ComStar Historical Archives

In early April 3060, the forces of Operation Bulldog and Task Force Serpent united to defeat Clan Smoke Jaguar on their own homeworld, Huntress. Acting on information supplied by a Clan traitor, the reborn Star League had sent a massive expedition into Clan space with the explicit goal of destroying the Jaguars. Though they suffered horrific casualties and nearly faced defeat, the Inner Sphere forces ultimately won the day and Clan Smoke Jaguar was no more.

Prince Victor Steiner-Davion, leading reinforcements from the Inner Sphere, knew that the Star League's ambition to shock the Clans into ending their invasion would not be complete without delivering that message directly to the Clan leaders in a form they would understand. To this end, he led a smaller SLDF force directly to the Clan capital world of Strana Mechty.

Arriving on 12 April, Prince Victor met with the Clan Khans six days later and challenged them to a Trial of Refusal against the invasion begun in 3049. Though the Khans were at first offended that an Inner Sphere barbarian would dare sully their traditions, they eventually acquiesced to the challenge. Clan Wolf, alone of all the Clans, abstained from this vote, a move which would have interesting consequences later. The Trial was set for 23 April and would take place at several locations on Strana Mechty.

During the Grand Council debate about accepting Prince Victor's challenge, Ghost Bear Khan Bjorn Jorgensson, announcing that his Clan had realized that the invasion of the Inner Sphere was misguided and a mistake, declared that the Bears were now considering themselves a Warden Clan, disrupting the balance of power in the Council. Furthermore, he announced that since the Wardens were opposed to the invasion to begin with, it was only fair that they not participate in the Trial, leaving the defense of the invasion to those who had pushed for it, the Crusader faction. Following Jorgensson's lead, the Khans of the other Warden Clans likewise withdrew from the Trial. A second bombshell was dropped on the Council with the announcement by the Khans of Clan Nova Cat that they would fight in the Trial, but on the side of the Star League. Their forces in the Inner Sphere had already switched their allegiance to the new League, working within the Clan system by offering preemptive batchalls that were heavily weighted in favor of their attackers. On world after world, Nova Cat troops offered token resistance, were taken as bondsmen and released back into service as warriors of the Star League. This announcement was even more devastating than the Ghost Bear defection to the Warden camp and Khan Asa Taney of Clan Ice Hellion vowed to destroy the Nova Cats.

When it came time to select the forces with which they would defend, it was revealed by ilKhan Lincoln Osis, also the senior Smoke Jaguar present, that the only Jaguar forces remaining in the wake of the Inner Sphere's assault were his bodyguard Binary and a single Point of Elementals. The other Crusader Khans agreed that they would field equivalent forces, meaning that the Star League would face each Clan with a company.

As there were eight Crusader Clans defending in the Trial, there would be eight separate battles. The winner of the most battles would claim victory in the entire Trial.

Clan Blood Spirit faced off against the 1st Genyosha in the Coldrill Valley area of the Neegdye District. This was an area of broken terrain, full of ravines and twisted forests. The Blood Spirit Keshik, led by their Khan Karianna Schmitt, faced off against the Draconis Combine troops under the command of Hohiro Kurita. The battle ended in an Inner Sphere victory when Khan Schmitt's Blood Kite went down and was trapped in the mud.

The Sciace District provided the scene for the defeat of Clan Fire Mandrill. Riven with internal strife, the Kindraa Command Trinary was unable to operate as an effective fighting force against the Capellan Confederation's Red Lancers. The Lancers' Colonel Andre Elias led his forces to victory by using the Mandrills' divisions against them, concentrating his firepower on first one Star then the other. Elias graciously allowed the surviving Mandrills to surrender and claimed their 'Mechs as spoils.

Giving Khan Asa Taney of the Ice Hellions the chance for vengeance that he had hoped for, the elderly Khans of Clan Nova Cat led their Keshik against the Hellions' 7th Attack Cluster. Fought on the Duergar Plains near the Lyod glacier, this battle included aerospace forces and ranged over a wide area. Khans Severen Leroux and Lucian Carns bore the brunt of the fighting themselves, with Khan Leroux personally downing Khan Taney's fighter. In the end, both Nova Cat Khans lay dead but their forces had lost only one other 'Mech and the Ice Hellions, badly damaged and discouraged by their Khan's defeat, withdrew from the battleground.

Clan Jade Falcon achieved a victory against their opponents, the 394th Division of the ComGuards. With Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht, the victor of Tukayyid, observing from the ComGuard command post at the foot of Zhaloba Mountain, the Falcons controlled the battlefield from the very beginning. Though Precentor Harris Harvison and his troops fought well, they were overpowered by the Falcons and accepted hegira from Khan Marthe Pryde.

The outcome of the battle between Clan Hell's Horses and the 3rd Drakøns of the Free Rasalhague Republic was a surprise to all. Although it appeared at first that the Drakøns were being routed by the combined arms forces of the Hell's Horses, Overstë Joan Dahlstrom rallied her troops and they took their target ridge among the Breyan hills. Once they had gained this goal, they poured incredibly accurate fire down upon the Hell's Horses attackers and held on to the ridge until the Clan forces withdrew from battle.

The second Clan victory came in the contest between the Star Adders and the 1st Free Worlds Guards. Fighting in the difficult terrain of the Perium Swamp, the Inner Sphere company was drawn into a trap by Star Adder Elementals and light 'Mechs. Only a single lance managed to escape the swamp and Colonel Dana Briggs was forced to concede victory to her Clan foes.

Perhaps the most interesting battle was that between the 1st St. Ives Lancers, under the command of the famous Kai Allard-Liao, and the Golden Keshik of Clan Wolf, led by Khan Vlad Ward. Allard-Liao had achieved a reputation in both the Inner Sphere, where he reigned for several years as the Champion of Solaris VII, and among the Clans, when he had allied with the Jade Falcons on Alyina against ComStar treachery. Painting his 'Mech in colors designed to attract the Khan's attention, Allard-Liao faced Vlad Ward in single combat and bested him, to the point of separating Ward's cockpit from the body of his 'Mech. The Khan was forced to watch the rest of the battle on foot from the sidelines. However, the Wolves and the Lancers were fairly evenly matched, with the greater mobility of the Clan troops offset by the skill of the Lancer marksmen. The battle in the Kawlm District was declared a draw.

The climactic battle took place in the Bloody Basin region of the Lechenka District, an area of high heat and high levels of magnetic content in the red rocks that gave the basin its name. With their infrared and magnetic resonance sensors rendered effectively useless, the forces of the Federated Commonwealth, made up of two lances from the 10th Lyran Guards and one from the 1st Kathil Uhlans, faced the sole remaining Smoke Jaguar troops. This battle was especially vicious and the Jaguars were utterly destroyed. Despite the savage fighting, the Inner Sphere troops suffered only one casualty, though an important one: Danai Centrella, daughter of the Magestrix of Canopus, went down when her 'Mech was struck in the head by a PPC beam. With the Jaguar forces destroyed, Victor Steiner-Davion called for ilKhan Lincoln Osis to surrender. At the end, knowing that his Clan was forever gone, Osis attempted one last time to kill Victor in a hand-to-hand assault, but the Prince decapitated him with a single swipe of his katana.

The final tally of the Great Refusal battles showed that the Star League Defense Force had won by a five to two margin, with one contest resulting in a draw. Two days after the battle, Prince Victor again appeared before the Clan Grand Council and declared that the invasion of the Inner Sphere was over. Although he recognized that there would still be animosity between the two peoples, he offered his sincere hope that the Clans and the Inner Sphere would one day learn to live in peace and mutually beneficial cooperation. His message was ignored by the majority of the Clans, though they reluctantly accepted their defeat in the Trial. Only Khan Vlad Ward of Clan Wolf dissented, claiming that his abstention in the Trial vote and the declaration of a draw in the Wolves' battle meant that the results did not apply to his Clan. Though he promised to adhere to the Treaty of Tukayyid, he made no guarantees that the Wolves would not resume their invasion at some future date. With a final declaration that the Star League would establish an embassy on the former Smoke Jaguar homeworld of Huntress, Victor and his victorious soldiers left Strana Mechty and began the long journey home, justifiably proud of the fact that they had ended the invasion of their worlds begun eleven years earlier.

• Sources Used:
• Inner Sphere;
• Prince of Havoc;
• Shattered Sphere;
• The Clans: Warriors of Kerensky;
• Twilight of the Clans