Vote Results:
Stefan moves quickly into the inferno fire, grabbing the Spider's legs, and begins dragging. It's a slow process as good footing is hard to find, but our mechwarrior manages it, and the Trebuchet's heat sinks never go above 33% capacity.
---
"Thanks for getting me out of there, Hayden." The Kurita mechwarrior currently occupying a bed in the Thunderball (our Overlord-class dropship) says, with an expression of sincere gratitude. She got several scrapes, bumps and second-degree burns, but Stefan's quick action prevented any permanent damage. Well, the mech techs cringe when the mech is brought in, but the mechwarrior will be fine.
"Sure, Ruby." Stefan replies. "Guess that'll teach you to take on four times your mass by yourself." he adds with a smirk.
"Yeah, I guess it will. I'd bow, but... " she gestures vaguely at the multitude of bandages.
"Well, don't worry. You can buy me a beer when you get out of here." Stefan grins.
"I don't really drink that Steiner swill, but I'll buy you some sake." Ruby replies. "The real stuff, not the crap made out of quillar-soy-derivative."
Stefan raises an eyebrow. "You're not going to ask me to be your second in a disemboweling ceremony or anything?"
Ruby scoffs. "Come on. Not every mechwarrior out of Kurita is obsessed with pretending to be a noble warrior from a tiny country on Terra."
"So how come you were driving a Spider? No ejection seat and all that."
"It was never a problem before. You shot up half my lance, and by the time we got you out of that building, your Grasshopper and Raven friends got there. I hate to say it, but you guys are good."
Stefan smirks. "We try. You can always come work for us, we'll put you in a Venom. Still no ejection seat, though."
---
April 12, 3051
Yamashita Manufacturing Plant
Saffel, Draconis Combine
"All right, listen up." Zenn7 tells his lance and Alpha-Urban. "Our recon teams have found the last place we need to raid. We're going to go in to this complex here... " He points to the map on the flatscreen, " ...eliminate all mobile units and any stationary turrets that fire at us, then hold the place while our salvage teams grab everything that's not nailed down. After that, our contract is done. Any questions?"
"Yeah." Moley asks. "How come the Dislocator guys are only sending a lance of shitty tanks?"
Zenn7 shrugs. "Doesn't matter. They're not the ones paying us."
"... and also..." Moley adds, mumbling to Hyena, "... how come we have to have briefings in this smelly-ass Union... "
Hyena giggles, for lack of a better expression.
"You two jokers have anything to add?" Zenn7 asks.
"No sir." Comes the response.
"Right, then mount up and let's go finish this up. I feel we've overstayed our welcome."
Round 1:
Most of Beta-Assault lance, approaches from the north, supported by two Dislocator tanks (a Galleon and a Striker), while our Victor approaches from the west, hoping to put the turrets in that section of the facility out of action quickly - there's some nasty ones, including a triple LB-10X, and many LRM tubes.
From the south approach our favorite two Falcon hovertanks, as well as the repaired Schrek PPC Carrier.
The LBX turret goes to work on our Victor right away, scoring hits with all three barrels and blasting a substantial amount of armor off the 80-ton assault mech as it feathers its jump jets to avoid a good number of rockets coming its way. The Victor retaliates, firing its gauss rifle at the LRM turret next to the LBX setup, hitting an ammo bin and collapsing about half the structure.
The Shreck fires its three PPCs into the base as well, cleanly taking out a turret with twenty four SRM tubes. Not the most important target right now, but it would have been painful to encounter up close.
Zenn7 and our Hatamoto-Hi (not the Hatamoto-Chi we salvaged, this is the better one we've had for a while) focus fire on an Archer coming up the hill towards them, scoring multiple PPC hits - the heavy mech's armor holds up.
Round 2:
Alpha-Urban lance shows up to the south.
"Somebody take out that Thumper before it starts trouble." Zenn7 orders, continuing to pump PPC shots into the Archer - combined with fire from the Hatamoto-Hi, the mech now sports two big armor breaches, one in the center torso and one over the left arm. Our mechwarrior sniffs as he watches a hostile Manticore zap the allied Striker tank, lighting up its fuel tank with a breaching shot from its PPC main gun followed up by some LRMs. The Manticore is disabled by an allied Scimitar tank's autocannon fire, however.
Our Falcon tanks circle around the outskirts of the base, and one catches a bunch of LBX pellets from the turret the Victor is trying to take out, disabling it completely as the engine blows out, knocking the crew around. The Victor takes multiple laser blasts from a nearby Jenner, accompanied by SRM fire from nearby turrets, resulting in an armor breach on the left arm and a blown out leg actuator.
The LBX turret is taken out by a perfectly accurate shot from Hyena's Grasshopper, the PPC flying straight into the ammo bin and evaporating the structure entirely.
"Dammit." Our mechwarrior states. "I wanted credit for that salvage."
Our Schrek takes some return LRM fire, losing one of its PPCs.
Round 3:
Zenn7 looks over to the right, seeing our Flashman on the ground there, and briefly shakes his head, spreading his arms out in puzzlement before resuming fire on the damaged Archer. This particular Archer is proving pretty tough, as it's taken upwards of ten PPC shots and is still in one piece (although it finally drops to the ground after particularly nasty leg shot, and the armor is basically glowing at this point).
Our Victor jumps southeast to avoid the pretty unpleasant SRM fire coming from the north of the compound, intending to focus on some LRM turrets in the southern section. It swings the gauss rifle back to fire at the Jenner harassing our remaining functional Falcon, blasting its left weapons mount off. The Falcon takes some damage from the hostile Jenner, slowing it down significantly.
The allied Galleon tank to the southeast gets blasted apart by a hostile Blackjack and a Venom, the Venom's pulse lasers making short work of the lightly armored vehicle.
Round 4:
Zenn7 switches targets, as the Archer stops shooting its LRMs off and begins pulling back. Our Awesome swivels left towards the Venom that has just finished an allied tank and fires off two PPCs, keeping the third one still to let the reactor temperature drop a little. The first shot grazes the light mech's right arm, nearly shearing it off, the second makes the head evaporate, dropping the mech like a sack of potatoes.
"That's good salvage." Our commander declares.
To the south, Moley blasts an AC/20 turret with the Thunderbolt's lasers, taking it out of action so that we can move through that part of the complex without having to worry about high caliber autocannon shells ripping our mechs apart. Which just leaves the other stuff on the field - we still have three heavy mechs and a bunch of heavy tanks which continue working on our Flashman, inflicting a right torso armor breach.
Our Victor takes out a forty-tube LRM/20 setup with up-close weapons fire and a kick as well.
Round 5:
Our second Falcon flips itself over trying to avoid the Jenner that got a piece of it earlier, reducing our population of hovercraft to basically just the allied Scimitar.
Zenn7 and the Hatamoto-Hi go "up and over", joining the Flashman in closing the distance a little bit. Zenn7 scores another head shot on a K2 Catapult, although this one leaves the cockpit intact.
Our Victor is now inside the compound and stomps a Packrat into the ground, although the mounted infantry have the opportunity to get out.
Round 6:
We continue pressing the hostiles into the pocket, with Alpha-Urban on the south side and Beta-Assault on the north. Beta-Assault focuses fire on a Behemoth tank before it can bring its twin AC/10s to bear. Between five PPCs and two large lasers, the 100 ton tank's treads are fused and it stops moving. Our Flashman, though. takes a nasty hit from the K2 Catapult's PPC, losing its right arm and most of the torso section.
Hyena moves in from the south, blasting away with lasers at a Jenner that gets in the way. The lighter mech's left weapons pod simply falls away as lasers slice through the left torso section, while another laser goes closer to center of mass. A brief blue flash is followed by the mech dropping to the ground, as its gyro is completely wrecked and the engine goes into emergency shutdown.
The allied Scimitar plants a long-range autocannon round into the triple Thumper battery in the base, leaving just one functional tube remaining.
Round 7:
Zenn7 sees another Jenner hop over to harass one of our mechs in the middle of the complex and lines up the Awesome's PPCs. Both of the side weapon mounts go flying off as two PPCs hit the light mech in mid-air. The third one misses, but it's a moot point - the mech is basically a sliver of structure around most of the engine.
Hyena takes advantage of this to disable a Scimitar hovertank by spearing it through the side with lasers, while Moley engages the nearby Blackjack and knocks it down to the rooftop where it landed.
Round 8:
Zenn7 picks a turret mounting some TAG lasers off the top of a building. It's not that useful any more since there's only a few LRM-equipped units present on the field, but he's got no other targets currently.
Our Victor takes some nasty damage, losing the left arm entirely (along with both lasers there) and a couple of torso breaches. Time to leave. Moley's Thunderbolt steps forward, engaging and destroying a Packrat, though not before its infantry payload clears out. A Dragon comes around the corner, throwing a punch at our Thunderbolt - Moley moves the mech out of the way, then delivers a kick right to the hip joint, severing the Dragon's leg and sending it flopping to the ground.
Round 9:
Things get a little confusing as our Victor retreats: our Blackjack trips over some rubble and takes arm actuator damage from the nearby Grand Dragon, rendering one of its PPCs and a laser basically useless, while Moley and Hyena focus on another Grand Dragon but are unable to inflict any major damage other than armor. Our Hatamoto-Hi gets knocked down to a knee as SRMs and laser pound the armor.
Round 10:
Zenn7 fires the Awesome's PPCs at an exposed Grand Dragon as Hyena chases it, stripping armor off both arms, while our Hatamoto-Hi blows the left PPC (and arm) off the Katapult - the lighter mech returns the favor with both its PPCs, gouging out good chunks of our assault mech's armor, but it holds up - although one of its pulse lasers is blown out by a rear attack from a nearby Bulldog tank.
Our BattleAxe disables a Manticore with a pair of PPC blasts followed by an SRM salvo through the armor, while Moley continues working on the enemy Blackjack, which has gotten up off the roof it landed on - but now its left torso is disabled and the left arm is on the ground, and the mechwarrior opts to disengage.
Our Blackjack takes a punch to the head from the (unsurprisingly) agile Grand Dragon, but manages to wreck a pair of actuators on the heavier mech's left leg, slowing it down quite a bit.
Round 11:
This should be about wrapped up now. Zenn7 directs concentrated fire on the eastern Grand Dragon, the mech losing its left leg after our BattleAxe puts a couple of PPC blasts through it; Our Blackjack takes down the escaping Jenner after it buzzes our mech, legging it (so that now it has exactly one leg left for limbs).
Hyena continues engaging the other Grand Dragon, inflicting serious leg actuator damage, while Moley moves to re-engage the "plain" Dragon, which has decided to prop itself up against a nearby building as it gets up with a disabled leg.
Round 12:
With all the Grand Dragons going down for good (one with a total engine shutdown, a second with both legs disabled, a third trapped in a building with no working leg actuators), all that's left is a Bulldog and the Katapult, which both beat a hasty retreat, while the remaining turrets power down.
Damage to our units was pretty heavy, but almost nothing irreparable - the Flashman will need a week or two in the shop, while the Blackjack, Hyena's Grasshopper and the Victor took heavy internal damage and will also need repairs. The driver of one our Falcon hovertanks ("Sadge") got sprayed with shrapnel from a Thumper impact after evacuating the disabled vehicle and didn't make it off the field.
However, first of all, having secured this compound, we call in the salvage crews to recover wrecks (ours and theirs), and the loot is pretty damn good. Let's go over it:
Dragon DRG-5N. This is like the standard Dragon, but with the rear-facing medium laser removed and the AC/5 upgraded to an Ultra AC/5, while all the ammo bins have been improved with CASE. Not too bad. This particular example's left leg is currently detached while the right leg is missing about half the actuators.
Grand Dragon DRG-5K. This is a Grand Dragon turned up to the max. Double heat sinks, CASE for the LRM ammo, particle cannon upgraded to extended-range, and... 360 XL engine. Well, you have to put one in to make room for all the new goodies.
Jenner JR7-K. Well, technically we picked up two of them, but there's really only enough parts to put one together. Nothing terribly different about it from the standard variant, but it's got ferro-fibrous armor and CASE for the short range missile ammo.
Venom SDR-9K. We've got one already, but it looks like it's an excellent upgrade for the old-school Spider.
We also scoop up four small pulse lasers, five Artemis IV guidance systems (and several tons of Artemis-capable SRMs), and an extra TAG laser. A shame we couldn't grab the LB-10x autocannons from the turret, but it blew up pretty good.
It does look like the local militia and 36th Dieron are making one last push to try to re-take this compound - a reinforced lance of light (but 35 ton) mechs and a short tank company. Gamma-Probe (and an attached auxiliary unit) are in position to intercept, but they'll basically be by themselves. Well, with a supporting lance of light allied merc armor, but that's pretty useless. Of the forces that took the compound, only Zenn7's Awesome and the BattleAxe are still in good shape - the rest have taken internal damage and are returning to our dropships.
So our main choice here is whether we engage the incoming hostiles well clear of the compound or let them get closer so Zenn7 and the BattleAxe can help out. The former will remove all risk to the compound and our salvage teams (assuming we can stop the hostiles) but we'll have less firepower available, while the latter means there's risk of stray fire hitting our non-combatants and our loot, but we'd have a good amount more firepower available.
[] Engage clear of the compound
[] Engage close to the compound