Star Captain Aaron Radick stood his mech up, trying to get his bearings. Lasers and short-range missiles were peppering his mech from somewhere in the dust, slowly chipping away at his heavy armour. His spotlight was no longer working, and his mechs' running lights couldn't pierce the dust that was now obscuring his vision.

  Checking his Star's status panel, he could see the Vulture and the seven Elementals had survived the cave-in, though the Vulture had taken some damage to its back armour. "Wolves, switch to thermals. Saturate the hall in front of us. Just because we cannot see her, does not mean we cannot hit her!"

  "Aff, Star Captain." Came the reply, then a wall of long-range missiles and ser fire swarmed past him, disappearing somewhere into the darkness.

  He added his own sers, then throttled up the Gargoyle, loping down the tunnel again at maximum speed. He would find this Stravag and make her pay.

  "Aww, so close! You actually took out one of Suzy Q's jump jets with that st one. You should really take a girl out for dinner first before you try and pound the guts outta her." The mechwarrior named Jenny Keys said, mocking him yet again.

  "Stop running, you Freebirth scum! You Guards have no honour after dropping a ceiling on top of us."

  "We did no such thing, Star Captain. In fact, you should be thanking us! We were just so worried you puppies would turn tail and run, so we made sure to block your escape route. We were very concerned about your honour, you see."

  He fired another volley of ser fire down the tunnel, the sers impacting on the walls of an upcoming curve in the path. "Escape? Why would we try to escape from you? You are the ones at a disadvantage here."

  "You're right, we are at a disadvantage. Your mechs can run circles around all of our remaining mechs. All but little ol' Suzy Q here, beating them up from a distance like the big bad wolves you are. Oh, so honourable a combat that would be, not even taking a scratch. But that is out there. In here, I am afraid you lost that advantage, Star Captain. I did tell you this was my dungeon, and Mistress Keys and her two assistants will be sure to thoroughly school you on an old warrior's favourite form of combat. Ambush tactics."

  The wall beside him exploded in a shower of bricks as a massive mech smmed into his side, causing his sprinting mech to stumble and fall on its face. His two Elemental passengers went flying somewhere in the darkness, but he didn't have time to process that as another volley of ser fire peppered him.

  "Stravag!" He growled. Just as he was rocking his mech back up to its feet, another voice came through his headset, an older man's voice.

  "Bad Dog. Sit!" It said, just as a fist from this new assaint's mech smmed into the side of his cockpit, cracking the ferrogss and causing his ears to ring from the impact. He twisted his mech's torso, looking up at a bright green mech that had a very simir design to his own.

  Despite the blood running out of his ears, he cracked a smile. He was worried that this battle wouldn't even be a challenge. He had never been so happy to be proven wrong before.

  Trix was waiting for Jenny to send the signal, hiding in her Hunchback behind the 0.3 metre thick wall of stone that John had cut out of the wall, before the mining crews came in to blow out the rest of it. They had bricked her and James into two of these openings, hoping to catch the wolves in a pincer attack.

  With what Mia had told them about Cn mechs, most could move at least 86 kph, if not much faster. Both her and James' mechs could only move at the same speed, or in her case, slower than their slowest mech. They would be at a massive disadvantage if they tried to fight them in the open, his Charger having almost no ranged weapons at all, while she had only two medium sers outside her massive 203mm big-bore autocannon.

  So, they engineered this entire battle to force the wolves into close-quarters combat in this tunnel. That was something the Cns were notoriously bad at, Mia had admitted*, never training in it, as it was seen as distasteful and uncivilised. It would be their only chance at squeezing out something resembling a victory here.

  When John said Freddy and Jack had died, she shed a few tears at the loss, but they had said their goodbyes st night. They couldn't eject inside the cave, not without becoming a pancake on the ceiling, so not one of them had expected to survive this battle. They kept most of that from John, the youngest of them, though she suspected he knew what they were pnning. They were not coddling him; he wasn't a kid, but he now had a kid and a new wife to take care of. Let the rest of the old folks die while he had a chance to get free.

  When she heard Jenny mocking the Wolf mechwarrior on open comms, welcoming them to Mistress Keys' dungeon, she started bellowing in ughter. To think of the little mousy white-haired grandmother as some dominatrix in a bck leather outfit, wielding a crop, caused such stitches in her sides that she almost missed her cue.

  She counted to ten, then throttled the Hunchback forward, breaking through her 'wall' and striding into the tunnel. In front of her, not fifty meters away, stood the enemy Vulture, along with a handful of those Elementals still attached to it. It had just let a volley of missiles and ser fire towards James’ mech, staggering him a bit from that Alpha Strike. (Firing all your weapons at once)

  So much for one-on-one. Not that we asked for it this time.

  She announced her presence with a fsh and a boom, her 203mm cannon deafening in the close confines of the tunnel. The HEAP rounds smmed into the vulnerable left rear torso of the mech, blowing apart all of the armour there and eating deeply into its internals. Something exploded, blinding her for a moment. When her screens returned to normal, the left torso and arm had been blown clean off the heavy mech, the LRM ammo bins being hit by her shot.

  She smiled at that, not expecting the giant autocannon to be so much fun!

  I should have asked to be a Hunchback pilot years ago!

  She looked at her ammo, then remembered why she didn't want to be a Hunchback pilot.

  Nine more shots. Hopefully, I don't need them.

  The remaining two Elementals quickly recovered and fired SRMs at her, then activated their jump jets to close the distance. The missiles smmed into her, doing some minor damage to her torso.

  "Oh, no you don't!" She said, ignoring the missiles and firing her two medium sers at one of the Elementals, turning the little beast into sg. The other one nded on her shoulder where the autocannon was mounted. She stopped, then side-stepped her mech, smming her right side into the wall repeatedly. She took several volleys of ser fire from the now recovered Vulture, but ignored it and the low armour warnings from her computer, until she saw the corpse of the now fttened Elemental fall to the ground at her feet. She stomped on it for good measure, then refocused her attention on the mech in front of her.

  "Smile!" She said over the comms, letting rip with another autocannon salvo.

  James closed his hand actuator on the st Elemental, pinning it in pce, then smmed his fist back into the now standing Gargoyle. The two little gnats had started to crawl over his mech, distracting him from keeping the Wolf mech from standing back up. He didn't have much choice when they started to cw their way into his cockpit.

  The little guy spttered under the power of a 80 ton assault mech's swing, crumpling against the other mech's left shoulder.

  Now to finish this-

  *vvrrrRRT- B-B-B-BOOM!!!*

  A deafening noise, even louder than Trix's Hunchback's autocannon, assaulted his ears. He was blinded for a moment when the dim tunnel turned as bright as the noonday sun. Warning sounds were going off in his headset, but he was disoriented enough that he couldn't make out what they were saying. When he opened his eyes, he blinked a few times, trying to make sense of the screen in front of him. The autocannon on the Gargoyles' arm blew the entire left torso and arm off his mech with one shot, taking two of his small sers with him.

  My armour was fresh there. The Charger is lightly armoured for an assault mech, but still. One salvo?

  He jammed his throttle forward, smming his fist back into the other mech with all his strength. He had to try to break that weapon at all costs.

  "Jenny, go for its arm. That Autocannon needs to be disabled!" He said on their secure comms. At least he hoped they were secure.

  "I will do you one better. Give him a push back in five seconds."

  He wasn't sure he had five seconds before that thing reloaded, but he would do what he could.

  Laser light lit him up as six sers shot out of the Gargoyle, the autocannon remaining silent for a moment. They peppered his mech, doing fairly superficial damage, but that wouldn't matter if that gun went off again. He stepped forward then, shoulder-checking the other mech, causing it to stumble backwards.

  Out of the darkness behind the Cn mech charged Suzy Q, the armour on the mech having nearly been completely stripped off from repeated ser fire, leaving mostly open structure. Even the cockpit top had been sheared off, making Jenny look like she was driving some sort of weird convertible mech with its top down. She threw the Jenner into a powerslide, smashing the back of the stumbling mech's legs, firing her sers and missiles as she did so.

  She has to be the best pilot I have ever met.

  The Gargoyle tipped over yet again, this time falling on its back.

  "Thanks for dancing with me, pup! It's been a pleasure!" She said on open coms. She gave James a salute just as a wall of 20 LRMs smmed into her mech, engulfing it in fire.

  Those LRMs were about to sm into my mech. Well, let's not let her sacrifice be in vain.

  He picked up his blown off arm from the ground and strode towards the still prone Wolf.

  He was going to beat that mech to death with his own torn-off arm as a club.

  *CLANG!*

  "Star Captain! Wake Up! Star Capta-"

  *B-BOOM*

  *SHHICCTIK*

  "Hun? What happen- NO!" Arron Radick said, gaining his bearings from yet another fall. He was bleeding in several spots now, and might have a concussion, but that didn't matter. The readouts on the screen showed him the Vulture had just fallen, the Guard's Hunchback finally breaking through its armour and disabling its engine. It had turned its sights on him now.

  The Charger was standing over him, smming... its own arm down on him. He hadn't broken through any armour yet, but there wasn't much left. It was possible that Hunchback could disable him in a single shot now.

  "Star Captain Aaron Radick of Cn Wolf. You have fought well. Surrender now, and you may become a bondsmen. If that is unacceptable, then I, Captain James Kearney, will allow you Bondsref." A male voice said over the comms.

  He chuckled at that. While he and his mech were indeed beat up, they were not out of the fight yet. Instead of answering, he set his mech upright, and after taking a quick aim, he activated his Ultra Autocannon*. The mechanism spun up, about to send 200 mm slugs rapidly firing out of its barrel. Just as it was firing, the Hunchbacks cannon fshed.

  *vvrrrRRT- B-B-B-BOOM!!!* *B-BOOM!*

  * - In the Battletech game, cns have a 30% disadvantage in melee combat, which makes no real sense other than maybe as a game bancer. I am sure there is a better lore reason somewhere, but I believe I read that they found it distasteful but not dishonourable.

  * - Ultra Autocannon 20. It fires twice as many shells as a standard autocannon per burst. They shake a lot, are prone to jamming, and run hot, but pound for pound, there is no other single mech weapon at this point in the Battletech universe that is more feared by any weight mech.

  The difference between the two was shown in this chapter. An AC20 does 20 damage in the TT game. The vulture has 5 points of armour on its rear side torsos (took 2 damage from the cave in) and 14 internal structure. It was enough to blow off that torso+arm, though I phrased it as blowing up its ammo bin.

  The UAC20 does 40 damage. The Charger has 20 front side torso armour and 17 internal structure. The weapon had three points of damage to spare, which moved to the centre torso internal structure.