Logentry 006.04

Black Crusader Knights

Galatea, , 2038-11-12

Our next adversaries were the Black Crusader Knights (a unit of 'Mechs). This mercenary unit is well-knownand won the tournament 5 years ago. Three members of the BCN are ex-solaris fighters, all are said to be specialists behind their 'Mech controls. The unit has rare 'Mechs, some with Star League era equipment. BCN asked us to fight with five 'Mechs, and we agreed. I choose the Awesome as my 'Mech, as my Warhammer was destroyed in the last fight. hod3 piloted his 'new' Dreadnought, hod4 piloted his reliable Grashopper again, hod6 fought in his recently bought Archer and hod7 in his new Victor. The arena we were to fight in was build after the legendary 'Factory Arena' on Solaris. The BNC leader, Baron James Chuhasi from the Marc Draconis, came in the arena in a Black Baron (70t), his lance mated in an Achilles, a Star League Era Banshee, an Archer which was rumored to have SRM only but is able to jump, and a 'normal' Archer (rumors had this one to have some gimmiks though). The battle immedeately started in earnest. A lot of firepower was brought to bear by both sides, and a lot of armor plates were lost in the first moments. At first we concentrated on the Banshee, it suffered the first real damage besides lost armor plates, a destroyed hip actuator. The next casuality was the Archer. The 'Mech tried to hide behind a building, but hod7 jumped after him to rip open his lightly armored back with his AC20. But what he achieved was even better - he shot the head of the 'Mech off. Unfortunately, the Archer was a very special construction, which had a AC20 mounted to its rear firing arc - while his cockpit was blasted apart, the enemy pilot fired his AC20 with a double shot, which destroyed the AC20 of our Victor. Now casualities started to mount up. The Banshee destroyed my right arm while I hit it twice with a PPC in the center torso, and got a critical on both the gyro and the engine. The damage unbalanced the Banshee and it fell. hod3 hit the 'Mech with his cluster ammo and destroyed the other hip as well. I damaged the Upper Leg Actuator of the Archer while the 'Mech stood stationary between me and hod6. hod3 shot at the Banshee and severed one of it's legs, but still the 'Mech was abla to shoot back. The next seconds we monoeuvered a lot but only destroyed armor plates. When hod3 finally destroyed the Banshee it destroyed in it's deaththrow a secon PPC of my Awesome. Finally, after a lot of fire excjanges, the enemy Archer caused three engine hits on hod6's Archer and the 'Mech shut down. While hod3 retreated into the building (his 'Mech had one point of internal structure left in both his left and right torso), he got a chance shot on the totally undamaged Black Baron, who had lurked on the first floor the whole time. He missed with his medium laser but hit with the cluster amunition of the LB10X-AC - which caused a lucky hit on the engine of the Black Baron! hod7, hod4 and myself concentrated our fire on the Achilles. We were not able to destroy the 'Mech, but two of its large lasers, half of his main armament. With our next fussilade hod4 destroyed the right arm, and the 'Mech only had one large laser left - which was destroyed by hod7! With his next shot hod7 destroyed the cockpit of the 'Mech! Now we had a match four 'Mechs against two. But next the Black Baron destroyed hod4's left leg and left him laying on the floor. hod7 destroyed the second hip of the Archer, and the 'Mech fell to the ground as well. hod3 followed suit, as the Black Baron shot hes left leg from under him and then kicked him with full force in the chest. After he moved some steps back, the Black Baron destroyed the second leg of hod4's 'Mech as well as the head. hod4 managed to escape but was run into the wall of the arena by his ejection seat, luckily he only suffered some minor wounds. hod7 destroyed one leg of the Archer, but in return the Archer destroyed the center torso of the Victor which exploded. The explosion of the Victor in turn destroyed the Archer as well. Both pilots were able to eject though. My next shot with one of my PPCs caused a lucky engine and a lucky gyro hit in the center torso of the Black Baron. My next shot destroyed the left leg of the 'Mech but in return my left and center torso were destroyed and my 'Mech exploded. With some minor bruises I managed to escape the explosion as well. At the same time as the Black Baron destroyed the left torso of hod3's 'Mech (which caused the Dreadnought to shut down because of the now badly damaged XL engine) hod3 destroyed the right torso of the Black Baron as well, and the Black Baron exploded because of earlier critical hits to it's engine. The crowd went stark raving mad, a better show for their money is hardly imaginable. They saw a lot of destroyed 'Mechs and a lot of explosions, all of which amoutned to a draw! As no one had won, no one was able to claim the 'Mech (parts) that ly on the arena floor. The organiser of the tournament offered an additional 3,000,000.- C-Bills for a one-on-one fight to determine if BCN or HOD are the better fighters. Our problem now was a hortage on 'Mechs, though. We had an Enforcer lef, but that was a rather light 'Mech for the duell. But suddenly I had a Zeus available! It was delivered to our headquarters by a haulier. From the accompagnying letters and way bills I learned, that this was the completely overhauled Zeus, which was in posession of my family for many generations. It was the 'Mech in which my last brother died. When I asked my father to take a look at the state of affairs of the medal Lt. General Thomas promised us, he learned about my success as a mercenary with my unit, and decided to hand the 'Mech over to me. I was deeply impressed and moved by this trust. And best of all, I had a really good 'Mech for the next fight. Log Entry by Hptm Theobald von Stein, hod1

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