No plan survives contact with the enemy, something which every commander knows. But what happened on Landsmark was simply ridiculous. When everybody and his brother’s plan fell apart, somebody up there was definitely laughing his head off. And I don’t mean Galaxy Commander Greg Kotare on the Osis’ Pride. He got his plan scuttled too. Poor all of us.

-Ian Calderon, Collected Journals

Talway Forest, Landsmark,

Taurian Concordat, Periphery,

23^rd September 3068

It was all or nothing, Subaltern Jenna Doe decided as the infantry troops attached to her company reported contact with enemy units all along the ambush line in the Talway forest.

It had been a grueling week since she had dropped onto Landsmark with two companies of mechs. The two pirate bands jockeyed for position while snipping off pieces from the local militia, all infantry troopers Ian Calderon had deployed forward as tripwire defenders. With the Taurians relatively weak in mech strength compared to the combined forces of the pirates, Ian could not afford to send his own mechs out in anything less than company strength, or else get chewed to pieces by attrition.

Sure, they could have sat in the city and dared either band to attack, while waiting for more reinforcements to arrive, but it also meant that the pirates would have free rein of the areas not under their protection, and the reports of looting and theft had been enough to convince Ian that he had to take an offensive stance.

So he had focused on setting up a trap, making rapier thrusts against the Shen Se Tian dropships with his own mechs. All of those quick strikes accomplished little, of course, often forced to turn back when pirate patrols headed them off. Ian made sure the returning mechs used the same route back to their own base every time, as well as making them maintain the same pace, all to lure the pirates into thinking they could head off the thrusts and intercept the Taurian mechs on their way back, claiming a lance of Taurian mechs. This was the fourth time they had tried it, and Ian was sure the pirates would jump soon.

And today, the pirates had finally taken the bait. The plan called for the strike mechs to head off into the forest when they were cut off on their direct line of retreat. The pirates weren’t idiots either, and had deployed another 2 lances near the forest to trap the escaping Taurian mechs. But they had lacked advanced sensors or scouts, and that was all the difference.

What they didn’t know were the 2 companies of mechs Ian had assembled in the forest right behind them waiting for the balance of the Shen Se Tian to arrive in hot pursuit of the strike mechs, Cornet Claxton’s lance of an Assassin, Clint, Valkyrie, and Garm each from 2^nd Coy. It was a great deal of effort just to get a lance of mechs with more than a company for the pirates, but that was the way the cut-and-thrust style of modern warfare was all about. Just as Ian had slyly moved and mixed his units around to confuse both pirate bands. In this case, they had been waiting in the forest for 2 days already.

This is the old game of ‘I know he knows I know’. And this time, we’re ahead of them, Jenna grinned as she brought her systems to full power. The Centurion brought up one giant foot, and lurched upright from its crouching position. All around her mechs were stirring from their mechanical sleep as she ran over her systems again.

Rotary autocannon. Check.

LRM launcher. Check.

Extended range lasers. Check.

C3 master system. Connecting to slave units. Check.

Hunting time, Jenna thought as Panis’ Phoenix Hawk jumped into the sky on flaring jets. She brought up her autocannon, and prepared to engage the nearest enemy mech, a Marauder.

The Shen Se Tian mechs reacted quickly to the sudden appearance of the Red Chasseurs, shifting their own waiting ambush line northwards away from the balance of her force, while firing on Claxton’s mechs, which were desperately evading enemy shots.

“All units, engage!” She heard Ian Calderon bark out, and the Taurian mechs burst into action.

Jenna saw Ian Calderon’s Awesome step out from behind cover, and unleash a tremendous salvo at a poor Brigand, the heavy gauss slug shearing through one of the mech’s limbs.

She stroked her own trigger, and the RAC/5, aided by the telemetry from Panis’ Phoenix Hawk, slammed shell after shell into the bulbous torso of the Marauder, even as the tremors from the rotary autocannon’s incredible recoil could be felt all the way to her shuddering control sticks. Jenna also fired her LRMs, the missiles missing low and splattering the Marauder with massive sods of wet dirt.

The Marauder hit back, the PPC bolts just barely missing her cockpit as they passed by overhead. Jenna cursed as she realized the Marauder was aiming for the Centurion’s head. Freebirth!

Ever since she had met Daniela Mattlov, Jenna had found herself slowly slipping back into her old speech patterns again. Even so, she still wanted to laugh at the thought of herself being a clanner once, a brutal Smoke Jaguar. It was simply impossible!

But nothing else explained the way she talked.

Jenna had met amnesia experts, hordes of psychologists, all hired by Milton Hawkings, but in the end, she did not care. She was a mechwarrior now, she liked her present life, she had hopes for the future. What did her past matter?

But as she fired another salvo at the Marauder, an unfamiliar thought came unbidden to her mind, whispering in her head. Crush your foes without mercy, enjoy the sight of their blood. You are Smoke Jaguar. She welcomed the voice, allowing it to lend her ferocity and courage in the fight, washing away her fear and concern for Milton, who was still missing when her Trolls managed to retake the Farstrider.

Jenna began to react even faster than ever before, all her concentration on the battle, even as she started to see strange images appearing before her eyes. Images that belonged to another time, another place, another battle.

 

Ian Calderon grimly held the Awesome upright, withstanding a series of laser beams from the Brigand’s lancemates. The Brigand itself was a pile of junk on the floor after he had eviscerated it with his weapons.

The Shen Se Tian pirates were in trouble, and they knew it. They were trying to disengage all along the line, trying to put out enough suppressive fire to force his combined force away. But he had 2 full companies, plus Claxton’s skirmish lance, to their 18 mechs. It was 28 to 18, and he intended to press his temporary advantage for all it was worth.

The Banshee pilot captured from the initial battle had croaked up a great deal of useful information, including the exact mechs and configurations used by the Shen Se Tian raiders. Further interrogation by Benny confirmed what Jenna later told him. It was indeed a trap for the Shen Se Tian.

Ian had been half tempted to sit out the rest of the conflict, but his sense of responsibility had overridden his anger. Even though he was a merc, he was still a Taurian by birth. He might not be their ruler, but the ties of blood and history between his family and the Concordat were too strong for him to abandon it just like that. If anything, it was all Brenda’s fault for purposely making him make such a choice, if it was even a choice at all.

Much less was known about the other pirate group, other that they were known as the Syphon Blades. All they had to go on was that the group had two companies of mechs, was extremely well equipped with several advanced technology machines, and even some omnimechs.

The Blades had acted much like a typical pirate band since their landing, feinting and pushing at the city and the militia base. But Ian couldn’t shake the feeling that the Blades were only play acting. Their real target was him.

But hunches and gut feelings were no basis for any course of action, and so Ian had no choice but to operate on the deadly assumption that the Blades were just another pirate band out to steal and pillage whatever they can.

To prevent their interference in his ambush, Ian had arranged for several supply depots to be set up outside the city while lightly defended by a few sections of foot infantry. He was practically inviting the Blades to attack the depots and run off with the supplies in glee. He considered the potential loss of more than a hundred tons of ammunition and spare parts a small price to pay for the opportunity to take out the Shen Se Tian. After all, most of the spare parts were for militia mechs that had been transferred out, and ammunition was the one thing in excess supply after his father’s reign of paranoia.

The salvaged Banshee and the rest of the militia force except his command lance had stayed around the militia base to deter the Blades from attacking the base or the city. They would not win any battle against 2 full companies, of course, but Ian trusted them to delay the Blades for the Chasseurs to abandon their ambush and get back to the base. He hoped it would not come to that, relying on the age-old pirate mentality of going for easy loot.

Additionally, he had deployed roving teams of infantry scouts at locations around the continent, where they would warn him of enemy movements. But if his guess was right, the Syphon Blades had their own foot scouts out, and hunting his scouts.

Ian resisted the urge to sigh. He’d rather be facing the one-track minded drones back on Einstein than tricky, devious fellow human beings. And he wished Jenna had brought along her aerospace lance instead of leaving them back in space for the attempt to recapture the Farstrider.

His Awesome pummeled a Blackjack, dropping it to the ground with a few well placed shots right in the breadbasket, shattering the medium mech. The Blackjack plot ejected from his doomed mech just before its reactor exploded, spewing out a burst of deadly plasma. Ian stepped his mech back from the frontline, taking the time to survey the situation.

The ambush had gone extremely well. Better than he had hoped, in fact. The Shen Se Tian had lost almost two entire lances in the initial rush, even as he had crushed Cornet Claxton’s lance. Ian tried hard to ignore the feeling he had sent Claxton and his men out to die, but it was difficult, even if they had volunteered for the duty. It was simply the lonely burden of command. Ian hoped the lance had managed to eject from their mechs.

He spied Daniela’s blocky Masakari stabbing out with its PPCs at a battered Zeus, which staggered backwards with the loss of so much armor to the powerful manmade lightning. Even though it was firing back, the Zeus didn’t look like it could possibly survive another 30 seconds, and as Xie contributed his own laser and LRM fire from his Men Shen, Ian was sure that part of the battle was a foregone conclusion. There was no need to tell the troops what to do. All that was left for them was to kill as many of the pirates as possible. Stay safe, Daniela, Ian thought, then he went back to the battle.

He rested his targeting reticule over a towering Atlas, and was almost going to shoot when his comms came to life. The next words he heard made his blood run cold.

“Bull Five! This is Scoot!” Scoot was the code for one of his scouts. And the trooper sounded pained, as though he was wounded. “There are enemy mechs in your rear! THERE ARE ENEMY MECHS IN YOUR…” The transmission was cut off.

He moved his Awesome back, glancing at his radar screen in fear. Nothing. If they have an ECM unit with them, of course they would be hidden on radar! Ian recognized the gnawing tension in his stomach as a sign that the shit was about to hit the fan.

“Bug Five, take your lance to Zulu Four Niner,” he ordered the recon lance of Jenna’s company, commanded by Cornet Lewis, which was also already one mech short, “And keep your eyes open!”

“Bull Five, what is happening?” Jenna asked.

“We might have uninvited visitors to the party.” Ian replied through gritted teeth as he watched the Shen Se Tian bunker down as fire from his units slacked off due to the sudden absence of an entire lance from the skirmish line.

“Contact!” Cornet Lewis screamed. “Bogeys in Yamaha Four Six! Two companies! We’re taking heavy fire!” That’s our rear, Ian thought glumly, we’ll be hamburger meat patty between two forces!

“All mech units, break off and proceed to Whiskey Three Two!” Ian shouted, adrenaline pumping through his veins, even as he vainly tried to place the Syphon Blades on his radar. That move should place the Taurians at the apex of a rough triangle with the other two apexes being the pirate groups. It should also take enough heat off his troops for him to decide on their next move. “Pounder Five, keep your men in cover!” The infantry, scattered in various section-sized groups around the forest, would be dead meat if they tried movement on open ground.

A volley of emerald and azure laser bolts blindsided a Taurian Crusader, slamming into and past the armor plates, molten crimson alloy dripping down the mech’s wounded flanks like blood. The Crusader died a moment later when a spread of LRMs flew into its open left side, setting off the ammunition stocks there. The mech exploded into smithereens; it was an old model without CASE. The pilot didn’t eject.

Clan tech, Ian cursed when he turned his head and saw no less than 3 clan omnimechs amongst the rampaging Blades. Then he saw a tiny beaked shape moving swiftly across the ground, hunkering down behind a large outcropping of rock. A Raven. No wonder my sensors didn’t pick up anything.

The Taurian mechs recoiled from the assault against their rear, but Ian and his subordinates managed to prevent panic in the ranks by snapping quick commands to individual troops. By forcing their soldiers to focus on their immediate tasks, they also did not allow them to dwell on the deterioration of the entire situation.

But things were still looking bad. Very bad.

 

Hadden snarled as his Battlemaster followed close behind Siphus’ Executioner, doling out blasts from his PPC at any Taurian mech that he could see.

Where is the stravag enemy ECM? Hadden cursed, then grinned as he saw the telltale lack of radar information over a certain section of the Taurian mechs. Ahah! He gauged the center to be at or about the position of the enemy Thunderbolt.

He placed his cursor over the heavy mech, and sent his full arsenal of weapons at it. Only the PPC hit, flensing armor off a leg, while laser beams and missiles flew everywhere else. Heat rushed into his cockpit, but Hadden did not mind that, not the fact that he had connected with low percentages. It was actually a signal.

The other 9 clan mechwarriors in the pirate group started firing at the Thunderbolt, all of them aiming low or to the sides, switching targets every so often to give the impression that they were fully engaged. But Hadden knew the truth. They needed the enemy mech’s ECM, but they needed the mech relatively neutralized as well. Take out a leg and an arm, and the mech would be crippled.

Siphus had never really trusted the clan warriors he had captured out in the Periphery. Consequently, he had assigned them to mechs with rigged explosives in the cockpit, which would be activated by radio signals from either him or the Raven pilot if they betray him. Since the enemy ECM would block all signals from their mechs, it also meant that if they stayed near the Thunderbolt, Siphus would not be able to blow them up.

Of course, this was not the first time they had faced forces with ECM, but then again, they had no reason to really rebel against Siphus. Until now.

Siphus had led them into the rear of the Taurian defenders, forgoing the chance to grab some easy supplies from the depots Ian Calderon had set up as distractions. They had their contract to kill Ian Calderon, and Siphus was determined to fulfill it. Not for the first time, Hadden wondered who their employer was. It would not matter now.

A few miles away, several Jaguar warriors and lower caste personnel were hidden in a small village with supplies and ammunition. The plan called for his warriors to strike at Siphus when the time was right, and then pulling out of the battle and head to the village so that they could remove the explosives from their cockpits. The Osis’ Pride would be arriving in a week, along with more than enough firepower, mechs, fighters and elementals to flatten everybody they did not like.

From one corner of his eye, Hadden watched as Siphus’ Executioner dueled with the enemy Awesome, which they had identified as Calderon’s mech. From the looks of things, Calderon was a superior mech pilot, managing to keep his lighter mech in the fight against Siphus.

Gauss slugs, PPC bolts, laser beams, and missiles were exchanged as the pirates pressed the attack, savaging the Taurian mechs. Hadden noticed a Centurion gamely fighting against Vecar’s Grasshopper, tearing apart the heavier mech’s armor with its rotary autocannon and lasers. Vecar struck back, but the Centurion ignored the damage as it closed in.

Hadden did not know why, but the movement of the Centurion seemed so familiar…

 

Jenna shook her head again to remove the images crowding her sight, but it was useless. She continued to bark orders at her troops while maintaining her fire on the Grasshopper, but she was also beginning to hear voices that she was sure did not exist.

Her HUD showed the Grasshopper’s image, but why was there a white Guillotine superimposed on it? As she fired on the Grasshopper, she also saw the Guillotine stagger from the impact of her weapons fire.

She heard Ian say, “All mechs, retrograde. Pull back to the city. We’ve done enough to the Shen Se Tian, but the Blades are pressing us hard.”

But she also heard the voice, “Star Captain Furey, this is Star Colonel Showers. Pull back to the dropships! You have command now! Get the rest of the cluster out!”

Jenna didn’t know if she was going mad.

Subaltern Hurgens did not seem to hear Calderon as he moved his Marauder nearer the Blades, heedless of the fire he was taking from both the Shen Se Tian and the Blades. “Negative, sir! We can hold! We will hold!”

Then his defiant words were echoed. “This is Star Captain Fiob! We shall defeat these barbarians, I swear it! Swift Death Trinary, do not retreat!”

Jenna shouted at her fellow Subaltern, “Actor Five, pull back! The Blades will tear you apart! We need every mech!” But she also heard at the same time other words.

“Fiob! Pull back, you stravag, or I will kill you in a circle of equals! The Com Guards will destroy you easily! The clan needs every mech!”

Her Centurion shook like a rag doll as a Griffin backed up the battered Grasshopper, firing a swarm of missiles at her. The LRMs ripped through armor and internal structure as they sought out her mech’s innards, and Jenna watched in dismay as the C3 master computer’s status light blinked off, indicating damage to the expensive unit. Her engine display lights also began to glow yellow, and smoke puffed out from below her cockpit from the Centurion’s shattered chest. The heat in her cockpit began to rise, slowly but inexorably.

The rotary autocannon stammered and whirred into silence as she fired off her last few rounds of ammunition for the autocannon. The Grasshopper came on still, intent on claiming her. But in her mind’s eye, Jenna could only see the Guillotine, shrugging off hit after hit from her mech.

She gritted her teeth, firing her remaining weapons for all they were worth. An infantry platoon fired on the Griffin with their shoulder mounted SRMs, tearing at its armor. A pirate Striker cut loose with its autocannon, and Jenna’s stomach churned as she recognized the flechette slivers ripping through flesh and bone. The screams should not be audible through the cockpit glass over the roar of stomping mech feet and thunderous explosions, but Jenna thought she heard them anyway.

The infantry platoon was disintegrated in a shower of blood and gore. Much like an elemental point caught by an artillery barrage…

Then her mech lurched, and a terrible screaming sound emanated from below her. Knowing that her mech was doomed, Jenna grabbed the ejection handle under her seat and pulled hard. The seat burst free of the cockpit, but the explosive bolts did not blow away the top of the cockpit away cleanly. Her head hit a jagged piece of metal, and that was the last thing she knew.

 

“Hadden, what are you doing?” Siphus shouted at his subordinate. Hadden’s Battlemaster was unloading on a Thunderbolt for all it was worth, but his shots were only hitting the limbs. “Help me with this damn Awesome!” Calderon was a tough customer, and even in his clan made Gladiator, Siphus didn’t know if he could win the duel. He needed help, and he needed it now.

“Aff, commander!” Hadden turned his mech, and fired his PPC at the Awesome, which passed uselessly between its legs just below the mech’s torso assembly.

“You idiot!” Siphus cursed as the Awesome fired again, the heavy gauss slug punching into the Gladiator’s legs. Siphus managed to keep his mech upright, but only just. He replied with his own gauss rifle and lasers, but they seemed pitiful compared to the heavy gauss and PPCs of the Awesome.

He was beginning to regret taking the bounty on Ian Calderon’s head. It was supposed to be a cakewalk. Just jump in, capture the Farstrider, kill Calderon, and then proceed to the planet for a bit of loot to make it seem like a real prate raid instead of an assassination.

But the whole thing was botched from the start. Calderon was not on the Farstrider, he was on Landsmark. There was another pirate group in the system. Fine, so Siphus had sent his band to Landsmark to take care of Calderon.

Only for two companies of Red Chasseurs to suddenly show up. His Scout-class Jumpship Drawback was lost to the Taurians a few days ago, as was the Farstrider. There were a few attempted negotiations by the Taurians to get Milton Hawkings back, but they had broken down every time, despite threats to kill Hawkings. They knew well that the matter could only be decided by force of arms, not negotiating.

In the end, there was only one way out that Siphus could see, and that was by killing Calderon and stomping the rest of the defending force flat. And then he’ll hold the entire world’s populace hostage to get back the Drawback, and maybe the Farstrider as well as additional payment for his troubles. To hell with Eric Sunds if the man protested about his actions.

Problem was, Calderon wasn’t cooperating by moving deeper into the forest and preventing the Blades from concentrating fire on him. Also, the Awesome was living up to its name, tearing his own Gladiator apart piece by piece, and Siphus wasn’t eager to bring his mech any closer to the Awesome after eating a heavy gauss slug that punctured his right torso with just one blow. Siphus didn’t know what Calderon had did to the Awesome to get that sort of performance and firepower, but it was one sick machine.

Siphus engaged the Gladiator’s jump jets to get some distance away from the Awesome, and took the opportunity to take a better look at the entire situation. He had never been completely comfortable using his radar, and in the current mess of conflicting ECM, radar was almost useless. Far better to jump and take stock of the situation by actually looking at the positions of each mech involved.

What he saw wasn’t very good, but it wasn’t bad either. A company of the remaining Taurian mechs had stood their ground despite being outgunned and outnumbered by the Shen Se Tian and his Blades, and were being destroyed one by one. His own remaining warriors were pummeling the Taurians and the Shen Se Tian, who had been whittled down to just 2 lances and pulling out of the battle after they realized the Blades were in no mood to share.

Then he noticed Hadden near the Thunderbolt, which was finally missing an arm, a leg, and lying on the ground, when he should be engaging the Awesome. And around him were the other Smoke Jaguar bondsmen. All of them. They raised their weapons at him, and Siphus stared down the barrels of a dozen guns.

What the… That was Siphus‘ last thought before his Gladiator was vaporized by the combined fire of the Smoke Jaguar mechs.

 

Ian stared at his screen in confusion as he tried to extricate what was left of his command from the bloody battlefield. Subaltern Hurgens’ company was almost dead, as was Jenna’s own command lance, which she had used to try to hold open the door for Hurgens’ company to get out. But her effort and her men had been wasted by the Hurgens’ stubbornness. Her own Centurion was down, its engine cored by overwhelming damage.

Ian hoped Jenna had managed to eject successfully. Unlike the clans and the Houses, the Taurians did not have equipment on their ejection seats to indicate the health status of their occupants, nor rescue beacons to call for help.

Now, the infighting between the Blades confused him utterly. From what he could see on his HUD, they had split into two groups, one in a tight clump around Mechwarrior Tessa’s downed Thunderbolt, and the other group scattered throughout the woods firing at the first even as they pulled back.

Ian was tempted to commit his forces to take the group still in the scattered woods, but he also knew that both the Shen Se Tian and the other part of the Blades were still waiting. It had turned from a 2 way fight into a 3 way, then finally a 4 way. Ian swore vehemently, not knowing what other surprises were still in store for him.

He had enough. Most of his mechs were severely damaged, and continuing the battle would only leave the Shen Se Tian free to claim the spoils of Landsmark. He had only 9 very battered mechs left from the 28 he had started with. His own command lance had survived, though Daniela’s Masakari was missing an arm, and Benny’s Daishi had a nicked engine. Xie Xun’s Men Shen was in relatively good shape, while his own Awesome was almost in tatters. There was no way he was going to take the field from the Blades left in the forest.

“Pull back to base.” The words were like ashes in his mouth. Ian noted that Daniela did not even complain this time, instead leading the way with her battered Masakari, while he brought up the rear. The few remaining infantry and the few surviving mechwarriors that had managed to eject limped along the mechs dejectedly.

Only a Blackjack had survived from Hurgen’s company, while Jenna’s 1^st Coy had a P-Hawk, a Whitworth, an Archer, and a Jagermech left. As they marched back to their base, Ian wondered how he was going to explain the debacle to Brenda Calderon.

But it did confirm one thing, especially after the way the Gladiator and the rest of the Blades had gone after him. Somebody wants me dead.

 

She shook her head, groaning at the pain at her temples and her neck. The warrior automatically clutched at the straps holding her in place on the ejection seat, even while she tried hard to remember what had happened to her.

The last thing she remembered was the dark, damp cell, her limbs held in chains, and a dirty unkempt man leaning over her as he took advantage of her body. She had fallen unconscious then as he had climaxed in her, his tool a stiff rod ravaging her insides…

Stravag! The female warrior swore bitterly. In fact, there had been a whole line of those filthy, unwashed freebirths. She had cursed, kicked, and screamed throughout the entire ordeal, but none of them had cared. They took their pleasure and they left, leaving her broken and battered.

So why was she now in a forest in a decidedly primitive mechwarrior combat suit and neurohelmet, strapped into an ejection seat that reeked of Inner Sphere technology? What in the name of Kerensky was going on?

The Star Captain managed to find the clasp for the straps, and released herself from the ejection seat. She stood up from the seat, and stared round the forest, stunned at the carnage around her.

Burning mechs and broken metal shards laid everywhere. Groans of pain from the wounded and dying filled the air, piercing through the crackling sound of burning myomer. She reveled in the sight, the sound, and the smell. There had been a battle here!

The warrior took the time to check herself for injuries. In the course of her self assessment, she could not help but notice that her butt looked… bigger. In fact, her entire body was fatter, less toned, even if she was sure it was her own body, because the scars she remembered from her sibko days were in the right places! And she didn’t feel any pain in her vagina at all, which had been a constant from the rapes. Strange.

There were two strange insignia she found on her cooling vest. One symbol showed a bull’s head and some stars, while the other showed a burning flame. She did not know what was going on, but she was going to find out.

Searching the ejection seat yielded a survival knife, a projectile rifle and a slug pistol, plus several packets of rations, a canteen of tepid water, and a medical set. She holstered the pistol in her belt, and slung the rifle over one shoulder. The rations, water canteen and medical set she carried in a small bag that she had found in one of the seat’s compartments.

She discarded the bulky cooling vest, leaving her clad only in a flimsy shirt and shorts. It would not do for the toxic coolant to enter her bloodstream if she was hit by weapons fire. Besides, it would also slow her down. She threw away the bulky neurohelmet for the same reason.

Having prepared herself, she started moving towards the nearest sound, which she recognized to be a person alternately screaming and gasping loudly, probably from injuries sustained. She crept carefully beside the trees to the location of the sound, taking care not to be seen or heard.

She peeked around a tree to see a groaning man strapped into an ejection seat. His left arm was attached to his body by only several strands of muscle. “Kill me! Kill me! Stop the pain! Please!” The man was screaming.

Weakling, she thought as she stealthily walked up to the man, her knife in her right hand. If you wish to die, freebirth, I will oblige you. She stepped up behind the man, and before he knew it, she had sliced the edge across his throat. It was, she decided, a mercy for the man, and probably more than he deserved. His cooling vest was even more primitive than the one she had been wearing, and he looked unwashed, much like the pirates who had raped her.

She had expected to get information out of the man, but the way he was screaming indicated that there was no way she could have gotten anything out of him. She sheathed the knife after cleaning it on a leaf, and was about to continue when she saw movement out from one corner of her eye.

Raising her rifle up to alert position, she moved beside and behind a tree for some cover. Just then, a whiff of smoke conveniently obscured her position.

“Who is there?” A man shouted, “Come on out!”

She remained silent.

“Hadden, I have a problem.” The man spoke, obviously into a comm piece.

Hadden? She thought. Hadden was one of her Star Commanders. If he was around, then he was probably looking for her. Had she been rescued from the pirate camp?

Taking a risk, she stepped out from behind the tree and past the smoke, her rifle aimed in the man’s general direction. She halted as she saw the man, shocked. And the man stared back at her, just as shocked as she was.

It was Warrior Cagis, but he looked so much older. She remembered him in his mid thirties, almost ready for the solahma heap, but he still had a head of black hair then. Now, it was streaked with gray. Did he dye his hair to look older? She wondered before dismissing the ludicrous thought immediately. No clan warrior would ever want to look older!

“Star Captain?” The older warrior asked first, disbelief plain in his voice.

“Cagis,” she said authoritatively, “Report!”

Cagis did not respond, staring at her blankly. She strode up to him, and punched him hard in the face. Cagis went down hard, but he remained on the ground like an idiot with blood streaming down his nose. And he was still staring at her as if he had seen a ghost.

“What is going on?” Hadden burst onto the scene with a submachine gun in his hands, then stopped, also in shock as he stared at her. “What the… How?” He stammered. Leloni noted that Hadden also looked older. Quite a bit older.

She raised her pistol, fired several shots into a sky, and shouted angrily, “Can somebody tell me what in the Founder’s name is going on before I kill the lot of you?”

 

Milton Hawkings grunted, trying to press himself deeper into the metal floor as gunfire erupted all around him. He had been placed in the cargo bay, and waiting eagerly for meal time when a tech had suddenly used a metal wrench to beat in the brains of a nearby guard. The tech then grabbed the guard’s gun and proceeded to spray submachine gun fire over the entire dropship bay.

All hell broke loose, and Milton had dove down to the floor behind a crate almost immediately. He prayed hard for all the bullets to miss him, while taking an occasional glance upwards. Maybe this is the chance for me to escape!

Milton started crawling towards the open bay door on his hands and knees, but was hindered by the ropes around his wrists and ankles. He looked around for something sharp with which he could use to cut his bonds, and spotted a throwaway piece of mech armor plate. It had obviously been taken off a damaged mech, as it had jagged sharp edges on the sides. Perfect for cutting rope.

Inching his way slowly to the armor plate, Milton noticed that the battle had only increased in intensity, and he could barely hear the shouts of the various personnel as they warred in the tight confines of the bay. Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the entire bay for a moment, and he guessed somebody must had set off a volatile ammunition load. The downside of that was his hearing was blown away for the time being as well. He could not even hear the battle.

Never mind, I just need to get free! He started working on the wrist ropes, gingerly placing them against the armor plate and sawing as fast as he dared without cutting his own wrists. In moments his hands were free, and he was able to turn around and cut his legs free.

With full mobility, Milton peeked over a crate. Both sides were blazing away, but one side was clearly preparing to leave, commandeering several jeeps and trucks as they fired back at the other group.

If what he had heard that night in the cell was true, then Hadden had carried out his little mutiny, and this was part of it. Milton thought hard about how he might be able to exploit the situation to his advantage.

Then he stopped thinking when a tech suddenly appeared beside him, a gun barrel pressed against his head. Then the man spoke, and Milton realized his hearing had returned. Strange that he didn’t notice the gunfire, which was still going on as ferociously as ever.

“Hey, Hawkings,” said the tech, “I see you have gotten free. We know how much you had heard in the prison cell, unlike the other prisoners. Hadden wants me to bring you along, or else you‘ll squeal all our plans to the surat Blades. And we can’t have that, can we?”

“Uh, no.” He had no choice. He could try taking the gun away from the man, but Milton knew he was in no shape to do so. Hell, he could barely see clearly past his own bruised face.

The man gestured with his gun, “All right, come along now. It’ll be easier to put a bullet in your head now, but you might still be useful, so don’t do anything to make us change our mind, is that clear?”

“Crystal.”

With the gun at his back prodding him along, Milton crawled quickly to a waiting jeep. He slinked over the side of the jeep into the passenger seat, followed by his caretaker. Another man in the drivers seat gunned the engine, and they flew out of the cargo bay down the dropship ramp, as bullets chased them all the way.

Milton didn’t know why, but as they left the dropship behind, he felt safer with his present captors. The jeep sped past the dreary plains of Landsmark, and he fell asleep despite the guns at his side, dreaming of Jenna Doe and better times.

 

“So it is 3068, and apparently, I have been missing for the past nine years.” Star Captain Leloni Furey said as she sipped at her cup of water. “Or more accurately, I have been somebody else during that period of time.”

“Aff, Star Captain.” Hadden nodded. “The insignia you have described indicates that you were a mechwarrior in the Taurian Defense Force, the Red Chasseurs regiment, and the rank shows that you were a Subaltern, or their equivalent of a Star Captain.

Leloni smirked. “At least I did not get demoted. But why cannot I remember what had happened to me? Did I betray the clan? Or was it just amnesia?”

“I am sorry, Star Captain, but we do not have any medtechs with us, or even any fully qualified doctors.”

The tense standoff in the forest had ended when Hadden had blurted out the fact that she had been captured by pirates nine years ago. It had been a good starting point for them to discuss the issue.

Hadden filled her in on what had happened to the trinary since that savage fight with the pirates, where she had held the rearguard for her troops to escape, and been captured by the pirates. He had taken command of the remaining warriors, and they had escaped to another world, which Siphus had been using as a base. The ensuing battle finally ended the freedom of the Smoke Jaguars and sent them into a life of piracy and semi-slavery as part of the Syphon Blades. Until now.

Leloni had stunned them with her account of the horrors she had endured as a prisoner of the pirates on their dropship, but she had no idea what had happened after that. Her memory was simply a blank.

Then it was time to work, and Leloni went back into command like she always did, slipping into the role with such efficiency that it seemed that she had never left. Hadden accepted his new role of second-in-command easily. He told her he had never been able to hold the group of Smoke Jaguars as easily as she did, and her reappearance from the dead had been a godsend.

They had held the field, which meant the pick of the salvage, and the disposal of the prisoners. The pirates, either Shen Se Tian or Syphon Blade, were executed on the spot, while the captured Taurian soldiers were simply given some rudimentary medical treatment and then rounded up in several POW cages with concertina wire. She intended to ask them what they knew of her, because several of them had sent her shocked looks when she stood before them as the Smoke Jaguar commander.

The support group from the village had arrived to help with the recovery and salvage operations, and the ranking warrior named Nalus had been somewhat surprised by the appearance of Leloni when he had been expecting Hadden as the commander. Nevertheless, they had packed everything they could load up within the short time onboard three slow moving salvage trucks, and headed for the abandoned village which served as their temporary base.

All the time, the mechs stayed near the Thunderbolt, which was splayed across the back of one of the trucks like an invalid patient, its ECM still working with Leloni at the controls. They were not taking any chances. The Thunderbolt pilot, a female, had been the most distraught when she saw Leloni talking to Hadden, and she almost went berserk as she had hurled insult after insult at Furey.

The Star Captain did not show it to her men, but she had been affected by the outburst, especially when she was called ‘traitor’. Why did it hurt so much?

“What were you going to do next?” Leloni Furey asked him and Nalus as they met again in the evening in a small shack.

Hadden answered her, “We still have some Jaguar lower caste bondsmen with the Blades. I told them to make a run for it from the dropship with whatever they could carry when the battle started. They should be on their way here soon.”

“And after that?”

“We hold up until the Osis’ Pride arrives to take us off this surat dung filled world.”

Cowards. Leloni shook her head. “Have you lost your pride, your courage?”

“Huh?” Hadden blinked.

“We have a binary of mechs. I say we take this world! Does the heart of the Jaguar not beat in your chest? Why should we hide like rats from these barbarians and pirates?”

“Star Captain, that is impossible!” Hadden protested. “We do not have the strength in mechs…”

“We are stronger after salvage than the ones who call themselves the Shen Se Tian, and on par with these Syphon Blades you spoke of. In addition, the Blades have just lost their leader, thanks to you. They will be weakened by infighting as they try to select a leader.”

Hadden continued to shake his head. “What about the Taurians? They still have at least a full company out there, and bodies they can just pile into their infantry.”

“We shall see after we have taken care of the pirates. But I do want to impress the Galaxy Commander when he arrives, and this is the best way to do that.” Leloni said firmly. “Make sure to have foot patrols out on the perimeter and reporting back to us at regular intervals. These Periphery surats probably have no concept of an honorable fight.” The actual reason she did not want to fight the Taurians was the unease that came over her whenever she thought of engaging them in combat. But she could not let Hadden know that.

“Aff, Star Captain.” Hadden replied, and was about to speak when Cagis walked in along with a woman in stained coveralls, obviously a tech.

“Star Captain,” Cagis saluted smartly, “The remaining personnel from the pirates have arrived.” He gestured to the tech, “This is Chief Technician Enez.”

“I have not lost so much memory that I cannot remember my personal tech. Good to see you again, Enez,” said Leloni, then she asked, “Is there anything else?”

Cagis shuffled his feet nervously, “Well, they have brought with them an interesting prisoner. It is Milton Hawkings.”

Leloni shook her head in confusion. “Who?”

“Uhm, he is a very rich and important merchant in the Periphery.” Hadden explained. “He has been trying to bribe us for the past few days with promises of riches and wealth beyond belief if we would let him go. I had him brought along because he overheard our plans.”

Leloni glared at Enez. “Not a warrior. A mere merchant. Not our concern.”

“Star Captain, we could use him as a bargaining chip with the barbarians. They hold him in some regard,” Enez said. “Maybe you should talk to him and see what he might be able to do for us. He might be a mere merchant, lower caste, but even us lower castes have our uses,” Enez said, then added, “He does not like the pirates either.”

Leloni looked at her subordinates, then sighed. “Very well, I shall take a look at this merchant. If he is useless to us, I will have him killed. Bring him in.”

A few minutes later, two warriors dragged in an unconscious man by his arms. His face was swollen from too many punches, and Leloni could see traces of dried blood alongside his mouth. A strange feeling stirred in her, and Leloni shoved it down. But she could not help but feel sorry for the man.

“Did you do this?” She asked.

“Neg, Star Captain. We brought him along, but he fell asleep on the journey here. His wounds are quite severe, but not life threatening.”

“Wasteful,” Leloni muttered as she walked forward and crouched in front of the man, who was barely conscious.

“Can you hear me, Milton Hawkings?” She patted him on the cheeks, taking care not to hit too hard.

The man stirred slightly. Leloni sighed, then patted him again. This time, she got a reaction.

He waved his arms in front of his face, “Uhhh, Jenna, let’s not get out of bed yet. I want to sleep in today…”

Leloni rolled her eyes, even though she blushed a bit at his words, which was strange considering she had never met him before. “Merchant, wake up!” Her words had the desired effect this time. The man’s eyes snapped open, or as open as they could get surrounded by the bulging bruises on his face.

He stared at her, and Leloni got the strange feeling she got when she first saw him, as well as a slight sensation of shame she had felt when the Taurians troopers had seen her. What was going on?

“Jenna,” the man said fearfully, “What are you doing here? What have they done to you?” Milton suddenly got up from the floor and freed himself from the two men holding him with surprising strength. He pushed her back, shielding her from her subordinates with his body. “Get out, Jenna! I’ll hold them off!” She saw surprise and bemusement on the faces of her warriors.

She spun him around by the shoulder to make him face her. “You must be mistaken. I am not Jenna, whoever she is. I am Star Captain Leloni Furey of the Smoke Jaguars.”

He stared at her for a long time, before he uttered, “Oh my god, you remembered. You’ve got your memory back.”

Leloni stared back at him, and the expression on his face both horrified and exhilarated her on levels she did not understand. She dragged him to chair, and sat him down roughly. “Tell me more,” she demanded, “Who was I? Why is it that my memory of the past nine years are a blank? Tell me! Or I shall rip it out of you!”

Milton seemed to be in shock himself as she pressed him for information, “Why can’t you remember? I don’t know. I simply don’t know. You’re so different, so violent.” Terror appeared on his face. “You’re not Jenna. You’re not Jenna anymore.”

“Who is Jenna?” Leloni stared straight into his eyes. But they were disturbingly blank. “Who is she?”

He answered as though shell shocked, “Jenna Doe is you. You’re Jenna Doe.” He narrowed his eyes, “Or you’re supposed to be. But you’re not. Why?” He shook his head vehemently, and pleaded, “Give her back to me.”

He started to shudder uncontrollably, and Leloni suddenly felt a chill stab through her heart at the sight. What is wrong with me? And why is he looking at me like that? I feel sad to see him like that.

She did not know why she did so, but she grabbed his shaking hands between her own, and asked gently this time, “Who am I?” She could hardly recognize her own voice as she asked the question. That was not me. That was somebody else…

That seemed to steady Milton, and he answered after taking a deep breath, “You are, were, Jenna Doe, Subaltern, commanding officer of 1^st Company of the 1^st Battalion, Red Chasseurs regiment, 1^st Corps, Taurian Defense Force.”

“What else do you know?” She asked him, moving her head down to look him in the eyes as he shied away from her.

Milton seemed to have recovered from his bout of temporary insanity, and he stared at her sadly as he replied, “Jenna was my lover. I was about to propose to her.”

 

Major Daniela Mattlov walked down the gloomy mech bay, lit up occasionally by the welding torch of the odd tech who did not seem to need rest after a hectic evening and night of constant work. She was looking for somebody.

She found Ian Calderon and Benny Greaves helping a tech position a piece of armor over her Warhawk, the two men grunting with the effort as they hefted the alloy over the gaping wound, aided by a winch holding up the massive armor plate.

“Careful, Benny,” Ian called out, “Just a bit more to your side… Got it! Okay, Jim, shut it tight!”

Daniela crossed her arms below her breasts as she watched Jim fix the armor plate onto her mech while the two men held the piece in place. Ian was still clad in the sleeveless shirt and shorts he had worn during the battle, and his clothes were smudged with grease and dirt from working on the mechs. And the exhaustion on his face was plain to her.

She continued glaring at Ian for several long moments as he continued working, seemingly oblivious to her presence. It was only after they had fixed up the entire left side of the Warhawk when he finally noticed her.

Ian waved at her, and Daniela waved back, then beckoned him with a finger to get down from the platform he was standing on.

“Yes, Daniela?” He asked as he climbed down a ladder. “I thought you should be asleep by now. Tomorrow’s a long day. Go get some rest.”

Daniela glared at him. “Maybe you should take your own advice, Sir.”

Ian blinked, and he belatedly realized that she was angry at him. “Look, Major, I can take care of myself…”

“It is not just yourself you have to take care of. It is the whole command.” She ground the words out from clenched teeth. “I have not seen a more irresponsible commander in my life.”

Ian smiled. “So that’s what you think?”

“I think you’re trying to make up for the strategic retreat by working on the mechs to assuage your guilt.”

 “Strategic retreat?” Ian laughed. “That’s a nice euphemism.”

Daniela slammed a hand against the side of a nearby cherry picker. “Are you listening to me? Go get some rest! Or I will send you there.” He raised an eyebrow at her words.

“Sorry, but you’re not my mother,” Ian winked at her, which only served to raise her ire.

I am going to hit this surat! Daniela was about to lift a fist to smash against Ian’s face, regulations and rules be damned, when he suddenly let out a long sigh and walked to a nearby crate, sitting on top of it. “Relax, Major. You’re still strung up from the battle, right?”

How can he still be so cheery about this? “I am not ‘strung up’, as you say.”

“Is it? Then why are your hands clenching and unclenching all the time?” He gestured pointedly at her sides, where she was indeed doing what he said.

“It is none of your business.”

“I know what you mean, and I have to say that I know perfectly well what I’m doing.”

“And working late at night rushing up on the repair work has nothing to do with your guilt at losing the battle?”

“Daniela, I’m not a coddled warrior who’s never lost a fight in my life. Sure, I know I did badly back there, and the responsibility for the defeat is all mine, but on a logical level, nobody could have expected things to turn out the way they did.”

“The Blades were hunting you.”

He nodded, “You noticed that. They weren’t pirates, more like mercenaries or privateers. A sane, or normal pirate band would have captured the supplies from the depots first, then maybe gathered a bunch of people along with Milton Hawkings to use as bargaining chips to get back their jumpship. But they didn’t, because they needed to take me out. I was their objective.”

“Then why didn’t you agree to their demands in the first place?” The Syphon Blades had contacted them about Milton Hawkings, but Ian had refused to negotiate then.

“Because neither side had been driven to the wall. Until we reach that point, threats are just that, threats only. If the Blades had killed Milton, they would have lost any chance of getting their jumpship back. Similarly, we couldn’t give in that quickly. They didn’t tip their hand by asking for me right off, that would have been too obvious. They had to act like a typical band.”

“And they did, right up to the point when they blindsided us,” said Daniela. “That Executioner was really going after you.”

“Gladiator.” Ian corrected her gently. “We were lucky when the Blades suddenly split. If they hadn’t, we’d be dead.”

“Where did they get all that clan technology? I counted 6 omnimechs.”

Ian rubbed his temples. “I was hoping to ask you.”

Daniela closed her eyes, toting up the numbers. The presence of the Stormcrow, Dire Wolf, and Koshi was clear enough. “Smoke Jaguar mechs. Those were probably isorla from a Smoke Jaguar group.”

“Is it possible that the split was a result of the Jaguar bondsmen rebelling against their masters?”

Daniela shook her head. “For all we know, it could be the other way round. Or some other case of infighting without Smoke Jaguars being involved.”

Ian groaned. “Great. Just great.”

“So what are you going to do next?” She asked.

“Why, fix up our mechs as soon as possible, of course!” Ian answered wryly.

“Most of the tech crew are resting, and it is easier to work in the day. I say you are still trying to make up for your mistake.”

Ian sighed. “What if I tell you that even if we had won, I would still be working here?”

“I do not understand.”

“Simple. I’m still too nervous from the fight to sleep, so rather than wasting my time, I might as well help out here.” He shrugged. “I’ve lost enough battles not to let it worry me too much. Better to concentrate on concrete steps to get ourselves out of this fix.”

“The situation is not really that bad.” Daniela pointed out.

“No, it’s not,” Ian agreed, “But we’ll need every mech up and running. I plan to lead a group out tomorrow to see what we can pull back from the battlefield. If we’re lucky, we might be able to find some survivors and some salvage.”

“And you are not tired?” She looked over him. He was definitely tired, but his demeanor said otherwise.

Ian grinned. “Let me tell you something. Years ago, when I was just a low-rank, know-nothing mechwarrior with the Green Mountain Boys, we would be fending off pirate raids every week. My company was stationed out on the edge of nowhere, and my lance commanders were all idiots who paid their way to their positions. Every time a pirate came down to grab a bite, we would fight them, and we would lose. We lost and kept losing so often and for so long that at times I wondered if my life was going to be nothing but losing. Every time we lost, we just told ourselves, better luck next time. We got stuck in a losing mentality. We accepted our fate.”

“Then what happened?”

“After three years of losing, I realized something. Do something, anything, break the pattern. I started reading more extensively on anything I could get. I spent more time in the simulators. I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want to stay a loser all my life. And during the next battle, I even threatened my lance leader to do what I told him to. That brought us our first win.” Ian smiled at the memory. “It was gratifying.”

Daniela was confused. “What has all that got to do with your working late at night?”

“I’m not doing this purely out of guilt,” he said seriously, “Helping to repair mechs raises morale for the troops when they see their officer isn’t afraid to get down and dirty with them, especially after a loss. It tells them I’ll be with them in the trenches. That could get us a win next time. And before you say that this will affect my other duties, I can assure you that it won’t. I’ll just make up for it over the next few days.” He got up, and started walking towards the ladder. Benny and Jim were still working on her mech on the platform.

“You seem to have thought it all out.” She was slightly irked that he had parried her arguments so easily.

“I won’t be much of an officer if I couldn’t do that, right?” He paused before the ladder, the turned towards her, “Daniela, if you can’t sleep, why don’t you help us? It’s your mech.” He grinned at her, then started up towards the platform.

Why not? Daniela allowed herself a slight smile. He is right, and I cannot sleep. She walked up to the ladder, and started climbing. “Tell me what to do.”

 

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