Restless Souls

[Remington von Wolffe]

Unit: Restless Souls
Registry: FS-PA-12-04
Status: SUCCESSFUL
October 31st 3090

The Restless Souls were persuaded to cut their contract of subjugating Hazelhurst short by the Federated Suns Intelligence Leader, Field Marshal Jon Davion. He requested the Restless Souls six regiments from the Periphery March clear on the opposite side of the realm, eight weeks distant, to aid Duke Nathaniel Hasek in assaulting an enemy in the Capellan March, the Unified Leadership of the Tikonov Republican Army. These urgent deployment orders to Northwind came in on the heels of Field Marshal Xavier Steele's newest responsibility appointed to him by First Princess Yvonne Steiner-Davion as Duke of Broken Wheel and the overall ruler of a quarter of the Federated Suns Realm, the Periphery March.

In a shrewd move, Xavier appointed Regent Tancred Sandoval's and First Princess Yvonne's heir, Harrison Davion, as his proxy while he and his Restless Souls are providing relief to the four Northwind regiments embroiled with ULTRA. Harrison just celebrated his 21st birthday bringing him to his majority age.

All ten Regimental Combat teams deployed to the Periphery March under Operation Antipodes are being recalled to rendezvous at Markesan, the Coreward Combat Theater's Capital world, as well, to participate in Operation Hornet's Nest. The Restless Souls and their WarShip fleet has the longest journey. The other nine RCTs will arrive in the region a full month before the Restless Souls Division and will subsequently be deployed long before the Restless Souls Six Regiments can get boots on the ground.

The Souls Division will be deployed as the last line of defense against ULTRA for the Addicks PDZ. The Restless Souls High Command Staff, the Duke and his two Generals, will travel planetside to get an update on the state of conflict from Regent Tancred Sandoval who has relocated to Markesan to be closer to the front. It will be determined that in order to stem ULTRA's momentum the Souls' goal will be to keep three factory complex up and operating at full capacity. In order to achieve their triple objectives the Souls will divide Spectre Brigade up, sending Diablo regiment to Small World, Eagle Eye to Quentin, and Black Angel to Errai.

Shadow Spear Brigade's 3 Regiments, their WarShip Armada and the command battalion will go on through to Northwind to attempt a relief effort of the four Northwind Highlanders Regiments, the Stirling's Fusiliers, Northwind Hussars, MacLeod's Regiment, and 1st Kearny Highlanders. When the Restless Souls Shadow Spear Brigade arrives in the Northwind system the situation is grim. The Restless Souls WarShips engage and punch through a Thera-Class Carrier, two Zechetinu-Class Corvettes and an ULTRA wall of four aerospace regiments. The Highlanders Regiments are outnumbered both in 'Mechs, vehicles, and aerospace fighters as well. The Highlanders have fallen back to fortified positions and cities to try and regroup.

It seems that there is a spy somewhere on Northwind who is funneling info back to the ULTRA Division with disastrous results for Northwind. The information leaked to ULTRA's Khariton Division command also includes the arrival of the Souls. Shadow Spear Brigade is hit with a massive wave of aerospace fighters enroute to the planet. Through heroic efforts put forth by the Restless Souls own Aerospace Colonel, Kelli Kelly, the Colossus- Pocket Warship Class pilot Major George Anthony, accompanying assault-class DropShips and the two WarShip Drones, Shadow Spear Brigade forces their way through; however, the Brigade's DropShips do sustain heavy damage. Fortunately that is enough to even up the air superiority battle but still leaves Northwind a little short in air power due to ULTRA's supply lines and their ability to call up reinforcements.

ULTRA reinforcements are hampered by Duke Steele, who remains in orbit aboard his orbital command post, a Conquistador-Class DropShip, and utilized it and its compliment of 18 AeroSpace Fighters, for their intended role with ruthless efficiency - A command post for planet-wide operations.

Shadow Spear Brigade is forced to land near to Corsara Weaponries instead of their planned landing zone. Brigadier General McCray makes contact with the factories management and launches a second front to draw some of ULTRA's forces towards his Souls and away from the Highlanders to grant them a respite to regroup. The Brigadier links up with his sister who is a member of the Northwind Highlanders leading a scouting mission to Shadow Spear's LZ with news that their codes and combat frequencies are compromised. Due to this breach, Corsola give the Souls a very frosty reception.

While in orbit above Errai, Black Angel Regiment receives a distress call from Maltex Corporation. A Rogue Bear point from Black Angel's Audacious Alpha Infantry Battalion is dispatch to investigate. They arrive too late to save the factories personnel. They have all been slain. However, the point encounters the ULTRA sabotage team in a secret underground facility. Before they can determine the purpose of the facility, charges placed by ULTRA detonate, demolishing the building and obliterating the identities of all personnel.

The Duke's niece, Randi Steele, is an AFFS officer stationed at the Maltex Corporation. She was AWOL from the site when ULTRA arrived and when she hears about the destruction of the research complex she flees to her estranged father back on Quentin, retired FS Rear Admiral, Vincent Steele.

Distracted by a heartbreaking divorce from her husband Frank Castinelli, Xavier gives Major General Tatiana Donatella some time off and she travels to the heart of the now ULTRA held worlds, Outreach. There on the Mercenaries Star, Tatiana is called in for a clandestine debriefing of her Black Angel Regiment with the Presidential Senator in the circumstances surrounding the destruction of Maltex Corporation. She is assigned the task of covertly locating Randi Steele. After being told it was a Top Secret Research Facility performing experiments into Artificial Intelligence in direct violation of the Star League Charter which is upheld by Liberty Holds.

Tatiana and Duke Steele are made acutely aware of the grievous impact it could have on the Federated Suns if this information leaked out. Xiao Hsieh is the ULTRA affiliate behind the destruction of Maltex Corporation in collusion with an AFFS Dr. Shu Qian the Inner Sphere's foremost authority on Artificial Intelligence.

Xiao Hsieh hires a Diamond Shark Elemental, turned Bounty Hunter, named Skarr, to a hunt Randi Steele down and eliminate her. A Mu/Delta ROM Agent assigned to the old Chaos March, Mika Rysanek, will catch wind of Maltex Corporation being destroyed and take an interest in it and Skarr and conduct her own investigation. Tatiana, Mika, and Skarr will all have a confrontation on Quentin and allegiances will be formed and lines drawn in the sand. The strength of these alliances will be tested when Randi is captured by Skarr and Xiao

The Highlanders, reinforced by the Souls three regiments, start to win victories on the battlefield due to their greater knowledge of the landscape and the Duke's Tactician's acumen. The souls counterinsurgency unit discovers that it was the manager of Corsola who was spying for ULTRA. Brigadier McCray fed ULTRA some faulty intel through their spy and the combined defenders slowly turn the tide until the Highlanders defeats the General of the ULTRA Khariton Division in a final battle near the capital. The Highlanders also take control of the factory and promise Corsola Weaponries' support in producing their Crab and Black Watch Battlemechs, and their Schiltron Omni Tank to aid in the Federated Suns war effort for the aid the Restless Souls provided in saving Northwind.

Throughout the investigation into the destruction of Maltex Corporation, all the players will be uncovered and all the dots will be connected. The previous Federated Suns Ambassador elevated to the Presidential Senator, will accept full responsibility on behalf of House Davion for its role in the AI research. As the House Davion spokes person she will submit her House to the Liberty Holds sanctions, albeit not lying down. There is a reason that she was 'elected' Presidential Senator, the most powerful 'Ambassador'. It will culminate in the destruction of Earthwerks Incorporated on Tikonov with the successful rescue of Randi Steele, the deaths of Skarr and Xiao, and the revelation of a 2301 Terran Hegemony Artifact the TAS Dreadnaught a Dreadnaught-Class WarShip.

[Remington von Wolffe]

Unit: Restless Souls
Registry: FW-PH-12-01.txt
Status: SUCCESSFUL
15th of September, 3095

The Restless Souls were contacted by Senior Minister of the Rim Commonality, Factor Jerome Hud, to go on a Minor Raid Campaign to perform a Pirate Hunting Operation. It seems Pirates have been raiding transports on Campoleone, Gatchina, and the Marian Hegemony's Addhara. The size and bold attacks are starting to worry the local Nobility as well as the traders guild on Campoleone. Traffic is starting to slow down because of these raids.

Field Marshal Xavier Steele accepts this contract but his Restless Souls are hamstrung by the Free World's League's Captain General, Agatha Rousset Marik, foreign transit policy in only allowing a single battalion worth of equipment from his six regiments access through her realm. The Restless Souls accepted this contract on the opposite side of the Free Worlds League with an ulterior motive in mind to drop spies across a huge swath of the League's most important worlds. The remaining elements of Steele's Division along with the Restless Souls Warships will have to travel the circuitous route through the Lyran Alliance and through the Periphery in order to reach the Rim Commonality.

The Provisional Restless Souls Battalion arrives on the capital of the Rim Commonality, Lesnovo, and dispatch lances to Tohelet, Tematagi, Negushevo, Gatchina and a full company to Campoleone. The Restless Souls arrival coincide with the electing of a new Prime Minister as Damien Cendar's term is winding down. The Prime Minister is chosen from among the 17 Ministers, one governing each world in the Rim Commonality, by a majority vote from the Ministers themselves.

While investigating the Pirate raids (Calypso's Damned) our employer, Senior Minister Factor Jerome Hud, is assassinated. Major General Tatiana Donatella, being of FWL Noble blood from the Free Worlds League, gets selected as a replacement Minister. Prime Minister Damien Cendar steps in as the overseer on the Restless Souls contract and appoints Field Marshal Steele as the lead investigator into the assassination of Jerome Hud. Steele utilizes his DEST agent, Colonel Tanaka Kintaro, as his primary resource.

Preliminary study suggest Jerome Hud about to uncover the Pirates involvement with the Campoleone Renaissance movement and a sinister plot to put their own puppet Prime Minister in place with all clues pointing to the newly elected Minister Tatiana Donatella.

Meanwhile, the Restless Souls company deployed to Campoleone II tangles with Calypso's Damned and chases them back to a Pirate base on Astrokaszy where the Souls company is subsequently ambushed and captured.

Tatiana exonerates herself and Major General Valencia aids in the capture of the Calypso's Damned leader and the corrupt political figures involved in the plot. There is a mole in the Restless Souls company deployed to Campoleone and once she's found out, with the aid of a SAFE Agent, what's left of the company, re aquires replacement 'Mechs, return to Campoleone, and help defend it against a full scale invasion by Calypso's Damned with the rest of the Division arriving in the proverbial nick of time.

These pirates joined by The Black Blades & the Dark Cosairs, however, were not merely local criminals. When Restless Souls Intel agents, tracking half a dozen apparently unrelated cases, compared notes they saw similarities in methods and structure that pointed to the existence of a larger organization. Nor, upon investigation, did all of the stolen cargoes and prisoners’ ransoms stay on planet; RSMD’s DEST infiltration work found links to off world buyers of goods and suppliers of weapons, as well as ties to smuggling rings on Addhara and elsewhere. The criminal enterprises that preyed on Campoleone’s shipping lanes, they discovered to their dismay, were only the planetary branch of a multiworld organization almost as large in its scope as the pirates of Sadalbari had been in their heyday.

Even worse, after several months of careful investigation and infiltration it became clear to Restless Souls intelligence that the nerve center of the greater criminal organization was not located somewhere safely off world in somebody else’s jurisdiction. The interplanetary pirates had hidden their main administrative and support base in the depths of the lava caves of Campoleone’s own Bernhard Island.

[Remington von Wolffe]

Unit: Restless Souls
Registry: LA-DR-06-01
Status: SUCCESSFUL
September 19th 3096

CONTRACT SUMMARY:
OPERATION: 'Brutal Justice'
On the Restless Souls return voyage from the Rim Commonality, Field Marshall Steele was contacted by Lyran Alliance Officer, Colonel Timothe Adler to go into the Clermont Gap on ‘Operation: Brutal Justice’; a Diversionary Raid Op on Kikuyu. Per the monthly Clermont Gap intel briefings from Wolfgang Roehmer, the Director of the Lyran Intelligence Corps, the Lyran Alliance has lost all contact with their forces on Kikuyu, ground, air, and naval. This has garnered considerable alarm from the Province of Coventry’s Regional Command Staff, most notable of whom is Sub-Commander, General Kommandant Alden Gray. The threat that all of the Lyran Alliance forces in the Clermont Gap will be cut off, looms very real. Alden Gray’s worst nightmare is on the verge of becoming his reality; the Jade Falcons have in fact overran Kikuyu.

Gray has requested, and been approved, to send in a WarShip Task Force of no more than six WarShips. That’s where the Restless Souls come in as one of two Mercenary Commands to possess WarShips. The last reports the LIC has been able to decipher from Leutnant-General Jakande, was that the Jade Falcons were moving their Cameron-class WarShip, dub the Turkina’s Pride, into near orbit with the threat of orbital bombardment. The Intelligence Corps believes that all transmissions have stopped due to Interdiction Operations being performed by the two Jade Falcons Aegis-class WarShips, the Frost Falcon and the Blue Talon, one at each JumpPoint. The Lyran Alliance Government is requesting the Souls to divert the Jade Falcons ground forces into engaging Restless Souls troops to give their present on world occupying forces a respite.

Colonel Adler asked the Restless Souls to establish contact with the Black Wolf Rangers and get them off world if at all possible. The Souls are to link up with; and resupply Leutnant-General Amare Jakande 15th Lyran Regulars Command and let him know that reinforcements are in the works. Lethal Obsidian, the Restless Souls WarShip Armada, is tasked with gaining a beachhead into the Kikuyu System at either the Nadir JumpPoint or the Zenith JumpPoint for the Lyran Alliance’s follow on forces. And the Souls Intelligence arm has been given the mission of determining why the Jade Falcons are so interested in Kikuyu.

Xavier Steele presents the contract to the Restless Souls High Command Staff before dispatching each Regiment off to its new posting. They come to a consensus on taking elements from which three Regiments to complete this campaign and which three Regiments will stay behind to protect their holdings and interests. The Regimental elements that will accompany Steele’s own Smilodon Battalion onto Kikuyu are Diablo, Eagle Eye, and Black Angel. Per Diablo Colonel, Dugen O'Bryen, he suggests taking a company of ‘Mechs from each attending regiment; however Steele takes it one step farther and ups the ante to a Company plus a command lance of ‘Mechs and instructs his two infantry Colonels to select a battalion worth of infantry assets for mop up operations. As usual, the Combine born Colonel Tanaka Kintaro differs back to his ‘Liege’, so Steele rounds off the force with his selection of a battalion of armor and dubs the Task Force’s Regiment; ‘Justicar’s Gavel’. Before heading out for the mission target, the Restless Souls stop by Terra, Quentin, and Baxter to gather up men, equipment, supplies, and more notably their new Small Craft Fleet. Task Force Justicar’s Gavel mounts up with four Warships and two Starlord Class JumpShips. One Starlord jumps with six empty docking collars, the other jumps with all docking collars full but the DropShips attached are all empty.

Upon arrival to the Kikuyu system Valencia negotiates a Trial of Possession for the Nadir JumpPoint in which the Restless Souls are successful, but just barely. Over the course of the next several months the Restless Souls complete two more of their four objectives but the locating of the Black Wolf Rangers still eludes them. Amidst numerous Trials and challenges from the Jade Falcons, the Restless Souls resupply the 15th from their Behemoth Class DropShip with its fleet of twenty Mk VII Landing Crafts shuttling 64 tons worth of cargo apiece. Steele’s Recon Demolition Squads have uncovered something quite remarkable. Through subterfuge and stealth they have discovered that the Jade Falcons are interested in Kikuyu for a long lost Star League Era Castle Brian that is heralded as having the clues to the visions that appear to the Nova Cats, the Coyotes, and the Goliath Scorpions. Steele is determined to locate the ancient gem before the Jade Falcons deplete his forces through sheer attrition. He dispatches every available resource to doubling their efforts in search of its location.

Colonel Jack ‘Night Fury’ Ian Dirty Delta Battalion locates the actual entrance to the Castle Brian. At the same time, the Black Wolf Rangers appear but for some strange reason they are hostile towards their saviors. The Restless Souls defend themselves against the BWR successfully. While searching for the base, however; they soon realized that they would need six data cores to open the doors because no amount of physical force would penetrate the foreign metal. Previous looters have even tried with nukes. The Souls have located and found four of the data cores, the 15th has one, and the Jade Falcons have the last one. The 15th gives up their Data Core readily. The Souls have to defeat the Jade Falcons in yet another trial to gain the final one, which they do. But Xavier suspects the Star Captain threw the Trial for some unbeknownst reason.

The Castle Brian is being monitored by an Artificial Intelligence, called the Aramis Protocol, and when it senses the Restless Souls attempting to gain access it deploys hordes and hordes of battlemech, aerospace fighter, robot, and WarShip DRONES. The Drones vectored towards the Restless Souls attack the first unit they encounter and that just happened to be the Jade Falcons, who were about to launch yet another Trial of Possession for the Castle Brian against the Restless Souls. The Field Marshal orders his two DropShips to take shelter inside the base. When the 'Hordes' of Drones hit the Jade Falcons, the Clan Cluster is so overwhelmed; that the Field Marshal offers the Restless Souls assistance lest their Rho Galaxy be obliterated. He ushers the Jade Falcon Cluster inside the massive fortress of the Castle Brian Base. At the JumpPoint, Lethal Obsidian Assault Squadron successfully fends off the Drone Warships and instructs its two attending Starlord Class JumpShips to jump out to an asteroid belt.

Once inside the veritable fortress and the doors securely shut, the combine task force of the 15th, the Souls, and Jade Falcons make plans to get their remaining on world forces inside under cover while they repair and refit their military hardware. The Joint Task Force explores the world size Castle Brian uncovering new technologies and discovering new hardware. While their engineers work on adapting the technology and hardware for practical use, the new Enemies turned Allies, launch several sorties aimed at getting their people to seek refuge and join them inside the base. It doesn’t take long for the conglomerate of assembled warriors, now numbering in the tens of thousands, to realize that at some point they’re going to have to open the Castle Brian doors and face the Drone Horde. Their collective minds devise a plan aimed around taking out the WarShip first to have any hope of survival.

On the eve of this monumental battle a member of Xavier’s retinue reveals that he is an agent of Yvonne Steiner-Davion’s and that his Periphery March is under assail internally. Xavier Steele is assaulted on three separate, yet equally important fronts. First and foremost; he must physically survive this ‘Mech battle against an unknown foe, second; an ethical decision needs to be reached concerning his duty towards the First Princess and his responsibilities to his Periphery March, third; does this spell the end of Mercenary Commanding Officer career? Whom shall he appoint as his successor? What will become of his Restless Souls? After an awesomely inspiring and deeply motivation speech to the Joint Task Force troops by Xavier’s second in command, Tatiana Donatella, the task forces goes on to win the day by the skin on their teeth. The Restless Souls return to the Terran Corridor and sell the new found technology to All five of the successor states at a billion c-bills per House.