Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  The massive, inverted Y of a flanged foot swung up, descended, booming. The creaks and metal-grating protests of flanges and carballoy joints piped and squeaked in the dust-filled air as the foot rose again, and the monster's shadow swept across and past Grayson's cowering form.

  When he looked up, a flat but crumple-textured grey rectangle on the pavement nearby caught his attention. It took him a moment to recognize the heavy steel toolbox he'd taken from the hovercraft, flattened by the monster's tread. A scattering of tools had been driven into the tough surface of the ferrocrete, and were not like surreal decorations in the pavement. That had been close, he thought Another meter, and...

  Grayson dared to lift his head to look up... up... and up. The monster stood in the street ten meters away, its back toward him as it surveyed the steaming crater and the shredded fence. From its altitude, Grayson guessed the pilot must be reporting to other 'Mechs or troops. He could fool a passing 'Mech by playing dead, but a platoon of enemy troops was another matter. Grayson looked around, eyes wild, desperate for a hiding place. Doors lined the buildings facing the street, all closed, probably bolted. As if a deadbolt could exclude a BattleMech that had decided it wanted to enter!

  The 'Mech was moving again, striding rapidly toward the fence, and then straight into its iron bars. Grayson heard a cracking like the sound of gunshots as the iron gave way. For an instant, the monster stood entangled by the barrier almost hip-high to it. Then it kicked, splintering concrete foundations. The entire length of fencing twisted free and collapsed. The Wasp strode into the Palace Garden, brushing aside flowering shrubs and trees with even greater ease. Then it stopped, pivotted, and brought the long, black tube of its laser cannon to bear on some unseen target to Grayson's right. The flash of the laser discharge was searing blue, intolerably bright. When his eyes could see through the dancing haze of spots before him again, the 'Mech was moving further up the hill toward the Palace.

  Grayson's head snapped around, following the 'Mech's progress. It looked as though one phase of the attackers' plan had fallen into place. That first attack earlier must have been a probing of the city defenses, organized so as to take plenty of prisoners. Grayson knew that any 'Mech operation in a hostile city required plenty of intelligence. Those prisoners would have been questioned, and at least some would have known the interior layout of the Palace. If the 'Mechs were attacking the Palace, Grayson reasoned, they must plan to capture or kill the Royal Family and various members of the government.

  Mara! She would be there by now. What would happen to her? And what could he do? Unarmed, alone, the only way he could slow a 'Mech was if the machine happened to slip as it pulped his body underfoot Grayson didn't plan on trying that tactical maneuver anytime soon.

  Wildly, he considered following the machine, considered trying to warn someone at the Palace. But they would know the monster was approaching already, and even in the unlikely event that Grayson could outrun the striding behemoth, there was no way his warning could be turned to advantage.

  A high-pitched hum shrilled in Grayson's ears, and dust swirled in the street. A pair of light military ground effect hovercraft swung into the middle of the street, as soldiers piled out amid shouted orders and the clatter of weapons. One of the skimmers mounted a heavy machinegun, the other a quad-mounted autocannon. One brown-uniformed trooper slapped the heavy cassette of caseless ammo into the quad's receiver, and shouted to an officer standing hands-on-hips in the street that he was ready.

  "Those poor bastards open fire and I'll be right in the line of return fire," Grayson thought. He had only seconds to move.

  The quad autocannon fired with a buzzsaw's scream, and left a sour taste of chemicals heavy in the air. Grayson saw eruptions of dirt and smoke running with explosive fury up the blue-grassed slope along the BaltleMech's path. The 'Mech swung about as the stream of shells reached it, and the clang and roar of explosions smashing at the BattleMech's armor rang across the street above the booming of the cannon.

  The 'Mech jumped, vaulting skyward with magical grace on flaring jets of superheated mercury steam. Grayson saw it twist in midair, swinging its laser down to align on the group of soldiers and vehicles in the street. When the blast hit, Grayson was caught in it. Blue fire seemed to fill the air, as the laser beam hosed across the bricks of the building wall behind him a meter above his head. Bricks splintered as the trace of water within them vaporized. Hot shards rained on Grayson's bare neck, and the beam swept on, slicing into the hovering GEV. The explosion blotted out the sky.

  12

  As the fireball rose in the sky, roiling orange against oily black, men leaped howling from the stricken vehicle with their clothes in flames. The quad cannon's ammo went off with a roar that sent chips of metal hurtling dozens of meters before they fell smoking to the pavement. The officer in charge of the party had been scooped up by the blast and deposited in a shredded and bloody heap 20 meters away.

  Grayson was unhurt, except for the sting of small burns on his neck and the backs of his hands. As he had been lying flat, the deadly, blast-driven shrapnel had passed above him, and he'd been far enough from the explosion to miss the worst effects.

  The Wasp had ended its short flight with near-catastrophic results. The pilot had overbalanced his machine on landing, and it had collided with the front of a building 50 meters further down the street with the roar of mountains falling. The 'Mech was struggling to rise now, sending bricks and broken chunks of stone skittering into the street as it moved. The building had a gaping hole in it where the door and windows had been, jagged with the broken spars of the structure's frame.

  The second hovercraft was still idling further out in the street Dead or horribly mangled, its crew lay sprawled on the pavement or crumpled over the well deck's rim. They'd been caught by the full violence of the first hovercraft's exploding ammo, and the blast fragments had sliced through them like a scythe. Some of those limp bundles scattered in the street were still moving, and several shrieked and screamed with shocking vigor.

  Grayson lay there, terrified. There was a terrible clarity to his awareness of the stench of burning flesh, of the rough pavement under his clawed hands, of the hiss and roar of the burning GEV. Some men in the street were stil alive and unhurt, soldiers as terrified as Grayson was. He saw several running down the street, their weapons and helmets abandoned on the ferrocrete behind them. Most of the survivors lay as Grayson did, hugging the street in terror-bom paralysis.

  "There's only one sure way to overcome panic," Kai Griffith had repeated to Grayson so many times that the words had become part of his being. He heard them again now as though Griff were standing there at his side. "The only way to beat panic is to DO something. I don't care if what you do is dead wrong, taking action is better than just sitting there getting killed!"

  Grayson felt mild surprise that he was able to think at all, but glanced around at the cowering soldiers. Militia, most of them were, with a few green-coats thrown in. They had panicked already, and were too scared to move. Griffin had words for them as well. "If everyone else is panicking, the person who does something is the one they'll follow. So when you're up against it, don't freeze. Take command... and DO something!"

  Do something... do something...

  Grayson found himself running, running without thinking toward the keening GEV that still hovered, almost undamaged, at the center of the street. When he vaulted aboard, the impact of his mass sent the machine sideslipping along the street, its fans kicking up billows of dust.

  The machine gun mounted on the pintle between the driver's seat and the observer's position was standard military issue, a belt-fed chopper with a cyclic rate of 1500 rounds per minute. Its grip was familiar in Grayson's hand as he checked the ammo feed. It was one of the weapons given to the Sarghad Militia by Carlyle's Commandos when the Lance arrived to bolster Trellwan's defenses.

  The hovercraft was still drifting sideways when he opened fire at the 'Mech sprawled in rubble and still-fal
ling debris, and he had to track back to stay on target. At 20 meters, Grayson could scarcely miss. Keeping the machine gun centered on the fallen giant's head, he held down the trigger until the pulsing roar filled his ears and pounded at his hands with demon fury. Hot brass cartridges sprayed from the ejection port to fall clinking on the deck at Grayson's feet.

  Heavy caliber rounds splintered and sparked across the 'Mech's shoulders and head. Grayson knew the armor on the Wasp's head was thin. There was scant room in that small, squat box for the pilot, let alone room enough heavy armor. The 'Mech tried to rise, but when the rubble shifted under its feet, it collapsed again, sliding down into the street. Piercing rounds of fire hammered and chattered as Grayson played short bursts across the machine's head. Successive rounds sought out a chink, and sent it flying in pieces that caught the sunlight as they splattered. The twin antennae on one side of the 'Mech's head were already gone, chopped away by Grayson's relentless stream of high-velocity metal.

  The 'Mech slid, rolled, brought its arms underneath it. The laser lay nearby, jarred from the monster's grasp when it fell. Grayson saw the Wasp's head swinging up, searching for the weapon, as he continued burst upon burst of fire at the machine's armor.

  Then the Wasp was up and moving with unexpected speed, rushing the hovercraft with gauntleted hands outstretched. Suddenly, the monster was so close Grayson could no longer angle his gun high enough to keep it trained on the head. An armored fist swung up, plunged...

  Grayson lunged across the seat and yanked the hovercraft's control slick to the side, sending the machine in a slithering glide, skimming sideways across the crater by the Palace Grounds fence and into the ruin of the Palace Garden. The 'Mech recovered from its missed swing and followed, but clumsily. The pounding from the machine gun must have rattled the pilot, might even have injured him. Letting the craft's momentum carry it crabwise up the blue slope, Grayson crouched behind the machine gun again and opened fire. Bullets smashed against the scanner plate, and the charging 'Mech staggered as though wounded, stopped, and narrowly missed falling again.

  There were soldiers around Grayson, he realized, brown-uniformed Militia and a sprinkling of richly-clad Guardsmen, dirty-faced and ragged but with a growing determination in their faces. They were armed only with personal weapons, but were adding the volume of their firepower to the metal hosing from Grayson's machine gun. Kai Griffith had been right The troops had responded to someone taking action. His single-handed duel with the BattleMech had rallied them, and they were forming up on his defensive line.

  "The head!" He found himself screaming," his voice burned raw with the effort. "Aim for the head!"

  There was a flash and a deep-throated explosion as a grenade detonated in black smoke and dirt by the 'Mech's foot. The Wasp fell, dropping to hands and knees with a clatter of armor and mass. It left raw dirt grooves in the blue sward where it moved. Grayson leaned over and adjusted the drift of his vehicle, sending it in a slow glide toward the downed 'Mech. Then he straightened up, took careful aim, and ripped out another long, rolling burst of machine gun fire.

  Armor splintered, fragmenting, flashing in the air about the head of the stricken battle machine. Bullets were penetrating the head now, smashing into the cockpit and riddling it through and through. The BattleMech sagged and collapsed, face down in a junkyard heap, its metal elbows and feet akimbo, pointed at unnatural angles into the sky. Bright red blood trickled from jagged rents in the shattered cockpit.

  The troops around Grayson let out a cheer that drowned the roar of battle. His hovercraft dipped and swayed as several eager troopers piled on.

  "Great shooting, sir!" one yelled. Strange how they assumed he was someone in authority. He certainly could not LOOK like an officer in his ragged civilian's tunic and caking of dried mud and smoke stains. Was it because he had taken the initiative?

  Whatever the reason, take advantage of it! "You!" His voice was hoarse, painfully raw, but he packed it with all the authority he could muster. "Drive! Get us to the Palace main gate!" He could see the flash and smoke of another firefight down the curve of the avenue. "You!" he shouted at another. "Help me load."

  His gun duel with the 'Mech had gone through four linked, 250-round belts. Ten rounds on the last belt dangled unfired below the feed slot. With the soldier's help, he discarded those rounds and snapped in a fresh belt. Warm air whipped past his face as the driver gunned the GEV past the fallen 'Mech and skimmed back into the street. Troops, dozens of them, ran along behind, shouting, shaking their weapons in the air, rooting out other soldiers hiding along the street and pressing them into the column.

  A second Wasp kneeled before the entrance where the front gate had once stood. It was firing its laser with steady deliberation up the drive in the direction of the Palace. Burning vehicles and dead Palace Guards littered the grass before it. Grayson felt his new-found confidence ebbing. He had managed to catch the first Wasp by surprise, opening fire from close range while the 'Mech was down, helpless in a pile of spilled rubble. He could expect no such good fortune from this machine.

  "Skew us, quick!" His shout to the driver saved them. The 'Mech had sensed their approach, and had dropped to the ground in a thundering shoulder roll, bringing its laser up to point as it did so. The pulse of coherent light sliced through the GEV's port skirts. Air spilled, and the vehicle tilted sharply, sliding off to the left.

  Grayson opened fire, a long, stuttering burst. He could see the sparks and puffs of dust as his shots struck home, but the range was too great to allow him the accuracy required to zero in on a target as small as the BattleMech's head. Paint scarred and flaked as the heavy rounds pounded along the machine's upper torso. Then, Grayson saw soldiers moving through the dense white smoke to the left. Squinting at them through burning haze, he noted black armor and helmets that enclosed their faces completely. Pirate troops!

  A wild firefight had broken out on the avenue before the Palace entrace. The attackers opened up on the speeding hovercraft. Feeling bullets zing just centimeters above his head, Grayson ducked involuntarily. He swung the machine gun on these new attackers, firing now in short, searching bursts that probed the piles of rubble and collapsed buildings where the black-armored figures moved. Three armored men in a line jerked like puppets and pitched off a rubble mound. The others scattered, diving for cover.

  The hovercraft smashed into a pile of bricks with a shriek of protesting metal and the ragged thud and rattle of a bent fanblade. The craft pitched and spun wildly, still circling to the left as air spilled from the damaged skirt. Grayson reached out and grabbed the driver's shoulder.

  "Hey, get it under control, will you?" But the driver's head lolled back, and when Grayson pulled away his hand, it was slick with blood. A bullet had entered the driver's mouth and snapped his neck cleanly at the base of the skull.

  The hovercraft grated along the pavement, striking sparks from its damaged fan. Grayson muscled the dead driver out from behind the stick and pushed him onto the street, then slid into his place. The GEV was losing power, and he had to fight to keep it from circling left.

  The Wasp was standing now, crouched in a gunfighter's stance with its laser held out before it. The weapon fired, and an eye-searing pulse arrowed down the street toward a cluster of approaching vehicles. It seemed to have forgotten about Grayson's GEV, for it was facing partly away from him as it traded shots with the approaching infantry.

  Grayson yelled to his loader to jump, then gunned the little machine's engine into a yowling keen broken by the deadly thumping air, canting the vehicle to the right to haul the torn left skirt clear of the ground on a faltering cushion of air. He rammed the stick forward as hard as he could. The hovercraft leapt across the street, engines shrieking and pounding with the effort. The Wasp's pilot sensed danger at the last possible moment, rose, half turning, bringing the laser around to bear.

  The hovercraft hit the giant behind the right ankle at almost 200 kph, and Grayson went hurtling forward through fire a
nd the noise of hell.

  13

  Grayson was airborne for the eternity of a second or two, then landed with a rib-smashing blow in the blue grass. The fall had knocked the wind from his lungs, and he lay gasping for breath. Managing to roll over on his back, he saw the gleaming mountain of the Wasp against the green sky.

  The hovercraft had smashed into the 'Mech's right ankle. Grayson had hoped to clip the back of the leg in such a way that the Wasp would fall, perhaps damaging itself. The hovercraft was nearly half as long as the ‘Mech was tall, and packed considerable mass in its stubby frame. But it hadn't worked. The 'Mech had shifted at the last moment, taking the wrenching impact on a skirt of armor plate that protected the side of the foot. The skimmer had bounced and crumpled, spilling itself across the ground. Grayson had been lucky that the crash had thrown him past that armored pillar and into the grass, and not smack into a metal wall.

  His luck was rapidly becoming a moot point. The foot was lurching into the air, was dropping toward him. Grayson dove to the left, rolled on his shoulder, then scrambled to his feet. The armored boot gouged a meter-wide furrow in the spot of grass where he'd just been. It surprised him to find he could still move so fast His chest hurt, probably from a cracked rib, but the picture of himself being stepped on like a beetle gave a special impetus to his flight. Ahead, the soldier who had loaded for him waved him on.

  Then he was among a number of soldiers, most of them city Militia. A trio of open-topped, six-wheeled armored vehicles was driving up, with ungainly light PPCs, or particle projection cannons, mounted on their rear decks. They fired as he turned to look at the Wasp.

  Those weapon carrier PPCs were not as heavy as the particle cannon carried by some 'Mechs, but they could do fearful damage to the most stubborn armor. Their disadvantage was that they required critical seconds to recharge after each shot. The beams carved blue-white paths of ionization through protesting air, and three thunderclaps sounded as one.