[i]Thunderbolt down. Urbanmech crippled...[/i]

Then the PPC bolt from the Panther seared through the air and landed with an audible crackle that scrambled the HUD on his helmet momentarily, disrupting his reaction fire.

"Mattlov, break left," Hart's voice came over the calm. Milliseconds after executing the Captain's orders, the Panther was rocked by a barrage of autocannon and large laser fire, staggering. It took him closer to the Panther, into SRM range. It was a risk to run.

The Panther had firepower and armor, but not speed. The Shadow Hawk, twenty pounds heavier, had superior firepower at any range, an edge in maneuverability...and other advantages.

But that didn't stop a lucky hit from the SRM-4 rack on the smaller rack from digging into his Streak-SRM ammo supply. In the old days, an ammo explosion would cripple a mech, generally fatally, taking an arm off and eating away at the center torso and engines.

The ammo explosion still did damaged, but the armored cells minimized it even as the ammo was ejected with a loud thump, clang and a flare of cooked off missiles. The warning buzzes going off in his ears and the red flashes were entirely unnecessary -- he fucking well knew he had an ammo explosion.

His first priority was to recover from the hits, to stay up. He flared jump jets, adjusted balance, stepped, flared jets again to start the run and kept moving. The mech's balance was lighter with the ammo jettisoned, and he relied on the man-machine interface of the neurohelmet to keep his gait and handle the mech's movement. 

He could see the fire continue as the Captain laid down the barrage, but there was a more important warning -- that Thunderbolt was starting to get up. 

He placed another shot from the AC-5, even while calling it out, "TDR getting up, concentrate fire" on instinct, even as he lined up his ER large laser, trying to land on the weak points of the enemy's armor, trying to breach the internals and finish that beast off...