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 Wasphad 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 DOsomething. 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-falling 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'shead 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'shead swinging up, searching for the weapon, as he continued burst upon burst of fire at the machine's armor.
Then the Waspwas 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.