Book excerpt: FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE! Shrapnel: The Official BattleTech Magazine surges onward, waging wars that will decide the fate of the BattleMech-dominated future of the 31st century and beyond! Follow a quest for quick cash that yields unusual Star League relics. Commiserate with an aging MechWarrior convinced he is cursed with the devil’s luck—which is about to run out. Listen to the tale of how mercenary commander Ace Darwin obtained his iconic ’Mech—but how much of his story is true? Within these pages, you will visit Terra after the dawn of the ilClan era, venture into the postwar period of the Aurigan Coalition, and travel to the far-flung worlds of the Scorpion Empire in the Deep Periphery. Then you will dive into the intrigue and vice of Solaris VII in the beginning of a new, four-part serial novel. Choose your plan of attack with technical readouts, after-action reports, a deep dive into plasma technology, a treatise on covert-ops poisons, and a look at Free Worlds League politics, along with playable scenarios and more—all loaded into your autocannon by both BattleTech veterans and new voices from the Inner Sphere: Blaine Lee Pardoe Craig A. Reed, Jr. E. Clark Avery Jason Schmetzer James Bixby M. W. Hayden Mark Hill Daniel Isberner Alexander J. Roth Ken’ Horner James Kirtley Wunji Lau Eric Salzman Joel Steverson Stephen Toropov