Ouch! Somebody's bankrolling the bad guys rather more than anyone expected... :-\
Two thugs in Zathran uniforms threw Greyhound into a cell and smashed the door behind her. Her Mechwarrior outfit was burned and torn, she was battered and bruised, but still managed to curse her jailors sevenfold. As the door closed behind her, she threw herself at them and started pounding them with her fists: “Let me out! Hey! Let me out!” Someone answered her from the darkness of the room: “I tried that already and it didn’t help. Take a seat before you hurt yourself, kid.” She quickly turned and tried to focus on the darkness: “Who is here? Identify yourselves!” Menacing hulk of a man appeared in front of her and she almost screamed before a familiar voice started to talk: “Kukri, first lance. We have met before. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.” He returned to the back of the room and sat back on the floor. She released a breath she didn’t know she was holding and joined him: “They got you too?” Kukri shrugged: “Yeah. I was just about to retreat when a fricking Atlas suckerpunched me with a fist. My poor Mech landed two hundred meters further down the road and before I managed to stand up, he got me in his crosshairs. I surrendered. Nothing else to do.” “Atlas? They have a frigging ATLAS?” “Yeah. They do. What about you?” She threw her arms in an annoyed fashion: “They caught me in crossfire during risky firing run. I timed it correctly, but they got lucky. My Mech is done for. Not much left of it.” “Mine is actually all right. I saw them towing it behind lines.” She saw the despair in his face and felt his pain. Someone else was going to ride his beloved Mech against his friends. She considered losing her Mech a disaster, but now she found out that it was a blessing in disguise. “Do you know if the rest got away?” “I hope so. I haven’t seen anyone else drop at the time when they took me.” He smiled humourlessly: “A lot could have changed after that. But if they have more prisoners, they would have put here with us.” She nodded: “What you think they will do with us?” Kukri shrugged again: “So far, they were pretty civil, but I don’t think it will last. They already threatened me if I don’t tell them what they want to know. And they didn’t make good on their promises so far just because they didn’t have enough time, not for a goodness of their hearts.” There was a long silence afterwards. There was not much more to say. “Try to sleep, kid. Not much going on right now and we are going to need our strength.”----Gunfire woke them up. The room didn’t have a window, so there was impossible to tell time, but they guessed that few hours passed and there must have been night outside. It sounded like a firefight outside and behind those doors. Kukri stood up: “You better stand behind me, kid.” She was scared but tried to look tough. It wasn’t really working, so she moved behind his broad shoulders. Gunfire was now closer and soon the heard shot fired inside the house. After that, someone shouted: “Kalmar!” They replied both without thinking: ”Hussars!” Greyhound started to pound on the door again: “We are here! Down the stairs!” There was a pause and same voice replied: “We’re coming! Stay put!” Kukri murmured: “It is not like we have a choice, is there?” After a minute, they heard voices on the other side. “Get away from the doors! We are going to blow the lock!” Kukri shoved Grehound into the corner, covered her with his big body and yelled: “Ready!” “Fire in the hole!”Someone blew the doors with a shotgun blast and as they opened, Jeremy DeVries, Lance Leader of the second Lance walked in with a giddy smile: “Slacking here, are we?” Greyhound was never so happy to see anyone’s face. She threw his arms around him and gave him a big kiss. He laughed: “Alright, all forgiven! See? I am soft!” Kukri nodded to him with a grin: “I appreciate the help, but I am not going to kiss you.” “I appreciate that right back, big guy.” Greyhound stepped back, blushing: “You came for us?” “It was just a good luck that one of our Boomerang pilots saw you being taken and stayed in the clouds long enough to pinpoint this makeshift prison. We got here as soon as we could.” Greyhound looked suspicious: “Does Rusalka know you came for us?” Kukri grinned: “You still don’t know the woman, Greyhound? She is very likely up there as we speak.” DeVries nodded: “True enough. Last time I saw her, she was sorting the prisoners we took here. Looks like a lot of them speak Chinese and came from Liao space. Weapons and equipment too. I have no clue what that means for us.” He put his shotgun on his shoulder: “Lets get out of here.”
Vandal tossed his neurohelmet against the table: “What the frack are they trying to do?! We are holding this stupid ford for eight days and every day they line up to cross, fire a few shot just to back off when we move against them. 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM. Every day like a clockwork. What are they playing at?!” Rusalka, also in her Mechwarrior suit, had already her feet on the table: “They are trying to lull us into complacency and they are doing a good job about it.” Vandal looked confused and Rusalka sighed: “Look, if you know that they will come every 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM and not press their attack… you expect them to do it every single time. You don’t expect them to attack in any different timeframe, location or to actually press their attack. They lulled you into routine. When they really attack, it will surprise you.” Vandal thought about it: “When you put it that way… that is actually pretty clever. When we know what they are doing, why don’t we do something about it?” Rusalka twisted her lips in frustration: “Because there is not much that we can do about it. We lost most of two local brigades during the retreat because local command didn’t tell us that they didn’t have any dedicated transports attached to them. They just dumped them on the frontline and that was that. We know that most of them evaded capture and are raising some heat for the enemy from the woods, but still, that leaves weak. I can’t break this stalemate with an attack. They have superiority in numbers and favourable position. Even if they didn’t have that zasraný Atlas. And they do. We also can’t move because we have to protect the access to the capital. So the only thing we can do is to sit tight and wait for them to make a mistake.” There was a silence in the room as other Mechwarriors undressed from their suits and helmets. One of the Boomerang pilots, Myron, knocked on the open door pro forma: “May I, ma’am? We think that we found something. We were counting enemy vehicles against us and we believe they are moving them out under the cover of night and replace them with dummies. The changes are subtle and we are not sure 100%, but we are reasonably sure. At least 80%. We think they will try to break through somewhere else.” Rusalka smiled broadly: “And I believe they just made that mistake.”
Yup. Raiding the raiders. Sounds fun. Unless you stumble on certain 100 ton mech. If that is not a dummy as well.
