The Clans built well enough, when it came to protection from the elements and the possibility of light collateral damage. But they rarely hardened auxiliary sites against direct attack. Why should they? Any other Clan wanting to contest the area would batchall, challenging the defender to meet him in open ground with any or all defending forces. The assaulting force would then match the defenders, and the contest would initiate. While Connor Sinclair could appreciate the ritualized methods of the Clans, protecting essential but non-hostile facilities, part of the Inner Sphere’s purpose in attacking Clan Space was to remind them of the devastation total warfare could bring.

On his fifth salvo the main communications dish twisted about on its seating, then wrenched away to fall down the mountainside and smash into one of the main buildings. Ceilings caved and walls crumbled as the dish rolled through and and finally smashed itself to scrap against the ground. Several fires sprang up in the ruins, the deathblow for the facility.

Which left an Owens.

Hidden behind the low hill, Connor Sinclair had a 50-50 chance of deciding which way it would circle around. Of course, it might choose to come over the top, but skylining a light ‘Mech was one step beyond bravado and in throwing distance of suicidal. Then again, this was a Clan warrior. He crouched the Bushwacker as low as its profile would allow, then shifted about to face the hill, one arm pointing off in each direction so that no matter which way it came the Inner Sphere warrior could hope for the first shot.

It swung around on his right. Connor pulled at his autocannon trigger, snapping off what should have been an easy shot. The stream of depleted uranium slugs again sliced low, throwing up a geyser of blasted earth which sprayed the Owens but would do little to deter it. Trying to salvage something of the situation, Sinclair swore fluently as he wrenched the right arm upward. His curse had barely left his lips when the burst cut off prematurely. Fault lights flashed for his attention. It required the briefest glance to see that the weapon registered a feed mechanism fault -- the same problem he’d noted back on the Black Hammer. Only here, in combat, what had been a concern before now spelled out grave danger.

No time to clear the jammed feed, Sinclair swung around to put his backside to the hill before the much faster Owens could circle in behind him and carve into his weak rear armor. The Smoke Jaguar warrior made a stab for it, but was a touch too slow on the throttle. The Owens ended up point-blank with the Bushwacker, toe-to-toe and trading hard-hitting strikes. Gem-colored light flared between the two, the Owens owning the advantage as it brought two medium lasers into play while Sinclair was limited to his centerline large laser and a pair of machine guns. The Bushwacker’s weapons fire sanded armor off the light OmniMech. A sudden jump in the heat profile of the Owens let the lieutenant know that he had slipped past a flaw in the armor to carve away at the heat shield helping to contain the fusion reactor’s output. He smiled in grim satisfaction, hoping to press that advantage.

Then emerald laser fire walked from the Bushwacker’s left shoulder up across its head, splashing over the cockpit’s ferroglass canopy. The cockpit shook with incredible force, throwing Sinclair repeatedly against his five-point harness and the seat back. The restraining straps dug painfully into his chest, and his vision swam with the purplish-haze aftereffect of a laser blinding. Several new alarms rang out, deafening in the close confines of the Bushwacker’s cockpit.