Operation "Dust Bowl"  part 1

Two weeks after the victorious dev forces had internally named their new
home Devils Domain., the beaten combined forces mobilized their last sector
reserves. "Last Reserves just isnt the right name for it" Captain
BuffoutBoy thought as he stood in the radar center of the Dev barracks and
watched the mighty armada of chk dropships approaching the planet on the
radar screens. The mass detectors indicated that the dropships carried two
mech regiments. Dev had only one regiment on the planet and the enemy
dropships, escorted by a huge fighter shield, would arrive in two days,
thus making it impossible to bring in the badly needed Dev reserves. If
there had been only the DEV soldiers on the planet, BuffoutBoy hadnt been
that concerned. But the enemy dropships threatened the new home of the
families of dev, their children and the young, willing and devoted Dev
recruits.
BuffoutBoy looked out of the window by this thought and saw his old friend
Captain Eldreth dragging the young recruits Blood_Ravin, Marodeur and
Krovostar. He knew that those cadets -once young kids who lost their
families in the clan invasion- would die to defend the only home they had,
the only place that had ever been good to them,-Dev.
"Dont be so damn weak! Are you pussies? Are you little crying girls? What
shall this be? A homo convention of warm brothers? Creep! Damnit, my little
nephew can do better and he is FOUR. What shall I tell the General, heh?
That we train this time our recruits to be Barbie collectors? That my
recruits take only warm showers?" Captain Eldreth raged. And a flood of
other insults went down on the head of the recruits who were busy with
bringing a vibro mine in position with one arm bound on the back and the
legs together simulating serious injuries.
Others would have been shocked by the rough training but BuffoutBoys knew
it was necessary to build up mentally strong warriors too. The training had
the deeper sense of making true warriors out of them and teaching them the
spirit of Dev - never to give up.
And while the recruits creeped through 50 degrees hot sand with bare
breasts, watching not to trigger the "enemy" movement sensors, Eldreth
turned around and started to smile in an ironic but satsisfied and proud
way showing his true feelings. BuffoutBoy had watched this before and went
through this training himself. Eldreth had scared him to death, he
remembered. He shaked his head and laughed for himself in the silent room
just disturbed by the beeping of the radar controllers.
The door opened and the stunning looking Saint George, the units pet and
staff corporal, came in. BuffoutBoy studied her and realized that she had
gone back to her natural hair colour - red. The colour harmonized with the
red Dev cross on the martial black uniform of a mech warrior. But as
BuffoutBoy saw the concerned expression on her virgin face, he stopped
watching her with the eyes of a man - back to business. "I have a message
from the General. You are wanted in the war room immediately" she said. The
Captain sighed
On his way to the HQ, he saw from his light hovercraft glider, that
civilians helped Dev infantry to dig in and build up defences. He steered
through the organized chaos and realized the relaxed atmosphere between
both sides, civilians and Dev. Since their great victory on 11th of
November, Dev troops had the status of war heroes who defended thousands of
homes to the threat of belligeret occupation. Many civilians were afraid of
being forced into another way of life and the only guarantor for a peaceful
life on the planet was the military Dev regiment on the planet. "It is on
first sight kind of paradoxical that the instruments of war are necessary
for the maintenance of peace" BuffoutBoy thought.
He parked the hover glider, saluted to the honor guard and walked into the
headquarter. The whole dev command lance and all the other lance leaders
and most captains had assembled their. At one side of the room, the system
map was displayd on a big screen. At the other, some heads bent tightly
over a detailed map of a planet sector. In the middle of the room, General
Drivin2fast walked through the virtual landscap of Devils Domain in a holo
tank. He was surrounded by Brig. Gen. Fang, the Colonels Blodlust, Tortured
Sol and Surn, the Majors Darkelf and Mainman.
BuffoutBoy approached silently, carefully watching not to be seen by the
group. "Not this time" he thought. One second later, the General said
without turning around to him "Greetings Captain" while the rest of the
group looked up surprised. "Damnit" BuffoutBoy smiled inside while trying
to look nonchalant. He never got behind the secret how the General did
this. "Must be karma reading or something" he thought.
He studied the faces of the other Dev and saw three days old stubbles
covering this and that battle scar. All in all, they looked tired and not
ready to do the biggest dig-in-defence in devs history.
"As you all know" Drivins voice raised "We must hold this planet. Clan
forces have crushed through the defences of the allies in our back. I
received a HPG message from Hitman, chief of the allied HQ, saying that
they have mobilized all their reserves to take the corridor back. But this
will take some time. Untill then, we are on our own. We cant retreat, we
are the spearhead of the Inner Sphere". On a nod of the General, the
warriors started to report.
Brig. Gen. Fang: "Intel says, chk has no valid data of our strength. Thats
why they throw in all they have to offer. Thus, I have ordered a combined
strategy: Guerilla tactis and massive dig-in-defence. We will hold the last
fighters back for a very special surprise. Given the positon of our HQ
there are three main landing zones possible. We will make sure they willl
land in all three to split them off and fight on our terms. I have assigned
sector leaders to each landing zone. Sector A will be lead by Colonel
Blodlust, Major Darkelf is still reconvalencing from his injuries at the
11th of November, sector B by Colonel Tortured Sol, sector C by Major
Mainman. Colonel Blodlust?" ....
The next few hours were taken by the defence strategy reports of the sector
leaders. "Good work warriors", Drivin2Fast approved the battle plans. "Now
I order you to get 24 hours rest. And with rest I mean sleep, is that
clear? Afterwards, get a shave, relax an hour and make yourself on way to
the assigned sector." "Ahhh, and take a bath all, you ...well....you
stink", Drivin2Fast finished gryning.


..............to be continued

                                                                                                ~author Buffoutboy