Chapter 20

We'd been sent to lie in wait on the Kuritan Regiment that was attacking Dindatari. The 4th An Ting Legion was the unit that'd been assigned to take over the Outworlds Alliance planet. With the help of the Alliance we were set up on a small base on Dindatari's second moon. With passive sensors out we sat waiting for them to appear. As they showed up on the radar screens we were able to plot their attack formations and estimate their targets. We watched as the nine Union Dropships spread out to make their drops in four different locations.

Spies are everywhere and in this case they had been working for the Outworlds Alliance. The Alliance knew that they were going to be attacked by Warlord Grieg Samsonov, the Commander of the Galedon Military District. We felt ourselves extremely lucky as the other possible units he could have sent were either Alpha or Delta Regiments of Wolf's Dragoons, the premiere Mercenary unit around or possibly the 8th Sword of Light, the Jade Dragons. Any Sword of Light Regiment is fanatical. The other possibility that we would have found ok would have been the 17th Galedon Regulars, the Protectors of Karma. The reason they would've been preferred is that they're a green Regiment. None of the Galedon Regulars is a push over however the greener the Regiment the better it would have been for us.

The An Ting Legion isn't very well liked by the Procurement Department. They treat the unit with little respect, their replacements are late in arriving and they're way down on the parts order lists for resupply as well. Another thing that works in our favor is that basically they're a Medium Regiment. While they have several Warhammers and Marauders with them the rest of their unit is mediums with a few lights.

With tight beam transmission we passed on our information to the Home Guard. The Battalion of fighters we had waiting were launched. They were teamed so that a Lance was assigned to each Dropship. That wasn't much but coming in from below they were not facing the amount of weaponry that they would've faced from a head on attack. Large and medium lasers were bad enough without throwing in peep cannons and Long Ranged Missiles. The fighters had waited until just prior to the Unions entering the Atmosphere. This hid the emerging fighters and allowed them to get closer before the enemy was even aware of them. With the atmosphere facing them it also kept the ship's crew busy changing from interplanetary fusion engines to the planetary engines. Anything that could keep their attention tied up somewhere else.

This plus their speed had allowed the Thrushes to work in close before opening fire. Raking the engine sections of the Unions caused a panic aboard the Dropships. While there's a lot of armor compared to a Mech, it's the weakest point on a dropship. The combination of six medium lasers from the pair of Thrushes could do a lot of damage to the engines of a Union. While they were screaming about the damage they were taking the other Aerospace Fighters arrived. Lots of armor was being chewed through. Lots of engines were getting chewed also. (While the engines heat the thrusters very evenly, a laser hit, even just a medium causes additional heat to one spot. This "hot" spot then absorbs even more heat causing a blowout in the thruster. This either destroys the thruster or even worse, causes the thrust from the engines to go in a different direction which alters the entire trajectory of the dropship.)

We lost two Thrushes, with two more shot up pretty badly. We also lost a Transit and a Chippewa was badly damaged. It cost the Kuritans two Unions which went in out of control and three that made controlled crash landings.

As soon as the Kuritans hit the atmosphere we took off from the moon. On our way in we had small boats out to picked up the shot up Aerospace Fighters. We'd be landing within 100 kilometers of their southern most landings. We were hoping that it would take them a while to react to our attack on them and that they'd be tied up trying to salvage as many Mechs and crew from the downed Dropships as possible.

One thing we had to do was to cut down or eliminate their mobility. As we came in on our three locations the fighter groups that had stayed with us attacked their Dropships. Also this time we dropped communication satellites behind us as we came in. This was something that the Kuritans had not done as we were checking as we dropped.

I exited the Dropship and attacked with the Fighters that were going in with Phantom. We caught them flat footed. All four ramps on each Dropship were down to facilitate off loading, the guns were not manned and there were still Mechs milling about near the ships. Concentrating on the ships and not the Mechs we attacked with three fighters on each of the two ships with the others flying cover. With the ramps down we didn't need to worry about punching through the armor. We could fire straight into the ships through the very wide doors. On the lower level of the Unions were the massive fusion engines, fuel storage and other things that didn't take well to violent abuse. With a single pass we knocked out both of the ships. One of them were burning as the fuel had been set on fire. The second had a disabled engine. The second and third passes we made on the milling Mechs. As we had found before, the Hunchbacks don't take kindly to back attacks. We were able to put down three of them as well as a small Panther. Most of the damage on the Mechs was done by the little Thrushes. They were so fast that they were making their third pass while the rest of us were making our second pass. They caught the Mechs facing the slower fighters and raked the backs of the smaller machines.

We then moved on to the second drop site. This was the site of two of the controlled crashes. Here we found several Mechs that had pulled themselves out of the wreckage and were trying to free others still trapped. As the Dropship had been tumbling as it entered the atmosphere the Mechs had not been able to drop properly and most of them were still cocooned. We strafed them as long as they were moving. We also fired into the broken sides of the dropships. We weren't being cruel or heartless. We were trying to finish off the enemy while taking as little damage ourselves as possible.

By the time we had returned to our own drop site the Mechs had been unloaded and moved. The infantry had been loaded aboard APCs and moved and the ships were waiting to receive us. The two Chippewas and the remaining two Thrushes were up providing Cap Cover.

I was again working with Captain Custus White who had watched over us at Cate's Hole. We had discussed the coverage that I wanted while on the moon. He knew his job better than I did so I left him alone. We'd have cap cover for our Dropships and strike teams ready to assist when they could. That was what I wanted. How he did it was up to him.

We left two Lances to guard the ships and moved out. The infantry, in four hover APCs, had already left to get as close to the enemy position as possible and become our eyes. Our first target was the two downed Unions. While we had inflicted additional damage they still might be able to dig out some more of their people.

Before an hour had passed we were getting reports from the PBIs. There were more Mechs on the scene. They weren't functioning to full capacity so they had probably been aboard the dropship. There were several unopened cocoons that had been dragged away from the crash site that probably housed more Mechs.

At full strength they would be two Companies. We were attacking with two Companies plus two Lances as I had taken the Command Lance along as well. We had chewed up several during our strafing runs that had worked their way free and several would not have been freed from the wreckage yet. We should have them by a two to one margin and be able to force them to surrender. This was my hopes anyway.

As we were still moving towards their location I ordered the infantry to take up positions all around the crash site and to keep a watch behind them as well as on the crash. More of their people could and probably would be headed their way to assist. I didn't want to be surprised by more Mechs showing up when we least expected them.

As we neared the site we started to move apart. We wanted to approach them in a 180 degree arc. I kept most of the missile Mechs in the center while only a couple of them were placed on each end. I wanted the site covered in case they wanted to make a fight of it. With no other Mechs in sight to support them we moved forward. There were three Phoenix Hawks and two Hunchbacks trying to free more cocoons. A Panther was to one side trying to open the cocoons that had been freed. As we moved forward I scanned the different communications frequencies to see if I could find the one they were using. When I found it I requested that they surrender. We would take the necessary steps to free their comrades and also provide the needed medical attention. Their reply was a shot fired from the Panther.

The five working around the wreckage were immediately inundated by missiles. Between hits, near misses and back blasts from hits on the wreckage around them they were all knocked down. That plus they couldn't be too steady on their feet after going through that crash. We continued to move forward and showed little mercy on the Panther. Jero Conn hit it twice with Peeps from his Warhammer and Johnny Blake hit it with a Peep from his Griffin. Moving rapidly we were able to keep the others from getting back to their feet and forced their surrender.

With all hostilities over with I called forward the techs who had been following us. With the proper tools they had the cocoons opened in very little time. As the final cover was removed two Mechs stepped forward to cover the Mech that was inside. In several cases the pilot was still unconscious. Of the eleven cocoons we opened only one tried to fight. When Chris Flynn, excuse me CAPTAIN Chris Flynn placed the muzzle of a PPC against the cockpit the pilot changed her mind. This was a rarity. A female Kurita Mech pilot. The Snakes don't think much of females and put them down. Rarely do you find one with enough determination to stick out all the abuse that is heaped on them at their Academy.

With the freed cocoons opened and the pilots turned over to our infantry we could look at freeing any others we could find. When we had strafed them earlier we had put down four, this attack had captured five and the eleven cocoons. That left four Mechs and pilots unaccounted for as well as twenty-eight crewmen and four Aerospace pilots. The techs crawled in, over, through and around the ships. They were able to account for the four Mechs (trashed), the four pilots (dead), the four Aerospace fighters (trashed), the fighter pilots (dead) and twenty of the twenty-eight crew. Eight of the twenty were still alive and we were able to remove them and administer medical aid.

We loaded the survivors and the captured pilots onto the trucks in which the techs had arrived. The techs took as many of the Mechs as they could back with them. (All of the cocooned Mechs plus one of the P. Hawks.) Using handed Mechs we drug the other eight several kilometers from the crash site and left them. We also set booby traps. Vibrabombs set for 50 tons were placed around the captured Mechs.

With this done we continued on our way back to the drop site. There we replaced all expended munitions and then started on the way towards the second drop site for our area. In this one the ships had set down normally but we had strafed them and several of the Mechs.