The gaps in the armor were ashen with bits of charred flesh that was stripped of the beasts. Barry considered whether to go to Reaper till Karin yelled at him to continue to cut the door open. As Reaper's mech lay smoldering , Ross dashed past it and picked up the unused autocarbine from its charred ruins.
Karin had already emptied her rocket pods when a few of the crab beasts had torn off the auto-minigun from its mount , leaving her with the head mounted machine gun and her carbine. Unfortunately, there was only one full magazine left and one full tank of plasma. With the snapping mandibles chewing away her armor, she used her shield to bash them to pieces. She swung her arm wide to her side , knocking one of the creatures on its back. She pressed the barrel of her carbine into the overturned monster and fired a single shot into its thorax. It broke into bleeding pieces with bits of green entrails mixed with the black gears and red hydraulic fluid.
Proximity rounds were loaded up into Ross's carbine through the autoloader inside the magazine housing. Each round chambered and then armed a proximity fuse that would air burst above the closest moving target. He fired one round up into the circling horde running back and forth on the horizon. That single shell exploded into several shape charged spikes that eviscerated nearly a dozen of the crabs. A burst from the plasmathrower ignited the open wounds of any that survived the attack.
Ross boosted up into air and targeted three separate groups of nearly two dozen each. From the East came the two of the packs while another was attempting to flank Barry as he continued to torch the door. He fired a burst at the two Eastern groups first, letting loose with the remaining Dagger rockets he had left. His auto-minigun began to fire behind him at the flanking group while he floated in the air to get their attention.
They maneuvered towards him while firing they fired on him. One of the crabs surprisingly began to fire a flak cannon , its shells bursting in the air around him. As he turned to face this group, an incessant chirp began to play into his ear. The missile lock indicator began to flash on his HUD with an arrow pointing to the direction the missile was approaching from. He turned to see three Dagger rockets burning towards him. He twisted the mech's head and began to fire at the rockets. Two burst into flames while the third overshot him and blew up 15 meters behind him. A shower of burning embers bounced off his mech before disappearing into the aether.
He scanned for the unit that launched the missile strike but his boosters had overheated before he could finish his scan. He landed a top a crab, bursting its shell and spilling its guts onto the ground. He heard the sound of heavy cannons firing in the distance as he regained his footing Streamers of exhaust danced around the giant-scorpion like strider. Ross activated the targeting optics to zoom in on the strider. On its body were tiny mites scurrying across and jumping haplessly at Ryuki in an attempt to capture him.
Inside his mech, Ryuki watched the lock symbols populate his HUD as half a dozen rockets raced up towards him. His sensor net picked up a pair of bipedal walkers , nearly the same size as his own mech, racing around at the foot of the strider. He discharged several flak bundles to take care of the incoming ordinance but lost sight of the attackers.
The heat meter was inching towards 75 percent to shutdown state as the thrusters had been running hot for nearly 5 minutes. The heat load was overtaking the discharge rate. With the heat sinks fully exposed it would take nearly 6 minutes to discharge all the thermal energy. He needed to make the final push or he would be stuck on the ground. He boosted up through the gaping hole in the ceiling , hoping that the strider's attention on him would prompt it to follow him up. For good measure , he fired off the last dozen Dagger rockets into its sensor mast to keep it from scanning for other targets.
The strider fired off a blast from its cannon straight up through the gap and hit the ceiling above Ryuki. 80 percent till shutdown. One leg stretched out and grasped the edge of the hole followed by another leg. Good. It was going to climb up. A large group of crabs scuttled about its body , firing off sporadic cannon and rocket fire with little to no aim. The rounds whizzed past him while the rockets exploded harmlessly some distance away.
The scorpion pulled itself up through the gap , its cannon slowly turning to face him. He flipped open the safety cover for the launch controls of the BSRM-1. A warning message popped up in front of him telling Ryuki that the launch sequence was beginning. Red flashing lights pulsated in the flight deck with an incessant beep to make sure he was completely at attention on the missile. Unfortunately , he didn't have the time to watch over the process while he evaded indiscriminate fire from the scorpion mech.
The back-pack silo began to spin while the launching rails extended and expanded. The metallic grey three corner silo stopped and separated from the top portion as it swung onto the rails. Bay doors opened up and a rocket motor was mounted to the rails via a set of actuated clamps. The top portion of the silo that remained in its original position then swung over the rocket body while the silo returned while still rotating, preparing the next missile.
The warhead was loaded onto the rocket like a bolt being screwed into a fixture. A distinct beveled pyramid sat atop the rocket with its nose blinking with a series of lights around its perimeter. The nose cone was clear , revealing the homing module that would guide the warheads in their terminal flight phase.
A klaxon sounded and an urgent voice announced that the heat coursing through the triple tandem reactors was reaching a critical level. The voice played over the targeting system, warning him that the missile launch was imminent and to move to a safe distance.
Ryuki angled his mech above the scorpion as it pulled itself up into the cargo hold. It looked like a scorpion mother carrying its offspring on its back as it crawled back on its feet. He saw his opening and disengaged the thrusters. "GET DOWN!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Freefalling down between the legs, he jammed down the launch on the launch button while simultaneously firing off a set of tracer beacons.
The missile lifted off , the force of which propelled the Lionheart downward. As it floated in the air , it seemed as if the internal guidance was contemplating its next course of action. It floated in the air for what seemed like ages but it was only a millisecond later that the warhead disengaged from the rocket. Its panels exploded open to reveal the nuclear bomblets. A split second later the bombs burst from the warhead directly into the scorpion.
With only one active warhead , the concussive force of the detonation was tempered by the massive strider body and the interstitial walls and ceiling. The burst of light activated the blast shield for the head sensors on Ryuki's mech , slamming down a solid lead divider to protect the optics.
As his mech continued to face upwards, he reignited the boosters to halt his descent. An overwhelming concussive wave buffeted his mech, making flight incredibly difficult. With the thrusters burning at max power and the heat meter at 95 percent, he had only one option, to crash land as softly as possible.
He twisted his body to force the feet to face down and then overcharged the ferromagnetic hydraulics to force the mech to an upright position. The knee joints were released to float freely in attempt to absorb the incoming shock of landing from nearly 100 meters
The crash had stunned the mech's motor and hydraulics systems , forcing it to stay in its knelt position. Above Ryuki , he could hear the chain reaction of the plasma containment tanks exploding and spreading out the burning liquid onto everything in its vicinity. He could have sworn that he heard the sound of steam boiling off the crab bots.
A few minutes early, on the other side of the fight, Barry was able to cut through the door but needed an extra push to force the slab out of the way. The flow of mechs had stopped but there was an ominous pause in the fighting. Both sides seemed exhausted, with the crab-bots circling around them, nipping at them but otherwise keeping their distance.
Ross still wondered what had launched the missiles. None of the crabs that he destroyed had anything more than simple guns or rarely a flak gun. The pit of his stomach began to well up with tension and emptiness. His skin crawled and his sweat ran cold. The lull wasn't due to their combat prowess. They were waiting for something.
The shrill sound of rounds whizzing past by them awoke their battlefield intuition. The waves of cannon fodder were only to wear them down. The real assault was beginning. A few rounds flew past them but air bursted , hitting them with shape charged spikes. Ablative armor kept the damage to a minimum while the reactive armor began to heal itself of the gaps in its plating.
At the horizon a pair of silhouettes emerged. They seemed to be mechs similar to their own though somehow they seemed completely foreign , bordering on inhuman as far as they were concerned. Then the sound of a snapping jaw echoed. The silhouettes morphed and distorted with noticeable jaws forming from their shadowy forms. Their maws grew till it seemed to cover their entire heads.
When light fell on them , they saw the beasts. Not a single centimeter of their bodies were metal. The green flesh that peaked out from underneath the grey carapace armor flexed and bulged. The organic armor covered their bodies except for the joints and their heads. The snapping jaws were like those of alligators but with the razor teeth of a shark..
Their tongues stretched out , hanging in the air and dripping with slimy grey saliva. A low growl rose up from their bulging throats With no skin ,all their muscle fibers were exposed, the tendons and fat deposits in full view. Their eyes though were the sensor modules of the mechs they consumed. As they approached, the apertures of their eyes narrowed. The taller of the pair, with the missile racks mounted to its back and a set of dual chain guns on each arm, roared. It looked hungry.
Then the radio erupted. "Hit the dirt!". That was the signal. They dived into the ground, keeping their backs facing upwards to protect their crew compartments from whatever may be about to explode. Nuclear hazard symbols began to populate their HUDs. Urgent voices yelped about high energy radiation and proximity.
As they lay on the ground, the two mechs roared but their voices seemed to echo away from them. They were facing something above them. The HUD displays flickered then turned off. Then the pressure wave approached. It felt as if giant tankers were being dropped on them, the sound of whining metal shrieked as the overpressure pounded on them.
A burst of light originating from above flash fried everything within the two cargo bays. The menacing chimeras exploded into flames as their exposed flesh burned and torn from the nuclear firestorm. The remaining monsters did the same.
Nearly ten thousand Sieverts later, all that survived were those safely stowed away inside the closed shells of the spec-op mechs. Everything else lay charred with molten metal flowing between them like tiny streams of water.
