Текст книги "Decision at Thunder Rift"

Автор книги: Уильям Кейт

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

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.

There were soldiers around Grayson, he realized, brown-uniformed Militia and a sprinkling of richly-clad Guardsmen, dirty-faced and ragged but with a growing determination in their faces. They were armed only with personal weapons, but were adding the volume of their firepower to the metal hosing from Grayson's machine gun. Kai Griffith had been right The troops had responded to someone taking action. His single-handed duel with the BattleMech had rallied them, and they were forming up on his defensive line.

"The head!" He found himself screaming," his voice burned raw with the effort. "Aim for the head!"

There was a flash and a deep-throated explosion as a grenade detonated in black smoke and dirt by the 'Mech's foot. The Waspfell, dropping to hands and knees with a clatter of armor and mass. It left raw dirt grooves in the blue sward where it moved. Grayson leaned over and adjusted the drift of his vehicle, sending it in a slow glide toward the downed 'Mech. Then he straightened up, took careful aim, and ripped out another long, rolling burst of machine gun fire.

Armor splintered, fragmenting, flashing in the air about the head of the stricken battle machine. Bullets were penetrating the head now, smashing into the cockpit and riddling it through and through. The BattleMech sagged and collapsed, face down in a junkyard heap, its metal elbows and feet akimbo, pointed at unnatural angles into the sky. Bright red blood trickled from jagged rents in the shattered cockpit.

The troops around Grayson let out a cheer that drowned the roar of battle. His hovercraft dipped and swayed as several eager troopers piled on.

"Great shooting, sir!" one yelled. Strange how they assumed he was someone in authority. He certainly could not LOOKlike an officer in his ragged civilian's tunic and caking of dried mud and smoke stains. Was it because he had taken the initiative?

Whatever the reason, take advantage of it! "You!" His voice was hoarse, painfully raw, but he packed it with all the authority he could muster. "Drive! Get us to the Palace main gate!" He could see the flash and smoke of another firefight down the curve of the avenue. "You!" he shouted at another. "Help me load."

His gun duel with the 'Mech had gone through four linked, 250-round belts. Ten rounds on the last belt dangled unfired below the feed slot. With the soldier's help, he discarded those rounds and snapped in a fresh belt. Warm air whipped past his face as the driver gunned the GEV past the fallen 'Mech and skimmed back into the street. Troops, dozens of them, ran along behind, shouting, shaking their weapons in the air, rooting out other soldiers hiding along the street and pressing them into the column.

A second Waspkneeled before the entrance where the front gate had once stood. It was firing its laser with steady deliberation up the drive in the direction of the Palace. Burning vehicles and dead Palace Guards littered the grass before it. Grayson felt his new-found confidence ebbing. He had managed to catch the first Waspby surprise, opening fire from close range while the 'Mech was down, helpless in a pile of spilled rubble. He could expect no such good fortune from this machine.

"Skew us, quick!" His shout to the driver saved them. The 'Mech had sensed their approach, and had dropped to the ground in a thundering shoulder roll, bringing its laser up to point as it did so. The pulse of coherent light sliced through the GEV's port skirts. Air spilled, and the vehicle tilted sharply, sliding off to the left.

Grayson opened fire, a long, stuttering burst. He could see the sparks and puffs of dust as his shots struck home, but the range was too great to allow him the accuracy required to zero in on a target as small as the BattleMech's head. Paint scarred and flaked as the heavy rounds pounded along the machine's upper torso. Then, Grayson saw soldiers moving through the dense white smoke to the left. Squinting at them through burning haze, he noted black armor and helmets that enclosed their faces completely. Pirate troops!

A wild firefight had broken out on the avenue before the Palace entrace. The attackers opened up on the speeding hovercraft. Feeling bullets zing just centimeters above his head, Grayson ducked involuntarily. He swung the machine gun on these new attackers, firing now in short, searching bursts that probed the piles of rubble and collapsed buildings where the black-armored figures moved. Three armored men in a line jerked like puppets and pitched off a rubble mound. The others scattered, diving for cover.

The hovercraft smashed into a pile of bricks with a shriek of protesting metal and the ragged thud and rattle of a bent fanblade. The craft pitched and spun wildly, still circling to the left as air spilled from the damaged skirt. Grayson reached out and grabbed the driver's shoulder.

"Hey, get it under control, will you?" But the driver's head lolled back, and when Grayson pulled away his hand, it was slick with blood. A bullet had entered the driver's mouth and snapped his neck cleanly at the base of the skull.

The hovercraft grated along the pavement, striking sparks from its damaged fan. Grayson muscled the dead driver out from behind the stick and pushed him onto the street, then slid into his place. The GEV was losing power, and he had to fight to keep it from circling left.

The Waspwas standing now, crouched in a gunfighter's stance with its laser held out before it. The weapon fired, and an eye-searing pulse arrowed down the street toward a cluster of approaching vehicles. It seemed to have forgotten about Grayson's GEV, for it was facing partly away from him as it traded shots with the approaching infantry.

Grayson yelled to his loader to jump, then gunned the little machine's engine into a yowling keen broken by the deadly thumping air, canting the vehicle to the right to haul the torn left skirt clear of the ground on a faltering cushion of air. He rammed the stick forward as hard as he could. The hovercraft leapt across the street, engines shrieking and pounding with the effort. The Wasp'spilot sensed danger at the last possible moment, rose, half turning, bringing the laser around to bear.

The hovercraft hit the giant behind the right ankle at almost 200 kph, and Grayson went hurtling forward through fire and the noise of hell.

13

 

Grayson was airborne for the eternity of a second or two, then landed with a rib-smashing blow in the blue grass. The fall had knocked the wind from his lungs, and he lay gasping for breath. Managing to roll over on his back, he saw the gleaming mountain of the Waspagainst the green sky.

The hovercraft had smashed into the 'Mech's right ankle. Grayson had hoped to clip the back of the leg in such a way that the Waspwould fall, perhaps damaging itself. The hovercraft was nearly half as long as the ‘Mech was tall, and packed considerable mass in its stubby frame. But it hadn't worked. The 'Mech had shifted at the last moment, taking the wrenching impact on a skirt of armor plate that protected the side of the foot. The skimmer had bounced and crumpled, spilling itself across the ground. Grayson had been lucky that the crash had thrown him past that armored pillar and into the grass, and not smack into a metal wall.

His luck was rapidly becoming a moot point. The foot was lurching into the air, was dropping toward him. Grayson dove to the left, rolled on his shoulder, then scrambled to his feet. The armored boot gouged a meter-wide furrow in the spot of grass where he'd just been. It surprised him to find he could still move so fast His chest hurt, probably from a cracked rib, but the picture of himself being stepped on like a beetle gave a special impetus to his flight. Ahead, the soldier who had loaded for him waved him on.

Then he was among a number of soldiers, most of them city Militia. A trio of open-topped, six-wheeled armored vehicles was driving up, with ungainly light PPCs, or particle projection cannons, mounted on their rear decks. They fired as he turned to look at the Wasp.

Those weapon carrier PPCs were not as heavy as the particle cannon carried by some 'Mechs, but they could do fearful damage to the most stubborn armor. Their disadvantage was that they required critical seconds to recharge after each shot. The beams carved blue-white paths of ionization through protesting air, and three thunderclaps sounded as one.

But the 'Mech was already twisting away as they fired, using its superb maneuverability to outguess the vehicles' targeting computers. White light flared from part of the Wasp'sback-mounted jet pack. But there was no serious damage. It would take ten seconds to recharge the PPCs.

"Scatter!" Grayson yelled. The BattleMech was turning, bringing its laser to bear. Grayson grabbed a handhold and swung aboard one of the weapons carriers as its driver accelerated in a burst of noise and spattering gravel.

The 'Mech turned, tracking, but Grayson noticed something that gave him a small thrill of hope. The Waspseemed to be favoring its right leg, where its movements seemed stiff and a bit jerky. Leaning back toward the PPC gunner, Grayson yelled above the roar of the vehicle. "When you're charged, aim for the right leg, down by his ankle! I think he's taken some damage in the actuators there!"

The soldier looked at him uncomprehendingly. Grayson pulled himself back to the weapon platform, pushed the soldier out of the way, and swung the cannon to align on the lumbering 'Mech. Target crosshairs centered on the Wasp'sfoot, and computer readouts scrolling across the bottom of the screen confirmed a targeting lock. The charge light flashed green, and Grayson triggered the cannon.

The Wasp'souter armor absorbed most of the blast, but there was a savage scar along the side of the foot now, and trailing scraps of fragmented metal. The 'Mech's jets fired as another weapons carrier fired. The shot missed, but the Wasp's flight was low and wobbly. Grayson could see that the right leg jets were out of commission.

The 'Mech landed heavily overbalanced and for one moment, Grayson thought the right leg was going to collapse completely. Then the pilot recovered, and the 'Mech lurched off into the city, travelling north as quickly as it could travel.

Grayson realized the roar he was hearing was the cheering of the soldier around him. Next, it sunk in that they were cheering HIM.

"Wait a minute!" He yelled above the racket. "Wait a minute! It's not over! We can catch that bastard! He's damaged! We can catch him!"

It was a kind of blood lust that drove Grayson on now, a blood lust born of the battle joy of being able at long last to strike back. The three weapons carriers raced down the street after the retreating 'Mech, soldiers clinging to handholds all around the rim of the vehicles' well decks, other troops following behind on foot. Victory had transformed them from a rabble into a fiercely determined fighting force. Grayson grinned to himself. They were still undisciplined and poorly trained, but at least they were learning that they could fight!

One of the other gun carriers was out ahead of Grayson's vehicle as they turned into the avenue down which the fleeing BattleMech had gone. Normally, a BattleMech could easily outdistance a wheeled armored vehicle, but the Wasp'sdamage would have slowed it considerably. Grayson could see the machine's back. They were gaining on it.

The Waspturned, brought up its laser and fired. The shot went off quickly, without careful aim, and the pulse shattered ferrocrete blocks in the sunscreen along the side of the avenue. The pursuing vehicles swerved suddenly, then bounced over scattering rubble.

"No! No! Keep going!" Grayson yelled. The lead vehicle had stopped, blocking the way, but at his not-too-gentle urging, the driver swung the steering tiller around and continued the chase.

Another 'Mech stepped into the street, its laser already trained and locked. The light pulse was followed by a blinding flash as the lead PPC carrier took a direct hit, and exploded in flame and a cascade of hot metal fragments. Grayson's driver swerved sharply to avoid the wreck, bouncing under the sunscreen to the right, and clattering through trash barrels and wooden crates crowded against the buildings.

Grayson studied the newcomer. It was another light scout 'Mech, a Locust,the smallest BatlleMech type with which he was familiar.

The Locustwas a peculiar departure from the typical humanoid 'Mech design. Body and head were fused into a single, flat fuselage suspended between very long, digitigrade-canted legs. The slenderness of the lower legs and the splayed, claw-like design of the flanged feet gave the Locustthe appearance of a gigantic, flightless bird. Despite its name, the 'Mech could not jump, but it was easily the fastest of all BattleMechs, in open terrain capable of speeds up to 165 kph.

Compared to other 'Mechs, however, it was poorly armed. The sleek, long barrel of a single laser jutted from beneath the Locust'scockpit section, and two tiny arms extending from the belly bore a pair of heavy machine guns. The Locusthad sacrificed weapons for the twin battlefield advantages of speed and armor. Though shorter and more compact, the Locustcarried thicker armor than a Wasp,and was far more difficult to hit.

The Locust'sbody shifted slightly, whipped the long tube of its laser about to bear on Grayson's vehicle. The driver swerved again as brilliant light arced across the street, vaporizing sunshield supports and pulling the ferrocrete eaves to the ground with a splintering roar.

The third PPC vehicle emerged from the pall of smoke of the burning wreckage and fired. White fire washed across the Locust,which staggered back on its haunches. Struggling for balance, it took several unsteady steps backward, then straightened, swung about, and fired again. The shot cratered the avenue as the PPC carrier cut wildly to one side.

Grayson's carrier screeched to a halt 40 meters from the creature's right foot. One of the 'Mech's machine guns dropped clear of the bulk of the upper hip and stuttered death. Large-caliber rounds stitched through the carrier's side and smashed at the building behind. Two of the carrier's riders screamed and flailed backwards, as the other troops jumped from the welldeck and scattered along the street. Grayson stayed where he was, concentrating on the targeting lock of his PPC's simple-minded-computer. When the crosshairs merged and flashed red, he pressed the firing stud. Metal chips rained from the 'Mech's body where the armor had been pierced just aft of the cockpit

The Locustspun and ran then, trailing a faint smudge of black smoke from its body. The Sarghadese troops jeered and cheered and followed, their popgun weapons snapping at the giant's heels.

Grayson signalled to the second vehicle's driver. "Keep on him! Make him fight!" Then he tapped his own driver's shoulder and pointed to a side street

The driver grinned and nodded, understanding. The weapons carrier careened off the main street, raced down the cross street to the next major spoke avenue, then turned north once more. Several more blocks and Grayson signalled the driver to turn back to the first avenue. They emerged two blocks north of the Locust,which had stopped again to duel with its pursuer. The PPC had scored another hit, and the Locustwas staggering in a losing battle to control its gyros. Grayson fired again from a range of 120 meters. The hit smashed into the 'Mech's rear, scattering fragments of antenna and armor casing.

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.