TBntG-3 Chpt 43

=The Bull and the Genie=
==Chapter 43 - Book III - The Clan Invasion==
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==The Invasion of Oshika: Part 5==
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===Command HQ Seige===
Firebase Base CampOshika, Draconis Combine
The enemy pushed in, quickly, but in an organized manner. Troops moved up the canyon, medium mechs escorting them. Behind them came the heavies and tanks, but they weren't rushing.
 
Whoever is over there knows we're setting a trap. Smart Drac, Very smart Drac. So what is he planning…
 
And then they started moving up into range of the main positions and Katherine had other issues.
 
Infantry formations weren't intended to fight open field battles against mechs—that was for combined arms units. They had missile launchers and direct fire artillery, along with the mortars and some angry burro guns, but honestly it wasn't what they needed.
 
According to the plan, the rest of the corps would already have landed, but…
 
Man Plans, God Laughs, Katherine thought as she ducked below a berm as a PPC opened up on their position. Forward infantry units were skirmishing with the light infantry and they were coming off the worse, but again the damned mechs had good pilots and they were using the light infantry to flush out their positions.
 
A man wearing a Kuritan uniform rose up, waving a sword and blowing on a whistle—and the top half of his body vanished as the rest charged—but the mechs behind him opened fire on the position, forcing the troops to take cover, letting the infantry clear another few feet before they went to ground.
 
And the main body was still too far back to detonate the charges. What are they waiting for?
 
Then one of the medium mechs was hit by the guided mortar shells, once, twice, three times and its leg gave way, causing the mech to topple to the side. On her auxiliary feed, Katherine saw the big 203mm mortars, muzzles steaming while BA gunners manhandled another shell into the breach mechanism.
 
Armchair generals argued for automatic loaders.
 
Armchair generals never had to consider the automatic loaders were heavy as fuck, a point when you had to bring everything down from orbit in little cargo pods. They had automatic mortars, along with the vehicles to move them— with the rest of the division.
 
At least they don't have their Arrows any more.
 
"We're taking some fire from the sides," the data net said. "Just infantry, but—correction, we have movement from the trees down the slope."
 
 "Movement to the front!" Katherine looked up. Whatever he was planning was—
 
"Multiple light mechs!" the sentry shouted. "They must have come through the cover!" The feed showed her, mechs erupting out of the forest, still covered in camouflage.
 
That's why it took so long. They had to move slow, low power, so they wouldn't trip our sensors!
 
And she'd decided not to have squads in the forest, because there'd be no way to fall back, trapped against the slope as they would be.
 
Bad decision. Even if those were just—
 
"Aircraft! Multiple aircraft!" Katherine saw the image, low flying civilian aircraft, cargo and passenger—
 
"Take them out!" she shouted. Missiles fired from the AA positions and then when they got line of sight were joined by lasers. One, two, three aircraft exploded, and they were BIG explosions. And two managed to land in their lines, and what must have been tons of high explosives went off. Even through her armor, it rattled her teeth.
 
Thank God we got this facility offline. She had a feeling if they had nukes, they'd use them.
 
But now in the chaos and smoke, the enemy was charging them and—
 
(<"Battle Armor! Battle Armor on the mechs!">)
 
The fuck that's a clan— But when she looked up she saw the light mechs topping the walls, and they had armor clinging to them—not the sophisticated mag locks the Clans used, but mechanical linkages, suits holding on. One Panther lost its balance and toppled head first, shedding troopers and parts of troopers, before the mech itself was blotted out by a concentrated volley.
 
And then the report came in that the heavies were charging forward, as every soldier the Dracs had left screamed and charged, followed by their mechs, trying for the hole in their lines, even as the flank attack—
 
"Reserve company, handle those light mechs and battle armor, Fall back from the alpha trenches—heavy weapons, put support on that infantry, so we can get organized!"
 
"They've pasted point Rubicon. Ma'am?""
 
"Blow it!"
 
Moments later, the thunderous explosion of the hidden explosives, explosives from their own factory went off. Not all of them, that damnably smart Kuritan had found some of them, but enough to seal the canyon behind them, and bury a few unlucky mechs. But the rest were now charging as were the infantry, desperately trying to close.
 
Katherine didn't know if they were hoping to take the factory, or were terrified of another landslide, but there was no way to stop them all, and the last troops, the ones that had been reserved actually had proper battle kit—not BA, but SRM's and body armor.
 
The next thirty minutes were a nightmare. The lines interpenetrated, and if a BA trooper was better than an unarmored guy, the odds got worse if you were talking about five of them with satchel charges.
 
Especially if they didn't much care about surviving the blast.
 
Before ten minutes had passed, Katherine and her command squad had to get out of the CP and join the reserves.
<<"This is Grognard! We're pinned down by that fucking Panther! I need some anti-armor!">>
 
"We're on it!"
 
"Hurry the fuck up!"
 
Machine guns were dueling, streams of tracers filling the air, while lasers and particle beans snapped, gouging at armor and gear.
 
"Medical station is under attack,"
 
"On it," Katherine said, skimming over the ground. (Jumping was a good way to die.) Behind her, a Wasp exploded, another one sagging behind it from a hit to the cockpit. The frantic charge of the unarmored troops had ended, and they were now scattered among the defenses, while the Kuritan BA units had been largely destroyed, since everyone knew what the bigger threat was.
 
Also, they didn't act like a trained unit—probably a scratch unit that the guy had cobbled together, which wasn't fucking good news, because "I didn't get my whole unit killed because the other guy was unlucky" wasn't an excuse.
 
And there was the station, the berms around it gouged and torn as Kuritans charged it.
 
Probably because it was being defended.
 
Katherine brought up her machine gun and snapped off several short bursts, cutting the guy with the flamer in half, and then her squad killed the SRM trooper and she was—
 
"Fault. Fault." The gun jammed. Katherine howled in fury, and then dropped the machine gun, the mechanism retracting into its place, but now five Kuritans were charging her and they had grenades and her anti-personal gun was out of ammo…
 
The Cutter, or the MK 9, utility vibro cutter looked like a sword.
 
Anyone who talked about it like that got to play "rabbit" in a drill with the cutter vs. Guys with guns. It's main purposes was quickly opening barricades, cutting vegetation, and helping the engineers when they needed strong backs and small minds to do some work.
 
But…. It also worked as a sword. Katherine screamed like a banshee, boosting forward on her jets and cut the first two soldiers in half their bisected bodies falling to the ground as blood and other fluids splashed over her. An armored gauntlet obliterated another Kuritan's face, and the last two stared at her, then turned and ran, before being cut down by Doc.
 
"Good I—"
 
<<"This is Sword One, prepare for a danger close landing.">>
 
Sword one, the fuck that's…
 
"Come again. Danger Close? How Close?"
 
<"Very Close.">>
 
Katherine looked up and her flickering HUD showed her battlemechs dropping. The fleet must have come back but… wait a fucking minute. That close?
 
"All units!" she shouted over the all call frequency. "Mechs, friendly mechs, dropping right on fucking top of us. Watch and don't get stepped on." What the fuck, this is insane, nobody drops this—
 
Even as she was thinking, Katherine had slapped her machine gun until the indicator turned green, which was good because a Drac Panther had made it up the slope, lowering its PPC, and everyone else was busy, which was probably not go—
 
And then a Victor landed on it and squashed it like a tin can. Other mechs were landing, including one which boosted to the side to avoid one of her squads.
 
Katherine wasn't a mech jockey, but you didn't have to be to realize that these guys were very damned good at their job. The book was full of why you didn't do this, confused units firing on each other, and getting hit before they could get their shit together, but every mech was firing the moment it hit the ground. It made sense given who Sword One was.
 
"All units!" Katherine called out. "Escort, they've got a lot of satchel charges to deal with and let's not get our rescuers killed."
 
"Ah, Major, we had it in hand." someone said.
 
"True, but let's not tell them that," Katherine said. "You know mech boys have fragile egos." The laughter filled the net, and then they were moving down into the valley where the Draconis offensive was being shattered.
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===Sibling Reunion===
Twenty minutes later, it was more or less over. The Drac commander had led a final forlorn charge, and his burned out Daishi marked the high point of their gains. There was still the occasional popping sound from where some soldier chose his ancestors over being a POW, and the clean up squads were moving in to collect those who wanted to live.
First reports were in. 10 percent KIA, 20 percent WIA and combat ineffective.
 
I should have had more people down by the treeline. Should have put more AA up on top, even if it was exposed if we'd gotten the planes before they suicidal… She shook her head. She was fairly certain the general would bring that up in the AAR.
 
But now…
 
"All mechs, be advised… this valley was radioactive and we've kicked up a ton of dust. Stay in your cockpits unless you want the fun of decon."
 
"Understood, Major." Then the Victor was turning to look at her, and Katherine put her hands on her hips.
 
"Victor, I thought we were never supposed to be on the same continent, let along same battle."
 
"You needed relief, and my unit was the only one good enough in the first wave."
 
Katherine nodded. "And your superiors agreed with that?"
 
"I may have used my entirely unearned status as an inbred successor lord to yell at some people and get permission."
 
"Ah, well, thanks. What's the status for the rest of the planet?"
 
"All the infantry has been relieved, and they're landing the main body," Victor's mech did a mechanical version of a shrug and now that was just showing off, "But we've got uncontested ortillery and air superiority, so… probably won't last long. We took out the last sub when I was on the way down." There was a pause. "No nuke grenades, so thanks on behalf of everyone."
 
"No problem."
 
"But ah, Sis?" Victor asked
 
"Yes?"
 
"You might want to shower your suit off. You're… covered in people."
 
To his dying day, Victor denied it, but Katherine knew better. It was one of those juvenile mech warriors who took the picture of her talking to her brother, covered in people… and sent it in to the news media.
 
Especially when the paper that published "Mad Kat and the Prince" got an award for it.
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