[IC] Mechwarrior: New Age of the Mercenary

[Omega]

1335 : July 21st 3067
Near FOB Golf, plains north of Chittor City, Planet Allavar

Anton drained another bottle of water before tossing it out of the cockpit of his mech. He had to have downed at least 3 liters of water so far that day but he knew he would need it if things kicked off as they seemed to be. It was a hot day baking in the sun and his mech was still not even fully powered up but instead the reactor was basically idling with most major systems still locked. Once he started running and gunning he knew it would turn into an inferno even with the cooling vest that even now sent a deep chill through his body. Everything was ready so far, he had good ammo levels, and the shakedown showed everything green on his black and green hammerhands battlemech.

Maybe they were still haggling over prices with whoever they could get to lead the assault. He had seen the enemy force disposition and had immediately shot them down. There was no real weak point in the enemy line and the Cappies knew it and so wanted to throw mercs into the fire first. He and his were placed on the east flank a bit far off to the edge in the second attack echelon. He knew even though he had turned down the bonus plenty of others had, personally he did not like a lot of the odds but then again he also did not have the speed of some of these merc groups. Either way he did not like it.

The landing had been unopposed, the Allavar Defense Force and friends had pulled back to the capitol and when the Penoy were close enough to show where they were landing the Allavar boys had rolled south the setup a defensive line a few kilometers from the city proper of of their capitol, Sibi. The far west flank was held by the reservists. They had dug in deep using some old fortification that was pushing up against the slop of one of the lower mountains and gave them a good view over the rolling hills that cominated the arranged battlefield on the west side. The rest of that line was reserves in trenchworks with their tanks hulldown, mines everywhere, and probably a field gun every few feet from AC/2s all the way down to AC/20s and probably a few of the rotary ACs he had been looking at buying himself. It was all around a solid line but still not real soldiers. Hence why the Allavarians had put a full merc regiment behind them to add some spine. Naturally their center was their regulars who were sitting pretty in some mildly forested hills and finally to the east were his future enemies. Mercs just like him sitting on the fringes of the city's industrial zone with nearly flat terrain for a few kilometers to the south and to the east. It was not going to be an easy approach even with the airpower and artillery promised. The last merc regiment was hanging back as a reserve force to push up and help the center or east.

Outnumbered, probably outgunned, and about to assault a dug in force defending their homeland and the only thing Anton could think about was that he should have asked for more. His money should be in escrow so once this thing settled one way or the other at least he had this months payments covered. Sighing he went to look at his watch only to realize it was not there, instead he kicked up his feet and pulled a hard-copy magazine from the overhead locker where he had his extra water and ration bars stored as well. He opened up his copy of "Mercs and Munitions" to look over some of the new autocannon models while he sat and waited for word to go.

[Eisenhorn]

Jurgen sat in the cockpit of the Huntsman, designated Command and Control unit for his mercenary band, on the virtue that he was the personal pilot of it, reading the incoming data streams, mission reports, progress on digging in and creating fighting holes for his hover craft, the ambush points that he needed to be aware of, a whole myriad of data one wouldn't think an average merc commander would think necessary. But such things were perfectly necessary and even vital for Jurgen, who was analyzing the situation, directing his men and their vehicles to go about their jobs. He had to handle this situation very carefully, a defensive siege was not necessarily the best job for a force like his, but the pay was good, and an old friend had asked him to help out. So here he was, organizing raiders for a siege. The Huntsman he was sitting in was powered down, so it couldn't be detected, only enough power to operate his display and communication system, waiting for the time to come online and strike out against the first heavy attackers. But to do that, he had to consider his allies in this situation, the State of Allavar. They had FedSun backing, one reason why he was here, and the pay was good, better C-bills than the other side was offering, so that was the why of the matter.

The how would be difficult. Defenders naturally had the advantage in many cases, here was one such case even facing a pincer maneuver that was inevitable. The entrenchments were facing the most likely avenues of attack, cased by his own Harassers and their high speed recon. The H7's he had were hidden, under cover and in ruins that hid the fact they were hangers. No one on the enemy side, mercenary or otherwise, should know that those armed VTOL's were waiting to react to a call for reinforcements from either side of the city. The key to his defensive contribution was his speed, he could get around to hard points in the defenses, he was piloting the slowest unit in his regiment, and you could hardly call a ground speed of almost 90 km/h, with a 150m jump distance, slow. The ground pieces that were entrenched alongside the unarmored infantry were solid, well protected, and covering the likely killzones. His concern would be hostile Battle armor units, small, fast, armored infantry that could outperform their fellows and be dangerous to just about everything he was fielding. His men had standing orders to evade them, rather than try to fight them. Especially if they were in numbers, just report their positions and movements if necessary for retaliatory efforts by units equipped to handle BA.

His men had been active, picking off those that ventured too close, whether they were scouting or aiming to cause trouble within their ranks was irrelevant. The medium lasers on the Harassers took care of them handily. That was the job the Harassers were proving excellent at. His Musketeer's had already been set up hidden firing posts, that they could bail from the moment they were needed elsewhere, or the position wasn't defensible anymore. The Warrior H7 VTOL's were standing by, Autocannon/2 and SRM-4 ready to provide fire support wherever it was needed. They were even more fragile than his Harassers, but safer since they could fly and sit out of range of a lot of attackers, the AC/2 gave them solid standoff distance. His XO was in the Stinger, a Med laser and machine guns gave it a decent, if unimpressive, armament to provide support from. The shining gem of his defensive force was the Huntsman, and omni mech with weapons to deal with most any threat. They had participated in raids while buying the defenses time to be built, and some of the enemies no doubt remembered the Huntsman opening fire, getting attention so his Harassers and Musketeers could raid their supply lines before all of them fled. Things had slowed down as the noose tightened around this city, relegating him to the job he had now, coordinating raids and picket defense as they waited for the assault to begin proper.

Jurgen faced his corp against the forest, which some might think a mad plan, but there was reasons. The plains had no cover, and he suspected the heavy vehicles would be coming that way, from recon reports, and they would stand zero chance against them in an open field. His forces in the forest, though, could operate better, even with the looming threat of Battle armor advancing as well, an idle claw could turn a high speed Harasser into a careening wreck of debris if done right. No, when it was clear the assault was starting, his Harassers had fire positions that were preselected for them to retreat to and open fire from, keeping their exposure minimal while their ability to return fire, maximum. But recon also reported heavy mechs, real heavy ones, were on this side as well. That made him apprehensive, but he had little choice now. There was no fleeing at this point, this was a stand against better equipped foes, at least for this type of work, and he was getting paid to do it. For now, all he could do was wait and see who came knocking, maybe some old acquaintances were waiting on the other side of the line, which would make things real interesting real quick. But for now, he took in reports, gave out new orders, reaffirmed standing orders, and made sure his men were as ready as they could be for the oncoming storm.

[Fallen Muse]

Outside the city of Chittor, where the FedSun backed State of Allavar had dug in and was waiting for their assault to begin, hustle and bustle went about the camps preparing for war. Within one such tent, two representatives met, to negotiate the pay of the spearhead of the assault. The Administrator for the Dark Talons, Sara, was discussing the matters of hazard pay and repair costs that the inevitable damage occurring from the assault. Both sides of the negotiating table had reason for wanting their way, the Capellan representative still needed their heavy mechs for the assault, but couldn't afford to be completely gouged by the mercenary band. Sara, on the other hand, knew full well the Dark Talon's would need that extra amount of C-bills and coverage for repair costs, considering the firestorm the combat troops would be walking into. How much she could get, though, was debatable, considering their source of income on this job was as much salvage as it was actual hard pay from the Capellan purses. They had been talking for some time already, so Sara had a feeling for how high she could go with the man and potentially get away with it, and she politely listened as he made the most recent counteroffer.

"Ma'am, we have been planning this maneuver for some time, and I can assure you that they are not that well dug in that your last offer would be anything necessary. Half a million c-bills extra would suffice, which would be more than enough for the repairs without my employers required to put any additional payment towards the repair costs for your mercenary regiment." Sara knew that simply would not due, not in the slightest. A million minimum, and at least 10% repair costs was what she had in mind, and being lowballed like that was both unflattering and almost insulting. She crossed her arms, raising an eyebrow as she mock considered his offer, and the man knew full well she wouldn't go that low, and was gauging her reaction which, credit to the Dark Talon administrator, didn't give anything useful away to the man's mental thought processes, and she replied with a counter offer to that. "Two million C-bills, and 30% on the repairs. We've been running this kind of firepower that you've never had experience with, we know precisely what we need to get the job done, and to break that hardened position wide open for you."

The Capellan retaliated with another offer, much closer to what Sara had been angling for as a compromise now. "1.5 Million c-bills, and and 15% of repair costs. Surely you would find that more reasonable than your last offer?" Sara sat there in actual contemplation, thinking on her low limit and the previous offers they had been trading back forth. She would take that, but she made one last effort at upping the repair costs that the Capellen boys would be taking off their hands. "Make that 20% of the repair costs, and you have a deal." The Capellen sat there, the chance to end these negotiations that had run for too long in his mind sitting right there, close to what he had offered, and finally submitted, nodding his consent and drawing up the paperwork. "Deal, an extra 1.5 million c-bills and coverage of 20% of the repair costs of the Dark Talons." Sara nodded, not betraying her pleasure with this deal, and went about getting the paperwork in order for the deal to be legally binding between the two organizations.

- --

The negotiations were not the only activity going on that concerned the Dark Talons. While they had been going on, Kashra had organized her troops within a patch of the forest overlooking the city and its defenses. The clearing had the mechs powered down, the only person still in their mech was Kashra herself sitting inside her Warhammer, though she was about to get out. The other mechs were powered down beside her, the two Dragons sitting to her left while the Helios was parked to her right. On the ground in front of them were the various battle armors in no particular order, the Grenadier and Salamander armor grouped together with the Rottweilers sitting in front of those four battle armor units. The pilots themselves were by their respective equipment, talking to each other. The two male pilots of the Grenadier units were talking with the women who piloted the Salamander's, while the sisters who piloted the Rottweiler battlearmor were discussing flanking maneuvers between the two of them, laughing at previous stories of them having shredded unsuspecting enemies that thought that only one Rottweiler had been discovered, the other sister coming out of the woodwork to bring them low with an unexpected assault.

The woman who piloted the Helios was discussing the assault ideas she had with the two Dragon pilot, the men respecting her ideas and offering alternatives and improvements to the overall ideas and theories she had, while she would correct them or take their ideas into consideration. It was a natural, organic structure of discussion and relaxation before the battle began. Technicians were more than busy, running about to and fro, carts of ammunition and parts necessary for preparing the unit for battle loaded up and en route to their respective mechs and armors. A fair number were busy loading the missile systems scattered about the equipment, from SRM to LRM units were being reloaded and stocked up to capacity, while men with boxes upon boxes of machinegun ammo, all linked together, were being fed into the units that carried such things. A lot of the units energy and flamer weapons were being checked and repaired, if needed, so they wouldn't fail in the heat of battle. It was, on a whole, a busy and competent team running around, working and preparing the machines of war that would lead the Capellen forces to victory. And they all believed it was not a matter of if, but when such a thing would happen.

Kashra slid down the ladder from her Warhammer's cockpit, landing with grace and jumping up on a supply crate, demanding the attention of her troops by presence alone, and the chatter and discussion halted, the only noise present was the maintenance and preparation work by the technicians, accompanied by their murmers back and forth to not potentially interrupt their CO. Kashra spoke easily, pride and experience in her tone of voice. "Alright ladies and gents, listen up. Green light from Sara, we'll be leading the assault for some extra pay. Now, Battle Armor, keep low, keep fast, and don't make a target out of yourself. No idea what kind of experience the mercenaries on the other side have, so they might have a particular hate, or fear, of your equipment. Hit hard, but don't be stupid. Mechs, don't sweat the small stuff, thats what the Battle Armor's for. I want you firing on enemy mechs, fire positions, anything high value that is really the glue holding the enemy lines together. Get into range, smash the hell out of them, and we can call it a day with extra pay in our pockets, and not too much in damage, sound good folks?" That got a cheer of confirmation from the unit, as they redoubled their previous efforts to prepare and discuss plans to get ready.

Kashra turned to face the city, already envisioning her Dark Talons in battle. Battle Armor was tearing ahead, Rottweilers leading the way while the Grenadiers and Salamanders followed, tearing up the enemy Battle Armor and tanks that were foolish enough to get caught out in the open, forcing the enemy armor back. Enemy mechs were burning in the field, slaughtered to the unit by her heavy assault lance, Helios and Dragons spitting fire and fury, missiles, lasers, and bullets tearing apart enemy forces. Flamers burning out unarmored infantry and overheating enemy units to make them easy prey. At the heart of all this was her Warhammer, marching forward, twin PPC's making short work of anything foolish enough to stand in her way while secondary lasers and machine guns chopped up lighter targets and infantry, breaking their backs on the iron of her men and women charging forward, opening the way for those that followed, but the salvage and glory would be theirs, first and foremost. Kashra could see all this already, staring down at the fortified city, and a smile grew on her face. Today would be a good day, after all.

[Omega]

It took another two hours of waiting as the Penoy forces kept shifting around and tried to put more and more mercenaries on the front of the assault. Every time they tried to send him a message with anew offer he would dismiss it. They were not paying well enough for him to break his forces against the enemy line. Advancing over open terrain at the front of the spear into fire was not his idea of how to maintain the longevity of a merc group. The day had been hot before but was getting up towards sweltering now and the heat did not seem likely to break soon with almost no cloud cover he knew today was going to suck and the only thing he could look forward to was the salvage rights he hoped to claim tonight. It reminded him he really needed to invest in a recovery vehicle for when operations when bottoms up.

Eventually though real orders started to be passed around designating everyone’s attack routes and attempting to coordinate over a regiment of disparate mercenaries meant to break the enemy line. The first echelon started to move out. He watched on his minimal HUD the battlemech intensive force advancing out north. Then he heard one of the worst sounds anyone can ever hear, artillery shells. They were outbound snipers and thumpers but it did not really help his thoughts on it. Artillery was the bane of everyone who was not artillery and while counter battery fire could be expected once the first shells hit most would still be aimed at him and his.

He started to turn on the main systems of his mech as he also opened a channel to the three men who helped him run his little cadre, “Alright guys we got orders to advance in the second echelon, we are not the breaking wave but we are not far behind them. You know what is up, we try to break into the city and just cause as much pain and suffering as we can once we get there,” a trio of affirmative responses greeted his opening remarks, “Anthony, the usual with you guys, keep the Blizzards back behind the Yin and his behemoths and send out LRMs when you get someone spotting something. We need Nosek and to get into urban terrain where they can make everyone regret not being him,”

Anthony was quick to respond, “Not our first ride Anton we know how this works. I will keep an eye out for openings once we get close and see if I can shoot the gap to get in there.”

“Good, we are getting paid a decent bit in salvage for this one which means we gotta win this side if we want a full payday or else we are just leaving C-Bills on the field.

“Shì de, not a step back,” Yin he could tell was as ready to go as ever.

Novek did not even bother to respond, instead turning on his music he enjoyed blaring over the net and drowning out any further chance of communication until the Blizzard he and his soldiers were in gave him the green light to disembark.

Anton could only smirk as he cut closed the open channel as well. If anyone needed to reach him they could open their own channel, for now he went back to his mech, everything was green across the board, all that was needed was his code to bring the reactor to full power with a smile on his face he spoke, “Loyalty as strong as gold.”

With that it came on line and he felt a slight rush of heat from below him as the reactor came to full power and he watched reticles drop down on his HUD as his weapons became fully active. He brought his mech up to a light 20 KPH and the tanks soon matched his speed, it was a light walk for his mech but was the general cruising speed of the behemoths. It also helped to put more distance between himself and the first echelon attacking wave.

---

It took around 10 minutes for the first calls of combat to come in. Those furthest towards the center at the far left of his easterly oriented flank encountered enemy skirmishes are the hills and woods but this was not a light recon advance this was a full assault and managed to maintain their advance returning fire. Casualties seemed negligible from what he could tell from the command line network but what the Penoy seemed negligible and what the mercs at the front did were easily two different things.

It was intense fighting though apparently for those who made first contact with the main enemy line. Two eclectic groups of mercs quickly turned the whole thing into a confusing brawl apparently, just what Anton wanted. Opening a channel to his own unit he gave out an order, “Push it up to 30 kilo, flanking speed behemoths, time to earn our pay.” Following his own orders he brought his mech up another 10 KPH setting the pace. As they neared the conflict zone the first conventional aircraft flew over, Penoy were to draw the first blood in the air it seemed sending theirs in first and risking them to ground fire. Cheap stuff it seemed like mechbusters were the mainstay of their air force. Cheap they may be but he knew such craft could live up to their name. He almost told Frederick the tank commander of the partisan to watch the skies but he knew that right now that was all the man was doing.

As soon as they hit visual range all comms seemed to explode as messages were shot across all bands of the chaos of the battlefield. The direct beam comms were overriding everything else there was no way anyone on either side could hope to know what was going on this flank now and that meant he had to act fast before the defenders reinforced with their secondary mercenary regiment. “Weapons free Black Lances, let the LRMs fly.” The words had barely left his mouth when the behemoths and blizzards laid down a powerful volley towards a catapult taking potshots with a pair of gauss rifles into the melee. They were used to feeding telemetry back and forth to get as many missiles on one target.

He then received a tight beam message from a mech he did not recognize, “Hey, if you can still got any of those LRMs left we could use some this way.”

He checked to see where the message came from and saw that it was a pair of Atlases who had pushed probably deepest into the enemy lines behind them was a trail of broken mechs and mech parts though now they were caught in a pincer between six mechs who were slowly tearing down the pair of assault mechs. He sent only a single word in response, “inbound” and fed telemetry to his tanks.

The LRMs came down like rain shearing the arm off one wyvern midair and faltering the press of the enemies on the atlases for a moment. It was all he needed and prepared to send a message to go forward when he saw the blizzards race past him. They were not going to risk losing the opening the assault mechs had made by asking permission first. Smiling Anton pushed his mech up to a running speed. He lacked the long range weapons necessary to engage at this range with his best being the AC/10s but we was not going to throw shells away at this range and his tanks could protect themselves and would be at the city just behind him anyway. It was going to have some fun on his own.

[Fallen Muse]

Things were going smoothly in the Dark Talon camp, final loading operations and repairs had already begun when the order they were all waiting for finally came down to them. Combat had opened up on the other front, which was the main signal for them to begin their assault ASAP. The camped mercenaries burst into a rapid series of activities, the BA pilots running and jumping into their armors, strapping in while technicians loaded the last rounds of ammunition into their armor and made sure everything was green lit before clearing them to get moving. The mech pilots ran to their individual machines, they had their own series of preparations and operations to do before they could even get the engines warmed up, let alone marching. The Battlearmor was faster to get ready, for a multitude of reasons, and they stood by for the mech pilots and their war machines while the technicians fine tuned their work, taking clear advantage of the moment to make final checks before allowing them to march off into battle, especially against enemies unknown.

The mech pilots scrambled up into their individual units, closing the cockpits behind them while the technicians rushed to finish loading the munitions and running the last minute diagnostics, everyone being used to such abrupt, rapid calls for action by this point. Pilots ran their system tests, observing for any sort of trouble that could be a problem in the battle, or prevent them from getting their out right. They all knew what they were doing, as did the technicians, who, credit to their haste, were actually outpacing the pilots work within the machines of war, getting clear of the equipment as the pilots each took their mech's engines online, the machines clearly coming to life as they straightened up, or took appropriate postures, while they ran weapon's checks and checked their munition load outs, making sure everything was green lit and ready to go. This included the ejection systems, but those shouldn't be needed if everything went according to plan. But, better safe than sorry.

One by one, they sounded off as Kashra finished her own checks, first, the battle armor teams. "All systems check out Commander." The mech pilots each sounded off in turn. "Check, all systems checked and online Commander." Once everyone was checked in, and the technicians were out of the way, Kashra started giving out orders, her own Mech moving into motion as she spoke, the others quick to snap to, to avoid being left behind and losing out on some of the salvage and pay. "Dark Talons, move forward! Keep your eyes open, Battle Armor, hit the thicker woods, scan for targets and screen for anti Mech. Mechs, fall in, we're keeping to the woods, but the thinner stuff so we won't go knocking down the forest and letting them know which direction we are precisely coming from. Watch your sides, watch your buddies sides, and we'll get some easy pay off this job, Quiaff?"

That got an enthusiastic affirmative, and while Kashra was heavily focused on her surroundings, listening to the chatter and reports from her team, the Dark Talons snapped quickly to her orders. The Battle Armor was off ahead of the Mech lance, not finding any real targets of any sort right away, figuring much of the picket and outlying defensive skirmishers had pulled back into the main defensive line to bolster it against the inevitable attack on their flank, or if they were foolish, to reinforce the other side. It didn't take long to find someone though, and the Battle Armor sounded back towards Kashra, identifying the target. "Commander, got a pair of Myrmidons and some accompanying infantry, your orders?" The Dark Talons were more than ready to pick off this group, but were waiting on their CO's orders before they engaged.

"Heading to that location" Kashra's short, simple reply set into motion the destruction of that unsuspecting, and most unready, enemy unit. The Battle Armor held position, out of sight and undetected by the two tanks and accompanying infantry units, who were setting up to provide a first warning point for any enemies that came through. Odds were they would die doing so, but that was such in the art of war. And if it would save their world, then these troops would gladly give their lives doing so. They were not mercenaries, but were too lightly equipped for serious entrenched fighting. So they were sent a scouting, to die for the sake of the proper defenses, but salvage was salvage, after all, so the Dark Talons had their orders, and they all knew precisely what they were going to be doing.

Artillery round started landing near the Battle Armor, which had hunkered down in a nearby rock formation, so everyone present ignored the landing rounds, while the Dark Talon mech lance came marching out of the woods, weapons blazing fury and death at the tanks and infantry. The one Dragon started taking some fire from one of the Myrmidons, but it was to little avail as the Dragon ignored it, energy weapons blazing full force from the Dark Talon mechs, ripping the tanks to shreds as they stood little real chance in the woods, against mechs, with no viable weapons for quickly bringing them down. Let alone the energy weapon barrage coming from the Mechs, the tanks stood no practical chance when pinned in such a situation, but their death cries were known by others, but it was little consolation to the now utterly defenseless infantry, rather than mostly defenseless.

It was at this point that the Rottwieler battle armor units ran onto the scene, and they would spell the infantry detachment's ultimate demise, sure as sure. After all, flechette cannons wreak utter havoc against such units. And wreak havoc they did, the Rottwieler pair storming into the clearing, cannons barking figurative walls of death, the flechettes tearing apart the light armor the infantry was wearing, and none of their weapons would pose any real threat to the Battle Armor that was attacking and moping up after the mech's had stormed the area, ruined tanks now sitting surrounded by shredded corpses, the first kills of the Dark Talons.

[Eisenhorn]

Alerts from across the front came racing into the cockpit of Jurgen's Huntsman, and he sighed in a very tired sounding way when reports of a mercenary company with the banner of three talons on a field of grey came in, since he knew all too well who those particular band of mercs were. But through the sigh, he started chuckling a bit. Of course they would cross paths again, seemed that was a common occurrence at this rate, whether on the same side or opposing. He looked at the placement map of where his troops were, the only ones not in position were, unsurprisingly, his Harasser's who were out in the forest edge, and the fighting clearly spooked them and sent them racing back into friendly territory. Good, they were not feeling unusually brave today, that saved him the trouble of having to dispatch an order telling them to withdraw immediately. He didn't want to replace them without a good reason this day.

Jurgen snapped out orders from his vantage behind his tank line, well hidden in the rubble created by artillery barrages that had been pounding away as much of the defenses as possible, creating more than they had started with for creative defenders. Jurgen and his men needed to be creative, since they wouldn't be winning any slug fests straight face to face style. "All Dawn Runners, all Dawn Runners, now hear this. Make to your entrenchments and make ready to repel the first assault waves. Our old friends in the Dark Talons have come calling, led by the Queen Bitch of the Universe herself." That got some chuckles out of his men, the main reason he did it since they all knew it wasn't hostile, and they really didn't hold animosity towards the other mercenary bands. After all, they all had to make their pay somehow, so it was just the business of the day. Jurgen snapped more detailed orders out, having lightened the tension a bit.

"Musketeer's, your the first hitters against light and medium mechs, as well as anything you think is worth the ammunition. Harasser's, fire at anything you can do some reasonable damage to. Warrior's, to the skies the moment the first enemy mechs get within range of you, but don't go high up, and keep moving, who knows what kind of AA they might have. Hit hard, hit fast, but don't get yourselves caught in a corner. Engage at your own discretion." The first units to reach his section of line were infantry and their APC units, which got set upon from four different pieces of rubble, from the appearance on their side of the lines. Harasser's with medium lasers could do some work against a variety of targets, the APC's didn't stand much chance, and not many infantry were able to bail out, and energy fire would take care of those survivors.

The key to the survival of the Dawn Runner's in their defensive plan was a whole series of set defensive points each unit would shoot and scoot to, firing from one point until danger dictated they move to a new, seemingly random point, engage from there, rinse and repeat. Slower units wouldn't be able to pull it off, but the high speed, hover capabilities of all his units made it possible. The Warrior's would strike the first mech's that got into range of them, the ones they could damage at any rate, moving like flies, randomly swerving to throw off aiming protocols and keeping low enough that missile attacks could be avoided by ducking down into their landing safe zones within the deeper city proper. They would hit and run both flanks, popping shots at the oncoming tanks while sitting out of range of most weapons, abusing the Autocannon range while ducking down as soon as something started paying attention to them, before popping up again and scooting, firing again from different air space.

Jurgen had his Huntsman powered up, but held back in reserve, watching for any serious, high value threats towards his section of line. If the heavier mech's hit his section of line, he was the only chance they seriously had of bringing them down. The sole other mech in his company, the Stinger, was fighting, jump jetting from hot spot to hot spot, firing its own medium laser and machine gunning down hostile troops, the twin guns scything down lightly armored men with ease, while the medium laser would give some mechs pause, the fast moving, quick hopping light mech was a hard target to hit from between rubble piles and volleyed fire from friendly artillery units, being given targets from their forward positions, and by the Dawn Runners themselves, pointing out likely coordinates for valid hits, but his section of line was an apparent ghost division, moving fast enough some enemies swore that there was more there than was really the case, and word would probably reach others about this phenomenon. How long the Dawn Runner's could hold this defense, well, was up to partly chance, and partly how strong enemy opposition got in comparison to the support they would get. Jurgen had a fighting retreat series of lines set up, maximizing his advantages while minimizing his weaknesses, always keeping in mind changing battlefield conditions, waiting for the perfect ambush strike moment to arise.

[Omega]

His blizzards shot through the apparent gap the assault mechs had made, they had barely made it past the first few warehouses when Anthony, the leader of the Blizzards, came over the company's channel, "Pop the doors, everyone out slow down to 40KPH so they can jump."

Novek was quick on the come back though and Anton could hear the roar in the background of his jumpjets already, "Fuck slowing down, just open the doors, use your jets to slow yourselves boys and girls and roll when you hit if you have to."

Anton did not even have time to consider the danger of such a call, and anyway Novek knew the suits better than he did so he just had to hope everyone was limited to just scrapes from jumping out of APCs at such high speeds. He could still ensure the safety of the men who risked their lives to deliver the cargo into the urban zone though, "Anton get out of there the same way you came in. it is still open and fall back to LRM range don't risk your necks and be ready to act as medivac."

"Roger that," there was a hint of worry in his voice, naturally Anthony never liked to leave behind his cargo but as always knew they were better off on their own.

On the eastern flank with the open terrain it seems the Allavar had deployed mercenaries more intent upon long ranged combat to try and bleed the Penoy forces as they approached but the Penoy mercs sent forth were the armor heavy forces and without the command and control functions of a dedicated regiment the piece meal fire seemed to allow the line to flex more than it normally would. This was letting the eastern flank begin to actually gain ground overall while the center forces were encountering fierce resistance from harassing forces which had slowed them to a crawl and western forces were slowed by terrain and pockets of infantry dug in at every defensible spot available.

Pushing forward with his mech in a full run Anton let lose with his medium lasers at long and extended ranges he felt the heat shoot up in his reactor as it fed energy to the lasers but he refused to waste ammo at targets he would have to walk shells across for marginal damage. Return fire was light as mechs brawled all around as the second echelon impacted the already intense melee going on across the fringe of the industrial sector. Pursuing down the route the damaged Wyvern had gone he saw no signs of it's passing. He was not that big a fan of it since the Hammerhands was not well known for it's rear armor, "Novek, attempt to link up with me as I push in."

"Roger that, I will send one squad out ahead and one behind, I am coming to you," Novek was showing his chops as why he was XO again thinking ahead where his CO thought too much of the now.

Bringing his mech down to a walk Anton began plotting a course to try and push into the rear of the enemy center formation. If he could get some enemy officers or a supply depot he knew there would be a hefty bonus involved. The visions of C-bills dancing in his head came crashing down as he was blinded by sudden light. His armor frame lit up as well showing armor being scorched off all over his mech. After the light faded enough and his cockpit had polarized he saw what had hit him, a sneaky Hunchback 4P hiding in an alley and sliced armor all over the left side of his mech. It had put out insane energy for it's size and yet while extremely hot was far from overheated thanks to liberal heatsinks. There were a few problems for the HBK-4P had though was that firing side on the Hammerhands was a smaller target, he hd been firing without his computer aiming for him to stay hidden, Anton's Hammerhands was well armored so stayed standing, and most importantly firing all those lasers at once meant Anton now had a few seconds to act freely while the Hunchback as stuck in an alley with nowhere to go.

Turning his Hammerhands to face the mech that had dared to scorch away so much of his armor Anton switched from caseless to armor piercing. The enemy was backing up down the alley but still had a ways to go and was sure as hell not going to make it. Opening up with both barrels his Hammerhands could not fit down the alley so instead he just stood at it's mouth walking shells across his enemy. The autocannons pulled up and to the left, the armor piercing shells punching through the HBK with almost every shell shredding internals. As it came up toward the shoulder a few rounds even over penetrated the increasingly softened armor. The Hunchback fired back but fewer than half of the remaining lasers fired and one exploded as it misfired dropping the mechs right arm to the pavement and barely eve glancing the Hammerhands. Just as he was prepared to key up the missiles he heard the Hunchback's death knell come over the comms.

Novek, blaring music on an open channel came flying over rofftops leaping almost blindly down to land on the savaged right torso of the hunchback his squadmates only a few steps behind. They began to use their small lasers and claws to shred through the armor. Knowing himself beaten thoroughly the Hunchback pilot ejected sending his cockpit flying away from them and his mech careening to the ground, Novek and his squad already leaping off to latch onto one of the buildings the medium mech had used to mask itself.

"Marking position for later salvage, Novek, you got anything else we can play with?" Anton could almost feel the bloodlust smile Novek had plastered on his face as the hardened warrior responded.

"Got a catapult up ahead, direct fir shit, either cannons or gauss, not sure which. Was going to send a squad of my boys to take care of it but they might not mind you backing them up if you can fit it into your schedule."

They fell into the usual banter with ease, the beginning of battle was always the most nerve wracking and now that thing were properly joined it was easier for them all to feel properly at ease even if they were fully on edge due to the combat raging all about them.

Striding forward he called for a sitrep from the tanks rolling up behind them, "Yin, how is your shit fairing?"

"Okay for us, people do not want to fuck with this convoy," There was some crackling in the background he knew as consistent with PPC discharge, he could not tell if it was from inbound enemies or outbound from the myrmidons.

"Alright, tell me when you reach the limits, we will keep advancing until we find something we need you to roll over."

"Copy that, hopefully they have a nice battalion or two to hold you long enough for us." They were all getting into the mood now, the behemoths were sitting ducks moving slowly across the open terrain towards the factories and warehouses but they were heavily armored and had escorts plus their own LRMs to dissuade people and range while most living beings knew not to close with a behemoth.

Walking his mech down the street he hugged the buildings not wanting to expose himself to the Catpult Novek had mentioned earlier. The IFF tags on his HUD showed all 12 bttlearmor suits stacked up nearby surrounding a building that he guessed the enemy Catapult had taken up residence upon. Anton smirked, he had a nice edge most mechs in his weight class lacked. Starting to run his mech forward he hit his jump jets launching himself about 50 meters into the air aiming his autocannons at where he assumed the Catapult would be while also going over it's aim point. This plan half worked as the Catapult was quickly attempting to change it's aim point and follow his mech but while he had assumed t was on the building the battle armor had been on it turned out it had been behind it using the front building for cover. They both let loose at each other the Catapult's PPCs glancing the leg armor of his mech while armor piercing shells rained down on the top of the Catapult. At first he wondered why it did not lift off to escape him as he landed on the building just in front of it, feeling the roof flex beneath him. Then he remembered the K2 which his computer indicated the Catapult was lacked jumpjets and so had been forced to use smaller buildings as stairs in effect to get here, something it could not now do. Unleashing more shells onto the top of the Catapult while it's PPCs cycled he easily shrugged off the minor fire from it's macheguns though the pair of medium lasers did further worry his armor. It was all moot though then all 12 suits of battle armor left from their hiding places and swarmed the stricken catapult tearing through the damage top and inflicting new harm on the heavy mech. Once more the pilot ejected not willing to risk the battle armor tearing open the cockpit as well.

They were getting into the second line now, there would be more units set out to slow the advance or outright smash lighter enemies but for him at least it was likely easier moving now. At least until the enemy reinforcements showed up which were inevitable and based on his chrono just a few minutes out. He would need to move fast to not get caught in a heavy sweep. As he strode forward he received another tight beam communication, "Anton, Yin, he are in the city, advancing double line on your location."

It was going to be a surprisingly good day he thought advancing as the battle armor leapt about him.