Bromhead Massacre
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The Bromhead Massacre was a war crime commited on the Federated Suns planet of Bromhead by Taurian Concordat armed forces on 3067, against Hansen's Roughriders dependants, during the Word of Blake Jihad, apparently, manipulated by a third party.
Contents
The Attack[edit]
The Second Taurian Lancers, under the command of Colonel William "Stable Manager" Mouat, attacked Bromhead in August 3067[1] even before the new contract was signed, while the Roughriders' combat assets were in transit; they would not learn of the attack until later. However, the remaining Roughrider infantry on Bromhead inflicted several embarrassing defeats on the attackers, delaying them for two days and causing them losses, before the incensed Taurians eventually overran the Roughrider base. The Word of Blake advisor Fedlem Studdard, then pointed the ubication of what he claimed were the militia headquarters.[2]
The Massacre[edit]
When the Taurians entered the mercenary base, they saw people loading vehicles to escape, and somebody opened fire upon the taurians, Colonel Murant panicked, assumed it was an attack, and ordered his forces to open fire upon what he assumed were enemy combatants. Studdard opened fire the first with her Grand Titan, and the rest of taurians followed suit, shooting until nobody moved. As a result, the Roughriders' dependents, thousands of civilians, including Colonel Wolfgang Hansen's wife and three youngest children, were killed. The taurians didn't uncover the truth until after the massacre, when they found the dependants' corpses.[3]
The only defenders of the dependants, by then, were The Old Guard, an unofficial committee of retired MechWarriors, tankers and infantry, which took care of small problems of the unit and disciplinary issues. They fought and died to protect the dependants against the Second Taurian Lancers. They managed to save a small group of dependants, and to hid them away, but that was at the cost of their own families.[4]
The Reckoning[edit]
At the time of the Bromhead Massacre, the Roughriders were on Panpour again, apparently a stopover on their move towards their intended posting on Lindsay at the time, as they were already negotiating their upcoming contract with Duke Hasek. They learned of the massacre while they were still en route to Lindsay after the contract was signed, and ignoring their contract, they charged out against the recently taurian occupied planet Lindsay, where they engaged the Pleiades Lancers single-handedly, slaughtering the unit, and also the Taurian Defense Force Garrison. There were barely two companies of Lancers' survivors, most of those too broken to return to active service. (The exact time and place of this engagement is unknown.)[5]
The Bromhead Massacre turned Hansen's Roughriders into a quiet, brooding and bitter entity bent primarily on revenge. Hansen vowed to turn every battlefield into a Taurian mass grave and take no prisoners, and the entire unit followed him. Only the fact that they possessed no JumpShips of their own kept the Roughriders from going on a rampage in the Concordat immediately.[6][7]
The Taurian government was informed of the Massacre by the Second Lancers' commander, colonel William Murant, but they covered it, claiming the massacre was only a hoax. Murant even hid the facts to his own family, though he also began drinking too much. And even when he admitted the death of mercenary dependants, he claimed they were a few, not thousands. Also, apparently moved for the guilt, an unusual number of Lancers commited suicide the next three years, but the taurians covered them, making them pass as accidents. Colonel Murant tended his resignaion, but it was refused.[8]
In an unknown date, the pirates Dedrickson's Devils attempted to raid Midale, pretending to be a taurian unit. The Roughriders charged them with berserker fury, slaughtering the Devils. Only after the AFFS liaison's captured some pirates alive and uncovered the truth, the Roughriders allowed the survivors, barely a third of the raiding force, to escape. It was suggested than the Devils had been hired by an unknown third party, to test the Roughriders' resolve.[5]
In February 3070, the Roughriders were still broken and bent on revenge. Then, the bulk of the Second Taurian Lancers, apparently manipulated by an unknown people, raided Midale. The Roughriders were expecting them, and first targeted their DropShips, disabling or destroying them, and finally fell upon the Taurians. The mercenaries made a real slaughter, killing any taurian they found, ignoring the pleas of their AFFS liaisons, which only managed to save a few of Lancers, hiding them from the Roughriders. All others were killed.[9]
Pleiades Campaign[edit]
Despite their reckoning against the Second Lancers, the Roughriders remained obsessed with revenge, but they didn't came across any taurians until 3071, when the AFFS' Capellan March command finally allowed the mercenaries to launch their own offensive against the Concordat military, beginning at Electra, at the Pleiades Cluster, where they annihilated the taurian guerrillas, even using captured Alamo warheads against them. Any surviving insurgents were claimed by on planet DMI operatives, fearing they would be executed by the Roughriders.[6]
During the Pleiades campaign, the surviving members of the Old Guard, also bent on revenge, cobbled together a short company of tanks salvaged from the Second Lancers' attack, joining the Roughriders' campaign on the Pleiades. They proved to be so good at all than colonel Hansen incorporated the Old Guard into the Roughriders as an all-volunteer armor company, turning them into a permanent unit.[4]
References[edit]
Bibliography[edit]
- Blood Rage (short story)
- Mercenaries Supplemental Update
- Shrapnel Issue 12