Vote Results:
Scrub somehow doubts that story, but orders the lance out of the facility for the moment. "Maybe we'll talk to the local House Steiner representative, or your employer." she muses on the open frequency. "I'm sure either will be happy to hear about some rent-a-cops trying to blow up strategically significant facilities. Command-Three, Command-Four, give these guys to the count of ten, then start targeting heat signatures."
Eight seconds later, most of an infantry platoon emerges from one of the buildings, hands raised. Scrub breathes a sigh of relief. That worked out pretty well, we'll hand over control of the facility to the planetary militia until this corporate dispute is resolved one way or the other. The Flegmann guys aren't too happy with the outcome, but Sukarto no longer has access to the facility, either - it's taken enough damage that it's not very useful to anyone without a good amount of repairs (but nothing too expensive).
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June 29, 3049
Dropship LZ
Zoetermeer, Federated Commonwealth
While Scrub is talking down rent-a-cop corporate security, an actual pirate (air quotes, question mark) raid happens. A jumpship emerges at a nearby pirate point, and several dropships make their way planet-side. Neither we nor the planetary garrison really have the firepower to intercept them, so, they land, seizing a militia airbase.
This is exactly what we're getting paid for, so we saddle up. A pair of fighters will be supporting us - a Thunderbird (100 tons) and a Corsair (50 tons). An UrbanMech escaped the initial seizure of the facility, so will be ... uh... helping out, I guess.
Beta-Assault will be taking point on this action - the pirate force consists of a medium mech lance, a reinforced light mech lance and a couple of hovertanks they captured from the garrison. It looks like they've got a pair of fighters running as well.
Our ideal outcome here is that we recapture the air base with minimal damage. Field conditions are normal, with a little wind.
Round 1:
"Are those guys... hauling cargo out of the base?" Siljanus asks, adjusting his goggles.
"Yes." Zenn7 agrees. "Assault-Three, Four, get them. Assault-Two, with me. Assault five... uh..." he pauses, trying to think of what to do with the Urbanmech. "... with ... us..." our mechwarrior turns off his comms and sighs, throttling the Awesome up.
A puff of smoke and dust rises from the air base, not indicating anything good (as it later turns out, it's an Ostscout stepping on a building and collapsing the structure).
A helicopter crests some woods and blasts our Thunderbolt with its autocannon, which is a class 2 so it just plinks some armor off. It then eats a pair of lasers from LordMortis' Victor, crashing back down through the forest canopy.
Siljanus blasts an arm off a mech carrying some cargo with a PPC, also melting a couple of straps on the right torso, which cause it to drop some of said cargo then fall over as it becomes unbalanced. A puff of black smoke indicates catastrophic engine failure. Zenn7 fires the Awesome's PPCs at a flatbed track, evaporating the cab. The small pond keeps our Awesome cool, while Siljanus' Mackie is hosed down by our coolant truck.
Round 2:
A lance of light mechs engages LordMortis and our Thunderbolt up close. LordMortis takes a second to put a gauss slug through a Harvester Ant hauling cargo from the base, coring it out. The Thunderbolt takes some light armor damage, and is unable to really do anything in return.
Siljanus scores a couple of PPCs hits on a distant Maxim hover transport but fails to seal the deal. The coolant truck keeps the Mackie nice and cool though.
Zenn7 aims at an MG turret in the facility, as its IFF shows hostile, but the PPC shot goes a little low and the entire building disappears as the ammo inside goes up. Our mechwarrior cringes.
Round 3:
"Last guy is getting away. I'll take these ankle biters, you go get him, four." LordMortis tells our Thunderbolt. It's not a glorious job chasing down a J-37 ordnance transport, but someone has to do it. A nimble little Locust avoid the Victor's gauss slug, but the nearby Vulcan is staggered by multiple laser and SRM blasts to the left torso section. The Thunderbolt jumps south and gives the Vulcan a few parting shots as well. This lets LordMortis get a solid kick in, cracking the lighter mech's left leg and sending it to the ground (although not before it applies a liberal amount of flamer to our Victor, heating it up).
A Cicada tries to get at our UrbanMech buddy, glancing a laser off its torso before taking a PPC shot from Zenn7 to the right torso and losing one of its lasers. The Urbie returns fire with its autocannon, pinging a few rounds off the Cicada's leg.
Light mechs attempt to swarm Zenn7 and Siljanus, inflicting relatively little damage but being able to avoid most of the return fire as well.
Round 4:
[camera feed lost]
Our Thunderbolt moves south to try to get that last escaping truck, firing LRMs but missing.
The Cicada moves north, trying to get a back shot on Siljanus' Mackie, but its efforts are hampered when our mechwarrior rotates the torso as far to the left as it'll go then swings the left arm with dual PPCs around and blasts it twice in the center of mass, taking it out of action permanently. An Ostscout attempts a similar maneuver, but has its head removed by one of Zenn7's PPCs. Granted, the Coolant truck gets jostled by all this and misses the Awesome, so the mech is lit up like a christmas tree, but at least we got rid of two of those annoying little mechs.
LordMortis jumps southwest, moving between clusters of trees to avoid most return fire, blowing the left arm off a Wasp with lasers and SRMs as the gauss slug goes wide, again.
Round 5:
"Got him." Our T-Bolt mechwarrior reports, having just sent a flight of LRMs at the escaping J-27 ordnance transport and taken it out. The rest of the mech's weapons miss, heating it up, but job well done.
Siljanus blasts a nearby Pegasus to bits, a gauss slug through the left side wrecking it, while Zenn7 melts through the armor on a Locust chasing our Urbanmech buddy down, following up with a small laser blast from the head-mounted laser to crack the engine shielding and gyro. The light mech stays upright, but isn't doing too hot.
LordMortis jumps south, but is engaged by the main hostile force, the medium mech lance - the armor on the gauss rifle arm goes red from incoming fire, and it's all our mechwarrior can do to knock over a nearby Maxim before jumping back away.
Round 6:
The Steiner air support arrives, the Corsair cleanly blasting a rocket launcher turret off the top of a building, while the Thunderbird is a little less discriminating, taking out the whole building along with the turret.
LordMortis retreats towards Zenn7 and Siljanus' position, blasting a Galleon tank with the gauss rifle in the meantime. Zenn7 continues trying to help the Urbanmech, this time by blowing off half an Ostscout's torso with the Awesome's right arm PPC. The nimble little mechs do a decent job avoiding our assaults' firepower, but our mechwarriors are well trained enough to cover each others' weak spots with at least something. The Urbanmech reports heavy leg damage as coolant fluid sprays from its left leg and sparks fly out from the foot actuator.
Round 7:
Just as quickly as they came in, the allied aerospace fighters fly off, leaving us alone with the hostile mechs.
Zenn7 moves south, but the hostiles all seem to be avoiding his line of sight, so he takes a couple of pot shots at a hostile Shilone flying by, scoring with all three PPCs. The fighter drops to the ground, although the aero jock manages to level out. More or less.
Siljanus finishes off the nearby Locust, clearing the Urbanmech's retreat path.
To the southwest, the Wasp that's been picking at our Thunderbolt finally gets what it's got coming, namely two lasers to the left torso, which blow the attached arm off and send the bug mech scampering for the hills.
Round 8:
LordMortis gets the drop on a Trebuchet as it tries to get our Victor into range and firing arc of its murderous eighteen SRM battery. A couple of lasers melt through the rear armor, popping one of the ammo bins and scattering the medium mech over the landscape.
Zenn7 marches forward, blasting away a Vedette on the way to the remaining mechs.
Siljanus takes over anti-aircraft duties, shooting down the other Shilone. This one does not survive the impact with the ground.
Round 9:
[camera feed lost... again]
Before the fight ends, the legged Locust that Siljanus thought finished gets a cheap shot on the back of our retreating Urbie pal, causing severe engine and gyro damage. LordMortis finishes off the bug mech for that, as Siljanus takes out a flamer turret in the base. Zenn7 blasts through a Panther's center torso armor, which causes the 35-ton mech's heat to soar like a drunken eagle.
The non-destroyed downed Shilone manages to angle itself for a takeoff and zips off, while the Wolverine and Griffin make their way rapidly out of the area. As does the Panther, although with that engine damage, we won't be seeing it for a while.
The damage to the airbase is extensive, and the pirates relocated quite a bit of equipment that the militia guys will have to put back (not to mention stealing a Shilone), but it should all be repairable. The Urbie will be ok as well, the mechwarrior will remain in the area to secure it for salvage operations.
We salvage (and will immediately sell off on the local market) the Vulcan and the parts from the crashed Shilone, just to make up some cash on all the XL engine damage we've been taking.
Meanwhile, Delta-Ranger buzzes the hostile dropship landing zone and attracts quite a bit of attention. Still, they should be able to lose the hostiles (a light mech lance; a reinforced medium-heavy mech lance; numerous hovertanks and light armor) as their recon run was carried out at night.
We do have some additonal options, however. We could redirect Beta-Assault to the area and use them to blast these guys away in case we want to make a try for the dropships later and face less bad guys. We could also try to get our Long Tom battery into position and shell this crowd.
[] Just lose the pursuing forces
[] Redirect Beta-Assault to the area for some direct fire support
[] Use artillery to shell the relatively slow-moving units
I'd hate to field a piecemeal response that would just get chewed up. 
