Part 504: Carlos' Crusaders Campaign Vote 1 Results

Combat Theater Vote Results
- I don’t have the exact vote but the ComGuards won with about 58 votes.
- Carlos’s Crusaders came in second with about 49 votes
- Project Phoenix took third with 6 votes
- Those other guys came in dead last with 2 votes

The world bobbed through the end of Adept Kernoff’s binoculars. The things always gave him a headache, his eyes were too closely set to find them comfortable. He stood on the top of a massive concrete berm, having been lifted into position by one of the `Mechbay’s numerous scissor lifts. The white paint beneath his feet flaked and cracked as he shifted from one foot to the other, heedless of the damage he was doing to one of the Blessed Blake’s facilities. What was coming would do far more than just scratch a little paint.

Fully thirty meters thick and three stories tall along its outer edge, ComStar’s `Mechbay on Abadan was likely the most well-fortified small facility on the planet. Without room for much more than technicians and their families, armor, and ammunition the mere presence of the facility had drawn contractors who were hard at work building what would eventually form the core of a new “base town” a collective of shops and houses catering to the ComStar facility’s needs and theoretically obviating the need for any hundred kilometer trek to the nearest city for supplies. The trips would still happen, of course, but at least the technicians wouldn’t need to travel far to find their cigarettes and street walkers.

Kernoff sucked at his teeth, and spit a wad of phlegm off the top of the wall. It’d been a mistake to trust the Capellans to provide them radar updates. It was a continuation of a deal they’d had with House Marik. Radar facilities were expensive and, in spite of the bad blood between the Black Eagles and the Blessed Blake, ComStar had never had reason to suspect one of the Great Houses would deny them access. But suddenly the Capellan Confederation had, and Kernoff had found sudden cause to find fault in the expedient penny-pinching of one of Abadan’s many-centuries-dead Precentors.

The Capellans were coming for them, of that the twenty year old Alexander Kernoff had no doubt. There was no other reason to cut the feeds to the local networks, and that left the young Adept with a choice. They could go to ground, abandoning the Techs and other ComStar personnel to their own devices. As difficult as it would be to hide four BattleMechs on Abadan’s minor continent which lacked any major geographical impediments, unless the Capellans had orbital coverage finding all four members of a single lance would still be frustrating and time consuming. Alternatively, they could remain in their well-fortified position, drawing in the attackers and giving the bulk of ComStar’s noncombatant personnel a chance to go to ground themselves. Their fortress might have theoretically allowed a Level 2 to resist a force twice its size or more, but with only four `Mechs on the continent Kernoff wasn’t convinced they’d hold.

He chose to remain anyway. It wasn’t a sense of duty, not entirely. Kernoff found words like ‘duty’ and ‘honor’ to be marks of a simplistic and unimaginative mind. Blake’s will alone could not have compelled him to remain. Kernoff had no family save his Level 2, no life outside, and cared little whether the lesser Acolytes lived. They were nothing in the grand scheme of things. Saving them wasn’t his motivation. Alexander Kernoff chose to remain out of simple expedience:

Staying in place was the quickest way to make the Capellans hurt.



Laager




Unit Lists
Lance, ComGuards, 1st Division “Strong Retaliation”, 6th Army “Grim Defiance”




Local Defenses




2nd Company, 3rd Battalion, Prefectorate Guard




Possible Enemy Reinforcements
Unknown



Mechwarriors
Narsham
MadGamer*
Technowolf*
Theantero


Alternates
Devorum
Dachshundofdoom
In like Zinn
Meinberg
shalafi4