FuH Chapter 9

=Fighting Uphill - Chapter 9=
==* Holes That Need Filling​​ *==
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===Dragoons meet Lyrans on the Battlefield===
2nd September, 3010
Harmony
Free Worlds League
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It was strange being the front line, Colonel Frank Wells thought.
Frank's Zeta Battalion was the Dragoon's premiere assault mech unit. Zeta did not do fancy divide and conquer tactics that other Dragoon units might. They did not split up to cover multiple objectives and risk being defeated in detail. No, the key to Zeta Battalion's success was that they always massed up and fought together, depending on their superior skill and superior weight of metal to carry the day.
The problem now was that Lyran Regulars fought exactly the same way. And if the Lyrans hadn't brought superior skill to the planet of Harmony, they had most certainly brought superior weight in Battlemechs.
The Dragoons had run into superheavy class mechs before, mechs that were heavier than one hundred tons that had once been considered the maximum weight a mech could be. They were certainly big and scary, but they had only been encountered in ones and twos, usually battalion or even regimental command mechs and their escorts. They had also been as slow and sluggish as Frank's Annihilator, their great weight making any engine powerful enough to move them faster to be prohibitively costly in terms of design trade offs. Combined with the heaviest superheavy mech being only a hundred and thirty tons, that made their battlefield value highly questionable.
Which made running into this Lyran superheavy battalion such an unpleasant surprise for Zeta Battalion. There were at least thirty superheavy mechs, all of them at least one hundred and fifty tons and most heavier still, and worst of all, they were fast, as fast as the average assault mech able to walk at thirty six kph and run at fifty four kph. That meant Zeta couldn't even use superior mobility tactics because they didn't have superior mobility. The only reason Zeta Battalion had not been instantly annihilated was because the Lyrans were comparatively poor shots, strictly average for the Inner Sphere going by their hit percentages so far. But Zeta's assault mechs weren't exactly difficult targets, and the Lyrans had much more firepower to throw down range than Zeta Battalion did.
As a result, Zeta Battalion had found itself fighting a grueling retreating action, trying to hold the range open to maximize their superior gunnery skills. But the Lyrans could advance faster than Zeta could retreat, which meant Zeta was fighting at ranges closer than they'd like.
Which brought Frank Wells to where he was now. He had decided that Zeta Battalion needed time and space to open up the range, perhaps even break contact even though it would be humiliating to defeated at their own game. So in order to do that Frank had formed up all of Zeta's Annihilators, thirteen in all, as a battle line to hold off the Lyrans while the rest of Zeta retreated and formed back up. The Annihilators were all relatively intact compared to the rest of Zeta, but their armor was thin compared to most other one hundred tonners and Frank didn't really expect them to last long against the Lyrans. But they only had to last long enough.
The last of Zeta's faster assault mechs slipped past Frank's battle line, and the Lyrans finally deigned to notice them. Leading the Lyrans were a pack of superheavies that bore an uncanny resemblance to a Clan Stone Rhino, except for being bigger, their three Gauss Rifles all being torso mounted, and their arms each sporting a quartet of medium lasers; Frank's updated Warbook identified them as "Behemoths". Beyond them were more and bigger mechs, including a lance of three legged once that were flinging full up artillery shells at the retreating Dragoons.
Frank's battle line didn't even need orders. Even as missiles, beams, and Gauss rounds flew past them and even hit a few of them, the Annihilators all opened fire on the leading Lyrans.
"Stavag!" Major Natasha Kerensky cursed as she finished off the last mercenary Locust with twin ER PPC shots up its reflective armored backside. Natasha did not know who these other mercenaries were or who they worked for, but right now, she didn't really care. All Natasha cared about was that these Inner Sphere surats had slowed her own battalion down from going to Zeta Battalion's aid.
The Dragoons weren't even supposed to be fighting Lyrans here on Harmony. They were here for the Draconis Combine backed Anton Marik that Capellan intelligence had said would be touring Harmony's Smithies with only a company or two of FWLM and DCMS regulars as his body guard detail. Senior Colonel Candace Liao had also informed the Dragoons that this was probably a trap and that Anton would likely not be on Harmony at all – such tactics had been done before - but there was a chance he might be, so the opportunity was too good to pass up.
It still struck Natasha as absurd that the Inner Sphere would place so much strategic value on single individuals. But as she understood it, there were only a limited number of candidates for the post of Captain-General due to everyone insisting that it be a member of one small family line. With each other Successor State was backing one person to be Captain-General. Duncan for the Capellans, Duncan's uncle Anton for the Combine, his other uncle Janos for the Lyrans, and Janos' and Anton's half-brother Robert for the FedSuns.
Although technically speaking, it should be Duncan't mother, Sylvia who should be the Capellan candidate for Captain General. But Sylvia had publicly expressed disinterest for vying for the post against her brothers while Duncan had done the exact opposite.
If a faction's candidate died, their hopes for dominating the Free Worlds League would die with him. They would then presumably pull all their forces out of the Free Worlds League and bring them home, giving them enough surplus troops to start attacking their neighbors and taking worlds again. That would in turn cause said neighbors to pull their own support to defend their own borders in a domino effect that would take enough time to let the last nation to pull out to defeat the all the other League factions and make their candidate the undisputed Captain General of the Free Worlds League.
Every other nation in the Inner Sphere seemed to agree with that strategy, resulting in factions concentrating on killing the figureheads of specific other factions. The Capellans were focused on the Kurita backed Anton the most, so that Steiner and Davion would have to draw their forces home next after Kurita. The Steiners were focused on Davion's Robert so that a resurgent Federated Suns would cause Kurita and Liao to pull their own forces home and so on and so forth.
Frankly, Natasha would have preferred to conquer the Free Worlds League the old fashioned way. But ten years of fighting had proven that impossible. Any time one League faction started making any headway, the other three would start focusing on them until a new leader emerged. It was, Natasha had been told, a microcosm of Inner Sphere warfare as a whole. As a result, knocking off at least one other figurehead seemed like the best bet for winning this war.
So when Jaime had been informed that Harmony was a probably trap, he looked at what force was required to take out Anton's supposed bodyguard and doubled it. Zeta Battalion was the force sent to Harmony to kill Anton. Alpha Regiment's Charlie Battalion led by Natasha had been sent along with them in case this really was a trap.
Natasha still did not know if this had been a trap or not, but apparently at least one other faction had caught wind of the same information. The Lyrans had arrived on Harmony almost at the same time as the Dragoons, but had landed far enough away that Colonel Frank had thought they could hit their objectives and get out without having to fight the Lyrans. He had sent Natasha's battalion to flank the combined Kuritan/Anton force while Zeta Battalion hit them head on.
Things had started going bad when the Lyran superheavies hit the rear of the Kurita/Anton force at the same time as Zeta blitzed their front. After crushing the Kurtans and Anton forces between them, the Steiners had turned on Zeta. Natasha's flanking maneuver had been slowed down by running into several small mercenary units, company sized commands that consisted mostly of Medium and Light mechs. They were no match for Natasha's mostly heavy battalion, and the first two units had wisely scrambled out of the way of the stampeding Dragoons rather than fight them. But this last mercenary company had decided to make a fight of it despite being the lightest and fastest of them, and that had slowed Natasha and her people down.
"Everyone stay with me." Natasha ordered as she pushed her Marauder back up to a sprint. As much as Zeta needed help, Natasha couldn't afford to let her battalion get strung out and feed themselves to the Steiner superheavies a few at a time. That would help no one. Charlie Battalion needed to hit the Lyran rear as a solid mass.
Sprinting a mech was a teeth rattling move, bouncing the mech up and down so much that it was impossible for a mechwarrior to accurately aim their weapons. But it pushed mechs up to twice their normal walking speed unlike regular running, and right now, Natasha needed all the speed her battalion could get.
Long minutes and lots of terrain rolled by. The rear of the Lyran superheavy battalion came into sight.
"Everyone hold your fire and only open up when I do." Natasha ordered as her battalion rushed towards the Lyrans. Odds were good that the Lyrans weren't watching their backside as they chased down Zeta, so Natasha wanted to make her battalion's salvo to count as much as possible. "Lance Commanders, pick your targets and remember to focus fire."
As she got into her own extreme weapons range, Natasha focused on one of the rear most Lyran mechs, a Goliath II that had fallen so far back that it was only firing its Extended Range LRMs at Zeta. Natasha slowed down to a regular run and her battalion followed suit as they spread out behind her to get clear lines of fire. But still Natasha held her fire to get her people closer and bring more weaponry into effective range.
The Goliath II next to Natasha's target started swinging its turret around, its advance coming to a complete stop as it began to scramble to turn around. That was all the signal Natasha needed, and she fired a full alpha strike from her fully upgraded Marauder into her target's exposed back.
An enhanced ER PPC strike and ER Medium Laser went into the legs, but the other PPC and laser as well as a Gauss round hit the Goliath II's back armor, but too spread out for penetration. But that hardly mattered as almost the entirety of Charlie's opening salvo went into the backs of a single lance of superheavy mechs including Natasha's target. A few more Lyran superheavies went down to the few Dragoon lances that didn't focus on those first four mechs.
Half of the remaining Lyran superheavy battalion spun around to face this new threat, far faster than they should have been able to. Natasha snarled in joy as she twisted her Marauder to dodge right in order to evade incoming fire and falling artillery shells. Natasha had joined the Dragoons to fight and win glorious battles, and she was getting more of it than she had ever dreamed. The Clans had no idea what they were missing.
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===Debriefing===
12 October 3010
Wolf's Dragoon HQ, Oriente
Free Worlds League
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"Well, Senior Colonel Candace is pleased with our performance on Harmony." Jaime announced. "Even though Anton Marik wasn't there, you have destroyed quite a few enemy forces from the other factions, including half of one of the Lyrans' best superheavy battalions."
The other half of the Lyran force had sued for surrender and safe passage off Harmony when it had become clear that they were going to lose. Natasha, the senior most surviving Dragoon officer at that point, had accepted. The Clans had similar traditions; after all, it was hardly honorable or glorious to beat on an already defeated enemy.
"Aff, it was a glorious victory for the Dragoons. And me personally of course." Natasha preened. "It is a shame that Frank didn't make it. Harmony was as much his victory as mine, but his heroic last stand did buy the time that Zeta and I needed."
"Candace was especially happy with the salvaged superheavy mechs we brought back." Jaime went on. "They have the first examples of the Lyrans' new superheavy triple strength myomer that the Capellans or anyone else has been able to get their hands on. Yet we acquired sixteen superheavy mechs' worth of them in one battle. I managed to convince Candace to let us keep one to take home."
"Our own engineers have looked at those new myomers." Natasha added. "They say they look like they have heating elements integrated into them. They are probably there to heat the myomer so that they remain active at all times."
"All the time?" Joshua echoed. "That is going to make future battles more difficult when high end assault mechs can move like heavies and superheavies can maneuver like regular assault mechs."
"I know!" Natasha said with relish. "So many opportunities for glory!"
"Of course, but that is going to be a nightmare from a personnel perspective." Joshua pointed out. "Since we won Harmony, we salvaged most of our fallen mechs and can put them back into service. And the ones we cannot put back into service can be replaced with salvaged enemy mechs without dipping very much into our own stores. But we suffered sixty percent casualties on Harmony. Half of them are just injured and will heal back up, but the other half are dead. Between Harmony and the other battles we have fought so far, if we go at our current rate, we will not be five regiments at the end of this contract; we will be one or two. Maybe even less."
"We can shift people around to fill Zeta Battalion's holes in their roster," Jaime mused, "but that is only papering over our loss in mechwarriors. Some of our dependents will age up enough to become Mechwarriors themselves, but not enough to replace our already existing losses. And I certainly can't vanish for eight or nine months to go home and ask for more warriors."
"Thank you for ruining my good mood, Joshua." Natasha told the Dragoon XO. "But you are right. We need more people and I am not keen on training techs to be mechwarriors. We need our techs too."
"Actually, there is a source of MechWarriors right here on Oriente." Joshua suggested. "We recruit from the ranks of the Dispossessed."
The Dispossessed were Mechwarriors that through one reason or another had lost their mechs. They were usually mercenaries themselves as the smaller mercenary units did not have the resources to replace their mechs, and House militaries and the larger mercenary outfits like the Dragoons could... unless of course the mechwarrior was especially disliked by their chain of command, in which case they were usually let go.
"Joshua, leaving aside the secrecy issues..." Natasha began.
"What secrecy issues?" Joshua interrupted. "Everyone already thinks we are spying for Kerensky's returning army. Which we are by the way."
"Leaving aside the secrecy issue." Natasha began again, "Inner Sphere mechwarriors are bad. Unskilled. Certainly not up to our standards."
"I do not think that is because of lack of natural talent, Natasha." Jaime said thoughtfully. "I think that is because the Inner Sphere simply has lower training standards in order to push out more mechwarriors. I have seen more than enough Inner Sphere mechwarriors who would meet our standards."
"Jaime, you are not seriously considering this, quineg?" Natasha asked.
"Actually, Natasha, I am." Jaime said seriously. "As for them meeting our standards." Jaime continued, giving Natasha a knowing look, "I recall there was this Star Colonel who taught a cocky young freeborn warrior a thing or two about standards. I wonder if she might deign to train a bunch of spheroids to Dragoon standards?"
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