Commander Jaime Wolf winced as a nearby explosion rattled the ceiling and windows of his office near downtown Harlech. The disturbance started early evening when protesters from Temptown, the rough and tumble quarter of the city, began to riot. As military police forces were deployed onto the scene, they were immediately attacked and overwhelmed by what seemed to be highly organized groups of renegade mercenaries with BattleMech and VTOL gunship support. How they got this heavy military hardware onto the planet, Wolf had no clue; the Dragoons had control over anything that came within orbit of Outreach, they even had a small WarShip fleet that could repel all but the most powerful naval battlegroups sent against them. But it was imperative that they needed to find out; most of the three Dragoon line regiments were undergoing periodic refits and were in the middle of training exercises in Outreach's other continent, Remus. Other than his honor guard of four BattleMechs and a few Home Guard units, the Dragoons had virtually no heavy weapons on the entire continent of Romulus. Wolf scratched his head in disbelief; the enemy's timing was perfect, almost too perfect.
A loud beep on his desktop communications link was what he waited for. "Come in." Wolf acknowledged as he leaned over to watch the vid screen.
The oval face of Major Michi Noketsuna, the commander of the Dragoon's intelligence group, Wolfnet, soon appeared on Wolf's vidscreen. Judging from the surroundings behind her, it was obvious that she was calling from the Dragoon's command center in the other continent, Remus. "Commander Wolf, thank the founders you are alive."
"It appears they caught me while I was doing some last minute administration work in my office." Wolf said as he sat down on his chair. "Where is General Maeve Wolf?"
"I am afraid we have some bad news, sir. General Maeve Wolf was being transported towards Remus when there was an apparent explosion in her VTOL transport as it crossed the Argosyan Sea. The helicopter went down and her escorts are now scouring the area for survivors but not finding any so far."
Jaime Wolf bit his lip. General Maeve Wolf was to be his successor for the leadership of the Dragoons. She reminded him so much of the Black Widow, Natasha Kerensky, one of the greatest MechWarriors of all time. He was getting old and he needed to pass on the reigns to someone younger, but with Maeve missing and presumed killed, he now faced a very pressing dilemma. "When are you bringing in reinforcements to Harlech? We only have a few units of the Home Guard left and the enemy is rampaging through the city as we speak."
"The DropShips are lifting off now, Commander. We will have a battalion of 'Mechs to reinforce you in less than an hour, once they get to high orbit, then-" All of a sudden, Wolf could see that there was a commotion in the command center of Remus as shouting could be heard in the background. Noketsuna looked around as an aide slipped a note to her. As she read it, her face paled.
"Major, what is it?"
"Commander, we have just received a report from Fleet Colonel Chandra. Aerospace Command has just detected a large battlegroup of JumpShips and WarShips near a pirate point off Outreach. They began to engage them just a few minutes ago but as of now, we are unable to establish contact with our forces."
"What?" Wolf was aghast. "Have they identified what units are attacking us?"
Noketsuna's face was ashen as she tried to stay calm even as pandemonium raged in the background, Wolf noticed. "We were able to download a few images of the enemy WarShips from our unit's initial burst transmission, Commander. They seem to be painted white and have a downward-pointed broadsword as an insignia."
"Word of Blake?" Wolf gasped.
"It looks like a near-certainty, sir. We need…" Without warning, the communications link abruptly cut off as an error message came up on the vidscreen.
Wolf tried to readjust the settings and attempted to resume the uplink again but there was no reply to his calls. As his hands shook in frustration, the personal communicator unit in his pocket began to beep. As he pulled it out, he immediately activated it. "This is Commander Wolf."
A strange, unfamiliar voice spoke, one full of malice and rage. "Have you ever cried wolf?"
"Who is this?" Wolf said. The commander of the Dragoons was now experiencing a mixture of confusion and dread. Everything seemed to be happening too fast, he didn't even have time to marshal his thoughts in order to deal with the rapidly deteriorating situation.
"A ghost from the past." The voice said before cutting off the line.
Wolf sat back in his chair, stunned. As he sat numbly in the darkness of the deserted office, a loud explosion nearby startled him back into lucidity as he activated the scrambler on his personal communicator and dialed in another number.
Almost immediately, he got a reply from the CO of his honor guard, Captain Brian Cameron. "This is Captain Cameron, Commander, reading you loud and clear." Cameron was currently commanding a lance of four 'Mechs just outside of the office building where he was.
"I have lost touch with Central Command in Remus." Wolf decided that his first priority was to reestablish communications with his headquarters, he could find out about that mysterious caller later. "Can you open up an uplink using your BattleMech?"
"Negative, sir." Cameron replied. "I can only establish local comm. links with some of our Home Guard units here in Harlech. I'm getting nothing but static everywhere else."
All of a sudden, the room that Wolf was in became illuminated in a soft white light that seemed to be everywhere. The intense radiance lasted but for a brief second and then a powerful shockwave sounded from the sky, as if the hammer of the gods were threatening to rip the very horizon asunder, in a divine attempt to force a new day onto the planet. For a brief moment, his communicator lost its signal and went static before reestablishing the link to his honor guard commander a few minutes later.
Jaime Wolf closed his eyes as he could barely breathe; the pain in his chest became almost unbearable as the horror of it all was now realized. The doctors had told him that he should no longer be involved in day-to-day work any more. His health was declining fast and he needed to rest more often than ever before. Yet he never told them about the chest pains he had been experiencing for it would have only convinced them to order him from his position as the supreme leader of an independent power in the Inner-Sphere. He wasn't prepared to do it then, but it looked like he no longer had that choice anymore.
"What in the hell happened?" The voice of Captain Brain Cameron shouted in his communicator's receiver. "What was that?"
Wolf knew what it was. There could have been only one explanation. Nuclear weapons. The enemy was using them. Of all the contingencies he had planned for, he never even realized it. The Dragoons could repel any attempt at conquest, but they were totally unprepared for genocide. At that moment he knew. All was now lost. The only thing he could do now was to pick up some of the pieces and rebuild again. If he did it before, he could do it again. What concerned him, however, was the price that would be paid; for it would be a very high price indeed.
As he spoke again on his communicator, his voice was now calm, almost resigned. "Captain, have you checked in with the Home Guard's CO, Major Lewis?"
"No sir, the Home Guard unit here in Harlech looks very disorganized. I count no more than a few lances as rated combat-effective."
"Listen to me carefully, Captain," Wolf said. "I want you to take command of the Home Guard. Your mission is to secure the dependents and head for safe ground. Abandon the city."
"With all due respect, Commander Wolf, I have sworn an oath to defend you as a bodyguard, if I take command of the Home Guard, that will leave you vulnerable, sir. I cannot do that." Cameron protested.
"Captain, this wasn't a request. I am ordering you to recover and evacuate the dependents. Take Point-Commander Trung and the rest of my Elemental bodyguards with you as well, you're going to need them."
"Commander, I…"
"Godspeed, Captain. You have done your job and done it well." Wolf said calmly. "May we see each other again in happier times."
Before the commander of his bodyguards could reply, Jaime Wolf cut off the communicator as he got up from his chair. He had one last job to do and he needed to do it right. He hoped that the next generation would not make the same mistakes as he did.
On the table beside his desk there was a picture of two adolescent boys in Wolf Clan military attire. On quiet evenings he would sometimes sit and stare at the picture for hours on end. Happy memories of a simpler time, he recalled. Jaime Wolf stared at the picture for a few moments, even as the nearby explosions rattled the glass in the office windows. It was the last image of his past as he turned around and walked out of his office for the last time, gently closing the door behind him.