Anette Leyland and Her Fifty Nukes

Leftenant General Anette Leyland. In the BattleTech canon, her name will always be associated with weapons of mass destruction. But who was she, and where was she between her disappearance with an entire FedCom RCT (or what was left of it), and the Jihad? To talk about Anette Leyland, we first have to cover the history of the Fifth FedCom RCT.

The Fifth was created in 3037 (War of 3039, p. 36) as one of the six FedCom RCT's. The unit's long history of unfortunate events started that year, when a DropShip en route to a training exercise crashed, killing fully a third of the Fifth's MechWarriors. Six week after, still understrength, the unit would be hit by FWL forces on Tsitang. Here began the cycle that would curse the RCT; its men believed the unit was cursed, and because of the belief, poor performance would follow the unit, re-affirming the belief (Field Manual:Federated Suns, p. 93.)

During the War of 3039, the Fifth was assigned to take Halstead Station, a mining world intended for use as a waystation for troops heading deeper into the Draconis Combine. The assignment was seen as something of an underhand pitch to a unit with battered morale, an easy win as it were. Indeed, with the support of elements of the Fighting Urukhai, the Fifth landed on 1 May 3039 and declared the planet secure on 5 May. After that, the Fifth, then under the command of Gneral Nial Slattery, dug in.

The green troops of the Fifth were still on guard duty in early August when the DCMS came back for its planet. The First and Seventh Sword of Light dropped on-world and inflicting massive casualties on the Fifth FedCom. Over a battalion of the the unit would desert during this engagement (going on to become the Black Outlaws,) while a relatively small component of the Fifth would manage to retreat off-world. (Wo3039, p. 83)

The unit would come under the command of James White in 3047, but White would prove to be a questionable commander. White would become addicted to a prescription narcotic, causing the High Command to encourage his XO to take over more and more of the day-to-day operations of the RCT. White, under the influence of the drug, would interpret this to be his executive officer attempting to usurp his position. That XO was Leftentant Anette Leyland.

In the FedCom Civil War, the Fifth would declare for Katherine, and set out from Chesterton to convert or disarm the First Bell Training Battalion on Axton. During the descent, White was killed in a DropShip accident, leaving the Fifth under the command of a junior officer. The rest of the RCT was called in, landing on 23 September 3063, which is when Leyland took full command. They pursued the First Bell inconclusively until the Fifth Syrtis Fusiliers landed, and put the Fifth back on the defensive. Leyland retreated into the rainforests of Axton, and through the monsoon season searched for and in late February of 3064 found a path through a mountain range to relatively safety from the Fusiliers' fury (FedCom Civil War, p. 75.)

Leyland held out hope of reinforcements, but by June of 3064, it was clear that nobody was coming. The Fusiliers had followed her over the mountains and were continuing to hurt her command. In mid-3064 however, she got the mysterious break she needed; a transmission bearing the High Command seal that gave her the location of an AFFC weapons cache. When the Fifth FedCom broke it open, they found a large amount of conventional munitions, and fifty nuclear devices.

On 17 June, the tactical situation finally compelled Leyland to employ the nuclear weapons. With two commands cut off, numbering thousands of her troops, she dropped two of the weapons on the First Bell and Fifth Syrtis. The First Bell was rendered combat ineffective, and the Fifth lost a large section of its force and fell into retreat, partially from the sheer shock of having been nuked.

The Fusilier's shock only lasted briefly, however, and the larger force came after Leyland with a vengeance. Leyland responded with more atomic weapons, dropping twelve more before she was able to raid the on-world aerospace factory and escape off-planet on 29 July, still with 38 nuclear weapons in tow (FedCom Civil War, p 94.) Jumping through uninhabited systems, the Fifth made it to Marlette on 24 November (FedCom Civil War, p. 125.)

The Fifth arrived to the Fifth Crucis Lancers trying to take the world from the loyalist Marlette Crucis March Militia. Despite some argument on the topic, the CMM accepted the Fifth F-C as an augmentation to its own defense. Shortly after, however, the Twentieth Avalon Hussars arrived and, while given token assistance to the Lancers, set to the task of destroying the Fifth F-C. Leyland waited 53 days before using atomics again, then detonated one as a warning, and when the Hussars continued to press, dispatched six more against the Twentieth. Only one weapon was delivered, and it failed to detonate. The remaining five were lost when their carrier aircraft were downed. On 11 March 3065, her airbase overrun, Leyland retreated off-world with four understrength Mech companies and 2 mixed battalions, and disappeared into the void (FCCW, p.125.)

The sidebar to the Marlette battle in FedCom Civil War is a DMI report on the disposition of Leyland's nuclear weapons. Fourteen were detonated on Axton, seven on Marlette with varying levels of success, and twenty-three more were recovered before being armed, totaling forty-four of the fifty weapons. It is largely supposed that Leyland took the last six with her wherever she went (FCCW, p. 125.)

After the Bombs

The Fifth FedCom isn't mentioned at all in Field Manual: Updates, except for a mention in the 20th Avalon Hussars' paragraph. We don't hear anything about them again until Jihad Hotspots: 3072, when somebody nukes the WoBS Red Angel and Pocket WarShip named Holy Dagger on 10 December 3072 (Jihad Hotspots: 3072, p. 102.) The attacking unit is allegedly the Fifth FedCom. Their arrival on New Avalon is apparently confirmed by John Davion in his dispatch to Yvonne Steiner-Davion of 14 Aug 3074, in which he indicates he is holding in reserve weapons delivered by the Fifth (Blake Documents, p. 35.)

Apparently much is forgiven after the Fifth breaks the Word of Blake blockade in 3072, as the Fifth FedCom would go on to help drive the Word off-planet and would be redeployed in a defensive posture in 3074. (Jihad Turning Points: New Avalon, p. 6) Leyland is still listed as their CO, so apparently she is not immediately executed upon making planetfall. Tanalizingly, John Davion's dispatch of 14 August includes the line "A summary of the events surrounding the arrival of the Fifth and the subsequent arrest and court martial of Field Marshal Kossacks are attached," although no such attachment is represented in any sourcebook thus far released.

So why would Field Marshal William Kossacks be court martialed? The immediate thought is that he must be the person in AFFS who gave Leyland the location of the fateful weapons cache in 3064. There are a number of problems with this theory, though: Field Marshal Kossacks, at the time was Fleet Admiral Kossacks, commander of the Second Davion Guards. When Leyland received her transmission, he was on Novaya Zemlya, a theatre away. He also was fighting for the wrong side; he was pro-Victor, while the Fifth was pro-Katherine.

The only truly questionable bit of trivia we know about "Wet Willie" Kossacks is that he surprised the faculty of Albion War College by graduating with honors; although its entirely possible for him to simply have done exceedingly well in one area while failing entirely in others, it generally is very difficult to graduate with honors from any institution if several of your instructors didn't give you the required marks (Field Manual: Federated Suns, p. 80.)

But how would Kossacks know about the cache in the first place? His only encounter with DMI would've been when he was vetted before entering Albion, and the subject of a hidden atomic weapons cache is unlikely to come up in an academy entrance interview (FM:FS, p. 37.)

Conclusion

Sadly, there still seems to be a mystery here: Who told Leyland were the nukes were? Was it Kossacks, sending a transmission from Novaya over the seal of the AFFC somehow? Was it Katherine, or somebody close to her, trying to sacrifice the Fifth FedCom, a miserable excuse for an RCT, in order to destroy one or more Allied units in nuclear fire? Could it have been the Word of Blake, having discovered the location of the depot, trying to escalate the FedCom Civil War into a full-blown nuclear war? Unfortunately, the information doesn't seen to be out there, yet. Perhaps one day we'll find out, but keep your eyes open for references to Anette Leyland and the Fifth FedCom in future publications.