Chapter Sixteenth
- Book 5 – Chappy's Howling Siegers[]
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Laying down Terms[]
Dragon’s Roost
Tatsuyama Mountain
Dieron, Draconis Combine
May 30th, 3031
1500 Dieron Standard Time
Governor's Office
General Chapman observed the opulent office surroundings, taking in every detail. The rich, dark local wood resembled cherry red mahogany from old Terra, while wall-to-wall bookshelves held a mix of old and new books alongside antiquities from various regions. The elegant ceramic tile floor and floor-to-ceiling windows added to the grandeur of the oversized room, large enough for a battalion of MechWarriors to stand in with room to spare for their commander to conduct a uniform inspection. Present in the room were General Chapman, his four children, and all the ground ally commanders: General Edward Devlin of the 4th Sky Guards, General Ryan Hawkins of the 4th Sky Rangers, General Valeria Skidmore of the 36th Avalon Hussars, General Barbara Stanton of the 56th Avalon Hussars, and Colonel Wolf of Wolf’s Dragoons. The Draconis Combine was represented only by Governor and Tai-sho Palmer Conti, the sole survivor of their command structure, as most other leaders had either perished in battle or taken their own lives by way of Seppuku. Despite scattered attempts by Combine units to disrupt order, the battle for the planet had effectively ended after the fall of Fortress Derion.
General Chapman mused over why this man was still alive, when his unit over ran the Combine at the fortress the Dracs fought hard there was a secret passage to escape and about 200 Dracs went into those escape routes, Chapman sent his troops down the passages ways to try and capture or eliminate the soldiers if they would not surrender. The Dracs fought hard Chapman gave them that, even though the Dracs were no match for the PA(L) verse just their bodies they fought and gave their lives up for a commander that ran. Eventually they found Palmer, but he was alive and hiding.
Chapman snapped out of the memory and addressing the disheveled former commander of the 5th Swords of Light. “Governor, Tai-sho I declare that this planet and all of her residents are now under the protection and rule of the.” General paused for a second and Palmer had enough strength to look up at him Matthew cleared his throat, “This planet is now under the rule of the Freedom Federation, as overall commander of this task force I hereby announce that any personnel of the Draconis Combine military or political arms can vacate this planet with out prejudice, you have a week to get your personal belongings and family out of the system. There are commercial dropships and jump ships that I have arrange to expedite this.” The Federated Suns and Lyran commanders were upset and started to raise their voices but the site of the General’s children with hands on weapons and the Great Colonel Wolf siding with the General Chapman shut them up he then continued. “Furthermore, any of the units out across the planet can leave with their equipment that they can carry including their mechs, but they must be at the designated drop port within 20 hours and stop all hostilities. The only person that will not be able to leave is you Tai-sho Conti, The Archon has requested you in front of her court to answer for your crimes against the Lyran people. After all Draconis Combine personnel are safely off planet and out of the system I will then succeed control of planet and all its assets to the new Federated Commonwealth my unit will then leave to never return to this place in which we have lost so much.” With that he looked at his children in acknowledgement of their lost mother a month ago.” He then looked at the Governor. “Governor, I am ordering you to be on the first Dropship out of this system I have a message that I need delivered to Coordinator Kurita, the Freedom Federation wants to start negotiations for peace between both nations.”
With that General Chapman moved out of the office and told the two guards to put the Tai-Sho under room arrest until the Lyran security forces took over possession of the prisoner. Then he marched down the hall with his children and Colonel Wolf in tow, to another room. Busting into the room the hundred or so reporters instantly became still. They knew there was going to be press release that is why they are there, most of the reporters came in late last night when the Federated Suns overall commander sent a HPG messages inviting them to the planet. Until today there was no reporting about was going on, about the second week of the invasion all communication was cut, all space travel was band. One such journalist Rachel Francis from INN was on her first big report very young and pretty she had hope she could catch the eye of someone and land a news scoop, but looking across the sea of reports she realized this was bigger than her. Everyone including her watched as this tall aging man with five other impressive people following him went up to the stage and sat down. The first thing that everyone noticed was the uniforms, they were not Federated Suns the guy next to Rachel leaned in and asked what was going on those are not his Federated Suns commanders he had expected.
General Chapman surveyed the room, waiting until his children and Colonel Wolf had taken their seats before beginning.
"Thank you for coming, I appreciate all of you for showing up specially since there has been a media lockdown. Most of you might not know who I am, My name is General Matthew Chapman and..." the room erupted the reporters started to yell over everyone Matthew just sat back and waited, looking across the room slowly the crowd was silence by the General silence and stair. "Ok now that is done please no more interruptions while I am speaking there will be a time for questions at the end if needed. Here to my right is my three sons all commanders in the Federation Army from left to right Matthew, Dustin, and Seth to my left is my daughter also a commander in the army Cheyenne and next to her is Colonel Wolf of the Wolf's Dragoons. My wife was killed in action about a month ago so please pardon me or my children seem down in spirits on this glorious day. For the last few months, I have been the overall commander of this invasion fighting not for my country but for the Federated Suns, I have done this because of the Oath I had had with the First Prince. Two units from the Federated Suns and Two units from the Lyran Commonwealth participated heavily in this effort and they should be highly praised for their actions. Today I accepted the surrender of the Governor and also Tai-Sho Conti and within one weeks time after the stipulations that I have handed down are achieve I will succeed this planet to the new Federated Commonwealth and the First Prince will have his planet that he wanted. As for my command In a week we will leave and go back to our home we lost a lot I and my children have lost a lot, it is time to reflect and see what future holds. I am sending a suggestion of peace to the Coordinator Kurita and hope that we can work out an agreement. With that I will open up to a few questions.”
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