----- 3 Months Later -----
Date: October 3, 3010
Location: Galatea
Title: Not the Way the Smart Money Bets
Author: Michael A. Stackpole
Type: Short Story (BattleCorps)
Synopsis: Morgan Kell (last seen departing Poulsbo in a hurry in 3005) and his younger brother Patrick arrive on Galatea to live their dream and start up their own mercenary company – the Kell Hounds. Coming off the DropShip, they’re greeted by Gordon Franck, with the Lyran office of Mercenary Relations, who insists on escorting them to a meeting with General Volmer. Morgan accompanies Franck in a VTOL transport, while Patrick heads to their hotel, the Nova Royale.
On the VTOL, Franck compliments the Kell brothers’ skills, but warns them that there’s a sharp difference between “platinum” Galatea and “rust” Galatea, and that many “rust”-level mercenaries have heard about the Kell Hounds’ formation through recruiting officers, and that managing expectations will be difficult. Franck further hints that the man who controls the “rust” level, crime boss Haskell Blizzard, enjoys having impoverished MechWarriors stuck onworld, hoping for contracts, because the profit margins in selling salvaged equipment to desperate mercs are quite rewarding, and he’d rather not have Kell and his family's Eire BattleMech Company interfere with that market segment. Blizzard is well connected, and his granddaughter is the wife of the son of the head of the Lyran garrison, General Volmer.
Morgan responds that he hasn’t come to Galatea to start a mercenary company. He has a dream of putting together a force to fight for human freedom from tyranny – something that his recently deceased (in August, from cancer) cousin Arthur Luvon had been passionate about. Franck asks if he’s hiring administrative staff.
Taking a taxi to the hotel, Patrick gets his own set of advice from his driver, Walter de Mesnil, who cautions him to hire the best candidates, not just the first ones that come along. Patrick asks Walter to refer any of “the best” he knows to him, and calls him a talent scout. In the hotel itself, he’s accosted by Hector Damiceau, a representative of “certain interests” (the Free Worlds League) willing to pay the Kells not to form a new mercenary group. The FWL feels that the Kells’ ties to Archon Steiner make them untrustworthy as mercenaries, and more of a personal bodyguard force loyal to Katrina personally rather than the Lyran state. When Patrick doesn’t respond to the bribe, Hector brings up his bodyguards to abduct Patrick, hoping to use him as leverage against Morgan. However, Walter arrives in the nick of time and puts a holdout needler to Hector’s neck, forcing him and his goons to back off and depart. After they leave, Walter mentions that he’s got a nearly functional Blackjack, but hasn’t been able to buy an actuator to get it fully on-line, since he doesn’t want to risk getting a loan from Haskell Blizzard. Patrick hires him on the spot.
Back at Volmer’s office, Morgan cows a disrespectful aide, Lt. Saxinger, then meets Volmer in the ‘Mech bay. He realizes that Volmer has been using his position to run Galatea as his private fief, and Morgan represents a potential threat to the status quo. Rather than show weakness by trying to go in under-the-radar, he resolves to be confrontational to get Volmer out of his comfort zone. Volmer is dismissive of Morgan’s ties to Katrina Steiner, and says that his responsibility is to the people of Galatea moreso than to the Archon. He demands that Morgan submit his list of recruit candidates to his office and allow Volmer to approve or deny each one, in the interests of “maintaining the delicate balance” on Galatea (essentially barring any MechWarrior in debt to Blizzard from serving in the Hounds). He also insists that Morgan hire his son at the rank of Major to serve as a liaison officer on Galatea, and that Patrick Kell be forced to issue a public apology. Morgan refuses point blank and accuses Volmer of bluffing, while the real power resides with Blizzard. He tells Volmer to stay out of the Kells’ business, or he’ll bring his command down around his ears.
Back at the hotel, the Kell brothers talk strategy with new friends de Mesnil and Franck. They decide that Damiceau isn’t much of a threat since he’ll be hanging back to see who comes out on top in the conflict between themselves and Volmer. They expect Blizzard to strike at them soon, but Walter says he knows some anti-Blizzard individuals who could help with security. First order of business in the long-range plan is to recruit technical staff, and the best techs are all on Blizzard’s retainer for his gladiatorial games. A “demolition derby” is scheduled for that evening on the north side, and Morgan plans to attend with Franck.
The Gaslight Factory arena is a huge rectangular battlezone with ballistic polymer protecting the viewing areas. The audience is primarily from Galatea’s ‘platinum’ strata. The few mercenaries in uniform are universally shunned, but Morgan fits right in wearing a sharp business suit. The opening match is a Commando and a Panther with powered-down weapons and fiberglass armor. The Commando handily defeats the Panther, though to Morgan’s eye, it looks like the Panther’s targeting system was sabotaged. As the cleanup crew hauls the wreckage away, Morgan is invited to join Blizzard in his private box.
Meanwhile, Patrick is checking out the social scene at Club Manning, still stewing about being taken unawares by Damiceau and requiring rescue. He joins a dance class and meets a dark haired woman named Tisha, a Galatean native. She takes him for a newly arrived merc looking for a contract, and advises him to steer clear of Blizzard’s crew or other dodgy merc units. She also warns him to steer clear of the Kell Hounds, since they’ll attract desperate mercs and will have trouble getting a contract as a green-on-paper regiment.
Back at the arena, Blizzard welcomes Morgan to his skybox. After some initial pleasantries, Blizzard tells Morgan that if he interferes with his operations, he’ll have the Kell brothers killed, diced, and scattered in the desert wastes. He tells Morgan he can operate on Galatea as long as his personal profit is ensured. If he wants to hire MechWarriors indebted to Blizzard, Morgan will just have to pay off their debts, plus interest. To demonstrate his sincerity, he orders his men to break Franck’s arm and throw him out, telling Morgan that if he tries to protect Franck, he’ll make a call and have his men hurt Patrick instead. Morgan quickly agrees to the debt buyout deal, but Blizzard nonetheless orders his agent following Patrick to mark his jacket, just to prove that he could have hurt or killed him if he’d wanted to.
As Morgan prepares to depart, the Commando pilot enters – Tommy “Titan” Volmer, the General’s son (and by extension, Blizzard’s great grandson). Due to a bad (yet unexplained) personal history with Patrick Kell, Titan prepares to attack Morgan, but Blizzard restrains him, telling him that it wouldn’t do to punch his new employer. Blizzard intends to make Morgan hire Titan as the Kell Hound liaison officer on Galatea. Blizzard dismisses Morgan with a speech about how he’ll never be able to win, because Morgan still has ethics, while Blizzard happily occupies the moral low-ground. Morgan responds that Blizzard’s assertion might be true, but he won’t like the damage that takes place as they find out.
Notes: Morgan introduces himself at one point as being “late of the 10th Skye Rangers.” He was apparently allowed to resign to form his own mercenary regiment. (I guess that “Deny this man, Morgan Kell, nothing. – Archon Katrina Steiner” note comes in handy to cut through the paperwork.) Once he received a large sum of money from Arthur Luvon’s will, Morgan must have pretty much immediately withdrawn from the Skye Rangers, collected Patrick, and headed to Galatea. There was barely a two month window between Arthur Luvon’s death in August and the Kell brothers’ arrival on Galatea in early October. That must have been a very busy September for Morgan and Patrick.
Franck notes that the Kell family controls the Eire BattleMech Company on Arc-Royal, which is “rather important to the defense of the nation.” However, line developer Herbert Beas confirmed that Eire is just making minor, yet important components at this point, not ‘Mechs. He attributes the ‘Mechs Morgan saw coming out of the factory in his youth as ‘Mechs getting parts installed there, rather than being fully constructed on Arc-Royal. Thus, Franck’s statement can be read as sucking up to someone with a close relationship to the Archon, in time-honored Lyran fashion. Eire at least makes actuators, since Morgan muses on having access to such parts from the family company.
While trying to puzzle out the identity of Damiceau’s backers, Patrick muses that the Lyran Commonwealth shares borders with the Draconis Combine and Capellan Confederation. Unless he’s counting the region right around Terra, that’s a very odd statement to make. The only recorded Lyran/Capellan fight up to this point had been when Lyran mercenaries raided Westphalia during the 2800s. In fact, the Steiner sourcebook states flat out that “the Lyran Commonwealth shares no common border with the Capellan Confederation” and that the two states had pretty much ignored each other since the fall of the Star League. This statement, then, probably reflects Stackpole’s Successor State taxonomy of Steiner/Davion = Good; Kurita/Liao = Evil. (And Marik = Who?)
Walter de Mesnil goes on to be a Lieutenant in command of a Kell Hound Fire Lance prior to the battle on Mallory’s World. After the unit breaks up and reduces in size, he moves on to the Kittery Training Battalion, but returns when Morgan sends the recall order. Franck doesn’t get any mention in later Kell Hound materials, so that may bode ill for him surviving the story.
The arena features an interesting take on “simulated” combat. Rather than using sophisticated arrestors and sensors that react to hits from powered down energy weapons and computer simulated projectiles, they’ve chosen to nerf both the firepower and the armor, using fiberglass. What do you suppose the BAR is on fiberglass? (The AToW BAR reference table lists safety glass as BAR 2 and particleboard as BAR 3, while sheet metal is BAR 4. Not sure, between these, exactly where fiberglass would fit.)
Warning new arrivals seems to be the favorite pastime of Galateans. The Kells haven’t been onworld for 24 hours and they’ve had no less than five people start warning them about various hazards they’ll face.
Any game master looking to have their players run a Galatea-based mercenary campaign would do well to mine this story for resources on all the complications that corrupt officials and organized crime can bring to their players’ lives. Things may have gotten cleaned up a bit by the 3020s, since the Gray Death Legion didn’t appear to have similar difficulties getting into Galatea and out again with a contract and new recruits, but the rise of Outreach as the new mercenary hub left Galatea as the hiring hall of choice for the dregs, so Blizzard’s ilk would have been back in charge in short order.