Part 108: Political Vote 5 Results and Combat Theater Vote 5 - Kerensky's Gambit
Kerensky’s Gambit: Political Vote Results and Combat Theater Vote 6“I have reached a decision,” Takashi announced so suddenly that the sudden silence that followed made his words seem of deafening volume.
“We shall not,” he spoke, glaring at his son Theodore, “grant any rights to Eta. The Yakuza scum are tolerated, but only just. They have no place in war.”
Theodore bowed his head, feigning contrition while Samsonov’s impression turned to one of superiority. Takashi turned to him, “Nor will our best troops remain on the border. They are needed. It pains me greatly, but we must deal with the Devil. We must negotiate with Prince Hanse Davion.”
Samsonov scowled. “No! We should seize this opportunity! ComStar would not interdict us in the face of the Clans—we should hit Hanse Davion, and hit him hard; while he thinks himself protected—”
Chandrasekhar rested his face in his palm, and Theodore stifled a frown then spoke. “That is—a poor idea, General. We do not turn our back to Hanse Davion; but attacking him would be suicide. Giri suggests we must repel these invaders—”
“Dishonored whelp, what would you know of duty to the Dragon?” Samsonov roared. “We must crush Hanse Davion; then we may deal with these ‘Clans’ at our leisure.”
“Iie,” Subhash Indrahar hissed, the vehemence of his ‘no’ taking everyone by surprise. The aging spymaster typically sat smiling and silent at Takashi’s right hand. Rarely did he ever speak. “Samsonov, your plan is foolish: if we attack, Hanse Davion could launch reprisals on whim and there is nothing ComStar could do to refute his right to do so. No, we are spread too thin. We must concentrate to fight a single enemy, before one of them becomes a Yellow Bird.”
Several of the assembled shuddered at the imagery—the Yellow Bird, the only creature capable of defeating the Dragon, was certainly a myth—but the symbolism remained valid. Even the Draconis Combine, strongest of the successor states, could be laid low by underestimating a foe.
Takashi leaned forward, “My decision stands: we send a negotiator to speak with Prince Hanse Davion,” he eyed Chandrasekhar quietly, “and who better to negotiate than a Kurita merchant? Now, Samsonov, tell me of these new ‘Gauss Rifle’ weapons? How effective are they? How quickly may we field them?”
Samsonov was the first to reply, a wicked grin crossing his face. “—I have already had one mounted upon my Atlas. Its performance is superb. With enough of these weapons in our command ‘Mechs, no force in the Inner Sphere could stand against us.”
Takashi grunted in reply. “Well then,” he said with only a trace of sarcasm, “we have nothing to worry about.”
**********
“What are they doing?” Duncan Marik demanded petulantly as he stared at one of his command center’s holoscreens. It was currently projecting a planetary map, with multiple blips representing the pirate dropships’ landing zones.
“Concentrating their forces,” Melissa pointed out the obvious, then began mulling over the tactical possibilities. “They’ve landed close enough to be in striking range of these cities—You outnumber them, but with your forces spread out in a defensive posture they will have an advantage in numbers in any fight; and if you concentrate at any location they’ll simply overrun everything you aren’t actively defending.”
The Captain-General nodded quietly. “We should hit them while they’re still landing,” he mused quietly.
“Under the guns of those dropships? You’d lose half your forces in a few minutes,” Melissa mused, mulling over the possibilities. She looked up at the young Marik. “Create a mobile reserve—a battalion or two of light and medium ‘Mechs and fast vehicles should be able to beat the Pirates to any objective and buy time for other, nearby forces to launch a flanking attack.”
“That seems tactically sound,” Duncan conceded. “A cavalry to quickly reinforce any point, pin them down, and destroy them with our greater numbers.”
“If you have any suitable battalions, I’d start organizing them now. If you don’t—I’d get in touch with your field commanders and—”
“Captain-General!” an officer called, “a message—from the First Circuit! The Clans have launched some sort of attack, and crippled a huge section of the HPG network!”
Melissa’s face went pale. She swallowed, took a soft breath to recover her composure, and caught Duncan Marik’s eye. “What,” she asked quietly, “are the ‘Clans’?”
**********
“Cairn,”
“Cairn,”
“Cairn,”
“Cairn,” a voice rasped at the edge of his consciousness. “Awaken, warrior!”
He opened his eye, letting the world come into focus. The heavy scent of blood and antiseptic filled his nostrils. He’d been injured, he remembered only vaguely; but he’d also gotten a Battlemech kill! Pushing aside the nausea with the single-mindedness of his breed, he sat up on his cot; tearing away monitor patches and the IV some medtech had lovingly and carefully snuck into one of the veins in his arm.
Soft, effeminate hands—like a child trying to hold down a rampaging bull—tried and failed to force him to lie back down. He felt strong, and the drugs in his veins had obliterated any trace of pain. He stood, glowered a medtech, and tried to take stock of his condition.
His left eye remained blurry and nearly indecipherable—he probed it idly with one hand, and found the traceries of neuro-circuitry that told him the eye had been lost and a new one grown to replace it. His vision would clear in a few days, he calculated, once his brain adjusted to neuro-circuitry.
He stared down at the medtech, who cringed from meeting his wild eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, and found he could not. The ‘tech cringed further, then whimpered, “—we could not repair your voice. Your injuries—and exposure to hard vacuum—has left you mute, Warrior.”
Cairn stared, then shrugged. He had no use for his voice—he could still lead; and warriors would still follow. He tried to laugh—and the medic’s terror of the horrid breathy rasp his laugh had become made him laugh all the harder. He was alive! He had a kill! He would fight again for the glory of his clan! For Cairn, that was enough.
The door to his tiny room susurrused open, permitting entry to the massive form of another Elemental. The medtech scampered out behind like a rodent fleeing a pair of hounds. Cairn eyed the newcomer quietly, not immediately recognizing the warrior.
“You fight well,” she said in neutral tones. “You fight hard, and bid well—far more than I would have expected from second line trash.”
Cairn’s face contorted into an angry grimace, drawing a smile from the woman who dared mock him.
“I am Star Colonel Seraph Amirault, Alpha Galaxy, Six-Hundred Sixty Sixth Mechanized Assault Cluster. ‘War.’ You are precisely the type of warrior I want. You will be joining my unit, Star Captain Cairn.”
His expression calmed. She smiled, took the change for the question it was. “We are… testing something: a new tool of war, something which requires skilled warriors. Warriors with the strength to seize victory from the jaws of death itself.”
She smiled, “You, Cairn, are ideal: and once our conquest of the Inner Sphere is complete, we shall return our attentions to the real foe: the Ghost Bears. You and I together shall crush them utterly.”
Cairn smiled.
**********
[4 Months Later (April, 3033)]
“Petulant child! Brainless oaf!” Aldo Lestrade raged, scattering a sheaf of papers from his desk. “I grow tired of your constant dickering. Summer, Tharkad, Summer, Tharkad! Enough of your foolish waffling!”
He stood, towering over the diminutive Clovis, his artificial hand raised to deliver a backhand. Aldo Lestrade took a breath, calmed himself, and stared quietly at his greatest disappointment. Clovis cringed in silence, shaking quietly.
Aldo Lestrade sighed and rubbed his eyes as he half-collapsed back into his chair. “Idiot,” he breathed quietly. “You will never be a leader of men, Clovis. If only you shared half my brilliance, you would have been a force to be reckoned with. Stunted simpleton. I was going to have you invested as the Duke of Summer—as a wedding gift. All of Skye would have been yours to command, but you are not worthy. You will never be—”
“Father, wait!” Clovis cried, looking plaintively at the most powerful man in the Lyran Commonwealth. “Understand my logic!”
“What logic?” Aldo demanded.
Clovis stood, straightened his tiny suit. “… At first, I wanted Melissa off Tharkad; and out of your hair. On Summer, she’d have been stripped of friends and allies, and you’d be free to rule without her constant interference—”
Aldo nodded, the thought had clearly occurred to him.
“—But then I realized, if the Clans can attack us here on Tharkad, would it not benefit them to capture Melissa? She’d be vulnerable on Summer. Far, far too vulnerable without the Home Guard to protect her. Also,” he paused, staring at his father as if daring him to dispute, “the people would wonder whether Melissa truly agreed to this if we secreted her away. I’ve heard people talking—if they don’t see her, smiling and happy, there would be dissent. You need her on Tharkad right now—and I can take her to Summer for our honeymoon—”
Aldo raised a hand, silencing his son—and looked the boy over with an appraising eye. “…Enough, Clovis. You have made a convincing argument. I—had not expected you’d actually thought about this, and simply wanted the wedding as quickly as possible—”
“—that is only a happy coincidence,” Clovis replied with a smile.
**********
Heavy footfalls filled the Spartan hallways of the Sleipnir, the venerable Cameron-class Battlecruiser that served Khan Seidman as a flagship. Heavy white boots which clashed garishly with the orange-brown uniform favored by the Hell’s Horses came to a sudden and immediate stop outside a door marked with five stars.
Grier Seidman’s face contorted into an annoyed grimace. His weathered skin—resembling the bark of a tree more than human flesh—and stark-white Mohawk reminiscent of a horse’s mane slammed a white-gloved fist into the door, announcing his presence with boom that likely echoed all the way to the distant bridge. The wait was only momentary, Grier pressing his fist against the moving metal—the mechanism produced a telltale grinding sound he knew irritated the room’s sole occupant.
With an equally annoyed scowl, the IlKhan glared at the only man in his Touman with the temerity to pound on his door and expect something other than a disciplinary beating with a fully-charged neuro-whip. Grier pushed past him, and stood at ease—as though he owned the room and all inside.
“With what,” Lair Seidman demanded through gritted teeth with little propriety and less respect, “do I owe the honor of your visit, Doyen of House Seidman?”
“It is a terrible day,” Grier said plainly, then fell silent. Waiting. Lair stood, irritated, waiting for the eldest living member of his blood house to get to something resembling a point. When none seemed forthcoming, he opened his mouth to speak.
“It is a terrible day,” Grier interrupted instantly, drawing a flash of true anger from the younger Seidman, “when a Warrior’s progeny is elected IlKhan. Do you not agree, son?”
“What,” Lair hissed, “do you want?”
“It is a terrible day,” Grier continued, “When respect and honor are stripped from a warrior—by a vulgar youth who saw the direction everyone wanted to go, and simply jumped out in front and yelled ‘follow me.’ Is it not so?”
“Do—”
Grier speared his descendant with a look that demanded silence. “It is a terrible day when a warrior craves glorious death over success in battle.”
“When was the last time you saw any success in battle?” Lair countered with a glare.
“I yet live.”
“To the detriment of all. Why can you not simply scuttle off into a dark corner and die, old man? House Seidman could use some new blood—”
“A Clansman’s honor,” Grier picked up where he’d left off, cutting off the younger IlKhan, “is measured at his death; yes—but it is measured by his success. You, my son, are failing and failing badly.”
Lair’s face reddened, his eyes bulging in anger. “I lead the Clans,” he screamed. “I am your greatest success!”
“You,” Grier replied—usual booming tones seeming strangely quiet, “are failing. How much time do you waste, how many warriors have you lost, trying to fight an honorable war? Do the Widowmakers have the same compunctions? No. Do the Steel Vipers not cheat in every battle? Do the Goliath Scorpions not make a quiet mockery of your efforts and taunt you into foolish errors?”
Grier leaned in—he was taller than his ‘son,’, though not by much. Over forty years his junior, Lair was the more physically impressive—but Grier knew he could beat the younger warrior with ease, even at the advanced age of sixty eight. He loomed, letting Lair’s anger burn itself to cinders as he struggled not to lash out at the leader of his own Blood House.
“I have fought them,” Grier growled. “These ‘warriors’ of the Inner Sphere. As have you; yet you fail to reach the proper conclusions and that is why you are a failure.”
“And what conclusion,” Lair hissed like a Steel Viper in a balloon factory, “should I be reaching?”
“They,” he swept his hand towards a holographic map of the Inner Sphere in the small holotank in the center of the room, “these so-called warriors of the Inner Sphere, fight like tanks. Who better than we know how to fight tanks?”
Lair seemed about to make an angry retort, his mouth dropped open—then closed and opened and closed again as a look of dawning realization crossed his face.
“Good,” Grier growled, turning away. He stormed towards the door, turning back at the last minute. “You are now less a failure. Make your Blood House proud, IlKhan Lair Seidman.”
**********
“—There I was,” Lieutenant Kearney Barnes continued with a grin, “An Urbanmech on the left, a wasp on the right, and a Capellan Stinger closing from behind,” he paused, took a drink of his warm beer and looked expectantly at his drinking companions.
“What did you do?” one of them asked.
Barnes grinned, “Well, I did the only thing I could do: I charged the Urbanmech. I dunno if you’ve got much experience with those, but I knocked the sucker over, then jumped on top. That Autocannon-10 makes a great handhold, let me tell you—and I just rode the Urbie right down the hill like a toboggan. The Capellans didn’t know what the fuck.”
Tai-i Michi Noketsuna laughed, and took another drink from his bottle of rice wine. If the Kell Hound cared that his drinking partner wore the patch of the 9th Deiron Regulars, he didn’t show it—and Noketsuna could hardly blame a warrior from another culture for being an uncultured barbarian. Barnes was simply making the best of having not been born to the Draconis Combine.
“Needless to say,” Barnes drawled, “the rest of them followed me right into an ambush. Three down, all for the cost of a little paint and a bit of a headache.”
**********
“This,” Star Colonel Dusk hissed, gesturing at the massive holotank behind her, “is idiocy.”
Inside the tank, a tiny Kit Fox fought a lopsided duel with a Lyran Hatchetman. Neither ‘Mech exchanged weapons fire, they instead fought with fists and kicks in a circle of flaming woods. With a sudden blow, the Lyran machine crushed the Kit Fox’s cockpit. Dusk rested her face in her palm.
“You, all of you, have been trained to believe that fighting with fists is wasteful. What is wasteful is refusing to learn from these Roms. Study the Lyran tactics. Learn them. Practice them. Our scientists are working on technologies to reduce our disadvantage against these Lyran club-‘Mechs, but anything they produce,” she paused dramatically, “will be worthless if you warriors are too poor to adapt to our new circumstances.”
She was met with sullen silence from her cluster. She glared at them, “—very well. I had hoped to convince you to remedy your lack of skill. Instead, it seems I must shame you. Bondsman!”
Caesar Steiner stood quietly. “—The pilot in your ‘Kit Fox’ made several mistakes. With only a single fist, he should’ve focused on kicking his opponent; instead he sacrificed potential harm to his opponent by fighting with one arm. Such bravado works well among you Clanners—but I find it foolish. A loss, no matter how stylish, is still a loss.”
“Bold words from a warrior who failed to even die properly,” Star Commander Zal called. “What use is advice from an aged and infirm warrior long past his prime? What use is kicking when a good punch is certain victory?”
Caesar shared a quick glance with Dusk, who nodded nearly imperceptibly. With a quick motion, Caesar kicked Star Commander Zal’s chair out from under him. The Clanner toppled, his head catching the seat of the chair. It tottered, then fell; the backrest catching him in the stomach. Zal lay quiet, moaning only slightly.
Embarrassed, Dusk hid her face in her palm. “We are Steel Vipers,” Dusk hissed. “For every five warriors another Clan produces, we produce three superior ones and yet you are all soft and weak. You will train and regain your edge; or you will be replaced. You will be ready to pilot the new King Cobra omnimech, or you will be relegated to second line status. I have been clear, Quiaff?”
**********
Duncan Marik swept his fingers through hair grown long-since unkempt. He remained oblivious to the three day stubble that lined his jaw, and his bleary eyes were red from hours spent mulling over tactical maps.
Those pirates, those damned pirates! They hadn’t hit anything as expected—they’d dug in, surrounding Nagayan Mountain of all places. Even the Red Corsair—he smiled faintly, but couldn’t deny that her advice had been incredibly useful. Pivotal, in several engagements—yet even she wasn’t sure what the pirates’ objective was. Nagayan Mountain was a rock—it had been an island, until Helm’s massive inland sea had dried up near the fall of the Star League.
It was also a defensive nightmare of canyons and passageways, and as hard as his troops tried, they simply couldn’t dislodge the Red Corsair’s pirates.
He sighed, eyed her quietly. She was clearly exhausted, but the dark rings beneath her eyes hardly detracted from her great beauty. He’d hardly have pictured her as a ‘Mechwarrior—her frame was too slight, too fragile somehow, to picture her in the cockpit of her repaired Battlemaster—but she’d taken the field alongside her friend Morgan on more than one occasion.
He’d been surprised how quickly he’d come to rely on the young ‘pirate princess,’ as his troops had affectionately nicknamed her; but her strategic advice was solid. He sighed quietly—if only he could trust her for domestic advice as well; but what would a periphery pirate know of running a nation?
“You look tired,” she said quietly as he took a seat.
“The war against the Capellans isn’t going well,” he admitted quietly. “Fortunately—I’ve just made a deal that secured a new ally—and a buffer—against Max Liao’s mindless aggression.”
Red raised a quizzical eyebrow. “An ally? Have you talked Hanse Davion into hitting the Capellans in St. Ives?”
Duncan shook his head. “… Not so much, no. One doesn’t ‘deal’ with Hanse Davion; he’s too canny. No, I made a deal with a Periphery power to put pressure on the Capellans. The Rim Collective has been petitioning to join them for the past two months; I finally decided to grant their request.”
“Wait,” the Red Corsair asked in soft tones, “who did you cede the Rim Collective to?”
“Stefan Amaris’s” Duncan replied quietly, “New Rim Worlds Republic.”
**********
Combat Theater Vote 7
1st Republic Fusiliers
True to his word, Stefan Amaris has ordered several regiments under his command to launch raids into Capellan territory… but is he doing it to aid his ally, Duncan Marik, or is his purpose more sinister?
2nd Chesterton Voltigeurs
Anticipating a Davion assault, General Pavil Ridzik has ordered a raid on poorly defended planet of Towne. Will the poorly funded Towne militia even have a chance?
4th Legion of Vega
Without orders, Can the dishonored scum of the 4th Legion of Vega hold the line against the advancing Goliath Scorpions; or will they crack under the pressure of the Clan assault?
???
A small force of elite DEST operatives, backed by a lance of Mercenary battlemechs, has misjumped into a system deep in the Silent Shoal. Can the Clans repel this unexpected threat?
Solaris VII: “Business as Usual”
With many Lyran ‘Mechwarriors being drafted into the armed forces, can the Lyran Commonwealth still make a good showing on the Game World, or will the Capellans walk away with yet another championship?
Combat Theater Vote 6:
A) 1st Republic Fusiliers
B) 2nd Chesterton Voltigeurs
C) 4th Legion of Vega
D) ???
E) Solaris VII: “Business as Usual”