Jack Ryan (alternates)

"Building A Legacy"
I sat in my well appointed stateroom for the last time. Its walls adorned with trophies that I had earned either through guile, blood, skill or pure luck. I just sat there in my posh chair looking at all of my accomplishments. I could find no sense of accomplishment in what was displayed before me. As the son of a Bandit King, you would think I would have other things on my mind. It was likely that I should have been thinking about the plans I set into motion that came to fruition and culminated with my leading our "house units" and training them how to pilot and handle the cache of LAMs I had discovered. I couldn't think about these things, though, perhaps I should start where it all began...

My name is Jack Ryan, no not the Bandit King Jack Ryan. I'm his son. Suzie Ryan is my sister, and we grew up living with privileges that no one on the rock we call home was afforded. Suzie was turning into a spitting image of my father. A cold, calculating, murderer and a shrewd unit commander. Where did that leave me? In a family based on deception and piracy... I was the dreamer, my head was in the clouds, soaring through the air. It all began when we found an old Aramis outpost on another nameless rock in the periphery. I was sweeping through areas of space with a contingent of scumbags my father had assigned to me. It was my trial by fire, I had to hunt down rogue settlements and bend them to our will as well as salvage anything we found for the betterment of our "war effort". There at the Aramis outpost I found an intercepted transmission, from an SLDF base somewhere even deeper in the Periphery. It was a place that this outpost, cut off by Kerensky's war effort had dispatched the last of their troops to crush. We were standing in a tomb, hundreds of years old.

What? I was in my early teens, leading a band of pirates scouring the fringe regions of the periphery. What's more fun than that? Everything, is more fun than that. Attending a normal school would have been more interesting. I was blessed with my mother's good graces, I was smart and I knew that I wanted something else. This was my ticket, so after stripping the base of its ancient armory I set a course to follow a blood trail that was centuries old. That search took months, leading us on wild hunts through largely unexplored star clusters. I had received a recall order from my father and I ignored it. I know that had to piss him off, but what good was the promise of "possible" loot when he was looking at worlds that had actual people on them? Nothing, to him. Everything to me.

Our search turned up clues, that's the only way I kept the crew together. With tales of grandiose wealth and the promise of lostech. We found a shattered Jumpship recharging station about half of the way there. It was an old SLDF space station, built more like a Castle Brian in space. It looked like it had been nuked a couple times too. You could tell by the way over half the station had disintegrated. Of all the things to have survived, there were a couple capital gun emplacements and a recharge node. Which, actually, was still providing power off of a deployed solar sail that automatically reacted when we jumped in system. We could never move it, but it wet the appetites of my crew to continue on. It would also make a loot of what we would do in the future possible.

With coordinates fed from the last directional array on the station, we gleaned information that Amaris warships had hit the station with their pants around their ankles. Not expecting its firepower the station cut two of the three ships apart before they really got moving. The third nuked the hell out it and jumped on after taking a pounding from her guns. The other two warships looked as if they had drifted into the gravity well of a nearby lifeless planetoid, and crashed there. So, we followed the blood trail a little longer. The next jump brought us to the graveyeard of two warships that had apparently nuked one another into oblivion. An Amaris ship and an SLDF ship. there was nothing left but melted scrap of the two vessels and a transponder that pointed deeper in system. Looks like the Amaris dropships had no where else to go, but to hit the SLDF base.

It wasn't so much a military base as it was an extensive and really old research base. There was one intact union dropship here, and the rest had been wiped out by the installation's fixed guns that were apparently slagged on approach. Dozens of annihilated aerospace fighters littered the atmosphere deprived sky. Some salvage here, more armor plating than anything else. The base itself was the real tomb. The scientists, who could not win against the massed forces against them fled deep into the complex, to places where the Amaris mechs could not follow. The Amaris pursuit became a foot battle until the scientists evacuated all the air in the complex, killing the Amaris troops and themselves as well. We had the air running on centuries old air reprocessors in a couple of days.

Yes, my father would be happy with the dropship even if it was mangled (which it was). He might be happier by the dozen Aramis mechs we found largely intact. Looked like the others had been tactical nuked on approach from their dropship. The old SLDF armories produced a handful of working laser pistols and rifles. The real treasure was the LAM cache, the spare conversion equipment and a partial assembly line. The brilliant scientists here had been working on hammering out issues with the 55 ton variants that didn't convert to "Air-Mech-Mode", there was a Phoenix Hawk Prototype and one stinger and one wasp. It looked as if they had succeeded, before their untimely deaths, in getting the Shadow Hawk LAM fully prepped and converting into all three modes of flight.

We ended up bottling up everything we could and got the Overlord off the ground. We returned to my furious father, who wasn't all that furious anymore after I presented him with twelve pristine mechs and a massive dropship, while mangled, was still a massive combat dropship. It was here that he said I could have whatever I wanted. It was here that my plan was born.

I wanted three things. I told him to procure me the leading or last LAM scientist or group of them, because there had to be someone brilliant left. He procured for me an aerospace scientist, a mech scientist and a VTOL expert. The second I told him I wanted to be trained as both an Aerospace Pilot and a Mech Pilot. He agreed and my house education began in full shortly afterward.

We got the scientists working on the LAM project and started to resurrect the old data and the assembly. By the time I graduated both legs of my training I had already gleaned practical knowledge about the LAMs. I spent another year pouring over the data with the scientists as well. The scientists actually did a good job seeing as all the research was right in front of them in the data banks. However, it took them about six years to absorb what they were learning and really get rolling. Producing one LAM at an incredibly slow pace... It’s not what my father was expecting, but it was easy to forget about when they were housed at the old SLDF base and were something like 105 light years away. I can't say the scientists minded, though eating MREs for an extended period of time had to get old, especially when they were centuries old.

I did my first tour of duty as a Pirate commander in the service of my Father. I was piloting the newly christened Shadow Hawk LAM, and I was very effective in taking out the targets that I was assigned. Most worlds had no idea what I was or who we were, at least, until it was too late. During that tour, I laid out my plans for leaving my father’s employ.

My second tour began with my exodus from Butte Hold, and I left the world guns’o’blazin. I didn’t have the ability to evacuate the scientists with me so, I did the next best thing. I took the plans as well as nearly ten years of additional research for the LAMS with me, then wiped the database. On my way out of the SLDF installation, I shot up the three remaining prototypes on the way out . Seeing as they were the only defenses the base had and also the fact that two of the three were powered down. The Phoenix Hawk and I dueled for a while, but seeing as the pilot I faced had no experience as an Aerospace pilot… Let’s just say that he lost, spectacularly, after slamming into a structure in Air Mech Mode. Then I kind of opened up his power core with a couple alpha strikes…

I picked up a contract on the Mercenary’s Star for a unit serving the Federated Suns in the war of 39. I had a lot of fun, and I also lost my Shadow Hawk LAM in the fighting. What I was able to salvage, in the end, was enough to buy myself a crappy light mech replacement. Whatever works, at least I was still alive. I needed to get into something real, where I could use the plans for the LAMs I had. A place where I could receive some recognition and actually use as a basis for recovering the assembly line my father still had. I needed to be part of a unit where I was a stake holder. I found that very opportunity in 3041 and took the loans to get the unit rolling.

Only time will tell as to what the future will bring.

"Building A Legacy"
I sat in my well appointed stateroom for the last time. Its walls adorned with trophies that I had earned either through guile, blood, skill or pure luck. I just sat there in my posh chair looking at all of my accomplishments. I could find no sense of accomplishment in what was displayed before me. As the son of a Bandit King, you would think I would have other things on my mind. It was likely that I should have been thinkig about the plans I set into motion that came to fruition and culminated with my leading our "house units" and training them how to pilot and handle the cache of LAMs I had discovered. I couldn't think about these things, my time in the inner sphere had changed me. I wouldn't so much call it enlightenment as I had found another path to another life. I'm getting ahead of myself, though, perhaps I should start where it all began...

My name is Jack Ryan, no not the Bandit King Jack Ryan. I'm his son. Suzie Ryan is my sister, and we grew up living with priviledges that no one on the rock we call home was afforded. Suzie was turning into a spitting image of my father. A cold, calculating, murderer and a shrewd unit commander. Where did that leave me? In a family based on deception and piracy... I was the dreamer, my head was in the clouds, soaring through the air. It all began when we found an old Aramis outpost on another nameless rock in the periphery. I was sweeping through areas of space with a contingent of scumbags my father had assigned to me. It was my trial by fire, I had to hunt down rogue settlements and bend them to our will as well as salvage anything we found for the betterment of our "war effort". There at the Aramis outpost I found an intercepted transmission, from an SLDF base somewhere even deeper in the Periphery. It was a place that this outpost, cut off by Kerensky's war effort had dispatched the last of their troops to crush. We were standing in a tomb, hundreds of years old.

What? I was in my early teens, leading a band of pirates scouring the fringe regions of the periphery. What's more fun than that? Everything, is more fun than that. Attending a normal school would have been more interesting. I was blessed with my mother's good graces, I was smart and I knew that I wanted something else. This was my ticket, so after stripping the base of its ancient armory I set a course to follow a blood trail that was centuries old. That search took months, leading us on wild hunts through largely unexplored star clusters. I had recieved a recall order from my father and I ignored it. I know that had to piss him off, but what good was the promise of "possible" loot when he was looking at worlds that had actual people on them? Nothing, to him. Everything to me.

Our search turned up clues, that's the only way I kept the crew together. With tales of grandiouse wealth and the promise of lostech. We found a shattered Jumpship recharging station about half of the way there. It was an old SLDF space station, built more like a Castle Brian in space. It looked like it had been nuked a couple times too. You could tell by the way over half the station had disintegrated. Of all the things to have survived, there were a couple capital gun emplacements and a recharge node. Which, actually, was still providing power off of a deployed solar sail that automatically reacted when we jumped in system. We could never move it, but it wet the appetites of my crew to continue on. It would also make a loot of what we would do in the future possible.

With coordinates fed from the last directional array on the station, we gleaned information that Amaris warships had hit the station with their pants around their ankles. Not expecting its firepower the station cut two of the three ships apart before they really got moving. The third nuked the hell out it and jumped on after taking a pounding from her guns. The other two warships looked as if they had drifted into the gravity well of a nearby lifeless planetoid, and crashed there. So, we followed the blood trail a little longer. The next jump brought us to the graveyeard of two warships that had apparently nuked one another into oblivion. An Amaris ship and an SLDF ship. there was nothing left but melted scrap of the two vessels and a transponder that pointed deeper in system. Looks like the Amaris dropships had no where else to go, but to hit the SLDF base.

It wasn't so much a military base as it was an extensive and really old research base. There was one intact overlord dropship here, and the rest had been wiped out by the installation's fixed guns that were apparently slagged on approach. Dozens of anhilated aerospace fighters littered the atmosphere deprived sky. Some salvage here, more armor plating than anything else. The base itself was the real tomb. The scientists, who could not win against the massed forces against them fled deep into the complex, to places where the Amaris mechs could not follow. The Amaris pursuit became a foot battle until the scientists evacuated all the air in the complex, killling the Amaris troops and themselves as well. We had the air running on centuries old air reprocessors in a couple of days.

Yes, my father would be happy with the dropship even if it was mangled (which it was). He might be happier by the dozen Jack Rabbit mechs we found largely intact. Looked like the others had been tactical nuked on approach from their dropship. The old SLDF armories produced a handful of working laster pistols and rifles. The real treasure was the LAM cache, the spare conversion equipment and a partial assembly line. The brilliant scientists here had been working on hammering out issues with the 55 ton variants that didn't convert to "Air-Mech-Mode", there was a Phoenix Hawk Prototype and one stinger and one wasp. It looked as if they had succeeded, before their untimely deaths, in getting the Shadow Hawk LAM fully prepped and converting into all three modes of flight.

We ended up bottling up everything we could and got the Overlord off the ground. We returned to my furious father, who wasn't all that furious anymore after I presented him with twelve pristene mechs and a massive dropship, while mangled, was still a massive combat dropship. It was here that he said I could have whatever I wanted. It was here that my plan was born.

I wanted three things. I told him to procure me the leading or last LAM scientist or group of them, because there had to be someone brillant left. He procured for me an aerospace scientist, a mech scientist and a VTOL expert. The second I told him was that I wanted to attend the Lyran Academy for LAM pilots, to which he threw a furious tantrum. Nonetheless, he relented and put his underworld contacts in motion for putting together my background so I could attend the academy. Finally, I wanted him to spend resources to fund and finish the LAM project so I could lead them for our house forces. That one was a tricky engagement. But its one that I eventually won, since I assured him we would have companies of LAMS up and running. Whether or not it was the truth, well, hell I'm a pirate. We all lie to one another.

We got the scientists working on the LAM project and started to ressurect the old data and the assembly. That was twelve years ago, and we have a few working models. The scientists actually did a good job seeing as all the research was right in front of them in the data banks. However, it took them almost ten years to absorb what they were learning and really get rolling. Producing one LAM every two years after that... Its not what my father was expecting, but it was easy to forget about when they were housed at the old SLDF base and were something like 105 light years away. I can't say the scientists minded, though eating MREs for an extended period of time had to get old, especially when they were centuries old.

My accomplishments lead me right back home. I graduated from the LAM academy at the top of my class. I was even one of the lucky ones that was goign to recieve a Pheonix Hawk LAM, you had to be in the top four to get one. I was number one, that's when my identity fell apart. The scrutiny of the Federated Commonwealth kind of had a hand in discovering that my credentials were false. It was an ugly meeting, when the discrepancies were found. I remember sitting in the commandant's office and overheard him talking outside that Fed Comm intelligence was on its way... Not what I wanted to hear. When the commandant returned I was gone. I had already climbed out his window and scaled/jumped the rest of the distance to the ground. I actually respected the people of the inner sphere, after everything I had experienced. I didn't want to be caught, nor could I allow myself to be. My life wasn't over. I was going to have to do this the hard way. I was going to have to go against everything I set out to do.

Sitting in my stateroom, one last time. My plan was already in motion. I had hired mercs using the stashed money I had taken with me on the way into Lyran space. It was one of those wonderful boons my dad gave me in light of my contributions to his cause. I picked up the basis for a tech team, security and hired a dropship and jumpship to get me to where I needed to go. Yeah, I had to pay them a lot but some of them were already friends from the Academy that knew who I really was. I suppose I had the basics of a merc unit and I was going to need that, because I had to pull the three techs and all the LAM research and bolt. It was going to be really ugly... Sorry dad, but sometimes things don't go to plan. I wasn't a pirate anymore, I was something more. I didn't even leave a message, as I stood up. I walked to the wall, turned off the lights and left. I was supposed to be at the banquet in my honor this evening, however, I would be missing that one.

Thirty light years away, we hastily deployed our sails and waited. It would still be something like seven hours before my father even knew I was missing. The only problem I would be running into would be my sister. She would be the first to question and come after me. Thankfully she was still a light jump from home. It was going to be close. Two weeks later, we jumped again. Bringing us a bit closer to our goal. At this point I did recive a transmission, which I ignored. Suzie was, indeed, after me. She had figured it out. She was about two weeks behind us...

"The Recharge Station"

Designed in the time of the Star League this station's survival was a testament to her durability, even after having been nuked. If there was something that I learned about lostech, especially after my time in the inner sphere among the great houses, was that you had to respect it. LAMs were a piece of that lostech, however, what I was about to do was tanamount among the crimes that were placed in the Aries conventions.

A recharge station cut your recharge time from weeks to hours. So, we hooked up and charged up. Then I scuttled the station's recharge capabilities by anhiliating its ability to do so. People's lives were at stake, good people and it would buy us the time we needed, another two weeks which would put my sister a month behind me... Give or take a couple of hours. We pulled the two capital emplacements that remained off and took them with us. A pair of Naval Laser 35's didn't seem like much but one shot would do a number on a dropship or a jumpship that was pursuing us.

We jumped again, and that put us only one jump from our target... It would be a close call, no matter what happened at this point. After jumping into the region we landed and had to kill the token pirate resistance that awaited us. It was more akin to a slaughter, as they had no forwarning that we were even on our way. No transimssions short of an HPG could penetrate the star cluster we were in and the HPG at the station had been destroyed by the Amaris attack centuries earlier.

We collected the science team, who were little more than good techs who had studied the process for the last ten years. Now the daunting task of loading databanks, mechs and assembly infrastructure into the dropship. It was going to take a while, because it all had to be painstakingly dissassembled and documented so that we could reassemble it somewhere else. I also had two teams remounting the naval laser 35's on old emplacements. They would be a nasty suprise for my sister, and it would buy us time when she showed up. I had a feeling that she would likely arrive before we had everything completed. To my credit, my forethought and planning was vindicated. About a month of hard work later, she did indeed arrive, pissed, in system.

"Ending My Pirate Life With Pirate Tactics"

Suzie wasn't stupid, she knew a helluva lot better than to com in on the first wave. Why do that when you have flunkies that you didn't really want to feed and pay inthe first place. An aerodyne, a Leopard, came in first and it cam in hot pushing about 4G's of constant acceleration. Her acceleration continued on long after she had over shot the installation. A naval laser 35 punched through the dorsal and ventral sections of the craft gutting everything within. The dropship just kept going, following her last bearing until his drives ran out of reaction mass.

I had told my father that the guns on the station were defunct. It was one of those little secrets I always held in reserve. So that would be, probably, four tanks + a company of infantry down. Mechs were far too valuable for a frontal dropship assault, you would have better odds dropping them several kilometers away and having them march in. However, Suzie had no way to know that one of her dropships would get kille don the first pass. Standard tactical doctrine, however, demamnded that you never commit your best forces or hand (if you're a gambling man or woman) on the first try. You probe and even though the dropship was just doing a flyby, I couldn't let her go. Just one more crime against the Aries convention under my belt... the destruction of a dropship...

I was raised a pirate, and now on my way out, I fought like one for the last time. That stalled her advance for a couple days, especially after I told her my Regan system would shoot down anything else she sent in system bigger than an aerospace fighter. The bluff combined with her optics registering the kill of the Leopard was enough to impose a healthy amount of paranoia onto her. She probed my defenses with Aerospace fighters, first sweepinig the planetoids upper atmosphere looking for my "so called Regan system". the Regan system was a massive, hidden satellite array that launched missiles large enough to bring down Battleships in one shot. There was enough debris in system that it almost seemed plausible. I had merely bought more time, beacuse when the fighters came, and we killed the first two instantly with the NL35's the others took out the first emplacement. We vaporized another as they made their pass, yet another as they angled back for a final pass and a final aerospace fighter on their attack run. The last two, light fighters, banked hard for the upper atmosphere and ran after taking out our last gun emplacement.

It would buy us another day, before the pilots would return and do another flyby. Its likely she had to threaten the pilots families because they had seen their number cut apart in their last engagement. The fighters took fire from the Overlord I had on the ground at the center of the complex. At least, she looked like an overlord... Her classification was probably true two hundred years ago, now sporting a third of her original armament she had been relegated to mercantile pursuits and its why I was able to afford the dropship and the capitan. Thank god I had jumped in, recharged and sent the jumpship out to a pirate jump point we had caluclated while we waited for her to recharge, or we would have no way off this rock. She was sitting on the far side of the system, shielded by the debris and fallout of the binary star. Getting there was going to be ugly.

"Calm Before The Storm"

Suzie set down about twelve kilimoters south east of the installation. She had a couple dropships. Mostly armor, and at least a company of mechs. Seeing as I had cut the infantry contingent apart, they were sorely lacking in what hey needed the most, infantry as the base was vast and vehicles simply couldn't go everywhere. I had a quartet of mercs that I had hired in addition to techs, and infantry myself. The infantry had been setting up forward positions with fallback points every hundred meters or so. Their mission was to harry the hell out of their forces as they entered the fringes of the complex, falling back, eventually under the cover of the unlikley mechs I had hired for the mission. They were city fighters, all of them. An Urban Mech, a Hunchback, a Grasshopper, and a Vulcan... of all things. The urban mech was sporting an AC20 instead of its standard AC10 and small laser. The Grasshopper and Vulcan would be the bait, with the Vulcan sniping t them and killing any stray infantry they had left while falling back to the Grasshopper, then running. The grasshopper was to trade fire before jumping back into cover and running as well. That's when they would run into a pair of powered down mechs that would quick start their engines and fire their two AC20's on manual. then the Vulcan and Grasshopper would sweep around their flanks and harry them until the Urbanmech and the Hunchback were operational and chewing the fools that closed into junk metal.

The calm lasted about another day as they setup patrols and waited to see if I would launch an assault. The initial push, went almost exactly as I had outlined, I knew Suzie's tactics. She pushed hard, with my infantry falling back a bit faster than I had hoped. the manuveravble Vulcan sniping their mechs all the way. A pair of Jack Rabbits meant that the Vulcan recieved some fire in return, but the damage was nominal. It was sad that we only had two left after merely twelve years of action, in we I mean my father and sister (my family). the Rabbits fell back and let a center of medium and heavy mechs close on the compound. The vulture ranged them, falling back to the Grasshopper. The grasshopper exchanged fire and ran cool while they began to over heat, so it retained it mobility and fell back to the last position. As the mediums broke through the buildings they had jumped behind the Hunback and Urban Mech opened up, combined with fire from the Vulcan and Grasshopper that were moving to their sides as they powered up. This caught them unaware, and literally cut the Wolverine and Shadowhawk apart. As the two dirty brawlers fired back the pirates made the mistake of tracking the flanking mechs, as I knew they would. the next salvo spelled their end. At that point the heavies had closed and took some hellacious damage form the two city brawlers. One took fire from the vulture on its backl armor while the other took fire from the grasshopper on its flank. They began falling back, and took a brutal pounding as they attempted to cover one another on the way out. They never made it, as my infantry opened up and added to the carnage, cutting them into pieces.

"The Storm"

Suzie had clearly underestimated my grasp of tactics. I wasn't done yet. But neither was she. I had pulled most of my units back to a perimiter around the civilian overlord. The infantry a couple hundred meters out in every direction. I had scouts running the entire time in te event that her tactics changed.

She sent the bulk of her armor in next, the loss the the battlemechs was telling as she commited everything, supported by mechs in the rear. However, just prior to this she sent in the last two areospace fighters she had to bomb the dropship and the surrounding buildings. It was time for my last card to be played. I had the Vulcan and the Grasshopper pilots man the Stinger and Pheonix hawk LAMs in Air Mech Mode, since they could not pilot in areospace configuration. I manned on of the "new" shadowhawks, which had its bomb bay removed in favor of additional armor, and weaponry. All of it lostech. With double heat sinks to boot, we had a distinct advantage. The fighters closed when our Lams pulled up out of the buildings and opened fire, after the firts salvo I converted and performed an alpha strike just as the lead fighter was about to pass the main line of tanks. I cut the light fighter apart, and she came down with all her ordinance on top of them, obliterating almost a lance of armor.

The second I ripped apart as it passed me, and it fell into the mid base detonating its ordinance safely away from my forces. Suzie had her forces charge. Between the hunchback and Urban mech supported by Air Mech LAMs we sowed hellacious amounts of confusion into their ranks. In the end, of the brutal grinding action, the Urban mech had evaporated under heavy fire. The pilot was recovered, but his mech was gone. The phoenix hawk was destroyed, completely, covering the pilot while he made his escape and the Stinger, went down hard after it raped the last of their infantry and took out a couple light armor vehicles. I lost the Shadow Hawk engaging eight mechs, alone and bought time for my pilots to fall under the cover of my infantry who recovered them and fought a delaying action until they picked me up. I didn't expect it to go any other way, but in the iterim I had oblitereated three mechs beyond repair and every one of the last five.

That left the Wasp and the last Shadow Hawk LAM. I used the Wasp to bomb the hell out their holding positions on the fringe and mid regions of the base, that pretty much cut the armor apart and caused an amazing amout of damage to the remaining mechs. I came home and gave the mech to the Urban Mech Pilot who had lost his mech in the fighting. It was my way of saying thanks, and he was more than happy. They fell back to lick their wounds.

The final stage of the battle had me bringing the Shadow Hawk LAM in for a pass at their dropships. I dumped my entire ordinance before they took out my bomb bay. Then I pulled into space and shot their jumpship to hell, punching through one side of their saile and out the other. I hadn't crippled her, but the repairs would take some time. I returned to find the base under siege once more, the Vulcan was dancing around almost out of the fight, the Grasshopper had taken severe damage and the Wasp was gone, apparently, he sat in one place for too long and was cut apart. The hunchback was holding the line, until it ran out of ammo. But my return managed to break their advance as I strafed through their ranks on approach.

At that point my infantry opened up and pushed them back once more. We bottled up in the dropship, having bought the time we needed. Then we lifted, before their troops had cleared the base. We reached our jumpship by accelerating to 3G's immediately and they almost reached us before we jumped away.

That was the last time I ever saw my family. It was the last time I ever saw most of the contingent of people I had hired for the job too. They had had enough of me, even though the payday was substantial. So, now I'm running a legitimate unit and I still have my LAM. But it hasn't been easy. Any lostech, other than conversion equipment I had is gone. Three years of warfare takes its toll. It was nice while it lasted. It got me started, and it helped me build a decent unit.

It's 3040, and after my participation in the War of 3039 we're rebuilding. We went from a company of mechs to a lance. We lost a dropship fighting the Combine for the Fox. The payday was enough to get us back up and running after being decimated by combine mechs with lostech. Unfortunately, salvage rights suck when your fighting for a Great House. We got all the repairs wer needed, but replacement mechs ... not at all.

Thanks for the experience Hanse, but I think I'll head back to Lyran space. The paycheck's always better and we really need the salvage rights... bad.

Welcome to what's left of Ryan's Renegades, we're reforming under a new name for morale purposes. Everyone currently in the unit has lost someone or something. However, I'm optimistic, maybe just maybe the next contract we pick up will bring a brighter future...

"No Brighter Future, Just A Vacation"

I always liked the modeling that Grayson Carlyle used for his unit designation. Granted we didn't have the fame of recovering the Helm Memory core or anything, but its kind of funny how our next assignment took us into Marik space. It took us to Helm, and there was little left here that was of any signifigance other than the fact that we had the distinct advantage of holing up in what remained of the Star League Cache. I said I was heading for Lyran space, and I was, but I recieved a message en-route and the paycheck and assignment was too damned good to pass up.

The Renegades had fought for Marik's forces before, against the Fox, and that's actually how we ended up getting the invite for the War of 39. We had his respect, apparently, but on the way out it felt a lot more like a set up. Seeing as we were decimated... Repairs and replacement parts were all fine and good, but when Hanse's troops didn't show up to back us up we fought a holding/delaying action that killed most of my people as a Regiment of advanced Draconis mechs ground us into a bloody pulp.

So, when the opportunity for the garrison duty on Helm showed up at my doorstep, we diverted from our course to Galatea and headed straight to the Free Worlds League. while it was unlikely that anyone would show up on world to harry us, you never knew as people were still chomping at the bit to take a look at the "actual" Helm memory core, which was still on world in the SLDF base. The Mechs were all gone, some went with the Gray Death Legion, some to the Combine and the rest recovered by the FWL.

But a fully outfitted SLDF base, with the most advanced gantry and repair system I had ever seen was, indeed, a welcome respite for our beleagured unit. It gave me the best opportunity to work with my techs on fixing some of the quirks that had been presenting themselves with my Shadow Hawk LAM and it also gave us the opportunity to set up, the assembly and start hammering out and reworking the acutators in my battle scarred mech.

I always got a lot of questions about my mech, because it wasn't even in the databases of SLDF mechs. It simply didn't register, coming up as unknown in design. With only three prototypes, and then twenty production units ever having been made she was something of an enigma. Couple that with the fact she was a LAM and she also could pull off Air-Mech (unlike her original specs), well, that raised a lot of questions everywhere.

The FWL techs were baffeled by the fact tha my support crew understood the technology and had the ability to fix her. That raised more than a couple eyebrows. The only advanced tech she had anymore was the conversion equipment, I had gotten the rest shot all to hell and back from years of constant fighting.

Anyway, getting back to my grudging respect for the Gray Death Legion. I put up a poll to the remainder of the unit, they all agreed on the "legion" part of the name, but couldn't settle on the first part. This would taake a while. However, I figured it out and my unit kinda liked it... It was kind of disturbing, actually, because we based the new name off of the losses we took in the War of 39. We decided to forgo the Legion portion of the name and settled on "Misery's Regulars" and named the "lances' that would form our company+ (whenever we got back to company strength or beyond) after synonyms of the word "Pain".

Command Lance - Agony

Lost Support Lance - Torment

Lost Assault Lance - Torture

Support Group - Malady

Infantry - Sting

Aerospace - Burn

Armor - Affliction

VTOL - Trouble

Everyone was happy with the naming conventions and it, actually, was pretty handy as you could work in the terms over an open comm or a monitored comm and people wouldn't know what the hell you were talking about until it was too late.

It was a posh assignment and a much needed reprieve as we reformed. Six months later we had an offer to extend the assignment, but my people wanted something with a bit more action.

"Lights, Camera, Action!"

My people wanted action, but I wasn't certain that they were up to the whole engaging line units or anything just yet. So, after dropping by the Mercenary's Star (AKA Galatea) I picked up a lucrative contract fighting for Xavier's Blades, a Stable house of the Lyran Commonwealth on Solaris VII. Xavier Grimrose's stables had just suffered a total loss in the last six months of games with three of his pilots dead and one down with crippling injuries. His mechs were so shot to hell that they were little more than junk metal.

It was an unconventional contract, but a contract nonetheless. The pay was straight up, unbelievable. Qualified mechwarriors were being offered three times base pay. he had already gone through several. As his rivals, in the Combine's Stables were aparently taking pains to "kill" his pilots. They had a distinct advantage, as they were fielding mechs with lostech on a regular basis. Now, I'm no fan of being on the recieving end of a lostech fight. However, we unilke the people who were getting mauled, had some first hand experience dealing with the Dracks and their damned lostech mechs. After all, my company had held out for a week against a full regiment of Draconis mechs fresh out of whatever SLDF cache they managed to find.

My people were lookin for a little payback for the loss of loved ones and the like at the hands of the Combine. It also just so happened that we had salvaged some of that lostech from the Drack mechs in the War of 39 ourselves and had spent the better part of six months testing it while we licked our wounds on Helm. Granted, we only had a lance left. However, good old Xavier had sweetened the deal. The contract stated that if we took out four mechs, which given the rights of the particularly bloody tournaments he was participating in, we got four mechs. He got the first four and we got full repairs, refits and replacements in addition to any mechs we took down after the initial four.

Sure, it was risky. However, the four of us were eager to blood the bastards that killed our friends. Seeing as our name had changed, it would be at least one fight before they realize dthey were facing troops that had fought against battle hardened line troops on dozens of worlds across the inner sphere. So, we loaded up our Manatee and headed out.

Now the last time I spoke about the unit I said my LAM didn't have any Lostech on her. However, after we fixed all the annoying issues that were starting to crop up, we refitted her back to the loose specs of her origins, minus the Bomb bay (which I still had). The only thing I cared about was the freezers, which I had refitted her to twelve double like she was originally. That part that sucked, was that we mamaged to cobble together 12 double heat sinks out of the forty we had salvaged... It was something, at the very least. We kept some of the more promising spares for repairs and then traded the rest to my contacts on New Avalon for some of their other "Freezers", namely working ones that weren't compatible with the doubles, yet still compatible with singles. Those we had mounted sparingly in the ramaining three mechs of the unit.

My roster at this time was:

Rhonda Farrington - Crab - Outfitted with Freezers

Jeremey Michaels - Enforcer - Outfitted with freezers

Thomas Rigby - Crusader - Outfitted with Freezers

Rhonda has been with me since the beginning, she's always been in the command lance. Tom, well, we picked him up along the way and he used to be part of the Support Lance. Jeremy used to pilot an Awesome in the Assault lance, but that came to a burning end in the war of 39. We had the Enforcer stowed as battlefiled salvage from a year earlier and used her occassionally for field exercises, it was his now.

That was the extent of our lostech, everyone's mech had certain alterations. Take mine for example, I added a 5.5 ton hatchet and was hoping to put it to good use killing some Dracks in the arena. The tech's actually added it and painstakingly equalized my gyro for employment in Air Mech Mode. It cut my firepower down a lot, but we would be facing primarily medium mechs. A hatchet on a 660 Meter Air-Mech Charge would be devastating to any modern battlemech, even an Atlas. I ditched my LRM5, for additional medium lasers. So, I was sporting 7 Medium lasers, and an additional half ton of armor. The sick part, the really sick part, was that I wasn't going to overheat on an alpha strike.

About a month later we showed up in our new unit stylized uniforms. Jet Black, jumpsuits, Nakjama Laser Pistols (from Dracks we had killed in 39) and blood red piping. Our unit insignia was a haunted lookng Eye, with a blood red tear drop falling from it. The media ate it up, seeing as everyone in the unit wore the same uniform save for the pistols, which was the only way you could tell the difference between the Mechjocks and the rest of the staff. Everyone else had a standard machine pistol as a sidearm.

Xavier and I clasped hands in from t of the media fanfare, our mechs, however, would be closely guarded until they strode into the arena in our first match a week from now.

"Two Against One"

It was the first match and I was supposed to be fighting a single opponent, at least until the Announcer made the presence of a pristene Lancelot known to be entering the arena rto back up its buddie. I had been weaving in and out of buildings for minutes at this point in Mech Mode, I was doing my best to keep the distance, not exchangin fire with the Kintaro that was closing with me.

I was running out of room and options, the Kintaro was faster and was finally eating up the distance as I was running out of cover. The distinct electrical crackle of a PPC flared merely meters from my mech on the opposite side, neatly pinning me between the approaching Kintaro and the Lancelot, who possessed an Extended Range PPC. It was time, I hit the cconversion controls and switched to Air-Mech Mode and waited a precious few seconds that both mechs closed on my position behind a prefab building.

I had bet all my money on myself, and then the Lancelot entered the fray the odds went to hell in favor of the Combine. Perfect. I just meant I was going to make even more money. The crowd went insane as my mech converted in less than ten seconds. I hammered the throttles and my twin turbines came roaring to life, swinging me out of cover and then back into it almost immediately as I burned up the 240 meters to the next building. I didn't stop, I swung around her and hit the Kintaro from behind with my hatchet, neatly gutting his right torso. I shot past him as his ammo cooked of and the mech went down. The Lancelot's pilot must have frozen for a second or two because his return fire took moments too long. I used the time to rotate 180 degrees and bring my LAM into cover as a PPC blast crackled by over head. The Kintaro had some sort of cellular ammo storage and it struggled to rise, even after the ammo detonation. Pulling up I brought the hatchet down... opps, headshot. One pilot dead, time for the other one.

I waited until the Lancelot closed into the buildings looking for a target. I was sitting, perched atop one of the structures that was several stories high. He was right next to the building and I know his sensors were telling him I was right next to him. I jumped off my perch and repeated the manuver tha felled the Kintaro with grace and style. he went down too, and I "Accidentially" hit my conversion lever and fell on his mech's head from four stories... Two down, time to collect my payday.

The crowd was shocked into silence before the erupted in an insane clamor of shock and for a lot of them, loss. The Lyran's there, however, made out bigtime. Later in front of cameras standing with Xavier, who was grinning from ear to ear, I was questioned heavily about my LAM.

That night we tripled the guards on the Stables with hired muscle in addition to our own infantry. We needed it, some sort of covert squad hit the stables in the early morning. we were waiting, I had the mech bottled up tight and I was sitting in a firestarter of Xavier's that we managed to get barely functional. They got in, past most of the security and one of my guy's comms clicked twice subvocally right before he died. Our guys ran like hell out of the bay and I immolated the interior. we had already moved the delicates out. The flames wouldn't do anyhting to the mechs here, save for burning their paint. But the DEST team that came in died to the last man.

In the second fight it was one on one, until I had Rhonda's Crab show up to return the favor they pulled on my in the first fight. This time she opened up with an Alpha strike and so did I. Scratch Lostech Mech number three, the pilot was vaporized in his cockpit under the overwhelming barrage of fire that barely touched our heat registers.

It was going to get a little trickier from here on out, but my other two pilots were ready for some lance on lance action and some serious revenge.

"Sweet, Sweet Revenge"

I'm going to gloss over what happened when I let the entire lance in on the action. For the rest of our three month contract we cut Combine, Liao, and FWL mechs apart. Our brutality ended with the Combine but we butchered the Liao forces and kept the FWL battles civil and comported ourselves with honor. I piloted a T-Bolt in those matches against the FWL with some gruesome cosmetic alterations.

In the end Xavier got what he wanted and I was able to sign on enough dispossessed, down on their luck mechwarriors to fill the seats of a Company of mechs we took in salvage rights. We had enough capitol that we hired another Union (like the one we lost in he war of 39) and relegated the Manatee largely to a support and merchant role to make the unit extra money in between missions role. We eventually made enoughh capitol to buy the Union outright and signed the Capitan and her crew to the unit.

We weren't getting any Combine contracts anymore and we had outlived our welcome here. After the first DEST team tried to hit us we saw two more attempts, they even came after individuals at one point. All of us, had been hospitalized for at least a week by the time we got the hell off Solaris VII, at one point in time or another due to assination attempts and general celebration (celebration = bar fight = bar fight, while drunk).

We headed to Outreach as the contracts on Galatea were starting to thin as the Dragoons became the "go to guys" for merc contracts and the standard by which most mercs were judged by. What better place to cut our teet before moving on to a real contract than with the dragoons. Their extensive simulated battlegrounds and their testing scenarios pitting us against them mihgt go a long way in see just what kind of pilots the guys I picked up on Solaris really were.

We needed to build unit cohesion and it was never a good thing to do that in the field. We were closing in on 3041, god, the time just seemed to slip away...

"Contacts"

Outreach was an interesting place. Our unit built its cohesion getting its ass kicked by the Dragoons and though our command lance fared better, we took our licks as a team, as in all of us. There was a fair amount of attention on our unit as we rose from the ashes of our old one and int the new "Misery's Regulars" that we were today. Among the attention we had attracted was a higher ranking official in the Lyran Government who wanted to open up some more, permanent, and direct ties with us.

I ended up trading Lostech and beat up Lostech Draconis mechs for ones that better fit the roles in our Reinforced company. Basically, I traded advanced equipment for non advanced equipment and got an almost 2 to 1 return. I had to take a contract with them later, and the requirement was that we had at least a lance of mechs. That wouldn't come into play until sometime in 3042, when the other merc unit that was stationed there was booted out for lack of performance and failure to meet expectations.

In the meantime, there was an additional requirement. We had to take a FedComm contract that would take us into Liao Space (It was actually a Fed Suns backed deal, but they were operating under the Guise of the Federated Commonwealth). It was one of those wheeling deals that the Lyran Officer's "partner" mandated after handing over pristene hardware to us. We got a couple of the older Freezers form the deal as well, so we could edge these new mechs out over the competition.

The mission was to take and hold a world, with an HPG and hold out long enough so that Fed Suns troops could move in and relieve us. The intel on the world was very detailed and that should have been my red flag...

"State Of The Union"

Things were not going good for us at all. Honestly, I don't know what the hell the Fed Suns had against us but it was apparent there was some sort of issue and that was putting it mildly. Sure things had gone well in the initial stages of the operation as our unit mopped up the Liao forces on world. When the Fed Comm failed to meet their first drop date to retake the world I knew something was up. So, I had the Commstar Boys send out a message to our contact on New Avalon. The message I recieved was less than satisfactiory, it read "You're on your own, enjoy your new home and grave." Signed "The Sons for Davion Purity" I screamed in the recieveing room of the Comm Star HPG. Collecting myself, I had them immediately send another message to the Lyran Commonwealth, specifically the officer in question that we had hooked up with on Outreach. The message I recieved in response was "Hold out for as long as you can, I am now aware of the situation and the involvement of the SODP. Will have a jumpship diverted to you to arrive at the following coordinates" and the coordinatess for a Pirate Jump point scrolled across the screen "ETA one month, its the best I could do on short notice. You will have a full Aerospace escort to the nadir jump point"

Now, that's what I'm gawdamn talking about! A month seemed like an eternity, but after doin fthe math with my dropship capitan it was actually correct. No deception. The Lyrans had to be pulling a priority asset out of standard rotation to even have a chance to get it to us in time, especially with Aerospace escorts. At least something on Outreach had paid off...

Two weeks later, we were under such heavy fire that we had to pull out of the city and starport. There was at least a Company of Aerospace, a Regiment of Battlemechs and a regiment of Armor crawling up our asses. The Union had been targeted and bombed to hell. Our Manatee dropship was off world, making money for the unit until it had linked up with the Lyran Jumpship en-route.

First we fought a holding action, then a delaying action as our forces fell back into the surrounding wilds and holed up in rocky terrain. We took to the mountains and their natural tree cover to shield us form the Aerospace fighters and made it as difficult on the advancing armor as possible. Only Mechs could close with us in the end. So, now, I knew who had screwed us in the war of 39 and on this hell hole. All becuase we had Lyran loyalties, and we actually supported the Federated Commonwealth. We were being made an example to other units.

My Aerospace assets were gone in the first three days of the fighting. Sure, we took out almost half of their company, but it wasn't enough. We also took out almost half the Capellan Armor and that wasn't enough. We hadn't even had the opportunity to touch their mechs yet... My Re-enforced Company was, once again, decimated. We were down to the Command Lance, two mechs from the Support Lance and one mech from our Assault lance. The engagement became a meat grinder in the mountains, however, we had seeded the terrain with mines on our way in. The mines killed at least a lance of armor on their own, and then successfully caused enough damage to the first wave of advancing mechs that they were three units down on the first day of their approach to higher ground alone.

About a week out from pickup we had only the command Lance, our support personell and our infantry left... We had scuttled the Union whe they attemped to capture her almost a week before.

"Misery Loves Company"

We had a couple days left before the Lyran Jumpship would appear in system. My people were in pretty bad shape. We had, probably, about a hundred support/infantry left. Some of them were Aero Jocks, some Armor crews, and the rest were support staff and infantry. I had the remains of the infantry company fillling gaps everywhere.

The fighting had been fairly constant. The Capellan forces had taken a hellish beating as they came after us. In the initial withdrawl we had dug in at the tree line, our Armor settling for a last stand, with our mechs laying prone behind them supporting the armor positions. I had a couple pegasus hovercraft on the fringes.

When the Capellan forces of armor and mechs approached, under aerospace cover they took fire form the treeline in great volume. I had the Pegasus Hovercraft flank from the sides hoping for some good rear armor action. After the Capellan advance flatered and fell back, I had the mechs of the command lance right themselves and track the aerospace assets as they came in. I used the last of the Pegasus Hovercraft as bait and while they died, we took out the remains of their fighter cover with heavy fire.

Sacrificing certain units, without their consent or knowledge was something... Well, it was something that made me sick. Once the Capellan aerospace was gone, the battle turned into a brawl. Ending with our armor being eventually overrun. This is where we lost the rest of the mechs. That is, the ones that refused to fall back when I gave the armor crews the order to abandon their vehicles and fall back to the terrain that those war machines could not traverse.

The support personell, and infantry had already fallen back and as my command lance moved into cover we could hear weapons fire, and a couple exchanges for about two hours. The next morning, from a high perch, I sat with Rhonda surveying the tree line and the carnage through binoculars. Even though my people had disobeyed direct orders, they had sold themselves dearly. Not going down until their machines and their armor had been anhiliated. The remainder, scuttling their machines before bailing out. The Capellan forces weren't looking too good. Regardless, they had a fresh company of mechs moving up slowly.

The last of our mines were placed my my infantry on our retreat, so at the very least, thir number would likely dwindle quite a bit. Their mech line was mostly light, jump capable mechs. However, they had a mix of mediums like the Vindicator in there too. We were at the end of our rope and we still had two more days to hold out....

"Pain"

I had the support group continue to fall back after performing field repairs to our mechs. They went with hte last of the survivors under the protection of the remanents of my infantry. Rhonda, Jeremy and Thomas and I rode out to finish it. We met the rest of the company of mechs in close quarters. Thomas had switched his LRM racks for SRM racks (all of them) and this was where we ould make our stand. We had rigged several land slides on the aggressively inclining terrain and our infantry had sown several explosives into key points as well. I had them plant charges to bring down part of the cliff facing if things got nasty...

It was four vs. ten, the mines having taken out two mechs and at least one other was limping. Those of us that had the range fired as they advanced. Tom unleashed several salvos of Infernos in key locations. It set the dense foliage and the packed and dead tinder ablaze. Effectively trapping their mechs in a ring of hellish fire. We still had the advantage of advanced cooling, so while our heat counters rose those of the Capellan mechs must have been insane. It was telling as they fired less and we fired more.

Tom would be the first to go down. He took fire from two Victors, a Grasshopper and a Vindicator. To his credit he managed to light up a victor with infrernos and a volume of SRM ammo that was mind boggling. He dropped under the AC20 onslaught, but kept firing from the ground until his ammo bins ran dry. We watched as his mech detonated along with the Vindicator. Two mechs down... But the cost...

Jeremy screamed and came in with his enforcer, constantly cycling fire into the other Victor as he approached. One more Victor detonated as its ammo cooked off. Jeremy squared off against the Grasshopper and they exchanged fire until his armor was threadbare. At that point he charged the Grasshopped and slamming into it. They want down the hill in a tangle of arns and legs. A final Large laser blast at the base of the hill detonated Jeremy's ammo stores and we watched as both mechs evaporated on our sensors.

Six mechs to go and only Rhonda and I remained. We kept firing as they approached. My lance mates had placed themselves so that i would be the last, whether it be honor, respect or just dumb luck... I would never find out. Rhonda triggered several land slides that took down two more mechs, the rest jumping out of the way. It looked like we might pull this off, albeit at great cost. However, at this point the remamnents of the Capellan Regiment of mechs showed up. They were battered, and mangled but it was more than two medium mechs could handle. Rhonda was overrun, though she kept firing even as mechs pummeled her's in colse combat. She screamed, over and over again "DO IT!!!" With a lump welling in my throat, and a lancing pain in my heart I triggered the explosives that brought a third of the mountainside down. Hitting my jumpjets, while converting to Air'Mech mode I rose above the carnage. In the moments that led to minutes and then the silence that followed, nothing remained of the Capellan force and of my own comrades of many years.

Over the next day I made a couple more runs on their emplacements. I was traumatized, my nerves were shot and some people were demadning revenge. Largely unopposed by anything signifigant, however, I took enough ground fire even in aerospace mode that anything advanced I once had was shot out of my mech once more. For what its worth, I immolated so many infantry, and crippled enough targets to make the city we fell back from look like nothing more than a smoking ruin. Most of those seeking vengance died in the middle of the night as the camp was raided by Capellan infantry. The only survivors were my tech team, who had made camp a ways off, farther up hill and a contingent of my infantry. The rest of the support team was pretty much shattered. The capellans didn't make another push on the last day.

Even when my Manatee set down in a clearing two clicks off the mountain They didn't even bother to respond. Might have had something to do with me taking out all of their satellite uplings and sensor emplacements. Or it might have simply been the fact that they were really, and I mean really, screwed. Their unit commander had more than less lost his entire command to an oversized company. While we lost almost everything, he was already dead in the rockslide. His second was dead, his armor commander was dead, his aerospace commander was dead and only his infantry Capitan remained to tell the tale.

We were battered, beaten and my mech was so shot up it had to be dragged onto the dropship when we left. The Lyrans were true to their word. We left the world unopposed. They did more for us than I would have expected. Most of my people had lived and lost enough and they disbanded. My core support group remained and the Lyrans offered medical support and reparations to those who left and those who stayed. I recieved the contract payout in full, and then some. The money went back into the unit, we hired more infantry and support staff and put out a call for new Mechwarriors.

I'm tired, I feel old. My heart is heavy with the loss of all that I once had and held dear. The Lyrans repaid our loyalty by redoubling their efforts against right wing organizations and also by giving my unit some much needed and excellent Press Coverage. We would recieve our pick of easy assignments, and frankly i was more than pleased with that. Rebuilding for the second time... I already had three new mechwarriors i was interviewing, the Lyran coverage paid off. This is the life of a Mercenary, where loyalties make a difference and damn you at the same time.

It's 3042, a new year and hopefully a different future. This is life, as a Mercenary, in the Inner Sphere. Welcome, to your new home with Misery's Regulars.