Kapustin Siege

## The Kapustin Siege

 10, 971
average reports put at 120,000 to 450,000)

### Conditions and Build Up

The Kapustin Siege was the final clash of the Uprising War. It was a conflict between the security forces of Trans-World Mining and the Kapustin People's Army, a rebel group seeking to oust the corporation from control of the system.

The conflict began when the exploitation of the mostly indentured workforce finally reached a breaking point. Trans-World had over the time it held claim on the system, imported a large workforce from the Lyran Commonwealth and the Rim Worlds Republic. Most of the workers were lured to Kapustin with promises of wealth and independence, only to find themselves trapped by the "company store" policies of Trans-World.

When the Uprising started in 2510, Kapustin was mostly uninvolved and left alone. However, as other systems began over throwing their corporate rulers, Trans-World became more and more draconian with the systems they held. In addition, Draconis Combine ex-pats became targets for security forces, since former Kuritans had joined the uprising in other systems (See Burning of Rakushima).

### The Crackdowns

On 2520, Trans-World CEO Vul Garath ordered his security forces to disperse a worker protest over food rations and work conditions in the capital city and spaceport of Begut Koshki. The situation escalated as Trans-World Chief of Security, Flynn Donaldson, would often find excuses for his forces to violently crack down on protestors. In many cases, security forces would provoke the largely peaceful protests in order to brutalize them into dispersing.

When the protests became larger, a campaign to single out organizers went into effect. Many protest leaders and organizers were arrested, some simply went missing. It wasn't until the body of Sergei Ramonov, a prominent labor organizer and opposition leader, was found that the protests became more violent, as protestors began to push back on the outnumbered security forces.

For the most part, the Combine ex-pats stayed out of the conflict except to provide medical aid to protestors. This caused Donaldson to order security forces to single the Kuritan families out. This took the form of stores being closed up for "violations", citizens being arrested and harassed by security forces, and other such tactics meant to intimidate.

However, this had an opposite effect. When security forces killed a prominent member of the community, Misaki Yoshiro, a pacifist monk of the Pure Land Sect, they framed him as providing assistance to terrorists and used that as an excuse to raid the Buddhist temple in Begut Koshki. This galvanized many those that were former DCMS, who then began clandestinely helping the protestors. When all of the monks of the temple were arrested, many of these former DCMS soldiers became "ronin" in order to directly assist the protestors.

On August 19th, 2521, a protest in the factory district had clashed with security forces. Claiming that the crowd was armed, Donaldson ordered live rounds to be used to disperse the protestors. Over 100 protestors were killed, including Lin Mei Mao, a prominent Buddhist nun that had been calling for negotiations and an end to the violence of the security forces, and many more wounded,

Her death sparked a series of targeted reprisals as various leaders of the security forces responsible started being killed by "ronin". It was a suicide attack by three kuritan ronin that left Flynn Donaldson and his detail dead that finally turned the protests into an armed rebellion. The ronin had ambushed Donaldson and publicly beheaded him, before committing seppuku after imploring the citizens of Kapustin to rise up. All of this was caught by various media outlets and broadcast on channels not under corporate control.

### The Fighting Starts

With the execution of Flynn Donaldson, CEO Garath ordered the entire spaceport of Begut Koshki to be put under martial law. Security forces brutalized the populace in its search for anyone involved with the recent protests. When leaders began being executed without trial, the protests turned into armed clashes. Most of the unrest had stayed in the city, however when a citizen journalist managed to get footage of security forces lining protestors up after arresting them and executing them, parts of the countryside joined the resistance.

The fighting outside the city quickly turned against the security forces, having found themselves outnumbered 20 to 1 in many cases. As Trans-World began to lose control of the planet (with the exception of Begut Koshki), Garath ordered his new Chief of Operations, Julin Rudiani, to abandon the countryside and destroy all of its facilities in the retreat. "Salt the earth behind you" was the command given by CEO Vul Garath.  With winter coming, this forced the rebel forces pause in order to reorganize supplies to make sure people didn't starve. Even with these efforts, many didn't survive the extreme rationing forced by the scorched earth tactic. Over 300,000 civilians died from the policies of Trans-World.

The Trans-Worlds strategy was to wait until spring, then push back out and retake the planet. They would simply hold the Begut Koshki while everything outside starved. In the meantime, the security forces turned the city into a ghetto. Only the area around the spaceport was given priority for supplies. Civilians often found themselves used as slave labor for building or repairing defenses or as human shields.

### The Siege

In Dec of 2526, the newly formed Kapustin People's Army launched a surprise offensive on the city. Using salvaged light strike fighters, the Kapustin Night Witches had waited until near white out conditions to launch a series of bombing attacks that crippled the drop ships of the security forces. Once completed, the rebel forces started into the city.

For 45 days, the fighting in the capital city was vicious, with winter storms that were common to the time of year adding to the misery. The security forces were better trained and armed, but outnumbered. To offset this, they would often use mines and artillery with little regard for civilians. Any building or equipment that had to be abandoned was booby trapped. The losses for the rebels were staggering.

When the final push was made and the space port had been surrounded, the Chief of Operations for Begut Koshki, called for a ceasefire in order to discuss terms for surrender. Those calls were ignored and the rebel forces took the space port. No prisoners were taken and any security forces that tried to surrender were promptly put against a wall and executed.

### The Reprisals and End

Trans-World CEO Vul Garath responded to the news of Kapustin's fall by ordering a massive redeployment system wide of security assets to Kapustin. Within days, Trans-World forces in the system retook the spaceport. Ships then took up positions above the planet and began a campaign against the civilian population. Orbital strikes and bombings were used indiscriminately.

2 weeks into the orbital campaign, DCMS 'ronin' entered the Kapustin system on there way to Taos. The Draconis Combine could not get officially involved, but felt conflicted over its citizens, former or not, being targets. When several prominent merchant families petitioned to send aid, the Coordinator allowed soldiers from the DCMS to leave their posts on Musha Shugyo. Being technically ronin, the Combine could disavow any of their actions.

When the *DCS Kazeninotte* arrived in system, it was able to destroy or cripple the 3 Trans-World jumpships and it's fighters quickly gain control of the space over the planet. Within few short days, the war on Kapustin would be over.

**Aftermath**