Copeland Supply, Salvage, and Resale

by cliff.west

This is a spinoff story. It takes place after "But a somehow a most melancholy" and" Hunted Tribes". Please read those before this bit of work. I will not be recovering those stories, but re-reading them will help you fallow this story. This fiction also will be slow on the combat action.

66. Chapter 66 27 July 3051

Chapter 66

By Cliff

Beta and Clean up: Not done

Reviewed by Hotpoint and Cannonshop

27 July 3051

Ltzehoe system

The Styx did not come in at the normal jump point for this target system when it popped back into "real" space. On Roberts's last visit to the Ltzehoe system, Duke Terry had given Robert and Jess the needed details of a dozen different pirate points that she knew of. She also gave them the date windows that were best to use each of them. That sacred data had also come along with the grey times that those pirate points were useable but more dangerous than even was normal for a pirate point. With the last data Robert could have been able to start looking for other pirate points that Terry had not given them.

The idea for using one of those pirate points on this trip had not been taken lightly, but it was a lot less risky of a move thanks to the colonial drive. But the key reason to choose this location was that it would shorten the travel time to the planet, the next time that Copeland Supply and Resale paid this out of the way system a little visit. Jess and Robert had not promised that they would be coming back or when. They had only said that it looked like they would be coming back in the future. That was the public story that the bridge crew of the Styx knew about and had told the debriefers back on New Circe. Robert, Jules, and Jess also had other ideas that this information would be useful a lot sooner than anyone in the crew knew about.

This freely given data was an unusual show of trust between a local government and an interstellar trader of any kind. It was the kind of data that could lead to a world falling into new leadership or the loss of key infrastructure to a surprise attack. It was just too bad that Robert and Terry were not the only ones who knew about some of the local pirate points. These were things that could be found out, if someone had enough telescopes, time, and computer power. That was how Duke Terry was able to get the data in the first place. Only self-preservation kept her putting the time, effort, money and influence into digging for that data.

As soon as the Styx's systems stabilized, reports started coming into the command center in a frantic rate. If they had been using the old-style jump engines? It would have taken 2 to 3 minutes for all of the delicate systems to come back online before they could even start receiving any meaningful data at range. Some of the more primitive systems could come online a lot faster but they were less capable than their higher tech sisters. Then there was the light hours distance between the jump point and the planet. Even using this pirate point, which the Styx didn't need to in the first place. This was all window dressing as part of keeping the secret of the Colonial made jump drive concealed from all of the people within the Inner Sphere.

And in a secondary effort to keep the Colonial drive secret from the rest of the Inner Sphere. The ship's hull mounted HPG had sent the special burst of energy that looked to mimic the old-style E wave of a jump drive. To anyone that might have been looking at the wrong part of space at just the right time the Styx was just another Tramp class ship. Many with in SLIC wondered how long this tactic would continue to work in the Inner Sphere. SLIC and the engineers were always working on updating how the mobile HPG "burst" looked to make sure it gave a variation of the E-wave, just like what was "normal" for Inner Sphere or Clan tech jump drives.

When the Colonial made drive dropped the modified Tramp into space where the math had told it to? The systems were working only maybe a few seconds after arriving at this star system, just like they would have done on the Battlestar Galactica. This quick return to working order of the crew and support systems fed the data they were collecting to their organic counterparts on the Bridge to leverage and to get them within someone else's decision-making loop. This data told the operators that something was wrong in this system. Something was very wrong. Wrong enough that it was a risk to the mission, all of the missions that the Styx was to support on this run. This fell into the category of "OH FRAK!"

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"Sir, we are receiving an invasion warning coming from the planet. It's on a repeating cycle that has a time stamp that said it started three days ago." Before anyone could respond to the communication stations alert, another voice was added to the growing bedlam of the command center of the specially modified one-time Civilian ship.

From the tactical station along one wall of the bridge, a strong voice called out in the perfect tune of a trained singer. "Starting to get radar returns! There is an Invader class jumpship at another pirate jump point! She is 500,000 miles away on a heading of 34 degrees up 170 degrees. Looks like she might have used a pirate point and her sail is deployed. She is empty of dropships and looks to be trying to hide by going cold on their active systems." Thanks to the speed of light the Radar waves had been able to reach that far and back in less than five seconds.

Robert was quick off the mark as the information came in. "Launch the Hobgoblin! Keep the Bad Kitty's pair of Sabers for close support on the Styx." Not for the first time did Robert wish that the Colonials would have just given them pilots that could fly something with a lot more teeth than a Royal grade light fighter like the Saber. But a Royal design was a Royal designed and on top of that, being connected to the old Star League military could add something to getting into the heads of any enemy attack craft pilot or commander.

If they were about to lose the Styx? Robert would have ordered the use of the Colonial jump drive, even if the HPG was not ready to try to camouflage the uses of the new drive. They can always claim that the ship had just used the newly recovered technology called LF battery had failed in some way that didn't kill them. It would depend on what they could find out about this attack on Duke Terry in the next few minutes to half an hour. If they could be here for another 7 minutes? They would be able to use the HPG E-Wave trick when they left this star system.

As it turned out. These rash actions were not needed, but the safeties were off on their activation just in case something else went sideways. Robert knew that you could not predict what was going to happen in a shooting war. And like any good commander Robert and his crew were ready to "jump" in many different directions at the same time. The nearby jumpship was unarmed and did not have any dropships or fighters to defend itself with. There was no way that a bare Invader class ship wanted to tangle with an empty Tramp class. Much less did they want to tangle with one that had just dumped a small carrier, and she still had another combat dropship of some kind attached to her hull. There was brave, and then there was foolish or very foolish.

There were very few foolish jumpship's captains and crews in the Inner Sphere that got above green levels or crazy. And only a few crews were that new, would want to be tangled up in a jumpship vs jumpship battle like that. Most crews knew where that could lead to. Okay then there was the Word of Blake and the games they liked to play around the Inner Sphere. But that would be many years in the future and in a different universe than the one that Robert and his people lived in.

While Robert was working out what to do with his ships and his missions. Did he attack the other jumpship, leave, hold, or make his way to the planet's surface? Right now, Robert thought the best move was to wait until more information was available for him to work with. The main Radio operator for the Styx had some additional information coming in now that they were in system for a whole ten minutes. In that time Robert was thinking more about the idea of taking over the other jumpship. He pushed that idea off to the side one more time and waited. They could take care of the Jumpship later if they needed to. So, he was still working out what was the best next step to take, and he knew that he was running out of time.

"Sir! We have a message from the Duke! She says that they have a Fortress, Union and a Seeker on the ground. The pirates have broken into many small combat groups and are attacking different targets around the local area. They are holding the attackers off, but not for much longer. She also reports that her compound is under siege, again."

Robert nodded and gave an evil smile that he didn't know had come to his face. Those three lines of a message had just changed the whole dynamic of his thinking. It would seem that these attackers were trying the same tactics as before. Only that they were using a lot more firepower this time to try to change the equation to their favor. It might have worked, if Robert had not just happened to come along to play the white knight for the defenders. He was also wondering where the enemy's reinforcements might come from.

Oh, and let's not forget. That he had eight fighters and a dozen mechs, and he was not afraid to use them to help out a dear friend in need. Robert knew the capabilities of those three dropships that had been reported to be supporting the attackers on this planet. Part of his mind had already moved about who might be behind this attack, into the column marked ComStar at its top. The attacker might or might not "only" be the trigger pullers, but ComStar were the owners of the bank accounts behind the attackers…at least. Now Robert knew what he was going to do. His eyes unfocused for a few seconds and then suddenly everything clicked into place.

"Pass that information to Captain Defoe on the Hobgoblin. I want them to help out the Duke with defending her compound. It is her call, but I want them to provide what air support that she can to the Duke." Robert was hoping that four updated Ironsides and two hundred ton mostly upgraded Stuka's would be a lot of firepower to be dropping on someone out of the blue… well black If you wanted to get technical about it. Robert also knew that Defoe would know how to best use the fighters under her command to get the job done.

Robert knew that he was about to make some of his staff a little upset with him, but that was why he was the mission commander. "I'm going to the Bad Kitty. She will be making a landing before letting out our ground forces. Pass along as logged orders that she is not to do a hover drop, that would be just a little too out of character for a merchant security force. Jules, you have the Hercules and the Styx. I will keep you in the loop."

Robert rose from his chair and almost ran towards the open hatch on the side of the bridge. He did not even think about the Colonial made artificial gravity plates that allowed this action to take place, he had become that used to them. He needed to be on the dropship before it launched without him under the guise of protecting the convoy commander from his own actions.

Jess was looking at both Jules and Robert's back as he started moving toward the hatch, and then she just had to ask. "Sir, what are you planning on doing?" She was thinking that she needed to be behind Robert, but she also had a mission to perform on the jumpship in this type of situation. Now Jess's youth betrayed her.

Robert stopped mid step, and he did a slight turn to look back to the head of the mission's intelligence section. He gave her a sly grin that he knew made both Jess and Jules sweat bullets, when he had used it before. "Oh, I don't know. Something dumb, perhaps."

With a wink he was out of the hatch and out of sight going down the jumpship's corridor. That wink was as good as an order to stay on the jumpship, until things had settled down. As it turned out Robert need not have run. After he had arrived on the Lion's bridge, he spent some time in contact with Duke Terry and the captain of the combat dropship. He still was going to do something dumb, but maybe it was going to be less dumb if he waited for just the right time to make his next move. The last thing we wanted to do was spook the enemy while he was making all of those mistakes.

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Captain Defoe was not surprised at the orders that she had been given from the radio operator. And in truth? She was very happy to get them from the convoy commander. Running from a battle with pirates or anyone else for that matter? That was not a natural thing, for her or the pilots under her command to do. They were clan Wolverine after all, and somethings might have been done to their genes about charging into battle. Captain Defoe was a combat officer, a combat tested commander, and she loved her trade as well as her being very good at it. With a few orders that came quickly to her mind, she put the directive the convoy commander had wanted into action.

Captain Defoe had her modified Dropship, and six fighters moving towards the planet at a steady pace. She did not want to spread out her command to far, without any reason this early in the battle. While they were still in formation a few hours later, she orders a change of mission to the fighters and then to her own helmsman. They were all soon moving at 2.9gs, but with the Colonial made plates on her dropship? It felt like they were just standing on New Circe with its 1g pull instead of feeling almost like three times their weight. The modified Leopard class jump/dropship could have gone faster, but Captain Defoe thought that something like that was a criminal waste of fuel this far from her supply bases. The six fighters were not so lucky, and they had to deal with the huge stress load that this higher speed put on them.

Captain Defoe was looking around the different screens spread out around the bridge of her little command. "Okay people! I need someone to contact local traffic control and tell them we are on our way to help them and give them an estimate of how many hours until we reach orbit. Make sure you let them know our company name, just in case they forgot about it. Next, I need our little birds brought back in a pair at a time."

She looked over to her XO. "Empty out the bomb lockers and load them up but be careful not to load on them to many bombs, that it will interfere with their atmospheric entry. They should only have two fighters down there that the Union has bays for. I need to know where they are at. When you find them? Then alert the nearest of our fighters where those frakkers are flying. They are the primary target, after they are done with the bombing run. Our fighters will just have to take what they give, for that first bombing run." She didn't want to give the enemy aero fighters a free shot at "her" people. But the last thing you wanted was to have your fighters chasing off other fighters with bombs still on their hulls.

The Bridge crew of the small carrier went into hyper drive, working on a long list of things that had to be done before the craft could add her weight to the battle taking place on the ground. All of the fighters quickly came back to the mothership when they were ordered in by the fighter control or CAG. The cargo space on a Leopard CV was not that great, but that was why Captain Defoe stored excess spare parts and ammunition on the other two dropships and on the Styx at the start of the mission. By now she had a good idea what she would need for supplies and other items after these last few missions.

Defoe had run short on ammunition once. And it would not happen at the beginning of the mission or if ever again, if she had her way. This let her have a variety of weapons, which she could give a short fight without any issues. After the battle? They could pull more stores from those other cargo focused spacecraft. Still, it would not take long to empty the "bomb lockers" on the Leopard, and it still would not fully outfit all of her six fighters with a maximum load of bombs. But there were enough of these weapons on hand, at least to put some of the unguided explosive devices on each of the six deadly craft.

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One hour later, four upgraded Ironsides were loaded with almost all of the bombs that the small carrier had brought with her from New Circe. The two Stukas or Sleds as they were called relaunched with only a few of the lightest weapons that had been left in the bomb lockers when they had landed. This delay in getting the fighters loaded with the bombs had let Captain Defoe work out an outline of a better battle plan, than she had been working on as she thought on the fly. Captain Defoe's carrier's systems provided more and more data, all to go along with the flow of reports coming up from Traffic Control and the command center on the planet.

Defoe had found out that the three different dropships were spread out to support different avenues of attacks on the locals, and they were not at the drop port. The forty attacking light and medium vehicles and four infantry platoons from the Seeker, had split up into three different attack points after the landing of the dropship. The Union had also split the dozen heavy and medium mechs into lance sized units, and each of the three lances were attacking different points and out of supporting range of the Seeker's deployed tanks.

The ancient, 6,000-ton Fortress class dropship had split its attack force into only currently two different lines of attack. But they looked to have one large target in mind. A dozen heavy mechs were supported by an assault lance of heavy and assault tanks, and the built in Long Tom cannon on the dropship. Most of this was being used in taking Duke Terry's compound under fire and isolated it from any reinforcements from the rest of the planet. The other two lances of heavy and assault tanks and some infantry support were going after what looked to be a mining site not far from the Duke's Compound. Both groups were within support of each other, like they had spent a lot of time training together. If she would have asked Commodore Copeland? She would have been told that those mines were key providers of gold and other like metals at a thin but steady rate to fill Duke Terry's coffers. But that information was not that important to what Captain Defoe needed to do her job.

Duke Terry's pair of Vulcans had been working in the higher parts of the Planet's atmosphere, and they were keeping a lance of SL-15 Slayers out of the picture of the rest of the battle for the planet. So far like in the air, neither group had been able to gain a decisive advantage on the other for the battle of the planet. Things were balanced on a knife's edge.

Captain Defoe quickly had to work out what would get the most bang out of the six fighters under her command. She could only do one bombing run with her fighters, before she was out of those powerful but unguided weapons. Then she would be only able to make a few strafing runs on the ground forces with her aerospace fighters. There was only so much fuel that each of the craft can carry and then those fighters would have to return to the carrier for resupply.

The Sleds would make very deadly ground strike weapons with their six large 8cm bore lasers in that attack mode, compared to the smaller Ironsides. Still when they would make those strafing runs, it would bring her fighter craft into gun range of the enemy. It had been known that even a small weapons fire hit could cause a ground attacking fighter to crash into the ground. She was not scared about losing craft and pilots, if that was what it took to win the battle or the war against the Cylons. That was just part of the job, but she was not going to throw those craft and hard to replace pilots away. Cost benefit didn't even come close to explaining the difference.

The Hobgoblin was still burning at a good clip, but her fighters were in overdrive as they closed the last few hundreds of miles to the planet's orbit. Captain Defoe was trying to work out when the enemy ground force commander would know that the odds were about to shift against them. It might not be the dozen mechs and maybe dozen tanks on the Lion for the ground battles. It was that they were also going to be losing the battle for the skies at the same time. She was hoping that the enemy commander would only realize this after her fighters had made there bombing run, and a few of the follow-on gun runs on anything that might be worth their time.

That timetable she had been working on for the last hour went out the window, when a screen showed the Bad Kitty, and its pair of escorting colonial piloted fighters were leaving the pirate point that held the Styx. Now there was nothing defending the jumpship but for her built-in long ranged weapons. Granted any jumpship that could pack more than a pair of small weapons was very rare in this part of space.

Defoe stifles a curse aloud at thinking that the Convoy commander was about to land in the combat zone where they were so outnumbered. It was a good thing that she had held her tongue, because soon a green line was on the display for the room to see. It now showed the current and projected course of the modified Lion class dropship. The three ships, one dropship and two aerospace fighters were not heading toward the planet, but they were making their way towards the Invader Class Jumpship in its own pirate point. Until now Robert had been letting the other jumpship's master think that they were successfully hiding from the Styx. Defoe and the others should have just been glad that Robert had waited this long before becoming more….. active.

It took only a few seconds for the carrier dropship's commander to know what was going on and what the Convoy commander might be planning. She could not help but let a little smile come to her face as she worked out what Copeland might be trying to do. She was seeing what this was, and it was a squeeze play. Soon the enemy commander was going to have to decide something very important. Did they want to lose your ground forces or lose your ride home? It was a high-risk play, but she also knew that sometimes it even worked when dealing with Inner Sphere forces connected ground forces. Then again sometimes it only made the ground forces fight harder when they felt like they had been abandoned by their jumpships.

Early in 3051

Ltzehoe system

The Grind

Machelle made a sour face that was nearly covered by her huge neurohelmet, as it felt like her nose hairs seem to crinkle up and burn in her sinuses. She smelled bad to even her own nose, and that took a lot of stink. She pulled out a damp towelette and wiped the open face part of her neurohelmet and used her fingertips to get under the beveled edges of the face cut out. She wanted to reach as much of her skin as she possibly could, but without removing the big honking device off her head, shoulders, and upper back.

This action both took the sweat off her face and cleared her nose with a sharp fresh mint smell at the same time. When she was done, she put the cloth back in its sealed container for later use. With that operation done, she took the active controls of her machine one more time. She had gotten a lot of "stick" time after that last attack that had almost killed her in Oldman Wilcox's 50ton tank. She had made sure that any free time that she had, and maybe just a little more that she could sneak in also, was dedicated to mech training.

Machelle had needed a week of bed rest after the battle due to her head trauma and other injuries to her body. She should have been in a hospital, but all of the beds in the Clinics and hospitals were filled with those that really needed them or the occupants had a good chance that they would die. Thankfully on a planet like Ltzehoe, every few houses would have someone that had some healing skills and training even if they had not officially gone to a school to learn them. Sometimes that was the only way to get a bone set or cut stitched up before permanent damage or death was done to the patient. Then there was the whole child berthing issues on this edge of space.

After the fourth or fifth stranger that had come by her parent's home to "check in" on her. Machelle was ready to either go to the hospital or shoot the next person that asked how she was doing and then go into detail about how proud they were of her. The good news from those visitors was that Machelle had found out her crewmate had been returned to duty, and he would be given the commanders spot of the still under repair Vedette tank. Machelle was both happy and sad when she had received this news. Machelle knew that she would never be able to get more time at the controls of the tank again. Well at least not without dipping down into a bag of very dirty tricks. She didn't think that she would dip that low, so that was going to negatively affect her ability to keep to her long term plans.

The first shock after being cleared by her mother to go to work, had been when she was told that she no longer worked there. Instead, she was directed to the town's workshop where they maintained the local areas workmechs and other heavy equipment. She had applied to work there a number of times, like anytime that rumors started going around town that they might have an opening. But others with more experience had always been picked over her, and that had not stopped her from applying.

The Shop as it was called in the whole county, only had a single working "mech bay" for as long as anyone could remember. What was not so well known was that they had another three other repair bays that they had used for parts or storage for so long most people had forgotten about them. A few years ago, the owner had taken out a loan from the Duke to repair, rebuild, and refurbish all four Mech repair bays to bring them back on line. This was mainly done to support the growing number of workmechs in the county. That loan had not been paid for yet by the increased workload in the local area, but the workload had proven that all four bays were needed.

Machelle only knew this in passing because she was a battlemech fangirl, and she had wanted to see something that she had only read about. You could have knocked her over with a feather, when she walked into the garage to see that two of the mech bays now held the Quasit security mechs she had fought against. A Flea Class Mech was in a third bay and a workmech was in the last bay. That one looked to be undergoing major repair work in its center torso and legs. There also was a second Flea class mech and a pair of light tanks spread around the flat ground level work area of the garage. Then the wall of sound hit her like a physical hammer, and she had to look away from the bright points of light of welders and alternately the shower of thick fat sparks of cutters and grinders.

Machelle had never seen this shop so filled with work that was needing to be done, and with so many hands doing the work. In Machelle's mind's eye, this was how a "real" mech factory should have looked like. And her heart skipped a beat as she looked around at all of the people working and the shear level of noise. She had no idea how long she stood by the huge open sliding metal doors that both allowed access, air ventilation and sound mitigation that a closed box would have subjugated the workers to. Those huge sliding barn doors also just happen to allow the workmech owners to check on the status of their huge investment without bothering the workers or management.

Machelle was thrown right into her new job when someone had noticed her standing at the main service entrance to the shop. By now she was one of the most famous people within a few hundred Kilometers of this shop. She first went to work helping to strip one of the pair of light tanks of damaged items. Then they took out the items that looked functional, but they didn't have the testing equipment at this location to know for sure. They were almost done with that work when she was pulled off the light tank. That had not made her happy, she was the type of person that once she started something she "needed" to finish the project.

For the next two days she was doing paperwork about the work she had done after getting released "from the hospital". After she had turned in this not thin set of paperwork to the foreman, the next day at work was a major change. Machelle had been sent to start working on the Quasit security mech. The same mech that had fallen onto the top of the tank that she had been fighting out of, at the time he had done an imitation of a metal tree.

Much to Machelle's surprise, they were not stripping the security mech for any maybe useable spare parts. Sure, they had taken all of the visibly damage parts and armor off the Quasit with as much attention and skill that they had, as not to do even more damage to the glorified workmech. The shop and town rumor mill had it that when they got one security mech working, that she was going to be the one to get to pilot it. She had her doubts about this rumor, but she kept those to herself. She even tried to keep that idea out of her head out of fear of losing what limited sleep she was already able to get each night.

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Over the next few months, she found that she was really getting into the slowly rebuilding security mech, but that all changed when one day a mech coffin was brought to the shop. You did not normally just walk a mech onto a cargo ship, and then walk it to its new owners when the dropship had just landed on a new planet. A coffin held a mech so that any large enough truck could carry it in a way that it could clear under bridges and threw tunnels that might be between the drop port and the new battlemech's owners. Those coffins also were as rare as hen's teeth on a planet that was this far from major worlds of the Inner Sphere. If there were two on the whole planet of Ltzehoe? It would be a surprise to any interstellar shipper worth his or her salt.

So Machelle would notice something like this arriving at her workplace. A pink submarine wrapped in a halo of fireworks would have been more subtle than a truck pulling a trailer with a mech coffin on it. She could not take her eyes off the trailer after the towing truck had left her line of sight in the mech repair bay. She and more than a few others got very little done that morning on the almost ready for testing security mech.

When she had come back to work, after a quick meal at a local deli that had an agreement with the workshop. She was met at the huge sliding door of the garage by Oldman Wilcox himself. The old man looked, well old to her young eyes. He was even wearing his "uniform" of clean coveralls and a long sleeved white collared shirt. He passed her a huge box that could only hold a mech's control helmet and a sheet of Verigraph paper. She had no idea what to do and she missed most of what the Oldman was saying, but she did catch the end.

"Make your family proud, girl. You will be working with the Sheriff getting trained on how to use her, at least until the Duke calls you to her flag for the militia. And try not to break her. I don't think we will be able to get another one like her anytime soon."

Machelle had no idea what to do next, and she was frozen in place with her jaw swinging in the wind. The leader of her extended and powerful family lightly patted her on the shoulder, and he walked away from the garage. She had no idea how long she just stood there with the helmet box at her feet and the Verigraph page in her hands. Sometime later someone had picked up the case with her "new" neurohelmet and pulled her by the arm deeper into the workshop. It was sometime later that she would remember that while Mr. Wilcox had been talking to her, the garage had been very abnormally quiet. The reason was that they wanted to know what was going to happen, and now that it was over. They had a party at the foot of the now standing 40ton Clint class battlemech. It was the first time that anyone in this area of the planet had been assigned to pilot a real mech.

Only a handful of years ago, having a 50ton tank was something odd, and the locals were thankful to have that one tank. That had slowly changed with the increase of wealth flowing to the planet. Still, it was within living memory that the whole planet only had less than a mixed lance of mechs and tanks to call on for its defense against pirates, but those were all located near the planetary leader's home and the planets sole drop port. When that Vedette tank had rolled down the street, most had known about the hulk, and it had been the subject of many jokes. But seeing it moving and then in action had changed the outlook of those people that had been making those jokes. Then more and more of the locals had been able to buy SRM packing hover, wheeled, or tracked vehicles. Still very few heavy tanks were available much less walking mechs. Even adding weapons to workmechs was very rare.

The huge "new" mech and the newly rebuilt security mech would be used just for local defense, and that was a huge improvement for an area that was so far from the center of political power and the drop port. This was seen to be a sign that they are growing in wealth even this far from those two centers of power. As anyone on this edge of occupied space knew, that those with wealth would be attacked by others that wanted it or just to keep you from enjoying it. At least the local leaders and power players were investing in the powerful weapons needed to defend the people that were far from them, and not just the people living near the drop port.

Machelle had always wanted to pilot a mech, but she had expected and dreamed that her first mech was going to be an old and maybe half wrecked Wasp or Stinger, and that would be at best. That was also assuming that she would be given the chance to pilot one in the first place. What was normal for the Inner Sphere would have had them learning how to pilot a mech by spending a lot of time working with whatever type of workmech or herding mech that might be handy. Unless you were a Noble with a huge bank account you might be able to skip that step, but those were exceptions to that rule.

After the battle and while Machelle had still been recovering from her long list of injuries. She had dreamed that someday she would be able to take controls of the 45ton Quasit security mech that she thought might be repairable by the Duke. She had not told a soul about those daydreams, even when the rumors had been racing around town or when she was asked pointed questions by her co-workers, family, or strangers in town.

Machelle knew that the Quasit was not a "real" mech. But it would be a lot better than a fully functional bug mech, much less one only good enough to train new pilots and be a working ready supply of spare parts. She had goals, and if the local defenders that was not part of the active militia would keep the security mech? Then the Duke would have more and larger machines that she could be called on to defend the whole planet. If Machelle was good enough of a pilot or gunner? Then the Duke would call her up, and maybe she could be able to pilot one of those real mechs. The Clint was a new wrinkle in those plans and machinations for Machelle. Now Machelle had no idea what she was going to do, and it was now going to take a lot to get her to want to give up the pilot's slot for this mech.

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While Machelle worked up on how to transition between the bad habits that she had picked up in the cheap mech simulations she had been using, and the real thing that was now at her command over the coming months. During that training time, she had been told about how she had gotten this mech to pilot in the first place. This was not some Tri vid show or cheap novel were the local leader "gives" a street rat a few million C-Bills worth of mechs for doing something great. That would be like a glass slipper kind of thing. She was the assigned pilot, and not the owner of the Clint.

She had done so well in the running battle using that upgraded tank against the two security mechs, that her records were checked, and interviews conducted. They had started after the pirates/rebels were taken care of in the legal fashion common in this part of space after a failed overthrow attempt of the local leader. That would be for them to take a long walk off a short pier, with a rope around the neck. Then the question was what to do next with Machelle. That was a harder question to work out, than you think at first looking at the issue.

Oldman Wilcox had his own ideas about what to do with someone like Machelle. Besides he already had control over the two Security mechs and the pair of light tanks that had been attacking a neighbor until he had explained the errors of their ways. Those two tanks had given up after only a handful of LRM hits to let them know that they were now facing real weapons and a bunch of very angry locals. One of the tanks had thrown a track before reinforcements had arrived to help the defenders, and it had been the first one to give up the fight.

A high level plan had been made, and it had started as soon as the recovered heavy weapons were collected from the spread out battlefields of the attempted rebellion. Anything that was not needed to repair the one Quasit was sold or traded for capital to buy what was needed to return it back to service. Besides armor plate, there was remarkably little that could not be fixed on this planet. The bank accounts started to fill, and the patriarch went shopping as soon as he had an idea of the amounts he might be dealing with.

First Oldman Wilcox went looking for a light mech that would not be a suicide machine for the new pride of the family. What was working in his favor, was that they were making more mechs all over the place. The downside was that the war with the clans was drawing off anything that was worth the money and more than a few that were not worth the investment. If it was a weapon packing mech it was being snapped up to be sent to the war zones.

A few years ago, the MoC had earmarked that a certain percentage of weapons produced in their realm had to be sold to locals. The idea was that it would boost local defenses. But what happened to the mech after it went to its new home was sometimes a lot different than the government of the MoC might have wanted. But that was why you had law enforcement and the Inner Sphere was at its heart was a feudal society and all that those two words entailed.

That was when fate stepped in, and things changed for the patriarch and secondarily Machelle. It was in the form of MMM making another pick up of a huge load of ammunition from Duke Terry's caches. It was another very large load, and they traded this modified Clint to Duke Terry for most of it and just enough cash to pay for the base cost of manufacture and supplies.

The Duke had an idea of where this newish battlemech would fit into her order of battle. The Clint was a nice light scout hunter, and the light mechs classes were the most numerous mech found in this part of space. The light mech class also were well loved by the pirate bands in this area due to their low cost. Bug mechs were also preferred by them due to the speed of the mech, and they had at least one hand to help carry off any loot that they might have collected in those raids. The Clint class of mech had some downside but MMM seemed to have worked out more than a few of the major ones.

The traded mech to Duke Terry was not a new battlemech that MMM was turning out for the MoC and open market. It might have been that this one had been found in the many salvage yards around the local stellar area, or it could have just been used as a trade in for something more capable. MMM was not in the habit of selling wrecked machines to anyone without a lot of paperwork being done and without many lawyers having been involved in the deal. It was cheaper and the profits would be huge, but the damage to the reputation of MMM would have cost a lot more. And word would get around that the mechs and other combat equipment coming from MMM were not perfect or worth the money. The last thing the board of directors wanted was for MMM to be used in the same sentences as Quickscell.

This Clint had been inspected and rebuilt with any new parts that might be needed provided by the shops on MMM's grounds. Most of the time these parts had come from MMM's stockpiles to make those repairs. These were some very old parts that were used, but the ones with the known unique issues were replaced with ones more easily to find and use. Still MMM didn't want to compete with the new Clints that were coming off the production line, but any Clint bought from MMM would be looked at the same at some level. That and they didn't want to divert too many of the supplies needed to make those newer, more capable, and more profitable battlemechs. It was a very tight rope they would have to walk to keep the PR department, stockholders, board of directors, and their customer's happy little campers.

After the inspection had been done on this mech, a plan was drawn up by the head techs. The workers at MMM had first ripped out the autocannon and it was to be replaced by a refurbished Kreuss PPC that was just lying around in a side shop waiting for a new owner. The saved weight of the lighter weapon and replacement of the ammunition feed systems had let them add two 5cm Magna MK II lasers into the right torso of the mech. To handle the heat generated by all of these energy weapons. They had needed a new heat management system fitted to the machine, and again using only what was not needed on the active production line. The number of double heat sinks coming off the lines was truly impressive, but MMM was not in the habit of selling a lot of spare parts on the side markets. The old PPC had an issue when an enemy got to close to the firing unit. That was where the 5cm lasers came into play for the jock to use. Those four 5cm lasers combined could do twice the amount of damage that the PPC could do, and thanks to the updated heat sinks wrapped about the old tech engines. They could be used very liberally along with the PPC.

It now was a nice little raider as well as long ranged scout hunter, one that would not need pesky little things like supply lines for it to do it's designed missions. The Duke would have preferred that those two tons used to add the "new" 5cm lasers had been directed at adding more armor to the outer hull of the 40ton mech. But she had not been asked about mech designs before the MMM dropships had landed. And sometimes you get, what you can get, or you do totally without. Terry was just happy that it was not a Stinger class mech they had wanted to trade with.

Then one of the people that the Duke had trusted was pointed in Wilcox's direction. He had been looking for a mech for a promising young one in his family and that young one was known to both the Duke and her staff. Quickly a few plans were drawn up by other people that Duke Terry trusted, and Mr. Wilcox and his wife were asked to have a dinner at the Duke's home. This was not that out of place even before the actions of Chairman Eric Hale.

Patriarch Wilcox had not been able to pay the full listed price of the rebuilt mech, but he had almost all of the funds in a local bank. Duke Terry had handed him the codes when the money was sent to the right accounts, and thus she had given him a mech on credit for the remaining balance without even dealing with interest on the loan. But she wanted the mech and pilot to work with the rest of the militia to make sure that it was not a waist of a good mech. That last part was just something that she could use as cover if anyone else worked up the funds to buy a mech. She was not going to let anyone surprise her like last time with the number of mechs that were on the planet.

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That is how Machelle found herself out in the deep woods taking orders from Mechwarrior Kevin Williams in his fully repaired Javelin. This was going to be his last mission in that light mech. There had been rumors and then a militia wide announcement that he was going to be getting a larger Shadow Hawk class mech in the next few weeks. It was the Duke's way of letting anyone with the skill, talent and drive to pilot a mech to come forward for evaluation. Very few things said that, like saying you have a fully functional light mech that is currently without a pilot, and it was not a bug mech or some kind of wreck.

Also in this temporary lance was the Sheriff who was in the Quasit security mech that Machelle had worked so hard in getting back into combatish shape…. for a security mech. The backup Wasp pilot that had saved the Duke from the Vindicator was piloting the newly repaired Crab. It was not a well-rounded lance, but it would do to get some training with. And even Machelle could see that she had the least piloting skills of the bunch. She now had her mental eyes set on being the next pilot of that Crab, when she was called up to the planetary militia. There was just something about the low slung mech with odd arms that spoke to her.

The repair of the Crab's cockpit had turned out to be not a major issue for the locals to deal with and get the medium class mech moving again. The end state looked like crap, but it worked for the most part. Plus, the support team learned a lot and every few weeks they would bring it back into the shop to fix issues. And it always seemed to come out looking a little more finished. There also were some rumors that a heart transplant was coming for the Crab in the near future.

It was "just" another Magna 250 engine, but this one was refitted with a factory installed updated heat management system. They also said that a MMM made Royal Flush copy of the H class ER PPC was going to be coming for it. That is if the Duke had the money and the pilots lived long enough to see the parts. There were a lot of rumors like that updating of the Crab for any mech that was seen to be fighting under the Duke's colors.

In the little civil war, the militia had lost almost 20 percent of its people. Not all of them had been killed, but many were hurt too badly to be "active" defenders. There were a lot of green replacements to fill those holes. The Duke was more than willing to spend money on training of those green trainees. She would not approve of anyone that she didn't feel was ready to be moved to "active" service. The current young pilot of the Crab was not expected to take a front-line assignment for some time. She was still very green as a pilot and only little better with her gunnery. But just like the other green troopers, anyone would be expected to grab a gun if there was another attack.

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This medium "training" Lance had been in the field for three days "on patrol". They had no idea what was happening around the planet at any given time while they were "on patrol". Then the alert had been passed to Williams from the Duke's command center. The lance was ordered to go to ground until the command center had found out where the pirates were going to land. The last thing command wanted was for a green lance to be run over by the attackers and be defeated in detail. Attacking without a plan was a good way to lose your mechs. They could hide and the threat of a medium weight mech lance could be a nice distraction for your average pirate raiders.

That had been a long six hours as the lance waited hidden powered down in the deep woods with their own eyes to see what was going on, and the occasional update that was sent to the lance leader. The rest of the lance had tried to get some rest at the direction of Kevin after the first few hours. He had warned them that they were going to need that sleep, that is if they wanted to fight these pirates. Machelle knew the truth of this advice after the battles against the councilmen's forces, but still she had problems resting in this mech's cockpit.

When the pirate dropships were down on the ground, and it seemed like they were out of the danger zone of being overrun by pirates with dropships support. When the command center passed along that they were "out of the woods." The lance was at the run heading towards the nearest threat less than ten minutes later. They were moving as a unit and they had blood in their eyes as they made their way towards the attackers.

Machelle would have preferred to support countering the attacks that were going to be going into her family's valley. But they were on the other side of the battlefield, and they would have to make it through the nearest Fortress and Union class dropships. Oh, and let's not forget about fighting threw the forces that the dropships had deployed all before they could get to the Seeker dropship that had supply the pirate forces in that area that her family lived in. This was not an all downside issue, because this lance was the closest to the Duke's home and planetary command center. Well, that and a few mines that were also in the local area.

They spent the rest of the day running as fast as the lance could as a unit towards the sound of battle. They were slowed down by the Crab, but not by that much thanks to the thick woods and rough terrain. It would have surprised many a mech warrior, but the 45ton security mech Quasit was the fastest member of the lance with a flank speed of 86 kp/h and that was a dozen kilometers faster than anyone else.

That 50ton mech, with all of its firepower could not be left behind by the lighter Clint and Javelin. They would need all of that firepower, and any other firepower that might be lying around. Besides the PPC in the Clint's arm, the Crab held all of the long ranged firepower that the lance possessed. The Quasit packed a small LRM, but it would need back up so it would only range so far ahead of the Javelin and Clint. Many times, the point would be taken by the slightly slower Calvary mechs to give the Sheriff a break from that stressful job. They were moving just like they had been training to do before these party crashers had shown up.

They pushed as hard as they could, but they had been at the outer edge of the "patrol zone". They had been near the firing range that they would have used to get some weapons time firing at painted targets on the rocks that made up the bones of the mountain range. The range was in an old and now abandoned open pit mine. At least all of the mechs had full loads of SRM/LRMs with live warheads along with machine gun rounds for the Quasit. They had been loaded for war as well as to get some training in.

Paint rounds for the missiles were made on this planet, but they were not used by any of the forces that reported to Duke Terry. No, on this planet there were too many rocks that needed to be made into easier to move sizes. Two birds, one stone. The mech jocks got gunnery training, rocks got reduced, that lowered the cost of moving them, different lots of missiles got quality controlled tested, and the Duke didn't have to pay for non-lethal warheads.

Now that ammunition would not be used against those marked stones. They would be used against live targets. Still there was nothing that this lance could do for the first full day of the pirate attack on their planet. They were just too far from the attackers to do anything, much less anything useful. Still, they were coming, and Mechwarrior Kevin Williams would keep the command center informed of their progress going cross country to the sounds of combat. They were going to be a surprise flank attack when they finally arrived. Or they would work a counter scouting mission against the pirates. Well, those were the two plans that the mechwarriors pictured in their heads. The command center had other ideas.

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Captain Wilma Thatch stood exposed from the stomach up as she watched down the road leading to the planetary command center. The pirates had not landed on the drop port on this attack, and this move had left everyone scrambling to get into alternate locations, on top of the short notice of the attack. A lot of time, effort, and money had been spent on those defenses around that expected attack coming from the drop port. It was already noted that the attackers might have known about those and other defenses before launching the attack against the planet. This idea was reinforced when it was identified that it was a rare Fortress command dropship that had landed in the deep woods to the west of Duke Terry's home and command base. There was only one way something like that would happen. These attackers had a lot of inside information.

Captain Wilma Thatch's right hand moved and touched a dozen light splotches that spotted her right cheek and that ran further down that side of her face. She had gotten those spotted scars in a firebomb attack on her home. Her young son had been hurt worse….a lot worse, and the scars she carried about that was equally a lot deeper than the burns. She had not been able to get into the fight that had scarred her and ended up killing her son after weeks of excruciating pain. That was not going to be the case today.

Wilma had not been able to get her whole tank company online with such short notice of the attack. Most of her combat company was still with Duke Terry at her command center waiting for their crews to report in. This lance was just acting as a trip wire and hopefully act as a spoiler attacker. The Captain needed to bleed and delay this arm of the enemy attack.

Wilma smiled and reached down to pat the top of the Hovertec Quad pack of SRM launcher fixed to that part of her tank's turret. Where most tankers would have shyed away using anything but HE warheads for those SRMs the Hovertec system used. But Wilma and her lance had filled their SRMs ammunition bins with inferno rounds. Wilma was going to rain fire on the attackers, like she could not have done before. Now she just needed to find a target for them to rain that inferno jell on.

From below Wilma's feet, a voice floated up to her uncovered ears. "Captain! That farmer just called in. We have a "bunch" of tanks heading our way." You could hear the air quotes in the young voice over the word bunch.

Wilma didn't say anything as she dropped into the full protection of the armored hull of her Bulldog tank. She thought that they would not have to wait that long for the enemy to show up in her tanks weapon's sites. And she was dead right on with her last guess. Still when the first enemy tank came around the dirt road to her front, she could not help but take in a breath as she saw her first target. She had wanted a target that was worth her and her unit's time and ammunition. She had unknowingly tempted Murphy, and he had accepted her challenge. Then the demon Murphy raised her challenges by about 40tons.

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The Behemoth class tank was a terror on the battlefield. It was a tank that even most battlemechs would try to avoid, if they could. 100tons of slow moving death was coming towards her 4 lighter Bulldog tanks without seeming to care that she and her lance were there. She got on the radio, but before she could say anything another assault class tank could be seen from their hidden position. She needed a few seconds to change what she was going to say to the rest of her lance. Something half rotten, smelly, and could be used for fertilizer had just hit the rotary impeller.

"Okay people, aim low if you're not sure. I want you to go for turrets or track hits. We don't need to kill them. We just need to delay them…. but killing them would be just fine with me. Fire them up!" Wilma had a feral grin on her face with images of flame-soaked assault tanks filling her mind and heart.

That was all she needed to say, and when the huge twin autocannon carrying tank crossed a line. The line for all four of the hiding tanks to open fire with their 8cm lasers. Duke Terry's forces had been growing at a steady rate, but she had been losing people during every attack that had been beaten back. To keep the skills levels up and to even gain some ground for her crews. The Duke had made sure that every gunner had spent enough time on the gun range, that most of the other Inner Sphere powers would have blanched at the cost. The crews might be green in tactics and other areas for a military. But their tank's gunnery was good enough that any line unit within the Inner Sphere would have loved to have poached them for their own use.

All four of the 8cm lasers hit the huge and slow moving tank. A pair of lasers hit the turret and nearly a ton of ArcShield Maxi II armor was blasted off of the tank in between eye blinks. One of the lasers had hit the thickly armored front and bow plate, and it did little more than burn off the paint and seemed like little else to the gunners on the Bulldogs. The last shot had hit on the right side suspension of the Behemoth tank. That energy beam had slipped in between the long and thick armored skirt on the tank and the ground. It was a very nice shot. The thick metal track links and pads were blasted apart, and the track went sliding across the returned rollers and slammed onto the ground like a giant's finger wide tie flopping on the ground. It was just like if the tank had thrown its track due to some unwise maneuver commanded by the driver. Only this time it was just with a little help from an 8cm laser, and a whole lot more catastrophic of a failure than just a thrown track.

The Behemoth tank was now out of the mobile battle, at least until a support team and the tank's crew could fix the "thrown" track. Now it was just a pill box, but it was a pill box with a pair of very long range autocannons, 20 LRM tubes, 16 SRM tubes and a quad set of miniguns. The twin SaLon MaxiCannon 10 autocannons bellowed back at her attackers and a twin pair of huge earth fountains erupted within the tree line. Then the Long fire light LRMs started to fall in the same area, but that firing line was no longer occupied by the Bulldog tanks. With current fire control systems, the 100ton tank had no problem of knowing where the Behemoth's attackers fire had come from.

As soon as Wilma had fired the 8cm laser on her Bulldog, her whole lance had started to pull back out of the holes that they had been hiding in for the last two hours. That one volley of laser fire had not only disabled one enemy tank, but it had delayed the encirclement of Duke Terrys command center for over ten minutes. At least it was almost ten more minutes before the attackers could make it to check out the firing line Wilma had just evacuated after three seconds of combat. They had been surprised that they had not found any evidence of the locals still in those long ago emplaced firing positions. The Behemoth's crew had claimed to have killed one tank and they had damaged another enemy tank with their return fire.

The remaining pirate tanks were even slower making it further down the road than the heavy tanks top speed would account for. This time leading the attack line was a slightly smaller tank at 80tons. This tank had a cruising speed that was about the same as the flank speed from the Behemoth class. They had no idea what had shot at them, other than they had used 8cm lasers, and they were mounted on tracks. The road got a little wider not far from the ambush point, or at least now it was wide enough that the assault tanks could push through two at a time instead of being forced to move single file.

Wilma smiled at seeing the two massive tanks. One was a real killer at short range with a twin set of 185mm ChemJet Guns. The other thing was a long shooter packing three HellStars PPCs, it was a good team, but Wilma smiled. She selected her target and passed it to the other tank commanders. When the range was right, four more 8cm lasers lashed out, and again all four lasers hit their assigned targets. The enemy tanks were only at medium range for those weapons, and these tanks were very good gunners.

All of the 8cm lasers hit the left side of the long shooting but handicapped at short range Schrek PPC Carrier. The heavy laser hits ran down from near the turret ring going down to the lower road wheels on the track. The pirates had thought that this was just another hit and run attack and fired their weapons accordingly. That was a very bad call by the commander of this part of the attack force. They had just stopped their tanks and fired were someone had been hiding.

Instead, the bulldogs had attacked. You would be surprised how fast the 60ton Bulldog tanks could move, and surprise had given them just that much more time to act against the pirates with weapons fire. Captain Wilma Thatch's tank's gunnery skills were just as good on the move as they had been while sitting and waiting. This had come as bad news for the pirate tanks.

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Captain Mathew Milly was standing and riding high in his company command tank as he passed four burning or otherwise disabled tanks that didn't belong to his command. He had been expecting the enemy tank commander to pull back towards the command post or stay and fight in an open field battle or other simple tactics. Instead, they had fired the heavy energy weapons, then ran, then fired from hiding, and then charged into his unit like madmen. The local tank's crews had been firing like mad and damn the heat or living to see the sunset one more time. They had not been even trying to take out one of his heavier tanks that they were attacking. They just seemed to be shooting at whoever they could see and pull the triggers. The really bad part had been that the locals were hitting more than his people had been able to do, even with the limited range time he had arranged for the gunners.

Then he passed the Demolisher and Schrek PPC carrier that had belonged to his command. Both of them were in flames thanks to the SRM filled with inferno jell the crazy locals had loaded into their own tanks. If they had enough time, the support crew should be able to get one of those two tanks back in operation or at least recovered back to the dropship. The same was true of the Behemoth class tank that had been immobilized in the first attack of this series.

Mathew Milly had been briefed that these locals were not like the rest of the sheep out this way, and he had not believed them. Now he was glad they had brought all of this heavy firepower to this planet, like his "new" Grumman Amalgamated made Ontos class monster that was carrying his very large frame. Now his pair of lances was down all of those tanks plus a pair of Pikes support tanks that were burning or immobilized behind what remained of his unit. That only left him with his Ontos, a damaged Partisan, and his remaining damage Demolisher to attack those mines and close the back door to the Duke's base. That still was a lot of firepower to be used on a backwater planet, but it was now so much less than what he had landed with.

This upgrade had not cost him or his commander any money to trade in their lighter tanks like the Vedette, Scorpion, and Hetzer classes to get these heavier ones. Those lighter tanks were supposed to have been sold to anyone with the money to have them, and then the money given to "the contract holders". But "Captain" Milly knew that they were only sitting in storage for replacements, this was in case their employers proved to be less than truthful with the gifts and other things that had been promised. You had to make sure all of your bases were covered as a mercenary, and that held even more true as a pirate.

Captain Milly sent a message back to the command dropship that he wanted a support team to be drawn up. They were to come back and check out those enemy bulldog tanks as well as the ones damaged that had belong to his command. He knew that it would suck having to clean out what remained of the bulldog's crews, but a 60ton tank on the edge of this part of space were worth the effort. Besides there always were slaves and others that could do the job or not eat. Manpower was cheap, they were called slaves after all. But losing the Behemoth, one of his two Demolishers, a Schrek, and 2 Pikes for a lance of Bulldog tanks was not a good showing and it could come back to haunt him. If he didn't pull a rabbit out of a hat, he might not be a captain after this mission.

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On the other side of the most populated area of the planet another ground battle was forming up, it was happening along much the same way that the other battles had settled out. The top of a Union class dropship could be seen just above the treetops of the old growth forest. Lieutenant Jenifer Zufelt now knew what the old people meant, when they said something about sweating bullets. She had always thought that it was just a way for the old salts to get a wink on the younger generation.

Now she was not so sure of that assumption. She used her off hand to wipe some of her own sweat out of her eyes, even with the vent pumping cold air at max right into her face and it was not so hot outside. Sweat just seemed to be pouring out of her body from places that seemed impossible and in amounts that made her feel like she had just gotten out of a saltwater shower.

She was under a huge amount of stress, and she knew that this was not like the training she had been doing. For one she knew that this was not training but real life and death, and she was in charge without anyone watching over her shoulder in case if things went wrong. She had a lance under her command along with all of the "local" forces that might be within radio range of the alert that had been sent out about the surprise attack coming in.

It sounded great, on paper. It also sounds great, until you saw a Union that would be packing a dozen kings of the battlefield for the last few hundred years. Oh, and it was your job to stop them, but you didn't have a dozen mechs to do it. She didn't have even one mech or a over a dozen heavy and assault tanks that the books said that she should have. Then again if she had that kind of firepower, her, as a young Lieutenant would not have her name on the blame line when things went wrong.

Jenifer had two bulldog tanks, a LRM carrier, and that was backed up by a single SRM carrier. She was wishing that the local sheriff and his back up were not a quarter of the way around the planet from where they were supposed to be. That was a medium mech and a 45ton security mech that was not with her that the plan had called for. Still, she had a 50ton Vedette tank fitted with a Star a League age autocannon and a dozen trucks armed with small SRM or LRM launchers that the plan had not counted on. That would not make up for the one and a half mechs that she was missing. But it did give her something to fall back on.

That number of gun trucks would grow in fits and spurts, but she thought of them as little more than death traps no matter how many they had. The locals thought differently, but the young Lt knew that there was a big difference between taking on a Security mech or some light tanks, and a real battlemech with a hand full of those modified work trucks. Oh, and let's not forget. It had only been one security mech they had fought against and now they had a dozen battlemechs they were going to have to deal with.

Lt Zufelt bites her lower lip and she thought about one of the classes that she had sat in as a young recruit. Her leadership and base knowledge training had been heavily stented to watching classes on tri-vid recordings from some university deeper in the Inner Sphere. Then there was some training from a few old salts. One of the stories that she had heard on those videos and resaid by one of the old salts was. "You fight with what you have, and not what you want."

That same video instructor had told another old saw that she said was still true today. "If frogs had wings? They would not bump their butts when they jumped. Your job as a leader, is to use what you got to win the battle. This is not about being fare. It is all about protecting the people of this planet from being taken as slaves or having their homes and businesses burned to the ground by some jerk with an attitude."

With those words ringing in her mind Jenifer settled down and waited for the enemy to make his first move. She would not have to wait for long. Soon her systems picked up the sound of a mech moving through the thin trees that acted as wing breaks for the fields of grain and other food crops that would be her chosen battlefield for today. Jenifer activates the radio and gives an order that she knew was not needed, but she needed to do something, or she was going to start hyperventilating. "Archer and Knife, hold your fire. Baker don't fire until I give the command, or you take a close hit."

Jenifer knew that if she lived through this battle, her NCO was going to have a talk with her behind the motor pool. But Jenifer felt better after giving those orders, and she would deal with the command lessons later. Jenifer kept her eyes on the weapons sites of her tanks, and she identified the target before her fire control computer could tell her. She knew from a local who had more guts than sense, that she was facing a mech company made up of medium and heavy designs. They were in three lances, but they were not spreading out that far as so not to be able to support each other.

The pirates were fighting smart, very smart. Jenifer was hoping that this would change as time went on. There was nothing that she knew about that was worth needing a full battlemech company's attention anywhere close to this area. She could think of a few things that would draw attention of a mech or team…maybe a lance if this was not a resource raid but a raid of vengeance.

Still when the 40ton Hermes II came into view, she felt her stomach drop to her toes. Jenifer had been working with the local mech pilots, and her tankers knew that as long as they kept their power low and didn't move. Then enemy Mechs would find the tanks very hard to find, but that advantage would all go out the window as soon as the tanks fired. And they would have to fire at the pirates. You didn't want pirates to think that they had all the time in the world to do what they wished. Civilians tended to come out the worse for wear when you let something like that happen.

She could feel her underwear starting to gain as the scout mech slowly moved more into view and it seemed to be checking out the local area pretty closely. The tank turrets could move, but they had to do it very slowly and use the backup battery power to do it. She had ordered the Bulldog 240 class ICE to be shut down after the batteries and power amplifier for their Bulldog 8cm lasers were fully charged. This might slow them down getting a second shot off, if the drivers were slow to crank the engines back up when the battle started.

Jenifer knows that this was the price you needed to pay. At least if you wanted to get the first shot off and, on a target, that you needed to quickly put down. You know like the number one killer of tanks, the battlemech. She was glued to the main gun's site and when the battlemech crossed the dry stream bed in the middle of the field that was within medium range of the tanks main gun. Jenifer gripped the controls and she made one final adjustment to the 8cm laser before she activated the radio to her gunner and to the other tank. "Fire!"

Two beams of energy reached out from the hidden firing position that looked like just two small hillettes on the other edge of the field. One hit slammed into the center torso and almost half a ton of Rieses 456 armor was blasted and melted off the mech's frame as the laser played across the mech. Jenifer's last second adjustment meant that her 8cm laser cut a line of destruction right above the Oriente 5 Autocannon. It was a pair of solid hits. But the heavy scout was made to take a few of these types of hits, and it was not out of the fight. If this had been a Wasp or a Stinger? Those two hits would have put the mech down or close to it.

The pilot was also not new to this game, and it went to full speed after the speed of light weapons had hit him. In just a few seconds the 40ton mech was up to 97kph and closing on his mostly hidden attackers. Red and orange flames shot out from the right torso as the Orient 5 autocannon fired one of the twenty rounds it carried in its left torso. In the pirate world, a battlemech didn't run from a pair of tanks this small. It was taken as a fact of life that battlemechs killed tanks in the open fields or light urban areas. The pilot of the Hermes was willing to see if he could write this check and his butt could cover it.

Jenifer flinched away as the enemy round fired towards her that blew up most of the living cover that her tank had been hiding behind away in a shower of dirt, biomatter, and greenery. The shell only had enough energy left, after it had passed through the cover to dent the front slope of her tank, but little else. Jenifer was able to quickly get back into position behind the sites of her main weapon and fire it again. She didn't need to give the order to fire again to the other tank. As soon as she could see the target in her sites, she fired the 8cm lasers one more time. She missed, but her wingwoman was able to hit the right arm armor on the charging mech. That hit had stripped most of the armor on that location with the single hit of focused energy. Only a small part of her mind suggested that she should have fired some of the SRMs to go along with her 8cm laser, but only part.

She could not see the sparks flying away from the I.W.W (Irian Weapons Works) 5cm laser fixed on the right arm of the Hermes II. If she had noticed? She would have been able to tell that the weapon was now out of action until someone could pop open the covering plates and check out the guts of the laser. Still the mech kept charging into closer range of the pair of tanks. Maybe the mech jock was wanting to bring his flamers into battle against the pair of tanks. He also could have been thinking that the flamer could be added in with some physical attacks, and that would break the local defenders. Terror was a well-known weapon for pirates to use, and flames and mech fist were terrors to anyone else including more than a handful of other mechs.

When Jenifer looked back into the gun sites for the third time, she had to elevate the device to see anything above the waist of the Mech. Before she could think, the red light on her display went on. That was the tank's systems telling her and the gunners that the tank was in close range to the enemy. Without needing to give a command, both tanks fired their 8cm lasers and this time four Hovertech Quad SRM launchers fired almost as one weapon system. The front of the two tanks was temporarily covered by the smoke of these launchers mounted on both sides of the 8cm laser were going to work. You would have thought that this smoke and flame would help hide the tanks from the enemy mechs. But this was the 31st Century and even with the fall of so much tech within the Inner Sphere, battlemech sensors was not one of them.

The mech had fired at the same time as the two tanks. Where two 8cm lasers and sixteen SRMs had come towards the scout hunter. The Hermes II had replied with a single 50mm round to that mass of incoming fire from the Oriente 5 Autocannon and its Olympian Flamer. The shell hit squarely on Jenifer's tank front plate and the flamer mostly missed her tank. A huge wall of near plasma hot flame marched across the firing point of the Bulldog tank.

When the flames lowered and became "only" supported by the local plant life instead of the mech's oversized fusion engine. The young officer could see again, but she could not say anything for a few seconds. Threw the smoke and slowly lowering wall of flames the Hermes was pulling back as fast as it could. The mech was now a lot lighter, than when it had tried to assault the two tanks. It was leaving both arms and most of its armor plate on the battlefield behind it. When it was able to get back to the tree line on the "safe" side of the field. The Hermes pilot turned and went to a stumbling run from the sight of the two tanks that had both brutalized the mech and the pilot's mental image of what the cult of the Mech warrior was.

When the mech had started today, it held 7.5 tons of Riese 456 armor spread over its hull, a 50mm autocannon, 5cm laser, and a powerful flamer powered by the fusion engine. When the mech had made it back to his lines? He was down to just 2 tons of armor, a damaged autocannon, a few heatsinks, cockpit, and a Hermes 240 class engine that was leaking too much heat and radiation at an alarming rate for anyone not in a specialized protective suit. The pilot was only lucky that the remaining autocannon rounds had not gone into unfriendly mode under the pounding the mech had just lived through. That ammunition interaction with hostile intent would have removed the whole mech from this planet as anything other than metal confetti.

With the scout gone back to the Union, Jenifer went to work on the second part of her plan to slowly bleed these pirates and keep them looking in her direction. She had pulled the pair of tanks out of the now exposed firing point as fast as the two tanks could move. Then two old trucks with thin sheets of mostly rusty metal that makes the trucks look blocky and somewhat militaryish moved forward from their hiding points. Before the four man team left each of the pair of now refilled firing points. One of them would pause and light a clean burning fuel pot in the back of the firing point. They would only have time to make it to a hidden creek behind the combat units before the pirates reappeared.

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The 60ton OTL-4D Ostsol came charging through the trees. He was looking for a "lance" of assault tanks that the scout had found and then had been brutalized by. There not supposed to be any assault tanks on this whole planet. They had some Bulldog tanks and some support vehicles that could be used to provide some LRM cover for the defenders. The Hermes driver had at least provided the location of the attack of this assault tank lance. But besides from the damage, there was little else in the way of information proved by the "scout".

The scans of the local area showed the heavy mech jock where the battle had taken place. It was standing out on the IR detectors in front of the pilot's face like a light house for those with the right equipment could see. With an evil grin the mech pilot dropped his mech's head and charged across the small stream like a good mech driver should. He was a firm believer in shock tactics, and one of the best shock attacks was a heavy mech making an attack at speed. He was firing into the glowing IR images of damaged tanks with his pair of Tronell III heavy 8cm lasers as fast as he could pull the primary trigger. He took the lack of returning fire as proof that his tactics were working, and he kept closing on the enemy defensive line.

His smile dropped as fast as it had formed on his dirty and yellow teeth smiling face. He scanned the local area and all he could see was a pair of warm…somethings. He was working hard to see what he had killed with his heavy lasers, and he slowed to a walk as he diverted some of his two few neurons to multitasking. He knew that he had killed something, but they were not a pair of Bulldog class tanks.

That was when the hidden Knife spoke for the first time in anger. The weapons on this track did not need the electrical power of a laser or any other energy weapon for that matter. All the Knife really needed was enough power to run the fire control system and to send some energy to start the weapons to fire. Even the huge turret could be used without power thanks to being fitted with gears and levers a tanker or artilleryman in WW 2 would have recognized. The Knife could have used a pair of old car batteries to do the job that was needing to be done.

The Knife was a SRM carrier, and she had been carefully placed and equally carefully hidden until she opened fire on the enemy for the first time. It had not taken long for the ten Holly 6 systems knock offs to each fire six fat short ranged missiles. In less than two heartbeats one of the ten reloads that the 60ton tank carried was expended in anger. At this range? About a third of these heavy missiles missed their target. But that left 40 of the deadly fat little missiles that did find their target and find their target they did.

The Ostsol pilot was just lucky that he was not carrying any weapons that needed ammunition to make them operate. That would have killed him, instead of "only" being sent to ride a rocket strapped to his butt high into the air when the auto ejection mechanism fired off. The Kong Interstellar made battlemech had been turned into smoke scarred spare parts so fast, that the only thing that had saved his life was his auto ejection systems and a good tech to keep the device working. It was the fastest time to take down a heavy mech on this planet, and yes there were groups that keep track of those sorts of things.

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While the pilot was still in the air, Lieutenant Jenifer Zufelt moved all of her units forward one more time. She was betting on that this was the last time just one mech would be sent against them. The easy part was over for this lance, and it was now time to earn their bountiful paychecks. The next time the pirates came this way. They would fall under a rain of LRMs fired from the LRM carrier called Archer. They would rain down long ranged fire, and then they would slowly pull back as the enemy mechs came to punish this lance that had dared to stand up to them. Jenifer knew that from now on, they would start to bleed and lose tanks along with their crews.

She was right, the next attack had been by a lance of two heavies in the form of a Dragon and a Quickdraw supported by two medium battlemechs. Granted one of the mediums was just an Assassin class but the other was a swayback variant of the deadly Hunchback. She had only been able to push them back thanks to the LRM carrier and the long range of the 8cm lasers on her two Bulldogs. It had only cost her all of the LRMs that she had on the LRM Carrier, and it's now seemingly to small ammo bins. Before she had thought that 8 full volleys from that 60ton vehicle would have turned any battle that she might be in. Oh, how combat experience changed that outlook.

She had pulled out the now empty LRM carrier for the locals to hand load the single LRMs into the huge and now bone-dry ammunition bay one LRM at a time. They had been lucky that the pirates had been light on LRMs and other long ranged weapons in the attack. They had taken down the Assassin and now the Hunchback was more of a skeleton than a war machine, but the rest of the mech lance had been able to pull back. All of those mechs had been shown a lot of….LRM 20 love, before they had pulled back so far that they were hidden by the terrain and trees.

While the LRM carrier had been slowly soaking up every LRM in the local area, the reduced lance had been attacked again. The attack had been another full lance with two re enforcements that had already seen combat on this planet. This attack had forced Zufelt off her main defensive line. Besides losing that great position. The attack had also cost her the SRM carrier before it could draw another enemy mech into range of her huge bank of SRM launchers. Her other two tanks had also taken heavy damage along the way, but they had been able to withdraw without any complication caused by the pirate battlemech attack force. The pirate lance had lost one more mech, and more mechs had taken a lot of damage.

Their next ambush would have support provided by the KWI armed Vedette tank. She also would be able to use some ground teams with SRM filled with inferno jell. That and it would be the first time that she would be able to use some of the small one shot LRM launchers that some of the locals had showed up with. The Lt and her "team" would keep bleeding the attacks, and at the same time they were keeping them from raiding the local farmhouses and mining complexes.

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Machelle was tired but wide awake at the same time. The only sleep they could get was in the cockpit. Their only "entertainment" had been when they could pick up information coming from the command center at random times. She had been surprised when the other communication channels were checked, and there was not anyone claiming to be behind this mess or the pirates demanding that the local defense force surrender. It was very odd, and she didn't know how to take this fact as it was kicked around in her sleep starved mind. That type of announcement had been normal in other pirate attacks and when the councilmen had tried to replace Duke Terry.

In front of Machelle was a line of thick trees that ran as far as her eyes could see going off to her left and to her right. She could have forced her way through those tall and thick trees without any damage to her mech, but it would take time, and lots of it. Machelle knew that she had to be careful with only getting a few hours of sleep over the last 24 hours. She had to think about her options at least twice before she went with her guts. She hit the Andoran Model JJII jump jets and her Clint cleared 180m of ground and thick trees. And that was when things went sideways for the young and up and coming mech driver.

Machelle should have been looking toward her pre-mapped landing spot and not the trees running by underneath her flying machine. While she was on her way down, she could see something that made her blood run cold. Standing on the other side of that line of trees and looking towards the main planetary command center was some kind of Crusader class battlemech. That was a mech that was almost double her mass with more room for armor, weapons, and other equipment than her little jumping Clint. In place of jump jets there was heavier mass on that mech available that could hold even more weapons, ammunition, and armor.

Machelle's eyes went so wide that their corners were hidden by the sides of her heavy helmet. She didn't remember hitting the transmit button, but she had, and she alerted her "lance". "Oh crap! Look out guys! We have a heavy on this side."

Her mech hit the ground hard, and as the knees flexed and the mech came back to being fully upright. She brought up her arm mounted PPC, and she snapped off a shot of purple lightening at the heavier and still not moving enemy machine. She didn't know that she had hit the mech standing side on to her, and the hit was scored on the right leg just below the knee. A single PPC hit would not take out a heavy mech, about all it did was get the mechwarrior's undivided attention. That might not be what a sane low end medium class mech driver might wanted to have done. At this range her 40ton mech would have been taken apart by the Crusader without too much of an issue…for the heavy machine. That is if the Clint driver was dumb or scared enough not to keep moving.

The pilot of the CRD-3K had only turned in time to see the Clint go flying up into the air one more time. His alarms showed him that his right leg had just lost almost half of the armor on that location, but nothing critical had been damage beside the thick armored skin of his mech's leg. The pilot had no idea how their employer had gotten their hands on a Combine modified mech that he was currently piloting. Losing the machine guns would hurt him in a battle with any infantry. He had been a Crusader pilot before, but he had lost it. For the last decade he had been using an Urbanmech instead of being dumped into the infantry or repair teams. But he had remembered about the heat issues common to this class of mech.

The pilot gave a curse, and he adjusted his aim towards the Clint. He had expected the scout hunter to flee back over the trees the way it had come. Instead, it had jump down the open field. And now it was picking up speed as it ran away from the heavy mech at what had to be full speed. The delay in tracking the running mech made the range long for the heavy mech. But long range was why you had LRM launchers.

The pilot raised both arms up and forward in one smooth motion that showed the years that the pilot had been at the controls of a mech. A pair of Magna Longbow 10 LRM launchers spit smoke, flames, and rocket bodies leaped away from the shock still 65ton mech. All of those years at the controls of a CRD-3R now worked against him. Not only did he lose those machine guns but on the Combine version. The LRMs were also smaller, and this was all done to help with the heat issue so well known for this type of mech.

The heavy mech had not moved from where it had been planted in the shadow of the trees, and while two sets of ten LRMs flew towards the running Clint. Five smoke trailing rockets fell from the sky and landed around the Crusader. The long ranged missiles had come from the Quasit with targeting data supplied by the Clint. It had used the full power of his Vox 225 fusion engine to get up to 86 kph to close in and support the Clint.

Only three of the five missiles hit the hulking shoulders of the Kurita modified mech in bright puffs of red and orange. That was very good shooting being done by the Sheriff, and it was only partly thanks to the "advanced fire control system" the security mech was fitted with. In the real world, the Quasit "only" had the same fire control system of a battlemech. To compare to the Crusader jock that had fired a total of twenty missiles but only ten of them had found the running Clint.

The Crusader pilot would not get a second shot off at the Clint, as soon as his LRMs had hit the fleeing machine. The Clint had fired off its jump jets to both make it harder to hit and to increase the distance between the two machines. But the Quasit did fire its LRMs again, and it even scored a single hit out of five missiles in the second wave of weapons fire. It might have "only" been a single hit, but it was a cockpit hit that rung the bell of the heavy mech's pilot. After the pilot realized that he was still alive and that he needed to clean out his mech style shorts. He was a little on the angry side and went looking for the Clint pilot and whoever had been shooting small batches of LRMs at him.

This would be how for the next two days and nights that this battle went for the Lance. The way that the lance would fight the heavier but slower mechs that belonged to the attackers was a mix of bait and switch, and punch then move like crazy. They would not get a clean kill on any of the larger Pirate mechs, but they damaged almost every mech that was laying siege to the Duke's home. It was the perfect way to use a lighter and faster unit to fight a heavier one. But only if the target was nice enough to keep the heavy unit focused on it. Oh, and the target had to live long enough for the local raiders to give a death by a thousand cuts to the heavier units.

All of that would change without notice. It had happened when it was Kevin's turn to be the hammer, and when he had fired off all the dozen SRMs on his Javelin into the back of a Warhammer. But instead of giving chase of the smaller mech only to fall into another ambush laid in by the Crab and Machelle's own Clint. This time the lightly damaged mech pulled back to the rest of its heavy lance, and it was soon joined by the rest of the mech and tank company of the pirate forces. Every so slowly they were pulling away from the Duke's home.

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Notes

Training lance: Machelle in an updated Clint from MMM (ppc. 4ml, 10 dhs), Mechwarrior Kevin Williams in Javelin. A Sheriff in a Quasit, newly repaired one-time wasp pilot that pummeled vindicator in Crab (rumor had it a heart replacement Magna 250 with DHS and erppcs is coming in).

Why did they work on the most damage security mech first? They needed money and getting the parts off the back shot security mech would be fastest so that they could go mech shopping. They had the time and the skills to get the one that took so many missiles hit in the back and fell on top of the tank. Yea the power of plot, and I needed them to burn time.

Pirate forces: Under pay of ComStar to undermine if not kill Duke Terry. Fortress (updated but ancient) (12 heavy mechs 12 heavy/assault tanks 3 inf platoons). Union 12 mechs medium/heavy lances 2 Slayers. Seeker not updated but packing a reinforced Battalion, 40 light and medium tanks.

Chapter length. I cut part of this chapter and moved it to the start of the next one. This was due to the length (yea 50 pages was enough). Then even before I got to the spacing needed before posting. I had to cut it again when this chapter ran to over 30 pages, and I still had a dozen pages to go just working the spacing. Good news is that now this story will be at least 71 chapters long.

Mechs in this chapter. I used TRO 3039 and 3075 for the info on the units seen in this chapter.

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