Torrent would dare, but he would do it on his own terms.
One of the Jessies limped along on damaged lift fans, the result of an earlier run-in with an AgroMech conversion. It was the key to Torrent’s plan. He opened up a channel to his Marksman, identified the JES carrier as its primary target, and then traded another salvo with Powers’ Jupiter.
Again the Knight-Errant divided his fire, spending new flights of LRMs and a single PPC on Torrent while he used his second PPC and half of his ultra-ACs to back off the advancing left-flank AgroMech. The Steel Wolf pilot did not return fire, under strict orders to leave the Knight to Torrent. Instead, the AgroMech’s autocannon hammered fifty-mil slugs into one of the tactical carriers, chasing after as the hovercraft spun and dodged back for the right side of the field.
With calm deliberation, Torrent opened an all-hands channel. “Begin,” was his only command.
Like hunting dogs cut loose from their leash, the AgroMechs vaulted forward on huge strides, coming in with autocannons belting out long swatches of destructive power. Catching the SRM-toting JES carriers in a blistering crossfire the wounded hovercraft stuttered and paused, losing armor and precious time.
It was all the Marksman needed.
Packing a Lord’s Thunder gauss rifle, the M1 turned its rail gun against the damaged JES. A one hundred kilogram nickel-ferrous mass slammed through the air with enough kinetic force to shatter rain into bands of spreading steam. The gauss slug smashed into the hovercraft’s turret. Impact peeled back the turret like an opened can, ruining one of the launchers and exposing the crew quarters.
A second salvo accelerated a new mass into the lift skirt, punching through to shatter vanes and drive gears. The front edge of the carrier caught the sloppy ground and flipped the vehicle up into a spread of medium-range missiles. Several warheads speared through the damaged turret, erupting deep within the carrier. Raw destructive force bulged the sides of the vehicle outward, erupting through seams, ports and panels to eviscerate the hovercraft. It twisted and rolled across the ground, digging up large globs of mud and earth and flinging them like dark blood spurting from an opened artery.
Star Colonel Torrent slammed forward his throttle, pushing his Tundra Wolf past its usual best running speed of sixty-five kilometers per hour. Geared with myomer accelerated signal circuitry, the MASC-equipped machine was capable of short sprints nearer to eight-five. The storm-ruined plateau made such speeds dangerous, but Torrent never doubted his own ability to control the BattleMech as he pushed past his Elementals and the M1 for a head-to-head match with Kyle Powers.
The Knight certainly didn’t miss Torrent’s charge, though standing true to form Powers again divided his attention between Torrent and the charging AgroMech. Torrent doubted that it would have mattered even if Powers had known—or guessed—that the AgroMech pilots were under strict orders to leave the Jupiter alone. The Jupiter’s dark silhouette moved to put itself in between the AgroMech and the surviving JES carrier, ready to bear the brunt of the offensive and protect the lives of men under Powers’ command.
What Torrent had predicted, and counted on.
The Tundra Wolf was an impressive design, especially at seventy-five tons. But Torrent had known from the start that it would all come down to closing with the Jupiter at point-blank range if he were to have a real chance of bringing down the Sphere Knight.
A PPC blasted away armor from over his BattleMech’s chest, splattering molten composite to the wet desert floor where the bright embers quickly congealed into black-crusted, steaming puddles. Warheads threw a risky stutter into his pace, and a single missile clipped the side of his cockpit shield, scarring a long, deep fracture into the ferroglass.
Torrent kept his attention divided between his HUD and the gray-scale picture resolving itself on the other side of his mud-streaked shield. The Legionnaire and remaining JES carrier had stopped one of his AgroMech’s cold, holding it off with blistering counterfire. The Republic’s Saxon APC burst forward as well, thrown into the fray on the side of the smaller of the two BattleMechs. Torrent ordered his M1 in to assist the besieged AgroMech. It looked more and more like Kyle Powers was ready to accept the duel of single combat. Warrior to warrior, the way it was meant to be.
Except that Kyle Powers turned away.
He actually turned his Jupiter aside, ignoring Torrent’s charge and putting up a blistering wall of particle beams and missile barrages against the AgroMech.
A warm flush of anger heated Torrent’s brow as he pulled into a full barrage of every weapon at his disposal. Lasers flashed with ruby brightness in the gray rains, a few sparks scattering off into brilliant prisms. The LRM rack dumped out another score of warheads even as he dialed his right-arm advanced tactical missile system down to short range and let go with it and his four-pack of SRMs as well. The salvo chewed and blasted into the Jupiter’s armor, demanding Kyle Powers’ attention.
For a moment, Torrent thought that he had gained it. The Jupiter half turned in his direction, and cut loose with a bright PPC beam that flashed past him on the left-hand side. He considered it a hasty shot and braced for the follow-up. Then he counted one less Elemental on his HUD. The report of the PPC’s effective blast was radioed in to him over his channel to the armored infantry even as Powers turned back to the AgroMech, pummeling it to a broken standstill.
Torrent might be victorious or he might be defeated—it was all part and parcel to a MechWarrior’s life—but he would not be ignored! The AgroMech stumbled, falling to its knees and digging its threshing blades into the ground for support. The star colonel charged forward, closing rapidly with the Jupiter and running his heat quickly into the red band as he fired again, and again.
Now Kyle Powers turned. And he blasted Torrent with everything the Jupiter had left. Two particle cannon arced brilliant scourges between the two machines, flaying away armor and rocking the Tundra Wolf back on its heels. Four ultra-class autocannons spat out long tongues of fire and longer streams of depleted-uranium slugs. Armor flew off in shards and splinters. And behind all this damage, missiles corkscrewed in to blossom two-dozen destructive fireballs that lifted the Tundra Wolf up and set it back several meters.
Hunching forward, throwing every bit of his equilibrium into fighting gravity, Torrent kept the Tundra Wolf on its feet by sheer force of will. Waves of heat slammed into him with almost physical force, and his vision swam with heat stress and the blurred ferroglass shield.
His wireframe schematic showed better than sixty percent armor loss, and the telltales on two medium lasers and one of his missile racks lit up to signify that they had been destroyed. He didn’t need to see a readout on his engine—he could tell from the rising temperature levels that Powers had cracked the reactor’s physical shielding.
Damning his heat curve, Torrent wrestled his ’Mech to a full-front profile, biting and clawing with every weapon left to him. There was no planning now, no grand strategy. His simple counterattack was brutal and effective. Lasers cut deeply into the Jupiter’s leg. His Streak Missile Rack misfired, holding back the four short-range warheads, but his ATMS locked on and managed to spend more crippling damage into an already-ruined knee joint.
The Jupiter’s right knee actuator crushed in on itself, staggering the mighty titan. It fell to one knee as if bending down in supplication. But rather than shove back, Powers threw his arms out wide and divided his weapons again. In what Torrent might have considered a spectacular display of targeting any other time—any other time when the tactic wasn’t insulting him–the Knight-Errant scoured away more of the Tundra Wolf’s armor with PPCs, gutted the engine on the rising AgroMech with his left arm autocannon, and even managed to score double-wounds against the advancing M1 Marksman with his right arm ACs.