Novaya Khvatka, Russian for "New Grip," is a Russian PMC that arrived in the Zone in 2015. It descends from the remnants of Otselotovaya Khvatka, the unit of Major Ocelot, and it fields heavy armour and Gekko mechs. At home it is a large company, covertly backed by the Russian state, and in the Zone it keeps a battalion-sized force. Its manner is formal, guarded, businesslike and loyal to its own. A veteran officer who served under Ocelot commands it, and his name is not yet decided.
Its main base is Obyekt Kolkhida, an encampment in the north-west of the Rioni Valley Works built around the Kolkhidskiy Zavod, a Soviet heavy-machinery plant. The company turned the plant and the ground around it into a self-contained installation with a command post, repair shops, a vehicle park, a fuel dump and quarters for a battalion of armour and Gekko crews. A recovery section tows selected hulls from the Gekko Graveyard to be stripped, rebuilt and returned to service. Checkpoints control the approach roads, patrols are drilled and frequent, and outsiders are handled through a liaison at the main gate. A small office on South Embankment forwards armour by rail into the city.
The company came for AENEAS. It traced Patriot funding to the Colchis Charter and followed the hearsay about the AI into the Zone. It wants the information inside it, above all the fact that AENEAS was part of JD, and it means to destroy it afterward as the last surviving part of the Patriots' system. It does not want the AI as a tool or a symbol.
Espionage is its habit and its first weapon. Some of its older members were trained by Ocelot himself and can use his strategies, and it has an agent inside every major PMC. Their reports resemble corporate espionage, covering plans, contracts, technology and movements, and they seldom reach proof of anything deeper. Novaya Khvatka is a middle ground among the PMCs. It is not friendly to outsiders, but it hires freelancers for particular tasks such as scouting, transport, salvage and work its own people should not be seen doing. It is less hostile than Desperado and far less open than the Outer Heaven Movement. Its officers pay on time and ask few questions. It sells information when it can, though mostly it acts for its own gain. The Dzmoba tolerates it slightly.