Date: September 11, 2796
Location: Kentares IV
Title: Swords of Light and Darkness
Author: Travis Heermann
Type: Short Story (Legacy Anthology)
Synopsis: Two days following the assassination of Coordinator Minoru Kurita, Sam has been assigned to sweep Carinda City - an agricultural center of 50,000 people - along with the 17th Pesht Infantry. Over his loudspeaker, he repeats that all civilians are to report to the city center immediately. Troops go house to house forcing everyone to go to the central square.
Tai-i Errol Ishibashi, of Beta Company, opens a private channel, despite it being a violation of battlefield discipline. While Sam is distracted by thoughts of how Jinjiro will handle the succession, and the likely impact on Inner Sphere politics, Errol raises the question of why they're rounding up the civilians. Sam suggests they're just screening them for infiltrators and insurgents, but Errol isn't so sure.
Hours later, the entire population is gathered in a centrally located park, under the harsh afternoon sunlight. Sho-sa Kait-linn Wong orders Second Battalion to target the civilians with their energy weapons and fire. As the 'Mechs raise their weapons, Errol protests, and Wong clarifies that Jinjiro's orders are "kill them all." Errol broadcasts his refusal to follow an illegal and immoral order. Wong relieves him of duty and places Sam in command of the 2nd Battalion. As Errol powers down and awaits arrest, Sam orders his men to comply with their orders, and opens fire himself.
As torrents of laser fire sweep the packed crowds, the survivors attempt to flee, but are cut down by the infantry at the park perimeter or stomped by the 'Mechs' feet. When the ceasefire order comes through, bulldozers move in to push away the remains. A child's charred sock flutters in the hot breeze and slaps against Sam's cockpit window, then slides out of sight.
Sam feels like he's a passenger in his own body due to the shock. He witnesses his best friend, Errol Ishibashi, dragged out of his BattleMech cockpit by military police. He sees fourteen infantry soldiers beheaded for refusing to fire on civilians. And it doesn't even feel like it's his own arm when, after Errol slits his entrails with a dagger, he uses his Sun Zhang katana to behead him. He keeps his face in an emotionless mask to conceal his horror, and keeps repeating that the executed men were without honor, and unworthy of service to the Combine.
He would never sleep a full night for the rest of his life.
Notes: During the summer of 2796, Coordinator Minoru Kurita was killed by a 7th Crucis Lancers sniper. Upon receiving the news of his father's death, the new Coordinator, Jinjiro Kurita, issued a simple set of orders: "Kill them all." When a Combine officer requested clarification, Jinjiro killed him on the spot. The cowed Combine officer corps began carrying out the genocidal orders, going from city to city, rounding up all the citizens, and conducting mass executions, then hunting refugees and survivors in the wilderness.
Some troops refused orders to kill unarmed civilians, believing that it violated the tenets of bushido, and was incompatible with maintaining their personal honor. These soldiers were either executed (as seen in Broken Sword, Wounded Dragon) or imprisoned (as seen in Echoes of Disgrace). Here, we see the first round of those executions, with soldiers who refused to carry out Jinjiro's orders killed. The MechWarriors, having higher status, are allowed to commit seppuku, while the infantrymen are simply gunned down by a firing squad.
The Succession Wars, to a certain extent, were initially about trying to break the enemy's will to resist. Last one standing/fighting gets to be First Lord. The Kentares Massacre was a key touchpoint in the psychological struggle between the Federated Suns and the Draconis Combine. The AFFS had been demoralized by shocking losses - the eradication of their main WarShip fleet, the shattering of their overly rigid military districts on the borders, and huge territorial losses on both fronts in just a few years, and defeatism had started to set in. Meanwhile, the DCMS was full of idealistic and enthusiastic academy graduates, ronin who'd dueled in "unsanctioned" dojos and honed their skills for decades in anticipation of a war, and a senior officer corps that had experience from the 2nd Hidden War. All of them were convinced of their moral and military superiority, and the rash of early victories proved to them that defeat of their enemies and total victory were guaranteed, because they were both the most skilled and most honorable warriors in the Inner Sphere.
Kentares IV ruined that esprit de corps. Massacring unarmed civilians isn't found anywhere in the code of bushido. Combine doctrine up to this point had held that these civilians were misguided, and would benefit from benevolent and well-regimented Combine rule. Those soldiers who held fast to their personal honor were publicly executed, and those carrying out the executions, and those witnessing them, had to struggle with the cognitive dissonance of knowing that their orders were dishonorable and immoral, but also with having had it drilled into them that the Coordinator's wishes could not be dishonorable. Sam tries to cope by repeating the official lies over and over, willing himself to believe it.
On the other side of the lines, when word of the massacre got out, the defeatism vanished. Davion units began deserting their posts and heading for the front (much to the Capellans' delight, I'm sure) with the goal of killing as many Kuritans as possible, by any means necessary. If this is what the Combine was willing to do to the people of an occupied world, then there was no option of negotiation, no benefit to surrender or retreat. It was kill, or be exterminated, along with family, friends, and homeland. Faced with renewed resistance, the demoralized Combine troops broke and ran, having been robbed of their moral certitude that all of known space belonged under Combine rule.
In parallel, however, there's the case of Helm. Minoru Kurita personally commanded the Combine fleet that penetrated into Free Worlds League space, wiped out the Helm garrison, tore the place apart looking for a cache of SLDF equipment, then executed "Ghost Rain Protocol" as they departed, nearly sterilizing the world with a massive nuclear bombardment from orbit, leaving the survivors to starve to death on a frozen, irradiated ruin of a world. So, why didn't the FWL have the same reaction as the Federated Suns? Millions dead, a planet depopulated at the direct orders of the Combine's Coordinator.
Perhaps the difference lay in the use of relatively impersonal WMDs rather than the fact that Combine troops were ordered to use swords whenever possible. One officer punching buttons on a bridge isn't the same mass-transgression of honor as tens of thousands of Combine troops bayoneting schoolkids for months on end. Also, the FWL had no real beef with the Combine. Kenyon refused to accept Minoru's declaration of First Lordship and put his own hat in the ring (something that was probably a motivating factor for the Helm raid, in addition to the Nagayan Mountain cache), but they shared no common borders and the FWL had no real emotional history with the Combine. Negative memories of the Combine in the Suns were relatively fresh, with the War of Davion Succession (the 2nd Hidden War) still in living memory. Sure, Helm was a tragedy, but the Combine didn't represent an existential threat to the lives and fortunes of House Marik and the people of the Free Worlds League.