Chapter Thirty-Three: Aftermath
Tybalt, Capellan Confederation April 21st, 3007
"It has been a really long day." I thought to myself as I moved my Warhammer towards the outpost we had set up. I had managed to get a fireteam of Heavies that still were mobile and could fight, but we were hurting. Thanks to the pilot suits, we didn't lose any of our pilots, but we didn't have the time to salvage before going to help Sheppard.
After the ambush that had shattered a Battalion of the 2nd Mac, I had sent Captain Paige and her company to take the enemy Dropships. I wanted them stuck here with us until we had bled them dry.
"Marksmen, give me your overall status and ammo reserves." I told the fireteam moving with me.
"Marksmen Two, Armor is yellow across the board, no ammo here, I'm a laser boat."
"Marksmen Three, Armor green, I've got enough ammo for three volleys and then I'm down to lasers."
"Marksmen Four, I'm exposed in some areas but have enough ammo for ten volleys.
"Marksman Five, I'm limping, but my ammo reserves are good."
"Marksman Six, I'm missing an arm, but ammo reserves are good."
While we made our way to the outpost, I got in contact with the one fireteam that had made it out of the outpost and the LRM carriers we had left in the city. It was an eclectic mix of Mechs and vehicles, almost all of us were damaged in some way, and the LRM Carriers were the only things undamaged. Put together, we had almost a full company of forces.
Hailing the Dropships that we had, I redirected them to land in the Industrial district. I needed the downed 'Mechs' up and running again so that we could finish off the rest of the 2nd Mac.
After navigating the city, we came out of the woods onto what looked like a scene out of a Peter Jackson film. Leading up to the outpost we had built, there were heavy and assault mechs lying in craters from artillery and LRM fire. It looked like Sheppard had at the very least put up a decent fight. Staying at maximum range, we just kept an eye on them. We hadn't left any repair facilities for them to use, and they would have to break for their dropships if they wanted to make repairs or resupply on munitions.
And we would stand in their path. If they took long enough, the automated repair bays that we had on some of the dropships would have the mechs that we had taken out earlier back in service and ready to chew on some more of the 2nd Mac.
And so, we waited. I stood there in my now blackened and damaged Warhammer, just watching. Waiting for confirmation from Paige that we had taken their dropships, waiting for the 2nd Mac to try and talk to us. We just waited. After a couple of hours, there came a comm from our outpost.
"This is Major Barton of the second regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry." He said. "To whom do I have the displeasure of speaking to?"
"This is Colonel Mark Hull of the Marksman." I replied. "Is there something you wanted to say?" I taunted.
"We broke your base here. And we're going to break you." Barton replied. "After we're done with you, the Marksman won't even be a name on the MRB's board. It'll be like you never existed."
I waited as he ranted angrily for a little while longer. "You done?" I asked. "Because I'm not here to talk right now."
Sheppard slowly regained Consciousness, he moved, turned and looked around his cockpit. His Mithril was intact, and there weren't any enemies trying to break into his 'mech, so he assumed they thought that he was dead.
"Fuck!" His leg was pinned underneath a massive layer of his broken cockpit. Looking down, he saw that his Marauder had fallen face first over one of the tunnels that they had dug for the Infantry to use to move back and forth. Seeing rubble shift, he made sure that Peterson's infantry saw him and remained quiet when they got there to remove him.
After freeing his leg, Sheppard used the two Infantrymen's aid to limp into the tunnel.
"Set him down right here." One of the medics assigned to Peterson's company directed the two of them. "He's not in critical condition so he'll have to wait a bit."
The Infantry company had made it into the tunnels without being seen by the 2nd Mac. And they had collapsed the tunnel entrances in a way that made them look impenetrable. While the 2nd Mac had been taking stock of the outpost, Peterson's company had been going and retrieving the pilots and tankers from their destroyed vehicles and sneaking them back into the tunnels to render medical aid.
"This is Captain Paige." I heard over my Comms systems. "We captured the enemy dropships, and we have word that our people in space have been recovered."
I jolted awake at that. "Did we get any word back from Davion Command on who they were sending?"
We had sent an HPG as soon as we got word that the 2nd Mac was probably on their way. And had been waiting on a response ever since.
"No sir, and I did send someone to check with Comstar and see if there was a response." She said.
"Sir, I'm going to task the VTOL's to keep an eye on the enemy. You and the people with you should come back here for repair and refit." Paige said.
"Copy that." I responded. "We'll remain on task until they show up."
April 24th, 3007
Having automated repair bays working alongside good Astechs felt like cheating sometimes. In two days, we had repaired a third of the Battalion we had taken out and put pilots into them along with repairing a good chunk of our heavy forces. I had been on standby in my Warhammer since it had been reskinned with armor and my SRM's refilled.
Our Leopards that had retrieved the people from the Unions had made landfall a couple of hours ago and everyone was trying to rest before we were pushed by either the 2nd Mac, or reinforcements showed up. The 2nd Mac had taken the outpost we had made and were using any of their mechs that had hands to get it at least partly functional again. We knew that they didn't have any repair facilities available so they were going to have to make do with stripping things from the fallen mechs in the area.
April 25th, 3007
"This is Colonel Jaime Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons." Echoed through an open channel on my comms system.