DVH Chpt 11

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==Davion Heir (BattleTech CYOA)Chapter 11==
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===Joint Talks between Nations===
Solaris City, Solaris VII
Federation of Skye, Lyran Commonwealth
10th May, 3014
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The trip to the attack on the Steiner delegation is just as painfully slow as the journey to the attack on the Marik delegation, something which isn't helped by the fact that Victoria can see the blazing flames of the fires before she reaches the battle.
But when she finally arrives at the battlefield, the state of affairs is much better than it was with the Mariks. The LCAF has a reputation for having both high amounts of tonnage and corruption with the latter cancelling out the former most of the time. This is not one of those times.
The Royal Guards are some of the best that the Lyran Commonwealth has to offer and today they are proving that. A Commando in the silver-trimmed black of the Draconis Elite Strike Teams lies broken on the ground. A DEST Centurion is dueling with a Lyran Griffin while a Kuritan Marauder is sniping back and forth with a Zeus and a Crusader. A Firestarter is being hunted by a Grasshopper as the battered DEST 'Mech does its best to set the district alive, having already caused vast amounts of collateral damage and an unknown number of bystander casualties.
That Firestarter will be Victoria's first target in this engagement as it needs to be brought down before it can inflict further damage. The First Prince strides forward as she lines up a shot with her autocannon, slamming a shell into the side torso of the Light 'Mech as soon as she is confident that she wouldn't miss. The Firststarter staggers and the pilot doesn't have time to react before LRMs slam into it. Not just a score of them from Victoria's Highlander, but a grand total of sixty LRMs come veering down on the Firestarter. Victoria isn't able to track how many missed and how many hit, but enough of them impact the wounded Firestarter to finish off the Kuritan 'Mech.
<<"Victoria!">> calls Colonel Morgan Kell over the radio as his Archer marches into Victoria's view, "Glad to see that you made it."
"Likewise, Morgan," replies Victoria, "I'm going to crush that Centurion. Fancy lending some fire support against that Marauder?"
<<"I would be happy to oblige,">> replies Morgan, <<"Katrina is safe by the way. They were already getting her to safety due to the attack on the Mariks so when these fellows showed up, they had already missed their window of opportunity.">>
"That is a relief to hear," says Victoria as she jumps towards the Centurion as the DEST MechWarrior backs up.
 
A beam of blue light from the GRF-1S Griffin's large laser sears into the left torso of the Centurion, melting away its LRM launcher. Victoria adds her own weight of fire to the mix, an autocannon shell, impacting the right leg of the Centurion and dropping it to one knee as what little remaining armor on the limb is shattered. Her LRM volleys don't help the Kuritan at all as the majority of them slam into the now motionless 'Mech, blowing away most of its remaining armor and even damaging parts of the internal structure.
As it attempts to rise, the Centurion fires what it can at the approaching Griffin, its heavy autocannon blasting away part of the Griffin's left arm whilst medium lasers melt gashes across the right and central torso. And yet at the same time that the DEST 'Mech opens fire, a PPC bolt of lightning slams into the exposed left torso of the Centurion. It proves too much for the already mangled internal structure as the left arm drops to the ground and the Centurion begins to tumble over backwards.
It seems that the enemy MechWarrior realizes that defeat is inevitable as while their 'Mech falls over, an ejection seat flies out of the cockpit. Victoria tracks it for a moment and resists the urge to take a shot at it before her better nature reins in her barbaric impulses. Ignoring the ejecting Kuritan pilot, the First Prince turns her attention to the Marauder.
The last DEST 'Mech is still doing its best to fight, but between the damage it has taken and the sheer amount of enemies it has to face, its doom is unavoidable. It has already lost an arm, suffered multiple armor breaches and one leg is limping along. Victoria opens fire on the enemy war machine, but with the amount of Lyran 'Mechs laying into it, her actions are superfluous as the Marauder goes down hard.
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=== Betrayals and Fiascos ===
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Avalon City, New Avalon
Crucis March, Federated Suns
28th July, 3014
 
"What's the latest news on the fiasco?" asks Victoria as she and the rest of High Command gather in the Fox's Den to discuss the ongoing debacle in the Capellan Confederation.
"The whole affair seems to have come to an end." answers Mark as he looks through his reports, "The Wolf's Dragoons have jumped the League border to Shiro III while the Northwind Highlanders have jumped our border to Velhas. According to my own sources and what the Captain-General has shared with us, the Wolf's Dragoons have opened contract negotiations with the Free Worlds League. The Highlanders are heading up along our side of the border to Northwind, where they will take up garrison posts as per your agreement with them."
 
Victoria had thought she had been a bit too impatient by reaching out to the Northwind Highlanders so soon. It could have waited a year or two, but Victoria had trusted her gut to go ahead and boy did it prove to be the correct call. Her offer had been generous enough to intrigue the Highlanders and it seemed that her diplomatic efforts, especially sharing the bounty of Halstead Station with the Lyrans and Leaguers, had convinced the mercenaries of her sincerity.
 
It turned out to be just in time because the Chancellor had decided to use the Northwind Highlanders in his plot to crush the Wolf's Dragoons, which was its own kettle of fish. It seemed that following the Solaris Accords as the final agreement between the Federated Suns, the Lyran Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League had been called, Maximilian Liao had become concerned about what the Wolf's Dragoons would do once they finished their contract with the Capellan Confederation. So when Colonel Wolf declined the Chancellor's offer to extend his contract, Maximilian began to plot the downfall of the Wolf's Dragoons.
 
For all his flaws, the Chancellor isn't an idiot so he resorted to more subtle and deniable acts at first. According to what MIIO had uncovered and what the Wolf's Dragoons had shared, Maximilian had attempted to subvert the officers amongst the Wolf's Dragoons to organize an internal coup against the Wolf brothers in favor of House Liao. When that failed due to the loyalty and discipline of the Dragoons, he summoned the senior leadership of the Wolf's Dragoons under a pretense so the Chancellor could arrest them for trumped up charges. Thanks to whatever intelligence network the Dragoons had, that plan had failed when the Wolf's Dragoons uncovered the Chancellor's true intentions.
 
That led to the Wolf's Dragoons bunkering down on Wright, clearly at odds with the Capellan Confederation by then, but at the same time, refusing to break contract as they waited for House Liao to make the first overt move against them. Something that Victoria still didn't understand as it left the initiative in the hands of their enemy and if it wasn't for her own meddling, the Wolf's Dragoons could have met their destruction on Wright.
 
Because Maximilian's plan to destroy the Wolf's Dragoons by force wasn't that bad to be honest. In fact, it was pretty good if you ignored the fact that the Chancellor was only in this situation due to his own screwups.
 
The Northwind Highlanders and their dependents were brought down to Wright under the pretense of replacing the Wolf's Dragoons there and as far as Victoria knew, it might have been true. The Big MAC had secretly arrived at Grand Base from Menke where they would arrive at Wright alongside the Death Commandos and Warrior House Fujita while Warrior House Kamata would be coming to Wright from Betelgeuse.
 
While not as skilled or experienced as the Wolf's Dragoons, it was still a substantial amount of military might with around ten regiments' worth of 'Mechs, which meant over a thousand 'Mechs had been assembled by the CCAF to crush the Wolf's Dragoons. Or so the Capellans thought as around three hundred of those 'Mechs and their pilots had been subverted by Victoria.
 
The Battle of Wright is being hailed as the largest battle of the Third Succession War though Victoria knows better as she was a participant in the even larger Battle of New Aragon back in 3008. On paper at least, over fifteen hundred 'Mechs are involved in the Battle of Wright with close to six hundred of those being disabled or destroyed. Even if most of those lost 'Mechs will be salvaged, it is still an insanely high number in Victoria's books even if it doesn't reach the heights of having nearly two thousand 'Mechs fighting in the Battle of New Aragon.
She is just glad the whole affair has been a clearcut defeat for the CCAF and a massive fiasco for the Chancellor. The Wolf's Dragoons already had the quality advantages and when the majority of the Northwind Highlanders had switched sides, it had given them the quantity advantage on top of that.
For the Wolf's Dragoons, their Alpha, Delta, and Epsilon Regiments had suffered moderate losses whilst casualties for the Beta and Gamma Regiments had been more severe with both units suffering heavy losses. The other formations of the Dragoons had suffered light to no damage in the fighting with the exception of the infamous Zeta Battalion, who had lost half a dozen of their mighty war machines. All in all, the Wolf's Dragoons had only suffered about twenty percent casualties and many of those weren't fatalities.
 
The Northwind Highlanders had fared about as well from a relative point of view. Having avoided the bulk of the fighting, between combat losses and those breaking ranks to remain loyal to the Confederation, the Northwind Highlanders lost around two battalions out of their four regiments.
 
As for their opponents in the CCAF? They had suffered much worse and it brought a smile to Victoria's face whenever she looked at the casualty reports for the Battle of Wright.
 
The Death Commandos died to the last man with the entire battalion getting wiped out. The Warrior Houses had fared best with only losing less than a company of 'Mechs between the two of them even if their infantry battalions had gotten butchered in an ill-advised raid on the Dragoons that saw over half of them killed or captured.
 
 As for McCarron's Armored Cavalry, that despicable band of mercenaries got their grudge match with the Wolf's Dragoons and they had lost hard. Their fourth regiment had fared best with just under two battalions remaining while their third regiment was the worst off with only a company's worth making it out of the Battle of Wright. For the rest, their losses were somewhere between the two as each regiment lost around two of their three battalions.
 
When the dust had settled, the Big MAC had been reduced to two understrength regiments, all it could muster from the five full regiments it had started off with. Between the losses suffered by the Big MAC, the destruction of the Death Commandos and the defection of the Northwind Highlanders, the CCAF had lost around seven regiments of 'Mechs along with most of their pilots. Not only that, but said pilots were primarily veteran and experienced personnel, making the losses even more painful. And when you added in the Wolf's Dragoons no longer working for Confederation, House Liao had lost an even dozen 'Mech regiments with the majority being either elite or veteran rated.
 
It is simply glorious.
 
This of course means excellent things for the planned joint invasion. Unable to effectively hide the movements of their forces even if SAFE wasn't leaking to Mask, the invasion was always going to come down to whether or not the Capellan Confederation could muster up enough forces to hold off the combined might of the AFFS and the FWLM. While that had previously been an unknown answer that could go either way, this new shift in strength had changed the question from whether the invasion would succeed to how well the invasion would succeed.
 
"What does this mean for our plans?" asks Victoria.
 
"It means we can free up more forces for additional objectives," answers Yvonne, "Without the need to keep McCarron pinned down on Menke, we can shift some forces from that invasion group. Exactly what we do depends on where what's left of the Armored Cavalry ends up, but I'm leaning towards sending the Menke invasion force to St. Ives instead. Without the Big MAC on Menke, it is a more valuable target and the amount of force required to eliminate McCarron should be enough to take St. Ives. Especially since the rest of the CCAF will be too busy to respond."
 
"I would suggest adding Necromo to the list of targets," says a Field Marshal, "They were defended by a battalion from McCarron's Armored Cavalry according to our intelligence so it should either be free for the taking or defended by forces that have been diverted elsewhere. While it doesn't build anything fresh, its DropShip repair facilities are still valuable and its small population will make it an easy target to take and keep."
 
"We can use the Second Chisholm's Raiders," says Yvonne, "Sending an RCT to Necromo would be overkill so an independent 'Mech regiment like the Second Chisholm's Raiders is the best option and Chisholm's Raiders excel at this sort of independent operation."
 
"Those sound like acceptable options," says Victoria, "Yvonne, look into making this happen. I'll speak with Janos to see how these events will affect his side of things. While getting the Dragoons to sign up with the League and the Highlanders defecting were things we had considered, the destruction of the Death Commandos and the near-destruction of the Big MAC are new and unexpected factors even if they are pleasant surprises."
 
"Continuing my report, the Confederation clearly knows about our plans, either due to leaks or figuring our intentions on their own," says Mark, "I'm checking my own networks to see if they have been compromised, but if the Liaos have received leaks, I believe that it would have come from SAFE not MIIO."
 
"The downsides of sharing military intelligence with the Inner Sphere's worst intelligence service," grumbles Yvonne, "Not that the benefits of the deal aren't worth it, this invasion wouldn't be possible without the coordination with our new allies, but it isn't all sunshines and roses."
 
"We'll make do," says Victoria, "We have enough things going in our favor that I am not going to complain about a few things not going our way. Anything else?"
"We're receiving the first shipments from the Lyran Commonwealth," replies Yvonne, "It's nothing too impressive, but provided that the manifests are correct, the 'Mech parts being delivered should be enough to get several 'Mechs back into fighting shape. Nothing too big in the grand scheme of things, but a few losses will be easier to recover from."
 
That is another part of the Solaris Accords with the Free Worlds Leagues, Lyran Commonwealth and Federated Suns each allowing the other two to purchase spare 'Mech parts from their factories. Whilst nothing too great in the grand scheme of things, it has been helpful in regards to getting some salvaged 'Mechs back online for everyone involved and every little bit helps in the age of LosTech.
 
"The DCMS has been active, but they have primarily been taking advantage of us moving our reserves to the Capellan front to move their own reserves to their Lyran front," says Mark, "I expect raids whilst we are focused on the Confederation, the Combine seems to focus on dealing with Katrina shifting a significant portion of her forces on her League border to her border with the Combine."
 
"I still want to reinforce Quentin and Marduk." says Victoria as she looks around the table, "Even if it is unlikely, I don't want to get important Capellan industrial worlds just to lose two valuable industrial worlds, especially since one of them is our only domestic source of Assault 'Mechs."
 
"Quentin's garrison should be sufficient and we can send the 4th Crucis Lancers or the 1st Chisholm's Raiders to Marduk." replies Yvonne, "It would expose other worlds however unless you wish to resign an RCT from the Capellan invasion."
 
"Just send another unit in the area." answers Victoria, "It may create some vulnerabilities, but it is a price I am willing to pay for this opportunity to break the Capellan Confederation. Worst case scenario is we just liberate any conquered worlds when we launch our invasion of the Combine in a few years after the Liaos have been crippled."
 
"I know of a few promising targets for the LCAF to raid," offers Mark, "If the Archon is willing, she gets a few victories to parade around and the Dracs are kept distracted."
"I'll speak with her and see what she is willing to do." replies Victoria.
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==Author's Chapter Notes==
;Word from the Author: This is the start of the second half of the mid-story. I'm sorry about the time-skip, but as I have said before, I'm trying to avoid getting bogged down with every ongoing event. Anyway, Mad Max didn't want to risk the Wolf's Dragoons signing up with his enemies so he decided to preemptively crush them and make good on his losses with the salvage from the Dragoons.Only it backfired hard and now House Liao is in an even worse position as the AFFS and FWLM is bearing down on it. This upcoming arc will be focused on the invasion, specially the invasion of Tikonov where Victoria is personally getting involved to show the flag. After that, we'll have the final arc of the story.
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