Ardan dodged left as the Thunderbolt'sSunglow Type 2 laser cut loose with a dazzling pulse of green light. He triggered his twin left arm lasers an instant later, but surprise made him miss.
The Thunderboltwas known for its heavy armor and even more for being one of the best- and most heavily armed 'Mechs in service. That Sunglow laser could deliver megajoules of raw fury in a single pulse, and the three medium lasers mounted along the left torso were each as powerful as the Victor'sleft arm lasers. And if that weren't enough, Ardan knew that the heavy Delta Dart long-range missile launcher squatting on the Thunderbolt'sleft shoulder could knock out an opponent with a single volley. Ardan's Victormight outweigh his opponent by fifteen tons, but the other advantages were all with the TDR.
The Liao 'Mech's LRM launcher blossomed fire. Ardan threw the Victorinto a twisting, dodging sprint, closing the gap between him and the TDR. At close range, the enemy's LRMs would be useless. He opened fire as he lurched forward, his twin lasers scoring hits on the Thunderbolt'storso, cratering armor in explosive gouts of vaporized armor.
At the same moment, a salvo of missiles exploded alongside the Thunderbolt,and three of them flashed white brilliance against the machine's legs. The 'Mech twisted to the side, moving swifdy. What...
"I got him, Gold Leader! I got him!"
Ardan had forgotten Fitzgerald's Crusader.The boy had opened up with his own LRMs from the edge of the woods, and the Thunderboltwas moving now to throw off his aim.
"Steady, Donald!" he replied. "Hang back and keep raking him! I'll try to close!"
Ardan tracked carefully with his lasers and loosed three paired shots in rapid succession. The Thunderboltwent down, seeking cover in the grassy slopes of the field.
Ardan ran a hurried check on his Victor'smain armament The right arm Pontiac 100 autocannon had the best chance of scoring a crippling hit on the Thunderbolt,but he was afraid that his swim in the mud might have fouled its feed mechanism. The autocannon was a devastating weapon. It fired high-speed, rapid-fire streams of explosive, armor-piercing shells from cassettes or carousels fed into the gun one at a time by a complex and occasionally balky autoloader mechanism. Each cassette held 100 shells, and by a widespread but commonly accepted looseness of terminology, each cassette was itself considered to be one round. One cassette round was already loaded. Nineteen more were stored in the autoloader chamber high up in his Victor'sright torso. He would have to use that single round carefully, because if the loader jammed, he would not get another chance.
Ardan moved swiftly, watching the grass. The Thunderbolthad gone to ground...about there...He triggered a control and his TRscanner dropped across his face. The world darkened, lit now in surreal shades of green and blue, with heat sources identified in whites and reds.
A white fountain geysered into the air fifty meters to his right, the heat plume of the hidden
Thunderbolt.
The laser caught the Victorhigh up on his left shoulder. There was no shock, but heat flooded Ardan's cockpit He steadied the crosshairs of his HUD and triggered the autocannon. The weapon bucked and roared, jolting Ardan against his seat. The stream of high explosive chopped and slashed at the Thunderbolt'schest armor, smashed across its left shoulder, and turned the LRM launcher into a tangled, black-smoking ruin. It took six seconds for the autocannon to cycle through the cassette, and then the dull thud of a loader failure echoed through the Victor.He checked his console. As he'd feared, the mechanism was jammed.
A missile exploded against the Victor'schest, the shock jarring the breath from Ardan's lungs and knocking his 'Mech a staggered step backward. In the same instant, more missile fire washed across the Thunderbolt.Fitzgerald had pulled back to a range of 300 meters and was pouring salvo after salvo of long-ranged warheads into the Thunderbolt.Ardan triggered his own Holly SRMs and joined in the bombardment. Smoke belched from a rent in the TDR's right side, and its right arm hung dangling, the heavy laser junked.
Something hit Ardan from behind. Instinct brought his hand down on the Victor'sjump jet controls. The 'Mech leapt and spun as ravening beams snapped like bolts of fusion-charged lightning at the spot where he'd just been standing.
The Victordropped to one knee as it came to ground. His attacker was now a 70-ton WarHammerso much like Sep's that Ardan caught himself looking for her personal crest on the scarred battle machine's left shoulder. The double bolt of lightning had been the discharge from the twin PPCs it mounted as ungainly arms. Those cannons lifted slightly now, their muzzles still red hot and trailing steam in the humid air. One of the 'Mech's medium lasers fired, striking the Victorabove the left knee. Ardan jumped again, wildly, before those PPCs could be brought into line for another paired shot
The battle had become a near free-for-all now. The Hussar Crusaderbehind him was exchanging missile fire with the crippled Thunderbolt,but the WarHammer,baffled by Ardan's sudden jump, was swinging to open fire on Fitzgerald.
If only his autocannon were still working! Ardan opened fire from less than sixty meters with his twin Sorenstein V lasers, savaging the WarHammer'sright side. The right PPC dipped abruptly, out of control or unpowered, and the WHM spun its torso back on its hip swivel to confront his attack. Liquid fire spewed from nozzles set into the machine's chest, up where the twin Sperry Browning machine guns should have been. With a cold touch of fear, Ardan realized the WarHammerwas a WHM-6L, a House Liao variant on the familiar 6R, which mounted twin flamers instead of MGs. Fire flared close past his Victor'schest as he sidestepped the firestreams. Smoke boiled across the viewscreens, obscuring his vision. He fired again with his lasers, not aiming, but laying down a pattern of fire where he guessed the WarHammerwould be.
The 'Mech's temperature alarms were rasping in his ears, and red and amber lights flickered and winked across his console. The heat inside the cockpit was overwhelming, coating his body with a sheen of sweat and setting the tiny electric pumps in his coolant vest to whining. He had been maneuvering too hard, jumping and discharging his lasers too frequently. The Victorcould not handle the excess heat much longer.
And neither could he. The high temperature left him gasping, each breath painful. He was weak and dizzy, and only the adrenalin surging through his blood was keeping him moving at all.