SotU3 Chpt 11

=Chapter 11=
==State of the Union - Book 3==
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Wolf City, Arc-Royal
Donegal Province, Federated Commonwealth
August 11th, 3067
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The Wolves tore into the Royal Guards with abandon, slicing through their lines with ferocity that had to be seen to be believed.
In response, the Pride of the Federated Commonwealth hunkered down, each lance adjusting its formation to cover the vulnerabilities of each ‘Mech. Their Armor was battered and ‘Mechs fell, but the formation endured.
Kommandant Michael Searcy saw a Timber Wolf with the markings of a senior officer carve its way past the frontlines, bringing down a Templar as it passed. Two more Wolf OmniMechs forced their way after their leader, unleashing terrifying firepower upon the Mackie IIs that tried to close the gap.
“Cover me.” he ordered and spun his Sagittaire to bring the Timber Wolf into his firing arc.
The smaller, faster ‘Mech side-stepped to avoid the lash of his PPC; but it couldn’t press further towards the Archon-Prince’s position without exposing its rear and the mechwarrior knew it, twisting to fire back at Michael.
His Sagittaire couldn’t match the Clan ‘Mech’s range, but this sort of brawl was it’s meat and mead. Pulse lasers flensed Armor all across the Timber Wolf’s front and he had to resist the urge to break away from his lance and go for the kill. “Tag this, Mad Cat!” he demanded.
“Got it!”
Michael glanced around, confirmed that a Black Hawk-KU from one of the Lightning companies was skulking behind a Banshee, aiming the target designator at the Wolf ‘Mech.
The Timber Wolf realized its danger and broke into a sprint for Peter Steiner-Davion’s location - the Mechwarrior within must have known that destruction was imminent and was hoping simply to take the Archon-Prince with them.
It was too late, the Banshee had also seen the threat and unleashed its Gauss Rifle and twin PPCs, almost knocking the Timber Wolf over.
A trio of Stormcrows lunged in, forcing Searcy to return his attention to the rest of his lance. Bannson fell, his Templar showing massive damage to the reactor after two of the smaller OmniMechs combined their fire with their heavy ultra-autocannon. The Clan code of single combat hadn’t been given even lip service.
Searcy stepped into the breach between Scott Tracker’s Mackie II and Roscoe Buford’s Hauptmann, vaguely aware that the Timber Wolf behind him had disintegrated under the impact of no less than three Arrow IV missiles fired from well behind the main lines of the Fifth Royal Guards. The Stormcrows were almost dancing through the incoming fire, his lance mates missing shots at ranges where they shouldn’t have had any difficulty scoring hits.
Switching modes on his targeting computer, Searcy slaved his two large pulse lasers to a single trigger and tracked one of the pair, ignoring the damage their own lasers were inflicting. When he fired, the hail of short pulses of coherent light ripped apart his target’s leg at the knee, laming it instantly.
“Finish the cripple.” he ordered flatly, shifting to try to bring down the second Stormcrows. 
He was about to fire when a loud buzzer sounded. Instinctively, Searcy brought the Sagittaire to a halt, locked the legs and safed his weapons.
“All units, stand down!” the voice of Morgan Kell declared. There was a pause before the mercenary leader added: “The Wolves have this one, your highness.”
“I noticed.” Peter Steiner-Davion’s voice was unamused.
Michael looked in the correct direction and saw that a Linebacker was standing over the fallen Mackie II belonging to the Archon-Prince. There were a trail of over a dozen Clan ‘Mechs and at least as many Royal Guard ‘Mechs marking the path that the Linebacker must have taken, and given the still standing ‘Mechs frozen on approach, the Linebacker would clearly have been destroyed in the next handful of seconds.
“With that said.” the mercenary added, in the tones of someone who had had better days. “The price paid for that victory was pyrrhic. We’ll discuss in detail during the after action debriefings; until then, all ‘Mechwarriors are to hold position until their lance is called to leave the exercise grounds.”
“Damn.” Searcy muttered to himself. The Fifth Royal Guards weren’t just a field RCT of the Federated Commonwealth, they were also Peter Steiner-Davion’s personal guards when he was away from the capital worlds. That made keeping him alive their most overriding duty and they had just failed. At least it was only in simulated combat.
One of the Stormcrows in front of him waved its arm, careful not to point the autocannon at anyone. “Nice shooting.” the voice of Phelan Kell declared via the omnimech’s loudspeakers. “You almost had me. Who are you? I think Ranna owes you a beer.”
There was a background hiss, as if someone was speaking to the Khan through his cockpit speakers. Searcy couldn’t make out words but it sounded like words. “Kommandant Michael Searcy.” he identified himself. “Who is Ranna?”
The Stormcrow pointed with its one hand. “She’s in that Timber Wolf. I think she might have got all the way to Peter, if you hadn’t slowed her down long enough.”
“Maybe.” Searcy allowed dubiously. “Maybe not. I didn’t actually stop her myself though.”
“Teamwork.” the Khan replied. “Searcy… I know that name…it is on the tip of my tongue.”
He sighed. Here it went again. “I fought on Solaris VII.”
“I do not watch those.” Kell disagreed. “A third of the matches are staged and half the rest are more about showing off than the actual fighting.”
That seemed a little harsh to Searcy. Granted, some of the lower ranking matches weren’t very impressive, but match fixing wasn’t anything like that common. It happened, certainly, but it was career-ending if anyone found out.
“Oh, you are the one that brought down Nondi Steiner.” Kell replied.
“I wasn’t particularly trying to kill her, sir.”, he told the Phalen
“Those are the chances any mechwarrior takes.” The adopted-clansman sounded dismissive. “But she had quite a reputation as a mechwarrior, back in the day.”
“I’d rather not discuss that further.”, he told the Wolf Khan
“If I can interrupt this rather riveting conversation?” The Archon-Prince’s Mackie II marched towards them, Ranna’s Timber Wolf walking behind.
“Aren’t we supposed to hold position?” asked Phelan. “Or are you pulling rank?”
“Blatantly.” Peter didn’t seem at all abashed. “We’ve had more data arrive from the Wolf Occupation Zone and I want your impressions.”
“Right now?”, Phelan asked
“I have approximately a thousand times more paperwork to deal with than you do. My schedule is cramped.” The Archon-Prince waggled his Mackie’s arm in Michael’s direction. “Searcy, you can bodyguard and aide me.”
“Am I being punished for something?”, he asked Peter over comms
“Yes. I’m not sure what for, but you sound like you have a guilty conscience.”
Phelan laughed at that. “There are times, Peter, that I like you more than your brother. You have more of a sense of humor.”
“And there are other times when that humor causes problems.” Ranna was apparently female, Searcy noted. She sounded frustrated with her Khan, but also fond. Some equivalent to Brigade General Terias Sortek, he guessed. Now that he had time to look closer, the Timber Wolf had the markings of a Star Colonel.
“True.”
“I stopped calling your Crusader brethren… well, you know.”, Peter commmented
“I appreciate it.” the Khan conceded. “Unfortunately, once you said it, others found it funny and it started spreading.”
The Timber Wolf stiffened, reflecting irritation on the part of the woman inside. “Very few of those among our Clan get the joke.”
Searcy wondered for a moment if the Archon-Prince had really first heard the ‘Wolf-in-Name-Only’ from his sister Catherine. If so, he declined to throw the Regent of New Avalon under the bus. For his part, the former gladiator made a mental note to drop the phrase. He didn’t want the Warden Wolves mad at him, particularly when he’d just had a front view of how fearsome they could be in battle.
The four ‘Mechs moved aside to a quiet corner of the exercise area. This part of Arc-Royal had been mined heavily once, then attempts had been made to repair the ecological damage with trees and grass. The decision to then use it for military training left the vegetation more than a little patchy and quite unable to hide pits large enough for a ‘Mech to use as a firing position.
Adopting laser comms for security, Peter shared the files he’d received. Searcy glanced at them, not sure what he should look for. They seemed to be discussing the garrisons found on the four worlds hit by Operation Southern Cross. Zoetermeer was the only world where frontline forces had responded - the Wolves’ Seventh Battle Cluster had arrived under-strength, with losses from the fighting on A Place and a draft of captive Exiled Wolves, only to be hammered by the veteran Twenty-Third Arcturan Guards - a RCT that had been nursing a deep grudge against the Clans since a detachment of their number had been destroyed on Carse fifteen years ago. The Arcturans had liberated the bondsmen before the Battle Cluster managed to escape, but there wasn’t much about their experience in the report.
“I did not realize that Vlad was recruiting so heavily from the local population.” Phelan admitted thoughtfully.
“It is uncharacteristic.” Ranna seemed bemused. “He has little time for freeborn warriors.”
Searcy scanned through the reports, eventually finding what they had spotted. The bulk of the garrison forces assigned to the worlds had been lightly equipped infantry recruited within the Occupation Zone - all from former Rasalhague worlds, rather than the worlds they were stationed from. The training had been more or less what he would expect… or at least, what he would expect here in the Inner Sphere. Clanners tended to train their warrior caste from childhood. Less than two years of training was exceedingly short by their standards.
He blinked as he reached the demographic breakdown. “They’re on the young side too. Other than the officers, were any of them more than twenty-five?”
“No.” The Archon-Prince sounded troubled. “Meaning they have little recollection of what it was to live under the Federated Commonwealth. Clan Wolf took those worlds when they were children.”
“The ‘Mechs and Armored vehicles are mostly manned by Clan warriors from the homeworlds.” Phelan added. “I suspect the idea is that the infantry police the local population against the rebellion, while the mechanized forces are there to keep the infantry from any ideas of independence themselves.”
“They aren’t worried about us taking those worlds?” Searcy enquired. “If this is all the opposition there is, the counter-attacks we’ve launched could probably fight their way across to the Ghost Bear border as long as they have enough supplies.”
The Khan snorted derisively. “Vlad Ward would probably be delighted to have the chance to send a small force back to pick off the garrisons they’d have to leave behind. Or to simply do that as the cap of his campaign here. He is overly confident.”
“Perhaps with cause.” Ranna sounded concerned. “We have not covered ourselves in glory thus far in the campaign. Where our warriors have faced his in battle, Vlad has been victorious more often than not. They are still Wolves, at least in our eyes. I am concerned that his own followers do not see us so kindly.”
“Are you saying that the Warden Wolves are holding back?” demanded Searcy. There were AFFC forces on every world being attacked, and it sounded as if their allies weren’t giving their all to support them.
“Brother fighting sister can be problematic.” Peter observed drily. “I’m sure it isn’t intentional, but if it’s lopsided… That does make more sense of our reverses.”
“I need to discuss this with the Clan Council.” Phelan sounded troubled. “I had not considered the matter in this light, but we are fighting, not just for the Federated Commonwealth, but for the soul of Clan Wolf. Perhaps it is time I go to the frontlines myself. We have the additional corvettes so our fleet is close to Vlad’s in numbers and we needn’t be so conservative in our use of warships.”
“I wish I could say the same.”
Michael nodded to himself at his liege’s words. The Federated Commonwealth Navy had won a victory over Coventry, but half the squadron committed was limping to Odessa for repairs at the yards there and the other half were only still at Coventry because their jump drives weren’t considered to be in a fit state for the voyage. That wasn’t being advertised, but it meant that across, all three theatres of the war, the Federated Commonwealth Navy only two battlecruisers, two cruisers and six corvettes fit for battle. There had even been discussion of using the ships recovered from Odessa on the frontlines, but the risk of leaving Tharkad uncovered if Marthe Pryde tried for an even more ambitious deep strike was judged too high.
“Talk to your people.” Peter advised. “The Nova Cats have agreed to send Sigma Galaxy across the Ghost Bear Domain to help, I’m going to double down on liberating occupied worlds. Let Pryde and Ward keep feeding troops into the frontlines if they want, when they turn around they’ll find their empires flying very different flags.”
“You can lose a lot of your army with that strategy.” the Wolf Khan warned.
“I can build a new army.” the Archon-Prince said flatly. “Every victory those two are winning is costing them more in proportion than it costs me. I may not like the price; but better to pay it once and be done, than to do this all over again ten years from now.”
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