Trent (Clan Smoke Jaguar)

This article is about the Clan MechWarrior. For the planet, see Trent.

Trent

Trent (circa 3030 – 30??) was a member of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Among ComStar-ROM he is known as a traitor to his former Clan, having played a part in its destruction. For the Clans and the rest of the Inner Sphere, he is assumed dead.

Appearance

During the Battle of Tukayyid, Trent was heavily wounded. His right arm's muscles had to be upgraded with artificial myomer-muscles and its bones had to be strengthened with carbon-nanotubes, making this arm extremely strong. The right half of his face (including nose and lips) is covered with a pale artificial skin. A metal frame had to be installed in his right eye socket, to ensure mobility of his re-budded eye.

History

Sibko

Trent was born sometime around 3030 on Londerholm, a trueborn of the Howell bloodline and a member of the Grey Lynx sibko of Clan Smoke Jaguar. It was in his sibko that Trent first realized that something was not quite right in his world: Kitmaster Porcini demanded from Trent to explain to him what it means to be a Smoke Jaguar. Trent's answer was, that words would be flawed and he challenged Porcini to a duel, to give him the answer. Porcini agreed that this was the correct answer. Nevertheless, Trent would have no chance against Porcini, so he would fight his sibko-sister Jez. Trent defeated Jez in a circle of equals, defeating her with a swift chop to her throat. But before Trent could enjoy his victory, Porcini kicked his legs from beneath him, saying, that Trent knew what it was to be a Jaguar cadet, but not to be a Jaguar warrior. For the rest of his life, he would remember this day as that which set so much of his life in motion - his rivalry with jez, his disdain for Clan politics and intrigue, all of it could be traced back to this moment in the Mountains of Londerholm in his mihd.

Tukayyid

By 3052, Trent had risen to the rank of Star Captain. Before the Battle of Tukayyid, he talked with Star Colonel Benjamin Howell who assured him that he would nominate Trent to one of the Howell-Bloodnames that would surely be vacant after such a grand battle.

Star Captain Trent commanded Bravo Binary of the 267th Battle Cluster in Beta Galaxy. Trent, piloting a Timber Wolf, fought against the Com Guards in the swamps of the Racice Delta. A superior tactician and thinker, especially compared to most of his peers in the Smoke Jaguars, Trent correctly saw through the tactics the ComGuard were using to successfully grind down the Jaguars in the Delta. He tried several times to warn his Star Colonel as to what was unfolding, only to be cut off mid sentence every time, his superiors either unable or unwilling to admit to the grave danger of their situation and that the Jaguars were in retreat, no matter how much they called it 'reorganization'.

What was left of Trents Star, himself and his Starmate Roussou, were ordered to divert from the 'reorganization' and link up with Jez to pull her out, Trents old Nemesis stubbornly refusing to obay the orders to pull back that had come down from Galaxy command. Piloting a Warhawk, Jez stubbornly refused both her orders and their assistance in favour of skirmishing with ComGuard forces. At the cost of Schultz, the last remaining warrior from his Binary, Trent moved to support her before a pair of ComGuard Battlemechs could finish her off, engaging and defeating a Com Guards Crab, the pilot of which he claimed as isorla, greatly impressed with the pilots skill and courage. Moments later however, ComGuard reinforcements arrived on the scene, a full company of Battlemechs with massive artillery support. Finally obeying orders in the face of the massive counter attack, Jez withdrew her crippled Omnimech as Trent posed as a target to gain her valuable seconds to get out of of the trap. Promptly, the ComGuard forces turned their attention to his own Battlemech and in a hail of Arrow-IV and inferno missiles, his Mech was torn to pieces, his final conscious act reaching blindly for the eject lever through the inferno of his cockpit. He life was saved, partially by the actions of his new Bondsman, but he suffered grevous injuries from the flames of the Inferno missiles. His right arm and the right side of his face had been extensively burnt and his right eye had been damaged to the point of needing to be replaced with a cybernetic one. While Clan medical science could easily repair the cosmetic damage, such a waste of resources for the sake of vanity would in no way be tollerated by the warrior cast and Trent would have something of a nightmare apperence for the rest of his life.

The Star Captain awoke almost a month after the battle to discover that the Smoke Jagaurs had been soundly defeated by the ComGuard. But even worse for him personally, he learned that Jez had claimed that she had saved his life in the Delta, not the reverse. With both their Omnimechs lost in the fighting, no proof existed that his former Sibkin was lying. Compunding his situation, Trents old friend Star Colonel Benjamin Howell had bitterly spoken out against his Khan Lincoln Osis in the immediate aftermath of the fighting when all thought their leader was dead, declaring that they may have won if their 'former' Khan had not bid too low, supporting the elevation of the more flexible and inventive Brandom Howell to the post of Khan. And when their Khan was in fact found to be alive and returned to the leadership, the notoriously ruthless Osis marked the Star Colonel for one of his enemies and forced him to nominate not Trent for an open Howell bloodname as the Star Colonel had promised, but a Crusader Hero of Tukayyid. Confronted later by Jez who freely admitted her actions and lies, Trent castigated her for betraying her honor and everything a Clan Warrior stood for by her deception, only for Jez to sneer back at him that it was the Victors who wrote history, and to the Victors went the spoils.

Trent spent weeks in convalescence and training on the way back to the Smoke Jaguard occupation Zone while his isorla, Judith Faber, was assigned as his Bondsman and Tech. Upon arriving on Hyner, Trent sought out his final option for the Bloodname he so desired via the Grand Bloodname Melee. As per the standard rules of the Bloodname contest, any Unblooded warrior with a valid claim on the Bloodname not nominated for one of the open slots was free to enter the Melee, with the final survivor taking the last open slot in the contest. Judith managed to get his Omnimech operational with some unexpected help from Master Tech Philip, Jez's personal tech who had ill treated her from the moment of her arrival. With his new Battlemech at hand, Trent confidently entered the Trial, agreeing with his new Bondman when she compared the tactical environment to the freewheeling matches on Solaris in that Survival, not Destruction, was the key to victory - although he was not impressed by her comparision of the Clans trial with Inner Sphere entertainment.

Trent fought well in the battle, not rushing into the mad confusion at the core of the Circle of Equals but stalking the battle from its edge. He defeated first a Cauldron-Born followed by a Hankyu and then a Nova, but during the later confrontation, his Mechs Hip Actuator locked up and froze his Mech in place without warning or clear reason, having not taken direct hits to that area. Helplessly frozen in place, the last other remaining Mech - a Mad Dog mounting paired Gauss Rifles - approached him from the rear and in a final exchange of fire, punched through his rear armor and damaged his Reactor heavily enough to force an automated shutdown.

Trent, had failed.

At first furiously convinced that his Bondsman had incompetently put his Mech together or even sabotaged it outright, the two quickly discovered strong evidence that it had in fact been sabotaged by the Master Tech, Jez's personal tech, but sabotaged in a way that it would be impossible to prove. Scared and marked by the failure on Tukayyid, his Bloodname chances taken away from him by Jez, any hope Trent held of advancement from this point forward were all but gone forever.

Service in shame

Post Tukayyid, Trent -along with Jez- were reassigned to the 3rd Jaguar Cavaliers of Delta Galaxy under Star Colonel Paul Moon, an ruthless Elemental who had not fought on Tukayyid.

To say that the Star Colonel was unimpressed by Trent would be a gross understatement. The blame for the loss against ComStar was, in his mind, in no way down to inept leadership; Paul Moon placed the blame for the disaster entirely upon Warriors such as Trent who had failed to carry the day against untested Freebirth Warriors. An older warrior not far off from being declared Solahma, Trent had not even had the grace to die fighting like so many others, but had been -supposedly- badly injured leading a retreat and only saved by the noble actions of Star Captain Jez, who had indeed won her bloodname as Trent had been singularly unable to do. And if all that was not enough, Trent had taken a Freebirth ComGuard Mechwarrior as his Bondsman and now his personal tech.

Already deposed to dislike Trent, his dislike was only magnified when Trent reported to him for duty after his failed attempt at the Grand Melee, contradicting the offical story of Tukayyid with the claim that he had been the one to save Jez's life and that his Mech had been sabotaged in the Grand Melee. Without any proof to offer except for his "tainted" word, Star Colonel Moon dismissed his demands for re-trial of the Melee as both unprecedented and unwarented, his contempt for a warrior making excuses for his failings all too clear. Somewhat gleefully, he then pointed out that while Trent had been recuperating from his injuries, Jez had fought and won a Trial of Position for a Binary in the 3rd Cavaliers, meaning that Trent would now be forced to server under his nemesis, a Star Captain serving in the role of a Star Commander.

None the less, Trent strove to push past the series of hammering reversals and served as best he could. Two years later, in 3054, guerrillas began to harass the 3rd Jaguar Cavaliers, survivors from the original garrison of the Second Arkab Legion. They had only six 'Mechs, but with the help of the civilian population, they were able to hide and strike. Trent and his old sibkin Russou, his single true friend on the planet, barely escaped one attack from a Warhammer while dining in a restaurant thanks to Judith, getting out the back door moments before it leveled the building with its PPCs. Although far from concerned about Trent, such an attack on Smoke Jaguar warriors could not be tollerated and so Jez's binary was sent to hunt down and eliminate the enemy, who continued to evade the Smoke Jaguar patrols.

Fighting Bandits

Miraculously, only a day later, a Civilian came forward with information that the enemy was hiding out in a box canyon seventy five kilometers from the Jaguars Base. Jez promptly took personal command of two Stars including Trent and Russou to move in and crush them, but Trent, the superior tactician that he was agreed with suspecions voiced by Judith that this was probably a trap. Jez however was all but indifferent to the possibility and even went so far as to overrule several suggested battle Plans of Trents which would counter any likely ambush, instead ordering him to march directly into the likely kill zone - a box canyon with a single entrance, high walls and the mine shaft at its far end.

Trent and Russou did what they could to prepare in terms of organizing their formations and approach with caution and covering the walls, only again to be overruled by Jez who impatiently ordered them to charge into the Canyon. Obeying stoicly, the Combine resistance forces promptly sprung the ambush as the Clan Binary moved into position, sending boulders crashing down and heavily damaging Jez in her Warhawk and Mechwarrior Laurel in her Hellbringer. Several enemy Battlemechs then appeared on the Canyon Walls and pressed in from the entrance aggressively, cutting off their escape and leaving them in the open without cover. Jez promptly ordered the Mechwarriors to take cover in the mine at the head of the Canyon, but Trent, knowing full well that in an ambush one did not leave an open door to escape, overruled Jez, claiming she was incapacitaed from the heavy impacts of the rocks and unfit for command and led the Binary to victory, killing three of the five enemy Mechs and forcing the two survivors into a hasty retreat.

Both Paul Moon and Jez were furious with Trents insubordination. Trents retort that an examination of the mine shaft had found many drums of petrocycline hidden in the mineshaft that would have annihilated the entire Clan Force had they followed Jez's orders was dismissed as irrelevent and so a note of insubordination was made on his Codex. Trent at once demanded a Trial of Refusal that Jez was only too happy to accept, despite Moon's reminder to her that as a Bloodnamed Warrior, she was not required to accept the challange. Clearly implying that this fight for her would only end with his death, the two stepped into a Circle of Equals. The fight was short but vicious, Trent easily reading and anticipating her agressive moves and pummeling her to the ground with his Myomer enhanced strength, hitting her repeatedly to disfigure her face as a reminder, deciding that it would be worse for her than death at his hands.

Beaver Falls

In the aftermath of the ambush, Trent along with Jez and the Star Colonel watched as the informant who had brought the information to them was brutally and ruthlessly tortured for information, discomforting Trent with the way his superiors all but savored the pain inflicted on the Labourer. None the less the interogation was succesful, gaining the Jaguars information that the town of Beaver Falls was providing key support for the resistance. Rather than a strike and sweep mission against the probable area of the resistance however, Paul Moon ordered the entire town of Beaver Falls to be leveled as both punishment for their support, and a warning to the rest of the planet.

Trent was shaken by the order, for the first time questioning the Crusader philosophy he had always belived in. On the dawn of the mission to destroy the town, he attempted to reason with Jez that this action went against everything the Clans stood for, to the point of quoting Nicholas Kerensky and the Rememberence to her. Surprisingly Jez to some degree agreed with him, but she none the less was firm in insisting that they had their orders and would carry them out, and if he did not, she would give the Trinary the order to destroy him. With no other option Trent relayed the order to his own star, and the Trinary opened fire. Trent could not join in the act but neither could he stand along against the Clans, so he too moved in, directing his wraith against buildings already shattered and burning, imagining both Jez and Paul Moon under his guns as he fired as the Jaguars tore the town to pieces. Without warning, a family emerged from the flames and smoke to stop dead cold at the feet of Trent and his personal Star. Although a Trueborn, something inside Trents heart went out to the group caught in the middle of the nightmare and he opened his mouth to order his Star to hold fire - but he was too slow and one of his subordinate Mechwarriors gunned them down without the slightest compunction before he could give the order, an act that by Clan dictum was no different to him firing the killing shots. It would be this moment that Trent truely started to question the Smoke Jaguar Clan itself.

The destruction of Beaver Falls indeed had an effect; within days an entire Star of Mechwarriors were killed when a truck bomb was detonated outside their building while they were sleeping, wiping out ten percent of the Clusters Mechwarriors in a single attack. Support for the insurgents appeared to be growing, not falling off, and Paul Moon ordered the destruction of yet another town in attempt to drive the message home.

Trent however brought a different plan to Jez directly. Going through the pattern of attacks and historical records, Trent isolated the probable location of the Bandits staging ground as a Methane refinery destroyed in the 1st Succession war, which had underground pipes and areas large enough to hide their Battlemechs from air and orbital sweeps. Advising against charging into the swamps which was prime Ambush ground and no doubt rigged liberaly with boby traps, Trent suggested a plan to lure them out. They would leak information to the public that the Smoke Jaguars would be setting up a series of supply dumps to allow extended field operations against the so-called 'Kat Killers'. They would then leak that one of the supply convoys would be passing down a road close to the suspected staging area, and lay in wait.

Jez presented the plan to Paul Moon, entirely as her own. Moon commended the creativity of it and ordered her to assign Trent to lead it, although she could go along to oversee it, in the hope that the Bandits would finally rid him of Trent. Alas for Moon, Trents plan worked perfectly and the remaining Bandit Battlemechs were lured into the open to attack the supply convoy were promptly annihilated. Upon returning to the Command Center, Paul Moon congratulated Jez on "her" flawless plan and then announced that another town would die to make the point clear to the population that no resistance would be tollerated. Finally pushed to the limit, Trent challanged the Star Colonel to a Trial of Grevience over the violations of everything the Clans stood for with these reprisals against civilian targets. Paul Moon gladly took the opportunity to eliminate Trent, declaring that they would fight unaugmented and fight now. Quietly, Trent told the other that he would not kill Moon if he had the chance, to better make the Star Colonel suffer the shame of being defeated at this hands. Ironcly, this would save his own life as when the Elemental defeated him in the Circle of Equals, he in turn spared Trents life to make him suffer in the shame of his failure to stop the destruction, ordering Jez to destroy the town of Chinn.

The Downfall of Jez

Judith heard through the grapevine of the Tech cast what her Bondmaster had tried to do to save the people of Chinn. In acknowledgement of his courage and honor, she presented him with a great surprise; she had managed to find with some local detective work an intact Star League Castle Brian, one that Trent himself had been searching for without success for some time, telling Trent it was for them alone, as she did not want it corrupted by those who corrupted the way of the Clans. Inside, she revealed to Treht that before she had joined the ComGuards, she had been a member of ROM. Even now, on this planet, she could if Trent so wished activated certian networks and assets that would extract both of them from the Smoke Jaguars if he so wished. Trent was momentarily tempted by the offer, but decided that there was still a chance to prove that the Heart of the Jagaur was not black and so declined the offer.

Several months later, an Inner Sphere raiding party arrived in the form of a Battalion of Mercenaries in the employee of the Combine. Most of the officers of the Cluster were underwhelmed by the threat, but were mystified as to why such a small force was moving to attack a front line Cluster. Studing the data in the command center with the rest of the Clusters officers, Trent suddenly realized that they were not here to engage the Jaguars head on, but to resupply and reinforce the resistance movement he had just helped destroy, something the Combine did not know. He attempted to raise the information with Paul Moon, only to be mocked by both him and the majority of officers in the room. Swallowing his pride, he instead approached Jez who was more than happy to use his information to win the bidding to deal with these Mercenaries, warning Trent that he would pay greatly if he was wrong.

Trents assumptions were correct and he was able to correctly predict the LZ for the incoming troops, who suddenly found themselves surounded and under fire as soon as they dropped. Jez however had bid far too low and her two Binaries were insufficent to contain the enemy forces, who broke out and escaped, albeit with heavy damage. Jez in turn castigated Trent and blamed him for her bidding far too low, responding to Trents enraged indignation by telling him that true Smoke Jaguar warriors understood the cutthroat politics of the Clan and the tactics used therein. Gleefully she informed him that he would again be her scapegoat for her failures, and then for the first time, he found out that it was she who had gotten his Bloodname nomination from Benjamin Howell, and openly admitted to sabotaging his Battlemech in the Grand Melee. Even worse for Trent, Jez comfirmed that the brutal measures used against the Civilians on Hyner were both expected and endorsed by their Clans leadership from the Khans on down, proving unequivocally to Trent that the Smoke Jaguars had turned against all that Nicholas Kernesky had tried to create with the Clans.

Alone in the swamp with no witnesses and Jez's revelations in his ears, Trent reached a quick and easy decision. Turning his Mech to face hers, he challanged her to a Circle of Equals then and there. Jez scoffed him, stating that they were not equals and never would be; for she was a Bloodnamed Warrior who did not have to accept his "puny calls for justice".

Trent agreed that they were not Equals ... and discharged all his Timber Wolfs lasers directly into her cockpit at point blank range, killing her instantly. Switching to a different frequency, he had Judith attend him and carefully rewrite Trents Battle Rom recordings to make it appear that Jez had been killed by one of the Merc Battlemechs, the deception going undiscovered and clearly leaving Paul Moon at a loss of what to do, with Trent now the ranking Trinary officer and his favoured subordinate now a pile of ash. Stalling for time, he ordered the unit taken offline until replacement warriors and machines arrived, declaring that Jez had been the hero who had turned the tide of the battle.

Betrayal by his Clan

Trent hoped that he would now get the command of the Binary, but Paul Moon pulled it off-duty, with the excuse of the heavy losses. Again, Trent's spirit was crushed. He realized that Clan Smoke Jaguar was corrupted and rotten to the core. Judith decided to tell him who she really was and offered him a deal. She was a ROM-agent and offered him the possibility to leave Clan Smoke Jaguar and join ComStar. But he would have to pay for it with information. Judith wanted the path to the Clan Homeworlds. Trent declined. There is no unitary map of the whole route. He would have to travel to the Homeworlds and back to write the map himself. So, Trent and Judith devised a plan. He would find a way to travel from the Homeworlds back to the Inner Sphere. Judith would record the stars as they traveled.

With rumors, Judith tricked Paul Moon into assigning Trent as honor-guard to Jez' giftake. He would have the duty to personally deliver it to the genetic chamber of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Once on Huntress, Trent would surely end up as solahma.

To the Homeworlds and back

During the travel to Huntress, Trent made friends with Star Commander Allen. Judith made records of how far the ship had jumped and what type of star it had reached. On Pivot Prime, Trent and several solahmas reconquered a Smoke Jaguar HPG-station with isorla 'Mechs and aid from Star Commander Allens' Elementals.

They reached Huntress in February 3056. Trent met with his old friend Benjamin Howell, who was now Galaxy Commander and head of all forces on Huntress. However, the garrison forces on Huntress were incredibly under-equipped and Khan Lincoln Osis didn't care. All supplies and new 'Mechs were shipped to the units in the Inner Sphere, so Benjamin Howell used illegal means to get access to any military supplies, such as isorla 'Mechs. Trent offered him help. Benjamin Howell would send him back to the Inner Sphere, among the fresh troops, and Trent would use his influence and position to arrange a flow of weapons back to Huntress.

Trent, now piloting a Cauldron-Born, arrived on Hyner in March of 3058 with a Trinary of green troops. Paul Moon had no choice and gave him command of the new Trinary.

'Death'

In April of 3058, Galaxy Commander Hang Mehta of Delta Galaxy ordered an attack on the Kurita world Maldonado. Paul Moon won the bidding with Trent's Trinary, a Supernova and another Trinary would attack the headquarter of the Draconian forces on Maldonado. Judith smuggled a message of this off Hyner to ComStar.

While the troops were on their way to Maldonado, Paul Moon received a message of Hang Metha. Benjamin Howell had been arrested and he had confessed that Trent was one of his aides. Paul Moon received orders to do everything he can to arrest Trent.

Paul Moon had given Trent the wrong map of Maldonado, so his forces were unable to rejoin with the rest of the deployed troops. Nevertheless, Trent received orders to commence with his mission. Judith's message had alerted ComStar and the 308th Com Guard Division had been sent to Maldonado to arrange the extraction of Trent from the rest of his troops.

During the battle, Trent's troops were surrounded and outnumbered by Draconian forces. He was just about to flee behind their lines when Paul Moon showed up with a Star of Elementals. He ordered the arrest of Trent. Chaos erupted when the Elementals attacked Trent and the Com Guards arrived. Trent activated the self-destruction of his Mech and ejected from it. The Smoke Jaguars fled from Maldonado, believing Trent was dead, but he was rescued by the Com Guards.

Screaming for vengeance

Trent was sent to Tharkad to meet Precentor Martial Anastasius Focht. He exchanged the information about Clan Smoke Jaguar for a position within the Com Guards. Anastasius Focht agreed and assigned Trent as his bodyguard.

Trent was among the multi-national forces that were sent to Huntress to aid Operation Serpent. Trent took no part during the final battles on Huntress and set foot on the planet after the Smoke Jaguars were defeated.

He accompanied the Inner Sphere forces that journeyed to Strana Mechty where a final Trial of Refusal was arranged. When Trent overheard that he would not be given a chance to fight his former Clan, he was outraged. He angrily confronted Victor Steiner-Davion and Anastasius Focht about their sudden betrayal, demanding that he only be given what was promised to him: a chance to fight for the Inner Sphere against the Clans. When it became obvious that Victor did not intend to honor Focht's agreement with Trent, Trent attacked Victor. Before any blows could be traded, Khan Severen Leroux knocked Trent to the ground and declared him a bondsman and abtakha of Clan Nova Cat. Severen Leroux then invited Trent to join his forces to fight against the forces of Clan Ice Hellion in this trial, which he accepted.

Unknown fate

Trent was a member of the Binary that fought against the Ice Hellions. It was a narrow victory for the Nova Cats. Trent's fate is unknown as he disappeared after the battle. However, Khan Leroux says that warriors will only know release when they die and that Trent will have that release. It can be assumed that Trent dies in battle against the Ice Hellions.

Bibliography

• Exodus Road (Novel)
• Prince of Havoc (Novel)