The Other Side Of The Coin

by Nui

A pirate raid on a developing community leads to a series of events and the formation of a unit designed to cheaply take on mechs.

2. Chapter 2

The Other Side Of the Coin.

Part Two: A plan comes together.

Woolidge City,

Planet Alban,

The Periphery:

Captain John Ryan looked on at the situation that was rapidly getting out of hand and sighed, how did the shit hit the fan just so quickly? There was no way of telling. The company that he had put together private funds, ex-militia staff and salvaged mechs was being ripped to pieces. When he had taken the contract that put Ryan's United Combined Company into Alban it seemed simple enough. Rescue the residents of Alban city from the Civil war that seemed to be about to engulf them. Just protect the area from a force of militia that encompassed a handful of fast armour and a combined light and medium lance of mechs until they left. Cheap mechs from a cheap outfit as well. That seemed to, like almost all Intel be mistaken.

Initially there was a bunch of outlying folk and possessions in school busses at the school that served rural areas to escort back to landing zone. Other than that there was just the small 'capital' to protect, a large town really. To do this he had chosen to send out the remains of the local militia infantry as scouts in civilian 4x4s and hover jeeps to watch and then flee, either to get off planet or in front of the enemy forces. As the enemy had such a small force he expected a single attack on the capital and another smaller unit to attack the school busses. To respond to these threats he chose to leave most of his forces near the drop zone to go to any small areas of conflict and the hover tanks to escort the busses. Ryan's company was a small armour and mech force that comprised a lance of Lightning Hover tanks. For Mechs there were a medium lance and a combined command fire support lance again medium apart from a Catapult, prior salvage. There was also a mixed infantry command but this was local militia although temporarily under his command. This consisted of two platoons of infantry with fire support, a company of anti-mech commandos designed to fight behind enemy lines and an Apc designed for engineers with a 5 man engineer unit. The remains of the local militia's mechs and a small merc unit was about 5km away and had declared themselves neutral now. Their status was probably not helped when Ryans' Company got the other entire unit's pay upfront after they had been declared incompetent.

The first part of the mission worked perfectly the local militia ground forces seemed of a reasonable quality and all units sent out had a high building or hill to watch from and a sniper laser, binoculars or missile launcher to increase the distance that they could see through. The Hover tanks had eaten the distance to the School. That was when things stopped going so well. The plan, as the expression went, did not survive contact with the enemy. At long range light mechs had been detected by the dropships' radar and had peeled off with the expected armour short of the city towards the school, worst still all the enemy forces were faster than anything that he could send to support the Condors. Any help that he might send was likely to be too slow to help and might get picked off in isolation and he could ill afford to send mechs. Perhaps if the Condors could get close enough they could help. But the bad news had been that there were two stars of mechs, including the light mechs that had peeled off for the school. One was now down to three medium mechs while the other was a medium heavy mix. John knew he was out gunned. To make matters worse he knew that he was about to be outflanked and his only plan smacked of desperation. And why stars he puzzled? Did that seem like the Wolf Dragoons, but they had better mechs than Argos's? Despite knowing that he was sending them to their death he positioned his armour and infantry at one end of the town to fight a street to street delaying action and decided that a sharp attack on the medium heavy star was appropriate, eight mediums verses two Bushwackers configured for a support role and 3 Argos with standard configuration was okay odds, providing that the other weakened star of 3 mediums did not turn up, then he was in for a world of hurt.

As the spotters reported that the mechs were closing Captain Ryan took stock of his forces. He had two Uziels, a Bushwacker and a HellHound in his medium lance. The fire support lance was equipped with the Catapult which had no jumpjets but did have 2 LRM 20s instead of the stock LRM 15s. There was also a Bushwacker, a Puma in stock configuration and an Owens configured with LRM 15s and mediums lasers. He waited. The enemy closed and they waited, each lance down an arm of the cross road, the middle of the cross road the killing zone. Now all lay in the hands of the gods.

25 Miles distant Lieutenant Joseph Conrad looked at the handful of Condors that were all that lay between an enemy intent on genocide and the 4 School busses and dozen or so cars and 4x4s that had not fled earlier. Joseph was a wiry man that had blond hair that was streaked with grey and had first trained for tanks when he was 17, at 46 he had many years of experience. He was called Joslow for his careful tactics and use of cover rather than flat out attacks, although truth be told he had taken part in more than his fair share of those. Think, think, think ran through his mind, how could he turn the odds in his favour or at least not lose horribly? A plan had to form a method that would let him get the people away. A truly awful idea formed an idea that was inspired by an old story out of a legend of a place called Troy on Terra. The Trojan horse had been used so many times, could it work one more time, a decoy that might just do the job. As soon as the idea formed then Joslow turned to his gunner and resident 'Mr. bodge it' Wilson, a man with 2 names that only ever used one. "Wils, stop fraternising and get over here now." He pointed at a yellow school bus, and said "make me a decoy of that and give it teeth might as well make it work for us. I can give you ten minutes and then you're on your own." Everyone from that bus was fitted on to the others and they then pulled out along with the other 3 hover tanks.

On the other side of town Lieutenant Casey Marshall watched as a mech walked down an intersection. He signalled the radio man and he transmitted a warning to the others, did he have a treat for the mech jockey, who thought having a drainage maintenance officer would be so handy in anti-mech warfare!

Meanwhile at the next intersection was their anti-mech unit, they were sporting some portable SRMs and a batch of Anti-mech Sniper rifles that fired a bullet that would have been impossible 10 years before, sort of a mini Gauss Rifle. The idea being to crack or break the cockpit, on some older mechs a shot might be expected to kill the pilot if not at least break the visor but not on newer models with reinforced cockpits it was asking a lot. Then again there was a special component of their own, specially rigged. Sometimes Lt Jon Brown thought having reserve troops was more trouble than it was worth, sometimes not thought, especially when they had access to power cables. 10 lengths of extra strength would hopefully do some good. The electrician reservist was heard to keep muttering "Play Dirty, go for the legs" apparently inspired by an old film from Terra called Star Wars.

At the last intersection before the town centre an apc was in cover by some trees and invisible under a heat damping tarpaulin. This apc was covered by a veritable forest of aerials. A slightly overweight overage lieutenant wearing glasses awaited in a clump of bushes sitting on a folding camp stool reading Machiavelli's The Art of war. As he read he hummed a tune inspired by an old Terra band called Aerosmith. Several other men near him waited.

At the same time on the other side of town an ungainly mech walked carefully onto a crossroads' head turning constantly almost like a rodent sniffing the air for a predator. A predator certainly waited. As the Argos took one last step his world seemed to erupt with a cacophony of weapons fire, the sharp crack of autocannons and the roar of missiles and then a volley of the whooshing sounding lasers. As he reached for the reverse his right leg armour display turned briefly yellow before deciding on red. Then two pulse lasers reached out and it was black, a second later as it took it first step towards running backwards a pair of medium lasers scorched the road surface narrowly missing. The pilot's last words were a very common choice, "oh shit" he breathed before his world went tumbling. From where John Ryan sat it could not have gone better. Smilingly he called "Alpha lance close quarters battle, support lance support them, I've got their support element." As he turned the corner he saw his medium lance closing the enemy and firing then moving from cover to cover to minimise damage trying to get close enough for their close weapon bias to favour them before things heated up.

Simultaneously Joslow called for the last bus and hovertank to pull out and go hell for leather from the school towards the town down the only highway, in the distance he had been able to see the clumsy 20 meter tall battlemechs moving his way at speed and hoped that this had not gone all arsey-versey, if the armour was forward dispersed he may not have seen it, but he still get very dead being left next to the Trojan Horse. As the hover tank was quite stable he tried to steady the Zeiss binoculars, despite being optical rather than electronic they worked well. He could see some old chassis that looked like condors although the boxy structure on the back looked like it was grafted on from an Lrm carrier and a small forward turret that could have anything in it which was definitely not in the original specs. Next to it there were a couple of hovertrucks which had had armour plate welded on, probably not a threat although they did seem to have a small autocannon on it but seemed to have a very limited traverse. Lagging behind was what looked like a heavy tank chssis but what was on it was anyone's guess. As he had watched the distance was almost down to 100ft. Time for 'plan A'. The details of the deception were unknown as Wilson had put it together himself he signalled that he was to begin and then there was a cloud of Black smoke and the bus slowed to a stop with the doors facing away from the oncoming forces, the hovertank slowed to a stop next to the bus and Wilson jumped on to the cupola and then squeezed past Joslow. Pounding his hand on the turret hatch Wilson shouted "go go, you really do not want to be next to the bus when they are, believe me." When the hovertank was 50 meters away and the enemy forces were 700 from it Wilson lifted his hand and called on the narrowband to the xo of the squadron and the units constant practical joker in 'Mildred' Sgt Paul Williams "Paulie did you do it?" Joslow looked up he just knew he should never have let this happen, it was gonna be bad, he raised an eyebrow. The communicator cracked to life "yeah, but I smell like shit now this had better work." Wilson smiled and continued to watch. Joslow began to feel that he was cramped and asked why Wilson was not at the gun controls to which he just had a small controller with a huge aerial waved at him. One switch was down already labelled smoke and the other was up labelled 'the big bang.' As the mechs grew closer to the abandoned bus Wilson's smile grew and grew. Go on he mumbled get into small laser range, please, just don't frag it from range. As Joslow raised his binoculars he saw that there a Raven and an Osiris racing towards the bus. Presumably they decided to ignore it not wanting the heat to hinder them from getting to the busses. Wilson's smile grew, if possible larger and he mumbled "I just live for moments like these" and depressed the button. As Jo watched there was an explosion that shook the floor ground and a huge area went up inflames accompanied by a mighty explosion. "How many missiles was that and why is a hundred meters of the soil on fire?" he exclaimed. Wilson looking smug said, "Hmm that would be Amyl nitrate, or fertiliser as you might know it, mixed with petrol it does do that. That's what I filled the bus with, and got Paul to spread from 'Mildred' good eh?" As Jo passes the binoculars to Wilson he said, "see for yourself." As the dust pall settled the battle tank progressed out of the fire with black smoke pouring from it, there was no sign of any of the armoured trucks at and one of the mechs was limping, odds reduced. Now it was just a matter of time and trying to stop the other mech and the condor from catching up.

Lt Casey Marshall tapped his fingers against the wall of the building he was glancing around to the beat of his nervousness. "Just one more step, just one more please" he muttered to himself as much as to Sgt. Jason Jones Hughes next to him. As he watched the mech creep carefully forwards, despite knowing that his comrades had been engaged. But even caution is not enough sometimes and as Casey pressed the button on the handset he knew this would be one of those times. The Hellhound suddenly found itself on it's back into a sewer, just then a second explosion went off and the river of petrol in the sewer caught light. Immediately the temps went through the roof and mech shut down, hopefully to remain that way until the petrol burnt itself out. Not that Casey and his squad saw this, they had run for the hover truck in double time and were aware just how much trouble they would be in if the other mechs caught them. As the truck went down a narrow side road chosen because it would not be able to accommodate a mech it caromed off the side of a house and continued, even if it was noticeably slower.

In the lead mech of the medium lance Lt Martin 'Winger' Smith knew that things were going to heat up as the car he was using for cover blew up after taking a hit from a pair of ac2's on the nearest Argos. He briefly stood up to launch an Alpha strike from his ac 5, medium pulse lasers, Srm 6s and Srm 2. Half the missiles missed while the med pulse and ac5 hit the right leg, where he aimed and he let the pulse lasers go once more before ducking back. As he did this a flight of missiles also impacted on the Argos rocking it. In the corner of his eyes he could see the twins in the Uziels covering each other and using every scrap of cover possible. Suddenly a concussion rocked him back on his feet and his right arm changed color as he swung around he could see that he had been suckered as the second Argos crossed to fire at him while the one he had targeted before had swung around to negate the cover that the twins were using. He punched the controls to move around the side of the car to come behind the Argos that he had hit before hoping that Amelie 'Vic' Vickers would cover him. As he rounded the car he was bracketed by the Lrms from the support Bushwackers the opposition were using. "There goes the element of surprise he thought as another cloud of lrm's peeled off from the other support Bushwacker. "Boss get these pesky Bushwackers off me" he cried into the comms. As he did so he fired his pulse lasers and AC10 into the Argos. Ryan spouted a colourful stream of adjectives yet again forgetting that he had promised to stop, just like the Cheroot cigar that hung unlit from the corner of his mouth. He watched as his missile rippled away towards the Bushwacker that he had been tormenting with a stream of LRMs and began to pace forwards towards Winger to get in range of his medium lasers as he did so he aligned his reticule on the other Bushwacker and as his other LRM launcher prepped it self he launched at the other Bushwacker. Suddenly his anti missile system exploded into action and he felt the percussive blows of the first support Bushwacker punch his mech to one side and a similar cloud of missile mostly burst past him to crater the tarmac he had just left, despite this there was a hammer blow on one side of his mech as several missile got through. As the range dropped he took a large breath of air and let rip with his medium lasers. Just then help arrived in the diminutive form of his wingman in the Puma and he reversed and felt more than heard his first launcher rearm itself, he fired again at the first Bushwacker, and waited for his other LRM launcher to arm itself, as he did he saw the support Bushwackers both fire simultaneously as his first missiles kicked the first Bushwacker onto its heels. The sky briefly seemed to go dark and he dodged towards the cover of an overhang around a building, even with his sudden move and duck his legs were peppered with a bucket load of shrapnel changing colour to reflect the damage. Damnation he swore to himself if there was no success from his front line units soon he would not be able to stay the hand of the support Bushwackers and would be needing help himself. As he thought this he saw an Argos Alpha into one of his Uziels and it spew one of the twins out with a cloud of smoke. Jamie report he called to the other while lining up his missile onto a Bushwacker. James "Jamie" Mclaren swore at him and said "me bro is focked an im red but ah've almost raped this boyo" and let go with an alpha of two PPCs and his autocannon. As he watched his light support units caught the same Argos with some more PPCs and a small flight of missiles and it brewed up spectacularly to a shout of "D' ye wanna have some more of me ye Sassenach bastards." Then to the surprise of the following Argos who was caught in the remaining violent conflagration that consumed his wing man he charged calling his familiar battlecry " I have ye focked nou" and head butted the other mech. His opponent had obviously had never fought Scottish before and was immensely shaken and both mechs staggered around the field of battle obviously out of it. "Hit the bastard Argos" Ryan shouted as his light support unit went after the remaining units. Belatedly the Bushwhackers' realised that they had been suckered into his trap of concentrating on him and one switched to the damaged Uziel doing enough damage to the head of the mech to force an ejection. Dammit he thought two in five minutes, goddam Jocks and their Scottish Martial art Focku. He combined both missile launchers onto the distracted Bushwacker and walked towards his remaining medium mechs as they were altogether lighter than those that had fallen. As he did so a support Bushwacker left unharrassed too long laid down some significant fire on Wingers Bushwacker and it fell. An Argos moved to take advantage of the opportunity to damage the remaining Medium on it's feet as the other 'nutted' Argos eventually ejected the pilot. "All support units concentrate your fire on the nearest Argos" he shouted as he fired both medium lasers again and then swivelled to land a missile hammer blow to both enemy mediums again. After a second the support mechs turned the air into a hail storm of laser bolts, fizzling blue energy and a strike of missiles fizzed past like a flock of suicidal birds, the Argos staggered as his Hellhound fired medium missiles into the heavy mech, then the untouched heavy fired and Alpha into the almost untouched medium mech, which seemed to take it well. What came next surprised him though as the hell hound punched the Argos in the face, no-one would expect the fiery redheaded pilot to do something so aggressive, with the recycle on his weapons completing he hit the first Argos again and turned to look at the mess that was the Bushwackers that he had been concentrating as his mech was suddenly staggered by a colossal hit and a launcher went U/S on him, he fired and saw the Hellhound Alpha a launch as the Argos did. The Argos smoked where the cockpit had been a second before as Winger Alphaed as well. The rest of the support launched what they had at one of the other mechs as he launched his remaining missile launcher which blew a Bushwacker onto its back.

Elsewhere 'Joslow' watched as the remaining mech closed the distance to the busses although more cautiously 15 miles remained to the space port, more speed was needed or the mech would catch them 7 miles from it or perhaps more if it did not stay with it's slower Armoured consort, either way it would be a fight that they could lose, if however they initiated an long range hit and fade operation they could fight a delaying battle at long range with their LRMs, although the armoured unit had some LRM's it would have to stop to fire them hopefully slowing both units, the mech probably had only medium lasers and short range missiles, or at least he hoped that it did. In a fit of hopefulness he looked back at the school busses and cursed to himself their progress was limited as they were limited to the 55mph that they were currently doing. In desperation he radioed for assistance. Fortress, their jumpship responded with the smooth baritone of Jane Phyllis, the tactical officer and intelligence liaison. "Jo we have just finished loading the refugees into Fortress, we can be with you in about 12 minutes. Be aware that the routed mechs of the main assault force are exiting in your direction and while beaten up would make mincemeat of your command. I suggest routing around them." Joslow glumly looked back at the pursuing forces and knew in his heart that a battle would ensue at the exact time the two forces met with their pursuers soon catching in the action. Well, he thought if you have to go school children are a good thing to go out protecting. "Roger" he responded, "don't take your time will you?"

Lt Jon Brown waited next to a car that was teetering over the edge of a bridge looking to tip it on to the roadway below, power cables tied to the hitch on the back and to a several tweaked power generator kicking out a huge voltage, hopefully enough to short the prowling medium mech, chosen to be destroyed as it had as much patched armour as it did original. If he glanced into the building to the side he could see the anti-mech team that were going to hit both mechs. The mech that he waited for was obviously not going to fall into the same trick as his team mate. He stepped cautiously over the cables. Just what Jon Brown was waiting for he signalled the team to drop the car. As it fell the cable tightened and the generator pushed its load into the cables. The exposed centre of the cables was stretched to contact the mech and in a blinding flash everything shorted and the generators blew. The feedback to the pilot for a split second was monumental and his mech fell to the floor, although disappointingly still active as the circuit breakers automatically saved the mech. The anti-mech teams realised that there was no threat from the downed mech immediately and launched an impressive salvo at the other medium before fleeing. However as they turned the mech regained it's balance and aim and Alphaed in rage at seeing it's downed colleagues suffering and hosed the glass fronted building filling the air with glass shards. The casualties were going to be massive he knew even it they moved fast. He ordered the hover trucks into the building and they drove through the windows. This was all going to go horribly wrong and the longer that they stayed there the worse it would get, for the last surprise it was necessary to go down main road. As the troops poured into the hovertrucks a volley of firepower hit the front of the building, in a wave of heat the pvc windows melted. Another round and they all were dead. In he ordered to the troops and shouted 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Outside the mech still standing had a glow to it's medium lasers as they recycled, this was going to be close and al that they could do was watch, and hurry.

Sometimes, Casey thought to himself do the smart thing. "Out he roared, get in the trees with the engineers and make yourself useful." Turning to the driver he said, "You too Mal, where I am going is no place to be."

Joslow looked at the odds and they even seemed half decent. As he looked around he could see the other units fan out to both sides and stay half behind him. He slowed to edge close to the closing enemy units. Not too close though, just get their attention. The old familiar race of emotions struck his as it did always, just before crunch time. He looked at his hand around the radio and saw that his fingers had turned white with the tension. He refused to look at anything other then the mech that he was falling back towards. As he closed to 1100 meters he toggled the radio to speak to his driver "Keep us at this distance Mike, we don't know that he has no long range weapons." As Jo watched he saw the light mech outstrip the accompanying adhoc armour unit and close the distance. Suddenly with no words from himself there were 3 weapons blooms and a number of flights of missiles rose from either side of himself, all the lrms struck hard on the light mech which flatered. "Ok Mike get us in range" he said to be accompanied by a reduction in the noise and speed. As he got in range he felt a kick and a slight bucking as his vehicle was struck by 15 LRMs, damn the armoured truck had managed to fire its missile component, if they were hit again then they were toast. "Full speed towards the truck" he screamed and was pushed back by the acceleration, "Guns hit the mech, and prepare the medium laser to hit the truck, and we might get it in the first attempt."

As the lasers hit the third truck, Lt John Brown knew that he was in trouble it caught fire immediately and in seconds there was an explosion that lifted the truck in the air and showered the vehicle with shards of glass. As he was covered in tiny flying daggers that ripped his shoulder to shreads he bellowed "SOD it get the fuck out of here" which the driver took as an instruction, luckily as the mech walked into the building, intent to tear the supports out from over their very heads. As the building crumbled the truck shot out into the street. Just a quarter mile to the next surprise, he could see the tallest tower in Woolidge City, the AA Insurance tower and instructed the driver to floor it. The hover truck, without it's normal component of gravel was lighter than normal and moved quite rapidly, pulling swiftly away from the ambush site, as he looked back he saw the Hellhound pull itself away from the building that it had entered as it teetered, ready to finally completely fall. The mech turned and took a long range snap shot at the fleeing trucks and missed, setting the grass on fire to one side of the road and melting a road sign. The mech began to follow, moving rapidly as the other mech began to try to sit up now the feedback faded for the pilot and the electrics began to rout through un-fried circuits.

Captain John Ryan turned to look at his damaged units and looked on in anguish, he saw the collection of damage and the two mechs prone on the floor and knew his people were still not out of the range. He turned to his forces and congratulated them then sent his light units with the comparatively undamaged Hellhound towards the fleeing mechs with instructions not to join up or regroup but not to engage unless necessary. He gathered Winger and began to try to contact the teams from the other side of town.