battle

DD-5 (Alan)

Within an hour of the contract signing, we began to get data feed from the 41st Avalon Hussars. Combined with our long-range scanners, we basically had near perfect view of the battlefield and beyond.

What we saw was essentially a battalion of mechs, two battalions of supporting infantry, and one artillery company. The artilleries were all parked far from the center of the battlefield/city, most of the infantry was fighting in the city, and the mechs were spread all throughout. I wasn't sure whether or not this was normal. Where was the armored division? Or did the mechs fall under that? I didn't see any tanks. This was supposed to be the defending force, right?

… Well, it was their loss.

"Wait."

We turned to the original.

"Making a new clone."

There was a flash and an exact copy of the original, including his gear, stood next to him.

"You are now 1-A."

"You're just gonna flip the naming convention around?"

"Yes."

"Boo."

"Shut up, F-7."

I rolled my eyes. As far as I was concerned, this was one more clone with the equipment capable of downing these mechs just like the rest of us. The more mechs we downed, the more we would have to tinker with later.

"1-A, your job is to find a library or the equivalent and read up on the locals."

"Seriously? You just thought of that right now?"

"Yes."

"I was born literal ten seconds ago and you didn't even -. Man, you suck. I gotta go read while you and the rest of yall get to shoot up some giant mechs."

"That's how it is."

"When I first got made, I had to do grocery runs."

"Suck it up!"

I rolled my eyes while 1-A moved to find a library or something close enough. The original then thought to us.

'Let's move. Our target would be the one to our southwest.'

-VB-

Combine Mechwarrior A

Ashley Takamori warily looked around from the inside of her Thunderbolt.

Something killed three mechwarriors here and none of the three managed to report back anything before their deaths. Their deaths had been so quick and thorough that their mechs just went offline as far as everyone else was concerned.

This was why she, at the head of her lance, moved into this city block carefully. The samurai within her demanded that she quickly find the perpetrators and slay them where she stood but her more pragmatic brain demanded that she fulfill her role as the lance leader to the best of her abilities.

"Abe, check that street to our left," she ordered, and Abe obeyed, taking his WSP-1k to do just that. He piloted his humanoid mech forward and -.

Zoom.

There was a streaking beam of laser, and Abe's Wasp fell over.

"Shit, ambush!" she hissed. "Take cover!"

Another streak of laser blurred toward them but missed her and her lance this time.

'Has to be a large laser!' she thought with a panic. 'Nothing else would core a Wasp like that!' Were they up against an assault mech? Was it a King Crab?

… but as she and her team waited, there was no rumbling of an approaching assault mech. Not even that of regular mechs.

Just silence.

And then there was a flash of light in the corner of her vision. Hason, their Blackjack, keeled over, and his gurgling gasp was all they heard from him. Not even a scream. Just a flash and a medium mech got cored in a single shot.

"What the fuck is going on?!" she shouted.

That's all it took for her last lance-mate to get cored. But this time, she saw where it came from. With a tear, she pushed her Thunderbolt forward, rounded the corner of the street in record time, and -!

Nothing.

Huh?

Nothing … but a single infantryman.

The soldier raised his rifle up as if it could do anything. She still needed to find that mech th-.

Flash.

Her mech went offline completely, and she screamed as she felt it keel over backward. Her head banged against her seat when the mech crashed, and she laid there dazed.

What.

What? How?

Was she ambushed from the back? How did they hit her engine so perfectly?

And then she felt a bone-deep chill.

She lost. She lost without even seeing her opponent. The honorless Davion curs shot her in the back after tricking her!

The sheer dishonor of not having been able to even shoot her enemy. It stung her deeply.

Gritting her teeth, she pulled out her wakizashi from her daisho pair.

There was only one way to go, and she would not allow herself to be captured by invading dogs.

-VB-

F-7

If ants had guns, then all of humanity would be dead.

It was the thought that intrusively took over my mind as I stared at the mech I just killed, which had ignored me like a fool. Or were infantry just not a big deal in this verse? Whatever the case, I lived where I should have died - again - because I had actually reacted slower than the mech pilot had.

"I can see how these mechs are the mainstay of combat," I hummed. "If they react that quickly, move and turn that fast, and dish out a ton of damage, tanks wouldn't stand a chance."

I'm sure some sci-fi tanks would and there probably were that we just weren't seeing right now. For all we knew, the armored division was off fighting another armored division.

Whatever.

Whatever the case, we managed to ambush another squadron of these giant mechs that really did operate without any support! There was a small mech, two medium mechs,and one large mech. They all seemed to fulfill a specific role, which the smallest with its obviously light build was for scouting and large one for … tanking?

Yeah, not too sure about that. A mix of tankiness and damage? That sounded better and more plausible.

I mean… no one would build a mech solely for tanking, right?

'Moving to J5,' the original ordered through the hive mind rather than the comms.

I grinned.

More mechs to hunt down, more metal to strip later for our tinkertech.

-VB-

Combine Mechwarrior B

5 hours.

It's been five hours since the Nichi Lance deep within Polis went dark. This also meant that their effort to contest the spaceport and the capital city of David II was a failure.

It meant that the invasion was turning in favor of the Davion dogs.

"{This is bullshit!}"

"{Keep quiet, Chui-i Mikhail,}" Sho-sa Momoichi grunted. "{Our orders are to ambush the enemy that is coming this way. If I miss the perfect chance because of your outburst, I am going to ri-}"

Chui-i Bernard Re tuned out his superior's rant while he focused on the road ahead.

While the Nichi Lance went down without a word, the next lance to fall, the Sandachi Lance, managed to get the message out.

'Lostech power armor infantry.'

Those four words in a single phrase was all Sandachi Lance managed to send before they were annihilated. A Thunderbolt, two Orions, and a Hoplite fell in under a minute of engagement.

The problem was that no one knew how they were taken out.

This was why they were waiting as quietly as they could among trees.

And something blinding lanced through her Sho-sa.

Her eyes widened.

Ambush.

And then through Bernard.

Before she could turn to react, she herself saw a flash of light.

-VB-

Captain Anderson

With the night setting in- the tempo of the invasion died down, and was now time for debriefings and consolidation.

In his case, it was to face the music. He stood at attention in front of the general while she worked on a report on her TriPad.

She gestured for him to speak.

"General-," he began but the dark-skinned, one-eye-patched woman merely gave him a stare to shut him up.

"I don't care about your excuses. You lost your mech but it is salvageable and open to salvage for us. This is good enough. Your role as a mechwarrior is over for this battle, if not the whole invasion. Instead, you will serve as advisor and liaison to the mercenaries you got us in contact with."

"Yes, ma'am," he saluted.

She nodded. "Speaking of whom… you got lucky."

"... ma'am?"

"It's been ten hours since they became active, captain," she replied. "In that time, they downed fifteen mechs."

He nearly did a spit-take.

"Four men without mechs of their own took down fifteen mechs," she repeated slowly as she set a pad down. "I hope you understand what it probably means."

"Lostech."

"Most likely," she confirmed. "And should they have been hired by the Combine, we would have seen fifteen mechs and their mechwarriors dead on our side."

That would be half for their invasion force gone. Just like that.

"It is thanks to you that we dodged a bullet, so take a break and work as a liaison during and after the invasion."

"... after, ma'am?"

"The mercenaries wanted land and all of the mech salvage. It is obvious what they want to do."

"A landhold holding mercenary company operating out of David itself?"

"If they can do half as good elsewhere as they are doing right now, then they will be very successful," she hummed before looking back down. "What I am surprised about is how they are still operating."

He blinked. "But it's past midnight."

"Yes. And they have the last Combine lance in such a panic that the invasion may end before dawn."

-VB-

1-A

"What kind of shithole universe is this?" I asked myself quietly.

I found a library, if it could be called that, with only a hundred books or so. I thought it was an office or tutoring academy but, nope, the front of the building said library.

And when I looked through its books.

Ho boy.

The History of Inner Sphere told me a story of a human civilization slowly stagnating and losing progress. The Draconis Combine and You was a propaganda book. The Five Pillars read like the Little Red Book. Everything else was of no importance.

Essentially, I was on a world owned by the Draconis Combine, a "successor" state that lays claim to the seat of the "First Lord" of the "Star League." Their four competitors also did the same. This put them at war with … basically everyone else for the past two hundred years plus. A five way war that never truly ended.

Nuke-ridden, total war of the First Succession War.

Less nuke-ridden but no less total war of the Second Succession War.

No nuke, no total war, but a lot of raiding and minor border changes of the Third Succession War, which was still happening.

Jesus, these people made everyone else from back home look reasonable! Even Putin wouldn't repeatedly nuke someone when they also have nukes! He certainly hadn't up to the time the original got yoinked.

I couldn't tell if the history book was a propaganda piece.

'1-A, report back to the group. We need more hands with tinkering.'

After a moment, I sent my acknowledgement with a note that I was going to be slow. Leaving the library, I looked around the ruined street and saw a car that looked mostly untouched. Sure, the window was shattered and one of front lights was also gone but other than that…

Also, why did it look like a Hyundai Porter? How did they survive for so long?

… whatever, it's not important. What was important was the fact that the key was still in!

Getting into the car (easy since its driver side door had been ripped off), I turned the key and… Brrrrr te te te te te….

It was working!

I hurriedly loaded up all of the books into the back of the car and drove off toward where the original and the rest of us were staying at the moment.

'Oh shit, we have a live one.'

"Huh?"

'One of the Combine mech pilots tried to suicide.'

"Call them mechwarriors. That's the local term."

'Mechwarrior?' F-7 uttered. 'What kind of cyber-dystopian name is that?'

"Once you read the books I'm bringing, you'll know."

'What could be in those books that you're taking your sweet ass time and not helping ourselves?'

"Dumb fucking history of this dystopian feudal galaxy."

'What?'

'What?'

'Oh, hey, she's not gonna die immediately.'

'Then keep her stable!'

'Oh shit, she's actually going to live?'

'Yes, so come here and fucking help! She's awake and trying to kill herself and us!'

'Coming.'

'That's a wakizashi. Are we in feudal Japan?'

"Close enough," I grunted as I made a slow turn. "Draconis Combine is just the future version of Japanese Shogunate."

'... Seriously?'

'Wait, doesn't that mean we finally get a chance to tell stuffy hidebound asshole to stuff their honor bullshit?'

'Oh yeah, that's one more thing off the bucket list.'

'All of you -. All of me's have ADHD. We never got diagnosed but we have to have it. Stop chatting and keep breaking those mechs apart! 1-A, get over here already!'

"Road is bumpy as fuck! Stow yo shit! You will definitely be thanking me for this!"

Chapter 3

-VB-

A-2

2980.05.12

"What kind of…?"

"Exactly my reaction," 1-A responded while sitting off to the side. The rest of us sat around in a circle surrounding all of the books and TriPads 1-A brought for us to read.

Sufficed to say, the history of this verse was even more fucked up than Worm.

At least in Worm, they didn't go out of their way to launch scorched earth wars. Or Cauldron did something after Scion blabbed all the nukes. However, that was a point in favor of Earth Bet; they had someone managing the fall. There was no one to manage the fall and everyone kind of all fell together in an orgy of violence and stagnation. Whatever the case, my personal opinion was that this place was not a good place.

That meant we had to build up very quickly to not be taken advantage of. Or worse, wiped out.

Worse was the recent history, especially within this Draconis Combine we fought against. It was the worst of Imperial Japan's cultural eradication efforts, Yugoslavia's ruthless focus on the military, the Great Leap Forward, and Russia's endemic secret police all wrapped up in one!

I'm kind of glad we fought them.

It's been a day since we fought and destroyed fifteen or so of these battlemechs. It wasn't hard, especially because our powered armor allowed us to move quickly. Even with our armors' dirty white paint, ambushing the mechs proved too easy because… no one expected us.

We moved faster than most of the mechs, for one, and two, our hits were one shot, one kill. With four of us ambushing conveniently a four-party "lance" of mechs at a time, each strike resulted in a near-instant victory. There just wasn't what these people could do when we could identify their mech's power source, blast a laser through it, We just repeated it four separate times.

Which, apparently, was absurd by the standards of the locals.

Which, you know, made sense because tinkertech was absurd. Our Anti-Scion laser guns were absurd. Our gears in general was absurd.

… but it felt good to use our tinkertech to fight against an oppressive regime. Was this what it felt like to be a 'Murican? Not an American but a 'Murican. There was nothing more 'Murican than killing a horrible amalgamation of Soviet Union, Maoist China, Imperial Japan, and … Yugoslavia? Not sure about that last part but 'MURICA~!

"You're having weird thoughts. They're leaking, A-2," the original grunted.

"Sorry," I apologized.

"... murica."

"America!"

"Fuck yeah!"

"Fucking children."

"Nyah nyah nyah!"

I rolled my eyes.

"So what now?" 1-A asked.

The original hummed. "We should use the disabled mechs we now own to build up. We obviously don't need mechs for our operations but giving the locals something flashy to look at wouldn't hurt. Maybe we can try to replicate some Code Geass bullshit?"

"Energy shields? I'm down for that."

"Landspinners, too. These mechs move too slowly."

"Also way too big."

"Of course, they're slow; they are big stompy mechs!"

"Geass knightmares would be considered ultralight by local standards, right? Can't tank much from local munition. See here? Battlemech autocannons are 30mm."

"Hmm. Even our armors would have trouble against that kind of caliber. We need to start production of energy shields as quickly as possible."

"Well, duh, that's why we would be building energy shields like the ones we made from copying Uppercrust's shit."

"Even our copies of those shields are stationary. They won't help us with building a mobile energy shield."

Our discussion continued in that vein for hours before we agreed that the first thing we needed to do was contact this Federated Suns General, get a location scopes out on this world, and start tinkering.

-VB-

Captain Anderson

The invasion truly ended as quickly as the general had said it would.

The utter and near complete destruction of the defending mechs in under one day demoralized the rest of the defenders. Try as they might to show the Combine spirit and stubbornness, the shock of the brutal beat down blunted many of their assaults and led to repeated routing.

In the end, the Invasion of David II came to an end a mere week after they landed on the planet.

Now having been assigned as the liaison officer to the mercenary companies that made quick work of the Combine battlemechs, he found himself at the front entrance of the ten hectare brimming with the very mechs the mercenaries defeated.

"Oh, it's you!"

He turned around and saw one of the mercs from before. They wore the same outfit as before, some kind of plated armor meant for heavy duty combat. The white paint contrasted sharply with the black smudges of grease and oil splattered all over it but concentrated mostly on their gauntlets.

"Hello again," he greeted. "I'm sorry, but I never got your name last time."

Especially considering that they all wore the same armor without any insignia or make to differentiate them and because only the merc company owner ever released his name.

"Call me F-7. That's my designation."

"Right. F-7. I'm here to pick up the Combine mechwarriors you are supposedly holding."

F-7 saluted before marching away to the only erected building on this once pristine grass plains that sat right outside David II's capital city, Polis. It was where he had contacted the mercs.

As for the land here…

In the two days since the Marris Mercenaries were hired and put to work and who in turn ended the invasion on the same day that they got hired, they managed to erect a very rudimentary building made out of sheet metal. Surrounding that two story building were the mechs of all designs that they downed.

Michael Anderson felt a sting of envy. He'd served the Federated Suns for twenty years as a mechwarrior, yet here were the mercs getting richer than ten of his peers combined for a literal day's work. On top of that, they managed to earn themselves Federated Suns citizenship and land.

Then he remembered that he didn't come here by himself. He looked over his shoulder and saw the armored transport and Lieutenant Hasting-Kim waiting for him.

"Come with me, lieutenant. The rest of you hold position."

The short lieutenant hastily walked over to his side and slightly behind as he made his way to the sheet metal building in question. He got close to it when he noticed something. He saw a pair of the mercs on top of a ruined mech. They were cutting something with a blowtorch.

"Ah, Captain… Anderson."

He turned back around and saw a young man approaching him. He was tall but not so tall, lean but not thin, bristle like short black hair that had a bounce to them, and barrow eyes that seemed to analyze every inch of his body.

"You must be Alan Marris," he said as he extended a hand for a shake, which the merc captain shook firmly. 'Strong.'

Michael glanced to the captain's side at a woman in cuffs.

"And this must be the Combine mechwarrior?"

"Yes. Here is the key to the cuff," Marris hummed as he handed him an aluminum key. Michael took and gestured for the lieutenant to take her away.

"Before we talk, I must let you know that I have been assigned as the AFFS's liaison officer to your mercenary company."

Marris looked surprised. "Oh. I didn't know mercs got liaison officers. Is that normal?"

"No." 'Because everyone is confused about where you came from and what lostech you have.' "But the general felt it prudent with how exemplary your people were in aiding our forces."

"Sure."

… just like that?

"So what have you been doing here? It seems you managed to get all of your prizes to your land. Are you thinking of bringing them online?"

"A few, yes. I think I might sell a few parts."

"The AFFS will be very interested in buying."

Marris grinned. "Excellent! I have a couple of mechs that only need a few parts exchanged to be operable. How do you feel about a Thunderbolt, two Locusts, and a Hunchback as a starter?"

-VB-

MI2 Agent Lywdottors

2980.05.28

Maria Lywdottors sat in front of a computer. On the computer screen, a video, no longer than five seconds, looped over and over again.

This was the only footage the AFFS managed to catch of the lostech "laser" the unknown mercenaries used against the DCMS on the Federated Suns' invasion of David II.

As not only the foremost expert on laser physics within the ranks of the DMI and MI2 but also New Avalon's foremost universities, she was the most qualified individual to pluck out what could be ascertained from a five-second footage.

And her conclusion?

"These are lasers," she gestured to the "lasers" as they pierced through a Combine Thunderbolt. "This thing that they used is closer to a particle beam than a beam of photon."

"You can tell that from a five-second clip?" the Master-course student working as her assistant asked.

She looked over her shoulder. "Think of it this way. When you want to find counterfeit, you don't look for counterfeits."

"Huh?"

She rolled her eyes.

"You can tell what a real mech myomer looks like, right?"

"Of course. We work with it all the time."

"So if someone brings you a fake myomer…"

"... ooohhh, I get it. Because you worked with the real thing for so long, if something looks off even a little…"

"You notice it immediately." She then tapped the thick computer glass. "And that does not look like a laser. It looks like how particle projector cannon, but no PPC one-shots a Marauder."

The assistant, James something, squinted. "Can't tell that myself."

"Well, you don't have years of experience with lasers."

He raised an eyebrow. "And I guess you pretty much have your arms stuck inside them every day doing repairs, huh?"

For a second, Maria saw her past battles flash by her eyes.

"Lieutenant, ambush at our rear!"

"Fucking Capellans!" someone screamed as Marauder's double PPC pounded against their Firestarter before a final blast from the medium laser brought the light mech down.

"Lyws, I need that support fire right now!"

wwwhhhheeeEEEEE-!

"LRM! Duck and cover!"

"That's a fucking Archer!"

"FUCK, Lyws, du-!"

Maria turned around just in time for her cameras to get a sight of the same Marauder that downed her squadmate aim its PPC at her and her cockpit.

'Oh sh-'

Explosion. Pain. Heat on her face. Molten glass on her hands, aersolized glass in her mouth and lungs-. Pain.

Darkness.

"Yeah, repairs." She paused. "Speaking of, can you get me the schedule for them?"

"Ah, sure, professor."

After James walked out of the room, Maria turned back to look at the still-looping footage.

What she told the assistant was not false. It was not, however, the complete picture. It really was a particle weapon of some kind. However, the size of the "beam," the damage it left on heat-resistant aligned-crystal steel armors, and the reported size of the drilled holes should have come from a naval PPC. Nothing else could take down a battlemech, especially a heavy battlemech like Marauder, in one, clean hit.

But the reports from David II mentioned no naval PPC, only handheld if bulky "laser" rifles held by power armored mercenaries.

Something fishy was going on here.

With that in mind, she wrote her report and her professional thoughts on it.

-VB-

Andrew Davion

2980.06.03

"Bullshit, huh?" Ian muttered while looking down at the paper in his hand.

The Counter-Invasion of David II was a success. So much of a success, in fact, that the 41st Avalon Hussars were being hailed by all of the Federated Suns, and especially the Draconis March, as heroes.

But for those with access to information, details, and footage, the situation was much more complicated than a simple veni, vidi, vici.

Ian would have been fine with a veni, I fucked up, and vici, because this dilemma caused by a lostech infantry company of all things caused him more headaches.

And, according to the Federated Suns's foremost expert on laser and particle beam technology, the lostech was either a bullshit coverup by the AFFS or magic. And magic was probably more likely, considering that actual battlemechs fell to the lostech multiple times over the short counter-invasion.

However, there was no such thing as magic, hence why this was a lostech that was important to consider. Something like that, if he could get his hands on it, can be used to keep the other houses at the border while he dealt with the problems at home.

Cabals were acting up again, and he was sick and tired of it.

'… Using those infantry as a distraction for Draconis Combine might be a good idea,' he thought with a hum as he set his report down. 'Those braindead samurais would be roaring at the "dishonor" of facing infantry… and that "dishonor" will be harsh when those mercenaries cull the Kuritan mechwarriors.'

"Jennifer."

The door to his office opened and his secretary walked in.

"Yes, sir?" the pretty ginger woman with nice long legs and a tight body asked with a smile.

He smiled back fondly. "Can you get me a mercenary contract form?"

She blinked in surprise before bowing and walking out of the room.

As he waited for her to bring him the contract, he hummed in thought.

'Yes, the Draconis Combine will be mighty focused on David II for the foreseeable future once I leak information about how their mechwarriors lost there and I tie up the infantry mercs with a defense contract.'

"... I also need someone to keep an eye on them. Dig into their little company and see where they found that and who they are. Can you do that?" he asked to "no one."

"Yes, My Prince," "no one" responded.

"Good. Report back when you feel that you have substantial information."

Silence.

And then Jennifer opened the door with the paperwork.

He smiled.

Jennifer really had some awesome curves…