Outfoxed Review – Fox Patrol Grows Up And Gets A Villain

I’ve been worried about Fox Patrol for a while now. This lovable band of misfits had been trouncing throughout the Hinterlands, blowing up Hell’s Horses and pirate forces without a care in the world. Even their unit commander, Katie Ferraro, seems to magically survive every combat action in a ’Mech with practically no armor to speak of, all while firing her autocannon as little as possible. I love how low-stakes every Fox Patrol story feels, but at some point, this state of affairs strains credulity. At some point, their luck has to run out. 

And then what happens? How does Fox Patrol remain the lovable, carefree, Saturday morning cartoon series of the modern BattleTech era when Katie and the gang are finally confronted with real loss? 

We find out in Outfoxed, Fox Patrol’s first standalone novel. In many ways, this book is a tightrope act, balancing itself between the almost juvenile innocence of Fox Patrol’s past with the stark reality of being a mercenary unit in BattleTech: losses are inevitable. 

The good news, I believe, is that Outfoxed has succeeded in that difficult balancing act. It’s still action-packed, it’s still silly, and it’s still fun even as it deals with the dark reality of mercenary work. 

The story begins with Fox Patrol departing from the Lone Wolves mercenary co-op after a close call (recounted in Lone Wolf and Fox) that leaves Katie shaken. Unable to bear the possibility of losing her newfound family, she keeps Fox Patrol on Almotacen, contracting only for extremely-low-risk missions to keep the lights on, but still not enough to fully refill their ammunition bins. This is our first sign that Fox Patrol will still be the comic relief of BattleTech, as those low-stakes missions are literal ‘milk runs,’ protecting bovine excretions as they’re delivered across pirate-infested overland trails. 

Our second sign that Fox Patrol will remain the Saturday morning cartoon of BattleTech is its appropriately over-the-top villain. Leon Hansen is the perfect foil to Katie’s earnest enthusiasm. He’s a foppish noble from a famous family who believes his paid-for academy degree and inherited wealth make him superior to everyone around him. When a chance encounter dirties his cape (because, of course, he has a cape), Hansen vows vengeance over the perceived slight. 

Katie is the unwitting Bugs Bunny to Hansen’s Yosemite Sam, or as Young told me in a brief text exchange, “The petty Wayne Waco to Katie’s chibi Jaime Wolf.” The rest of the novel is Fox Patrol foiling Hansen’s Hawkeyes again and again, with Hansen’s Victor C suffering from Wile E. Coyote syndrome on multiple occasions (ie, falling from a great height). 

I should be clear, however, that just because Outfoxed shares many similarities with an animated television program, it still contends with the very adult themes of BattleTech earnestly and honestly. There are scenes of graphic violence, and a member of Fox Patrol is lost for good. It might seem ridiculous for a unit as small and inconsequential as Fox Patrol to hire a unit counsellor to deal with that loss, especially amongst the rough-and-tumble backdrop of every other storied mercenary unit in BattleTech, but I think it’s a raw, real way for someone like Katie to deal with that grief, trauma, and loss of innocence. This isn’t just a book to get kids into BattleTech. 

Just as Fox Patrol battles Hansen’s Hawkeyes, there are these two narrative extremes battling it out in Outfoxed. I asked author Bryan Young how he managed to interweave these extremes without giving the reader whiplash.

“For me, it came down to trying to distill what I thought the Fox Patrol is and what the BattleTech universe is and what the life of a mercenary is like. It takes an emotional toll on everyone who takes that life, and after everything that happened before, I knew I needed to have Katie deal with that,” Young said. “And part of that balance was Dexter as the other POV character. He is a grizzled veteran and knows what the [mercenary] life is about. So that helps that tightrope. 

“But this book felt like it needed to be a place where Katie makes a decision about the life she wants and how she protects her idealism and her family in the face of reality. Even in BattleTech, people can still laugh, and there can still be absurdity. Humans all work in similar ways, regardless of the scar tissue they build up over them or how hardened they think they become. And seeing Katie build some scars is heartbreaking, but necessary because this is BattleTech, not PeaceTech, as they say.”

Her innocence has been part of Fox Patrol’s appeal, but Katie’s character has always had an odd incongruence. She’s a gentle, almost pacifistic soul, but she’s deeply in love with these massive weapons of death and destruction—so much so that she embarks on a career where there is simply no avoiding death and destruction. She’s managed to avoid these realities so far, but Outfoxed is the start of Katie’s evolution into a veteran mercenary commander. I suspect her final form will take on the air of a WW1 fighter pilot, a chivalrous figure that attacks the machine, not the man inside, and fights to protect life wherever possible. 

Speaking with Young, I got the impression I was on the right track. “That’s why it was really important for me to have that scene with the Locust and the pilot there,” he told me. “So that she’s forced to see that there is a difference between the ’Mech and the person in it.”

Without getting too deep into spoiler territory, Fox Patrol survives, Hansen is vanquished, but both seem destined to meet again. Hansen has a deep family fortune to draw upon (although one wonders how much he can spend on repairs and replenishment before the rest of his family notices), and Fox Patrol still has at least one unpiloted ‘Mech they could use to grow their ranks in Arkee’s old Quickdraw. That’d bring them to a full demi-company. 

We also see the first hint that Katie may be considering an upgrade. As much as she loves Kagekitsune, she finally seems to learn the limits of a Kit Fox despite once again miraculously avoiding fire (I suspect she has a bit of that Morgan Kell-like untouchability). I doubt we’ll see Katie take the Quickdraw, given how that’s not really much of a firepower upgrade, but if she comes into money, perhaps we’ll see her consider something heavier. That’s the natural evolution of a merc, after all.

There’s also one unanswered question at the end of Outfoxed. Hansen may have been vanquished, but he had help getting Fox Patrol into the final climactic encounter. Did Katie get set up by a former ally? I suspect we’ll find out in the next installment of Fox Patrol. I’m looking forward to it.

Get Outfoxed on Catalyst’s online store or wherever good books are sold.

And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.