abandoned before militia forces could respond. Whoever was responsible understood local travel times.

"The best estimate is five or six BattleMechs," The Boss said. "Mixed weights. Conventional infantry and vehicles are likely." Emphasis on estimate.

The employer wanted the raiders killed or captured and the installation demolished. Recovered cargo brought a bonus, and salvage would be divided under standard terms.

Ten reviewed the financial terms. The number was generous without being extraordinary. Transport, ammunition, and projected repairs had been accounted for. The employer had put enough money in escrow to cover the initial movement.

"Are there any local forces?" Ten asked.

"Very few. They'll secure the population centers and transport routes. They won't assault the base."

The Boss looked at Ten. "That's the contract. It's now your operation."

Ten felt a brick form in his stomach. He had run the company for a long time, but he'd never been deployed alone. Never had mission command. Never had to worry about losing people on his word alone.

Outside the room, headquarters was already buzzing. Transport coordinators opened channels to DropShip crews. Staff officers carried supply manifests and loading schedules between offices. In the 'Mech bays, machines would come off maintenance stands, armor would be inspected again, and personal gear would collect beside cockpit ladders.

Three days later, they would leave Galatea to go pirate hunting, demolish the base, and collect the payment. He should send an HPG message to his parents before they left telling them how boring work was so they wouldn't worry.

[Wrangler]

It's a cool story 😎

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER TWO

THE PIRATE CONTRACT

In a flash, the JumpShip entered the system. The docking collar released, and the Union-class DropShip ferrying Able Company began burning for the planet. The final briefing began while they were still four days out from landing.

The Union's briefing room could accommodate twelve pilots comfortably, or twelve pilots, their senior techs, two operations officers, several people who had wandered in because the hatch was open, and a partridge in a pear tree. Ten counted twenty-six before giving up. Under thrust, at least everyone stayed where they had put themselves.

Ten was beside the central display with one hand braced against the table. Aboard the ship, with Able Company packed around him and a planet growing closer, things felt less administrative. The people in the room would soon climb into their machines and act on whatever he told them now.

"The employer transmitted an updated intelligence summary this morning. Some of it is useful. The rest was written by people who charge by the word."

That got a few smiles without turning the room into a comedy club. Good. Ten brought up the first image: a warehouse with half its roof gone and black burn marks above the loading bays. The next showed three cargo haulers reduced to metal frames.

The heading beneath the images read LIMITED-DURATION NONSTATE INTERDICTION EVENTS.

Davies leaned forward from the wall behind Ten. "'Pirates' sounds judgmental."

"They may have objected to the branding," Ten said.

The raids had begun seven months earlier with cargo thefts from isolated roads. The attackers initially took goods that could be used or sold almost anywhere: machine tools, vehicle parts, medical supplies, packaged food. Later attacks became more selective. A power substation lost replacement components but not its cash office. A mineral-survey camp was stripped of communications equipment and coolant pumps.

Kasir sat upright beside Taylor.

"They are supplying something," he said. "Not simply taking cargo for resale."

"That's the employer's assessment too."

The suspected base appeared next. An abandoned geological station sat in a shallow valley at the northern end of the highlands. Old industrial roads wandered south through lightly forested areas before disappearing under decades of windblown soil. Word had it that the survey company had failed forty years earlier. Someone had since repaired the roofs, graded part of the main road, and brought the power back online.

The main approach from the southwest crossed between two grassy ridges and descended into an open field. A second route followed a dry watercourse from the south. Taylor studied the topographic display, squinting slightly, and enlarged the southern side of the valley. "And this?"

The employer's analysts had labeled the second route impassable to military traffic. Impassable was a state of mind to a scout. Taylor was a magician, and there was no doubt that she could get her Wasp, the Jenners, and the Commando to squeeze through.

After a pause, he spoke. "The plan is for Taylor to move her scouts up the dry watercourse before dawn. My lance will follow far enough back that we don't blow her cover. Kasir will establish Able Three near the grassy ridges."

"The objective is to learn what's there," Ten said. "If we find five or six badly maintained 'Mechs and thirty idiots in a warehouse, we move in and clear them out. If we find hardened defenses and a more sizable force, we regroup and plan."

By the time the briefing ended, every available surface held pencils, cups, and printed maps Davies had tried to sail at the back of Reilly's head.

Reilly and Gallo remained as the room emptied.

"Do you believe the force estimate?" Reilly asked.

"I think it was someone's best estimate."

Reilly looked at him with a serious expression. "They repaired a forty-year-old station without anyone noticing. Pirates are generally morons."

"People notice what costs them money," Gallo said. "The raids did. The roof didn't."

"We'll know more on the ground," Ten said.

* * *

The BattleMech bay was louder under thrust. Pumps and ventilation fans vibrated through the deck, while restraint chains shifted against their fittings whenever the ship corrected course. Twelve machines stood in two facing rows with their feet locked into deck cradles as an army of techs swarmed over them.

His Centurion occupied the forward cradle of Able One. The access panel was open on the left torso. Devonshire was halfway inside while Doc watched, his stained white coat hanging open.

"Problem?" Ten asked.

"Inspection," Doc said.

"You inspected it yesterday."

Doc looked up through the lenses of his glasses. "A Doc a day keeps the death away."

Ten continued down the row. Reilly was on the maintenance platform beside her Hunchback's cockpit, one boot on the railing. She had changed out of duty clothes and wore an old shirt with a faded New Avalon FC crest. Ten had owned one like it before it disappeared from his apartment several years earlier.

"Nice shirt," he said as he climbed the platform.

"Found it."

"In my apartment?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

She shifted her boot to let him pass but noticed that he seemed distracted.

"The contract bother you?" she asked.

"Not yet," he said. "I'm just going through a mental checklist to make sure nothing is ****** up before we hit the planet."

Reilly considered him. "You think too much when you're responsible for everyone."

"I thought too much before."

"You hid it better."

What she noticed was the part of command Ten found the hardest: a company decision was made once and experienced twelve different ways. Ultimately those twelve experiences then funneled back to the original decision. If someone didn't make it back to the ship, he was the one who had to zip the bag and write the letter.

Ten looked across the bay. "The Boss told me it was my operation. The idea freaked me out then, but not like it is now." Mildly suppressed terror.

Reilly touched his shoulder.

"Get some sleep while you can."

* * *

Maxie's Planet filled the forward display as a gray-green curve broken by cloud.

Ten watched from the bridge while the Union entered the atmosphere. The external camera trembled whenever turbulence reached the hull, and heat shimmered along the lower edge of the image. The northern continent emerged in fragments: long plains, light forest, dark uplands, narrow rivers, and the pale geometric spread of the capital around the primary spaceport.

The landing produced the usual combination of vibration, noise, and confidence in restraints that nobody felt when the hull began shaking. When the engines finally shut down, everyone felt some relief, even if these landings were routine. Somewhere behind Ten, Davies announced that they had survived commercial transportation.

"Great service, but the in-flight meals sucked. Three out of five stars."

By the time Ten walked down the ramp, the spaceport had come alive with activity. Supplies and ammunition crates were being moved quickly, while the company's BattleMechs descended from the ship. Local security looked on.

The air was warmer than Ten had expected and smelled of rain, fuel, and hot pavement. Mountains marked the northern horizon beneath a blue-green sky. The highlands lay beyond them, distant enough to look harmless.

The planetary delegation, along with the militia commander, waited for them in a freight terminal. They had a brief discussion about the current situation on the ground.

The militia commander described his available forces. His best 'Mech lance guarded the capital and spaceport. Another four machines were scattered among industrial sites hundreds of kilometers apart. Conventional units covered the settlements and main roads.

"My units will secure the southern routes, protect your landing site, and provide local guides and sensor access. If the pirates move toward a town, we will engage them."

The meeting moved to local intelligence. The raiders were seen with mixed equipment, used no names over open channels, and withdrew on a schedule rather than staying to strip everything they could carry. They didn't use an insignia, but that wasn't surprising. Thieves only stuck together long enough for one to steal from the other.

After that, it was time to see the pirates' handiwork up close. The inspection convoy was waiting.

* * *

The capital thinned into freight yards, low housing, and repair depots before giving way to open country. Ten sat behind the driver with Reilly beside him and watched the city retreat through the armored vehicle's dusty window. Tractors worked the river flats. A school field held a football game close enough to the road that he could follow one play before a line of trees took it away. Maxie's Planet did not look like a place with troubles.

Reilly tipped her head toward the cup in Ten's hand. "You've been holding that since the terminal."

Ten took a careful drink and grimaced. "We traveled hundreds of light-years to get here, and you'd think they could provide something other than paint stripper."

She took the cup and tested it.

"Uh-uh."

The mountains ahead had ceased to be a blue line. Dark folds divided their lower slopes, and cloud shadows moved across them in broad patches.

The ransacked facility stood near the foot of those mountains. They had driven out to get a sense of the pirates they were hunting. After all, it was one thing to read the intelligence reports and another to see the dried bloodstains. The raiders had entered through the vehicle gate, destroyed the security post, and taken power equipment, medical supplies, communications components, and several cargo haulers. Two storage sheds containing goods easier to sell had not been touched.

The site manager met them outside. He was older and looked weary; four of his employees had died during the raid. Ten felt an uneasiness at the thought. He couldn't imagine losing that many of his people at once.

After introductions, the manager spoke. "We left the damage as it was," he said. "The militia took the bodies and made the site safe. We didn't move anything else unless we had to keep the weather out."

"Walk us through it," Ten said.

The manager gave a pained look. "That won't take long."

The security post had been hit first. The first autocannon burst destroyed the communications mast. The second blast opened the front armor of the guard vehicle beside it. Infantry entered after both targets were down and spread through the yard while cargo vehicles moved to the warehouse. The whole attack had lasted less than fifteen minutes.

The manager showed them the loading bays, the empty pallets, and the cages that had been cut open. He named the equipment that was missing and the people who had been standing in each place when the firing began. That made the account harder to hear than the polished version in the briefing packet.

Taylor looked at tire marks preserved beneath an overhang. Kasir examined the damaged locks. Gallo walked the perimeter and studied the lines of fire from the road. The raid had been well planned.

Near the rear doors, the manager stopped beside an ugly dark stain on the ground. A worker had survived the initial exchange and crawled behind a loading machine.

"They found him when they reached the warehouse," the manager said. "He wasn't armed. They shot him in the head anyway." No one filled the silence.

The militia intelligence officer showed them footage recovered from a private camera across the road. The image was poor, but it captured a Locust and a Shadow Hawk standing beyond the gate. Mismatched armor panels gave the larger machine a Frankenstein appearance. Infantry crossed the yard in mixed clothing and common body armor. They kept out of the BattleMechs' paths, covered the open ground, and loaded the vehicles without crowding one another.

Ten watched the recording. It showed him where the attackers had gone, but it also showed him how quickly the workers' ordinary morning had become something none of them could escape. The camera had no sound, which made the running figures seem distant until one disappeared behind the security vehicle and did not emerge again.

The manager waited by the office door, turning the hard hat in his hands, then showed them out.

The mountains grew darker as the afternoon light moved behind them. Somewhere beyond the first ridges, the pirates were using stolen equipment to maintain stolen machines.

* * *

Two days later, before dawn, the company gathered for the operation. The pilots drank coffee to clear any remaining sleepiness; a few smoked cigarettes. Deacon, the Commando pilot, chewed on sunflower seeds. Then it was time. There were a few fist bumps, and then they mounted up.

After sealing his Centurion's hatch, he hooked up and hooked in. Ice began to flow through his cooling vest while his brain tingled as the neurohelmet synced. What might have been considered the "on" button had some new and interesting artwork. A small cutout of a naked woman touching herself had been taped above it, and the words "Turn Me On" had been written in permanent marker. ****** Davies. Ten hit it, and the machine came to life with a familiar hum; the HUD switched on, and the control panel's lights winked on like a Christmas tree.

Taylor's scout lance moved first, four light 'Mechs crossing the northern plain in complete darkness other than the faint red glow coming from the cockpits. Ten followed with Able One far enough behind to keep the scouts near the edge of his sensors. Kasir took Able Three along the old industrial road toward the grassy hills on the southern route. Recovery vehicles and the portable medical aid station moved in the convoy behind his heavy lance. If shit went sideways, Able Three would give the rest of the company cover until they reached the support vehicles.

The formation looked orderly on Ten's tactical display. He hoped nothing would spoil that too early.

The plains climbed gradually into the highlands. Farms ended. Paved roads narrowed into graded tracks used by survey crews and mineral haulers. Low trees gave way to thorny scrub and exposed stone. Wind drove thin clouds across the still dark sky and pushed dust over the ground in sheets. Ten's Centurion moved at a steady pace behind Taylor.

The comm crackled. "Able Two approaching the first observation line," Taylor reported. Her voice carried none of the impatience she used in a repair bay. On the company channel, she was precise and economical. "No contacts. Old vehicle tracks on the southern trail. Recent maintenance on the road."

Ten asked how recent.

"It looks fresh. A grader must have passed within the last week."

Davies brought his Blackjack alongside the Centurion.

Davies' voice came over the comm. "So...are you feeling...turned on?"

Ten laughed in spite of himself. "You're a ****** twelve-year-old."

"I'm really hoping to make it to thirteen, though."

"Then move left forty meters and back in position."

Davies returned to position.

Gallo said nothing. His Catapult held the rear of Able One where its long-range weapons could cover the formation. Ten knew he was listening because Gallo listened to everything. He also knew that Gallo had an expression on his face akin to parental disapproval.

At the road junction, Kasir continued north toward the southern hills. Taylor entered the dry watercourse the analysts had marked impassable. Able One followed at a greater distance. Worn stone walls narrowed around the Centurion, with loose rock covering the ground. Ten was careful to keep his machine from slipping out from under him.

Taylor's Wasp had room to spare as it moved forward. The Jenner twins followed while the Commando watched the route back.

The scouts found an old survey sensor beside the channel. Its housing had been opened recently, and a replacement power cell kept it operating, but the device still pointed toward a slope marked unstable on the geological maps. Taylor danced the lance around its detection cone rather than risk tripping it. Able One waited in the shadow of the ridge while the scouts moved forward.

Taylor reported a ground patrol ten minutes later. Her video feed reached Ten through a veil of distance and dust. A Locust walked ahead of the same Shadow Hawk seen at the warehouse, this time with a Clint in the rear that hadn't seen a paint job in years.

The patrol stopped at a junction. A small armored vehicle appeared, and two infantrymen hopped out to check a marker beside the road. Their attention stayed on the southern approach, where local traffic was most likely to appear.

Taylor moved after the Clint disappeared from view. Able One followed when she reached the next covered position. The watercourse climbed toward the western ridge, narrowing until Reilly had to turn the Hunchback's torso to clear a projection of stone. Armor scraped rock with a noise that traveled through the formation.

Davies allowed a beat to pass. "Subtle."

They reached the final covered position an hour after sunrise.

Ten put the Centurion on standby and disconnected himself. He stepped out onto the shoulder and surveyed the area through binoculars. After hours in the cockpit, it was a good way to stretch out while he waited for Taylor's next check-in.

They had moved in far enough that he could see the abandoned station that sat nearly eight kilometers away. The landing area had been cleared, and a collection of patched vehicles occupied one side. Four 'Mechs stood in the open: the Locust, the Shadow Hawk, a Griffin with a replacement panel covering most of its right torso, and, lastly, a second Shadow Hawk. Apparently, the Clint was elsewhere. That made five.

Taylor's voice came through the radio in his helmet, directing his eyes toward a maintenance shed where the upper half of another 'Mech was visible through an open roof. It was a Marauder, by far the heaviest 'Mech they'd seen.

"Six confirmed," Taylor said. "Wait, hang on." She paused. "I can see an outline behind the Marauder. It looks like a second Locust. We're at seven."

The number was one over the estimate. Ten continued examining the station. Infantry occupied two lookout posts on the approach road. He could also see what looked like a J. Edgar tank. Probably there to support the ground troops.

The forces still seemed manageable.

Did they withdraw and come up with a new plan based on the seventh 'Mech, or attempt to overwhelm them now? If they moved now, they'd have total surprise. If they withdrew and planned, they would create extra opportunities to be discovered but could potentially come up with a more tactical approach.

As if she sensed his thoughts, Reilly opened a private channel. "It's your call. Whatever you decide, we will make it work."

He climbed back into the Centurion.

Ten thought for a minute, then opened a companywide channel. "Move in, clear them out."

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER THREE

THE ASSAULT

The order passed through Able Company without ceremony.

Taylor's Wasp stepped out of the watercourse first. The Jenner twins followed her up the western slope, jump jets firing in white-hot bursts as they cleared the broken ground. The Commando stayed low behind them. To the south, Kasir's Orion emerged from the hills, flanked by the rest of his lance.

Ten brought the Centurion over the ridge and settled into its pounding stride. Its feet struck the hard ground with impacts Ten felt through the command couch. Reilly's Hunchback held position off his right shoulder. Davies moved to the left in the Blackjack, while Gallo's Catapult remained far enough behind them to use its missiles without joining a close-range fight it had no business entering.

The station grew from a collection of distant shapes into buildings, vehicles, berms, and guns. Ten's tactical display filled with the blue symbols of his company and the red contacts Taylor had already marked.

"Taylor, take the landing field and close the north road," Ten said. "Don't let the Locusts pull you away from the objective."

"Understood."

"Kasir, keep the Marauder and Griffin occupied. Able One goes through the center."

Kasir answered in the same calm tone he used during briefings. "Inshallah, we will hold them."

The first lookout post noticed them.

A figure appeared on the platform, stared at them, and took off sprinting. A siren began to sound around the station. It was shrill and carried across the plain as Able Company closed the distance. Men ran from the vehicle yard. Engines turned over. The J. Edgar rose on its cushion of air and slid out from behind a berm.

The Marauder came fully into view above the maintenance shed. Its long arms swung toward Able Three. The Griffin moved beside it and planted its feet. A moment later, blue-white energy crossed the plain.

"Contact, contact, contact!"

The Griffin's particle beam struck short of Ten and tore a line through the grass. One of the Marauder's shots passed over Kasir's Orion. The other hit the Zeus squarely in the chest. Armor flashed into vapor, but the assault 'Mech shrugged it off and lumbered forward, its autocannon chattering in response.

Ten's comm came up. "Range is open," Gallo said.

The armored covers over the Catapult's missile racks snapped upward. ****** was painted inside one, YOU inside the other. The Catapult stepped up and thirty long-range missiles rose in two tight clouds, climbing above Able One before bending toward the station. The Thug sent twin particle beams into the Marauder's position while the Rifleman's autocannons began their steady hammering. Kasir added the Orion's own long-range missiles, spreading the defenders' attention across more threats than they could answer at once.

Gallo's first salvo fell around the Griffin. Explosions of dirt flew into the air as the missiles walked from the berm up its legs and across its left side. The machine disappeared inside dust and smoke, then stepped clear with its shoulder sagging.

Ten fired the Centurion's long-range missiles at the nearest Shadow Hawk, at the edge of their useful range. Most went wide. The rest struck the ground around the pirate and made it move, which was enough. They were not trying to win the battle with the first volley. They were trying to keep the defenders reacting instead of responding.

Both Locusts tore off to the north, one around the landing field and the other through the vehicle yard, with the J. Edgar following.

"Taylor, they're yours."

Able Two changed direction on a dime and cut through a small grove of trees. The Wasp and Jenners accelerated toward the northern edge of the station, using the rise beside the landing field to break the pirates' line of fire. The Commando cut inward, forcing the nearer Locust to choose between turning away from Taylor or allowing the smaller but more heavily armed 'Mech behind it.

The Locust turned.

That put it in front of the lead Jenner.

Four medium lasers flashed almost together with SRMs snapping at their heels. The Locust's armor vanished in a burst of fragments and molten metal. It stumbled into the landing area, caught one foot on the lip of a drainage trench, and went down hard enough that the barrel of the low-slung medium laser dug into the ground. It snapped in two with the now-detached piece jamming up into the cockpit as the 'Mech fell forward with its full weight. Not a chance the pilot was still alive.

The second Locust continued north. Taylor let it go for the moment and concentrated on the hover tank sweeping toward her flank.

The J. Edgar skimmed over the grass with dust boiling behind it. Its turret tracked the Wasp, then shifted when one of the Jenners crossed closer. Weapons fire struck the Jenner along its right leg. Armor sprayed away in black fragments, but the 'Mech stayed upright and kept moving.

Taylor used her jump jets, going higher than necessary just to gain a new position. That wasn't the plan. Death from above. She hurtled back to the ground with the Wasp's legs smashing through the turret, impaling the vehicle. The Wasp stumbled hard to the side, the ankle actuators groaning in protest. It was a dangerous maneuver, but proved effective.

"Tank disabled," Taylor reported. Understatement of the year.

Meanwhile the Jenner twins' combined lasers chased the remaining Locust like a dog going after a ball.

Ten's attention returned to the center in time to see the Clint fire.

The autocannon slug struck the Centurion's left arm. The cockpit shook, and a yellow warning spread across the damage display. The arm remained functional. Ten turned toward the pirate and answered with his own autocannon.

The Centurion's weapon fired a slow staccato from its right arm with a concussion that came through the cockpit. CTE was definitely in his future. The heavy shells caught the Clint high in the torso and threw it back against the berm. Davies' Blackjack added a stream of lighter rounds, chipping armor from the Clint's chest and forcing it to crouch lower behind the earthwork.

The nearest Shadow Hawk rose up a few meters to clear its line of fire so its autocannon and laser could hit the Hunchback. One struck Reilly's shoulder; the other passed between her and Ten and burst against the ground behind them.

"I'm fine," Reilly said before Ten asked.

Able continued its advance with Ten flinging out orders. "Take the Shadow Hawk when we reach the berm. Davies, keep the Clint pinned."

The central firing pits came alive. Infantry rose behind packed-earth walls and sent man-pack SRMs darting toward the approaching 'Mechs. Most of the weapons were too light to do more than score armor, but enough hits in the same place could turn irritation into damage. Ten walked his fire across the nearest position with one of the Centurion's medium lasers. The beam cut through the front of the pit, causing steam to rise from vaporized soil and a few unlucky souls. Even though they were pirates, Ten winced.

Davies shifted closer to the Hunchback and fired all four of the Blackjack's medium lasers into the berm covering the Clint. Steam and dirt erupted along its face. The Clint rose to return fire, giving Reilly a clear field of fire. Her massive gun spoke—or, more accurately, bellowed—at the Clint, catching it in the hip.

Armor fragmented and internal structure crumpled. The Clint tried to step back, found that the hip would no longer carry its weight, and collapsed on its side. It didn't move.

"Clint is down," Reilly said.

If the pirates took the hint and stopped shooting, there would be time to collect prisoners. A pilot could wish.

The Shadow Hawk behind the next berm abandoned its position. It stepped into the open to get away from Reilly. This was all manner of stupid.

Not only was she there and still in range, but the Zeus had also moved up.

The Hunchback and Zeus spoke together. Ten watched the 'Mech immediately cease to function. He saw the pilot punch out, but couldn't tell if the pirate had done so quickly enough to beat the ball of fire shooting toward the sky as the 'Mech suffered a final, catastrophic explosion.

The advance marched on, and the closer the fighting became, the less any of them spoke. Orders became far less necessary when the battle turned into a close-range brawl.

Ten still checked the company display. Able Two had contained the northern flank. One Jenner carried serious leg damage but remained mobile. Everyone else was missing armor here and there, but nothing serious.

No sooner had he found the damage to be light than he saw Able Three pushing the Marauder and Griffin away from the maintenance shed; they were paying for the ground. The Rifleman showed damage along its left arm. The Zeus had lost most of the armor across its center torso. Kasir's Orion was still largely intact until two targeted PPC blasts struck. His SRMs detonated. The blast was horrific and made Ten sick to his stomach. The 'Mech staggered but didn't fall. Luckily, the Orion must have only had a few SRMs still in the bin or else... Ten shuddered at the thought. The Thug continued stalking through the exchange of particle beams as though unconcerned.

The Marauder fired again. One beam struck the Thug's right torso. The second swept across the Orion's left side, giving Ten a pang of worry. The Thug fired both particle cannons into the Marauder's side, and the Zeus followed with its large laser.

The Marauder staggered, its right arm now totally limp. Its pilot caught the machine before it fell and began withdrawing toward the vehicle yard.

Ten saw it. The defenders were giving up the perimeter before Able Company could divide them completely. The surviving Shadow Hawk fell back from Reilly. The Marauder and Griffin moved toward the maintenance structures. The second Locust abandoned the road and came racing south to join them.

If they formed around the buildings, they could turn the station into a close-range fight. Able Company would still win, but buildings created blind corners, infantry created distractions, and a desperate pilot with a charged weapon could make the victory expensive.

"Gallo, break the vehicle yard. Davies, don't let the Marauder settle. Taylor, bring your lance in from the north."

The Catapult fired again.

Gallo had been walking his missiles into the pirates for the entire advance, choosing shots carefully enough that his ammunition warning had not yet become a problem. This salvo came down across the parked vehicles and the open ground behind the defenders. Fuel tanks ruptured. A truck lifted, turned in the air, and landed upside down. The fire inspired by liters of fuel spread through the yard, cutting off the pirates' easiest route between the maintenance shed and the central buildings.

The Marauder turned away from the flames and exposed itself. Ten kept pounding it with everything until the autocannon clicked dry. He was sweltering in the cockpit, and his heat meter was dancing near the critical line.

The pirate kept fighting, so he kept firing.

The remaining Shadow Hawk came around the corner of a storage building and fired at the Centurion. Its autocannon struck Ten's right torso. A missile burst against his left leg. The damage display turned another section yellow, but the armor held.

Ten closed the distance.

He fired the Centurion's forward laser while moving. The shot missed the Shadow Hawk and blew through the wall of the storage building. Stolen crates and fragments of metal shelving spilled through the opening. The pirate returned fire, then tried to cut behind the structure.

Reilly blocked the far side.

The Shadow Hawk stopped between the Centurion and Hunchback. For an instant, its pilot had no good direction to face. Ten put the Centurion's forward medium laser into its left torso. Reilly fired hers into the right. Davies' autocannons struck from behind Ten in quick succession.

The Shadow Hawk twisted toward Reilly, perhaps judging the Hunchback's heavy cannon the greater threat. Ten stepped the Centurion forward and drove its left fist into the side of the pirate's cockpit assembly.

The impact jarred every restraint across his body, making his head pound with neurofeedback. The Shadow Hawk reeled away, lost its footing on debris from the storage building, and went down on one knee. Reilly placed the muzzle of her autocannon against its torso. The shot was final.

"Watch the Locust," Ten told Davies.

The fast 'Mech had decided it was time to leave. Davies pivoted, his Blackjack's cannons streaming slugs at its back. The Locust was infuriatingly agile, and most of the shots missed.

Taylor's Wasp dropped from a jump almost directly in front of the Locust. The pirate veered. One Jenner struck it with two medium lasers, and the Commando sent missiles into its right leg. The Locust tried to turn again, but its damaged leg failed, and the light 'Mech cartwheeled through the edge of the burning vehicle yard. It came to rest beside an overturned truck. Flames curled around one leg.

The Griffin was trying to cover the Marauder's retreat. The Thug fired everything: SRMs and PPCs. Instead of covering the retreat, the Griffin now covered the ground. In pieces. Ten felt a moment of satisfaction watching his company perform the way they were supposed to.

Only the Marauder remained.

It stood near the rear wall of the maintenance building with one arm hanging uselessly and most of its side armor gone. Ten expected the pilot to surrender. Instead, the Marauder fired its remaining particle cannon into the Thug and began walking backward, as a wall behind it began to open.

At first Ten thought the Marauder had forced its way through the structure. Then the entire rear section of the building withdrew in one piece. Corrugated outer panels folded against each other. Beneath them, a slab of armored metal moved sideways into a recessed frame. White lights came on beyond it, revealing a passage broad enough for a BattleMech.

The Marauder backed into the opening.

Reilly sent a slug flying; the round struck the pirate in the hip. The Marauder lurched against the frame, scraping armor across it without visibly damaging the doorway.

The Thug fired both particle cannons.

One beam took the Marauder in the center torso. The other struck the remains of its left side. The heavy 'Mech sagged, then collapsed across the threshold with its legs outside and its upper body inside. Its reactor shut down.

The armored door began closing anyway.

It struck the Marauder's torso, stopped, withdrew, and tried again. A warning tone sounded from somewhere inside the passage. The door still opened and shut on the collapsed Marauder.

"Hold fire," Ten ordered.

Guns went silent. Stillness settled in around the ruined station.

Smoke moved across the yard from the fuel fire. The surface buildings had taken damage in the battle, and one burned freely. Taylor's scouts spread along the perimeter. Somebody who wasn't Kasir ordered the Zeus beside the inner entrance while the Rifleman withdrew toward cover. That gave Ten pause; he hoped Kasir was okay.

Ten studied the open passage through the scrolling information on his HUD.

The exposed door was not something the pirates had built out of stolen freight and enthusiasm. Its frame extended into reinforced concrete beneath the maintenance shed. The outer wall had been camouflage, built to tear away cleanly without interfering with the mechanism. Recessed orange lights continued down a sloping tunnel. The floor carried load markings and drainage channels.

The station's patched buildings, open wiring, and mismatched vehicles had told the same story as the raids: a capable band living on what it stole. The structure beneath was something else. What. The. Hell.

Ten searched his memory of the contract brief. Nothing had mentioned a hardened underground installation.

"Taylor, full perimeter. Able Three holds the entrance. Gallo, watch the southern approach. Davies, get me a company damage report."

Davies took several seconds before answering. "Nothing too bad. Everyone is operational, but a few might need a paint job. One Jenner has leg damage but can walk. Slowly. The Rifleman lost its left forearm and has an injured pilot. Kasir is in the worst shape. That blast was bad and he's slurring on the comm. He definitely has a concussion and can't command."

Ten heard the report and processed the information in the back of his brain, but his attention was on the tunnel. He stared down it, wondering what lay beneath.

The contract required them to eliminate the pirates and demolish the installation. Blowing the visible station apart would (might) satisfy the description they'd been given, but it would do little to a facility buried beneath reinforced concrete. They did not know how far it extended, whether more defenders remained inside, or whether its occupants had another exit.

He also did not know what it was, only that it was all wrong for pirates. Pirates didn't build. They occupied facilities other people had abandoned, like hermit crabs finding a new shell to occupy. A small band did not secretly install a blast door beneath a survey station.

The absence in the intelligence wasn't totally surprising. Ten had served in the militia long enough to develop a healthy respect for incompetence. It was one of the Inner Sphere's most renewable resources.

Ten put his Centurion into standby mode.

The cockpit fans slowed. Without them, the silence felt abrupt. He released the connections and stuck the neurohelmet on the shelf above his head. When that was done, he unfastened the command couch restraints and grabbed a field jacket stored behind his seat. A small assault rifle was also stashed there. He grabbed that too.

Reilly opened a private channel before he could release the hatch. "Tell me you aren't about to do what I think you're about to do."

"I need to see how deep the facility goes and whether it's occupied. We can't demolish what we haven't found."

"Then we wait for infantry."

"The locals are protecting the settlements. By the time they get here, anyone inside may be gone through an exit we haven't found."

"That is an argument for sending people around the perimeter. It is not an argument for the company commander walking into a fortified tunnel by himself."

She was right. Ten disliked that about good advice.

"Taylor is extending the perimeter. Able Three has the entrance. If I find resistance, I come back out. Until then, Davies has command." That was sure to cheer her up. Considerably.

"And if the first sign of resistance is a bullet?"

"Then I'll revise the plan."

"Ten."

He paused with one hand on the hatch release, but there was no one up the chain of command to call for instructions, and time was short. It was his responsibility.

"I'm not clearing the entire complex," he said. "I'm checking the entrance and finding out whether we have a tunnel, a bunker, or something large enough to need a different demolition plan. Five minutes. If I lose contact, nobody follows me. You close the door from this side and send an HPG message to The Boss."

"That is a terrible plan," she said.

"It's all I've got. We need to know what's in there, and I'm not sending someone else to do something that I won't do myself. Besides, Davies isn't nearly as dumb as you think he is." He hoped that last part made her smile, but his main thought was that if he ordered one of his pilots down that dark hole and they caught a bullet in the face, he would have to live with it.

For a moment, the channel carried only the sound of her breathing.

"Five minutes," Reilly said at last. "Then I come in after you, whether you order me not to or not."

Ten opened the hatch. "That would be disobeying a direct order."

"Put it in my evaluation."

The air outside struck him with heat, smoke, and the greasy scent of burning gasoline. Ten climbed out onto the Centurion's shoulder and popped the access ladder. He climbed down the torso rather than jumping the last section and embarrassing himself in front of the company.

Davies' Blackjack stopped near the entrance. Its external speaker came on.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do." Idiot.

Ten checked the magazine in his rifle and brought it to its resting position. "Watch the roofline. If anyone shoots at me, try not to bring the building down until I'm out."

Reilly's Hunchback now stood over the fallen Marauder. The pirate 'Mech blocked part of the entrance, but a narrow space remained between its damaged shoulder and the right side of the frame. Ten approached it carefully. He could feel the heat still coming off of it and didn't want to end up as burned as his 'Mech. With total concentration, he got past the wrecked 'Mech and made his way in.

The maintenance shed had been made to look like it was one rusted bolt from falling apart. Behind it, though, the blast door was pristine and ran on a track cut with such precision that dirt had not gathered in the seam. The reinforced frame showed no cracking where the Marauder had struck it.

Ten switched on his hand radio. "Going in. Time starts now."

He stepped over a fragment of armor from the Marauder and came alongside it. The cockpit canopy was broken open and badly scorched. He could not see the pilot. He kept his rifle low and made his way down the tunnel.

The first twenty meters still contained signs of the pirates. Ammunition crates stood open against one wall. A portable work light had been wired into a ceiling junction. Boot prints crossed oil on the floor, and a stained jacket hung from a conduit bracket.

Then the tunnel turned.

The crates stopped. The stained floor gave way to clean gray plating. Bright industrial lighting replaced the recessed lamps, illuminating sealed doors and bundled conduits that disappeared behind reinforced panels. The air carried a faint acrid smell. He could feel ventilation moving the air lightly over him from somewhere up ahead.

Ahead stood a second door sized for people, not 'Mechs. Three meters in front of it, he saw the Marauder pilot. She was lying on the ground dead, with severe burns running up her left side. It looked like she had been trying to get back through the door when her body gave out.

A security reader beside the door glowed a patient red. Locked. He looked down at the pilot and saw a keycard on her body. Ten scooped it up and held it to the reader. It blinked green. Beyond the threshold, another white corridor led farther underground.

Ten brought the rifle to his shoulder and slowly moved through.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER FOUR

THE BASE

The white corridor extended thirty meters before dividing in two.

Ten moved along the right wall with the rifle up, braced against his shoulder. The field jacket suddenly felt hot and made him long for the cooling vest. Every step carried him farther from the open tunnel and a quick exit.

Ten had ordered the others to hold at the entrance because he did not need an audience for a five-minute search. That had sounded reasonable outside. Overconfident was a word some people might use. So were dumb and reckless. Underground, it also sounded like the sort of sentence an officer contributed to an after-action report describing his death.

His hand radio clicked in his ear.

"Ten, what do you see?" Reilly's voice came through with static wrapped around it.

"A second security door with multiple hallways. This place is bigger than I thought."

"You have three minutes," she said, sounding worried.

"Copy that."

A warning tone began somewhere deeper in the facility, low and regular rather than frantic. It didn't sound quite like an alarm, but more like a message to the people in the facility.

Ten reached the intersection and stopped, carefully looking down each hallway. The corridor to his left was wider and sloped upwards. Painted on the floor were the words VEHICLE ACCESS and SURFACE SERVICE. Hmmm. Seemed like there was another exit. To the right, the passage continued downward; a sign reading OPERATIONS and TECHNICAL hung on the wall with an arrow.

He looked back toward the door with hesitation. He had promised to take a quick look, determine the size of the place, and return. He now knew that the pirates possessed an underground facility with multiple levels.

That wasn't enough. It would tell The Boss why the demolition was not fully accomplished but would not explain who had poured this much money into an old survey station, or why this facility was hidden behind patched sheet metal. It did explain why the pirates had fought so hard to reach the door. Safety.

Ten turned right and entered the first open door he came to. The room was a professional machine shop. Tool cabinets stood against the walls, filled with expensive equipment. Two overhead cranes hung over a work bay large enough to hold BattleMech components. A section of cleanly cut armor rested on a table. Instruments surrounded the armor. His engineering courses had taught him enough to recognize a test setup.

"Two minutes," Reilly said in his ear.

"I found a technical level with a machine shop and test equipment. Nobody seems to be around."

"Then you found what you needed. Come back."

He was about to respond when something struck metal farther down the corridor. Ten froze.

The sound came again: a door closing, followed by the hurried footsteps of two people.

The corridor bent around a reinforced support column. A man in gray coveralls appeared at the far end with a pistol held in both hands. They saw each other at the same time.

The man fired first.

The round struck the wall beside Ten, and the ricochet threw a bright spark across his vision. Ten dropped behind the support column. Two more shots snapped past the edge and hit the open machine-shop door. The "I told you so" he was going to get would be massive. On the plus side, he wouldn't have to hear it if he was dead.

He leaned out low and fired twice, the rifle bucking against his shoulder. The shots struck the man high in the chest and spun him into the wall, leaving red mist and ugly spatter.

The corridor smelled of gunpowder and death. Ten kept the rifle trained on the fallen man until the body finished moving.

Another weapon fired from a doorway beyond him, this time a laser. Ten pulled back as a short burst scorched the support column. He brought the assault rifle up and spat three shots back in quick succession. The second shooter did not continue firing. Instead, Ten could hear the sound of a door slamming shut somewhere in front of him.

There was a blood trail. One of his shots had definitely hit.

The doorway from which the second person had fired opened into a small security office. A communications panel showed local comm channels and feeds from both internal and surface cameras. Most of the display had gone dark, but enough remained for Ten to see two underground levels and an emergency passage extending beyond the station's northern ridge.

So much for the perimeter.

He keyed his radio. "Taylor, possible exit north of the ridge. Extend—"

The radio produced only static. The signal couldn't get through the reinforced concrete. He was cut off.

The second shooter had gone through the opposite door deeper into the facility. He should have gone back but now... in for a penny, in for a pound.

The passage opened onto another laboratory divided by transparent partitions. Benches held cables, scorched ceramic blocks, dismantled control systems, and armored housings. Several stands supported weapon-sized assemblies surrounded by sensors and coolant lines.

At the rear of the room, a gantry enclosed the unfinished center section of what looked like a 'Mech. It had no head, limbs, cockpit, or armor. Cables disappeared into an open torso cavity, and temporary braces held joints where limbs might eventually have been attached. Enough was missing that Ten couldn't be sure exactly what he was looking at.

A pile of paper smoldered in a disposal bin to his left. Someone was getting rid of evidence. Pirates were criminals; disposing of evidence wasn't something they generally concerned themselves with.

The man he had been following wasn't in the lab, but his blood trail continued toward a bank of offices, so Ten followed it.

He passed a workstation where an unattended screen displayed lines of rapidly vanishing text. File names disappeared one after another. Most meant nothing to him. Materials trials. Field telemetry. Procurement schedules. Then a new window opened over them as the system attempted to close an interrupted session.

The instantly recognizable white starburst on the authorization screen stopped him dead in his tracks.

Everyone in the Inner Sphere knew the ComStar emblem. It appeared above every HPG message in the Inner Sphere. Anyone who wanted to talk to someone off of their own planet had used ComStar. Governments relied on them to keep their worlds together. If words had to cross the stars faster than a courier could carry them, the white robes controlled the road. ComStar lived in the background of ordinary life, distant and ceremonial but as unavoidable as the sun rising and setting. Seeing the starburst here left his mouth hanging open.

Ten stepped closer.

The screen identified the terminal as property of ComStar. Beneath that, blocks of text listed an internal research section, security restrictions, and a site designation that did not appear on any map Ten had seen.

Shit.

ComStar was not an organization known to let its equipment get away from it. If it was here, ComStar was here.

Another window remained partly visible behind the authorization notice. The file concerned surface acquisitions. It showed dates matching several raids from the employer's intelligence summary. The mineral-survey camp had supplied coolant pumps and communications assemblies. The power substation had supplied replacement components. The stolen medical supplies appeared under personnel support.

Ten used the keyboard and brought up a second directory containing what appeared to be field evaluations. The headings referred to vehicle-mounted weapon prototypes and live-fire telemetry tests. Another file referred to chassis integration and displayed an outline resembling the unfinished frame in the gantry. What the ****** was going on here?

The acquisition records and live-fire telemetry told him enough: the raids supplied the base and provided targets for its weapons. Masquerading as pirates kept anyone from looking too hard.

Ten thought of the 'pirates' who had died fighting outside and of the Marauder pilot burned beside the security door. Were they really working for ComStar? And why was ComStar working on weapons? They didn't have a real military other than glorified guards.

Ten had no way to record what he was seeing, so he leaned closer and read as quickly as he could. He repeated the site designation under his breath, fixed the raid dates in his mind, and tried to retain the words field evaluation and chassis integration while the directory vanished line by line.

Ten turned.

A man stood on the other side of the laboratory partition. Blood was dripping down his arm from where Ten's shot had landed minutes before. The wound was superficial; the bullet had just grazed him. He was in his late fifties, perhaps older, dressed in gray trousers and a white shirt. Apparently, he had rearmed because he held a compact pistol in his hand.

Ten brought up the rifle.

The man looked at the weapon and then at Ten's face. He looked exhausted, but still sharp enough with the weapon.

"Put it down," Ten said.

"You do not know what this is, do you?"

His voice was educated and controlled. It did not belong to anyone Ten had heard over the pirates' open channels.

"I know who owns the terminal."

For the first time, something changed in the man's expression. His eyes moved toward the workstation, then back to Ten.

"Who sent you?" he asked.

"The people you robbed."

"No. Who sent you here?"

Ten kept the rifle centered on him. "Put down the pistol."

The man sighed. "Someone must have known enough that you managed to end up down here."

"I'm beginning to believe several people owe me an explanation."

The alarm changed pitch. Red lights began flashing above the exits.

The man glanced toward the purge clock. "You will not receive one."

He raised the pistol.

Ten fired.

The first round struck the transparent partition between them, causing it to shatter. The second caught the man in the arm again. This time the bullet didn't graze. The man tried to return fire, but the shock from the injury made his shot wild, not coming close to Ten.

The man dropped behind a workbench. Ten moved left, trying to keep the bench between them in case the man recovered enough to get off a second, more accurate shot.

"Stop," Ten called. "This facility is surrounded."

The man answered with another shot, but the bench kept him from getting a good angle.

Ten fired toward the muzzle flash. The bullet tore through the edge of the bench. The pistol struck the floor a moment later, followed by a thud.

Ten waited. The warning tone and ventilation fans filled the silence.

The man lay on his side behind the bench, one hand pressed beneath him and the other extended toward the fallen pistol. Ten kicked the weapon beyond his reach. The man's hand slipped from beneath him, and his body went still. Ten watched long enough to be certain.

Ten turned and saw on the display that the timer had reached one minute. None of this would matter if the doors sealed him inside. Time to go.

Ten ran, briefly registering a security camera above him.

The laboratory lights started going dark before he reached the first corridor. Behind him, equipment shut down in a staggered series of clicks. A smell like overheated insulation moved through the ventilation system. Then he saw the smoke. This had been a stupid idea.

Ten reached the security office. The wall display had gone black. A dull thump passed through the floor, followed by another farther away. Internal doors were closing throughout the facility.

He sprinted past the dead guard and skidded around the support column, then crossed into the machine shop and heard the door slam shut behind him. He kept going.

The rifle caught on one of the pieces of equipment, jerking him to the side. Ten released it rather than letting the weapon hold him in place.

His radio came alive as he reached the upward passage.

"—minutes. Ten, respond."

Reilly did not sound professional anymore. The fear in her voice reached him more clearly than the words lost to static.

"Coming out."

"Where are you?"

"Still inside."

"Ten...?"

The second security door had begun closing. Ten reached it with the Marauder pilot's keycard already in his hand. He swiped it, but the reader flashed red.

The gap narrowed to less than half a meter.

Ten turned sideways and forced himself through. The narrowing door scraped across his jacket and trapped his forearm for one painful second before he pulled free and stumbled into the tunnel.

The door sealed behind him.

"Ten?" Reilly said.

"Still coming out."

"Your five minutes ended four minutes ago. I'm going to kill you."

That was less alarming than the alternatives.

Ten sprinted past the dead Marauder pilot and followed the orange lights toward daylight. The open blast door appeared around the last turn. Lucky for him, the wrecked Marauder still lay across the threshold, blocking the door from closing.

Ten squeezed between the Marauder and the frame. He emerged into daylight, and the fresh air slammed into his lungs. He stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees, gasping.

Reilly's Hunchback stood in front of him. He could not see her through the polarized canopy, but he knew the expression waiting there. He knew the set of her mouth when she was saving an argument until they were alone.

This was fine by him since a new cold truth started to seep in. He had seen something no soul in the Inner Sphere was ever meant to see. He needed time to think about how much of the truth he could safely tell her. It was also the first time he could remember looking at Reilly and deciding how much to keep from her. It made his heart race uncomfortably.

Davies climbed down from the Blackjack while Ten crossed the yard. He had put on trousers and boots over his cooling gear but had not bothered with a shirt.

"You look terrible," Davies said.

"And how."

"Did you win?"

Ten looked back at the smoke emerging from the tunnel. "I'm not sure."

Davies' expression sharpened.

"What did you find?"

"Not here," Ten hissed.

Davies' eyebrows rose considerably.

Ten walked toward the portable medical station. The battle had become quieter now that it was over, but not peaceful. Technicians moved among the 'Mechs checking armor, joints, and leaking coolant.

Kasir sat on the edge of a folding stretcher beneath the medical shelter. Someone had cut away part of his cooling vest. An oxygen line ran beneath his nose, and a medic held a scanner over the side of his head. His eyes were open but unfocused.

Ten stopped beside him.

"The station?" Kasir asked.

"Ours."

Kasir closed his eyes briefly. "The company?"

"Everyone made it. A few injuries and some damage. Your Orion is cooked. Nothing for you to worry about, though."

Kasir tried to turn his head towards Ten. The medic put a hand against his shoulder and stopped him.

"There were only a few missiles left when I got hit," Kasir said.

"That helped."

"Allah was merciful."

Ten thought of the violence inside the Orion's torso and how much worse it could have been with a full ammunition bin. He didn't believe in a god, but that didn't stop him from thanking him today. "He was."

Kasir's eyes opened again. "You went inside."

Apparently concussions did not prevent gossip.

"Briefly."

"That was unwise."

"I have received similar feedback."

The corner of Kasir's mouth moved. Then the effort seemed to cost him, and he lowered his head.

Ten left the medical area and found Taylor beside the Wasp. The light 'Mech stood with one foot raised on a maintenance block. Fluid streaked the ankle, and the armor around both lower legs had been crushed by the hover tank.

Taylor followed his gaze. "It can walk."

"Doc is going to have feelings."

"Doc always has feelings," she responded. "You know who doesn't? The ground pounders. Why? Because I made them very pancake-shaped."

Taylor had already extended the scouts north, searching for other exits from the facility without waiting for Ten to repeat the order. The undamaged Jenner and Commando followed the likely route of the emergency passage while the damaged Jenner held the road. They found a concealed exit beyond the ridge forty minutes later. The hatch was shut, still locked from the inside. It had intentionally been covered with camouflage. It didn't look like it had been disturbed. Nobody had made it out. By then, the facility had finished destroying itself internally. Smoke stopped coming from the entrance.

The raids and the employer's losses were real, but someone might have used them to point Able at the facility. The dying man had certainly thought so. Ten thought of the contract briefing on Galatea. The escrow had been funded. The raids had been documented. The planetary government and commercial coalition had every legitimate reason to hire them. Ten needed to tell The Boss.

Normally this would be a problem to discuss with Davies, Reilly, Gallo, and the other officers. After all, more eyes on a problem could resolve it more quickly. This one made him consider who should not hear it. It felt wrong immediately, but caution seemed warranted.

The demolition took the rest of the afternoon while Ten remained mostly silent.

Support crews placed charges at the tunnel, ventilation, and emergency-shaft entrances, but no one went beyond the first turn.

The salvage crews recovered what they could from the surface: mostly weapons, vehicles, and cargo. The 'Mechs were too far gone. Maybe that part was for the best. He didn't want souvenirs from that laboratory.

It was near sunset by the time all of the explosives had been wired. Able Company withdrew to a safe distance from the facility. The first explosions struck the surface structures. Walls folded inward. The vehicle tunnel disappeared behind a rising mass of earth and concrete. A moment later, deeper charges collapsed the ventilation runs and the emergency shaft. The ground above the technical level lifted in a long, uneven line before falling back into itself. Dust rolled across the valley.

Davies came to stand beside him. "The employer will be pleased."

Who the employer was had become a much more complicated question.

Davies waited. "Are you going to tell me what was down there?"

"When we're somewhere with fewer ears."

Davies looked across the ruined valley. "That narrows it down to nowhere."

"Galatea will have to do."

They climbed back into their 'Mechs and turned south with the rest of the company.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER FIVE

LATE SUPPER

By the time Ten finished telling the story, it was late.

The Boss had interrupted only to clarify details. Where had the terminal been? How much of the screen had Ten read? Had he removed anything from the laboratory? Had anyone followed him below?

Davies sat in the chair beside him. He had heard pieces on Maxie's Planet, mostly after Ten emerged from the tunnel looking as if the mountain had tried to digest him. This was the first time he had heard the whole account. His usual restless movements had stopped while intense focus replaced it.

The three of them were alone in The Boss's office. The blinds had been drawn and the door locked. The Boss's noteputer sat closed at the edge of the desk.

Nothing was being recorded.

Able Company had returned to Galatea the previous afternoon. The trip home had taken weeks, most of it spent with the same people Ten had been ordered to command and whom he trusted. Unfortunately, trust did not mean he could share what he knew, and it ate at him. Instead he had discussed damage reports with Devonshire, listened to Taylor argue with Doc over the damage to the ankle actuators on the Wasp, and shared meals with Reilly and Gallo.

The silence had seemed prudent at first. By the final jump, it had begun to feel suffocating.

The Boss leaned back.

"Tell me exactly what the man said before he fired."

Ten repeated the exchange as closely as he could. The man had asked whether Ten understood what he was seeing. Then he had asked who sent him.

The Boss considered. "And you are certain the emblem was not part of old communications equipment left from the original survey station?"

"The authorization screen identified the terminal as ComStar property. The files used an internal site designation. The acquisition records matched the raids. It was current."

"How much of it can you remember?"

Ten scrunched up his face to think. "Enough to describe it, but nothing overly specific. I can give my understanding of the equipment I saw. I remember the site designation and several headings. Some dates. There was no time to memorize technical details."

Davies spoke for the first time. "Which means we have Ten's word and a hole in a mountain."

The Boss looked at him. "At present, yes."

If somebody wanted the story destroyed, the solution was quite simple.

The Boss placed both hands flat on the desk. "Who knows?"

"Davies knows it involved ComStar. Reilly knows I found something I wasn't willing to discuss in the field. Gallo probably knows that Reilly knows. Nobody else should know anything."

"Can you think of anyone else on Maxie's Planet that might know something?"

"Everyone involved on the outside is dead. The man in the laboratory was the only person I spoke to inside, but he is dead too. Taylor's people found the emergency hatch locked from within. Nobody escaped."

"If anyone knew that ComStar was researching or building weapons, it would be an explosive revelation with vast and unpredictable consequences for the Inner Sphere. The fact that it was likely an internal splinter cell or rival faction doesn't really matter. Nobody on the outside would be able to tell which faction was actually running ComStar."

"There was a camera," Ten said.

"You are certain?"

"I noticed it while I was running out. It was above the laboratory partition. The internal system was purging itself, and then we brought the station down. I doubt anything survived."

The Boss's face did not change. "Doubt is not the same as certainty."

He stood and walked to the office window. He did not open the blinds.

"ComStar operates the Mercenary Review Board," he said. "It knows the Agency Group accepted the contract. It knows Able Company deployed. Our roster, command structure, transport records, and payment arrangements all pass through systems ComStar can reach. If someone recovered an image of you, identifying you would not be difficult." What a comforting thought.

The Boss turned from the window. "I'm going to check the escrow account and see if I can find out where the contract money came from. In the meantime, do not discuss this with Reilly, Gallo, or anyone else in the galaxy, for that matter."

Ten had expected the order, but it did not make it easier to hear.

"Reilly was outside the tunnel waiting for me," he said. "She knows this is more than strange equipment."

"Then she knows too much already. Don't make the situation worse."

"She's my lancemate."

"I am aware." The Boss's voice remained level. "This is not a judgment about her loyalty or Gallo's. Every person you tell becomes another person who may be watched, questioned, pressured, or killed. Keeping them ignorant protects them while we determine what this is."

Killed. Ten glanced at Davies.

The Boss followed the look. "Davies already knows enough to be involved. Expanding the circle because one person is inside it would be foolish."

"And then what?"

"Then nothing. You continue your duties and keep your routine normal. There should be no perceptible changes."

Davies glanced at the locked door and closed blinds.

"This is your normal routine?" he asked.

The Boss ignored him. "If anyone asks what you found, tell them I ordered you not to discuss it. Do not invent a lie you will later have to explain."

That, at least, Ten could do.

The Boss unlocked the door but did not open it. "Until I say otherwise, everything stays in this room."

It sounded almost reassuring.

Almost.

* * *

Four days later, Ten was in his office at headquarters. It was barely large enough for a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet that resisted opening whenever the weather changed. The walls carried a company readiness board, a faded terrain map from a past contract, and a photograph of Able One taken by a press photographer after a battle a few years back. What was the photographer's name? Fox? Ten looked younger than he remembered being.

He was doing routine paperwork from the deployment when someone knocked once and entered without waiting.

Reilly closed the door behind her.

She wore fatigues and carried a maintenance tablet beneath one arm. A streak of grease ran along the side of her hand. The Hunchback's hip actuator had developed an intermittent fault during unloading, and she had spent most of the morning with Devonshire while he worked.

Her eyes moved from Ten to the report on his screen.

"Still working?"

"Evidently the mission improves if I edit it often enough."

She set the tablet on his filing cabinet. "Does it?"

"No."

Ten looked uncomfortable. "The Boss ordered me not to tell anyone what I found below the station."

"I know."

He waited.

"Davies told me that much," she continued. "He looked like he was going to injure himself trying not to say anything else."

Reilly leaned back against the wall. Pure anger would have been easier.

"Are you in trouble?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"Is the company?"

"I don't know that either."

She looked at him, an intense edge in her eyes, but it was not quite enough to turn the conversation into a fight.

"I'm not keeping this from you because I want to," he said.

Ten looked at the blank screen. He thought of the camera in the laboratory. He thought of ComStar records containing Able Company's roster. He thought of Reilly waiting outside the tunnel while he decided what truth she should be allowed to hear.

"Fine," she said. "But when this becomes something I need to know, you tell me. I don't want to learn it because shit hits the fan."

"Promise."

She picked up the maintenance tablet. "I'm going to Gritty's tonight with some of the company. Davies said the two of you have another command meeting."

"Salvage accounting."

"That sounds terrible."

"We may not survive."

Reilly's expression softened. "If you do, meet us there."

She left before Ten could answer. The door closed quietly behind her.

* * *

The salvage meeting continued until twenty-two forty because two administrators disagreed over whether a wrecked pirate hovercraft qualified as recoverable equipment or scrap. Ten rolled his eyes then stared at the ceiling. Anyone watching him would have seen crushing boredom. He still wasn't entirely sure why he was there. Ditto for Davies, who had long since stopped paying attention. Neither of them cared in the slightest.

When they finally left headquarters, neither had eaten since noon. Davies suggested they eat something before getting to the bar. It would be good to have something in his stomach before he started drinking.

They took Ten's groundcar into Galatea City and left it in a public garage two blocks from an all-night diner. The diner occupied the ground floor of an aging apartment building. Its front windows looked onto a tram line and a surprisingly well-kept park. Inside, white light reflected from chrome edging, laminated tables, and the red-and-white checkered wallpaper that covered half of the diner. A tired woman behind the counter refilled coffee for a pair of transport workers. Two other customers sat in separate booths, each paying more attention to private screens than the room.

Ten and Davies chose a free-standing table near the rear and consulted the menus.

They ordered eggs, potatoes, and whatever meat the menu described as breakfast sausage. Davies asked whether the sausage had been authenticated. The server looked irritated and didn't respond. She took the orders and walked away.

The food arrived quickly. For several minutes, neither man spoke. Hunger defeated conversation effectively.

Davies eventually set down his fork. "The Boss tell you anything?"

"No."

"Did he tell you that he has nothing to tell you?"

"Also no."

"That probably means he's making progress."

Ten looked at him, and Davies shrugged. The Boss had said he would check his contacts and the contract's paper trail. Whatever he was finding had kept him occupied; an ordinary command question had taken three attempts to get an answer. No unfamiliar visitors had appeared at headquarters. No ComStar representative had requested a meeting. The final payment from Maxie's Planet had cleared through the Mercenary Review Board without delay.

Everything looked normal.

"Reilly talked to me," he said.

"I know." Davies picked up his coffee. "She questioned me first."

"What did you tell her?"

"That The Boss ordered us not to discuss it."

"Anything else?"

"Nope. My lips are sealed tight." Davies raised his hand to his mouth and imitated zipping it shut.

Ten looked at his food without much of an appetite. "She thinks I should tell her if this becomes dangerous."

Davies watched him for a moment. "She's right."

"The Boss is also right."

Davies drank his coffee. "For what it's worth, she isn't angry with you."

"She looked angry."

"That's just her face."

The diner door opened. A man in a dark jacket entered, paused long enough to look at the room, and took a stool at the counter. He was completely unassuming and nondescript.

The server poured the man coffee.

Davies resumed eating, but something in his posture changed. It was a small adjustment, his right shoulder settling lower and his chair angling a few degrees away from the table.

Ten's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

Davies kept his attention on his plate. "Don't look at the counter."

Ten did not. The front window reflected part of the room behind him, blurred by interior light and the darkness outside. He could make out the new customer and the pale shape of the server moving between coffee urns.

"Why?"

"He's looking at a man sitting behind us as if he knows him but doesn't want anyone else to notice."

Ten's appetite disappeared.

One of the customers who had been seated when they entered occupied a booth near the bathrooms and rear exit. Ten had registered him as a man reading a news screen. He could not remember when the screen had gone dark.

"Something's off," said Davies.

Ten casually lifted his cup and took a sip of coffee while looking at the polished napkin holder to catch a distorted reflection. The man from the booth had stepped into the aisle. He wore a loose coat despite the warm weather. His right hand remained beneath it.

The man at the counter placed money beside his untouched coffee and rose.

They were on opposite sides of the table.

Davies had seen it before the trap closed. That gave them perhaps two seconds.

The man behind Ten moved first. His coat opened, exposing a heavy pistol in a shoulder holster.

"Down," Ten said.

He came out of his chair and went across the table. Plates, coffee, and silverware scattered beneath him. Davies moved at the same instant. They both struck the floor on the far side as the first shot tore through the space where Ten's head had been.

The front window cracked. People were screaming.

A second round punched through the overturned tabletop and sent laminate fragments across Ten's face. The table offered concealment and little else. Davies seized its pedestal and shoved. The top slid across the floor into the legs of the man advancing from the rear, forcing him sideways.

The first attacker by the counter tried to bring his pistol up. Ten lunged toward him, caught his wrist and drove him into the chrome edge. The gun fired between them. The blast filled the diner, close enough that Ten felt it in his teeth. A glass coffee urn remained on the counter. With his free hand, Ten grabbed it and smashed it into the side of the man's head, sending him staggering to the side. Even though the man would be in severe pain from the coffee burn, he righted himself and launched himself forward, catching Ten in the gut.

This was not a robber surprised by resistance.

The attacker hit Ten beneath the ribs, and the air left his lungs. A second blow caught the side of his head and filled his vision with white. In the tussle, the man had dropped the gun, but now he reached down for the weapon.

Ten reached it first.

He fired from the floor.

The round struck the man in the chest and threw him back against the stools. Ten fired again before he could decide whether the first shot had been enough. The attacker collapsed between the counter and the nearest table.

Across the diner, Davies and the second man crashed into the end of a booth. Davies had both hands around the attacker's gun wrist. The man drove his forehead into Davies' face. Davies staggered, blood appearing beneath his nose, but did not release the arm.

The pistol fired into the ceiling.

Ten rose with the captured weapon, but Davies' body blocked the shot. He must have been aware of Ten, though, because he pushed the man back, separating their bodies. "Shoot!"

Ten didn't hesitate. His shot caught the man in the throat, dropping him instantly.

Everything was still. The only remaining sound was a screen showing the local news. Everybody had already fled.

"Davies?"

Davies sat against the booth, breathing through his mouth. Blood ran from his nose onto his shirt. "I'm all right."

They looked at each other for a moment and knew something was seriously off about the attackers. Davies bent down and searched the man nearest him as blood still pulsed from his neck. There was nothing useful. A wallet sat in the coat pocket with cash and an unassuming ID. The attacker carried no noteputer, communicator, or object that suggested an employer.

The first man had the same arrangement: an ordinary wallet with nothing else.

Ten looked at the pistol in his hand.

It was heavy, matte gray, and plain, with no manufacturer's name. The serial panel had been ground smooth before the weapon was refinished. Its shape was not unique, but several details were: the angled muzzle ports, the recessed controls, the narrow grip insert, and the flat-backed sight designed not to catch beneath clothing.

He had seen that configuration before, reproduced in an intelligence circular passed among mercenary officers who worked close to ComStar facilities. The document had not named the model but had noted that pistols prepared in this pattern had repeatedly been used by suspected ROM operatives.

Davies saw him looking.

"ROM. It has to be," Ten said.

Davies picked up the other weapon and examined it. The same visible work appeared on both guns. He nodded.

Ten replayed the moments before the attack. The man at the counter had watched Ten's reflection. The second had moved only after Davies changed position. If Davies had remained oblivious, perhaps the attackers would have waited until Ten was alone.

ROM had not come for the Agency Group. It had come for Ten.

"The camera," Ten said. "There was a security camera in the laboratory. It would show me at the terminal." It wouldn't have been hard to identify him. Someone had recovered the recording and matched his face to ComStar's records.

The wallets and ordinary clothing would have supported a story about robbery. Two dead mercenaries in a late-night diner. Nobody would have needed a more complicated explanation.

Sirens rose beyond the cracked front window. Davies nudged Ten, interrupting his thoughts.

"We need to leave. Now. Under no circumstances can we be here when the police arrive."

Davies was right. If the police found them there, their names would appear in police reports and possibly on the local news. It was best that they weren't there to answer any questions that could give away the attack as something other than a robbery.

Davies took one of the guns and tucked it into the back of his pants under the belt. "The Boss needs to see this before it disappears into evidence."

Ten nodded. The sirens were close now. Red light began to move across the diner ceiling.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER SIX

THE CAR CRASH

Davies placed the pistol on The Boss's desk in a folded shop rag.

The Boss stood over the weapon without touching it. He had pulled on fatigue trousers and a dark shirt that was buttoned wrong near the bottom. It was the closest Ten had ever seen him come to looking hurried.

Davies sat in one of the office chairs with a towel pressed beneath his nose. The bleeding had slowed, but both eyes were beginning to darken. Ten occupied the other chair. His ribs hurt when he breathed deeply, his ears still rang from the shots, and the side of his face felt tight where the second round had thrown pieces of the table into it.

"Again," The Boss said.

Ten looked at him. "Which part?"

"All of it. Start when you entered the diner."

They had already told him once. Ten repeated the sequence. Davies interrupted twice to correct their positions.

The Boss asked the same questions he had asked before. Had either man spoken? Had they called Ten by name? Had they shown any interest in Davies before he noticed them? Had anyone else remained in the diner long enough to hear what Ten and Davies said after the shooting?

Ten answered no to each one.

Davies lowered the towel. "They were there for him. I became part of the evening when I saw them."

The Boss looked at the bruising around Davies' nose.

"I've had worse evenings."

Davies put the towel back.

The Boss finally picked up the pistol by the edges of the grip. He turned it beneath the desk lamp, studying the angled ports, the flat sight, and the panel where the serial number had been removed.

"The gun doesn't prove it was ROM, but it rules out any other players."

"They assumed we wouldn't survive to recognize them," Davies said.

The Boss went behind his desk but did not sit. The closed noteputer remained where it had been during Ten's first account of Maxie's Planet. For several seconds, The Boss stared at it as if opening the machine would invite ComStar into the room.

"My source checked the escrow payment for the Maxie's Planet contract. There were several shell companies behind it, but it ultimately led back to a ComStar account. This now all has a very simple explanation. ComStar needed a rogue faction out of business but couldn't be linked back. We got hired. ROM checked to make sure you had done your job and found the camera footage, creating a loose end. They cannot know who else you told," he said. "Killing the only eyewitness kills the only first-hand account. Everything else would be hearsay and rumor. Going after the entire regiment would be far too conspicuous."

"They'll try again," Davies said quietly. "When the attackers fail to report back, they will know the mission failed."

"Now that's the silver lining. The only people who knew you were there are dead, so you won't get shot at again because of me," said Ten bitterly.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the weight of what had just occurred began to sink in. He'd nearly gotten his best friend killed because he had decided he needed to investigate an underground laboratory that nobody had told him to enter. Everyone near him was now in danger. Ten looked down and, for the first time, noticed his hand was shaking. He felt like vomiting.

"I can leave Galatea," Ten said.

The Boss shook his head. "ComStar knows who you are now. ROM is good and exceedingly dangerous. They will know where to look for you. You could leave Galatea and move to any planet, but they will find you no matter where you are in the Inner Sphere."

"Then take me off the roster. I'll leave the unit."

"And go where? Another mercenary command? Civilian employment under your own name? A hotel room on a planet where you know nobody?" The Boss's tone stayed level. "You cannot hide from an organization that carries the universe's messages simply by getting another job. Nor can you try to fight back; you will not win against the post office."

"What then? Sit around and wait to get killed? Get someone else killed?"

The Boss rested both hands on the desk.

"You have to die."

Davies took the towel away from his face, his mouth hanging open.

"Publicly," The Boss said. "He has to die publicly."

Ten understood the sentence before he understood any of its consequences. While he knew it happened in the real world, faked deaths were the stuff of bad movies and holovids—along with secret agents, double crosses, bank heists, and the like. He'd seen this play out on a screen countless times before, and the absurdity almost made him laugh out loud. Almost.

The Boss glanced toward the pistol. "The death has to be convincing enough that ComStar has a reason to stop looking. Afterward, you receive a new civil record, financial history, medical file, and employment history. The new man needs to exist well enough to survive ordinary examination and to join a mercenary regiment without attracting attention."

"This regiment," Davies said.

"Yes."

That mattered more than Ten expected. He had not seriously imagined leaving the Agency Group until thirty minutes ago, and the thought had been depressing. The Boss's answer reduced the problem to survival and work. The rest could be considered later, when men with pistols were no longer looking for him.

"What kind of death?" Ten asked.

The Boss's eyes moved to him. "An ordinary car crash."

Davies looked at him. "Generally, you find a body in a car crash. If it isn't Ten's, then..." He trailed off before finishing the sentence.

"Nobody will be killed to provide one," The Boss said.

"That wasn't quite what I asked."

"The less you know is generally better."

The Boss reached for the office communicator, then stopped before touching it. "Reilly and Gallo are still waiting at the pub?"

Davies checked the time. "Gallo takes forever to finish a drink."

"Tell them the meeting ran late and they are needed here. Say nothing else."

Davies stood, unsteady for the first step. "What do we tell them when they arrive?"

The Boss looked at Ten.

"The truth," Ten said.

It was the first easy decision of the night.

* * *

Reilly listened without interrupting. That was worse than anger or judgment.

She stood near the office door with her arms folded. Gallo remained beside her, so large that the ordinary chair behind him looked unsuitable. The two of them had arrived still dressed for the pub. Reilly had taken one look at Ten's face and Davies' nose and asked who had done it. The Boss told her to sit down.

"Not a ****** chance," she snapped.

When The Boss finished, Reilly looked at Ten. Her expression had not changed during the explanation, but her attention had fixed on him with a severe intensity.

"You want to put him in a car and burn it," she said.

"Not him," The Boss replied.

"I understood the distinction."

Gallo spoke for the first time. "How many people know?"

"The five of us know why this is happening," The Boss said. "My person handling the records will know what is necessary. When the new identity is ready, the officers and staff who work closely enough with Ten will have to know that his death was operational cover. They will not be told anything about ComStar."

"We would have to lie to a lot of our own people," Reilly said.

"Yes, to most of them."

"Stand there while they believe it."

"Yes."

Her jaw tightened. "For how long?"

"Life."

Gallo had been studying Ten rather than The Boss. "His family?"

Ten's parents lived on New Avalon, separated from Galatea by distance, borders, and the ordinary delays of interstellar travel. That distance had always been a convenience. It allowed him to call when he wanted, postpone visits when a contract ran long, and avoid listening to old arguments about the direction his life had taken. Of course ComStar knew they were there; after all, every message he sent home had to go through an HPG station.

"They cannot know," The Boss said.

Reilly unfolded her arms. "They aren't part of this."

"That is why they cannot know. Any message to them creates a path. Any change in their behavior creates a question. If ComStar believes Ten died and then sees his parents acting as though he did not, the lie fails and they become involved."

"They can keep a secret," Ten said, though he did not know why he said it. He had not asked them to keep one since he was a boy, and none of those had involved an interstellar intelligence service.

The Boss did not soften the answer. "They cannot protect a secret from people professionally trained to obtain secrets. Not only do they risk exposing you, but your mere survival also puts them in danger."

His father had once placed Ten's engineering degree on the kitchen table and asked why four years of work had apparently been preparation for being shot at. His mother had been less restrained. She had called the militia a waste of his education and the mercenary trade a longer route to an early funeral. Ten had answered both of them with the confidence of someone who believed every choice remained reversible.

Now the funeral was going to happen, and their worst nightmares would be confirmed.

Reilly finally sat in the empty chair beside him. She did not touch him. The space between their arms was narrow enough that he should have been able to feel her warmth.

The Boss opened a paper folder. Ten had not seen him remove it from anywhere. Inside was a handwritten list rather than a screen that could be copied or accessed from outside the room.

"From this moment forward, you do not leave the grounds," he said. "You do not use a public communicator, access a financial account, or send a message. Your apartment stays as it is until we are ready. Your groundcar will be used in the crash."

"Reilly and Gallo will go to your apartment and pack you a bag with whatever personal effects you tell them. However, they will take nothing with your name, service number, school, or family connection. Everything else remains for the estate record."

"What estate?"

"Yours."

Ten thought of the apartment's cheap furniture, the books stacked beneath the window, the degree he had never bothered to hang, and the shirts Reilly had accidentally left behind.

"What happens to it?"

"On paper, the normal process. In practice, we preserve what we can safely return to you later—nothing else. Anything else of value, financially or personally, will be sent to your parents."

"And the regiment?" Gallo asked.

"Officially Ten's position will be listed as vacant. The new identity will enter through a transfer arranged by my contact. We will make the introduction only after the records are complete and his appearance has changed."

"My appearance?"

The Boss looked at him from head to toe. "Your hair, for one: a new color and style. It can't be as long, nor can it remain dark brown. Your face, too. You have a thin scar running along your chin. It must be removed. We will get you glasses as well. The tattoos on your arms must also be removed. Looking different is part of the solution."

"How soon?" Ten asked.

"The crash can happen in three days or sooner if we can get the body quickly. The identity will take longer."

Ten felt numb. "I'm gone."

* * *

When Reilly and Gallo went to his apartment, he allowed himself to picture it for the first time.

Nothing would have changed. A pair of boots would remain beside the door. His toothbrush would still be on the bathroom sink. A blinking light on a screen would show that it had recorded soccer games while he was away. A maintenance manual would lie open on the low table beneath the window, held flat by an empty bottle. The thought of not seeing it himself seemed surreal.

He had spent years treating the place as temporary. Contracts kept him away for months, and Galatea encouraged people to think of homes as storage boxes between deployments. He had never replaced the old couch or bought a table large enough for more than four people. Now he missed it in a painful way.

Ten had told them what to bring before they left. The Boss's restrictions made the choices simple. Civilian clothes had to be anonymous enough to belong to anyone. His University of Barrington crewneck sweatshirt wouldn't be coming. They took plain shirts and plain pants, a few of his favorite books that his parents had given him in high school, his New Avalon FC jersey, and a toothbrush.

His degree wouldn't be coming either. He wondered now why he'd never had it framed and hung in his office. For the first time, he desperately wished that he had. He remembered his graduation and how his father had complained about the length of the speeches and then insisted on taking photographs for an hour. His mother had cried, denied crying, and spent too much money on dinner. That memory felt out of reach, too. It was strange to think that the things he had learned in college had not disappeared, but the record of his learning them had.

Finally, he thought about the years he had lived there: the people who had spent nights on his couch and the mornings when Reilly had stolen his coffee and denied doing it while drinking from his cup. In three days, it would become the former home of a dead man.

* * *

The groundcar burned on the news shortly after midnight.

Ten watched from a small room inside the Agency Group's headquarters. It had been used to store furniture for God only knows how long. Dust covered everything except the cot he was sleeping on and the holovid screen. A small window faced the canyon rather than the road. He had spent most of three days there reading a book Reilly and Gallo had brought back and eating meals carried to him by people who already knew the truth. Time moved at a crawl.

The Boss had arrived ten minutes before the report began. He stood near the wall with his arms folded while the local anchor described a single-car crash on an isolated road outside Galatea City. Images showed emergency vehicles surrounding a still-smoldering, blackened frame at the base of a rocky embankment. The roof had collapsed.

Ten recognized it only because it was his car.

The anchor said the name his parents had given him. Hearing it spoken by a stranger made it sound formal and remote, a name from a document rather than something that had ever belonged to him. The report identified him as a member of a mercenary unit.

The image changed to an old roster photograph. Ten wore a service uniform and the expression of a man who didn't really feel like sitting for a formal portrait. It filled the screen beside the burning wreck.

Hours later, the story was updated with a written statement from the regiment expressing grief and requesting privacy.

"You write that?" Ten asked.

The Boss nodded.

The Boss looked back at Ten, trying to reassure him in his own odd way.

"The vehicle is yours. Your effects are inside it. Records place you on the road. The medical comparisons will produce the result they are supposed to produce."

"What happens to the remains?" Ten asked.

This time the look on The Boss's face had more emotion than Ten had ever seen.

"Whatever is left will be cremated and sent to your parents."

This thought hadn't ever even crossed Ten's mind. His parents were going to be mourning the ashes of a stranger and never know it.

Galatea had absorbed Ten's death with all of the fanfare of local news and moved on.

"When does the regiment hear?"

"The people who need to know already know. The rest of the regiment will hear tomorrow morning."

The Boss looked down at his own feet. "A formal notice has begun the trip to New Avalon. It will reach them through the ordinary channels."

Ten nodded. Ordinary channels. A courier? A message delivered first, followed by an official call? He didn't really want to know.

"You should sleep," The Boss said.

"I've only been dead for ten seconds. It seems early."

The Boss remained beside the wall. "Tomorrow we begin the reset: a new man."

It must have been an uneventful night in Galatea City because the story of his death was already being rerun. He saw his burned-out car again with all of the smoke.

Somewhere between Galatea and New Avalon, the lie had already begun its journey home.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER SEVEN

HARRY GRAINGER

Harry Grainger. The man, the myth, the legend. Yeah, right. Ten looked at himself in the mirror. Except he wasn't Ten anymore, at least to the outside world. He was Harry. A non-entity that suddenly existed.

The stylist glanced at Ten in the mirror.

"Is it to your liking?"

First, he looked at the dark hair already lying around the chair. Then he looked back at the mirror. He wasn't enchanted with what he saw. "Apparently it needs to be shorter."

The clippers came out again.

They were in a small room at headquarters. The stylist had been summoned for a house call. He probably thought it was because this particular mercenary had enough money for a private stylist. When they were done with the cut, a foul-smelling paste was massaged into his scalp. After the paste was washed out, Ten got another look at himself. Blond. The man received a generous tip and was sent on his way.

Next came the women. They were clearly in the ink business. Both were covered in tattoos, though they were here to remove his. Most tattoos were removed because they were ex-girlfriends' names or something the person got when they were 17 but no longer seemed cool or profound. They had no idea they were removing an identity. Their lasers hummed for an hour while his skin sizzled and the ink was washed away. It made the room smell like a burned piece of steak. After they were done, Ten mumbled something about looking professional again and thanked them. They were paid handsomely and sent on their way.

Late in the evening, a plastic surgeon arrived. He examined the small scar on Ten's face and concluded that it could mostly be removed with a laser treatment. Two lasers in one day. Lucky him. After the procedure, the area where the scar had been had turned a nasty red. The doctor gave him a tube of lotion and told him he'd look "fabulous" if he used it twice a day for the next week.

"I'm sure I'll be a giant hit with the ladies. Won't be able to keep their hands off me."

The doctor nodded uncomfortably but left with enough C-bills in his pocket that he wouldn't think of it again.

The glasses arrived the next day. They had square tortoiseshell frames and clear lenses that changed the shape of his face without interfering with his vision. The individual changes were unimpressive, but together, they made the man in the mirror look like a relative he did not remember meeting.

Davies came to see him later that day.

"Whoa, you look like a giant ****** nerd."

Ten gave him the finger. Davies wasn't wrong, though. While Ten never thought of himself as looking cool or stylish, he'd been comfortable with his appearance. Now he looked like this. He hated it.

The official photograph came last.

A photographer put Ten against a gray wall and adjusted the lights. She told him to smile. He just gave a blank stare.

The camera flashed.

Harry Grainger appeared on her screen.

Harry had an identification number, a birth date, medical and tax records, and enough employment history in obscure units to explain an experienced pilot looking for work. He had lived in a number of large cities on several planets. That would make it harder for anyone looking to connect the dots.

Later in the afternoon, Ten sat across from The Boss in his office. A noteputer rested between them with Harry's life arranged in tidy fields.

He looked at Ten. "ComStar will not come after you so long as they believe you are dead. You can never give them a reason to question this. Whatever you were is gone, and the only thing left is Harry."

Ten looked back at the screen. His childhood was gone. The first girl he'd ever held hands with. Gone. His high school soccer trophy. The four years of lectures, the bad meals, the nights spent awake over final exams, and the piece of paper his parents had displayed with embarrassing pride. All of it gone forever.

His parents could still tell people about their dearly departed son and how proud they were of him and his accomplishments, regardless of the choices that they disagreed with. Yet he was alive and couldn't tell a soul. Meeting new people was going to be great. Where are you from? No idea. What kind of movies do you like? Umm. Favorite food? That thing that comes with sauce. It's delicious.

The Boss gave him a serious look. "You need to memorize the cover."

Ten turned the noteputer around and began to read from the top again.

At the bottom of the file waited a signature box.

Ten had practiced the name for two days. The first attempts had looked like a student forging a parent's permission slip, but as he practiced, his signature began to look more natural.

He signed.

When he went to the local government offices, the clerk compared the signature with the sample stored in Harry's identification packet and nodded. He handed Ten Harry's new ID card.

That was all it took. The state accepted the signature, and the mercenary registries run by ComStar accepted it.

Back in The Boss's office, Ten asked, "When do I come back?"

"We need to keep you out of sight for a while. Unfortunately, I think you need to stay holed up here for a month. In the meantime, I will shuffle Able's personnel around. Only those who know you closely will remain. The rest will be reassigned to the other battalions. As far as the rest of the Agency Group know, you died and Captain Grainger has been hired to replace you. It will also leave your position listed as vacant with the Mercenary Review Board for a month before we report it filled."

A month. Ten could feel depression creeping in. The glasses had begun to slip down Ten's nose and he pushed them back up.

The Boss tapped one finger against the frames. "Those stay on."

A month later, Harry Grainger appeared from thin air to address Able for the first time.

The Centurion stood in its usual berth behind them, repaired after Maxie's Planet and bearing fresh paint where armor had been replaced. Reilly's Hunchback and Davies' Blackjack occupied the adjoining stalls. Farther down the line were Taylor's Wasp and the rest of the scout lance, then Kasir's un-****** Orion and the heavy machines of Able Three. The familiar arrangement should have made the bay feel normal. Not even close.

Able had a lot of new faces. Only The Boss, Davies, Reilly, and Gallo knew the real reason why a bespectacled, blond-haired man stood in front of them.

Ten looked at them and marveled at how preposterous this performance was.

"Good morning. My name is Captain Grainger. I'm your new commanding officer."

The fiction required an audience. An administrative lieutenant from headquarters stood near the bay doors with a noteputer, recording the transfer of command. Two quartermasters waited beside him to amend equipment assignments.

The Boss faced the formation.

"Please welcome Captain Grainger."

No one moved for a second.

Taylor stepped forward first. She was small enough that her Wasp seemed particularly improbable behind her, and her expression was composed with deliberate care.

"Captain Grainger." She saluted.

Ten returned it. "Lieutenant Taylor."

Kasir followed. His salute was exact, his face solemn. "Captain."

"Lieutenant Kasir."

Davies came next. The bruising around his eyes had faded to yellow, but his nose remained swollen from the diner. He stopped in front of Ten and looked at him through the new glasses.

"Ten—"

The administrative lieutenant glanced up.

Davies continued without changing expression. "—minutes early is what I am today. I intend to lower expectations as soon as possible." It sounded like one of his usual jokes.

Reilly did not make the same mistake. "Captain Grainger," she said, as if she had never called him anything else.

The rest of the company followed. Some were better actors than others. Gallo looked as though he would prefer being shot at to participating in the ceremony, which at least made him appear normal. The technicians kept their greetings brief. The support staff looked on as they began the administrative work of transferring command codes, quarters, and equipment.

There was no ceremony when the paperwork was finished. The Boss departed with the admin. The quartermasters moved on to whatever other entries required correction. The bay doors closed behind them, leaving Able Company alone.

A few people shot sideways glances at him but then went back to working on their own 'Mechs.

He did the same thing. He climbed up the ladder without thinking, finding each rung by habit. Inside the cockpit, the command couch was still adjusted to his settings; his preferred display arrangement waited on the primary screen; and a small crack in the right console remained exactly where it had been before Maxie's Planet. He couldn't look at it.

Maxie's Planet had been his first independent command. The official after-action record described a captain who had acquitted himself under fire, leading his company effectively and successfully completing the objective. Unfortunately, the captain had died before the report could be finalized. Harry's file contained enough experience to justify replacing that person, but none of it belonged to the cockpit around Ten. He smashed his hand against the hard metal instrument console. It hurt. He looked at his hand and saw a small cut and a few drops of blood dripping from it.

Ten got out and climbed back down the ladder.

Reilly was waiting for him.

"How does it feel?" she asked.

He considered the question. "The glasses are still annoying."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"I know."

She did not press. That was one of the reasons they had lasted as long as they had, whatever lasted meant for them.

"We're moving you tonight. Davies found a hand truck. His enthusiasm is annoying."

"I own one bag," said Ten.

"It turns out Harry Grainger owns quite a lot."

Harry Grainger lived twenty-three floors above Galatea City in a corner apartment.

The building had a polished lobby, quiet elevators, and a doorman who already knew Harry's name the first time he walked in. The apartment itself had two bedrooms, a kitchen fitted with high-end appliances he would rarely use, and floor-to-ceiling windows that turned half the city into a field of neon lights after dark. It was the nicest place Ten had ever lived.

"The view is excellent," Davies said. Gallo and Reilly nodded enthusiastically.

He disliked it immediately.

Davies stood at the window with the hand truck he had insisted on bringing. It carried one duffel, several boxes of new clothing, and a bottle of Glengarry Reserve Gallo had most generously contributed to the move.

Ten looked around the furnished living room. It had a modernist style but otherwise was unremarkable. There was an ugly but expensive-looking framed abstract painting on the wall.

Davies wandered toward the second bedroom. "You could make this an office."

"For what?"

"Captain things like paperwork. Regretting paperwork. Avoiding paperwork until it becomes urgent."

They unpacked in less than five minutes. A duffel bag and his new clothing didn't require movers.

Gallo opened the bottle and poured four drinks.

"To Harry Grainger," Davies said.

Nobody lifted a glass.

Davies frowned. "That sounded better before I said it."

Reilly rolled her eyes and took the drink in one gulp.

Ten raised his glass, mimicking a toast, and took it like a shot. He poured another and downed it just as quickly.

The alcohol warmed his throat and settled into his empty stomach. Ten poured a third before anyone had finished their second.

Reilly noticed.

Davies and Gallo got up and said their goodbyes. Davies loudly mentioned that he had to get back to his bedroom before the women, plural, started to get antsy. The door closed behind them.

Reilly remained by the windows. She had removed her jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. The room seemed to continue out over the city.

"Are you staying?" Ten asked.

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

Reilly crossed the room and took the glasses from his face. She folded them carefully and set them beside the bottle.

"Better," she said.

Ten touched her neck. "The Boss disagrees."

"The Boss isn't here."

She kissed him before he could answer.

At least this part was easy. Familiar. Reilly knew the places on his body that had changed and those that had not. Her fingers paused where a tattoo had been, then mercifully moved on without comment.

They undressed between the living room and bedroom. She said Ten's name quietly, once. Hearing that name mattered more than he wanted it to.

Afterward, she lay against his shoulder with one leg across his. It was not enough to make him sleep, and he stared at the ceiling.

When Reilly's breathing settled, Ten slipped from the bed and went to the kitchen. The giant windows let in enough neon pink, purple, and blue light that he didn't need to turn any on. He would need blinds.

He sat and poured another drink.

He thought about every warning his parents had given him about joining the military. Now Harry Grainger's history began and ended with soldiering. He did not want to leave the Agency Group. It was home insofar as he possessed one. But the possibility of leaving had once belonged to him. Years from now, if he decided the cockpit had taken enough, Ten might have used his resume built on his accomplishments to go in a new direction. Harry, on the other hand, could not; his future was decided.

Harry's education was vague. His references were manufactured. His only convincing qualification was the ability to pilot a BattleMech.

"Come back to bed. You don't have to finish the bottle tonight."

Reilly stood in the bedroom doorway wearing one of his new shirts. Her hair was loose, and the city light left half her face in shadow.

"I wasn't planning to."

"Good."

Ten set the glass down harder than necessary.

He felt anger at the exchange. Reilly was convenient even though she didn't deserve it. Ten knew that and still felt it.

Reilly studied him for a moment. Her expression became controlled in the way it did when a conversation approached something that could get ugly.

"Come back to bed, Ten."

He followed her.

In the morning she called him Harry in the lobby, kissed his cheek as though they were casual acquaintances, and walked toward the street without looking back.

The doorman wished Captain Grainger a pleasant day.

The new name became easier through use.

At first, Harry sounded like someone being summoned across a crowded room. Ten would hear it and assume it referred to someone else. Then he would see the questioning look on a clerk's face or the warning in one of his friends' eyes and remember.

Within a month, it was automatic.

On duty, Ten gave no one cause for concern. He worked on duty rosters, reviewed repairs necessitated by Maxie's Planet, and fought with suppliers over replacement parts with the same irritation he had shown before his death. The first time a headquarters form required three signatures for a routine ammunition transfer, he wrote "I'm busy" on the signature line and handed it back.

Able Company learned the public rules. Davies called him Harry whenever anyone from another company was nearby. Taylor and Kasir used rank often enough that names rarely became necessary. Reilly never slipped. Gallo spoke so little that no adjustment was required.

In private, he remained Ten.

The separation should have made matters simple. It did not. Every time someone changed names as a door opened, Ten felt the restraints of the boundary constrict around him a little bit more.

His parents held a memorial without him, apparently. Ten found a three-sentence obituary in a Galatea newspaper imploring people to make a donation to a youth soccer camp instead of sending flowers. There was a time when he had entertained the idea of coaching youth soccer. Alas, dead mercenaries weren't generally allowed on the pitch.

Later that day, the Agency Group got an HPG message confirming the disposition of Ten's estate. Ten looked at it. It had ComStar's seal at the top. This should have been good news: a message sent through ComStar confirming that this last vestige of his old life was gone. Not only was Ten dead, but now his estate was too. He was totally gone, even to ComStar.

That evening he missed a message from Davies and ignored one from Reilly. Instead, he cracked a beer, plopped down on the couch and watched Immortal Warrior until he fell asleep. This became a routine. A few beers and some crappy holovid until he passed out on the couch.

The high-rise apartment separated him from the easy traffic of his old life. Davies could no longer walk over without planning. Reilly had to pass the doorman and use Harry's name at the desk. Gallo disliked the building on principle. Some evenings one of them came anyway, but he found himself ignoring their calls more frequently. Ten didn't know how to talk to them.

They noticed, though. It was Reilly who came most often. Sometimes they went out. Sometimes they did not make it beyond the bedroom because he just didn't have much to say.

One night, she found three empty bottles lined beside the recycling compartment.

"You could throw those away," she said.

"That is what the compartment is for."

"People generally put them in the compartment."

"I was building toward that."

She opened the compartment and put them in. "Davies thinks you're avoiding him. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Avoiding him."

Ten felt a twitch of anger in his chest. "I'm sick of everyone checking whether I'm still alive. I didn't actually die in a fiery crash, remember? Yay me."

Reilly closed the compartment. "Are you sure?"

Ten scowled. "I don't know. Maybe you just have a thing for dead people."

His words landed harder than he intended. Reilly's face tightened.

"Forget it," he said.

For several seconds neither of them moved.

"Fine," she said.

She picked up her jacket.

"Reilly."

She stopped at the door but did not turn.

Ten could have apologized.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"You will."

She left.

3026 arrived, but Ten barely noticed. He was making it through the days on muscle memory alone and beer at night. Some people made New Year's resolutions to quit drinking. That seemed ambitious.

January had just turned to February when The Boss called a senior staff meeting first thing in the morning. Ten arrived with a spectacular hangover. He felt like absolute shit. Nobody seemed to notice over the excitement in the room.

Ten sat.

The Boss flicked on a screen and dimmed the lights. The symbol of the AFFS appeared along with the word "CLASSIFIED."

"The Armed Forces of the Federated Suns want the Agency Group for a major operation against the Capellan Confederation. The gist is that Max Liao has himself a planet with a lot of oil and The Fox has decided he wants it instead."

Ten opened the folder. The summary was brief. Second Try was the destination. AFFS command expected a hard campaign, significant armored resistance, and conditions unpleasant enough that someone in procurement had used the phrase extreme-weather compensation.

"Wait, wait, wait. They're paying us extra because it's cold?" Davies said. "How cold are we talking? Like, winter skiing cold or a few degrees off of absolute zero?"

"They're paying us extra because people hate dying in the cold," Ten replied.

"That sounds less fun."

"This is a big operation with big C-bills. The numbers are enticing," The Boss said. "If the Group performs well, it puts us in position to expand, and we will all have to buy extra wallets to hold all of the C-bills." This improved everybody's mood considerably.

"If we accept, preparation begins immediately."

Ten looked around the room at the other officers and back at The Boss. "You've already accepted."

"Provisionally."

"The DropShip schedules are on the second page."

Ten turned to the last page, listing the forces to be deployed. Midway through the page he saw "HARRY GRAINGER, CAPTAIN, ABLE COMPANY."

He couldn't quite believe it.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER EIGHT

FROZEN OIL

Every morning when Ten woke up, he counted the days Harry had been alive, or, conversely, the days he'd been dead. The numbers were not helping his general mood, but business continued.

The accepted contract had become manifests, ammunition requests, cold-weather supplies, and a transport problem that seemed to assume every DropShip captain on Galatea had been waiting for the Agency Group to call.

Ten sat at a temporary desk in the hangar with three noteputers open to equipment lists and urgent messages. The name at the top of all three screens was HARRY GRAINGER.

He'd been at it for sixteen, no, seventeen hours. Christ, he was tired.

A technician stopped at the edge of the desk and handed him another noteputer. "Captain, the Hunchback is showing wear in the left hip actuator. Devonshire wants authorization to replace the bearing assembly." The notion that a tech would need authorization to make sure a leg didn't fall off was almost comical.

Ten authorized it.

The whole Agency Group was deploying. BattleMechs, tanks, infantry, artillery, aerospace fighters, repair equipment, fuel, ammunition, and food needed to be divided among a gaggle of DropShips. Turned out that no single transport company had a flotilla available. Ten looked at his watch. Eighteen hours.

Davies appeared beside the desk holding two cups.

"Coffee," he said, setting one down. "Drink it before we end up with all of our gear scrambled." Ten gratefully took what was probably his tenth cup.

"Thanks," he said, then nodded, indicating that their interaction had now concluded.

Davies wandered off toward the Blackjack's berth.

It went on this way for the next two weeks. The eighteen-hour days blended together as the hangar slowly began to empty. He decided to call it a night after looking at the last requisition form somebody had submitted earlier that day. Before, he would have met his lancemates, or maybe Taylor, at Gritty's after the day was over. The idea of further conversation seemed unappealing, so he threw on his jacket and headed home.

As far as amenities went at his new apartment, he had been grateful to find that there was a convenience store across the street that sold six-packs. He bought some beer and a frozen pizza before heading up. All of the high-end appliances in the kitchen remained untouched except for the toaster oven, which seemed to be working as hard as Ten. He popped his pizza in and waited for it to finish before flopping down on the couch with a slice and a beer. He flicked on the holovid but didn't really pay attention.

Instead, he thought about his parents and wondered what they were doing. His mom was probably working overtime to avoid being home while his dad would be tinkering around the house to keep himself busy. Undoubtedly, they would have a framed memorial photo of him on the mantel that nobody could bring themselves to look at. If, in fifteen years, a magic wand were waved and it was safe to see them, would his parents hate him because he let them think he was dead? That comforting thought definitely called for another beer. He had just about finished the six-pack when his eyes finally got heavy and he passed out on the couch.

Duty began at a fixed hour, and Ten arrived at headquarters on time, though still exhausted. Today, however, the preparations had finished. Harry Grainger left on his first deployment.

By the time Second Try filled the Union's forward displays, Galatea lay a string of jump points behind them.

The world looked pale from orbit. White clouds covered most of the visible hemisphere, parting over expanses of equally white snow. Hospitable was not a word anyone had ever used to describe the planet.

Ten was in the converted cargo compartment with Able Company's pilots and senior support personnel. A projection of the target region floated over the table. The map was crowded with pipelines, pumping stations, storage fields, roads, rail spurs, and fortified positions. Red lines marked confirmed Capellan defenses. Amber lines marked places intelligence expected to become defended as soon as the first DropShips entered the atmosphere.

The mission was not to occupy the planet indefinitely but to seize it long enough for the Federated Suns to carry off whatever crude oil they could, then torch what was left so the Capellans couldn't use it. Even a temporary seizure required significant combat resources. The full Agency Group was deploying along with the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers and the Fifth Davion Guards, the latter being the unit they were actually attached to.

Ten addressed the group. "We are taking the producing region, the refinery, the spaceport, and the corridor connecting them. The AFFS wants all four intact."

Davies studied the map. "How long are they planning to keep them?"

"That's not our problem; we're done when the planet is secure. However long Hanse plans on pumping it after we leave is up to him."

The intelligence summary identified Preston's Lancers as the principal regular defense. Two planetary militia BattleMech battalions reinforced them. The invaders outnumbered them, but the Capellans had the advantage of prepared ground.

Ten enlarged the section assigned to the Agency Group. "The regiment is spread across three sectors. Able and the rest of First Battalion will deploy here." Ten indicated a spot on the map. "We'll operate with a Fifth Guards element under Captain Zeller. He has local operational control. Orders come through him unless we hear otherwise."

Taylor raised a hand from the side of the table. "How current is the minefield information?"

"It isn't. The marked fields are MIIO and DMI's best guess. Assume every useful approach has another one." Ten wasn't exactly thrilled with his answer, but it was the best he had.

"Good thing I brought my ballet shoes."

Ten shifted the display again. "There are live pipelines throughout the operating area. Storage tanks and processing equipment are not cover. Do not fire through them. Do not step on them. Do not let Davies test whether they explode."

"I feel singled out," Davies said.

"You are."

Twelve hours later, the Union began its descent. The hull shuddered through the upper atmosphere, and the 'Mechs moved against their restraints as the ship adjusted attitude and thrust. The pilots were already mounted up, sitting in their cockpits with their neurohelmets on. All of them were dressed in T-shirts, shorts, or just underwear with their cooling vests hooked up. The irony of landing on an ice ball dressed for the beach was not lost on Ten.

There had been a lot of companywide chatter between them on the radios, but it faded as the vibration deepened. The ship had encountered turbulence. Metal groaned around them.

Three. Two. One. The landing struts hit hard enough to drive the straps into his shoulders.

A green light replaced the red one over the bay doors.

They entered the cold.

The 'Mechs disembarked down the Union's ramp into blowing snow.

Taylor's Wasp moved ahead in long, careful strides. The Jenner twins spread to either side while the Commando stayed in slack position. Their speed made them the obvious screen, but the uncertain ground kept them from overdoing it. The snow was so deep that it would be difficult to see a hidden drainage cut or crusted snowbank. They could break an ankle actuator as effectively as enemy fire.

After Kasir's lance had moved out, Reilly's Hunchback was the first of Able One to disembark. Ten's Centurion moved down close behind her. At eye level, he was always struck by how massive the Hunchback's right shoulder autocannon was. "Comeback Kid" had been stenciled on the side. It made the gun look more terrifying, if that was possible. Davies followed in his Blackjack, with Gallo's Catapult emerging last to take up the rear. Twelve machines out. The same twelve Ten had taken to Maxie's Planet except with a different commander.

The cockpit heaters had been running since power-up and were now fighting ice crystals trying to gain a foothold on the ferroglass. Beyond the cleared pad, the ground was white except where DropShip exhaust had exposed black rock and frozen mud.

Since there didn't appear to be any immediate resistance, Davion Guards engineers streamed down from a smaller DropShip a little to the south.

The rest of the regiment was landing across other sites beyond the horizon. Units from the Fifth Guards and Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers were already moving from staging areas established by the first wave. The landing forces seemed massive when Ten thought about it, but the blowing snow kept his visibility limited to the machines nearest him. It made his command feel alone and stranded.

The industrial region began several kilometers east. Pump jacks and drilling towers stood against the white plain like black mechanical trees. Pipes crossed the surface on raised supports, disappearing beneath snowdrifts and reappearing farther on. Orange gas flames bent with the wind. The scent of sulfur and petroleum was so strong outside that Ten could smell it even through the ventilation system's air filters. He bet travel agents didn't get many requests for vacation packages on Second Try. It was a silly thought to have running through his mind. It immediately ceased when the first artillery rounds landed less than a kilometer north, shooting snow and dirt into the air in slow black columns.

Captain Zeller had established his command post inside a prefabricated operations shelter half-buried behind an ice-covered ridge. It was essentially a long trailer with massive screens on the interior walls displaying rolling combat data. Personnel sat in chairs with headsets on, relaying the information to units in the field. When Ten entered, Zeller was standing over a map table with one hand braced against its edge. He wore an olive-drab winter jumpsuit without anything ornamental beyond rank and unit patches. He appeared to be in his forties. His hair was clipped close, and he had a narrow face with a hooked nose. He had bags under his eyes, but his gaze remained sharp and focused.

He looked up. "Captain Grainger."

Ten answered to the name before he thought about it. "Sir."

Zeller motioned him closer. The display showed the landing area, the eastern pumping fields, and a service road leading toward the closest pumping station. Several symbols along the road had been crossed out and redrawn.

"Originally, we had planned on moving a column up the road. Our maps had shown it with open fields on either side," Zeller said as he moved his finger across the map. "A reconnaissance flight found new earthworks in the northern section. Now that we know they've committed defenders, it becomes more likely that there will also be ambush points. Pushing straight up the road will put us in a compromised position. This creates a problem since the pipeline keeps us from spreading south."

"Causing the pipeline to detonate before capturing it would be unhelpful." Zeller enlarged the southern approach. "However, I very much doubt the Capellans would be thrilled about shooting at it." Zeller gestured. "Your scout lance screens this route on the north side of the road. Both your command lance and heavy lance hug the pipeline, while our engineers follow you." The plan made sense, but intentionally walking next to a pipe one LRM away from a supernova was still not appetizing.

Back in their 'Mechs, they began to move east on the service road. They had made it less than two kilometers before the snow completely covered the road.

Ten moved the Centurion slightly behind the lead engineering vehicle as the rest of Able fell in. The storm had weakened, leaving a low gray sky and wind strong enough to erase tracks within minutes. After the first four kilometers, Taylor's scouts moved ahead in pairs. Searching.

Taylor's voice came over the command channel. "Able Lead, halt the column."

Ten responded. "Holding position. Advise."

"The snow surface changes thirty meters ahead; it looks too uneven in places."

Ten magnified the image from Taylor's Wasp. At first, he saw nothing but white ground broken by the shadow of a few scattered boulders. Then the pattern emerged: shallow depressions at regular intervals, nearly filled by drifting snow. The road was mined.

"Engineers forward," he ordered. "Everyone else, break formation just past the road's shoulders."

The engineering vehicle stopped behind the Centurion and released a small tracked detector. It crawled past Ten's feet and reached the first depression.

Incoming LRMs arrived twenty seconds later.

The first missiles struck behind the column and threw a wall of snow over Davies' Blackjack. The second stream found the road beside a recovery vehicle and flipped it onto its side.

The mines were there to slow them down. They also stopped them from getting to the pipeline for cover.

"Space out!" Ten shouted. "Do not cross Taylor's line."

The already-broken-up formation began to balloon further apart. Another salvo walked toward the halted engineers. Ten moved the Centurion off the road onto ground the detector had already crossed, placing its armor between the engineering crew and the direction of the incoming fire.

Static hissed before Zeller's voice came onto the comm. "Grainger, pull back two hundred meters while your scouts search. Get out of the box."

Just as they began reversing, red dots appeared on the display on the north side of the road. Shit. They were too far from the pipeline for cover.

Four Vedette tanks hidden by a snowdrift northeast of the minefield emerged. Two Vindicators and a pair of Ostrocs rose behind them, their brown armor mottled with white paint and strips of thermal cloth. They had been cold and nearly invisible until they powered their weapons and sent a hellish barrage at Able. Additional Capellan 'Mechs appeared out of nowhere, advancing on their position. Ten immediately saw a Stalker and two Crusaders release a hail of LRMs. Even as the missiles began crashing around Able, Ten had enough time to see more red dots appear on his display.

It was clear now that the Capellans had wanted reconnaissance to see the earthworks. It was a diversion.

Gallo spoke once. "Targets."

The Catapult's launchers flashed. Two streams of LRMs climbed over the column. Snow erupted around the first Vindicator. Armor flashed from its shoulder and chest as warheads struck.

Davies twisted the Blackjack's torso, swung his autocannons into line with the nearest Vedette, and opened up. The lighter shells did not stop the lead tank, but they hammered its glacis and forced it to turn away from the road.

The assault was ferocious, and they needed help.

"Battery Mike, this is Able Actual! Fire mission!" He nearly had to scream into the comm to be heard over the explosions of incoming LRMs shaking his Centurion and the answering roar of his autocannon.

After less than a heartbeat, the return came. "Able, this is Battery Mike. Received. Send it over."

"Grid X-ray Yankee niner-two-four, eight-one-seven!" Ten's knuckles were white as he gripped the joystick on his command couch, continuing his fire. "Danger close. One round smoke!"

The comm hissed again in response. "Grid received. Danger close. One round smoke."

After a moment, one shell dropped from the sky, striking the ground behind the two Vindicators and leaving a plume of bright blue smoke. Ten squinted, gauging the distance.

"Drop five-zero. Fire for effect!"

The seconds clicked by, moving like an eternity, then the sky tore open. Ten had been dead on. Long Tom shells dropped, opening a hellscape in front of him. Fireballs engulfed the Vindicators. The kinetic force threw the first to the side like a piece of paper. The other took a direct hit, ceasing to exist. A scorched and mangled PPC cartwheeled through the air, though Ten was unsure from which machine.

The fight wasn't close to over. Bright flashes of laser fire from the Stalker passed above the Centurion's shoulder. He concentrated, drifting his target reticle over the Stalker. It pulsed green, and Ten let go of everything in one volley. The ten LRMs screamed from their tubes, rushing the Stalker while the medium laser and autocannon zipped across the 200-meter distance. All struck. Some armor twisted off and flew into the sky; other parts vaporized, leaving a nasty gash running along the Stalker's right leg.

The Stalker rocked beneath the impact. Its right leg held, but only after the machine planted its left foot and twisted its torso away from the Centurion. The movement exposed the two Crusaders behind it. Reilly stepped up next to Ten, and her autocannon belched death at one of the Crusaders, driving it back. Both were still launching missiles, but the sudden disappearance of the Vindicators had broken the rhythm of the Capellan advance.

Ten resisted the urge to push forward. Zeller had ordered them out of the box, and the engineers were still trapped beside a minefield.

"Able One, reverse by pairs," he ordered. "Davies, hold the south side. Reilly, with me on the north. Gallo, keep the heavies looking at us."

"Understood," Davies replied.

His Blackjack turned across the road and backed toward the pipeline, placing its thick torso between the engineers and the Vedettes. Its autocannons tracked the lane, raking them with fire. The lead tank started forward until one of the Blackjack's shells knocked off a tread, halting it immediately. The others reconsidered and moved behind the snowdrift.

Gallo's Catapult sent another flight of missiles toward the Crusaders. The barrage scattered them without doing much visible damage, which was enough. Every Capellan pilot looking for cover was one not shooting at the engineers.

Able Three had been withdrawing with the rest of the column. Kasir now angled his Orion onto a low rise beside the road, with the Zeus and Thug taking staggered echelon positions behind him. The Zeus stopped farther back and brought its large laser to bear across the northern approach, sending a lance of pure red into the Stalker. The heavy lance kept its machines facing the Capellans as they slowly moved back, so that the Capellans found themselves facing a wall of armor instead of the rear of a retreating column.

The two Ostrocs answered first. Lasers carved across the Orion's chest and shoulder while a Vedette's laser chewed into the snow beside it. Kasir held his ground long enough for the last mobile engineering vehicle to reverse past him, then stepped back without being told.

One of the engineers remained trapped in the overturned recovery vehicle. Another was crouched near him, pulling uselessly at the shoulder of his winter suit.

Ten enlarged the image. The man in the vehicle was not moving.

"Leave them," Ten said. The words felt brutal before they had even cleared his mouth. "We can't jeopardize the others." The surviving engineer understood what was happening. He left the recovery vehicle's passenger and began slogging through the snow toward the retreating column. He didn't stand a chance.

"Grainger, continue back to the rally point," Zeller ordered.

"Already moving."

Luckily, the Capellan forces did not pursue. The two Ostrocs and both Crusaders covered the damaged Stalker as it limped back north. The surviving Vedettes followed, alternating movement with short bursts from their lasers. The additional contacts on Ten's display withdrew with them.

Able had escaped the trap, but the Capellans had bought time. They had managed to kill people, damage equipment, and force the advance to stop. The Agency Group had been stymied, and Ten hated it.

Able Company reached the rally line with all twelve BattleMechs still upright. The engineers arrived without the recovery vehicle, its driver, or the man Ten had ordered them to leave beside it.

Nobody suggested going back.

Zeller gave the Capellans forty minutes to settle into whatever position they had prepared next. He used the time to move artillery and have Taylor's scouts search for a route around the northern edge of the minefield. The engineers found twenty-six anti-vehicle mines and eight charges large enough to take the leg off a BattleMech. Knowing the locations gave them a route through.

The advance resumed.

The first pumping station fell before dark. Its militia garrison abandoned the outer buildings after a short exchange and withdrew before Able Company could close around it. Almost everything remained intact and undamaged. One storage line had been ruptured during the morning's shelling, leaving black oil beneath the snow in a widening stain, but the main pumps continued to operate.

They found the engineer they had been forced to abandon earlier. His leg had been ripped off by an anti-personnel mine, and he had bled to death in the snow. This was the first time in his life that he had directly caused the death of a friendly. It had been his judgment. Tactically, it made sense, but when he looked down, he saw blood on his hands.

Ten entered his name in the preliminary report. The authorization line beneath it belonged to Captain Harry Grainger.

It seemed obscene that a name invented a few months earlier had the authority to certify the death of a man who had possessed a real life. Self-loathing seemed to be on today's menu.

Zeller held the after-action meeting in the same operations shelter. Meltwater dripped from coats and collected on the floor. The map table showed the newly opened route in blue and three more defensive belts in red.

"Taylor found the minefield before we entered it," Zeller said. "That saved the lead armor and probably the engineering section. Make sure the recognition goes into the report." She probably would appreciate it, but giving out high fives this soon after leaving dead people on frozen ground felt deeply unfair.

Zeller changed the display. "The Lancers are using militia armor to hold us in place while their regular 'Mechs cover the withdrawal. It's going to be a grind. Tomorrow we move north of the pipeline and take Relay Ridge."

The meeting continued on like that without ceremony. Ten left after midnight.

The maintenance shelter around Able Company was warm enough that winter jumpsuits and jackets could mercifully be taken off. Reilly stood beneath the Hunchback's left leg while a technician checked its actuator seals. Her hair was damp and pushed back from her face. She was wearing a tank top, and Ten could see that a dark bruise had formed along her shoulder where the restraints had caught her during the landing.

"Zeller likes you," she said when Ten approached.

"I can't imagine why. He's known me for a day."

"That may be why." She gave a weak smile.

Ten looked up at the Hunchback. The new hip assembly had survived the landing and the battle, no doubt from Devonshire's handiwork. Scratches and shallow craters marked the armor, but the machine was ready for another round.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Yeah." Reilly watched him for a moment. "You?"

He knew what she meant. It had nothing to do with the fight.

"Never better, tip-top." He felt awkward. "I have first watch in six hours."

"That wasn't what I asked."

Ten set his jaw and muttered, "I know, but that's my answer." He really didn't need anyone's concern right now, especially hers.

The technician who had been working on the Hunchback had overheard and looked uncomfortable. She gathered her tools and moved to the other side of the shelter, giving them privacy without admitting she had done so. It made him feel self-conscious, and he decided it was time to be elsewhere.

"I need to go dye my hair. Harry's roots are showing," he said quietly.

"Blonds have all the fun."

Fun was starting to sound like a novel concept. He turned to go.

"Get some sleep, Ten."

His head snapped up, his eyes meeting hers. Everywhere else, people he had met that morning called him Grainger and expected him to answer, and every time he heard it, resentment boiled in his throat.

He nodded, grabbed a thermal tent he had packed, and secured it in the snow next to the repair shelter. Hair dye could wait for tomorrow. A small flask of whiskey had also been packed. His brain swung between his desperation to be Ten again and the visceral image of the dead engineer. The missing leg and frozen blood. The engineer objectively had it worse, and he hated that he still felt sorry for himself. The whiskey seemed very much indicated. He was tired, but he couldn't stop thinking and wasn't sure if he could sleep. He took a couple of gulps, hoping for the best.

He lay down fully dressed and listened to the repair crews work through the night.

The next nine days became a succession of ridges, pumping stations, culverts, and roads that were never as empty as they appeared. Sensor posts hidden inside abandoned equipment called artillery onto advancing columns. Infantry waited in insulated bunkers until the BattleMechs had passed, then attacked engineers and supply vehicles. Minefields forced the invaders toward revetments; demolished bridges forced them onto frozen channels already measured for enemy fire.

The Agency Group advanced with Zeller's company on the right flank. They had the weight and the firepower but paid for every advantage. The machines performed the jobs they had been built to perform, but exhaustion was setting in for the people inside them.

Zeller remained careful. Twice he stopped advances when the sensor picture did not match the ground. Once he shifted an entire Guards company rather than order it through a valley Taylor believed had been mined. Ten overheard him arguing with a superior officer over the delay. But in the end, he won out, convincing the major on the other end of the radio to listen to the scouts.

Despite his exhaustion and self-medication, Ten continued to show up and grind through the campaign. Nobody seemed to notice, though, so he must have been good at hiding it.

On the tenth evening, Zeller called the officers back to the operations shelter.

A communications hub appeared above the map table. It sat on a low rise beyond the northern pumping field and controlled a web of buried lines linking what were most likely local transmitters and sensor relays. Taking it would blind several Capellan positions and give the Davion force direct access to the industrial network farther east.

"Reconnaissance shows light resistance," Zeller said. "Most of the Lancers' machines in this sector pulled south after the fight at Relay Ridge. Militia infantry remains around the hub, along with a few vehicles. My suspicion is that they don't think we know it's there because it's small and out of the way. Taking it now without much of a fight is an opportunity we may not get again."

Zeller assigned Able Company to the center and split his Guards company between the two flanks. Once secured, infantry could move in and capture the communications equipment, or destroy it if that wasn't possible.

Ten studied the approach. The weather had cleared enough for Taylor's scouts to see most of the rise, and the few enemy contacts matched the losses and withdrawals of the previous days. After fighting for every road and pumping station, the hub looked like an objective they could take quickly.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER NINE

THE SURVIVOR

In the morning, Ten got his first real look at the communications facility. It was a small concrete building that sat low against the ground, surrounded by a wire fence. It had a few darkened windows and an ordinary-looking door in the front. He got the distinct impression that this wasn't originally a military installation. Now, though, the tower gave away its current purpose.

His Centurion stood at the assembly area west of the ridge with the rest of Able Company and the accompanying Davion 'Mechs. Ten wore his cooling vest over a T-shirt, along with a pair of gym shorts and black combat boots. Despite the heater's best attempts, he was still cold, but if they ran into trouble, the cockpit would turn into an oven and he would be glad about his fashion choices. For now, though, a light snow was falling, and while he was fairly certain the fusion reactor was using all of its power on the defroster, some of the snow was still sticking.

He had slept for almost four hours; it was more than he had expected. The whiskey had left a sour taste in his mouth when he woke up, but his hands were steady and his thoughts were clear.

On the tactical display, he could see Able Two was already moving. Taylor's Wasp and the Commando worked along the southern approach while the Jenner twins swept north.

"South approach is clear to the outer fence," Taylor reported. "No fresh tracks. I have two cold vehicle contacts inside the perimeter, probably the same ones reconnaissance found yesterday."

"Understood. Keep your eyes open."

Able One waited with Ten in the center. Reilly's Hunchback stood a little forward of Davies' Blackjack. Gallo's Catapult had found a depression that concealed most of its body while leaving its launchers clear. Ten could see the words Comeback Kid on the Hunchback's shoulder whenever the snow shifted. He had to admit, it looked pretty badass. That was Reilly.

Zeller's voice came over the channel. "All elements, start advancing."

Ten pushed his throttle forward and the Centurion hummed in response.

The Centurion stepped out of the assembly area and into the open. The ridge rose gradually ahead of them on its way to meeting the distant mountains. Its western face had been scraped bare in places by the wind, exposing dark stone between long bands of white.

For the first kilometer, nothing happened.

Taylor reported that the defenders still in the perimeter looked to be packing up. Quickly. With two companies advancing, it had become quite clear that the communications installation had been spotted, and that it was time to go.

"Taylor, eyes over," Ten said.

"Movement inside the perimeter," Taylor reported. "I see two Scorpions powering up and infantry moving."

The cold vehicle contacts became red symbols. Two tracked tanks were turning their autocannons toward the ridge. Beyond them, figures in white camouflage moved through a narrow trench connecting the buildings. The wire fence had already been cut in several places from the inside, leaving clear lanes for withdrawal.

They were definitely preparing to leave as fast as humanly possible, if not faster.

Zeller came on the comm. "Take the center. Do not fire on the communications buildings unless they use them as fighting positions. Taking some alive could yield valuable intelligence."

"Copy that."

The lead Scorpion fired as Ten reached the crest. Its autocannon flashed and a stream of shells tore across the snow. The tank was gunning the engine to head for the exit, so the shots weren't very accurate. The second Scorpion reversed away from the oncoming forces as fast as it could, desperately trying to get away.

Both Ten and Davies opened up on the tanks. It was over in less than a minute.

"Vehicles down," Davies said.

A few Capellan infantrymen opened fire from the trench while the sensible ones ran.

A couple of rounds from a heavy machine gun pinged off the Centurion. The hits didn't even register to Ten as he kept moving. More of the soldiers decided it was a good idea to be anywhere but where they were and took off.

Ten crossed the outer fence where the defenders had already cut it. The Centurion's foot crushed a post into the snow. He brought its forward medium laser down and fired into the empty lip of the trench ahead of the remaining infantry. Steam and fragments of concrete exploded across the position. The shot made it crystal clear to the defenders that they were out of the war. They dropped their launchers, climbed out of the trench, and raised their hands.

It was the first surrender he had seen on Second Try. Until then, the defenders had either escaped or been killed before the Agency Group reached them.

"Hold fire," he ordered. "Taylor, keep the eastern road closed. Kasir, cover the perimeter. Nobody walks into the buildings until our troops arrive."

The order went out across the joint channel. Zeller's Guards closed around the north and south sides while Able Company held the center. The battle had lasted less than two minutes.

Ten watched the prisoners kneel in the snow.

It felt good to win quickly, and despite the fact that these were enemy soldiers, it was a relief not to have killed anyone else. He checked the sensor display again. The screens showed friendly machines, cooling wrecks, and the small heat signatures of surrendered infantry.

"I feel quite civilized and gentlemanly allowing this capitulation. Like, kinda chivalrous," Davies said.

"Don't worry, it will pass."

Ten heard Reilly laugh once over the channel.

The supporting infantry had gotten bogged down while climbing the slope. Their carriers had gotten stuck in a ditch beneath the snow, and they were trying to free their vehicles.

Zeller came across the comm. "All units, maintain the perimeter," he ordered. "Infantry will process the prisoners and clear the structures when they're clear of the snow."

Ten acknowledged. His Centurion's ammunition counter showed that he had spent one autocannon round and no missiles. One of Zeller's machines had lost a few hundred kilograms of plating to an infantry missile, but that was about it for damage. Compared with the fight at the minefield, it barely qualified as combat. This was a true luxury.

* * *

The prisoners had been kneeling for several minutes when Taylor found the survivor.

"I have movement on the side of the building."

Ten turned the Centurion to get a better look. Next to the facility there was a shallow service channel where cables and piping disappeared beneath the ground; there was a concrete access hatch at the bottom. A person lay beside it.

At first, Ten couldn't actually tell if the person was alive. Then one arm moved across the snow and the man rolled partly onto his back. He wasn't wearing any combat gear and didn't have cold-weather fatigues. When he finally got himself onto his back, a Capellan uniform became visible, marked by significant bloodstains. He tried to raise one hand and failed.

Ten checked the tactical display. The nearest infantry carrier was still stuck west of the crest.

Zeller addressed the prisoners through a loudspeaker, asking whether anyone remained in the access structure. As it turned out, the eastern part of the facility held the communications personnel. The defenders had lost contact after the shooting started.

"Command says we can get a dustoff in eight minutes," someone reported.

"He may not have eight minutes," Zeller said. His voice sounded strained and on edge.

Capturing a communications specialist alive could turn out to be a big prize. He might know which lines mattered, where the local command posts were, and whether the equipment had been prepared for demolition. He might know more than that too.

A lance of Fifth Guards BattleMechs stood less than 100 meters from the channel. A Dervish occupied the center, with an Enforcer beside it and two other Guards machines spread along the slope. Next closest was Ten.

"Lieutenant Keane, have your lance dismount and secure the survivor," Zeller ordered. "Grainger, you're closest on the west side. Go with them and check the doorway. Clear the facility if necessary. It is imperative that we keep the equipment intact."

This seemed like a remarkably poor idea and made Ten extremely uneasy. In fact, this seemed unusually reckless.

Ten opened a private channel to Zeller. "This sector isn't fully secured. I think it would be unwise to leave our 'Mechs under these circumstances. Beyond that, we're in cooling vests and cockpit gear. The chopper will be here in less than eight minutes for dustoff."

A moment went by, and Ten got the sense that Zeller was probably pissed. The issue had already been decided.

"Your objection is noted," Zeller said. "The man may bleed out, and there may be someone inside preparing to destroy the equipment. The information that man possesses could save a lot of lives. An opportunity like this may not present itself again. You and the four Guards pilots are there. Dismount, secure the wounded man, and clear the facility. We will cover you."

Ten stared at the red-stained figure below.

"Understood," Ten said.

He changed channels. "Davies, you have Able until I'm back."

Davies had apparently been listening. "The infantry will be here soon and a medevac is inbound. This is a stupid idea."

"I made that observation. Alas, Zeller remains unconvinced by my brilliance."

"Make sure to bundle up all cozy."

"Copy that," Ten said as he killed the comm and took off the neurohelmet.

His survival pack was secured behind the command couch. It held a thermal suit, rations, and enough equipment to make an unexpected night outside merely dangerous instead of suicidal. Pulling everything out and dressing properly would take several minutes, and Zeller had decided immediacy was the only option. Ten took the field jacket and gloves from the top of the pack, grabbed his assault rifle, and left the rest where it was.

******, it was cold. He climbed onto the Centurion's shoulder, careful not to slip on the ice that had built up, and worked his way down the access ladder. The cockpit had hidden the wind, but out on the ground it was vicious, whipping at his face.

The four Guards pilots were descending from their machines. The Dervish pilot reached the ground first and waved the others toward the access cut. He was a lean lieutenant named Keane, the lance commander, whom Ten had met twice in briefings. The Enforcer's pilot, MechWarrior Bell, joined him with a compact medical pouch clipped to her belt. The remaining two, Mercer and Ives, carried their pistols low and looked as pleased with the assignment as Ten felt. Read: not at all.

All five wore cooling vests beneath hastily pulled-on jackets. Keane had found a knit cap. Ives had not bothered with gloves.

"Grainger," Keane said when Ten reached them. "You and I are going to clear the building. It can't be more than a few rooms, so we should be in and out. My pilots will work on the Capellan and see if they can get him stabilized."

Ten nodded. He got the sense that Keane felt the same way as he did, and that there was no reason to leave a perfectly good heated 'Mech cockpit.

They started down the service cut.

Behind them, the five empty BattleMechs stood inside the perimeter. Ten's Centurion looked stoic in the cold with its head turned toward the east. Reilly had moved the Hunchback closer and positioned it between the dismounted pilots and the open road. The massive autocannon tracked the horizon.

Ten could see Davies' Blackjack farther up the ridge and Gallo's Catapult behind it. Their presence was cold comfort to Ten while he was outside of his Centurion.

The wounded man noticed them and lifted his head.

Keane raised an empty hand and called to him in Mandarin, gesturing toward the other pilots, presumably to let him know they were going to help him. The man's mouth moved, but the wind carried his answer away.

"What did he say?" Ten asked.

"Couldn't hear him."

Keane motioned for Ten to move with him while the other pilots bent over the wounded man and began tending to him. Ten's earpiece carried the joint command channel and informed him that the infantry carriers were free and moving. Taylor's scouts reported nothing moving on the eastern road.

There was commotion behind them, and Ten turned around to look. The wounded man began resisting.

"Stop moving! Stop moving!" Keane shouted.

Bell got knocked backward onto her side. "He's reaching for something."

Ten raised his rifle and moved several steps to the left, trying to get a better view.

The man's hand emerged from beneath his coat. It held no weapon. His fingers opened around a small black object that dropped into the snow.

Ten froze.

Bell looked at the object. "Radio."

It was an ordinary field communicator, its casing cracked and its indicator dark. The wounded man pushed it toward them, then sagged onto his side.

For a moment, nobody moved.

"Jesus, try to hold his arm next time, will ya?" Mercer muttered at Bell.

Ten and Keane continued up to the doorway of the facility. The door was slightly ajar, presumably from the last person through it who was trying to make a quick exit. A strip of emergency lighting cast a dull red glow in the first room.

Ten keyed his earpiece. "Zeller, we have the survivor. He's alive. Access door is open. There doesn't appear to be anyone in there."

"Hold the entrance and keep him alive. Infantry is three minutes out from your position."

Keane moved beside the doorway and looked in the room with Ten. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could see several desks with what appeared to be advanced communications equipment and a radar screen in one corner. Still no movement. The room looked completely abandoned. There were no sounds either. Behind them, Mercer covered the slope while Ives and Bell packed a dressing against the survivor's side and told him to remain still in Mandarin. He either understood or no longer had the strength to move.

Ten checked the time. Twenty seconds had passed.

The infantry carriers appeared at the crest behind his Centurion. One stopped near the prisoners while the other angled toward them. Only a couple of minutes until he could return to the Centurion's heater. After that, he planned on finding the nearest shelter with heat and staying there indefinitely. Maybe after Second Try he'd maroon himself on the nearest tropical planet.

He became aware of a vibration beneath his boots. At first nearly imperceptible. Then loose snow slid from the handrail that he had been holding.

Ten looked at Keane. The lieutenant had felt it too, and his eyes had a tinge of fear that was unmistakable.

The joint channel erupted with chatter from multiple voices shouting back and forth.

"Multiple tangos!" "North and east—heavy signatures—" "Back in formation!" "Shift right flank!"

Warnings collided with one another. Reilly's voice cut through them.

"Harry, get back to your 'Mech. Now!"

Across the eastern slope, long white mounds began to move. Snow split and poured away from armored shapes sweeping through the drifts. The ground that was empty mere moments ago was now filled with hostile metal giants.

"Twelve contacts," Taylor called. "No—eighteen. Assault weight. Awesomes and Stalkers. An Atlas, too." This wasn't militia; this was Preston's Lancers in the flesh. He immediately thought back to the injured Capellan's small radio. Shit.

Zeller's company and Able Company had walked into the engagement expecting a few militia vehicles and infantry. Whether this was an intentional ambush or these assault 'Mechs had serendipitously been in the neighborhood really wasn't relevant.

Zeller began issuing orders. His voice remained controlled, but the channel filled with overlapping reports before Ten could make out more than fragments. Guards machines turned toward the new threat. Kasir's heavy lance started down from its support position. Gallo's Catapult rotated its launchers east while Davies and Reilly moved to close the gap between the empty BattleMechs and the rising Capellans.

Keane seized Bell by the shoulder and pulled her away from the wounded man. "Move."

Bell looked down at the dressing she had been holding in place.

"Leave him," Ten said.

They started back toward their 'Mechs, but the snow now fought them every step of the way. Ten drove his knees through the crust and felt it collapse beneath him. A hundred meters had been a short walk when the battlefield was quiet. It became an impossible distance as the first Capellan weapons fired.

Reilly's Hunchback moved into the open between Ten and the eastern ridge. It looked enormous, solid enough to stop anything, until Ten compared it with the machines shedding snow across from her.

Ten's Centurion remained unmoving and silent behind Reilly, its cockpit open and reactor idling. He could see the access rungs on its leg. He could see the shoulder where he had stood less than five minutes earlier. He could also see the empty ground between them, completely exposed to the new Capellan line.

The first machine rose above the ridge, broad-shouldered and massive. Missiles from the Stalker started landing nearby, and the sound was deafening. Then the first Awesome opened up, sending pure cobalt streaking over Ten's head.

There was not a chance they'd make it back to their 'Mechs. His thoughts briefly flashed to the wounded man he'd abandoned in the snow, and he realized it was his turn.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER TEN

OVERWHELMED

The first PPC blast struck the ridge behind Ten, causing the hair to stand up on the back of his neck. Then the autocannon hit. The concussion knocked him forward with astounding force. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but he hadn't made a habit of running around with live fire landing around him. Keane caught his jacket and dragged him forward as more explosions cascaded over them.

Missiles crossed the sky in both directions. The Stalkers fired first, their volleys rising over the eastern ridge and falling across the perimeter in rippling lines. Smoke as black as night was swirling around them; Ten's lungs were on fire, and his vision was distorted. The Awesomes followed with their PPCs, mixing heat with cold for a truly awful feeling that ran through his body.

He caught a glimpse of Reilly's Hunchback responding with the deafening clap of the autocannon, knocking him to the ground for a second time. He looked up in time to see the shell strike the nearest Awesome high in the chest. Armor burst away in basketball-sized chunks of shrapnel, flying in every direction, including his.

"Move!" Keane screamed in his ear.

The five pilots stumbled away from the explosions as quickly as they could, which was not very.

Ten's lungs refused to let him speak into his radio, but he could hear what was happening on the other end. Davies was shouting about contacts on the north side. Gallo was trying to establish a firing lane without dropping missiles on the empty machines. Taylor screamed that Able Two's Commando had been caught by the Stalkers and that the pilot was dead. Reilly said nothing. Ten could see her Hunchback trying to move in front of them. To be their shield. It was soaking up punishment but refusing to leave them.

Ten couldn't let it happen. He took the biggest breath of his life and put everything he had into choking out three words. "Reilly, fall back."

More Capellan assault 'Mechs concentrated their fire on her.

He heard her response with absolute devastation. "I can cover you." No. No. No.

Three PPCs answered her. One missed high. The second tore armor from the Hunchback's right side. The third struck the ground at its feet and buried the machine in a cloud of steam and pulverized snow.

Both Davies' and Zeller's voices spoke the same phrase at the same time. "Fall back."

Ten could hear pure agony in Davies' voice, something he'd never heard before. "Reilly, there's nothing we can do for him."

She didn't move for another couple of seconds as lasers zipped back and forth. Eventually, the Hunchback took a step back. Then another, and another, until she was beside Able's Thug and Zeus, both machines acting as a rear guard in the face of the Capellan advance. Twin PPC bolts from the Thug struck a Stalker. From further back, Gallo's LRMs arched over them and came down on the Stalker. The impacts stripped armor from the nose, leaving nasty pockmarks. The Stalker was forced backward, but an Atlas immediately filled the space, the cockpit's twisted grin beckoning death.

Ten willed Able's machines to move faster before others were killed.

Zeller's voice cut across the joint channel. "All elements, disengage. Do not stop at the first rally line. Repeat, do not stop." That was the correct order.

Ten had been watching for too long and felt Keane pushing him forward again with the rest of his pilots by his side.

Even still, Ten had to look back again. The Hunchback was the last Agency Group machine Ten could see. It paused at the top of the slope and, for one second, the cockpit faced him.

Then Davies said something over the company channel that Ten could not make out, and the Hunchback stepped backward over the ridge and out of sight. There was nothing left to see, so he turned and continued away with the other pilots, desperate to escape.

Harry Grainger's first campaign command was withdrawing without him. If Able Company made it out, his name would appear in another report, this time beside missing in action. If he died here, it would be as though he died twice. The thought lasted no more than a heartbeat.

As the group continued to flee, Ten thought of his Centurion with the hatch still open, waiting for him. Its reactor was still idling and its weapons were ready. He felt the loss with surprising force. The machine was only property, but it was something that had become bound to him over the years. It was also the last part of his old life that had followed him into Harry Grainger's. Its controls had not changed. Its cockpit still smelled like warm electronics, coolant, and the adhesive used on repaired padding. When he climbed into it, he did not have to remember which name belonged on the authorization screen.

As the battle began to wane, it became all the more important to get out of the area quickly. Ten had no intention of sticking around.

They were on foot, poorly dressed, and behind a force that had just driven two companies from the field.

A voice boomed across the snowy ridge in Mandarin. Keane offered the gist of it. "They're demanding our surrender. They must know we're out here, but they don't know where we are. If they did, they'd have moved on us."

"You considering it?" Mercer asked.

"God no."

"Good. I'd hate to have climbed down here for nothing."

Keane cut in. "Everyone shut up and keep moving east." East made sense. East meant they were now behind the Capellans.

They moved single file, bent at the waist to hide from the wind and the Capellans.

Ten's wet boots were quickly becoming blocks of ice. His gloves helped, though he could already feel cold working through the seams. Ives had wrapped his hands in the bottom of his jacket, leaving him to stumble without using his arms.

Keane pointed toward a small ravine up ahead. They reached it and climbed over a bank of hard snow. From there, the ground descended through a field of scattered boulders toward the northern foothills. The battlefield was no longer visible.

Ten's earpiece still carried fragments from the retreat. "Able actual, this is Able One-Two," Reilly called. "Respond." He couldn't. It might alert the Capellans to their position, and more to the point, she might do something stupid, you know, like try to save him. Not that he much deserved it. He shouldn't have listened to Zeller. He would still be in his 'Mech. Retreating? Fighting? He wasn't sure, but it would be better than this.

After her last transmission, his world became fully silent except for the sound of snow creaking beneath the boots of five 'Mechless pilots.

Bell knelt behind a boulder and opened the medical pouch at her belt. It contained bandages, two injectors, antiseptic, and a thermal sheet small enough for one person. The expression on Bell's face made clear they were in trouble.

"Anybody hit?" she asked.

They checked. Mercer had a cut above one eye. Keane's left palm was bleeding from glass, though Ten didn't know from what. None of these injuries were problems yet.

However, Ives's hands were. His fingers were pale and already stiff. Bell made him tuck them beneath his arms while she tore the thermal sheet into strips and wrapped them around his gloveless hands. The material crackled in the wind.

"Those won't last," she said.

"They only need to last until pickup," Ives answered. He knew full well that there would be no pickup coming for them.

Keane took a compact navigation unit from inside his jacket. Its screen flickered before settling on a terrain map. The communications hub lay behind them. The most recent friendly forward position was west-southwest, on the far side of the ground the Capellans had just taken.

"We can't go straight, can we?" Mercer asked.

Keane studied the contours. "Not unless we want to walk back through the assault force. We follow this ravine north, cross behind the foothills, then turn west."

Ten quietly asked the question everybody had been thinking. "How far?"

Keane moved the route with one gloved finger. The machine recalculated. Keane's face was expressionless. "About twenty kilometers."

Ten looked at Ives's wrapped hands, Bell's half-empty medical pouch, and the thin jackets pulled over their cooling vests. The friendly position on Keane's map was a small blue mark separated from them by frozen ground and an enemy line.

Behind them, an engine revved, and a searchlight swept across the rocks above. The Capellans had begun searching the ravines. Shit.

"We move now," Ten said.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TWENTY KILOMETERS

It was now dark, and the searchlight swept back across the mouth of the ravine, hunting them.

Keane led them farther into the ravine. The ground narrowed until they had to walk in single file between rock walls glazed with ice. They moved as quietly as possible. Staying in one spot made the chances of the searchlight hitting them more likely. Ten could hear engines working somewhere behind them. Searching.

"Nobody runs unless we have to," Keane hissed.

Mercer looked back toward the moving lights. "I'd prefer not to."

That was the extent of the conversation.

The ravine bent north. Keane checked the navigation unit beneath his jacket, shielding the pale screen with his body. A direct route back to their lines was a luxury they didn't have. The roundabout route was a slog.

The cold found the places their clothes failed first. It worked through Ten's gloves and the opening at his collar. His boots had been made for pedals and a short walk across a landing field, not snow that reached above his ankles and occasionally swallowed a leg to the knee. Every step required pulling one foot free before setting it down again. They were all wearing shorts. He figured there was a solid chance they would all die out here. Maybe he deserved it. If Reilly had been hurt or killed, he definitely would deserve it. The thought stayed with him for a kilometer before he could shake it from his head.

Nothing had prepared him for the complete uselessness of being absent from his own command. There was no decision he could make for Able Company, no order he could send, and no machine he could push harder. There was nothing he could do for his dead pilot. Deacon might have died anyway, but at least Ten could have been beside him, doing everything he could. Now he had to trust that Davies was doing what was necessary, what was right.

Bell stopped them beneath an overhang that gave them a modicum of relief from the wind. Ives had fallen a dozen meters back and was trying to rise without using his hands.

Ten and Mercer went to him. They caught him beneath the arms and pulled him upright. Ives's face had lost its color. His hands remained tucked against his body beneath the torn thermal material, but he no longer seemed able to close his fingers around it.

"Can you feel them?" Bell asked.

"Enough."

She gently unwrapped one hand to look at it. It was ashen, devoid of color. She wrapped it back up as tightly as she could, clearly concerned.

Bell opened his jacket and pressed two fingers against the skin below his throat. Ives tried to push her away, but the motion lacked any strength.

"He's getting cold," she said.

Keane took the navigation unit out again. The screen showed that they had traveled less than three kilometers.

"We can rest for two minutes," he said.

"No," Bell answered. "He needs to move."

Ives nodded too quickly. "I'm moving."

He took a step and nearly went down.

Ten watched the exchange. He doubted Ives could feel his feet either.

He put his arm around Ives's shoulder. Mercer took the other side. They started north again with Ives between them. The arrangement forced them into a slow, uneven rhythm, but it kept his legs working. Bell stayed close enough to watch him. Keane moved ahead and picked ground that did not require climbing whenever he could.

The wind strengthened as the ravine rose toward the foothills. Loose snow whispered over the rock in thin streams. Behind them, the searchlights became smaller and then disappeared altogether. The Capellans probably figured they were dead, and there was a decent chance they would be in the coming hours.

Ives began shivering hard.

The western side of the foothills offered less shelter. Occasionally they could see a pipeline snaking its way through the area in the general direction they were heading. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, Keane would keep them hugged against the supports. Sometimes it made the route longer, but the hard-packed service path beneath the snow made walking easier. For a while they gained distance.

Ives spoke occasionally through his shivers, but what he said made less and less sense. When the body's internal temperature dropped too low, confusion and delirium could set in. Ten felt Ives laugh once against his shoulder, though he had no idea why. The sound ended in a cough.

Another hour passed. The navigation unit put the friendly position fifteen kilometers away, then fourteen. The trek seemed endless.

He adjusted his grip beneath Ives's arm and kept going.

If Ten froze on Second Try, it would almost be funny. His first death had required planning, falsified records, a burned groundcar, and people willing to lie across several worlds. The second could happen just because he got cold. It also dawned on him that both Ten's death and Harry's death would be the direct result of getting out of a 'Mech when he shouldn't have. This thought made him as bitter as the cold.

Ives stumbled again. This time his knees folded completely. Ten and Mercer lowered him to the service path while Bell hurried forward.

"I'm fine," Ives said. His words had become thick.

Bell lifted his face to hers. "Ives, look at me."

He looked past her.

Keane led them to a spot near the oil pipeline so that Bell could tend to Ives. She didn't have much to work with. Only bandages and injectors meant for trauma. Body heat was about all she had left. She pressed herself against Ives and ordered Mercer to do the same. Ten knelt behind him and wrapped both arms around his chest. Keane stayed on watch until Bell swore at him and told him to get closer too.

For several minutes, the five of them formed a miserable pile beneath the pipeline.

Ives's shivering slowed.

Bell kept talking to him. She asked his full name, his homeworld, the designation of his 'Mech. He answered the first question incorrectly and did not answer the others. She rubbed his chest through the cooling vest and checked his pulse again.

"We need to move him," Keane said.

It took a moment, but Bell sat back on her heels and looked up at him with sad eyes.

"No, we don't."

Keane looked at her dumbly until he understood. She hadn't found a pulse.

Despite the cold, they stayed for a few minutes in silence to mourn. Snow was starting to collect against Ives's boots by the time Keane stood and motioned them forward. They moved on, continuing west.

Without Ives they moved faster. Thinking about it made the anger inside of Ten swell. Still he moved without saying a word.

The four of them trudged on. Eventually they had to turn away from the pipeline and move into a wooded area. The wind eased somewhat, offering them a tiny respite. According to the navigation unit, they had a little more than eight kilometers left.

Eventually, a small path appeared in the distance. They heard the patrol before they saw it. For a split second Ten was surprised that things could actually get worse. Voices carried from up the path ahead, and a small engine hummed. Equipment clicked. The sounds were moving closer.

A quick scramble put them behind a fallen tree and a small boulder. All of them had their weapons out, remaining completely still. How did they find them? Their tracks. They must have found their tracks, figured out which way they were heading and moved to cut them off.

Keane pointed to a bend where fallen stone narrowed the path. He looked back at Ten and mouthed, "There." Ten understood. It was a bottleneck. He motioned to Mercer and Bell, silently communicating the plan.

The Capellan voices grew clearer. Ten understood none of the words, but he recognized the rhythm of soldiers who expected to find people colder and more frightened than themselves. They were correct on both counts.

A white hood appeared above the channel. The first two soldiers moved past the boulder, rifles against their shoulders.

Ten waited a beat and opened up.

His rifle cracked in a quick pattern. The first Capellan twisted, blood spraying across the path. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Keane fire his laser pistol. It hummed and the second soldier dropped. There was shouting and then a response. Several soldiers hopped over the bodies, spraying fire indiscriminately in their direction. A slug shattered stone over Ten's head, sending fragments flying.

Mercer rose up to shoot over the edge, but he came up too high. A rifle answered from less than ten meters away. Mercer hit the ground, unmoving.

Ten fired at the muzzle flash until the shape behind it disappeared. Someone shouted in Mandarin. The element of surprise no longer belonged to them, and the Capellans had taken up their own defensive positions.

Ten crawled on his stomach over to Mercer. Blood spread beneath his jacket near the center of his chest. It was dark and thick. He was dead.

Bell looked over at Ten and Mercer's bloody mess. No time to think about it now. She looked at Ten and barked, "Cover me."

He flicked the fire selector switch on his assault rifle from single shot to rock 'n' roll. Hugging the rock like his life depended on it, because it did, he swept the Capellan position with fully automatic fire, forcing them down. He dropped back down and looked for Bell. She wasn't there.

Two shots sounded beyond the bend. Then one. An engine revved, the sound moving away from them.

A moment later Bell appeared on the service path with a Capellan rifle in her hands. "Clear."

They stood there for a few seconds looking at each other, then looking down at Mercer.

Keane looked toward the north. "Whoever was on the snowmobile is radioing in our position. We need to move as fast as we can."

They took a moment, though, to strip what they could from the dead soldiers.

Ten put on a blood-soaked parka and shimmied into pants that were one size too big. The rest of them did the same. Keane grabbed a radio in the hopes that he could listen in when they undoubtedly came searching for them. They all picked up the Capellan rifles and stripped the remaining ammunition off of the bodies.

When they started south, there were three.

The Capellan communicator came alive twice. Keane listened, then lowered the volume.

"They're heading back to where we were," he said.

"How far to the line?" Ten asked.

Keane looked at the navigation unit. "Six kilometers. They're definitely going to see our tracks. We won't be hard to find."

They moved as quickly as they could, cutting their way through the woods, zigzagging back and forth.

As they crossed the next rise, they found a small stream cutting through the woods. Keane looked back at them. Shit. Ten knew exactly what that meant and what they were going to do. They could have jumped over it; instead they stepped into it. The pain took Ten's breath away. The water came up to his shins and he nearly screamed. No snow, no footprints. The Capellans couldn't track them, and so they moved through the water. At a certain point he thought he might pass out. At about that time, Bell threw up, though she was careful to keep the sick in the stream so as not to leave a trace. After about 150 meters, they exited the stream back onto the snow.

All of a sudden, there was a small burst of static in Ten's earpiece, followed by faint, garbled words. Most were too weak to understand. Then a voice reported ammunition to a call sign he recognized from the Fifth Guards.

The friendly line still existed and it was close.

They walked another two kilometers.

Then Ten saw it. A BattleMech stood behind a small hill with only its upper body visible. He immediately recognized the paint. Fifth Davion Guards. The Warhammer stood there like a beacon.

He keyed his earpiece.

"Fifth Guards forward position, this is Captain Grainger. Three friendlies approaching from the northeast on foot. Do not fire."

The voice came back.

"Acknowledged."

All of a sudden, a few figures appeared over the hill.

"Identify!"

"Lieutenant Keane, Fifth Davion Guards," Keane shouted. "MechWarrior Bell, Fifth Guards. Captain Harry Grainger, Agency Group."

They approached with rifles lowered, recognizing Keane. There was some shouting from the line, and then more people ran toward them.

A medic reached Bell first. Two other soldiers followed with thermal blankets.

Another medic appeared to help Ten. God, he was cold and exhausted. He swayed on his feet, and the medic had to catch him before he fell over.

There was some radio chatter from one of the medics' radios, but he was too tired to know which one. A moment later, a small vehicle appeared over the hill, and Keane, Bell, and Ten were pushed inside, where a heater was blasting.

[Evanmd]

CHAPTER TWELVE

CAPTAIN DUNN

The heat hurt.

Ten had spent the last several hours longing for warmth. Now that he had reached it, the heater blasting inside the personnel carrier made his skin burn beneath the bloodstained Capellan clothing. His hands and feet throbbed.

Someone had wrapped a thermal blanket around his shoulders. Another covered Bell, who sat across from him with her eyes closed and her hands tucked beneath her arms. Keane occupied the bench beside her. His eyes looked dead, staring at nothing. None of them spoke since there was nothing to say. They were alive.

The rear doors opened inside a canvas field aid station. Cold air rolled in before two medics climbed aboard. One of them gestured at Ten.

"Can you walk?" she asked.

"Apparently."

He wobbled on his feet, which was a more honest answer.

The medics put him on a folding litter and carried him through the inner flap. Cots filled most of the long shelter. Some held wounded soldiers. Others held equipment and folded blankets pushed aside to make space. A few doctors were trying to stop the bleeding from a Guards soldier. He looked to be an engineer, and things weren't looking promising.

The medic stripped Ten's cold, damp clothes off.

"You're lucky," she said.

"Yeah, it's like I won the ****** lottery."

She didn't deserve it, and he should have bitten his tongue. Mercifully, the medic pretended she hadn't heard, continuing to work.

They wrapped his feet in warm packs and pushed heated fluid through an intravenous line. The warmth moved up his arm with an uncomfortable pressure. A corpsman asked his name for the treatment record.

"Grainger," Ten answered through chattering teeth. "Harry Grainger."

The corpsman attached the record to the foot of the cot and moved on.

Ten lay back. He could hear Bell arguing with a medic about her condition and Keane asking for access to a communications set. Ten tried to tune them out and leave the horror of the trek outside. He closed his eyes, but couldn't sleep. Each time he began to drift, he saw Ives beneath the pipeline or Mercer rising over the rock.

The shelter flap opened and Reilly stepped inside.

She still wore her cooling vest beneath an unfastened field jacket. She was disheveled and exhausted. She stared at him long enough that Ten wondered whether she believed what she was seeing.

Then she crossed the shelter quickly and knelt beside the cot. One hand went behind his neck. She pressed her forehead against his and held it there.

"You didn't answer me," she said.

"I couldn't."

"It didn't make it any easier."

Her grip tightened anyway. Ten felt like crying but was fairly certain that if he did, he might never stop.

Davies and Gallo entered behind her. Davies looked as though he had prepared something inappropriate to say and abandoned it before reaching the cot. Gallo put one broad hand firmly on Ten's shoulder.

"It is good to see you." Gallo's brevity was legendary.

"What happened?"

"We got out," Davies said. "Taylor and Kasir brought their people through. We have damaged machines and wounded pilots, but everyone is accounted for except Deacon." He had piloted the Commando.

Ten had known. Hearing it stated as an accounting made the death harder.

Reilly sat back. "Where are the others?"

"Ives died from the cold. Mercer was hit by a patrol."

Nobody said anything for a while.

Davies finally looked down at the floor. "We couldn't reach you."

"I know."

"There were too many."

"I know that too. You made the right decision."

***

Fifteen hours later, Ten was up. Triple the dose of painkillers and a belly full of rage sent him off looking for Zeller. There was a solid chance he'd take a swing, consequences be damned.

They had brought him clothing in the aid station, but not a coat. He looked around, grabbed the first one he saw lying around, and headed out. Once outside, he spotted the command post trailer.

He walked in and barked, "Where's Zeller?"

Another officer he didn't recognize turned around, startled. She was compact, dark-haired, and younger than Ten expected, judging by the way the people in the trailer looked from him to her. She wore fatigues with an open Fifth Guards field jacket.

She began, "Can you tell me who y—"

Ten cut her off harshly. "Who the ****** are you? You know what, I don't care. Where is Zeller?"

She looked at him with surprise, then recognition.

"Grainger? You're Harry Grainger, aren't you?"

Ten caught himself for a moment.

She spoke again. "Zeller was severely injured in the withdrawal. He died this morning. I'm Captain Jill Dunn, Fifth Davion Guards. I've assumed Captain Zeller's operational authority."

An absolutely swell introduction. Tip-top. It would be hard to be a bigger ******. Harry Grainger was going to make himself real popular. Ten felt himself deflate some. It was hard to keep hold of that anger when it was for a dead man. Not much of a point.

Jill continued. "I was a lieutenant this morning. Battalion command issued me a field brevet to captain and transferred his authority to me until they can reorganize the sector."

She motioned him to one of the chairs next to the map.

"I was going to come and try to talk to you at the medical station later today. I need your account of what happened. Are you able to do this now, or were you planning on yelling at me more?"

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My manners are still frozen, apparently. But yes, I can debrief now."

She gave him a small but understanding nod. "Start when the communications hub surrendered."

Ten described the surrender, Taylor finding the wounded Capellan, and Zeller ordering the five nearest pilots to dismount.

"Captain Zeller ordered all five of you to dismount?" Dunn asked.

"He ordered the people nearest the survivor to dismount. That happened to be us."

"Did he give any other reason for choosing you?"

"Proximity. That was it."

Jill activated a data pad and made a short notation. "Did you object?"

"I told him the perimeter wasn't secure, that our clothing wasn't sufficient, and that infantry would be there shortly. I made it clear that I was uncomfortable."

"What did he say to that?"

"He said my objection was noted. He seemed mostly concerned that the man might have intelligence but might die before the infantry reached him. He also wanted the building secured in case any of the communications equipment could be useful. He had operational command, so we climbed down."

Jill continued jotting down notes. "What happened next?"

Ten described the radio and the eighteen assault 'Mechs appearing while the five pilots were on foot.

Ten waited for a defense of Zeller. Perhaps Dunn would point out that there was no indication that Preston's Lancers were in the area. House troops respected their own over mercenaries. Ten had seen that often enough that he was already preparing the argument.

Dunn asked, "If you had held operational command, what would you have done?"

"Kept the pilots mounted. Put weapons on the wounded man and waited for infantry. The attack would have happened either way, but we could have prevented the chaos. In addition to losing the firepower of five 'Mechs, my company was left without its commander. My people are capable, but a transfer of command in the middle of combat doesn't make things easier."

"And if the wounded man died?"

"Yeah. Five pilots outside their machines were worth more than whatever he might have said. Anything he might have told us wouldn't have mattered anyway if we were dead or captured. Running was the only option."

Jill considered that. "Yes."

She continued quietly so that none of the other people in the command post could hear. "I would have done exactly what you did."

Ten was stunned for a second.

"Thank you for providing me with your account. Do you have any questions?" she asked.

"Our machines."

Jill's expression changed. "We don't know their specific status yet, but I think it's probably a safe bet that five abandoned BattleMechs would have been immediately carted off by the Capellans. I'm sorry." She paused. "But I have reconnaissance looking." She stood. "For now, you sleep. Davies retains command of Able until the medical officer releases you."

He nodded his understanding and began to exit the trailer, but stopped and looked back.

"The Warhammer yours?" he asked.

She smiled. It was definitely hers.

Ten ambled back to the medical station, where he should have been the whole time, and lay back down on the cot.

Davies had been waiting for him. "I'm guessing you met Captain Dunn. I talked to her while you were resting. She seemed to know what she was doing, which is inconvenient because I was prepared not to like her."

Ten settled back against the cot. "You'll recover."

"You first." Davies got up and walked out.

A moment later Reilly walked back in.

"Hey," was all she said. She sat next to him and took his hand in hers.

They sat there without saying anything for a few minutes. He was hoping she'd never move her hand. Finally, he spoke.

"You were the last 'Mech I saw."

"I was trying to get close enough for you to climb back in."

"That would have gotten you killed."

"Probably."

"Davies stopped you?"

"You ordered me out. Davies made sure I listened."

Ten closed his eyes.

"Sleep now," Reilly said. "I'll stay with you until you do."

Ten drifted off.

He woke six hours later.

He wandered around until he found a supply crate he could write on and pulled up a chair. One dead pilot from Able Two. Deacon. Ives, dead from exposure. Mercer, killed by enemy small-arms fire. Keane and Bell returned with cold injuries. Captain Harry Grainger returned with cold injuries. Five BattleMechs missing and presumed captured. It looked pretty crappy on paper, too. He looked it over to make sure it was right before he signed it Harry Grainger. He thought for a second and realized that Harry Grainger was the first name Jill had called him.

Outside, the campaign had continued without waiting for him. The sky was a flat gray, and wind pushed loose snow between parked vehicles and ammo crates. Technicians worked around damaged 'Mechs beneath portable floodlights. Ammunition carriers moved back and forth. A recovery vehicle dragged an armored personnel carrier with one track missing.

First he went to the command post to return the report to Jill. She wasn't there, so he left it with one of the other officers. Afterward, he found Able Company in a scraped-out staging area behind a low ridge. He looked at the damage to their 'Mechs. The Rifleman was probably scrap at this point. The damage was too severe to repair in the field and would need an actual repair bay, which, of course, they didn't have.

He had nearly reached the Hunchback when Jill found him.

"I got your report. However, I distinctly remember the doctors telling you to stay at the medical station," she said.

Ten looked around the staging area. "I can still see the medical station, so I'm definitely in compliance." He probably shouldn't push his luck after the way he'd introduced himself.

A hint of a smile appeared on her face. "I need your eyes on something."

They headed back to the command post. A map of the sector covered one wall, marked with the new line established after the retreat. Jill set the data pad on the table and called up a sequence of reconnaissance images.

The first showed a Capellan recovery convoy moving away from the communications hub. Heavy haulers carried five BattleMechs on low trailers. Interesting.

Jill advanced the image.

The convoy entered a maintenance compound far behind the new Capellan line. The next photograph showed the machines standing beneath work lights beside several low industrial buildings. Personnel and service vehicles surrounded them.

"Aerial reconnaissance found the convoy after the weather cleared," Jill said. "The compound supports rear-area repairs and salvage. Given how far back it is from the front, intelligence believes its defenses are very light."

Ten enlarged the image. "When was this taken?"

"Two hours ago. The 'Mechs just arrived. Transporting them through the snow over that great a distance takes time." Traveling a great distance through snow was something he knew intimately.

"They're stripping them," Ten said. "They need parts now. They won't waste days bypassing security and breaking into unfamiliar systems if they can pull weapons, actuators, and electronics tonight."

Jill rested both hands on the table and looked him square in the eyes. "You, Keane, and Bell wouldn't have that problem."

He considered what she was suggesting. "There is a solid chance that essential components have already been removed." Legs or arms, maybe. Nothing super important.

"Yeah, but there is also a chance that they're still operational if we move fast."

Ten pointed to three silhouettes on the screen in turn. The Centurion. The Dervish. The Enforcer.

"These three still have living pilots," he said. "If—and that's a big if—they haven't been stripped too far, they might be able to walk out."

Ten couldn't believe he was considering this.