So let's talk about that Mech Company, eh?
We have a Heavy Lance, a Support Lance and a Recon Lance. As you can see; few of the Mechs are in perfect shape and that only because they see infrequent action and don't have a budget to do much training. So, mainly the Tech's scrounge and fix what they can and where they can. You can also see that the Heavy Lance and the Recon Lance are both under-strength, the Recon lance by half.
Tai-I Hatsumoto is the leader of his depressive band and the Governor's unwilling pet war-hero. On top of your normal Combine hangups-he's that most tragic of characters; the good soldier and suffers for it immensely. Hard to believe he's been on Ainu almost eight years now; it feels more like 20 most days. His Dragon is mainly missing armour, but his autocannon jams sometimes. Thankfully, he's also no great warrior and knows enough not to rely on his skills; his war-hero status comes from his personal courage and leadership skills. So that's what gets him through a fight and not being an amazing pilot or crack shot. He's aces with either sword; Katana or Wakizashi, or traditional Japanese-style bows, however.
Notable by his absence from the Heavy Lance is Hatsumoto's former right-hand, Sho-ko Robins. When Robins was shot out of his Marauder during a particularly nasty pirate raid a few years ago, the Governor publicly shamed he and Hatsumoto for the loss. Hatsumoto received a reprimand, but Robins was demoted from Chu-i and the Governor used an obscure Combine law to seize the remains of Robins' prized family heirloom mech and sell it for scrap. He's done similar things with the downed machines of dead pilots and looks to continue to as well. It's legal and the mechs are gone before the families (if any) can do anything about it.
Instead of Robins, then; Hatsumoto makes due with the hotheaded and rigid Kashira Sohara. Sohara is a newer transfer and has only been on Ainu for three years, but he steadfastly refuses to learn how things are done here. This leads to regular humiliation for the proud Sohara when things do not go as they would have in the Sword of Light and frequently drives him to undermine the officers of the company out of a misplaced sense of righteousness. But like everyone else in the Militia; he's stuck here and the Mech Company is stuck with him, with little chance of seeing other duty this side of the dirt. Sohara has two saving graces; one is that he's the best overall mechjock in the company, although this is mitigated by the fact that he knows it too. The other is his wife, Sarah who is a model DCMS spouse and a leader and rock among the dependants in the settlement. Sohara drives a '6K Warhammer, one of the better-maintained mechs in the company. The armour damage is from his last battle in which he physically brushed-aside Heishi Van's Charger for a clear shot at a pirate Ostroc, cheating Van of a rare chance at a kill she had worked hard for. As punishment; Hatsumoto has dictated he must live with the damage until he achieves his Commander's frequent refrain of learning to work as part of a team.
Gunjin Firoz and her Panther are in the Heavy Lance for lack of anywhere else to put her. This is just as well though as she runs her Panther like it's a pocket-heavy 'mech anyways. So, for as long as she lasts, this is as good a spot for her as any. On the upshot; she's a trustworthy warrior who follows orders, which is more than you can say for her nominal superior Kashina Sohara, whom she often blows off when his overbearing manner becomes too much. The problem with Firoz though is that she needs orders to function, left to her own devices, she gets into trouble on and off the battlefield.
Tai-i Hatsumoto organized the Support Lance out of necessity; not for fire support, but rather to collect a disparate rabble of the Dragon's unwanted warriors into a structure within which they might do some good. The role of the support lance then is often to dispense individual 'mechs to perform independent missions or to back-up the Heavy or Recon Lances, or to work with the garrison's assorted infantry. However, in a pinch, they do have some utility as a fires asset using Barclay and Shiba's massed autocannon-fire.
Chu-i Barclay should be the Company executive officer, but frankly, she lacks both the experience and temperament. If things had gone another way in her career, she might have made at least a functional company or even battalion commander in her own right, but she has too much tendency to leave things to others, when the XO needs to be the one things are left to. This is a shame, because she has a good tactical mind and you can tell that because she is so good at keeping her S-Model Jagermech out of two-way fights, thus it's pristine condition. She works on it herself too, which is essential in the Ainu Garrison, if you want your equipment to be reliable, as there aren't enough techs or even astechs to go around. She succeeds in the support lance due to the machinations of her Captain who spotted her taste for delegation early-on. Barclay is perfectly happy assigning every other member of her lance to other missions, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away and leaving her to study the maps and plot her own moves.
Go-Cho Shiba is Barclay's put-upon right-hand, but he bears up well under the strain of all the additional duties she foists on him. If he learns to stand up for himself, he'd make a good lance commander in any other unit. On Ainu, the only way he will rise is through attrition and that's the last thing he wants, for a few reasons. By Ainu-standards, he is a passable MechWarrior, which is to say that he came here sub-par and his skills have only sunk lower from lack of training. His Blackjack is battered, but functional, but one of his lasers needs replacing as it sometimes fails in battle from burnt-out wiring.
The best shot in the Company is the redoubtable Gunjiin Obi, in his Liao-pattern Urbanmech. The pity of it is that by the time he gets to the battle, it's normally over. He's nearly useless, effectively; but far from alone in that on Ainu. However, he's well-liked by everyone but Kashira Sohara, who has decided to make himself Obi's nemesis; a totally-one-sided rivalry, which Obi studiously ignores outside infrequent displays of marksmanship. Obi is short, broad and overweight, but has the soul of a true warrior. He bears the limitations of his machine stoically, but secretly curses himself for every missed opportunity. Obi's R61L is in perfect shape, and well it should be; it hasn't seen hostile action in years and he cares for it well, with most of his pay going to buying materials for it's upkeep on the black market. The UM-R61L is the default in Liao space, but uncommon elsewhere. It replaces a heatsink with a machinegun and a half a ton of ammunition. Most of Obi's kills in his career have been infantry he has run to ground in cities.
The heaviest mech in the company is the most worthless, but this may be for the best. Heishi Van is the eternally-frustrated junior-member of the Support Lance and drives her Charger like she stole it. When at the controls, Van hardly ever walks and instead does all she can to dodge fire and close the distance. All of her mech's extant armour damage is from running into buildings and large trees, though her left arm was nearly ripped off when Kashira Sohara cheated her of her most recent shot at a kill, during the last pirate raid, over a year ago. Hatsumoto and to a lesser extend; Barclay do what they can to get her into positions where she can bring her anemic weapons to bear, but so far it hasn't worked out. All of her successes to-date have come on a series of raids some years ago with the Legion of Vega, where she got to work in the confines of Davion Cities as a distraction from Combine objective-raids. But when her unit received reinforcements, she found herself and her 'mech transferred out in favour of a babyfaced Samurai from a low-family and running a Clint. Now she is here and lives her life as a thwarted berserker out of Rasalhaugian myth, complete with the vibroax she carries everywhere.
The Recon Lance has turned out to be where the Militia's MechWarriors go to die, although casualties and other losses in the Heavy and Support Lances are nothing to sneeze at, either. Both Chu-i Mizugaki and Heishi Nobuhara are relative newcomers to Ainu, filling the billets and bunks of dead men and neither expect to live to see a whole and honourable retirement based on the spotty records the Militia has managed to keep over the centuries.
Chu-I Mizugaki is determined to go out in a blaze of glory, doing what he loves for the honour of the Dragon. As such; he doesn't hold back on missions and this shows on his Jenner, which is missing some armour, half the ammo-bay capacity and one laser. Of all the members of the 'Mech company, Mizugaki is the only one to have been commended by the Governor since he came to Ainu. He received praise for bravery under fire and taking down two Lyran raiders himself and he's never lived it down since, with other members of the company regularly teasing him about being the Governor's pet. This is especially ironic, because no one here hates the Governor more than Mizugaki. Invited to the palace for a personal audience with the Governor, he returned shaken and has never spoken with anyone about what he witnessed or experienced during that night's celebrations in the capitol.
A unit like this wouldn't be complete without at least one suicide case and Heishi Nobuhara fills that role more regularly and sincerely than any other. Raised from nothing through sheer luck and minimal training, Nobuhara owes everything he is or every will be to the Dragon. A former conscript infantryman, he single-handedly disabled a FedRat Centurion with a well-placed satchell charge. For his bravery, instead of being decorated, he received a hasty few week's training and a seat in a brand-new Locust in a scratch mech company supporting the DCMS infantry on a world he never knew the name of. Unfortunately, none of this was authorized and when the brass found out, Nobuhara was hastily spirited away with a mech he still doesn't know if he owns to the most out of the way border post anyone could find. Since coming to Ainu, he's learned that hard way that most Kurita MechWarriors are sensitive about who is allowed into their fraternity, when and why. Hopped-up infantryment with delusions of grandeur don't rate with most of them, even here. Tai-i Hatsumoto has been kind to him, however and his Lance Commander has at least been polite. Obi is his only friend in the Company, but the Governor absolutely hates him and refuses to allow him within his line of sight. Nobuhara is the newest addition to the Ainu Mech Company and has only been on-world a little over a year. For his part, he does his best to train as frequently as their modest supplies of actuator lubricant and myomer-splices allow and his piloting and gunnery skills have both managed to improve to just above dismal. His Locust is brand-new and he treats it like the treasure it is; pounding out the dents side by side with the techs when he falls or collides with something. On-mission, Nobuhara is driven far beyond the level supported by his skills. He never hesitates and never questions an order. He can't imagine a future where he hasn't lost all he's gained and so he is committed to giving back all he can and dying in the cockpit like a real Samurai should.
