There's a few tricks to moving mechs around stealthily. It's true that the Firestorms prevent satellite monitoring, but even so, it was not a perfect defence against all of the PCA's eyes. Some of them were on the planet, after all.
Hiding under the Grids was one option. It wasn't even that bad of an option, to be completely honest. It was pretty easy to spot Grids that weren't in use. For ACs, the best results came from hovering a little bit in the air, letting the light of your boosters scatter a bit further across the ground so you weren't so visually obvious. There were enough radar-absorbing metamaterials in most ACs that you usually needed high-intensity scans to pick them out when they were far enough away. That, or a really good array.
With all the extraneous systems powered off, an AC could sustain an Assault Boost for a surprisingly long period of time. It wasn't exactly the best idea when it came to longevity for the machine, but you could also just go a little slower than normal and not redline the tolerances. That would help.
I'd considered using the drillship, but, well... It wasn't exactly a fast or comfortable ride. Something to look into later.
It took two days for my team to make it to their destinations. I was going to need better transportation in the future. I sent the drillship ahead much earlier than that.
"The mission starts now. You are cleared to proceed."
And with those simple, twenty ACs simultaneously went active.
They were, as previously noted, spread out across four different areas. Specifically, they were clustered in a few locations surrounding Grid 028, as well the inside of the Grid itself.
These locations were a camp, a depot, and a small, groundside mine that hadn't been fully depleted. The Grid was the central command- or, at least, what passed for it in this group of drug addicts.
The camp was inside of an old crater, shadowed by a fairly large overhang of rock from one edge, and protected from direct sight from the Grids in every direction. The depot was next to a cliff face, and sprawled outwards from there. The mine was a hole in the ground, widened far enough for industrial megamachines to get into it. It'd be all close quarters and danger in there. The Grid was a Grid.
Squad Alpha had the camp. Beta had the depot. Gamma was targeting the mine. Delta was given the task of hitting the Grid itself.
I kept my eyes on all of the squads. Moving them into position had been fairly easy under the current conditions, but there were limits on how close I could get them all. I wanted as close to a simultaneous strike as we could manage, but that was a bit difficult with the sheer variety of locations they needed to get to.
"First objective; approach your targets. Destroy any Doser forces in your way." I spoke. "Communications jamming will go up once you are sighted by or engage the enemy. Make the most of the confusion."
I didn't really need to tell them that. We'd run through a lot of simulations before they'd gotten here. I'd been pretty damn mean to them in order to make sure they sharpened their skills as much as they could.
Still, it was a good habit.
Every squad went forwards simultaneously, arranging themselves in various formations. Alpha, approaching the camp, took a pentagonal formation, while Beta took an X, Gamma took a line, and Delta took a V.
Squad Beta was the first one to actually meet the enemy. A stray MT, standing near a rock looking out over a field, which they killed with a single shot before it noticed them. It was fifty-fifty on whether or not it was a scout or just somebody looking for a bit of quiet, but either way it was dead before it could give any warnings.
Next up was Squad Alpha, who encountered a trio of MTs out on what looked like a patrol from a glance. Just MTs, but they were close enough to the rest of the camp that I elected to start the jamming. Their guns were unfortunately flashy, more than enough to get picked up from the short distance between them.
"Jamming is active. Be advised that alerts may raise randomly."
Squad Alpha acted, the two Rangers picking a target each and wiping them. The Melee took the last, darting forwards at blinding speed as the Coral Oscillator flashed and burned a hole straight through the last MT's cockpit.
Alpha Scout went ahead, Assault Boosting forwards and upwards to a higher position, the rest of Alpha Squad following shortly behind.
Squad Beta came at the depot from the cliff, falling down on it from above. The first indication that anybody had that they were there was the entire squad missile-dumping everything in sight, sending streams of smoke and plumes of fire at the MTs. A very large portion of them were wiped out straight away, a full alpha strike being forty something missiles.
Squad Gamma found a few patrolling MTs outside the mine and wiped them out, before heading down inside. Gamma Scout and Gamma Melee took point, obviously, far more suited to this range of combat than either of the Gamma Rangers or Gamma Support.
Squad Delta, meanwhile, ascended into the Grid, launching scans into the system to locate their enemies. There was a significant presence here, but in the face of five ACs, I wasn't too concerned about it. Delta Scout broke from the rest of the squad to go hit a local network node; which would allow me to breach in and monitor their traffic.
"Squad Alpha, you have been sighted. Prepare for resistance."
"Squad Beta, you are surrounded. You cannot miss."
"Squad Gamma, there are readings further into the mine. They do not appear to have noticed you yet."
"Squad Delta, enemies are gathering at the following locations. Consider approaching from unconventional angles. "
The battlefields very quickly became busy, but I was proud to see that they were all handling it. They did not stay still, they were constantly changing directions, ducking behind cover whenever it was available, not allowing themselves to be pinned down. They claimed MTs one after the next, rapidly scything through their enemies.
I caught quite a bit of attempted radio chatter during all this. Mostly attempts at coordination, screams of fear, and complete incredulity at the power of their attackers.
A pair of Heavy MT signatures appeared, and my attention turned mostly to Squad Alpha. The squad broke in two to deal with them, both Rangers taking one Heavy MT while the rest of the Squad took the other. The Rangers took turns taking shots, uncharged laser blasts wiping out sensors, destroying ammo feeds, and cutting open limbs. When it was mostly blind and near completely unable to defend itself, they switched to charged shots, firing in sequence at the same area. The blasts sublimated the armour, and then melted the interior with explosive bursts.
Lacking the sustained attack power of the two Rangers, the other three chose a simpler method. Alpha Scout blitzed close, raising their guns and peppering the Heavy MT with shots. The Heavy MT tried to swipe him with a laser blade, but it only opened itself up to Alpha Melee punching a nice, big hole in the chest with the Coral Oscillator it was carrying, itself followed up with a fully charged Laser burst from Alpha Support. The machine groaned as the shot cored it, slumping to the ground.
"Well done." I said. I was happy to see that all the teamwork drilling had been effective.
They continued onwards quickly, splitting up to cover a bit more ground.
The other squads had been doing just as well. Beta currently had the highest number of kills, all of their enemies concentrated in a smaller location than the rest of them. Lasers, missiles, and Coral were flashing in every direction, blue and red and orange shining through the dim light of Firestorm-lit night. Gamma had the least kills, but from what I could tell, they were completing their objectives the fastest, tearing through the interior of the mine, wiping out Dosers, securing data, as well tagging supplies and Coral as they went. Delta managed a firm middle of the path, short bursts of actions interspersed with periods of travel as they navigated the labyrinthine construction of Grid 028.
They had taken hits here and there, the occasional stray bullet pinging their armour, or a set of explosives going off that they were just a bit too close to, but nothing too severe. I'd give their performance so far a solid C.
With twenty ACs on the field, it didn't take them long to complete their objectives. Squad Beta finished first, at a total engagement time of four minutes and thirteen seconds to wipe out all hostiles. Squad Gamma came next at five minutes and two seconds, with Squad Alpha right behind them five minutes and twenty one seconds. Squad Delta took the longest, a full six minutes and fifty seconds, but a decent portion of that was travel time in the ludicrously large Grid, and then hunting down stragglers after the Doser's morale broke, so it was quite understandable.
I had everyone do sweeps to make sure that there was nothing left in the area, and then I had them get me access to the local systems in all these areas. While I went to work on stealing the data and erasing all the direct recordings of their ACs, they started gathering all the Coral and other useful supplies.
There was actually quite a lot of useful stuff. A lot of processed materials, for starters, which would save quite a bit of time if I could haul even a small portion of it back. There was a lot of food, as well, but that was less useful to me since we were already self-sufficient. It would make an excellent 'bargaining chip' for our faked relationship with the RLF, though.
In the data, though? Something of much greater interest; it turns out the PCA had been a bit more sloppy than they'd intended.
I knew from Flatwell that the PCA had arranged that BAWS would lose an entire production run of MTs, but we didn't have any actual proof of that matter. As it turns out, though, the method through which they'd done this had been engaging in a 'mandatory inspection' on a convoy, before leaving.
Before BAWS could continue the convoy, though, it was promptly attacked from long range by unidentified MTs. Their shots destroyed the cargo transports, and the rest of BAWS had been forced to make a retreat. The PCA came back before they could make it back completely, and promptly confiscated everything of interest, claiming that they wanted to know more about these unidentified MTs.
One of the cargo transports hadn't been completely destroyed, though. A lucky angle on a shot had deflected it away from the memory components, which were recording the incident. The so-called 'unidentified MTs' were using PCA tech.
This was, needless to say, the kind of political, and more importantly in modern society, economical fuckery that was highly disliked by corporations. They didn't want anybody getting ideas, and launching this kind of shit on BAWS, of all groups?
It'd land the PCA in some pretty hot water. Not quickly, but if it rose far enough in the greater political sphere, it'd make them sweat quite a bit. Something that would help loosen their grip on Rubicon, make it a bit less ironclad.
Getting the data out of Rubicon would be a challenge, but Flatwell's contacts had managed more before.
"Hah. We've gotten exactly what we wanted. Mission complete. Everyone pack your bags, we're heading back home."