personal6

17

September 18, 2994

Periphery

Gregoria

Jedsen Airfield

The past week and a half had gone by tediously, but also fast. Stephan was doing something almost constantly in conjunction with his own people or the locals…all of which came to him rather than the other way around. He wasn't sending anyone into the city aside from his mechs and the Colonel's strike teams, and they weren't staying put. Already they had found and eliminated three not-so-secret police stations and got into some quick by intense firefights there as they took them, cleared the buildings of all personnel, useful equipment, or databases…then they had the mechs surgically demolish each building into a pile of rubble then move on.

Stephan wanted a clear message sent. The Red Baron's enforcers could not stop House Morten, and House Morten was not simply stepping into their shoes. This was real change, and the people who had been taken to those stations for beatings and had lived through it should understand the significance of it…same went for the prison facility they'd just liberated two days ago, though there wasn't that many prisoners in it. Apparently most of the dissidents were executed, and only those they thought could be 'rehabilitated' were sent to the prison. If they survived, they'd be released eventually as an object lesson to the populace…or because they were too valuable to be killed, so there was a lot of rich people's kids, businessmen, and even a few of the Red Baron's own men that had fallen out of favor with him that all got summarily released.

As far as actual criminals went, the only ones in there were for petty crime. The more violent ones were either killed or recruited, and that was apparently standard practice across the planet. Why pay to feed people that were of no use to you for years on end?

Almost all of the newly freed prisoners required medical attention. The 'food' served to them was horrible, and malnutrition was causing as many deaths as disease, for even a mild virus became murderous when your body didn't have the fuel needed to fight it off. Paul had negotiated with one of the local hospitals to work for them after they'd taken down two of the enforcer dens, and all the people from the prison had went there while the prisoners taken by House Morten went to a series of prefab buildings set up on the large snowy areas between the air strips that had been carved back to allow some forgiveness of planes that might not hit the runway square on. Those strips of light snow had been expanded back by mechs cutting out chunks of the snow pack by hand in some cases, then using the airfield's own equipment to clear the more manageable piles. Into those slots a makeshift prison and hospital and warehouse complex was created, most of which was in anticipation of the two jumpships' return that Stephan had already sent back to Cholis for more supplies and personnel.

And all the while, none of the would-be warlords in the other cities even bothered to communicate with House Morten, let alone attack them, and Stephan was noting on the local media how they were seeing that as a sign of weakness. A foreign invader lands on the planet and the so-called 'rulers' didn't do anything to respond.

Though that was primarily from Jedsen's media. The others probably had enforcers breathing down their necks censoring what could be said, but any time any of the remaining ones in Jedsen poked up the Colonel would soon be there to follow. Most had gone to ground by now rather than continuing their terroristic duties, but the last of their police stations would end up being turned into rubble within the next two weeks, essentially erasing their visible presence from the city that had roaming mech patrols going where they liked, and Vander made sure they went everywhere to make it clear who was in charge.

Aside from some small arms fire that appeared and disappeared quickly, the mechs were not interfered with and the local vehicle traffic gave them a wide berth, as did the civilians.

But there were problems. Shipping in and out of the city had been blocked in some cases, meaning exports weren't getting to the other cities and imports weren't coming in. Paul had taken over full control of the city government, kicking out the local governor and ruling council…those that had stuck around long enough to be found…and had immediately started trying to address the supply chain problems while keeping almost everything else in place. That meant all the tax revenue for the city was coming directly to him…and not to the Red Baron's palace.

Leonard Morten was working with what appeared to already be a large network of smugglers…and new ones suddenly popping up…to keep some necessary items flowing past the Red Baron blockades and checkpoints on the roadways…but there were so many ways in and out they couldn't effectively siege their own cities, and the holes that were left were enough for the 68 year old Logistics pro to begin working enough of his magic to keep the grocery stores stocked and fuel trucks rolling, but it was a work in progress, and whenever they got one thing semi-fixed something else would start running out and even with a number of businesses now openly helping them, it wasn't a great time to be living in the city.

Petty crime was up due to the lack of a police force, but the large scale stuff was still subdued out of fear of the mechs. That might change over time, but there were actually a lot of people emigrating to the northern city to get away from the Red Baron's people…and some of those brought resources and intel along with them.

The Red Baron's 'cult' extended across the planet, with a zealous and brutal ruling regime with tendrils everywhere that put down even the least bit of criticism of the rulership or a desire for change. It was classic fascism, not allowing even a differing opinion without consequences, but the Red Baron's people didn't actually make anything. They had to rely on the local population to do that, and if they squeezed too hard they'd kill their own economy.

Some bandits wouldn't care, but the Red Barons were apparently not so reckless. So they selectively used their brutality to keep the rest of the people in line through fear…and with millions of people essentially working for the Red Baron under crushing taxes and pathetic wages, he'd created a semi-slave population that unscrupulous corporations desired. Hence they'd built up a significant industrial complex beyond the mech factory alone.

And it had made the Red Baron organization extremely rich. Rich enough to field 48 mechs in their assault on Cholis, as well as having maybe a Company more on Gregoria, most of which were Wasps, but they'd seen at least one Shadow Hawk at the main spaceport out on patrol.

Vander was still itching to hit it, but Stephan kept delaying past the return of the jumpships as they brought four more dropships with them, including several officers from the Cholis police forces who'd volunteered to come here and start creating a new department. More recruits would come, Sarah's message had promised, but they'd have to come from offworld so it would take months more…but at least Stephan had something to work with other than his soldiers, which could provide security, but that wasn't the same thing as police work.

As it was, the sign of a few police officers nabbing some thieves robbing stores made it's rounds in the media, and suddenly things started to quiet down a little, but when they learned how many were actually here they'd probably escalate again.

Stephan had hoped taking over this planet wouldn't require reworking everything from the ground up, but when it came to the police force there was no other choice. He was not going to employ the local thugs even if they wanted to switch sides, and the city would just have to suffer through the transition pains until a proper police force could be constituted.

But on the bright side, they were getting paid out of the tax money and not the Morten war chest.

The jumpships took approximately 11 weeks for a round trip, and while keeping one here at all times, Stephan sent the others back, including the captured Liberty, and all started making round trips bringing in more and more of their dropships, with the airfield becoming littered with them over the coming months while keeping the main runway intact for the Falcons and the sparse civilian flights, because the other cities were mostly not allowing the planes to come and go from Jedsen.

Stephan had kept them in the northern city some 7 months as they reworked it, with everything seeming so calm and predictable that it took the planet by shock when one day House Morten suddenly moved ten of their dropships over to the main city spaceport under cover of their aerospace squadron and all hell broke loose…

Chad Pergum sat in one of the gunner's seats controlling two of the Violet Egg's 6 PPCs as he fired as fast as the recharge on the massive weapon would allow into the side of a nearby Union-class dropship that was stupidly attacking them rather than heeding the order to stand down as they landed. The Violet Egg was already on the ground and hammering it with its massive amount of weaponry, but the crew of the Union didn't seem to care about the mismatch, and Chad was under orders to target their weapon systems only instead of whatever part of the armor plates were easiest to hit.

He was aiming for one of their own PPCs, and had hit near it twice so far, which was frustrating considering both ships were standing still only a few hundred meters apart, though there was another Union also firing at them from the east side, while this one was on the northwest. Chad's batteries couldn't get hit from the east, so his weapons were safe from its fire, but he needed to take out the longer ranged weaponry on the Union before it got in any good hits on them, for it didn't seem to be in too bad of disrepair, and all of the standard weaponry appeared to be functioning.

As they fought it out, the other 9 Morten dropships assigned to this attack were landing all around them. The Violet Egg had been chosen to come down first, but it only had a minute and a half head start. Now the landing dropships were also adding their firepower, and soon the Union he was shooting at decided to take off before it was destroyed.

It got about 500 meters up into the air before its engines were shot out from underneath it by multiple dropships and a group of the Ardent Falcons whipping by so fast Chad didn't even see them…but he did see the 'hold fire for friendly aircraft' beacon light up on his targeting screen…then it disappeared just as fast, with him returning to fire one more shot before the Union started to reverse course due to the reality of physics, then the cease fire order came through and he watched in silence as the dropship fell back down and cracked open in a few places as it smashed into the landing pad's ferrocrete, sinking in it seemed, though it was hard to tell now that the landing gear were nowhere in view.

The return fire from the Union stopped…apparently they'd had enough or the power lines had been cut. Either way, he was no longer cleared to fire at it and turned his attention to the Vtols on the perimeter that were poking their noses in close enough to fire off LRMs then darting away while the Falcons were trying to clear the sky of them, but there were so many. They were coming out of what seemed like everywhere and showering his dropship with missiles.

But when the other dropships came down, they had more targets than they could handle, and the soft 'whumps' on the hull almost completely cut out as the combined assault force was starting to get control of the local airspace…though he saw one of the aerospace fighters go down under a lucky missile barrage from multiple helos. They didn't last long, and soon they were flaming wreckage on the way down to the ground as the rest of the Falcons swooped in for vengeance, but the pilot had the last laugh as he floated down gently to the ground, having ejected soon enough to avoid the crash of his own fighter into one of the nearby city buildings that surrounded the massive spaceport that had been built almost in the center of the metropolis.

Chad didn't want to think about who might be in that building when it got hit, but they hadn't targeted it intentionally. And if these damn Red Baron zealots would just surrender, none of this would be necessary.

But they weren't, and House Morten was going to have to do this the hard way…but 26 minutes after the initial landing of the Violet Egg, the spaceport and the airspace over the city of Nilhorn was theirs, and mechs were already marching across the spaceport and ordering crews out of the other local dropships that had not fired on them. Their weapons had to be secured, but it looked like they didn't want any part of this fight.

And slowly, some 72 mechs…two Battalions exactly…strode out of the dropships and into the city, with most of them heading through the streets towards the Red Baron palace…

Grady walked his 70-ton Warhammer through the streets of Nilhorn, with not a person in sight. Apparently the fight at the spaceport had triggered a clearing of civilians all around it, including the usually crowded vehicular traffic. The roads were clear aside from parked cars, and he made sure not to step on them, not knowing who or what might be inside. If someone had left a dog inside while they were shopping, he definitely didn't want to squash it.

He walked at the head of a line of mechs meandering out from the spaceport, but taking a zigzag path so the Red Baron's forces couldn't predict their exact movements and set up an ambush. The Shadowhawk that had previously been guarding the spaceport had stupidly tried to engage the dropships as they landed and now lay broken on the tarmac. A few Wasps had been spotted by aerial reconnaissance, along with some small tanks, but Grady had yet to encounter them.

He continued walking his heavy mech, which was outfitted in its original weapons package. 2 PPCs, 2 Medium lasers, 2 Small lasers, 2 machine guns, and an SRM-6. That made it good at street and infantry fighting, as well as being able to attack at range at the spaceport with the PPCs. The air continued to be clear as the Falcons kept watch, so he kept walking a path towards the palace, waiting to be attacked eventually.

His instincts were just as good as his reflexes, for as he passed a short skyscraper the building suddenly detonated and blew out across the street and into his mech, knocking it aside as he stumbled to keep it on its feet. Eventually his left gun-barrel arm hit the opposite building and he was able to right himself…but the detonated building was careening over onto the street and dropping boulder-sized rubble as it did.

Grady ran forward, knowing from past experience you couldn't backpedal as fast as accelerating. He hung close to the far building and ran, stepping on a parked car in the process, as dust and chunks of ferrocrate bounced all over, but he came out of the dust cloud as the waterfall-like roar of the bulk of the building came down behind him, smashing into the nearby one, then bending and just falling apart, smashing the area he had just run through with enough force to have pancaked and probably destroyed his mech had he hesitated. Or at the bare minimum he'd have been pinned inside waiting to be dug out.

"Commander Grady," Lord Vander's voice spoke evenly through the comm several moments later.

"Still here," he reported. "I didn't see any weaponsfire. They must have had a debt charge on the building."

"Not just one. They leveled a few dozen buildings creating a ring around the palace, and you've got tanks headed your way on the inside. Worry about them and I'll get help to you."

"How many?"

"Double digits. They're coming out of parking garages all over, along with infantry."

"Wonderful day for a fight," he said mock cheerfully, though he was still rattled after almost being killed by that building. "Do you see any of those Wasps yet?"

"Not yet. But I'd guess they're in there or fleeing, and the Falcons haven't spotted them yet. If you can get to the palace grounds, I can get you some better air strikes against the tanks."

"I copy," Grady said, accelerating his mech again and taking the fastest route to the palace he could. He got up to almost it's full speed before having to slow down and make a 90 degree turn at an intersection four blocks up, at which point he got hit by a tank's autocannon that was barely 60 meters away.

Grady tipped down both PPCs and fired one at a time, finding the first shot was enough, and used the second on the tank second in line as four more were there, all aiming up at him and firing with their autocannons while some infantry on the sidewalks hit him with single SRMs.

His armor took the hits, and could take many more before he was in trouble, but he couldn't let them whittle him down like this, so he fired his machines guns at the infantry and used his lasers on the third tank while his PPCs recharged. It was a blood bath for the defenders, but they held their ground and did what damage they could to him, then Grady stomped on over and through the remains of the tanks, allowing a few of their surviving crews a few seconds to further climb out and flee before he crushed what was left of their broken vehicles. If they weren't actively shooting at him, he didn't consider them to be a threat, and he also wasn't going to waste a single second here while more tanks were probably moving to intercept him.

He ran down another block, then got snipped at off a side street as he passed through. He kept going one more before turning left again on a straight line to the palace some 8 blocks ahead.

And there were plenty of tanks in the way.

Grady kept running and gunning, not stopping to make sure every tank was taken out, and sidestepping some of them when there was enough room to do so, though he had to scrape his shoulder on the buildings twice to get through, but the tanks he didn't shoot with a PPC, when they spun around to target him, were shooting at his intact back armor rather than continuing to chip away at the front.

He destroyed another dozen plus, bypassing even more and not even bothering to hit the infantry with more than a scattering of machine gun fire when they were standing out in the street plain as day launching missiles at him from tri-pod mounted launchers. The guys with the shoulder-mounted version, well, let them try and catch up with him, for his mech could run far faster than they could.

His arms and legs took some hits from them, but they weren't able to reload before he got by…then he came up to an open area around the palace, which was set inside a giant roundabout, but guarded by a two-story high black iron fence that Grady just rammed into with his gun barrels held high, taking the impact on the mech's elbows and knees, then he was inside the parade-like grounds with…

His damage computer flashed a warning, indicating he had taken damage to his left arm, and his radar now picked up a Wasp coming out of a fire station garage. It hit him with both its single Medium laser and it's SRM-2, but it wasn't the only one in the garage. Two more came out behind it, as well as more missiles being fired from windows of the distant, but surrounding buildings.

Grady pivoted and pumped a laser shot into one such building within the palace compound itself, taking out a fixed missile launcher as he kept moving around, plucking the defenses within the palace that fired at him until he had made a circle around the complex, with one of the Wasps following him and the other two coming around the opposite side. Ignoring the outer building missile fire, he picked one of the Wasps ahead of him and opened up on it, landing everything as it just stood still next to a tree and fired back with its pathetic weapons package even for a 20 ton mech. It was built for recon, not slugging matches against other light mechs, let alone a heavy, but every bit of damage they added further chipped away at Grady's armor.

The other Wasp pilot wasn't as stupid, hitting his jump jets and landing off to Grady's left, making him choose which target to hit and unable to quickly move back and forth. Grady finished the first Wasp with his second salvo, then continued to run forward, ignoring both the side Wasp and the one behind him as he struck out at the buildings ahead of him, tearing huge chunks out of them around the windows where the missiles were coming out. He silenced three more of those locations, then banked hard left, carving up divots in the manicured lawn as he came around on the leaper Wasp and unloaded on it as reconnaissance data from the Falcons pinged multiple tanks closing in.

Grady knew better than to just stand still and let them engage as they like, so he kept running through the Wasps, taking the one down and ignoring the other as he popped a couple tanks while taking a second lap around the complex.

"Incoming," one of the aerospace fighter pilots said over the comm, and a moment later he was buzzed by three of them as they targeted some of the tanks.

Grady reversed course, making his next predictable lap not happen, and turned back to hit the last Wasp…which chose to run instead. He hammered it in the back with a PPC, but it used its jump jets to get over the nearby trees and, with its land speed, quickly put distance between them and got around the edge of the palace and out of sight, so Grady turned back to more of the missile launcher positions in the nearby buildings as some of his chest plate indicators glowed yellow from the accruing damage.

But they wouldn't get much further as a House Morten Victor suddenly came out of a side street, with Grady knowing the mech must have spotted a low enough point in the rubble to use its jump jets to get over. It immediately started firing on the closest tanks, and Grady soon saw several of them just stop in the middle of the grass or street and pop their tops with the crews running out, knowing they were essentially trapped inside the rubble ring and there was no way they were going to take down both mechs.

"Thanks, laddie," he said to Ollie Carson in the Victor.

"Sorry I'm late. How bad are you chewed up?"

"I'm fine," he said, taking another missile shot from a building, then he turned and smoked that window with one of his Medium lasers, ignoring what collateral damage might be done to people living there…but he couldn't just let them shoot at him with impunity. "But we got little missile buggers everywhere."

"What do we do with the empty tanks?"

"Leave them. Lord Vander might want them."

"Copy that. What about the palace?"

"It's not going anywhere. Find that Wasp," he said as the Falcons signaled they were coming in again…then a fusion reactor overload rocked the far side of the palace.

"I think that was the Wasp," Ollie said as Grady began running around, sniping a few missile popping windows as well as a tank that didn't feel like surrendering, before he got to visually confirm the third Wasp was down thanks to the friendly birds.

"Aye, it's down," he confirmed to Ollie as he kept going around and taking out any windows that dared shoot back, then he headed to the vehicle garage in the palace and used one of his Small lasers to cut open the thin doors and see what was inside.

"Bunch of luxury cars in the garage," Grady reported over the link to Vander. "No combat vehicles. Aside from some missile launching infantry that might be laying low, you're clear to land."

"Thank you, Grady. Good work. We're going to have to get mechs in and out via dropship. Their demolition barricade is too deep to dig a hole through quickly."

"Take your time. All I lost was a wee bit of armor. How are the rest of the lads doing?"

"Tanks versus mechs? Do you even need to ask?"

"Right then. What else do you need from me?"

"Just stand there and look pretty until the strike team arrives."

Grady frowned. "You know that's impossible, don't ya?"

"I was referring to the mech," he said, then Stephan's voice broke in on the same line. "Grady, do you see any sign of bolting?"

The Mech Commander scanned the ground again, at least what he could see on this side, for the palace rose higher than his mech was tall. "Nothing, Stephan. You think they aren't here?"

"I'm thinking something doesn't feel right, because they trapped themselves inside that ring."

"Last ditch effort of the hopeless?" Grady guessed.

"Or maybe a diversion while the top dogs slip away."

"Not unless they have underground tunnels leading out. Nothing is moving out here topside."

"Keep it that way. We'll know soon enough," the First Lord's voice said as a roar of engines suddenly caught Grady's ear. It wasn't the aerospace fighters this time, but a dropship coming down from a shot hop from the spaceport, and the Teal Pearl landed on the grass just inside the perimeter of the iron fence some 250 meters away from Grady's Warhammer.

Almost immediately after touching down a ramp lowered and a series of ground vehicles spilled out. Both hover and wheeled, they carried machine guns and troops, with most of them coming around to the garage entrance that Grady had opened up while one went to the main entrance cascade of shallow steps that led down to a pool with a statue of a nude goddess that was still spraying up plumes of decorative water out of her numerous hair braids.

Grady stayed put and became a statue as well, but one that deserved far more respect, as the strike teams went inside to find out what the situation really was…

"Empty?" Vander said over the video comm to Colonel Zephram, who was reporting from a captured communications room in the palace.

"Not a single person inside. Not even servants. We've cleared every room. It's a ghost town, and according to the comm logs, there hasn't been a transmission made from here in the past 5 weeks."

"They expected us a lot sooner," Stephan said to Vander.

"Any boobytraps?" Vander asked, still looking at the Colonel's face.

"Not that we've found, but we're still looking. Scanning crews are working on the walls. I need another 6 hours minimum before we can declare it safe for occupation."

"Are we keeping it?" Vander floated, this time looking to Stephan, who chewed his lower lip as he thought.

"Colonel, how's it look inside?"

"Ransacked, but structurally intact. A lot of it appears to be stone architecture rather than ferrocrete. Granite I'd guess. Not something we could tear down easily, and not something they could take down easily without some very large explosives. I think we can make use of it, if you want it, sir?"

"If it comes up clear we'll use it as a temporary base of operations. But I don't want so much as one hidden tunnel undiscovered that they can use to send an assassin in through later. Am I clear?"

"We'll be thorough," the Colonel promised. "But we also need to take possession of the surrounding buildings, and I don't have the manpower to do both simultaneously."

"Let the mechs deal with the snipers until you do. Focus on securing the palace interior."

"Yes, sirs. Will that be all?"

"Try to preserve all data you come across," Vander added.

"Copy that," he said.

5 hours later the Morten Protectorate flag was raised on the grounds just beyond the water fountain, with the Red 'M' emblazoned over the outlined silver turtle shell making it clear who the new rulers of the planet were.