The Long Road Back

From Mercenaries in the 32nd Century,  Galatea Free Press

One of the MRBC’s more controversial and ill-advised decisions during the Word of Blake Jihad was to outlaw any units working for the Word of Blake and their allies. Any unit that was doing such faced not only an immediate ban by the MRBC, but was then subject to punitive bounties on the heads of their officers and select members. While this move was intended to discourage units from ‘jumping ship’ to the Word’s employ, it ended up doing more harm than good.

The blacklists and bounties served to discourage any unit that was wavering in its commitment to the Word from out and abandoning their employ or breaking contract. Such a unit would not only be still wanted by the MRBC, but also now have nowhere else to go. It also served to further ‘lock in’ those units that had been coerced or blackmailed into serving the Word, such as Blanc’s Coyotes, knowing that they’d receive no help from any outside agency. Finally, it seemed to only serve to encourage other banned units to actively join the Word’s cause; after all, if they were already wanted criminals, then being wanted criminals with a steady source of income could only be an improvement.

From the personal journal of Carrie Bull

On Solaris, it was all too often the case that the outcome of a match would be decided before the fight. I’m not talking ludicrously one-sided matches where it’s obvious that one side doesn’t have a chance (see the infamous Carl “Bossmonster” Kaled versus Herbert Wilks match, for example) but those where someone had a vested interest in seeing one side or the other lose and was going to do everything he could in order to make it happen. Usually that somebody is a criminal, and usually they’re very unsubtle when they decide to lean on their target to make it happen.

Eckhart Stein may not have been a criminal (may) but he certainly was on the slimy side of things. His offer to me seemed innocuous enough, but his second one definitely was the sort of “gentle persuasion” one associates with Solaris Mobsters, even if the threat wasn’t immediate. So when we found out that the Royals were hiding out in some resort town, I was actually hoping that he’d be there with them, if only so I could give him a little bit of a ‘talking to’ about things.

LIC Force Report 6459-8-D/Kamenz (extract)

Based on confirmed battlefield losses and cross-referenced with the known force strength at the point of hiring, it is considered that the Liberty City Royals no longer represent a credible threat or a viable combat force. A brief summary of their current situation is given below in order to elaborate on this assessment.

At present, the Liberty City Royals are believed to possess the following combat assets:

*Six BattleMechs; HMH-6E Hammerhands (Badly damaged, no longer combat effective), CRD-5K Crusader (Moderately damaged), BZK-D1 Hollander III, BLD-7R Blade, MLR-B2 Mjolnir, Koshi 3
*A seventh BattleMech, a PXH-4W Phoenix Hawk was known to be in their possession but has not been seen since they fled the spaceport
*Two Winterhawk APCs
*Two squads of Battle Armour

From the personal journal of Irisz Magyari

Oybin, southern Saxony; Kamenz

"It's inevitable that your employer will go behind your back and pull something without letting your know in advance what they're doing. The only real question is when it will happen and how bad it will be".

I don't remember if that was from Sel's journals, or one of Sonya Brie's terrible pulp novels. Either way, it's a depressing truth of the mercenary trade, as we've learned today. The only good side to this is that it's an employer stunt that hasn't immediately hurt us.

I'll get to that in a minute, however. The good news is that the Royals are no longer a threat to us. I'm not going to lie here; I didn't like Royale from the moment I met him, and when they turned on us there was a part of me that had suspected this would happen all along. I'm also going to admit that the opportunity to deliver a little payback for what he did to us felt good, to say the least.

Victoria Planetary News Internal Memo

From: Frank J. Harris II (Programming department)

To: Randy R. Georges

Subject: Expanding the scope

Randy, we just (well, as of me sending this, which could mean anything to you!) got the first package of material you sent back. The boys were looking at it, an, well, we love it. There's some great stuff in there. Very raw, very visceral, very dynamic material that's bound to grab the attention of the viewers and the sponsors. You've done a great job there so far, and this project has a lot of potential.

Also, that bit you pulled with the VTOL and claiming to be a government spook? Great stuff.