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 Wasphad vanished, allowing the lighter-armored Locustto 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 Locustwas no longer firing its laser. A sure sign, Grayson thought, that the 'Mech was overheating. If they could keep pressing the armored machine, they might force the 'Mech's internal systems into auto-shutdown.
He fired, trying for a crippling leg shot, and missed. The Locustwas 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 Locusthad 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'slaser 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 Locustfilling 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 Locustpilot 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 imagineI 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 Locustcame 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'sbelly 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.