“Sandoval is getting edgy, Raul. Make this happen soon.” Tassa fell back a few more paces, limping on a ruined left knee actuator.
Using his twin PPCs and light autocannon to drive back the Steel Wolves’ one remaining M1 Marksman, Raul bracketed it with lances of azure energy and then blasted deep, angry wounds into its armored flank. It pulled back and Raul let it go, wary of the next head-to-head push by Star Colonel Torrent and still fighting toward Tassa’s position.
Torrent’s attention had been diverted again as a Giggins APC successfully delivered a squad of Gnome battle armor into his line. As Steel Wolf Elementals worked to keep those Gnomes clear of the Tundra Wolf, Raul threw two Jessies down the enemy line, strafing the seventy-five-ton BattleMech and the wounded Marksman with flight upon flight of short-range missiles.
It bought him a handful of seconds. A moment, perhaps.
Raul pivoted the Jupiter toward the admin buildings, claiming another two hundred meters in long, five-meter strides. With white-knuckle grips on his control sticks, Raul shied away from one of the open DropShip landing pads, saving himself from a three-story fall to the underground service area. He still felt unsteady at the controls of such a large assault ’Mech, but the natural touch which had originally recommended him to the militia reserves held strong for him now.
Backed by two Schmitts and flanked by VV1 Rangers, Raul reanchored the militia line another dozen steps—two dozen… three…
Where he stepped into a barrage of missiles, drawing fire from a Steel Wolf Behemoth and paired JES strategic carriers.
Weathering the storm of hammer blows, shedding some of the Jupiter’s armor reserves, Raul wrestled with his control sticks and then turned in to back off the Behemoth. “Blocked again!” Two icons on his HUD flashed dangerously close to the militia line. “Shandra scout vehicles at nine-five relative. Pick them up!”
He wasted no time on the fast but lethal scout-runners, trusting the Rangers and some forward Cavalier infantry to handle them, and the Schmitts had already leapt forward to hammer long-range fifty-mils at a Big Jess.
Raul pulled his crosshairs over the Behemoth’s large outline, pounding away double-flights of long-ranged missiles as soon as he struck good tone and chasing them with blue-white arcs of lightning from the Jupiter’s chest-mounted PPCs.
Unfortunately, the one-hundred-ton tank could stand up to that kind of abuse, though after forty minutes of sparring the tank crew had to be worried about their armor. The tank rolled back on its massive treads, ceding a few scant meters. As if they needed further encouragement, a Yellow Jacket VTOL slid over the north side of the field and skipped a gauss slug off the ferrocrete tarmac next to them.
Sensing opportunity, Raul shifted his own aim over to one of the forward JES carriers. Combining PPCs with his two light autocannon this time, he worried through the missile-boat’s armor. The hovering VTOL spent several dangerous seconds following Raul’s directed fire, punched a gauss slug through the carrier’s weakened armor and then spun around to race back south and west.
Both Schmitts pounced, tearing into the carrier’s interior even further, and did not shy away until an ammunition magazine ruptured under their hard-hitting rotaries. The Jess’s sides bulged outward and then burst. Flipping side-over-side, the disintegrating hulk rolled up against the retreating Behemoth and added impetus to their temporary retreat.
For just that moment, Raul found himself with no viable targets and a nearly open run between the militia line and spaceport tower.
“Best chance we’ll ever get, Colonel.” He shoved his throttle forward to its stop, lumbering the Jupiter forward at its best speed of fifty-four kph.
Blaire wasted no time doubting Raul’s word. “All units, swing echelon left.”
VTOLs pressed forward, and a laser-equipped Cyrano fell under the flak-assault from another JES carrier, while most skirmishers dropped back and pulled into their new position. Stealing a quick-march on the Steel Wolves, the militia line swung around in a ragged but effective arc, following Raul’s lead and closing the spaceport off from River’s End. Their line now held back-to-back with Tassa Kay’s smaller force, giving her safe refuge.
Raul toggled his private channel to Tassa Kay, in case she was not already falling back. “All right, Tassa. Lead them out.” A waste of breath, as she first sent her damaged vehicles crawling for the safety of the militia lines and then followed in the borrowed Legionnaire. Raul turned back to the battle in time to count up the cost of their maneuver.
His Rangers had overtaken and overturned one of the Shandra scout-runners, but not without losing one of their own to a salvo of concentrated laserfire. Raul had also traded one of his tactical Jessies for a Steel Wolf Scimitar—hardly equitable—and enemy Pack Hunters had nearly cut Captain Diago out of the militia formation. He escaped back to the safety of their formation, but minus a great deal of armor and losing one of his Legionnaire’s arms—severed at the elbow by a Hunter PPC.
And worse, Star Colonel Torrent in his Tundra Wolf was left pressing forward right into the weak middle of the militia line. Frustrated with Raul’s evasion of any straight-up match, now the star colonel took it out on a nearby APC. Breaking the Saxon in less than ten seconds, scattering its load of Purifier infantry with well-placed kicks, he then turned his heavy firepower on the militia’s mobile HQ, and Colonel Blaire.
Blaire had organized the enticing weak middle in case Torrent went for it early on in the fight, allowing the militia to encircle and neutralize the Steel Wolf commander once and for all. Up to and including the arrival of Tassa’s force at the city edge, that might have worked in their favor. Now it threatened to unravel their final maneuvers, should Torrent manage to split the militia line.
“Fill that gap,” Raul ordered. “They break though, and we’re done!” They had to hold. Hold and wait, as Tassa lured the Swordsworn out of the city’s edge.
Their modified ForestryMech made an attempt, stalking in between Torrent and the Tribune. Autocannon chipping away some of the Tundra Wolf’s armor, the pilot managed to draw Torrent’s attention long enough for the HQ to fall back a safe distance. Before Torrent could vent his full ire on the Forestry Mod, however, Raul stalked forward of the formation and lined up a long-range shot, carving one of his particle cannons into the Tundra’s flank.
It worked. Torrent shifted his BattleMech’s weight and turned it for the Jupiter. “Raul Ortega. You have deviled me for the last time.”
Raul swallowed dryly. “If you can’t keep up, don’t blame me. Hold on and I’ll call off the dogs.” Switching over to the militia’s all-hands frequency, he ordered, “Lay off the Tundra. Let him come.” Then a dozen missiles cratered his Jupiter’s lower legs, and Raul once again fought to remain standing. Recovering, he back-pedaled, returning to his place in line and drawing the star colonel after.
His fury unleashed, Torrent made his earlier displeasure known by keeping up a sustained rate of heavy fire as he stalked down the militia line. Missiles, laser, missiles again. With the militia units leaving off the Tundra Wolf as a target, the star colonel ignored all but Raul. A distinction of sorts, and one the MechWarrior might have felt better about had not the Tundra’s place at the center of the militia line not been filled almost immediately by the PPC-toting Pack Hunters. The Steel Wolves fielded too many ’Mechs for the militia to keep them contained much longer.