TEXT: BattleCorps
  THE SHADE OF 
  AN OLD OAK TREE
  Dan C. Duval
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  13 Mar 3068 (1400 TST) H minus 1 hour. 
  “What? You didn’t think anyone would tell me about it?” Rurik 
  asked.
  He and Ilya were alone on the bridge of Dasher. Dasher was not 
  the oldest Union-class DropShip in the Com Guard fleet. Nor the 
  newest; no matter how hard the technicians tried, they couldn’t 
  get the smell of old grease and older socks out of the ventilation 
  system.
  “After all,” Rurik said, “I’m not only your commanding officer, I’m 
  also your brother.”
  “Half-brother,” Ilya said.
  “But a transfer?”
  Attached to a docking berth of the troop cruiser Vision of Truth, 
  and less than an hour from orbit around Terra, Dasher waited for 
  the rest of her crew to board. The recall had been sounded, so the 
  crewmen and combat pilots that had been stretching their legs in 
  the relative comfort of the WarShip were making their way back.
  One of Dasher’s three berthing crews had already checked in, as 
  had the pilots of the ’Mechs in bay two.
  Ilya glared at him.
  Rurik was sure Ilya had learned that glare from their mother. That 
  was where he himself had learned it. After he was given this com-
  mand, he had perfected the glare by practicing it in a mirror,.
  “Am I ever going to get my own ship, staying here?” Ilya said. 
  “Waiting for you to die or retire?”
  “I’m going to retire soon enough.” Not likely. They would have 
  to drag him, kicking and screaming, out of the service. And if he 
  spent the rest of his service time in command of Dasher, that was 
  just fine. “Got a place picked out on Tall Trees, a few hundred 
  acres—”
  “Yeah, yeah. Rolling hills covered in trees, with a hammock under 
  this big spreading oak all alone on a hilltop. I’ve heard the story. 
  Over and over.”
  While the ground-pounders in the bays below were running last 
  minute checks on their machines, at the moment Dasher’s flight 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  crew had no actual duties beyond keeping watch. Their command 
  helmets still hung on the back of their seats. 
  “So, where are you going to go, if they approve the transfer? 
  Someplace where Mom won’t beat my butt if you get in trouble? 
  She told me I was to watch out for you.”
  “Somewhere where I can get my own command before I get to 
  be as old as you are.”
  The two men were ten years apart. Rurik’s father had been killed 
  when Rurik was eight, before their mother married Ilya’s father.
  “You still could have told me first.”
  Ilya snorted. “Would it have made a difference?”
  “I would have felt better about it. We are brothers, after all.”
  “Half-brothers.”
  “Explain the difference to Mom.”
  Rurik stared out at space through one of the small ferroglass win-
  dows. Billions of stars out there, thousands of inhabited worlds. 
  When the rigors of the service seemed too much, Rurik consoled 
  himself that there was still that one hill on Tall Trees, where the 
  shade under that lone oak was cool and dark, the sharp smell of 
  crushed acorns in the grass scented the air, and there was little 
  more to hear than the quiet whisper of wind. His refuge when 
  things went bad, those memories of his one trip to Tall Trees.
  “We’re losing pressure,” Ilya said. He leaned toward the con-
  sole on his right, where several red lights had lit among a field of 
  green.
  As Rurik looked, another green light turned red. “How bad?”
  “Not very. Not yet.” Ilya tapped some keys. Rows of numbers 
  started scrolling up a small display.
  “Where?”
  “I’m trying to find out.”
  A bell started ringing on the bridge. Multiple lights on Ilya’s right 
  turned red.
  “Blow-out!” Rurik roared, jerking forward and slapping the emer-
  gency switch for the lock to Vision’s berth. Dasher’s berthing 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  doors would slam shut, isolating her atmosphere from Vision’s. 
  Whether the blow-out was on Vision or Dasher, one was protected 
  from the other.
  “Close the bulkheads,” Rurik growled, while trying to get a comm 
  channel to Vision’s bridge.
  Sirens sounded throughout Dasher, including one on the bridge, 
  warning of the lockdown. Vibrations in the command chair told 
  Rurik that the bulkheads were slamming into place, isolating the 
  various sections from each other. If the blow-out was in one of 
  Dasher’s sections, the other sections should be safe from it.
  In theory.
  If it wasn’t structural.
  Or a major impact.
  But then, he hadn’t felt anything, so an impact seemed unlikely.
  Rurik tried to commlink to Vision.
  Nothing.
  Not even an Acknowledged from the automatics.
  Ilya tapped at keys, trying to determine what had happened. But 
  past him, Rurik could see the telltales turning back from red to 
  green, slowly, one at a time.
  “It’s Vision,” Rurik said. “I think we’re OK. But verify it and make 
  sure we’re not venting anywhere.”
  “What’s with Vision?” Ilya asked.
  “I don’t know. Gone dark.”
  Rurik leaned to his left and pressed several keys, bringing up 
  numbers on power and consumable feeds routed through the 
  berthing collar. All zero.
  “Vision’s dead. No power.” He tapped some more keys. “I can’t 
  get water, flush sewage, or pump fuel. They’re completely gone 
  over there.”
  Ilya leaned back in his chair. “We’re good. Integrity in all com-
  partments.”
  One telltale still shone red on the console.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  “What’s that?” Rurik asked.
  “Berthing collar,” Ilya said, without looking. His face was very 
  pale. “There’s hard vacuum on the other side.”
  “There would be hard vacuum if Vision had closed off their berth-
  ing doors.”
  Ilya pointed a finger at a small vid display on his console. Rurik 
  leaned over to look at it.
  The camera was in Dasher’s berthing collar, usually used as an 
  aid for docking.
  It looked directly into the berthing bay of Vision. Vision’s berth-
  ing doors were not closed. It meant that section—at least—of 
  Vision was open to space.
  No comm. Hard vacuum. Berthing feeds down.
  Vision was dead. The grim silence aboard Dasher lasted all of a 
  minute when the Word of Blake ships appeared.
  Lots of them.
  And then Swift Justice started firing on Vision of Truth.
  The flash order came from Blake’s Strength to start the land-
  ings.
  Rurik slammed himself back into his command chair and yanked 
  the command helmet down from its mounting, all but jamming it 
  on his head, slapping the side panels in place. The helmet covered 
  his eyes and ears and planted microphones and chin controls in 
  place on his skin. His scalp tingled.
  Tapping into a ship-wide channel with his chin, Rurik said—calmly, 
  as he always did when things got tight—“Prepare for maneuvers. 
  Grab hold of something, kids.”
  He clicked to an internal channel, the one direct to the engine 
  control station, where Benny, a long-toothed acolyte, watched 
  over the ship’s fusion engines. “Warm ’em up, Benny. We’re drop-
  ping early.”
  “Aye, aye, Skipper.” Too cheerful, as usual. Nothing ever seemed 
  to get to the old man (A year younger than himself, a small voice 
  in the back of his head reminded him.)
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  Switching back to the bridge channel, he said, “Ilya. Disengage 
  and back us off.” He watched the pre-ignite status for the fusion 
  engines. Sometimes, the engines were balky.
  “No disengage.” Ilya’s voice was sharper than usual, thinner. 
  Only part of that was the comm circuit. “Vision’s systems are not 
  responding.”
  “Hell’s bells,” Rurik grunted. “Everything’s dead over there. 
  Crap.”
  “Manual disengage of power and comm?”
  “Affirm manual disengage.”
  DropShips rode tightly clamped to their transport, to prevent 
  vibrations from damaging the berthing rings and leading to mate-
  rial failures. The heavy clamps required power from the transport 
  side to release.
  But for just such an emergency as this, provision had been made 
  for the DropShip to be able to break away on its own. Ilya engaged 
  the manual system. Strong rams extended from Dasher’s side of 
  the berthing ring, which pressed into a pair of pads on the trans-
  port ring that not only disengaged the locks on the clamps, but 
  also physically pushed the clamps free. Each step in the disen-
  gage was duly reported on one of Rurik’s displays.
  “We’re loose,” Ilya almost shouted. The comm systems auto-
  matically squelched voices that got too loud. It made Ilya sound 
  calmer than the almost-panic his voice carried.
  Rurik tried to ignore the sharp smell of his own sweat. He didn’t 
  have time for fear.
  “Thrusters in five—” Rurik put a finger down on the emergency 
  Klaxon: the only warning that Dasher was about to move. “Four.”
  At zero, the thrusters gave a small push, enough that everything 
  loose on the bridge lifted into the air.
  Including Rurik, who had forgotten to buckle himself into place. 
  Blinded by the helmet, he felt around for his straps and pulled 
  himself back into his seat. He fixed himself into place.
  Stupid, stupid, stupid. “How are we on fuel?” Rurik asked.
  Vision had not yet made its orbital insertion burn, so Dasher 
  would have to do it herself, in addition to setting down on Terra. 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  Even though they were fully fueled, insertion would put a big dent 
  in their supply.
  Numbers scrolled across one of his views, most of which he ig-
  nored. He carefully noted the one number outlined in green. After 
  insertion, they would be right on the edge of getting down in one 
  piece and getting back up into orbit again, without tapping the 
  combat reserve.
  It would have been nice to have more fuel, in case they needed 
  to duck and dodge.
  It would have been nice to have a place to come back to, for a 
  refuel.
  It would have been nice to have retired last year, to a hammock 
  under an old oak tree.
  A lot of things would have been nice.
  Since all of the DropShip’s gunners had still been on Vision when 
  Dasher broke free, ducking and dodging would be all they could 
  do against ground defenses. They did not have the pilots for the 
  two aerospace fighters Dasher carried, either, so those weapons 
  sat useless in their bays.
  He and Ilya set up the insertion burn and turned it over to the 
  computer to execute. Deceleration pushed Rurik back in his com-
  mand chair.
  As they hit the atmosphere tail-first, fusion engines blazing, 
  Rurik could only hope that the Blakists on the ground would be 
  surprised when Dasher dropped out of the sky.
  Somehow, considering the battle that had to be happening 
  above him, he doubted that. Where could all of those enemy ships 
  have come from?
  “Rurie?” It had been a long time since Ilya had used that old nick-
  name.
  Nothing on this mission seemed to be going to plan; but Ilya was 
  right to be scared.
  Rurik was. More scared than he had ever been before.
  And not just for himself. He and Ilya were Mom’s only kids, and 
  suddenly it seemed much too dangerous to have both of them in 
  the same ship.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
   He scanned the expanded view he had set up on Tactical Two, 
  watching for the rise of missiles or the intersecting lines of fight-
  ers.
  Or any other surprise he could not guess at.
  “Yeah?”
  “Did you see all those ships up there? We’re not getting out of 
  this, are we?”
  What a time to fall apart. “If you don’t keep your attention on 
  Tactical, we won’t.”
  The descent was quiet, unopposed, all the way down.
  Because he was so much older than Ilya, Rurik’s mother had made 
  him responsible for his younger brother. Which meant that every 
  time he turned around, there was Ilya, tagging along. Growing up 
  with this constant shadowing, Rurik had felt everything from irri-
  tation to fury at his baby brother, at one time or another.
  But once he had joined the service, he realized how much every-
  one depended upon each other. That as an officer, his duty was to 
  protect his subordinates.
  Then Ilya had been assigned to Dasher. Normally, relatives were 
  not assigned together, but Ilya and he had different last names.
  At first, it was annoying, but then he found that his baby brother 
  was a very interesting person, now that both of them had grown 
  up. Unlike in their earlier years, Rurik found he enjoyed their time 
  together.
  And now they might just die together.
  The operational plan had been to ground their stick of ’Mechs 
  about two hundred klicks inland from the ocean, in the middle of 
  some piece of dirt called “Old Texas,” the southern end of an arc 
  of landings that ran from the ocean southwest to the edge of a 
  desert. Their landing zone was just off the edge of a fairly sizable 
  city, forty klicks from the next LZ in the line.
  On Dasher’s other side, the nearest unit was some four hundred 
  klicks to the west.
  They were the end of the line.
  And still no opposition.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 
  Not even a radar painting them.
  After all the other cock-ups, it seemed much too good to be 
  true.
  Still, gift horse and all.
  Rurik was not sure how long ago he had last taken a breath. So, 
  when Dasher settled on her landing struts, he took a deep one, 
  before going back to his constant scanning of the Tactical displays, 
  waiting for that red speck that meant Death was on its way.
  And the displays were still empty.
  In the lower right corner of his vision, a counter ticked away the 
  seconds they had left on the surface.
  Unlike loading—which was a slow and careful process when 
  multi-ton ’Mechs were in too-close proximity to his ship’s pre-
  cious skin—unloading was scheduled for a mere thirty seconds 
  on the ground.
  While other DropShips acted as fueling and rearming stations 
  for their ’Mechs, Dasher was detailed to return to the fleet, to act 
  as a reserve.
  If there was a fleet left.
  Rurik gazed at the long-range display, the one showing the situ-
  ation in space. At least, as much as Dasher could gather from IFF 
  beacons and weapon flashes.
  Green dots represented Com Guard ships.
  There were a lot fewer dots than before.
  When the counter hit five, Rurik sounded the Klaxons and let his 
  hand hover over the manual control for the fusion engines, in case 
  the computers failed to lift them off on schedule.
  But the computers worked and he felt himself being pushed back 
  into his chair again. He let himself relax just a little tiny bit.
  He still had no idea what was waiting for them in orbit above. All 
  of the radio frequencies were filled with static. A tone sounded in 
  his ear, calling attention to a channel from bay two.
  “Skipper,” the voice said. Rurik thought it was Bailey, a cute lit-
  tle brunette that—were he not her commanding officer—it might 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 10
  have been fun to take a run at. Between the vibration of the ship 
  under full power and the stress in the woman’s voice, he could not 
  be sure. “We have one still in the racks.”
  “So?”
  “Well, it was just a stuck gripper and we’ve got him loose. The kid 
  inside really wants to join his unit.”
  “Crap.”
  “We’ve got the fuel, Rurie,” Ilya said on the bridge circuit.
  “Who are you kidding? You already told me we’d be down to the 
  combat reserve.”
  Beat.
  Rurik squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “OK. Forget I said 
  that.” What point was there in having a combat reserve if you 
  didn’t use it in combat? “But we’ve unloaded our stick and we’re 
  on the elevator back to orbit. That last chicken will just have to ride 
  along with us.”
  “To where, Rurie? Look at Tactical One.”
  There were no green blips on the display. No friendly ships still 
  functional in orbit within Dasher’s horizon.
  “Maybe the fleet is beyond the curvature.” They had to be up there.
  “No relay satellites?” Ilya snapped. “Even if those were picked 
  off, they should have left a trace on our tracking.”
  He was probably right. The complete lack of relay satellites for 
  over-the-horizon communications was a very bad sign.
  “Not our problem,” Rurik said. “We get to orbit and run, hope to 
  meet up with stragglers at the assembly point.” When Ilya did not 
  say anything, Rurik continued, “Those are our orders.”
  “Sure.”
  But where would they run? The fleet had flown into a trap. 
  Their only real hope now was that the two opposing fleets had 
  completely wiped each other out; otherwise, they would just be 
  running right under the enemy’s weapons.
  And even if Dasher made the assembly point, they would have 
  to find a jump-capable ship to get out of the system. Dasher did 
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 11
  not carry enough supplies to give them more than a few weeks of 
  hiding out as a nickel-iron asteroid.
  At least the ’Mech pilot had some options, assuming the ma-
  chine could get out of the DropShip’s bay.
  Assuming Rurik gave the kid back his options. “Oh, crap,” Rurik 
  said. “Let’s do it. I must be out of my mind.” And there was one 
  more option being on the ground would open up, as much as Rurik 
  hated thinking about it.
  “Good,” Ilya said. “I was thinking I was the only one here that 
  was scared silly.”
  Rather than comment, Rurik maneuvered a cursor over the 
  ground map in a new display he had popped up, watching the 
  numbers at the edge of the view. When he found the point on the 
  ground that would take the least amount of fuel, he selected it and 
  turned things over to the computer again.
  Almost immediately, he went weightless as the engines cut out.
  Selecting ship-wide, he announced, “We’re going down to un-
  load this last ’Mech. Prepare for grounding. Alert! Ten seconds 
  after grounding we are going to burn and head back to orbit.”
  Clicking back to the circuit to bay two, he said, “Ten seconds. 
  Any parts that chicken still has inside the bay doors is going back 
  up with us right at ten seconds, clear?”
  “Aye, aye.” It was Bailey. Without the engines rumbling every-
  thing in the ship, her voice came through clearly. Bloody shame he 
  would never find out what the woman thought of hammocks.
  The displays still showed no enemy traffic anywhere near them, 
  as Dasher fell out of the sky, the fusion engines flashing on and off 
  at odd intervals, changing Dasher’s speed and trajectory. In the-
  ory, that would make it harder for enemy forces to predict where 
  the DropShip was, where it was going to be, and when it would 
  finally touch down.
  In theory.
  Memories swam past his vision. Ilya running after him and his 
  buddies, all smiles and laughter, even with the rough handling 
  Rurik and his mates gave the kid. Mom kissing Rurik on the cheek, 
  after he had pulled Ilya, half-drowned, from a pond that the kid 
  should not have been anywhere near.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  Twenty seconds before touchdown, Rurik’s attention snapped 
  back to his displays, where two red blips appeared at the far edge 
  of Tactical Three.
  Sirens and warning buzzers came to life the instant Dasher was 
  painted with radar.
  Distractions that Ilya must have muted almost immediately, 
  since they went away on their own, while Rurik’s brain focused on 
  what to do.
  Full speed on the fusion engines would shoot them toward 
  space.
  Unfortunately, unless these were air-only fighters, they would 
  be followed all the way up. No way out that way.
  Land and surrender?
  Not my ship. Not Dasher.
  Certainly no point in dodging.
  So, land the lone ’Mech and then run for it. Hope for the best.
  But run to where?
  He had good people in his crew. Letting fighters shoot them up 
  or forcing them to starve in space made no sense. Neither of those 
  options was worthy of these people.
  Or Ilya.
  Only that one ugly option was real.
  As soon as they touched down, Rurik opened the ship-wide 
  channel again.
  “Abandon ship! Abandon ship! All personnel! Abandon ship!”
  He could imagine the bay crew standing there, unable to believe 
  their ears.
  He switched to the bay channel, just in time to hear Bailey shriek-
  ing at her people to get out the bay doors. Telltales on his displays 
  showed all of the bay doors open, not that they were really neces-
  sary. There just weren’t that many people aboard.
  Not when most of them were still on the Vision, somewhere in 
  space above them.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  Some might have found havens of air. They might be waiting for 
  rescue.
  He could not think of them right now.
  Rurik tried hard not to think of them, but their faces rushed into 
  his mind and his stomach clenched.
  Over the command channel, Ilya said, “Everyone’s clear. Bay 
  doors are closing. Ready to lift in five.”
  Rurik did not have time to grieve over people already lost.
  Even though he could not see Ilya through the command hel-
  met, Rurik turned his head toward where his brother sat. “What 
  are you still doing here, Adept? ‘All personnel’ means all per-
  sonnel.”
  “I’m not going anywhere.”
  “Ilya,” he began, then choked up.
  “What about Mom?” he managed to croak. “She can’t lose us 
  both.”
  “Then we both have to get out of this. The crew is out of the blast 
  radius of the engines. Let’s get out of here.”
  “Screw that,” Rurik roared. “Let’s get off this bucket before they 
  blow it to pieces.”
  “Go ahead,” Ilya said. “If I don’t get away, tell Mom I was thinking 
  about her. At the end.” Brave words. Rurik might have believed 
  them if the unevenness of Ilya’s voice had not betrayed him.
  “You’re not staying.”
  “I’m not leaving.”
  Rurik relaxed back into his seat. Ilya was just as stubborn as he 
  had been when he was six. “I don’t suppose an order would make 
  any difference?”
  Ilya did not answer.
  “Yeah.” Rurik switched to the engine control station channel. 
  “Benny, you better bail out, too.”
  No answer.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  “The smartest guy on the ship,” Rurik muttered. Back on the 
  command channel, he said, “OK, light her up and let’s get out of 
  here.”
  The tactical displays showed the fighters well beyond weapons 
  range, but closing fast. Dasher had no chance to get away, not 
  from fighters, but what else was there to do? He would not leave 
  Ilya to fly the ship alone.
  Not that he wanted to let Dasher go without at least the attempt 
  at a run.
  Thrust shoved hard as the engines lit, full power.
  Even with all of their gunners, they would have been vulnerable 
  to the nimble fighters. As it was, all they could hope for was to stay 
  in one piece long enough to run up enough speed to pull away. In 
  the long run, the fighters could not keep up with DropShip’s fusion 
  engines.
  It was the short run that was the problem.
  Within a minute, Rurik knew it was futile. The upsweep the fight-
  ers made showed they were not light, atmosphere-only fighters, 
  but full aerospace fighters, with plenty of power and fuel, well 
  able to run down the defenseless Dasher.
  The words curdling in his mouth, he opened a wide-spectrum ex-
  ternal channel and said, “This is the Com Guard DropShip Dasher. 
  We surrender. Repeat. We surrender. We are not able to fire on 
  you. Please direct us to where you want us to land.”
  Over the command channel, he could hear Ilya sputtering, too 
  surprised to speak.
  But one of them had to live, to go home to Mom. If Ilya was too 
  stubborn to get off the ship, then Rurik had no choice but to sac-
  rifice Dasher.
   Before Ilya could get past his surprise and say anything, though, 
  the fighters took away their last options.
  They opened fire on Dasher, the moment their weapons were in 
  range.
  Red telltales appeared all over his displays, one view after an-
  other popping to the top for attention, as system after system 
  reported damage, as critical systems overrode the reports of oth-
  er, less important systems.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  Dasher was hurt.
  Rurik slashed engine power, spun the ship on her thrusters, and 
  opened the throttles again, jigging and dodging as he tried to get 
  Dasher out of the way.
  The ship shuddered as missiles tore at her insides and beams 
  ripped her hide open.
  Dasher was dying.
  The fighters continued to fire, even though it had to be clear to 
  them that Dasher was mortally wounded.
  Rurik didn’t even have the breath to curse them.
  Then it hit him.
  There were two fighters in the bays right below them.
  And the telltales for the fighter bays were still green.
  He was not a fighter pilot and neither was Ilya, but they could 
  fly.
  It was a better chance than they would have with Dasher, which 
  was falling apart around them.
  “Ilya. Take the fighter in bay three starboard. Let’s get out of here 
  before those bastards finish us.”
  “Oh. Yeah. Crap.”
  Rurik pulled the helmet off. The bridge was as full of red lights as 
  his displays had been. Plus Klaxons, sirens, and shrill emergency 
  tones.
  Ilya was already clear of his seat and heading for the hatch.
  Rurik tickled the controls on the arm of his command chair, turn-
  ing control over to the computer, setting it for evasion.
  At least the computer was still undamaged.
  So far.
  If it stayed that way, it would jig and swirl the ship to the limits 
  the damaged systems would allow, sounding a warning before 
  each maneuver to give the two of them a chance to grab some-
  thing before the ship jinked.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  And time between the maneuvers for the two men to move to-
  ward their last hope of survival.
  Rurik yanked at his harness. The pressure across his chest re-
  leased just as the external bulkhead caved in.
  He did not feel his left leg come off.
  He barely noted the smell of smoke and fire.
  Vision blurred and reddened, he could not move.
  All he could do was watch as the ship floated for a few moments, 
  then lurched to one side.
  Dasher could not avoid the fighters, though, and a thump and a 
  surge from somewhere below shook the entire ship.
  There were no more red telltales to light.
  They were all red.
  Through the hole where the ferroglass window had been, Rurik 
  could see the sky, then clouds, then tan, rough ground, then the 
  sky again.
  The ship was spinning. Only the thrusters on one side were 
  working and the computer spun the ship to be able to jink in all 
  directions still.
  The fusion engines sputtered, roared, then, one by one, quit.
  And the ship shook from another explosion somewhere in her 
  torn hull.
  Blood sprayed from his severed leg. He knew he should do 
  something about it but he had no idea what.
  The fighter bays.
  There was still one green light. It went out as the doors of bay 
  three starboard blew out.
  Ilya.
  Would he get away?
  The ship rattled and shook again as Dasher took more fire.
  The ground swept across the window again, then steadied, as 
  the ship went into free fall.
  
  BattleCorps
  The Shade of an Old Oak Tree • Page 1
  The computer had finally given up.
  Or lost its last controls.
  Dasher fell like a stone.
  Wind whipping through the bulkhead hole made his eyes burn. 
  He could still feel that, even as his life flowed from the stump of 
  his leg.
  Through his tears, Rurik got a glimpse of a lone hill, an oak tree 
  standing at the top, casting a wide swath of shade on the hot des-
  ert floor.
  Then he retired from the service.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Old Oak Tree - Dan C. Duval.pdf