TLR Chpt 20

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==Chapter 20 - The Lucky RegimentHelm Campaign - Part 1==
Meanwhile on the surface of Helm
Captain Ramage watched as the crew of the crippled Galleon bailed out, that was the third tank out of action. Survival had become very challenging, the hostile force with the 'mechs in Marik colors had recently brought ECM vehicles in range. It meant he had received no further communication from Edmund's force for the last twenty minutes, he knew they were very close though as the Marik reconnaissance plane had just tumbled out of the sky in flames to their north east.
As best he could tell they were being stalked by a pair of Trebuchets using light mechs as spotters. Meanwhile they were trying to bring a lance of 'mechs up the left flank with a view to cutting off the rear guard. They were definitely up against a competent formation, his tanks had scored a few hits but nothing crippling, and were too lightly equipped to handle the enemy mechs for long.
Although his Galleon tanks were using hull down positions behind a ridge line and what trees were available they were still being periodically peppered by missiles. The sad truth was that those tanks were neither especially fast, well armed or armored. He was positioned further back concealed amidst a small copse. His small HQ was spread out with an APC nearby for when they had to pull back again.
 
"Sir, movement to the rear." A camouflaged soldier covering the rear arc was on one knee pointing rearwards with an outstretched arm.
 
He looked behind. A motorcycle was indeed making good speed across a field towards him, it was what one did when the radios didn't work.
 
The dust and mud coated driver pulled up and lifted his goggles. "Sir, Lieutenant Hanson reports he is pulling back to the next position. Even so he estimates his force will be bypassed in about thirty minutes."
 
"Tell him help should arrive before then, once in position he is to hold until relieved."
 
"Very good, Sir." The goggles went back on and the motorbike skidded slightly as it was turned and driven off. 
 
"Phoenix Hawk to the rear, coming along near the road."
 
"Friendly?" His throat feeling dry, suddenly terrified about the fate of the retreating column.
 
"It's jumping." He wasn't of the view that determined friendliness, but it was at least factual.
 
He turned to look, he didn't need binoculars to see the trail in the air as it leapt forwards, probably seeking to get a sensor update on its surroundings. That suggested friendly, otherwise it would be firing.
 
"Marauder camouflage pattern, green and brown." The pursuing units had a mixture of dark greys.
 
"Any others?"
 
"Not yet."
 
"Multiple LRMs to the east, coming from the north east, looks a like a new angle of fire." That didn't tell him enough, that could just as easily be the flanking hostiles as Edmund's vintage Archer 2Rbs coming into play. "Another salvo, sir, a big one."
 
His men were looking increasingly confident, they obviously had more faith in his promise of support than he did.
"Two Marauders to the rear and an Archer, it looks like the command lance." That told him Edmund Blackadder was likely looking to roll up the attackers flank, it would get very ugly for that cut off group, and Hanson's group might even survive.
He stared at them with his binoculars, the mechs were moving at full pace, taking advantage of the flat hard ground alongside the road, the area was overgrown but had once been a line of shops with a large parking lot in front, the old tarmac providing the perfect ground to move at full pace on.
"Sir, someone just punched out." Roughly where Hanson had withdrawn from there was the distinctive rocket trail of an ejection pod as it shot up into the air.
 
"It won't be one of ours lads." The Grey Death Legions four training 'mechs were a long way to the west screening the column.
Suddenly he started hearing the distant sound of light autocannons, a tell tale sign of mechs coming into long range visual combat. The PPCs and lasers that would come next were much quieter but more lethal.
The Phoenix Hawk made another jump forwards landing a hundred meters to his right. It was a text book landing and the mech then shifted direction and ran forwards towards the rough line being maintained by the Galleons. As it did so he heard the rush of the Archer firing a full salvo overhead, it was the sound of salvation.
----
Durandel
Helm System, Free Worlds League
14th April, 30270800 Hours Local Time
The early morning sun was obscured by accumulated smoke from hundreds of smouldering homes. Colonel Langsdorf could smell little but the acrid smell of the fires his men had started.
 
He looked at the damaged Fifth Marik Guards mechs getting hasty repairs in the captured repair facilities. Like everything else in this operation even that had been a problem as technicians had needed to work through the night to restore the power supply. So far his command had achieved little but the butchery of civilians and the defeat of the infantry and militia vehicles that had made a stand around the Helmfast fortress. Even that the 'victory' had been tainted by the knowledge that soldiers there had been simply been fighting to protect their families inside after their surrender offer was brutally rejected.
 
Now he as watched the mechanics attempting to fix a damaged Shadow Hawk he knew one way or another this would be his last campaign. The Guards had lost four Battlemechs under his command and three more were badly damaged enough to need weeks of work. They would pin it on him, but that was only if they survived the expected counter attack from the mysterious force they had run into.
 
"Morning, Colonel."
 
He struggled to meet the eye of the Guards Major. "Good Morning."
 
"Have your intelligence boys identified who did that to us." The Major was looking at the damaged mechs.
 
"Not yet, I'm sorry."
 
"Maybe we could interrogate some prisoners."
 
The Colonel looked silently at the smouldering town.
 
"Oh wait, we don't have any."
 
The Colonel wanted to throw up, he was still haunted by the screams of those in the Helmfast as the flamers were used to clear out the buildings. "My orders were clear." He said weakly, aware his command authority was ebbing away, and that whoever was working with the Grey Death Legion now had no need to follow the Ares Convention after his breaches.
 
"Well I've got a bit of problem, you see I've deployed a screen of scouts, and got my heavy company in reserve, but I have no idea who we just pissed off."
 
The Colonel had some sympathy, the Guards had lost heavily the day before and were now charged with stopping an unknown force. "I was assured we only faced an under-equipped battalion."
 
"Well, I'm missing two Mechwarriors, so they probably know who we are by now. Yesterday's survivors also reported a couple of interesting things, firstly our sensors struggled with the targets and secondly they were outranged by comparable weapons."
 
"That is a problem, what can we do?"
 
"Not a lot, there were multiple reports of Marauders and Archers, those are tough to deal with at the best of times. I've laid a small minefield, but I'm not convinced I can lure them into it." Mining the main road towards would delay their opponent, but at the same time used up the small stock of mines they had.
 
"I've got some fighters in orbit."
 
"The targeting issue and multiple Archers makes that a risky use of them, but that may be necessary even so."
 
"The tanks and another 'mech company can be brought up."
 
"But then the Spaceport is not secure, and nor is this place." That was the trouble, they were now facing a proper combined arms battalion, yet there could be more beyond that.
 
"Very well, we need to concentrate our forces such that we can bring the maximum available to bear." He looked at the small repair facility that had carefully been brought on online overnight. "We will use the equipment on the DropShips at the spaceport for our repairs, and I believe that they will want to reclaim these."
 
He looked at the low hills and woods that surrounded the place. "We will hold the high ground, and conceal our forces for when they arrive, and then target any isolated formations. If I'm wrong and they go for the spaceport we'll move from here and hit them from the rear."
 
The usually unruly Major looked relieved, it was clearly better than whatever he had in mind. "Understood, Sir, how long will you need the screen in place?"
 
"Five hours, if things are quiet, otherwise you'll need to make a judgement based on the strength of the enemy."
-----
Meanwhile at the Marauders Field HQ
Captain Ramage poked the slushy mass in the re-hydrated ration bag warily with his spoon. The outside of the the metallic pack had an SLDF logo on it, in theory it was an emergency ration pack that should last for years. In practice, he wondered quite how long even a dehydrated pack really lasted, the science suggested it was safe even if it didn't look edible.
 
Victoria smiled at him "Don't worry, Captain, we tested them on a couple of volunteers."
 
"What happened?"
 
"A bit blocked up, but that's pretty normal with rations." It was, most long life rations were challenging after a few days. You needed fruit and veg otherwise things got uncomfortable.
 
"I can believe it, I take it you guys are saving the edible stuff for the civilians."
 
"We are trying to, and they should be settling into the facility now." It was relative safety, especially since the self destruct mechanism had apparently been disabled.
 
"Any word on survivors from Helmfast?"
 
She looked a lot less happy at the mention of that name, the Marauders had made the choice to protect the fleeing column of Grey Death Legion dependents rather than relieve Helmfast. They possibly could have managed both, but the Marauders also needed to keep a force at the Cache which was also their operating base secure.
 
"Nothing after the distress call, I'm truly sorry, I know you had friends there." He did, but also understood why it had been assumed that the place would have been allowed to surrender. "I think Edmund and your boss are discussing it." Grayson had arrived a few days too late to intervene, but his one brief conversation with his boss had told him Grayson was about to get stuck in.
 
"Major Blackadder made the logical choice, my CO would likely have done the same."
 
The door to the command vehicle opened up. Edmund poked his head out, "Come in Guys."
 
He filed in followed by Victoria, she reminded him of Lori, though in this case not the formal deputy. As he understood it Edmund delegated control of his command lance to her, whilst he attempted to keep an eye on the bigger picture. She seems to a be combination of his bodyguard and and something of an NCO type role.
 
"I'll do a more complex briefing later, Victoria, so you'll need to get the lance leaders together in an hour. Meanwhile, Captain Ramage, I've just finished speaking with you boss, and we've had word from my man in the town. We think we know roughly what is going on."
 
Ramage nodded, "What do I need to know and pass down to my command?"
 
"It's complicated, and there's good news and bad news. I'll start with the bad." Ramage looked at him wondering how things were going to get worse.
 
"Apparently the Grey Death Legion have committed a terrible crime on Sirius V and are plotting to overthrow the Captain-General, so you have all been declared outlaws along with any associates. We don't yet know what the accusations are."
 
Ramage sucked his breath in. "That's pretty bad and means we no longer enjoy the protections of the Ares conventions."
 
"Also bad is that Grayson believes the Duke of Irian already knew about the cache and wishes to seize it for himself, so we have a powerful adversary."
 
"His family used to control this world, so it makes some sense."
 
"The good news is that since we are your 'associates' and have clearly been attacked by agents of our employer and declared outlaw we are no longer under any obligation to the Captain General. The Marauders have complete freedom of action and owe no part of the cache to the Captain General." That fit the definition of good news only in the very loosest sense in Ramage's humble opinion.
 
"That is reassuring from a purely ethical point of view I suppose."
 
"Don't worry it gets better, I have persuaded your boss to land at the cache rather than Durandel. He'll re-equip his 'mech company with much older equipment, and even his training cadre will all gain a fancy mech." Ramage did the maths, that was a a game changer even if some of the pilots were pretty green. "That means three combat capable 'mech companies, a group of green pilots and the support elements. Maybe your tank crews can reform into a couple of high spec tank platoons." That was a force that could hold out a while, especially as damaged mechs could be replaced.
 
"That is good news."
 
"Unfortunately, there is some bad news." That seemed to be way of things at the moment.
 
"We need to regain the momentum and weaken the Duke's forces on Helm." Edmund moved over to the a map. He pointed at a marked position to their south. "They pulled back to here, but I don't want to fight on ground of their choosing." That was always a wise approach, and Ramage approved of trying to dominate the enemy's thinking.
 
Edmund pointed to a series of marks on the map. "We're looking at a flanking move that will both force their withdrawal and allow us to check Helmfast for any survivors. We think some of the militia survived, so we'll take in your transport skimmers to recover anyone we can. My company will cover that effort and try to pose enough of a threat that the Duke's force gives up its hold on the repair facilities at Durandel." Ramage looked closely at the route, he knew the terrain, it took advantage of some long abandoned and overgrown roads and was reasonable terrain operate in.
 
"I take it you need me to manage the skimmers?"
 
"Yes please, your Colonel has authorized the tasking."
----
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