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Entry #24
Graham IV, Low Orbit
Terran Hegemony
18:00 16 February 2767

The skies of Graham IV were lit by the storm to end all storms as lasers, missiles and particle beams lashed up and down. While I knew where the stations were and had shared the information – apparently my databases were considerably more complete in this regard than those available to the elements of the SLDF we were in touch with – that was only half the battle. They’d been competently laid out and short of using more major kinetic weapons or heavy-duty nuclear bombardment, digging them out when they weren’t firing wasn’t practical.

“I’m not in favour of it,” McEvedy had told me when I raised the option of using more force. “My staff tell me that between the nuclear weapons the Rimmers have used and yo- our kinetic strike on the SDS command centre, the climate is already being affected. Further use of weapons of mass destruction could tip the entire planet into an ice age and we don’t have the humanitarian resources to deal with that.”

“That’s true,” I’d agreed. “And since whoever is in charge down there is smart enough to hold the weapons in reserve until your dropships start heading down, I’ll have to take them out in the middle of your landing operations. I don’t see any other way.”

The general nodded. “Establishing a beach-head is always messy, Praetorian. And you’ll have to cover a lot of the sky because if we land all in one area we’re just asking for a nuclear strike on our landing zone.”

“Agreed. Well, we do have a reasonable degree of orbital coverage, although with the cloud cover, please stress to your soldiers that if they call in orbital support fire they’re going to be very precise. I can’t see a thing down there in the muck.”

“I’ll do that. We’ve decided on liberating Fort Baldwin first, it’s closest to Dekirk City and taking the capital back should hopefully knock out their command elements too.”

“I’d better be doubly careful then.” At his questioning look I’d added: “There’s a major research facility under a lot of the city. If I cause structural damage I could collapse the entire thing and turn the city into a hole in the ground.”

It was a worrying prospect as my fleet fanned out and slammed fire down on the calculated positions of the many turrets and launchers. Fourteen dropships had been destroyed so far including three BattleMech transports. One of them had been a Dictator-class with an entire battalion embarked but the other two, fortunately, had been low enough that their ‘Mechs were already gone, dropping towards the surface. While the heavy weapons could certainly swat them from the sky if they hit, that was easier said than done. Mechanized infantry, armour and support units couldn’t jump unassisted and the other eleven dropships accounted for over a thousand dead and tens of thousands of tons of supplies and equipment destroyed.

Some of the targets I’m aiming at are likely being held in reserve while others might well have been destroyed but I just can’t tell!

My Voidseekers are down in that muck, but between the air defenses and keeping Rim aerospace assets away from the dropsites they’re fully engaged and can’t give me any appreciable recon.

“Praetorian, this is 3312nd Brigade HQ, we need fire support.”

At least I’m getting some data, what I can piece together from messages like that. “Roger that, three-three-twelve. What’s the target?”

“Our aviation report a RWA artillery detachment set up at the following co-ordinates – multiple Vali or similar. Too much Air Defense in that sector to get close and we’re mixing it up down here.”

Vali carried a fairly standard Arrow IV launcher I recall, which means there’s no reason they couldn’t be loaded with Davey Crockett nukes to use against the landing zones. “Confirmed.” Checking the coordinates against the map, that’s awfully close to the suburbs of Dekirk City. “Coordinates are for a hill overlooking the city, is that right?”

“Height 178, confirmed Praetorian.”

“Understood. Firing a spotting shot.”

Given the circumstances, I only spike the area with a single particle beam from one of my Caspars.

“Two hundred metres north of target, Praetorian! They’re preparing to launch. Fire for effect!”

Great – no time for another spotting shot. I correct and then have the drone lay in four staggered shots south of the original targeting point.

“That’s the medicine, Praetorian.” The line goes dead, but there are others.

It’d almost two hours before the pace of action slows enough that I can break off four pairs of Voidseeker drones – all that’s left of three squadrons – to sweep out and examine the results of my bombardment. In most cases there’s a smoking crater that’s almost certainly not a threat, allowing me to let up and focus on the exceptions, two of which even have enough air defense left to shoot at the Voidseeker, I redouble my fire and correct to strike more precisely at the installations.

By the time the fighting on the ground reaches the edges of Dekirk City, I’ve put a hole hundreds of kilometres in diameter in the defenses of Graham IV. I’m less concerned by the millions of dollars of damage I’ve caused than I am by the possibility I may have to defend that gap in the future if Amaris counter-attacks. Or would that be counter-counter-attacks?

Whatever it’s called, it’s a real possibility. As a potential staging ground to hit the inner core of the Hegemony – including Terra – Amaris isn’t likely to be happy about it not being under his control. It’s possible he’ll gather his forces and try to retake it. Whether those forces would be sufficient, I don’t know. As far as I can estimate he probably has about as many warships as I have Caspars here. Certainly he has far more ground forces at his disposal.

Of course… he may not know that. While his intelligence apparatus is no doubt very capable, given the success of the Coup, it can’t be perfect. He may just decide that if we’re bold enough to attack now then we must have the strength to follow through and pull everything back to defend Terra and the other key worlds. The trouble is that those worlds are almost all centrally placed, making it very easy to use them as staging grounds to attack us – so the only way we’re likely to find out what he does is the hard way.

Reports are coming in of units advancing block by block into Dekirk City with no resistance. Despite ferocious resistance earlier, it seems the remains of the regiments that tried to break up the landing had fled through the city, rather than setting up defensive positions there.

Given what a bloodbath city fighting could be, that was all to… the… good? Except Amaris’ soldiers would never be that considerate of civilians. I snap open a channel to McEvedy. “General, this is too -”

Light, heat and radiation wash over Dekirk City’s centre and the leading elements of the 331st Division.

Hmmm....  Ouch!  Wondering what will happen next?  More please!

Entry #25
Graham IV, Low Orbit
Terran Hegemony
00:00 17 February 2767

My fighters are short of fuel and scattered by the shockwaves but they’re my only eyes on the scene. I send them sweeping across the area, looking for SLDF survivors. The trailing elements – including most of the logistics – are intact but at the very least the leading ‘Mech and Infantry regiments have been almost – perhaps entirely – wiped out.

At least the city’s not collapsed entirely. It might not take much more… but not yet.

It occurs to me that this trap might have more than one arm. Sending the fighters out past the city shows the Imperial regiments are regrouping. With the SLDF in disarray… they might well be able to push them back.

“General McEvedy?”

No reply. His ‘Mech wasn’t at the forefront of the advance, but it wasn’t at the back either. He might have made it, but if he’s out of touch then I have to assume that he hasn’t.

“All SLDF and HAF ground forces, this is Praetorian. A nuclear device has been set off in the centre of DeKirk City. Military and civilian casualties are high.” There was no point sugar-coating that. “Amaris Imperial regiments are amassing for a counter-attack, something that will no doubt cause further civilian deaths. General McEvedy is for the moment out of communication.”

I pause to let that sink in. “The Hegemony Armed Forces are to advance around the city to the south and intercept the imperious soldiers of Stefan Amaris, protecting the civilians against further hard. The 331st Division are to take control of relief efforts in the city, both for our comrades and for the civilians. Fort Baldwin is to prepare what resources they have for disaster relief and the accomodation of refugees.”

There’s an almost immediate response – in most cases, compliance with my unofficial orders, but Lieutenant General Esther Wayne of the 3rd HAF Infantry brigade apparently has other ideas. “Praetorian, you’ve no authority to take charge. And my boys and girls can’t take on ‘Mechs unsupported.”

“Don’t worry, General, this won’t be a fair fight. I just don’t want them trying to use civilians for cover. As for authority, since I’m commanding what amounts to a small fleet I’m the equivalent to at least a Vice Admiral – which leaves me senior to everyone but Major General McEvedy. I hope that that adequately addresses your concerns.”

Then I punctuate my answer by delivering a smashing fusillade down behind the Rim troops, catching their rear elements and herding them towards DeKirk City.

The very visible salvo seems to be sufficient persuasion for Wayne to accept my highly tenuous argument. “If you’re going to do this then you’d damn well better have the chain of command regularised out in future,” she grumbles but the APCs and their support move out after the heavier tanks a minute later.

I punch another salvo on the heels of the Rim formation – not behind the heels, on them. The combined fire of sixty Caspars and myself makes for quite a barrage.

The units that aren’t smashed flat get the message almost immediately and formations break up as lighter, faster units pull forwards and away from their slower comrades. It’s not very friendly of them, but what else can they do? Scattering gives them the best chance of some of them getting away… except that my next salvo doesn’t drop on the slower units, it hammers down left and right of the path of the advance, doing much less damage but boxing them in. It’s almost like a cat playing with its prey, but I don’t feel cruel about it. Not now. Not today.

They only have one way out, back towards Dekirk City and they know that they aren’t being herded that way for their health. But where else can they go? They have to hope that I’ll stop shooting at them if they’re in the suburbs (and they’re right).

Me? I just don’t want them to get away and I’m hitting them with constant pin-pricks now, hitting the hindmost and whatever clusters look as if someone is getting them organised.

What reaches the edge of Dekirk City isn’t a military formation, it’s a mob and one that’s scattered and already half-broken. Some have the courage to try to get past the HAF regiments, others have the vastly greater courage to recognise that they’re defeated and surrender. I don’t fire on either of those groups but the angry tankers aren’t as restrained and about half those trying to surrender aren’t given the chance.

The third category are the ones that recoil away from the defenses. They don’t want to fight any more, but they’re not inclined to surrender (fairly understandable for those of them that can see surrenders not being accepted). I won’t let them retreat though.

Slowly and deliberately I fire shots behind each stray I can detect, making it clear that I know where they are and that I won’t tolerate anything but approaching Dekirk City. Some, stubbornly, hold their ground. The next shots come down on their heads. The others head for the HAF again, for the most part throwing down weapons and doing their utmost to beg for surrender.

By my estimation around half the Rim garrison on Graham IV have been defeated, at the cost of at least a third of a division and hundreds of thousands of civilians.

And this might be the easiest battle of the campaign, with them not having had the chance to go to ground.

I’d prefer to stick to fighting in space. It’s cleaner. Then I remember the civilian dropships destroyed over Terra. Well, slightly cleaner. Hell, I was beginning to think I’d rather it was just all over but that requires the consent of both sides and I don’t think Amaris is going to give up. Maybe I can stop this before the Star League comes apart at the seams but it’s not going to be clean or quick or easy.

Now what am I forgetting?

Oh yes, the civilians. Now where’s the national emergency broadcast channel? It’s practically easier to filter for Amaris’ propaganda than it is to look up what frequency I should tune to.

“…not satisfied with brutally bombarding the Fort Baxter, Kerensky’s stormtroopers have –“

Yeah, just about of that crap. “Just about finished liberating Dekirk City from Amaris’ army of occupation,” I cut in, overpowering the planet-side transmitters by amping my own transmitter up to dangerous levels. It wasn’t as if I have to worry about irradiating my crew and my own electronics are hardened to cope with it.

“My name is Praetorian,” I announce. “I fought over Terra when Amaris launched his coup and I saw Unity City burn after he used nuclear weapons to destroy the Black Watch regiment. And now his soldiers have murdered thousands of helpless people in Dekirk City in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent their liberation. I strongly urge the citizens of Graham IV to evacuate their cities as I have no doubt that they will attempt such cowardly tactics again, when we come for them. Because we will come for Amaris and for all his followers.”

“We couldn’t save Richard Cameron, but you can be damn sure we’ll avenge him.”

I don't know if anyone cares about saving or avenging Richard.

For the rest great stuff drak, loving this read!

I don't know if anyone cares about saving or avenging Richard.

For the rest great stuff drak, loving this read!

Probably not but it'll play well in the press.

Entry #26
Graham IV, Low Orbit
Terran Hegemony
12:00 17 February 2767

It’s around twelve hours since Dekirk City was nuked.

According to the plan, the 331st Division should be moving towards Fort Baldwin now by now. Given their losses, that’s not going to happen for at least another day.

We brought considerable disaster relief equipment with us and Fort Ball had a large reserve of such gear as well – it’s standard for Castles Brian. Unfortunately due to a combination of dropships destroyed on the way in and damage done to Fort Ball… well, even if we hadn’t lost a lot of that equipment, we’d probably still have been overwhelmed.

Right now, the doctors and paramedics are working in two groups. Firstly, patching people up to the point that they can survive what’s likely to be a long drive to another city. Secondly, dividing survivors into those who should be sent to the first group and those who should be moved to one of a dozen or so sets of tents where they are left to die, because there’s nothing else we can do.

There are hardened soldiers down there in tears because, in their eyes, the Star League should be able to help those people and we can’t. Maybe if we had a dozen major hospitals but what we have are the outlying clinics and secondary medical facilities of Dekirk City; half a dozen military field hospitals; and, god bless them, several thousand civilian volunteers.

It doesn’t help particularly that the roads are getting clogged. I’m getting some worrying cases of subsidence – localised fortunately – that suggest that parts of the Dekirk research facility underneath the city are collapsing. It could be that we’ve already lost everything at risk, or the rest could be about to give way. I’ve got a couple of ‘Mech battalions racing around playing traffic warden and forcing broken down cars and trucks off the roads so that everyone else can get past.

That’s important because I’ve strongly recommended that survivors evacuate the area entirely. If they have room and if they’re willing, they’re taking patched-up survivors with them. In some cases just because they’re decent people and in others because they don’t have friends or family outside the city to go to and their passengers can offer something along those lines. I don’t really care why.

What I do care about is that on another, smaller scale, people are leaving the other cities. It seems that whether they believe me or the Rimjobs over who nuked Dekirk City a lot of Grahamites don’t want to be under the same crosshairs themselves. Given that I don’t want them there either… good.

“Praetorian, this is Augustine.”

I focus on that channel. Augustine is the callsign for the company of combat engineers working their way through the area that the 331st’s leading elements were when the nuke went off. Fortunately the weapon used was clean enough that standard gear makes the area relatively safe. “I read you, Augustine.”

“We’ve found General McEvedy, sir. He’s alive but his ‘Mech and those of his command lance are half-buried – they’re in one of the areas that’s experienced subsidence.”

Well that’s just great. “Well if you can get him out, that’d be good. Once you’ve done that ask the troops from Fort Ball how to get into the underground complex. Someone’s going to have to survey it and see what’s collapsed and what can be kept from collapsing.”

“I guess we can do that,” the Captain replies unenthusiastically.

“I know, it’s a shit job. But we don’t know for sure if there’s anyone trapped down there. I’d do it myself but I’m a bit too fat for those narrow space…”

He laughs, as much in surprise as amusement I think. “I can see that being a problem, Praetorian. Oh well, maybe there’ll be some beautiful lady scientists like the ones in the holovids.”

“Good luck with that.” I end the conversation and turn my attention to our next steps. Questioning the more co-operative of the prisoners gave us a rough idea of what we were facing and about half of their regiments had been here, and a couple more in Fort Baxter. That left about four regiments and two Castles Brian under Republican control – it’s much easier to call them than to confuse everyone with their new ‘Imperial’ allegiance.

Besides, I don’t see any point catering to Amaris’ ego.

Except for a few units that had been penning up the SLDF garrison in Fort Ball, the Republicans are all forted up. On the plus side, we can probably liberate the remaining cities fairly easily… but there’s nothing to say that they might not have other booby-traps placed to gut the other cities if they don’t remain ‘loyal’ to the Fat Man. It’s a tough problem and I don’t see any clever way around it.

Which means we’ll have to do this the hard way. I’ll call a conference of the senior officers and hand the decision back to McEvedy if he’s in condition to take over again… but I’m pretty sure this is going to have to be the slow way: taking back each city, each Castle Brian and SDS site one at a time.

I’d been over-optimistic about our ability to do this on a shoestring. Now we’d need reinforcements and I wasn’t inclined to start pulling more units off New Dallas – that could leave them dangerously unprotected. Thinking back to Zebebelgenubi though… maybe there’s another option.

What have the Rimjobs been doing with SLDF reservists on Graham IV?

The answer’s out there and it’s not calculated to make me happy.

It seems that the Office of Policy and Doctrine – a bureaucratic group of vaguely defined purpose even in my databases – had stepped forwards as the primary agents of establishing the new order of the Amaris Empire. One of their first moves had been to recall all SLDF reservists on Graham IV and then to turn law enforcement loose on those who didn’t report in.

If you think that they’d had those reservists equip themselves from the pre-stocked weapons and other gear in their bases I have a bridge across the Thames to sell you. Instead they’d been coralled into a hastily established a detention camp on the grounds of the Flight Academy of Graham.

It would be too much to hope that there wasn’t a convenient means to get rid of them if we tried an obvious rescue but… well, we were being delayed anyway. Something more covert might work.

“General Wayne, this is Praetorian.”

“What do you want now,” she snaps.

“Firstly, to tell you that General McEvedy has been found so there’s some hope of him taking command back shortly. I’m sure you’re even more pleased than I am. Secondly, I’m going to need some volunteers for a dangerous operation behind enemy lines. It seems that many thousands of SLDF reservists are in a detention camp and we need someone to find out about any booby traps before we rescue them…”

Nice!