Author notes:I'm back with another chapter, been a bit busy lately so my apologies if I've left my… what is it now 3 readers high and dry… oh but here I am with another chapter. OH and im not sure if ive gone through this yet but fawks is about 13 at this time. And pirate operations will span about three years, with various skips throughout. now read, and if you read, review. Ask questions,they will be answered. I don't bite… I may bark though… just a warning…
I awoke to the sound of more dropships landing, and the almost constant din of distant combat with the patrols guarding the impromptu base camp.
Getting out of the makeshift bed made from a sheet of leg armor off a black knight and a pile of blankets, I hop off the thick plate and dig around in my giant duffel bag for my box of 12 milimeter antipersonnel handgun rounds and my pistol belt.
Already dressed from the night before after destroying my bloodied combat clothes, I now don a set of multicam pants and a green coolant vest flak jacket as well as my Issue pistol, an excessively large and inconveniently shaped firearm that was almost too large for me to hold , I struggle with the large handgun as I strip the massive magazine out of it and fill it with bullets as I walk out of the dropship. Finishing the loading I slip the magazine back into the gun and slide the whole contraption back into its holster.
Outside of the dropship, everything was a rush of movement. The battle armor troops moving large boxes out of the freshly landed dropships and the mechwarriors from the drop ships pulling the various death machines into the hastily built scaffolding mechbays, I walk over to a trashcan fire were the rest of the mechwarriors are sitting, uttering my good mornings as I move to sit with my team.
"So they sent reinforcements?" I ask McGrath as I sit down in my customary spot next to Maila.
"Yeah, only because we lost the assault mechs yesterday, fleet com has a plan for how we're going to wipe out this planet, and I'm not so sure it's the best of Plans but we are going along with it anyway. Get something to eat guys we have a meeting with the reinforcements from the special operations command in an hour." McGrath answers with a weary smile as Maila leans on my shoulder.
"You know… you two are awfully close. If I was a wiser man I would say something is going o" I interrupt him by shaking my head, a similarly weary, almost worn out smile on my face.
"Sir, we really don't have time to discuss such matters while on a mission. I neither confirm nor deny your claims but its personal." I answer with a mischievous smirk. Giving Maila a bit of a gentle shove to let me stand up,she moves with a little hesitation and I get up to go get my team the various edible goodies we stash in our personal dropship.
Coming back with the MRE's and my the beverages of choice, rootbeer ,pinaple, grapefruit juice, and orange soda I distribute the food and we all eat in relative silence untill Hale breaks the silence with a small chuckle.
"I still don't understand how you and Niles can drink soda first thing in the morning, and how you can keep from being hyper as a drugged fox with your sugar intake." He says still slightly chuckling.
"Simple, I enjoy rootbeer so I drink it… A lot. Also the only reason I'm not hyper is because I don't believe in hyperactivity. Nils likes his orange soda just as much as I like my Rootbeer, and he is long range artillery, so moving and thinking very quickly is important for him." I rebut his bit of scolding as I down the rest of my cereal based MRE and toss the package off into the fire pit behind me.
Waiting for everyone else to finish, I pick the flakes of blood out of my knives serrated edge, letting it chip off and land on the table. A sad frown momentarily twitching its way onto my face, I quickly suppress those feelings so I wouldn't worry my friends.
I stand up and walk off towards the MFB, my group of friends rushing forward to join me on the way there. "Meetings with this old warhawks always seems like a bigger waste of time than anything." Nils comments as he jaunts up beside me.
"Yeah, it's not like their plans are going to work once we hit the ground anyway." Hale says while playing with his PDA, something he is doing more and more these days.
"Yeah, just keep your heads and we will get through this crap as best we can. Though I don't really like letting the brass that isn't out on the field tell us how to get the job done." I say as we start to walk up into the mobile field base. A power armored soldier stopping us at the door and taking our weapons from us, we enter the huge armored vehicle to receive our orders.
Once we entered the command and control room the field marshal and McGrath meet us around a large holographic battle map showing the entire eastern hemisphere of the planet. A large red circle surrounding the enemy base, I think they are trying to finish this war in one strike by the way the map looks.
"Alright, now that we're all here, Fawks Crawly; I hereby promote you to Knights lance leader, and McGrath; under orders of the special operation command you are now the brigadier general for lances zulu, alpine and the knights." As he finishes he hands out boxes with rank medallions to McGrath and me.
"Now, your mission for the next few weeks is to assault the city that we were unable to enter yesterday. Your teams will have full close air support from three companies of fighters, two companies of gunships, a company of stiletto bombers, and the conquistador. You will be supported by artillery and anti infantry support from two squads of battle armor, your main objective, as it was before was to capture the space port and disable the defense grid so we can land a few more companies of mech's and stage and assault on the enemies main base of operations in this sector. Your mech's are ready to go and all of the pieces are in place. The operation will start when you are within 300 km of the city walls, then the stilettos will cluster bomb the first 15 blocks of the city, and the conquistador will fell the wall so you can move in safely, from there I leave the attack up to your discretion. Get out there, be careful and get the job done." He finishes telling us our orders with a salute, I return the salute and walk out to the guard to retrieve my knife and pistol.
The teams that are going into the city all assemble and head to their mechs, the battle armor troops already arranged in there squads ready to latch onto the mechs, I climb into my Highlanders cockpit and start the computer system up, releasing the security locks on my already running reactor, and stomp off towards the edge of the base. Two of the battle armor units latching on as my mech stomps off.
As the rest of the mechs arrive at the edge of the base we all stomp off towards the staging point, two Gladiators, three Black knights, Miala's Atlas-II, Niles catapult, McGraths new Hauptmann , and finally one Wildcat all move to stop as we arrive at the point 300km away from the city walls.
"Gryphon-one to Reaper squadron we have reached the staging point commence bombing run." McGrath says over the radio, signaling the beginning of the attack, eight stiletto bombers flash over head, raining down high explosive canister munitions on the city, the ground shakes like an earthquake as the first section of the city is nearly flattened by the force.
As the explosion settles two Diashi assault mechs charge from the sections next to the gate, I take aim and begin to squeeze the trigger for the Lbx auto cannon as the two Diashi advance. I let off the trigger as the two Assault mechs cockpits burst into flame and the wall behind them turns to dust as the Conquistador flys over head, its forward rotary auto cannons barking as they throw the huge slugs into the walls and the ground.
"Conquistador gunship to ground forces, the road is clear moving on two your targets. I will be flying over head at Thirty thousand kilometers to provide fire support. Over and out." The Conquistador pilot says over the radio as the gunship pulls up to the level of the clouds and disappears from sight.
The mechs move forward through the dust cloud caused by the furrocrete from the wall exploding and we emerge inside of the now crumbling and burning city. Wreckages of burned out and melting mechs litter the streets and buildings sparkle with the heat from thousands of fires.
"Holy shit, those flyboys made a mess." Hale says as his Blackknight accelerates towards my Highlander and McGraths Hauptmann. I check my heat levels and see my mech slowly crawling up towards the halfway point on the temperature gauge.
"Hey, we have to get out of the hot area, my mechs getting hot fast." I say as I shove the accelerator forward and jog my mech out of the burning area into the cooler less destroyed area of the city. The rest of the mechs following me and the battle armor troops dismounting our mechs and using their jump jets to get on top of the nearby buildings, Jumping from roof to roof watching for infantry as the mechs waltz through the oddly empty streets.
"Gryphon one, I don't like the looks of this, streets are completely bare, not a single mech or tank in the entire city from what I can see." The pilot of the patrolling conquistador radios in as he circles far over head.
"What does the laser tower emplacement area look like?" McGrath asks as he squeezes the Hauptman between the closely arranged buildings, taking care to not allow the feet of his mech smash down on anything that could be hiding an IED .
"Empty, completely empt- wait a minute… what the hell? ELYSE! GET YOUR ARMOR CHECKING THOSE BUILLDINGS NOW! MECH UNITS HAUL ASS THE HELL AWAY FROM THE BUILDINGS. SENSORS JUST CAUGHT A RADIO WAVE SPIKE INDICATIVE OF A CLASS THREE REMOTE DET" The pilot of the conquistador is cut off as the battle armor units jump off of the buildings and latch onto our now reversed mechs.
Frantic radio traffic from the battle armor radios clogging the coms with a single message 'THE BUILDINGS ARE WIRED RUN!' I throw my Highlander into reverse and force the heavy mech to spin around before gunning the throttle forward to follow the line of mechs retreating back into the destroyed section and out of the gate.
Following just behind the rest of my squad, with McGraths Hauptmann just behind me, I break from the thicket of tall office buildings and out into the destroyed section of the city.
A sudden thick voice breaks over all of the other chatter " DIE INFIDEL SCUM!" time seems to slow as a sharp earthquake like rumble breaks through the city. I jam my accelerator forward and slam my feet down onto the two Jumpjet pedals to try and get out of the Hauptmann's path as it struggles to burst through the buildings. A visible shockwave warps the ground as the city detonates in ward onto itself. Even in the air my heat level spikes to critical and I am forced to dump three quarters of my coolant to stop my reactor from burning up. The acrid smell of burning myomer fibers and flash melting furro fiberous armor meets my nose as the mechs external microphones burn off, the sound of the city crumbling under the mass of thousands of tons of explosives still tearing through my ears loudly.
My mech slams into the ground and its legs buckle under the stress of bearing the brunt of the damage from the explosions. Immediately as I slowly stand my shaking damaged mech up, I already knew the unavoidable truth. Field Operations general Carl McGrath had passed away. He was too close to the city when it went up. For the heat to melt 66% of my rear armor away while I was in the air. He would have been incinerated instantly.
"All lance units… i-is everyone okay?" The lance leader of zulu company asks hesitantly. The radio still quiet as everyone collects themselves. I finnaly open up a radio channel to report my damage as the lone Longinus Battle armor soldier on my mech drops to the ground ahead of me and begins frantically stripping off his smoking and melting armor. As I open the radio channel I also open up a forward port and dump some of the gel refrigerant from my reactor collant system onto the smoking frantic soldier, the gels -450 degree temperature instantly cooling the plates of the armor, cracking them in the process of the fast cool.
"Guys… we… we lost the general. McGrath is gone." I say, trying, but failing, to disguise my sadness. This shit isn't supposed to be happening…
"Damnit! Zulu company, follow me. Were heading back to base." the lance leader of zulu says as he hauls his Black knight outside of the gate. Its right leg actuators damage causing a long slow limp in the mechs gait.
"Gryphon lance and all battle armor units… form up as best you can in the square. I'm going to land the Conquistador and pick you guys up. Most of your mechs caught too much damage to make it back to base… dust off in fifteen minutes." The voice of the conquistador's pilot comes over my slowly failing radio.
I carefully kneel my mech onto the ground close enough to get to climb down the ladder on the outside and onto the ground, popping open the door to the cockpit, I look out over my mech. The armor slaging off like a cascading stream as it falls off of the skeleton of the mech in thick globs, the myomer fibers burning into an acrid black fog that is blown away by the wind fueling the fires of the city.
I look down at my burning mech, the access ladder for the cockpit nearly entirely missing, added into the slowly cooling pile of slag coating the feet of my mech and the ground around it. Noticing my predicament, a Battle armor soldier in Achileus scout armor baring the bars of an armored infantry company commander uses his combat claws to drag his way up to me, offering his shoulder as a ride down to the ground.
After we hit the ground, and I am let down off of the armored giants shoulder, he pulls off his helmet, and disengages the locks holding the combat claws onto the armor, letting there half melted parts drop to the ground.
"Thank you MechWarrior. Alta would have burned to death in that armor if you had not sprayed him with refrigerant, you have my gratitude. I'm jumper squads commander Elyse Crow" he says, slowly stripping the highly damaged armor off of his nearly seven foot frame, a middle aged, off white red haired man steps out of the armor, a friendly, yet serious look permenantly plastered on his face.
"I am Fawks Crawly… I guess I'm the company commander for the Knights starlight at this point…" I say, the weariness of the adrenaline wearing off showing in my voice.
"yes.. I see your commander didn't make it out of the blast radius in time, two of my men are attempting to retrieve his body and personal effects so he can receive the proper burial on Atreus. I am sorry, McGrath was a good man, I fought beside his mech lance in the later days of operation bulldog." Elyse says as he leads me over to the now landing Conquistador dropship. A group of tornado power armor equipped men carrying a black body preserving refrigerant box rush out of the conquistador towards the half melted and half buried wreckage of McGraths mech. I want to know of his condition… yet I can't bring myself to look back at his mech, or body. One of the power armored men runs back inside of the conquistador and grabs a medical kit, the red cross visible on the grey paint of his power armor as he runs by, heading back towards McGraths mech, I start thinking over the lessons that this mission should have taught me as I walk into the Conquistador silently following Elyse and my now somber team. I sit down and think. The only thing coming to my mind "All men are equal in the eyes of war. Some will die, some will live… but those that live will forever be changed by horrors of combat, a life that some view as not even living at all, but just crawling at a slow pace towards deaths door." I still need to hold to my promise I made myself. I wouldn't be one of those people, I won't let my team mates become those people, I couldn't live with myself if I did… there will be time to mourn for McGrath later. For now, I must save my friends from themselves, from the sadness, from the loss, from the war, and save myself.