“Are you kidding me? I love this thing. It’s my new baby!”

“With tissue paper armour? Come on.”

“Hey, with you spotting for me, they’ll never get that close, right?”

He ended with a laugh. She was always so involved, so concerned. Despite her doubts, he was sold on this thing. Fifty tons, 86 km/h, dual LRM-15’s with three medium lasers in reserve meant enemies had a lot to go through to even get to him. And hey, with a scout like her he’d light up any ’Mech making a run for him anyway.

She was off and running her Cicada ahead, when suddenly a red triangle popped onto his HUD.

“Hunchback spotted. 4P. Eight hundred metres and closing.”

“I see him.”

Shifting his Trebuchet into position, he turned the torso to face the opponent, but his legs to the side for a quick getaway. Better safe than sorry.

“Looks like he’s on his own, light him up.”

“Roger”

Clicking ‘fire’ as he spoke, 30 LRM’s whooshed out, streaking in a long arc towards the Hunchback. He ‘felt,’ rather than heard, the impacts. His readout on the Hunchback showed damage primarily to the left torso; clinkclinkclink of missiles reloaded, he fired again. And again the whoosh of rockets, and again the clinkclinkclink of reloads. Other red triangles popped up off to the far right, first two, then three.

“Incoming Missiles; get out of there!”

“On it!”

He slams his throttle forward. Dodging into cover spotted previous, and slaps his power down. As his ’Mech hums itself to sleep, he listens to the dull ‘thud’ of exploding missiles above. Again slapping the power button, revving back up, and quickly moved into the open.

“Firing!”

He shouts as another 30 LRM’s arc out of his Trebuchet. They arc up, then slam down onto the Hunchback, it's readout showing a precarious 55%, missing left arm, and severely damaged left and right torsos. The other three Triangles are closing fast - he let's off another volley at the Hunchback as he angles his legs back and to the left, constantly moving backward. Cycling through the enemies, he reads a Catapult C1, Atlas D, and another Hunchback, only this one is a 4SP.

The situation is turning grim.

Then suddenly the first Hunchback disappears off his RADAR.

"Got him; get out of here I said."

He realises she's buying him time to escape. They aren't closing on him, they're closing on her. Running up onto a hill overlooking the battle, he selects the Hunchback, hoping to throw off the pilots aim. He sends off his final LRM volley, then fires all his medium lasers into the its arms, hoping to remove the lasers contained there.

"No thanks, I think I'll stay." he replies.