TEXT: BattleCorps
  DOG SOLDIERS
  Jeff Kautz
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  The Underworld 
  City of Yang-ku 
  Nanking 
  9 September 3067
  The testing period was a time of relatively low stress for the 
  trainees of the First MI They spent their days in air-conditioned 
  classrooms and took their meals in clean, full service mess halls. 
  Testing always wrapped up by late afternoon, leaving the evenings 
  free. The troops could enjoy movies or enlisted personnel clubs 
  on base or go into Yang-ku, as long as they stayed away from 
  certain off limits areas of the city. It was into just such an area that 
  Davis Clay had followed Private Chen. 
  The Underworld was a crime-infested slum, control over which 
  wrestled between rival Tongs and other undesirables. Its crum-
  bling tenements stood mostly boarded up and the few residents 
  that remained dared not venture out after dark. 
  Tonight was not Chen’s first visit to the neighborhood. In fact, 
  Clay had followed him here twice in the past week, always to 
  the same dingy, brick-front row home surrounded by derelict 
  warehouses. Each time, Chen had come alone, carrying with him 
  a small backpack that was full when he entered the house but, 
  judging by the ease with which he carried it, empty upon his 
  return. He never spent more than two hours in the Underworld, 
  always leaving the base after his fellow soldiers had gone out 
  and returning before they got back. The returning troops would 
  find him reading in his room or fast asleep and therefore never 
  asked what he did to fill the off-hours. Even Clay, who had been 
  suspicious of Chen from their first meeting, had begun to relax 
  his attitude toward the young man in the weeks following the 
  field exercise.
  Stories of items, including weapons and ammunition suddenly 
  missing from base inventories had rekindled his suspicion, how-
  ever, and Clay had begun to observe the young soldier closely. He 
  didn’t like what he was seeing.
  Clay maneuvered the borrowed groundcar to the curb and 
  stopped fifty meters behind the cab that he had been following, 
  shutting off the engine and the lights. The ever present rain beat 
  a heavy rhythm on the roof as he and Sergeant Roy Benton sat 
  silently observing as the cab pulled up across the street from the 
  run down row house.
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  Benton, a former bar bouncer, was the squad leader for Second 
  Platoon’s weapons section and was in charge of selecting recruits 
  whose test scores showed them to be suitable for handling heavy 
  weapons. Clay had felt comfortable confiding in Benton, a good 
  friend who could be counted on if things got physical. It was for 
  just that eventuality that Clay had brought him along this eve-
  ning.
  The cab stopped on the street opposite the run down row house. 
  Chen got out on the driver’s side and reached in behind him to 
  retrieve the backpack. The cab sped off and with a quick glance 
  over each shoulder, Chen sprinted across the street and ducked 
  through the doorway, disappearing into the house. A single light 
  shone through the dingy first floor window shades. 
  Clay sat in the dark with Benton, watching the house for sev-
  eral long minutes. When they were reasonably sure they had not 
  been observed, the two men reached beneath the seats, each pro-
  ducing a short-barreled shotgun, and left the car. The pair wore 
  civilian clothes with body armor underneath. They concealed the 
  shotguns in the folds of their raincoats and trotted across the 
  street. Separating as they neared the house, Clay flattened him-
  self against the wall outside the front entrance while Benton crept 
  around toward the back.
  Clay waited for Benton to confirm he was in position, then spoke 
  a single word into his throat mike. “Go!”
  Clay kicked in the flimsy front door, shotgun at the ready, scream-
  ing at anyone within the dwelling to get down on the floor. Benton 
  came crashing through the back door and met up with Clay in 
  the front room of the house. Both men stared, dumbstruck, at the 
  scene laid out before them.
   There were no gang members, no armed terrorists. There was 
  only an elderly woman with Asian features cowering on a dingy 
  couch, hugging her knees to her chest. A young girl, probably in 
  her early- to mid-teens stood holding a wailing toddler while an-
  other young child sat on the bare floor playing with a scrawny 
  puppy. Chen knelt on the floor, eyes wide with surprise and em-
  barrassment. He held his open backpack, out of which spilled a 
  small mountain of soap bars, toilet paper rolls and vacuum-sealed 
  ration packs.
  Clay looked across at Benton and motioned the big sergeant to 
  wait in the back room. Embarrassed, he heaped apologies on the 
  old woman and the young girl, and called Chen outside. He led the 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  private to the groundcar and motioned for the boy to get in the 
  front seat. Seating himself behind the steering wheel, he turned 
  to look Chen in the eyes.
  “You have some serious explaining to do. I want everything, from 
  the beginning.”
  Chen bowed his head, for a moment refusing to meet Clay’s ac-
  cusing stare. Realizing that he no longer had an option, he let out 
  a long breath and began to speak.
  “I was at Lingyin Temple, but you knew that already.” Chen let 
  the revelation float in the air for a moment. 
  For years, he had taken care to hide his past associations, afraid 
  to speak to anyone about his former life. Here, in the front seat of 
  a car on a rainy night in Yang-ku, confronted by his company first 
  sergeant, Chen felt almost relieved, as if finally able to release his 
  great burden. He held back nothing, the details and admissions 
  flowed from him like water.
  “I knew you as well. I recognized you that first day at Gladston 
  Hill. I hoped you wouldn’t recognize me. I want to assure you that I 
  had nothing to do with the grenade attack that killed those MPs at 
  the temple that night. Harim was always a fanatic. It was as much 
  a surprise to me as to anyone. I’m sorry for their deaths, and for 
  the injuries I caused your people.”
  “They all lived, although Corporal Yi walks with a myomer pros-
  thetic.”
  “Again, I’m sorry. I tried to do as little damage as possible, but I had 
  to keep up appearances. I didn’t want the others to suspect me.”
  Clay prompted the young man to continue, suppressing the urge 
  to cuff him and turn him over to the DMJ without another word.
  “Suspect you? Of what, exactly?”
  “Of being an informant. I’m the one who tipped off the police that 
  we would be at the temple that night.”
  “So you wanted to get caught? Why?”
  Chen sighed as he dredged up memories he had labored to keep 
  suppressed. “To atone,” he said finally.
  “I was orphaned at a young age. I ran the streets for years, always 
  in trouble with the law. When I was a teenager I was recruited by 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  the Zhangzheng de Guang. They gave me a sense of purpose, a 
  sense of belonging I hadn’t felt in a long time and I believed every 
  word of their rhetoric. When the war started they shipped me here, 
  to Yang-ku and set me up with a job and a cover story. The Lees,” 
  he motioned to the house, “they took me in and gave me room 
  and board. I told them I was a stevedore at the drop port. I was re-
  ally working in a bomb-making facility for the group.” 
  Clay felt the blood drain from his face. The young man had just 
  confessed to being a terrorist, an enemy of the state, but Clay 
  sensed there was more to it. 
  “The Lees were nice people,” he continued. “They fed me and 
  gave me a place to sleep and they didn’t ask questions, even when 
  things started to heat up and I was coming and going at all hours. 
  We were running so many ops it was only a matter of time before 
  one of them went bad. When it happened, we lost three of our best 
  operatives, friends of mine. Our cell leader, Bishou, he blamed Mr. 
  Lee, said he had ratted us out. I tried to explain to him that Mr. Lee 
  was innocent and I thought he understood. Then one night I came 
  home and Mr. Lee wasn’t there, he had never returned from work. 
  I went by our safe house and found Bishou there.” Chen swal-
  lowed hard, words caught in his throat. 
  “Mr. Lee…Mr. Lee’s body was hanging from the rafters.” Tears 
  welled up in Chen’s eyes and he began to tremble.
  “He had been tortured to death. Bishou peeled the skin from his 
  body.” Chen was weeping by now, his body quaking as he wiped 
  the tears from his face. “I flew into a rage. I beat Bishou… I beat 
  him to death with my own hands. Then I called the police and re-
  ported the safe house.”
  Clay swallowed a gasp. He had led the military contingent that 
  had raided that safe house. He remembered the mangled bodies, 
  air heavy with the sickly smell of blood.
  “Mr. Lee was the family’s only source of income. They were left 
  with nothing, and it was all because of me…because they had been 
  kind enough to take me in!” Chen bent forward in his seat, head 
  held in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably. “All because of me…”
  Clay understood it all now. Chen had worked from the inside to 
  bring down the terrorist cell but it had not been enough. He should 
  have turned himself in that night at Lingyin Temple but instead 
  he had chosen to run, a reaction driven by confusion and fear. In 
  joining the Regiment, he sought to atone for the damage he had 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  done, to cleanse his soul of the demons that still haunted him. He 
  had kept his guilt bottled up, hidden in a deep place and disguised 
  behind a mask of arrogant impassiveness. Now, stripped of his 
  protective barrier he sat sobbing as the revelations flowed from 
  him in an outpouring of emotion of which Clay would not previ-
  ously have though him capable. Despite his contempt for Chen’s 
  actions, he could not help but feel pity for the boy.
   Clay sat for a long time watching the patterns the rain created 
  on the windshield. The rivulets merged and joined, then broke off 
  from each other as each droplet strained to create its own path, 
  only to flow together once again. 
  Eventually Chen regained control of his emotions and sat upright 
  in his seat, ready to receive his punishment. Finally, Clay spoke.
  “You realize that you’ve disobeyed orders by coming here,” he 
  said, less a question than a statement of fact.
  “Yes,” replied Chen.
  “Those items you removed from the barracks, they’re contraband. 
  You could get in a lot of trouble for that, you understand?”
  “Yes, First Sergeant, I understand.”
  “You’ve admitted to crimes against the state. Terrorism.” He 
  paused. “Murder.” Clay’s eyes narrowed, disappointment color-
  ing his face.
  “I’m prepared to face my punishment, whatever it is, but please 
  promise me not to involve the Lees in all this. They’re the victims 
  here.”
  Clay met Chen’s smoky gaze and felt he could read the sincerity 
  bleeding through his expression. His steely eyes seemed softer 
  somehow, unguarded.
  “You can’t come back here, after tonight. You know that.”
  Chen swallowed hard, choking back the tears that had begun to 
  wet the corners of his eyes again. “Yes.”
  Clay pursed his lips. “Alright then. Go in there and tell them to 
  get their things together. I’ll send a truck for them in the morning.” 
        Chen was startled. He stared incredulously at Clay, who kept 
  his attention focused on the windshield. “You mean…”
  “Yes, yes, now go, dammit, before I recover my senses!”
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  “Thank you, thank you, First Sergeant,” Chen stumbled over his 
  words. He was half out of the car door when Clay grabbed his arm. 
  He turned and met the Sergeant’s steely glare.
  “Don’t make me regret this!”
  Chen smiled. “You have my word.”
  Clay let go of Chen’s arm and the boy slipped out into the rain. 
  His word. Hopefully, that would be enough.
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  Trent-Hampton Barracks, Camp Allard 
  Yang-ku 
  Nanking 
  14 November 3067
  True to his word, Clay showed up the following morning with 
  a borrowed military transport and a few extra hands, namely 
  Benton and Sergeant Deemer. They had packed the Lee family 
  along with their few meager belongings and moved them onto 
  the base, allowing them to occupy some spare bunks until the 
  trainees moved to their permanent postings on the other side of 
  Camp Allard. When the recruits moved, the Lees went with them. 
  Clay had an unused storage building cleared out and turned into a 
  semi-permanent residence for them.
  The Lees, wishing to show their gratitude as well as earn 
  their keep, began assisting with menial tasks from washing the 
  soldier’s clothes to tending the grounds around the barracks. 
  They soon won the hearts of the troops, who began to insist 
  on paying them for their efforts. Mrs. Lee accepted the money 
  only reluctantly, and then used much of what she earned to buy 
  food with which she prepared large delicious dinners for the 
  troops on Sunday evenings. Her daughter Lin proved to be an 
  excellent tailor and took on the job of mending and pressing 
  uniforms for the soldiers. Before long, the men and women of 
  Charlie Company began to regard the Lees as family members, 
  even adopting Ping, their once scrawny mutt as their unofficial 
  mascot.
  Clay kept his knowledge of Chen’s past to himself. He believed in 
  the boy’s sincere desire to start anew, to atone. Time would prove, 
  he reckoned, if his decision was right.
  Chen and the other recruits were permanently assigned to Charlie 
  Company of the Second Battalion, First Mechanized Infantry. 
  The Regiment. Normally, recruits were spread out among the 
  Regiment’s various units, filling slots wherever they were need-
  ed. This group, however, was what the Regiment termed a cohort 
  unit, training and traveling together. Clay suspected the proposed 
  change of station might have something to do with the new pol-
  icy, but he welcomed it just the same. Though it was against his 
  better judgment, he had grown fond of the young soldiers in his 
  time spent with them. As always, however, he cautioned himself 
  against becoming too familiar.
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 
  The recruits had hardly had a chance to settle in and meet the 
  other members of their respective squads before shipping out for 
  advanced training. Lasting a minimum of six weeks, advanced 
  training would expand on the basic skills the troops had learned 
  at Gladston Hill and Great Eaves, and qualify each of them in one 
  of several specialty fields. 
  Most of the recruits attended the Mechanized Infantry course 
  where they learned to operate in conjunction with a host of armored 
  and airborne support vehicles. Owing to his excellent marksman-
  ship skills, Chen was hand-picked to attend the Regiment’s Stealth 
  Marksmanship course—sniper school. 
  Hannan was chosen by the instructors at Gladston Hill as Honor 
  Graduate for the training cycle and was given her choice of spe-
  cialty. She chose, somewhat surprisingly, to attend sniper school 
  alongside Chen. When the pair returned three weeks later, they 
  had set a new course record and, perhaps more importantly, had 
  become best friends. Chen had changed since the night of his 
  confession in Yang-ku. He was friendlier, more approachable. The 
  other recruits recognized and welcomed the change, but only Clay 
  knew its origin.
  By mid-November, most of the troops had returned to assume 
  their permanent positions within the company, the sole excep-
  tion being Travis, who was quietly excelling at Combat Lifesaver 
  School. Chen and Hannan remained together, assigned to the 
  Second Squad, Second Rifle Platoon along with Kelley, Miller, 
  Reichel and Flores with whom they had trained at Gladston Hill. 
  The recruits, now addressed as private, having been promoted 
  upon their graduation from primary training, were welcomed into 
  the squad by Sergeant Deemer, their squad leader, and Corporal 
  Wecker, the squad machine gunner who would serve as their men-
  tor. It was Wecker’s job to show them around the barracks and 
  familiarize them with the daily operations of the company.
  A sly veteran of the Civil War, the quick-witted Wecker spoke in 
  a short staccato that resembled the report of the machine gun he 
  so loved. Always up for some fun at another’s expense, he sin-
  gled out the short, slightly pudgy Private Miller to be his gunner’s 
  assistant, assigned him the responsibility of toting the weapon’s 
  maintenance kit and most of the heavy ammunition. 
  Miller was less than thrilled, but thankful at least that he wasn’t 
  saddled with the automatic grenade launcher. That responsibility 
  fell to Flores, a tall, soft-spoken beauty with silky black hair that 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 10
  she kept tucked under her garrison cap. She had mastered the 
  cumbersome weapon quickly during training, and seemed quite 
  capable of handling the launcher and its heavy load of high explo-
  sive projectiles.
  The new troops fit in well among Charlie Company’s veterans, 
  with whom Clay met privately upon their arrival at Trent-Hampton. 
  He stressed the importance of bringing the new people up to speed 
  quickly, without going so far as to inform them of the impend-
  ing move. He hated to keep secrets from his people, but Captain 
  Jorgenson had given him implicit instructions.
  Without another training cycle to oversee, Clay was able to as-
  sume his regular duties as Company first sergeant, responsible for 
  developing the training schedule and handling logistics and sup-
  ply. “Beans and bullets” was the term used to describe the duties 
  of the first sergeant, whom most of the troops referred to simply 
  as “Top”. 
  Even the rank of first sergeant was more an honorary title, a 
  tradition from the armies of old that the infantry had refused to 
  let fade into obscurity. In truth, the various levels of responsibility 
  handled by non-commissioned officers in the infantry required a 
  greater distinction between ranks than the typical armor platoon 
  or ’Mech lance, who could get by with a greatly simplified com-
  mand structure. 
  It was late one evening when Clay finally got a chance to open 
  the door to the office he hadn’t seen in six months. Everything 
  was still the same as he left it. Small, neatly organized desk. Walls 
  adorned with a few photos in simple frames, pictures of Clay, pos-
  ing with comrades he had known over the years. Some were still 
  here, most had moved on and still others were gone forever. He 
  paused for just a moment, remembering all the names and faces, 
  before settling into his leather backed chair and retrieving a note-
  pad from a desk drawer. Beans and bullets, he thought as he set to 
  work on a revised training schedule. Beans and bullets.
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 11
  Camp Allard 
  Suburbs of Yang-ku 
  Nanking 
  12 December 3067
  The enlisted personnel club was nearly empty, unusual for a 
  weekend. Most of the troops belonging to the First MI were either 
  visiting with friends and family on extended leave or shopping for 
  the coming winter holiday season. 
  In one corner, a group of off-duty soldiers enjoyed a relaxed 
  game of holo-billiards while hooting and cheering the latest 
  Solaris championship match playing on the corner tri-vid. Across 
  the room, another vid was broadcasting a musical performance 
  by the newest Canopian flavor of the month, a curvy blonde star-
  let dressed in a skimpy schoolgirl outfit, pouting and gyrating to 
  a beat no one in the room could hear. It’s never about the mu-
  sic anyway, reflected Clay as he exchanged his empty glass for a 
  fresh one. 
  Tipping back the mug of Yangtze Pale Ale—he preferred the 
  brand to the more popular Timbiqui Dark—he felt the cool bever-
  age massage his throat but there was no savoring the taste, at 
  least not this early in the evening. Like many others, Clay often 
  found himself in a state of melancholy sadness during the holidays. 
  He had hoped that the beer would help wash away his loneliness. 
  Still, his gaze drifted over the rim of his glass to the pay visi-phone 
  on the wall.
  I should call her, he thought for the hundredth time, but still he 
  sat, staring at the half-empty glass, watching the foamy suds re-
  treat down the sides to become one with the golden liquid.
  In the service for over half his life, Clay enlisted at age seventeen 
  and shipped out for recruit training the day after graduation from 
  secondary school. His fascination with all things military had be-
  gun long before that time however. 
  Born on Brockton, he had grown up an only child in a backwater 
  farming community so isolated it seemed as if time had stopped 
  there centuries before while the rest of the universe had simply 
  moved on and forgotten, just like his father. 
  Early settlers had experimented with terraforming, but the 
  valuable irrigation machines had become problematic and their 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 1
  delicate inner workings were beyond anyone’s ability to under-
  stand, much less repair. Clay and his mother struggled to work 
  the land that was steadily returning to the dust it had once been, 
  their farm providing barely enough to sustain them and the few 
  animals needed to pull the plows. 
  With no money for vid players and almost no contact with outsid-
  ers, young Davis was forced to find other sources of amusement 
  to occupy the few hours not consumed by studies or household 
  chores. While most of his classmates would drive into the near-
  est large towns to drink and carouse, Clay would walk to the local 
  library. 
  A privately funded place that was one of only a handful left in 
  the whole of the Inner Sphere, save those maintained by the Great 
  Houses, that kept an inventory of actual paper volumes, the library 
  was his only refuge, and he its sole customer. On Sundays, Clay 
  would wander the narrow aisles, plucking the books from their 
  dusty shelves and immerse himself in tales that took place far be-
  yond his meager existence. 
  His favorites were always the war stories. From historical refer-
  ence books to fictionalized accounts of battles dating back to the 
  beginning of recorded history, he would sit until dark soaking up 
  the written words like a sponge. The heroes of those stories be-
  came his heroes, his only real role models, and their enemies were 
  his own. He longed to tread in their footsteps, to travel among the 
  stars they had traveled, and to make the same kind of contribu-
  tions they had made. 
  Before long, he had read almost every volume twice, reveling in 
  the courageous affairs of noble Mechwarriors and dashing space 
  captains. The stories that touched him deepest, however, were 
  those accounts involving simple foot soldiers. Men who volun-
  teered for the most dangerous duty, who overcame the harshest 
  environments with no machinery or technological wonders to 
  protect them and faced the enemy head on, eye to eye with only 
  the strength of will and the courage of their hearts. To the young 
  Davis Clay, these men embodied what soldiery was all about, and 
  he could hardly wait to count himself among their number.
  It was May of 3038 when he kissed his mother goodbye for the 
  final time before boarding the hoverbus that would begin his jour-
  ney among the stars. In the years that followed he would serve 
  in a half dozen units on more than a dozen worlds but he would 
  never return to his birthplace. 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 1
  He would see his first combat during the disastrous War of 3039. 
  It was during the retreat from An Ting that he would receive word 
  of his mother’s passing. She had died of natural causes, or so the 
  coroner’s report had said, but Clay knew she had simply toiled her 
  way to an early, lonely grave and, in his mind, there was nothing 
  natural about that. Afterward there had been no reason for him 
  the go back. He had found his true home in the Armed Forces of 
  the Federated Commonwealth, and he threw himself wholeheart-
  edly into her service, rising through the ranks steadily, needing 
  for nothing and desiring no family save for the men and women 
  under his command. It was late 3060 when Trinity walked into his 
  life and changed him forever. 
  Trinity Elizabeth Hines had been studying physical therapy at 
  Nanking University’s Yang-ku campus in the fall of that year. To 
  supplement her studies she had taken a job as a nurse’s aid on the 
  sprawling military base that served as a home to thousands of sol-
  diers serving with the First FedCom. The unit had taken a severe 
  beating during the Marik-Liao offensive of 3057 and was trying 
  to rebuild itself through hard training. It was during a particularly 
  grueling training exercise that Clay suffered a dislocated shoulder 
  requiring treatment. He first met Trinity in the examination room 
  while sitting shirtless on an exam table with his right arm swollen 
  and hanging at an odd angle to his body. He remembered thinking 
  how beautiful she looked, despite her formless pale green scrub 
  uniform. She had remarked about how much pain he must have 
  been in but he hardly noticed; her mere presence in the room 
  had removed all sensations of pain from his mind and replaced 
  them with emotions he had never before experienced. They spoke 
  only briefly that day, she had been called away, but they made a 
  date to go out and their relationship blossomed over the next few 
  months.
  Then came Operation Stiletto, the unit’s unsanctioned foray 
  into the Chaos March that was still taboo to mention aloud. Even 
  though it was an all-volunteer mission, Clay felt obligated to go. 
  Trinity accepted his decision but she did not truly understand; she 
  never could. He returned the following year, only to be swallowed 
  up in the Civil War along with the rest of the Inner Sphere. The war 
  saw Clay and his unit trekking all over Nanking with scarcely any 
  break that left enough time for he and Trinity, and most of his off 
  hours were spent seeing to the needs of his troops. Again, Trinity 
  made the necessary sacrifices. 
  Organized resistance on Nanking effectively ended in April of 
  3063, but Capellan sponsored terrorists still operated across the 
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 1
  planet and the First FedCom was called upon to hunt them down. 
  The unit again asked for volunteers, and once again, Clay answered 
  the call. 
  He hoped she would wait for him and truth be told she had, but 
  the weeks grew into months and he continued to place himself 
  into harms way, moving to wherever the Regiment needed him, 
  heedless of how badly she needed him at home. After far too 
  many lonely nights spent worrying and wondering, she had had 
  enough. Devotion to duty had won out over love. Trinity felt fool-
  ish for believing she could ever change that. When, after a year’s 
  time, he finally returned, Clay found their small apartment empty. 
  She was gone. 
  Almost five years had passed since then. They had rarely spo-
  ken, yet she haunted Clay’s thoughts more and more each day. 
  Holidays just made it worse.
  He set his empty glass on the bar and glanced again at the phone. 
  Maybe after one more…
  “Hey, turn this up!”
  Excited voices from the corner alerted Clay. He turned to see 
  what the fuss was about as the bartender increased the volume on 
  the tri-vid. The Solaris fights were being interrupted for a special 
  news bulletin and the screen now showed a rattled reporter on a 
  hill overlooking a city. A city in flames. 
  The vid was time stamped December 8, 3067. Ash swirled in the 
  wind that buffeted the camera and the reporter, tossing his hair 
  and clothes as he began to speak.
  “…Raymond Najif from INN reporting to you from Tharkad. What 
  you see below me… this conflagration, is what remains of the 
  capital of the Lyran Alliance.” There was a collective gasp at the 
  mention of the city’s name. Tharkad City.
  “Three days ago, just days after the Inner Sphere received word 
  of the dissolution of the new Star League, WarShips identified as 
  belonging to the Word of Blake appeared in orbit and launched an 
  unprovoked attack against the city. Early witness reports point to 
  the use of nuclear weapons, delivered by what appears to have 
  been an orbital bombardment.”
  By now everyone in the club had gravitated to the tri-vid viewer to 
  watch the report. They were visibly shaken, jaws agape, unable to 
  speak. Their faces spoke silent disbelief at the scene before them.
  
  BattleCorps
  Dog Soldiers • Page 1
  “There are currently no firm casualty figures to report, but they 
  are expected to be…” the reported swallowed, choking on the 
  words, “…in the hundreds of thousands. Looking at the scene 
  below me, I can’t help but wonder if that’s not a conservative es-
  timate.” 
  The camera panned back, the shot widening on a scene pulled 
  straight from a hellish nightmare. Gone were the ivory spires and 
  gleaming towers gripped in perpetual winter that one usually as-
  sociated with one of the most beautiful cities in the Inner Sphere. 
  What remained was a smoking, shapeless ruin.
  Pool cues and beer glasses lay on the floor where they had fall-
  en. The group gathered around the tri-vid stood motionless, in a 
  state of total shock. None of them had imagined anything like this 
  in their lifetime. 
  Some in the small crowd began to sob; others ground their 
  teeth and cursed. One man, a young infantryman by the look of 
  him, directed his misplaced anger at the nearest physical object, 
  smashing his pool cue against the billiard table.
  The door to the club flew open, letting in a cold rush of night air. 
  Two burly military policemen filled the doorway.
  “All leaves are hereby canceled! All troops confined to base until 
  further notice! Officers and senior NCOs are to report Regimental 
  headquarters by twenty-one hundred hours!”
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Dog Soldiers Pt2 - Jeff Kautz.pdf