The Ballard of Cairo
Part seventeen: Party-crashers

400km north of Idlewind City
Idlewind
The Draconis Combine

Cairo braced himself as the docking clamp that had been holding his Mech to the DropShip, released him. He fell the last 20 metres, bending the Orion's knees as he hit the ground to absorb the impact.

He felt his front teeth chip as 75-tons of Mech hit the earth with a jolt. He checked his secondary monitor for damage: he'd landed hard and the armour on the Orion's legs had taken a beating, indicated by amber segments on the damage display. He'd have to be very careful about taking damage there; they wouldn't take as much as before.

He checked his screen for targets. Most of the pirate Mech's were down...and so were all but three of the DCMS Mech's. Tai-I Goto's Grand Dragon was still up, as was the Centurion that Cairo decided must belong to Go-cho Dancer. One of the Panthers was missing its left arm but was still mobile and fighting.

He keyed his radio into a frequency that gave him a secure channel to Jackson. "Talk to me Paul, what's the word on the rest of the garrison forces?"

"Ok boss-man, we have two lances of light Mech's pounding down the highway to the west of you, they're about 20 minutes out. A heavy company is about half an hour behind them. There are a few fighters up, but they seem to be focusing on the pirate DropShip." The intelligence officer was pulling the Leopard through a low arc that took him towards the pirates' L-Z.

Cairo chuckled at the spy-turned-pilot. "Go kick some ass...and that's an order!"

It was Jackson's turn to laugh. "SIR! YES SIR!"

Cairo changed channels to talk to O'Brien. "Sinead, what the hell am I looking at? My War-book tells me it's a Shadow Hawk, but it doesn't look like any I've ever seen".

He could hear the sergeant gasp over the sounds of battle. "Oh my God!" she said after a second "Steve, that's a brand-new SHD-5D Shadow Hawk. It's just been brought out by Kallon Industries. This is no ordinary pirate band. That's a multi-million C-Bill piece of hardware. We've got to be dealing with top-flight Mercenaries - no one else out here would have that sort of money to spend."

Cairo saw the last of the DCMS Panthers go down and made up his mind. "Ok, you go help the Centurion take out that Blackjack, I'll help the Grand Dragon with the Shadow Hawk. Good luck Sinead".

Cairo could almost hear the tall, stocky MechWarrior smiling. "I don't need luck. Watch your back Steve".

Cairo moved Retribution forward at a trot, firing his missiles at the Shadow Hawk as he went. He swerved to avoid a stream of shells from the pirate's Rotary AC/5. He felt a few of them dig into the Orion's right shoulder and tear at the armour. He replied with a full ton of ammo from his LB 10-X.

The clustered rounds stripped armour from the shoulder and arm of the lighter Mech, digging through to the myomer beneath. He followed through with a blast from both of his medium lasers, scoring hits on the pirate's centre torso.

It was then that the Shadow Hawk brought its RAC back into play.

To Be Continued...