Audio Log File #75819-Rho

Voice 1 [Female; 50s; accent suggests Capellan March or Taurian]: So following up from your last report, there's something that caught my eye, and I'd like to know more about it.

Voice 2 [Male; 40s; no discernable accent, native English speaker]: Go on.

Voice 1: You said that Magyari's date was from another Merc unit. I wanted to know more about that; who they were, who they're with and the like.

Voice 2: I figured you would, actually. I have a few things for already.

Voice 1: Such as?

Voice 2: As mentioned, the mystery date was Terry McKinnon, the possible heir to McKinnon's Marauders. It's complicated, but I can give you the short version of it.

Voice 1: I'm listening. Give me what you have, already

Scenes from a Mechbay

"So were there any interesting turn-ups in what we got?" Irisz asked. It seemed to always happen; a salvage lot would have something strange or out of place that nobody expected.

"One thing did crop up," Stanley replied as she glanced at her manifest. "A crate of factory-fresh Hercules components taken from Kalidassia when it was incorporated into the Republic way back when. I'd guess it was probably shuffled from one Republic garrison to another before winding up on Fletcher and sitting half-forgotten for decades." The senior technician shrugged. "Of course, there's very little value to us because we don't use any of them ourselves, and much of it wouldn't fit any of the other chassis we use."

"So in other words?" Irisz wondered, looking for the quick summary

"Herc parts. Useless."

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.

Victoria Planetary News internal memo

From: Gordon I. Murray (Galatea office director)

To: Frank J. Harris II (Programming department)

Subject: Journalistic Ethics

Mate, we might have a problem with Randy's little project. I think he's gone native on us.

He’d just come back from the unit’s last contract and had dropped by the office to do the regular check-in with us; drop off the footage he'd recorded, touch base about the plans and the future direction for the show and all that sort of stuff. Given where he'd been and what he’d been doing, I expected as lot of good footage of Cappies getting the crap beaten out of them which I knew that the audience would lap up. And that’s all well and good, but there was something else that came with it.

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,

Theta Galaxy, Wolf Empire

MRBC Report 01-06-3145

The original Wolf Clan Theta Galaxy was one of the casualties of the unknown conflict that cut the Clans off from their homeworlds. Of the Galaxy’s five clusters, all but one of them simply vanished from sight and were not seen after 3068. Their fates, like so many other matters regarding the Clan Homeworlds, remain a mystery to this day. A single cluster, the 13th Wolf Regulars, remained in the Inner Sphere, only to be mauled by the Hells Horses during their war with the Wolves. By 3085, that Cluster had been transferred to Alpha Galaxy (and since disbanded), effectively removing Theta from the Wolves’ rolls.

The new Theta Galaxy was formed in the aftermath of the rise of the Wolf Empire. While named for the older formation, while also keeping its insignia and colours for the sake of continuity, the new Theta was comprised almost entirely of recruits from the former Marik-Stewart Commonwealth . A mixture of civilians and recent recruits from military academies, with a few AMSC veterans among them as well, Theta quickly became the most successful of the newly-raised Wolf Galaxies.