I am a Mechwarrior. I am an assassin, a gun for hire, a soldier. I am a leader and a fighter. The blood of warriors flows through my veins as it has through my ancestors uninterrupted for centuries. I have found myself adrift in an era of strife and conflict, often forced to choose who will die so that I may survive. This is my story...
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Few know of me by name, but many know of my deeds. I am the result of my blood and my upbringing. Through my veins flows the blood of Clans Armstrong, Hamilton, and Stuart, traced unbroken for over 1,500 years to the lands of old Scotland on the cradle of humanity, Terra herself. My predecessors have served chiefs, kings, queens, self-styled emperors, and First Lords. Some, like my father before me, have served beside living legends such as Hanse Davion. His father before him served twenty proud years as a mercenary with the Highlanders before he lost his leg and left eye in the fight and retired back to the family land.
Since the year of our Lord 1725, however, at least one of every generation has served with the Black Watch. We are living testament to the ever present struggle to protect the masses from criminal activity as we were originally founded for. I myself chose to not respond to the call to serve the ostentatious peacocks of the self proclaimed Second Star League. But alas that is neither here nor there and I should start where all stories should...at the beginning, ha!
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Many find me to be a surprising individual. That traces back to my parents on Northwind at their farm on the continent of New Lanark, about a hundred kilometers outside the capital, Tara. My Da' was back on Northwind, on leave from his posting on Tigress as a Battalion Commander with the Davion Assault Guards. Now Da' wasn't exactly a young thing back in 3025. At the tender age of 44, he and ma' had already graced the galaxy with five other rambunctious sprogs. Now ma' was only 36 at the time, and one thing led to another...I certainly won't go into details about how that works, as anyone old enough to be listening to my ramblings should know what happens when a man and a women love each other and get to see one another naught but a few times a year. Needless to say I was an unexpected and unplanned gift to the world.
T'was not always easy growing up with Da' gone most of the time, especially shortly after my birth when the 4th Succession War began, but the family was a close-knit bunch. Ma' was always around to put the fear o' God into my heart, but when she wasn't paying attention, Grandpa Alan, and Uncles Owen and Will would keep me occupied with stories of warriors, battles, and the glories of the past. When they weren't telling me stories, they put me through a wicked amount of physical activities that would later serve as the basis for learning hand-to-hand combat.
When I had ten summers under my kilt, ma' finally caved in and let me run the Agro-mech...under proper supervision of course. My uncles and grandpa were ecstatic that I was a natural at the controls. Often late at night or when Ma' was off to Tara on business, Grandpa Alan would give me lessons in his battered old Trebuchet. Until my dying day I will fondly remember the thrill of Alan guiding me through my first experience with jump jets and hurtling through the air in a 50 ton weapon of mass destruction.
When I turned fourteen and the Inner Sphere erupted once again into an orgy of warfare and destruction now known as the War of '39. Assorted Davion forces flooded Northwind and surrounding systems to prevent the Dracs from seizing it as they had Fomalhaut, Saffel, and Quentin while most of the Davion thrust focused on retaking Royal, Lima, McComb, and Glenmora. While the War only lasted a few years, it did provide me with the chance to work with some of Da's colleagues that were sent to Northwind. Through them I was unofficially adopted as a quasi-mascot for a battalion of the Davion Guards on planet and was introduced to professional level training and discipline. When the Guards departed Northwind, I took up additional training with Alan's old unit, the 2nd Kearny Highlanders. Mind you that they didn't go full out on me, being only 15 at the time, but they pushed me to my limits in the simulators and with hand-to-hand instruction.
My time with the 2nd Kearny continued until '43 when I turned 18. It was then I was inducted into the true family business...keeping alive the Royal Black Watch and the ideals of the Star League, so far as creating a stable, prosperous realm for humanity rather than the conniving expansionist entity it eventually became. At that point my training was taken over by my family, including my Da' who had finally retired from the Davion Guards, and a cadre of instructors from the Black Watch until I turned twenty.
On an interesting side note, whilst we were on Tigress for Da's official discharge (I don't know how people do it, but when the Jumpship jumped...worst experience of my life. Part of me still wants to die every time I think about it), he personally introduced me to The Fox, Hanse freaking Davion himself, his son Victor and daughter Yvonne. Victor? Heck of a lot shorter than I anticipated, but good kid and close to my age. Actually got to talk with him a fair bit while Da' and Hanse reminisced about their academy days together. Yvonne...well she was young, we all were, but you could already tell she was going to be a shy beauty when she grew up.
Now there are a few things to keep in mind about the family business. When the Bastard Amaris overthrew Terra and destroyed House Cameron, the Royal Black Watch, and most of the forces in the Terran Hegemony in 2765, he didn't get everyone. He missed quite a number of people that should have been purged in his coup. When the Rim Worlders started their coup and wiped out most the forces on Terra, they did manage to get the vast majority of the Regiment, but there were a few main points they forgot to account for.
First off he didn't take into account the company worth of mechwarriors and various support personnel that were off world on leave at the time. That left sixty-three active members of the Black Watch, my too many great to be remembered grandpa among them, to plot, to rebuild, and to tap into the extensive network of former Black Watch personnel across the Inner Sphere. Not many people realize just how extensive the list of veterans can be, especially for a unit that has been in service as long as the Black Watch had been. Between retirees, honorably discharged members, family, and distant relations and sympathizers, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people to call upon.
In addition, Colonel Hanni Schmitt, commander of the Black Watch at the time of the coup, had been increasingly uneasy about First Lord Richard Cameron's relationship with Amaris. Schmitt had always been a planner, and boy did she plan. Technicians found any excuse to scrap a part, a weapon, a mech. It was a gradual process, but by the time of the coup, the Black Watch and other allied Royal regiments had secreted away enough parts, weapons, mechs, and vehicles to equip a small army. The equipment was spread throughout the Hegemony in secret caches, ready and awaiting use should the worst befall the Hegemony.
Lastly, Amaris missed his mark. He failed to destroy all of House Cameron. He missed four members of the House to be precise. Two were bastard children born of mistresses and secreted away from the media and the Royal Court. The other two, however, were legitimate heirs to the throne; born of distantly related cousins in the back woods of Northwind. The survivors of the Regiment and the people of Northwind who knew of them, protected them with their lives.
The purge may have missed its mark, but the war to reclaim the Hegemony from Amaris destroyed any hope of the surviving Camerons taking the throne at that time. The Star League Defense Force was in tatters, as were the worlds of the Hegemony. Any advantage that the leading realm of the Star League had held over its larger neighbors had been ground to dust in nearly fifteen years of war to reclaim Terra. Frankly, there was nothing to reclaim, and any attempts to do so would have been met by assassination, invasion, or a puppet realm that would never return to glory. No...it was safer to bide time and await what the future would hold...even at the expense of billions of lives during the next three centuries of warfare. After all, nothing would come of it to re-emerge onto the political field only to be slaughtered by the warring Houses
When I reached the tender age of twenty in the grand year 3045, I was taken to Tara and secreted into a bunker deep underneath Peace Park. For a fortnight, two weeks for those of you who are unenlightened, I was subjected to brutal tests. It was near as close to combat situations as could be had in an enclosed bunker. Small arms drills, hand-to-hand combat, Battlemech simulators against the finest of the Regiment, training to resist interrogation methods, occasionally a half an hour catnap, more torture, hand-to-hand combat, some rations, more simulators, and then back to drills and being forced to recite the history of the Regiment and identify mechs and vehicles from a brief image.
Now only a small percentage of you hearing this tale will ever see combat, but you cannot imagine what it is to be pushed past the breaking point; to be reduced to a mass of unthinking flesh where the only thing between you and death are your instincts and training. I was, and still am, damned good in a fight. Am I the best? No. But I am still standing at the end, and in a fight, that's usually the most important thing. I got my ass kicked in those bunkers, and I don't mean figuratively. I was set against true masters of their fields and was found to be lacking, though not for lack of effort, but in the end I was still standing...sort of.
At the end of the torture I was roughly dragged by a few brutes, who had to have been the size of Clan Elementals, and tossed in front of a table with five shadowed figures at it. Needless to say I was not amused. I had just spent two flipping weeks under some of the most strenuous conditions that their nasty little minds could contrive and I don't even get to see the faces of my 'handlers'. Load of shite if you ask me, but hardly anyone ever does. Thank the Lord that they didn't go into any long-winded speeches or anything, just told me that I was 'a credit to your teachers, your training, and your heritage' before being asked if I was dedicated to joining the Regiment and swearing my oath of loyalty to all that it stood for.
An affirmative answer led to my being ushered (quasi-dragged as I still couldn't stand well, much less walk) into a reception hall behind a hidden door. At the far end I was stopped and propped up as yet another hooded figure entered and stood before me. Cliché? Oh hell yes, but I joke not, there before me was good old (not really, guy is only three years older than me) Artair Cameron in all of his massive glory. Even as a teen Artair was a large man, at an imposing 6'4" and well muscled, and strong as an ox. Apparently it was the decision of House Cameron-in-exile that Artair was to be the one to bring back the dynasty to the masses of the Inner Sphere.
While everyone else was groveling and such, Artair came over my way. He looked me straight in the eye. Had, and still has, one of the most disconcerting stares I've ever encountered in another human being. Must have stared at me for a good five minutes sizing me up. When he apparently thought he saw what he was looking for, Artair walked right up to me, put his big paw on my shoulder (nearly knocked me down, by the way) and said "I can use the help of a good man like you. Can I count on your aid?"
Me, being half-drunk with exhaustion, looked up at him, smirked, and shot my mouth off with a brilliant "Aye...when do I start, boss?" If only I had known what I was getting myself into...
Fuck my life...