CHS4-29

==Chapter Twenty-Ninth - Book 4 – Chappy's Howling Siegers==
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===Dealing with Boredom on the Eve of Action ===
Mobile Base Alpha - Col Scragg office
Mitchella, Remains of Outworlds Alliance
18th Sept, 3030
Colonel Scragg sat there at her desk flipping a pen up in the air and catching it. She was bored, per the combat plans that General Chapman devised there were certain objectives laid out for each unit, since her unit took all the objectives in the first day that was supposed to take a week her unit had to wait, so there she was pushing paper instead of fighting and damn it she was a warrior not a secretary. 
A week of sitting here making sure damage repair, salvage was going smoothly, talking to the prisoners that have the potential one day of being a warrior for the Federation, and of course this flipping pen in the air, was making her to fall asleep blah. Her communicator beeped.
 
“Sir, Duncan’s Renegades are inbound and will engage the enemy in about 2 hours.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant, inform all commanders that the operation is a go, round them up and head out.”
“Colonel, have you looked outside lately?”
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===Planetary Assault===
Duncan Renegades 4th Combat Group HQ Force
DropShip Zion
Col Robert Geddes Private Quarters
In bound to Mitchella
Colonel Geddes sat there as the dropship moved through the solar system inbound to Mitchella. He had been with the Duncan Renegades since the beginning, a close confidant to the leader Duncan Bovet he was against leaving the merc life and becoming a house unit. In the end though Duncan choice was to follow a childhood friend in his quest of a better life for the little people. Rules and regulations are what he did not like, but he had to admit since joining this Federation all of the equipment was like new, they also had an influx of personnel into all the combat groups, how this Chapman dude made it all happen Rob was not for sure, but it was defiantly a perk. As long as he got paid, he did not care who he worked for, just some of those rules pissed him off.
 
//“Attention crew and passengers, we have reached the planet all personnel to their assigned duties, all passengers to your units we will commence the Assault Drop in two hours.”\\ Came the announcement over the intercom. Colonel unstrapped himself and made his way to the door while opening a com line to his XO Lt. Col. Lisa Able, “Lisa, let’s do the drop by the book.”
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10 minutes from Assault Drop
Col Geddes looked out at the computer projected view of the battlefield, “Renegades follow the battleplan nothing has changed good luck good hunting.”
As the three dropships made their way to the fort the two Aerospace Squadrons launched from the dropship Janus, a Vengeance Class Fighter Carrier capable of carrying 40 fighters sadly Geddes thought he only had 12 under his command.
The fighters made their initial run, they were able to take out two Weapons Carriers and a Crab. Everything was going until the Dropship Sigil had a malfunction in one of the mech bays and a forth of its drop capability went away. Luckily half of the company had already exited the dropship via combat assault.
But in a move that is standard in the philosophy of Duncan’s and Chappy’s but considered bold and dangerous both of the Renegade dropships moved into the base and landed crushing several enemy 'mechs that could not get out of the way.
As the battle continued to wage, the strafing runs by the Renegades took its toll on the planet defenses, with each pass more Battlemechs or tanks laid in a heap of damage twisted metal.
The commander of the base sounded the retreat and VTOL transports started to pick up the ground troop to carry them to safety while the Militia moved their tanks up as the rest of the Federation forces poured into the front gates of the base.
Director Benzine, commander of the Alliance Borderers ordered all mechs to engage with the enemy to allow the troops and VIP members to get away. The tank company from the militia did the same. With their action, most of Troop H escape but only a forth from Troop F got away along with the mayor of the local town and president of the factory site just outside of the base. It was a heavy cost for the planetary defenders in the end most of the mechs and tanks were lost along with the crew that manned them, including Director Benzine when a PPC ripped through his Raven torso and head killing him instantly minutes after giving the order to stand their ground. For the Federation forces, Colonel Geddes lost his Rifleman, but he sustained no injuries, he did however lose three MechWarriors and a couple of fighter pilots, overall though he deemed it a success.
 
There were two other DropZone landings for the 4th Duncan Renegades Combat Group. The second one was just 50 miles up the road at an Airbase now just housing some mobile infantry and mechs since most of the fighters were destroyed already on planet. Captain Jean-Pierre Clement commander of Alpha Company was in charge of taking the base. The defenders there were bold though and advanced on the DropShip, Captain Clement changed the orders from Assault Drop to landing the ship and un-board that way, the reason being was the dropship can dispatch more units on the ground than the air and with the planetary defenses moving toward them he needed all the firepower he could muster. As the battle progressed the numbers for the Renegades started to outweigh the enemy. The Renegades artillery pounded the planet’s infantry, with the weapon power of the DropShip the planet defense crumbled.
The other DropZone was about 100 miles southeast in a small town called Marion City, the reason for this Assault was that a major factory laid between the city and the ocean. Major Dave Macllvain commander of the Beta Company dropped out first along with several infantry troops that is when everything started to go wrong.
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===Landings in Marion City===
Michelle Base - Longshots HQ
Marion City
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Section Leader Betty Foster's prescriptive
Once high command confirmed that a DropShip was headed to Marion City Section Leader Foster started to come up with solutions. She could retreat, but then they might hang her. She could surrender, rumor was that prisoners were treated very good but that did not sound good either. The third option and really the only option was to stand and fight. As the DropShip came into view, she notice it was an Excalibur Class Combine Arms DropShip with her extensive training she knew that it could only drop one mech at a time in the air, but several could exit at the same time once it landed. She contacted her best gunner, “Ortiz, front and center, you need to pick a focal point on the engines and take that son-of-bitch out. Everyone else fire at that DropShip now!!!.”
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DropShip Rising Ambition
The first weapon hit on the Rising Ambition, Lt. McNeany was not concern after the third and fourth one he saw his error and tried to correct course and order the pilot to gain altitude right then a series of AC rounds went thru the engine destroying it causing the massive ship to crash land. With the crash landing, it caused all mech bays and cargo bays damage to the point that they would not open. The next round of missiles and lasers caused the ship to exploded killing almost everyone on board. The survivors quickly made a hastily retreat.
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===Three Options===
Mobile Base Alpha - Col Scragg office
Mitchella, Remains of Outworlds Alliance
19th Sept, 3030
All that wait for the Renegades for what, a mix result. She really wanted that factory, and control of another continent, now satellite shows that units from the west of Fort Stewart and the enemy units from Marion are chasing what was left of Beta Company. With a major storm brewing over head all flights have been cancelled for three days. The weather forecasters reported the storm was going continue three days of rain, wind, and hail.
On the other side of the mobile base stood the hospital, it had been several days since Yoofi injury and capture, but she really did not feel like a prisoner. All the staff treated her and the rest of the Alliance troops with respect and honor. She did notice that there was a sort of segregation of sorts, almost half of the original prisoners were placed elsewhere when she finally got the courage to ask where they had taken them, fearing the worse answer possible she cringed but the doctor turned to her and said, “we separated the discontents with the guest that may be more open into becoming a part of the great experiment. Both populations get the exact same treatment, the only thing different is when asked about personal or political questions we take more time to talk to one group. They also get access to the library full of categories of subjects, even the declassified accounts of this war. Not just the battles but also the aftermath accounts from personal logs made public and local and regional news sources.”
She thought about it then asked one more question, “What if after I am fully recovered, I don’t want to talk about the Federation anymore?”
The doctor walked backed to her sat down at the end of the bed. “As I see it you have three options, first one is to remain committed to the Alliance idea of thinking you will then be held as a POW, when fully recovered shipped back to the prisoner camp on Kinkaid until the end of the war. The second option is to declare non-allegiance to everyone in which case after we have claimed victory here on Mitchella you will be released back to the population, as a civilian. The third option has three paths, first you decide you want to be part of the Federation, depending on what your goals are, you could be place into public service, placed in the militia that we will stand up and stay here on Mitchella, or receive an assignment with one of our units, there are over 20 now fully active with several more on the books. So ultimately the decision is yours.”
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Book 4 - Chapter 29