SotU3 Chpt 16

=Chapter 16=
==State of the Union - Book 3==
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Ruatha Petrochemicals Plant, Goat Path
Clan Jade Falcon Occupation Zone, Federated Commonwealth
October 15th, 3067
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In the 3040s the AFFC had considered - or so Sabine Steiner had been told at her grandmother’s knee - instituting a regulation that officers ranked Colonel or higher should not take to the field in Battlemechs. The logic was widely agreed to be sound: management of a regiment or even a battalion largely required a commander’s full attention, which was somewhat difficult to arrange if you were concerned with being shot at, much less shooting back. Rumor had it that Melissa Steiner-Davion had championed it, and Hanse Davion opposed it - both for reasons more personal than political.
Ultimately, the regulation hadn’t been instituted simply because issuing orders that you knew would not be obeyed was corrosive to good discipline.
Sabine had found herself in live combat far more often since she was promoted to General than before. She wondered, at times, if that meant she was doing something wrong.
Right now she was more concerned with keeping the enemy Black Lanner from getting around behind her, than with rehashing the debate; but the thought was pernicious in its demands for her attention. Her Barghest had formidable mobility and firepower, but like any quadrupedal ‘Mech, it couldn’t bring arm-mounted weapons to bear behind it - after all, it had no arms.
That, however, was why ‘Mechs operated in lances and - seeing Mavis Summers’ own Barghest bounding towards her - Sabine switched targets and focused on the Shadow Cat that was dangerously close to getting into the sergeant’s blind-spot.
The agile omnimech - probably salvaged from the war in which the Jade Falcons expelled Clan Steel Viper from the Inner Sphere - hopped aside as Sabine fired one of her lasers. However, she’d expected that and had held her fire from the autocannon on the other side of her ‘Mech.
The Defiance Disintegrator autocannon lived up to its name as the Shadow Cat’s left arm was ripped away by the large caliber shells, halving it’s armament in an instant. It still pummeled the left rear hip of Mavis’ ‘Mech with its remaining missile launcher before bounding away and evading the fire of the second large laser. 
In return, Mavis speared the Black Lanner with the extended range PPC mounted where Sabine carried twin lasers. The fifty-five ton ‘Mech rode the impact as the shot carved a long but shallow trench along the side of its narrow torso section.
The mechwarrior must have been inexperienced, for she wavered between continuing to engage Sabine or switching to this new threat. Any decision would have been better than none, Sabine slipped aside, and let Mavis close in, almost burying the muzzle of her autocannon against the medium omnimech’s side before she fired it.
Unlike the Defiance Disintegrator on Sabine’s ‘Mech, Mavis’ variant on the Barghest mounted a Defiance Thunder - trading the flexibility of cluster ammunition for double the rate of fire. The jamming that was impeding Sabine’s ability to communicate with the rest of the 20th Avalon Hussars was cut off as the thundering cannon hammered depleted uranium through both the shoulder supporting the Black Lanner’s own PPC and the cockpit assembly.
Seeing that it was outnumbered, the Shadow Cat fled.
“Give chase?” suggested Mavis, back-stepping her Barghest in case the Black Lanner’s fusion reactor had been ruptured - the blast damage wouldn’t be as bad as holodramas liked to make out but it would be hot and ‘Mech myomers reacted poorly to high temperatures.
“No.” Sabine checked her ‘Mech’s condition in case she’d missed something in the rush of combat. Armour damage, but nothing she couldn’t live with for now. “We need to regroup.”
Unfortunately, her options for a command center were limited. Most of the Hussar’s dropships, including the Belle Isla, had been ferrying armored troops back and forth around the planet as they tried to impose some order after the abrupt removal of the Jade Falcon governor and his support. And while the administrative buildings were adequate for the paperwork side of Sabine’s job, they weren’t a secure bunker.
It had been a deeply inconvenient moment for the Jade Falcons to send a relief force. Not that there had been anything much left for them to relieve.
“Baker company, this is General Steiner.” Sabine warned tersely, checking which unit was nearest. “I’m moving to join you, unless you’ve got a very good reason to, don’t go anywhere before I reach you.”
“Confirmed, General. The Falcons made a push earlier, but we’re holding nicely now.”
The two Barghests loped side-by-side up the slope towards the high ground that Baker company was holding. The hill had been partially excavated at some point, leaving a sheltered hollow section at the top that made decent firing positions for Mechs to interdict traffic trying to go through the low ground on either side.
Why the hill was dug out like that, she didn’t know. There was a chemical plant nearby, perhaps it had been intended to site some sort of facility up on the hill. But it was handy now and that was what mattered.
It had been a calculated risk to leave the nearby town - where Sabine had been meeting with such civic leaders as had survived the occupation and liberation - and try to reach Baker Company. The cost had been both the other ‘Mechs escorting her, but given that the Falcons clearly had skirmishers out, getting caught in the town could have been bad.
“This is not what I need to get this planet pacified.” she muttered to herself. The number of alleged collaborators who’d had untimely ends would have been horrific, if it wasn’t so common that it had become banal. Sabine was morally certain that more than half of them were simply people taking the opportunity to settle old scores and perceived wrongs, but she didn’t have the policing infrastructure to prove that.
Among the things that the Jade Falcons didn’t feel that a local police department needed financing for was a dedicated forensics lab. There had been one - one! - maintained at the planetary capital, but that had been firebombed in one of the ‘retributions’ for the police’s support for the Falcons so currently there was no forensics capacity on Goat Path at all.
On the one hand, Sabine didn’t see that the police had had a lot of choice on the matter. On the other hand, police were comparatively high status in Clan society, technically part of the warrior caste. It would have been against all human nature if literally none of them had abused that.
“If the Falcons had been two weeks later, they would have been someone else’s problem.” Mavis agreed as they climbed the last slope.
A pair of Enforcers (older models, rather than the new Enforcer III, but refitted and upgraded) covered the Barghests as they entered the position. While they were massively outweighed, the medium ‘Mechs had enough firepower to at least buy time for the rest of the company if they’d been hostile.
Once codes were exchanged, one of the Enforcers waved them through and Sabine moved her ‘Mech up behind one of the boulders and locked the limbs. No longer needing her gyro and neurohelmet to keep it from falling over, the blonde removed the latter, unbuckled and stretched for the first time in what seemed like days rather than hours.
She used a rag to wipe her face and hands before strapping herself down again. Who knew if she might need to fight again on short notice? “Captain Zibler?” she enquired, remembering the name of Baker company’s commander at the last moment. “How are your troops doing?”
“One ‘Mech down, no serious injuries.” the young man declared. “I sent him back to the plant with his ‘Mech - it’d just be in the way and we can’t exactly re-attach the legs here.”
Sabine wasn’t going to ask why one of the company’s ‘Mechs was missing both legs. She could understand one of the hips or thighs taking weapon damage, but both? Well, strange things happened sometimes.
“How about supplies?”
“We’re alright ourselves - I had everyone restock their cockpits when it looked like we’d be moving on.” Zibler was matter-of-fact about it, although Sabine hadn’t got around to ordering it as a general measure. That spoke well of him. “The infantry aren’t so well off though - they don’t carry as much as we do as a matter of course. I sent them back to set up shop at the plant and see if they can requisition supplies from the town further up.”
That seemed to make sense. “Are we going to have to honor promissory notes?”
“I don’t think so.” the captain told her. “We had a bag of Falcon currency set aside, and even if it’s not legal tender in the Commonwealth, it is made of gold.” He then changed the subject, as if concerned that Sabine might ask how exactly he’d come by a bag of Clan-issued coins. (She had no plans to. It wasn’t as if the Jade Falcon banking system was any concern of hers, it was pocket change by the standards of military and as long as no one was knifed over the money it did no harm to her command). “Do we have any idea who we’re fighting?”
“I’m about to look into that.”
Matching action to her words, Sabine uploaded her combat data for transmission and checked for a suitable satellite. Fortunately, the Jade Falcons hadn’t swept the sky clear of the thin network of coverage that the Hussars had established on her arrival, so she was able to bounce a message off one to her intelligence section and get a reply within minutes.
“Interesting.” she observed once the report came back. “The ‘Mechs that Mavis and I encountered had the markings of two different units: the Twelfth Falcon Regulars and the Jade Falcon Eyrie Cluster.”
“Isn’t that last one a training command?” asked Zibler.
“It is. And they’re both with Rho Galaxy, which was on Blue Hole according to our last data.” Sabine considered that. “I believe… yes, both of those Clusters were identified as present. So there’s a very good chance that the Falcons may have pulled back from their own offensive in order to respond to our presence.”
It would be interesting to know if these were the only two Clusters on the planet, she thought. It was possible that the Eyrie markings represented not the full unit but that the Mechwarrior in the Black Lanner had been recently transferred across to the Regulars as a ‘graduate’. The Eyries functioned much like the cadet cadres of the AFFC: in the event that they saw action alongside a regular unit, the more proficient of their personnel would be raided to keep the frontline regiments viable. After all, there would be more cadets along as soon as the next academy classes graduated. It had happened during the civil war - the First NAIS Cadet Cadre had contributed heavily to forming the Fifth Royal Guards and to rebuilding the Davion Guards units that fought on New Avalon.
In the best case scenario, that could mean that the Hussars were only facing a single Cluster of Jade Falcons. Sabine sent back a request to be notified if any additional unit markings were observed.
“What’s the plan?” Mavis asked impudently. She wasn’t in the chain of command, more of a bodyguard than a member of Sabine’s staff. She was very good at her job though.
“For now.” Sabine told her, “We’ll focus on reassembling our forces into useful battle groups and gathering information on their numbers. The Falcons aren’t as constrained by the terrain as we are, since they don’t have many ground vehicles to begin with. If the numbers are in our favour, I’m happy to fight here rather than withdrawing.”
“As simple as that?”
“As simple as that.” the general agreed. “Our goal isn’t so much the territory as to winnow down the Jade Falcon’s touman. Since they’re here, it’s a matter of fighting them on the most advantageous terms. Convenient of them to come to us rather than making us go looking.”
She was confident that those insouciant remarks would be much repeated among the troopers. Good for morale. It wouldn’t do to let people think that the Archon-Prince’s plans for a counter-offensive might be falling apart after only a couple of months.
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