(Given how busy you are right now,
here's my quick breakdown of our findings over the last few days. – NK)
Sanguine Reapers
The Reapers
seem to rather jealously guard their location, which might be a part of how they’ve
managed to live so long and avoid both Pirate hunters and being raided by the
other gangs. The Reapers have very little (Official) contact with New Hades
City and its people. Rather, they deal directly with Sharkey, the 'boss' of the
city. He provides them with food, water and other essential supplies, and in return
he gets a cut of their take (And, reportedly, he even puts in special requests
for loot).
Despite how
it might sound, this relationship seems to have been a mutual agreement between
Matthias Kaine and Sharkey. Apparently Kaine walked his 'Mech up to Sharkey's
house with the dead body of the Reaper's former leader chained (or nailed) to
the front of his 'Mech. That put Sharkey in a mood to talk. It means the Reapers
don’t have to worry about getting fed, and can focus on the piracy.
There's no
question that they're the top power on the planet. They have a company of
BattleMechs, another company of vehicles and a fair smattering of conventional
infantry that are augmented by some Battle Armour. They have their own drop
ships and a jumpship that they either control or have regular access to.
They've been able to carefully sheared this strength by not engaging in random
warfare with the other bands on the planet, and rather consolidating their
position and limiting their outside access. When they do engage with other
gangs, it's in order to 'encourage' them to join. Though looking at the state
the Chasseurs were in, starving them out also seems to be a valid tactic.
Sharkey
Sharkey is
unquestionably the top dog in New Hades. He's equal parts mayor, crime boss and
warlord. He has his hands in much of what goes on in the city, and doesn't even
pretend to hide it. Rather, he flaunts it; we passed St Sharkey's Memorial
Hospital, the Sharkey Markets and Sharkey's Salvage alone. He has a solid grip
over one section of the city, a walled off 'rich' district, in so far as the
term can apply to a place like this. In there, life is generally better than
the rest of the city, which is to say that it's still poor by Inner Sphere
standards. Oh, and this section centers on his own mansion, of course.
Besides the
usual array of underbosses, lieutenants, enforcers, legbreakers and the like,
Sharkey also has his own obvious personal security force. We saw armed guards
in something that passed for uniforms around the 'good' part of town, and we
know that he has at least one BattleMech under his control, a Firestarter. When you remember that much of the population
lives in ramshackle slums, it's easy to see why he's stayed in charge.
As explained above,
his relationship with the Reapers seems to be entirely beneficial. The upside
of this is that he also has to know where they're hiding if he's sending them regular
supplies. Oda has suggested that we infiltrate his personal compound in order
to retrieve that information by whatever means we see fit. He's also suggested
that it would be no great loss if Sharkey was to end up accidentally being
chopped in half with a Vibrokatana along the way.
Luthor Graves
Graves is a
bounty hunter who apparently is also here seeking Kaine's head. His plan seems
to have fallen apart when he realised that his target would be near impossible
to get to. None the less, he was still trying to make something of it, if only
to cover the clearly considerable expense at getting out here in the first place.
We came into contact with him when we found out that he was keeping an eye on
us, using a (clearly intimidated and in over her head) local working girl as a
go-between.
He had an apparently
lead on the Reapers and was willing to team up with us in order to deal with
them. Instead his 'lead' was another band the Lords of Pain (see below) who
were entirely unconnected. None the less, Graves apologised and said that he
was glad to work with us in future to aid in taking down the Reapers.
On one hand,
Graves could be a useful asset. He's a MechWarrior and clearly is both a good
shot an an excellent sniper in his stealth Cataphract. On the other hand, he's a bounty hunter
and thus is clearly in it for the money. And we've had enough bad experiences
with bounty hunters to make me wary of what he might do. Plus he was using a
clearly terrified local girl as his gopher, which is more than a little sleazy.
The Lords of Pain
Your basic
fringer group who lived off riding others. There’s not much to say; they
surrendered after we crippled two of their 'Mechs and badly damaged a third.
They really don't have anything to do with the Reapers at all, and had been largely
living under their notice. We chose to let them be rather then prolonging an
otherwise pointless battle. Of course, I have to wonder how it was that Graves
got them confused with the actual Reapers.
They're
horrible people, yes, and I can’t see how they're doing anyone any good. But at
the same time there was nothing we could have gotten out of them. And when we
left them, they seemed to be having something of a breakdown.
Stefania Demou
Our other
piece of collateral damage from our operation thus far, Stefania is a working
girl from New Hades who was intimidated into being Graves' gopher. So Lee
punched out the guy who was 'handling' her and basically offered her refuge
here on board the ship as well as a ride off-planet. Katrya has taken her under
her wing and is looking after her, but so far the poor girl is somewhere
between terrified and gushingly grateful. Dr Cartwright will also do a full medical
on her, but it’s pretty clear that we’re doing her a huge favour just by
getting her away from there.
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