News of the Heavenly Sword’s arrival rippled through the comms chatter like someone throwing a stone into a still pond. They had stood vigil at the dam for an hour and a half, Greta and Ansel chatting about which system they would go to once they had finished up their contracts with the company and Takka chain-smoking several cigars. They all fell into position like a well oiled machine, Greta and Ansel manning the controls for Merry-Go-Round’s SRM silos and MGs. Takka flipped a switch and the barrel briefly moved back into and out of the turret as the autoloader fired up. Flipping open the hatch, Aroxy scanned the horizon through his binoculars and a cloud of exhaust interspersed with black ant-like dots tstared back at him. He tweaked the focus and scoffed at what he saw. Civilian vehicles. Modified. It was a common practice in urban, guerilla warfare.  The trucks would likely be carrying the heavy material whilst the smaller ones would be lucky to have man portable anti-vehicular weaponry.  It would be a cakewalk under normal circumstances but the sheer volume of vehicles was a problem. The Heavenly Sword were going in for an all or nothing tactic. In the meantime, staying back and firing at them would be the most advisable course of action. 

Aroxy was about to bark an order to begin firing before he saw Family Man sprint forward and lurch upwards, dim trails of burning fuel emanating from its trio of jump-jets. The gangly mech descended and crashed down into the vehicle column, sending clumps of dirt and asphalt everywhere. The flashes of explosion on the other side of the river bank only confirmed that the mechwarrior was engaging.  Aroxy resisted the urge to throttle the mech pilots. Exposing themselves like this wantonly would only make them more vulnerable to enemy fire, not to mention, the fact that they were down-range of Merry-Go-Round’s cannons. 

“ Order received. Calling out to all infantry units, fall back. To all those engaging in close-quarters, keep a minimum distance of fifty meters away from enemy material. ” Aroxy then spoke into private crew comms.  “ Takka, you heard the drill. Recommending elevation 30 degrees. Adjust for 20 wind speed.  Greta and Ansel, LRMs on the trucks.” 

His crew heeded his commands, adjusting the aims of their respective weapons. Propellant charges were detonated, fuel salvos were ignited and a blossom of death erupted from the Von Luckner’s cannons.  The first shell smashed diagonally into the truck, almost slicing it in half, and then, veered through into a quartet of scrap-modified SUV, sending them all flying. Takka reloaded again and fired once more. The LRMs came down like meteors, swallowing the column in swirls of fire and shockwaves of dirt. The mass of vehicles was so great that Takka only had to adjust minutely every second or so before firing once more. Aroxy could see through the Von-Luckner’s integrated thermo-opticsthe heat trails of flailing occupants exiting their flaming vehicle and staggering away in shock. 

Meanwhile, there was a bigger problem. Namely, the motorcycles racing towards them. Training the AC on them would be like attempting to hit a fly with a baseball bat. This would require a more finessed approach. Aroxy signalled to Takka inside the tank to begin moving them forward. 

“ Helma, gun the MG. Ansel, man the flamethrower if they get within a hundred meters of us. Takka, take over the LRMs. We got hostiles closing in at a klick.” 

Green snakes of tracer rounds and orange geysers of flame followed soon after. The volley of lead and napalm collided with the motorcyclist. Several had their stomachs or chests excavated open or heads disappear in puffs of rusty red. A few that made it through the machine gun fire dove into the heat of the Von Luckner’s flamethrower and emerged on the other side, burnt to screaming crisps. 

“ Keep them alive? Nah, fuck that. I haven’t had this much fun since the Free Systems since clamping down on those insurgents in New Valencia,” Takka barked over the comms much to Aroxy’s embarrassment. Clearly, the heat of the battle had gotten to his driver’s head. 

“ It would be prudent to do so after the battle.” Aroxy’s voice came soon after. “ We can have our medics patch up the wounded and interrogate them for information.”