TEXT: BATTLECORPS
  GREAT GAFFA’S 
  GHOST
  by Blaine Lee Pardoe
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 2
  Author’s Introduction:
  In Highlander Gambit and Impetus of War (and several other ref-
  erence books) characters I created have used the curse, “Gaffa’s 
  Ghost!” or “Great Gaffa’s Ghost!” It seemed to sound sci-fi-ish 
  and rang true as a good exclamation. 
  A reader contacted me and asked once what it meant, if any-
  thing. He assumed of course that I was referencing a real historical 
  curse or phrase. I tend to do this in BattleTech and MechWarrior, 
  tie in to historical people and events. The truth of the matter was 
  that I thought this out many years earlier but there was never a 
  good way to present the material until BattleCorps came into be-
  ing. Some of the text of this was notes I made almost fifteen years 
  ago (shudder) and was stored in one of my BattleTech binders. 
  As writers we sometimes overthink things, and this little phrase 
  was one of those. Originally it was going to be General Gaffa 
  Pardoe as the source (as evidenced in the obscure reference in 
  the original Tech Reference for the Star League). That was back in 
  the day when my ego had the better of me. I thought that this ver-
  sion was a little more palatable for the contemporary BattleTech 
  reader. 
  I recently began doing non-fiction (military history) writing (for 
  the upcoming book The Cruise of the Sea Eagle, April 2005) and I 
  was going to do this as the reference article after the short story 
  only. After reading it I figured that people would want (and de-
  serve) a little excitement to go with it. My intent with this was to 
  give readers a wonderful little cross-section of where this phrase 
  comes from, as well as give them something new to watch for 
  when all seems lost on the battlefield. 
  Blaine “Buck” Pardoe
  
  BATTLECORPS
  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 3
  Outskirts of Sanyo City 
  The Brushlands of the Jersey Flats 
  Caph, The Chaos March 
  20 July 3058
  “Skipper,” 
  came 
  the 
  low and slow drawl of 
  Sergeant Shears over the 
  commlink in his neuro-
  helmet. “You sure we’re 
  in the right place? This 
  place is deader than a 
  possum on a dirt road.”
  Lieutenant 
  David 
  Longstreet 
  shook 
  his 
  head slightly and felt his 
  mouth 
  clench. 
  Shears 
  was always asking that 
  kind of question. How did 
  a guy like that end up in 
  Lindon’s Battalion any-
  way? He knew the answer 
  to that rhetorical ques-
  tion. Despite his verbal 
  slowness, Shears was a 
  calm and collected field 
  commander and was a deadly accurate shot. He just wished he’d 
  stop calling him, “Skipper.” It had too much of a naval ring to it. 
  Everyone else in the lance called him by his rank…as it should be. 
  “Shears, this is the vicinity where Bravo Lance picked up the sig-
  nals. We’ll form up here and hold for now,” Longstreet replied. 
  Lindon’s Battalion had been under contract on Caph to protect 
  the city of Cimmeron from the various warring factions. The 
  Chaos March was a cauldron of unrest with petty little warlords or 
  puppets of various governments attempting to leverage the pan-
  demonium to seize power on their own. 
  Despite the press releases to the contrary, there were forces 
  on Caph that were there to stir up trouble. When these mysteri-
  ous raiders appeared, the local government would press Lindon’s 
  Battalion into action. If it was possible or practical, they would 
  also ask for assistance from ComStar’s garrison. While no one 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 4
  side claimed to be behind some of raiding operations, nor were 
  they very large, the reality was that they happened and potential 
  threats had to be dealt with. 
  Bravo Lance had been on patrol earlier in the day in this area and 
  had picked up large object motion on the perimeter of their patrol. 
  Large object motion was the techie way of saying, “BattleMechs.” 
  The Jersey Flats was really an area of scrub brush, small dry trees, 
  clumps of tall grasses surrounded by light tan dust and an occa-
  sional rock—hardly an area where a chance encounter would be 
  expected. Bravo Lance attempted to confirm their signals but their 
  targets disappeared into the Flats. The intel people had poured 
  over the reports back at HQ in Cimmeron and had said that they 
  read as ComStar Com Guard ’Mechs. That would normally be 
  anticipated since the Com Guard and the Combine had peace-
  keeping troops on Caph. A cursory check by the battalion’s intel 
  officer had shown that the Com Guards were nowhere near these 
  coordinates. Further checks of the signals showed some subtle 
  differences in the IFF transponder readings that were not quite 
  Com Guard readings. 
  Coincidence? Mistake? Not very damn likely. 
  Longstreet’s Alpha Lance had been sent out to see if they could 
  track the possible threats. The troops back at base had been laying 
  down bets. The odds were that Bravo Lance had gotten the sig-
  nals wrong and had confused farm equipment for ’Mechs. David 
  knew better. Rebecca Yost commanded Bravo Lance. Despite the 
  verbal abuse everyone was giving her, she was damn good. He 
  had put down money that it was Word of Blake. The other offi-
  cers and troops had scoffed at this, despite the fact that there had 
  been rumors of the Word being on Caph for weeks. Rumors, yes; 
  evidence, no. Still, David Longstreet had a hunch in the pit of his 
  stomach. This was for real. 
  He applied additional pressure to his right foot pedal, swinging 
  his Lineholder to the right in a smooth arc. Checking his second-
  ary display, he saw nothing. That’s odd. He should be able to pick 
  up his own lance out there. He adjusted the resolution and sensor 
  gain, resetting the range. 
  Nothing. 
  Longstreet bit his lower lip. It was a nasty habit. If his mother 
  were still alive, she’d have scolded him. Either they weren’t out 
  there, which was trouble, or someone was preventing him from 
  seeing them, which was also trouble. Neither solution was reas-
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 5
  suring to him. He reached up and switched his comm channel 
  control to the command frequency. “This is Alpha Leader to Alpha 
  Lance. Hold your positions and signal in for comm check,” he said 
  as calmly as he could into the mic in his neurohelmet. He listened 
  intensely. Nothing came back. “Shears, Foster, Logan, respond.” 
  Again nothing came back. 
  Crudstunk.
  Even if they were out of sensor range, they should easily pick up 
  his communications signal. Pausing for a moment, he considered 
  his options. He knew where they were supposed to be, fanned out 
  over a five kilometer area to his rear. His Lineholder was point in 
  the sweep of the area. 
  I need to cover ground and cover it quickly. Without jump jets the 
  options were limited. Turning slowly, he aimed his Lineholder to 
  the east and braced himself in his command console. Then, jam-
  ming the throttle control forward, he broke into an all-out run. 
  There were a lot of misconceptions about BattleMechs and run-
  ning. Yes, they could do it, they were built for it, but it was a strain 
  on the hardware and the MechWarrior. On holovids it looked cool, 
  ’Mechs running, skidding, even sliding like in a baseball game. It 
  made the public think it was all easy. The truth was that moving 
  all-out was going to press the Lineholder up to 80 kph. At that 
  speed it would be trickier to keep balance, firing was difficult, and 
  maneuvers tended to be wide gentle arcs rather than tight turns. 
  Even a small rock, which would be inconsequential at a walking 
  pace, was dangerous to a running BattleMech. It put a pilot’s skills 
  to the test. 
  Especially in this Lineholder. It had taken damage two years 
  earlier and was now prone to malfunctions in the hip and leg actu-
  ators. The maintenance team blamed stress wear in the actuators 
  and he was advised to keep the running to a minimum until they 
  could find the time to take the ’Mech off-line for a complete over-
  haul. With the recent increase in patrols to track down the raiders, 
  that overhaul had become a line item on a maintenance sheet that 
  was long overdue. 
  The Lineholder’s cockpit temperature rose with each reassuring 
  thump of the feet on the ground. He squinted after a moment or two, 
  only allowing his eyes to dance down to the tactical sensor display 
  for a millisecond at a time as he fought to keep the fifty five tons of 
  running ’Mech upright. He spotted the signal in much closer than 
  he expected at first. A flicker. Then it disappeared again. Off to his 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 6
  right. He angled the targeting joystick, activating his waist actuator 
  in the process, and scanned the horizon for signs of anything. 
  There! Smoke. Not much, a whiff of gray/white smoke rising 
  slightly over the sagebrush. He slowed down the Lineholder a 
  little bit and glanced again at the tactical sensors. The readout 
  flickered. A green image and several red. They were faint, almost 
  fading, then came in clear, clear and close. 
  “Shears, sit rep!” he called out as the transponder signal told 
  him which of his men it was. The red dots began to move—they 
  had picked him up as well. They weren’t fleeing, but two of them 
  were moving off to his flanks. 
  “Skipper, I’ve got me a world of hurt here,” came back a breathy, 
  almost winded voice. “You’ve got a pair of Raijins and two Nexus 
  out here. No markings. I’ve hit one of the Raijins hard, but they 
  took out my right leg. I am down.” 
  “Rest of the lance?” 
  “Ain’t heard squat from them, Skipper,” he said. “Watch your 
  fanny. These yankees seem to know their shit.” His drawl always 
  seemed thicker the more dangerous the situation. 
  Longstreet slowed to a walking gait and watched his flank. He 
  could make out the fallen and smoking remains of Shears’ Enfield, 
  the right arm of which was laying some distance away, savaged off 
  at the elbow actuator. The myomer strands lay on the ground like 
  torn muscle tissue. No markings but the ’Mechs in question were 
  ComStar models. Looks like I win the pot—it’s got to be that damn 
  Word of Blake. The Nexus were both moving to his right and left 
  while the Raijin seemed to be between him and the fallen Sergeant. 
  Four to one—great odds. He felt his jaw tighten. Someone else 
  might run, but he was a member of Lindon’s Battalion so running 
  was a non-viable option. The unit had a reputation to fulfill. That, 
  and he couldn’t leave one of his men behind. So it was time to 
  party.
  He juked to the right. Better to seize the initiative than react to 
  the superior force. A Nexus emerged from the scrub-brush. It was 
  a skinny ’Mech, light, half his own mass, and was built more for 
  speed than long term engagements. On its own, it wasn’t a threat. 
  He knew what game it was going to play. It would hold his atten-
  tion and hang in the fight long enough to allow its compatriots to 
  close on Longstreet. They would hit his rear and flank—just like 
  they’d most likely done with Shears. 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 7
  Not this time.
  He jabbed the throttle full-forward again into a run. He had no 
  intention of firing. He was going to plow right into the Nexus. 
  For a moment the Nexus stood, seemingly stunned. The ene-
  my MechWarrior raised his arms, which were nothing more than 
  stubby barrels for their Blankenburg medium pulse lasers. The 
  air between them lit up with crimson spray as both lasers fired. 
  One of the shots went so wide that it almost made him snicker as 
  he bore in on the Nexus. The other shot sprayed a series of burn 
  marks on the armor plating of his right torso, ugly little glowing 
  hot holes. 
  Lieutenant Longstreet had no time to think about that. Only a 
  few meters from the Nexus in a full running charge, he saw the 
  jump jets flare on the ’Mech. Oh no you don’t… He plowed into the 
  Nexus as it rose to less than a meter off the ground. The impact 
  was incredible. The Lineholder seemed to moan as the internal 
  structure strained under the grinding hit. The Nexus, partially 
  off the ground, got tossed back like a marionette that had lost its 
  strings. Longstreet felt his ’Mech lurch and the heat spike again as 
  he regained his footing. The impact had damaged him too, man-
  gling his center torso with the veiled imprint of the skinny Nexus. 
  The enemy ’Mech lay on its side, the underbrush igniting from 
  its half-lit jump jets. He felt bad, but only for a moment. He was 
  a MechWarrior, and though he knew what kind of burning death 
  the enemy faced, roasting slowly in a cockpit, his feelings of pity 
  faded with a single beat of his heart. 
  You shouldn’t have tangled with Lindon’s Battalion. He turned 
  just as a Raijin and the other Nexus came into view. The other 
  Raijin was still holding back near Shears. They emerged firing and 
  he obliged by moving, running towards their right flank. 
  A blast of azure energy from the Raijin’s PPC lashed out and 
  smacked into his right leg. His Lineholder quaked under the hit 
  as armor plating splayed off in every direction. The Nexus’s shot 
  missed but the crimson laser bursts were frighteningly close. 
  The enemy would expect him to concentrate on the Raijin first—
  take out the biggest threat, then the lighter Nexus. Longstreet 
  knew that if you played by the rules you could die by them as well. 
  Sometimes the best thing to do was to catch the enemy off guard. 
  He angled his targeting joystick over so that the reticle locked onto 
  the Nexus’s cockpit. He aimed right at the cockpit and paused, just 
  for a second, in his stride, dancing the throttle back as he fired. 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 8
  Two of his medium lasers and his large laser were tied together 
  on the same target interlock circuit (TIC). The warmth of his cock-
  pit rose slightly as he heard the whine of the laser power conduits 
  cycle. The large laser hit in the right torso, burning a deep search-
  ing green light into the ’Mech. One of the medium lasers hit the 
  cockpit, blackening the reflective glass there. The other stabbed 
  in right below the other laser hit in the torso, only to stab out the 
  back of the Nexus. The skinny ’Mech shuddered, seemed to rattle, 
  then fall. The fine dust of the Jersey Flats billowed up from the fall, 
  swirling like little tornadoes. 
  The Raijin let go with its missiles. Most hit low, below the waist, 
  though at least two of them swept on past him and into the brush. 
  The damage was minimal, mostly armor. Longstreet backed off, 
  putting some distance in, swinging wide of the Raijin as he al-
  lowed his ’Mech to cool slightly. The move also bought him time 
  to adjust his target interlocks. It was a risky move, substantiated 
  as the Raijin fired with its medium pulse lasers, mangling his left 
  arm and leg armor in the process. He held off firing until he was in 
  the right position. Then, pausing again, David Longstreet locked 
  his weapons on the center of the bird-like Raijin and fired. 
  He had tied everything over to the same TIC, so that every weap-
  on fired at once. The wave of heat was roasting as the long range 
  missiles cleared their racks and the large and medium lasers filled 
  the air with their stabbing beams. The shots had drifted to the 
  right side of the Raijin. Its torso bore the brunt of the damage as 
  the lasers bored in and the missiles ripped apart the armor, twist-
  ing and peeling it back as if the ’Mech had been attacked by a 
  giant can opener. 
  The Raijin carried less armor than his own Lineholder, but was 
  a tough customer. As smoke billowed from the hole in its side, it 
  seemed to steady itself. It twisted at the waist and fired its ER PPC 
  at him. Like a bolt of lightning the blast hit his left arm. The limb 
  was tossed back under the force of the hit. The wrenching near-
  ly tipped him over and David’s damage display flared red on the 
  shoulder joint. The arm dropped down in a sagging motion. He 
  tried to lift it and the myomer muscles strained, but the arm made 
  a sickening noise, a grinding sound near the cockpit. The actuator 
  in the shoulder was damaged. The weapon was still functional, 
  but aiming it was going to be next to impossible. Might as well be 
  a club, at this point. 
  He licked the salty sweat from his upper lip as his ’Mech con-
  tinued to vent heat. “Come on, you robe-wearing bastard,” he 
  
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  muttered, checking his tactical display. He could see that the other 
  Raijin was starting to move in to finish the kill. Longstreet took 
  the missiles and large laser off of the TIC, tying them onto their 
  own circuit. He then split the medium lasers onto other target in-
  terlocks, allowing him to fire them one at a time and manage his 
  already excessive heat. 
  He walked sideways, keeping his torso facing the Raijin, firing 
  each medium laser one at a time. The first hit the center torso, 
  marking it with a dull flat-black scar. The second hit its legs. The 
  Raijin turned to fire back. It let go a wave of six short range mis-
  siles, all of which hit his legs. The Lineholder shook under the 
  thunder-like rumbles of the detonations but he kept her upright. 
  His next laser hit started on the arm and moved over the earlier 
  hole in the Raijin’s torso. The shot dug deep. Suddenly, the Raijin 
  stopped as if it had locked up. It shuddered for a moment. A flicker 
  of flame rushed from the hole as if a flamethrower was in use, 
  followed with a black billowing cloud. He knew the signs—sympa-
  thetic explosions. Internal ammo cooking off, probably from the 
  Streak SRM ammo there. His teeth clenched. Internal explosions 
  of this type could rip a BattleMech in half. Longstreet’s muscles 
  clenched, bracing for the blast. The MechWarrior attempted to 
  fight it, but that battle was over. The Raijin dropped face forward 
  into the scrub-brush. 
  “Holy crudstunk, sir,” said Shears. 
  He must have been down to his last salvo…Longstreet allowed 
  himself a smile, but it was short-lived. He felt his ’Mech lurch 
  slightly from the rear, a hit from behind. Twisting around, he saw 
  the remaining Raijin step out of the low brush cover, still more 
  than a viable threat. The Blake ’Mech moved like a running bird, 
  an ostrich-like gait. 
  He tried to raise his large laser but the shoulder joint was still 
  fused, fractured, or broken. Switching to the two long-range mis-
  sile packs, he let go with a twin salvo. The LRM’s didn’t do a great 
  deal of damage, but they left pock-marks all over the Raijin. The 
  ’Mech charged forward and he heard a voice over the broadband 
  scream, “Blake’s Blood!” There was a flash of light as the jump 
  jets of the Raijin lit and soared up at him like a wave of metal and 
  death. 
  Longstreet turned and wanted to run, but the heat had slowed 
  his Lineholder. He got three broad steps in when he saw the flash 
  orange of the jump jet plumes hit his shoulder. Death from above. 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 10
  The Lineholder lurched hard and went down, as the horrible 
  grinding noise of shattered armor plating filled his ears. He felt 
  a ripple of nausea come over him and tasted either blood or bile 
  in his mouth. Everything hurt. He wanted to move but couldn’t. 
  Darkness loomed for a moment in his cockpit as the natural light 
  was obscured by dust and smoke. 
  The damage display was not forgiving. The Lineholder’s arm was 
  gone. Its torsos were crushed, mangled beyond recognition. His 
  gyro had been damaged and his fusion reactor’s outer core had 
  taken some damage to the insulation, adding to the heat he was 
  already fighting. He closed his eyes in a painful wince. His own 
  ribs were broken, at least two of them, and maybe his shoulder 
  was torn. Longstreet’s vision was blurry, as a mix of sweat and 
  possibly blood crept into the corner of his eyes. I must have come 
  down a hell of a lot harder than I thought. Sparks danced from the 
  remains of his sensor controls, then the lights flickered out in the 
  cockpit as if to confirm what he was thinking. His BattleMech was 
  dying all around him. 
  He heard a rumble and saw the foot of the Raijin distant from his 
  own downed cockpit. The enemy ’Mech was standing but its feet 
  were badly damaged from the jumping attack. Armor was miss-
  ing, torn upward and off, and one of the footpads was gnarled 
  upward, but the ’Mech was still standing.
  “Infidel,” the voice of the MechWarrior said. “You will pay for 
  your arrogance.”
  “Skipper, you gotta punch out,” came the crackling sound of 
  Shears in his neurohelmet. Longstreet found his eyes drifting to 
  the ejection V-ring. It was tempting, but given the angle of his 
  ’Mech and the proximity of his enemy, the V-ring might as well be 
  on another planet. 
  His thoughts should have been solely on survival. But he couldn’t 
  escape one screaming fact. It was the Word of Blake that had been 
  doing the raid. Only they would use a word like “infidel.” Fat lot of 
  good it does me knowing that now….
  The Raijin rotated its left arm up and leveled it right at his cock-
  pit. For Longstreet, it felt as if it were aimed right into his brain. 
  There was no thinking. He braced for the death that was about to 
  come. 
  Without warning, a flash filled his field of vision. Then things 
  started moving in slow motion. He saw the Raijin drop down in 
  
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  front of him, but he didn’t feel the impact of the ’Mech on the soil. 
  Dust billowed up. A low roar filled his ears as if he was swimming 
  and they were clogged with water. An image appeared, almost in 
  a fog. A Highlander, a shimmering light green outlined in the dust. 
  The paint scheme was different, older. The lines of the ’Mech were 
  not like the contemporary Highlander—this one seemed more like 
  a museum piece. The number was barely readable on the torso, 
  as if the paint had been chipped away over the years. He stared 
  at it for what seemed like a minute. The ’Mech did not fire on him. 
  It seemed to have taken out the Raijin. Lifting up his good arm, 
  Longstreet reached out towards the ’Mech, as if to wave or even 
  touch it. The antique ’Mech pivoted and walked out of his field of 
  vision. 
  “What the hell…” he muttered. He hadn’t seen a Highlander like 
  that except in history books. 
  “Did you get a look at that, Skipper?” drawled Shears.
  “Damn straight. Who was piloting that ’Mech? I owe that 
  MechWarrior a beer.”
  Shears voice seemed stunned still, ringing with dismay. “I’m—
  I’m not sure what I saw.”
  “What was it? From my angle here I only saw a blur. Was that a 
  ’Mech or VTOL?”
  “You didn’t see that? It was a Highlander, old model,” Longstreet 
  yelled back. 
  “Couldn’t tell for sure just what it was. There was a lot of dust 
  out there. Was it one of the militia? Maybe the Com Guards sent 
  someone over.”
  “Damn it, Shears, I saw a Highlander. All green. It saved my sorry 
  ass.” 
  “Sir…” there was a long and uncomfortable pause. “Sir, then that 
  was it. I mean, him. I’d heard the legends. I mean, we talked about 
  it at the academy but dad gum it I never thought I’d see the day 
  when…sweet Jesus. That was it, I mean, him. You saw him.”
  “What?”
  Shears paused. “Great Gaffa’s Ghost, sir.” 
  Longstreet reached out to the emergency comm panel and ac-
  tivated his homing beacon so that the rest of the lance would 
  
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  Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 12
  hopefully pick up the signal. “Gaffa’s Ghost.”
  “Just like my daddy used to say.”
  Longstreet tugged at his neurohelmet. “What the hell are you 
  talking about, Shears?” 
  “My God, the stories, they’re true…” 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  “THE LEGEND OF 
  GREAT GAFFA’S 
  GHOST”
  SLDF Historian Adept Karl Vosteral
  Originally Published in Com Guards Veterans News, October 
  10, 3066, Vol. X, Issue 10, Screen 18 (Online Edition)
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 2
  Part One:Introduction 
  Every war has its share of stories of the strange and unexplain-
  able. The Angel of Mons in the Great War, the Foo Fighters of 
  the Second World War in the wars of ancient Terra. In more re-
  cent years, the Vandenburg White Wings and the sightings of the 
  battlecruiser Ticonderoga, and the Ghost Riders Lance are all ex-
  amples of apparitions that warriors in battle claim to have seen. 
  Extreme events and pressures and the fog of war create strange 
  visions and tales that are difficult if not impossible to account for. 
  The mind can play tricks with soldiers in the field, distorting their 
  impressions, changing their perception of reality. 
  Such is the story of Gaffa’s Ghost. 
  It is a curse muttered by some MechWarriors in battle. “Great 
  Gaffa’s Ghost!” is an exclamation that is as prominent as, “Great 
  Scott!” in many Warrior circles. But like most such expletives and 
  statements, its true origins are often lost or confused. However, 
  in the case of Gaffa’s Ghost the story is still told, often with rel-
  evance, from one generation of MechWarriors to another. 
  My research as an archivist for the Second SLDF brought this 
  matter to the surface when I was approached by a doctor I knew in 
  a Veteran’s hospital on Terra. He told me of a patient who relayed 
  a story that he had heard legend about. 
  The patient in question was a former SLDF MechWarrior, 
  Barton Vale. He had been attached as a courier to the Northwind 
  Highlanders during the operations against the Smoke Jaguars. At 
  the time, he was nineteen years old and this was his first (and last) 
  combat experience. On Virentofta he found himself ambushed by 
  a Star of Jaguar defenders that were unaware their commander 
  had already lost possession of the world. He was alone in the flat 
  open plains, when they had emerged from their hidden encamp-
  ment and struck. What happened next is best described in his own 
  words:
  “They came at me from three different directions at once. 
  I swung my Bushwacker wide of them and tried to run. 
  There were five of them. I didn’t have a chance. One fired at 
  me. I turned and fired at the closest one behind me, a Clan 
  Rifleman. I didn’t realize it but he wasn’t the one that had 
  shot at me. The next thing I knew, all of them opened up. 
  Damned Clan rules of engagement! 
  
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  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 3
  “I wanted to fight them. I really did. But I was outnum-
  bered and outgunned. Staying meant suicide. Everyone 
  knows that. Even my CO admitted it. I tried to signal for 
  help. I really did. 
  “I tried to run. I came to a clump of brush out there, a little 
  haggard pile of weeds and short trees. You couldn’t hide a 
  turd there, but I hoped it would cover me for just a second 
  or two. I took a laser up the back side and a Gauss slug in 
  the back of the my knee-cap. I could barely make that ’Mech 
  walk after that. There was a red flash across my cockpit. I 
  remember the smell of electrical fire and my left arm went 
  numb, almost like it was frozen. I saw the sky flash by from 
  my cockpit and fell backwards. My Bushwacker went down 
  and went down hard. The gyro was a lump of metal and I 
  felt like I was in a sauna from the reactor venting. 
  “The Jaguars stopped at a distance. They didn’t shoot or 
  anything. I stared at them. It seemed like five minutes but 
  was probably only a second. 
  “Then it happened. Something out of my field of vi-
  sion fired. I saw a blur of green and sky blue. The Jaguar 
  Rifleman was hit with a PPC shot right smack dab in the 
  cockpit. I watched the sparks from the residue hit dance all 
  up the front of it. It fell faster than a drunken recruit on their 
  first three day pass. 
  “The Clanners turned to face the threat. The blur seemed 
  to move behind them. They tracked it. They fired. It fired. I 
  saw them outlined in a wave of fireballs and smoke. They 
  stood there outlined in the flames, just silhouettes, black. 
  There was more firing. I could hear it. Light…PPC shots. 
  Armor plates from one of them, a Dasher, landed right by my 
  cockpit. I figured that the Northwind Highlanders garrison 
  force had arrived to help. I remember praying and thanking 
  God that they had come. Still, I figured I was dead. 
  “Suddenly it was over. Flames and balls of dark gray smoke 
  still rolled up. I remember struggling with my restraints, 
  trying to get free, trying to get a better view. The Jaguar 
  ’Mechs were gone. They were not just gone, but were a 
  mound of debris. I never knew ’Mechs could be twisted 
  that way. I saw a ’Mech arm, reaching up in the flames. I 
  cried. I shouldn’t have. I was a soldier. But they were dead. 
  
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  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 4
  1. Taken from oral interview transcript, April 8, 3066, Walter Reed Annex 104, 
  MechWarrior Barton Vale, SLDF SN 1660551-400J. ComStar Registered. 
  “Then I saw it. It moved right through the flames. It was 
  a light green monster, huge. A Highlander. The old mod-
  els, the ones that they’d stopped making years ago. The 
  ones that swapped out the Gauss rifles for a killer particle 
  cannon. It didn’t make a sound as it moved. I saw it tow-
  ering over me. Green with the shoulders painted a blue. I 
  had seen the paint scheme before, in a book. It was from 
  the SLDF. Not my SLDF, but the original SLDF—Kerensky’s 
  army. I could make out the Cameron Star on it. Its number 
  was 05 on the chest. It had three yellow stars under the 
  cockpit. I couldn’t see the MechWarrior. 
  “Damndest thing. It stood there and saluted. One of those 
  that crosses the torso of the ’Mech with the right arm. Old 
  SLDF stuff. I remember staring at it for a long time. It seemed 
  to glow. Then the wind changed direction and the smoke 
  obscured my vision. I didn’t hear a thing. When the smoke 
  cleared, it was gone. I was alone again with the dead.”1
  My doctor friend who wishes to remain nameless had piqued my 
  interest. This description of events was not new. It had been hap-
  pening for centuries, on countless worlds. I researched the event 
  in question. The official investigation showed that Barton Vale had 
  been ambushed but command had credited him with the kill of 
  five Smoke Jaguar ’Mechs. His Bushwacker’s battlerom had been 
  fried and no one had bothered to check the damaged Clan ’Mechs. 
  He had protested and claimed that the mysterious Highlander had 
  done the killing, but all evidence seemed to point to him. They had 
  awarded him a combat citation and since then he had been hospi-
  talized, for trauma both physical and mental. He was marked as a 
  hero and sent off to the hospital where he has remained since. 
  Barton Vale couldn’t have killed the Smoke Jaguars though. Not 
  just because he was a wet-behind-the-ears MechWarrior. No. His 
  left arm had been severed at the shoulder by a laser hit to the 
  cockpit. His hip and right hand were shattered in the fight. It would 
  have been impossible for him to move or shoot his Bushwacker 
  enough to take out these enemies, even in single individual com-
  bat. Analysis of loadouts after his recovery showed that he still 
  carried almost a full load of autocannon ammo and his LRM’s 
  had blown out during his fall as a result of CASE deployment. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 5
  His mental distress, written off as post-traumatic stress disorder, 
  had kept him hospitalized for years. But part of it was the result 
  of his story. 
  In his mind, he had seen Gaffa’s Ghost. 
  The mysterious Highlander has been seen many times over 
  the centuries. The descriptive elements seem to hold true—the 
  number 05 and the three yellow stars marking it as a general’s 
  BattleMech. It always appears when the odds are desperate. It 
  fights beyond the skills of those involved, salutes (in many cases), 
  and disappears. 
  Impossible? Maybe. Perhaps Barton Vale and others simply 
  were victims of battlefield trauma. Perhaps this was their way of 
  mentally compensating for horrific yet brave deeds. Maybe he did 
  kill those Smoke Jaguars. Perhaps his mind simply filled in a blank 
  for him with something easier to deal with than his killing those 
  MechWarriors. Perhaps a MechWarrior that scored a 78% on his 
  gunnery tests the month before had somehow become a master 
  marksman and could take out genetically engineered and trained-
  from-birth Clan warriors, outnumbering him five to one. 
  Or perhaps the tale of Gaffa’s Ghost is true.
  If it is, the truth must be traced to the first appearance of the 
  legend. And for that, we must turn the pages of history back to a 
  dark time before a darker time. Back to the first Star League and 
  the fighting on New Vandenburg. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 6
  Part Two: Birth of the Legend
  The war between the Star League and the Taurian Concordat in 
  2765 was nothing short of outright rebellion against the League. It 
  was the worst kind of brutal guerilla warfare and the bloodbath of 
  fighting on New Vandenburg was the epitome of that conflict. For 
  the SLDF it was a whetstone, it sharpened skills and fighting for 
  the war to come against Amaris and the coup that destroyed the 
  First Star League.
  At the start of 2765 General Stephen James Gaffa was in com-
  mand of the 364th BattleMech Division, commonly known as the Zulu 
  Division. His record was impeccable for an officer in the SLDF. He 
  had come up through the ranks, attending OCS at the age of seven-
  teen, having shown incredible initiative during operations in the Rim 
  Worlds on a dangerous string of peacekeeping assignments. He had 
  been awarded the Medal of Valor just after the outbreak of the fight-
  ing on New Vandenburg for saving a mobile hospital unit by drawing 
  enemy fire onto him and his command company while they evacu-
  ated. It was the first Medal of Valor won by the 19th Army in that epic 
  campaign. 
  His ’Mech was a Highlander, marked with 05 on the upper left 
  torso. He preferred a green camouflage pattern with the shoul-
  der blades of the ’Mech trimmed in light blue, as was the style of 
  the Zulu Division. There are no archival images of his ’Mech on 
  file, most of those were lost with the fall of the Star League, but 
  the style common in the SLDF indicated that his rank would have 
  been painted on below the cockpit canopy. The use of a single star 
  would have designated a Division commander. Why did General 
  Gaffa use three stars? The loss of many of the SLDF personnel 
  records over the years does not give us an insight. The three stars 
  did serve to make it easy to identify and distinguish, but so would 
  a single star. Like so many parts of this myth it is difficult to deci-
  pher the meaning, if any. 
  General Gaffa was a front-line commander who led by exam-
  ple. Such was the case in operations outside the town of Lyon 
  on November 4, 2765. Separatist forces led a company of ’Mechs 
  against an SLDF convoy that had been providing relief to the lo-
  cal civilians. General Gaffa ordered his company into the fight. 
  In reality, it was an ambush, and he was their target. Well con-
  cealed artillery locked onto his command ’Mech, one of the classic 
  Highlanders, and tracked him as the rebels pulled back. 
  
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  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 7
  In a small ravine area over Sander’s Creek, the trap was sprung. 
  The sole survivor of his command lance, Colonel Jack Grierson, 
  described the events in his after-action report:
  “There was a dip in the ravine and the General was 
  forced to traverse deeper into the creek-bed. I offered to 
  take point, but he refused. He always did. Moving about 
  seventy-five meters in front of us, he signaled that he had 
  a magnetic anomaly contact on the outer marker. I tried to 
  adjust for it. 
  “Suddenly the ground erupted all around him. Artillery 
  rounds, anti-’Mech mostly—cockpit-crackers—rained in right 
  on top of him. My estimate was that at least three Long Tom 
  pieces were ranged in on the ravine and had pre-targeted that 
  location. A mix of HE and AP rounds hit the area. Indirect fire 
  from at least 100 LRM’s poured in. 
  “At the same time, a lance of ’Mechs moved to the high 
  ground and poured fire into his position. The General couldn’t 
  move and from our angle, thanks to a bend in the creek, we 
  couldn’t lend fire support. Through the tree limbs I could see 
  the waves of long range missiles pour in. Lasers, multiple 
  types and densities, came as well. He fired back—I saw his 
  PPC discharge up the hillside. It was a missed shot but it told 
  us that he was still alive. It gave us hope. We loved that old 
  man and there wasn’t a man in the lance that wouldn’t have 
  gladly taken his place in that crater if we could have. 
  “I swear I got a signal from him on the direct laser comm-
  link. It was not clear but I thought he ordered us to stay 
  back. I remember him saying he’d hold them off. His exact 
  words were lost on me. At the time I thought that it was a 
  mistake. But he was General Gaffa and his word was like 
  the word of God and Kerensky himself. 
  “The ground shook hard enough to force me to manually 
  compensate. The firing kept up for two minutes as we en-
  filaded and began to provide cover fire from the right flank. 
  We attempted to signal him, but all that we saw was a pop-
  flash so bright and hot that it charred my commlink and my 
  primary Battlecomputer core. We knew that his reactor had 
  been critically breached even before we confirmed that the 
  area had the usual radiation signature from a blown engine. 
  We’d all seen that happen before, all of us knew what it 
  meant too. No one could have survived that.
  
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  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 8
  “Damn those bastards. Damn them all to hell.”2 
  He didn’t survive according to the official records. 
  As the separatist forces retreated, his company moved in to at-
  tempt to rescue their commanding officer. What they found was a 
  smoldering crater, the sandy soil literally melted from the heat of 
  his blown fusion reactor. There was little that could be traced to his 
  BattleMech and there were no organic remains. General Stephen 
  Gaffa had died in the ambush, horribly but quickly. Memorial ser-
  vices were held and General Kerensky himself attended, referring 
  to Gaffa as “a close personal friend and colleague.”3 
  Like so many that died on New Vandenburg, most would have 
  thought that the death of General Gaffa would have been nothing 
  more than an obscure footnote in history. Events that occurred 
  two weeks after the General’s death changed that. An SLDF patrol 
  near Lyon was attacked by a mobile lance of rebel BattleMechs. 
  The SLDF patrol, led by Lieutenant Sarah Fuller, pursued the reb-
  els to the same general vicinity where General Gaffa had died. Her 
  story, popularized in several books in later years, has been exag-
  gerated. The discovery recently of new archival documents still 
  provides a chilling and detailed description of what occurred:
  “In the underbrush and growth we separated and spread 
  out. I realized that this might be exactly what the enemy 
  wanted and signaled for the lance to reform to our rear, 
  regroup, and begin the search anew. My Crab picked up 
  several signals, mag readings, to the east and west. Their 
  transponders marked them as EM [Enemy ’Mechs]. I was 
  flanked. 
  “I tried to signal the rest of my lance but got static back and 
  realized I was being jammed. Turning, I found myself facing 
  an Archer and a pair of Phoenix Hawks. They hit me from both 
  sides at once. I went evasive but the underbrush hindered 
  my movement and was soon burning as a result of errant fire, 
  adding to the confusion of the field. 
  “I caught the Archer with both lasers in the legs, but it was 
  not enough. The missiles from that EM hit me and I sus-
  2. Battle-Damage-Assessment, BDA-20847-A, Lyons Sector, File 208897. 
  Colonel Grierson Submitting. 
  3. Davidson, Douglas. Zulu Warriors All—The History of the 364th Division. St. 
  Martin’s Press, May 3025.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 9
  tained damage on my right hip that inhibited movement. 
  I discharged my emergency flare and held my ground as 
  was SOP for locked hip. Damage was running high on my 
  Crab. I only had a few moments of battle-worthiness left. 
  “I suffered a cockpit hit and breach from a missile volley 
  from the Archer. My cockpit was compromised and tactical 
  systems failed. Backups went online but my Targeting and 
  Tracking system was off-line and I had to rely on manual 
  firing procedures. 
  “From behind the Phoenix Hawks I saw another SLDF 
  ’Mech emerge. It was a Highlander—a command model. 
  It did not show on my sensors, which I attributed to the 
  damage. It fired, taking out one of the Hawks from nearly 
  point-blank rear range. I assume they were having prob-
  lems detecting it as well. It punched then kicked the next 
  Phoenix Hawk. Both that ’Mech and the Archer fled the field 
  of battle. 
  “I attempted laser signaling and radio but the Highlander 
  did not respond. I am unsure if it was damaged or if the 
  problems were with my comm system. The damage inside 
  of my cockpit was severe. 
  “I wish to formally acknowledge that the kill of the Phoenix 
  Hawk should be credited to the pilot of the Highlander. It 
  was marked as 364th Division. Tracking number was either 
  105 or 05. My sensors were off-line and battlerom did not 
  pick up the engagement. Please consider this confirmation 
  of that MechWarrior’s kill and extend to him my thanks.”4
  There is no record of any other units operating within 25 kilome-
  ters of Lieutenant Fuller’s lance at that time. Her story reached a 
  reporter for the Terra Herald (Jacob Best) who reported it was a 
  “Ghost Sighting.” In a rather loose coverage of the facts, Mr. Best 
  reported, “It was as if General Gaffa himself, killed only a few days 
  before, had risen to save one of his comrades.”5 He further played 
  up the evidence that General Gaffa’s body and ’Mech had never 
  been recovered from the scene of his death. Some pundits point-
  4. After-Action Report, December 14, Lieutenant Sarah Fuller, 177th 
  Mechanized Infantry Division, File Submission 90003040-J
  5. “Ghost ‘Mech Saves Officer,” Terra Herald, January 30, 2765.
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 10
  ed to this as propaganda on the part of the SLDF, that Gaffa was 
  not dead but leading a covert unit on New Vandenburg. Others 
  saw it as a sign that General Gaffa was indeed haunting the SLDF, 
  an avenging angel of sorts. 
  The legend was clouded even more when Lieutenant Fuller be-
  came officially listed as Missing in Action in February of the next 
  year. There was no way for anyone to confirm or validate what she 
  alleged she saw. The media had a heyday with the material and 
  the constant denials from the SLDF only seemed to add fuel to the 
  mystery. 
  Matters became worse after the Amaris Coup when another 
  sighting of Gaffa’s Ghost made the press. 
  
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  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 11
  Part Three: The Ghost Returns
  There were at least five incidents that occurred where people 
  claimed to have seen the ghost Highlander. Three of these inci-
  dents were easily proven as deliberate falsehoods, while two were 
  left as open cases (“undetermined”). In one of the more popular 
  cases, battlerom footage was “leaked” to the press showing an ee-
  rie green Highlander in a jarring sequence of footage. Referred to 
  as the Donaldson Footage, from a Sergeant Tom Donaldson who 
  claimed to have recovered the images, this has been universally 
  touted as a fraud but ironically the public acceptance of the story 
  was unshaken. With the outbreak of the Amaris Coup, Donaldson 
  was killed in the Rim Worlds Campaign and never was able to 
  recant his involvement in the fake footage. This only seemed to 
  perpetuate the myth with the civilian population. People claimed 
  to be assured that Gaffa’s Ghost would come and save them all. 
  Even modern review of the footage shows that it was falsified, but 
  the story lived on. 
  The next “tangible” sighting took place in the spring of 2779 dur-
  ing Operation Liberation. A vehicle commander named Francis 
  Holland was piloting a Nightshade VTOL on patrol outside of 
  Frankfurt, Germany. The Nightshade suffered a mechanical mal-
  function and made a forced landing along the battle lines. Holland, 
  a Lieutenant in the SLDF, barely got out of the wreck alive before 
  it was pounded with artillery from the Republican forces. Armed 
  with only a sidearm laser pistol, he attempted to grope his way 
  to friendly forces when he encountered a platoon of Republican 
  infantry. The events that unfolded are best recounted in his inter-
  view with the media shortly after the event:
  Reporter: “I understand you took quite a blow to the head 
  Lieutenant. How are you doing?”
  Holland: “Fine. They’re keeping me here in the hospital 
  under observation. I’ve been told I’ll be released in the next 
  week or so.”
  Reporter: “I’m sure your parents are going to be con-
  cerned. Would you like to say something to them?”
  Holland: “My family was in the Americas. I received word 
  a few years ago that they were killed during the occupation. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 12
  We get these reports from the Republicans all the time—
  real morale inducers.” 
  Reporter: “I see. You have my sympathies. I’m here to talk 
  to you because I’ve heard you have an interesting story to 
  tell our viewers about events unfolding along the lines near 
  Frankfurt. From what I heard from my sources, you’re quite 
  lucky.”
  Holland: “Lucky as hell. My Nightshade had gone down. 
  The hydraulics had clocked out over the front in just about 
  the worse possible place. I put it down but in the process 
  turned it into a pile of scrap metal. That’s how I got this. 
  [gestures to head bandage]” 
  Reporter: “What happened then?”
  Holland: “I got clear of the wreck and pulled my sidearm. 
  I was pretty dizzy…I remember puking my brains out for 
  a few minutes. I then started towards where I figured our 
  lines were. I had made it about 300 meters or so when I 
  came to an open field. I started across it and suddenly I 
  saw a Republican patrol emerge from the tree line at the 
  edge of the field.”
  Reporter: “You must have been pretty scared.”
  Holland: “I was more pissed off than frightened. Survive 
  a freaking chopper crash and I get captured by Pubs. Damn 
  it, I was mad.” 
  Reporter: “You’re lucky they didn’t just shoot you on the 
  spot.”
  Holland: “Some of the platoons capture prisoners to use 
  to barter for surrender. Some just like torturing us. I had my 
  pistol drawn as they approached. They didn’t shoot and I 
  held my fire. I mean, there was over twenty of them. What 
  was I going to do after the clip was empty?”
  Reporter: “What happened then?”
  Holland: “I felt this cold wind whip up behind me. They just 
  stopped where they stood. It was just at sunset. I figured a 
  VTOL was moving in behind me for recover, you know one 
  of our rescue units. They just stood there, mouths hanging 
  open. I figured, ‘Good for you, [expletive edited for on-air 
  broadcast] dickheads. Now you can pay the piper.’
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 13
  “Suddenly all hell broke loose from behind me. A PPC 
  fired, then some lasers. A rack of missiles poured down 
  on them too. They tried to run, but the shots were dead-
  on. Finally there was just three left standing. They dropped 
  their weapons.”
  Reporter: “Didn’t you turn around to see where the firing 
  was coming from?”
  Holland: “My brains were spilling out of my head wound 
  and the Republicans were getting mopped up. I honestly 
  didn’t care who was firing at the time.”
  Reporter: “I see. Go ahead.”
  Holland: “The last ones surrendered. I remember step-
  ping towards them. I had a big shit-eating grin on my face. 
  I figured they deserved what they got. Then all of a sudden 
  they just fell down. I made my way across the mud and 
  muck of that field to them. They were laying there, eyes 
  open, dead as a roadkill on a backwoods dirt road. Their 
  mouths were just hanging open. I checked them over. They 
  were cold, like they’d been dead for hours.
  “I turned around then. I couldn’t figure out what happened 
  to them. Weird, you know. I saw it then. A Highlander. 
  Green. It was one of ours, SLDF, but it didn’t look like any 
  Highlander I had ever seen. First off, it had one of those 
  deep command cockpits, and they stopped making those 
  years ago. And it was weird, like it had a glow about it, not 
  exactly blending in with the terrain, if you know what I 
  mean. I saw the insignia on it and I nearly wet myself. It 
  was number five—General Gaffa. I’d been hearing rumors 
  about people seeing him and his ’Mech for years. There it 
  was, standing there right in front of me. I felt so stupid. I 
  mean there it was, right there, only 20 meters away.”
  Reporter: “Are you sure it was the General’s ’Mech? Not 
  to doubt your word, but I’m sure my viewers are going to 
  question what you saw.”
  Holland: “They can have their doubts. I know what I saw. 
  It was there, plain as day. I took a step forward and lost my 
  footing. I got up and looked and it was gone. That field was 
  huge. I was down for only a split-second. I would have seen 
  a real ’Mech trying to leave. I would have felt a hundred 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 14
  tons thumping around, even if it was walking. This was no 
  ordinary Highlander. This one was gone like a will o’wisp.”
  Reporter: “So you attribute your rescue to Gaffa’s Ghost 
  then?”
  Holland: “One of our squads arrived about twenty min-
  utes later. They found me and I showed them the dead 
  Republicans. They couldn’t find what killed those last fel-
  lows, but I know what it was—they were scared to death. 
  The battle damage assessment reported the dead, but 
  not the causes. My commanding officer tried to write it 
  off as a result of a head injury, but I know the truth. He 
  saved my life.”6
  Unlike others that witnessed the sighting of Gaffa’s Ghost, 
  Lieutenant Holland survived the war and liberation of Terra. He 
  came back to the muddy field where he had his encounter and 
  purchased it, putting together a small shrine. In the small stone 
  structure was a homemade homage to General Gaffa and sev-
  eral artifacts he recovered from the field, which he claimed were 
  evidence of his story. While many discounted him as a sad and 
  injured veteran of the war, deluded by an open head injury, doz-
  ens of people visited his small shrine each day until his death 
  some fifteen years later. Eventually the small shrine was turned 
  into a conventional church, sanctifying the ground and adding 
  an air of validity to the myth. It further solidified the legend of 
  Gaffa’s Ghost. 
  6. Transcript of embedded reporter Drake Mathhews, Globestar Network, 16 
  April 2779, File Number 4445-JGSN. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 15
  Part Four: The Healing
  With the departure of General Kerensky and the Exodus fleet, the 
  sightings of Gaffa’s Ghost seemed to slow, if not stop. Even with 
  the carnage of the First and Second Succession Wars, there were 
  only two reported cases of an SLDF Highlander ’Mech emerging 
  and saving people—both in desperate battle situations, both un-
  confirmed. The story was told in many of the Academies, a bit 
  of lore passed on from generation to generation. It was seen as 
  many such battlefield apparitions—intriguing yet at the same time, 
  illusionary. 
  Matters changed during the Fourth Succession War with a 
  new twist to the old story. This time the appearance took place 
  on Northwind during the time of the Highlanders return to their 
  homeworld. The fighting with the Sword of Light regiment on 
  Northwind was swift and dangerous and many brave fighters 
  from the Northwind Highlanders were casualties of the fighting. 
  One such fighter was a MechWarrior named Matilda Ferguson. 
  In the fighting outside of Cromarty City, her BattleMech had been 
  crippled and she had been forced to eject. Matilda lay in a field that 
  was contested by the enemy for hours. Rescue by the Highlanders 
  was hampered by the constant thrusts of the Sword of Light forces. 
  Her ejection seat transponder signal was a constant reminder dur-
  ing the fighting that they had a man down that needed recovery. 
  When they arrived at the ejection seat, the recovery forces were 
  dismayed to find it empty. A search of the area did not show any 
  vehicle or infantry footprints. Simply a seat and an open restrain-
  ing harness. It was feared for a while that she had punched out 
  without her harness on and may have been thrown clear of the 
  seat. The entire field was searched between her fallen BattleMech 
  and the ejection seat. No sign of Matilda was found. 
  In the aftermath of the fighting, a team was assembled to at-
  tempt to account for the losses by the Highlanders. The team was 
  surprised to find a woman in a coma in a field hospital some 30 
  kilometers from the Cromarty battlefield. Her DNA matched her 
  as Matilda Ferguson, much to the relief of the investigation team. 
  In interviewing the Chief Medical Officer of the field hospital, 
  Major Walter Hoff, it was determined that he was the officer on 
  duty when Matilda was brought in. On the night that she had 
  ejected from her crippled ’Mech, the Major was stirred from his 
  tour of the ward when an orderly indicated that a BattleMech was 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 16
  approaching the facility. The Major stepped outside and in the low 
  fog, saw the form of an older model Highlander. He assumed it 
  was a friendly ’Mech—no warnings ever were traced to the perim-
  eter sensors.
  What made the ’Mech stick in his mind was the fact that it was 
  not painted for the Highlanders, but seemed to be a very old ’Mech. 
  He remembered a Cameron Star on it and three stars under the 
  cockpit. He assumed that someone had broken into a museum 
  and had “liberated” the ’Mech for use in the retaking of Northwind 
  from the Draconis Combine. Such a ’Mech had not been fielded 
  in decades. 
  The ’Mech stopped, bent slightly, and lowered its hand. Rolling 
  out of the hand was the limp form of Matilda Ferguson. Upon see-
  ing a human gently roll to the ground, he ran out and began to 
  check his patient, all but ignoring the ’Mech. When the Major did 
  glance up he saw the Highlander in the distance, standing in the 
  fog, seeming to give him an across-the-chest salute. Major Hoff 
  was so busy with his duties that he all but forgot the incident. 
  The investigators interviewed the sentries that spotted the ap-
  proaching ’Mech initially, even noting it in the hospital’s security 
  log. Further investigation showed that no such Highlander was 
  used in the operations on Northwind at the time. Conjecture was 
  that it was a benevolent Combine MechWarrior, bringing a kin-
  dred Warrior to medical attention. One of the investigators, Major 
  Annette Shenus, remembered the legend of Gaffa’s Ghost and 
  made a note of it in the records. 
  This sighting was unique in that there were multiple people that 
  had witnessed the anonymous BattleMech. Their descriptions 
  were very close to that of other individual sightings of Gaffa’s 
  Ghost. A security check was run of the satellite tracking data and 
  oddly enough there was a blank spot on the data recorder during 
  the time of the sighting, while the satellite was overhead. This was 
  the result of a faulty imaging system that had been damaged days 
  before in the fighting, but to those that wanted to believe in the 
  visage of Gaffa’s Ghost, it was further proof of its existence. 
  Matters were further complicated when Ferguson regained 
  consciousness two days after her discovery. Her last conscious 
  thought was sitting in her ejection seat, in the grass and mud after 
  it landed, the battle raging all around her. An errant artillery round 
  had deafened and knocked her unconscious. She had no idea how 
  she had arrived in the field hospital. 
  
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  Ferguson became something of a celebrity as her story broke, 
  leaked by one of the investigation team members. She shunned 
  the attention but was constantly hounded by the media and semi-
  religious people seeking her enlightenment. The thought that a 
  person may have been saved by an infamous Ghost seemed to be 
  a magnetic draw. She eventually quit the Highlanders militia and 
  became a nun in the church, many say to dodge the public atten-
  tion. Her death four years ago was uneventful except for a small 
  group that attended her funeral. Claims that her rescue had driven 
  her to a higher calling only seemed to propel the illusion of Gaffa’s 
  Ghost even further. 
  The Public Affairs Office for the Northwind Highlanders has 
  shunned inquiries regarding the entire affair. At the same time, they 
  have ordered the records of the incident sealed for security rea-
  sons. These are the only records from the liberation of Northwind 
  that are still sealed to this date. The feeble claim of security rea-
  sons has not stopped the story from leaking out and launching 
  further rumors. It is said that other Highlander MechWarriors may 
  have had the vision—and that those that do have such sightings of 
  Gaffa’s Ghost receive preferential treatment both in terms of their 
  careers and assignments. It has even been hinted that member-
  ship in the once elusive and secretive Black Watch may be linked 
  to such visions and sightings. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 18
  Part Five: Reality Check
  There are some common threads in the tellings of this tale, 
  though it is important to point out that none of these alleged sight-
  ings have ever been substantiated. General Gaffa was a highly 
  decorated and distinguished member of the Star League Defense 
  Force. The appearance of this supposed Ghost ’Mech seems to 
  occur with some commonalities:
  • Incidents take place with personnel that have some 
  tie, either directly or indirectly, with the Star League 
  Defense Forces. All of the individuals who are tied 
  to these incidents either were on duty with the SLDF, 
  tied to units that were SLDF core units, or had blood 
  relatives that were officers in the SLDF. 
  • These sightings almost all involve the loss of a ’Mech 
  or injury to the individual involved in the incident. 
  This is often leveraged as the excuse for the event—
  citing that it was a result of head trauma or other 
  life-threatening injury. 
  • Ground soldiers, infantry, and MechWarriors only 
  are involved with the incidents. Aerospace fighters, 
  even those flying air support, have never reported 
  sightings of a mysterious ghost BattleMech.
  • The description of the ’Mech has strong common 
  themes—the green color and eerie glow about it. 
  It is silent. In more than one case, it salutes those 
  that witness it. The paint scheme on the BattleMech 
  almost always involves the number five and the 
  General’s stars. Oddly enough, the ’Mech in ques-
  tion is an older model Highlander—regardless of the 
  year or the availability of such ’Mechs. 
  • Sensor data is lacking. In every instance where Gaffa’s 
  Ghost is allegedly spotted, there are malfunctions or 
  battle damage that prohibits someone from gather-
  ing or obtaining corroborating evidence that could 
  prove or disprove the incident. 
  • When the ghost does appear, the number of people 
  that confirm the sighting is never more than three. 
  The vast number of sightings that take place with a 
  lone witness. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 19
  Is this to say then that these events didn’t happen, that they were 
  all illusions? That over the course of several centuries people have 
  made mistakes time and time again? Did people see what they 
  wanted to see in a time of pressure? 
  Yet oddly enough their descriptions of events seem to coincide 
  with each other. There is a thread that weaves this tapestry to-
  gether over the years. There have been efforts to find the spot on 
  New Vandenburg where the General fell. With the war over, the 
  hope was to recover enough of the fallen ’Mech to prove that in-
  deed General Gaffa had not passed on into the ether but had died 
  in a bloody ambush on New Vandenburg.
  The team went to the planet under diplomatic approval from the 
  governments in 3060 led by Doctor Emil Graufson of the Lyran 
  Alliance. The archaeologists combed the ravine area of Sander’s 
  Creek outside of Lyon. With the passage of centuries, the area was 
  difficult to navigate, having grown in thick with native cedars and 
  pines. Several large crater areas were found, now nothing more 
  than shallow depressions in the soil. Radiation readings in two of 
  the holes indicated that a reactor could have breached there years 
  before and diggings were done throughout the summer. 
  Some metallic objects were recovered, including what appears 
  to be pieces of ’Mech armor that were badly burned and melted. 
  Melted sand in the holes was also recovered, as well as a number 
  of artillery shell fragments. The digs were extensive, and despite 
  illnesses brought on by the mosquito season, the archaeologists 
  continued their work into the fall. 
  The results were disappointing and as such only seemed to 
  make the case for Gaffa’s Ghost even stronger. While some un-
  identifiable debris, obviously from battle, was recovered at the 
  site, it was not anywhere near enough to account for the General’s 
  Highlander. Dr. Graufson was quick to point out that there were 
  other craters in the area and the often distorted records from the 
  period may have had the team digging in the wrong place. The 
  Doctor wanted to press for additional excavations once money 
  was raised.7
  7. Graufson, Emil. “In Search of the General Gaffa of the SLDF.” Modern 
  Battlefield Archaeology (New Vandenburg Press, University of Thorin, Lyran 
  Alliance), August 3061, 4-10. 
  
  BATTLECORPS
  The Legend of Great Gaffa's Ghost • Page 20
  Conclusion:
  What makes this battlefield vision different than many others 
  is twofold. First; this sighting is not tied to a place but seems to 
  move throughout the Inner Sphere. Such ghost images from pre-
  vious wars seem tied to a location while this one seems somehow 
  tied to the icons and blood of the Star League. Second, this image 
  keeps resurfacing. Battlefield visions, angels and ghosts all fade 
  over time and drift in obscurity. This one remains and comes back 
  war after war. 
  In the end the question should be: does any of this matter? 
  The utterance “Great Gaffa’s Ghost!” is well known with people 
  throughout the Inner Sphere and there is a thread of a story be-
  hind that expression. It is an intriguing tale of not just a brave 
  man and leader, but of faith and miracles. Attempting to prove a 
  miracle scientifically is impossible—such is the nature of miracles 
  to begin with. 
  The individuals that have alleged sight of the ghostly green 
  Highlander coming to their aid in their time of greatest need don’t 
  care about sensor readings and faulty satellites. What they care 
  about is that they have survived. If that survival has come at the 
  hands of a man that has been dead for centuries, it doesn’t mat-
  ter. 
  Perhaps that is the point of this article and my weeks of research. 
  The reality of the matter is that the illusion of Gaffa’s Ghost is more 
  powerful than the physical presence of it. If it is an apparition back 
  from the dead, then it is a powerful story. That so many people are 
  willing to believe in it—that, is a more powerful story. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Great Gaffas Ghost - Blaine Lee Pardoe.pdf