Chapter 28 – Covering Your Hindquarters
17 November 3015
DCMS Base Camp, Skye
Lyran Commonwealth
"Tai-sa, Cadet Sho-sa Theodore Kurita reporting as ordered!" the young DCMS officer barked after entering Tai-sa Niles Kim's command tent and coming to attention.
"Relax, Cadet. You're not in trouble," Kim ordered.
Theodore went to the at ease pose, which for him looked no more relaxed than when he was at attention. Kim nodded approval at the discipline.
"First, congratulations on breaking the Lyran defense line, Cadet Kurita," Kim began. "Your tactics are unconventional, but they are undeniably effective."
"Thank you, sensei," Theodore replied with a polite bow. "I believe the Lyrans were unprepared to deal with me leading with my heavy elements rather than my Wasp battalions, or else they would not have spread their mines so thinly." He paused a second and then added, "And I must respectively disagree; there will be those among the DCMS who will deny my tactics are effective no matter the evidence presented them."
Kim grunted, barely suppressing a laugh. Theodore's assessment of the DCMS' more conservative elements was undoubtedly correct.
"Secondly," Kim continued. "Pack up your units and prepare to ship out. We are being pulled back to Dieron."
"It shall be done, but, sensei, we're winning," Theodore protested, confused. "Why would we abandon Skye in the middle of a successful conquest?"
"Cadet, the Dragon is not abandoning the conquest of Skye," Kim said in a chiding tone. "Only select units are being pulled out of Skye, our training command among them. And we are not retreating. We are being sent to reinforce the District of Dieron. The District of Benjamin has fallen to a joint Lyran and Suns army, and now they are moving on Dieron. We are reinforcing Dieron."
Theodore felt like Tai-sa Kim had just punched him in the gut. The supply line for the Great Army of the Dragon ran through the ammo and supply dumps the bases the Great Army had used in the District of Benjamin. If Benjamin had fallen, that meant the burden of logistically supporting the Great Army fell entirely on the District of Dieron. Theodore didn't know enough about Dieron's strategic situation to even know if it could support the Great Army's logistical needs.
Worse still, with the District of Benjamin having fallen to the enemy, the District of Dieron was for all intents and purposes effectively cut off from the rest of the Combine until Theodore's father could arrange for new supply lines around or through the critical fallen systems. Theodore had no idea how long that would take either.
"Tai-sa, your orders shall be carried out," Theodore said again, coming back to attention without prompting and saluting. "I shall prepare my battalion and remaining Wasp units for transport!"
20 November 3015
Zenith Jump Point
Sol System
It took nine days for a Dropship to transit from Terra to one of its standard jump point. Nine days during which the House Lords traveled at the best speed that human space travel could move them en route back to their respective realms to take back up the reins of leadership. Nine days that their respective nations were fighting without them.
But the House Lords weren't entirely out of touch. Comstar of course ran the Inner Sphere HPG network that gave the Inner Sphere the closest thing to an instant interstellar communications. Of course, HPG stations were big facilities, and the Sol System's was back on Terra, and hour's transmission time away from the jump points. Still, an hour's delay in receiving interstellar messages was better than waiting on the irregular schedule of Jumpships.
Katrina Steiner's yacht was a modified luxury liner with military grade command facilities. It was still luxurious of course, but Katrina could run the Lyran government – or an interstellar war – from its operation center if she had to and she had the required communications links. Which she was doing now, more or less. Not that there was much she could do right now; Katrina had already given all the orders she needed to within a day of lifting off from Terra, and now all she could do was watch as the pieces slowly moved around the interstellar board.
Katrina's and Ian Davion's expeditionary force into the heart of the Draconis Combine had effectively ripped the heart out of the Benjamin Military District. They hadn't found the army that they had been sent to destroy, but they had found their bases and the industries supporting them. The combined LCAF and AFFS forces had proceeded to demolish them all as what had been left to defend the District had been utterly inadequate to fend off the combined Lyran and Suns juggernaut. In fact, they hadn't just demolished Benjamin's industries, they'd also looted as much of the DCMS' ammo and spare parts stockpiles as their Dropships could carry in order to replenish their own supplies before destroying the rest. After that, Katrina and Ian had agreed that the best use of their juggernaut was to keep ripping apart the Combine's rear area logistics rather than try to hold worlds that both leaders knew would be impossible to hang on to.
When Katrina's daughter Melissa had heard about the plan, the little girl had compared it to Sherman's March to the Sea, some pre-spaceflight military action that had helped the ancient United States win some war or other.
Unfortunately, while that strategy would no doubt contribute to the defeat of Takashi's "Great Army" in the future, that didn't help the Commonwealth deal with what that Army was doing right now. While raiding all along the Combine's border with both the Commonwealth and Suns had kicked into high gear, most of it was clearly action meant to tie down local defenders and prevent them from reinforcing Takashi's true targets. Takashi's true target, what he had thrown his Great Army at, were the Commonwealth's Federation of Skye and the Federated Suns' coreward combat theater of the Draconis March, basically, the former worlds of the Terran Hegemony which despite the Succession Wars were still among the richest worlds in the Inner Sphere.
Takashi's strikes into the Federated Suns were partially blocked by of all people, the Capellans who were there to do the exact same thing at the exact same time. The blocking forces placed by Hanse Davion easily cleaned up whoever won those conflicts and chased down those forces they initially missed.
Unfortunately for Katrina, Takashi had only sent a minority of his Great Army into the Suns. The majority had been sent against the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth wasn't fighting someone else like the Suns after all, and there were more worlds to take before hitting a third party's borders. And Katrina had almost nothing to reinforce the Federation of Skye with, because all her spare forces were running around the Combine's backyard.
But "almost nothing" didn't mean nothing at all. There were training units that were still working up, new construction scrambling to find pilots and crews to man them, and in Katrina's yacht, there were mech bays for a single lance of mechs, which included Katrina's personal Warhammer.
Katrina felt the deck drop out from under her. Except it hadn't really dropped. Her yacht had just stopped accelerating and was now in freefall. It had reached the Jump Point and was now maneuvering to dock with her Jumpship in small, short bursts of acceleration. And elsewhere in the Jump Point, the Dropships carrying the other heads of state – one of them Takashi's - were undergoing similar maneuvers. Their Jumpships would jump out almost as soon as their Dropships docked, and no doubt, they like Katrina already had more jumpships read and waiting at the next system to carry them further on to their destinations.
"You want us to cower in our homes after this... this insult that the Davions have done to us?" Maximilian said, outraged that his own daughter and heir suggested such a thing. "Unacceptable."
"Father, we just lost our best people to this failed offensive," Candace replied, almost pleading. As Candace was now married to Duncan Marik, she was on her husband's Dropship, not her father's. As a result, they were holding a holovid conference between their Dropships. "We need time to rebuild our forces and our jumpship fleet."
"We shouldn't need to rebuild our forces," Maximilian replied angrily. "House Davion is distracted with the Combine and we have the might of the Free Worlds League on our side. Surely your husband..."
"Yeah, about that, dear father-in-law," Duncan broke in. "Dear Candy tells me that it'll take time to move my armies in from the League, especially since we're already doing a lot of rebuilding of our own. But if you want to get off another offensive as soon as possible, you could just gather up all your garrison forces and make another offensive army out of them. I'm sure the FWLM will be happy to take over garrison duties on all your worlds in the month or two it takes for them to start filtering in."
Let only the armies and fleets of the FWLM garrison the worlds of the Capellan Confederation while the CCAF launched another strike into the Federated Suns? Maximilian didn't even need to take time to think about that one. If he did that, he might as well just make the Confederation a League province right now and go vegetate in some powerless retirement.
And that's assuming the Davions didn't just attack and take Maximilian's worlds while they were waiting for their new FWLM garrisons to arrive.
"That will not be necessary," Maximilian ground out. He thought furiously for a moment. "It seems I may have been a bit to abrupt with our alliance," Maximilian said slowly. "I... we are going to have to sit down and do some long term planning if I... we are to make the most of this alliance."
"Of course, Father," Candace said obediently.
"Speaking of making the most of this alliance," Duncan said, suddenly grinning widely "You'll be happy to know that my doctors just confirmed that you're going to be a grandfather in nine months."
"Oh?" Maximilian said, perking up. "That is good new. Good news, indeed..."
Fort Freezerburn, Kobe
Lyran Commonwealth's
"Listen up everyone," Joshua announced to the full Dragoon command staff minus Jaime. "I just got word from Jaime. The Archon wants us to move everything to relieve Lyran forces in the Federation of Skye but the most minimal garrison force for Kobe. Since almost everything the Combine had in our area has been pulled down towards Skye and Dieron, Jaime has decided that means everything we have Warships included except for Epilon Regiment and the Alexander. We're moving out as soon as we can load everything into Dropships and move our special inventory from the Athena to the Alexander. Our first stop will be the system of Fort Loudon."
"Finally!" Natasha said eagerly. "We are going to see real action!"
30 November 3015
2nd Skye Rangers Strong Point, Skye
Lyran Commonwealth
Tai-sa August Chin send forward a company of Wasp recruits to scout the pass ahead. It appeared undefended, but it led to the mountain stronghold where the Duke of Skye and his family were supposed to be hiding out, and where a good number of local guerrilla forces were based out of. Which meant that despite appearances, that pass was almost certainly not undefended. It was likely a trap, and the brave mechwarrior recruits of the DCMS' Wasp cadres would be the ones to spring it.
The Great Army of the Dragon would have crushed these holdouts by now if so many of their forces hadn't been pulled back to Dieron. But Chin understood why the Coordinator had done it, and that he would just have to do the best he could with what he had available.
The Wasp company was made up of 1A models configured for scouting, not the more numerous 2K model that the DCMS used for general combat. The Wasps jumped over obstacles and up cliffs, disappearing behind irregularities in the terrain to flush out hidden attackers. And it worked... sort of.
Incoherent shouting from the Wasp pilots erupted at the same time Chin's sensors picked up weapons fire. The electromagnetic pulse signatures of PPCs. Explosions. The ionization of air created by laser fire. The status displays for all the scouts quickly went dark, and the voices of their pilots silent. But Chin got the gist of their reports: Many mechs and heavy mechs at that.
"First Recruit Battalion, flush these Lyrans out," Chin ordered. He would have sent in more than just a battalion, but the pass was narrow and couldn't fit more mechs into the available space.
The summoned recruits in their Wasps rushed forward, eager to prove their worthiness to the Dragon. As they did, five mechs jumped from behind the obscuring tree and jagged cliffs, flying high into the air on powerful jump jets with wide, broad wings to help control their flight. They looked like Marauders to Chin, but they were too big and airborne far too long. The Marauders alighted onto cliff side purchases, on the mountain sides flanking the pass, far higher than even the first company of Stingers could reach in a single jump. Then as one, they all fired their torso cannons as one.
The entire front few ranks of the First Recruit Battalion – an entire company! - were obliterated in a single rolling blast wave of Long Tom artillery strikes, their Wasps practically disintegrating under all that firepower. Shocked, the other two Wasp companies' advance instantly ground to a halt as their pilots recoiled from the explosions. They had no time to recover before a salvo of all kinds of weapons fire ripped through the rising clouds created by the artillery strikes and ripped the remaining Wasps apart.
As the smoke cleared, Chin saw that Lyran mechs had emerged from the tree line. Most of them were damaged from the weeks of fighting against the DCMS. But a single lance in the center of the Lyran battle line was pristine, just like the Marauders that had destroyed the First Recruit Battalion. These must be the reinforcements from the Union Dropship that had run the weakened Combine blockade above the planet the other day.
Standing in the lead position of the pristine mechs was a single, blue painted Warhammer. Chin's eyes widened as he recognized it. There was only one mechwarrior in the entire Lyran Commonwealth that used that particular color pattern.
"Warriors of the Draconis Combine, I am Archon Katrina Steiner," a woman's voice announced over the open frequency. "You wish to prove your honor and bravery? Then come and die."