Part 626: Political Vote 20 Results and Combat Theater Vote 19

Combat Theater Vote

Frederick Steiner shut his eyes and just let himself float. He’d never been comfortable at social gatherings and manipulating the vipers’ nest of Lyran politics was tiresome. He should probably have felt it strange that it was only onboard a military DropShip bound for a hostile world that he could relax. Worries about a vote of no confidence were nothing in the face of incoming PPC fire, and at least in the cockpit of his Zeus he could battle and destroy his enemy. If only he could have handled the Estates General so easily. The temptation to trod upon that pack of malingering jackals was never far from his thoughts, these days.

He needed a victory—a real victory—if he had any hope of retaining the Archonship. The Lyran Commonwealth needed victories if it was going to survive. Victories were something Frederick was prepared to deliver, even if he’d had to endure six months of whining as he stripped the Commonwealth’s rimward defenses bare. The people of the Lyran Commonwealth were nervous—where their worlds had once hosted battalions or even regiments now most sported a single company—and some of the safest could claim only a single lance of defenders. The Clans had dealt with the worst of the pirates, the people on those worlds would be safe. Unless they rioted. Unless the Free Worlds League got uncharacteristically adventurous.

Better the League than the Clans. He wasn’t going to fail, but if he did, leaving the squabbling idiots to Duncan Marik was a justice all its own. It was preferable to collaborating, like the Witch’s daughter had. Not even Thomas Hogarth had been able to convince the rat’s nest of traitors in Skye to reconcile—Frederick had been willing to meet Melissa half-way, to grant her Co-Archonship, to let her manage the Commonwealth’s diplomacy and politics while he kept her from ruining the military. It would have been a fair partnership, but she’d rejected it in favor of joining forces with the Steel Vipers.

His eyes snapped open as the five minute pre-jump alarm sounded. Without a word he buckled himself into his restraint chair to await the final jump to Arc Royal. Clan strength was hard to estimate, but not even they could withstand fifty `Mech regiments deploying almost simultaneously. The Lyran Commonwealth would be whole again, and if Frederick Steiner had to take every world in the occupation zone personally to accomplish that, so be it.



Plan Katrina
The Lyran Commonwealth has mobilized almost the entirety of the remaining LCAF for a massive counterattack against the stabilizing Clan occupation zone. With most of the Commonwealth’s industrial capacity under foreign control, Archon Frederick Steiner knows that if this assault fails it could mean the end of the Lyran Commonwealth as a power in the Inner Sphere. He has joined his troops to personally lead them to the victory the Commonwealth requires—or to die trying.

RWA Listening Post 84
Can a small force of Republic volunteers hold the line long enough to get a warning out?

Operation: Brass Bull
With the TSC Vendetta crippled in high orbit by a suicidal fighter attack, The Taurian Concordat’s invasion of New Syrtis has taken on a desperate air. With the planetary spaceport crippled by the initial Taurian nuclear attack, the Duchy has been unable to significantly redeploy its defense forces but at the same time the Vendetta is unable to launch follow-up strikes against the Duchy’s defensive positions. The TDF’s ground invasion is nevertheless underway with one goal: the capture of Duke Morgan Hasek.

Liberators of Oriente
With the Capellan Confederation under an interdiction, the Fusiliers of Oriente finally have the opportunity they’ve been waiting decades for: a chance to retake Oriente itself! With the aid of the Regulan Hussars and the Silver Hawk Irregulars, they’ve launched a hasty sortie in the hopes of reclaiming their ancestral home.

Tamarind Exchange
Every so often, a young noble on the Commonwealth/League border gets a bee in his bonnet about an ancestral holding on the other side of the border. Clarence “Lancer” Brett is little different from most. With delusions of excellence and a `Mech company cobbled together from friends made at Hero Training Institute on Maxwell, Lancer intends to reclaim his “family lands” on Dixie.

Misery’s Company
The sudden appearance of Yakuza BattleMechs has Major Maigret of the 33rd New Avalon Hussars up in arms. No longer content with the Candy Stripers’ insistence that they are ‘handling’ local organized crime, Maigret has deployed the third battalion around the capitol, Sabaku no Hana, in force. But can the might of the Federated Suns possibly be enough to deter the greatest heist in Misery’s history?





Combat Theater Vote:
A) Plan Katrina
B) RWA Listening Post 84
C) Operation: Brass Bull
D) Liberators of Oriente
E) Tamarind Exchange
F) Misery’s Company