In the meantime, Secotor B,
somewhere close Nav Omega
The small bright point in the sky became within seconds the size of a ball
as big as the main gaming instrument in an ancient game from terra. Even
the raging sand storm was not able to hide the ultra bright light coming
from the impulse of the huge union-class dropship. The konic dropship
struggeled against Newtons laws of gravity, brightening the whole area, and
rode slowly on meter thick flames the last metres towards the ground.
Colonel Blodlust activated the visual zoom and made three crosses. "Come
on, come on, only a bit. Dont be such a royal pain. Come on, only a bit
closer. YESSSSSSS", the Colonel thought in his Australian dialect while the
dropship finally landed.....and its landing legs sank deeply into the swamp
hidden by the camouflage. In seconds, the flames of the impulse hadnt got
anymore the necessary distance from the ground to exit without turning
against the own ship. The crew realized too late what was happening. The
massive flames had no exit but their own reactive chambers and the metal of
the dropship, melting away large parts of the impulse and creating a
tremendous heat. The emergency computer of the ship automatically shutdown
the reactor when inside the impulse chambers 6000 degrees Calvin where
reached, leaving the ship on emergency energy only. That was what Colonel
Blodlust had waited for. Now it would take 30 minutes to and fire the
reactor and rebuild energy again. In the meantime, the dropship would sink
too deep into the swamp to make a lift off possible. And the strong weapons
of the ships stays silent during this time.
"Mights, we want peace with the clanners", the Colonel said over the
tac-com " and there is nothing more peaceful than a dead clanner. Go and
work for this, my Peacekeepers". On this order the Lucifer Lancers came out
of hidden underground positions 2k away. The Lancers approached the
dropship, following the radar signals from the barks and staying on the
only secure pathes through the marshy area.
The clanners came over the shock of losing the backup fire well and hadnt
been inactive. They knew, that they stood with their back to the wall and
had to fight and win. They started to ship out there troops immediately,
some jumped of the side exits with burning jump jets, mechs without jump
jets just let fall down or used ramps to leave the dropship. But their was
no internal order in the chaos when the black mechs with the red crosses on
the torso arrived.
The well organized Dev mechs arrived at a small stone island in the swamp
and opened fire with all they got. While Corporal Saint Geoge released two
blue ppc flashes from her madcat d, she read the big signs painted on the
ship. "Hmm, CSD. Major Mainman and this hard but good-looking Captain have
a tough fight then, facing the main part of the Chk forces", she thought.
The clanners replied only with sporadic salves. But then the leader of the
CSD forces, CSD_Lucifer, managed to organize an attack. He assumed that the
landing ship just brake into quick sand, still not realizing in the low
sight of the dust in the air, that he and his warriors were standing on a
small part of stony ground, still not realizing that the whole area was
covered by a surface of a huge camouflage linnen. Thus, the half of the CSD
forces, medium and light mechs, attacked and tried to break out of the
cauldron built by the Dev mechs. They ran full speed in their death,
sinking into the swamp or getting stuck in it; sitting ducks to the fire
from the Dev mechs which maneuvered tightly on the different islands and
pathes of hard ground. The young mechwarrios BloodRavin and Redrock had
open bills with the clanners. Both lost their families in the clan invasion
and it was time to pay back. They fired their lasers and missles in glowing
hatred, not caring about the heat in their cockpits. Especially the always
so helpfull and kind Corporal Redrock mutated into a killer machine and
aimed only for the cockpit of the "sinking" mechs. Both were driven by
furious rage and showed no mercy to the people who broke their youth in
scrambles untill they found a new home in Dev.
After 15 minutes, the assault of CSD ended in a mass execution turning the
wastelands into a bloody slaughterhouse. Maybe Redrock and BloodRavin could
forget the nightmares of their youth, they still had, now?!
"They will have backup fire from the drop ship in fifteen minutes",
Colonel
Blodlust told the Lancers over tac-com. "To all Dev: Change of target
priority. Find the fire control center of the dropship and wipe it out."
This was what CSD_Lucifer, a good leader, had realized too. He uploaded the
geological map of the wastelands over radio out of the archives of the
dropship. CSD_Lucifer sent the rest of the CSD mechs the geological map.
The clanners had a small indicator where to look for hard ground now.
Nevertheless, it didnt give an as detailed picture of the swamp as the
signals of the barks did for the Devils. Lucifer told the other trueborn to
hold the position while he would defend the fire control center on the
other side of the ship. He and his his wing CSD_Werewolf, an evil, deeply
arrogant clanner, lead 2 other CSD elite pilots carefully around the
dropship in order to take a defence position in front of the fire control
center.
Although it was a good move, it showed Colonel Blodlust where to look for
the fire conrol. Thus, he ordered Captain Gnostferatu, Captain Reaper and
Corporal Saint George to himself. "We must end this quick or we are
meat",
the Colonel thought while he followed the lead of Captain Gnostferatu over
a small path towards the four mechs behind the dropship. The path through
the swamp was so small, that the 2 madcats and the 2 thors had to walk in a
row, making them easy targets. When they came around the ship, they saw the
massive silhouettes of two daishis and two supernovas. Hastily Captain
Gnostferatu accelerated and thought "This is a friggin suicide commando but
God will take care of me". By a wonder, the deeply religious Captain wasnt
hit once from the combined fire of the four mechs. He had experienced this
kind of invulnerability before and he wondered if it was his chi.
Gnostferatu lead the other Dev right in the middle of the clanners, making
it hard for them to fire without shooting at their own warriors.
Nevertheless, the other Dev mechs got hit - and they got hit badly. Captain
Reaper lost the arm with the autocannon of his thor in a small explosion
damging his left side badly. The answer of the Devils didnt let wait for
long. The pilots teamed up on a supernova. The supernova, a mech with a bad
weapon-heatsink-relation, overheated quickly under the ppc flashes from the
Madcats of Gnostferatu and Saint George. While the supernova was stuck in
an auotmatic shut down, Captain Reaper who stand just 5 metres away from
the supernova, reached up with his remaining arm. "Tasty toast" he
thought
without regrets when he fired his heavy laser right into the cockpit of the
clanner mech, grilling the enemy pilot. In the meantime, the other Dev
pilots had outmaneuvered the remaining supernova on the small spot of hard
ground, and got into its back. A stream of combined streak, lasers and ppc
fire penetrated the weak back armor of the mech, letting the reacor explode
in a fireball.
Nevertheless, all Dev mechs had lost a lot of armor during this maneuver
through the constant fire from both daishis. "The Stravags dont earn a
honourfull battle", CSD_Werewolf said in his arrogant voice over the
tac-com to CSD_Lucifer while he ganged up with him on Colonel Bodlust;
correcting this way the mistake of shooting at different targets. The thor
of the Colonel shaked heavily under the storm of the enemy fire. But the
Colonel had learned his lesson at the Nagelring -the best military academy
of the Davion Empire- years ago well and did the only right maneuver: He
reversed speed, throwing his thor out of the line of fire. Nevertheless,
the fire followed his movement and cut off one arm of the mech. Captain
Reaper's thor lifted off with a burst of his jump jets and flew over the
heads of the enemies in their back. The Captain landed with a yell .... in
the swamp. But it prooved soon, that he had taken this into account. He
alpha striked the back armor of CSD_Lucifer's daishi twice, releasing his
last coolant, while his mech slowly sank into swamp. Seconds before the
daishi exploded, CSD_Lucifer left the mech in his escape module.
Suddenly, the infernalic noise of the firing guns of the dropship started.
They had run out of time! "Gnost!!!", the Colonel shouted over the
tac-com
while a huge laser tower moved in position for a devastating shot on the
Dev mechs below. And Captain Gnostferatu knew what to do: He whipped out
the control center in a sun of streak and ppc fire. No shot came from the
laser tower and the noise level in the wasteland dropped remarkable.
The surviving mech of CSD_Werewolf, who was engaged in a shoot-out with
Corporal Saint George, let sink his arms. All Mechwarriors in the Inner
Sphere knew what this sign -established by the Ares Convention- meant:
capitulation. Thus, Saint George held fire. Just when she wanted to open a
channel to CSD_Werewolf, an alarmed yell of the Colonel made her ears ring
in the neuro helmet. She raised one arm in front of her cockpit in reflex
...and milli-seconds later, the whole arm crashed against her cockpit.
CSD_Werewolf had tried to alpah strike her cockpit!!! Colonel Blodlust
accelerated and rammed the traitor with his whole mech. CSD_Werewolf's
daishi stumbled backwards and fell with one half into the swamp. While
CSD_Werewolf tried to bring his mech up again and out of the swamp, Colonel
Blodlust moved forward, raised one leg, kicked the other mech down in the
mud and said over the open frequence:"Stay where you belong,
clanner!".
..............to be continued
~author Buffoutboy