[color=76D0FF]”And if my gods didn’t want your kneecaps dusted, they wouldn’t have allowed your gods to give you any.”[/color] Marit gave a curt reply to the lunatic raving on the open channel. A land train with a nuke on board. So much for no surprises at the end of the mission. They were just lucky the Heavenly Swords had paced themselves instead of going all at the same time. Where did they even get that? Some CCAF stockpile? Why would they keep nukes here of all places? Uranium from an old fission reactor somewhere? Or was it powder from some radiation therapy source like that one city eons ago on Terra - a salted bomb? Couldn’t be, that wouldn’t harm the dam. Either way, she had a feeling the ‘interrogation’ of any survivors would include a pipe wrench and a drill. And kneecaps.

[color=76D0FF]”Let’s not all end up like the Blackwatch.”[/color] Marit muttered as she took stock of remaining munitions. All lasers working, 165 missiles left. Four volleys of 35 and then 15 plus 10. [color=76D0FF]”Lance lead, Giggles, I’ll get a head start while you finish the leftovers here, though I’m almost winchester LRMs.”[/color] She advised and started moving downstream, feeling Archie leaning side to side once every few steps as he compensated for his feet slipping on the muddy riverbed. Reaching a strip of the river where the Heavenly Sword presence was light on the other side, Marit made a ninety degree turn and headed across the river. She was gonna kick the damn thing if she had to. All light from the outside disappeared as Archie’s low-slung cockpit plunged into the murky depths, leaving nothing but the glow of instruments and the HUD in her neurohelmet illuminating the cockpit. She knew the ‘Mech was sealed and could operate in a vacuum, but diving like that still felt weird, especially since the Sons secured her first BattleMech when it fell into a lake after a hit breached its cockpit and its original pilot drowned. Navigating solely by compass, she felt upward acceleration after a few seconds as Archie started climbing the right bank. Feeling the feet start slipping even more, she pulled back on the throttle to reduce the shearing force exerted on the riverbed, the cockpit eventually breaching the water on the other bank, Archie coming out with a full laser salvo directed at a few nearby trucks while the leg heat sinks were still submerged.

Still moving through the river in order to be able to use all four of Archie’s lasers with impunity, she made a brief stop to take more careful aim at a dune buggy that somehow got past Raven. For a moment, Marit thought she felt the ‘Mech sink. But when she didn’t notice the movement again, she chalked it up to Archie automatically leaning into the current and let it be. The front half of the buggy disappeared after the laser hit, but when she moved the throttle to get going again, instead of moving, an alarm bell notified her of unusual stress on the myomer bundles in both legs and automation pulled back on the throttle. She tried advancing it slowly, but it didn't help. Neither did trying to reverse, turn the legs, leaning to any side or any combination of the above. Archie’s fruitless dance lasted a few seconds, accompanied by a series of quiet, yet increasingly frustrated [color=76D0FF]”Oh…”[/color]s as Marit realized what she’d just done. [color=76D0FF]”Uhh, problem. Someone’s going to have to be my eyes for indirect fire, I can’t move.”[/color] She let the lance know of her blunder and went back to picking off anyone she could reach just by twisting Archie’s torso.