Anywhere
Tamar March
Federated Commonwealth
4 March, 3050




     "Leftenant, why are we just sitting here? Our armor elements are getting cut to pieces somehow out there by these pirates.!"

     Fiona took a deep breath before answering. "Can it, Markey. I don't know what's going on, I just know the general's plan seems to have hit a snag. But we can't go off half-cocked. Regimental will get it under control. Battalion says we'll be moving soon. I want a piece of these guys as much as you do."

     Holding her lance back was hard. They all wanted a shot at these raiders. Somewhere along the line, the plan had gone wrong. While they might not be at the top of the battlefield pecking order, the tanks of the RCT were still a huge chunk of guns and armor. They should have been enough to hold these raiders in place. That they seemingly were unable to do so was worrying.

     "Company, move up to grid 3-1-9. Looks like we've found trouble again, First and Second battalions are engaging the hostiles and we're to move up to support any breakthrough."

     She keyed an acknowledgement of the order and kicked her Wyvern up into cruising speed, keeping her lance tight to her as the company moved up, hopefully into some action. They advanced at a solid pace, and what they found was not good.

     Once they broke out of the woodlands into the gently rolling hills of the Brigham Rollo, they stumbled into the battlefield that had become a graveyard for the majority of their armor. In most cases, the hulks of the tanks were still burning. The medics had barely had time to start tending to the wounded, and rescue teams were still swarming over many of the destroyed vehicles.

     The enemy had apparently smashed through the armor regiments and simply kept moving. They were now somewhere ahead, locked in combat with the other two Chasseurs battalions. But the level of destruction she saw formed a pit in her stomach. The armor regiments had been hurt, and hurt badly. There was more to this than a simple pirate raid.

     "Company, apparently the boys in First Battalion are getting their hats handed to them, we're going to reinforce. Kendrick, your lance is to stay back and provide mech support to the protection detail. I guess these guys have some kind of super infantry or something, and the Kommandant wants to make sure the medics and recovery crews don't get caught without protection."

     "Aye sir." She acknowledged the order as she slammed her fist against the console. Fate was doing everything possible to conspire to keep her out of the fight, it seemed. As the rest of her company moved off, she posted her lance at various intervals around the field of carnage. She knew the order made sense, her lance was mainly configured as an urban defense lance, relatively slow but packing significant firepower. This wasn't ideal ground for them to defend, but they were better suited to it than the rest of the company.

     "Leftenant, what are we supposed to do here, twiddle our thumbs?" Always it was Markey with a wise crack.

     "We have to watch the recovery teams. I've got you guys positioned, just keep your eyes open. I'm going to climb out of the cockpit and see how they're doing on the ground."


     Ten minutes later, and she found herself on her knees, spewing her guts onto the ground outside of a M*A*S*H unit. Her heart was still pounding in her ears. The blood, guts, and general level of chaos had overcome her seconds into her visit to the mobile medical van. She had tried to steel herself and overcome it, but the physical sight of so many men and women torn apart and in agony had just overwhelmed her. She had managed to rush out of the door to the unit before the nausea overcame her and she fell to her knees.

     She had just managed to control her breathing, overcoming the reflex to expel more, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Normally she would have tried to brush it off, but her spirit was sapped.

     "It's ok, kid. Ain't a one of us who hasn't spilled our guts on the ground the first few times we saw a battlefield for real."

   "I just....I don't know what I was trying to show myself." She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it back out of her face to observe the person who had happened upon her. He was an infantryman, a sergeant from the looks of his uniform. "I told myself I wanted a feel for what was going on. Guess I got more than I bargained for."

     The groundpounder looked towards the horizon for a moment. "Yeah, well I think that's par for the course today. I've seem my share of pirate raids, this isn't one of them."

     "What do you mean?"

     The sergeant shrugged. "These raiders, they're sharper than any pirate I've ever seen. Got these god awful big armored infantry too. Their mechs were tearing our guys apart from ranges they had no business shooting from, and that was bad enough, but I tell you, when those damn armored infantry ran through us....I've never seen anything like it. Not even spec ops shit. Hell, these guys might as well have been miniature mechs for all the good our small arms fire did against them. Took mech grade weapons to put any kind of hurt on them at all.

     Fiona sat back against the stump of a tree. "So who do you think they are then? If they aren't pirates?"

     "Some kind of super crazy Dracs if you ask me."

     She shook her head to clear her mind and shake the nausea. "Can't be the Combine this far out. Why would you say that?"

     "The open comm channels were clogged with challenges to one-on-one fights, honor duels,  the kind of shit the Snakes eat up with their Bushido code. If you'd have heard it, they'd have all agreed to line up and fight a bunch of staged fights. Like it was all a big game. 'Course it ain't a game to all the boys they tore up when they swarmed all over our lines."

     "We'll get a handle on it. Even if it's Combine raiders, we'll get things under control." She was already trying to recover from her stumble and steel herself for the conflict to come.

     The sergeant smiled as he shook his head. "Ma'am, no disrespect to the rank or anything, but you're still wet behind the ears, aren't you?"

     She cocked her head, sure she could deal with anything this presumptuous veteran gropo could deal out. "Sergeant, this might be my first official combat assignment, but I'm a damn good Mechwarrior, near top of my class at the Robinson Battle Academy, and I know what I'm doing. We will get this under control, do you hear me?"

     The sergeant chuckled. "Leftenant, sir. I know this probably don't mean much, but I've got a few years of reading people. When you've seen as many people wear the uniform as I have, you pick up a thing or two. I can get a read on people. My family, we're 7th generation Lyran Commonwealth Armed forces, and damn near all of us have been groundpounders. I've got two girls in the service probably close enough to your age. And they're both groundpounders. Tough as nails and built like softball players. You, you're from a noble family I'd wager. You're built like a dancer. Ain't nothing against you, I'd wager you're a fine mech jockey. But I've got a finger a hell of a lot closer to the pulse of this shit than you, ma'am. This.....this is something big."

     She wanted nothing more than to dispel the man of his notion, but she knew in that moment that she had no case at all. And it scared her.