Clan Jade Mission : Silent Thunder

Mission Instructions

--Incoming Coded Message--
Kurultai GalxB_7th - Iron level clearance
- disseminate by need only -

The 12th Falcon Regulars are heading for the Bright Basin, Marakaa Valley, to engage Wolf's 352nd. Your unit is to provide flanking support for this action.

The Wolf has set up in strategic positions directly to the west of the Valley. You must clear the quadrant taking out vital installations in one swift, coordinated strike.

To this end you must destroy the HPG UPLINK at NAV ALPHA and the COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY at NAV BETA. Probes detect 'Mechs in the area.

Objectives

Situations and Aftermaths

SITUATIONS and AFTERMATHS are downloaded from BearNet, New Albion, Porthos. They are the recorded log of the Loremaster of Clan Ghost Bear and represent an impartial account of the Refusal War as seen by the Grand Council. They are provided to you, a member of the Warrior Caste, so that you may be informed of events as they occur in the larger context of the battles.

Situation

Elias Crichell, Khan of Clan Jade Falcon, paced angrily. His meeting with the Wolf Clan   on Tamar had not gone as he had expected. First he had been forced to pass through a gauntlet of hostile Wolf Clan warriors. Then the Wolf Khan Natasha Kerensky further humiliated and enraged Crichell by forcing him to perform the batchall with the traitor, Ulric Kerensky. According to tradition, Khans of the Clans negotiated the terms of battle only with their peers, never with warriors of lesser rank. This practice was observed most stringently when bidding for an important battle, and few battles held as much import for a Clansman as a Trial of Refusal. And he, Khan Elias Crichell of Clan Jade Falcon, had found himself negotiating with a mere Star Colonel.

But Crichell's greatest shock came when he learned the Wolves' choice of battlefield for the Trial. Ulric declared the Wolves would engage the Jade Falcons on Colmar, as expected--and at Dompaire, Sudeten, Zoetermeer, and other worlds of the Falcon occupation zone! And the Wolves had bid all their troops to do so.

"Ulric and his band of misfits seek to anger you, so that we will make a mistake and provide the Wolves an opportunity to claim a victory in the Trial," saKhan Vandervahn Chistu told Crichell. "The traitor's plan will backfire--I will make sure of that. We will turn this Trial of Refusal into a Trial of Absorption. After we have smashed the Galaxies of the Wolves, we will claim all their properties, and the Jade Falcons will become the greatest and most powerful Clan ever!"

"I will leave it to you, then, saKhan Chistu, to develop our battle strategies," Crichell said. "And once we have defeated the treacherous Wolves and I am elected ilKhan, we will march toward Terra."

Aftermath

The bitter rivalry between the Wolves and Jade Falcons fueled fierce fighting in the battle on Colmar, a battle that set the tone for the entire Refusal War.

The first shots were fired in the Marakaa Valley. Using the dry river bed for cover, the 352nd Wolf Assault Cluster had marched through the valley to the Jade Falcon position at Bright Basin. The steep walls of the valley forced the Falcon aerospace fighters to make their strafing runs directly into the front of the Wolf 'Mech column. As a result, the fighters had little effect and soon broke off their attacks rather than face fire from the Wolf 'Mechs.

The fleeing fighters left the BattleMechs of the 12th Falcon Regulars Cluster with no fighter cover when they appeared on the ridge line to the south. As the Falcons descended the steep slope to enter their weapons' firing range, they bunched up, presenting easy  targets to the 352nd.

When the dust cleared, the 12th Falcon Regulars were no more. A scant 10 percent of the 12th's personnel survived, among them only six aerospace fighters. By comparison, the 352nd suffered only 17 percent casualties. Unfortunately, the Falcons managed to destroy   half of the 352nd's aerospace fighters and Elementals and two-thirds of the Cluster's 'Mechs. The Wolves took no bondsmen from the survivors but did lay claim to all battlefield salvage. The fighting had been fierce and many of the 352nd's 'Mechs would never see battle again, but at long last the Wolf pups had cut their teeth.

After the battle, the remaining members of the 352nd formed up with the Wolf Spiders and marched on Doren, the capital of Colmar. There, Khan Natasha Kerensky's Elementals opened the planet's armories and armed the population. She declared the Colmar system free of the Jade Falcons and told the gathering crowds that she would take their grievances to the Jade Falcon Khan personally.