"Fried Prophet on a Popsicle stick, this maneuver had better be over with soon." Colonel Bourne was a member of the Steampunk Dragons, and had been put onto an asteroid belt near Yomi Reef as a way of guarding the Gate until the Dragon Clans could finish up loading supplies for dropships in preparation for the upcoming Clan War. What they had not been prepared for was a splinter cell of the Iron Prince's forces to come looking for them. Hatred and vengeance driving their thoughts.
The Dragon Clans had originally aligned themselves with the Prince of Iron during the Shogunate Civil War. But soon into the conflict, they had found the Iron emissaries trying to force them to fire on allies as a way of weakening the Clan and other mercenary forces. Clan leaders of several Dragon and RND forces had met in secret to compare notes and sure enough, the Prince of Iron was trying to get them to eliminate each other.
So in a show of solidarity, both Alliances joined forces and helped blast everything that had an Iron Fist painted on it's fuselage from the entire sector. After some R and R and material gathering, the Clans had thought the matter was done, but a full Division had come through the gate and caught them unawares. Since then, the action had been hot and heavy. Several Companies of Dragons and RND had joined together once again, to stave off the exiled ruling class of the Shogunate.
Colonel Bourne was right in the midst of it from day one. He had seen several medium size mechs called Buccaneers, firing sheets of lasers into the ranks, taking out much larger mecha by the score. Luckily his company had essential niode gear and weaponry to stave off the plucky Buccaneers, through superior weaponry and force (not to mention tactics, as it appeared the leader of this company was possibly mad based on some of his maneuvers).
"Seriously, one more good push and they'll either tumble off this rock into the gravity well, or be forced to jump Gatewards. Bob! Bring those damn Boreas up! We need some ice and freeze on these damnable things, pronto!"
The Shogunate company were slowly following Colonel Bourne's men up into what appeared to be a box canyon. They were eager to snuff him out after days of fighting, but had learned in a most costly manner not to get to close to his front line mechs. Instead, they stayed just out of range of his back ranks, and used their superior speed to maneuver from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop, attempting to pull off crit shots from a distance. They out numbered him three to one, which made it a close to even fight as Bourne's troops had superior training and machines.
"Bob if you don't get your drek smeared arse down hear right now and seal the lid, this half brained drekkle humper is going to realize whats going on!"
Major Bob Otsby was another Steampunk commander, who just had his company fitted out with a score of Boreas mechs. Giant behemoths who specialized in devastating ice based firepower with amazingly efficient freeze capabilities. Just when Colonel Bourne was getting ready to shoot his way out of the box, he finally saw what he was hoping for. Row upon row of giant blue and white mechas appeared on both ridges above the canyon and started raining down icy death onto the Shogunate in front of him. Those that weren't killed instantly in the first volley tried to jump jet back out of the trap, but it was too late. Two Apatotrons lumbered into the gap, sealing the Shogunate in a box of death. The mighty mechs resembling the Dinosaurs for which they were named, opened up with row upon row of gun batteries and missile pods. It was a slaughter.
"What the hell Bob, did you think this was one of your Action Adventure holofilms? Had to wait to the very last second to make it dramatic? You could've shown up fifteen minutes ago and the endgame would have been the same! Only we'd be back at base and I'd be on the way to a shower by now!"
"Oh! I'm sorry Colonel, remind me next time to sink a couple thousand niodes in jump jets and I'll move these big bastards where you want them on time next time! Do you have any idea how hard it is to sneak up on anything with two frekkin Apatotrons? I didn't think so."
"Hehhhhhhh. Fine. Get Emerald on the horn and get some greenies from Group B out here to salvage these things. We have a date with a case of whiskey and a hot tub on the drop ship. Now that the warm up is over, it's time for us to start preparing for Clan War 3309."
It had been a long, drawn out fight, but it was only a warm up for things to come and Colonel Bourne and the men and women of the Dragon Clans were ready for anything now.
And so it goes.
