BattleTech: Stalking The Legends by Loren L. Coleman

Author:Loren L. Coleman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Catalyst Press
Published: 2011-04-13T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Missiles fell in an awkward pattern over the highway interchange. Tearing up clumps of asphalt and hurling them skyward, eventually falling as muddy gravel.

The blossoms of fire walked right past me, too close for comfort. I leapt out of there and into the lee of an overturned tank. Ruby and emerald laserfire crisscrossed overhead, flashing rain into steam and casting about tiny, sparkling fans of light as shattered beams refracted through a thousand tiny prisms.

A particle projector beam slammed into the ruined tank. Maybe for good measure. Maybe one more of a dozen errant shots.

From somewhere nearby came the long burr-rp of an assault-class autocannon storming through hundreds of rounds.

I'll never be certain what surprised the invaders more—that we had turned to fight, or that we had scrounged up reinforcements.

Or just how much life these redesigned classics had in them.

Led by the Driscoll and his BattleMaster, the legends of old tore into the enemy flank and did not stop until they linked up with the wedge Erik Gray pushed forward from the center. Erik's Emperor held its feet by sheer force of will, looking about as rough as I felt trying to maneuver around the battlefield with an opened right side and a thirty-mill slug still in my left leg. Erik had no targeting system, so it was all dead reckoning and best guess.

Erik knocked over an enemy Toyama, which I took with some other Cavalier suits and a handful of Jacobite irregular infantry. The professionals went for a clean disable. Our unarmored friends were thinking more like a lynch mob, and tried to cut the MechWarrior out of his cockpit.

When the cockpit blew from a suicide charge, erupting in a bright orange gout of fire that consumed MechWarrior and infantrymen alike, it was like someone had fired off the signal gun of a bloody free-for-all.

Driscoll lost control of Manticore Stables at that point. I guessed that several of them had just lost friends. They proved their devotion by breaking ranks and joining the infantrymen on the casualty lists in a matter of minutes.

The Home Defense League wasn't in much better shape, since Erik had finally lost comms. Whatever orders I might have given were lost in the rift that separates 'Mech jocks from mudsloggers.

Our jury-rigged chain of command was finished.

Peeking around one end of the overturned tank, I wiped at my faceplate. Managed to streak more mud across it than before. Didn't matter. A bone-white Penetrator rallied the enemy's broken center. It stalked forward to drill large lasers into the BattleMaster's back, followed by a four-pack of crimson mediums.

Driscoll couldn't stand up to that kind of punishment and went down hard, sprawling into a small growth of young pine trees and brambles at the edge of the highway clearing.

With Driscoll down, the Penetrator had a clear shot at Erik. I had no way to warn him, no way to stop the monster from claiming another victim.

Still, I jetted out on the last of my jumping fuel. My small laser picked at the Penetrator, as if I might distract it.

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