From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Oybin, southern Saxony; Kamenz

"It's inevitable that your employer will go behind your back and pull something without letting your know in advance what they're doing. The only real question is when it will happen and how bad it will be".

I don't remember if that was from Sel's journals, or one of Sonya Brie's terrible pulp novels. Either way, it's a depressing truth of the mercenary trade, as we've learned today. The only good side to this is that it's an employer stunt that hasn't immediately hurt us.

I'll get to that in a minute, however. The good news is that the Royals are no longer a threat to us. I'm not going to lie here; I didn't like Royale from the moment I met him, and when they turned on us there was a part of me that had suspected this would happen all along. I'm also going to admit that the opportunity to deliver a little payback for what he did to us felt good, to say the least.

Following the Incinerators' less then brilliant attempt to reinforce Royale's position, we had tracked his command lance to Oybin, a nice little island resort town on the south coast of Saxony. I led command and Assault Lances in the attack (Recon and the Air Cav acting as pickets to warn us of any potential intrusions from the north) as well as two squads of Maria's Battle Armour troopers (Her “Mexicans” as she insists on calling them).

Royale had reinforced his lance with the survivors of the failed Incinerator Breakthrough as well as what was likely the last of his Battle Armour forces, and tried to dig in to the town. On paper, they had a better position, allowing them to snipe at us as we single-filed our way down the single bridge that approached the town. However, we also had our own advantages in the form of far superior long-range fire. I ordered the bulk of our force to hang back, allowing us to take potshots at them from outside the range of most of their weapons.

We forced the Royals to come to us, with Royale himself leading from his monstrous Mad Cat Mk II. However, somebody (Either Nikola or Zhen) landed a fluke hit early in the battle, effectively crippling him and eliminating his mobility (EDITOR'S NOTE: Single cluster hit TAC to the gyro), reducing his improved jump jets to twenty-four tons of useless junk. Randy, as always, helped to break up their advance as well as threatening Royale himself along the way.

With Royale effectively sidelined, their force ran into a solid wall of superior firepower that they couldn't respond to. We quickly crippled a Hammerhands, as well as putting down a Calliope and Blackjack (sadly, neither of which were salvageable). Then Royale himself went down, which pretty much killed their assault. The rest of their force fell back, losing a Hunchback for the deal before the survivors managed to retreat.

And for all that, we took only a single casualty, and even then it wasn't to enemy fire. Larry slipped on a corner while crossing a bridge, his Shockwave falling off it and into the water. Unfortunately, he landed on his cockpit, breaching it and drowning before he could escape. I really don't know what to say to that.

There was one other disquieting moment, however. After his Mk II went down, I sent Maria to try and grab Royale himself. When she found him, he was dead, but not of injuries sustained in the battle. Rather, he'd been shot after he bailed out from his disabled 'Mech. I'm still waiting on Doctor Cartwright's autopsy report, but his death concerns me. A part of me thinks it’s somebody trying to tie up a loose end, but who and what is the big issue.

Well, that and I’d have liked to see him squirm in captivity a little after what he did to us. Either tht or have taken him out myself  (Mad Cat to Mad Cat and all)

That brings me back to my comments about our employers. It seems that while we were off fighting the Royals, the Lyrans were using it as cover for an operation of their own. They'd managed to pull a number of Lyran loyalists from captivity in the capitol and spirit them away while everyone was focused on the goings on here on Saxony. This has allowed them to build their own militia force, one they're equipping with the 'Mechs and Vehicles we've salvaged so far on the campaign. On one hand, I'm glad for the additional support and the fact that we're no longer going it alone. On the other, itd have been nice if they had told us about this first.

Plus we lose on the salvage front, although Kommandant Gilles has offered the Royals' supplies as compensation. Personally, I'm hoping to do some sort of deal over their two dropships, but negotiating with Lyrans over financial matters is never easy. It's the only thing they're good at, after all.

Still, progress. We've dealt with the unexpected problem (the surviving Royals are o longer a threat. They're mercs, they're not going to fight a lost battle) and we've gained additional support. Hopefully we can bring this dropship wreck of a campaign to a close soon.