Part 522: Carlos' Crusaders Campaign Vote 2 Results

Combat Theater Vote Results

An aide, his face drawn and pale, bowed silently and held out a silver tray. Wordlessly, Melissa Steiner plucked a missive from the otherwise empty platter. The aide vanished in an elegant and composed rush, not wishing to disturb the deliberations further. Melissa paid him little mind as she opened the plain white envelope and took a moment to read the contents. When she finished, she wordlessly folded the missive and laid it on the table in front of her.

“My apologies for the interruption,” she bowed her head just enough that her guests might take notice before straightening again. Her guest’s retinue remained stone-faced and passive to a man, save one. Caesar Steiner was hardly the fat imbecile she remembered from her youth. He’d grown lean and strong in his time as a Clan—she could only assume prisoner. He’d adopted many of their mannerisms, but beneath that façade he still held himself with just a trace of the thoughtful defiance she remembered. As Archon-in-name-only she’d never had to deal with the man on a military level, but she still remembered Uncle Frederick’s occasional tirades about Caesar’s stubbornness. Caesar wasn’t brilliant but he had a sound military mind and often balked at orders that went against his strategic sensibilities. He wasn’t a tactical officer, but she knew Frederick Steiner had planned to elevate him to Colonel and beyond—a promotion that might have been actually earned rather than simply prompted by the family name and the constant nagging of Iris Steiner (although she remembered plenty of that as well).

From the way her guest listened intently to Caesar’s every whispered word, Melissa suspected he’d played more than a small part in slowing the Clan advance to buy Skye time to prepare—and that this very conference, bitter though the negotiations had left everyone—would not have come about without his subtle influence. Or not-so-subtle, if he’d inherited some of his mother’s nagging skills. His efforts were the reason Melissa hadn’t turned the Clans away. To her knowledge, they’d never once negotiated with anyone in their invasion corridor before. Attitudes had remained cold but peaceful up until the Clans—Clan Goliath Scorpion, if her guest was to be believed, although Melissa had her doubts—took Dalkeith and Port Moseby.

The invasion had led to bitter accusations by representatives from Alexandria, the capitol of the entire Virginia shire and without Melissa’s influence the already chilly negotiations would have completely fallen apart. Unlike Frederick Steiner, however, she wasn’t about to let her cousin’s heroic efforts to spare a part of the realm—her entire realm now—fall apart so easily. In the end her calm determination to hear out the Clan demands had won out, and negotiations had resumed. Only to be interrupted by an aide less than ten minutes in. Who knew how the Clanners would take that? Their culture was so alien, for all she knew the minor breach in propriety would be enough to see them back to their conquered territory and back on the war-path. It was frustrating and frightening to work so hard to get everyone in the same room together just to risk it all collapsing ten minutes in.

Her guest’s grim expression revealed little of her mood. Well, in for a c-bill, in for the whole treasury. There was no sense beating around the bush, if negotiations were going to completely fall apart it was better they did so now. Without letting her expression waver Melissa mastered herself and continued.

“Khan Moffat,” the members of her guest’s contingent winced or glowered. It was too late for Melissa to stop, “I’ve read through your kind proposal, but I have a few key concerns. While I applaud your goal and believe wholeheartedly not only that the Star League should be restored but that it must be restored, some of your terminology remains alien. I cannot agree to a proposal I don’t fully understand: especially the following line.”

She paused, then quoted, “That the people of Skye will acknowledge the superiority of the True Born.”

“You go on to make several distinctions between the True Born and what you dub the ‘Free Born,’ but these terms are meaningless to me. What’s more, I cannot accept any terms in which the natural born citizens of Skye are made second-class citizens in our own nation. I contend that if you truly seek the restoration of the Star League—as your proposal claims—that we must be treated on equal terms with all the respect that entails. That means that ‘free born’ and ‘true born’ must have equal rights and protections in the Republic of Skye.”

saKhan Dusk Moffat shifted in her chair, leaning forward as though something Melissa had said had piqued her interest for the first time since the meetings had resumed. “That is not the way things are done among the Clans.”

“Nor do I demand that the Clans alter their culture,” Melissa pressed. “If the ‘true born’ are as superior as your documents say, then is it not true that they’ll rise to prominence a new Star League without any special rights or protections?”

Caesar Steiner leaned forward, about to whisper something in Dusk Moffat’s ear. She held up a hand to forestall him. “It is true,” she admitted, drawing a cough from the representative bearing an emblem of a coiled, striking cobra.

“What you say is true,” Moffat maintained. “I also must admit that the Freeborn can be surprisingly useful. I see no harm in letting them compete on even terms. After all, Clan society is built on competition, so to deny that competition may well be a direct attack on Kerensky’s vision in whole. However, I also contend that respect has to be earned. The Clans of Task Force Serpent are already risking much even negotiating with you. Negotiation is not the Clan way and to us you and your nation are untried and untested. To simply grant you respect you have not earned will not still well with my people. The Clans respect strength. Perhaps,” Moffat sounded dubious, “we can arrange for a series of trials, pitting our champions against your own?”

Melissa leaned forward, her eyes clear and focused, meeting Dusk Moffat’s as though her gaze was guided by a targeting computer with a solid lock. “The people of Skye won’t accept trial-by-combat as the primary means of managing disputes or earning respect. With respect, we don’t care how well the Clans can fight us so a combat trial to prove your technology is better than ours will do nothing but increase the animosity our people feel towards you and yours.”

“Respect must be mutual. If you have no desire to earn Skye’s respect than further negotiation is pointless—but if you truly do wish to form a new Star League then the people of Skye need to know that you’re capable of fighting for Skye’s interests.” She flicked the missive Dusk’s direction, and was unsurprised when the Clan warrior caught it with an effortless grace. The woman moved well, Melissa had to admit.

The woman read the note and quirked a brow. “I gather you propose to rescue this Carlos Marik? Tell me: how could rescuing the son of the Captain-General of the Free Worlds League possibly be a Skye interest?”

“Of all the Great Houses, House Marik is the most likely to join—or at least support—a new Star League. Duncan Marik is a practical man, but his nation has been ravaged by the Capellan Confederation in recent years. They’re by no means weak, but they are disorganized and are only now pushing back in earnest. But if Carlos Marik dies or worse, is captured by the Capellan Confederation, that puts the League’s succession in question. A reborn Star League will gain no support from a realm locked in a Civil War, and I have no doubt that the Star League will need the Free Worlders if we’re to have any hope of resisting Hanse Davion.”

Dusk perked again at Melissa’s use of the word ‘we,’ but her expression was so alien Melissa had little idea what impact her words had. She continued regardless. “For all the Clans’ technological might, I hear your invasion has been all-but halted by the combined might of the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns. They are the strongest military power in the Inner Sphere and I have no doubt that only pressure from all the remaining Great Houses combined will bring Hanse Davion to a table as we are now. I do not believe that man would have any qualms about invading a nascent Star League. Simply securing the bulk of the manufacturing centers surrounding Terra would be a prize Hanse Davion could hardly resist.”

Melissa let that sink in, then added. “Second, I owe Duncan Marik for releasing my Marshall of the Armies,” Melissa nodded at her double, Jeana Clay. “This will require a little explanation: while I was still trapped in my Uncle, Frederick’s power, Jeana posed as a pirate, the Red Corsair—an alias of my Mother that Frederick would have been well aware of. Unsure whether he held the real me or whether I was the Red Corsair, Frederick was paralyzed with indecision and never acted—the fact that I was trained as an infantryman rather than a Mechwarrior should have tipped him off—but his paralysis enabled my eventual escape and Skye’s secession.”

She waved her hand dramatically in Jeana’s direction. “That deception might not have been possible. Jeana and the forces posing as the Red Corsair’s pirate band were captured in the Free Worlds League. If Duncan Marik hadn’t chosen to release them, it’s likely I’d be dead now and this negotiation could never have occurred at all.”

Dusk’s expression soured, “Politics leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. But the Clans respect those who honor their honor debts. Also,” the Clan leader paused momentarily, perhaps working out what she wanted to say next. “I am surprised to learn you were a soldier. You speak with all the fire of a warrior, but I admit I have fewer misgivings now that I know you are one.”

“Even the Archon-designate isn’t exempt from the Lyran Commonwealth’s mandatory conscription laws,” Melissa explained. “Every adult man and woman in Skye—in the Lyran Commonwealth as a whole—is or has been a ‘warrior.’ We all stand ready to fight for our homes if need be, even if most, like me, find themselves ill-suited to combat. There are other ‘battlefields’ in which I excel.”

“I can see that,” Dusk snorted, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice. Melissa took that as a small victory. “And I understand your proposal. A joint rescue operation would let us test one another, albeit indirectly.” Dusk turned, affixing Jeana Clay with her emerald green eyes. “I gather the ‘Red Corsair’ needs must put in a personal appearance?”

The Red Corsair won hands down with 48 votes, more than every other option combined!



****************************************



Mackenzie Bethe—the man known “publically” as Xuan Wu—wasn’t physically impressive. He didn’t loom over his subordinates nor did he appear to be of any particular note in his jade-green labcoat. Nonetheless, the men and women around him showed the small, mousy man a level of respect he’d never seen among the Clans. Bethe had earned his ‘science name’ over a decade before, and in the years since had proved himself the preeminent particle physicist among the Clans as a whole. He’d been taken as abtakha by the Death Commandos—mistaken as just another Clan technician. It was only upon their return to Sian that he’d chosen to reveal his value—to Director Justin Xiang and Xiang alone.

With the Hell’s Horses he’d been responsible for a prototype weapon, a Plasma cannon able to fire a jet of superheated plasma over five-hundred meters long. Although not directly dangerous to BattleMechs, it was a devastating weapon when turned against vehicles and even armored infantrymen. Although it could prove highly erratic, the prototype he’d worked on was even capable of completely melting a suit of elemental armor.

He’d applied that research to develop a new weapon for the Capellan Confederation, a hybrid of his Plasma Cannon and a Gauss Rifle able to deliver a superheated slug of plasma with a dense metallic core against targets up to four-hundred and fifty meters away. Although it was a crude weapon by his own estimations, Director Xiang had been so impressed that he’d supplied Mackenzie with a nearly unlimited budget and blanket permission to conscript nearly anyone he considered useful enough to further his research. Bethe—“Xuan Wu” now—alongside two other captured Clan scientists had formed the core of a new Society. Although they’d been busy in the six months since their ‘adoption’ by the Confederation, the respect they were shown and the freedom they were granted to pursue any field of research they chose had won them over instantaneously. And if most of the Society’s current studies were devoted to developing weapons for the Confederation, well, it was only natural to defend themselves and secure their place, was it not? The Clans had always treated Xuan Wu as expendable—to the Capellan Confederation, well, Xuan Wu intended to become as irreplaceable as Director Xiang, or even the Chancellor herself.

An assistant bowed low as he approached. “Lama Xuan Wu, the Phoenix Project reports success. Their methodical aerial search pattern has spooked one of the Free World dropships.”

Xuan Wu smirked. “Like rabbits, these Free Worlders. They have no resolve.”

His assistant nodded, “Aerospace assets are already in close pursuit and the Tian Long reports they’ll be ready to deploy within ten minutes.”

“Excellent,” Xuan Wu clapped his hands together. “Nonetheless, continue plans for our departure. Abadan has served its purpose. Li Jing says the new facilities on Outreach will be complete by the time we arrive. Advise “Liu Bei” that the Phoenix Project is to follow us once they’ve finished their battlefield tests.”

Mackenzie didn’t even hear his assistant reply “At once, Lama Wu.” There was simply too much to do. How much precious time would be lost spending two months traveling to Outreach? Perhaps there would be some minor experiments he could run along the way.





Rise of the Phoenix



Map Conditions:
Intense Glare: All units standing on elevated terrain suffer a +2 penalty to all attacks. Attackers on low ground firing at a target on elevated terrain suffer a +1 penalty to attack.



Allied Unit List
Carlos’s Crusaders


The Red Corsair Pirates




OpForce Unit List
Project Phoenix



(I noticed some sprite issues. Some of the default sprites are actually reversed, as are some of mine. I fixed it)



Mechwarriors
Devorum
Dachshundofdoom
In like Zinn
Meinberg
shalafi4
VolticSurge
Baudin
fivetomidnight
Scintilla
TheParadigm



Alternates
Soup Inspector*
dis astranagant
Pooncha
ArbitraryTA
vuk83*
Kirenski
Shinarato*
(more may be called up as needed, I suspect we’re going to get a few passes due to travel plans)