“Daonnan Deiseil - Всегда Готов” (Always Ready). Scottish Gaelic and Russian motto of the Varangian Guards.
One thing is clear: within the Human Sphere, the Ariadnans are a different breed. A life of deprivation on a hostile world forges a unique character that makes them capable of withstanding the worst of adversity. People like them do not fit into more civilized environments, but they thrive in border territories, disaster areas, or in war-torn regions. And believe it or not, the Human Sphere still has plenty of those. This is why the Paradiso Coordinated Command welcomed the AEC, the Ariadnan Expeditionary Corps, with open arms. However, in that first AEC contingent that ventured out into the Human Sphere, the Caledonian representation was very small due to this people’s particularly isolationist character. Only the outcasts, those with weaker bonds to their clans, or those assigned to Ariadnan joint units headed to Paradiso, to kill or die on a faraway planet against an alien foe.
Among them was Sergeant Major William McKellar, who realized the opportunities this service abroad offered to many Ariadnans. If Ariadna is a hard planet to live on, isolated Caledonia, with its rigid clan society, or the fearsome Tartary, always besieged by Antipodes, are even more so. McKellar knew that, however hard the service was, however dangerous the operations were, for any Ariadnan of a lower social class who has spent his or her childhood in that godforsaken land, there are no bad days. Nothing can be worse than what they have endured in their homeland. And that was precisely the kind of people who were in high demand outside planet Dawn, even if it was in the most dreadful corners of the Human Sphere, which could never be as bad as Caledonia or Tartary.
Hence, when he went back home after having served in the first AEC contingent, McKellar created the Varangian Guard, a mercenary unit made up of all those Ariadnans willing to leave behind the misery they lived in, even if that meant relinquishing their homes and their clans. Many of his recruits have soldiering experience, while others only have experience killing for their clans or for criminal groups—two terms that are indistinguishable from one another in the remotest areas of Ariadna—but all of them are given thorough training to adapt to the military techniques and protocols of the Human Sphere.
And this is because McKellar was perfectly aware that, no matter how high the demand for unstoppable savages might be, they need to be able to fit in at least just enough not to scare away their potential customers. And thus, with a combination of professionalism and savagery, is how the Varangians have made a place for themselves among the elite mercenaries of the Human Sphere. Because even though they wear uniforms and carry more modern weapons than any of their fellow countrymen, the Varangians remain crazed Ariadnans who fear nothing. They are damned berserkers who will jump headfirst into a ravine to chase the enemy, just as they will rush relentlessly into a dark room full of adversaries, or start climbing a tree because they have seen some movement in the woods that might be a bear they can hunt with their axes to have fresh meat for dinner.
After a decade of service, they shine at the front as much as they make a mess at the rear, the Varangians drew the attention of Bureau Athena, which put forward an inclusive program for Bureau Aegis, hiring this unit as operational reinforcement and an enticement to improve O-12’s image in Ariadna. However, apart from the fact that McKellar’s Varangians’s behavior in the rearguard has caused Bureau Aegis some problems with local populations, SWORDFOR knows that sometimes the tactic that works best is a good bludgeon and an ugly smile—and that is what the Varangians are best at.
Available on July 30th!
