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[barry reno hendrix]

hey, for all you guys that like creative writing in the battletech universe. I encourage you to check out battletech mercenaries. an online play by forum/email community. Here are the links, check them out.

http://battletech-mercenaries.com/

and for the forum

http://www.global-pb..._Tech/index.php?

anyway just to keep this on the topic of fan fiction, here is a post from me:

23^rd February 3085,
St. Phillippa City,
Surterra continent,
Epsilon Indi,
08:52 Hours Local Time.

Barry found himself parked up in yet another ruined building alongside Rusky in his Penetrator. They were sat in wait, for ambush. Sheila and Biggs were parked up in an equally despoiled building on the opposite side of the road.

With Rusky having finally found a level on which they could boost the radar enough to get some reading out of it, they had been able to track the location of the units pursuing them. No serious fights had been engaged since the first where they annihilated the six enemy tanks. The fights that did take place lasted no more than a volley before the 8^th Independent Hussars ran off out of sight again. Admittedly their mechs weren’t desgined for that sort of fighting but they made do the best they could.

The 8^th Independent Hussars had taken very little damage, mostly requiring fresh armour plates, and the Star League vehicles had lost only a single regulator in return. A win for the hussars but not much of one.

Most of the last five days had involved redirecting and misleading the enemy force that had landed, away from where the dropship had parked up. It appeared that their force now stood at nineteen tanks and four mechs. A force strong enough to oppose the 8^th Independent Hussars in a straight forward battle. Barry however was still not intent on committing to a straight forward battle. Not as long as Sho-sa Trapp still needed more time to complete his work in the castle Brian Complex.

Most of the time now the Star League garrison force moved as one large formation, unwilling to spread their forces out in case another ambush had been prepared for them and giving Barry and the guys very little chance to engage them with any success.

Today however the Star league boys must have been getting tired of looking for the Hussars’ dropship, as they had decided to spread out so they could cover more ground at a time. Barry was sure they knew what a risk it would be for them to spread out an open them up to hit and run attacks, but Barry guessed this Major of theirs was becoming impatient with the progress they were making. Barry was sure that he would have been too.

The current group that Barry’s lance had spotted was approximately five hundred metres down the road from where they were. Moving at a very steady speed towards them. Rusky’s boosted radar had allowed them to work that the nearest Star league forces other than this one were just over a kilometre away from each other, meaning that barry and his lance had just enough time to hit this unit and move off before any other enemy forces appeared down the street.

With the enemy radar out (Barry could only guess this was true as they had not shown signs of being able to use theirs) they would be forced to look for Barry’s lance with visual spotting, and in this maze like city, that could be a very difficult task indeed.

The tanks were now almost upomn the command lance’s position and Barry could see the chassis’ of the vehicles going by. Through the shattered windows of what remained of the building he could just about make out two more Myrmidon’s and two more bulldogs moving past their position. Barry decided it was about time to give some orders out to his unit in case they prematurely made a move and staggered the ambush. That could lead to a failed attempt all together and have the enemy swarming over their position.

“Listen up command lance, we only got one chance. We wait for the tankers to move past our position, then when they are past i will give the order to attack. We burst out of the buildings, cripple or destroy each of the tanks and then we head away to the north east, leading any potential pursuers away from the direction of the dropship. Understood?” By the time Barry had finished giving out orders the enemy were about to make their pass by.

“Understood.” Staright and simple from Rusky.

“Understood Sir.” Biggs was almost growling with anticipation.

“Understood Baz.” Sheila used her most angelic voice. Barry imagined she was smiling at the other end of the comm. Line. It was hard to believe that she used to be a pirate sometimes. And then Barry saw her fight and no longer did Barry find it so hard to believe.

The front two tanks, the pair of bulldogs had moved past their position, only the Myrmidons had yet to pass, but as soon as they did Barry would be giving the order.

All of a sudden Barry felt the sudden chill up his spine and his ghost co pilot grab hold of him. It normally happened when Barry was eager to begin a fight, a combination of nerves and adrenaline set his senses on edge. Ultra aware of everything happening around him. He hated it; Barry imagined it was something none of his other lance mates suffered. Certainly not Rusky, he was too cool to be anxious.

The Myrmidons were now passing by Barry and Rusky’s position, likewise for Biggs and Sheila across the road. It was time for the order to be given.

“Command lance, rusky and I will take the tanks to the right, Sheila and biggs, you two take the tanks to the left, remember, when we’re done head north east to lead the pursuers away from the dropship. Got that? Right, then attack!” Barry gave out the orders so fast he hadn’t waited for a reply from any of the other members of his lance.

Barry powered his machine up and immediately pushed forwards on his controls, propelling his machine forwards, gathering speed for when it hit the building wall. It was about a foot thick, but multiple tonnes of solid steel hitting it at just over fourty kilometres an hour had been more than enough to make a giant sized hole in it.

The Impact from doing so had rocked Barry in his seat, and reminded him of the impact the other day when those eight SRM’s had punched into the front of his cataphract. It had taken a couple of hours for Jerry’s men to repair the armour plates. Barry hoped running through this wall didn’t do the same to his machine.

Barry burst through the exterior of the building first, shortly followed by Rusky. Across the road he could see Biggs and Sheila batter their way through at the same time as each other. Biggs using his mech’s arm to knock chunks of concrete out of his way. A large piece of debris bounced across the street and slammed into one of the few parts of the wall still standing from where Barry’s Cataphract had knocked through.

As the four heavy mechs strode out onto the street, the buildings of which they had come through, already severely run down and not looked after. The mech sized battering rams lead to more and more of the buildings come doing even after they had left it.

Unfortunately there was no way the tank drivers hadn’t noticed the massive monsters appearing behind them, especially with the explosion that was them appearing probably being heard by their buddies a kilometre away. The four tanks ground to a halt and quickly performed evasive manoeuvres trying to remove their rear armour from view of the four looming mechs.

Barry having appeared first out of the building had also been quickest to be able to draw a bead with his weaponry on the enemy tanks. The thrum of his PPC powering up informed him it was ready to fire, with a crackling blast of light the PPC tore through the air into the side of the first Myrmidon, still desperately trying to get its rear armour out of sight. The blast from the weapon sent the machine skidding away. Barry used his two medium lasers to fire into the whole the PPC made, making the whole even bigger. So much so that the inside of the tank was now visible, the remains of the crew piloting the Myrmidon clearly dead from the heat caused by his weaponry.

Biggs was the next quickest out of the building that was now a collapsing mess. He used his pair of ER large lasers to cut through the turret of the bulldog at the front of the pack. The shot was so neat that the turret of the bulldog spun off through the air, cleanly cut off from the tank, rendering it useless.

Sheila and Rusky had equally good luck with their shooting. Rusky’s large lasers hacked their way through the tracks of the bulldog that Biggs had not shot at. Leaving it parked up sideways in the middle of the street unable to move. It’s turret however could still move and pivoted towards Rusky’s penetrator just in time to see him open fire with all his medium pulse lasers. Shredding what was left of the left hand side of the battle tank and knocking it out of the battle.

Sheila’s shots ripped tonne after tonne of armour off the tank but didn’t hit the same location twice, leaving the tank battered but still functional. She was probably cursing Barry’s ban of ammunition based weapons and the need to conserve ammo. Her gauss rifle would have finished off the tank in a single shot, fortunately Barry got the honour of finishing it off with both his medium lasers firing into the already carved up armour. Apparently hitting something explosive, most likely its ammo, and causing the machine to rip itself in two with the detonation. Barry doubted that there were any survivors inside what was left.

With three tanks destroyed and another having had all its weaponry blown off Barry had decided that it was time to get out of here before these guys’ friends turned up in force. That was something Barry didn’t fancy right now. He would rather leave it on a high note.

“Ok command lance, lets ge-“ Barry stopped mid sentence when he heard a definite thus against the side of his mech. “What was that?” Barry’s confusion was answered with his mechs being rocked forwards, with what Barry could only assume was weapons fire. Warning lights were flashing across his **** pit. One particular flashing light showed severe damage taken to rear left torso.

“Contacts rear.” Biggs shouted down the comm. Line. It was a little redundant Barry thought to himself, what with his mech having been sent reeling. “How the hell did they sneak up on us? Anybody got them on the radar?”

“I don’t have **** on my radar.” Rusky actually sounded panicky for once.

“I see them.” Sheila informed them, she genuinely did sound panicky. “Ah ****, captain, inbound lance of mechs. I make it two heavies and two mediums. I think one of them is a Tessen, they have ECM too, and that’s why they didn’t appear on the radar.”

“Stop ******* talking about it and return fire.” Barry had lost his patience now. This wasn’t how the fight was supposed to go. “I’m going to call in Yankee flight so we can get the **** out of here.”

Barry had been able to pilot his mech so that he could turn it round and see the enemy mechs coming towards him. It was the same enemy lance that the video up links at the star port had shown trying to catch them before their dropship left. The biggest of the mechs was a Shootist, which was leading from the front was moving as fast possible towards his lance. He was flanked wither side by a Tessen, a very advanced tech mech, and some sort of Wyvern. Behind them was a bombardier, missile boat. Launching its first volley up in an arcing trajectory. Forty long range missiles hurtling towards his unit.

Barry noticed that those forty missiles were snaking into a pattern, leading right up towards Barry’s cataphract. How was he getting such an accurate shot at this long range he had no idea. Barry quickly through his mech into a step backwards in a desperate hope that some of the missiles might miss. Unfortunately his tactic hadn’t been as successful as he hoped. Thirty two of the forty missiles impacted across the upper half of his mech, blasting chunks of armour off his mech, the impact of which forced his mech down to one knee. Yet more warning lights were going off inside his **** pit and not for the first time in his life had he been glad he didn’t suffer from photo sensitive epilepsy.

Regaining his senses and remembering the task in hand Barry remembered that he need to call in Yankee flight or the lance could be in some serious trouble. He opened up the channel.

“Yankee flight this Hussar Command. We are under heavy fire from enemy mechs, air support required, do you read me.” Barry was shouting over the sirens going off inside his cockpit so that he could be heard.

“Hussar command, this is Yankee Lead.” Laarsen’s clipped German tone opened up over the Comm. Line. “We are inbound on your position, time till arrival, one minute thirty. Over.”

“Understood Yankee Lead. We look forward to your arrival.” Barry was impressed. One Minute thirty is a good time to have the fighters scramble to their position. Sergei must be keeping them ready to go at all times.

Barry opened up the comm. Line to command lance again. “Yankee flight inbound in one minute thirty, we need to hold off these ******** till then.”

“Got it Baz, we’ll make these **** suckers pay for this.” Sheila sounded pissed off. It was at times like this she really proved her worth.

Barry taking stock of the battlefield saw that the enemy mechs were still a good five hundred metres away from their position. Except for the Bombardier, that was hanging back at about a kilometre, it looked like he wanted to have a long range battle and Barry was more than willing to oblige him. The bombardier pilot wasn’t the only one with long range weapons.

Still kneeling form where he had been hit by the bombardiers LRM volley, he used this position to brace himself for his mechs next shots. Aiming the Gauss rifle and ER PPC at the bombardier, he opened fire with both incredibly powerful weapons. In a moment that seemed to go into slow motion, he could see the shots moving straight at the bombardiers right torse, impacting just as its weapony canopies popped open, ready to fire a second volley. Both shots impacted into the machines right torso, ripping off all its armour protection and tearing out the mechs LRM launcher on that side. Fire and smoke, leaked out of the whole Barry’s shots left. As an added bonus the impact caused the enemy mech to take a step back and its other LRM launcher opened fire, only to be pointed straight at an old, ruined building.

Barry smiled an evil smile. The enemy bombardier was certainly not out of the fight but it was pleasing to see it suffer massive damage, just like he had.

Now, he thought to himself, it was a fair fight.

Looking around at how his lance was doing, from what he could see, they seemed to be faring better than he had. Rusky had recently taken a fresh PPC hit to the right arm from the tessen, but other than that his lance had only suffered a few minor hits. It was still going to be almost a minute until Laarsen arrived but they shouldn’t have a problem holding for that long.

Moving his targeting of the still stumbling and badly damaged Bombardier he moved to a fresh target, the one he assumed was the commander, Major Holt, due to it being the largest mech. Barry knew this wasn’t always true. He just had to look at his lance, if that was true then Rusky would have been in charge.

As he took aim at the sprinting Shootist, it occurred to Barry that the enemy commander had had the same idea. He was running straight at Rusky, apparently looking to take out what the enemy commander could only assume was the 8^th independent hussars leader.

“Rusky, heads up mate, that Shootist is running straight at you, I think he thinks your me.” Barry chuckled a little bit as he spoke, to cover up his nerves.

“Da, you may be right, I think he might be disappointed if he does kill me.” Barry couldn’t believe Rusky was so chilled out about it. He had definitely mellowed since his teenage years, able to joke about getting shot at.

“Anyway, we got you covered lad.” Barry assured him, although he didn’t think the lad was worried about it.

Rusky’s response wasn’t verbal; he fired both his large lasers at the enemy mech bearing down on him. Only one of the shots hit its target, ripping armour off the enemy’s centre torso but not causing any serious damage.

Barry added his firepower to the mix and fired his ER PPC and gauss rifle at the Shootist, hitting with one on the left leg and the other on the left arm. The arm shot was enough to rock the Shootist off balance slightly for a moment but not for a second did the mech slow down.

The Shootist got to just two hundred metres away from where Rusky’s penetrator was standing when it realised that Rusky was ready to fire at him again. In a move Barry had seen very few pilots successfully perform, the Shootist bounced off to the right without even slowing down but keeping its weapons aimed at Rusky’s penetrator. The Penetrators shots would have been on target if the Shootist had remained where it was but instead they harmlessly cut through the air.

The Shootist Pilot had already shown he was no slouch and his next shot didn’t disappoint, its AC 20 opened fire in an eruption of noise. The shot hit where the Tessen had hit with its PPC earlier, ripping off the right arm of the penetrator in a screeching squeal of tearing metal. The penetrator had now lost one of its two primary weapons.

This was getting rough now. Barry didn’t have the parts back at the dropship to replace an entire arm and he knew it. He really needed those aerospace fighters to intervene now.

“Yankee flight, how long till intervention?” Barry spoke quickly for he didn’t have time to slow down.

Barry aimed his ER PPC at the Wyvern that was trying to sneak round the flank of the lance. It blasted into the side of the Mechs right leg, causing it to stumble and think twice about trying to move around the side of the lance and making a target out of itself.

Another volley of LRM’s was launched from the bombardier at the back, but this time only half as many shots were fired as previous. Again the LRM’s were headed straight for Barry’s Cataphract, apparently he must have pissed off the pilot. All twenty of the LRM’s had hit him on the torso. Barry had never known someone to fire LRM’s so accurately before; this bombardier pilot was clearly a very good shot. Parts of Barry’s mech had areas of its torso with the internal structure showing now. This could be very bad if they didn’t withdraw now.

“This is Yankee lead, we are inbound on your position, get ready to withdraw.” Laarsen answered Barry’s question with the best possible news.

Without responding to Laarsen Barry opened up the comm. Line to his lance and started to give orders. “Good news folks, Yankee lance are seconds away, start backing off from enemy lance and be prepared to move flat out.”

No one verbally responded but every member of the lance started backing away from the enemy, they were all clearly too busy piloting their mechs and focusing to speak. Barry was ok with that, right now everyone needed to be at their most focussed.

Barry noticed that the Wyvern he hit earlier was hobbling as it moved, he must have hit one of its actuators as it didn’t seem to be able to move at full speed. That was good for the hussars. It would give them a chance to get away from the enemy.

Barry and his lance fired another volley as they moved away. Barry chose to fire at the shootist, it was the only mech actively trying to close on the hussars and they wanted to give it every reason not to pursue them when they had a chance. His ER PPC stripped the last of its right leg armour off and his gauss rifle blew deep inside of its left torso. Again the Shootist was rocked but didn’t go over.

In a moment of pure glory, Barry saw explosions go up and around the Tessen, clearly multiple LRM hits followed by streaks of Large pulse laser fire blasting its way up the high street as the two LX-2 Lancers of Yankee flight performed a low altitude fly by over the enemy lance. That was their signal, time to disengage.

“Hussar command lance.” Barry spoke over the comm. “Time to disengage. Pull back north east, full speed. Let’s not waste this chance, Yankee flight won’t be able to do that again for us.” Barry was right, the star league boys would be ready for an aerial attack now. The Lancers although fast and powerful were only lightly armoured, and a good solid hit would probably be a dead Aero space fighter.

In unison the command lance pulled away from the engagement, turning on the spot and moving at full throttle whilst they were benefiting from the enemy lance’s confusion. Barry checked the rear camera as they ran from the enemy, no one was pursuing, either down to the confusion or damage caused on the enemy mechs Barry did not care. He was just glad they weren’t being chased. His mech couldn’t take too much more of a fight like that and he probably wasn’t the only member of his lance who felt that way.

As he sprinted in a north easterly direction he opened a channel to Laarsen. “You have my thanks Henrik. Don’t think we could have done it without you.”

“Thank you sir.” Laarsen’s reply was emotionless.

“Any sign of movement from the enemy force?” Barry asked.

“They appear to be stationary, their tanks are forming up on the mechs, looks like we we’re just in time, and an entire armoured company is now with them.” Laarsen read the information out as though he was reading the news.

“****, your right!” Barry exclaimed. “Good work Laarsen, head back to the dropship for refuel and reloading, you may be called upon again.”

“Understood sir.”

The Comm line closed and Barry opened up a new one, this time to Liam, his XO.

“hey smokey, looks like you’re going to have to cut your lazy day short. Command Lance is coming for repairs. I need you and your lance back out there.” Barry tried to laugh but his adrenaline was still pumping and his nerves were on edge so it just came out as a derisive snort.

“I figured as much when Laarsen’s flight was scrambled. What happened out there?” Liam’s concern was completely genuine. Plus Pinky probably wanted to know how Barry was.

“We’re ok, can’t say the same for our mechs, they took a beating. It was that command lance we saw on the cameras at the star port, tough little sons of ******* I’ll give them that.” Barry said the last part through gritted teeth. “Won’t be coming back at us for a while is my guess. They were hit just as hard as we were. If you have to deal with anything today, it will probably just be the tankers. Can you handle that?”

“Course we can.” Liam laughed. “Can’t let you have all the fun.”

Fun, Barry thought to himself, today certainly wasn’t what he would have called fun.

[Lance McRaven]

Just wanted to re-introduce the website mentioned above by Barry Reno Hendrix. The afore mentioned site is a fan fiction site, where you start off with a company, and based on your abilities to write fan fiction, can grow! I have been a member of the site since 2009, on and off, and currently command a Brigade! We are always looking for new and returning members, so stop by, and set a spell. you might find it to your liking.
The site has had its ups and downs of late, and for those of you that are former members, I wanted to pass on some sad news. Lieutenant General Tim Maddox, ([color=#536482]Timothy Joshua Reid, Director MRBC)[/color] recently lost his wife. If you knew him, or were his friend, I just wanted to pass this word along.