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DropShip Vixen
Inbound to Atmospheric Entry, MacLeod’s Land
Taurian Concordat
November 10, 3025

Archibald McCarron frowned as he considered the data scrolling on the monitor screen within the cockpit of his GHR-5H Grasshopper.  His pilots had cleared him a path to the planet—but at a high cost.  Too high.  The intelligence that Romano had provided—the intelligence that he had on hand as well—none of that indicated this level of defenses.  Forty aerospace fighters and sixteen gunboats had met his Regiments on the way in—and that was far too many ASF for the perennially weak TDF to deploy here.  Unless those fighters had been attached to ‘Mech units below.

Which meant, Archie thought with a silent curse, that instead of facing off just against militia and armor and infantry, the Taurians had at least four battalions of ‘Mechs beneath the clouds ahead of him.  And with their larger battalions, that meant he was facing somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred and eighty to two hundred ‘Mechs.  But then he smiled.  Fuck the Taurians.  Even if they had two hundred ‘Mechs on the surface, he had the Nightriders, the Wild Ones, and Rob’s Renegades with him—three hundred and twenty-two BattleMechs of his own . . . plus the first wave of Home Guard armor and infantry units.

More enemy ‘Mechs just meant more salvage, he thought with a nod.  “This is Mac,” he broadcast.  “Throw out the game plan, boys and girls—looks like we are going to have a real fight after all.  Primary target is Dougal—we take the capital and the Pinard lines there, and they are going have to come to us to take it back.  Expect heavy resistance,” and he paused, “and throw out the rules of engagement.  If it shoots at you—or looks like its thinking about shooting at you, kill it.”

“DROP IN ONE MINUTE!” blared the loud-speakers.  Archie tightened his straps and pulled his leather gloves taut, and then as the LCD display slowly counted down, he took a thick cigar, placed it in his mouth, lit it, and began to puff as he returned his hands to the controls.

“Last one down buys the beer,” he growled around the smoking cigar and then the bay doors slammed open, the drop light turned green, and Archibald McCarron was flying through the sky towards the surface—straight into a veritable wall of flak.  Above him he could see the Overlord-class DropShip stagger as anti-aircraft artillery slammed into her armored flanks—and he cursed. 

Breathing smoke around the cigar, he chopped his jets and the Grasshopper fell like a rock—he plunged down through the atmosphere and stood on jump jets just before passing through the minimum safe altitude.  The jets roared amid the winds and the storm clouds; his cockpit was plastered with drops of rain and ice, but then he broke through the ceiling and hit the ground running, the rest of the Nightriders following in his wake.


NOTE:  I couldn’t remember what ‘Mech Archie piloted in canon and it isn’t on Sarna.net.  I can’t find my MAC sourcebook right now, so I went with the much unappreciated Grasshopper.  One of my personal favorites of 3025.--MA

I may say many unflattering things about the Taurians. The one thing I will NEVER EVER SAY IS THAT THEY LACK COURAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One question - Where are Wolfs Dragoons now...?

They have been quiet since their last mention.

Command Lance, McCarron’s Armored Cavalry
Dougal, MacLeod’s Land
Taurian Concordat
November 12, 3025

“WHAT THE HELL!” a panicked voice suddenly shouted over the command circuit—and Archie McCarron spat out his cigar in disbelief.  Forty meters to his right, Olivia Sanchez and her Banshee was engulfed in a sheet of brilliant flame and smoke as an explosive geyser literally erupted from the ground beneath her.  Dear GOD, Archie thought as the ground shook, rattling his ‘Mech even at this distance and a column of fire tore into the sky; the shocked MechWarrior and her 95-ton assault ‘Mech propelled into the air by the force of the blast.

It rose for one hundred and ten meters—both legs sheared off by the tremendous concussion—and then gravity held sway once more.  The blackened and burnt shell of a ruin, shattered by the force of man-made volcano, paused at its apogee—and Olivia triggered her ejection system as it began to fall back towards the ground.

“HOLY SHI-!” the pilot of a Valkyrie screamed in shocked disbelief and abject fear as the mangled Banshee tumbled out of the sky and slammed down atop the light-weight ‘Mech, crushing it to the ground in a pile of twisted scrap.

How much damn explosives did these Taurians have? Archie thought with a curse under his breath.  He had never encountered a target this fortified—and it was only the space-port; his scouts reported that at least eight battalions of tanks (and a dozen regiments of infantry) manned interlocking bunkers defending the capital city itself.  All while the Wild Ones were tangling with that regiment of Taurian mercs—the traitors that had defected from the Confederation a few years back led by Nicholas Gordon—that were trying to get to the handful of his supply DropShips that had managed to make planet-fall.

DAMN ROMANO!  And damn me for listening to her, Archie thought rather more soberly.  This wasn’t worth triple pay—hell, it wasn’t worth five times normal pay!  And the five DropShips—three Unions and two Leopards—he had lost to the grim determination of the Taurian fighter pilots and unending artillery flak just added salt to the wounds.

But he was winning—even if it was almost pyrrhic in nature.  And even if it had had taken almost forty-eight hours to accomplish.  The survivors of the Red Chasseurs had been forced to withdraw, leaving his units to fight dug-in tanks and infantry for the space-port tarmac . . . and the hangers, supply depots, and underground fuel bunkers.  And still, the scum didn’t seem to know when they were beaten—armor and infantry stood their ground and they died in numbers that would have made an Inner Sphere commander blanch . . . but they fought back instead of running and their own fire was tearing into Rob’s Renegades as that regiment cleared the Port of all hostiles.

He was winning . . . and the storm had almost broken.  Already his air support was on the way back down into the atmosphere since the winds had died down—for how long, Archie didn’t know.  But in the meantime, the bomb-laden fighters would be here supporting him . . . and extracting revenge upon the Taurians for their fanatical defense.

“Mac,” the radio crackled with static, “Fallen Angels inbound with heavy ordnance—confirm target?”

Archie snarled.  “Dougal,” he spat.

“Roger that, Mac.  Be advised, we are carrying a mixed load of HE, cluster, and inferno.”

“Good—bust them up, burn them out, and make them pay, Fallen Angels.”

“Mac,” the exhausted voice of Frank Bronson—the XO of the Nightriders—burst from the speakers.

“Go, Frank.”

“Artillery is finally down and deployed, Mac; where you want the guns to support?”

“Hammer that city, Frank—I want these fuckers to learn what it means to fight the Big Mac.”

Archie walked his Grasshopper to the top of a slight ridge and he snarled as the first flight of aerospace fighters passed by far overhead—oblong shapes tumbling down and down and down into city where they exploded in flame and fury.

“Boss,” the radio broadcast with the exhausted voice of Colonel Robert Heptig.  “We’ve secured Port Caine—and captured two Unions intact.”

“Two?  I thought we identified four?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, the others were manned and decided to fight—they aren’t lifting again . . . ever.”

“Good job, Rob,” Archie said with a tired sigh.  “Get the rest of our Droppers down here—we need resupply before we go in there and make those bastards in Dougal surrender.  Have the Wild Ones finished off Gordon yet?”

“Negative, Mac,” Heptig answered.  “Gordon is damn good—he is withdrawing in good order and remains a threat to our landing zone.”

“Tell Linda to get her thumb of her ass!  She out-masses Gordon and has more firepower—CRUSH THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH!”

“She’s got the firepower, but Gordon’s command is faster—he’s fencing with her, Boss, not engaging in a slugging match . . . and he is drawing her further and further afield.  But if she lets him go . . .,” and Archie could picture Heptig shrugging.  “We lose contact with that man and he can reappear almost anywhere.”  Rob chuckled.  “We should have hired that son-of-a-bitch ourselves five years ago.”

“Water under the bridge, Rob.  I don’t want to be fighting Gordon here for weeks or months—tell Linda to get the job done or I’ll find an officer who can—understood?”

“Understood, Mac,” the voice paused.  “First DropShips on final approach—our supplies are almost he- . . .,” the radio screeched and then went silent.  Archie looked up, and then a distant BOOM sounded and he cringed at the massive fireballs rising into the air.  From the Port—that damned Taurian Port.

“ROB!” he yelled into the microphone.  “Any Renegade—REPORT, DAMN IT!”

The radio crackled, and then a shaken voice came on the net.  “The Taurians detonated their fuel storage bunkers—and their munitions depots.  Mac—the Port is closed.  I repeat the Port is closed.”

“Fuck the Port!” screamed Archie.  “Where are my Renegades!”

“Mac,” the voice came back again, “this is Captain Steele, Oscar Company.  Boss—I think I’m the senior Renegade left.  Most of the Regiment was in the Port—they’re . . .,” and then the sounds of retching came over the speakers.  “Dear god, they’re gone.”

This contract is just getting better and better, Archie thought.  “Okay.  Here’s what we are going to do . . .,” he began, trying to salvage something from the disaster that was the Battle of MacLeod’s Land.

Field HQ, McCarron’s Armored Cavalry
Pinard Protectorates Limited Facility Eight, MacLeod’s Land
Taurian Concordat
November 14, 3025

“Tell me we got something worth our time and losses,” Archie snapped as he walked into his temporary Field Headquarters half a kilometer from the PPL production facility.  For the past two days, the break in the weather systems had allowed the MAC to bombard Dougal, smashing buildings flat and starting fires—but the Taurians had not budged, nor had they asked for any terms of surrender.  And Archie was beginning to believe that they wouldn’t.  He was being pressured by Romano’s liaison—Major Eric Handel—to go ahead and assault the city . . . but Archie had no intention of doing that.  Not after the meat-grinder of Port Caine.

The loss reports were bad—not quite as morbid as he had first expected, but bad all the same.  The Renegades—Richard Steele’s Renegades, now—had more than seven companies worth of ‘Mechs out of the fight . . . and just half of those were fit for salvaging.  That Regiment had suffered the worse, and the loss of three cargo ships filled with munitions and supplies had made the situation even more untenable.  The Wild Ones and Nightriders had suffered less—but even they had nearly one ‘Mech in three fit only for rebuilding or spare parts.

So, no.  Despite what Major Handel was demanding, Archie wasn’t about to charge head-long into the bunkers surrounding Dougal.  In fact, he thought to himself, it is time to think about ending this will I still can—at least he had crippled the TDF’s battalion of Chasseurs; if they had so much as a lance left intact, it would surprise him.  And that bastard Gordon—Gordon had made one mistake when he tried to double back and catch Archie’s DropShips in the Drop-zone . . . but Archie had been prepared for that and a composite battalion from the Wild Ones and Nightriders had been waiting for him.  The lighter ‘Mechs of the Taurian mercenaries had been hit hard . . . and now Nicholas Gordon was somewhere out there licking his own wounds.

The good news was that his techs had been able to salvage about two dozen of the Taurian ‘Mechs to make up for his losses—well, recover, if not fully salvage.  The latter would take time . . . more time than Archie knew he had.  And if the excited reports from his search teams here at PPC/Fac 8 were anything to go by, then he might well have hit the motherlode.

Jethro Harper grinned at his boss—as the Chief Technical Officer of McCarron’s Armored Cavalry it was his job to keep Archie’s machines running.  “I think so—lighter than we like, but it’s a gold mine in there, Mac.”

Archie grunted.  “Talk to me.”

“Well, first off—Pinard was producing three types of ‘Mechs here:  Stingers, Locusts, and Clints according to intelligence.  Intel was wrong,” Jethro chuckled.  “The Taurians stopped production on their bugs and instead retooled to produce those new lights we’ve been hearing rumors about . . . and that you’ve spent the past four days fighting.”

Archie grimaced.  The Taurians had fielded two new models of BattleMechs that he had never seen before—he had only heard a few whispered rumors circulated among mercenaries of some new Taurian scout 'Mechs.  Both were thirty-tonners, light-weight fighters to be certain, but heavier than the traditional Stingers and Locusts by ten tons.  The BDT-1A Bandit was heavily armored—for a light BattleMech—and carried pretty hefty firepower for a 30-ton war machine . . . while still managing to be as fast and mobile as the more traditional Stingers and Wasps.  The PRT-1A Patriot sacrificed the jump jets for a larger engine; although not quite as fast as a Locust, it was able to match an Assassin or Jenner in a foot-race, and it too carried armor all out of proportion to what most ‘Mechs these days carried; along with a pretty decent package of guns. 

“Apparently, they were getting ready to ship out the first export units, Mac—there are ten Patriots and twenty-two Bandits complete just sitting in the warehouse, with a baker’s dozen in various stages of construction.  Along with a dozen finished Clints—they are producing those here, still.”

“The 2-3T?  Or those slower ones we encountered?” asked Archie.

Jethro grinned again.  “All twelve are those 3-3Ts you’ve been fighting—bit slower, but heavier armor and a few more guns.”

“Forty-four fresh ‘Mechs?” Archie mused. 

“Hot off the production lines—and I’ve looted enough spares to keep ‘em running for years,” he looked down at the ground.  “Mac, I’ve been ordered to wreck this place and I know that you didn’t issue that order.  ‘Mech factories are too rare to just destroy for the hell of it, and frankly it goes against the grain.”

Archie winced.  “Let me guess—Handel?”

“Right in one, boss.”

“Ignore his orders, Harp,” Archie said bluntly, “you work for me, not some Romano stooge.  I want everything you can get loaded in the next thirty-six hours aboard the ships—we should have enough empty bays to get them all in.  Then, we are going home.”

“Not waiting for Phase 2?” asked Jethro with a look of apprehension on his face.

“Not a chance in hell, Harp—if MacLeod’s Land is this heavily defended, I don’t want to even think about hitting New Vandenberg.  This fucking campaign is over—that’s why I got us command rights from that Liao bitch.”  Archie paused.  “Thirty-six hours . . . can you do it?”

“It’ll be tight, but not having to divert men to wire this place to blow sky-high will help . . . we should be able to get everything loaded in what transport we have left, boss.”

“Then get to it.”

“What about Handel?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“About that mortar attack this afternoon,” Archie said with a smile.  “Poor Handel was killed.”

“Boss, it’s morning.”

“Yeah, I know.  Son-of-a-bitch doesn’t seem to want to fit inside a mortar tube, but I told the staff to break his hips and shoulder blades; that should make it easy to slide him down the tube of one of the big mortars.  When they get him loaded, we are going to shoot him at Dougal,” Archie chuckled.  “The report will read KIA in mortar attack—it won’t say that it was our attack and he was our shell!”




NOTE:  The designs mentioned above can be found at the following.

Bandit
Patriot
Clint

MA

I am thinking one of the three below, with emphasis on the Taurian options.

A - Lack of Trained Pilots

B - They are booby trapped

C - All of the above

Export Transshipment Warehouse
Pinard Protectorates Limited Facility Eight, MacLeod’s Land
Taurian Concordat
November 16, 3025

“You’re certain that those SOBs haven’t rigged the engines to blow?  Or the magazines?  Or whatever?” Captain Walter Isaac Grey—known to his fellow soldiers of McCarron’s Regiments by the nickname of Wig—asked Jethro Harper as the wounded and dispossessed MechWarrior stood on the lowest rung of the boarding ladder, clad just in shorts, boots, and a cooling vest.

“For God’s sake, Captain,” Jethro spat.  “We’ve spent the last thirty-four hours digging into the machines—there ain’t no explosives aboard them!  The magazines are empty; there are no pressure triggers on the fusion engine to cause a catastrophic detonation . . . my Techs know their jobs, Wig!”

“Sorry, Harp,” the MechWarrior answered glumly, his right forearm still encased in a cast and bandages wrapped around his neck and head.  “These bloody Taurians have got me twitching at shadows—it’s like the whole bloody planetary population has taken a course in building improvised explosive devices and made a pact with the devil himself on how to use them in the most fiendish ways possible.”

“Didn’t mean to snap at you, Sir,” Jethro answered as he ran one hand through his hair.  “Haven’t had a lot of sleep these past few days, Sir,” he stepped up closer.  “Look, we’ve checked every nook and cranny for explosives and even had a bomb-sniffing dog poke his nose inside.  If they have anything rigged, it ain’t explosives or the fusion engine.  The magazines are empty and my folks have even disconnected the laser from the power supply—just so that can’t be overpowered.”

“You’ve bypassed the lock-outs?” Wig asked, and then he shook his head and held up his uninjured hand at the angry expression on Jethro’s face.  “Sorry, dumb question.  I’m just surprised you managed to break forty-four encryptions in the time you had.”

Jethro snorted.  “I’m good—but not that good.  Turns out that these export models have the same access key . . . and Mac persuaded one of the execs to provide us with that information.”

“Yeah, heard about that when I was getting the arm patched up—didn’t realize it was for all of the command codes for these ‘Mechs.”

“SOP for any manufacturer—the end-user selects his own access codes; the machines all get the same primary code when they walk out of the factory.  Of course, that changes every shipment, so it ain’t as easy as it sounds to steal one and walk away, but it sure as hell made my job easier,” Jethro said as he aided the injured warrior up the access ladder and opened the cockpit of the 30-ton Bandit.

Wig whistled.  “They might all be stubborn bastards who don’t fight fair, but damn if they don’t make a good-looking cockpit,” then he paused.  “Where’s the ejection seat?”

The chief technician for McCarron’s Armored Cavalry snorted.  “No ejection seat—no jump seat either,” and he grinned at the shocked expression on the face of the MechWarrior.  “But you can still eject, Wig.  The Taurians decided to make the entire cockpit itself detachable—the ejection rockets are beneath this . . . tub that contains your seat, the control systems, the main computers, AND the canopy.  Yank the ejector and the whole thing is blasted clear—it’s more complicated and costs more than standard ejection seats, but the Taurians swear by it.”

“Yeah,” Wig answered with a far-away look in his eyes.  “I busted the arm when I struck the edge of the canopy ejecting out of my old Quickdraw—this sounds safer . . . if it works.”

“It works,” Jethro said with a drawl.  “God knows enough of the Taurians here on MacLeod’s Land have punched out, after all.”

Wig stepped into the cockpit and the tech began to strap him into place—and then he saw the controls.

“Dials?  Gauges?  Where’s the Multi-Function Display?”

“You’ve got two small displays on the right and left sides,” Jethro explained.  “The Taurians prefer old-school controls—all of the gauges are analog, not digital, if you can believe it!  But they work,” and Jethro sighed.  “And if something goes wrong with the computer, they STILL work, because they aren’t run by the computer—this puppy doesn’t have the hair-trigger response of most ‘Mechs, but it’s good enough . . . and a lot cheaper.  Plus, if something goes wrong with a gauge, a good tech can fix it with a caliper and pair of pliers—modern MFDs you have to yank the whole damn thing and hope you have a spare in storage.”

Wig shook his head.  “Same with the weapons—manual arming for the separate systems?  God damn, the Bulls are paranoid aren’t they?  Still, the leather seats are nice,” he continued as Jethro plugged his cooling vest into the cockpit interface.

“Go ahead, fire her up.”

“Access code?”

“Printed on that piece of duct tape,” Jethro said as he pointed at a combination of letters and numbers stenciled in black ink on the grey strip.

“Hail Mary full of grace,” Wig whispered as he began to flip switches and then gingerly depressed the red key labeled FUSN IGNT.  There was a sudden hum coming from beneath the cockpit, and then the needles on the various gauges twitched, jumped, and settled on idle.  He entered the sixteen digit alpha-numeric combination on an old-fashioned key-pad and, after a moment to think and confirm the code, the main computer brought the gyro on-line.

“All systems looking good,” he reported as Jethro set the heavy neuro-helmet over his shoulders and plugged it into sockets built into the cockpit.  “HUD is . . . active,” Wig broadcast.

Jethro stepped back and he closed the cockpit canopy, giving the MechWarrior a thumbs-up, which Wig returned with his good hand.  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered, and engaged the motive system—the 30-ton BattleMech took first one step, then a second, and (with confidence building by the second) Wig pressed the throttle forward until the machine was moving at its full normal walking speed of 64.8 kilometers per hour.

Wig began to sweat as the heat from the engine bled into the cockpit, and he glanced down at the air circulating vents—nothing was flowing from them.  His cooling jacket was working, but without the high-pressure air circulating from the cooling unit, the cockpit was rapidly becoming a sauna.  He began to curse, and then he saw that there was a seperate control for the chillers.  Blushing, he activated the unit and it began to hum, and with the surety of any veteran MechWarrior, he twisted the dial to allow for maximum air-flow—and then he froze as a spray of fine mist erupted out of all of the vents.

“SHIT!” he yelled, and he brought the Bandit to a halt as he checked his chemical-warfare detection strip built into the cooling vest—all green, he realized, his heart pumping wildly.

“Problem, Wig?” crackled the radio.

“Negative—the chiller vents discharged an oily mist when I turned them on.”

“Acknowledged,” the voiced said and then paused.  “Others are reporting the same—Harp says it might be oil in the ventilation unit . . . any chem-markers registering?”

“Negative.  Proceeding to the DropShips, Central.”

Taking the throttle in hand once more, Wig began to accelerate, and then one of the two display screens flashed.

LEAVING PPL GROUNDS.  ENTER SECONDARY SECURITY CODE.

“Central, it’s asking me for a secondary security code,” Wig broadcast—and he could hear cursing over the radio, including the voice of Harper in the background, “No one has TWO BLOODY DAMN security codes!  No one!”

“Wait one, Wig,” Central answered.  The screen blanked, and then the message repeated.  And then it blanked again, and was replaced with blocky 5, then 4, and then 3.  “Oh shit,” Wig whispered, as it counted down to zero.

GOOD MORNING, DAVE, the screen flashed, and then everything died—except the access panels in front of the primary and secondary computers.  Those sparked and crackled, and then the fusion engine went into emergency shutdown and all of the controls died.  “Fuck,” growled Wig, as he activated the emergency radio.

“My computer just fried itself, Harp!” he barked.  “Gyro is dead, engine is off-line—but, yeah, the gauges still work and it’s hotter than hell in here!”

That was the moment, when he was waiting for a reply, that Wig realized his skin was itching—he looked down and saw his naked arms, chest, and legs were bright red and already swelling.

“SHIT!”

***********************************************************

“HARP!” Archie bellowed. 

“Look, no one uses two security codes, Mac!” the Tech yelled back.  “We’ve got to pull the computers and . . . damn, we don’t have enough spares.”

“HARP!”

Ignoring his boss, the Chief Tech raised the microphone.  “Get the heavy transporters out there—we are hauling the ‘Mechs the rest of the way by hand, people!”

“How long?” Archie said through clenched teeth.

“Six hours?  Maybe eight?” Harp said with a shrug.  “We are talking about more than fourteen hundred tons of ‘Mechs, boss.”

The sudden cacophony of screaming and cursing from forty-four cockpits interrupted Archie’s answer.

***********************************************************

“I hate Taurians,” Archie muttered.  “What the hell is urushiol and why didn’t the chem-strips detect it?”

“It’s the active agent in poison ivy, poison oak, and sumac, Mac,” the senior medical officer attached to the Armored Cavalry said.  “Non-fatal and no one uses it in chemical weapons—but those MechWarriors were covered with the oil from head to toe.  None of them are going to be fit to pilot a ‘Mech for weeks.  And I hope to God I have enough anti-histamine ointment for all of them.”

“The oily mist,” Harp muttered.  “They planted liquid urushiol in the cockpit blowers.  Those miserable damned hateful sadistic SOBs.”

“God damn, I hate Taurians,” Archie swore once again.


NOTE:  You can find Urushiol and The Rash it induces at those wiki sites.

MA