Kick the Sphere 29 (Patreon)

Kick the Sphere

Chapter 29

-VB-

The Battle of Dansur

Prelude

The cause for the Battle of Dansur lay in the Decimation of Betelgeuse and the appearance of light warships.

The sudden destruction of Betelgeuse shocked all of the Inner Sphere but more so the Capellan Confederation and the Free Worlds League. Videos that somehow survived the attack showed utterly alien foes that could not be of Inner Sphere origin, but the route they took in and out of the system pointed them to the Free Worlds League. The appearance of warships was not something the Capellans could allow

This was also when the Chancellor Maximillian Liao received intel that the attackers which everyone had assumed to be some sort of alien lifeform originated not from outside the Inner Sphere but a seemingly abandoned system called Dansur within the Free Worlds League. He rallied the surviving Warrior Houses to destroy Dansur and any black site research there within.

Free Worlds League, under Janos Marik, received word of the tragedy that struck Betelgeuse - and the soon to follow mass starvation - and expected obvious reprisal of some kind when they too learned that the attackers of Betelgeuse came not from outside the Inner Sphere but from one of their own systems. Seeking to take control of this new terrible technology or source, he called upon all dropships and jumpships to transport his troops in defense and occupation of the once abandoned system.

The Capellan Confederation deployed Warrior Houses of Imarra, Lu Sann, Hiritsu, and Ijori. These four houses together brought eight battalions. Deployed along with the Warrior Houses was a regiment of Liao Guards, three regiment of Capellan Hussars, three regiments of St. Ives Armored Cavalry, and three more regiments of mercenaries. These thirteen regiments constituted the largest movement of troops for the Capellan Confederation during the Third Succession War. A big reason for the size of this attack force was because of the fear of warships; Maximilian Liao would have gladly burned all thirteen of those regiments if it meant that he could destroy these new warships that, from his perspective, belonged to the Free Worlds League.

The Free Worlds League was not as mobile with their troops, mostly because of the emergency nature of the attack and not expecting as much of a fierce attack from the Capellans; they hadn’t known at the time the sheer devastation wrought by the attack and expected something akin to a large invasion force as that would have been more than enough to quash most defenders. The force they brought to bear was still significant for the limited time they had, which was shorter than the Capellan’s preparation time. Their force of two Atrean Dragoons regiments, one Marik Militia regiments, two Defenders of Andurien regiments, and one Marik Guard regiment consisted a sizeable force but a force of six regiments was much smaller than the thirteen regiments the Capellans were bringing.

However, it was a smaller force than the Capellan’s and with much less elite members. On top of this, the League’s forces leaned leaned heavily on the battlemechs while the Capellans brought more aerospace wings, mostly because they, having seen what happened to battlemech, chose to deploy more forces that wouldn’t come into direct contact with the grey goo if it were to show up again.

This meant that, should they come to a direct confrontation, then the Capellans would have a large contingent of aerospace fighters to attack the enemy dropships in space and more flexible combined arms regiment to maneuver around the enemy. In comparison, the League could more readily reinforce their troops as Dansur was deep within their territory. In such a situation, a smart commander would rotate their troops in and out while calling in more artillery and tanks to supplement the battlemech regiments.

None of them, however, expected to be confronted by the denizens of Dansur System itself.

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Dansur System, which had been left abandoned by the Free Worlds League during the Second Succession War, had been a mystery up until this point to both the Capellans and the League.

What they hadn’t known was that a foreign power with technologies both novel and incomprehensible to the Inner Sphere had settled in Dansur System and took over the administration of the survivors of the Dansur II.

By the time Marik and Liao forces entered the sytem, this foreign power had entrenched themselves not just on Dansur II but on all of the planets and asteroid belts. In the case of Dansur III, this polity, ruled by a man named Marris, fortified the barren world to the point that the term “fortress world” was created to describe the world, and as long as the fortress world stood, Dansur could not be conquered.

Worse than the existence of the fortress world was the existence of high-end warships.

Warships are divided into three main categories. Much like battlemechs, there are light, medium, and heavy warships with each category having subcategories. Light warships are those that are barely above dropships. This is where raiders and corvettes fell into and also the warships that appeared over Betelgeuse fell into. This was the level of threat that Liao came prepared to destroy. Above the “light” warships were the medium warships, which included the likes of frigates and destroyers, and then the heavy warships, which included cruisers and any classifications with heavier weight like battleships and dreadnoughts.

A squad of warships would have been dreadful. It would have shook all of the Inner Sphere. The existence of a fortress world alone would have been a powerful message.

What they found?

Inner Sphere wished that Marik and Liao never jumped into Dansur.