EN PASSANT
TMM Cargo DropPort 21-Gamma, The Ring Knuckle
Laconis, Victoria Commonality
Capellan Confederation
12 August 3145
While the Red Chasseurs further invested themselves around Fort Brown and mobilized a detachment to assault the Warrior House's assembly area, the Capellans were already on the move. Deploying far faster than Taurian planners had anticipated, they sortied an entire augmented battalion before the Chasseurs could move to hit them at the base of the Bronze Combe, the narrow mountain valley that led down from the Acropolis. Led by Lien-zhang Viktor Luschik, the Capellans vectored in on a private DropPort owned by Tauris Majoris Mining, which was also the current base of Clean Kill. They aimed to finally knock the mercenaries out of the conflict once and for all, removing the wild card they had thus far represented from the table.
Unfortunately for the Capellans, Taurian scouts spotted their force en route and warned Clean Kill. When the Warrior House troops arrived, they found the mercs dug in with trenches, artillery and 'Mech-scale defensive earthworks. Lien-zhangs Luschik and Wei took their companies into the teeth of the defenders, drawing their attention. Once they were fully engaged, at bloody cost to the Warrior House, the infamous assault company Jana's Revenge struck with a flanking maneuver that drove the mercenaries out of position, their trademark trio of imposing Yu Huang assault 'Mechs leading the vanguard. Simultaneously, the VTOLs of Lien-zhang Cristobal Hong swung around the line of battle to hit their opponents' artillery, discharging over thirty Amazon battlesuits onto the nearly defenseless Snipers and Catapults and raining a hail of missile and laser fire on them from their Aerons and Yashas.
Clean Kill refused to go down without a fight: the hardscrabble mercs fell back to a second set of prepared positions, forcing the Capellans to dig them out. But they were outnumbered and outgunned, and with their artillery out of commission, defeat was inevitable. After Captain Minka Synek's Griffin was brought down by swarming Ying Long battlesuits, the last few mercenaries powered down and surrendered. Among the captured was the treasonous Home Guard Zhong-shao, Moon Tanaka, whose Thunder had been one of the last BattleMechs to fall. She was turned over to the Warrior House's Maskirovka contingent, who would undoubtedly find her a valuable source of intelligence on the Taurian invaders.
With the DropPort in hand, the Capellans were now in a position to launch the final offensive to break the siege of Fort Brown. However, much would depend on the outcome of the battle no doubt already playing out, as Red Chasseurs tanks and BattleMechs moved to cut off the only approach to the Acropolis...
