Difference between revisions of "Task Force Serpent"

Line 386: Line 386:
 
===The End of a Clan===
 
===The End of a Clan===
  
{{Colonel, this is Beresick. The inbounds are Task Force Bulldog. I am in contact with Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and the Precentor Martial. They said to tell you, 'Well done and prepare to stand down.' They'll take over from here|Commodore Beresick}}
+
{{quote|Colonel, this is Beresick. The inbounds are Task Force Bulldog. I am in contact with Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and the Precentor Martial. They said to tell you, 'Well done and prepare to stand down.' They'll take over from here|Commodore Beresick}}
  
 
The Northern Army marched out to face the Smoke Jaguars. For once, the terrain did not allow the Jaguars to simply outflank the defenders, resulting in something of a stalemate as both sides waged back and forth through a narrow mountain pass that only allowed a few units at a time to engage. Fanatically, almost suicidally, the Jaguars pressed in and General Winston, seeing her men dying, suddenly stepped forward into the pass personally to challenge a Thor belonging to the Jaguars Den. Backhanded by the enraged Clan Mechwarrior and her Mech falling to the ground, a PPC blast directly to her cockpit ended the General in the final moments of the engagement. She was avenged at once by Colonel Charles Antonescu, who destroyed the Thor and assumed command of the Northern Army as the few surviving Smoke Jaguar Mechs retreated. Unknown to the now dead commander of Task Force Serpent, what remained of her army had survived the final push of the Smoke Jaguars in the North.
 
The Northern Army marched out to face the Smoke Jaguars. For once, the terrain did not allow the Jaguars to simply outflank the defenders, resulting in something of a stalemate as both sides waged back and forth through a narrow mountain pass that only allowed a few units at a time to engage. Fanatically, almost suicidally, the Jaguars pressed in and General Winston, seeing her men dying, suddenly stepped forward into the pass personally to challenge a Thor belonging to the Jaguars Den. Backhanded by the enraged Clan Mechwarrior and her Mech falling to the ground, a PPC blast directly to her cockpit ended the General in the final moments of the engagement. She was avenged at once by Colonel Charles Antonescu, who destroyed the Thor and assumed command of the Northern Army as the few surviving Smoke Jaguar Mechs retreated. Unknown to the now dead commander of Task Force Serpent, what remained of her army had survived the final push of the Smoke Jaguars in the North.

Revision as of 23:02, 21 May 2015

Task Force Serpent was a multi-national task force tasked with executing a secret military operation commissioned by the newly formed SLDF under the aegis of Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion. Their objective was to reach the Clan Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress and capture it, with the goal of destroying the Smoke Jaguars as an entity. The mission ran concurrent to Operation Bulldog - an operation whose goal was to drive the Smoke Jaguars from the worlds they occupied in the Inner Sphere. Although Morgan Hasek-Davion died en route by assassination, Ariana Winston of the Eridani Light Horse succeeded him and completed the mission.

General Winston, however, was killed in the final battle of Huntress, on 30th March, 3060 whilst piloting her Cyclops against a Smoke Jaguar Summoner, just ten days before Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and Taskforce Bulldog arrived planet-side. Command of Operation Serpent fell to General Winston's second-in-command, Colonel Charles Antonescu until Taskforce Bulldog arrived planet-side and relieved the shattered survivors of Operation Serpent.

Task Force Serpent emblem

Participating Units

Ground units

Special Operations Forces

  • DEST - Teams 4, 5 and 6; ten Operatives each
  • MI6 - two teams; ten Operatives each
  • ROM - one agent

Additionally, Theodore Kurita deployed a team of four Nekekami, which revealed themselves only to the present head of Task Force Serpent. They were Kasugai Hatsumi (head of this group), Honda Tan, Rumiko Fox (specialty: venom and sniper rifle) and Kieji Sendai (specialty: explosives).

An unknown political faction (purportedly Word of Blake) sent an assassin, to kill Morgan Hasek-Davion. Kasugai Hatsumi claimed, that he was a former Loki-agent, but it is unknown if that is correct. This agent used the name Lucas Penrose.

Fleet

Task Force Serpent's JumpShip fleet with Invisible Truth leading it.

Additionally the fleet included several Monolith-, Star Lord- and Invader-class JumpShips.

Crucis March to Clan Homeworlds

On November 14th 3058, during a military planning session for the first wave of Operation Bulldog, Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht presented new intelligence material about Clan Smoke Jaguar that have been delivered to him by the Smoke Jaguar defector, Trent. Among this information was the location of Huntress, the Smoke Jaguar homeworld. Morgan Hasek-Davion saw potential for the Inner Sphere forces to deal a devastating blow to the Smoke Jaguars by attacking their homeworld while also expelling them from the Inner Sphere. After convincing the others of the plan's viability, Hasek-Davion was named the Task Force Commander. His initial request for forces to make up the Task Force consisted of: the First Kathil Uhlans, the Eridani Light Horse, the Northwind Highlanders, the ComStar Invader Galaxy, the 11th Lyran Guards, the Second Sword of Light, one yet-to-be-determined regiment of McCarron's Armored Cavalry, the 1st St. Ives Lancers and the Knights of the Inner Sphere.

Into the Periphery

Task Force Serpent assembled on Fort Defiance, a barren planet deep in the Crucis March of the Federated Commonwealth, which was mostly used for military training maneuvers. There the various units trained fighting alongside each other and against the simulated Clan forces of the ComStar Invader Galaxy. Simultaneously, the DEST and MI6 teams trained for spacecraft boarding actions.

The Task Force launched on May 1st 3059, first jumping to Tsamma, where Morgan Hasek-Davion exchanged several damaged 'Mechs from Task Force Serpent for 'Mechs from the planetary militia.

Task Force Serpent followed a route that brought them near the Outworlds Alliance. They then jumped into the Periphery using a route that paralleled those commonly used by the Clans.

In November 3059 Task Force Serpent arrived in the Meribah system, which had a habitable planet. Morgan Hasek Davion ordered a Mule-class DropShip specially outfitted to obtain fresh drinking water from that planet to deploy, to replenish the fleets supplies. The 5th Striker Battalion of the 21st Striker Regiment of the Eridani Light Horse was detailed to serve as the security element for this mission. In the course of their duties, the Eridani unit encountered and defeated several 'Mech-equipped bandits: Meribah was the base of a group of pirates. Luckily, the pirates' main force was absent on a raid. The Eridani destroyed the base and released the slaves found there. The captured pirates were court-martialed and their leaders executed. The debate over the fate of the pirates caused major disagreements among the unit commanders of Task Force Serpent on ethical grounds. Morgan Hasek-Davion exercised his right as Task Force Commander to have the final say, but the damage to his personal relationship with some of the officers, including his deputy, Colonel Ariana Winston took some time to heal.

The Battle of Trafalgar

Attention, Clan WarShips, I am Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion, commander of the Star League Task Force Serpent. Let this be my batchall. I call upon you to prepare to defend your fleet and yourselves. We will be attacking you with all but one of our WarShips. I name as isorla any ship that is rendered unable to fight or maneuver, and claim its passengers and crew as bondsmen. What forces do you bid in your defense
  — Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion

On December 15th, Task Force Serpent stumbled unexpectedly across a small Clan Ghost Bear fleet, consisting of: one Congress, two Whirlwinds and an Invader. Morgan Hasek-Davion hailed the Clan Fleet and issued a Batchall, declaring a Trial of Possession for the entire Clan Fleet. His challenge was accepted by Star Colonel Alonso Gilmour who ordered his three warships to engage the enemy. Taking command of the engagement, Beresick ordered the Fox class Rostock to remain with the transport Jumpships and all other warships to advance on the enemy.

The closest warship to the Clan Flotila, the Lola III class Ranger, first moved to target the Invader class Winter Wind as a sudden sensor spike indicated that the ship was bringing its K/F drives online. Ordered to 'stop that ship jumping', Captain Mercia Winslow obeyed quite literally; a salvo of Naval weapons fire destroying both its field initiator and drive controller and leaving the jumpship dead in space. Quickly, orders were passed to the DCS Haruna to deploy its DEST teams and capture the disabled starship. The Fire Fang, a Whirlwind class Destroyer, moved to intercept and protect the disabled Jumpship and a running battle was soon underway as the Kyushu class Frigate closed in. Intervention by the Fox class Antrim and a pair of Avenger class Assault Dropships forced the Clan warship to break off to defend itself, letting the Kyushu close in and deploy the Bisan 90 kilometers out, before she reversed course to re-engage the Whirlwind, eventually defeating it and accepting its surrender.

The Winter Wind in response launched her last line of defense, a pair of Union-C class dropships who engaged the Achilles class assault ship. In a display of superior skill, the Combine dropship outmaneuvered the Clan dropships, making a fast pass along the Invader and launching the DESTs NL-42 Battle Taxis which docked and delivered the boarding party. The Ghost Bear Elemental Marines and some armed crew members put up a fight, but were no match for the elite Commandos who swiftly stormed the ship. However the Clan security force were able to delay them long enough for the ships command crew to corrupt the computer core and physically smash much of the bridges equipment. Redundant as such actions were given that the ship would never jump again.

The Ranger meanwhile, after firing the first shots of the battle had moved to engage its second target, the Congress class Frigate Shining Claw. Superior captaining by Star Colonel Gilmour kept her in the battle for an extended period of time, even with the Essex-class Starlight joining the Ranger to tag-team the Frigate. Both the Ranger and Starlight would take considerable armor damage and the Starlight lost one of her Naval PPC batteries, but in the end they successfully disabled the enemy flagship and the Star Colonel conceded the fight.

The final Clan Warship, the Whirlwind class Ursus, moved to engage the Invisible Truth, despite the considerable tonnage mismatch. Using her speed and maneuverability the Destroyer, for a time, managed to dance around the Battle Cruiser and land numerous minor hits on her armor. Inevitably however, the Truth managed to pin the Whirlwind and with a focused volley of her full firepower, tore open a large amount of her hull, leaving the ship on fire and out of control. One of the Invisible Truths dropships was launched to perform SAR operations and was able to evacuate 96 survivors from the ship.

With the Clan flotilta defeated, the Task Force was faced with several pressing issues in the aftermath of the engagement. First was the repair of their own ships. While luckily most of their ships had not taken structural damage, they had lost one Assault dropship, the Starlight had lost some of her weapons and many ships had taken armor damage that would compromise their protection in the event of another engagement. In exchange however, they had captured or destroyed all the Clan starships. Although the damage done in the process rendered most of them crippled beyond any possible field repair, the Firefang was able to be both repaired and put into service as the eighth warship of the fleet. They also captured an undamaged Clan Broadsword class dropship, the Ice Dart (renamed the Stiletto), which had been docked to the Winter Wind but unable to launch. They also captured a couple of damaged Union-Cs, a dozen Omnifighters and a Star of Omnimechs which were divided up among the units.

The biggest headache for Serpent however was that the Clan Flotila had been engaged in Clan Ghost Bears relocation of its civilian population to the Inner Sphere. And as such, was carrying over a thousand civilians, plus the ships crews who were nominally bondsmen. Without the resources to take them along and more than one of the missions senior officers either uneasy or downright hostile to the idea of accepting Clan Bondsmen as allies, Morgan quickly stepped in to lay down the law; any Clansmen who willingly gave their bond oath would be accepted by the task force - even if he had to assign every one of them as a member of his personal staff. The others who did not would be taken with the fleet until such time as they could find an inhabited world they could be left behind on. Although distrust was great from many of the Spheroids of 'Clan Serpent', tensions were eased somewhat when a Clan technician, Lennox, at great personal risk saved the life of an Inner Sphere technician during Zero-G salvage operations. He was rewarded by Morgan Hasek Davion with his freedom and reassigned to his personal staff. The other Bondsmen considered most trustworthy helped to form a skeleton crew for the Fire Fang.

The repair and salvage operations took several days, some unit commanders very uneasy about spending so long at a system clearly used by at least some Clans. None the less the operations were completed successfully and the task force jumped out, apparently after sending the wrecked Clan starships on a ballistic course into the local star, removing any evidence of the battle. Just as it left the system however it detected an abnormal jump signature possibly indicating an inbound starship, which was noted, but not investigated - as to do so would require returning to the system.

In late December, the remaining pirates being held in custody and the surviving Ghost Bears were exiled on a habitable planet. It is not known if the Inner Sphere ever passed on this fact to Clan Ghost Bear.

Death of Morgan Hasek-Davion

"He was the last of the old order of things. We'll never see his like again."
  — General Ariana Winston

During the night of the 2nd January 3060, Morgan Hasek-Davion was poisoned with a rare venom introduced into his whiskey. Initially considered to be a death by natural causes, Andrew Redburn at once voiced suspicions to Ariana Winston, Morgans deputy and now Task Force Commander, that he had been murdered. Citing the fact that Prince Victor had insisted on Morgan undertaking a full physical before going on the mission, which he had passed with flying colors. A careful autopsy of Morgans corpse by the Invisible Truths medical officer, Dr Donati and initial investigation by MI6 officer Captain Roger Montjar confirmed he had indeed been poisoned. Starting an investigation, Captain Montjar later stepped aside on his own instance in favor of Sho-sa Michael Ryan from the DEST, on the grounds that the DEST commandos were given much more extensive investigative training by the ISF, which would be useful in this situation. It was an ironic indicator of the state of bonding between the two special forces teams (who otherwise would have been the most mortal of enemies) that the MI6 unit was willing to step aside and let an ISF unit investigate the death of the Marshal of the Armies of the Federated Commonwealth, but the DEST leader took to the task with a will.

Investigations concluded that this was the work of a professional assassin, as he had used an extremely rare electronic code-cracking device to gain entry to the cabin and the highly toxic poison used was hardly something that would be carried around by anyone but a professional. Extensive searches through the Invisible Truth failed to find either a trace of the assassin, poison or electronics, but record cross checks of the ships crew turned up five red flags. On board were five ComStar crew members who simply did not exist before they had entered Comstar. As it turned out, these were the four Nekekami Theodore had personally gifted Morgan, plus the assassin. One of them, Rumiko Fox, was subjected to a lie detector test, but the results were unclear. Major Ryans feeling (correctly) was that she had something to hide, but was not the assassin. The next candidate was Lucas Penrose. He killed the guards that had been sent to bring him in for questioning, stole their weapons and fled into a room, shooting Major Ryan in the process (fortunately the DEST commando continued to wear body armor as a matter of habit even on-ship and took only minor injuries). The Marines arrived quickly in response but Penrose warned them that he had planted a bomb in one of the Invisible Truths Naval Autocannon magazines and would detonate it if he was not given a jumpship to take him back to the Inner Sphere and if Winston didn't surrender herself to him at once.

Ludicrous as the demands were, Winston complied to buy time to investigate the threat. Conversing with the man at gunpoint, she eventually realized that the hand he was holding behind his back, suggesting he was holding the trigger for a detonator, was in fact empty. With this knowledge, she risked jumping Penrose, a zero-G wrestling match spilling out into the corridor over his gun, but the Marines had no clear target. Just as it seemed Penrose was about to succeed in killing her, Penrose was suddenly hit (by Kasugai Hatsumi) with a poisoned Shuriken, something seen only briefly by Winston before she swung the suddenly slack gun back and shot Penrose. As guards and MedTechs stormed in, Kasugai Hatsumi (disguised as a MedTech) retrieved the Shuriken leaving no clear evidence. Winstons insistence of what she had seen led to Dr Donati again investigating, finding a tiny wound where she thought she had seen it, with traces of nerotoxin. Although suspicious of the events, Winston (who had come into knowedlge of the Nekekami after watching the Vid Morgan had left for her in the event of his death) was later contacted by Kasugai Hatsumi. He confirmed that Rumiko had been one of his agents and told her a story about Penrose being a rogue Loki-agent, asking for the release of his agent.

Shortly after the funeral of Morgan Hasek-Davion, the ships of TFS received a broadband transmission sent by Aleksandr Kerensky himself. It was a declaration explaining why the General had taken the SLDF from the Inner Sphere. As the message was traveling at lightspeed, it would not reach the Inner Sphere for another eight hundred of so years. However, the Voice confirmed that they were nearing the Clan Homeworlds, now only a few hundred light years away.

Operation Stalking Tiger

All commands, this is Dancer. The word is given. Commence Operation Serpent.
  — General Ariana Winston

Though the investigation of the death of Morgan Hasek-Davion, the task force had continued its jumps towards the Clan Homeworlds, standing ready at Waypoint Mulberry, 30 light years from Huntress on the 19th of February, 3060.

The primary threat to the invasion, based on the data the Smoke Jagaur defector Trent had brought back, was an active Clan Space Defense System at Huntress, control of which was built into the planets primary command and operations center Mount Szabo, near the planetary capital Lootera. Accordingly, a plan had been worked up to covertly insert the DEST teams with the objective of destroying the SDS command center and opening the way for the assault force, dubbed 'Operation Stalking Tiger'.

The DCS Haruna became the first Inner Sphere warship to invade Clan Space when she materialized at the Zenith point for Huntress later on the 19th. No challenge was received upon her arrival, broadcasting an IFF signal provided by Trent that identified her as a Smoke Jaguar York Class destroyer/carrier named the Queen Lynx. Thirty minutes later the Stiletto, the broadsword captured from Clan Ghost Bear at Trafalgar, undocked. Since repainted in a Smoke Jaguar paint scheme and running an IFF identifying her as a Smoke Jagauar dropship designated Tracker, the dropship commenced a standard 1G burn for Huntress. The Haruna deployed her jump sail and, after a standard recharge cycle, jumped out-system on the 26th of February. Three days later, on the 1st of March, the Stiletto reached orbit of Huntress. Her transponder was briefly interrogated by an automated ground based system, apparently logging her fabricated orders to deliver parts and technical personnel to the industrial complex at Pahn City before shutting off, apparently loosing interest in the inbound ship.

The crew of the Stiletto and DEST commandos were somewhat put out at the incredibly lax security for a Clan Homeworld compared to the layers of flight control and security around such Inner Sphere worlds. Without so much as a even a verbal challenge being directed at them as yet. Trent however had correctly predicted that his former Clan considered an Inner Sphere attack against the Clan Homeworlds completely impossible. And as no Clan attacker would ever try to sneak in using such subterfuge, there was simply no need for any kind of elaborate security in the view of the Smoke Jaguars, who simply took the transponder data at face value.

As such, the insertion went off without a hitch. Using stealth drop-cocoons, the thirty DEST Commandos under Sho-Sa Ryan made a successful HALO drop into the mountains west of Lootera at 03:00 local. The Stiletto then faked a steep descent, broadcasting a very weak distress signal and appearing to the local flight control to have had some kind of catastrophic failure, its track apparently vanishing somewhere in the vast Dhuan Swamp. Galaxy Commander Russou Howell, the senior officer on-planet, had been woken with the news of the unexpected arrival of the Tracker (although he was far from pleased to have been woken for such a minor lower-cast issue) but had not even arrived at his command center before the news that she had apparently crashed was received. Slightly nonplussed by the odd series of events, the Galaxy Commander was mostly unconcerned, ordering a search to be made for the crashed ship and going back to bed. Meanwhile, having flown out of radar coverage, the Stiletto grounded in the Lunar Range on the continent of Abysmal, far from where any search would be looking for her.

It took the DEST teams three nights to make their way to their objective, as surprise was essential and maximum stealth was necessary, limiting their movements to only a few kilometers every night. On March 5th, only hours before the task force was due to jump in, the DEST teams infiltrated the command center, killing two Elemental sentries as they did so. Inside, the teams split to hit three discrete objectives; the main planetary sensor network control station, the main Command and Control room and finally, the SDS control center. The teams initially ran into no problems, storming each room quickly but at the SDS command center, one technician managed to trigger an alarm before being gunned down. With surprise lost, the DEST teams swiftly planted their charges, executing the remaining technicians before starting their exfiltration. A rapid response team of two Elemental Points summoned by the alarm complicated matters however, arriving as the first team attempted egress. A brief but vicious firefight broke out that cost the DEST teams six men before the rest of their commandos arrived and eliminated the enemy reinforcements.

The remaining 24 Commandos left the area before further reinforcements arrived and the charges detonated on schedule, achieving the primary objectives of the mission. However, by necessity, the DEST commandos were forced to leave their dead behind. And while a mysterious explosion may have been put down to bandit cast activity or a catastrophic accident, for a time, not even the most hidebound Smoke Jaguar officer could ignore the evidence of six dead Inner Sphere commandos - and what their attack on the planets primary command center meant.

Fortuntantly, the fleet jumped into the Huntress System mere hours later and the question of surprise became academic.

The Fleet Arrives

"Send to all commands. Clear for battle, launch all Combat Air Patrol fighters. Message to Starlight. Starlight is to remain with and protect the transports. We're here, and no Clan buggers are going to make us leave!"
  — Commodore Beresick

At 06:30 local, March 5th 3060, Task Force Serpent entered the Huntress system at the Zenith Point. Oddly, although the DCS Haruna had used the Zenith point only a few days earlier and found it clear of hostile warships, the fleet arrived to find a flotila of Smoke Jaguar warships waiting for them; a Sovetskii Soyuz class Cruiser and two Vincent class Corvettes. The Invisible Truth squared off against the enemy cruiser, setting a collision course and exchanging missile fire as she closed in, Beresick (correctly) anticipating that his maneuvering would be taken as a personal challenge to the Clan Captain, who reciprocated. When she reached optimal range, Beresick unleashed a full salvo from his ships bow guns and broke hard to port, bringing his broadside guns into play. The rolling salvo of firepower shattered the bow armor of the enemy Cruiser while the Truth shrugged off the return fire, but before the engagement could continue, the Fox class Rostock dove in from above, adding its own firepower to the engagement, causing no great damage.

Either incensed at their interference in what had been a personal duel or seeing an easy kill, the Soyuz promptly rolled to bring her massive array of broadside naval weapons to bear and in a furious salvo, tore deeply into the Federated Commonwealth warship. The Corvette attempted to disengage as the Truth started to maneuver to come between the two ships, but the Clan warship refused to let her go and with a second salvo, blew the ship to pieces. A single lifeboat with five crew members were the only survivors.

Unfortunately for the Clan warship, in turning to follow the Rostock she had presented her shattered bow to the Invisible Truths broadside once again and the furious crew on the Truth avenged the Rostock with several broadside salvos that tore deep into the Clan ship, leaving her effectively destroyed.

The two Vincent class ships meanwhile had run around the heavyweight fight to find their own ends. The first was intercepted by the Emerald and destroyed, for modest damage in exchange to the Essex-class WarShip. The second Vincent evaded the remaining warships in an attempt to try and attack the fleet of jumpships that had brought the ground troops to invade. She did minor damage to several jumpships, but was destroyed by their guardship, the Starlight. Already damaged from the previous engagement at Trafalgar, the new damage stripped the Starlight of most of her port weapons bays and her Grav deck, damage that would bode ill for her several weeks later.

Quickly regrouping, the jumpships launched their dropships. Escorted by the Fire Fang and Ranger, the invasion force proceeded in-system.

The Jaguars Prepare

"Sound the alert. Not one of those freebirth vermin will leave Huntress alive!"
  — Galaxy Commander Russou Howell

Although initially disbelieving of the idea that the Inner Sphere were attacking the very den of Clan Smoke Jaguar, Galaxy Commander Roussou Howell soon snapped out of his shock and for the first time in a long time started to act like a Smoke Jaguar officer. On paper, he had very few tools to try and face the incoming attacks, the Huntress garrison for some time having been drained of any really useful military assets to help make up for the shocking losses in their Inner Sphere Touman on Luthien, and Tukayyid. Meaning that he had little more than Solahma light infantry and scant few regular troops other than newly blooded warriors waiting for a ship to take them to the Inner Sphere, something Khan Lincon Osis had been quite careful to keep secret lest he risk a Trial of Possession by the Homeworld Clans.

His predecessor Benjamin Howell had however, with unusual foresight, anticipated that eventually the Inner Sphere would seek to strike back at the Clans by attacking their Homeworlds. Accordingly, he had worked to 'creatively' acquire equipment for his warriors by having Inner Sphere salvage shipped back to Huntress. Officially for 'analysis' by Smoke Jaguar scientists, it was in fact refurbished and used to equip a sizable number of his Solahma warriors with Battlemechs. Along with some ancient Star League Mechs pulled from storage and cast off prototypes re-purposed, the two paper Galaxies garrisoning Huntress (the Watchmen Galaxy and Iron Guard Galaxy) had been transformed into a genuine fighting force. Although Benjamin Howell had later been executed for his gross violations of regulations, his actions had been given the tools to have at least a fighting chance of holding their homeworld and they mobilized accordingly. Although there was a general sense of outrage at the presumption of the Inner Sphere at daring to strike at their homeworld, among the Solahma there was also an odd sense of gratitude to their attackers; that they would have their opportunity to die in glorious battle rather than waste away in old age. And on the 12th of March, the Inner Sphere troops reached orbit and commenced their landings, batting aside the few fighters that could be scrambled to try and stop them. The Fire Fang and Ranger remained in orbit, on call to deliver fire support if needed.

HPG messages were sent to the ilKhan (and still nominally senior Smoke Jaguar Khan) Lincon Osis as well as by the Jade Falcons from their small landhold of Falcon Eyrie to their own Khan. For various political reasons, neither Khan chose to inform the Grand Council immediately of the disaster.

The Assault on Huntress

The Inner Sphere regiments were split into seven major operational commands for the invasion, hitting specific targets around the planet at the same time, to prevent the Smoke Jaguars being able to concentrate a defense in any one place. In addition, several special forces deployments would hit other objectives.

The Eridani Light Horse

The Light Horse were tasked with attacking the planetary capital of Lootera, with two main objectives. The 21st and 151st Regiments under the command of Colonels Edwin Amis and Charles Antonescu attacked the primary training base on Huntress, just outside of the capital city as well as the planets main spaceport. The 71st under Colonel Sandra Barclay was tasked with attacking the Field of Heros and Clan Generic Repository.

All three regiments made orbital drops into their AO, the 21st and 151st landing and moving out swiftly, the 71st having a less successful landing, scattered across a wider area that forced them to regroup before proceeding on mission.

Only a few Trinaries, mostly equipped with Inner Sphere Mechs, moved to engage the ELH.

Taking only light casualties, the 71st simply rolled over the defending Mechs with their superior forces. Although Colonel Barclay was forced to issue a stern order for her infantry to not move in and destroy the Repository, knowing such an action would spurn every Trueborn on the planet into an enraged fury. Instead she ordered her mechanized infantry to storm the facility, but not destroy it. Unfortunately, the Elementals assigned to the repository had used the time provided by the Battlemechs defending it to seal the facility up and barricade themselves in, forcing the ELH infantry to clear it room by room, the Jaguars fighting as fanatically as feared to protect the most sacred location in their culture. The attached Mechanized infantry battalion to the 71st took 20% casualties, with close to 90 KIA and WIA.

The 21st under Colonel Amis took the heaviest equipment casualties with thirteen Mechs destroyed or damaged beyond repair, with fifty personal WIA or KIA, mostly among his infantry platoons. The combat engineers assaulting the Spaceport were for a time pushed back by the Elemental defenders, but a combination Battlemech / Battle Armor attack managed to clear out the spaceport and secure the facility.

The 151st under Colonel Antonescu took nine non-recoverable Mech losses and 40 casualties securing the Southern regions of Lootera.

The DEST teams later in the day, as per the operational plan, rendezvoused with General Winstons command company, having evaded all search efforts made for them over the last week. General Winston established the Field of Heroes, the parade ground in front of the Genetic Repository, as the site of her army headquarters.

The Kathil Uhlans

The Kathil Uhlans attacked the city Myers and seized their industrial complex from a determined security fore with only minor problems.

The Northwind Highlanders

The Northwind Highlanders were slated to attack the major industrial center of Pahn City. Among the information that Trent had provided, were the frequencies used by the local garrison units. Taking advantage of the intelligence, Colonel William MacLeod instructed the pipers of the Highlanders on board their dropships to start playing a constant stream of bagpipe music that their dropships broadcased onto said frequencies, flooding them with what the Clan defenders perceived as some kind of horrid jamming signal. Very quickly, all radio communication between the defenders was cut off, limiting the Clanners to line-of-sight laser communications and hand signals only, crippling their coordination.

The forward recon units who monitored the dropships landing were first stunned, then enraged when they noticed that the Highlanders units deploying all proudly bore the markings of the Star League and Star League Defense force. Already on-edge from the bagpipes, the temper of the local commander Star Colonel Cara snapped and she ordered her Cluster to advance and engage the Highlanders. Her troops rage only spiked however when they noticed that many of the Highlander Battlemechs were wearing the colors and insignia of no less a unit than the Royal Black Watch. Enraged beyond reason at the Inner Spheres apparent mocking of the Clans most sacred beliefs, the Smoke Jaguars all but threw themselves at the Royal Black Watch. This of course was exactly what had been anticipated and, with communications heavily disrupted, it proved easy for the bulk of the Highlanders to simply bypass the defenders and march on the factory complex. A chagrined Star Colonel Cara soon realized the trap she had fallen into, but struggled to try and pull her unit back, with communications broken and most warriors utterly fixated on the Royal Black Watch, determined to make them pay.

Advancing on the Factory, the bulk of the Highlanders were taken aback when, in their combat debut, twenty Protomechs swarmed out of the facility to engage the lead Highlanders at close range. The attack stalled as the Inner Sphere Mechwarriors struggled to deal with the unknown threat before retreating as the hurriedly returning Smoke Jaguar Mechwarriors rushed to save the complex. Reforming his unit, MacLeod soon launched a fresh attack and eliminated the mixed Battlemech/Protomech force, seizing the factory intact.

The victory cost the Highlanders heavily however. Thirty of their Mechwarriors were KIA and the damage to the surviving forces was considerable. Taking advantage of the Mech factories present, the Highlanders quickly started to make repairs on their unit and salvage what they could, with particular attention placed to the Protomech factory and the lethal new weapons platform.

The 2nd St. Ives Lancers & 4th Drakøns

The Second St. Ives Lancers and the Fourth Rasalhague Drakøns attacked a small sibko camp on the other side of the planet. They discovered that it was not a permanent base, instead being used to house cadets being trained in desert warfare. When the base was attacked, only the instructors were present. While they gave a good account of themselves, destroying four Lancer and one Drakøn Mech, they were swiftly eliminated and the base secured.

The Knights of the Inner Sphere and Kingston's Legionnaires

One of the toughest fights during the invasion, the FWL and Capellan units were assigned to strike a large Sibko camp near the city of New Andery. Advancing swiftly from their landing zone, the combined force rolled over the mixed Star of Battlemechs in position to guard the base without loss. However a short time later, the Jaguar Cadets stationed there powered up their own Mechs and attacked. All fifteen were eliminated, in exchange for fifteen task force machines either disabled, or damaged enough to be sent back to their dropships for repairs.

Barely half an hour after securing the training facility, a strong Clan force was detected moving in from the West, towards the Legionnaires. Acting quickly, Colonel Sir Paul Masters, the overall local commander, ordered the Legionnaires to pull back to easily defensible positions in front of the training base, while the Knights would shift into the flanking Jungle. Expecting the Clanners to be strung out with little coherence in the face of their rage at the invaders, it would let the Legionnaires chew up the lighter, faster and less well armored Mechs, while the Knights swung in from the Flanks to crush the slower and heavier Mechs following, defeating the enemy in detail.

However the elegant plan ran into a major snag when, as they were moving to collapse in on the Clan units flank, scouts detected a second formation two Trinaries strong pushing through the Jungle towards the Knights hidden position. Worse, the incoming attack force hitting the Capellans was shown to be not just the second line and Solamah units expected, but included a unit made up of front line Omnimechs and Elementals that pressed in hard on the Capellan troops. Leaving one reinforced Battalion in place to hold the Clans flanking force, the remaining two FWL battalions swung in on the Smoke Jaguars flank. As they started to emerge from the Jungle, they were met by a line of Protomechs, a far larger deployment than the unit that had faced the Highlanders at Pahn City. Fighting their way through the new enemy, the Knights managed a linkup with the Legionnaires and fought hard, but the combination of the mobility of the Protomechs and harder hitting Omnimechs slowly pushed the combined force back. After four hours of fighting, the Jaguars retook the training base, but continued to push the Inner Sphere troops until they had been pushed to the outskirts of New Andery itself. Both sides were exhausted by the fighting however and by unspoken mutual consent, pulled back for a time. The Knights 3rd Battalion had held its ground quite successfully against the flanking force, but was pulled back to rejoin the main body lest it be cut off.

The Inner Sphere troops were in a poor tactical position. The Legionnaires had taken staggering casualties, with 68% of their force out of the fight. The knights had fared better, but even so the combined force barely numbered a Regiment. A hurried discussion was undertaken as to how to deal with the unfolding disaster. Naval fire support was ruled out due to the difficulty in being able to call in accurate fire through the thick jungle conditions. The Knights flatly ruled out falling back into the city as too great a risk to non-combatants, despite Colonel Kingstons enthusiastic support for such a move and a hot extraction via dropships risked the Clanners overrunning them while trying to load up. In the end, the decision was made to hold their ground and call for backup. General Winston was contacted and swiftly confirmed the deployment of the the Task Forces strategic reserve; two Level III ComGuard units from the 2nd Division.

An hour later with the ComGuard forces still en-route, the Jaguars renewed their attack, before the Inner Sphere forces had been able to even reload ammunition on many of their Mechs let alone make more substantive repairs. Colonel Masters, his Anvil already heavily damaged, was knocked out early in the engagement, but before the Jaguars could fully commit to the fight, their attack was interrupted by the ComGuards 2nd Division, making a direct low-altitude combat drop into the enemy flank and hammering into the suddenly off balance Clan force at point blank range. Combined with the Knights and Legionaries, the Clanners were flanked on two sides and collapsed, retreating to the South under close pursuit. Barely a Trinary of forces managed to escape the kill zone and break contact.

The ComGuards only suffered light casualties in the engagement, two KIA and five WIA, with a dozen Mechs lost, although salvage would help restore their force. The Knights stood at 50% effective strength while the Legionnaires were under 30% nominal strength, although with time it would be brought up slightly to 35% strength. Hence-force, they would be shifted into a strategic reserve role.

The 3rd Battalion, 2nd Division of the ComGuards

While the first two Battalions of ComGuards 2nd division were held in reserve and eventually committed to relieve The Knights of the Inner Sphere and Kingston's Legionnaires, the Third battalion was assigned to attack and seize the Mount Szabo facility. This operation went off without incident, mostly due to the fact that the DEST attack had rendered it useless as a command post and it had been all but abandoned, letting the ComGuard troopers take it almost without a fight.

The 11th Lyran Guards

The Eleventh Lyran Guard landed near Bagera, with an assignment to attack and seize a major training base in the area. However things started to go wrong very quickly. The Landing Zone was pinpointed by the Jaguars, who walked a Supernova Trinary into it even as the Guards were unloading. It is unclear if it was poor coordination, poor performance or just plain bad luck; but almost 50% of the 11ths Battlemech force was knocked out in a chaotic engagement before the enemy Supernova was eliminated and a secure perimeter established to allow the unloading of the rest of the Battlemechs and the few support battalions from the RCT that had been brought along.

Worse was to come however. Either unknown to Trent or perhaps after his visit to Huntress, the Smoke Jaguars had moved a powerful front line unit into Bagera. A frontline Trinary equipped with modern Heavy and Assault Omnimechs, stationed near Bagera, bulked up with second line machines. With the 11th Guards bloodied and off balance from their contested landing, the heavy unit threw itself at the Steiner unit with full force. Marshal Bryan committed her command company's Assault and Heavy Battlemechs to try and hold the line, but the Marshal herself was shot out of her Banshee after several engagements by a Cauldron Born, breaking her arm in the ejection and hurriedly being picked up by a hovertank unit. Quickly determining that the 11th Guards were in serious danger of being routed by the furious Smoke Jaguar attack, Bryan called General Winston and requested Naval fire support.

In low orbit over Bagera, the captured Fire Fang shifted position and opened fire; a single Heavy Naval PPC shot and single Naval Gauss rifle round. Although the fire mission fell 100 meters west of Colonel Timothy Prices aim point, the effect was none the less horrific. A binaries worth of Clan Battlemechs were instantly blown to pieces under the force of the strike. Any elemental within the blast zone was simply vaporized and the surviving Clan Mechs were, in the opinion of Colonel Price, looking to be not even worth use as spare parts. The shockingly brutal attack broke the back of Jaguars and the 11th Guards were able to mop up the remaining Clanners with little trouble.

The 11th however had taken quite a beating; over 70% of the units Mechwarriors were either KIA or WIA, with 40 non recoverable Battlemech losses. The limited support forces were hit even worse. Although over time salvage and repairs would bring this back up and injured Mechwarriors would be cleared for duty to bring the Battlemech Regiment up to ~50% strength, they along with Kingston's Legionnaires, they would be shifted into a strategic reserve role post invasion.

The Rabid Foxes

The MI6 teams, the Rabid Foxes, were deployed with orders to keep an eye on the only non Smoke-Jaguar Clan presence on the planet. A small Jade Falcon base known as Falcon Eyrie. Although logic suggested that the Falcons would hold themselves aloof from an attack on the Jaguars, the Davion commandos were being sent to watch over the Falcons to make sure this would stay the case. And if the Falcons did look about to step into the fight, the Rabid Foxes would either directly engage them, or, pass the word for reserve Battlemech units to come in and deal with the situation.

The mission plan involved, much like the DEST teams, a HALO jump into the vicinity of Falcon Eyrie, then a rapid move to en-globe the base and maintain eyes on it from several well positioned observation posts. However the infamously bad weather of Huntress intervened, a storm in the target area making a HALO jump completely impossible. The alternative LZ for a HALO jump, due to the extremely rocky and mountainous terrain, was far enough away that by the time the commandos reached the objective, the initial assaults would be winding down. And the Falcons could have very well chosen to move out without anyone being the wiser. As such, Captain Roger Montjar decided that he had no choice but to risk a low altitude jump under the storm cloud, accepting the far greater risk of detection to get his troops into place quickly.

As it so happened, the low altitude jump was detected. Both by the Jade Falcons (who correctly surmised the purpose of the troops and determined to leave them alone so long as they reciprocated) and by a pair of Smoke Jaguar scientists who had been searching for new ore veins in the mountains. One of whom, a former Warrior Cast trainee, correctly recognized that no Clan unit would be sneaking around in this fashion spying on the Falcons and that no band of bandits could possibly have access to stealth capable Battle armor. Returning to Lootera, the two contacted Elemental Star Captain Tullain, the closest unit to report their findings. Determining to attack the Inner Sphere commandos from behind, the Star Captain lead two points into the mountains.

The two points were detected approaching one of the four observation posts, under the command of Sergeant Henry Kramer. Clearly on a direct approach to their position, the Sergeant decided to abandon the position and try to lead the Elementals away from the other commandos. Sending one of his men to alert Captain Montjar, as he did not want to risk a radio transmission and had no line of sight for a laser transmission, he destroyed the surveillance equipment and led his three remaining men away from the area, being careful to leave a distinct enough trail for the Elemetnals to follow.

Several hours of distance later the Elemental were in close pursuit. Although not able to detect the stealth armor directly, the Smoke Jaguars proved surprisingly adept at following the trail, closing the distance steadily. Although having only limited heavy weapons and outnumbered, the Commandos decided to try and fight it out. Mining a small defile with the last of their anti-personal mines, they setup and waited. The Elementals soon enough entered the kill zone. When a full point of the Clan troops were in position, the commandos launched their ambush. The battle was short and sharp and two of the four MI6 commandos were killed. The first point of Elemetnals were struck down by a mixture of the teams SRM launcher and precise man-portable Gauss rifle fire. The second point had the rather more horrific fate of being hit by a number of Inferno warheads, being slowly burned to death in their suits. The remaining two commandos continued to head west, away from the AO, with a plan to link up with friendly forces once they were clear and could be sure any pursuit was being drawn away from the remaining commandos.

The Spirit Cats

The nekekami assigned to the task force, answering directly and only to General Winston after the death of Morgan, had been assigned to hit the Smoke Jaguars backup command center to the Mount Szabo facility, in Lootera. Per her wishes to minimize the destructive impact on the generally civilian area, the Spirt Cats were highly selective in their destruction, destroying key equipment to render the facility useless rather than simply obliterating the entire facility. The attack would raise some eyebrows in the task force, as no known Inner Sphere units had been tasked with the attack or were operating in that area. No trace of the attackers or hint at who might have done it would be found by scouts sent in to investigate.

Guerrilla Warfare

Initial planning had been based around an expected 1 week timeframe to engage and destroy the garrison forces. In actual fact the Inner Sphere had done what had been considered previously unthinkable; seizing a Clan homeworld in less then a day.

However it was not the end of combat. Galaxy Commander Howell was able to rally roughly 3 Trinaries of Battlemech and Elemental points and fade into the vast wilderness of the planet, which the Jagurs were much more familiar with. Although highly un-clan like, he started a campaign of raids to disrupt the Inner Sphere occupation as best he could, correctly anticipating that reinforcements had to be on their way. The highly unusual, almost Inner Sphere tactics, caught the Task Force off guard initially, who speculated that the fact that most of his troops were Solahma may have given him leeway to use such unconventional tactics. His greatest success in this time frame was a raid on the Northwind Highlanders at Pahn City. One Trinary started by launching a diversionary attack on their dropships. In response, the vast bulk of the Highlanders abandoned the Factory complex and rushed to protect their transports, leaving it open for the remaining two Trinaries to quickly rush in, disable the few remaining defenders and seize enough supplies to keep them in action for months before fading away before the chagrined Highlanders could return.

The attacks were ultimately just minor annoyances to the Task Force, who a day after the end to main combat operations proceeded with the somewhat more contentious part of the operational plan.

General Order 01051

"Pursuant to General Order, number TFS oh-one-oh-five-one, upon completion of the initial assault on the planet Huntress, the units comprising Task Force Serpent are to take every measure possible to eliminate the war-making ability of Clan Smoke Jaguar. To this end, the units of Task Force Serpent are to destroy all barracks, 'Mech hangars, fighter bays, command, communication, and control centers, and military repair facilities. Likewise, all factories, warehouses, armories, shipyards, and any other facility or installation that may be used for the construction of war materiel, or the storage, or transport of the same, must be destroyed or rendered unusable by Clan Smoke Jaguar. Such stores of weapons, ammunition, spare parts, food, and other military supplies, as well as those military assets that can be captured intact and transferred off planet by the units of Task Force Serpent should be secured by the units of Task Force Serpent and protected from deliberate sabotage by the forces of Clan Smoke Jaguar. The commander of Task Force Serpent is charged with the initial disposition of all captured materiel. All combat losses not provided for by a unit's Table of Organization and Equipment will be made up out of captured materiel wherever possible. All other captured materiel will be shipped for transport back to the Inner Sphere, where it will be disposed of by Star League Defense Force command. Such captured materiel that cannot be used by the units of Task Force Serpent and that cannot be shipped for transport back to the Inner Sphere is to be likewise destroyed".
  — Ariana Winston

With the planet relatively secure, on the morning on the 13th of March, General Winston called all the unit commanders (minus Captain Montjar still watching over the Falcons) for a conference to give the most contentious order of the task force. General order 01051 was key to the entire purpose of Serpent; to help bring home the horrors of war, that it was no game or 'trial', to the Clans. And that they would not respect the artificial box the Clans had developed to let their warrior cast 'play' at war if they continued their invasion.

To that end, all military equipment and all military-industrial facilities, right down to the monuments glorifying the warrior cast, were to be destroyed, removed as if they had never existed, leaving the planet unable to support any Clan war machine.

It was a contentious order, to put it mildly. Centuries of cultural inertia after the horrors of the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars, even to this day, had ensured a strict series of campaign rules were followed by all parties in the Inner Sphere. Known colloquially Honors of War and loosely based on the ancient Ares Conventions, it ensured that soldiers generally fought soldiers and at least tried to avoid damaging both civilian and military-industrial infrastructure - especially Lostech such as key Factories or Jumpships. The direct orders to do the exact opposite did not sit at all well with some of the sub-unit commanders. After reading out the order, Colonel Sir Paul Masters almost at once formally asked General Winston to reconsider issuing the order, citing his fear that they would loose control of their troops in the massive destruction that would be needed to accomplish it, resulting in major civilian casualties. Or, if the troops followed their orders under protest, that they would become resentful of doing so and discipline and order would start to break down.

Almost at once, a shouting match broke out between two camps both for and against the orders. Rapidly exhausting her patience, General Winston drew her sidearm and fired a single shot into the air, bringing an abrupt end to the dispute and forcefully laying down the law. She pointed out that every House Lord in the Inner Sphere, plus ComStar, had signed off on Task Force Serpent, agreeing on its purpose and mission well before it had left the Inner Sphere and the time for debating them was long past. She also asserted forcefully that this order would be directed at things; facilities and equipment, not at people. Irrespective of cast, be it warrior of otherwise, no-one would be harmed. But that her orders would be carried out or they would be relieved.

Obeying with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Colonel Masters dire predictions thankfully did not come to pass. The professional soldiers followed their orders without taking any retribution against the civilians and, indeed, going out of their way to allow the Clan lower casts (who saw themselves as effectively Isorla) to assist with logistical and salvage efforts. The sheer scale of destruction needed quickly exhausted most supplies of demolitions gear and those salvaged from the Clan stockpiles, so soon enough Battlemechs mounting energy weapons were ordered to assist in the destructive work. Although many Mechwarriors protested these orders, it was less over having moral objections to the work and more that they saw it as below their station to be used as 'wrecking balls'. None the less, the demolition work proceeded relatively smoothly. It was hoped that the Inner Sphere troops could finish up their work in a matter of weeks, then evacuate the planet and return to the Inner Sphere.

But the operation was about to take a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse.

Smoke Jaguar Reinforcements

The Jaguar flees the Bulldog

"You make light of this threat, Vlad!"
"I do not, ilKhan, but I do not see the Smoke Jaguars as being the soul of the Clans. The Inner Sphere may destroy the Smoke Jaguars, but the Clans are eternal. We shall survive your misjudgment and malfeasance whether or not you do. Your only hope of survival is if your plan to repel this attack works. If it does not, a new ilKhan will go back into your invasion corridor and do things right this time."
  — ilKhan Lincon Osis and Khan Vlad Ward

Concurrent to Operation Serpent, Operation Bulldog had run wild through the Clan Occupation zone. Strategic modeling had predicted, conservatively, that it would take several years to acheive their goals; the recapture of all Jaguar held worlds and elimination of all Jaguar forces. The strategic modeling however had underestimated or missed several key factors. Primarily that the Jaguars were blindly convinced the Inner Sphere simply didn't have the capacity to launch a massive counter attack on one hand and could (and would) be caught asleep. And the extreme enthusiasm of the DCMS to, as Khan Phelen Kell put it, 'Kick the Jaguars in the teeth'. Much as in the 4th Succession War where the AFFS simply smothered the CCAF with staggered waves of crack troops, the Star League swarmed into the Smoke Jaguar OZ and in the first two waves, seized an incredible thirty two worlds in combined operations from both the Smoke Jaguars, and Clan Nova Cat who had secretly decided to switch sides and defect to the Star League.

Initially reluctant to go to the Grand Council, as the sheer size of the offensive became clear Osis was eventually forced to do so. He attempted to use the power of his office to 'invite' the Home Clans into the Inner Sphere, planning to have them strike into the Combines rimward border and take pressure off his Clan, but quite rapidly Khan Vlad Ward and Khan Marthe Pryde shut down this possibility. Having planned to depose the current ilKhan for some time, they were perfectly happy to take the opportunity to politically discredit him; pointing out that despite being the Khan of Khans, he still was acting like a Smoke Jaguar Khan and placing their interests ahead of the Clans as a whole. That he had failed to report on the attacks for over six weeks, then only reported in an attempt to use other Clans as reserve troops to solve a problem of his Clan. In no uncertain terms, Osis was told to either resign as ilKhan, or go and solve the problem on his own because it clearly was not a problem that warranted other Clans getting involved. The Inner Sphere was attacking the Smoke Jaguars, this was their problem and theirs alone.

Furious, but without any other recourse, Osis had little choice but to try to fight the war with what he had. A counter-offensive was launched against five Combine border worlds, bypassing worlds just taken by the SLDF in the hope of blasting deep into the Combine, forcing the Inner Sphere to break off the attack and chase after them. Unfortunately for the Smoke Jaguars, this was not 3050 and the worlds had been preparing for Clan invasion for the best part of a decade. Almost immediately the counter-offensive bogged down on highly defended worlds, then was slammed by Bulldogs strategic reserve landing on them. Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta herself barely escaped Matamoras as a fleet of Inner Sphere warships chased her forces right to the jump point.

At this point, the ilKhan swallowed his pride and gave the order in August 3059 for all Jaguar forces in the Inner Sphere to retreat to Huntress, where they could consolidate and rebuild. The commanders of Bulldog, Precentor-Martial Anastasius Focht and Prince Victor Steiner-Davion were stunned at the Jaguars unexpected retreat, having anticipated them to fight to the last to hold their conquests. However they soon realized the bigger danger; Serpent had left the edge of the Inner Sphere months earlier and was out of communications range. Meaning they would arrive at Huntress shortly before or shortly after the Clans Inner Sphere forces did. And, instead of a lightly defended world, they would face all that was left of the Smoke Jaguars.

Pulling together a crack team of SLDF units from the entire SLDF, a second task force started to pursue the Jaguars up the Exodus road. But the Jaguars would reach their homeworld first.

The ilKhan asks for aid

Now is the time to act in concert. If we do not destroy this blight, this outrage, it will turn to devour more of the homeworlds when it has finished with Huntress. You must lend me your strength. Give me whatever military assets you can spare. Your personal guards, your training cadres — it matters not to me. Only lend me your strength, and I will crash these barbarians into dust. Then, there will be honor to spare for all of the Clans.
  — ilKhan Lincon Osis
This seems to be a matter between the Inner Sphere and the Smoke Jaguars, and only the Smoke Jaguars. Let the rest of the Clans not insert ourselves in this matter, but allow the Smoke Jaguars the honor of defending their own homeworld. If they triumph, as I am certain they will,then all the more honor to them. If the unthinkable happens, if Huntress falls to the forces of the Inner Sphere, then perhaps Lincoln Osis is not fit to be the ilKhan of the Clans after all.
  — Khan Bjorn Jorgensson

While being forced to withdraw from Inner Sphere was humiliating enough, far worse news arrived for the Khan later in 3060. For the second time, Lincon Osis was forced to go before the Grand Council, to report the unprecedented and seemingly impossible news that Clan Space had been invaded by the Inner Sphere, a fact confirmed by Marthe Pryde with her own report from Huntress. Again the ilKhan asked for aid from the other Clans, feeling sure that the far more immediate threat would surely gain him support, but again he was thwarted. The smaller, less powerful Clans suddenly became very aware with the reality of the Inner Sphere invasion right on their doorstep, that any assistance to the Smoke Jaguars might make them the next target. Other Clans, not realizing just how weak the Huntress garrison was as a result of deliberate efforts by the Smoke Jaguars to obfuscate that fact were contemptuous of the idea that the Jaguars even needed help to defend their holdings. And yet others saw the Inner Spheres total focus on the Smoke Jaguars defining this as a matter purely between them and the Jaguars, making it a 'trial' between them and of no consequence to the other Clans.

A vote was called by Loremaster Kael Pershaw on if the Clans should send aid to Huntress. One by one, the votes were cast. As the Clan in question, the Smoke Jaguars did not vote. One by one, thirty death knells were sounded for Clan Smoke Jaguar. The entire Grand Council, every Khan of the Clans, had voted against sending any aid to Huntress.

Storming out, Lincon Osis determined that thus, the Jaguars would save their own homeworld. However he found that he had very few remaining assets uncommitted. He knew that a Galaxy sized unit made up of his Inner Sphere forces were close, but otherwise had only the Streaking Mist, his command ship, as well as the personal Keshiks of himself and his saKhan, Brandon Howell, albeit the very best warriors he had with the finest equipment. He was also able to scape together a few other forces; on Strana Mechty were a number of older (but not yet Solahma) Warriors serving as liaison officers, support officers and so on. Twenty three of them jumped at the chance to get back into a 'Mech and fight off the Barbarian invasion, for their courage the ilKhan named their unit The Jaguars Heart. All up, Lincon Osis was able to pull together roughly two short Clusters to lead into battle. This constituted, when combined with the Galaxy racing to Huntress from the Inner Sphere, the totality of the remaining Touman of the Smoke Jaguar Clan.

The Jaguars Inner Sphere troops arrive

"Very well, Star Colonel. You are given command of the counter invasion. Plan it well, Paul Moon. You are to attack the enemy wherever he gathers. You are to destroy the invaders to the last man and the last machine. Not one of those cursed freebirth vermin who have dared to foul the soil of Huntress is to survive. I want them all dead! I want their leaders' heads brought to me on pikes! I want their bodies burned and their ashes scattered to the four winds! I want them and their seed wiped out of the universe forever!"
  — Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta to Star Colonel Paul Moon

Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta, the senior surviving officer from the Inner Sphere, managed to pull her troops together during the long trip up the Exodus Road. A mixture of Front Line, Second Line and Provisional Garrison Clusters, with some effort they were organized into a single coherent unit. Trials of Position were declared during recharge stops to appoint officers and by the time her troops reached Clan Space, she had managed to mold the survivors of scattered units into a single combat ready weapon. But barely had she started to report in to the ilKhan on arriving in Clan Space when she was given curt news of the arrival of Task Force Serpent and ordered to proceed to Huntress with all speed to liberate their homeworld.

Hang Mehta obeyed despite not beliving the possibiltiy that the Inner Sphere Barbarians could have taken Huntress. To her shock, when her fleet jumped into the Huntress system on the 19 March 3060, she was confronted with a fleet of Inner Sphere starships holding station at the Zenith point; her homeworld had indeed been taken.

Furious, Hang Mehta ordered her provisional Galaxy to at once detach and burn for Huntress, while ordering the three warships in her fleet, the Liberator class Cruiser Korat and two Vincent class Corvettes to destroy the Inner Sphere fleet. She remained with her fleet long enough to see the initial start of the naval action, then launched with her remaining ground forces for Huntress, leaving Star Commodore Clarinda Stiles in command of the fleet.

On board the Invisible Truth, Commodore Alain Beresick swung into action as the enemy fleet materialized and soon the battle was joined, with the Truth moving to intercept the Korat while the other warships in his fleet split to simultaneously engage the enemy corvettes, try to intercept the dropship flotilla and moved to seize the enemy transports. The Tasks Forces own jumpships he ordered to depart the system to keep them safe, the ships jumping to a pre-designated deep space rally point where they could be recalled from later.

Luck ran out for Serpents warships however as the engagement commenced. The cumulative damage of the successive engagements at Trafalgar and their initial invasion of the Huntress system had left several ships with little more than hull patches where armor plating used to be, while the Jaguar ships were fresh and burning with an almost suicidal rage. The lead Corvette, the Azov, got into a close range slugging match with the Essex classes Starlight and Emerald. Maneuvering hard despite being brutally handled, the Clan warship managed to slip between the two ships and then encourage the Emerald to turn in pursuit, exposing her portside to the Ripper, the second Vincent closing in on the engagement. A flurry of Naval Autocannon fire tore through the already badly damaged arc and caused massive damage to the Essex class Destroyer, putting her out of the fight.

In revenge, the Starlight still engaged with the lead Vincent, poured a full salvo of fire into the smaller ship and punched through to her magazines, the internal explosions tearing the smaller ship to pieces. The remaining two warships then rounded on each other, but in a tragic set of circumstances, the Starlight destroyed the Ripper's engines while the Ripper knocked out helm control on the larger ship with their next exchange of fire. Helpless victims of their inertia, the two ships slammed into each other and were obliterated.

While the attention of the Invisible Truths crew was locked on the horrific spectacle of the collision, the Korat closed range and threw a running broadside across the 'Truths bow, the Cameron's thick armor barely holding against the salvo. Quickly, Beresick turned in pursuit. For fifteen minutes the two ships became locked in a close range slugging match as they struggled to bring their broadside guns into play, spiraling around each other at point blank range. Eventually both ships rolled to present fresh armor and protect their savaged sections, looking set to start the engagement all over again. The Korat maneuvered clear with a desperate turn and managed to hammer the 'Truth with a broadside, appearing to start to come out on top in the engagement. At that point, the Fire Fang suddenly cut into their dance. Having maneuvered to have a clean shot at the Korats wrecked starboard side, the former Ghost Bear warship mercilessly tore into the Clan Cruiser, causing massive internal damage. Backhanding a bridge officer who begged her to surrender, Star Commodore Clarinda Stiles insisted on taking at least one enemy ship with her and tried to continue the fight. In response, the Invisible Truth and Fire Fang fired a concentrated salvo that gutted her from bow to stern, leaving her a burning hulk.

Across the rest of the Battlefield, Antrim was detailed to run down the Clan dropships burning for Huntress. It is unclear exactly how given the firepower mismatch, but the Fox class Corvette was heavily damaged in the attempt, with the Clan dropships breaking past her and making a high-G burn for their Homeworld. The damage left her crippled beyond easy field repair, but still jump capable. Ranger also took some more hits but remained combat ready, as did the Haruna and Fire Fang. The Truth however had taken a fearsome beating that left her armor in tatters and her starboard side heavily damaged. The Starlight was lost with all hands and the Emerald set on fire and crippled, the Invisible Truths two dropships quickly taking her surviving crew off before she was written off as lost. Of the five Clan Jumpships, two were captured and one was destroyed, but two, equipped with Lithium Fusion batteries, jumped out before they could be disabled, apparently to go and get help.

Tracking the Dropships burning for Huntress, Commodore Beresick sent a warning that a great many furious Smoke Jaguar warriors were on their way to General Winston.

Counter-Invasion

This is no batchall. I am Trueborn of the Smoke Jaguars. You are nothing but an Inner Sphere freebirth. Between us there can be no batchall.You and your filthy lucrewarriors would never bargain honestly, nor honor the batchall once it was done. No, General, this is merely a challenge. Come and meet me strength to strength on the plain west of Lootera. It is fitting, do you not think, that you will die fighting on the very soil you have dared profane with your presence? At least you will have the cold comfort of knowing that your bones will be buried in a place far too good for them. I, on the other hand, will have the glory of destroying you and your surats in the shadow of Mount Szabo and the great stone Jaguar of my Clan.
  — Star Colonel Paul Moon challanging General Winston

While the Smoke Jaguar reinforcements were on the way to the planet, Ariana Winston regrouped and consolidated her troops into two main field armies. The Eridani Light Horse, the 2nd ComGuard Division and the Second St. Ives Lancers were concentrated at Lootera, and dubbed the 'North-Group'. General Andrew Redburn was given command of the 'South-Group' stationed at Osis Lake, between the Dhuan swamps and the Shikarid jungle. This group consisted of the First Kathil Uhlans, the Knights of the Inner Sphere and the Northwind Highlanders. The damaged Lyran Guard and Kingston's Legionnaires along with the Drakons were hidden in the Lunar mountains as a reserve force, with their dropships, able to reinforce either army if needed.

On March 26th 3060, two weeks after the Inner Sphere forces had invaded, the Smoke Jaguars provisional Galaxy reached Huntress. Consisting of 340 'Mech and Elemental Points (roughly two Galaxies in strength) it had less than 50 Fighters available for air support, most or even all of which appeared to have been lost during the Naval engagement. Attempts by ComGuard technicians over the last two weeks to restore the SDS network the DEST teams had disabled proved fruitless; the Draconis Commandos had done their work too well. Entire new control systems needed to be built and there was nowhere near enough time. Interception of the inbound dropships thus fell to the fighter wing of the ELH, who scrambled and intercepted the enemy fleet at the atmospheric edge. While they succeeded in knocking down several dropships, they did not do too much damage and eventually were forced to disengage, conserving their assets. The Clan units landed mostly intact.

Northern Army Group

The initial attack was led by Star Colonel Paul Moon, who challenged General Winston to meet him on the plains outside Lootera. The General was all too happy to accept the challenge received orders to attack the Inner Sphere forces at Lootera with two Clusters (96 Battlemechs + Elemental support). Highly contemptuous of most of the troops facing him - with the exception of the ComGuards whom he had learned to treat with respect on Maldonado, he elected to take the Inner Sphere forces head on. Alpha Cluster, made up of survivors from front line Clusters, would smash directly into the center line of the enemy, while Bravo then would follow up to engage the reserves; Moon trusting in his Trothkins fury and firepower to carry the day.

Fully expecting an enraged charge by the Smoke Jaguars however, General Winston had deployed her forces accordingly. The ComGuards 2nd Division held the center line, with the ELHs 21st Striker Regiment holding their immediate right flank and the 2nd Saint Ives Lancers holding the left. The ELHs two remaining regiments, the 71st and 151st were holding a line a kilometer behind them, ready to either reinforce the main battle line or swing past the envelop the engagement. Between the two reserve units was the key to the engagement; the ELHs extensive artillery assets.

As the Smoke Jaguars closed in, the artillery opened up. Their initial two salvos were not heavy ordinance, but a mixture of smoke rounds and artillery dispersed jamming pods that littered the direct path the Jaguars were running as they closed in, denying them the advantage of their extended weapons ranges. The next salvos however were not smoke rounds, but cluster munitions that saturated the Jaguar formation with airbursts. While they only had a marginal effect on the Battlemechs, they proved to be incredibly deadly to the Elementals riding them, rapidly eliminating them as a threat. Paul Moon himself was struck by such a weapon and blown clear, his armor saving his life, but his body a mangled wreck. He would shortly after be captured, but spend the rest of the battle in a Coma.

The Jaguar Mechwarriors slammed into the ELH section of the front line, in many cases quite literally, sending Inner Sphere Mechs flying in their rage. More than one of those Mechs would soon rise however to blast the Jagaur Mechwarrriors in their rear armor. A close range brawl rapidly unfolded between the lead Cluster and Inner Sphere troops, with the second Smoke Jaguar cluster forming inside danger-close range for the artillery, preparing to make their own charge and collapse the line. However they were quickly countered by the 71st and 151st Regiments collapsing in from the flank to engage. Enraged, but not stupid, the Jaguars withdrew before they could be trapped, competently retreating. The Saint Ives Lancers and ELHs 6th Recon Battalion had attempted to pursue in the hopes of scoring easy kills, but a competent rear guard quickly forced the Inner Sphere units to disengage.

Later that afternoon, the Streaking Mist jumped into a Pirate Point over Huntress. ilKhan Lincon Osis had arrived to join the battle. The Invisible Truth detected the jump signature, but lacked the extremely-accurate navigational charts needed for her or any other warships to make a corresponding jump to intercept the new target. Instead, powering up her maneuvering drives, she started a burn for Huntress, but at ten days transit time had little chance to intercept.

On board the Streaking Mist, the ilKhan considered for a time turning his ships guns against the enemy forces, but having seen what the Sabre Cat had done to Turtle Bay, he decided against such drastic actions, ordering his saKhan to take his own Keshik along with the Jaguars Heart to reinforce, while he would take the Jaguar's Den to help reclaim his capital.

In the early hours on the 28th of March, Hang Mehta launched a new attack against the Inner Sphere troops, this time without any grandiose challenges. Taking after the more useful attributes of her Clans totem as it stalked its prey, she led her Galaxy towards Lootera, eliminating in passing a number of scout Hovertanks that had detected their approach, before suddenly changing their approach and looping around the city through the Black Shikari River. The Light Horse, having deployed to meet their expected thrust from the South probed and found no trace of their enemy, until suddenly they reappeared to the East, hitting the cities main Spaceport hard and the ComGuard division holding it, with one hundred Battlemechs. At the same time, she detached a Trinary made up of her remaining light and some of her fastest medium Mechs to the Field of Heroes, intent on seizing back their Genetic Repository, the figurative heart of their Clan.

A hard battle in the dark at once broke out, with the sheer weight of the attack steadily pushing the ComGuards back from the Spaceport, towards Lootera. Rapidly General Winston issued new orders, sending the 151st under Colonel Magyar straight into the Spaceport to backup the ComGuards and ordering her own Regiment to wheel around and hit the Jaguars flank, buying breathing room for the ComGuards. Pushed out of the Spaceport to Lootera, the ComGuards dug their heels in and stubbornly refused to be pushed back anymore. And pressed by the 151st, the Jaguars main body was forced to start pulling back.

The secondary Trinary earlier detached by Hang Mehta ran smack into the 2nd Saint Ives Lancers, who had been holding position as a reserve unit on the Field of Heroes. Their twenty four remaining Battlemechs and handful of conventional infantry stopped the attempted flanking attack cold. But through chance, the withdraw picked by the Jaguars happened to take their main body squarely into the flank of the Saint Ives troops. Suddenly finding themselves outflanked by the Smoke Jagaur Galaxy, the Lancers broke and ran in a panic, which appeared to re-energize the Clan troops, who redoubled their efforts, once again pushing the ComGuards back, this time into Lootera itself. At some point in this chaos, Galaxy Commander Russou Howell and what remained of his command suddenly emerged from the nearby Shikari Jungle to add just that much more pressure to the Jaguar attack. Inside the urban environment, the close-knit concentrations of the 2nd Divisions formations rapidly broke down and with unit integrity lost, they had little choice but to retreat rapidly, the Light Horse following suit.

The Jaguars started what would have amounted to a full scale pursuit, eager to chase the enemy through the night and kill them all, but the Galaxy Commander hesitated. Ironically having been burned so many times by Inner Sphere troops luring Smoke Jaguar troops into ambushes or traps, she could not be confident that this retreat was genuine and not simply bait to lure her troops into a trap. Reluctantly, she made the decision to safeguard the victory they had earned and allowed the Inner Sphere troops to retire as they set about restoring their control of the city.

As it so happened, the Inner Sphere had been using the Jaguars Genetic Repository as their primary field hospital for both Inner Sphere and Clan wounded. Even as their units collapsed and started retreating, General Winston led her command company hurriedly to evacuate the wounded before the Jaguars reached them. To her surprise, she found the DEST teams still in position, defending the Hospital as per her last orders, the only unit who had not retreated in the face of the chaotic situation. Ordering them to at once bug out, she then tried to evacuate all wounded, but was convinced (against her better judgement) to leave the worst wounded behind, as moving them would simply kill them, along with a minimal medical staff. The Clans wounded were also left behind, as the Jaguars would be better able to care for their own.

The General and her command company escorted the medical convoy out of the capital, the last unit to leave. Throughout the day, the Inner Sphere Army moved steadily westwards until setting up in the evening into a new Bivouac in the foothills of the Jaguar's Fangs mountain range. Surprisingly during the long, spirit crushing retreat, the Inner Sphere Army so no sign of the Jaguars. Finally, on the morning of the 28th, the Jaguars launched a fresh attack which was repelled, with relatively even losses on both sides, after which again the Jaguars seemed to withdraw. Sending out what scout Hovercraft remained to her in the afternoon, Winston eventually located the Jaguar army only 11 kilometers away, settling in for the night in a Bivouac, an old abandoned mining facility. The scout delivered the grim unit count of 150 Battlemechs and 100 Elementals by the scout units observations, as well as the warbook conformation that the ilKhans personal unit was present.

Not all the news was bad however; the scouts also reported that many of the Battlemechs were damaged and clearly being junked and stripped for parts to repair others, coming in at a rough estimate of two clusters of forces in total. Taking advantage of their flexible nature, Omnimechs were being quickly reconfigured with energy weapons where possible, a sure indicator that supplies were running low for the Clan force as was the fact that some Mechs seemed to be having sheet metal bolted on to replace damaged armor plating.

Deciding to take a gamble in the face of her subordinates pressing to go on the attack, General Winston ordered a quick raid in force. She would lead her units in, hit the Jaguars in their camp as hard as possible, then get out again quickly, hopefully doing significant damage.

Unfortunately, the ilKhan had anticipated the possibility of a night raid and had placed scout units to ensure that any attack would be detected at a distance. The alarm was sounded in plenty of time and, in a straight up slugging match where the Clanners took full advantage of their extended weapons ranges, the Jaguars easily repelled the attempted raid with stiff losses to the Inner Sphere units, resulting in the capture of one of the ELHs regimental commanders, who had impressed the Elemental point who cornered him after ejecting by trying to fight his way out with nothing more than a sidearm and his courage. Proud of his troops performance, the ilKhan gave Galaxy Commander her mission orders; to hunt down the remaining Freebirths and kill them, while he returned to the backup C3 facility that had been disabled in the invasion to take charge of the overall campaign. Warning Hang Mehta not to fail him, Lincon Osis left for Lootera.

Southern Army Group

Near the Dhuan Swamp, Andrew Redburn was in a battle just as fierce, if not even fiercer, then the Northern group. On the 26th, the Smoke Jaguars attacked the Inner Sphere troops three times and three times they were pushed back, but the sheer intensity of the combat and near suicidal aggression of the Smoke Jaguars left even the Elite of the Inner Sphere shaken. After the third attack was repulsed, the Lions of Davion were down to ~50% strength and their allies in the Knights of the Inner Sphere and Northwind Highlanders had also taken a beating. General Winston had offered to deploy the 4th Drakøns to reinforce their position, but as they were not rated for combat drops, they would need a break in the combat to secure a landing zone for them. A break the Jaguars simply refused to give them.

More bad news came from the forward scouts, who detected another attack forming up, but this one was made up of what appeared to be fresh Battlemechs and Elementals, the former all in the Heavy and Assault weight classes, running one of two insignia. The first was not in the warbook - the Jaguars Heart. The second registered as the Shroud Keshik, the personal guard of saKhan Brandon Howell. The Inner Sphere units continued reloading and making what few field repairs they could, evacuating the wounded to a predesignated rally point on the edge of the Dhuan Swamp and laying out the last of their Vibrabomb mines to screen their positions.

They did not have to wait for long. The fresh Clan Troops stormed forward, linking up with the other Jaguar units and pressing an all out attack against the Inner Sphere position. Ignoring losses to the minefields, they charged forward, Zellbrigen long thrown out the window. After holding off three previous attacks, the forth charge was too much and General Redburn ordered the three units to pull back, managing a fighting retreat. Not knowing how many troops Brandon Howell had brought with him, but presuming a worst case scenario of a full Galaxy, the Inner Sphere troops retreated. Eventually the Jaguars were forced to break off pursuit, possibly overheating and/or running out of ammunition from the sheer intensity of the attack.

At the rally point as units staggered in, the cost paid became clear. The Northwind highlanders were down to 65 Battlemechs. The Knights of the Inner Sphere also had 65 remaining Battlemechs, neither having been heavily engaged. The Ulhans however had taken the focus of the Jaguars attention and had been brutalized, 46 Mechs lost from their four Battalions, although another companies worth of units would slowly trickle in over the next day as they found their way back. With little choice, the Inner Sphere army started a withdraw into the swamp. With the worst possible timing however, the Jaguars chose to renew their attack. Damaged, low on ammunition and exhausted from the furious attacks, the Jaguars pressed hard and when two stars of Omnifighters suddenly hit the buckeling Inner Sphere lines in a strafing run, the professional retreat turned into a rout and the three units started running flat out for the swamp, despite the best efforts of their leaders and officers to control the situation.

Notably, the Royal Black Watch Company of the Northwind Highlanders -joined by a few Knights of the Inner Sphere- was the single coherent unit to refuse to run. Stepping forward as a rearguard unasked, they engaged the Jaguars on their own for an extended period of time, buying time for the army to rally and regroup. By the time that they were cleared to retreat, only three of the add-hoc rear guard remained, but they had brought the time needed for the Inner Sphere army to vanish into the swamp.

The situation for the Southern Army was grim. The wild, uncoordinated retreat scattered the army through the swamp, the terrain of which made any kind of unit coherency difficult and rendered Command Mechs tactical computers almost useless in generating a picture of the battlespace. After a day, the Regiments managed to regroup sufficiently that they could start moving with purpose again, the Jaguar pursuit falling off for some time. saKhan Brandon Howell ordered the Jaguars Heart to lead the pursuit while he and his Keshik remained on solid ground 'overseeing' the situation - to the annoyance of the Jaguar officers forced to march into the swamp. On the 28th of March, the pursuing Jaguars finally made contact with Serpent, first making contact with the Northwind Highlanders, acting as the southern rearguard. Shortly after that engagement started however, a second Jaguar force started engaging the Ulhans on the northern flank, through chance having manage to envelop the Inner Sphere forces. At some point in this engagement, Kommandant David McCarthy, commander of the Ulhans 2nd Battalion, would lead what remained of his Battalion in a rear guard action to hold the Jaguar attack off while the rest of the Regiment regrouped. His 16 mixed Mechs of mostly medium and lighter units would face off against a full Binary of mostly Heavy and Assault Omnimechs - all of whom were so determined for victory or death that they had disabled their Battlemechs ejection systems. Only three of the Inner Sphere Mechs would survive the battle, with four other pilots recovered, but they managed to hold the line and buy time for the army to regroup, defeating all the enemy Mechs. For this action, upon return to the Inner Sphere, Kommandant McCarthy would be awarded the Star League Medal of Honor by First Lord Theodore Kurita in 3062.

The next day, support came for the beleaguered Southern Army when an Air Strike by the still intact task force aerospace assets staging from the Continent Abysmal suddenly hit the Smoke Jaguar pursuit. Two air strikes using a mixture of strafing and bombing runs, combined with Arrow-IV strikes hammered the Jaguar pursuit force to the point that they pulled back almost to the edge of the swamp, calling for additional troops that simply weren't available. Using the opportunity to break contact, the Southern Army managed to get clear long enough that General Winston was able to deploy the Fourth Drak0ns and Kingston's Legionnaires to support them. Linking up, the reinforced Army then evaded the Jaguars to exit the swamp unnoticed and cross into the Shikari Jungle. Although it was a very slim hope given the great distances involved, General Redburn decided to lead his men on a forced march through the Jungle in an attempt to find a way to eventually link up with the Northern army.

Retreat

After their disastrous attempt at a night raid, the Northern Army Group retreated deeper and deeper into the mountainous wilderness. In pure numbers, the Northern Army Group was nominally at 50% strength, although 1/3rds strength was considered a more accurate measure. The Eridani Light Horse was down to 96 'Mechs, barely a regiment. The 2nd ComGuard Division was down to 53 'Mechs and the 2nd St. Ives Lancers down to 21 'Mechs. Their attached Scout, Conventional Infantry and vehicle units had also suffered losses. Worse, despite the reduced numbers of units, supplies were rapidly running out meaning that repairs were increasingly becoming difficult and ammunition scarce and medical supplies near non existent. The DEST teams had also taken heavy casualties, apparently while protecting the final units pulling out of Lootera, leaving them with 5 effectives and 8 walking wounded.

Still operating under the assumption that she was facing a multi-Galaxy force, discussions were made on what options they had. Calling in their dropships from the Continent Abysmal and evacuating the planet was considered, but rejected as too risky given the forces they thought they were up against, the risk of the Jaguars simply charging the LZ as they tried to load up was considered too high. Naval fire support was considered with the Invisible Truth and Fire Fang inbound, but the trained naval spotter teams qualified to precisely call in such strikes had been lost during the chaos in Lootera and the possibility of bringing fire down on themselves was considered unacceptably high short of the most desperate situations. Communications interceptions also confirmed that the Jaguars had managed to get their Secondary C3 facility in Lootera operational and that the ilKhan was using it to oversee the campaign. Secretly, General Winston called upon her team of nekekami to 'deal' with the situation.

In the end the decision was made to fall back to a secure location to deploy the last of the reserves. However before any further action could be taken, the Smoke Jaguars attacked again. In a pattern that would soon become depressing familiar, the Jaguars used their far superior knowedlge of the local terrain to appear almost without warning, hitting the Camp of the 71st Light Horse even as Mechwarriors struggled to power up their Mechs. In a raging thunderstorm, the Jaguars pressed in, forcing the ELH to give ground. The ELH artillery fired the last of their smoke rounds in the hope of covering a withdraw, but the rain rendered the smokescreens ineffective. The Light Horse retreated and much of the units artillery, baggage train and wounded fell into Smoke Jaguar hands before the Inner Sphere forces rallied and threw back the Clan attack. Both sides lost roughly equal numbers of Mechs, among those Colonel Sandra Barclay, commander of the 71st who did manage to eject and make her way to the rear.

Nekekami Attack

In Lootera, the ilKhan found himself called by both Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta and his saKhan, asking for additional troops to finish off the enemy. Angrily pointing out that he had no more troops to give them, he ordered them to attack regardless while he would leave for Strata Mechty once more, to try and seek aid with his first hand testimony of the battle. At the same time, the four Spirit Cats had silently entered the building. Previously they had simply tried to destroy key components to render the facility useless, per Serpents standing orders to avoid possible civilian casulaites. This time they would not use half measures; rigging the building with enough pentaglycerine charges to completely demolish the structure. Their task completed, the quartet started to leave, but through sheer luck stumbled onto Lincon Osis and his bodyguard point, all out of their armor. A half of shuriken eliminated the ilKhans bodyguards in moments, but Kasugai Hatsumi stopped his men killing the ilKhan. General Winston had given strict instructions that while killing the ilKhan in battle was one thing, assassination was utterly off limits. Happily obeying his orders in full, the Spirt Cat challanged Osis to a Trial of Grievance over this actions against the Draconis Combine. Mocking Hatsumi initially at the very idea of meeting an assassin in a Circle of Equals, several sneered insults later naming him a coward rapidly changed the Elementals mind. Sending his team out, Hatsumi passed the ilKhan a sword and the two dueled as the timers on the charges steadily counted down.

Although trained in the use of swords and perhaps one of the greatest elementals to have ever come out of the Clan breeding program, Hatsumi was a Spirt Cat and a master of swordplay. Patiently he waited for the ilKhan to make a mistake and when he overextend, the Spirit Cat struck, slicing brutally into the others leg, severing the femur. Collapsing to the flood in agony and dropping his sword, Hatsumi closed in for the kill but made a fatal mistake in underestimating a Jaguar trapped by a hunter when he tried to decapitate the ilKhan. Twisting away, the ilKhan seized his dropped sword and stabbed the Spirit Cat through his heart, killing him.

Bleeding out on the floor, the ilKhan was confronted with the very real possibility that this would be his end, along with the end of his Clan, but through pure luck an Elemental security patrol stumbled onto the scene. Hurriedly, they evacuated to rush him to a hospital, leaving the building only moments before the charges went off. Galaxy Commander Russou Howell also in the building was presumed dead in the explosion, although some witnesses would insist he had been seen leaving the building moments before the explosion. These reports were dismissed when no trace if him could be found, but many years later after the Wars of Reaving were concluded, would be discovered to have been true. The ilKhan hismelf would soon be evacuated on the Streaking Mist to Strana Mechty.

Fight to the End

Pushed back once again, the Inner Sphere forces retreated yet deeper into the mountains, seeking a location to bring in the 11th Lyran Guards as their final reinforcements. Crossing a bridge that -barely- supported the weight of the Assault Mechs as they moved deeper into the mountains, General Winston had it blown by combat engineers using most of the last of their demolitions gear in the hope that pursuit would be halted or at least delayed for some time. Rigged to blow with sensors to determine when a Battlemech crossed, an hour later the Task Force heard the satisfying sound of a massive explosion behind them, suggesting at least one Clanner had gone to meet Kerensky in person.

Major Ryan, somewhat frustrated at being kept out of the fighting while the other units of the Task Force fought for their lives, proposed that he set up an observation post 5 klicks out from the main Inner Sphere forces Bivouac to keep an eye on their back trail while they tried to get some rest and repair. Taking with them a number of Man portable TAG designators, the five Commandos would be in a position to spot for the half a dozen remaining units with Arrow-IV missiles should the Jaguars show up. Everyone being aware that the DEST team would not survive if the Jaguars detected them and charged, Winston gave a green light reluctantly. Later that day, a reconnaissance star of Omnimechs indeed appeared in the mountain pass they were watching. Ordered to let them go without reveling his position Ryan and his men waited patiently and half an hour later, two Trianies of Battlemechs with many Elementals in support arrived and the commandos went into action.

Three Clan Mechs were destroyed by the guided missile attack and a forth heavily damaged. Major Ryan personally made an Anti-Mech attack on a fifth, blowing off its leg, but in exchange the DEST team was destroyed - although Major Ryan and one other survivor would manage to break contact and eventually rejoin the Northern army and the four remaining WIA commandos who had been forced to sit the engagement out.

The effective loss of a Star of Mechs did not dissuade the Jaguars. A short time later, twenty Battlemechs attacked the ELH, who were down to roughly 60 operational Battlemechs. The ComGuards remaining 19 combat effective Battlemechs advanced to support them, but the tight mountain terrain meant only a small number of units were engaged at any one time. More curiously, the attacking two Binaries lacked any Elemental support. The answer to where they were would come shortly, when again using their superior knowledge of the local terrain, the third Binary of Jaguar mechs outflanked the Inner Sphere battle line. The Galaxy Commander had noticed that the Inner Sphere forces fought fiercely to protect their wounded and non combatants. While in her mind, a warrior willing to sell his own blood in exchange for one who had neither breeding, nor skill, nor the inclination to fight was foolishness, she was perfectly willing to take advantage of it to deliver a shattering blown to her enemies morale. Charging without warning into the rear area, her Binary and the Elemementals that had been missing charged into the camp. The Saint Ives Lancers 9 remaining Mechs, as well as 12 ComGuard mechs out of ammunition for their primary weapons tried to defend the camp, but were swiftly overwhelmed. A single Victor would survive, the last remaining Battlemech of the 2nd Saint Ives Lancers. Any useful material was seized, the rest destroyed and all personnel not useful as bondsmen, executed. Their task done, the Binary then left quickly as the main Clan force also broke off its diversionary attack. The Inner Sphere forces returned to a horrific scene that plunged their morale to a new low level.

One more retreating into the mountains, they established a new camp, such as it was, almost at the Western edge of the Jaguars Fang range on the 30th of March. Some relief did finally arrive however, finally finding an acceptable landing zone, the 11th Lyran Guards were able to deploy, bringing another 50 Battlemechs to the fight, along with fresh supplies on their dropships. Nowhere near enough to supply the Northern Army at full strength, they were enough for the sadly depleted army to begin reloading and repairing, as well as provide medical relief for the wounded, firming up improving morale.

It did not last however. In orbit above Huntress, the Invisible Truth then brought the bleakest news yet. At least twenty jump signatures had just been detected at the Zenith point indicating a major fleet had just arrived. Unable to raise any of the Serpent warships on station (who had been given strict orders to jump out and join their Jumpships in deep space should an overwhelming enemy force arrive), Beresick prepared to intercept the inbound reinforcements in orbit, in the opening act of what was anticipated to be Serpents last stand. Almost at the same time, the Smoke Jaguars launched a final attack against the Northern Army.

The End of a Clan

Colonel, this is Beresick. The inbounds are Task Force Bulldog. I am in contact with Prince Victor Steiner-Davion and the Precentor Martial. They said to tell you, 'Well done and prepare to stand down.' They'll take over from here
  — Commodore Beresick

The Northern Army marched out to face the Smoke Jaguars. For once, the terrain did not allow the Jaguars to simply outflank the defenders, resulting in something of a stalemate as both sides waged back and forth through a narrow mountain pass that only allowed a few units at a time to engage. Fanatically, almost suicidally, the Jaguars pressed in and General Winston, seeing her men dying, suddenly stepped forward into the pass personally to challenge a Thor belonging to the Jaguars Den. Backhanded by the enraged Clan Mechwarrior and her Mech falling to the ground, a PPC blast directly to her cockpit ended the General in the final moments of the engagement. She was avenged at once by Colonel Charles Antonescu, who destroyed the Thor and assumed command of the Northern Army as the few surviving Smoke Jaguar Mechs retreated. Unknown to the now dead commander of Task Force Serpent, what remained of her army had survived the final push of the Smoke Jaguars in the North.

Moments later, the unbelievable news came through that the new fleet was not a Clan reinforcement fleet. But was, in fact, a unit of Task Force Bulldog who had chased the Clan from the Inner Sphere, up the Exodus Road and now to the Huntress system. The fresh SLDF ground forces hurried to relieve their comrades. In one of these actions, the Tenth Lyran Guard saved the Northwind Highlanders by performing a combat drop. Among the members of the Lyran Guard unit which took part in this relief was Major Archer Christifori. Against the fresh Inner Sphere troops, the last of the Smoke Jaguar warriors, minus a bodyguard binary with the ilKhan himself, were exterminated. Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta committed suicide via variation of bondsref, having one of her subordinates execute her. Very few officers of Star Colonel grade would be taken prisoner, most either dying in battle of following the Galaxy Commanders example. saKhan Howel apparently also either died or killed himself.

Star Colonel Paul Moon, captured in the initial counter invasion, woke from his coma to find his Clan dead. Informing him of this fact was no less a person than Trent_(person), who informed the Star Colonel that he had been the one to give the Exodus road to the Inner Sphere and make all of this possible. And that he had done it in part because of the single minded persecution Moon had inflicted upon him while under his command. Denying him Bondsref, Trent left Moon to live with his shame as he would have to live with his own.

Aftermath

On April 9th, the last sign of Smoke Jaguar on Lootera, a gigantic fresco depicting a jumping jaguar, was destroyed after a speech by Victor Steiner-Davion.

Less than one-third of the personnel of Task Force Serpent had survived. All units were scheduled rebuilding with salvaged Clan material. The Fourth Rasalhague Drakons were scheduled for a full overhaul to a battalion of OmniMechs. The rest of the salvaged material was to be auctioned, to create a fund for the families of those who had died.

One 'Mech company from the Kathil Uhlans joined Victor Steiner-Davion's forces for the battle on Strana Metchty.

Eventually, Task Force Serpent was dissolved. All remaining WarShips and the Eridani Light Horse were declared part of the new Star League Defense Forces. The First Kathil Uhlans were dissolved and most of its members were integrated in the newly formed 1st Royal BattleMech Regiment.

Smoke Jaguar BattleForce Defense Forces

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Twilight of the Clans, p. 8, "Task Force Serpent Composition"

Bibliography