Tiber Hinders
Sarna News
Tiber Hinders | |
|---|---|
| Personal | |
| Died | 2848[1] |
| Affiliation | Lyran Commonwealth |
| Profile | |
| Rank | Colonel[1] |
| Profession | MechWarrior[1] |
| Family | |
| Siblings | Michael Hinders (Brother)[1] |
Tiber Hinders was the commanding officer of the Fourth Royal Guards during the Second Succession War.[1]
History[edit]
Colonel Hinders, commanding the Fourth Royal Guards, was dispatched to New Caledonia when it came under attack from the Draconis Combine in 2841. Expecting to only have to hold for a short while before reinforcements arrived, the Lyran Commonwealth's political and military difficulties stranded Hinders' men on-world with several regiments of conventional troops as support. The first clash between Hinders and the Combine troops under Hugai Kurita's command occurred at the city of Avesta, resulting in an eleven-day stalemate before the Combine's superior numbers finally caused the Lyrans to retreat. South of the planet's capital city of Redfev, the First and Third Battalions of the Fourth Royal Guards under Major Michael Hinders fought the Seventh Rasalhague Regulars, once more creating a protracted stalemate between the two sides that lasted for weeks.[1]
On 22 July, the Seventh Rasalhague Regulars and Fourth Sword of Light assaulted the city of New Berwick, ignoring raids from the Fourth Royal's Second Battalion and ultimately resulting in the city's evacuation by late August. Hinders, now holed up in the old Star League Defense Force facility known as Redcastle, finally learned that his unit was cut off from the rest of the Commonwealth, leading to a seventeen-month siege of Redcastle that lasted until January 2843. Redcastle's longevity was primarily due to Hinders' air bases located elsewhere on the planet but when those sites were destroyed in October 2842 by Kuritan special forces troops with apparent insider knowledge of their defenses and layouts, he began to suspect a turncoat in his ranks. After losing Redcastle and finding all of his fall-back positions already threatened by Combine forces, Hinders gave the order for his troops to scatter and go to ground, initiating a guerrilla war that would last for several years.[1]
When Hinders regained sporadic contact with the wider Commonwealth in 2844, he was once again informed that political turmoil was making any reinforcement of New Caledonia impossible, leading to his decision to try to win the battle through large-scale military actions once again. With the departure of the Fourth Sword of Light and the arrival of the unprepared Sixth Rasalhague Regulars, Hinders had numerous successes before the element of surprise was lost and attrition began to tell on his forces in 2846. By the end of 2847, in the face of mounting casualties and supply difficulties, the resistance movement on New Caledonia was officially doomed. Hinders and the last of his troops would be captured in 2848.[1]
An emaciated Hinders would be brought before Hugai Kurita personally, with the Combine leader proceeding to insult the Fourth Royal's efforts for the last seven years. Hugai admitted that a spy had been undermining Hinders' efforts the entire time, robbing him of the chance for a fair battle, and offered Hinders the opportunity to kill the man that had lead to his unit's downfall. Taken to a makeshift arena outside the capital city Redfev, Hinders faced-off against the faceless spy in a BattleMech duel, ultimately prevailing at the cost of a lethal dose of radiation from a breached fusion engine. When Hinders ripped open his opponent's cockpit to discover the corpse of his own brother Michael, Hugai Kurita let him live just long enough to cry out in anguish before executing the fallen officer.[1]
While it would never be determined if Michael Hinders actually had been a spy for the Combine, when Hugai Kurita sent the footage of the brothers' fight to Archon Claudius Steiner it shocked the infamously insane noble into action. The following attacks directly against Hugai and his father Coordinator Yoguchi Kurita would become one of the key points of the entire Succession Wars Era.[1]