Compared to other 'Mechs, however, it was poorly armed. The sleek, long barrel of a single laser jutted from beneath the Locust'scockpit section, and two tiny arms extending from the belly bore a pair of heavy machine guns. The Locusthad sacrificed weapons for the twin battlefield advantages of speed and armor. Though shorter and more compact, the Locustcarried thicker armor than a Wasp,and was far more difficult to hit.

The Locust'sbody shifted slightly, whipped the long tube of its laser about to bear on Grayson's vehicle. The driver swerved again as brilliant light arced across the street, vaporizing sunshield supports and pulling the ferrocrete eaves to the ground with a splintering roar.

The third PPC vehicle emerged from the pall of smoke of the burning wreckage and fired. White fire washed across the Locust,which staggered back on its haunches. Struggling for balance, it took several unsteady steps backward, then straightened, swung about, and fired again. The shot cratered the avenue as the PPC carrier cut wildly to one side.

Grayson's carrier screeched to a halt 40 meters from the creature's right foot. One of the 'Mech's machine guns dropped clear of the bulk of the upper hip and stuttered death. Large-caliber rounds stitched through the carrier's side and smashed at the building behind. Two of the carrier's riders screamed and flailed backwards, as the other troops jumped from the welldeck and scattered along the street. Grayson stayed where he was, concentrating on the targeting lock of his PPC's simple-minded-computer. When the crosshairs merged and flashed red, he pressed the firing stud. Metal chips rained from the 'Mech's body where the armor had been pierced just aft of the cockpit

The Locustspun and ran then, trailing a faint smudge of black smoke from its body. The Sarghadese troops jeered and cheered and followed, their popgun weapons snapping at the giant's heels.

Grayson signalled to the second vehicle's driver. "Keep on him! Make him fight!" Then he tapped his own driver's shoulder and pointed to a side street

The driver grinned and nodded, understanding. The weapons carrier careened off the main street, raced down the cross street to the next major spoke avenue, then turned north once more. Several more blocks and Grayson signalled the driver to turn back to the first avenue. They emerged two blocks north of the Locust,which had stopped again to duel with its pursuer. The PPC had scored another hit, and the Locustwas staggering in a losing battle to control its gyros. Grayson fired again from a range of 120 meters. The hit smashed into the 'Mech's rear, scattering fragments of antenna and armor casing.

It must be getting hellishly hot in there by now, he thought to himself. The single greatest combat problem BattleMechs of any size faced was excess heat. Their tiny fusion reactors, the dozens of actuators in legs and arms, the electronic circuits that triggered weapons and controlled the polyacetene fiber bundles of its artificial musculature all released great quantities of heat. Circulating air-vent blowers called heat sinks struggled to rid the machine of excess heat under normal, routine operation. During combat, as the 'Mech ran, and fired its weapons, as it took hits from direct, high-energy beams or lost heat sinks to battle damage, the internal heat even within the shielded cokpit became ferocious. Many 'Mechs had been defeated and captured when their pilots passed out from heat exhaustion.

Grayson took a quick look to the north for the original object of their chase, but the Wasphad vanished, allowing the lighter-armored Locustto delay the hunters. Fine. He tapped the driver's shoulder, and the vehicle's tires kicked up a spray of rubble as it darted forward for the kill.

Machine-gun fire spat from the 'Mech's tiny arms as it tried to track both vehicles, on opposite sides, at once. The Locustwas no longer firing its laser. A sure sign, Grayson thought, that the 'Mech was overheating. If they could keep pressing the armored machine, they might force the 'Mech's internal systems into auto-shutdown.

He fired, trying for a crippling leg shot, and missed. The Locustwas still fast and had backstepped into the mouth of an alley. The two PPC carriers met at the alley's mouth.

The alley was a broad-mouthed cul-de-sac. The Locusthad backed to the end of the alley and crouched there now, awaiting death. A chatter of machine gun fire sent the two vehicles wheeling back out of the line of fire and left two soldiers, who had ventured too close to the alley mouth sprawled in the street, dead.

Grayson dismounted from the carrier, moved up to the alley mouth, and cautiously studied the situation. The 'Mech could not call for help because the long, whip antennae mounted on the rear of the body had been sheared off. He could detect the shimmer of superheated air at heat sinks all over the machine's legs and body. Backed into that close alley, the air around the machine would become too hot to efficiently cool the 'Mech within seconds.

"We can take 'em," a voice growled at Grayson's side. He turned and looked into the dark eyes and sharp-lined features of a Militia sergeant. "We can back one of the carriers across the street. Range'll be too great for those MGs to do much while we lock a fix and give it another blast with the PPC. It can't lake too much more of this, I'm thinking."

"I think the pilot knows that, Sergeant. He might chance another laser shot or two ... and it'll only take one shot to take out a carrier."

"Snipe at him with infernos, then. He's a damned stationary target back in that hole!"

"You have an inferno launcher?"

"Sure. Shoulder-fired job. Back in the carrier."

"Get it"

"Yessir." Again, that unquestioning assumption that he was in command. Grayson smiled to himself. If they only knew ...

The sergeant returned with a twin-tube inferno launcher. Inferno launchers were one of the few personal weapons that infantry could use effectively against 'Mechs. The problem was that the infantry had to be terrifyingly close to their targets to use the things, and the chances for survival were poor enough that only heroes and fools would chance them. The launcher was a meter-long tube with rests and grips that allowed it to be fired over the shoulder. Two rotating, over-under cylinders held the inferno rockets, which allowed two missiles to be fired within a space of a second or two.

The missiles themselves were small and unpleasantly short-ranged, but they combined features of shoulder-launched missiles, shotguns, and chemical flamethrowers. The missiles were designed to explode with a few meters of the launcher's barrel, spraying and igniting a liquid-bonded white phosphorous compound onto the target The binding agent jelled in heat, clinging to whatever it struck with nightmarish persistence. Larger inferno missiles could be fired from standard missile launcher packs, or the warheads alone could be used with radar-triggered detonators in artillery shells. Because of their flammability, infernos were almost never carried by 'Mechs. They were, however, a perfect anti-'Mech weapon for infantry. At least, for infantry that didn't mind closing to almost point-blank range with one of the metal monsters.

Grayson checked the weapons loads, shouldered the weapon, and signaled to a soldier crouched at the far side of the alley's mouth. The soldier leaned around the corner of the building and opened fire with his assault rifle. Those low-caliber rounds could not harm a 'Mech's armor, but the fire drew a flurry of machine-gun fire from the cul-de-sac, splattering the corner of the building with brilliant white stars where the heavy rounds gouged chunks from the bricks.