Strategos: Mallory’s Word Pt 12

[DeJaVu]

If you’ve read Mitchell’s history you know how this tale plays out. In fact, if you’ve drawn breath in the Inner Sphere in the last fifty years, you know how this story plays out. The Kell Hounds, emplaced behind fortifications strong enough to hold off nearly any regiment save the Steel Dragon, prepared for their glorious last battle. The Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery were no common foes to them, even then.

Yorinaga Kurita halted his battalion and dressed his lines, determined to lead the assault with honor. It was a shock to him when a seventy-ton Archer stepped out from behind the fortifications and challenged him to an honor duel with full courtesy. The samurai Yorinaga Kurita could hardly refuse, and the battle between the two men would enter the annals of history, surpassing every other battle of Mallory’s World. When, over the rest of the thirty-first century, men spoke of Mallory’s World, they spoke of Morgan Kell and Yorinaga Kurita.
When Kurita signaled his defeat he led all of the Combine regiments off of Mallory’s World. The Davion defenders did little to harry them, content to let the regiments retreat. Mallory’s World had suffered enough—the near-constant tempo of combat added to the logistical needs of four regiments of BattleMechs had done grievous damage to the planet’s economy.
It would be years before it recovered.
Strategos is a syndicated weekly holovid column distributed by INN. Host Mordecai Aristobulus is a Galatea-based historian and writer who works widely with various Inner Sphere presses, including Merc and the Donegal Broadcasting Company.