97

Wolf Clan Occupation Corridor

Rasalhague

October 2, 3056

Khan Ulric Kerensky was not having a good day/week//month/year.

First the invasion had been costlier than even the worse simulations had predicted. After that, Clan Wolf had been forced to share its corridor with the Nova Cats. Not exactly enemies, but not friends also.

Then the IlKhan had been killed, during the first turns of what was turning into an Inner Sphere counter-attack, creating a lot of confusion, with calls to return to Strana Mechty to elect a new one, something clearly impossible during an enemy attack. However, a council had to be carried on as soon as possible, but the only way was to use a HPG holoconference, something that the Clans still at home for pure political reasons strongly disagreed with.

While not affecting him directly, the number of Bloodnamed Jaguars killed, including the Khan, and the IlKhan, caused such chaos inside that Clan that he almost pitied them. Almost.

Two weeks ago, the Federated Commonwealth had appeared in force over Twycross and his own estimates was that even the much vaunted Falcon Guards, even supplemented by several second line units had few chances to survive and even fewer to win.

Right now, it was his turn to face a thread. A few hours before, a massive fleet had arrived at the Zenith Jump Point.

While the Wolfs had the CWS Werewolf (Mckenna class), CWS Dire Wolf (Sovetskii Soyuz class) and the CWS Nature's Wrath (Lola III class) in orbit and the Alpha and Gamma Galaxies on the ground, the forces moving against them were superior in numbers.

So far the WarShip component had been identified as the ENS (Earth Navy Ship) Defender of Earth (Farragut class) the ENS Lady Shandra (Cameron class), the ENS Earth's Vengeance (Sovetskii Soyuz class), the ENS Bordeaux (unknown class) and the ENS Defender of Humanity (Essex class).

Note.: The ENS Bordeaux is the ex-CSV Bordeaux (Dante class), a type of WarShip the Clans don't known. The ENS Defender of Earth is the OTL WoBS Righteous Justice (no SLS name known), but in ITTL it was recovered and massively refitted by the Earth Navy. The Cameron keeps its original name, the others changed the Comstar names to ones more in line with the new owners – many of the Comstar WarShips didn't have an original SLS name in Sarna.

Note ii.: The refit of the Farragut consisted in adding a LF battery, HPG, Naval Comm-Scanner Suite Large, replacing the 22 Killer Whale tubes with AR-10 ones with very deep magazines, replacing the 40 LL with 40 LPL, 12 LBX-10, and 36 AMS. The 36 ASFs were expanded to 72, and the 10 small crafts were Goalkeeper V – yes, Earth also has that design / tech - and doubling the fuel capacity. For that, the cargo as been 'reduced' to 140.ktons. That refit was executed in the Titan shipyards, the only one capable of such feat at this date.

Following them, were a number of DropShips that could easily transport up to four or five Galaxies, some with FRR IFFs but the majority with EDF/ENS IFFs.

Ulric was still dealing with the shock of the massive defeat that the Jaguars, Ravens and Horses had suffered in Luthien, and now this. The Khan was slowly understanding that the Clans have bite more than they could, he had already ordered several Clusters of garrison units to be moved to the new territories, to help pacify them, and had also ordered the activation of all the reserve / mothballed WarShips of the Clan, but the felling that it was too little, too late didn't disappear. The fact was that they have very little WarShips or even on JumpShips production capacities, and the Inner Sphere had showed them that the data collected by the Wolf Dragoons until 3019 was now obsolete, and the Watch efforts so far provided little results.

'Open a channel to the enemy commander', Ulric commanded.

An older woman, with a deep blue uniform, appeared in the holotank.

'I'm Admiral Cynthia Ferguson, of the Earth Navy. With whom I'm speaking?'

'I'm Ulric Kerensky, Khan of the Wolf Clan, and the leader of the forces defending this system. I ask for Hegira.'

In the holotank, the admiral listened to some advice from out of vision range 'And why I should let you depart free?'

'Oh, you have enough forces to win the battle in space no doubt. And because you are no Clan, no doubt you will use your surviving WarShips against my forces on the ground. That forces me to deploy inside the cities, to negate that. The following fights are going to be not only very bloody, but will irreparably damage the infrastructure of the planet you want to capture, and do an immense number of casualties to the civilian population. If that's what you want, fine I can deliver you that kind of battle, but I think we would both benefit from a more civilized solution.'

Several unintelligible arguments again from outside of what he could see, while Ulric waited patiently, not showing any reaction on is perfect poker face.

Finally, the leaders of the invading forces achieved a consensus 'I grant you Hegira. Cynthia out.' was the only answer and after that the comms was cut.