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DropShip Knife Dance Alpha, Inbound to Orbit
Tukayyid, Free Rasalhague Republic
January 15, 3044

“My Khan, we have finished our analysis,” the old Warrior commanding Nikolai’s HQ staff quietly said over the radio.  “Uploading the data now.”

Nikolai smiled—this was another area where the Clans viewed his Scorpions as heretical.  Unlike most Khans (Marion Truscott being a noted exception), Nikolai and his predecessor had both arranged for those Warriors to old to serve in the front lines to command separate HQ staffs at the Cluster, Galaxy, and Touman level.  Assisted by teams of trained technicians, merchants, and even a handful of scientists, the Warriors sorted through the chaff of all the intelligence reports and provided the Khan with the information he needed—without him having to actually pour over the documents and signals intercepts in question.

The Scorpion whistled as he quickly scrolled through the data and then he frowned.  “Knife Dance Actual to Ebony Actual,” he broadcast, “I have the analysis you requested, ilKhan.”

Yvonne’s voice quickly came back over the speaker of Nikolai’s Death Dancer.  “Aff.  I am tying your broadcast into all the Khans . . . go ahead, Knife Dance Actual.”

“All Khans, this is Nikolai Djerassi.  Analysis of Wolf’s order of battle indicates that he has deployed approximately six thousand BattleMechs, forty-eight hundred combat vehicles, twenty-eight thousand infantry in light powered armor, three hundred pieces of artillery, and two thousand aerospace fighters.  His forces are grouped in three distinct elements—all defending terrain that is rather . . . formidable to assault.”

“The force I am designating as Combat Command Alpha is situated in the Kozice Valley, with nineteen regiments of BattleMechs, twenty-four regiments of armor, forty-eight regiments of infantry, and one hundred artillery pieces.  Combat Command Beta is holding defensive positions in the Dinju and Tamo Mountain Ranges, with eighteen regiments of BattleMechs, sixteen regiments of armor, thirty-two regiments of infantry, and one hundred and forty artillery tubes.  The final force is located on the Prezno Plains, and while it may lack strong terrain features and fortifications, it is the most mobile and possibly the most dangerous of the three.  Combat Command Gamma is located in a position where it can move to reinforce both Alpha and Beta, if we allow it:  their forces include eighteen regiments of BattleMechs, four armor regiments, eight infantry regiment, and sixty pieces of artillery.”

“Our forces consist of roughly three thousand OmniMechs, five hundred combat vehicles, six thousand Elementals, and two thousand aerospace fighters.  We have quite a fight ahead of us, trothkin.  ilKhan, based upon the manner in which Wolf has deployed, I recommend activating contingency Zeta-Two-Three.”

Contingency Zeta called for dividing the Clan attack into three groups of approximately equal size—twenty clusters each, commanded by the ilKhan herself, Nikolai, and Ulric Kerensky, respectively.  Zeta-Two-Three specified these possible targets and included information on landing zones and rough objectives—to be filled in by the feverishly working staff aboard Serket as soon as they could upload the information to the Khans.

“Approved,” answered the ilKhan.  “All Khans implement Zeta-Two-Three.  I will command Strike Force Dinju; Khan Kerensky will command the Kozice Valley—Khan Djerassi you will be in charge of the Prezno Plains.”

“Aff,” Nikolai answered.

“Then on to victory, my trothkin,” said the ilKhan firmly.  “Give us victory or give us death!”

“Seyla!” nearly a score of voices replied over the speakers, then the transmission ended.

A light began flashing on Nikolai’s console and he grimaced as he activated the radio again.  “Yes, Natasha?”

“What’s wrong, Nikolai?  Don’t you worry none—I will follow your orders, Strike Force Commander, sir.  To the letter.”

“I will deny ever saying this Natasha,” Nikolai answered calmly, “but I am actually glad to have you at my side on this one—even if it means I also have to command the Mandrill Penal Cluster.”

The Widow laughed.  “When this is over, I’ll buy you a Scotch to remember our dead with.”

“Buy?  Why do you not just pour me my own—I have a case missing, after all.”

“And an exquisite tasting liquor it is indeed, Khan Djerassi.  Now chin up—the Dragons down there are no pushovers.”

The transmission ended and Nikolai shook his head as the DropShip began to plunge into the upper reaches of the atmosphere.  His computer dinged as the upload signaled completion and he glanced over the frag order quickly and nodded.  “Strike Force Prezno, sending final orders . . . NOW!  See you on the ground, trothkin.”

"Cry Havoc! And let slip the dogs of war".

Field Headquarters, Combat Command A, SLDF Grand Army
Tukayyid, Free Rasalhague Republic
January 16, 3044

Jaime Wolf winced as the distant Jade Falcon Dire Wolf flew upwards through the air and landed thirty meters away from the massive explosion—missing both of its legs.  “That was no mine, Colonel Montoya,” he whispered.

“Heh,” the Taurian engineer chuckled.  “Hell, no.  Mines are for pansies, General Wolf,” the Taurian answered.  “That is what we Taurians call a 'Mech-smasher.  We bored a ten meter deep shaft, two meters in diameter, and packed it with high explosive; then we put an armor plate atop of it with a pressure detonator and covered it with surface soil.  Eat twenty tons of HE you Star League bastards!” he yelled at the battle below.  “Begging the General’s pardon . . . no offense meant to your troops, General Wolf.”

“None taken, Colonel Montoya.  How many of those . . . ‘Mech-smashers, you called them . . . did you place in the pass?”

The Taurian combat engineer laughed again.  “Only three hundred.”

“THREE HUNDRED?” gasped Hauptman-General Luther Devries, the commander of the 4th Skye Rangers.

“Would have been more, but you ran out of explosives—bad form, Hauptman-General,” Montoya said as he bit off one end of a cigar and spat it out on the ground.

“RAN OUT OF EXPLOSIVES?  We had ten thousand tons stockpiled two weeks ago!”

“Yep, and we used six thousand of those on the ‘Mech-smashers; the other four thousand we used to for other tricks of the trade, Hauptman-General.  Now, for a really good defense, you need around fifty thousand tons, General Wolf—if you are taking notes for the future.  I mean, I don’t mind smashing these Clan bastard descendents of General Kerensky to red ruin, but if you plan on taking your SLDF into the Concordat, that’s what you are going to be facing on every last fucking one of our worlds.  Sir.”

“I am not, and neither is First Lord Focht, Colonel Montoya.  We are not going to attempt to bring the Concordat into this Star League by force.”

The Taurian shook his head as he puffed his cigar’s flame into existence, holding a match against the end until it was well and truly lit.  “Good,” he answered.  “Like I said, I don’t mind you guys quite so much, but we would—and will—still fight you with our last dying breath, General Wolf.  I must admit, I was a little taken aback when the Protector sent me out here—I figured he would have had a stroke first before aiding you people in any way, shape, or form.”

“We must all hang together, or we shall surely hang separately,” Jaime quoted as the Falcon advance faltered and then began to withdraw.  “You did leave cleared lanes for us to advance, quiaff?”

“Hell, yes.  Your ‘Mechs have got a download of the safe paths—stay on the paths, however.  Step off of them and you are gonna go boom, General, sir.”

“Communications—pass the word to Colonel Jamison.  He may begin his assault at his convenience.”

Jaime raised the field glasses one last time and he smiled as the Clans troops keep heading back down the pass.  “And tell Morgan to withdraw his Hounds into the tunnels.  We’ve paid for this victory in blood—I do not want to lose him to an accident of fate.”

Combat Command A, SLDF Grand Army, Dinju Mountains
Tukayyid, Free Rasalhague Republic
January 16, 3044

Led by the forty-five Assault- and Heavy-weight BattleMechs of Zeta Cluster, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Regiments of the Wolf’s Dragoons slammed into the forward ranks of the Jade Falcons, while slightly further down the pass additional explosions heralded the revelation of yet more tunnels, tunnels through which poured the 4th Skye Rangers, 3rd Donegal Guards, the 6th Marik Militia, the 12th Atrean Dragoons, and the 1st and 12th Division of the ComGuards First Army, all elite, well drilled formations.

Reeling under assault from three sides, the Falcons withdrew step by step, pounded by artillery the entire time while Khans Truscott and Malthus attempted to rally the suddenly demoralized Clan Strike Force in the wake of the death of their ilKhan.  But the pressure was too much to bear . . . and when Khan Malthus died in the cockpit of his Summoner, the Falcons at last broke.  The withdrawal was no longer orderly or planned . . . the Clan advance turned into a rout.

Of the twenty Clusters who started up the Dinju Pass to the heights above, the survivors numbered just barely enough to fill out seven once they sorted out their ranks and restored order amidst their DropShips on the valley floor.  There would have been more, but Khan Rood refused to retreat—Khan McFadden as well—and both Khans died along with the their three Clusters (two Hellion and one Spirit); but the sacrifice managed to hold the line long enough for the rest of the survivors to reach their DropShips and formally request hegira.

Jaime Wolf almost refused the request, but his own forces had been mauled in the running battle of nearly three full days up and down the mountainous escarpment.  Munitions were running low, the 20th Arcturan Guards, the 11th and 15th Lyran Guards, the 1st Lyran Regulars, the 1st Free World Guards, and the remainder of ComStar's First Army were all reporting with less than three in ten of their ‘Mechs, tanks, and other combat vehicles operational; their infantry had suffered even worse casualties.  And even the freshest of Jaime's Regiments had suffered heavy loses in the bitter pursuit down the passes; his most intact formation was at barely fifty percent of strength.  The field hospitals—donated to the Grand Army by the Canopians, were filled to overflowing and for all that they did not fight the Clan Warriors in the Dinju Passes, now the Canopian surgeons and nurses fought bitter battles to save lives—not take them.  Battles in which all too often they lost, but not always, and not without an epic struggle for life itself.

So it came to pass that Commanding General Jaime Wolf allowed the survivors of Strike Force Dinju to withdraw under the exhausted command of a gravely wounded Marion Truscott.  As the medics rushed Truscott into surgery aboard his lifting DropShip, Khan Brandon Howell of the Smoke Jaguars informed the other two Strike Forces of the . . . calamity which had befallen them and their ilKhan.

The Golden Keshik, Clan Wolf, Strike Force Kozice
Tukayyid, Free Rasalhague Republic
January 16, 3044

“Free-birth!” one of the Wolf Warriors snarled over the tactical channel.  Ulric Kerensky frowned at the outburst, but he agreed completely with the sentiment.  Overhead recon flights had spotted the clouds of steam here at the point of the Kozice Valley known as the Devil’s Bath . . . but he and his Warriors had not planned for the hellish environment through which Strike Force Kozice had to pass.  There were simply no other ways to go, except through this geological unstable area with its geysers and boiling lakes of mud, and other geothermal oddities.  To the west were sheer cliffs, an offshoot of the Tamo Mountains, themselves a spur of the mighty Dinju—to the east was a coastal lowland filled with marshes and fens and thick swamps into which all of this water drained.

“Warrior Erik; do you need assistance?” Ulric asked.

“Neg, my Khan.  I stumbled into one of these . . . mud pots, but I managed to fall backwards onto solid ground,” the Warrior answered.

Artillery shells came plunging down somewhere in the distance, the sound distorted and warped by the clouds of thick humid steam and smoke.  Well, they picked the perfect place for a fight, Ulric thought as he swept through his Timber Wolf’s sensors.  Seismometers . . . useless.  Thermographics .  . . useless.  Infrared . . . useless.  Visual magnification . . . useless.  Magnetic anomaly detectors . . . useless, thanks to the heavy-metal content of the water the Baths continually threw into the air.  The Wolf Khan could see less than a hundred meters . . . and that was his best means of detecting anything in this dreadful haze.

Machine-gun slugs suddenly began slamming into his armor and the Khan backed his OmniMech up and fired all four lasers into the camouflaged observation post of Davion infantry that he had come close to stepping on top of.  Damn this stravag mist!

Ulric stopped his Timber Wolf as he heard new sounds and he listened carefully and then his eyes went wide.  “Hovertanks!  All Wolf Warriors stand back to back!” he barked as the first of the Saracens, Scimitars, Saladins, Pegasus, and J Edgars roared out of the steam into point blank range.  The comm channels were ablaze as every Cluster in his Strike Force reported that the hovers were in contact—sixteen full regiments of them!

And here in the Devil’s Bath, the steam and mist allowed them to close without suffering losses due to the Clan weapon’s greater range.  The heat levels in Ulric’s Timber Wolf spiked as he added to the ambient heat from the geysers with his weapons—and everything in sight became a nightmarish vision of SRM trails, PPC bolts, autocannon and machine-gun tracers, laser beams, and the infernal horrific fountains of inferno gel bursting over his Warriors.

It was two minutes of pure hell as the Clan Warriors shot in all directions—praying that they would not hit their own trothkin shrouded in the blinding steam . . . and then the hovercraft were gone, speeding away in the damp misery of the Devil’s Bath.  Not all of them, no; there were several burning hulks around him, clustered around Clan Wolf OmniMechs shattered by their fire and injured Elemental Warriors.

“Get ready,” growled Ulric, and like clockwork, just as they had done for the past thirty-six hours, now the Davion and Capellan BattleMechs appeared, adding their fire to the chaos as the hovercraft swung back around again.  Night began to descend over the geysers and mud pits and free-standing pools of acid water, but at last—just three minutes, but it felt to Ulric like three hours—the last of the enemy withdrew again.  Leaving more blackened and broken Wolf Warriors in their wake, along with the remains of several of their own BattleMechs.

His radio crackled.  “Adder Command Actual to Golden Wolf Actual; respond.”

“Golden Wolf Actual.  Glad to hear your voice, Marion—I hope you are having a better time in the mountains.”

“Neg, Golden Wolf Actual . . . the ilKhan is down—perhaps even dead.  We are suffering a severe counter-attack and may be forced into a re-. .  .” the transmission cut off with the clatter of an autocannon and then only static filled the airwaves.

“Adder Command Actual!  Come in Adder Command Actual!  Strike Force Dinju commanders—any commander, come in.  This is Golden Wolf Actual, over.”

For seconds there was only the sound of static and then a stern voice came over the speakers.  “Jaguar’s Den Actual, here.  Ulric we have a major problem—Adder Command Actual is injured, the ilKhan is down, Jade Falcon Actual is down, and their warriors are breaking!  Running, damn them!”

The Jaguar sounded furious and Ulric shook his head.   â€œJaguar’s Den Actual, can you hold?”

Another long pause and then finally, a resigned whisper.  “Neg.  Strike Force Dinju is routing, Ulric.  We might be able to restore order at the DropShips—where we started from two days ago!  I am ordering a Code Beta Omicron; maybe we can salvage a half-dozen Clusters from this mess.”

Ulric winced.   Beta Omicron literally meant ‘bug-out’ and it signified something no Clansman wanted to contemplate—absolute defeat and utter rout by a superior enemy.

“Understood, Jaguar’s Den actual.  Golden Wolf Actual, out,” the Wolf Khan whispered as the cycle started once more with the Davion artillery raining down in blind-fire patterns around them.

“Strike Force Kozice!” he barked.  “This is Golden Wolf Actual—we are withdrawing from the Devil’s Bath.  Repeat, we are withdrawing!  Rendezvous point is the Holth Forest in the Upper Valley.  Confirm.”

One by one the Ghost Bear Khan, the Horse’s Khan, and the Coyote Khan confirmed the order—all sounded as if they were in a state of shock; each had heard the transmissions between Truscott, Howell, and Kerensky.  But the Vipers did not confirm.

“Neg, you dezgra coward!  The Steel Vipers will not withdraw at the command of a Wolf—we will engage these free-birth and emerge with victory!” saKhan Nicole Hoskins thundered—her Khan having been medivaced earlier with grievous injuries from which Perigard Zalman was not expected to survive.

“You will obey me, saKhan Hoskins!” Ulric shouted into the transmitter, but there was no reply and in the distance fresh explosions erupted as the Vipers ran head long into what must be the main line of resistance.  Of course, Ulric thought sourly, that was what he had thought of the previous four defensive lines as well.

He shook his head and then the static on his radio cleared.  “Let her get herself and her Warriors killed, Ulric,” Jake Fletcher whispered.  “We have lost here.  Let us extract what we can, while we can.”

The Khan of Clan Wolf nodded in agreement.  “Strike Force Kozice, execute our withdrawal—Clan Wolf will assume rear-guard.  Wolves, keep your eyes peeled for any Viper survivors . . . plug them into our ranks as they come in,” if they come in, he thought but did not say.

And ponderously, the despondent Clans that comprised this Strike Force turned around and began to march back towards their DropShips.

Not going well for the Clans at all. I wonder if Ulric had pushed on. Seems like he might have won but it would have been costly.

and even if he HAD won, a quote springs to mind.

"Lord, save me from another such Victory, lest I am undone."

Yes, he MIGHT have won, but at what cost?  Can the Wolves (Among Others) afford to have the cream of their Toumans gutted?