BattleTech by Bryan Young

Author:Bryan Young [Young, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catalyst Game Labs

CHAPTER

EIGHT

CITY HALL

ADZE

HAMMER

DUCHY OF TAMARIND-ABBEY

FREE WORLDS LEAGUE

19 JULY 3148, 0025 HOURS

It was in the latest minutes of the night—or the earliest of the day, depending on personal perception—and everything Legatus Quintus Liberalis could tell of the situation was bad. The reconnaissance force had been almost completely annihilated, with only one MechWarriors returning. Although she came back with valuable data, the picture she painted was grim. They were facing a deeply entrenched force and a steep road that was well-mined. And he’d lost almost an entire century of ’Mechs, a century he needed if he was going to take the capital.

And now they were gone, his once great advantage slimming by the hour.

Centurion Li and the rest of the staff, Sousa and the rest, sat across from him at the table as they both looked up at the map on the wall, wondering how in the name of Ignatius O’Reilly’s beard they would take Martillo without substantial losses. Sure, they might be able to take the capital, but would there be anyone left to hold it?

“I admit the situation looks grim,” Centurion Li said with an air of hope, apparently masking his regret at the failed recon mission, “but we still have options. This will not be our total defeat on Hammer. We still have ’Mechs and artillery.”

Quintus looked at all the dots on the map that represented likely mercenary forces. “We have a foe that whittles at our forces and is defending a city with one way in and one way out. What options do you think we have, Centurion?”

Li made no response. He merely stared at the map as hard as Quintus was, and neither of them came up with anything. Based on the data sent back from the scouts before they were disabled or perished, they were heavily fortified along every axis of the road. The screen rotated through readouts of the variations of the enemy ’Mechs that had been encountered and the mission leader’s last transmission and the reports from the ground crews in Adze indicated that the artillery guns at the top of the mountain were both operational and deadly accurate.

“It’s grim,” Quintus said finally, then pointed to a different approach at the mountain. “What of this?” The elevation changes were much more severe, and no road led up there. The march would be forced if they could even make it through the much higher density of trees.

Katherine Sousa shook her head. “The logistics of a march like this wouldn’t agree with us. We’d need to clear trees and that would leave us exposed, even though the guns couldn’t fire on us. We’d want to stage from the west instead of the south where we’re organized now, but I think it might cause more problems than it solves. What of an approach from the north?”

Quintus pursed his lips. The north posed different problems entirely, and didn’t address the issue with the west either. There was a lake on the north side and a river in a deep ravine running through it.

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