Chapter 7:
Superior Firepower
(cont...)

He didn’t see what that gained them, blowing the rest of the bridge, but the corporal hadn’t let him down yet. Sinclair selected for lasers only -- no sense wasting precious ammunition and if they made it through, there would be no time for a refit and resupply. Epona was counting on them being there.

The emerald beams lashed out, slagging through first one heavy support, then another. The bridge twisted and, even through the cockpit armor, he heard the groan of stressed metal -- but it did not collapse. The third and fourth support fell away, thick metal girders no match for ’Mech weaponry. Then the conveyer system collapsed. Its outer structure fell flat to the ground, but where the conveyer still maintained integrity it held up one end into an improvised ramp. A brute-force job of it, but the lieutenant wouldn’t complain if it worked. Connor was first up the slope, praying for it to hold beneath the Orion’s 75 tons. It did. He smashed his way through the preliminary crusher and into the extraction chamber.

"The south wall," Sorenson reminded him. "Burn through."

Lasers again scored out, but where the girders had parted relatively easily, here the metal resisted. Reddish-orange splatters of molten steel dripped slowly to the floor of the extractor. This was the best industrial grade alloy, meant to last years of regular scoring and pounding. It wouldn’t give up easily.

Static flared. "They are coming. No one touches their commander! He is mine." Drevin again. But no way he had figured out their plan yet -- he was referring to Epona, as if she would be leading in the combined force. She was almost through the Jaguar’s barricade and with no support nearby!

Connor gave up on the lasers, raising his arms against the weakened metal and ramming piston-like blows against it. It cracked and bowed, but refused to give. Dominic held his place behind the Orion, unable to move up to help. Finally the lieutenant leaned his leviathan machine back and then simply charged forward, throttling into a run in the tight confines and lowering one angular shoulder into the damage already wrought against the wall. It held for a very long second, then parted with a shriek of tearing metal. The Orion stumbled through. Connor Sinclair found himself in a tight passage meant more for exoskeleton-assisted laborers, but serviceable for ’Mechs if barely so.

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