Editing Lord Erkhard

[[File:Lord Erkhard.jpg|thumb|right]]

While all members of the Imperial Legion profess the cult of war, not all of them serve War the same way. To most of them, war is akin to a game of chess to be won by the one with the most shrewdness and foresight. But there are lords viewing war as a bloody arena, where war goals don't matter, and all that matters is the act of slaughter and bloodshed.

Lord Erkhard can be seen as the most unusual and the most unhinged of them all. Almost every Legion member has been subject to regenerative treatment following the inevitable injuries and mutilations, but every rule has exceptions: having lost both arms in the battle of the Young Sprouts Fortress, the training base of Protectorate advisors, lord Erkhard literally went crazy.<br />
An heir to a glorious noble family of the Empire, its history full of heroes participating in hundreds of wars, he brought dishonor to his lineage by having had suffered such a defeat. Burning with shame, he refused to regenerate his arms, instead ordering to implant him combat manipulators. Each such arm as strong as ten men and containing various weapons ranging from lasers to razor-sharp diamond blades, they earned Erkhard the moniker of Steelclaw.

It was the end of the Second Wave when he finally left the medical centers. Still, he found a way to slake his thirst for killing.

Preparing for the Third Wave, the Empire was hiring mercenaries and pirates to use them in keeping the Protectorate's borders from fortifying. Erkhard took command of one such fleet and set off deep into the Protectorate to commit acts of piracy. A year later, he earned the reputation of a merciless killer unable to tell ally from enemy; many peaceful towns on undeveloped border planets were turned by him into smoking ruins.<br />
Eventually, a united squadron of several systems' vessels, supported by Protectorate forces, cornered Erkhard's fleet near the very edge of a black hole's gravity field. Following a fierce space battle turned boarding action, his entire fleet was destroyed, and he was forced to use an escape pod.

It took a long time for the pod to be discovered; over twelve years he was drifting, animation suspended, near the black hole, risking entering the collapse field. He was lucky to have his pod found and sold to the Empire by a wreckage-gathering adventurer; by the beginning of the Third Wave, Erkhard was back commanding an army corps fighting on the Protectorate's borders.

He was one of the few lords who were not busy with rebellions and riots on the planets previously conquered, but attacked the Protectorate - and had success doing so. Together with lord Shinji, Erkhard managed to conquer almost half a hundred worlds; by the time of the Vigilant Peace, he was a war hero.<br />
Still, twelve years of cold sleep haven't changed him; it is his name that's used to scare children on many, many planets imperial and Protectorate alike.

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[[Category: Бpoнeпeхoтa]]