Didn’t intend to let this sit quite so long, but for those of you not in the know, my father passed away a few days before Christmas this year. I didn’t feel much like writing for a while.
Chapter 23
Neo-Caucuses, Sevren, Sevren System,
Radstadt Prefecture, Rasalhague Military District, Draconis Combine
January 15th, 3016
Nothing ever seemed to happen as quickly as I wanted it to. To be fair, barely a week wasn’t much time to spend securing a major city, and we’d needed the time to make repairs on our damaged machines. Unfortunately, with the time the Lyran forces had taken to consolidate and reform afterwards, it was looking like they had still taken a few hours too long.
“And there’s no way you can push them out?” I double checked, already knowing the answer.
“Sorry, Bloodhound, there’s at least a Company of ‘Mechs in red paint squatting on this end of the cut. They’re mostly Jenners and Locusts, but they’ve got some Spiders up above it too. We could push them back into the pass, but they’ll have reinforcements nearby, and once we’re in there with them we’d be in just the sort of knife fight that we don’t want,” Sammy replied.
It was a fair assessment. Our Wasps and Commandos were fast, but didn’t actually carry that much armor. Besides, if the enemy were in their parade ground paint, then this was the Sword of Light, not the Rasalhague Regulars. If they managed to plug the gap behind my people with jump-capable Mechs …
“Alright. Keep eyes on them, but stay loose. I’ll call the play as soon as I hear back from Higher.”
“10-4,” Sammy said, and cut the connection.
My eyes shifted back to my TAC display. With the way the elevation increased, even Whiskey Company’s 155mm Sniper artillery pieces didn’t have the range to drop shells on the pass yet and with their low top speed, they weren’t likely to be able to put fire on it in time.
“Stick, bad news,” I informed my liaison officer. “Combine beat us to the pass. The Seventh Sword are already present in strength, and they’ll almost certainly have fast forces exiting before we can get Whiskey Company in range to try to plug them up. Recommend we prep for a delaying action while the main force prepares to hold at their secondary location.”
For a moment there was silence.
“Damn. Alright, I’ll let Colonel Weintraub know,” she replied.
“If it helps, tell him I’m going to execute Matador. We should be able to buy them enough time to get the Demolishers dug in. At least as long as they’ve been checking the fuel.”
The reason, it turned out, that two full companies of Drac tanks hadn’t been able to get into action at the Battle of Juniper Springs was that they’d been forced to requisition fuel as they went, unable to haul enough with them to keep their thirsty ICE-powered vehicles supplied.
And a bunch of the fuel they’d picked up in the town had been contaminated. When it came time to crank the engines the next morning, the fuel filters were so occluded by little foam beads that nothing was making it into the engines. It made me wonder if our LIC information source worked at a gas station, or if the Dracs piss poor civilian industry had betrayed them.
“That’s something at least,” Julia agreed before I brought up Whiskey Company’s commander.
“Captain Vogel, the Seventh Sword beat us to the pass. Are you anywhere near a good firing position?”
“Scheiße,” the former LCAF artillery officer turned Battlemech pilot swore calmly before continuing. “We’re between two sites that looked good on the maps. The one we passed was decent, but not wonderful. We’re only about twelve kilometers from the one ahead of us if we climb a ridge and cut across a loop in the road. Do we have time to get there?”
I double-checked my TAC display and did some mental math.
“You should have time if your pathfinders can scout a decent route for you,” I told him. “They appear to still be consolidating in the pass. They haven’t pushed any scouts out this side as of five minutes ago.”
“Alright, with the elevation, we’ll still be a good thirty kilometers outside of range to shell the pass, but it’s probably the best we’re going to get. How’s that rest area look for our ammunition haulers?”
That one I remembered off the top of my head.
“Maps are right. It’s got a good-sized parking area and it’s in the shadow of a ridge line. They’ll have better luck hitting it with an air strike than artillery, even if they realize that’s where we’re basing your reloading out of.”
It was also only about a kilometer from their firing position on the rear slope of one of the taller ridges, so that was a plus, even if it’d take several jumps to climb the broken terrain in between.
It was also going to ease our logistics a bit. We were at the point of the spear, and it was a long damn way to haul reloads for a Battalion of ‘Mechs.
My radio signalled for my attention, and I grimaced.
“Slim’s calling me, we may need that support sooner rather than later. I’ve got to go,” I said, then cut off any reply by switching channels.
“You’ve got Bloodhound,” I answered.
“And we’ve got Combine ASFs. Looks like two squadrons of mostly Slayers,” Sammy responded. “Our ready squadron is inbound, but it’ll be a few more minutes for squadron three. Until they get here, Dracs will have the numbers advantage if they decide to pick a fight.”
“The 8th Donegal’s Interceptors are in the air. I’ll ask if they can vector them your way for backup,” I told him, then I remembered that the squadron the Mud Wrestlers currently had on Ready Five was their ground attack element.
“May also have some air-to-ground support for you. I’ll let you know,” I added before pinging Julia.
“Alright, they don’t seem to have spotted us yet, but they’re acting like they’re getting ready to move again,” Slim noted.
The timing could be better, there, but we’d have to make it work.
“Whiskey Company is moving to their backup site. They’ll be ready to pour for anybody more than thirty klicks from the pass inside twenty minutes.” I barely heard Sammy’s acknowledgement, because Julia’s comms pinged me back, indicating she was done talking to the 8th.
“Stick, any chance the 8th’s Interceptors can back us up? Sammy’s reporting Slayers in the air, and 1st Squadron is going to be outnumbered until our Ready Five squadron can arrive,” I quickly summarized the situation.
“I already asked, they’re vectoring his way right now, and the ground attack elements are loading bombs. They’ll be in the air in about fifteen minutes,” she shot back and I couldn’t help but grin.
“You’re reading my mind. Be careful, it’s dark and scary in there,” I told her, then focused on my Tactical display and pulled the remainder of my Command Lance as well as Levy and Foehammer’s companies into the conversation.
“Alright, people, change in plans. The Seventh Sword decided they didn’t want to wait any longer, so they’re comin’ to us. The Jägers and the 8th are setting up a warm welcome for them a ways back down the road, but they need time to make sure the receiving line’s ready for our distinguished guests. That means it’s on us to keep our good friends from getting to the party early.
“Sammy has eyes on them, and the flyboys are on the way, but that still means we’re in for a busy afternoon. Last LIC knew, the Seventh Sword had two Light Battalions, a Medium Battalion, and an Assault Battalion. Leaving the slow-movers out of the equation, that means they only outnumber us three to one. Let’s go encourage them to wait for reinforcements!”
XXXXX
Sammy could appreciate that Bloodhound wasn’t trying to micromanage his Mechwarriors, but he also would have felt a lot better with a simple, concrete objective in front of him.
Instead, the boss had given him the very broad job of slowing down the Seventh Sword of Light, and not much direction about how to go about doing that except implying a fighting retreat.
“Targets are in sight. They’ve got a Lance pushed out in front and they’re moving cautiously,” the leader of his second Lance relayed back to the rest of the company.
“Looks like they found our tracks,” he said, then felt stupid for saying it. This was the Sword of Light. Of course they’d spotted the unavoidable traces of Battlemechs moving through forested terrain.
“Good, it would be awful inconvenient of them to wander by all fat, dumb, and happy,” Captain Levy added. Thankfully, she’d had a much more solid idea of how to not only buy time, but give the Combine a sharp rap on the nose while they were at it.
There’d been a ridgeline seven or so kilometers up the road that would have been a nasty ambush position if its killzone had been in range of Whiskey Company’s big guns. He’d been tempted to set up there anyway and see about scoring a kill or two and slowing the Dracs down.
Captain Levy, however, had suggested leaving it and the column of advancing Light Mechs be. Her theory was that by leaving such a good ambush position unused, that it would suggest to the Combine that they were walking towards an even better ambush position. If the speed of their advance was any indication, the double-think mindgame had worked.
They’d been ready with a plan for a Combine commander who assumed they were incompetent, but ultimately they were buying time, not trying to beat the entire 7th Sword of Light on their own.
Knocking the numbers down a bit, though …
The mountain valley the road traversed wasn’t very wide here, nor did it allow for long lines of sight. The entire length of the valley that they’d set up in was only about five kilometers, and the width much less than half that.
It did, however, have a spur of one of the ridge lines drop down low enough and at a shallow enough angle that Battlemechs could traverse the rear slope while the side facing the valley was mostly scree.
In short, a hard position to attack from the front.
“Alright, then,” Sammy said, hands clenched on his Wasps’s controls, “your call.”
His Second Lance’s Lieutenant had managed to get his Wasp’s head positioned just beside and behind a big granite boulder and was the only one who could actually see the Combine coming. Leaving the timing to him wasn’t helping Sammy’s stress levels.
“In three …” the call came after what seemed a short eternity, “two … one … Mark!”
Sammy pushed his Wasp to its full height from the crouch he’d had it positioned in for the last fifteen minutes and took a single step up and forward to bring his sole 5cm laser to bear over the ridge.
The main force of the Seventh Sword’s lead company came into view first. They were right at three klicks away, barely inside 5cm laser range. At that range, they would have been possible to hit, but accuracy would definitely have been degraded.
That’s why he’d ordered his whole company to focus on the leading Lance, a full kilometer closer.
So two Locusts, both the new -3V model, somebody’s old Mongoose, and a Jenner, probably the Lance leader, came under fire from his entire company.
Even caught dead to rights, the Combine Mechwarriors proved that the reputation of the Sword of Light wasn’t overblown. With catlike reflexes, the lead Locust pilot accelerated rapidly enough to generate a miss against the first shot fired at it.
Fortunately, the Warriors had more than one Mechwarrior assigned to the target, and if Sammy’s first Lancemate had missed, the second did not. The Commando’s 8cm laser burned into and through the armor on the Locust’s stumpy left arm and truncated it, the severed remains bouncing off the tarmac in a shower of sparks. The pair of torso-mounted lasers likewise connected, burning armor from the Locust’s torso.
Sammy’s eyes narrowed as he adjusted to compensate for the scout Mech’s increasing speed and fired.
He connected low on the right side of the torso, and the bugmech disintegrated mid-stride as the ammunition for the anti-infantry guns detonated. A quick glance showed that none of the lead Lance had been quite as unlucky as his own target, but none of them were in fighting shape any longer. The Jenner had been the focus of a trio of Commandos who’d smashed the torso open and gutted the fusion engine, the Mongoose was down with what looked like gyro and leg damage, and the second Locust had a leg off entirely.
Of course, the Sword of Light wasn’t known as a crack unit for nothing. Despite the long range and the surprise, someone on the other side was paying attention. Each remaining Lance of the Company singled out a Commando for attention.
Only the range and the elevation saved one of the Mechwarriors in Lance Three from ending up on the ground; nearly a dozen SRMs impacted just below the crest of the ridge, their propulsion not quite sufficient to clear the obstacle. Even so, his display showed both had dropped to Armor Condition 7 or so from the heavy return fire.
And a second Company of Combine Mechs was already pouring around the turn in the road at the far end of the valley, this one with Mediums like Phoenix Hawks acting as Lance leaders.
“Pull back!” Sammy ordered even as the remaining two Lances of the first Combine company hit their top speed. The commander over there had clearly seen what had made Meidlin Levy suggest the location for their first and probably biggest trap.
The ridgeline Sammy’s Lights had occupied offered a phenomenal field of fire down the valley, but it had a disadvantage as well. The road turned
away from it, rather than running behind it. His Mechs would have to move down through wooded, uneven terrain to get back to the road, whereas the Combine Mechs were already on the flat, even, easy to navigate valley floor. Neither conventional Wasps nor Commandos were particularly known for their speed, so the commander on the Combine side could be forgiven for assuming that he could clear those three kilometers before Sammy’s men could clear one.
Of course, that commander didn’t know that Sammy’s Light Company wasn’t alone.
XXXXX
As the first red-painted Battlemech came into sight of their ambush position, Marsha Fischer triggered the ERPPC in
Orcrist’s right arm.
“Darn it!” She glared as the bolt of man-made lightning hit up by the right shoulder instead of where she’d been aiming. With the three other shots from the rest of the Lance, the -3V, even more lightly armored than the stock Locust-1V, still went down. But she’d been hoping to score a magazine hit.
Not pouting, she waited for her main weapon to cycle as red-painted Mechs dashed for cover. And cover was fairly prevalent, after all, the point wasn’t to run the Sworders off.
No, the entire point of launching this ambush where the valley bottlenecked down to a gap only a couple hundred meters wide was to force the Combine Mechwarriors to concentrate. They couldn’t exactly pack in there cheek to jowl, but-
Lance Three fired and it was their turn again. A Jenner poked its nose out to fire, but drew back quickly enough that her shot flashed past the stumpy weapon pod it carried in place of an arm.
Of course, its snap shot hadn’t fared any better. Only a pair of SRMs managed to find their target and somebody in the Lance had been quick enough to crater the armor on its right leg before it retreated.
Magscan showed someone over there going airborne. It was a good idea. If they could get up on the ridge to the right, they’d be able to fire down at where the Warriors’ Medium Company was set up, taking cover in the mostly dry streambed.
The concrete-lined channel was clearly dug to allow for floods of spring snowmelt. Crouching in it left only the shoulders and heads of their Mechs exposed to enemies at ground level, but would offer no effective cover to shots from above.
Then half of Sammy Schmidt’s company of Lights opened fire into the jumper as it tried to land on the shallower slope partway up the ridge.
By the way it bounced back to the bottom, she didn’t think anybody else was going to be attempting that trick for the moment.
Of course, as far as they knew, they wouldn’t have to. The same geography that was holding up the DCMS’ advance made it every bit as difficult for the defenders to counter attack. And the Sworders had another company coming up in support that they would use to work around our flanks. Then an entire Battalion behind that. Even if their top cover wasn’t willing to engage against three to two odds, that was still a formidable force.
And if they were feeling aggressive, well, then their little pocket was a great place to take a minute and reform for a charge.
But as her seismic sensors showed the second Combine company arriving, she knew they didn’t have a minute.
XXXXX
Meidlin Levy looked at where her seismic scanners were showing the second company of Combine Lights approaching the fire sack, and did some mental math. She thought that they’d take a moment to work out how exactly they intended to press the attack, but she couldn’t be sure about that. Still taking flight time into account …
“Whiskey Company, this is Firebrand. Pour for two at previously established coordinates.”
A moment later her fellow Captain’s voice responded.
“Firebrand, Whiskey Actual,” he said in his thick German accent, “
Unterwegs,” he confirmed.
XXXXX
The call for fire came as he had expected, and his eyes reflexively traced over the slide rules he was using to confirm that the gravity, range, distance from the equator, and planetary rotation had been entered correctly. Satisfied, he activated the radio.
“Fire on previously established coordinates in three, two, one, mark,” he ordered, and squeezed the trigger on his right hand control stick.
The volley was far less ragged than the ones that had nearly thrown him into an apoplectic rage three years ago, but there was still room for improvement.
Teaching Mechwarriors to be competent artillerymen was definitely still a work in progress, but at least they were no longer complete embarrassments to his art.
The barrel of the howitzer mounted in his Heliopolis’s right side lowered drastically as he waited for the feed mechanisms to load another shell and the calculated propellant charge.
That was another thing he disliked about ’Mech-mounted guns: their automatic systems just weren’t as fast as a well-drilled crew of artillerymen. Instead of a proper set of three Time-on-Target rounds from each gun, the Heliopolis could only manage two. A shame and a waste.
“Guns ready,” he spoke. Seeing the electronics monitoring the rest of the Company reading green, he continued, “Fire!” Only after the second round was away did he trigger his radio again.
“
Spritzer,” he reported to Captain Levy, and allowed the radio connection to close. And what a splash it would be. The scar tissue on his left cheek ached as he smiled.
“And may you choke upon it,
ihr inzuchtgeplagte wurmfressende Schweinearschlecker!1” he told his cockpit, imagining arrogant Samurai laid low.
XXXXX
Tai-i Furukawa, commander of San Company of the Seventh Sword of Light’s First Battalion thundered down the road at the head of his samurai, where a commander belonged.
His Jenner’s sensors had already identified four fallen Battlemechs from Ni Company, which had been positioned in the vanguard of their advance, but had since fallen out of radio contact. Such was not uncommon in mountainous terrain, but he was advancing into contact with no intelligence as to what awaited him, and that was dangerous.
Three figures were moving about the damaged machines. With a choice between arriving unprepared or potentially arriving late …
Calling a brief halt, he dropped his Mech’s boarding ladder and commanded the Chu-i of the wrecked Lance to report as his samurai took up positions around him. Information was critical on the battlefield …
“That is an odd configuration. You are certain that all of the Lyran Commandos were so equipped?” he demanded.
“Hai, Tai-i,” the young Chu-i confirmed, “no SRMs were fired at all, but my Jenner was targeted by three 8cm lasers and half a dozen 5cm lasers.”
“Hmm,” he grunted as he considered the information in light of what the ISF had reported recently.
“It would seem that the Lyrans have finalized the -1B configuration and managed to get it into production more quickly than anticipated. Well done, I will ensure that you are credited for confirming this information,” he stated. The young officer accepted the praise with stoicism befitting a member of the Sword of Light, but Furukawa barely noticed.
An 8cm laser and two 5cm lasers. That is not
the loadout that the ISF reported for the -1B.
It was infuriating that the Lyrans LIC was so consistently able to mislead the Dragon’s intelligence services. Still, the very fact that the new design was present in quantity told a story. The 8th Donegal Guard clearly had the Archon’s favor. Moreover, they had not let their skills grow dull since their confrontation with the 5th Sword of Light on Skye. As his company renewed their advance, he allowed a small smile to cross his lips.
This was a foe to be savored, not like the chaff of the Lyran Regulars that had been waiting for them on Sudeten. Defeating this enemy would be something the Seventh Sword could take pride in, not merely-
“Sir! Smoke from the next valley over!”
His attention was immediately drawn to the sky, and, indeed, a great deal of smoke was being produced. Smoke from a battlefield.
“We have tarried long enough. Advance!” He commanded and put word into action. At the speeds his company could achieve, it was less than two minutes before they were taking the turn into the nex-
He swore and very nearly crashed into the Mech in front of him as it suddenly slowed.
“What is the meaning of …” he began, but trailed off in shock. The wreckage of the remainder of the battalion was scattered around a bottleneck in the road. Limbs had been blasted free, huge gashes torn in torsos, and in front of them, the forest along the left hand side of the road was ablaze. The cratered moonscape told him what had destroyed the rest of the battalion.
Artillery.
“Honorless dogs!” He bit out, but …
“We can not remain here. We must inform -” he’d nearly begun to say ‘Sho-sa’ as a matter of reflex, but his superior’s Command Lance had been with Ichi Company.
“- Sho-sho Yodetubo. I want-”
XXXXX
James McCready watched the world burn around him with a faint smile. For most, that would be metaphor or exaggeration, but today the statement was entirely literal.
“Heat sink efficiency degraded by twenty percent. Well within expected tolerances,” he reported as he led his Lance parallel to the road, acting as pathfinders for the short-ranged specialists behind him.
“Bit higher here, but still well inside acceptable parameters,” Melody, the more reasonable of the Fischer twins, reported as the company of Mediums slowly stalked east, keeping up with the advancing forest fire that the Wasps in Captain Schmidt’s company had started.
Already, the blaze was starting to burn out of control in the Neo-Caucuses’ dry summer weather. Thankfully, the wind was blowing across the mountain range from the southwest, so it was pushing the fire predominantly to the northeast and away from the Lyran main force to the
southeast.
However, that meant that the Combine either had to take the steeper ridge lines to the south side of the road or the road itself. Without Freezers, most Light ‘Mechs simply didn’t have the ability to function in the temperatures the fire was already reaching.
If the Combine tries to take the southern route, they’ll lose so much time that the main force will be dug in and ready for them, he followed the Captain’s line of thought easily.
Likewise, if they choose to wait until the fire burns down, he knew.
But if they’re impatient and aggressive …
And the Warriors had done everything they could to encourage an angry, reflexively aggressive response. An ambush, a refusal to fight fairly, and finally an artillery bombardment, all things practically guaranteed to have a ‘Samurai’ chomping at the bit to pursue ‘dishonorable Lucrewarriors’ or ‘cowardly merchants’ or whatever other insult the simpletons could come up with.
And maybe that would work against some regiments, but the enemy didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Not knowing that the Warriors’ Medium Company was lying in wait for them, concealed in a raging crown fire, was hopefully going to bite them right squarely in their asses.
“Good. Keep it up boys and girls. We may still see more action today,” Captain Levy said from her Lance’s position as tail-end Charlie.
The minutes seemed to crawl as the fire expanded. Gradually, it caught up with the company and then overtook them. Even as Freezer efficiency fell to sixty percent, they maintained their slow pace, ensuring that they were neither easy to detect, nor at risk of losing their cover to the fire’s implacable hunger.
Navigation was down to the dead reckoning of his Battlemech’s inertial tracking systems when a Com laser gave him the news he’d been hoping for.
“Seismics say we’ve got incoming. Looks like a full company moving up the road!” Captain Levy’s relayed message informed him.
“Take up a flanking position on the diagonal,” James ordered his Lance, “remember to be prepared to cut the road if they try to advance.” He paused for a moment.
“Also, remember that they’re likely to try to charge. Don’t let yourself get isolated!” Combine ‘Samurai’ took training for melee engagements in BattleMechs seriously, and the Sword of Light trained for them more rigorously than most. When the added heat burden of the fire was included with the high probability of engaging at ranges short enough to be a problem for standard PPCs …
“In fact, just fire once and then countercharge,” he ordered.
Then it was time for one of the most difficult maneuvers a ‘Mech unit can be called upon to perform. Waiting, immobile and in the open, protected only by a shifting curtain of flames as the enemy advanced into the ambush.
With the exteriors of their BattleMechs heated above their Curie Point by the firestorm all around them, the best a Succession Wars Magscan would pick up was a vague hint of a reading.
Unless the Battlemech began to move. Then the electroconductive myomer would pass a trace current into the frame and armor and light them up like Roman candles as the random magnetic spins briefly aligned.
All it would take was one flinch or twitch, and this was one thing the extra responsiveness of an Advanced SLDF Neurohelmets actually made harder, not easier.
Worse yet, a disciplined foe -and the Sword of Light was nothing if not disciplined- would act as though they had been fooled should they detect the ambush. At least until they turned and attacked in a counter-ambush.
It was a game of patience and control, but it was also something Alistair and Geraldine had set them to training for as soon as they realized just how effective freezers made the tactic.
Even so, this would be the first time they’d be utilizing an ambush concealed by a fire attack in real comba-
The signal to attack was almost a surprise. His systems picked up the laser pulse from Firebrand, flashed green, and reflex kicked in. Stepping forward and clearing the last trees from his line of fire, he dropped his right ERPPC’s targeting carat on the second Combine ‘Mech in line. A Mech that, for just a fraction of a second, had
hesitated at seeing enemies advancing where they
could not possibly be.
He was in the zone, and his target was frozen in surprise.
His PPC bolt seemed to drift through the air lazily for a long moment before impacting against the forward-mounted cockpit of the Jenner he’d targeted.
It was interesting; if you killed a Mechwarrior outright, the Battlemech’s legs always tried to cross before it hit the ground despite the fact it’s pilot was seated.
Time seemed to snap like a rubber band and resume its proper pace. His heart nearly beating out of his chest, Jimmy slammed the throttle forward, leading his Lance across the football pitch’s distance separating them from the enemy.
Red painted ‘Mechs accelerated to meet them, but they were a half second slow, still on the back foot and more so by the moment. They had clearly expected Jimmy’s Galahads to be sluggish and unwieldy with myomers contracting irregularly from the heat.
Instead, they were up against Mechs still cool enough that the rush of hot air into Jimmy’s cockpit was pleasant rather than stifling. Their attempts at melee attacks began a heartbeat late, and Jimmy’s Lance already had the advantage of size and reach.
The reinforced muzzle of his left-hand ERPPC impacted on the left torso of a Cicada and staggered it just before his Lance second barrelled into it with a lowered left shoulder and ran the lightly armored scout over. In fact, all three Dracs ended up on their backs as a result of the exchange.
His Lance didn’t let them stand back up.
By the time they’d made sure of their foes, only a single Combine ‘Mech was still standing, and he was a smoking wreck surrounded both by Melody’s Lance and the Company at large.
Melody avoided a last, desperate kick and put her Phoenix’s sole fist through the weakened torso armor even as her torso-mounted lasers burned into the Jenner’s left leg myomer bundles. It barely needed the impact with the PPC’s muzzle to knock it over.
The Seventh Sword of Light had reached out to strike at the Lyrans invading what they fondly believed was a world belonging to The Dragon.
They were going to be pulling back a bloody stump.
XXXXX
1: Roughly translated, “you incest-plagued worm-eating swine-asslickers.” Had to consult a native German speaker for the good insults.
A/N: Thanks again to Seraviel, Lordsfire, and Yellowhammer for beta reading, idea bouncing, and canon compliance checking. This chapter is vastly improved by their efforts.