BtH38

==Chapter 38 - By the Horns==
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DropShip Vixen
Inbound to Atmospheric Entry, MacLeod’s Land
Taurian Concordat
November 10th, 3025
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Archibald McCarron frowned as he considered the data scrolling on the monitor screen within the cockpit of his GHR-5H Grasshopper. His pilots had cleared him a path to the planet—but at a high cost. Too high. The intelligence that Romano had provided—the intelligence that he had on hand as well—none of that indicated this level of defenses. Forty aerospace fighters and sixteen gunboats had met his Regiments on the way in—and that was far too many ASF for the perennially weak TDF to deploy here. Unless those fighters had been attached to ‘Mech units below.
Which meant, Archie thought with a silent curse, that instead of facing off just against militia and armor and infantry, the Taurians had at least four battalions of ‘Mechs beneath the clouds ahead of him. And with their larger battalions, that meant he was facing somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty to two hundred ‘Mechs. But then he smiled. Fuck the Taurians. Even if they had two hundred ‘Mechs on the surface, he had the Nightriders, the Wild Ones, and Rob’s Renegades with him—three hundred and twenty-two BattleMechs of his own . . . plus the first wave of Home Guard armor and infantry units.
More enemy ‘Mechs just meant more salvage, he thought with a nod. “This is Mac,” he broadcast. “Throw out the game plan, boys and girls—looks like we are going to have a real fight after all. Primary target is Dougal—we take the capital and the Pinard lines there, and they are going have to come to us to take it back. Expect heavy resistance,” and he paused, “and throw out the rules of engagement. If it shoots at you—or looks like its thinking about shooting at you, kill it.”
“DROP IN ONE MINUTE!” blared the loud-speakers. Archie tightened his straps and pulled his leather gloves taut, and then as the LCD display slowly counted down, he took a thick cigar, placed it in his mouth, lit it, and began to puff as he returned his hands to the controls.
“Last one down buys the beer,” he growled around the smoking cigar and then the bay doors slammed open, the drop light turned green, and Archibald McCarron was flying through the sky towards the surface—straight into a veritable wall of flak. Above him he could see the Overlord-class DropShip stagger as anti-aircraft artillery slammed into her armored flanks—and he cursed.
Breathing smoke around the cigar, he chopped his jets and the Grasshopper fell like a rock—he plunged down through the atmosphere and stood on jump jets just before passing through the minimum safe altitude. The jets roared amid the winds and the storm clouds; his cockpit was plastered with drops of rain and ice, but then he broke through the ceiling and hit the ground running, the rest of the Nightriders following in his wake.
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