Benjork turned to face the Black Hawk as its driver became aware of the new threat on its flank. “Sean, Maud—fire two rockets,” he ordered as he emptied his right rocket pack. Far out on the left, the limping ’Mech with the damaged drill also joined in the shooting, sending four rockets straight and true into the Black Hawk’s backside, and following them up with a series of short bursts from his thirty-millimeter Gatling gun.
The Black Hawk stumbled back as missiles hit him from the other three, shredding armor, but doing no major damage.
“Everyone get moving!” the Lone Cat shouted, slamming his ’Mech into five quick steps forward at a right angle. Sean and Maud jinked their own way as the Black Hawk salvoed off one of his four quad-packs at each of them. The missiles hit where the three of them had been, but the limping ’Mech hadn’t moved fast enough. The militia pilot took a full salvo on his ’Mech’s chest, knocking it flat on its back.
Benjork had no time to count his losses. He led his three remaining ’Mech MODs against the Black Hawk, forcing it back even as its laser flashed over them, heating them up. Missiles slashed rock, sent up plumes of dirt, and burned sagebrush around them. Still, they advanced and the Black Hawk backpedaled.
Off to their right, the eight other ’Mech MODs charged at the remaining eleven Black and Reds, trading thirty-millimeter tungsten slugs as they moved. One enemy ’Mech caught a group of dismounts before they could disperse, cutting them down in one bloody clump. A second Black and Red sent a burst of machine-gun fire slashing into a gun truck, gutting it and throwing its crew to the ground like rag dolls.
But the Militia ’Mechs were hammering the Special Police, too, sending them stumbling back. With the Black Hawk otherwise occupied, the ’Mech MODs clumped up, leaderless. A pair of rockets took a damaged ’Mech at short range, slashing off its arm with a machine gun and setting fire to its ammo. The ’Mech burned, sending black smoke up in gusts. Another Black and Red fell, its knee smashed by thirty-millimeter shells.
Now the gun trucks rained grenades and cannon fire on the backpedaling mob. A gray Militia ’Mech closed with a Black and Red, bringing its mining drill to bear on its enemy’s chest. The Special Police pilot had no stomach for that, and popped his canopy immediately, hands up.
Allowing himself a tight grin, Benjork concentrated on the Black Hawk.
It didn’t seem to care much for what it saw. Firing off another full volley, it turned in place and shot into the air. Even as Benjork yanked his ’Mech into a left turn to throw off the missiles, he followed the Black Hawk’s jump, trying to lead it with short bursts.
Behind him came more stuttering fire followed by, “Damn!” in a high-pitched voice. “My bloody gun’s jammed up on me.”
“Try sh-short jerks on the trigger, Maud,” Sean said.
“I’m trying, I’m trying.”
“Get all the power you can get out of your engines,” Benjork ordered. “We’ve got to catch that Black Hawk. He can still snipe at us—pick us off one by one if we leave him alive.”
“I’m f-following you,” Sean said.
“Me, too,” Maud said. “I just can’t shoot anymore.”
Ahead of them, the Black Hawk landed hard on its right leg. Maybe there was a rock. Maybe their fire did something. It fell but caught itself by its big left claw, then took off running again. Something must have happened in the landing, though. Benjork’s infrared now showed more heat radiating from the reactor area than armor and cooling should have allowed. “Did you split a seam?” he asked his pursued enemy as he snapped out bursts of thirty-millimeter slugs at the Black Hawk.
The Black and Red twisted as he ran, sending a spray of SRMs that did not come close to any of his pursuers.
Benjork kept the feet of his ’Mech in long strides that ate up the distance. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he said, then suppressed a cringe as a stream of thirty-millimeter shells stitched the ground close ahead of him.
“I’ve got my cannon working,” Maud rejoiced.
“So I noticed,” the MechWarrior answered.
“I’m sorry,” came in a much smaller voice.
“Watch where you point that thing,” Sean said.
“I’m watching, I’m watching,” she said as a stream of shells arced ahead of them, missing to the left of the Black Hawk.
Ben put his engine in the red and focused his attention on the path ahead. He did not concentrate on any one place, but let his eyes guide his pedals without thought. Here he lengthened his stride to miss a rock, then shifted a bit to the right to avoid a patch of sagebrush. The friction of branches on his legs might slow him. A root might trip him. While one part of his mind targeted the Black Hawk for short bursts that chipped away at the rear armor, raising the unexplained heat plume a bit more, another part guided his feet.
The Black Hawk was faster than any ’Mech powered by an internal-combustion engine. No matter how much Mick might fine-tune fuel injectors and timing, fusion engines had the power of the sun at their beck and call. Still, whoever was driving that Black Hawk was little better than a civvy. Benjork trod the pedals that set the pace for his ’Mech as if they were a part of himself. The Black Hawk pulled ahead, but nowhere near as much as it should have.
Again, the Black Hawk took to the air. This time its driver leaned it forward, trying to get as much distance out of the jump as he could. An experienced Mech Warrior never would have made that error. Even without the patter of thirty-millimeter tungsten slugs on his BattleMech, leaning into a jump was a bad idea. The Black Hawk landed, took two running steps to try to catch its balance, then—with its gyros screaming almost loud enough for Benjork to hear—fell flat on its face to spend the rest of its forward momentum in the dirt before it came up hard against one of the rocks that time and erosion had left dotting the plain.
For a moment the Black Hawk just lay there, venting heat from more places than it should have been. Then its driver pried it from the dirt with its huge claws, got its feet underneath it, and began again to run for the distant horizon.
Not averse to kicking a surat while it was down, Benjork squeezed off his last rockets as the Black Hawk struggled to its feet. The fleeing BattleMech ran right into them—and the two Sean had fired, then two more from Maud.
Reeling, it almost missed a step. Catching its balance resulted in a dance complicated by the rock it had hit going down and the shells all three gray ’Mechs sent its way.
As if maddened beyond reason, the Black Hawk fired off a full salvo that hit nothing but sky and dirt. Straightening itself in a hail of tungsten slugs, the BattleMech fired lasers and volley after volley of its missiles at its tormentors.
Benjork zigzagged, trying to throw off the Black Hawk’s targeting computer. He succeeded, but Maud took a full volley before the Black and Red turned to flight again.
Ben slammed his throttle forward, and his ’Mech began to eat up the dry ground with long strides. His Gatling gun renewed its staccato, sending chips of armor flying from the Black and Red’s back. Sean followed, Gatling blazing. Even Maud stumbled forward, though at half-speed, her fire doing less damage as the Black Hawk lengthened the distance between them.