Part 269: Jeronimo: Breakout - Turn 1

Breakout: Tactical Update 1



It took a brave man to play chicken with five-thousand tons ceramet and titanium mounted with a fusion engine powerful enough lifting it into orbit unassisted. Captain Burnside of the Union-class DropShip Mary Sue was not a brave man. As the first matte-black Union-class ship pierced the 1st Kestrel Grenadiers’ formation, he ordered his pilot to feather the jets and widen the precise triangle of Kestrel DropShips. For a brief instant, their tight formation and overlapping fields of fire parted.

It was precisely the opportunity pilot Tieren had been waiting for. Rolling her Kirghiz on its wingtip, she broke her duel with a lumbering ninety-ton Kestrel Chippewa to thread the gap between the Kestrel dropships’ layered defenses. The Chippewa she’d been fighting turned to follow, its missile ports snapping open as she gave it a clear shot at her unprotected tail, only to veer aside at the last instant as a tiny, bright green thrush flashed into the fighter’s path, its missiles spiraling harmlessly towards the planet below. Invisible in the vacuum of space, her instruments reported a near-miss by one of the DropShip’s PPCs, its telltale passage shown only by a spiking magnetometer. Tieren’s lips curled into a mocking smile. A good try, Sphereoids. But not good enough.

A dull, metallic sphere filled her HUD as the Kirghiz flashed between the ships, and with a roar she felt through the soles of her feet she let fly with a hundred LRMs and her fighter’s trio of ER PPCs. In an instant the surface of the Union-class vessel ran molten white, then was blotted out by a forest of blossoming explosions that tore a hole straight through the vessel’s crew deck. Grinning triumphantly, she kicked her Khirgiz into a breakaway climb. She wouldn’t have the time for a second pass, but it didn’t matter. Once it landed, that DropShip wouldn’t be able to lift for space again without extensive repairs. Not unless her Captain felt comfortable being completely cut-off from the crew trapped in the lower decks, anyway.

“Enjoy reentry,” she called cheerfully to herself, taking a moment to wave at the crew she imagined she could see through the tiny windows at the top of the Union’s broad dome in the instant before her hundred ton fighter blew past. “Assholes!”



Face contorted in anger, Emil Voronov’s glare shifted from secondary monitor to secondary monitor as he traced the movements of his company, the Hell’s Horses, and the few infantry units that hadn’t already retreated into the waiting DropShips. The second Death Commando DropShip lifted from the field, another small Union-class ship, this one now carried the bulk of his infantry. A pity to see them go, but this was no fight for commandos and the salvage had already been lifted to space. All that remained were the `Mechs.

“Your men are in position?” He growled irritably.

The grainy image in his monitor saluted. “We are, sir. Good luck, and kill some Davions for us.”

“You’ll have more opportunity than I will, I suspect,” Emil replied, his angry features cracking into a brief smile. Keeping to plan, over a company of Death Commando infantry would be abandoned on Jeronimo. In a few months, whoever finally won the planet—be it Davion or Hell Horse—would find Jeronimo a hotbed of terrorism and rebellion, its infrastructure sabotaged, and its people angry to the last. For an instant, the thought alone was enough to brighten what was promising to be a very dark day and Emil almost—almost—indulged in a little laughter.

As the first Davion DropShip touched down still leaking smoke and tongues of flame from a massive wound on its upper deck, he could no longer restrain himself.



Mission Objectives:
Secure the Dropships (incomplete)
Hold off the 1st Kestrel Grenadiers (incomplete)

Optional
Defeat the 1st Kestrel Grenadiers’ 2nd Battalion (0/40)
Death Commandos: Defeat more Kestrel Grenadiers than the Hell’s Horses (0/40)
Hell’s Horses: Defeat more Kestrel Grenadiers than the Death Commandos (0/40)







Key:
H1 Rifleman IIC, H2 Cougar D, X1 Banshee IIC
H3 Wolf Spider A, H4 Mad Dog Prime, H5 Stormcrow H
X2 Exterminator IIC, X3 Archer, X4 Po
X5 Blackjack, X6 Dervish, X7 Vindicator
X8 Mongoose, X9 Cyclops IIC, X10 Marauder
X11 Merlin, X12 Atlas, H1 Gargoyle Tjris

Enemy Movement Mods:
S1 Mackie +0
S2 Battlemaster +0
S3 Awesome
S4 Sunfire
S5 Valkyrie +3
S6 Valkyrie +3
S7 Valkyrie +3
S8 Valkyrie +3
S9 Sunfire +2
S10 Sunfire +2
S11 Sunfire +2
S12 Sunfire +2
S13 JagerMech +1
S14 JagerMech +1
S15 JagerMech +1
S16 JagerMech +1
F1 Firestarter, F2 Firestarter, F3 Firestarter, F4 Firestarter
F5 Hunchback, F6 Hunchback, F7 Hunchback, F8 Hunchback
F9 Grasshopper, F10 Grasshopper, F11 Grasshopper, F12 Grasshopper
G1 Phoenix Hawk, G2 Phoenix Hawk, G3 Phoenix Hawk, G4 Phoenix Hawk,
G5 Grasshopper, G6 Grasshopper, G7 Grasshopper, G8 Grasshopper
G9 Shadow Hawk, G9 Shadow Hawk, G9 Shadow Hawk, G9 Shadow Hawk

Player `Mech Status




Enemy `Mech Status




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