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Another Hakkapeliitat Battle - Last Shot
An old tale of combat.
by Lee Arvanitis |
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Looking through the viewscreen of his Blackjack, Dodger saw only the murky water of the Ombatu river and vague shapes of battlemechs on both sides. Devlin Kail's Griffin was motionless to his right and the distorted image of a Rifleman drifted in and out of view a few dozen meters to the left. Dodger smiled inwardly as he recognized the Rifleman's outlandish painted markings even through the dark, muddy water. Only Bjorn Thunder would have such bad taste.
The bulk of the Hakkapeliitta unit had been deployed 20 meters deep in the water to avoid detection while Saint Kincaid and Nadia Wolfkin went out scouting in their light recon mechs. Saint was currently sporting one of his favorites, a modified Locust, and was accompanied by Nadia's Jenner. The two mechs loped easily up and down the grassy hills at a blistering 118 k.p.h., scanning for any sign of possible enemies.
"I got em on scope!", Saint yelled into his comspeaker.
It was difficult to miss the Union class dropship as it landed on top of a nearby clearing, incinerating the last bit of vegetation that remained. Both Nadia and Saint quickly backpedaled to a ridge further south of the dropship to keep a safe distance from the impressive array of weaponry the Union normally carried. Saint quickly switched radio channels to the multi-frequency band he knew would monitored by the dropship crew.
"Coopella's mother has warts on her ass!", sneered Saint into his headset.
"You should know...", Nadia snapped back laughingly as she keyed her own headset.
The plan was a simple one: Saint's and Nadia's mechs had been painted with the colors of the local militia in hopes of deceiving the pirates, led by the notorious John C. Coopella, into believing that only lightly armed militia defended the planet against them. Little did they know it was a hardy group of battlehardened mercenaries instead.
At first the plan did not seem to be succeeding, but after an additional serious of taunts, the dropship's doors opened and it unleashed its fearsome cargo. Paired in tight formation with a Maxim, a pirate Condor headed towards the Hakkapeliitta recon mechs as fast as its turbo engines could move it. Saint and Nadia immediately turned their mechs around and broke for another set of hills further southwards.
Focusing his rear sensors to the dropship, Saint recognized the shapes of a Jaegermech and a Trebuchet emerging from the cargohold. After a brief moment a Centurion also appeared.
"He's here.", Saint gleefully noted over the secured Hakkapeliitat radio band.
It was this same Centurion, reputedly piloted by J.S. Coopella, that was suspected of numerous atrocities on nearby planet installations. As soon as the 3 mechs slowly moved off the clearing, two more vehicles, a Goblin and a fearsome Pike tank, emerged, darted around the 3 mechs and blazed southwards.
Following the set plan, Saint and Nadia withdrew before the hovercrafts, still keeping visual contact with the force of slower mechs and vehicles in order to feed their positions to the main force waiting underwater. This became trickier as they were forced to turn towards the speeding hovers in order to maintain visual contact, but the experienced pilots managed to stay tantalizingly out of effective range.
As reports from the two scout mechs placed the enemy closer and closer to the bridge and the Hakkapeliitta forces hiding in the water just beside it, Dodger started to concentrate on relaxing. His fingers were cramped from squeezing the joysticks in anticipation while the enemy hovercraft blazed by almost overhead in their pursuit of the Hakkapeliitta scouts. The one-way radio silence was somewhat frustrating, for there was a battle overhead, but no way to even cheer on his fellow mercenaries. But the time was here. The enemy was almost at the coordinates that would spring the trap.
"Just a few more seconds", Dodger murmered to himself.
Despite the anxious waiting, the crackling from the radio startled him and sent the adrenalin rushing through the veins.
"AT THEM YOU DOGS, TAKE OUT THE JAEGER FIRST!", Devlin Kail cried.
The comcircuits came alive as the entire troop yelled "HAKKAA PAALLE" as one and sent the water of the tame river churning as they rushed out of the water onto the shallows.
The first things to rise out of the water were the shoulder mounted LRM racks of Stewart Ray's Catapult. The second his cockpit cleared the water, Stewart triggered his LRMs and the first salvo landed squarely onto the Jaeger's midsection, blowing armor plating into tiny useless pieces. Thunder echoed across the plains as more and more mechs broke the surface of the river. Bjorn Thunder's Rifleman blazed away with two large caliber lasers, scorching the mech's side and setting off a discharge of electricity along it's left side. David Furey, driving an Archer that the last mission had brought into their hands, immediately locked the Jaegermech and launched his twin score LRMs. The hail of missiles staggered the mech, and while its pilot fought to keep it upright, a myriad of lasers virtually blew off every limb. The mech promptly fell down face first and blew into a fireball that consumed the sky. Dodger noted with some satisfaction that he had seen no pilot ejection.
Seeing this target neutralized, Dodger unleashed a volley of laserfire on the Trebutchet, signaling the next target for the unit's firepower. As if struck by the hammer of a god, the mech was almost thrown back by the fusillade. The armor was blown off the mech in such a fashion that bits of armor plating showered down continuously onto the nearby ground. Seeing that the mech somehow still lived, Dodger aimed for a deep, exposed gouge in the side and triggered both of his Blackjack's autocannons. The effect was phenomenal. As the rounds ricocheted through the internals of the Trebutchet's maimed torso, they found the storage for the LRM racks. That the pilot had been unable to dump his remaining missile ammo, either because of extensive system failures or because of the sheer shock at the ferocity of the assault was obvious as another thunderous explosion ripped through the Memphis skies and the Trebuchet's carcass slumped slowly to the ground.
The death of another comrade jolted the remaining pirates from their shocked state and they half-heartedly returned fire from the other side of the river, but it was not nearly concentrated or accurate enough to be effective. John Copella quickly assessed the situation and found it to his extreme disadvantage. He had lost two of his strongest mechs and was faced with an enemy that outnumbered his force by almost a factor of two.
Cursing, he quickly signaled a retreat to the dropship.
Naturally, Devlin ordered his troops to give chase, for there was money to be made in salvage, despite the outrageously low prices back on Outreach (The only Dragoon sanctioned shop was ran by a fellow named Gork, and he could have put to shame any used-car salesman named Vinny from pre-spaceflight history).
Dodger launched upwards on jets of flame and joined the bombardment of the quickly retreating Goblin tank from the air. While his shots were inaccurate and caused little damage, the volleys from the earthbound mechs of the unit were more than enough to burrow past the armor in the tanks side and expose the interior to fierce autocannon fire from Bjorn's Rifleman. Bjorn kept up the volley until smoke erupted from the turret and the last apparent member of its crew dragged himself out of the doomed vehicle to collapse onto the ground.
The remaining Pike tank brought its three autocannons to bear on Dodger moments before he landed and scored a minor hit that only served to attract the attention of most of the other Hakkapeliitta mechs. Sending Darkhosis's Shadowhawk after the pirate leader, Devlin led the remaining forces after the Pike in hopes of capturing it for future use.
The pirate hovers chose this time to make their appearance. While Devlin was leading the charge northwards, the hovercrafts swept in from the west at full speed, trailed closely by Saint and Nadia.
Bringing his Marauder to a halt, Bobafett unleashed twin PPC lighting bolts at the Condor and grinned in satisfaction as the craft slowed down with an unusual and unexpected end over end method. Seeing the Condor's track blown off and it effectively neutralized, Dodger brought his autocannons to bear on the Maxim. It was moving well below its top speed, probably due to damage from the short, hardy bushes along with harassing fire from Nadia's Jenner. Aiming to the aft of the vehicle, he let rip from both bores and saw the telltale puff of smoke that probably signaled the death of the craft's lift fan. This suspicion was confirmed when the hover suddenly slowed and halted, further attracting laser and missile fire. As other mechs at shot the strong nose, Dodger zeroed in on the side and pulled down on the triggers on all 4 of his lasers. The first shot went high, but a swift correction homed the other three dead on target and slagged the crew compartment.
The Pike needed no further encouragement to run for the dropship's protective fireshadow, but this particular tank's weakness lay in the lack of top-end speed. Ambling steadily along at 53 k.p.h., it sought to drive off Devlin's Griffin with repeated volleys from the trio of autocannons it possessed. Somehow, it seemed to Dodger that Devlin was only enjoying the little competition as he casually piloted straight up to the tank and attempted to stomp the hovercraft. The pirates' luck changed briefly as the Griffin's leg, still wet and sandy from the river, slipped on a rock outcropping and deposited Devlin on the ground.
Watching from a distance Dodger radioed encouragement to his leader and watched him raise the Griffin up with slowly, deliberate movements. However the Pike was determined to avenge his comrades. Its gunner bathed Devlin's mech with fire, causing it to slump to the ground with each successive attempt to stand.
Just as things were starting to look bad for Devlin, Psylocke brought his Griffin out of the nearby forest and completely exposed the Pike's aft armor with a kick, and a quick PPC blast from his right arm. The Pike came to a sputtering halt and the top hatch flew open as the crew signaled surrender.
"Watch out...He's makin a break for it!", Bjorn shouted over the comchannel.
But before anyone could react, the enemy Centurion crashed out of the forest to the east and ran inside the Union's weaponcover.
The enemy commander had gotten away, but that did not stop bottles of the best Memphis beer from being opened when the Hakkapeliittas boarded their dropships. The mission had been only to protect the planet, not destroy the pirates. Perhaps the pirates had contributed in some manner to the local economy, but not much time was spent debating that point. The battle itself had not lasted 5 minutes and any damage suffered by friendly mechs was repaired by astechs with buckets of paint while the senior techs concentrated on fixing the bountiful salvage aboard.
Three hours into the celebration Devlin stood up (rather shakily I might add, but what can you expect with the local synthbeer being over 26 proof) and called for order.
"Ash *BURB* you know.. we have.. uuh..wha wuz i 'sposed ta .. " and with that thought, he promptly passed out to cheers and laughter from the rest of the Hakkapeliitats. |
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