Hikaru popped around the corner swept his suit's laser across an improvised barricade that the defenders were using to try to block the
point's approach to the controls for the HPG. Soldiers ducked away from the beam, one of them falling backwards with a fiery gouge slashed across his face
below his helmet brim, and the rest of the Point leapt forwards to exploit the moment of suppression. In an instant, Jolyne had crossed the distance to the
barricade and rocketed over it on her jump jets. Point Commander Rache caught the corner of the heavy table that had been turned on its side across the
passageway to provide most of the cover and yanked it back to let the other two Fangs pass, firing his own laser into the nearest soldier as he did
so.
By the time Hikaru caught up with them, the squad guarding the barricade had been wiped out. It was surprisingly clean: lasers tended to
cauterise wounds caused. The smell of burning flesh (two of the corpses were on fire) was probably choking, but inside the protection of their armour, the five
Clan warriors didn't notice it at all.
"Anyone hurt," Rache asked gruffly. No one replied as he looked at each of them through the narrow, straight visor of the low,
domed helmet of the Fang, checking for injury that someone might have missed or was brazening out. "Fine. They are still trying to stop us from going in
this direction, so this is the way we will go." Without access to maps of the facility, it was the best way that they had of finding the control room. The
only catch was that it might not be the only thing that was being protected - one of the other Points had barrelled through three blockades only to find that
what was being protected was an armoury for the compound's infantry. They had fused the door shut before they moved on, denying the defenders access to the
weapons there, but it was wasted time.
The point moved quickly down the corridor, forcing open every door they came across to check the rooms behind, only to find nothing but empty
offices and meeting rooms.
"Next floor perhaps?" Jolyne suggested. "They might keep the controls off the ground floor to prevent visitors from stumbling
into it."
"That sounds reasonable," agreed Rache. "The stairwells are too obvious though. Make a hole in the ceiling."
The rooftiles were cleared away easily with Hikaru and Johannes each making two quick slashes with their lasers at right angles to each
other. The concrete above was more resilient however and it took a dozen shots from the other three Fangs to carve deeply enough through it that a panel about
a metre and a half around crashed down between them. That was annoying, Hikaru noted. The batteries in their armour were highly efficent but they had some
limits and one of them was a large but finite number of shots from the lasers.
"Turn the power on your lasers down a notch," Rache ordered, echoing Hikaru's thoughts. "We don't need to waste energy
against these lightweights." He jumped up through the hole and there was a chatter of automatic weapons being fired at him, then the sizzle of a laser cut
them off. "Two notches," Rache corrected himself and Hikaru jumped up after his commander to see that the other infantryman had amost decapitated the
two man machinegun team who had managed to bring their gun around from the stairs in time to cover the hole in the floor behind them.
"Watch your feet," the Point Commander ordered. "This facility wasn't built for anything as heavy as our suits. The
corridors are probably alright, but the rooms are likely to have fewer supports."
-/-
Costigan snarled as he dodged a volley of short ranged missiles from a Kintaro. He'd been careless earlier and the larger
Mech had managed to land a Narc Beacon on him. It was making it a great deal harder for him to avoid the missiles - and that in and of itself was distracting
him from the fire of the rest of the little battlegroup that was hunting him through the ComStar military base.
He wasn't sure where the rest of Trinary Gamma were. To keep the 'GomGuards' distracted, Star Captain Konrad had
ordered them to scatter once the infantry had breeched the buildings. Inside, the battle armoured troops would be all but invincible and with the Mechs
outside, the defenders were presented with two fronts to fight on.
Jumping over an office building, he heard the explosions as almost a dozen missiles ploughed into the upper floors trying to
reach him and spun to fire all five of his lasers into the Sentinel that had been lurking behind the building, waiting for a chance to ambush anyone coming
around it. The other Mech staggered as deep slashes were carved through its armour by the ravening beams of coherent light, but it raised its high speed
autocannon and casings flew from the breech as it sprayed a line of shells across his position, about half of them hitting the Assassin's already battered
chest. Costigan assumed that the missile launcher hadn't locked, as no warheads followed the tracers towards him. Fortunately, the Sentinel's missiles
didn't seem compatible with those being used by the Kintaro.
Still, three Mechs were a little much and Costigan moved a toggle on one of the two joystick, changing the targeting mode for
his lasers. An hexagon over the Sentinel in his main display expanded, showing him a magnified view of the white-painted Mech. Settling the crosshairs over the
gash that one of his lasers had made in the Sentinel's left torso he fired all five lasers again. Only two struck the gash, but they tore through the
weakened armour and the right arm of the Mech, along with its autocannon, went flying as the lasers severed the shoulder joint. Unfortunately, the ammunition
bins weren't hit, but with almost half it's chest - and the only major weapon system - gone, the Sentinel had been dispensed with as a
threat.
There was a crashing sound from behind Costigan and he barely managed to kick his Asassin into a hasty run before the
needle-nosed Crab crashed through the building behind him, lasers firing. Much of the white paint had been scraped away in the passage, and fortunately the
pilot's aim was off due to the debris, or Costigan suspected that his rear armour would be looking rather threadbare.
Seeing the Kintaro emerging from around the corner of the now collapsing building, Costigan broke right and into an open Mech
Hanger. Hopefully it would have another exit, he thought - or at least not have any Mechs still parked inside it. He was fortunate in both cases - only to find
a Mech re-entering the hanger from the opposite end. "You're surrounded, pirate!" boomed a woman's voice from the Shootist. "Don't
be a fool."
Costigan's crosshairs were almost perfectly placed over the heavy Mech's right chest and they fired almost
simultanously. Costigan swore as the heavy autocannon in the Shootist's chest shredded the left arm of his Mech and one of the pulse lasers carved a
crooked line of craters down the faceplace of the Assassin. His opponent was worse off however. All five shots had torn into the chest right over the
ammunition bins and although the cellular storage had saved the powerful Mech and its pilot from death, the explosion had hurled the seventy ton warmachine
from its feet and into one of the empty Mech Bays. At least it wouldn't need to go far for repairs, Costigan smirked, noting that the large laser in the
right arm was lying in the opposite bay and that without ammuntion the cannon would be effectively useless. Even if the pilot managed to stand up again, the
Shootist was effectively out of action.
Not even slowing for the loss of his arm he ran past the fallen Mech, its pilot still cursing through the open microphone and
feathered his jumpjets to kill his momentum and turn in place as the Crab was the first Mech to reach the other end of the hanger, then run out of its line of
sight. "This is Gamma Two-Four," he called into Trinary Gamma's channel, hoping that it was being monitored as Konrad had promised.
"Requesting an airstrike on the building I just left."
There was a crackle over the channel and then: "Gamma Two-Four this is Three-Four Epsilon One-Three. Target confirmed. We
are incoming."
Costigan broke into a run away from the hanger as a pair of Jagatai heavy fighters from the 34th Armoured Cavalry Squadron dove
towards the building, lasers and particle cannon blazing. The roof of the hanger had evidently not been hardened against this sort of attack and the roof
collapsed inwards. After a moment a tongue of fire and smoke rose from the ruin. "Excellent shooting Epsilon One-Three," Costigan thanked the
fighters. Free of pursuit for the moment, he orientated himself and then headed towards the eastern end of the complex where he had entered and where the HPG
dish still loomed above the buildings.
Passing the broken wreckage of what his warbook identified as a Champion, he also saw the wreckage of Mechwarrior Athene's
Fire Moth. The head was flattened back into the body, the indentation with the sharp deformation that showed it had been a slow kinetic impact - such as that
of a larger Mech's foot - that had finished Athene off. She had been an extremely attractive warrior, Costigan noted regretfully as he passed her, noting
the location on his battle computer for the salvage crews.
The Star Adder mechwarrior ducked back from one of the internal roads as two Fury tanks roared along it in the opposite
direction, followed by a Lancelot. With all the metal of the complex and his Assassin having cooled from the fusillades of a moment before, visual targeting
was the only only way that he was likely to be detected. He saw two Jagatai, perhaps the same point as before, descend to strafe the little column and rise,
one of them trailing smoke from the return fire.
The defenders had managed to retake the gates to the ComStar compound and a small force of three tanks - two Pumas and a Burke -
were in the open yard behind those gates. Standing on the firing step within the wall, a platform specifically designed to carry their weight, two light Mechs
were firing lasers at a target further inside the compound. The warbook marked them as a Spector and a Night Hawk - neither design familiar to Costigan.
Interference on his sensors revealed that one was equipped with electronic countermeasures but he wasn't sure which one.
The tanks were more worrying. All three had excellent long range firepower that could batter his Assassin into wreckage in an
instant or ward off aerospace fighters providing ground support. Only the relatively constrained lines of sight within the compound restricted them now and
they were also heavily armoured. All four of his lasers combined would be hard pressed to seriously damage any of them unless he was lucky or managed a
sustained barrage.
His moment of analysis was cut short as the Burke suddenly lowered the angle of its turreted particle cannons and spun the
turret in the direction of Costigan's Assassin. The much smaller Mech sprinted away just in time to miss being hit by the three cannon, although even the
near miss considerably increased the static from the ECM that was clouding his sensors as the electromagnetic systems of the Assassin struggled to compensate
for the power burst.
"Gamma Two-Four to all units," he advised urgently. "The compound gates have been secured by three heavy tanks
and two light Mechs. The tanks are Pumas and a Burke - heavy with a lot of range. I do not advise an air attack except from well above their maximum
range."
"Gamma Two-One has visual of the Mechs," Rebecca commented over the radio, then exhaled in satisfaction just as
Costigan heard the crash of a Mech hitting the ground. "Make that one light mech," she corrected.
Star Captain Konrad cleared his throat. "Good work, all of you," he advised. "Star Commander Helmuth advises me
that his infantry have secured the control centre for the HyperPulse Generator and are disabling it now. We've completed our objective, now all we need to
do is withdraw and join forces with the rest of the 10th Hussars. Star Commander Rebecca, you and Mechwarrior Costigan are to secure the gates for us. All
other Mechs are to gather on me to pick our infantry."
Costigan grimaced. It would take five Mechs to carry all the infantry and Konrad wouldn't take more than that, so that meant
that besides Athene, two other Mechs had been taken down - which wasn't as bad as it could be given how many of these white-painted surats had crawled out
of this so-called communcations centre but was still painful losses from the Trinary this early in the campaign.
"Understood," he confirmed. "I am moving towards your position, Star Commander."
"Neg," ordered Rebecca. "I will join you. We will engage at close ranges - Spheroid missiles are less effective
within two hundred metres and their particle cannons are little better. You concentrate on dealing with the Mech and I shall handle ."
Costigan paused. "Star Commander, did you load Infernos in your SRM racks?" he asked incredulously. That was the only
thing that he could think off that would polish off those three tanks in a hurry.
"It is recommended for at least one Mech in every Star to carry some, Costigan," she reminded him. "And those
tanks will be much less of a problem if they're on fire."
"And if they get even one shot into your ammuniton bins, Star Commander, then everything within ten metres of your Grendel
will also be on fire," pointed out Costigan. "A distance that I plan to exceed at all times."
"That is acceptable," she responded haughtily as her Grendel came into view from behind a building, "but only if
you do so while also keeping that Spector off my back."
Costigan sighed and kicked his Assassin into a run, Rebecca's Grendel trailing behind him, essentially using him as a shield
as they charged into the open yard. Not that he could fault her for that. If the Grendel was knocked out of action then he didn't have the firepower to
handle the defenders on his own - in fact it was questionable whether they could do so if they tanks only managed to knock out Rebecca's two short range
missile launchers. That would be... challenging.
As it was, only a handful of missiles actually hit him, pummeling the armour on his remaining arm and sending shards of armour
flying off his right leg in a fashion that would have been devestating to any infantry underfoot if there had been any such. Rebecca darted off to the left,
large lasers firing into the frontal armour of the nearer of the two Pumas (and doing disturbingly little damage, to Costigan's mind) while he swerved
right and hit his jumpjets to vault over what what was left of the Night Hawk and close in on the Spector.
Both of them hit with only one laser - in Costigan's case that meant that the Spector's large laser sliced away half the
armour left over the major systems in the chest of his Assassin, and in the case of the Spector it meant that a deep gash was carved from elbow to shoulder of
its left arm.
The ComGuards pilot then made what was, in the experience of Costigan, the cardinal error of light Mech combat: jumping up and
forwards to try to hop over the Assassin to get a clear shot at his weaker rear armour while remaining outside his firing arc. Costigan waited until the other
pilot was committed to the move and then used his own jumpjets to skim backwards underneath the Spector's feet before they landed - moving through the
effective blindspot beneath the other Mech's standard visual display and into its own rear arc.
In credit to the ComGuard, he realised what was happening in time to bring his left arm around in time to put two shots squarely
into the Assassin's left leg, blasting away almost every remaining plate of armour on the limb. It wasn't enough to prevent Costigan from firing all
four of his lasers squarely into the back of the Spector and arguable contributed to its fate since the angle meant that the shots dug from a little below and
behind the shoulder directly into the engine shielding.
Silvery-fire erupted from the newly made-gap in the Spector's armour as air was sucked into the reactor and superheated. The
mechwarrior's ejection sent him hurtling upwards moments before the same fire erupted from the various structural weak points, slagging the interior of the
thirty-five ton battlemech.
A moment later, an explosion scattered parts of the Burke across most of the courtyard and Costigan saw flames leaping from the
napalm mix that liberally coated the turret of one of the Pumas. Rebecca fired two salvos of missiles into the other Puma, spreading more fire across one track
and the frontal armour and then jumping for the rooftop of the communcations centre. Not reinforced to deal with forty-five tons of BattleMech, the roof
collapsed and the Grendel dropped out of sight.
Costigan ran for cover behind the same building, a cluster of long range missiles hammering into his rear armour, shaving away
almost all of the protection. There was a thunderous explosion as flames reached the ammo bins of one of the Pumas, he wasn't sure which one - not that it
mattered as he could hear the engine of the other one roared as it chased after him. The tank was moving at almost fifty kilometers an hour when it failed to
corner and ninety-five tons of metal hit the opposite building, half-burying itself. Costigan suspected that even if the fires didn't reach anything vital
inside the tank, it wouldn't matter with almost half it's own weight of concrete piled over it, but he ran behind it and fired a full volley into the
rear armour anyway.
It took a second salvo from his lasers to finish chewing through the thick armor and gut the interior of the tank.
"Mechwarrior Costigan to Star Captain Konrad. The gates are now clear," he reported.
There was a crackle over his radio. "What is the status of Star Commander Rebecca?" Konrad asked.
"I am well," Rebecca cut in. "I am disabling the HPG systems more thoroughly," she reported. A moment later
her Grendel leapt out of the building, tongues of flame reaching after her from the broken roof. "I am now confident that they will not restore
communications without extensive repairs."
Konrad sighed. "Remember that we will want the station to be repairable," he chided her. "The garrison forces
will require use of it."
Less that two minutes later, six Star Adder mechs came into sight, two of the Assassins splitting a point of Fangs between them while the
other Mechs all carried full Points on them. "The rest of the 10th Hussars are securing the military base north of the city," Konrad advised them.
"The enemy's mobile forces are being pushed around the western side of the city so we will move around the east to avoid them."
-/-
The armored regiments had not held together long enough for Waters to regroup his Mech units. He could hardly blame them - the
shattered remnants of two regiments were all that was holding his rearguard together. The 201st couldn't contribute because as far as he had been able to
tell, every sincle vehicle in the entire regiment was a smoking wreck somewhere in the hills north of him. The truly depressing thing was that as best he could
tell only a dozen or so enemy Battlemechs had been disabled or destroyed, although casualties had been higher among the dwarf Mechs. Some of the troops had
started calling them redcaps after some kind of horrid goblin from a children's fairy tale.
Waters didn't give a damn what they were called, he just wished they'd stop harrying his retreat. He'd already given
up on making it back to Fort Bangor - Bill's last transmission had been to confirm she was evacuating the base ahead of the flanking Mechs that were
storming it. Her plan to change into civvies the first change she had and then go to ground sounded desperate but so was the situation.
"General! ComStar mechs ahead!" reported the forward elements of the column - currently a pair of scout cars doing
little more than acting as a tripwire for any serious threats that might be in their path.
Waters moved forward through the column, his Griffin limping as he did so. The Mechs and infantry transports were a sorry sight and he
quailed at the thought of how many of his men must have been burnt alive inside the vehicles that had been hit by the invaders. He had been fortunate to have
never before seen infernos used outside of training exercises but he knew from those exercises that anyone inside a vehicle struck by the hellish missiles had
little to no chance of escaping with their lives.
A pair of white painted light Mechs - a Mongoose and a Mercury to judge by the warbook - were bracketing a lone tree next to the road.
Neither was pointing weapons at the column, but it was clear from their movements that both mechwarriors were on edge.
"Demi-Precentor Johnson is only a few kilometres ahead of you, General," the senior of the two ComStar mechwarriors reported once
introductions had been made. "Our compound has been secured again, but Precentor Caputo was injured when a hanger collapsed on her Shootist and the HPG
took heavy damage. There is doubt that it can be repaired without replacement parts from offworld."
"Dammit!" Waters grumbled. He had sent word to every world within range of the Black Box in Fort Bangor that Poulsbo was under
attack so the news would get out, but Bill had given him a codeword during her last message confirming that she had destroyed the box to keep it out of the
invaders hands after sending one final message advising of the dire situation that he faced. And that report could hardly be as detailed as the information
that ComStar could have sent by HPG signal.
"Yes sir," the Mechwarrior agreed with feeling. "The last message sent was that the planet was under attack, but ComStar has
no way of knowing that we are under attack. Precentor Caputo ordered that we transmit a warning to both jump points in the hope that a jumpship will arrive and
be able to relay the message, but..."
"No ships are due here for another week or so," confirmed Waters. "And if they do, they'll need a week to recharge their
jump drives. Fortunately, the jump points are far enough out that the invaders might not be able to reach them before they're able to
leave."
The three Mechs moved aside to let the leading elements of the reinforced company that was all that was left of Second Battalion, 42nd Avalon
Hussars pass them by. "Blessed Blake," the Mercury pilot swore. "They really got a working over." Half the mechs had lost large portions of
their armour and at least three were missing all or part of one or both arms. More were limping badly due to damage taken to their legs. The most damaged Mech
in the group was Lefttenant Kuramitsu's Marauder, which had lost the right arm entirely when shots had savaged the right chest and the autocannon there.
The left arm also hung useless due to its damage, leaving the heavy Mech totally unarmed. There was still a flapping panel on the back of what was left of the
Marauder's back where she had ejected her now useless autocannon magazine.
Waters grunted. "I hope that the troops left at your compound are in better shape," he said. It was an open secret that the
ComGuards were equipped from stockpiled equipment dating back to the Star League, equipment that was still considerably better than that available to most of
the AFFC despite the best efforts of NAIS and Hanse Davion over the last few decades.
"I don't know that, sir," the Mechwarrior admitted politely. Then his guns jerked skywards. "Incoming
fighters," he snapped.
Waters checked his sensors, surprised not to have seen anything. Nothing. What was... Calls of warning started coming from the
back of the column and he saw icons begin to appear at the extreme edge of his rader. Clearly the ComGuards mechs had longer range radars than his Griffin.
"Waters to all units. Disperse the formation. Take whatever cover you can."
The enemy fighters descended out of the clouds, sweeping across the dispersing 42nd Avalon Hussars no lower than three hundred
metres, lasers firing steadily. Waters fired off a volley of missiles and watched them clip the wing of one of the fleet little craft, causing no more than a
slight stagger in its flight path. The Mongoose and Mercury were moving evasively away from the column, not that he could blame them. Neither light mech had
any weapons that could reach the fighters as long as they remained at that altitude.
Explosions began to occur as damaged Mechs and vehicles succumbed, black oily smoke rising from the wreckage. Waters narrowly
avoided a three lasers that hit the tree behind him. Sergeant Rodriquez' Quickdraw was not as fortunate as one of the enemy fighters sliced deeply into his
rear with lasers, reaching the stock of short ranged missiles stored within. The fireball sent parts flying across the fields either side of the road, one arm
crashing down on an APC, immobilising it. The infantry within prudently baled out a moment before more laser fire shattered their ride. Waters hoped that the
driver had also escaped.
"Damn you!" the General shouted, raising his particle cannon and firing it upwards into one of the fighters, heedless
of the heat that swept through his cockpit. "Damn you!"
He fired again, this time firing his last long range missiles. Even though they missed, better than letting them overheat in his
ammo bits. A ton of armour was battered off his Griffin by one of the circling fighters but he locked the Mech's knees and was unshaken.
A third shot and the crosshairs on display fizzled and then the entire display vanished as the targeting computer overheated.
Waters slapped the override as the Griffin's computer started to shut down the straining reactor.
His fourth shot, aimed by eye through the dome of the cockpit, missed clearly and Waters gasped for breath in the ovenlike heat
of his cockpit. Reluctantly he lowered the particle cannon slightly, allowing the heatsinks to dissipate some of the massive heat burden that he had built
up.
"General!" called a voice. "General Waters! Can you hear me?"
"Y-yes. I hear you," he said hoarsely.
"The ComGuards are coming, General," the voice reassured him. "Just hold on." He recognised the voice as
that of Kuramitsu and as his display winked up, he realised that the young Leftenant was standing her battered and weaponless Marauder in front of his Griffin,
literally shielding the smaller Mech with its body from the fighters.
However, the white Mechs that were coming over the hills were a far less welcome sight, for they bore the clear marks of battle
damage and familiar columns of smoke was beginning to rise from the hills that they were emerging from. As he watched, a running Kintaro toppled forwards, legs
all but cut out from under it as a strafing run swept across the ComGuards at low altitude.
Looking around, Waters realised that no more than a company of his Mechs were still upright. A company more might have been
salvagable if he could hold the field. The tanks were doing a little better - perhaps a battalion were still moving, but even they were shedding tracks or had
burnt out projections which had once been cannon or missile racks in all too many cases.
"Demi-Precentor Johnson," he sent on the frequency that the ComGuard scout Mechs had used. "This is
Hauptmann-General Waters. What is your situation?"
The voice that replied was distant and unbelieving. "This is Demi-Precentor Verble. Johnson's tank was hit by infernos,
none of the crew got out. We're getting cut to pieces, General. I think there are enemy Mechs between -"
Waters shook his head as he heard the other man's voice cut off. Probably permanently.
More Mechs were moving onto the hillside now, following the ComGuards survivors. Birdlike, predatory shapes. Waters blinked
tears out of his eyes. How could this have happened? How could it have come to this? So fast. It was not even a day since the enemy had jumped into the
system!
Reluctantly, he set his radio to a general broadcast. "This is Hauptmann-General Roger Waters of the 42nd Avalon Hussars
calling the leaders of the invasion force. I repeat, this is Hauptmann-General Waters. We surrender. I repeat. We surrender."
For a long moment, nothing happened. The mechs continued down the hill. A lone Crab fell to the floor as lasers bit into
it.
"Hauptmann-General," a flat voice replied. "Your surrender is accepted. Order your warriors to exit their
battlemechs and other vehicles, laying down any weapons they carry."
Weeping in shame, Waters gave the hardest - and the final - orders of his professional career. Then he unbuckled himself from
his command couch and rooted through the compartment beneath it that held a survival kit to extract the sidearm that went with it. He wasn't one of the
rocket-rangers who liked having one strapped to them as they piloted, but it was common sense to have something to protect yourself with if you had to
eject.
A moment later, there was a muffled boom inside the cockpit of his Griffin.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
point's approach to the controls for the HPG. Soldiers ducked away from the beam, one of them falling backwards with a fiery gouge slashed across his face
below his helmet brim, and the rest of the Point leapt forwards to exploit the moment of suppression. In an instant, Jolyne had crossed the distance to the
barricade and rocketed over it on her jump jets. Point Commander Rache caught the corner of the heavy table that had been turned on its side across the
passageway to provide most of the cover and yanked it back to let the other two Fangs pass, firing his own laser into the nearest soldier as he did
so.
By the time Hikaru caught up with them, the squad guarding the barricade had been wiped out. It was surprisingly clean: lasers tended to
cauterise wounds caused. The smell of burning flesh (two of the corpses were on fire) was probably choking, but inside the protection of their armour, the five
Clan warriors didn't notice it at all.
"Anyone hurt," Rache asked gruffly. No one replied as he looked at each of them through the narrow, straight visor of the low,
domed helmet of the Fang, checking for injury that someone might have missed or was brazening out. "Fine. They are still trying to stop us from going in
this direction, so this is the way we will go." Without access to maps of the facility, it was the best way that they had of finding the control room. The
only catch was that it might not be the only thing that was being protected - one of the other Points had barrelled through three blockades only to find that
what was being protected was an armoury for the compound's infantry. They had fused the door shut before they moved on, denying the defenders access to the
weapons there, but it was wasted time.
The point moved quickly down the corridor, forcing open every door they came across to check the rooms behind, only to find nothing but empty
offices and meeting rooms.
"Next floor perhaps?" Jolyne suggested. "They might keep the controls off the ground floor to prevent visitors from stumbling
into it."
"That sounds reasonable," agreed Rache. "The stairwells are too obvious though. Make a hole in the ceiling."
The rooftiles were cleared away easily with Hikaru and Johannes each making two quick slashes with their lasers at right angles to each
other. The concrete above was more resilient however and it took a dozen shots from the other three Fangs to carve deeply enough through it that a panel about
a metre and a half around crashed down between them. That was annoying, Hikaru noted. The batteries in their armour were highly efficent but they had some
limits and one of them was a large but finite number of shots from the lasers.
"Turn the power on your lasers down a notch," Rache ordered, echoing Hikaru's thoughts. "We don't need to waste energy
against these lightweights." He jumped up through the hole and there was a chatter of automatic weapons being fired at him, then the sizzle of a laser cut
them off. "Two notches," Rache corrected himself and Hikaru jumped up after his commander to see that the other infantryman had amost decapitated the
two man machinegun team who had managed to bring their gun around from the stairs in time to cover the hole in the floor behind them.
"Watch your feet," the Point Commander ordered. "This facility wasn't built for anything as heavy as our suits. The
corridors are probably alright, but the rooms are likely to have fewer supports."
-/-
Costigan snarled as he dodged a volley of short ranged missiles from a Kintaro. He'd been careless earlier and the larger
Mech had managed to land a Narc Beacon on him. It was making it a great deal harder for him to avoid the missiles - and that in and of itself was distracting
him from the fire of the rest of the little battlegroup that was hunting him through the ComStar military base.
He wasn't sure where the rest of Trinary Gamma were. To keep the 'GomGuards' distracted, Star Captain Konrad had
ordered them to scatter once the infantry had breeched the buildings. Inside, the battle armoured troops would be all but invincible and with the Mechs
outside, the defenders were presented with two fronts to fight on.
Jumping over an office building, he heard the explosions as almost a dozen missiles ploughed into the upper floors trying to
reach him and spun to fire all five of his lasers into the Sentinel that had been lurking behind the building, waiting for a chance to ambush anyone coming
around it. The other Mech staggered as deep slashes were carved through its armour by the ravening beams of coherent light, but it raised its high speed
autocannon and casings flew from the breech as it sprayed a line of shells across his position, about half of them hitting the Assassin's already battered
chest. Costigan assumed that the missile launcher hadn't locked, as no warheads followed the tracers towards him. Fortunately, the Sentinel's missiles
didn't seem compatible with those being used by the Kintaro.
Still, three Mechs were a little much and Costigan moved a toggle on one of the two joystick, changing the targeting mode for
his lasers. An hexagon over the Sentinel in his main display expanded, showing him a magnified view of the white-painted Mech. Settling the crosshairs over the
gash that one of his lasers had made in the Sentinel's left torso he fired all five lasers again. Only two struck the gash, but they tore through the
weakened armour and the right arm of the Mech, along with its autocannon, went flying as the lasers severed the shoulder joint. Unfortunately, the ammunition
bins weren't hit, but with almost half it's chest - and the only major weapon system - gone, the Sentinel had been dispensed with as a
threat.
There was a crashing sound from behind Costigan and he barely managed to kick his Asassin into a hasty run before the
needle-nosed Crab crashed through the building behind him, lasers firing. Much of the white paint had been scraped away in the passage, and fortunately the
pilot's aim was off due to the debris, or Costigan suspected that his rear armour would be looking rather threadbare.
Seeing the Kintaro emerging from around the corner of the now collapsing building, Costigan broke right and into an open Mech
Hanger. Hopefully it would have another exit, he thought - or at least not have any Mechs still parked inside it. He was fortunate in both cases - only to find
a Mech re-entering the hanger from the opposite end. "You're surrounded, pirate!" boomed a woman's voice from the Shootist. "Don't
be a fool."
Costigan's crosshairs were almost perfectly placed over the heavy Mech's right chest and they fired almost
simultanously. Costigan swore as the heavy autocannon in the Shootist's chest shredded the left arm of his Mech and one of the pulse lasers carved a
crooked line of craters down the faceplace of the Assassin. His opponent was worse off however. All five shots had torn into the chest right over the
ammunition bins and although the cellular storage had saved the powerful Mech and its pilot from death, the explosion had hurled the seventy ton warmachine
from its feet and into one of the empty Mech Bays. At least it wouldn't need to go far for repairs, Costigan smirked, noting that the large laser in the
right arm was lying in the opposite bay and that without ammuntion the cannon would be effectively useless. Even if the pilot managed to stand up again, the
Shootist was effectively out of action.
Not even slowing for the loss of his arm he ran past the fallen Mech, its pilot still cursing through the open microphone and
feathered his jumpjets to kill his momentum and turn in place as the Crab was the first Mech to reach the other end of the hanger, then run out of its line of
sight. "This is Gamma Two-Four," he called into Trinary Gamma's channel, hoping that it was being monitored as Konrad had promised.
"Requesting an airstrike on the building I just left."
There was a crackle over the channel and then: "Gamma Two-Four this is Three-Four Epsilon One-Three. Target confirmed. We
are incoming."
Costigan broke into a run away from the hanger as a pair of Jagatai heavy fighters from the 34th Armoured Cavalry Squadron dove
towards the building, lasers and particle cannon blazing. The roof of the hanger had evidently not been hardened against this sort of attack and the roof
collapsed inwards. After a moment a tongue of fire and smoke rose from the ruin. "Excellent shooting Epsilon One-Three," Costigan thanked the
fighters. Free of pursuit for the moment, he orientated himself and then headed towards the eastern end of the complex where he had entered and where the HPG
dish still loomed above the buildings.
Passing the broken wreckage of what his warbook identified as a Champion, he also saw the wreckage of Mechwarrior Athene's
Fire Moth. The head was flattened back into the body, the indentation with the sharp deformation that showed it had been a slow kinetic impact - such as that
of a larger Mech's foot - that had finished Athene off. She had been an extremely attractive warrior, Costigan noted regretfully as he passed her, noting
the location on his battle computer for the salvage crews.
The Star Adder mechwarrior ducked back from one of the internal roads as two Fury tanks roared along it in the opposite
direction, followed by a Lancelot. With all the metal of the complex and his Assassin having cooled from the fusillades of a moment before, visual targeting
was the only only way that he was likely to be detected. He saw two Jagatai, perhaps the same point as before, descend to strafe the little column and rise,
one of them trailing smoke from the return fire.
The defenders had managed to retake the gates to the ComStar compound and a small force of three tanks - two Pumas and a Burke -
were in the open yard behind those gates. Standing on the firing step within the wall, a platform specifically designed to carry their weight, two light Mechs
were firing lasers at a target further inside the compound. The warbook marked them as a Spector and a Night Hawk - neither design familiar to Costigan.
Interference on his sensors revealed that one was equipped with electronic countermeasures but he wasn't sure which one.
The tanks were more worrying. All three had excellent long range firepower that could batter his Assassin into wreckage in an
instant or ward off aerospace fighters providing ground support. Only the relatively constrained lines of sight within the compound restricted them now and
they were also heavily armoured. All four of his lasers combined would be hard pressed to seriously damage any of them unless he was lucky or managed a
sustained barrage.
His moment of analysis was cut short as the Burke suddenly lowered the angle of its turreted particle cannons and spun the
turret in the direction of Costigan's Assassin. The much smaller Mech sprinted away just in time to miss being hit by the three cannon, although even the
near miss considerably increased the static from the ECM that was clouding his sensors as the electromagnetic systems of the Assassin struggled to compensate
for the power burst.
"Gamma Two-Four to all units," he advised urgently. "The compound gates have been secured by three heavy tanks
and two light Mechs. The tanks are Pumas and a Burke - heavy with a lot of range. I do not advise an air attack except from well above their maximum
range."
"Gamma Two-One has visual of the Mechs," Rebecca commented over the radio, then exhaled in satisfaction just as
Costigan heard the crash of a Mech hitting the ground. "Make that one light mech," she corrected.
Star Captain Konrad cleared his throat. "Good work, all of you," he advised. "Star Commander Helmuth advises me
that his infantry have secured the control centre for the HyperPulse Generator and are disabling it now. We've completed our objective, now all we need to
do is withdraw and join forces with the rest of the 10th Hussars. Star Commander Rebecca, you and Mechwarrior Costigan are to secure the gates for us. All
other Mechs are to gather on me to pick our infantry."
Costigan grimaced. It would take five Mechs to carry all the infantry and Konrad wouldn't take more than that, so that meant
that besides Athene, two other Mechs had been taken down - which wasn't as bad as it could be given how many of these white-painted surats had crawled out
of this so-called communcations centre but was still painful losses from the Trinary this early in the campaign.
"Understood," he confirmed. "I am moving towards your position, Star Commander."
"Neg," ordered Rebecca. "I will join you. We will engage at close ranges - Spheroid missiles are less effective
within two hundred metres and their particle cannons are little better. You concentrate on dealing with the Mech and I shall handle ."
Costigan paused. "Star Commander, did you load Infernos in your SRM racks?" he asked incredulously. That was the only
thing that he could think off that would polish off those three tanks in a hurry.
"It is recommended for at least one Mech in every Star to carry some, Costigan," she reminded him. "And those
tanks will be much less of a problem if they're on fire."
"And if they get even one shot into your ammuniton bins, Star Commander, then everything within ten metres of your Grendel
will also be on fire," pointed out Costigan. "A distance that I plan to exceed at all times."
"That is acceptable," she responded haughtily as her Grendel came into view from behind a building, "but only if
you do so while also keeping that Spector off my back."
Costigan sighed and kicked his Assassin into a run, Rebecca's Grendel trailing behind him, essentially using him as a shield
as they charged into the open yard. Not that he could fault her for that. If the Grendel was knocked out of action then he didn't have the firepower to
handle the defenders on his own - in fact it was questionable whether they could do so if they tanks only managed to knock out Rebecca's two short range
missile launchers. That would be... challenging.
As it was, only a handful of missiles actually hit him, pummeling the armour on his remaining arm and sending shards of armour
flying off his right leg in a fashion that would have been devestating to any infantry underfoot if there had been any such. Rebecca darted off to the left,
large lasers firing into the frontal armour of the nearer of the two Pumas (and doing disturbingly little damage, to Costigan's mind) while he swerved
right and hit his jumpjets to vault over what what was left of the Night Hawk and close in on the Spector.
Both of them hit with only one laser - in Costigan's case that meant that the Spector's large laser sliced away half the
armour left over the major systems in the chest of his Assassin, and in the case of the Spector it meant that a deep gash was carved from elbow to shoulder of
its left arm.
The ComGuards pilot then made what was, in the experience of Costigan, the cardinal error of light Mech combat: jumping up and
forwards to try to hop over the Assassin to get a clear shot at his weaker rear armour while remaining outside his firing arc. Costigan waited until the other
pilot was committed to the move and then used his own jumpjets to skim backwards underneath the Spector's feet before they landed - moving through the
effective blindspot beneath the other Mech's standard visual display and into its own rear arc.
In credit to the ComGuard, he realised what was happening in time to bring his left arm around in time to put two shots squarely
into the Assassin's left leg, blasting away almost every remaining plate of armour on the limb. It wasn't enough to prevent Costigan from firing all
four of his lasers squarely into the back of the Spector and arguable contributed to its fate since the angle meant that the shots dug from a little below and
behind the shoulder directly into the engine shielding.
Silvery-fire erupted from the newly made-gap in the Spector's armour as air was sucked into the reactor and superheated. The
mechwarrior's ejection sent him hurtling upwards moments before the same fire erupted from the various structural weak points, slagging the interior of the
thirty-five ton battlemech.
A moment later, an explosion scattered parts of the Burke across most of the courtyard and Costigan saw flames leaping from the
napalm mix that liberally coated the turret of one of the Pumas. Rebecca fired two salvos of missiles into the other Puma, spreading more fire across one track
and the frontal armour and then jumping for the rooftop of the communcations centre. Not reinforced to deal with forty-five tons of BattleMech, the roof
collapsed and the Grendel dropped out of sight.
Costigan ran for cover behind the same building, a cluster of long range missiles hammering into his rear armour, shaving away
almost all of the protection. There was a thunderous explosion as flames reached the ammo bins of one of the Pumas, he wasn't sure which one - not that it
mattered as he could hear the engine of the other one roared as it chased after him. The tank was moving at almost fifty kilometers an hour when it failed to
corner and ninety-five tons of metal hit the opposite building, half-burying itself. Costigan suspected that even if the fires didn't reach anything vital
inside the tank, it wouldn't matter with almost half it's own weight of concrete piled over it, but he ran behind it and fired a full volley into the
rear armour anyway.
It took a second salvo from his lasers to finish chewing through the thick armor and gut the interior of the tank.
"Mechwarrior Costigan to Star Captain Konrad. The gates are now clear," he reported.
There was a crackle over his radio. "What is the status of Star Commander Rebecca?" Konrad asked.
"I am well," Rebecca cut in. "I am disabling the HPG systems more thoroughly," she reported. A moment later
her Grendel leapt out of the building, tongues of flame reaching after her from the broken roof. "I am now confident that they will not restore
communications without extensive repairs."
Konrad sighed. "Remember that we will want the station to be repairable," he chided her. "The garrison forces
will require use of it."
Less that two minutes later, six Star Adder mechs came into sight, two of the Assassins splitting a point of Fangs between them while the
other Mechs all carried full Points on them. "The rest of the 10th Hussars are securing the military base north of the city," Konrad advised them.
"The enemy's mobile forces are being pushed around the western side of the city so we will move around the east to avoid them."
-/-
The armored regiments had not held together long enough for Waters to regroup his Mech units. He could hardly blame them - the
shattered remnants of two regiments were all that was holding his rearguard together. The 201st couldn't contribute because as far as he had been able to
tell, every sincle vehicle in the entire regiment was a smoking wreck somewhere in the hills north of him. The truly depressing thing was that as best he could
tell only a dozen or so enemy Battlemechs had been disabled or destroyed, although casualties had been higher among the dwarf Mechs. Some of the troops had
started calling them redcaps after some kind of horrid goblin from a children's fairy tale.
Waters didn't give a damn what they were called, he just wished they'd stop harrying his retreat. He'd already given
up on making it back to Fort Bangor - Bill's last transmission had been to confirm she was evacuating the base ahead of the flanking Mechs that were
storming it. Her plan to change into civvies the first change she had and then go to ground sounded desperate but so was the situation.
"General! ComStar mechs ahead!" reported the forward elements of the column - currently a pair of scout cars doing
little more than acting as a tripwire for any serious threats that might be in their path.
Waters moved forward through the column, his Griffin limping as he did so. The Mechs and infantry transports were a sorry sight and he
quailed at the thought of how many of his men must have been burnt alive inside the vehicles that had been hit by the invaders. He had been fortunate to have
never before seen infernos used outside of training exercises but he knew from those exercises that anyone inside a vehicle struck by the hellish missiles had
little to no chance of escaping with their lives.
A pair of white painted light Mechs - a Mongoose and a Mercury to judge by the warbook - were bracketing a lone tree next to the road.
Neither was pointing weapons at the column, but it was clear from their movements that both mechwarriors were on edge.
"Demi-Precentor Johnson is only a few kilometres ahead of you, General," the senior of the two ComStar mechwarriors reported once
introductions had been made. "Our compound has been secured again, but Precentor Caputo was injured when a hanger collapsed on her Shootist and the HPG
took heavy damage. There is doubt that it can be repaired without replacement parts from offworld."
"Dammit!" Waters grumbled. He had sent word to every world within range of the Black Box in Fort Bangor that Poulsbo was under
attack so the news would get out, but Bill had given him a codeword during her last message confirming that she had destroyed the box to keep it out of the
invaders hands after sending one final message advising of the dire situation that he faced. And that report could hardly be as detailed as the information
that ComStar could have sent by HPG signal.
"Yes sir," the Mechwarrior agreed with feeling. "The last message sent was that the planet was under attack, but ComStar has
no way of knowing that we are under attack. Precentor Caputo ordered that we transmit a warning to both jump points in the hope that a jumpship will arrive and
be able to relay the message, but..."
"No ships are due here for another week or so," confirmed Waters. "And if they do, they'll need a week to recharge their
jump drives. Fortunately, the jump points are far enough out that the invaders might not be able to reach them before they're able to
leave."
The three Mechs moved aside to let the leading elements of the reinforced company that was all that was left of Second Battalion, 42nd Avalon
Hussars pass them by. "Blessed Blake," the Mercury pilot swore. "They really got a working over." Half the mechs had lost large portions of
their armour and at least three were missing all or part of one or both arms. More were limping badly due to damage taken to their legs. The most damaged Mech
in the group was Lefttenant Kuramitsu's Marauder, which had lost the right arm entirely when shots had savaged the right chest and the autocannon there.
The left arm also hung useless due to its damage, leaving the heavy Mech totally unarmed. There was still a flapping panel on the back of what was left of the
Marauder's back where she had ejected her now useless autocannon magazine.
Waters grunted. "I hope that the troops left at your compound are in better shape," he said. It was an open secret that the
ComGuards were equipped from stockpiled equipment dating back to the Star League, equipment that was still considerably better than that available to most of
the AFFC despite the best efforts of NAIS and Hanse Davion over the last few decades.
"I don't know that, sir," the Mechwarrior admitted politely. Then his guns jerked skywards. "Incoming
fighters," he snapped.
Waters checked his sensors, surprised not to have seen anything. Nothing. What was... Calls of warning started coming from the
back of the column and he saw icons begin to appear at the extreme edge of his rader. Clearly the ComGuards mechs had longer range radars than his Griffin.
"Waters to all units. Disperse the formation. Take whatever cover you can."
The enemy fighters descended out of the clouds, sweeping across the dispersing 42nd Avalon Hussars no lower than three hundred
metres, lasers firing steadily. Waters fired off a volley of missiles and watched them clip the wing of one of the fleet little craft, causing no more than a
slight stagger in its flight path. The Mongoose and Mercury were moving evasively away from the column, not that he could blame them. Neither light mech had
any weapons that could reach the fighters as long as they remained at that altitude.
Explosions began to occur as damaged Mechs and vehicles succumbed, black oily smoke rising from the wreckage. Waters narrowly
avoided a three lasers that hit the tree behind him. Sergeant Rodriquez' Quickdraw was not as fortunate as one of the enemy fighters sliced deeply into his
rear with lasers, reaching the stock of short ranged missiles stored within. The fireball sent parts flying across the fields either side of the road, one arm
crashing down on an APC, immobilising it. The infantry within prudently baled out a moment before more laser fire shattered their ride. Waters hoped that the
driver had also escaped.
"Damn you!" the General shouted, raising his particle cannon and firing it upwards into one of the fighters, heedless
of the heat that swept through his cockpit. "Damn you!"
He fired again, this time firing his last long range missiles. Even though they missed, better than letting them overheat in his
ammo bits. A ton of armour was battered off his Griffin by one of the circling fighters but he locked the Mech's knees and was unshaken.
A third shot and the crosshairs on display fizzled and then the entire display vanished as the targeting computer overheated.
Waters slapped the override as the Griffin's computer started to shut down the straining reactor.
His fourth shot, aimed by eye through the dome of the cockpit, missed clearly and Waters gasped for breath in the ovenlike heat
of his cockpit. Reluctantly he lowered the particle cannon slightly, allowing the heatsinks to dissipate some of the massive heat burden that he had built
up.
"General!" called a voice. "General Waters! Can you hear me?"
"Y-yes. I hear you," he said hoarsely.
"The ComGuards are coming, General," the voice reassured him. "Just hold on." He recognised the voice as
that of Kuramitsu and as his display winked up, he realised that the young Leftenant was standing her battered and weaponless Marauder in front of his Griffin,
literally shielding the smaller Mech with its body from the fighters.
However, the white Mechs that were coming over the hills were a far less welcome sight, for they bore the clear marks of battle
damage and familiar columns of smoke was beginning to rise from the hills that they were emerging from. As he watched, a running Kintaro toppled forwards, legs
all but cut out from under it as a strafing run swept across the ComGuards at low altitude.
Looking around, Waters realised that no more than a company of his Mechs were still upright. A company more might have been
salvagable if he could hold the field. The tanks were doing a little better - perhaps a battalion were still moving, but even they were shedding tracks or had
burnt out projections which had once been cannon or missile racks in all too many cases.
"Demi-Precentor Johnson," he sent on the frequency that the ComGuard scout Mechs had used. "This is
Hauptmann-General Waters. What is your situation?"
The voice that replied was distant and unbelieving. "This is Demi-Precentor Verble. Johnson's tank was hit by infernos,
none of the crew got out. We're getting cut to pieces, General. I think there are enemy Mechs between -"
Waters shook his head as he heard the other man's voice cut off. Probably permanently.
More Mechs were moving onto the hillside now, following the ComGuards survivors. Birdlike, predatory shapes. Waters blinked
tears out of his eyes. How could this have happened? How could it have come to this? So fast. It was not even a day since the enemy had jumped into the
system!
Reluctantly, he set his radio to a general broadcast. "This is Hauptmann-General Roger Waters of the 42nd Avalon Hussars
calling the leaders of the invasion force. I repeat, this is Hauptmann-General Waters. We surrender. I repeat. We surrender."
For a long moment, nothing happened. The mechs continued down the hill. A lone Crab fell to the floor as lasers bit into
it.
"Hauptmann-General," a flat voice replied. "Your surrender is accepted. Order your warriors to exit their
battlemechs and other vehicles, laying down any weapons they carry."
Weeping in shame, Waters gave the hardest - and the final - orders of his professional career. Then he unbuckled himself from
his command couch and rooted through the compartment beneath it that held a survival kit to extract the sidearm that went with it. He wasn't one of the
rocket-rangers who liked having one strapped to them as they piloted, but it was common sense to have something to protect yourself with if you had to
eject.
A moment later, there was a muffled boom inside the cockpit of his Griffin.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.