January 3^rd, 3068

The last three weeks were hell. I find it hard to explain what has happened, and WHY it happened.

I have seen combat before, but nothing prepared me for this. Far too much I only knew as sterile fact, and only supposed in the abstract is now far too familiar for me.

I've seen many friends die, Father. I have suffered. And I have harmed. I have killed.

Those are the necessary aspects of war that we are both familiar with. I know you hate them as I do, but we accept them. I do what I must because it is my role. It is my purpose. It is how I help to make a difference.

But it should be one for the better.

The approach was all fucked up. I still don't know the exact details, but the Davions rammed the Herald of Justice shortly after we engaged them near the LeGrange point. Everyone said Kernoff had died. Then when we entered orbit, some SDS lit up our DropShips, and Precentor Nikolavich ordered bombardments on the launch sites and tracking sites. The HPG station was fragged then as well. From what I hear, it turns out that there was no SDS at all, and the collateral damage from the orbit to surface counter fire was substantial. It changed everything even more. How do you explain those casualties? Oops? Suddenly we were war criminals lording over a hostile system. So much for us pulling a McKenna.

Six days later, the decision came down that isolation wasn't enough for damage control. Maybe someone remembered the Black Boxes? Regardless, we were ordered to neutralize the military presence so that we could get our version of went happened out.

The target was the NAIS campus, after hours. The expectation was that the Davions would track our drop and move some defenses in to position near it to prevent its capture. Finally a plan worked. The Cavaliers and the NAIS Cadre had taken up solid defensive positions, making a direct assault near suicide. They were not prepared for the orbital bombardment that decimated their ranks. It was the first time I was witness to it. We mopped up any survivors we could find, and the WarShips finished off what was left of the campus. A good 65 years too late, in my eyes. Yes, all those League era medical and agricultural re-discoveries helped many. But you can't have the good without the bad. We also have the NAIS to thank for much more than just cures and harvests.

Then we lifted off again, rather than face the reinforcements.

The next few weeks were just a mess of hot-drops on target, dodging our own bombardments, and the Davions, all in Level III bite-size packages. It's my own fault, I shouldn't have insisted on using our mobility and bombardment ability to create chaos and confusion, always keeping them off-center. I knew it was the right way to persecute this war, but I've never been more tired in my life. Nevermind that the Davions spread out nicely much reducing the efficiency of the bombardments. It took em a while to put some firepower on us, but they got there. And they got real good at sniffing out spotters. We left because of attrition, but we should've left a week earlier. We got sloppy, and people died because of it. Almost all of us MechWarriors have had to call in bombardments, and the last couple of days, it almost always was right in the thick of us as the Davions swarmed over us. I don't ever want to call such fire down on my own men again.

I'm tired. We're almost at the site where we'll be building a temporary base while we wait for reinforcements. Kind of ironic that we're making a base to siege New Avalon with out of the materials we brought to help them rebuild from the Civil War.

But I'm not laughing. That was my homeworld, goddamnit! I killed people from MY world! Why did this happen? HOW?