"I do not approve suicide missions."
"Fortunately you need not. Kael Pershaw already has."
"He does not know conditions here, nor the damage to some of our 'Mechs."
"I am sure he would not care. His back is against the wall. He cannot win without us."
"I do not see that to be so."
"Then stay back and watch from behind some tree while we fight."
Aidan enjoyed the wrath in Joanna's eyes. She was the type of warrior for whom even a hint of cowardice was the deepest of insults.
"If Kael Pershaw has approved the plan, then we must implement it. I am willing to lead us into the battle, no matter what my opinion of the plan. That is the way of the Clan."
If Aidan had permitted himself a gleam in his eyes, even a twinkle, it would have showed at that moment. From the side pocket of his jumpsuit, he drew out a facsimile of the orders, which he had demanded from Kael Pershaw before rejoining his unit. Silently he handed it to Joanna.
"What is this?"
"The authorization for me to take command of this operation."
If Joanna had been an LRM, she would have shot right off the rack at that moment. "You! He assigned you the mission! I am the ranking officer."
"I told him that. However, he accepted my argument that I would be more qualified in the terrain and in Glory Station tactics because you are new to Glory. He has given me a temporary field promotion to Star Captain so that you will not be dishonored in any way."
Joanna fumed. What did he know of dishonor? Pershaw would never have done this to her if she were Bloodnamed. And what did terrain and tactics have to do with a piddling operation like this? It was a hit-and-run action. Nothing was ever accomplished with hit and run. Toe to toe, that was Joanna's way.
But she saw that she could not argue. The careful wording of Kael Pershaw's order took away her command without making her subordinate to Aidan by assigning her a role as a kind of free-lance combatant. Without saying another word, she wheeled around and strode away, her heels coming down with such force that her steps sent missiles of water droplets out of the wet, swampy ground.
"I would watch your back with that one," Horse commented. He had observed the whole exchange with evident pleasure.
"No. Joanna's as mean as a rogue surat, but she would not attack dishonorably. She is Clan through and through."
"All right then, don't watch your back. Watch your throat, especially when there is a knife anywhere within a kilometer of her."
"That I will do, Horse. That I will do."
* * *
The Clan Wolf forces came thundering across the plain like a giant city on the move. Keeping his 'Mech still, Kael Pershaw watched them with the detached admiration he always felt when viewing a line of advancing 'Mechs. Although of different designs and sizes, although configured differently, although each had its own style of movement, each was a beautiful and graceful symbol of unity and strength. To Pershaw the 'Mechs represented the Clans themselves. Each Clan had its own unique configurations, its own rites and customs, but all followed the basic Clan rituals. Each Clan took pride in its own achievements and was willing to fight others to assert them, while all would unite for a grand battle, then return to the Inner Sphere. Each Clan had its own ways, but over all was the way of the Clans.
Pershaw had a direct sensor link from Bravo Striker Nova, which was tracking the advance of the Wolf Clan forces. Right now he saw the Wolves nearing the line where the Elementals had hidden themselves during the night. Only a moment more and the battle would begin. Pershaw readied his 'Mech to lead his Cluster, or the remnants of it. He was as apprehensive as any commander in an odds-against status, yet also thrilled that the challenge had been reduced to one grand do-or-die gesture. It would either turn the tide of battle or send the Jade Falcons to a humiliating defeat. A military leader could hope for no more exciting moment.
Pershaw kept his concentration on Radick's Mad Dog,in the lead as was only proper. The moment Radick was two steps past the hidden Elementals, Pershaw would give the signal to attack.
* * *
An instant later, Radick's 'Mech was crossing the fallen 'Mech in which Lanja and another Elemental were hiding. For a moment he feared the foot would come down on her, but it narrowly missed the 'Mech. Then it took another step. And another.
"Now," he said into the commline, his voice quiet but steady.
The flare went up.
* * *
To Dwillt Radick the flash looked like distant lightning through his viewport, but his secondary screen identified the illumination as a flare. It was early morning, still dusky but with clear visibility. Why in the name of Nicholas Kerensky would Pershaw send up a flare?
* * *
For Lanja, the light of the flare came through all the open cracks in the wrecked cockpit. Her huge muscles straining from being packed into the tight cockpit, she did not think the signal came a moment too soon.
Weapons activated, she and her fellow Elemental rose from the fallen 'Mech like specters from the mist. Unlike such a phantasmal creature, however, she was already firing at the BattleMech that rose above her but that had yet to see her. Indeed, none of the enemy 'Mechs were prepared for the concentrated attack from below, giving the ambushers a chance to inflict heavy damage in those first few seconds alone.
* * *
To Joanna, the flare was the kind of flamboyant tactic she would have expected in any plan originated by Aidan. The grand gesture, the overreaching move, the plunging forward against all logic—Aidan had been that way even as a cadet. Now that he was a warrior, those characteristics would continue to be his downfall. She despised his individualistic bent. It was some kind of odd blessing, she thought, that circumstances had forced him into the false identity of a freebirth filth. That meant he could never earn a Bloodname. Perhaps it was only bitterness at having failed thus far in her own Bloodname trials, but Joanna genuinely believed that a Bloodnamed Aidan would be a disgrace to all that the Clans represented.
At Aidan's signal, she began to move her 'Mech forward, the resentment only increasing at the idea of having to follow even a single one of his commands.
* * *
Aidan welcomed the light of the flare. He yearned for nothing more in the universe than to distinguish himself as a warrior. It did not matter whether others believed him freeborn or trueborn. The battle was all, the battle and the honor to be earned in it.
Giving the signal to advance, he led the way out of Blood Swamp, the 'Mechs looking monstrous in the quickly fading light of the flare. Moisture from the swamp dripped from their limbs. Stray leaves and patches of moss had rubbed off on their surfaces. Mud and muck smeared their feet. They looked like antediluvian creatures just aroused from beneath the deep waters of the swamp.
The last flicker of the flare was a momentary brightness and then the battlefield was bathed only in the half-light of dawn. In the distance, the Clan Wolf battle line, now a bit uneven, looked gray in the dim morning light. Beneath it, lines of fire from both the weapons and the jump packs of the attacking Elementals rose up around them like a fiery net.
19
Once out of the swamp, the tread of Aidan's Summonerseemed to lighten, climbing the slope with sure, almost carefree steps. Though Aidan felt a touch of disorientation from being so long in the swamp and jungle, his 'Mech easily topped the slope, where the fire of the rear-guard Wolf Elementals was disorganized and ineffective. As Aidan had suspected, Radick had underbid his Elementals, which left too few in the rear. A burst of rapid pulses from his medium laser and a whole line of them lay either still or squirming on the ground. The Summonerstepped over them as Aidan guided it forward. His primary screen showed an LRM coming toward him, but he blasted it out of the air with his anti-missile system before it could do any harm to the Jade Falcon warriors. Instead, much of the shrapnel dropped onto Wolf warriors and support personnel, setting small fires and ripping sections off some of the domes housing supplies.