Clan Ghost Bear during the invasion of the Innetr Sphere.
THE INVASION BEGINS
At the request of the other Khans, the ilKhan declared the Periphery open territory. While this afforded the Ghost Bears the opportunity to bid for the Elysian Fields, though those planets technically lay in the Wolf corridor, the open-space policy also allowed Clan Smoke Jaguar to attack Helmar Valasek and his pirates on Santander's World, which lay within the Ghost Bear corridor.
The Elysian Fields, a protectorate of the Oberon Confederation, had historically been home to a community of pacifistic agriculturists. Interested primarily in the challenge of military conquest and technological gains, the Clan initially decided to pass by the Elysian Fields. Clan Ghost Bear only became interested in the cluster of planets when Star Commander Swahla discovered an old piece of lore in Star League records. Swahla found a veiled reference to Project Achilles, a top-secret research facility said to be located somewhere within the Elysian Fields. During the height of the League's scientific innovation, First Lord Nicholas Cameron developed a number of research facilities that he left scattered throughout human space. The diverse placement of these facilities allowed the Star League to tap the brightest minds of the time without forcing them to relocate to the Terran Hegemony. Because many of those bright minds joined General Kerensky's Exodus, they sealed their bases away from the prying eyes of the Inner Sphere, often leaving generous amounts of equipment in storage. General Kerensky justified preserving rather than destroying this technology by claiming that these hidden caches would benefit the Star League Defense Force when it returned to the Inner Sphere. Wolf's Dragoons and Snord's Irregulars spent many years reclaiming these facilities within the Inner Sphere, but neither group had searched the Periphery.
Star Commander Swahla immediately informed his superiors of his find, and Star Captain Edwin Gilmour bid unopposed for the right to take the Elysian Fields. Because other commanders dismissed his bid as a spurious attempt to gain glory by defeating a world unlikely to resist invasion, Gilmour was able to attack with his initial bid of the Silver Kodiaks Trinary. As expected, the Kodiaks met no resistance. The worlds Mangringaine and Nyserta offered no standing defense of any sort, and the local populace fell into an immediate state of panic at the sight of BattleMechs. On both worlds, the governments surrendered long before the Kodiaks even approached the capital cities.
The lush tropical world of Elissa, on which the Bears expected to find the old laboratory, enchanted the Ghost Bear warriors who landed there. One commented that if such beauty could be found in a fringe world, then imagine the paradise Terra must offer. The Silver Kodiaks dispersed immediately upon landing and proceeded toward the capital city. They expected much the same response as they had received on Mangringaine and Nyserta, and so felt a shock when their JumpShip commander informed them that a hyperpulse signal was being transmitted from the planet's surface. Though they moved immediately to locate the source, a Class B hyperpulse facility. a ComStar official managed to send a brief distress message before the Kodiaks disabled the transmission dish. The message to ComStar indicated that the attacking 'Mechs bore a wolf's head insignia, an understandable mistake in view of the Silver Kodiaks' symbol of a bear's head in profile. When Comstar learned more about the invading Clans, they assumed that Elissa fell to Clan Wolf.
The Silver Kodiaks spent nearly a week searching the planet and finally discovered an extensive series of tunnels that extended deep inside a mountain range. Star Captain Gilmour personally led the expedition to investigate the tunnels and caverns which ultimately uncovered nothing but a series of abandoned mines Enraged by having wasted so much time on a false lead, Gilmour immediately challenged Star Commander Swahla to a Trial of Grievance. Only Gilmour left the Circle of Equals alive. The Bears promptly evacuated the Elysian Fields, refusing to garrison a planet that only served as a source of shame for the entire Clan. After Tukayyid, Galaxy Commander Conal Ward of Clan Wolf won Elissa in a Trial of Possession.
The Ghost Bears swept their remaining Periphery targets with little effort. The primitive settlements on the three other worlds they took laid no claims to belonging to a larger empire and offered minimal opposition. Khan DelVillar began to believe that even Khan Bourjon overestimated the needed amount of supplies and materiel. In the Grand Kurultai held to review the initial invasion effort, the Ghost Bear Khans reported on overwhelming lack of worthy opposition. By the time they returned to their Clan to prepare for the first wave, Khans DelVillar and Bourjon had already wiped Khan Kerensky's words of warning from their minds. They accepted the Periphery level of technology and training at face value and expected no better effort from the remainder of the Inner Sphere.
WAVE ONE:LOOKING FOR A FIGHT
In accordance with their traditions, the Ghost Bear warriors voted at the start of the first wave to determine who would have the privilege of conquering the first world. This became a lengthy process that slowed the Bears' scheduled timetable considerably Each warrior wanted the honor of conquering the first planet for his own command and none were willing to step aside After a week of indecisive votes, Khan DelVillar declared that all three Galaxies would participate in the invasion, each assigned a continent of the planet Thule in the Free Rasalhague Republic.
The First Husars of the Rasalhague KungsArme stood ready to defend their world against the Clan. They refused to respond when the Bears announced their presence with a batchall. Though she had no idea what a Galaxy represented, Overste Joannie Swigard massed her troops in the Fresdon desert, a treacherous terrain for which her troops had been selectively trained, and prepared to do battle. As the Ghost Bear ships dropped to the planet, Khan Bourjon announced that the attacking force would consist of a combined force made up of representatives of each Galaxy. The commanding officers of each Gaiaxy bid fiercely for the right to join the combined troops.
A force of three Trinaries, one of them a Supernova, dropped onto the desert plain anticipating a swift victory, but the Clan force failed to account for the incredible heat of Thule's noonday sun. The battle commenced as the Clan warriors fired the first salvo with their vast array of weaponry. They discovered, to their dismay, that the heat overload caused by this environment negated the advantage of their superior technology. Many Clan 'Mechs shut down from excess heat after their first volley, leaving those 'Mechs vulnerable to the Husars' second greatest asset, their artillery. Shells rained down on the mostly immobile Clan forces, and before they managed to restart their machines, the Bears lost a Trinary of equipment. The First Husars began a running battle, using their light 'Mechs to draw the Ghost Bear fire, move out of harm's way, then return to attack their overheated opponents.
Star Colonel Franvois Cote broke his bid first, ordering the remainder of his Cluster to approach the Husars from the east The Husars had anticipated this strategy, and sent aerospace fighters to strafe the Third Bear Striker Cluster on its approach. In response, Star Colonel Stephan Huntsig broke his bid and called in his aerospace elements. As the fighters danced overhead, the Fiftieth Striker Cluster (the Black Bears) advanced. The two Clan forces surrounded the First Husars but did not engage the enemy. Suspicious of the sudden calm, the Husars sent out recon units to determine the reason for the lull. When these units failed to return, the Overste realized that the Bears had not given up, they were waiting for nightfall. Rather than waiting for the Clans to gain the advantage, Overste Swigard decided to push at the Ghost Bear lines while the sun was still high in the sky.
Using a barrage of artillery to cover its movement, the First struck at the north flank of the Clan lines. When the Bears attempted to stem the tide by setting their lighter elements against the Husarsl Overste Swigard simply maneuvered her troops away from the heavier Ghost Bear elennents providing backup and completed the breakout in short order. The Bears followed. Though the Ghost Bear pilots had by this time achieved air superiority and provided cover for the swifter Bear 'Mechs to overtake the Husars, the continuing artillery barrage punched huge holes in the Ghost Bears' rear lines. Star Colonel Paul Vishio broke his bid next by calling in aerospace forces to silence the Husar's long-range guns.
Deprived of their artillery, the Husars could do little but run. They made for the large river that bisected the Fresdon plain to meet their naval assets. An entire company sacrificed itself in the final push that allowed the Husars to board the massive cargo ships and head upriver. The ships soon carried the Husars out of range of thU Clan Ghost Bear's 'Mechs, forcing the invading commanders to solve a dilemma. Should they wipe out the opposing force by using their aerospace assets to sink the ships, or use their air assets to track the Husars and resume the battle when the ships landed? A vote among the warriors present concluded that sinking the ships went against Clan honor, and units were dispatched to follow the ships until they landed.
With the majority of the Husars out of the picture, the planet seemed to accept Ghost Bear rule. The Ghost Bear Khans declared the world conquered and set their sights on the next target world, leaving the 312th Assault Trinary behind to garrison Thule and destroy the First Husars when they chose to land.
The Ghost Bears would leave similarly light and ultimately insufficient garrisons on every world they conquered. The few warriors who pointed out the discrepancy between the sizes of the Bear and Wolf garrisons were accused of placing too much stock in Khan Kerensky's advice. Most warriors agreed with their Khans, who still considered the pathetic resistance offered in the initial stages of the invasion the greatest challenge the Ghost Bear warriors should expect to face.
The Ghost Bears finished the first wave smoothly and ahead of schedule. Though some Bear Crusaders agitated for additional combat assignments, their Khans reminded these ambitious warriors that the plan of attack had been carefully planned and agreed to by vote, and so it would be followed to the letter. To celebrate the successful completion of the first wave, the Khans declared that the warriors would join in a round of games, and that these games would be held at the end of every wave, with the winner receiving his choice of assignments in the next wave.
WAVE TWO: DISASTER STRIKES
In May of 3050, Clan Ghost Bear suffered its greatest hardships of the invasion, ironically from nature rather than man. The principal target in the second wave was the world of Jarett, where Clan Ghost Bear would face its first Draconis Combine troops Smoke Jaguar reports described Combine military tactics as a curious mixture of honor and brutality, but whatever the truth, the Bears felt certain that these troops would offer a better fight than the Rasalhagians and Periphery scum they had fought so far. Khan Theresa DelVillar won the honor of subduing Jarett, and she led elements of Alpha Galaxy (the Golden Bears) against the Ninth Alshain Regulars.
The Combine force's commander, Tai-sa Sonia Zev, did not understand what response the Ghost Bear Khan expected to receive for her batchall. She did know that she had an inexperienced unit under her command, and she had no intention of revealing her troops' lack of combat testing to the Clan. Unfortunately for Zev, Khan DelVillar had already learned from ComStar officials that the green Ninth regiment was spread out in three battalions over the northern part of the planet. Khan DelVillar dropped her units in a standard combat formation and immediately faced the determined warriors of the Ninth. The battle began with Khan DelVillar challenging a Commando. The Khan's Elemental Point quickly shredded the Commando, but the 'Mech's pilot refused to give up, continuing to fight even against the Clan's massive battle-armored troopers. The Khan captured this feisty young warrior and made him her bondsman, and in a neat parallel to their actions long ago on Arcadia, the Ghost Bear warriors followed her lead by attempting to capture their opponents rather than kill them. This made the survival rate of the Ninth impressively high.
The Clans and the Draconis Combine fought the major battle for Jarett in the lush foliage of the Solun Jungle. The Ninth's lead battalion made excellent use of the cover afforded by the trees, a lesson that Kanrei Kurita would borrow for himself later in the invasion. For nearly a week the Ninth survived by fighting on the run, but the Ghost Bears followed this fox hunt to its inevitable conclusion, learning a great deal about Inner Sphere guerrilla tactics along the way. The Ninth eventually succumbed to Clan Ghost Bear nearly ten days after the Golden Bears landed.
The conquest of the second wave was proceeding as planned when Khan Bourjon received the startling news that Rasalhague once again controlled Thule. The First Husars had finally reappeared and destroyed the Ghost Bear garrison unit. In fact, the Khans discovered that similar uprisings were occurring on many Bear-controlled worlds. Though ComStar officials seemed to be doing their best to pacify the public, it was becoming apparent that the Bears would have to take some kind of action. Again leaving only token garrisons on their newly acquired worlds, the Ghost Bears returned to reassert their authority on worlds seething with revolt.
The Golden Bears returned to Thule and caught the remainder of the First Husars in the planet's frigid south lands. The Bears easily swept through the Husars' prepared positions, the Elementals taking control of the narrow trenches that the First had intended to use as fortifications. Khan DelVillar supposedly said, "How polite of you to spare us the effort of digging your graves." The battle ended almost before it began, and certain proof indicates that Joannie Swigard has already risen to warrior status from bondsman.
Khan Bourjon and the Blitzkrieg faced full-scale operations on every world he was assigned to pacify. Often, after disposing of the Clan garrison, the citizenry sowed vibrabombs all around the major cities and filled the alleyways with armed defenders determined to die rather than surrender. A week of constant fighting prompted Delta Galaxy Commander Roberto Snuka to threaten to level every city in order to achieve his victory. Fortunately for the populace, the much-loved planetary Comstar Demi-Precentor stepped in and broadcast a plea for peace via the local multimedia, promising that the Clan's administration of the planet would function as a beneficial cooperative with ComStar. The announcement ended most of the violence, and Clan control was restored, with the help of a hefty garrison force.
The Bears' Beta Galaxy was sent to repacify Damien, home of the Black Omen mercenary company. The Omen hid from the invaders when the Ghost Bears initially attacked the world, biding their time in order to strike at the garrison as soon as the bulk of the enemy lifted offplanet. This dishonorable action certainly contributed to the Ghost Bear's fierce dislike of mercenaries. The Khans scheduled Beta's jump for Damien on 17 May, and the Galaxy Commander was to send a message via HPG to notify his commanders as soon as his force arrived insystem at Damien. The message never came.
Though HPG breakdowns were rare, all Clans accepted the fact of their existence.While it was unusual for the HPG to fail to transmit, the Khans were busy elsewhere and so waited a week to focus their attention on the missing Galaxy.
When the Black Bears deployed to track down the missing Galaxy, they arrived at Damien and learned that Beta Galaxy's WarShip had collided with small asteroid upon entering the system. The angle of impact had limited most of the damage to a single DropShip, but this minimal damage came at the price of the death of an entire Cluster. The WarShip itself was also damaged in such a way that it could not be repaired without Clan facilities, and so Beta abandoned the ship and headed for the planet's surface. Because Damien lacks a ComStar facility, Beta Galaxy had no means of communication. By the time the Black Bears arrived, Beta Galaxy had destroyed the Black Omen and held firm control of the planet.
The loss of an entire elite Cluster of MechWarriors deeply saddened the Ghost Bears, and the Khans agreed to honor the Ghost Bear dead by taking time out of the push for Terra to hold their traditional ceremony. While the other Clans began to strike in the third wave of the invasion, all Bear warriors not assigned to essential garrisons rendezvoused on Damien. The ceremony to commemorate the dead lasted for two full days.
The Ghost Bears mustered from Damien to launch their third wave, but in the process realized they needed to deal with an unexpected problem. The number of garrison units required combined with the loss of an entire Cluster left Clan Ghost Bear critically short of combat forces. A close vote in early June resulted in the warriors agreeing to continue forward despite this apparent crisis, and the Khans planned to counter the potential shortage by holding fewer troops in reserve.
WAVE THREE: WINDS OF CHANGE
IlKhan Showers contacted Khan DelVillar in late May to suggest that Clan Ghost Bear might wish to bid for the honor of conquering the world of Rasalhague. He pointed out that because the planet lay close to the border of their corridor of invasion, the Ghost Bears could legitimately slow the Wolf juggernaut by forcing Clan Wolf to bid to take that world. Khan DelVillar, well aware that her Clan was performing far below expectations, agreed that conquering Rasalhague might improve the Clan's fortune and would certainly boost morale. She and Khan Bourjon put together a plan of attack and then informed Khan Ulric Kerensky that Clan Ghost Bear wished to bid for the right to take the capital world of the Free Rasalhague Republic. When Khan Kerensky attempted to lodge a protest with the ilKhan, Showers quickly replied that any Clan could bid for any world, per Clan tradition. Khan Ulric responded by declaring that he would meet the Ghost Bear Khans on 27 June for the bidding.
While, at the time, the Khans' choice to both participate in the attack on Last Frontier as the opening shot of the third wave seemed inexplicable, it quickly became clear that they were simply positioning themselves for the attack on Rasalhague.
On 23 June Clan Ghost Bear descended to face off against the First Freemen, the defenders of Last Frontier. The outcome of the short, brutal fight seemed a foregone conclusion. The green Rasalhague regiment fought bravely but offered no real opposition to the elite Clan force, though they did manage to land one serious blow to the Clan. When the Ourse Keshik, led by Khan DelVillar, raided a Freemen ammunition dump on 24 June, Overste Knute Kurita's defending company opened fire on the charging Clan 'Mechs and, surely by chance rather than design, scored a direct missile hit on Khan DelVillar. Her Point scrambled to remove her from the battlefield, but the damage was done. Khan DelVillar slipped into a coma from which she would never emerge.
Khan Bourjon secured Last Frontier, then immediately convened a meeting of all available Bloodnamed warriors to vote for a new Khan. MechWarrior Aletha Kabrinski, the Clan's current Oathmaster, earned the title of Khan by defeating stiff competition. Her first official statement as saKhan was to suggest to the assembled warriors that Khan Bourjon, while a competent warrior, was not leadership material. Her statement echoed the sentiments of many Bear warriors, who felt that the Clan's poor performance to date could accurately be blamed on the Khan's lack of competence. She called for one of the warriors present to challenge Khan Bourjon for his position, and nominated Star Colonel Bjorn Jorgensson for the honor.
Caught completely off guard by this show of no confidence, Khan Bourjon called for a vote to determine the extent of his warriors' discontent. The warriors voted unanimously to choose a new Khan, then voted to elect Star Colonel Bjorn Jorgensson, an aerospace pilot of great martial and tactical skill, as Clan Ghost Bear's new Khan. When Khan Bourjon called for a Trial of Hefusal, Khan Jorgensson, well liked by his command and having served with distinction in the invasion, chose to accept the challenge personally. Because he was a poor hand-to-hand fighter Khan Bourjon chose to fight augmented, even though to do so gave Khan Jorgensson the advantage of his aerospace fighter. Khan Jorgensson chose to fight in the tropical jungles of Last Frontier's equator, an unusual choice that nonetheless served him well in the end.
A gentle rain began to fall as the combatants mounted up and started their machines. Khan Bourjon held the upper hand in the initial stages of the duel, skillfully using the jungle to take cover from Jorgensson's strafing runs, then emerging to fire at the retreating fighter before it Could turn and make its next pass. While the observers wondered why Jorgensson failed to attack more aggressively, the fighter pilot continued to bide his time, waiting for his opponent to churn up the ground into a slippery, muddy soup. Bourjon's 'Mech slowed to a crawl and showed up brilliantly on Jorgensson's infrared scanners. When he considered Bourjon sufficiently mired, Jorgensson began his assault in earnest. Bourjon proved unable to defend himself against the repeated, merciless attacks from his opponent, and accepted Jorgensson's offer of hegira in the end.
A Jorgensson once again held the Khanship, and his first few days in office would prove him to be a capable and decisive leader. As his first priority, Khan Jorgensson contacted ilKhan Leo Showers to inform him of the events that had transpired and to assure him that taking Rasalhague remained a top concern for Clan Ghost Bear. He then contacted Khan Ulric Kerensky and informed the Wolf Khan that the change in leadership would force Clan Ghost Bear to delay the bidding for Rasalhague. Khan Jorgensson simply accepted Clan Wolf's veiled accusation of deliberately delaying the meeting and decided to find a way to use the perceived advantage if he could .
As his third official act, Khan Jorgensson reluctantly contracted with Clan Steel Viper to garrison the Ghost Bear-occupied worlds. Though he realized that he must have as many warriors available as possible to support a successful bid for Rasalhague, asking for help from a Clan the Ghost Bears despised was a bitter pill to swallow. (Unlike the enmity between many Clans, the long-standing discord between Clans Ghost Bear and Steel Viper was based, not in a single event or series of insults, but in a deep and irreconcilable difference in the philosophies of the Clans' founders.)
The bid for Rasalhague took place aboard the Dire Wolf on 4 July 3050 in a grueling 90-minute test of nerves, regarded by many as a textbook example of Clan bidding. Even after Khan Jorgensson realized that he would lose the bid, he continued the contest in order to push the Wolf bid as low as possible. Though disappointed by losing the chance to take Rasalhague, Khan Jorgensson walked away from the bidding confident that Clan Wolf could not take the world without breaking its bid. He returned to his warriors, who were anxiously awaiting orders to attack the Republic's capital world, and sent them instead toward the remaining targets of the third wave.
That the Steel Viper forces were garrisoning those worlds already under Ghost Bear control freed the entire Ghost Bear invasion force to focus on the task of securing all the remaining worlds in their invasion corridor. The new Khans consistently led its troops to quicks efficient victories, though on many worlds the fighting caused a great deal of collateral damage. Rather than confining the populace to prison camps, the Clan put them to work rebuilding their cities and towns, reminiscent of its policy toward the population on the reclaimed Pentagon worlds. This apparent effort to acknowledge the value of their conquered foes' way of life radically changed the Inner Sphere people's view of the invaders, at least on Ghost Bear-occupied planets. The number of uprisings dropped from a constant state of rebellion to an occasional isolated revolt.
The time lost in changing their Khans and arranging the bidding for Rasalhague allowed the Ghost Bears only enough time to conquer two additional planets in the third wave, Radije and Policenigo. On Policenigo, the victorious 304th Assault Cluster (the Howling Bears) actually freed the population from the grip of a tyrannical government. The ComStar briefing on the planet's defenses also mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that the planet's governor had long been engaged in the illegal spice trade and had avoided the watchful eye of the ISF only by ruthlessly controlling every aspect of its citizens' lives.
The Howling Bears received no response to their batchall, and landed on the planet smack in the middle of a popular uprising. The government's battalion of new 'Mechs and a full regiment of augmented infantry found themselves under attack from two sides; the locals gained enough courage from the appearance of the Ghost Bears to launch guerrilla actions against their government's troops and supply caches, and the Ghost Bears quickly sized up the situation and concentrated their assault directly on the battalion. The defending troops soon retreated to a specially dug network of tunnels that extended into the mountains, and though the grateful populace made valiant efforts to aid the 304th in rooting them out, the Clan failed to account for nearly 30 percent of the renegade troops. The citizens gladly accepted the Clan way and the Ghost Bears' administration, and the Bears in turn protected their new caste members by posting a substantial garrison of front-line troops to Policenigo.
WAVE FOUR: RENEWAL
Khan Jorgensson was determined that his troops would be well supplied before continuing on with the fourth wave, even though this required a delay of almost three weeks. He also followed the lead of the other Clans and called up provisional garrison clusters (PGCs) to replace front-line garrison forces. He further replaced Beta Galaxy's destroyed Cluster with an undamaged one brought forward from the home worlds, thus returning the Clan to the strength of its original invasion bid. He and saKhan Kabrinski worked closely together to ensure that the fourth wave would bring nothing but success. They knew that their warriors were anxious to race with Clan Wolf. They also believed that the Inner Sphere would offer far stiffer opposition in this wave than ever before, especially when they learned through ComStar that House Kurita intended to defend its worlds with battie-hardened front-line troops. While the Bear warriors welcomed the challenge, they knew that the days of easily won worlds had ended.
Their month-long delay to refit and resupply cost the Ghost Bears prestige in the eyes of the other Clans, who considered the two months remaining to be an inadequate amount of time to properly invade the eight worlds the Bears planned to take. Khan Kabrinski answered this challenge by firmly reminding her Galaxy Commanders and Star Colonels that they would lose far less honor by breaking their bids and winning than by being beaten. She also informed them that most Inner Sphere commanders at least knew of Clan bidding practices and would use that knowledge to their advantage as often as the Clans allowed.
The Bears met less resistance than expected in the beginning of the fourth wave, taking five worlds in a month and a few days. They began to think they had overestimated the Inner Sphere's ability to respond to their threat, and the Khans began to hope that they could accelerate their pace and meet their timetable.
The Third Bear Guards (the ilKhan's Shield) fell into heavy fighting on the sixth world on their schedule, the Rasalhague world of Casere. The fanatical Second Husars used their light elements to harass the Cluster and draw the Bears into an old industrial sector where the Husars' heavy elements lashed out from reinforced positions. The close-quarters fighting neutralized the Third's advantage in weapons range, but their firepower compensated for that loss. Despite their habit of taking as many bondsmen as possible from their enemies' ranks, the fierce fighting forced the Ghost Bear Cluster to destroy the Husars to a man.
The world of Soverzene, taken near the end of the fourth wave, demonstrated to Clan Ghost Bear what Inner Sphere forces could do when truly motivated. The Second Alshain Regulars, the planet's usual defending force, received reinforcement from the Twenty-seventh Dieron Regulars. The commanders of both units were determined to make the Clans pay dearly for this world, which supplied many of the district's raw materials. Tai-sa Jasick Yoshiro and Tai-so Ano Tars planned a mobile defense in order to take advantage of the supplies they had stashed in various caches on the world's main continent. When the Bears arrived insystem and discovered that they faced two full regiments, Khan Jorgensson skipped the bidding process and committed the whole of Beta Galaxy to taking the world. Galaxy Commander Laurie Tseng received approval for her plan to take a conservative approach in the invasion, landing her forces in two locations and sending each to take one of the two principal cities on the world.
The Dieron Regulars were assigned to protect Averti and so moved to head off the Twelfth Bear Chevaliers and the Fourteenth Battle Cluster, as the Clan forces lunged toward their objectives. Using air strikes, the Twenty-seventh herded the two Clusters toward the Killimangero fjords near Averti. Aware that they were being manipulated, the Bears approached the natural formations cautiously and found the Twenty-seventh waiting on the edge of the narrow waterways. The Twelfth sent a Trinary forward to engage the two companies of Combine 'Mechs, but as the Bears approached, the Twenty-seventh began to retreat directly over the side of the cliffs. The Trinary charged forward and looked down to see the jump-capable Twenty-seventh 'Mechs already making their way up the opposite cliff face. Moments later, a powerful explosion rocked the area, sending most of the Trinary tumbling down into the fjord on a rock slide. Unfortunately for the Twenty-seventh, few Omnis were actually destroyed by the trap. To make matters worse for the Regulars, the Fourteenth Battle Cluster flanked them to the east and caught the two now-undermanned companies as they reached the top of the opposing cliff. The Bears' attack sent most of the Inner Sphere machines tumbling back down into the water, but the remainder of the Twenty-seventh attacked at that point, emerging from the cover of the trees within the crescent-shaped fjord. The Twelfth and Fourteenth immediately descended into the waterway and pursued the Twenty-seventh through roughhewn escape tunnels. When the Twenty-seventh emerged from the tunnels on the far side of the fjord, it immediately detonated the explosives planted earlier. They returned to Averti believing themselves victorious, only to lose the city to the Bears later that night in a nearly bloodless surprise attack. The Ghost Bear commanders had sent Elementals into the tunnels during the fighting in the fjord, and those troopers had disarmed the majority of the Combine's planted explosives.
The Second Alshain Regulars fared even worse against the 304th and 332nd Assault Clusters. The Bears hounded the mobile Second and forced them to retreat to their ammunition supply base, by so doing allowing the Bears to get a fix on the base's location and destroy it with aerospace assets. Now running out of ammo, the Second retreated north with the 304th in hot pursuit. Clan aerospace elements forced the Second into a forest where the 332nd awaited their opponents' arrival. Trapped between two full-strength Assault Clusters, the Second Alshain Regulars took heavy losses. Those soldiers who managed to escape destruction staged a rescue mission at Averti, freeing the combine's captured soldiers and equipment from the Twentyseventh The Bears spent nearly two weeks hunting down the renegades but gave up the search when their Bloodnamed warriors were recalled to Strana Mechty to elect a new ilKhan. Elements of the Twenty-seventh and Second managed to escape the planet, but both had suffered devastating losses.
Clan Ghost Bear considered the fourth wave a qualified success Under the leadership of the new Khans, the Clan took eight worlds and garrisoned them with only minor resistance. When Khans Kabrinski and Jorgensson answered their ilKhan's call to travel to Radstadt for a Grand Kurultai, they waited to leave until they felt sure that everything was under control. Delayed by their duties, they were the last to learn the shocking news that ilKhan Leo Showers was dead.
Proud upholders of Great Kerensky's words, heed me, for I must relate a tragedy. Our leader is dead. Leo Showers, Khan of Khans, leader of Clan Smoke Jaguar, commander of those who would raise the Star League up from the ashes, no longer graces this world. Yet mourn not the loss of his physical presence, for his blood legacy will course through the veins of countless fierce warriors of future generations all who will await the command to avenge his untimely death.
- From the recall order issued by Khan Bjorn Jorgensson, Clan Ghost Bear
Though ilKhan Showers lost his chance to somehow wrest the impetus of the invasion from Clan Wolf in the Grand Kurultai, that gathering still offered ample opportunity for dissension among the Khans. Most Khans declared their intentions of immediately bringing additional forces forward to punish the Inner Sphere for the death of their ilKhan. Others pointed out the futility of abandoning the carefully laid invasion plans to retaliate for a quirk of fate. Khan Perigard Zalman of Clan Steel Viper allowed cooler heads to prevail by using the Khans' discord in an argument for returning to Strana Mechty and electing a new ilKhan. Though this sparked an even more heated debate about the wisdom of leaving their hard-won gains behind, and though Khan Jorgensson felt inclined to disagree with anything Zalman said, the Khans eventually agreed that electing a new ilKhan was the only way to keep the invasion force cooperating.
During the journey back to Strana Mechty, Khans Jorgensson and Kabrinski conspired with the Khans of Clans Jade Falcon and Smoke Jaguar to formulate a plan that would place the blame for ilKhan Leo Showers's death squarely on the shoulders of Khan Ulric Kerensky. Though they had no hard evidence to prove the truth of their accusations, they doubted Ulric's ability to disprove their claim. The Ghost Bear Khans, always ready to strike at Clan Wolf in even the most minor ways, also suggested a back-up plan. If Khan Ulric managed to prove his innocence of the charges laid against him, they would hamstring him by electing Kerensky as ilKhan, effectively binding him to the will of the Grand Council, whose agenda was now firmly controlled by the Crusaders. They also expected Clan Wolf Loremaster Conal Ward to assume his Clan's Khanship and felt that Ward would make an excellent addition to their cause. When the Grand Council gathered to elect a new Khan, its first order of business was to hear testimony to support the Crusaders' accusations against Ulric Kerensky. Based mostly on the arguments offered by an outraged Phelan Wolf, Ulric was cleared of all responsibility in ilKhan Showers's death. The vote to install Ulric as ilKhan went smoothly but no one predicted ilKhan Kerensky's next move. That he named Natasha Kerensky to replace him as Wolf Clan Khan surprised all the assembled Khans and the Black Widow herself. Handed a Pyrrhic victory, the Crusader Khans could only hope that Natasha would fail her Trial of Position and so become ineligible to be Khan. As history shows, her explosive performance in that trial left the Khans dumbfounded. Only Ulric's decision not to pair the Ghost Bears with another Clan for the next wave of the invasion tempered the animosity most Bear warriors felt toward Kerensky as their leader.
The months-long journey back to the Inner Sphere allowed arnple time for the Khans of the seven invading Clans to draft and redraft their attack and defense plans. Determined to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors, the Khans of Clan Ghost Bear brought a quantity of supplies with them from the home worlds rivaled only by that carried by Clan Wolf, and they established unbroken supply lines by pressing the merchant caste into service. This move guaranteed Clan Ghost Bear a slow but steady stream of supplies flowing from Clan space to the occupation zone. Khans Kabrinski and Jorgensson modeled their strategy for the fifth wave on the Clan Smoke Jaguar battle plan, assigning each Galaxy a sweep pattern. The first Galaxy to conquer all the planets in its rninizone received the honor of taking the final world in the wave. In view of Inner Sphere duplicity in response to most batchallsl the Khans also recommended that their Galaxy commanders prohibit bidding, but most took a wait-and-see position on that suggestion.
WAVE FIVE: THE ROARING BEAR
Assigned to Thessalonika as part of a training exercise, the Twelfth Sun Zhang Academy Cadre (Humility) found itself trapped on that planet by the sudden reappearance of the Clans. Unable to send the unblooded troops offplanet,Tai-sa Tasha Greer of the Eighth Alshain Regulars ordered the Twelfth to withdraw far enough to move out of harm's way as soon as Delta Galaxy appeared insystem. Tai-sa Anthony Fanhorn politely but firmly refused Greer's order. His cadets would remain at their posts and perform their duties in the tradition of the Dragon. Because the Twelfth refused to pull out, Tai-sa Greer decided to work the unit into her battle plan.
Khan Jorgensson personally led Delta Galaxy in the attack that signaled the Bears' return to the Inner Sphere. Though the planet Kempten lay closest to the Bears' point of re-entry, the Ghost Bear Khans chose to prove themselves against Thessalonika's defenders, the Eighth Alshain Regulars. Khan Jorgensson issued a standard batchall but received no answer to his challenge. Using information provided by ComStar, the Khan unleashed the Sixty-eighth Striker Cluster to deal with the Eighth and assumed that the force sent to meet him represented the bulk of his battle-hardened opponents. Though Khan Jorgensson expected the Inner Sphere troops to cower in the forests and firefrom cover, he was pleasantly surprised to find the enemy standing to face them in something resembling Clan fashion. The Sixty-eighth eagerly pressed the attack and swiftly closed the gap between themselves and their foes while the Kuritas stood their ground. As soon as the Clan warriors began firing their longestrange weapons, the Kurita force began to gradually pull back as they returned fire. The battle was progressing unexpectedly well for the Sixty-eighth. The Kurita troops had failed to fight as well as expected, and they were giving ground almost too readily. Just as the Clan leaders alerted their units to expect a trap, Star Colonel Chou Vong detected more Kurita units approaching from the rear. Greer had positioned part of her unit on the Sixtyeighth's flank, and finally sent them into the fray.
The Bears immediately noticed a difference between the two forces. These new troops were shooting better and reacting faster to pressure. Star Colonel Vong informed her superiors that she now faced two different units, and Khan Jorgensson responded by unleashing the Seventy-Third Battle Cluster. When the warriors of the Sixty-eighth protested against another unit sharing its glory, the Eighth took advantage of the distraction and delivered a crippling blow. Their scouting elements had located the Sixty-eighth's DropShips. While the First Battalion pinned down the Cluster, the rest of the regiment traveled to the Bears' landing zone and launched an all-out attack that crippled the Bears' transports. The one DropShip that managed to lift off was so heavily damaged that it crashed before it could reach the Sixty-eighth.
The Seventy-third, led by Khan Jorgensson, crushed the Twelfth, leaving only the Eighth as an effective fighting force. The remaining Kurita troops joined armor and infantry units supplied by the planet's militia to harass the Clan units in a continuous delaying action. Khan Jorgensson suspected this change in tactics meant that the defending troops had somehow called for reinforcements and feared that if the Bears failed to secure the planet immediately, the battle for this one planet would prevent the Galaxy from pushing ahead with its assigned sweep. In the face of this threat, he called down the rest of Delta Galaxy. Combined, the five Clusters easily overwhelmed the conventional regiments set against them, but the Eighth remained elusive, raiding in force when the Bears least expected it and Consistently hitting the Clan's weakest flank. Despite Khan Jorgensson's best personal efforts, the Combine aero space fighters denied Delta Galaxy air superiority. A week of frustration passed before the Bears discovered how the defenders had been managing to balk them at every turn.
Almost by chance, one of Delta Galaxy's WarShips picked up a message originating on a small moon orbiting Thessalonika When he learned that the message accurately described his troop positions, Khan Jorgensson dispatched a Dropship of Elementals to investigate the source of the signal. A quick scan of the moon revealed the presence of a small research station whose staff was using powerful telescopes to watch the planet, then transmitting the Clan movements to the Combine commanders. The Elementals seized the station and deactivated its transmitters. Deprived of its spies, the Eighth quickly fell to Delta Galaxy.
The other planets taken in the initial thrust of the fifth wave were Kempten, Kaesong and Sheliak. All three worlds offered minimal resistance, and the Golden Bears won the right to take the sweep s final objective, the Combine district capital of Alshain.
ALSHAIN
While the fifth-wave sweep went smoothly for Alpha Galaxy under the command of Khan Kabrinski, neither she nor her warriors expected well-defended Alshain to fall easily. Kabrinski declared that the whole of Alpha Galaxy would attack this world.
Theodore Kurita assigned the elite Second Sword of Light to help the Sixth Alshain Regulars defend their home world. Tai-sa Kelly Dok To answered Khan Kabrinski's challenge directly, truthfully stating who defended the world, but she refused to commit to a single battlefield. Khan Kabrinski decided to split the Golden Bears and try to pin down as many Kurita troops as quickly as possible. The First Bear Guards tackled the Sixth Alshain, while the Third Bear Guards and the Fiftieth Striker Cluster went to deal with the Second Sword of Light.
The First Bear Guards (the Rage) found the Sixth Alshain Regulars in the Polotmy Mountains. The Regulars used the majestic peaks to their best defensive advantage and created dug-in positions. Several strafing passes by the First's aerospace elements failed to even faze the Sixth, and the Bear 'Mechs faced fire from all directions. The Alshain Regulars took advantage of the mountains' natural sniper cover to prevent the Rage from gaining any ground in a long day of fighting. Khan Kabrinski finally ordered the Black Bears to abandon their battle with the Second Sword of Light and assist the First Bear Guards in routing the Regulars.
The Bears reluctantly quit their inconclusive struggle with the Second Sword of Light. By following the strategy developed by Kanrei Kurita\emdash keep mobile, duck and hide when confronted, and combine fire\emdash the elite Kurita force inflicted massive damage on its opponents. Though individual Combine warriors sometimes answered the Bears' challenges to single combat, Tai-sa Dok To forbade this practice when it became clear that the Clan warriors always won. The Second steadily lost ground, but they were relinquishing it rather than being forced back. The broken canyons in which they fought, filled with rocky ground and natural crevices, provided ideal cover, and the hotly contested air war prevented either side from calling for aerospace support.
The Kuritans had initially lured the Bears to the floor of the canyon by baiting the trap with light jump-capable units. When the Bears reacted as Tai-sa Dok To had hoped, pouncing on the light 'Mechs and watching in surprise as the Kurita units sailed over the canyon walls, she unleashed her battalions to rain down fire onto the Bear forces. The Kurita advantage was short-lived, as most of the Black Bears' 'Mechs were also jumpcapable. The battle became a shooting match until the Third Bear Guards discovered a steep path carved into the rock leading out of the canyon. Having learned from experience, Star Colonel Hunter Tseng ordered his Elementals to sweep the path. The tons of explosives they found would have obliterated the Guards. As quickly as the Elementals defused the bombs, the ilKhan's Shield moved up the path, attempting to flank the Second. When they reached the top they discovered that the Black Bears were working with the same plan. The two Bear units fired on each other for several confused seconds before they realized that the Second had escaped.
The Kurita forces chose that moment to launch a devastating counterattack. An entire heavy battalion charged the Bears' weak left flank during the confusion, focusing their attack on an isolated Trinary and crushing the unit. By the time the remaining Bear units turned their firepower against the Second, the Sword of Light had begun a full retreat to the city of Silverdale. Convinced that the tide of battle had turned, the Khan ordered the Black Bears to Polotmy to assist the Rage. The ilKhan's Shield continued to pursue the Second and ran straight into a trap. The Second brought all four battalions to bear at once against the Third Bear Guards, forcing the now-desperate Star Colonel Tseng to order his Cluster to punch through the Second's lines at any cost. Only by taking heavy losses and expending an enormous amount of ammunition did the Third free itself and organize a retreat. The Second did not pursue its advantage, instead continuing on to Silverdale and boarding their DropShips.
As instructed the Black Bears dropped behind the Sixth's solid defenses, in a matter of hours sweeping the Combine unit into the waiting guns of the Rage. When the Sixth charged forward in a desperate attempt to escape, punching a hole clear through the Rage lines, the Bears immediately closed the gap behind them, but this apparent advantage quickly dissolved. The MechWarriors of the Second Sword of Light chose this moment to make a daring combat drop directly on top of the First Bear Guards. The ensuing chaos allowed the Sixth to retreat to its nearby DropShips while the Second made a fighting withdrawal. The assembled Ghost Bear forces then attacked en masse, throwing units at the Kuritans from every side, but nothing broke the defenders' lines.
What remained of the ilKhan's Shield dropped into the battle site an hour after the Second, but it was too late. The planetary militia, held in reserve since the fighting started, suddenly lashed out at the Bears, providing sufficient distraction to allow the remnants of the Sixth Alshain Regulars and the Second Sword of Light to evacuate Alshain and leave it to the Ghost Bears.
NEW RULES
The loss of Alshain struck a stunning blow at the Combine, the first of many to be delivered by Clan Ghost Bear. Having completed their first sweep on schedule, the Bear warriors voted to skip the usual rest and refit period and immediately launch the next sweep, but the Ghost Bears quickly discovered that their extraordinarily long supply lines were too slow to be effective. Though they completed the sweep with little trouble, they consumed most of their ammunition stores to take five worlds. The Clan waited nearly a month between the second and third sweeps to let logistics catch up with their front lines.
The supply crunch and the Inner Sphere's ever-changing tactics prompted Khan Jorgensson to issue several sweeping general orders in early January 3052. He ordered the immediate reconfiguration of hundreds of OmniMechs to replace most missile and autocannon systems with lasers and PPCs. The Khan also placed a temporary moratorium on the traditional rules of Clan engagement. The Inner Sphere had repeatedly demonstrated its lack of honor and therefore lost the right to be treated honorably. Jorgensson forbade the use of batchall and zellbrigen for the remainder of the invasion.
He further ordered the merchant caste members manning the supply lines to find adequate supplies for the warriors, no matter what the cost. The merchants answered this challenge by trading in exotic items found on captured worlds. The scheme provided an uriexpected side effect\emdash it offered the merchants the chance to see the Inner Sphere at the same time as they gathered supplies, which in turn showed the citizens of occupied worlds a different side of the Clan. Khan Kabrinski hoped that contact with nonwarrior Clan members might reduce the incidence of rebellion on PGC-controlled worlds, and her contribution to Khan Jorgensson's plan succeeded.
During the fifth wave, the Ghost Bears outperformed every Clan but Clan Wolf. They took eighteen worlds in all, and the proud Ghost Bear warriors felt that they were finally receiving their due. The Ghost Bear Khans reacted very differently to the news that ilKhan Kerensky had agreed to fight ComStar in a proxy battle for Terra on the planet Tukayyid. Khan Jorgensson objected to the whole idea because the bargain included the fifteen-year truce. SaKhan Kabrinski enthusiastically embraced the ilKhan~s deal with complete confidence that the Clans would emerge victorious.
