A little bit of AU building
War against Unity Part 1
I don't know where they came from and I hear the eggheads are still trying to crack this secret. We didn't get much communication from deeper Periphery even before the HPGs fell silent, there was a talk of some merchant jumpships who plied their trade on the outside reaches vanishing, but that was attributed to the pirates. And anyway, we were too busy butting our heads with Fedrats to notice anything going in other direction, like people over there getting fed up with being let to nonexistent mercy of the pirates. It was only when a guild chartered jumpship arrived from the Carthage with the news of invasion by an unknown forces, that our leadership sprang into action. After lengthy discussion that is. Probably talked themselves into believing that Fedrats were coming from the behind.
Since the scant data indicated quite sizable forces, the whole unit was sent, with additional aerospace and infantry assets. All of this took time of course, so Colonel estimated that the main cities of the world would have fallen by then and wisely decided to land us at some distance, while also opting to take some nuclear weapons along, for unforeseen anti-ship needs. And this is why Commandos are still on the Taurian Defense Force roll.
We were challenged at the Nadir jump point by a combat dropship that reportedly did some really crazy maneuvering before it was destroyed by nuclear missiles. And as our flotilla set off for the Carthage itself, it got chased down by the assault dropship guarding the Zenith jump point, against which our fighters expended their last nuclear missiles. The fact that we faced two combat dropships of an unknown class, capable of sustaining suicidal G-forces, rang alarm bells amongst the command, so colonel made a last day change to a landing zone further in the wilds, setting down on the Agera plateau, an arid, rocky piece of real estate, whose only feature of importance is a bauxite mine, with the only connecting road to the lowlands. A defensible area, but we could easily get bottlenecked there as well.
As the force was entering the atmosphere we broadcasted the a short appeal, declaring us to be TDF unit, sent to help the population against the invaders.
Reply was short: ''This world is a part of the greater union of the humanity. Your presence and aggression are unwarranted. Depart immediately.''
The pronunciation was absolutely grating, I have no idea how the speaker could have butchered in such a way. I mean, I had no idea back then.
Colonel demanded the invasion force to identify itself, but got the same reply. We caught their broadcasts to the population afterwards, however these were however the only words they had for us. But then, weapon fire is the best method of communication when dealing with abominations like this.
There was fighter clash and our guys had their hands full despite numerical superiority. Another bad omen.
See, I was just a simple mech jock back then, so I didn't hear what they found at the mine, my first personal notice that these weren't just some random weirdos from out there, was when my recognition book couldn't identify their scout tanks we encountered after descending down the road. It was obvious those weren't some slapshod thingies from village workshop, but top of the line stuff, operated by guys who knew their job. They gave was a lot of trouble but we took down several with the rest retreating to the sensor edge. We got the orders not to pursue beyond the unit threshold and I could tell some guys were chaffing.
So we spent approximately half a day sortying out, to push the scouts away and returning to the line. Then we noticed increase in the opposite ECM emission and within moments there was enemy force within range, charging us with minimechs* and APC carried battlearmor, again nothing in the recognition book. They were fast and nimble, making it difficult to hit them, but most of the company had jump jets, so we were able to keep them at distance, leading them into cauldron, as our comrades collapsed their flanks. Bastards took only a moment to split into two groups and charged both flanks, hitting our boys up close with quite a few of those damn mech tasers, their fiendish battle armor swarming over disabled mechs and tanks. We tried to shoot down as many bastards as possible and managed to save some of our comrades, while others were carried away by the battle armor troopers. They retreated faster than we could follow, leaving us in control of the battlefield, shaken and quite stirred. When I zoomed on the empty cockpit of Eugenio Rasmas I couldn't help to notice the lack of blood or scorch marks. Was he pulled out alive? I could very well imagine why someone would want live prisoners, but looking at their casualties, strewn around, I couldn't understand what commander would be willing to pay such price for some information.
We received order to pull back to the base of ascent as soon as trailers moved knocked out mechs and tanks back to our dropships, while we also dragged as many destroyed enemies to our new positions as possible. Bastards were now a continuous danger, probing our perimeter all the time, skittering away when our fire became too heavy, only to try again elsewhere, we were covering for each other, so we could catch a little bit of sleep, something bastards seemed not to need.
Finally the order came for us to retreat back to the plateau, with our company forming the rearguard. Our ever present opponents didn't fail to notice this and pressed us hard. We did our best to stay just out of the range of their mech tasers and not run after our comrades at top speed. I was well aware of where my sidearm was all the way up that winding road. That is until our artillery opened up. I must admit, it was handled masterfully, but they still pressed on, despite their casualties, until they reached the position of our fire company at one of the serpentines, combined weight of our artillery and heavy mechs convincing them to pull back. And we were ordered to pursue. I can tell you it wasn't exactly the most spirited chase on our side and bastards tried to counterattack us three or four times, we mostly managed to stay out of their tasers way, with artillery increasing its toll but, but Skulky did get tazed, we managed to hold them back from snatching him though. Captain stopped pursuit at what must have been the edge of effective artillery range and we dragged some bastard remains back to the new main line, with our striker buddies taking care of Skulky.
We got stood down at the laager, where exhaustion finally caught up with me, I could have slept so much longer when they woke me up for the meal, but such is soldier's life, never enough sleep. There wasn't much banter at the tables, we downed our food and coffee as quickly as we could and moved to the debriefing, where we were informed that we would rotate between being operational reserve and security for laager and the mine. Also if anyone wondered, all the ruckus few hours ago was from the major push up the road by the bastards. Judging by the faces, everybody else overslept it as well.
Two days later, Gawain Jones, yeah I reckon you heard about him, warned us that that he spotted some mini mechs climbing up the plateau. My lance was in the QRF and we raced to the point warned as about, catching the bastards before they could disperse.
They climbed the plateau at other points as well and we were chasing them for days as they mounted hit and run attacks against us, while also probing our positions at the road. After detachment guarding the mine got hit hard , we stripped the place of everything we could use and abandoned it, concentrating on the laager and the road. And after all that happened afterwards, there are still some armchair generals calling out colonel for ''surrendering initiative'' to the bastards. Fuck 'em, he was right and if they hold such strong opinions how the snatchers should be fought, then they are welcome to volunteer for combat duty and put their high flying ideas to practice. We were running low on ammo soon enough, especially for our artillery, so we had to call it quits. We packed everything but tents into our Dropships then carried out a textbook fire and maneuver retreat to the LZ. As I was running towards our Union I actually saw Jones deliver the last batch of refugees with his Skyhopper. I couldn't understand why he flew away though, by the timetable I was given we were mere minutes from liftoff. We actually wired the question about him to the colonel's dropper and I guess we weren't the only ones as the answer was a general message. That brave, mad fool. His family was on a Dropship, he could have gone with them, but instead he chose to stay and help those who were still in hiding in the wilds and couldn't be evacuated to our LZ. I sometimes daydream how we will kick the snatchers off Carthage and we will greet Jones and all the people he saved there and it will be all worth it. But it's a faint hope and getting fainter and fainter. For him and everyone left behind.
*Sort of ProtoMech, but Taurian soldiers wouldn't have that name on the tip of their tongues, so when somebody in the Concordat Commandos blurted minimechs into radio network, it was picked by the rest of the regiment and it stuck. All later attempts by Inner Sphere to enforce proper nomenclature failed.
