Operation "Dust Bowl"  part 3

Sector C, somewhere close Nav Iota
"Dust Bowl, I repeat DUST BOWL" the comtech's voice from Dev command came
in over BuffoutBoys neuro helmet. He smiled, as he saw through the glass of
his cockpit rot5 talking to his mech "lucy", - rots usual behaviour before
a tough fight.
On his radar he saw 2 enemy union- class dropships. One of them had been
identified by the scout team to carry the signs of the Guard of Chk. That
was an elite unit, ready to die without regrets for the honor of their
clan. They were fanatics of their own kind, hating all "stravags and
freebirths".  "Damn, why do they send always to our sector the elite units"
said Major Mainman over their private channel.
BuffoutBoy had a bad feeling for the upcoming battle. He didnt know why, he
just had it. "Death valley - an as good place to die as any other"
BuffoutBoy thought and felt old.
He started the reactor of his mech. "Lets rock!" BuffoutBoy said, forcing
himself to let his voice sound eager to fight. He lead the stormtroopers
out of the mech base and ran full speed towards the enemy landing zone. The
other Dev followed his lead while the Major let fall back himself a bit to
use his lrm more effectively later.
Just when the black mech with the red cross on the center torso came into
the reach of the long range weapons of the far superior Chk forces, the
whole stormtroopers turned around and ran away, faking turmoil and
confusion cause of the "unexpectedly" strong enemy forces. As planned,
Tiberius said over the open frequence in a shaken voice "Oh my God, its the
Guard of Chk". The answer didnt let wait for long. "We will wipe your
disturbing existence from the face of this planet, freebirth" and evil
laughter followed from the anonymous speaker.
Chk started to chase the by numbers inferior stormtroopers.....and ran into
a minefield of vibro bombs. Explosions followed, damaging heavy mechs,
cutting of whole legs from mech, overloading the gyroscope of light mechs,
so that they fell down, just to trigger new mines. Other mechs shutdown
through the combined heat of the sun and the flames of dying mech.
"MUAHAHAHA. MUAHAHAHA" the battle yell of Dev branded through the open
frequence from all sides. The stormtroopers turned around again and let out
a storm of missles and laser weapons on the arrogant clanners.
Nevertheless, the clanners had a corridor through the minefield now. And
the following on enemy forces knew how to use it and pushed through while
the storm troopers tried to keep them inside cauldron of death.
BuffoutBoy kept the trigger of the streak fire button pressed and didnt
care to look for whom he targeted. Major Mainman had shot of the narc
beacon of his thor on various targets and the signals came in from all
sides. The heat inside the cauldron of burning mech prevented the clanners
from using their energy weapons cause shooting meant risking an automatic
shutdown or ammo explosions. That reduced the enemy firepower drastically
and gave the stormtroopers a realistic chance.
Then the Guard of Chk, a mixture of madcats, thors and vultures
counterattacked furiously. They ran out of the corridor in the minefield,
ramming Dev mechs aside without caring of the costs on the own side.
BuffoutBoy had to admire the pure brutality of the push for a dogfight. A
storm of laser fire hit his Madcats arm, melting down the armor, destroying
his ppc and creating a heat rush on his mech. Sweat ran down his naked body
in streams while the reactor temperature climbed into the red zone and the
cool female voice of his board computer said "Automatic shutdown adviced".
Captain BuffoutBoy hit the veto schalter and released special coolant flush
bringing the temperature of the reactor in the green again. In the
meantime, he throwed his mech around to the new threat and saw the Chk thor
just standing five metres at his side, recycling his lasers for the kill
shot on his cockpit. He ran towards the mech lifted the useless arm and hit
the 10 tons heavy arm straight on the enemy torso. The honor guard mech
schwankt back and his lasers drew red and green stripes in the air.
"Incoming" the cool as ever voice of the Major came in over the headset.
Buffoutboy reversed the speed, putting an extreme strain on his madcat and
stretching the internal endo steel sceleton to its limits. Two seconds
later a bundle of 40 lrm downed the still shaking Guard mech, overloading
its gyroscope. Buffoutboy moved forward again, and shot the left ppc right
into the cokcpit of the enemy mech letting the clanner die in a brutal rage
of burning flames.
The battle went on with a cruelness BuffoutBoy hadnt experienced often. The
pure masses of Chk let the Dev defence become shaky although the black
devils already killed 30 enemy mech in total. There was a boundary to which
they could withstand the enemy fire but when this was crossed, mechs would
die rapidly. There wasnt one Dev mech which wasnt damaged badly. A view on
his armor screen showed BuffoutBoy that he had only 20% percent front amor
left, not to speak about his arms which had been cut of by enemy streaks.
Besides he had two vollyes of streak ammo left. At his right side, he saw
that 2nd lieutnant rot5 struggled desperately against a Guard cauldron born
and a vulture. BuffoutBoy fired a streak volley on the vulture, trying to
distract its attention away from rot5. But the mech kept firing at rot5.
"ARGGGHHHHHH.... for the glory of Dev" yelled rot5s voice through
BuffoutBoys neuro helmet while rot5 moved his mech right in between the Chk
Guard mechs and blew off the cockpit from the mech torso. Two seconds
later, the whole mech exploded in a giant fireball burying the enemy mech.
Obviously, rot5 had started the suicide sequence before ejecting.
"Dodger, I repeat DODGER", the Major said over the tac-com, giving the sign
for retretat.. Immediately a large group of harasser and von Luckner tanks
joined the battle, building a front of srm and gauss fire between the Dev
mech and chk. This helped the Dev mech to retreat 100m from the Chk forces.
But the Chk push still wasnt broken. They followed in pure fanatism the
badly damaged Dev mechs under high losses through the fire curtain. As the
Dev mechs were just about to stand their last and short fight, Major
Mainmans voice came in over tac-com again "Damnit, I order
Worst-Case-Scenario, repeat WORST-CASE-SCENARIO, damnit". BuffoutBoy felt
the cold hand of fear touching his his heart although he had worked out the
plan himself. "Worst-case-scenario" meant that the whole stormtroopers
would eject while most of the Harasser and Von Luckner tanks had to hold of
the enemy forces. In the meantime, the Dev pilots would be picked up by the
rest of the tanks and brought back to the base, take the mechs reserves
there and rejoin the fight. That was, at least, the plan. It meant in
reality, a suicide mission for the tank crews AND the ejecting Dev pilots
who could be shot down easily.
But Captain BuffoutBoy had been a soldier that long time, that he didnt
hesitate for a second. He fired of his last streak volley and ejected with
the cockpit. The tremendous push of five times earth gravity due to the
acceleration throw his head out of the neuro helmet. He saw stars behind
his eyes. Nevertheless he pushed the steering pedals all the way down and
gave full throttle on the steering rockets. As his eyes cleared he saw
everywhere the burning flames of the steering rockets of other escape
capsules and the black parashooters with the red crosses in the middle.
Most cockpits flew out of the range of the clans weapons. But some were
shot down by especially "honourfull" clanners.
Some seconds later, the cockpit hit the ground with a tremendous stroke,
taking the Captains senes and leaving him in the darkness.



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

                                                                                                ~author Buffoutboy