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I can't remember if I ever shared this with you guys, so if you have seen it before, I do apologize.  Otherwise, enjoy the Junkyard Dog!

Junkyard Dog

Overview:

CHAPTER XI:  THE DOGS OF WAR

"Yeah, so the bitch ain't pretty. Boy, there are a lot of 'Mechs out there that
look good and ain't worth spit on the field of battle. My dog ain't one of
those," the grizzled old merc said as he lit another of his foul-smelling
cigarillos, his chair pushed back against the wall of the the dimly lit little
bar that served the miserable excuse for a space-port on this world. He downed
a shot of whiskey and signaled the bartender for another.

"I didn't recognize the 'Mech when I came into town, mister--where did you get
it?"

The old man smiled and shook his head. "Now that would be a story, boy. And my
throat gets mighty parched."

The young man nodded, and passed his cred-stick to the bartender, "'I've got
his tab."

The old man grinned, and although his teeth were stained, he still had them
all. "Well now, you see the reason that ain't never seen anything like my bitch
out there is that she wasn't made in some factory somewhere. No son, she's what
we call a Franken-'Mech. You see, sometimes 'Mechs just get beat up all to hell
and back and you can't salvage it--sometimes you are just left with an arm, or
a head, or some hips and two legs. Well, sure 'nough, there are some crazy
techs out there that are willing to spend their time and your money to put
Humpty-Dumpty back together--but not all the pieces are part of the same
puzzle, boy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't."

He spat on the ground, and then inhaled a deep lungfull of smoke, exhaled, and
drained the glass. "Another, lad, and have him leave the bottle this time."

"You see, it was back in '19 when I was serving in a hard-fighting,
hard-partying group of mercs working for some pissant Free Worlds Province that
I gained the 'ol bitch out back. I was piloting a Pixie back in them days, it
was my father's 'Mech, and my grandfather's, back to the days it served in the
Regular Army of the Star League."

The MechWarrior frowned as he saw the boy's expression grow blank, and then he
sighed. "Phoenix Hawk, lad, Pixies are P-hawks. Well, anyway, I had my Pixie
and I was might happy with her--she was a good ride. But then we tangled with
some real bad news raiders from the deep black, and suddenly I was among the
Dispossessed."

The older man shuddered. "A'int right for a man who worked and trained his
whole living life to be torn away like that, so I went to the Major and
demanded on of the raider's rides to replace the Pixie. Of course, he could
have just shot me then and there--regular MechWarriors didn't demand things of
Major Hammer, oh no sir."

"But, he understood what I was experiencing, and after I done calmed down, he
sent me to see this tech named Abigail. Crazy as a loon he said, but none
better to rig something 'Mech-like from battlefield garbage."

"Well, it was the best that I was gonna get, either that or never again be a
MechWarrior--so I went and found Abigail. You know, that little woman was
already working--and when she saw me, she started in on ordering me to do this
and do that and hold this and tighten this--like I'm some as-tech or
something."

"Well, she had all the pieces from the big fight lined up in this empty
warhouse, all sorted by the 'Mechs they had come from. I tell you, I coulda
cried, boy. 'Cause this was what my life had come down to, rely on a mad-woman
to put some monster-'Mech together with a welding torch."

"But I was wrong, cause Abby-girl was a wizard with that welder, she was. She
started with the legs and hips of a Shade--that's a Shadow Hawk to you,
lad--and fixed 'em to the torso off of a Centurion. 'Course, the engine was
dead, so she yanked that 200 Nissan and replaced it with a 240 Pitban from a
Clint that had both legs shot away."

The old man laughed. "Hell, you should've seen the two of use trying to hammer
that Pitban into place--it took two weeks and more lubricant than the local
whore-house uses in a month. But anyway, once we got those two put together, we
tested the power and controls, and she sort of worked. Now, the Centurion's
LRMs and medium lasers were still good, so Abby-girl left them on the bitch.
But she still didn't have any arms, nor a head."

"Turned out the only intact right arm in the whole freaking pile was from a
busted Rifleman--both both the Imperator-A and the Magna Mk III still worked,
kinda. We fixed that one onto to the torso and rigged up a magazine right under
the shoulder for the AC shots, and then began looking for a left arm. I found
us a good one too, from a Thud (that'a T-bolt, or Thunderbolt, son) with a
working pair of Voelkers 200 MGs; course the magazine was damaged and we had to
put in a half-size one in place of the stock model; I think she used one she
had salvaged from a Spock--a Vulcan."

"Last thing left was the head, but Abigail told me to go home, and get some
rest--that she had something special planned for this Frank."

"Next morn, I showed up at the warehouse, and lo and behold, the bitch was
done! Sixty tons, she was, with all the mis-matched weapons, and she didn't
have the JJs of my old Pixie--moved a mite slower as well--but she was shore
'nough a heavy."

"Well there I was, flabbergasted, 'cause somehow, somewhere, Abby-girl had
gotten one of the craziest looking 'Mech heads I never before seen, son. Thing
looked like a great big grinning wolf, complete with long snout and two perked
up ears. And Abby, well, her sense of humor makes sense to techs like her--she
painted up the old bitch in layers of brown and black, like some outsized
mastiff guarding a junkyard. Hell, she had even found a metal studded leather
collar and wrapped it around the neck."

"Couldn't do much with the armor, not with parts from so many different 'Mechs.
But she did weld some extra plates on the torsos, and the head isn't quite up
to factory standard--it took some damage when an Atlas ripped right off
whatever the hell it was it came off 'en of. Still, she's got more armor than
some that are out there.  Those extra chest plates does make it hard to get at
the internals, but hell, boy, that's a techs problem, not mine."

The old man paused, and he downed another shot. "But that don't mean nothing,
lad, because as ugly as she was, and as much of a nightmare to keep running as
she is, that beautiful old bitch out back is all mine. She's my own junkyard
dog, she is. So you go over there and tell your friends that called my
beautiful bitch a pile of junk they got one minute to clear out of here--'cause
a second after that, son, I'm gonna shoot both of 'em straight through the
heart. A'int no one but me and Abby-girl get to talk about my dog that way--NO
ONE."

--Except from SALOONS AND STALKERS: A MERCS LIFE, published by Windhome Press
of Terra, 3027.


Capabilities:

The Junkyard Dog is a unique 'Franken-Mech' pieced together from the remains of
many other BattleMechs. This particular frank masses 60 tons and moves 4/6/0 on
the battlefield. The legs were originally part of a Shadow Hawk, while the
torso is from a Centurion. The engine and right arm are from a Rifleman, the
left arm is from a Thunderbolt, and the head is a from a prototype early model
Wolfhound (without a full-head ejector, or indeed ANY type of ejector seat).

Armament consists of a Large Laser and an AC-5 in the right arm (20 shots for
the AC), an LRM-10 (24 shots) in the left torso, two medium lasers (one front,
one rear) in the center torso, and two machine-guns (100 shots) in the left
arm. Thirteen heat sinks provide adequete cooling for a 3025-era 'Mech, but the
Junkyard Dog still runs a little hot.  Armor is just nine tons--and badly
arranged as each seperate location is based on the original 'Mech.  The
additional plates on the torsos make maintenance work difficult--double all
time for engine, gryo, or torso mounted systems repair.

Overall, she's slow, under-armored, and over-gunned, but during the last years
of the 3rd Succession War, this type of 'Mech was sometimes all that was
available to a MechWarrior if he was avoid becoming Dispossessed.


Junkyard Dog JYD-1G

Mass: 60 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Chassis Config: Biped
Rules Level: Tournament Legal
Era: Clan Invasion
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/X-X-D
Production Year: 3025
Cost: 4,714,880 C-Bills
Battle Value: 1,082

Chassis: Salvaged Standard
Power Plant: Pitban 240 Fusion Engine
Walking Speed: 43.2 km/h
Maximum Speed: 64.8 km/h
Jump Jets: None
    Jump Capacity: 0 meters
Armor: Salvaged Standard Armor
Armament:
    1 Magna Mk III Large Laser
    1 Luxor 3R LRM-10
    1 Imperator A Autocannon/5
    2 Photec 806c Medium Lasers
    2 Voelkers 200 Machine Guns
Manufacturer: Unique
    Primary Factory: Unknown
Communications System: O/P Comm-22/H47
Targeting and Tracking System: Digital Scanlock 347
================================================================================
Equipment           Type                         Rating                   Mass 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard                      99 points                6.00
Engine:             Fusion Engine                240                      11.50
    Walking MP: 4
    Running MP: 6
    Jumping MP: 0
Heat Sinks:         Single Heat Sink             13                        3.00
    Heat Sink Locations: 1 LT, 1 RT, 1 LL, 1 RL
Gyro:               Standard                                               3.00
Cockpit:            Standard                                               3.00
    Actuators:      L: SH+UA+LA+H    R: SH+UA
Armor:              Standard Armor               AV - 144                  9.00

                                                      Internal       Armor     
                                                      Structure      Factor     
                                                Head     3            8         
                                        Center Torso     20           18       
                                 Center Torso (rear)                  7         
                                           L/R Torso     14           16       
                                    L/R Torso (rear)                  6         
                                            Left Arm     10           20       
                                           Right Arm     10           15       
                                             L/R Leg     14           16       

================================================================================
Equipment                                 Location    Heat    Critical    Mass 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Autocannon/5                                 RA        1         4         8.00
Large Laser                                  RA        8         2         5.00
2 Machine Guns                               LA        0         2         1.00
LRM-10                                       LT        4         2         5.00
(R) Medium Laser                             CT        3         1         1.00
Medium Laser                                 CT        3         1         1.00
@AC/5 (20)                                   RA        -         1         1.00
@MG (1/2) (100)                              LA        -         1         0.50
@LRM-10 (24)                                 LT        -         2         2.00
                                            Free Critical Slots: 29

BattleForce Statistics
MV      S (+0)  M (+2)  L (+4)  E (+6)   Wt.   Ov   Armor:      5    Points: 11
4          3       3       2       0      3     0   Structure:  5
Special Abilities: SRCH, ES, SEAL, SOA, IF 1