Further into the Campaign
Topic: ToS Chronicles
Bolstered by their recent victory, the team is in high spirits. Things are finally looking up.


After celebrating the recent arena victory, the contractor asked Mauler if his team could watch his training grounds, as he had to go out on business and was worried that rival teams may try to attack while he was away.

Mauler accepted, thinking this would be easy money - a simple garrison duty against attackers that may never come.

Having only three mechs now, Mauler, Wolf and Tensile went on patrol.
The training ground stood atop a hill which had good tree cover. Two rivers ran around its base and on the far side of the eastern river, were lots of quicksand. Any enemy coming from that direction wouldn't get very close...

Tensile was at the highest point on the hill in trees, facing west, when he saw the first two enemy mechs. 1 recon (40 Ton Wasp) and 1 Light (70 Ton Spider). The Spider ran north out of view behind some hills, but the Wasp came sprinting forward. Mauler started to slowly climb to higher ground to support Tensile, when Wolf radioed in that he spotted an enemy recon mech coming from the east. Mauler decided to lock up the new threat and attempted a scan lock, still climbing the hill. The lock was successful, revealing it to be a Pike recon mech with dual LRM launchers.
Hmm.. the quicksand won't slow this mech down...

The Wasp was fast. By the time Tensile had a weapons lock, it was close to the river. It sprinted forward right up to the river's edge, then jumped!

Mauler reached the top of the hill and switched targets to the Wasp, just as Tensile finished a good scan lock on the jumping recon mech.
Firing his lasers, the Wasp shook in the sky and fell to the ground! Wasting no time, Mauler opened up with his autocannons and tore holes in the Wasp's thin armor. The Wasp pilot pushed his mech upright and moved towards the river again - but it was unstable... Staggering, the Wasp lurched to one side and fell to the ground again!

The Spider came into view and targeted Tensile. Running to close the range, the Spider mech fired and hit Tensile with his laser and meson gun, missing with the autocannon. Ignoring the new threat, Tensile waited on his lasers to recycle and fired on the prone Wasp again - destroying its right arm!
Mauler fired as well, ripping both legs off the prone mech. The Wasp pilot ejected from his crippled mech.

Mauler switched to the Spider and fired on it, missing completely. Cursing, he began to refine his lock.

Wolf had gotten his weapons lock but was patiently refining it as the Pike's Long Range Missiles crashed into his mech. 3 secs. 2 secs.. 1 sec.. got it!! Pushing his mech into a run, Wolf trotted forward to close the range. His EM Pulse hit a few times messing up the approaching mechs' hip and foot. The Pike continued walking forward, sending wave after wave of missiles towards Wolf.

The Spider reached the river and jumped, seeing cannon fire from Mauler smash into the ground where it just left. It arced out over the river - and was hit by both lasers from Tensile. Thrown off balance, the pilot tried to keep the mech airborne but failed! The 70 ton mech came down with a huge splash in the river. Ignoring the damage, the Spider stood up and walked out of the river to the other side. This took it out of sight of Mauler, but right up under the cliff where Tensile was.

Mauler turned his mech and ran towards Tensile, switching targets to the Pike.

The Spider swivelled its torso and fired on Tensile igniting the forest! The heat began to rise in Tensiles’ mech. Standing on a cliff edge, Tensile had to turn his mech almost 180 degrees to get down the slope. By the time he exited the burning trees, his heat was in the red and approaching critical!
The Spider ran up the hill to another set of trees and fired on the retreating Tensile as he went down the hill - heading to the river to cool his mech off.

Wolf slowed his mech to a walk and proceeded to cross the river. His Pulse laser was hitting the Pike, but he wanted to get closer to use his VibraClaw, as the Pike was just staying at range and peppering him with missiles. Crossing the river, he pushed his mech into a run and saw another volley of missiles leave the Pike.... and go straight for Tensile! The missiles smashed into the Dragonfly shearing armour off his left torso and arm.
Reaching the river, Tensile waited as his heat started to come down. He ignored the pelting by the Spider, until he saw the critical alert on his left torso - he couldn't take much more on that side.
Swivelling his mech, he was about to fire on the Spider - then hesitated. He quickly readjusted his lock, and fired his lasers at the trees themselves, causing them to burn around the Spider!!
"Turnabout is fair play"

Wolf coaxed as much speed as he could from his TripWire and, taking a page out of the book of his lost team-mate Kull, charged his mech straight into the Pike. Wolf was thrown against his seat restraints as the two mechs collided. Ignoring the wail of alerts as his centre torso armour was mangled, Wolf fought his controls to keep his mech standing. Looking around, he saw the Pike was down!!

The Spider left the burning woods and fired on Tensile. Tensile saw the flash as his cockpit was hit and he took damage. Everything went out of focus as he tried to assess his position. His heat was ok now - ahead of him was quicksand but he was too disoriented to try and walk through that. He activated his jump jets to jump out of the river.
Bad move. Leaving the water threw his mech off balance. Normally, he may have been able to do that jump successfully - but injured.... he lost control and went splashing down into the river.

Mauler was pushing his Bloodhound to its limits trying to get to the other side of the hill to reacquire the Spider. He was almost there when Tensile set the forest ahead of him on fire, forcing him to run around through more trees, slowing him down. He took snapshots on the downed Pike, hitting it a few times with his smaller autocannons.
Finally, he crested the hill and saw the Spider just below him, facing a downed Tensile.
Switching targets, he fired too quickly with his autocannons - not aiming properly - and missed with all shots but one. His autocannon 12 smashed into the lower torso of the Spider causing it to lurch forward. The pilot did well and kept his mech upright. Once he was stable, he turned to face Mauler...

Still dazed, Tensile tried to get to his feet, but fell again. Taking his time, he tried to get up into a crouch.. but no good. He was just not able to keep focus on his piloting - and his DragonFly splashed into the water again. He decided to wait until his self-repair kicked in before trying again.

Wolf looked down at the Pike at his feet as it was trying to stand. Firing his EM Pulse, he hit it's hand, causing the mech to topple again. He fired his pulse laser into its right torso, and began to rake his VibraClaws across its armour. Again the Pike tried to stand and again Wolf sent it crashing to the ground. Tearing at the floundering mech, Wolf smashed the cockpit with his vibraclaws and could now see the pilot......
The pilot decided he had enough - and ejected!

Tensile's head cleared and he was finally able to get to his feet. He saw the Spider now firing up the hill at Mauler and then saw it go crashing to the ground as Mauler alpha striked with all four cannons, decimating the remains of the Spider's lower torso. The Spider's cockpit hatch blew away as the pilot ejected...

Victory!!

The contractor was happy with the teams results. The money gained has allowed the team to purchase a Fang recon mech for CYBEN.
Now they hope to get enough soon to give Wolf a new mech.

During the debrief, Mauler asked Wolf why he didn't use the flare launchers on his TripWire to confuse the LRM's of the Pike. Wolf's face reddened with embarrassment as he HAD forgotten to use them, but he answered: "Maybe the same reason you haven't used your ECM suite on your Bloodhound to thwart enemy scans on you". Tensile and CYBEN sat quietly watching the two men glared at each other.
Later on, Mauler was seen in his mechs' cockpit, no doubt familiarising himself with the onboard ECM equipment...