Part 480: Political Vote 18
Political Update 18 – The Great Silence“We have suffered nearly eighty percent casualties, but Chatham is ours.” Warlord Tetsuhara wore more than just the emotional signs of that casualty figure. The right sleeve of his uniform coat had been pinned up to the shoulder. His face was drawn and pale from loss of blood but if the dozen-odd reports from both Davion and Kuritan officers still sitting on Hanse’s desk had been correct Tetsuhara had returned to the fight even after his Dragon had been shot out from under him. His arm might have been saved if he hadn’t chosen to see out the end of the battle in a humble Panther but in choosing to return to the battle his officers had credited him with saving dozens of lives. Tetsuhara hadn’t won the planet single-handedly but that would be a legend Hanse could use.
Tetsuhara bowed as his transmitted message came to a close, “Coordinator-Prince, if your humble servant’s poor performance has displeased you, I ask only that the men and women under my command be spared. They fought bravely and well for the—for the Draconis Suns.”
Behind Hanse, Chandrasekhar Kurita gave his large belly a slap. Standing for extended periods always seemed to pain the man except during moments like these, when his brilliant mind was working on a puzzle. “What will you do, Coordinator-Prince? By all rights, under the old laws of the Draconis Combine, Tetsuhara and his officers should be executed for costing the state so much equipment.”
“Punishing those men and women is the last thing I want to do,” Hanse replied, stroking his chin in thought. “I want every man currently serving in the First Draconis Suns Regimental Combat Team promoted one rank, effective immediately. With a second fast-track promotion in six months if they prove up to the challenge, and I want that combat team brought back to full strength immediately. The Fourth RCT’s scheduled to come on active duty in a month: we’ll cannibalize it for troops and equipment if we have to.”
“The conservative elements of the DCMS will be watching to see that Tetsuhara is appropriately punished for his failure,” Chandrasekhar warned. “Other Warlords may see your action as proof of your weakness—or your madness. Marcus Kurita—”
“Can go straight to hell, as far as I’m concerned,” Hanse glowered. His eyes swept his office like a hawk, looking for some detail he might have overlooked. They settled on the broad shoulders of his BattleMaster, resplendent in the red, blue, and white of the Davion Heavy Guards. Chandrasekhar raised the same objections Janneke had warned him to expect when Tetsuhara’s message had first come in the night before. Hanse hadn’t had an answer for her, then, but he’d found one for Chandrasekhar now. “Tetsuhara lost his BattleMech—”
“Tetsuhara lost the BattleMech given to him by the Coordinator,” Chandrasekhar corrected, perhaps unnecessarily. “
“Then Takashi should have given him something a little more impressive than a Dragon,” Hanse jabbed, before continuing. “Send Tetsuhara my BattleMaster, and this message: He can return it to me once Luthien is back in our hands. At that time, I will decide his fate and not a moment before.”
Chandrasekhar bowed, his lips curling into the faintest hint of a smile. “It will be done—but will it not be difficult for him to pilot a BattleMech with only one arm?”
“Then I suppose we’d better send a few of the NAIS’s doctors along. With one of their new cybernetic replacement limbs.” Hanse shared a smile with Chandrasekhar. “That ought to show Marcus Kurita where my confidence lies. I’m not about to execute a man who’s shown me he has what it takes to win us this war. I fear we’re going to be lucky if we walk away from Luthien with only eighty percent casualties.”
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“I am going to kill that fool Asa Taney,” Natasha Kerensky hissed. She struck the side of the holotank with one balled fist, her knuckles white with her rage. The Hell’s Horses scouts had confirmed the Ice Hellions had abandoned their illegal holdings in the Inner Sphere but there had been no communications from the homeworlds since his departure. The other invading Clans had reported the same: they had received nothing from their worlds back in Clan space. Admittedly, something may have happened to one of the HPGs along the Exodus Road, but Kerensky was doubtful. They had secondary transmitters and receivers, the silence for a day or two would not have been unusual but two weeks should have been impossible.
“Be cautious, ilKhan,” saKhan Jon Vordermark cautioned. “We have no proof that Taney has committed a wrong.”
“I do not need proof,” Kerensky’s soft voice dripped with more venom than a Steel Viper. “The Ice Hellions have sabotaged our HPG network to punish us for driving them from the Inner Sphere. It would take a blind surat not to see that.”
“If that is so,” Khan Garth Radick cautioned, “They will lie in ambush for any unit we send after them. We must go in force or not at all.”
Seething, Kerensky paced her office like a tiger. The Khans of the Widowmakers watched her pass back and forth as though she were precisely that. Her balled fists would not have made respectable claws, but neither could match Natasha Kerensky in a BattleMech. She calmed almost as quickly as her rage blossomed, turning on Garth Radick to spear him with eyes like PPCs.
“The Steel Vipers will barely be hindered by this, their laughable ‘Task Force Serpent’ has an abundance of material. And the Jade Falcons are fresh, so we must emulate the Goliath Scorpions by necessity. Order our soldiers to strip all ammunition-based weapons from their machines. We shall use captured Inner Sphere energy weapons if we must, but we must not allow our progress to slow. What is our status in the periphery?”
Radick’s eyes fell. “As ordered. Our fleet has finished their duty: the largest cities on all rebellious worlds have been… excised. Organized rebellion has ended on every world the Burrocks have not already secured.”
The Khan swallowed and added, “Star Admiral Harrison Karrige has requested reassignment to a front-line Solamha company.”
Natasha Kerensky sucked in a breath, and let it out slowly. “Granted. See to it that his replacement actually has a spine. Our task is paramount and we will not rest until Terra has been reduced to a cinder: the Inner Sphere will know the rage of Kerensky and despair.”
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“I told you,” the white-robed woman sat low in her usual chair, her hood concealing all but her badly-scarred chin and lips. She was not a Khan, was not even a warrior, and yet she sat at Khan Breen’s side in the council of Task Force Serpent’s Khans with all the relaxed confidence of a woman who thought everyone in the room was dancing to her strings. What made SaKhan Dusk Moffat most nervous was the thought: their white-robed advisor might be correct.
“ilKhan Kerensky doesn’t plan for setbacks,” the robed woman continued. “They frustrate her—with her warships diverted to her rear lines, the Goliath Scorpions challenging for every world they border, and no way to know when her supply shipments will arrive she will begin lashing out blindly.”
“This is an opportunity,” Kahn Natalie Breen interjected. “Our own lines of communication are intact?”
Khan Cassius N’Buta of the Cloud Cobras tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Of course. We would not have proceeded unprepared, but the strain of maintaining the Path of Return may be more than the Cloud Cobra economy can bear for long. And I suspect we have only months—or weeks—before our secret HPG network is discovered.”
The white-robed woman raised a feeble hand. “By Blake’s will, it will be enough. When we reach Terra, it will be as I have said. With Clan technology and the support of ComStar, the great houses will be forced to recognize the Star League’s reformation at last.”
“The Goliath Scorpions still outpace our advance,” Dusk cautioned. “I fear they have gone too long unremarked, suffered too few setbacks,” she turned, regarding the silent bondsman who stood at her side. “At your suggestion we have held our invasion at the border of Skye to negotiate but we cannot allow the Goliath Scorpions to do as they please. Can Skye be made to understand?”
“In the year I have been a Steel Viper, you have shown me many things,” Caesar began slowly. His proud eyes refused to seek the floor even in this council of his betters, “The people of Skye are some of the proudest in the Inner Sphere: but the other Clans will burn them to cinders. I only wish our ambassadors had not engaged that buffoon General Hogarth. I believe my Cousin Melissa and her husband—”
Political Vote 18
A) “will be too frightened by Clan technology to join. As much as it pains me, invasion is our only option.”
B) “can be made to see reason. Allow me to communicate with them, and I can explain in a way they will understand. I can convince them to join us”
C) “are rational enough, but to them I will be a madman on par with Richard Cameron. Only ComStar can assuage their doubts. They will not listen to me, but Precentor Waterley will have no trouble convincing them.
D) “would sooner join the Free Worlds League than aid us.”