Shin Yodama, bringing his Phoenix Hawkup behind the Grand Dragon,overrode the commlink. "Scatter. Incoming!"

Up over the computer horizon came three swarms of long-range missiles. The narrow canyon took some out as they impacted the lip or slammed into outcroppings and exploded in brilliant balls of computerized flame. A series of detonations rocked Victor in his pod as missiles peppered his 'Mech's left leg, blasting digitized armor into fragments. The Victorstarted to topple again, but the Prince jammed the useless autocannon into a canyon wall and kept himself upright.

The missile barrage hammered the two Kurita 'Mechs. The missiles savaged the armor on Hohiro's chest and right leg. A rippling series of explosions crushed armor on Shin's Phoenix Hawk,leaving the right side of its chest pockmarked with craters. A second wave of missiles following immediately after the first blasted yet more armor from Hohiro's Grand Dragonand chipped away at the armor over the Phoenix Hawk'schest and right arm.

Victor escaped the wrath of the second wave, but Galen did not. A quintet of missiles arced into the Crusader'sright knee. Great chunks of half-melted ferroceramic armor shot from the fireball engulfing the joint. The Crusaderstaggered and dropped to one knee as another set of missiles struck it full in the chest. The impact knocked the Crusadersideways, but Galen caught it on one hand and kept the 'Mech from going all the way down.

The fire in the 'Mech's chest did not subside with the end of the missile barrage. More explosions wracked the humanoid Crusader,making it shake as with a giant case of hiccups. Fire geysered from the hole in its chest and out through its spine, then a massive blast obliterated its chest and sent its arms and legs flying throughout the canyon.

"Galen's out. Move!" Victor started his 'Mech running down the canyon toward where he had seen Kai's Centurion."Missiles must have breached the armor and touched off his short-range missile magazine. Move it, or we'll get pounded by another flight of LRMs." Victor suppressed a shudder as he realized that if Kai's attack had hit his autocannon magazine, his 'Mech could easily have been torn apart from inside. "Kai spotted for the rest of his lance and they brought the missiles right down on top of us."

Victor cut around the corner into another canyon and saw, after a short distance, that it opened to the right into a broader canyon with a flat, level floor. Better yet, a 'Mech stood its ground and waited for him. "Move, guys. I've found them."

His computer identified the BattleMech as a Cataphract,but Victor knew it by another name. Because the ungainly beast looked like something cobbled together from various parts of other 'Mechs, most Federated Commonwealth MechWarriors called the Liao 'Mech a "Frankenstein." An autocannon barrel jutted forward like a lance from the center of its chest. Its right arm was identical to a Marauder's,down to the PPC and medium laser in the boxy weapons pod that substituted for a right hand. The left arm was styled after the right arm on most Shadow Hawks,except that the medium laser was mounted on top of the arm instead of below it. That led most weapon experts to conclude that the whole system had just been transplanted with a refit on the elbow and hand. The bulbous body and birdlike legs again drew comparisons with the Marauder,but somehow the Cataphractdid not offer the same menace as its predecessor.

Victor dropped his crosshairs onto the Cataphract’soutline and hit the button beneath his left thumb. Twin spears of laser light stabbed out at the awkward 'Mech. The first shot boiled away armor on the Cataphract’sleft flank, letting gobbets of it drop like rain onto the canyon floor. The second carved a hot scar through the armor on the 'Mech's head, making the pilot flinch. The 'Mech, complying with the motion of the pilot, took a skip-jump to the left, but stayed upright and brought its weapons to bear.

A bolt of blue lightning leaped from the PPC and caressed the Victor'sright arm. Molten armor coursed down the limb like blood from an open wound. The two medium lasers bracketed the assault 'Mech, each stabbing into the armor on an arm. The autocannon's stream of slugs slashed a bar sinister across the Victor'schest, but nothing penetrated armor to cause internal damage.

With his autocannon out of commission, Victor sent his 'Mech racing forward to beat on the Cataphractwith the useless weapon. A quick blow could knock the autocannon out of commission, and being in that close would make the PPC much more difficult to aim. Victor smiled as he raised the 'Mech's right arm. "It's all over now, Sun-Tzu."

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement. To the extreme right edge of his display, he saw Kai's Centurionstep away from its hiding place near the canyon mouth. The autocannon came up, and even as Victor tried to cut to one side, the weapon vomited out a rain of metal.

The depleted-uranium slugs hit the Victorin its already damaged left leg. The projectiles blasted away the battered remnants of armor clinging to the leg, then zipped through the myomer muscles corded in the 'Mech's thigh. Sparks flew as shells chipped away at the ferrotitanium femur, snapping the inorganic bone in half.

As the lower half of his 'Mech's left leg dropped away, Victor fought a losing battle to retain his balance. The 'Mech twisted as it fell, smashing its back against the far canyon wall. The command couch's special panels punched into Victor's own back, crunching him between them and the restraining belts. The blow stunned him for a moment, leaving him unable to do anything but watch as Hohiro and Shin entered the canyon.

From his vantage point, Victor saw the other two members of Kai's lance, an Orionand a Catapult,both 'Mechs with LRMs in their arms. The Catapultdirected both its fifteen-missile flights at the Phoenix Hawk,while the Orionconcentrated on the Grand Dragon.The Cataphractbrought its weapons to bear on Hohiro, while Kai swung his autocannon around to take the Phoenix Hawk.

The missiles covered the mouth of the canyon in a sheet of flame. The explosions stripped all the armor off the Phoenix Hawk'sarms, and a subsidiary blast took out the medium laser mounted on the underside of the right forearm. Even more damaging, the missiles hitting the left arm shredded the myomer muscles in the upper arm, leaving it dangling and useless. More explosions sent sheets of armor flying from the 'Mech's left flank and leg, with two scoring hits on the Phoenix Hawk'shead.

The Grand Dragonfared better, as most of the missiles undershot the target. Even so, they managed to whittle away armor on the 'Mech's chest and left leg, providing the Cataphractwith viable targets for its attack. Yet even as the fire condensed into black smoke, the Grand Dragonhad sighted in on the Cataphractand the two 'Mechs exchanged volleys.

The azure bolt from the Grand Dragon'sPPCs lashed hunks of armor from the Cataphract'sleft arm, but failed to penetrate it fully. The medium laser mounted in its left breast stabbed.out and melted more armor over the left flank that Victor had previously hit, but again failed to do more than damage armor. In return, the Cataphract'sautocannon peeled a strip of armor from the Grand Dragon'sleft flank. The Liao 'Mech's medium lasers missed their target, but the PPC made up for the misses with a vengeance.

The cerulean energy whip flayed the last of the armor from the Grand Dragon'sleft leg. As it dropped away, the particle beam sliced like a scalpel into the myomer fibers in the thigh, melting them like candles. The Grand Dragon,having lost control of its left leg, started to tip, but Hohiro shifted the 'Mech's weight back over onto its right leg and kept the machine upright.