Tai-i Rexel Euchart is a celebrated veteran of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery whose military career took a triumphant upswing during the course of the Fourth Succession War. He played a major role in the defense of Vega in 3028. In response to BattleTechnology Magazine's intriguing request for historically significant personal accounts of the Fourth Succession War by mechwarriors from all major military organizations of the Inner Sphere, Tai-i Euchart has
consented to relate the details of the Combine's unparalleled victory over the marauding forces of the Lyran Commonwealth. It is with great pride that we of the Bureau of Administration present Tai-i Euchart's story, and express our appreciation for the many hours of tedious interviews which are above and beyond the duty of our illustrious veterans.
- --Sho-sa PP Arkatz
Draconis Combine Bureau of Administration
From the moment I first saw it, I believed that it was the most ridiculous BattleMech ever conceived during the era of the lost Star League. Five small lasers were all that stood between its bulky frame and total devastation on the field of battle. Though its armor and its top speed were remarkable compared to most Mech designs, its near-total inability to deal effective blows in combat marked it as the machine of either a coward or a fool. It was no wonder that the Charger had languished in an abandoned Draconis Combine warehouse for three and a half centuries.
However, if there was one great motivator that bound the beleagured Legion of Vega regiments together into an unswerving brotherhood (aside from the delivery of bonus combat pay), it was our desperation for serviceable Mechs. Below even the lowliest mercenary unit on the list of priorities, our Legion and its requests for spare parts had been ignored every year since the unit's inception in3011. A few scraps of armor and ammunition had been pried from the fingers of the District Quartermaster; otherwise, war salvage had been the only salvation of the Vegan Mechs.
Stumbling upon a decommissioned BattleMech listed in a crumbling manifest was, to say the least, astonishing. I'd lost my Dragon in the initial October 3028 defense of Vega. With replacement Mechs impossible to come by, I was temporarily attached to a company of heavy hovertanks. While the entirety of Theodore Kurita's Mech forces were conducting a counteroffensive against the Lyrans from October to December of '28, those forces which could be spared were left to defend the gains already made by the 2nd and 14th Legions of Vega counterattack. Thus my unit was given the inglorious task of guarding the port city of Cochus where Gunji no Kanrei Kurita's counter-offensive had begun. With unlimited access to the remains of a Commonwealth supply depot, and with little chance of Steiner forces piercing Kurita's front lines, I took it upon myself to inventory that which had not already been appropriated for the war effort.
Though the hastily erected Lyran storehouses of Cochus had been stripped of all usable equipment by the initial raiding forces, and subsequently by Combine reoccupation forces, there were a number of civilian storage facilities which could contain supplies essential to the repulse of the Lyran Guards. Fortunately, citizens relieved to find themselves rescued from the marauding Lyran troops were more than willing to sacrifice all that they had for then-Colonel Kurita (Vegan citizens preferred the English usage; under that title, Tai-sa Theodore Kurita became a popular hero there), and many assisted my troops in their search of these complexes. The Lyrans, distrustful of any contact with my fellow citizens, had foolishly chosen to overlook these civilian warehouses in favor of complete reliance on their own copious supply lines.
One day in November, while rummaging through the crumbling records of a bombed-out munitions factory on the outskirts of Cochus, I discovered a reference to a Star League Defense Forces regiment which had been stationed on Vega in 2680. The record mentioned the SLDF unit receiving a shipment of heavy and assault BattleMechs from the Terran Hegemony which were to replace those units lost to the personal dueling which was rampant in the Combine at that time. While reviewing these records with an eye toward unclaimed war salvage, I saw what I had been looking for.
From what I could make out, a Major Han Okura, native to the Combine, had been offered command of one of these replacement Mechs. Unfortunately, his lateness in rejoining the unit after a tour of the Eltanin system denied him first choice from among the arriving Mechs. In fact, he was left with no option regarding a replacement Mech. Faced with the prospect of commanding his troops from the cockpit of a Charger, a Mech deemed to have no tactical value in the Combine military and therefore seen as a disgrace while serving among fellow Draconians, Okura chose instead to serve with a tank legion until his unit could procure a real Mech for him.
Following his example, no other Combinebred mechwarrior would take command of the Charger, for fear of putting his honor in jeopardy. The company was unable to trade the machine to another SLDF unit within reasonable distance. It was donated to a local militia; due to the low incidence of bandit attack in the heart of the Dieron sector, it was put into storage. With the coming of Stefan the Usurper, almost a century later, the Charger had been lost in the SLDF records and officially forgotten.
Following the description of the Charger's last known whereabouts, I came upon the site of a month-old battle field. Thought the shifting desert surface had been pounded flat by the passage of an entire Mech battalion, I was determined to search for the foundation of the lost warehouse which was supposed to contain the wayward Mech.
Borrowing a Panther and its pilot from a lance sent to Cochus for repairs, Gunjin Kai Katake noted a disturbingly large signal on the Magnetic Anomaly Detector lying just a few meters below the barren surface. Quickly powering the light Mech's PPC, Katake blasted it at the surface of the desert a few safe meters from the source of the anomaly until an entrance was cut into the roof of the buried storehouse. Widening the smoldering gap with the Mech's powerful free hand, Katake lowered his Panthertothe floor of the complex, with myself as passenger. What I saw, I assume that the reader already knows.
The Charger was cocooned in a ceramic scaffolding which resisted all attempts at easy release. On the verge of ordering Katake's Panther to tear it apart with its bare hands, I discovered a deactivated control panel at the base of the superstructure. Linking a power feed from the idling machine, whose waste heat was quickly making the partially collapsed warehouse unbearably warm, I reactivated the panel and caused the supports to fall away with a resounding crash. Freed from its centuries of undisturbed slumber, the ancient BattleMech seemed to anticipate the use I had planned for it in defiance of Major Okura's vanities. Clambering quickly up a ladder bolted to a nearby wall, I broached the sand-encrusted Mech's cockpit.
Inside the Charger's spacious head, all was as if the machine had rolled off the assembly line only the preceding day. I suffered a passing bout of laughter as I read the tag attached to the Mech's command chair:
Hailing Katake on my remote communicator, I told him to hook his Panther's power feeds to the Charger's torso while I slipped into the spare cooling vest which I had brought with me. When all was in readiness, I 'jump-started' the Charger off of the Panther's hot fusion engine. Though the machine was slow to power, its initial store of reaction mass having bled away in the arid climate over the centuries, in an hour it was up and running better than any Mech I had piloted in the course of my career.
As the Mech was still untested after the centuries since its manufacture, there were no security codes needing to be broken. After donning and adjusting the ultra-sophisticated Star League neurohelmet, a design not seen since the departure of General Kerensky, I began the procedure for 'personalizing' my BattleMech:
"Enter Pilot designation, Mechwarrior."
" Tai-i Rexel Euchart, Second Legion of Vega."
"Voice print recorded. There are no record of a 'Second Legion of Vega' in any SLDF data banks, do you wish to reenter?"
"Iye."
"Arigato, Euchart-san. Please enter activation codeword."
- Congratulations, Mechwarrior!
You are now the pilot of the most formidable reconnaissance BattleMech yet produced for the Star League Defense Forces, the CGR- 1A 1 Charger. Should you have any questions regarding the care and maintenance of your BattleMech,, please feel free to drop the manufacturer Wells Technologies., a message at any hyperpulse generator station. Along with your request,, please include your BattleMech's serial number and date of procurement.
Happy Hunting!
In twenty minutes, I was piloting the Mech which I had named Hachiman, in honor of a medieval Japanese god of war. As I passed through the streets of Cochus, to the amazement of its citizens, I reflected that if it weren't for the presence of Gunjin Katake's well-known Mech, the pristine condition of my desert- camouflaged Charger would have labelled me as a Lyran pilot, inviting attack from the units defending the port city. With the escort of Katake's hastily arriving lancemates, I piloted Hachiman into the Mech repair bay where the rat insignia of the Legion of Vega and the Kurita Dragon were quickly stencilled on Hachiman's broad shoulders.
Early in December, Katake's lance was reactivated and ordered to join up with the 2nd Legion of Vega, who were forcing elements of the 3rd Lyran Guard to retreat north toward the Great Desert of Tears. Though I had had only two days to practice maneuvers in Hachiman, I volunteered for duty. I was informed that Colonel Kurita was pleased by my resourcefulness in discovering a fully operations BattleMech beneath the desert wasters, but that he questioned the usefulness of the heavy scout in the situation that was rapidly developing. With the Combine regiments forcing the divided Lyran attackers in opposite direction, north and south, the Legion needed stand-up fighters to keep the Lyran Guard from staging a successful counter-attack. But, as the fortunes of war always favor the loyal soldier, I was given the chance to prove the Charger's worth in combat.
Pushing north through the arid plains, I accompanied Katake's lance, which included the Panther, two Phoenix Hawks, and a Locust. During the two-hour march to the front line, I saw much evidence of the destruction brought by the Lyran invaders. While the charred carcasses of fallen Mechs had been removed and stripped for spare parts as quickly as possible, the smoldering remains of Lyran and Draconian tanks blemished the red desert sand. Shell craters pockmarked the once pristine Vegan wilderness. Though this barren world had been my home for only a few years, my heart was heavy at seeing it despoiled.
The 3rd Lyran Guard stoop watch on a ridge within an hour's march of the great northern desert. The once mighty regimental combat team had been separated from the majority of its Mech forces and driven far from any hope of reuniting for a combined counterattack.
The 1st and 3rd Battalions clung desperately to the tactical advantage afforded them by Sander's Ridge, named for the view it provided of the Five Pyramids of Vega, a monument to extravagance built by an eccentric businessman. Three battalions of Lyran armor and infantry were all that had survived the long march through the Lyran desert.
The 2nd Legion camped outside of long range missile fire, preparing the final assault which would drive the Lyrans from the ridge and cast them into the desert, where the shifting sands and fierce autumn winds would destroy all trace of the Commonwealth's passage. Preventing the Lyrans from rejoining their comrades in the south were three Mech battalions and three regiments of tanks and infantry. Commanding the defenders-turned-pursuit forces was Taisho Michael Heise. He was superior in rank to Colonel Kurita, but he bowed both to his subordinate's tactical skill and to his ability to raise the Legion's fighting spirit to devastating fury. Colonel Kurita himself was leading the 14th Legion many kilometers south, where the majority of the Lyran Mech forces struggled on.
At the sight of Hachiman loping along the desert ravines, many a Combine mechwarrior went scrambling for his Mech in anticipation of a Lyran ambush. Heavy Mechs were a rare sight in the Legion, while Lyran Zeus assault Mechs had sowed havoc with our predominantly light and medium forces. With the exception of Tai-sho Heise's Stalker, the 2nd Legion could boast no assault Mechs until I arrived and announced my great fortune to my fellow mechwarriors.
Without any argument on the General's part, I assumed command of the 1st Company, 2nd Battalion. It was the same company which I had had to turn over to my lieutenant when my Dragon fell before the combined fire from a lance of heavy Lyran Mechs.
The 1st was a combined company of heavy and medium Mechs designed to take a patch of ground and hold it. Our assignment was to prevent any Lyran force from escaping east, where Cochus lay defended only by my former unit of hovertanks. If all went well, the Lyrans would attempt no breakout; they would be caught between the treble hammer blows of the 2nd Legion's battalions.
On the morning of December 7th, with the crimson fire of Vega's AO-type star lancing over the dunes to the east, the word came over the comm-line. Tora, Tora, Tora. Relishing the historical significance of those long-remembered words, I prepared my Mech for battle.
Three battalions of Mechs, followed closely by motorized infantry and the Legion's close support vehicles, burst from the trenches which they had dug during the night to conceal their formations. Flights of long range missiles soared skyward from the top of Sander's Ridge to fall impotently about the heels of the charging Kuritans. Answering fire lit scarlet hellfire across the ridgeline, scattering infantry and causing Mechs to fall to their knees to avoid the deadly hail. Though the crouching Lyran Mechs were able to snipe away at the courageous warriors of the Dragon without danger of sustaining serious damage in return, the speed with which Tai- sho Heise's avatars closed the gap between the opposing lines brought them panicking to their feet. Soon hand to hand combat began on the heights as the tide of a gargantuan game of king of the mountain turned against the outnumbered Lyrans. It was then that the Lyrans chose to make a break toward the east.
The first company to reach our position had been assigned to guard against attack from the city's direction. The Mech weights of the attackers roughly matched our own. I had hoped for an evenly matched battle; I knew I must engage before the rapidly retreating Lyrans could join forces and come at us in strength. With little time to lose, I ordered my Mech company to stride forward boldly before the similarly advancing Lyran Mechs. The companies of infantry and armor under my command were ordered to hold back until called in to dispatch any wounded Mechs.
Leading the Lyrans was a Zeus with marking like the machine which had blasted the Dragon from under me, leaving me in disgrace. My enemy had not even had the decency to dispatch me outright, but had left me to attack my troops who were struggling to come to my aid. Now I saw my chance to redeem my honor as my nemesis advanced before his troops.
The assault Mechs carried a torso-mounted Thunderbolt A5M Large Laser as its primary weapons system, though the arm-mounted LRM launcher and Defiance Mark V Autocannon rounded out its long range capabilities. Two Medium Lasers, one firing into the rear arc, also gave it a devastating punch at close range, where I'd have to go it if I were to put a stop to my all-unknowing rival.
As the Lyran Mechs advanced sluggishly across the rapidly warming planet surface, I ordered my forces to open fire. Chu-ijinshi's WarHammers singled out the approaching Zeus and fired a double blast of super-accele rated particles from his PPCs, causing gouts of molten ceramic and metal armor to erupt form the assault Mech's broad-shouldered torso. The stricken Lyran answered quickly with a flight of LRMs, combined with high-velocity autocannon shells directed at my rapidly accelerating Charger. Explosions stitched along my thickly armored right leg as the autocannon struck home, but the speed with which my 80-ton machine maneuvered must have surprised the enemy commander, for the entire spread of fifteen missiles careened into the sand where I had been standing a moment before.
Though I was unable to return the long range fire I had received, I found that my Mech was drawing the fire that would normally have been directed at the more powerful fighters in my company. While a pair of Kuritan Shadow Hawks mounting PPCs and extra heat sinks poured PPC and LRM fire into a Commonwealth Rifleman, the fool single-mindedly tracked Hachiman with large lasers and autocannon, which only further goudged up the desert terrain behind my running Mech. A Steiner Griffin which mounted large and medium lasers instead of the Fusigon PPC withered under the LRM fire of a Trebuchet pilot who had used my armor as a shield against a Lyran Marauder. In the space of a few moments, I had taken light and medium damage to most portions of my armor, but had outdistanced the majority of the destruction intended to reduce my Mech to scrap.
I switched the visual scanner to I/R and saw exactly what I'd anticipated. Almost without exception, the Mechs of the Lyran forces and my own company were rapidly overheating. As the Vegan surface temperature climbed into the critical zone, the amount of heat that the Mechs were able to sink dropped to dangerously low levels. Soon pilots on both sides were staggering their fire or withholding it altogether as their overburdened machines struggled against excess heat and the shifting surface to maneuver out of harm's way. Since I hadn't yet come close enough to use my forward-firing small lasers on the enemy Mechs, my heat levels still showed green, making mine the coolest Mech on the field of battle.
A heat-efficient Lyran Wolverine moved in to take advantage of Jinshi's WarHammer, which was reduced to defending itself with medium lasers and SRMs because of its excess heat; I launched Hachiman into a lumbering run. As the enemy Mech dropped deftly on jets of super-heated mercury behind the 'Hammer's field of fire and took aim on Jinshi's exposed back, I lowered my head and charged into the Wolverine's shoulder.
The impact sent armor flying from both Mechs, but my superior mass and velocity caused the Lyran's left arm to collapse into the socket, continuing to penetrate until the SRM housing on the left shoulder tore loose and hung down across the Mech's back like a slung rifle. The Wolverine flew through the air and crashed into a Phoenix Hawk which had leapt to its rescue, causing both to collapse into the sand. As the Mechs struggled to stand, I bathed the Wolverine in small laser fire while Jinshi blaster armor and myomer muscle from the 'Hawk's legs. A savage kick to the head silenced the Wolverine with the suddenness of a burst balloon.
Turning from the decapitated Mech and the fatally crippled Phoenix Hawk, I witnessed the Zeus putting the finishing touches to a mortally injured Dragon. As the Zeus lumbered quickly away, the dome of the Kuritan Mech's cockpit exploded away, followed by the gout of flame created as Genny Dricol's command chair launched her into the azure sky. A moment later, the brilliant light of a collapsing fusion reactor speared through the wounds which gaped in the Mech's torso, followed quickly by an earth-shattering explosion which sent several large chunks of the Mech's torso hurtling in every direction.
On infra-red, the Zeus was lit up like a minor star after its all-out duel with the Dragon. The heat which poured from its overburdened sinks served only to double the temperature of the air enveloping it. Without cool air to feed the intake valves, the Mech had to rely solely on the liquid coolants flowing through its system, which evaporated with prolonged use. In more favorable situations, the Mech would have shuffled to a rear area where a coolant truck would replace these essential fluids to cool the Mech rapidly. I could imagine the hell that my nemesis was going through, being roasted alive in an overheating Mech.
Straining for every meter, it moved forward. I was not surprised when the Zeus failed to turn at my approach. Instead the Lyran Mech fired its rear medium laser, scoring a hit through my weakened torso armor, damaging the internal structure. I closed to close-assault range and triggered a salvo of all five small lasers into the Zeus'back. Though they are thought of as ineffective against anything larger than light vehicles, the combined power of many small lasers at close range is capable of melting armor with the best of Mech weaponry. Though the Zeus' internal structure suffered only light damage, it was clear that one more salvo would hamper the Mech to the point of an easy kill. My kick to the left leg sent the Zeus reeling to retain its balance.
I saw the Zeus right itself as if calling upon some miraculous inner strength, turning to menace my exposed torso armor with its large laser. Though I believed that one more laser burst would put the enemy Mech's heat levels into the critical zone, quite possibly triggering an ammunition explosion, I turned quickly to run around the sluggish Zeus, hoping to assault his exposed rear torso once again. His laser caught my left arm, destroying the remaining armor and scoring on the myomer cords. The force spun my Charger about to face the autocannon which was elevating rapidly to pump shrieking fragments of shrapnel into my cockpit.
I remember the rest as if in a dream. I dropped to one knee, causing the shells meant to shatter Hachiman's head to spew harmlessly out overhead before I triggered my three torso- mounted lasers point-blank. Scoring repeatedly on the torso armor that had already fallen victim to Jinshi's PPC fire, I burned away the few remaining scraps of armor, baring the internal structure and destroying the shielding around the Zeus' fusion engine. With over half of its heat sinks suddenly rendered inoperable by the uncurtained heat of the fusion engine, the Zeus shut down and stood vacillating before my eyes.
Though I relished the victory, I knew that I had to get distance between me and my foe. As I reached a point some one hundred and fifty meters form the Zeus, I saw the explosion which ended my enemy's existence.
The ammunition in the right torso flared into brilliance, spewing gouts of molten armor into the air. Then the autocannon magazine in the left arm detonated, launching the gyrating limb on a trajectory of its own. What remained after the white-hot fusion reactor sank into the bubbling ground at the feet of the gutted Mech didn't remain standing long. I don't remember seeing the pilot eject; it may have been that the intense heat or the ammunition explosions killed him long before the Mech destroyed itself.
The horror of my opponent's demise caused me to stand dumbfounded while the inferno raged before me, leaving Hachiman a perfect target for any Lyran mechwarrior who came to avenge his fallen commander. The Combine tank and infantry units arrived in response to the Zeus's demise to reinforce the 1st company's hard-won position, which sent the remaining half-dozen Lyran Mechs running back to the ridge with my cohort's fire at their backs.
No additional Mechs on either side would fall that day. Or the next, for the Lyran commander summoned his DropShips to carry the defeated invaders far from Vega. As the last Lyran transports cut a fiery swath across the darkening Autumn sky, my company began the glorious march back to the port city and a well-deserved rest. At the celebrations held later that evening in Cochus I was approached by the personal aide of Theodore Kurita himself and led to a private conference with my victorious leader. I will attempt to recount my leader's words to me as accurately as I can remember.
"Your actions in the desert have brought honor to the Legion, Tai-i. If not for your expert use of the men and machines at your disposal, the Lyrans might yet pose a threat to the tranquility we now enjoy. Though my father, the Dragon, counts only the destruction of Wolf's Dragoons as the Combine's greatest imperative, our victory today brings renewed hope to our comrades struggling to drive Steiner from the Rasalhague and Dieron Districts.
I am most interested in the innovative tactics with which a BattleMech design previously considered useless was raised to the status of a true combat Mech. However, I doubt that even the tales of your victory will impress our military advisors enough to redeem the Charger in their eyes."
The neatly uniformed aide returned his leader's expressive grin before turning to order sake brought to our small gathering.
"As you are well aware," Colonel Kurita continued," our victories over the past three months have allowed us to accumulate a surplus of replacement parts and replacement Mechs for the first time in the Legion's spotted history. My senior Techs inform me that a Zeus assault Mech could be at your disposal in a few days, should you care to place your Charger in the care of one of our recon lances."
Taken aback by the generosity of my lord's offer, I considered carefully before making my reply.
"You honor me, Colonel, though I did only what any other warrior in your service would have done. A week ago I would most certainly have leapt at the chance you offer me. However ... meaning no disrespect to your most generous offer, I believe that the experience of piloting a Charger in combat against Mechs with many times my firepower and emerging victorious has changed me irrevocably. I believe that the ultimate test of a warrior's honor is the defeat of a superior foe using one's own courage, cunning and skill. I believe that it is the inferior warrior who relies on superior Mechs to win battles for him. I respectfully request to accompany my Charger to its new assignment."
I waited, aghast at my own presumption. Colonel Kurita, a broad smile wreathing his youthful face, gave me a slight bow.
"Would that more warriors shared your devotion to bushido; no Successor State would dare wage war on Draconian soil! But I am not so foolish as to separate a winning team from its victorious leader. Hachiman will remain with the 1st Company and be the shield which defends its fellows as they battle for the greater glory of the Dragon. Let us toast this with sake."
When the warm rice wine had been poured, and cups elevated, Colonel Kurita, myself, and all those present gave thanks for the Dragon's continuing might, thewisdorn behind the enemy's withdrawal, and most especially to the longdead crafters of the 'Useless Mech'.
Tai-I Euchart retired in 3036, after a distinguished career with his unit. He now lives on Vega, the planet he helped to liberate. His paintings of desert scenes are enjoying a surprising success; owners of his works include members of the court at Luthien.
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