Dragonslayer 01
New Aberdeen
Draconis March
29 February 3025
Two Invaders appeared in the Nadir Jump point below New Aberdeen's star. The pair of Jumpships disgorged six DropShips. Two Overlord class dropships, three Unions, and a Leopard-CV fighter-carrier. They burned towards the planet at an uncomfortable 1.5 gravities, shortening transit time from nine days to a little under five days.
The Comstar station on New Rochester received priority mail from nearby systems - Wolf's Dragoons were simultaneously assaulting the 4th Deneb's homeworld of Harrow's Sun. Those on New Aberdeen could only grit their teeth and trust in the combined force of the rest of their regiment, the AFFS security force based on the moon Bane, and the 21st Striker Regiment of the Eridani Light Horse. This was a wolf trap.
New Aberdeen was a snake trap.
Major Raymond Allwine asked "You know what really annoys me about the Draconis Combine? What really grinds my gears? What really puts rice in my corn flakes?"
Major Kaplan gave him a dull look. 'Are all Eridani Light Horse like this?'
He asked with a sigh "What about the Combine?"
"I really hate the uncomfortable truth that the Draconis Combine is actually a strong nation." He turned around to face the Davion officer. "As we are both employed by House Davion, we should not be blind to the flaws in the nation we serve, the better head off future difficulties, no? If even the Federated Suns is criticized as two-faced by sacrificing so much on the altar of militarism, how could the Draconis Combine with its weaker economy maintain the second largest military in the Inner Sphere? How dare the Combine always be pushing to claim worlds and often succeed?"
Kaplan grimaced. "Isn't it because what we call a sacrifice they make an obligation? Davion has to sacrifice half of itself just to withstand Kurita's aggression, but the Draconis Combine puts everything it could possibly have into the altar of victory. You're right, it is a hideous nation - and it's hateful that it is this strong."
Allwine nodded. "House Kurita's existence proves that strength itself can come from different sources. It is most ironic that they do prove one tenet true - it is cooperation that gives the most strength. The despotic brutal and often casualty insensitive rule of House Kurita is perhaps among the worst ever devised, but a broken people believed in it utterly. Not like the Capellan Confederation where the citizens endured the cruelty of their nobles from existential danger of being the weakest power, but that they genuinely believe that it is House Kurita's inevitable destiny to rule the Inner Sphere. Their hardships don't matter - that other people lived healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives were irrelevant. The people of the Dragon valued their spiritual and cultural treasures more than whatever luxuries and conveniences are available in the other nations."
He sighed. "And unlike other nations, the Draconis Combine never really feared the SLDF."
Unlike other nations in the Inner Sphere, the Draconis Combine did not have such a reverence for the Star League - it was humanity's golden age, true - but they always believed that House Kurita would have been as able a leader as House Cameron. Mighty as the SLDF might have been, they were first and foremost seen as a rival preventing the Dragon from achieving its rightful rule.
The SLDF deemed them likewise, and continually did the SLDF and the DCMS fight a covert low level Ronin War, always testing each other's boundaries and skills.
It often ended with a draw, with a slight edge to the Combine in pilot vs pilot combat.
They watched the dropships approach on the holotable. It would still take most of the week and ASFs were surprisingly short-legged. Intercepting the dropships would require carrier vs carrier combat, but unless there was enough weight of numbers from the 4th Deneb, such a clash would not be decisive compared to the number of ASF from the Combine's own carriers and fightercraft inside their military transport dropships.
So until then, there was nothing to do but to wait. Brief moments of brutal intensity punctuated by long stretches of tense waiting around, such was the military life.
"The Combine did contribute men and machines to the SLDF still," Kaplan said, remembering how the great bulk of SLDF was composed of member state contributions. These men were always assigned to guard different Houses than the ones they were sourced from to minimize conflict of interests. "You know, come to think of it - I am actually surprised that almost all of them chose to follow Kerensky out of the Inner Sphere. So they believed in the SLDF enough over their own upbringing as Combine citizens."
Left unspoken: SLDF indoctrination was superior to Kuritan brainwashing, then?
Kaplan pointedly looked away from Allwine.
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New Aberdeen
8 March 3025
The night skies of New Aberdeen boiled with fury and fire.
The 4th Deneb's aerospace fighters contested the orbitals while the 8th Galedon's own fighters opened the way for dropships to land.
Orbital entry was the most vulnerable time for dropships. These egg-shaped Unions and Overlords tried to shed velocity, sheathed in a bubble of plasma from the air shock as they entered the atmosphere, completely blind and deaf to everything.
ASFs could only shoot at them from above or below, because operating in the same layer would have them experience the same effects. Above the atmospheric boundary, ASFs could proceed at speed, while below that all fighters had an imposed maximum speed due to atmospheric drag.
The 4th Deneb was an aerospace heavy force, but this was a problem for the aerospace complement taking up a sizable proportion of regimental power. The Kurita invasion force counted ASF power separately from the 8th Galedon's mech regiment, and so had enough craft to screen the approach.
AeroSpace Combat was unlike BattleMech combat, where resilience vs good gunnery ruled. Pilots had seconds to deal as much damage as they could before the enemy could break weapons lock. Speed was only limited by fuel and human endurance. All the rest of the time was trying to angle for a firing solution, minding fuel consumption lest they would be dry and stranded out in space.
No power could assume aerospace dominance in a hurry. While fighters battled, the dropships cleared the atmospheric boundary and flipped around to burn against the pull of gravity.
The invasion of New Aberdeen had begun.
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Jody Smith was a child of New Aberdeen. Everyone in the city had gone to the underground shelters, and now she sat in her mother's arms. This was not even the fifth time she had experienced this - schools had evacuation drills and her neighborhood had emergency drills. This was life in the border worlds.
Her father was a soldier in the AFFS militia. Her mother stroked Jody's hair while they waited with the crowd. One of the things Kurita might do once successfully conquering a world is to execute militia soldiers in case they trained for insurgency. It was better to replace defenders with their own trusted soldiers from offworld, and Kurita soldiers were highly incentivized by the promise of land grants and privileges in conquered space.
House Davion was strong, but it was never guaranteed that they would always be able to defend all their worlds. Every time a big regimental-scale invasion was announced it was always a time of fear and doubt. Would this be the moment that, being distracted by all so many necessary battles going on at the same time, House Davion's strength would be stretched too far and fail?
Jody looked up. "Don't worry mother. This time it's different. It's like the news said - they're not facing any regular MechWarriors anymore. They're facing the Eridani Light Horse! Heirs of the SLDF!"
Her mother kissed the crown of her head. "Sure they do, baby. Sure they do…" she whispered without much conviction.
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General Lavrenti Kornilov sniffed at the dry, faintly acrid air of New Aberdeen. It was a wild and backwards world that was only worth the notice because it belonged to Davion. Kurita took it once before, and they could do it again.
This was deeply uncomfortable for infantry, but mechwarriors were used to enduring heat. But only relatively short but intense bursts of overheating. The hatch of his mech closed and he was kissed by cool air-conditioned air and felt the chill of his cooling jacket.
The 2nd Galedon was sent because though they might be considered a green regiment, they specialized in open field battles. Its officers often served as lecturers in the Sun Zhang Academy. Galedon Regulars were well-equipped and well-trained regiments, only the wide swath of space they had to handle meant that some regiments were better for training ladder. The dry brush terrain of New Aberdeen was welcoming to mechs that could move at great speed and react in unison to changing battlefield conditions.
While listed technically as a medium weight regiment, this was only on average by the total tonnage of the mechs. In practice, the 2nd Galedon Regulars was heavily biased towards heavy mechs and light mechs, with few mediums in between.
It was just that most of those Heavy Mechs were Dragons. Sixty-ton machines that could move up to 86 kph, easily keeping pace with smaller mechs. His own personal mech was a Dragon. Like the Draconis Combine itself, all things come from deliberate and focused aggression.
The dropships landed midway between the two main settlements of New Aberdeen. Rolling hills but little forests meant not much in terms of cover.
Kornilov landed with three full battalions mechs to add to the much-battered battalion on New Aberdeen. Unlike a Regimental Combat Team, they spared no weight for infantry - all of it was pure battlemech power. Infantry and combat vehicles were a separate follow-on force in a different dropship.
"Sho-sa Geordi, you will take your command company and your second company and head north. It is an insult that a battalion is being harried by a single company of light mechs. You will link up with the remainder of Ehrenburg's Battalion and find this… Barbara Mosley. And break her. Make sure Ehrenburg lives to pay for this humiliation. In the meantime, attach your third company to my battlegroup."
"Hai, general. It would be our honor to serve."
At this point, Barbara's Badniks had reduced Ehrenburg Battallion from thirty-six down to two and a half lances unwilling to step out of the shadow of their Overlord lest they eat a rain of Arrows.
Kornilov ordered these two companies to head north and set up another forward operating base in preparation for infantry to storm and capture Firthhaven. Aircraft would patrol the skies to swoop down on detecting a launch. The Eridani Light Horse might have lostech missile artillery, but missile artillery was still expensive and they should be running low by now.
He intended to take the rest of the regiment and push at the capital city. Intel estimated that the ELH and the 4th Deneb only had between them four companies of mechs.
Two full battalions plus a company (seven companies) meant there was no need for misdirection.
It would take almost six hours of running south, but such was the life of a mechwarrior. Most of war was actually just mind-numbing getting from place to place. An 84-strong force composed entirely of Battlemech could run nonstop by untiring power of their fusion reactors and artificial muscle myomers, limited only by the human weakness of their pilots. This was why the Combine's first notion was always to purge weakness from the flesh. Let the mind overcome the crass demands of flesh and bone, and there one shall find enlightenment.
The lack of any obvious choke points around Conlan City meant that minefields would be less useful. With enough speed and being sufficiently spread out, artillery was not such a danger but merely random chance.
With forces on the field in full view of each other, ECM and defeat in detail was marginalized.
The enemy shall meet their force in decisive battle or their city would be razed as a consequence of their cowardice.
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Raymond Allwine and Roland Kaplan gathered their mechs together.
The Eridani Light Horse contributed one Heavy Mech company and a one Light Mech company while the 4th Deneb had two Medium Mech companies on the field, for a total of 48 mechs that could be seen. Another 18 combat vehicles were formed up in echelon around them.
Barbara Mosley's Badnik Company up north were facing around 24 new mechs and 10 heavily damaged ones. Allwine sent the Battalion's entire force of LAMs and VTOLS in support, but that still meant Mosley's company was outnumbered twice over.
Kaplan grimaced. "We could take them in a fair fight, but we're at two to one odds. If we had the advantage of terrain or night combat, this would be possible."
Allwine nodded. "It is SLDF doctrine to prefer fights where you can outnumber your enemy. The Combine produces good pilots. Skilled Mechwarriors. Some of them can even be honorable sorts. The SLDF losing to them in pilot vs pilot combat panicked them enough to initiate the Gunslinger Program," said Allwine. He beamed and held up a thumb. "But even without the great bulk of SLDF, and the Combine abiding, the situation has not changed. Technology alone does not guarantee victory. Man vs man you might risk the question. But in a battle of holistic systems…"
The whole was more than the sum of its parts.
Or to put it another way "House Kurita hates it! Beat the DCMS with one simple trick!"