Chapter 34

Onyx City was home to over one-hundred-thousand people and was the largest settlement on Blackstone. It was here that all the complex manufacturing was done, wool cloth turned into clothing, tallow turned into candles and glue, metals turned into various items, including electronics and spare parts for various vehicles and mechs. Factories producing weapons, munitions, chemicals, you name it. It was the economic heart of Blackstone.

Defending it was a single Battalion of the Second Blackstone Guards, supplemented by two Battalions of Militia and a company of Combine Volunteers and Advisors. In total, they had some forty-eight mechs, thirteen combat vehicles, and one-thousand-five-hundred infantry. It was the last concentration of enemy troops on Blackstone.

Facing them we had over five times their numbers of mechs, combat vehicles, and infantry. In short, it was hopeless for them, however with the Combine Volunteer Company involved, surrender wasn't an option. Perhaps that was why, instead of choosing to hunker down in bunkers and wait for their inevitable end, the enemy chose to charge out of the city and attempt to pre-empt our assault with one of their own, to hopefully take as many of us out as they could before we could organize for the glory of the Coordinator and the hope that Hendrik Grimm's inevitable counterattack would sweep us off the planet.

To their credit, it almost worked. Third Guards Regiment was caught completely flat-footed mid-deployment for the assault on Onyx City. Colonel Kadlec had done his best but wound up radioing in for support from the strategic reserve. Second Guards, where I was, had been deploying on the opposite side of Onyx City, near the foothills of the Darnin Hills, which were actually a series of low Mountains rather than hills. What this meant was that I missed the enemy's initial counterattack.

Instead, the Seventh Guards Regiment under Colonel Dimetriou and the Eighth Guards Regiment under Colonel Wetere were the ones to answer Colonel Kadlec's initial call for help. By the time I arrived with the Second Guards Regiment, the counterattack had been thrown back and only the Combine Volunteer Company was still fighting a rear guard action to give the remnants of the Second Blackstone Guards and the Militia time to withdraw back into the Bunkers guarding Onyx City.

As I arrived on the scene, I immediately sighted down on a Dragon Heavy Mech that was engaging some of Eighth Guards' Rampages alongside two other Dragons and an Atlas. I fired my Gauss Rifle and Ultra Autocannon into its right, rear, flank just as it lit up one of Eighth Guards' Rampages with a salvo from both Medium Lasers and its Autocannon. The Rampage took the pounding and kept going, but got hit by one of the Atlas' SRMs that blew its right leg clean off.

Fortunately for the Pilot, my attack slammed into the targeted Dragon before it could fire again, piercing the armor and punching into the reactor housing, causing the reactor to shut down to prevent it from going critical. The Atlas turned and fired all four of its medium lasers at me in response along with one of the other Dragons firing its medium laser. The concentrated fire burned into my armor and scorched the myomer beneath, turning my Gauss Rifle arm sluggish with the damage.

Fortunately, Eighth Guards counterattacked before it could follow up and a Gauss Rifle slug smashed into the Atlas' flank, punching into the ammo Bunker for its SRMs and blowing it in half with the critical failure. My sluggish Gauss Rifle responded slowly, but before the fight ended, I was able to take out one more Dragon with Fire from Gauss Rifle and Ultra Autocannon.

Eventually, however, we had the remnants of the Combine Volunteer Company encircled. Sixth Guards under Colonel El-Fadil and Fifth Guards under Colonel Oivo began pushing on the Bunkers while myself with Second Guards, Colonel Wetere with Eighth Guards, and the remnants of Colonel Kadlec's Third Guards encircled the Combine Volunteers.

Predictably, even surrounded and outnumbered by a factor of ten, the Combine refused to surrender, fighting until the bitter end. To their credit, they managed to take out twice their remaining numbers damaged or destroyed before the last mech, an Atlas belonging to their Tai-I, took three Gauss Rifle Slugs from myself, Captain Turei of Eighth Guards' Rampage Company, and one of Colonel Kadlec's Remaining Rampages from Third Guards. The three slugs penetrated the armor and mine hit the Reactor core.

Instead of shutting down his reactor, though, the Combine Tai-I pushed it further, running toward Captain Turei's Rampage and taking her and two of her lancemates out in a giant explosion as the reactor on his Atlas went supercritical. I winced at the explosion from the suicide attack. That was something that Combine Mechwarriors and ASF Pilots sometimes did. Kamikaze runs for the honor of the Coordinator.

"Fuck!" I swore, loudly.

"My Lord, your comms are still on." Cautioned Colonel Lindqvist over comms.

"I don't care! This deserves the exclamation!" I snapped.

"It's a hazard of fighting the Combine, My Lord. You'll get used to it by the campaign's end." Sighed Colonel Lindqvist.

"That's the thing, Colonel. I don't know if I want to get used to it. Honestly, what sense is there in something like that? You throw away trained Mechwarriors who could have been traded back to you in a prisoner exchange at Wars' end and for what? Some Proxy War that you'll likely lose? It makes no damned sense!" I ranted.

"To us, no. To the Combine with their Bushido, though? I expect the honor of the Coordinator to supersede any practical concerns." Responded Colonel Lindqvist.

"I'm aware of that, at least intellectually. Seeing it in action is something else, though." I grumbled.

"Well, My Lord, you shouldn't allow the shock to get to you. We still have a battle to win, after all." Chided Colonel Lindqvist.

"You're right. That's likely just what that Mad Bastard wanted out of all this, anyway. How is the Bunker Assault proceeding?" I questioned.

"Too early to say for sure, but it will likely come down to infantry assault again." Answered Colonel Lindqvist.

"Let's see if we can't open up another point of entry for our men, then, shall we?" I intoned.

With that, I turned my Heavy Metal Highlander around and began marching for the Eastern Bunker Complex. Colonel Dimitriou and Seventh Guards had just begun assaulting the complex and were taking fire from a number of Casemated Artillery that our own Artillery was having trouble suppressing due to the heavy fortifications. I leveled my Gauss Rifle and lent my own fire to the artillery's bombardment. My Command Lance in their Rampages did the same.

After fifteen minutes, Colonel Lindqvist scored a lucky hit straight up one of the Casemated Guns' Barrels that caused a massive explosion and ripped a hole open in the Casemated Artillery Bunker that Colonel Dimitrou sent Major Ege and his Jump Infantry to assault through. The Guns were silenced five minutes later after a pair of firefights, allowing the Infantry to move into the Bunker Complex. Forty-five minutes later, the Eastern Bunker Complex fell.

Twenty minutes after that, the Southern Bunker Complex fell to the assault of Colonel El-Fadil and Sixth Guards, and fifteen minutes after that, the Western Bunker Complex Fell to Colonel Oivo and Fifth Guards with a little help from Colonel Kelly and Fourth Guards. Apparently, the Western Bunker Complex had housed two companies of Combine Volunteer Infantry along with the Dai-I of the Combine Volunteer Battalion at Onyx City.

With the defenses silenced, we began our move into the City after another hour and a half to reorganize for the attack. As we moved into the City, our first objective was to capture the Maglev Station that brought materials into the City from the cities of the Gritstone hills. Almost as soon as we reached it, we came under fire from Camouflaged Thumper Artillery, Machine Gun Posts, and Infantry-launched Rockets.

I turned and fired a pair of three-round bursts into a parking garage with my Autocannon to suppress a group of hidden infantry firing rockets that had taken out two of our screening LTV-Four Hover Tanks. The Parking Garage crumbled under the fire of my Ultra-Autocanon and the Rockets ceased only for the hidden thumper to fire a high-explosive shell into my Mech. The lucky hit took out my comms, but before it could do more than that, one of the Griffins from Second Guard's Medium Mech Company lit the office building that the Thumper was firing from up with its PPC, taking out the Thumper, it's crew and an entire floor of the Office Building.

Unable to effectively command without comms, I withdrew to the rear for the remainder of the assault on the City. It took another six hours of combat, but Onyx City finally surrendered after an almost ten-hour battle. As it would turn out, there had been one last Battalion of Combine Volunteers in the City, mostly Infantry and Artillery, with one Company of Combat Vehicles that had sortied from underground parking garages in the third hour of the fight for the City.

After a week of fighting, Blackstone was ours. What's more, I received word from Placida and Task Force White Field via K-Class Transmitter that they had also managed to secure the Planet, though they did so against a single regiment of Mixed Placida Guards Reserves and Militia. No Combine Volunteers, which was probably the reason why they'd secured Placida in three days and had just managed to jump into Blackstone to rendezvous with us.

For our part, we had destroyed two Regiments, the Blackstone Guards Second Regiment, and one Regiment of Combine Volunteers in the fighting over Blackstone. We had also captured one regiment of Militia. To do so, we had around an eighteen percent casualty rate across most of our own Regiments with the Exception of Colonel Kadlec's Third Regiment, who had taken thirty percent casualties, largely from the Surprise Counterattack outside of Onyx City.

Fortunately, the majority of those Casualties were repairable or could be healed, thanks to the Star League Era Automated Mechbays and Medical Technology we had reverse-engineered. The Enemy wasn't so lucky, though that was the price you paid for being on the losing side. By the time that we moved on Oberon Six at the end of the next week, our forces would be as recovered as they could be while on campaign.

Our Window for attacking Oberon Six was closing but we would wind up making it just in the nick of time. . .

XXXX

AN: The next chapter is already up on my Patreon, so check the link in the threadmarked post if you guys feel like throwing me a couple bucks to get chapters in advance. Everyone who does is super appreciated and I can't thank my patrons enough.

So yeah, the Battle for Blackstone ends in victory for Jozef, but the average Casualty Rate among all regiments that took part winds up at just under twenty percent. Most units tend to suffer a major morale hit after taking twenty percent casualties, some might even break. This campaign is definitely more difficult than any of Jozef's Previous Campaigns.

It's only going to get more difficult at Oberon Six. There are a lot more troops there, including a lot more Combine Volunteers who will fight to the death for the Honor of the Dragon. The question is, will the casualties be too much for Jozef to deal with? We already saw that Kamikaze attacks freak him out, and there will be more of those to come on Oberon Six.

There's also the fact that Hendrik Grimm isn't exactly the sort of person to see that he's on a sinking ship and decide to go down with it. He might decide to doublecross the Combine if it looks like he's about to lose his Throne World. It will likely be a race between casualty rates for Jozef and Hendrik Grimm's Patience with losing that will decide the battle for Oberon Six.

At any rate, the next chapter will be an interlude involving how the fighting went on Placida, then we'll be back with Jozef for the Battle of Oberon Six.

Stay tuned. . .