“Me, too,” Maud said. “I just can’t shoot anymore.”

Ahead of them, the Black Hawk landed hard on its right leg. Maybe there was a rock. Maybe their fire did something. It fell but caught itself by its big left claw, then took off running again. Something must have happened in the landing, though. Benjork’s infrared now showed more heat radiating from the reactor area than armor and cooling should have allowed. “Did you split a seam?” he asked his pursued enemy as he snapped out bursts of thirty-millimeter slugs at the Black Hawk.

The Black and Red twisted as he ran, sending a spray of SRMs that did not come close to any of his pursuers.

Benjork kept the feet of his ’Mech in long strides that ate up the distance. “You’ll have to do better than that,” he said, then suppressed a cringe as a stream of thirty-millimeter shells stitched the ground close ahead of him.

“I’ve got my cannon working,” Maud rejoiced.

“So I noticed,” the MechWarrior answered.

“I’m sorry,” came in a much smaller voice.

“Watch where you point that thing,” Sean said.

“I’m watching, I’m watching,” she said as a stream of shells arced ahead of them, missing to the left of the Black Hawk.

Ben put his engine in the red and focused his attention on the path ahead. He did not concentrate on any one place, but let his eyes guide his pedals without thought. Here he lengthened his stride to miss a rock, then shifted a bit to the right to avoid a patch of sagebrush. The friction of branches on his legs might slow him. A root might trip him. While one part of his mind targeted the Black Hawk for short bursts that chipped away at the rear armor, raising the unexplained heat plume a bit more, another part guided his feet.

The Black Hawk was faster than any ’Mech powered by an internal-combustion engine. No matter how much Mick might fine-tune fuel injectors and timing, fusion engines had the power of the sun at their beck and call. Still, whoever was driving that Black Hawk was little better than a civvy. Benjork trod the pedals that set the pace for his ’Mech as if they were a part of himself. The Black Hawk pulled ahead, but nowhere near as much as it should have.

Again, the Black Hawk took to the air. This time its driver leaned it forward, trying to get as much distance out of the jump as he could. An experienced Mech Warrior never would have made that error. Even without the patter of thirty-millimeter tungsten slugs on his BattleMech, leaning into a jump was a bad idea. The Black Hawk landed, took two running steps to try to catch its balance, then—with its gyros screaming almost loud enough for Benjork to hear—fell flat on its face to spend the rest of its forward momentum in the dirt before it came up hard against one of the rocks that time and erosion had left dotting the plain.

For a moment the Black Hawk just lay there, venting heat from more places than it should have been. Then its driver pried it from the dirt with its huge claws, got its feet underneath it, and began again to run for the distant horizon.

Not averse to kicking a surat while it was down, Benjork squeezed off his last rockets as the Black Hawk struggled to its feet. The fleeing BattleMech ran right into them—and the two Sean had fired, then two more from Maud.

Reeling, it almost missed a step. Catching its balance resulted in a dance complicated by the rock it had hit going down and the shells all three gray ’Mechs sent its way.

As if maddened beyond reason, the Black Hawk fired off a full salvo that hit nothing but sky and dirt. Straightening itself in a hail of tungsten slugs, the BattleMech fired lasers and volley after volley of its missiles at its tormentors.

Benjork zigzagged, trying to throw off the Black Hawk’s targeting computer. He succeeded, but Maud took a full volley before the Black and Red turned to flight again.

Ben slammed his throttle forward, and his ’Mech began to eat up the dry ground with long strides. His Gatling gun renewed its staccato, sending chips of armor flying from the Black and Red’s back. Sean followed, Gatling blazing. Even Maud stumbled forward, though at half-speed, her fire doing less damage as the Black Hawk lengthened the distance between them.

Benjork gave chase, footpads moving in long strides, Gatling striking sparks or chips off armor. He watched with grim satisfaction as the strange heat vent on the back of the Black Hawk grew. The fleeing BattleMech twisted as it ran, turning back its left arm with two SRM quads on it. The Lone Cat angled off to the right, forcing a deflection shot. Missiles set sage to burning, but nothing else.

Benjork concentrated on the hot spot. He aimed his Gatling gun, but modified the targeting computer’s aim to match the correction he saw in his heart. Then he fired. A stream of thirty-millimeter tungsten slugs stitched a circle on the back of the Black Hawk. The infrared readout flared in Ben’s cockpit.

Now the Black Hawk’s other arm with its missiles came around. Benjork sideslipped to the left. Eight missiles volleyed into the sand and sage as Ben’s thirty-millimeter slugs again flaked armor off.

Twice more the Black Hawk tried to shoot while running. Twice more it only slowed him down. The process started again, with Benjork again edging outward to complicate the Black and Red’s firing solution. This time the runner did not fire.

Suddenly the Black Hawk came to a hopping stop, twisted in place, and fired off a barrage of SRMs and lasers.

Benjork did not slow down but twisted his course hard right. The shooter tried to compensate, but the missiles only left a stuttering line of explosions behind the MiningMech MOD. All but one, which slashed into Ben’s rock cutter, smashing it.

Again the Black Hawk turned in place to flee. Having centered his fire on the closest gray ’Mech, the fleeing pilot had left Sean free to close—and free to carefully aim his fire.

Now both Sean and Benjork concentrated their fire on the back of the Black Hawk. Again armor flew, only now in larger chunks, and the heat plume shot out white hot for a second.

But only for a second, because the next moment, the Black Hawk disappeared in a flash that made the blue sky seem shadowed.

“What happened?” Maud asked on-channel, hurrying forward.

“H-hellfire escaped and claimed its own,” Sean said. The flaming wreckage spat and smoked—its own little hell—as Benjork slowed to a pace that dropped his engine gauges out of the red. Turning, he began a cooling jog back to the other battle. Sean held back to assist Maud’s limping ’Mech. They were good warriors. Benjork wished them whatever joy they could find during this time of sudden death, glory and grief.

As the wash came into view, it looked like Hicks had the situation well in hand. Ten Black and Red ’Mechs were surrounded by nine gray ones. The militia pilot had even managed to get his limping ’Mech in. Things had turned out better than the veteran had had any right to hope for.

“Sir, am I glad to see you,” Hicks called on-channel. “We have a problem here that’s beyond my pay grade.”

“The situation, Lieutenant?”

“Sir, these civilians have seen a lot of their people killed. Most ran because the Special Police strung up people they loved.”

“And they want revenge, quiaff.”

“In spades, sir. They want the captured Black and Reds hung from the arms of their ’Mechs, sir.”

“They are our prisoners?”

“They surrendered to me, sir.”

Benjork popped his canopy to cheers and awed stares at the damage. A few quick words with the survivors verified that any offer of assistance to the fugitives, or even to have been in a position to possibly help meant quick death. Some joined the flight because they had had enough of Santorini. Most joined because they had no other choice. Of the three AgroMechs at the rock, two were from people recently joined in the flight. Somewhere to the south were two burned-out AgroMechs holding what was left of a father and his oldest son.