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.

RAF Intel Intetcept 3145-363749-Alpha

From: Star Colonel Marvin, 29th Wolf Garrison Cluster

To: Galaxy Commander Lois Fetladral, Green Keshik

Subject: Raid on Kalidasa

Galaxy Commander,

I am presenting my summary of the recent raid on Kalidasa in order to give you a more detailed picture of the events that occurred. A more full report of the losses incurred will be attached.

The mercenary raiders arrived via a pirate jump point and managed to remain undetected until they made planetfall. Once down, their company-sized BattleMech force split up into two demi-companies (With attached Battle Armour support), each headed to a different annex of the Kali-Yama factory complex. Both forces were engaged by stars from the 29th who attempted to stop them.

Unknown OmniMech sighted on Kalidasa

Irisz,

This is my final report on the 'Mech we encountered on Kalidasa during our last raid. I've put this together both from the lance's observations, BattleROMs and other material, as well as some analysis from Stanley. Obviously it's not meant to be conclusive, but rather a 'best-guess' at what we faced and what it's capable of. I'm going to start with the hard and known, then move towards the speculative as we go on.

To start with, let me recap the situation. Our augmented lance (Assault lance with Shona and a squad of Battle Armour) engaged a star from the 29th Wolf Garrison Cluster on the outskirts of one of the Kali Yama factory annexes. The Wolf star was entirely conventional in nature; a Tundra Wolf as the lead, almost certainly piloted by an actual Wolf warrior, and the rest of the star made up of AMSC salvage (Orion, Tempust. Griffin, Ghost) piloted by what were apparently adoptees. The enemy star were already damaged, with the Orion crippled and withdrawing while their other MechWarirors were showing only a questionable level of skill, suggesting that they may have even been raw recruits.

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.