104

The past year had been a nightmare for Marthe Pryde. First, was Elias Crichell's scandal of his false combat certifications, which had led to his execution and Marthe's promotion to saKhan.

After that, in a gambit to augment the available WarShips, the clan moved several ones that were playing escort roles on the Exodus Road to the front lines.

That backfired spectacularly, when the Taurians raiders started to hit the area, with the Falcons losing several JumpShips. In particular, the loss of the CJF Arrowhead(a Star Lord), with enough equipment to equip two full front line Clusters, had delayed the resuming of the invasion by several months. That the other Clans had also reported losses and also had to delay their operations was of no help. The only answer was to to move the WarShips back to protect the supply lines, removing several warships from the front-l lines.

Then the Federated Commonwealth launched its offensive, just as Vandervahn Chistu was about to order the new offensive operations. By the end of this operation, not only had the Clan lost 10 systems and about 3 Galaxies, but also 2 WarShips with 4 others being damaged. The counterattack had been a disaster, with the ambush on Romulus and the subsequent destruction of 2 other Galaxies and 4 more WarShips, including CJF the Turkina's Pride (Cameron) and the CJF Falcon's Nest (Texas), as well as the death of Vandervahn Chistu, promoting Marthe to Khan of the Jade Falcons. The fool had advanced blindly in the jaws of the Federated Commonwealth trap, never understanding that the technological gap had been reduced and that the forces he faced were first class, not second rate ones, like during the first stage of the invasion.

It was of little comfort, that he and his force had died well, concentrating all the OmniFighters, from the Warships and Galaxies alike, to protect the force to arrive mostly intact to orbit, and them, for the ground forces to land. Unfortunately for them, the AFFC forces have dispersed or hidden, not presenting a viable target to the warships weapons. And them, the AFFC warships arrived, and in the following space battle, the clans are defeated, even if extracted a heavy toll, enough to force the Federated Commonwealth fleet to return home to much necessary repair, removing the massive warships from the front-lines for several months, if not years.

On the ground, the battle as not gone much better, the numerical superiority of the AFFC, supplemented by great numbers of artillery and some space support, from the surviving and still operational warships, dictated the victor.

Demonstrating their numerical superiority, the AFFC had resumed its attack, occupying 6 new systems and destroying 3 more Galaxies, and 2 other WarShips, the CJF Green Lantern (Congress) and the CJF Lightning Strike (Vincent). Again, they launched 3 RCTs in each one of their target, leaving the more damaged / exhausted units to defend each of the recently conquered / freed systems.

Left with only about 2 Galaxies, one of which was composed almost entirely of second-line forces, and with the Steel Viper moving to take advantage of their weakness, Marthe had had no choice but to abandon the Inner Sphere and return to the Pentagon, to try to recover and survive.

To that end, she had given orders to Samantha Clees, her saKhan, who was in Eden, to launch a crash training program for the Trueborns of the last generation who had failed the tests as MechWarriors and even to test Freebrons who showed qualities. At the same time, he had given her orders to open the Brian Caches available to equip all the forces thus created with whatever they obtained from the Caches, since the Falcons with only 4 Galaxies, 3 of which being mostly garrison forces, desperately needed more troops and equipment, unless they wanted to suffer the fate of the Smoke Jaguars.

Now, Marthe just hoped to get to the HomeWorlds in time, to prevent the Clan absorption, and if possible rebuild her forces. One thing was certain - it would be many years before she could return to the Inner Sphere