TLR Chpt 1

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==Chapter 1 - The Lucky RegimentThe Day Lady Luck deserted us…==
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August 12th 3050 in the Ichmandu system, part of the Oberon Confederation 
The ninety ton 'mech lurched hard to the side as a second gauss slug hit it in almost the same place as the last impact, Highlander 732Bs were tough but there was only so much they could take, especially when they had already taken a few solid hits. The massive machine stumbled from the impact and then crashed into a copse of thick trees when the left foot unexpectedly encountered a boulder, the greenery giving her mech visual cover for a few precious moments.
Kathrine felt dizzy as the mech lay still on the ground, and then felt the unpleasant taste of blood in her mouth followed by her tongue finding several front teeth felt loose. Her harness was partially torn and her helmet was off and dangling by its cables nearby. She tried to reach it with her right arm and felt a shooting pain as she tried to straighten it, something was definitely fractured or broken she concluded. With her left arm she pulled a painkiller injector out of its pouch on her coolant vest and stabbed into herself just above the break, she felt an instant coolness in her bloodstream. She looked around at the display and shattered cockpit window, she decided she wasn't out of the fight yet and she pulled the swaying helmet towards her with her good arm.
 
"Red Two and Three, this is Red One, can you cover me whilst I stand up." Katherine winced as she got her arms back into position.
 
"On it"
 
Over the noise of her machine standing up she heard the crack of a Gauss Rifle round passing overhead then the scream of a flight of LRMs. She got the mech into something of a crouch then hit the jump jets, hindsight proved it was the right move. The group of trees and dense foliage exploded in fire as several large swarms of LRMs impacted her brief hiding place, she dimly watched it burn out of the corner of her eye as she twisted in the air and straightened the mech up to land. She briefly wished her instructors could have seen that move, she knew it was brilliant, a bit like her really.
 
A pair of those damnable little man sized mechs were approaching from the west, showing up as anomalies on her HUD one hundred meters out whilst behind them came the pair of mutated catapults, one fewer than before thanks to the efforts of her lance. She turned towards them and fired off an instinctive shot with the arm mounted gauss rifle, her damaged mech responding with a worrying groan. As she moved she watched a stream of LRMs from her lance mate strike one of the large catapult type mechs around the cockpit, it seemed to put off the pilots aim as the return PPC shots went wild.
 
"Red One, this is Overlord, pull back for extraction, Blue and Green Lance will cover you." Overlord was the call sign for Patrick Kell on this operation, if the old man was calling her directly things were looking bad everywhere.
 
She wanted to object, but the pain moments earlier of using her left hand to squeeze off a shot with the Gauss Rifle was horrendous even with the painkiller, and with her cockpit glass broken she was a just lucky shot or more likely a missile swarm from death. "I copy" She watched as the remains of one of the little mechs finished bouncing along the ground after the impact from her solid gauss slug, she smiled grimly, that was one less horror in the galaxy.
 
Kathrine turned the good side of the Highlander to face the enemy and bounded towards the next piece of solid cover, managing to dodge most of the impact from a flight of LRMs. There was no armor left on most of her right torso, the arm still functioned but the bank of medium lasers was shredded and the heat sinks were starting to leak coolant. As her mech ran she fired off an unguided salvo from the LRM launcher, hoping to generate enough smoke and dust to throw of the aim of the unidentified attackers.
 
She heard the enthusiastic voice of Red Three, "Blue Group is engaging" it brought a smile to her face, Phelan was kind of a dork but he was cute in his puppy like affection. Blue Lance had a heavily customized Royal Archer, an updated Warhammer and pair of SLDF era Marauders, indeed both of those supporting lances were from the Mercenary company currently supporting the Kell Hounds, and that company fielded almost all Lostech or the modern equivalent kit. If she had to rely on a pair of lances, they were going to be as good it would get.
 
She had almost made to cover when a pair of PPCs blasts hit her left torso, the damage matching the capabilities of the current generation of FedCom PPCs. So much for the much-vaunted technological superiority of the Federated Commonwealth she thought bitterly as the armor melted and pieces fell off.
 
"Red One, are you intact?" She recognized the voice of the Patrick Kell, calm and professional despite his pirate mopping up operation turning into the nastiest fight this periphery world had probably seen since the days of Amaris.
 
"Barely. Two point five klicks out from the DropShip, hate to ask but is that air support still available?" She was crashing through a forest now, periodically taking hits from LRMs, bits of armor flaking off each time. Her smaller lance mates were using their jump jets to burst through the canopy to land shots on the pursuing mechs, it didn't seem to be having the desired effect though.
"Negative, they are already engaged keeping hostile fighters at bay, the Marauders have tasked their artillery to support you though." That was something she thought, that bunch loved their LRM and Arrow launchers along with their self-propelled guns. It turned out the best way to keep their precious Lostech intact was to blast their opponents from a distance, something to bear in mind one day.
 
"Red one adjust your course 40 degrees to the right." A pair of red markers suddenly appeared on her HUD, it looked like several mechs had broken through to try to cut her lance off from the pick-up point. She was beginning to wonder if would have better for someone to have accepted the offer of a one-on-one combat from the leader of the mysterious group that had attacked them. He seemed like a complete prick, but maybe it could have been settled that way, Patrick was pretty damned good for his age, and the White Widow also had a hell of a reputation.
 
As the fire against her rear slackened she saw the marker for an artillery strike appear on the HUD, the approaching red markers were perfectly bracketed on the display and moments later she heard the impacts through her damaged canopy. A minute later a pair of helicopters then passed overhead firing LRMs at the targets before peeling away only to be followed by another salvo.
 
"Unidentified mediums, possibly Hunchbacks." Nasty, very nasty thought Kathrine, perfect for finishing off a damaged lance. And given they had started the fight going up against another lance of five, that probably meant three more were also nearby whilst she and her lance mates had all taken significant damage.
She heard Patrick's voice again "Blue and Green report two kills and are moving to assist Red Group, Gold lance inbound, ETA five minutes." That meant the Hounds were sending in another dropship, bad news beckoned. Sure enough Patrick's markings on the map suddenly showed a new dropship waypoint for her, and little red dots approaching both the current artillery battery position and the dropship site that been intended to evacuate her battered lance. So much for the artillery for a while, though she knew they were professional enough that they would already have been packing up to move and were self-propelled for a reason.
 
"All callsigns you are to escort the primary to Nav Gamma." Her heart sank, she was no longer just 'One of the Gang', this was the call to drop everything and get her out at all costs, and she knew what it meant for their survival odds. She didn't think it was panic she was feeling, but she doubted she was going to get to sneak into Phelan's bunk when all this was over.
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45 minutes later
Victoria felt the acceleration as she looked across at the miserable looking face of Phelan Kell, he was similarly strapped in, and like her and taken off his helmet. Even the newer models were still a sweaty mess after combat, nobody liked leaving them on for too long. Next to him, and awkwardly attached to the seat was the body bag containing the charred wreckage that used to be the daughter of Hanse bloody Davion. She knew Phelan and Katherine had been close, and she knew she hadn't been all that far off Phelan's situation a few times over the years. It was why her kids were being brought up able to manage the estates and hopefully one of them would not feel inclined to take over the family business, or at least that was her secret hope.
 
"What will her father say, Major?" She was tempted to say not my problem, the Marauders were only supposed to be there as backup, and to give her command experience whilst the Hounds were the ones babysitting. That unfortunately would be unwise given the scale of the catastrophe. Half the marauders first company of mechs was now crippled, three destroyed and the Hounds Alpha company had suffered even worse against this unidentified peripheral force with at least Helm grade equipment. What ever had happened today wasn't going to be a one off, that had to have been part of a lorger force with comparable technology.
 
"He lost his brother, and frankly he's pretty ruthless at times, so he'll get over it and be more worried about settling the score with who the f*** we just encountered." The other drop ships blasting their way into orbit carried several mysterious bodies and a couple of live ones, including the piece of s*** who had shot Kathrine's ejection pod of the sky. The Marauders might have been badly bloodied but they had given as good as they got and true to form had nabbed the remains of a pair of hostile mechs and couple of their mini-mech combat armor outfits. Her husband's family might be respectable but he had the instincts of peripheral raider.
 
"Who were they?" She saw the grim look in couple of the eyes of the other pilots who were strapped in as well. She knew as XO it was time to steady their nerves and subtly remind them it had been a controlled withdrawal and not a rout. The boss had already determined that question was what was really going to matter, hence the risky field salvage carried out under fire.
 
"No idea yet, the body I saw only had a first name on her cooling vest and I don't think the Combine has been breeding freaks." Word had spread on the com net that some sort of super-mutant had been recovered from inside one of the battle suits, human but with muscles that were past the stage of being attractive and well into horror movie territory. "You never know with the Combine and scary science, but I really don't think they could have that many new designs of mech." She got calmer nods, no mercenary really wanted a full-on war with the Combine, they had too much high end stuff these days. Those pricks at ComStar had a lot to answer for, she couldn't tell those sitting near her but they were actually more a likely suspect than the Snakes.
 
The more she thought about the body of the dead pilot she had seen the more she wondered about the wolf like emblem on the side of her 'mech, definitely not a mercenary company logo she recognized, nor for that matter a known regimental logo. It reminded her uncomfortably of a strange contract many years ago, back when they hadn't been so obviously employed by the MIIO that they could still do jobs in that neck of the woods. It was one long enough ago that none of those she was looking at had been involved with it. And the more she considered it, one that might well be coming to back to haunt them.
 
She had a simple headset on, linked up to allow her to communicate directly with the crew on the bridge, she should have been up front, but with the chaotic departure there were excess personnel on this ship and Patrick Kell's team had taken over the command chairs. "Any updates from the Cockpit"
 
"Kell here, no pursuit so far, we have a safe route to the Jumpship, maybe you could pass that on."
 
She looked around at the nervous faces, some Marauders, some Kell Hounds. "All good team, Patrick says no sign of pursuers, I think they are busy dealing with their own losses on the surface." She saw the faces relax slightly, and then a bit of tension leaving their shoulders.
 
"Anything else, Patrick?"
"The Argo is docked, the hostile ship is keeping its distance and I'll brief you on the rest when we dock with the Jumpship." She knew that 'ship' was more than just a ship, it was a genuine warship, the sort of thing you saw models of in museums, did cameos in holovids and appeared in books about the old days. The Federated Commonwealth was refurbishing some and even working on new ones, but she really wasn't supposed to know that. Someone else though had the real thing in regular operation, and that was a scary thought.
 
"Sweet, we'll get some shuteye and you guys can worry about the docking." She smiled and closed her eyes, looking much calmer than she felt. The sad truth was that body bag represented the end of the luckiest streak of any mercenary outfit in the Inner Sphere, they'd still get used again by Hanse but their extraordinary luck had definitely run out, the death of the second in line to the throne was about the biggest peacetime disaster the Federated Commonwealth could have had. Still unlike most of those in the room she had been through worse, after all if you had looked her situation in 3022 she certainly wouldn't have expected to find herself operating as a mercenary in the northern reaches of the former Lyran Commonwealth space. Such she reflected with a certain amount of humor was the price of meeting the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place.
 
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Meanwhile back on the site of the recent battle on Ichmandu
Vlad raised his hand to stop the medic technician engaged in pulling out the long slivers of shrapnel from his shoulder and coolant vest. He was too tough to want to be seen using a painkiller so he had simply decided to maintain a stoic expression like the warrior he was. Thus the site of the Elemental leader Evantha coming towards him was a welcome break from the unexpectedly horrific pain of field surgery, and the distraction would hopefully allow him to discretely inject a painkiller whilst nobody was looking.
 
Her helmet lifted up with a hiss and in the shadow he could make out her dark eyes and reddish hair. They stood on opposite sides of a rather deep political canyon, but she was one of the best of her breed. He could respect that level of skill, even if she would never be as good as him.
 
"Star Captain, the Khan requires an update from Galaxy Commander Ward, have you seen him?" To the point as ever, Vlad wondered what her pillow talk was like.
 
"The Battlemechs in the star he was with were all destroyed, but I believe two pilots were able eject."
 
"Aff, my star has checked his Mech, we had hoped he might have been found by either of your Stars." Vlad frowned, Evantha had not been the senior Elemental a few hours earlier, and he had been the third most senior of the Mech contingent. Given the bloodbath that might now leave him in command, not ideal since he had just sneakily injected a pretty mentally debilitating painkiller into his increasingly less painful shoulder.
 
"My Mech has no legs, these Inner Spheroids have no honor." Such a base act was made worse by the precision with which it had been carried out, the Inner Sphere pilot in question had landed all his PPC shots on the key joint on first one leg than the other. Vlad was quite certain it was the not the first time the pilot had done that to someone. "I suspect that leaves you the ranking Star Captain"
 
"Aff, I shall report our status to the Khan, can you confirm the status of your Stars?"
 
He sighed, it wasn't a happy answer, and probably better for career reasons that he wasn't giving it to the Khan. "Three mechs operational, two pilots dead, four wounded and one missing, ammo state low."
 
"Be calm, Star Captain, my own losses mirror your own, indeed I do believe that Conal Ward may have erred when he thought we were simply targeting a band of pirates." He smiled grimly, a 'live fire training exercise' had cost the clan at least three stars worth of mechs, most of their supporting elementals and of course their air support. The only plus side was that several decent blood names could now be up for grabs, especially if Conal was not found.
 
"Did you recover any prisoners?"
 
"Neg, but the bodies wore similar uniforms, I therefore conclude we have encountered a formation from the Lyran Commonwealth." Vlad nodded, it was a pity that someone, probably Conal judging from where PPC shot had come from, had fired at that ejection pod. They would never know what that mechwarrior could have told them. They had technically won the field, but it wasn't a victory he wished to see a repeat of. "I'm sure we'll find out soon enough who they were, the Khan will definitely want some as bondsmen."
 
Vlad didn't particularly like the idea of any of them as bondsmen, or the unsaid implication that their Khan might be intrigued by their genetic material. Still he had to wonder who had they run into, was that what the invasion was going to be like?
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