Quoted By:
The first quartet of impacts throw rubble and smoke into the air. The Haywire warheads follow up, disappearing into the cloud for seemingly no effect.
That first missile was definitely on-target, striking Marauder One clearly. The others, nope.
You hold your fire, waiting for the smoke of your first impacts to clear, so that a second strike can be guided in.
The first to break clear of the smoke is the one-armed Marauder One, moving at a faster pace in the opposite direction to your position. You launch another set of explosives at their projected location, trying to predict and guide the shots in. It’s less effective, the erratic course corrections of the enemy mech throwing off clean hits, unfortunately, though you can see visible damage on their mech.
As for Swordsman, the drone’s feed failed to acquire them again once the smoke of the first strike settled.
You do not like that. While you send a third volley at Marauder One, your thoughts are racing on why.
It is unlikely that your strike actually put them out of action, and touching off a critical reactor failure or ammunition explosion would have caused a greater secondary explosion. Likewise, their broken form would have been spotted once the smoke cleared.
It’s plausible that they smashed into one of the buildings and are lying in wait for you to chase Marauder One, as that mech tries to get out of range. A bait and ambush, perhaps? Or just trying to waste your time?
Either way, you still have a mobile target to kill, and start moving again, aiming to run down the would-be escapee. Firing on the move sends more of death’s messengers up and away.
“Beta, back! Don’t chase!”
Your pilot’s urgency comes across the link.
You ignore her, naturally.
Well, until the drone picks up Swordsman moving in a straight line towards you, far closer than expected. They’re even cutting directly through buildings in their way, smashing through lighter constructions or dodging around the sturdier hab-blocks. You didn’t see how or when it got out of the smoke cloud undetected. Rewinding that footage, there wasn’t even movement of an object moving through what the drone could see.
The drone loses track of it again, with Swordsman simply vanishing from the sensors, halfway down a street.
Mobile stealth armor? It would make sense on a unit sent to go after targets in the enemy backline. Then again, it’s odd that it would be paired with Marauder one, which seems that it isn’t stealth capable.
You break off your initial path towards the first target. Swordsman appears again, closer, and thus an easier target.
Halfway through an indirect volley at Swordsman, they vanish from the drone again, causing the missiles to simply collapse a building.
Relying on the drone’s feed isn’t working. You push forwards to the next intersection, aiming to find a firing line for direct-fire shots at them.