Chapter Text
Portland, New Avalon
Crucis March
Federated Suns
28th September, 3065
New Avalon in the New Year… Anastasia recalled the new slogan that had caught on like wildfire amongst the Allied forces, while she placed her crosshairs onto a Pegasus hovertank that had ventured too close to the Jaguar’s Mists. She pressed her triggers and two bright beams of light lanced into the dodging vehicle. The hovertank swerved suddenly, then stopped, its air skirt damaged. A wave of LRMs finished the hovertank off, the missiles crashing into it with multiple explosions.
Then she saw it. Maybe a company or two of armor, trying to scuttle back into defensive positions after another lightning thrust against the Davion Assault Guards on their left.
“Jaguar’s Mists, Mist Actual. Form up on me, we are advancing!” She knew there was a risk of the enemy holding reserves to cut them off or command detonated minefields, but the 3rd Robinson Rangers and their attached auxiliaries had been doggedly trying to keep the Allied forces out of Portland for the past two days, and she knew they were getting stretched to their breaking point. “Sweepers, move ahead!”
Camille’s Owens soared forward on jump jets, followed by Kaelan in his Raptor and Sharley in her Fire Moth, fanning out to scout ahead while Doval in his Firestarter-O and Tierle in her Arctic Fox covered them with their bigger guns.
Just twenty seconds in, Camille reported, “This is Mist Deuce, no other bogeys out to two klicks.”
“Sweepers, keep our flanks clear. Everybody else, forward!” If there were really substantial reinforcements lying in wait to cut them off, at least Camille would be able to warn her in time for them to get into defensive positions.
The rest of the Mists arrowed in while the Sweepers guarded their flanks, Jeine and her Strikers leading the way. The enemy armor tried to resist, but up against a battlemech force of their quality and skill, they had no chance, their vehicles left as burning wreckage strewn across the battlefield.
Five minutes later, the Mists were already encroaching into the outskirts of Portland, cautiously holding position while waiting for Allied mechanised infantry to move up to secure their gains. Anastasia kept one ear on the command frequency, trying to see if there was anywhere that desperately needed their support.
Since the start of 3065, the Allied forces in the Draconis and Crucis Marches had simply cut through loyalist strongpoints like hot knives through butter. After crushing the Tsamma CMM and First Royal Cavaliers on Tsamma, Tancred Sandoval took command of the entire Draconis March and made peace with the Draconis Combine.
The new Duke sent Finn to Proserpina to convince the Eighth Crucis Lancers to retreat, then TERF intervened decisively on Kestrel with the 1st and 3rd Crucis Lancers, forcing the 5th Donegal Guards into submission. In the meantime, Victor Steiner-Davion blasted through the Terran Corridor, securing Tikonov before moving decisively to Galax for the assault on New Avalon.
After being sidelined for more than a year, Anastasia wanted in for the final assault. Finn managed to secure transportation to Galax for her, Hawise, and even their dependents, guarded by fanatically loyal troopers from TERF and Altoona, now hardened veterans.
A delegation from REAPER accompanied them to make contact with Federated Boeing at Galax and discuss technological exchanges between the two companies. The Altoona yards were hungry for skilled manpower, and they hoped there would be enough interested apprentices and trainees at Galax.
At Galax, Anastasia did one final reorganisation for the Jaguar’s Mists, since they had finally managed to procure enough omnimechs to expand the unit. She added one more omnimech to each lance, then tongue-in-cheek, referred to them as a ‘reinforced company’.
Those who knew she was once Avryl Showers groaned at the inside joke while those not in the know of her old identity were thoroughly confused, since they all recognised the new format as a clan trinary. Furthermore, the training manuals she had disseminated to the rest of the unit clearly was of clan origin, with the word ‘trinary’ replaced by ‘company’, and the word ‘star’ replaced by ‘lance’ in a clearly hamfisted attempt to pass off the new maneuvers as Spheroid in origin.
After intense unit integration exercises, she then arranged for sparring matches with other Allied units at Galax, some of whom had been quite skeptical of their skills and combat record, especially given their clan origins. Holding their own consistently against full mixed battalions converted a lot of the doubters though, and even Duke Sandoval had told her that he would be leaning heavily on the Jaguar’s Mists for the New Avalon assault.
The campaign for the continent of Rostock had been short but brutal. The Jaguar’s Mists acquitted themselves spectacularly. They shattered every company-sized enemy formation that opposed them, and even punched through a Com Guard Level III to link up with Field Marshal Ardan Sortek’s Light Davion Guards. Those who had been at Tukayyid, like Hawise, Camille, Kaelen, and Doval were especially motivated to punish the Com Guards.
From what Finn told her, the Jaguar’s Mists had gained a reputation as ‘those clanners might be crazy, but I’m glad they’re on our side!’
“HQ, this is Slider Actual.” The speaker seemed to be breathing hard. “Enemy concentration at grid coordinates on the data feed. Two heavy lances of mechs, mostly upgraded designs. Sending info now. I’m pulling out before my company falls apart from that firepower!”
Anastasia quickly accessed the enemy formation information. Generally slow-moving heavy and assault mechs, nothing that went faster than fifty-five kph, and only one of them mounted jump jets. And they were fighting in a built-up area. She would think twice before committing even her trinary to the action - the butcher’s bill would be high unless…
“HQ, this is Smoke Actual.” A female voice came over the integrated command channel. “We are only ten klicks out. My BA company can deal with those mechs, but we need a ride there.”
Battlearmor was the perfect counter. Anastasia thumbed the switch to send over the channel. “Smoke Actual, this is Mist Actual. If you don’t mind, we can give your company a ride. Give us your coordinates, and we’ll be there.”
“Aff,” the clan-like reply surprised Ana. “Sending coordinates now.”
She switched to the trinary channel. “Mists, form up on me. We’ll be picking up some passengers.”
“Oooohh, elementals?” commented Sharley. Her Fire Moth, bought from the Davion Heavy Guards, accelerated to its maximum speed and started running ahead of the main body in a wide arc, checking for enemies. Sharley’s Legbreaker was notorious for being cursed; salvage from Operation Bulldog, it had been left in the Davion Heavy Guards inventory for years despite being a light mech simply because nobody else could pilot the mech without suffering some serious injury or accident. Sharley had been the only mechwarrior to pilot it without incident, and the Heavy Guards were only too grateful to finally rid themselves of it.
“Battle armor,” Anastasia corrected firmly. “I’m not sure what type. Probably either Inner Sphere standard or the new Infiltrator Mark II models, maybe even a mix. We’ll use deployment scheme Bravo Three.”
A chorus of affs responded. Bravo Three would load only her Sweep and Striker Stars with battle armor. If possible, squads might be split across mechs in order to accommodate all the battle armor without having to involve the slower command star. That is, if the battlearmor units were amenable to that idea. She recalled Tiaret drilling her elementals to do just that as a stopgap measure when there were not enough omnimechs to deploy her elementals, but not every commander was as flexible.
When the Mists arrived at the pickup point, Anastasia was shocked to see an elemental suit leading a mix of Cavalier and Infiltrator Mark II battlearmor. They had clearly seen combat already, the area was littered with burning APC wrecks and infantry corpses, and some of the battle armor carried signs of damage, standing guard over a group of Loyalist prisoners.
“Smoke Actual? You there?” she asked tentatively.
“Aff, Mist Actual, I am here, in the Elemental suit.” The elemental walked up to Saber Knight with a fluid grace. “I thought I would see some personnel carriers, but your omnimechs are a very welcome sight.” Her voice sounded very familiar.
“Thanks. Is it possible to reorg your battlearmor so they only need to ride ten mechs? My command lance is a bit too slow to taxi your BA in close fast enough.”
“Aff, that is good thinking. I see you have a clan trinary setup, that helps too.”
“Ehhh… we’re a reinforced company, not a trinary,” Anastasia deflected. “I am Captain Anastasia Kalinska, at your service.”
“Captain Tiaret Nevversan, currently on detached duty.”
A wave of nostalgia hit Anastasia, her eyes blurred, and she almost blurted out the truth right there and then. Just when she had thought of Tiaret only moments before! She clamped down hard on her emotions, hoping her voice did not sound shaky when she said, “Well met, Captain Nevversan.”
“Hey,” Ruglio commented on the trinary channel, “I have heard of Tiaret Nevversan. She was a ristar, just got her bloodname before Bulldog hit us. One of the elementals in my cluster lost to her in the Trial of Bloodright. Mind if I talk to her?”
“Maybe later,” Anastasia wanted to talk to Tiaret too, but there was duty to attend to. “Let’s get them mounted first, then you can catch up with her. We also need to get the comms sorted out.” She quickly coordinated with Tiaret to fix the comms channels for their combined force. Not having trained for this specifically, they would not be as efficient as an actual Supernova Trinary, but it should be enough to take down two heavy lances in tight confines.
Tiaret’s battlearmor company was already mounting the omnimechs, grabbing onto special handholds and plugging into the mech systems to recharge their internal batteries. In some cases, Tiaret and the mechwarriors had to instruct the battlearmor on where to position themselves, especially for the older and less familiar omnimechs such as Jeine’s Lupus, Yashim’s Stooping Hawk, and Gast’s Night Chanter.
They were soon headed towards the enemy force, Tiaret mounted on Camille’s Owens. The battlearmor troopers all seem to be extremely excited, judging from the chatter on their channel, which she could listen into.
“We have never deployed en masse on omnimechs, so this is a new experience for them,” Tiaret explained on a line she had set up only for the two commanders and Camille. “The Inner Sphere is rarely able to concentrate its omnimechs like this. We would be lucky to even get a lance to transport a platoon. Usually, we just get APCs, and they are too vulnerable.”
“No problem, we’re happy to do this. Just help us buff and polish our mechs afterwards. No free rides!”
“Extortion, Captain Kalinska,” Tiaret chuckled, then paused a bit. “My best… my best friend used to joke about that too.”
Oh! Anastasia bit her tongue. That had been a shared inside joke when they were both in the 144th Garrison Cluster. A part of her heart warmed when she realised Tiaret still regarded Avryl as her best friend.
“What do you suggest for the plan when we hit the enemy force?” asked Anastasia. “I’m thinking we try to get your battlearmor in at almost melee range. My Sweep Lance will then disengage and cut their retreat, while my other two lances pound them with focused fire.”
“Focused fire is dezgra, but you are Spheroid, so it is fine. Can your jump capable mechs go over the enemy mechs while carrying us? We will drop right on top of those slow assault mechs, that will give them something to think about. I trust your mechwarriors are good enough?”
Anastasia remembered that move. They had used this tactic to great effect a few times before in field exercises with the few omnimechs in the cluster, but the jumping mechwarriors had to be able to compensate for the change in mass midjump, otherwise they would botch their landings.
Camille commented, “Leave it to me. Captain Nevversan, I served under Avryl Showers before, and she always spoke highly of you. She previously gave me the instructions for dismounting battlearmor when a mech is in mid-jump.”
Tiaret did not reply for a while, and Anastasia’s heart ached. Her friend’s reply sounded rough and uneven. “You knew Avryl, quiaff?”
“Aff, I was with her in the Jaguar’s Mists. In fact, we convinced Captain Kalinska to name our reinforced company after our old unit.”
“Then I shall need to spend some time with you once the battle is done, Camille. I wish to know more of what happened to Avryl after she came to the Inner Sphere.”
“Aff, Captain, aff. Do not worry, I am sure we shall see victory this day, with Avryl Showers being here with us in spirit.” Anastasia scowled at Camille’s little dig. “You should spend time with Captain Kalinska too, I am sure you will get along great!”
Making a mental note to murder Camille afterwards, Anastasia said, “Yes, I would like to get to know you better, Captain Nevversan.”
Tiaret laughed, “Then we should win this battle first.”
They reached the small build-up area where the two enemy lances awaited. The company designated as Slider held position two kilometers away, out of weapons range. They were a hovertank company, unsuited to urban combat when their speed on open terrain was their biggest advantage, and only half strength after taking heavy losses.
“Follow us in if you see an opening, otherwise just screen and block their retreat.” Tiaret instructed Slider as they closed the distance.
Jeine’s Striker ‘Lance’ led the way, closing at an angle to increase the difficulty of hitting them. The enemy lances were a fearsome mix of assaults from the Third Robinson Rangers, probably consolidated into a single sub-unit to hold this particular chokepoint, because intel suggested that behind this town was their logistics hub.
Two Atlases, a Banshee, a Highlander, a Salamander, a Longbow, an Awesome, and finally a Stalker. Anastasia was sure the Rangers were supposed to have infantry support, but it was somehow missing, which was a relief.
The enemy forces looked to be withdrawing, but once they spotted her onrushing force, they took cover amongst the buildings, intent on punishing any Allied force that dared to brave their brutal firepower.
But the Allied forces had several tricks in reserve.
Artillery shells started dropping in and around the enemy units, all of them carrying smoke rounds. The heavy smoke provided vital cover to the Jaguar’s Mists as they advanced, lasting long enough for them to get close enough to drop off their passengers.
And of course, also close enough for Camille and the other jump-capable mechs of the two lances to do as Tiaret suggested - jump right over the enemy. They focused especially on the Stalker, Longbow, and Salamander, since these mechs lacked hands to brush off the battlearmor. Anastasia saw Tiaret and a squad of battlearmor drop off Camille’s jumping Owens, their own jump jets igniting as they latched right onto a Stalker.
Within moments, more than half of the assault mechs were desperately struggling to get clear of the battlearmor, or else even going onto the ground to try to shake off their unwanted passengers. The Jaguar’s Mists pounded the rest mercilessly, pressing their numerical advantage for all it was worth.
Saber Knight stepped around the corner of a building to face off against an Atlas, already beleaguered with damage from Erlin’s Avatar and Wolte’s Blackjack. The imposing bulk of the Atlas would have deterred most mechwarriors, but in the heat of battle, Anastasia simply viewed it as another target.
Its massive autocannon roared, but Anastasia already anticipated the attack and took only the first two rounds before she twisted Saber Knight out of the line of fire, her own lasers blazing into the assault mech, puncturing its thick hide. Smoke started coming out from some of the holes in the Atlas, indicating an engine hit.
Too bad it has enough freezers to ignore the heat spike, Anastasia thought as the Atlas slammed a volley of short range missiles into her Spirit Walker, barely troubling her.
Erlin lighted into the Atlas again with his Avatar, this time adding his own short range missiles to the mix. One of the missiles must have hit the engine and destroyed it completely, because the Atlas suddenly ground to a halt, somehow managing to remain on its feet.
Tormented by Tiaret’s battlearmor and beset by her mechs on all sides, the Rangers fell quickly and ignominously, leaving both attacking units still largely intact and hungry for further action.
Slider company came up to hold the ground and secure the salvage while Tiaret delegated some of her more battered battlearmor troops to take charge of the prisoners.
“This is Mist Deuce,” reported Camille. “Gun emplacements three klicks out.” She paused. “Victor SD is hammering them.”
So that is why they were about to pull out of the town. They were going to try to trap him between their force and the gun emplacements. Anastasia grinned mirthlessly. That did not work, and now we can break through their lines…
“Captain Kalinska, do you mind if you give us another lift?” asked Tiaret. “I am obliged to defend Victor as his personal guard.”
“No problem. Just latch on to the nearest mech, since Sweep is still some distance away.” She switched to the Mists’ channel. “Deployment scheme Bravo Two.”
While the battlearmor mounted up and the whole force got moving, Anastasia did a quick check with headquarters. A determined push by fresh undamaged units could very easily roll back the gains they had made. Thankfully, as far as they could tell, no other Loyalist units were in the vicinity.
Meanwhile, Camille and Sweep had moved in to support the Prince, who was fighting alongside a company of the Tenth Lyran Guards. They attacked from long range, softening up the fortifications before the Lyran Guards demolished them.
When Anastasia and Tiaret arrived, the combined force finally had sufficient firepower to overwhelm the fixed defences.
The Allied forces marched into Portland.
“How was it on your end?” Finn asked when she flopped tiredly onto the bed in their temporary shared hut outside Portland at night. The city was still being secured by Allied infantry, so they had to make do with quonset huts at the TERF encampment before shifting to more permanent accommodations.
Although with the speed of their advance, there might not be a need to even move into Portland even after it was secured.
“Tired, but I feel great.” She smiled, rolling a shoulder experimentally. “Ran into an old friend just now.”
“Old friend?” He raised an eyebrow. “Should I be concerned?”
She threw a dirty sock at him. “Hah! It’s Tiaret Nevversan. We were in the 144th Garrison Cluster together for a number of years. She was my best friend. She’s also Prince Victor’s personal bodyguard.”
He whistled and picked up the sock, throwing it into the laundry basket in a corner. “Wow, you have an almost direct line to the Prince. Your connections to high places exceed mine now!”
She threw the other dirty sock of the pair at him in exasperation. “Honey, stop fooling around. You seem to be in a good mood too. Mind telling me why?”
He smiled widely. “There were survivors from the 1st Davion Guards. My former company was one of them. They were in hiding all this time, but came out to join the party. Not everybody survived, but some… enough did.” His smile turned into a determined snarl. “Their overall command structure is shot, but they’re still game. For now, we’ll be taking in one of the combined-arms battalions, the one with my former company, for logistics purposes.”
She understood. Despite their lowly position on the totem pole, TERF was actually one of the better supported units amongst the Allied forces. Gunthar’s groundwork and Sandoval’s favor had essentially turned them into the de facto representatives of the Milligan PDZ, instead of the Milligan DMM itself, which had been crippled by the losses sustained on Winfield, Stratford, and Tsamma, and since then ordered by Duke Sandoval to remain on Milligan itself to recuperate and rebuild its strength. Supplies had flowed in from Woodbine and of course the Trivet itself, especially Delacambre.
Due to TERF’s success, the reputation of the Trivet had risen considerably too, something that Raymond had told them was critical to several trade deals he had made since becoming Count. And of course, the stunning presence of a new jumpship yard at Altoona had also gained them a lot of notoriety.
They even had a sizeable stockpile of clan-spec equipment for her Trinary, ever since Diamond Shark merchants appeared at Galax touting their wares. Camille did some secret Diamond Shark merchant handshake thing, and suddenly they had an account and a credit line to draw on.
“So, this Tiaret Nevversan… was your best friend?” Finn sat down next to her on their shared bed.
“Aff, she was.” Anastasia replied, thinking fondly of her time with Tiaret. “We shared everything, our thoughts, our dreams, our beds…”
“What?” Finn coughed once as if choking. “What do you mean, shared beds? You’re suggesting…”
She just looked straight at him and deadpanned. “We were consenting adults, quiaff? It was just a way to work off excess stress and tension.”
“Gah!” He blushed furiously red. “Too much information! Too much information!”
She reached out with an arm, and pulled him down to the bed next to her. “Finn, don’t be silly. It was a long time ago, and since then, I’ve only been with you, ok? And furthermore,” it was her turn to blush. “We’re husband and wife, and Varia is waiting for us to finish this war so we can finally be the family we always wanted to be.”
He held her close. “Yeah. I managed to get to the Red Cavalcade today, and she was so happy to see me.”
Since Gerwin had taken command of Ganseng’s Gambit, the refurbished Union-C taken from the bandit caste to serve as the transport for the Jaguar’s Mists, Red Cavalcade had turned into something of a mobile creche for the dependents and children of TERF. Seran Chrisholm’s son, their daughter, the various dependents of the unit, all lived and played in the dropship under the watchful eye of the guards.
Anastasia sighed. “I wish I could have finished in time to see Varia too.” It was late now, the children were all asleep.
Finn kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, she’s a patient girl. She knows mommy is working hard now so that she can spend the rest of her time with her.”
“Speaking of which, do you know what’s next for the campaign?”
He looked up at the ceiling of the hut. “We’ll strike north for Avalon Island, of course. It’s only three hundred klicks away. The problem is that Katrina still has a lot of units on her side.”
She listed them. “Tenth Deneb Light Cav, Remagen CMM, Seventeenth Avalon Hussars, and 299th Com Guards. But the Com Guards are hurt after what we did to them on Rostock, and the Seventeenth too. As long as we do things right, the remaining forces won’t be able to hold out for long.”
“Dear, you’re thinking only in terms of mech assets. The Loyalists have more than that. There’s a huge artillery park specifically tasked to defend Avalon Island, and we believe the Com Guards have augmented it with their own artillery. Any landings would be a rich target for artillery, and you can bet they’ll already have pre-designated firing zones. Anybody trying to get a beachhead secured is going to have a long day getting fired upon by that artillery.”
“Can’t we silence it using aerospace?”
“The artillery can switch to flak, and their aerospace cover is still strong enough.” Finn grimaced. “A tightly controlled orbital bombardment might work, but you’ll need spotters, and we don’t have that. A conventional approach would take heavy losses because the artillery park is located on a peninsula surrounded on three sides right at the convergence of the three rivers. Gun turrets covering the water approaches will take out any hovercraft before they can even get close, and mechs can only crawl on the riverbed while underwater subs take their leisure to blow them to pieces. The position is unassailable.”
He saw Anastasia deep in thought. “Hmmm…”
He observed, “You have an idea.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “I’ll need to talk to Tiaret first.”
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Allied forces
1st NAIS Cadre
1st Crucis Lancers
3rd Crucis Lancers
Davion Light Guards
Davion Heavy Guards
Davion Assault Guards
1st Davion Guards
2nd Davion Guards
2nd Robinson Rangers
2nd Ceti Hussars
23rd Arcturan Guards
Trivet Expeditionary Relief Force (TERF)
Loyalists
10th DLC
3rd Robinson Rangers
Remagen CMM
17th Avalon Hussars (brigade)
ComGuards 299th Division
Unlike OTL, 5th Donegal Guards didn’t make it off Kestrel cos they were beaten down by 1st, 3rd Crucis Lancers + TERF
Unlike OTL, 19th Arcturan surrendered on Salem and stayed surrendered (in OTL, they surrendered and still turned up on New Avalon! Tell me how that makes sense.😒)
Also, Victor did a bit of a feint, leaking false information about several units to secure the support of House Hasek and New Syrtis (where they actually did OTL) and making Kat send some of her remaining best forces there instead of New Avalon – especially the 11th Avalon Hussars, 4th Donegal Guards, and Ridgebrook CMM. By the time they got to New Syrtis, they were essentially told that the civil war was going to be decided on New Avalon. They tried to get to the capital, but couldn't make it in time.