TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  SHADOWS  
  OF FAITH
  by Loren L. Coleman
  A people always ends by resembling its shadow.
  ~Rudyard Kipling
  The truest light often casts the darkest shadows behind men. 
  The power of true faith is never to be taken lightly.
  ~Jerome Blake
  TALES OF THE JIHAD
  
  BATTLECORPS
  -Prolog-
  World Cathedral 
  Hilton Head, Terra 
  12 September 3067
  “Something must be done!”
  Cameron St. Jamais smiled, hearing the strong voice of Alexander 
  Kernoff rise above the din of the arguments. He hid his grin be-
  hind a hand, smoothing down his thin, dark goatee as Kernoff’s 
  powerful command swept through the dimly-lit Spire reverberat-
  ing in power not wholly natural. Its sheer volume shook the five 
  crystalline podiums growing up out of a translucent floor, but an 
  undercurrent of angelic harpsichord and some time-delay echo 
  gave Kernoff’s voice its real strength of conviction and god-like 
  authority.
  Precentor ROM had broken the safeguards restricting use of be-
  havior modification synthesizers within the Spire. Again. Or he’d 
  subverted the latest True Believer tasked with maintaining those 
  encryption algorithms. 
  Either way, Cameron counted it another victory for the Toyama.
  Someone, after all, must bring order. Especially as this latest 
  gathering of the Ruling Conclave had gone the way of so many 
  before it. A tug-of-war between Word of Blake’s two strongest fac-
  tions. Power brokering. Agendas to promote. Plans laid against 
  the future. And, always, a wealth of resources to divide.
  Hilton Head Island was no stranger to such activity, of course, 
  having been so long under the aegis of ComStar. And here as 
  well was where Word of Blake chose to return their own seat of 
  
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  power, constructing their World Cathedral over the ruins which 
  had once housed the First Circuit. A grand edifice, unlike anything 
  conceived or built by Terra’s former tenants, the cathedral was a 
  perfect wedding of state and church, historical tribute and tech-
  nological advancement. Brilliant, white marble façade set over 
  strengthened ferrocrete and coated with a laser-refracting glaze. 
  Wide, columned portico, its thick pillars cored with electronic 
  countermeasures. And a functional space-defense system—cap-
  ital class lasers and particle cannon—hidden within several tall 
  spires along the roof. 
  Inside, such devotion to “militant aestheticism” was just as com-
  plete. Walls of the nave and chancel paneled with holographic 
  plates, able to dissolve into the illusion of a woodland setting, a 
  star-lit spacescape, or battle-scarred plains (among many other 
  choices) at a command from any one of the Conclave leaders. 
  An eight-bay transept, each station fully shielded and capable of 
  assuming full local control over Terra’s hyperpulse generators 
  and—with careful coordination—the HPGs of several neighboring 
  star systems as well.
  And atop the Genius Loci Tower, the presiding spirit of the ca-
  thedral, was the main Spire where only a member of the Ruling 
  Conclave could be admitted.
  A domed observatory with full holographic control of its environ-
  ment, currently the five senior precentors manned their individual 
  stations beneath a nighttime sky filled with bright, bright stars. 
  Arranged equally around the circular arena, each crystalline podi-
  um was alive with a soft, golden glow radiating from deep within. 
  And as the three men and two woman traded glances with each 
  other following Kernoff’s excited (and excitable) outburst, a back-
  wash of light splashed up against expressions of annoyance, and 
  concern, and not a little anger. 
  The bickering faded. Though more, Cameron suspected, as the 
  others quickly readjusted their own filters to prevent Precentor 
  ROM from wielding undue influence. 
  As he himself did, sliding his fingers across the holographic con-
  trols displayed above his podium’s glowing, faceted surface. The 
  dim light played little against his dark skin, and the gold striations 
  radiating at the heart of his podium—“god stars” Precentor Willis 
  had once called them—dimmed even further beneath a strong, 
  blood-red tint. A not-so-subtle hint at the processing power being 
  used by the Precentor Martial. More than any others among the 
  Conclave.
  
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  “Something is being done, Alex.” Precentor William Blane finally 
  answered Kernoff’s demand. “The Allied Mercenary Command is 
  being slowly marginalized.”
  Precentor Blane stood to Cameron’s left. Leader of the True 
  Believers faction and a friend of Captain-General Marik, Blane was 
  often the public face of Word of Blake. As usual, he leaned lightest 
  on his podium’s resources. His “heart” was pure and golden. The 
  backwash of light turned his white, brocaded robes a soft, buttery 
  gold. His eyes looked like sunken pits, however. His face drawn 
  and haggard.
  Too many days spent fasting? Or too little sleep?
  Blane passed a shaky hand over his podium, activating a pre-
  set program. Overhead, the holographic representation of a Milky 
  Way spacescape faded down to black, to be replaced by a much 
  more basic map of the Inner Sphere. The five Great Houses. The 
  minor powers, including what was left of Rasalhague. The Clan 
  holdings. Thousands of star systems representing billions upon 
  billions of lives, all paying homage to their petty, nationalistic gov-
  ernments. 
  Two systems in that backdrop glowed unnaturally bright. Terra. 
  Birthplace of humanity and seat of power for Word of Blake. 
  And Tharkad.
  “It is a time to tread cautiously,” Blane said. “The third transfer 
  of power is upon us. In just over two months, the Star League 
  convenes its fourth triennial conference. The first order of busi-
  ness will be a motion to elevate Word of Blake from probationary 
  status within the new Star League to active membership with full 
  voting rights.” He looked about. “We do not want to tip our hand 
  ahead of time.”
  “Nothing is more important,” said Precentor Laura Chang on 
  Cameron’s right. A tall, slender woman with military bearing, 
  towering above her podium, and another True Believer if only by 
  default. One of few Expatriate leaders to survive the last two years 
  of purges, she kept a strong core of her followers under Blane’s 
  guidance to help balance out power within Word of Blake.
  “Of course you would agree with Precentor Blane.” Dampening 
  fields dropped Kernoff’s voice to an acceptable level, though a 
  slight, off-focus timber had Cameron wondering if Word of Blake’s 
  spymaster still slipped behavior modification undercurrents into 
  
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  his tone. “It took Victor Davion’s ascension as ComStar’s Precentor 
  Martial to open your eyes to the light.”
  Chang leaned away from St. Jamais, toward Kernoff on her other 
  side. “My eyes have remained always open, Precentor ROM.”
  Still, Cameron did not miss the shadow which drifted across her 
  face. Similar to the one which darkened the “god star” shining in 
  the heart of his podium. Again, Cameron stroked the thin goatee 
  shading his chin.
  What was Chang hiding?
  Not her aversion to Alexander Kernoff, or the Toyama faction, 
  that much was certain.
  Cameron lowered his hood, laying it back across his shoulders, 
  then returned his hands aside the podium to grip the cool, faceted 
  edges. “Precentors,” he said. “We’ve no time to quarrel.”
  He let a soft touch to his voice carry where shouting might have 
  been ignored. As the man who commanded Word of Blake’s mili-
  tary arm, he had no need to run roughshod over the Conclave. No 
  one could afford him as their enemy. There were still whispers 
  about Willima Willis. “God stars” indeed.
  “If Precentor Blane has new concerns about the Star League 
  summit,” he said, “I would like to hear them. Perhaps the ComStar 
  audit has been more successful than he let on?”
  An attack, but a subtle one. And not without merit, his concern. 
  The resurrection of the Star League in 3058 was, by one way of 
  thinking, mankind’s first enlightened step in over three centu-
  ries. Three hundred years of deprivation and depredation—as the 
  Blessed Founder, Jerome Blake, had forewarned. Now, possibly, 
  on the verge of recovery. At the last conference, Blane working 
  closely with the Free Worlds League’s Captain-General, Word 
  of Blake had been admitted to the august body as a probation-
  ary member. But there had been…concerns. Mainly that the Free 
  Worlds League enjoyed undue influence over Word of Blake due to 
  their close political and economic ties. ComStar had been charged 
  with the investigation.
  If the light which flickered so uncertainly on Tharkad (host to this 
  year’s conference) was indeed Blake’s promised beacon, it would 
  not do to be caught unawares. 
  Especially by the heretics.
  
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  “No,” Blane said. He waved a thin hand. “Nothing so terrible. 
  ComStar’s lack of faith makes it easier to blind them to the truth. 
  They could never believe a pack of ‘zealots and misguided faithful’ 
  could possibly hide anything from their ‘all-seeing’ eyes.” 
  Which summed up the difference between Word of Blake and 
  their false brothers quite well. Both believed in the safeguarding 
  of technology, though for the Blakists it was a divine charge. And 
  both organizations still oversaw portions of the vast interstellar 
  communications network which tied together the systems and 
  worlds of the Inner Sphere. But just as ComStar’s secular changes 
  under the Mori Heresy, led by the devil Anastasius Focht, caused 
  an irreparable schism, they’d also wrapped the heretics in self-
  righteous agnosticism and logic. 
  They’d forgotten the strength of true faith. 
  They’d forgotten how to keep the real secrets.
  “A copy of ComStar’s audit has been forwarded to your personal 
  attention,” Blane promised. “They found no more than point-eight 
  percent discrepancy against our original declarations.”
  “We could have done better.” 
  This last was from Precentor Anuska Brezhnic, the fifth of the Ruling 
  Conclave’s five precentors. She sat on the far side of Blane in her 
  powered chair, shattered legs bumped right up against her short-
  ened podium. Once a part of the Counter-Reformists, smallest of the 
  ruling factions within Word of Blake, she now led them in place of the 
  late Willima Willis as a splinter-group of the Toyama; in the same way 
  Cameron St. Jamais led the revolutionary 6th of June and Alexander 
  Kernoff the growing One Voice movement. She rarely spoke unless 
  asked a question of and even more rarely voted, preferring to abstain. 
  It was how the Toyama and True Believers kept the peace now that 
  they had split the Conclave between themselves.
  “I say we could have done better!” When she did voice an opin-
  ion, Anuska Brezhnic would not be gainsaid, or ignored.
  “We could have,” Blane finally said. “But anything less would 
  have looked suspicious in the absence of corruption. Even one full 
  percent in graft, kickbacks and payoffs would be considered light 
  by way of the Successor Houses.”
  She pounded a fist against the arm of her powered chair. “We 
  are not a Successor House.” Cameron nearly smiled again, thank-
  ing her for the continued attention leveraged at Blane, but did not. 
  
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  “We are Blake’s shepherds. Though we may not always know his 
  will, we continue his work.”
  “We all continue the Blessed Blake’s work,” Kernoff said, care-
  ful not to patronize her, “in whatever way we must.” A pause. His 
  bright blue eyes found each precentor in turn. “And I still argue 
  that we must not let a pack of filthy mercenaries challenge our 
  divine cause.”
  Back to Wolf’s Dragoons and their Allied Mercenary Command. 
  It put Cameron in a difficult position, with Kernoff leading the 
  Toyama these days and the fact that he shared the other man’s 
  frustrations with the meddling mercs. In the last year, especially, 
  the Dragoons and their allies had thwarted military operations on 
  Hall, on Helios, and made difficult further undertakings on another 
  half dozen worlds surrounding Terra. Undertakings aimed at the 
  establishment of a new Terran Hegemony. It had taken Precentor 
  Blane’s chief political handler sent to Hall to rescue that situation. 
  But by making it an issue among the Conclave, Kernoff opened 
  the door to an internal investigation of the Precentor Martial’s 
  methods. His effectiveness. Precentor Blane had opened too many 
  such doors himself in the last few years; it didn’t do to give him a 
  standing invitation. 
  “Outreach,” Cameron said, naming the Dragoons’ world. Turning 
  it into a sneer of distaste. 
  A few quick-keyed commands made the system glow brighter 
  on the overhead star map as well, flashing a dangerous, glaring 
  red. Only two jumps from Terra. The world responsible for over 
  sixty percent of all mercenary hiring within the Inner Sphere. Seat 
  of the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission. 
  “Our on-planet agents make a convincing case for a preemptive 
  move.” Were incredibly strident on the subject, in fact. “Maybe it 
  is time to…review…our failsafe position.” Said in such a manner 
  to promote action, not more administration.
  And as he’d suspected, Blane wanted no motion brought for-
  ward to actually do anything. Not so close to the third transfer of 
  power. Not when everything they’d waited for all seemed ready to 
  land in the lap of Word of Blake.
  “We can entertain that at our next meeting,” Blane said. “Perhaps. 
  Any application of hidden assets, do not forget, will set off a flag 
  against ComStar’s completed audit.” 
  
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  Shadows of Faith • Page 8
  Stressing once more the value of fast-approaching Star League 
  summit. 
  Oh yes, Blane had his own agenda to promote. Or, more to the 
  point perhaps, he had Captain-General Marik’s agenda to promote. 
  The ruler of the Free Worlds League would likely be the next First 
  Lord of the Inner Sphere. He and Precentor Blane relied much on 
  each other, and no doubt Blane saw their alliance giving him pow-
  er to break the Conclave and assert himself—finally—as Primus. 
  Formal director over Word of Blake.
  Was that blood Cameron smelled? A vulnerability?
  “A wise decision.” He folded arms across his chest. His dark, 
  voluminous robes draped easily along his lean frame. “I should, 
  naturally, undertake a personal review of all contingency plans 
  before making any recommendation. And any course of action 
  would be precipitous, considering our lack of strong intelligence 
  concerning the Dragoons’ movements.”
  He would seem to be capitulating to Blane, and scoring fresh 
  blood against the leader of his own faction at the same time. But if 
  the True Believers’ leader saw it coming, he had the sudden steel 
  to not let it show on his face.
  “Of course, I would then submit that Precentor ROM be given ac-
  cess to further resources. In order to investigate any possibility of 
  threat from a mercenary action.”
  Kernoff did not bother to hide his smile. Even went so far as to 
  nod his encouragement to St. Jamais. “Did not Blake once say, 
  ‘information is ammunition?’”
  Blane hesitated, then nodded.  “And whose resources do 
  you propose we gift Precentor ROM?” the precentor asked. He 
  shrugged, as if the question hardly concerned him. No doubt gird-
  ing up for a battle over shared resources between True Believers 
  and Toyama.
  Blood. Oh, yes. Salty and warm. “We still have unallocated forc-
  es and material resources stemming from last week’s decision to 
  pull our support from Sian. Sun-Tzu’s decision will not to be with-
  out repercussions, after all.” 
  There were several thin smiles. Even Chang, though likely every-
  one in the room knew very well Blane had already marked those 
  “freed and unallocated” resources for his continuing efforts within 
  the Free Worlds League. Not that he could admit to it. 
  
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  “It is a simple shift to task those resources to support our efforts 
  in the Chaos March and against Outreach,” Kernoff said, assum-
  ing there would be no objections.
  There would not be. Precentor Blane was cagey enough to poll 
  the room on his own, see that there were three obvious votes in 
  favor, and even Chang would have trouble arguing against the al-
  location. Cameron watched the argument play out over Blane’s 
  face. Saw him nod. “Very well. Shall we meet again to discuss 
  what these resources have purchased us? In…one week?”
  “I shall need at least three to begin new operations.”
  “We seem to have settled on two.”
   Two weeks. The outside limit before Cameron and Blane had to 
  leave for Tharkad. For the summit. As it was, they would rely on a 
  partial command circuit of JumpShips, relaying from one star sys-
  tem to the next, before splitting up to join their WarShip escorts 
  already en route.
  Which meant any oversight of Kernoff’s actions would be slight, 
  at best.
  It worked nicely.
  “Blessed be those who walk along Blake’s shining path,” Blane 
  said, offering a quick prayer for the end of the council, and their 
  continuing efforts to prepare. “May they avoid the shadows of 
  desolation, and be ever ready for the darkness ahead.”
  “Blessed be,” the others said. Including Cameron. 
  And then he was rudely disconnected from the Spire’s inter-
  face.
  To others in the room, physically there, he knew his body had 
  slowly faded away before their eyes. But for him the Spire sud-
  denly blinked out of existence, to be replaced by a swimming 
  feeling of vertigo as the neurofeedback loop which had kept him 
  connected between Mars and Terra suffered complete degenera-
  tive failure. 
  Darkness. 
  Falling. 
  A cold, metallic taste at the back of his throat. 
  
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  Shadows of Faith • Page 10
  And then the world came crashing down on him from all sides 
  in a riot of color and sound and labored breathing. A world turned 
  one hundred eighty degrees from what he had believed only sec-
  onds before.
  In theory, it was an elegant solution for when Cameron or Kernoff 
  visited the Mars Research Station. Point the MRS hyperpulse gen-
  erator at one of the Terran stations and create a real-time link. No 
  appreciable time delay. Devote high bandwidth to carry a full-sen-
  sory virtual reality signal, and link his podium within the Spire to 
  the replica built here within the simulation chamber.
  In fact, the local technology was so very similar to what Cameron 
  had once used in MechWarrior training, though advanced far be-
  yond a simple combat simulation. 
  The ultimate in telecommuting.
  But while his consciousness had never been truly transferred 
  earth-side, the illusion had built up momentum. Similar to the way 
  a man on a treadmill, running in place for any length of time, can  
  step off the track and then suddenly reel back as his mind was torn 
  between the idea of running without moving, and then not mov-
  ing without running. 
  Here, his reality had been stretched for so long within the illu-
  sion, it truly felt like a rubber band, snapping back into form, or 
  nearly so.
  Cameron St. Jamais sagged to his knees. Pounded a fist against 
  the side of his leg, using the pain to help focus his thoughts. 
  With care he stripped the sim-gear away: a cloth cap wired 
  with electrodes which had fit snugly over his head, and the wired 
  gloves. Then he laughed, dry and brittle, and slowly hauled him-
  self back up the podium. 
  Gone was the darkened arena of the Spire. The simulation cham-
  ber had reverted back to simply displaying the MRS lab, relying 
  on the same image-transference technology used in the mimetic 
  armor of a Purifier battlesuit. Not quite perfect. A watery distor-
  tion blurred his surroundings. 
  He ignored this and checked the logs still displayed on the podi-
  um’s holographic screen, confirming his suspicions.
  Then he cracked the seal on his chamber, and stepped out into 
  the real lab with its stainless steel fixtures and white porcelain 
  
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  Shadows of Faith • Page 11
  countertops. A static charge in the air made the short hairs on his 
  arms and the back of his neck immediately stand up, bristling. The 
  ozone scent of warm electronics left an acrid taste in his mouth. 
  Reels of fiber optic micro-cable lay strewn about the room, along 
  the walls and spooling over the floors, connecting the large com-
  puter core resting within one workstation bay to various stations 
  filled with diagnostic equipment. 
  CSDI-2103 was stenciled on the block-shaped core. 
  Two doors led from this room. A double-wide sliding door of 
  brushed steel. And a much smaller personnel access hatch re-
  cessed in the back wall of the lab. Not secret, the smaller hatch, but 
  definitely not for just anyone’s use. Cameron paused near the hatch, 
  and thumbed his DNA onto the small control panel. The hatch irised 
  open and he activated the communications circuit as well. 
  “Lab A-14, cleared for use,” he said. The technicians could return 
  now, and complete their latest analysis.
  Then he stepped through the hatch, which whispered shut be-
  hind him.
  Cameron stood in a long corridor hewn through solid rock, fused 
  and polished until the walls gave back a dark reflection. Glowing 
  runners along the floor and ceiling provided enough light to see 
  by, just. 
  He turned to his left and pushed off in a gliding walk, perfectly 
  at ease in Mars’s point-three-eight gravity. His boots scuffed the 
  floor between long, casual strides. His formal robes would have 
  been impractical, and so had also been a construct within the vir-
  tual reality illusion. Instead he wore a uniform jumpsuit of light 
  gray, with a high, dark collar, and a simple cloak weighted at the 
  hem to flow more naturally in the light gravity environment.
  “There was a problem?” 
  The voice whispered through the corridor, pushed through hid-
  den speakers. It had a scratchy sound to it, as if it had been poorly 
  scrubbed by filters to prevent identification. Though Cameron 
  knew such was not the case here.
  “Nothing but a small demonstration of ability,” he said. 
  He directed his comment in no particular direction. The corri-
  dor—the entire research station—was wired with thousands of 
  omnidirectional mics for sound pickup. He knew this as well. 
  
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  “Precentor Blane has broken our safeguard locks on the Cathedral’s 
  priority override system.” He anticipated the next question. “It 
  would be a waste of resources to try and rebuild them. If he’s will-
  ing to let us know his progress, it is because he’s sure of himself.”
  “Circles within circles,” the bodiless voice said. 
  More like boxes within boxes. Blane had yet to figure out that he was 
  hardly tunneling through security walls. No doubt the True Believer 
  thought himself digging deeper into the mysteries of Word of Blake. 
  Certainly he still believed himself in a position of true power.
  The truth would be made clear to him, to them all, very soon now.
  A four-way junction. Cameron caught himself at a handhold, 
  looked left and right, out of habit. He saw one of the trusted adepts 
  hauling a large sled of components down the right-hand corridor. 
  Ahead, he knew, the corridor bent around toward an underground 
  hangar bay. He turned left again.
  “And Kernoff?” asked the voice.
  “Is frustrated by the Dragoons’ efforts to camouflage their next 
  move. The mercenaries are shuffling around their regiments and 
  independent battalions. Two of them, he is certain, are registered 
  incorrectly with the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission. 
  They will claim it was an oversight, and pay a small fine. But now 
  that the Northwind Highlanders have activated escape clauses in 
  their current contracts to head home…it is suggestive.”
  “Or it may be nothing but shadows,” the whispers said, chasing 
  him along the corridor. “To err is not merely human, Cameron. It 
  is often an imperative of the species. In the absence of knowledge, 
  or faith, ignorance rears a dark and terrible head. But who errs? Is 
  it Kernoff? Or do the mercenaries truly tempt our wrath so close to 
  the third transfer of power? The agents of chaos and subversion, 
  challenging Blake’s light?”
  Cameron recognized the rhetorical questions. Knew the way his 
  master often thought out loud, even in the abstract. He came to 
  another hatch. One of several along the corridors, and no different 
  than any of the others. Not at a glance.
  But it was different. Oh yes.
  Beyond this hatch the mysteries of the universe were often chal-
  lenged, wrestled with, and thrown down. It was where Blake’s 
  shining path truly began.
  
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  He placed his thumb against the control panel, and waited while 
  a DNA sample was checked against the security clearances, the 
  time, and the whims of the man who was the true strength behind 
  Word of Blake.
  It irised open, and Cameron slipped into the large underground 
  workshop. Dropped immediately to one knee. His cloak billowed 
  behind him as if stirred in a breeze. 
  He kept his head bowed, though his gaze was up and searching 
  the shadows. There was the computer center rotunda at which 
  he’d already logged thousands of hours, combing through rosters 
  and force strength estimates and countless communication logs. 
  And the holographic imaging table, capable of working with new 
  technology simulations or battlefield displays or anything in be-
  tween and of a combination.
  The sensory deprivation tank, now wheeled back against the 
  nearby wall, lid standing open as if waiting for its next victim. 
  Perhaps an Inner Sphere leader next time. Perhaps St. Jamais. 
  Again.
  There were the sounds of motion far back in the dimly-lit space. 
  Cameron had no way of knowing if the sounds came from Him, 
  His automatons, or His protégé.
  No way to detect his master’s presence at all, until the shadows 
  parted and a man shuffled forward. Not a giant of a man. Not even 
  a great deal of physical strength in the way he moved, or stood, 
  or occasionally shifted from side to side as if he might change his 
  mind at any moment to return to his all-encompassing work.
  But power—true power—was rarely measured in such small-
  minded details. This had been the greatest lesson to learn of them 
  all. Strength of will. Strength of thought. Strength of faith. These 
  were what mattered. These were the blades capable of slicing 
  clean through those knots tied into the fabric of the universe by 
  the actions of unenlightened men.
  Someone, after all, must bring order.
  “We have many plans to set in motion,” that same voice whis-
  pered.
  And raising his head, Cameron St. Jamais smiled.
  
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  BATTLECORPS
  -1-
  Harlech 
  Outreach 
  18 October 3067
  “Gray One to all Dragoons. Wolf Actual…down! Wolf Actual is 
  down!” A crackle of static. Then, “Set Condition Feral.”
  Wide swaths of Harlech still burned. Entire city blocks lay in 
  flame and ruin, and dark, roiling smoke scorched the sky, blotting 
  out the sun for the third straight day. Fires baked the air so dry it 
  stole the moisture from a man’s body the moment he cracked his 
  cockpit hatch. As if Hell itself had come visiting.
  Yet Captain Jason Williamson of the Dragoons’ Home Guard felt 
  ice spike into his gut at the transmission. A thick, frozen blade 
  digging around inside him, then ripping its way up his spine. For 
  an instant—one incredibly long and painful heartbeat which thun-
  dered in his ears—he was back on the high, frozen plateau of Jolo 
  Island, on the world of Elgin, listening to his comms sergeant relay 
  another damning message. Another defeat.
  Another commander lost.
  A single heartbeat was all the time he had. The rogues weren’t 
  above striking while his guard was down. Caught in a cross-
  fire between an ancient –3U Clint and a fresh-from-the-factory 
  Earthwerks Thunderbolt, his own Gallowglas shook desperately 
  as the Clint’s particle cannon carved into one side and the T-Bolt’s 
  light Gauss hammered a hard-edged blow on the right. Ruby lanc-
  es and emerald darts slashed in behind, the lasers scarring and 
  scoring deep, deep into his BattleMech’s armor.
  
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  The Gallowglas stumbled backward, out of the intersection Jason 
  had been holding. Thin-poured concrete on the street’s sidewalks 
  cracked and caved in beneath his feet. 
  It took him out from under the T-Bolt’s crosshairs—not a small 
  favor—and all that prevented the seventy-ton machine from going 
  down was the five-level parking garage he fell against. He caught 
  at one of the metal guardrails with his BattleMech’s left hand, tear-
  ing the steel rail half out of its concrete foundation, twisting it into 
  a ruin.
  Leaning forward, putting his own balance to the test, Jason dug 
  in with throttle and foot pedals to lever his ‘Glas back into the fight. 
  Large hands wrenched at the BattleMech’s control sticks. Already 
  his finger tightened down on the main trigger. 
  Dragging his targeting crosshairs up and over, he found the Clint 
  advancing at a run, coming right at him down the double-wide 
  street, and centered the target right dead-center across the other 
  BattleMech’s square-bodied torso. In a crackling, violent discharge, 
  the PPC on the Gallowglas’s right arm struck at the Clint with a twist 
  of hellish, blue-white energies. It cored through all that was left of 
  already too-thin armor. Burning. Gouging. Then Jason thumbed 
  the firing stud mounted on the upper ridge of his control stick and 
  added both lasers from his right-side chest to the injury. 
  One sliced deep into and through the Clint’s right arm, dropping 
  a severed hand to the ground. 
  His second laser punched a bright-red lance into the gaping 
  wound already burned through the ’Mech’s chest. Through the 
  Clint’s gyroscopic stabilizer. And right out the back.
  Forty tons of upright, walking war machine relied on many criti-
  cal systems, not the least of which was a highly skilled, highly 
  trained pilot. But a MechWarrior was more than a simple throttle 
  jockey. Through the heavy neurohelmet all MechWarriors wore, 
  his sense of balance—his “inner ear”—was translated into a re-
  generative feedback signal which worked with the gyros, fed it 
  information, and strained against gravity.
  Jason had just cut that particular cord.
  The Clint staggered and sprawled out across the street, grinding 
  sparks beneath it as it slid across the intersection. It ground to a 
  halt not ten meters in front of Jason’s Gallowglas. Struggled to 
  right itself.
  
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  Sweat burned in Jason’s blue eyes and his breathing came in 
  careful, shallow gasps as the waste heat from the ’Mech’s fusion 
  reactor bled up through the cockpit deck. His temperature gauges, 
  never good to begin with as he fought his way through the burn-
  ing city, spiked hard through the yellow and edged into the red. 
  Condition Feral.
  Elgin.
  Jason chopped back on his throttle, and sidestepped his ma-
  chine toward the Clint’s head. He brought one large foot up, and 
  then crashed it down once…twice against the side of the angular 
  “face.” 
  After the second stomp, there wasn’t much left but a tangle of 
  metal and ferroglass and (somewhere inside) mangled flesh.
  “On your right, Captain!” 
  The warning very nearly came too late. As it was, it barely gave 
  Jason a second to think before the warning screams of a missile 
  lock pierced through the cockpit’s tight confines. But a lot could 
  be done in a second. 
  Enough time for a glance at his heads up display, to see the 
  golden icon of friendly forces moving up behind and that bright, 
  burning red of an enemy target as the Thunderbolt cleared the 
  corner and took the intersection. 
  More than enough to shove down hard against his foot pedals, 
  cutting in his jump jets. 
  The thrusters lifted his Gallowglas on fiery jets of plasma, rock-
  eting up, up over the street as the T-Bolt’s missiles slammed into 
  the ferrocrete street and blew a few extra holes in the corpse of 
  the hapless Clint. The light Gauss slammed out with another of its 
  nickel-ferrous slugs, taking down a street lamp and bowling over 
  a parked car stranded curbside.
  Committed, there wasn’t much the Thunderbolt could do except 
  throttle back and try to make Jason’s jump a hard reach. But too 
  late. City fighting favored close-in scraps and brawling tactics, and 
  the rogue mercenary had been too eager for the kill.
  Leaning to one side, working his own sense of balance against 
  the already-overtaxed gyros, Jason turned the ‘Glas though an 
  almost-graceful jumping spin. Timing the short “flight,” he feath-
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 18
  ered back on his thrusters to dip low as if ready to crush the T-Bolt 
  beneath two shovel-bladed feet in much the same treatment he’d 
  spent on the Clint. One last goose on the jets, though, and he 
  cleared the wide-shouldered BattleMech with a half dozen meters 
  to spare and then cut the burn completely to drop in a bone-jar-
  ring crouch just behind the sixty-five ton enemy machine.
  Speared his targeting reticle dead-on over the T-Bolt’s wide 
  back.
  Wolf Actual is down! 
  Saw the crosshairs burn with a deep golden tone.
  Set Condition Feral.
  Tied every weapon into his master circuit with a quick toggle 
  and a yell of blinding rage. Yanked back on the trigger. Again. And 
  again.
  Elgin.
  And again.
  His particle cannon worked the most devastating damage against 
  the stricken Thunderbolt, flailing at the other ’Mech with a scourge 
  of manmade lightning. Deep, raw-edged rents carved down the 
  back of the machine’s powerful outline. Shards and splatters of 
  molten composite rained down over the street’s black ferrocrete. 
  He had little but a guess that his first PPC blast might have cut 
  into some of the struts which helped support the Thunderbolt’s 
  massive gyro. He knew that his first combination of scarlet lances 
  and flurry of emerald darts cooked away at least a ton…ton and a 
  half of armor spread all across the back and legs of the T-Bolt. 
  The impact. The armor loss. Before Jason’s second furious salvo 
  the machine already staggered forward, dropping to its knees then 
  sprawling full length to pile up against the already dead Clint. 
  His second blistering assault carved away more armor, and 
  chewed in behind a knee to ruin the joint. Power spikes put a strain 
  on the reactor, and his temperature gauge pushed heavy into the 
  red. Jason slapped at the shutdown override.
  His third salvo (maybe) was the one that put a laser beam into 
  the back of the T-Bolt’s head. His fourth certainly found the am-
  munition bin caved in the  struggling ’Mech’s right side. It erupted 
  in a tall gout of fire and smoke and debris, blowing out through 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 19
  special blast-directed chambers to preserve the BattleMech and 
  the MechWarrior’s life. Whatever was left of either.
  Not a great deal. From further down the street, an assault-class 
  Annihilator stalked forward leading a short column of armored 
  vehicles and tanks, including a pair of Badger tracked transport 
  vehicles. 
  As Jason beat against his overrides, preventing a heat-induced 
  shutdown, the Annihilator raised one double-barreled arm and 
  blasted all that was left of the Thunderbolt’s head clean away.
  An abrupt lull after several frantic moments. Jason stared down 
  at the two dead machines, at mostly his own handiwork, and found 
  he did not have a great deal of pity left to spend on these rogue 
  mercenaries. Not after three days of slaughter and setbacks and 
  non-stop battle. He barely remembered the three hours of sleep 
  he’d been forced to take before he was back in the cockpit again. 
  Nor would he accept another forced rest period. He might be a 
  battlefield orphan, adopted by Wolf’s Dragoons after his abandon-
  ment in the Chaos March, but Outreach was his home as much as 
  he had one. And that home was in danger.
  It no longer mattered to him who the attackers were, even. 
  He knew the Fifty-first Dark Panzers were in on it. Some said 
  Smithson’s Chinese Bandits as well. Everyone talked about Colonel 
  Waco: his BattleMaster had been caught on battle rom footage 
  leading the charge from TempTown. And many suspected Word 
  of Blake. Especially after one of their Bloody Hand creations had 
  been hauled out of the rubble at the power generator station.
  But these two? The Clint and the Thunderbolt? They were simply 
  his enemies. Same as the ones who had detonated fuel-air explo-
  sives in the Home Guard barracks three days before. Same as those 
  who led the first assault, or the second, or the third. Just the same.
  Jason was past putting a name to the machines. No member of 
  Wolf’s Dragoons had that luxury today. Not now. 
  Not anymore.
  He stepped back from the wreckage, panting heavily as he sucked 
  at the scorched air in his cockpit. Every breath pulled white-hot 
  coals down into his lungs. Sweat burned with a salty taste on his 
  upper lip. Stung at his eyes. 
  Blinking to clear his vision, he surveyed the approaching forces. 
  The information on his HUD tagged them as Home Guard, as did 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 20
  the insignia on the Annihilator and both Badgers. But the way the 
  ’Mech had moved, and continued to move, said something else 
  entirely. As did the casual skill with which the other MechWarrior 
  had decapitated the T-Bolt. 
  Targeting systems could line up such a shot. But it took a natural 
  touch to handle a one-hundred ton monster that way.
  Then one of the Badgers rolled up ahead of the Annihilator, and 
  Jason saw that some soldier had slashed red paint across the nose 
  in a blood-red “Z.” And Jason knew.
  Zeta Battalion! In whatever machines they could salvage or 
  scrounge, nothing kept them from the battle.
  “We’re stuck near Gateway Bridge and the spaceport is still a 
  loss,” said a female voice. The same one which had warned him 
  earlier. “But we’ve got a thin line held against the rogues boiling 
  up out of TempTown. Go, Captain! We have your back.”
  No matter the hand on the stick, an Annihilator was never going 
  to set records at a top speed of thirty-odd kilometers per hour. 
  Jason’s Gallowglas might double that, though not at the moment 
  as gray smoke seeped from every joint and the heat-stricken ’Mech 
  could barely turn in place without its actuators locking up.
  The lead Badger rolled to a stop and deployed a light star of 
  Elemental infantry. The Annihilator never slowed. And the 
  MechWarrior inside, whatever her rank, was not one to let a heart-
  beat be wasted.
  “It might be a mistake!” she warned. Jason heard the plea in her 
  voice, even over the static of transmission and however much she 
  might prefer to hide it. Or not. Her please great father let this be a 
  mistake. “Get to Wolf! Go, go, go!”
   His first step was shaky, with the Gallowglas’s heat-addled control 
  circuitry having trouble. He swallowed dryly. Painful. And for a mo-
  ment his vision swam again. If not for his cooling vest working to 
  keep his body’s core temperature down, he would likely have passed 
  out somewhere between his third and fourth salvo, no doubt.
  But he hadn’t, and his commander might need him. The Dragoons 
  certainly needed him somewhere. Citizens in Harlech—those who 
  were left alive—needed them all.
  His second step was stronger, and came with greater speed. He 
  slammed his throttle against the forward stop, watching his indica-
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 21
  tors climb past twenty kilometers per hour. Then thirty, and forty. 
  Breathing became easier as he pushed up again near his maxi-
  mum speed of sixty-five kph. By the end of the next block he had 
  blinked his vision clear. Another block, he saw that the sweat was 
  already starting to dry into a white scale on his forearms. 
  Another block. Then another. Always heading toward the city’s 
  center. 
  Heading there, and not wanting to look.
  At least Jason had company. A lance of Kestrel attack VTOL’s 
  which had taken up station above and to his left. Then a pair of 
  struggling Partisans. A lone War Dog limped along with Beta 
  Regiment’s insignia still visible on the left shoulder.
  The wolf’s head crest of the Dragoons had been burned away. 
  Along with most of its armor.
  A Vulture. A Highlander IIC. 
  Only two rogues made the mistake of crossing paths with the 
  scattered Dragoons. A Phoenix Hawk and a Caesar, bursting out 
  of concealment from within a large commercial office building. 
  They shouldered their way through a wall of steel girders and con-
  crete to challenge the Vulture. It was the last mistake of their lives 
  as six Dragoon BattleMechs, as many tanks and the four attack 
  VTOLs suddenly fell on them like a starving pack. Lasers slashed 
  and stabbed, and cannon fire thundered across the cityscape in a 
  new storm of destruction.
  There was no call for mercy.
  No thought of giving quarter.
  Condition Feral was a code all Dragoons knew, though no one 
  had ever thought to hear. Certainly not at the heart of the Dragoon 
  home. Even Jason, an adopted orphan, was well drilled in its ex-
  ecution. 
  To meet all resistance with overwhelming and deadly force. 
  To treat as the enemy any military force not showing Dragoon codes 
  or colors. Even “friendly” units from within the Allied Mercenary 
  Command were to be given one warning, and one only, to stand 
  down. Or they would be put down with extreme prejudice. Hard les-
  sons learned on New Delos, on Hephaestus.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 22
  Simply: if it moved, and could even remotely be a threat, it died.
  The ‘Hawk and the Caesar died. The Dragoons rolled over them 
  as if they were little more than an annoyance as all able machines 
  streamed in toward city center. Converging on the great hole in 
  the skyline where six (six!) twenty-story buildings had once stood. 
  A wound nothing could heal, and a battle that simply could not 
  be won no matter how fast the Dragoons moved, how accurately 
  they shot, or how bravely they stood their ground. 
  Hiring Hall. Jason did not even need to close his eyes to pic-
  ture it as it had been. The well-kept grounds. A ten-story dome 
  surrounded by the tallest buildings of Harlech. It was the entire 
  reason for Outreach. Pride of Wolf’s Dragoons, in a way. The cen-
  ter for most mercenary hiring throughout the entire Inner Sphere 
  and once the brilliant jewel in Harlech’s crown. 
  It was gone.
  And as Jason worked his Gallowglas around a corner, breaking 
  into the open, he saw as well that there was nothing more to be 
  done here.
  The Wolf Spider battalion—what was left of them—had cordoned 
  off the area with lances stationed at the four cardinal points and 
  patrols of two ’Mechs each walking a wide perimeter. They al-
  lowed no one to approach. Not even other Dragoon ’Mechs. 
  All they had left to watch over, however, was a graveyard. 
  Huge piles of rubble several stories high loomed over a terrible 
  battlefield. The debris continued to smolder. Ash and dust lay in 
  a thick cover over everything, including the killing fields where 
  BattleMechs lay strewn about like fallen soldiers at a massacre, 
  the accumulation of three days fighting. 
  Pieces and parts. Some near whole. Others blasted into scrap by 
  an artillery strike, or even a fusion reactor letting loose in a small 
  but powerful explosion. Those areas were more obvious, as the 
  ground would be blacked and cleared for several dozen meters to 
  any side, where a blast had swept everything clear.
  Jason saw the BattleMaster, as well. 
  Collapsed over two other ’Mechs. Forward-most among many--
  so many!--recent kills which still burned or smoked or smoldered 
  on the corpse-riddled grounds. The dun color. Rust red accents. 
  The red and blue star painted on the outside shoulder, still visible, 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Shadows of Faith • Page 23
  with the white “W” emblazoned over it. Waco’s Rangers. Seeing 
  Colonel Waco’s BattleMech there, among the fallen honored, was 
  hard. Even for Jason who knew the stories second and even third-
  hand.
  But the worse was still not over. Not for the Dragoons.
  That came with the ’Mech which waited alone on the battlefield; 
  the last machine left standing. An old design and a true veteran of 
  many wars. Blocky shoulders which housed its twin LRM launch-
  ers. The forward-thrust cockpit—now smashed and breached in a 
  half dozen places at least. 
  The classic Archer profile. 
  Still painted with the blue and gold scheme he had made fa-
  mous—or infamous—throughout the Inner Sphere. 
  For just that moment, Jason hoped. The Archer still stood, af-
  ter all. The only machine left on its feet. He could be wounded. 
  Unconscious. Many things, in fact. Then he saw it. The only body 
  the Wolf Spiders had bothered to remove from any of the de-
  stroyed machines. Resting between the Archer’s feet, covered in a 
  flag bearing the Dragoons’ crest. His crest.
  And there was now a wound torn through Harlech, and Outreach, 
  worse than the loss of the Hiring Hall. Knowingly or not someone, 
  somewhere, had made a very, very terrible error.
  Because it was true. And no mistake.
  Jaime Wolf was dead.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Shadows of Faith (0).pdf