Any Man's Death

        International Zone, Solaris City

Solaris VII

Federated Commonwealth

10 February 3031

 

Elijah Green scanned the wrinkled, faded printout, trying to memorize the name and address, then stuffed it back into the breast pocket of his forest-green overalls. Delisle, Kirin. He shouldered his duffel bag and followed the other passengers as they disembarked from the Monarch class liner John Dunne. 

At the security gate, agents fed the baggage through bulky scanners with barely-concealed boredom. Elijah ran a hand across his newly-shaved scalp, and tried not to feel too nervous.

A dull-eyed agent leafed through Elijah's travel papers. “Purpose of your visit?” he mumble-asked, but it sounded like “Purple yo-yo is it?” 

Elijah tried to keep his accent neutral, reminding himself to distinguish between ‘f’ and ‘h’, ‘w’ and ‘v.’ “Here to watch the games.”

The agent’s smirk told him he’d fooled no one. “Seen a lot of you people the past few months,” he drawled. “Rats from a sinking ship, eh?” He slid Elijah's papers back and dismissed him with a wave. 

Elijah collected his bag without comment. Didn’t surprise him people were leaving the Confederation while there was still something left to leave.

The main concourse was a confusion of people, half-heard announcements and holographic advertising. “Celebrate the Peace Pact anniversary in style! Reserve your box seats for the Fourth Succession War Rematch series today!” bellowed a signboard, as ’Mechs blasted each other on the screen. Elijah stood a moment, stunned by the assault of light and sound.

A shove to his back threw him off balance.

He turned angrily and met the fierce gaze of muscular, dark-suited man almost as wide as he was tall. “Out the way, frakker,” he growled, and shoved Elijah again, in the chest. Behind the suit came a knot of equally beefy security guards, bright young things with compads, styluses and stylish suits, women in fabulous jewelry and fabulously short skirts, all surrounding a tall angular man with his receding hair slicked back and his neck wrapped a midnight black scarf.

“Who’s he?” he asked the muscle, nodding at the center of attention.

The guard blinked once, as one might if suddenly addressed by a piece of furniture. “Fresh of the boat, huh?” he said at last. “That’s Grant Stockhouse-Davion. You see us coming, think hard if you want to be in our way or you want to be somewhere else. Real hard.” And with that warning, he trailed after the group as they paraded out the main exit.

Elijah watched them go, idly rubbing his chest where the guard had pushed. Davion, was it? He breathed out. Davions, Pleione, it was all in the past.

Thinking of the future, he thought of the address on his printout. Delisle, Kirin. Wondered how to get there. He spotted the information desk, where two young ladies in turquoise uniforms and side caps were deep in conversation.

“Excuse me,” he said, folding his arms across the desk. “Hope you can help me. I’d like to get to Kirin Street. In Cathay.”

Without looking up or pausing in their conversation, one of them waved a vague arm towards one of the concourse exits. The rudeness irked, but not much point in making a scene. A Capellan citizen on a Lyran world? Best not. He went in the direction indicated. 

Outside, Elijah found himself in a steady drizzle, facing a long line of waiting taxis in a mishmash of liveries, their drivers milling in small groups under the terminal awning, smoking fistfuls of cigarettes and trading stories of terrible fares they’d had.

“Where you headed, my friend?”

The speaker was short, solid-looking, with salt and pepper hair shaved to stubble and eyes hidden behind mirror shades.

“Cathay.”

The man nodded, as though his suspicions had been confirmed. “Don’t take one of them,” he tipped his head in the direction of the taxis. “The yang guizi charge us double these days, if they don’t just dump you anywhere they please and dare you to call the police.” He pointed at a battered green taxi near the back of the waiting pack. “Celestial Wagon’s the only one you can trust.”

The man shuffled away, leaving Elijah wondering if this was a scam or honest advice. A bit of both, probably. He threaded his way through the parked machines to the green cab.

The ride was a mildly death-defying experience. The Celestial Wagon cabbie clearly held strongly to the motto, ‘When in Sian, drive as the Sianese do: At full speed, with your hand on the horn the whole way.’

Half an hour later, Elijah arrived, shaken but miraculously unhurt. He passed the driver an eye-wateringly thick pile of Yuan notes, grabbed his bag and got out. He’d barely shut the door when the taxi shot away, tires screeching on the rain-slick streets. 

The weather had given up on rain and settled on being sullenly cold and grey instead. The building he’d arrived at wasn’t much more cheerful. It looked like a four-story warehouse, built of corrugated metal sheets bolted together. The original paint had long ago surrendered to invading tides of dirt and rust. A wide, 15-meter high shutter had been secured with at least three industrial-looking padlocks. Stenciled letters, barely legible, spelled out ‘Delisle Stables’ across the shutter. 

The street was almost deserted in either direction, dotted here and there with litter, of both the plastic and human kinds. A tall, skinny prostitute gave him a calculated gaze, discounted him and looked away. A pair of youths glowered as they crouched in a doorway, passing a drink back and forth. 

Elijah cinched his duffel bag a little tighter, and walked slowly around the building.

Around the corner he saw a long, black limousine and two blocky sports utility vehicles, surrounded by a quartet of men in black sunglasses and suits. A familiar black scarf was ducking into the back of the limousine. The guards then piled into the SUVs and the convoy roared off down the street, leaving only the deep-fried smell of biofuel. 

Elijah watched them go, chewing his lip in thought. Well he wouldn't get anything accomplished just standing here, he figured. He went to the door and pushed the intercom button.

No response.

He pushed it again, then tried banging on the door. Shouted “Hello? Anyone there?” a couple of times, if only to satisfy himself that he’d tried everything. 

Reluctantly, he admitted defeat. Time for a tactical retreat, preferably to somewhere less abandoned and more caffeinated.

Fifteen minutes later, he sat outside a café on a busy corner, sipping a coffee, mulling his slim options and positively anorexic bank balance, watching the people go by.

It was amazing how long you could do this, he thought, without ever catching anyone’s eye. Each one so isolated in their own little world. People in cities became solipsists; they focused inward until other people simply ceased to exist in any meaningful sense of the word.

Take this woman, for example. Flawless, coffee-colored skin, deep blue sweater. She ran a hand absently, artlessly through her wavy, windblown hair, and the effortless grace of the action made him ache. He wanted so very badly to be wherever her mind was.

“You’re staring.”

He blinked. The woman was standing in front of his table.

“Ah. Daydreaming, sorry,” he gave a small, apologetic smile. “It’s just. You’re very beautiful. Sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

She considered that, seemed to accept it. “If you think a woman is beautiful, you should try asking her to sit down,” she said.

“Ah, oh, right,” he tried to recover, indicated the seat opposite. “Care to join me?”

She slid into the chair and ordered a coffee from a waiter that suddenly materialized at the table. Earlier, it had taken him five minutes of frantic signaling to get the waiter’s attention, Elijah thought sourly.

When the waiter left, she leaned forward across the table. “I have a confession.”

“You do?”

“I followed you from Kirin street,” she admitted. “Wanted to see who you were. After you knocked on the door. See if you were one of his.”

“One of whose?” He cocked his head in puzzlement. 

“Stockhouse-Davion.” She watched him carefully for a reaction. His shoulders tensed at the name. “Interesting,” she said. “What did you want at the stable?” 

“Word on Galatea was Delisle is looking for a new MechWarrior,” he fished the printout from his pocket, unfolded it and smoothed it out on the table.

“You’re a MechWarrior?” she looked at him, appraising.

“Was,” he corrected, shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Look, about Delisle Stables,” he said. “Know anything about it?”

“Something, yes,” she nodded. “I’m Emma Delisle.”

“Elijah Green, nice to meet you. You run the stable?”

“Since last year, after my father died.”

“I’m so sorry.” Unsure what to say to that. “What does Stockhouse-Davion want with you?”

The waiter returned with Emma's coffee, presented with a napkin and a flourish. He stomped off sulkily when she ignored him. 

“A couple of years back, he set up his own stable here,” she began. “He’s dedicated it to gunning for Liao-aligned stables and MechWarriors ever since. Never with much success. Until last year. The war was a shot in the arm for jingoistic bigots like him.” 

A note of bitterness creeped into her voice, and she studied the contents of her coffee cup a moment. Elijah remained statue silent. Davions, Pleione, it was all in the past, he reminded himself. 

“Since March last year, he’s been buying new hardware, hiring new pilots,” she went on. “Money’s been rolling in, seems like. He's been taking on more matches, winning more. Been taking other measures when he doesn’t. Our last MechWarrior had an ‘accident’ that put him in hospital for a month.”

Elijah whistled, low. “That bad?”

“Stockhouse-Davion wanted us to throw the fight, we said ‘No,’ so he threw our pilot out a window instead,” Emma’s lips pressed into a thin line. “We’ve got debts. Lots of them. He was there again today, just before you, offering to bail us out. All we have to do is let him win.”

“Win what?”

“They’re calling it the Fourth Succession War Rematch. Special series, non-championship. Five-way free-for-alls, one ’Mech from each House. We were supposed to represent House Liao in the Class Two fight, the light ’Mechs. Only with no pilot, either I take the con or we forfeit.” She leaned forward again, looking intensely into his eyes, pleading. “Look, Elijah, I trained as an accountant, not a soldier. You’re the first MechWarrior who’s shown up in weeks. We can’t pay much, now, but maybe. If we win this. We can’t let him win. We can’t.”

Elijah couldn’t meet her eyes. He watched the indifferent, undifferentiated crowd walking by on the pavement instead. The silence stretched.

“You won’t do it,” she said bitterly.

His eyes moved back to her. “Can’t let him win?” he repeated. “He’s already won. Him and all the other Davions. How many worlds did we lose? How many regiments? Candace, Ridzik, Xiang, the Highlanders. Betrayed four times in a single war, must be something of a record.” It felt like a dam breaking, all the hopelessness, the shame, the regret, pouring out onto the table. “They didn’t just beat us. They slaughtered us, humiliated us. They won. We lost. End of story.” He mimed closing a book and throwing it over his shoulder. “I came here to escape that, not relive it.” 

It was her turn to be silent a while. “Where were you?” Emma asked simply.

“Pleione.”

“That bad?”

“Bad enough.” He remembered those last hours in Thunder Rock. The panic when they’d realized the enemy had broken in and there was no escape. Major Loo putting a gun to her temple once the end was in sight.

Her shoulders slumped. She stuffed a crumpled two-Yuan note under her cup and stood. “Well. That’s that, then.” Resigned, not angry.

Elijah silently watched her go, finished his own coffee, and left in search of a hotel. His boots splashed steps down the cold grey pavement. Bone-thin whores and toothless beggars watched him go with equal indifference. That was the Confederation, he thought. Worn down, used up, left like garbage by history’s wayside. 

A black jeep squealed to a stop by the side of the road. Two black-clad men stepped out. One looked familiar, from the spaceport.

“This him?” asked the other. 

The first nodded. “What’d I tell you earlier, frakker?”

Elijah raised his arms, placating. “Easy fellas, I told her—”

A wiry, thin pistol appeared in the first man's hand, almost comically small in his bearlike paw.

“Whoah now, just wait,” Elijah cried, but the pistol made a gentle phut sound and he felt a sharp sting in his neck. The ground seemed to lurch suddenly, his knees gave way and the ground rose to meet him. 

He was vaguely aware of being manhandled into the back of the SUV, impressions of light and dark across his eyes and a feeling of pressure against his chest or sides suggesting he was in motion. Another sharp tug and suddenly everything was black. He must have passed out at that point, for the next he knew he was propped up in a chair, hands tied behind his back, in a purplish room with black lighting, the pulsating thrum of dance music heard through the walls and felt through the floor.

The muscled man from the spaceport was slapping him, though he could barely feel it through the numbness of whatever drug had been on the dart. Three more guards stood against the walls, watching him without expression.

A door opened and the music spiked in volume, as Grant Stockhouse-Davion strolled in, signature scarf loose around his neck, drink in one hand, redhead in the other. Elijah squinted at him, and found one eye refused to open.

Stockhouse-Davion passed his drink to the girl, draped his scarf around her neck and shooed her from the room. The man pulled up a chair and sat facing Elijah, knees only inches apart. He studied Elijah’s face a moment, smiling to himself.

“Delisle attracts the strangest people.” His voice was polished, urbane, used to the exercise of power and privilege. “The desperate, the drunk and the drug-addicted. Failures that can’t admit they’ve failed, and she feeds their pathetic fantasies. Or is there another motive? She’s quite something isn’t she?” When he laughed, his teeth glowed in the black light, sharp as a wolf’s.

One of the guards passed Stockhouse-Davion a thin, black compad.

“Let’s see what she’s dug up this time,” he flicked through the file on the slate. “Commander Elijah Green, Third Battalion, McCrimmon’s Light Cavalry. Pleione, Thunder Rock. Held out for three weeks against two mercenary regiments in an old Star League bunker. You’re listed as MIA, my friend.” He shook his head. “A deserter then. A failure.”

Stockhouse-Davion held out the compad without looking at the guard, and the man obligingly took it back. “Look, Eli, I’ll keep this simple,” Stockhouse-Davion stood smoothly, patting Elijah on the head. “We’re not going to kill you, since that excites the wrong attention, but we are going to hurt you. Hurt you enough that you won’t be piloting a ’Mech, not for the Fourth Succession Rematch, perhaps not ever again. Deslisle either goes bankrupt, or even better embarrasses herself in the match and then goes bankrupt. You people need to learn when you’re beaten.”

He nodded to the guards on either side of Elijah, threw him a wink, and was gone.

They did hurt Elijah then, or tried to, first the old-fashioned way, with brass-knuckles and steel-toed boots, then with more modern methods, jabbing him with stun sticks dialed to the highest setting, laughing as he jerked and writhed. The drug still insulated him, making the whole thing like an out-of-body experience, pain a thing understood only intellectually.

Then they took a sledgehammer to his foot.

He screamed and everything went very, very white and then very, very dark.

Elijah awoke to white sheets, white walls. Large windows framed by sharply-creased curtains, with a vase of yellow and pink flowers on the windowsill. Emma Delisle sat on the edge of the bed, watching him sadly. “This must be heaven,” he croaked.

She smiled at that. “You’re not dead, you know.”

“Could have fooled me. Where am I then?”

“Cathay Third People’s Hospital. Looks like you had another one of Stockhouse-Davion’s quote-unquote accidents.”

Elijah lifted his arms, relieved to see they were present in the expected number and shape, albeit with far more yellowish and purple bruises than before. He tried to move his leg and was rewarded with a blinding jab of pain. Looking down, he saw his right foot was encased from knee to toe in a thick white cast.

He winced and rested back against the pillow. “Thank you,” he said to Emma. “For bringing me here. How did you find me?”

“Didn’t,” she shook her head. “Got a message you’d be here. Doctors said the san he hui brought you in, one of the triads. There’s about four of them outside that door right now. More in the lobby and outside. They’re paying for this, too.” She waved a hand around the private hospital room, and the cast on Elijah’s leg.

There was something there, Elijah thought, something he wasn’t sure he wanted to face now. “He hates you, you know,” he said instead. They both knew who he meant.

Emma nodded sadly. “Hates all of us. Think he lost family on Kathil, back in ’22. Wants nothing more than to wipe even the memory of the Confederation from existence.”

“You ever think, what if? What if he’s right?” Elijah closed his eyes. “They did beat us. The galaxy beat us. Maybe it’s time to quit.”

“Well, there’s two ways of looking at it, you know,” Emma stood up, went to the window and looked down at the street below. From the bed Elijah could see her reflection in the window, and watched silent tears make their lonely way down her cheeks. “One man sees life’s failures, whores, beggars, addicts, street kids, and all he sees is pain, and he wants to erase them, thinking he can erase pain from the world. Another sees the same thing, and she sees people who’ve taken the worst the galaxy can throw at them, and who still won’t give up. Who are fighting, fighting every day, fighting without hope but fighting anyway.”

She wiped her cheeks and turned back to Elijah. “You’re right. Everything our parents, our grandparents, our ancestors fought and died for is this close to being swept away forever. Maybe there’s nothing we can do to stop it. It’s not about hope, it’s about going out fighting. Why’d you think the triads brought you here? Why gangsters and criminals are risking their lives for us?" 

That hurt in a way the sledgehammer hadn’t. Through his shut eyelids, he could see Major Loo’s slack face, hers and all the others who’d died at Thunder Rock, died without hope.

He opened his eyes. “At the café I said—”

“I know what you said. It’s okay.” She walked back to the bed and patted his hand, awkwardly. “You don’t need to get involved.”

“I was wrong,” he held her hand, gritted his teeth and forced himself to sit upright. “I am involved.”

“You’re in no shape to fight.”

“No. None of us are. Doesn't mean we won't fight though.”

This time, she didn’t bother trying to hide the tears.

 

The Factory

Montenegro, Solaris City

Solaris VII

Federated Commonwealth

19 February 3031

 

Elijah rolled his shoulders and tried to relax. He left the neurohelmet visor open, breathed deeply the cool air while he still could. Before him loomed a massive blast door stenciled with the number five, yellow hazard lights blinking at each corner. 

He waited for the countdown to begin.

Delisle Stables owned just one ’Mech, named Strutter. It packed a few surprises, and the first surprise was, it was an UrbanMech.

Squat and cylindrical, Strutter looked more like a bipedal water tank than engine of death, an image reinforced by the irregular red-and-brown paint they splattered across the ’Mech before the fight. They’d made a few other changes, too. With his foot in a cast Elijah couldn't operate the jump pedals, so Emma’s crew had taken out the jump jets, some armor and the Harmon laser and replaced it with a weapons pod housing two larger Magna Mk IIs, giving Strutter a little more punch.

The Factory was housed in a ruined shuttlecraft production facility. It looked like the aftermath of a nuclear strike, with rusted, pitted pillars, corridors littered with industrial wreckage and debris, floors with gaping holes. The first time he’d seen trivids of the inside, Elijah had shivered. So like Thunder Rock.

“Eli, that you old friend?” a familiar, urbane voice sounded in his earphones. The match organizers had ordered all participants to share a common taccomm frequency. The crowds loved it when the MechWarriors trash-talked each other. Elijah ignored him, tried to keep his breathing steady.

“You people, just never know when to quit, do you? Guess we’ll have to show you the hard way,” Stockhouse-Davion taunted. “My fellow warriors, clearly the Capellan is the greatest threat,” he announced. “We must work together to eliminate him.”

“Seconded,” said a second voice. “As Hanse said to Melissa, I will give you the Capellan Confederation!” 

“Take it easy, Elsie, I think you might hurt something.” The third voice was female. Lisl Baumann, from Andurien. Locust. Calling voice two an Elsie meant he must be Marc Lancer, the Steiner pilot. Commando. “Is this farce really necessary?”

“Lisl,” Stockhouse-Davion’s voice had a warning edge.

“Let’s just get this over with, Davion.” That would be Enrico Gutierrez, the Kuritan. Ex-Dieron Regulars, Panther. “Pair up, sweep by sectors.”

In Strutter’s cockpit, Elijah just nodded sadly to himself. They weren’t going to even pretend to make it a fair fight. He wondered how much Stockhouse-Davion was paying them.

“I don’t need a malking Snake telling me how to fight,” Lancer retorted. “I think the last two years proved who the better soldiers are.”

“Idiot,” Gutierrez muttered.

“Marc, you do realize he can hear every word we say, don’t you?” Stockhouse-Davion sounded irritated.

“Well, double-barreled PPCs for him,” Lancer sniffed. “That Cappie is all mine.”

The siren sounded for the start of the match, and the great blast door split horizontally down the center, grinding open like the jaws of a dragon. A long corridor stretched before Elijah, littered with broken piping, bent metal plates and half a hundred other types of debris and junk. He glanced down at the magnetic anomaly detector, but as expected with all the metal lying around it showed only static. It would be like fighting blindfold with bazookas at point-blank range.

He slid the helmet's faceplate shut, gripped the primary trigger, and stomped the ’Mech forward.

Around the second corner, barely 50 meters away, sat Lancer’s Commando.

They reacted almost simultaneously. Missiles screamed off the Commando’s launch racks. With no room to dodge, Elijah ducked the ’Mech as he held down the trigger, the left arm lasers carving molten streaks down the Commando’s side while the Imperator autocannon clawed the air with a stream of shells that smacked into the Commando’s left leg. Armor cracked and shattered, revealing titanium bones beneath.

“I got him, I got him!” Lancer was shouting, as he loosed another missile salvo and charged straight at Elijah.

Elijah put another volley into the Commando, then lashed out with a kick to the right leg. Titanium bones shattered and the Commando went sprawling. Elijah stamped down on the ‘Mech’s right arm, pinning it to the factory floor. Lancer brought the left arm up and pumped a laser blast straight into the joint of Strutter’s right knee.

Elijah’s third volley blew the Commando’s head off. Lancer’s scream cut off as a five-round burst of 20-kilogram shells ate through the armor, then the cockpit, then the floor beneath.

Elijah sank back in the command couch, breathing hard. Checked his heads-up display. The internal damage screen showed a red light on the right leg. He tried moving it. The knee actuator made an ugly grinding sound as the leg sluggishly shuffled forward. Elijah swore under his breath. His speed had just gone from sedate to tectonic plate-ish.

“Lancer is down,” Gutierrez said crisply.

“Dammit, anybody know where he was?” Stockhouse-Davion asked.

“Negative.”

Just past the downed Commando was a large, open room. Elijah limped forward.

It had evidently once been part of the main assembly line for shuttlecraft, measuring 20 meters high, 100 wide and 500 long. At the far end of the room from Elijah’s position, a large circular section of the ceiling had collapsed downward, the sagging material forming a kind of sharp ramp up to the second floor of the factory. Welders, cranes and other machinery littered the length of the room, while at the end nearest Elijah a score of massive, rotund shuttle fuel tanks lay scattered in a heap.

That would do perfectly.

He wedged the UrbanMech back among the fuel tanks, hunkered down, cranked both arm weapon pods all the way up, powered down the reactor and shut off the ’Mech’s heat sinks. And waited.

A minute later his external speakers picked up the regular, metallic crunch of ’Mech footfalls.

“Think I found Lancer,” said Baumann. “South end of the assembly line.”

“En route,” replied Gutierrez.

The Locust stalked into the room, heading like a vulture towards the smoking hulk of Lancer’s Commando. Elijah watched patiently, one hand poised over the reactor hot-start button, the other gripping the primary trigger. The Locust walked past the discarded fuel tanks without pause.

Elijah reckoned Baumann would stop to scan the wreckage of the Commando right about. Now.

The Locust halted just as Elijah punched the engine start and a second later squeezed the trigger.

An alarm must have sounded in the Locust’s cockpit. Baumann shouted “Wait—” just as Elijah’s two left-arm lasers burned through the rear armor, blowing out shards of metal in a fiery cloud. An instant later a stream of explosive penetrator rounds tore through the ’Mech at the joint of the legs and torso, blasting apart the engine and gyroscope before exiting the top of the body just behind the cockpit.

Baumann’s taccomm cut out with a high-pitched squeal and the ’Mech toppled forward.

Elijah grinned. Two down. Now to move before the other two f—

A beam of brilliant blue-white light lanced down from the hole in the ceiling, striking the fuel tank just to Elijah’s left.

The tanks should have been empty. This one wasn't. There wasn’t much fuel left in the tank, but it was enough to blow the pressure vessel outwards in meter-sized shards of jagged metal. 

The UrbanMech was thrown sideways against the factory wall by the blast. Flying debris sheared through the left shoulder, sending the laser weapons pod spinning away. Another shard buried itself point-first in the left hip. Pieces of the ceiling rained down, half-burying the ’Mech.

“Oh my, that was quite a bang,” marveled Stockhouse-Davion. “Think you got him?”

“Uncertain,” came the curt reply. Through the cracked ferroglass screen Elijah watched Gutierrez's ghost-white Panther jet down from the hole in the ceiling. Behind, he saw a blue and gold Valkyrie looking down from the lip of the hole.

Eijah tried to move, but wasn’t surprised when neither leg responded. He could still move the torso and shoulder joints, but that was it.

The Panther advanced a few cautious steps. Debris shifted, the collapsed. Gutierrez brought his right-arm PPC up and blasted a large lump of debris in front of Elijah and to his left. The wreckage disintegrated in a billowing cloud of smoke and metallic fragments.

Wouldn’t get much better than this, Elijah reckoned. He sighted through the smoke, guessing the Panther’s last position, and squeezed the trigger. Autocannon rounds sliced through the dense clouds, and a surprised shout from Gutierrez suggested some had connected.

Particle cannon fire came lashing back, punching a hole in the factory wall to Elijah’s right. He fired another burst, aiming for the origin of the PPC’s blast.

Bright flares appeared through the haze—the Panther’s jump jets. PPC fire found the UrbanMech, bucking and blistering armor plates. Another bolt pierced the armor, and the heat in the cockpit leaped higher. Elijah kept his finger on the trigger, tracking the columns of fire as Gutierrez tried to hop back out of range. A fire blossomed, echoing through the room.

Then silence.

Elijah checked his ammo. Only a single burst left.

When the smoke cleared, the Panther was lying on its back, the left torso armor bubbling outwards from a gaping hole, glowing white, yellow and red from where missile ammunition had cooked off inside.

Applause.

Stockhouse-Davion was clapping. Elijah saw the Valkyrie, still perched at the edge of the hole, and checked the range. Too far to do any serious damage.

“You Capellans always were sneaky little devils,” he said. “But you failed again, you know. I can sit here all day and pound your ’Mech into scrap.” The covers over the Valkyrie’s missile rack slid open. “You really, really should learn when to qu—”

Elijah fired. His shots found their target, impacted, exploded. Not the ’Mech, but the floor under its feet. Disintegrating it. With a shriek, the Valkyrie toppled forward and plunged from its perch, fell like an avalanche. The shriek cut brutally short when it landed on its head.

Elijah watched the crumpled wreck for a long time.

Davions, Pleione. It wasn’t in the past. It never would be. He would fight.