CHS4-24

==Chapter Twenty-Fourth - Book 4 – Chappy's Howling Siegers==
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===Battle for Dante's Regional Capital City===
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====Demoted to a Trashcan====
Duncan Renegades 2nd Group
1st Battalion 3rd Company
Dante, Outworlds Alliance
May 10th, 3030
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Local Time: GST 07:30
In the fields of Continent Petrarch just outside of the regional capital, battle for Dante continues
Funny thing about being a mercenary working for a unit whose leader is loyal to a fault to only one faction in the inner sphere, you always get stuck 10000s light years away from anything that is remotely important. That is what has happened to Major Mary Sandvaer a former Hauptmann for the Lyran Commonwealth Armed Forces forced to resign amidst false accusations of sexual harassment she was forced to sign on to a merc unit, unfortunately the one she choose took her to the other side of the inner sphere to fight Outworlds Alliance pukes. 
On top of that insult, since she did not have a 'mech they gave her the only one that was available; a freakin UM-R60L Urbanmech. The light mech has hardly any armor and only a limited amount of ammo for its deadly AC/20. At least the command promised a bigger mech once a salvage one can be made operational. She still not sure if they understood what piloting an Urbanmech does to a true Steiner. 
Oh well, at least her 4th Company of the 2nd Battalion was slotted to attack in the next stage of the invasion. The Major sat in the conference room waiting for the brief that will give the go ahead to attack the regional capital she recounts General Duncan’s overall battle plan and how well it has gone. The key was to cripple their Aerospace capability since the Outworlds Alliance favor those flying pieces of crap. To bring one of the few active battleships in the inner sphere into the fray was brilliant and on the first day Dante Militia saw 70 fighters destroyed in space. Since then the Renegades have been making their way across the continent Petrarch, liberated a factory, and now will conquer the regional capital with the next step, after that is the capital city of Certaldo located on the continent Boccaccio.
The rest of the command staff starts filtering in the room and then Colonel Kauko Wrigton commander of the Duncan Renegades 2nd Group shows up everyone jumps up, and Command Sergeant Major Aghamora Eades calls the room to Attention. “At ease guys, and please have a seat” the Colonel says. “We have come to the point of really taking this planet from the Alliance” As he brings up a 2D image of the city, “1st Battalion will be in reserve for this action” lots of grumbling started after this……”Be Still!!!” yells the Command Sergeant, “sorry commander” “no worries Eades, no worries” the colonel says “I know everyone wants to fight every time, but the 1st battalion has several mechs that need to be repair so it’s up to 2nd battalion to take the capital.” The colonel then zooms into the west edge of the city, “Major Sandvaer you and your company will attack on the north side and the 12th Armor Company will attack from the south once y’all meet in the middle here, push toward the center”. “Roger!” Yells Sandvaer and the command of the tank commander. 
Sneakers started to form in the peanut gallery all directed to the Major and her Urbanmech again the Command Sergeant has to yell “This may be a merc unit, but we will have discipline and discipline we will have NOW!!” 
As the Colonel continues to give out assignments to the rest of the Battalion, Mary stares at the armor commander she knows he was the one to start the whispering against her, well she will just have to prove to him and everyone that a great pilot can run in anything and not just a 100 ton Atlas or a 100ton tank.
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====City Assault Begins====
Riverbank just outside of the city
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Major Mary Sandvaer Perspective - Local Time: GST 08:30
The attack has started in the center of the city with the main force pushing, Mary’s command was to shore-up the flank then push in with the 12th Armor Company to the center of town. 
She decided to form up her lances each in the diamond formation given each lance an AOR to attack. 
Messages on the J-Link shows that the Armor Company was about to push past the hill in the south and should be in position in a matter of minutes, so Mary flips on the Company channel and says “Rally up people form lance Diamond formations and press your assigned targets GOGOGO!” 
Of course the Intel was wrong at no time did they mentioned gun turrets on top of the buildings, she looked up and counted at least six AC/20 turrets flipping the command channel back on for 11th Lance. ”Captain Shaw, new orders take out those turrets” 
<<“Roger”>> the captain maneuvered his lance and in a matter of seconds the Longbow took out the first two turrets. “Good job now for the other four” the Major said.
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====Battle Lines breeched====
4th Company's Assault of Regional Capital City
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Major Mary Sandvaer Perspective - Local Time: GST 08:35
Comm chatter told the story of the armor company being pinned down, Mary went to the command link “Captains, we have to push in more the little tanks need our help…shit 11th lance a Cicada broke through your lines, Private Shillitto take your Lancelot and take care of that mech.” 
<<“Roger!”>> the private said. At that moment the Cicada was able to destroy the foot of the Longbow while it was crossing the river. 
<<“Damnit!”>>“Destroy that Cicada now!!!”>>“Longbow to command, three more turrets have been destroy before I went down in the water, I have a water breach in the Right Arm.”<<
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====Pressing the Enemy====
4th Company's Assault of Regional Capital City
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Local Time: GST 08:37
All hell was breaking lose, Mary’s commander for the 10th Lance just lost his 'mech, but at least his life was spared and her mech is just a skeleton of its former self. 
Luckily it looks like the enemy has suffered more damage than her unit, and the Armor Company has finally earned their paycheck by taking out a Griffin. 
There was not a mech out there on the battle field that was at full battle ready most were missing arms or legs some are on fire or smoking but they must continue to press. Over the Company channel “All units press engage destroy”
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====Victory and the Butcher's Bill====
4th Company's Assault of Regional Capital City
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Local Time: GST 08:42
The Armor company broke through and finally destroyed all the enemy’s troops and two Battlemechs that were on the south perimeter with a loss of six tanks they are pushing through the city in hopes to lend a hand. But the Major was determined not to let that happen, she kept pressing the enemy until they broke, as she fired her last shot of the AC/20 into a cockpit of a Battlemaster and watch it go down in its last hurrah, the same Atlas that took all her armor just took out her engine destroying the Urbanmech right as the rest of the enemy left the battle and called it quits. 
Reports started to come in, only a Hunchback was destroyed to the point of scrapping and also four tanks were totally destroyed. The tech teams were able to salvage three of their 'mech including an Atlas. Although she was leery about making the call to the Colonel since it looked like only 4 tanks and 2 'mechs were going to be able to join the rest of the battle.
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Local Time: GST 09:00
The news filtered through the unit comms the city had been overrun and the remaining forces left the continent, one step closer to freeing this planet from the Alliance. One step closer…
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===Amphibious Assault===
Off the coast of the Boccaccio Continent
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Local Time 07:34
Peaceful, calm, beautiful were the three words that came to his mind as he watched the sunrise before getting into his Longbow, Colonel Kauko Wrighton commander of the Duncan Renegades 2nd Group was eager to get back into the fray of battle. His last action was the assault drop to establish a beachhead on this planet about three weeks ago. 
A lot has happened since then and the conquest of this planet has gone better than expected. What was progged as a three-month action is quickly coming to a head, and now Intel is projecting that the capital of the planet will be theirs within a week and a half, but first thing is first and that is getting onto the continent that the capital is on. In three hours, his Command Company should be on the beach on the south side of the Continent, there will be two other pushes both further north that will actually be feints, the main goal is to eradicate the enemy company located at his objective so that they can establish a base with a maintenance facility just two hundred miles away from the capital. The two feints will involve an assault drop company size and then 30 minutes later pack up and leave. 
For him and his company they will be walking along the bottom of Shallow Ocean and entering the beach in a way that should surprise the enemy. Two days ago, all enemy satellite were destroyed so by having the mechs totally submerse in water should create an element of surprise. With the perfection of timing right as the mechs break the plane of water the 3rd Assault Aerospace Squadron should be attacking the enemy, Kauko was very proud of his unit they have performed above the level of experience they report, so he has no doubt that all will go off without issue.
“All MechWarriors rally up into your mechs and let’s go for a swim.” Colonel Wrighton announces over the unit comm.
One by one <<“Aye Aye!”>> came across the net. See, he smiles at himself…just like clockwork the unit.
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Of course this would happen, if it is not military intelligence screwing up it’s the weather guy, First Lietenant Morrissey had briefed them that it was going to be overcast, but the minute that Colonel Wrighton had eyes on the beach he notice that it was raining, yes raining actually with thunder and lightning accompanying that rain. That meant one thing the grass was soon going to turn to mud if it hadn’t already. Why mud, he hated mud, actually he hated anything that slowed him down or his mech. As the company slowly made its way out of the water thru the beach and into the mall the enemy discovered them. 
That is when the Fighter squadron blazed over in attack mode and unleashed there lasers on an Urbanmech knocking the mechs gyro out. As he climbed up the hill he saw Captain Correena O ’Tracy Battlemaster get hit in the head by a lucky gauss shell instantly killing her and the mech. At the same time off to his left the Urbanmech piloted by Sergeant Kim blew a hole right through an enemy Spider's center torso causing the engine to explode. 
As the battle continues Colonel Wrighton notice things were not going good, he had to do something to fix this or him and his whole company will be gone.
“Sergeant Kim” the Colonel said, “Take out that Thorn” 
“Roger, Sir.” within seconds the trusty sergeant aim his AC/20 and blew a hole in the thorn’s center torso and destroyed the mech. 
“Good shot! Sergeant!”, Colonel told the Sargent
Soon after that Sergeant Kim took down an Archer then pronounced that he was out of AC20 Ammo, well shit there goes a sure thing. Then past the small hill he saw three Battlemasters and two Atlases popped up and started to rain fire down on his troops.
Colonel Wrighton had an idea “Flank Lance do you thing” he said, Captain Bruntfield knew exactly what that meant and even though he was down a mech since Sergeant Djambek's Locust was cut off at the knees, he took his other two mechs and jumped in behind the enemies fire wall. With the Griffin providing ECM protection they were able to get point blank behind the enemy line and open fire. “Aim for the legs boys” Captain Bruntfield exclaimed over the lance comm.
Within minutes three assaults 'mech were laying on their side and the rest of the 2nd Long Road Legion started to withdraw, with the objective complete and most of his company badly damage the Colonel proclaim. “Good job people let’s call in the plane transports and get our base set up in the north along the ridge line.
Only two mechs from his unit, the Thorn and Flashman came out of this battle unscathed. The rest will take several days to repair with only the Battlemaster totally destroyed. Funeral will be held at 0800 tomorrow for Captain Correena O ‘Tracy, it will be a closed casket seeing that there was only body parts left of her. 
The only two good news items were that three enemy mechs will be able to be repaired and put into battle within a few weeks. Also, the base has been established and a landing strip has been built for the aerospace fighters.
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Book 4 - Chapter 24