The Meeting

[dcs_p]Amphiplex Storage Facilities
Greater Geelong
Brisbane
Taurian Concordat
First Quarter, 3065[/dcs_p]

[dcs_p]Stepping into the dark room, Mark “Maverick” Pike was reminded of his old days
as a lone mercenary. The wide open space of the musty room slightly resembled
the storage warehouses he had grown accustomed to sleeping in during those
earlier years of his life. Looking up to the tall ceiling overhead, he noticed a few
species of alien bat-like creatures, probably native inhabitants of this planet.
Mark decided to stop looking around and concentrate on the situation at hand.
The Strider’s Strikers, whom Mark was currently a full time member of, were a
relatively small mercenary unit. With less than a regiment under Clan
Commander Devon Carns and Inner Sphere Commander Mike Strider, the
Strikers had little business in dividing their forces. Yet these were times of
political fire, with an interstellar civil war raging in what was now the remnants of
the Federated Commonwealth. Cultural interactions fed fuel to these fires,
causing unease and mistrust amongst hundreds of peoples, even those far from
the disaster of the civil war.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Clan Nova Cat had been trying for years now to gain some trust from its new
Inner Sphere allies. The citizens of the Draconis Combine had yet to completely
accept the Nova Cats. With a little help from the Combine’s Coordinator and
products of the integration processes, like the Strider’s Strikers themselves, the
Warden Clan had begun its road to acceptance.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Despite widespread unease in the Nova Cat realm of the Irece Prefecture, the
Strikers had divided their forces four ways. Taking up contract with Davion
loyalists, the Clan half of the team under Devon Carns had traveled to Steiner
space. The remaining Inner Sphere half had split into three sections, but these
were divided unequally. Probing the Steiner resistance under Duo Maxwell’s
leadership, five lances of the team worked under a private, secret contract.
Holden Trumphay, granted his first large scale commanding duty, was the
backbone of the Striker defense remaining at the team’s base within the Labrea
system.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Mike Strider had left to lead a small two-lance team towards the peripheral edge
of Liao space while searching for a team known as the Acer’s Hueys. The Hueys’
old base had been discovered by Striker tank crews in the Labrea system, only
adding to local rumors of a hidden lostech spacecraft in the area. Strider, with
his command lance and a group of young trainees under lance commander Betty
Stalwart, had finally found the Hueys team by travelling throughout the Periphery.
This was necessary since the Huey team had gone “rogue” almost 25 years ago,
a direct result of their partner team Llana’s Breakers having been completely
destroyed by unknown forces. The Hueys database history log hinted at
employer betrayal, with the Hueys and Breakers conned into accepting patrol
contracts that were actually suicide campaigns. After breaking the contract
illegally, Hueys’ commander Ace Leghorn Esquire had led his team to the Taurian
Concordat in an attempt to escape any Combine bounty hunters.[/dcs_p]