Abstract Proxy

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Smash and grab, now you're talking Colonel!" Ziska said, seeming to purr with satisfaction.

Catching herself, she smiled kindly, and then continued in a far more measured tone, "We should of course, most magnanimously, offer the transports the chance to surrender. However, if said transports fall into our hands and still elect to resist, well, we won't really have much choice. Violence is to be abhorred, naturally, but the survival of this fine company comes before concern for our enemies. These very same enemies will not offer us much generosity should we find ourselves out of supplies, ammunition, and most critically water. We are the villains now and a quick death is the only kindness that our new opposition will likely show us if we end up at their mercy instead."

Unmarred and seemingly unbothered by the discipline the Colonel had most cruelly leveled against her and Ingrid, Ziska seemed if anything to only be further energized by the growing tension. Her legendary conditioning had seen her through worse physicals trials and for all her many, many vices, MechWarrior Ziska took an almost masochistic pleasure in pushing her body to the very edges of physical failure. Even a pirate knew that if you wanted to fight, be it with fists, knives, or BattleMechs...you had to be fit enough to outlast your opponents. The blistering and utterly overwhelming warmth of a damaged BattleMech in combat leaking coolant by the second offered no respite for the weak or out of shape.

Basking in her newfound glory, Ziska made little effort to hide her obvious pleasure at how the day at developed. She'd almost gotten into a fight, despite having no intention to do so. It was a shame, Ingrid seemed far less amused about the matter than she was, but Ziska had begun to nourish a strange hope that she could somehow convince the Duchess to relax and abandon her hopeless chivalric notions. Even pirates followed codes of their own making, Ziska took no issue with such ideas. However, it was Ziska's firm conviction that a mercenary had to have a flexible code of honor, honor being a very loosely defined word when it came to professional sellswords piloting giant machines of war.

Equally intriguing and amusing was her new BattleMech. For it surely had not passed Ziska's notice that Reya had done something very sneaky and most wonderful to her RVN-3L. Ziska wasn't sure what exactly modifications the BattleMech engineer had completed to her BattleMech, but she knew enough about the recently popularized Guardian ECM to know that what the Colonel described was well above and beyond the abilities of the standard Guardian ECM stashed in a RVN-3L. She decided that she would interrogate the engineer at a later date. It was always poor form to remain ignorant regarding recent technological developments. Especially when said field modifications might require rapid repairs during battle given the uncertainties of combat.

"MechWarrior Daschke raises an excellent point however," Ziska continued, nodding towards Ingrid with not even a trace of annoyance or mischief, a rare sight indeed when it came to Ziska. "Isolated and under supplied as we are, we can't exactly discount any potential allies or at least less hostile parties that may aid us, even if only for a short time. We are the stunning debutante at the ball, we might as well size up our suitors before we accept any invitations to dance."

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

I think we need to bring in the heavy guns.

Let's call the UN.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"A tournament!" Ziska suggested, positively jumping with glee at the sudden chaos that had overtaken the hanger in mere moments. Hearing her shouting, General Kerensky raised her head lazily and eyed Ziska curiously, but warmly from Reya's lap. Having decided upon her course, Ziska bowed low, in a courtly fashion towards the yawning cat, before continuing. "A tournament for the most virtuous Duchess Daschke's hand. Once we have defeated our present foes that is. General Kerensky will surely permit such a noble competition to take place in her great hanger."

Her voice now free of any vulgarities and mercenary language, Ziska spoke in gentle, luscious courtly tones and with all the formality of a Great House court noble lady.

"It is not right that a highborn women possessing such noble blood, such grace and so many, many wonderful talents should be left unattended among the multitude of rogues, rascals, and villains that can presently be found in our distinguished mercenary company."

"My most honorable person excluded, of course," Ziska quipped, grinning at her newly claimed audience.

Dancing in between Ingrid and Tarak, Ziska gently guided Ingrid backwards and away from the taller MechWarrior. Offering the tip of an invisible hat, Ziska bowed formally at Tarak and channeled her best recollection of a proud knight that she remembered from some ancient tragedy performed in the Magistracy of Canopus, "Tread carefully, MechWarrior Tarak, for should you continue to take such liberties with our most esteemed lady and dare to utter such base accusations again...then I, the most chivalrous and crafty MechWarrior Ziska, great student of courtly love that I am, will have to resolve the matter with great violence."

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Man at this rate we're all gonna have to get together to stop Latveria.

@Sep

Yes, we must help them.

I mean, we must stop them.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Right Where I Belong...

"You've got an hour," Ziska barked to Davids, grinning like a fiend as she stole the cup of coffee he held in his hand. From his perch sitting atop an empty ammunition crate, Davids still reached to her chest.

"I heard," Davids coolly replied, snatching back his coffee cup before Ziska could finish all of it. Minhas sat next to him and smiled broadly at the sight of Ziska. Frequently amused by Ziska's antics, she burst into a fit of laughter witnessing Ziska's latest crime. Bowing low, as if she had completed a theatrical performance, Ziska flashed her a quick wink, deftly avoiding the kick from Davids that narrowly missed her leading foot.

"How's my girl?" Ziska cooed as she took a light step away from Davids. She nodded in the direction of her Raven, gazing with real affection at the sleek BattleMech. A game of poker, a dangerously large pot, and half a melted Jenner to soften the fresh pain of her humbled opponent later Ziska had somehow left the Capellan interior one state-of-the-art BattleMech richer.

"Good enough," Davids said. "Patched up the damage from your most recent adventure, ammo is still low, but not much we can do about that given the circumstances. You should be good, provided you don't do anything stupid again."

"Why, MechTech Davids, when was the last time that, I, the great and honorable MechWarrior Ziska did anything foolish."

The glare that Davids shot back her and his well-practiced frown, told Ziska all that she needed to know and she stifled a chuckle. She trusted Davids. He was an honest pirate, just like her. She knew he would get the job done or at least as good as it could be given the lack of time and spare parts. She trusted her Astechs. Kesi, Sunter, Kan, Licht, and Minhas. They'd do what Davids told them and then some. They were good and getting better, she only hoped they would make it. Civil wars of any scale were rarely clean affairs in her experience.

"This isn't a game, Ziska," Davids finally said, his voice a low rumble of gravel. "You need to to take this seriously. And for the love of whatever Canopian whore you worship, stop drinking the actuator oil. We're going to start running low soon enough."

"Minhas, don't let our dear friend Davids, deceive you. We have plenty of actuator oil remaining," Ziska began, shooting daggers at Davids, and then tutting loudly as she made eye contact with the young Astech. "And as for any whores, I will not be lectured on my intimate relationships by a man with no fewer than fourteen children scattered across the Inner Sphere. For shame, Davids."

"Ziska," Davids hissed, shifting angrily to his feet, "Enough of your jokes. Enough of your little jabs. You're drunk. You're drunk on the poison that you swallow. You're drunk on the fighting. You're drunk on all of this. Worse still, I would bet that you're enjoying every moment of this. You're a danger, you're risk, and you're out of control...again."

Minhas let out a gasp and seemed to be desperately searching for a way to escape as her two nominal supervisors bickered.

"Would you prefer it if I sat here weeping? Do you want me to apologize? Should I feel bad?" Ziska spat back, her voice full of anger. Ignoring David's towering height, she stepped closer, and jabbed a finger aggressively into the large MechTech's chest. "This is exactly the sort of game that we signed up for Davids. You just won't admit it. None of you will."

Davids didn't bother to reply, turning around, and sulking away with a furious shake of his head. Satisfied with her victory, Ziska cheerfully waved goodbye to the still flustered Minhas as she strode towards her RVN-3L. She loved it already. Just like she loved every BattleMech she piloted. The BattleMechs were just like her cherished lovers, past and present. Wonderfully exciting and remarkable in more ways that she could ever hope to remember. And always, always daring her to live more dangerously.

Her chat with Ingrid had been amusing. The Duchess intrigued her. Her ideals. Her code of honor. Her insistence on carrying a sword into battle. Her obsession with dueling enemy MechWarriors. Ziska enjoyed the strange company that she kept. Mercenary life suited her. She reveled in conflict. She constantly sought out trouble. She found fights even when they were on R&R and if she couldn't find them then she created them. Peace never suited her. It left her too much time to think. Thinking too much was dangerous. It lead to questions. Questions that Ziska had no intention of ever asking, much less answering.

Times were good again, Ziska thought, bristling with new found energy. She felt good. She felt alive. She was exactly where she was supposed to be. Fighting terrible odds. Painted a villain. Worrying only about the next moment. Trying only to survive.

She could see the weariness in the faces of her comrades. She could feel the growing tension. She could sense the desperation. She could hear the raised voices and it was impossible to miss the tear streaked faces. They didn't understand. They couldn't. Not completely. Not yet. They hadn't seen the things she had. They hadn't done the things that she had done. They wouldn't. They couldn't. Not yet.

Espian Guard. Crimson Fists. Great Houses. ComStar. Even the Star League, before they had gone tits up. They were all the same. They weren't heroes. They weren't any better than she was. They were worse. Far worse. Ziska didn't leave irradiated wastelands behind her. She didn't starve entire planets. She didn't send entire generations to die to move a line a couple of millimeters on a star chart. She killed only those she had to.

But they paid well. C-bills were enough to soften any remaining pangs from her conscience. She did her best not to listen to the whisper in the back of her head. She didn't let her thoughts wander. There was only one thing to worry about. Surviving. She'd fight. She'd hold the line. She'd kill whoever she had to. But she would survive. She would survive even if it meant killing half the planet. Better them, better them than her. The dead would understand and if they didn't, well, then she'd just run away faster.

Spotting the crowd arranged around her RVN-3L, Ziska shouted in mock offense, "Hey! Raven rides are 1,000 C-Bills, for a group it's 5,000 C-Bills. Don't think there's a discount just because we are friends!"

One Universe: Unlimited - A Marvel/DC Comics Roleplay

Slower than intended, but I should have a post wrapped up tomorrow.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Main Character:

MechWarrior Ziska

Character Name:
Born Tereza Aranda, but as far as anyone in the Green Knights knows, her name is Emma Ziska.

Callsign:
Alleycat

Character Archetype:
Reformed Gangster Pirate

Character’s Guiding Motto:
Speed is life. C-Bills are C-Bills and a job is a job. Don't make things complicated, just go fast.

Character’s Fatal Flaw:
Ziska is always looking for trouble.

Expanded Personality Section

A reformed pirate with a string of bad habits, Ziska is an adrenaline junkie and trouble maker in equal measure. Convinced that there is little to life other than living another day and managing to have another drink, Ziska tries her best to be the life of the lengthy party that she considers her life to be.

A hedonist through and through, Ziska is exceedingly friendly, social, and full of mischief. She is charming even, when the mood strikes her, and more than a little gifted when it comes to ballroom dancing. Surprisingly, Ziska is remarkably kind for a recently reformed pirate, even to the freshest faces in Gawain’s Green Knights, be they an Astech, Technician, Infantry Soldier, Tanker, MechWarrior, or Aerojock. Despite or perhaps because of her aristocratic origins, she makes little distinction between social origins.

Although Ziska is tight-lipped when it comes to her past, there are hints in her speech, in her knowledge and in her bearing of an aristocratic upbringing. She has an obvious military background and carries herself both during combat, and in the moments when it counts, in the manner of a professional officer. Despite her clearly military education, reflecting the time honored traditions of the the Magistracy of Canopus, Ziska is an exceedingly unorthodox MechWarrior. She is a master of ambushes, lightening quick strikes, and unconventional tactics in all forms.

Ziska lives fast, drinks faster, cheerfully eats, and pilots all her mechs at full throttle. Tonnage matters little to Ziska, but she refuses to go anything but dangerously fast. When deployed on a mission, Ziska loses much of her playful charm and shifts into a far grimmer version of her off duty self. It is no secret among the Green Knights that Ziska is well-versed in asymmetric warfare and other less than honorable tactics.

When engaging her enemies, there is something predatory about Ziska. She watches, she waits, and she plans with an uncharacteristic and unexpected patience...stalking larger mechs as if she is hunting large prey. Moving through the battlefield, she wastes little energy, moving with a marked efficiently, and striking at just the right moment. Having fought her way across the edge of the Inner Sphere in one desperate battle after another, Ziska possesses an intuitive sense of timing, a sixth sense for when to move, when to attack, and when to run.

A product of two very distinct military traditions, as an officer, Ziska alternates between kindness and cruelty as needed. She leads with the cold, practiced focus of a conventional military officer, comfortable with the brutal realities of the 31st century battlefield and with a constant eye on the prize. However, Ziska has clearly learned from her time operating as a member of a roving pirate band. She is willing to listen to others, especially her subordinates, and tolerates a surprising amount of democracy in combat operations. The agency that she offers comes with a heavy price and Ziska expects nothing but the best from those around her. Ziska has few qualms about raising her voice when angered and employing precise threats. More alarmingly to some of the other officers in the Green Knights, while far from unnecessarily violent, Ziska appears to have few reservations when it comes to the level of violence required to accomplish a mission.

For her many gifts as a MechWarrior and officer, Ziska has the personality of a domesticated feline, lazying about the DropShip when off duty, and managing to do only exactly as much administrative work as is required of her.

Character’s Expertise:
Reconnaissance, Tactics, and Criminal Expertise (Pirate)

Nationality/Allegiance:
Ziska is a Canopian noble living in self-imposed exile. Despite her origins she holds no particular allegiance to the Magistracy of Canopus.

Background:
Mysterious in all matters personal, Emma Ziska is a capable MechWarrior, respected for her talents piloting a BattleMech and her abilities as an officer in Gawain’s Green Knights. Far from sullen, she speaks freely, but rarely seems to say much of any truth or depth about herself.

Shaped by her ever changing answers, there are many stories about Ziska that circulate through Gawain’s Green Knights. Some old hands say she's a former pirate. They see cold eyes, quick hands, and the familiar, confident swagger of a scoundrel. Fresher faces, particularly those from the Periphery, mention the infamous Canopian Pleasure circuses, and the Canopian mercenaries that accompany them. Ziska knows many things about the galaxy. She has many tales to tell and amusing adventures to share. Wayne himself seems uncertain about Ziska's past and seems content to let the matter lie, lest he lose a talented MechWarrior to unnecessary politics or red tape.

Unsurprisingly, Ziska offers no clear answers when directly asked about any criminal acts she may have engaged in or questionable contracts she may have once signed. With a shrug of her shoulders and a mischievous smile, she simply dances around any serious questions about "complicated" matters like piracy.

---

Jealously guarded Magistracy of Canopus records, if acquired and carefully examined, indicate that Tereza Aranda was born on August 10th, 3005, in the city of Crimson, on Canopus IV, the planetary capital of the Magistracy of Canopus, to noblewoman Sarah Aranda and her husband Thomas. A well-respected family belonging to the Frone faction of the Canopian nobility, the Aranda family were among the few remaining descendants of the original founders of the Magistracy of Canopus.

Steeped in tradition and privilege, Tereza, the third of five children and the youngest of three daughters, was carefully groomed for a life intended to culminate in a leading position at the very top of the Magistracy Armed Forces (MAF). For a displaced Periphery pirate, Ziska thus possesses a remarkably first-rate education, carefully curated talents, and welcome social graces.

---

Pragmatic as only the citizens of the Periphery can be, Aranda's parents saw that she followed the usual pipeline intended to usher Canopian youths towards a successful, useful future. She was raised surrounded by diligent servants, serious tutors, and dedicated security forces.

Growing into an uneasy youth, Aranda completed her compulsory education with exceptional grades. Guided by a rotating collection of exhausted tutors, she received grades that did not fully reflect her lack of discipline outside of the select few topics that interested her. Still, it was clear that she had a sharp mind, and given her parentage, at the age of fifteen, Aranda was quickly shepherded into the MechWarrior training program on Canopus IV.

Her family name and the careful politics of her parents, paired with a natural aptitude for all things involving stompy robots, ensured that Aranda was quickly selected as an officer candidate. Thus, instead of being sent off to a Militia Defense or training battalion Aranda was delivered to Raventhir's Iron Hand, first regiment of the Magistracy Royal Guards, the most prestigious unit in all of the Magistracy of Canopus and the very unit tasked with protecting the Magistrix herself. Posted as a military aide-de-camp under Major Vernyce Alkobar, she received "on-the-job" training in all the finer aspects of warfare, military leadership, and the social life demanded of any serious officer. Knowledge deemed critical to thriving in the upper echelons of the MAF.

By the age of seventeen, Aranda had earned the rank of Banner Sergeant in the Magistracy Armed Forces. Well pleased with her achievements and eying a suitable future marriage following continued success, her parents purchased a commission as an Ensign for Tereza in the 1st Canopian Light Horse of the legendary Chasseurs á Cheval brigade soon after her seventeenth birthday. A storied regiment, famed for their bravery and success in battle, to the Canopians, the 1st Canopian Light Horse represented the very tip of the spear of the MAF.

In the years that followed, officially Aranda spent several years fighting pirates, killing Free Worlds League mercenaries raiding Canopian space, and keeping Marian Hegemony troops honest through the judicious application of firepower. Unofficially, along with the rest of her unit, Aranda participated in a number of clandestine raids targeting nearby Free Worlds League controlled planets. Proving herself in battle after battle and operation after operation, Aranda seemed poised for a proper promotion.

However, he culmination of what should have been a most carefully cultivated career was smashed to pieces under unclear circumstances. A band of pirates were subdued. A planet was liberated. Aranda was put up for a medal. There was a disagreement. Strong words were spoken. Alcohol was suspected to be involved. There were rumors of worse, far less palatable vices. In the days that followed, Aranda had a storied falling out with her commanding officer, a disagreement that still echoes in the memories of the 1st Canopian Light Horse. No less than five BattleMechs were heavily damaged in the brawl that ensued and some fourteen vehicles were damaged to varying degrees. Several venerable BattleMechs were left as complete write-offs, reduced to mere salvage and spare parts. With her entire company confined to quarters, Aranda, in an uncharacteristic rage, resigned her commission while still nominally under arrest. According to her commanding officer, Aranda then feigned illness, attacked one of the soldiers guarding her, stole a Heavy Gyrojet Gun, took an Astech hostage, and escaped the base pursued by four infantry squads. The soldiers that served under her tell a different story, suggesting that Aranda simply bribed the soldier guarding her and calmly walked off the base occupied by the 1st Canopian Light Horse.

A lengthy investigation by the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry (MIM) resulted in few clear findings and the ranking officer in charge of compiling the logged report could only speculate that Aranda had probably signed up with a passing mercenary company. After all, it was hardly the first time that a Canopian noblewoman had vanished into the deep periphery before anything could be done to stop her. It was widely expected by all involved that Aranda, like many a wayward noble scion before her would eventually, inevitably, come crawling back to the Magistracy of Canopus when she had exhausted the limited funds available to her.

---

Following the conclusion of the MIM investigation, records concerning Aranda are spotty, if not entirely nonexistent. A precious few reported sightings of Aranda manage to reach all the way back to Crimson, Canopus IV, and the Magistracy of Canopus. However, identification proved inconclusive, information arrived corrupted, and nothing much of value was learned. The Aranda family reluctantly accepted that they had lost a daughter. Life in the Periphery moved on, as it always did. Most people chose to forget. In the end, not even the operatives of the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry prove able to satisfactorily divine the whereabouts of the rogue Canopian noble.

However, files logged deep within ComStar databanks indicate that a suspected pirate, Emma Ziska, appeared in the Periphery during the early 3020s. Loose ties to the pirate kingdom of Tortuga were mentioned by confidential informants, but never conclusively proven. Working her way through a number of mercenary companies in questionable standing with ComStar's Mercenary Review Board (MRB), Ziska somehow established herself as a reputable MechWarrior. Anyone with knowledge of the sometimes shady dealings of the Mercenary review board, would perhaps rightly suspect that Ziska greased the right palms, sweet-talked the right ComStar Acolytes, and simply purchased the right digital documents to avoid any greater scrutiny.

With little fanfare, Ziska eventually arrived on Galatea, nominally to find more honest mercenary work with a reputable mercenary company. Armed with a positively glowing recommendation from one ComStar Precentor Alexander Wanyika, she was snapped up in record time by Colonel Gaius Wayne of the rising mercenary outfit Gawain’s Green Knights. Despite occasional problems related to her distinct disinterest in proper decorum, procedure, and avoiding trouble, Ziska has somehow managed to remain gainfully employed as a member of the Green Knights for almost three years now.

Battlemech or Vehicle:
Ziska currently pilots a Raven light mech (RVN-3L) that she has most certainly acquired through dubious means.

RVN-3L Supplementary Info

Asset Appearance: Ziska's RVN-3L is nondescript, painted with colors and camouflage patterns according to regional and seasonal requirement of the environment that the Green Knights are operating in. Below the cockpit, Ziska painted a black cat with an arched back and raised up fur that matches the fabric patch sewn onto her cooling vest.

Asset Weaponry:
A souped up Raven crammed full of tech from the recently discovered Helm Memory Core, Ziska's RVN-3L carries a small, but respectable weapons array chiefly oriented towards providing her lance with vital information through battlefield reconnaissance.

Clocking in at a mere 35 tons thanks to the use of weight saving Hellespont Lite Ferro-Fibrous armor, the RVN-3L is a sleek looking mech that is in many ways more reminiscent of a Light Aerospace Fighters fighter than a BattleMech. A Hermes 210 XL Engine provides the RVN-3L with a respectable cruising speed of 64.8 km/h and a max speed 97.2 km/h. This combination of good armoring and speed allow the RVN-3L to survive unavoidable combat encounters until reinforcements can arrive.

Although the RVN-3L is intended to operate as a recon or electronic warfare asset rather than as a front-line combatant, the light mech is equipped with two Ceres Arms Medium Lasers mounted in the Right Arm and one Harpoon-6 SRM-6 mounted in the Right Torso. One ton of CASE-Protected SRM-6 ammunition, allows fifteen shots, and can be used to cause critical damage to vulnerable internal components of an enemy unit once the armor has been breached.

Carrying the most cutting-edge electronic warfare equipment in the Inner Sphere, courtesy of the scientists at Apple Churchill, the RVN-3L is a peerless master of electronic warfare and reconnaissance. Conceived to be a force multiplier by the desperate Capellan Confederation during the Third Succession War, the RVN-3L blankets friendly units with electronic jamming using a a Ceres Metals Model 666 communication system equipped with an advanced Guardian ECM Suite.

The Apple Churchill 442x Target Acquisition Gear mounted in the Right Torso and the Apple Churchill Guiding Light Narc Missile Beacon in the Left Arm, allow the RVN-3L to provide targeting support for friendly forces. The RVN-3L carries two tons of CASE-protected NARC Missile Beacon ammunition in the Left Torso, allowing twenty four shots before resupplying is required. Critically, for a reconnaissance BattleMech the Hellespont Interrogator Beagle Active Probe mounted in the Center Torso helps to rapidly detect and classify other battlefield units whether they are camouflaged or even shut down. To ensure the accurate delivery of lasers, SRMs, and Narc Beacons the RVN-3L comes equipped with a highly accurate C-Apple Churchill target tracking system. Finally, eleven heat sinks ensure that the RVN-3L is a cool BattleMech to pilot, even when it is firing an Alpha Strike.

Beyond standard SRM ammunition, Ziska utilizes SRM inferno ammunition to set enemies on fire. Although she uses inferno rounds chiefly to overwhelm the heat dissipation system of enemy mechs, in a pinch the SRM inferno rounds can be used to devastating effect against combat vehicles, battle armor into flaming, and conventional infantry platoons.

Appearance:
Average in height, Ziska has the athletic build expected of many a MechWarrior and professional soldier. She has a dusky complexion with brown eyes and long, curly dark hair that has a habit of straightening from the heat of her BattleMech's cockpit. She has no tattoos and despite having suffered equally from across the wide range of injuries inherent to plying a trade as a system traveling soldier for hire, she has no particularly noticeable scars.

Comfortable in the shadows, Ziska moves with a catlike dexterity and is known for being alarmingly quiet. She has a habit of prowling the decks of the Green Knight's DropShip in search of minor amusements to occupy her time, especially during the lengthy transit time between contracts. More than one unfortunate Green Knight has been scared half to death by the sudden, unexpected appearance of the MechWarrior, often in places where her presence is exceedingly hard to logically explain.

A casual dresser with a military flair, Ziska wears a rotating collection of combat uniforms. Largely military fatigues of a recent Capellan Confederation Armed Forces (CCAF) make, her outfits consist of a jacket, trousers and shirt or T-shirt.

Ziska is also inordinately fond of lounging around in the classic flame-resistant coveralls favored by mechanics all across the Inner Sphere and she keeps several pairs that she has permanently 'borrowed' from her Astechs and Technician. Most of the coveralls she wears appear to have been manufactured for the Federated Suns Navy (FSN) and Lyran Commonwealth Navy (LCN).

As a seasoned MechWarrior when piloting her BattleMech Ziska wears the familiar garb of a MechWarrior. Well-worn combat boots, tattered shorts, a breezy tank top, and fire resistant gloves.

Ziska's pride and joy is a heavily customized neurohelmet that she claims to have won over a game of poker in a deep periphery backwater tavern that she couldn't possibly reveal, not without having to kill someone, maybe a couple of people even. Lighter than the usual bulky neurohelmet that a MechWarrior relies on, Ziska's helmet is painted midnight black and has her call sign written in swirling red letters on both sides. Her Cooling Vest is standard, but sports a sewn on patch depicting a black cat with an arched back and raised up fur. Due to the cramped nature of a BattleMech cockpit, Ziska keeps her sidearm in a chest holster attached to her Cooling Vest.

Picture from Green Knights' Personnel Files

Equipment:
Adopting a loose military dress, Ziska carries a Calaveri 10mm Auto-Pistol in a holster on her right hip. A sleek, small black pistol, it is an ideal sidearm for a MechWarrior often operating inside of a cramped BattleMech cockpit.

As a final insurance policy should her BattleMech be disabled, Ziska has tucked a Mauser and Gray Firearms M-75 personal defense weapon beneath her ejection seat. A rugged design, the M-75 is a modular and compact PDW chambered for a respectable 6.5×25mm round. A bargain purchase, the M-75 comes standard with a detachable low power optic, wire folding stock, grip safety, threaded barrel, and hollow foregrip which can be used to hold a spare magazine.

As a reminder of home, Ziska keeps a Ceres Arms Slasher Combat Knife. Originating from the Capellan Confederation, the SCK is a double-edged, forged out of high quality nickel steel knife. Balanced for throwing, the SCK has a hollow, rough steel grip complete with a removable cap. Designed for export markets, the knife was popular in the Periphery, selling well in the Magistracy of Canopus and Taurian Concordant. Although Ziska chiefly uses it to cut fruit, the knife is equally useful for acts of violence when situations demand it.

Bonus Music:
youtube.com/watch?v=bz3Yw3XbsVQ

Supporting/Miscellaneous Characters:

Ziska's MechTech and AsTechs

MechTech Benedito Davids

Name: Benedito Davids
Nickname/Callsign: Smiley
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Crew Position: MechTech
Rank: Sergeant
Nationality: Marian Hegemony (Horatius)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

A veteran pirate and reluctant participant in both the Third and Fourth Succession War, Benedito Davids, is the MechTech responsible for keeping Ziska's BattleMech running in good order.

Born in the Periphery, Davids is a native of Horatius, a medium sized planet of the Marian Hegemony, known largely for a faltering arms manufacturing facility. Raised on dreams of a burgeoning empire destined for greatness, once, once Davids would admit he truly believed in the words of a modern-day Caesar. Davids will fight. Davids will kill. Davids will do a number of things that a more 'civilized' technician will baulk at doing. However, not for ideals, not for dreams, and not for hopeful promises. No, Davids works for C-bills or hard currency, nothing more and nothing less.

The son of a bandit, the son of a long line of bandits, Davids views the Inner Sphere, Periphery, and surrounding space with none of the optimism of his younger colleagues. Thanks to the actions of the Imperator himself, Marius O'Reilly, and the particulars of growing up in a Bandit Kingdom, Davids is intimately familiar with how grim life in the 31st Century can be.

A quick hand with any tool practically since he could walk, Davids followed the expected path of any enterprising youth in the Marian Hegemony and joined up with a Marian pirate crew. The "starfarers" as they called themselves were a mixed lot. They were gentleman thieves, cutthroat murders, failed nobles, and impoverished farmers. Wretched scum to most of the Inner Sphere, Davids recalls with some pride that they had morals enough among themselves. The band of pirates had few illusions of what life was really like or where it would lead them.

Working as an Astech to a grizzled pirate mech tech, Davids learned to patch BattleMechs together with minimal parts, little time, and few workable tools. Even know, years later, few mech techs are as ingenious as Davids when it comes to figuring out how to jury-rig a BattleMech or salvage parts from a burned out husk. With the retirement of his mentor, Davids eventually secured a place as a full mech tech. Claiming a share and half of all plunder the pirates acquired, Davids did well, and sent substantial funds back to his family in the Marian Hegemony.

Carrying a growing reputation among the roving pirates of the Marian Hegemony, Davids was offered an intriguing opportunity to join the crew of a Marian privateer, the legendary or equal parts infamous, John van Rheenen, more often known as Twice-Hanged John. No mere pirate, Twice-Hanged John was commanded resources far beyond a lowly pirate and was rumored to be held in great esteem by the Imperator.

Serving under Twice-Hanged John, Davids raided across the Periphery, crossing swords with the Magistracy Armed Forces more times than he could count, and managing to live with only some moderate bruising. Branching out, the pirates launched a series of raids targeting the Free Worlds League. While successful at first, following a strong military response from the Free Worlds League military, Davids found himself fighting a losing battle against forces of the Free Worlds League Military. Captured by the 2nd Marik Militia, nicknamed The Fates, Davids found himself a prisoner of the FWL, along with some fifty other pirates.

Desperate for competent MechTechs as a result of an unfortunate air lock malfunction, the Mariks presented Davids with a rare proposition. Deeply pragmatic, the commanding officer of the Ridge Riders, the main strike unit of the Fates, Lieutenant Colonel Barton "Black Bart" Burton offered Davids a pardon if he joined the Ridge Raiders and the 2nd Marik Militia as a MechTech. Happy to avoid the hangman's noose, in contrast to the majority of the survivors of Twice-Hanged John's crew, Davids accepted without a second thought. After all, all pirates understand the value of survival.

Attached to the Ridge Riders, Davids participated in the disastrous raid on the Lyran world of Algorab in 3020. Certain the fates had once again betrayed him, he watched over half of the 2nd Marik Militia perish on Algorab V. In the end only the Ridge Riders and Second's command staff made it off planet alive. Three years of bitter rebuilding followed. The 2nd Marik Militia were now reduced to two full companies of green recruits and a recon battalion with barely more experience to count on.

When the unit was transferred to the Capellan front in 3024, Davids could see the doom the unit was destined for and he deserted as soon as the unit made planetfall. Adopting a civilian identity, Davids worked his way through a string of dubious mercenary companies and made his way to Galatea. There he was personally hired by Ziska, who claimed the now grizzled mech tech as her senior mech technician.

Personality:

Davids is a taciturn MechTech, prone to long bouts of melancholy. A man of many memories and obvious regrets, he is a soul certain of his own damnation. Unlike many a scoundrel racing headfirst towards their own death in hopes of redemption, Davids is instead merely resigned to the fact that most of the people in the Inner Sphere would prefer to see him hanged if they knew his full past.

He is shaped by most of a lifetime of piracy, more than two decades spent raiding planets scattered across the stars. A harsh disciplinarian, Davids is unafraid to use carefully employed brutality and even in his middle years he is a leader convinced of the importance of absolute obedience. Aware of the consequences of failure, he endeavors to run a tight ship. Calm, cool, and capable of great violence, should it be needed, he is a quietly intimidating figure on the DropShip. Like Ziska, there is a touch of the famed wilderness of the Periphery on him and the pair easily fall into the unspoken, sometimes strange, and decidedly unfamiliar (to most of the crew) habits of Periphery pirates.

Woe be it to anyone found in dereliction of their duty, regardless of rank, as Davids has little patience when faced with behavior that threatens the current venture. Although he is generally satisfied with Ziska and her conduct, he is known to engage in loud screaming matches with his nominal superior when he determines she is becoming too relaxed, which is often.

For reasons unclear to anyone but Ziska herself, given how little Davids appears to smile, Ziska has generously bestowed the nickname of Smiley to Davids.

Astech Anica Kesi

Name: Anica Kesi
Nickname/Callsign: Witchcraft
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: New Delphi Compact (New Delphi)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

Anica Kesi, beyond her role as a MechTech, is Ziska's most trusted confident, friend, and reluctant companion in most of the adventurous, usually completely inadvisable plots that are carried out by the MechWarrior.

Born in the Deep Periphery, within the confines of the enigmatic New Delphi Compact, Kesi lived an idyllic pastoral life. Outside of the recurring ravages of the Delphian Curse, an infamous virus spread throughout the New Delphi Compact, that is. A scholar at heart, Kesi's parents were geneticists, like many Delphians, working at the Virus Research and Immunization Institute (VRII) in order to discover a cure for the Delphian Curse.

Raised in the anachronistic New Delphi Compact, Kesi's early life was not that different from an agriculture life spent on Terra in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Technology was limited, outside of the domains of medicine, government, and space travel, where the Delphians had managed to achieve and in some cases surpass the level attained by the Inner Sphere in the twenty-sixth century. Lacking even HPG technology, in stark contrast to the Inner Sphere and even Periphery, the New Delphi Compact had just enough technology to keep it functioning. Built around principles of pacifism and limited government, Kesi experienced little of warfare or the politics that dominate the rest of humanity.

Surrounded by green fields, forests, and fresh air, Kesi learned precious little about the broader galaxy. Like other Delphians, her family had little money, often bartering for goods with their neighbors. Only when she accompanied her parents to the planetary capital of Athenae did she use money.

A strong student, Kesi predictably attended the New Delphi University, where she graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. Easily employed following her graduation, Kesi enjoyed a burgeoning career maintaining and sometimes designing machinery in a textile factory.

However, despite her professional success Kesi began to despair of the insulated society of the New Delphi Compact. She longed to see more. She dreamed of traveling. She began to horde information. She collected rumors. She listened to stories. She spent her evenings and nights learning about the Periphery. About the Inner Sphere. About the Great Houses. And about the MechWarriors.

Convincing the Senior Councilor of New Delphi of the need for more recent information about the Inner Sphere and particularly technology, Kesi managed to secure funding to buy passage to way to Federated Suns controlled spaced on a passing interstellar freight ship bound for the Inner Sphere.

Once there, Kesi quickly signed up with a small time mercenary company engaged by the Federated Suns. In the span of a few years, she traveled widely. Seeing as much of the Inner Sphere as she could. However, she rarely stayed in one place or with one company for long, desiring a full experience of the Inner Sphere. Always, however, always she found herself returning to the realms controlled by the Federated Suns.

As she worked, she traveled, and as she traveled she learned. She worked her way up from a lowly technician relegated to fixing simple mechanical devices. She fixed weapons. She fixed light vehicles, then tanks, and then aircraft that traveled beyond the speed of sound. Eventually she began to fix BattleMechs. Despite her humble technological origins, Kesi impressed the MechTechs left to train her with her grasp of the mechanical. She knew little of computers, it was true, but she learned at a breakneck pace. More importantly, she listened, she listened well, and she seemed to understand the underlying concepts that were critical for a functioning BattleMech.

Eventually, signing up with a modest mercenary company, called Herbert's Heroes, Kesi found herself traveling to the the frontiers of the Federated Suns. Assigned to garrison duty on Bartrock, Herbert's Heroes were tasked with defending the small, desolate planet from increasingly frequent pirate raids. Largely unsettled and uncivilized, Bartrock was important to the Federated Suns only for the rich ore and mineral deposits that had been recently discovered.

Months unfolded uneventfully. The aforementioned pirates did not make an appearance. The mercenary company rested and waited with increasing boredom. While her colleagues grumbled, Kesi spent time exploring the wilds of Bartrock. She found the desert pleasing. Harsh as it was, she found it beautiful, peaceful in a haunting way that filled her heart with bittersweet feelings.

Kesi was camping in the desert when the pirates finally struck. She heard garbled communications. She heard fighting. She heard desperate screams over the comms. She saw smoke on the horizon, but she did not falter. She walked faster towards the battle. She arrived too late. She found herself alone.

She had been left behind. The mercenary company had fled. The civilian miners around were ashen faced. They had all been left behind in the chaotic scramble to escape off planet. Some five hundred souls. Kesi among them. The pirates were smiling. Laughing even. Some of the miners fought back. Many of them died. Kesi didn't resist. She didn't see much point. Brought before the pirate leaders, Kesi was claimed as booty by Ziska. Kesi held onto little hope concerning her own fate, even the isolated citizens of the New Delphi Compact knew about pirates. They knew what pirates did. They had heard about the unmentionable crimes that pirates inflicted on their captives.

Hopes of tolerable perpetual servitude under Ziska were quickly exceeded, when the eccentric pirate promptly freed her and offered to retain Kesi as one of her personal MechTechs. Certain that professional employment underneath a pirate MechWarrior was vastly superior to enslavement, Kesi happily accepted, abruptly silencing any internal thoughts she had about the ethics of piracy.

Personality:
Kesi is as focused and meticulous as one might hope, if not always expect, a MechTech to be. She appears capable of fixing anything, no matter how ancient or debilitated, channeling an understanding of technology far older by centuries than most of what is considered current in the Inner Sphere. Compared to many a MechTech, Kesi operates more by feeling and by hand than by computer or inflexible logic. When asked, Kesi jokingly says that she always tries to speak to the metal that she is working on, to understand what it is feeling and what it really wants.

A true peacemaker, Kesi is friendly, talking easily with almost anyone, and there is something remarkably reassuring about the young MechTech, an unstated certainty that somehow, improbably things will work out in the end. Still something of a stranger to the Inner Sphere, Kesi keeps a paper journal on her person at all times, within which she diligently records her many observations about the galaxy outside of the New Delphi Compact. Employing ancient methods, Kesi makes sure to post "packages", copies of her journal, to the New Delphi Compact via couriers when she is able.

Unsurprisingly, given her liberation from what promised to be a length time as an enslaved MechTech for a band of pirates, Kesi's loyalty towards Ziska is unflinching. However, while she tolerates Ziska's less than stellar habits, like Davids Kesi is completely unafraid to challenge the MechWarrior when she deems it necessary. Ziska for all her many personal faults, is exceedingly willing to at least listen to her advice, if not always to follow it.

Astech Asuga Sunther

Name: Asuga Sunther
Nickname/Callsign: Nuts and Bolts
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Federated Suns (Chakachamna)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

The man, the myth, the MechTech prodigy, Sunther is nowhere near where he expected to find himself if you had asked him years ago.

Born and raised on New Avalon, Sunther grew up with an obvious series of goals in mind. Attending the New Avalon of Institute Science. Graduating the New Avalon Institute of Science. Serving with distinction in the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. Retiring with full benefits. Accepting a posting at the New Avalon Institute of Science. And finally conducting research which would revolutionize BattleMechs across the Inner Sphere.

Ambitious as this plan was, at first, Sunther appeared to be checking off the expected boxes every step of the way. He graduated at the top of his class from a small, prohibitively expensive private school. He was accepted to, attended, and graduated from the College of Engineering at the New Avalon Institute of Science.

With a veritable pile of accolades and recommendations in hand, Sunther then secured a position as an Astech with the Davion Heavy Guards. Mentored by some of the finest MechTechs found within the AFFS, Sunther thrived and was advanced to the rank of a fully qualified MechTech. Stationed on New Avalon, working under commanding officer, Field Marshal Ran Felsner, Sunther relished his times as part of the Davion Heavy Guards. The prestige of serving in one of the companies of the Davion Brigade of Guards was intoxicating to the young technician and he enjoyed the admiration of many of his friends and family.

With his growing success, troubles, unwelcome troubles appeared for Sunther. Issues arose. Sunther felt a growing sense of dread. Anxiety assailed him. Private doubts began to nag at him. He struggled to sleep. He forgot to eat. He couldn't ask for help. He didn't know who to talk too. He soldiered on. He tried. He tried harder. He buried his feelings. Minutes turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, but the dark clouds continued to follow him.

And then Sunther made a mistake. He made a serious mistake. An improper solder, a poorly repaired actuator. A small mistake, but a serious one. Enough of a mistake to send an Atlas falling to the ground. Sunther's superiors were understanding, kind even, but they had no choice. His performance had been suffering for some months. The Davion Heavy Guards had standards, they had expectations to live up to, unnecessary risks could not be afforded, no matter how painful it was for them to lose one of their own.

Drummed out of the AFFS with a medical discharge, Sunther knew one thing. He could not return home. He couldn't face his parents. He couldn't see his friends. He couldn't explain. He didn't want to. Leveraging a rehearsed story, Sunther talked his way onto a mercenary company chiefly by virtue of his NAIS training.

Sunther remembers little of the year that followed. He worked hard. He thought little past maintaining and repairing the BattleMechs in front of him. When the contract ended, he elected to sign up with a new mercenary company, finding little value in fresh friendships. Following this pattern for some years, Sunther eventually met Ziska or rather found himself lost to Ziska in the course of a brawl. As Sunther tells it, the MechWarrior he was working for, challenged Ziska to settle matters honorably in a back alley brawl, following unfounded, according to Ziska accusations of cheating. Possessing little in terms of remaining C-bills, the MechWarrior offered Ziska his chief MechTech, paid for a year of his services, for a chance at redemption.

Surprising no one, Ziska accepted, but less clear is how she managed to emerge the victor of the storied fist fight. However, despite the nature of their meeting and his apprehensions about working for her, Sunther discovered that he quite enjoyed his time working underneath the outlandish MechWarrior. As a result, despite competing offers, Sunther has remained with Gawain’s Green Knights for some years now.

Personality:

Serious and prone to bouts of melancholic anxiety, Sunther remains an exceptionally gifted MechTech despite his personal issues. Clearly most comfortable around Ziska and her other mech technicians, Sunther is more than a bit reserved. He is slow to warm to others, maintaining a polite demeanor, but showing little interest in broadening his social network.

Full of doubts and professional regrets, Sunther is painfully unsure of himself in all contexts outside of those related to BattleMechs. There is something sadly desperate about Sunther. He is a man searching for an identity, a new person to become, and a new way to define the very core of his being.

Astech Virginia Kan

Name: Virginia Kan
Nickname/Callsign: Mouse
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Capellan Confederation (Prix)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

Capellan born, Virginia Kan hails from the stormy planet of Prix. Far from wealthy, she grew up with the sparse but adequate resources offered to all Capellans. The third of four children, she spent much of her childhood following around her father, a technician responsible specializing on Capellan armored vehicles. Learning from the oil covered man and following in his example, Kan in turn spent most of her youth working on the IndustrialMechs critical to agriculture in the Capellan Federation.

With an eye on citizenship and the many benefits it entailed, at the age of 13, Kan served a stint with the Capellan Armed Forces. Two years in the Prix Home Guard was enough to earn her citizenship. Thrust into an unfolding miasma of border skirmishes between Great Houses and opportunistic pirates, Kan was ungenerous introduced to the full gamut of violence possible in the Inner Sphere.

Taking little joy in suffering, Kan still found military life appealing and inspired by the advice of some of the older MechTechs, she sought out a career as a mercenary mech technician once she had received her citizenship. The freedom to pick her contracts and higher pay proving to be more to her liking, compared to the sparse lifestyle afforded to the technicians serving as part of a militia unit of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces.

Personality:

Even keeled, Kan possesses a generous temperament. She is decidedly non-judgemental and few things that occur in Gawain’s Green Knights appear to bother her.

Although she is reliable, many see her a bit of a free spirit, and more than one Green Knight has reacted with confusion when seeing her dancing alone in the lounge of the DropShip at odd hours. Unbothered by such hasty opinions, Kan is confident in her own choices and beliefs, happily marching to the beat of her own drum. Extremely flexible, she simply seems to go along with the flow of things as they unfold.

Astech Magnus Licht

Name: Magnus Licht
Nickname/Callsign: Snarl
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Lyran Commonwealth (Wotan)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

An aspiring MechTech, grinding away as an Astech, Magnus Licht is a brash young man working under the careful supervision of Ziska's MechTech Davids.

The prodigal son of a wealthy family long established on the planet of Wotan, located at the very edges of the Lyran Commonwealth, Magnus is a man living his life based on singularly based on his own aspirations. A great disappointment to his parents, particularly his father, who had hoped that Magnus would adhere to family tradition and pursue a career in interstellar banking. Disowned, uncommonly for a Lyran, if the stereotype about classism and "Social Generals" is to be believed, Licht has advanced through his own merit and hard work, rather than through any of his social connections or those of his family.

Surviving the basic four month boot camps held by the LCAF to train Lyran citizens for war, Licht found himself tapped for additional training in BattleMech maintenance. Working with his hands, to the great chagrin of his parents, Licht found that there was a life outside of checking spreadsheets to account for c-bills. Despite the loud protests of his father, Magnus happily accepted an offer from the LCAF to attend the War College of Buena. His refusal to accept a purchased posting on Wotan in an administrative position is according to Magnus the reasons for his disownment.

An oasis of meritocracy, free from the classism that had afflicted the Lyran Commonwealth, the War College of Buena was a non-nonsense academy dedicated to pragmatic education of all students. Acknowledged as the finest academy for technicians in the Lyran Commonwealth, the War College of Buena impressed Licht from the moment he arrived. Although he did not receive any great degree of combat training, as part of the technical staff, Licht learned to maintain everything from small arms, electrical equipment, combat vehicles, and even BattleMechs. In line with the stated goals of the academy, by the time he graduated Licht was proficient in several technical fields relevant to BattleMechs.

Where others faltered, Licht excelled in the mentally, physically, and emotionally challenging environment of the War College of Buena. While many of his classmates, chafed under the hard, authoritarian instructors at the College, Licht seemed to only do better when faced with the endlessly critical opinions of the College staff. Even the notoriously rough treatment of the underclassman leveled by upperclassman did little to stifle Licht's motivations.

Spending some six months maintaining the BattleMechs of the Buena Training Battalion following live-fire exercises and a number of anti-pirate missions along the Periphery border, Licht received high praise from his instructors regarding his performance in the field.

Graduation from the War College of Buena, presented Licht with a unique set of opportunities. Ultimately, wary of the reputation of the LCAF as a bastion of Social Generals, Licht elected to pursue a career as a mech technician in a mercenary company. Relying on old connections, Davids somehow managed to convince Licht to accept a contract with Gawain’s Green Knights despite several other competitive offers submitted to the Astech.

Personality:

Young, ambitious, and not just a little bit proud, Magnus is force of technical opinion. He believes that his opinions or thoughts are almost always valuable and he speaks his mind freely, regardless of the rank of those around him or the prevalent mood. To his own determent, he remains largely unconcerned about the feelings of others, and he is known to deliver scathing critique if he finds quality, especially of any technical work lacking.

Beneath a prickly exterior, Magnus has a somewhat lesser known creative side. A noted musician in his youth, in social situations Magnus can be counted on to strum up a quick tune on his acoustic guitar or to sing a song to lighten the mood.

Astech Yuliana Minhas

Name: Yuliana Minhas
Nickname/Callsign:
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Oberon Confederation (Drask's Den)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

The youngest member of Ziska's technician team, Minhas appears to be perpetually to catch up to the more experienced technicians surrounding her. However, beneath her inexperience and youth, are the bones of a very talented technician, and given time it seems likely that Minhas will become a truly exceptional MechTech.

Hailing from the Oberon Confederation, Yuliana proudly proclaims herself to be from a civilized, very civilized former Bandit Kingdom. According to her, Drask's Den is like any other aspiring Inner Sphere planet, full of people simply striving for a better life.

Growing up in the Oberon Confederation, Minhas is the modern example of what can be achieved by the citizens of a Bandit Kingdom that is once again approaching the lofty aspirations attained by the Circinus Federation many centuries ago. Namely a viable nation-state supported chiefly by interstellar trade and only partly, most subtly by piracy. With such soaring ambitions in mind and with the tried example of the Periphery states to follow, the benevolent King of the Oberon Confederation even instituted an educational system shortly after Yuliana's birth.

Benefiting from such social developments, an unexpected degree of stability, and influx of MechTechs seeking fresh starts away from Inner Sphere that all coincided with her early years, Yuliana received not just a basic education but training as a proper technician.

Possessing her own ambitions, Yuliana was not content to stay in the Oberon Confederation, and as soon as she could call herself an Astech, she left for the Periphery, and then Inner Sphere. Arriving on Galatea, the young Astech somehow managed to convince Ziska to hire her after engaging in what Davids has tersely described as "several hours of constant begging, crying, and pathetic mewling."

Personality:
Cheerful, Yuliana is a deeply curious young woman. She talks quickly, moves quicker, and seems to be constantly be operating as if her blood is largely composed of stimulants of one sort or another.

Happy by nature, Yuliana is unnecessarily optimistic, at least according to Ziska, and for someone born to the descendants of bandits, she has lived a remarkably charmed life.

Ziska's Cat - General Kerensky

Name:Alexander Kerensky
Age: 2
Gender: Female
Species: Felis catus
Crew Position: Unofficial Official Ship Cat
Rank: Commanding General of the Star League
Nationality: Lyran

Appearance:

An adorable calico cat, with a coat of soft, glossy fur, and surprisingly sharp claws reserved for those that offend her. Being a cat, Kerensky wears only a tasteful leather collar adorned with a small metal tag listing her name, mercenary affiliation, and Star League rank.

Personality:

The exceedingly proud, mostly benevolent ruler of the No Leaf Clover, the DropShip maintained for her by Gawain’s Green Knights. Kerensky is fond of napping, pets, scritches, and the occasional belly rub. Convinced of her own supremacy and divine right to command the mercenaries Colonel Wayne has assembled for her benefit, Kerensky does not respond well to her unspoken orders being refused. Mercifully, Kerensky is quite adorable and the vast majority of her power is used only in the pursuit of snacks or cuddles.

Biographical History:

General Kerensky is confusingly, given her namesake, a female calico cat that Ziska saw fit to adopt from some derelict Steiner planet. In an impressively irreverent act, bordering on tasteless according to some ComStar adjacent mercenaries, Ziska has named her cat after the famed Star League general and hero, Alexander Kerensky. Sauntering throughout the No Leaf Clover at all hours of the day or night, regardless of the status of any doors, Kerensky manages an impressive fiefdom centering largely on the mech hanger and Ziska's private quarters. The bane of many an Astech, MechTech, or unrelated Technician, Kerensky appears certain, quite certain, that she is in fact in charge of the entire operation, and reacts poorly to any suggestions or actions that would imply otherwise.

Unfortunately for the rest of the Green Knights, any complaints delivered to Ziska regarding the conduct of her cat are simply responded to with a well-practiced sigh, a half-hearted shake of her head, and a comment on the fickle nature of all generals.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Main Character:

MechWarrior Ziska

Character Name:
Born Tereza Aranda, but as far as anyone in the Green Knights knows, her name is Emma Ziska.

Callsign:
Alleycat

Character Archetype:
Reformed Gangster Pirate

Character’s Guiding Motto:
Speed is life. C-Bills are C-Bills and a job is a job. Don't make things complicated, just go fast.

Character’s Fatal Flaw:
Ziska is always looking for trouble.

Expanded Personality Section

A reformed pirate with a string of bad habits, Ziska is an adrenaline junkie and trouble maker in equal measure. Convinced that there is little to life other than living another day and managing to have another drink, Ziska tries her best to be the life of the lengthy party that she considers her life to be.

A hedonist through and through, Ziska is exceedingly friendly, social, and full of mischief. She is charming even, when the mood strikes her, and more than a little gifted when it comes to ballroom dancing. Surprisingly, Ziska is remarkably kind for a recently reformed pirate, even to the freshest faces in Gawain’s Green Knights, be they an Astech, Technician, Infantry Soldier, Tanker, MechWarrior, or Aerojock. Despite or perhaps because of her aristocratic origins, she makes little distinction between social origins.

Although Ziska is tight-lipped when it comes to her past, there are hints in her speech, in her knowledge and in her bearing of an aristocratic upbringing. She has an obvious military background and carries herself both during combat, and in the moments when it counts, in the manner of a professional officer. Despite her clearly military education, reflecting the time honored traditions of the the Magistracy of Canopus, Ziska is an exceedingly unorthodox MechWarrior. She is a master of ambushes, lightening quick strikes, and unconventional tactics in all forms.

Ziska lives fast, drinks faster, cheerfully eats, and pilots all her mechs at full throttle. Tonnage matters little to Ziska, but she refuses to go anything but dangerously fast. When deployed on a mission, Ziska loses much of her playful charm and shifts into a far grimmer version of her off duty self. It is no secret among the Green Knights that Ziska is well-versed in asymmetric warfare and other less than honorable tactics.

When engaging her enemies, there is something predatory about Ziska. She watches, she waits, and she plans with an uncharacteristic and unexpected patience...stalking larger mechs as if she is hunting large prey. Moving through the battlefield, she wastes little energy, moving with a marked efficiently, and striking at just the right moment. Having fought her way across the edge of the Inner Sphere in one desperate battle after another, Ziska possesses an intuitive sense of timing, a sixth sense for when to move, when to attack, and when to run.

A product of two very distinct military traditions, as an officer, Ziska alternates between kindness and cruelty as needed. She leads with the cold, practiced focus of a conventional military officer, comfortable with the brutal realities of the 31st century battlefield and with a constant eye on the prize. However, Ziska has clearly learned from her time operating as a member of a roving pirate band. She is willing to listen to others, especially her subordinates, and tolerates a surprising amount of democracy in combat operations. The agency that she offers comes with a heavy price and Ziska expects nothing but the best from those around her. Ziska has few qualms about raising her voice when angered and employing precise threats. More alarmingly to some of the other officers in the Green Knights, while far from unnecessarily violent, Ziska appears to have few reservations when it comes to the level of violence required to accomplish a mission.

For her many gifts as a MechWarrior and officer, Ziska has the personality of a domesticated feline, lazying about the DropShip when off duty, and managing to do only exactly as much administrative work as is required of her.

Character’s Expertise:
Reconnaissance, Tactics, and Criminal Expertise (Pirate)

Nationality/Allegiance:
Ziska is a Canopian noble living in self-imposed exile. Despite her origins she holds no particular allegiance to the Magistracy of Canopus.

Background:
Mysterious in all matters personal, Emma Ziska is a capable MechWarrior, respected for her talents piloting a BattleMech and her abilities as an officer in Gawain’s Green Knights. Far from sullen, she speaks freely, but rarely seems to say much of any truth or depth about herself.

Shaped by her ever changing answers, there are many stories about Ziska that circulate through Gawain’s Green Knights. Some old hands say she's a former pirate. They see cold eyes, quick hands, and the familiar, confident swagger of a scoundrel. Fresher faces, particularly those from the Periphery, mention the infamous Canopian Pleasure circuses, and the Canopian mercenaries that accompany them. Ziska knows many things about the galaxy. She has many tales to tell and amusing adventures to share. Wayne himself seems uncertain about Ziska's past and seems content to let the matter lie, lest he lose a talented MechWarrior to unnecessary politics or red tape.

Unsurprisingly, Ziska offers no clear answers when directly asked about any criminal acts she may have engaged in or questionable contracts she may have once signed. With a shrug of her shoulders and a mischievous smile, she simply dances around any serious questions about "complicated" matters like piracy.

---

Jealously guarded Magistracy of Canopus records, if acquired and carefully examined, indicate that Tereza Aranda was born on August 10th, 3005, in the city of Crimson, on Canopus IV, the planetary capital of the Magistracy of Canopus, to noblewoman Sarah Aranda and her husband Thomas. A well-respected family belonging to the Frone faction of the Canopian nobility, the Aranda family were among the few remaining descendants of the original founders of the Magistracy of Canopus.

Steeped in tradition and privilege, Tereza, the third of five children and the youngest of three daughters, was carefully groomed for a life intended to culminate in a leading position at the very top of the Magistracy Armed Forces (MAF). For a displaced Periphery pirate, Ziska thus possesses a remarkably first-rate education, carefully curated talents, and welcome social graces.

---

Pragmatic as only the citizens of the Periphery can be, Aranda's parents saw that she followed the usual pipeline intended to usher Canopian youths towards a successful, useful future. She was raised surrounded by diligent servants, serious tutors, and dedicated security forces.

Growing into an uneasy youth, Aranda completed her compulsory education with exceptional grades. Guided by a rotating collection of exhausted tutors, she received grades that did not fully reflect her lack of discipline outside of the select few topics that interested her. Still, it was clear that she had a sharp mind, and given her parentage, at the age of fifteen, Aranda was quickly shepherded into the MechWarrior training program on Canopus IV.

Her family name and the careful politics of her parents, paired with a natural aptitude for all things involving stompy robots, ensured that Aranda was quickly selected as an officer candidate. Thus, instead of being sent off to a Militia Defense or training battalion Aranda was delivered to Raventhir's Iron Hand, first regiment of the Magistracy Royal Guards, the most prestigious unit in all of the Magistracy of Canopus and the very unit tasked with protecting the Magistrix herself. Posted as a military aide-de-camp under Major Vernyce Alkobar, she received "on-the-job" training in all the finer aspects of warfare, military leadership, and the social life demanded of any serious officer. Knowledge deemed critical to thriving in the upper echelons of the MAF.

By the age of seventeen, Aranda had earned the rank of Banner Sergeant in the Magistracy Armed Forces. Well pleased with her achievements and eying a suitable future marriage following continued success, her parents purchased a commission as an Ensign for Tereza in the 1st Canopian Light Horse of the legendary Chasseurs á Cheval brigade soon after her seventeenth birthday. A storied regiment, famed for their bravery and success in battle, to the Canopians, the 1st Canopian Light Horse represented the very tip of the spear of the MAF.

In the years that followed, officially Aranda spent several years fighting pirates, killing Free Worlds League mercenaries raiding Canopian space, and keeping Marian Hegemony troops honest through the judicious application of firepower. Unofficially, along with the rest of her unit, Aranda participated in a number of clandestine raids targeting nearby Free Worlds League controlled planets. Proving herself in battle after battle and operation after operation, Aranda seemed poised for a proper promotion.

However, he culmination of what should have been a most carefully cultivated career was smashed to pieces under unclear circumstances. A band of pirates were subdued. A planet was liberated. Aranda was put up for a medal. There was a disagreement. Strong words were spoken. Alcohol was suspected to be involved. There were rumors of worse, far less palatable vices. In the days that followed, Aranda had a storied falling out with her commanding officer, a disagreement that still echoes in the memories of the 1st Canopian Light Horse. No less than five BattleMechs were heavily damaged in the brawl that ensued and some fourteen vehicles were damaged to varying degrees. Several venerable BattleMechs were left as complete write-offs, reduced to mere salvage and spare parts. With her entire company confined to quarters, Aranda, in an uncharacteristic rage, resigned her commission while still nominally under arrest. According to her commanding officer, Aranda then feigned illness, attacked one of the soldiers guarding her, stole a Heavy Gyrojet Gun, took an Astech hostage, and escaped the base pursued by four infantry squads. The soldiers that served under her tell a different story, suggesting that Aranda simply bribed the soldier guarding her and calmly walked off the base occupied by the 1st Canopian Light Horse.

A lengthy investigation by the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry (MIM) resulted in few clear findings and the ranking officer in charge of compiling the logged report could only speculate that Aranda had probably signed up with a passing mercenary company. After all, it was hardly the first time that a Canopian noblewoman had vanished into the deep periphery before anything could be done to stop her. It was widely expected by all involved that Aranda, like many a wayward noble scion before her would eventually, inevitably, come crawling back to the Magistracy of Canopus when she had exhausted the limited funds available to her.

---

Following the conclusion of the MIM investigation, records concerning Aranda are spotty, if not entirely nonexistent. A precious few reported sightings of Aranda manage to reach all the way back to Crimson, Canopus IV, and the Magistracy of Canopus. However, identification proved inconclusive, information arrived corrupted, and nothing much of value was learned. The Aranda family reluctantly accepted that they had lost a daughter. Life in the Periphery moved on, as it always did. Most people chose to forget. In the end, not even the operatives of the Magistracy Intelligence Ministry prove able to satisfactorily divine the whereabouts of the rogue Canopian noble.

However, files logged deep within ComStar databanks indicate that a suspected pirate, Emma Ziska, appeared in the Periphery during the early 3020s. Loose ties to the pirate kingdom of Tortuga were mentioned by confidential informants, but never conclusively proven. Working her way through a number of mercenary companies in questionable standing with ComStar's Mercenary Review Board (MRB), Ziska somehow established herself as a reputable MechWarrior. Anyone with knowledge of the sometimes shady dealings of the Mercenary review board, would perhaps rightly suspect that Ziska greased the right palms, sweet-talked the right ComStar Acolytes, and simply purchased the right digital documents to avoid any greater scrutiny.

With little fanfare, Ziska eventually arrived on Galatea, nominally to find more honest mercenary work with a reputable mercenary company. Armed with a positively glowing recommendation from one ComStar Precentor Alexander Wanyika, she was snapped up in record time by Colonel Gaius Wayne of the rising mercenary outfit Gawain’s Green Knights. Despite occasional problems related to her distinct disinterest in proper decorum, procedure, and avoiding trouble, Ziska has somehow managed to remain gainfully employed as a member of the Green Knights for almost three years now.

Battlemech or Vehicle:
Ziska currently pilots a Raven light mech (RVN-3L) that she has most certainly acquired through dubious means.

RVN-3L Supplementary Info

Asset Appearance: Ziska's RVN-3L is nondescript, painted with colors and camouflage patterns according to regional and seasonal requirement of the environment that the Green Knights are operating in. Below the cockpit, Ziska painted a black cat with an arched back and raised up fur that matches the fabric patch sewn onto her cooling vest.

Asset Weaponry:
A souped up Raven crammed full of tech from the recently discovered Helm Memory Core, Ziska's RVN-3L carries a small, but respectable weapons array chiefly oriented towards providing her lance with vital information through battlefield reconnaissance.

Clocking in at a mere 35 tons thanks to the use of weight saving Hellespont Lite Ferro-Fibrous armor, the RVN-3L is a sleek looking mech that is in many ways more reminiscent of a Light Aerospace Fighters fighter than a BattleMech. A Hermes 210 XL Engine provides the RVN-3L with a respectable cruising speed of 64.8 km/h and a max speed 97.2 km/h. This combination of good armoring and speed allow the RVN-3L to survive unavoidable combat encounters until reinforcements can arrive.

Although the RVN-3L is intended to operate as a recon or electronic warfare asset rather than as a front-line combatant, the light mech is equipped with two Ceres Arms Medium Lasers mounted in the Right Arm and one Harpoon-6 SRM-6 mounted in the Right Torso. One ton of CASE-Protected SRM-6 ammunition, allows fifteen shots, and can be used to cause critical damage to vulnerable internal components of an enemy unit once the armor has been breached.

Carrying the most cutting-edge electronic warfare equipment in the Inner Sphere, courtesy of the scientists at Apple Churchill, the RVN-3L is a peerless master of electronic warfare and reconnaissance. Conceived to be a force multiplier by the desperate Capellan Confederation during the Third Succession War, the RVN-3L blankets friendly units with electronic jamming using a a Ceres Metals Model 666 communication system equipped with an advanced Guardian ECM Suite.

The Apple Churchill 442x Target Acquisition Gear mounted in the Right Torso and the Apple Churchill Guiding Light Narc Missile Beacon in the Left Arm, allow the RVN-3L to provide targeting support for friendly forces. The RVN-3L carries two tons of CASE-protected NARC Missile Beacon ammunition in the Left Torso, allowing twenty four shots before resupplying is required. Critically, for a reconnaissance BattleMech the Hellespont Interrogator Beagle Active Probe mounted in the Center Torso helps to rapidly detect and classify other battlefield units whether they are camouflaged or even shut down. To ensure the accurate delivery of lasers, SRMs, and Narc Beacons the RVN-3L comes equipped with a highly accurate C-Apple Churchill target tracking system. Finally, eleven heat sinks ensure that the RVN-3L is a cool BattleMech to pilot, even when it is firing an Alpha Strike.

Beyond standard SRM ammunition, Ziska utilizes SRM inferno ammunition to set enemies on fire. Although she uses inferno rounds chiefly to overwhelm the heat dissipation system of enemy mechs, in a pinch the SRM inferno rounds can be used to devastating effect against combat vehicles, battle armor into flaming, and conventional infantry platoons.

Appearance:
Average in height, Ziska has the athletic build expected of many a MechWarrior and professional soldier. She has a dusky complexion with brown eyes and long, curly dark hair that has a habit of straightening from the heat of her BattleMech's cockpit. She has no tattoos and despite having suffered equally from across the wide range of injuries inherent to plying a trade as a system traveling soldier for hire, she has no particularly noticeable scars.

Comfortable in the shadows, Ziska moves with a catlike dexterity and is known for being alarmingly quiet. She has a habit of prowling the decks of the Green Knight's DropShip in search of minor amusements to occupy her time, especially during the lengthy transit time between contracts. More than one unfortunate Green Knight has been scared half to death by the sudden, unexpected appearance of the MechWarrior, often in places where her presence is exceedingly hard to logically explain.

A casual dresser with a military flair, Ziska wears a rotating collection of combat uniforms. Largely military fatigues of a recent Capellan Confederation Armed Forces (CCAF) make, her outfits consist of a jacket, trousers and shirt or T-shirt.

Ziska is also inordinately fond of lounging around in the classic flame-resistant coveralls favored by mechanics all across the Inner Sphere and she keeps several pairs that she has permanently 'borrowed' from her Astechs and Technician. Most of the coveralls she wears appear to have been manufactured for the Federated Suns Navy (FSN) and Lyran Commonwealth Navy (LCN).

As a seasoned MechWarrior when piloting her BattleMech Ziska wears the familiar garb of a MechWarrior. Well-worn combat boots, tattered shorts, a breezy tank top, and fire resistant gloves.

Ziska's pride and joy is a heavily customized neurohelmet that she claims to have won over a game of poker in a deep periphery backwater tavern that she couldn't possibly reveal, not without having to kill someone, maybe a couple of people even. Lighter than the usual bulky neurohelmet that a MechWarrior relies on, Ziska's helmet is painted midnight black and has her call sign written in swirling red letters on both sides. Her Cooling Vest is standard, but sports a sewn on patch depicting a black cat with an arched back and raised up fur. Due to the cramped nature of a BattleMech cockpit, Ziska keeps her sidearm in a chest holster attached to her Cooling Vest.

Picture from Green Knights' Personnel Files

Equipment:
Adopting a loose military dress, Ziska carries a Calaveri 10mm Auto-Pistol in a holster on her right hip. A sleek, small black pistol, it is an ideal sidearm for a MechWarrior often operating inside of a cramped BattleMech cockpit.

As a final insurance policy should her BattleMech be disabled, Ziska has tucked a Mauser and Gray Firearms M-75 personal defense weapon beneath her ejection seat. A rugged design, the M-75 is a modular and compact PDW chambered for a respectable 6.5×25mm round. A bargain purchase, the M-75 comes standard with a detachable low power optic, wire folding stock, grip safety, threaded barrel, and hollow foregrip which can be used to hold a spare magazine.

As a reminder of home, Ziska keeps a Ceres Arms Slasher Combat Knife. Originating from the Capellan Confederation, the SCK is a double-edged, forged out of high quality nickel steel knife. Balanced for throwing, the SCK has a hollow, rough steel grip complete with a removable cap. Designed for export markets, the knife was popular in the Periphery, selling well in the Magistracy of Canopus and Taurian Concordant. Although Ziska chiefly uses it to cut fruit, the knife is equally useful for acts of violence when situations demand it.

Bonus Music:
youtube.com/watch?v=bz3Yw3XbsVQ

Supporting/Miscellaneous Characters:

Ziska's MechTech and AsTechs

MechTech Benedito Davids

Name: Benedito Davids
Nickname/Callsign: Smiley
Age: 37
Gender: Male
Crew Position: MechTech
Rank: Sergeant
Nationality: Marian Hegemony (Horatius)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

A veteran pirate and reluctant participant in both the Third and Fourth Succession War, Benedito Davids, is the MechTech responsible for keeping Ziska's BattleMech running in good order.

Born in the Periphery, Davids is a native of Horatius, a medium sized planet of the Marian Hegemony, known largely for a faltering arms manufacturing facility. Raised on dreams of a burgeoning empire destined for greatness, once, once Davids would admit he truly believed in the words of a modern-day Caesar. Davids will fight. Davids will kill. Davids will do a number of things that a more 'civilized' technician will baulk at doing. However, not for ideals, not for dreams, and not for hopeful promises. No, Davids works for C-bills or hard currency, nothing more and nothing less.

The son of a bandit, the son of a long line of bandits, Davids views the Inner Sphere, Periphery, and surrounding space with none of the optimism of his younger colleagues. Thanks to the actions of the Imperator himself, Marius O'Reilly, and the particulars of growing up in a Bandit Kingdom, Davids is intimately familiar with how grim life in the 31st Century can be.

A quick hand with any tool practically since he could walk, Davids followed the expected path of any enterprising youth in the Marian Hegemony and joined up with a Marian pirate crew. The "starfarers" as they called themselves were a mixed lot. They were gentleman thieves, cutthroat murders, failed nobles, and impoverished farmers. Wretched scum to most of the Inner Sphere, Davids recalls with some pride that they had morals enough among themselves. The band of pirates had few illusions of what life was really like or where it would lead them.

Working as an Astech to a grizzled pirate mech tech, Davids learned to patch BattleMechs together with minimal parts, little time, and few workable tools. Even know, years later, few mech techs are as ingenious as Davids when it comes to figuring out how to jury-rig a BattleMech or salvage parts from a burned out husk. With the retirement of his mentor, Davids eventually secured a place as a full mech tech. Claiming a share and half of all plunder the pirates acquired, Davids did well, and sent substantial funds back to his family in the Marian Hegemony.

Carrying a growing reputation among the roving pirates of the Marian Hegemony, Davids was offered an intriguing opportunity to join the crew of a Marian privateer, the legendary or equal parts infamous, John van Rheenen, more often known as Twice-Hanged John. No mere pirate, Twice-Hanged John was commanded resources far beyond a lowly pirate and was rumored to be held in great esteem by the Imperator.

Serving under Twice-Hanged John, Davids raided across the Periphery, crossing swords with the Magistracy Armed Forces more times than he could count, and managing to live with only some moderate bruising. Branching out, the pirates launched a series of raids targeting the Free Worlds League. While successful at first, following a strong military response from the Free Worlds League military, Davids found himself fighting a losing battle against forces of the Free Worlds League Military. Captured by the 2nd Marik Militia, nicknamed The Fates, Davids found himself a prisoner of the FWL, along with some fifty other pirates.

Desperate for competent MechTechs as a result of an unfortunate air lock malfunction, the Mariks presented Davids with a rare proposition. Deeply pragmatic, the commanding officer of the Ridge Riders, the main strike unit of the Fates, Lieutenant Colonel Barton "Black Bart" Burton offered Davids a pardon if he joined the Ridge Raiders and the 2nd Marik Militia as a MechTech. Happy to avoid the hangman's noose, in contrast to the majority of the survivors of Twice-Hanged John's crew, Davids accepted without a second thought. After all, all pirates understand the value of survival.

Attached to the Ridge Riders, Davids participated in the disastrous raid on the Lyran world of Algorab in 3020. Certain the fates had once again betrayed him, he watched over half of the 2nd Marik Militia perish on Algorab V. In the end only the Ridge Riders and Second's command staff made it off planet alive. Three years of bitter rebuilding followed. The 2nd Marik Militia were now reduced to two full companies of green recruits and a recon battalion with barely more experience to count on.

When the unit was transferred to the Capellan front in 3024, Davids could see the doom the unit was destined for and he deserted as soon as the unit made planetfall. Adopting a civilian identity, Davids worked his way through a string of dubious mercenary companies and made his way to Galatea. There he was personally hired by Ziska, who claimed the now grizzled mech tech as her senior mech technician.

Personality:

Davids is a taciturn MechTech, prone to long bouts of melancholy. A man of many memories and obvious regrets, he is a soul certain of his own damnation. Unlike many a scoundrel racing headfirst towards their own death in hopes of redemption, Davids is instead merely resigned to the fact that most of the people in the Inner Sphere would prefer to see him hanged if they knew his full past.

He is shaped by most of a lifetime of piracy, more than two decades spent raiding planets scattered across the stars. A harsh disciplinarian, Davids is unafraid to use carefully employed brutality and even in his middle years he is a leader convinced of the importance of absolute obedience. Aware of the consequences of failure, he endeavors to run a tight ship. Calm, cool, and capable of great violence, should it be needed, he is a quietly intimidating figure on the DropShip. Like Ziska, there is a touch of the famed wilderness of the Periphery on him and the pair easily fall into the unspoken, sometimes strange, and decidedly unfamiliar (to most of the crew) habits of Periphery pirates.

Woe be it to anyone found in dereliction of their duty, regardless of rank, as Davids has little patience when faced with behavior that threatens the current venture. Although he is generally satisfied with Ziska and her conduct, he is known to engage in loud screaming matches with his nominal superior when he determines she is becoming too relaxed, which is often.

For reasons unclear to anyone but Ziska herself, given how little Davids appears to smile, Ziska has generously bestowed the nickname of Smiley to Davids.

Astech Anica Kesi

Name: Anica Kesi
Nickname/Callsign: Witchcraft
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: New Delphi Compact (New Delphi)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

Anica Kesi, beyond her role as a MechTech, is Ziska's most trusted confident, friend, and reluctant companion in most of the adventurous, usually completely inadvisable plots that are carried out by the MechWarrior.

Born in the Deep Periphery, within the confines of the enigmatic New Delphi Compact, Kesi lived an idyllic pastoral life. Outside of the recurring ravages of the Delphian Curse, an infamous virus spread throughout the New Delphi Compact, that is. A scholar at heart, Kesi's parents were geneticists, like many Delphians, working at the Virus Research and Immunization Institute (VRII) in order to discover a cure for the Delphian Curse.

Raised in the anachronistic New Delphi Compact, Kesi's early life was not that different from an agriculture life spent on Terra in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Technology was limited, outside of the domains of medicine, government, and space travel, where the Delphians had managed to achieve and in some cases surpass the level attained by the Inner Sphere in the twenty-sixth century. Lacking even HPG technology, in stark contrast to the Inner Sphere and even Periphery, the New Delphi Compact had just enough technology to keep it functioning. Built around principles of pacifism and limited government, Kesi experienced little of warfare or the politics that dominate the rest of humanity.

Surrounded by green fields, forests, and fresh air, Kesi learned precious little about the broader galaxy. Like other Delphians, her family had little money, often bartering for goods with their neighbors. Only when she accompanied her parents to the planetary capital of Athenae did she use money.

A strong student, Kesi predictably attended the New Delphi University, where she graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. Easily employed following her graduation, Kesi enjoyed a burgeoning career maintaining and sometimes designing machinery in a textile factory.

However, despite her professional success Kesi began to despair of the insulated society of the New Delphi Compact. She longed to see more. She dreamed of traveling. She began to horde information. She collected rumors. She listened to stories. She spent her evenings and nights learning about the Periphery. About the Inner Sphere. About the Great Houses. And about the MechWarriors.

Convincing the Senior Councilor of New Delphi of the need for more recent information about the Inner Sphere and particularly technology, Kesi managed to secure funding to buy passage to way to Federated Suns controlled spaced on a passing interstellar freight ship bound for the Inner Sphere.

Once there, Kesi quickly signed up with a small time mercenary company engaged by the Federated Suns. In the span of a few years, she traveled widely. Seeing as much of the Inner Sphere as she could. However, she rarely stayed in one place or with one company for long, desiring a full experience of the Inner Sphere. Always, however, always she found herself returning to the realms controlled by the Federated Suns.

As she worked, she traveled, and as she traveled she learned. She worked her way up from a lowly technician relegated to fixing simple mechanical devices. She fixed weapons. She fixed light vehicles, then tanks, and then aircraft that traveled beyond the speed of sound. Eventually she began to fix BattleMechs. Despite her humble technological origins, Kesi impressed the MechTechs left to train her with her grasp of the mechanical. She knew little of computers, it was true, but she learned at a breakneck pace. More importantly, she listened, she listened well, and she seemed to understand the underlying concepts that were critical for a functioning BattleMech.

Eventually, signing up with a modest mercenary company, called Herbert's Heroes, Kesi found herself traveling to the the frontiers of the Federated Suns. Assigned to garrison duty on Bartrock, Herbert's Heroes were tasked with defending the small, desolate planet from increasingly frequent pirate raids. Largely unsettled and uncivilized, Bartrock was important to the Federated Suns only for the rich ore and mineral deposits that had been recently discovered.

Months unfolded uneventfully. The aforementioned pirates did not make an appearance. The mercenary company rested and waited with increasing boredom. While her colleagues grumbled, Kesi spent time exploring the wilds of Bartrock. She found the desert pleasing. Harsh as it was, she found it beautiful, peaceful in a haunting way that filled her heart with bittersweet feelings.

Kesi was camping in the desert when the pirates finally struck. She heard garbled communications. She heard fighting. She heard desperate screams over the comms. She saw smoke on the horizon, but she did not falter. She walked faster towards the battle. She arrived too late. She found herself alone.

She had been left behind. The mercenary company had fled. The civilian miners around were ashen faced. They had all been left behind in the chaotic scramble to escape off planet. Some five hundred souls. Kesi among them. The pirates were smiling. Laughing even. Some of the miners fought back. Many of them died. Kesi didn't resist. She didn't see much point. Brought before the pirate leaders, Kesi was claimed as booty by Ziska. Kesi held onto little hope concerning her own fate, even the isolated citizens of the New Delphi Compact knew about pirates. They knew what pirates did. They had heard about the unmentionable crimes that pirates inflicted on their captives.

Hopes of tolerable perpetual servitude under Ziska were quickly exceeded, when the eccentric pirate promptly freed her and offered to retain Kesi as one of her personal MechTechs. Certain that professional employment underneath a pirate MechWarrior was vastly superior to enslavement, Kesi happily accepted, abruptly silencing any internal thoughts she had about the ethics of piracy.

Personality:
Kesi is as focused and meticulous as one might hope, if not always expect, a MechTech to be. She appears capable of fixing anything, no matter how ancient or debilitated, channeling an understanding of technology far older by centuries than most of what is considered current in the Inner Sphere. Compared to many a MechTech, Kesi operates more by feeling and by hand than by computer or inflexible logic. When asked, Kesi jokingly says that she always tries to speak to the metal that she is working on, to understand what it is feeling and what it really wants.

A true peacemaker, Kesi is friendly, talking easily with almost anyone, and there is something remarkably reassuring about the young MechTech, an unstated certainty that somehow, improbably things will work out in the end. Still something of a stranger to the Inner Sphere, Kesi keeps a paper journal on her person at all times, within which she diligently records her many observations about the galaxy outside of the New Delphi Compact. Employing ancient methods, Kesi makes sure to post "packages", copies of her journal, to the New Delphi Compact via couriers when she is able.

Unsurprisingly, given her liberation from what promised to be a length time as an enslaved MechTech for a band of pirates, Kesi's loyalty towards Ziska is unflinching. However, while she tolerates Ziska's less than stellar habits, like Davids Kesi is completely unafraid to challenge the MechWarrior when she deems it necessary. Ziska for all her many personal faults, is exceedingly willing to at least listen to her advice, if not always to follow it.

Astech Asuga Sunther

Name: Asuga Sunther
Nickname/Callsign: Nuts and Bolts
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Federated Suns (Chakachamna)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

The man, the myth, the MechTech prodigy, Sunther is nowhere near where he expected to find himself if you had asked him years ago.

Born and raised on New Avalon, Sunther grew up with an obvious series of goals in mind. Attending the New Avalon of Institute Science. Graduating the New Avalon Institute of Science. Serving with distinction in the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns. Retiring with full benefits. Accepting a posting at the New Avalon Institute of Science. And finally conducting research which would revolutionize BattleMechs across the Inner Sphere.

Ambitious as this plan was, at first, Sunther appeared to be checking off the expected boxes every step of the way. He graduated at the top of his class from a small, prohibitively expensive private school. He was accepted to, attended, and graduated from the College of Engineering at the New Avalon Institute of Science.

With a veritable pile of accolades and recommendations in hand, Sunther then secured a position as an Astech with the Davion Heavy Guards. Mentored by some of the finest MechTechs found within the AFFS, Sunther thrived and was advanced to the rank of a fully qualified MechTech. Stationed on New Avalon, working under commanding officer, Field Marshal Ran Felsner, Sunther relished his times as part of the Davion Heavy Guards. The prestige of serving in one of the companies of the Davion Brigade of Guards was intoxicating to the young technician and he enjoyed the admiration of many of his friends and family.

With his growing success, troubles, unwelcome troubles appeared for Sunther. Issues arose. Sunther felt a growing sense of dread. Anxiety assailed him. Private doubts began to nag at him. He struggled to sleep. He forgot to eat. He couldn't ask for help. He didn't know who to talk too. He soldiered on. He tried. He tried harder. He buried his feelings. Minutes turned to days, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, but the dark clouds continued to follow him.

And then Sunther made a mistake. He made a serious mistake. An improper solder, a poorly repaired actuator. A small mistake, but a serious one. Enough of a mistake to send an Atlas falling to the ground. Sunther's superiors were understanding, kind even, but they had no choice. His performance had been suffering for some months. The Davion Heavy Guards had standards, they had expectations to live up to, unnecessary risks could not be afforded, no matter how painful it was for them to lose one of their own.

Drummed out of the AFFS with a medical discharge, Sunther knew one thing. He could not return home. He couldn't face his parents. He couldn't see his friends. He couldn't explain. He didn't want to. Leveraging a rehearsed story, Sunther talked his way onto a mercenary company chiefly by virtue of his NAIS training.

Sunther remembers little of the year that followed. He worked hard. He thought little past maintaining and repairing the BattleMechs in front of him. When the contract ended, he elected to sign up with a new mercenary company, finding little value in fresh friendships. Following this pattern for some years, Sunther eventually met Ziska or rather found himself lost to Ziska in the course of a brawl. As Sunther tells it, the MechWarrior he was working for, challenged Ziska to settle matters honorably in a back alley brawl, following unfounded, according to Ziska accusations of cheating. Possessing little in terms of remaining C-bills, the MechWarrior offered Ziska his chief MechTech, paid for a year of his services, for a chance at redemption.

Surprising no one, Ziska accepted, but less clear is how she managed to emerge the victor of the storied fist fight. However, despite the nature of their meeting and his apprehensions about working for her, Sunther discovered that he quite enjoyed his time working underneath the outlandish MechWarrior. As a result, despite competing offers, Sunther has remained with Gawain’s Green Knights for some years now.

Personality:

Serious and prone to bouts of melancholic anxiety, Sunther remains an exceptionally gifted MechTech despite his personal issues. Clearly most comfortable around Ziska and her other mech technicians, Sunther is more than a bit reserved. He is slow to warm to others, maintaining a polite demeanor, but showing little interest in broadening his social network.

Full of doubts and professional regrets, Sunther is painfully unsure of himself in all contexts outside of those related to BattleMechs. There is something sadly desperate about Sunther. He is a man searching for an identity, a new person to become, and a new way to define the very core of his being.

Astech Virginia Kan

Name: Virginia Kan
Nickname/Callsign: Mouse
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Capellan Confederation (Prix)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

Capellan born, Virginia Kan hails from the stormy planet of Prix. Far from wealthy, she grew up with the sparse but adequate resources offered to all Capellans. The third of four children, she spent much of her childhood following around her father, a technician responsible specializing on Capellan armored vehicles. Learning from the oil covered man and following in his example, Kan in turn spent most of her youth working on the IndustrialMechs critical to agriculture in the Capellan Federation.

With an eye on citizenship and the many benefits it entailed, at the age of 13, Kan served a stint with the Capellan Armed Forces. Two years in the Prix Home Guard was enough to earn her citizenship. Thrust into an unfolding miasma of border skirmishes between Great Houses and opportunistic pirates, Kan was ungenerous introduced to the full gamut of violence possible in the Inner Sphere.

Taking little joy in suffering, Kan still found military life appealing and inspired by the advice of some of the older MechTechs, she sought out a career as a mercenary mech technician once she had received her citizenship. The freedom to pick her contracts and higher pay proving to be more to her liking, compared to the sparse lifestyle afforded to the technicians serving as part of a militia unit of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces.

Personality:

Even keeled, Kan possesses a generous temperament. She is decidedly non-judgemental and few things that occur in Gawain’s Green Knights appear to bother her.

Although she is reliable, many see her a bit of a free spirit, and more than one Green Knight has reacted with confusion when seeing her dancing alone in the lounge of the DropShip at odd hours. Unbothered by such hasty opinions, Kan is confident in her own choices and beliefs, happily marching to the beat of her own drum. Extremely flexible, she simply seems to go along with the flow of things as they unfold.

Astech Magnus Licht

Name: Magnus Licht
Nickname/Callsign: Snarl
Age: 23
Gender: Male
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Lyran Commonwealth (Wotan)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

An aspiring MechTech, grinding away as an Astech, Magnus Licht is a brash young man working under the careful supervision of Ziska's MechTech Davids.

The prodigal son of a wealthy family long established on the planet of Wotan, located at the very edges of the Lyran Commonwealth, Magnus is a man living his life based on singularly based on his own aspirations. A great disappointment to his parents, particularly his father, who had hoped that Magnus would adhere to family tradition and pursue a career in interstellar banking. Disowned, uncommonly for a Lyran, if the stereotype about classism and "Social Generals" is to be believed, Licht has advanced through his own merit and hard work, rather than through any of his social connections or those of his family.

Surviving the basic four month boot camps held by the LCAF to train Lyran citizens for war, Licht found himself tapped for additional training in BattleMech maintenance. Working with his hands, to the great chagrin of his parents, Licht found that there was a life outside of checking spreadsheets to account for c-bills. Despite the loud protests of his father, Magnus happily accepted an offer from the LCAF to attend the War College of Buena. His refusal to accept a purchased posting on Wotan in an administrative position is according to Magnus the reasons for his disownment.

An oasis of meritocracy, free from the classism that had afflicted the Lyran Commonwealth, the War College of Buena was a non-nonsense academy dedicated to pragmatic education of all students. Acknowledged as the finest academy for technicians in the Lyran Commonwealth, the War College of Buena impressed Licht from the moment he arrived. Although he did not receive any great degree of combat training, as part of the technical staff, Licht learned to maintain everything from small arms, electrical equipment, combat vehicles, and even BattleMechs. In line with the stated goals of the academy, by the time he graduated Licht was proficient in several technical fields relevant to BattleMechs.

Where others faltered, Licht excelled in the mentally, physically, and emotionally challenging environment of the War College of Buena. While many of his classmates, chafed under the hard, authoritarian instructors at the College, Licht seemed to only do better when faced with the endlessly critical opinions of the College staff. Even the notoriously rough treatment of the underclassman leveled by upperclassman did little to stifle Licht's motivations.

Spending some six months maintaining the BattleMechs of the Buena Training Battalion following live-fire exercises and a number of anti-pirate missions along the Periphery border, Licht received high praise from his instructors regarding his performance in the field.

Graduation from the War College of Buena, presented Licht with a unique set of opportunities. Ultimately, wary of the reputation of the LCAF as a bastion of Social Generals, Licht elected to pursue a career as a mech technician in a mercenary company. Relying on old connections, Davids somehow managed to convince Licht to accept a contract with Gawain’s Green Knights despite several other competitive offers submitted to the Astech.

Personality:

Young, ambitious, and not just a little bit proud, Magnus is force of technical opinion. He believes that his opinions or thoughts are almost always valuable and he speaks his mind freely, regardless of the rank of those around him or the prevalent mood. To his own determent, he remains largely unconcerned about the feelings of others, and he is known to deliver scathing critique if he finds quality, especially of any technical work lacking.

Beneath a prickly exterior, Magnus has a somewhat lesser known creative side. A noted musician in his youth, in social situations Magnus can be counted on to strum up a quick tune on his acoustic guitar or to sing a song to lighten the mood.

Astech Yuliana Minhas

Name: Yuliana Minhas
Nickname/Callsign:
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Crew Position: Astech (Assistant Technician)
Rank: Corporal
Nationality: Oberon Confederation (Drask's Den)

Appearance:

Gawain’s Green Knights Personnel File

Biographical History:

The youngest member of Ziska's technician team, Minhas appears to be perpetually to catch up to the more experienced technicians surrounding her. However, beneath her inexperience and youth, are the bones of a very talented technician, and given time it seems likely that Minhas will become a truly exceptional MechTech.

Hailing from the Oberon Confederation, Yuliana proudly proclaims herself to be from a civilized, very civilized former Bandit Kingdom. According to her, Drask's Den is like any other aspiring Inner Sphere planet, full of people simply striving for a better life.

Growing up in the Oberon Confederation, Minhas is the modern example of what can be achieved by the citizens of a Bandit Kingdom that is once again approaching the lofty aspirations attained by the Circinus Federation many centuries ago. Namely a viable nation-state supported chiefly by interstellar trade and only partly, most subtly by piracy. With such soaring ambitions in mind and with the tried example of the Periphery states to follow, the benevolent King of the Oberon Confederation even instituted an educational system shortly after Yuliana's birth.

Benefiting from such social developments, an unexpected degree of stability, and influx of MechTechs seeking fresh starts away from Inner Sphere that all coincided with her early years, Yuliana received not just a basic education but training as a proper technician.

Possessing her own ambitions, Yuliana was not content to stay in the Oberon Confederation, and as soon as she could call herself an Astech, she left for the Periphery, and then Inner Sphere. Arriving on Galatea, the young Astech somehow managed to convince Ziska to hire her after engaging in what Davids has tersely described as "several hours of constant begging, crying, and pathetic mewling."

Personality:
Cheerful, Yuliana is a deeply curious young woman. She talks quickly, moves quicker, and seems to be constantly be operating as if her blood is largely composed of stimulants of one sort or another.

Happy by nature, Yuliana is unnecessarily optimistic, at least according to Ziska, and for someone born to the descendants of bandits, she has lived a remarkably charmed life.

Ziska's Cat - General Kerensky

Name:Alexander Kerensky
Age: 2
Gender: Female
Species: Felis catus
Crew Position: Unofficial Official Ship Cat
Rank: Commanding General of the Star League
Nationality: Lyran

Appearance:

An adorable calico cat, with a coat of soft, glossy fur, and surprisingly sharp claws reserved for those that offend her. Being a cat, Kerensky wears only a tasteful leather collar adorned with a small metal tag listing her name, mercenary affiliation, and Star League rank.

Personality:

The exceedingly proud, mostly benevolent ruler of the No Leaf Clover, the DropShip maintained for her by Gawain’s Green Knights. Kerensky is fond of napping, pets, scritches, and the occasional belly rub. Convinced of her own supremacy and divine right to command the mercenaries Colonel Wayne has assembled for her benefit, Kerensky does not respond well to her unspoken orders being refused. Mercifully, Kerensky is quite adorable and the vast majority of her power is used only in the pursuit of snacks or cuddles.

Biographical History:

General Kerensky is confusingly, given her namesake, a female calico cat that Ziska saw fit to adopt from some derelict Steiner planet. In an impressively irreverent act, bordering on tasteless according to some ComStar adjacent mercenaries, Ziska has named her cat after the famed Star League general and hero, Alexander Kerensky. Sauntering throughout the No Leaf Clover at all hours of the day or night, regardless of the status of any doors, Kerensky manages an impressive fiefdom centering largely on the mech hanger and Ziska's private quarters. The bane of many an Astech, MechTech, or unrelated Technician, Kerensky appears certain, quite certain, that she is in fact in charge of the entire operation, and reacts poorly to any suggestions or actions that would imply otherwise.

Unfortunately for the rest of the Green Knights, any complaints delivered to Ziska regarding the conduct of her cat are simply responded to with a well-practiced sigh, a half-hearted shake of her head, and a comment on the fickle nature of all generals.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Woo, let's go!

Canopian ex-Pirate with a Raven-3L coming right up.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Clanners aren't real, they can't hurt you.