Scavenged Restoration 60 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Scavenged Restoration

Chapter 60

-VB-

When people discussed mercenaries, those discussions often spoke at length about their effectiveness, combat readiness, and history of achievements. It involved talking about the officers, famous mechwarriors, and daredevil aerospace pilots.

With no large outbreak of hostilities between the five major powers of the Inner Sphere, these talks had little to no new information to work off of, and so the gossipers turned back to talk about the past. 

And when people whispered about the Northwind Highlanders who had accepted First Prince Hanse Davion’s offer, only one thought came to mind. 

Backstabbers. 

Traitors. 

Contract breakers. 

Untrustworthy. 

From one of the best and most respected mercenary companies in the Inner Sphere on par with the likes of the Eridani Light Horse, McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, and the Wolf’s Dragoons… they were now one of the more distrusted mercenary companies. 

Why? After all, there were other mercenary companies who switched sides during wars. How did it differ for the Highlanders? 

Simple. 

Instead of the entire mercenary company accepting the offer, nearly a third of the company stayed behind and openly declared their once siblings-in-arms to be traitors. And they did it loudly.

It also had to do with their image. 

The Highlanders were one of the most outstanding mercenary companies, but they were not the best in combat or logistics. They weren’t the Wolf’s Dragoons, who were acknowledged to have both the best pilots and best mechs. They weren’t the McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, who were known for their brutality and daring. They weren’t the Grey death Legion, who became the de facto mentor of the Capellan Confederation’s militia. 

They held their fame more in part due to their outstanding integrity, heritage, high standard, and unbending morals. 

The Black Watch who died to the last were selected from Highlanders. 

They descended from Scottish clans whose loyalty to each other were famous and well known.

And the Northwind Highlanders, during the Fourth Succession War, spat on both of their heritages. Instead of staying with the confederation and seeking to reclaim their world through might, they turned around and stabbed their employer who’d been good to them for centuries. 

When the Federated Suns destroyed Highlander regiments on Northwind because the mercenary company accepted a contract with the Liaos, did the Liaos turn them away? No, the Liaos sheltered them and gave them a home. When their own people turned them away, did the Liaos take their mechs and kick them out? No, the Liaos provided them with favoritism and better contracts. 

The Liao-Highlander relationship, unlike many other contractor-employee relationships, had never been a standard business transaction but one of reciprocated loyalty to one another. 

And the Northwind Highlanders, when the Liaos needed them the most, who the Liaos had showered with gifts even before the start of the war, turned around and stabbed them in the back.

Thus, not only did they spit upon their heritage, they also broke their integrity and morals.

Those who remained with the Liaos and the Capellan Confederation, the Highspire Highlanders, raged against their once brothers and sisters. The Capellan Confederation also made it a point to black list the Northwind Highlanders.

And, perhaps, this attitude wasn’t limited to just the Capellan Confederation.

Since joining the Federated Suns and settling back on Northwind, the Northwind Highlanders have encountered trouble after trouble. Some were sabotages from the Combine and the Confederations. Others were sabotages from AFFS’s own military ranks and nobles, who simply looked down upon any and all mercenaries, especially those that betrayed their contractors. 

Supplies arrived late. Replacement parts went missing. Sometimes, they weren’t even mentioned in briefings and told to garrison a world. 

On the other hand, Highspire Highlanders have been living the high life.

-VB-

Governor-General Timothy Senn looked out at the Highspire Highlanders. 

Today, he and his company’s staff - mechwarriors, office bureaucrats, and even janitors - gathered for a special occasion. 

They stood before a dropship. It wasn’t the Princess-class dropship he’d seen the Chancellor use on the few instances he appeared on CNN or other news channels but an Overlord-class dropship. 

As Timothy looked as the ramp of the Overlord dropship dropped slowly, he couldn’t help but think back on how he and the Highspire Highlanders have been since the Defection of the Northwind Highlanders. 

Not only did the Federated Suns lure their brothers and sisters away, the Fedrats then assaulted Highspire in an effort to eliminate them.

Hah! 

No, Highspire and the highspire Highlanders showed them the folly of that line of thought. 

The Fedrats came to Highspire… and they did not leave.

Although Styk took the spotlight of the war for being the Meat Styk, the Highlanders and militia of Highspire thought that they faced the harsher challenge in the form of the Fedrat assault of six regiments to the defender’s three regiments. Fighting a two-to-one fight had been rough for the defenders of Highspire, but they made sure none of the Fedrats survived. 

Since the Battle of Highspire, the Highlanders were showered with gifts, ranging from simple C-Bill payouts and citizenship to nobility and factory fresh mechs. 

And today, the chancellor was here to meet with them. 

And the Chancellor was there when the ramp lowered. Alone, he walked down the ramp and met with Timothy.

“Governor-General,” he greeted him with a smile. 

And Timothy bowed as was proper for a Capellan. 

Because he was now a Capellan.  

“Raise your head, governor-general,” the chancellor spoke and he did. “I come to see you and your people… and I bring gifts as well.”

And from the shadow of the Overlord dropship’s cavernous cargo hold, mechs began to walk out. 

His eyes widened as the mechs stepped out of the shadows and allowed the sunlight to gleam off of their chassis.

“Those are…!” 

“Indeed,” the chancellor hummed as he watched with them the procession of Thunderbolt II’s, the latest mechs to grace the Inner Sphere and one that stood above the rest of the latest generation of mechs. 

Even among the mechs introduced and produced by the confederation, the Thunderbolt II stood above the rest. Its only competitor was the Cataphract, but the purposeful frankenmech couldn’t compare to the Thunderbolt II in firepower or armor. 

He watched thirty Thunderbolt II’s walk out of the dropship… and then Timothy’s eyes widened as he watched six more mechs of very familiar chassis walk out. 

“Twenty of the Thunderbolt II’s are for you and the Highspire Highlanders. The other ten will be distributed among the militia and other loyal mechwarriors. But those other six mechs… those are for you,” the chancellor smiled mysteriously. 

“Those are … Highlanders,” Timothy spoke out, and the mechwarriors of his company, no longer a mercenary command but a Capellan command, muttered among themselves with excitement. 

“Are they?”

“... No. They aren’t regular Highlanders.”

“You are right,” Chancellor William hummed with eye smiles. “Those are the latest new mechs to grace the Inner Sphere. They are the Highlander II’s of Holis Incorporated, but the Capellan Confederation itself holds the rights to the mech. And these six Highlander II’s come to you with a gift.”

An assistant walked up to the chancellor’s side with a suitcase. The beautiful woman opened the suitcase and showed a slip of paper. 

The chancellor lifted the paper up and presented it to Timothy on both hands. 

Timothy took it with trembling hands from the chancellor who cared for him and his men more than his own brothers and sisters of Northwind Highlanders have. 

And as he stared down at the paper, he couldn’t help but feel tears start to prickle his eyes. 

“And now, should you be capable of them, the Highspire Highlanders, as an accepted Noble House of the Capellan Confederation, has the license to produce the Highlander II’s with zero royalties. All I ask of you, my friend, is to continue to hold your loyalty.”

With no words he could say, Governor-General Timothy Senn, the first Grand Elder of the Highspire Highlanders, bowed in gratitude. 

When this meeting and gift hit the Inner Sphere’s news channels, the elders and mechwarriors of the Northwind Highlander on Northwind seethed. While they fought and bled for the Federated Suns and the Lyran Commonwealth, they had not been rewarded even tenth as much as their cousins in the Capellan Confederation had been. 

And thus, the seeds of doubt were planted in the younger generations who only saw negligence and weakness in their own while the older generations bitterly gritted through regretful decisions. 

-VB-

For all of his accomplishments on Styk and beyond during the Fourth Succession War, Grey Death Legion and its commanding officer, Colonel Grayson Carlyle hadn’t accepted the chancellor’s offer to become Capellan citizens and nobles. Not yet, anyways.

Instead, they continued their service to the Capellan Confederation as a mercenary command, roaming the reduced state’s new gains in the rimward periphery.

And they made a name for themselves in the Aurigan Commonality. 

By doing something he didn’t quite expect to do: pirate hunting. 

“PUSH!” Grayson roared over the radio as his mechwarriors punched through the final defense of the pirate fortress in this god forsaken jungle. 

The giant metal gates broke through under the assault of second-in-command’s Cataphract, and the pirates inside fired everything they had at them. 

But while they were focused on firing upon the heavily armored mechs, the Grey Death Legion’s light armored company swept in on their machinegun mounted APCs and began to unload their hypervelocity lead into the pirates. As the pirates ran in fear, infantry dismounted from the APCs as the final pirate mechs ran out of the ragtag hangar. The Centurion that looked way too new to be in the hands of mere pirates fired its AC/10 right into the Cataphract’s center torso. 

Lori’s grunt over the radio made Graysone glare at the centurion. But before he could fire his Marauder’s lasers, the infantry fired first with their rocket launchers.

Five rockets flared out and all five of them struck the exact same target: the Centurion’s left hip joint. 

And then Lori fired her Cataphract’s own AC/10… right into the same hip joint. 

The explosion rocked the small pirate fort’s open court, and less than a few seconds later, the Centurion came crashing down face first and slammed into the mud-covered court. 

Mere seconds later, Lori’s Cataphract fired its Large Lasers right into the immobile Centurion’s head, burning through the meager armor there and killing the pilot within. 

The infantry of the Grey Death Legion rushed into the innards of the pirate fort, and began to clear it out of all of the trash inhabiting it and rescuing slaves still stuck here. 

And as Grayson looked over the final phase of the operation, he noted the time. 

3 days and 18 hours. 

Three days to find the pirates on this world and eighteen hours to flush them out.

All in all, a good half week for close to half a million C-Bills with close to nothing lost except some ammunition. Oh, and let’s not forget that Centurion salvage.

… It’ll need a hip replacement and a new head, though.

---

Grayson looked over all of the information he got his hands on… and it was clear to him.

“It’s the Fedrats,” he grunted as he showed the papers compiled by his mechtechs. 

Lori, his second in command and, more importantly, wife, took the papers and looked through them. 

“They are being intentionally careless about who buys their older mechs,” she noted. “All of the parts are new as well. The Centurion’s autocannon is a newly minted Luxor D80-9.”

“Luxor… Luxor… Luxor…” Grayson frowned as he tried to remember whose brand that was. And then he remembered. “That’s Corean Enterprise.”

“Corean. As in New Avalon Corean?”

“Yes,” he hummed as he took the papers back from her and set it down on the table. “I doubt the Fedrats will claim any liability for their war material ending up out here in the periphery. They’ll say that ‘it’s not their concern what the third, fourth, and fifth buyer of their war material do with them’ or some bull crap like that, as if any mercenary or security company that gets their hand on mint autocannon/10 is going to sell it off in this condition without ever using it.”

“So the FedSuns are supplying pirates now. Great.” 

“I’ll have this summarized and written up for the Maskirovka.”

Lori hummed, planted a kiss on his forehead, and left to sleep.

Later that week and after one final sweep of the mostly jungle, desert, and tundra world, the Grey Death Legion took off and jumped out to Regis Roost to continue training the local noble and militia across the Aurigan Commonality. 

-VB-

A/N: so Grey Death Legion is running around in the Capellan Periphery under the confederation’s employee, everyone now considers the Northwind Highlanders to be trash for tarnishing their own integrity and history, and the Highspire Highlanders are living the high life. 

And, of course, William is doing advertisements on the side - “Oh, whatever will I do! I have all of these new and shiny mechs that DEFINITELY outclass all of the old battlemechs, and I’m just giving them away to loyal and competent Capellan subjects while it’s very clear and obvious to me that my rivals in the Federated Suns won’t even treat their mercenaries right…! Oh, yes, I am still hiring, by the way”  - and securing loyalties of those who stuck with him and the confederation through thick and thin.