The fight had been going well in our favor. While my touman were hardly veterans, they did seem to grasp fairly standard tactics. Moving to cover heavily damaged friendlies, understanding the importance of a flank, skills valuable to all. I was the Star Captain of the binary leading the attack against the Freebirth outpost across the sandy dunes. Some of their mechwarriors exhibited the skill of veterans of many battles. For what seemed like an eternity we battled them through skirmish after skirmish across the barren desert and fought bitterly for every bit of ground we got. During a particularly brutal assault we managed to push them completely out of the valley while dealing irreparable damage to their corps of strike bomber pilots.
The tactics shifted almost instantly. While we had the valley, we could not push beyond. Taking advantage of the sparse cover, they pinned us down with an endless barrage of missile fire. Time and again, we would attempt an attack and be driven back. We'd have to come up with a new tactic. Using a quick and nimble close-range Shadowcat, I would weave and strafe my way across the no-man's-land up to the nearest bit of cover, driving out the honorless dogs. Occasionally we would catch one of their Catapults and tear into it like the Wolves themselves. Again, the Freebirths lost ground, this time more quickly, until they were forced to stand at the walls of their base itself and continue the barrage - but things had gotten much more interesting.
In addition to the constant threat of missile barrage, they had added several new weapons to their long-range arsenal - A Mad Dog they had no doubt captured awaited in the hills, Gauss rifles at the ready - Demolisher tanks prowled between the buildings, ready to unleash a deadly wall of autocannon fire. Several warriors attempted to clear the ground but did not make it far before being cut down themselves. We would have to change our plan.
While we held our ground behind the rock formations dotting the desert, we brought out our Bondsmen warriors in reserve to form the spearhead of our assault - an Assault-class star. The second star, composed of various heavy and medium-classes would pour into the base behind the first assault. As the Star Captain of the binary, I led the charge from my Mad Cat Mk2. The attack was devastating.
Upon clearing the first dune as our scouts had done before, we immediately were rocked with Gauss fire. Klaxons blared as missiles leapt out from behind the walls to fall upon our heads. After the initial barrage, there was a brief pause, almost too short to notice, where the enemy likely expected us to retreat behind the great sands once again. But there would be no retreat. Standing behind their walls like the cowards they were, unable and unwilling to engage in a battle of equals, by the Great Father himself we would not back down. Then, the star returned fire. Initial fire was concentrated on the picket mechs and the looted Mad Dog - before our own hail of LRM fire, autocannons shaking the sands themselves, and arcs of lasers burning our vision, the first Inner Sphere mech crumbled to the ground, a burning wreck. The Mad Dog began to maneuver into better position for another volley of gauss fire but lost footing, stalled, and then too was battered to the ground.
The Catapults began to retreat deeper into base, while within, their own Assault mechs revealed themselves. A Mad Cat Mk2, like my own, and an Awesome lumbered out of the hangar. A third mech collapsed into a heap. The Assault mechs could come later - I ordered the binary to attack the Calliope turrets and within seconds they were just cinders. I vaulted the wall with my mech, leading the charge. Beneath me, a Devastator madly circled to find cover. Admist the buildings with limited maneuverability, the fight turned into a slugging match, and with great precision one of our warriors pierced the cockpit of the hostile 'Mad Cat'. Blowing it out from the inside. The Awesome and a Catapult madly fell back into their own hangar, sealing their fate. If they wanted to fall back, I would have to bring the fight to them.
I was the first one into the hangar. To the left and right of me, hangar doors rattled open as fresh pilots rushed to power up their mechs. Many of the lighter ones were destroyed before they could even start their power-up sequence. The Awesome, its leg mangled and twisted, fell to the hangar floor. Laser and missile fire criss-crossed the hangar from the mech bays as heavier mechs poured out. Against the back wall was the last of the dezgra, the final Catapult who had retreated as far as he could. There would be no more retreat for him, and no mercy shown. Oblivious to all, I fought with my battered mech, parts of it in flames and barely operational, to bring its final weapons to bear. Missiles poured into the back wall, lasers melted through the armor, and my only functional gauss rifle did the rest. As an explosion rocked my cockpit, sending my entire mech listing to the side, the last thing I saw was the cockpit of the Catapult, pilot still alive, smashing head-first into the hangar floor.
