BattleTech: Jaguar's Leap: BattleTech

By Reed Bishop

FIVE AGAINST ONE…

It was supposed to be just another exercise—a Star of light 'Mechs against one assault 'Mech. Jackson is a ristar cadet in Clan Smoke Jaguar, renowned—and envied—for never losing a battle. The five cadets beneath him in the rankings plan to hand him his first defeat. But the training goes terribly wrong, and before the day is over, there are winners and losers—and one cadet will not survive the day.

That training exercise sets in motion a chain of actions that encompasses both events that occurred decades earlier, and those yet to come. Now a full MechWarrior, Star Captain Jackson searches for answers—both about his past, and what had happened that fateful day. But what he learns are secrets that threaten to upend his entire life—and make him reconsider what it means to be a Smoke Jaguar…
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
• Release date: Aug 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201142568

Book preview

PART ONE

ISORLA - 3028

CHAPTER 1

THE RUINS OF VOSTOK, KHARKIV DISTRICT

LONDERHOLM

KERENSKY CLUSTER

20 AUGUST 3028

The abandoned city of Vostok was a dark ruin, its silent streets clogged with half-collapsed warehouses and the rusting hulks of overturned buses, all overgrown with wild vegetation. Nothing moved down those streets except a cold, keening wind that rattled particles of grit against warped sheets of corrugated steel and slabs of buckled ferrocrete.

The cockpit of Star Captain Michael Furey’s Timber Wolf A was supposed to be airtight, but he imagined he could taste, really taste, that bitter decay of this old, destroyed city on his tongue.

Or maybe that was just his conscience.

Dusk was drawing down on the city, and a low ceiling of angry storm clouds the color of slate threatened rain. Between the twilight and the coming storm, the light was draining out of the day. And when the rain finally fell, slanting down out of that lowering sky, it would not wash the city clean.

This was not a city that could be washed clean.

Michael peered at the city’s sawtooth skyline. A few worn and battered buildings pierced the dismal gray sky, the surviving skyscrapers separated by humps of moldering wreckage too heavy for the wind to bear away.

Is this what it means to be Smoke Jaguar? he wondered.

Is this what we are fighting for?

Vostok offered no answer save for the wretched whistling of the icy wind.

Michael guided his Timber Wolf down Twenty-Third Street, stopping before he quite reached the intersection with Silvia Levi Avenue—one of the avenues named for a Jaguar Bloodname founder. He leaned the 75-ton ’Mech forward, meaning to present a small target profile to any Steel Viper that might have a line of sight down the intersecting road. The nose of his BattleMech just peeked out past the charred wreckage of the building on the corner.

His heart pumping hard, he tried to look everywhere at once. His index finger trembled on his primary trigger, waiting on a flash of khaki—one of the Clan Steel Viper ’Mechs—to send twin shafts of man-made lightning from a particle projection cannon slashing down the street.

He did not see it.

Michael exhaled heavily, wiping sweat from his face with the back of his arm.

The Steel Vipers had expected to fight this combat trial in farm country, and had painted their ’Mechs to match the color of ripening summer wheat.

Michael’s ’Mechs were painted in a camouflage pattern that included the gray of ferrocrete, the smeared black of charcoal, the dark sanguine red of brick. The Vipers’ wheat-colored ’Mechs would stand out against the city’s drab colors, while Michael’s heavies would blend in.

But he saw no sleek, fast Adders or Fire Moths or Incubuses momentarily exposed to a deadly snap shot.

All he saw was Silvia Levi Avenue.

The road looked just as bad as the other streets that crisscrossed Vostok. A spill of blond bricks from the smashed wall of an apartment building barred the road. The street’s storefront windows were shattered, shards of glass scattered everywhere.

But there were no vehicles abandoned in the street.

There was a cargo truck in an alley marooned on four flat tires, its wheels half-melted by laser fire. The ass-end of an olive-drab hoverjeep stuck out of a hardware store’s shattered plate-glass window.

Michael could just see the sun-faded Smoke Jaguar emblem on the jeep’s side: a dark gray cat, its mouth curled into a snarl, claws extended as it pounced out of a tree. It was the creature as it would be seen by its victim as they looked up, with only a heartbeat to recognize their impending death.

So. A truck and a jeep. Not unusual for the long-abandoned streets of Vostok.

But neither vehicle blocked the roadway.

The meter-high pile of blond bricks would be an obstacle to wheeled traffic, but it would not even slow a BattleMech.

Silvia Levi Avenue was passable.

And who had cleared the north–south avenue? Because it had been cleared.

Not by Smoke Jaguar hands. To Michael, Vostok was a place of shame and dishonor. None came here, except when it was necessary.

Was it the Steel Vipers then?

It was the only other possibility, but it did not seem likely. The Sixty-First Striker Scout Trinary’s light ’Mechs would have a difficult time moving through the city. That was the reason Michael had chosen Vostok as the ground over which this Trial of Possession would be fought.

The Vipers had challenged them for the wheat harvest of Londerholm’s Kharkiv district, bidding fifteen light ’Mechs in this Trial of Possession. Michael had bid his assault Star in defense and chosen the battlefield on which this trial would be fought. The Fangheads had expected him to choose the wide, flat plain near the wheat fields, a tabletop where there was plenty of open land for running. No doubt Star Captain Emily—the Viper commander—believed her light ’Mechs could literally run circles around Michael’s heavies, hitting their weak rear armor from cover.

It was a worthy plan.

Especially since Michael’s already ponderous heavy and assault ’Mechs would be further slowed by Londerholm’s 1.5 G gravity.

Except Michael had seen the ploy coming. As the defender, he had the right to pick the ground on which they fought, so he had chosen Vostok, a destroyed city choked with overgrown weeds and debris that would deny a light ’Mech freedom of movement. Here, in this desolate tomb of a city, only slow and careful motion was possible. In Vostok, Michael’s superior firepower would tell.

Was it possible that the Viper BattleMechs were clearing the streets? Were they adjusting the battlefield to their advantage?

It was a clever idea. But, neg. Michael did not believe the Viper ’Mechs were conducting a long and noisy exercise in ad hoc civil engineering.

Then who had cleared Silvia Levi Avenue?

Try as he might, Michael could think of no possible answer. Which made the road a mystery.

Michael Furey did not like mysteries.

As a rule, no Smoke Jaguar liked mysteries.

For a moment, Michael debated with himself. Should he warn his Star of this strange new development? There was little chance a radio transmission would alert the Vipers to his location.

On the other hand, Michael was not sanguine about diverting his people with this odd little puzzle. They were here to defeat the Vipers and retain all that wheat for Smoke Jaguar mouths.

Anything else was a distraction.

Michael almost let it go.

But going into battle only half-armed with information was like going into battle only half-armed with ammunition.

So he activated his neurohelmet transceiver to transmit and selected the Smoke Jaguar channel.

Attention, 181st Battle Cluster, Beta Trinary, Assault Star. This is Star Captain Michael Furey. I am at the intersection of Twenty-Third and Silvia Levi, and I have discovered something—uh, unexpected. Levi Avenue has been cleared of debris. I do not believe the Vipers would take the time to clear the city’s streets. Nor do I feel our foes would execute the task in such a subtle and clever way.

Then who could it be? asked one of his people.

I do not know, said Michael. "But it is a factor to be cognizant of, quiaff?"

He was answered by a chorus of "affs."

Michael thought about the cleared roads and began to formulate a plan.

What were the Vipers really fighting for?

That was up to him to decide.

As Star Captain Emily guided her Adder down Seventeenth Street, it started to rain.

The rain came slashing down out of an angry black sky crowded with storm clouds. For the first few minutes, it merely rattled against her light ’Mech’s cobra hood and spotted her canopy. Then it was as if someone had thrown a switch, and the rain was coming down in torrents, great blurry washes of water running down her windscreen and turning visibility to zero.

She switched to infrared, but that was no good either. The rain painted everything with the same cold brush.

How ironic that the very precipitation that made crops grow in abundance in the Kharkiv district would now oppose her Trial of Possession.

Alpha Star, she barked, hold this position.

Like an infantry squad taking cover, the four humanoid ’Mechs that made up the rest of her Star each took up position at one of the points of the compass, crouching behind buildings, watching the intersection’s approaches for the smallest hint of movement.

Once they took their positions, the Incubus and the three Mist Lynxes stood absolutely still.

For a long time, there was no sound save for the pounding rain.

Emily stood in intersection’s center, ready to reinforce any of her people.

But her eyes were on the Incubus.

Aaron Chen’s ’Mech.

And as the rain filled her cockpit with white noise, she found she was no longer in the murdered city of Vostok on the world of Londerholm. Instead she—

—is crammed into one of those narrow bunks you always find in the staterooms of Broadsword-class DropShips. Aaron Chen is pressed up against her and he is taking up more than his share of space.

Emily does not mind.

It is quiet here. And warm.

And safe.

The air is filled with the astringent scent of their coupling.

She does not mind that either.

Emily turns on her side, pillowing her head on his chest.

A part of her thinks she could stay like this forever.

It is a strange thought for a Clan warrior. She knows this.

But still.

She has coupled with men before, but none of them have ever affected her like Aaron has.

Emily does not understand why this should be true.

But it is.

Aaron is tall for a man born on a standard-gravity world, one meter ninety, and every centimeter hard, lean muscle. He is ruggedly handsome, with unruly black hair and a crooked smile. And there is an intriguing kindness about him, though he is able to put that kindness aside in the savagery of combat.

Of course there is more to him than just the physical. There is also…

But she cannot find the words for this ineffable thing she is trying to describe.

Is this the Spheroid brand of madness called love?

Love. The sickness that split the Smoke Jaguars apart from their allies the Nova Cats when the Khans of those two Clans had broken their love union.

Emily has never understood that. Why would a Khan sacrifice an advantageous strategic position merely to serve some emotion bound up with physical pleasure? If that is what love did, then the Clans were wise to discard it.

She has always thought so.

But now, lying in her lover’s arms, she is no longer sure.

Without speaking, Aaron draws his right arm down her bare back, his fingertips tracing her warm, smooth flesh. At first it makes her shiver.

But she can feel the bondcord around his right wrist brushing against her skin.

The bondcord.

Aaron Chen is her bondsman, her isorla, a prize taken in battle against Clan Nova Cat. That is what the bondcord means. He is her property as surely as is her discarded clothing strewn across the stateroom’s deck. She has the right to use his body, because it belongs to her.

Does Aaron really care for her?

Or is he just being good property?

Only a single strand of the cord remains. He had long ago proved his fidelity and integrity.

And tomorrow on Londerholm, he will prove his ability as a warrior.

She will cut the bondcord’s final strand.

And he would become an abtakha.

An adopted Trueborn warrior of Clan Steel Viper.

No longer anyone’s property.

Are you going to leave me, Aaron? she silently asks him. Are you going to leave me on Londerholm?

She should be worrying about the tactics for the trial. The importance of gaining another victory for her codex. The civilians who will starve if she does not secure the wheat harvest. She should be thinking of any of these things instead of her aching heart.

Are you going to leave me on Londerholm?

She realizes she is weeping. No, the whole world—

—was weeping. The rain poured down out of that dark sky, interfering with Emily’s ability to carry out her mission.

How had she come to be like this? She had always thought love was a sickness. Maybe it could be contracted like a virus. Maybe all you had to do to catch the illness was to meet a carrier.

The idea made her uneasy.

It made her question who she was.

At last, the rain began to slacken enough so she could see, and Emily hoped it was a good omen for this battle.

Move out, she said gruffly. One by one, her warriors broke cover and followed her down Seventeenth Street, the Incubus right behind her, guarding her back.

Michael loped his Timber Wolf down Silvia Levi Avenue, trusting the rumble of thunder and the fierce crack of lightning to hide his approach.

His Jaguars had a good plan. The somehow-cleared street would serve his Star as an expressway, offering them rapid access to the city’s southern quarter.

Now he just needed to guarantee the Vipers’ presence when his Star arrived.

A feral smile split Michael’s handsome face.

His Star—less one—would race down the avenue, their slower Jaguar ’Mechs made comparatively swift by the absence of obstacles.

When they closed in on the enemy, Michael would split his force so they could approach the Vipers from multiple points of attack. Hemmed in by the debris-choked roads, the Vipers would have no chance to flee.

He reached the intersection of Twentieth and Silvia Levi and stopped long enough to verify the path forward was clear, then he crossed, looking both ways for enemy ’Mechs.

When he reached the next block of Silvia Levi, he found his way forward obstructed not by the Steel Vipers,

but by a mountain of debris.

Jaguars, halt, he ordered.

The Jaguar ’Mechs behind him came to a stop.

It was hard to see in the gloom and the downpour, but a mound of rubble was not exactly surprising. What was surprising was the mound’s height—seven or eight meters at its peak.

It came up to his Timber Wolf’s chest.

Michael frowned, debating whether he should shift the smashed ferrocrete to make his time gate or if he should detour his column to a neighboring north–south road. It would slow his advance to maneuver and reorder four ’Mechs—especially if the next avenue was also blocked by debris.

The plan would not work if he did not hold to his time gates.

And the plan was already in motion.

Lightning ripped across the dark sky, and for a heartbeat Michael could see the mound clearly.

It was not made up of rubble, but bones.

For a fraction of a second, he saw the butterfly-flare of pelvises and the zippered lengths of spines, the curved ribs and straight femurs. And skulls. Dozens of skulls.

Hundreds of skulls.

And then the lightning died away, plunging the world back into darkness.

Michael found himself breathing hard, his heart hammering in his chest.

Lightning flashed again, revealing just mundane ferrocrete rubble this time—no bones.

Though his recollection of ancient Smoke Jaguar history had conjured that grisly image, there were indeed ghosts aplenty here.

Vostok was the site of the Londerholm Revolt, a century-old flare-up between the Jaguars’ warrior caste and the civilian castes. In 2912, the Jaguar civilians, starving to death because a blight had destroyed their cholach crop, had demanded some of their export cereals be withheld from the warrior caste. The Jaguar warriors of the 181st Battle Cluster—the same unit Michael now served in—had responded in the only way they knew.

They had shattered the city of Vostok, murdering all the city’s inhabitants and smashing most of the buildings, streets, and bridges.

This was where Michael chose to fight for the wheat harvest, in the sad wreckage of Londerholm’s last battle between hunger and violence.

The Clans are governed by the concept of honor, he told himself, and none more than Clan Smoke Jaguar.

But if that were the case, how had a place like Vostok come to be? How had the civilian castes of his Clan abandoned their duty so completely that they had forced the warrior caste to mete out such a terrible punishment?

He remembered the strange arrangement of the debris on Silvia Levi Avenue, and wondered if ghosts haunted this terrible place. And if there were ghosts, would they side with their Jaguar kin?

Or would they consider Jaguar warriors their enemies?

Michael had picked Vostok out of tactical necessity, and that tactical necessity had not changed.

He drew a deep breath and plunged through that mountain of rubble, feeling bricks shatter beneath the splayed feet of his BattleMech, clouds of gray ferrocrete dust coating his canopy. Runnels of rain cut through the chalky paste left on his windscreen. Earlier, he had thought the rain would not wash the city clean.

Now he hoped it would wash him clean.

And before the trial was over, the ghosts of Vostok would remember they had once been Smoke Jaguars.

Emily moved east down Seventeenth, weaving between the barren shells of tipped-over trucks and wrecked buses. Her ’Mechs were designed to race, to fly, down ferrocrete roads. It was their principal advantage. But here they could do no better than trudge.

Emily had expected to fight this trial on the fertile plains of Kharkiv, using her superior speed to dart between islands of cover—barns and farmhouses and silos—never giving the Jaguar heavies a chance to zero in on her BattleMechs. She had planned a sniper strategy. She had intended to hit the enemy heavies again and again and again from distance while the slow, ponderous ’Mechs held their fire to avoid hitting any of the precious grain silos giving Emily’s warriors cover.

But all that had gone out the window when Michael Furey had located the trial inside Vostok.

She did not know where the Jaguars were. She was guarding a Jaguar freq and had picked up a burst of encrypted high-frequency transmission, one too brief to localize. Michael’s heavies had to be out there and moving around, but she could not hear them over the storm and the tromp of her own ’Mechs.

The smart thing to do would be to clear the streets as she went. That way she could use the hit-and-run tactics she preferred. That was why she had brought Mist Lynx BattleMechs, so they could toss rubble aside with their hands, push overturned buses to the side of the road, and use their active probes to locate the enemy.

But if the Jaguars heard her clearing roads, they would come—and they would come in force.

That was her big disadvantage. If any of her three Stars were caught in a five-versus-five firefight, they would lose en masse. A light ’Mech could not stand up to a heavy in a toe-to-toe brawl.

So Emily had to be stealthy, and hope she could find the Jaguar heavies before they could find her.

Unfortunately, hope was not an effective battle tactic.

Hope was what a commander turned to when they did not have an effective battle tactic.

All she saw ahead of her were the dark, looming silhouettes of half-destroyed buildings. No movement.

No enemy.

For a moment she allowed her eyes to wander down to the rearview monitor mounted below her canopy. The sleek, humanoid shape of Aaron’s Incubus stalked behind her. The ’Mech looked like an armored soldier clutching a rifle in his right hand. Except the rifle was really a large pulse laser.

And the soldier was really a towering BattleMech.

But there really was a soldier at the heart of that enormous war machine.

Aaron.

The shattering crack of a close lightning hit jerked her out of her reverie. And in that flickering strobe of light, she suddenly understood the opportunity here.

She reached the intersection of Seventeenth Street and Aleksandar Wirth Avenue, and peered down the choked stretch of ferrocrete.

She did not see the ten-meter shape of a heavy BattleMech looming out of the darkness.

MechWarrior Yumiko, she said, addressing one of the Mist Lynx pilots, clear Wirth Avenue. The storm’s sound will cover your activity. Act quickly. I want there to be enough room for a light ’Mech to go at full speed up Wirth for three blocks without having to pick its way through. When you are finished, give me a single click. Do not break radio silence unless you find an immovable barrier or you encounter enemy units. Return to this intersection when your mission is completed.

Affirmative, Star Captain, Yumiko answered in her high, sweet voice.

The last Mist Lynx in her column peeled off and raced up Wirth.

Emily led the rest of her Star down Seventeenth Street, heading for the intersection with Makoto Hoyt Avenue.

The storm gave her a limited opportunity. The gunfire rain, the boom of thunder, the lightning’s percussive crack—all would make it impossible for the Smoke Jaguars to hear her impromptu roadwork.

If she could get enough roads clear, she might still turn this battle to her advantage. If one of her warriors encountered a Jaguar ’Mech working its way down one of the choked avenues—its already ponderous speed reduced by Londerholm’s crushing gravity—one of her ’Mechs could hit it in the rear armor. By the time the enemy heavy managed to turn and lumber after its attacker, the light ’Mech could duck behind the cover of the building at the intersection and dart down one of the cleared north–south roads, buttonhook around, and catch the heavy in the rear again.

Rinse and repeat until the heavy went down.

She planned to use Aaron’s Incubus for this tactic. Even on Londerholm, the light ’Mech was capable of 100 kilometers per hour. It ought to easily double up on the speed of a Gargoyle, Warhawk, or Timber Wolf.

If she could clear some of these roads, she might actually win this fight.

And she needed to. Not just because she needed to add another victory to her codex. But also because people were going hungry on Grant’s Station. Clan Steel Viper had suffered its own agricultural failures, and if Emily did not win this Trial of Possession for Kharkiv’s wheat, the citizens of her Clan that would have no bread.

She reached Hoyt Avenue and again verified that no enemy had taken up station there. When she was satisfied, she dispatched a second Lynx to clear that road.

She did the same at Steve Showers Avenue, one block to the east.

She and Aaron were halfway up the block when an enormous shape crossed Seventeenth a couple blocks to the east.

The ’Mech was large and muscular. Its torso was long, resembling the snout of a dog—or maybe a baboon. Its arms did not end in hands but in the nozzles of twin PPCs, and it carried a short-range missile launcher on its right shoulder.

Emily did not need her classification system to tell her what this ’Mech was. She recognized it instantly.

It was a Hellbringer.

Sixty-five tons of mean.

Smoke Jaguar mean.

She stopped instantly to give herself a stable shooting platform, and pulled the reticule over the ’Mech until the red crosshairs flashed gold.

But she did not fire.

She did not want to engage in a standup, one-on-one duel with a 65-ton ’Mech, not if she could help it. Fortunately, the Hellbringer did not seem to pay attention to her, and after a heartbeat or two, it passed out of sight.

Right then, Emily heard a single click over her radio frequency, followed by a triple click, meaning that two of the north–south avenues were clear.

Go, Aaron, she said. When he turns, fall back to Wirth or Showers.

Affirmative. There was no warmth in that word. Aaron had put aside his natural kindness in the interests of battle.

Like he was suddenly another man—a true Steel Viper warrior at last.

CHAPTER 2

THE RUINS OF VOSTOK, KHARKIV DISTRICT

LONDERHOLM

KERENSKY CLUSTER

20 AUGUST 3028

The Incubus moved quickly down Seventeenth Street, weaving around obstacles. When Aaron Chen reached the cross street of José Canto, he crouched his sleek, humanoid machine behind the fifteen-meter pile of bricks on the corner and peered out from behind cover. There was the Hellbringer, half a block from him in the semi-darkness, showing its back to him like it wanted to die. He raised his rifle-shaped laser, dialing in the range.

His heart pounded painfully in his chest, and his mouth tasted like sand—gritty and dry. He was a Trueborn warrior who had already passed his Trial of Position.

He wanted to be a warrior again—though he would miss being owned by Emily. He wished there was some way to be owned by her without being a bondsman…

He pushed away thoughts of Emily and drew in a deep breath.

I am Bondsman Aaron Chen of Clan Steel Viper, he called out over the common frequency, "and I am piloting an Incubus. I hereby challenge the pilot of the Hellbringer to a duel of warriors. In this solemn matter, let no one interfere!"

"A duel of warriors?" a woman’s voice sneered in reply—the Hellbringer’s pilot. "No bondsman can hope to defeat Jessica of Clan Smoke—"

Aaron did not wait for the rest. Instead, he stitched darts of ruby fire into the darkness. He caught her in a right-hand turn and scoured armor from her right shoulder.

"Stravag! Jessica snarled. Has not your Clan taught you to hear out an opponent’s challenge?"

"This is not an oratory contest, quiaff?" said Aaron.

And he hit her again.

Then he ducked back behind the collapsed building just as a sizzling pair of cerulean blue beams flashed past him.

Both missed cleanly.

Aaron leaned out and risked another shot. He managed a glancing blow to the Hellbringer’s wounded right shoulder. Then he was on the move, running back down Seventeenth Street, this time racing west.

The Hellbringer charged out into the intersection. Aaron’s pulse laser had done some pretty good damage across the heavy’s torso.

Emily stood back from the advancing monster. The rules of zellbrigen prevented the Hellbringer pilot from engaging another Viper BattleMech until after she had dealt with the Incubus, but Emily did not want to bet her life on the dubious proposition of a Smoke Jaguar’s honor.

On the other hand, if the Hellbringer attacked her, its pilot would have violated zellbrigen, and Emily would be free to return fire with her whole Star.

The Hellbringer rumbled down the road. As the heavy ’Mech passed by, it turned toward her, taking a good, long look.

Emily felt her blood go cold. Besides the twin PPCs and the Streak SRM-6, the Hellbringer carried a trio of extended-range medium lasers high on the left side of its torso. And it backed all of it up with eight tons of armor. The Hellbringer was not a well-rounded heavy, but it was powerful enough to give her little Adder trouble.

The large ’Mech finally turned away and lumbered after Aaron.

Only then did Emily start breathing again.

Aaron reached Showers Avenue and took up cover behind the pitted granite face of the Merchant’s Bank on the corner. He fired his ER medium lasers, sweeping twin emerald lances across the Hellbringer’s scarred torso armor. And he fired his large pulse laser, stabbing ruby beams down the heavy’s right arm until armor ran like molten steel and dripped onto the street.

The Smoke Jaguar ’Mech returned fire, causing considerable damage to the bank—but missing the Incubus entirely.

Aaron ducked back behind the bank, racing up Showers Avenue.

The Hellbringer doggedly followed.

Emily moved carefully left, not wanting the heavy’s pilot to think she was planning to violate zellbrigen. The big ’Mech was presenting her its rear armor. Aaron had made the most of his opportunity, carving away armor on the right rear shoulder.

It would have been easy enough for Emily to brutally damage the big ’Mech, maybe even cut away the arm.

She did not.

She was Clan Steel Viper.

And her honor was her own.

The Hellbringer disappeared down Showers Avenue. Aaron was going to run the Jaguar pilot in circles.

A grim smile touched Emily’s lips.

Her people would win that kind of battle all day long.

Her trio of Mist Lynxes were reappearing on Seventeenth Street. Emily was tempted to clear debris from the east–west road, then thought better of the idea.

The sounds of battle were liable to draw the balance of the Jaguar Star.

And she meant to be ready.

Jessica watched the Incubus’ slim shape disappear up Steve Showers Avenue. She lumbered after the Steel Viper, cursing under her breath. The light ’Mech’s only advantage was speed, but if Jessica could not catch it, she could not kill it. In the 1.5 G gravitational field, her Hellbringer was rated for roughly 50 kph—about half what the Incubus could maintain. If she could turn the corner onto Showers Avenue and set up before her opponent turned off the north–south road, she would get a shot at the Viper’s rear armor. If she launched an alpha strike, she should maim the swift ’Mech and make it easier to catch.

And if she were really lucky, she might claw through the light ’Mech’s rear armor and take out its gyroscope—or even its fusion engine.

Jessica pushed the big, plodding Hellbringer right to its engine’s redline, moving it as fast as it would go. She turned onto Showers Avenue and saw her prey two blocks north on the street, so she set up, readying to take her shot.

This Aaron must have been watching his rear monitor, because the instant she stopped, he juked left.

Risking heat overload, she fired everything. PPCs and medium lasers all slashed past him, missing a few meters to the right, and her Streak launcher failed to lock on.

The instant that first volley missed, the Incubus planted its left foot and cut right. The ’Mech raised the large pulse laser built into its right arm, and ruby beams punched gouges across Jessica’s right shoulder. Molten armor fell like rain, burning divots into the ferrocrete beneath her ’Mech’s feet.

She glanced at her wireframe schematic. Her shoulder armor read black. All the Forging Omni-H24 had been burned away. If the stravag Viper hit her again in the shoulder, she might well lose the arm—and the extended-range PPC on it.

While she was thinking this—and before she could set up her next shot—the light ’Mech cleared the intersection of Showers and Twentieth, sprinting down the east–west road.

Jessica bellowed with rage and frustration. She was a Smoke Jaguar and a MechWarrior. She was better than this bondsman. She would defeat him.

"You are dezgra to flee, Viper."

"Neg, answered the bondsman. Maneuvering is a tactical necessity, not a dishonorable action."

Come back and fight me, she said. "That is the tactical necessity."

He did not reply.

She stepped down Showers Avenue and noticed something surprising: the road was clear.

It looked like Star Captain Michael Furey had been wrong. The Steel Vipers had been clearing the roads. She guessed they had been using the thunderstorm’s violent rage to cover this action.

These Vipers were cunning. Not clever, neg. Cleverness required intelligence, and how could a Clan that did not follow the Crusader philosophy possess even the smallest particle of intelligence? But Aaron could be cunning.

Even an animal could be cunning.

He likely expected her to go running north down Showers after him, while he ran south on Yoshida. By the time she reached Twentieth Street, he would circle around on Seventeenth and hit her again in the rear.

She could stalk back down Showers and turn left on Seventeenth, buttonhooking around onto Yoshida, so that the two ’Mechs were running toward each other. She would catch him at close range and pound him into the ferrocrete.

Except the Steel Vipers had already proven they had little honor. One of the enemy pilots would interfere with the duel by warning Aaron of her maneuver.

Neg, she was not going to win this fight by relying on Steel Viper honor.

She reached the Eighteenth Street intersection and ducked right, taking cover behind a massive office building with blown-out windows. The pile of rusted steel and sun-bleached ferrocrete was five levels high. It was still mostly standing, which meant that it had been built to last—and the Jaguars had not considered it very important when they had thrown their temper tantrum in 2912.

She crept forward as quietly as 65 tons of machinery could move, and saw through the building to the last fifty meters of Yoshida Avenue before it crossed Eighteenth Street. She raised her arms, carefully positioning the PPCs so they were level with a light ’Mech’s head.

Then she waited.

As soon as the Hellbringer turned the corner of Showers and Seventeenth, disappearing from view, Emily raced her ’Mech west, checking each north–south avenue for other Jaguars. She heard the whip-crack of PPCs and the shriek of lasers. Aaron and the Hellbringer pilot were engaged, and the roar of battle would draw in the other Jaguars.

The Hellbringer had come from the north, so the rest of the Jags would come from the north. Michael would deploy his troops in such a way that they could provide each other mutual support if the battle turned into a melee, but they would also avoid interfering with each other’s duels if the trial followed the rules of zellbrigen. That meant his four remaining ’Mechs would be traveling singly, each of them moving down one of the Bloodname-founder avenues.

If she found one Smoke Jaguar, she would find them all. And she could return to the same quick-moving sniper tactics she had planned to use in the farmland of Kharkiv.

The plan—the revised plan—was coming together. She passed Hoyt Avenue and saw nothing. Then she moved west to Wirth.

What she saw there made her heart stop.

She had found the Smoke Jaguars, all right. But they were not doing what she had expected.

Facing her was a Mad Dog B, a 60-ton heavy bristling with both short- and long-range missiles in its torso and lasers in its arms. The ’Mech was painted in irregular dollops of gray, shiny black, and dark, dark red. This camouflage actually did make the silhouette harder to pick out from the storm.

But that was not the worst part.

The worst part was that her assumption was correct: the Mad Dog was not alone. Behind it, an 80-ton Gargoyle backstepped in sync with the heavy’s advance. The two ’Mechs were back-to-back, like a pair of scuba divers protecting each other against circling sharks.

Which meant Emily’s too-clever-by-half plan would not work.

She had meant to hit the Mad Dog from cover, then use her superior speed to circle around and hit it again. But now, that strategy was useless. The Gargoyle’s bulk was covering the Mad Dog’s weaker rear armor. The best she could do was somehow shoot past the Gargoyle. But if she missed the Mad Dog and accidentally hit the Gargoyle, she would be facing two pissed-off Jaguar warriors. Worse yet, if in the meantime the Gargoyle had found its own opponent, her interfering with that duel, even unintentionally, would be a grave stain on her honor.

Smoke Jaguars had a reputation for being courageous—but not very smart.

But she had to admit Star Captain Michael had boxed her in.

Her carefully crafted battle plan in tatters, she did the only thing possible. She leaned past the building on the corner and challenged the Mad Dog to a duel.

In this solemn matter, let no one interfere, she finished gravely.

Hearty laughter erupted from her radio. "This is MechWarrior Yuri, and I accept the puny Adder’s challenge. If you really want to fight, little Emily, why not come out from behind that building?"

Emily stayed right where she was and pulled her primary triggers. Crackling blue lightning flashed out and bit into the Mad Dog’s chest armor.

Yuri answered her strike with two ER large lasers from his left arm, three medium pulse lasers from his right arm, and a twenty-count salvo of LRMs. He said nothing.

But his laughter filled the world.

Jessica did not have to wait long. The Incubus came racing down the parallel road moving at maybe 70 or 80 kph ready, to