Beta-Two is unable to defend the factory - in a short, but brutal fight, they lose the Orion to an ammo explosion, with the mechwarrior being captured. The rest of the mechwarriors give a good accounting of themselves, exploding a Javelin, crippling a Locust and an Assassin as well as disabling several tanks, but the Davion forces (a reinforced medium lance each of mechs and tanks) quickly dispatch the facility defenses. Beta-Two winds up having no choice but to withdraw. Can't win them all.
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November 16, 3038
"Geez, someone humped the bunk." is Hyena's reaction to the scene they come up on. A large crater and debris strewn over a wide area, indicative of a crashed dropship. It must have been there for a while, as there's no smoke and everything is "room temperature". Gamma-One's battlemechs warn their mechwarriors that "biochemical contaminants detected externally". Implying that it may not be a good idea to pop the cockpit hatch for a breath of fresh air.
Sensors indicate a substantial group of mechs and tanks heading away from the dropship. Gamma-One gives chase, and encounters a not-entirely-unexpected situation. First, as they close in on the sensor blips, wide-band comms jamming goes into effect. Short-range stuff still works but nothing is getting out. Second, there are two combined-arms groups shooting at each other - one consisting of two lances of mechs and two tank lances, escorting eight cargo-carrying units carrying what looks like "Fox's Breath" briefcases (mech-sized). Their paint jobs are a pretty generic green, rather than the usual we've seen on the McCarron's Armored Cavalry units. The other was obviously trying to stop them, but isn't doing so well, being down to a lance of light tanks. They're painted in local militia colors.
"Enough of this mysterious nonsense." Scrub sends to Gamma-One with short-range laser comms. "Stop the convoy. Destroy the militia if they shoot at us. Let's grab at least one of those briefcases."
"Isn't that going to be a contract breach if it turns out we wind up shooting at Capellan units?" Cylus asks.
"If they're hauling around nerve gas, deploy it against Davion civilians, and we get stuck with a bill, that's going to be a little more than a contract breach." Scrub answers.
"Roger that." the other mechwarrior responds.
It'll be easier said than done, but let's see what we can do.
Round 1:
It looks like the convoy is splitting up, some will try to pass north of the random town, some to the south. Hyena and Xwraith will break north, while Scrub and Cylus approach from the south. We exchange a few LRMs and light autocannon rounds with the convoy escorts as a form of greeting.
Round 2:
"There, Gamma Three, that construction mech has one of the briefcases. Don't let it get past!" Scrub takes a couple of LRM and light autocannon hits, but nothing serious. We score no hits of our own.
Round 3:
A hover APC tries to zip past Cylus, a Fox's Breath briefcase strapped to the top of it. The Grasshopper shakes slightly as a few LRMs from a Dervish impact it, causing Cylus to miss all but one laser short.
Scrub aims her PPCs at a distant Blackjack, hitting it in the side torso sections, then takes a few laser hits from a Condor hovertank as it roars in. She spares an SRM salvo for it, knocking out fans and immobilizing it.
Round 4:
It seems that Cylus getting that hover APC is just not to be - it dodges every one of the Grasshopper's lasers and even the symbolic LRM salvo.
Scrub works on the construction mech, hitting it with two PPC shots and breaching armor in multiple places.
To the north, however, a similar hover APC is unable to escape Hyena. The Striker's autocannon and PPC annihilate the vehicle completely, as some kind of on-board ammo detonates.
Round 5:
That Blackjack is harassing Scrub, so she turns her full firepower on it, blasting the armor off both side torso sections with a PPC and two lasers. She also takes the time to backhand a Spider with her free arm, breaching its left arm armor. Her cover gets set on fire, though, so it's time to relocate.
To the north, Hyena and Xwraith work on two more briefcase-carrying vehicles, with Xwraith getting a two-fer, disabling one truck with a medium laser, then swinging the Thunderbolt's right arm around to cut another one in half with the ER large laser.
The good part is that the local militia guys appear to have decided not to shoot at us. However, they're still getting pasted, one of their tanks has been turned into a laser and LRM pincushion, and is simply sitting there, belching out smoke.
Round 6:
Hyena plants a PPC shot directly into the center of mass of a Buster haulermech, stripping off most of the armor. A Davion militia Scorpion is disabled by Centurion-launched LRMs.
Cylus jumps in and continues working on the Blackjack that Scrub started on, hitting it with three lasers and an LRM salvo. The mech's right section takes a pounding, with an actuator and a laser barrel getting blown away. Scrub misses the Blackjack, but does get a solid laser hit on the Carbine to the east, causing massive leg actuator damage and ensuring it won't be going anywhere fast. The Spider continues messing with Scrub, and Cylus walks over to crack the light mech's leg. Unfortunate, as it's just fallen down in a raging inferno that it and its buddies started.
Round 7:
The smoke provides decent cover for Scrub and Cylus as they continue slowly picking away at the Blackjack.
Hyena and Xwraith need to disable the remaining three cargo units to the north, then they will be able to retreat into the town and fight a little more effectively from there. Their weapons fire isn't too accurate - it's somewhat disconcerting for Hyena as one hundred twenty LRMs from two LRM Carriers come his way, but thankfully, none of them hit.
Round 8:
The Blackjack has had enough and runs off. Scrub and Cylus let him go, they've got a lot more targets to take care of. Cylus exchanges laser hits for lots of SRMs from the nearby Kintaro, while Scrub disables a Vedette with PPCs.
One of the militia tanks, a laser Hetzer, gets disabled, but not before detonating an enemy SRM Scorpion, setting off all three tons of its SRM ammo, plus a half-ton of machine gun ammo.
Round 9:
Hyena takes cover behind a building, providing a decent bulwark against the LRM stream. A Buster from the north zaps him with a PPC. "You call that a PPC? This is a PPC!" The Striker turns north and lets rip with an autocannon burst then follows up with a PPC shot. The autocannon breaches the Buster's center torso armor, and then the PPC hits the engine. The explosion is pretty substantial, scattering bits of industrialmech all over the battlefield. Xwraith jumps north to take down the other Buster, exchanging kicks. The industrial mech comes out way behind, with multiple destroyed leg actuators and winding up on the ground.
To the south, Scrub and Cylus engage a Dervish and a Valkyrie in the smoke. The Valkyrie stays upright through the Grasshopper's laser barrage, while the Dervish can't quite take the damage output of a Warhammer's close-range weapons (medium lasers, SRMs, small lasers and MGs for good measure), and falls over, cracking a shoulder actuator on the way down. The Valkyrie also takes a backhand from the Warhammer's unfired PPC arm, scraping armor off the head.
Round 10:
Cylus jumps northeast, firing lasers at a Vedette as the Grasshopper arcs by, melting the front armor off. The Dervish that Scrub pummeled gets up, but is immediately knocked down again by weapons fire. She follows up with a curb stomp, crushing the mech's right torso section.
Xwraith continues engaging the Buster from last turn, taking its right leg off with laser fire and a boot. The left arm comes off as it hits the ground. The driver has had enough and powers down, climbing out shortly. Although, to be fair, the powering down may not have been voluntary.
Round 11:
Cylus finishes off the limping Carbine with a spare LRM salvo, coring out the engine, then disables a nearby Vedette with laser fire. The Kintaro continues pummeling away at Scrub's Warhammer, stripping off armor with its massive SRM racks, but two can play at that game. Scrub makes a pair of pin point accurate shots to the head with medium lasers, then the SRM salvo cracks open the cockpit, taking the Kintaro out of action. She also takes a second to stomp on a nearby Vedette, cracking its turret to make it combat ineffective.
Round 12:
Xwraith and Hyena redouble their efforts to disable the last cargo vehicle (that hasn't gotten away).
To the south, Cylus and Scrub focus fire on the remaining Blackjack, with the 40-ton mech winding up on the ground after taking several PPCs, laser and SRMs. Along with a boot.
Round 13:
Hyena blows away an LRM Carrier with an AC/10, popping up as the vehicle gets a little too close and shredding it.
Scrub fires at the damaged Valkyrie as it hits Cylus with a laser blast. One of the PPC shots goes wide, but the other hits the almost-empty LRM ammo bin. Not empty enough, however. Cylus, meanwhile, is busy cutting the leg off the Blackjack. That leaves the southern half of the battlefield secure.
Round 14:
Hyena destroys the second LRM Carrier, so he can now get up and deal with the Wyvern that's been blasting away at him from the left. Xwraith stomps the remaining cargo carrying vehicle.
Cylus and Scrub give the Blackjack a few parting shots as they leave, but that mech isn't going anywhere with a missing leg.
The remaining hostile units that are still mobile, having no reason to stick around, leave. Xwraith and Hyena aren't really able to pursue, while Scrub and Cylus are too far away. The Davion militia units have been destroyed, so they're not going to be any help (not that they would have been anyway, being nominally hostile).
We managed to actually recover only one "Fox's Breath" briefcase - the rest were either annihilated in engine/ammo explosions, crushed (the computer in Xwraith's battlemech is insistent that the cockpit remain sealed "due to biochemical contaminants") or gotten away.
Our salvage crews have to wear full NBC gear as they load the loot onto flatbed trucks. We also capture several of the hostile mechwarriors and vehicle crews - mostly from the south flank of the battlefield. The ones to the north either managed to escape or are dead - either from direct weapons fire or after having been exposed to whatever gas was released when Xwraith crunched that last truck. We'll interrogate the prisoners and examine the briefcase when we bring them back to our dropships. Somewhere well-clear of our dropships, in an inflatable, sealed dome, for the briefcase. And we'll probably want to keep the liaison from seeing the briefcase, as well.
The civilians from the nearby town have the sense to stay away, but they're at risk of stray wind blowing a cloud of who-the-hell-knows-what into their town. Scrub thinks about some options on how to handle this:
1) Get on the loudspeakers and try to convince the residents to evacuate ("no, morons, to the south"), and see if we can get someone in town to call the Davion militia in so they can handle this. Supervise the evacuation. This will probably prevent Gamma-One from getting to Beta-One in time to make a difference.
2) Screw it - not our problem. Grab the loot, prisoners and the briefcase, then move to help Beta-One.
Beta-One reports that they'll be facing three lances of heavy mechs, plus a couple of heavy tank lances, so they'll have their hands full. Granted, they're guarding an Intruder-class dropship, which is bristling with guns, and have a mixed tank/mech assault lance for backup, but still. Gamma-One's status is yellow - Scrub and Cylus have a small amount of armor left, Xwraith is mostly in the yellow and Hyena is in the green. Ammo expenditure is about 50%.