BattleTech: Shrapnel Issue #2 (BattleTech Magazine) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs
Published: 2020-09-20T05:00:00+00:00

Within two minutes, Maki and Bravo Lance had taken positions in a bunker hidden in the valley wall. The bunkers were specially designed as a firing position for ’Mechs, spacious enough for even twelve-meter-tall heavy ’Mechs.

“Open Foxtrot doors!” Agnes called.

The wall before them rolled down. Starlight poured into the bunker.

Half a kilometer down the slope of icy boulders and scree, the DropShip stood like a monstrous egg. It stood alone, confident no enemies were within firing range.

“You ran the sims, you know the drill,” Agnes said. “Target engines and landing pods. Fire!”

If Bravo Lance managed to cripple the DropShip, the enemy force was trapped here without supplies, repairs, food, or transportation back to the JumpShip.

Maki zoomed her optics onto the DropShip’s engines—lining up a shot on a stationary target was child’s play—and fired her Gauss rifles. Fire from Bravo Lance rained down on the DropShip, but after the first fusillade, the DropShip returned fire with large lasers, autocannons, and PPCs. Nuclear fire bloomed under its base, gathering thrust for escape. Exploding projectiles, concentrated proton streams, and flickering needles of laser beams blazed against the night sky. Maki aimed and fired again. The DropShip’s hide was armored, but even that wouldn’t stand up long to pinpoint strikes from Gauss rifles.

“Pour it on!” Agnes shouted.

Her father’s voice came over the comms. “Bravo Lance, you have their attention. Fighters inbound on your position.”

Maki ignored the incoming threat and fired shot after shot into the DropShip’s base as it rose into the sky. Thirty meters. Fifty. One hundred. At two hundred meters, it would rise above their field of fire.

She saw it happen. Her Gauss round punched deep into an engine, which went out like a light bulb, showering sparks. The ship’s ascent paused. It began to list.

“Yeah!” Agnes roared. “Don’t let—!”

The bunker openings erupted in a conflagration of incoming fire. Agnes’s torso erupted in flame. A direct hit. Her ’Mech toppled back and crashed to the floor of the bunker.

Six silvery shapes flashed past overhead.

The pause in the DropShip’s flight gave Bravo Lance the moment they needed for another punishing fusillade.

A second engine began to sputter. The DropShip descended, attempting to tilt away from Bravo’s field of fire.

Her father’s voice: “Bravo Lance, fighters coming in for another pass.”

Maki fired round after round into the DropShip as it came down. It skidded into a rocky slope, tried to right itself, attitude thrusters bursting with furious desperation, but a PPC-damaged landing jack collapsed under it. It tumbled onto its side like the massive egg it was, then rolled down the slope until it crunched to a halt against a twenty-meter-high boulder.

Cheers erupted over the comms.

Then the bunker exploded around her, and massive shockwaves pummeled her into blackness.

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