Company Store
Sarna News
The company store is a long-term gambit by the employer of a mercenary unit to financially bankrupt the unit in question. The intended goal is to force the mercenaries into selling most, perhaps even all, of their equipment to the employer to pay of their acumulated debts. An alternative goal is to force the bankrupt mercenaries to join the regular armed forces.
Methodology
Almost all mercenary units require at least some support and/or supplies from the employer. The support may include transportation (most outfits lack jumpships and many lack dropships), repairs and sometimes simple mantenance (some mercenary units lack specialized technicians and mechanics).
The supplies may range from ammunition to spare parts, fuel, and/or even food rations.
These services are paid by the mercenary outfit and under normal circumstances the regular pay is more than enough to cover the bills. A side-effect is that the support and the supplies have to follow regular channels. This means that requests are handled by the bureaucracy and provided through regular supply lines.
Certain rare supplies and services are delivered first to regular units; most mercenary outfits come always second.
In a 'company store' scenario, the employer typically offers the mercenaries direct access to the military's quartermaster service on a cash-and-carry basis, with an increase in their pay to offset the price of supplies and services.
The catch is that the price of the supplies and services is also increased, whether openly or surreptitiously, to the point where the unit's regular income is too small to pay the costs. This forces the unit to undertake supplementary contracts in order to cover its debts.
Such missions typically consist of dangerous raids, which often encounter fierce opposition, resulting in heavy combat damage which requires more costly supplies (mainly replacing expended munitions and repairing damage) and repairs, thus incurring even more debt.
This vicious cycle continues until the debt becomes overwhelming, either financially and/or morally, at which point the mercenaries are forced to renegotiate their contract to pay off their debts.
The new contracts are heavily biased towards the employer; more often than not the mercenary unit is either permanently bound to that employer alone, or in the most egregious cases outright absorbed into the employer's regular armed forces. Some mercenaries are sometimes simply stripped of their equipment and left distute.
The only other alternative is to break contract and to flee the inevitable punishment. Such acts concern the Mercenary Review Board which will nearly always lower the ratings of the mercenary unit. Some units simply desert and flee to the Periphery becoming pirates.
Historically, the Draconis Combine and the Federated Suns are known to implement 'company store' policies more than other Inner Sphere States.
The Draconis Combine tend to target vulnerable mercenaries with the intention of confiscating their equipment.
The Federated Suns tend to target competent mercenary units with the aim of including them permanently as a line unit.
Notable cases
One famous example of "company store treatment" is the Paul Bunyan Regiment once employed by House Kurita, which accepted increased pay in exchange for access to DCMS procurement channels, but was systematically undermined by price-hikes and the need to supplement their income with secondary raiding contracts (which consumed more supplies and increased their debts).
In 2825, the situation came to a head. While the Paul Bunyan Regiment was stationed on Zlatous, the DCMS outright stopped their pay, citing a need to cover their debts.
In response, the regiment mutinied, seizing several warehouses to obtain food and other necessities.
Declaring them a rogue unit, the DCMS destroyed the Paul Bunyans' DropShips and deployed the 5th and 9th Galedon Regulars.
After two months of fierce fighting much of the planet laid waste while the majority of the Paul Bunyan Regiment destroyed. A handful of survivors mamange to escape in a captured DCMS DropShip, fleeing into the Periphery.
At one point in their employment by House Kurita, Wolf's Dragoons suspected that Warlord Grieg Samsonov was attempting to use the "company store" gambit as part of a campaign to seize direct control of the Dragoons.
The Northwind Highlanders nearly became victims to a "company store" attempt by the Federated Suns in 3057. Adamant defense of their independence and the political instability caused by Operation Guerrero led to armed conflict that ultimately made Northwind a free state.
References
- House Kurita (sourcebook), p.62