Part 21: Political Vote 1
Politics Update 1“This is Lieutenant Lori Kalmar, of the Gray Death Legion. By the time you get this message, I will be dead, and the legion along with me,” The woman in the holotank looked haggard, worn, and exhausted. The Shadow Hawk behind her—presumably her own ‘Mech—was missing its right arm and left hand, its torso was a smoking ruin. “Grayson Carlyle is already dead. They burned him alive in his Marauder. There was nothing we could do but run, but… they cut us down anyway, at impossible range. These invaders—these Widowmakers—are incredible. Impossible.”
She paused a moment, as if to collect her thoughts. The camera panned to a white-painted ‘Mech, the barely-recognizable corpse of a Com Guard Wyvern. “They tried to take the HPG in their first landing, so the Com Guards destroyed it. They cut down Redjack Ryan’s pirates like they were made of paper mache, then did the same to the Legion. My lance…I just hope they haven’t destroyed our jumpship; these… these Clan warriors don’t seem to hold anything sacred!”
She took a breath as the camera panned back to her. ”As soon as our Jumpship is overhead, we’re going to use the Cyclops to transmit this message to our jumpship, and this order: Get out. Warn the Inner Sphere. I’m appending the BattleRoms of every ‘Mech I could save. With luck, the recordings will do you some good, and you’ll spot a weakness we missed. We’ve broken contact for now, but—”
The camera shook, and fell, giving a view of a towering Cyclops. It was in better shape than the Shadow Hawk, but not much. There was a gout of smoke, and a full flight of missiles flew towards some distant target. Someone scrabbled for the camera, and an odd form lurched into shape. It looked vaguely like a marauder, with a bullet-shaped hull and arms ending in two boxy weapons-pods. The massive barrel of an autocannon hanging over the right shoulder completed the illusion for a moment; but the boxy missile pod on the left ruined things. The design was alien, bizarre… like someone fused a Catapult to a Marauder then walked away, job well done.
Lori Kalmar kept narrating. “Begin transmitting, begin transmitting! Anything we can get them now is gravy!” The unknown ‘Mech burned armor from the Cyclops, great gobs of it landing molten like a rain of meteors. The Cameraman didn’t flinch even as one landed within a meter, glowing red hot. The enemy laser should’ve been clearly visible. Instead, the camera barely picked it up. “Their weapons,” Lori explained, “are extremely focused. Extremely powerful. They can hit at impossible ranges, and take punishment a ‘mech of the same size simply shouldn’t be able to take. Take this message, these recordings, and get them to the Archon!” the unknown design launched a flight of LRMs. They stayed impossibly tight, pounding the Cyclops—and then the feed ended.
“That’s the whole message,” Quintus explained quietly. “Rebroadcast by ComStar against the Lyran Commonwealth’s wishes.”
“There’s no more?” Hanse asked. “Can you confirm the Gray Death Legion is gone?”
Quintus shook his head. “The Lyrans can’t even confirm it. We did receive another message from the Primus. He’s confirmed over two-dozen worlds from the Lyran Commonwealth to the Draconis Combine have gone silent. Our agents in the Combine have confirmed House Kurita is already shuffling a dozen regiments out of Deiron and Benjamin.”
Hanse’s eyes narrowed. “Seems a bit extreme for what may be just a band of well-equipped pirates from the deep periphery.”
Quintus changed the discs, silently. The Frozen image of the bizarre Marauder-Catapult design was replaced with Julian Tiepolo’s wizened features. “Looking at him makes me realize how fragile life is,” Hanse commented quietly “… I really should marry, before it’s too late to have an heir.”
Tiepolo leaned forward, looking tiny in his voluminous ComStar robes. After his heart scare a few years ago, Tiepolo took little chances and made few public appearances. “What you are about to see,” Tiepolo began—a tad melodramatically, Hanse thought—has been repeated across more than a dozen worlds in the Draconis Combine and Lyran Commonwealth. Although we can’t be certain, I believe these attacks must signify the return of Aleksandr Kerensky’s Star League Defense Force. These ‘Mechs, their weapons, are all based on old Star League designs.”
Tiepolo steepled his fingers, leaning forward in his chair. “The real threat,” he says after a moment, “is that they may have captured Precenter Deiron, who was in the periphery investigating the sudden silence of so many HPGs…”
Hanse paused the recording. “These pirates have captured a member of the First Circuit?”
“Tiepolo seems to think so,” Quintus replied, resuming the recording. “our agents on Deiron haven’t seen Precentor Waterley for some time.”
“It is clear,” Tiepolo’s recording continued as if he hadn’t been so rudely interrupted, “that these… ‘Clans’ are a clear and present danger to the whole of the Inner Sphere. To this end, I must demand a moratorium on all wars with the Draconis Combine and the Lyran Commonwealth. If you—Hanse Davion—persist in waging war on House Kurita, we will put the whole of the Federated Suns under an interdiction and invite the Capellan Confederation to eat you alive.”
Hanse frowned dangerously, “Would they do that?”
Quintus nodded. “I wouldn’t put it past Tiepolo.”
Hanse nodded. “… Let’s go over our options, then. And, while we’re at it, have Morgan draw up attack plans for assaulting the HPG complex of every major world in the Federated Suns, just in case.”
Political Vote 1
Does Hanse Davion:
A) Withdraw all forces engaged with the Draconis Combine, but remain in every 'conquered' occupied system hoping to provoke the Draconis Combine into continuing the war, thus bypassing the ComStar restrictions? (Kell Hounds Cylene campaign ends)
B) Press the attack now that House Kurita is distracted by these ‘Clans’, risking an interdiction since Liao is too distracted to really launch an effective invasion? (Kell Hounds Cylene campaign continues)
C) Withdraw all forces currently engaged with the Draconis Combine and pull several regiments from the border under the guise of a ‘training exercise’, then launch a massive attack on Tikonov? (Kell Hounds Cylene campaign ends, War with House Kurita ends, start a war with House Liao)