Scavenged Restoration 32 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFang

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 32

-VB-

Major Wilhelm Archal hadn’t expected much resistance. 

He was but the tip of the spear. He would be the first Canopian officer to take an Inner Sphere territory. 

If need be, he could call for help from the rest of the regiments following after him.

But help was not going to arrive fast enough to rescue him and his command from this!

“Goddamnit!” he roared from within his Marauder as he tried to shoot down another one of these primitive mechs that the Capellans had dug out of somewhere! 

He looked down at his MechID and saw the FRB-1E (EXTINCT) again. 

Distracted as he was, he didn’t see another one of those damned Inferno Rockets and felt his mech shaking violently when they slammed into his left torso. His mech screamed at him that it was reaching critical heat levels.

“Fucking bastard!” he hissed. 

He looked at the status of his lance, company, and the battalion. 

It was … It was bad. 

Half of his battalion’s companies were down by a third while his personal command lance was gone except for him. 

He twisted his Marauder’s torso around and took a double Large Laser fire at the Firebee that shot that inferno rocket at him, and he watched with a small satisfaction as the strafing lasers ate away at the Firebee’s armor and then the structure beneath it. 

But that was the problem about these Firebees, wasn’t it? They were weak. It didn’t take much for his soldiers to burn them through. The problem, though, was that each and every single one of these Firebee mechwarriors were insane. If they were about to die and were within a jump reach of an enemy, then they will jump at them to bring them down physically. 

And once a mech got brought down physically, then the suicidal Capellan infantries will do everything in their power to kill the pilot within an enemy mech.

“This is Major Archal to all MAF troops on the ground,” he said after pressing down on his radio. “The Capellans have showing us a stiffer resistance than what we’ve been told would be the case. We are all pulling back to the landing zone and beefing up our defenses! All company commanders are to ensure an orderly retreat, understood?!” 

Before he could hear any replies, he saw something in the left periphery of his vision.

Then his mech screamed at him. 

He whirled around just in time to see it. 

A Vindicator with an axe. 

“What the f-?!” he cussed out before the Vindicator jumped at him and slammed into his Marauder. 

Even if the Vindicator was a medium mech and his Marauder was a heavy mech, it was still forty-five tons of metal moving at high speed on top of the angle that it had come down on him. His Marauder groaned as it buckled under the tackle and -.

He looked up just in time to see the Vindicator raise its axe up.

“Fuck you!” Archal roared as he whirled his torso around while his Large Lasers fired into the midriff of the Vindicator. 

The spin and the attack threw the medium mech off of him but not before the axe came down and slammed into his already damaged and burning left torso. 

The status screen flared red as Archal felt his mech’s entire balance shifting. He immediately tilted his mech to the left and looked at the mech status screen. The entire left torso - and the left arm - had been sheared off!

“Fucker!” he hissed as he tilted down at the mech and fired off the AC/5 and the right Large Laser. 

The projectile and the laser slammed into the medium mech but it tanked it! As his weapons cycled, the Vindicator got back up but not without damage. Its left leg was in ruins and the center torso looked bare of any armor. 

And then it jumped at him with jump jets again! 

This time, Archal was ready. He’d already began moving but instead of a clear backward movement, he took three steps back … and then turned around as he began to step forward. 

And as the Vindicator sailed overhead, he shot more AC/5 at it. Three shots rang out but only one hit. But that one hit landed in the center torso and sent it tumbling down. 

Seeing his chance, he fired his Large Laser and watched it burn through the center torso.

He grinned when he hit something critical and the mech exploded! 

“Fucking commie cunt,” he muttered as he turned around to join the retreat. 

But the moment he did, he got blasted in the back with even more inferno rockets. 

When he turned back around… there were two more Firebees and another axe-wielding Vindicator quickly closing in on him.

“FUCKING RATS -!” he roared.

And then the ammo in his center torso got lit up by the inferno rockets.

Then he got blasted in the cockpit by a Vindicator’s PPC before his ammo finished cooking. 

-VB-

Colonel Shuhao kept his head bowed as more reports came in. 

Both the 9th Confederation Reserve Cavalry and the New Rolan Militia suffered but what was more important was that they made their enemies suffer more.

Each dead Capellan was a martyr who would be honored by his family and community. Each servitor who took out a Canopian mechwarrior or tank crew was one who raised his family in status and thus raised his community in status. Each Capellan mechwarrior who held the line and blasted the money-grubbing whores who thought they could march into confederation space and just take their lives, land, and people…?

Such a mechwarrior was the heart of the Capellan Confederation. 

For the state was the culmination of the people, their culture, and their history. Outsiders who came here to burn it all away to replace it with cheap plastic did not deserve the honor of even being named. 

No, he bowed his head for the sacrifices his people made. 

Across the three landing zones, every single Canopian company was being pushed back. 

New Roland would be safe within the week, and though New Roland itself was but the furthest Capellan world from Sian… it was, at the end of the day, a Capellan world.

And if New Roland managed to beat back a whole battalion of Canopian mechs and troops, then not only did New Roland did its job, it did a damn good job. 

Never mind the salvage he and his men would find among downed Canopian mechs. However, salvage was a bonus, not the point. 

“How many of the enemy have we slain so far?” he asked his command room.

“Colonel, we have confirmed fifty-three mech kills and six tank kills.”

“And aerospace fighters?”

“Unknown, but minimum three confirmed kills.”

Hmm. It wasn’t a total victory, then. Barely over half of their number was down, and their dropships were still uncaptured.

“And how many of our men and women are dead?” he asked.

“... Sixty Firebees are down. Only eight are in any salvageable condition. Forty-three Firebee mechwarriors are KIA. Ten tank crews are KIA along with their rides.”

“And the rest?” 

“Outside of Firebees, we have fifteen more downed mechs, only seven are beyond repair.”

That was … good. Unlike Firebees, the rest of the mechs under his command weren’t so easy to repair and replace. 

Hell, he expected to get at least a company of Firebees and a lance’s worth of replacement parts once New Roland was completely secured. That’s how quickly the state was making Firebees. 

Sure, Firebees weren’t strong as a Panther, fast as a Locust, or ubiquitous as an Urbanmech… but it was faster than a Panther, tougher than a Locust, and easier to use than an Urbanmech. It was perfect for fresh mechwarriors. 

And if those fresh mechwarriors died in the service of the state, then they died doing their duty. Those who survive the baptism by fire would grow stronger and more skilled. Perhaps in the future, they would be given a Vindicator to pilot.

The thought made him pause. 

… That was it, wasn’t it? Just as the Vindicator had been made to be the state’s most fitting mech, the Firebee too had been made by the confederation and made to fit how the confederation worked. 

Vindicators and Firebees. 

What an odd pair. 

But surprisingly heartwarming to his Capellan heart. 

“Sir.”

“Yes?”

“The ground observatories have noted new jumps into the system, and there’s been no response for our reinforcements from High Command. It seems like the Canopian reinforcements have arrived into the system.”

Colonel Lin Shuhao sniffed. “Let them come. We’ll burn them all.”

-VB-

By the time I landed on Sian, the war already turned to my people’s favor. 

My preparations beforehand prevented any of the worlds along the borders from being taken and held them up. At the same time, the soldiers who had been on the coreward borders had moved half-way across the confederation and would arrive to reinforce the defenders within a week or two. 

Maskirovka also noted something odd. 

Instead of sending all of their regiments at once, the Canopians and Anduriens had held back half of their regiments while allowing the other half to advance. 

“How many worlds are under siege?” I asked immediately after entering the High Command Center. 

All of the officers and civilians alike stood up and saluted me before I waved them back to their jobs. 

One of the officers who had been in the High Command, Major Icarra Sung of the Death Commandos, turned to me to give me the report. 

“Eleven worlds, Chancellor Liao,” he reported. “Currently, New Roland, Andarmax, Sax, Principia, Niomede, Shiba, Sigma Mare, Betelgeuse, Lattice, Palladaine, Westerhand, and Altorra are under assault.”

“Any of them in need of significant reinforcements? Aside from those already on the way?” 

“None, Your Chancellorship,” he shook his head. “Your foresight prevented the confederation from outright losing the rimward worlds, and Betelgeuse smashed the double regiment assault with ease.”

I hummed, satisfied. Betelgeuse was a very important manufacturing world. It alone could match a fifth of the Sian Commonality’s output. Losing it was not an option, and my planning for that region did center around Betelgeuse. 

But even then, Betelgeuse had Warrior House Kamata, multiple mercenary companies, and then their own homegrown militia units. Two regiment was nowhere near enough to take Betelgeuse.

It made me question just how shoddily the Canopians and Anduriens had done their intelligence work prior to the invasion. Or did my Maskirovka do a very good job at misdirecting, misinforming, and disturbing our new enemies? 

I’ll have to read the latest Maskirovka intelligence reports. 

But, right now, Altorra concerned me. 

Altorra was two jumps from Sian, and though it had around a billion citizens, it was not a heavily defended planet. 

“What’s the situation like on Altorra?” 

“Holding, chancellor,” someone else reported. “Altorra is the subject of Andurien’s second major assault. Our latest report from the ground note that ten dropships have been used to ferry one regiment. The defenders, the 1st and 2nd Altorra Militia Battalion and the garrison mercenaries, are holding but due to mech weight differences, they are losing mechs quickly.”

I turned to Icarra Sung. “I want the Death Commandos to secure the doorstep of Sian.”

The man saluted. “As you will it, chancellor.”

I nodded and turned back to look at the rest of the High Command Center and the display of the current war. 

I took a deep breath in.

There was no rest for the wicked, and the reward for good work was more work. 

“... Let’s kick out these foreign invaders,” I snapped with a hiss and the rest of the command echoed my words.

-VB-

Capellan Bee Swarm

Classification: legitimate military tactic, memeImage: made by an unknown Capellan artist

Military: Capellan Bee Swarm refers to a very specific and hated type of frontal military assault as experienced by the enemies of the Capellan Confederation. Many have likened this assault to getting attacked by a literal hive of bees. Though one can individually kill each bee, the defender cannot kill the entire swarm before they themselves are routed by hundreds of sweltering stings (inferno rockets). This tactic relies on cheap Firebee mechs and the inferno rockets they come equipped with on default, and allows any single point to be overwhelmed if not similarly and overwhelmingly reinforced by the defender. 

Meme: Bees go Brrrrrr. 

-VB-

A/N: Will is back at Sian at the head of the command, Canopian attack stalled along New Roland, Sax, and Andarmax and the Andurien assault couldn’t even get past “weakly” defended Altorra, Palladine, and Westerhand, which have been “demilitarized” for the Fourth Succession War. 

A/N2: similar to how the Capellans are distrustful of outsiders, the center image of the meme, Goonswarm Federation from EVE Online, are also very distrustful of outsiders. “One does not simply become a Goon,” as the saying goes, especially since Goonswarm Federation began as an outside force moving into EVE Online, not natively and organically forming from within.