[MercNet] The hiring halls of Old Connaught are as busy as ever, and for the first time since the sack of Outreach you can actually feel the pride and optimism in the mercenary population. Where before you had found only grim determination and a need to prove themselves, many of the local mercs are actually walking around with a bit of swagger after the Word of Blake's failed bid to destroy them.
With the fleets of the Wolf-in-Exile Clan dispersed to help hold the frontier against the predations of the Jade Falcons, the Blakists forces managed to penetrate the naval cordon around Arc-Royal and land several formed units around Old Connaught and the various cantonments that service the on-world mercenaries, including the Kell Hounds and the remnants of Wolf's Dragoons.
"They hit us like they were expecting us to fold," Major Cabot of the Hell's Heart Brigade told us. "They rolled into the transient laager like we were all going to hide in our turrets or something, and we just blasted them as they came in." A mixed force of Blakist 'Mechs, armor, and unarmored infantry invaded the conventional units' laager in the opening stages of the ground battle, but the mercenaries were prepared and fought back. Curiously, many of the infantrymen, when wounded during battle, killed themselves using implanted suicide charges. In several cases they killed or wounded Allied medical personnel attempting to save their lives.
"Had our other vessels been present, it is unlikely any of the stravag dogs would have reached the surface," a spokesman for the Clan Wolf-in-Exile reported. "As it is, our naval forces dealt the zealots a serious blow to their naval arsenal."
As no media personnel are permitted on Clan vessels, we cannot report on the nature of the naval engagement, but we do have unconfirmed reports that at least one nuclear weapon was detonated in orbit during the battle.