Ingrid could've kept going.  She could've pushed her 'mech to the limit, thrown caution to the wind and...most likely would have burnt up to a 
walking cinder.  This machine wasn't made to go hot.  The heat sinks had been in operation longer than some nation states in the Sphere, and 
firing past the safe limit was a great way to make them fail.  She could have fired [i]as if she had twice the amount of available medium lasers[/i] but did not.  The opened cavity of the [i]Hunchback[/i] was an opportunity, one that Ingrid was glad to have refused: one burst of missiles hit the wound and, in less than a second, the machine in front of her burst into a brilliant fireball.  Ammo explosions can be scary to sit next to, but with a gun [i]that[/i] big?  It was practically a bomb in and of itself.

Not that the Duchess minded.  She smiled, leaned forward in her seat and immediately called out on the comms, [color=SteelBlue]"Yes, like that, Alleycat!  Right through!"[/color]  Unbecoming of a knightly one like her, but everything about this engagement was.  She continued stepping back carefully, and for her trouble got the worst of it.

There were flashes from the [i]Crusader's[/i] lasers, but none as bright as the brief flash that consumed her vision.  Ingrid's [i]Ostroc[/i] stopped dead for a moment, mid-backpedal, as its pilot lost consciousness for a second - she came to quickly, awakened by the sound of something jingling in her cockpit.

She looked down.  A single bit of spalled brass sitting between her legs that would've burnt her skin if she tried to grab at it.  She looked up.  There was a narrow crack in the bulletproof glass, with a menacing hole in it now.  She pat at her head...her neurohelmet had a very pronounced dent in it.  By god, she had heard about how tough these damn things are, but this was the first time in her career that it had been put to the test.  The windscreen had done most of the ablation, sure, but this ancient and bulky thing [i]blocked an .50 BMG round from entering into her skull![/i]  Ingrid, after her wits would be collected, resolved to never, [i]ever[/i] let this helmet get cycled out for a new one.  No matter how streamlined these things got.

Drawing back from that moment of miraculous luck, and trying to ignore the oncoming splitting headache from her brain rattling around in her cranium, [i]Susser Tod[/i] was ready to tell her to not test it anymore.  Sirens wailed about increasing heat, her engine plainly wasn't working at full capacity, and her machine was going to fall apart if she did anything besides leave.  Ingrid's voice came over comms once more, calling [color=SteelBlue]"Pulling back!  Don't let them get to close to the tankers or retreat; box them in on the bridge!"[/color]  Of course, given how she was going so slowly, she wouldn't be leaving the bridge yet...