Assault on Sibirsky

Ariel checks his controls one last time as the Freedom flies through the dark skies of Siberia. Akatsuki and Double X are flanking him, the two high performance mobile suits keeping up with Freedom more or less without effort. Below, and rather ahead, is the second group, led by Braddigan Heart; they are not visible from this vantage, except as icons on his HUD.

“Alright, everyone ready? You all know the plan. We’ll take out the command center, and you guys smash through the minefield.” A double row of comm windows appears on the left side of his HUD, with the faces of the other pilots involved. Most of them simply make noises of acknowledgement or stick their thumbs up, though Braddigan flashes a quick smirk. “This shoudn’t be too difficult… a bunch of outdated junk. Still, there were rumours they may be on higher alert, since someone apparently dropped by here yesterday. We’d better keep an eye out.”

—

Inside Sibirsky’s command center, the radar display suddenly beeps, as a trio of contacts appear, with their projected course headed towards the base. A lower ranking officer grabs the phone and hits the control immediately, connecting him to the duty officer. At the same time, some more contacts on the big board light up, showing where possible enemy movement has been located in the forest.

“Sir! Three contacts on radar, coming in from downriver. Our patrol units are reporting signs of movement in the forest, as well.” The duty officer doesn’t waste any time– he knows his job, and a second later, sirens are going off all across the base.

“Incoming enemy attack. Incoming enemy attack. All pilots to your mobile suits. Repeat, all pilots to your mobile suits.” In barracks, break rooms, and so forth across the base, pilots on standby leap to their feet, yank their boots on, and zip up their jackets, headed for their mobile suits. The outlying outposts activate their sensors as well, probing for targets, and dozens of mono-eyes flash as various mobile suits activate and prepare to move out.

“Sir, radar contacts have stopped for now… they’re just hanging there in mid-air–”

A thin, blue-white beam stretches down from the sky, marvelously far, seeming to come straight from the Moon. Inside the Double X, Lyric smiles, watching the first tracers of machinegun fire start to stretch from the dam. However, the twin satellite cannon takes all too short a time to charge, and with a yell, he pulls the trigger, sending a pair of massive destructive blasts racing outwards. Unable to tell where the command center is from his vantage point, he simply aims at the dam instead, the two beams hitting dead center. A massive explosion ripples reinforced concrete across the dam’s surface, throwing mobile suit and man alike to the ground, as a huge dollop of the dam’s structure simply slides off into the water. A huge crater is punched in the center of the dam, and a second later, water pressure blows out the divot, the top central portion of the dam crumbling downwards as a massive flood of water bursts forth, smashing it’s way downstream.

—

“Sir! The dam has taken a direct hit from a satellite cannon! Massive breach to the central area, no repairs possible!” Alarms and sirens echo throughout the base; a number of lines were cut when the center of the dam crumbled, and several Tierens and some of the fixed defenses fell into the drink, but the vast majority of the base is in the reinforced blockhouses on either side, and thus escaped destruction.

—

Braddigan rolls the Leopard forwards, slowly but surely, blazing away with most of the Double X’s weapons. Nu and Red Frame follow tentatively behind him, hyper bazooka and beam rifle behind, being careful to only step where Braddigan does; the massive explosion whenever a mine detonates is more than enough to convince Ethan and Henry that stepping on a mine would be bad news.

“Good news, you two– I just got a message from Ariel… Lyric blew a hole right through the dam!”

Henry relaxes slightly, still staying alert as he peers through the trees around them. “That’s a relief. Mabye this will be a cakewa–” Suddenly, Ethan stops in his tracks, peering wildly around him as a sinking feeling pierces his soul “No! It’s… I sense danger! There’s something coming!”

Stopping for a moment, Braddigan turns the Leopard slightly, peering at the Nu. “What are you talking about?” Ethan swallows, looking around him nervously. “I can’t put a finger on it, but I’m telling you, something’s wrong!”

Braddigan opens his mouth, but whatever he’s about to say is choked back as a truely horrific sight appears: a massive number of glowing trails arcing upwards from inside the base perimeter, headed in his general direction. “Holy shit!” Raising his inner arm gatling, he immediately starts backing up, blazing away at the incoming rocket barrage, but his aim is slightly off: the blasts are set to fire just short of the position of the three mobile suits, and seconds later, a massive wall of explosions simply rolls across the entire area, destroying a huge swath of forest and raining hell down on the three mobile suits. By sheer luck, Braddigan manages to empty his missile launchers into some of the rockets, causing a few to detonate fratricidally, and him, Ethan, and Henry manage to escape being pulverized by the skin of their necks, though the blasts shakeand batter all thre mobile suits, and pinwheeling trees smash through Nu’s fin funnels, snapping them off like toys. Braddigan fares the best; his mobile suit’s heavy armor lets him shrug off the shrapnel more or less intact.

The shriek of incoming artillery shells alerts the three pilots that it’s not over by a long short, cannon shells of various sizes arcing outwards from the base towards their position. Ignoring the shells for now, Braddigan concentrates as his eyes fix on a number of parallel flames rushing towards him at tree-top level, then smirks and raises both the Leopard’s arms. As explosions start to saturate the area again, he unloads another massive barrage from his grenade launchers, inner arm gatling, and chest gatlings, tagging one of the mobile suits in the incoming Tieren Flight Type formation handily. Limbs and thrusters fly off of the flying mobile suit’s body as it’s flight path becomes ballistic, smashing into the forest and exploding. The other three in the formation hastily change course to evade, returning fire with their own machinecannons, A number of rounds connect with the Leopard, one smashing into the empty shoulder missile launcher and tearing it off, but he manages to maintain his footing, continuing to blaze away at the flying mobile suits as the Nu and Red Frame join in with, respectively, their bazooka and beam rifle.

—

Lyric curses as he sails along the lower rim of the dam, juking and dodging as beam rifle fire tears up the concrete behind him. Swivelling the Freedom around and upwards, catching another shot on his shield, he returns fire, the railguns and plasma cannons snapping into position as he quickly sends a rapid-fire barrage across the top of the dam, smashing four Tierens All four immediately explode, well-perforated by beam and slug alike, and he hastily lowers his altitude again, a cannon shot exploding against the Freedom’s left leg and knocking him into a spin. Fortunately, he manages to recover without too much effort, though Lyric hasn’t been so lucky; below, he can be spotted fighting Tieren High Mobility Types hand to hand, two of them lying on the ground short of legs.

“God damn it, where is–”

“Ariel! I’ve located the command center!” The Akatsuki pops out of the water on the lake side, hovering over the breach, just a little too low for the base defenses to nail him. “It’s in that lefthand bunker– I’ll get it!” The Akatsuki rises upwards and speeds along the lake at low altitude, firing it’s beam cannons and rifle to clear it’s path and knocking off two more Tierens. The defenses cut loose in his direction, but he’s too low for most of them to easily bear on him at that angle…

“…No, wait! ANTON, WAIT!”

“Just relax, we’ll be able to get this back on track in–”

The Akatsuki rises over the dam and the command center, finally, and a full six of the antiaircraft type Tierens cut loose, twenty-four rapid-fire 155mm cannons blazing away at the Akatsuki. The golden mobile suit seems to almost be pinned in the air as almost a hundred shells slam into it in less than ten seconds… but more is to come, and one of the base’s heavy cannons belches from it’s position atop the blockhouse, sending a gigantic APFSDS round right through the Akatsuki. Still, the Akatsuki doesn’t go down alone, as Anton’s last convulsve squeeze on the trigger sends a pair of beam blasts in through the spot where the cannon’s barrel joins it to the turret, sending it bouncing skywards in a vomit of flame. The turret lands right on top of a pair of the modified Tierens, squashing them flat before they can even react.

Then, Akatsuki simply keels over and falls into the lake with a splash.

It doesn’t come up again.

—

“One incoming enemy down! He went right into the lake!” Cheers erupt throughout the command center, even as emergency lighting kicks in. “Are you sure he’s down?”

“Sir, we put enough lead into that mobile suit to sink a battleship! No way he’s coming back from that!” The entire structure shakes again, the lights briefly blinking out, as another massive blow strikes at the base…

__

“BASTAAAAARDS!” Another twin satellite blast erupts from where Lyric stands, ignoring the enemy fire. Two Tierens lie twitching on the ground, their systems having shorted out from the microwave beam striking them. The blast roars upwards at an angle and smashes through one of the base’s blockhouses, sending a bevy of turret skywards in a massive blaze as ammunition detonates.

“Lyric! LYRIC! That’s enough! We’re pulling out!”

Freedom, one arm short, flies by the Double X, braking into a hover and grabbing it by the shoulder. “Let’s go! We have to go now, or we’re dead!”

Cursing bitterly, Lyric undeploys the satellite cannon, lifting into the air and flying at low altitude behind Lyric. As he sends out the retreat signal, Ariel spots a set of acknowledgement signals from the other three mobile suits, showing that they, at least, have escaped as well, for now…

Outcome: Sibirsky stands
Freedom: 3 days damage, 11 VP
Red Frame: 4 days damage, 11 VP
Leopard: 3 days damage, 13 VP
Nu: 3 days damage, 11 VP, gains access to Nu HWS parts
Double X: 3 days damage, 13 VP
Akatsuki: 14 VP, dead, 6 days
Sibirsky’s losses: Two heavy cannons, eight machinegun turrets, nine Tieren Ground Types, one Tieren Flight Type, two Tieren High Mobility Types, one Tieren All-Region Type, two cannons, three missile launchers; dam punctured, one blockhouse destroyed, minefield destroyed