Sword of Sedition

The smoke from several forest fires spread thick black smoke into the sky north of Tara Campbell’s position, south, and east. Every direction but west, where Paris waited to see how The Republic fared this day, struggling against the Senate loyalists. Where too many heads of state were pi

It wasn’t looking good.

Ru

The missiles fell in overlapping waves around a fleeing Condor, hammering it hard across the front. They shoved the nose down into the earth. Momentum jacked up the Condor’s back, sending it in an end-over tumble that rolled and flipped the speeding hovercraft into a stand of burning pine.

It rocked to a halt between two large trees, both aflame. Glowing cinders and ash drifted down over it in a final curtain.

“Thanks for the assist,” Tara offered, panting as she caught her breath.

The air inside her cockpit was dry and acrid and very hot. Laser damage to her centerline had breached the Hatchetman’s engine shielding, causing the ’Mech’s reactor to dump excess waste heat into sensitive control spaces. The taste of scorched insulation burned in her throat like hot coals.

“Feel free to return—”

Gareth’s reply was cut off as his Black Hawk was rocked back by twin gauss hits, taking one silvery streak in the right leg and another dead center in the gut. More than three tons of armor rained down onto the ground in shards and glistening splinters. The BattleMech stumbled back.

Even off-balance, he still managed to spear out twin lances from his right– and left-arm lasers. They streaked back along the path of the gauss slugs, slashing at the thick composite armor of a Kelswa assault tank. Say what you wanted about Gareth Sinclair. Young, certainly. But every measure a paladin.

Kicking the Black Hawk back at its best walking speed, Gareth pulled out of range.

“—the favor,” he finished. Late.

Between them, they commanded two strengthened companies from the tenth Principes Guards with a few units from the green Triarii Protectors thrown in to fill holes in the TO&E. They fielded the second heaviest force to set itself between the Senate loyalists and Paris. But it wasn’t enough.

Not when Sir Cray Stansill had added a pair of Kelswa assault tanks as well as four Ki

He set them as an anchor, wherever the fighting was heaviest, and wheeled his faster vehicles around them in flanking strikes. Stansill then shored up any weak points with a pair of twenty-ton Stinger s, using his Griffin and his partner’s Catapult to spearhead the major offensives.

For two hours now, the loyalists had consistently pushed Tara and Gareth around, coming one step closer to Paris with nearly every maneuver, or one step closer to linking up with the force commanded by Co

Either way, it helped the loyalist position.

“We’re in trouble,” Gareth said.

He turned his Black Hawk upfield, and used his large lasers to worry the loyalist line. One scarred a Stinger over its left arm, but did little more than drip molten armor down into dry brush, which immediately caught flame.

Tara traded long-range autoca

“I’m figuring that out.”

“No, I mean I just received word through cha

Avellar and Jorgensson. The two paladins who should have taken command at Senlis, bridging the gap between the Montataire defenses and Julian’s First Davion Guard at Meaux. No wonder the center had crumbled!

The hoverbikes had broken around the Calvary copters’ strafing runs, and had reformed on the eastern flank. They harried and ran to ground a Shandra scout vehicle painted in the black and gold of the Tenth Hastati. It overturned and roiled greasy smoke into the air.

“How soon until we can expect stronger reinforcements from the border?” She throttled her Hatchetman forward, overru

“Excuse me?”

“The border, Gareth. The border. Levin set a long line of field camps.” A pair of the hoverbikes drifted in too close, and Tara blasted one right through the engine cowling with her autoca

“Across the border by now. The moment Co

“At the expense of Paris?” A sinking sensation hollowed her out. Levin had told her…

No, Levin had led her to believe that the line of field camps would collapse back around Paris. Had led everyone to believe. Which meant the senators sitting safely behind their protected lines in Germany may have left themselves vulnerable.

Gareth’s Black Hawk stalked her direction, pulling the balance of their supporting forces behind it as the paladin shifted their entire line again. “They won’t be able to hold Paris. They might throw a sweat into the politicos, but we’ll have them safely hidden away in time.”

And if the I

Across the field, stomping through a small farm plot of early cabbages and wax beans, Cray Stansill’s Griffin marched up beside the Catapult and began summoning hard-hitting flankers like the Ki

She’d see about that.

Planting a wide-spade foot in front of her, Tara shifted the weight in her forty-five-ton Hatchetman to suddenly cut straight in at the forming enemy line. Calling her Cavalry VTOLs and a pair of Fulcrum heavy hovertanks in behind her, rallying a trio of VV1 Rangers who raced forward to flank her left side, she threw a fast-moving assault right into the teeth of the loyalists.

“Tara? What are you doing?”

Getting Cray Stansill extremely irritated with her, she hoped.

By luck more than pla

She hammered out with her heavy autoca