Resurgence - Cataclysm Chapter 25
Chapter 2: Operation Tsunami
Undisclosed location Southwest of City of Ultron, Brunswick
January 25th, 3153
0300
The darkness of the ocean can be terrifying. Dropping into that darkness can be much worse. Using nearly every aerodyne dropship at their disposal the allied forces fly toward Ultron from the Southwest. A hurricane passing from the East Sea to the Avalon Ocean conceals the fleet of aerodyne ships.
Dropping low to the surface of the raging waves the dropships spread out and begin dropping waves of Battlemechs into the water about thirty kilometers out from the port city. Julian’s Templar III, Arthur is hanging over the ocean. Huge splatters of rain are slamming into the ferroglass. Behind him is Siobhan’s Victor. On the other side is Erik’s Lancelot and finally, Knight Raul Ortega’s Prefect.
Knight Ortega just rejoined the main forces after his voluntary search for Lady Joy. After a thorough search of all the sites so far, there has been no sign of allied prisoners. This means they have all been executed or potentially taken when the Word of Blake naval vessels jumped out of the system. With an open slot to form a full lance, he again volunteered and filled the slot, adding his identifier ‘Jupiter’ to the roster.
Julian’s HUD begins a countdown and then his mech is released and begins falling. His stomach comes up to his throat as the drop is like a roller coaster. The Templar III’s feet break the water’s surface and it begins sinking the five hundred meters to the bottom of the trench between continents. The deeper the mechs get the less the water rocks them.
Everything seems to slow down as the water resists the mechs. Julian’s Templar III lands, kicking up dust and activates his forward light. Siobhan’s Victor lands off to his right side, the impacts of the feet muffled. One by one Davion Assault Guards, Dawn Guards, Nomads, Snow Ravens, and Ghost Bears reach the bottom of the ocean.
Trudging forward they begin moving toward their next Nav Point toward Ultron.
***
Undisclosed location Southwest of City of Ultron, Brunswick
January 25th, 3153
0415
Reaching the Ultron Bay Nav Point the forces stop moving. All lights are off on the mechs now. The slower of the assault mechs are catching up. Multiple buoys are released by mechs across the line that go to the surface. Out of the storm multiple wings of light aerospace fighters emerge and sweep over the city pinging targets at maximum velocity. Seconds later anti-aircraft fire erupts as the fighters try to dodge it.
A few of the fighters are shot down as they come about hard to the North-Northwest. They re-enter the storm over the Ultron bay and the computers automatically load the data to the buoys and that data is sent to the Battlemech force below the water. Continuing to wait until oh-four-thirty, they all get on line, multiple rows deep. The second the clock hits all of the mechs begin pushing forward at maximum speed.
Moments later a wave of Battlemechs breaks the surface and begins unloading at any Blakist unit in sight. The sounds of lasers, missiles, and autocannons suddenly fill the morning air as mechs pouring off water and dragging sea plants storm the beach. Julian’s Templar III is one of those mechs. He is cycling his PPCs and medium lasers. Sheets of rain are pouring down from the storm over the city.
An AFFS Battleaxe is teamed up on by a pair of Blakist Marauders that drop it quickly. Then a new wave of Battlemechs emerge from the water, both the first and second waves lay waste to the Marauders. Lances of Blakist mechs and vehicles are trying to return fire but cannot even come close to matching the volume of allied weapons. Like the tidal waves of a tsunami slamming into the city the allied forces have come to take Ultron. The bright lights of the illuminated city are a welcome site compared to the pitch-black sea floor and ocean.
Lighter units in the second line begin heading to the flanks to start trying to break through. A Cougar and Fennec start running circles around a Flashman. Two White Ravens break through down a street to the West of the main line. Julian leads the way taking some hits from a backpedaling Linebacker as he enters the nearest street from the beach. Pulling off to a side road as planned, he moves aside so the next large mech behind him can take the hits and keep advancing. After Siobhan’s Victor, Erik’s Lancelot, and Raul’s Prefect passed by Julian joins up behind them.
For every two to three Word of Blake mechs being taken down, only one allied mech is. With the beach cleared in mere minutes, the final line of mechs departs the water. As they reach the edge of the city aerodyne dropships begin making runs on the beach to drop off infantry. Everything from Wraith and Rogue Bear Battle to Cavalier, Inner Sphere, and Clan Battle Armor are dropping down and running into the city to join the fight. Each large building begins bustling with activity as the battle armor troopers engage the Blakists in firefights with lasers and missles blowing out windows all along the streets.
Caught up with the mechs as they continue to face heavier and heavier resistance the Battle Armor flows in and between the large machine’s feet. Some of the Battle Armor troopers scale friendly mechs from behind and vault up on top of buildings. As Siobhan continues to savagely fire off her Victor’s weapons complement, she can see a point of five Wraith Battle Armor slam into a number of smaller Inner Sphere Battle Armor piloted by Blakists. She watches a Wraith’s claw wrap around a trooper’s head and tear it clean off, red splatters pouring all over. One other Wraith opens its battle claws and fires rapid fire, point blank into another trooper’s chest, blood and sparks erupting.
Siobhan steps aside and Erik’s Lancelot begins cycling its Large Clan Pulse Lasers, slicing huge gouges in armor, then slicing right through mechs ahead with the Heavy Large Laser. Crossing through an intersection it appears as though Battle Armor and Vehicles got pushed into the streets perpendicular to the assault force’s direction of travel to battle it out.
Blakist Demon Series armor meets head-to-head with Ghost Bear Wraiths and Rogue Bear suits. AFFS Cavalier Armor troopers run through hosing down the enemy infantry and troopers. As they have reached a few blocks into the city the allied forces can see Celestial Battlemechs begin appearing more and more frequently and the Allied advance slows.
“Keep your nerves men! Those Celestials are nothing but computerized freaks, rip them limb from limb!” Julian shouts into the comms. An AFFS Phoenix Hawk runs up on a Blakist Trebuchet on the street adjacent and goes right into hand-to-hand combat. It grabs both the Trebuchet’s hands and pushes forward, sending the Trebuchet into a building. Turning, the Phoenix Hawk pulls it out of the building and onto the ferrocrete. Holding it in place a lance of Simian Battle Armor starts to rip it apart at the cockpit, the Blakist pilot unable to do anything with the Phoenix Hawk holding it down.
A Seraph attempts to step in but as it takes aim a barrage of fire from an Atlas III starts shredding off armor as it closes to point blank. The massive footsteps cause the nearby units to shake with the impacts. The Atlas pilot points the left-hand index finger at the Seraph. Taking a step back the Seraph returns fire with its own autocannon, however that doesn’t stop the Atlas III. It pulls its arm back and sends the armored fist into the chest of the Seraph, collapsing the cockpit. The momentum of the impact carries the Seraph into a squad of Demon Battle Armor, killing at least two as it collapses to the ferrocrete below. Their bloody smears are all that’s left on the ground as the others flee.
Not even slowing down, the Atlas III continues hosing down the street with Rotary Autocannon fire as well as the rest of its weapons while it stands over the defeated Seraph. Taking the lead now on their own street, Raul Ortega’s Prefect sends PPCs toward the enemies hiding among the buildings ahead. The lightning bolts are impacting enemy mechs as they chew into his armor with lasers and autocannon shells in return.
“Blacksmith One, this is Sky Eye Sierra. A couple blocks ahead of your line they are massing for a counter attack, be ready, I am picking up significant AA fire, unable to get a visual due to weather. Radar is showing large IFF clusters, out.”
They are in for a rude awakening. Julian steps to the side so the rest of his lance can continue the pressure. He adjusts some of the Nav Points and then pulls back into the street. He can see ahead that Siobhan is taking the lead and it looks like the weapons fire is increasing in rate and intensity. Hmmm… She needs to watch it… Erik or Raul can take the lead.
Reaching another intersection, he can see that the radar’s larger red blobs of enemy units are just a few hundred meters out beyond more rows of buildings. A quick moving series of green icons are coming up behind the allied forces as a full company of Antlions reach the intersection and get on line for a couple blocks. “Everyone hold position, Antlions, open fire and saturate those bastards!” Julian orders.
Seconds ticked on as the mech mortars continue to alternate, slamming into the area with the clusters of enemy IFFs. The mech mortar ammo is all armor piercing so units are going to be taking extreme amounts of damage. Once they reach fifty percent ammo, “Hold your fire Antlions, all other forces move in!” Having given the rest of the front allied line time to secure their positions, the lines of mechs surge into the mostly open area. Large parking lots for big shopping centers surround them.
What the hell? Where is the enemy… Julian sees a couple mechs that have been shattered, clearly just killed but that’s not nearly enough to match the readouts on the radar. He can see movement further Northeast in the distance as mechs are running away from the allied position. Inside the streets Julian could kind of forget about the storm going on around them but in this more open area the distant enemy mechs could receive cover from the downpour.
Then he hears a murmur from the external feed, he amplifies the sound and it is screaming. “All units, where is that sound coming from?”
“Sir!” shouts a Battle Armor trooper, civilians are wall to wall in the larger structures! I am seeing Blakist IFF transponders littered everywhere!”
Julian takes a closer look at the buildings in the impact zone and again, the Blakists used civilians as shields. The ceilings of the buildings are caving in. Pools of blood are running out from under the barred glass doors. People are crawling out from the rubble covered in blood and wet clothes from the rain.
“Kill all the Blakists!” Julian shouts and then switches channels, “Battleships, open fire on escape avenues, saturate the area outside the city in death.” He switches back to his unit command channels. “Champion Actual and Jupiter with me, Bravo Shiv, check the buildings for booby traps and get medical in here once its cleared.” Moving to the open channel, “All allied forces not under command of Bravo Shiv, kill every last one of these Blakist bastards!”
His Templar III surges forward with the Lancelot and Prefect. He looks to his left and right and he can see mechs running up the streets parallel with him. Explosions are going off beyond the far edge of the city and he can see the Blakists have stopped fleeing as they are illuminated by the city lights. Julian brought classic naval battleships to this fight. They are positioned in the inlet to the Northwest and the bay to the East destroying the escape route of the Word of Blake forces.
Continuing to push forward his Templar fires off both PPCs, tearing armor off a Legacy that can’t run away and is backpedaling from to line of raging mechs. He hits it with the rest of his smaller weapons then follows up with a kick. Now the actual Blakist force is trapped between charging Battlemech battalions and a field of death being shelled by battleships.
As the allied mechs continue to push into the Blakists the fighting turns into an outright brawl. A Thanatos emerges and takes aim at Erik’s back. Loosing its MRMs, it tears into his armor, making his Lancelot stumble. As he steps forward a Karhu comes charging past him and snaps off a Clan PPC, hitting the Thanatos in the right arm. As it turns back the Karhu spears its chest with a retractable blade.
Pulling the blades out, the Karhu sidesteps, then a Heavy Large Laser from Erik’s turned around Lancelot rips a hole through into the internals of the Thanatos. Another PPC and Retractable blade later and the Thanatos slumps to the ground. By 0530 every single Blakist that can be found is dead. Battlemech, Battle Armor, vehicle, every single fanatic laying in a pool of their own blood.
Julian issues orders to treat all the wounded and to make sure the Antlion pilots are fine. They did their job but the Blakists continue to prove how evil they are. A fast strike and city recovered is the best I could ask for.
Chapter 24: Secret of the Camerons
Chapter 26: