The Door, Copernicus Caldera,

Einstein, Deep Periphery,

14^th March 3068

 

“Attention, Jade Falcons! This is Major Ian Dorlacen of the Arch Lancers!” Ian shouted over the general frequency as he fired his PPCs, the electron bolts burrowing into a black mech and setting its internals ablaze. “We’re holding the door open for you, proceed to the mountain now!”

The Arch Lancers had advanced in good order towards the battle, accompanied by some fast vehicles belonging to the Death Dancers and Harry’s Harassers. The rest of the mercs had formed up strong points at various distances between the Lancers and the Door, ready to keep the lines open should the saucers manage to drop more mechs on top of them.

The ten fighters of the combined mercenary aerospace forces had engaged the remaining fighter escorts following the saucers just two minutes ago. Though outnumbered by their opponents, their odds were not as bad as the Falcons. They were up against only 30 enemy fighters. Oh yeah, no problem.

The threat of the mercenary fighters had forced the saucers to slow down their approach towards the Door, and even to retreat from the door somewhat. Unfortunately, none of the saucers had been destroyed yet.

Ian quickly took stock of the situation, assessing the Falcon mechs as they came into view. Every one of the omnimechs was mangled beyond belief, bare myomer sticking out of exposed limbs, electrical sparks sizzling through open actuators, smoke boiling out of countless punctured holes.

“Major Ian, what are you doing here?” He recognized the voice of Daniela Mattlov. He could also hear a sense of relief in her voice, although he was sure the doughty clanners would never admit their relief.

“Like I’ve said, pulling your feathers out of the fire.” Ian replied as he sent a PPC bolt at another black mech. “Proceed ASAP to the mountain! We will accompany you along the way. We have forces stationed along the route. Just move!”

He punctuated the last sentence with an alpha strike at an assault class black mech. One particle beam lucked out, finding a weak spot in the armor and destroying some of the black mech’s engine shielding.

The acknowledgement was not long in coming. “Aff. All Falcon units, head for the mountain, but leapfrog and cover each other. Olager, get your elementals on the nearest omnimech. Command Star, stay with me. We will not run like surats with our backs to our foes. We will execute a fighting retreat.” To Ian, she sounded entirely too calm in her reply, and it spoke volumes about her strength of character.

Then she added in a derogatory tone, “I do not think the money soldiers would be able to hold out long on their own anyway.”

Ian had to bite back a quick retort, not wanting to threaten their tenuous alliance. He swallowed his anger, and turned it into more fuel for his fight.

The Falcons seemed only too eager to follow her instructions, granted a reprieve by the arrival of the mercenary force. Ian saw Daniela’s Masakari, missing an arm, walk backwards past the line the mercs had set up. Another Thor rose up on gouts of flame, flying over the line as it raked the enemy line with bursts of laser flechettes.

Lieutenant Moussa N’Diaye came up behind him in his Archer, launching 40 LRMs into the ground between the black mechs and the retreating Falcons. While that might be mistaken for poor marksmanship, Ian knew better. Those were Thunder LRMs, loaned from the Death Dancers.

The minefield was further expanded by Rhona Martin’s Catapult, spewing out another 30 missiles as she advanced beside Moussa. The bird-like mech stood its ground along with the rest of the Lancers as the enemy mechs recovered from the initial impact of the mercenary attack.

A swarm of SRMs from a group of light mechs lashed out at Ian’s Awesome, as they lost their legs in the heavy minefield laid down by his LRM boats. The missiles slammed all over his mech, but failed to worry him. He had plenty of protection left to spare.

Twisting the Awesome’s torso to the right, Ian fired another salvo at a group of mechs trying to outflank his line. His entire command lance followed suit, pouring fire into the Lemmings. The Falcons had already dumped all the target information they had acquired on the enemy so far into the Lancer Warbook programs, updating their IFFs.

The black mechs had lost all cohesion, and were rushing at the combined force in a haphazard wave of obsidian metal. They either did not seem to mind the minefield between them and the humans, or they did not care. A multitude of explosions could be seen erupting from the ground as they swarmed over it. There were simply too many mechs for the mines to deal with, however, and Ian feared that the minefield would be exhausted by the sheer numbers of enemy mechs.

The Lancer mechs fell back slowly, using combined fire to destroy the bigger enemy mechs, leaving the smaller mechs for the vehicles to engage. Drenner’s elementals were coordinating with the Harasser tank units, using them as quick taxis to scoot from one end of the battlefield to the other, especially to areas where the retreat was in danger of being overwhelmed.

A Lemming lunged forward of its line, firing and missing with its array of medium lasers. Ian fired two PPCs at the enemy mech, shearing off one of its legs. He kept up the usual 4-4-3 pattern for firing his PPCs, laying down a steady barrage of particle blasts.

Time and again, the mass of black mechs charged their lines, only to be repelled or destroyed by the combined weapons fire of the Lancers and the Falcons. Meter by meter the humans retreated towards Galileo’s Tower, resisting the urge to simply break and run. Such a move would have left their backs exposed to enemy fire, and the slower mechs would be run down by the swifter enemy mechs. Hours of grueling drills and combat training paid off, as the human warriors kept their nerve, if not their cool.

After ten minutes, they were finally approaching checkpoint Alpha, held by Frank’s company. Ian resisted the urge to cheer but he could feel an immense pride at the way his people had performed in turning back odds of worse than ten to one. Frank’s reinforcements would greatly ease their retreat back to the Doors, or at least Ian hoped they would.

That hope soon turned into despair, as Ian found a shadow passing over their mechs. A giant saucer hovered by above, opening its bays to let more black mechs jump down to join their fellows. At the height they were jumping, many of the non-jump capable black mechs were destroyed the moment they hit the ground, sending earthshaking tremors as they smashed into the ground, armor plates and structure flying everywhere.

More than enough survived the landing for Ian’s comfort, and some even fired as they were coming down. Their shots were highly inaccurate, but to Ian, every piece of armor counted now.

“This is Bird One!” The aerospace fighters were supposed to keep the saucers away, but it was apparent they had failed their tasks. “The bad guys pulled more bogeys from space to keep us busy! We can’t get a clear shot at the saucers! They are going for the Doors again! We’re trying to take down the enemy fighters as fast as we can, but there’s too many of them!”

Ian wanted to hit his viewscreen in frustration, but he clamped down. There was nothing he, or anyone else, could have done. Gripping his triggers tightly, he continued to cover their desperate flight back to possible safety.

 

The machine intelligence calculated quickly. It lacked just enough fighters to achieve air superiority in both the space and atmospheric arenas, but as long as it managed to keep the space vessels from taking out its slow moving motherships while they are proceeding to the base, it would be a successful action.

The sudden appearance of more fighters and mechs from the flesh beings who had opened the base had momentarily upset its predictions, but it had managed to recover the initiative by recalling more fighters from the space battle and sending the motherships, no longer threatened by the flesh beings, in a headlong charge at the base, dropping mechs all the while.

It believed that by trapping the flesh beings outside the base, it would also force those already inside the base to keep the doors open longer, in order to wait for their embattled compatriots  to reach safety. If they decided to abandon the base to wholly support their comrades, all the better.

Any moment now, its drones would be reaching the base. The machine intelligence prepared to send the assault command mechs into the hidden base once its defenders had been eliminated. These specially modified drones had larger than usual control networks, due to their purpose of overpowering the base’s native AI defenses. They also had deployable smaller drones that could establish special links from the machine intelligence to the base’s systems, enabling it access to its systems.

After gaining control of the base, the machine intelligence would then be able to send a FTL message through hyperspace to its masters, for them to take possession of the prize.

 

Star Captain Descartin Winters kicked out with the left leg of his Nova Cat, crippling the one leg of a heavy Smasher, as he poured a full barrage of lasers into his opponent at the same time. The black mech burst into metal smithereens as he did so, peppering his own mech, but not doing any real damage.

Just need a new paint job, he thought. Assuming, of course, that he and his trusty mech survived the battle.

The black mechs had landed right on top of the Warrior’s positions from the saucer overhead, and Des was having a field day blasting them out of the skies before they even hit the ground. Two upgraded Partisan tanks that had accompanied them were proving their worth as they slapped one enemy mech after another out of the sky with their LB-X autocannon slugs.

Meanwhile, most of those that landed successfully had damaged legs, and every mechwarrior was now aiming for their opponents’ weakened lower limbs, instead of trying to punch through their thicker torso armor.

The enemy saucers had flown over them, dropping black mechs all over the battlefield. Thankfully, their own aerospace jocks had managed to extricate themselves from their dogfights long enough to ensure that the furthest any saucer got to Galileo’s Tower was Des’ position. Two saucers had been destroyed, one exploding in air just as it flew by overhead. The combined merc and Goliath Scorpion force had scrambled to get away from the falling debris, while shooting at their enemies all the while.

While that had left the 5 kilometer stretch of land between them and the Door relatively safe, that still left huge numbers of the enemy between Des and the regrouped Lancer and Raider force that had hooked up with the Jade Falcons.

Descartin and Robert Feehan had conferred briefly before committing their troops to assist the retreating force. They hoped to ease the pressure on the line of retreat enough for Ian to punch through and link up. They would then proceed to the base with all their remaining forces. Nobody liked fighting a battle with interior lines, not even clansmen.

As he glanced around, Des was appalled at the amount of destruction wrought in such a short time. The field was littered with metal and polymer, burning husks of destroyed mechs and the scattered wreckage of aerospace fighters. Smoke hung heavy in the air, billowing from dozens of small fires among the grassy plains, and from the black mechs as well. It was not as bad as what he had seen on Tukayyid or Luthien, but it was getting close.

Yoshino’s Nobori-Nin paced alongside his Nova Cat, firing its large pulse lasers almost continuously, the storm of energy darts puncturing a Lemming’s armor in several places, dropping it to the ground.

Jean Posavatz’s Ryoken had carried out a daring flanking maneuver that had placed her firmly behind the mass of black mechs currently blocking their way from relieving their friends. From her cries of delight over the comms, Des could hear that she was having great fun taking down mech after mech from the rear with her medium lasers.

Fun is fun, but no need to sound like you are having sex, and do not broadcast it out if you do, Des grumbled as he checked the distance now separating the two human forces.

Two kilometers left. He could even see bursts of light in the direction they were traveling, a sure sign that they were close to their goal. He grinned, and quickly opened a channel to Feehan.

“Warrior One, this is Scorpion One. Distance is now two klicks. Suggest we don’t hold back anymore, and push our heat sinks to the max. The tanks will stay in place and cover the way back.”

“Affirmative. Warriors and tankers, you heard the man. Let’s get down to it.”

Des heard several ayes over his headset, as he turned his full attention back to the battle. There were still more than ten black mechs in front of them, facing the seven mechs of the Warrior/Scorpion force, while another twenty tried to hold off the Lancer/Raider retreat.

Des opened up on two Bruisers with his full array of weapons, splitting his PPC and laser fire between the two as he sought to take both out of the fight by aiming for their legs.

One Bruiser went down as his PPC shot pierced through the leg, tearing past the bones and structure holding up the leg. The other remained standing, but only just, as it staggered to a halt, the leg actuators so badly damaged that it could no longer walk.

In return, Des’ Nova Cat was buffeted by gauss rifle, PPC, and laser fire. The heavy omnimech listed ton one side from the impact of the gauss slugs, and would have toppled without Des’ sure hands on the controls.

Heat swarmed into his cockpit from every conceivable direction, as he paid the price for firing his entire arsenal in one go. He could swear he heard several seals in his cockpit go ‘pop’ with the soaring temperature. Sweat poured down his face, as he struggled to maintain his concentration on the fight.

The next few seconds found the Warriors blasting through the hole Des had created with the fall of one Bruiser, their unrestrained firepower destroying one enemy after another.

For his part, Des put down the other Bruiser, almost immobilized from the previous attack with his trio of medium pulse lasers, while he blasted away with one ER PPC at the next group of black mechs, now being slowly but surely sandwiched between the two forces.

He could see Frank’s distinctive Night Gyr, as well as the few remaining splotches of green paint on the Falcon mechs a they staggered towards his position. Pushing his throttle forward, he charged forward, opening up with his guns again, throwing heat caution to the wind.

With every shot that he fired, Des could feel the heat in his sweltering cockpit jump up another notch. He could smell smoke from fried electrical circuits somewhere in the cockpit, and he could feel his sweat evaporating as soon as they exited his pores.

“Core temperature has reached 3400 Kelvins,” the computer droned on as his heat gauge edged towards the red zone.

Des did not need to worry about ammunition in the present all-energy weapon configuration of the Nova Cat, but engine heat overload was still a danger. If the reactor ever got hot enough without shutting down, it was entirely possible that the alloys and ferro-materials generating the fields holding the fusion reaction in check might lose their properties, thereby unleashing the nuclear genie from its magnetic bottle.

A terrifying thought for any mechwarrior.

“Good to have you here!” Deserk called out as his Black Hawk jumped up beside Des’ Nova Cat. The enemy force had been shattered by a simultaneous attack from both directions, the black mechs not knowing which way to turn as several well placed shots penetrated their weak rear armor with ease. The effect was akin to the quillar in a sandwich being squashed out by a firm squeeze.

“Raider Lead, this is Scorpion One. Let’s get back ASAP!” Descartin suggested. “Leapfrog retreat! Warriors and Scorpions can hold a line centered on my position. All other units can pull back five hundred meters and form up another line. As we pull back, your people can cover us as we are scrambling back.”

Another transmission arrived just as Des finished. “This is Nest One. All Nests have managed to get into the complex. We were lucky, getting just enough height on the corridor ceiling to squeeze the tops of the dropships through. We’re in the complex now, and all search teams have halted for the time being to move back to the Door. Lorik and Pascal have found a small console near the entrance. They figure it’s the door controls, and are trying to figure out how to use it. Bad news is, instructions are in alien script, so they might need a lot of time.”

Time that we have to buy them when the black mechs get to the Door, Des realized. Swinging his mech’s torso to the left as he tracked another group of enemies, he heard Frank’s new orders.

“Everybody, get back to the Door.” Frank’s voice was almost unnaturally calm, impressive for someone thrown into the hot seat of commanding an entire regiment. “We need to hold the Door for as long as possible.”

The Battle’s Bane captain suddenly broke in with another transmission. “Guys, this is Nest One. Later, try to lead the bogeys to near grid 341986, and then give us a hoot. We’ve got a surprise waiting for them.”

Des barely heard the last few words, as he locked onto the center torso of a Smasher approaching his mech with his targeting computer. His lasers plunged into the enemy machine, coring it and setting off the fusion engine powering it. The mech disappeared in a bright flash of light, tumbling its fellows to the ground with the shockwave of the explosion.

The merc force worked their way back, able to devote their full firepower to holding off the enemy machines. Des lost count of the number of mechs he destroyed, as one after another black drone came at them, only to be taken apart by the massed fire of the mercs. It became a long monotonous slaughter to Descartin, and it was a struggle to stay alert.

The leapfrog retreat was highly successful; they had not lost a single mech since the Lancers had linked up with the Falcons. The Falcons were mostly assigned to provide fire support from the rear, where they could take advantage of their superior range without attracting any return fire.

Even so, after getting to just one and a half kilometers away from the Door, CLG had taken a serious toll on the human forces. They had lost almost five tanks, and all their mechs were suffering internal damage of some sort. The enemy still came on relentlessly, heedless of their losses, which would have shattered most Inner Sphere units.

To make things worse, the enemy had sent a whole mass of swift Ants in a long flanking march that placed them right between the mercs and the Door. And it was not a few Ants; there were at least a hundred of them.

Des could hear Frank and Ian trying to get the other merc commanders who had not committed their forces to help, but the freebirth surat cowards were all holing up inside the base, unwilling to come out to support their fellow warriors.

He ground his teeth together as he turned on three Ants at once, blasting through two of them with each of his PPCs, and setting the internals of the third ablaze with laser fire.

He saw all their available reserves charging the Ants, but they were already too damaged and low on ammunition to punch through. He quickly checked his map, looking for anything that might give them an advantage.

His eyes settled on the area occupied by the enemy Ants. Grid 341986. He grinned as he recalled the dropship message. He had no idea what the dropship people had planned, but it could only help their cause.

“Nest One, this is Scorpion One. There are a lot of enemies and no friendlies in designated grid. You can spring whatever you had planned.” A series of clicks was the only reply, confirmation of the message.

Almost immediately, the air was filled with a wild howl, and a single large projectile appeared in the sky on long contrails, streaking towards the enemy positions. It landed right among the massed ranks of Ants, sending up tremendous explosions and wreathing the enemy mechs in orange flame and shrapnel.

It took Descartin a while before he managed to recall that Fortress class dropships like the Battle’s Bane were also armed with a Long Tom artillery cannon for combat support. The clans rarely used artillery, so the clan warriors often neglected such details in trying to memorize the configuration of every machine produced by the Successor States.

Things changed on Tukayyid, where Des had tasted bitter defeat at the hands of the Com Guards’ combined arms tactics. He had since learnt about the value of artillery as a force multiplier, and the basics of triangulation and spotting.

The Battle’s Bane had landed inside the base, and the height of the corridor must have restricted the fire angle of the Long Tom, and thus its range. Des also knew that a single artillery piece was insufficient to help them break through. No matter what, they still needed the reserve firepower of the other uncommitted mercs.

Over the comms, Des could hear Major Ian Dorlacen giving orders to the artillery gunners, telling them to ‘walk’ the fire towards the Door as much as possible, while Frank was also on the horn still trying to gather more help.

The battle continued to rage on, with the mercs still a kilometer away from safety. Fire from the Battle’s Bane continued to rain down on the Ants, devouring armor and destroying quite a number of the black mechs. Despite this, there were plenty of Ants left to prevent them from reaching the Door, and to hold them off long enough for the bulk of the enemy forces to finally destroy them.

Des winced as another salvo of SRMs spent themselves on his mech, already lacking almost more than half of its armor. Protection was so sparse all over that the next PPC hit would penetrate into the internal structure, which did not bode well for Descartin at all.

As damaged as his Nova Cat was, Ian Dorlacen’s Awesome was in an even worse condition. Coolant from busted heat sinks were streaming everywhere over the torso, while black smoke from engine hits belched from gaping rents. There was more armor on its back than on its front, and anyone who saw the mech would not had believed that it was still able to fight, much less hold the very center of the line.

Some Ants even tried to force their way past the huge Door, but were cut down by the gathered mercs that had standing guard near the entrance. They were willing to take down any enemy that came near, but apparently not willing enough to help out their erstwhile comrades.

Another ten seconds passed before six aerospace fighters swept down from the sky, strafing the enemy horde before continuing into the huge corridor beyond the Door. Ruby walls of bright light filled the air for an instant, as the laser blasts cascaded like a waterfall onto the black mechs. Enemy machines crackled in the ravening hellfire from the skies as they died.

“This is Bird Lead!” The message crackled through. “We are outta fuel, and returning to base. Jennings and Danke bought it. Good luck!”

The next attack came in fast and furious, with numerous Lemmings and Smashers wading into point blank ranges before firing. The situation was getting critical.

Suddenly, a strident voice broke out. “Lieutenant Greaves, where are you going?”

“Helping our friends, since you seem to have forgotten exactly who’s on our side.” Almost immediately, a storm of metal fire erupted from near the Door, tearing apart an Ant that was firing on Yoshino’s Nobori-Nin.

A Dire Wolf (correction, it should be Daishi, Descartin reminded himself for the umpteenth time) marched into view, bristling with weapons. It opened up with its entire load of weaponry, all 50 tons of some of the most awesome weapons devised by humanity. PPCs and large pulse lasers lashed out with their terrible energies, as the massive class 20 autocannon vomited a steady burst of shells, tearing into any Ant that tried to close.

“Benny, you will be court-martialed for this! Leave them to their mistake!” A furious Captain Rasouf raged over the comms.

Paying his superior officer and current employer no heed, Benny continued to push his Daishi into the midst of the Ants, causing them to scatter or be destroyed under his guns.

This left the mercs with one hell of an opportunity, one that nobody could have missed. Des could feel the others gaining a second wind from Benny Greaves’ appearance, as they fought back with renewed vigor.

As they got to within 400 meters of the Door, near where Benny had made a stand, Frank finally gave the order everybody had been waiting for, either consciously or unconsciously.

“Everybody make a break for it!” He yelled as the Night Gyr lurched into a sprint for the Door, followed closely by just about every remaining mech, vehicle, and elemental on the field.

A hail of fire greeted them as they ran towards the Door, the shots slipping between their ranks and hitting the pursuing enemy mechs behind them. Thunder LRMs arced out over their heads and slammed into the ground, launched by a lance of LRM carriers providing massed long range support. Amazingly, there was not a single instance of friendly fire.

As he  strode his mech near the Door, Des suddenly felt a sharp pain along his side as a lucky laser burst from a black mech hit his cockpit from the back. Metal shards ripped through his cooling vest, rupturing coolant tubes and proceeding to cut open his skin before being deflected away by his ribs. He was almost blinded by the pain for an instant, but he managed to keep the Nova Cat moving forward.

He forced the pain away, as he tightened his grip on his control and targeting sticks. Looking in front, he could see that the troops inside the base had formed up in blocks, with discernable lanes for the battered survivors who had ventured outside to run through. As he lined up his own mech for a lane, he saw Kily’s Gonzalez’s Wolfhound stagger through one such lane into the safe area behind the fresh mercs. Further into the corridor, Des could see the bulky ovoid shapes of their dropships.

The blocks were throwing out a tremendous amount of firepower, repulsing the enemy from the Door as the last few Lancers dashed past. Des moved his Nova Cat behind a group of entrenched Brutus tanks, firing his PPCs and large pulse laser at extreme ranges as contribution to the tanks’ laser and LRM fire. It did not take long for his mech to overheat, as many of his heat sinks had been destroyed.

While waiting for his mech to cool down, he paused to try to staunch the bleeding along his side. Grabbing a first aid box out of a compartment, he got a flask of blood clotting agents and proceeded to pour the substance on his wound, a stopgap measure to halt the flow of blood. He did not worry about any coolant seeping into his wounds because the type developed by the clans was non-toxic, unlike those used by the Inner Sphere. For this, Des was immensely grateful for such seemingly small improvements in mechwarrior technology. He was also beginning to feel lightheaded, a sign of severe blood loss.

As he looked around tiredly, he could see Lorik and Pascal Thome on top of a cherry picker on one side of the corridor, the machine’s crane fully extended vertically to allow them access to what they were working on, a computer console. Apparently, it was the control station for the Door.

Marching his mech up to their elevated position, he could hear a furious argument going on, as the two pulled at various levers and bashed several buttons.

“No, it’s this button! Not that lever!” Pascal gesticulated wildly as an SRM flew past his head, seemingly oblivious to his danger.

“It’s this lever! I know it!” An equally agitated Lorik yelled back. “The alien word symbol above it denotes ‘exit’, from the records we have. It must be the control for the Door!”

“Then why hasn’t the Door moved when you pulled it? There must be something else, or maybe it’s not even this lever at all!”

Des turned his attention away from them long enough to see an awry LRM suddenly veer towards the cherry picker, straight at the elevated platform the two were standing on.

“Look out!” He shouted over his external speakers as he moved his mech in front of them to act as cover. He cursed as he realized he could not get there in time.

The two men scrambled around, shocked by Des’ warning. In their haste, Pascal accidentally slammed yet another lever, and Lorik, overbalanced by his own movement, came down hard on several buttons on the panel. The missile missed them by inches, suddenly corkscrewing deeper into the tunnel.

The Door began to move, albeit slowly. The black mechs suddenly seemed to be overcome by desperation, as they surged towards the shrinking opening.

“Stay where you are!” Des yelled at Lorik and Pascal, sprawled on the control panel. He watched in awe at the sight of the huge Door sliding close, as the black mechs swarmed towards them like a horde of killer bees.

Everybody had entered the corridor by this point in time, and all attention was on the narrowing gap between the two halves of the Door. The firepower grew ever more concentrated, as there was no longer a need to spread their lasers and missiles.

With a resounding clang, the Door finally slammed shut, just as one last Smasher managed to sneak past the opening. It fell in less than a second, torn apart by PPC and SRM fire. The explosions made a deafening din within the confined area of the corridor, and Des had to cover his ears for while before the ringing went away. He found himself sucking air greedily, as though he had just run a marathon. He leaned back into his seat, feeling a bit drowsy from the adrenaline withdrawal.

The various Jade Falcon and mercenary mechs seemed to slump in place as everybody realized the battle was over. Techs were running towards the huge war machines, as exhausted warriors opened their hatches and got out of their combat vehicles to receive aid and relief for their wounds and injuries.

Des did the same, and he almost lost his balance as he landed on the ground, weakened from heat exhaustion and blood loss. Almost immediately, a medtech came up with several medical kits and a few cans of cold beer, which Des gratefully accepted. He took off his torn coolant vest, shrugging it off with the help of the medtech.

The medtech then went to work on the wound in his side as he drowned a beer can in a single swallow. The coldness of the beer had an invigorating effect on him, refreshing him momentarily. He knew it would not last, and that the alcohol would soon make him feel even more tired, but he knew it was a trivial matter.

After his wound had been patched up, he walked across the corridor, now bustling with techs and medical personnel, to look for Frank and Ian. He hoped the Falcons would not make too much trouble for them.