Gunman

Fighting in the Arena (05.13.01)

Before the Clans invaded, there was a lot of time for entertainment, and who better to provide that entertainment than the Inner Sphere Mechwarriors.  And if some of them got killed, hey, who cared, it's not like we were at war or anything.

I was at the second round of the Solaris VII arena tournament and this round would put me in the final in no time.  I was piloting a Thug, and old mech that was made before XL engines started to appear, and we were able to put more weapons and keep the engine; it had 2 PPCs and 2 SRM 4; I could have brought my Awesome, but I used the only PPC in my inventory to repair it and it would be foolish to loose it again.  I was inside a hole in one of the many Solaris enclosed Arenas.  It was dark inside the Thug, but when the fight started and I was clear to power-up, the light came both from inside and outside my cockpit.

I quickly used my targeting system to detect my opponents: a Thug, an Atlas and a Stalker; the Thug and the Stalker were heading straight for me, while the Atlas was heading for the Stalker.  As soon as I got out of my hole, I saw the Stalker on my left firing its missiles, and they missed.  I twisted my torso, and started firing my 2 PPCs at him in group.  The Stalker was also taking heavy fire from the Atlas to his left, and I had less than a minute before the Thug was in firing range.  The Atlas took out the Stalker's left missile rack, and I took out the right one.  I then turned to fire my SRMs to the Thug, which made him go in reverse and hide again, and I took advantage of this to give a few more shots at the Stalker.  My PPCs and the Atlas missiles and large lasers made his torso go red in half a minute, and it exploded in less than a second.

What would the Atlas do now?  I targeted him and it seemed he was going for the Thug too, maybe because the Thug had his torso damaged by my SRMs and I only had some little damage to my arms.  I decided to go along and take out the Thug, since he had came out of his hole and we were firing at each other at close range.  The Atlas was still far away, and me and I was going around my opponent firing to the left at him.  My torso and legs had gone yellow, and I managed to take out one of his arms when I saw him being hit by the Atlas LRMs.  We were in his hole, and I got out of the hole so that the Thug would follow me and the Atlas could have a full line of fire. 

I took out his remaining arm, and saw the Atlas moving to close range of him.  I remembered the Thug still had his two SRMs like I did, and it seems he was sparing them to when he lost his arms, because I was taking missile hits after he went out of arms.  I moved to hide out behind the Atlas, so that he would take those missiles.

When I was at a safe range, I tried to enter the hole and shoot my PPCs at the Thug at the same time, when I did the stupidest thing.  I was too hasty at shooting, and didn't wait to get a fully clear line of fire, so my left PPC hit the Thug, while the right one hit the Atlas! I thought "Oh, what now?", and reached for my comm and said something we don't say everyday to an enemy.

- Oops. Sorry about that, didn't want to hit you. - my communications were probably all damaged, since he didn't seem to hear it. But HIS comm was A.O.K.

- You want some of me? Come on! - that was the Atlas mechwarrior's answer.

I was in deep trouble now.  One shot from his large laser and another one from his AC/20 and BOOM!  There goes my left arm (and one of my PPCs).  I had to fight, I couldn't quit just like that.  I counter attacked with all I had, the size of the Atlas made him an easy target for my SRMs.  I was too fast as I ran around him, he kept missing with his lasers and was too close for the LRMs.  He probably wasted most of his AC/20 on the Stalker, cause he started moving away to get me in range of the missiles.  The Thug wasn't doing a good job either with his missiles, he ran out of ammo and started to run away in panic.  The Atlas went into another hole and I was above him and in a perfect firing position, I kept shooting and shooting, took out both his arms that were already heavily damaged before he went there, then went for the torso, hoping for a miracle.

In a few minutes he exploded, and I heard quick 3 beeps , which made me laugh. What's the matter? Internal ammo explosion ?  All that AC/20 and LRM ammo does quite a lot of damage when they all explode at once, don't they ?  And part of the Atlas were intact, so that meant I could salvage it, only the pilot got killed.  Only one unarmed mech left.

The Thug was running away, making a turn around the hole where the Atlas exploded.  I was running to him, and he was running to my right.  He wanted to get out of this with honor, since he's speed made me look like a fool as I tried to hit him with my remaining PPC and was always missing, and I only had enough missiles for one shot only.  Finally I made the turn and was right behind him and running.  I kept firing my cannon, and his torso remained yellow.  Finally, I got close enough, SRMs at range ?  Got a lock ?  FIRE !  They all hit his back and his torso went red, I was out of missiles and all I had to now was fire a few more times with the cannon.  After two shots he said:

- No, wait !  Have mercy, I'll give you whatever you want, but spare me ! - if I did that, I would be disqualified and all the work I had would be useless.

- Sorry, buddy.  I have to kill you, those are the rules. You're being a coward by asking me that, but I salute your skill in battle - I pressed the fire button and watched the PPC shot leaving my right arm.

- No, please, no aaaaaaaaarrrrgg! - those were his last words. 

- And we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen - a show-host voice came out of my comm - the mercenary Gunman is going to the final!

- Good work, mercenary - that was the arena judge - you are cleared to enter the hangar bay to your left and shut down.

I did that, and 5 minutes later I was out of my Thug.  The techs started examining it, and Daniel Wilkis, the best mechwarrior of my mercenary company, gave me a hard pat in the back.

- Nice work there, boss.  Couldn't have done better myself.

- That's my problem, Daniel.  You could.

We went to a bar to have some drinks.  After the money I got for that, plus the money I would get from all the salvage, I think I could pay for that.

- Authored by:  Gunman

The Jade Trap - Part 1 (08.16.02)

On the city Tombora, capital city of the planet Mara, nothing could be heard except for the earth shaking steps of two Battlemechs wondering the city. This planet had been conquered recently by Clan Jade Falcon, on one of their usual border skirmishes with the Lyran Alliance. The planet had been taken by the clanners, and Katrina Steiner sent the Skye Rangers to take care of it. They had liberated the city one month after its conquest, and all that was left of the clanners on the planet were some scattered units.

The two mechs that were in the city at the moment were an Argus and a Mauler, piloted by Hydra and Gunman respectively. As Tactical Officer, Hydra was formally inspecting the city, while Gunman was marking destroyed mechs so that his salvage trucks could roll in later and retrieve them.

"This city is rather quite, Gunman. Shouldn't they be applauding us or anything?

"Well, the clanners had some time to put some of the civilians through their re-education program. Many citizens are displeased with our liberation, and the ones that are not are afraid of demonstrating."

"How many citizens were re-educated exactly?"

"You can estimate that by looking to your right, sir."

Hydra turned his torso right to see what Gunman was referring to. Nothing. Then he heard some shouting and looked below, and saw a large mob on the road. Hydra zoomed on them with his reticle, and saw them starting to throw Molotov cocktails at his right leg. His mech shook a bit to the right, and the computer was warning him of minor superficial damage to the leg. It all stopped when Gunman fired one shot of his LBX-AC 20 at the mob, and made them all spread out into hiding.

"Enemy mob neutralized, sir."

Hydra took a few seconds to recover from that, trying to ignore the blood circle that was in the place where the mob once stood.

"Yes... thank you, Gunman... that's quick thinking... Now, you're gonna stay here and supervise the work of the salvage trucks. I'm going to Nav Alpha and join the 4th Skye Rangers Lance II, and patrol the surrounding area."

"Acknowledge. Good luck, sir."

"Thanks.", said Hydra has he moved off the city in his Argus, to join the Lance which he would be taking on patrol.

Hydra was 500 meters from Nav Alpha when he spotted the lance he was going to command. The lance was made of a Thanatos, a Zeus, and a Dragon, piloted by Firewalker, Dragon, and Gallows.

"Welcome LT-COL Hydra. This is SenSGM Firewalker, I'm transmitting the lance's command codes to you."

"Thanks. Command, this is Hydra. I'm taking command of Firewalker's lance, and designating it Havoc Lance. Havoc lance, please report in."

"This is Firewalker, Havoc 2. Ready to go, sir!"

"This is Dragon, Havoc 3. Ready and operational."

"This is Gallows, Havoc 4. Let me have'em, sir.

"This is Hydra, Havoc 1. All ready to go. Form up on me and lets start our patrol. Proceeding to Nav Beta. Once there, keep radars at full range and wait 15 minutes."

10 minutes after Havoc lance reached Nav Beta, some activity started to appear.

"Sir, this is Firewalker. I got something."

"What?"

"Contact. Bearing 340, at 900 meters. It's a Mad Cat II."

"I got him. Let's finish him."

Havoc lance moved to engage the Mad Cat II, but before they were in firing range, the Mad Cat entered a path between two cliffs. When they arrived to the path, Hydra ordered them to stop.

"I don't know about you, Havoc lance, but I think this is a trap."

"I agree.", said Firewalker, "perhaps we should split in two. One group goes through the path and the other stays behind, to make sure the other one doesn't get overwhelmed."

"OK. Me and Havoc 4 have the fastest mechs so we're going in. Havoc 1 and 2, you stay here and guard the entrance."

The Thanatos and the Zeus assumed guard positions, blocking the path, while the Argus and the Dragon went in pursuit of the Mad Cat II.

"Gallows here. I got the Mad Cat in front of us at 700 meters and closing."

"I got it too. He's still running away, but we're faster. Command, this is Hydra, we are going to begin our attack on the target with long range weapons. Prepare your LRMs, Gallows."

"I'm aiming my LRM and my Heavy Gauss, sir."

The two mechwarriors aimed their reticles at the enemy. Hydra was waiting for a missile lock, while Gallows was about to fire his heavy gauss rifle, when surprisingly, the Mad Cat II engaged his jump jets.

"Sir, he's jumping!", Gallows said that while wondering what was his target doing. Apparently the path was a dead end, but the Mad Cat II managed to jump to the top of the cliff that was blocking the path, and quickly disappeared out of Gallows sight. Fortunately for Gallows, Hydra was paying more attention to his radar screen.

"Contact! I got 4 contacts moving in very fast at 12 o'clock. They're... oh no! They're Shilone bombers! Gallows, run as fast as you can out of here!"

The two mechs turned around and started running towards the exit. The 4 Shilones were going to enter the path and drop bombs continuously along the path. If they catched the two mechs, not only would they receive damage from the bombs, but all those explosions from the bombs would probably make the cliffs on their sides fall over them. Gallows's Dragon was a bit faster than Hydra's Argus, so he was leading the way. Hydra could almost feel the bombs falling not too far behind him, his heart was beating at the speed of the legs of his mech hitting the ground, and his breathing was at half that speed. He shouted "Emergency power!" to his onboard computer, but than he remembered that mechs no longer had MASC, so instead he pushed his throttle control again, to make sure his mech was really giving maximum speed. After a while, he started seeing Firewalker and Dragon at the end of the path.

"Havoc 1 and 2, get out of the way, and prepare to intercept bombers doing a fly by."

"Roger!", answered Firewalker. The Zeus and the Thanatos moved away from the path entrance and aimed high, ready to intercept the bombers. Shortly after, Hydra and Gallows exited the path while the two cliffs were falling over it. The 4 Shilones stopped dropping bombs, and when they saw the two mechs aiming at them, they immediately pulled up. One of them pulled up a bit late and the Thanatos quickly vaped him. Dragon also managed to destroy another one with his Zeus, since he fired as soon as he saw one of them.

"This is Firewalker. Got one! The other two are getting out of my range."

"Not for me. I'm on them.", answered Dragon. The Zeus quickly shot one down with his large laser, and the other one with his LRM 10.

"There, that's 4 less Clanner hotshots." But while Dragon was celebrating, he didn't notice what was about to fall on top of him. Hydra noticed the Mad Cat II coming from the air. The Clanner pilot probably ran through the outer side of the cliff along with the bombers, and was now using his height advantage to execute a perfect Death from Above on Dragon. This guy is good, thought Hydra.

"Dragon, you got an Assault Clanner falling on you, get out of there!"

"What the... AAARRRGGG!" Dragon was too late to notice the Mad Cat II falling on him. The Clanner "touched" the Zeus and then jumped again to get away from any eventual explosion. But the Zeus didn't exploded, it just fell on the ground with black smoke coming out of its torso.

"Dragon? Dragon, talk to me! You Clanner bastard!" Hydra had to avenge his friend. He knew that anything as light as an Argus never defeated a Mad Cat II, but there was a first time for anything right?

Firewalker saw the same thing as Hydra and moved to engage the Mad Cat II. But suddenly he heard 4 beeps in his cockpit, which meant that 4 LRMs were headed his way. They hit him right in the back, and his torso turned yellow in the damage display. However, his radar showed no enemy contacts behind him.

"Firewalker, this is Gallows. I think I spotted two light mechs firing those LRMs. Go help the boss, I'll go get'em."

"Thanks Gallows, put that one on my tab."

Hydra's Argus was running around the Mad Cat II, firing his rapid fire weapons as much as he could, running at top speed in an effort to avoid the Mad Cat's Gauss Rifles. The Clanner had good accuracy, but was interrupted by Firewalker firing his lasers at his back.

"Thanks for the help, Firewalker. Aim for his legs!" Firewalker complied with Hydra, and they both started shooting the Mad Cat's chicken legs, and the Clanner pilot started noticing his disadvantage against the fast Argus and the heavily armoured Thanatos.

On the other side of the battle, Gallows was targeting one of the Cougars. The Cougar started running to his right, but before he gained speed, Gallows got a heavy gauss rifle hit on him. He then got a missile lock, and noticed the lock was acquired faster than usual.

"That's why Firewalker couldn't see them on the radar. They're probably using BAP" he concluded. The other Cougar moved to his back and started firing at his torso, but Gallows had to put up with it and take out the Cougar in front of him as soon as possible.

The Mad Cat II was already crumbling on one leg only, but still managed to inflict medium damage all over Hydra.

"Lets finish this, Havoc 2. Alpha strike on the remaining leg... NOW!"

Both mechs fired all their weapons on the remaining leg, and that leg exploded making the Mad Cat fall, crushing its cockpit and the pilot within.

Gallows had finally finished off the Cougar with a well aimed heavy gauss shot on his torso. He turned to the one on his back and surprised him an Alpha strike, taking out his right torso. Seeing his disadvantage, the Cougar pilot still tried to escape with his mech, but Gallows Dragon had the speed to keep up with him so it was just a matter of time.

"Havoc 1, this is Havoc 4. All targets destroyed and I have no further contacts. Medium damage to torso and all the rest has light damage."

"This is Havoc 2. No contacts either. I'm all A.O.K."

"Roger that. Dragon, this is Hydra, please come in."

After a pause, the voice of Dragon came in "Er... what?"

"What's your status, are you injured?"

"Just a bit bruised. It's not everyday that you get a 90 tons mech fall on top of ya. I got heavy damage all over and I lost one of my LRMs."

"OK. Gunman, this is Hydra, we're gonna need a repair truck in here ASAP."

There was no response except for some static. "Command, please patch me to Gunman, we need repairs."

A response came in, but it wasn't Gunman. The communication came with a lot of static: "This is Salvage truck 192, we are under attack by Jade Falcon mechs and need assistance! We're in real trouble. We got only one Assault mech protecting us."

This meant that the city is under attack, and the battle Havoc lance was just in was probably to distract them. Hydra started considering what to do.

"Havoc 1, this is Havoc 2. What are your orders?"

"Well... we got back to the city and give Gunman a hand. Dragon, you think you can keep up with us?"

"Heh, I'm way tougher than you think I am. Just lead the way."

"Great. Gunman mounted a Repair bay in the city. You'll get repaired when we get there. Let's move to Nav City."

"Roger!" said all of Havoc lance together, and so they moved back to Tombora, hoping they were not too late.

- Authored by:  Gunman

The Jade Trap - Part 2 (09.17.02)

Gunman was taking cover between some of the buildings in the city. A short while ago he was supervising the salvage trucks operations, until he took a PPC hit by surprise, and then he quickly took cover and ordered the trucks to spread out. Now that he was sure he was protected, he carefully checked his radar for contacts. He noticed the trucks spreading out, and also two enemy contacts: a Thanatos and an Uziel, probably the one that hit him in the first place, and they were advancing from the south, with the Uziel way ahead of the Thanatos.

“Salvage trucks, I got enemies coming from the south, so go north. I’ll provide some cover.” Gunman ordered.

The salvage trucks passed by him heading north, and he noticed the Uziel coming in their direction from the south, through a street that was left of Gunman. He got out of his cover, and ran from one side of the street to the other, and when he passed by the Uziel, he fired his 4 lasers. But the Uziel noticed the trick and also fired his PPCs again before Gunman could get to the cover of another building.

“Lucky for me I’m using reflective armour” Gunman thought “But if I keep like this, I’m gonna loose.” He stood in the corner of the building with the Uziel approaching the other corner. The Uziel’s pilot now had two choices: either move forward and then left or move left and then right to attack Gunman. The pilot decided to move forward, and when he turned left, Gunman immediately engaged full speed to hide from the Uziel and turned to his left to come up behind him. When the enemy pilot noticed the manoeuvre, he stopped and turned his torso to the left, but his left arm got stuck in a building. The Uziel wasn’t the proper mech for urban fighting, so Gunman thought that the pilot probably didn’t had any experience in urban fighting either. When Gunman got the back of the Uziel on his reticule, he fired an Alpha Strike, and destroyed the Uziel’s left torso and arm. The Uziel walked backwards and when he turned his torso, fired his only PPC and SRM 6 at Gunman. When Gunman’s weapons finally were again ready to fire, he fired them one group at a time at the Uziel’s torso, until it exploded.

“Gunman to Command, one less mech! My center torso is orange, and I have some light damage on my arms, but I think my Mauler can…” he was interrupted by missile fire hitting him. The Thanatos came faster than Gunman expected. His Mauler got in close range of the Thanatos, and the Thanatos fired his 4 flamers and his LBX 20. The Mauler’s left torso turned yellow, but fortunately it stood up the flamers heat well. “Sorry, but this Mauler is pretty heat efficient!” shouted Gunman. The two mechs walked around each other shooting each other. Gunman managed to evade most of the flamer shots, and he had 2 LBX 20 while his enemy only had one. After a few minutes, Gunman managed to finally destroy the heavily armoured Thanatos.

“Damn! How did Clan Jade Falcon got their hands on these recent Inner Sphere mechs? Oh well… better head to the Repair Bay for repairs.” But soon after he started walking, he heard 4 missile lock beeps on his cockpit. He quickly looked around, and saw 4 missile volleys coming towards him. He ran to the cover of the nearest building, but not before one of the volleys hit him. The other three hit the building. His radar read two Vultures far to the East. He couldn’t head for the repair bay because it was in the middle of a park and the Vultures would get a clear line of fire to there, so the only thing he could was to stay there and wait for them to come.

Unexpectedly, a second launch of 4 volleys came, but this time the target was the building behind which he was hiding. “No chance, I’m not coming out!” thought Gunman. A third launch came, and this time the target was the building next to him. He then noticed people coming out of the building, and zoomed in to see why they were running away, and saw that most of them were bleeding and in panic. Only then, did Gunman guessed what was the Vultures strategy: if Gunman didn’t come out to fight them, they would level the city building by building. As a former clanner, Gunman didn’t care much about civilians, but that action against the mob was already bad enough, and he couldn’t stand the idea that innocent people were dying because of his cowardice. Hiding while civilians get killed… there’s only dishonour in it!

His Mauler was crouched with engines turned off, so Gunman said “Go!” to his computer and the mech stood up and started walking again. Gunman then turned out of the building cover and started running towards the Vultures at full speed. The Vultures were both in the top of two mountains outside the city, in perfect firing position. Gunman saw another missile launch come towards him, so he turned right to the cover of a building. He had moderate damage, if all those missiles hit him, he would go critical, but better die in combat than having civilians dieing because of him, so he promised not to do that again. He started running towards the Vultures again. He saw another missile launch, the two Vultures at the same time again. This time, he took with all the missiles, and at the same time he took a large hit in the back and fell to the ground.

What was that? The only enemies in the radar were the two Vultures! But something hit him in the back… hit him hard. His Mauler was lying in the ground, after he fell his computer said “Warning! Damage critical.” The Mauler started getting up, but while it was crouched, a Thor walked in front of him.

It was the Thor who had hit him from behind. Gunman didn’t detect him because it was shutdown, it had been waiting for him there the whole time. The Thor was now standing in front of the Mauler, and Gunman noticed he was carefully aiming his weapons at his cockpit, and also noticed that by the insignias in his torso, he wasn’t an ordinary mechwarrior. Oh well… at least no would ever say that Gunman was killed by some lucky rookie.

There was no possible escape. Gunman closed his eyes, waiting for death, but then he heard a large blast… and he was still alive! When he opened his eyes, the Thor had lost his right leg and both he and Gunman turned their torsos to see where that had come from. At long range, an Argus, a Thanatos, a Zeus and a Dragon were closing in formation. They all fired their weapons again all together, and the Thor lost his remaining leg, falling to the ground, disabled.

“Hey Gunman, did you missed us?”

“Hydra! Glad to see you. Thanks for the help, Havoc lance!”

“No problem. We got you all covered. Dragon, repair your mech. Move to Nav Central Park.”

“Roger.”

“Gunman, I’m showing some heavy damage on your Mauler. You better go too.”

“No way. There were two Vultures on the top of those mountains, but they’re gone. They’re probably hiding.”

Hydra, Firewalker, and Gallows assumed formation between Gunman and the mountains.

“OK, keep it tight. No missile will come through this way.” Said Hydra.

“Better keep radars on. They’re gonna have to turn their radars on to fire those missiles anyway.” Gunman recommended.

A few minutes later… “Heads up! Missiles inbound!” shouted Firewalker.

“This is Havoc 1. I got them too, everyone go evasive.”

The missiles were coming from another two mountains to the South. The Skye Rangers ran to the East. Two volleys hit Firewalker’s Dragon, while Hydra’s Argus was faster and managed to evade the missiles his AMS didn’t destroyed. The two Vultures were very far, it would be impossible to get in range of them without taking moderate damage.

“We have no choice.” Hydra concluded “Let’s go get him. Try to evade the missiles!” And the Skye Rangers started running towards the Vultures. Another missile launch came, hitting several of the Skye Rangers.

“Damn! This is Havoc 4, my mech is critical!”

“This is Havoc 1, I just lost an arm.” Hydra was sure one of his lance mates would certainly die.

But then hope came. One of the Vultures got shot by a heavy laser and a gauss rifle from his left and lost his arm.

“What was that?” asked Gallows “Dragon! Dragon, is that you?”

“Hi guys. Come here and give me a hand.”

“It will be our pleasure.” answered Hydra.

Yes, Dragon had repaired his Zeus, and he and the other Skye Rangers quickly encircled the Vultures. It didn’t last long. Dragon destroyed one, Firewalker got the other one.

“Command, this is Hydra. This city is secure.”

“Good job, Havoc lance. We couldn’t say anything before because we were facing an all out attack by the clanners. But we’re all right. The 10th took care of them.”

“I guess we’re done here. Let’s head back to base.”

While they were walking back, they passed by the crumbled Thor. Hydra then noticed that Gunman’s Mauler had stopped behind them. He looked back and saw the Mauler crouched and the cockpit open. Gunman had left his mech and was going for the Thor. He then zoomed in on the Thor and noticed it had his cockpit also open, and the pilot was crawling out of it, and bleeding a lot. Hydra then remembered what some clanner pilots sometimes did to enemy pilots.

“Firewalker, take command. Get the rest f the lance back to base. Gunman and I will join you later.”

“Roget that, Hydra.”

Hydra then crouched and got out of his mech, and ran after Gunman. When he got to the Thor, Gunman had grabbed the enemy pilot and was shaking him.

“Where did you get those I.S. mechs? Where?” Gunman was asking. Hydra reached him and tried to separate them.

“Sergeant Gunman, we treat our prisoners as such!”

“I just need to extract a little information from him.”

“Stand down!”

While they were discussing, the clanner pilot, who was only half-conscious, took out a grenade off his pocket.

“Barbarians! The last thing I wish to leave is a body for you to plunder!” he activated the grenade, and then Gunman and Hydra immediately jumped away from him. 2 seconds later, the grenade exploded and killed the suicide pilot.

“Damn, that was close! Gunman, you all right?”

“Yes, thank you. Sorry about that, but I just needed…”

“Never mind that. We all do things like that when we barely escape from death, but I had to stop you. Now lets get back to our mechs and get back to base for some rest.”

“Yes sir.”

And so the Clan Jade Falcon occupation of planet Mara ended., and once again the efficiency of the Skye Rangers was put to the test with superb results.

- Authored by:  Gunman