I was lurking the forum for some time, but I decided to post here my mercenary unit that I developed for my short Battletech stories. If you have any feedback or comments, I would be delighted to answer.
Kalmar Hussars
Kalmar is located between Dili and Tengil and most of its surface is covered by water. Colonisation of the planet was concentrated around biggest city on the northern continent. It has some iron-ore deposits and lot of people were scattered around smaller homesteads, usually fishermen by craft. Kalmar was colonized by Czech colonist from the Free World’s League (same Czech colonisation wave that colonised also the worlds of Karlstejn and Konopiste), but by the end of the Age of War in 2571 it had been absorbed into the Andurien Commonality of the Capellan Confederation. New colonists from the Confederation merged with older ones in new unique Czech-Chinese cultural fusion with mostly naval mythology, that thrived on the planet. The Fifth Andurien Hussars were garrisoned on the planet, but their heavy-handed approach left the original ideas of the unit (putting the greater good above their own being) sometimes lacking. They were well regarded despite that. Kalmar had been recaptured by the Free World’s League by the end of the 1st Succession War and the Fifth was destroyed in the process. The Kalmar Hussars were created to protect the system afterwards, mostly from the locals who served in the Fifth and survived its destruction. The name was chosen to honour the legacy of original ideas of the destroyed unit.
During the 3rd Succession War Kalmar Hussars fought alongside Free Worlds League Battalion to protect the planet from Capellan invasion, but the costly and prolonged campaign all but destroyed Kalmar as an industrial base. Capital city was burned to the ground during intense house to house fighting and most of the northern continent, where best profitable iron-ore mines were, was destroyed by nuclear bombings to deny their usage to the enemy. As the epidemy of unknown origin broke out, both sides arranged a ceasefire and abandoned the planet in hurry. Most of the local population was dead, either killed in the crossfire or decimated by the onslaught of epidemy. Free Worlds League pretty much wrote the world off and let it fend for itself. With the end of 3rd Succession War, Kalmar vanished from most of the maps as too unimportant.
Kalmar Hussars lost all of their (mostly light) Battlemechs in the battle, but the surviving members of the militia recovered two Mechs that were left in hurry on the planet (Capellan Catapult CPLT-C1 and Free Worlds Orion ON1-K). Both sides deemed them too damaged to repair, but militiamen managed to scavenge enough spare parts from destroyed Mechs left on the battlefield (because of the epidemy, there was no time for the military to evacuate all the wrecks as well) to get them up and running again. Both machines became the core of the new Kalmar Hussars.
Although the main iron-ore mines were destroyed, enough smaller ones were left on the southern continent for the Ruso Mining Corporation to continue its mining operation there, not making a killing, but paying the costs and making some small profit of it. Militia was hired to provide security for the mines, being the cheapest possible option. They were already on the ground and had Battlemechs to dissuade any intruders from attack. Corporation later loaned two further Mechs (Blackjack BJ-1 and Commando COM-1B) to Hussars to create a lance able to redeploy with Corporation’s Leopard. For the next two decades the Hussars were on contract protecting the mining operations, engaging pirates and raiders multiple times and emerging victorious from most of them. Corporation ships coming every half a year to collect the ore were the only connection to the outside world, not counting small-times merchants and smugglers who sometimes made a trip around smaller worlds in the vicinity.
The iron-ore mine was finally depleted in 3017 and the RMC terminated its operation on Kalmar. Most of the people on the planet were long gone (moved to other planets already) and with the mining company leaving, most of the remaining locals abandoned Kalmar too. Corporation demanded return of their loaned Battlemechs and tried to scam the Hussars of their bonuses. They decided to keep the Mechs and Leopard as the compensation instead and left the planet to seek mercenary employment somewhere else. There was no one left on Kalmar to protect.
They developed the scam posing as a lance of alleged Company, using the notion of a bigger mercenary command to get more credibility and contracts. It also serves as a safeguard, in case anyone tries to cross them, they maintain that two other lances would come looking and will avenge them. Major Chiang Vesely, the alleged leader of the Company never even existed in the first place. For Mercenary Review Board purposes, they claim that one (factionary) lance is always protecting their (non-existing) Company HQ on Kalmar and a second one (bogus) is on a long term protecting the (also non-existing) Kalmar residents. They claim that they offer services of only one lance for the outsiders. Hussars however are and always were a one-lance mercenary group.
At the beginning, they were all Kalmar-born and they used Czech as their communication language but were forced to switch to English as more and more non-Kalmarians joined the unit. Czech is a hard language to learn, so not many newcomers managed to do so. All of them learned how to swear in Czech however, as it is a colourful language to do so.
The Commando COM-1B proved ill-fortuned as it was having mechanical difficulties all the time and cost them two pilots – Avalanche died when Commando was shot in the head with PPC and after its repair, Joyride was lost with the whole Mech during the fight against Draconis invaders on Kinkaid II in Outworlds Alliance (Alliance is short on Mechs, therefore mercenaries are employed for garrison duty or limited defensive contracts. Some mercenary units are also hired by business interests in the Alliance.). In that same fight, they managed to save wounded pilot of the Panther, who was left for dead by her unit, from being lynched by the locals. She joined the unit with her Mech, replacing the poor Commando. Kukri is the latest newcomer, filling the vacancy in the Blackjack cockpit, when Birdseye got himself killed in some meaningless barfight. Of the five original Mechwarriors, only Rusalka and Shi are still alive. They also hired two former Agromech pilots from Aurigan Reach – Vandal and Newt - as spares for the team. They are primarily helping with the maintenance, but they are training in the simulators as well, jumping in the cockpit in case of safe employment (boring perimeter patrol for example) or sickness of one of the main pilots.
Kalmar Hussars wear a dark-blue hussar uniform referring to the old hussar’s tradition back on Terra with a pelisse (short waisted over-jacket) worn slung over one shoulder and high riding boots, going back to the unit’s formation in 2825. The pelisse looks inconspicuously, but it is also made from bulletproof material, so it protects the wearer as the old one did back on Terra. Full dress uniform adds also a busby (high fur hat) and a cavalry sabre. While most of the mercenary companies are rowdy and their discipline is questionable at best, Hussars are still run as a military-grade outfit (honouring their militia roots).
Hussars paint their Mechs and equipment a dark metallic blue, highlighted with bright yellow. They display their unit insignia (stylized giant squid or ‘kalmar’ in Czech) on their left shoulder and number of the lance on the right one.