The road to Butte City was mostly clear by the time we were able to organize and consolidate for another push after three days. As we marched north out of the Groaning Peaks, several towns fell without so much as a shot being fired. The populations of towns such as Haldenvik, Pastwisko, Flusssdadt, Killybally, Kuusilahti, and Nížinagrod welcomed us with open arms instead of calling out their militia to fire on us. As we moved north into the Selinide Basin, the reason why became clearer. We were met south of the town of Sosnalaszy by a company of mixed Bugmechs from the Insect Legion, primarily a mix of Stingers and Wasps, but with a single lance of mixed Scorpions and Cicadas. Instead of firing, however, the Company of Mercenaries requested a parlay. I was inclined to grant it and that's when the reason for the lack of fighting became clear.
Apparently, not only had the various Mercenaries taken horrendous losses during the fighting, but now they had been told that Redjack Ryan was planning to not honor the remainder of their contract. The Mercenaries revolted, and though they were cut down from five regiments to two, they represented fully half of Redjack Ryan's remaining fighting strength. The Insect Legion still had a full regiment remaining of it, and Monk's Marauders had absorbed the remnants of the Sons of the Bastards and Mariadoc's Malcontents to replenish its losses. Meanwhile, Redjack Ryan had holed up in the Raider's Roost with what was left of the First Ryan's Rebels, bolstered by the Garrison of the Raider's Roost. He had one full regiment of troops there with him, including the garrison, but Aganr Haggerty and the Second Ryan's Rebels had fled east back to Singlestown instead of staying put to defend Butte City.
Accordingly, the remaining mercenaries had put a ring of troops around the Raider's Roost to act as a tripwire in the event Agnar Haggerty managed to rally his regiment and come riding to Redjack Ryan's rescue. The idea was that even if one of the companies acting as a tripwire got destroyed, the others would be able to concentrate for a battle and would know Agnar Haggerty's position and heading. With close to a two-to-one numbers advantage and knowledge of his location and destination, the idea was for the Mercenaries to be able to hit the Second Ryan's Rebels with an ambush and send Agnar Haggerty fleeing back to Singlestown long before he could arrive at the Raider's Roost to Reinforce Redjack Ryan. Keeping the remaining two regiments of Ryan's Rebels separate would ensure they were able to successfully force Redjack Ryan to pay them the rest of their fee.
"How much does Redjack Ryan owe you all?" I questioned their commander, a Captain Luisa Jimenez.
"He still owes us ninety million C-bills. I've heard he owes Monk's Marauders forty-five-million C-bills and owes the Sons of the Bastards thirty million C-bills, and Meriadoc's Malcontents fifteen-million C-bills. I suppose we can kiss the battlefield salvage goodbye since you've clearly won this war." Huffed Captain Jimenez.
"And you already were paid half up front?" I queried.
"Yeah, the Mercenary Review Board insisted." Nodded Captain Jimenez.
"So he still owes the mercenaries one-hundred-eighty-million C-bills, with the total number being twice that." Mused Colonel Frankowski.
"That's close to a fifth of Butte Hold's GDP, at least as of your father's death, plus salvage rights. Redjack Ryan must have been desperate." Added Colonel Lindqvist.
"What if we fulfilled the remainder of your contract?" I asked.
"What, you mean pay us the rest of our fee? No offense, but are you in a position to do that?" Frowned Captain Jimenez.
"It might slow growth a bit, but we have at least three years before we'll need to expand again, anyway. I don't see why not." I offered.
"I'll have to run it up the chain of Command. Brigadier Jackson will have to sign off on anything, the same goes for Colonel Monk on their end. Give me a few hours." Hedged Captain Jimenez.
"Of course, let me know what your superiors decide." I agreed.
As it would turn out, it only took an hour for word to make it back to the Insect Brigade's Commanding Officer, Brigadier Dante Jackson, who immediately agreed. Anything to salvage the debacle this was turning into. Colonel Steven Monk agreed an hour later and a call to the fleet was relayed via a K-class transmitter back to New Ålborg, where Pauliina Kokkonen sent a courier to the nearest Inner Sphere Regional Capital at Apollo to begin working the details out with the Mercenary Review Board. Nine days later, we had confirmation of the transfer of funds, courtesy of the K-Class transmitter aboard the Courier. In the meantime, with the truce in place with the Mercenaries, we began tightening our hold on the Raider's Roost, slowly closing the noose on Redjack Ryan with five regiments.
Oddly enough, Agnar Haggerty never showed his face the entire time this was going on. Not even trying to relieve Redjack Ryan. We would find out the reason why the day after the funds cleared from the Mercenary Deal. Apparently, he'd been trying to flee the sinking ship along with his regiment like a rat. He apparently had a dropship still docked at the Singlestown Spaceport capable of taking the remnants of his regiment with him into orbit. The fleet caught him trying to burn for Butte Hold Six. When Commodore Clarke had cut off his route of escape, however, he hailed her, claiming to be under orders from Hendrik Grimm to weaken Redjack Ryan. Apparently, he was claiming that he and his men were secretly working for the Oberon Confederation this whole time, and as such were technically non-belligerent parties.
Commodore Clarke wanted to know how to proceed and I told her to let them go. On the chance he wasn't lying and actually was a plant for Hendrik Grimm, there was no sense in borrowing trouble. Even if he was just lying to save his own skin, this would only make Redjack Ryan's final defeat easier anyway, so it was really a win-win scenario for us. I would get confirmation from Commodore Clarke some four days later that there had been a hidden JumpShip on the Ice World of Butte Hold Six that Agnar Haggerty's dropship Docked with. That JumpShip would wind up jumping out of the system from a pirate point not twelve hours later, taking care of that problem. In the meantime, we moved in on the Raider's Roost.
Raider's Roost was a highly fortified base, large enough to hold a regiment of troops plus a wing of Aerospace Fighters. It was impossible to bombard from the ground, due to the height of the plateau making targeting the fortifications extremely difficult, and was too well provisioned to starve out, meaning assault was the only way to seize it. The fortifications and regiment of troops made that a dicey prospect for most forces, even with a five-to-one numbers advantage. It sat atop a plateau some two kilometers south of Butte City, which put it in a prime position to block off access to Butte City and the Planetary Capital. It also put it in a position to shell Butte City with its single battery of Long Tom Artillery, effectively holding the planetary capital hostage. I had little doubt that if I ordered an assault, that Redjack Ryan would immediately order a bombardment of Butte City as a way to pressure me to call off the assault.
Fortunately, I had other options. Sneaksuits and Jump Infantry Equipment meant that my forces could launch a commando assault on the Raider's Roost to disable the artillery and sabotage equipment in advance of an assault. We waited for nightfall before doing so, when it came, I sent in Captain Olav Gamla and a platoon of Jump Infantry, augmented with Jump Packs and Sneaksuits to perform a daring raid. Captain Gamla was a veteran commando, having gained experience working as a pro-independence partisan in his youth on the Planet Trondheim in the former Rasalhague Dominion, ambushing Drac Convoys. Those were skills he had honed in his exile as part of the Baronial Guards, and the high-intensity training plus the combat experience of the recent wars had pushed him into the elite category. I had high hopes he would be able to accomplish this mission.
Come the morning, I would order the assault and we would see just how formidable the Raider's Roost really was. . .
XXXX
Captain Olav Gamla had expected if not the discipline of the Troops of the Trondheim Garrison from back home, at least something close enough to it. However, as he led his men past the neutralized sentries on the walls of the Raider's Roost, he found he was to be disappointed. The sentry had been asleep at his post, helmet tipped down over his face and rifle propped up against the buttress as he used the firing platform as a makeshift bed. It had been trivial to silence him and position his corpse as if he was still asleep. His men had likewise done similarly to the other pickets on the wall, many of whom were sleeping or too drunk to fight back hard enough to raise the alarm.
Of course, it wasn't a fair fight, the sneaksuits made infiltration a lot easier so long as you didn't try to jump right up to the wall. Any cameras trying to spot them wouldn't see a thing so long as they didn't have an active Jump Pack, after all, though the mark One Eyeball would still spot them. Accordingly, Olav had his platoon use the jump packs to ascend the plateau, bypassing the more alert sentry posts and machine gun nests on the pathways leading up to the Raider's Roost, avoiding those choke points entirely. Then, once atop the plateau, they'd used the far more low-tech strategy of grapnels to ascend to the top of the wall, where they had silenced the aforementioned guards atop the wall. It was disappointing how these pirates seemed to trust solely in their position and fortifications to see them through, but Olav wasn't sure exactly why he'd been expecting otherwise.
Shaking his head, he ordered his platoon to break up into squads, one would go to the motor pool to sabotage any combat vehicles that were there, one would go to the mech bay to do likewise there, while he would lead another to the artillery control room and sabotage the ability of the Pirates to use Butte City as a hostage. His men broke up into squads and went to carry out their missions with the efficiency he'd drilled into them over months and sometimes years of training. He led his own squad along the wall toward the artillery control tower, which controlled the targeting and operation of the battery of three, Long Tom Artillery Pieces in the casemate atop the tower.
He passed by another six guards, only one of which was alert enough to pose a problem while the other five seemed to be drunk, stoned, or both, trying to deal with pre-battle jitters in the manner that the sort of person who doesn't care about the long term effects on their health would. Fortunately, his back was turned to the squad as they approached. Olav went for the alert guard while his squad moved to take the other five. He slipped his combat knife into the Alert Guard's back, between the composite plates of ablative ceramics and through the ballistic fiber beneath. Armor meant to ablate laser blasts and stop bullets did little against the monomolecular edge of his combat knife, and the Alert Guard was stabbed with one hand while Olav's other pulled him down to the concrete, snapping his neck in the process. His men did likewise to the other five guards and soon all were positioned in such a way that it looked like they'd simply called asleep slumped against the wall.
Then Olav moved onto the doorway leading into the Artillery Control Tower. Sergeant Kazatsky managed to splice a few wires behind the door panel and hotwire the door open within five minutes. In that time, they'd almost had a close call as a pair of guards on patrol rounded the corner and spotted them, moving to pull their pistols. Fortunately, the pair of pirates were tackled to the ground and silenced before their sidearms could clear the leather of their holsters, but it was a near thing that almost caused the alarm to be raised. By the time their throats were slit and their bodies dragged behind a pile of ammo crates, Sergeant Kazatsky had managed to get the door open.
Inside the Artillery Control Tower, was another pair of sentries, these two spotted the door open and leveled their rifles, calling out to stand and be recognized. These Sentries apparently had more discipline than the others. Unfortunately, their alertness didn't avail them at all. Instead of rushing inside a fool, the Pointman of the squad, Corporal O'Malley rolled a gas grenade into the lobby through his spot up against the side of the door. The two pirates barely had time to say a single word before the grenade hissed open and disgorged its payload of knockout gas, dropping the two Sentries silently to the floor. Their throats were then slit for good measure, as they were dragged behind a group of barrels. Olav had his men head up the stairs rather than take the elevator, bypassing several floors in the process till they arrived at the Artillery Control Room.
Private Halko moved to pick the lock on the tempered alloy door and soon enough, they had the door open and another pair of gas grenades went through first. It was a good thing it did too, because inside were four more sentries and a technician. If they started shooting, the alarm would be raised and that would be that. Fortunately, only one of the sentries managed to exit the control room instead of being knocked out, drawing down on Sergeant Kazatsky with the locally made Buccaneer Arms Freebooter Submachine Gun. In desperation to not have the alarm sounded by the loud rip of a burst of Electrothermal-Chemical Rounds from the Subgun, Olav threw his Combat Knife at the remaining Sentry. He'd never been amazing with thrown blades, and the Buccaneer Arms Cutlass Monomolecular Combat Knife wasn't balanced for throwing, however, someone must have been smiling on him, because his blade struck true, thinking into the sentry's arm and caused his Subgun to fall from nerveless hands. The Subgun hung from its shoulder strap as Private Halko tackled the Sentry to the ground, snapping his neck and putting an end to that.
"That was too close, finish the rest of them off and stuff them in the Jaintor's Closet, then get to work." Ordered Olav, retrieving his knife.
The others slit the throats of the remaining, unconscious, Pirates and hauled them bodily into the nearby janitorial closet as Sergeant Kazatsky got to work uploading the carefully crafted virus into the targeting and control computers for the artillery. The Virus was one of a few pre-prepared computer viruses that would be used against remotely controlled gun emplacements like the one in the casemate up top in the event that sabotage was necessary. Essentially, it introduced a fault in the remote loading programs that would force a fatal exception to occur within the control computers the second that the controllers tried to load a shell into the Long Toms via the autoloaders. An artillery piece that couldn't load ammunition was essentially a gigantic, expensive, paperweight. To get rid of the fault, the pirates would have to manually service and debug the autoloaders, something that was a full-day process and that wouldn't be doable while under attack.
Sergeant Kazatsky took five long minutes to ensure the virus was uploaded, and the whole time, Olav was on edge. Thankfully, it seemed they remained undetected for the full five minutes, and with a nod, Sergeant Kazatsky let him know they were good to go. Olav nodded and his squad began their exfiltration. Five minutes later, they were back over the wall and heading for the rendezvous point. Ten minutes after that, the other two squads joined them and together, the Platoon donned their jump packs from where they'd stashed them and descended the Plateau. All told, the raid took only a half hour.
They would see the results in the morning when the assault began. . .
XXXX
Redjack Ryan was beginning to panic. Damn near everything had gone wrong ever since he'd vowed to avenge Maria. First Ivy Upsalom had failed to set off the nuclear device like he'd ordered, then his bomb-pumped laser he'd managed to painstakingly cobble together failed to down a single enemy Dropship. He'd lost a full regiment within two days of the initial landing to enemy action while two others defected, his Mercenaries turned out to be a dud on the battlefield and even his own Lieutenants had fallen to the Boy piloting that Red Devil of a Battlemech. Then Agnar Haggerty had betrayed him and turned the remaining mercenaries against him, and now he was being assaulted in the Raider's Roost, where he should be safe!
Of course, that wasn't the worst of it, no. If it was just an assault, he had multiple ways to handle it, but the Artillery had somehow glitched while half his remaining Mechs and combat vehicles refused to start! He was essentially going in with just nineteen mechs including his own Quickdraw, counterattacking the beachhead the enemy had made on the plateau when they had twice as many Battlemechs on on the beachhead. It was far from an ideal situation, but very few things had been ideal since Maria had died. On some level, Ryan knew deep in his bones that this was it for him, his last hurrah. He would die here, but if he was going to go out, it would be in a blaze of glory. Who knows, he might even take the Boy out with him!
Speaking of the Red Devil, there he was up ahead, skirmishing with Tseng in his grasshopper. Ryan never liked Tseng, but with most of his Lieutenants dead or having turned tail and fled, he'd been forced to promote the bastard. Now, there was a chance he could get rid of two problems at once. With a grin, Ryan fired a full salvo from his LRM-Ten launcher, using the missiles to cover his approach. Unfortunately, it looked like he was only getting Tseng. The Red Devil hit his jump jets and burned hard for a rocky outcropping near the edge of the plateau, taking cover while the salvo impacted Tseng. tearing the man's Goose Shit Green-painted Grasshopper to shreds. Fortunately, he wasn't alone or he'd still have to contend with the Enemy Command Lance on his own.
Nearby, he noticed Kate Malger lighting up an enemy Rampage with the full fury of her Awesome's three PPCs, hitting it dead on and shearing through its armor to send it toppling to the ground, torso a smoking ruin. Dag Statham hit another Rampage with his thunderbolt's medium and large lasers, tearing off one of its arms with sheer firepower and forcing it to retreat. The rampage fired its ultra-autocannon and Dag pulled his Thunderbolt into a sideways sprint, avoiding the spray of rounds, only for them to impact Karen Stane in her Clint, tearing through the armor and killing both her Clint and her in the process. Dag avenged Karen, with his SRM Launcher, missiles ripping into the Rampage and killing it.
With a grin, Redjack Ryan realized he might actually pull this off, stave off the inevitability of death, and live to fight another day. His forces were giving better than they got, even with the enemy numbers advantage. As Kate Malger silenced another Rampage with her Triple PPCs, Redjack Ryan even allowed himself a grin. Then a gauss slug tore into Kate's Awesome even as she moved to fire on another Rampage, causing a critical failure in two of her PPCs and blowing her Awesome to smithereens as the feedback crammed the reactor. Ryan looked over to where the slug came from and saw the Red Devil standing atop the ridge.
With a growl, Ryan pushed his Quickdraw forward, single-mindedly pursuing his foe as he let off another LRM salvo, only for the Red Devil to drop back into cover behind the ridge. So be it, if the Boy wanted to run, then Ryan would chase him over the ridge and to the edge of the Plateau himself! As Redjack Ryan charged forward, the missile impacts on the ridgeline covering his advance, he was faintly aware of another pair of explosions behind him, but at this point, he didn't care. He had his prey and he would make him bleed, even if it cost him his life. The Red Devil popped up, and Ryan lit him up with all four medium lasers, trying to cook the Boy in his cockpit. Somehow, the Red Devil managed to jank to the side in mid-air with his jump jets, taking a glancing hit from two of his lasers and boiling off the armor on his side and shoulder. One more hit in the same place ought to do it, and Redjack Ryan lined up his SRM Launcher, preparing to blow the Red Devil to Smithereens.
Then there was a flash from the Red Devil's Gauss Rifle, and Redjack Ryan found his Quickdraw lurching to the side. As his mech stumbled and hit the ground, Redjack Ryan was broken out of his tunnel vision as he jolted against his safety harness, wrenching his shoulder painfully in the process. The pain helped him focus his mind, and he suddenly found himself alone, in a mech that had its right leg crippled by a Gauss Rifle Slug tearing through the exposed actuators. Looking around, Redjack Ryan saw that his remaining forces had been cut off from him by the Rest of the Boy's Mech Forces. The Boy had used his anger and tunnel vision to pull him away from them and now he was sighting down on him once again with that Gauss rifle.
"Clever bastard!" Growled Redjack Ryan.
Then the muzzle of the Red Devil's Gauss Rifle flashed, and Redjack Ryan knew no more. . .
XXXX
Redjack Ryan had taken the bait like an idiot and allowed himself to be cut off from his forces and killed. It was actually pretty easy considering everything, though his command lance had fought like Tigers, killing or crippling six of my Rampages, they'd been cut off from Ryan and annihilated. Now, as I stood over the smoking wreck that was Redjack Ryan's Quickdraw, I watched his remaining forces lose what little cohesion and discipline they had left, now that they were bereft of their leadership. They tried to break out of their encirclement in pairs or in trios, not accomplishing anything except to get themselves killed. This fight was over, and with it, the campaign. There was no one left for Ryan's remaining men to look to for leadership.
The battle lasted another four hours, but by noon, the only enemy forces left on all of Butte Hold were the infantry and dispossessed combat vehicle crews and Mechwarriors inside the Raider's Roost Proper. I strode forth in my Custom Highlander toward the armored fortress doors, leveled my Gauss Rifle, and let fly with a single, ferro-nickel, slug. The force of the slug slamming into the fortress doors smashed them open and soon, combat vehicles and Infantry were pouring through the gates. The Courtyard was taken in a brief, twenty-minute, fight, while the rest of the Raider's Roost had to be cleared room by room with infantry.
It was a foregone conclusion, however, and victory was never in doubt. By the time Sunset was approaching, we had cleared the barracks, mess hall, armory, and several other rooms and halls besides. All that remained was to take the main command center, which we did via liberal applications of grenades. As the sun set on the thirtieth day of the Invasion of Butte Hold, the flag of New Ålborg was raised over the raider's roost, signifying the destruction of the last pocket of resistance to our takeover. From the first shots till the end, one month of fighting had passed by. Now, I was the uncontested master of Butte Hold, the war was won.
Now we had to ensure that we could build up as we transitioned back into peacetime. . .
XXXX
AN: All right, here we have the end of the Butte Hold Campaign. Redjack Ryan has been killed and Butte Hold Reclaimed for House Poniatowski. Jozef now has a total of Twelve Worlds and a population of one-million-one-hundred-thousand people. He'll be looking to consolidate his position going forward and build up his worlds some before moving to fulfill his end of the deal with the Lyrans by attacking the Belt Pirates of Star's End. He's just expanded his holdings from three worlds to twelve, effectively quadrupling the size of his barony, after all. There are things that need to be done before he can expand again.
At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude as we see at least some of the reactions to this meteoric rise to power, and then we'll be back with Jozef.
Stay tuned. . .