CHS4-19

==Chapter Nineteen - Book 4 – Chappy's Howling Siegers==
<<Previous Chapter - Chapter Index - Next Chapter>>
-----
===Suns on the Move===
Operation Dragons Tail
36th Avalon Hussars
Huan inbound
Huan, Draconis Combine
April 11th, 3030
-----
Local Time: 09:00 GST
Due to transport difficulty and availability the 36th Avalon Hussars were already a month and a half behind schedule. It’s been three months since the operation officially started, and already ten Kurita planets and seventeen Capellan planets has fallen to the AFFS. In a surprising turn of events that no one, except maybe the First Prince, expected was how successful the new nation called Federation of Freedom was. Kurita and Capellan were still stunned about the recent outcome of events, but General Skidmore knew that they would overcome the shock and strike back.
Intel Reports were finally accurate as the DropShips sped closer to the planet the communication specialist was able to hack into the network and took over all live feeds. As the DropShips came closer to the planet the General noticed and confirmed with the flight deck that the enemy was not going to meet them in space. “Kaptain Lugin, General Skidmore, I want to change the plan everyone holds up here except for the Golden Harp and the Atreides we will go down and secure the landing Zone all Aerospace Fighters accompany us to the ground.” “Roger Leftenant General understood and redeploying” the Kaptain said.
“General three squadrons of fighters are coming from the southeast, but they are too far away we should be ready to drop you in 2 mics.” A voice from the radio said, “Roger that flight deck”, so it begins finally, the General swapped her radio settings. “Ok nuggets let’s get on the ground and secure this landing zone. Intel and satellite feeds show three squadrons of fighters coming, a company of mechs, troops, turrets, and also a company size security force for the factory. Time to jump out and take a victory for the 36th Avalon Hussars.” As they started the jump, flack started to pound the air around the 'mechs then the DropShip Golden Harp announced, “problem on bay two door will try to correct limited drops for now.”
More mechs were dropping and the General could feel the tide turning as if there was ever a chance that the militia here on Huan had a chance anyway. Then as the moment of thought pass, Hauptmann Benetti got the first kill when his PPC stuck the Dragon in front of him right through its head as the ;mech started to fall she could hear Benetti whoop a cry of joy.
The Colonel notice that the militia was trying to form two fire lines one east and one south “32nd Company move south take out their line, command company take out the east fire line.” The Colonel announced as she moved her 'mech towards the east line. The mechs in her unit start to focus on their objectives the militia 'mechs started to show signs of breaking in the east, a marauder went down and three others were prone. Unfortunately, the south side fire wall was standing tall, and was giving her guys a very hard time of it.
The militia fire line finally broke in the north and with that all the militia forces started to pull out of the area. Helicopters broke from the south going north keeping the buildings as their cover when they finally came across the final building the General was startled for a second until she realized they were M.A.S.H. transports. “All units do not fire on the transports in front of us they are MASH” she said over the comm channel.
It was slow going through the outskirts of the town, the General had strict orders to limit the damage done by her unit, so even though she could see the infantry moving in and out of the buildings trying to escape she gave no orders to attack. Now that the militia was just infantry and gun placements, she turned her focus on the main object…the water factory.
Fifteen minutes had past, and her unit was still not to the other side of the city, they encounter something that was not in the Intel brief, mines, the militia had buried mines on the north and south side of the city she lost three 'mechs due to leg injuries before they realized this new threat. With her standing orders she had to go through the mines or waste more time by going around the mines away from the city. Finally, though they made it around the corner only to be met by ten UrbanMechs all with AC/10s and all firing at them. After the initial attack that left her and a couple of others with one of their arms destroyed the General went across the radio. “Hussars, rush them lets finish this now.” That is when the other company of BattleMechs emerged on the south side and started to fire at the UrbanMechs. The enemy saw that they were being pinched from the north and south so when three of their ten mechs went down they turned and ran away. “Factory is ours good job, now let’s clean up and get ready for the next phase in action.” General Skidmore said.
----
===Mauled but Alive===
Operation Dragons Tail - 36th Avalon Hussars
Planetsector 1307 - Draconis Combine Territory
Huan, Draconis Combine
April 19th, 3030
-----
General Skidmore was examining the work being done in the water bottling factory when her aid Sergeant Stanescu showed up with a communique. “Sir, this just came in for you.” “Thank you, Sergeant,”, the general said. As she opened the communique, she saw a most unsuspected surprise. The Intel dept. discovered a warehouse district by the docks full of army surplus supplies on the coastline in the small town of called Harmi Grundnelse Deheges. Perfect, she thought we need parts and supplies to bad the Intel was fuzzy on what type of supplies are in the warehouses. The General looked at the roster and the battle readiness status on her noteputer, the 2nd battalion was full up, of course that unit would be, she is slightly torn though without full Intel on the enemies’ size and what is in the warehouses she could be sending some of her men to their deaths for no reason. Especially Cisco, she had already placed the 2nd Battalion for the mission but during the journey to Huan she discovered that she had feelings for Lt. Colonel Cisco Romero, not that she would ever say anything to anyone nor tell him. She had work too hard to get where she is to throw it all away on passion, and she did not like this feeling of despair sending him into battle, but she will and she must, so part of the 2nd Battalion will go and capture the town with the warehouses intact. 21st Company to be exact but if she knows Cisco, he will take his command lance with them to get some kills of his own.
----
Few hours later
Local Time: 16:00 GST
Cisco sat in his mech about 20 miles outside the town of Harmi waiting on a scouting report from the recon unit about the size of the enemy forces and hopefully where they were located. For four years he has been with the 36th Avalon Hussars and for three years he has been in love or lust, whatever, with his commanding officer. Sometimes being in the military sucks, or he should say being an officer sucks the enlisted have relations like bunnies throughout their rank structure, but heaven forbid an officer having feelings for another officer of a different rank or for an enlisted for that matter. Oh well Cisco thought at least now he is in charge of a full battalion, and he was antsy waiting there for a recon report.
Hauptmann Moore, pilot of a Marten Scout VTOL scouted the city and port district for the upcoming battle. As she looked over the sensors she determine that there was at least six Battlemechs of various sizes and about two company size infantry units with some turrets, ok town scouted, she turned on her tight laser beam radio “Shade, Eagle mission complete RTB” , <<“Roger, Eagle RTB”>> Leftenant Tiel said. 
Leftenant Tiel was the pilot of a Nightshade ECM VTOL that was covering Moore’s six, as they both turned and headed back to base all Moore could think about is how easy this upcoming battle was going to be for the stud muffin commander of the 2nd Battalion. Two minutes later as she flew over the 21st Company that was waiting for her report she sent a burst message to Lt. Col Romero detailing all the information discovered on the recon mission. She ended the message saying “I would say good luck but I don’t think you will need it.”
As Lt. Col. Romero watched the three VTOLs of the scout lance from the VTOL command unit fly by he received his long awaited report. Romero just shook his head as he finished it, and said to himself, VTOL pilots are too stupid to understand that all it takes is one lucky shot to end your life on an easy mission, maybe that is why they can fly those things into battle they are too stupid to know any better, give me a 100-ton Battlemech any day. he thought to himself. He then switched his radio to the command freq, “Jean, we are a go get your company ready.” <<“Roger Colonel”>> Hauptmann Jean Lenoir replied.
----
Sho-Sa Maresuke Carras of the Huan Planetary Defense Force was as he put it very unfortunate, he had only 7 mechs including himself two lances of turrets and what was left of the infantry from the failed defense of the enemies landing zone. Now scouts (mainly civilians) report a part of the enemy’s force was marching this way. The only reason he was here was to ensure that the warehouse stock was moved to the cargo ships, which had not arrived yet. So, in a move of desperation Carras gathered as many trucks as he could so that they could be slowly loaded now, in hopes that they could get free before the attack began.
Col. Romero order half his forces over the river, about 10 clicks out, that way the goal of taking over the ports and blocking any escape would happen quicker.
Sho-Sa Carras saw the enemy coming in from the north but unfortunately another blow to him in defending this town, they were coming in from both sides of the river.
As Col Romero’s unit entered the town his mechs started to rain pain down on the militia units then Leftenant Johansen got a head shot on a dragon and down it went. 
He must have been their commander because any coordination if any ceased to stop with the militia. On the other side of the river another militia unit was destroyed.
Sho-Sa Carras an instant before the laser hit saw that this was going to be the end of his Dragon, so he punched out barely making it out the mech, all was doom, of course he thought as the ejection system took him away from the destroyed mech, it was doomed the minute the enemy landed on Huan.
As more of the militia Battlemechs were destroyed more chaos was happening infantry broke from their protective embankments in the buildings and ended up being mowed down. Everything was looking good, Col Romero thought except for one thing, the trucks that were leaving the dock area trying to escape. “All units, we need to focus our efforts on the trucks that are trying to leave I don’t want them destroyed just stopped, they may have the supplies we came to get.” As the unit shifted focus from the two-remaining militia mechs to the trucks they started to fire all their missiles and energy weapons at the trees and ground in front of the path that the trucks were taking forcing the drivers to stop and surrender.
Sho-sa Carras failed, he knew that failure was his destiny when the enemy showed up two days before they were supposed to. He had hoped to save his honor by getting the flatbed trucks filled with the supplies out of town and away from the Davion invaders, but he failed at that. Honor was lost, his 'mech was lost, all but a handful of infantry men and one mech lost, now his life is lost as he placed his katana hilt on the ground with the blade up and lunged on it causing the blade to to slice through his stomach and severing his lower vertebrae in two, within seconds he died.
Lt. Col. Romero looked at the supplies from both the warehouses and the trucks he recovered, two warehouse were completely empty, assuming that the flatbed trucks were carrying all the parts from those warehouses they recovered about 70% with the others destroyed from battle damage. Two other warehouses had engine supplies in them. In all only one of his Battlemechs was destroyed, but all MechWarriors survived. Very successful mission, even if he himself had only one kill.
-----
<<Previous Chapter - Chapter Index - Next Chapter>>
Book 4 - Chapter 19