The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [163]
Moments later the gunship dropped to 200 metres above the war-torn promontory. At that height the craft began to attract some enemy fire but it seemed half-hearted and uncoordinated. A mixture of explosive, frag and EMP missiles were falling among the mechs with greater accuracy now and the infrared view was showing that their numbers were down to less than a score.
Sensing victory, Kuros ordered his officers to prepare for a final push. Ground units moved up to forward positions on the promontory, now plunged into gloom, while the other gunships and flyers circled lower in the unceasing rain. Jump teams landed on the fortification unimpeded and from the balconies opened fire on the last defending mechs. Kuros smiled and ordered his gunship closer to the fortified facility, to hover above it. He could already envisage the moment when he stepped down onto the paved area before the entrance.
Alerts blinked on the enhanced overview – the combat mechs were on the move. In unison they were leaping out from behind armoured shelters and shielding to charge straight towards the rear of the promontory. The troops dug in there opened fire, pouring a stream of energy bolts and HE rounds into the oncoming machines, aided by airborne units and the heavy-weapon crews on the ridge. Almost half of the mechs were brought down or destroyed outright by the time the survivors reached the Brolturan positions … which they either leaped over or swerved around, their metal carapaces gleaming in galloping precision, their taloned limbs pounding the ground, ignoring the troops as they dashed up the rocky slope, heading north.
Kuros watched the frantic retreat with an amused contempt. Either some consensus or collective self-preservation had been triggered or their master had ordered them to flee, confident that the facility fortifications would foil any assault. Later, once the Hegemony had fully tightened its grip on this world, he would have them all hunted down …
More alerts appeared, sidebar sensor displays tracking a spectrum of other variables. They indicated energy spikes at a number of locations inside Giant’s Shoulder, running in a line from the tapered sea-facing point westwards towards the ridge at the rear.
Suddenly more spikes appeared, this time from either flank of the promontory, and he heard a sequence of thunderous cracks. An awful suspicion formed in his mind and he was about to order the gunship to gain height when the sensors picked up another big energy spike from the rear, close to the ridge … and on the holopanel he saw the ground there explode upwards, followed by another explosion and another, immense eruptions of rock and dirt, as if the rocky massif was being hammered from beneath by something trying to escape. The force of the multiple blasts was sending stone debris flying high. Kuros felt the acceleration as the pilot banked the gunship away with the jets opened to full thrust, but it was too late. Massive chunks and splinters of rock rose out of the growing clouds and smashed into the gunship.
Most of the right-side suspensors were crushed immediately. The thrusters shrieked as they chewed themselves into wreckage. The gunship wheeled away, plunging towards the hilly woods and fields below, and the last thing Kuros saw on the holopanel was Giant’s Shoulder collapsing amid billows of dust.
LEGION
From the shadows of a high, sheltered crag on one of the northern ridges, the Legion Knight watched the demolition of Giant’s Shoulder. Via the lenses and sensors of his last few remaining probes and aerial flyers he