"Congratulations, Ladies and gentlemen! You, yes you, have won an all expense paid trip to your next target!" Captain Mabuto said with his characteristic cheerfulness. Crammed into the tiny rec room turned briefing hall, aboard an old Fury class DropShip, a dozen officers and ranking NCOs dressed in tan infantry uniforms clung to handholds or floated in fairly stationary positions in front of the Captain. A holo projector that normally played commercial tri-V reruns but now flashed colorful images of terrain adorned the wall behind him. To the uninitiated, the soldiers could have easily been mistaken as regular line infantry. Except for shoulder patchers that had 'DROP RECON' emblazoned upon it, they did in fact look like infantrymen, but these soldiers were Pathfinders. Sometimes scouts, sometimes spies, a Pathfinder's job is to race unsupported ahead of the main body of a mission, slip through the enemy's defences, and land in hostile territory to scout and mark and mark good landing sites with electronic beacons for the troops to guide in on. We then get to camp beside the sites, to advise our troops if the situation changes. While there are BattleMech Pathfinder units specially designed for heavily defended targets, real pathfinding missions require stealth, something multi-ton war machines find difficult to obtain. So the work is left to a bunch of old fashioned soldiers sneaking around in the bushes, trying to get to the proper landing zones without tipping off the enemy ahead of time. After the chuckling from his audience subsided, "As all of you know, earlier this year the Clans invaded and captured the Twycross system. The high command has decided to try to take back one of the worlds they've taken in this latest wave of attacks. That world will be Twycross, ladies and gentlemen!" "Some of you have seen combat against the Clans already, that is why you are here today, your experience will prove invaluable in this mission... You people will be the first FedCom troops to get ground-side in this invasion, and the 'Mech boys are relying on us to mark their Drop Zones so they don't mess up and get themselves lost. "With luck, we can take back the initiative and push the bastards back where they came from. Now I'll turn things over to Leftenant Perkins for the specifics." When the sporadic applause ended and the Captain coasted away from the center of the crowd of commanders, the wiry intelligence officer, obviously unaccustomed to micro-gravity, pulled his way awkwardly along fixed tables. After locking his mag- boots firmly to the metal floor, withdrew a pointer from his uniform pocket and began to outline the Drop Zones of the first platoon. As he went through the miscellaneous details that go into landing twenty eight men intact and all together on a hostile plane, I thought of the 'Big Picture' that had lead up to this operation. The Federated Commonwealth had begun to gain an advantage over the other powers of the Inner Sphere, and finally stood more than a fair chance of ending the Succession Wars for good. Then the Clans came. Hit by surprise, the rimward stretches of the Tamar March could do nothing but collapse under the brutal firepower of the Jade Falcons. I should know; I was stationed on Trellwan along with the rest of my Pathfinder company, we were pressed into service to defend the last remaining spaceport. That company no longer exists. Of my entire platoon, only myself and six other troopers were lucky enough to make it to the last ship to leave as its hatches clanked closed. Now with a new unit, we were finally preparing to hit back. Just as Captain Mabuto had said, the FedCom brass had decided to make a counteroffensive on Twycross, an obscure world in the interior of the Tamar March. The briefing material said the planet was a dry dust bowl with fierce winds and storms for most of the year. The only things of worth in the backwater system were a couple of 'Mech factories and a half billion people. The true reason for the assault was in the hopes that if we could retake the initiative, the Clans would have to stop the offensive to defend their ill-gotten gains. That was the plan anyway, but as the intel officer began to describe our assigned Drop Zone, I could not help but remember those unholy Clan death machines as they tore through the port with impunity. Or stop hearing the shouts and screams as my troops fought and died trying to stop an armored enemy with small arms and flesh and bone echo through my mind. I felt an apprehensive sense of dread at the thought of facing them again, as if by pushing our luck this time, it would abandon us when we needed it the most. "...the fighters and this ship will immediately disengage and begin a three gee burn toward the target, ETA to orbital zone ... four hours." Perkins said amongst a chorus of groans from the assembled officers. I was adding my own epigraph to the general grumblings of the small and stuffy compartment when it suddenly dawned on me, something the Leftenant had said. A transit time of four hours, at three Gs? That could only mean one thing. Pirate point. The standard method for Jumping into a system was to materialize above the system's star far enough out to be clear of most of its gravitational field. Unfortunately, this usually gives the target's defenders days or even weeks to prepare a welcoming committee. The alternate technique is to use a non-standard Jump Point, or pirate point, as they are often called. Coming in close to the target world, a pirate point can cut transit time to hours instead of days. Unfortunately, solar systems tend to be full of junk, meteorites, and comets just floating about unseen: to all of which JumpFields react rather poorly. Ships have been known to blow up, turn inside out, or simply vanish when they tried to materialize over solid matter. To use one you have to be either damn good or hopelessly desperate, and I was not quite sure in which category we fit. As the Captain dismissed the staff meeting and we made out way through the narrow, conduit lined corridors, I managed to dismiss my fears as pre-battle jitters. Once back in my platoon's cramped, cell-like troop bay, I was too busy to think of anything besides what my sergeants needed from supply, or why fourth squad still hadn't recalibrated the waldo frames of their man-pack particle cannons to compensate for Twycross's gravity. Even after a week in transit as the DropShip made its way to the assembled starship fleet, there always seemed a hundred things to do before we Jumped in- system, and geometrically less time to do them in. But as the time before the operation dwindled from hours to minutes, the soldiers of my command, veterans all, stowed their gear, put the finishing touches on weapons, and privately prepared themselves for the ordeal to come. "T minus one minute to Jump," squawked the intercom mounted on the grey ceiling of the troop bay. vStrapped flat to my bunk, the least painful way to endure a high-G transit, I listened to the mutterings of nervous conversations, and the muted hum of the ship's ventilation system. "T minus five ... four ... three...two ... one" There was a nauseating hum in my ears and the bunk above me and the well lit bay seemed to fade out of existence. Then a felling of infinite motion overwhelmed my head, but with a lurch of my stomach, the troop compartment was again solid and my body floating listlessly just as it had before moving an unimaginable distance in an instant. "Position confirmed, we are go for separation!" the intercom said in conjunction with a baritone Klaxon and flashing amber lights. My head still clouded from the after effects of the Jump, I was unprepared for the jarring bang as the DropShip disconnected from the docking collar of our JumpShip. From somewhere in front of me came a wrenching sound as an unidentified trooper lost control of his stomach. Unfortunately for the Jumpsick soldier, the ship's pilot choose that exact moment to light the fusion drive of the delta-winged DropShip. Kilo built on kilogram as the tissues of my body compressed with the G-forces and the unpleasant sound became a miserable gurgle that was joined by a shout of outrage, probably from the bunkmate beneath him. Four hours may not seem that long, but waiting to land on an unfriendly planet with the equivalent of two people sitting on you, it can take forever. With every movement a conscious act, I spent most of my time memorizing mission information, sleeping, and worrying, mostly worrying. At turn-around there was a brief respite of zero-G, with time to use the head, and time for the 'cookie catcher' detail to clean up the mess. Soon the ship began its deceleration leg and the crushing pressure came back with a vengeance. On the last half of the journey, the bridge began piping in commentary over the ship's intercom. As the ship entered Twycross' near orbital space, the fighters that had come along as escort and to carry out out the first air strikes on ground targets began to tangle with the Clan interceptors that had scrambled to meet them. Of course, they don't tell the grunts down in the bowels of the ship everything; would they even let us know when the ship was to be hit with a spread of missiles? So, deaf and blind, we lay listening to the creaks and groans from the ship as the pilot increased and decreased thrust or fired the vessel's maneuver thrusters to make the craft as hard a target to hit as possible. Only the sporadic ringing crashes of hits on the ship's armored hull and the near- constant hammering of its tail stinger autocannon gave us a concrete feeling of the reality of the battle raging in the vacuum around us. "Pressure breach in the starboard weapons bay!" came after a particularly rattling impact. Did that mean the hit had simply broken a seal in the compartment, venting its air into hard vacuum; or had it torn the ship's entire wing apart? I thought furiously as the ship continued its chaotic journey. "Atmospheric entry in thirty seconds," the intercom said and the transit drives died out, bringing the welcome relief of free fall once again. The pilot had come in fast and hard, hoping to speed past the dueling fighters, relying on dumping the Fury's excess velocity in heat and friction with the planet's upper atmosphere. At first the whistling passage of rarefied gas marked our contact, but soon the whistle had built up to a roar as friction and drag pulled at the aerospace craft, converting the ship's solar speed into scorching of heat. Slowly the noise abated and the ship lost speed as it fell into thicker, more substantial air. From somewhere aft of us came a rumbling whine of the air-breathing maneuver drives as they came on line, once again providing thrust, but this time directed rearward much like a conventional aircraft. The best thing about finally being within the bounds of Twycross' atmosphere was that even with the engines pushing at maximum thrust, there was little force to affect us besides turbulence and a gentle swaying as the ship cut through unstable air as I moved with muscles that screamed with pain after hours of neglect and high-Gs. "Let's get ready for the party, Sergeant," I said to Staff Sergeant Collier as he bounded into the women's bunk row with a double-barreled blazer rifle in hand as if the past four hours had been spent aboard a luxury liner. "Alright, people, get your lazy butts in gear! Squad Leaders! I wasn't status reports in five minutes," his voice booming off every wall in the bay as he disappeared into the body crowded corridors between rows of triple stacked bunks. Like a well-oiled machine, the platoon broke out weapons, gear, and ammunition from their individual lockers. Laser rifles, missile launchers, and the rapid fire blazer rif les; in the days before the Clans, only heavy assault units carried such high- powered weaponry. Now such armament was necessary just to give us an even chance against the enemy battle armor. As Charlie Platoon, we would be the next to last group to drop. Over an hour's time, we heard A and B platoons make their way to the aft vehicle bay where they would exit from its open hatch. Eventually, we would get the call, and make our way to the bay as well. Compared to the bunk-lined troop bay, the cargo bay was absolutely cavernous, twenty meters long and ten wide, with nothing within its tie-down metal walls besides a cluster of para packs and parachute equipped supply containers. Each trooper picked up a para pack, checked the conditional of its external rigging and electronic altimeter, and slung its harness across his back. At the one-minute buzzer, I called attention. Every eye in the platoon was upon me. I've personally never liked giving speeches and peptalks, preferring to let the platoon sergeant and the squad leaders do the morale building bit. But it's a traditional facet of being a leader of soldiers to give the prebattle speech. Pitching my voice down to sound more confident than I felt, I let all twenty seven of the people in my command have it. "You all know why we're here. The enemy has been kicking our ass all over the realm, pushing us back whenever they feel like it. Well, now it's our turn' We're going to do what we are trained for, leading the way! PATHFINDERS! It's pay back time!" The platoon let out the obligatory emotional cheer and the massive ramp to the bay began to open with a loud thump. The troops turned about clumsily under the weight of their bulky parafoils and awaited the green light to go. Almost immediately the bay was filled with cold wind as the soldiers stood in nervous anticipation. Then the jump light flashed to green and first the supply containers were pushed out of the hatch, and fourth squad disappeared behind it, followed by the third, then the second, until I stood on the edge of the bay looking down. It was near dawn in this area of Twycross and the ground was still an indistinct dark carpet but the horizon was It with a slash of orange by the promised day. Taking one last look back into the bay, I walked down the end of the ramp and into nothing. The cold slipstream blasted me away from the DropShip, then the transport was gone, and I was free falling through a dusty copper sky. We started the jump at '2000 meters', and as I looked at the altimeter strapped across my harness, the red digits had already dwindled to '1800' and they continued to spin down. At '1000m', I pulled the rip cord that deployed the grey nylon parafoil with a pop and snap. After making sure the 'chute was good and its control lines responded positively, I slipped the infrared vision eyepiece out of its recess in the front edge of my helmet and over my right eye. The triangular tops of many parafoils stood out sharply from the cold ground below as they circled tightly toward the ground. Only a few hundred meters off the desert floor, I took the opportunity to look over the surrounding terrain as a cross wind buffeted me. The place we had been put down to secure as a potential landing zone was a shallow valley within the sheltered foothills of the Wind Break Mountains. It was about as flat as land gets on Twycross, the expanse of rolling windswept sand dotted with small barrel cactus and eroded rock outcroppings. The only ground I could see that looked even remotely defensible was a small bump in the ridge that the maps said was a hill called 3490, to the southwest close to where the valley opened up into the wasteland of the Plain of Curtains. I checked my I/R. Aside from the airborne humans, there was the welcome absence of heat sources from any other living thing. As I came in for a landing I angled in on the largest clump of soldiers. Pulling down hard on the twin D-ring lines, I slowed my fall just before reaching the ground and came to a gentle touchdown close to the spiny hump of a cactus. Before the wind could take control of my canopy and give me an involuntary tour of the country side, I unsnapped the buckles where my jump harness met the shroud lines, releasing me and collapsing the fabric envelope. After chasing down the flapping material in the dark, I made my way toward the nearest group of soldiers. After rounding up Sergeant Collier and the squad leaders and getting a full accounting of everyone, we set off foot the hilltop. As we attempted to pull the supply containers the short distance across the desert, we discovered that the narrow wheels of the boxes would sink into the sand or catch on a cactus every few meters. After futile attempts at alternately pushing and pulling the containers, we realized that they were simply not designed for operating in deserts. With time wasting, I chose the simplest solution. Assigned each squad to a box, we carried them across the cool predawn desert like ants at a picnic. We crested the hill just as Twycross' bright orange sun broke through the summit of the eastern mountains. Almost immediately, the temperature began to climb, and we discovered one of Twycross' more charming features, the ability of its wind- blown fine red sand to get into everything. From the meal packs we were trying to eat for breakfast to the weapons that had to keep us alive, it settled upon anything not moving. My men quickly began to curse the gritty dust. The hill itself was roughly oval in shape, crowned by broken and weathered granite blocks. With the platoon occupied in digging slit trenches and bunkers, using parafoil material to keep the dry sand from simply caving in on the excavations, the communications tech and I succeeded in preventing the wind from blowing our portable dish antenna over for long enough to transmit a situation report to unseen receivers in the brassy sky. Aside from the nuisances caused by the wind and sand, the mission had gone very well. By noon we had the bunkers and their connecting trenches finished, with good visibility of the surrounding terrain even through the blowing sand. I allowed my soldiers a chance to relax. As the heat of the day built, the surrounding rotund cacti rapidly became festooned with helmets and armored vests. With less than an hour before friendly reinforcements were due to arrive, and despite the fact that we were still stranded in enemy territory, it looked as if my earlier uneasiness had just been imagination. This mission would have the best kind of ending for a Pathfinder; a quiet one. But as I was finishing a ration pack of sand, rice, and mystery meat, the call went out. "Toads in sector three!" Forgetting my unpalatable meal I snatched up my helmet and dashed across the hilltop. Dropping down into the trench next to the sentry who had called out the warning, I raised the electronic binoculars in the direction he pointed and peered through the swirling dust up the valley toward the vaulting mountains. At first the only thing I could see were five indistinct shapes that looked more like mirages than the brutal killing machines they were. Then the dust cleared slightly and I could clearly seethe oversized arms and gaping mouth-like arrangement of its frontal chest armor. Without their backpack missile racks, the Toads looked lees like armored amphibians and more like mechanical apes trudging through the sand. They were spaced about at 10 meter intervals along the low spot between two dunes, moving almost perpendicular to our fortified hill. "Good eyes, Jericson. Lord! If we could call artillery down on them, we'd bag two of 'em at least!" I said as SSgt Collier ducked into the position. "You want to hit them?" "No, let them go. I don't think they've seen us yet, but if they want a fight, we'll let them pick it," I said, scanning the rest of the ridge. Bracing the binoculars by resting my elbows on the sandy parapet, I looked back the way the Toads had come, dialing up maximum magnification. Through the blowing sand, the dark shape of rocks took on ominous shapes, but the ones that remained stationary could be discounted as harmless. Then one seemed to fission into two, then three. Zooming in on the lead shape, I could see the menacing silhouettes of more armored suits moving directly toward our position. Swinging around, I tried to find the first set of enemy troops. The horizon was empty, but it did not make me feel any better. With the wind and sand, the enemy could have a company of BattleMechs out there and we wouldn't know it until they were practically on top of us. "That does it then, we've been made," I said, looking at the fast approaching group of Toads, "Get ready for a twin pronged attack from the east and south. Move the PPCs to cover both sections." "Yes, Ma'am," he said, and was off, bellowing orders and slapping soldiers on the backs of their heads if they had not put on their helmets. The binox's rangefinder was useless in the cursed sand, leaving me to approximate the distances. It looked like they were still at least a half kilometer into the valley. Rapidly, there were eight, then ten figures approaching. Two squads to the east and one out of sight in the south, that makes fifteen so far; almost a full platoon. Without reinforcements we might hold them off, but if they go 'Mech support, all bets would be off. There was a nearby clank of metal as one of the weapons squad's soldiers and his man-pack PPC set up in a crude bunker built from small boulders and the remains of a supply container. Elsewhere men and women charged the capacitors on their laser rifles and lowered their dark anti-laser visors over eyes. The figures stood motionless atop a low rise, just far of the last reflective range marker put out by the weapons team this morning. "What are they doing?" asked one of the privates beside me as she clicked off the safety on her missile launcher. "Bidding to see who gets the honor of dying first, no doubt," I muttered derisively, remembering my own experience and endless intelligence briefings, "PPCs, do you have the range to target?" "They're just out of range, Leftenant, but I think I can hit 'em" one of the gunners responded eagerly. I remembered a lecture on the strange battle tactics of the Clans. The Clans have very formal rules of engagement for their battles which they call 'trials'. As such these trials are subject to their practice of bidding, which obligates a commander to use the minimum troops necessary to accomplish his mission. However, if battle etiquette is breached by the other side, he is no longer held by the rule, and can attack with all the forces at his disposal. "No, wait for their charge," I said, hoping the enemy commander would behave true to form and give us a chance to defeat him piecemeal. Through the binoculars, I could see the two center suits, apparently in conversation, waving their arms. Then the five Toads to the right sprung into the sky and brilliant lances cut through the airborne sand to probe our hill. There is something bone-chilling about the keening hiss of a high power laser followed a sharp explosion as the energy vaporized whatever solid matter it encountered. The defused laser light left blinding purple streaks across the retinas of my eyes before I could drop the photo-reactive visor of my helmet. "Let 'em have it!" My earlier anxiety vaporized in the heat of combat as red lasers lanced in and the duller green of laser rifles and the dazzling white of M-PPCs returned the fire. The soldier next to me raised her SRM launcher, aimed, and fired. With a crack-whoosh, the rockets raced down the hill to strike a Toad squarely in its faceplate just as it came down from a jump. The flashes of high explosives blewthe squat head off the suit and it toppled lifelessly over. As the gunner turned and gave me a smile and thumbsup sign a beam struck the side of her helmet, vaporizing her life away in a brilliant instant. I had no time to feel remorse over the death, for as her smoking body fell to the bottom of the trench, first one, then two Clan laser bursts blasted closer and closer to the bunker where the M-PPC fired. "PPC, get out of there! They're zeroing in on you!" The man obeyed, but as the weapon's red-hot muzzle withdrew from the firing slit, a shot found its mark. The bunker exploded in a shower of metal and rock fragments. Ducking the pelting impacts, I gazed down slope at the attacking Toads. The battle was but a few seconds old, but they were already down two armored suits, with the other three under withering fire. But they kept coming, making great hopping leaps that ate up the distance. "Bandit two, this is Bandit one." I yelled the battlespeech into my radio against the thunder of combat. "What's your status, over?" "This is Bandit three. The Sarg bought it! We're taking a beating over here; they took out our PPC, and I've got four casualties so far!" came the frantic response. Damn, with Collier down there was no one on that side of the hill to direct the troops' fire! "What's the enemy doing there?" I asked. There was an explosion behind me from where second squad was, echoed in my headset by a burst of static. After a pause the squad leader came back on, "I see one, no, two squads! Repeat, two squads of enemy Toads moving toward my position, over." Shee, this just keeps getting better and better, I thought. We'd missed one of the enemy groups, and now they were bearing down on the right side of the hill. "Bandit four, redeploy and support Bandit three's position now," I said. By moving the third squad to support the beleagered second, we would be able to bring more firepower to bear against the enemy, but it left that side of the hill undefended. It was a chance I had to take, if the enemy had troops on that side it wouldn't make much difference. They would simply overwhelm us. I directed the fire of the soldiers around me, adding my own from the rifle I'd taken from a fallen man. Firing wildly at the attackers, we tried to burn them down. They seemed to avoid or shrug off continuous hits until they reached the bottom of the hill. The moment the first Toad touched down, it was sent up again by the detonation of a half-kilo of shaped charge explosive from an anti-armor mine it had landed on. The other two triggered mines when they came down, and one of them fell on another of the devices, blowing it apart. The concentrated bursts of over ten laser weapons reduced the cripple Toads to riddled junk. The troops around me let up a ragged cheer that was cut short by a roll of rapid fire explosions that dropped a soldier screaming, clutching at his bloodied face. I looked up and saw with cold horror the other squad of armored troopers running and jumping in the tracks of their comrades. The fresh enemy were already halfway to the hill when we started opening fire on them, and I knew we would never bring them down before they reached the top of the hill. The subjection of the hill top to the savaging of high-powered laser fire had blown most of the protective trenchworks into craters, leaving precious little cover for my remaining troops to fight from. I had to get them to new positions further back on the hill. "Fall back to second squad's position! Keep down an..." I never finished. There was a shrieking blast behind me and I was flung up and dumped into the sand. The next time I opened my eyes, I was lying on my back near a large, laser-scarred boulder. At first I was disoriented, trying to remember where I was. Then it came back to me; the battle, the Toads, and my command. I tried to jump up and instantly regretted it; waves of nausea washed over me. I slowly sat up, leaning against the rock, and tried to key in the radio built into my helmet. My hand came away bloody; my helmet was missing. Apparently something heavy and moving very fast had torn it away and cut a gash across my head from behind my right ear all the way to the temple. Luckily, it hadn't hit directly at the base of my skull, where it probably would have cleanly taken my head off. Dizzily, I looked around my position. Although I did not know where exactly on the hill I was, I could still see fighting going on in other areas, so I couldn't have been out that long. The explosion had deafened me. I could not hear anything but a loud buzzing ring, which made the spasmodic flashes and smoke of battle seem surrealistic. I edged my way up the rock to a standing position, with more blood running down my cheek and dripping from my chin. Looking around the corner of the boulder, I saw an enemy armor suit moving rapidly toward me! Ducking back around the rock I pressed my back against it as the throbbing pain darkened my vision. My laser pistol was missing from its holster, so I drew my vibroblade from its sheath and pulled a solitary hand grenade that had managed to cling to my tac harness. Wrapping a finger around the arming pin, I waited for the Toad to come and smash me. I'd take the malfer with me! The enemy soldier, looking like some kind of miniature, alien BattleMech, strode by with rapid, powerful movements. It seemed unaffected by the many gaping, sore-like laser burns all over its body. It didn't see me! Was its pilot blind? For a split second, I had the insane impulse to tap it on the shoulder and yell "Hi there!" to its startled inhabitant. Resisting the urge, I lunged at it with the vibroblade instead. The weapon bit into the middle of its back, sinking to the hilt in the unknown contents of the suit. The Toad paused, jerked once, and fell forward on its face. I nearly collapsed in relief, but then the suit began to twitch, and its limbs started to gather under it in an attempt to rise. "NO!" I screamed. Jumping upon the Toad's back, I was about to jab at the rousing monster with my vibroblade when I saw a large blast hole a little higher up on its back than my first stab wound. With no time to lose, I pulled the pin from the grenade, jammed the cylinder into the hole, and threw myself clear of the thing. The grenade exploded with a curiously muffled thump through my shocked ears. The only thing that showed what had happened was a curl of grey smoke and a viscous black fluid that leaked from the seams and holes in its armor. I must have lost a lot more blood than I thought because it seemed to take forever to summon the strength to try to stand again. When I did, and then looked up, I was rewarded with the sight of another one of the Toads standing in front of me, this one in better shape except for a shot- up right weapons arm. It raised its other wickedly clawed arm and pointed the weapon slung there at me. "What are you waiting for?" I yelled. Giving up, I sank back to the sand and stared up at it, trying to look past the dark faceplate and into the eyes of my killer. "Do it, you son of a..." Something struck it on the back of the head, and the Toad stepped back and turned, revealing a soldier with a look of crazed fury on his face and an entrenching tool clutched in his hands, bringing it up for another swing. He didn't get a chance; the armored suit almost casually lashed out with its arm, knocking him off his feet. The terror turned back to me, but something made it stop again. It froze as something made the ground shake; small pebbles danced off the ground. An earthquake? I thought groggily, unsure of anything I sensed. The Toad fired the jump jets mounted in its lower legs, and leapt into the sky, leaving a cloud of hot dust behind. Confused, I followed the suit in its flat arching trajectory until a lancing flash of lightning caught it in midflight, blowing it into burning chunks. At first I thought someone from the heavy weapons squad had gotten it, but then I remembered both guns had been knocked out early in the fight. Turning my head slowly and painfully, I looked at my savior. Even standing on the sandy floor of the valley, I had to look up at the bulbous head of the BattleMech, a Griffin class, judging by the steaming, rifle-like weapon clenched in its right fist and its massive shoulder armor. Elsewhere behind the metal giant, other war machines descended into the valley on brightly burning jet packs. As I looked back at the 'Mech, its pilot waved cheerfully from behind the armored canopy of his cockpit. The insignia of the Tenth Lyran Guards was stenciled across its left chest. And, as they say, the rest is history. I spent a lot of time after pickup thinking about how much luck, both good and bad, rules the lives of the soldiers that throw themselves upon the mercies of fate. Sometimes I feel as if luck and chance were a set of scales with life in the balance. With luck on your side you can succeed and survive, even if terrible odds are against you,as I or the soldier that attacked a Toad with a shovel both did. The equation has a dark side too. If bad luck upsets the balance, death will take you just as it did SSgt Collier and all the others that fell that bloody day on a nameless hill. When I'm feeling melancholy, or when I'm preparing for another mission, I think of all those I have seen die. I wonder when I, too, will be unlucky. Captain Andrea Fuller is the third child of Lord Vance Fuller, the head of House Fuller, a barony on the Federated-Commonwealh world of Fincastle. Though the family is noble, with several MechWarriors in each generation, it is traditional forthe third born to become infantry officers. Ms Fuller entered the Sakhara Academy in 3042. In 3046, she graduated with honors and received her commission and a position with the 24th Royal Fincastle Infantry Regiment. She then served in the Capellan March for two years before volunteering forthe Airborne Pathfinders. The Twycross campaign was her third combat insertion, and at the time of writing, Captain Fuller had seen action twice more against the Clans. The last engagement resulted in her promotion to Captain and the command of C Company, 783rd Pathfinder Battalion. Back to BattleTechnology 20 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com