New Sarepta, Tranquil
Clan Wolf Territory
May 29, 3039
“I trust your wounds are not too serious, quineg?”
Cyrilla Ward replied with an expression that was more a grimace than a true smile as she saluted her Khan.
“Neg, my Khan,” was all she said, as the tall man gestured for her to take a seat. Looking around the office, she saw a portable screen that almost covered one wall, the surface area split into a number of unevenly sized windows showing surveillance footage from various locations in the Watch Complex.
Three of the windows were on pause - two showed recordings of the interrogation sessions carried out on Tasha’s Spheroid companions, and the third was frozen in the middle of her second “conversation” with Tasha yesterday - the one they’d had after she discovered that Fraser and Tulliver had been hauled off to interrogation.
The third occupant of the room sat before the screen, but now she swivelled in her chair to face Ward as her fellow Khan took his seat as well.
They made for quite a contrast. kaKhan Ulric Kerensky was tall and lean, his brown hair and beard turning white, with piercing eyes that could make him look wise, crafty, or intimidating as needed.
saKhan Laurel Mehta, on the other hand, fit the classic AeroSpace Pilot phenotype developed by Clan geneticists to a T. A bit over 1.5 meters tall, she had the over-sized head and enlarged eyes (violet in her case) that marked her sub-caste. Despite her apparent delicacy, the fact that she was the second in command of the Clan spoke volumes about her actual mettle.
Both Khans had rushed to Tranquil from Strana Mechty when they received Cyrilla’s coded transmission, using a command circuit and a pirate jump point to cut weeks off the trip. They hid it well, but Ward would bet that both were feeling the effects of having been jumped through space multiple times in only a few days.
Regardless of how they felt, though, they had a situation on their hands which threatened to change the entire paradigm of clan politics.
“Natasha has kicked open the burrock hive by returning to the Homeworlds. We need to work out what to do,” saKhan Mehta cut to the chase.
Ulric nodded and turned to Ward. “Cyrilla, you are certain that Kerlin forbade the Dragoons to return under any circumstances, quiaff?”
“Aff, Ulric,” she confirmed.
“And yet, here she is, with a freebirth retinue and a multi-exabyte intelligence database on the Inner Sphere.” He paused, then - “Could she be a renegade from the Dragoons? Broken with them so that she could come home?”
“Unfortunately, the evidence points the other way,” sighed Ward. Gesturing toward the paused vids on the wall with her chin, she continued “The interrogations of Dechan and Susan indicate that they received their orders direct from Star Colonel Jaime himself. Jaime has also recorded a message for the Grand Council.”
“Great Father,” cursed Mehta. “This is worse than I thought. Ulric - this matter cannot see the light of day in the Clan Council, let alone the Grand Council!”
Ward’s blood chilled. “What are you suggesting, saKhan Mehta?” she asked in a tone just as cold. Mehta might be her superior, but she had once held that position in the Clan, and she was not intimidated by her.
“Galaxy Commander Ward, how many people know of Natasha Kerensky’s presence here?” Mehta pressed.
Cyrilla came out of her chair. “You cannot be serious, saKhan!”
“Stop.” Ulric Kerensky also stood, but in a more controlled fashion. He turned to pace the length of the room, turned, and came back, pausing along the way to regard the images on the wallscreen.
Still facing away from the other two, he began to speak. “We have always known that us Wardens need to win every vote or Trial when it comes to invading the Inner Sphere. The Crusaders only need to win once.”
He turned around.
“Cyrilla, you lead House Ward. How many of your Bloodnamed trothkin now espouse the Crusader way?”
“Ten of the twenty-five,” she replied immediately, “and three others are sitting on the fence,” she continued, demonstrating the intimate knowledge of House matters that she was expected to have.
“So House Ward might be majority Crusader before long. The numbers are similar across all our Bloodhouses,” Ulric said. “We are the strongest of the Warden Clans, but we are losing ground to the Crusaders internally” He managed another joyless grin as he pivoted to saKhan Mehta. “You and I know that the next time Clan Wolf has to replace a Khan, a Crusader will be elected.”
saKhan Mehta’s face tightened at the reminder that she had been elected by only a slim majority.
He came forward to stand by the desk again. “We are running out of time. The Crusader philosophy is too attractive to the younger generations.”
“All the more reason to make sure Natasha Kerensky’s information never comes out into the open. This will give the Crusaders all the ammunition they need!” stated Mehta.
“Perhaps…” allowed Ward, deep in thought.
“Perhaps what?” demanded Mehta.
“Ulric, there is no time limit on how long we wait before bringing this to the Grand Council, quineg?”
“Neg, Cyrilla, but you know that if we wait too long it will damage our case when the others hear about it.”
“So, we need to work fast and present our case in a way that not even the Crusaders can dispute.”
“Cyrilla Ward, you are actually considering implementing Natasha Kerensky’s proposal?” saKhan Mehta spun to face her Khan. “Ulric, if we start down that road -”
“There will be no turning back, I know,” the senior Khan of Clan Wolf returned to his seat and planted himself in it.
“Natasha is telling the truth about her motivations, and the interrogations have confirmed her story.”
Something flared in Mehta’s eyes, but before she could say anything, Ulric continued “Strategically speaking, we Wardens have been defending a shrinking perimeter for the last forty years - eight generations. We can only react to Crusader initiatives, which weakens our position even further.”
One arm thrust across the table. “Natasha’s information gives us the opportunity to seize the initiative back from the Crusaders.”
“By giving them what they want,” pointed out Mehta.
“Not necessarily,” objected Ward. “What would they rather be seen by the Inner Sphere as - conquerors or saviours?”
Ulric nodded sagely. “Most of the Crusaders have forgotten how to plan beyond the immediate. What happens after the conquest? Using Natasha’s information, we can steer the strategy and define the terms of the Clans’ return to the Inner Sphere in a way that fulfills the Warden mandate and blunts the Crusaders’ lust for conquest for conquests’ sake.”
Ulric’s hardened eyes swept between the pair of senior officers.
Ward smoothly nodded her head to Ulric’s unspoken question, then turned to look at Mehta, who sat stony faced for an interminable number of seconds, before jerkily nodding her head once.
“Seyla,” breathed Ulric. He stood.
“Cyrilla, you will take charge of Natsha’s party and their information. I want a comprehensive analysis of their intelligence.”
“Aff, my Khan.”
“Laurel. You and I will return to Strana Mechty. I need you to update the readiness status of our Touman and come up with options - both to expand it, and to support an expeditionary force to the Inner Sphere.”
“Aff, as my Khan commands.”
Ulric nodded. “We have lots to do. Let us get going.” And he stalked out of the room.
Even Better than the Vids - Outrageous and Unbelievable True Stories from the LosTech Shadow Wars
By Moira Vasey
Pub. Mallorca Books, St Ives, 3079
Forced to step up its game in the face of the embryonic Federated Commonwealth’s adoption of a defence-first intelligence security strategy, ROM learned to adapt.
One of the ways it did this, as we have seen, was to compromise the intelligence services of the FedCom’s rivals, giving them access to a whole other dimension of information.
When ROM gained deep access to the Capellan Confederation’s Maskirovka, among the gems they uncovered was Captain Erik Tang.
A native of Brighton in the St Ives Compact, Tang worked his way from deckhand to command of a Mule-class DropShip, the Hainan Rose, with which he plied the stellar trade routes between the Compact and the FC. By all accounts, he became quite successful.
Unfortunately, like so many others before him, Tang succumbed to his baser instincts - literally fulfilling the old saw “a girl in every port”.
His troubles began when two of his mistresses found out about each other when Tang accidentally sent one of them a message meant for the other. The two ladies involved then decided to team up to extort Tang, blackmailing him by threatening to expose his affairs to his wife.
The size of Tang’s problem can be illustrated thus: Mrs Tang had a half-share in the Hainan Rose (and was, in fact, the namesake of the ship). Without her, he would be out of business. On the other hand, the sums demanded by his scorned mistresses were also ruinous, and if he paid, he would still be out of business.
And so Erik Tang found himself in a DropPort bar one evening, deep in his cups and pouring out his woes to any who would listen. It just so happened that a fellow patron was in a position to ease Captain Tang’s burden.
The man, of course, was a Maskirovka agent, and he sensed blood in the water. Tang was a perfect recruit in many ways - he had access to many worlds of interest to the CapCon, he had a legitimate reason to visit said worlds on a regular basis, and his gregarious nature helped draw in people.
Tang’s reports (delivered via dead drops and cut outs) came in the form of audio recordings of his observations. They were verbose, stream-of-consciousness ramblings that apparently drove more than one Mask transcriber to despair, but because Outreach was one of the worlds on Tang’s regular trade circuit, ROM didn’t mind so much, and eagerly awaited his reports.
It was through Tang that ROM discovered or confirmed such things as the rotation schedule of the Dragoons’ AeroSpace forces, the types and quantities of raw materials they were seeking, and even some more esoteric information like the width of the service back alleys in downtown Harlech.
While Tang was no superspy, his case aptly demonstrates how competent intelligence analysts can extract a remarkable amount of information from even seemingly mundane data.
ComStar’s ComGuards and Special Forces eventually made good use of the information provided by Tang and other, less-colourful report writers.
And what happened to Captain Tang? He was murdered mid-coitus by the enraged husband of one of his many paramours on Indicass in 3044, dying as he lived.
Here are extracts from one of his reports on Outreach.
-finally on, you bloody thing. Date is erm, September nine - shit, it’s past local midnight - September ten, yeah, September ten, thirty-forty-one. Location is, as always, the Master’s cabin aboard the Merchant Vessel Hainan Rose, currently grounded on Outreach, the Sarna March in the FedCom. Why you Mask-querade guys need me to say that every time is beyond me, but hey, you’re paying the bills.
Where was I? No, actually, before I start, I’m gonna do you guys a favour. I was in the DropShip’s Nest tonight - not a bad little bar on Eighth and Wesson. Too many Draggie Pups in there celebrating some bullshit graduation or something, but anyway - bartender offered me some of the new local product. It’s called "Ruby Reach". Label said it was a “dry red.”
****** me, it was so dry me tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth! Made her take it away and bring me some real wine.
The point is - the ****** want to export it! Can you believe it? Get this - seems one of the Draggies invalided outta service coz he got a leg and a testicle shot off in the Fourth Big Mistake - I might be wrong about what got shot off - or was it burned off? Never mind - not important - so anyway, apparently he always fancied himself a Vinter, and he somehow talked the Draggies into subsidising his new vineyard. Ummm… I think they said it was somewhere north of the Agro district.
Gotta say, he’s obviously a better talker than he was a Mech jock or winemaker. The stuff is horrific, don’t go near it.
You’re welcome.
Right… where’d I put that bloody...? Ah-hah - found it!
Your list of questions - and what’s number one? Surprise, surprise, same as always, and same answer as always - the indigs don’t give a flying ****** who sits on the Celestial Throne. They don’t “show a preference” for Duchess Liao or Chancellor Liao. They just wanna get on with their lives, please and thank you.
And so should you gits - I’ve told you before I’ll let you know you if an indig sidles up to me and tells me Outreach’s gonna declare for Duchess Candace, so, for the love of the Buddha, can you please stop with question one? ****** me.
Okay, question two…
[...]
Right, now we come to “other observations” - shit, how much memory have I got left on this thing? And more importantly, how much more rum? Heh.
Umm… the Draggies are still trying to hire more able spacers - one of their dock officers even tried to chat up my astrogator and - oh, wait, I told you guys about that in question twel- uh, seventeen, didn’t I? Bloody hell, can’t keep things straight anymore, but I can’t exactly take notes now, can I? Wouldn’t look ******’ suspicious would it?
Okay, okay. Other observations. Hmmm… oh yeah! The Harlech PD seem to have new recruiting standards. Passed maybe a half dozen foot patrols tonight at the port and downtown - at least one of each pair o’plods was an honest-to-god giant - as in crank-the-neck-up-to-ouch-to-look-‘em-in-the-eye giant. Big bastards - and bitches too - two of them giants were gals of the female persuasion. Really good “don’t ****** with me” faces too.
Tetsuhara Proving Grounds, Remus, Outreach
Terran March, Federated Commonwealth
23 April, 3040
“Okay, what do we know about Keating?” Major Emilia Tzu asked, gazing intently at her next opponent who was warming up on the far side of the Circle of Equals with his support crew. Like her, the buzzcut red-headed man was staring across the arena back at her.
The loser of the previous bout was still limping out of the circle helped by two of his support crew. Emilia could hear the winner’s crew celebrating off to the right.
Around the arena, which was actually part of Fort Wells’s sports complex in its day job, various senior Dragoons shuffled on and off the bleachers, observing the candidates. Some watched everything, others seemed to take an interest in particular candidates.
Emilia knew without looking that Colonel Patrick Chan would be watching her bout with Keating. The CO of Gamma Brigade had been there from the beginning, standing at the start line (and finish line) for the 25-hour endurance and solo navigation march that kicked off the Trials.
He was also one of the referees during her Command Post Exercise - she wasn’t happy with her performance there even though the scenario put her in charge of a decapitated Dragoons Brigade facing four-to-one odds, and she’d managed to extract forty-three percent of her troops.
Colonel Chan had also shown up during the Augmented Combat rounds, where she had battled other candidates from the cockpit of a ‘Mech (not always her usual Crusader), making it to the final four where a AeroSpace pilot with amazing G-tolerance and unbelievable precision gunnery had taken her down with his Corsair.
And now she was in the last phase of the Trials - single unarmed combat against those still in the running (the field had been culled after the Augmented Combat round).
“Mechjock in Third/Beta,” Lieutenant Saul Pearce replied as he slapped a bottle of Emilia’s favourite QsQuared electrolyte drink into her right hand.
“You just read that off the screen, dumbass,” accused Lieutenant Sienna Rostopovna as she continued re-wrapping Emilia’s upper left arm.
Before the hirsute tanker could fire back at his sibmate, Captain Mason Calvados-Kincaid stepped between them and faced Emilia. At 198 centimetres tall, the infantryman towered over the trio, especially Emilia, who might break 160 centimetres if she let her hair grow out a little.
“Keating’s a Peacock,” he told Emilia, a “Peacock” being slightly derogatory infantry slang for a MechWarrior with flashy piloting moves, derived from the name of a Terran avian.
Emilia lowered the QsQuared from her mouth. “So he’s probably going to dance in and out, hit’n’fade,” she thought out loud.
Mason nodded thoughtfully. In this quartet of sibmates, he was the only one who had previously won an Honorname - that of Kincaid, and his words therefore carried a bit more weight.
“How’d you know he’s a Peacock?” asked Pearce as he packed extraneous gear into a barracks bag.
“My company was OPFOR for his lance one time on Caph, before the war. Watched him bet on his reflexes to try to dodge our SRM barrage.”
Sienna finished with Emilia’s arm and shifted to check on the ugly bruise that discoloured Emilia’s right cheek. As the only Level II Certified Combat Aider amongst Emilia’s support crew, the aerojock had appointed herself the team medic.
“It’s fine, Sienna,” Emilia waved off her sibmate. “It’s-”
“Only pain!” finished the other three simultaneously, quoting a much-despised PT instructor from their Sibko days.
A beat, then they all burst out laughing. Mason went to one knee so Emilia wouldn’t have to strain her neck looking up at him.
“One minute,” called a flat voice over the arena PA.
“Warm up, Em,” called Pearce, and she started to jog in place while working her shoulders.Sienna dropped the soft helmet over Emilia’s head, the memory poly moulding itself to her features for a tight fit. Pearce helped her double check the straps on the sparring gloves.
“Okay, Em, he has reach on you, and he’ll back his reflexes,” Mason coached. “Let him come to you, then do what you do best!”
He stood again, and extended his right hand into the middle of their little group, where it was joined by three others. The survivors of Sibko Ten-Sigma.
“You’re almost there, Em,” Mason continued. “ You’ve beaten everyone else. The way out is through Keating. Ten!”
“Sigma!” the others replied, peeling off to let Emilia jog into the arena as the announcer called “Thirty seconds.”
Two weeks earlier…
“Hey! Emm! Over here!”
Emilia Tzu snapped her head to ten o’clock, where Mason Calvados-Kincaid was waving at her, crooked smile on his face.
His height made a him the perfect marker beacon in the crowded bar.
She changed course, weaving past a pair of tables and half a dozen patrons before arriving at the booth appropriated by her sibmates.
“Mason!” she chirped as she reached him, allowing the infantry officer to heave her off the ground with one of his usual bear hugs.
“Emm!” he roared in response, before dropping her next to the free seat in the booth their party had appropriated.
“You’re late, Cadet Tzu! Explain your tardiness!” barked Sienna Rostopovna from beside her, in a fair imitation of their former Drill Sergeant R. G. Salazar.
“That’s Major Tzu now, Lieutenant Rostopovna,” grinned Mason as he parked himself back in his seat opposite the two ladies.
“Which means she gets the next round for us!” chirped up Saul Pearce from the other side of Mason. He and Emilia were still in their blue Dragoons jumpsuits, with non-regulation leather jackets on top since both had come straight from duty. Mason and Sienna were in civvies.
Mason and Sienna cheered their tanker comrade’s suggestion, and Emilia accepted defeat with good grace, plunging her CredCard into the appropriate slot on the tabletop and selecting everyone’s brew of choice from the menu. The nice thing about drinking with sibmates was that you didn’t need to ask what anyone’s poison of choice was.
That chore completed, Emilia sat back to regard the trio that were possibly her closest friends and comrades. Together they had graduated from one of the first Dragoons sibkos in 3030 - four survivors from the original fifty. Most of their sibmates had been steadily weeded out over the course of the decade-long training they had undergone.
Their ranks would thin out seemingly arbitrarily - a gap in the ranks after a training exercise one afternoon, an empty cot when you woke in the morning. Since they were teenagers, they half-believed the barracks rumours that those who disappeared had been executed, even though they would occasionally run into them again, especially in the conventional school classes that they took alongside their sibko training.
Even if they did see their former sibmates again (who were usually moved to training in support fields), they might as well have been dead to those who remained in the sibko. The program was tough enough that you just didn’t have any reserves left over to maintain ties with someone who was no longer in it.
Twelve of them had made it to the end of the ten years, to face the Trials - a gruelling week of field exercises that served as their graduation exercise. Tested on everything from command potential to combat first aid, often facing an OPFOR that included active duty Dragoons, half of them had fallen at this final hurdle. The decade that followed had claimed the other pair of graduates.
Emilia could still remember the feelings of sheer relief, stunned disbelief and numbness that she felt at the conclusion of the Trials as it sunk in that she had actually passed where so many others had not. That night the six of them had stumbled upon the DropShip’s Nest on the edge of Harlech’s CBD, gotten gloriously drunk, and it became a tradition that whenever they were all on-planet at the same time, a visit to this bar was mandatory.
There hadn’t been many of these reunions in the intervening decade since Sibko Ten-Sigma had graduated.
Sienna, a phenomenal pilot, had served first with Beta Regiment’s Aero Wing, then with Alpha’s, where she was now a Aero Lance Commander. In another brigade, she’d probably have had her own squadron by now, but the prestige of being in Alpha was almost equal to that.
Saul was also a Lance Commander, of a Bandit hovertank lance in the 2nd Armoured Regiment attached to Beta Brigade, having worked his way up steadily from driver to gunner to vehicle commander to Lance Sergeant to Lieutenant.
Mason had been the ristar of the sibko - that term, unique to the Dragoons, denoted one who was expected to rise fast and far. He had excelled in leadership and military skills throughout his training, acknowledged by all as the Sibko’s unofficial leader, and scored well enough in the Trials to join Gamma Brigade as a Mechanised Infantry Squad Leader, two levels up from normal.
Twice promoted on the battlefield, he’d racked up an impressive resume, including such heroics as taking down two heavy ‘Mechs in the same battle with his platoon of foot-sloggers, and rescuing a wounded comrade under fire. He’d made Captain and company commander before being transferred to Training Command just after the recent war, but not as an instructor. Instead he was part of some hush-hush doctrine and policy task force (he’d already used the cliched “if I tell you I have to kill you,” line on Pearce before Emilia showed up).
And then there was Emilia herself. Assigned to the still-rebuilding Epsilon Brigade, she had resigned herself to a long wait to see action, but fate had had other plans for her. Firstly when her company had been attached to Beta for seasoning, where she’d impressed two Dragoons legends - her lance commander, Tom West, and the company commander, Dechan Fraser - enough so that she was bumped from Corporal to Lance Commander when Fraser had been reassigned to the infamous Black Widow Battalion.
And now she was a Major, commander of Able Battalion of Epsilon Regiment, and decorated veteran of the Six Months War.
“We’ve been damned lucky,” she spoke into the silence.
Three bobbing heads answered her - they all knew what she meant. That with the amount of action they’d seen over the past decade, it was nothing short of a miracle that there were not more empty places at their table. They’d all buried many comrades.
A server appeared with their drinks. Mason used his long arms to distribute them, and then lifted his mug of ale.
“To Ten-Sigma,” he intoned. A clash of mugs as the others replied “Ten-Sigma!” in unison before quaffing.
“And to Major Emilia Tzu!” Sienna called for the next toast.
When they downed their mugs again, Saul used his empty mug as a pointer to get Emilia’s attention.
“So, Em - while you’re back on-planet, are ya gonna enter the Trials?”
“No, I’m not,” she said firmly.
“What? Why not?” cried Sienna. “With your record, Family members’ll be climbing over each other to be your sponsor!”
“You gotta enter, Em! I know you can handle the Trials,” Mason threw in. He’d passed his own Honourname Trials two years previously and was now a member of House Kincaid.
“Guys, guys, whoa!” Em waved her sibmates to silence. “I can’t. I have a battalion to run and rebuild. We’re still twenty percent understrength. I have two fresh company commanders, five rookie lance commanders and eleven green MechWarriors fresh from the sibkos…”
She trailed off at the looks on the faces of her sibmates. Realisation hit her, and she dropped her face into her cupped hands.
“Blake’s blood! You ****** didn’t!”
Pearce’s annoying cackle of a laugh was the only answer she got.
Emilia snapped back upright and flicked a spare coaster at Saul’s head. “This isn’t funny, guys!”
Mason leaned in. “Emm, face it, you’re an ideal candidate for an Honorname. Your record is outstanding…”
“Others have better,” she countered.
“Not many, and not in our ageframe,” riposted Sienna. “And, we found the perfect house for you.”
Emilia started to say something, but nothing came. After a few seconds, she decided that she was doing a great impression of a marsh frog, and pulled herself together.
“Alright, alright. I request hegira. Lay it on me.” She took a big drink as Mason picked up the thread.
“The Council has added West to the list of Honornames. You’ve spent your entire career in his unit. You knew him, and we think you’d be perfect to carry his legacy on. Hell, you already are in some ways since you took over his battalion. So we’ve submitted an application to the Trials on your behalf,” he grinned.
“Which has been accepted,” Sienna continued, drawing out a folded sheet of paper from her purse and passing it over.
Feeling like she had stepped into an alternate dimension, Emilia took the paper from Sienna and unfolded it.
Under the Dragoon Council logo at the top of the page, a few typed lines confirmed her entry into the initial Trials for the Honorname West, in the 30-40 ageframe. The trials would begin in a week, and she had been temporarily detached from normal duties to participate - as had her nominated support team…
Her eyes flicked up from the paper to take in her sibmates.
“You didn’t think we’d let you do this all by yourself, did you?” snarked Saul.
Now…
“Thirty seconds - candidates to the Circle,”
Emilia crossed the perimeter and stopped on the white square that denoted her starting position, casually flexing her hands, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet.
Five meters away, Lieutenant Prakesh Keating stepped up to his own square. He had the build of a runner, and managed to give the impression that he was just straining to be let off the leash. Like Emilia, he was dressed in standard grey Dragoons PT shirt and shorts. Neither wore any footwear. His sparring gloves and helmet were green while Sienna’s were red.
The low level chatter around the arena died away as the clock ticked down. It was considered bad form to cheer, cajole or shout encouragement in the Trials as if it were a mere sporting event.
A shrill whistle sounded, and Keating exploded into motion, head-faking right as he came in against Emilia’s left side, obviously looking to test her strapped left arm.
She pivoted counter-clockwise on her right foot, using the motion to pull her left side out of his range, while throwing her right arm up to block his incoming straight left. She tried to turn the block into a lock, but Keating really did have the reflexes of a startled jackrabbit, and he escaped out of range.
Emilia reset her stance just in time as Keating closed again. Out shot his fist again, but this time he threw a simultaneous kick.
Emilia managed to block the punch with one hand, and almost succeeded in doing the same to the kick, but she was a fraction of a second slow, and Keating’s heel bounced past her hand and slammed into her left thigh.
Knocked off balance, she stumbled and fell on her left side, but rolled on impact. Her peripheral vision showed Keating’s fist slamming into the mat where she’d just been.
She sprang to her feet, adrenaline pumping and taking the edge off the pains in her left arm and thigh.
Keating was coming at her in a half crouch. Emilia sprang forward, surprising him, grabbed his right arm, spun inside his reach, using their combined momentum against him, and twisted, spinning them both into the mat, with Keating under her. She heard a “whumpf!” as the air was driven from his lungs.
She took advantage of their relative positions to crash a punch into Keating’s cheek, which was only partially absorbed by his helmet.
Despite the blows, Keating shifted under her, trying to grapple her with his longer reach. Recognising that she had overstayed her welcome, Emilia sprang to her feet, only to be ankle-tapped by her opponent. She hit the ground at full stretch, grateful for her mouth guard as her chin bounced off the mat.
Catching movement at the corner of her eye, she scrambled forward and then launched a two-footed horizontal backward kick at the shape coming up behind her.
She connected solidly, and there was an audible crack when her feet landed, followed by a much louder “******!”
Emilia scrambled to her feet - and saw Keating down on one knee, clutching his left forearm. His left hand hung limply, and at a strange angle, she realised, while his face was pale with shock.
She hesitated for a moment - she would have been within her rights, by the rules of the Trials, to move in and inflict further punishment, but she was hoping - and yes! Keating braced his left arm across his knee, and used his right hand to slap the mat three times.
Emilia had won.
Her focus expanded outward, and she was suddenly aware of Saul, Sienna and Mason wrapping her in a collective bearhug even as Keating’s support crew raced in with medical kits.