TEXT: BattleCorps
  DEMON STAR
   Steven Mohan, Jr.
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  Yamskaya Ulitsa, Between 61st and 62nd Avenues 
  Cord, Risku, Arescha 
  Capellan March, Federated Suns 
  9 December 3069
  Sheets of water slashed down out of a black sky, soaking Ross 
  McKinnon to the bone and swallowing the feeble light provided 
  by the block’s one working streetlamp. He stood with his back 
  against a brick wall that bordered a dark alley, taking it all in. There 
  was no sound but the tattoo of falling rain. The storefronts were 
  all secured behind roll-down cages. 
  Yamskaya Ulitsa was a dark and shadowy place.
  Except for the dead drop, which was beneath the streetlamp. 
  McKinnon’s eyes flickered to the circle of pale light that marked 
  the sidewalk. An attaché sat there, beads of moisture speckling its 
  brown leather side. The briefcase would contain the designated 
  target and the best intel MIIO could piece together. Still, he didn’t 
  cross the street to retrieve it.
  This whole thing smelled like a trap.
  Decades of battlefield experience had taught him there was 
  some ground you just didn’t occupy—not without a little recon, 
  anyway.
  McKinnon pulled the pack off his back and rummaged through it 
  until he found a pair of night-vision goggles. He slipped them on 
  and exchanged one view of blackness for another. There were no 
  heat signatures save for the glow of the streetlamp. 
  McKinnon glanced into the alley. It was as cold and dark as the 
  street. He slipped into the alley and pulled a slug thrower from the 
  pack.
  And waited.
  He hated all the cloak-and-dagger crap, but that’s the way the 
  High Command wanted it. Blakist spies were everywhere, and the 
  brass didn’t want to tip the Wobbies to the Raiders’ next target. So 
  they’d decided on a covert drop to preserve OpSec. That’s why his 
  people were restricted to their DropShips while he stood in a dark 
  alley, his civies glued to his skin by black rain.
  When had he become a spy in his own land?
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  He would’ve felt better if he’d brought along Vorster or Waylen, 
  but the message had instructed him to come alone. 
  It didn’t feel right, but then, these days nothing felt right. New 
  Avalon in enemy hands, Yvonne Davion in hiding, things so jacked 
  up high command was delivering orders by hand rather than trust-
  ing the HPG network. They were living in bad times and every day 
  managed to—
  The sound of splashing boots cut through his reverie.
  Someone was coming.
  McKinnon’s grip on the weapon tightened. He pressed himself 
  flat against the wall. After a moment, he picked a shape out of the 
  gloom, shoulders hunched against the rain. His friend was a big 
  boy, two meters tall and built.
  Walking toward the streetlamp.
  McKinnon thumbed his safety off. If Bruiser made a move for the 
  attaché they were going to have a little talk.
  And then he felt something cold and metallic press into the skin 
  at the base of his skull. A hand settled lightly on his back. The deli-
  cate perfume of rose petals and orange blossoms mingled with 
  the crisp, clean smell of rain.
  “Don’t move, Captain,” said a woman’s voice in an accent he 
  couldn’t place, “or one of your officers is going to get an unex-
  pected promotion.”
  McKinnon’s mouth suddenly tasted dry. “A trap within a trap. 
  Ingenious.”
  “Domo arigato, McKinnon-sama,” she said.
  “Snake,” he hissed, furious.
  “That is most impolite,” she said and McKinnon felt a small flare 
  of pain in his neck, like the sting of a bee. And then the world just 
  went away.
  The last thing he remembered was sagging into a woman’s 
  arms.
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  Time and Location Unknown
  When he awoke, his mouth tasted like copper and his head 
  felt like someone had sawed off the top of his skull and replaced 
  his brain with a bag of broken glass. Still, he was immediately 
  aware of three things. The first was that he was handcuffed to 
  the arms of a heavy, steel chair. The second was that there was 
  someone behind him, hiding in the shadows that filled the room 
  except for the watery yellow light centered on the table in front 
  of him. 
  The third was the woman.
  She sat across the table from him, clothed in an elegant black 
  kimono without ornament. She was beautiful, pale skin over angu-
  lar bones that suggested Slavic genes, brown hair cropped short, 
  and full, red lips. But what really caught his attention was her eyes: 
  somewhere between gray and blue. Alert. Clever.
  Piercing.
  McKinnon’s tongue felt like a piece of meat in his mouth, but he 
  tried to speak anyway. “Who?” he croaked.
  The woman looked at him for a moment. “You may call me 
  Ella.” There was that accent again. Sexy as hell and impossible 
  to place. 
  “Alley,” he said roughly “Clear.”
  She smiled. “We were on the rooftop.” English with . . . a Russian 
  accent and something else. Of course. Japanese “When you 
  turned, I rappelled down.”
  “Quiet,” said McKinnon.
  She bowed her head. “I am honored.”
  McKinnon coughed; loud, liquid spasms that racked his chest 
  with pain.
  The woman looked concerned. “I have been rude. Would you 
  like some water?”
  A man’s well-muscled arm reached out of the darkness and 
  placed a glass of sparkling water in front of him. The ice cubes 
  rattled as he set it down.
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  McKinnon closed his eyes His mouth tasted like filthy cotton. 
  The water . . . He wanted it so much. He’d never wanted anything 
  so bad in all his life. McKinnon drew a deep breath and nodded.
  The woman’s eyes flickered left and the man stepped forward. 
  He was huge, no doubt the man McKinnon had seen from the alley. 
  He felt a stab of worry. Had they managed to get the attaché open 
  without blowing the failsafe? 
  “My master wishes to send his compliments on the execution of 
  your Demeter mission.”
  The mountain of a man produced a set of keys.
  “Who is master?” asked McKinnon.
  The woman’s lips curled into a faint smile. She shook her head.
  The man unlocked his right wrist.
  McKinnon reached for the water. The glass was slick with con-
  densation. He could almost taste it. His hand trembled as he picked 
  it up.
  And hurled it at the woman.
  She calmly ducked left. The glass missed her head by a centime-
  ter, shattering on the concrete floor behind her.
  She raised an eyebrow. “I see you’re not thirsty after all.”
  McKinnon said nothing.
  “Then let us speak of other things,” she said.
  “Don’t know,” croaked McKinnon.
  Her eyebrows tightened into a question. “You don’t know 
  what?”
  “Next mission.”
  She shook her head. “I don’t care about your next mission I care 
  about the one after that.”
  McKinnon snorted. “Don’t know that either.”
  “Would you like me to tell you?”
  McKinnon frowned. “What?”
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  “My master is putting together a . . . coalition. To crush Word of 
  Blake.”
  “How?”
  She smiled coldly. “Let’s just say the Blakists are masters of 
  striking from the shadows. We’ll see how well they fight in the 
  light of day.”
  “And?” McKinnon prompted, hoping she might tell him a little 
  more about what Blakist secrets her master thought he’d uncov-
  ered.
  “And my master is extending an invitation to McKinnon’s Raiders 
  to be part of this coalition.”
  McKinnon shook his head and she swam in his vision. He gritted 
  his teeth. “Fox’s Teeth not mercenaries. We serve First Prince.”
  “Hai,” she snapped, “and where is your First Prince now?”
  “Serve legal authority,” he snarled.
  “And just what legal authority would that be?” she shot back. 
  “ComStar’s Victor? The hidden Yvonne? Do your orders come from 
  occupied New Avalon? Or do you the follow the March Lords who 
  even now pursue illegal wars of conquest rather than come to the 
  aid of their capital?”
  McKinnon winced.
  She shook her head. “Your chain of command is broken. My 
  master offers you a chance to strike at your enemy. At humanity’s 
  enemy”
  “Follow orders of greenest subaltern before take word of Snake”
  She shook her head. “The Suns and the Combine worked to-
  gether to fight the Clans. Why not work together now? Why do you 
  distrust us so?”
  McKinnon clenched his jaws, clamping down on his fury.
  “Is it racism? Do you just dislike Japanese culture or—”
  “You murdered my uncle,” McKinnon roared.
  “I did not, McKinnon-sama,” she said softly. “I am certain your 
  pain is real, as certain as I am that both sides will have to put aside 
  such injuries if we are to defeat the Blakists.”
  
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  Demon Star • Page 
  “No.” The world tasted poisonous and sullen in his mouth.
  She looked at him steadily for a long moment, those clever gray-
  blue eyes measuring him.
  Finding him wanting.
  “That is unfortunate, McKinnon-sama,” she said grimly. “For, of 
  all the advantages the Wobbies have, their greatest is our mutual 
  distrust.”
  McKinnon opened his mouth to answer, but something bit him 
  on the back of the neck and he swam into darkness.
  * * *
  When the world returned to McKinnon a second time, he found 
  himself in a hospital. An IV snaked out of the crook of his right arm 
  and he heard the hushed beep of medical equipment. The sharp, 
  astringent smell of disinfectant filled his senses.
  Then he noticed the lowered voices.
  “And I’m telling you, you’re jumping the gun.”
  McKinnon recognized that voice: It was Dan Waylen, Medium 
  Lance’s commander. Sounded like Dan was digging in his heels.
  “All I’m saying is you’re going.” This voice he didn’t recognize. It 
  was deep and smooth, but also irritated.
  “Sure we’re going. With Captain McKinnon.”
  The other man sighed. “They gave him eight micrograms of a 
  batrachotoxin analog. I think you have to face the possibility—”
  “No, I think you—”
  “Leftenant,” snapped the man who was not Dan Waylen “One 
  way or another McKinnon’s Raiders are going to hit Algol. Is that 
  clear?”
  McKinnon propped himself up on an elbow. “Sounds good to 
  me,” he croaked.
  “Cap,” shouted Dan, a broad smile creasing his narrow face.
  The other officer grimaced like he’d just been flanked.
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  Dan Waylen was tall and slim, his auburn hair streaked with sil-
  ver, an ugly scar four centimeters long stretched above his left eye. 
  He wore civvies: gray slacks and a green polo shirt. Dan smiled 
  mischievously. “I thought you said no R&R, and here you snuck 
  out and had yourself some fun.”
  The other man frowned at that. He had a good five centimeters 
  on Dan’s one meter eighty-five and was of African descent, skin 
  the color of chocolate. He wore a dark blue suit and a yellow pais-
  ley tie. The man ran a hand over the short black hair that shadowed 
  his skull. “Hello, Captain. My name is Leftenant Colonel Douglas 
  Kintebe. I’m here to brief you on your next mission”
  “Compromised mission,” McKinnon croaked. “They got brief-
  case.”
  The black man shook his head. “The message transmitted to 
  Blitzkrieg was a fake. MIIO didn’t set up the meet. Whatever you 
  saw, it was just a prop. The mission is still secure.”
  McKinnon closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. 
  “We’re still not sure who they were. Did you get a sense of their 
  intentions? Were they Blakists?”
  “Snakes,” said McKinnon.
  Dan shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure 
  that—”
  “Snakes,” McKinnon hissed.
  Kintebe’s eyes glittered. “Could some faction within the Combine 
  be working with Word of Blake?” he asked in a low voice
  McKinnon shook his head and sharp pain stabbed through his 
  skull. “Wanted us to fight Wobbies.”
  “That’s easy enough to say,” said Kintebe.
  “Don’t believe me,” said McKinnon irritably. “Talk to them. You’ll 
  see.”
  Dan and Kintebe shared a look.
  “What?” asked McKinnon. “Didn’t you take op down?”
  Dan shook his head. “Cap, there was no one there when we 
  found you. Place was cleaned out.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  “They left me?” McKinnon whispered. “But that doesn’t make 
  any. . .” He looked up at Kintebe. “How did you find me?”
  “We got a tip. From a woman.” The senior officer shook his head. 
  “Strangest accent I ever heard.”
  
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  Demon Star • Page 10
  Blitzkrieg, Union-class DropShip 
  En Route to Algol, Capellan March 
  Federated Suns 
  22 December 3069
  Combat acceleration pushed McKinnon into his Black Knight’s 
  command couch, pinning his limbs and turning the simple act of 
  breathing into a painful chore. He barely registered the force try-
  ing to crush him. A single word sang through his mind.
  Exorcism.
  No doubt the code word had been selected because Algol meant 
  “Demon Star,” a name that came down from ancient Terra itself. 
  The system was an eclipsing binary, with one star much bright-
  er than the other. Thousands of years before, Arab traders had 
  looked up into the night sky and saw darkness devouring a bright 
  star. They had named the star Ras al Ghul Algol. It was a fitting 
  name. There was no doubt that Algol was being devoured by de-
  mons.
  Even today.
  A grim smile touched McKinnon’s lips. The Fox’s Teeth would 
  drive them out.
  Right now the Wobbie commander would be scrambling, 
  trying to figure out the identity of the unmarked JumpShip 
  that had appeared in a near pirate point, frantically assessing 
  the size and intentions of the force running flat out for the 
  planet.
  The nature of their arrival would sow confusion, and confusion 
  was a key ingredient of any McKinnon plan.
  Blitzkrieg began to buck as she hit the planet’s atmosphere. 
  Wouldn’t be long now.
  “Major McKinnon.” It was Javier Inesca, the ship’s commander. 
  As long as McKinnon was on Inesca’s ship, he would hold the rank 
  of brevet major.
  “Go ahead, Captain.” McKinnon commanded the mission, but 
  Inesca was still Blitzkrieg’s master and McKinnon was respectful 
  of his prerogative.
  
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  Demon Star • Page 11
  “We’ve just detected an EMP. Whoever it is stuck the 
  Algol-Hargrove L4. At least four DropShips inbound, combat ac-
  celeration.”
  The words sent a chill shivering through McKinnon. “ID?”
  “They’re not broadcasting. Telescopes show no markings. Your 
  orders, Major McKinnon?”
  Which was Inesca’s way of asking if they were going to abort. 
  McKinnon closed his eyes, thinking hard. Now he faced the same 
  confusion he’d planned for the Wobbie’s garrison. If those were 
  Wobbie reinforcements his company would be smashed between 
  hammer and anvil.
  But High Command was counting on the Fox’s Teeth to hurt 
  Word of Blake. If McKinnon didn’t do it now, someone else would 
  have to do it later. And surprise would have been lost. 
  Someone would die because he hadn’t done his job.
  McKinnon gritted his teeth. “Proceed to first objective.”
  “Aye, aye, Major,” said Inesca, his voice neutral.
  Just then the Knight bucked under McKinnon as the DropShip hit 
  a pocket of turbulence He clutched his armrests. 
  Looked like the ride was going to be rougher than planned.
  
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  The Wildlands 
  Outside WOBM Garrison Beta, Durant 
  Algol
  Precentor Carmin Venh stalked her Grand Crusader II forward 
  and watched multiple DropShips fall out of a blue sky. One was 
  down already, so big it could only be an Overlord. She counted 
  two more spheroids, probably Unions, and the squat aerodyne 
  shape of a Leopard. 
  Call it two Level IIIs.
  Unfortunately, the best she could do was guess. The attacker’s 
  aerospace fighters had taken down the planetary satellite network. 
  She was going to have to fight this one blind And the worst part 
  was that she didn’t even know who’d come to call.
  Though she had an idea or two.
  “Diamond, this is S-scout Three. Over.”
  Venh glanced down at her comm board in surprise. She’d or-
  dered Henderson to maintain radio silence while probing the 
  attackers’ LZ Why had he disobeyed orders? And why was one of 
  his subordinates reporting?
  “Report status, Three,” she snapped, already knowing she 
  wouldn’t like it.
  “Engaged four Lima Mikes.” He hesitated. “We took heavy dam-
  age. Lost three.”
  Lost three? “What part of probe don’t you understand?” she 
  snapped.
  “We didn’t close the LZ, Precentor,” he said defensively. “They 
  were fifteen klicks off target and moving fast. They hit us from 
  behind. Almost destroyed the whole unit.”
  Venh closed her eyes to contain her fury. Before you broke 
  and ran, she didn’t say. “So you didn’t intel the LZ,” she said 
  coldly.
  “Scout One attained a ridge and saw armor debarking.”
  “Armor?” she echoed. “Do you have numbers? Do you have IDs? 
  Or is your full report that my enemy might be fielding tanks?”
  
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  Demon Star • Page 1
  She was answered by an uncomfortable silence. “I have stills of 
  the attacking lance,” he finally said.
  “Transmit.” She bit the word out.
  The picture that came up was of a Fireball, a squat ’Mech with an 
  egg-shaped torso, machine guns mounted in its broad shoulders. 
  The machine wore green over tan camo with red and blue high-
  lights, Fed sunburst over the right leg. All standard. What was not 
  standard was the logo painted over the machine’s heart.
  A pair of canines, tips stained red.
  Fox’s Teeth. 
  The breath caught in Venh’s throat. 
  She brought up her command channel. “Ruby, this is Diamond.”
  McKinnon’s Raiders had just finished handing Call to the Faithful 
  their heads on Demeter. They’d lured Call into a foolish pursuit 
  and then hit them from behind with a new power armor design.
  “Ruby.” Aaron Cambell’s voice was calm, impassive.
  “Redeploy the Algol City garrison. Leave a Two to hold the city, a 
  Two to guard the munitions plant, and send the rest here.”
  She heard Cambell gasp over the link. “I’m sorry Precentor, I 
  didn’t quite—”
  “Do it.”
  “There’s a pair of Twos at the potassium plant,” Cambell said, 
  struggling to keep his composure. “Perhaps you could—”
  “I know,” said Venh “I’m taking them, too.” She cut the connec-
  tion.
  Call of the Faithful had fenced with the Fox’s Teeth and lost. Venh 
  was not going to make that same mistake.
  She was going to pin them in place and smash them.
  
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  Demon Star • Page 1
  The Wildlands, North of Schan 
  Durant 
  Algol
  The voices that floated out of McKinnon’s radio were calm, de-
  tached. Professional. Still, he listened with his whole body, head 
  bent towards the comm panel, muscles tense.
  Those were his people.
  Jena Chipende’s voice said: “Scouts falling back. Recommend 
  Pursuit”
  “Negative, Three Four,” snapped Mateo Alvarez. “Stick to the 
  plan.” He paused. “Load master, report status of debarkation.”
  “One three Edgars in position,” the load master answered crisp-
  ly.
  McKinnon clenched his jaw, willing the plan to work.
  And then he felt it, a deep rumble moving up through the frame 
  of his Knight into the base of his couch.
  BattleMechs on the move.
  But where were they going? He dropped his reticle over the nar-
  row ridge shielding his ’Mechs from view. He licked dry lips as his 
  finger curled around his main trigger.
  An excited voice cut across recon lance’s chatter. “One One, this is 
  Anglico. Target clearing at high speed. I say again, target clearing.”
  The next ten minutes were excruciating as he waited for the en-
  emy force to clear. As he did nothing.
  While Recon Lance was out there fighting.
  Somehow he held back until the timer clicked down to zero.
  “Initiate jamming,” McKinnon roared.
  “Jamming all freqs,” answered Inesca from the bridge of 
  McKinnon’s third Union.
  “Forward,” McKinnon shouted, sending his Black Knight lurching 
  to its feet. He lumbered forward, reaching the top of the ridge and 
  looking down.
  
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  At McCallister Industries’ Schan facility. The factory was an un-
  imaginative gray box. Its drab appearance belied its importance. 
  All the potassium used in Algol’s munitions factory first passed 
  through this plant for refining. 
  And now it was vulnerable.
  A Red Shift painted bone white came around the corner and 
  McKinnon speared it with his PPC, followed by a flurry of laser fire. 
  The angry chatter of Sara’s autocannon joined in, punctuated by a 
  quartet of Streaks rippling across the light ’Mech’s left side.
  “One One, Two One, moving left,” said Dan as he took Medium 
  Lance around the building’s far corner.
  “Acknowledged,” answered McKinnon. 
  The Shift answered back with its pulse lasers, but there was no 
  way it could stand up to the combined firepower of McKinnon’s 
  entire Command Lance. The light machine sagged to its knees just 
  as its pilot punched out.
  “Infantry in and set the charges,” ordered McKinnon. “Clear the 
  workers. Remember they’re citizens just like us. Shoot anyone in 
  a Wobbie uniform.” 
  Before his infantry commander could answer up, Dan cut in. “I 
  have a runner: Blue Flame. We damaged his legs. We might catch 
  him before he clears the jamming field.”
  McKinnon glanced down at his clock. “Negative. I don’t want 
  your people strung out. Besides, this just might work to our ad-
  vantage.”
  “Yessir,” snapped Dan.
  “Blitzkrieg, prepare to lift in one five mikes. Medium Lance, fall 
  back and begin embarking. Command Lance will follow.”
  He was greeted by a chorus of yessirs.
  “And hurry. We’re on the clock, boys and girls.”
  
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  The Wildlands 
  Fed Suns LZ 
  Durant
  The Fox’s Teeth had deployed their armor well forward of the protection 
  offered by the Overlord’s guns. A cruel smile tightened Venh’s face. It was 
  a mistake for which she’d make them pay. She’d crush the tanks first, then 
  deploy her artillery, and rain shells down on the debarking ’Mechs. Her 
  force was more than big enough to mop up whatever was left over.
  “Diamond, Scout Three. Encountering fire.”
  Good, she thought.
  “Acknowledged,” she answered. She’d sent the remnant of the scout 
  unit that had failed her up the middle to draw the tank’s fire, while the 
  bulk of her force went right and left. She stepped her Crusader over a 
  narrow stream and pushed through a stand of white-barked aspen.
  And saw a J. Edgar firing its twin lasers into the forest.
  Something was wrong.
  It wasn’t maneuvering, the turret wasn’t turning, in fact, the tank 
  wasn’t even hovering. Had one of her scouts managed to get in 
  and cripple the tank?
  She dropped her reticle over the body and pulled into her trig-
  gers, opening with LRMs to shatter armor and following with 
  crimson lasers to cut into the vehicle’s ammo bay. 
  The tank erupted in a very satisfying fireball.
  She stalked forward, targeting the Edgar that had just become 
  the Fed’s new left flank.
  It didn’t move. It didn’t turn to engage It didn’t retreat. It didn’t 
  do anything. Except fire blindly into the forest.
  There was no one inside.
  “All forces, Diamond,” she roared. “Break off attack.”
  “Precentor—” began Cambell.
  “They’re decoys, Ruby,” snapped Venh. “Hell, they look like 3039-
  surplus, probably one step from the scrap heap and set to fire 
  automatically when we closed to within sensor range.”
  
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  “But why would the Feds—”
  Just then a titanic roar shook the earth. Instinctively, Venh looked 
  up. In time to see the Overlord climbing into the blue sky, followed 
  by her sisters. All of them heading south. And what was south? 
  The potassium plant at Schan. 
  The plant whose defenses she’d just pulled.
  It was only a hunch, but Venh had a dark feeling that it was 
  right.
  A moment later her hunch was confirmed by an emergency mes-
  sage from the panicked pilot of a Blue Flame.
  
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  West of Groffler’s Toll 
  Shalom 
  Algol
  McKinnon pushed his Knight down the road, the ’Mechs of his 
  Command and Medium Lances following behind. The M14 wound 
  its way through a dark forest, a two-lane ribbon of ferrocrete bor-
  dered by larch and spruce and pine tall enough to hide an Atlas, 
  giving the Raiders the best of both worlds: speed and cover.
  It was no mistake; the second objective was in the middle of no-
  where. Industrial accidents at munitions plants tended to be very, 
  very bad.
  A fact McKinnon fully intended to exploit.
  Sending the bulk of his DropShip’s south had been a head fake 
  and the Wobbies had bought it all the way. His people had set 
  the charges to blow at the last possible second, so the Wobbies 
  wouldn’t realize they had already lost the potassium plant until af-
  ter they’d began debarking. The captain of his borrowed Overlord 
  reported the Blakists were racing to reboard their DropShips. 
  Too late.
  They would never get here fast enough to stop him from smashing 
  the munitions plant. In one swift stroke he would transform this world 
  from an exporter of ammo into a munitions-free zone. The Wobbie 
  garrison could still hold Algol – but now they would have to be resup-
  plied. That change would ripple across other worlds as the Blakists 
  worked desperately to unsnarl their suddenly tangled supply lines.
  And there was no way they could stop it.
  McKinnon followed the road’s broad arc, hooking around a pen-
  insula of dark trees.
  And coming face to face with a lance of BattleMechs, backed by 
  armor.
  All painted in an elegant black without ornament.
  * * *
  McKinnon’s radio crackled and a familiar voice emerged. “A trap 
  within a trap.”
  
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  Demon Star • Page 1
  “Ella,” McKinnon whispered.
  A No-Dachi bowed from the waist. The machine wore the cruel 
  face of a demon. It clutched a seven-meter katana in its right hand. 
  It even had cleft toes. “McKinnon-sama.”
  “What are you doing?” he snapped.
  “I wished to speak with you.” 
  “There are other ways.”
  “I tried another way,” she said. “And you would not listen. Now we 
  shall try this.” Shiguna MRMs exploded from the No-Dachi’s twin 
  shoulder racks and streaked toward him, trailing gray smoke.
  McKinnon was a daring and clever battlefield commander, skilled 
  in dreaming up crazy plans and somehow making them work.
  But he was no fool.
  If he tried to fight his way past the Snakes he’d take heavy casu-
  alties. Even if he won through there was one opponent he could 
  not defeat.
  Time.
  He couldn’t run the Wobbies around in circles forever. Every tick 
  of the clock brought them inexorably closer. Operation Exorcism 
  had ended the second he’d turned the corner and saw the No-
  Dachi. Now his duty was to get his people out alive.
  All this he realized in the fraction of a second it took for Ella’s first 
  salvo of missiles to smash into his chest armor.
   He toggled his unit frequency. “Fighting withdrawal,” he roared. 
  “Blitzkrieg, prep emergency lift. We’re coming in hot.”
  “Aye, aye, sir,” Inesca snapped.
  “Medium Lance,” he heard Waylen shout. “Stand fast Covering 
  fire Now.”
  A brace of fire stabbed into the Combine line. McKinnon walked 
  backwards past Waylen, just as the leftenant put a Gauss slug into 
  a Hatamoto-Mizo. 
  As soon as all his people cleared Medium’s line, he shouted. 
  “Command Lance. Stand fast.”
  
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  Demon Star • Page 0
  McKinnon splashed the No-Dachi with emerald fire, burning 
  through the pretty black paint and into the Starshield A under-
  neath. He followed up with the violet lightning.
  “Running, Captain?” Ella asked as she cut into him with her own 
  PPC, followed by SRMs.
  “And you wondered why I don’t trust Snakes” McKinnon hit back 
  with another volley of lasers.
  “We’re not going to make it, boss,” said Waylen over the com-
  mand channel.
  He was right. The problem wasn’t firepower—the Fox’s Teeth 
  were giving as good as they got. No, the problem was time.
  McKinnon’s eyes flickered down. The Wobbies were due in tee 
  minus eleven and Inesca was twenty-six klicks back. They weren’t 
  going to cover that distance in time, not while they were using 
  standard covering tactics to fall back.
  McKinnon pulled up a map. “Through the woods,” he said. 
  “Their armor can’t follow. They’ll either have to divide their force 
  or—”
  “Or let us go,” agreed Dan. “I like it, Cap.”
  “We’ll come out on the south end of Groffler’s Toll, and fall back 
  along the M23. Past the munitions depot.”
  * * *
  A flicker of motion caught McKinnon’s attention. Thick trees 
  blocked the sun, but no motion meant no MAD and the battle had 
  ignited enough small brush fires to blur the thermal picture. He 
  would have to rely on visual detection.
  He stopped, peering through the thicket of dark pines.
  There.
  A patch of ebony. He dropped his reticle over it just as the Kuritan 
  pilot spooked, stepping his Jenner back. McKinnon stepped for-
  ward and fired. A pine tree next to the chickenoid exploded in a 
  shower of glowing embers. Then the light machine faded away.
  “They’re playing with us,” said McKinnon.
  
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  Demon Star • Page 1
  “We’ve got them, two to one,” said Sergeant Vorster. “And the 
  trees take away their speed.” It was a sound tactical assessment.
  Then why did it sound wrong?
  “How close to the road?” McKinnon asked.
  “Maybe two klicks,” said Dan.
  “Let’s move out,” said McKinnon. “Something’s not right here.”
  His Black Knight plowed through the heavy underbrush until he 
  at last stepped out onto ferrocrete. One by one his ’Mechs began 
  to emerge from the trees. 
  The road curled south and McKinnon saw that forest had been 
  cleared up ahead, giving way to a collection of prefab buildings 
  ringed by a ragged barbed wire fence.
  “What the hell is that?” McKinnon whispered.
  “That, sir,” said Sara, “is the way home.”
  “Looks like the depot,” said Dan. “If I can still read a map.”
  “Let’s take this slow,” said McKinnon. “Command Lance in front, 
  Medium takes rear guard.”
  “What’s the matter, Cap?” asked Dan.
  “We’re on open road and the Snakes have good cover. Why aren’t 
  they firing at us?”
  “Because—” Dan stopped. “Because they want us to go this 
  way.”
  “But sir,” said Kurt Lang, “I’m not reading anything up ahead”
  “Nevertheless,” said McKinnon, “we’re going to be careful.” 
  Because there was some ground you just didn’t occupy He ex-
  pected to find a trap in that sad collection of buildings.
  What he actually found was far worse.
  * * *
  The streets that ran between the prefab buildings were filled 
  with rubble: slabs of ferrocrete, the rusting corpse of a fork-truck, 
  a truck gutted by fire. The roads were striped with black scars. 
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  Pocked with divots. There had been a fight here, only it hadn’t 
  been much of a fight.
  McKinnon could tell that from the bodies.
  They had been left in the road or nailed to the side of buildings, 
  hung up like grotesque scarecrows. They were barely recogniz-
  able as human. Some were desiccated mummies, bones wrapped 
  in a shriveled bag of skin. Others had been picked clean by scaven-
  gers, leaving behind only bleached skeletons. Some were missing 
  limbs—or heads. But all head one thing in common.
  They all wore AFFS uniforms.
  No one spoke as they passed through that evil place.
  And when Ross McKinnon stepped his Knight out the other side, 
  he found the black No-Dachi waiting for him.
  * * *
  “Now,” said Ella, “now we shall talk.”
  Dan stepped his Enforcer forward and lowered his right arm. A 
  Gauss slug smashed into the No-Dachi’s right leg, shattering ar-
  mor and ripping through the machine’s metallic skin to reveal the 
  machine’s silver-white bones underneath.
  “Hold fire, hold fire,” McKinnon roared.
  “But she—”
  “Didn’t do this,” McKinnon finished. “Think, Dan. How long ago 
  was that camp destroyed?”
  “But I don’t—”
  “Return to Blitzkrieg,” said McKinnon. “Dan, you’re in command. 
  Your orders are to report what we’ve seen here to High Command.”
  “You’re not staying here.”
  “For a few minutes.”
  “But the Wobbies are closing.” 
  “All the more reason for you to move out, Leftenant,” McKinnon 
  snapped His voice softened. “Go on, Dan. Get our people out. I’ll 
  be along shortly.”
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  “Yessir,” snapped Dan. “Alright, you heard the Captain. Time to 
  move out.”
  For a moment McKinnon watched his people move down the 
  road, picking up speed as they raced for their DropShip and safety. 
  Then he turned to face the No-Dachi “What happened here?”
  “The Wobbies used the depot as a makeshift POW camp. Until 
  some of the POWs tried to escape. The Wobbies massacred them. 
  All of them. And left their bodies here as a lesson to those who 
  might oppose Blake’s will.”
  “How do you know this?”
  “My master has eyes and ears everywhere. Even in places ISF 
  cannot go. Or MIIO.”
  McKinnon shook his head. “You should have let us hit the mu-
  nitions plant. We would have crippled the Wobbies war fighting 
  ability in this sector.”
  “Well, as it so happens—”
  The ground rumbled and shook under McKinnon’s ’Mech. To the 
  north a gout of orange fire stabbed into the blue sky. He felt the 
  rumble of secondary explosions rippling through the earth like af-
  tershocks.
  “The rest of my unit took care of the munitions plant for you.”
  “Why?” McKinnon whispered.
  “You had to see,” she said gently. “You have fought the Wobbies 
  with honor and skill, McKinnon-sama But you are a practitioner of 
  lightning war. You do not see what the Wobbies do to the worlds 
  they occupy. And you had to see. So you would know why you 
  must join with my master to defeat them.”
  “I will not betray my prince—”
  “I am not asking you to betray your prince,” Ella said. “I’m asking 
  you to serve her in the truest way you can.”
  McKinnon was considering her words when a flight of missiles 
  streaked in and smashed into his ’Mech’s chest, followed by the 
  hellish light of multiple lasers.
  * * *
  
  BattleCorps
  Demon Star • Page 
  Venh’s cockpit blazed with heat as she pushed her Crusader, us-
  ing her triple-strength myomer to force her assault machine up to 
  an earth-shaking 86 kph. Eighty tons of ’Mech just wasn’t meant 
  to move that fast.
  But she had some place to be.
  Once she realized where McKinnon’s Raiders were going she 
  had divided her force—sending her fleetest machines to protect 
  the munitions plant. The orange pillar of flame burning into the 
  sky showed how well that plan had worked.
  The Fox’s Teeth had made her look like a fool, and she had al-
  lowed them to cripple Algol’s munitions production capability. If 
  she was going to survive this day, she needed a big victory.
  And that meant destroying Fox’s Teeth.
  She had dispersed her big machines throughout the forest to 
  search for the enemy. When a VTOL had spotted the Raiders mov-
  ing through the old depot, Venh had been closest. She sprinted 
  toward the target. Her big machines were following as fast as they 
  could. If she could just delay the Raiders long enough . . .
  Her Crusader crested a high hill near the depot. She looked down 
  and saw two ’Mechs facing each other: a black No-Dachi and a 
  Black Knight wearing Raider colors. Ross McKinnon’s machine.
  As she dropped her reticle over the Knight’s chest, a grim smile 
  touched her lips.
  * * *
  McKinnon glanced at his wireframe schematic in time to see 
  armor flicker from yellow to red. He looked up and saw a white 
  GRN-D-03 skylined on a hill.
  “Grand Crusader II,” he called out, but Ella was already turning. 
  She cut into the Wobbie with her PPC, drawing an ugly black line 
  across the Wobbie’s clean white armor. 
  McKinnon targeted the same spot and hit the Crusader with his 
  own PPC followed by his extended range lasers. The Wobbie ma-
  chine trembled under the assault and for a moment, McKinnon 
  thought they were going to win.
  And then a blocky Vanquisher appeared atop the hill.
  
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  Demon Star • Page 
  “The Wobbie heavies are coming,” Ella shouted. “You must with-
  draw.”
  “We both need to withdraw,” he shouted back. He dropped his 
  reticle over the Vanquisher and pulled into his triggers.
  “Only one will make it,” she answered. “The other must stall that 
  Crusader. It’s the only machine with any speed.”
  For an instant, McKinnon flashed on the face of his uncle, mur-
  dered by Snake treachery. But that had been another generation’s 
  war.
  This one was his.
  “I don’t care if you’re a Snake,” he roared. “We don’t leave peo-
  ple behind.”
  “I am samurai,” she said. “We do.”
  “I—”
  She stepped forward, cutting into the Crusader with her PPC. A 
  Legacy appeared on the hill beside the Vanquisher 
  “Go, McKinnon-sama. If you die here, my honor dies with you.”
  McKinnon shook his head. Honor before life. The samurai way. It 
  was an alien idea and McKinnon would never understand it.
  But maybe he could learn to accept it.
  The Crusader charged forward, racing down the hill. McKinnon 
  ripped into it with his weapons as he searched his memory for the 
  ancient battle cry. “Yamato-damashii.” The soul of Japan.
  “You honor me, McKinnon-sama,” Ella said softly. And then she 
  threw her ’Mech in front of the charging Crusader.
  For a second, McKinnon watched the titanic battle between the 
  two great machines
  Then he turned and made his way down the road.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Demon Star - Steven Mohan Jr.pdf