Mystery ‘Mechs From Beyond the Periphery Part 2
Lyran Alliance,
Timbuktu, 3066.
"Alright, granted,
those Panthers are a bit freaky. '120kph' and 'Panther' ain't supposed to be
used together in a sentence-"
"Unless the
sentence also mentions my Zeus's foot impacting the Panther's butt."
"-But those are
just Archers. Their Six-Frickin'-Hundredth birthday is coming up in 8 years.
You think these have any surprises for us like those Panthers?"
"I only see one
barrel in the rear arc turret...I've got ten that says they're ARC-9Ls."
"No bet, there's
not else much they could-...hey, my lidar's clocking them at eighty,
eighty-four kph. I think I'll take that bet..."
"No bet. You and I
both know the Nine-El might, just might reach eighty kph going over a cliff
with a strong down draft and...OOHH!!! The humanity! Dude, that Archer just
jumped on Morelli's Commando!"
"A one hundred
thirteen meter jump, if a centimeter. Come on, let's floor it. A company of
seventy-ton hoppers is going to be rough on Ted's mediums and bantamweights,
they'll need our thundering herd- Whoa, did those two Archers just hit Ted at
ninety meters?"
"It happens with
good mech jockeys. I heard Morgan Kell once put forty LRMs into
Yori-...Yorga-...a Snake at thirty."
"Maybe they've got
Clan missiles. Dude, maneuver your Zeus behind me and start pushing. I think if
we work together I can get this Atlas to sixty kph. Ted's company is just
getting outright abused and we're not even close enough to fire my bowling ball
flinger at those bogeys."
"OH! That was just
uncalled for. Man, did you see that? Another one just jumped on Morelli. She
was just getting up!"
"That was just
uncool! Hey, her cockpit looks alright. Dude, maybe this'll be your chance -
you can 'console' her after the fight, buy her a beer, give her a friendly
hug-"
"Dude, shut up!
It's not like- Aw, crap, a gaggle of those damn Archers just showed up on our
six. They must've hopped their way over the river and through the woods."
"Yeah, yeah, 'to
grandmother's house we go.' Alright, I'm not going to detach anyone, we're just
going to stomp these in force, then we'll deal with the ones stomping Ted's
company into the ground."
***********************************************************************
It wasn't until the news
of the attacks reached Tharkad that the LAAF realized Timbuktu and Poulsbo had
been attacked simultaneously, give or take several hours. The garrisons of the
two near-Periphery Lyran worlds were certainly unaware they were being attacked
at the same time, or that their attackers were very similar.
While Poulsbo was hit by
(approximately) a light battalion of mechs and an unknown number of battle
armors, Timbuktu was definitely raided by two battalions of mechs (including
command lances) and (approximately) a battalion of battle armor. The Timbuktu
raid used three models of mechs: the highly modified Panthers also seen on
Poulsbo (2 companies), highly modified Archers (4 companies), and Cyclops
(command lances; degree of modification unknown). The battle armors were of
completely unique make and all that had been captured were eventually retaken
by the invaders before the armors could be studied. Though they had high ground
speeds (for battle armors), the armors seemed to lack jumping ability. They swarmed
just fine. The armors' numbers is approximate - 2 companies (96 armors) were
definitely deployed in combat, but an unknown number participated in bizarre
raids that mutilated farm animals (but left shotgun-wielding farmers untouched)
and did light damage to libraries (where periodicals and history sections were
apparently scanned and computer records copied).
Though once garrisoned
by the 11th Arcturan Guards, in 3066 Timbuktu's militia was much less
impressive. It was, however, thoroughly Lyran and the rather weighty mechs and
tanks inflicted moderate casualties on the raiders. Three of the
"Panthers" were left on the battlefield, as were nine of the Archers.
None of the Cyclops were engaged, nor did they seem to seek battle. Though Timbuktu's
militia suffered heavy material damage in a pair of battalion-scale
engagements, only two mechwarriors and five vehicle crewmen were killed. The
invaders seemed to make no concerted effort to kill soldiers and the Panthers,
on behind-the-lines raids, even went so far as to order rear echelon personnel
away from ammo transports before attacking.
The fallen Archers left
showed some similarities to the Panthers salvaged on Poulsbo and Timbuktu.
Their components were unmarked but for 2D barcodes; no unit insignia were found
on the mechs or their mechwarriors' combat suits; the remains of the
mechwarriors were not in the least identifiable; and, the cockpits were
apparently laced with explosives and incendiaries. In many cases, components
were easily recognizable as Star League models, minus manufacturer's marks. The
engine was not a 280 Vox, but rather a 350 Ford as used on the Star League-era
Excalibur. The jump jets were also of venerable design: Anderson 398s used by
the old Guillotine. The chassis was endosteel, but that was almost identical to
the endosteel chassis of the SLDF's 2745 update of the Archer, the ARC-7R.
The missile launchers
appeared to be Doombud LRM 20s used by the Archer since time immemorial, but
the critical targeting and tracking computers in the cockpit that would've
confirmed whether the short range performance of the Archer's LRMs was a fluke
or designed had been wrecked by the cockpits' suicide charges. Likewise, ammo
bins also self-destructed on crippled raider Archers. Luck was with investigators,
though: Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams clearing the battlefields found
three raider LRMs apparently spilled from a damaged Archer's ammo bins or
launcher. Study of the missiles revealed highly advanced guidance and fuzing
electronics, on par with some of the Star League's and Clans' finest computers.
The software was unintelligible, but a successful test fire (with
instrumentation on the missile) from a salvaged raider's Doombud revealed the
missile did arm after its "blip" motor popped it out of the launch
tube and did demonstrate good tracking even at point blank ranges, just like
Clan LRMs. The Archers' triplet of medium lasers were carbon copies of Star
League-era Exostar medium lasers.
The Timbuktu garrison
did not perform the same amount of forensic tests on the mechwarrior remains
found in the raider cockpits that the Poulsbo garrison did (mostly because
Timbuktu's garrison was not lashed on by a hysterical public and
headline-craving tabloids like the Poulsbo garrison). Initially, only
fingerprint and dental checks were considered, but the quality of the remains
(in light of later discoveries, "hamburger" would be an appropriate
description) prevented those cursory tests. After Tharkad received the Poulsbo
reports, Timbuktu was urged to examine the remains again. A mildly foresighted
investigator had kept them in a freezer and was able to confirm that, yes, the
remains were those of cows. Eventually, one set of remains was traced to a
particular mutilated cow (most of the other mutilated cows had been sold for
meat by the time Tharkad's request arrived 9 weeks after the raid, hindering
connections to other sets of remains.)
Like the raiders on
Poulsbo, the Timbuktu raiders mixed an expensive and decent design with
confusing, seomtimes brilliant, sometimes outright stupid tactics. The general
assessment is that the Timbuktu raiders made fewer of the mistakes than the
Poulsbo raiders did due to command and control provided by the Cyclopses
(Cyclopsi?). The Timbuktu raiders' "Panthers" used mostly the same
hit-and-run tactics seen on Poulsbo, but with fewer cases of standing and
fighting against uneven odds and more behind-the-lines raids. The Archers acted
quite differently than the Panthers, typically engaging in line battles that suited
their heavy LRM firepower and occasionally using their superior maneuverability
to flank slower, heavier Lyran units. One tactic the Archers did demonstrate a
mastery of was disengaging from battle to reload, a maneuver that involved
meeting VTOLs of unknown make and, to assist loading ammo, small units of
battle armor.
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