350 Side Story Chapter 2

As the days passed, the Bright Lance Mercenaries fought sixteen battles, and retreated sixteen times. The Mitigok swarms drove them back over half the planet, and the forces of the Light Carrier Asred struggled to delay their advance.

In these many battles, the mercenaries and the golems of the Asred alike suffered severe losses. More than half his original Company were wrecked beyond salvaging. Two squads were wrecked, but might one day be salvageable. One squad's worth was in Refit, needing essential parts replaced and undergoing massive overhauls. One more squad was in Repair, and would take a day or so to be properly patched up.

This left just six fully operable mechs for deployment.

"Bright Scout, Bright Scout, report!" Captain Lance called on the comms.

"One Knight to the left, two directly ahead. No movement from the Baroness on the right." The mech farthest ahead was a Bloodhound, a Light Mech of the second generation specializing in reconnaisance. Good sensors, good speed and stealth plating were its selling points, and the main reasons why it survived and remained operable with patch-up repairs until now. "Estimate 50 Pawns closing in on my position."

Fifty! That was unusual. A typical Knight-class Mitigok usually only went around with twelve. A Baroness wouldn't even bother with such lowly types directly, instead commanding her Rooks and Bishops, who in turn directed the Knights. At this point, six Rooks and twenty Bishops were accompanying that hulking Baronness as she slowly made her way to the mana vein that the Asred was trying so hard to protect. At this point, they had all but given up trying to stop her; after so many battles with little time to recuperate, the Asred itself was in bad shape similar to the Bright Lance Mercenary Company.

Captain lance paused, viewing the shared sensor readings from the cockpit of the Acrobat. "Artillery, report."

"Artillery is in position, locked in and ready." The least damaged mech in the entire Company was a Hedgehog Heavy Mech, a specialist in long-range missile bombardment. Among all the artillery-type mechs they had brought, this was the only one who focused on missiles. This enabled it to launch its payload over obstacles and from a farther distance with the benefit of an ally's sensors. They could park it safely in a valley surrounded by steep cliffs and it could still accurately rain down cluster missiles on a target a kilometer away spotted by the Bloodhound Scout. This kept it far safer than those artillery mechs who relied on direct-fire cannons.

They had originally brought four of those direct-fire cannon artillery mechs. Two of them were in Refit, needing to replace entire limbs or similar major parts. Two more were wrecked beyond even salvage.

���In position!" one voice reported. The other one just grunted affirmitively.

"Sniper?"

"I'm on the cliff." This voice was female, and it was a refreshing change from all the men's low voices in his ears. The sniper mech in question was a Goshawk, a Medium Mech outfitted with no less than six jump jets, capable of incredible mobility. Armed with a powerful gauss rifle, the Goshawk was famous for being able to hit targets at extreme range from superior elevated positions. "I have the Knight in my sights."

Everyone was ready. Captain Lance took a deep breath. "Open fire."

Behind him, the Hedgehog launched a full volley, missiles flying in a stream from its back. No less than six Warhammer Heavy Missiles took to the skies seeking the target locked in by the Bloodhound Scout's sensors. These were the biggest, hardest hitting missiles Captain Lance had ever coughed up the money to buy. Even now, seeing them all fly off, never to return, he felt the pain of using missile artillery. It was costly, but what else could they do? They needed the firepower.

Their target was the lone Knight to the left. It ran with only ten Pawns, and was the weakest link in the chain of ranking Mitigok bearing down on the mana vein from the planet's north. This particular Knight had taking a bombardment from the Asred earlier, plus it had been part of a surprise rush that tore the heart out of the Golem formations defending the vein. This left it weak and vulnerable, and therefore an easy target for even the dwindling mercenaries to take out. In so doing, it was their hope that the sudden gap in their lines would force the Mitigok to redeploy or something. That way, they could buy a little more time.

On a small screen to the left, the Mitigok Knight stumbled as a Gauss round pierced into its armor. The upright dinosaur-like figure armed with toothed blade claws quickly recovered and leapt into action, charging forward along with its Pawns.

But despite its movement, the sensor lock and the missiles followed it perfectly. Heavy explosions lit up the screen, tearing apart three Pawns who leapt in the way trying to save their leader. Three more remaining blasts hammered the Knight into the ground.

A second Gauss shot smacked the Knight in the face as it tried to regain its feet.

At that point, thick beams of light lanced out from the side. Both Skirmishers were armed with heavy lasers which packed enough punch to burn through Knight and Pawn-ranked armor. The downsides about such powerful weaponry was that they drained power like crazy, and they built up heat even more crazily. Their damage output simply couldn't keep going for long. After just a couple of seconds of firing, both Skirmishers turned and ran for their lives.

The Pawns chased them. They had no idea where the sniper was, or where the missiles came from, but they most certainly could see where the lasers were coming from. With clear targets to hunt and avenge their boss, the remaining seven Pawns lunged for the fleeing Skirmishers without hesitation.

Perfect. So far everything was going according to plan. With the Pawns chasing the Skirmishers, as long as the Scout remained hidden and within sensor range, the Sniper alone could do the rest…

"Incoming Knight!" the Scout yelped. "One of the two in the middle just diverted and it's coming straight for our target!"

Captain Lance let out a groan. So much for taking their time. "Artillery, what else do you have?"

"Almost nothing. Those Warhammers were the last of our ordinance. Right now all we have left are two Net Harpoons, some flares and a few direct-fire rockets." The voice replied in a tone of accusation.

Captain Lance winced. That was his fault, admittedly. Missiles were expensive, and they didn't expect to end up in this sort of situation. It wasn't a habit of their to haul around hundreds of heavy guided missiles in the first place. While the Hedgehog had the capacity for forty such Warhammers, the Bright Lance Company had simply run out of stock.

"Forget the Harpoons." Lance grimaced. Those weren't really very damaging, their main usage was to slow down their targets in electromagnetic netting, which was almost useless against the biological Mitigok. "Pull back. Artillery, return to base. Sniper, it's all on you, now."

Hesitantly, the Scout reported. "Boss, I still have a rifle…"

"Forget it." Captain Lance said. "Prepare to withdraw. We've done all we can here, and there's no point taking any further losses."

"Wait, something's wrong. The Knight we shot down… it's getting up…"

The Sniper kept firing. Until now, she hadn't stopped.

Captian Lance grimaced. "Sniper! How many rounds do you have left?"

"Three!"

"Make them count! Everyone else, pull back! We're getting out of here! Inform the Asred! We've done all we can."

"The other Knight is closing in, fast! It's…"

Captain Lance eyed it on screen as the second Knight closed in on the first and…

Stabbed it through the chest with both blades.

"What?!" Captain Lance gaped. "What just…"

That wasn't enough! The second knight ripped into the first, tearing it to pieces and then, opened its mouth and…

"It's eating the first Knight?!" the Scout was in shock.

"This… this is…" Captain Lance finally realized what was happening. "That's a male! They're both males!"

"Sir…?!"

"These aren't just any ordinary Knights! They're Lordlings! They have the potential to one day mate with their Baroness… but first… they'll fight to the death, consuming each other and growing stronger until only one remains, the strongest of the lot!"

"Wow! I never knew about…"

"You can study later! Whatever the case, we have to get out of here! Now!" Captain Lance clenched his fist. "Give me an update on the Baroness!"

"Um…" the scout gulped. "She's moving. She's heading right for us. All her Rooks and Bishops, every Knight on the map, and oh goodness, the Pawns too… everything is coming this way!"

"Scrap. I was afraid this would happen. Kill some random Knight and the Baroness would just replace it. But what we just did…"

"What? What did we do?"

"I think we killed her boyfriend."

"WHAT!?"

"Or at least, one of them. They start off with about twenty or so… until only one is left."

"Then why…?"

"Even so, she's mad. I think we're in trouble now. I think we're in real trouble."

"It wasn't us! Someone tell her, it was her other boyfriend! We didn't do it!"

"Right. All we did was bomb him and shoot him until he was too weak to escape. You wanna tell her that?"

At that, the Scout fell silent.

"All units retreat. Even you, Sniper. We're done."