Wolf City, Outreach, November 20, 3047 "The snake coiled to strike The Wolf in his den Trouble the hearts of The bravest of men!' --from Let them Howl, title song of the hit musical of 3048 Wolf's Dragoons have made a bold return. The Inner Sphere is used to the Dragoons' aggressive attitude on a military front, but here they have been fighting a harder baffle, fighting the enemy that most mercenary units fall prey to. We're talking about economics. At the end of the Fourth Succession War, thanks to Coordinator Takashi Kurita's vendetta against them, the Dragoons had been reduced from six regiments to one. By treaty with the Federated Commonwealth, the Dragoons had been given the world of Outreach, near the Terran Core, as a homeworld. To quote Takashi Kurita in FASRs More Tales of the Black Widows, "Wolf says the Dragoons have gone to Outreach to lick their wounds. I say they've gone to Outreach to die." Some few analysts felt that the Dragoons would do what they had done before; they'd disappear only to come back with new 'Mechs and MechWarriors. But the Dragoons never do what's expected of them. They recruited from the Inner Sphere, not desperately filling their numbers, but accepting a few of the best of the fighters who wished to join them. They recruited children (see 'Censored by Wolf's Dragoons', elsewhere in this issue) to train as the next generation of Dragoons. Natasha Kerensky was not kept on kid detail for long. In March of 3031, Jaime Wolf and Natasha Kerensky held a press conference. They announced that the Black Widow Battalion was ready for hire and meaner than ever. The Black Widow Company had been in the thick of the fighting throughout the Misery Campaign and the Fourth Succession War, but the skill of the unit and its leader was so great that during the entirety of the campaign, they had lost only one Rifleman. Now expanded to battalion size, the Black Widows would further break with tradition by accepting only short-term contracts. The worldTsinghai, part of the Sama March of the Federated Commonwealth, hired them first, to beat off an invasion by the Fourth Free World Guards.The Widows' reputation has built all over again during these last two decades as a pricy defender of lost causes. The hiring fees from the Black Widows were a welcome boost to the Dragoons' finances, but what came next made all the difference. In desolate worlds throughout the Inner Sphere, mercenaries hiring halls had sprung up. The best known one is Galaina, in the Lyran portion of the Federated Commonwealth, but they are much of a pattern; worlds where solo mercenaries and penniless units find their way, trying to keep in training while they wait for prospective employers. Jaime Wolf set up Wolf City as a hiring hall, but a high-class one. Representatives of employers and merc units met in tidy off ices; the online hiring listings were accurate for all the Inner Sphere, and most of the Periphery Realms. Negotiations were carried on in dignity and privacy; while the listing of Wolf's Dragoons as guarantors of the terms of contracts made them worry-free. Support facilities sprang up; hotels, campgrounds, docking and repair facilities, meeting rooms, food emporiums, and recreation facilities paid substantial fees to establish businesses in Wolf City. Wolf's Dragoons has also permitted mercenary and House units who can come up with the money to apply for advanced training with their trainers and facilities. The Kell Hounds, the Kathil Uhlans, Snord's Irregulars, several of the St Ives Regiments, and others have taken advantage of this 'unit level graduate work'. For decades, the Dragoons have been known for secrecy, for keeping their business and their space private. It surprised the media to be invited in. The third and fourth line units who would never have considered finding themselves on the same world with the Dragoons except in nightmares have taken even longer to adjust. But the Dragoons have found a way to invite the Inner Sphere and its cash onto their homeworld and still keep their privacy. In Wolf City, and for a five kilometer distance around the city borders, facilities for off worlders have sprung up like mushrooms. NOWHERE ELSE ON OUTREACH IS IT SAFE FOR THEM TO VENTURE! Most of the world is off limits to anyone who is not a member or dependent of Wolf's Dragoons. The sizeable remains of the StarLeague Olympics training grounds are off limits, though the stadium itself is within the Visitor Limited Area. Facilities, mines, factories, barracks, and domiciles of the Dragoons are off limits. Back to BattleTechnology 17 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1992 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com