Dendarii Mercenaries
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In Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, the Dendarii Mercenaries are the mercenary organisation founded by Miles Vorkosigan in The Warrior's Apprentice.
[edit] Formation
The mercenary fleet begins almost by accident. While visiting his grandmother on Beta Colony, Miles acts on a sudden impulse by buying an outdated interstellar cargo freighter and employing its down-and-out pilot, Arde Mayhew. He offers the freighter's services to the beleaguered government of Tau Verde IV, a planet wracked by civil war. The government's opponents in the war have hired a mercenary fleet, the Oseran Mercenaries, to blockade the planet. By accident, Miles leads the Tau Verde representative to believe that he himself heads a mercenary fleet. Miles takes his freighter to Tau Verde and, through clever tactics and considerable luck, successfully captures a vessel of the Oseran mercenary fleet. Despite his vastly inferior force, he outmanouevres the Oserans at every turn; eventually the defeated Admiral Oser agrees to join Miles' fictitious fleet, giving the previously nonexistent 'Dendarii Mercenaries' (named for a mountain range on Miles' planet of Barrayar) a real existence.
[edit] Later on
Miles is summoned to Barrayar (see The Warrior's Apprentice in Vorkosigan Saga) to answer charges of treason. In clearing his name, he persuades the Emperor Gregor Vorbarra to declare the mercenaries part of the Barrayaran imperial military.
[edit] References
- Bujold, Lois McMaster (1986). The Warrior's Apprentice. New York: Baen Books. ISBN 0671655876.
