Part 544: Mercenary Contract Vote Results
Vote Results“Ah, gentlemen, welcome. Please forgive the mess, we’ve been making preparations for departure.” Face half-hidden by boxes, a man in the field uniform of the Duchy of Andurien stood and turned. The three gold bars of an FWLM Lieutenant Colonel adorning his epaulettes drew a look of inquisitive incredulity to Duncan’s face. Jason kept himself carefully neutral at the speaker replied to Duncan’s unasked question with only the barest ghost of a smile.
“I’m Tagmatarchis Jaroslav Mirche. As you’ve no doubt surmised, the uniform is a pretense: the Rim World Republic has a long-standing agreement with ComStar not to recruit mercenaries from within the Inner Sphere. We’re still here with ComStar’s tacit approval, and ComStar’s Mercenary Review Board has already vetted our payment accounts, but it’s still worth respecting the written terms of that agreement even if we’re violating the spirit a bit.”
The Major’s smile was sincere enough, but Jason held his tongue. The contract’s terms were iron clad, but unlike most of the contracts he’d worked with, many of the clauses were worded to protect the mercenary hirelings rather than their employer. The Republic may have had ComStar’s “tacit approval” to hire mercenaries but ComStar’s Mercenary Review Board obviously meant to punish them for not re-negotiating whatever agreement they’d held previously. If something did go wrong, the monopolistic Mercenary Review Board would levy heavy fines on the Republic or even automatically blacklist their future contracts. It would be small comfort to dead men, but just because something looked like a trap didn’t mean it was one. Whatever the Rim Worlders had in mind was likely preferable to attacking the Outworlds Alliance without any aerospace fighters of their own. Jason hadn’t thought to hire any, and picking up even a single aerojock on such short notice would be nearly impossible.
“Speaking of violating the spirit of an agreement,” Duncan pressed with wry amusement, “we have some concerns about the contract as presented. Namely—”
“The bounty?” The Major interrupted.
Duncan shook his head. “No. You’re only offering what is, admittedly, exceptionally generous battle loss compensation. Our support costs alone will make this venture unprofitable.”
“You can thank the Mercenary Review Board for that,” Major Mirche shook his head. He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion, “They wanted us to commit to some fixed percentage and apparently their computer system has no way of properly listing what we call ‘variable support.’ You will be operating in large part out of Rim World Army facilities, in support of a major defensive campaign. As such, it’s in our best interests to keep you and your machines as highly tuned as our technical support staff can manage. You will be responsible for the salaries of your own technical staff, but all parts, repairs, and ammunition resupply will be provided by the RWA. You’ll have full access to our equipment and our stores, within reason, and if any of your pilots are using older machines—and if we have time—the Republic is willing to help you upgrade your units at components cost.”
The Major smiled slyly, and scratched at his pencil moustache. “That’s cost to us, so a fair bit cheaper than you’d find anywhere in the Inner Sphere.”
Jason felt the skin of his hand tighten as his fingers curled into a fist. Punching their prospective employer would be a quick end to negotiations, but it would’ve been very satisfying. Duncan didn’t seem bothered, or even really to notice. He affected an air of mild disinterest, like a bored noble who was only half paying attention. He fidgeted with the nameplate on the Major’s desk.
“And while we’re serving in RWA bases, our technicians will be helping out with any of your repairs as well?” Duncan mused, managing to sound as though he was talking to himself.
“That’s not a requirement,” Mirche admitted. “They wouldn’t be checked out to maintain Republic equipment and we likely won’t have time to bring them up to speed.”
“They could still serve as assistant technicians and learn on the job,” Jason pointed out. It was obvious enough where Duncan was taking this argument, so Jason gave it another little push. “There’s been a glut of trained technicians looking for work lately. I’d be willing to bet most of the companies you hired fired most of their technical support staff, so having trained techs willing to work on other mercenary `Mechs could free up some of your own staff.”
“That’s a possibility we hadn’t considered,” Major Mirche admitted, looking suddenly nonplussed. He fell silent for a few moments, stroking his moustache as though trying to decide how many man hours would be needed if every mercenary company he hired demanded full technical support from the Republic. “The, ah, Republic,” he offered, “would be willing to offer a small, say, fifty-thousand c-bill signing bonus, if you were to hire on as many extra technicians as your DropShip can safely transport. And we will pay their salaries, if you’ll see fit to loan them to assist the other mercenary units you’ll be stationed with.”
“That’s fair,” Duncan agreed. “We should be able to hire on enough to cover a battalion. And if we need to, we’ll let other mercenary companies hire some of them out from under us once they realize they’ll be using their Mechwarriors for most of their tech support. Which would be to your benefit, since they’d be taking on those techs’ salaries. We had another concern, though: salvage rights. We want—”
“No,” the Major interrupted in no uncertain terms. “If it were remotely practicable, we’d be offering salvage rights, but we simply won’t have the capacity to salvage every `Mech downed. It’s likely the enemy will be salvaging units and returning them to battle as well, and after the fighting ends the Republic’s not willing to spend the time adjudicating which piece of battlefield wreckage belongs to which military unit. That’s why we’re offering a bounty on confirmed `Mech kills: one million per weight class in c-bills, or 1.5 million in manufactured goods—weapons, armor, parts, computer chipsets, engines, even factory new BattleMechs if you’re particularly successful, and that’s in addition to any necessary replacement machines. President Amaris would rather destroy or booby trap any salvageable enemy `Mechs so the enemy won’t be able to easily return them to active duty.”
“We’re expecting a war of attrition,” Mirche continued. “And we expect the brunt of that war to be borne by the Rim World Army. Your company—and the other Mercenaries we hired—will be serving in an auxiliary capacity, defending supply depots and convoys or acting as a mobile reserve force. If all goes well, you’d never see combat, but we’re realists: it’s going to happen, and we’ll see to it that you’re rewarded when it does.”
“Fine then,” Duncan pressed. “That’s fair, but if we can’t negotiate for salvage then I know Jason would prefer a concession from the Republic: command rights. Simply put, we’re a new unit, Jason and I need a chance to show our people what we can do and why, beyond the fact that we sign their paychecks, they should follow our orders. We can’t do that if you assign a ‘command lance’ to babysit and order us around, or whatever your plan is. We’ll follow the RWA’s orders, but we’d like the opportunity to decide how to go about it. We’re willing to cede some transportation costs—”
“That won’t be necessary, we already have a command circuit established. You’re coming to aid us, Captain Kalma, the least we can do is pay your ‘bus fare.’” The Major paused, considering Duncan’s other request for a few long moments.
“Very well. We’ve made concessions for this already: the Republic is willing, provisionally willing, to reduce our ‘tactical interference’ to a simple liaison officer to help keep you, ah, ‘on track’ in the field. But understand failing to follow high command’s orders will be a breach of contract and the Rim World Army reserves the right to assign you an integrated command staff under that circumstance and one other: in the unfortunate event that combat losses render your command structure—we’ll say non-viable.”
“In other words,” Jason interjected, “you’ll saddle the company with your own lance and company commanders if Duncan and I bite it.”
“In a nutshell,” the Major admitted. “Otherwise, our liaison officer will act as an observer and an additional combatant. That will bring your compliment up to… fourteen, I believe? A respectable fighting force, even considering the Locusts. Do you have any other demands?”
“No,” Duncan conceded, glancing Jason’s direction. Jason nodded.
“We’ll take the job, if you want us.”
“Excellent,” the Major clapped his hands together. “I wasn’t looking forward to returning home with an empty docking collar on the JumpShip anyway. Go make some last-minute additions to your technical staff and—can you be ready to launch in two days?”
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Duncan lounged in his Atlas’s cockpit, its idling engine sending a tingling vibration through the soles of his boots. At any given time, half of the company was on ready-five status, prepared to power up and fight at a moment’s notice. The supply base they’d been assigned to was well behind the front lines, but those battle lines were fluid. The Clan landing had been hugely delayed even after they’d entered orbit. Duncan wasn’t sure of the specifics, but their own landing had been delayed to wait for the right ‘window.’ He’d assumed it was a storm until he descended the DropShip’s boarding ramp and saw clear skies. Their young liaison officer had been forthcoming, at least, but the specifics had gone over Duncan’s head.
Apparently the Republic had practically filled the skies with armored satellites, unarmored satellites, high-velocity gauss rifle rounds, and even simple rocks that rendered low orbital space incredibly risky, especially for aerospace fighters. The release of this orbital debris had been carefully calculated in advance, allowing brief ‘windows’ where it was relatively safe to effect a landing. These windows had been actively transmitted to the Clans, practically funneling them into landing zones of the Republic’s choosing. At least one Clan DropShip had been destroyed trying to land outside one of those windows.
The Clans had begun landing three days ago, but the most either side had seen had been small skirmishes. Raiding parties and scouts sent to keep the other side off-balance. The heavy stomping footfalls of a quadrupedal BattleMech echoed through the Mechbay, drowning out the technicians on the external microphones. An insect-like face turned to regard the `Mechs inside for a few moments before continuing on its way. Duncan suppressed an involuntary shudder—that was something else that had taken him by surprise.
Their liaison, Lt. Alec Delwyn of the 427th Amaris Dragoons, had called the unusual lightweight quads Revenants. Andurien was crawling with them: semi-autonomous drones that outnumbered piloted BattleMechs by what felt like 6:1. Alec’s advice had been to treat them like half-trained hunting dogs. They worked fine so long as they were leashed, but the moment something caught their attention they’d chase it until they killed it or something either distracted them or calmed them down. They made for poor guards and only passable scouts, but Duncan had to admit he wouldn’t mind one bit if the Clans wanted to waste ammo—and the element of surprise—shooting at them.
A hand pounded on the Atlas’s entrance hatch. He released the locking mechanism, and Alec poked his head into the cockpit.
“Bored, Captain Kalma?”
Duncan snorted. The kid was respectful to a fault. “It’s Duncan. Or Demon, if you prefer callsigns.”
“Demon, then.” Duncan knew the Lieutenant wouldn’t stick to that concession for long. He’d probably need a reminder until they’d fought together in the field. He waved at the radio, through which a near-constant stream of rhetoric. The voice of Stefan Amaris the seventh himself. He was railing against the excesses of the Camerons, the innumerable crimes of the old Terran Hegemony, at old General Kerensky, and the dreams of periphery colonists—and the hope for a better future those regimes had supposedly sabotaged. The Rim Worlders had practically covered Andurien in transmitters—both for their own laser-based communications systems and to flood nearly every frequency band with Amaris’s words. Duncan had been listening for two hours and the man hadn’t repeated himself once.
“Just curious about the man I’m working for,” he joked. “And wondering when the recording’s going to loop.”
“If all goes well, it’s not,” Alec laughed. “I’m told there’s over three straight weeks of it ready to broadcast, non-stop. We’ve ‘forgotten’ a few frequency bands for the Clans to use—they don’t broadcast with encryption, so our analysts have a pretty good idea what they’re doing even if we’re not entirely sure which unit is which.”
“Between that and the satellites,” Duncan fished for more info, “you must be hitting them pretty hard now that they’ve rolled out.”
“We are,” Alec admitted. “We’ve hammed their main push. Lost a lot of Revenants, I’m told, but that’s what they’re there for. The Clan advance stalled when their `Mechs ran short on ammo and then the Dragoons and the 331st rolled up on them and forced them back to their landing zones. Both sides have withdrawn for now, so command wants us to make a supply run while things look quiet. I told them the Demon Hawks would take the first run—I know I should’ve consulted with you or Jason first, but Jason was asleep and you weren’t listening to the base comms. And I know you’ve been eager to get out and about, so I didn’t see the harm.”
The kid looked chagrined, it was the choice Duncan would’ve made but all the same, it was way outside Alec’s boundaries as a liaison officer. Seeing the look on Duncan’s face, Alec sputtered, “Look, I know you’re not happy about that, but I’d really rather not leave a potentially vital supply convoy to the Crimson Reapers. Who knows what they’d do with it. And command wanted a go or no-go right there, so—”
“It’s alright, kid,” Duncan shook his head. “We’d have taken it. Just—wake Jason next time if you can’t reach me. I’m going to make you go do just that so we can move out.”
Demon Hawks
Demon Lance
Hawk Lance
Possible Allied Forces
Convoy elements
Possible Aerospace support
Expected Resistance
Raiding Elements, Clan Snow Raven, Alpha Galaxy
Mechwarriors
- dis astranagant
- Pooncha
- ArbitraryTA
- vuk83
- Kirenski
- Shinarato
- Otter Madness
- Lenisto
- Telamon
- Arcturas
- Pussy Cartel
- Kilty Monroe
- Ice Fist
Alternates
- Seb Mojo
- AmyL
- LegendairyBovine
- Cimbri
- El Spamo
- Corponation
- GhostofJohnMuir
- Loxbourne