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.

CCAF After Action Report 213143-45

Maskirovka assets have been able to confirm the departure of the Mercenary forces from Fletcher. Based on our estimates of their forces deployed compared to MRBC assessments and verified intel, we can state that the entire force is accounted for and that they have not left any assets in play on-world. With the effective end of raiding operations, we can now take stock of our losses.

1st Liao Guards

Total losses for the 1st Liao amount to two companies of BattleMechs and two platoons of Battle Armour. Of these, 67% are unrecoverable or completely destroyed. Fortunately, losses were entirely confined to II Battalion, limiting the overall damage to command integrity. Significant casualties include Pai-zhangs Alan Weizhe and Jian Xing-Mei, both veteran officers. In addition, Sang-Wei Lo Biao-McTavish is missing in action and assumed to have been extracted for intelligence gathering purposes by the Mercenary or AFFS forces.

Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles

(From Bullets, Books and Bylines: a blog about mercenary literature; Galatea InfoWeb, 3144)

Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles, by Colin Raymond. Red Letter Press, 3108. 307 pages. Non-Fiction (allegedly)

Probably unsurprisingly, there's plenty of (more or less) autobiographical works by mercenaries who fought in the Jihad. With the near death of the industry in its aftermath, making the most of your experiences and trying to earn a few C-Bills off of it would seem to be a good idea. However, this stuff is almost entirely written from the perspective of those who fought against the Word of Blake and their allies. There's very little written from the other side, largely because those mercenaries in the Word's employ tended to end up dead.

So when I found today's book, I was intrigued. Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles bills itself as 'one Mercenary's harrowing tale of the struggles of the Jihad' and 'offering a unique perspective of the conflict from the point of view of a mercenary employed by the Word of Blake." I must admit that I was immediately lured in by said blurb; the fact that I had never once heard of this book before also caught my attention. Oh, and I also fund it at a flea market in a 'three for a C-Bill' box, so if nothing else, it was cheap.

Barrett's Bushrangers

MRBC Update 01-01-3131

(After we hired Ransom, and with the information you gave me, I decided to do some poking around of my own. Let’s be honest; a well-equipped, long-lived, prestigious mercenary command simply vanishing is far from an everyday occurrence, especially when combined with the very conscious timing of that disappearance. In doing such, I found this file in the MRBC’s system which I wouldn’t have given much attention to if not for two things. The first is that it’s regarding another vanished mercenary command who also disappeared close to Grey Monday. The second is that, despite the file being nearly fifteen years old, somebody had recently accessed it and mode some clumsy efforts to alter it. That’s enough to get my attention in and of itself - NK)

History

The exact origins of Barrett’s Bushrangers are unclear. The unit first appeared on Herotitus in 3090 under the command of captain Bruce Barrett as an understrength company of battered BattleMechs with some infantry support. Attempts to investigate the unit's past reached no definitive conclusions, but some evidence suggested that they hailed from the former Circrinus Federation. The unit was almost immediately snapped up by the Taurian Concordat, hired to help bolster its shattered military and protect its worlds from predation.

Several early successful contracts allowed the unit to bring itself up to a modicum of strength and stability, even if its financial state remained precarious like so many other units. The Bushrangers roamed across the near periphery, working principally for various Periphery powers, although the unit also saw some action with the independent worlds of the former Free Worlds League. That aside, however, the Bushrangers generally avoided the Inner Sphere, and never worked out of any Inner Sphere hiring halls such as Galatea.

SIS File 54371a-3133-A (Appendix)

(I ‘borrowed’ this file from our MIIO friends. While it’s not exactly helpful, I think it might represent a small step towards cracking the greatest mystery of the age. And right now, we need all the help we can get)

As of June 3132, the 12th Highland Gryphons were considered to be a top-tier mercenary command. At the time, the unit consisted of a combined-arms regiment with a MRBC A rating. The unit was rated as Veteran, and had a long history of reliable service to its various employers. The unit was equipped with top of rhe line technology, including a not inconsiderable degree of Clantech. With a history going back to the SLDF, the unit had a long and storied history.

All of these factors make the unit's apparent disappearance or destruction during Grey Monday even more confusing. If the unit did desert, then it would be a considerable break of character for such a storied and trusted command. However, if it was destroyed, then this raises a lot more questions as to who were able to launch such an attack and take on such a capable command. A number of options present themselves, however, all of them seem to be rather improbable. Each of these will be discussed below

Fletcher Industriplex Beta

During the days of the Terran Hegemony, Fletcher had been something of an Industrial Powerhouse. After the fall of the Star Leauge, the ravages the Succession Wars had destroyed almost all of Fletcher’s heavy industry, especially its once-extensive military manufacturing.  By the end of the Jihad, Fletcher was seen as a dismal world with little to offer, its sole industry of note being funerals and internment of the dead.

The Republic’s resettlement programs in the aftermath of the Jihad helped turn the ailing world around, the new additions to its population bringing with them new opportunities. The resettlement of Clan Wolf civilians on Fletcher bought an influx of technology to the battered world, allowing its people a chance to rebuild much of what they had lost. The economic boom that came with the Republic’s Golden Age of peace aided in this rebuilding, helping to again change the face of the world.

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.