Battletech Operation Ice Storm

A BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL... It is 3071, and holy Jihad rages in the Inner Sphere. Safe on worlds claimed two decades earlier, Clan Jade Falcon watches its enemies tear themselves apart. But a new threat is bearing down on the Falcons. Clan Ice Hellion, another of Kerensky's Clans, has traveled the winding Exodus Road to attack its warrior brethren—for while the Clans hunger to conquer the Inner Sphere, they are warriors, and they have little qualm warring amongst themselves for advantage. Khan Connor Rood of the Ice Hellions knows his Clan is taking a desperate risk. Victory over the Jade Falcons will give the Hellions a place in the Inner Sphere, new worlds to conquer and exploit. It will place them among those rarified Clans who are not trapped in the distant Clan homeworlds. It is a bold plan. It has failed. The battle-proven Jade Falcon Clusters have shattered the Ice Hellion assault. The worlds the Hellions captured are being lost to the Falcon reconquest, and Hellion MechWarriors are dying in the loss. Khan Connor Rood knows he must find a way to save what is left of his Clan. He knows he has to bring the Falcons to one final, decisive battle and earn a chance at escape. But the legacy of Khan Raina Montose's bad decisions linger...and the circling Jade Falcon forces have been joined by the hungry herds of the Hell's Horses Clan. Is Rood's desperate plan to rescue the remaining Hellions doomed to fail?

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH… Former hauptmann Ronan Carlyle and his sister Isobel are soldiers without a nation. After their commanding officer left the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces entirely, the pair returned to Lyran space for reassignment. But their senior officer branded the remaining troops traitors and cashiered them, stranding hundreds of former LCAF soldiers and technicians. With nothing but a local salvage yard to their name, the Carlyle kids hit upon a way to at least get their people off-planet and back home. So, out of desperation, the Gray Death Legion is reborn. But soon, what was supposed to be a temporary mercenary unit turns into something entirely different…a real mercenary unit. THE TOUGH GO MERCENARY. Gray Death Rising chronicles the new Gray Death Legion’s early missions. From their very first job—working for the same unit that kicked them out of the LCAF—to their next job off-planet, to their biggest mission yet, facing political intrigue and taking on the mantle of their famous great-grandfather’s legacy on the planet of Pandora in a brand-new story. In the cutthroat mercenary world of the Inner Sphere, it takes more than a famous name to survive. Fortunately, Ronan and Bel have the training, intelligence, and most importantly, experience to carry their family’s legacy into a new era. And collected here for the first time, read where it all begins…again.

A STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE… Former hauptmann Ronan Carlyle is a man without a nation. After his former commanding officer declared herself governor-general of a reborn Tamar Pact, Ronan, a loyal Steiner officer, led a group of soldiers and techs including his sister, Isobel, back for Garrison for reassignment. But on Garrison, his troubles multiply. The senior Lyran officer brands the 26th Arcturan loyalists traitors and cashiers them, stranding nearly 200 former LCAF soldiers, technicians, and crewmen on a Lyran world with no way off-planet. Forced to scrounge up a way to survive, Ronan and Isobel hatch a plan to get the former LCAF members back to their homeworlds by salvaging ’Mechs. But when a Lyran scout battalion goes AWOL over an off-world mission squashed by their commanding officer, the LCAF is shocked to discover the Arcturan loyalists have built up the largest contingent of combat equipment outside the militia. Ronan’s people need cash. They have skills. And there’s history in his name… Thus, the Gray Death Legion is reborn. First as a way to get funds for his people to leave. But they fight the Lyran unit—winning by use of unorthodox tactics—and discover they don’t want to disband…instead, the reconstituted mercenary unit wants to find its next employer…

THEIR MISSION: ACQUIRE BATTLEMECH PLANS, NO MATTER THE COST... There are three ways to accomplish a difficult objective: Be first. Be smart. Or cheat. The Intelligence Directorate of the Capellan Confederation, otherwise known as the Maskirovka, is well-versed in all three. But when the first two methods do not achieve the desired results, they have no problem resorting to the last one. And when the covert team gains the plans they are willing to die for, that resolve will be tested to the limit as they try to escape the Free Worlds League planet they have infiltrated, matching wits with one of the most feared intelligence officers the FWL has to offer...

CONTRACTS MAKE STRANGE ALLIES… For new mercenary groups just starting out, one of the primary rules is “Follow the money.” Even when it’s being paid by the same people who forced you to become a mercenary unit in the first place. Ronan and Isobel Carlyle are experiencing this right now, having accepted a contract from the newly-formed Tamar Pact, the cluster of planets that recently seceded from the Lyran Commonwealth—and got the once loyal-Carlyle siblings cashiered as turncoats. Now the Pact wants the Legion’s help with one of their newer planets, Crimond. But murky mission parameters and an unhelpful liaison officer leaves Ronan and Bel wondering who’s a friend and who’s a foe. And when the Legion splits up to handle two different missions, Bel finds herself an entire continent away, on a mission to scout an abandoned Star League base. But she soon discovers the base—and the nearby community—is anything but abandoned…and if she doesn’t act fast, she and her GDL commandos will receive a welcome they won’t walk away from…

OUT FOR BLOOD… Wolf's Dragoons, the most storied and elite mercenary unit in the Inner Sphere, has been utterly shattered for the first time in its centuries-long history. In 3151, most of the Dragoons listened to Marotta Kerensky and followed Alaric Ward to Terra. There, they helped him destroy the Republic of the Sphere and establish the ilClan. Four out of five Dragoons died in the fighting. The survivors were injured, shell-shocked, and finally, gravely insulted by Alaric Ward’s token payment of thirty pieces of silver. In one brutal gesture, the ilKhan did what no other enemy had ever done: He broke Wolf’s Dragoons. The decimated survivors limped off Terra to rendezvous with their remnants that had stayed behind. Colonel Henry “Hack” Kincaid, senior striker officer, is waiting when the Dragoons convoy appears, full of wrecked machines, but depleted of personnel. Kincaid is a man of reputation in the Dragoons. His word carries weight. And he hasn’t been tarnished by Terra. Three regiments and one of his irreplaceable striker battalions have all been ground to dust. All that is left now is duty. And vengeance…

A PACK DIVIDED… Clan Wolf has gone to claim Terra to fulfill the promise made by Aleksandr Kerensky centuries ago. But for those left behind, their story is a very different one… Star Captain Jacinda of Clan Wolf Is one such warrior. Stuck on Campbelton in the Wolf Empire due to injury, she commands a sibko training facility while stewing over her lost chance to go with the Wolf touman to attain glory in the campaign for Terra. But heroism comes in many forms, and when a new invader targets Campbelton, Jacinda is able to unleash her primal warrior nature, and defend the Wolf’s pups against all comers…

ANCIENT EVIL STALKS THE KURAI FOREST... The planet Dumaring in the Draconis Combine had been at peace for decades, until strange raids began against the populace’s livestock. A dutiful warrior and officer of the DCMS, Chu-i Uchida, was tasked with ending the attacks, but his hunt for bandits led him into the foreboding Kurai Forest. What he found in the dark wood would defy explanation and leave him a shadow of his former self. Now, only his son can regain his honor, clear his name, and find the truth…no matter how horrifying it may be...