Part 503: Carlos' Crusaders Campaign Vote 1

Campaign Vote 1

Andreas Kothsi stood with a practiced ease, his face calm even though sweat ran down the back of his neck. He wore a paramilitary variation of a Free Worlds League officer’s uniform. It sported no rank insignia, and was a stark, starched white. The League’s diplomats were their public face, and Duncan Marik had ordered them in uniform in an attempt to project the League’s strength. Smart as he thought they looked, Andreas suspected that uniforms alone hadn’t helped as much as Duncan Marik might’ve hoped.

At least Andreas looked the part of a League diplomat: he was tall, and a careful training regimen kept him fit enough to keep up with his sons back on Atreus. He was growing older, the laugh lines at the corners of his gray eyes were growing more and more pronounced. A few sprinkles of salt had already worked its way into his long, pepper-colored hair. In his youth, he’d considered having the Marik Eagle tattooed on his forehead. He didn’t regret resisting that particular temptation, the ‘Janos Mark’ was growing increasingly uncommon among the League’s civil servants. The fad died when Duncan Marik refused the tattoo himself, claiming that his deeds would prove his devotion to the League far better than any tattoo. Andreas adjusted the spotless hem of his uniform jacket, making sure the perfectly-tailored uniform still fit as well as it had on Atreus.

His counterpart from the Capellan Confederation’s dress was far less austere. Chang Si’s robes were ornate, a deep rich red lined with just enough black to make it difficult to tell which color was truly dominant. They were embroidered with a rooster in golden thread—the gold, he understood, symbolized the authority of the Chancellor, and was outright forbidden to the Confederation’s noncitizens. He also might’ve described her as beautiful if her eyes hadn’t been as hard and cruel as a pair of rogue asteroids.

Chang Si glared at him. Kothsi ignored it, kept his swarthy face impassive. Villius Tejh, Primus of ComStar entered the room without much of a word. The former Precentor Sian’s expression was grim, and Kothsi’s mouth ran dry. Tejh wasn’t simply the former Precentor of the Capellan Confederation’s capitol world, he’d once been a Capellan citizen himself. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t going to be good news.

Tejh cleared his throat, taking a sip from a crystal glass of water by his throne. “Plenipotentiary Kothis, Ambassador Chang,” he said in the vague approximation of a greeting. He waved his hand in what Kothis felt was an overly dismissive gesture. “Plenipotentiary Kothis,” he reiterated, fishing a dataROM from the sleeve of his white robes. He held it up as if it were some piece of damning evidence. “Ambassador Chang has just graced my doorstep with ill news. Representatives of the Free Worlds League have attacked and destroyed the Abadan HPG—”

“Impossible,” Andreas’s outburst was unwise. Tejh glared at him, reminding him who ruled on Terra.

“I’m afraid I will be forced to issue an interdiction of the Free Worlds League,” Tejh proclaimed, sending ice through Andreas’s veins. Chang Si practically crowed, puffing up her chest like a victorious, self-important quail. Her cocky, exultant expression tasted of bile and hatred.

“Is what I would say,” Tejh snapped the dataROM in half, throwing the detritus to the floor at Chang Si’s feet, “if this footage were real. We have more than enough evidence to believe that the Capellan Confederation was responsible for the attack,” Tejh held up a second disc, its shiny surface scintillating with color. Andreas’s heart stopped as the man continued, “this incomplete transmission was broadcast by the Abadan HPG. I will not divulge its contents, only to say that the transmission was made by the very guerillas you claim destroyed the HPG. As the contents of the transmission is quite personal,” Tejh leaned forward, passing the message directly into Andreas’s hands, “I will entrust its delivery to Duncan Marik to you, Plenipotentiary Kothis.”

Tejh turned to stare at Chang Si, “As for you, Ambassador Chang, I will permit one transmission so you can explain to Chancellor Liao why her nation’s economy is about to grind to a halt.”

Chang stammered, composed herself, and pleaded, “Please, Primus. Allow Chancellor Liao to make a single transmission of her own. The Confederation will be destroyed if you don’t allow her to recall and consolidate our troops.” She glared at Kothis, “we’ll still lose ground, but perhaps we won’t lose everything.”

Tejh considered, eyeing Kothis like the Free Worlder was a venomous snake. “If the Plenipotentiary from the Free Worlds League agrees to it,” he hissed, “I’ll allow it.”

Kothis stepped forward, his arms outstretched. “I will allow it,” Kothis began, “but only if the Chanellor also announces an offer from the Free Worlds League: any Capellan Confederation unit that surrenders to the League will be allowed to return to the Confederation with full honors,” he turned, sparing a glare of his own for Chang Si. He doubted Romano Liao would ever broadcast with such a restriction, and couldn’t resist shoving the Confederation’s nose in the League’s magnanimity. He added, “We won’t even take your machines. We just want our worlds back.”



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



A small fire crackled in the long shadow cast by the DropShip Finnegan’s Wake, its hull carefully masked and painted, half-buried in the dirt to hide its heat signature from prying eyes. The twelve `Mechs of the company had assembled, hidden in the nearby caves and arches. They wouldn’t stay together long, and even Carlos’s lance would leave the ship behind. On his orders, the `Mechs of his company would only approach a DropShip for repairs if they had damage that couldn’t be handled at a more remote meeting point. Those ships were the company’s life blood, and surrounding them with `Mechs would just expose them from watchers in orbit.

Carlos Marik held a stick over that fire, roasting one of the local equivalents of rats or squirrels. There was life on Abadan, and even arable farmland close to the coasts, but the interior of the continents were bone-dry and parched, badlands carved by flash floods carving the quickest course they could to the sea. What little water remained in the interior was acrid, alkaline stuff. It could be purified, but without doing so the DropShip crews were loathe use it to even feed their vessels’ engines, fearing it too caustic for the longevity of their power plants.

Carlos didn’t look up as pebbles crunched nearby. A figure in a form-fitting white jumpsuit took a seat on one of the smooth rocks the DropShip’s technicians used as makeshift chairs. “How is that?” his visitor asked of the slowly-roasting desert rat, more than a little trepidation in her voice.

“Terrible,” Carlos admitted, not looking up. He didn’t need to, it would’ve taken effort to avoid meeting Acolyte Justine Kreszentia. “The trick is to cook them until they’re almost burned.”

“To cook all the alkali out of them?” she asked, curious.

Carlos shook his head, the local desert rats avoided the water as much as anything else did. Near as he could tell, they got most of their moisture by eating insects. “No,” he explained, “because then you can pretend you’re eating a block of meat-flavored charcoal.”

She shuddered, “Ugh. They’re that bad?”

Carlos didn’t reply, instead asking, “How’s Acolyte Dornau?”

She shifted, probably looking out into the darkness. “Sleeping. He’s sedated, but your doctors say he’ll lose the arm.”

“We’ll give him the best treatment we can,” Carlos said, hoping his resolve was a little reassuring. He didn’t need to explain that his company didn’t have the facilities for medical care. They didn’t have much medicine, even their “doctor” was just a lowly field medic. And, at least for the time being, they didn’t dare bring anyone into a population center for fear the Capellans would repeat the atrocity they’d committed to the city of Safi. It’d been several weeks since then, and even the pirate radio outrage at the destruction had died down when Capellan strike forces arrived to “reeducate” the most vocal dissenters with a couple of shots to the head. “He saved my people’s asses,” he added. “We’ll do all we can for him.”

“I know you will,” Kreszentia sounded more certain than Carlos was.

He looked up at her. She was a plain woman, wide instead of tall but far more muscle than fat. She looked more like a periphery bandit than a ComStar acolyte, and he had difficulty imagining her in one of ComStar’s one-size-fits-all white robes. She seemed much happier in a cooling vest and neurohelmet, so Carlos had entrusted her with his Gallowglas. It was slow compared to her old machine, but for the moment the other was far beyond their reach.

In spite of the successful raid, the company’s spirits were at an all-time low. The destruction of Safi, the interruption of the HPG’s transmission, and even the deaths of the surprisingly helpful ComStar personnel had taken their toll on morale. Even the normally gregarious Carlos had little to say. They’d uncovered a secret the Capellans wanted kept so badly they were willing to annihilate a city, and even with seven `Mechs downed to no losses they still had more than a battalion of troops on planet.

“You’ve hurt them,” Kreszentia reminded him, as if sensing his dark thoughts. “The numbers only matter if they can concentrate before a battle. Prepare the field for them and you should be able to pick off their scouting parties piecemeal. Without scouts, they’ll be like a blind tiger. Dangerous, but a poor hunter. And if they scout in force—”

“Then we evade them,” Carlos finished. “A planet’s a big place, I know. Twelve `Mechs is easier to avoid than one or two, but if they come at us one or two at a time we won’t have any trouble.” He paused for a few moments, then uttered bitterly, “Theoretically.”

“You didn’t kill those people,” Kreszentia hissed. “The Capellans did. Who could’ve predicted they’d do something so insane? We didn’t, or we’d have pulled our civilians out of Safi to one of the safehouses on the minor continent. So now you’re left with three options. You can die. You can surrender and probably die. Or you can fight on and live to avenge all the people the Confederation killed and liberate this world. I know which one has my vote.”

Carlos snorted, “You make it sound like some sort of crusade.”

Kreszenta countered, “If your father can be a knight, why can’t his son be a crusader?”

Carlos smiled, “because that’s terribly insensitive?”

She laughed, “True. I just think Carlos’s Crusaders sounds better than Carlos’s Commandos.”

He rubbed his eyes, “Don’t tell me. Lieutenant Coronado’s lance has a betting pool going?”

She nodded. He sighed.

“Might as well make you a little pocket change. Carlos’s Crusaders it is.”


Campaign Vote:
A) Free Worlds League: Carlos’s Crusaders
Splitting up once more, Carlos Marik’s company—now known as Carlos’s Crusaders—is seeking areas in the badlands from which they can ambush Capellan scouts and patrols. They mean to bleed the Capellans dry, fighting a guerilla war to humiliate and embarrass the planet’s “defenders.”

B1) Capellan Confederation: The Prefectorate Guard
Humiliated by the loss of two lances of `Mechs, including their major, at the hands of Free Worlds Guerillas, the elite Prefectorate Guard has shamefully called on the help of the scientists and test pilots of Project Phoenix to supplement their forces. Although refitting their machines is out of the question, the Prefectorate Guard’s equipment is already first rate. They’ve spread out into the badlands, hunting for any sign of Marik forces.

B2) Capellan Confederation: Project Phoenix
The scientists of Project Phoenix are more than happy to use Carlos’s guerillas as guinea pigs, and they have a full bevy of experimental weapons and prototypes to test. Although the Shadow Hawks were unsuccessful, they were only the flagship `Mechs of the process. A new series has just been brought online, one that marries the successes of the Shadow Hawk Omnimech with the practicality of a machine designed for front-line combat.

C) ComStar: ComGuards
Only two of the six ComGuard `Mechs were present during the destruction of the HPG. The others were on the minor continent, guarding safehouses, training, or on leave. Without the means to link up with Carlos’s forces, those four `Mechs are now engaged in a small-scale war of their own. A full company of the Prefectorate Guard has been deployed to keep them contained. Or kill them all.



PTN’s note: Votes for B are combined for the main vote and whichever of the two has the highest total will win if the thread chooses to play as the Capellan Confederation.