In 3013, following the death of her husband in AeroSpace action over Sirius, Colonel Elyse Laurel, a descendant of the famous Erika Laurel, resigned her commission in the Northwind Highlanders to raise her family. The following year, a Marik raid against her home planet of Diobrin (also known as Laurel’s World) resulted in the loss of two of her three children. Elyse Laurel petitioned the Capellan government for permission to raise an independent company of MechWarriors. Her petition was granted, even though she had demanded broad discretionary powers as to where and when to deploy her troops. Six months later, Laurel’s Legion, composed entirely of women MechWarriors, began preparation for its first action.
Following several minor skirmishes with Marik Militia, Laurel’s Legion drove Davion forces from the planet Teng. In 3020, elements of Laurels Legion and the 4th Tau Ceti Rangers captured a pair of Davion Corsair AeroSpace craft on New Rhodes Ill. Most recently, in 3024, aided by timely information from Maskirovka agents, the Legion managed to blunt an attack against Epsilon Eridani and Fletcher by the Federated Suns.
Recent successes have done little, however, to fill the void in Elyse’s heart. In all likelihood, she will continue to seek death on the battlefield. Until then, she remains, like so many others in the Inner Sphere, a living victim of war.
The vagaries of war sometimes place a devoutly loyal Capellan unit between its home world and its nation, between family and the chain of command. That such a unit is once again welcome in the realm from which it defected testifies to the strength of Xin Sheng.
First raised in 3014 by a retired member of the Northwind Highlanders, Laurel’s Legion for years had the distinction of being the only all-female mercenary command in the Inner Sphere. During the Fourth Succession War, the unit suffered unfair treatment by a confused chain of command and was then denied the chance to defend its homeworld of Tigress—also known as Laurel’s World for its close ties to the Laurel family—to the last possible moment. With Tigress falling, the Legion’s morale broke and they capitulated to the Davions.
The Legion remained uneasy under Davion rule. Though the Federated Commonwealth rebuilt the unit to battalion strength, the AFFC rarely allowed the Legion to leave Tigress and often saddled it with an additional garrison unit. In 3061, when Sun-Tzu Liao invited all expatriate Capellans to return home, the Legion presented themselves on Sian to answer for the unit’s past actions. The Chancellor pardoned them for "past errors and lapses in judgment,” and at the insistence of the people of Tigress, he made the Legion part of the Citizens’ Honored division.
The Legion divide their time between Ningpo and Poznan, as close as they can get to Tigress for now. To signify their renewed status as Capellan citizens, the Legion changed their insignia and colors. The unit emblem is now a red phoenix with a jade-green heart, and the new Legion colors are red, black, white and silver.
[Back to the Mercenary Units of the Inner Sphere]
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