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After reading Dragoncat's story about the disaster on Loric my muse started yelling and waving its arms, and this was the result.  Any comments or criticism are most welcome!


“This is General of the Armies Thomas Hogarth to the mongrels who have so brazenly invaded our space.  With which forces do you defend your world?”
General Hogarth got no reply, only the faint hiss of static and he smiled broadly.

“Cowards, they seem to lack the strength of will to face us.  Oberleutnant Henz, report.”

“Generalfeldmarschall, we’ve got the dropships Odin’s Wrath and Thunderer landing now, hot drops from the Lady Belle report the landing zone secure, no sign of hostile contact.  We will be on the ground in two hours and are orientating for atmospheric re-entry shortly Sir.”

“Very good Oberleutnant.  Give the word to Hauptmann Scott that he may begin offloading as soon as the ramps are down.”
The Lieutenant saluted smartly but also noted that the General had not ordered his Lance to be made ready to move.  ‘Sitting save aboard the dropship whilst the soldiers do the work..typical.’ Is what he thought
. 
“Yes Sir!” Is what he said.

“Sir! We’ve got Clan aerospace assets, they just appeared over the Gronreach mountains!”
“Sir! Message from the Captain of the Thunderer they are taking fire from a dozen sources including what appears to be Arrow fire!”
“47th Air Wing vectoring to engage.  Dear god! The Odin’s Wrath is hit! She reports one engine destroyed and fires in her mechbays!”

The sudden flurry of alerts and reports made an icey knot appear in the General’s gut and he sat bolt upright in his chair.

“Contact the Nondi Steiner get her fighters down here now, all dropships are weapons free!  Wipe those mongrels out!”
A chorus of replies answered the General’s somewhat vague orders.  In truth his combat experience was…limited, mainly to exercises and strategic simulations or dealing with small scale raids and skirmishes.  This was beyond the General’s personal experience, he’d sensed a chance for glory and had taken it. 

“Clan Wolf forces! I repeat, this is General of the Armies Thomas Hogarth! State the forces with which you will defend your world!”
There was a static hiss and that cut off, there was the sound of someone breathing before a single word was uttered in reply.

“Dezgra.” And then the radio went dead

“Kaptain! I want my Mech made ready!”
“Yes Sir Generalfeldmarschall!”

The 24th had landed in a cauldron of fire, three full strength front line Clusters were on the ground and were pouring fire into the Lyran landing zones and dropships despite heroic efforts from their aerospace fighters to find and engage the Clan artillery Mech Stars.  Even as the General’s Atlas II’s feet touched the soil of Loric many of his command staff could see a disaster unfolding even as the General’s Excalibur volleyed missile’s into the surrounding woodlands at barely seen and distant targets.

The 8th Mechanised regiment was a gutted ruin, its troops, some of the first to land had been pounced on by Wolf Elementals and light Mech’s in the close confines of the woodlands near their landing zones.  Equipped with the largest number of Jagpanzer II’s the 8th was a rather green unit recently brought up to strength with a large influx of new recruits and a new CO who owed his promotion to a friendship and long standing family ties with Hogarth’s family.  The new heavy tanks had lead the way as the 8th rolled into an ambush.  The Regiment was caught on the march and hit from both flanks by Elementals in not only standard suits but tank killing Salamander suits that had torn into the close packed machines as they desperately tried to find targets.  The 8ths integral infantry had been all but wiped out, lacking battle armour of their own the Lyran Infantry fought hard but against the massed Elementals there was little they could do.  It was also the first time that the Lyrans encountered a new battle armour, broad, heavy and armed with a pair of missile launchers as well as a pulse laser it was a battlefield debut for the Warg assault battle armour.

The survivors of the regiment, those at the rear of the column of march had fled back, hounded by fire from Clan Mech’s and barely one in ten vehicles made it back to the landing zones which were already under fire.

Two hundred kilometres away the 12th Regiment had made planetfall in good order despite its dropships coming under fire as soon as they landed.  This naturally sped up the unloading of the Regiments Mech’s from their dropships but they had barely moved eight kilometres before being engaged by Clan mobile forces as well as tanks firing from dug in positions.  From the moment the first volleys were exchanged the Commander of the 12th knew something had changed.  The Wolf Mech’s didn’t make their challenges, they were massing their fire, cutting his Regiment apart a lance at a time.

“Kara, on your left! LEFT!”
“I’ve got him Vik don’t worry!”

The throaty roar of the Barghest’s LB-20 was audible over the radio as was its effects as a Wolf Mech identified as a Guillotine IIC staggered as a heavy calibre round from the LB slammed into the mech’s PPC arm causing sparks to fly from the weapon and limb, the Barghest’s computer registering the PPC as being knocked out.  The Clan Mech remained upright, its lasers cutting gouges out of the Barghest’s thickly armoured hide as it returned fire with one of its ER lasers, slicing a furrow across the Clan machine’s chest.

“Viktor! There’s a big bastard targeting you, taking a shot to distract him!” 

The cyan blue beam of an ER large laser sadly failed to connect as a somewhat unfamiliar Clan Mech lined up its shots on her Lancemate’s damaged War Dog.  The Clan Mech was a big one but it looked like a Masakari, scaled up, but its arms were only fitted with what looked like a port for a PPC each instead of the paired PPC’s of the Masakari. 

Four bolts of white hot man made lighting smashed into the damaged War Dog and Kara heard her lance commander scream as the gauss rifle in the Mech’s right arm was hit and its capacitors overloaded in a chest rattling explosion that tore the machines arm to shreds.  The 75 tonne war machine staggered like a drunk, its arm gone, the ruined stump belching black/brown smoke.  the War Dog’s torso  was shredded, heat spiking from its damaged reactor and it swayed again before it fell with a tooth rattling thump into the churned ground face down and it did not move again.

“Viktor…”
“Alert. Alert. Inbound missiles.”

Her Mech’s ‘Bitching Beatty’ snapped MechWarrior Kara Tork back to the battle, she would mourn for the dead later. If she survived herself.


“Gentlemen I want a situation report. Now!”

“Clan forces are pushing on all the landing zones, the 8th is…gone as a fighting force the 12th is broken and reports two dropships lost, but the survivors were able to get off world on those left.  Aerospace assets are at 50% strength and are being intercepted over their targets and in transition from the Nondi Steiner and our carriers in orbit. “

The mention of the cruiser in orbit made the Generalfeldmarschall’s lips peel back in a silent snarl.  He had ordered that the ship turn its guns groundward and target Clan fortifications and supply routes.  By this he meant the nearby city of Loric, the world’s capital.  This fire mission had been refused, three times.  With the fourth demand Kommodore Franks had refused and then threatened to turn her ships guns on HIS command post.

“You pompous ass! Your men are fighting and dying and for what!?  No Herr Generalfeldmarschall I will NOT be responsible for another Turtle Bay that would drive the Wolves insane!  This is no time to escalate this and I will NOT butcher civilians!  No Herr Generalfeldmarschall you are beaten! Withdraw, save your men and women, save your command or so help me I will turn my guns on your Command post and order the withdrawal myself!”

Of course that little discussion had been private, when he was at the helm of his Atlas II. 

“Gentlemen, it appears that…for the moment, we are outmatched, I authorise a full withdrawal into orbit and the jumpships.”

A simple command given to men and women under the most difficult circumstances.  Of course the Generalfeldmarschall’s Dropship was the first to break orbit, but the retreat itself became a rout. With comms breaking down due to heavy jamming and repeated head-hunter attacks against command positions and supply/comm’s posts the retreat was at first a confused mess as the Lyran forces tried to disengage from the Clan Wolf units engaging them, warriors who had the scent of blood in their noses as the Lyrans started pulling back. 

The confused mess became a pell-mell sprint as individual Lances and Companies tried to break contact under the most difficult of circumstances.  There were ugly scenes at some dropships as men fought each other to try and get aboard whilst Mech’s were abandoned due to a lack of space. 

All of this was not seen by Generalfeldmarschall Hogarth, but it was seen by the commander of his RCT who had volunteered to try and hold the line with anyone willing to try and buy time.  The sacrifice of the Regiment’s Commander along with eighteen other Mech’s, many of them assault class machines allowed the ragged remnants of the 24th RCT to flee off world, hounded by Clan aerospace assets until they broke orbit. 

They left behind the smoking remnant of four Regiments destroyed in combat and thanks to the Clan’s head-hunter tactics the survivors had been ‘decapitated’ two Armoured Regiments had lost their command staff with command of the frayed units devolving to a twenty year old Kaptain.  The attached Infantry Brigade had been smashed, its command staff wiped out and the survivors spread across the fleeing dropships.  The Wolf units took care of the injured but any prisoners were simply thrown in makeshift prison camps, their Mech’s, tanks and equipment taken as Isorla from their defeated foe. 

It was a dark day for the Lyran armed forces, one that Generalfeldmarschall Hogarth was already preparing to report in the most positive of lights.