- With the Marauder's arrival, Aralakh's recon lance now found itself severely outgunned.  Needing to drop some heat, Steiner maneuvered his Blackjack around some rock formations to avoid line-of-site to the big guns.  Unfortunately, this left Riley and the Hatchetman totally exposed and the only viable target for the Marauder as well as the Vindicator.  The 45-ton 'mech could normally survive a round or two of that sort of barrage, but one of the Marauder's PPCs landed a direct hit on the unit's head, totally destroying it.

- Instantly down another unit and believing Riley to have been killed, Steiner gave the order to retreat.  The Marauder's pilot demonstrated impressive skill by continuing to score solid hits against the fleeing units, but the remaining three were able to escape with their info.

- Meanwhile, Rip and Toulonne visited the small, run-down port town of Urngen.  There they noted some FWL sympathies and a certain hesitance by the locals to engage certain topics of conversation: the two eventually determined that sections of the town showed signs of 'mech presence and damage, but no one was talking about it.  As they left the town to drive back to Lysida City, they could see the tell-tale thruster glow of a pair of dropships descending to the south...