December 12: Epitaph from the Tharkhad Herald, Tharkad, Federated Commonwealth The wild boar is a fast and vicious fighter. It is territorial, tenacious, and protective of its family. It is not known for intelligence or flexibility. In likening Duke Selvin Kelswa III to the boar on his family crest, political opponents on the Commonwealth Council usually meant to imply that he had a one-track mind, and was unable to change his course once decided upon. Some even suggested the rhinoceros as a more fitting crest. Few stopped to consider the forces that made Duke Selvin what he was. The Tamar Pact suffered greatly at the end of the Thirtieth Century. Tamar's recharging stations were crippled by Kuritan attacks; Sevren was laid waste. Kuritan forces had taken a dozen worlds of the Tamar Pact; including Harvest, New Caledonia, Kirchbach, Weingarten, and Skokie. Looking at Duke Selvin in his belligerent old age, no trace was visible of the warmhearted youth of seventeen who made a secret journey to Harvest to spearhead a rebellion among the enslaved population. His friends were killed during a rough DropShip landing; Kelswawas marooned on the planet for a year, scratching for a living; traveling former battlefields which were now refugee labor camps, mourning the burned crops in Battle Mech-trampled fields, watching labor squads of his former citizens clear debris-choked waterways. This experience of the grim hopelessness of life on a recently conquered world deeply affected him. He blamed the atrocities on the victor, House Kurita, rather than on the situation. He realized that the beaten-down populace of Harvest hadn't the energy to revolt; any liberation would have to come from outside. When he returned to the Tamar Pact he formed the Harvest Memorial Movement, dedicated to regaining every world lost to House Kurita. They figured losses clear back to the First Succession War. Many of these worlds had belonged to the first Republic of Rasalhague, centuries ago. It was Duke Kelswa's tragedy that he could not accept that the loyalty of these worlds might be to a free Rasalhague rather than to the Tamar Pact. At the end of the Fourth Succession War, his troops occupied many of these planets in a coup, breaking Katrina Steiner's treaty with the Tyr. Duke Kelswa himself became a repressive conqueror to these unwilling worlds, with the best of motives. Over the Duke's loud objections, the Free Republic of Rasalhague was formed in 3035; including the disputed worlds. Seeing this coming, he married his daughter Morashato Ryan Steiner, Duke of Porrima, the ruler of the Isle of Skye section of the Blackjack Operations Area, thus firming an alliance along all of the Commonwealth's Rasalhague-Draconis border. Their power block has formed a thorn in Hanse Davion's side for the past seventeen years. As the worlds of the Tamar Pact have been swallowed by the Clans, Duke Kelswa has stormed at the Federated Commonwealth government, demanding troops to protect his worlds -- troops already overcommitted on too many worlds. The Duke poured his personal fortune into the defenses of Tamar, and its capitol, Tamar City. He refused to coordinate defense planning with the 26th Lyran Guards which were his planet's garrison. Duke Kelswa had an instinct for defensive tactics. It is unfortunate that he felt himself to be "a natural MechWarrior who needed no further training." Morasha Kelswa Steiner was visiting her father in November of 3051 when the Wolf Clan Jumped in-system to attack the planet of Tamar. The 26th Lyrans answered the Clan challenge as a separate unit, setting their line between the Wolves' Drop Zones and Tamar City. After two battles, the 26th Lyrans were beaten back to the walls of the city. The Duke refused them entry to the city, so they fought one more gallant battle to protect the city gates. When the remnants of the unit were offered safe passage off-planet, they offered transport to the Duke and his family. He insisted that Morasha evacuate to safety on Kobe. Then it got really bad. Khan Natasha Kerensky's forces took the city block by bloody block. The defenders resorted to traps and tricks, then to desperate kamikaze tactics. Light 'Mechs were loaded with explosives, then self-destructed by resolute pilots in the midst of a group of Clans OmniMechs. Some of these suicide pilots were fourteen- and fifteen-year-old junior cadets from the Tamar College of War. At the last, the old Duke seemed to be everywhere in his battered Atlas, rallying defenders and leading charges. "if guts alone could have done it, the Old Man would have saved the planet," said one observer. Leading the remnants of his guard and most of the College of War's senior class, that Atlas pushed the 328th Assault Cluster of the Wolves back out past the city's walls. In the inevitable counterattack, the Duke went down, all weapons firing. The following day, the Tamar system surrendered. Honor the old boar. He died as he lived, defending his thicket, surrounded by the enemies he had slain. Back to BattleTechnology 18 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com