Chapter Thirty-Two: For the Glory
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 4th, 3007
"Marksman!" I called out over the assembled battalion. "I know that all of you have been working hard. And I thank you for it. We turned a hill and some dirt into a fortress to be proud of." I stopped talking to take in their reactions. "We are almost certain to be hit by at least one regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry if not more. They may outmass us, but we're gonna tear them to shreds." I paused and gave a massive grin. "How do you eat a Big Mac?" I asked.
"One bite at a time!" The entire Battalion responded. That having been said repeatedly over the last month.
"We're gonna eliminate the aura of superiority the Big Mac has for the rest of eternity." I said. "Volunteers, board your dropships." I told the ones who had volunteered for the crazy mission that Sheppard and I had put together over the past month. "Battalion!" I called, and the entire Battalion came to parade rest. "Attention, Present Arms!" The entire Battalion turned and saluted as they boarded the Fusiliers unions.
After the Unions launched, the battalion dispersed back to their work sites. We still had a lot of prep to do.
April 13th, 3007
Empty space rippled as a trio of Invaders appeared at the jump point of the Tybalt system. After a second of orientation, nine Dropships detached and started burning for the lone habitable planet that the system was named after. Two Overlord dropships lead a pack of seven Union's, meaning that if they made landfall, that the Marksman were going to have to deal with a hundred and fifty six 'mechs at the minimum. But, Captain Sheppard and Colonel Hull schemed for weeks, coming up with a plan, a plan that was about to be executed.
"This is Captain Xang of the Lothar's Fusiliers, we have been reduced to a company of 'mechs and are retreating back to Capellan space." One of the trio of unions in Fusilier's colors and IFF codes said as they neared the group of Dropships beginning the nine day burn for the planet. "Permission to use your Jumpships to regroup with the rest of our regiment?"
"This is Colonel Lear of the 2nd McCarron's Armored Cavalry, you may not use our dropships. Instead, you may burn towards Tybalt with us as we reclaim this planet." The CO of the regiment said. His fleet of dropships slowed down so as to allow the trio of Unions to get in formation.
"Moving into formation Colonel, we're eager for some payback on these Marksman Bastards." The captain responded as they moved into the position indicated. "Thanks for the opportunity."
After remaining in position for couple of days, all hell broke loose. The trio of Unions that the Marksman had commandeered started laying into the dropships nearest them, targeting their drives, and laying into every single dropship that was in range. One of the unions, the one closest to the two Overlords, crippled the drive on said dropship and managed to wound a union before slowing down due to enemy fire and dropping out of the fight, spewing oxygen and fuel.
The second one, managed to ram itself into the Union next to it, sending the two of them careening into a third and spinning off uncontrollably into the abyss. The third just assisted the other two before being damaged enough to cause it to drop, powering down and simulating complete reactor failure.
All in all, the Big Mac lost an Overlord, and two Union dropships, with damage spread throughout the rest of the dropship fleet. After slowing down to make sure there weren't any other surprises, and picking up survivors from the lifeboats, the Big Mac's second regiment continued on towards Tybalt. They had been punched in the face, and now they wanted payback.
April 21st, 3007
"How much are we going to lose?" Major Marcus Barton, the now acting CO of the second regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry asked. "Sir, we're going to be able to get your people on the ground, but I don't expect to be able to lift off again." The tech sighed, "They just caused too much damage, and we don't have the spare parts with us to fix it unless we are able to get help from the rest of the Confederation."
"Well, get us on the ground first, we'll do the rest," Barton said, seething with rage. "We got sucker punched but we'll win this fight in the end."
The group of dropships made landfall uncontested, some of them landing to never be able to take off again. The spaceport was empty, and so was the entire area, as the second moved off of their dropships and formed into their lances, they noticed burn marks and holes towards the factory district of the city.
"Second Battalion, I want you to head over to the factory district and check it out, it looks like a fight took place there recently." Major Barton ordered the Battalion that had suffered the least amount of losses. "Copy that sir, moving to investigate." The CO of the battalion responded and his 'mech companies started to move over in that direction.
"First Battalion…" Barton started to say and then stopped himself. First Battalion was gone, only a few of them had made it out on the lifeboats when the Overlord lost atmospheric pressure. "Third Battalion, I saw what looked like an armored outpost on the pictures we took on our way in, us, Fourth Battalion, and what is left of Fifth will head in that direction.
I hated having to play dead. We had arrayed our 'mechs in ways and created scorch marks and false armor damage so as to look like a major fight had happened in the factory district. And we also had a couple of Archers at other points in the city sighted in on the entrance so that the enemy couldn't escape once we engaged. I was leading this ambush in my Warhammer, while Sheppard was back in his Marauder at the mock Brian Outpost we had built.
I had all of the Enforcers, the Quickdraw, our Black Knight, and the rest of the heavy mechs that we had taken off of the Fusiliers hands involved in this ambush. We had an overstrength company of 'mechs here and a jammer that we had set up to prevent their comms from getting out. Hidden on the rooftops were Captain Paige's company of Infantry, ready to leap onto cockpits and take out whatever they needed to.
Watching as a BattleMaster and Cyclops made their way into the factory district, I felt my armpits start to sweat. We would need every scrap of luck that we had ever had in order to survive this. As soon as the last 'mech crossed into the perimeter we had set, Captain Paige flipped the ECM suite we had hidden in one of the industrial buildings on and we powered our reactors up. As soon as I had power to my weapons systems, I brought both of my PPC's to bear on the Battlemaster in front of me, striking his left shoulder at the same time both of the Enforcers hit him with their AC/10s. I used the advanced computer in my Royal Warhammer to coordinate with our mechs and had Captain Paige and her troops start to jump onto what mechs they could.
I leaned out of the way as an AC/10 from the Cyclops thundered towards me. Snap firing a PPC at his leg before turning and hammering the Battlemaster I was dueling with a brace of lasers and SRM's. Armor melted off of the Battlemaster as I kept up a flurry of weapons, not caring if people could tell that I was running cooler than a Warhammer should. Ducking under a set of SRM's, I let the Enforcers continue to take on the now wounded Battlemaster before moving towards the Cyclops that was trying to shred the Quickdraw in our unit. Not caring that my Mech didn't have hands, I slid into the Cyclops, sweeping the legs out from underneath them while they were trying to target one of my people. Leaning over the now downed 'mech, I stepped on the cockpit and moved on. I didn't have time for grandiose gestures, mine and my peoples lives were on the line.
While I was taking the point on the mech forces, Paige and her Mithril clad infantry had dropped onto a good ten or so mechs. Some of her people had satchel charges that they stuck to the cockpit before using their jump jets to get away before the explosion, and some of her people just pried open the cockpit door and threw grenades in. The Colonel wasn't picky as long as the enemy died.
Along with the mechs that her infantry were dealing with personally, some of her combat engineers had buried long metal tubes in the ground and placed explosives on the bottom of the tubes. They had then filled the tubes with debris, and all sorts of vicious things that would cause damage to a mech. The Black Knight of the group had lured a lance of lighter mechs into position over said tubes before her engineers blew them. Watching the legs get completely blown off of a lance of 'mechs was a glorious thing but their job wasn't done yet.
One of the enemy Battalion had been trying to nail down the building that the ECM was coming from and when he had figured it out, he crashed his Banshee into it repeatedly, trying to bring down the building and to get the assistance that his Battalion would need in order to survive. Unfortunately for the Second Battalion of McCarron's armored cavalry, they couldn't get the help they needed. And because their comms were jammed, they weren't even able to surrender…
Sheppard sat in his Marauder, enjoying the coolness of his new pilot's suit of Mithril. He got to be in charge of the Outpost, and he knew that he was going to have to hold out against a much larger force. Fortunately, Captain Rose had dug in and gotten the artillery sighted in on the few places that any enemy could approach from. Using the Daedelus and Jabberwocky industrialmechs, they had been able to create artificial choke points, and because of the Partisan Directed fixed gun emplacements, no one could attack via the air. And on top of that, there were quite a few traps set for the Big Mac as they tried to advance on the Marksman's new homemade Brian Outpost.
Major Barton was pissed, first they had lost all contact with Second Battalion, then, he had lost a lance of Heavy mechs to a makeshift minefield and a flurry of LRM fire that no one knew where it came from. This slowed his regiment down and gave the enemy time to prepare.
"Anyone got an estimate on how far out the outpost is?" Barton asked his recon lance.
"Yes sir, we'll reach the clearing in two clicks." The lance of Bugmechs being lead by a Firestarter replied.
Barton kicked his Atlas up to its top speed of 54 km/h. "Big Mac!" he called on the radio, "Let's make these bastards pay."
"Fuck!" Sheppard exclaimed to himself as the full array of the enemy showed itself around the outpost. "That is a lot of metal." He muttered.
The Big Mac forces charged, seeing as the fixed defenses were being focused against air assets in particular. Sheppard and his lighter mech forces opened fire at their maximum range. Sheppard alternated his PPC's at targets of opportunity while the Toro's and Griffins focused fire on one mech at a time. Unfortunately, there was just too much of a mass differential, and the assault lances crashed into and through the gates that they had set up. The arty had softened some of them up, and the armored battalion had helped, but there were just too many big mechs.
Sheppard slagged the cockpit of a Quickdraw, and then turned to see an Atlas kick the rest of the gate down and break one of his Toro's with its AC/20. It followed that up by wrecking the PPC of a Griffin with its Medium Lasers and SRM's. Sheppard backed his Marauder up, firing his AC/5 and medium lasers as fast as they could cycle. But then the Atlas turned it's attention to Sheppard's Marauder, seeing as it was the biggest mech it could find in the area. It wrecked his left hand PPC and Laser with its AC/20 and stripped armor away from his torso and legs with its medium lasers. Sheppard backed away, trying to generate range for his remaining PPC but it wasn't enough. One more AC/20 tore its way through his Gyro and he blacked out as his mech struck the ground