008. This place was just starting to feel like home.

Warrant Officer First Class Flemming cursed under his breath.

The Dracs had raided again, only this time they had the new wunderwaffe. The 2-pdr gun that was all the rage in the Commonwealth. One that he had training on how to repair, identify, and scrap if necessary.

The SM 2-pdr or Skondia Model 2-pdr had used modern materials in the same machinery. Cutting weight enough that they could afford to add half a ton of armour to the gun-shield. Bringing the gun up to an even 1 ton unloaded.

Which meant, in simple terms, that command thought deploying these to the field was perfectly acceptable. They had armour, what were they going to complain about?

Flemming thought it was bullshit but held his tongue, one simply did not speak back to a superior officer. Not if they wanted to clean every SM 2-pdr in the arsenal with a toothbrush. Especially given they were using primitive... hydraulic fluid of all things to both lubricate and absorb shock.

Something that hadn't been seen in centuries, apparently.

It also meant that the entire cleaning, restocking, and maintenance process was much grimier than it had been prior. Which made perfect sense, the fact that these weapon systems didn't make it into space was obvious, the hydraulic fluid would freeze, or evaporate in vacuum. Turning the guns somewhat useless for transport between planets.

Local defence is what they were here for and that alone.

Which was why Flemming was here now, sitting behind the gun shield on the seat to the left of the gun. The ammunition box and loader on the right. The gunner himself had been taken as a casualty in the previous day's probing, and Flemming as a Warrant Officer had been drafted in to fill his place.

Whoever being in charge, assuming that as the one in charge of maintenance and care... he would also be useful in actually shooting the guns.

With the lightly wooded forest stretched around them. Itself surrounding the factory complex behind him that... produced luxury cars. Flemming had been confident that he would see this raid through without issue. That is, until the first probing force came along.

The Sixth Lyran Guards, recovering from their wounds after Deep Raid were currently playing footsies with the Fifth Sword of Light, augmented by the Fifth Sun Zhang Academy Cadre. Flemming had no idea why the idiots were here, it wasn't like Skondia had anything that was worth raiding for, but here they were. Luxury cars, truly a strategic threat.

Idiots.

The militia battalion had been divided out into a zigzag pattern, spread out with roughly 300 metres between the first and second lines of defence. 100 metres to the side of each gun was another gun team. A packed defence only made possible by the sheer number of SM 2-pdrs that were being produced from Skondia's factories. Dug into the ground with a slit trench to the side and back, the gun was partially hidden. Not that it mattered if it was targeted, the fire would tear apart everyone in the impact zone.

More were rolling off the production line even now, hundreds every day to augment the militia. Bolstering the defenders in such a way that even the Combine Mechwarriors, stupid as they were, could identify. Even with their disdain of infantry. At least Flemming hoped so, he didn't want to die here because they thought attacking right now was a good idea.

Apparently, they weren't sure, which had prompted yesterday's probing attack, according to the Leutnant. With the gunners pounding away at the advancing lance of light mechs, from the Cadre from the looks of it, the mechs backed away after a brief engagement with the Skondia militia.

While several guns had been destroyed, the gunner of this particular gun had ended up wounded after an autocannon shrapnel piece had pierced his thigh. The guns had been replaced with the sheer excess the factories were producing and Flemming had been shoved up the front, it being harder to replace manpower.

For the first time ever, meat was more valuable than metal to Flemming.

He was too damned qualified to be here, he was a specialist dammit!

Which was why he had protested when told to help with the entrenching of the gun and the digging of the trenches. That was not his job!

But, that didn't matter.

Combine doctrine was to probe and try and force a reaction out of the defending Lyran mech forces. It wasn't like they were incompetent, their mechs were just too heavy to chase down one light force, while another swung in behind to destroy the object of the raids.

What it meant for the infantry on the ground was that at any moment, there was going to be an attack on one of the fortifications along the Combine front line. Whether or not it was a real attack was up in the air, but they were definitely aiming at causing significant losses to the militia to force redeployments, to force even more of the defenders out of position.

Flemming knew this, it was drilled into the heads of the militia. Get out of the way of the battlemechs, they were here to hurt you and the best way to repay that was by staying alive.

Then the 2-pdrs had arrived two months before, and suddenly the doctrine had been changed.

Weeks of intensive drilling, firing the guns again and again, learning how to fight now that they had a new tool in the inventory.

Living and breathing doctrine until it was second nature as doctrine must be. After all, doctrine was how an army functioned, how it brought supplies to the front, how it trained, how it fought, how it replenished losses.

With the addition of two field guns per squad with transport, doctrine had to adapt.

Now.

Now they were going to see if it worked.

With the sights, modernised and not the simple glass scope that he had seen prior, Flemming could identify the... Fifth Sword of Light inbound. A company was pushing forward, two lances of Sun Zhang Cadre mechs behind them, the entire formation looking like a giant V.

"Engage the Combine mechs at maximum range! Don't let them forget that we exist!"

The Leutnant-Colonel had the pleasure of observing their particular regiment today. His voice rang out from their earpieces, and Flemming fired almost in reflex.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

Left foot pressed the gun pedal.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

Range short, left hand cranking the right, right hand elevating the gun higher.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

Hit on the second lead mech of the Fifth Sword of Light.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

Another hit.

The next few minutes descended into a repetitive show of firing, reloading, and adjusting aim as the maximum effective range of the guns at 1,600 metres demonstrated just how far that was. Using just one's eyeballs, they didn't need to wait for a computer lock like a battle computer might offer.

He continued to fire the gun, focus narrowed to the hands on the cranks, the foot on the pedal, becoming one with the machine.

Towards the end it the mechs had started to engage with their longest ranged weapons, missing half the time, the other half hitting the half ton of armour each gun had and being rendered ineffective. One more salvo and they would withdraw Flemming had thought, that was what happened the day before.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

Instead, the attack pressed in and Flemming felt the beginnings of panic fade away as the routine reasserted himself. The gun firing, boxes of ammunition being brought forward to replace the spent rounds. Already two mechs were falling down. He had no idea what the cause was, the entire front of the mechs were blackened and pockmarked, was it his shot that brought them down or another's? He had no time to think, left hand cranking left, right hand elevating, new target.

Firing again and again.

Distantly, he could hear the screams as vehicle grade weaponry lanced through human grade flesh. The standard issue flak armour doing very little to protect against the supreme focused energy of a laser. The shrapnel of an autocannon high explosive armour piercing shell. The ricochets of a machine gun. The tread of tens of tons of mech.

Again he fired.

The sounds were somewhat muted, mechs were to his forward right now, pushing not towards him, but to those further down the line. Their high-pitched screams were audible, yet muted. The thrumming of the air as lasers vaporised moisture, the sounds of exploding trees as the sap vaporised at light speed. The rumble of the ground as hundreds of tons of equipment strode forth. The pop pop pop of exploding ammunition, the shell casings exploding one at a time compared to the enormous explosions that came from modern ammunition. The carnage of sound as everything and anything exploded into the air, travelling at hypersonic speeds, hitting flesh, armour, the ground, the trees.

Again.

Then the mechs were within sixty metres, the gun crew abandoning the gun and spreading out as doctrine dictated. Training took over and Flemming dove into the trench, his body practically becoming one with the earth itself, trying to wiggle that much deeper down.

Fear filled his body as the god machines strode forth, their cracked and pitted bodies shining in sunlight. The vibration of the ground screaming to him that they were close, extremely close.

The screams rose in volume as more of the militia died.

The Combine pilots immediately turned their attention to the next line of guns behind Flemming, 300 metres behind. The screams started to rise from further away, the vibrations getting fainter, the timbre of the screams around him dropping in volume.

While a few mechs had vindictively slaughtered whatever infantry they could, the majority followed their training.

Aggression.

Always aggression.

When attacked, charge at the enemy focus of strength and break it, circle behind and destroy them piecemeal.

In other words, when the enemy guns were silent, reorient and push into the enemy strength.

In other words, charging right into the layers upon layers of field guns.

The mechs already moving past him had Flemming moving almost robotically back to the gun, seating himself, right foot on the high turn pedal to bring the gun about into the rear of the mechs. The crew... where was the fourth man? No matter, he had a loader and an ammo schlepper.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

And the routine resumed. Shells down range, only this time into the backs of the mechs, watching as bursts of coherent light and high velocity shells lanced out of their battered bodies. Shattering flesh and tree alike, their bodies sometimes just bursting in a cloud of red mist, other times torn apart as arms and legs divorced their parents at high speed.

He continued to fire

By this point the mechs were already into the sixth line of defence, almost to the maximum effective range of the 2-pdr.

Pchiew

Clank

Chk

"Set!"

The guns fired.

The pilots realising that they had been tricked into a trap tried to reorient themselves to break out. There was no end of guns, there was no breakthrough point, for it was all gun.

3600 metres was the difference between escape and death.

In the end it was too far and to a mech, a company of the Fifth Sword of Light and two lances of the Sun Zhang Cadre were annihilated in battle... by militia forces.

Worse, they were infantry.

For that dishonour, the Fifth Sword of Light would find itself stricken from the rolls.

+_+

Colonel Fukushū Mutou of the 6th Lyran Guards, the 'Saucy Sixth' looked down at the display table that her Thunderbolt was showing. The command suite giving her unparalleled information of the battlefield. On the holographic map she could identify the loss of a company of the Sword of Light, two lances of the Sun Zhang Cadre at firebase Brutus. The same at firebase Georgy. The annihilation of two and a half companies of Cadre at factory Nietzche.

The updates arrived from militia officers, updating the battle network as they did so. Assuming both formations were at full strength when they arrived on planet, it meant there was at most, one and a half companies of mechs left. All for the cost of militia bodies and guns obsolete before the Star League had even been a glimmer in the sperm of the Mckenna.

Colonel Mutou leaned back slightly into the command throne, satisfaction oozing from her body. The plan had come together.

If there was ever a person that embodied an object, it was Fukushū. Body like a zweihander, her face sharp as a blade. Eyes like scimitars, nose like a spear point, lips like a rapier. With a haircut to match, angled from collarbone to the back nape of her neck, it was was if she was born to fulfil the purpose of her name.

As it was, she was currently standing inside of the Union that had brought the Sword of Light to Skondia.

The crew held up by the 6th's infantry, their armoured vehicles very carefully sitting away from the possible exhaust plumes underneath.

The invasion ships had surrendered, unable to spool up their drives in time to leave the planet, trusting in the might of the Fifth Sword of Light to see them safe.

Unfortunately for them, Sanae was not the Fifth Sword, she was Lyran and she was joyous.

With an average speed of 60 kilometres an hour, her forces were nowhere near as capable of chasing down an enemy. Rather, like a hammer, one had to be careful with positioning to deliver the blow, always adjusting, always twisting.

Really, it was an oxymoronic effect.

To be a heavy commander, one needed a mind that was agile, always ready to adapt to the situation at hand, never commit until the very last moment. Once one was committed there was no way to back out.

To be a light commander, one needed to be firm, to have great conviction and be ready to push ahead regardless of cost and consequence. For deviation was how one's command found itself shredded by constant small losses.

That was the difference and Fukushū had earned her commanding ribbons through her understanding of this difference with this campaign.

Well, battle... slaughter?

Yes, slaughter.

It was likely one of the few times this could happen until the Combine adjusted their doctrine so that this would never happen again. To learn that constant aggression would merely get you killed in the Commonwealth. That when faced with a wall of light guns, one should not charge forth, but to avoid it. That courage and 'honour' did not equate to an ability to survive a hundred shells a minute.

That when one was ambushed, one simply did not march into the enemy base of fire to overwhelm them. One engaged and retreated, the enemy knew you would attack and had prepared accordingly. In her opinion, the Combine should do as the Combine does, ignore this lesson and spend the next 100 years in denial.

Time enough to eradicate them in their entirety.

"I still don't understand Colonel, how did this happen?"

Ah, her aide. Just when she was thinking about the topic at hand. Well, teaching a topic was just as good a way to learn it as anything else.

"Hauptman Steiner, you must understand that this was only possible because of Draconis doctrine. If your doctrine says that you must attack, must always be aggressive, must always hold the initiative... what do you think will happen when presented with a defensive position held by 'weak and pathetic' infantry?"

Kristine Steiner from a minor branch family of the Steiner. Gifted a Zeus from Defiance by her family, she had gone through the Nagelring. Wearing their sash around her belt with great pride. Life had been easy for her, the name Steiner opened many doors indeed, laid carpet down on the bed of knives Fukushū had to walk over.

Fukushū on the other hand had gone to the Blackjack School of Conflict, her use of the militia here today was proof enough of that. The difficulties of the real world saw those like her adapting to meet those challenges. Which was why Steiner had been assigned to her command at all, to learn what she needed before she embarrass House Steiner. Lessons one would never find at the Nagelring, for the lessons would hurt the sensibilities of the social generals that made up its alumni.

"They would attack?"

A grunt of approval echoed in the spacy cabin.

"Correct. They would attack. The Combine does not respect infantry, and so they would attack with the intention to annihilate. Yet the infantry are armed with light artillery. The infantry disperse when the enemy comes close, and the Combine, as per their doctrine focus on active foes. So they push on, always aggressive, always holding the initiative. Straight into the trap, until they realise they must retreat, yet the trap is too deep, the lure too great. And so they die. Like whispers on the wind, none shall hear of their warning until it is too late."

Fukushū grinned with the vicious satisfaction of a beast that had brought down its prey. The Combine had sought to annihilate her family for their religious beliefs, yet in the here.

In the now.

It was her that had annihilated their honour, demonstrated the strength of their so called fighting spirit, stepped all over their vaunted bushido, worthless as their creed.

It was glorious. She revelled in the moments just prior to ultimate victory on this day.

"Why didn't they retreat? There are so many guns, why didn't they retreat?"

The grin turned savage. No doubt Hauptman Steiner could hear it when she spoke.

"When faced with 50 machine guns, do you retreat Hauptman?"

"No."

"Exactly, when they were advancing, they thought it was just something like a machinegun, something that could be ignored if they got in close. Yet there were many, a deluge of shells, I can only imagine the horror when they realised the truth of how deeply the defensive line stretched. Worse, if they retreated, they would have to kill themselves for the dishonour of retreating before infantry. And so they died, just like they lived, honourbound, stupid, pathetic."

Hauptman Steiner made a sound of discomfort.

"You must understand Hauptman, every aspect that makes a Combine Mechwarrior was targeted. Their extreme confidence in their own self-worth, an overestimation of their battlefield capabilities, an overestimation of their piloting skills, an over-reliance on aggression to cover their weaknesses, an inability to admit there is a fight they cannot win. Everything." She took a breath, savouring the smell of cordite. A 2-pdr armour piercing shell sat in the cupholder of her throne.

A reminder of what made this all possible.

"They did not lose because of a truly epic battle between entire mech armies, a saga that can be spoken of with pride. No, each mech died to a thousand knife cuts doing the bare minimum damage. A million needles in their feet, no glory to be found. The feasting of carrion dogs was their fate."

She chortled.

Fukushū would never make the mistake of underestimating her enemy.

Yet, was it underestimation if she adapted her strategies and tactics to explicitely strike at every weak point they exhibited? She understood the strength of the new tools, the archaic guns, their ease of manufacture.

She understood how the Combine Mechwarriors would not be able to breach the defensive lines. And so she had made a single beeline to their landing zone once the Combine had committed to an attack. She would not chase them, she would hit the one point they had to defend in their battle of aggression, she would force them to battle.

In doing so, she would strike with the full strength of the Sixth Lyran Guards.

"Fusion signatures inbound!"

Ah yes, it was time.

The finale of this act, and her introduction on a grand stage to the Combine.

Here is Fukushū Mutou,

daughter of Mutou Iris,

daughter of Mutou Namie,

daughter of Mutou Mitsuya,

son of Mutou Marcus.

Marcus who was slaughtered by the Combine for the sheer audacity of worshiping a god that was not the Coordinator. Ancestors who had fled, bringing what meagre belongings they had, a proud family reduced to nothing but vagrants. Their centuries of service worth nothing to the eyes of the Coordinator. Their numbers whittled down until the Commonwealth offered them the chance at vengeance. Of the 83 family members that had left the Combine, 23 were still alive by the time that the Commonwealth had accepted them.

For three generations the family had worked for their vengeance. Earning enough money for a battlemech, earning enough money for tuition at the Blackjack School of Combat, for they would not care about her ancenstry. None would take the name of a husband or wife, for their name was their purpose.

For three generations their vengeance had been nurtured.

In the native tongue of her ancestors she was bestowed the name Vengeance.

Fukushū.

Her purpose had been clear since birth. The culmination of three generations of hardship, for the singular purpose that she was about to fulfil.

To reintroduce the Combine to her family. To educate them on the mistake they had made in letting the Mutous live.

They said mercy was for the weak.

Fukushū Mutou would show the Combine mercy.

Indeed her mercy would be gracious, something to be... savoured.

Hammer meet snake.

+_+

In the after action report, Colonel Fukushū Mutou would receive an unofficial sanction for her handling of the third Company Fifth Sword of Light and two lances of the Sun Zhang Militia in the last battle of Skondia, 2990.

Holding their dropships hostage, Colonel Mutou would offer the opportunity to surrender to the retreating Combine forces. She would order their legs shot out when they refused.

Colonel Mutou had reportedly watched with avid interest as the survivors committed ritual suicide to avoid the shame of losing their Battlemechs on the battlefield. It is said that the bodies were burned to ashes and spread across Skondia's forests.

"This way, they can finally be useful for something." Were her reported words.

Officially, Colonel Fukushū was elevated to Leutnant-General and placed as an aide to the Tamar military district for her exemplary results during the battle of Skondia. Annihilating two Combine regiments with her understrength regiment and militia assistance.

The callsign Revengeance as a result was bestowed, usurping the original Sakura. Alongside this was the McKennsey's Hammer for superlative leadership on the field of battle, and the Dragonslayer's Ribbon for the regiment's superlative performance against the Draconis Combine. Alongside these awards were a myriad of other awards for the destruction of two Combine Regiments for the lost of 3 Battlemechs.

The Skondia militia received the Dragonslayer's Ribbon for superlative performance against the Combine armed forces.

The Blackjack School of Conflict, her alma mater is reportedly extremely pleased with the success of one of their graduates. They have said that the Leutnant-General was welcome to share her experience with the trainees at her own discretion.