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For a moment, the plateau was a tangle of chaotic firefights. Missiles rained down on both sides of the Jade Falcon line, geysering dirt and rock and scorched brush into the air. A few fireballs blossomed over a line of Elementals, scattering the infantry into hiding places.
Lasers slashed back and forth.
A Gauss slug from McKi
Alexia combined her long-reaching PPC fire with more from the Haseks, sending bolt after bolt of man-made lightning snaking across the flat ground to open a hole for Team Two, which continued to pound on the Destroyers.
The SM1s were no pushovers, though. Powering about on a cushion of air, the assault hovercraft drifted backward, turning their twelve-centimeter ca
Greasy flames erupted back through the compartment, finishing off any crew missed by the hail of slugs. The Condor slewed around to the left, out of control, and piled into a short stack of boulders.
The vehicle flipped over onto its side and was still rocking back and forth when a secondary explosion finally tore it apart.
“Welcome them home,” Alexia called out, and every one of her units turned its firepower on the Falcon line right where the Jessies and the remaining Condor would cross. The Destroyers, still drifting backward in their own retrograde maneuver, sailed right through her sights. She pulled the crosshairs over, waited for a solid lock on one, and sliced another pair of PPCs across its skirting.
Air spilled out from beneath the SM1, and it settled hard against the ground before the lift fans shattered and spun the entire vehicle back up into the air and around in a violent pirouette.
The three remaining vehicles of Team Two skated through the hole and raced home to their brethren.
“All units, prepare to withdraw.”
McKi
No, they weren’t. The Falcons were massing behind the assault ’Mech and the Shadow Hawk IIC. The fight wasn’t out of them by a long shot. And the Shrike was too damned fast for an assault machine. If the Stormhammers withdrew now, it would catch them and deal some serious hurt.
As if summoned by thought, the Shrike leaped forward on jets of plasma, bringing its medium-range weapons into range and hammering again at the Atlas. One of the Skadi swift attack VTOLs followed after it, but a spearing laser blast from McKi
Still, the Shrike came on.
Jasek’s Stormhammers weren’t so numerous they could spend their forces casually. But Alexia recognized a tactical necessity when it kicked her in the teeth. McKi
McKi
She knew what she had to do.
“Team One, advance by pairs and alternate fire at your best target. Team Two…” She bit down hard on her tongue for a few heartbeats. It wouldn’t be pretty, what she had to ask those hovercraft to do. “Two, slide back around. Try to isolate the Shrike and by the Great Father, watch your backs in there.”
She pushed her own throttle to the forward stop, racing the Uziel ahead at better than ninety kilometers per hour. She followed an oblique line after the Atlas, trying to get a clear shot past McKi
The Shrike worked its own angle against her, shaving the Atlas down one ton of armor at a time while keeping the awesome machine between them. The Kelswa assault tank crept up in the shadow of the Falcon Shadow Hawk, both machines ready to add their larger weapons into the fight. McKi
Didn’t he?
Twin Gauss rifles on the Kelswa flashed with their capacitor discharge, ramming a pair of nickel-ferrous slugs into either leg on McKi
Still tipped back on its heels, the mighty BattleMech looked as if it had managed a perfect balancing point. With a cross-body shot, McKi
Then he bent one knee, drawing his Atlas forward into an easy crouch that let Alexia see the advancing Shrike.
It wasn’t the cleanest shot she’d had today, but it was the best she was going to get at the moment and her instincts knew it even if her brain hadn’t quite caught on. The leutnant-colonel speared both arms forward, blasting out twin forks of azure lightning that passed to either side of the Atlas’ head, giving McKi
And found the ammunition magazine for the autoca
Striking approximately five tons of heavy munitions with several kilojoules of rampant energy had the kind of effect one might think. Several thousand rounds cooked off in less than a second, and thousands more a fraction later as a chain reaction ate up the machine’s entire left side. Special construction cha
Alexia could only imagine the cement mixer treatment the feedback of such a large internal explosion had visited on the MechWarrior inside.
Not enough to put the assault machine down for good, unfortunately. The Shrike moved almost at once in an effort to regain its feet.
McKi
“I think we’ve given them enough to think about,” McKi