BeyHop Chpt 25

==Beyond Hope- Chapter 25 - The Coventry War==
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"...The Falcons brought their best, and they brought the rest. Wayne Waco got his command killed showboating when he should've been listening to the recon section he didn't bother bringing with him…"-General Moskowitz, CamhKowloon MTM, 1st Regiment, 171st Volunteers
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===Air Support for Landings===
Coventry , Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)March, 3056
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The supersonic aftershocks of the air-support would have been crippling without the protection he was wearing, and Sgt. Edward Vanh of the Kowloon MTM (Marine Corps sub-branch) was damned glad he had it.
"Lock-ping." 
The bombs the SB-27's released fifteen kilometers back, streaked in like munitions themselves, 'gliding' as they shed velocity until the ****** flaps opened.
The five Jade Falcon 'mechs were facing the wrong way when the bombs hit-they were trying to shoot down the fighters who'd crossed their formation at Mach 2.1, 70 meters AGL.
"Everybody duck." Eddie said laconically. His unit were playing 'FAC' for the fighters, marking targets for bombs and strafing runs, reporting BDA, and mostly finding ways to make the Jade Falcon stay on Coventry as painful as humanly possible when your main transport is a Jeep with a TAG unit on a pintle mount.
The job here, wasn't that different from training in the Brownwater, except that AFFC gear was generally nicer, more expensive, and more advanced…and he was working out of a jeep, instead of a fast boat.
The boats were still being assembled near their LZ, mostly because Coventry doesn't have the tangle of rivers and waterways Kowloon has.
BDA showed two of the enemy's 'mechs were still standing, but they were skinned right to the understructure in multiple places.
"Wish they'd get the tanks down here soon." corporal Vien muttered, "There's enough understructure showing that a couple tanks would have field-days with them."
"Yeah, but we don't. Not yet, and when we do, they'll be using those adrenaline junkies in the choppers for this kinda work instead of us." Eddie noted, "any movement on the enemy casualties otherwise?"
"I see a caved in cockpit on that weird looking Stinger or Valkyrie copy, and the one that looks for all the world like someone put a Wolverine through the laundry and shrank it, he's not going anywhere."
Eddie nodded, keyed his mic and called in an artillery strike from the Landing Zone anyway. 
Just to be sure.
The 155s began landing among the enemy survivors, "Okay, guys, rev it up, we're moving." Eddie ordered.
The trick is to keep moving. Light infantry with spotting gear doesn't win showdowns with battlemechs or armored troopers, so you find them, call in the shot or airstrike, and bug the ****** out while they're distracted. Let the 'mechwarriors and Tanks coming up behind do the work of finishing them off.
There was supposed to be one hell of an enemy concentration somewhere near here.
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===Dueling the Clans from the Sky===
Skies above the BattlefieldCoventry, Lyran Commonwealth
Mila Cu'ong was from That family-in particular, the branch of the family that didn't marry into the Ngo bloodlines back when The Old Duke was a young man.
Twisted rocks in a natural maze rolled under her fighter. The AFFC has specific designs they like, but Mila's with the Kowloon MTM's Coast Guard attachment, technically she's Navy now.
"Two, you're skylining.' she drawled over the squadron's channel, her wingman wasn't bad, just a poor bastard who learned his flying somewhere else, "Bring it in a little huh? They've got the good radars on those mutant Rifleman copies and I don't feel like breaking in a new wingman, Over."
One of the first things she was going to have to do when they got back, was talk to the Tech Chief about Two's TFR arrays still carrying the ****** nanny-state limiters.
"I've got it Three." was the reply, which was just as frustrating as it sounds. why in the name of ****** did they partner me with a Pandora Pussy? she fumed silently.
The maze of rock formations gave way to the edge of forested area, and her passive thermals picked up heat sigs.
Idly she bounced a ping to the targeting queue and her HUD lit up, matching terrain maps to what her millimeter wave was showing through the trees.
She got the confirmation-none of the Relief forces or remnant Coventry units had a dropship grounded there.
"Pass-pass, Two, watch my six." she banked as hard left as she could afford, pulling eleven gees using the flaperons with the thrusters into a curving up-angle to lob five one-ton bombs from her hardpoints in a ballistic arc that would confuse the ****** out of the enemy's ADA 'mechs.
"Boss, we've got hostile tracks incoming suborbital, They'll be in Visual in one minute, forty seconds."
"Rajadat, Two." she tripped a link to squadron, advising them of her awareness of the incoming threat.
The Clanners were sticking high…well, High by her standards, anyway. They didn't want to tumble in the Jungle with a Fursnake, but that's okay…
It's not like an SB-27 could ever be seen as an air superiority bird, that job belongs to the Lucifers…
She passed over the enemy landing site ahead of her bombs…just. 
And surprised their code-identified Galahad 'mech by passing less than a wingspan past his cockpit…at eye level.
Not that he'd enjoy the look at her, not when she was passing him close enough for the compression waves of her passage to knock him back a step as 27 tons moving at speeds normally seen with ballistic projectiles flashes past on a screaming trail of fusing helium.
Which let Two open up with the rocket-pods on his rear, before dropping the empty pods to bounce, bound and smash into things like dud bombs.
One of the enemy fighters got confident enough to come down and play, only he was still building up to the potential energy she was already at. She flashed wing-over-wing in her immelmann turn, coming down on his tail in time to see the ropes of tracers pass by both their cockpits from that modded rifleman.
The Clanner must've realized he'd ****** up, he tried to break with an aeleron turn to the right, to shake her.
She pumped all three medium lasers into his aft section and held on like she had a tow-rope on him, barely dodging bits of armored airframe that were flaking off.
HIS wingman wasn't doing the dude any favors, not when she was this close and Two had her six.
The big cylinder of his engine pack flashed yellow-then-red, the fusion coils powering his thrust giving way, she skimmed treetop close enough green stuff flaked off her leading edges as she hit afterburner and went into a rolling climb to get the dude's wingman off of hers.
The second enemy fighter went into a spin as something jammed in his flaps, or maybe his aelerons, he fishtailed wildly and she peppered his rudder and engine pack with more medium laser fire, weaving and bobbing in time to his more advanced, heavier, fighter's gyrations.
She pulled up when he didn't, and his forward motion was ceased by way of an involuntary lithobraking maneuver, his forty ton beast of advanced technology becoming one with the stone, trees and rocks of a hillside.
"Deuces." she reported, the Air superiority fighters were dealing with the rest of the enemy's fighters, and didn't need help this time.
"Bringing it back to the barn for refuel and rearm." she advised.
"What do you think Hans?"
"I think the Captain's going to have your ass, Cu'ong, we're not supposed to go below one hundred fifty metres AGL."
"It worked, didn't it? That Rifleman copy potted three from the Cecil Marsden this morning….THEY left the ****** governors on their TFR. he saw them coming. He didn't have TIME to see US coming."
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===Supporting the Blowtorches in the Air===
In OrbitFCS Canberra, Leopard CV Fighter Carrier DropshipCoventry, Lyran Commonwealth
VFA 211 was divided up between two carrier dropships by the simple frustration that you can't put twelve fighters in combat ready condition on a single Leopard no matter HOW you arrange the decks.
You can, however, give them a nice temporary base, with braided mesh preafbricated landing strips and fast-erect structures to serve as hangars.
Captain Vincent Wyse Luvon shouldn't smoke. His wife made sure he understood that…but he can still chew an unlit cigar to deal with the nicotine cravings ramped up by the stress of having been put in charge of thirty six adrenaline juiced lunatics in now-officially-substitute-standard SB-27's that make up VFA-211's oversize squadron.
The Coastie pilots were a source of gray hair, and they were so unfailingly polite and courteous and even mild when they weren't doing things that give Squadron Commanders nightmares or Academy Instructors hives.
The 211 kept the Orca Rampant roundel on the opposing surface to where the FedCom identifier was, and decorated the vertical stabilizers of their fighters with the image of a snake-like marsupial predator from their homeworld, which also gave the Squadron their official nickname.
Fursnakes.
The light fighters came in with nice, orderly pairings, wheels down like an airshow team, touch-down simultaneous, roll under APU power off the runway, to the fueling lane on the tarmac, ground crews already coming out of their temporary shelters with fueling vehicles and ordnance lifts.
Backup pilots, because the fighter pilots might get to eat, and shit and sleep, but the tempo from the Relief commander was 'High tempo'.
Fuel was being fed into fighters whose engines were on idle, while rapid PMCS was being run by the relief pilots, who got hot-handed condition briefs from the pilots coming off the flight.
The lead bird, with the relief pilot from 'day shift' was already closing her canopy as ground crew disconnected hoses and de-chocked the wheels.
The process was less than an hour for all twelve active fighters, including armor replacement and damage assessment.
The rosy fingers of dawn were shifting to gold, reflecting off the clouds of a storm system gathering somewhere to the south.
VFA-211's fighter squadron was taking the air on another series of strike missions, scout sorties, and general hell-raising by the time the third shift aviators were at the line building.
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===Coalition of Militias repulsing the Falcon===
"I warned you." Helena Cameron said, "The more things change, the more the similarities stand out."
Last night, one of the ground attack pilots from VFA-211 hit a Falcon Landing zone using the same methods their ancestors had used during the Amaris War.
This morning, another pilot, from VFA-111, made a slight error running a similar attack. That pilot was dead, as was the Clan heavy 'mech that happened to step into their way.
There aren't a lot of things that can handle 25 tons of Aerofighter using them as a braking surface at mach two, and apparently, one of the things that can't is a Codename Daishi assault 'mech.
Observers from that hit, near Lietnerton, noted that debris scattered from the impact and damaged two Thors and took out a Loki.
Which isn't entirely a bad outcome, except that the pilot's wingman insisted that the collision was not a suicide attempt that succeeded, but a navigation error made under pressure.
The pressure in this case, being that the two Coastie squadrons were pulling 24 hour operations cycles instead of getting the rest they needed, hot-swapping aviators every twelve hours on station, flying ground attack and air support missions on-call while AFFC Regulars were having problems keeping up in their bigger, heavier, better suited for the role airframes.
And that in turn, wasn't the fault of the aviators, or the command. 
It was because the Coastie units would, if they didn't take off with a specific target, respond to anyone's call for air support-at least anyone in radio range.
It was like old times to Helena, only instead of overeager amateurs, these were skilled, hardened pilots flying somewhere to the edge of their machines as a matter of course.
With expected, predictable losses.
The problem was less finding bodies to give them rest and rotation, more finding people who could perform to that level at that tempo.
Not everyone could. Even from Kowloon.
But there were hundreds of worlds to pull from.
"Where do they come up with this?" Prince Victor Steiner-Davion asked. "I mean, I get the idea-fly low, avoid radar to the last second, pop up and the bombs are falling before they even know you're there, but HOW do they come up with it?"
"Fire seasons." Helena commented, "VFA 211 and VFA 111 are drawn from the Golden Lake Valley, near the iron hills, they have wildfires annually down there, and the smoke columns can block visual to thirty thousand feet-so they fly water-bombers in at a few feet above the treetops. They fly their fighters the same way when they're bringing in the ordnance." she grimaced, "the air's clearer closer to the fires, see?"
“Seems like they’re begging for more incidents that way, one good downdraft at the wrong moment and into the ground they go.”
"At Elbar, day one Anh Cuong had to be recovered from a tree that was taller than she'd been flying-she'd been lucky, her wingman rearranged a cliff-side, and they lost seven out of twelve pilots flying attack runs, only three to enemy fire. That was…a long time ago, this generation is better at it."
“These are different worlds, different gravities, different weather patterns.”
"Should I pull the Coasties and let the Royal Guards regimental air-cover take over? We'll lose the help on air superiority…" Helena offered.
“No. Just try and figure out a way to keep the loss rates manageable. People to put in them and Aerospace fighters are almost harder to find than mechwarriors and mechs.”
"Which is why we're drawing from the MTMs." She nodded, "Inarcs is sending reinforcements, but they don't have air cover integral to their formations, I need you to sign another draft order."
“We’re buying time with bodies.”
“Yes. But we have terribly little other choice.”
'Who am I pulling in?" Victor asked.
"LCS Cartwright and their strike wing. The ship's in shakedown, but they have 24 more light fighters and a six-pack of electronic warfare enabled shuttles. They're not rated at 'Regular' but it's the kind of bodies we need to free up other squadrons."
“Do it. We need the time and rotation. Does no good if we can’t replace our losses with people who have learned lessons from experienced people.”
Helena waited for him to sign the order, and hit 'send'.
In orbit, Jane got the missive, and forwarded it immediately. 
Return traffic from Spider Moon included listings of incoming supply convoys and dates, including two Mules filled with spare parts for the Coasties and the MTM.
"Speaking of replacements." Helena showed him the 'good' news.
Cuerpos De Marinas de Arluna-24 pilots with fifty year old LCF-1Rs, surplus birds the Diegos initially didn't want to buy until Liz Ngo applied the kind of brutal pressure on the personal fortunes of the rulers of Arluna with a series of financial attacks on the planet's tourism industry that got Duke Diego unseated in favor of his much more open minded son…
Who was bringing a lance of Classix indeed-salvaged Land Air 'Mechs, too rare for regular service, and ridiculously expensive…but they were fighting machines of a sort. The surplus birds would be more use.
Winter's Militia was coming with more battlemechs-also succession war and earlier designs, but at least the Von Schrakenbergs had paid attention to Helena's letters on doctrine and supply-they had two companies-but the Light company were COM-2D Commandos, and the Heavy were Zeus units. Their fighters, Seydlitz, were the kind that she recalled Annie Cu'ong calling "short legged missiles with a laser for a warhead" and mocked constantly, but those interceptors were good for more jobs than her long-dead friend would ever admit.
The bigger surprise, was coming from closer.
New Capetown was sending a battalion of 'mechs, two of armor, and 36 Chippewa heavy fighters. Beast ships, good for dropship popping and not much else, but they were going to be a big help with maintaining air superiority in the low orbitals.
"How long do we keep it up?" she asked.
"Until the Clanners give up and leave." Victor stated. "They're here for a reason."
“Then I have a bloody minded idea to really drive the point home. Something easier to replace and train pilots for.” Helena commented.
“Conventional fighters.” Victor assessed.
“We use those to move the mud, it frees the real birds for air superiority and orbitals work while if we really need extra mud movers they can come back to that work in a pinch or when we have total air superiority. And since we don’t have to train the pilots for microgravity or stellar navigation that opens the pool of candidates considerably and shortens training time.”
“Add them to the list.” Victor nodded.
The sheer nightmare that was the FedCom logistical chain was something Helena was doing her best to chip away at, removing extraneous and unneeded gear where possible and finding places where standardization and economy of scale could make up for any loss of battlefield capability with sheer numbers, for that was the real terror of the SLDF, and she was bringing it back.
Conventional fighters were already in that logistical chain and Helena would prefer to use only ASF, but in this war it was a tool the Clans did not seem to use at all and that meant it would give them an edge. Even if the bodycount would rise.
“All right, Helena. Time to see your plan in action. Dismissed.” Victor nodded.
“Yes, Majesty.” Helena bowed and left.
She’s doing the job better than anyone I could replace her with, but I still worry that she’s putting on masks for all our sakes and we’re all asking too much of her. Victor shook his head.
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===Relief Forces Going Elsewhere===
The relief of Coventry wasn’t just about sending forces there to face the Falcons.
It was also about exploiting the gaps in Falcon forces created by the Refusal War, their spat with Clan Steel Viper, and launching an offensive against Coventry.
"The biggest advantage the Clanners had, was initiative." General Moskowitz sat in a darkness. He wasn't the image of the man she'd known centuries ago. That Moskowitz was born in a Floridian Arcology and was one of the Star League's special forces operators.
THIS Moskowitz, was a descendant, and sometimes he almost resembled the other man's expressions, But Camh was Kowloonese from the jewish community centered near Brigham on the Ia Drang Plateau, and unlike his illustrious ancestor, he was religiously a Jew, not just ethnically.
Though, like his ancestor, he would never describe himself as being particularly good in that respect, but he had that same kind of analytical mind. Not really that much of a surprise, for a man whose day-job prior to being reactivated was as a High school physics, chemistry and calculus teacher who sometimes subbed to the history department in a town on the Plateau with only four thousand people in the higher end of the highlands.
"Initiative?" Jane asked.
"Nobody knew they were coming, then nobody knew anything about them when they arrived, they had complete control of where and when they attacked, and they had inside information-but it was the fact they could force us to react, instead of acting-they had the initiative." the aging man said it as if it were perfectly self-evident. "That was the real advantage-controlling when, where, and how a fight would go down."
"And now?"
"Prince Victor's still letting the Clanners call the tune. It's not his fault, really. I'm back in a uniform I haven't worn since I was in my twenties, with a rank I never expected to achieve when I bowed out after '39. You don't make Flag Rank as a cannon-cocker, engineer, or grunt, I've got about zero neural conductivity with a neurohelmet, there's a glass ceiling there-if you can't pilot a 'mech you won't make Flag in the LCAF, or the AFFC. It just doesn't happen…or didn't, before Melissa hired Helena and Victor expanded her scope."
"You're a rarity-you were career." Jane noted, "everything I've heard, that makes you unusual for Kowloonese."
Cham chuckled, "I had a lot of nervous energy to burn off as a younger man, and there's only so many hours you can stare at a field of Barley and Winter Wheat between going to Temple and all the rest of life. I took my retirement in '41 and rolled it over into teaching school, but I was the chem teacher who shows the kids how to make the fun stuff."
He tabbed a display for his own benefit-the Remote was getting fed from the ship in orbit, where her actual mind was already seeing the data. "Some of those troops are kids I taught. Not sure how I'm going to face their parents after this."
On the display, the Volunteers were grinding a hole through the Falcon encirclement of Lietnerton. "Alpha Battery adjust curtain battery six degrees north-northwest." he ordered, "There's an opening, Second Battalion is to advance."
Jane monitored the general with her 'spare'-a true Dustball special with enhanced communications installed inside the torso, because Cham reminded her of one of the few human friends she'd made, that weren't also Helena's.
The Volunteers weren't lending the Clanners the initiative. When an assault stalled, the brutal logic of the man in this command-post modified tracked vehicle shifted assets to find another angle of attack, and kept advancing, as if he were using Zhukov's playbook mixed with Patton's aggression.
He kept enough reserves to react to enemy probes-but he usually just left that to the other units-slower units, or units that hadn't been investing the training time the Kowloon MTM had.
This tended to put the man in bad odour with the Mercenaries, and some of the other Lyran units, units whose normal habit patterns did not include such vicious aggression by their conventional 'support' troops.
IN the last week, he'd shifted emphasis four times, never on the hard, dug in concentrations, his forces were probing the Falcon lines for weaknesses until they responded, then hitting wherever they responded from with massed salvos of artillery, air strikes, tank charges and infantry.
His tactical losses were grueling, but the strategic side of the ledger was hard to ignore-a curve of blue,biting into a sea of red on the map, Strategically, the Kowloon MTM was chewing through the Falcons faster enough, that they were holding the enemy in a vise that was moving, narrowing, pinching.
It wasn't the Lyran 'wall of steel' this was more like a sea of fire ants.
"Send to VFA-112, direct airstrikes on these highlands." he marked on the map. "That's where the bastards are going to try and counterattack next-they're going to try to wedge between 3rd battalion and first."
"How do you know?"
"It's the easy win." he said simply. "If they punch through there, they can roll up two flanks and penetrate to the artillery batteries, if they do that, they'll be in our headquarters area in less than four hours. You know why they need to do that?"
"Because if those batteries aren't shut down, they can't airmobile." she agreed.
"Bingo. I've got the bastards focused, they need to get us off their butts if they're going to take on Wolf's people and do to them, what they did to Waco's people."
"You should move."
"Why? I want them in that corridor." he said firmly. "Tell Helena the enemy's following her thinking, that means they're going to change up soon."
Expose a vulnerability, because it's an ambush. "Engineers fall back by the numbers." he added, "we're going to see if these 'warriors' can read a map."
"You're inviting them to turn your flank…?"
"Yes." he said, "I am practically laying out the silverware and pouring the wine…of course, it's rat poison and the vintage sucks, but I expect they'll take the invite. Mech Battalion, you're up, array along ridge 24 in doggo."
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===Falcon's Peril===
BattlefieldCoventry, Federated Commonwealth3056
These were not the Coventry Militia, and they were not fighting the way the Skye Rangers had. Star Captain Severus had been waiting for them to make a mistake…and they finally did.
"They're out of position!" He knew what to do, what he HAD to do. He led his cluster forward-there was a five kilometer gap between the conventional troops, a hole that would let his cluster turn their flank.
Once that flank was turned, he and his sibkin would finally face real warriors, instead of this insulting chaff of infantry, tanks and air-support backed by dezgra artillery.
Twenty-five 'mechs, seventy five Elemental warriors-would be enough to break, he was certain, the harassing conventional troops and their lucrewarriors.
At first the sporadic flash of land mines detonating under the feet of the 'mechs was just an annoyance, just another obstacle for them to overcome.
The Falcons powered forward, sometimes slowing just enough to allow a point or star of Elementals to clear a particularly ugly minefield obstacle.
The problem happened when they cleared the tree line.
The forest behind and to their sides ignited into a firestorm.
And that's when the artillery batteries began dropping shells…but even those were expected.
What wasn't, was a battalion of Battlemechs rising from dug in positions in among the advancing Jade Falcons while all this was going on. Range advantage? What's that?
The sensor absorbing netting fell aside with the light covering of soil as more and more of the Battalion sprang up from their holes.
At this distance, Dezgra physical attacks were mixed with a rain-like fall of cluster bomblets, the Spheroid machines had more structure, and thicker armor as a result of that more structure, to make up for their deficiency in ranged firepower and gunnery skill. This type of fighting is a nightmare for Clan warriors-it was a point-blank melee, and among the titans, the Elementals couldn't afford to help their larger trothkin-because among the Spheroids, were primitive, but still usefully dangerous, Inner Sphere battlesuits more than happy to bring the fight to the invaders.
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, except ours is to be the people punching faces.” It came over an open channel.
In the mass melee there was no way to know for sure which enemy transmitted the message. But a particularly ugly Grasshopper was now closing in.
The fist loomed large as Severus worked his throttles and torso gimbels to take it in the shoulder instead of the canopy.
He didn’t even see the Battlemaster with the leg of his second (XO) as giant club until it was too late.
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===Saving one Last Bullet===
Helena found General Moskowitz on ridge 122. The man was wearing his arm in a sling and his helmet barely covered a bandage. "Ma'am, I'd salute but there might be snipers." he said laconically.
The Ridge 122 ambush had accounted for most of a Clan Cluster, at the cost of nearly a thousand dead soldiers, a trashed Headquarters, and the artillery were still firing.
“The day the Clans get that smart is the day we really need to worry.” Helena chuckled.
"Yeah, well, the plan worked. It's a clear shot to relieve Whitting." Cham said calmly, "I don't suppose you've got hospital beds open? I've got a lot of wounded and our field arrangements are getting overloaded."
“Seems there’s never enough of them, but yeah. I’ll work on getting some more.” Helena nodded.
"We didn't know we'd need so many, I think." Cham agreed amiably, "I think we might actually have more wounded than dead for a change, I've had to reassign Morticians to assist the Corpsmen, Your plan worked."
“Had a lot of help forming it up.” Helena smiled weakly.
"You did good, ma'am." he assured her, "back in the war of '39 we took worse for less, and the less said about working for Nondi Steiner in the Fourth war the better."
“Truth be told I let Tranh Truk Ngo and Anh Cu’ong do a lot of the heavy lifting on the planning back in the war, I just paid attention and kept asking what I could get them to help make it work.” Helena smiled.
Cham chuckled grimly, "Funny how the good ones always say that-'someone else did the work' when we win, but not when we lose. We came close to losing here, it went right down to the razor, Ma'am."
“Well this one will be on me. You can hold me to that if we do wind up losing this somehow anyway.”
"If that happens we'll just talk about it in the afterlife," he stated, "because we'll likely both be dead."
“Indeed. No way in hell will I let these bastards take me until I’ve killed at least ten of them for trying and save one last bullet.”
"Second Battalion was advancing last time I checked, same with first. I'm afraid we're going to have to pull in HHC and whatever scraps we've got to fill third-I've got maybe four hundred effectives who aren't walking wounded, and that counts the cooks and clerks."
“I’m combing through the Militias in the unengaged areas, away from the pirate areas, to pull in what I can. Should have some units to relieve you here in a week or two.”
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===The Price for Coventry===
Marthe Pryde saw the casualty reports-the after-action, from Ridge 122 remotely-there were no Warriors who returned, and few of the Techs…but enough to get a singular picture of a meatgrinder mixed with a bloodbath.
Then she got the call from Khan Vlad Ward this morning, boasting of his new offensive.
"This is untenable."
It was time to negotiate an honorable withdrawal.
“The Lyrans and their Davion allies have made us pay a terrible price. What more will they demand of us to allow us to pull back I wonder.” Marthe muttered barely above a whisper.
“My Khan, surely there is a way to salvage this situation.”
“Here…” Martha gestured to a stack of reports. “...is what we’ve lost just on Coventry.”
She then pointed to another deeper stack of reports. “This stack is what they cost us in other systems while we were bogged down at Coventry. We blooded our warriors, and drew a net loss from the exercise."
"Then…."
"Our option is to obtain Hegira." she asserted.
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===Meeting between Leaders with Element of Surprise===
Coventry , Federated Commonwealth (Lyran State)March, 3056
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The meeting was arranged. "Eventually, you have to talk." Victor Steiner-Davion assured Helena Cameron, "That's really it, isn't it? That eventually, you have to stop the killing and talk."
"You have an idea in mind."
"I do." Victor told her, and nodded to a Hauptmann whose uniform saw better days, "While you were crushing their flanking force. I'm going into this meeting with winners."
"Yeah, that's part of it, what's the other part?"
"You'll see." he said, "It might not work…but it might."
The chopper landed, and they disembarked as five Clan Omnimechs knelt and their warriors climbed out.
Helena felt her fists clench as she saw their uniforms. Not Star League gray but the influence was still clear.
"They look like a Marik Opera." Cham Moskowitz commented by her side. "How much time do you think it takes them putting those doofy capes together? I swear the gal in the middle should be in school still."
“Too long but they certainly seem rather practiced at it.” Helena tried to keep her tone neutral.
The older man snorted. (Younger? No, older. Mileage counts)
"I present the victors at Lietnerton and Ridge 122." Victor was already talking. "Before I make the offer, you deserve to know who beat your warriors. This, is General Cham Moskowitz of the Kowloon MTM, the field commander at Ridge 122, and this is Kommandant Caradoc Travena, of the 10th Skye Rangers, who beat your ass at Lietnerton twice…and this is the real mastermind of the current counteroffensive, Helena Cameron, and I don't mean a descendant." His tone was full of challenge.
Marthe Pryde recognized her. Helena realized she was recognized by the Clan Officer. Even Phelan Kell, when he showed up on Tharkad to plea for sanctuary for his Wolves, hadn't had that stark recognition in his eyes, and something else…
"You do not mean-"
"Misjump, she's agreed to work with the Federated Commonwealth. Your Crusader philosophy entails restoration of the Star League, and you're all proud of your heritage with the SLDF that left with Kerensky." Victor stated, "She is your rightful sovereign, come a bit delayed, but then, she's been gone a while. If you are truly the Star League Defense Force in Exile, you owe her your allegiance...or you can admit you're the degenerate descendants of the largest act of mutiny in history."
Helena had expected something like this ever since she revealed herself to Melissa. But now that it was here she found herself dreading what the Clan Officer might say next.
But then, Helena realized what she'd caught in Pryde's eyes.
Fear.
They know I'm here, they know who I am, and they're afraid… She realized, They're afraid of ME!
Helena found she didn’t know how to react to that, enough so her face showed surprise instead of the mask of emotionless logic she had been wearing until now.
"Doc?" Victor said, as the Clan Warriors stood, stunned.
Kommandant Travena spoke, "We're going to offer you hegira to go home now, and think about this."
"Clan Jade Falcon…accepts." Marthe said, "Prince Victor, we will need to talk soon about this…unusual event. Quiaff?"
"Yes." Victor agreed grimly, "We will need to talk about this."
Helena watched in silence as the Clan Officers withdrew to their mechs.
"I'm sorry I had to do that, Helena." Victor told her, "but this war? It needs to end. I'm grasping at straws to find a way to do that. I should've warned you, but I was afraid you'd…" he looked aside, ashamed.
“I swore the power of my name to your mother and you used it as is your right as Archon-Prince. I knew it would eventually happen. It’s true I wanted to punch them in the face for being the descendants of cowards and traitors but that look. They’re more terrified of me than I am of what they represent. If they offer to make me First Lord though I am going to tell them to shove it.” Helena shook her head.
"That's another conversation." Victor told her, "one we're going to have to have eventually, Helena."
“That Star League is dead. It dies a long time ago. If you want to make a new one go for it. I’ll even help as much as I can. But I have no interest in running it. You and the other House Lords will have to figure that out on your own.”
"Helena, I'm going to need to do something you might not have considered." Victor said, "do you know what that is?"
She looked at him hard, "what is it you think you'll need to do?"
"Make a lasting peace." Victor told her, "you saw the mistakes happen in real time, you're the best bet anyone has, of knowing how to spot them being repeated. Even if we never stick you on a throne, I need your help, because nobody but my parents managed a peace that lasted more than a decade between Great Houses since hte last Star League fell, and I don't have enough beds for that many marriages."
“That is the other reason I gave your mother the power of my name. It just might get people to the table for peace. But Victor we both know what I went through has changed who I am at a fundamental level. I can’t be a First Lord. Not anymore. But I’ll do my best to end this. However you want it ended.”
"First, you're going to take some time off." Victor told her, "You've built your staff system, the reforms are working, let them work, and take a few months personal time, maybe go visit your farm or something, but it's the least you deserve, before we get to the truly dirty, hard, unpleasant work."
“As you command Majesty.” Helena bowed.
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