"Fine, Erich. Not like I can make you get out of that deathtrap,and if Walt's as close as you say, maybe he'll be able to screen us. I'm still worried about the Orion, though - it outweighs Kismet, and if OpFor are talking to each other, they'll have been keeping count and know my big guns are pretty much just for show at this point. Plus the tanks it's bringing with it, Puma didn't specify models. Just going to have to hope for the-"<br/><br/>Behind them, the hamstrung Atlas had lagged behind, but its compatriots were still keeping pace with the fleeing pair, and they sported gauss rifles of their own. LRMs rained down around the two, mostly diverted or distracted by the venerable Guardian jammer field, but the twin hyper-accelerated projectiles were less susceptible to spoofing. The first whipped over Alroy's head, scorching the paint over his cockpit with the heat of its passage. The second struck true, smashing dead-on through the fragile armor of his rear left torso and puncturing the ammo compartment. The King Crab was already running hot as Alroy pushed its throttle to maximum, and the metal slug's impact was too much. Alarms shrieked as an ammo explosion was detected, but the venerable old Mech had been built for situations like this. Its CASE system kicked in faster than human reflexes would have authorized an emergency dump, and a torrent of flame and smoking autocannon shells showered out behind it. Isaac Newton being the vicious bastard that he was, this sent the shattered-but-intact torso block, and the rest of the 'Mech attached to it, hurtling forward in combination with its existing forward momentum. The entire chassis catapulted forward like a soccer goalie diving to block a shot, crashing headlong into and through the retaining wall around the compound to land flat on its face.