As I
mentioned in the previous installment, thoughts of DCMS units in the 4th
Succession War got me thinking about Takashi Kurita’s “Death to Mercenaries”
edict. So what happens to some poor
schmuck of a unit that has been working back and forth across the FS/DC border
for years? Would their loyalty be called
into question? Would they be betrayed?
Would they survive?
The Regulators
By Neil Ikerd
13 May, 3028
Waldheim
New Samarkand Military District
Draconis Combine
“The fuck?” Colonel John
Tunstall, commanding officer of The
Regulators muttered as he read the message scrolling across the screen of
his ancient Banshee. “Mercenary commands, look to your families,
Snakes in the grass. Jaimie Wolf,” he
read it again, questioning what he read.
“Sir, it came from our contact at the HPG station,” Corporal
Witson replied through the static. The
communications gear on the company’s ancient Lion class drop ship wasn’t original, and it was held together with
100-kph tape and bailing wire, but it still worked and it was theirs; even if
half of her weapons systems didn’t work. The Union
class would be theirs in another 3 or 4 years, but loan terms dictated that
ship be kept in “secure, low combat-risk areas” whenever possible; so it was
parked on the southern continent at the base of the DCMS planetary militia
right now.
“There was also a video file,” Witson continued. There was a short pause. “Holy Shit! Sorry, sir.” Witson’s voice was shocked and
disbelieving. “You have to see this,
sir. Squirting the video to you
now.” It took about 30 seconds and then
the video resolved to show unmarked Battlemechs attacking a base facility. Two ‘Mechs, a Panther and a Jenner
peeled off from the main assault and started firing into a building that was
probably civilian housing and office space.
A closer look at the building showed the Wolf’s Dragoons flag flapping in the wind above the door. People began evacuating the building, but
within seconds, the building collapsed.
The ‘Mechs started randomly targeting other “soft” targets as well.
“Sir,” Witson called, “the tagging says this video was shot
on Capra early last month. The Dragoons have a short regiment based
there.”
“Yeah, they,” John was interrupted by an alarm.
“Colonel, enemy in sight.”
Captain Barnett, his intelligence officer, notified him in her usual
even, almost monotonous voice. “Rick’s
scouts have made contact with the enemy scouts, reporting one lance and radar
signatures on another, heavier lance farther north.” They knew the Fox’s Teeth were out there.
They’d known for a couple of days they were coming in. As he looked at his maps, he wondered what
was going on. It didn’t make sense to
send 2 lances in that direction, the terrain was crappy and there were too many
dead-end canyons that way. It was
exactly the reason he’d put his scouts down there, it was a great place to
watch from, but a poor avenue of attack.
He watched with a satisfied smile as ARROW IV rockets shot into the sky
off towards the north.
“Colonel,” Rick Patterson’s signal was clear, but the voice
wasn’t. “The cammo patterns don’t match Fox’s Teeth, or even 7th Crucis Lancers. Mitchell says their badges look like The Bloody Suns logo.”
As he was considering what that meant, Captain Barnett
notified him that Arty, their
reinforced lance of indirect fire vehicles was under attack by a lance of heavy
‘Mechs. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself,
as he glanced at his tactical map. Arty was to his southwest, there was no
way that was the same units that the scouts were in contact with. It was nearly three kilometers from his
location to where Arty was, but the
command lance was closer than anyone else, and 10 LRM and ARROW IV tanks didn’t
have much a chance against 4 heavies.
“Barnett, you and Stinson head over and help out. Cover them for a retreat if you have to.”
“Willco, sir.” Barnett’s reply was immediate and calm, like
she’d already been expecting it. The two
Grasshoppers lifted skyward on their
jump jets and were on their way. He was
trying to decide if he and Jackson should follow, but something told him that
they should sit tight. He didn’t like
the way this felt. Maybe it was just
that message, but something felt wrong here.
His musings where interrupted when his comm screamed to life again.
“We’re blown! Fuck!
Fire team, target and fire and at will! Arty, Arty, fire on out positions, drop
it right on us. We’re fucked, we’re fucked, we’re fucked!” The down side of an ambush was that if the
ambushee knew about it, they could turn the tables very quickly.
Almost before he’d fully processed what was happening, his
and Jackson’s ‘Mechs were moving up to the crest of the ridge that overlooked
the ambush site where fire lance had laid the trap for the incoming force. As he cleared the ridge, his worst nightmare was
laid out in gory full color below him. A
full company of medium and heavy ‘Mechs was blowing through the ambush site and
laying waste to his fire lance. Even
worse, the enemy wasn’t even in the basket where the mines were laid in. According to DCMS intelligence, there was
only supposed to be one company in-bound, but he could account for at least 2
within a 10 kilometer radius; and there was no reports coming in from the
southern continent.
He fired his PPC and Imperator Autocannon at a green Enforcer that was jumping the very area
where mines were exploding. He didn’t
even smile as its jump jets suddenly cut out and it fell out of the sky like a
lead balloon. When it hit, there was a cacophonous explosion as it set off
three of the mines. It probably wouldn’t
save fire lance, but it was something.
“Colonel Tunstall,” Witson’s voice was deadly calm. “Sir, radar shows 2 lances of ‘Mechs
approaching from the south. IFF
identifies them as Waldheim Regulars,
1st and 2nd lance.”
Suddenly it all made sense.
The bad intel, the units in perfect positions, DCMS militia approaching
his base camp, and the message from the Dragoons. They were well and truly fucked. “Witson, get me Captain Tunstall.” To his left, Jackson’s Jagermech was pouring fire into the back of the Davion mob, but it
was like pissing on a forest fire. His
own cockpit was getting uncomfortably warm as another lance of cerulean
lightning reached out and broke the arm of an enemy ‘Mech.
“John, this is Yokiko.
What’s going on?”
“Evacuate. Get
everyone on Wild Horses and get out
of here. Don’t worry about gear,
equipment, nothing. Get our people
out.” He heard the claxon over his
communicator. “If we need support after
this cluster fuck is over with, I’ll let you know. Take all the intel and communication
feeds. Everyone needs to know what they
did to us.”
“Is it that bad?” his wife’s voice was concerned, but not
scared. John had always prided himself
on the quality of his people.
“Worse; and whatever you do, don’t let John Jr. convince you
to let him come rescue me. I’ve seen the
reports on those four scrap-heap ‘Mechs he’s working on, and they’re not combat
ready. If all else fails, he can avenge
me.”
“Evacuate the families, wait for your call.” She was a
professional soldier before they married and she became his training and
logistics officer. He could almost see
the rigid look on her face as she accepted her orders.
“Don’t wait too long.”
“John, I…”
“I know, sweetie. Me,
too.” He stroked the trigger on his
autocannon and then started running down the hill toward glory or death; maybe
both.
***
I will admit, I love a good origin story. Writing character backgrounds is one of my
favorite things to do. I figured this
would give us everything we needed to get started as a small merc unit: an
explanation to have a drop ship, 4 ‘Mechs to start the game with, a close-knit
group of pilots and support staff, and a long term goal.
In an email response to The
Regulators, Bruce had asked about starting ‘Mechs based on what I thought
we might have- the assumption being that many of them would be DCMS ‘Mechs that
we had gotten while working for them, or maybe some salvage:
So Jonnie? What are the four 'Mechs?
I have a nice painted Jenner and would love to
see an "Ugly Duckling" in the mix. A Panther is a bitch due to
the heat curve, but can hit like a freight train. I also have a brown
painted Firestarter. If we can use the optional rules for the Heat build-up
it could be a nice 'Mech to work against 'Mech and it is killer against
Infantry. Although I think the Wolfhounds are a few years in the
future. Maybe a Valkyrie? They were common in the FedSuns.
Steve later adopted 75% of this line up as our starting
units. Our starting units ended up
looking like this:
WTH-1 Whitworth
JR7-D Jenner
FS9-H Firestarter
VLK-QA Valkyrie
Changing the ‘Mechs wasn’t the only thing Steve had in mind
though, he had plans for something that would be easier to drop in anywhere
without having to have quite as much background on BattleTech lore.
-----Original Message-----
From: STEVE
To: Bruce
Cc: Neil; JV; Brian;
Sent: Fri, May 25, 2018 11:30 am
Subject: Re: BattleTech Campaign?
From: STEVE
To: Bruce
Cc: Neil; JV; Brian;
Sent: Fri, May 25, 2018 11:30 am
Subject: Re: BattleTech Campaign?
You guys are way ahead of me on
this.
But given that I don't know the background,
setting, rules, game, or time-of-day as well as you guys, I plan to start a
totally independent campaign. I'm zeroing in on the Fourth Succession
War, after the "new" old tech has been discovered, but while it is
still rare and mostly only being developed by the major houses. If you
last long enough, the Clans might show up.
Not set in stone yet, but here is the idea I'm
currently working on...
At least one of you is a reasonably wealthy
man. Your parents died young, leaving you with plenty of money to live
comfortably - even opulently - if you don't go overboard and do something crazy
like try to form a mercenary mechwarrior outfit. The only condition was
that you serve a term in the military prior to receiving your
inheritance. You have done this and have spent the last few years living
the high life. However, one morning as you are gazing out the window and
reflecting on the feeling that the high life isn't all it is cracked up to be
and something needs to be done about the state of the galaxy, you get a phone
call. The call is from a lawyer representing your uncle's estate.
Uncle? You have an uncle? Well, had. Hm...
The uncle was your father's much-older
brother. They did not agree on many things. In fact, they hadn't
spoken for many years. You had never heard of him, much less met
him. But apparently he knew about you.
You do a little research, and learn that in his
youth, your uncle was an actual mechwarrior. He recently died of
ghonosyphilherpleaids - a common malady among aging mechwarriors - and has left
everything to you (or to all of you if two or more of you choose to be
related).
The lawyer has you sign a bunch of papers,
giving you control of the estate, and then takes you on a tour. Nice
house, a beach cottage, a nice chunk of change in the bank, and a
well-diversified investment portfolio. Last on the tour is an out-of-the
way holding with a large, run-down, hangar building and an airstrip. A
wave of dust blows through the curtain of spider webs as you heave open the
hangar door with a loud, rusty screech, and gaze into the long-abandoned hangar
with wondering eyes...
From behind you, you hear, "What a piece of
junk!"
***
For those that have read “Tales of the 1-I-Jacks” #3 and #4,
you should recognize that line. Bruce
lifted it right out of the email, and so I lifted it right out of his story so
I could show the overlap. With having an
explanation from Steve of exactly what he had in mind, we set to work.
I started thinking about character ideas since The Regulators weren’t going to work
out. A rich character, something of a
playboy, just enough military background be dangerous, tired of the high-life
and looking to do something different.
For some reason, the wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” Dibiasi
popped into my head. Suddenly, I was off
to the races. I whipped up a background
write-up for Frederick Theodore di Biasi and shot it off to the group.
I realized after I sent it off that someone else might be
building a character to be the lead. It
turned out they weren’t, Bruce was toying with a disgraced young officer and JV
just wasn’t saying much. During this
time I also contacted my friend Dave that I had joined us for a couple of
BattleTech games previously. He was
interested, but Dave is a busy guy and doesn’t have much time to engage in the
level of role-play and background some of us were devoting to it. For a while, Dave’s pilot nick-name was “Not
Here” because, well, if you don’t get the joke, go look up “Dave’s Not Here” by
Cheech and Chong.
Before I knew it Fred had acquired the nickname “Playboy”
and his ‘Mech, which we joked about making an UrbanMech, was being referred to as “Shotglass.” Bruce’s character, Jonathon “Wolfman”
Wilkerson, took on piloting the Jenner
and Bruce drew up a background that included a Jenner as a family heirloom named “Goryo.” A Goryo
is a Japanese spirit of vengeance, in some cases quite powerful. As a joke, I said that I was going to leave a
piece of artwork in cockpit of his ‘Mech.
Bruce is also a bit of Magic player and said he loved it, so
it stuck as his ‘Mech’s nickname. A few
days later, JV sent an email with a character background written as a letter of
introduction, and included having experience in piloting a Firestarter. Since Dave
wasn’t that deeply involved in the conversation at that point, I decided I
would pilot the Whitworth. I happen to like missile boats, and I think
the Whit is actually a pretty good design, albeit slow for a medium mech. I also really don’t like Valkyries.
With the unit composition decided on, now we just needed to
work on the important things: unit name, logo, and paint scheme.
Next Installment: Working
meeting.
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