FSRB Chpt 114

==The Federated Suns Reborn - Chapter 114==
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February 3069Interlude - Sian 
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===Sanity of the Chancellor===
Zi-Jin Cheng "Forbidden City"
Sian, Capellan Confederation
February, 3069
Strategic Military Director Talon Zahn sat at the controls of his Yu Huang class Assault Battlemech and watched the clock tick down. Grand Master Ion Rush would be meeting with the Chancellor by now. Making one last plea for sanity. However both the Grand Master and the Strategic Military Director had little hope that Sun-Tzu would listen. The Chancellor had been becoming more and more unstable as the news from the military fronts became grimmer and grimmer. By now he was worse even than his infamous grandfather Maximilian Liao. Planning sessions were little more than him ranting at his military officers as to his "divine plans" and threats that if they continued to fail him they would be executed. Indeed it had been the brutal execution of An Shennu that had been the final straw for both Rush and himself. Watching a fine and loyal officer's face turn purple as she dangled kicking on the end of a rope that had deliberately been cut too short to break her neck had made them realize that the Chancellor must be stopped.
Suddenly alarms began going off all over the place and the faint sounds of gunfire came from the palace. On a specially coded communication's channel Zahn heard the Grand Master's pained voice. <"It is done.">
Even as the implications of those three simple words crashed into the Strategic Military Director the channel was cut off by jamming. But not before the sounds of gunfire came through. If Ion Rush wasn't already dead he soon would be. Still his sacrifice would not be in vain. Talon Zahn keyed his own communications channel on and spoke with grim resolve. <"The tyrant is dead! Death to tyrants!">
Pushing his Yu Huang up to full speed he left the armored revetment he had formed up his forces in (ironically designed to aid in the defense of the Forbidden City) and headed for the palace and it's already alerted defenders. Behind him came the 1st Battalion of the Red Lancers and both under strength battalions of Warrior House Imarra who had been ordered by their now no doubt dead Master to obey him. The company of Death Commandos on patrol at the perimeter knew they stood no chance against nearly nine times their own number, but immediately rushed to defensive positions and opened fire. Buying time for the rest of their battalion within the Forbidden Palace to deploy...
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Hours later Zahn allowed the front lines to push past him as he panted and fell back to have his battlemech rearmed and the heat sinks fluids purged. Which allowed him to look out at the strategic situation he and his fellow rebels found themselves in...
His own task force had managed by now to seize almost two thirds of the Celestial Palace and Forbidden City, but roughly a company of Death Commandos remained as well as elements of Palace Security. The outcome wasn't in doubt, but the butchers bill was still going to be high. Worse they had managed to secure the throne room and there they had found the heavily mutilated body of Ion Rush and the other officers who had confronted and then killed the Chancellor. Although the Chancellor's body itself had been taken by the Death Commandos no doubt.
The rest of the Red Lancers and the 10th Sian Dragoons who had joined them were battling with the 1st Sian Dragoons who had remained loyal to the now dead Chancellor - although it was doubtful if the 1st Dragoons knew that. They were dug in hard at the Hellespoint Industrial's facility and were fighting hard against their foes. Worse they 1st were replacing any damaged or destroyed battlemechs from machines that had been completed but not yet shipped out. Still the fighting there was swinging in favor of the rebels.
The 7th Confederation Reserve Cavalry, although not formally part of the rebel faction to begin with had thrown in their lot with Zahn's conspirators immediately and had seized the Cere's Metal facility here on Sian that they had been guarding with few casualties. They were now shipping out battlemechs and spare parts to the rest of the rebel factions as quickly as they could.
One final area that was of immense satisfaction was the attack upon the Maskirovka's headquarters in downtown Zi-Jin Cheng. The 11th Sian Dragoons while under strength and extremely green had crashed through the improvised defenses and set piece fortifications around the Mask's hated HQ building. Those defences had been designed to resist rioters or infantry, not 2 battlemech battalions with supporting forces and had crumbled swiftly. Soon the 11th would have full control of the HQ building...
Just as Zahn's battlemech stepped up to the makeshift repair facility to begin rearming, there was a flash in the corner of his view screen which darkened automatically. The flash came from the location of the Maskirovka's HQ building and Talon Zahn's horrified glance at the sensors told him everything he needed to know - downtown Zi-Jin Cheng had just been wiped out by a strategic grade nuclear weapon detonation from the exact location of the HQ building. No doubt a suicide charge that not even he had known about. Even as he hunkered his battlemech down as best he could to withstand the blast wave he began to weep furious tears at the loss of life those bastards had just inflicted upon Sian in an act of petty vengeance!
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Two weeks after Ion Rush had sacrificed himself to kill the mad Chancellor the former Strategic Military Director of the Capellan Confederation looked at the holo-table map of Sian and the horrendous picture it painted to his trained eyes and almost felt like weeping again. He knew he had seemed to age decades in a few days, but he forced himself to face the assembled leaders of the rebellion with his resolve unbuckled. "It's almost over..."
He pointed to the Forbidden City. "We have now secured the palace and are rooting out the last few hold outs from the Death Commandos. By now they are mostly hiding and trying to ambush infantry patrols, their last battlemech fell to our guns last week. While a few got away in that Leopard class dropship we suspect that was merely an escort for the dead tyrant's body."
"Are we sure he is dead?" Zhong-shao Georgia Shippe asked quietly.
"Certain. We have confirmed security camera footage and witness accounts from servants of the Death Commandos carrying Sun-Tzu's body with them as they fled. The tyrant is dead. We have Ion Rush and his companions to thank for that at least." Talon Zahn ground out before continuing on. "We have secured most of the world, a few hold outs are still fighting us, but after the Murder of Zi-Jin Cheng few of the people of Sian are prepared to side with them. Even elements of the 1st Sian Dragoons have switched sides to support us."
"In orbit, the CCS Franco Martel has sided with us and destroyed the CCS Hexare when it tried to bombard us. The CCS Xizang and the CCS Drozan have fled with the tyrant's body." Which had more of the officers looking relieved that at least they wouldn't face orbital bombardment. "However the fires caused by the nuclear detonation in Zi-Jin Cheng are still raging, not only in the city itself but also within the jungles around the city. We must redeploy forces now that active combat operations are winding down to fight those or face and even worse disaster than the one we already face... As well as purging the planets government and Home Guard from Liao-Loyalists..."
The various officers all began nodding and making suggestions as to what they should do next... Although all avoided bringing up the elephant in the room - namely who would be Chancellor or if indeed there would be a new Chancellor...
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