Battle of Hesperus II (3145)

Part of Dark Age Era
Start Date From 3 January to 23 February 3145 Planet Hesperus II Result Commonwealth' victory Territorial changes Lyran Commonwealth
Factions
(Attacker) Golden Ordun Clan Wolf	(Defender) Lyran Commonwealth
Commanders and leaders
Malvina Hazen Alaric Ward	Trillian Steiner Roderick Steiner
Conditions
Normal

Battle of Hesperus II (3145) was a Late Dark Age Era military operation undertaken by the Clans following the Mongol Doctrine against the Lyran defenders and Clan Wolf forces.

Operation Brief

The military operation took place in the a small area over Hesperus II.

Operation History

Factions & Known Units Involved in the Conflict

Lyran Commonwealth

• Eridani Light Horse (mercenary)
• Third Royal Guards (one company)
• Hesperus Militia
• Several small mercenary units

Golden Ordun

• Raptor Keshik

Clan Wolf

• 3rd Wolf Guard Battle (Clan Wolf)

Origin of Conflict

3145 was a very difficult year for the Lyran Commonwealth: After Clan Wolf and Clan Jade Falcon's attack on Tharkad, and their later retreat, the state's situation was critical: with their Archon death, her designated successor, Trillian Steiner, was very impopular between the military leadership. The mercenary group of the Kell Hounds had been annihilated at the Battle of Timkovichi (3142), removing one of the key lyran defending units. However, quickly reformed by Callandre Kell, the Hounds began a campaign of vengeance, attacking the Falcon held planets. Unable to catch them, the psychotic Falcon leader, Chinggis Khan Malvina Hazen ran preparations to launch a reprisal attack. The target was obvious: Hesperus II, one of most key planets for the Commonwealth, home of their key BattleMech factories. However, the lyran had received word of the impending attack from Loki agents in September 3144, but the weakened LCAF lacked the means to effectively defend Hesperus and even less to repulse the invasion.

Jade Falcon Assault

By the end of the year, both Jade Falcon - Hell's Horses had maneuvered their forces to striking positions and would launch their assault against Hesperus any day. In the meantime, the LCAF had surreptitiously pulled back as many of their defensive units from Hesperus as they could, to preserve them without revealing that they knew what was coming. In January 3145 the planet's defenders were only the Eridani Light Horse mercenary regiment, hired three months earlier by the Lyrans for the express purpose of garrisoning the world, and several smaller mercenary units. The only actual Lyran forces on planet were local militia and a company from the Third Royal Guards. The assault began on 3 January 3145, when a joint force led by Khan Malvina Hazen landed on the planet. When the Falcon’s assault came, the inadequate defensive forces crumbled against the might of two Clans. Acting on standing orders from the Archon, the planetary militia and Royal Guards abandoned the planet after putting up a token resistance, leaving the mercenaries to face the full brunt of the attack. Lieutenant General Wilfred Eichler of the Eridanis rallied the defenders near the Defiance Industries factory in the hopes of pulling inside the factory’s mountain complex and holding out there until reinforcements could arrive. However, that didn't happened: Defiance’s president refused permission for the mercs to enter the safety of the complex. Realizing they had been abandoned by the Lyrans, many of the smaller mercenary outfits approached the Golden Ordun forces and attempted to surrender, only to be cut down and slaughtered without mercy. Then a couple of militiamen, acting by their own initiative, attacked the Horses' forces, expecting to open a gate for the Eridanis to enter the complex, but the mercenaries were unable to reach it and both militiawomen were downed soon after.

The Eridani Light Horse launched a last-ditch charge through the Hell’s Horses line in an attempt to reach their DropShips in Maria’s Elegy, but fell short when the Raptor Keshik, personally led by the Chinggis Khan, swooped in and tore through them like paper. The few mercenaries who made it through this assault scattered into the mountains, where the Raptors took cruel delight in hunting them down to the last man over the following weeks. Apparently, none survived, annihilating the venerable unit.

Wolf Intervention

Knowing she did not possess the strength to oppose a Clan conquest of Hesperus while maintaining adequate defensive positions along her borders, Archon Trillian came up with a desperate plan. Utilizing the skills of Loki, she leaked word of Malvina’s plans to Alaric Ward on Gienah, correctly judging that the Wolf Khan would feel bound to prevent his Falcon counterpart from gaining the tremendous resources of the factory world. While the Falcons and Horses mopped up the mercenary defenders, the arrival of a Clan Wolf flotilla at a pirate point close to the planet signaled the next phase of the campaign. Spearheaded by the Third Wolf Guards, the incoming forces dropped just behind Malvina’s front line. The fierce fighting that followed saw the Wolves break through the Falcon units towards the factory. However, the arrival of Hell’s Horses reinforcements prevented the Wolves from assaulting the factory directly and both sides were forced to withdraw to lick their wounds. And thus began what would become nearly two months of bitter stalemate.

Lyran Counterattack

Having withdrawn all forces from Hesperus at the start of the hostilities, the LCAF gathered a large assault force on Canonbie at the end of January. Many of Trillian's generals felt that she had abrogated her responsibilities as Archon by abandoning Hesperus, and two in particular Margraves demanded that she be removed from the throne in favor of a military junta. The tension got so bad over the course of the first week in February that the Archon was forced to barricade herself in a hotel in fear for her own safety. Only the loyalty of several key regiments and generals prevented another coup by the LCAF. The arrival of General of the Armies Roderick Steiner defused the crisis, though many of the rebellious generals still held a low opinion of their ruler. With Roderick’s backup, Trillian presented her plan for retaking Hesperus once the three Clans assaulting the planet had worn themselves out against each other. Towards the end of January, Trillian’s Loki contacts once more passed her crucial information, and she made the decision to launch Operation JOTUNHEIM. Over the course of more than a month, the stalemate between Malvina’s horde and the Wolves had bogged down to the point where both sides were nearing exhaustion. Determined to end the fighting once and for all, Malvina began openly discussing the possibility of deploying her nuclear arsenal and simply removing the contested factory from the equation. Loki agents operating near her headquarters in Maria’s Elegy got word to a courier JumpShip waiting at a pirate point and informed the task force assembled at Canonbie that their time had come. Fortunately for the Lyrans, Malvina had not yet decided to give up on winning the treasures of the Defiance factory and was holding off on the use of nukes. This gave them a opening to act.

Conflict Conclusion

On 23 February, Malvina’s forces made one last attempt to breach the Wolf line and reach the factory complex. Hazen ordered that the majority of her nukes be readied for launch if the assault failed. In the next few hours, SaKhan Beckett Malthus, long known as a reluctant follower of the Chinggis Khan, attempted to assassinate Malvina during a moment in which she was not accompanied by her Raptor Keshik bodyguards. Both attacking clanners, leaderless, fell into confusion when Malvina was being reported as dead or merely injured. The incapacitation of their leader threw the Ordun lines into disarray. Adding to the turmoil was the arrival by sheer coincidence of the Lyran liberation force, which found itself combat dropping onto tired Wolf troopers and demoralized Falcons and Horses already in the early stages of a panicked retreat. The fresh Lyran forces easily routed both Clan sides and within a week Hesperus was once more firmly in Commonwealth hands.

Aftermath

Politically, the aftermath proved significant to both Trillian Steiner and Malvina Hazen. The LCAF victory over two infamous Clan foes aided Steiner in strengthening her shaky hold on the throne. Alaric Ward shrugged off his defeat and even congratulated Steiner on her victory; his main objective, it would seem, was simply to keep Malvina from taking the planet's factories. As for the Chinggis Khan herself, she remained in a coma for months before emerging to brutally killing Malthus for his treachery in a Trial of Grievance, but by then, her Hell's Horses allies had used the chance to extract themselves from her brutal rule, effectively dissolving the Golden Ordun. Somehow, the Wolves also were victorious, as they've prevented the falcons to seize Hesperus II's factories. Alaric Ward, after knowing than the lyrans have manipulated him, even congratulated Trillian for her victory. The cowardly abandonment of the Eridanis by the Lyrans in the battle made small mercenary units unwilling to sign contracts with the Commonwealth, as doing so was seen as suicide.

Notes

^ Technical Readout: 3145 Lyran Commonwealth refers to this as the "nineteenth battle for Hesperus II" on several occasions, though there are no seventeenth or eighteenth battles documented. Considering this and taking note that "nineteenth" has not been capitalized like the first sixteen battles are, the proper name of the 3145 battle is uncertain at this time.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: 3145
• The Day When Heaven Was Falling in No Greater Honor (novela)