Brigadier general Cheng Min glared.
He glared at the defences of a town so small that it had not even a name on the map procured from Comstar.
A town so small and pathetic that he had sent a single lance to take their rice so that good soldiers would have enough to sup upon.
Instead they get been beaten off by a patrol of Battlemechs that were completely unknown to their targeting computers.
Granted they were new Panthers and Jenners, but their computers shouldn't have no name at all for the machines.
The only information he had was their gun cameras. A machine that looked like an Archer but possessing a multitude of different weapons.
One had LRMs as if it were an Archer with the cockpit in an actual head and less of a belly.
Another had struck with a multitude of lasers from the side torsos, replacing the missiles.
Another still had three PPCs as if it were an Awesome.
The heavy machines damaged his lance that had left the withdrawal too late. One made it back.
Clearly the factory was capability of producing Battlemechs. Clearly he needed it.
But he was stifled in his desire because of those damned fools in the Sun Zhang Academy Cadre.
He was trying to raid a factory and they followed the doctrine of a battle of annihilation? Establishing a blocking force and depriving his heavier forces of scouts and cavalry?
Were they so inflexible and inept that they did not understand the difference between a raid and a pitched battle?
Truly he was cursed with incompetence all around him.
It was why he was here now, trying to breach the walls of this fortress made of dirt and stone.
The earth embankment rose 30 metres tall.
The new Battlemechs came up to skyline themselves, unload salvos of PPCs or LRMs or even autocannon at his troops, then retreat again.
Every time they did so they were savaged by return fire, but it seemingly did nothing as they came back again after an hour.
Some damned fools magic was about, he was sure of it.
"Charge damn you! Are you cowards or are you samurai?!" He roared with both his intercom and speaker systems. His patience running out after this game of cowards.
"Samurai!" His men answered with their deeds as they charged forth.
"Artillery is to support the advance! Strike the embankment! Clear the ridge! Do not target the town, if a single bale of rice is damaged, I will have your heads!" He growled to his artillerymen.
It was 900 metres to the embankment, the defenders rising up to meet his attack and trying to disrupt it.
Ha.
As if stuck paltry fortress would dissuade the samurai of the Combine.
He followed the advance, taking the opportunity to contact his subordinates for updates.
"Sir, leakers. 4 ASF inbound to your location." The words of his useless pilots landed into his ears.
Cheng Min felt the urge to throttle him.
"What are you doing!? They number less than you, why are you failing!?" He roared.
"Sir, they have their jumpships above us. Flak Grids will destroy us if we go too high. We cannot rise higher than 15,000 metres."
Cheng did not care.
"I don't care. Show some spirit and attack! The will of the Dragon will drive them before you!"
"Captain! What is the situation with the other fortress? How are you progressing?" He keyed the channel to his subordinate in the armoured regiment leading the attack on the other town fortress.
"We are bogged down sir. Their defences are formidable!"
Cheng growled.
"Formidable means nothing in the face of the Dragon! Press the attack with all that you have Captain! You will not bring me the dishonour of failure this day!"
"Yes sir!"
He turned his Battlemech, a Battlemaster around the fallen wreck of a Dragon, its torso a mangled mess from the strikes it had taken.
Foolish.
He keyed in the frequency for those damned fools in the Sun Zhang Cadre.
"Report." He growled, unable to show them even the smallest but if grace, not after what they had done.
Leaving formation without permission because they thought to follow doctrine instead of his direct orders to land together!? The damned fools.
The twice damned fools.
The thrice damned fools!
"Block established. The enemy is trying to break through to re-establish a line of communication." The fool in charge of the Sun Zhang Cadre. A Colonel who's name he could not even be bothered to remember.
"Of course they are attacking you! They are trying to pin you down so you cannot participate in the assault on the factory! What do you think that you doing you ass faced clown! My objective is the factory, I could not care less about fighting these Lyran lucre warriors. They are worth less than my used underwear! Move your men to assist me! That is an order!"
The man's reply was cut off as several bombs landed amongst his men and machines as they moved forward. Only a few of them, only a few casualties, not a problem. 4 craft would not defeat a Battlemech Regiment in the advance!
Ha! They were within 450 metres now. What were they going to do to him now?
"Inbound artillery. Brace yourselves." The voice jolted him as Cheng grimly continued to march forward.
Then the shells began to fall. One, two, three, ten, twenty, the rain of explosives did not stop.
Where were they getting the ammunition for this from!?
"Wing Angel. Sir, leakers, small craft headed for your location. Vertical descent, there's nothing we can do to prevent it, they're too fast." The excuses came again.
He tuned it out, ready for the bombs to land upon his position.
Instead... He was able to watch through the magnifying power of his machine, the arrowhead shaped small craft flying in vertically and then pulling themselves straight up into the sky, dropping, at the beginning of their fall, packages that landed in the midst of the town.
The... The fuckers. They were resupplying! In the middle of the battle even!
"I don't care what it takes! Intercept those small craft!" He roared.
"Negative sir. We do not have the ASF to maintain an interdiction. Most of one wing has been shot down from Flak coming from the jumpships."
He growled, teeth gnashing together.
"That is what happens when you show insufficient zeal! You have failed your duty to the Coordinator! You have Failed!"
He then switched the channel.
Why was it that he was the only one to show initiative, skill, battlefield competence even!?
"Flankers! Inbound fusion engines. Rating... 1.5 tons. But there's a lot of them." The voice that had warned about the artillery was not warning him if flankers. It would be useful if he had an actual position for them!
The radar in front of his face pinged.
Left.
They would impact in 2 minutes.
He had 2 minutes to get into the fortress and turn their own walls against them.
The artillery continued to fall.
The fire from the top of the embankment continued to grow more accurate.
He glared.
This was taking longer than expected.
"We're at the embankment now! We cannot go further! There is a camouflaged ditch here, it is 30 metres deep!"
Cheng froze.
No.
Of course, the material for the wall had to come from somewhere, they dug a ditch and then build a wall with the detritus.
So simple it was genius.
"Jumpjets, go over! They are Lyran Militia! They will scatter before you like chaff in the wind! He ordered.
The Panthers jumped, the Jenners jumped, as did some salvaged Phoenix Hawks and the ubiquitous Quickdraws
All his jump capable machines had jumped across. Good, at least some were capable of following ordered.
"Everyone else, guard them, this armoured force will be turned aside and we shall have victory!"
"No! We do not falter! Forward!" The young voice of a rookie entered reverberated in his cockpit. Turning rapidly, Cheng's eyes widened.
No.
A Quickdraw was toppling down the embankment, its head a smoking mess, whole Panthers and Phoenix Hawks were struggling to climb over before they were torn apart by some unseen foe.
The Jenners had already jumped into the fortress. Bypassing their slower kin still struggling up the slope.
"Reverse slope infantry! They've got hundreds of autocannon here! Hun-" the voice cut out.
The screams of various pilots continued until all were cut off.
Cheng could only stare slack jawed.
His entire jump capable force had been annihilated.
By infantry!
The shame!
"Withdraw! We shall attempt another way! Those failures have prevented us from achieving success today, but it will not stop us! We shall be victorious!" Cheng shouted, leading his men back across the empty field. Walking backwards as he did so, weapons still firing at the illusive machines that emerged briefly to snipe at his men before cowardly retreating.
Oh how he despised them.
Why could they not fight like real samurai instead of cowering away at range?
He would have them executed when their machines were captured. Then, those abused machines would have more suitable, honourable owners.
"The flankers have arrived!"
He turned his machine left before remembering that he was facing backwards now. Turning right he saw them.
Dozens of tiny trucks, mounting weapons that could only be called pathetic on their backs.
Some... Some even had infantry sat in the back with missile launchers.
Was... Was this the standard of foe that he had been facing and failing to defeat?
Was there no end to his shame!?
"Destroy them!" He roared.
Turning to face the source of his shame, Cheng Min matched his words with his actions and turned to meet these bastards.
Only for them to turn away and drive parallel to his formation, launching... Their LRMs en-mass.
"Do these honourless curs have no shame! These leavings of a bastard monkey, these ass clowns of a diseased mother in law! Fight me like a warrior!" He bellowed, with radio and speaker alike.
No matter what he tried, they refused to give fight, maintaining their ranged harrassment with LRM. There were even machine guns that were being fired at them! Machine guns! Ineffective at range, but the sheer insult of the matter, the pinging sounds the bullets made as they bounces off his armour! Infuriating!
Worse still, the damned machines in the fortress were still firing at them.
The few machines fast enough to chase them down were met with a flurry of machines, like a swarm of minnows as they circled their prey. Tearing it apart with small laser, machinegun, and SRM fire.
And the damned artillery kept firing! He couldn't marshal his troops if they were separated now could he? These damned Lyrans!
"There is a ditch here! Thirty metres across! We cannot cross it for the assault! We have to withdraw!" The armour commander called in his failure.
"Do you now know how to send forward reconnaissance? How is this a surprise to you? Withdraw at once! We will discuss your failure at the base camp!"
The pinging continued.
"Where are you!?" He shouted at the Cadre commander.
"We cannot make headway, they have a roadblock of armoured vehicles in the way."
"Then go around! Are you completely lacking in initiative!?"
"The infantry and vehicles will not be able to scale the terrain."
"Then leave them behind! What use is infantry here!? We are raiding this factory! I need your machines!"
"Yes sir!"
Cheng growled.
Why were all of these idiots so useless?
Why was he the only one who knew how to fight?
He growled again.
"Sir. Cannot we go around these fortresses and go straight for the factory?"
"Are you a fool? We have lost face here! We have lost to infantry and cowards. If we leave now, would we not lose all face before the Coordinator? Would any of you be allowed to keep your lives after this!?" He bellowed at them.
Whoever asked that better make themselves scarce before him.
He would whip them raw if he found them.
The Battlemaster continued to stride forward, Cheng's mind focused on avoiding the trees that littered his path.
Yes, he felt the urge to punch and kick them down, to walk through them. But if he did that, then there was the chance that the entire damned plant would flip and send him face first into the ground.
He growled again.
He was growing to hate this planet.
He would be back and he would smash the fortresses.
Then he would march on the factory.