Quitting while you're ahead, or just plain quitting?

From Solaris City Sunrise, 27 October 3144

Chet Robwell: Now in Games news, the big story of the morning is the sudden resignation of Carrie Bull, not only from Team Red Truck but the games as a whole.

Joe Esposito: That’s right. Red Truck manager Pete Vogel announced her resignation at a press conference this morning. What’s interesting is not just that Bull didn’t give a reason for her resignation, but that she wasn’t even at the conference at all. Now while we can’t say for sure, rumour has it that she has already moved out of the TRT compound, so it looks like she’s really gone.

Robwell: If you ask me, it looked like Vogel himself was caught by surprise there. There are many words that I could use to describe his performance out there this morning, but ‘polished’ and ‘practiced’ are not among them.

Esposito: You and me both, Chet. In fact, I’d say he was about as surprised as everyone else was with this development.

Robwell: And he can’t be happy. He just saw Red Truck’s strongest prospect  since the, uh, change in management here on Solaris waltz off with nary a word to be said. Let’s be fair here, the last few years have not been kind to that team.

The decline and fall of the Steel Wolves

(From Conflicts of the Post-Blackout Era, Galatean Free Press)

Steel Wolf insignia

The Steel Wolves were one of the first of the so-called Splinter factions to emerge following the HPG blackout. Originating in the Bright Fang and Wolf Trap militia clusters under the command of Prefect Kal Radrick, the Wolves quickly grew to be the largest of the factions. At their peak, the Steel Wolves boasted between six and nine clusters of troops (the actual number is hard to find due to a number of reasons, not the least of which is the high turnover of ranking Steel Wolf officers), although only three of those possessed any actual BattleMechs.

Much of this early growth came from the large number of non-Wolves who flocked to the Steel Wolves banner. While many of them were from elsewhere in the Republic, some came from as far away as the Taurian Concordat. The Steel Wolves also soaked up a number of failed Wolf in Exile cadets, offering them a second chance at being Warriors that they would not have otherwise had.

Initially one of the most aggressive of the splinter factions, the Steel Wolves soon had carved out a small number of worlds for their own from Prefectures III and IV, centered on their capitol of Tigress. However, this initial aggression quickly stalled after their defeat on Achmar, with the Wolves switching largely to small raids of questionable value. The death of Kal Radrick at the hands of Anistasia Kerensky, followed by her taking command of the Steel Wolves, served to reinvigorate the faction.

LIC Interogation Log 6442-8-A/Kamenez

Leftenant Sofia Cruz, LIC: Let’s be straight here. We both know why you're here, so let’s not mess around by pretending to be nice to each other and get straight to the point.

Lieutenant Bruno Kazan, Liberty City Royals: Fine by me, sweet cheeks. These things get boring fast anyway.

Cruz: Kazan, we want to know why your unit turned on its employers. We want to know if you are in league with the rebels and, if so, how they made contact with you.

Kazan: Well let me see, babe. First up, I think it’s kind of obvious why we switched sides. We wanted to be onto a winning thing, and you Elises aren’t exactly it at the moment. You nearly lost Hesperus. You nearly lost Tharkad and you still have two clans in spitting distance of it.

Cruz: That's not exactly relevant

Kazan: Tell you what, why don't you move the capitol back to Arcturus? Oh wait, you lost that too.

From the personal journal of Bruce Wolf

I swear, the last few days it feels like me and everyone else have been given the bloody roundabout.

Not going to mince words here; the Royals were the biggest parts of stravag galahs I have ever met. I have met a lot of other mercenaries in my many jobs (Wolf, Bartender and everything else in between) and they were right dodgy even by normally right dodgy standards. I did not believe their story about a 'dropship malfunction' for one second. 'Dropship Malfunction' my arse! They were deliberately giving us the run-around so we would do all the hard work!

So when the bunch of bludgers took over our base, locking up our people and the Lyrans, I was not surprised. Such a dezgra action fits a bunch of bloody mongrels like them; I guess whatever the rebels offered them was worth more then their loyalty or any other cop like that. Of course, it also left us up a creek as we were cut off from our people, our ships and from our supplies, and with the rest of the rebels coming at us like a bunch of crazed numbats.

The Outreach Revival Movement (3133 - 3135)

Outreach from space, c3130

The So-called Outreach Revival was one of the unexpected side effects of the Blackout, and one who’s exact origins and purpose seemingly defies all reason. Scoured by the Word of Blake, Outreach had been left a desolate, irradiated and almost uninhabitable world by the end of the Jihad. The Republic's decision to keep the planet populated was less due to any strategic value of the world and more as a symbolic vicotry over the Word.

Abandoned by the MRBC, Outreach had become a largely forgotten backwater in the decades before the blackout. Its small, impoverished population, themselves the descendants of those who had survived the Jihad, clung to life in a handful of domed or subterranean cities. Living conditions on the planet were poor at best, with rampant poverty and crime adding to the grim conditions. The planet held nothing of any value, its wealth and place in the heart of the Mercenary trade but a distant memory.

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Grass fires spreading across a wide front in southern Saxony
Image taken from Kamenez Weltweit News

Straight off the bat, I’ll say that I have no idea what prompted the Royals to turn on the Lyrans and, by extension, us. I have no idea why they would seize the spaceport and take them and our support staff prisoner. Unfortunately, the timing of it was far too good for this to be a random, spontaneous act.

Takahashi’s assault lance had just fended off an ambush that, while unsuccessful, had also done a good job of damaging their ‘Mechs and slowing our forces. I had to dispatch Stanley and a number of our support units to meet them, both to effect repairs and collect salvage. The result was a thinning of our personnel back at the spaceport, something that the Royals seemed to be well-prepared for. And then everything happens at once.

First thing we lose contact with the spaceport; both our ships and the Lyrans, which is never a good start. Then, far too conveniently to be just a coincidence, we receive reports of a thick bushfire front moving south towards us, kicking up massive clouds of black smoke – the sort of thing that could easily be used to cover an advance. (And given that we were dealing with a unit called the Incinerators who specialise in setting things on fire, it was a given that they were doing just that). We have a hostile force ahead of us and no idea of what's behind, which puts us in a bad place.

From the personal journal of Doctor Hadrian Cartwright

All the training and experience in the world cannot prepare you for the completely unexpected. But they can serve to put you in a good position to take advantage of what comes with it.

When the Royals decided to turn on us and the Lyrans for whatever reason, I was unprepared, I admit. It wasn’t something I had considered would happen; after all, they were pretty horrible people, but such an extreme (and potentially career-limiting) move would be normally be. causa latet, vis est notissima and all that. However, it was not surprised when I was one of the few that they did not immediately detain. I had clearly already proven to be useful to them, and locking me up would be counter to that value.

Asking me to impersonate the ship captain was an… odd move on their part, true. But then, with Royale away, it is clear that the average intelligence of the Royals as a whole drops considerably (As their need for my skills would attest). I used the opportunity to warn Magyari of what had happened; despite any short-term gain, I had no desire to remain in the Royals employ, especially not once the other sandal dropped. ut incepit fidelis sic permanent. Besides, banditry is such an unbecoming profession.