TEXT: BattleCorps
  ENDGAME AT 
  ENGADINE
  Kevin Killiany
  Part One
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  Burnis, Elume 
  Melissia Theater, Lyran Alliance 
  14 October 3067
  Jake stomped the jump pedals, rotating the tillers as acceleration 
  slammed him into the command couch. The pinewoods dropped 
  away, some of the saplings bursting aflame in the jump jets’ back-
  wash.
  Around him the thirty-five ton Spector responded with reflexes 
  his beloved Grasshopper could never have matched. Rotating as 
  it rose, the gyro compensated as Jake raised its arms to target the 
  heavy BattleMech that had almost ended his day.
  No good tone, the enemy heavy was sporting the same Guardian 
  electronic countermeasures suite that made his Spector hard to 
  hit. But the phased array sensors cut through most of the hash; 
  the targeting readout gave him an eighty percent chance of hit-
  ting.
  Jake fired. And cursed as the scrub oaks and brush covering the 
  empty patch of hillside charred instantly to ash beneath the con-
  verging beams of his large and medium lasers. A resin-rich pine 
  the other ’Mech had knocked over burst into flame; a torch threat-
  ening the rest of the piney wood.
  The heavy was airborne, lifting with surprising speed. Intellectually, 
  Jake knew the other pilot had anticipated his shot and jumped be-
  fore he’d fired, but it was hard to shake the illusion of the heavy 
  dodging the laser beams en route. Reading the jump jet thermals 
  and plasma volume, his sensor array predicted the seventy-five ton 
  BattleMech would fly one-twenty to one-fifty meters.
  “Practically a damn LAM.” 
  The Spector reached its apogee and Jake rotated the machine 
  again. He was going to come down about sixty meters ahead of 
  his pursuer. Not enough to make much difference in these open 
  woods. Particularly if the soft sand turned his touchdown into a 
  tumbling crash. Time to watch his landing and trust the Guardian 
  ECM to—
  An explosion rocked his ’Mech, the hammer-like clang deafening 
  through his neurohelmet. Jake resisted the urge to yank the tiller, 
  easing the joystick against the spin as the gyro fought gravity for 
  control of the falling BattleMech. 
  
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  Wire frame and idiot lights reported a hit high on the left hip, 
  some armor lost and collateral damage to the left torso jump jet. 
  Landing was going to be rough, but not dangerous.
  He was dimly aware of a dozen smoke trails beyond his canopy; 
  missiles that had missed spiraling away. Unable to get a lock, the 
  other jockey had fired a spread along the Spector’s probable arc. 
  Sound tactics, if you had the missiles to spare.
  Speaking of which...
  The targeting computer had recorded twenty medium-range 
  missiles, only one of which had hit. Taken with the other machine’s 
  jump and mass, the missile count convinced his computer the 
  BattleMech it could only approximately see was a Thanatos.
  The Spector landed on the downward slope of a low sand hill. 
  Jake anticipated, beating the gyro to the punch getting a leg for-
  ward, turning what could have been a stumble into a forward run. 
  The Thanatos would come down on the other side of the ridge, out 
  of sight. Not that the low fold of sand—or the widely spaced soft-
  woods—provided much of an obstacle.
  “Ancient dune topography” the data file had called these woods. 
  No ocean anywhere on the area maps, though. Jake would have 
  happily traded the tree-covered former dunes for craggy, ore-rich 
  mountains to obscure his trail.
  Not that sensors did either ’Mech jockey much good. Their 
  identical Guardian suites—his had recognized a brother unit’s 
  signature—made active weapons locks almost impossible. His 
  sensors apparently had an edge, but that was precious little help 
  under the circumstances. Any shots they traded would be manu-
  ally aimed—which gave a decided advantage to the heavy ’Mech’s 
  ability to lay down spreads of missiles instead of narrow laser 
  beams.
  At the bottom of the hill, Jake turned left; heading north. With the 
  soft sand and pine needles shifting under his light ’Mech’s feet, he 
  didn’t dare push the Spector to its full one hundred and eighteen 
  kilometers per hour. And shoving through the heavier softwoods 
  would take more time—and potentially cause more damage—than 
  stepping around them.
  Shutting down his active arrays to reduce the Spector’s electron-
  ic signature, Jake eased the throttle forward. The light BattleMech 
  made a broken-field run along the base of the low ridge, dodging 
  
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  obstacles with a grace his seventy-ton Grasshopper could never 
  have matched.
  Of course, my Grasshopper wouldn’t have been running from a 
  Thanatos.
  With one jump jet out, his Spector’s jump range was limited to 
  one hundred and sixty meters—only a handful more than the bo-
  gey on his tail. If he was going to get away, it was going to be 
  ground speed that made the difference.
  As if to punctuate the thought, a copse of pines directly ahead 
  exploded in gouts of flaming resin and steam. Lasers.
  Jake fought the reflex to jump. His hunch was confirmed a half 
  second later as a flight of missiles sliced through the space his ris-
  ing ’Mech would have occupied.
  As the last of the medium-range missiles passed, Jake stomped 
  his pedals.
  The Spector rose on its four remaining jets, tilting right to carry 
  it over the next ridge. Jake couldn’t see the heavy ’Mech on his 
  three-sixty, but he knew approximately where it was from the 
  direction of fire. He would hit just beyond the crest and reverse, 
  running south toward the rest of his people. 
  The Thanatos probably would not jump, expecting Jake to target 
  his pursuer in the air. That would give Jake time for a second jump 
  and—checking his heat readings—a third before the pirate figured 
  out what was up. 
  Passive sensor alarms bleeped as the Spector peaked. Thermal 
  signatures on the far side of the ridge crest ahead.
  As gravity pulled his ’Mech down, Jake slapped the active sen-
  sor toggle, setting them to scan ahead. No ECM suites here. The 
  sensors promptly identified a brace of Merlins—rugged, sixty-ton 
  workhorses popular all along the Periphery. 
  One was north of Jake’s landing zone, too far to away to be a 
  threat. The second was due west and barely close enough to be 
  a danger, particularly since it could jump nearly as far as Jake’s 
  wounded Spector. However, both were slow on the ground—prob-
  ably doubly so in the shifting sand of the piney woods. A good 
  sprint south before his second jump and he’d be away from 
  them.
  
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  Thermal flare to the south, arcing upwards just as Jake dropped 
  below tree level. His sensors pegged the jumping ’Mech as an 
  antique Chameleon in original configuration. Three centuries ago 
  it had been a trainer at some academy. The jockey of a machine 
  like that was either a tyro who couldn’t do better or a seasoned 
  pro in his favorite set-up. Either way, the fifty-tonner was nearly 
  as fast as his Spector and—though lightly armed compared to the 
  Thanatos and the Merlins—his match in a firefight.
  If it got close enough to see him.
  Jake cut right again, going for the high ground where the trees 
  were thinner. If he could sprint past the oncoming Chameleon 
  while the Thanatos was still making its way through the woods 
  choking the shallow valley—
  Thermal flare rising above the ridge. Parsing the conflicting 
  ECM readings, his targeting computer tentatively identified the 
  Thanatos, predicting it would land three hundred meters above 
  and ahead of him.
  Thermal flare to the north. The far Merlin was trying to close the 
  gap. Checking his tactical display, Jake realized the distant ’Mech 
  still posed no threat. 
  The three BattleMechs closing in would blast his Spector to scrap 
  long before it arrived.
  
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  DropShip Clermont 
  Khartoum system 
  Coventry Province, Lyran Alliance 
  02 September 3067
  Jake leaned back in his chair—or tried to, it was bolted to the 
  floor—and frowned at the contract on the noteputer. 
  Will, actually. Last will and testament of Grainger Christian, 
  killed in action on Saravan when he inexplicably climbed out of 
  his BattleMech in a combat zone.
  The DropShip’s braking burn as it approached Khartoum’s nadir 
  jump point recharging station created the illusion of near normal 
  gravity. Not that Jake cared about gravity, but it was good to see 
  Ariel comfortable. His co-commander did not like zero-gee in the 
  least. And when she was putting up with something she did not 
  like, people around her usually found themselves putting up with 
  Peregrine Junior.
  This afternoon, thanks to the ersatz gravity, the final go-over of 
  the Chaos Irregulars’ budget and inventory had been conducted 
  in relative peace. The fact the numbers Pauls had been showing 
  them were good helped the mood. 
  Khartoum, just a name on a star chart before they’d arrived, was a 
  minor center of trade well used to meeting the needs of mercenary 
  units. And they’d used the four days between being deposited by 
  the Simson’s DropShip and being picked up by their new employer 
  wisely. Between off-loading the BattleMechs into their temporary 
  hangar and loading them aboard the Clermont, Silverlake and his 
  crew had refurbished, refit, repaired, or replaced every piece of 
  equipment in the Irregulars inventory. Every able-bodied member 
  of the command, from Peregrine Junior down, had taken a turn in 
  the round-the-clock maintenance. 
  Jake had not found his new ’Mech with any of the dealers 
  who catered to the mercenary trade, but what he’d seen of the 
  market was encouraging. There were a lot of second string 
  and salvage BattleMechs available, and more arriving every 
  day—a windfall of units all over the Inner Sphere standing 
  down from Civil War levels. He’d been tempted by a beauti-
  ful Grasshopper 5-J, but though he liked the SRM/2’s close-in 
  punch, he wasn’t sure it was worth the loss of the LRM/5. And 
  he did not like trading the two torso-mounted medium lasers 
  
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  for the anti-missile system and extended-range upgrade for 
  the large laser.
  If there had been a pristine 5-H available at that price.... 
  And pristine was a key factor. Between his salvage cheque (re-
  imbursed by Giovanni before they’d lifted from Noisiel) and the 
  value of the Star League-era Crockett parts salvaged from El Giza, 
  he had nearly enough capital to take his pick of BattleMechs with-
  out having to settle for a fixer-upper.
  Silverlake had been in his element bartering the esoteric parts 
  he’d accumulated for the Irregulars’ ’Mech customizing shop on 
  Noisiel for more useful items. When purchases were unavoidable, 
  Giovanni Simson’s up-front payment on the ill-fated mission to 
  Saravan gave them plenty of room to negotiate. 
  Their chief engineer had acquired a central transfer assembly 
  needed to make their Swiftwind scout car—originally assem-
  bled from parts scavenged from hulks abandoned in a junkyard 
  on Wallis—mobile. However, he was particularly pleased with a 
  sophisticated six-tube ATM system with complete ammo feed as-
  sembly and control module.
  The only drawback to the purchase was the unit did not fit any 
  ’Mech the Irregulars currently fielded. Silverlake was sure adapt-
  ing Marcus Green’s Raijin was possible, but couldn’t get the 
  MechWarrior to agree. Green maintained the loss of his hyper-re-
  liable Holly six-rack—not to mention the collateral reductions of 
  his armor and ammo—was in no way an “upgrade.” 
  Jake suspected the engineer missed putting together one-off 
  customs for the Noisiel Games more than he would admit.
  In any event Silverlake had made a strong enough case for the 
  ATM’s eventual utility—if only as a future trade item—that Ariel 
  had approved the substantial investment.
  Silverlake had been reporting all ’Mechs battle-ready—with 
  a few upgrades along the way—and all vehicles fully opera-
  tional when Reema had come into the cabin Jake and Ariel 
  had taken as their ward room. She handed a data crystal to 
  Sergeant-Major Pauls, then taken a seat across the table from 
  the two captains.
  She met Jake’s smile with an oddly blank expression. Combined 
  with her not sitting beside him, it set off his internal alarms.
  
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  Jake missed the tail end of Silverlake’s summary as he ran a 
  quick inventory of past actions to try and pin down exactly where 
  he’d screwed up. He came up blank and tentatively identified the 
  source of her mood as something on the data crystal rather than 
  himself—a theory supported by Pauls’s grunt as he’d read the data 
  on his noteputer.
  After Silverlake had left, Pauls passed his ‘puter over to Jake.
  Now, with three pairs of eyes watching him, Jake read down 
  through a standard-issue last will and testament form, wondering 
  what had caused Reema’s stare and Pauls’s grunt.
  He found it buried on screen three.
  “Christian left you his Spector?” 
  Reema nodded. 
  “Any idea why?”
  From the corner of his eye Jake caught Ariel’s glare, but watched 
  Reema.
  “We knew each other,” Reema answered, her voice flat. “We 
  had... history.”
  “Before?”
  “That pretty much goes with history,” Reema’s voice took on an 
  edge of annoyance. The first animation she’d shown since coming 
  in. 
  “When before?” Jake pressed. “You mean before the Chaos 
  Irregulars.”
  “Before the Strikers.”
  “Christian’s record with the Hussars was exemplary,” Peregrine 
  Junior—not Ariel—spoke before Jake could. The words were di-
  rected at Reema, but the tone—and repeated glare—were aimed 
  at Jake. “And complete. He never spent time away from the unit.”
  Reema turned a shoulder to Jake to face his co-commander 
  more squarely.
  “He had that Spector when he applied, didn’t he?” she asked.
  “Yes” Ariel acknowledged. “With authenticated provenance.”
  
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  “It’s his ’Mech,” Reema assured them. “He earned it. He just 
  lets—let—people assume it was a gift from Colonel Storm.”
  “You’re telling us that isn’t so.”
  Reema shook her head. 
  “I helped him get it.”
  “How?”
  “It doesn’t matter.”
  “Lieutenant, if it affects the operations or safety of the Chaos 
  Irregulars—”
  “Captain,” Reema cut Peregrine Junior off. 
  Jake hadn’t thought that could be done. 
  “Anything that could hurt the outfit, you’d know immediately,” 
  Reema’s voice was hard; not confrontational, but brooking no re-
  buttal. “The contract’s confidentiality clause limits what I can say 
  otherwise.”
  Peregrine Junior held the lieutenant’s eye for a long three count, 
  then nodded, accepting the professional answer.
  Pursuing his own line of thought, Jake tried to remember any 
  indication that Reema had known Christian. The two had never 
  socialized and seldom spoke outside the requirements of duty; 
  he couldn’t recall her ever being more than lukewarm toward the 
  other MechWarrior. In fact, now that he was thinking of it, she had 
  been downright short tempered whenever the other scout was 
  mentioned. Almost as though...
  “When you say history,” he said, trying to sound casual, “do you 
  mean just getting the ’Mech together history or history history?”
  “Oh.” 
  Jake jumped at Peregrine Junior calling him by name. 
  “That,” she said when she was sure she had his full attention, “is 
  the most stupidly male thing I have ever heard you say.”
  “You haven’t listened long enough,” Reema said dryly.
  No comeback for that.
  
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  Jake frowned at the noteputer again. No mention at all of 
  Christian’s family in the will. The Spector to Reema, all savings, 
  possessions, and back pay to the general survivors’ fund. A man 
  with no history outside the Irregulars. 
  How had Reema come by the will? And why had she been hold-
  ing it until now? Though he didn’t think she had. By her affect this 
  was news to her, too.
  He wanted to ask, but questions about the man were tripping 
  mines. Maybe another tack....
  “So what are you going to do with the Mongoose?” he asked.
  “Keep it.” Reema sounded surprised he’d asked. “I’m a Mongoose 
  jockey.”
  “But the Spector has stealth armor, top of the line ECM, and a 
  large laser,” Jake kept his voice light. He knew enough to spot he 
  was on the verge of another tactical error, but couldn’t quite make 
  out the trip wire. “It may not be quite as fast as the Mongoose, but 
  it jumps.”
  “My only ride is that Mongoose,” Reema snapped. “You like the 
  Spector so much, you keep it.”
  Whoops.
  “That’s not what I meant.”
  “It doesn’t matter,” Reema said, rising. “Captain Peregrine and 
  Sergeant-Major Pauls are my witnesses. The Spector is yours.”
  “The Chaos Irregulars will purchase the Spector from you,” 
  Peregrine Junior countered.
  “We don’t have the budget,” Reema pointed out. She didn’t sit, 
  but she didn’t leave, either.
  “Granted,” Peregrine Junior glanced across at Pauls. “But if you 
  are willing to accept an ‘as able’ payment schedule, Mr. Pauls can 
  draw up a contract giving you an off-the-top percentage of all con-
  tracts and doubling your existing prize percentage until fair market 
  value is reached.”
  Jake nodded confirmation, though no one was looking his way. 
  It was a standard arrangement, no special consideration on either 
  side. Professional. Just the right note to strike at this moment. 
  
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  On the other hand, his negotiating instincts had not been good 
  this afternoon. 
  Some of the tension left Reema’s body.
  “Done,” she said.
  Jake kept the relieved grin from his face, nodding solemnly. He 
  was glad Peregrine Junior had enough respect for his self-control 
  left to not have fired him a warning glance.
  After Pauls and Reema had left to codify the contract, Jake 
  braced himself for the Peregrine assault. Instead, the recruiting 
  poster disappeared, visibly folded away as Ariel resumed com-
  mand. He could never figure out how she did that.
  “How old was Reema when you met her?” Ariel asked out of left 
  field.
  “I don’t know,” Jake shrugged. “I don’t know how old she is 
  now.”
  Ariel cocked an incredulous eyebrow, but let it pass.
  “Did you assume she’d led a cloistered existence before she 
  met you?” she asked. Then, before he could answer: “Or did you, 
  knowing you would someday want to make her your life partner, 
  keep yourself a virgin?”
  Jake kept his mouth shut.
  “I will not pretend I am in any way qualified to give advice on per-
  sonal relationships,” Ariel said, heading off an argument Jake had 
  no intention of raising. “But the prohibition against personal rela-
  tionships in a combat unit predates recorded history—and what 
  just happened is an example of why it’s a good idea.”
  She paused, obviously anticipating a protest, but Jake found no 
  fault with her argument.
  “Oh, so far you’ve just been a jerk,” Ariel shook her head. “But 
  if you don’t get a grip there’s a chance you’ll do some real dam-
  age to both your relationship with Reema and your ability to give 
  Lieutenant Chowla orders.”
  Again she paused. 
  Jake let the silence stretch. 
  
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  Accepting that Jake had no intention of rebutting, she pulled her 
  noteputer to her and tapped the screen to life.
  “We are going up against unknown pirates and our MechWarrior 
  with the most experience in anti-pirate work is out of a ’Mech,” she 
  said briskly; Ariel being businesslike, not Peregrine Junior. “Given 
  that you’re not likely to find one of your own before we engage, 
  which of the machines we have free would you like?”
  “Medicos are proud of the work they did with Albert’s arm,” Jake 
  said. “If we get to a world with the med technology to do the nerve 
  work, he’s likely to get a full prosthetic. He’ll be wanting back into 
  his Valkyrie. 
  “That leaves Dwight’s old Enforcer.”
  Dwight Martin had been part of the First Company’s Alpha Lance. 
  He’d been killed on El Giza along with five others fighting crack 
  Capellan Warrior House MechWarriors. His family had wanted no 
  part of his salvaged Enforcer, taking its value in cash.
  “You’re forgetting the Spector.”
  Jake actually had forgotten the Spector, not relating it to the dis-
  cussion at hand. And now that he was reminded of it, he found he 
  didn’t like the idea.
  “I don’t really think that’s the best option,” he said.
  This time Ariel raised both eyebrows.
  “As you pointed out, it’s twice as fast as the Enforcer, jumps 
  nearly twice as far, has stealth technology, and mounts a sensor 
  array second only to the Mongoose, and then just barely,” Ariel 
  ticked off the features in rapid succession. “The only thing you 
  lose is the autocannon, but you gain two medium lasers—a fair 
  trade; particularly when you consider they need no ammo and 
  don’t have recoil.”
  “We’re not going to be fighting in zero-gee,” Jake pointed out. 
  Why that myth about pirate hunting persisted...
  “You’re rated expert in null-gee combat,” Ariel countered, as 
  though that were relevant.
  “In my Grasshopper,” Jake said. “Twice the mass. Whole differ-
  ent physics.”
  “Size is not important,” Ariel dismissed the objection with a wave. 
  
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  Jake bit his tongue. 
  “Having you in anything less than the best BattleMech available 
  could cost us lives,” Ariel said. “Are you going to accept that fact? 
  Or is this one of those situations where we have to call in Chowla 
  and Davis to tell us which one of us is being an ass?”
  
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  JumpShip Sanibel 
  Swartklip zenith recharge station 
  16 September 3067
  Jake would have pulled himself up the ladder into the zero grav-
  ity of the hub, but Ariel headed for the elevator. The small car was 
  designed to give passengers time to adjust to the loss of gravity 
  and took nearly a minute to rise sixty meters.
  Jake pushed off the doorframe, launching himself toward the 
  handhold on the far wall. Catching the loop by the through corri-
  dor that led toward the bow, he grinned back at Ariel as she made 
  her way around the wall, moving grimly from one tightly held 
  hand-hold to the next.
  He’d seen some would-be spacers try swimming from point to 
  point, only to need rescue. Air wasn’t thick enough to swim in, 
  the kicks and arm swings spacers used in moving from place to 
  place did not propel them forward. The motions imparted spin or 
  minutely altered the dynamics of their trajectory.
  “You should try jumping,” he urged when she reached him.
  “There’s a reason I did not have breakfast before making this 
  trek,” she answered. “I jump and you get clean up duty.”
  “Mind your grip there,” Jake advised.
  “Thought so.”
  As they neared officer country, Jake kept pace with Ariel; pre-
  senting a unified front even if it doubled his travel time to the 
  captain’s ready room.
  The Sanibel was an ancient Tramp-class JumpShip. An im-
  posing vessel, nearly the size of a Star Lord—though it could 
  accommodate only three DropShips—and heavily armed by ci-
  vilian standards. The gentry ruling Main Street, Engadine, Elume, 
  and Swartklip had formed a four-planet cooperative and retained 
  the JumpShip to carry the Irregulars wherever their pirate hunt 
  led them.
  According to the historical plaque mounted in the passengers’ 
  common area of the grav deck, the Sanibel had been part of the 
  colonization of over a dozen worlds in the Timbuktu and Melissia 
  regions. None of the planet names were significant to Jake.
  
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  What had been significant was the speed with which the Mule-
  class Clermont had made the journey from Khartoum to Howick, 
  where the Sanibel had picked it up for the final jump to Swartklip. 
  Three jumps in six days was a personal record; he doubted mili-
  tary couriers moved that swiftly.
  Eloquent testimony to the effort and expense their employers 
  were willing to invest in solving their pirate problems. Useful in-
  tel.
  Two men—clothed in turbans, widely bloused shirts and trou-
  sers cinched at wrists and ankles—stood against one wall of the 
  corridor ahead. Which in zero-g meant they were tethered to the 
  bulkhead. They were posted at either side of the hatch leading into 
  the Sanibel’s wardroom, which had become the situation room for 
  the duration of the pirate hunt.
  The door guards weren’t part of the Sanibel’s crew, of course. 
  They were part of the honor guard brought by Sir Guydell Daniel—
  eldest son and heir apparent to Engadine’s Lord President Alistar 
  Daniel. Sir Guydell’s Seeker-class DropShip—with the improb-
  able name of Rooter—had docked with the Sanibel as soon as the 
  JumpShip had arrived at Swartklip.
  The young Daniel bore a letter of marque from his father saying 
  he and his troops of unspecified number and composition were at 
  the disposal of the Chaos Irregulars in their quest for the pirates. 
  However, Sir Guydell clearly believed he was the pirate hunter and 
  the Chaos Irregulars supporting players who were quite likely to 
  be unnecessary to his mission.
  So far he’d had the wit to not try issuing orders, but to date that 
  was his only display of good personal judgment.
  Jake knew it was not the guards’ fault they worked for an idiot. 
  They had to be aware of how ridiculous they looked providing “se-
  curity” while tied to the wall. 
  Ariel nodded to each formally before making her methodical 
  way through the hatch. Jake was careful to keep any trace of pity 
  from his expression as he repeated her gesture.
  It took considerably more effort for him to extend the same pro-
  fessional courtesy to Sir Guydell. In fact Jake had trouble taking the 
  man seriously at all. From the young noble’s waxed and pointed 
  beard to the flowing robes of state cinched tightly about his pear-
  shaped form, every aspect of the man bordered on caricature. 
  
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  Jake managed a curt nod that went unreturned.
  No doubt he assumed I was bowing.
  Dismissing the brightly colored balloon pinned to the wall, Jake 
  smiled and nodded to the master of the Sanibel with genuine re-
  spect.
  Anton Kaiman was clearly a man who had lived his life in space. 
  Though evidently older than most, his dancer’s body had aged 
  without lines, making it impossible to judge if he was sixty or 
  eighty. More to the point, he was obviously a man who was ex-
  actly where he wanted to be doing what he wanted to do. 
  At the moment he was floating. Lightly tethered to a web chair, 
  he listened as his passengers discussed the mission while keep-
  ing a fond eye on the repeater screens that kept him apprised of 
  the situation on the bridge.
  Though the Main Street region was coreward of his usual routes, 
  Captain Kaiman had developed detailed personal charts over a 
  lifetime in space—no doubt building on personal charts he’d in-
  herited from his predecessor. He’d made copies of those star 
  charts that might prove relevant to the mission available to the 
  pirate hunters.
  Studying them with Ariel, Jake had been impressed. The holo-
  images not only located the worldless suns in the region—stars 
  not listed on the commercial or political maps where JumpShips 
  could recharge—but provided detailed information on radiation, 
  recharge times and possible asteroid resources for each. Decades 
  of pragmatic experience made matter-of-factly available. 
  Very professional. 
  Also a professional—or at least a career soldier—was Hauptmann 
  Erich Danaldo, Main Street’s contribution to the pirate-hunting 
  force. Only a single company of battlesuited infantry, but—having 
  observed some of their zero-gee exercises—Jake was confident 
  they knew what being in combat was all about.
  The interests of the other two worlds making up the consortium 
  that had hired the Irregulars were represented by Administrator 
  Verna Parlane, manager of Swartklip’s extensive repair yards. 
  Though the system was usually dismissed as a backwater by both 
  the major ship lines and the military, its orbital network of re-
  pair and refitting facilities made Swartklip the major hub of local 
  JumpShip traffic. 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  A severe woman in a no-nonsense jumpsuit, Parlane did not com-
  port herself as the manager of what was essentially a system-wide 
  service station. In fact, she was the only one present who’d brought 
  an assistant—a square-jawed, blonde fellow with a noteputer and a 
  comm headset. At the moment the headset was dark and secured 
  around his neck, but Jake bet that outside this secure meeting he 
  kept her in constant contact with every orbiting repair yard.
  Swartklip’s military resources were committed to defending the 
  drydocks and orbital warehouses. A prudent strategy in the short 
  term. Though Swartklip would not be actively involved in the pi-
  rate hunt itself, from what Jake could parse they were the biggest 
  investor.
  Elume, according to the background briefing that had accom-
  panied the job offer, was a protectorate of Swartklip. Beyond that, 
  the Irregulars had little information. Ariel’s theory—supported by 
  Pauls’ analysis of the few hard data available—was the agricultural 
  world was a vassal state—economically, industrially and militarily 
  dependent on Swartklip. 
  Other than food, Elume’s primary export seemed to be accoun-
  tants. Indirect anecdotal evidence indicated the people of Elume 
  were known for their thrift and attention to detail, making them 
  popular choices for dead-end middle management positions. 
  Whatever their resources, the world apparently lacked the where-
  withal to contribute directly to the pirate hunt; simply naming 
  Parlane as their proxy in all decisions.
  The moment the steward—having distributed bulbs of coffee and 
  fruit drink—had sealed the hatch behind him, Sir Guydell aimed a 
  remote control at the holographic globe of stars suspended in the 
  center or the ward room. The star chart trebled in size as the scale 
  adjusted to a level he evidently found comfortable. A numbered 
  star system—one without planets—began to pulse an angry red.
  “The pirates’ lair is located here,” Guydell Daniel said. He spoke 
  as though briefing Jake and Ariel on their assignments.
  Which was probably what he thought he was doing, Jake thought. 
  Nothing summed up the Lyran mindset more succinctly than an 
  untalented and ill-informed noble assuming he was in charge 
  simply because his mum had the wit to lay down for the right of-
  fer. Training, experience, skill, intelligence—none of that mattered 
  when weighed in the balance against random chance and a titled 
  bestowed so many generations ago no one knew who had earned 
  it or why.
  
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  Recognizing his prejudice for what it was, Jake reined in. Rejecting 
  the young noble’s argument simply because a young noble had 
  made it was every bit as stupid as DNA-powered arrogance.
  Forcing down his natural dislike for the man, Jake considered 
  the point on its merits. The sun was worldless—thus not on the 
  standard navigation charts—and nearly central to the four inhabit-
  ed systems; the combination gave its selection a sort of sense, but 
  it had no other features to recommend it. And the raids had not 
  been evenly distributed among the worlds, which argued against 
  it.
  “That position is not obvious,” Hauptmann Danaldo said, saving 
  Jake the trouble. “Or even likely.”
  He glanced around, making sure he had the ship’s master and 
  both of the Chaos Irregulars co-commanders’ attention—and per-
  mission—before continuing. 
  “Where their staging area is or is not is not as important as deter-
  mining a pattern to their attacks,” he said. “We need to anticipate 
  and respond, not react after the fact.”
  Competent, Jake thought, but a reactive rather than a proactive 
  response. However ...
  “Perhaps a two-pronged attack,” Jake said aloud. “We have the 
  resources. One to seek out where the pirates are coming from, the 
  other to prepare a trap where they are likely to strike next.”
  Jake felt Ariel stir beside him, and saw Kaiman’s eyes flick to her 
  sharply. But she said nothing and the Sanibel’s master apparently 
  lost interest.
  “Their last raid was against Engadine,” Sir Guydell said. “We 
  proved no easy target and they withdrew in disarray.”
  “Elume has little of value,” Danaldo said, ignoring the noble’s 
  misrepresentation. “Early raids against them were for industri-
  al equipment they were importing. Still crated, it never made it 
  beyond the DropPort. Now there’s nothing but farms and the fac-
  tories the equipment was supposed to go in.”
  “Factories,” Ariel echoed. “Were they developing any sort of mil-
  itary production?”
  “Farm equipment,” Parlane’s assistant spoke up. He glanced at 
  his employer for permission before continuing. “We’ve begun 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  developing our virgin territories. Given the scope of the project, 
  building our own equipment made more economic sense than im-
  porting.”
  Jake gave points to Ariel and Pauls. The Swartklip administra-
  tor had an assistant so far down on the food chain he didn’t rate 
  an introduction and the man’s one contribution—given only with 
  permission—was about the economics of agriculture. That ten-
  second interjection confirmed all of their suppositions.
  “Which leaves Swartklip or Main Street,” Jake said, filing the 
  Elume situation for later consideration. “Given the heavy traffic in 
  and out of here and the Swartklip Planetary Militia’s heavy pres-
  ence on all shipyard facilities, Main Street looks more likely.”
  “Particularly given the materiel we’re importing,” Danaldo said. 
  “After the Ninth pulled out, Morrison’s Extractors hit us hard. Lost 
  a lot of industrial ’Mechs—mining and lumber. With the war, get-
  ting replacements to us was way down on the priority list.”
  Jake nodded. This—like the more accurate account of the pirates’ 
  devastating raid on Engadine—was familiar information, but he 
  played it as though hearing it for the first time.
  He glanced at Ariel. His co-commander’s face was thoughtful. 
  Turning to face him, she arched the eyebrow away from their au-
  dience. He could never manage the one-eyebrow trick. He could, 
  however, wink. He winked the eye only she could see.
  She nodded. Acknowledging she would back whatever he had 
  in mind.
  “I think I see where you are going with this,” she said aloud, set-
  ting up his play.
  The kid is developing skills.
  “Captain Kaiman, is the Sanibel’s third docking ring commit-
  ted?”
  “Not at the moment.”
  “Hauptmann Danaldo,” Jake said, turning to the other officer. 
  “Am I correct in understanding the IndustrialMechs are inbound 
  now?”
  The Main Street officer considered, then seemed to realize his 
  pause answered the question.
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 0
  “The JumpShip to carry them to Main Street arrived two days 
  ago,” he said. “The JumpShip bringing them here is scheduled to 
  arrive before it recharges.”
  Parlane looked to her assistant, who nodded without speaking, 
  evidently confirming the information.
  “It would have been wise to keep all parties involved in combat-
  ing these pirates informed of such shipments,” Sir Guydell said, 
  frowning. “To lose a dozen IndustrialMechs because you failed to 
  take basic precautions would be grossly negligent.”
  “Not broadcasting the particulars of a valuable shipment is a ba-
  sic precaution,” Jake answered before the bristling Danaldo could 
  respond. “However, now that we do know about it, I suggest we 
  use the information to trap the pirates.”
  “How?”
  “Substitute the Clermont for the DropShip carrying the 
  IndustrialMechs,” Jake said. “When the pirates try to grab it, 
  they’ll find themselves facing the Chaos Irregulars. We should 
  make short work of their raiding force.”
  He indicated the space around them with a wave of his hand.
  “We can’t make the switch here at Swartkilp; too many wit-
  nesses,” he explained. “But if we take the other DropShip aboard 
  the Sanibel, we can simply drop the Clermont in its place at Main 
  Street.”
  “Where will our IndustiralMechs be?” Danaldo asked.
  “Engadine should be safe,” Jake answered. “The pirates are un-
  likely to go back there.
  “We’ll send a small force of our own people with them just in 
  case, of course. To augment Engadine’s planetary militia should 
  the pirates surprise us.”
  “I did not come all this way just to go home and watch some-
  one else’s merchandise,” Sir Guydell snapped. “These pirates 
  have ravaged our planet. Honor demands the Daniels—and the 
  Engadine Militia—will be in on the kill.”
  “Destroying the raiding party will not be the kill,” Jake said, not 
  pointing out that ‘all this way’ was a single jump from the noble’s 
  home system. “Only the destruction of their base will accomplish 
  that.” 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  He indicated the star system still pulsing in the center of the ho-
  lographic chart. 
  “While we engage their raiders, you and your force will capture 
  their lightly defended home base,” he explained. “That will be the 
  blow that matters; the significant victory.”
  Sir Guydell scowled at the pulsing red star system. His thick lips 
  pursed, thrusting out then pulling in rhythmically as he thought.
  “Your plan is flawed,” he said at last. “It assumes the pirates will 
  wait meekly by while the Sanibel transports the IndustrialMechs 
  to Engadine, then jumps from there to their home system.”
  “I think it takes into account how long it will take information of 
  the IndustrialMechs’ arrival to reach them,” Jake let a defensive 
  note creep into his voice.
  “Sir Guydell has a point, Major Jacoam,” Ariel said, using the 
  honorary shipboard promotion. There was only one “Captain” on 
  any ship. “Your plan will only work with a second JumpShip.”
  “We don’t have the budget for that,” Jake said. “Better to break 
  the operation into two phases. Destroy the raiding force, then 
  clean out their den.”
  “That would also free up Sir Guydell’s forces to guard the 
  IndustrialMechs while we engage the pirates,” Ariel agreed. “I am 
  not comfortable with splitting the Irregulars when facing an un-
  known enemy.”
  “No.”
  Ariel and Jake faced the Engadine noble.
  “I will not be relegated to a supporting position by—” 
  He stopped himself, which surprised Jake. He had a small bet 
  as to what descriptor the noble had been about to assign the 
  Irregulars.
  “We have the resources to hire a second JumpShip,” Sir Guydell 
  went on more calmly. “The Rooter could strike the pirates’ home 
  system while your forces wait in hiding.”
  Jake shook his head doubtfully.
  “Finding another JumpShip on such short notice...”
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  “I believe I can help there,” Captain Kaiman spoke up. “The mas-
  ter of the Captiva, another Tramp-class JumpShip, is a personal 
  friend. 
  “In her most recent communiqué, she told me the Captiva is cur-
  rently between runs, having just undergone minor repairs at the 
  Canal shipyards,” he smiled and nodded to the Engadine noble. “I 
  am sure Captain McAllister would be more than happy to trans-
  port the Rooter.
  “There are few things she hates more than new pirates moving 
  into our area.”
  v v v
  “What did you notice?” 
  Captain Jacoam had saved his traditional debriefing opener un-
  til they were back in their office aboard the Clermont and he’d 
  triggered the white noise generator. 
  Ariel didn’t blame him. The one time her co-commander had let 
  his mistrust of employers slide, the Chaos Irregulars had nearly 
  been destroyed. Only an honorable Warrior House’s refusal to 
  eradicate a defeated opponent had saved them.
  Ariel fastened her lap strap, securing herself to a chair before 
  answering. A glance at the chronometer confirmed it was another 
  forty-eight minutes before she could safely take another vertigo 
  pill. 
  She had hoped to return to the Sanibel’s grav deck, but Jacoam 
  had pushed past it. He’d had no intention of discussing strategy 
  in public.
  He hung in the air, waiting with blank patience as she tested 
  each buckle and apparently oblivious to the fact that he was slow-
  ly pinwheeling.
  He’s doing that on purpose, damn him.
  Shoving that insight aside she considered the question—familiar 
  since Wallis.
  “Sir Guydell—either the Daniel family is dangerously inbred or 
  he’s putting on an act,” she said. “He knew all about the Main 
  Street shipment—including the fact it included a dozen ’Mechs—
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  and once he heard we were planning on sitting tight and waiting 
  for the pirates to come to us he was as anxious to get away from 
  us as you were to get rid of him.”
  Jacoam nodded, though given his ninety-degree relative rota-
  tion it took her mind a moment to identify the gesture.
  “And what’s the plan?” he asked.
  “Deliver the IndustrialMechs safely to Main Street, probably with 
  a highly visible token force,” she said readily. “And set a nasty trap 
  at Engadine.”
  Again Jacoam nodded—the upside-down motion more easily 
  recognizable.
  Ariel glanced at the chronometer. Forty-seven minutes.
  “No doubt the details of our little confab were broadcast the mo-
  ment our friend was aboard the Rooter,” he said. “Who would 
  name a military DropShip after a truffle pig anyway?”
  “Truffle pig?” Ariel asked. “A Rooter is a hunter who takes part 
  in the Rooting. That’s an annual hunt on Engadine to control the 
  nolan population.”
  “And nolans are...?”
  “You didn’t read up on these worlds at all, did you?”
  Jacoam shrugged sideways. The motion accelerated his spin.
  “Economics, military assets, tactical stuff,” he said. “Didn’t check 
  out the local fauna. I take it the nolan is a nasty?”
  “Humanoid, three meters tall, clawed, fanged, and poisonous,” 
  Ariel said. “On Engadine, Rooters are real tough guys.
  “Stop!”
  Without asking what he was to stop, Jacoam snagged a hand 
  strap and halted his spin in a relatively upright position.
  “No matter what the name means,” he said, “No-p taught me 
  any heavily armed military vessel in the hands of an unregulated 
  individual is cause for concern.”
  Ariel nodded at the reference to Giovanni Simson. She was not 
  sure if the wave of unease resulted from the ill-considered gesture 
  or the thought of the rogue scion of the Simson industrial empire. 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  Probably a bit of both. 
  The Hamilcar owner had tricked them into holding off a company 
  of Word of Blake militia while he raided his own family’s coffers; 
  then abandoned them mid-mission. But not before he had con-
  vinced Ariel that the two of them had a future together. Her plan 
  of action if—when—she found Giovanni Simson again changed 
  with her mood.
  With an effort she pulled her mind back to the situation at hand.
  The Rooter was registered as belonging to the Daniel family, not 
  the government of Engadine. Adding to the potential cause for 
  worry, the notoriously flexible Seeker could be configured to carry 
  a dozen different combinations of troops and ordnance—rang-
  ing from aerospace fighters to BattleMechs. The Ducal heir had 
  been quite pointed in not telling the Irregulars what assets he had 
  brought along.
  “While we’re on the subject of ship’s names,” she said. “There’s 
  another bet we may be missing. According to the commemorative 
  plaque in the passenger area, the Sanibel is one of a run of Tramp-
  class JumpShips that were used in the colonization of much of 
  what is now the Melissia and Timbuktu theaters.”
  “I saw that,” Jacoam said. “The Sanibel is over two hundred 
  years old. So what?”
  “It’s sister ships were the Canaveral, Largo, Key West, and Captiva,” 
  Ariel said. “All but the Largo and Sanibel are cited as lost. What are 
  the odds on Captain Kaiman’s friend commanding a Tramp with 
  the same name as a lost ship with that much history? Shipbuilders 
  tend to be pretty superstitious about things like that.”
  “Maybe someone not afraid to use a famous name,” Jacoam said. 
  “Or maybe the ship’s not so lost. It’s hard to imagine Kaiman being 
  casual about it if that was the case, but you might be on to some-
  thing. I’ll put Pauls on it. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.
  “That by itself wouldn’t have tripped your wire,” he added. “What 
  makes you think Kaiman may not be on the level?”
  “I’m not sure,” Ariel admitted. “But something seems a little 
  off.”
  “That’s enough for me,” Jacoam said. “I’ll add him to the watch 
  list.”
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  “Who else is on your list?” Ariel asked.
  “Everyone but Danaldo,” Jake said. “So I’m watching him par-
  ticularly closely.”
  Ariel smiled, remembering not to nod, and glanced at the chro-
  nometer. Forty-two minutes.
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  JumpShip Sanibel 
  Swartklip zenith recharge station 
  17 September 3067
  Reema Chowla reached back and up, snagging the irregular 
  projection with the tips of her three longest fingers. Pulling, then 
  pushing off too hard—the warning twinge shot up through her el-
  bow and along her triceps—she redirected her flight. Forty-degree 
  course change and a burst of speed. She didn’t waste energy try-
  ing to kick the wall. Correcting for the gross motion would cost her 
  more momentum than she would gain.
  Arcing through free air far from handholds, she stretched one 
  arm over her head, along her flight path, and swung the other 
  through a long sweep. The sort of motion holovids called swim-
  ming through the air. In fact she was imparting spin, rotating along 
  her long axis to get a panoramic view of the exercise hold.
  On every side fabric and metal shapes projected from the walls. 
  Varying in size from barely enough to cling to enough to shroud a 
  light ’Mech, they were temporary structures, portable features to 
  alter the “terrain” of the null-gee combat chamber. Of the cargo 
  hold being used as a null-gee combat chamber. 
  A half dozen inflated survival tents floated aimlessly—ersatz as-
  teroids to complete the illusion of space combat. Not that anyone 
  ever actually fought under these conditions.
  According to the signs by the hatch, this hold was usually a small 
  craft bay. Reema kept her mind away from the thought that one 
  of these apparently solid walls could swing open to space with 
  the press of a button and focused on locating the opposition. Or 
  rather, enticing the opposing team into locating themselves.
  Her partner, Jarmae Heather, was a dozen meters away, scurry-
  ing crab-like from cover to cover along what Reema’s eyes said 
  should be the ceiling. There were no magnetic surfaces and no 
  hook-and-pile grabber pads allowed; the other MechWarrior was 
  keeping to cover with fingertips and toes on the uneven bulkhead.
  Flash of motion.
  Reema tucked her knees up into her chest, taking the uncontrolled 
  spin as fair trade for becoming a smaller—and erratic—target. 
  Head down, she didn’t see where the paintball went, beyond the 
  fact it missed. 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  Either Cherry or Andrews was in for a quick lecture after the 
  match. If the shooter had waited a half second, Reema would have 
  rotated a few more degrees away. The paintball’s impact would 
  have been her first warning she was being fired on.
  On the heels of that thought was a faint tug at the shoulder of 
  her jumpsuit.
  Chin to her chest, she rolled her eyes to examine the epaulet. No 
  paint smear. The glancing impact of the second shot had not been 
  sufficient to burst the globule. She was still in the game.
  The training pistols had twenty second trigger locks, which 
  meant the second shot had been fired by the second opponent. 
  Just as she was drawing their fire for Jars, they had coordinated 
  their shots—the first to make her dodge, the second to hit her once 
  she was committed to the evasive action and unable to respond.
  No lecture necessary. But maybe a few extra sessions at the 
  range for whoever had fired the second shot.
  Unfurling from her tightly tumbling tuck, Reema grabbed the up-
  per edge of a ’Mech-sized trapezoid. Fabric, not metal, it gave at 
  her touch, over a meter pulling from the frame before it caught. 
  Swinging through an awkward jackknife, Reema arrowed feet first 
  into an inky patch of shadow.
  And slammed into a black-painted surface two meters closer than 
  she thought it was. Pain exploded in her ankle, shot up through to 
  top of her head.
  “Damndamndamndamndamn,” Reema chanted under her 
  breath. 
  One arm hooked through a loop of fabric tie-down, she curled 
  into a ball and held the wounded ankle in both hands. It was ten-
  der, but not broken. A landing like that with gravity augmenting 
  her momentum and she’d have been on her back for weeks. As it 
  was she had several days of limited motion ahead.
  She had nothing to splint the sprained joint, so she made a mental 
  note not to bang it into anything and pulled herself hand-over-
  hand along the ridge of folding structures disguising the bulkhead. 
  She kept to the tops of the forms, not being blatant about it, but 
  remaining at least partially visible at all times. The limply trailing 
  leg provided justification for her avoiding the confined spaces of 
  proper cover.
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  “Damn!” Cherry’s voice. 
  Reema deduced her partner had made a kill. Which meant the 
  movement to her left had to be Tim Andrews. The Assassin pilot 
  was still out of range for the pneumatic paint guns, but was clos-
  ing quickly. He’d apparently given up on the stealth which had 
  brought him so close in an effort to finish her quickly before going 
  after Jars.
  Which is one reason he’ll never be a true scout.
  To Andrews’ own left, Jars broke cover with a triumphant cry. 
  Her normally polished helmet of blonde hair was a wildly spiked 
  cloud in the zero gravity, adding an air of dementia to her broad 
  grin. Head and shoulders above a metal scaffolding, she snapped 
  a left-hand shot that pasted a neon green streak across the bulk-
  head half a meter in front of her target.
  Andrews grinned. With the twenty-second trigger lockout, Jars’ 
  gun was now useless. He took his time lining up on the still ex-
  posed Quickdraw pilot.
  And took her second shot in the face.
  “What the hell?” Andrews wiped at the gooey paint. “Bypassing 
  the lock is a damn cheat.”
  Jarmae said nothing. One leg hooked around the scaffolding, 
  she held up two pistols. Reema had both her empty hands raised 
  by the time Andrews looked her way.
  “The rules say each person is issued one gun,” Jarmae said. 
  “Nothing says they have to keep it.” 
  “I was the flush, she was the kill,” Reema added. “Old, old, 
  trick.”
  “But a good one,” said an unfamiliar voice.
  Reema spun, strained fingers protesting as they anchored her 
  sudden rotation. With an effort she smoothed her reflexive hap-
  kido null-g ja sae into an attitude of polite interest. There would be 
  no enemies aboard the Sanibel. 
  But no one snuck up on her, dammit. 
  This particular no one was an infantryman in unfamiliar grey and 
  tan combat fatigues floating with the confidence of a lifetime’s 
  experience half a dozen meters out of reach. A blonde sergeant, 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  physically as imposing as Jake, and with a long-time tan on his 
  neck and arms and his face burned chestnut brown. Lots of time 
  outdoors; lots of time in a space suit.
  With a toe push-off so gentle even Reema almost missed it, he 
  drifted easily toward them. Against the spacer tan his sapphire 
  eyes seemed to glow beneath silver-white brows. The effect was 
  strangely artificial, like a mask
  “Sergeant Tanner, Elume Planetary Militia, at your service,” the 
  stranger introduced himself with a holovid-star perfect smile. His 
  eyes lit with the smile, shattering the mask effect.
  Reema noted Sergeant Tanner, Elume Planetary Militia, was ig-
  noring her—and Andrews and Cherry—to address Jarmae directly. 
  She knew Jars had made the same realization when the senior 
  lieutenant swept a free-floating strand of her blonde hair behind 
  her ear. A futile gesture given that without gravity the rest of her 
  mop still spiked in a dozen directions.
  Tanner made a click deep in his throat and six other fatigued fig-
  ures materialized from cover. 
  Reema caught herself checking escape routes and reined herself 
  in. These were not enemies. She’d just let herself get spooked. 
  Learning she’d spent ten minutes sharing a room with a squad 
  of infantry and never suspected their presence sent her scout re-
  flexes into panic mode.
  “We were mid-exercise when you guys came in,” Tanner ex-
  plained to Jarmae as his men closed to comfortable speaking 
  distance. “At the time, laying low and checking out your moves 
  seemed like a good idea.”
  None of the other Elume militiamen had Tanner’s physical pres-
  ence, Reema saw, but all had the same hard-bodied build. Given 
  their spacer tans and the unconscious grace of their movements in 
  zero gravity, even with equal numbers the Irregulars would have 
  been overmatched. 
  “We thought the bay was empty,” Andrews stated the obvious 
  after general greetings had been exchanged.
  “Good,” Tanner grinned, still looking at Jarmae. “We were work-
  ing on stealth tactics.”
  “I’d say you were pretty good at them already,” Jarmae grinned 
  back. “Any critique on our performance?”
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 0
  Just give him your cabin number, Jars.
  “You fight like MechWarriors,” Tanner said. “Too used to being 
  invincible; not scared enough of what the other guy can do to 
  you.”
  Reema noted Jarmae didn’t seem to realize that hadn’t been 
  a compliment. Andrews and Cherry exchanged glances, but her 
  smile didn’t flicker. Of course, neither did Tanner’s.
  “How did a squad of Elume Militia end up aboard the Sanibel?” 
  Reema asked.
  Her sharp tone flicked Tanner’s eyes her way. And Jar’s, she saw 
  from the corner of her own.
  “There’s a squad of us hitching a ride with the Engadine,” Tanner 
  explained. “We don’t have much in the way of military, so it was 
  easier for us to be plugged in wherever the other militias needed 
  us. Support and the like.”
  “Support,” Reema echoed.
  “Okay, we’re a recon unit,” Tanner confessed, his easy smile re-
  turning. “The Daniel House Guards were light in that department, 
  so they picked us up.”
  Reema filed the fact Sir Guydell had brought his family’s person-
  al guard for the pirate hunt as the conversation around her drifted 
  into the general gossip that usually developed when members of 
  two friendly but unfamiliar units met. She noted the general lack 
  of tension. She was the only one jumpy—but she was the only one 
  who’d fallen down on her job.
  One of the Elume militiamen was looking her way as two of his 
  buddies tag-teamed telling some war story to Cherry and Andrews. 
  Seeing he’d caught her eye, he glanced at her ankle. Reema shook 
  her head, declining the offer of first aid, and he returned his atten-
  tion to the story.
  Jars and Sergeant Hunk had drifted slightly away from center, 
  their conversation more one-on-one.
  Deciding to follow the Elume trooper’s implied advice, Reema 
  pulled herself toward the exit. She knew she’d pass the Sanibel’s 
  infirmary on her way back to the Clermont, but she wanted Irregular 
  medicos to bind her injuries.
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  JumpShip Sanibel 
  Swartklip zenith recharge station 
  18 September 3067
  “Come in, Major,” Kaiman said when Jake stuck his head through 
  the hatchway. “Always a pleasure.”
  Jake pulled himself the rest of the way into the cabin, somer-
  saulting to hook a loop with a boot toe and orient himself with the 
  same “up” as the Sanibel’s master. The Captain’s ready room was 
  a true spacer’s cabin, Jake saw. Every surface employed—work 
  stations and repeater screens arrayed for easy access with no con-
  siderations for such dirtside conceits like “floor” and “ceiling.”
  Kaiman was tethered to a web chair opposite the entrance, look-
  ing a bit ghostly through the low-res hologlobe that filled the 
  center of the cabin. Jake had no doubt the captain could see every 
  data readout and screen from that position; the occasional flick of 
  his eyes indicating nothing escaped his attention.
  “I’d be interested to know how you insinuated your request to 
  see me into the Sanibel’s maintenance net,” he said conversation-
  ally. “That circuit is supposed to be secure.”
  “Routing the secure comm net through a back-up maintenance 
  circuit is a pretty standard dodge,” Jake said. “I hacked in at a main-
  tenance hub in the service tube just below the docking collar.”
  “No interruption in data flow, no missing or added packets other 
  than your uncoded message,” Kaiman confirmed. “And all secu-
  rity measures reset to within four decimal places. You evidently 
  have a talent with secure comm systems.”
  Jake said nothing. He’d known his tap would be found as soon as 
  his message entered the system, which was why he’d resecured 
  the breach. That, and his prompt answer to Kaiman’s challenge, 
  established his professionalism more than anything he could say.
  “Now that you have my undivided attention,” Kaiman said. “What 
  can I do for you?”
  “It is possible we are missing a bet,” Jake said. “And I wanted to 
  see about covering it.”
  “Without involving our mutual employers and their allied forces,” 
  Kaiman nodded. It was not a question. 
  
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  “Elume,” Jake said. “They were the first ones hit, but they haven’t 
  been hit since.”
  “An agricultural world,” Kaiman pointed out. “The manufactur-
  ing equipment was the only portable items of value.”
  “Even agricultural worlds have portable items of value,” Jake 
  said. “Piracy is all about supply and demand—and everything is 
  in demand somewhere.”
  “Just so.”
  “So we have one showy hit on Elume to begin with, then 
  nothing,” Jake ticked the points off on his fingers. “We have 
  no Elume assets of note hunting for the pirates, but there 
  are small contingents of Elume forces attached to every unit 
  engaged in the hunt and Elume middle management types 
  embedded in every civil agency regulating commerce for the 
  four systems.”
  “Interesting,” Kaiman said, drawing out the word. His eyes were 
  focused on some point in the middle distance.
  “I had not connected those particular points,” he said at last. 
  “And I have been giving the problem of new pirates in this region 
  considerable thought.”
  Jake didn’t bother to explain how he’d acquired the habit of 
  questioning employers.
  “That’s because these are not pirates,” he said instead. “I’ve done 
  some checking. Elume started out as an isolationist agro colony, 
  but underestimated the tech they’d need. Swartklip became their 
  company store, trading minimal tech for food. The profits all went 
  one way until Swartklip pretty much owned Elume.”
  “Wouldn’t that model suggest Elume’s manufacturing equipment 
  was stolen by Swartklip?” Kaiman asked. “Or at least someone 
  opposed to their economic independence?”
  Jake held up a finger, letting the JumpShip captain know he 
  would come back to that point.
  “In the last few generations, Elume had been selling food to Main 
  Street and Engadine,” he said. “After Main Street got hit so hard 
  a few years ago, they’ve become dependent on Elume to supply 
  food more cheaply than they can grow their own. And Elume has 
  been steadily expanding their farms.”
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  “They must be selling their produce at a loss.” Kaiman’s eyes 
  narrowed. “But in exchange they’re making their neighbors com-
  pletely dependent on them for food.”
  “Engadine not so much,” Jake said. “But Main Street would be 
  hurt and Swartklip crippled if the Elume food train stopped.”
  “But to benefit from the dependency they’ve fostered, they must 
  be industrially self-sustaining—and able to defend themselves,” 
  Kaiman said. “Otherwise the other worlds would answer any 
  threat by simply taking what they wanted. Or imposing sanctions 
  of their own.”
  Jake spread his hands, palms up, inviting Kaiman to fill in the 
  final links in the chain that had led him to Elume.
  “The initial raid established they were helpless victims,” the 
  spacer said. “And publicly cost them their only chance to develop 
  their own industry. All subsequent raids have taken materiel they 
  need from the other worlds, plus high-ticket items to finance pur-
  chases elsewhere.
  “Well thought out. You’ve covered all the bases.” Kaiman frowned. 
  “Except perhaps where they acquired the assets to conduct these 
  raids.”
  “Mercenaries,” Jake answered promptly. “We’re not the only 
  hired guns in the region and yours is not the only JumpShip avail-
  able for charter.”
  Kaiman opened his mouth as though about to disagree, but 
  snapped it abruptly shut again.
  Jake could see the wheels turning as the old spacer sorted 
  through his knowledge of ships in the region—and which masters 
  would accept a mission of this type. He liked watching profes-
  sional competence in action, and Kaiman had been a JumpShip 
  captain—maybe even captain of the Sanibel—longer than he’d 
  been alive.
  “No one local,” the captain said at last, not explaining what he 
  considered ‘local’. “But there are some on the spinward routes, 
  back toward the New Capetown and Santana runs, who might 
  take on that sort of work.”
  “Elume has strong ties to New Capetown,” Jake said. “It was 
  colonized by a splinter of the same group.”
  
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  “That explains all the blond hair.”
  Jake frowned, but the old spacer did not elaborate on his com-
  ment.
  “What do you propose?” Kaiman asked instead.
  “Since everyone already knows the shipment of IndustrialMechs 
  is going to Engadine and the Main Street shipment is a trap, make 
  Engadine the trap.”
  “Send the ’Mechs to Main Street?”
  “No. Too many people would have to be involved to make the 
  double switch work,” Jake said. “Send the ’Mechs to Engadine. 
  Just use them to bait the real trap. 
  “Since Main Street has militia in place and whatever Engadine 
  assets Sir Guydell has brought along will be out hunting pirates, 
  leaving a large portion of the Irregulars on guard will make sense.”
  Kaiman nodded.
  “That will address the raiding party,” he said. “The mercenar-
  ies you postulate. What do you propose to do about your Elume 
  theory?”
  “Jump route from Swartklip is Elume, Main Street, then Engadine, 
  right?”
  “That’s the standard route,” Kaiman said. “Or if you’d rather give 
  your forces time to entrench on Engadine, we could go there first 
  by way of Neerabup and Willunga.”
  “No,” Jake waved the suggestion away. “We need the Elume ob-
  servers to confirm the dummy delivery to Main Street first.”
  “Ah.”
  Jake’s ears pricked at the spacer’s tone. It occurred to him the 
  suggestion of the Neerabup route had been the captain’s idea of a 
  joke and Jake taking it seriously amused him.
  “My question is,” he pressed on, “can you drop a scout lance at 
  Elume—get them to the planet—without anyone noticing?”
  “One scout lance?”
  “Island continent of Burnis,” Jake said. “Sand. No farms and un-
  inhabited. A fast scout lance could quarter it in a few weeks. By 
  
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  the time the raiders are dealt with and the bulk of the Irregulars 
  arrive, we’ll have the pirate base inventoried down to the last case 
  of toilet paper.”
  Kaiman nodded, accepting Jake’s tactical assessment.
  “So in essence you are asking me to get you on the surface of 
  Elume without anyone on Elume or aboard the Sanibel being any 
  the wiser.”
  “Can you do it?”
  “My knowledge of smuggling is limited to theory,” the spacer 
  pursed his lips, considering. “Still. 
  “Let me discuss this with the master of the Captiva. I think some-
  thing might be managed.”
  
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  JumpShip Sanibel 
  Main Street nadir recharge station 
  26 September 3067
  “Any questions, Lieutenant Heather?” Ariel asked. “Lieutenant 
  Yannis?”
  “Make two platoons of infantry, a few dozen support person-
  nel and three tanks look like a battalion,” Yannis answered. Her 
  shrug lifted her to the extent of the loose strap tethering her to the 
  bulkead. “Not a problem.”
  The sight of the heavyset woman bobbing like a balloon threw 
  Ariel’s stomach into revolt. She hoped her battle to subdue the 
  insurrection wasn’t obvious. 
  Yannis—newly promoted after her performance on Saravan 
  and El Giza—had what Ariel thought of as the Jacoam stamp. Her 
  co-commander favored initiative and competence—qualities he 
  seemed to think precluded adherence to strict observance of con-
  ventions. Many of the officers and noncoms who served under 
  him had an informality, almost a familiarity, when speaking to su-
  perior officers. Only their quick obedience and decisive action in 
  the field made the attitude tolerable. 
  Lieutenant Heather was also a former Sorensen’s Striker, but 
  had a firmer grasp of protocols. She nodded once, acknowledging 
  Ariel’s question.
  “First Beta lance will be fine, Captain,” she said. “Good hunting 
  on Engadine.”
  Ariel saw Yannis pause before entering the tube to the Clermont to 
  exchange a few words and a quick embrace with Darryl Silverlake. 
  The woman of near Elemental proportions and the slight engineer 
  made an odd couple, but even at this range their affection was 
  obvious.
  As had been Heather’s when she’d bid farewell to her new Elume 
  sergeant as the militiaman left with the Rooter. Or Truman and 
  Davis when her former right-hand man had been dropped with 
  Jacoam on Elume. Her co-commander and Reema Chowla had 
  made no public display, of course, but if Ariel was any judge of 
  body language, Jacoam had gone a long way toward repairing the 
  damage he’d done to their relationship.
  
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  The Colonel would have shot officers who behaved this way, Ariel 
  thought as she pulled her way back toward the gravity deck. We’re 
  a traveling soap opera.
  Traveling was the key, she realized. 
  The Chaos Irregulars had no roots. Without a home world to re-
  turn to, a community to which they could belong, the Irregulars 
  would never be completely whole. Their loved ones—those few 
  they had—were on Outreach; her home world and the home world 
  of her father’s Hussars. It would violate their agreement with 
  the Ka—with the pirates of unknown origin—to establish a base 
  there. 
  The top of one of the many radiant ladders leading down to the 
  gravity deck swung by. Ariel let it go. The rubber rollers rumbled 
  as the ring rotated, the heavy skirts gasketing the seam swished 
  and rustled together. The ball bearings far beneath the rubber 
  rollers—or was it outside the rollers from this perspective?—were 
  silent. Which was a good thing. Grinding ball bearings on a turn-
  ing wheel this size...
  Ariel shied away from the thought of a gyro wheel hundreds of 
  meters in diameter flying apart. The massive JumpShip around 
  her would splinter like matchwood.
  At last she saw the elevator rotating toward her, seeming to de-
  scend from her right. Steeling her nerves, she caught one of the 
  passing tether lines. With a jerk that would have dislocated her 
  shoulder if she’d been rooted in gravity, the hand line pulled her 
  into the gravity ring’s rotation. She began working her way grimly 
  toward the elevator.
  A home world provided a larger social context for a mercenary 
  command. Without this context, without ongoing interaction with 
  a world beyond the barracks, the Irregulars would cease to be a 
  purely fighting force and become the community. A stunted, in-
  grown community. 
  Liaisons like the ones she saw forming and rivalries that had not 
  yet surfaced and hundreds of other personal interactions would 
  erode their cohesion. Decisions would become matters of person-
  ality and personal loyalty and not of chain of command or the best 
  interests—the survival—of the whole.
  The informality Jacoam tolerated—encouraged—only acceler-
  ated this process. 
  
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  She had been lax. She had allowed his early successes in uniting 
  the disparate remnants into a working unit persuade her infor-
  mality was acceptable in a fighting force. Perhaps it was, up to 
  a point. But beyond that point it was destructive—and she was 
  seeing signs they had passed that point. She had not drawn the 
  line soon enough. Now she was going to have to hike out—to use 
  one of Jacoam’s sailing analogies—throw her weight as far as she 
  could in the other direction to try and muscle the Irregulars back 
  onto the proper course.
  But the course change would be temporary unless and until they 
  established a home base. Stability came through context.
  But where? Outreach was, well, out of reach. And Noisiel was 
  more a circus than a home. Galatea? What she knew of that arid 
  mercenary hub made her suspect the Irregulars would find little 
  stability or supporting community there.
  Perhaps a world in the Periphery. One with sufficient tech and 
  reason to welcome a mercenary command that would keep them 
  free of pirates. The community relationship they had begun to 
  form with Karst on Wallis was a good model. If the Irregulars 
  could do the same on a border world, they could bring out their 
  technical and support personnel—currently on loan to Colonel 
  Gubser and her Smithson’s Chinese Bandits—along with family 
  members still on Outreach. With a solid base there was no reason 
  they couldn’t go about building the Chaos Irregulars up to a full 
  battalion. Carefully, of course. No need to rush things.
  She made a mental note to set Davis on researching star sys-
  tems. The spinward section of the Melissia Theater, or the 
  Timbuktu Theater. Perhaps even down into Free Worlds League 
  space. Jacoam certainly seemed familiar with that region.
  Thinking of her co-commander reminded her that she wouldn’t 
  be asking Davis to do anything for several weeks. The man who 
  had been her right hand since she’d first mounted a ’Mech was 
  back on Elume scouting for secret bases.
  More to the point, with Jacoam’s ad hoc lance on Elume and 
  Heather’s lance on Main Street, she was down to a light company. 
  Minimal resources with which to face a pirate raiding party of un-
  known composition. 
  Eyewitness reports varied, but the pirates fielded between a 
  demi-company and a company of fast mediums. Solid recordings 
  were sparse—their ability to avoid sensors dovetailed with Jake’s 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  theory about the “pirates” being part of the coalition—but Merlins 
  and Lineholders had been documented. Reliable, low maintenance 
  BattleMechs, well suited to protracted service far from tech sup-
  port. Popular with both Periphery planetary militias and pirates
  If their misdirection was effective, the pirates would believe the 
  bulk of the Irregulars were on Main Street and expect at most a 
  single lance on Engadine. They would most likely come in force—
  quickly overwhelming a limited defense was always the safest 
  tactic. At least two lances—perhaps a whole company. Against 
  an Irregulars force of nine BattleMechs, two platoons of infantry, 
  and assorted support working in concert with whatever assets the 
  Engadine Planetary Militia could spare.
  Close odds, but doable—particularly if they kept the advantage 
  of surprise. 
  If everything went according to plan, the raiding force would 
  be quickly neutralized and the Irregulars—with the support of 
  the Engadine Planetary Militia—would be on their way to relieve 
  Captain Jacoam on Elume.
  Ariel would have been more comforted by her prediction if she 
  could remember a single instance of an Irregulars mission going 
  according to plan.
  
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  Wisdom, Engadine 
  Melissia Theater, Lyran Alliance 
  01 October 3067
  “We undertook this mission with the understanding we would 
  have a free hand,” Ariel said, careful to keep the balance between 
  forceful and insubordinate when addressing a representative of 
  their employers. “There was no mention of additional military in-
  volvement. At this particularly critical stage of the operation, their 
  presence is not only unwarranted but unwise.”
  She, flanked by Lieutenants Chowla and Cherry, faced Colonel 
  Effram Daniel—younger brother of Sir Guydell Daniel and com-
  mander of the Engadine Planetary Militia—in a small meeting 
  room a flight of stairs above the lobby of the DropPort’s spartan 
  passenger terminal. The overhead lights were incandescent, their 
  pale yellow glow contrasting with the flat white snow glare from 
  the wide window.
  Beyond the beak-like nose and heavy brow, Effram Daniel bore 
  little resemblance to his brother. He was taller, more slender, and 
  carried himself with the formal bearing of a trained soldier. His fa-
  tigues, as heavily bloused as those Ariel had seen on the Sanibel, 
  was both neatly creased and comfortably worn—a working sol-
  dier’s uniform.
   However, Colonel Daniel’s apparent competence did not change 
  the fact they had a problem—one Ariel suspected was not going 
  to be resolved to her liking.
  In their focus on the pirates, neither she nor Jacoam had taken 
  the local calendars into account. The Rooting—the annual hunt to 
  curb the nolan population—was just getting under way. Hunters 
  from as far away as Kowloon and Tsarahavana were already on 
  Engadine when the Sanibel had arrived in system, and a dozen 
  idle DropShips now squatted in docking cradles within easy strik-
  ing distance of their cargo of IndustrialMechs.
  Worse, there were hundreds of heavily armed hunting parties 
  wandering freely about the area the Irregulars were supposed 
  to secure, awaiting the drawing that would determine their 
  hunting range. Though the civilian grade hunting rifles could 
  not match military weapons’ rates of fire, their range and knock-
  down power would make them dangerous even to troops in flak 
  gear.
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  Nor were the hunters overgunned for the game they were after.
  Nolan could have been the model for the legendary yeti of Terra. 
  Three meters tall with four arms that ended in razor-sharp claws, 
  the leathery beasts were poisonous, vicious, and persistent. Their 
  dense, mottled hide gave them a chameleon-like ability to blend 
  with any cover and they were consummate ambush hunters.
  Early settlers had believed nolans had limited telepathic abili-
  ty—that the animals could project fear and confusion, driving their 
  prey into a panic before attacking, or influence an adversary into 
  not seeing them even in the open. The truth proved even more 
  insidious: Nolans were nearly as intelligent as Terran dolphins; 
  their ability to evade and attack relied on mind games, not mental 
  powers. They enjoyed setting traps and hunted humans for sport.
  Why the Daniel family didn’t just blast their highland habitat to 
  glass was beyond Ariel.
  “It is only natural that elite infantry scout/sniper teams also make 
  the best Rooter teams,” Daniel had explained. “Tradition holds 
  that as three hunters can be overcome by a single nolan’s charge. 
  Though some daredevils hunt in groups of four, the military seven-
  person squad was the most common model for Rooter teams.”
  All perfectly reasonable, Ariel had to admit. But it did not change 
  the fact that among the—possibly—neutral hunting parties Main 
  Street, Swartzklip, and Elume were each represented by a platoon 
  or more of their best ground troops.
  “Captain, the equivalent of an augmented company represent-
  ing the combined forces of three worlds does not constitute a 
  significant military presence,” Colonel Daniel waved aside her 
  repeated protest with brittle patience. “In fact, despite their 
  small size, I would think these units of elite infantry constitute 
  an asset.”
  Ariel kept her mouth shut. The colonel was unaware of their in-
  sider theory and she meant to keep it that way. Unfortunately, that 
  made her demand that anyone from Elume, Swatzklip or Main 
  Street be kept out of the operation sound petulant. 
  But she could see no way to responsibly retreat from her posi-
  tion. Even without the threat of possible duplicity on the part of 
  some members of the consortium that had hired the Irregulars, 
  the presence of so many ships and uncontrolled military—and 
  paramilitary, and civilian—troops made the situation untenable.
  
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  “Captain,” Cherry spoke up before she could renew her argu-
  ment. “Perhaps this can be used to our advantage.”
  Ariel tried not to look as though her lieutenant had sprouted 
  horns.
  “How so, Lieutenant?” she asked levelly.
  “Colonel Daniel, is it possible to isolate Engadine from anything off 
  planet?” Cherry asked. “I mean block radio traffic, not the HPG.”
  “Blanket the entire world?” Daniel asked, considering. “Not com-
  pletely. But we can certainly white out the inhabited continents. 
  Why?”
  “May I suggest we begin offloading the IndustrialMechs and 
  make initial preparations for their defense,” Cherry spared Ariel 
  a glance before refocusing on the Colonel. “Then order all other 
  DropShips into orbit and jam communications.”
  Reema Chowla chuckled. Ariel didn’t, quite, but her estimation 
  of Lieutenant Cherry went up another notch.
  Colonel Daniel glanced at the two, aware he was a step behind.
  “What good would this do?” he asked.
  “The moment all observers are gone and any on-world agents 
  can no longer get a message out,” Cherry said, “rearrange the 
  set-up.”
  Ariel saw a corner of the Colonel’s mouth twitch as he caught 
  the joke.
  “So the pirates think we are idiots for letting outsiders see what 
  we have planned,” he said. “And get taken by surprise when things 
  are not as they expected.
  “Very clever indeed, Lieutenant.”
  He gave Ariel a clear Why didn’t you think of that? glance before 
  smiling more broadly at Lieutenant Cherry.
  “Have you given some thought as to how the actual trap will 
  work?” he asked.
  Ariel thought the young lieutenant grew a centimeter.
  “Not in detail,” she said, smiling back. “But in broad strokes, yes, 
  I think I have an idea.”
  
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  Am I the only one who sees covert romance in every exchange 
  around me?
  Ariel glanced at Reema and met a cocked eyebrow.
  Nope.
  “Lieutenant,” she said, a bit more sharply than she’d meant to.
  Two pairs of eyes focused on her.
  “What are these broad strokes?”
  “Duck blinds,” Cherry said. “Part of it, anyway. Strong points dis-
  guised as innocent sheds. Also, we should appear out of place.”
  “Ah!” Colonel Daniel’s tone was appreciative. “You are surmis-
  ing observers among the Rooters—observers who could inform 
  incoming pirates that the situation had changed. They would also 
  report our defenders lax, enticing the raiders to take chances we 
  can exploit.
  “I like how your lieutenant thinks.”
  He smiled broadly at Cherry for a moment, then turned a more 
  serious expression to Ariel.
  “And I have an addition to her cunning plan,” he said. “Colonels 
  Howetzer, Friedrich, and Owyang of Main Street, Elume, and 
  Swartklip are here for the Rooting. It would suit both our ruse and 
  their understandable need to be involved with the command of 
  this operation if you, Captain, were to accompany them to the 
  hunting lodge.”
  Ariel drew a breath, but Daniel raised his hand before she could 
  protest.
  “You would be close enough to return to the DropPort in min-
  utes,” he said. He turned his smile on for Cherry, adding: “I’m sure 
  the lieutenant will be quite effective in making sure all is ready 
  here.”
  Cherry smiled back before looking to Ariel. 
  “I trust your judgment, Lieutenant,” Ariel hoped she didn’t bear 
  down too hard on the warning. “Why don’t you walk Colonel 
  Daniel through your general plan while I see about the logistics of 
  the first phase?”
  
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  Cherry nodded, acknowledging Ariel’s keep-him-busy-so-
  I-can-work message—and perhaps the one about using her 
  judgment—then turned back to the Colonel.
  “Colonel Daniel, is there a map of the DropPort area nearby?”
  Ariel didn’t leave immediately after the pair, instead turning to-
  ward the broad window. In the middle distance massive cinder 
  block warehouses loomed brooding hills, thickly covered with 
  snow. The ferrocrete that stretched from the passenger terminal 
  to the warehouses then out into a contained expanse holding a 
  dozen DropShips was a patchwork of pristine white crisscrossed 
  by filthy bands of churned slush.
  “I’ve been thinking of Wallis, Lieutenant,” Ariel said.
  Reema moved to stand beside her and looked out over the icy 
  DropPort, then up to the snow-covered mountains dense with tim-
  ber beyond.
  “I see what you mean,” she said flatly.
  “I meant,” Ariel said, allowing herself half a smile, “I was thinking 
  about the possibility the raiders have on-planet resources. If Oh’s 
  theory is right, this isn’t a sudden thing.”
  “Something close by,” Reema said, picking up the thread. “Not 
  underfoot, but able to support a raid on the DropPort.”
  “And small enough to have plausibly arrived with the DropShips,” Ariel 
  added. “If an RCT popped out of the woodwork every time there was a 
  raid, Engadine PM would be going through these hills piecemeal.”
  “Building an effective hideout with no one noticing takes time,” 
  Reema pointed out. “Would the mercenaries have been on retain-
  er that long?”
  “The mercenaries wouldn’t have built whatever hidey-hole 
  they’re using.”
  Reema nodded.
  “While I am up in the mountains wasting time and Lieutenant 
  Cherry uses her newfound diplomatic skills to coordinate setting 
  up our little reception,” Ariel said, “I’d like you to be doing a bit of 
  extended recon. I’ll leave the parameters to you.”
  Reema nodded again, her eyes tracing the steep mountain slopes 
  with new interest. 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  Burnis, Elume 
  Melissia Theater, Lyran Alliance 
  12 October 3067
  Jake could not remember ever having the smallest ’Mech on the 
  field on a combat mission. He’d always favored heavies—had nev-
  er piloted anything under sixty tons for longer than he needed to 
  become proficient. 
  On Saravan, taking over this Spector had been an emergency de-
  cision in the heat of battle. He’d never expected to see the inside 
  of this cockpit again. Much less spend two and a half weeks troop-
  ing through the wilderness shoulder high to every other ’Mech in 
  his lance.
  But small had been something of a theme for this mission. One 
  lance was a small contingent to scout a planet. And the DropShip 
  that had brought them to the surface had been tiny; a sphere per-
  haps thirty meters in diameter with four wedge-shaped ’Mech 
  bays. The math of the angles told him there was a fifth bay, which 
  implied a Star, but the design didn’t feel Clan. 
  Davis had recognized the ship. Jake had seen the way his eyes lit 
  up as they traced its lines. That meant old, and Star League. 
  Since no one seemed to notice it transferring from the Captiva 
  to the Sanibel, or—more importantly—from the Sanibel to Elume, 
  he had to assume it was flying without transponders. An old ship, 
  rare enough to be new to Jake, with an apparent habit of moving 
  without getting noticed...
  Evidence indicated Captain Anton Kaiman knew a bit more about 
  smuggling than he had let on.
  Through the ferroglass canopy he saw the matte grey shape of 
  the Irregular Raijin ease around a thick stand of softwood conifers. 
  Time consuming, but sensible. No need to leave a trail of broken 
  trees to announce a BattleMech had passed.
  The Spector’s preternatural sensor array filled his cockpit screens 
  with more data than he needed. Among them the location of the 
  two other ’Mechs of his deep recon lance advancing along the san-
  dy riverbed on the other side of the tree-covered ridge to his left.
  He watched the ridge tops on the theory that the pickets of any 
  concealed base would be on the high ground. Green scanned 
  
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  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  ahead along the shallow valley on the theory that the first theory 
  might be wrong.
  Jake was aware that for all its superior sensors and potent mix 
  of lasers, his Spector was ten tons lighter—and a meter shorter—
  than Davis’s Phoenix Hawk. And both machines were dwarfed by 
  Talbot’s Griffin. The wingless bird shape of Green’s Raijin made 
  its comparative mass less obvious, but at fifty tons it was second 
  only to the Griffin.
  Jake wondered if it was the diminutive size of his BattleMech 
  that had his nerves on edge or the fact he’d never led these 
  MechWarriors into combat. All three of them were former Hussars, 
  their default mode the spit-and-polish discipline Peregrine Junior 
  favored so much. 
  Formal military protocol was all well and good; it certainly saved 
  everyone involved the bother of thinking. But in Jake’s experience 
  the rigid mindset got in the way when the fighting got heavy and 
  every jockey had to think for himself to stay alive and get the job 
  done.
  Of course, Peregrine Junior’s answer to that argument was that 
  with proper discipline every MechWarrior would know what to do. 
  Working together as part of a unified fighting force, they would 
  each know their duties in any given situation—and be prepared to 
  respond instantly to orders.
  Jake’s objection that it also limited the jockey’s ability to adapt 
  and improvise had fallen on deaf ears. Or not so deaf, he had to ad-
  mit. Peregrine Junior had seen the wisdom of forming task forces 
  for specific missions that fell outside the routine rather than trying 
  to figure out which established lance came closest to matching 
  the needed profile.
  Fast, flexible, jumping ’Mechs able to operate independently 
  and take care of themselves. That had been what this big game 
  hunt on Elume called for. Which stripped Jake of his best scout in 
  her jumpless Mongoose and teamed him with Davis, Talbot, and 
  Green.
  Davis was a known quantity, at least. They’d worked to-
  gether enough for him to know how the man thought, and 
  he’d seen him in combat on Outreach and Wallis. But neither 
  experience translated directly into a working command rela-
  tionship.
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  He’d also seen Talbot fight on Wallis. She’d kept a cool head 
  under fire and gone toe-to-toe with a ninety-ton Emperor, giving 
  much more than she’d got.
  About Green he knew almost nothing beyond what was in his 
  dossier. And Ariel’s high assessment and his performance in train-
  ing. The man had managed to be out of position every time the 
  Irregulars had gone into action. 
  Jake didn’t like the fact he found himself thinking about Green 
  not having pulled anything more difficult than security in the last 
  few months. 
  It really wasn’t unusual for individual MechWarriors—even with 
  a command that had seen more action than the Irregulars—to go 
  for a year or more without firing a shot in combat. But Christian’s 
  odd behavior—behavior that had resulted in Jake piloting his 
  Spector through the pine groves of Burnis—combined with his se-
  curity phrase...
  “Word of Blake, fund my path.”
  That security phrase—necessary to bring his Spector’s sys-
  tems online—was Christian’s legacy. Jake now worried about a 
  MechWarrior under his command who kept to himself and piloted 
  a ’Mech favored by ComStar.
  Jake’s initial roster for this mission had included Andrews and 
  his Assassin in place of Green. But Ariel had wisely pointed out 
  that the forty-ton ’Mech—while nearly as fast and agile as the 
  Spector—was too lightly armed to hold its own for any length of 
  time. If Jake’s theory were right and if the scouting mission were 
  discovered, the lance would have to fight a running battle until the 
  Irregulars could return.
  If they could.
  If Jake’s theory were right, they might find themselves up against 
  the full military resources of an entire planet.
  Just us against the world...
  As it crested a low hillock, the Raijin squatted.
  Jake blinked.
  With its bird-like legs folded up until they almost touched the 
  external weapons pods, the BattleMech’s torso was within a me-
  ter of the ground. Jake had never heard of that maneuver, but it 
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  didn’t take a genius to figure out the lowered mass of heavy metal 
  would look a lot more like a medium tank than a ’Mech to long 
  range scans. 
  Very useful trick.
  “Heavy metal ahead,” Green’s baritone was hushed in Jake’s 
  headphones. 
  Why do we always whisper on the radio when we’re sneaking up 
  on people?
  Jake halted his Spector without responding. Even on tight beam, 
  anything he transmitted to Green would carry past him to who-
  ever was on the other side of the hill. The odds on any hostiles 
  monitoring the frequency the recon lance had selected were slim, 
  but avoidable chances weren’t worth taking.
  The same principle kept him on passive sensors as he studied 
  the low hill in the middle of the shallow valley. The rocky lump 
  seemed incongruous with the rolling sand hills arrayed in long 
  ridges, but he realized it could be—the word escaped him. Stuff 
  from somewhere else left behind by a glacier. Whatever it was had 
  enough metal in it to make it hard to see through. Inconvenient, 
  but not in itself threatening.
  He backed away from the hill until the Raijin was at the edge of 
  his sensors’ range. Then—gambling he was out of range of what-
  ever scanners might be beyond the hill—he moved to his right, 
  ascending the wooded slope that defined the valley. Once he was 
  even with the top of the hillock, he eased forward, scanning the 
  area Green had bird dogged.
  Armor appeared at the edge of his screen. Two. Small. No fu-
  sion reactors. Scout cars or armored personnel carriers. A light 
  patrol. And one not far from home, given the limited range of ICE 
  engines.
  At the moment they were stationary. No way to tell if they were 
  on station or the crew was taking a leak. By themselves they were 
  no threat to the BattleMechs, of course. But their radios were. If 
  they broadcast unknown contacts—especially if that was the last 
  broadcast they made—the Chaos Irregulars were in for a short 
  and unhappy stay on beautiful Elume.
  Jake clicked his radio once, paused a three count and clicked it 
  twice.
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 
  There was no response, but he knew Davis and Talbot would 
  reverse course. Below him, Green shuffled his Raijin back a dozen 
  meters before bringing it fully erect and making his way back the 
  way they had come.
  Two stationary scout trucks did not a secret pirate base and 
  weapons manufacturing complex make. However, the fact that 
  they had found something where there should have been nothing 
  was enough for him. They were on the right track. It was just a 
  matter of time.
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 0
  Qur’an Mountains 
  south of Wisdom, Engadine 
  Melissia Theater, Lyran Alliance 
  13 October 3067
  Reema Chowla eased her Mongoose slowly back until the water 
  flowed over her cockpit. Not quite enough. The water coursed and 
  splashed around the lower edge of her double canopy, telling her 
  the small laser that jutted beneath them was no doubt in clear 
  view.
  Waterfalls—particularly waterfalls framed by iron-stained rocks 
  as this one was—were natural hiding places for BattleMechs. So 
  natural, in fact, that any MechWarrior who’d survived basic train-
  ing knew to scan them carefully. And most ’Mech jockeys also 
  knew to avoid using them, because being caught standing in a 
  rocky alcove with nowhere to go was a quick ticket to oblivion.
  All of which meant there was a circular logic to using a water-
  fall for cover—the wisdom of the choice depending on how clever 
  the MechWarriors on both sides of the water curtain thought they 
  were more than any other factor.
  What made this waterfall appeal to Reema was the fact it was 
  too small. Anyone who had passed this way before would know 
  there was no way for it to conceal a ’Mech.
  And several someones had come passed this way in the past 
  few months. Someones in BattleMechs of at least medium propor-
  tions, to judge by the scrapes and chips along the narrow defile 
  leading from this upland valley. 
  She had made a thorough search of the tourist-bureau-perfect 
  valley from the picturesque waterfall that fed the deep moun-
  tain lake to the whitewater cataract that drained it. She’s found 
  three collections of metal trash—including civilian-grade camp-
  ing equipment and what looked to be the remains of an unlucky 
  hunter, complete with bent and rusted hunting rifle—all at least a 
  decade old.
  More recent were the tracks in the softer soil below the defile. 
  They indicated she was either on or very near a regular route in and 
  out of the mountains less than an hour south of the DropPort.
  But knowing about where the enemy probably was didn’t ful-
  fill her mission. Reema needed hard contact. And for that, she 
  
  BattleCorps
  Endgame at Engadine • Page 1
  needed to find a blind. For which this too-small waterfall would be 
  perfect, if she could figure out a way to make it work.
  Wireframe and her own senses confirmed that the iron-flecked 
  granite was pressing against the back of her Mongoose’s head 
  and upper torso. However, there seemed to be ample space be-
  hind her from the waist down, and the water level behind the fall 
  was above the ’Mech’s backward-bending knees.
  Standing in a stone niche with nowhere to go if she was dis-
  covered was stupid. Sitting in a stone niche—particularly in a 
  BattleMech as ill-designed for sitting as a Mongoose—was suicid-
  ally stupid.
  Carefully backing and filling, checking to be sure every move 
  was undoable before she committed herself, Reema lowered her 
  BattleMech until it was sitting chest deep in the water beneath the 
  falls. Scooting back behind the curtain of water—the crumbling 
  scrape telling her she was doing more damage to the granite than 
  the stone was doing to her armor—Reema found she had enough 
  room to bring both arms up without disturbing the flow.
  With all of her weapons aimed through the narrow opening, 
  Reema sat, letting the mountain stream cool her machine to match 
  the background thermals. If she was discovered in this position, 
  she wouldn’t live long enough to regain her feet. But this position 
  was her best chance of never being discovered at all. A coin toss, 
  and one it was too late to reconsider.
  Eyes on her passive sensors, she settled down to wait.
  To be continued...
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Chaos Irregulars Bk 1 - Endgame at Engadin Pt 1 - Kevin Killiany.pdf