How do you tell if all the dragons are home, when you want to steal from dragons, and do not want to feed the dragons?
This isn’t a philosophical question, but an operational one. We took a contract from Com Star, no redact that. We took a contract from [Redacted] to see if Miller’s Marauders were indeed home, or were two full battalions of seventy five ton Marauders off conquering the Inner Sphere for Hanse frigging Davion while space phone company whose name shall not be used, the Maskirovka of House Liao and the dreaded ISF of House Kurita were all blissfully unaware two battalions of elite mercenaries in one of the most deadly direct fire mecha in existence were probably dropping on their worlds as we speak.
There are probably wonderful techniques used by other high level mercenaries who are steeped in the ways of strategic deception, I know there are techniques used by strategic masters like my former battalion commander Zong-Shao (Major) Lei Ling. You learn these things at the war college which noble officers attend when they make captain, and the rest of us wait to get slotted in when other more worthy candidates are not available. My last word was that 3029 was looking good, but we lost Algol in 3028 so I doubt my chances at the war college were good next year. I am an excellent lance commander, a pretty good mechwarrior, I am a competent mech company commander, but I am junior frigging newbie as mercenary combined arms battalion commander. So assuming I lack the strategic genius of Jamie Wolf or Morgan Kell, knowing for a fact I lacked the sheer fearlessness of the Black Widow Natasha Kerensky or the Grey Dragon Yorinaga Kurita, I decided to try neither genius nor boldness.
If you can’t be smart, be stupid with authority.
“This is The Vindicated Mercenary Mech company, we are under contract to assault Miller’s Marauders. Our landing coordinates are 4429 by 3552. We both know how this is going to end. Your employer shipped off all your air support, all your artillery, most of your mecha and left you with the non deployables, the training staff, and a militia unit so green grass asks them how they manage that colour. Now, you can cower behind your militia, and I can burn them all in their second rate hulls while your over paid asses sit back playing hide and seek, or you can see if whatever scraps your bosses left you with can face a company of Vindicators piloted by warriors who know how to use them. We are taking your base, the body count is up to you. Lets keep this between professionals and those who surrender can do so on terms.”
The reply was less than polite.
“This is Miller Command to incoming merc raiders. You took Liao money or Taurian? Either way, you took a sucker bet. I have never heard of The Vindicated, but if you are dumb enough to drop against us, your story ends when it meets Miller’s Marauders. If you live to land, we will hunt you down an see you never live to lift off again. Miller Command, out.”
I had two of our Rapiers, those with pilots who might be able to land without hitting the Dropship left defending our Merchant for the ride home. I had two of our Rapiers doing high cover patrols to warn us of any dropship redeployments or Aerospace assets from other continents. I had the Stiletto Sisters doing close air support on our raid. I am not sure if Miller’s Marauders left any Aerospace assets behind, but if they did, I had two pilots I would bet against the best they had, and four I wouldn’t trust against hot air ballons in an air to air combat in atmosphere with an unfamiliar fighter.
My “plan”, if you wanted to call it that, was to land at the coordinates listed, and deploy the Rhino in a blocking formation between the Marauder base and the city. If the militia regiment sortied with their Vedette tanks, and conventional fighters, they would have to do so from the city, using the only road whose bridges are rated for the tanks fifty tons. If the Militia really thought that any number of Vedette could charge a position held by a dozen Rhino, they would be short a regiment of tanks before we ran out of ammunition.
The Marauders would have to either sortie from their base to stop us from getting our cameras inside their perimeter to confirm both battalions were indeed off-world, or let us stroll onto the base and bet they had enough force to stop us leaving again.
The run in was a bit scarier than I thought. We had an intercept flight try to splash our dropship. Six Davion fighters tried to make a run at us, a pair of heavy Corsair and four Sparrowhawks. That was pretty brave, considering our fighters were all 85 tonners and theirs topped out at 50 tons. The clash was not the great battle we were expecting. Stiletto flight, which was our two ace pilots the Stiletto sisters, did a high G burn to bleed their speed to minimum after getting ahead of us. That gave them a very low closing speed on the Davion flight who had to claw up out of the atmosphere and didn’t want to commit to a high speed run that brought them in range of the Overlord’s guns until it turned over to brake for reentry and blinded itself with its drive plume.
The effect of this combines slow closing rate was twofold, it gave the Davion fighters their only chance to get a shot at the Overlord’s engines when we flipped, but they had to commit to a low speed closing engagement with the two Rapiers. This should have been a safe bet for Davion, except the Stiletto sisters didn’t have to play fair. The twin ER PPC each had in their noses outranged the large lasers in the Corsairs by a decent degree, but outranged the faster Sparrowhawks even more. Both Rapier let fly with paired ER PPC on one of the Sparrowhawks, and two of the Davion light fighters died before they even suspected they were in range.
As the two formations closed to within range for a passing engagement, each Davion Corsair picked a Rapier to unload its large and medium lasers against, while the Stiletto Sisters used a battery of six medium lasers and paired PPC on a single Davion Corsair, sheering off one wing and turning its nose into scrap. The destroyed Corsair’s pilot ejected while both Rapier and the remaining three Davion fighters flipped and went to afterburner to continue the engagement, their converging vectors now causing them to draw slowly apart still within range as they both completed pre planned manoeuvres. Given any thought, the Davion pilots might have decided to not flip and get out of a close range fight with the over armed Rapiers, but the flight leader had just ejected, and the remaining pilots continued the planned engagement.
The Rapiers shook under the cuts of a web of large and medium laser hits from three Davion fighters, but the Rapier had the armour to spare. The two Sparrowhawk did not. Choosing to deal with the threat that could both outrun and outmanoeuver them first, the Stiletto Sisters poured two ER PPC and all of their medium lasers into the lighter Sparrowhawks, and two more Davion ejection pods filled space.
Alone now, against two heavies, the Corsair pilot elected to flip again and boost out of range. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time, and three of four ER PPC did manage to hammer into his engines, stripping them of all armour and forcing an emergency shut down of his fighter craft. Left with no choice, the Davion pilot gave his surrender call, and ejected from his tumbling fighter.
Our Overlord touched down as gently as Winter Moonrise was capable of, the venerable Dropship settled onto its landers with the ponderous grace of an old dog collapsing in front of the hearth for a nap. Not waiting for the ground to cool, we dropped the ramps and marched our Vindicators out to establish not only a physical perimeter, but a sensor perimeter. The Star League sensors of our new Ostman combat suites were so much better than what our Vindicators used to have, or that the old Winter Moonrise possessed that our ability to scan for ground and air targets more than doubled when we got the Vindicators out around the landing zone.
Deploying the Rhino was a bit longer affair. Undogging the damned tanks took forever, and they didn’t exactly sprint out, but within an hour we had a blocking force of armour headed south, and our own mecha headed west towards the base. We had a quick recon flight from our Rapiers, and what it told me was a little concerning.
I had two companies of mecha moving through the trees, and one lance of Marauders moving behind another company of Vedette medium tanks up towards our blocking force.
Two companies of Marauders moving through the trees, and another lance backing up the Vedettes? I had screwed up, and we were about to get slaughtered. My panic began to fill me as I moved our Vindicators into the trees. Marauders may have less range than our ER PPC, but until we got into medium range, they had a huge firepower advantage, and the armour to grind us down.
I had our two high cover rapiers run racetrack patterns over the forest, and set our own drones to probe the incoming Marauder companies. They should be dispersing in an envelopment to catch us in a net that would allow them to bring us into a crossfire whenever our lines met, but that isn’t what they were doing. Why? Why keep their mecha in that tight, two tight lines of a company each moving towards us, leaving us plenty of space to break contact and flee. Miller’s Marauders were elite mercs, if they had the firepower, they could trap us and slaughter us, or at least force our surrender without getting their own expensive machines all banged up. What was I missing.
“Hey boss.” Said Hawk from his command mech of Hawk Lance, “Check out the right flank back pair of Marauders in the feed I am going to send you. I tagged them yellow to highlight. Tell me what you notice.”
I looked, and two of the mecha made a mistake and got caught on the wrong ridge. They figured out their mistake, doubled back and rejoined the advance, slotting back into position neatly. Wait a second, I ran the feed a second time and ran my combat computer analysis. Heavy woods, these mecha made eighty kilometers per hour in the heavy woods. The only way you can make a Marauder make eighty kph is dropping one off a cliff. That wasn’t a Marauder. It was a mecha, sure, but not a Marauder.
I keyed my mic on the lance leaders channel. “Hey, does it look to you like somebody is keeping his ducklings nice and tight under his wing.” I asked.
Tina came back from Panda lance “Like maybe he’s afraid the big bad Vindicators will eat them up? Got to say, right off the assembly line, a stock Vindicator lasts about a hot minute against a Marauder. What has them playing cautious?”
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Hawk asked a question of his own. “What do you use to train Marauder pilots anyway? Those goofy reverse bird legs of theirs aren’t all that common. A Catapult isn’t a whole lot cheaper, and the only other thing that really uses those damned bird legs is a Locust.”
I started laughing. “That is what the 80kph repositioning was. Some trainees took the wrong fork and broke operational speed limits to get back into formation. They probably have some Marauder in there, but the bulk of those two companies are Locusts. The cupboard was really that bare, they really are almost all off-world. Let’s go see if we can bag their training company and their cadre Marauder. If we threaten the trainees, I bet we can get the Marauder to commit to stop us duck hunting their baby birds. We might even bag a couple.”
Tina came back. “Look, I know we have made these into virtually new machines with all the Star League tech, but don’t you find it just a little weird that we are talking about hunting Marauders with Vindicators on purpose?”
I knew she was being a good XO and being the voice of reason, so I needled her. “So you are saying Panda Lance is afraid of a few Marauders?” I joked.
Tina replied. “Oh hell no. Panda lance are the cutest little bears in the whole damned forest. I hear Marauders are made out of bamboo and filled with pudding. I figure to get some!”
We broke into laughter, and broke into a run towards the left flank, trying to get outside of their short line and roll up the flank. It would be interesting to see if they broke cover now, and got the Locust out of range, or if they played the bluff out and pushed at Marauder/Vindicator speed as if forcing the meeting engagement a true Marauder force would seek.
I do not want to play cards with the Davion commander, he bluffs well.
“Vindicator Actual this is Miller Actual, you made your drop, got close enough to see we have two full companies about to run right into you. You can turn around now, keep all your boys and girls alive, keep those Capellan scrap heaps together for at least another contract, and have the sensor data to show you had no chance of pressing combat. Take the loss in rep, live to fight another day.” The voice came back, the mature calm voice of the veteran warrior, he was giving it to me like he would spell out the situation to a mechwarrior recruit or a new 2nd Lt facing a tactical problem where they had to choose between playing dead hero or living warrior. I would lose my shirt gambling against this guy, I full on wanted to believe him, but one of my drones had a picture of a Locust with externally rigged emitters to fake the sensor profile and engine profile of a 75 ton Marauder.
“This is Vindicator Actual to Millar Actual. We took the pay, we do the job. Anyone who surrenders before we shoot their mecha out from under them can ransom it. If we kill it, we keep it. If you eject, you will not be fired upon. Nothing personal, this is just a job.” I said, and I put all my sincerity in this, I was not just talking to his people, I was talking to mine. We had no home to go back to, we had no nation to call home. We were on our own to prove our honour and fight our war. We could not afford to die just for the chance to kill one more Davion. We had a private war with Davion, but I wasn’t willing to lose our souls to fight it. Warriors willing to die for revenge generally did, and they tended to take more of their own side with them.
There was one Marauder on point, stepping into the clearing in open threat, there were shapes behind him, and something else knocking trees down off to my right. If I didn’t know better, I would think I was about to run into a dozen Marauders. I was ninety percent sure I wasn’t. I was even more sure the other dozen behind were definitely not Marauders. Almost definitely. It would really suck to be wrong.
I moved my lance into the clearing, and have to admit, my testicles drew up and tried to crawl back into my gut when I saw that damned autocannon swing down and his twin claws start to glow as he preheated his PPC. It was a demonstration, as he was out of range, and trying to intimidate me. The rest of his lance was not moving into the clearing. He was bluffing. I was not.
I moved inside my range, and outside his. According to everything he knew, he was making a safe demonstration of power, he was a professional doing his best to honour his contract without sacrificing his people. I can’t afford to play fair, because fair gets friends killed. I dropped my targeting reticule over the Marauder. It burned a faint gold, but the tone was solid. I waited until all four of my lance had their Kinslaughter ER PPCs locked on, at the edge of our range, and out of his. I gave the command.
“Fire”
My PPC carved a line on the right torso, Big Billy Wasserman cut loose with his, and missed, the angled plating of the hull letting the lightning wash over it scouring the paint and heating the armour without breaching. Fifi had better luck, her Kinslaughter dug deep into the left leg. Irina blasted the left claw PPC with her own, and the three PPC hammering into the Marauder were enough to move his gyroscope out of phase, causing the big machine to stagger and only the skill of the pilot kept him standing. He was an elite pilot, and he brought his machine back under control. He could be excused for thinking he was within range, due to the fact that we all packed particle projection cannons, but with his brain still reeling from the feedback, he triggered his right arm PPC and torso mounted autocannon. The shells spattered over my hull without the energy to penetrate, and the PPC was totally incoherent and unable to do more than flicker my HUD. I watched Panda Lance and Hawk Lance moving to either side of me deeper in the trees, closing on the Miller’s Maruaders, because if they were really all 75 ton monsters, they would have already been closing around us, not hiding in the trees and lighting us up with sensors, threatening us while staying out of sight and out of range.
We moved into mutual attack range, and cut loose again with our ER PPC, Big Billy took a rolling burst of autocannon fire across his left leg, but the PPC beam went into the forest to kill a tree. In return, all four of our PPC hit. One hit on the right torso, burning through the last of the armour and into the structure, but missing the autocannon and its munitions. Two hit the center torso, but didn’t burn through. The last cut through the last of the armour on the left arm PPC. This time the mecha had lost too much too fast, and spun to land on its right arm, crushing the last of the right toros structure and exploding the stored autocannon ammunition. The pilot died, as his ejection system could not trigger once his mech was prone.
Tina moved at a fast walk through the trees, closing on enemies that were trying to back away, but they had waited too long to begin the retreat. She caught a glimpse of a mecha, and triggered her Kinslaughter ER PPC well inside its range and cut the leg off a 20 ton Locust.
“Panda Lance, confirming target Locust down. Target is a Locust not a Marauder, they are using ECM to emulate Marauder.” Tina crowed as she ran forward at a sprint to target a second mecha, pushing through the trees, she caught a second locust trying to break off. They exchanged medium laser fire, but where he shot one into her right arm, she cut the Locust apart with six, two coring the center torso, one right leg, one left leg, one right torso. Her Kinslaugher missed as the Locust collapsed in a heap, pilot knocked unconscious. Well, if he stood a second longer, he would be dead, so call it lucky.
Hawk moved to the sounds of the crashing, and found himself about two hundred meters from a Marauder and Locust. The Marauder shot first, a PPC shot hit his center torso, a medium laser missed left, shattering the tree beside him, a second cored into his left torso, and the autocannon howled as it slammed a line of armour piercing shells into his right leg. Wincing at the feedback from his gyro, Hawk drew his crosshairs onto the big 75 ton Maruader and cut loose with everything.
The head mounted medium laser cut into the cockpit, while the Kinslaghter PPC ripped most of the armour from the left torso, another medium laser cut the last of the armour there and began to work on the internal structure. Two more beams cut into the center torso, leaving deep claw marks in the big machine. One caught the left leg, searing a line below the hip, and the last missed between the legs. The Marauder pilot reeled from the unexpected damage, staggering slightly, his mecha glowing with waste heat as its heavy weapon use forced to reduce its fire the next exchange or risk reduced performance. Hawk ran forward, closing the distance, stopping inside the PPC minimum range, a trick he hated others playing on him.
The Marauder cut loose with his AC-5 but missed high, parallax between cannon and cockpit tricking the pilot in a snap shoot, but one of his medium lasers caught Hawk in the left arm, the other in the right. It was too little too late.
Cutting loose again with all his weapons, the Vindicator only generating a nice warming heat burden, far to limited to impair its function, he demonstrated the Kinslaughter ER PPC’s second advantage, it remained coherent even at short range. In fact, it was devastatingly effective. The PPC and a medium laser combined to cut off the right leg below the hip, as two more flayed half the remaining armour from the center torso, two more missing as the Marauder toppled forward and crushed its cockpit on the hard ground, killing the pilot.
“Damn. One Marauder down, one Locust bugging out.” Hawk reported, listening to his lance mates reporting two more Locust downed and another confirmed running.
Panda Lance had chased their Locust towards their backup, but both Locust died short of salvation, their back armour not being up to a PPC shot anywhere. The two Marauder seemed quite angry at their deaths, and charged into close range to punish the Vindicators of Panda Lance. Against regular Vindicators, it would have been an even fight, a lot depending on skill and luck, as the first mecha down will make it clear who will win, but victory very much uncertain until that happened. However, with the Star League upgrades, the math had changed.
Tina called out “Target Alpha, engage!” A web of PPC and laser fire tore the lead Marauder apart, one arm and one leg were blown off and the mecha fell on its side. The second Marauder Alpha Striked, firing both medium laser, both PPC, and the autocannon.
In return, Tina took a PPC and autocannon hit to her center torso, a medium laser to her right arm, a PPC hit to her left leg. Unceremoniously dropped on her ass by the impacts on her Vindicator, she felt her rear torso armour crumple as she hit hard, thanking her lighter Star League helmet for its padding and support as her 45 ton anvil fell to earth, functional but prone. As she levered herself up, she witnessed the sad fate of her enemy.
With its heat soaring, it’s movement speed was down by half, and its targeting was garbage. Unable to fire either PPC for fearing shutting down, it fired a single medium laser and autocannon at Hwang Kai, who ignored them, and took his time to sight in and discharged his Kinslaughter ER PPC and three of his six medium lasers into the Marauder’s right leg. The remaining lasers missed, but that was enough to sever the leg cleanly and the Marauder fell face down only to have two Vindicators combine to pin it and invite the pilot to step out while still alive.
We got our drones into range of the Marauder mech bays when they opened to take the fleeing Locusts. We didn’t press on to test the bases defensive turrets. We had the information we came for. That, and four Marauder as salvage. We pulled out to our landing zone, moving slow as we dragged the Marauder back to where our Prime Movers could recover them from. We bagged another Marauder from the pair backing the Vedette tanks when our Rapier ASF decided to strafe them from the rear. The second escaped, but a pair of Vedette were lost as well, and when the medium tanks lost their mech cover, our Rhino sallied and a few exchanges of massed LRM fire had cost two more tanks and forced the militia to withdraw leaving the last Marauder to be recovered by our ground forces.
Our contract complete, or at least it would be when we got to the next world with a working Hyper Pulse Generator, and with five shot up Marauder’s to see what we could make of them, The Vindicated were on the record as a combined arms battalion who had beaten Miller’s Marauders and a Davion militia tank regiment, without losing a single machine. Now we could see if the Taurian Concordat was hiring.