Chapter 61 Shattered Dao, Part 3[]
“The last 40 klicks or so to the Forbidden City were the worst. What should have taken us an hour to cover took the better part of the day. Every damn building, gulley, or reverse slope, we had to dig Capellan defenders out. Most died, some surrendered. But I’ll not forget the feeling when the 1st [Davion] Guards raised their colors and the FC flag over the palace? I will admit I wept like a ****** baby.”
Marshal Sarah Archer “My Thirty Years in Uniform – A Memoir”
“FOR OUR HOMES AND FATHERS! KILL FIVE DAVIONS BEFORE YOU DIE! SIAN WILL REMAIN CAPELLAN.”
Painted on the side of a building in Benin city and photographed with two Davion infantrymen enjoying a smoke break in front of it on October 9th, 3057. It was taken by Abernathy Hollis, a photographer for ComStar News Network. This photo won the 3057 Pulitzer Prize.
Grim Road Forward[]
Axis “Quickcell” along Capellan State Highway 7
38km from the Forbidden City
Forbidden City, Sian
Capellan Confederation
October 14th, 3057, 0340 hours
<<LUCKY ACTUAL, I NEED YOU TO GET YOUR ASSES ON THE ROAD AND ME INTO THE DAMN FORBIDDEN CITY BY SUNUP. CAN YOU DO THAT, OR DO I NEED TO PASS THE BATTLE TO NOTORIOUS? OVER?>>
<<GREEN ACTUAL, WE CAN DO THIS, MY BOYS AND GIRLS CAN SEE THE SPIRES OF THE FORBIDDEN CITY. ONE MORE PUSH AND WE ARE THERE. SAY THE WORD AND GIVE ME PRIORITY OF FIRES, OVER?>>
Marshal Archer yawned, hoping the mic on her neurohelmet wouldn’t pick that up. The 7th Crucis had been fighting like demons since they forced the last ditch Capellan line. Even with the Capellan line broken, the 7th was taking heavy casualties to disorganized, but ferocious Capellan strongpoints and local counterattacks. Wish I still had the 6th available, but they’re in a rest period while I rebuild the RCT command staff. It was a dilemma. She knew Jasper Zibler would force his way through any way he could. But he’d probably gut the unit doing it. The Assault Guards were busy holding open the flanks of the advance, and the rest of the force was launching local attacks to pin down other Capellan defenders. No, it was time.
<<LUCKY ACTUAL, THIS IS GREEN ACTUAL. HAND OVER THE BATTLE TO MEDUSA AND ATLAS. THEY’RE PRETTY FRESH AND THEY’LL GET US IN. TELL YOUR BOYS AND GIRLS THEY DID A GREAT JOB GETTING US THIS FAR. IT’S TIME OTHERS TOOK THE JOB TO FINISH IT, OVER?>>
Zibler’s voice sounded dejected on the other end, but with a tinge of understanding <<ROGER, GREEN ACTUAL, WE WILL HAND OVER THE FIGHT. THANKS FOR THE PRAISE FOR MY BOYS AND GIRLS. THEY DESERVE SO MUCH, OVER?>>, Zeyus
Archer grinned crookedly. <<UNDERSTOOD LUCKY ACTUAL. PULL YOUR KIDS BACK FOR SOME REST. THEY DID AN AMAZING JOB GETTING US THROUGH THAT LAST CAPELLAN DEFENSIVE BELT. SIT BACK AND WATCH THE FLAG GET RAISED. GREEN ACTUAL OUT.>>
She switched frequencies
<<KINGPIN ACTUAL, THIS IS GREEN ACTUAL, LUCKY IS HANDING OVER THE BATTLE TO ATLAS AND MEDUSA. PLEASE GIVE THE PASSAGE OF LINES AND THEIR ADVANCE PRIORITY OF FIRES, OVER?>>
<<GREEN ACTUAL, KINGPIN ACTUAL WILCO. WE WILL GIVE THEM ALL THE HELL WE CAN MANAGE, OVER.>>
<<KINGPIN ACTUAL, NEVER SUSPECTED OTHERWISE, GREEN ACTUAL OUT.>>
It was up to the 1st Ceti and the 1st Davion Guards now.
Marshal Archer heard a series of booms ring out to her rear. That must be the redlegs covering the 7th during passage of lines. Excellent, these kids have fought their heart out.
She then rose the left arm of her Zeus and gave the hand and arm signal for an advance towards the fighting, which was lighting up the night sky like a man-made tempest. She then pumped the arm up and down to signal “maximum speed.”
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Zeus Assault 'Mech
This is for all the ****** marbles. It’s time to end this bullshit.
Her command company slid into line on either side of her, with two lances up, and the support lance in the rear. She took in the sights and sounds as the whine of autocannons mixed with the thunder like sound of PPCs and the freight train noise of artillery ripping apart the early morning sky.
Her people were tired. They had gone with little sleep for the last 12 hours, and food had been from the ration pouches on the move.
And no one had complained about it. Not one. You’d usually see or hear some griping, this was different. This was a chance to end the damn war.
And as far as she could tell? If she let them, every unit in the invasion force would race to the capitol to be first. Even Zibler, even though I told him to back off.
Her command company frequency came to life <<GREEN 31 reporting contact with the enemy 1000 meters to my front. Thermal has two ‘Mech sized contacts. They don’t have ID panels, I repeat, they don’t have ID panels, OVER?>>
<<GREEN 31, GREEN 6, ENGAGE WITH YOUR LANCE AND PUT THEM DOWN PLEASE, OVER?>>
<<GREEN 6, GREEN 31, WILCO, OUT.>>
The four assault 'Mechs of the Shock Lance spread out into line some 100 meters apart, and advanced on the two contacts. Before long, LRMs and PPCs reached out to the targets somewhere in the early morning murk. The lance soon advanced into the murk themselves, and the radio lit up with reports of damage and soon, kills. The targets were a pair of Capellan Archers wearing the colors of the Red Lancers. Both appeared damaged from earlier actions, as it didn’t take a lot of fire to put them down.
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Archer Heavy BattleMech
<GREEN 31, GREEN 6, WELL DONE, CHARLIE-MIKE, OUT>>
3 hours later[]
<<ALL GREEN CALLSIGNS, GREEN SIX, LET’S SLOW IT DOWN, I WANT COLUMNS WITH SIXTY METERS BETWEEN US, WE’RE ENTERING SOME CLOSE SUBURBS HERE, AND I SMELL AMBUSH. BE READY TO SCRATCH SOME BACKS, OUT.>>
Marshal Archer throttled down her ‘Mech. The sweat began to in the palms of her fingerless gloves, and it wasn’t the heat output from the reactor. I hate cities, I really ****** hate cities.
It was a typical Capellan-planned community, with a series of apartment buildings built by the State Housing Authority on the outskirts, and a central commercial district in the center. All of it was set up on a gridded street structure, and all of it was pre-chambered for demolitions, or set up to be used as strong points. Damn Capellans think of everything, don’t they?
Yonkers on Engadin left me with that little issue. She’d been with the 26th Lyran Guards then, fighting in the 4th War as a brand new Lieutenant fresh out of Buena. And it was damn like this, fighting fanatical Combine kids in the 5th Sun Zhang street to damn street. Took all spring to get those bastards to surrender. I guess that’s why I have my heart in my throat…Every damn block had DCMS infantrymen with SRMs, about half of them packing inferno rounds…
<<GREEN 6, ON YOUR NINE!>>
A stream of green tracer ripped by her ‘Mech, awfully close to her-
<WHAM, WHAM!!>
Marshal Archer’s Zeus swayed as it took two impacts to the head. The rounds hit along the side of the head, throwing sparks, and shaking the head like a terrier does a chew toy. Marshal Archer was thrown into the side of her command couch and her vision greyed for a moment, but fortunately, she didn’t lose control and managed to right the ‘Mech. Another two streams of tracers ripped past the Zeus, as she fought for control of her ‘Mech.
Sarah flipped her view from IR to Night Vision and began to turn her ‘Mech towards the general direction of the fire. Other reports were filtering in from the company. They’d walked into a fire sack for a Capellan field gun unit of perhaps battery strength, but it was hard to know, as there was also a bit of small arms fire picking up from random buildings. She caught the staccato flash of an autocannon firing from the 5th floor of a non-descript light-colored apartment block about three blocks down. Call it 300 meters, give, or take? Guess it’s PPC time?
Archer grimly flipped off her master arm switch, then pulled the trigger for just her Defiance 1000 Extended Range PPC. The weapon hummed as it built up to discharge, the process taking seconds, then violently discharging a beam of cerulean light with a loud thunderclap as killer and target were linked in a brightly lit finger of death. The entire floor exploded outward when the beam impacted, with rubble raining down into the street below, and the room where Archer had seen the muzzle flash engulfed in flames. She saw a figure in the next room over dance a macabre death dance, as he burned, preferring the quick death of jumping the eight stories into the street below than enduring the slow horrible death of being a human torch.
God, I hope that person wasn’t a civilian. Then again, are they any left on Sian now?
6 hours later[]
The pattern of trudge forward a few hundred meters, then fight through or bypass a Capellan strongpoint had become exhausting. Marshal Archer was drenched in sweat, and her eyes stung from the sweat, and an average of three hours of sleep for the last two days. There was also the small matter of getting my bell rung. She glanced at the instrument panel and winced; I ran out of LRM ammo? When the hell did that happen? The sun was now high in the sky, and the skies filled with FC aerospace fighters awaiting their turn in a ground attack mission. We haven’t seen a Capellan fighter in the last week? Did we really shoot them all down?
Her eyes then moved to her mech’s armor status, most of it was in the yellow, including her head, fighting their way clear of what turned out to be a depleted Capellan fortress battalion had cost her two ‘Medium mechs, a Dervish and an Assassin. The latter had been when it had found a big IED that had blown its right leg off in mid-run. The ‘Mech had skidded down a main street headfirst into a small building with an unusually deep basement. I didn’t see Sergeant Ramos eject either. Dammit, he had a wife and two kids back on Dalkeith. She could see the spires of the palace, and reports from MEDUSAs lead elements were that they were within meters of Task Force Allard’s positions, but they were meeting ferocious resistance.
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Assassin Medium 'Mech
A radio call broke the gloom.
<<GREEN ACTUAL, THIS IS MEDUSA ACTUAL, I HAVE THE HONOR TO REPORT THAT AT 1251 HOURS LOCAL, MARAUDER SIX REPORTED TO ME THAT ELEMENTS OF HIS COMMAND MADE CONTACT WITH TF ALLARD. WE HAVE RELIEVED COLONEL ALLARD, MAM.>>
Marshal Archer exhaled. I’ll ask about the butcher’s bill later.
<<MEDUSA ACTUAL, GREEN ACTUAL, STATUS OF THE PALACE?>>
<<GREEN ACTUAL, WE’RE GOING TO NEED A LOT OF INFANTRY FOR THAT. I NEED LEADFOOT TO GET UP HERE AND PUT HIS RCT TO WORK. IT’S GOING TO BE ROOM TO DAMN ROOM THERE.>>
<<UNDERSTOOD MEDUSA, CHARLIE-MIKE, I WILL PUSH EVERYTHING WE CAN TO YOU. LET’S HOPE THE CAPELLANS FINALLY GET THE PICTURE THAT IT’S OVER, OUT.>>
Archer guided her ‘Mech to a small hill that overlooked the center of the Forbidden City. The sun was high over the shattered ruins of the city, smoke pouring from several neighborhoods, especially the palace. Horrible business…but it’s still a hell of a view, just one hell of a view.
Sian, Part 5[]
Attacking Forces: 1st Davion Guards RCT, 4th Davion Guards RCT, 3rd Davion Guards RCT, 6th Syrtis Fusiliers RCT, 7th Crucis Lancers RCT, 1st Ceti Hussars RCT, 3rd Royal Guards RCT, Davion Light Guards RCT, 10th Deneb Light Cavalry RCT, 1st Federated Suns Armored Cavalry, 1st Kell Hounds, Jade Phoenix Cluster, 5th Federated Commonwealth RCT, 4th Royal Guards, 10 artillery brigades.
Defending Forces: House Immarra (25% strength), Red Lancers (10% strength), 1st People’s Loyalty Regiment (5%, scattered in penny packets), Death Commando Battalion (20% strength), 1 combined arms division of the Sian Home Guard (The second and third division were disbanded due to losses and used to reinforce the remainder), and 50 “Victory Battalions” (18 of which are on Wuhan, many battalions have either been destroyed or have deserted/surrendered en masse.)
Results: The final collapse of the Capellan defenses on Sian was as anti-climactic as it was anticipated. The Capellans had nothing more left to give. By the end, they were relying on small packets of scared, confused, and disorganized bands of defenders who just wanted to take one more swipe at the Fedcom invaders. The push to the Forbidden City itself took just six hours, resembling the ancient American tactic of the “Thunder Run,” but what resistance there was did little but cause more casualties.
The Celestial Palace itself held out for three more days held by the last survivors of the Red Lancer and Death Commando infantry. The end of the conventional phase on Sian was marked with the Fedcom raising the flag on the roof of the building from a shattered antenna on the morning of the 18th of October. But questions remained? Just who oversaw the Capellan Armed Forces that were left? And where was Sun-Tzu Liao? Until one or both questions were resolved, Sian threatened to descend into chaos and a nasty insurgency.