Mercenaries
- Location
- Florida USA
Mercenaries
The mercenary trade is one of the oldest professions in our collective human history, so it is no surprise they continue to ply their trade in the Cisglass. Much like our own Inner Sphere, the Cisglass saw mercenaries rise in prominence through the Succession Wars and the Collapse. The latter event would see them gain a checkered, mixed reputation, however, as in many cases merc units became virtually indistinguishable from pirates in the chaos of the late 29th and early 30th Century Inner Sphere. It was not until the Terran-supported Mercenary Review Board came into being that this distinction started to reform, as legitimate mercenary formations had to retain standards of behavior to maintain their MRB ratings.
As with many things associated with Terra the MRB was done away with, as their growing abuse of mercenaries' trust and forced dragooning of multiple commands into the TUDF for REVIVAL destroyed the trust they'd long built up. Their replacement was the Mercenary Bonding and Contracting Board, sponsored by General Penelope Reynolds and the host of ex-SLDF-aligned mercenary forces that were associated with the Lexington Concord. Since its founding in 3040 the MBCB has become a cellular structure built around regional hiring halls on various worlds across the Inner Sphere. The central board does not have a primary location but rotates clockwise around the Inner Sphere every three years among the A-tier Hiring Halls; Galatea, Nox, Lexington, St. Ives, Canopus, and Coventry. These Halls are the largest complexes with representatives from the mercenary relation departments of Successor States on hand, ready to negotiate lucrative multi-year contracts with the hired representatives of all the major mercenary organizations. The A-tier Halls are likewise host to educational facilities for mercenaries, training and recruitment centers, and connections to the Inner Sphere's arms industries for contracting leases or purchases of new equipment. Communities of dependents for large merc formations often fill entire neighborhoods around the Halls, and whatever may happen in the field elsewhere with the units themselves, their dependents provide mutual protection and support to one another more often than not (and outside of outlier cases).
The B-tier Hiring Halls tend to be located on Successor State capitals and major regional centers, complementing the A-tier halls with similar facilities and often the point where the majority of regimental and brigade-sized formations will negotiate contracts with states and major industrial or commercial enterprises for their services. They tend towards a greater emphasis on training and recruitment than the A-tier halls and also see plenty of dependent housing about.
The C-tier Halls are the most plentiful, with over one hundred across the Inner Sphere, typically handling the business of smaller mercenary formations contracting with local lords, governments, or organizations. Many a small mercenary outfit gets its start at a C-tier hall, hiring local talent and finding short-term and sometimes risky contracts to get their start. Their arms markets are shady affairs run by local sellers who provide gear that can be a mix from pricey new weaponry of Royal manufacture to ramshackle machines barely held together by rigged plate and wiring. Fewer facilities exist for supporting training or dependents. Recruiting often occurs at street level, in the bars or pubs or other seedy establishments that cater to mercenaries.
So-called "D-tier" halls exist, but are not officially recognized or supported by the MBCB, and they are often mixed in with black markets, pirates, and "unlicensed contracts" that only the desperate or the criminal are willing to turn to. They primarily exist in the Near Periphery and, unsurprisingly, are co-located with a number of confirmed or suspected pirate holdings.
Major merc commands only interact with the C-tier (and if desperate enough, even "D-tier") Halls when they are looking for quick replacements of battlefield losses. On a number of occasions they will actually contract with smaller local units as loss-replacement troops. Unwary merc bands may find themselves being recruited into oblivion or used as cannon fodder by a larger formation, but it can also lead to a "farm team" scenario where smaller merc commands form lasting associations with the large ones, who cycle fresh talent through the smaller units for seasoning and pay in both currency and new gear.
Until recently, mercenaries in our Inner Sphere primarily traded in the C-bill. In the Cisglass, the Terran War put an end to the C-bill's primacy for sixty years. The late 30th Century was a particularly chaotic time for mercenary units as without a stable central currency with a value they could count on Sphere-wide, a merc band could find their contract's value decline due to domestic financial policy, an unexpected economic slump, or simple exchange rate issues. Merc bands of wide scope typically negotiated for the strongest currency within a region or insisted on greater salvage rights or the provision of supplies and gear that could offset their costs. The Hesperan dollar gained a particular value for mercenaries because Defiance fixed a specific value to the dollar by weight of their military hardware, making the Consolidant's official union with the Royal Federation in 3116 particularly painful as the dollar ceased circulating and had to be exchanged for Federation pounds. The MBCB briefly flirted with an "M-bill" in the 3080s backed by the Board and the good faith of the best merc bands, but the concept swiftly collapsed. After the turn of the century, ComStar's expanding HPG network allowed the C-bill to return as a prominent and accepted currency of exchange, though it still has not regained the primacy it once enjoyed. It is rather closer in use to that the Fox-bill has currently attained in our Inner Sphere. (I can imagine that Khan Hawker is positively salivating at the prospect of his Clan's currency gaining traction on the other side of the Glass. - Lady Janella)
Questions of pay aside, mercenary life is no easier in the Cisglass than it is in our Inner Sphere. While there are no Clans to ban them or treat them as dishonorable sellswords to be disposed of, the acceptance of mercenaries and their treatment varies by state and individual world. They are spat on or saluted depending on such moods and the history of specific worlds. Their money is often freely taken, sometimes excessively so. Mercenaries have few opportunities to set down roots as the next contract can see them sent clear across the Inner Sphere. Nor is it a very safe life. Most are fated to die in combat, by insurgent or guerrilla action, or any number of mishaps common to the life. But the legends of figures like Karl "One-Eye" Sleipson continue to draw ex-military and civilian hopeful alike into the mercenary lifestyle.
As a whole, the perceptions vary. Mercenaries are either barely better than pirates, hired thugs for oppressive rulers and companies, soldiers of fortune prone to wanton destruction and lacking in battlefield ethics, or professionals paid to do a dirty job. These perceptions are just as varied as the truth that each merc unit can fit into any of these categories, sometimes more than one. It is a lifestyle apart from any Successor State military force, and often just as bloody.
Yet mercenaries defy easy classification. They can be many different things, depending on a host of factors. New formations are often little more than collections of former soldiers working together for a payday, with rank structures borrowed from whatever manual the founder wishes to draw from. Older units have long established their own cultures, uniforms, unique rank systems, and traditions. New or old, mercenary units form their own combat styles and develop unique tactics for operations in the field. They are small companies of infantry and 'Mechs who raid for hire, or vast brigades equal to the finest units in the Successor States' armies. Some are semi-House units with special customs, arrangements, or connections to specific Successor States, others are complete free agents. They may continue to bear grudges based on past defeats and incidents or they might see it all as "just business".
They are heroes, villains, rogues, enforcers, cutthroats, and knights-errant. There is only one thing you can, in the end, count on when dealing with a mercenary: if you can pay them, they will fight for you.
Dumas' Musketeers
It was early in the Second Age of War that Terran nobleman Count Jean-Paul Dumas, witnessing the growing bloodshed outside the Union's borders, decided to make his own statement on the new status quo. Using his family's vast wealth and contacts with the MRB, Dumas recruited a host of mercenary and ex-TUDF personnel to form a new mercenary company that would not only increase his family's prosperity but, in his words, "remind the Successor States that even in the flames of war, the virtues of Humanity will endure". Citing his family's believed descent from 19th Century author Alexandre Dumas, the Count Dumas named his mercenaries "Dumas' Musketeers" in honor of the chivalric and heroic duelists of the older Dumas' works. Officially joining the MRB ranks in 3036, the Musketeers were hired by the Solar Union, just to evoke their contract clause for "Good Morals Violations" and terminate the contract over the Union's violation of a peace treaty with the Outworlds.
The Musketeers would fight through the Second Andurien War and the Compact-Hyadian War before the MRB recalled them for "consultations" in 3046. Back on Terra Count Dumas was explicitly ordered by Director-General Kerensky herself to sign an exclusive contract seconding his troops to the TUDF. Dumas responded by fleeing the Union for sanctuary in Tikonov, where he was assassinated by Terran agents. The Musketeers, to a man, vowed to avenge their founder's murder and refused the MRB's recall, signing on instead with the new MBCB. When Operation REVIVAL came in 3050 they were in the employ of the Kilbourne Commonwealth and would fought tenaciously to protect Farnsworth from the initial Terran raids. Throughout the Terran War they fought under Kilbourne contract, and though denied a role in SERPENT due to their losses on Northwind, the Musketeers would return to Terra in 3061 to bury the remains of Count Jean-Paul.
The outbreak of the Fourth Succession War found the Musketeers between employers and enjoying their pay amid the pleasures of Canopus. When word came of the Empire's ultimatum to Andurien, Count D'Artagnan Dumas immediately offered the Musketeers' swords to Andurien, who with the aid of Canopus hired the Musketeers for the duration of the war. From Leyda to Andurien to Mosiro III the Musketeers fought the Imperial invaders of Andurien, suffering losses along the way until the Inner Sphere settled into the Peace of Dieron. Since the Concert they have moved between employers every few years, only seeing action in their 3136-3139 service with the Royal Federation. In 3138 they fought the Second Arkab Legion's raid on Sabik and, the following year, joined the relief forces sent to save the world of Freedom from the Second Sword of Light's rampage. Following the end of the contract in 3140, the Musketeers were immediately hired by the Federated Suns to provide a veteran presence in the Crucis March, where they currently defend the world of El Dorado.
Gray Death Legion
A familiar name for many of this, this Gray Death Legion was likewise a creation of the Carlyles, though with different circumstances in the late Renaissance era. Hired by the Defiance-Hesperus Consolidant for the First Skye War, Grayson Carlyle and his legion fought a number of notable battles that included an infamous descent upon Donegal. Towards the war's end they would assist Arthur Luvon and Katrina Steiner in leaving Donegal and forming a new state, the New Commonwealth, on Coventry, with the Gray Death Legion as the core of the new NCAF. This period of House unit living lasted for a decade before it all ended with the War of Donegalian Succession. Carlyle's Legions would fight ferociously on Donegal, Tetersen, Porrima, and Coventry itself, where Carlyle was wounded by the Arcadians' Eighth Strikers. When Archon Katrina and her family were killed by Rim Republican Army insurgents in 3042 and the New Commonwealth collapsed, Carlyle chose to return to the mercenary life and led the Gray Death Legion away from Lyran space.
During the Terran War the Legion were under contract with the Lexington Concord. They would defend Macomb from Terran raiders and join the reinforcements sent to relieve Lexington itself, then be among the troops that lifted the Terran siege of Robinson. In the Concord-Compact War they were vital to the campaign for New Ivaarsen and would be second wave forces in the conquest of Robinson itself. Through the rest of the century they were often under Concord contract, until Grayson's heir and son Ronald decided the Legion needed to move on or risk being absorbed into the KSDF. He took a contract with the Federated Suns in 3098 and then the Flavian Principate in 3104, spending four years putting down patrician revolts and suppressing legionary rebels. The Legion, seeking a quiet contract after Ronald was killed fighting patrician rebels on Kogl, took a five year contract with Canopus in 3109 to give time for Ronald's son Roland to gain valuable experience in managing the family unit. Instead the Fourth Succession War would be the unit's greatest test, starting with the relief of Villaneuva in 3110, insertion onto Andurien in 3112 and the fight for that world through 3117, and their taking of Kanata a year later. Each each regiment down to half strength or worse, the Legion was quite ready to see peace when the Congress of Dieron finished its work.
In the years since the war Roland has rebuilt the family unit to its greatest height. Perhaps most importantly, he has ended the long feud with the Steiners and Proctors left by the War of Donegalian Succession, embodied by his accepting a five year contract with the Armed Forces of the Royal Federation from 3137 to 3142. The Legion spent the time period stationed to Glengarry and Carnwath in the Skye Theater, taking advantage of their contracted access to Defiance Industries to finish rebuilding the unit from their losses in the war and to expand to a fourth 'Mech regiment. Now one of the largest mercenary brigades in the business, Roland turned down the AFRF's renewal offer and is said to be considering contracts elsewhere. There are rumors that Carlyle has, in fact, been contracted to the Lyran Commonwealth and will be coming through the Glass, though Lady Trillian's loans and grants could not come close to funding the costs of such an outfit. At least, not without help.
The Gravediggers
Veteran mercenary commander Colonel Christopher Hoyal founded the Gravediggers in 3034 after recuperating from traumatic injuries he received in the First Skye War. Using the generous cash grants awarded by House Brewer to its victorious forces he financed a full strength brigade and recruited with a promise to provision any five year veteran of the Gravediggers with solid identification in a new identity, a way for anyone willing to serve through the Second Age of War to reinvent themselves. Taking his first contract with the Arcadian Free March to fight in the Second Skye War, the Gravediggers would become a tough and respected unit across the Inner Sphere. No job was too dangerous or too quiet, and as the name implied, Hoyal fully expected his mercenaries to be burying their dead wherever they went.
He would be among those buried when the unit was nearly broken on Albalii by the Terran Union. Unable to even negotiate a proper surrender and withdrawal due to the TUDF's declaration of all MBCB-aligned units as "unlawful", the Gravediggers fought with the shattered survivors of their Azami employers until a Galedonian-Concord raiding force broke the Terran fleet presence enough for them to escape in 3052. As their contract with the Azami was up the Gravediggers, now under Christopher's son Adam, retreated to a hiring hall to rebuild. Ultimately they would end the Terran War in Federated Suns employ, having played a role in the liberation of Tikonov.
In the decades after the Terran War the Gravediggers remained in demand, as did their pledge to provide fresh ID for their recruits. Their missions were often deadly, like a strike on Stewart in 3080 under Oriento-Capellan employ that claimed Adam's life and sixty-percent of the brigade while inflicting significant damage on the Corean Enterprises factories, or Adams' son Wallace losing his left arm and half the unit in the successful defense of Dixie in 3098-99 against the Scipian Dominate. Wallace's son Christopher inherited what was left of the brigade in 3117 after the First Regiment was compelled to surrender in a heavy raid on Luthien and every survivor, including Wallace, was executed by the Order of the Black Dragon. The much-reduced Gravediggers, still under Rasalhaguan contract, joined the Fourth Drakøns and the Third Autonomous Brigade of the CLAF in a revenge assignment that struck once more at the Black Pearl. Christopher personally led the battle from his Atlas III and fired the shots that leveled the Black Dragons' headquarters, where his infantry rounded up and executed every surviving OBD member. Reportedly he left a message for Kori Honda-Kurita and her fanatical followers written in blood, reading "Payback's a bitch". Now at a large brigade centered on two 'Mech regiments, the Gravediggers have recently left Concord employ and the hot war in the Outworlds for a three year defense contract with the Royal Federation and posting in the Stewart March along the Federation-Imperial border. Some observers have noted the contract allows for the AFRF to convert their mission to offensive operations, but there is no sign they are considered for duty through the Glass.
Black Pants Legion
Known for fairly plain and regular uniforms, uniform use of black trousers, and speaking in a Periphery drawl, the Legion has moved about the Inner Sphere for the past ninety years, working five year contracts with one employer or another, then going quiet for a time before returning to a Hiring Hall to accept a contract with a new employer. For a very long period of time their leader has been a grizzled one-eyed veteran known and identified only as "Professor Tex" or "the Professor", the pilot of a standard AWS-8Q Awesome by all accounts still taking down newer BattleMechs challenging him on the battlefield. Their contract terms always stipulate significant salvage rights from the battlefield, and they are one of the few merc bands to own their own JumpShip fleet which, during garrison work, they often make use to take on local transport work to supplement their contract income.
The Black Pants Legion first appeared during the height of the Terran War, a unit with a battalion of Royal-grade BattleMechs and two more regiments worth of Collapse-era machines in Collapse-era technology. While most of their machines would have difficulty on the battlefields with the Terran Union, the Magistracy of Canopus tendered a bid as the need for fresh units and more metal outweighed any concern of their suitability for the fight. Their combat record has shown the wisdom of that choice, with more victories than defeats and a solid set of tactics taking advantage of what heavy firepower they do have. The liberation of Kyrkbacken and New Aragon in the Terran War under Canopian colors were their first major actions. In the Concord-Compact War they were under AFFS contract and would participate in the failed defense and reclaiming of Point Barrow. Under Rasalhaguan contract they fought in the final years of the Vanguard War on the Ghastillian front, including a fight where they stalemated the Kell Hounds on Timkovichi before being ordered off-world. They would start the Fourth Succession War under Principate employ, fighting in the Fifth Battle of Nullarbor before withdrawing from service in 3114. In 3117 they resurfaced and accepted a contract with Andurien, ending the war supporting the reclamation of Mosiro from Imperial control. When the bankrupt state had to practice early termination following the signing of the Peace of Dieron, the Legion disappeared once more, resuming the cycle. As of 3140 they have a contract with the Grand Union of Tikonov and are posted on Nanking, where they have had success in rooting out a Liaoist insurgency movement alongside the Fourth Woodstock Regulars.
To this date the Black Pants Legion has worked for virtually every Successor State, with the noted exception of the Oriento-Capellan Empire. This is not for lack of trying as the Empire has repeatedly offered lucrative contract terms only to be bluntly rebuffed. The unit itself has changed slightly over the years, though not as much as would be expected given the quantity of hardware they have claimed with salvage rights. Typically their re-appearance at the Hiring Halls sees the unit once more with a battalion of Royal-quality machines and the other five a collection of carefully refurbished but definitely not pristine Succession War-era weapons. What is also notable is that their Royal-quality machines are usually older designs with upgrades, in the style used by the TUDF in the 30th and 31st Centuries, with newer production never returning with them between their trips to the Hiring Halls. The MBCB has not pressed them on this but reportedly an effort was made by the Kilbourne Concord to find out more, with rumors abounding that the Concord tracked their JumpShips into the Deep Periphery past the Free Traders' Union before losing contact. Only one clue has ever surfaced about any sort of home base for the Legion, found by the Kell Hounds after overrunning a Legion fire base on Timkovichi: a tattered flag bearing a seal for the "Free State of Van Zandt". The provenance of this is disputed given there is no world of that name to be found in records. Many conspiracy theorists latch onto the flag for some of the more outlandish theories regarding these mercenaries, by far the most popular being that they are scouts for a Deep Periphery state plotting an invasion of the Inner Sphere. (That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? — Lady Janella)
Last edited: