Rebel Hunter
Topic: ToS Chronicles
Shameless Plug: I was given the honor of designing two camapigns for the last patch that was released for this game. Rebel Hunter is one of them. It's been awhile since I played it, so it will feel new to me - and the team.

Mech Masters arrived on Ryken IV eager to get into action. Assigned to Cmdr. Mandren, they were sent on patrols to stop the IL (Independent League) incursions. Just as these were getting too routine, Mandren called them into a briefing. Mech Masters has been chosen to accompany ShadowBane Team on securing an IL building housing critical intel data on the Rebels (the IL) that the Senate needed.

ShadowBane Team air-dropped into the area from dropship TROJAN. Video link was down, but the audio was still working. No sooner had they landed, they realized the LZ was hot. Minefields blew the legs off two mechs. ShadowBane Leader told his remaining recon mech pilot to continue towards the intel building and he turned to face an enemey Prowler and Dragonfly which came at them from the forest.

As Tensile had the only jump-equipped mech, Mauler, Wolf and CYBEN had booster rockets attached to their mechs to aid in the drop.
These would be ejected once on the ground. This meant a faster fall but the mechs would be harder to guide during the descent.
Mauler and Wolf drifted away from Tensile and CYBEN in the freefall, landing way to the west. Tensile controlled his mech through its jump jets and immediately saw the two enemy mechs chasing ShadowBane Leader. CYBEN landed hard behind some trees close to Tensile.

Changing his vector thrust, Tensile started floating forward over the trees trying to secure a good lock.
Mauler and Wolf regrouped and started moving east towards the rest of the group when Mauler was hit by a Gauss rifle shot. He looked to his right and saw a recon Unicorn mech standing in the treeline. Locking him up, he then saw another recon mech step out of the trees - a Zealot.
Tensiles’ remaining energy for jump jets was running low - he would have to set down and allow them to recharge. Working the controls, he began his descent.
Watching the mechs ahead of him, he saw ShadowBane Leader fire at the Prowler hitting his torso. Already badly damaged, the enemy pilot ejected.
ShadowBane Leaders' roar of triumph was cut short as the enemy Dragonfly let loose with its lasers, smashing the cockpit and killing ShadowBane Leader!
Now without a pilot, his mech stumbled forward and crashed into the ground.

With perfect precision, Tensile landed. CYBEN came running up behind him, but both lost sight of the Dragonfly. They angled east to clear the intervening trees.

Mauler fired all his cannons hitting the Unicorn with both his smaller weapons. Ignoring incoming fire from the Zealot, he radioed Wolf to lock on to the Unicorn, and rushed forward to close the range. Wolf locked up the unicorn and fired - miss.
Mauler gets a scan lock and fires all his weapons, tearing armor off the enemy mechs' centre torso and legs. Thrown off balance, the Unicorn stumbled but kept upright. It fired back with it's Gauss rifle at Wolf, but missed.
Wolf kicks his mech into a run and charges the Unicorn, seeing another Gauss round and machine gun fire tear up the ground all around him. Mauler continued forward, still ignoring the Zealot that was firing on him.

With a loud crash, Wolf barrels into the Unicorn. The Unicorn is lifted off its feet and falls to the ground. Wolf's right torso took the brunt of the hit, and crumpled. Wolf fought the controls but failed to keep his mech standing - he fell over to the ground.
Mauler halted his advance, aiming and firing on the prone Unicorn. His barrage ripped both legs off the Unicorn’s torso.
Wolf rose to his feet and tried to scan lock the Zealot.... but then saw the alerts -
Pulse Laser -- Destroyed; Scanner --- Destroyed.
Great. Now he'll have to attack with manual controls, with only his EM Pulse and VibraClaws.
Mauler switched targets to the Zealot and was turning to face him when the Zealot fired his meson cannon, doing critical damage to his leg. Mauler cursed as his movements were now slowed considerably.

Regaining sight and lock on the enemy Dragonfly, Tensile and CYBEN rushed to close the distance. Tensile refines his lock, and sees another enemy mech reported on his scanner - Light mech - near the target buildings way to the south. He quickly checked and saw the remaining recon mech from ShadowBane's group almost reaching the buildings.. He radioed to the ShadowBane pilot - but too late. Over the commlink he heard the sounds of cannon fire hitting armor and the pilot shouting he was under attack.
The enemy Dragonfly fired on Tensile - both lasers hit his right leg. Temporarily distracted trying to warn the recon mech pilot, Tensile stumbled under the hits and fell, crashing cockpit first into the ground.
CYBENs' scan lock returns near perfect. Firing his twin autocannons, he scores hits on the Dragonfly torso. That got the Dragonfly's attention. Switching targets, he fired back at CYBEN hitting him with the large laser. With the enemy DragonFly distracted, Tensile pushed his mech off the ground and started to re-acquire the enemy mech.

Mauler charged the Zealot hitting the enemy mech. Stumbling backwards, the Zealot pilot keeps standing, but Mauler falls as his damaged leg fails him. Dazed, the Zealot fired at Mauler but missed repeatedly, allowing Mauler to stand up. Mauler fires all weapons at point blank range and hits, tearing chunks of armor off the Zealot...
Heat level RED!
With no scanner, Wolf charged into the Zealot - and again the Zealot pilot keeps his mech upright as Wolf falls to the ground!!
Ignoring Wolf, the Zealot fired on Mauler again, doing critical damage to one of his Autocannons. As Wolf was trying to rise, the Zealot switched to target him and fired damaging Wolf's VibraClaws.
Ignoring the heat, Mauler fired his autocannons.
He fired the damaged one first and heard the grating sound as the round jammed in the gun! The autoloader recycled and ejected the dud ammo.
Mauler fired the second autocannon/4 - and destroys the Zealots' right torso .... the pilot keeps his mech standing..
Mauler fired the first autocannon/12 - and destroys the Zealots' left torso ... spinning the other way, the Zealot pilot grappled with his controls and still kept his mech upright!
Mauler fired his second autocannon/12 - and blows the Zealot's Left Leg off! The mech finally falls to the ground!

Hearing the sound of distant fighting and the sporadic shouting from the ShadowBane mech pilot, Tensile and CYBEN continued to trade shots with the enemy DragonFly. The DragonFly pilot kicked in his jumpjets and flew over CYBEN, heading for the cover of the trees. Tensile fires his lasers and hits the airborne mech. It wobbles, but stays flying forward.
CYBEN tracked it as it passed over him and let loose another barrage from his autocannons. The right torso of the DragonFly was blown away, and the mech pitched over and fell crashing hard into the ground. Tensile waited for his lasers to recycle - then destroyed the lower torso of the Dragonfly as it was trying to stand up. It went down again - crippled.

Over the radio they heard the cry as the ShadowBane recon pilot ejected...

Tensile started to run towards the last known area of the recon pilot, and spotted a Comm building -and an armor bay!
He radioed the coordinates to the rest of the team. Mauler gave the order for everyone to rendezvous at the armor bay.
Being in a slower mech and with a damaged leg, Mauler quickly fell behind as Wolf trotted off towards the armor bay.

Mauler almost jumped out of his seat when he felt the repeated thump on his armor of machine gun fire. Another mech? But where?
Scanners showed no new contacts - just the downed Zealot and Unicorn...
He swivelled his torso so he could look in the direction of the prone Unicorn - and saw the muzzle flashes as the Unicorn fired on him.
Lying on its centre torso, it had propped itself up and twisted it's torso to bring a set of machine guns to bear.
Mauler tried to ignore him, but when the next burst hits him in his damaged leg and the alerts came up on his panel, he targeted the Unicorn and fired his two largest autocannons.
The shots smashed into its weaker rear armor and ruptured its engine. The Unicorn vanished in the ensuing explosion. The shockwave rocked Mauler's Bloodhound. Fighting the dizziness and the weakened leg, he somehow manages to keep his mech from falling.

Tensile reaches the Comm building and connects through the universal port, and pulls down a map of the area. He then moves over to the armor bay and walks up to the repair platform.
"Automated Armor repair systems active... Please set your mech to maintenance mode."
His repair work is finished just as Mauler and Wolf arrive. They both go in and repair some of the lost armor on their scarred mechs.
Wolf wishes they had time to get his Pulse laser or Scanner repaired, not looking forward to whatever was ahead without those.

The downloaded map shows that high hills and mountains to the south surround the target buildings. There were two passes leading to them.
Mauler and CYBEN went to the west towards one entrance, while Tensile and Wolf paired up to go to the entrance directly south.

CYBEN gets to the entrance first and spots a lone Light Mech - a Leopard. He immediately locks it up and starts firing, hitting the mech. The Leopard returns fire with his cannons and missiles, most of them hitting CYBEN. The Leopard starts to run towards CYBEN, closing the range.

Tensile and Wolf reach their entrance and spot the target buildings - and the Penetrator light mech guarding them. Turning to face them, it locks up Wolf and fires it lasers, burning armor off his legs and arms.

The Leopard charges into the trees, tearing them down as it rushed towards CYBEN. CYBEN calmly watched and, just as the Leopard was about to break out of the trees, he pushed his mech into a run and moved past him. The Leopard continued out of the trees into the open - and into the waiting guns of Mauler. Still with internal damage to his leg, Mauler was too far back for the Leopard to see him while he was charging through the forest. Out in the open, the enemy pilot realized he was now the meat in the autocannon sandwich.

CYBEN turned and swivelled his torso firing his autocannons, just as Mauler opened up with all four of his.
Again, Mauler heard the grating noise as another round jammed and cleared from his damaged autocannon.
The Leopard twisted and buckled under the onslaught but held it's ground. CYBEN's scanner showed the Leopards right arm and left leg showing heavy damage - seems the ShadowBane pilot had got in some good hits before going down....

Then the call came on the commlink from Tensile - Wolf was down!

Tensile had hit the Light mech and drew the wrath of it's lasers as it tore into his right torso - disabling it, the large laser.. and his scanner!
With no scanner of his own, Wolf was missing his shots with the EM Pulse. Frustrated, he pushed his mech into a run, trying to close to use his VibraClaws. The Penetrator re-assessed the threat and targeted Wolf. With pinpoint accuracy, he hit Wolf repeatedly with his lasers. Each hit forced Wolf to compensate on his controls as he was determined to keep his charge going.
The final volley of lasers, however, was too much for his skills. Wolf stumbled and his controls went free in his hands as he lost all balance and his mech fell to the ground.

Mauler ordered CYBEN to go to Wolf's aid while he closed on the wounded Leopard. CYBEN quickly broke through the trees and got weapons lock on the Penetrator. Without trying for a scan lock, he fired - and hit. The Penetrator took a step forward and halted.
Tensile fired his small laser. Energy rippled in the space where his laser impacted the transparent energy shield surrounding the mech. Damn!! It had a shield generator!

The Penetrator re-targeted Tensile and fired, missing him.

Mauler closed the range on the Leopard. Just as he fired, he stepped down awkwardly on his bad leg. The sudden jolt and instinctive recovery was enough to throw off his aim - all of his shots missed. The Leopard pilot noticed the stumble and rushed into melee range firing off a salvo of missiles. The missiles peppered Mauler's armor and he again had to fight to keep his mech standing as the Leopards autocannons found their mark. Through the sparks, smoke and concentrating on keeping his mech upright, Mauler never saw the kick that came... that crunched into his already weakened leg. His mech buckled as the leg took more damage. It held together, but Mauler failed to stay standing and he fell to the ground.
The Leopard kicked again, destroying his torso and autocannon. He fired on Mauler as he tried to rise - and the leg finally snapped.

Wolf rose to his feet, just as Mauler gave the command to retreat. With his entire board lit up with alerts, Wolf turned his mech and started to run. Tensile turned to follow, firing again on the Penetrator, and again hitting his shields.
The Penetrator fired on Tensile once, twice - all lasers finding their target.
Tensile's mech skidded to the right and fell. CYBEN ran past the Penetrator firing on him. Ignoring CYBEN, the Penetrator walked over to Tensile and fired into his mech, destroying his lower torso. Tensile initiated the eject sequence...

The Leopard turned away from Mauler and started to move towards the rest of the group. Swivelling on the ground, Mauler was able to bring one small autocannon up and tried to aim at the Leopard's weakened left leg. He fired.. and missed! The shot ripped the ground beside the mechs' feet. The Leopard pilot stopped and turned. He fired a salvo into Mauler, destroying the autocannon and blowing off his left arm. Mauler initiated his eject sequence....

CYBEN and Wolf exited the area. Mauler ejected safely from his mech. Tensile ejected and was badly damaged - but functional.

Tensile and Mauler were rescued - the IL group evacuated the buildings long before the Senate troops arrived, taking all intel data with them.

Mission failure.