Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: St. Ives Blues

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven: St. Ives Blues

St. Ives, April 20th, 3026

"This is Duke Hull of the Federated Suns to any Capellan forces, lay down your arms and surrender, you will be treated in accordance with the Ares Accords." He broadcast on the standard open channels. "Natasha, if they don't respond in the next five minutes, start using arty to soften those positions up."

"On it," Nat responded. "Artillery is ready to fire once the timer is up."

"This is Mathis, we're in position and ready to paint the targets when you need them."

"Wait until the five minutes is up, there's been enough dead in this war." Hull responded.

"I do not understand." Yvonne said to Natasha Kerensky on a private channel via laser comms. "Why is he giving them the opportunity to surrender?"

"Because he has spent the last twenty-six years killing people who stood in the way of making the Inner Sphere a place of peace again, and everyone grows weary of destruction at some point." Natasha responded in her Nightstar. "Even you shall grow weary of all of the bloodshed at some point."

The Ducal Guard waited the full five minutes before anyone spoke again. "Mathis, paint the targets." He sighed. "Let's go ahead and get this over with."

"Lasing." Mathis responded. "Uploading now."

"Firing on targets." the Artillery battalion opened up with ARROW IV and conventional artillery. "Ceasing fire in five, four, three, two, one. Lead , we're reloading, will be available for tasking in five minutes."

"Copy that." Hull responded before accelerating his Warhammer forward. "I gave you the chance to surrender Duchess Liao." He said over the open channel. "All the blood of the past six months is on your hands."

"Do you think I wanted any of this?" A feminine voice responded. "This madnessthat my father has?" A Thug stepped out with the rest of the regiment that we were facing. "I will not claim to be a victim here, but I shall not stop resisting as well, for I know what shall happen if I am to die, you will install a puppet state and Romano shall merely be a pawn of the Davions."

"Fine then," Hull responded tiredly. "If you wanted war then you and the rest of your sheer fucking mad family got it." He lashed out with his ERPPC's and tore the Thug's arm off at the elbow. "Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war." Hull continued over open comms channels with the rest of the Ducal Guard with him. "For now, we march to war, only to stop until our enemies lie broken at our feet."

"Watch Mark!" Natasha commanded Yvonne Hazen, "I have not seen him this tired and angry in years, and he may do something stupid!"

"I cannot comply, my 'mech cannot match his speed." Hazen replied, "Winson, you have command, make sure that the duke makes it out alive."

"Aff Colonel." Winson replied as she moved to assist the duke before someone isolated him out as a priority target."

"Arrow IV's are reloaded and available for tasking."

"Painting priority targets." Mathis said, "Only Arrow's should be firing, we don't need any friendly fire out here."

"Copy that Major, Arrow's only."

Capella, February 16th, 3026

"We managed to get them before they blew the factory complexes." Jones reported to Peterson much to everyone's relief. "We captured two of them alive and I need to know what I am restricted on as far as interrogation goes."

Peterson made sure the room they were in was sealed and then used privately encrypted communications channels set up for this precise thing.

"Whatever it takes." Peterson said after he had muted the external speakers on his Mithril. "We need all of the information we can get, and if it prevents another tragedy like what happened today, then we will do what is necessary."

"You may want to leave then sir." Jones said bluntly. "You can't know what I'm about to do if you want to stay clean in the eyes of any sort of court later on."

"I'm leaving." Peterson said, "But I'm going to be putting it on record that I requested this, you're not going down for this if someone even wants to try when this is all over."

"Sir," Jones saluted for a minute. "You may want to get De Salvo to help you cover the militia, and we're going to need more bodies from Dunham, MIIO, or DMI, I don't have the people here to do a full sweep and make sure that we got every single WMD that might be hidden on the planet in various areas."

"I know, we got lucky that it was an isolated area that we had the POWs in, and that the weapon they deployed there didn't spread very far."

"I'm gonna get to work now." Jones said bluntly, "You're going to want to leave."

Grand Base, March 14th, 3026

"Fuck!" Zarantha Calderon swore as she maneuvered out of the way of Colonel Pavel Ridzik's return fire. "Just surrender Colonel, the Confederation is done for." She broadcast on open channels.

"I can't do that I'm afraid." A cultured voice returned. "I am prevented from doing the thing that might save myself and my planet by the forces that my liege lord left me to defend my personal holdings with."

"It's the Death Commandos Ma'am." Zarantha's XO said. "They were expanded to a regiment in size by all of the remaining factories here, he can't do anything but fight."

"Have Edward push their flank in, and get the TMI liaison onto the command lines, we need to make sure that we don't take a nuke to the face if we win this." She growled out as she continued to fight with the enemy company led by Colonel Ridzik.

Terra Firma, March 1st, 3026

"Keep moving, we need to secure this world before we move on to Outreach." Frederick Steiner commanded the rebuilt 4th Royal Guards RCT.

"Everybody get the Fuck Down!" Came over the comms channels.

"Who is talking, maintain radio discipline." Frederick began to command before his mobile nearly toppled over from the shockwave.

"All surviving units, report." Frederick commanded.

"Sir, two battalions of our 'mechs are just gone." Came back the report. "There's nothing but a crater left where they were."

"Dammit." Frederick slammed his fist into the nearest wall, heedless of the broken fingers that resulted from that.

"Fall back to the dropships, we can't afford to take anymore losses like that," Frederick said through gritted teeth. "We're going back to regroup, and when we come back."

"We're dropping the Hammer." Came back the response.

"Damn Straight." Frederick responded as he snapped a finger back into position. "We're coming back with the hammer."

New Avalon, February 17th, 3026

"Ian, MIIO and DMI seized all of the MASK cells that we were monitoring, and we found the components for several nuclear devices." Yvonne reported. "We think there may be more cells we are not aware of, and they probably have a nuclear device primed and ready to go off somewhere on the planet."

"Fuck." Ian breathed out. "We're going to have to lock down aren't we?"

"We can't do that Ian." Yvonne said immediately. "If we do, they'll immediately know that we're aware that they exist."

"We can't just sit here and wait for something like this to go off." Ian said. "It's probably a dirty nuke too, the Madman trying to get one last strike in."

"Let our people do their jobs." Yvonne said as calmly as she could. "If we get in their way, there could be a lot more deaths."

Kentares IV, March 15th, 3026

"You people always think you're so smart." Dunham said to the last MASK agent on the planet. "I had my leash taken off months ago, and I'm going to find out exactly what you were doing on my planet, and when I'm done with you, there might not be much left." He shrugged. "But that's the price you pay when you decide to try and fuck with us." He stood up from his chair as the bound man tried to lash out at him. "Or you can tell me now, and I'll make sure you're not tortured."

"You will all die!" The man finally wore his gag off even though his hands and feet were still bound. "We are everywhere and are going to kill you all!" He burst into mad laughter. "You can try to find us all, but you never will."

"I'm sorry to see you feel this way." Dunham said coldly as he placed the gag back into the man's mouth. "Start him on the Narco interrogation first, and then let me know when you're through, we've got some other methods that are reliable if we can't get anything from that."