From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Dirty tricks are a part of the mercenary trade. No unit can stay ‘clean’ forever, and sooner or later you’re going to have to do something a little dubious to get your way. And sometimes, it actually ends up that you’re doing the right thing, even if you’re going about it in the least ethical ways possible.

Case in point, what we did to Devon Wainwright. We’d had concerns about him ever since we landed on Ashburton, based on the information we’d been provided on his family’s involvement with the pirates. He had a clear motivation too; overthrow the government and restore the planetary monarchy with his family at the top, and go back to how things had been for the last few hundred years before the Jihad.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

The last twenty-four hours did a fantastic job of upending this entire campaign in a number of different ways. I shouldn’t be surprised that Assault Lance was in the middle of all of it either.

First of all, the Wolves. Okay, so we have done a good job of annoying them, granted, and I kind of understand why they would come after us. First we humiliated them on Keystone, stole a huge pile of parts and disrupted OmniMech production. Then we repeated the process on Kaldiassia, including destroying a prototype OmniMech. Finally, we started a rebellion on Shasta, destroyed half a cluster and sent the rest into a tailspin of crashing morale. I suspect that the Wolves that followed us here to Ashburton are the same ones that were burning towards Shasta as we left.

Journal Extract 75323-Rho

[Honestly? Between them the kids are walking security leaks. If not for their parentage, they would have both been discharged long ago or otherwise ‘retired’. Then again, they’re far form the first idiot offspring of mercenary officers. At least one of them might not be a problem too much longer]

When (deleted) the Major first found out about the Ashburton government hiring mercs, she was furious. Then when she found out who they were, she was strangely okay with it, which is rather strange what with our past and all that. She figured that we would lie low for a while and get a read on the Irregulars, their full capabilities and what they were doing, and then make her move.  She was even okay with them taking out one of the pirate bands, though it ain’t like they’re exactly a big loss to begin with.

So the Major had the idea of luring out one of their lances into an ambush. The plan was to use recon lance to act as bait to draw them in and then have my lance to take them out. Seemed simple enough, right? We even had a fallback escape route into the canyons should things go bad. ‘course, none of it went even remotely right to begin with. (Deleted) (deleted) frig it, trying to keep this professional sounding Scout lance managed to bait one of the units looking for us all right, but it was a freaking heavy lance. So they weren’t just running towards us for the trap but also running for their lives, and Scout Lead was screaming like he allways does when he gets in over his head (happens a lot too).

From the personal journal of Sargent David Correra

Working with the assault lance is never dull, and I’m not just saying that because of all the time I spend riding on Lee’s Vulture. Those guys have an amazing ability to come up with insane plans and get themselves into trouble. And because my squad is effectively attached to their lance, I’m usually along for the ride.

Take this latest one as an example. We were trying to look for a way to lure out the Ashburton pirates. They’d managed to find out the target of the next pirate attack, being a warehouse district on the Batman waterfront (Yeah, the pirates were going straight after the capital even knowing that there was a mercenary company present. Talk about ballsy!), so they had decided to plan a surprise party. They had their ‘Mechs shipped in (Along with my squad, of course) and hidden in the target warehouses in ambush.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

We’re away from Shasta and not a moment too soon for a number of different reasons.

Things with the Red Mountain tribe (Clan, whatever) were not going well, to say the least. Ever since we armed them they had been pushing us for more action, but not against the Wolves. Rather, they wanted us to focus on their rivals, hoping that we’d stomp all over their villages with our BattleMechs. I’d managed to hold off on that for some time, but it reached the point where I was running out of excuses. That the chief was looking to hitch me up with his son didn’t help any, I mean, yes, he looked great without a shirt, but the last thing I want is to be tied to a specific planet’s ugly politics. Besides, I’m spoken for.

We found an exit after a fashion courtesy of a disaffected Wolf adoptee. Velkon Dumeitscu was a Shasta native who joined up with the Wolves. Only things didn’t work out as he’d hoped and, after two battles with us, he’d found himself locked up. We liberated him and a couple of other members of his Star during a raid, and he was willing to cut us a deal. If we gave him a ‘Mech and a place in our forces, even if only temporarily, he’d give us the location of Star Colonel Kendra Tutuola.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

We’ve formed an alliance of sorts with the Red Rock people (They hate the use of the word ‘tribe” to describe them) aimed at expanding out campaign of harassment against the Wolves; I must admit that I’m in two minds about this; on one side, I appreciate all that they can give us. They serve as extra eyes on the ground, they know the planet and its terrain much better then we do, they can provide far more intel then we could gather on our own and they give us a useful weapon.

What I don’t like is some of what they’re asking for in reply. There’s nothing that’s immediately “wrong” about it, more of a general feeling of unease and wondering about the long-term consequences of our actions and what they are going to do.

From the personal journal of Bruce Wolf

Let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute. I was never anything more than a fake Wolf. Unlike the Trueborn Steel Wolves, I had no lineage, no claim to clan Bloodlines or Bloodnames or the like. And given when I came into the Steel Wolves, my claim to being a Wolf began and ended with Kal Bloody Radick. I look back on it now and the few Steel Wolves that wound up becoming Imperial Wolves, and I notice that almost all of them were Trueborns or had become warriors prior to the Blackout. It does make your feel a little bit cranky, specially given that Anna Bloody K is now an Empire Star Colonel.

I only mention this because Mu Galaxy’s warriors are real Wolves. They’re citizens of the Empire who have chosen to become warriors and, in doing such, do all the same bullcrap that I did; give up your name and identity and all that sort of buggery. But given that they’re actually a bunch of galahs who don’t know their arse from a stick, they’re pretty piss-poor warriors. And yet, I knew fake Wolves who were far better warriors then these real Wolves ever could be.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

I haven’t really put my thoughts in order for a while given all that’s been going on; thus there’s a lot that I will cover here. I do feel bad about being so negligent about this. After all I learned from the journals of my predecessors (Especially Sel and Annika) it almost feels like a duty to collect my thoughts so that I can pass them on to whoever succeeds me.

First of all, things went well with the Tamarind government. We handed over Kaine to their custody and received out payment. They were pretty happy with our work, especially given how thoroughly we destroyed the Reapers. Kaine is going to stand trial for his cronies so that they can show that justice is being done and the like, but we all know that the outcome has been pre-determined. I’m not that bothered by it, really. Kaine was a horrible person, a pirate, raider and murderer who inflicted misery wherever he went. Whatever they chose to do to him is well deserved.

From the personal journal of Gillian Blackrock

My decision to form an alliance with Lee Zhen has definitely born fruit. While I was wary of directly involving myself with the pursuit of Stein due to the risk of exposure, Zhen makes an excellent proxy for my own investigation. It’s aided by the fact that he has a very personal stake in all of this; he’s clearly none too comfortable with others knowing about his past (and with good reason) which gives him a good reason to track down Stein.

Stein had been in contact with one Joaquin Gertz, a mercenary Mechwarrior. Gertz is presently employed as a lieutenant in Kessler’s Killers, a rather low-end mercenary command of no real note. What made this interesting is that Gertz and Zhen had a history, the two having previously served together. Getz was Zhen’s lieutenant before they had a falling out over salvage (in this case, a near-new Vulture Mk IV) which lead to Zhen’s desertion and, eventually, his current employ.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

With Stanley and her crew safely back in our hands, it was time to move on the Sanguine Reapers. They had to know that we were coming by now; after all, we’d just broken into their headquarters, rescued their hostages, attacked their men and crippled one of their ‘Mechs. Either the Reapers would be digging in and preparing for the worst, or they would be trying to make a quick escape. The former would mean that we’d have the chance to fulfill our contract, even if it would also mean a bloody fight in the process. And the latter would mean it was a huge waste of time on our part.

A quick sub-orbital hop put our ships down as close as we dare get without risking coming under fire or being swarmed straight out the door. The area around the spaceport presented its own hazards beyond just enemy fire, however; the air was still tainted with the fallout from the spaceport’s destruction. Added to that, there was every chance that the Reapers could have sown the area with mines or have spotters and remote sensors watching our advance.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

When we took the contract with the FWLM to wipe out the Sanguine Reapers, I was hoping for a quick and easy job. In an ideal world, we'd be able to hit Andiron, eliminate the Reapers on the ground and then be off in a day or two. Clearly I was being incredible naive.

Getting out here was easy enough, and we made planetfall without opposition. Our forward base is inside an abandoned industrial complex, which provides both a solid landing field for our dropships as well as allowing us to fortify the remaining buildings to add an extra layer of protection. That much went well, but it would be about the only thing that actually wound up going to plan.

Once we were down, our recon forces worked with the intel provided to us by the Eagles as well as Nikola's own research to scope out several locations where we believed the Reapers were based. From that, we found two probable locations based on both their location and some activity that we were able to discretely observe.

From Randy's production notes

Things we know about the mysterious "Ronnie"

• Early-mid 20s
• We have seen him in Tharonja's twice
• First time he was arguing with a red-haired woman. She left and he had a sulk
• Second time was when he was trying to recruit Ivar (of all people). Ransom headhunted Ivar out from under him and he had a sulk
• Comes in to Tharonja's either with others (his lance/other members of his unit) or to try and recruit people

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Probably the single biggest problem the mercenary trade is suffering from at the moment is the lack of oversight and regulation. With the MRBC bankrupt, registration of commands has become little more than an empty formality, which means that a lot of unpleasantness has gotten through. There are plenty of commands now that are little more than pirates, or would have been banned years ago that now operate with impunity, simply because there's no real authority to stop them. As long as employers are willing to pay them, then they're free to do what they want.

Unfortunately, this problem goes both ways. As little oversight as there is of Mercenary commands, the employers are even better off. Questionable terms, withholding payment, out and lying to the Mercenaries they hire and so much more have become ever increasingly common occurrences as those employers know there's very little authority to hold them to account. An aggrieved mercenary command has little recourse for trying to deal with such breaches beyond word of mouth recounting of what happened. And even then, with the current state of the Inner Sphere's economy, there are plenty of commands willing to take a risk in order to simply survive.

Our last contract became a very good example of these sorts of problems in play. It's not that we didn't get paid or that the employer tried to twist things to their advantage or abandoned us in the field. It's that the Employer simply misrepresented themselves as to their actual identity and motivation, taking advantage of both the collapse of the MRBC and the inability to run thorough background checks that has come out of it.

Journal Extract #75771-Rho

The return of the Irregulars to Galatea has Kept me rather busy. In addition to my usual babysitting duties, I've been keeping an eye on them as needed, and there has been a few interesting things to report. The first is that it's clear that they suffered A few losses along the way; not only are there a few gaps that were hard to hide, but Magyari almost immediately began putting out feelers for new people. That could be useful to us immediately.

I'm still trying to get the details of where they were and what they did, but the other interesting thing is that they offloaded a pair of strays that they seemed to pick up along the way. One of them was outwardly pretty harmless and, I'm also going to say, probably not really worth our time. The second, however, turned out to be a lot more interesting and came very close to causing a massive and only narrowly averted disaster for us. But more on that to come.

From the personal journal of Gillian B. Blackrock

Eckhart Stein has been something more than a blip on my radar for some time now. It's only recently, however, that I've begun to realize just how big a blip he actually is.

He's done a good job of playing the part of a mercenary broker and business manager; the sort of pencil-pushing administrator that no sensible merc command can live without lest they quickly find themselves drowning in a sea of red tape and unpaid debts. I'm not entirely sure how long he'd been using the Royals as a front for his business but it's clear that he had integrated himself well into the unit and gotten to a point where he was calling the shots.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

First things first; I offered Takahashi the field second in command role and he accepted it. It's not that much of a good deal for him; added responsibilities with only a small bump in pay, but he seemed willing to take it on. I think he'll do a good job of it, given his experience and the talent he's shown so far. He's also very unlikely to run off and do something reckless and halfway to suicidal, which is why I picked him over Will Owens for the job. I think the only issue is that Dae-Hoon will not appreciate me promoting a relative newcomer over him, but there's a certain logic to it. After all, Takahashi's going to be there in the field, not dropping shells on the enemy form a couple of kilometers back.

Best case scenario is that he gets angry about it and quits. That would actually solve a lot of problems in one go, even if it does mean that I'd lose an experienced artillery commander in the process,

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

We're away from Fletcher; I’m writing this while we're accelerating, so my thoughts are probably not at their most rational. I'm tired, I'm worn from the battle and I've got g-forces adding to everything else that's on my mind.

That last fight was a mess, to put it bluntly. The First Liao were dug in hard and were willing to fight to the death to stop us from getting to our objective. They had hardened walls, TAG-guided Arrow missiles, gun turrets, Battle Armour and plenty of top of the line and Stealth armoured 'Mechs to make our lives miserable. We had a few tricks of our own; using Artillery to root our their units and demolish their fortifications, airdropping Battle Armour and the like, but it still hurt hard.

From the personal journal of Bruce Wolf

Bloody hell. Meeting someone again that you have not seen in ten bloody years is always going to be awkward, but seeing Ivar again after so long was definitely a right mess.

Me and Ivar knew each other from back in the early Steel Wolf days. The pair of us trained together and it’s fair to say that there was a bit of a rivalry between us. I mean, we were not at each other’s throats all the time, but we definitely did get along like a house on fire. And while we ended up in different Trinaries, I could tell that he was always looking to have a go at me. And when he got left behind I knew that he’d be mad as a cut snake.

So when I ran into him ten years later, I knew that there was going to be a bit of blue happening there. I mean he did not immediately spit the dummy at me, but I knew he was not going to be happy about going from Clan Warrior to Cut Lunch Commando and then all the way to Dole Bludger while I at least got a shot at getting all grouse on Terra, Skye and wherever else. I mean, even if it did not work out as planned, I got to have a go while all he did was pick his nose.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

I’ve mentioned before how much of an asset the journals of my predecessors have been. Getting their thoughts, their recollections and observations, their perspective on events and people and other matters at such an intimate level is very informative and had been of immense aid. Between them, Sel, Jelek and Annika left behind quite a lot for me to work from, even if each has their own way of recording those events and their own idiosyncrasies in their retellings. For all her self-absorbed flighty nature, Sel is surprisingly verbose her writing has an amazing depth to it.

Sadly, my own father was far less detailed and thorough in his own efforts. His journals have long periods between entries, and many of them are far from complete. A number of major events in the unit’s history receive only the briefest of notes, and often he just skips over things altogether. There’s times where they become almost frustrating, as I go to them looking for his thoughts on some matter, only to find a blank or a couple of hastily scrawled notes. While it’s tempting to also point out that his period as commander also included the golden age of the Republic and the greatest waning of the mercenary trade since the fall of the Star League, there’s also that wish that he’d written something.

With that brevity of course comes one great mystery. His journals yield no clues whatsoever as to why he took his leave from the unit in August 3135 or where he went to. All I know is that he was last seen heading into Prefecture X, and that I can assume that he is inside the walls of Fortress Republic.

From the Campaign Journal of Major Jospeh Petrie

While obstinately the objective of this mission is to disrupt the CCAF forces on Fletcher while denying them resources, there were several other objectives. The first and foremost was to gather material that could be used to aid our own forces. One of the others, however, was the retrieval of certain high-value assets that had been captured during the invasion of Fletcher. These assets possessed vital information regarding the CCAF and its plans, as well as other vital matters.

The information we’d gathered from Biao-McTavish had a lot of valuable leads on their location. Unfortunately, that location was the Baradin Island prison, the highest security facility on the planet. Located underground on an offshore island, it’s very remoteness made any extraction difficult. However, to make matters worse, the Fletcher Planetary Guard had assigned heavy vehicle assets to protect it, likely as a response to the raiding force on planet.