1The Templar shuddered as it staggered backwards, a constant storm of weapons fire slowly but surely chipping away at its little remaining armor. The mechwarrior inside triggered his jump jets for one of countless times during the two-day running battle, and felt a wave of heat move through his cockpit with physical force, his breath coming in short rasps as the insides of his lungs felt as if they were on fire. The assault-weight machine came flying over the top of the hill, landing just where its pilot wanted it too, away from the...invaders. They were like nothing he had ever seen, they used highly advanced weaponry, apparently had almost no heat issues, at least not in the traditional way a mechwarrior would be acquainted with. And on top of all that they could really move quickly regardless of their weight. Of course, it took very little to bring them down, but the staggering barrages they threw out were unbelievable. Today, Ethan Radson's entire company had been assaulted by a patrol of the massive war machines. They sported machine gun clusters, flame throwers, missiles, and something with the range of a gauss rifle but with the punch of a long-tom round.
The mighty Templar was out of the line of fire for just enough time to turn around to face the two machines that came running up the hill after him. The lead one triggered its main cannons mounted on either arm, and missed wide to the left. The second one smacked three heavy rockets into Ethan's already mauled left shoulder. But Ethan held firm, and squeezed the main trigger. His large X-pulse lasers tore a molten red river of armor off the lead machine, sending it staggering backwards under the force of the assault, its left chest and shoulder sizzling and sparking from the massive damage. Ethan held the trigger down, and felt the heat begin to climb into the red-zone as a second burst tore the right arm from the machine and punched a hole into its chest, causing it to fall onto its back, and explode utterly. The second one wasn't about to quit firing, and Ethan's Templar rocked backwards as the machines arm-cannons ripped into his left leg, melting armor into slag. It followed up with its flame thrower, setting the Templar's left shoulder on fire. Ethan had no time to waste, he had vital intelligence about a new kind of enemy 'mech he head seen, the biggest one yet encountered, and he had to deliver his sensor scan to his unit commanders. He toggled for one of two gauss rifles, and got a clean lock as the enemy's rockets again hammered his machine. Ethan mashed down on the trigger and watched with satisfaction as a single nickle-ferrous slug punched straight through the marauding enemy mech, and dropped it to the tundra floor.
An all to familiar voice spoiled his victory though, "Enemy detected" was the phrase the ruined the day. Ethan turned, and pushed the throttle to its physical limit. The Templar throttled up into a run and he heard as much as felt shots hitting the ground all around him. Luckily, they didn't give chase, and Ethan figured that he would be alright until shots began hitting the ground around him. It was a different type of enemy 'mech, with two long arms that ended in double barrel pulse lasers of some kind, only they had the damage of large X-pulse lasers, and fired on full-auto. Fortunately, those were the only weapons they packed, but the range of them was incredible. Ethan worked the control sticks with a white-knuckle grip, turning his torso to face the two would-be assailants on a hill about a klick away. He selected his gauss rifles, and targeted one with each arm mounted weapon. Ethan mashed the trigger, and watch with satisfaction as the two of them detonated, then turned his torso back to face forwards...and ran his mech right off a cliff. He swore excessively and triggered his jump jets, holding the burn until they shut down automatically to recharge. He felt his 'mech crash just as he was thrown forward into his restraining harness, and then felt pain lance up through his chest as the 'mech fell flat on its face. In a much practiced maneuver, Ethan pushed the machine up onto its arms, as if to do a push-up, then worked one leg underneath it. From there, the other foot came onto the ground, and the Templar stood again.
But Ethan had no time to admire his handy work, and he pushed the throttle back to its physical limit and jogged off towards the just visible Overlord-Class DropShip in the distance.
War was hell. Everyone in the RDF knew it, and most of all the destroid pilots. For years, Zentradi mecha made them look like clay-pigeons instead of the first combat mecha humans ever designed. And now, somehow, they were here. On this frozen world, where some kind of life used giant bipedal war machines that were a lot like the now-stranded destroids of the RDF. One instant the entire force of destroids, even those dedicated to Civil Defense, had gathered in the ramming arm of the SDF-1 to take on a Zentradi flagship-class vessel. And then they were here. There was no explanation, none of them were scientists. So they sat tight, and decided to await a rescue. The entire ramming arm had come along with them, and they had appeared on some frozen world, and been attacked. So the RDF destroid defenders did what they did best - fight to the last. Only, unlike most robotech mecha, their new assailants were apparently land based, just like the destroids themselves. This turned the tides heavily, pitting the primitive human mecha against technology much on their own footing. But each opponent they faced was massively armored, and heavily armed. Corporal Thomas Black was the pilot of one of many Excalibur destroids, and he was still confused about everything. But for now, at least they had a sense of purpose; stay alive, stick together, and hold out until a rescue arrived.
Yesterday had been another enemy assault, and it seemed that no two mecha to these 'aliens' were the same, though they all shared very similar weapon systems, each chassis was very different. Each enemy seemed to suffer from waste-heat issues, a problem reflex technology had almost entirely eliminated in human war-machines. Regardless, the fighting was brutal. The push yesterday had been repulsed, but one enemy unit had escaped, and it had been in a group of four mecha that had caught a glimpse of one of the MAC II Monster destroids that the RDF forces had been keeping out of sight, in hopes that if things got drastic, they could add the massive firepower of the monsters to the front line fighting, considering all the enemy machines encountered thus-far were mostly very large and slow moving. Some appeared to have boosters mounted at first, but it seemed the use of such engines was at an extreme limit, as they came crashing back to earth only a hundred-meters or so later.
The one enemy unit that had escaped was bugging Corporal Black badly, he knew there was going to be trouble. And when the combat alert sounded, he knew that it was going to be a bloody battle. He ran do his Excalibur and jumped in, most pilots left their flight suits on 24/7 because of the extreme circumstances. The com was filled with chatter of units being organized, the Phalanxes were being huddled into a kind of valley between two large hills with the rest of the Monsters, incase the enemy broke through. The first enemy units began pouring over the top of the ridge.
The Flea was prehaps the weakest 'mech in existence. However, it was incredibly fast, and presented a very small target. This particular one had a very special mission: find the largest enemy machines, and drop artillery beacons. Getting there, however, was going to be difficult. It had been specially modified and loaded to fit the mission profile. All the machine guns had been stripped, and the only weapons were a pair of extended range small lasers. All the available tonnage was then dumped into more armor and the engine, as well as adding a beagle active probe, though it had been a very custom job to do so. Now, the extra armor and speed was paying off. The flea darted at over 130kph across a small gully that served as a kind of no-man's land between the two forces. A full company of assault and heavy 'mechs were pounding the invader's lines as the Flea dashed between them, few enemy machines bothering to target it being to busy trading barrages with some serious firepower. The Flea flew toward its first nav-point, running a search pattern. A gauss slug streaked overhead, and scored a perfect hit on a large enemy machine with two massive arms, each ending in two large beam cannons that worked like pulse lasers. The slug crashed into the right flank of the mecha, and it rocked backwards as a huge chunk of it was ripped away. Secondary explosions consumed the machine, and it collapsed, unmoving to the snow below.
However, the fallen enemy's lace mate, or whatever the invader's equivilant was came to support its downed comrade, spraying fire from two large cannon arms and gun clusters in its chest. Unfortunatly for the scout, the main-battle machine saw only the Flea. Huge explosions blew fountains of snow and ice away, flash melting it into water. A large Atlas stepped up to support the Flea, triggering a PPC that whipped man-made lightning onto the left leg of the enemy machine, which staggered backwards, and targeted the Atlas. The enemy fired off a large volley of missiles, all of which exploded against the giant Atlas, which simply shrugged off the minimal damage, and fired its bank of small lasers and its gauss rifle. The rifle slug ripped into the left arm and lodged the joint, the lasers raked molten wounds into the chest, but didn't bring the machine down. The enemy machine staggered and started to fall backwards, but the pilot was quite a marksman, and triggered a perfect shot just as he fell onto his back. Both heavy beam cannons on the arms of the machine smashed into the head of the Atlas, melting the entire section, and obviously its pilot, into slag.
War was brutal...but there was nothing to be done about it. Nav-point Alpha yielded nothing. The Flea pressed on.
Corporal Black fired his Exalibur's main cannons again, and saw the two heavy beams mangle up the right arm of a simply massive machine. It was bipedal, had two large missile launchers on either shoulder, a cockpit emerging from the center torso that looked like an ancient World-War 2 bomber, coupled with two arms that mounted some kind of heavy laser weaponry. However bizzare, a war-machine this advanced still carried what appeared to be two banks of light-machine guns. The rounds did absolutely nothing against the Excalibur's armor, but the lasers and missiles it carried would.. Corporal Black decided it wouldn't be a good idea to test the enemy's weapon effectiveness against his mecha. He fired the autocannons in both gun clusters, and triggered his main beam cannons again. The big volley wreaked havoc across the titanic armor of the enemy mecha, it was spun around and blown onto its face. Black's wing-man in a Raider-X stepped up and opened fire, raking a full auto barrage across the back of the bulky mecha, which was struggling to stand up and return fire at the same time. One of its heavier lasers lashed out, but in the wrong direction. It slammed into what looked like a giant skeleton with an evil grin, and carved a nasty wound in a large gun mounted on the right side of the body, near the waist. Molten armor fell down in chunks, as Black's Excalibur hammered the fallen mecha with another barrage. This time, the machine shuddered, and then became a nuclear fire-ball.
Black wasted no time in turning his attention to the grinning skeleton thing, it was by far the largest machine he'd seen the attackers field. It turned its attention to his wing-man in the Raider-X, and triggered what appeared to be every weapon at its disposal. A heavy cannon round blew the right leg clean off, and as the machine began to fall forward, a whip of blue-lightning connected with the chest, several red laser beams exploited this wound, and as the Raider fell face first into the snow, missiles hammered its back. Black slammed his control sticks to the side, and the Excalibur half dove, half fell sideways into the snow as a fountain of fire and pieces of destroid mecha erupted into the air as it exploded. Black rolled the destroid onto its side, and zoomed in on the things head, painting the targets right over the things right eye. He fired every weapon he had, and held down the trigger. His flame throwers simply burned infront of his mech, melting nothing but snow, but everything else gouged out the war machine's eye, and blew half of its head clean off, vaporized. At this point, the machine simply stopped, and went limp. Black didn't care, and dragged the targeting cross-hair down over the monster's chest, and kept firing. His weapons spewed death, and his missiles ran dry as the hammered the skeleton mecha, his machine guns ran dry, his autocannons gave out, but his heaviest beam guns finally punched holes straight through it. The battle was just beginning, and the RDF was getting eaten alive...
The Flea moved over the rise, and heard an all too familiar voice - 'Enemy Detected' the computer said. The pilot didn't need her to tell him that, he could see them. Massive machines, with four impossibly long barrels atop each one, coupled with six large weapons mounted in two arms. There were also a lot of other machines that looked a lot like a Longbow. This was the risky part of the mission, and it would probably get him killed. The scout flicked a switch, and the computer announced that his active radar system was engaged. Instantly, one of the drum-armed missile carriers turned to face his position, and began advancing. The scout licked his lips and mashed the throttle to its physical limit, the Flea surging forward, its advanced sensor suite gathering data. "Contact with objectives, requesting relief force immediately, recommend orbital bombardment, according to scans the arm..."
But the scout never got a chance to finish his sentence, as a new kind of machine had appeared. It was tall and bulky, bipedal, and interestingly enough carried no weapons on its arms, excluding what looked like actual claws! The giant 'mech had scooped his flea right off the ground by clamping down and crushing the entire right torso which contained all his com equipment. It scooped him up, and used its free hand to systematically destroy all his weaponry. The scout knew his mission had succeeded but his life was effectively over. The flea was hanging upside down, facing the snow, and the scout ejected anyway. When the console simply fizzled and sparked, the scout turned to one last option that hadn't been used in what felt like years. A high explosives pack to cause his 'mech to self destruct. He pushed the button, and the explosion consumed his machine, and half of the one holding him. But the scout's message was clear. Near the main battle lines, the surviving assault 'mechs suddenly all turned their attention elsewhere after firing off every weapon at their disposal. A few shut down due to the heat spike from the reactors, but all in all, the entire assault force turned and headed north-east. The RDF pilots knew what had happened instantly, and the chase was on...