Journal Extract 75324-Rho

Remember what I said about the kids being walking security leaks? Well, if anything, I seem to have underestimated the risk they represented.

Jessie isn’t that stupid. Hopelessly naive, in over her head and being pushed way past her capability because of her parentage, yes, but not actually stupid. And let’s be honest here, she’s far from the first child of a mercenary commander to be promoted simply because of her parentage. In a family run unit like this, it’s inevitable; you just have to hope that the child is up to the task. In Jessie’s case, the answer is ‘no’, and I can’t see any way that she would ever run the unit on her own.

Ronnie is that stupid, but that’s another matter.

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).

Operation LONELY ISLAND

From Mercenary Campaigns of the 32^nd Century, Galatea Free Press

After their ambush and defeat of a pirate attack on the Batman docks, Magyari’s Irregulars chose to capitalise on their momentum and strike a blow against the Ashburton pirates. While the main goal was it simply eliminate one pirate band, the hope was that they would send a message to their opponents that they were not safe, they were not beyond the mercenaries reach and that there was nowhere that they could hide. By taking out one band in their supposedly secret hideout, the Irregulars were hoping to demoralise others.

Of course, the problem was going to be finding one of those secure hideouts. Interrogation of the captives from the Batman attack had revealed that the pirates had a base on Phillip Island, but the exact location was unclear. The pirates were known to be well-informed, to the point that it was known that they had people watching the Irregulars’ dropships. As such, they would likely be tipped off about any potential move against them, and could clear out before an attack was mounted.

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.

Audio Log File #75928-Rho

Bruce Wolf: What you got there, mate?

Randy Georges: I’m just editing the footage form our little expedition over the last few days into a more... Presentable format.

Wolf: Right. That’s when you and the others (EDITOR’S NOTE: Takahashi Oda, Lee Zhen, Haki Aardvarksen) went out to meet those tribals. How’d that go?

Georges: Well, they prefer to call themselves neo-primitives.

Wolf: And like I can’t talk about bludgers who like to give themselves fancy labels, right?

Georges: Well...

Wolf: So as said, how’d that go?

Georges: Irisz will probably give you all a full briefing in the morning, but it can’t hurt to show you. Basically, she wanted us to try and track down the prisoners your lance released and get their help. After all, if we’re going to annoy the Wolves, why not enlist the aid of people who don’t like them already?

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.

Audio Log File #75892-Rho

(Once again, I only got half the conversation. Right now, Sharkey's so on edge that he's not going to let anyone near his stuff, so I can't see that changing any time soon. I can only imagine what your boys are up to there. Whatever it is, though, they have him scared and angry - K)

(Understandable. I'm beginning to think that Sharkey has reached the end of his usable life anyway, however I will leave that to your discretion. In the meantime, thank you again for bringing this to me)

Sharkey: I've had another incident, and it was the same pair of fraggers as last time. I tell you, somebody is out to get me. No, I'm not being paranoid. I'll tell you what happened; they stole all the info from my computer and they used it to find my assets. And now they're moving in on me.

(Inaudible)

Sharkey: One of my men got a good look at them, and it was the same pair as last time. Yeah, the moustache guy and the Cappie criminal. No, I got no idea who they work for, as I've never heard of them before. I don’t think it's that bastard Kaine, though. If he wanted me out of the way, he'd have just marched his 'Mech up to my place and flattened it.

Audio Log File #75891-Rho

(A technical failure meant we only got half of this conversation. The lack of communications infrastructure on this miserable rock is to blame. I added a few annotations where needed - K)

(Thank you for this. It is relevant to our case no less. I’ve added a few notes of my own)

Sharkey: As near as I can tell, there were two of them. My men are still trying to figure out how they got into the mansion grounds, given that they didn’t actually cut through the fences or disable the cameras. When I find out what was the problem, I’m going to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.

(Inaudible)

Sharkey: You’re right there. Somebody’s going to get his hand fed to a dogodile over this, mark my words. (Dogodiles are a reptile native to Andiron that. They have a vicious bite, and can be tamed and used as guard animals - K)

New Hades investigation, days 1-3

(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.

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 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 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.

Maskirovika Recording Log 58389-29

Voice 1: So explain to me what exactly happened last night.

Voice 2: We had two new recruits to the fight, for starters.

Voice 1: Explain in detail.

Voice 2: The first was a prospect that Ivar (Analysis: Ivar Wolf, former Steel Wolf member. File attached) had bought in; Casual Metworst. The guy checked out, and had ‘Mehc experience even if he had no ‘Mech of his own. Metworst also came in with an associate, Bruce Wolf who was another former Steel Wolf he identified as being Bruce Wolf. Only Metworst was entering as a competitor.

Voice 1: What was Bruce there for?

Voice 2: Bruce was apparently Metworst’s contact with Ivar, and his ‘in’

Voice 1: I see. And the other prospect?

Voice 2: Another one of Ivar’s finds. Haaki Aardvarkssen, a merc who had been stranded on planet when the Cappies took over. He had stashed his Axman some time back, but was short on funds to look after it. So Ivar offered him a way to use his ‘Mech as an incentive.

Voice 1: Do you think either of them were behind what happened?

Voice 2: Given that they were both occupied, I doubt it.

Personnel Files - Player Characters

(EDITOR'S NOTE: The following are the Player Characters of the campaign. At the start of the game, three of them are new hires, bought in to replace the recently lost Assault Lance. The fourth is a long-time ally of the unit who's player will be unable to regularly attend. The actual number of player characters present at any one given time is highly variable)