Rik Myers

Rik Myers
Personal
Died	31 January 3068
Affiliation	Clan Goliath Scorpion
Profile
Rank	Galaxy Commander

Galaxy Commander Rik Myers was a trueborn warrior of Clan Goliath Scorpion. From the 3050s to the late 3060s, he commanded his Clan's Alpha Galaxy and also served as the personal commander of the Thirty-fifth Scorpion Cuirassiers.

History

Myers was one of Clan Goliath Scorpion's most ambitious and aggressive leaders during the Clan Invasion era and afterward. Like his Khan Ariel Suvorov, he was both angry and disgusted at the Crusader Clans' failure to defeat the SLDF under Prince Victor Steiner-Davion during the Great Refusal on Strana Mechty on 23 April 3060. Following the defeat and effective annihilation of Clan Smoke Jaguar at the hands of the SLDF, he viewed the new SLDF enclave on Huntress as a clear threat to the Clans and urged a preemptive strike against it. He also wanted to act before the other Clans in reaping the spoils on Huntress, particularly surviving Smoke Jaguar warriors and their genes. Khan Suvorov was more cautious though. Not wishing to trigger a massive SLDF retaliation in which was the Goliath Scorpions would share the Smoke Jaguars' fate, she ordered Myers to come up with a more limited "middle ground" course of action that would demonstrate the Goliath Scorpions' strength to the other Clans without provoking a critical response from the Star League.

Great Refusal

Encouraged further by a necrosia-induced vision of Huntress' Abysmal continent and high-priority intelligence provided by the Goliath Scorpion Watch chief Star Commander Rife Nagy, Myers returned to Suvorov with a plan to capture Abysmal and its countless Smoke Jaguar artifacts still there for the taking. The most important, according to Nagy's report and accompanying merchant DropShip imagery, were an enlarged spaceport and warehouses built since the Clan invasion to hold Inner Sphere isorla. These were, in Myers' words: "the antiques of the future," and may even include treasures of the old Star League. Myers also suggested that the Goliath Scorpions might capture relics held by the Eridani Light Horse, a storied SLDF unit that would undoubtedly be sent to defend the continent, and even take some of its MechWarriors as bondsmen, who "would be living history among our people."

While tempting Suvorov by appealing to her mutually strong sense of history, Myers' real aim was to harvest the remainder of the Smoke Jaguar warrior caste and their precious Bloodlines. Capturing the Jaguars' heritage would, in his opinion, ensure that the Clan was never fully erased from history. And more secretly, Myers would gain "a new generation of warriors that would make him even more powerful" and by controlling that Jaguar legacy, enable him to challenge her to a Trial of Position and become Khan. There was also the Abysmal Manufacturing Complex at Rakt-Jabada on Abysmal, the "pride of the Jaguars," which produced Warhawk OmniMechs. The factory, recently repaired and returned to operation by the SLDF, could be emphasized in the Goliath Scorpion batchall to obscure the Clan's true interest, but it was only a secondary prize.

Suvorov saw through Myers' manipulation. However, she authorized the strike anyway, on the condition that Alpha Galaxy would have to bid against the Goliath Scorpion's other Galaxies for the right to make the attack. Suvorov further ordered that the strike would not take place until after the bulk of the SLDF departed Clan space and returned to the Inner Sphere. Later, she scaled back the scope of Myers' plan, from taking the entire continent to establishing a 200 km circular enclave centered on the Warhawk factory and its attached spaceport.

Wars of Possession

Shortly thereafter, Alpha Galaxy won the right to harvest the former Smoke Jaguar holdings and personnel on Abysmal, and on August 7, 3060 Myers' strike force jumped into the Huntress system, spearheaded by his flagship, the destroyer CGS Sagitta. Sir Paul Masters, commanding officer of the Knights of the Inner Sphere and the remaining SLDF units on Huntress, accepted Myers' batchall and bid one battalion of combined ComStar and Eridani Light Horse units. Masters then chose the Hatya Desert as the venue for the Trial of Possession.

The Goliath Scorpions bested the Star League in the ensuing fight, inflicting heavy losses on the combined ComStar/Eridani Light Horse forces, which included a Star of armored elementals and a few former Smoke Jaguar warriors fighting as conventional infantry, led by former Star Colonel, now SLDF Sergeant, Paul Moon.

Myers won for the Goliath Scorpions the Abysmal enclave, its Warhawk factory and spaceport, and the warehouses and the artifacts they held, and claimed as isorla all SLDF BattleMechs and vehicles dating back to the original Star League. It was also the first time a Clan other than Smoke Jaguar had carved out a new enclave on Huntress since the Jade Falcons did it years before. But most of the former Smoke Jaguar warriors and personnel who Myers really wanted had been evacuated before the battle or had escaped, rendering his victory hollow in his mind.

Smoke Jaguar Hunt

After some 3,000 former Smoke Jaguars of all castes, led by Paul Moon, dramatically fled Huntress on August 24, 3060, the Goliath Scorpion Watch captured former Jaguar warrior Oliver Howell, an associate of the renegade Jaguar Russou Howell, who knew about the escape plan. Myers interrogated Howell using necrosia and learned that the refugees sought to save their annihilated Clan's essence and to start new lives for themselves as "something else" than Clan on Wayside V, the location of a former Smoke Jaguar resupply depot far down the Exodus Road.

Obsessed with absorbing the genetic material of the last generation of Smoke Jaguars, Myers took his elite 35th Scorpion Cuirassiers Cluster from Alpha Galaxy and foolishly pursued the prospective colonists to Wayside V, without Suvorov's permission or regard for provisions for the year-long trip there and back again. He and his fleet finally arrived at the Wayside system on May 25, 3062. When contacted by Moon, Myers issued his batchall:

"I am Galaxy Commander Rik Myers of Alpha Galaxy, personal commander of the Thirty-fifth Scorpion Cuirassiers. I have come to harvest this colony, the last vestige of the once-proud Clan Smoke Jaguar, in a Trial of Possession. I intend to take you as a whole. Your remains will be preserved and stored in our hallowed halls, your genes will be ours to use as we see fit. I mean to take this world as our own—and your people will be my isorla. With what forces will you defend this planet, Paul Moon of the Jaguars?"

Moon had no choice but to accept Myers' batchall. For the forthcoming battle, he could muster only a rough Cluster comprised of the Trinary of former Jaguar troops which had accompanied him to the new colony as well as a Binary of older, poorly maintained BattleMechs, piloted by the aged warriors of the abandoned and forgotten 47th Garrison Cluster of the Smoke Jaguars Zeta Galaxy. On June 2, 3062, Moon turned the tables on Myers. Using the Clan rules of engagement against the Goliath Scorpions, the former Smoke Jaguars fought them in a narrow, steep-walled canyon called the “Straits.” The Battle of the Straits became a crushing defeat to the Scorpions, which were killed or captured, Myers between them.

Prisoner to the Jaguars

In the aftermath, Moon treated Myers and the captured Goliath Scorpions as prisoners of war in the Inner Sphere sense. As Myers had intended on replenishing his food stocks after defeating the former Smoke Jaguars, the Goliath Scorpions did not have enough for the year-long journey back to Clan space. Consequently, by the terms of the batchall, Moon not only took all the BattleMechs, weapons, equipment, and vehicles that Myers had brought with him to Wayside V as spoils but forced Myers and his Goliath Scorpion personnel, including the JumpShip crews, to farm and tend livestock in order to raise enough food for their journey home. Those who wanted to stay could, but those who returned would have to purge their ships' maps of the location of Wayside V and never reveal its location.

Freedom and Disgrace

Myers and most of the survivors from his Cluster returned to Huntress in March 3064 after doing their duty as prisoners of war on Wayside V, which they had begun calling "Myers' Folly." Even more humiliating for Myers was the desertion of a handful of his warriors, who chose to remain with the former Smoke Jaguars as colonists and help create the Fidelis under Moon's leadership as Custos. A week after the return, Khan Suvorov dressed down the ragged Myers, angrily reminding him that:

"You took one of our Clan's best Clusters and set off along the Exodus Road in hopes of capturing the Smoke Jaguar warriors. This was not for our Clan, but for your ego. You traveled all of that way only to fail. Now you stand before me, a Galaxy Commander who left the majority of his command in the hands of subordinates, with nothing to show for your efforts. Your Cluster lost all of its equipment. It is only by the grace of this Paul Moon that you were allowed to return here. Rarely has a warrior in any Clan ever failed as completely as you did and still live, Rik Myers."

Demotion

While Suvorov was considering his fate, Myers explained that he had learned a great deal about himself, that he had been broken by Moon and remade as a new man, and had paid a heavy price for his arrogance. He therefore asked for a second chance, a chance at redemption and to present himself as a warrior, and to restore his honor in the Khan's eyes. Suvorov took pity on Myers and agreed to give him that chance, but he would have to retest for his position as Alpha Galaxy commander, and should he succeed, she would then tell him her plans for the Eridani Light Horse.

By 3067, Myers had been reduced to the rank of Star Colonel but still commanded the Thirty-fifth Cuirassiers.

Death

At the start of 3068, Myers had just been restored to Galaxy command by Khan Suvorov. Without the sanction of his Khan, he challenged Colonel Sandra Barclay to a Trial of Possession for a battalion of troops and the Second Star League Embassy holdings on Strana Mechty and Huntress. Suvorov was furious when she learned of it, but could not nullify the Trial. Colonel Barclay won the right to hold the Trial in Clan Jade Falcon territory, the Shikari Jungle. Her forces captured his logistics base while she harassed him in the jungle, using the terrain to offset his range advantage and rotating her troops in and out for repair and rearming. When Myers had a little over a Binary of troops left, she offered hegira. Myers refused, and soon Barclay faced Myers' Fire Scorpion in her Cerberus. She sent a Gauss rifle round into his cockpit, killing him. His subordinate, Star Colonel Malachi Posavatz then accepted Barclay's offer of hegira, putting an end to the trial.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Updates
• Field Manual: Warden Clans
• Forever Faithful