Resurgence Reports from the Inner Sphere
Unexpected Visitor
August 3152 New Avalon
“Prince Julian?”
“Yes?”
“Operation Ursus Major has been enacted and succeeded. They are already en route.” Stated Siobhan Sortek with excitement but, it was clearly dampened by something else.
“While that is excellent news, I can tell by your face and that pile of papers there is more?” Julian’s eyes squinted, expecting to hear additional news.
“Sir… A Nomad Republic Knight has arrived. He is waiting outside.”
“Nomad Republic?” Julian responded with surprise.
“They are the survivors from Terra. It seems they were prepared for an eventuality where they would have their own Exodus, should the Clans achieve victory.”
“Is he here for aid? Military? Civilian?”
“No, sir, he has brought a warning.” Siobhan handed Julian a small stack of images. Space vessels… dozens… hundreds… a sword among a black, rectangle background. Julian’s eyes went wide.
“Where… was this taken?” he asked solemnly.
“Abbeville, sir. The Nomad Republic fleet was there on their way out of the Inner Sphere. He told me that General Lee was organizing a defense to evacuate as many civilians as possible.”
“Keep this information to yourself for now, we need all staff assembled immediately, Siobhan.” Julian hit a button on his desk, “send in our guest, please.”
A moment later, the doors opened and Julian about jumped out of his seat, Kitsune Kurita stood before him, Victor Steiner-Davion’s own son.
“Greetings, Prince Davion, I thought this information would be worthy of an immediate audience, even in the face of my unexpected visit.”
“Most certainly Knight Kurita; please, have a seat.” Julian shook his hand and guided him to a seat as Siobhan took a seat near the wall.
“I see you have the images.” Stated Kitsune.
“Yes, indeed, these were taken at Abbeville?”
“Yes, they were, Prince Davion. An entire flotilla. General Lee ordered me to immediately head here to New Avalon to relay this information to you… and it’s not the only one.”
“Go on, Knight Kurita, you have the floor to tell me everything.” Prince Julian replied, he was fully alert, sitting forward on his chair, hands together on his desk, taking in every detail.
“The small fleet I brought with me jumped to Anjin Muerto at about the same time as another jumpship.” Kitsune placed another pile of images on the Prince’s desk. “Same thing at Okefenokee… The Word of Blake is invading the Federated Suns. General Lee is going to hold as long as he can, then he will egress the rest of Homefleet to New Avalon to aid in the defense. We still have battalions being rebuilt among our two yardships so we can assist.”
Looking over at Siobhan slowly, “Recall the Dawn Guards to New Avalon, they will be happy to see their comrades. Also, begin to coordinate with the Brigade of Guards so they are stationed on New Avalon and the worlds around, prepared for fast response. Get this information to the Prince’s Champion, he will be needed to break their advance.” He took a second to look around his desk, then, looked up at Kitsune.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention Knight Kurita, this is vital information. Homefleet is welcome here at New Avalon. We will get your personnel New Avalon passports and we will coordinate military vessel strategy for their inevitable arrival. If you will excuse me, I need to coordinate and discuss this with my staff. If you would wait a moment in the lobby I will have our diplomat coordinator organize for you to have a place to stay here in the Palace.”
“That is most generous, Prince Davion, thank you.” With that both men stood and shook hands, Kitsune also made his way over to Siobhan and shook her hand farewell.
It was going to be a long night as they coordinated military units and organized communication routes in the face of HPGs still being non-functional. Outside of the images of the greatest evil the Inner Sphere had known, it was video, audio, and written reports after reports of factions attacking each other. Even the prior month’s news about the Capellans invading the Capellan March was nothing compared to the Word of Blake’s Resurgence. The Inner Sphere was imploding.
As the leader of his realm he needed to show that he could lead his people to defeat this enemy. He had powerful allies in Nomad Republic coming to New Avalon. Both the Dawn Guards and Davion Brigade of Guards would be rallying. And in his back field a Bear of indomitable strength. All of these forces were sharpened from recent combat. It is time for war.
Julian began reviewing the video and reports from MIIO...
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A female news anchor was giving the last few words of a report when shock flashed across her face, stopping mid-sentence. Her hand reached up and pressed an earpiece firmly into her ear as she stayed silent. Taking a second and a deep breath she regained her composure, although she was still visibly shaken.
“I have just received word that dropships are entering the atmosphere!” still holding her earpiece she continued, “We have first images… they appear to be Clan Hell’s Horses! Are they here to prove their worth to ilKhan Alaric Ward?! Do they see our civil war as weakest to be exploited?!”
“Eye to the sky is coming up on screen now for the viewers, it looks like both Ghost Bear and Hell’s Horses vessels are firing on each other. Viewers will see the names of the spacecraft we can identify.”
“For the first time in weeks our military is acting together to fight these invaders instead of themselves after former Prince Hjalmer Miraborg’s failed assassination attempt against Galaxy Commander Lars Magnusson.”
“Viewers will now see the spaceport appears to be the target of the attack. There are Battlemechs being dropped from some dropships while others are landing. We also have confirmation that the Ghost Bear garrison is already deployed and en route! Stay tuned in as we get more footage of the battle, has a new war just begun?!”
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Violently shaking with muffled shouting in the background, the camera took a second to focus, before trees could be seen flying by on either side as a vehicle rampaged down a dirt path that was clearly not in consistent use.
“Weren’t they on Terra?!” a man’s voice shouted.
“Who the hell knows?! We have to alert command! The blanket ECM on our radars will keep them blind until they are under attack!”
The vehicle was obviously moving at maximum speed, hitting rough terrain hard. Suddenly, a hundred meters ahead, a Summoner emerged from the trees, looking at the vehicle. A pack of four missiles let loose towards the Battlemech, three of them hitting the machine. However, the Summoner gave as good as it got. An autocannon slug slammed directly into the nose of the vehicle, the camera flashed and went black. The last thing it showed was the clear image of a Jade Falcon on the leg of the Battlemech.
Cutting to a helmet feed, the passenger’s, his arm came down from shielding his face from the impact. His helmet feed showed him turning to look behind, the clear sound of cyclic fire from machine guns. A Kit Fox was hot on their heels, narrowly missing it’s salvo of weapons fire.
With a sudden lurch, the driver swerved at the last second to avoid slamming into the Summoner, barely missed a tree and was entering a clearing, clearly the vehicle was picking up speed as the Machine Guns chattered behind, chewing through hundreds of rounds of ammo.
Glowing green light could be seen just to right of the passenger, then it got brighter and brighter, til a red mist erupted against the windshield and the trooper screamed before the camera dropped, pointing down, toward his seared fleshed bleeding profusely into his lap. Melted flesh from a laser impact oozed toward the floor.
Switching to the driver’s view he screamed in horror as well. Now into the clearing, they had not expected to find dropships! “Dropships!” the driver yelled to the rear gunner, still spraying machine gun fire at the pursuing Kit Fox.
Two looked like they had just touched down, heat and flame still radiating underneath them, both of their hangar ramps deploying with movement of mighty machines deep inside. The driver looked up to see multiple other dropships riding down columns of fire. A few clusters of quickly approaching dots were aimed toward their path.
As they got a couple hundred more meters through the clearing, two massive feet landed just outside the passenger’s seat, the driver looked to see the legs of a Timber Wolf, the pilot watching as the Shandra Scout vehicle blew by, exchanging fire with the pursuing Kit Fox.
Again, the camera feed switched, this time to the rear gunner. Repeated flashing from the machine guns could not hide the attack that was happening. That Timber Wolf they just passed was forming up with a full star, following the Shandra. Both of it’s LRM racks began launching, the gunner immediately ducked but, then realized the missiles weren’t aimed at them. He also began seeing numerous other mechs firing past them as dropships touched down beyond them. Menacing Green Falcons adorned the vessels.
Then, a flash from the Kit Fox’s arm and the gunner was thrown back, his head spinning in a sickening turn to now be facing out the front windshield which was mostly covered in blood, both machine guns falling silent. It looked like the driver was gone until a bump in the path of the Shandra caused the camera feed to shift enough to see only the top half of the driver was gone.
Without anyone in control, the vehicle still travelling at least 60 KPH began to careen off it’s path. In the last few moments of footage, the camera showed two Lyran Zeus’ firing into the approaching Falcon Battlemechs. Among the trees behind there were additional Battlemechs and vehicles emerging to create a firing line. With a large bounce the Shandra hit a pile of dirt, cartwheeling through the air from the helmet feed’s perspective.
Going black, the screen began to read various data, detailing in a post operation report there were four scout craft on different trails and one other vehicle had made it back before the feed ended.
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In the next feed it began with a commercial ending and returning to a late night talk show. The insignia of the Free Worlds League hung on the walls behind the participants.
“Those damned Capellans!” man number 1 yelled as his fist hit the chair arm.
“We had nothing to do with Sian!” shouted man number 2.
“They claim they have evidence!” added number 1.
“Another vision from their “Celestial Wisdom”… I mean ghost.” Man number 2 added mockingly with a laugh, some of the audience chuckled at the mockery of the now dead leader of the Capellan Confederation after the planet was destroyed, using his predecessor’s titling.
“Mocking their dead leader won’t endear us to them, nor give them reason to think that we had nothing to do with the attack.” Suggested the man who appeared to be the show host.
“They are invading us to kill as many Free Worlds citizens as they can and we had nothing to do with it, even if the government was involved, people like my compatriot handle it a bit more on the nose.” Interjected man number 1.
“Good riddance to that old damned fool, wisdom my ass!” *BANG*
From something to nothing man number 2’s head exploded as he finished his statement. Blood was spurting in the air as shrieks from the audience drowned out any other sound. For a brief second, the panelists looked horrified before scrambling for cover behind their large chairs.
Seconds later the feed switched to the news team preparing to air the news in their usual time slot after the talk show’s normal ending time. Both anchors were sitting there horrified, looking around at other staff behind the cameras. One anchor burst into tears, she covered her face, pulled out her earphone and ran off the screen.
“Uh… uh… What?” the remaining anchor had no idea what to say. Clearly, no one in the control room for the network knew what do exactly so, they finally switched to a satellite feed that was often used as a screensaver, showing a distant, beautiful nebula.
But, that was not on today’s feed. Multiple dropships and aerospace fighters were flying past. Each of the vessels brandishing the sword of House Liao. The feed went fuzzy for a few seconds before the image of a Capellan took it over and began running a loop of propaganda. It told the citizens how they were being liberated from a murderous regime and for citizens to stay in their homes. Their Capellan liberators came to exterminate the “occupying” government forces.