personal6

3

July 17, 2999

Periphery

Unnamed System

Unknown Planet

Hunting pirates was hard, and Captain Sheridan was one of the better ones, in Grady's estimation. The Mech Commander sat inside the cockpit of his BattleMaster-class mech within the very tight confines of the dropship Teal Egg as it descended through the humid air of a small moon orbiting a purple/blue gas giant, ready to take the field and storm the recently discovered pirate's base while his flotilla of jumpships sat at the Nadir jump point alongside Captain Sheridan's own Star Lord-class jumpship, the Mighty Saber…which was now House Morten property.

When Lord Vander had sent him out on this mission to hunt the pirate, he'd known it was going to be a long shot. Pirates are notorious for not using regular jump lanes as merchants did, and there were so many stars within 30 light years it was almost impossible to know where they were coming from or going to, but he'd been given vectors from Captain Sheridan's previous hits in the same area and they'd been narrowing down the possibilities. When those dropped to about 30, Grady had been sent out with 12 jumpships under his command, with 6 of those being scout vessels with the dropships necessary to survey and catalog new systems.

So Grady was technically doing Stephan a favor as well, adding more systems to his map, as they hunted for Captain Sheridan's base of operations…assuming he had any. If a pirate wanted to live on his ship all the time, then they'd be virtually impossible to find and catch, but other than the crazy ass lifelong spacers, everyone wanted to feel real gravity and dirt under their boots at least some of the time, and it had been said that most pirates had a hideaway somewhere off the charts to lay low, or at least to stash their loot and prisoners, if they took any of the latter.

That was the main difference between warlords and pirates. Warlords took planets, pirates took ships, and raiders would hit planets, steal their stuff, then vanish, so technically they could be sent by warlords or pirates or your friendly neighboring planet. But anyone who properly went by the title of 'pirate' was in the business of hitting ships, and Captain Sheridan was anything if not a proper pirate.

He had gotten very good at grabbing dropships, for he'd sit and wait until they were partway through their trip either from a planet or to a planet before he'd hit them…but he wasn't too predictable about it. Anywhere from orbit to jump point he was known to jump them, and he did so with a pair of modified Mule-class dropships that had enough extra armament and armor to almost be considered pocket warships. They also moved damn fast, meaning their crews were risking extreme damage to their bodies by the high g acceleration as they chased down and engaged their target dropships.

A lot simply surrendered, but those that didn't were blasted open in most cases, then what was left of them was slowly towed by one of the two 'Reapers' back to his jumpship…which carried six dropship slots in it, and he always had at least one open for his prize. Damaged or intact, they'd attach it to the Mighty Sword and off they'd go to who knows where.

He was even credited at sitting at a distant planet's pirate jump point and monitoring a planet for when they sent out heavily laden dropships with precious cargos, then he'd jump from the planet to the star's jump point just before the dropships got there, pop out his two reapers, and he'd get the dropships and maybe the jumpship as well, but it was rumored he sold those larger ships as fast as he took them, either not trusting his crew to operate independently of his command or just wanting the fat payday from stealing a jumpship.

So Grady had been jumping his flotilla to the first of the unexplored stars thought to maybe contain the pirate base, and when it came up empty he used it as his own base of operations sending out the scout ships with batteries charged to six of the nearby ones. If they encountered any trouble or saw any sign of this pirate or another, they were to jump right back here. If not, they'd continue to do a 3 week survey of the system so it could be considered to be 'fully charted' from then on out for House Morten's maps.

That meant Grady had done a lot of waiting as those ships went out and came back three weeks later…then they recharged and went out again…and came back again. But the third out, one came back some 8 hours later, having left its scout dropship behind, to report that while they had arrived at the Zenith jump point, the dropship, enroute to a planet, had been able to look back and see a jumpship at the Nadir point.

A Star Lord-class jumpship, though the dropship was too far away to see any surface details on it.

Grady's flotilla had then jumped in immediately, leaving behind the scout jumpship at the 'base camp' to unfurl its sails and start recharging to follow them back in 6 days or so. But his six other jumpships popped into the Nadir jump point only a few hundred thousand kilometers away from the spread sails of the Might Sword…meaning it must have arrived here recently, otherwise it would have recharged by now, and when you were dealing with a modified Star Lord that had been upgraded with batteries…the same way all House Morten jumpships had been…it would take at least twice as long as usual to fill both the capacitor and those batteries.

So it was possible the Mighty Sword had enough charge to jump out, but they'd still have to retract their sails first…and by the time Grady got there, they were already in the process of pulling them in.

Fortunately he had some of House Morten's new Navy personnel with him, along with two realpocket warships along with 12 other regular dropships to deal with the reapers…but they hadn't been there. The jumpship was all by itself, with the dropships having gone down to the moon. After Captain Nehder's boarding parties burned their way through one of the docking ports and forcibly mated the converted Mule-class Red Mushroom to the Mighty Sword, he'd reported that they barely had a skeleton crew aboard…only six people. Everyone else was down on the moon partying after their latest heist.

So that was the end of the Mighty Sword's pirating days, but after they had got close enough to the moon and spotted the location of the base did they see some 37 dropships spread out across two valleys around a proper dropship pad nestled up against the side of a mountain. Some of the dropships were visibly broken, others had pieces of the hull missing, and if even half of them were partially operational, Grady was going to have his hands full.

But both of the reapers were sitting on the pads just in front of the entrance to the base that looked to be sheltered in a small ravine further up in the mountains. It was going to be close quarters combat there, and a hell of a climb through the trees…and when he said through the trees that's what he meant, because there had been no major roads or clearings noticeable before they hit atmosphere.

They were going to have to set down some 21 kilometers away in the closest clearing and march their way there…then do something that mechwarriors hated doing.

Taking on grounded dropships.

And the two reapers had extra weaponry on them, enough to hunt other dropships, so this was going to be an interesting mission despite the fact that the pirates had nowhere to run to now that he had their one and only jumpship. They were cornered rats, and they'd not only refused to surrender, they wouldn't even respond to his messages.

That meant it was to be a fight then, perhaps a last stand for Captain Sheridan, and it was Grady's job to make sure that last stand didn't cost House Morten a lot of mechs and mechwarriors.

When they finally settled onto the weak gravity of the moon…only 0.8g…Grady was first out of the dropship, stepping onto the damp, dark soil and sinking in nearly a foot as he walked clear of the ramp as the rest of the Battalion he'd brought with him for this pirate hunting adventure followed him out. They began to pile up in a cluster on the north side of the Overlord-class dropship while a Mule landed just to the south as the other dropships, including the scout that had been left behind in the system briefly, were holding in orbit of the moon until he called them down.

The Tan Pumpkin set down while the mechs were still spilling out into the small clearing, but Grady ordered eight of them…those with the flattest backs on them…to head over to the troop carrier that had Colonel Zephram's assault teams inside along with a host of ground vehicles that would be of no use here. But a seldom used technique in the Inner Sphere that House Morten had adopted and made its own…called a 'backpack'…was standard issue equipment for their ground units, and they carried them instead of the mechs in most cases. Occasionally you'd see some onboard mech dropships anyway, but the ground pounders were obligated to crate along the equipment just in case it was needed.

And this was a perfect example of how you'd never know what you'd need until you got on site. The forest here had no roads in it, save for the two valleys that led up to the pirate base. Taking those roads would mean the Battalion would have to walk past all those questionable dropships before they could even get up to the two reapers that were guarding the base like pit bulls. Grady wasn't going to go that way, so the only other options was through the trees. If they weren't too large the mechs could knock them over, but that didn't exactly plow a smooth road for land vehicles, and all the downed lumber and stumps would block even hovercraft from getting through.

So they were going to use the backpacks to get at least some of the Colonel's men up to the base, and they were going to ride on the back of the mechs in what was little more than waterproof and fire resistant tents equipped with seats and seatbelts inside them that would be mounted on the back of the mechs where there were no heat sinks…or if there were, the mech would have to deactivate those sinks, otherwise they'd cook the troops.

Each backpack could carry between 4 and 16 men, depending on the size of the mech, and Grady wanted to get at least 60 men up there with him without turning too many of his Battalion into walking transports. While the Colonel saw to getting the assigned mechs outfitted with the backpacks, Grady started the long, slow process of pushing his way through the trees, trying not to use his weapons as much as possible, and hoping the wildlife would get the hell out of the way long before he could step on them…though if they lived in the trees, that would be problematic, but there was no way he was taking his mechs through that dropship gauntlet. He was going to go through the forest all the way up to the last bit of those roads as they led up to the main landing pad that had both of the reapers on it.

And it was going to take hours to get there, so there was no point in waiting on the backpacks. Those mechs could catch up easy enough following the trail he was starting to blaze.

His BattleMaster had two hands, but the right one was connected to a PPC that was detachable in an emergency, sort of like a handgun that the mech carried. If he hit a certain button explosive bolts would detach and it would drop away, allowing him to use both hands…but he didn't want to lose that PPC now, so he used it as a pry bar while making the most out of his left hand as he peeled back the tops of the trees to wedge his mech between them, snapping them off lower to the ground when the gap was too small. He tossed the trees to the side as much as he could, having called up other mechs with hands to follow right behind him and clear more of the path.

They were having to take down some extra trees to do it, as well as picking up the litter from Grady, but after they got down to the fourth mech in the long single file line that was forming, the rest didn't have anything to do except shuffle walk forward and not trip on the stumps that were too big to crush into the soil.

It took over half an hour before all 36 mechs were on the path, with the 8 that were carrying the ground troops bringing up the near rear, followed by two others at the tail end just in case someone came up at them from behind, but they hadn't seen any sign of enemy mechs or aerial craft. Still, it paid to be prepared, so the troops were sandwiched between armored torsos ahead of and behind them as they rode the bumpy journey strapped into well cushioned chairs that left their legs dangling inside of the tents.

Other versions of the backpacks that House Morten built included solid walls, heated or air conditioned, and even a few with armor plating on them, or specialized gear to make them a sort of mobile headquarters. Grady didn't have any of that specialized stuff with him, just the tent versions that were easy to pack away in large duffle bags and keep with you for a rainy day, for rarely did mechs ever carry troops into battle, but the terrain here required it.

The Colonel was riding with them, while most of his troops were still back in the dropship. Grady didn't begrudge him that, and he'd come to rely on the man and his growing TOA…Tactical Operations Army…that was getting better by the year. They were being trained and groomed as an offensive force, while House Morten was likewise developing troops for garrison duty, known as the Home Guard, or HGs for short, though many likewise referred to 'HG' as 'Hold your Ground,' which fit the billing perfectly.

House Morten believed that you couldn't train people to do both offense and defense when it came to infantry, so they were splitting up the tasks. Walking silent patrols and looking for an attack without staying on high alert constantly or getting bored and slouching off your duty was not as simple as just following orders. It required a middle of the line alertness that offensive troops couldn't handle. They were either ready to go in blazing or mentally checked out. Stephen had told him that he wanted worlds so heavily fortified that few would dare attack them directly, meaning they'd either be left alone or indirect methods of warfare would be used. And it was primarily those indirect methods that he wanted the HGs on alert for while they'd maintain a group of TOA on every planet in training mode in case they'd be needed for regular combat, or to counterattack any landing force.

Right now the HGs were barely in existence on paper, but the TOA was a legit army…though still small in number. And Grady was going to need them to help take those dropships without totally destroying them.

His BattleMaster continued to lead the line, even though he had the other mechs behind him trade off so none of them got too tired working the mechanical hands. It wasn't something they were trained to do much of, let alone for this length of time, but he didn't wany anyone else taking the lead. He couldn't really see ahead of him, for most of the trees were as tall or taller than his mech, but when they were moving up and over the last ridge before they got to the pirate hideout, he paused to get a good view after hacking a few out of the way on the descent below him.

Several kilometers away, on the far side of the valley near the top, another smaller valley intersected, and right in front of that overtop a small river was a flat landing pad holding the two reapers. Behind them were a few buildings that were visible, while the rest were obscured to the left by the small valley. The walk up to the landing pad was covered in trees as well, but the river made a bit of a road up to them. He could take that instead of intersecting the two roads that were coming from the north and south, and while others would probably be yelling for the faster route up there he wasn't going to fall for that trap. At least one of the reapers could fire down that river's path, and if you got close enough both could. He wanted to come up from the side so they'd only have to assault one reaper at a time, which meant more tree plowing to get over there. He simply had to choose coming in from the north or south, as he was currently sitting due west of the pirate's den.

He opted for north, and angled slightly that way as he trudged downhill, using his momentum in some cases to help knock over some of the thicker trees.

"Watch your spacing," he warned. "This ground is slicker than it looks. And none of you had better start a domino shitstorm behind me."

"You're getting tired boss," Chandler Trendill said, fifth in line behind him. "How about you let one of us do some pushing?"

"Are you calling me old, laddie?"

"No, just tired. These armatures do a number on your hand."

Grady paused for a moment and looked down at his own left hand, encased in what looked like a short tube that had a glove inside that caused the mech's hand to mimic his own…except there was a decent amount of resistance to his finger movements, meaning it did tire out your hand muscles pretty fast.

"Are you volunteering?"

"Actually, I was going to volunteer Beck. He's been riding back here easy."

Grady laughed. "You don't get to volunteer others. And I'd rather deal with a fatigued arm myself than worry about you guys cramping up and shooting something you shouldn't be by accident. I want those dropships disabled, not destroyed. So you and Beck keep riding back there. I'll be good to the finish."

"You could just let one of us somersault down the hillside and save us some time," Chandler joked.

"That be just a lame excuse for tripping," Grady warned, taking the most of the small break while he had it, then he started pulling trees aside again. "And you wouldn't get as far as you think, even if the angle was twice this steep."

"Alright, I'll shut up."

"When do you ever shut up?" Grady said mirthfully, but the truth was he was getting tired. But him tired was still more effective than one of them at full strength…and he didn't want any of them getting killed because they were tired.

So he pushed on slowly down the valley until they got to the main river. Forging it wasn't too difficult, for it was only a meter or two deep, plus a little mud that didn't slow them down too much. Then it was back to climbing through the trees until they eventually came up about a kilometer and a half north of the base and intercepted a cut and smoothed out dirt road.

Grady walked out into it, looking both ways and seeing nothing. To the left it slowly descended into the valley where part of the captured dropships were, though he couldn't see them from here. Still too many trees and too much distance. To the right was more trees, and the road zigzagged ever so slightly, so he couldn't get direct line of sight to the first dropship, though he could glimpse a tiny bit of its huge round shape if he stood at the right angle.

It was going to be a march slightly uphill, but with no more trees in the way that was going to be a luxury except for the width. They needed to go up two by two, and it was going to be a tight fit.

"Alright, laddies, this is it. Clear walking from here, but we need to stay two abreast at all times. Don't let them have a single target to hit. Go slow enough you don't get caught up on a tree branch, and remember the drill. If we don't do this smart we're losing a lot of mechs."

He waited until an 80-ton Zeus walked up beside him and nearly rubbed shoulders. They walked a few hundred meters down the road then stopped, letting the others gradually get out of the trail and form up, with the backpackers stopping at the rear and spilling out their troops onto the ground via extendable ladders. They were close enough to the base they could walk from here on in…plus, Grady wanted to use all 36 mechs to spread out the damage.

When they got in formation, 18 rows of two each and a mix of heavies, assaults, and four Phoenix Hawks which were towards the back and paired off with a heavier mech each, Grady started walking them up the gradual hillside and waiting for the treeline to clear. They'd be firing uphill slightly, meaning some of the weaponry on the top of the dropships couldn't depress to shoot them as well as if they were on flat ground…which was a small advantage…but when they got within 300 meters of the edge of the ferrocrete platform a silverly blur shot out through the trees and bounced off the chest of his BattleMaster.

The gauss rife ball had been slowed down enough by tree trunks that it just deflected off the mech rather than doing any damage, making Grady wonder if they'd even been aiming at him specifically, because there was no way that had traveled a straight line to get here.

Another one came through, and fires started ahead of them as lasers were blasting into the trees. Apparently the dropships were not going to wait for the mechs to show up right in front of them, so they were mowing down the trees themselves and hoping to get something through.

"Steady laddies," he said, marching forward slowly. "We need our pacing slow enough to make this work. Don't charge them. Make sure you get good, steady shots at their weapons. Nothing rushed. Your armor can hold up long enough to take a few seconds extra," he said as his wingman got hit with what looked like a piece of a large laser shot that made it through the trees.

They endured more of this partial fire, starting to get a little armor chipped off in the process, but that's why Grady wanted two assault mechs to go first so they could soak up the initial damage.

Then a gauss rifle ball came through and hit him at near full speed, cracking his armor on his left leg and making his mech studder step into the trees on the left. The Zeus waited for him to get back into line, then they continued to walk up and into the clearing as they got hit by a mix of Medium lasers, Large lasers, and one Gauss Rifle launcher…but all the other weaponry on the dropship couldn't swing around to shoot them unless they spread out around the dropship and attacked it from all sides.

They were not going to do that. Morten tactical training made it clear how to assault a grounded dropship, and they were about to run that play out of the playbook against what was essentially an over-armed version of the standard Mule…which had less standard weaponry than most dropships anyway given its civilian build, despite its larger size.

Grady and the Zeus walked out of the trees and up the few steps further where the trees had long ago been cleared around the ferrocrete pad. When they got up on top it, they were already losing armor at a heavy rate as a few other dropship weapons came into the line of fire, but both mechs weathered it as they stood still for a moment on the level footing and aimed at a particular weapons battery sticking out of small gaps in the thick armor plating.

Grady fired all his weapons at a Medium laser blister over a range of about 250 meters, standing still to target a stationary target. Tired as he was, there was no way he was missing that.

The laser and part of the armor plating around it was damaged, just as he was soon to be if he just stood here and took more hits…but as per the tactic, he and the Zeus simply moved to the side…him to the left and the Zeus to the right…and stood there firing again once their weapons recharged as the next two mechs in line walked between them and fired their weapons.

Once they got off an alpha strike…which was the term most mechwarriors used for button mashing every weapon you had at the same time…they too walked sideway, and one of them came in front of Grady, blocking his firing line of sight, but also blocking the dropship from continuing to shoot up his mech. The guy ahead was now taking the hits while Grady just stood there and waited.

Pair by pair the mechs came up, fired a calm Alpha Strike at one of the dropship's batteries, then moved aside and let the next pair come up. When the entire line had come through, Grady and the Zeus moved back together and followed them as the entire column kept getting closer and close to the dropship.

By the time Grady got back to the front, most of the weapons on this side were already destroyed. He fired at the one of the remaining Medium lasers, taking a little more damage to his chest plates that were already glowing orange on the indicator screen, then he had another mech in front of him again blocking him against the rest of the incoming fire.

Soon, there was nothing left to shoot at and the entire column just stopped.

"Backtrack," he ordered, with all the mechs doing an about face, spinning in place, then they started marching back towards the road…but before they could get there a Large laser shot them from the edge of the dropship, barely able to rotate around far enough to target them near the edge of the pad, but it couldn't get them in closer to it.

The mechs within range turned and fired, spreading out a little bit, which drew another autocannon into the fight. Grady kept his men more or less on the same ground they had entered on, but were now extending it out into a wider area and picking off the weapons that were coming into range one or two at a time using the mechs that had been damaged the least…which was not his.

Normally they would have continued around the dropship plucking everything off, but the other reaper was there on the far side, currently blocked by this fat dropship, and thanks to their ace in the hole, all he had to do was get a path up to the dropship clear.

When it was, and flanked by mechs on either side looking to draw fire themselves and finally getting none, Colonel Zephram and his men ran up the safe zone in a two by two formation that mimicked what the mechs had just used as Grady moved up to the closed hatch on this side of the dropship and began firing his four forward Medium lasers one at a time at a precise point on the seam of the door, melting/blasting a hole in it that he then used his sore left hand to operate his mech's paint-scraped but otherwise intact metallic hand to poke through the hole and wrap his fingers around the far side…then he pulled.

He had to tug several times before the weak claps holding the ramp/door in place finally broke. They were there to keep the door sealed against the weather and the void of space, but the force he was pulling with was enough to actually bend them out of shape until they popped open…then he pulled the ramp down to the ground as his mech took a lot of small arms fire from inside.

"Don't be stupid," he said over the external mic. "Surrender and you'll live to see tomorrow."

The fire kept coming, so with a shake of his head Grady stepped up onto the ramp and swept the interior of the smaller than normal cargo bay of the Mule with his pair of machine guns, tearing through bodies all over the place that didn't have enough cover…and those that did he used his Medium lasers carefully, for they still wanted to capture this dropship.

The resistance quickly died out, but no one was standing up and surrendering.

Grady backed off the ramp and to the side.

"Colonel, it's all yours."

"Thank you, Commander," Zephram replied over the comm as his soldiers raced up the ramp and into the war zone wearing newly manufactured full body armor painted in dull gray with red and silver trim. Their leading element carried with them four 'Blankets,' behind which the others ran. Grady heard a few shots ring out, then all was quiet as the Morten TOA started to make their way through the rest of the dropship.

It took longer than Grady had thought before he heard back, but he and his mechwarriors were glad for the break to just sit there for a while after hours of walking…all safely protected from the other reaper because this one was blocking for them.

"Weapons secured," Zephram reported. "We're making secondary sweeps to find any cave dwellers, but all the critical systems are under guard, including the bridge. You're clear to engage."

"Nice work, Colonel. We'll be needing you again shortly."

"We'll tag and bag 'em before you get done," he promised.

Grady switched back to the Battalion comm channel. "Alright, laddies. Time for the second one. Anyone other than the Phoenix Hawks who has their armor in the green, get to the front of the line…