ALR (ATwT) Chpt 13

==A Legacy Reforged (ATwT) - Chapter 13 ==
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===Heavy Raid===
Running Battle, Great Southern Farmlands
Broken Wheel, Minette PDZ 
Crucis March, Federated Suns
11th August, 3119
During their spell detached from the Order of Sortek the lance of BattleMechs commanded by Leftenant Laure Bieganski had been charged by the Order with spreading their teachings and beliefs, training with locals and helping in the defense of the Federated Suns from outside threats should something happen when they were on world. On many worlds the simple presence of an additional lance of BattleMechs with their own DropShip made a lot of difference giving the local militia forces a boost in mobility. This wasn’t a huge issue on a world like Broken Wheel which had DropShips and heavy lift aircraft available but was always helpful to defenders.
While on the world of Broken Wheel the Order had successfully held several meetings with people and worked with the local Broken Wheel Training Battalion teaching them some of the drills which made the Order of Sortek such a successful combat unit. These drills focused on teamwork, covering each other, coordinating attacks and on the physical condition of troops all of which added to their effectiveness in battle and the survival rate of their troops. Laure’s people had passed on that training, practice and working as a team were key to success now however, she now in the heat of battle found herself alone and separated from the remaining two BattleMechs of her lance and she was being hunted by a BattleMech belonging to Clan Nova Cat.
In the early hours of the morning a raiding party had arrived with long range autocannon, missile and laser weapon attacks lighting up the night’s sky, there had been no traditional Clan Batchall just weapons fire which had been answered by their guard Mechs which included one of the Order of Sortek. During several hours of fighting which had followed these opening salvos one of her pilots Jean-Claude Galley had been shot out of his Cuirass BattleMech. The pilot had ejected safely and but the transmitter had failed on launch a search and rescue mission had been launched but it had taken several hours and he had only been found a short while ago still in his ejection seat killed on impact following a failed parachute.
Now Laure ran her Enforcer III hunting an injured Clan Nova Cat Piranha BattleMech, the Mech weighed in at half as much as her medium class machine but carried a fearsome amount of firepower twelve machine guns backed up by three lasers. The pilot had wiped out two platoons of the Training Battalion’s infantry and destroyed two vehicles before retreating as Laure’s BattleMech approached. Angered by the cowardly attack on the support forces Laure had pursued the Piranha into the darkness causing damage with a long-range laser shot as the light Mech retreated.
The two BattleMechs were running passive sensors attempting to catch each other out in the corn fields which they now walked through. The genetically modified corn stalks easily stood around eight meters high concealing the BattleMechs from each other visually until they were directly on top of each other. It was down to wits and chance who the victor would be, despite her Mech’s superior size over the Clan BattleMech one attack could change everything due to the tech advantage Clan technology held. The Clans were the descendants of the Star League forces, which in her home universe had fueled the power of the Terran Supremacy, while the Supremacy had made advances war had kept them even with the rest of the Inner Sphere. In this universe the Clan isolation and focus on individual combat and the excellence of being a warrior had led to impressive weapon, equipment, and armor advancements. Following the invasion by the Clans fifty years ago had led to advancements to counter the invaders advances, she wondered what would have happened in her universe if there had not been the Fifth Succession War.
Suddenly, the left-hand side of her BattleMech’s armor registered damage and she heard the ferocious roar of machine gun fire tearing into the Enforcer III’s armored hide, knowing the potential of the Mech she faced Laure decided not to take the chance of trying to resist the damage she cursed and launched the fifty-ton BattleMech into the air on its jump jets escaping the attack just as two opal-colored heavy lasers and more machine gun fire tore through the place her BattleMech had been in. Laure controlled the short jump her Enforcer had made coming to land inside the corn field and turned again to hunt her pray, round one to the Clan MechWarrior.
The Enforcer III had taken light damage from the ambush and fortunately nothing critical had been damaged but she had surrendered the initiative against the enemy Mech. Standing in the cornfield Laure decided to leverage one advantage she did hold turning her Mech back towards her former location she pointed the BattleMech’s ultra-autocannon left arm and triggered a burst of fire through the cornfield firing blindly, she knew she had ammunition to spare and one lucky hit would cripple the Piranha. The weapons fire was a distraction though she had another advantage over the Clan Mech and saw that the Enforcer III’s jump jets had recharged she toggled the controls of the Mech’s jets firing them at less than a fifth of their maximum potential making the fifty-ton BattleMech hop into the air on a cushion of fire over the dry cornfield.
At full power the jump jets would incinerate the crops but at this power they had a different effect starting a fire with the fuel around her Mech. The fire would likely consume the entire field of corn and hopefully drive the Piranha in the direction she wanted it to go. The Enforcer III’s double heat sinks would help resist the increased heat caused by the fire while she knew the enemy Mech only used single heat sinks which would put it at a disadvantage. Setting fire to crops to win a battle was not the honorable thing to do but the greatest honor was to win, should she be asked about how the fire started she would inform anyone who asked that it was an accident they were the only two warriors out here and only she would be walking out of the battle.
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For thirty minutes, the fire continued to build and the two BattleMechs continued to duel Laure had been able to catch the lighter Piranha unaware with her large laser and she had burned through the connections which held the Clan Mech’s left arm reducing it, and the laser there, to a useless piece of slag metal. The Piranha had returned fire with its single remaining laser causing armour damage but Laure had kept her Enforcer III out of the range of the Piranha’s machine gun salvo which the Clan warrior had fired in frustration filling the air around the Enforcer III as she retreated into the flames.
The final moments of the battle had come as a surprise to both warriors fighting exhaustion and heat build-up the Piranha pilot stumbled upon Laure’s Enforcer III hitting it with its remaining lasers and machine guns devastating the fifty-ton BattleMech’s armor and damaging the large laser and destroying the Mech’s medium laser at near point-blank range. The Enforcer had weathered the assault though and replied with an equally devastating blow with autocannon fire at point blank range which had gutted the Piranha’s torso shattering links between the fusion engine and the Mech’s other systems. Without power the Piranha had fallen to the ground and was consumed with fire. Unable to escape the flames from their prone BattleMech the Nova Cat warrior was consumed by the fire.
With her Enforcer’s battle records “unfortunately corrupted” by damage caused during the battle Laure was cleared of wrongdoing and the fire, which burned for three days after the battle, was put down to being started incidentally during the fighting. The fire had destroyed the cornfield she had fought in and had burned through several acres in every direction, the people of Broken Wheel would foot the cost for the damage and the recovery, but she had been victorious and that was all that mattered for a member of Warrior House Sortek. Despite its “friendly-trappings” of the Order of Sortek Larie Bieganski had been born into the unit and raised with the full knowledge and upbringing which had been instilled in the unit when it was part of the Confederated Suns and was a fanatical believer in the ends justified the means when it came to victory.
Following the battle Laure learned that another of her warriors Ted Souffrant had been killed in the cockpit of his Caesar which had also been destroyed during the battle reducing her lance to two battered BattleMechs and one wrecked Cuirass with no pilot. To rebuild her unit and continue her mission Laure chose to promote a trainee Charlie Johnston to the position of pilot of the Cuirass while also recruiting an independent MechWarrior Lena Hurst and her Watchman BattleMech, to the command. Hurst would be trained in the way of the Order while serving as a MechWarrior which was a break from protocol but required for the current situation. Additionally, the lance brought in two members of the local training battalion as trainees who would be inducted into the order and trained as future pilots.
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Chapter 13