They looked like men in form, but their mottled gray and black flesh and the abnormal thickness of the armored plates on their bodies marked them as utterly alien. With no necks to speak of, their heads looked like lumps raised from the shoulders and breastplate as an afterthought. A dark V-shaped viewport passed for the mechanical creature's face. Thick cylindrical structures reinforced the forearms, but clearly served more than a strengthening function. The right arm ended in the muzzle of a laser, while the left forearm boasted an underslung machine gun muzzle. The left hand consisted of only a thumb and two abnormally thick fingers, and the feet looked like nothing so much as overlarge, bifurcated hooves melded onto the legs of a smaller creature.

Only when the double-barreled, back-mounted missile launcher lipped flame and sent a missile at his Phoenix Hawkdid Shin realizehe was looking at a suit of infantry armor instead of a living entity. The missile exploded against the Phoenix Hawk'sleft breast and spalled off armor. A tremor ran through the 'Mech on impact, but Shin barely noticed because his mind was running riot.

Without thinking, he impaled the armored figure with crosshairs and hit one of his medium lasers. The ruby beam struck the target and blasted it back as armor vaporized. The figure tumbled over and over again, grasses and bushes along its haphazard line of retreat bursting into flame as it passed. The figure rolled to a stop on its face, with the nowdetached missile launcher continuing to tumble several meters further on.

"Arrow Lance, be careful. These are not normal infantry."

"Roger that, Tai-i,"said Arishige Shimazu from the cockpit of his Firestarter.'The machine guns just seem to make them mad."

Shin spitted another figure with a medium laser. "At least the lasers keep them ..." His mouth went dry. The infantryman he'd hit first with a machine gun burst and then with a laser bolt struggled to his feet. The gray and black jaguarlike spotting had been burned from the front of his armor, revealing shiny metal where some of the armor had melted and run, but the figure moved with no real difficulty. Dropping to one knee, it extended its right arm and sent a laser bolt flying at the Phoenix Hawk,burning away some of the 'Mech's head armor.

Unbelieving, Shin stabbed a large laser toward the little man and mashed his thumb down onto the firing button. The scarlet beam slammed into the humanoid metallic shell, pouring kilojoules of energy into it. The form wavered like an image seen through rippling water, then vanished as the hellish beam totally consumed it.

The smoking hole left where the figure had stood did nothing for Shin's piece of mind. I'm forced to use a heavy laser against that thing, but there's nothing left to show I destroyed it! It could have jumped away. Hell, there's not even any proof it was there in the first place!Shin saw the quartet of glowing impact sites the computer added to the outline of his 'Mech on his status monitor. Nothing but the damage done to me!

More and more of the little infantrymen popped up over the hilltop to surround Shin's embattled lance. As the raiders closed in, their bouncing gait made them tougher to hit. Worse, as he would track one of them to blast it with his energy weapons, two or three others were targeting his 'Mech with impunity. Damage sites dotted Shin's 'Mech like fleabites, while his efforts to hit his attackers were almost as fruitless as swatting at such diminutive insects.

"Yodama, help!"

Shin whirled his Phoenix Hawkat the panicked sound of Harunobu Mori's voice. The infantrymen had swarmed over Mori's Locustlike ants pulling down a grasshopper. One of the Locust'sbird-legs had crumpled beneath withering assaults, and two of the armored figures clung to the other leg, pumping bolt after bolt of laser fire from their right arms into the 'Mech's other hip joint. Three of the infantrymen hammered the 'Mech with their free hands, stripping off sheets of armor as they burrowed into the Locust.

Shin swept machine gun fire over the infantry. The bullets failed to penetrate the armor, but the sheer kinetic force knocked several from their precarious perches. One of the figures hung on somehow to the 'Mech's good leg, but the bullets blasted a hole in the blocky backpack that had once mounted a missile launcher. Lightning geysered out as a detonation shredded the figure's back. The infantryman fell limply to the ground, then Mori crushed it as his 'Mech struggled back to its feet.

Suddenly, a form blocked Shin's viewport. Clinging to the Phoenix Hawk'shead with one hand, the raider pointed his laser at the viewport and triggered it. The red beam slowly began to eat through the polarized glass, while the raider began to beat his armored head against the viewport in anticipation of breaching it.

Shin jammed both feet down on the jump jet pedals of his command couch. Ion jets ignited with a sharp jolt, kicking the forty-five ton 'Mech off the ground. As it rocketed skyward, the figure slipped away, returning Shin's view of the battlefield below, and granting him a look at the conflict being fought beyond the hill. For a moment, Shin almost wished the figure had kept him blind.

Below him, the infantry had reestablished its hold on the Locust,and smoke was beginning to boil from holes torn in the 'Mech's flesh. Malcolm Yesugi's Stingerwas down, with a dozen raiders working furiously to tear it apart. Shimazu had moved in with his Firestarterto help clear the enemy from Yesugi's 'Mech, but a half-dozen of the armored fleas gnawed at it despite repeated baths in ion-flame.

Beyond the hill, the Fourteenth Legion of Vega lay in tatters. As Shin had guessed, the petrochem refinery had, indeed, been put to the torch. Flaming rivers of thick, blue-black liquid gushed from the ruptured sides of storage tanks. The First Battalion had obviously created the rivers in desperation because they knew no 'Mech could wade through a flood of fire without overheating. Their fiery moat should have warded their flank and directed the attack to an area more easily defended, but the trail of mechanical carcasses told a different story.

Somehow the raiders managed to get through the flames to hit the undefended flank!Shin stared at the raider 'Mechs but couldn't identify them. He glanced at his auxiliary monitor and met the disturbing sight of the computer flipping back and forth between several different 'Mech designs in its effort to correctly label the raiders. Looking up again at the horrible tableau, Shin saw one of the raiders emerge from the flames, rivulets of burning oil running off its legs.

The raiders, about two dozen 'Mechs, pressed forward. They chased the remnants of First Battalion back into the ranks of Second Battalion, then engaged the Kurita reinforcements at the extremes of long range. Seeing two 'Mechs go down in the initial barrage, Shin had the sickening feeling that one of them was Hohiro Kurita's Grand Dragon.         '

Once more, the armored figure hauled itself up over his viewplate like a malevolent ghost and resumed working on the glass. Again, Shin punched down on the pedals to boost himself even higher, hoping to shake the man. An explosion at his 'Mech's back accompanied a flashed warning on his status monitor. Something had blown out the left jump jet, letting the right jet send the 'Mech into a lazy pirouette.

Dammit! There must be another one of them working on the jets!Shin gasped involuntarily as the figure on his view plate began to pound his head against the glass with renewed intensity. Two hundred fifty meters up and falling fast! If the drop doesn't kill me, he will!