At the sound of grasses rustling behind him, Shin came up in a whirl. The katanaflashed from its sheath and swung down in a glittering silvery arc. A last-second adjustment to account for the raider's incredible height guided the slash through the side of his neck and splashed crimson over his shoulder. The raider staggered back, and failing to steady himself because of his missing arm, fell awkwardly to his back.
Bile burned Shin's throat. The black, tar-like substance he had seen on the discarded arm coated the raider's exposed flesh with a thin membrane, but leaked a little blood around the cut. New jets of black fluid pumped from the portion of the helmet still in place. It oozed down over the raider's face and head, filling the wound and choking off the flow of blood. Shin heard a hissing and saw clear fluid spurt into the air. The raider moaned in concert with it, then smiled insanely. Eyes and teeth stark white amid a dripping black face, he rolled to his feet.
Shin dropped the sword and pulled his pistol. Unlike most of his compatriots, he preferred a heavy slug-throwing weapon to a lighter needle-shooter. Holding the gun rocksteady in his left hand, he aimed at the raider's exposed left breast and pulled the trigger twice.
Both slugs hit and jerked the raider half around, but did not stop him. Shin shifted his aim up, sighting in on the exposed eye. Seeing the pupil as big as a saucer, he guessed the raider's armor was pumping him full of painkillers. Whatever this guy is, he's not in pain. I hope like hell the body works the same way as ours.
The first shot to the head dropped the raider to his knees, but it took the rest of the clip to kill him dead. Even with such massive trauma, the armor continued to pump the black synthetic flesh out to fill the wounds. Besides sealing the body in a black cocoon, it injected more drugs, then sprayed out some other clear chemical that killed the flies starting to land on the black skin.
Shin stared dumbly at the raider and its armor until the sounds of battle brought him back from his confusion. He knelt and fastened the arm to his pack. I have to take this with me. With its arm torn off, that thing survived a 250-meter drop to the ground and tracked me to this spot where it took eight rounds to kill it—if I have killed it!
He glanced back over his shoulder at the black curtain of smoke that had risen to hide the sun. These are no Periphery bandits, that's for sure. I don't know what they are, but if they decide to take every world in the Inner Sphere, who can stop them?
17
Trell I
Tamar March, Lyran Commonwealth
13 April 3050
Kommandant Victor Steiner-Davion ducked his
Victorand sidled it left through the subterranean lagoon as the raider 'Mech stabbed its left weapons pod at him. The
Marauder-type
Despite the frost covering his Mech's viewplate, the intense blue of the energy weapon lit his cockpit like a strobe. Concentrating on the computer-created landscape of magscan data, Victor dropped his autocannon's gold crosshairs onto the enemy 'Mech's outline and punched the trigger button with his thumb. There was a loud scream like that of some mechanical banshee, and then Victor saw his volley hit its target.
The storm of depleted uranium shells again burrowed into the raider's left shoulder, pulverizing what little armor remained over the joint, then stripping the myomer muscles from the ferro-titanium bones. The bones themselves bent, twisted, and then finally snapped under the savage assault. The arm flew away, pulling taut the ammo chain to the autocannon, then popping it apart and continuing on its cartwheeling flight.
Victor grinned as his computer assessed the damage to his enemy. When he'd first encountered the unusual 'Mech, the computer had tried to tag it as a Warhammer,then as a Marauder,and then as a Victor.Realizing he'd never seen its like before, Victor commanded the computer to record all the data on the machine under the name "Thor," which he chose because the 'Mech had a heavy autocannon in one arm and a PPC in the other. Thunder and lightning ... just the stuff the god Thor used to toss about.
The Thorswung its PPC arm in Victor's direction, but never managed a shot. Sending two flights of SRMs from the leg-mounted launchers of his Crusader,Galen Cox pummeled the Thor'sarm. SRM explosions blasted shards of armor deeper into the dim cave, and more important, knocked the gunnery pod wide of its target. Once again, the raider's PPC shot missed the Victor.It vaporized another icicle, but the cavern's bitter cold converted the mist into snow, which fell into the steaming lagoon.
Thanks, Galen. I owe you.Victor tracked the off-balance Thoras it tried to withdraw. Cutting to the left, it slammed into a huge stalagmite and bounced back while the megalith slowly tottered, then fell. As the Thordrifted involuntarily into Victor's sights, he triggered his autocannon. The weapon's whine filled the cockpit, and heat levels in the cramped quarters increased, drenching Victor in another layer of sweat.
The autocannon slugs ripped a scar down the Thor'sleft thigh, then lanced sparks from its knees. Shrapnel peppered the water and some of the shells, having blown entirely through the joint, skipped off the water, and ricocheted deeper into the Thunder Rift complex of caverns. The Thor'sknee buckled, then twisted and locked again. Metal fused with metal, keeping the 'Mech upright, but reducing the knee to a solid, immobile joint.
"Kommandant, we have trouble." Galen kept his voice calm, but Victor heard the urgency in his voice. "I mark two more of these Thorsand two of what I'm calling Loki—'cause of its utterly mad configuration—in the Antechamber. It looks as if these Jade Falcons work in configurations of five, not lances of four like we do. I would suggest his lancemates are on the way."
"Roger, Galen." Victor glanced at his sector scan. These new 'Mechs mean Galen and I are cut off from our rendezvous with the battalion in this direction. We'll have to backtrack through the Smugglers' Stroll to the Dragon's Lair."We could have had him, you know. Let's back off."
"Yes, sir."
Galen started his Crusadermoving back, and the Thormirrored the retreat. When Galen reported his Crusaderin position to cover the Victor,Davion worked his way through the hot-spring-fed, underground lake. Feeling somewhat safer with a palisade of stalactites and stalagmites between him and the raider, Victor opened a radio channel to his aide. "If we hadn't submerged ourselves when we first picked up those reports of a scout moving through here, do you think we would have gotten him?"