Gray Death Legion
TRELLWAN
The Gray Death Legion was born on Trell I, a desert planet far from the Inner Sphere of human-inhabited worlds. Known
as Trellwan by its inhabitants, the planet occupied a marginally strategic location on the periphery of Lyran Commonwealth
space. Nearby, within a few score light years, were worlds claimed by the Draconis Combine. Farther out was the fledgling
empire of Bandit King Hendrik III. Trellwan was garrisoned by a single lance of Steiner regulars commanded by Captain Durant
Carlyle.
Though a remote world, Trellwan's location gave it tremendous potential in the vicious, inter-House intrigue of the
Succession Wars. It was here that Steiner agents laid the foundations for an alliance with Hendrik III of Oberon, the mercurial
Bandit King who had previously been negotiating openly with agents of House Kurita. Hendrik's deal with Steiner gave him garrison
and tax collection privileges on Trell I in exchange for his fealty to Katrina Steiner and the Commonwealth. This would
have freed up Captain Carlyle's lance for duty elsewhere in the Inner Sphere, where experienced 'Mech pilots were sorely needed.
When he learned of House Steiner's negotiations with Hendrik, Duke Hassid Alexander Ricol, the notorious Red
Duke of the Draconis Combine, evolved his own devious counter plan. He would seize Trellwan from the Commonwealth, but
convince the planet's defenders that Hendrik III was their attacker. Then, to 'save' the Trells from Hendrik's raiders, the
Duke would send in a second assault force. By the time the Steiner forces returned--if they returned- Duke Ricol would be
firmly in control, and the planet's inhabitants would be loyal to him, their savior. Trellwan would become a dagger in the
Commonwealth's back, a staging area for launching attacks toward Drune II, Sylven, and, ultimately, toward the Steiner capital,
Tharkad itself.
Through his agents within the confederation of Bandit Kings ruled by Hendrik, the Red Duke managed to hire mercenaries
from Hendrik's own forces.
These 'Mech pilots participated in a sneak attack against Durant Carlyle's garrison on Trellwan. With the help of
a Trell traitor, the Red Duke's assault troops secretly landed an unarmed Dropship freighter at the spaceport, and then penetrated
the garrison command base. Carlyle himself was killed in the attack, and the base was captured. The garrison's survivors managed
an orderly withdrawal to their Dropship at the port and then escaped off world, leaving behind their 'Mechs and most of their
equipment.
One member of Carlyle's Commandos did not escape. Grayson, Death Carlyle-his grim middle name the legacy of an ancestor, the Victor of Lysander - was the
only son of Durant Carlyle. Though not yet a fully-rated'Mech Pilot, he had already been in training half his life for the
day he would inherit his father's Shadow Hawk and the command of Carlyle's Commandos.
Grayson showed great promise, but his instructors frequently complained about his lack of discipline.
Though he survived the attack on the base, Grayson Carlyle was marooned on Trellwan, with no way of getting off world. He managed to attract the attention
of Trellwan's rulers by using his special knowledge of, BattleMech tactics to organize the rather ineffectual local troops
in a successful defense of the heart of Trellwan's capital. By capturing several bandit 'Mechs -one by the rather startling
expedient of facing it down, unarmored, a man-portable inferno launcher he created the nucleus of Trellwan's own BattleMech
unit, the Trellwan Lancers.
Though continuously outnumbered and beset by infighting and treachery within the Trell bureaucracy and military commands,
Carlyle managed to bloody the enemy force on the planet, and to discover that the enemy was, in fact, not Hendrik of Oberon,
but the Draconis Combine. In the climactic Battle of Thunder Rift, Carlyle's men battered the Red Duke's forces so severely
that Duke Ricol chose to withdraw from Trellwan now that his presence on the planet was no longer a secret. Fortunately
for Carlyle, the Duke remained unaware that the Lancers' strength had been reduced in the fight to one relatively intact 'Mech
and 30 unwounded troops.
Carlyle decided to depart as well. He now had a ship, an aging freighter manned by Free Worlds traders who had fought
with him. Soured on Trellwan because of the political intrigue raging in its capital, Grayson also had hopes of tracking down
the survivors of the old Carlyle's Commandos. The Lancers, refitted, reorganized, and now named the Gray Death, left Trellwan
to seek employment as BattleMech mercenaries among the strife-ravaged worlds of the Inner Sphere.
