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Overview: A COST IS ALWAYS PAID... Nikolai Reed is a trader on a Lyran JumpShip plying the space lanes... Chloe Mason is a hot-shot tech with the Hsien Hotheads mercenaries... Leaving the Northwind Highlanders, MechWarrior Ryana Nikol fills a billet with the Eridani Light Horse... Disparate lives, but a unified dream that will bring them all together on a fateful course that will span decades, cover hundreds of light years, and involve love, friendship, and loss across a dozen worlds. Each will pay a price along the way, as a cost always comes due. The Mercenary Life anthology is a compilation of stories written by Randall N. Bills. Including tales from several different characters as they cross paths, and the dream to found a new mercenary command is born. Their unique lives showcase the struggles and trials of the men and women who take up the mercenary mantle from a variety of angles, all bound around that central vision. The first eight stories of this anthology were originally posted for free alongside the release of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, acting as the origin stories for the mercenary command within that computer game. This is the first time they have been compiled into a single volume to allow for a Print on Demand physical copy. Additionally, an all-new ninth story has been added — The Sun Will Rise — along with postscripts for every story that gives the reader insight into how stories are crafted within a shared universe between tabletop, computer games, and fiction that spans more than thirty years and tens of millions of words.

Genre: Fiction > SciFi

The Calm of the Void
Vonic is aware of his goal, and tells him to his face that «Whatever you want, I get». To prove his worth, draw the Captain's attention and get the promotion he seeks, Nicolai endeavors to procure a replacement Motor Control Unit for a Star League era Champion, a lostech spare desperately sought by the Twelfth Star Guards, one of the mercenary units Cardian supplies. To this end Nikolai makes contact with Chloe, a tech with the Blackhearts, and develops a crush on her. Nikolai had considered a Free Worlds League attack on Wyatt coinciding with his mission a complication so unlikely as to be negligible. Merchant Captain Cardian's meticulously planned timetable for his year-long round trip is upset and pushed back two days, earning Nikolai his ire. The wounded Nikolai can only watch helplessly as she mouths her «Whatever you want, I get» to him.

Vision's Hunger
Chloe Reed is among the top techs in the Blackhearts mercenary unit with endless contacts and supreme technical talent that has drawn numerous high-priced offers from other units to entice her away. But she hungers for more — to become a MechWarrior. Unfortunately her attempts to become one fall on deaf ears, with people unable or unwilling to look past her tech skills, her immediate superior Major Jeffers intensely dismissive of her continued «antics». Her attempts to suggest strategy to Major Jeffers only results in in him threatening to terminate her contract and insisting she will never be a MechWarrior. Increasingly despondent, Chloe is working on a Phoenix Hawk when the Thirteenth Militia catch up with the Blackheart bivouac, being violently thrown from the top of a repair gantry she realizes she never even told Nikolai her dream. When the very last interview remaining looks to go the same way, as Chloe's thoughts turn to the imminent arrival of Nikolai, desperation leads her to make a dangerous offer. A few days later in bed with Nikolai, a hesitant Chloe reveals her dream to become a MechWarrior and how she secured her new contact to fulfill that goal — by promising two people from the price of one, herself and Nikolai.

Endless War
Ryana Campbell is a Captain in the Twenty-first Striker Regiment of the elite Eridani Light Horse, a skilled tactician and strategist who prefers to ward her company from the front, resisting promotion to avoid a command position outside of her Highlander BattleMech's cockpit. While initially disheartened to be removed from direct combat, with Chloe taking field command of Ryana's company, when her plan succeeds perfectly Ryana comes to realize that she can do so much more to protect her fellow Light Horse from this place than she can ever do in the field.

Contested Dreams
After years of high-paying hazardous deployments with the Eridani Light Horse against Houses Kurita and Liao along with some astute financial investments, Chloe Reed has secured a nest egg to fulfill her dream of her very own mercenary unit. Chloe focuses on filling holes in the Cavalier's operations and technical staff as much as saving kindred spirits from becoming despondent and broken, contractless, worried such a fate may await her too. Dawson tests and reviews utterly lackluster MechWarrior recruits as an excuse to get back in the cockpit and avoid spending ever more increasing time in the dives and illegal card games of the planet's underworld. With the quartet's malaise increasing, a desperate Nikolai breaks his promise to Chloe and uses his underworld contact to seek out non-MRB sanctioned contracts. Angry that he broke her demand that the Cavaliers would only ever entertain above board contracts, Nikolai finds Ryana surprisingly agreeing with him and convincing Chloe that it's either this or giving up their dream.

Dissimulate Wanderer
Fifteen-year-old Fahad Arazad, being trained as a BattleMech Astech to his 'Mech Tech father, accompanies him on a once in a lifetime trip to Matamoras to experience the lull in the Sirocco region's relentless windstorms. Three years later back on their homeworld of Al Na'ir, Fahad has found an outlet for masking his lack of faith, secretly meeting with a trio of teenage friends to drink, smoke and discuss their hatred of House Kurita and its oppression of their people. In the middle of a treasonous rant Fahad discovers his father has followed him there, chastising his son for his betrayal of his Azami roots, insisting that even if House Kurita falls short, the Azami themselves will honor the agreement they made with complete fidelity. In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, Fahad is confronted by his angry father, incensed that he would use the ancient Azami practice of al-taqiyya to dissimulate and hide both his lack of faith and treason against House Kurita from his family, exiling him as an Altayih - wanderer.

Knives in the Dark
Brooklyn Cameron-Jones is summoned by her uncle and ruler of the Principality of Regulus Count Derick Cameron-Jones, but rather than expecting Brooklyn to answer for accusations her actions crippled a JumpShip, he asks her to comment candidly upon the tensions between brothers Anton and Janos Marik. Baffled by his actions, the Count insists that he knows Brooklyn would never do the acts for which she was accused, instead insisting that her actual crime was forgetting her noble position and that she must always be mindful of the endless machinations that ensue from it. As the depressed Cavaliers prepare to look for their next contract, Dawson Clarmont reveals that the Steel Guard is redeploying to the Lyran Commonwealth border with the planetary government offering a new defensive contract to the Cavaliers. A contract that means they don't have to redeploy seems ideal to the rest with only Brooklyn disagreeing, recognizing that Duke Anton Marik's offer to redeploy a unit known to be totally loyal to his brother elsewhere implies something is afoot. As Brooklyn attempts to dig for more information, an increasingly suspicious Nikolai follows her and uncovers a plot by the Anton-loyal planetary government to force the Cavaliers to acquiesce to the bandits by kidnapping Nikolai and Chloe's child. Nikolai tells an initially doubting Chloe that Brooklyn is that kidnapper as the pair split up, with an angry Chloe locating and shooting Brooklyn in the arm as she pleads she was trying to stop a blackmailed Dawson, with a Nikolai learning the truth only after mortally stabbing him.

A Skein of Schemes
On Hesperus II Sebastian Spears meets with two other high-ranking members of Interstellar Expeditions as he attempts to convince them that the organization can do more than simply recovering lost knowledge to proactively working towards preventing the Inner Sphere slide into endless war. Both warn Spears that IE has survived this long because it has not directly confronted the Great Houses and ComStar's destructive actions, and that while they chose not to oppose him for now that nothing will save him if he puts the rest of the organization at risk. From an office on Irian Sebastian Spears reviews the ripples caused by these movements as Chloe Reed and Nikoli Mason arrive to discuss a new contract on Emris IV to investigate a supposed SLDF LosTech cache, but the pair quickly recognize its similarities to the situation on McKenna, demanding answers from Spears. As Spears talks of his youth and overriding drive to stop the further loss of knowledge, Chloe reveals that she is a Terran born technical savant trained by ComStar as a MechWarrior and military technology researcher that fled the Blessed Order after losing faith in its doctrine. With Spears and Reed recognizing the idealism of the other following these discussions, the Cavaliers accept Spears' contract. With additional resources from Spears and aerospace fighter support, the Cavaliers are ultimately successful in their true mission of stopping the «pirate» raiders on Emris IV from fomenting disloyalty to the Captain-General. Back on Irian, Spears shares a bed with Alexa McCorkendale who acknowledges that the small success on Emris IV proves Spears was right, agreeing to back his new direction - for now.

Obligation's Forge
Undertaking another defense contract for a Interstellar Expeditions dig, this time in the Federated Suns system of Mallory's World, the Cavaliers are increasingly uneasy as the Draconis Combine launch a massed invasion of the underdefended world. Nikolai and Chloe bicker constantly, while both fear for the Cavaliers safety among such giants, Chloe's obligation to completing the contract and anxiety over the damage inflicted on the world's population contrasts with Nikolai's willingness to trust IE's neutrality will protect their team and that the Cavaliers should pull out rather than get drawn into the high intensity conflict. When the battle turns against the Federated Suns troops, First Prince Davion publicly broadcasting his position, sacrificing himself so the bulk of his troops may possibly withdraw. Nikolai sees this as an opportunity to escape as the Combine troops focus on the First Prince, but a guilty Chloe insists on leading a lance to distract their Combine pursuers, ordering Nikolai and Ryana to see the IE staff and rest of the Cavaliers to safety. Even with the addition of Ryana's Highlander the outmatched but at peace Chloe is killed in battle, an enraged Campbell destroying her Claidheamh-mór performing a lethal Highlander Burial to avenge her. A appalled IE helicopter crew sent by a distraught Nikolai extract the badly injured Ryana, who refuses to leave until she confirms firsthand the death of her friend.

Product details
Publisher ‏ : ‎ InMediaRes Productions (14 April 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 268 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1638610126
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1638610120
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 1.55 x 21.59 cm

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com.au/BattleTech-Mercenary-Randall-N-Bills/dp/1638610126