Operation Terminus

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Operation Terminus,
Report for sortie 002 of Gamma Lance at Star's End.
Gamma Lance Lotj-- fuck, look it's Hedloff alright. If you're reading this you know who I am already, just... it was... you've gotta...

This one's gonna take a while so have a seat and grab a drink.

*exhale*
Here, let me show you something. Just trust me on this one and look at the attached file.
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Me and an old buddy I used to go drinking with, we took this pic on Rasalhague. Beautiful aurora, isn't it? They're faint as hell during daylight so you really can't see em 'cept at night, but I gaurantee you it's a sight worth staying up late for. Especially if you got a good barrel of mead with you and a bunch of drunk bastards to share it with. They're caused by solar winds slamming ions against a planet's magnetic field, funneling them down to the poles and.... okay, beyond that's not important. All you need to know for right now about them is that, aside from crazy powerful thunderstorms, auroras are the only natural source of electromagnetic interference due to weather. Now while you probably don't wanna take a VTOL up there and go flying through it, trust me on that one, they're not powerful enough to affect mechs on the ground and only occur with any frequency near the magnetic poles of a planet.

At least... that's what my life has lead me to believe. Now either my whole life up until this point has been a complete lie, or what we saw yesterday was a certified FRRREAKSHOW!

We had successfully rendezvoused with some Martillo reinforcements and were proceeding along a southwest vector into what we were hoping was OpFor's flank. Suddenly, and in the middle of CLEAR DAYLIGHT the sky lights up like a fucking New Year's festival. Our targeting equipment and sensors go to complete SHIT almost instantly. To make matters worse, the prairie winds picked up to gale force strength. I don't think there was so much as a one minute interval where the winds dropped below 90 kph.

So caught up in the freak weather, we stumble around completely lost without radar and manage to miss the intended enemy force entirely. Instead we walked right into an enemy supply encampment that managed to catch wind of us beforehand and set up an ambush in wait. Worse, what comms chatter we could intercept from them indicated that they had called the enemy unit we missed for reinforcements. FUN.

At this point we figure our options were to either fall back to avoid getting caught in a pincer, or rush and take the enemy light supply camp, slaughter everything, and break even for the week to fund the rest of our repairs. Well, we crested that ridge overlooking the enemy encampment to see what the flavor of the day in punching bags is, and get our first good look at the well armed and supported enemy assault lance. Like I said, fun. Initially, it looks like we were in for the fight of our lives. A Zeus, a Crusader, a Warhammer, 2 missile trucks, what...we could only assume was some sort of makeshift ppc emplacement, and a Battlemaster. Oh GOD, the Battlemaster. Whoever this guy is, he has some BANK. The Gorettis are packing some serious range, loaded out the ass with ppcs and lrms. We're on one hill, they're on another, and between us nothing but open terrain and some smaller hills lining the north and south side of the area of operation. We think about this for a sec and figure that closing the distance is out of the question since that much firepower would waste us. So we set up on the hill behind what cover we can find and prepare to pick them off as they close the distance to our "lesser force".

These guys... they aren't the usual thugs we get thrown at us even by the mafia's standard. They held position on the opposing hillside and played to their strength. It was bizarre to not see the bloodthirsty charge we've come to expect of pirates and thugs. They were cold and calculating, WAY too organized, and to be honest a little intimidating even. The electromagnetic interference was making our ranged tactic almost useless. The whole fight it screwed with our targeting systems and placed shots way off target, you couldn't hit a building with an LB-x 10. They must've figured out they had the advantage in holding ground since reinforcements were in route.... we had to close that gap and get on top of them but our heavier mechs wouldn't be able to make that speed unless they crossed right across the open field and into the killzone.

And that's when we noticed it. The Gorettis weren't hitting us. I mean not as much as they should've been. Don't get me wrong, they were SENDING the mail and were well within range for their loadouts, it just wasn't getting delivered. Hell, I saw that Warhammer close to within 300 meters and he was still missing with the ppcs. That damned/blessed aurora was affecting them too! We took the opportunity to close. The Martillo mechs took to the far south while our heavy mechs followed them just off the ridge to prepare to push center. Helgrim though, that glorious, crazy bastard, he JJ'd all the way long the northen cover to get right within heckling distance of their Crusader and missle truck on the northern hillside without even being spotted.

So we made the push.

 

The Martillo mechs started taking immediate fire. Built to brawl, they couldn't really defend themselves yet, but bless 'em they were determined to close. Oh yeah, our support. Right, so we got a Splatapult, a Hunchback, and a Locust backing us up. The Catapult had already taken a few hits but man it and the Hunchie closed on the enemy Battlemaster like mechs possessed. The Locust though... poor thing. I don't know what they've done with those ppc emplacements, but if any of you other guys see them on the field, DO NOT FUCK AROUND. Maybe they were just lucky but those things placed dead center shots on the Locust at max speed, and another on Sigvaldsson's head at MAX RANGE, EMI be damned. With one mech almost in the grave our fight begins proper with everyone firing their weapons and, of course, no one hitting. I think only the turrets manage to get any real decent shots in. At this point the Assault lance has pushed themselves back against the terrain to try and continue engaging us at range while the Battlemaster's drawing fire. Helgrim is dancing with the Crusader and the missile truck still, as we agree that he should attempt to move south more and get up behind those turrets to knock em out. He makes one jump, ONE JUMP, further south and we see the ENTIRE enemy lance with the exception of the Battlemaster change route to stop him. They don't even have a shot on him yet with that terrain in the way and our eastern forces were a more immediate threat. There's no way some slipshod ppc emplacement was worth that much too them... something else was behind that hill. It was at this point that our Locust had sacrificed itself, trying to get close enough from the south to get a visual for us on the new target of interest. The second he pokes his head out the ppc turrets blew him away. The pilot ejects and I'm almost certain I watch the winds take his body two kilometers away into the country side. Fortunately, he bought us the distraction we needed. With almost the whole of the enemy force chasing Helgrim, they either forgot or intentionally left the Battlemaster behind and exposed in their haste. Our Martillo thugs are more than happy to run right up past it and dump their primary fire into its sides while our mechs close distance taking opportunity shots. As per norm, almost everything misses. In fact, every single srm from the Catapult manages to completely whiff past a target at 60 meters. The hunchback gets a good hit though, and if I recall correctly our Crab manages to hit em too. Meanwhile our Griffin punches a truck right in the face and starts playing grab ass with the enemy force, because apparently between his jump jets and the EMI there's not a chance in hell they're gonna get a shot on him.

The Martillos run right on past the Battlemaster and finally put an end those enemy turrets out of sheer spite for killing their Locust. Side note, those turrets may be accurate as hell but they're held together with glue and rubber bands. The Battlemaster starts panicking now as no doubt he suddenly realizes the 215 tons of fun he had backing him up 30 seconds ago just left his ass high and dry. He makes to go rendezvous, but that just gives Sigvaldsson and Kirk the very opportunity they need to get up right behind and bugger his arse. Me and my Banshee lumber out from behind the cover of the low hills and start drawing his fire. Within half a minute we've pushed him back up against the hill and stripped his right leg of armor and disabled the PPC. The Martillo thugs run right on past the wrecked turrets and locate the target of interest, and the apparent source of our enemy's bizarre organizational capacity, a heavily armored HQ truck with comms equipment. The Hunchie is more than happy to put two rounds of rounds of AC20s dead center into the bastard, ending him and the enemy comms in one swift move. This is apparently enough to convince the Battlemaster it's time to bugger out, and he makes for the south. Unfortunately for him, we've pretty much reduced his running speed to something more along the lines of "pitiful limp". We move the Banshee and Crab west to reinforce our Griffin and Martillo units while Kirk chases down the Battlemaster to leg him giggling like a madman the whole way. Can't blame him, an intact Battlemaster is gonna be damn good salvage pay.

Helgrim has managed to completely disable one of the missile trucks and has given that Crusader the beating of its life. As we crest the hill to support them the Martillo units are already hanging on by a thread. In short order, Kirk manages to kick what remains of that Battlemaster's leg out from underneath it and comes over to join us in tearing up the Zeus and Warhammer. We make the Zeus go prone but the Warhammer and remaining missile truck move nearby to cover him as the Hunchback finally bites the dust. The Crusader we manage to keep separated from his friends and force him unto one knee with concentrated fire. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Apparently, getting a mech to stand up in 90-120 KPH winds? Fucking forget about it, it's an uphill battle all the way and that's if you've actually got arms and hands on your damn mech.

At this point the Catapult's overheating so much he decides to make a show of it by going supernova. He runs right up next to the Warhammer and detonates his own srm stores with the excess heat. This strips the enemy mech of much needed armor off the legs and placing him in a similar position as his Battlemaster buddy was in just a little while ago. Helgrim's finally decided he's done playing with his food and kicks the Crusader in the head, killing it and adding a second mech to our salvage pool. After making VERY clear he wants the Zeus to part in kind the enemy pilot decides he's having none of that and ejects. Of course, he promptly gets whisked away by the magnetic gale force winds of doom and probably died impaled on a tree or rock somewhere.

The second missile truck eats Crab Claw for its last supper and the crippled Warhammer tries to make a facing retreat of it for a second before seeing four, essentially undamaged heavily armed mechs bearing down on him. He decided to take his chances with the wind instead. After inspecting the battlefield we've discovered infantry tracks of what we're estimating to be a mechanized platoon in size and strength that simply up and vanished. Poor bastards must have got caught outside in the freak aurora storm.... huh. Note to self, cool name for a mech 'Aurora Storm'.

Right so anyways the supposed milk run, turned fight of our lives, turned milk run again but with twice the expected salvage pay has been an... overwhelming success. We managed to haul back four almost fully intact assault mechs as well as their vehicle support. Kirk's estimating after the Martillo's cut and the pay to command, we're looking at a sizable pay of around 1.4 to 1.5 millions cbills each. The Battlemaster pilot blacked out when his mech fell over and we've taken him in for questioning. Despite my initial worries, the freak storm actually worked in our favor by giving us "cover in plain sight" enough that we could close the enemy distance without worry.

In Summary:

1 -If you see those makeshift ppcs emplacements, double your caution.

2 -The Martillo's are sending in officers and command units now apparently, don't expect ranged units to just close on you. The rank and file thugs are being given orders now and know to follow them.

3 -We'll be interrogating "Rich Boy" for some information on the Goretti forces. Looks like he's one of the family.
Sigvaldsson's INSISTED he be the one to do it and I don't want to be the one to tell him no. So he's being held responsible for getting a report to command in a few days regarding the investigation.

4 -Sigvaldsson has a new battlecry. "We've come to fuck". At least that's what I think he said. It's hard to tell with the drunken slur he puts on it.

5 -Our mechs have essentially take light or no damage at all this mission thanks to our psychotic Martillo 'friends'.
Bless their bloodthirsty little hearts.

6 -Be aware of freak weather patterns.

Löjtnant Hedloff Van Brisngir-
Gamma Lance-
South East of Beaconlight-
Bearing South-Southwest-
Reporting Mission Success-
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May be because we're only able to claim 70% of the salvage. IIRC that's why we weren't able to bring that one in. The 70% is then split between Martillo, the unit, and us.

 

Gives an error upon trying to load that neweat save. I double checked to make sure I'm using the most recent MekHQ and everything, and it doesn't look like anything has changed since our last drop.

 

Question - what does the green highlighting in the match summaries mean?

 

AND a axe kill, though sadly not a decap. DAMN YOU INFANTRY