Lancer Command Compound
1457 hrs 7 December
Major Hartman’s Atlas rocked with missile and energy weapons strikes, with several missiles impacting his head assembly. As screens popped and bits of plexiglass, along with a few empty cans of RipIt, ricocheted around the cockpit, DJ winced as fragments hit him. Still standing after the pummeling, he let out a rebel yell. “YeeeeeeeeeeHAAAAAAAAAA!! Who’s the Shogun of Landing, Bitches?!?!” he exclaimed as he turned his Atlas towards the nearby Word of Blake Buccaneer at his feet. He was gonna kick this bastard into next week.
As he maneuvered the controls to deliver the kick, he went over the events of the last ten minutes…
**
As the Word of Blake machines began to land through the anti-air blast, Delta First Battalion maneuvered out of their Ready Hangars, prepared for the onslaught to come. All twelve machines were fully functioning for a change- even Kissinger’s Warhammer, which was notorious for *something* not working. Personally, he thought the git was lying to him, but he wasn’t gonna press.
As the enemy machines landed in spots, Farquharson called over to him. [Deej… Me and the boyo’s will be out in a minute; doors givin’ us a wee bit of grief.] The highlander accented Charlie Company Commander said. [These nutters be needin’ a kickin…]
“No shit…” He replied as he watched a Grand Crusader landed out beyond the edge of the strip. A pair of Level II formations landed downrange from him and he spied a third landing on the other side of the Armor compound. Smiling to himself, he was amused at what was waiting for those Blakists. A half-company of Typhoon city defense tanks was no joke…
Turning his head, he looked to his right and realized that it was him, Ed in his Marauder 4R and Tony G in his Zeus 5T-4 on this side of the hangars on the ground. Cyndi Lee had jumped her Catapult on top of the hangar bunker. She was going to be a target doing that but a dangerous one- to shoot her meant they were ignoring everyone else. Speaking of everyone else, they all piled out the other side of the bunker, their guns immediately firing at Blakists within view.
He and his troops here on the strip had to by time against at least two full Level II forces and a potential third. A fourth Level II had landed near the Operations Center where Guv’nor Sodher-Schaller was, along with a platoon of Alacorn. He almost felt sorry for those Blakists… almost.
As the shooting began, DJ maintained an awareness of the rapidly improving defense effort and grinned.
The Word of Blake had been both stupid and smart in their assault. The Smart was that they managed to pick generally good locations for landing and advancing towards the middle and some of the command buildings, with one unit landing right in the complex where Operations was.
The Stupid… was that units who landed in their assigned zones were not the best ones for the job… or any intel on what was actually here was ignored.
Lieutenant Colonel McCormack’s company, minus its command lance, had been positioned at the main compound’s hangars while she was away. Their role, without her, was to act as either a heavy hammer for a lighter reaction company or additional firepower for any Dragoon company with the duty.
DJ had elected to leave them in the compound but had their pilots available. When the raid waring came in, they had scrambled to their machines and got operational fast. Which was a mean surprise for the Level II that had landed within the compound… for when five Warhammers walk into view along with a Black Knight and turn their guns on you, it’s a bad day to be you.
Things died in that compound and DJ really could not spare much thought on it… mostly because if he didn’t pay attention, HE might be dead soon.
As he directed weapons fire out at Blakist machines, he saw both Dougan in his Berserker and Joe Cool (yes, it’s his real name) in his Axman beat feet to take it to one of the Level IIs near the Armor Compound. The both of them knew they needed to get stuck in fast to be effective… and given the sheer number of threats right now, they might get ignored. As much as a threat two hatchet-wielding machines were, the amount of supporting fire for them… could not be ignored. Who knows… it could work.
More explosions on his and others around him happened and a Buccaneer ran up on him. As it tried to bring its hatchet around to hit him, massed fire from Ed and Tony slammed the enemy machine to the ground before it lit him up.
**
Throughout the complex, Lancer battlemechs responded to the onslaught that was the Word of Blake combat drop assault. That they had been ready for the attack was a major boon for the defense and the Word really had no good answer for it.
In the furious nine or so minutes of combat, almost half of their assault force was falling to defender weapons. Even the vaunted Gestalts were taking a small beating, though their presence was felt.
But it was not enough…. Nowhere near enough, actually, as the murderous accuracy of the defenders outmatched Word of Blake firepower, despite the advantage in numbers on one front they had. The assault was in danger of failing unless something gave.
As much as it pained him to do it, he decided going Guerilla might be necessary for his lighter machines among his force. His larger battlemechs were not going to outrun anything here but the lighter machines remaining could.
“All Elements… Heavy Combatants target and engage command platforms. Lighter elements, disengage and evade. Plan Zulu… Plan Zulu…” With the order given, he maneuvered his Archangel outside the wall of the compound and looked to support the two Gestalt of his force. The two Domini machines were dangerous on broken ground and right now, they needed to get out to harass and hinder Lancer ops out among the rest of the continent.
But they needed to get out…. And were in danger of not doing so as one took a ton of fire from a Challenger tank platoon. Dropping his sights on the lead tank, he looked to lessen their threat to what remained of his right flank and the Gestalts.
**
Diane shifted her Battlemaster around as the last of the enemy machines dropped within the compound she was in. Between her and the platoon of Alacorn tanks, they hammered everything into the asphalt that had dared to come within the compound.
Heading for the back entrance where the Word Mongoose had disappeared, she checked the data screen on the right of her cockpit. It showed an overview of the area and she noted the lance of Charlie Company mechs looking to cut off the Word of Blake recon machine. Smiling to herself, she temporarily shut off her gauss rifle; if that Mongoose gave her the chance, she was going to punch him in the face…
**
Elsewhere, Major Farquharson directed those around his Marauder to target as appropriate, starting with the Word of Blake Battlemaster closing on their line. “Ya wee bastard… Get fucked, eh?” He cursed as the big machine unloaded its weapons into his battlemech. Triggering his own weapons, he watched the high energy Clan-Spec large lasers his machine carried cut deep into the enemy Battlemaster. He watched the assault mech stagger as more weapons slammed into it and half-watched it fall as he heard Destiny, his mech pilot daughter, let out a string of curses he didn’t know she knew.
Destiny was running with WO2 Snyder and the two of them in their Panthers were attempting to help Hartman and his boys on that side of the central Hangars. Their weapons hammered members of the Word of Blake force as they attempted to close on Major Hartman’s Atlas, hoping to take some of the heat off of him. It wasn’t looking good for the good major, as Blakist weapons poured their energy into his big machine and it visibly staggered from the punishment, with a pair of strikes hitting the head again. Screaming bloody murder, Destiny kicked her mech into a run.
Uncle DJ was awesome… and his habit of needling her dad was always fun to listen to. She knew the number of hits to the Atlas head assembly would not be good for her uncle… and she hoped like hell he survived it all. If he didn’t, someone was going to pay for that.
Starting now.
Musings of a Gamer 