Operation "Dust Bowl"  part 4

In the meantime Sector A, somewhere close Nav Gamma
„Sir, the dropship is landing exactly where you have foreseen“, said the
young Corporal Destroyer with a voice reflecting
disbelieving astonishment and admiration for the strategic mind of his
Colonel. „Affirmative“, Colonel Tortured Sol
confirmed the report sounding cool, not a bit surprised as if he hadnt
doubted his own plan at all. Nevertheless, the truth
was that he had had no idea if they landed exactly on this spot ....and
what to do if they landed somewhere else. The
Colonel had always been a gambler but he never designed a battle plan on
gambling so far. And this plan had been a
pure gamble. „Red or dead, Russian roulette“, he thought. „But hey, why
telling a young Corporal? he finished the
thought smiling and focused on the present.
The dropship dropped its cargo at a height of 200m. A mixture of medium and
heavy mechs took with burning jump jets
a half circle defence position in front of the dropship, facing the „base“.
Captain Eldreth and Corporal Destroyer walked
up and down behind the shelter of heavy metal walls, showing activity of
heavy mechs on radar. Once the dropship had
landed, a stream of heavy laser fire arrived at the „base“. It was replied
by the autmatic old weapons without matching
the fire power of the clans weapons at all. The whole, more or less
useless, fire from the base had the sense to cover the
automatic, sensor guided fire of various narc beacons creating a radar
storm of missle guiding signals incoming from the
enemy mechs.
The low fire from „the base“ confirmed the opinion the clanners had about
Inner Sphere technology. Thus, the Chk
decided to assault frontal through the dust up the hill. As the clanners
came into the range of his lrm weapons, Eldreth
pressed a newly installed button and lowered the metal shield walls.
„Fight, Destroyer... and dont make in your panties“
he said to the Corporal, forgetting that Destroyer wasnt anymore one of his
cadets but an earned soldier now. Destroyer
knew the protective mother kink of his Captain, and thus laughed and fired
his his first volley of 60 lrms at the enemies.
Both pilots switched their targets after 2 volleys and used their first
coolant flush to reduce the heat. They continued
fireing untill the ammo chambers clicked empty and all coolant was gone.
All in all, they fired 1440 narc guided lrm at the
clanners, softening their armor and slowing them down. Nevertheless the
clanner replied fire and approached to a
distance of 400m.
That was the sign for „Black Jack“. Immediately, Eldreth and Destroyer,
bursted off the heavy sand sacks they had
hanging allover their mechs, creating another surprise for the clanners.
The cargo of sand had a weight of 30 tons each,
freaking the radar and showing 75 tons mechs, although both were sitting in
masc equipped 45 tons shadowcats.
Both pilots jumped backwards out of the inferno, turned in the air by
adjusting the legs to the torso, a difficult maneuver
invented by Eldreth especially for Operation Dust Bowl. Once they landed,
both gave full speed and ran away in the
cover of the hill and the dust.
In the meantime the clanners had entered the „base“ and shot at the now
open backs of Eldreth and Destroyer. But their
tremendous speed and zickzack course in combination with the low sight made
it hard to hit them. A yell of fury came
over the open com-channel „I am Chk_Wyvern. Inner Sphere scum, come and
fi...“.....but it was interrupted by
explosions of the first mines in the fake base. A puma, two vultures and
one badly damaged madcat exploded. „A pity
that the stormtroopers needed most of the mines“ Destroyer thought. In this
moment, he heard the silent „plop“ of a narc
beacon hitting his mech and he saw a bundle of lrm heading towards him on
radar. „Damnit, why did we have to remove
the ecm too?“ he thought while he tried to turn sideways. A second later,
his mech was shaken by the loss of his arm,
overloading the gyroscope and damaging his leg. Destroyer expeceted secure
death within seconds while he tried to get
the mech up to die standing.
Chk_Wyvern‘s voice came in over the open channel again. „Surat, i will
ki....“ ....but he was interrupted again. Suddenly
Wyvern‘s radar showed many active mech reactors. He twisted to the western
side and zoomed in, filtering out the dust.
What he saw made him blink. The whole Apocalypse Brigade approached over
the hills, lead by the massive shape of
the two annihilators of Corporal Phobos and First Private Marodeur.
Hastily the suriving clanners retreated out of the base to get into the
range of the heavy backup fire of their dropship
again. „Never been so happy to see the brothers“, Destroyer said
tremendoulsy relieved.
Corporal Phobos and his brother in arms and brother in life Pirvate
Marodeur stormed into the open side of the
clanners, followed on by the other thors and madcats of the Apocalypse
Brigade.
Ac fire from the „anis“ hit into the side of the chk mechs, bursting off
whole plates of armor and cutting of arms. Three
mine and lrm hit clanner mechs outright exploded. The glorious maneuver of
Eldreth and Destroyer had made the clanner
mech ready for execution. The half meter thick ac bullets left a trace of
destruction, devastation and flaming inferno.
Unfortunately the rest of the Chk forces moved into the range of the heavy
backup fire from the dropship. And once the
ac chambers clicked empty, the attack of the Brigade lost some of its punch
and gave the clanners the chance to bring in
their reserves from the dropship to change the fortune of war.
That was the moment of Colonel TorturedSol and Captain Asmodeus. On burning
jump jets they jumped out of the
river, and took course towards the dead angle of the cannons of the
dropship.....and were ignored in the chaos of dust
and fire from the „IS-scum. They surrounded the ship, towards its mechbay.
And really! Chk just started to ship out
there last reserves. TorturedSol and Asmodeus raged without mercy in the
back of the enemy mech which had left the
mechbay. Their modified close combat thors spit a stream of ac grenades
into the clanners weak back armor,
completing the picture of inferno in the river valley. Then, Captain
Asmodeus welded with his lasers the gates of the
dropship close, showing a sardonic gryn. In the meantime, the Colonel
started to cut off the landing legs of the
Union-class dropship. The dropship crew tried to recalibrate its weapons
for close defence in panic. But it was already
too late, the first leg fell and the ship slowly moved down, but still held
by the other landing legs. „I...
WANT....MY...OWN...DROPSHIP“, the Colonel said to himself while he worked
like a lunatic on the next leg. Just
when the second leg broke under the pressure away, the dropship lifted off
in a panicking emergency start, unable to do
somewhere else a safe landing without repairing first. ... And left its
troops in the death valley of Devils Domain.
„MUAHAHAHAHAHA“branded the battle yell of Dev throught the open com channel
from all sides. That was too
much for the clanners. Hadn‘t they just seen their dropship leave them
behind? Hadn‘t they ran from one trick into
another making them feel stupid? Although they kept fighting, their will to
win was broken. They put up a senseless fight.
The Dev mechs quickly formed a cauldron with the Colonel and the Captain
joining at the backside.
As the fighting kept on, some clanner escape capsules filled the air while
the overhelming rest preferred dying in their
mech. „I want that arrogant Wyvern scum alive!“, the Colonel ordered.
Immediately, Corporal Phobos and Private
Marodeur took out the last weapons of the badly damaged thor b of Chk
Wyvern, making him a deadmech. Before
Wyvern could activate the suicide control, both punched him with the full
power of four „ani“ arm servos in the back,
making Wyverns mech fall over. Chk_Wyvern became unconscious and the Dev
infantry cut him out of the cokpit. „We
have him, Sir“, a bold looking 2m tall infanterist said over his headset a
minute later.
„Red“, Colonel TorturedSol thought in gryning content.



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

                                                                                                ~author Buffoutboy