CHS4-10

==Chapter Ten - Book 4 – Chappy's Howling Siegers==
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===Unpleasant Wakeup Call===
Battlefield - 4th Skye Guards Headquarters
Kessel, Draconis Combine
January 10th, 3030
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Local Time: 0600 GST
The next morning Adam and Eve woke up with screaming coming from the next room again. All night every few hours that bastard soldier who called himself god was torturing fellow MechWarriors that the 4th Skye Guards had captured. Adam wondered why they had not done more to him and Eve of course he was grateful, but he still wondered. After that first electric stick to his balls, nothing else had happened. Sure, they were still tied up naked but there was a heater in the room, so they did not get cold, and all the screaming and torture was coming from the other room. As he was wondering this, the screaming stopped, and a few seconds later Ulric walked in with blood all over his uniform. 
“Well, those two militia guys finally gave up their Intel to bad their injuries were too great to overcome. Now its y’all turn to give up the Intel that I am requesting.” Ulric said. And with that he left the room. 
Eve started crying Adam was scared, they were both first-year cadets and were not prepared for battle let alone being tortured. 
The door open and Ulric was pushing a cart, the closer it got the better look Adam had, on it was various devices of torture all covered with blood and what look like as human chunks of meat. As Ulric picked at the tools on the table, his fingers lightly started to caress a particular item. Ulric then looked at Adam and got a devilish grin on his face. “Adam, you know what I like to use the most? A hatchet, the most beautiful killing instrument in the universe, the hatchet is a very elegant weapon, not only do I love using it in my 'mech, but it is very efficient against humans.” At that moment, Ulric took out a blow torch and started heating up the hatchet. “In fact, if I heat this hatchet up enough when I cut your foot off it will cauterize all your veins to stop all bleeding letting you live longer.” 
With horror Adam looked at Eve so perfect and beautiful and perky even in this situation he could not stand having her cut up. “Ok. Ok, don’t cut us up I will tell you everything.” He screamed. 
After an hour of spilling his guts about all Intel he had, Ulric smiled and said thank you, he then opened a sealed door on the cart and threw jumpers to both prisoners, and released them from their chains. “Get dress we will move you two to regular cells now. Oh, by the way, the screaming you heard last night…was just a recording, and all this blood is animal. Ha ha, tricked you two really good.” Ulric started to laugh, “I am a great actor. Cut you two with a hatchet, I crack myself up.” With that, he walked out, and shock of disbelief was on both prisoners faces.
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===Pushing through the Valley===
Battlefield
The Valley
Kessel, Draconis Combine
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General Devlin did not like the feel of this his gut was screaming trap but how could it be a trap since they already knew the enemy was there? “Guards, let’s go we know they are out there. We are aware of their strength so let’s push them out of the valley and be done with them. As the unit pushed into the valley the 1st Squadron “Zappers” and the 2nd Squadron “Gauntlets” Aerospace fighters screamed into the valley. To drop their bombs on the enemy mechs damaging six mechs to the point of being crippled. “Nice shitting on the enemy Zappers and Gauntlets keep it up,” General Devlin said over the net 
The fighters swung by for a second pass and a fighter whose callsign is Stuka 2, dove at a Grand Dragon sitting on the west side of the third mountain in a natural perch. Dropping 10 HE bombs at close range all hitting the target. With bombs hitting legs and arms ripping the right leg and left leg off of the Grand Dragon, one bomb hit the Dragon’s AC/5 Ammo, which exploded. Causing Catastrophic damage destroying the mech engine failed the safety systems and blew causing damage to an Archer and Marauder that was next to him. 
General Devlin saw that there were 'mechs on the cliffs on both sides of the valley, so he ordered, “Ulric take two lances up on the west side cliffs and take out those units. WolfLord take two of your lances to the east side cliffs and deal with the enemy over there.” 
<<“Roger.”>> said both of them.
((“This is Riever 2 Mayday, Mayday I am going down a Warhammer destroyed my engine.”)) the pilot said as Devlin watched the fighter spiral down into the woods.
As Devlin’s Gauss Rifle penetrated a Dragon right torso, destroying a heat sink. He notices some of the woods around that 'mech absorbed a lot of the damage. That the biggest problem for his unit. The woods in the valley, because it was having a shield effect against their weapons with the enemy hiding in the forest. Fortunately, with time though Devlin units will be close enough that it won’t matter. 
Corporal Suarez was marching along struggling with all these damn trees when his company commander WolfLord order his lance and another to jump up or climb up the cliff to get a better look at the battlefield. He also said there might be enemies up on the ridge too. Just as he cleared the ridge a salvo of missiles hit his right arm, but he was able to land soft enough to have the target computer find a target. He fired his LRMs, both medium lasers, and his AC/10 every shot hit. The medium lasers hit the Excalibur’s feet. His LRM 20 slammed on the right side of the Excalibur causing critical hits on right leg and arm and the AC/10 blew up the Gauss Rifle causing catastrophic damage that caused the enemy mech to fall flat on its face.
Artillery from the 12th Sun Zhang Cadre was coming in hard but so far missing the Guards units. Devlin’s combat computer showed they were on yet a higher ridge and ordered the remaining fighters to fly over them and try to destroy them with conventional weapons. 
On the other ridge west of the valley, Ulric’s Lances were making progress. Corporal Palmer in a Stalker was able to hit a direct blow with his medium laser to a Dragon’s head causing the pilot and the mech to cease to exist. 
In the valley itself, Corporal Kuchelai of the 13th Lance, 5th Company was also able to take down another DRG-1N Dragon Heavy 'Mech by way of a direct blow to the head with a PPC. 
Three more fighters went down for the Guards from missile fire; there were three Battlemechs protecting the artillery pieces in the back that was powered down until just now. That caught the fighters off guard and they were unable to recover from the shock, but two of the artillery pieces were damaged so even though there was still Thumper's rounds were landing in the valley it was not as much as before. Devlin took aim at an Excalibur and with his PPC was able to damage the engine and take out the mech's Gyro forcing the enemy 'mech out of commission. 
The 4th Skye Guard was now close enough to be able to attack with fist and feet and started to manhandle the smaller enemy mechs. 
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Tai-I Adnan Company Commander of the Kessel Militia had no clue what was going on, communication was crappy, support was crappy, oh and everyone’s aim was crappy. Most likely because everyone in the company was just like her, brand new. She has only been in the militia for a year and a commander of a company for two months. At the time, her ambition to be a company commander by having sex with the Commander of the militia sounded like a great idea. Who knew that the stuck up Steiner’s had the balls to invade a planet. Let alone an unheard of unit. Right at that moment of thought a PPC laser flash before her eyes and her and her 'mech was dead. The remaining Militia, all four of them, turned and ran, even though the commander of the overall mission from the 12th Sun Zhang Cadre was yelling at them to stay. 
Tai-i Marcus Melsom commander of the Valley Defense Force was overseeing the battle along with the artillery units. How could this be happening they had a textbook advantage, the enemy, this unknown 4th Skye Guards walked right into the valley right into his trap. With most of his units on the ridges, he should have already won. Those Aerospace fighters did a number on his mechs, and even though now they are not as effective his cadets have not recovered. Nor did he anticipated the enemy commander’s ability to foresee the trap and have some of his mechs jump up onto the ridge and mess everything up. Ten of his mechs, four of the armor, and six of the militia mechs have already been taken out, and now the militia are running like scared rats. How could this of happen?
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General Devlin almost felt sorry for the other commander while his unit is fairly new most of his warriors have been in battle before. These cadets and militia guys first and last time in combat have been these last few days. 
“Push Guards, most of the unit in the middle already broke let's push them out of the valley.” Devlin announced over the all channel net. With that, all the Guards pushed harder with no questions asked.
Corporal Mantes from the 16th lance, 6th Company idolized his commander Hauptmann Ulric Greymane and dreamt of becoming one of the Hauptmann inner circle guys. As he was thinking of this, a Lancelot and Archer walked right into the path of his weapons. The Lancelot looked like it was on its last leg almost as if all it needed was a big gush of wind to knock it down, so he fired his SRM 6 at him and then fired his AC/5 and medium laser at the Archer. To his surprise, both went down neither of them to get back up. The Lancelot engine blew up, and the Archer was hit in the head, but most of its damage was done when the Lancelot’s engine blew. 
Leutnant Diaz commander of the 24th Lance in the 8th Company under the command of WolfLord was perplexed, yes he was new to the unit only five weeks at the unit before they transported to this planet. Why was he perplexed? Because these guys defending this planet sucked. He thought this as he lined all his BattleMaster weapons on a pitiful Cicada and blew it away all that was left was a center chest piece smoking. 
As more mechs and tanks were destroyed the more confident the 4th Sky Rangers became. The more scared the Cadre became the last kill of the day was by General Devlin with a PPC in the left arm, LRM rounds 14 out of 20 hit on the chest and a Gauss Rifle to the head of a Marauder. 
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At the end of the day, over 26 units of the enemy were destroyed Six more were salvageable and will be back in service within a week. Four original BattleMechs of the 4th Skye Guards were utterly destroyed, so all was good where strength was concerned. 
As the MOB moved up to repair the damage mechs and armor, General Devlin reflected and called Xenon. 
<<“Xenon, I am concerned that the unit is getting cocky we will sit here for a couple of days before we make an advance to the city Gannosu and Firebase Alpha. In fact, we might wait until the rest of the unit arrives in four days eventually the enemy will find its backbone, and I don’t want to be caught with our pants down.”>> 
“Understood Kreedo, I am also worried about supply lines and resurgent especially when we get to the city. Intel from the prisoners insist that they have config all industrial mechs with weapons and armor numbers are unknown we could be facing three or four times the number of our own unit.”
Kreedo thought for a moment, “Yeah, I am worried too I will light the fire under the cyber techs and see if they can get eyes in the city.”
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===Assaulting the Firebase===
Battlefield
20 miles outside of Gannosu City
Kessel, Draconis Combine
January 14th, 3030
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10:34 GST
Hauptmann-Kommandant Nicholas Robel aka Xenon was in a foul mood. Still no word from Headquarters about satellite feed or even a world net feed. Right now, the dropship Gedania was acting headquarters until the new command center at the Space Port could be refitted.
 
“Gedania, this is Xenon, status update” he said over the static filled command net.
<<“Xenon, Kaptain Zuniga here, the techs have not been able to break into the town’s network nor have they hacked their way completely into this worlds net or gain complete control of their satellites. The best they have are some images they got about 3 hours ago from a flyby satellite. I have sent them to your battle computer, not much in Intel good luck. Gedania out.”>>
As Xenon was looking over the crappy satellite pics, he swapped over to a personal net to check in with his commander.
“Kreedo, Xenon, guess you heard the last exchange with base.” 
<<“Yeah, I did, Xenon, its up to you to go in and attack an unknown or wait tell we are done over here at this Firebase.”
“I think we should be ok I am going to deploy the 8th company to the west, 1st Company to the east and have the armor company come down the middle due to the lay of the land.” Xenon announced.
<<“Roger that good luck and good hunting see you on the other side, Kreedo out.”>>
As the unit got closer to the city radar picked up the seven-armor tank, that must be what is left of the Armor units from the last battle. Other than that, nothing else was showing up. He flipped on the local battle net comm and said, “Ok, execute the battle plan but be cautious Intel states that there should be some retrofitted IndustrialMechs in this city looking for a fight, but nothing is showing up yet.”
<(“Be on the lookout for industrial mechs? Really? Come on commander they are a piece of cake.”)> announced First Leutnant Philippe Cabaos in his AWS-8Q Awesome Assault 'Mech
“Even cake can get all over your mouth, Leutnant” Xenon replied.
As the 4th Skye Guards entered the outskirts of town the radar lit up light a Christmas tree with 50 industrial mechs coming to life. That is when realized his mistake, most of the enemy was concentrated in the center of town right where the 1st Armor Company was going. 
“WolfPack, Pathfinder converge to the middle Ironsides need our help!” Xenon said. He looked at the battle board as it showed the 1st Company (Pathfinders) and the 8th Company (Wolfpack) slowly converge on the 1st Armor Company (Ironsides) but it was slow going due to the two tall hills located on in the suburbs of town. As the 4th started to tear into the industrial mechs they also learned a hard lesson which was one mosquito was a laughable, but 50 mosquitos hurt.
Because right then, a military refitted Lumberjack IndustrialMech fired his LRM 10 at the Awesome all 10 missiles hit and blew off the Assault Mech’s left leg. 
<(“This is Leutnant Cabaos, I cannot believe I am saying this, but I am down.”)>
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Firebase Alpha
Kreedo watched first on his radar and then visually as the wall that was built around the firebase came into view. It was the first impressive thing he has seen since being on the planet. The wall was high enough to prevent any Mech from jumping over it and surprising the enemy. The 4th Skye Guards had three options to breach the base and really one of the options was just not practical all three options were three gates one south wall another on southeast wall and one on the southwest wall. Along the top of the wall of the southwest gate were laser, gauss, and missile turrets so, the southwest gate was out of the question.
“Whiskey and Blis, take your companies through the south gate, Deagin take your company and follow my lance into the southeast gate. Take out as many gun turrets that you can and let’s push the enemy out.” General Devlin said.
<<“Roger, General we will move north/northwest depending on how the enemy positions itself.”>> Whiskey said.
“Following you, Sir.” Deagin said.
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===City Assault===
City of Gannosu
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Xenon placed a Harvester under his sites and fired AC/5 and LRM 5 blowing off the right front leg and left front leg respectfully he then moved to the left to look for another target and thought to himself as he watched another one of his armor tank go up in smoke, these pilots in the industrial mechs are better than the cadets in the 12th Sun Zhang.
Hauptmann Joshua Ring was not very happy not only has all of his light 'mech company turned into a makeshift medium and heavy 'mech company which all came from salvaging the enemy on the battlefield. But once again his unit was in an overwhelming olds situation. He had already lost four pilots in the previous battles he did not want to lose any in this one. TinyTwo jumped over a short building catching an Agromech unawares and blasted him with a large laser to the engine causing the mech to blow up. “Another one bites the dust.” he announced over the battle net. At the same time Xenon took both legs off of a HaulerMech and moved on to the next victim. Another enemy mech went down in flames right behind Xenon this time Sergeant Luya Leyretana had his back by firing a large laser in the chest of an Agromech which cause all the machine gun ammo to exploded cascading into the engine dooming the mech and pilot.
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Firebase Alpha
The turret fire was heavier than expected and they had better aim, causing Leutnant Volz’s Banshee to lose its head along with the pilot.
Whiskey saw this and announced, “Guys we just lost the commander of the 17th Lance! Damnit, watch out for those turrets. 16th Lance take out those turrets now!!” Right then three gauss turret weapons hit Whiskey’s left side taking out his leg and arm. On the other side of the wall Deagin took out a turret before a PPC turret hit his mech’s head causing him to blackout.
Devlin saw that two of three company commanders were down, “Blis, take over on that side let’s get these bastards now!” Overhead the two squadrons flew over and announced. “Zappers, Gauntlets are inbound with bombs stand by.”
And then the middle of the base went up in flames and explosions.
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City of Gannosu
As the enemy industrialmechs kept falling not all news was good the armor company was still getting hammered 30 minutes into the battle, all but one tank were immobile and four had been completely destroyed.
Xenon continued his wave of taking of limbs of Industrial mechs by blowing up another Agromech's leg this time though he took his time and kicked it in the chest causing the engine to explode. The scene was something from a halo movie with explosions fire and smoke and then a Shadow Hawk coming out of the flames with minor damage.
All three mechs of Sergeant Leyretana, Ring, and Xenon were making a path of destruction right down the middle of the enemy’s formation, such as it was.
A HaulerMech got a lucky AC/5 hit on Xenon’s mech’s head as Xenon shook his head to clear the cobwebs, he took aim and destroyed the HaulerMech’s hand off. Sergeant Leyretana came in right behind that and destroyed the head and pilot of the same mech.
 
“Thanks Sergeant good shooting” Xeon said.
<<“No problem, sir, got to look out for my favorite Battalion Commander.”>> the Sergeant said.
Just then he saw one of his own, an Excalibur blow up, fortunately the pilot was able to escape from the blast due to his ejection seat.
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Firebase Alpha
Both teams finally entered the base and most of the turrets destroyed the 4th Guards can finally focus on the real objective. Devlin was about to reach the middle of the base where there was a secondary defense wall with several mechs and the commander of the 12th Sun Zhang Cadre for the region in his Atlas. When another one of the Banshee went down by way of a Gauss Rifle to the head. The two squadrons of aerospace fighters made another pass and dropped the rest of their bombs. Destroying an enemy Marauder in the process but two of the Thunderbirds were hit by ground fire destroying them in the processes luckily both pilots ejected and landed safely. 
Corporal Tina Andrews stomping around in a Goliath saw an opportunity to stomp on a bug, A Locust to be exact as he crushed down on top of the little mech its Gyro, left arm, and right leg all crushed to a flat piece of metal. As the Goliath kept moving the pilot of the Locust laid in the mud just a few feet from his Locust knocked out.
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City of Gannosu
Xenon then targeted the HaulerMech that just took down the Excalibur blowing the left leg off by way of the kick.
Sergeant Leyretana did the unthinkable for her skill level but she really saw no other way, she targeted two different enemy units on either side of her. She spread her arms out and fired a single large laser from each arm to the targets then at the same time she fired her third large laser from her chest to yet another target in front of her. There were just so many industrialmechs out here and several of her buddies have already gone down because of it. Her left arm laser and the front laser hit both their targets in the chest burning holes right through the engine compartment. The right arm laser hit an enemy’s left leg taking it completely off.
The last three armor tanks of the Sun Zhang Cadre broke and started to retreat a few seconds later the industrial mechs started to retreat when one of the armor tanks exploded from an AC/5 hit by Corporal Reynoso in his STC-2C Striker Assault 'Mech. A lucky shot from a Quasit MilitiaMech was able to finally take down Xenon by way of severing his left leg from the rest of the mech.
The battle was over, and Xenon made an all call to stop pursuit and secure the town for the night. All in all, the enemy lost six Armor tanks and Thirty-nine Industrialmechs and the 4th Skye Guards had completely lost four armor tanks and three mechs one each in both mech lances. The rest were severally damage. Well, it is a good thing we are not making any more moves until the rest of the unit shows up in two days since I doubt, we are combat ready over here. Better call the General and notify him of the costly victory., Xenon thought to himself.
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Firebase Alpha
The harder the Guards pushed into the base the harder the Cadre and Militia pushed back. Even though Whiskey was prone due to missing body parts he was still able to shoot his AC/10 at the enemy taking off arms from several different enemy mechs. Yelling at his company to move this way or that pushing the enemy out of their comfort zone in the middle and out into the open.
The Commander of the 12th Sun Zhang Cadre was able to take down a Victor and then a Zeus. So Devlin decided to push even harder forgetting the other enemy mechs in order to get a good shot on that commander. Leutnant Gerratanna got there first with her Battlemaster and alpha strike, SRM 6 hit the head of the Atlas and he blacked out. A Firestarter got in the way of Kreedo which baffled him as he Gauss the Firestarter's right arm off spinning the mech around causing it to fall flat on its face.
Kreedo continued to move to the enemy Atlas. Same thing happen to Leutnant Gerratanna with a Trebuchet that had some chest damage stepping in his way so the Leutnant kicked it and destroyed the AC/5 ammo causing the destruction of the engine which in turn failed its safety measures. The explosions caused damage to all mechs around it and also killed several down MechWarriors. Corporal Ann Setien in her Victor rounded the corner behind the General and found a perfect solution for her AC/20 hitting the enemy commander in the left torso destroying the LRM Ammo and killing the mech and the enemy commander.
“General, this is Xenon the city is ours it was costly we lost several mechs and tanks but the city is ours.
<<“Good, keep the armor there for control and bring the other two mech companies to the firebase. Their commander just went down so the firebase is almost ours.”>>
Without a commander the enemy broke and ran out the north gate for freedom.
The next day Sergeant Luya Leyretana was promoted to Staff Sergeant and awarded the order of Katrina Steiner Medal for her acts of bravery and deadly accuracy with 8 killed and 7 crippled mechs.
All the companies were heavily damage, so the General decided to not push the enemy, stop here to wait for the rest of the unit from space.
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Book 4 - Chapter 10