Chapter 13

With the expansion of Shadow one of the first things that was needed was some reorganization. Each of the three Company commanders were given another Company and a Command Lance and promoted to Major. I tapped Bruce MacAmon and Jero Conn as my two Company Commanders. As the replacements came in to enlarge to this size we started to train them in the Shadow way of fighting. We depend on each other much more than any other group I have seen. We start from the first developing team work and train until it's instinctive. As they were shaking down Milt Jacobs and his Night Creatures were sent back to the Tortuga Dominions. He was now in charge of it. They needed more than a Company in case Raiders returned. Hoping he would not see any action for a while he was also given many of the newer pilots.

After we had been working together for a matter of weeks Zeke called a Staff Meeting for all Commanders. "We've been notified of a possible problem and we're going to check it out. Celeano has not been heard from for a while. No ships have come from there in several weeks. We have been assigned to go and check it out. Looks like we might have a small fire to stomp out. We will take a Battalion. Mick, you'll leave a Company behind. Milt is out of touch so we'll go with one of yours and Johnny's two. Milt has both Leopards so we'll go with the Bucs and the Union. We'll drop in, secure the landing site and let the Buccaneers land. There is not supposed to be anyone else there."

"We'll go in prepared to defend the Drop point and when we land we will be prepared to take on anyone who is there. Instead of the normal Command Lance we'll have the three LAMs."

Upon being dismissed I let Jero know that he would be staying behind and that Bruce would be going. We got everything that we thought we would need and started loading. One Lance into each Dropship. I didn't like the idea of splitting up the Company but it was supposed to be only for the drop. We were also taking the two Stingrays with us. They and the LAMs were going in the Union. We were to be ready to deplane at the Drop point in case there was a jumper waiting. We would look foolish if there wasn't as we were taking in extra crews for it and for Dropships.

Sure enough there was an Invader waiting at the Drop point. As we came out we moved to our allocated positions. We had one staring straight at the nose and one of us on each side of the command section. We dared them to open fire. They were then instructed to surrender and prepare to be boarded. The Buccaneer that was holding the Infantry uncoupled from our ship and docked with them. Within minutes they were all under our control.

From them we found out that there was a Union, a Leopard and a Leopard CV down below. They didn't know about the sizes of the BattleMechs but did know that the Raiders who called themselves the Red Corsairs had four red painted Corsairs and four red painted Sholagars. They had a total of eighteen Mechs.

Leaving a platoon of Infantry behind to guard prisoners and man the guns aboard the jumper we dropped. It's a long drop into Celeano even from the Pirate point, a little over six days. When we hit the atmosphere all the Mechs in the Union as well as the two fighters dropped away. Our target was the spaceport that was just below us. The LAMs and the Fighters were to take the heat off the cocooned Mechs while they dropped. We were to strafe any targets that we could find, giving priority to the Fighters and then any hardpoints. They knew we were there when the Dropships broke atmosphere. By then we were out and diving on them. Only four of the Fighters tried to come up. Two of the Corsairs and two Sholagars. As the Sholagars had the speed on us we tried to hit them first. We caught them while they were still trying to climb and were much slower than we were and much less maneuverable.

I took a slight deflection shot at the second Sholagar and caught him good. A large and a medium to the nose, a medium to the cockpit and a medium to the right wing. I missed with the last one. I shallowed out my dive a bit and raked the rear Corsair the same way only this time he was much slower and I got all weapons on and two hits to the right wing with the same damage to the other places. I then pulled the nose up to see if additional passes would be necessary and one of the Corsairs was still up. I left him to the Fighters and zoomed for the ground. I didn't want the other four Fighters to come up. On the ground with the wheels down and the canopies up the Fighters are much more vulnerable. We took advantage of this and came in low and tried to knock the landing gear out from under them. I got a Corsair and Karuska got a Sholagar that way. Zeke just strafed them as well as he could. Two passes was all it took and the fighters were knocked out. By this time our Mechs were landing and beginning to take up position around the enemy Dropships.

They must have hollered as two Lances came out. A Lance of Mediums and a Lance of Heavies. They had a good mixture. Two Quickdraws, a Rifleman, a Catapult, a Hatchetman, a Hunchback, a Griffin and a Shadow Hawk. With their Fighters down we started on them. Our Fighters had finished off the last Corsair and were on the way to join us. I raked across the front of the Catapult but only did armor damage. Zeke hit the Rifleman and Karuska picked on one of the Quickdraws. They turned with us and gave beautiful back shots to our missile Mechs. We had dropped our Catapult and a couple of Griffins with this load. The Griffins zeroed in on the Rifleman and the Cat took on the Cat. He just shredded the armor off the rear of the enemy Cat and it went down while the Rifleman staggered but stayed up. I think the armor on the rear of a Rifleman is paper but somehow the paper held up. While they were still turned for us the Fighters arrived and aimed for the two Quickdraws in the rear also. One of the fighters missed completely but the other one hit his target hard. It staggered him also. The Rifleman and the Quickdraw started to withdraw after only firing once at the LAMs.

The Medium Lance had continued forward. The two Griffins switched to the Hunchback and hit him with Peeps and missiles. It did only armor damage. Then the two S. Hawks opened up and removed the rest of the armor from the left side. The Dragon finished him off. The two Grasshoppers and the Ostsol fired on the second Quickdraw. It started to withdraw also. It was limping badly from leg hits and the back was opened up on it too. With the Heavy support leaving the rest of the Medium Lance began to withdraw also. On my return I hit the second Quickdraw. I did armor damage to his center torso and left arm but I finished off his right leg and he went down. Before he did he gang fired all of his weapons. There were so many missiles coming so close I couldn't duck them all. I suffered hits on the torso, wing, leg and one to the cockpit. While it shook me up a bit it did no real harm.

Zeke and Karuska scrubbed off more armor on the Rifleman's right side. All of them fired on the LAMs as we shot passed. The Rifleman missed, The Hatchetman hit Zeke in the leg with a medium and the Griffin hit him in the chest with a PPC. Karuska took a wing and a leg hit from mediums. Our Griffins and S. Hawks fired on their Griffin and pounded on him. Both legs, chest and arm. He ejected. When we checked later we found out his life support system had been knocked out. The S. Hawk suffered a critical chest hit which set off the missiles stored there, putting him down for the full count.

We allowed the Hatchetman, the wounded Quickdraw and Rifleman to withdraw. We still had the landing of our other Dropships to cover and didn't want to get distracted from that. Five down and two wounded out of two Lances wasn't bad.

Due to the strafing our Mechs took very little damage. What they did take was only armor hits. I think Zeke and I were the worse hurt of all of us and we were missing about a ton of armor each. After the first pass on the Mechs our Fighters broke off and provided top cover on our Bucs coming in for a landing. All the enemy Fighters should be accounted for from the information we had received but we didn't know if it was reliable or not. We did very similar to them in that we grouped all three of our Dropships together so they could provide covering fire for each other.

As soon as our ships had off loaded the Fighters landed and refueled. Zeke and I stayed up to cover while Karuska landed and got replacement armor. The Mechs that dropped returned to the Union and rearmed and the few that had been hit had armor replaced. When the Fighters became airborne again Zeke and I landed and had armor replaced also. The only thing they couldn't do was replace the panel of lexan in my cockpit that had gotten damaged. We hadn't brought any with us. I would just have to hope that I didn't get another hit there and that the black smear from the blast wouldn't obscure my vision too much to that side. Later when we had more time we could buff it out if the panel could be saved.

Leaving a Company of Mechs, a Platoon of Infantry and the Lance of Fighters to guard our Dropships the rest of us went hunting the Red Corsairs. The LAMs followed up in the direction that the three battered enemy Mechs had retreated. We followed them into an industrial area on the outskirts of town. They had taken over one of the buildings and were using it as a headquarters. They had also set up a repair station there to keep the Mechs from going back to the spaceport all the time.

In addition we also had a glimpse of a few more of our opposition. We saw two Warhammers and a Zeus. Knowing where they were located Zeke called back with directions to our Mechs and had them start this way. We pulled up and started to slowly circle to mark the spot and to spot what we could. The two 'Hammers went out to escort the wounded Rifleman and Quickdraw back inside. While they were doing that a Thunderbolt and a Marauder joined the Zeus outside. We now knew what eight of the remaining thirteen Mechs were. On our next circle we all moved out further and lower. As we passed behind some buildings to obscure us we turned in for a strafing pass on their headquarters.

I had spotted a familiar sight just passed the Zeus which was standing in the door. It was several stacks of LRMs. They were still on the transport pallets like they come off the J-27s. I don't know if the others had spotted them but that was going to be my target. I had rather remove their ammunition and supplies and damage their repair facility. If we could knock out their ability to repair themselves then they were forced to live with any damage we gave them and if we could knock out their supplies they couldn't rearm themselves. Zeke had a partial rear shot on the Marauder and that was his target. As I was second in the run I didn't see what Greg Karuska picked. I know I held my fire until all I could see was Zeus and then with slight pressure on the rudder pedal there they were. It was like Bobby Burns Birthday with all the missiles going off and the whiz-bangs. Greg let out a curse and pulled up to keep from being an accidental victim of the exploding missiles. Mechs came running out of the building as more explosions were heard and felt. We didn't make another pass. There would be no surprise a second time.

Pulling away and looking back it looked like the whole building was going up. As the Mechs came boiling out we could see why the display was so awesome. Eleven of the thirteen Mechs they had carried missiles. Nine of them LRMs. They had the two Warhammers, the T'Bolt, the Zeus and the Marauder we had seen. They also had a Grasshopper, an Archer, a Griffins, a Crusader and an Awesome. Several of them had scorch marks on them where they had taken damage from the detonating missiles. While none of them had been incapacitated it would be a while before they could get back inside to see what could be salvaged, much less be able to conduct repairs. In addition to all the missiles, the Zeus and the Marauder both carried AC-5s. With all the missiles being cooked off it would take a while before they could see if any of their 'munitions survived the blasts.

Now we just circled and waited for the rest of the Battalion to arrive. It was going to take them a bit longer to arrive as they were circling to come in from the town side and cut off a retreat in that direction. We wanted to cause and allow as little damage as possible to the rest of the planet.

When our forces were in position Zeke gave them a call on a general frequency. "Red Corsairs from Shadow Brigade. We have you outnumbered and you are cut off from town. We request you surrender."

"So the mighty Shadows have finally arrived. Why should we listen to you Loud Mouth? So far you ain't showed me much."

"To the person talking, this is Colonel Zeke Jones. We have you outnumbered nearly three to one. We would like to avoid senseless blood shed if possible. If any of you wish to surrender walk towards our forces with your weapons pointed towards the sky and your cockpit canopy open."