Chapter 6;
Engagement 00000001
Princeps Elmindreda Thorne felt the thrum of the Dominus Illuminationis' reactor in her very soul, the miniature star beating in time with her own heartbeat, chained by ceramite, adamantium and containment fields of terrific strength. She was the beastmaster holding the chains of the two Warhounds Praeda Quaesitor and Finis Spiritus. The Praeda Quasitor was equipped with an Inferno Gun and Volkite Eradicator, the Finis Spiritus with a Vulcan Mega-bolter and Plasma Blastgun while her own Dominus Illuminationis was equipped with a Laser Blaster, Volcano Cannon and a Conversion Beam Dissolutor equipped to her top carapace.
"Moderati. Full stride, course 330." She ordered as her eyes closed and she fell the wild rush of the manifold close over her. Her course took her straight towards the crater where an intruder had been struck by the Command Leviathan and now a quintet of Fire Raptor Gunships were kept up in a close air patrol at all times to protect a pair of Marauder Pathfinders which now loitered thirty five kilometres up. One of them was being met by a flight of Fury Interceptors would provide its escort as it served as her aerial sensor platform.
The vox crackled. "Praeda Quasitor reporting." The phenomenally deep baritone of Princeps Audile Vertus came through clearly. Followed a moment later. "Finis Spiritus reporting." And that was Princeps Lyanna Aurum came through mechanically, her throat had been destroyed in an engagement with a traitor warhound, Ursus Claws penetrating her titans cockpit to do terrible damage to her. She had been rebuilt, they had the technology.
Elmindreda sat up rigidly. She was the Dominus Illuminationis, she was the commander of this hunting pack. "Two hundred metre separation, maintain stride with the Dominus Illuminationis until we are five kilometres from Point Mars Aeternum. Then you are free to begin recon and hunt, but maintain a maximum separation of two kilometres. We don't know the full extent of the powers that be here."
The vox clicked twice as both Princeps signalled their receipt of the orders, a grudging receipt she knew full well, both of them would chafe at the leash she had put on them. They did not want to be restrained simply because her Reaver was capable of less than half the speed of the Warhounds. They surged out towards the first location their Lyran paymasters wanted them to investigate and remove the DCMS presence.
---
A hundred and five kilometres, or nearly four hours, away at the Reaver's full stride the DCMS sappers had been waiting, the bridge fording the river was mined, and they just waited for the opportunity. Two lances of Battlemechs were waiting for the moment to draw the enemy across the river to their defensive positions, the large town they were feigning guarding sat empty but for a company of infantry intended to make it look still populated. The sight of the massive machines advancing across the horizon and advancing on them was terrifying. The two smaller faster ones would surge our in fair sweeps, several Skulkers had shadowed the units, maintaining radio silence until they were well and away from their targets before reporting findings.
He had little idea what weapons the strange mechs were equipped with, though the seizemometers were telling him scary things as it was. Back within the town a Catapult's missile doors slammed open and they lofted their payloads into the air. Forty LRM missiles descending on a mech far larger than their usual targets... erupted in fire and shrapnel metres away from the enemy's hull. The closest machine turned on a swivel, surging forwards and Jung felt a sense of glory waiting for him as the machine headed for them. And then he felt it thump into his gut. A sound that reverberated through his very skeleton. It wasn't the war horns.
It was a... ping... of some kind. The machine continued its unchecked advance as two more Battlemechs emerged from cover just far enough to fire their weapons at the advancing machine. And then, it slammed to a dead stop, and adopted a wide stance, hunching down it's weapons lifted towards the town. And then the universe sounded like it was being torn as the two multibarreled weapons on one of the machines arms
opened fire. A Griffin that had stepped out from cover to fire its large laser to draw the bait was riddled with explosions as armour piercing 40mm shells punched through his armour before detonating within the machine. The domicile it had been half sheltered behind offered no cover whatsoever.
It was then that Jung realised the problem with the plan... if it could hit its targets from here... the Lance Commanders realised the same problem when he did. They seven surviving Battlemechs began to retreat deeper into the town as the second of the small machines moved up and surged ahead. Jung felt vindicated as it headed towards the bridge and... stepped out into the river directly. Surging across with only three strides as it climbed the opposing embankment.
The infantry in the town were ready for it however and brought out Inferno SRMs and other shoulder-launched munitions. A dozen rockets were fired at it in the first three seconds, all erupting against its energy shield. It did not stop like its partner had. Instead it continued its stride, if slower and the weapon slung under its right shoulder coughed up an incendiary blanking that swathed the area in blue-white flame, stone and metal glowing bright and even melting beneath the incendiary onslaught. Another of the sapping teams, closest to that machine ran forwards from the opposite side, satchel charges in hand, running for the joints of the attacking machine. Jung cheered as he saw them slip through the umbrella of energy protecting it and ran to place their satchel charges.
The monster moved too quickly. Lifting its foot and bringing it down on two of the infantrymen with one sickening blow as a sapper triggered the remote on the satchel charges. He wasn't far enough away to survive the blast. The blast rocked the street, and the machine wobbled for a moment on unsteady legs as the smoke cleared. It was now listing ten degrees as its foot found new seating in the moderate sized crater that the weapons had created.
Fear grasped Jung's heart as he saw the machine lift its leg from the crater and place it more securely on the paved street once more. The following massive machine had closed the distance in the time it took to open the engagement, and Jung felt a fading hope for their trap as it ignored the bridge like the smaller machines had and forded the river directly. And then Jung realised why.
The bridge, as most were, was rated for approximately two hundred tons.
All three of the enemy machines weighed more than double that. They'd prepared a trap their enemy would never spring. More infantry realised their trap had been foiled and emerged to attempt to fall back, using inferno SRM launchers to cover their ground, others fired conventional rocket launchers, and a few brave souls tried to use emplaced lasers.
Three of the Battlemechs turned, survivors of the Griffin's lance, and turned their full firepower on the closest of the titanic machines, lasers, missiles and an AC/20 mounted on a scrappy little Urbanmech came to life as they tried to use alpha striking to bring down the Warhound.
The large machine's weapons chose that moment to speak volumes about that. A bar of cerulean laser light reached out with a roar and beheaded urbanmech, the same shot turning its shoulder and left arm into vapor. It's right arm fired a trio of massive energy beams that turned the Quickdraw into complete scrap before the weapon mounted on its carapace fired at Hirohito's Dragon, the conversion beam dissolutor annihilating the entire mech in a single strike.
The sacrifice had bought some time, but not nearly enough. The closest machine had made its own deduction that the town wasn't populated by any civilians and turned its incendiary weapon on every building it could find, firing a colossal heat ray weapon at any building that resisted in a meaningful fashion. The devastation being wrought on a town that should have had nearly ten thousand people going about their daily lives filled him with dread.
A dread so profound that he turned to find his place of concealment... wasn't. He immediately threw up as he realised that he hadn't even noticed the third machine, the one with the massive rotary cannons, had hunched down near his trench, its rotary weapon aimed directly at him. A speaker came to life. "Surrender. Now."
---
Theodore felt sorrow. The ambush he had prepared at Kitaakitsu had failed spectacularly, for the cost of an entire lance of Battlemechs, half a company of infantry, and the entire town itself though mercifully free of civilians, he had bought... some blast scarring to one leg of one enemy machine. The sappers plans to mine the bridge had come to naught, the machines ignoring them entirely to simply stride across the river despite its high flow rate. The other hunting pack of the Titans had been left without any resistance to oppose them, only to be monitored to gather more information.
"My Lord?" came a whisper at the door and he turned to find a courier there holding out a data pad. He took it and thanked the man before letting him go on his way. He studied the reports with a cold detachment for a moment. The Lyrans were moving up forces further north, preparing to take another city, as a staging post perhaps? They were sending four companies up to do the job, including a company of Battlemechs.
He scrawled orders for two companies of his own mechs, four of armour and four infantry to oppose the enemy advances there. But he couldn't leave them without some assurances to prevent the mercenary machines from coming to their aid. He activated a comm. "I want all our Long Toms prepared to strike the curtain field of the mercenaries, detail a company of Battlemechs and two regiments of armour and infantry to provide security. They are not to maintain contact with the enemy, I want them to shell that field from maximum range, and at least a quarter kilometre of dispersion between artillery units. Do not, I repeat, do NOT commit to any kind of assaults, if the enemy mobilises their titanic machines to repulse the shelling, the crews of the Long Toms are to abandon their equipment, Hover APCs are to be seconded to each artillery piece for this escape."
"Hai Hai." Came the answer before the intercom cut off. Theodore wondered if he could afford to use any of the precious, and limited, aerospace assets he had to aid in the matter. The Legio Astorum had been confirmed to bring craft down from orbit.
It was then he realised he had to task them. One of them had been performing orbits over the curtain field, providing sensor coverage of some kind, if he was going to move forces to shell it, he could not afford aerial oversight, worrying about the Starship in geosynchronous orbit overhead the site was challenging enough. He keyed another intercom. "Wing Leader Stevens. I want you to prepare for a strike mission over the enemy landing site. I need their recon aircraft destroyed before it reveals the locations of an incoming strike force."
"Hai my Lord."
Theodore leaned back in his chair and looked out of his office window at his Orion. He did not pray for his men and women, he doubted it would save any of them from what he had just ordered. He stood and headed for his office door. If he was going to order his men and women to try and hold the site long enough for his Long Toms to shell the enemy, he would be there, alongside the men and women he had just ordered to most likely die.
