Malavai Fletcher

Malavai Fletcher led Clan Hell’s Horses during the dark days of Operation REVIVAL as their Clan was completely cut out of the Invasion. Generally regarded as mentally unstable, Fletcher supported the new ilKhan in a bid to gain access to the Inner Sphere and potential conquest but was rebuffed as focus was put on rebuilding and expanding the Clan’s general touman. While he joined in various fights in the Inner Sphere, Fletcher’s insanity finally forced the Hell’s Horses leadership to take action and remove him from office permanently.

Early Life

Malavai was born to a high-end Fletcher-Osis sibko on Kirin mixing Smoke Jaguar material and Hell’s Horses material to get the best possible Elementals. The sibko was extremely aggressive and multiple cadets washed out due to “unforeseen mental health issues”, including murders within the creche which were kept unreported to the leadership. Malavai dominated the creche in size and strength and became a natural leader of the other cadets.

In his teenage years, Malavai remained a leader but was known to “eliminate” lower cadets through brutal hazing rituals. By the time of his Trial of Position, Malavai scared even their instructors and handlers. In the fight, Malavai easily dispatched three opponents before declaring a melee by killing his fellow cadet, followed by an extra kill. The officers in charge of the Trial debated what to do with Malavai and the Khan decided to award Malavai a position as Star Colonel in his own Galaxy.

Military Career

A Hard Place

Having immediately to take charge of Cluster, Malavai Hell’s Horses was expected to fail and settle at a lower level in the ranks, but he kept pushing his troops to excel and relied on his Star Captains to provide executive level decisions and commands. This made him incredibly popular within Alpha Galaxy, even though some people complained that he reacted poorly to criticism.

Clan Hell’s Horses was fighting a protracted war of possession against Clan Ghost Bear at the time and Malavai was bid early during a fight on a barely mapped rock over a deposit of precious metals. During the fight, he proved beyond the shadow of a doubt he could effectively lead a force, even though some looked at the results and wondered if damage done to the Bear’s lower caste was necessary. This allowed Malavai to be granted a chance to fight in a Trial of Bloodright, which he failed at due to being stuck fighting an AeroSpace fighter pilot in augmented combat. Not to be dissuaded, the next year another Malavai bloodname opened up due to an accident (which might have been orchestrated by Malavai, but nothing could be proven) and Malavai finally won his Bloodname.

An Injured Khan

Malavai Fletcher’s next action was expected by most, as he challenged the saKhan for his position, which Khan Lair Seidman approved of. The fight between the two Elementals ended in close quarters as Fletcher ripped apart his opponent’s Battle Armor with his armored glove. This made Malavai Fletcher one of the youngest saKhan in the Clan’s history, and even amongst all the Clans.

Things took a turn in 3045 when Clan Ghost Bear challenged Clan Hell’s Horses for Industriplex Alpha on Niles. The massive forces bid by the Ghost Bear required the Khan and saKhan to both deploy their Galaxies to the front, attempting to stop the rampaging Bears. During the battle, Khan Seidman was killed when his Executioner was bogged down in a swamp and destroyed by a flight of aerospace fighters. Malavai Fletcher took command of the Hell’s Horses and kept their forces fighting, finding the base from which the aerospace fighter had taken off and investing it with a massive group of Battle Armors, slaughtering everyone they found.

This escalated the fight to the next level, as the Bears were not ready to be insulted this way. Over the next week, Bear commandos hunted down Horses’s Battle Armors, killing as many as they could. Fletcher himself was grievously injured during these operations, but he still managed to command his units to finally win the Trial and eject the Ghost Bears from Niles.

To survive his injuries, Malavai Fletcher required multiple cybernetic implants, including a replacement lung, jaw and left leg. Clan scientists believed they would later replace those with lab grown replacements, but Fletcher always refused them and even added other implants later on, including Enhanced Imaging.

Placement Failures

During the Inbound Light affair, Malavai Fletcher’s Crusader inclinations were more apparent as he support Leo Showers election as ilKhan. While he was quite confident in his Clan’s capabilities, Khan Fletcher was faced with an unpredictable issue as he was placed against two of their ancient enemies, with the first round facing the Ghost Bears and the second round against the Diamond Sharks.

The Ghost Bears had not forgotten the loss at Industrialplex Alpha and were happy to simply destroy as many Hell’s Horses troops as they could, completing their objectives being secondary. On the flip side, Angus Labov of Clan Diamond Shark led his troop to simply complete the objectives, avoiding any Hell’s Horses troop concentration.

With both those losses, Fletcher’s Clan did not qualify at all for Operation REVIVAL, which made him quite angry. For most of 3049 and 3050, Clan Hell’s Horses “hunted down” Dark Caste warriors in surrounding star systems and clashed with some of the other “loser Clans”, especially the Ice Hellion and Burrocks.

Supporting the New Order

Having not participated at all in Operation REVIVAL, Clan Hell’s Horses and Malavai Fletcher avoided the dishonor of the fight at Tukayyid. Fletcher was one of the Khan which requested Ulric Kerensky be recalled from the front to explain his actions and stripped of his position as ilKhan. He was therefore not approached by Ulric on the trip back to form an alliance to oppose the Crusader Clans and their likely appointment of a new Crusader ilKhan.

On the other hand, Lynn McKenna came to Malavai Fletcher after her meeting with Sullivan Koga and Din Steiner to secure additional support for her plan. Appealing to Fletcher’s militaristic nature, McKenna did point out that the Clans under her leadership would have more access to invade the Inner Sphere. Khan Fletcher did reach out to Elias Crichell of the Jade Falcon to see what his plan was for the future, but he never received a response until the various Clans assembled for the election.

During the electoral debate, Malavai and the Hell’s Horses heavily opposed Clan Smoke Jaguar’s claim to the position of ilKhan. Malavai Fletcher damaged Lincoln Osis’s claim the most by simply pointing out the disastrous Battle of Luthien. He was quite ready to fight the Ghost Bear’s claim, but when Bjorn Jorgensson dropped himself from contention early on, he turned into looking at the Jade Falcon claim. The Hell’s Horses firm votes behind the Snow Raven’s Lynn McKenna was an anchor for the political movement she was leading.

Surprise Attack

As soon as Lynn McKenna was elected to her position as ilKhan, Malavai Fletcher’s first major scheme came into effect, with two Galaxies of Hell’s Horses warriors jumping into the Lyran Commonwealth controlled worlds of Barcelona, Newtown Square and Mogyorod. Having not waited for any orders or any confirmation, Fletcher had taken his discussions with Lynn McKenna as allowing him to act in the Inner Sphere immediately, if it was above the Tukayyid Truce line. This was contested immediately by the other Clans and proved to be one of ilKhan McKenna’s first political fight.

One thing Malavai Fletcher had not expected was just how much resistance the Federated Commonwealth would put up against his trust. Barcelona had been reclaimed recently by Adam Steiner, Newtown Square was defended by an entire Avalon Hussar RCT and two elite mercenary regiments defended Mogyorod. As a surprise attack, the Hell’s Horses trust into the Federated Commonwealth was poorly supplied and organized, quite like early Clan invasions. This allowed Adam Steiner to reorganize the local troops and push back the Hell’s Horses, who ended up retreating to Vulture’s Nest, which became a supply depot for the Clans in the region.

Fletcher’s actions angered Lynn McKenna, especially when the failure of the push became apparent. Early forms of the McKenna Edicts came out in response to the Hell’s Horses actions, trying to make sure that the other Clans would not take unilateral action without consultation. To not let this be a complete failure, ilKhan McKenna tasked Clan Burrock and Ice Hellion to capture the three worlds attacked by the Hell’s Horses. Fletcher objected, saying his troops would be able to do the job next time, but he was rebuffed when Asa Taney reported the capture of Barcelona after forcing the retreat of Adam Steiner.

Operation ISLANDHOPPERS

Clan Hell’s Horses worked to restore their image from that point on, following the McKenna Edicts as best they could and giving their expertise in conventional armor development to the other Clans. The introduction of conversion kits for old Star League Royal machines, including some into more flexible OmniVehicles was popular and helped keep the Clan from being challenged by the others.

When Clan Diamond Shark declared that they had taken the Chaine Cluster as their homeworld, there was grumbling amongst Clan leadership as this allowed Ian Hawker to “cheat the system” by having a group of worlds as his capital. In response, Lynn McKenna ordered Clan Diamond Shark to assist the Ice Hellion and Hell’s Horses in pacifying the entire Chainelane Isles region. This was an opportunity for Malavai Fletcher to improve on his image, and at first things went as well as expected.

The Chainelane Defense Force was no match for the combined force of 3 Clan touman, even though none of the three Clan’s involved deployed most of their forces there. Malavai commanded the Hell’s Horses forces directly and quickly took Idrmach. Things got dicier during the fighting on Ingvolstand, as the local Belter community refused to surrender. Malavai Fletcher responded by sending large numbers of elementals to invest the asteroid habitats and “control the situation”. 15 000 civilian ended up dead.

In response to the massacre, the Belters used a kinetic kill weapon built out of an asteroid to ram into one of the Hell’s Horses command ship, seriously damaging it. Even with a restriction on orbital bombardment, Malavai Fletcher reasoned that destroying orbital habitats was not technically an orbital bombardment as they were already in orbit. Barbara Sennet stopped the destruction of the orbital habitats by placing her own command ship in the way of Malavai’s ship’s main guns, but by that time, another 120 000 civilians had been killed and 6 habitats had been completely destroyed. Malavai was recalled to the Homeworlds while saKhan James Cobb was given control over the Hell’s Horses forces in the Chainelane Isles.

Removal from Office

The atrocities committed by Malavai Fletcher during Operation ISLANDHOPPERS and the occupration of the Chainelane Island reached the ears of ilKhan Lynn McKenna. She requested to meet with Fletcher and his leadership staff in early 3062, which Fletcher refused as he reinforced his command post on Kirin. Clan Ghost Bear was happy to provide support for an expeditionary task force towards the Hell’s Horse capital, but once they reached it, they learned that Fletcher had been killed by the new Khan, James Cobb. While officially it was classified as a Trial of Refusal, the whole “fight” was not recorded and no warrior could say that they were part of the Circle of Equals between the two men.

The new status quo satisfied all those involved, and people even overlooked the stab between the ribs in the back of Fletcher. Malavai Fletcher’s genetic legacy was kept, but is not planned to be used in any way.

Personal Life

Malavai Fletcher’s massive number of cyber-implants had originally been a necessity, but over time they could have been replaced with lab-grown replacements, which he never accepted. His mental instability was often attributed to the cyberware, but many who knew him before did point out he never was the most stable to begin with. Fletcher “bypassed” multiple Trials of Grievance and Refusal over the years by simply beating the would-be challenger to death before the actual batchall could be issued.

Politically, Malavai Fletcher mostly sided with the Crusaders, but many believed this was simply as a mean to satisfy his bloodlust. He never purged Wardens from positions of power like Ian Hawker of the Diamond Shark had done and even promoted known Wardens if it benefited him. He was known to have disdain for the “weaker” Warden Clans like the Coyotes and Cloud Cobras, but also did not elevate the Jade Falcons or Smoke Jaguars about the rest.

Malavai was known to relax by listeninig to “digital renditions” of old Terran songs. The more mechanical and digital it was, the more he enjoyed it, leading many to excuse themselves from the unbearable sounds.

Malavai Fletcher’s Battle Armor

As no other Battle Armors existed at the time, Malavai Fletcher started his career using an Elemental Battle Armor. He was one of the first warrior to use the Gnome Battle Armor after its introduction. He also Trialed to gain the Corona Battle Armor from Clan Star Adder in 3061 to test it for his Clan. He believed the other Second-Generation Battle Armors to be beneath him, but he still sought to acquire them for his Clan.