Nexus NXS1-A

       The Nexus has a checkered past. It began as the Jackrabbit, a light ‘Mech developed by the SLDF at Skobel MechWorks just two years before the Amaris Civil War. Mere weeks after Skobel finished the Jackrabbit’s preliminary testing, Stefan Amaris’s armies seized the factory. Amaris the Usurper ordered the Jackrabbit mass-produced for his Republican army–ultimately, the would-be dictator deployed more than five hundred Jackrabbits against the Star League soldiers for whose use they had originally been intended.
       General Kerensky recaptured the Skobel MechWorks plant relatively intact during the Liberation of Terra, but refused to use the ‘Mech that Amaris had sent against its developers.   He shut down the factory, and ComStar kept it closed for several centuries. Kerensky’s army took no Jackrabbits on the Exodus. Outside ComStar, few records of the ‘Mech’s existence remained.
       In 3054, ComStar ‘s Precentor Martial Focht modified the Jackrabbit’s design, replacing the engine with the faster Nissan 175, removing the ballistic and missile weapons, and installing jump jets and an array of energy weapons. The BattleMech, newly refitted and renamed Nexus, soon began production.

       The Nexus is a fast mover that can reach a target, deliver a solid punch and get out quickly. Its speed and its highly effective McArthur anti-missile system makes it difficult to hit, and its Rawlings 55 Jump Jets make it difficult to pursue.
       An impressive combination of medium- and short-range energy weapons allows for devastating volleys in most combat situations. Blankenburg Technologies’ shoulder-mounted medium laser provides the punches at a distance, and Intek’s efficient shoulder-mounted small lasers give the Nexus excellent firepower in tight situations.   The ‘Mech’s main slugging power, however, comes from Blankenburg Technologies’ excellent medium pulse lasers that have replaced the Jackrabbit’s hand actuators.

       Since mid-3055 the Nexus has been deployed in the ComStar Fourth Army’s 366th Division (Wolf Bait). The 366th Division, decimated by Clan Wolf hit-and-run raids on Tukayyid, used large numbers of Nexuses to replace their losses. The Nexus is expected to live up to every word of the 366th Division’s promising initial reports.