DMHK15

=Chapter 15=
==Dead Man's Hand: The Kowloon Job==
Militia Proving Grounds
Malibu
Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
14th April, 3054
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"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" Joker swore under her breath as new alarms sounds, warning of an armor breach on her left arm, leaving it dangerously exposed.
She'd thought she'd had her opponent cold, but he'd reacted far faster than she'd anticipated, fighting back with unexpected ferocity. She'd used every trick she had, and was only just keeping ahead of him as missiles and particle beams exploded around her like fireworks. It was clear that he wasn't trying to kill her, but she had no intention of being anyone's slave, no matter how they worded it.
No, she'd avoided that kind of life back when she'd knifed the first pimp who'd tried to get her to turn tricks for him, and she'd sworn over his still twitching body that nobody would ever treat her like a commodity ever again.
But that didn't mean that she intended to go quietly. She'd accepted the mission, and honor demanded that she do everything she could, within the agreed upon limitations, to see it through. There was still the possibility of saving two people from the Clans, a chance to return them to the life they'd once known, and Joker couldn't help be imagine that that was exactly what Sister Lucy would have wanted.
Like she often said, You can take the girl away from the nuns, but you'll never take the nuns away from the girl.
She urged her Loki forward, even as a constant stream of cluster munitions chewed through her rear armor and a blast of ionized particles almost severed her left arm, cutting the power feed to the ER-PPC housed there. She duck around the next corner, uncovering a flicking the switch to purge her remaining SRM ammo as she went. CASE panels in her lower right back snapped open, and unused missiles rained down behind her.
All but skidding to a halt, Joke turned her Loki side-on, her right arm out just as Nathan Roshak rounded the corner behind her, and fired.
The blast from her remaining ER-PPC missed the Thor... but that hadn't been what she'd been aiming at.
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Henry cursed under his breath as the Archer loomed over him, and he fired all his lasers in desperation.
Five worked, burning fresh scars in the heavier Mechs armor, four failed, the safeties cutting in. But the last three, all in his right arm, attempted to fire, but instead exploded. The arm shattered, starting as electrical fire that threatened to engulf his entire Mech before the emergency system cut in, filling one torso with fire suppressing foam. Unfortunately, this was only partly successful, and warning lights announced a loss of power to the leg, then the computer began an emergency shutdown of the reactor. Henry struggled to override it, even as return fire from the Archer tore fresh rents in his armor, foam pouring out as if his Nova was a living being, bleeding to death.
<<<"Reactor breach imminent.">>> the computer announced even as the controls started to lose power around him, <<<"Override, disabled. Emergency shut down initiated.">>>
The Nova went limp, leaving Henry with just the dull glow of the emergency lights. The Archer, no doubt picking up his complete loss of power, stopped its attack and stood over him. One massive battle fist came up and wagged its finger.
For Henry, the battle was over.
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The ground under Nathan Roshak's feet erupted in a seemingly unending string of explosions as the discarded SRM's detonated one after the other. His Mech bucked and twisted, the right leg snapping off at the knee, sending him crashing to the ground even as his reactor went into emergency shut-down. He hit the ground with sufficient force to render him at least temporarily senseless. When reality returned, he found himself looking up into the barrel of an ER-PPC, the metal glowing a dull cherry red from where it had been fired so many time.
"It would be a shame to have to kill you now." Joker's voice called out from the PA built into her Mech, "Yield."
"I yield." Nathan Roshak responded, knowing that there was no way that his opponent could her him, so he blew the emergency canopy release on his cockpit, for centuries a universally accepted indication of submission.
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