Miquelon
Star Adder Occupation Zone
3 October 3050
Virgilia Truscott's newst toy stormed forwards and she fired a volley of inferno missiles and autocannon fire into the tanks waiting for
her on the other side of the river before slamming a kick into a Striker light tank unwary enough to be in her path. The kick from her Atlas not only stove in
the flank of the thirty-five ton missile tank, it actually flipped it up onto one side. There was an explosion up on the slopes where presumably an inferno had
worked its magic on one of the milita tanks and she was annoyed to see another tank roar up to confront her, using the Striker as partial cover.
The smoke from the fires effectively blocked most of her targets on the other side of the river for the moment, so she restricted herself to
the more accurate autocannon and lasers, sparing her LRMs for the impudent challenger in front of her - far too close for her to use infernos on, which was
probably a smart move by somebody. The tank and another of its brethern exploded under the fire. Both were reported as Scorpions by her battle computer, which
apparently translated as death traps and she could see why. The most the one in front of her had accomplished was to slightly damage her arm with a
machinegun.
Stepping forward to stand on the wrecked tanks, she was surprised to see that they had apparently managed to find her range and a volley of
missiles hammered into her, followed by two particle cannon, both from some kind of armour cars. Moving had given her a better field of vision and she shared
more inferno missiles with the milita company, adding more conventional missiles, lasers and cannonfire to the fusillade, increasing the temperature markedly
inside her cockpit. Several of her targets ceased moving and she could see damage to wheels and tracks even if they were not actually destroyed.
The Khan stalked forwards to the water's edge. This was not quite the challenge that she had hoped for, but it was battle nonetheless and
the thrill that she desired was still there. No less than three tanks were destroyed by her next volley, including two of those irritants with PPCs, but she
was irritated to find her mighty battlemech shaken by missiles striking at the rear. Two Striker tanks had been lying in wait and had ambushed her. A lighter
mech might have been threatened, but her own armour was far too thick to be easily breached.
Barely noting the explosions as napalm found it's way into two more of the enemy, Virgilia half turned and exposed them to her full
wrath, blotting them out of existence with cannon fire, lasers and more napalm before marching along the river, looking for a suitable place to ford the river
and trading sporadic shots with the remaining militia. A Scorpion and a Striker were destroyed but she was annoyed when shots into her Atlas' right arm
disabled the autocannon in that arm. She smashed another armoured car with lasers and set two afire with infernos, wading into the water, the last as she
stepped out of it and suddenly nothing was left to move on the battlefield.
"This is Khan Truscott," she signalled the rest of the Command Keshik. "I have cleared the resistance in this
sector."
"Understood, my Khan," the officer co-ordinating their efforts confirmed. "Please return to the command post. A secured
transmission from the ilKhan has arrived."
"I'll just bet it has," muttered Virgilia after cutting off her transmission. "The question is, does he want to talk or
does he want to fight?"
After a moment she stopped speculating. There was simply no point to doing so since she would have plenty of time on the voyage to the Wolf
Occupation Zone to fret. For now she needed to find the rest of her Command Star and persuade them that yes, she had worked off all her frustration at spending
several months cooped up with the other invasion forces and now that she had gotten used to her Atlas it would be perfectly safe for them to close up the
interval between herself and the rest of the Star to less than a kilometer.
Anyone would think, the way that they were carrying on, that she was some sort of unstable killing machine who someone had thoughtlessly
provided with one of the deadliest weapons platforms ever built (at least in the class of those that didn't require a crew in the low hundreds to operate
as she was willing to conceded that a warship was probably slightly more destructive than her Atlas). She wasn't unstable, she was just a little giddy,
that was all. There hadn't been any battlemechs on the small dropship she'd been on so she'd needed to blast the rust off her skills. Any longer
and she might have been worried about retaining her warrior status next time she was tested. Maybe.
A little over three kilometers away the rest of the Command Keshik saw the smoke from the militia tanks and charged after it as fast as they
could. It was distinctly unfair of the Khan, in their opinion, to be so hard to keep track of. The slowest of their mechs could move over twenty percent faster
than hers so she couldn't be that far ahead of them? Fortunately, her trail was quite easy to follow and they were confident that there wasn't a great
deal out in this sector that posed any threat to her. Not any more, anyway.
Nadir Jump Point, Radstadt
Wolf Occupation Zone
1 November 3050
The electromagnetic pulse of an arriving jumpship drew the attention of every electronic eye within light minutes of the jump point. Within
seconds the corvette that appeared was illuminated by so many targeting radar and lidar systems that its armoured outer hull should by rights have been glowing
crimson. Alas for the merely mortal eyes viewing, all of this took place on wavelengths that evolution did not allow them to perceive directly.
"Oy," Khan Virgilia Truscott said from the bridge of the Centaur, a Vincent-class corvette that had served the Star Adders for
almost a quarter of a millenia and had been been upgraded to the current Mark 42 standard only three years before the invasion. "Was it something I
said?"
Despite massing slightly more than a Monolith-class jumpship, the Centaur was among the smallest and most inconsequential warships in
existence. The formidable firepower of Clan Wolf's flagship, the heavy cruiser Dire Wolf, was entirely sufficient to blot it from existence more or less at
will. Ulric Kerensky, if the news that the Snow Raven Khans had relayed had been accurate (and other sources had confirmed it), had demanded of the ilKhan that
no vessel more powerful than his flagship should bring the Khans to this gathering. It was a dominance matter, and the Wolves were very good at those. Even so,
there were enough smaller vessels present to have seriously challenged the Dire Wolf and for a tense moment every single one of them appeared inclined to
combined their fire upon the little corvette.
Then their IFF beacon, one well known to any Clan naval warrior was matched against the warbooks and the tension faded. Slightly.
"Someone seems to have taken a bite out of the Dire Wolf," Star Colonel (Naval) Esther Lahiri commented, magnifying the image of
the warship on one of her display screens. The blackened hole near the prow was recognisable even to a lifelong groundpounder like Virgilia as the
cruiser's bridge.
"I get the impression that we have walked onto the stage mid-way through one of the civilian caste's plays with no knowledge of the
script or the role that we are to play," the Khan said thoughtfully. "So I suppose that we shall simply have to improvise and make sure that anyone
else on the stage suffers the consequences of not dancing in time to our steps."
"That is a terribly mixed metaphor," noted Esther. "Hail the Dire Wolf," she ordered. "Let them know that the Khan
of the Star Adders has arrived for the Grand Kurultai."
One of her officers spoke into a microphone and then held up a second headset for the Star Colonel to take. She listened to the message and
then blinked. "Repeat that, Dire Wolf. I do not believe that I heard that correctly."
"Is something the matter?" asked Virgilia.
"Apparently there was a suicide attack on the Dire Wolf yesterday," Esther told her. "A convoy of Inner Sphere jumpships
arrived - presumably by accident as only one had a lithium-fusion battery and could escape. One of their fighters rammed the Dire Wolf's bridge and the
ilKhan is missing. Presumably his body was sucked out into space and has been lost."
"Oh." Virgilia cudgelled her mind for words to say under these circumstances. "Clearly this will be a Grand Kurultai to
remember."
Nadir Jump Point, Radstadt
Wolf Occupation Zone
2 November 3050
"Khan Truscott." Ulric Kerensky had used his influence as the host to take charge of the assembled Council. "There have been
some rather worrying reports from our sources of information in the Inner Sphere. Specifically, reports that you clan has invaded the Inner Sphere in flagrant
disregard for the opertations plan that was approved by the Grand Council for that Invasion. I also gather that Khan Roderick N'Buta is in fact leading
this invasion and that this is why he is not here today. Would you care to comment on this?"
Virgilia was lounging in her chair in the chamber and did not bother to rise to address the Council. "I recall a certain Trial of
Refusal over that plan of invasion," she said lazily. "Would anyone like to remind the Council of the outcome or shall I embarass Robin Steele in
public again?"
"The Trial was unsuccessful," the Coyote Khan snarled.
"Overall, yes," agreed Virgilia mildly. "However, Clan Star Adder won our Trial and are therefore not bound to abide by that
plan. Given that we had already voted to invade... well, we simply accepted that circumstance and proceeded to do so. You can hardly have imagined we would do
anything else. We are Crusaders after all. The foremost of the Crusader Clans, in many ways," she added in a none-to-subtle jab at the other Crusaders in
the room.
"I demand a Trial of Refusal!" spluttered the man.
"Much as I would love the opportunity to put your aged carcass out of the Council's collective misery, the regulations laid down by
Kerensky himself state that there may only be one Trial of Refusal on an issue." She smiled at him. "Now then, whatever the original reason for
calling this meeting of the Grand Council, surely our first priority should be filling that empty seat over there?" Virgilia nodded to the ilKhan's
empty throne. "We are at war after all."
"Odd that you would have so much respect for an office you systematically deceived," Elias Crichell said a touch
irritably.
"I can respect the office without respecting the individual occupying it," lied Virgilia with a straight face.
Ulric cleared his throat. "In any event, I agree with Khan Truscott. We should adjourn to Strana Mechty to elect a new
ilKhan."
"Ulric Kerensky, have you gone completely insane?" asked Virgilia in the precise same tones that she had used almost exactly ten
months earlier to Leo Showers. This time she elaborated. "I am delighted to hear that you are so confident that you are willing to spend most of a year
taking up space in a dropship. However, Clan Smoke Jaguar's unfortunate reverse on Wolcott has demonstrated that the Inner Sphere is capable of posing a
considerable challenge to the invasion and the recent triumph of the Falcon Guards on Twycross is clear evidence that the Inner Sphere is prepared to
counterattack. I do not feel that relinquishing our current momentum is well advised."
"No ilKhan has ever been elected except within the Hall of Khans!"
"Mindless adherence to tradition was not a trait that the Founder revered, Khan Kabrinksi," Virgilia replied to the recently
elected junior Khan of Clan Ghost Bear. "Else why would he have begun new traditions when he created the Clans? The fact is that we are at war. Our
opponents will not give us the luxury of time to return home and debate in a leisurely fashion our future courses of action."
"Until now, they have done no more than react to our presence. Given the space of time to reorder and perhaps even to re-equip and
expand their forces, they will commence their own strategies to which we shall have no choice but to react to, thereby placing us on the defensive and fatally
undermining our positions. Indeed, it is regrettably possible that they are already in the process of doing so."
"It is my proposal therefore that we continue with the invasion. Electing an ilKhan need not be done today, if you feel that it is
appropriate to discuss the options with your Councils, and if applicable to confer as to your own prospective candidacy for the position of ilKhan. However, I
do not incline towards delaying such a vote beyond the end of this year. If it is the desire of the Grand Council to resume debate upon Strana Mechty then you
may assume that I and my saKhan abstain. We shall continue the invasion no matter what."
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Star Adder Occupation Zone
3 October 3050
Virgilia Truscott's newst toy stormed forwards and she fired a volley of inferno missiles and autocannon fire into the tanks waiting for
her on the other side of the river before slamming a kick into a Striker light tank unwary enough to be in her path. The kick from her Atlas not only stove in
the flank of the thirty-five ton missile tank, it actually flipped it up onto one side. There was an explosion up on the slopes where presumably an inferno had
worked its magic on one of the milita tanks and she was annoyed to see another tank roar up to confront her, using the Striker as partial cover.
The smoke from the fires effectively blocked most of her targets on the other side of the river for the moment, so she restricted herself to
the more accurate autocannon and lasers, sparing her LRMs for the impudent challenger in front of her - far too close for her to use infernos on, which was
probably a smart move by somebody. The tank and another of its brethern exploded under the fire. Both were reported as Scorpions by her battle computer, which
apparently translated as death traps and she could see why. The most the one in front of her had accomplished was to slightly damage her arm with a
machinegun.
Stepping forward to stand on the wrecked tanks, she was surprised to see that they had apparently managed to find her range and a volley of
missiles hammered into her, followed by two particle cannon, both from some kind of armour cars. Moving had given her a better field of vision and she shared
more inferno missiles with the milita company, adding more conventional missiles, lasers and cannonfire to the fusillade, increasing the temperature markedly
inside her cockpit. Several of her targets ceased moving and she could see damage to wheels and tracks even if they were not actually destroyed.
The Khan stalked forwards to the water's edge. This was not quite the challenge that she had hoped for, but it was battle nonetheless and
the thrill that she desired was still there. No less than three tanks were destroyed by her next volley, including two of those irritants with PPCs, but she
was irritated to find her mighty battlemech shaken by missiles striking at the rear. Two Striker tanks had been lying in wait and had ambushed her. A lighter
mech might have been threatened, but her own armour was far too thick to be easily breached.
Barely noting the explosions as napalm found it's way into two more of the enemy, Virgilia half turned and exposed them to her full
wrath, blotting them out of existence with cannon fire, lasers and more napalm before marching along the river, looking for a suitable place to ford the river
and trading sporadic shots with the remaining militia. A Scorpion and a Striker were destroyed but she was annoyed when shots into her Atlas' right arm
disabled the autocannon in that arm. She smashed another armoured car with lasers and set two afire with infernos, wading into the water, the last as she
stepped out of it and suddenly nothing was left to move on the battlefield.
"This is Khan Truscott," she signalled the rest of the Command Keshik. "I have cleared the resistance in this
sector."
"Understood, my Khan," the officer co-ordinating their efforts confirmed. "Please return to the command post. A secured
transmission from the ilKhan has arrived."
"I'll just bet it has," muttered Virgilia after cutting off her transmission. "The question is, does he want to talk or
does he want to fight?"
After a moment she stopped speculating. There was simply no point to doing so since she would have plenty of time on the voyage to the Wolf
Occupation Zone to fret. For now she needed to find the rest of her Command Star and persuade them that yes, she had worked off all her frustration at spending
several months cooped up with the other invasion forces and now that she had gotten used to her Atlas it would be perfectly safe for them to close up the
interval between herself and the rest of the Star to less than a kilometer.
Anyone would think, the way that they were carrying on, that she was some sort of unstable killing machine who someone had thoughtlessly
provided with one of the deadliest weapons platforms ever built (at least in the class of those that didn't require a crew in the low hundreds to operate
as she was willing to conceded that a warship was probably slightly more destructive than her Atlas). She wasn't unstable, she was just a little giddy,
that was all. There hadn't been any battlemechs on the small dropship she'd been on so she'd needed to blast the rust off her skills. Any longer
and she might have been worried about retaining her warrior status next time she was tested. Maybe.
A little over three kilometers away the rest of the Command Keshik saw the smoke from the militia tanks and charged after it as fast as they
could. It was distinctly unfair of the Khan, in their opinion, to be so hard to keep track of. The slowest of their mechs could move over twenty percent faster
than hers so she couldn't be that far ahead of them? Fortunately, her trail was quite easy to follow and they were confident that there wasn't a great
deal out in this sector that posed any threat to her. Not any more, anyway.
Nadir Jump Point, Radstadt
Wolf Occupation Zone
1 November 3050
The electromagnetic pulse of an arriving jumpship drew the attention of every electronic eye within light minutes of the jump point. Within
seconds the corvette that appeared was illuminated by so many targeting radar and lidar systems that its armoured outer hull should by rights have been glowing
crimson. Alas for the merely mortal eyes viewing, all of this took place on wavelengths that evolution did not allow them to perceive directly.
"Oy," Khan Virgilia Truscott said from the bridge of the Centaur, a Vincent-class corvette that had served the Star Adders for
almost a quarter of a millenia and had been been upgraded to the current Mark 42 standard only three years before the invasion. "Was it something I
said?"
Despite massing slightly more than a Monolith-class jumpship, the Centaur was among the smallest and most inconsequential warships in
existence. The formidable firepower of Clan Wolf's flagship, the heavy cruiser Dire Wolf, was entirely sufficient to blot it from existence more or less at
will. Ulric Kerensky, if the news that the Snow Raven Khans had relayed had been accurate (and other sources had confirmed it), had demanded of the ilKhan that
no vessel more powerful than his flagship should bring the Khans to this gathering. It was a dominance matter, and the Wolves were very good at those. Even so,
there were enough smaller vessels present to have seriously challenged the Dire Wolf and for a tense moment every single one of them appeared inclined to
combined their fire upon the little corvette.
Then their IFF beacon, one well known to any Clan naval warrior was matched against the warbooks and the tension faded. Slightly.
"Someone seems to have taken a bite out of the Dire Wolf," Star Colonel (Naval) Esther Lahiri commented, magnifying the image of
the warship on one of her display screens. The blackened hole near the prow was recognisable even to a lifelong groundpounder like Virgilia as the
cruiser's bridge.
"I get the impression that we have walked onto the stage mid-way through one of the civilian caste's plays with no knowledge of the
script or the role that we are to play," the Khan said thoughtfully. "So I suppose that we shall simply have to improvise and make sure that anyone
else on the stage suffers the consequences of not dancing in time to our steps."
"That is a terribly mixed metaphor," noted Esther. "Hail the Dire Wolf," she ordered. "Let them know that the Khan
of the Star Adders has arrived for the Grand Kurultai."
One of her officers spoke into a microphone and then held up a second headset for the Star Colonel to take. She listened to the message and
then blinked. "Repeat that, Dire Wolf. I do not believe that I heard that correctly."
"Is something the matter?" asked Virgilia.
"Apparently there was a suicide attack on the Dire Wolf yesterday," Esther told her. "A convoy of Inner Sphere jumpships
arrived - presumably by accident as only one had a lithium-fusion battery and could escape. One of their fighters rammed the Dire Wolf's bridge and the
ilKhan is missing. Presumably his body was sucked out into space and has been lost."
"Oh." Virgilia cudgelled her mind for words to say under these circumstances. "Clearly this will be a Grand Kurultai to
remember."
Nadir Jump Point, Radstadt
Wolf Occupation Zone
2 November 3050
"Khan Truscott." Ulric Kerensky had used his influence as the host to take charge of the assembled Council. "There have been
some rather worrying reports from our sources of information in the Inner Sphere. Specifically, reports that you clan has invaded the Inner Sphere in flagrant
disregard for the opertations plan that was approved by the Grand Council for that Invasion. I also gather that Khan Roderick N'Buta is in fact leading
this invasion and that this is why he is not here today. Would you care to comment on this?"
Virgilia was lounging in her chair in the chamber and did not bother to rise to address the Council. "I recall a certain Trial of
Refusal over that plan of invasion," she said lazily. "Would anyone like to remind the Council of the outcome or shall I embarass Robin Steele in
public again?"
"The Trial was unsuccessful," the Coyote Khan snarled.
"Overall, yes," agreed Virgilia mildly. "However, Clan Star Adder won our Trial and are therefore not bound to abide by that
plan. Given that we had already voted to invade... well, we simply accepted that circumstance and proceeded to do so. You can hardly have imagined we would do
anything else. We are Crusaders after all. The foremost of the Crusader Clans, in many ways," she added in a none-to-subtle jab at the other Crusaders in
the room.
"I demand a Trial of Refusal!" spluttered the man.
"Much as I would love the opportunity to put your aged carcass out of the Council's collective misery, the regulations laid down by
Kerensky himself state that there may only be one Trial of Refusal on an issue." She smiled at him. "Now then, whatever the original reason for
calling this meeting of the Grand Council, surely our first priority should be filling that empty seat over there?" Virgilia nodded to the ilKhan's
empty throne. "We are at war after all."
"Odd that you would have so much respect for an office you systematically deceived," Elias Crichell said a touch
irritably.
"I can respect the office without respecting the individual occupying it," lied Virgilia with a straight face.
Ulric cleared his throat. "In any event, I agree with Khan Truscott. We should adjourn to Strana Mechty to elect a new
ilKhan."
"Ulric Kerensky, have you gone completely insane?" asked Virgilia in the precise same tones that she had used almost exactly ten
months earlier to Leo Showers. This time she elaborated. "I am delighted to hear that you are so confident that you are willing to spend most of a year
taking up space in a dropship. However, Clan Smoke Jaguar's unfortunate reverse on Wolcott has demonstrated that the Inner Sphere is capable of posing a
considerable challenge to the invasion and the recent triumph of the Falcon Guards on Twycross is clear evidence that the Inner Sphere is prepared to
counterattack. I do not feel that relinquishing our current momentum is well advised."
"No ilKhan has ever been elected except within the Hall of Khans!"
"Mindless adherence to tradition was not a trait that the Founder revered, Khan Kabrinksi," Virgilia replied to the recently
elected junior Khan of Clan Ghost Bear. "Else why would he have begun new traditions when he created the Clans? The fact is that we are at war. Our
opponents will not give us the luxury of time to return home and debate in a leisurely fashion our future courses of action."
"Until now, they have done no more than react to our presence. Given the space of time to reorder and perhaps even to re-equip and
expand their forces, they will commence their own strategies to which we shall have no choice but to react to, thereby placing us on the defensive and fatally
undermining our positions. Indeed, it is regrettably possible that they are already in the process of doing so."
"It is my proposal therefore that we continue with the invasion. Electing an ilKhan need not be done today, if you feel that it is
appropriate to discuss the options with your Councils, and if applicable to confer as to your own prospective candidacy for the position of ilKhan. However, I
do not incline towards delaying such a vote beyond the end of this year. If it is the desire of the Grand Council to resume debate upon Strana Mechty then you
may assume that I and my saKhan abstain. We shall continue the invasion no matter what."
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.