Pollit Plains, Gaffin Continent,

Avon, Pesht Military District,

Draconis Combine,

12^th December, 3051

 

“Drop!” Descartin shouted to the rest of his temporary binary as his Timber Wolf leaped out of the dropship into the hail of flak from the ground units opposing their drop. His mech was buffeted by the near misses and minor hits from the exploding shards, but a quick look at his armor readout showed that none of the flak damaging his armor.

All around him was pandemonium as the Nova Cats executed their favored combat entry, the hover drop maneuver. The dropships, normally responsible for transporting mechs to a planetary surface, did not land in such situations, instead going to the lower atmosphere before disgorging their deadly cargo.

For their part, those mechs that do not have integral jump jets were equipped with disposable jump packs, allowing them to land safely without ending up as a splattered wreck on the ground. Those mechs configured with jump jets, like Descartin’s Timber Wolf, were more than capable of slowing their descent on their own.

The Nova Cats had perfected the technique to the extent that they were able to return ground-to-air fire while still in midair. Apparently, the defenders did not know of this.

Descartin’s mouth twisted into a feral snarl as he targeted a Partisan tank throwing up a wall of autocannon fire. His PPCs blazed two lightning trails into the tank’s turret, destroying all the autocannons mounted there. The tank exploded as a runaway arc of electrons set off its ammunition stores, scattering metal shards in all directions. Two of its fellow tanks rocked under the impact of the blast, then veered away before his Timber Wolf could land and get under their autocannon range.

The skies were not just occupied by dropping Nova Cat units and their dropships. The star of fighters accompanying them were locked in a furious dogfight with the small local jet fighter contingent, though the outcome of that battle was hardly in doubt, with the smoking wreckage of one jet after another dropping from the sky, unable to match the clan omnifighters in either armor or weaponry.

The ground below seemed like a scene from the holovids he had of hell, obscured by clouds of black smoke and fires burning all over the place from missed missile flights, and of course the burning wreckage of the destroyed vehicles that had gathered to oppose their drop.

Descartin did a quick count of the forces arrayed below, and he noted that there was only a company of mechs present. But there was a full battalion of tanks with them. The operative word being was. That battalion was all destroyed by the accurate shooting of the Cats as they dropped down, even before they had landed. Only the company of mechs was still standing.

Mere cannon fodder, Descartin shook his head slightly as he looked at the piles of wreckage that were once formidable weapons of war. As good as they were, they were no match for clan skill and technology. The mechs would be harder to defeat, but he knew they were already dead if they chose to stand and fight it out with the heavy mechs of his binary.

“Star Captain, watch the left flank!” Star Colonel Thadeus Nostra barked into his ear.

“Aff!” Descartin saw the ground approaching rapidly, and he gave one last burst of thrust from his jump jets to kill his speed, before the Timber Wolf slammed into the ground, the chicken legs flexing to absorb the enormous impact to avoid damage to the interior endo-steel bone.

He swung the mech’s torso to the left, picking up a Wolverine-6K firing its laser array at Jeff’s Warhawk. “The Wolverine is mine!” Descartin warned the others as he fired his PPCs at it. “The rest of you, pick a target and stick with it!”

One PPC passed harmlessly between the legs of the Wolverine, but the other tore into the torso, ripping a jagged scar across the sloping chest of the bulky mech. The mech turned to oppose Descartin’s advance.

Descartin stomped on his pedals, lifting the Timber Wolf towards the Wolverine on jets of flame. He fired his entire battery of medium lasers at the apex of his flight, even as the Wolverine replied with its own weapons while backpedaling.

The space between the two machines was filled with glaring lines of blinding light. Descartin barely noticed a large laser hit on his right arm as half his own lasers pounded the Wolverine mercilessly, sending rivulets of molten alloy flowing down from the battered Combine mech. The Wolverine staggered, but continued pulling back.

The Timber Wolf slammed into the ground, and Descartin continued moving forward even as the Wolverine tried to pull back, intent on skewering the hapless medium mech. He kept an eye on the rest of the Wolverine’s companions, but they were being ripped apart by the sheer firepower of his binary. He could see, however, that the Combine company was trying to gang up on his mechs, but it was not very successful as his units maneuvered to keep the range open.

Then he suddenly realized he was stuck between the Wolverine and the other mechs. Move it! His senses screamed at him.

He flung the Timber Wolf to his right almost on instinct as the mech rocked from several missile hits on its rear, unstopped by his anti-missile system. A storm of laser blasts passed to his left, through the space he had just vacated. Descartin glanced at the rear view display to confirm his hunch. There were five mechs behind him, two Jenners, an Assassin, a Panther, and a Phoenix Hawk, all being pummeled by his starmates, but apparently more than willing to take down his Timber Wolf in exchange for their mechs.

To Descartin, it was hardly a fair swap. He turned quickly to his left, while pulling his throttle all the way back to reverse the mech. He kept his  PPCs trained on the Wolverine, which was now advancing fearlessly into his line of his particle cannon barrels. Hurry up, he urged the capacitors for the PPCs to recharge.

“Take down those mechs, now!” Descartin shouted to his units, not bothering to acknowledge the responses to his command, concentrating on moving out of the crisscrossing enemy fire pattern of laser blasts and missile salvos. He mostly succeeded, but he still lost quite a lot of vital armor over the left side of his mech.

“Die, clanner!” The words came over the open frequency as the Panther unleashed an aimed PPC bolt at his mech. Descartin winced away from his HUD as the electron beam played over his cockpit for the briefest of instants.

Some of the cockpit glass shattered under the intense heat of the particle beam, the shards flying from the rapid heat expansion and stabbing into Descartin’s cooling vest. He thought he felt some of the shards poking into his body, and some thick liquid flowing down the insides of his vest. He hoped that it was simply mech coolant and not his own blood. He certainly could not feel anything through the dulling adrenaline of combat.

The PPC recharge light finally blinked green, and Descartin scowled as he stabbed the triggers for his primary TIC, at the exact same moment the Wolverine chose to shoot its lasers, followed by a salvo of SRMs.

The enemy mech’s lasers carved into his Timber Wolf’s torso, but the armor held, just barely, while the SRMs impacted all around him, sending up gouts of soil and flame beside the Timber Wolf. His own PPCs had a much more devastating effect.

The lightning bolts punched through the weakened center torso into the heart of the Wolverine, shattering its fusion engine. The fusion controllers managed to shut down the engine in time, preventing a catastrophic runaway reaction. The Wolverine crashed to the ground.

Descartin struggled with his control sticks as the Draconis mechs made one last effort to take him down, firing their weapons for all they were worth. One Jenner exploded as Jeff’s pulse lasers caught its vulnerable ammunition bays, setting off the missile loads.

“Freebirth! Hurry up with those kills!” Descartin shouted angrily. He was sorely tempted to fire back at one of his tormentors, but the rules of zellbrigen prevented him from doing that, as it was dishonorable and strongly discouraged by the tenets of Nicholas Kerensky.

As though suddenly spurred by his furious demands, the fire on his mech died off as the 2^nd Amphigean mechs went down one after another to his binary. Descartin checked the status of his warriors, and he was not surprised that none of them were hurt in any way.

Because most of those mechs were shooting at me! He said over the comms, “Alpha star, stay with me. Beta, make a sweep patrol to the northwest.” Some of the freebirths had managed to escape. He toggled over to the command frequency. “Star Colonel, the defenders at the landing zones have all been driven off.”

“Good. I will have the dropships land now. We have no time to waste. The stores have to be unloaded immediately.”

Due to the demands of waging war over long interstellar distances with inadequate transport, the clan had no choice but to use a relay system to ferry supplies to a target world. The present amount carried by their transports was barely enough for the assault on Luthien. More would be brought in during the rest of the month.

But they had to secure the world first.

Two hours and a hasty repair job later, Descartin in his Timber Wolf was moving out along with the rest of his binary. Star Colonel had ordered them to hunt down the reinforced battalion of 2^nd Amphigean LAG units that had dug in at the Tenderlands, a thickly forested area that would offer the defenders an invaluable advantage.

The trinary from Delta Galaxy was doing the same, in a movement parallel to Descartin’s own advance. The plan called for them to hit the DCMS unit simultaneously at two points, and then pushing them out of the woods where their aerospace support could strafe the survivors into defeat.

Of course, Descartin reminded himself, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

He had suffered some minor wounds to his body from the glass shards that had punctured his cooling vest. Not for the first time, he was grateful for the non-toxic properties of clan coolant fluid.

Beta star consisted of his heaviest mechs, with Jeff’s Warhawk, Glace’s and Rossi’s paired Dire Wolves, Tia’s Gargoyle, and Frick’s Timber Wolf. The presence of the Dire Wolves slowed down the star immensely, but they were supposed to be tasked with assaulting fixed positions anyway, so their lack of speed was not really important.

Descartin muttered angrily under his breath as the light mechs of Delta Galaxy’s 274^th Battle Cluster suddenly reported contacts before they had reached the forest. The contacts scattered, leaving the omnimechs of the 274^th chasing them in all directions.

“This is Star Captain Hanna, we are in pursuit.” A female voice barked.

“All units, continue on our path!” Descartin ordered his binary. “Watch out for hidden enemy mechs.”

“You suspect a trap?” Deserk asked.

“Aff. Something is wrong here. There are only about twelve mechs being chased by the 274^th. Where are the others?”

“Maybe they could be waiting in front of us to defeat us in detail!”

“In that case, we should proceed carefully. All units, stay close and advance!” Descartin kept an eye on the movements of the 274^th. He had a bad feeling about the whole situation.

 

Chu-i Yoshino Ihara grinned humorlessly in his hundred ton Atlas. The clanners had fallen for the modified bait and switch.

One enemy unit was advancing slowly, obviously wary of a trap, while the other was chasing the mechs of fifth company all over the place. They had no idea where the balance of the battalion was, and Chu-sa Kimura fully intended to punish them for their audacity in attacking the Draconis Combine.

The 2^nd Amphigean LAG commanders had been shocked when they found themselves under attack by two full clan clusters from two different clans, forcing them to split up into task forces to oppose the clanners.

The mixed command attacking the initial Nova Cat landing was decimated moments after it had mobilized when the landing location had been determined. The rest of the battalion had proceeded to the Tenderlands, where they would hopefully draw away the Nova Cats away from their supply caches long enough for their infantry units to sabotage them.

Inflicting damage on the clanners was a secondary concern, but still a nice bonus.

They were using their time honored tactic of pulling enemy units apart, and then swarming each unit individually by massed swarms of light mechs. However, due to the presence of his Atlas, left as a family heirloom by his samurai father, there were a few modifications to the tactic, all very welcome to the Combine defenders. The mech was now running on passive power, waiting for one of its lancemates to lead the unsuspecting clanners into its guns. Yoshino hoped that the active probes of the clan mechs would not be able to detect the low engine signature of the Atlas, even though it was further shielded by special tarps to blind any sensors trying to pick up the mech.

He went active almost as soon as Shujin Fatau’s Javelin hopped past the clump of trees shielding him from the visual sensors of the Cats. The Atlas’s weapons all indicated their readiness. An Uller light mech ran behind the Javelin, firing its large laser, oblivious to the Atlas’s presence.

Yoshino stepped the Atlas out of its sensor camo tarp covered hiding hole, and he relished the fear apparent in the Uller as it suddenly realized there was a hundred ton enemy behind it.

He triggered a long burst from his super heavy autocannon at point blank range, ripping into its rear, followed by a stream of SRMs.

The shells ate hungrily into the weak rear armor of the light mech, tearing apart one of its side torsos. The IR signature of the light mech flashed red as its engine shielding was shredded. The missiles hammered into the mech with a vengeance, blasting away the rest of its gyro and engine. The omnimech went down, the pilot ejecting from his destroyed mech.

Yoshino grinned as he turned the Atlas around to continue the attack. All around him, the clanners found themselves spread out and subject to the swarming tactics so familiar to the Amphigean mechs. They pulled back, trying to use their longer weapon ranges to their benefit, but the DCMS unit was in no mood to let them do that. They closed the distance fearlessly through swarms of LRMs and laser blasts, taking the damage and the losses while inflicting their own on the clan mechs.

“Battle Lance, press the attack!” Yoshino ordered as he fired his LRMs at a far away Thor. The missiles missed, but Yoshino charged the Atlas on. His heart sang with bloodlust, and he was thinking of the famous victory ahead.

Maybe, just maybe, if they could defeat the clans here, they might be able to salvage the powerful clan technology, and use them to push the rest of the hated clanners off! Then Avon, his homeworld, would be safe from the predations of these barbarians!

“For the glory of the Dragon!” He yelled. The cheer was taken up by the other warriors of his lance.

 

“Star Captain! There is nobody here!” Yegro reported from his Ice Ferret. “They must be somewhere else!”

His comms suddenly crackled to life with a transmission from Hanna. “Star Captain! We are ambushed! Enemy strength is a full battalion! We require assistance immediately!” Sounds of intense combat could be heard in the background.

Descartin grasped the situation instantly. They had been tricked into splitting their forces, and the treacherous freebirths would then be able to overwhelm each clan force separately. While that might had worked against any other opposition, they were facing Clan Nova Cat this time.

“All units, proceed at maximum speed to grid 387962! Alpha Four, Alpha Five! Lead the way, and watch for any more ambushes along our route!”

Within moments, the clan mechs were racing away from the forest into the cauldron of battle. Yegro’s Ice Ferret and Lori’s Stormcrow led the way.

The incredible speed and mobility offered by the extra light engines of the clan omnimechs enabled them to reach the battle three kilometers away in just two minutes. Yegro’s Ice Ferret destroyed a Locust with just one shot from his PPC, while Lori’s Stormcrow closed in with a Javelin, and then firing all of its lasers in a searing display of destructive firepower. There was nothing left of the Javelin as its ammunition bays exploded under the barrage. Descartin smiled as his binary made an immediate impact on the battle.

The Amphigean mechs seemed stunned at the rapid arrival of the clan mechs, but to their credit managed to react quickly, swinging away from the main body of his assault force in an attempt to stay as far from his mechs, while still keeping in range of the battered 274^th.

“Pour it on!” Descartin picked out a Wolf Trap, a new technology mech that was rarely sighted in the ranks of the DCMS, but likely to be a worthy foe. He fired his PPCs in a staggered pattern, forcing the Draconis mech away from the 274^th.

His binary was laying into the Amphigean light mechs with relish, using their superior firepower to overwhelm the weak mechs of the DCMS.

The Wolf Trap danced away from his PPC shots, firing its cluster autocannon at his Timber Wolf in a display of sheer bravado.

Very well, I shall honor your courage with a quick defeat. Descartin smiled as he triggered his jump jets into a leap forward to take him into close range for his medium lasers.

The Wolf Trap fired a salvo of missiles at him, trying to send him off balance in his jump. It was a futile effort, as his anti-missile system clawed the missiles out of the sky. Descartin fired both his PPCs followed by three of his medium lasers in rapid succession.

The hellish energy of the PPCs vaporized armor on the Wolf Trap’s legs before the medium lasers tore into its soft innards, slicing through the bones holding up the mech. The mech stumbled, as though trying to stay upright, but it was a lost cause. The entire lower leg separated from the rest of the mech, and the mech crashed to the ground in a shower of sparks. There was no ejection.

Gasping through the stifling heat in his cockpit, Descartin checked his sensors, looking for more targets. Then he saw the magnificent Atlas savaging Lori’s Stormcrow.

 

Yoshino cursed angrily as he fired at the Masakari that had just arrived to aid its comrades. The baka clanner just refused to go down!

He fired again, along with the rest of his lance as they sought to sell themselves as dearly as possible.

Tai-i Ichiro’s company, which he belonged to, had been tasked to hold back the enemy advance while the rest of the battalion tried to break through a weak point in the clanners’ lines.

The Masakari had already destroyed two of his lancemates, Takuma’s Panther and Inamoto’s Wasp. Inamoto, especially, never had a chance as he had flung his light mech against the Masakari in a death from above attack. His mech had been pulverized, but the wreckage had somehow managed to land on the clanner, and had even damaged the cockpit.

Even so, the clan mech had been hurt grievously. Fatau was playing a deadly game in his Javelin, constantly angling round to the rear of the clan mech and firing swarms of SRMs at the Masakari, while Yoshino kept it focused on his Atlas, which could take the damage it could deal out.

Then the Masakari suddenly slumped to the ground as two SRMs from the Javelin found the already damaged cockpit. There was a wreath of explosions around the forward jutting area of the mech, and its legs folded up. The Masakari’s fall sent tremors through the ground.

Fatau had little time to celebrate his victory as his Javelin was bathed in a rainbow of photon beams.

“Arghhhhh!” Fatau screamed as his Javelin exploded under the deadly caressing beams of the approaching Ryoken. The mangled carcass of the Javelin flopped on top of the Masakari.

Yoshino whipped up the arms of his Atlas, and fired his lasers even as the Ryoken charged in. One medium and one large laser scored, burning away armor on its arms.

The Ryoken mechwarrior did not seem afraid of his Atlas in the least, arcing around to bring a massive autocannon in its left arm to bear on his mech. Yoshino watched the autocannon arm intently, and he dropped the Atlas to the ground just as the autocannon fired.

He had timed the fall perfectly. The roar of the autocannon whipped into the soil beside the head of his Atlas, even as he used the arms of the mech to roll desperately on the ground to avoid the autocannon burst. He could not see a thing beyond the shower of autocannon shells and soil raining on him. His ears were pounded with the incessant howl of explosive armor-piercing shells.

It was an eternity before it stopped. Yoshino quickly brought the Atlas up again, just in time to receive a dosing of laser fire. He grunted as the Atlas staggered under the loss of almost two tons of armor, but he felt it was better than being hammered by that autocannon.

He replied with his own autocannon, and his missiles. The autocannon ripped into the left arm of the Ryoken, while half of the missiles impacted on the already damaged torso armor of the omnimech, presumably damaged from an earlier battle. The left arm with the super heavy autocannon fell away, and Yoshino sighed in relief at that. However, there was still a good deal of omnimech left for him to destroy.

The medium lasers of the Ryoken flashed again, and Yoshino charged straight into them. Bringing down the range might help his own targeting, and he trusted his armor to keep the Atlas alive.

He fired all of his weapons this time, except for his LRMs. The medium lasers missed, but his autocannon made another damaging hit on the mech, the staccato rhythm of the weapon highly reassuring to Yoshino. His large laser scored on the omnimech’s head, disorientating the pilot for a moment, while his SRMs raced into the damaged torso opened up by his autocannon. The Ryoken staggered for a few meters, trying to compensate for the loss of so much armor and structure before losing its balance. It laid very still on the ground.

Yoshino marched the Atlas up to deal a final blow to the Ryoken, but a PPC streaked past his cockpit.

He looked up to see a Mad Cat leap towards him.

 

“Alpha Four, what is your status? Answer me!” Descartin was worried about his fallen warrior, but a spread of LRMs from the Atlas brought him back to the fight. They missed him, but passed by so closely he could see the black contrails of the missile flight wash over his mech. His AMS did not engage, having run out of ammunition. He cursed himself for not reloading after the initial drop on the Pollit Plains.

A voice spoke over the open frequency. “Villain, I am Chu-i Yoshino Ihara of the 2^nd Amphigean Light Assault Group of the glorious forces of the Dragon! I challenge you to single combat! Pray to your false gods, and prepare to die!”

Descartin allowed a corner of his mouth to twist upwards in a slight smile. His Timber Wolf was the heaviest mech still capable of chasing the fleeing forces of the Draconis mechs. By challenging him, the Atlas hoped to delay him for the rest of its comrades to escape.

In any case, the challenge had been issued, and he was honor bound to accept. “I am Star Captain Descartin of the 449^th Assault Cluster of Clan Nova Cat, the noblest of Kerensky’s children. I hereby accept your challenge. In this solemn matter, let no one interfere!”

The Atlas swung into action, laser fire blazing forth from its arms. Descartin gritted his teeth, and took the hits. The Wolf Trap’s cluster shells had somehow managed to knock away a great deal of the Timber Wolf’s hasty repair job, and one of the lasers tore into his left arm, disabling the PPC there.

Descartin backtracked, trying to open up the range between him and the Atlas, but the assault mech kept on coming straight at him, its missiles and large laser firing at him in one ruinous volley after another.

If that is the way you want it, Descartin grimaced as he threw the mech forward into a run. This is going to hurt, he admitted to himself.

The death head of the Atlas loomed large in his HUD as Descartin aimed right at the massive mech with all his remaining weapons. They fired at precisely the same time.

“Yahhhh!” Descartin found himself yelling in rage, pain, and fear as the Atlas’s shots hit home. Red flashing lights came on all over his cockpit, while sirens wailed of wrecked heat sinks, lost engine shielding, overheated systems, inoperative weapons, actuator destruction, and damaged gyros. His HUD was overcome with static, and he could not see a stravag thing!

He did not even feel the Timber Wolf falling backwards, nor the results of his own attack on the Atlas, so it was a surprise to him as his head was suddenly smashed back into his command crouch. The sheer shock of the impact knocked him out.

 

“Yahhhh!” Yoshino yelled in rage, pain, and fear as he felt the Atlas falling ever so slowly backwards from the loss of so many of its leg actuators, in addition to the amount of armor simply melted away in the ravening heat of the laser and PPC blasts. One laser shot had hit his cockpit, and he had been almost blinded by the intense energy that had leaked through the polarized glass.

He was prepared for the crashing impact when the Atlas hit the ground, but he was sent into unconsciousness all the same.

 

Descartin came to amidst the blaring sounds of his cockpit, groggily shaking his head to clear it of the stars swimming around merrily in his vision.

“What in Kerensky’s name?” He muttered as he tried to get a hold of his bearings. His mech was a mess, but it was still capable of standing, and he still had a PPC and a laser working. In other words, he was still in the fight.

He looked at his partly shattered HUD, which showed nothing but blue sky. He saw on the sole remaining secondary display the fallen form of the Atlas.

“Come on, get up.” He said, and he moved the right arm around to try to lever himself off the ground. Then he noticed one arm of the Atlas move slightly, then swing around to push against the ground.

In an instant of understanding, Descartin realized that whoever got up first would have the advantage, and would then be able to pound into snail snot the loser.

“Come on, get up!” He screamed as he jerked his control sticks abruptly. It took several tries, but the Timber Wolf finally managed to get unsteadily to its feet. He noted with relief that the ponderous assault mech was only halfway through the maneuver.

“Challenge is over.” Descartin said with a note of finality as he fired his PPC and laser through the shattered center of the Atlas.

 

Yoshino swore bitterly as he saw the Mad Cat climb to its feet. If only he had woken up just two seconds earlier…

Then the PPC and the laser barrels of the omnimech erupted in light, and Yoshino found himself flung from the dying Atlas in his command crouch. He found himself flying almost horizontally through the air, a result of his Atlas being in a less than desirable posture for an ejection.

Then he saw the ground approaching rapidly.

That was the last thing he saw before all went dark in a sickening crunch.