So back in January I was in a story-telling mood in Discord, and in a private message chat with a friend who'd participated in the GSRPG that gave rise to the Concertverse AU I've been bugging you lot with, I related an incident I'd previously touched in brief when doing the histories of the Royal Federation's Royal BattleMech Regiments.
But I had fun with it, instead of just copy-pasting I expounded upon it in a more... documentary style, may I even dare say in wording and phrasing I could imagine a
certain BattleTech commentator with a whiskey-loving voice using if he were narrating this story (though I do not claim to be successful in emulating in his style, I add). And so I figure I'll just share it with everyone since I spent all that time writing all 2,000+ words and then editing and cleaning it up, and in the process, this thread can be a place for me to post other little vignettes I've written or will write but which wouldn't fit into fiction or other fluff materials I'm doing. Like that small entry on the 3030s-era Arcadian state's policies towards propane and natural gas regulation I did on a dare back in the game, to much amusement and enjoyment of my fellow players. :D
Anyway, first things first, a tale of Humanity at its worse and how the cycle of violence continues rolling on. I give you the story of the Massacres of Whittington and Thorin, and how the Arcadian Twelfth Royal BattleMech Regiment came by their nickname:
The Vengeful.
The Vengeful
In the year 3057, Whittington was a quiet world of the Royal Donegal March, several jumps behind the lines of the Terran War. It had gone untouched through the earlier years of the war. It seemed the perfect place to set up ammunition production, and to protect that factory, the Armed Forces of the Royal Federation chose to muster and organize the Twelfth Royal BattleMech Regiment and brigade. The unit trained and prepared for the day it would go to the front, returning to their housing every day to the families they loved. The war was still over a hundred light years away.
Then came the day that the Terran Nineteenth Armored Cavalry arrived.
Under the command of General Thomas Furlough, the Nineteenth was on a mission to end Whittington's contribution to the war, but they had not just come to level the factory complex. No. General Furlough boasted of his ancestry, of his bloodline to the great Terran patriot and hero Amos Furlough, and he was here on a mission to save the Terran people from the barbarian scourge at the gates. With Director-General Kerensky's Reprisal Doctrine orders in hand, he would bring war to those who defied the vision of the unified, Terran-ruled Humanity.
The Twelfth Royal were a new unit with some veterans in the ranks and knew what to do. When the Nineteenth hit the ground they were ready and the battle was joined. But the Nineteenth were built for this sort of fighting, and even as the Twelfth Royal held in one sector, lances of swift light 'Mechs were already on their flanks, past their rear, and hitting targets. The Twelfth's rear guard held the factory despite the costs, fulfilling their duty. But they were locked into combat and could not stop what was to come.
Individual lances, or just dual teams of 'Mechs, broke off from the main battle zones and entered the nearby cities and towns. They had their own mission, and they set about accomplishing it, leaving burning ruins and broken remains behind. Any dwelling that might conceivably house workers supporting the armaments factory was destroyed with ruthless efficiency, occupied or unoccupied. Another force of Terran 'Mechs and armored infantry overwhelmed the perimeter guards of the Twelfth's own base, leveled their facilities, and marched into their housing. The civilian dependents of the Twelfth Royal and its support formations were helpless as the Terrans turned their weapons upon their homes. Even those who had successfully escaped to the safety bunkers were not spared as the Terran battle armor burned through the hatches and hunted them down, room by room, leaving a trail of burned, machine-gunned, and lasered bodies in their wake. When the Nineteenth finally withdrew every family of the Twelfth Royal, from those of the lowest infantry private to Brigadier Robert Macklin, had been annihilated, with only a handful of survivors who fled long enough and far enough to escape the massacre.
Once the deed was done, the Nineteenth pulled back, abandoning their strike on the intact factory. They escaped on their DropShips with some few losses, leaving tens of thousands of dead civilians in the rubble they left behind. As they burned for their JumpShips the enraged Twelfth Royal's aerospace group flung themselves into sortie after sortie to stop the escape, but the Nineteenth's defenses proved too strong. The handful of survivors landed to face the comrades, the dead families, they had failed.
The Twelfth Royal had survived. They'd done their duty and saved the factory. But for the men and women of that new unit the victory tasted like ash. Their slaughtered families left them hollow. No victory in the war, no final triumph, could be complete, and every soul in the brigade felt that realization as they buried their families in ceremony after ceremony. Nobody would have blamed them if they had walked away, if they'd given up, but they didn't. They were still sworn soldiers of the Royal Federation, they still had their oaths, their duty, and to a man the Twelfth Royal swore to fight on.
You see, Furlough and his soldiers had made a terrible mistake. The Nineteenth Armored Cavalry had wounded the Twelfth deeply. They had taken the sweetness of their enemies' lives and destroyed it. They had robbed the men and women of the Twelfth Royal of the happiness that would come with final victory. But they had left the Twelfth Royal
alive.
Two years passed. As regiment after regiment was worn down in the brutal slog the Terrans made of every one of their worlds, the need for frontline forces grew. Terra was looming ever so closer and the might of the Lyran Alliance was already landing upon New Earth. The Twelfth Royal were called to the front and the forces of OpForce Thunderhead, a contingent of Royal Federation, Principate, and Ghastillian troops ordered to seize the Terran world of Thorin. The campaign for Thorin would not just claim the planet but keep its defenders from reinforcing the TUDF's New Earth positions. The Twelfth Royal would have the fight of its life.
The Terrans fought hard, as they had on every Union world, and the 12th Royal was in the thick of the fighting for the approaches to Ecol City. Marching along the banks of the Gauley River, they made contact with a Terran force bearing down upon the flanks of the nearby Hyde Lancers. They rushed in to aid their comrades and found themselves facing off against the BattleMechs and vehicles of the Terran Nineteenth Armored Cavalry. Fate, or God, or just random chance had delivered their tormentors into their gunsights.
The Nineteenth wheeled about to avoid being flanked and the battle was joined. They were battle-hardened veterans and regained their poise quickly. Seeing the strength of the attacking force they fell back to regroup. Yet the 12th Royal pursued heedless of the danger, so the Nineteenth Armored Cavalry fell back once more, and the Twelfth Royal pursued again. The Terrans' reserves caught the Twelfth Royal on their flank and yet
they just kept coming. No matter how well the Terrans' shots landed, no matter how many 'Mechs and tanks and infantry of the Twelfth Royal died, the Federation troops fought like maddened bastards, driven on by the memories of their slaughtered families, each soul ready to die so long as a Terran of the Nineteenth died with them. From sheer bloody tenacity the Twelfth Royal overwhelmed the flanking attack despite the losses. Wherever the Terrans fell, a Twelfth Royal 'Mech waited to end the life of whichever Terran MechWarrior or tank crewman remained. From above VTOLs and aerospace fighters screamed in, delivering attack runs that savagely punished the Nineteenth Armored Cavalry wherever they tried to hold, all while being shot from the sky by anti-air fire. Finally the Nineteenth Cavalry gave it all up and went into all-out retreat, seeking refuge with friendly units near Ecol City. But it was too late. As they tried to flee past the banks of Lake Gauley they ran into the Twelfth Royal's supporting cavalry regiment. The Nineteenth Armored Cavalry had been outflanked and there was nowhere to run.
Furlough rallied his units into a river gulley feeding into the lake and took stock of the situation. With their air support swept away, they had no means of escape. Their damaged machines would never make it through the lake. All that remained was a final last stand or a surrender. And here, Furlough, the man who had happily proclaimed his descent from Amos Furlough, who had insisted he would fight to the last to save his people... he chose to live. The Nineteenth would surrender after all. As the Twelfth rallied at the edge of the gulley for their final push, Furlough marched his damaged
Atlas II forward and lifted a white flag with his 'Mech's remaining arm. He broadcast his surrender on an open channel to the Twelfth Royal and all their comrades.
From the ranks of the Twelfth's lines, a single battle-scarred 'Mech stepped forward. It was an equal to Furlough's
Atlas, a
Gae Bolg Assault BattleMech marked in the Twelfth's colors. Inside the cockpit sat Brigadier Robert Macklin, the man who had lost everything but his command on that horrible day on Whittington. Now he stood facing the bloody bastards who had killed his wife and children, who had killed so many families of the men and women he led, and with the fields behind them still littered with the corpses of his comrades. And they wanted to surrender. To live. They wanted
mercy from Robert Macklin and his grieving soldiers, mercy that they had denied to the Twelfth Royal's families and all the civilians they had fought to protect. And to that plea, he responded with just one gesture. He had prepared for just such an occasion, and so he flipped a single switch. A flag unfurled above the head of his 'Mech; a flag of blood red with no markings. Every soldier knew what it meant.
No quarter.Macklin's fingers squeezed triggers and a pair of Gauss-fired slugs cored Furlough's Atlas II, smashing through the engine. Furlough almost passed out from the feedback as his 'Mech fell over. From every edge of the gulley the Twelfth Royal marched in, firing into the mass of the Nineteenth without mercy, without pause, every shot aiming for head modules on 'Mechs. Whatever hope the 19th might have had to sell their lives dearly ended as artillery and aircraft rained explosive death on them. Many of the Nineteenth died in their machines. Some didn't. Some, like Furlough, survived to flee their broken 'Mechs. They crawled out of the hatches and into the waiting arms of the Twelfth Royal's armored infantry. The recordings from the armor cams told the story. Furlough himself screamed that he was a surrendering soldier and he invoked the Ares Convention, the same laws of war he'd happily thrown aside on Whittington. But that was all he managed before the Arcadian soldier blew his ****** head off with a magshot rifle.
By this time the rest of OpForce Thunderhead knew something was wrong. They'd been too pressed to interfere in the battle, but now a combat command of the Hyde Lancers was rushing to the scene. They'd initially come to fight beside their comrades, but as the screams and pleas for mercy filled the open airwaves, now they were racing to stop the slaughter. But the Twelfth Royal would not be denied, and they did not waste time. By the time Major Gunther Borden and his MechWarriors arrived, it was over. Every soldier of the Nineteenth Armored Cavalry,
every last one, was
dead. On that day, the Twelfth Royal BattleMech Regiment earned the name it has worn in every battle and war since: The Vengeful.
It's easy to say it was just vengeance. But even if so, sometimes vengeance is justice. The Nineteenth Armored Cavalry, and most of their sister regiments, were the embodiment of everything that had gone wrong with the Terran Union. They earned their reputation in the blood and broken souls of their victims. They deserved their fates, whether it was from a war crimes tribunal or because their victims took matters into their own hands. Maybe the world should be better, but often, it isn't, so you take justice where you get it.
If you're wondering, the AFRF wasn't too happy with Brigadier Macklin and his soldiers. Organized militaries tend to prefer their soldiers follow the laws of war, well, unless you're a Capellan or a Kuritan, anyway. Macklin was ready to face them all. He turned himself in right away with his whole command staff. The remaining survivors of the Twelfth Royal were marched into their DropShips and held until the mess could be sorted out. They'd done their part to win the victory, now it remained to be seen what should be done with them for their own vengeful war crime.
In the end, most of the surviving soldiers were just assigned to new units, and many would leave the AFRF, either by retiring or, well, feet-first, if you get my drift. Macklin and his officers were court-martialed for killing surrendering prisoners. They plead no contest. The evidence was, after all, inescapable. Their lawyers pleaded the circumstances but the gravity of their crime, of the execution of surrendering soldiers, was simply too great. The military court dishonorably discharged them and, in light of the circumstances and their service, gave them suspended sentences on the grounds they keep their noses clean and did nothing to tarnish the honor of the service.
That was no problem for Brigadier Macklin. With his final duty satisfied, he had nothing left. He went back to his quarters, took his sidearm and a picture of his slain wife and children, and put a bullet through his temple. But he did gain some immortality from the incident. It's why, they say, nobody touches civilian targets when the Twelfth Royal's on the field with you. Nobody wants to be the next dumb war crime-committing bastard to face "Macklin's Mercy."
