TLR Chpt 19

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==Chapter 19 - The Lucky RegimentGrayson comes home==
Outskirts of Durandel
Helm, Free Worlds League
April 13th 3027 - 15:00 hours local time
The operation was two hours behind schedule, small delays were slowly adding up. Still the spaceport and main town were under his control and his reconnaissance aircraft was now in the air. The baffled Mayor and Councillors were being questioned and the local merchants were already trying to sell food and just anything they had on hand to the military. It felt like conditions in the town were mostly normal.
 
As he plodded along in his seventy ton Warhammer mech he was wary, the initial satellite photo had shown a column of vehicles heading north and small units forming defensive positions around the fortified structure known as the 'Helmfast'. It wasn't to be underestimated as the building had numerous weapon emplacements and several large LRM batteries. It would need the full support of his heavy mechs to reduce the structure to rubble.
 
<<"Scout lance reporting, Durandel looks quiet.">>
 
It would, it looked like the traitors were trying to flee to the hills, delaying the inevitable. Still the town needed to be flattened or secured, especially the military facilities.
 
He spoke into his intercom "Eagle One here, Are the air defense turrets online?" They were a limited threat on their own, but the mix of LRMs and AC/2 guns meant the four turrets could pose a modest threat together. Equally they might be for show having stopped working years ago, that was far from unusual on a quiet world.
 
<<"No sign of movement around them or from them.">>
 
They were almost within their engagement range. Normally a unit would ignore the civilian structures and focus on securing the military facilities, today would be different. "Eagle one here. All units engage at will, energy weapons only unless you have military target."
 
One of his scout cars pulled to a stop ahead of him, it's co-driver standing up to study the town through his binoculars. He walked on past, the feet of his 'mech shaking the parked vehicle as he did so.
 
He charged up his PPCs and opened with one on the closest house to him. The massive energy impact saw the building explode in small pieces, there would have been no survivors. Other mechs started to follow suit and the town began disappearing one building at a time.
 
After the destruction of a dozen buildings he paused to let the heat build up dissipate. So far he had only seen a couple people running for cover and a cat, none had survived. "Scouts, this is Eagle one, have you seen any movement?"
 
Over the next two minutes there was a chorus of negatives and then. <<"Wait, fast moving drone approaching from the north.">> He rotated his cockpit and saw a stream of AC/2 shells being fired by the Rifleman. The drone weaved to the right and left dodging the bursts, then LRMs streaked towards it from multiple 'mechs and it's still flaming debris landed on the far side of the town.
 
The drone left him feeling an uneasy mix of shame and concern, shame to have been watched deliberately burning the homes, and a worry that the drone suggested the Grey Death Legion was somehow going to rejoin the fight despite their minimal assets.
 
He halted his 'mech in the middle of an empty street, around him were the remains of homes and people's scorched belongings. There was however an obvious absence of almost any civilian vehicles, their pre-battle flight had been remarkably thorough. That also left him disconcerted.
 
"Headquarters, this is Eagle One, do you read me?" The ECM units were switched off given the absence of actual fighting.
 
(("This is Headquarters, Eagle One, we hear you, signal is good."))
 
"What is the status of Boomerang one?"
 
(("Twenty minutes of loiter time remaining, Boomerang two will take off in ten minutes."))
 
"We had a fast drone approach from the north, could be vehicle launched."
 
(("HQ copies."))
 
"Increase the search radius and task the orbital dropships with searching for it's source, updates every thirty minutes." The sky was increasingly cloudy, so they were going to be very reliant upon aerial reconnaissance despite the best efforts of the dropship crew.
(("HQ copies, will report progress every half hour."))
An hour later and the small town was no more whilst the military facilities had all been secured. He would have demolished them too, but he didn't like the fact that Grey Death Legion were still in the field so felt he might yet need some of the repair facilities.
 
That only left Helmfast, the fortified structure that also served as the home to the landholder, a man so monstrous and evil that if the General didn't reach Sirius V in time he planned to cause a horrendous atrocity intended to spark another civil war.
 
"All Eagle call signs this is, Eagle One, we will begin our approach to Helmfast in minutes three zero." As with the town the orders were for no prisoners, that had been fairly easy in Durandel, but if the population was sheltering in Helmfast things would get difficult.
 
"Eagle one, this is Eagle two-one, switching to private channel." He sighed, once again the major from the Marik Guards would be looking to make life difficult. He switched over to the secondary channel.
 
>>"Hello Eagle one, my command is ready to proceed and ammo state is green."<<
 
"Well done, Eagle two-one, is there anything else to report." An ammo state could and should have been a standard public message.
 
>>"Yes, we are picking a up a repeating radio request to parlay, there are townsfolk in the fort and a unit has identified itself as being a company from the Eighteenth Marik Militia.<<
"I see"
 
>>"They asked what terms you are requesting, they are aware resistance is hopeless."<<
 
"Major, you are aware I gave you a direct order to take no prisoners and ignore communications from the enemy."
 
>>"I am within my rights to seek to avoid a blue on blue incident, you won't find a court martial on Atreus that will disagree."<< That was true, the Guards could and did get away with pretty much anything there, particularly if it involved alcohol.
 
"We're not on Atreus, and they can't reverse a firing squad."
 
>>"Colonel, I follow your orders under duress, this will be taken further."<<
 
"As long as you follow my orders I don't care."
----
Aboard the Grey Death Legion JumpShip, Invidious
Pirate Jump Point
Helm System, Free Worlds League
Four Hours Later
Grayson Carlyle and his deputy (and better half) were standing with the Captain on the somewhat cramped bridge of the JumpShip.
 
"I've got five IFF transponders at the main Jum Point, and three orbital dropship IFFs, all standard Marik military signatures." The Captain looked at his navigational map. "We are not transmitting ours, but we have several 'backup' ones I can use."
 
"I was expecting the Argo, the Hyperion and possibly a Marik military transport or some traders. Any sign of the Argo or Hyperion?"
 
"No, and we don't have good enough sensors to easily search for them." Warships in the old days had the sort of sensors that could quickly search large areas, his DropShips and JumpShip had pretty low tech equipment by comparison.
 
"Any thoughts?"
 
Lori sounded sad "We could be looking at another Civil War?"
 
"It's possible, and we are contracted directly by the Captain-General, so maybe we are being eliminated for that." It was sometimes called the 'Marik curse', that family just seemed to end up at war with itself on a regular basis, and it wasn't just the family, powerful nobles also waged private wars.
 
The ship's Captain didn't look convinced. "Sir, I don't want to talk us down, but Helm is isn't strategically valuable and we are very minor players. Those Marauders on the other hand could have upgraded our status to that of a target." They were also on a direct contract, well on a retainer, but on the other hand their deployment was supposed to be closely guarded secret.
 
Grayson looked around the command area. "Can you scan the frequencies for radio traffic?"
 
The Captain looked offended. "We are already on the case, there has been quite a lot that appeared encrypted."
 
"In battle code or electronic encryption."
 
The Captain looked at the pair of crewmen by the comms system. The more senior spoke for them both. "Most sounded like Electronic, it was quite faint, but there is a lot of it." The other one was focused on his headphones. "There has been in some in battle code, I don't have the code sheets to translate them though."
 
The crewman held up a hand to indicate a need for quiet, and started scribbling on a pad. That was what passed for signals interception on the Invidious. After several minutes. The man spoke. "I just picked up a conversation in clear from the spaceport tower to the JumpShip Rapacious, they confirmed arrival of a DropShip, the channel has gone silent now."
 
The Captain was typing the ship name into a database. Jump ship names were listed with their known employer, the information was in the public record as part of the trade off for them not being targeted during wars.
 
"The ship is currently listed as in service to the, the, Fifth Marik Guards. They are a regular unit, why would they be here?"
 
Lori spoke up "It could be a response to a Steiner raid." Lori looked like she was trying to estimate the odds of them being in system at the same time as a raid. "Though what House Steiner expects to steal from Helm is a puzzle."
 
Grayson thought back to the conversation Duke and the strange insistence that he was supposed to head to Atreus. He hadn't pushed the matter as he felt his sealed were pretty clear. "Let's look at it another way, we're supposed to be on the way to Atreus, and to be honest I left the slightly ambiguous impression we would follow those orders. As far as anyone knows we are either on Sirius V or in transit." He looked at the list of IFF transponders. "So for a variety of reason I now suspect that means these Marik units probably answer to the Duke, which means he wants something from Helm."
 
"Okay, but what?"
 
"I understand he would have preferred that Helm revert to him, instead the Captain General gave it to us, and not only that, the big man threatened to settle other companies there with us." The plan being to eventually have a well defended world with a mobile force that would keep House Steiner from raiding in the area. "I thought his dislike was sour grapes and would pass, but what if the Duke has an good idea about where the legendary Helm Cache is, not controlling the world would actually be pretty frustrating."
 
"Or the Marauders found it?"
 
"That would complicate the matter, in that case I think he might have had to tell the Captain General about it. No this feels like we were the obstacle."
 
The man listening to the radio piped up at that point. "Sir, there is a message in clear, putting on the speakers."
 
>)"This is Eagle four-four, I say again heavy jamming in effect, contact, wait out."(< Then there was a mix of crackling and silence whilst the the man shrugged as if to imply it wasn't his fault. The speakers blared again >)"This ** Eagle four-four, we are taking heavy fire, contact to *** North."(< Grayson looked around, Eagle was a pretty typical Marik regular unit callsign, and not one his force or the militia used, nor presumably the Marauders.
 
"Log any more transmissions." There was a nod. "That suggests they have decided to take on the Marauders for unknown reasons, that unit has an extensive ECM warfare suite, enough to force a regular unit to switch to clear on maximum transmission."
 
"Where would our force be sitting in this mess?"
 
"I don't know, but we could try narrow beam transmissions to the north of Durandel, that area is the sort of training space the Marauders would have been using. We have a selection of frequencies they use, and it sounds like somebody might be up there."
 
He pulled out a high altitude map of the area around Durandel, there was good terrain to the north for all sorts of training that his unit had used in the past, a nice mix of woods and open ground with a few scattered sheep ranches and mostly okay roads. He brushed the map with his fingertips trying to imagine what Edmund Blackadder would have been doing.
 
He looked at the road north, tracing his finger along it, and thought about how the situation might have developed. The Marauders were in the field training and they hear about a surprise raid. He looked at the mixture of pastures, woods and hills. No he thought, the raid isn't a surprise because that lostech ship has spotted it. And the reason their JumpShip isn't here is that it's already en route for help, and it had to leave because the raiders were not from House Steiner. He thought about the maps of the nearby systems, Solaris was easy to reach, and probably had a force sitting their waiting to deploy during their upcoming mega exercise. This however was a chance to catch and crush a House Marik regiment that had to nowhere to hide, and that would be tempting.
 
He looked around "Alright the situation is very bad, but perhaps not beyond recovery. I think the Marauders appearing were why that broadcast sounded scared, I don't think they were expected. More importantly there is a good chance House Steiner is going to crash the party." Something was bothering him, the Marauders could probably have evacuated, but they hadn't. There were not many situations that would tempt a mercenary unit to take on a much larger invasion force, and Edmund seemed very rational and was not under contract to defend Helm. 
 
Lori looked at him expectantly, probably praying for a plan that didn't rely upon hope. "I think the Duke has turned on us, we'll take the DropShips in and try and get everyone out." He looked at the Captain, "The Argo is probably lurking in system and they will need a ride out, they don't have much lift capacity, but the Argo can probably handle our dependents, and together we can do a joint evacuation." Unless of course that wasn't going to be necessary, but that wasn't something he was ready to suggest was the case to Lori.
 
The Captain looked thoughtful "What about this ship?"
 
"Prepare for another jump, tell me how soon you can be back and we'll arrange a meeting time and coordinates, we've done it before."
 
"That should work, Colonel."
"It's bare bones for now, but as we get in close we will start to find out what is going on and can firm things up." Ideally the Argo was in system and would make contact, that ship would need an exit route, or knew what was happening.
----
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