GblaRCS Chpt 27

==Guided by the light of a (Red) Cameron Star - Chapter 27 -==
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"She might be be the one missing an eye, but the ilKhan is the one who is blind if he cannot see how completely deranged that woman is."Stephen Cage, Khan of Clan Ice Hellion - 2834CE
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===Grim reports from the Inner Sphere===
Hall of Khans, Strana Mechty - Kerensky Cluster, Clan Space – 2835
Sat in the ilKhan's chair, Nicholas Kerensky looked around the Great Hall, regarding not only the faces of the nineteen Khans all faithfully in attendance but also the building itself. Not for the first time he judged that the engineers who had rebuilt the place after its destruction over a decade ago now had not quite gotten it right. There was, in his opinion, definitely something off, despite his explicit instructions that it should be restored to the state exactly as it was before the spite of Franklin Hallis had reduced the original hall to rubble.
The problem was that he just couldn't figure out what was different from before, other than the vacant chair at the table where Sarah McEvedy had once sat everything was exactly as he remembered, so he couldn't get it fixed.
It vexed him, as did a great number of other things these days, but that particular vexation should have been something that was easily remedied, but annoyingly wasn't.
Pushing thoughts of the inexplicably imperfect building aside Kerensky leaned forward in his chair, striking a serious pose as he meshed his fingers together on the table in front of him. "My Khans" he began to speak in an authoritative voice, a tone he had secretly practiced with his late lamented wife who had coached him on how he should present himself. "I assume you have all read the intelligence reports our scouts brought back from the Inner Sphere, quiaff?" he checked, rightly assuming they all had from their grave expressions. Usually before these meetings there was a some boisterous banter between the Khans, levity even, along with good-natured, or not so good-natured insults and ribbing, but today that had been entire absent as they filed in.
"Aff" they all chorused.
"Good. Then you all know why this may well be the darkest day of my life." Kerensky stated. "Darker than when I lived through the occupation of Terra by the foul usurper Amaris, darker than when the Chalcas Clan escaped justice, darker than when my beloved wife Jennifer died or even than when my own father, the Great Father, died." he told them. "My father was a visionary, he knew that when he led the SLDF into exile that in his absence the Traitor Lords would engulf the Inner Sphere in fire and blood, a new Age of War, but I cannot believe that he would not have stayed and fought if he had known then how large the scale of slaughter was actually going to be."
Most of the Khans nodded their agreement as Kerensky looked near to weeping, more than one of the Khans rightly assuming however he was just putting on an act, though naturally they would never voice such dangerous thoughts aloud. "Billions dead, nay tens, hundreds of billions." Kerensky resumed speaking. "WMD employed against civilian targets so often that I can only believe that these monsters, for monsters is what they surely are, were simply blasé about raising whole cities with thermonuclear fire or poisoning entire worlds with chemical or biological weapons." he declared. "Even Amaris, Amaris, was not so cavalier when it came to unleashing his strategic arsenal."
"Savages." Khan Ellie Kinnison of the Steel Vipers responded, shaking her own head in apparent dismay though as ever her gaze was possessive regarding the ilKhan. There was a time that she had looked at him with her one working eye with fawning adoration instead, but it was self-evident to anyone paying attention that at some point she had clearly gotten her fangs into him. Those of a cynical nature assumed that she had exploited the death of the ilKhan's wife in a tragic accident to her own ends, his brother-in-law certainly thought so, but even the more naïve of observers was pretty sure she was sharing the ilKhan's bed these days.
It was generally considered a crying shame that Andery Kerensky, the ilKhan's younger brother, had fallen in battle during Operation Klondike, not least because in his absence there was nobody to tell Nicholas bluntly that regardless of whether or not the woman concerned gave off vibes that she ****** like a crazed weasel, and Ellie Kinnison very much did that, you just don't stick it in the crazy.
To be fair it wasn't like Jennifer Winson had been particularly well-liked either. The rumors that she was actually Jennifer Amaris certainly didn't help, and she was undeniably ruthless and calculating with great influence over her husband, but at least she wasn't completely unhinged like her replacement and as a result her stock in the public's affections seemed to rise with each year that passed.
Continuing his address to the Khans Nicholas Kerensky leaned forward. "Our intelligence analysts inform me that not only was this so-called 'First Succession War' the bloodiest in history, if you were to include the multitudes who perished due to indirect consequences, such as hunger, environmental collapse and an inability to obtain medical care, more may have died than in all other wars humanity has ever fought…" he paused for emphasis, "combined" he said sounding genuinely aghast.
Elizabeth Hazen, the Khan of Clan Jade Falcon had a stony expression but her eyes were full of fury. "Aaron was right," she said. "We should have placed Aleksandr on the throne in 2781 and beaten back the barbarians when they sought to invade the Terran Hegemony" she continued, everyone knowing who she meant. As the rumored lover of General Aaron DeChavilier before his death in the Pentagon Civil War she was perhaps not the most unbiased judge of the man and his opinions, but several other khans nodded their agreement, including surprisingly Jerome Winson of Clan Wolf who was usually a bitter rival of both Hazen herself and her clan as a whole.
"I long believed my father would never have accepted the role, but if he had known what we do now I am no longer so sure" ilKhan Kerensky responded. "If only we could turn back time" he added wistfully. "I must say however at this juncture that the news I personally found hardest to believe is that after slaughtering each other on an industrial scale for thirty-five years, many of their own worlds rendered as lifeless as those of the Hegemony, that the ceasefire between the Traitor Lords lasted less than a decade before they started right up again where they left off!" he exclaimed incredulously. "This insane 'Second Succession War' was already in full swing when our scouting parties arrived in the Inner Sphere and only seemed to be escalating when they set out for home with their findings."
"It is naught but madness." Khan Stephan Cage of the Ice Hellions firmly agreed. A reasoned, compassionate man with a strong sense of justice, as well as being a skilled warrior proven in the field, what had occurred during their absence completely appalled him.
"At least we now know why we never heard of the Chalcas Clan again" Kesar Jerricho of Clan Coyote interjected. "They must have arrived at the Inner Sphere and realised that there was no prospect of rallying the Great Houses together against us" he suggested.
"They would have arrived during the peace, or should I say temporary ceasefire, between the Succession Wars" Raymond Sainze of the Fire Mandrills noted.
"What of it?" Jerricho asked rhetorically. "After over three decades of unleashing thermonuclear fire upon each other I doubt they were on good enough terms to suddenly bury their differences" he said wryly. "They were still skirmishing with each other throughout it seems."
"I assume we are all in agreement that this so-called 'Canada Tribe' was in fact the Chalcas Clan gathering intelligence and supplies, quiaff?" Kerensky asked the room, once again responded to by a chorus of 'Aff' in reply. "They only seemed to raid the Kuritans for supplies from what our scouts could ascertain, I have my own theory as to why but am interested in hearing the views of others" the ilKhan requested.
"It may have simply been because the Draconis Combine lies closest to the Exodus Road." Stephen McKenna of the Snow Ravens replied, "although if they learned of this Kentares Massacre as we now have that may have also played a rol.e" he suggested. "Even amidst all the other horrors that episode stood out to me as an act of utter barbarism" he opined.
"You think the Chalcas Clan would be so bothered by civilian deaths that that would seek a measure of vengeance in their name after what they did you your own Snow Ravens at Dehra Dun, quineg?" Sandra Tseng of the Ghost Bears asked, frowning.
Before looking to Tseng to reply McKenna's gaze briefly met that of Nicholas Kerensky. Both knew that it was not a Wolverine nuclear device that had initiated over Dehra Dun despite the official record. "Pushing a button to incinerate people from afar is not the same as looking an unarmed man, woman or child in the eyes before you cut them down with a sword." he told her. "The Combine murdered, no perhaps I should say they butchered tens of millions of people on Kentares in a way that seems to have horrified even the other Traitor Lords" he said. "I have even more reason to hate the Chalcas Clan than the rest of you, but even I will credit them with enough humanity that when they learned of Kentares it would have made raiding the Combine for supplies a guiltless, nay satisfying, course of action" he said. "If I was there with my fleet when the people of Kentares were being slaughtered I would have smashed my way to Luthien and bombarded the Imperial Palace from orbit until the rubble itself was reduced to dust" he stated through gritted teeth.
Several of the khans beat their fists on the table in thundering agreement. "The blood of the first Director-General still flows true it seems." Mitchell Loris of Clan Mongoose spoke up, he and McKenna nodding to each other in what seemed like mutual respect.
Kerensky frowned. Quite how or why the Snow Ravens and Clan Mongoose had grown so close in recent years was a mystery that even the Watch had failed to ascertain. After the Wolverine's escaped it had seemed initially that Loris was planning to take advantage of the weakness of the Snow Ravens to expand his clan's holdings on Circe but then suddenly they became great allies instead. Did McKenna have something on Loris perhaps, the ilKhan wondered? Jennifer had seemed to think so before her death and he had learned to trust her instincts as regards dark deeds and political machinations, if so what was it?
"Yes. Kentares." Seth van Houten of Clan Burrock now spoke. "Surely a proof that the so-called honor of the Draconis Combine, and that of the bushido code of the samurai class in particular, is a mere fiction" he said, smirking at Raymond Sainze of the Fire Mandrills who visibly bristled at the remark. Sainze was himself born in the Combine to a noble samurai family and would have demanded a Trial of Grievance against van Houten for this clearly deliberate public insult if he wasn't having to deal with so many internal problems and divisions within his own clan at that moment. In some ways factions within the Fire Mandrills hated each other nearly as much as they collectively hated the Burrocks, and it was a constant chore trying to keep them all in line. Despite Sainze himself being raised in a culture of unthinking obedience and deference to authority the clan he built was anything but that, others joked that the Fire Mandrills were so fragmented internally that they were effectively the Free Worlds League of the clans and Sainze himself was the Captain-General with a Combine accent.
"In the light of this information do we still fear an attack by the Great Houses or are we to stand down much of our naval strength again?" Jason Karrige of the Widowmakers queried. "Returning most of the capital ships to the Norfolk and San Diego boneyards would free up considerable manpower and resources" he pointed out. "The ilKhan was wise to mobilize us against possible invasion by the Traitor Lords when he, I mean we, lost track of the Chalchas Clan but BattleMech production suffered as a result and that meant we could not fight trials in the number and scale we did before."
Nicholas Kerensky narrowed his eyes at Karrige, yearning for the day he had the opportunity to get rid of the man for good. It was only a shame that the Wolverines had not rid him of the conniving, odious creep before they escaped. "It was to learn if we could do that safely that I chose to dispatch our scouting parties to reconnoiter and investigate the Inner Sphere." he responded. "While it is true that Battlemech production dropped off as resources were devoted towards our naval assets, I made sure that Research and Development continued as before, with no reduction in funding so the long-term impact should be minimal."
"Indeed, ilKhan Kerensky." Elizabeth Hazen loyally backed him up. "In fact, by not building more of the older designs that were going to be rendered obsolete almost immediately, the average quality, if not the quantity of our ground forces is rising steeply" she said, ignoring the old adage that quantity has a quality all its own. "My clan's new Wakazashi assault mech is superior to any Star League era machine in the same weight class, and I will freely admit that the Ghost Bear's Minsk and the Nova Cat's Vision Quest are superlative, to name but two."
Jerome Winson nodded. "Even the up-gunned and up-armoured versions of the Marauder and Battlemaster that turned them into assault mechs puts the machines we rode during Operation Klondike not so long past firmly in the shade." he agreed. "To think we once considered our lighter and more compact improved versions of SLDF weaponry as the pinnacle of military science" he continued, smiling. "What I would not give to have a few of our latest model ER PPC, Gauss Rifle and Pulse Laser designs back when we fought Amaris." he said, acknowledging the Khans of the Snow Ravens, Burrocks and Coyotes in turn, their clans having developed those particular weapons.
"I would rank the Bane assault 'mech that my own clan developed as a match for any other." John Fletcher of the Hell's Horses interjected, feeling left out.
"If the fight took place at extreme range and finished in less than ten minutes before the ammunition ran out perhaps" Elizabeth Hazen responded sarcastically. "Assuming that most of the autocannons did not jam after only a few salvos" she added dismissively. Only an infantryman like Fletcher with little understanding of BattleMech warfare would come up with a machine that mounted ten ultra AC/2 autocannons as its main armament she thought. True, in ideal circumstances they would sandblast the armor right off you at ranges where you could barely hit back, but the Bane only carried four tons of autocannon ammunition, ultra-autocannons chewed through ammo like it was popcorn, and they were not nearly reliable enough to entirely depend upon for her tastes anyway.
"The Bane is intended as part of a combined-arms formation, it is not a toy for one-on-one trials against a single foe." Fletcher replied, his tone similar to what you might use to lecture an ignorant child. "If the Great Houses of the Inner Sphere come for us, or the Wolverines return, neither are going to play by our rules" he said. "Why do you think the ilKhan prefers us to call them the Chalcas Clan?" he asked rhetorically.
"Your words verge on praise for the ways of the Chalcas, Khan Fletcher." Ellie Kinnison told him, glaring with her one good eye. "A dangerous position to take." she warned coldly.
"Failure to recognize that an enemy is formidable is more dangerous." Fletcher retorted. "I defeated many a BattleMech unit of the Rim Worlds Republic because they thought little of infantry and tanks and paid the price for their hubris" he stated from experience.
"The Khan of the Hell's Horses makes a valid point." Nicholas Kerensky interjected. "We learn more from our mistakes than our successes, and we underestimate our foes at our peril." he said. "Although for the sake of decorum at least it behoves all to not mention the Chalcas Clan by the name they had when they still had a seat at this table" he added.
Kinnison appeared hurt that Kerensky had not sided with her completely and Stephen McKenna fought back a smile not only at her expression but the thought that the ilKhan might have to metaphorically sleep on the couch tonight. It may have been politically expedient to go along with Kerensky's lies regarding what had happened at Dehra Dun, but the lack of remorse shown by the ilKhan regarding the whole affair meant that the leadership of the Snow Ravens was never going to trust the man again. His saKhan, Joyce Merrell, had been a close friend of Khan McEvedy and it was through that connection that McKenna discovered that McEvedy herself was not the only Khan that had issues with the way the ilKhan ran things. In fact when Mitchell Loris had tried to exploit the temporary weakness of the Snow Ravens after the nuclear destruction of much of Dehra Dun he had been 'motivated' to change his plans when presented with a recording of a conversation between him and Sarah McEvedy where they both criticised the ilKhan harshly.
While it was a threat of exposure that made Mitchell back down to begin with, both clans quickly realized that since neither of them were apparently deluded enough to blindly follow Nicholas Kerensky like the more sycophantic clans did, both would greatly benefit from cooperation between the like-minded rather than competition between them. When let in on the Snow Raven's darkest secret, that it was not the Wolverines who had struck Dehra Dun but the Raven's themselves by accident when one of their aerospace fighters carrying a nuclear strike package was shot down, Mitchell had been understandably shocked for a moment, even more so when McKenna added that in retrospect he was now by no means certain who was responsible for the earlier destruction of Great Hope.
It would certainly explain one mystery if the nuking of Great Hope was a set-up by either the ilKhan himself or a clan that was particularly hostile to the Wolverines. When Franklin Hallis hijacked the battleship McKenna's Pride in orbit over Strana Mechty, with the notable exception of blasting the Hall of Khans, all the targets he struck with orbital bombardments were military ones as he covered the withdrawal of his people from Bearcat and their other holdings on the planet. With the firepower he had at hand it would have been trivially easy for Hallis to devastate much of the planet, but he refrained from doing so.
A ruthless willingness to destroy one of your own cities to prevent it falling into enemy hands was difficult to square with a reluctance to destroy enemy cities, and although they did not know this Stephen McKenna and Loris Mitchell were not the only khans harboring suspicions about the whole thing.
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===Managing the politics of angry Khans===
The ilKhan once again looked around the room, gauging the mood of the khans. "I believe that we have come to a crossroads as to what direction the cans will take in the future, and indeed what it is that we fundamentally stand for and why it is so important that we do not fail" he said. "My father upheld what we have come to know as the Hidden Hope doctrine, a philosophy in which we needed to stand apart from the Inner Sphere, not involving ourselves in their petty squabbles, but also stand ready to defend it from an external threat if one ever arose" he continued. "I believed in my father's vision, created the clans as a means to not only reunify the SLDF-in-exile but also to create a strong, selfless warrior society that could be the shield of humanity if the day ever came one were needed, but looking at what has befallen the Inner Sphere since we left I confess to be unable to imagine what greater threat to humanity there could actually be than the fiends who falsely claim the title of First Lord" he declared.
"My ilKhan, you do not mean to lead us in a crusade to liberate the Inner Sphere surely, quineg?" Sandra Tseng asked in shock.
"Neg" Kerensky responded to her relief. "At least not yet" he added more concerningly. "Even if the Traitor Lords were not even more nuke-happy than Amaris or the Taurians at their worst, our prospects for victory in a conventional war would be small. Our technological superiority gives our war machines a significant edge over anything they have, and the skill and valor of our warriors is unparalleled, but their numerical superiority is so great we would be eventually be ground to dust against them if we launched our crusade now" he said with feigned sadness. "If we are ever to be able to liberate humanity from the darkness than has befallen it we will need to still further widen the capability gap between our equipment and theirs, and also expand our armies by at least an order of magnitude, realistically far more unless their technological regression becomes truly absurd."
The Khans looked shocked. "Supporting a military of that size will require a massive increase in our industrial base and a population increase far beyond what we were expecting to manage" Stephen McKenna responded. "I cannot see how we could achieve such a thing this century, perhaps not even by the end of the following one" he said doubtfully.
"I am under no delusions that I myself will live long enough to see the Inner Sphere liberated, Khan McKenna." Kerensky told him honestly. "The glory of that achievement will rest on the head of a future ilKhan and the leadership of the clans of that era when they march triumphantly through the streets of Terra and raise the Cameron Star over the homeworld of humanity once again" he said. "It may not even be necessary, if the Great Houses come to their senses and stop slaughtering each other then the clans can once again embrace the Hidden Hope doctrine rather than the Crusader doctrine as I call it, but cognizant of the facts presented can any here say in their heart-of-hearts that our duty lies elsewhere than ending this seemingly eternal carnage, quineg?"
The Khans looked to each other before eventually responding 'neg' one after another.
Kerensky smiled. "I am gratified we are all in accord" he said. "I propose we send a second expedition at some point, this timed so they can report back another five years on how things are developing in the Inner Sphere" he said. "The First Succession War lasted thirty-five years so I do not envision the Second coming to a halt anytime soon, but I do not claim omniscience and the Traitor Lords might yet surprise me and seek a peaceful resolution to their petty, though bloody, disputes."
Kerensky audibly sighed and shook his head sadly. "To be honest however, if the destruction wreaked by the First War was not enough to make them see sense I do not hold out much hope of any of them having a Road to Damascus moment any time soon" he said regretfully.
"What of the Chalcas Clan? I assume our reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering missions will continue to watch out for signs of them, quaff?" Jason Karriage checked.
"Aff" the ilKhan confirmed. "If, for example, one of the Great Houses were to sudden field clan weaponry of the previous generation, that which the Chalcas would have the ability to produce, I would deem that worthy of a more detailed and thorough investigation."
"If they aligned themselves with one of the Traitor Lords they could certainly tip the balance in their favor." Jerome Winson observed. "Given that they previously raided the Draconis Combine it might be wise to keep a particularly close eye on the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns as the powers most at odds with Kurita."
"Their liberal ideals would align closer to that of Steiner or Davion than certain others." Ellie Kinnison concurred, saying the word 'liberal' as if it were distasteful in the extreme.
"If they truly lived up to those professed ideals Circe would have two fewer large craters on its surface." Colleen Schmitt of Clan Blood Spirit observed wryly, "but given their evident antipathy towards the Combine I would have to agree, at least in principle." she continued. "I feel I must state at this juncture however that as fundamental a shift in the core principles of our society as to abandon the Hidden Hope doctrine for a more interventionist one is a decision that should not be made lightly. I for one would wish to discuss it with my saKhan and others before throwing my support behind it."
ilKhan Kerensky nodded, the Blood Spirits were nothing if not traditionalist and conservative in their views and he had not expected even the more radical clans to accept such a fundamental paradigm shift in their societies without time to contemplate what it might mean. "Not only do I understand your position Khan Schmitt, if anything I would encourage all here to do likewise" he responded. "Until I became privy to the wretched state of the Inner Sphere in these dark times I would have never considered veering so far away from the course my father laid out for us but knowing him as I do I cannot believe he would have expected us to dogmatically stick to his exact instructions regardless of circumstances."
"I believe we all expected the Age of War to resume after the Exodus, in the worst case scenario the Age of War as it was before the Ares Conventions when nuclear weapons were employed against civilian targets, if not routinely, but it seems we were all wildly optimistic." Seth Van Houten said glumly.
"The question I pose to you all, one that I do not expect you to be able to answer with absolute certainty without first consulting with your subordinates, is whether our people will support a crusade to free the Inner Sphere from the murderous tyrants who rule there" Nicholas Kerensky asked the khans. "This will not be a simple undertaking. It will require decades of planning and hard work, requiring a unity of purpose and a collective will that we have not truly enjoyed since Operation Klondike, but I cannot see how we can stand idly by knowing what we now know."
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" Stephan Cage quoted something he had read once.
"The armies of the Successor States are not merely numerous, supported by vast populations from which they can replace their losses, we must assume that you cannot fight each other for this long without learning something of the art of war." Elizabeth Hazen said thoughtfully. "They hone their skills against each other with every battle, if we are not to lose our own edge then we cannot allow ourselves to neglect our trials against each other" she opined. Hazen had always been among the most outspoken proponents of holding as many trials as possible, perhaps due to her viewing them as the Gunslinger Program reborn, something her old regiment the Black Watch had strongly embraced. Behind her back however other khans liked to joke that a decade ago when she had to put her money where her mouth was in the trial against the Wolverines over ownership of the Brian Cache found on their territory her Jade Falcons were brutally hammered and instead of accepting the loss of the trial with good grace she went crying to the ilKhan saying it wasn't fair.
"Particularly as an expansion in our forces would otherwise risk greatly diluting the quality of our forces when we need both quantity and quality to achieve the goal the ilKhan proposes" Ellie Kinnison added for herself. The Steel Vipers had long advocated an internal policy that advocated keeping standards as high as possible, hence the reason a smaller proportion of their sibko trainees eventually made it into the warrior caste than in any other clan, so some reluctance on her part to shift the balance from quality to quantity was understandable.
Kerensky smiled. "We will never have the sheer weight of numbers required to bring the two thousand inhabited systems of the Inner Sphere to heel" he said. "We will surely need the finest of warriors and the most advanced of weaponry to make up what we lack in manpower, so I recognize that we cannot allow a narrowing of the gap in skills and technology even as new clusters and galaxies are formed and rates of BattleMech production are increased."
Hazen and Kinnison seemed to accept that, and as Kerensky bade the khans to talk among themselves as to how they might wish to proceed from here he felt a sense of relief it seemed to be going as well as he had hoped.
Twelve years prior making an example of the Wolverines had seemed to be a good way to strengthen his hold over the clans and consolidate his power-base, and indeed if events had panned out differently it might well have worked, but their successful escape had instead ended up weakening his position and severely diminishing his previous aura of untrammeled authority. In retrospect perhaps it would have been better to make an example of Clan Widowmaker for the unscrupulous and murderous actions of their khan and his loyalists for nuking Great Hope and pinning the blame on the McEvedy's people themselves, but having gone along with it at the time it was too late afterwards to backpeddle.
His temporary solution to shoring up his wavering power and influence had worked for a few years, drumming up fears that Franklin Hallis and the Wolverines might return any day leading a coalition of the Great Houses to crush the clans, but as time passed and the feared invasion by the Inner Sphere never happened the ilKhan's tight grip on clan society started to weaken and people started to openly criticise his rule.
The fact was McEvedy had outwitted Nicholas Kerensky. Her 'Operation Switchback' had not only successfully extracted her people, the masterstroke of using McKenna's Pride to cover their withdrawal from Strana Mechty and just how hard and effectively the Wolverine rearguard units had fought was quietly admired as tactically brilliant even as the destructions of Great Hope and Dehra Dun were reviled. It was also hard to ignore that the Wolverine's had been ahead of the pack when it came to introducing new weaponry and equipment, though the other clans had since overtaken them, so was the ilkKhan's perfect society truly the best model?
Clan Wolverine, now known as the 'Chalcas Clan' in polite society, were surely odious and dezgra but they had quite blatantly taken on Kerensky and won, despite just how heavily the odds had seemingly been stacked against them. For all the ilKhan's propaganda portraying their escape as craven, the fact they somehow actually brought their industrial base and workforce with them when they left made it look far more like a planned strategic withdrawal than it did a cowardly retreat.
Sending an expedition to the Inner Sphere to investigate what had happened to the Wolverines had been a 'Hail Mary play' of sorts for Nicholas Kerensky, but it had turned out better than he might have ever hoped. Despite expecting to find it war-torn the sheer scale of destruction wrought by the First Succession War, and now seemingly being repeated in the Second, provided the ilKhan with something he could use to distract the masses and reassert his authority.
The Hidden Hope doctrine was one thing but it didn't stir the blood like the prospect of joining a righteous crusade against evil did, and with billions upon billions dead and multiple worlds aflame it should be an easy task to get everyone angry with the murderous Great Houses not him. Given how many people in clan leadership positions had been born in the Terran Hegemony, how many of them had now learned what horrors had befallen their homeworlds, all he needed to do was portray himself as the man to follow to achieve justice.
Fortunately most of the khans had fought against Amaris in a full-scale war, one in which numbers and logistics mattered, so they knew it wouldn't just be a matter of loading up all their BattleMechs on JumpShips and heading back to the Inner Sphere. They knew they needed to build up their forces to have any chance of success, and they knew that it would take years, decades, to do so, this affording the ilKhan plenty of time to work with.
If he could stay on top long enough to be lying in his grave after a death due to natural causes that would be a successful outcome for Nicholas Kerensky, if he could leave a legacy that would see him long remembered as a Great Man like his father was as well that would be even better.
It was a shame his wife Jennifer was no longer at his side, he did miss both her company and her counsel greatly, but he had found some degree of comfort with Ellie Kinnison. Despite her tendency towards clinginess annoying him, and his occasional doubts as to her sanity, the woman did ****** like a crazed weasel making it considerably easier to overlook her flaws.
There was no way in hell he was going to agree to producing a child in the Iron Wombs with himself as gene-father and her as gene-mother though. He knew both himself and Kinnison well enough to know that no good whatsoever would come of those genes being mashed together.
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==Chapter Notes==
*;Notes from the Author : And we finally get a glimpse into what's been happening back in the Clan Homeworlds all this time with a look into the Hall of Khans. Lots of butterflies here, and a lot of people who were dead by now in canon but are still alive here (and one that was alive but now isn't). With the Woilverines very much not annihiliated they do not become known to the clanners as the 'Not Named Clan' but rather the 'Chalcas Clan' (in clan speech 'chalcas' means those that challenge clan society and the caste system).We'll start with Jason Karrige, Khan of Clan Widowmaker, who in canon was killed by Franklin Hallis at the Battle of Barbados in 2824 (ilKhan Kerensky set it up to happen). This of course did not occur in this timeline and the ilKhan kept it secret what had really happened at Great Hope (he was concerned that the Wolverine's sucessful escape weakened his position so keeping the Widowmakers in his pocket was useful).Originally Nicholas Kerensky was killed (perhaps by accident) during a Trial between Clan Wolf and Clan Widowmaker that took place in 2824, with Khan Cal Jorgensson of the Widowmakers executed as a result. This trial never takes place in this timeline so Kerensky is still alive (and with Karrige still alive, Jorgensson is only the saKhan of the Widowmakers... and also still alive). In canon, Clan Widowmaker itself was absorbed by Clan Wolf in 2834 (because of what happened to the ilKhan) but here they're still going strong. Because there was no Trial of Absorbtion it means that Cyrus Elam, khan of Clan Goliath Scorpion is also still alive incidentally.Another khan who is still alive here that wasn't by now in canon is Sandra Rosse of Clan Nova Cat. She was originally killed during a series of trials after the annihiliation of the Woverines (the Nova Cats had voted that the Brian Cache found on Wolverine territory should belong to them) but with the Wolverines still out there such trials were suspended because the clans feared a Wolverine-led Inner Sphere invasion.In canon after the destruction of Dehra Dun the khan of Clan Mongoose, Mitchell Loris, tried to take advantage of the weakness of Clan Snow Raven, but was threatened with tapes the Snow Ravens had of Sarah McEvedy talking to Mitchell about the ilKhan (McEvedy was good friends with the saKhan of the Ravens). This made Mitchell back off fast (his comments about the ilKhan must have been pretty critical) but here things have progressed even further into an alliance between the two clans (neither trust the ilKhan one bit for good reason and they don't want to be the next clan to be made an example of).There is plenty more I could say but if I did these author's notes would be novella length, but I'll finish with Ellie Kinnison of Clan Steel Viper. In canon, she became obsessed with Nicholas Kerensky to the point she tried to assassinate his wife Jennifer Winson/Amaris/Cameron (delete according to your preferred theory as to her identity) and take her place. Here she was still very much obsessed but she's the one still alive and Jennifer is not... I'll let the readership work out what might have happened during all the confusion and turmoil after the Wolverine's escaped.Butterfly effects or heavy aerospace fighter effects?
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Chapter 27