Star Commander Ellis reflexively turned away, as a broad swathe of woodland, not fifty metres away, disappeared in conflagration of smoke and fire, set ablaze by a lethal barrage of short range missiles. Seconds later a pair of fighters screamed overhead. From a brief glimpse of their silhouettes, outlined against the blaze, he recognised the Jengiz Primes of Alpha Flight.
'Stravag! Any closer and we'd have been incinerated!' he thought.
However, he didn't blame the pilots. They had been instructed to unleash their payloads right on the position he and his troops had just vacated. The enemy armoured infantry had pursued them relentlessly and were still hot on their heels.
Had he not been genetically bred and ruthlessly trained for war, he might have cringed as he saw the Elementals of Point Epsilon, who were acting as the rearguard, flung to the ground like rag dolls by the blast. As it was, he found himself holding his breath and hoping they were not badly injured.
As the rest of Alpha Elemental set up a defensive perimeter, he saw the five downed warriors struggle to their feet and resume their steady retreat, moving quickly and gracefully, despite being encased in armoured suits, weighing the best part of a ton.
He glanced round the position he'd chosen to defend. The north-facing slope of a large, heavily wooded hill, which offered plenty of concealment for his troops, who could look out onto the recently-cleared swathe of ground at the oncoming enemy. Further up the slope were a few small clearings, which he'd already earmarked as ideal locations for ambushes.
He was trying to think if there was anything he'd overlooked, when a call came over the radio.
"Delta to Alpha Command, I have enemy infantry moving on our location. Estimate a Star in strength".
"Acknowledged, Delta". "Stravag!" he cursed. The fighters' strafing runs had apparently had little effect, leaving him to face over twenty heavily armed troops with 3 Points of Elementals.
The enemy battle armour had decimated Beta and Gamma Points with a combination of light gauss rifles and hellishly effective man-portable PPCs, while his own warriors were equipped with standard lasers and machine guns.
The strafing runs had had the unwanted side-effect of forcing Star Commander Briony and Beta Elemental to fall back, meaning it would be several minutes before they were in position to assist.
Ellis took another glance at his surroundings and tried to force to the back of his mind, the thought that they might be the last things he ever saw. "Alpha Command to all units…prepare to engage on my signal!"
Star Commander Jordi engaged his Hellion's MASC system, accelerating his mech up to nearly 90mph and allowing him to make a two hundred metre flanking run in just a few seconds.
The battle had rapidly descended into a chaotic meleé and with so many small, fast-moving targets, it was proving nearly impossible to land any properly aimed shots. Worse, their enemy did not seem to be having the same problem. All the mechs of Gamma Striker had suffered varying degrees of damage, while failing to inflict much in return.
His flanking run took him to within fifty metres of a Word of Blake Spider. The lightly armed machine was more of a nuisance than anything, but a kill was a kill. Its pilot reacted immediately to his sudden appearance and accelerated to maximum speed, jinking around other combatants in an effort to throw his aim. Jordi however, had been prepared for this and was already floating his HUD's targeting reticule over the back of it's small head. His heavy large laser already tied to the main trigger, he gave himself a couple of seconds to line up the perfect shot before firing.
The broad emerald beam reached across the darkness and struck the Spider directly on the back of the cockpit – the most lightly armoured part of the mech – where it vapourised the minimal armour protection and sliced into the cockpit, instantly killing the pilot. There were a series of small explosions, showers of sparks and flames, as various electrical systems were destroyed. With no-one to control it, the speeding mech toppled, like a puppet with its strings cut and crashed to the ground, ploughing a deep furrow in the soft, grassy terrain.
Jordi gave a coyote howl over the radio, which had become the unit's customary victory cry. He hoped the others would take heart from it.
Searching for another target, the dazzling flare of jumpjets caught his eye and he saw an enemy Eagle soar into the air, taking direct hits to its rear torso from two particle cannon.
'The Pack Hunters are living up to their name!' he thought.
The Blakist mech wavered at the apex of its jump and came down unsteadily, falling forward, before the pilot braced his machine by digging one arm into the dirt. As he did so, Gamma Striker's Fire Falcon loomed out of the darkness and fired both large lasers directly at its cockpit…another instant kill.
More triumphant howls sounded over the radio net, before being suddenly replaced with cries and curses.
Heart in mouth, Jordi wrenched his controls, executing a swift hundred and eighty degree turn. He was just in time to see Striker Four fall to the ground, its right arm and shoulder-mounted ERPPC destroyed. The enemy Falcon Hawk and Jackal then fired at the cockpit, before its pilot could escape, the combined ERPPCs immolating the Pack Hunter's head.
Striker Five, the second Pack Hunter, fired as rapidly as its weapon's lengthy recharge time allowed. The Blakist mechs closed in, peppering it with medium pulse lasers and short range missiles, doing enough damage to force the Cavalier mech to pull back.
Suddenly, just as Jordi's sensors informed him of new enemy units closing in, Striker Five staggered backward, as it's right arm was ripped off and a large hole torn in its centre torso.
'Kerensky's blood! Gauss rifles!' Immensely powerful weapons like that could cripple or destroy light mechs with just one or two shots.
He was relieved to see the pilot eject, before the mech, its gyro evidently destroyed, toppled backwards to the ground.
Checking his tactical display, he saw two new enemy mechs that his computer classified as Huron Warriors, as well as an Apollo, a Wyvern and an Initiate.
The Cavaliers had also learned the Inner Sphere idiom that discretion was sometimes the better part of valour. Jordi opened a channel to his surviving pilots, "Gamma Striker, fall back to the woods!"
Gamma Heavy could bear the brunt of this next battle. He and the other Striker units would stay on the fringes of the fight and help out where possible.
They had just reached the relative safety of the woods, when Jordi was once more dazzled by the flare of jumpjets, as Gamma Heavy's Black Python came soaring over the treeline, ten metres to his right, its large pulse lasers spitting forth ruby darts. That particular mech, he knew, was equipped with a targeting computer, which automatically compensated for movement, vibration, wind, target movement etc. much more quickly and accurately than standard targeting systems.
He turned his mech around to see what the target was and saw a Blakist Hermes stagger and fall to the ground, as the Python added its medium pulse lasers to the barrage.
It regained its footing and responded weakly with its own trio of pulse weapons, but was knocked to the ground again by another volley from the Python's main weapons. This time, it remained where it fell.
He opened a radio link, "My thanks, Ariane. I was so intent on breaking contact, I did not see that surat coming up behind me".
"That is unlike you Jordi, were you asleep in your cockpit?"
Jordi rolled his eyes at the friendly barb. He could hardly deny he'd been caught unawares.
"Aff. Thank you for waking me with your dramatic entrance".
"You are welcome".
A second Hermes, which like the first, had been attempting to sneak up on them from behind, tried to flee. It accelerated to an incredible speed, but suddenly staggered and fell prone, sliding along the ground, coming to a halt less than three hundred metres away. Jordi guessed it's MASC system had overloaded and damaged the leg actuator couplings. He made a mental note to be less reliant on his Hellion's own myomer acceleration system.
Just then Ariane's mech was rocked by a volley of long range missiles. She had the presence of mind to activate her jumpjets, to avoid a second, larger salvo, which roared past him and destroyed a stand of trees.
The second unit of Word of Blake mechs was closing fast and clearly had them in their sights. Jordi was just about to radio Binary Gamma's commander, when a trio of heavy mechs burst through the trees and opened fire. Immediately recognisable from the rotating sensor arrays over their cockpits, each Rifleman IIC let loose with its quartet of large pulse lasers, flaying armour from the retreating Blakist Falcon Hawk and Jackal.
The Initiate, Wyvern and Apollo answered with more salvoes of long range missiles, while the Huron Warriors sent another pair of gauss slugs streaking through the darkness, each slamming into a Rifleman.
Keen to avoid this long range pummelling, the Riflemen and Black Python advanced towards the enemy at maximum speed. Finally, Binary Gamma's commander, Star Captain Novak Tamzarian emerged from the woods in his distinctive Glass Spider. The rotund, ungainly-looking machine had a disc-shaped sensor array above the cockpit and a pair of large, reversible arms, each housing a gauss rifle. He wasted no time in finding an opponent, singling out the lead Huron Warrior and placing two well aimed shots, which shattered the lighter mech's right hip joint, sending it crashing to the ground.
Just then, Jordi's Hellion was rocked violently and the rear torso segment of his armour display flashed red.
"Stravag! What in Kerensky's name…?"
Glancing at his radar display, he could see no enemy to his rear. He cycled through infrared and magnetic resonance imaging but still got nothing. His mech shuddered again from more hits and he quickly turned to try and get a visual on his mysterious assailant.
Another ruby lance flashed out of the darkness and struck the Hellion on the left torso. Another segment on his armour display turned red.
He throttled the Hellion into a run and headed towards his unseen tormentor, jinking randomly. Suddenly, he was able to make out a ghostly outline in the darkness. The shape and size flashed up the name Phoenix Hawk in his mind. He glanced at his sensor displays again…still nothing.
'What the hell…?' he wondered. Then it hit him, 'Stealth armour!'
He, like the rest of the Cavaliers, had heard about it, from conversations with Inner Sphere mechwarriors and technicians, but he had never before faced a mech equipped with it.
He loosed off a snapshot with his heavy large laser, which grazed the P-Hawk's right torso, before its pilot lit the jumpjets, sending it arcing over him. The pilot somehow executed a half-turn in mid-flight and unleashed another shot from its large laser, hitting him in the centre-rear torso before landing.
The Hellion shuddered and warning alarms sounded in the cockpit.
"Warning! Reactor damage, emergency shutdown in progress", came the audio warning from the master computer.
Jordi unleashed yet another stream of curses and began unplugging his coolant vest and neurohelmet. Before he could hit the central release button on the 5-point harness that strapped him into the command couch, the Hellion was hit by more shots to its rear torso. Now static, the force of the impacts rocked it forward. Slowly, it toppled and hit the ground, cockpit first, the shock creating a maze of spiderweb cracks in the ferroglass canopy. Seconds later, a stray missile impacted close by, the shockwave from the detonation shattering the fractured glass.
Jordi gritted his teeth and tried not to black out as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. He hung from the command couch, bruised, bleeding and struggling to breathe, as the harness dug into his shoulders, chest and waist. Gripping the seat with one hand, he gingerly pressed the release button and carefully lifted his legs up and placed them on the control console. With difficulty, he clambered into the space behind the pilot's seat and retrieved his jumpsuit, personal sidearm and survival kit.
Rather than try and dress himself and stow his gear in the cramped confines of the cockpit, Jordi simply unfastened the hatch in the floor and tossed the items onto the ground. The mech having fallen face-first, the ground was now about six feet away. Gripping the edge of the hatchway, he lowered himself until his arms were fully extended, before letting go and dropping the rest of the way. He immediately regretted doing this, as a sharp pain flared in his chest and he fell to the ground, gasping for breath…it seemed his injuries were more severe than he'd realised.
When the pain subsided, he slowly got to his feet, now shivering in the cold night air, after the heat of the cockpit. He removed his cooling vest, wincing and gasping as every move seemed to spark fresh pain. He dragged on the jumpsuit, strapped on his laser pistol and combat knife and shouldered the pack containing his survival gear. He crouched and peered cautiously around one of the Hellion's huge articulated feet. Less than fifty metres away, Tamzarian's unit and the two remaining Striker mechs were taking the fight to the enemy. His attacker was nowhere to be seen.
Activating his night-vision binoculars, Jordi scanned the surrounding area to get an idea of the situation.
The battle now centred on an abandoned farm, located just off the main highway leading to Westminster. The heavy mechs of Binary Gamma were inflicting extensive damage on the enemy's medium and light mechs. Just when it looked as though the Cavaliers were gaining the upper hand, a flurry of projectiles, missiles and directed energy beams flew out of the darkness, crashing into Star Captain Tamzarian's Glass Spider, the trio of Riflemen and Ariane's Black Python, the latter looking particularly worse for wear by this time.
Evidently, the Blakists were bringing more reinforcements to the fight. He hoped the rest of the Cavaliers would arrive in time.
As he watched, he saw the Falcon Hawk and Jackal he had been battling earlier, gang up on the Python, as Ariane attempted to jump out of trouble once again. They both fired on the Cavalier mech in mid-flight, destroying one jumpjet, causing it to land unsteadily.
Outstanding pilot that she was, she managed to control her landing and performed an about face with surprising deftness, unleashing a barrage of fire on her tormentors. Jordi watched incredulously. Although the Black Python was equipped with thirteen double-strength heat sinks, its suite of pulse lasers generated a large amount of heat, which they would struggle to cope with after several volleys. Sure enough, the Python's rate of fire slackened every few shots, but not enough to prevent the mech overheating.
'That cockpit must be like an oven', he thought.
The Blakist mechs halted their advance, as if surprised by their intended prey turning on them so viciously. The Jackal's left arm parted company with the torso in a shower of sparks, as Ariane began targeting specific parts of the mech, assisted by the Python's targeting computer. Next, more sparks and flame burst from the left hip joint and finally, the knee joint blew out, causing the mech to fall prone, where it remained.
Ariane shifted her fire to the Falcon Hawk, but after just a few shots, her weapons fell silent and the mech assumed its hunched-over shutdown position.
'Kerensky's Blood!' thought Jordi, 'She must have used up all her coolant'.
As she waited helplessly, for her mech to cool down, on the verge of passing out from the heat, the Falcon Hawk pilot pressed home the attack. There was a small explosion as one of the Python's leg actuators ruptured. Another volley and the seventy-five ton mech sagged to the right, before slowly toppling onto its side. Instead of leaving their downed foe, the Blakist continued to fire, seemingly wanting to destroy their opponent completely.
Rage welled up inside Jordi at this disgusting, cowardly behaviour. Forgetting his own injuries, he bolted from cover and began sprinting across the open ground, ignoring the stabbing pains in his chest and limbs. Fortunately, the night rendered him all but invisible to the pilots of the huge machines around him and despite worsening his injuries by falling into craters and potholes, as he ran, he reached the Black Python's head. Using whatever hand and footholds he could find, he scrambled up the side, until he could see into the cockpit.
Through the dirty and cracked canopy, he could see Ariane, slumped unconscious in her seat. Cursing, he tried to remember where the hatch was. Sliding back down, he looked at the underside of the Python's head, all the while keeping half an eye on where the incoming fire was landing. He yanked at the large, heavy lever and pulled the circular portal open. Jordi scrambled inside and was almost overcome by the stifling heat. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he clambered awkwardly to the front. Perching precariously on the command console, he unsheathed his combat knife without thinking, before remembering to try the harness release button. It worked and the straps fell away, leaving him to catch Ariane one-handed as her inert body fell out of the command couch.
He put his knife away, ripped away the cables connecting her neurohelmet and cooling vest and manhandled her to the hatch, dropping her to the ground as gently as he could. He was just about to jump, when the cockpit was destroyed by a huge blast. What weapon had done the deed, he could not tell, but he jumped reflexively, wincing as he felt several shards of debris lacerate his back through his jumpsuit.
Her skin burned to his touch, indicating just how far she had pushed herself over the limit, before her mech had given up on her. Jordi checked for a pulse, it was weak and rapid, but she seemed to be breathing okay. He struggled out of his jumpsuit and with considerable difficulty, put it on Ariane, to make sure she didn't cool too quickly and end up catching pneumonia, or something worse.
With the focus of the battle having shifted once more, he was able to carry her back to the relative safety of the woods, where he allowed himself time to rest and treat his wounds, as best he could, before starting the five kilometre trek to the Cavaliers' mobile field base.
Star Captain Novak Tamzarian let loose a string of curses as his Glass Spider was pounded by another salvo of missiles and wrestled the controls to manoeuvre his mech behind a sturdy-looking brick barn. Despite having a decent top speed, the ungainly machine was not very agile. Consequently, he found himself unable to evade the attacks by the smaller enemy mechs. The three Riflemen IICs were slower, but at least had jump capability.
His HUD showing that his twin gauss rifles had reloaded and the coils recharged, he moved out from cover to seek a new target. To his right, he saw one Rifleman blitz a smaller machine, identified by his battle computer as an Initiate. As its quad large pulse lasers blazed away, there was an explosion from the Blakist mech's centre torso and the Initiate fell heavily, face-first to the ground. Further ahead of him, the second Rifleman swivelled its arms upwards, its pilot tracking the flight of another mech, which was identified on his tactical display as a Wyvern. A flurry of ruby darts followed it, almost like tracer fire, as it arced upwards on trails of fiery plasma, then down. It landed heavily and limped along for a few steps, before its left leg gave way, sending the mech crashing to the ground.
The third Rifleman was engaging the surviving Huron Warrior and another mech, which he recognised as a Phoenix Hawk, but which, strangely, did not register on his sensor readouts.
Another volley of long-range missiles slammed into the barn, he had just been using for cover, completely demolishing it. He targeted the enemy Apollo, which had been keeping its distance from the meleé, using its twin LRM racks to good effect and unleashed two nickel-ferrous slugs, weighing a quarter-ton between them. Using his HUD magnifier, he saw one slug obliterate the Apollo's right missile rack, while the second punched hole in its right torso. Novak gave a snarl of satisfaction as he watched the mech teeter briefly, before falling on its back. It was down, but probably not out of the fight yet.
Despite taking a hammering, the enemy showed no sign of pulling back. Tamzarian soon saw why as yet more contacts registered on his radar. The Glass Spider reeled backwards as it was struck hard by four large projectiles, which smashed the last of the armour on his left leg and torso. A brilliant azure beam flashed out of the darkness, striking the knee joint and Novak suddenly found his movement restricted.
"Leg damage, reverse disabled", said the infuriatingly calm voice of the audio warning system.
"Freebirth!" snarled Tamzarian. The newcomers had apparently identified him as the biggest threat and were doing their level best to neutralise him.
His sensors now picked up the inbound enemy,. A Black Knight, two Riflemen, a Yeoman and a pair of Champions.
Glancing out of his cockpit, he saw the two Riflemen of his own unit, not currently engaged, take up positions near a barn and a workshop…two of the few buildings that remained standing.
Novak slammed the throttle to the stops and forced his Glass Spider closer to the cover of a grain silo, its gimped leg ploughing up furrows in the soft ground.
The Blakists were closing too quickly though. Tamzarian halted and torso-twisted to face the onrushing enemy mechs. He picked out one of the Champions. Notoriously lightly-armoured, they were usually considered soft targets. Lining it up in his crosshairs and tracking slightly in front, to compensate for its speed of advance, he unleashed another salvo from his gauss rifles. Again zooming in on the mech with his HUD magnifier, he was gratified to see the heavy, watermelon-sized slugs crash home with devastating effect. The first shattered the thin armour protection over its right hip and the second mangled the mechanical linkages that formed the joint. The Champion's momentum carried it forward a few more steps, before the joint disintegrated and the bird-like mech fell to the ground in an undignified heap.
That earned him the attention of the Black Knight pilot, who fired another shot from his ERPPC. This time however, Novak was prepared and was already ducking his mech behind the grain silo, causing his opponent to hit the tall storage vessel instead, slashing a large hole in the side. Almost invisible, the silo's contents fountained out of the jagged gash.
Another salvo of missiles from the distant Yeoman caused the top of the silo to disintegrate, throwing up a huge cloud of grain, the dust of which ignited, creating a large fireball. The force of the blast toppled Tamzarian's Glass Spider. The impact drove the wind from his lungs and sent sharp lances of pain shooting through his back. None of this stopped him cursing fluently and wrestling the controls in a futile attempt to get his mech to stand again. When it became apparent it had simply sustained too much damage, he angrily wrenched out his neurohelmet and cooling vest cords from their sockets and slammed his palm against the harness release button.
"Gamma Lead is down", he almost snarled into his radio, "All remaining Gamma units to fall back and regroup at Nav Epsilon".
As he listened to the acknowledgements a new voice came over the command channel.
"It appears you put up a good fight. My thanks for thinning out the ranks of these freebirths – though I trust you have left enough for us to have some sport".
Recognising the voice immediately, Novak replied through gritted teeth.
"Do not worry Alannah, there are plenty more surats that need exterminating".
He scrambled out of his command couch and made for the hatch. Having already witnessed the way some of the Blakists continued to fire on (and in some cases trample) downed mechs, he exited his fallen machine just as quickly as he could.
Binary Beta arrived to reinforce what was left of Gamma, striding boldly from the cover of the woods, catching the advancing Blakists cold.