Decision at Thunder Rift

by William H. Keith

  But the 'Mech was already twisting away as they fired, using its superb maneuverability to outguess the vehicles' targeting computers. White light flared from part of the Wasp's back-mounted jet pack. But there was no serious damage. It would take ten seconds to recharge the PPCs.

  "Scatter!" Grayson yelled. The BattleMech was turning, bringing its laser to bear. Grayson grabbed a handhold and swung aboard one of the weapons carriers as its driver accelerated in a burst of noise and spattering gravel.

  The 'Mech turned, tracking, but Grayson noticed something that gave him a small thrill of hope. The Wasp seemed to be favoring its right leg, where its movements seemed stiff and a bit jerky. Leaning back toward the PPC gunner, Grayson yelled above the roar of the vehicle. "When you're charged, aim for the right leg, down by his ankle! I think he's taken some damage in the actuators there!"

  The soldier looked at him uncomprehendingly. Grayson pulled himself back to the weapon platform, pushed the soldier out of the way, and swung the cannon to align on the lumbering 'Mech. Target crosshairs centered on the Wasp's foot, and computer readouts scrolling across the bottom of the screen confirmed a targeting lock. The charge light flashed green, and Grayson triggered the cannon.

  The Wasp's outer armor absorbed most of the blast, but there was a savage scar along the side of the foot now, and trailing scraps of fragmented metal. The 'Mech's jets fired as another weapons carrier fired. The shot missed, but the Wasp's flight was low and wobbly. Grayson could see that the right leg jets were out of commission.

  The 'Mech landed heavily overbalanced and for one moment, Grayson thought the right leg was going to collapse completely. Then the pilot recovered, and the 'Mech lurched off into the city, travelling north as quickly as it could travel.

  Grayson realized the roar he was hearing was the cheering of the soldier around him. Next, it sunk in that they were cheering HIM.

  "Wait a minute!" He yelled above the racket. "Wait a minute! It's not over! We can catch that bastard! He's damaged! We can catch him!"

  It was a kind of blood lust that drove Grayson on now, a blood lust born of the battle joy of being able at long last to strike back. The three weapons carriers raced down the street after the retreating 'Mech, soldiers clinging to handholds all around the rim of the vehicles' well decks, other troops following behind on foot. Victory had transformed them from a rabble into a fiercely determined fighting force. Grayson grinned to himself. They were still undisciplined and poorly trained, but at least they were learning that they could fight!

  One of the other gun carriers was out ahead of Grayson's vehicle as they turned into the avenue down which the fleeing BattleMech had gone. Normally, a BattleMech could easily outdistance a wheeled armored vehicle, but the Wasp's damage would have slowed it considerably. Grayson could see the machine's back. They were gaining on it.

  The Wasp turned, brought up its laser and fired. The shot went off quickly, without careful aim, and the pulse shattered ferrocrete blocks in the sunscreen along the side of the avenue. The pursuing vehicles swerved suddenly, then bounced over scattering rubble.

  "No! No! Keep going!" Grayson yelled. The lead vehicle had stopped, blocking the way, but at his not-too-gentle urging, the driver swung the steering tiller around and continued the chase.

  Another 'Mech stepped into the street, its laser already trained and locked. The light pulse was followed by a blinding flash as the lead PPC carrier took a direct hit, and exploded in flame and a cascade of hot metal fragments. Grayson's driver swerved sharply to avoid the wreck, bouncing under the sunscreen to the right, and clattering through trash barrels and wooden crates crowded against the buildings.

  Grayson studied the newcomer. It was another light scout 'Mech, a Locust, the smallest BatlleMech type with which he was familiar.

  The Locust was a peculiar departure from the typical humanoid 'Mech design. Body and head were fused into a single, flat fuselage suspended between very long, digitigrade-canted legs. The slenderness of the lower legs and the splayed, claw-like design of the flanged feet gave the Locust the appearance of a gigantic, flightless bird. Despite its name, the 'Mech could not jump, but it was easily the fastest of all BattleMechs, in open terrain capable of speeds up to 165 kph.

  Compared to other 'Mechs, however, it was poorly armed. The sleek, long barrel of a single laser jutted from beneath the Locust's cockpit section, and two tiny arms extending from the belly bore a pair of heavy machine guns. The Locust had sacrificed weapons for the twin battlefield advantages of speed and armor. Though shorter and more compact, the Locust carried thicker armor than a Wasp, and was far more difficult to hit.

  The Locust's body shifted slightly, whipped the long tube of its laser about to bear on Grayson's vehicle. The driver swerved again as brilliant light arced across the street, vaporizing sunshield supports and pulling the ferrocrete eaves to the ground with a splintering roar.

  The third PPC vehicle emerged from the pall of smoke of the burning wreckage and fired. White fire washed across the Locust, which staggered back on its haunches. Struggling for balance, it took several unsteady steps backward, then straightened, swung about, and fired again. The shot cratered the avenue as the PPC carrier cut wildly to one side.

  Grayson's carrier screeched to a halt 40 meters from the creature's right foot. One of the 'Mech's machine guns dropped clear of the bulk of the upper hip and stuttered death. Large-caliber rounds stitched through the carrier's side and smashed at the building behind. Two of the carrier's riders screamed and flailed backwards, as the other troops jumped from the welldeck and scattered along the street. Grayson stayed where he was, concentrating on the targeting lock of his PPC's simple-minded-computer. When the crosshairs merged and flashed red, he pressed the firing stud. Metal chips rained from the 'Mech's body where the armor had been pierced just aft of the cockpit

  The Locust spun and ran then, trailing a faint smudge of black smoke from its body. The Sarghadese troops jeered and cheered and followed, their popgun weapons snapping at the giant's heels.

  Grayson signalled to the second vehicle's driver. "Keep on him! Make him fight!" Then he tapped his own driver's shoulder and pointed to a side street

  The driver grinned and nodded, understanding. The weapons carrier careened off the main street, raced down the cross street to the next major spoke avenue, then turned north once more. Several more blocks and Grayson signalled the driver to turn back to the first avenue. They emerged two blocks north of the Locust, which had stopped again to duel with its pursuer. The PPC had scored another hit, and the Locust was staggering in a losing battle to control its gyros. Grayson fired again from a range of 120 meters. The hit smashed into the 'Mech's rear, scattering fragments of antenna and armor casing.

  It must be getting hellishly hot in there by now, he thought to himself. The single greatest combat problem BattleMechs of any size faced was excess heat. Their tiny fusion reactors, the dozens of actuators in legs and arms, the electronic circuits that triggered weapons and controlled the polyacetene fiber bundles of its artificial musculature all released great quantities of heat. Circulating air-vent blowers called heat sinks struggled to rid the machine of excess heat under normal, routine operation. During combat, as the 'Mech ran, and fired its weapons, as it took hits from direct, high-energy beams or lost heat sinks to battle damage, the internal heat even within the shielded cokpit became ferocious. Many 'Mechs had been defeated and captured when their pilots passed out from heat exhaustion.

  Grayson took a quick look to the north for the original object of their chase, but the Wasp had vanished, allowing the lighter-armored Locust to delay the hunters. Fine. He tapped the driver's shoulder, and the vehicle's tires kicked up a spray of rubble as it darted forward for the kill.

  Machine-gun fire spat from the 'Mech's tiny arms as it tried to track both vehicles, on opposite sides, at once. The Locust was no longer firing its laser. A sure sign, Grayson thought, that the 'Mech was overheating. If they could keep pressing the armor
ed machine, they might force the 'Mech's internal systems into auto-shutdown.

  He fired, trying for a crippling leg shot, and missed. The Locust was still fast and had backstepped into the mouth of an alley. The two PPC carriers met at the alley's mouth.

  The alley was a broad-mouthed cul-de-sac. The Locust had backed to the end of the alley and crouched there now, awaiting death. A chatter of machine gun fire sent the two vehicles wheeling back out of the line of fire and left two soldiers, who had ventured too close to the alley mouth sprawled in the street, dead.

  Grayson dismounted from the carrier, moved up to the alley mouth, and cautiously studied the situation. The 'Mech could not call for help because the long, whip antennae mounted on the rear of the body had been sheared off. He could detect the shimmer of superheated air at heat sinks all over the machine's legs and body. Backed into that close alley, the air around the machine would become too hot to efficiently cool the 'Mech within seconds.

  "We can take 'em," a voice growled at Grayson's side. He turned and looked into the dark eyes and sharp-lined features of a Militia sergeant. "We can back one of the carriers across the street. Range'll be too great for those MGs to do much while we lock a fix and give it another blast with the PPC. It can't lake too much more of this, I'm thinking."

  "I think the pilot knows that, Sergeant. He might chance another laser shot or two ... and it'll only take one shot to take out a carrier."

  "Snipe at him with infernos, then. He's a damned stationary target back in that hole!"

  "You have an inferno launcher?"

  "Sure. Shoulder-fired job. Back in the carrier."

  "Get it"

  "Yessir." Again, that unquestioning assumption that he was in command. Grayson smiled to himself. If they only knew ...

  The sergeant returned with a twin-tube inferno launcher. Inferno launchers were one of the few personal weapons that infantry could use effectively against 'Mechs. The problem was that the infantry had to be terrifyingly close to their targets to use the things, and the chances for survival were poor enough that only heroes and fools would chance them. The launcher was a meter-long tube with rests and grips that allowed it to be fired over the shoulder. Two rotating, over-under cylinders held the inferno rockets, which allowed two missiles to be fired within a space of a second or two.

  The missiles themselves were small and unpleasantly short-ranged, but they combined features of shoulder-launched missiles, shotguns, and chemical flamethrowers. The missiles were designed to explode with a few meters of the launcher's barrel, spraying and igniting a liquid-bonded white phosphorous compound onto the target The binding agent jelled in heat, clinging to whatever it struck with nightmarish persistence. Larger inferno missiles could be fired from standard missile launcher packs, or the warheads alone could be used with radar-triggered detonators in artillery shells. Because of their flammability, infernos were almost never carried by 'Mechs. They were, however, a perfect anti-'Mech weapon for infantry. At least, for infantry that didn't mind closing to almost point-blank range with one of the metal monsters.

  Grayson checked the weapons loads, shouldered the weapon, and signaled to a soldier crouched at the far side of the alley's mouth. The soldier leaned around the corner of the building and opened fire with his assault rifle. Those low-caliber rounds could not harm a 'Mech's armor, but the fire drew a flurry of machine-gun fire from the cul-de-sac, splattering the corner of the building with brilliant white stars where the heavy rounds gouged chunks from the bricks.

  With the 'Mech's attention momentarily drawn to the other side of the alley's entrace, Grayson stepped into the open. With the 'Mech looming above him 30 meters down the alley, Grayson felt very, very small.

  14

  "Hold it right there, Warrior!" he yelled, then gulped down a breath to control the shaking in his voice. "One twitch of any of those weapons and you're cooked. Scan me and see if I'm bluffing!"

  Seconds dragged on. The Locust's laser was canted down at the ground some distance in front of Grayson, and its machine guns remained rigidly immobile, trained across the street at the corner of the building opposite. Grayson stood upright, in full view, with the green image of the towering Locust filling the crosshaired sights of his launcher, his finger tight on the trigger.

  He gave the pilot a moment to scan the electronic emanations of the armed triggering circuits in his missile warheads. "You can kill me," he called again, "but you'll fry! Your heat exchangers must be up to shutdown mode by now. One round of Willie-Pete will finish you. And that's a very nasty way to go!"

  The Locust pilot spoke, the voice electronically reproduced in a gravelly, amplified bass. "What do you want?"

  "Don't touch your weapons. I want you to come out of there, unarmed. If I even imagine I see a weapon move in my direction, I'll fire!"

  There was a pause, and Grayson could hear the sharp ping of hot metal cooling on the 'Mech's hull, could smell the sour-rubber stink of melted circuit insulation. The temperature inside must be...

  "All right," said the pilot. "Don't shoot, I'm coming out." The electronically-produced voice could not register emotion, but to Grayson it sounded tired, perhaps resigned.

  He remained standing as though the launcher on his shoulder were cast in bronze. From the Locust came the sharp hiss of a broken pressure seal and the rasp of a hatch winched open by hand. There was a clatter, and a metal-runged chain ladder spilled out of the hatch, jiggling half a meter from the ground.

  City militia troops were entering the cul-de-sac entrance now, weapons held ready. The Mech Warrior's legs appeared from the Locust's belly hatch, and it became apparent that the pilot was female. Scarcely more than a girl, she was dressed only in slippers and a scrap of black panty briefs. MechWarriors generally fought scantily clad in the hothouse confines of their machines, and she had not had time to get dressed before coming out. Her long blond hair hung in dank wet strands across her shoulders, and her body glistened with sweat After stepping down from the ladder, she stood facing them with arms folded across her breasts, alone and very vulnerable.

  "Hey, hey," a soldier said with a nasty laugh. "Look-a-here, look-a-here! We caught us a prize, we did! Get those hands up! Behind your head!"

  "Looks dangerous," another said. He shouldered his assault rifle and started toward her. "I think we'd better search her!"

  "Yeah! C'mere, baby. We gotta check your uniform for concealed weapons."

  Grayson set the rocket launcher aside, stepped over to where a sergeant stood watching, and pulled the pistol from the man's hip holster. It was a Stetta auto pistol, with a selector switch that let it fire single shots, bursts, or wildly inaccurate full-auto mayhem from an extended grip magazine holding 100 caseless rounds.

  He snapped the selector from safe to full auto, pointed the muzzle into the air, and pulled the trigger. The snapping chatter of the deadly little weapon, shocking in the confined space between buildings, slopped the soldiers where they were, spun them around to face him.

  "The first one to touch her dies." He waited, the weapon smoking in his hand. Though the challenge was a bit melodramatic, it had the desired effect. Every eye was on him.

  "You!" He pointed the weapon at the two who had started toward the captured pilot. "Back to the vehicles. MOVE!" They scrambled to obey. "You!" He picked another soldier at random. "There's a blanket in my vehicle. Get it."

  The trooper dashed back to the PPC carrier on the double to retrieve an orange rescue blanket that had been folded on the floor of the welldeck. Grayson took it from him, walked over to the girl, and draped it over her shoulders. Aware of all eyes upon him, he was careful not to touch her. "It's okay," he said, "put your hands down. We won't hurt you. I promise."

  The spell was broken, as his impromptu unit began cheering and capering in the street. They had captured a 'Mech intact! Grayson had to shout now to be heard above the clamor. "Sergeant!"

  The man snapped to attention. "Sir!"

  "Detail two men to guard t
hat 'Mech!" He put the safety back on the pistol, but tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. "I'm going to borrow this, if you don't mind.”

  "Yessir!"

  "Now I need someone to take me and the prisoner to your headquarters. I'd better talk to your bosses before this make-believe goes any further!"

  * * * *

  Lord Harimandir Singh contemplated the ruin of his career. How could it have happened? Five 'Mechs and two companies of troops had stormed a defenseless city, and what had been the outcome? One 'Mech destroyed. Another captured. A third limping into the Repair Bay with fused pedal servoactuators and the right-leg jump-jet electronics melted into scrap, the liquid-mercury fuel core leaking great silver globbets that dripped down the leg and scurried across the deck like mice. Hell, his chief Tech, pursed his gloomy features and shook his head. The Wasp might need an entire leg replacement. The damage was severe.

  And 32 of his troops had not come back. Stragglers were still checking in, though, and so perhaps the final butcher's bill might not be that high.

  Three 'Mechs down out of five and ten percent casualties in his battalion. What the bloody hell had happened? It could only be that the local forces had had some help. The crippled Wasp's pilot had reported that the indigs were organized differently from the way they'd fought during Singh's initial probe of the city's defense just a few hours before. Was it possible, he wondered, that their earlier inept defense had been a ruse to draw him into a trap?

  He quickly rejected that line of thought No commander would throw lives away on such a slender chance. Anyway, it would be harder to get professional troops to act stupid than the other way around. Besides, Vallendel's Marauder had smashed through the light assembly of armor and ground troops that had met him on the north rim of the city. There had been nothing different there, no new strategy or secret defense to turn the tide against the attackers. Most of those troops had scattered and fled through the city streets without even firing a shot