Chapter 6
They Purge of Mandalas
Mandalas
11th August, 3022
"Fucking religious fuckheads." Behemoth said as we marched into yet another town that they tried to punish. But any sense of civilisation in their actions had long since departed, firing squads roamed the streets and once more we'd bathed a town in blood to purge the presence of the theocrats. This time there was nothing to punish, they'd fled in aerospace transports as soon as we even began approaching the township.
"The Rebels aren't any better. Its their frankly idiotic insistence we try and put out these little spot-fires that is allowing the Theocrats to continue this. Enough of the citizenry is loyal to the government that they're warning of our approach, allowing the kill-squads to pack up and get out." I said marching over a hastily dug mass grave, the excavator still at the edge of the hole.
Markham barked out a forced laugh. "Those idiots are lucky they're being bankrolled, because they clearly don't know how to wage a war of their own!" He said, "We've known that their main force is holed up in the Faithsong Mountains with the Chapel of Divine Right. We've tracked almost all of their aerospace flights back to the landing fields there. Yet the Rebels are terrified of facing them there."
"Has the Hysteria gotten more of the scans of the site yet?" Medusa said as his Locust crested a hill giving him good vision over the area.
"We've gotten enough Orbital Scans that Yang things he could build a scale model of the site." Markham said.
A chill feeling ran up my spine and I halted in my strides, the others, familiar with my sensitivity to odd goings on also halted their strides. I ran up the auspex to maximum gain and began cycling it across every spectrum it could read, nothing lived within the town, and yet still something wasn't right. Traces of explosive compounds were ever more easily detected and in large quantities.
"Get back." I backstepped. "Now. The entire town is rigged..." The machine spirit screamed at me suddenly.
"Power ups detected!" Behemoth said as she spun her mech and began a rapid stride.
Behind me the town detonated. Two hundred tonnes of explosives unleashed at once.
I reached out with the Thunderstrike Gauntlet I'd mounted for this mission and grabbed the Marauder by it's Autocannon preventing it from falling, too slow to escape the immediate blast radius. The cloud of smoke and debris leapt into the air and obscured everything, except my Auspex systems.
As the enemy Mechs crested the horizon I frowned. A Commando, Phoenix Hawk, Grasshopper and a Warhammer came at us. "Give me a status report." I said as I released Markham's Marauder and took up full war stride towards our attackers, the machine spirit still lamenting the pain that had been caused.
"You damaged my AC/5. But I lost at least a quarter of my right side armour to the blast." Markham said, "But you kept me on my feet."
"I'm ok. I've taken some minor damage, but your warning came in time." Behemoth said as her Atlas matched my stride, I wasn't in a hurry to leave the cover the smoke gave us.
"Pretty explosion, but they should have put up a sign so we could see it at a proper distance." Glitch chuckled from the Catapult she was piloting.
"They're on me!" Medusa called, panicking as his Locust found the unusually heavy enemy Lance. "Hale's Hammers. They're mercs."
PPC fire from the Warhammer slammed into the Locust tossing it like a toy down the scree, the blast already leaving our weakest pilot unsteady. The communications channel came alive.
"This is Hale, we know we didn't get you all, but you're all going to be nursing damage, if you give up and leave peacefully we won't push matters, please don't force us to take this any further." The Marauder stood on the hill looking down into the smoke.
I marched from the Smoke with Behemoth by my side, Markham flanking the other.
"I am Warden, commander of the Knight Templar. I'm sure your employers have briefed you on our involvement, we were probably the reason you were hired at all. And I am afraid we aren't going to give up, after all, I haven't suffered any damage at all." Well, relatively little.
I heard an intake of breath from the enemy commander. "So the rumours were true..." He stood on the hill facing us, as his lance-mates began to spread out, "And I must admit, when it comes to mech-tonnage you do appear to outweigh me. But did you really think I wouldn't have a backup plan."
I didn't answer, instead the battle cannon firing three shells in as many seconds. The mech attempted to backpedal surprised by the lack of continued dialogue, his own weapons discharging straight for me. The SRMs and PPCs crossed the distance between us interspersed with laser fire, the majority simply being deflected by the Ion Shield.
The battle was joined as Behemoth charged after the Grasshopper and Markham and Glitch decided to punish the Phoenix Hawk. There was no fairness in the fight, Hale's people instantly being put on the defensive and knowing they were heavily outmatched.
Until the hinted at support arrived. My air-tracking Auspex cycled the Icarus onto a new course as eight air contacts were detected coming in fast, an entire Lance of Shilones playing guard for a pair of Transit medium fighters. "Take care of the mechs!" I called out spinning to face the incoming aircraft, the Icarus already blazing fire at the lead craft on autonomous air defence mode.
The Shilones opened fire, LRM20s and Large Lasers blazing at us before the first of them fell as the Icarus chewed it to pieces with sustained and hyper-accurate fire. The cold pit in my gut hardened as the Transit's opened fire, the AC20's aimed, not at me, but at Markham's Marauder.
"I warned you!" Hale called out. "Markham's Marauders! Did you think we wouldn't identify such an obvious lead move?" The two weapons punched into the Marauder, blasting into it four shots in rapid succession, and the sense of it being worse never stopped as one of them struck the cockpit directly. The Marauder fell and I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that we'd have to hose him out of his cockpit.
"Do you know what happened to the last man to cross me Hale?" I broadcast as I opened up with my full firepower at the aircraft. A Transit detonating as a Battle Cannon shell found its cockpit, the Icarus bringing down two more Shilones as they fled.
"No." Hale said suddenly uncertain.
"Good. The Warhammer is mine. I want to have a face to face!" I turned to face the Warhammer, blaring my warhorns. "Though I march through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for I am death, and it's my damned valley." Thud, thud, thud, thud... Hale began alpha-striking trying to bring me down, shot after shot, steam began to pour off of his mech as he brought it close to overheating before he found fire discipline again.
But it was too late, and his mech too slow, a backhand from the Thunderstrike gauntlet tossed the seventy ton mech through the air, tossing the mercenary within around like a rag doll. Shots struck at my back as the Grasshopper tried to distract me, only for the AC20 on Behemoths Atlas to tear off one of its legs at the knee.
As the Warhammer rolled trying to get up Hale fired every weapon he could. Swinging my Ion Shield to my rear arc I absorbed the fire and tolerated the pain from the mild damage as I discharged the carapace meltagun. The shoulder joint erupted in molten metal as the armour began to run under the intense energy. The sudden locking of the joint under assault cost Hale his balance.
"We were hired to do this job!" Hale screamed. "The Capellans offered a lot of money, they wanted us to cripple your company!" He said backpedalling, as I reached down and picked him up. "We surrender! We surrender!" He called out in terror as his seventy ton war machine was raised into the air.
The weapons fire stopped as his words went out. Lightning crackled over his mech as the thunderstrike gauntlets energised field began to eat at the atomic structure of the war machine. "You murdered Markham,.."
"No! That was a Capellan unit! Our job was to try and take you out with a bomb, if that failed they had a lance and a half of aerospace that was aimed at destroying Markhams mech. I asked you to leave!" Hale said bargaining for his life now. "The money was too good to turn down, ten million c-bills!"
"Order your unit to shut down their Mechs and get out. Your mechs are being claimed as salvage and you're being dispossessed." My words were broadcast widely. "Or don't. I'll happily crush you like a bug."
The other Mechs went to their knees as their pilots shut them down and climbed out, hands in the air.
"Why dispossess us, we were just doing a job like you?!" Hale shouted.
I leaned down, bringing the face of the Knight Templar down close to him. "Because they're paying for something far more valuable."
"What is that?"
"Your lives."
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Darius sat on a cheap steel chair staring at the life support unit. Against all odds Markham hadn't been killed. I stood over the casket, the unit working hard to keep him alive, his legs were gone, the shell having punched through and under his seat. Burns covered much of his body and his left arm was a ruin that only the finest surgeons could ever hope to repair.
"We can't help him here." Darius said, staring at his friend.
"I know, and our employers tried to argue that the intervention came under our existing contract and that we had no right to the mech salvage. But the MRB agreed with me." I said turning form the ruin of the groups nominal commander. "Which brings up the next problem, we can't leave while the contract is active."
"Hells dammit Warden, the Capellans came after us. And all because of your plan to claim a dropship as salvage." He snarled angrily. His expression changed momentarily to fear as I turned back to him with equal anger in my eyes and a great deal more capability behind them.
"Do not fucking blame me for the actions of others. This was not the work of the Capellan Confederation as a whole. If they really wanted to screw us over on a formal level they wouldn't have hired some mercs and sent a Leo-CV as support!" I snapped, "Do you really think if the Capellans wanted to kill us they wouldn't have simply sent a couple Unions or a Fortress to support the locals."
His face dropped. "Sorry, it's just,..."
"I know Darius, I know," I rested a hand on his shoulder, "Don't for a second thing i'm done with this, but we do not have the power to take on the Successor houses. Hell, if it weren't for my instincts we probably would have walked right onto that bomb, I went over Hales BattleROM he only detonated it because he realised we weren't going to get any closer."
Glitch came in and looked awkwardly at the life support. "Warden, do you think he's going to be ok? Once we... well get him some help.." She paused looking younger than ever, "he helped me, a lot. And I couldn't stop what happened..."
Darius spoke up. "I don't think so Jess, his days of piloting a mech are probably over. Even if we can get him to a top hospital." She looked over at Darius, and I saw a scared little girl resurface for a second. She was close to losing a man who'd hired her and helped her overcome some of the insecurities she still had after her unlawful prison sentence.
But now wasn't a time for words. Now was the time for decisions. "Darius, we need to contact our erstwhile employers."
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"Ah. It's good you made contact. We've had word that they...." The Rebel Leader, Tarantino, said as he looked at a screen.
"No." I said causing him to turn back to the screen with our communique on it.
"Excuse me, we're paying the bills and..."
"And your strategy is entirely wasteful and allowed us to be ambushed by Hale's group to begin with. Every time you've sent us chasing geese we've arrived to find they've already butchered most of the people resisting them and escaping in their air transport back to their fort in the mountains." My words were level. My expression unchanging and neutral, "Your strategy, in a nutshell, is the product of an idiotic infantile mind or a pup chasing it's own tail. And it has cost us a Heavy Mech and Markham himself, who is in intensive care and needs to be transported to a fine hospital somewhere deeper in the Inner Sphere, perhaps the Federated Suns." I said staring, unblinking at the camera.
"The time has come to end our contract decisively, I won't renege on our contract, but it is time to silence those Theocrats once and for all. And I require your compliance on the matter, because if you try and press the matter I will require payment for our existing service and withdraw." I continued to stare, unblinking until he spoke up.
"I... understand, but that place is a fortress, and many of our people believe they can't be defeated there." He said plainly. "They have their remaining mechs guarding it, and dozens of turrets. And... we don't know what else... none of our people have returned from there."
"Don't care." I said dismissing his concerns.
"I... Darius, surely you can talk some sense into..."
"I said I don't care. We're not playing by your timid playbook anymore." I said leaning forwards towards the camera. I called up the orbital scans, "Gather whatever forces you have that can reach the area in the next six hours, because I intend to march in there, and turn the mountaintop into a flowing river of blood and lava. End Transmission."
Darius cut the feed. "A frontal assault?"
"Honestly Darius, it's likely our only option. If I could guarantee their turrets were down i'd bring the Warden's Rest down directly on their airfield, and right now that's basically the plan. We march in and destroy enough of their air defence to allow you to land at the airfield and provide direct fire support. The Marauder is, well, fucked and we don't have time to get it battle-ready." I went over the scans. "With both Catapults providing long ranged fire support, I want Behemoth and I to go in. Alone."
Darius turned me around. "Are you mad... we have no idea what they've got with any surety."
"Correct. Which is why Behemoth is going to protect me while I assault it via long ranged bombardment. We know where their turrets are, we've got a weeks worth of orbital imagery. Long ranged artillery bombardment from my Battle Cannon and Stormspear Rocket Battery. Then move in and destroy whatever is left with the Thermal Cannon." I said drawing up the plans.
Darius studied the plans with a grunt. "I don't like it, but if you can give sensor locks for the Catapults as well..."
"Then shall we work?"