System: Cohagen

[3057] Filled with “black gold,” the Eckener Tanker Airships of the Esso-Xenon PetroChem Corporation were favorite targets of bandits on Cohagen. During the years between 3031 and 3051 alone, over 300 sorties were flown by the Red Skull Legion pirate band against the company’s airships. The band was located somewhere on Cohagen, as evidenced by the Legion’s dominant usage of conventional fighters. Though the planetary government hired several mercenary outfits to protect their Eckener convoys and root out the Red Skull, they were never successful. The attacks faded after 3057, with the company speculating that the pirate leader, Genghis “Khan” Tolson, had died during a particularly disastrous raid against the Pacifica.

Esso-Xenon had recently hired a new corporate security mercenary band — Blake Security Aviation — and Harris “Paladin” Blake had set out to trap the Legion with the explosives-laden Pacifica. When the majority of the Legion had drawn close, the Pacifica detonated, taking eight Mechbuster fighters to the ground with it—and, presumably, Khan Tolson. The Red Skulls never mounted another organized raid again, lending credence to Paladin Blake’s assertion that Tolson had been killed. Esso-Xenon was not magnanimous in victory, though. Until it sees Tolson’s body, the company is withholding the ten million D-bill bonus.

[3067] Units of the Islamabad CMM’s Second Battalion were engaging in field maneuvers — and a goodwill tour of sorts — along the rimward border of the Islamabad Combat region in the spring when their First and Third Companies found themselves in the middle of an apparent pirate raid on Cohagen. It was later learned that Colonel Teresa Daniels had in fact led a mixed battalion of her inexperienced Third Taurian Lancers on a “bloodying” mission, expecting to find only the planetary militia in place.

The battle for Cohagen between equally inexperienced forces out of their depths quickly devolved into a series of missteps and overreactions which would have been comic but for the extensive collateral damage to the civilian infrastructure. Daniels made an error that could have been tragic when she mistook a Hindi Ashram for a concealed military base and ordered a strike in force.

Neither Leftenant Patel nor any of her lance had ever been in combat, but nonetheless, with no backup available they took position astride the narrow valley leading to the commune. In two hours of furious fighting, they held the mixed company at bay until Daniels discovered her error and recalled them. Leftenant Patel accounted for two Plainsmen tanks, a Vindicator, and a Guillotine.

There are no functional factories located on this planet.