Julian Davion & his mercenaries

[Colt Ward]

The Splinter of Hope has Julian taking steps to keep mercenaries in his employ even with the dire state of the FedSuns.  But it would also mean they hired mercenaries . . . but from where?  Outreach is not the hub it once was, and access to that world is questionable.  Northwind is behind the Fortress wall and was not a merc hub since before the Jihad.  Solaris VII is under Wolf control, and while the games may go on its unlikely a place mercenary commands frequent.  Galatea is under pressure from the Wolf Empire and had been from the Falcons, plus they are hiring for their little defense league.  Arc Royal's concentrated on the Falcons & would not have been getting many commands present unable to get a contract . . . if it had not been sacked.  Astrokasy is part of the League through the Rim Commonality.  Kendall is no longer the base of the Marik Protector semi-mercs, likely was never a place for anything more than the Protectors and got hit by the Marians (again).  Ruchbah was in Capellan hands by 3145 while the Dracs had Towne.

Which leaves . . . Nosiel and Herotitus . . . which leaves Herotitus as the closest merc hiring hall worlds for Julian.  What sort of numbers or quality could he get from a periphery world?

So where is Julian hiring the mercs?

[Decoy]

I get the feeling that the build up was done near Galatea. Furthermore, I imagine there were a lot of agents out and about trying to snag people.

[Colt Ward]

He did not stop at Galatea on the way to be crowned IIRC, he stopped at Callison and formed the auxiliaries.

[Decoy]

Julian doesn't need to go to Galatea. He has agents acting on his behalf, right?

[Frabby]

The scene in A Splinter of Hope where he (re-)negotiates the expiring contract with Tally's Talons is set at the Task Force Cerberus rallying point on New Damascus according to the epigraph.

It's not a perfect example as the unit was in Davion employ already and he merely had to negotiate a follow-up contract for the current one which was due to run out shortly. But it does show that even units with an unclear contract status had their contracts finalized at the rally point only.
I guess what happened is that he sent out the word that he was hiring, come to rally point XY for final contract negotiations (and thereby bring your own transports, because we have none to spare).
I recall that it was mentioned somewhere in Shattered Fortress that they had mole units or breakaway units among their mercenaries, and had to carry out a house cleaning operation to ferret them out and hunt them down (by jumping to a different world than announced, where the runaway mercs realized too late that they were not on the planet they thought they were on).

[Orwell84]

Galatea is under pressure from the Wolf Empire and had been from the Falcons, plus they are hiring for their little defense league. 

Probably also why some mercs from around there might sign on with Julian. Given a choice between A) fighting the Capellans who are historically generous towards mercs and B) fighting the generally anti-merc Wolves, or worse Malvina who's anti-everyone...

At least some mercenaries would opt for contract A in a heartbeat, and best of luck to you Galatea. After all, Liao might offer them new contracts (or at least safe passage to a new market) if the expedition goes belly-up. The Clanners most certainly wouldn't.