Not entirely trusting Torres' report, Captain Tyler and Lieutenant Thrash had their lances advance slowly and cautiously, following the valley leading to the base but sticking to the hillsides. The terrain, while not shielding them from enemy radar, would at least offer some cover in the event of an ambush.

Piecemaker ordered Enforcer Lance to halt just inside the hills that ringed the flat, circular expanse of sand in which the base was situated. They powered down to await further developments. The infantry and armoured units rolled to a stop at Nav Gamma, a couple of kilometres behind them. Halfstack and Raider Lance moved slowly across the open ground, towards the cluster of buildings in the centre of the site. There was no sight or sound of any threat and nothing on their sensors. ‘Though if this is a trap, things could get real interesting, real quick’, thought Todd.

From his vantage point in the hills, Voller saw the enemy force long before they were close enough to register on his passive sensors. Alerted by the flash of sunlight off their cockpit canopies, he watched and waited, taking the time to identify his foes. He waited until the intruders were halfway towards the base’s main building before ordering his assault lance to power up. He had the advantage in tonnage and firepower, he saw now, but most of his mechs were better suited to long-range combat. He wished he’d pushed out further and engaged the intruders sooner, but it was pointless worrying about that now.

For Raider Lance, things suddenly did get very interesting, their sensors picking up EM spikes as the mercenaries’ mechs powered up.

“Whoa! Multiple contacts bearing Zero Eight Five!” called mechwarrior Nathan Daniels, callsign Chum Slikk, over the lance’s open channel.

“The sneaky bastards!” snarled Sergeant Jeff "Buckshot" Baker.

“I have another four contacts bearing Two Six Zero – one klick out and moving fast!” warned Cody Quan, callsign Lazarus.

“So much for a straightforward smash ‘n’ grab”, Thrash grumbled to himself. “Okay, spread out, let them come to us and engage your nearest target”. He punched a button on his console and his fire control system selected the enemy unit closest to him. His secondary monitor displayed the image and stats for a BNS-5S Banshee. ‘Oh great!’ he groaned inwardly. Although his 75-ton Falconer mounted similar armament to the 95-ton pirate mech, the Banshee carried an additional PPC, an SRM rack and several tons more armour. ‘Not exactly my first choice opponent, but – what the hell…’

Todd toggled his radio and selected the command frequency. “Captain, I’d appreciate a little help here. We ran into the pirate’s assault lance and it looks like they have a lance of heavies coming in to catch us in a crossfire”.

“Copy that, Raider One. Enforcer Lance is rolling. Give us one minute”. Tyler selected his lance frequency. “Okay guys, Raider Lance ran into some trouble and they need backup. Lets put the pedal to the metal and lend a hand”.

The rest of Enforcer Lance acknowledged, pushing their throttles to the stops and driving over 300 tons of battlemech down into the sand bowl to cut off the enemy reinforcements.

A pirate Stalker was the first to open fire. The 85-ton assault mech’s paired large lasers and LRM racks sent twin ruby beams and a volley of missiles at Lazarus' Lao-Hu. Although the laser fire burned two long scars down the heavy mech’s torso, Laz jinked right in time to send the missiles ploughing harmlessly into the sand. “Son of a bitch! Look what that bastard did to my paint job!” snarled the fiery Capellan. “Who the hell are these guys anyway?” he demanded of the world in general, lining up a shot with his extended range large laser and scoring a hit on the Stalker’s left torso.

Todd studied the Banshee he was tracking. These pirates, or whatever they were, had a dark red and light grey paint scheme. The insignia on its centre torso was a large scarlet V, with a sword, blade-down, running straight through the centre. It rang a bell, but he couldn’t quite remember why. “I don’t know”, he admitted, “but we’re gonna show ‘em what happens when they try and play in the major leagues”.

Chum Slikk, piloting a Lancelot, found himself tangling with a pirate Nightstar, while Sergeant Baker’s Flashman had drawn the attention of an Emperor.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Chum exclaimed, using his mech’s superior speed and agility to evade the Nightstar’s opening salvo from its twin gauss rifles. “I don’t get paid enough for this!”

“Hey, you’re always bragging about how good you are – now’s your chance to prove it”, replied Halfstack with more humour than he felt. His lance were seriously out-gunned by these mercs. He hoped Piecemaker wasn’t sparing the horses with his cavalry charge. He gave a wry smile as he mentally compared the lumbering run of an assault mech to a horse’s graceful gallop. He toggled his radio again. “Hey Steve – you fallen asleep back there?”

“Be with you in thirty seconds – just hang in there”. Piece’s speech was slightly slurred as he was jolted around in his command couch by his Awesome’s bouncing gait.

Baker maintained his customary silence, walking his Flashman sideways and narrowly avoiding the lethal caress of the Emperor’s paired large lasers. Much closer and he’d be in range of its twin Luxor Class 10 autocannon. Its pilot lit the assault mech’s jump jets to do just that as he returned fire with the Flashman’s trio of large lasers. One missed, but the other two vapourised armour from the Emperor’s left leg, unbalancing the 90-ton machine in mid-flight. Anyone observing Baker at this moment would have noticed his facial twitching, usually attributed to excessive caffeine consumption, disappear and a slightly manic grin spread across his face.

Voller cursed as the enemy Flashman hit him in mid jump, spoiling his aim and sending the dual stream of solid slug munitions from his torso-mounted Imperator Code Red autocannon, wide and to the left. ‘Son of a bitch! Whoever that pilot is, he’s either got balls of steel or he’s a lunatic!’ he thought. The Emperor came down heavily on its left leg and warning lights flashed up on his console, informing him the knee actuator had been damaged.

“Goddammit!” he snarled, lining up his crosshairs and letting fly with both large lasers. The left arm laser missed as the Flashman jinked right, but the other flayed armour off the lighter mech’s left arm.

Todd lined up his crosshairs on the mercenary Banshee, kicked his throttle to max and brought his joystick hard left, bringing the Falconer into a fast sideways run that caught his opponent off guard. Torso-twisting to keep the target in his crosshairs, he pulled his main trigger to unleash the extended range PPC in his mech’s right arm and thumbed the side button to fire the gauss rifle in the left arm. The particle cannon burned a scar into the Banshee’s right arm, while the gauss slug smashed into its right torso, the force of the impact twisting its torso several degrees. Halfstack saw the assault mech’s left arm rise to track him and lit his jump jets. The Falconer rose into the air on trails of burning plasma as a gauss slug buried itself in the sand where he’d been standing just a moment ago.

Captain Tyler’s Awesome advanced down the shallow sloping side of the basin as the mercenary Nightstar was lining up another shot at Chum’s Lancelot. Without hesitating, he linked all three PPCs to his primary firing trigger, lined up his crosshairs, aiming for a head-shot to take his opponent down with a single volley and fired. He wasn’t to be that lucky though. A lack of a targeting computer and the vibration caused by the mech’s rapid movement denied him the necessary accuracy. One beam struck the centre torso, just below the cockpit, another hit the left shoulder joint and the third slashed through the armour on its left arm. None of the shots did any serious damage, but they got the pilot’s attention.