14

On Tikonov, it was a rainy day for Tikograd.

A Thunderbolt carrying the unit emblem of the 1st Chesterton Voltigeurs stomped forward before opening fire with its LRM-15. The large barrel on its left shoulder flared and roared as fifteen rockets shout out of it one by one and flew across the scarred, charred, and now barren ground between the walls of Tikograd and the enemies threatening its people.

Their target?

An Enforcer.

The medium mech buckled and swayed as it tried to dodge the rockets, but the LRMs seemed to follow him. A few missed, but the rest struck the Enforcer dead in the right torso. The ablative armor tore away with each rocket detonation before the final rocket punched through and struck something deeper inside its structure.

There was a hiss.

The Enforcer's mechwarrior panicked.

The mech raised its AC/10 and fired once at the Thunderbolt before the ammunition in its right torso finally cooked off and exploded. The explosion tossed both the mech's right arm with its AC/10 and the mech itself away in opposite directions. The arm crashed loudly before rolling away in the mud. The medium mech fell backward and crashed into the ground.

The Thunderbolt wasted no chance and fired all of its lasers into the enemy mech's head cockpit.

There was a scream in the radio waves before the Enforcer stilled.

From within the Thunderbolt, Pavel Ridzik, the Strategic Military Director of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces, let out an explosive breath of air as he allowed himself and his mech to rest momentarily while the 1st battalion of the 1st Chesterton Voltigeurs regiment streamed forward in their light and medium mechs to take advantage of the opening he'd created for them.

The heavier mechs of the Federated Suns bearing the unit emblem of the 8th Crucis Lancers tried to patch up the hole in their ranks, but they weren't fast enough.

A pair of Watchman charged forward recklessly and each slammed their bodies into a Phoenix Hawk and Awesome assault mech to stop their movement. A trio of their comrades in Firebees took advantage of this and jumped onto the Suns' mechs with full intent to crush the cockpits.

The opening remained, and a company of Cicadas, Firebees, and Vindicators rushed in to fill the gap and separate the 8th Crucis Lancers' battleline.

The Watchman who tackled Awesome couldn't last against the assault mech. The Awesome swung its arms and tossed the lighter mech away before opening up with its triple PPCs.

Pavel gritted his teeth as the militiaman inside the Watchman made one final call out before the PPCs struck his center torso.

"FOR THE CHANCEL-!"

The mech exploded and cut the man's last words short into static.

The Firebees DFA'ing on the Awesome returned the favor quickly by opening up with their SRMs directly on the Awesome's cockpit before they crashed into the Awesome.

Despite being heavily armored, over a dozen SRMs directly exploding on its head before a pair of feet landing on it utterly flattened the damaged head and killed the pilot inside.

The Awesome keeled over.

On paper, this was good.

Exchanging a medium militia mech for an assault mech double the militia mech's tonnage was an unmitigated success.

In reality, Pavel felt like he was failing his people.

The news of the Ronel Massacre had reached them, and the weak-willed militia had become … radicalized.

Despite his strict orders to not sacrifice themselves which was also the order of the chancellor, militia mechwarriors and infantry would jump to their death if they calculated that they could take out double or triple their tonnage. With how so many of the Suns' mechs were weak from months of guerilla warfare they faced on top of these open battles, their efforts usually got them the kills they desired.

The Suns equally gave no mercy.

More than a few of their mechwarriors had gone out of their way to summarily execute surrendering Capellan soldiers, and released video footages of these executions - sometimes recorded by far away Capellans and sometimes found on damaged Davion mech's battleROMs - only encouraged his soldiers to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Pavel just wished they would stop dying in the process.

"Colonel Ridzik, we're through!" Colonel Alanna Dickersenn of the 1st Chesterton Voltigeurs reported.

"I want all of the Davion mechs dead," he hissed. "Encircle them."

From the cut into the middle of the battleline, the 1st battalion quickly spread out and flanked the 8th Crucis Lancers while the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions kept up the pressure alongside the 7th Tikonov Militia regiment.

The 8th Crucis Lancers were too heavy to run away and got completely surrounded before they could mount a proper counterattack.

Pavel watched while occasionally firing off his large laser and LRMs as the muddy open field became the 8th Crucis Lancers' graveyard.

And this happened because the militia mechwarriors chose to sacrifice their lives to prevent the gap from closing.

Such bravery…

He wanted to give them the award they deserved, goddamnit! If they were servitors, then he would make sure their families would get the citizenship he earned them!

Then he heard a wet laugh.

"{D-Director!}" Colonel Rudolph Baxter of the Arianna Grenadiers called over the radio. "{Reinforcements! The Chancellor sent us reinforcements!}"

Pavel blinked, his mind momentarily drifting away from the battlefield. "Who is it?" he quickly asked before shaking himself and getting back to the battle, narrowly dodging a large laser to his left shoulder (or did the enemy miss?).

"{It's the Big Mac! The Chancellor sent us three regiments of the Big Mac!}"

Pavel's eyes widened.

The Chancellor … he hadn't abandoned Tikonov. He answered his call for reinforcement!

In a rare moment of emotional outburst, he activated his radio on all frequency.

"Soldiers! The Chancellor has sent us reinforcements!" he roared. "Tikonov stands!" And charged into the battlefield.

On the muddy field outside Tikograd, the three battalions of the 8th Crucis Lancers met their end while their comrades fled the suicidal Capellan mechwarriors.

They would be hounded back to their base by ambushing Firebees and militia infantry. After the battle, they would have only a few things to say about the battle and the retreat.

Bees were everywhere in the trees.

-VB-

Tormano Liao did not become the de facto commander of the entire planetary defense.

He did, however, retain his position as the commander of Hegemony Bay's militia and one of the senior commanders on Styk still alive. And it was because he was the commander of a combined arms militia regiment that he understood the Capellan Confederation was fighting a losing battle here on Styk.

"Nine more regiments?" he hissed out in disbelief. "Does the Davion want to turn Styk into a meat grinder…?!"

Because Hanse Davion had apparently decided that he wanted Styk at all cost.

"I just hope my brother is taking advantage of this," he mumbled to himself.

He didn't know which regiments the enemy reinforcements were, but nine mech regiments when their most elite heavy mech regiment was already here spelled doom for him and the defense.

He closed his eyes in the underground bunker room where he and a few of the most trusted officers used as their command center.

A major, who technically outranked him, shuffled where he stood.

"Speak up, major," he said tiredly.

"Shouldn't we consider … retreat?" he asked with a gulp.

Tormano looked up at the brave man.

Had this been during his father's reign, then the major here would have been executed for cowardice for suggesting retreat before his superior officer did. Of course, the logic behind that had been his father's insistence that only he, the Chancellor, had the right to call a retreat from a Capellan world.

He couldn't tell if the officer was brave or his brother's speeches and promises made people feel more inclined to speak up.

Or did this officer just trust him enough to expose himself like this? Even if the military reforms his brother and sister have been pushing had a rapid effect on the military, it took time for people to change how they spoke, behaved, and thought.

"... My brother wants the least amount of damage to our mech regiments. Yes, we should retreat," he sighed. "But just like the Davions, our supply lines are stretched thin. There aren't enough dropships that can come en masse to get all of us offworld in one or two waves. At best, we'll save half of our numbers before the Davions realize what's going on and overrun the rest. At worst, the Suns will win here before we can do that."

The officers looked among themselves before the same brave officer spoke up. "Then you must be the first off this world, sir."

He paused and looked up. "What?" Tormano asked angrily.

"You are Tormano Liao, the brother of the Chancellor, before you are an officer of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces, sir!" he quickly responded. "If the Suns got their hands on you, then they can use you against the Chancellor! Our Chancellor is … he is not his father. He will do everything to save you." Then he whispered almost conspiratorially. "Maybe even at the cost of the confederation."

Tormano was lashing out before he could even stop himself. He jumped over his desk and punched the officer straight in the face. They both fell to the floor, and he grabbed him by the front of his uniform.

"Don't you dare question his love of the confederation," Tormano hissed. "Don't you dare question MY LOVE for the confederation, either! I will die before I allow myself to be used by the Suns! I will NOT allow myself to become a tool for the damned invaders to eat even more chunks out of us! Do you hear me?!"

"Y-Yes, sir," the officer stuttered with a bleeding lip from underneath him. "B-But that doesn't change the situation. You must go offworld first before Styk falls, sir. You cannot become the c-chancellor's weakness. Please…!"

Then the radio crackled.

"{Styk defenders, this is Colonel Judith Abermarle of the Red Lancers.}"

Red Lancers…?

Red Lancers?!

Tormano hurriedly got off the floor and reached for his radio. "This is Tormano Liao of the Hegemony Bay militia!"

"{Ah, our Chancellor's own brother! Hold on, we'll be there soon!}"

"No, why are you here and not by my brother's side, colonel?!" he asked desperately.

Surely… Surely, his brother wouldn't strip Sian of its defenders for Styk's sake?! Surely, not?!

"{Because this was the chancellor's orders, Major Tormano,}" she replied. "{Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.}"

"What about Sian…?"

"{... The chancellor has decreed onto me that, in this point in history, Styk is more important to the confederation than Sian. Styk must not fall. Now, tell me the situation on the ground so that the Chancellor's Own may enact vengeance.}"

-VB-

Three months.

Over the course of three months, a regiment of the AFFS and another regiment of mercenaries had been ground up and spat out by the meat grinder that was Styk.

And Ardan Sortek, the man leading the Davion Heavy Guard, could only sigh with relief when four more regiments came to save his ass.

Because Styk was hell on earth, and he was all too happy to share the burden of being the commander.

Styk should have fallen already, but the damned Chancellor had fortified and up-armed this world to the point that having two regiments at the start had done nothing to conquer this world.

Hanse had kept sending him the reinforcements he needed, but they all kept grinding away to nothing.

And now, he was getting nine more regiments to make sure Styk fell.

"M-Marshal!"

He looked up from his desk.

"What is it?" he asked the officer who'd come scrambling in.

"The Capellan reinforcements are here!"

"I see," he grunted. Maybe those nine regiments won't be enough. "Who did they send?"

"T-The Red Lancers, three regiments of the McCarron's Armored Cavalry, and a mercenary regiment called the Gray Death Legion, sir…!"

Ardan stared at the officer with tired eyes before he let his head fall into his hands.

And for the first time since he arrived on Styk, he broke his composure and groaned.

-VB-

A/N: it's not just the Davions stripping their worlds of regiments to invade. It's also the Capellans stripping their worlds of regiments to defend.

Also, this means that the entirety of the Big Mac is currently fighting the Federated Suns at two critical locations