Jasmine looked down to the basement floor as she jetted her way into the lower levels of the
library. Though unskilled with battle armor suits, she made the flight relatively well. As she
landed on the concrete pavement, she realized how badly her ankle had been injured. If it hadn't
been for her Longinus armor's reinforced leg structure, she would have collapsed due to the
sudden rush of pain she was experiencing. She was not well accustomed to physical pain.
Though she had practiced martial arts all her life, it had been years since she'd been seriously
injured in a fight. She had now lost enough blood that she was starting to feel light-headed. She
could see white spots beginning to fill her vision as she tried to concentrate on her escape.
Though all had gone wrong so far, there was a limited backup plan. This plan had been intended
to ward off a large group of infantry assailants, but it would now have to be used to escape the
single powerful enemy that plagued the Strikers soldiers.
Jasmine shuddered at the thought of the 30 ton Spider Mech that her teammates were now
fighting just meters above her. She found it hard to accept that they were attempting to injure the
monstrous machine with only the small armored suits they now wore. She tried to put that
situation out of her head and move on to the initiation of her backup escape plan.
Manually switching on an emergency transmitter, Jasmine pushed the failsafe button inside the
palm of her armored hand. She had triggered an emergency beacon that would alert yet another
group of Strikers soldiers of her situation. Chances were, those members of the team had
already detected the Mech attack and were already on their way. However Jasmine had to
ensure that they were alerted before she moved any closer to the rendezvous point. The only
enemy immediately in her way was the unknown assassin agent who had killed John Rohrman.
Jasmine did not know where this man was, but she was sure he hadn't given up yet.
Slowly turning to her right, Jasmine flipped her battle armor's sensors to infrared. Jasmine
wanted to detect any sort of heat signatures that might be, or might be hiding, the elusive enemy
agent. She was now trapped in a small hallway in a large armored suit. Not only would the suit
be extremely awkward to walk in with her current injury, but it might also prove fatally clumsy if
the assassin did indeed choose to attack her at close range. She guessed he wouldn't attack with
any projectile or explosive ranged weapons. Such an attack might destroy the very data that the
man was seeking.
Suddenly Jasmine realized that she had not prepared her suit for combat. She reloaded the
heavy machine gun that was housed on the end of her battle armor's right arm. She manually
switched the computer-guided aim off. Any stray or crazy shots would probably help her more
than hurt her against this sneaky enemy. Besides she wasn't able to take advantage of the careful
aim that this option provided her with. She could barely stand, let alone fire an automatic,
rapid-firing assault gun. She hoped a wild barrage of bullets would be more likely to hit him.
Jasmine also took a moment to activate the light machine gun that was slung under her armored
left arm. This weapon, while much less powerful, could easily kill most unarmored enemies.
Only the heaviest body armors could protect against its shells, and even these armors would
eventually fail under a short burst of fire.
Checking her sensors, Jasmine continuously blinked as she limped her way towards the far side
of the hallway. She could see a short distance behind her thanks to the sensor options, but the
infrared had limited use in an area with operating machines such as computers and
air-conditioning units. She would move slowly and carefully until she reached the far wall. From
there she could cover herself easily and wait for her backup to break into the library and rescue
her.
Ryan Harrison was having a terrible day. Not only had his primary mission objective failed, but
he had also lost two of his teammates. He was now facing a 30 ton Mech that specialized in
destroying infantry like himself. He could not imagine how his situation could get any worse.
After catching the Spider BattleMech's attention with a burst of bullets, Ryan had become the 30
ton machine's biggest concern. He was now being forced to dodge his enemy's laser attacks,
which came both quickly and unexpectedly. Because of the nature of his mission, his Longinus
battle armor was not even carrying weapons that could seriously damage his enemy.
Tromping to the northern edge of the third floor's main room, Ryan fired another burst of shells at
his enemy, this time hitting the behemoth squarely in the chest. Though a great hit in most
circumstances, this was hardly the time for shooting the enemy where it was its strongest. Ryan's
only hope was in critically hitting the Mech to damage one of its vital internal parts.
Suddenly the Spider fired out at Ryan. The first laser hit wide, scorching and even subliming a
set of bookshelves and computer ports to Ryan's right. The next shot hit a glancing blow on
Ryan's Longinus armor. The laser failed to penetrate the armor, but quickly melted a large
portion of the back-mounted jetpack that Ryan was using for this mission. Feeling the rush of
heat along his face, Ryan cursed aloud as his shoulder turned fiery hot. The conductive
temperature change brought on by such powerful lasers was legendary among infantry units. Its
scolding burn was infamously known for both cutting through armored appendages and cooking
men inside their armored suits. Ryan was gritting his teeth and hoping for neither as he triggered
his jumpjet pack.
As he had feared, the pack had been seriously damaged by the Spider's assault. Nothing
happened when he attempted to jet away to a safer location along the library's north wall. While
manually resetting the controls, Ryan checked the jetpack's maneuvering compensators. Though
one was offline, he would be able to use the remaining to manually fly his armor if needed. This
would be neither convenient nor safe, but anything would be better than being cut in half by
another one of the Spider's medium lasers. Deciding on his new course of action, Ryan was
surprised to see a small laser hit the cockpit of the head of the Spider. He realized that his
surviving teammate had carefully set up a sniper-shot in an attempt to deal the Mech a fatal blow.
Ryan was not alone, and he would soon be able to line up a similar sniper-shot if the Mech's
pilot decided to attack the Purifier armor that had just dealt it such a deadly blow.
Grinning inside his Purifier armor. Steve realized how much damage he had just done to his 30
ton enemy. He knew that such a shot would not go unpunished, and that the Spider's pilot
would devote everything to killing the attacker who had almost completely destroyed the
machine's cockpit. However, Steve also realized that his shot had nearly ended the entire battle.
If only he could land a similar shot before being killed, he would not only save himself and
avenge his fallen teammate, he would also win this fight for his whole team.
Steve had immediately begun taking evasive actions after completing his carefully aimed shot.
He had not anticipated the Spider to react as it was now. The machine quickly pivoted on its
right heel, bringing the left side of its body into the library and destroying a large portion of the
building. As the entire structure shuddered under the impact, Steve fell to his feet. He was
temporarily, totally defenseless. He had to recover his footing quickly if he wanted to survive this
encounter.
After having received the emergency beacon signal, Sergei Dive cold-started his fusion reactor
and immediately began moving his small Maultier armored-hovercraft towards his mission's pick
up point, a public library. Arming the 15 ton vehicle's only weapons system, Sergei readied a
small barrage of short ranged missiles. The Maultier's missiles carried a specialized payload.
Rather than packing explosives or fiery fuel, Sergei's machine sported costly electro-magnetic
pulse devices that were only recently designed to fit on short ranged warheads. These EMP
missiles were capable of rendering small electronic devices completely useless, or distorting the
functions of a larger electrical system such as a BattleMech targeting computer. Sergei wasn't
sure what kind of enemies he would be facing today, but he wanted to be ready with everything
he had right from the get go. He realized that he would be facing a small Mech as he neared the
library's west side. He unlocked the main exit door of the Maultier personnel carrier just as the
hovercraft neared the southern wall of the building.
