[Abe Sargent]

April 1, 3064 – Duke Essex, Ambassador Yee, Chief Foster, and some others arrive at Kallon Industries and take a meeting with their representative.

“You folks have done this dance a few times already. Here on Nanking you once made mechs for House Liao, then captured and making mechs for House Steiner, then moved over and making stuff House Davion, and now we’ve captured you.”

Ambassador Yee speaks up, “As you folks know, it’s pretty much standard operating procedure to have a company cancel all standing orders for their units, and then sell units to the new state and whoever it authorizes.”

“We understand the drill. For however long you can hold Nanking, you get the merchandise, if we get the cash, but the Exterminator is on an exclusive contract with ComStar. Since that’s not a state, that’s not the same thing. ”

“Don’t worry, we have the cash. We also have a few things you might like. The Coalition has a handful of ‘Mech makers. The Nanking Kallon plant is a huge boon, and we are building a lot of forces up to replace battle losses or to build up units on planets.

Meanwhile, we don’t want the Exterminator. Just change your Exterminator to an exclusive deal with Word of Blake instead. That way, we don’t get a state instead.

Third of all, we have allocated the first 6 months of ‘Mechs (Wolverine, Shadow Hawk) to the Capellan Confederation, who will be sending you the cash and the information on where to deliver them. We’ll get the tanks though.”

“That’s an unusual request. You conquered Nanking for Blake and House Liao?”

Essex smiles. “I don’t see the difference.”


Chief Foster - “Now, we’d like to talk about adding a mechline. How does that work with proprietary information?”


“Mechs and tanks we build here must have your approval to be sold outside of your area. We cannot share any of the stuff. So for example, our company has the license to make Partisans with C3 computers, but not in all of the states. We can’t make a C3 Partisan here on Nanking. The same is true of other things as well.”

Foster – “So if you were to add a Mech line, of a new Mech here?”

“We couldn’t produce the same Mech somewhere else. But that would take too long to do anyway. I’d recommend using a chassis that’s battle tested, and we have the right for. ”

Ambassador Yee– “Such as?”

“We have Exterminator, Wolverine, and Shadow Hawk, obviously, since we make those. We make Rifleman, Griffin and Crusaders for others. For newer mechs, we have created the Penetrator, but we have a sole contract with the locals, the same with things like the Templar. We created the Hornet a while ago, and it’s not doing well now at all, so we’d be happy to reboot it for you with a new face. The Falcon Hawk, though, was a Star League design we updated. We make them for everyone for sale, and we could make either at the same run, if you guarantee sales, or we could refit it for you. So if you wanted a ‘Mech to hit the streets quickly, just name your style.”

Duke Essex interrupts. “That’s sad about the Penetrator. I was hoping we could just add that line here with no changes. It’s a high quality unit. How could we go about changing things?”

“It’s made at our major factory, on Talon. We make 10 different Mech Designs there. The Penetrator still sells well, but everyone who wants them tends to already have them, barring the war, of course. We’ve been making them for 10 years, there certainly could be a window of opportunity. You would have to talk with the Federated Commonwealth Office of Procurement. They would have to approve it. But why would they bother?”

“Just brainstorming here, but what if we paid the cost for the new Penetrator line here, and then guaranteed to sell them the first run, so they can get more Mechs for their war effort?”

“I don’t think a 10 year old design is as sexy there as it would be. I don’t think they’d be interested in losing their exclusivity to the design just so they can buy more of it. Not even in the war.”

“So if we want to sell it, could we make some changes?”

“That’s unlikely, Why not just retool the Talon plant instead? I just don’t see it.”

“It was worth the conversation I suppose.”




“Hmm… What about that Falcon Hawk? We could downgrade the Er PPC to an ER Large Laser, freeing 2 tons. Then strip the small pulse laser, and downgrade the medium pulses to mediums. Then we could use that 5 tons to add a second ER large laser. This gives the mech more long range punch that before.”

“That’s not bad, and it’s a solid light fire support version of the mech. But if you want to sell in this climate, you need something new. You have an extra ton from the conversion, by the way, for another double heat sink.”

“Let me give you a different take. Strip off the XL for a light engine. Swap ferro-fibrous armor for endo steel. Pull off that extra heat sink, we don’t need it that much.”


Falcon Hawk FNHK-9N

35 tons, 5/8
Max armor
Endo Steel, Light Engine
2x ER Large Lasers
2x Medium Lasers
13/26 heat
BV – 1115
Cost 3.92 Mill CBills

Now that has something of merit. It’s cheaper than the other Falcon Hawks (XL engines are more expensive) features light engine, has max 100% armor, and has an interesting long range bite to it. You can run, fire both long range weapons, and not go overheat.

Kallon agrees to run with it. Since it’s on a chassis they know, the only issue is finding the right light version of the 175 engine. Other than that, the mech should be out and ready by February, 3065, if they can figure out the engine thing.


That’ll work, giving us a good scout mech to add to our units with some punch to it.



Welcome to the club Kallon!