On Luthien, Takashi Kurita had been highly sceptical of Mori's message until she mentioned Jaime Wolf's name. While the Coordinator's obsession with the mercenary leader had clouded his mind in many ways, the notion that Wolf had returned from his mysterious homeworld and was bound upon vengeance was completely plausible to Takashi. For his own reasons, Theodore Kurita was similarly convinced by the story.
What father and son differed upon was how to respond. Takashi concluded that he personally was a target and ordered that the finest regiments in the Combine be assembled at Luthien for him to lead into battle. Theodore, on the other hand, favoured a mobile campaign by the DCMS battlemech regiments, using local forces to bog down the Clans until their tactics were understood and weaknesses identified. In his view, gathering the best of the DCMS together for a decisive battle was tantamount to throwing them away.
The delicate balance of power between father and son was one that neither wshed to destroy: in theory the Coordinator's power was absolute, but for him to undermine the man who was not only the heir but the person he had handpicked to command his armies would be a political disaster. Teh final decision was a compromise: Theodore ordered many of the most traditionalist regiments, units that were for the most part more loyal to Takashi than to himself, to Luthien. However his own picked force would proceed according to his own strategy.
Ultimately the decison was moot: hardly any forces were in motion before Clan Wolf descended upon Luthien. Arguably the most important action taken by either man was Theodore ordering his wife and children to depart for Dieron. He also gave Tomoe Sakade his signed authority to act as regent to their son Hohiro if the worst came to the worst.
Christmas celebrations across the Combine, clandestine on many worlds, sputtered to a halt as martial law was proclaimed. By the time that Clan Wolf's forces had reached orbit and were preparing to land, word was already arriving from other targets. The Goliath Scorpions had had no difficulty in destroying the Fifth Galedon Regulars on New Samarkand, although they had yet to root out the ISF headquarters with its exotic defenses (orbital bombardment was called in after ISF agents carried out acts of terrorism against Scorpion-occupied facilities).
On nearby Galedon, the Third Prosperina Hussars and Second An Ting Legion, two of the finest regiments in the DCMS, managed to cause some initial confusion for the Nova Cats, who were discomfited by the Hussar's hit and run attacks and the Legion's preference for engaging multiple targets. Rather than act rashly, the Nova Cats maintained their own adherence to zellbrigen and relied on their individual superiority to cripple individual 'Mechs and then finish them off while others escaped. The Hussars, shamed by this behaviour, fought a conventional battle near the Cabra Dulce Memorial Site and were destroyed although many of the survivors were taken as bondsmen. The more pragmatic An Ting Legion fled the Galedon.
Although the Smoke Jaguars had expected to find strong defenders on Benjamin they were surprised to find not only the Seventeenth Benjamin Regulars but also two Ghost Regiments, whose very existence was unknown to them. Alpha Galaxy, which had won the right to spearhead the invasion, reacted with typical ferocity and pursued the defenders into the streets of Deber City, causing enormous collateral damage. Upon accepting the surrender of the remaining DCMS regiments the Jaguars permitted the Colonel of the Regulars to commit seppuku but, drawing a plausible but incorrect conclusion, executed all surviving Ghost warriors as mercenaries.
There were many other attacks in this period - the Diamond Sharks, Ghost Bears and Star Adders hit a total of seven worlds on schedule, none protected by more than local forces that they ran down with great ease. To the embarassment of the Jade Falcons they were running a day behind but were able to cover this by pointing out that one of the three worlds they hit, Land's End, was garrisoned by the Seventh Pesht Regulars. Like most of the Pesht Regulars, the regiment was a low priority for supplies and many soldiers were inexperienced graduates from minor academies gaining field experience. While many fought bravely, they were torn to shreds trying to charge in to close quarters.
Clan Wolf's bid for Luthien itself had been known for quite some time: the Wolf Dragoons and the four secondline garrisons of Epsilon Galaxy. In defense of the Combine's capital were the usual forces of four regular regiments, currently the Otomo, two of the Sword of Light regiments and the First Genyosha. In addition a regiment of the Shin Legion - an expatriate unit that had served House Liao until they fell afoul of Romano Liao - had been en route to Pesht and was able to divert to Luthien.
Jaime Wolf had issued a formal challenge, stating his own forces which the DCMS command deemed to be equivalent to five regiments. Takashi elected to reply, quoting the Second Shin Legion as part of his force. In a gentlemanly fashion, Wolf agreed that the Shin Legion would be allowed to land without interception if the Combine agreed to allow his own forces to make an unopposed landing on the Tairakana Plains. In order to limit collateral damage, both sides agreed to restrict their troops to the Kadoguchi Valley that lay between the plains and the Imperial City.
The resulting setpiece battle would have inevitably have favoured Clan Wolf even if the Combine hadn't been suffering from a divided command. Takashi Kurita had insisted on being placed in command of the second of the two Combine lines while Theodore led the forward line that would be expected to blunt the initial Clan advance and then fall back upon Takashi's fresh forces for the decisive clash. Instead, the Coordinator ordered his three regiments forwards as soon as he realised that the Genyosha, Shin Legion and the supporting armour regiments were heavily engaged.
The resultant engagement was a chaotic one that raged for most of a day. BattleROMs from surviving Combine forces confirmed that the Coordinator's Battlemaster engaged three Wolf battlemechs in succession, defeating first a Shadow Hawk and then a Griffin. In the process, however, the assault 'Mech had taken serious damage. The third 'Mech was a SLDF-era Archer refitted with Clan missile systems: unique amoung the invasion force and evidently the command 'Mech of the Wolf Dragoons. The first salvo from Wolf tore through weakened armour and inflicted devestating damage upon the reactor shielding and the ammunition bins inside the torso.
Takashi Kurita's death was confirmed, along with over a hundred DMCS mechwarriors. Almsot three hundred more were captured or simply unaccounted for, the latter case including the Gunji-no-Kanrei. Survivors, forming up around two battalions of the Seventh Sword of Light - the largest intact body of troops remaining, fell back towards the Imperial City. With significant losses, the Clan forces allowed them two hours while they re-organised before resuming a rapid march after the DCMS.
Seeing defeat on the horizon and without the Coordinator or Gunji-no-Kanrei to lead them, the remaining regiments had difficulty establishing a new strategy. With Clan battlemechs almost in sight, the remaining officers finally agreed to obey the orders of Tai-sa Kiyomori Minamoto of the Seventh Sword of Light, who instructed all officers to form a line on him, to form a last line of the defense so that it could not be said that any DCMS officer had declined to defend Luthien. The other mechwarriors were to retreat to the Imperial City's spaceport and escape if possible to continue to fight for the Combine.
Although Conal Ward pressed Khan Jenna Vickers to destroy the escaping dropships but she declined to do so as it would require the use of aerospace assets not bid in the invasion. Not one of Minamoto's force survived their last stand.
On 1 January 3036 the banners of Clan Wolf were raised above House Kurita's Imperial Palace. That night ilKhan Sevren Leroux woke from his sleep with a sudden conviction that Khan Lucien Carns of the Nova Cats was dead.
