BattleTech: Redemption Rites: BattleTech

By Jason Schmetzer

OUT FOR BLOOD…

Wolf's Dragoons, the most storied and elite mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere, has been utterly shattered for the first time in its centuries-long history.

In 3151, most of the Dragoons listened to Marotta Kerensky and followed Alaric Ward to Terra. There, they helped him destroy the Republic of the Sphere and establish the ilClan. Four out of five Dragoons died in the fighting. The survivors were injured, shell-shocked, and finally, gravely insulted by Alaric Ward's token payment of thirty pieces of silver.

In one brutal gesture, the ilKhan did what no other enemy had ever done: He broke Wolf's Dragoons. The decimated survivors limped off Terra to rendezvous with their remnants that had stayed behind.
Colonel Henry "Hack" Kincaid, senior striker officer, is waiting when the Dragoons convoy appears, full of wrecked machines, but depleted of personnel. Kincaid is a man of reputation in the Dragoons. His word carries weight. And he hasn't been tarnished by Terra.
Three regiments and one of his irreplaceable striker battalions have all been ground to dust.

All that is left now is duty.
And vengeance…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201949969

Book preview

PROLOGUE

NADIR RECHARGE STATION

SAVANNAH

FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

3 JUNE 3151

It hadn’t taken much. Just money.

Once they were paid, the station authorities had been all too happy to clear the shuttle docking terminal and seal the hatch to the main station promenade.

Colonel Henry Kincaid—Hack, to almost everyone—had let others handle that. He had stood, back straight, hands clasped firmly behind him, boots locked to the deck, and watched, waiting. The transpex viewport was three meters tall, scuffed with centuries of use, but the holo overlay still worked. By his knees were the icons of the flotilla of JumpShips and DropShips his own forces had arrived in.

Above him, a new cluster of icons floated. Alphanumerics trailed off the lower-right corner of each caret, showing transponder IDs. The names were familiar to Hack. He’d know them all his life. Sendalor. Talbot. Hammer. Chieftain. Orion’s Sword. They’d been there for two days, transmitting reports and requests under Dragoons encryption.

The reports had been incredible. Horrifying. Hack would have said beyond belief, but he’d never been a man who refused the evidence of his own eyes when he was competent to judge. He could read an after-action report as well as anyone. In the history of Wolf’s Dragoons, no battle had ever shattered the mercenary unit’s ranks so badly.

A new caret appeared, about head-height. The signal read for a shuttle, inbound. Hack swallowed. That meant General Brubaker had agreed to meet him with just the command council, first.

Nate, he said. A moment later, Major Nathan Castle, veteran commander of the Wolfsbane striker battalion, clomped up next to him. Stand by the hatch. No one gets in from the station, no matter what happens.

Done, Castle said, and clomped away. The other man’s voice was flat. Dead. Like everyone’s. Hack listened to the click-clomp of the officer’s magnetic boots detaching while he thought. The shuttle would arrive in a few minutes.

Behind his back, his hand clenched into a fist and relaxed. Clenched and relaxed. He’d always had Nina Slade for things like this, but she was gone, killed on New Avalon.

The hand clenched into a fist and squeezed, squeezed so hard he felt the tingling where the muscles had contracted so tightly they’d cut off their own blood supply.

Another few minutes.

The first man out of the docking tunnel was Thomas Brubaker, general of Wolf’s Dragoons. He walked with a limp, and looked like he’d aged twenty years since Hack had last seen him. Behind him came every Dragoons officer who’d gone to Terra of field-grade rank or higher. Those still alive, anyway. Despite knowing the truth, Hack counted every person who came through the door, praying to gods he didn’t believe in the reports had been wrong.

The reports were right.

Dozens of people he’d expected—prayed—to see weren’t there.

Two people with the three stars of Dragoons colonels: Nicholas Crews, walking with a cane and an obvious prosthetic leg that hadn’t been fully fitted yet, and Colonel Lyons, with a truly livid burn still healing on her face.

Andrew Krull, from Crews’ Gamma Regiment, followed the colonels. Two other majors followed them out, but Hack bit back a curse. Both of those majors, with two stars on their collar flashes, had worn the single star of captains the last time he’d seen them.

Hack, Brubaker said, when he came close enough. It’s good to see you.

Tom, Hack said. He nodded past the general at the others.

We need to make plans, Brubaker said, looking guardedly around the room.

Hack nodded. He looked at each of the officers in turn, and drew back his shoulders a bit more. His hands had never come out from behind his back. I’ve already made the necessary plans, he said. He looked past the new arrivals and nodded again. Major Castle nodded back and spoke into a wall panel.

Alaric Ward screwed us over, Colonel Crews muttered. He glanced behind them, where a final man had stepped out of the shuttle docking tunnel. This one wore gray Clan Wolf leathers. Hack ground his teeth, but not in further anger.

A part of him wished he was wrong. That his plan for the future was the wrong one, that the general and these officers had a better explanation. Some secret stratagem that would explain why these people he’d respected his entire life had followed a Clan Khan to Terra and killed eight out of ten of the best mercenary soldiers the Inner Sphere had ever seen.

But the presence of the Wolf Clan warrior could only mean he was right.

We need— Brubaker started, but Hack spoke over him.

You are all relieved of command, he said. You will be held over for court-martial by the combined Dragoons in conclave. These court-martials will begin in two days.

Brubaker looked at the floor. I don’t think—

You don’t have the authority, Hack! Colonel Crews shouted. Hack looked at him, gripping his hands tightly behind his back. It takes a quorum—

Which I had, Hack said. "You murdered enough Dragoons that my battalions and crews are a quorum. You are under arrest, Crews. The charge is mutiny. I don’t know how you thought you’d hide the fact you killed Dragoons to set this whole charade in motion, but you will answer for that. He tried to speak again, but his voice broke. On the souls of every Dragoons man and woman you killed on Terra, you will answer."

Hack, Brubaker said. We’ve all suffered, but let’s not be hasty.

Hasty? Hack stepped forward, clenched hands at his sides. You left us behind, Tom. He raised his right hand, and knifed it into Brubaker’s chest. "You listened to this traitor and that whelp— he pointed to Marotta Kerensky, still at the back of the group, —about some fantasy of rejoining a people we left behind more than a century ago."

We had to stop Malvina Hazen from taking Terra, Brubaker ground out. We did that.

Congratulations, Hack said. Now go tell it to all the spouses, partners, and children I had to bring here. Tell them how you sacrificed their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers on the altar of defeating one woman.

He stepped even closer.

"Go tell them!" he roared.

That’s not fair, Major Krull said into the silence.

Whoever told you life was fair? Hack looked at each to them, daring them to argue. The way forward was set, now. All of his hopes for a different way were moot; these men and women had done the things he’d feared they had. It didn’t matter that years of friendship raged at the way he was treating them.

At the very center of Hack Kincaid was a diamond-hard core of discipline. Of duty. It had defined his life. He ground the betrayed feelings against that, grinding them to dust. All he had left was duty.

Duty.

And vendetta.

CHAPTER 1

PROVING GROUND EPSILON FOUR

GIENAH

WOLF EMPIRE

4 JUNE 3151

In the rear with the gear.

Star Colonel Othar sat in a small anteroom outside the review tank, on an uncomfortable chair that dug into the small of his back and the edges of his backside, and couldn’t get that phrase out of his head. He turned a message folio over and over in his hands. His eyes stared at a spot on the floor, but he wasn’t seeing it.

He’d just read the message every Clan warrior decanted from an iron womb for the last 150 years or so had dreamed of reading: his Clan had done it. The verigraph carried all the right genetic markers, and the encryption was secure. The message was for his eyes only. To do with what he wished. It had come hand-delivered along one of the Wolf Clan’s last remaining command circuits of JumpShips to let Othar know the raison d'être of his culture had been fulfilled.

Terra had fallen to Clan Wolf.

Clan Wolf was now and forever the ilClan.

Othar’s fingers squeezed the folio so tightly his knuckles went white. Alaric Ward, Khan of the Wolves—no, ilKhan of the Clans, now—had done it. Had done what no other Clan, no other warrior, had been able to do in a century of crusade.

And I was here, Othar whispered to the silence. He ground his teeth, feeling his nose twitch with the beginnings of a snarl. In the quiet he heard his pulse pounding in his ears. "I was here."

A knock interrupted his isolation. He twisted in the chair, looking at the door.

Forgive me, Star Colonel, but the Trial is about to begin, the old solahma trainer said. Star Captain Ricard knew better than to step fully into the room; he spoke through a crack in the door.

I will be right there, Othar said.

The door closed. He lurched to his feet, breathed in and out, deeply, searching for his center. The message folio he slid into his belt at the small of his back. It didn’t matter that the world had just fundamentally changed. He still had his duty.

Don’t I?

Outside the anteroom, Othar knew, a group of Clan Wolf warriors waited for him to oversee a Trial of Position. In the martial culture of the Clans, the Trial of Position was the ultimate coming-of-age ritual. A warrior-caste Trueborn trained their entire life to be the best warrior. Each generation was successively bred to be better than its predecessor, using only the genes of their successful forebears.

In a Wolf Clan Trial of Position, a challenging warrior faced a succession of three of their peers in armored combat, normally in concert with a fellow aspirant. Today, a MechWarrior candidate would fight in a real OmniMech against three combat-tested opponents, with real weapons and the very real chance of death. Success meant entry into the warrior caste and touman of Clan Wolf.

Failure meant a life apart from the warrior caste—or death.

For centuries, this method had produced the most skilled duelists the galaxy had ever seen. It was guaranteed, they were promised as children, to eventually produce the generation of warriors elite enough to retake Terra and rebuild the lost Star League. For the Trueborn of the Clans, there was no higher purpose. It was sacred. Even the Ghost Bears, who’d sacrificed most of what made them Clan in Othar’s eyes, recognized the ilClan had been named.

Othar gripped the handle of the door, steadying his nerves and getting his breathing under control. He smoothed his leathers, closed his eyes for a moment, and forced his will onto his body.

You are the senior warrior left in the whole of the Empire, he told himself. This is your duty. He jerked the door open and stepped through, face composed, nodding at the collection of junior officers and trainers waiting for him.

Star Colonel, it is good of you to come, Star Captain Ricard said. Ricard was a huge man, a former Elemental who stood nearly three meters tall. His entire left side was horribly scarred and stiff. Clan medical science could work miracles, but the wounds he’d taken during the Clan’s conquering of Gienah all those years ago had stripped him of the delicate motor function required to pilot an Elemental battlesuit to its fullest potential. He had transferred his dedication to the Clan’s cause away from combat and into the training of young pups with a passion Othar didn’t know if he could match, were their roles reversed.

It is my duty, Othar said. Nothing more. He stepped to the front of the holotank, back straight, hands clasped behind him. Has the Trial begun?

Ricard came to stand beside him. He touched a control on the communicator in his right hand. It has now, he said. As trainer, it was his right and duty to begin the Trial. He towered over Othar, a product of his genes. He was eleven years older than Othar’s own thirty-four standard years. Two Clan generations. By the rede of the scientist caste, Othar should be two generations more genetically improved.

But right now, with the verigraph he felt beneath his hands, he envied the old, scarred Elemental his certainty. One had only to look for the spark in Ricard’s eyes to see the dedication he had to his Clan, a dedication he practiced through training. He had failed to win a Bloodname. His genes would not continue. Othar wondered if Ricard had decided this was another way to live on, by ensuring the young warriors of the Clan were as well-trained as possible, that they may avoid his fate.

That is immortality, after a fashion, Othar reasoned.

To Othar’s left in the tank appeared a meter-tall BattleMech, a 75-ton Timber Wolf. He hid his incipient frown. That was an old and tired machine, and not even the Khan’s—ilKhan’s, he corrected himself—admiration for it could convince him otherwise. He looked to his right. A trio of ’Mechs appeared: a light Wulfen, a Vulture Mk IV, and an aggressive-looking Warwolf.

He turned enough to grin at Ricard. You must think highly of this pup. All the opponents were advanced machines, when the pup’s ’Mech could be a century old or more.

As the Star Colonel says. Ricard didn’t look away from the tank.

And his Trial mate?

Ricard frowned. Injured yesterday, he said. None of the others are ready to test. And the Clan needs every warrior, so I chose not to wait.

Othar grunted. Trials of Position were routinely fought in pairs: two young pups against two pairs of three opponents in live-fire combat. Defeating one opposing ’Mech meant the pup would enter the touman as a MechWarrior; two, an officer at Star Commander rank. Defeating all three earned the rank of Star Captain, and such victories were rare.

But not impossible. Othar had tested to Star Captain when he fought his own Trial of Position on Tamar with his sib brother Gaulder. His brother had defeated only one of his opponents. Othar half-closed his eyes at the memory. He had felt invulnerable that day.

In the rear with the gear.

Othar’s eyes snapped open. His hands clenched to fists, willing his temper down. If Ricard noticed the flinch, he gave no sign. In the tank before them, the small holographic ’Mechs began moving. Othar knew he could leave this room, climb some stairs to the building roof, and watch the combat with his own eyes. The Trial area was barely two kilometers away. But the tank would tell him much more than his eyes would.

In the real world, the war machines would tower twelve meters over the battlefield. Ever since its invention, the BattleMech had been the preeminent engine of ground warfare. Massing anywhere from 20 to more than 100 tons, fusion-powered, armed with missiles, lasers and particle projector cannons, a ’Mech feared no opponent except another ’Mech. Fighters might own the sky, WarShips space, but ’Mechs and the MechWarriors who piloted them were the legendary knights of old in the modern galaxy.

MechWarriors like Othar of the Shaws. And possibly, in the next little while, a new pup from a Clan Wolf sibko. Their name?

Radu, Star Colonel.

Radu, Othar said. A good name. His Bloodhouse?

Ward. Othar looked, hearing a hesitation in the Elemental’s voice. Ricard met his stare, but his brow was furrowed. Sir.

It was Othar’s turn to frown. And?

"This sibko descends from Vlad Ward," Ricard said.

Othar raised his eyebrows. Ah.

Vlad Ward, Khan of the Wolf Clan in the prior century, was still regarded by many as a hero of the Clan. His exploits had been legendary, and Khan—ilKhan, Othar’s stubborn mind corrected—Alaric Ward himself was descended from him. Vlad’s genes were used sparingly; Othar could count on one hand the number of sibkos he knew of. He looked back toward the holotank. Radu. Ah, he repeated. That explained the choice of such powerful opponents. The product of Vlad’s genes should be held to a higher standard.

Radu’s Timber Wolf stalked forward inexorably, showing no fear. The trio of Wolf warriors he faced had apparently worked out their order; unlike most Trials, where the lightest opponent went first, this time the Vulture clomped forward. The OmniMech strode to meet the pup, weapons at the ready.

Othar eyed the Timber Wolf; Radu had chosen an ancient configuration, with paired extended-range PPCs, pulse lasers, and Streak short-range missiles. He would have done better to keep the primary configuration with its LRMs.

The Vulture fired first, another breach of protocol. Ordinarily the pup would be allowed the first shot. Othar chewed the inside of his cheek, thumbs rubbing against forefingers at his side. The world felt suddenly very out of tune.

Clan Wolf is the ilClan.

Alaric Ward is the ilKhan.

Terra has fallen.

And nothing about this Trial is according to tradition.

Blinking, Othar focused on the action. The Vulture’s first barrage of autocannon fire had scattered damage across the Timber Wolf’s left shin, as was to be expected. The two machines were stalking straight toward each other, and the Vulture pilot was a veteran.

Radu took a few more steps, halted, twisted the Timber Wolf’s bullet-shaped torso a degree or two, and fired both his PPCs. The flicker of the coruscating blue-white beams, infinitesimal as lightning, was bright even in the holotank reproduction. The bolts converged on the Vulture’s right torso, eating through the tough ferro-lamellor armor until they chewed into the protected spaces housing the Vulture’s innards. The Vulture staggered, static discharges playing across it, then vanished beneath a puff of black smoke and orange flame for a moment.

"Seyla," Ricard whispered. It was clear the trainer was invested in the performance of his student.

Radu lurched the Timber Wolf into motion immediately, a loping run that brought the machine up to its top speed, over eighty kilometers per hour—away from the engagement zone, back toward his starting point. The move offered his back and its weaker rear armor to the Vulture.

As the smoke cleared, Othar saw the Vulture was done. Radu’s fire had touched off a deflagration of the stored short-range missiles in the Vulture’s chest. Blowout panels had protected most the of ’Mech’s heart in the center of its torso, but the blast had ruined the whole right side of the machine and torn its entire right arm free. As they watched, the Vulture took a few hesitant steps, then fell over on its side, legs twitching spastically.

Neurohelmet feedback, Othar guessed. A MechWarrior piloted a ’Mech with the aid of a neurohelmet that was susceptible to the neural feedback generated by cooking-off ammo.

One opponent defeated. No matter what else happened, Radu had earned his place in the fighting arm of Clan Wolf.

Radu is a warrior, Othar said, nodding.

He is a Wolf, Ricard said, his tone even but his voice rough. The big man’s pride in Radu was obvious, but Othar knew it was more, that he was seeing the vindication of all the time and effort he had invested in the young man. Now we will see if he is a Ward.

Radu reached his starting point and spun. Except for the smoking wreckage of the Vulture and the slight damage to the Timber Wolf’s leg, the scene looked almost as it had when this all began.

The Warwolf moved forward. Othar sniffed and glared at the holotank. The ’Mechs were evenly matched, both built as 75-ton cavalry and attack machines. The Warwolf pilot had clearly learned from the Vulture’s example that Radu’s gunnery was nothing to sneer at; as soon as the Timber Wolf moved to match him, the Warwolf’s MechWarrior took to the air, leaping forward in 150-meter leaps with its jump jets.

Radu took the change in tactics in stride. He held his fire until the Warwolf landed, using the necessary pause where the Warwolf’s myomer muscles overcame the inertia of 75 tons of mass changing direction to snipe at it with his PPCs. His gunnery suffered, even so, with only half of his shots falling, but that was enough to peck away at the heavy reactive armor protecting the Warwolf.

The Warwolf’s pilot, in return, blazed at the Timber Wolf with their ER large pulse laser. The stuttering pulses lit the ground and the foliage around the Timber Wolf, sometimes stinging the ’Mech’s thick ferro-fibrous armor. The Warwolf continued to jump, clearly hoping to close the range where its Ultra-class autocannon would be decisive. Radu appeared happy to keep his Timber Wolf dancing, avoiding as much fire as possible. It wasn’t until the two machines were less than 200 meters apart that the tactics shifted.

The Warwolf landed in a crouch, absorbed the two bolts of PPC energy Radu sent, and stayed on the ground. It leveled its arm and the autocannon belched fire at the Timber Wolf on its maximum fire rate. The 100mm cannon dumped a double-cassette of ammunition through the breech as quickly as it would feed. Othar could well remember from experience the rocking blam-blam-blam of the action, two shells per second, until the cassette was empty.

Radu must have been expecting the shift in tactics. As soon as the Warwolf remained down, he abandoned his evasive course and charged straight in, accepting the autocannon’s tearing damage as it smashed shells against the Timber Wolf’s bullet nose. The three medium pulse lasers in the Timber Wolf’s left chest flickered to life as one, painting the Warwolf’s chest with an amazingly tight patter of coherent light. Six stout-bodied, short-range missiles burped out of his shoulder launcher and corkscrewed in.

Laser light flashed, too fast to be seen except in afterimages, as the Warwolf’s laser antimissile system clawed half the missiles out of the sky. The remainder crashed ineffectually against the ’Mech, warheads disrupted by the microexplosives in the Warwolf’s reactive armor.

Still, the Warwolf staggered. Even with its bevy of heat sinks, the combined heat of the jump, the weapons fire, and the unexpected heat burden of the antimissile system wore at its systems. Heat buildup was a MechWarrior’s constant bane. It disrupted sensors, threatened myomers, and confused movement actuators. Inside the cockpit, the Warwolf’s MechWarrior would be gasping for air, shivering as their cooling suit kept them from cooking inside their own cockpit.

Radu’s own heat must have been staggering, but he didn’t slow. As the Warwolf’s MechWarrior got their machine under control, Radu stepped in close, raised the Timber Wolf’s clawed foot, and brought it down on the Warwolf’s shin. The foot slid down until it would have crushed the Warwolf’s instep, had the ’Mech been a human. Tiny puffs of smoke showed where the attack had crushed the reactive armor into exploding. The Warwolf lurched forward, off-balance, as if hoping the Timber Wolf would support it.

In the backfield, the lean, angular 30-ton Wulfen broke into a sprint toward the fight. Othar wondered if the Wulfen’s MechWarrior felt they could read the future as well as Othar could.

This pup was a ristar. Someone to watch.

Radu twisted his ’Mech on its turret-like waist, wedged the derringer-shaped gauntlet and its PPC in his left arm against the Warwolf’s chest, and triggered the weapon. The contact discharge blew the two ’Mechs apart. The Timber Wolf staggered, its left arm missing below the elbow.

The Warwolf fell and went still. The bolt had blown its reactor shielding to pieces, forcing a shutdown.

Star Commander, Othar breathed. Two opponents defeated, Radu had earned his next rank.

"Seyla," Ricard whispered fiercely.

Radu didn’t waste time crowing over his victory. His sensors would have told him of the Wulfen’s movement as soon as the holotank had told Othar, if the boy had spared the attention to see it. It appeared he had; he stalked the Timber Wolf toward the Wulfen at a steady pace, right-arm PPC raised, while his double heat sinks labored to bring the ’Mech’s heat burden under control.

Radu’s first shot missed. Ricard grunted as if struck, but Othar only nodded. Wulfens were fiendishly fast, as fast as the old Fire Moth, and wrapped in Inner Sphere stealth armor that made them devilishly hard to target. Radu had done well to come that close when the target was stealthed and moving faster than 150 kilometers per hour.

The Wulfen’s return volley, a barrage of 20mm cannon fire and a flight of advanced tactical missiles that went wide, were little threat to the Timber Wolf’s armor, but very threatening to the Timber Wolf’s MechWarrior. Wulfens in this configuration were harassers; they could hit you, but you couldn’t hit them. They were fast enough to hold the range as open as they liked.

Radu clomped forward at a speed impressive for the heavy-class OmniMech his Timber Wolf was, but it was nothing compared to the fleet-footed Wulfen.

Another PPC shot, another miss.

Autocannon fire burst like fireworks against the Timber Wolf’s armor.

In Radu’s place, Othar would be cursing.

The Wulfen held the range, moving obliquely across the battlefield. Radu gave up the chase, and stopped the Timber Wolf in a thin copse of trees that gave it a modicum of cover. He tracked the distant Wulfen like a turret tracked a target.

His next PPC shot ate the armor off the Wulfen’s right leg. The bolt took the speeding ’Mech in the thigh, and a chain of damage broke the main armor plating free. The ’Mech staggered, but didn’t fall.

Star Captain Ricard, next to Othar, made a strangled sound.

The Wulfen’s MechWarrior triggered their ATM again, but Radu stood and took the damage, trusting his armor and refusing to give up his stable firing position. His PPC tracked again, waiting, as the Wulfen attempted to reverse its turn.

A lightning-flash of blue-white.

The Wulfen’s naked right leg came apart at the knee. The ’Mech crashed to the ground, skidding. Radu lurched out of the woods, charging the Wulfen at the Timber Wolf’s full, ground-shaking speed.

The Wulfen lurched up on one arm, leveled the other, and triggered a long burst from its 20mm autocannon. Again, sparks struck against a boulder in the tide, Radu’s Timber Wolf ignoring it.

The PPC flashed again. The Wulfen’s offending arm and its cannon crashed to the ground, amputated at the shoulder.

Othar frowned. That was either amazing gunnery, or the luckiest shot he’d ever seen. The Wulfen collapsed, but the MechWarrior used their one arm to flip the ’Mech onto its back and force it into a sitting position.

Radu did not slow or deviate from a straight line toward the fallen ’Mech. The Wulfen had not yet shut down or disengaged its targeting systems. Until that happened, the Trial continued. Othar understood: no Wolf warrior wanted to just give away a Star Captain’s rank.

And there was value in teaching the lesson that in the field, warriors always must make sure of things.

The Wulfen tried to fire its ATMs, but as a one-armed ’Mech sitting on its backside, it was in a poor firing position. The missiles augured into the dirt thirty meters in front of the Timber Wolf.

Radu hit the Wulfen with all three pulse lasers. The trio of weapons ate through the armor over the Wulfen’s heart, digging deep. The ’Mech sagged, leaned over, and finally the entire head ripped free as the MechWarrior triggered their ejection system.

Great Father, Star Captain Ricard whispered.

Star Captain Radu, Othar said, practicing the words. He turned to Ricard, looking up. The old man’s face was composed, but his eyes were wet. His massive, scarred hand opened and closed as if he weren’t aware of it. Sweat, driven out of his massive muscles by the strength of his emotions, glistened on the neckline of his leathers.

He is a credit to your training, Othar told him.

Ricard nodded, once, but then straightened up. He is a credit to his genes and the Clan, he said.

Othar grinned. Let’s go meet him.

He remembered the next moments of his own Trial of Position vividly. The congratulations from his new peers in the touman. The sense of invincibility, looking across the field at the defeated ’Mechs, knowing he had earned what so few in his Clan’s history had. The looks of congratulation mixed with jealousy from his sibkin who had yet to test. He had felt like the entire future of his Clan had rested on his shoulders.

As they walked down the corridor toward the waiting APC, all Othar could think about was that feeling of invincibility, and hunger for the future. The nectar-sweet pollen of possibility, and his certainty in his destiny to shape it. That sense of superiority had carried him through his adulthood.

How hollow it felt, now, in the rear with the gear, as he walked to tell a ristar of the Clan there was no glorious battle left to fight—because it had already been won without either of them.

CHAPTER 2

NADIR JUMP POINT

MARIK

FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

13 JUNE 3151

All Captain Haya Tetsuhara could think as she stood in the lift with Colonel Hack Kincaid was that she didn’t belong there. All Major Gamble, her commanding officer, had said was report to Colonel Kincaid. She wore the ubiquitous blue Dragoons jumpsuit, but had left her sidearm behind, on orders. The colonel’s holster was empty, too.

The light bars on the lift flashed steadily by as it transited across the bulk of the recharge station. A counter above the door showed a zero and another number counting down in seconds as the lift neared the huge, rotating grav deck. When the countdown reached zero, the other number would start counting up. It displayed apparent gravity generated by the spin of the 1,230-meter diameter grav deck.

Recharge stations hovered forever at the jump points of inhabited systems, either the zenith or nadir. Massive, they carried banks of rechargeable batteries to fuel JumpShips, those spindly vessels that traveled through hyperspace instantaneously from jump point to jump point. Because they never generated false gravity by acceleration, they mounted rotating gravdecks like the one Haya approached.

She stole a glance at Colonel Kincaid. His hands were clasped easily behind him, back ramrod-straight. His jumpsuit was bare except for a name tape and the three stars of a Dragoons colonel. He wore no battalion or regimental insignia, just the open-jawed, black-and-red patch of Wolf’s Dragoons. His hair, more steel-colored than brown, was cut short. His pale skin was tanned with the light of dozens of suns. If he felt her eyes on him, he gave no sign. He stared at the closed lift doors, a look of calm on his face.

Haya blinked and looked down at the deck. She envied him that calm.

You ready for a little weight, Captain? Kincaid asked.

Haya frowned, then realized what he must mean. The countdown timer was approaching zero. Yes, sir, she said. She checked her magnetic boots were locked to the deck, then surreptitiously glanced at the colonel’s, just to make sure.

Always hated zero-G, Kincaid added. He exhaled as the timers switched; the weight piled on quickly, like a weighted blanket after a long day. Haya did the same, giving her body time to get used to pushing breaths and blood against gravity again. She shook off dizziness.

Why am I here? she wanted to ask. But she said nothing. If the commander of the Dragoons striker battalions wanted the CO of Charlie Company of the Tarantulas to accompany him, that was his prerogative.

A few moments later, the lift stopped under what sure felt close to normal gravity. Haya bounced on her feet, letting her sense of balance reassert itself. She hoped the colonel didn’t see. She doubted he needed to do something so mundane as check his balance. Every striker in the Dragoons would tell you if Hack Kincaid wanted gravity, all he had to do was tell the gods to turn it on.

When the door opened, Haya started and then stopped. An obvious security agent stood there in a cheap suit and an earbud. He wore a small Marik eagle lapel pin, and had the same eagle tattooed across his temple. Behind him stood two Free Worlds League marines with gyrojet rifles held across their chests in tactical carries. The rifles had magazines in their wells.

Colonel Kincaid to see the Captain-General, Kincaid said. He hadn’t moved. His expression hadn’t changed.

The Captain-General? Haya’s palms felt suddenly warm. Of the Free Worlds League?

The agent stepped back. You are expected, sir. He glanced at Haya, but said nothing. Colonel Kincaid nodded once, let go of his hands and strode out of the lift. The marines parted to let him through. Haya followed in his wake, back straight, very conscious that she was now representing Wolf’s Dragoons to a potential employer. Which was about a hundred times above her usual pay grade.

Kincaid walked like he

Reviews for BattleTech

[Evil Atlas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An excellent interplay of perspectives on the aftermath of the battle for Terra. Solid technical quality, and surprisingly well-managed suspense.

[Michael Orabona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a great way to bring the Wolf Dragoons back into the novels. Lookinbg forward to more.