Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Seven: Invasion of Alpheratz(First steps)
March 20th, 3036
"Yeehaw!" Carter yelled as her Von Luckner plummeted through the atmosphere. "They won't know what hit them!"
"Ma'am, we've at AA tracking us, Warships are taking them out with precision orbital strikes, but we could still take some hits," The communications officer relayed. "Colonel David is heading down in the Fortress, he's going to coordinate operations from there until we've established a beachhead."
"Alright then, have our fireteam come down in grid Delta-Four, we should be able to flank from there," Carter said after she collected herself back together and began looking at her tactical map. "Our Toro will draw out whatever defenders that they have."
"Twenty seconds to landing!" The driver shouted. "Brace for impact!"
The tank shook and then came to a violent stop as it hit the ground, the heat shield that they rode down on acting as the platform from which they could drive off.
"Kick it in gear, let's not wait around to get hit by enemy artillery," Carter ordered as she continued going through the tacmap.
"Rifle Actual, this is Sniper lead, we had a clean landing, we're en route to assist."
"Copy Sniper Lead, we're sending out our skirmisher to draw out the Arty's defenses before pushing in and clearing them out,"
Carter responded. "I need you to move to Hotel-Nine and use your long-range weapons from there."
"Understood Lead, we're Oscar-Mike to Hotel-Nine."
True to their namesake, Fireteam Sniper mainly consisted of units that mounted Gauss Rifles, PPCs, or LRMs. Notably, the leader of Fireteam Sniper had brought his family's Rifleman with him when he joined the Marksman and had paid extra to have it mounted with twin Gauss rifles and enough ammo to snipe at whatever he pleases.
Combined, the two fireteams pinched the artillery and defenders in a hellish crossfire, gauss slugs, missiles, and autocannon rounds streaming with tracers in the dark of night.
"Artillery is gone, Colonel Davis, the LZ is clear for landing," The comms officer told the 1st Marksman's CO.
"This is Duke Ran Felsner lord of the Periphery March under the direct command of his Highness First Prince Hanse Davion," A voice echoed on every open channel across the planet and the void. "You have attacked my people, and while I am prepared to show mercy, I am also prepared to show you the sword of war. Lay down your arms and you will be treated well, if you should decide to reject this option, then I'll be sending you to hell myself. Choose wisely."
"Ma'am, we have confirmed Nuclear launches, they're aiming to take out our dropships!"
"Hold on Davis, don't go out like this," Carter whispered inside her Mithril's helmet as she watched the Alamo missiles streak across the sky via her tacmap. "Fuck!" She shouted and nearly threw her slate across the enclosed interior of the Von Luckner.
"We've got a half-dozen dropships in an uncontrolled descent! Brace for the shockwaves!"
The trio of tanks that made up Fireteam Rifle immediately shut down their motive systems, not willing to risk damaging them while at the same time the mechs of Fireteams Rifle and Sniper went prone, hoping to avoid the shockwave from some of the dropships that were crashing down from high orbit.
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"Get us over to the downed dropships, we may be able to still get some of our people out of there!" Carter ordered before turning and patching her Mithrilinto the Von Luckner's long ranged EMP hardened comms. "This is Marksman Actual, I need all available units to fall back to our fallen dropships, I'm authorizing a general withdrawal and Search and Rescue units to be launched. Any heavy units are to guard until further notice."
"We've got you covered Marksman Actual, it seems that they targeted your dropships for the most part," Ran Felsner's voice came over their comms systems. "Get your people out of there, we're starting to see some radiation signatures from some of your dropships."
"Copy that sir, we've got our remaining Stings flying CAS while we do search and rescue," Carter replied. "They may try focusing on us seeing as we've lost a good amount of metal."
"If they decided to focus on you then they'll have sealed their fates," Felsner replied. "I'm authorizing limited orbital strikes in lieu of artillery until we're more firmly established on the ground."
March 21st, 3036
"There's not a whole lot left of the Motherlode ma'am," a salvage officer stated. "Most of the 'mechs jumped out, and they packed their jump seats, but we're still short on the personnel count. Colonel Davis is MIA and is presumed KIA until we have confirmation, as are a decent amount of staff officers."
"Thank you, Lieutenant, you're dismissed," Carter said before sitting down in the rubble of the Fortress class dropship and driving her fist into the wall once the other officer had left. "Damn it, Davis!" Tears formed in her eyes for a moment before she compartmentalized and shoved her emotions into a little box in her mind. "I can deal with that later, I've got a job to do right now." She said to herself before taking a deep breath and mentally kicking herself back into the right mental space to assume command of what was left of her unit.
"Colonel, we've got enemy fast movers approaching, looks like they're a mix of fast mediums and lights," the Von Lucknercrew's sensors officer reported. "You may want to get aboard before we make sure the hatches are locked down."
"En route now, ETA is one Mike, Carter replied as she left the wreckage and began sprinting towards her command tank. Quickly reaching it and climbing in via the top hatch before securing it and moving to look at her tactical map. "Focus fire on the enemy Phoenixmediums, they're probably carrying infernos, so don't let them get close. The enemy bugmechs are a secondary priority, let's take out the enemies that are able to make us burn first, and then move on to the rest.