Resurgence - The Week of Hell Day 1
Resurgence - The Week of Hell Day 1
While the capital city is normally a primary objective for invading forces, the Prince’s Champion sought to place himself across the narrow strip of ocean on the Chukchi continent with the Military Academy. Many new recruits are about to be blooded in the coming days. He looked across the grounds to see the various defensive positions supported by the training mechs of the cadets and staff.
Strewn about were active anti-aircraft defenses. The morning had been filled with active reporting from the fleet far above the Academy. A huge wave of dropships and aerospace fighters had advanced away from the Blakist fleet and are entering the atmosphere. Coming in at an angle that would prevent weapons fire from the fleet, Dominic dispatched a sizeable force of fighters to harass the invasion force.
From Erik’s vantage point all he can see are the thick clouds above. Rain steadily falls all around with incremental increases of heavy pouring. Next to Erik the Academy CO Colonel Klavinsh observes the prepared grounds. “If the classes don't kill you, the weather will,” he quietly said followed by a chuckle.
“Cold and pouring rain. No wonder this place creates such strong willed and high caliber personnel,” returned Erik.
“Yes, Prince’s Champion. This place strengthens the soul. According to our scouts and long range sensors it looks like dropships have been sighted at multiple locations on all three continents.”
“Roger that, what of the aerospace?”
“Reports from the fleet show that some skirmishing is taking place but with the cloud cover the Blakists aren’t coming out and the Ravens aren’t going in.”
“Makes sense, no need to waste our resources and personnel in a wild goose chase through such dense cloud cover.” Added Erik as his eyes panned left and right across the clouds. Again, he looks at the nearest anti-aircraft position. MHI Defense AA Tanks are the bulk of the anti-air defenses at the Academy and the capital city. Other mechs like Riflemen and Jagermechs were serving as supplemental AA elsewhere.
Breaking their concentration and causing the entire grounds to come to alert a shriek could be heard far overhead. Multiple MHI tanks swiveled in the general direction trying to find a target. “They’re here…” Erik said through gritted teeth. Though the sound originated in the clouds above it was far too close for comfort.
A crackling sound of intermittent yelling burst out of the nearby console, “…Champi…. alon Huss are… verrun!” explosions drowned out the yelling voice.
“Colonel, can we get a video feed of their location?!” shouted Erik as both of the men focused on the console.
“Yes, sir, bringing it up now!”
A holopanel in the room lit up from standby mode and the camera view looked out over a large town from a tall government building. The angle allowed the two officers to scan over the defensive position. Just an hour ago it was a solid defense in depth. Now it was a hellstorm of explosions and weapons fire in all directions. AA lit up the sky with flashes of LBX fire from numerous positions.
New explosions rippled as multiple Blakist fighters screamed by at nap of the earth carpet bombing positions and strafing the ground. Dammit, I thought they were going to hit the Academy and Capital first! If that wasn’t bad enough seeing mechs collapsing and AA positions going silent, aerodyne dropships began hovering and dropping Battlemechs.
Legacies, Lightrays, Raijins, Gallants, Ospreys, Raptor IIs, and more were all visible as multiple Level IIs disembarked. Even dropships began touching down around the city, landing in parks even! The waves of heat and thrust knocked over buildings, sending plumes of dust down city streets.
This entire time radio chatter could be heard as the local CO barked orders to consolidate and take cover. Some positions had been shattered into a rout and others were long gone. Before the camera in the main government courtyard infantry troopers began firing off machine guns and grenade launchers out the main gate. An Atlas and Jagermech stood their ground, firing at a Gallant that emerged from the street ahead.
A glimmer of white light caught the two officer’s eyes on the feed and they looked up from the Battlemechs fighting to see a Blakist fighter bank hard to its starboard side away from the camera and a split second later the camera feed went black. A large explosion was the last sound before the audio cut out as well.
“Avalon Hussars come in, this is Colonel Klavinsh! What is your situation?! Hussars!” No response came from the Hussars.
“Switch over to the fleet channel, Colonel,” added Erik.
“Yes, sir,” Klavinsh hit some buttons and then pointed toward Erik.
“Galaxy Commander McKenna, this is Prince’s Champion Sandoval.”
“Send it.”
Catching him off-guard, Erik had to take a second to remember that the Clans didn’t waste time on things that the Prince’s Champion knew as normal formalities in communications. “We have just lost the Avalon Hussars. Have my aerospace assets breach the clouds and patrol.”
“Aff, Prince’s Champion, rerouting now. My Ravens can finish off what Blakist fighters remain up here.”
“Sandoval out,” Erik said in return. Moments later a lance of Federated Suns fighters pierced the cloud cover above and screamed by overhead. He could see the men on the ground cheering. Even a Vulpes Battlemech raised its armored fist in the air as a cheer.
We need morale up after this atrocity. Erik’s thought was interrupted by the Colonel.
“Sir, I can get multiple lances of vics and helos to look for survivors.”
Looking at the Colonel Erik replied, “No, the Blakists hit a lower concentration of troops on purpose. They want us to reinforce and stretch thin, hell we might have if we didn’t have that video feed. Then there’s even less of us here to hold the Academy grounds. Send out a few scouts and if there are survivors have them move toward the spaceport.”
“Yes, sir,” the Colonel responded and Erik continued.
“I want aerospace patrol patterns to focus entirely on the Academy and spaceport. Any smaller units guarding other facilities need to be recalled immediately to the Academy and spaceport, I want Leopards in the air 10 minutes ago.”
“Issuing the orders, sir,” Klavinsh continued speaking in the background as he connected to various commands.
Erik stepped closer to the window that overlooked the grounds from the Academy HQ. All was quiet minus the aerospace flyovers. The combined fleet was enough to keep the risk of orbital bombardment at bay. The 1st Robinson Strikers supported by Academy cadets and staff stood at over one hundred Battlemechs supported by hundreds of vehicles and personnel. As a hammer he also had some mercenaries keeping a low profile that could be used to break a flank or make other tactical actions.
He looked up from his forces below and could see some distant orange glowing in the stormy, swirling clouds. Squinting, he could see the glows multiply, then finally breached the clouds. As expected, the Blakists did arrive. A company of FedSun aerospace fighters screamed by overhead towards the inbound enemies.
More FedSun fighters were approaching from an angle closer to the distant spaceport off to the West. Flashes of lasers and tracers from autocannons were visible through the rain with a fighter from either side turning into a fireball every couple minutes. Even the dropships were trying to shoot down the harassing fighters.
A Level II of Blakist fighters broke from the battle, heading for the Academy. Erik watched as some FedSun fighters pursued. One of the Blakist’s wings exploded off, the aircraft crashing into the ground rolling and erupting into flames outside the grounds. Almost in unison the MHI AA Tanks around the grounds began sounding off with their LBX 10 Flak hosing down the air around the Blakist fighters.
Two more went down before they reached the Academy perimeter causing the remaining Blakist fighters to break off their run attempt. We’ve got this. The Nomads are formidable but we are the Federated Suns… Erik thought with a grin on his face regarding how they couldn’t hold Abbeville. Just below him on the ground level he looked down to see the Templar III he would be fielding once those dropships landed and disgorged their forces.
The evening came and the aerospace fighting came to an end. Both sides were bloodied. Galaxy Commander McKenna let Erik know that the Blakist main fleet had arrived at the world but was staying outside of weapons range. Some smaller formations were moving to test the Stormhawk position and returning in kind small formations of Raven and FedSun ships repelled the Blakists.
High powered scopes at the Academy gave Erik the chance to see what was going on in the Blakist LZ to the North. It was the smart move on the Blakist’s part to land so far away, outside of the Long Tom and Sniper artillery ranges. But, as he watched them unloading, he became a bit anxious because the dropships were unloading huge numbers of troops. Forcing himself to remain calm he left the Colonel in command and hit the rack for at least a couple hours sleep. Tomorrow, I will make them feel the pain for the loss of the Hussars…