Company Store

The "company store" is a gambit by the employer of a mercenary unit to financially undermine the unit, strip it of its autonomy, and force it into permanent service with that employer.

A company store scenario usually involves the employer providing support services and materials to the mercenary unit against the payments the employer owes to the unit under their contract. Over time, the employer manipulates the prices of those services and materials (with varying degrees of subtlety) to greatly outweigh the amount owed to the unit, creating an ever-increasing debt; depending on circumstances and the fortunes of war, this can be exacerbated if the unit draws on the employer's resources to recoup material and personnel losses after a battle. Once the debt becomes too great, the mercenary unit will be compelled to renegotiate their contract to pay off the debt, usually on terms so biased towards the employer that 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. Generally speaking, if a mercenary command has not balanced its books before the debt reaches this crisis point - usually by selling assets, finding some windfall like a lostech cache, or fulfilling lucrative supplementary contracts - the only alternatives are to accept absorption or break their contract and 'go rogue', with all that entails.