On a much more sad note, the following is a special report on the final hours of one of the universes best and most courageous 'MechWarriors. Inner Sphere News has obtained a writeup of his final hours.

“Get them on the ship, I don’t care how!”

His heat in the red-line, he kept moving left and right, blocking any enemy forward movement. His frontal armour was shredded, nearly gone. His left arm lay on the ground somewhere behind him, the unfortunate recipient of a PPC shot.

“Sir you need to withdraw, we’re the last transport out. The enem-“

“I withdraw and no-one makes it off this rock. You worry about loading those civvies and that recon lance, I’ll worry about these ‘Mechs!” Blake growled.

A PPC and three large lasers smashed into a Jenner that poked its head over a hill, too close to the Leopard dropship on the ground. Blake fired three bursts as well, the first two shredded the left leg, the final pushed it over as the joint collapsed. Blake could see the ‘Mechbay of the Leopard even from here as he glanced back – they were tossing out anything they could to make room for hurt and hungry children… He turned back to the battle.

The enemy ‘Mechs, likely assuming they were facing a well dug in, larger force, were waiting before they assaulted his position. The Leopards PPC’s certainly added to that theory. Perfect, he thought, grinning.

Four enemy ‘Mechs – two lights and two mediums – never saw him coming as he flanked them to the right. He lowered the left shoulder of his Atlas, crashing into a Jenner, crushing its canopy between his shoulder and fist. Slow to react, the other pilots could only watch in terror as he turned, then charged into a Centurion, crushing its left arm and toppling it over. With a disgusted sneer he fired his AC/20’s through the cockpit and stepped on its chest, collapsing it as he strode through the shower of metal.

“Sir, we’ve completed boarding, but we think we’ve made room for you to-“

“Belay that, you take off now.”

Silence stretched on the line before the radio came to life again.

“You’ll be remembered for this, Commander Cripes.”

“Shut up and get out of here” was the only reply.

As the radio operator looking down, Leopard lifting through the atmosphere and still firing it’s weapons in support, the last thing anyone saw of Commander Blake ‘Hell Fist’ Cripes was his ‘Mechs right fist colliding with a Centurion, crushing what was left of its AC-ruined torso armour, as a rain of LRM’s fell upon him.