BattleTech: Isle of the Blessed: BattleTech

By Steven Mohan, Jr.

A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL...

The Federated Suns have long been held as the pinnacle of military professionalism and skill in the Inner Sphere, a reputation earned across centuries of combat on hundreds of worlds. But when the Word of Blake launches their Jihad and attacks the Suns capital world, New Avalon, even that reputation will be put to the test.

Marshal of the Armies Jackson Davion is the heir to a centuries-old tradition of martial excellence, but even he may not be enough to stem the tide of invasion.

Precentor Geoffrey Zucker is an idealist of the Word of Blake, a man who fights not for flag, but for ideas. Forced to attack his homeworld, he chafes beneath the conflict between duty and family.

Avitue is one of the Word of Blake elite, a Manei Domini—a hand of the Master. Blessed by the Word of Blake's leaders, imbued with cybernetic enhancements, and driven by a fanatical zeal to succeed, she will go to any length to capture New Avalon.

Among such icons, can the everyday soldiers and citizens of New Avalon survive?

This edition includes the entire novel, originally published serially on the BattleCorps fiction website, as well as companion in-character journal entries, and a new foreword from the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
• Release date: Jul 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393908920

Book preview

FOREWARD

By Steven Mohan, Jr.

Isle of the Blessed describes a desperate, heroic struggle by a likable underdog struggling to triumph over an overwhelming and implacable foe.

As it so happens, that’s also what the writing experience was like.

I’m not sure if I’m likable or heroic, but there were times that the writing of Isle was desperate and overwhelming!  I think Isle hangs together well as a novel, but that’s not how it was conceived or written.  It was designed to be a serial.

Writing a serial is a little like performing on a trapeze—without a net.  What happens when you get to chapter seven and realize something you wrote in chapter two undercuts the entire book?  In a normal writing experience, you just revise the error in chapter two—no big deal.

Not if you’re writing a serial.

If you’re writing a serial, the mistake in chapter two is already published.  You can not fix it.  Somehow you have to, have to, make it work.  Like I said, no net.

But wait, there’s more!

Isle of the Blessed was written to promote the introduction of the (then) new BattleTech rulebook Total Warfare.  The serial was meant to run alongside a world-wide BT game, and, here’s the good part, the outcome of the game was supposed to determine the outcome of the serial.

Got that?  You can’t afford to make any mistakes and you don’t know how the story’s going to end.

Oh, and produce 5,000 to 10,000 words a week, every week.

It was an incredible challenge—and it also turned out to be one of the most exciting and entertaining writing projects I ever got to work on.  I’m deeply grateful to the folks at BattleTech for giving me the opportunity to write this story.  It was a blast!

Of course no writer works alone, especially one laboring in a gaming universe.  I’d like to thank the incredible team of BattleTech experts captained by Herb Beas and Randall Bills.  Without the team’s insights and generosity, there’s no way this effort could have been a success.  They deserve the credit for the correctness of the game details.  Any errors that slipped through are on me.

And last of all, I want to thank you for picking up this book.  My fondest hope is that BattleTech readers have as much fun with Isle of the Blessed as I did!

This novel was previously published on the BattleCorps fiction website, available only to subscribers, from August 2006 to February 2007. This edition is the first time it has been published in one piece.

Book One

Chapter 1

The Act of Cutting

M2 Motorway, South of Avalon City

New Avalon, Crucis March, Federated Suns

29 November 3071

Demi-Precentor Geoffrey Zucker froze, his breath locked up in his chest as if even the slight motion of his breathing might spook his prey. Something had moved in the darkness. It had been a slight movement at the very edge of his vision, but something had moved.

He was sure of it.

Zucker’s eyes drifted methodically over the battle-scarred landscape, measuring the rubble that blocked the southern approach to the city, the only illumination provided by the buttermilk crescent of Avatar. The pale yellow moonlight crafted bizarre shadows out of the rubble and the darkness.

Zucker’s heart thudded in his chest. He still hadn’t taken a breath.

There.

A human shape, running, rifle held at port arms, range 200 meters.

All this he saw in the instant.

The next instant the soldier had blended back into the shadows.

Zucker pursed his lips. Infantry itself was nearly useless against ’Mechs. Unless they were spotting. Ultimately a good pair of binoculars would be of more use to the soldier than his rifle.

Now that he knew what he was looking for, Zucker’s gaze drifted back from the spot where he’d seen the soldier, until he saw a squat column of reinforced ferrocrete. The column had supported an elevated roadbed before the Blakists’ orbital bombardment had smashed the highway during the opening days of the Jihad.

Zucker’s sharp eye marked a squat something hidden in the rubble just to the right of the column.

Tank.

He leaned forward and whispered into his mike, Davion armor zero two eight from my posit, 300 meters. Desig target Tango Five Four.

Roger, said a soft voice on the other end.

Zucker’s ’Mechs were tied into a hardwired comms network. It had been cumbersome to set up in the darkness.

But it preserved radio silence.

Zucker’s three forces had assembled in the night. Linebackers Beta and Gamma were even now marching north. At H-Hour Beta would pivot and race through the old money neighborhood of Ingram from the northwest. Gamma would cross the Thames at the Southern Industrial Bridge.

The main body of the attacking force, Alpha, would follow the battered M2 Motorway into the city.

For now, though, Zucker’s main force was hidden in the dense woodland that started as riparian forest on the western bank of the Thames and turned into evergreen territory by the time it reached the place where the M2 cut it like a dull gray knife. The Davions certainly knew they were out here somewhere, but they didn’t know exactly where or exactly how many.

Zucker planned to keep it that way until the last possible second.

He studied the sky, already starting to purple in the east. It wouldn’t be long now.

Not long, but still long enough for him to think.

The very act of cutting makes the blade dull, Zucker thought. Recently he had become obsessed with the idea. That a knife, honed to deadly sharpness, should lose its edge merely through the act of using it for its intended purpose.

He recognized it as one of the fundamental contradictions of the universe.

And perhaps it explained why he was here on New Avalon, a man of peace, preparing to make terrible war.

He looked at the city—his city—in the dawning light. Mount Davion framed the city, its flanks clothed by the dark green of pine and fir and spruce, its peak capped with snow so white it hurt his eyes. The mountain’s magnificence only served to highlight the city’s fall. Whole areas of Avalon City were smashed flat by the sporadic orbital bombardments. The rest of the city looked gray and broken, like some great leviathan washed ashore by a hurricane, its flesh picked over by gulls.

But Zucker wasn’t fooled.

He knew there were still people in the city: looters and saints, scavengers liberating tools and weapons from the department stores, finding medicines in the clinics, eating canned food taken from grocery store shelves. And surely there were people digging through the rubble of their lives to find the mutilated bodies of their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.

Sons and daughters.

Thousands and thousands of people still inhabited Avalon City, an army of tortured souls with no other place to go.

And despite Geist’s idiotic orders, Zucker was going to cut a swath of bloody carnage right through them. Not because he wanted to. Because he saw no way to avoid it.

So strange that he should find doubt at the very moment when he had the greatest opportunity to serve Blake’s vision. The very act of cutting makes the blade dull.

The orange limb of New Avalon’s sun peeked over the horizon, transforming the bowl of the night from purple to gray and coloring the eastern sky a tawny yellow.

What was left of the Davion Heavy Guards was hiding in and around the city, gambling that their proximity to a major population center would save them from attack. Gambling on Word of Blake’s humanity.

And why not? thought Zucker angrily. We haven’t used WMD. We wouldn’t have even attacked the city if we hadn’t thought they had an space defense system tucked away near the city.

He glanced down at the chronometer on his console.

Tee minus one.

Civilization, he told himself, is built upon the bones of the slaughtered. It has always been so. Blake’s vision offers another way, a better way, but first the new way will have to be proved by the old.

He watched the chronometer count down to zero and then he reached forward, toggling his radio. No need to worry about radio silence now.

Zucker licked his lips. This is Linebacker One to Quarterback One. Fire for effect.

He counted off one second, two, and then he heard the brutal crump of heavy artillery opening up. Zucker’s external mike picked up the whistling of incoming shells and then a gray plume exploded about fifty meters south of the ferrocrete column.

He depressed a button. Firing correction for Tango Five Four: walk fire five zero meters north.

The shells began to fall north of their original impact point. When they hit near the column a massive tank reared back, a Behemoth, its turret painted red edged with white, its flanks blue. It sported the Fed Suns starburst and sword on the sides of the turret, but a grinning fox out in front.

Firing directions for Tango Five Four, Zucker shouted, hold target.

Now that the artillery crew had found their range, they poured armor-piercing shells into the tank.

The tank’s twin guns elevated and it let loose with a massive blast from its SarLon Autocannon/10s, but it was firing blind.

Zucker’s artillery was not.

The shells kept raining down until they got lucky and one of them found the Behemoth’s missile magazine. A gout of orange fire shot out of the tank and then a tremendous concussion rocked the vehicle, blasting the turret askew before the massive sound rolled across the landscape like a clap of thunder.

Tango Five Four down, Zucker reported and the rain of shells stopped, the artillery officer redirecting his fire to the next target on the list.

For the next ten minutes, Zucker and his ’Mechs waited as the Blakist artillery pounded the hell out of the approaches to the city. Then, at precisely tee plus fifteen, the artillery barrage cut out, the bass echo of the terrible assault dying away, replaced by an eerie silence.

Zucker selected the general frequency. All forces advance, he cried, and the bone white ’Mechs of the Word of Blake blew their comm lines, pushed out of the trees, and moved on the capital of the Federated Suns.

Zucker just hoped that here, so very near the end, the blade would prove sharp enough.

The Fox’s Den, The Mountain

As Marshal of the Armies Jackson Davion stepped into the situation room, his eyes automatically flickered up to the clock display running on the main screen. Ruby numbers against a black background, counting down: 6:53. 6:52. 6:51.

Davion glanced at the watch officer. Mountain locked down?

The officer, a young captain, blond hair cropped short, wearing MechWarrior red epaulettes on her dress greens, came to attention and saluted. Yessir.

Davion saw she was new to the situation room. The polish hadn’t worn off yet.

Davion nodded. Good. What do you have for me?

The captain walked over to a holotank where most of the general staff was gathered. It showed a single Davion green Victor labeled DAVION HEAVY GUARDS in the city’s center. Three white Grand Crusaders were arrayed around the city. Eighteen minutes ago the Blakists began a three-pronged assault on Avalon City.

How big? asked Davion.

Leftenent General Joseph Laidlaw leaned forward. He had been the acting G2 since Stephanie Hoover was killed in the Blakists’ opening bombardment. It was the G2’s job to provide the staff with intelligence. Laidlaw was tall and gangly, with a thatch of brown hair that was thinning in the back. Our force’s guncam footage confirms multiple IIIs of both the Thirty-first and the Thirty-sixth. At least eight of the twelve are accounted for.

There was stone silence in the room.

What about the rest? Davion asked.

The chief of the General Staff, Field Marshall William Wet Willie Kossacks, leaned in. We think they’re in Avalon City, too.

Davion raised an eyebrow.

This is city fighting, said Laidlaw. ’Mechs ducking down alleys, hiding behind buildings. We’re not going to get the best count.

That’s what worries me, thought Davion. What he said was, First Battalion and the support troops won’t stand against that kind of force for long.

Second’s coming up out of their hiding place in the Cris, said Kossacks. And Third’s coming in from the north. The Heavy Guards are linking up.

I thought they weren’t supposed to hit the city.

Laidlaw swallowed. We think the force DMI observed moving to the south right after their DropShips grounded was a diversion.

Davion carefully noted the phrase we think. He pointed at the city. So you believe Word of Blake is all in.

Laidlaw nodded. Yessir.

Davion glanced up at the clock. Five minutes even.

He glanced around the room. All right, people. Tell me why Word of Blake is hitting my city.

To take down the Heavy Guards, of course, said Major General Jean-Henri de Jeruc, the director of Operations. He was a short, dark man known for his charm. Some damned ROM agent must’ve found the Guards in the city and Geist took the opportunity to play strength against weakness.

Davion thought that through. The Wobbies’ three WarShips gave them effective control of the sky—even with Red Angel off running some kind of errand at the New Avalon L4. That gave the bastards two key advantages: naval fire support, and the ability to move a massed force using DropShips.

Davion had obviated those advantages by hiding his forces and spreading them out. If ROM had managed to uncover the Heavy Guards, it made sense that Geist would use the opportunity to crush them.

It’s the only thing that makes sense, prompted de Jeruc.

Not the only thing, said Marshal Ranier Wolfgram.

The city is in ruins, snapped Kossacks. There’s no strategic advantage in taking it.

Capturing Avalon City would be a symbolic victory, Wolfgram said. It would break the spirit of people all across the Suns.

De Jeruc snorted. General officers around the table shook their heads. It seemed the conventional wisdom was carrying the room. Davion thought the question deserved a little more thought. Wolfgram had often demonstrated an impressive ability to think outside the box. There was no reason to take the city.

Unless.

Unless the Blakists were planning to take the city and hold it. He had a bad thought: what would Avalon City look like rebuilt according to Blake’s vision? He shuddered. Wolfgram might just have a point. 

If the Wobbies decided to hold Avalon City, he didn’t have the forces to dislodge them. Especially with those three buzzards overhead.

"Where are Divine Forgiveness and Mordred? Davion asked. Did they follow Red Angel out?"

Three or four of the general officers glanced nervously at the clock. One minute.

"That’s a negative, Marshal. Mordred’s on the other side of the planet and the University of North Albion just picked up Forgiveness with their five-meter mirror forty-six minutes ago. Looks like they’re both holding standard orbit."

All right, then, said Davion. He glanced at the clock. It dropped under thirty seconds. Pass the word.

Yessir. The captain stepped to the comms panel, picked up a mike, and said, All personnel, brace for shock.

More than anything it was a warning designed to keep someone from having a heart attack. The rumble of the assaults were unnerving, but the Blakists would have to drop something very heavy to do any kind of serious damage to the Fox’s Den.

Lately the Wobbies were varying their attacks from pass to pass, sometimes hitting, sometimes not. It’s like torture, Davion thought, using uncertainty to rattle your victim.

He watched the numbers flicker down to zero.

The space was totally silent except for the soft whirr of the ventilation fans.

Davion glanced down at his watch and waited a full thirty seconds before he relaxed.

Looks like they held off this time, said Kossacks.

Yes, said Davion, looks like.

He tapped a code into the holotank and the map grew in scale until it showed an area 800 klicks across, Avalon City at its center. He pointed to a rock canyon west of the city. We’ll send the Davion Assault Guards in. Smash the northwestern prong of the Wobbie force and provide an escape route for the Heavy Guards.

"Their Essex will be watching, said de Jeruc. You’ll have to find a new hiding place for the Crushers."

Davion shook his head. First we save our ’Mechs. Next we worry about orbital bombardment.

That’s not enough to defend the city, said Wolfgram softly.

But it is enough to spring the Heavy Guards, said de Jeruc.

We’re going to play this one by ear, said Davion.

If we lose the city, you’ll never get it back, said Wolfgram.

Damn it, Ranier. I said we’re going to play it by ear.

Davion’s outburst brought instant silence to the situation room. He glared at Wolfgram until the marshal looked away.

Then he leaned forward and pointed to an evergreen forest a hundred klicks east of the city. "We have a company of the Twelfth Vegan Rangers along with the Third Davion guarding a munitions depot here. We can’t afford to give up its location, so we’ll wait until the Divine Forgiveness passes over the horizon and then we’ll peel off the Third and send them to hit the Wobbies’ eastern prong."

Wolfgram shook his head. It won’t be in time.

It’ll have to be, said Davion. I’m not giving up the—

The groan of tortured rock cut him off. Suddenly everything was shaking, an earthquake’s rumble punctuated by the music of coffee mugs smashing themselves against the floor.

It was over as soon as it had began, leaving behind a room covered with papers and debris, the air hazy with rock dust.

What the hell was that? snapped Davion.

He glanced over at the captain and was startled to see her short blond hair was matted with blood. The console next to her bore a smear of crimson, marking where she’d fallen. She pressed a headset to her ear.

"Captain," he barked.

"We’re now holding Divine Forgiveness in a higher orbit, she said, misinterpreting his concern for anger. She shook her head. Must’ve changed orbit to throw our timing off. Rattle us."

Was that a nuke? Kossacks asked

Radiation sensors are negative. Must’ve been naval autocannons.

Captain, said Davion.

Yes, sir?

Have your head seen to.

She winced and put the headset down. Yes, sir.

The marshal of the armies scowled. Precentor Adler Geist, the Word of Blake commander on New Avalon, had just tricked him. And Jackson Davion had the very bad feeling it wouldn’t be the last time.

Covenant Avenue and Sandra Lockhart Road

The Insurance District

Avalon City

Zucker stalked his Legacy down Covenant, a broad eight-lane plaza hemmed in on either side by skyscrapers far enough from the original bombardment that they still had some of their mirrored glass facing. Down in the 400s the street was the home to most of the planet’s big insurers, companies that had trillions of pounds of assets under protection on New Avalon alone.

Zucker hoped for their shareholders’ sake that their policies had the standard war and insurrection exemptions.

Geist had given him explicit orders not to add any more to the considerable damage done to Avalon City. But there would be no forgiveness for not achieving the mission objectives, of course. Essentially the precentor wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. Geist had actually ordered Zucker not to engage the Davion Heavy Guards in such a way that they would be provoked to damage the city.

Sure, thought Zucker bitterly, I’ll send them a memo. What was Geist thinking? You push one of the most storied ’Mech units in the Inner Sphere and you could bet they were going to push back.

Zucker’s radio crackled. Linebacker One, Air Game One, said Demi-Precentor Simpson. I can get a II of VTOLs free to hit the Grain Rebellion Bridge.

"Negative, Zucker snapped. We need those VTOLs elsewhere."

But if we can bring the bridge down we cut off their retreat and— Simpson began.

Zucker cut him off. "In case you haven’t noticed, they’re not retreating yet. Keep the VTOLs close to home. That’s an order. Got it, Simpson?"

"Yes, sir," the pilot answered bitterly.

Irritated, Zucker looked up, and the flash of red, white, and blue mirrored in the surviving windows of the skyscraper a block to the north saved his life. He quickly side-stepped left, knocking over a streetlight and crushing a hoverjeep parked at the curb.

But getting out of the center of the street.

Just as a Davion Falconer leapt into Covenant and let loose with the Poland Main Model A Gauss Rifle in its right arm.

The silver slug flashed past Zucker at hypersonic speed, clearing his right arm by less than a meter. He heard the terrible sound of the slug’s impact, but he didn’t have time to glance down to see what it had hit.

He was too busy pouring particle projection cannon fire into the Falconer.

The manmade lightning hit the heavy right in the center of the red racing stripe running down the middle of its chest, cooking the pretty paint job right off the Davion ’Mech and carving hunks out of the Valiant Chainmail underneath.

Zucker’s right PPC cycled and he went immediately to the left.

The angry buzzer of his heat alarm sounded and he slapped the override.

He wanted the heat. He needed the heat.

The Davion heavy only gave up five tons to Zucker’s Legacy, its PPC-Gauss combo nearly matched his firepower, and it had it all over him in speed.

What Zucker had was fourteen double heat sinks to the Falconer’s ten.

The second PPC shot missed left, but Zucker came right back with a flight of Streaks that hit the Davion heavy square in the chest.

The Falconer hit back with its B3M medium lasers, emerald light washing over Legacy’s torso. Zucker just had time to note that the Davion pilot had feathered his lasers, only using two of his four, and then the enemy hit his jump jets and hopped out of the deadly intersection.

Retreating west for some damn reason.

Zucker gritted his teeth and glanced down at his tactical schematic, the product of realtime datafeeds from multiple units, all integrated by his C3 processor.

The remaining ’Mechs of the Davion Heavy Guards had formed a hinged front running nine blocks east-west on Desdemona Street and seventeen blocks north-south on Covenant. To their rear was a bombed out portion of the city. Obviously they had chosen this position to minimize collateral damage to the city.

The Davions were supposed to fall back before what they had to assume was at least two to one numerical superiority. Instead they were standing and fighting. Why?

Because the fucking Davion Heavy Guard wasn’t going to cut and run. Not in their own capital.

One more flaw in Geist’s stupid plan. And somehow Zucker had to make it work.

All right, foxes, Zucker whispered. Let’s bloody your nose and see what you do.

He toggled his command circuit, giving him every MechWarrior that was the commander of a Level II or above. Linebacker Command, this is Linebacker One. Safety blitz on my order.

Adept Chi, the commander of Zucker’s own Assault II, came back at once. Linebacker One, this is Tackle One. What is the penalty for facemasking, over? How much will we be punished for collateral damage?

Zucker clenched his jaw. His orders were explicit. But if he didn’t hurt the Davions, they were never going to move. And that meant they couldn’t tiptoe around civilians.

Damn it, he hadn’t ordered this assault.

Zucker drew a deep breath. It’s bound to get bloody in the trenches, Tackle One. But if the zebra doesn’t see anything, he can’t throw a flag.

Acknowledged, Linebacker One.

Then, feeling like a war criminal, Zucker pushed his Legacy into a lope.

Covenant and Desdemona

Avalon City

Marshal Jonathan Davion watched a white Albatross pop out from behind a parking garage and tear into Colonel Felicia Hill’s red, white, and blue Black Knight with its Sunbeam large laser.

The Knight stumbled to one knee under the blow. It looked like a fall, but the maneuver hid the Knight’s badly damaged torso behind a five-meter mound of shattered ferrocrete, turning the rubble into an impromptu revetment.

The Davion heavy lashed back with its large lasers, scoring the Wobbie’s creepy white armor.

The Blakist could have pushed through the parking garage to avoid the worst of the Black Knight’s attack, but instead the Albatross pilot faded back and around, exposing himself to an extra ten seconds of fire.

What the hell was going on?

The Blakists were fighting strange and John Davion just couldn’t figure it out.

Were these the same butchers who had nuked Tharkad and Outreach? The Wobbies were being extra careful to avoid collateral damage, even going so far as to avoid using missiles and autocannons, relying on non-fragmenting energy weapons to carve up the Heavy Guards. They hadn’t been so careful back in ‘67.

He had no idea what to make of it.

A Shootist stuck its head around a corner and Davion raised his Marauder II’s arm and smashed its chest armor with a Gauss slug.

If they thought it was going to earn them any points with him they were sadly mistaken.

The Shootist quickly scurried away.

They were in bad trouble, maybe outnumbered three to one if all of the Thirty-first and Thirty-sixth were arrayed against them, which, according to the combat stills he’d been reviewing, was pretty close to right.

But he was beginning to think they might be able to hold.

The Guards had fallen back to a devastated quarter of the city, taking what cover they could behind the rubble left behind by broken roads and smashed buildings.

If the Blakists wanted to take them down, they’d have to rush his big fellas over broken ground, slowing down their assault and exposing them to concentrated fire.

And if they kept up this duck and cover bullshit, he could hang with them all night.

A Wobbie Awesome ducked out from behind the garage, losing its left arm to a Gunslinger’s Gauss slug for its trouble and then ducked back.

And then, as if a switch had been thrown, the Blakists came boiling out from behind their cover, all charging at once. Davion saw a Thug and a Toyama and the Awesome and—

His hand shot out to his comms console, turning his freq selector to All and then he was shouting as he poured manmade lightning into the charging Thug’s right knee.

All heavies, Davion. Major push in Grid Five Niner Six. ’Mechs, concentrated fire—take out cockpits and joints.

Hill’s PPC carved into the Thug’s knee.

Heavy One, Tanker One. Do you want armor to—

The Thug went down.

But the Toyama skittered right over the top of it.

"Negative, Davion shouted. Get me VTOLs. Do it now."

The last thing he needed was slow moving tanks behind him if he had to fall back to the bridge.

The Blakists were paying a fearsome price for their advance, but they were advancing.

The fucking Wobbie commander had the ’Mechs to give.

Davion didn’t.

The Awesome’s PPC cut deeply into Davion’s left arm, carving a deep furrow in his armor. His eyes flickered to his wireframe in time to see it flicker from pale yellow to crimson.

And then he looked up in time to see Hill’s Black Knight fall.

The Wobbies were inside 150 meters now and closing fast. Soon this was going to be a brawl and the mob was going to win.

Davion’s external mike somehow picked up the clatter of chopper blades.

He looked up and saw a flight of Ferrets diving out of the sky, juking for all they were worth, weaving a path through the buildings, some of them almost kissing the ground. His heart soared at the sight.

All right.

The VTOLs were too light to do any damage against the Wobbie bruisers, but that was OK. Davion had something else in mind.

Two hundred meters on my mark, boys and girls, and don’t be pedantic about it. Stop when you find decent cover.

One of the helos dumped a canister out its side door. It tumbled to the ground, bounced three times, vomiting thick, gray smoke the whole time.

And suddenly the world was filled with clanking, bouncing canisters releasing clouds of foul, burning gas.

"Go, go, go," Davion shouted.

And then he was loping back through the ruins of his city, the weight of his massive ’Mech shaking the earth and kicking debris into the air. He stopped at a half-demolished apartment building and stepped behind it, raised his right arm, and poured PPC fire into the billowing smoke cloud.

His thermal sensor was a blur of emerald green, his MAD gear was detecting ’Mechs in all directions, and of course he couldn’t see a damn thing, but the Blakists had made sure that if he could hit the smoke he’d probably hit an enemy. Fed Suns’ ’Mechs were stopping and pivoting all up and down the Guards’ line, tearing into the smoke cloud with their energy weapons.

The Wobbies were returning fire, of course, but there were a lot fewer Guards to hit and Davion’s people were taking advantage of what meager cover was available.

The Blakists stumbled out of the smoke cloud, but there were fewer then when they went in. As they stepped out of the cloud, the Guards smashed them with SRMs and autocannons.

Suddenly the Wobbies were falling back, taking cover where they could and retreating where they couldn’t. It wasn’t a full-scale retreat, but the Guards had managed to blunt the thrust of their mad assault.

A grim smile curved across John Davion’s face. He felt pretty damned good.

Until he heard his right flank calling desperately for help.

Covenant and Arena Boulevard

Avalon City

Captain Max Tarkington had inherited what was left of Third Battalion when Major Rodrigo fell in battle, the cockpit of his Victor crushed under the merciless weight of a Grand Crusader’s right foot.

It was all Tarkington could do to hold his new command together.

He cut into a Wyvern with his Thunderbolt’s lasers, then stepped back, taking cover behind a mound of shattered bricks.

The Heavy Guards were holding a line that ran north-south, roughly along Covenant. To the west of that line, buildings still stood, small businesses mostly; restaurants, even an amusement park, the maniacal loops and twirls of a cherry red roller-coaster visible in the early morning light.

To the east of that line was utter ruin.

Third Battalion’s section of the line stretched across Arena Boulevard, the main road leading into the gutted, blackened hulk that used to be Hanse Davion Sports Arena.

The problem was that the relentless Wobbie attack was pushing the Third back. And as they gave ground, they drew ever closer to the stadium. Tarkington was going to reach a point where