The Ballad of Cairo

Part Nine: Cry Havoc

Yorvic Plains,

Arboris,

The Chaos March.

The Hollander pilot was good. The first round from the gauss rifle slammed into Cairo's right shoulder, damaging the joint badly. The old ON1-K may have been good by Periphery standards, but the armour was not up to dealing with the sort of damage a gauss rifle could give out. Cairo returned fire with all his weapons, flooding his cockpit with heat from the reactor below.

The LRM's missed high, but the medium lasers and the LBX autocannon tore at the 35 toner's armour. A dark scar appeared across the Hollander's centre and left torso while the SRM's left pockmarks on the left leg. Cairo hoped for a moment that the light Mech would go down, but it's pilot managed to keep upright. The second gauss rifle round hit just below the first, and Cairo felt Retribution sway to the left as the right arm fell off.

Cairo moved forward as fast as he could, stepping inside the firing arc of the gauss rifle, then knocked the weapon aside with his Mech's oversized left arm. The pirate punched with his left arm, damaging the ammo feed for Cairo's autocannon and jamming the weapon.

Cairo sent a flight of SRM's at his opponent at point-blank range, hitting the Hollander's right shoulder and cockpit. The pirate Mech shuddered, the pilot stunned by the impact of 4 high-explosive warheads. This gave Cairo the time he needed to launch a deadly close-range attack.

He swung the old Orion's left arm up and forward, slamming it into the Hollander's damaged cockpit, then fired his remaining medium laser. The cockpit view-port was not designed to stand up to such a hellish onslaught at close range and melted. The laser light cored into the head of the Mech, vaporizing the pirate before they even had a chance to scream.

Cairo stepped his Mech back, letting the headless Hollander fall onto it's back, smoke pouring from the hole in the visor that had failed to protect its owner.

Cairo looked out at the battle that had been raging around him for the minute it had taken him to deal with the Hollander: the Dragoon's Panther was down, it's pilot ejecting when the SRM-4 ammo had started to cook-off. The Phoenix Hawk's right leg had given out, and it's pilot was trying to raise the Mech to a sitting position. One of the Bushwacker's was a burning mess on the ground behind the pirate Gallowglas, which was trading fire with the other Dragoon Mech. Of Cameron's Thor-Prime or the pirate Battlemaster, there was no sign, the smoke from the burning Panther and Bushwacker obscuring his line of sight, and his sensors damaged by the Hollanders punch.

Cairo fired a spread of SRM's and LRM's at the back of the Gallowglas, slamming into the enemy Mech's damaged left arm and torso, finishing off its medium lasers. The Gallowglas fired its ER-PPC and twin large lasers at the remaining Bushwacker, tearing its left torso LRM launcher clean off and dropping it's left arm to the ground. The Gallowglas jumped clear, and then fired its small laser at Cairo, trying to hit his dangerously exposed gyro through the damage done to his right torso. The old Orion responded with all its remaining weapons, scoring with its medium laser and SRM's, but missing with its LRM's.

The Gallowglas' pilot was so intent on finishing off Cairo that they didn't notice the Bushwacker line up its LB 10-X autocannon and fire at the back of the mech. The Dragoon warrior, a woman Cairo only knew as O'Brien, fired off over half a ton of ammo at the back of the pirate Mech, ripping off the rear armour and mangling it's reactor shielding. The ER large laser that followed exploited the earlier damage, causing the emergency shielding to fail and the reactor went critical. The resulting explosion almost knocked Cairo's Mech down, as it did with the Bushwacker, which made no move to get up again.

Cairo looked round for any sign of the pirate Battlemaster or Captain Cameron's Thor. He caught sight of them less than 50 metres away. The OmniMech was lying on its front - the pirate's PPC raised to the back of the Dragoon warrior's cockpit…

To Be Continued…