personal6

14

June 17, 3000

Federated Suns

Crusis March

Cholis

Morten Estate

Commodore Itoro launched in the last dropship, coming up to join the others in the Azure Pearl that had only moments ago had the last of the extra armor plates welded to it in a second skin that was decidedly ugly and bumpy. The plates had not been meant for dropships, but anything that soaked up additional weaponsfire in space would be useful. Itoro sat in a seat on the bridge, strapped in as the dropship lifted off at a painfully slow pace to reduce drag on the jagged edges so they wouldn't rip some of the plates off before they made it to orbit.

By the time he got there, the other 27 dropships were holding in geosynch orbit over the estate far from where the warship would need to be in order to bombard it from space. Based off the irregular production of warships nowadays, there were no classes of ship. All were custom jobs, because 'standard' warships were what was known to exist in the Star League days, and nobody could build those anymore.

But there were a few shipyards capable of very ingenious designs, and even without the naval grade lasers that the more fearsome warships held, the ones that were equipped with a lot of conventional weaponry and thick armor were trouble as well. Those, however, could not bombard a planet except with rail guns, and the accuracy of those fired 100 kilometers away was not good. The only ships capable of precision planetary bombardment were those with naval grade lasers or super expensive guided missiles that he hadn't seen outside of the Draconic Combine. And those were usually reserved for nuclear weapons, which even fewer people possessed today.

Unfortunately for House Morten, the enemy warship here did have naval grade lasers…four of them…that were powerful enough to reach the surface with widespread damage enough to destroy armor on a mech, and since they'd hit in a cone wider than the mech, it would be virtually an instant takedown of any light or medium that got hit, and extensive damage to the heavies and assaults. Plus, if the cockpit had windows facing upwards as well as front, that could be an instant kill right there.

And as for buildings that didn't have armor, those four lasers could, over time, destroy every standing building on the planet. It wouldn't happen fast, but without being able to fight back, the warship could just sit in low orbit as long as it had fuel for station keeping or keep making laps and firing each time it passed by, though the accuracy of those shots would be lessened.

It couldn't rain down an immense amount of firepower all at once, thankfully. The Star League versions could, Itomo knew, but none of them were known to have survived to date, and their naval grade lasers were considerably stronger. But the ones that had been resurrected in present day were still strong enough to punch through the hull plating on a civilian dropship in a single shot. Making this Lion's Teeth Legion warship a shark among the naval fish.

But what caused it problems was when the hull armor was thick enough that it took two shots in the same spotto get through. That meant their aiming had to be precise, and if the dropship was situated where it could rotate the damaged portion around to the far side after taking a hit, suddenly the warship would have to make half a dozen, if not more shots to take down a dropship.

That changed the battle from a killing frenzy to a fair fight. Then add additional weaponry to the dropships and suddenly the almighty warship was at a disadvantage. Itomo was not on the strongest of the dropships, but rather one of the weakest he was going to use as his flagship that was going to hang back and offer missile support…though with the range of those naval lasers there was no true 'safe' place to be anywhere near the battlefield.

He'd already given his ships…including the 6 pocket warships that had two specially designed missile boats amongst them…orders to aim for the naval lasers above all else. If they could take out one of those quicky, it would improve the survival rate of the dropships immensely, though the warship was also covered in conventional weaponry as well, and its armor was thicker than any of theirs, he would assume. The weak points were where the weapons were located, for they couldn't hide them behind hull plates when using them, and it looked like these naval lasers hadn't even been designed to do that at all, for they were sticking out into space from the moment they arrived in the system.

Itomo's flagship got to the geosync point just as the enemy fleet began to break apart, with their dropships moving to the side and backwards as the warship powered ahead directly towards them.

"Commodore," another Captain spoke into the open line between all the ships that Itomo mandated be kept open on the receiving end at all times. "If they keep moving on their current track, they'll split past us and get down to the surface."

"I'm aware of the obvious, Captain Jeeter. Our primary objective is to prevent orbital bombardment, and we can't do that if we split our ships up. We have to stay with the warship, and if their dropships are not going to be part of that fight, so much the better for us. Let the mechs deal with the mechs."

The Commodore changed to a different, unencrypted frequency and hailed the mercenaries. "This is Commodore Yoshi Itoro of the Morten Protectorate Naval Fleet. I believe introductions are in order before we begin battle."

A long air gap followed, but eventually there was a response.

"This is Admiral Francis Neeva of the Lion's Teeth Legion warship Lion's Den. I'm surprised to find you here, Itoro."

"Likewise," he said, knowing the names and units of all the mercenaries that were known to field warships, as well as those commanders of warships in the Great Houses navies. Not much naval combat happened in the Inner Sphere, and with the priority given to mech combat only the largest powers had combat navies designed to do more than haul mechs around safely in. As it was, there was a lot of down time as a naval commander, and one of the going pastimes was to study up on other commanders in case you ever had the opportunity to face them in combat where every little tactical advantage might tip the scales of an even fight.

"Last I heard you were with the Eternal Sword," Neeva said, referencing an even larger mercenary unit than the Lion's Teeth Legion.

"I was, but I got tired of commanding an assault dropship group. House Morten made me a much better offer, and I've been tasked with designing and building for them a proper defense fleet. Your attack comes sooner than I had hoped, but no matter. I have enough force to stop you."

"Do you? Should I keep my dropships with me then?"

"If you intend to force this fight I would recommend it, but it will not guarantee you victory."

"By my math I won't need them, unless you've done some modifying?"

"Do you expect me to build a navy with mere cargo vessels, Neeva?" Itoro said with some disgust. "Of course I have been modifying ships. And while I envy you your current command, it will not be enough to break my line. We will destroy you, and you will destroy most, but not all of my vessels. Is this advantageous to either of us?"

"Are you suggesting that we just turn around and leave?"

"If you do not wish to seriously damage your organization, that is exactly what you should do. You do not have the firepower to get past me here, Admiral. This attack was not well planned."

"Well, Commodore," he said, stressing the inferior title, "should we call this a stalemate then and let the mechs decide this on the ground? I notice you're not moving to intercept them."

"I have enough force to destroy your warship, Admiral. I won't if I split my forces," Itomo said honestly. "If I may ask, what is your objective here?"

"I'm afraid that's confidential information."

"Are you aware that the Comstar facility is currently offline citing 'technical difficulties' and has been for nearly two months? I find that coincidence to be something less than genuine. And in such a blackout situation, one should expect fell deeds to occur. So I ask again, what is your objective here, Admiral?"

"You will find out when we take it. I am, however, content with getting my dropships to the surface unmolested. I will not force an attack on your fleet so long as they are ignored. We can watch the mechs battle it out on the surface to determine the winner."

"Very reasonable, Admiral. Do not cross our current line or attempt to slip around to the other side of the planet."

"If I may, I don't wish to burn any unnecessary fuel, so I'll just slip into geosync 200 kilometers beside you and hold there. Is that acceptable?"

"It is. Have a pleasant morning, Admiral."

"Likewise, Commodore."

Admiral Neeva cut the comm, glad to avoid a fight he knew he couldn't win, then found Miss Venni staring lasers at him.

"What the hell was that!" she demanded.

"Civilized warfare," he replied firmly.

"Attack them, damn it!"

"If we do, this ship will be destroyed. Itomo is no fool, and any chance we had of sloppy marksmanship or fleeing ships went out the window the moment I learned he was commanding their fleet. Why was that not in the intelligence information you provided?" he all but snarled.

"Enough," the Colonel said, raising a hand as he gently stepped between them. "Admiral, part of our mission requires orbital bombardment. We have to break their lines."

"I was told this was to be a surface engagement and all I had to do was make sure the mechs got safely to ground. I've just done that."

"There is more to this mission that you were not made aware of for security reasons. It requires orbital bombardment," he said sternly. "Now find a way to beat him."

"We would have to lose the mechs in many of those dropships to even have a chance. This warship cannot take that fleet alone. I guarantee you Itoro was not bluffing. Those ships are modified for naval combat."

"They look like a junk heap," Venni said, disgusted with the Admiral's reticence.

"Those are adhoc armor plates added at the last moment most likely to the civilian transports that happened to be on the planet when we arrived," the Admiral lectured her, and the Colonel, who was being far too stingy with information. "The others most likely have double the armor plating as standard, plus who knows how many weapons modifications. If I assault that line without our dropships, we will die. I cannot make it any more plain than that."

"You're guessing," Venni said, looking to the Colonel. "You have a contract to fulfill. Now do it!"

"And you promised us accurate information," Keller said, defending the Admiral for a brief moment. "You should have informed us of the commanding officer, as well as any modifications they made to their dropships."

"Would you like their fingerprints as well?" she mocked.

"We cannot guarantee victory without sufficient information!" the Admiral said, beginning to lose his temper.

"You're just a coward," Venni spat, turning to the Colonel. "Relieve him of command and get this started."

"Colonel, we can beat them," Commander Chester said from a nearby console. "The Admiral gave us what we needed when he negotiated that safe landing. Once we offload the mechs the dropships can return to us and then we can engage the enemy fleet at our full strength. It will only be a few hours delay."

"That would give us, maybe, an even fight," Admiral Neeva warned. "But with Itoro here, I still give the advantage to them. He will ram us if there is no other option. He's a Drac, and where loyalty is concerned he will gladly give his life to attain victory. Even low speed collisions with those dropships will damage us. We're only five or six times their size. Tonnage wise they out mass us considerably, and we can't evade them all, especially if they have modified engines. Even if I'm wrong, a victory here will destroy almost our entire fleet, and they will make sure this warship is destroyed first. Itoro was kicked out of the DCMS for refusing to bombard the civilians in a city. His honor will demand he stops us from doing the same here, and he just inferred that he expects us to do just that. We can't win this with what we have, Colonel."

"Commander?" Keller said, looking to the side.

"It'll be rough, sir, but we have the firepower advantage. We'll pull through."

The Admiral spun on a swivel and glared at his XO. "How dare you say that when we don't know what weapons those dropships have!"

"Admiral," Keller said in too calm of a voice. "You're relieved. Now clear the bridge under your own power or I'll have security drag you off it."

The Admiral refused to move and locked eyes with Keller. "You're going to get everyone killed."

"And you're spooked at seeing an old war legend past his prime. Get out."

The Admiral waited a handful of seconds more, then turned and walked off the bridge without another word.

"Commander, you're now in charge of the fleet. Win this battle and you're promoted to Admiral. Lose it, and you're out of the Legion. Am I clear?"

"Completely, sir," Chester said, quickly taking the Admiral's vacant chair.

Vander stood in the Estate's war room…a place they'd only had meetings in up until this point, but one they'd built in the case of an assault on the House Morten home. It was below ground, buried under meters of ferrocrete and then meters more of soil that had trees growing out of them, but it had comm lines connecting it to every other building that were likewise buried, so taking out some transmission antennas couldn't blind them.

They also had several of those dish-sized antenna linked in so they could communicate with the line of ships in orbit that were at the geosynch point…which meant an orbit that lasted a full day rather than a few hours just skimming over the atmosphere. That kept the dropships directly overhead, but far away from the planet. The enemy warship was now parked beside them, but slightly to the side, locking into its position as well from the planet's point of view, but in truth all those ships were moving quite fast to the side to fight off the planet's gravity as their 'fall' matched the curve of the planet and they appeared to go nowhere, just running laps around it that matched the speed of its rotation.

That put the warship far beyond bombardment range, and it looked like the little naval truce was going to cancel each side out in this engagement without loss of equipment. That sort of thing wasn't uncommon with professional soldiers, especially naval ones, which left the enemy's 13 dropships heading down to the planet from another angle, with Vander and Stephan watching to see where they were going to set down.

Grady was already out in the field, along with several other units that had been prepositioned away from the Estate. Without any dropships available to hot drop units around the surface, the mechs would have to walk everywhere, and the city was hours away from the Estate even for the Phoenix Hawks. If the Lion's Teeth Legion landed directly on or near the Estate, the five Companies already deployed in the field would come back, possibly flanking the enemy if they had a good line of attack.

If the enemy instead landed near the city, or on the opposite side of it, those Companies could harass either their landing zone or their units, drawing them back towards the Estate or just playing with them until the rest of their 249 mechs arrived. That was a little better than two Regiments that House Morten had to work with here, though some of those would be remaining in the Estate itself for base defense and turret support.

The Estate also had bunkers for people to get down into rather than get shot at in their normal buildings or running around on the surface. Stephan hadn't ordered them in there yet. It was still too early for that, but as he watched the landing track of the group of dropships, noting that they weren't splitting up to different locations, he realized the mercenaries were not going to assault the Estate directly.

They were landing on the far side of Brinestorm.

"That's an odd play if they're here to come after us," Vander said, rubbing his chin.

"Let's see how many they have first," Stephan offered. "Maybe they don't want to fight our turrets simultaneously."

"We can just sit and wait for them to come…unless they expect us to do the Duke's dirty work for him and defend the city. Comstar has to know we're not on good terms with him."

"Get them walking anyway. We can always bait them back here."

"Narrow road," he reminded Stephan. "Maybe they're hoping for a big battle in the grasslands rather than up here in the forest. Or maybe they just didn't want to burn out a landing zone into the trees."

Stephan watched in silence as the dropships landed and started to spew out their mechs and vehicles, counting. They had several supply trucks, 8 tanks, and 12 hovercraft along with the mechs, which eventually came out to be 218 in number, all of which were moving out away from the dropships and assembling into Companies and Lances on the grasslands while the tanks and hovercraft appeared to be guarding a makeshift camp the trucks were setting up about a kilometer south of the landed dropships.

"Why out there?" Stephan asked.

"Makes no sense to me," Vander said, squinting at the visuals they were getting from their orbital satellites and the pair of Sparrowhawk aerospace fighters out in the area getting much closer pictures. So far no aerospace fighters from the Lion's Teeth had deployed from their dropships…not that they'd have had anywhere to land. The smart play would have been to keep one dropship in low orbit to allow them to launch from, then come back, refuel and rearm, then go back down again repeatedly until they got possession of a landing strip on the planet.

The only one that existed belonged to House Morten, for there was only one city on the planet and no need of an airstrip. The mercenaries could, using dozers, create a makeshift one on the grassy plains, but he hadn't seen any construction equipment show up yet on the orbital scans…which were just sensitive enough to be able to make out individual mechs and guess at their make from above. Seeing people was harder, but still doable if the satellite was at the right angle. They had 8 in orbit that would pass over the city and the Estate continuously, keeping one or two in range at all times.

No one else had gone to the bother of putting satellites into orbit of Cholis, or at the jump points, so if the Lion's Teeth weren't going to bring their warship in any closer, and they didn't have any aerospace assets on the planet, then they were essentially operating this ground op blind from above.

"You think all their birds are back with the jumpships?" Vander asked.

"It's starting to look like it. What are they playing at? Did they not have any idea what we had here? I thought Comstar had better surveillance of our operations than that."

"I assumed so as well. Maybe they were expecting the warship to make up for it," he said as one of the mercenary dropships began to lift off again. "Wait a second. That could be their bird nest."

Stephan saw it was one of their four Overlord-class dropships, and knew the basic design came equipped with room for 6 aerospace fighters in one bay that had two egress doors. They'd have to refuel there or they'd fall out of the sky eventually, for they had to continually burn their engines in atmosphere, unlike in space where they could just sit and coast for hours or days if need be.

Then a Union-class dropship lifted off as well, followed by another, and another.

"Are they doing what I'm thinking they're doing?" Stephan asked.

"They're all lifting," Vander said after about half of them had touched off and were headed back into space. "They're not going to honor the truce. They need them to assault our dropships, but now they're lighter and they don't have to risk the mechs. Itomo got played."

"He had to try. I don't fault him for that."

"Nor do I," Vander said as another two lifted off. "But when they meet up…"

"Apparently he already knows," Stephan said as their dropships in geosynch orbit suddenly started accelerating towards the mercenary warship. "He's going to fight before they get there."

"There's nothing we can do to help him from down here, so let's take advantage of this," Vander said, partially gut clenched at what was about to happen in space, but also knowing that the enemy's mechs had no fire support any longer from the dropships. "They've also got no air assets whatsoever."

"How's it look?" another voice asked over the comm.

"Weird, Grady," Vander replied. "They've got two Regiments of mechs and a small group of support vehicles, but no birds and they just took their dropships away to go fight in space."

"Permission to engage then?"

"How?" Stephan asked. "They're all clumped up and you don't have the numbers."

"I'm not trying to be a fool here, Stephan, I just want to start whittling them down a wee bit."

"They've got mediums and lights that you can't run away from," Vander reminded him as the view on the aerial map changed. "Hold on a minute."

A camera view from one of the Sparrowhawks showed a line of mechs heading to the north while two columns were headed west towards the city.

"They're splitting up, Grady. Main group is heading right for the city, the other is circling around to the North."

"Where are their tanks?"

"Encampment here," Vander said, marking the spot on the map and transmitting it out to Grady's command mech.

"I think I'd like to go have a visit with their rear guard. How many mechs are they leaving there?"

"None. Just the tanks and hovercraft. They have a few trucks setting up tents."

"Maybe we can get them to break up their main group again. Are the rest of the laddies on the way?"

"Just heading there now," Vander said. "Where do you want them?"

No voice reply came, but Grady highlighted four different spots around the city, with those dots appearing on the war room's main map.

"It's your call, Grady," Vander said. "Start harassing if you like, just don't get caught out."

"Watch my back, for me. This is going to get distractful."

"Distractful?" Stephan repeated. "Never heard that word before."

"Did you understand the meaning?"

"Yeah."

"Then you've got a new word in your vocabulary."

"I suppose I do. Be mindful of your surroundings. They've got some other angle here, I can feel it."

"Did you make up that word as well?"

"Which one?"

"Mindful."

Stephan smiled at Vander. "No, Grady. I didn't make up that word. It's been around a long time."

"Sounds kind of like the same thing. A full mind is a distracted one."

"True," Vander said as he saw Grady's Company start moving out of the camo blind they'd created for them in the ravine due south of the city. They started walking east, well below where the enemy mechs were heading, and intended to come up on the base camp from the south as well. "ETA looks like about 15 minutes before the first group gets to the city."

"And our laddies?"

"You've got three hours to play before they get there."

"Can they see the other advance teams from their position?"

"I doubt it. They're down to line of sight unless they have spies in the city or the Comstar complex."

"What are the militia doing?"

"Still sitting at the spaceport."

"Move Alpha and Beta teams around the city to the North, and Delta to the South, but keep Delta off the grass. I'm guessing they brought a lot of missile mechs…am I right?"

"We're still taking tallies now, but it looks like they're predominantly mediums. About two thirds, actually. They're set up like raiders, so be careful not to get swarmed," Stephan warned.

"They've got no chance against us once we group up," Grady said, his voice sounding perplexed. "Are they here for the city?"

"If they hit the city first, the militia will just wear them down a bit before they hit us," Vander interjected. "But maybe they're counting on that drawing us out."

"Either way, gotta play the game to see what they do. I'll poke the bee hive for ya. They'll have about a ten minute walk back if they want to chase us, and that'll delay whatever they're going to do in the city."

"If they want the city, they're going to get it," Stephan said sadly. "We can't get there in time to stop them from wrecking it if that's their aim."

"Move Gamma inside, and maybe you can bait them through the city back to our laddies coming up the road."

"We're going to wait and see what they do first," Vander argued. "If they attack, we'll send them in."

"What else are they going to do?" Grady scoffed. "Play hopscotch on the spaceport tarmac?"

"Can you actually do that in a mech?"

"Aye, you can if you're good at it," Grady said evenly. "The techs hate it though. Rubs the leg joints in all kinds of unexpected ways and you end up falling half the time."

"Why did I never hear about that?"

"Didn't want rookies trying it and face planting."

"Are you being serious or not? I can't tell."

"Serious, laddie, but it takes jump jets…usually."

Stephan looked at Vander, who shrugged. "I've never heard of it."

"I'll show you some other time," Grady promised, hitting his jump jets to hop over a large boulder in the mostly dry ravine in his Victor as the rest of his Command Company chose to run around it. Ten of them were Victors, with two Riflemans for anti-air support that they were apparently not going to need today. "How soon could we see those dropships coming back down?"

"If they do it will most likely be in pieces," Stephan said as he witnessed the first exchange of weaponsfire in orbit, with the long naval lasers on the warship getting in a few shots on his dropships from outside their weapon ranges as they burned hard to close the distance. None blew apart or deviated course, so the extra armor they'd added to them before launch must have held up, but other than that he couldn't tell what was happening up there, because they weren't linked into their telemetry the same way they were for the mechs. All they had with the fleet was comms, and Itomo wasn't talking to them right now.

Yet the comm channels were full of orders going out, which Vander was half listening to in one earpiece.

Several minutes later Grady and his Epsilon Command Company finally pulled out of the ravine and moved up over some sandy hills with a scattering of scrub trees, finally coming into view of the distant camp. From their position they could also see the city and the distant mechs approaching it, but there was no way they could get back here in time to help.

Grady ignored what was happening everywhere else at the moment and began running his Victory up to its maximum 64 kph along with the other mechs following just behind him, attracting the attention of the tanks and hovercraft immediately, with the latter zooming out towards them more than twice as fast.

The Mech Commander nailed one with a large laser at nearly 500 meters while the others raced in and past his mech, firing on it with a combination of machine guns and SRMs. The tanks, further ahead and not moving nearly as fast fired PPCs that did a lot more damage.

"Tanks first," he ordered. "Ignore the skuttle bugs."

He took the first hit, then the Victors and Riflemans killed half the tanks in their first salvos, with the rest peeling off and heading in multiple directions…everywhere except back to their camp, which Grady kept walking up to while ordering the other mechs to fan out and engage anyone that was shooting at them.

"Attention Lion's Teeth mercenaries," Grady said over his mech's loud speaker. "If you want to live, move away from your trucks and equipment stacks out into the open with your hands raised, and walk towards the North…now!"

Little scurrying techs and other personnel started popping out of everywhere, cowering under the guns of his Victor as he continued to walk right into the middle of their camp. He waited there like a statue of imminent death until everyone was away and grouped to the north, then casually dipped down the left arm of his mech and toppled the nearest tent. He walked over to the other five already set up and did likewise, finding there was nothing much inside them. The equipment stacks were nearby, having been offloaded from the dropships and brought here by the trucks.

They contained food, more tents, replacement armor patches, plus the ever so valuable missile and autocannon replacement ammunition.

Grady stepped away from those and turned and fired his pair of large lasers at them off sequence, letting them recharge and doing so again and again until he destroyed all the crates, then he roasted the trucks too before finally looking back towards the distant city.

"Camp destroyed," he said, walking his mech away towards the west with his Company following and just leaving the prisoners standing in the grass perplexed and glad to be alive. "They won't be reloading expendables in this engagement."

"Good work," Vander said. "One more little wrinkle to add. The northern force has moved to the Comstar compound…and is attacking it."