Black Kevin escaped in a bloody battle involving civilian hostages chained to the pirate 'Mechs, and returned to kill Ravannion. In 3080 pirate king Ravannion tried to sell him out by luring him on a mission deep into the Federated Suns that was in reality a trap set by Sergeant Grange. He and his 'Mech instilled fear in his fellow pirates. On Tortuga Prime, Kevin Langstrom would become known as Black Kevin. Langstrom accepted their offer, then casually killed their leader by destroying the cockpit of his Phoenix Hawk with a PPC blast and declared himself their new leader. They offered Langstrom to join them in the Tortuga Fusiliers, or face the prospect of being court-martialed and presumably executed for attacking Grange. At that point a pirate group, Grady's Grinders, arrived on the scene with six 'Mechs. When confronted by Grange who demanded he give up the Marauder, Langstrom attacked and destroyed Grange's Enforcer. During the following battle Langstrom fell into a killing frenzy, refusing to withdraw when ordered and effectively razing the town while battling Taurians. Before the murder could be uncovered, a raid by Taurian Concordat forces sent the unit scrambling to defend the town of Cobalt. In the following year he slew a fellow MechWarrior who taunted him in a fit of rage and hid the body in the Black Marauder's leg casing (which curiously seemed to cure a malfunction in the actuators on the sidelines that had been impossible to pin down and fix beforehand). ![]() The ambitious Kevin Langstrom, something of an outsider in the unit, was not afraid of the 'Mech at all, and instead regarded it as a golden opportunity. Mullins passed away without breaking his vow, but old Sergeant Grange would lead MechWarrior Langstrom to the hiding place thirty-five years later because he felt that the Jihad that was unfolding was a different kind of war, one that needed the Black Marauder to participate. Grange and one Jim Mullins subsequently stowed it away in the bunker on Warren after the War of 3039, vowing never to reveal its location. The unit's colonel finally picked it for himself and put it out on maneuvers, only to return two hours later than expected, pale and tired, and ordered the 'Mech be put away for good. After a tech died from an accidental (and technically impossible) weapons discharge and a MechWarrior later vanished under mysterious and frightening circumstances while piloting the 'Mech, the Black Marauder was seen as cursed, and nobody wanted to pilot it. One particularly sensitive man suffered a jump psychosis out of the blue and committed suicide by spacing himself. Their next jump to Agliana saw the crew emerge scared and fearful, with no recollection why or what happened in the split-second jump. In December 3073, aging Sergeant Grange led militia MechWarrior Kevin Langstrom to a hidden bunker in the Padishan Flats desert on Warren where the Black Marauder was stored, and told him its backstory:Īccording to Sergeant Grange, the Ninth FedCom RCT had originally found the 'Mech by chance shortly after the Fourth Succession War, sitting on an airless asteroid in an uninhabited system one jump from Malagrotta where the unit recharged their jump drive. In some instances the 'Mech was-always inconclusively-described to move in ways that are impossible for a Marauder (or any 'Mech), including one tale where it was said to have turned its "head" by bending its long snout just forward of the arm joints and revealed a maw with rows of serrated teeth. ![]() Its presence seems to grow larger when sight is obscured by darkness, fog or smoke, incidentally circumstances in which it seems to perform markedly better. It has no serial number and no other factory markings whatsoever. The Black Marauder resembles an MAD-3R Marauder with flat black paint, although its shape supposedly looks somehow "wrong" and its "proportions not quite right", too sleek yet of terribly imposing bulk and with too-smooth angles.
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