The Indomitable
Part I
MAF Command Headquarters
Dunianshire
Magistracy of Canopus
March 10th, 2588
From its high vantage point, the camera had a clear view of the Zeus BattleMech, its lumbering form clad in the blue and white colors of the Star League Defense Force. It strode deliberately forward toward a battered Clint as the smaller machine desperately tried to limp away from the inexorable behemoth. The Zeus closed before the other 'Mech could flee and lashed out with its foot. The blow buckled armored plating on the Clint's right leg, delving deep into the ankle of the already wounded 'Mech. The limb's internal structure snapped like a toothpick, and the crippled machine crashed to the ground.
The Zeus's pilot didn't give the Clint a chance to stand again as it leveled its particle projection cannon at the prone 'Mech. The following discharge of man-made lightning tore into the Clint's chest, burrowing deep into the 'Mech's vital innards. The shielding on its fusion reactor ruptured, and the inferno contained therein boiled forth, erupting in a brilliant explosion that blossomed upward from the shattered Clint like a blooming flower.
The picture wavered as the Zeus turned toward the camera. It paused as if recognizing the unobtrusive observer for the first time and then raised its arm once more. In the blink of an eye, a cascade of azure energy overtook the camera, and the picture degenerated into static.
Sitting in the darkened command room, Magistrix Floral Centrella sighed. "Turn it off, I've seen enough."
The room's only other occupant frowned. "Magistrix, there is still more tactical footage left. If—"
She cut him off with a disheartened wave of her hand, "Damn it Adam, I know what happens. It's the same thing that happened on Brixtana—the same thing that happened on Palm—the same thing that happened on Joyz. It's the same thing that happened on Canopus IV, for God's sake. We fought tooth and nail for months, and still another world fell. We're not going to learn anything we don't know already from watching our troops get slaughtered over and over." She sighed again, looking away from the screen.
Senior Colonel Adam Buquoy paused a moment, then nodded. He shut down the projector and brought the lights back up. The Magistrix seemed lost in her own thoughts, but he selected a manila folder from the pile before him and slid it across the table to her anyway.
"If you care to know, the man in that Zeus was General Anton Zhukov of the SLDF 7th Corps. If our intelligence is correct, he will be the one to lead the coming assault on Dunianshire."
"What's the matter with Marik?" Floral asked sarcastically. "I thought he'd want to be here for the last hurrah."
Buquoy shrugged, "From what I've heard, the Captain-General is attempting to smooth things out with some of the other worlds, get them indoctrinated into the Star League government. I doubt he believes we will put up much of a fight, otherwise he'd be paying more personal attention to the matter."
"Well, he's in for a surprise, now isn't he?" Floral said grimly. She picked up the folder, pushing aside her despairing thoughts as she reviewed the dossier.
After a moment she tossed the file back onto the table, fixing the aging colonel with a green-eyed stare. "This is garbage," she said irritably. "A bunch of statistics isn't going to do me any good. Give me the breakdown of it all--something I can actually use. What's the man like in battle? How does he relate to his superiors?"
The colonel sighed and ran a hand through his salt and pepper hair. "Very well. From what I've heard, the man is a bulldog. He has been accused of war crimes in two different instances since the beginning of this campaign, but neither case resulted in disciplinary action."
Floral frowned, "What happened with the war crimes issue?"
"The first instance took place on Sheuerheck. He ordered the summary execution of five hundred prisoners for 'crimes against humanity' or some other nonsense like that."
"Ironic."
Buquoy nodded, "Yes, especially given how Ian Cameron renounced the tenants of the Ares Conventions six months later. Anyway, the second occasion took place on Eleusis shortly after that. The bulk of our forces had already retreated off-world, but several insurgents remained behind to sabotage supply lines and infrastructure once the Star League forces took hold."
Floral nodded, "Yes, I remember that."
"The first major attack our units undertook resulted in the destruction of a supply depot just outside the spaceport. In retribution, Zhukov ordered an orbital bombardment on the planet's largest population center. An accurate death toll still hasn't been tallied, but it's estimated to be in the tens of thousands."
Floral swore. "He was the one that ordered that?"
Buquoy nodded, "Yes, but Marion Marik has kept him on a tight leash since then. Evidently the Captain-General is more concerned with the region's political stability after the war than Cameron is. That said, Zhukov isn't much for subtlety. His ideal battle plan would be to simply meet us face to face on open ground and pound us into submission."
She nodded, "Well, lets not give him the chance, hmm? All right then, we'll have to assume he is leading the assault. How many dropships did you say were inbound?"
"Over a dozen."
"How long will it take for them to make planet fall?"
"If they continue at their 1G burn, five days."
Floral gave a humorless laugh, "The ides of March . . . "
"Hmm?"
"You know, Shakespeare?"
"I know the man, but I'm not familiar with the reference."
She dismissed it with a wave, "Never mind, it's nothing. What is their projected landing zone?"
"It's a preliminary guess right now, but it appears that they will make planet fall about a hundred kilometers from the spaceport. They'll be using the Illian Plains for a staging area, then advance the main column over the highlands toward the spaceport."
"Well how do you suggest we respond? Do you think we should continue the hit and run tactics? They seem to have worked well enough in the past."
The colonel shook his head, "It might prolong our defeat, but it won't last forever. By the configurations of the incoming dropships, Zhukov is projected to have two full 'Mech regiments with another two regiments of conventional armor support, not to mention aerospace assets. A sustained guerilla operation would do nothing except prolong the war."
Floral gave a humorless laugh. "And here we are with barely two combined arms regiments and less than a battalion of 'Mechs in it all."
Buquoy nodded, "With those forces, we may be able to harass him for a considerable length of time, but we won't be able to deal the crippling blow necessary to defeat him."
"What about a full assault then, an attack on the flank? If we can hit him in the middle of his formation, we might stand a chance at splitting his forces in two."
Again Buquoy shook his head, "It won't work. He will be able to detect any sizable force massing and simply advance his troops toward our position. We wouldn't be able to sneak up on his flank in enough numbers to do considerable harm."
Floral gave a forlorn sigh, leaning forward to cradle her head in her hands.
The colonel paused a moment before speaking. "There's another option."
She looked up at him, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion, "What?"
Buquoy took a deep breath. "Magistrix, forgive me for asking, but have you considered surrender?"
A look of surprise framed her face before it quickly coalesced into a mask of anger. "What the hell do you mean, surrender? You want me to just give up and let Ian Cameron win? Let him lord over the Magistracy just like he has with the rest of the Inner Sphere?"
"Magistrix, please—"
She cut him off before he could finish, "My grandmother founded this realm because of egotistical bastards like him. Entire families have relocated here to get away from the Sphere for that very reason. They come to the Magistracy so that they can have the freedom to live on their own terms without house lords or emperors ruling every facet of their lives. Our people have fought, and bled, and died for this nation, and now you want me to throw all of that into the wind and just give up?"
"You don't need to tell me what we've gone through the last eleven years. I know the sacrifices our people have made. But at least consider it. Dunianshire is the last of our worlds. We have no chance of defeating Cameron and nowhere to run. Even if we were able to overcome the 7th Corps, he would only send more troops to do what the others could not. Throwing more troops into the fire now is as good as signing their death warrants."
"Cameron has already killed millions," she retorted angrily. "What's a few thousand more to that madman?"
"It's a few more lives that don't have to be lost in a hopeless struggle. If you proceed down this course, you'll only be throwing more good after the bad. Please, don't make all of those deaths meaningless."
That comment seemed to sober her. She exhaled slowly, lifting her eyes to his. "Adam, I appreciate your input and your concern, but surrender is not an option. If we were to give in now, that would render all those deaths meaningless. We founded this league on the values of freedom and self-determination, holding close the idea that every man has the right to choose his own destiny. If we won't fight for those rights, if we won't die for them, we might as well have never believed in them at all."
Buquoy licked his lips, searching for something to say but found nothing.
Floral looked at him sympathetically, "Go home and get some sleep, Adam. We can finish this tomorrow. It's been a long day for everyone."
The older man nodded wearily and bent over to gather his things. "Good night, Magistrix," he said, heading for the door.
"Good night Adam. Sleep well."
He nodded and slipped out the door into the hallway beyond.
----------
After Colonel Buquoy left, Floral retired to her office. It was a temporary affair, nothing like the government headquarters on Canopus IV, but small salvaged mementoes still managed to make it seem hers.
She passed into the dim room, pausing a moment by one of the picture-laden walls to gaze upon a photograph of a younger Floral standing at the foot of her Thunderbolt BattleMech. She smiled fondly, admiring her image with no small measure of nostalgia. The picture showed a young woman possessed of dark, glossy hair and smooth olive skin. Her green eyes sparkled with youthful vigor and enthusiasm, and her athletic body practically screaming soldier.
Those days seemed like a lifetime ago. Shortly after that picture was taken, the Magistracy had been hurled into war. Two years into the conflict, her mother had passed away, leaving Floral at the helm of the beleaguered nation. It had been a running battle for survival ever since.
She had entered the office of Magistrix as a vibrant young woman, but after years of battle, that vitality faded. She still tried to maintain her youthful figure, but it was a losing struggle against the insurmountable will of time. Her hair was now shot through with gray, and her face had begun to wrinkle with worry lines. What's more, the lively spark of her youth had departed to be replaced with a hardness tempered by the flames of war.
Floral shook her head sadly, turning away from the image of the past. She moved around her desk and sank into the leather chair behind it. Her eyes fell onto the family hologram sitting next to the computer. She and her husband Marcus sat behind their young daughter, hollow smiles plastered on their faces for the benefit of the camera. The war had strained the relationship between the two of them nearly to the breaking point, but she knew he understood the sacrifices that had to be made. Their daughter Gloria was another matter. The three year-old simply couldn't understand why her mommy hardly had any time for her anymore.
Floral wanted so badly to just go home, to latch onto both of them in a fierce hug and simply forget about the war if only for one night. But she couldn't, not while the nation she had struggled to maintain for so long was crumbling around her. The Magistracy was facing utter and total defeat, and for the life of her she couldn't think of what to do. No matter what plan she ran through her mind, it all seemed futile in the face of such insurmountable odds.
Perhaps Colonel Buquoy was right. Perhaps the best solution was simply to surrender and confront the inevitable. Surrender made sense from a logical standpoint, but the prospect of it made her stomach turn with revulsion. It made no sense to throw away lives in a losing battle, but capitulation would be as good as acquiescence to Cameron's tyrannical rule. She simply couldn't bring herself to let her nation bow before that glutton of a man.
Floral found herself wishing that her grandmother were still here. Kossandra Centrella had founded the Magistracy in 2530, had forged a galactic power from a group of disparate worlds on the edge of known space through simple grace and tenacity. If she were here now, Floral was certain the war would have been different. But she wasn't, and the war was still as bloody as ever.
She reached over and picked up one of the plaques that sat on her desk. Her grandmother had commissioned it in commemoration of her graduation from the academy back in '73. It was one of the only things Floral had to remind her of the departed matriarch. She ran her fingers along the inscription, reading each word with slow deliberation. Her grandmother's final words stuck in her mind as she read them aloud.
"From the Battle of Thermopylae, to the Russian Revolution, to the founding of this very state, the greatest conflicts of history have been born out of the human need for freedom. A fire burns in the heart of every man and woman that not even the oppression of the great houses can quench. As long as you live, serve your nation with all of your heart and strive to keep that sacred flame alive."
Kossandra's words were an inspiration—to think that her grandmother had thought enough of Floral to entrust her with such a solemn charge. Those words helped to steel her resolve, to convince her that the path she had led the Magistracy down was the right one.
But there was something else, some inkling in the back of her mind that there was something more to the grand statement. And then it hit her: Thermopylae.
In a rush of inspiration, she pushed the plaque aside and hurriedly began tapping out commands on her computer. She forgot her weariness, forgot her hopelessness, and even forgot her thoughts of surrender as piece by piece, a plan of battle began to form.