In this issue of BattleTechnology, the reknowned Colonel Morgan C. Graeme provides an analysis of cavalry tactics in his article, Cavalry: Tactics and Applications for a New Age. The article, found on page 34, discusses the use of light cavalry, in particular, light tanks and hovercraft, in 31st century warfare. The story printed below, submitted by Lieutenant John Lee of MacKenzie's Marauders, arrived at our BattleTechnology editorial offices at about the same time as Colonel Graeme's article. Our tactical research staff assures us that this is the best illustration they've seen yet on how not to use cavalry in modern warfare! We include it here under our Battle Tips department heading as a warning against the indiscriminate use of cavalry in BattleMech combat... and as a tribute to valiant men and women. Cavalry Charge: Light Armored Cavalry and the Valley of Death! I won't make apologies for my behavior. Every MechWarrior I knew felt the same way. "The Little People," we dubbed them, or "the Wee Folk," "the Suicide Lights," and other names, more scornful and more uncomplimentary than that. When you're the pilot of a 10-meter tall BattleMech, you're the undisputed king of the modern battlefield. No pun intended: you look down on the motor infantry, the hovercraft, the tanks and other light scout vehicles wrapped in the dust clouds about your armored feet. Your feelings of superiority become positively insufferable if the little people are local yokels as well. Local planetary militias have the reputation of being unsteady in a fight, poorly trained, poorly led, and more likely than not to bolt at the first sign of an enemy BattleMech. I'd met the girl in Port Royal the evening after MacKenzie's Marauders touched down. Our introduction wasn't exactly what you would call ordinary. I'd been walking into the Port Royal strip to see what the spacetown night life had to offer and been sidetracked to an alleyway by a hellacious clatter and a high-pitched scream. She was cornered in the alley's dead end by a pair of grimmers each twice her size. Both the clatter and the shriek were coming from a third grimmer lolling in a cacophony of overturned trash cans, clutching a highly sensitive part of his anatomy with both hands. Evidently, he and his buddies had cornered the girl with the thought of having a little fun. Her answer had incapacitated one of them, and now the other two were mad. Moonlight sparked silver from a vibrodagger in the hand of one of the thugs. Cursing the idiocy which had made me leave my sidearms in the barracks, I stooped on the run, scooped up the circular lid of a trash can and skimmed it like a saucer. The spinning missile connected with the thug's dagger arm. The white hot shaft of the dagger sliced through the garbage lid like a laser through plastic, but a chunk of metal caught his wrist and the blade spun free, shrieking as it bit the brick of the building wall beyond. The grimmer yelled and spun. In the same instant, the girl's long and shapely leg flashed through the air, and a leather boot caught the knife wielder's partner squarely behind his ear. Then I was in close, the heel of my hand snapping up, connecting with the underside of the thug's lower jaw in a blow driven hard, straight up, delivered from the balls of my feet with all the strength I could muster. Three up, three down... and that's how I met Verna LeMann. We found a restaurant and a wandering conversation that covered a lot of ground. I talked about my life as a Mech Warrior and a member of MacKenzie's Marauders. She talked about growing upon Royal, about a brother she loved in Princeton, off on the east coast, and of a horror at seeing war come to her world. She had been off- world, she admitted, but had returned after the death of her parents in a Kurita raid. She had been taking care of her brother since. It was over the remnants of the dinner's final course that we got to talking about BattleMechs and the wee folk. The evening had been going splendidly and I was already anticipating the perfect end to the festivities when the conversation shifted to BattleMechs and cavalry. I started talking about the time I was piloting my Warhammer through a rabble of light cavalry during a raid on Barlow's Folly. Our 'Mech company had been moving towards the front and had run headlong into a retreating column of cavalry. A 20-ton Skulker wheeled scout tank, its armor more rust than alloy, had stalled in the middle of the highway. I laughed as I described the crew leaping for cover as my Warhammer's foot sent the vehicle rolling into a ditch. Verna's eyes flashed anger. "So what makes 'Mech pilots so almighty superior? You think you've cornered the market on battle prowess or something?" "Aw, c'mon!" I replied. "Light cavalry is great for scouting and harassing the enemy... blowing up unprotected fuel dumps and kindergartens and stuff like that. But when it comes to a stand-up fight, you'd better call in the BattleMechs...because it's a sure bet the other guy is going to have BattleMechs, and you've gotta have 'Mechs to stop 'Mechs!" "And that gives you the right to kick some cavalryman's tank into the ditch? That makes you no better than those thugs in the alley!" I studied Verna over the rim of my glass as I took a drink. "So? What's your interest in it, anyway? All warriors feel that way..." "What the hell do you mean 'all warriors? Those tankers don't count, I suppose?" "Hey, easy, girl! Easy! I have nothing against them. But a MechWarrior is a MechWarrior! Grunts and PBIs and pot pushers just aren't in the same league, right? You bring on the 'Mechs, and the small fry have to leave!" "So what gives you metal jocks such a goddam superior attitude! You walk in on our planet like you own it... and treat anyone who doesn't have BattleMech armor around them like dirt!" I was beginning to suspect this girl was more than she looked. She was wearing civilian clothes, but that Quick-Kill kick I'd seen her throw in the alley had laid a bully twice her mass out cold on the pavement, and she'd damn near crippled another before I'd even arrived. Her lithe movements spoke of battle- sharpened reflexes, of skill and training. I knew she was a local girl. She'd told me she'd grown up in a suburb of Port Royal, but the local yokels didn't train in Quick-Kill. Hell, I'd seen some of the planetary militia drilling, and it was all they could do to keep from falling over their own feet. "Hey... what gives?" I asked. Things she'd said, hints gleaned from the way she moved and held her body, were all coming together in a larger picture for me. She wasn't just a local girl. She'd had training. "You're not local militia. I'd be willing to bet you've had some 'Mech training." "You're so hot," she said as she stood up from the table. "You figure it out." She left me sitting there. My calculating visions of a warm and cuddly conclusion to the evening swept out the restaurant's door... leaving me to pay the bill. It was two days later that the Kurita forces hit Royal. They managed to pull one sharp maneuver by plotting their breakout at a non-standard JumpPoint less than two a.u.s out-system from Royal. My company was patrolling out Highway 3 east of Port Royal when they came down, shrieking atop columns of white fusion flame. MacKenzie's Marauders were itching for a fight, but that fight never came because all of a sudden the word came down that Port Royal was lost and we were pulling out. The command structure was pretty disjointed by that time. The planetary garrison commander was General Howard 0. Martell, a pompous little bastard in a pretty uniform who looked great saluting his troops from the reviewing stand but who was more politician than soldier. Colonel MacKenzie was in direct command of our regiment, of course, but we had been brought to Royal and placed under Martell's over-all command. None of us had a high opinion of the man's fighting abilities, though, and there wasn't a warrior among us who wasn't wondering whether any of us would follow his orders once the beams started flying. We found ourselves in our first pitched battle three days after the snakes took Port Royal. The Marauders were covering the withdrawal of the main body of Martell's troops towards the High Country. They were streaming past us in no particular order that we could see, ragged soldiers clinging to trucks and jitters and personnel carriers, many of them without weapons. All together, Martell had perhaps ten thousand men under his command... the remnants of an infantry brigade and one light cavalry battalion, the Royal Grays. We'd not seen much of the Grays during our stay on the planet so far. They'd been deployed north of Port Royal when the Kurita DropShips grounded and had missed most of the fighting there. They were a mix of vehicles, mostly Pegasus, Saracen, and Saladin hover tanks, with a hodgepodge of wheeled and tracked vehicles tagging along in the rear. "Ah, sure an' begorrah... and here come the wee folk." That affected Irish brogue coming over my 'Mech's comlink could only be Patrick O'Hara. "Shall we catch a few, now, Johnny, and keep'em as pets?" "Don't know about you, Pat, but I have trouble picking the blamed things up in a Warhammer. I just kick'em aside, myself." That brought a chuckle, but then Colonel MacKenzie was on the line. "Quiet and look sharp, people. We're reading movement at three-three-oh, coming our way fast and hard." My 'Hammer's radar had the target, a twinkling of small metal mountains bearing down on us at sixty klicks per. We swung into line abreast between the highway and the bogies and pushed forward, our weapons armed and at the point. MacKenzie's Marauders is a good, tight unit. Lots of people, when they first hear our name, assume we're an allMarauder unit, and that's not true, of course. Our unit history says we started out as a company of twelve Marauders a couple of centuries ago, but 'Mechs have been lost and been replaced since then. That morning on the plains north of Highway 3, A Company of MacKenzie's Marauders boasted four Marauders in the fire lance, plus Colonel MacKenzie's Marauder for a total of five. My Warhammer, Patrick O'Hara's Crusader, and Randolph Kreuger's JagerMech completed the command lance behind the Colonel's machine, while two Stingers and two Valkyries made up the recon lance. B and C companies weren't with us that day. They'd already moved north and south to cover an array of passes into the High Country, guarding ourway clear of the coastal plains. We collided with the Kurita line five klicks north of the highway, and knew we were in trouble right from the beginning. There were twelve of us and two full companies of them. We pulled up to the crest of a low ridge and dueled with them for the better part of ten minutes, but we were taking damage from a trio of Archers off our right flank, and a mix of six heavies were spilling around our left in an obvious attempt to slip between us and the infantry column on the road. A quick rush by a light lance of three Panthers and a Javelin managed to cut off Joe Lamonte's Stinger and bring him down. We saw the flash of his ejection seat as his 'Mech caught fire in an eruption of flame and black smoke, but either his personal com was out or he was dead when he hit the ground, because we weren't reading any lifesigns from his transmitter once he punched out. Blake's Marauder took a crippling hit in his left arm, and O'Hara's Crusader was knocked down twice by LRMs arrowing in from those Archers. My Warhammer took a couple of hits but was still fighting at full cap. "There's too many of them," Kreuger shouted over the com. I could hear the steady thud-thud-thud of his JagerMech's autocannon over the fuzz of static in the background. "We're not holding them!" "A Company, fall back!" came MacKenzie's order. "Hold'em as you move, and fall back!" By that time, we had more targets painted on our cockpit radars. We were already underdogs by two to one, and the bad guys had reinforcements boiling out of Port Royal. You didn't need to be a master strategist to figure that one out. If we stayed where we were, we'd be surrounded in another hour... and then it would be fight our way out or die. Instead, we dropped back slowly, keeping up a steady fire. The Marauders in our fire lance dropped back first, two to the north, two to the south. Then they held their ground and kept up a steady, thundering fire to left and to right, holding the flankers; at bay while the rest of us pulled off the ridge and slipped behind our cover, making for the hills to the east. Then it was our turn to hold while the fire lance dropped back, and it was leapfrog time, line by line, taking turns retreating and fighting as the enemy pressed close behind us. My 'Hammer was redlining as the heat load built up. One of my heat sinks had vanished in a burst of orange flame back on the ridge, and every blast of lightning from my PPCs drove the machine's internal temperature higher. Then, unexpectedly, miraculously, the pressure was gone. The Kurita 'Mechs had broken off their attack, leaving us retreating unmolested across the plain. Temporary Defensive Line We'd pulled up in a temporary defensive line across Harmony Pass, where Highway 3 cuts through the King Mountains and into the High Country to the west. It was a good defensive position, with sharp rock walls to north and south, and a fairly-steep drag up which the enemy would have to come if he wanted to get us. Our action had bought time for the infantry and small stuff to fall back through the pass, but we could tell from our scanner data and the coded radio babble among the Kurita pilots that they were gathering for their next assault. I parked my Warhammer in the shade of some trees, dropped my boarding ladder, and climbed down to the ground to stretch my legs. I could hear General Martell's shrill voice rising above the hum and clank of moving machines as I descended to the ground. He was squared off with the Colonel fifty meters away, and his shouts were attracting a crowd. "You call that a fight, Colonel?" were the first words I heard. "God damn it man, you had the high ground on that ridge, and you backed away and let them take it! What kind of an outfit are you running?" Colonel MacKenzie's reply was dry ice. "A fighting unit, General...and I intend to keep it that way." "You ran away..." "I preserved my unit, General. We were in an untenable position, flanked on both sides by an enemy unit twice our size. We bought you your time to get clear..." "I always knew you merc bastards weren't worth a Techie's damn! You were brought here to fight, damn it, not show your yellow tails!" I thought Colonel Mac was going to take that pompous little schnart down right then and there. There wasn't a one of us who didn't have battle honors painted on his 'Mech. Martell had enough medals on his jacket to serve as body armor, but there wasn't one I recognized: gedunk ribbons and attendance awards, every one of them Whatever the Colonel was about to say, though, was interrupted by a shout from Diana Vincent from the open cockpit of her Marauder. "Company, Colonel! Multiple targets, assault array at ten thousand meters, coming fast!" One of our Techs had set up a repeater screen by the trees, and I was peering over the Colonel's shoulder as the display came up. The two companies we had tangled with earlier had been reinforced. There were at least 36 'Mechs down the hill, and they were travelling, The General pointed a shaky finger at the screen. "Colonel, I want you to move in there and stop that column. If they break through this pass, we're finished! I'm finished!" The Colonel turned to look at Martell as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard. "General... that's a nearly a full battalion! We might hold them from a defensive line for a while, but..." "Did you hear me, Colonel?" The voice grated to a higher pitch. "I want you to advance your company down that slope! Hit them head on, and they'll run!" I looked at the general in horror. He was throwing our eleven 'Mechs against three times our number, hoping to buy time for his escape. "I wouldn't count on that, General," Colonel Mac replied. He studied the display for a moment, then shook his head. "No, Sir. It can't be done. Not with one company. I suggest..." "Damn it, MacKenzie! You're not being paid to suggest! I order you to advance!" The Colonel's voice was low and polite, and very, very formal. "Sir, I respectfully decline the order." I'd not heard the Colonel refuse a direct order before, though, of course, he had a perfect right to do so. Mercenary units fight by contract, and there is nearly always a clause in the contract which gives the commander that option. It's true. It it weren't set up that way, local commanders and regular forces would use the mercs attached to them as cannon fodder and throwaway pieces, with the idea of burning them up before letting their own troops get hurt. Merc units, the good ones, are there to be used, not thrown away, and their contracts reflect that. "Cowards!" the General said. "Yellow merc cowards! If you won't do it, I'll find someone who can!" He looked around at the crowd which had gathered at the repeater screen. "You!" He pointed at someone behind my left shoulder. "Captain! You will form up your unit and advance! You are to stop that enemy column at the bottom of this hill!" "Sir, my people are too good to throw away." I turned at the sound of the voice, and my eyes locked with eyes of pale blue. It was Verna, her hair tucked into a tanker's helmet now, her face grimed and streaked with grease where it hadn't been covered by the goggles which she'd shoved back out of the way. She wore the unit patch of the Royal Grays light cavalry. Captain's bars were pinned to her fatigues, and I felt about ten centimeters tall. "Are you people cowards too?" the General demanded. "By God, you at least I can have shot!" "No, Sir!" Her words were edged in fire. "But I am constrained to point out that light cavalry against 'Mechs is not even going to slow them down! You're killing good people for no reason..." "I'll be the judge of military reason, Captain. You will follow orders!" Her eyes met mine again for the briefest of instants. Then she snapped off a salute and a bitter "Sir!" "Colonel!" I grabbed MacKenzie's sleeve as the crowd began breaking up. Our boys were already mounting their vehicles, and behind us was the keening whine of hovercraft stirring to life in blasts of sound and roiling dust. "Colonel... we can't let him do that..." I saw pain in Colonel Mac's eyes. "Not our jurisdiction, Johnny. The Royal Grays are his troops." His eyes followed the girl as she mounted a Pegasus parked across the highway from our position. Then he turned on the General. "Sir, don't you think..." "Get out of my sight, merc!" The words were an open sneer. "We'll show you what real men can do! Your unit will hold your position here... if you dare! Cover my infantry's withdrawal!" I lost the Colonel's reply as Verna's Pegasus shrilled to life, stirring above the cushion of air spilling from its plenum chamber. The taped bugle call our regiment used to sound mount up was blaring from a Marauder's external speakers close by, and I was pounding gravel to my 'Hammer's boarding ladder and swarming up and aboard. As my Warharnmer's scanner and radar displays came on, the situation began looking even more desperate. The hostiles were gathering at the west end of the valley, advancing steadily up the hill. Three companies of the Royal Grays were already forming up for a charge at the crest of the hill, 30 hovercraft and tracked vehicles facing at least as many BattleMechs below them. The main body of the locals was already in full retreat towards the east, leaving the eleven blips marking A company alone in the valley. "Hold your positions, boys," the Colonel's voice came over the comlink. "We'll cover the infantry's retreat." "Colonel!" That was Jordy Blake's voice. "What about the cavalry?" We all were horrified by what was unfolding before our eyes. There was not a thing the cavalry could possibly do to even slow those behemoths lumbering up the hill towards our position. Computer IDs were coming across my screen: Orions, Archers, a pair of Marauders... A wall of heavy 'Mechs supported by lights and mediums in the rear and flanks. Verna had been right. Good people were being thrown away for no reason. "Steady, people," the Colonel replied. "Maybe we can cover them at long range." The cavalry lunged forward. I heard the Colonel's voice on the general combat frequency. "This is Colonel MacKenzie, calling the Royal Grays!" "This is Captain LeMann," was the reply. The transmission was harsh with static, and blended with the background roar of her vehicle. "What is it, Colonel?" "Captain, we may be able to cover you if you don't push too far down the hill. I suggest..." "This is General Martell. Clear the channel, Colonel. You have your orders, and LeMann has hers!" Damn! I'd figured that by that time that Martell would have been kilometers away and running for all he was worth, not listening to TacCom. Smoke blossomed white on the slope below us, striking at the racing tanks. My private com channel gave a bleep, and I switched it on. "Lieutenant? This is LeMann." "Verna! Look..." "No time. Look... do me a favor?" "Sure! Anything..." "My brother... the one I told you about." "Yeah?" She gave me an address in Princeton, on the east coast. "Tell him... tell him what happened. And that I tried. Please?" The roar of explosions thundered over the comlink, and then it was dead. Smoke billowed above the battlefield below us, as hovertanks and Vedettes and armored vehicles raced pellmell into a whirlwind of flashing beams and steel and destruction. On the screen, I could see the huddle of blips marking Verna's command sweeping into the center of the enemy line. The Kurita flanks were already curling around, engulfing her unit like some devouring, amoebic monster. "Colonel!" I said. "We've got to help!" "Hold your position, Mister." "But Sir!" "Hold your position, I said!" On the screen, the blips marking the hovercraft and tanks were winking out as their transponders failed, one by one. The blip marking an enemy Orion began flashing, marking damage. A Kurita Panther flashed once, and went out. The locals had drawn blood! Forward I had never yet disobeyed one of Colonel Mac's orders, but I could not stand by, doing nothing, and watch that splendid woman and her command hurl themselves into oblivion. I charged both my PPCs, brought them to the ready, and sent my Warhammer lumbering into motion. "Lieutenant Lee!" the Colonel snapped. "Get back in position!" "Sir, I respectfully decline the order." By the time I hit the battle line, any order which had existed in the Kurita line had vanished. BattleMechs dodged, wove, and lunged as hovercraft snapped at their heels. Missiles arced and stooped, striking armor, gouging craters in fire-charred metal. Beams flashed and stabbed. I saw an enemy Archer swing with one metal fist at a passing Saracen and miss, saw a trio of SR Ms leap from a wheeled Striker light tank and smash the Archersquare in the back. A Kurita Orion fired paired medium lasers into the Striker, loosing a fireball and geysering chunks of white-hot metal. I opened up with my PPCs against the Orion, saw hits scoring jagged holes in its torso and left arm. It spun and returned the fire, and we exchanged blow for blow in a slugging match that pounded both our 'Mechs with thunderbolt fury. The damaged Striker fired again, this time at the Orion. Metal scrap and debris showered from a hit on its right leg. It turned to face this new attack as I opened up with both PPCs. Two more holes opened up in the enemy 'Mech's side, and I saw fires blazing red through gaps in the machine's torso armor. There was a flash, and the Orion's canopy split up the middle. The pilot's ejector assembly hurtled up and away, clear of the fight as the carcass of his heavy 'Mech burned. The battle was a complete free-for-all now. The battlefield was littered with the wreckage of hovercraft and light tanks, the air choked with the smoke of their burning. A hundred meters away, I saw another Orion drawback its foot and strike a smashing blow into the side of a Galleon light tank. The 30-ton tracked vehicle lurched and spun with the blow, its medium laser still spearing into its attacker as it shuddered and tipped over. Orange fire balled skyward as its diesel fuel tank was breached. I triggered a volley at the Orion as it began stirring the wreckage with its torso-mounted autocannon. I remembered my telling Verna about kicking the Skulker and felt hot shame as I leveled both PPCs and tore into the second Orion, bolt upon bolt upon bolt. I caught the Kurita 'Mech in its lightly-armored back, and watched my artificial lightning blast and char through its internal structure. The Royal Grays were putting up a savage fight. They didn't have a chance against the Kurita heavies... but they kept attacking, smashing again and again at the enemy BattleMechs despite their losses. My Warhammer took a laser bolt in its left arm, staggering me. A pair of snake 'Mechs, an Archer and a Panther, were closing on me and I had to duck and spin to avoid a bursting salvo of LRMs. Damage lights flashed and bleeped across my instrument panel, and I began to realize just how desperate my own situation was. Another bolt caught me in the right leg, spinning me and knocking me down. I urged my 'Hammer to its feet in time to take a PPC blast in my chest. This fight was not going to last much longer. A PPC bolt hit the Archer from behind... followed by another... another... another! Missiles stored on board detonated in a fiery blast which ripped the Kurita Archer's hull apart, exposing starcore flame as the heavy died. The Panther turned, bringing its PPC up for a shot, but a Marauder thundered down the slope, its massive forearm swinging in a roundhouse blow that smashed the 35-ton Panther full in its side, crumpling the machine like plastic. I recognized my company commander's insignia as he led the company forward at a dead run down the hill. And the battle turned. We analyzed it later, of course, in our simulators, and we know now it was the cavalry charge that made the victory possible. Those neat, precise Kurita battle lines had folded around the Royal Grays when they struck and then dissolved. When MacKenzie's Marauders hit the Kurita formation, that formation became a mob, without cohesion or order or plan. Five enemy 'Mechs were actually surrounded between our force and what was left of the Grays, and were picked to pieces or blown apart before they could disengage. The rest began pulling back, uncertain about what was happening. We learned later that the Kurita commander had been in that second Orion I nailed. For a critical few minutes, their command control had broken down. When their second-in-command assumed control, he must have figured we were stronger than we looked. I mean, one company of 'Mechs and a handful of cavalry couldn't be idiotic enough to attack the force he had at his command, could they? Fearing reinforcements or a trap or a trick, they withdrew, leaving eight 'Mechs junked on the field. We lost Jordy to an Archer, and Diana Vincent had to eject when her Marauder blew. O'Hara's Crusader lost its right arm. And the Royal Grays were gone, of course. Oh, there were survivors. Individual pilots and crewmen wandered into our camp on foot for three days after the battle, but only two battered Pegasus tanks rejoined our formation at the top of the pass. Verna's tank was not one of them. MacKenzie's Marauders pulled off planet not long after. A Davion unit of line regulars arrived to take over the fight, and we were moved back to New Ivaarson for rest and a refit. I tried to find Verna's brother in Princeton before we boosted, but the city had been bombed by Draconis AeroSpace raiders, and I never did learn whether he died in the city or was among the tens of thousands of refugees gathered in the camps along the seacoast to the south. But I did find a neighbor woman who had known Verna. It was she who told me that Verna LeMann had been one of the hottest MechWarriors in the elite, House Davion First Guards. She'd piloted an Archer, fought at Harrow's Sun and Deshier, and been awarded the Golden Sunburst First Class by Hanse Davion himself for heroism in combat above and beyond the call of duty. She'd resigned her commission and given up her 'Mech when a Draconis raid on Royal killed her parents. According to the neighbor, she'd come back to Princeton to take care of her younger brother. She'd joined the militia and helped organize the Royal Grays as a planetary defense force. "Verna always said there was no sense fighting off among the stars if your own home and people were in danger," the woman said. "She loved Royal. I guess she was willing to die for it, and for her brother..." I heard later the Kurita offensive on Royal stalled. The Dracs never did break through to the highlands, and after some skirmishing with the Davion regulars, they pulled out and didn't come back. So maybe it was Verna who saved her world after all. I like to think so. I keep wondering, though, if she might not have survived. There were so many tankers wandering around on foot after the battle. It's possible she ejected from her vehicle but wasn't able to rejoin our line before we pulled out. I want to know. The Colonel told me later that it had been a toss-up whether I was going to get a medal or a court martial for my part in the battle of Harmony Pass. He compromised in the end and gave me thirty days' leave. I'm sitting here looking at my share of the money for our ticket on Royal and realizing that I could be back on Royal in a week. I want to find her, want to know that she's still alive. I want to tell her that I was wrong. It doesn't take a BattleMech to make a warrior. Royal II Back to BattleTechnology 4 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. 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