---

Seeing the Colonel walk away, Ziska seized the moment before Reya could be distracted by the repetitive questions of some MechTech. Pouncing on the other woman from the shadows, Ziska wrapped an arm around Reya’s waist, and dragged the engineer with her as she strode purposefully away from any prying ears. She knew well from experience that the hanger was hardly the place for private discussion. As the pair walked, an impish smile formed on Ziska’s lips, "You know, some MechWarriors that I know, would be deeply, deeply offended if someone tinkered with their BattleMech without warning."

Pausing, Ziska flashed an impish smile , "Of course, I harbor no such base emotions. Generous and unburdened by guilt as I am. However, I am curious. Quite curious as it so happens."

"Now, I may not be an engineer with a fancy degree like you…However, I can read a spec sheet well enough. Standard Guardian ECM is neat, but it's not as flash as what the Colonel was saying. You did something to it. You must have. Don’t misunderstand me, I don't doubt your work, of course not, but as I may be operating in exceedingly dangerous places in the very immediate future, it behooves me to ask you for some particulars..."

Reya found herself suddenly hit by a cascade of thought and emotion. Praise from the Colonel was a rare commodity and it made her heart soar that she could make his job a little bit easier especially in their current circumstance. She could burn through a technical readout or decipher a schematic almost without a thought, but his words left her wide-eyed and stunned behind the modest smile she put on when he first mentioned being happy with her subtleness in the briefing. Go on the mission? The phrase repeated in her mind like a pulsing warning light. Her mouth opened slightly like she was supposed to speak, though not a word came out as he went on describing the need for her to go along with the raiding party. Throughout the entire time she had been with the Knights, never once had he suggested sending her into the field and though he spoke with calm professionalism, the unsaid was what had driven his point home: The stakes were now at their highest and there was no longer any room for miscalculation. Sure, she could list, describe and train someone on what to look for and what to bring back, however it was just another added risk and one that was within her control. The hard-logic engineer within her simply could not accept the potential of self-inflicted injury and the irony that it would be her own creation in the Raven’s ECM suite that would require such a measure of personal attention was also not lost.

He had left the decision with her, but her hyperactive mind was already processing a myriad of scenarios. Sending you is a risk. A voice in the back of her mind countered almost immediately. What if we get hurt or even killed?! Her mind was racing. Who is going to watch after us? What about Sunny? Who will take care of her? The thought of the young girl having to lose another person close to her made Reya nauseous almost to the point that she didn’t even notice herself being wheeled away by Ziska. Her legs carried her along amidst the throng of activity, but she wasn’t really listening to the words of the other woman. As they made their way away from the others she found herself holding on to Ziska’s sleeve and she felt like she was in a daze when she answered with a phrase she never uttered. "I’m sorry."

She sat down on an empty ammo crate and rubbed one finger back and forth across her lips slowly while her mind was still burning along like a particle beam. "We didn’t really have a lot of time to put a plan together... I can change it back." She said, looking back across the cave at the plethora of stirring activity. "The Colonel wants me to go on the mission."

"It’s a little late to be sorry. Not that I want an apology, fancy tech is fancy tech," Ziska said, flopping down next to Reya. Tapping a beat with her boot, she hummed the first stanzas of an old shanty she had heard sung in the Periphery. Five years. Five years had gone by fast.

Terse Thomas had taught her the song. He had taught it to the entire crew. It was yet another way to pass the long hours they spent waiting for a passing merchant to venture close enough to the derelict Warship. The ruined ship was good bait. Terse Thomas was dead, of course. Along with the rest of the crew. Davion pirate hunters, Ziska recalled. Too many of them. Too damn many of them for a ragtag band of hungover pirates to handle. She was the only one who made it. She was the only one to survive the scorching lasers, pulverizing autocannons, and endless rain of LRMs.

She’d made it. She’d made it when no one else did. They were too stubborn to run. Too proud to retreat. Awful traits in pirates. The last stand of the drunken dozen had been little more than a slaughter. A familiar story. A common experience. She had a Cat's luck, the nine lives of a feline they had always said. Professional colleagues died. Friends perished. Lovers were offered no mercy by the galaxy and left as quickly and as brutally as any others. The no doubt storied battle, at least to the Davions, for an unnamed pirate's moon had been a grim example of how to die in the most pointless manner. It was simply another piece in a long collection of horrible memories, Ziska thought to herself, not without a familiar sense of affection.

Guided by such positive recollections, Ziska turned her attention to her companion. Reya’s demeanor, while not unexpected given the present predicament of the Green Knights, struck Ziska as quite interesting. Reya could be many things in Ziska’s experience. Confident. Loud. Brilliant. And even very, very angry on occasion. Especially if a BattleMech was returned in a state best described as heavily damaged. To apologize. To show doubt. To show doubt about her own work. Well…that was certainly not the Reya that Ziska had come to know.

"Regretting volunteering for a combat operation? Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. I myself regularly regret that I didn’t pursue a long and no doubt storied career in a traveling Canopian pleasure circus," Ziska said with a knowing nod, a flask sliding from one of her sleeves and into her outstretched left hand seemingly out of thin air. Taking a strong sip, Ziska grinned as the liquor burned all the way down her throat. She shoved the flask into Reya’s hand without giving her a chance to decline and spoke with fire still dancing across her tongue,"Davion vintage. Whiskey. Quite good…or so I am told. Have some, it will help, I promise."

"It’s not that," Reya answered and shook her head. "He gave me a choice, but I have to do it. There’s just not anyone left that I would trust to make sure we get what we need." She continued with a little bit of reservation in her tone. The words had come out more cutting than she had intended. The Green Knights had some excellent technicians, but the Colonel hadn’t asked one of them to go, he had asked her, knowing full well the risk involved. She continued to gaze off towards some of the makeshift mechbays, passively studying the movement around the machines. "I’m just kinda all over the place right now." She said, "I guess all this has made me really think about what’s important to me." She sighed and shook her head again. Her lips and fists tightened up and she could feel another rush of emotion coming on just the same as when she was in the cockpit of Ziska’s Raven. "You and Lena are the best friends I ever had and now she’s gone…" She shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands as if she were completely exhausted for an explanation to herself. "Now I’m basically like Sunny’s mother… and if something happens to me then what?"

She was tearing up but didn’t want to cry again and instead took the flask from Ziska and tipped it back, ungracefully abandoning any of the usual decorum for which she was well known. As the burning liquid went down, she looked like she was about to turn green. "Is this paint thinner?" She squeaked. ‘Davion vintage’ tasted like it would strip the varnish off a cedar chest. She coughed as the fire descended and washed through her senses. Ziska was right though. It did help. If for no other reason than to make her think about nothing else than trying to hold down the meager contents of her stomach for a moment. She breathed in deeply and rubbed one hand over her face, still feeling the effects before letting the breath go again slowly. "I bypassed some of the major safety and operational protocols to make the output stronger." She said finally, turning her gaze back to the Raven which sat quietly across the cavern. The small table she had set out for herself and Sunny remained undisturbed. Just focusing on the sharp, ready lines of the machine helped her regain some of her composure. Within these machines, she knew exactly what she was doing and her eyes narrowed slightly as she looked on thinking about the havoc it would soon cause in Ziska’s hands- it was a satisfying feeling. "Functionally, you won’t notice anything different, but if we keep running it this way, it’s going to fry the ECM." She said. "I’ll have to change it back." The statement brought about a small huff of amusement and she looked back at Ziska finally. "And I probably voided your factory warranty, not that I think you’re worried about that."

"Oh, I suspect the Cappies aren’t going to honor my warranty, either way. You know, it’s strange, rip off a merchant or two, and suddenly the Cappies aren’t very friendly any more," Ziska said, taking her flask back and swallowing another mouthful of Davion gunsmoke.

"I will certainly do my utmost to not ride the red line past the very red line and into the extremely red line," Ziska added, smiling once again.

"To old friends," Ziska said, toasting with the flask as her free hand flicked to her brow in a mock salute that lacked any insult, "Them’s the breaks. This is the job. I’ll miss Lena though. She had good bones. She had potential. I liked her, even when she was a big softie. She was interesting. She made me laugh. And Pops, for all his talents as a dancer, is a far less pleasant partner for an impromptu waltz."

"Do not despair, though, my dear friend. Now is a simple time," Ziska said, jumping to her feet and grabbing hold of Reya’s hands. "Now is the easy time. Now, right now is the exciting time! It's the only time any of us are really alive. We either succeed or we die…quickly and hopefully faster than we can feel it. We don’t have to worry about the future. We don’t have to regret our pasts. We have no past and we have no future. We have only now. This moment. This shitty backwater planet. We’ll have our revenge or we won't and that will be that. This is our chance to show these Crimson Fists the Canopus IV Shuffle and then we’ll make them pay. We'll make them howl with rage before we send them to dine with the damned and Stefan Amaris. For Lena, for Golden Boy, and all the other assholes that they stole from us."

"Short-sighted. Yes. The few of us who intend to leave after we get off this god-forsaken planet are few - we need to plan on the future."

Her nose turned upward. "But they have their reasons for doing so; if they wanted to be petty and spiteful, they would be taking flamethrowers to barracks right now. I understand the whole of the Colonel's plan in a most utilitarian and spartan sense. They wish to maximize our gains from this operation..."

"The cost, Rivers, is to our honor as noble Mechwarriors. Our integrity as greater men and women to have ever ridden on the battlefield." You could swear that you've heard this line before. "But...I figure your dilemma is more emotional than chivalric. It is wrong 'as a person', not wrong 'as a Mechwarrior'."

She stepped away, saying "You are in the right, but for the wrong reasons. I give you permission as Lance Leader to act in combat as you see fit. That will be all."

Western Continent, Espia
NPDRE Outpost F-10
18 April, 3030
0500 Hours

"Come on, you lazy pieces of trash!" Captain Yorgei Park shouted through his megaphone, his electronically-amplified voice barely audible over the rumble of huge diesel engines, the rhythmic stomping of IndustrialMechs, and the bustle of dozens of soldiers and laborers hurrying through their duties. "Move your asses! We've got sixty minutes to get this shipment on the road, or each one of you will be getting ten lashes!"

A few of the unranked laborers cringed, particularly the ones who had been 'volunteered' in the wake of the coup. Park scowled as he watched them scuttle about, only the higher-ranking soldiers daring to meet his gaze as he surveyed the loading of the supply convoy.

On the southern end of the continent, the siege of Yuzhny Portveyn had stalled, much to the annoyance of Premier Federov. Governor Xiu and a bare handful of his old cabinet had fled the capital and rallied a small number of loyal soldiers to protect them. While the loyalists had no chance of ever expanding outside of the south, they were fighting fiercely, and the Espian Guard was already stretched precariously thing keeping Balya Gora, Geum Haebyon, and Nui Awa at bay. The Guard needed to crack Xiu's forces soon, before they could become too dug in to remove without a bloodbath.

This supply convoy, Park's superiors had told him, was crucial to the push that would break Yuzhny Portveyn. With it, the Guard forces in the south would have everything they needed to wipe Xiu's resistance out once and for all. Without it, they would have to abandon the city, at least until they could devote enough of the Guard from the other cities to attack again in force.

The new regime wanted results, and they were willing to pay handsomely to those who brought them. Park didn't know where Premier Federov and his cronies had gotten this new influx of C-Bills, and he didn't particularly care. If there was a fortune to be made by showing he could get the job done, he'd get the job done without thinking twice.

Off to Park's left, a laborer driving a forklift slammed on its brakes, lurching to a halt just before it would have careened into a Powerman IndustrialMech carrying a palette full of ammunition cases. As the IndustrialMech pilot and forklift driver began shouting at each other, Park strode toward them, unlooping the long black leather bullwhip from his left hip.

"Stupid oaf!" he shouted, lashing out at the forklift driver, the whip cutting a long, deep gash across the laborer's face with a crack like a rifle. With a scream and a spurt of blood, the driver toppled from the seat of the forklift, his hands trying to hold his ruined face together. "You nearly caused him to drop that ammunition and killed us all!"

As the bleeding man ran towards the first aid tent, Park shouted after him in disgust, "First aid is coming out of your weekly pay! Now, someone who can drive a forklift, get on and do this pig's job for him!"

Sheepishly, another laborer climbed onto the forklift, and Park cursed under his breath. How was he going to prove himself worthy to the new regime, when he was in command of such incompetent human garbage?

---

Outpost F-10 was one of a dozen or so temporary facilities quickly put together by the Espian Guard in the wake of the coup, meant to help coordinate the movement of forces between the four major cities. A row of pre-fabricated warehouses, a handful of quonset huts, and row upon row of blocky storage containers to be distributed between convoys.

At the heart of the base was a pre-fab headquarters, a combination of administrative offices, briefing rooms, armory, operations room, communications array, and sensor hub. At the top of the building was a large radar dish, which rotated in place searching for signals.

Surrounding the bulk of the base was a ten-meter wall, thick slabs of ferrocrete meant to withstand all but the heaviest of enemy fire. At the four corners of the wall, and on either side of the large front gate, were automated turrets, each sporting a pair of lasers to damage incoming vehicles, and a .50 caliber machine gun to rip apart human targets. These turrets were programmed to fire at anything and anyone that came within 300 meters of the outpost without the correct IFF codes, and were all powered by a single portable fusion generator, which hummed and thrummed at the southern end of the complex.

Around this wall were lines of razor wire, and a hundred meters of torn-up earth, all of which was riddled with mines. Most were small anti-personnel mines, but among them were a handful of anti-materiel mines that could rip through a vehicle or cripple the leg of a Battlemech.

Around this perimeter, a quartet of tanks rumbled two-by-two in a wide patrol circuit. Each pair consisted of a Scorpion and a Striker, both light tanks that individually had relatively anemic firepower, but acting together had a mix of ballistic and missile weaponry to ward off a light or medium Battlemech.

The outpost was a hornet's nest, and should those defenses fail, reinforcements were only a radio call away.

A few kilometers away, huge shapes lumbered through the morning mist towards the outpost, their intent to storm into that hornet's nest and break it wide open.

"We're approaching the edge of the enemy's sensor range," Colonel Gaius Wayne called to the Green Knights over his comms from the Mobile HQ. "Activate the ECM and begin your approach. Good hunting and godspeed, Green Knights. The operation is a go."

Raven Rivers

Right for the wrong reasons? Raven thought, remembering what Ingrid had said, as if being a good person isn't more important than being a good Mechwarrior...

Either way, he was glad he was charging towards the base, instead of the convoy itself, thus lessening the risk that he might fire at unarmed folk, most of whom were probably not willing to be there. He prepared his long-ranged missiles first, then his laser, then the rest of his weapons as he waited for the ECM to be put up and orders to be given as to exactly what to target. Until then... He was dealing with hypotethicals.

Was he going to be ordered to fire at the gatehouses, or the turrets, or the wall itself? Or was he going to be asked to target the radar dish which poked itself above the wall, which in turn was unlikely? Either way, Raven prepared to do his duty, irresolution and worry lost for now as he waited for orders.

They were going to get the convoy. They were going to get the supplies. They will not fail this; their spirit remained strong and their minds remained clear. Katrina, Andrew, this is the first step to rescuing you both, as well as everyone caught by these pricks. He remembered Ingrid's words too as he continued his thoughts, An independent word which acts as a buffer against pirates; maybe that is the best fate for this planet. Who knows, maybe we can form a new contract with them as a free world, maybe even settle down if the Colonel permits...

He caught himself idly daydreaming; has the ECM been turned on yet? If it had, Raven intended to fire, if there was still time before battle, even a few seconds or so, he was going to clear his head and try to focus as he waited for orders on what to fire on. For Katrina, for Andrew, for my family, for the Green Knights, for the common people suffering through this...

The mist reminded Aroxy of looking into a thick bowl of soup. Back during his time in the civil war, the infantry units often used to throw a c-bill into your gruel and pray that you would survive tomorrow. They believed it was better than eating what amounted to a tasteless gruel that had the consistency of concrete. Now, Aroxy believed he could have thrown a hundred c-bills into the fog and it wouldn’t make a difference. Luck wouldn’t achieve victory. Tactics and strategies did

Eddies of gray swirled around in the dawn’s chill, beads of dew clinging to the turret of the 120mm cannon he was currently situated on. A gale came in from the south and the morning mist briefly parted to reveal the base on the horizon. It was well fortified for a base of that size but it was easy pickings for their company, even at a quarter of their strength.

Aroxy didn’t even need to bark an order to his crew as the cannon swiveled on his command towards the small tank column. They needed to get closer to ensure that the round didn’t swerve off too wildly but Takka knew the gist. Cripple the tank in front of the line and the rest would come to a swift stop. It was as simple as that.

A Von Luckner like Merry-Go-Round could take on those four tanks for breakfast.

If they had enough ammo.

Aroxy switched on his comms and spoke into the radio in a firm voice.

“ This is Steel Rain. We got our sights lined up on the column. Ready to fire in ETA 30 seconds. Awaiting response. Over.”

The past few hours might have even been considered pleasant. The ‘Mech had warmed up after the trying affair that was taking off one’s clothes and putting on the cooling vest that had been stored in that cold cockpit for a week. Like getting into cold boots in the morning, except worse. She knew it wouldn’t last, that the pendulum was about to swing over to the other side in a matter of minutes. From chilly through the midpoint of mildly toasty to… well, a fighting BattleMech. Remembering the Colonel’s words about the weather forcing enemy air assets low and into range, she called up the ammo management system and set the missile racks to feed into the upper LRM 10 launcher, then set it to a separate weapons group and switched the 15 and the other 10 to safe to avoid accidentally pulling their triggers out of habit. She doubted anyone would fly in this fog, but it would probably clear up soon.

As they approached, she kept an eye on the patrol, paying extra attention to the Strikers. ”Gigs here. Master arm on, ready to rumble. Knight One, I take it the Colonel’s order to keep LRMs for AA duty stands?” She checked in with Ramrod, keeping her fingers well away from triggers to avoid a negligent discharge. ”And if you figured out a way to do this without shooting at poor truck drivers, now’s the time to share.” Despite the chafing between their viewpoints, Marit agreed that shooting at people wasn’t ideal, even if both women would’ve probably said the other one thought so for the wrong reasons. Now waiting for instructions, she returned to her usual method of killing time, picking up where she left off.


She sang quietly to herself, blissfully unaware her push to talk had stuck open.

---

"You've got a lovely singing voice, Giggles," Ziska seemed to purr over the comms, but there was no warmth, no real humor, and none of the usual mischief in her words. She was calm. She was ready. She was focused again. Most of the alcohol she had consumed in the morning had been left with her breakfast. Stowed hastily inside of a repurposed storage bin latched to one of the remaining tanks. She had felt better. She had felt better the second she knew the mission was going to kick off. Ziska hated waited. She hated waiting on a base, on a DropShip, or in some hollowed out mountain. There was only one place Ziska had patience. There was only one place she could feel the distractions fading. A MechWarrior sickness, Terse Thomas had called it, the love of battle, the lust for fighting, and the singular inability to live a normal life outside of killing people for stacks of c-bills.

"ECM coming online," Ziska said, sending out a final encrypted broadcast as the souped up Guardian ECM kicked into high gear with a pleasant hum. The Diagnostic Interpretation Computer burned fresh chrome, sending a wave of feedback coursing through her neurohelmet. Ziska gasped, crumbling backwards against her seat for a moment and letting out a low scream as she clenched her teeth together. Clawing against her controls, she pulled herself upwards fighting against the flood of information. she needed to orient herself. It was almost too much too handle. Too hot. No, cold. Colder and faster than the connection going straight into her frontal cortex had been just days earlier. She could feel the hair on her neck rising. She swore she could taste it. A metallic tang that seemed to kick her neurotransmitters straight off the fucking wall and into overdrive. So much sensory input. So much data. She was fast. She was faster. They were faster. The RVN-3L didn't disappoint. Reya didn't disappoint.

Ziska smiled, a pointless gesture she knew, sitting alone in her BattleMech cockpit, but she felt the familiar embrace of adrenaline drawing over her. She could hear the music. She could feel the beat. The macabre dance had started. And she had only to find a dance partner.

"ECM active," Ziska hissed using point-to-point broadcasting. Compressed into microwave bursts, her voice was even colder. "Enemy comms, down. Enemy sensors, jammed. We're off the map. Make it count."

It was the small things that annoyed Ingrid sometimes - the atmospheric pressure gauge in her cockpit had been broken for some time. The Ostroc's designers made the strange choice to install it analogue in what was otherwise a decently advanced equipment suite. Made it very hardy and unlikely to suffer in feedback, made finding the replacement parts a nightmare. It broke sometime during her first engagement with the Green Knights, and not once had they found a way to fix it.

It was redundant anyway; the atmosphere's composition was often one of the first things you'd read about a planet before going into an operation. You had about the same effect by cutting out the line from the briefing's print-outs and taping it over the gauge anyway.

It still annoyed Ingrid.

She was out of it and she knew it, the knife-sharp wit she was brought up to exhibit being too dull to cut. She tried to focus and focus hard as the rest of the group called up and offered their readies - ultimately resorting to a quick hit to her own neurohelmet to get the fog out.

"Giggles, your answer is to aim for the first in line," she said with clear reservation. Ultimately, no she couldn't come up with an answer that satisfied her own sensibilities and her standing orders. "If one truck breaks down in front, the rest will be thrown into disarray - we will engage and demand surrender. If they do not capitulate, you act as you see fit. Keep your eyes skyward, though - air support won't be far behind."

A half-assed compromise that was going to make things worse in the end, even if it was just common sense. She turned off the line for a moment to grumble to herself.

"On my mark, Steel Rain fires - the rest will move upward, and I want Family Man to close-in to the end of the convoy to keep stragglers from escaping that way. Close enough to threaten, not close enough to trip mines. Alleycat, Desperado, move with me to encircle the column, and your first priority should be taking out their escort and defenses. The runners are your second priority. Giggles holds the rear and engages targets as opportunity provides."

She took a moment of pause. By her count, just a little bit more needed to give the tankers the time to prepare...the tension in her head grew in the silence.

"On my mark..."

The Ostroc leaned forward into running posture. She took in a sharp breath.

"Mark!"

Location:
Western Continent, Espia
NPDRE Outpost F-10
Date/Time:
18 April, 3030/0500 Hours
Interactions:
The Whole Crew vs. NPDRE Transport
Gear:
SERE Kit- Tarak keeps a SERE(Survival Evasion Resistance Escape) kit inside his cockpit in case he needs to eject and survive in the wilderness on his own for some time, he has a black hard polymer pack filled with MREs to last him a few days, a broken down Semi-automatic carbine with one 20 round magazine, a flashlight, a canteen filled with 1L of water, a knife, a trauma kit to stabilize wounds and set broken bones, and a collapsible spade within it. This kit is attached to his seat to keep it from flying about and possibly causing damage while within the cockpit.

Combat gear- a white and grey camo clothing, a cooling vest able to take small arms fire and regulates his body temperature to allow for higher survivability inside and outside the cockpit, a pair of gloves, his boots, some light armoring across his body to more easily take impacts and dampen blows, and his Neurohelmet. He has a suppressed hand gun with one 20-round magazine holstered on his left leg, and on his right leg he has his Personal Cassette Player which has his "Flower's Favorites" cassette in it.

---

Tarak was listening to the cacophony of noise that is within his Battlemech and felt calm. As he listened to the radio chatter, the hum of his Battlemech, the music within his helmet as his cassette player, Tarak was tapping on his controls, lightly getting himself charged up. He was riling himself up, as this was going to be a fast mission, they had 15 minutes to be in and out. Tarak was singing as he listened to the music as he was waiting for the plan to be made out.

Tarak heard Giggles singing and laughed, it was funny as Ziska had said what he was thinking and calling out her beautiful voice. Steel Rain is ready to start the congo line, while Raven quickly closes the distance with the front of the convoy to make sure they are unable to move back. While Tarak would push forward with Ziska and Ingrid to encircle the column and rip the fangs from the snake while they wrangle the neck. All the while Giggles holds the rear to keep them from running and support in case things go awry.

Tarak chuckled, it was a good plan, well as good as it goes. It was by the books, as was anything Ingrid did, yet that might be the best thing to do. Tarak switched his com on to give his ready, "Desperado, ready to rock. I'll take the long side". As his music lightly seeped through for a moment before it soon enough cut off. Tarak waited for the mark, as the song switched, Tarak felt his blood rise as Ramrod was counting them down, as the Black Pheonix began to lean forward. The Black Pheonix began to slowly shift into a lower stance and took the position of a runner ready to win a championship.

As the legs creaked and groaned, it was building tension in the legs and prepared to throw itself forward with tremendous forces. The moments before the call comes down ticked, the tension that was building up was palpable, and as the call was cast and the guns began to fire, the tension of the mission exploded. Black Pheonix began its' charge like a bat out of hell, with the ferocity that was being shown by the Black Pheonix, one might assume the pilot within was showing immense levels of excitement or anger.

Yet Tarak was far from excited.

Inside his cockpit, he seemed completely calm.

Reya Wyatt

There wasn’t much advice Master Sergeant Dalton knew to give or at least that he knew would be expediently helpful. The Colonel had mentioned that her mind worked about as fast as a super computer and often faster than her legs would carry. Further, he would have to keep her focused or she’d think herself into a nervous wreck before they even got halfway to the initial point. Bringing her along had changed his calculus a bit along with the unsaid message that if anything happened to her, he might as well not come back. He agreed with the sentiment and would hold himself to that standard whether it was implied or not. In his infantry career he handled similar missions with more variables. If the mech jocks did their work then he had no doubt the boys could handle the rest. As far as keeping their little guest occupied until showtime, he knew just the thing and it always worked to calm the nerves of the greenhorns. What was unusual was she didn’t seem at all put-off or surprised when he offered the flask. Almost as if she expected it. “Just enough for the edge,” He’d said as she winced at the taste. “Colonel needs your mind sharp and so do we.” They went over a few protocols and instructions in addition to the briefing he gave the volunteers. Once they moved in and cleared the zone, one of the boys would escort her personally wherever she needed to go and considering her appearance in comparison to most of the Green Knights, there was no shortage of volunteers for escort detail. “Miss Wyatt is considered VIP,” He told the squad. “She gets a scratch, you get a dent.”

The morning was crisp now, full of mist and a saltwater dew that could be tasted like sweat in the cold air. Dalton watched from atop their lead APC along with the rest of the convoy parked in a small depression among the rolling hills. Through his binoculars he watched the mech lance moving in along with the Von Luckner, feeling the dull thud of their steps through the armor of the machine beneath him. He let out a huff of amusement and shook his head at their banter before glancing down at one of his men getting a read for the wind with a wisp of fieldgrass. Weather moving in. He thought to himself, same as the Colonel had said, maybe even ahead a bit. He needed it to hold off a little longer. A deluge didn’t lend well to a firefight, particular when they had an extra head to look after. “How we lookin over there, Miss Reya?” She was sitting behind him, indian-style, on top of the APC behind a large mobile sensor pack that folded apart like a suitcase.

“We should a get a call from the Colonel anytime now to-” Reya answered, finding herself interrupted by Colonel Wayne’s voice over the comm.

"Activate the ECM and begin your approach. Good hunting and godspeed, Green Knights. The operation is a go."

“...to start.”

Hearing the sound of the Colonel’s voice, the rest of the Buckshot Boys finished off an energy drink or a cigarette as they knew Dalton’s orders were forthcoming.

There was a brief moment as the mech lance and the tank checked in with Ingrid and Reya looked over the top of the display in front of her in the distance, scantly able to make out anything clearly. She breathed in through her nose slowly. Another swig from that flask wouldn’t hurt. She could feel the tension growing in the air, like she was going on stage for some grand performance and her turn in the spotlight was fast approaching, unavoidable. The small arrows representing the Green Knights moved over the topographical sensor display in front of her eyes: Ingrid, Ziska, Marit, Raven, Aroxty and his crew, Tarak… A fleeting thought blinked through her mind about his antics and his stupid mix tape. He had brought her a gift, which meant he was thinking about her.

The screen froze and the image pixelated a fraction as Ziska made the call on the initial point.

Reya tapped a few keys rapidly as her attention snapped back to reality and glanced up at Sergeant Dalton. “It’s working.”

Dalton nodded affirmatively and tapped a finger on his forehead firmly back at her. The sign to stay focused. “Put the drone up and get over there with Charlie and Delta.” He looked down to see the squads already moving in anticipation of his order. Solid men, moving like a team without a word of instruction. He felt a good bit of satisfaction, but still barked at them like they were new recruits. They’d have felt let-down if he didn’t: “The rest of you slags, get it crankin! We got work to do!” He pointed skyward and moved his hand in a circular motion.

Among the tools and hardware she managed to throw onboard a transport when the Green Knights bailed out of Balya Gora was a small drone. Not that she thought it would be particularly useful at the time, but because it just happened to be close when they were making their mad dash to get away from the city. It was not of any military issue or brand and she’d only bought it as something useful to check out salvage when they were in the field. It had a few camera modes, one of which was thermal- something Dalton found very appealing. She closed up the sensor pack with a heavy thud and opened the much smaller case next to her containing the drone. A few quick taps on the controller tablet caused it to raise up with an excited whir from its tiny rotors. Reya let out a small sigh as she watched it jump up and hover overhead obediently. It was bright orange and red, not even close to designed for what they were going to use it for, but if it helped that was good enough. She hoped everyone was too busy to notice it, though it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it got destroyed. She’d lost much more important things in the last few days.

Dalton watched her scurry away to the second APC as the engines came to life once again. He glanced up as the small drone started to follow her like a pet before he synced his own wrist computer with it causing it to turn around and come back to him. As long as one of them kept line of sight with it, it would follow and obey commands, she explained. However under the Raven’s jamming, it wouldn’t find it’s way back home and would likely wander off if a direct signal was broken for very long. His controls would have priority until they were ready for her to come outside the APC.

Everything was set for his command when it was their time to take the stage.

Western Continent, Espia
NPDRE Outpost F-10
18 April, 3030

Park checked his watch. They would at least make the departure time. Not by much, but they’d make it. He gritted his teeth. Sending the forklift operator to the medbay and taking a man off the job probably wasn’t the best move for their time, but that bastard could have killed them all. Unbelievable stupidity. He shook his head. The rest of the dim lot had got the picture though and loading was moving along at a newly found, fast pace. Still, something felt off. He couldn’t place it. He shook his head observing the fear in the laborers faces as they glanced at him unsure of what new trespass they had committed. However, his suspicions were confirmed when another lift operator rolled up in front of him outside of the designated travel path. His hand almost involuntarily moved for the whip at his side, but this man had a more seasoned appearance and knew the rules. Park stayed his temper.

“System’s down boss,” The operator said, pointing at the small screen attached to his machine. A simple program kept the receiving and shipping organized and monitored the inventory for the small depot.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Park growled. He marched up to the large machine furiously; however, another twinge of something familiar struck him, just for a fleeting second, like something moving under his foot, just as he stepped up onto the large forklift. There was not enough time to even consider it as he looked at the screen.

“Stuck on the staging screen sir,” The operator said with a shrug. “I can’t get my next pick.”

Park hammered one of the large buttons on the keypad with his thumb furiously, but the screen was frozen on the driver’s previous order from the system. His eyes darted around rapidly at the small screen while his hands tried various combinations of commands to reset the computer to no avail. His heart rate accelerated. They couldn’t afford a system outage at this time. It would take days to get someone from Balya Gora out to F-10 and his superiors wouldn’t be interested in tech failures as excuses for not making his shipments on time.

Something stirred beneath his grip as he steadied himself on the machine. Something under the handhold, under the machine, more than just the idling of the engine. He was sure of it this time, though as he looked up he immediately noticed the whole operation had come to a standstill. None of the equipment was running. All stopped with operators trying the same reset commands he was attempting. A grotesque wave of nausea swept over him briefly and It felt like he could literally feel minutes of his life being subtracted as the work had come to an abrupt halt right in front of him.

He jumped down and keyed the mic attached to his lapel, but a screeching tone of piercing feedback erupted from the small speaker directly into his face and across every other radio around him before he could get a word out. Almost like he didn’t believe his eyes and ears, he cautiously touched the small button again, sending another blast of painful distortion through all the speakers on every piece of equipment and every handheld on the channel. It was deafening and a roar of shouts and curses went up as soon as he let go of the mic again. For a moment he was at a loss. Nothing made sense. What the hell was going on? The realization struck him broadside as a solid tremor stirred the ground under his feet, shifting the dust on the prefab construction and causing ripples in puddles of saltwater rain.

Mechs inbound.

---

The situation had gotten much more exciting outside the walls of F-10 for the small quartet of Strikers and Scorpions. Sensors had taken a dump all at once, along with all comms. Unaware the other units were having the same problem, the commander of the lead tank, a Striker, had slowed and popped open the hatch to get a look at his antenna array, however instead of finding trouble with his equipment, he instead found a rapidly approaching full lance of mechs on the horizon. Panic quickly set in so much so that the commander completely overlooked the much lower to the ground Von Luckner and instead wheeled around rapidly firing signal flares in an attempt to get the others attention amidst the dead comms.

The reaction among the rest of the column was poorly inadequate with the Green Knights bearing down full bore. The other Striker continued on unknowingly at first, however, the trailing Scorpions had seen the distress flares from the head of the patrol and began quickly maneuvering back towards the supply depot. Their turrets rotated quickly, but getting steady aim off their regular, compacted patrol path was difficult. Of the mechs they could see in the dense morning mist, both the Raven and the Phoenix Hawk moved too fast to track along the rough terrain. A shockingly rare Ostroc and a Shadow Hawk were at a better angle as they turned, but were still moving at a rapid pace in their own right. What looked like an Archer brought up the rear but the best shots were going to be towards the Shadow Hawk and Ostroc. The pair opened fire as they retreated closer to the perimeter of F-10.

Dammit, they’d seen them. Aroxy cursed as he watched their turrets begin to rotate. Just a few more seconds and they would have hit them while they were still blind.

Oh well.

That made the rules of the engagement much easier.

Aroxy grinned as he heard the sound of Takka’s voice shouting exuberantly in the comms.

“ On the way!”

Underneath him, he felt the internal cracking of steel as the autoloader fished a shell into the main firing chamber. The turret beneath Aroxy bucked like a wild horse as the barrel erupted in a flash of bright fire and smoke. Aroxy watched through the telescope as the round sailed in a hypersonic arc towards their target. The column barely had a second to react as the Merry Go Round sank its fangs into its first kill of the day. The first round sliced the main turret of the Scorpion, sending it tumbling off the hatch in a fiery blaze. The round then slammed into the hull of the other Scorpion beside it. A sonorous shriek of plasteel echoed throughout the clearing. The painful pitch made Aroxy’s back shiver as he held up his telescope to survey the situation.

Shit. He was hoping for a vehicle kill at least. The Scorpion was moving slower than before but its turret was still operational. The first Scorpion had deviated the round enough that it only caused damage to the fuselage. The Strikers remained untouched. The shock would only buy them five seconds before their mental discipline would set in.

“ This is Steel Rain reporting. The first Scorpion is down. Second one got tagged but the Strikers are still mission capable.”

Aroxy turned off his radio for a moment and switched to crew comms.

“ Takka, how’s it looking?”

“ I can’t get a clear line on the Scorpion but I can just manage to get a hit on one of those Strikers.”

“ Alright, they’re still trying to wiggle around the wreck. Plant a round in his engine and smoke out those son of bitches.”

“ Roger that,” Aroxy heard the clunking of a shell as one of their last remaining HV rounds entered the chamber again to wreak havoc. “ This is Steel Rain. We are engaging the pair of Strikers now. Repeat. We are engaging.”

“ Fire!,” Aroxy shouted into the comm radio.

“ On the way!,” Takka replied back, throat hoarse.

The cannon erupted again and Aroxy swore as the shell missed by seemingly just a inch, bouncing off the LRM rack. The round smashed through the thick ferrocrete wall, a small section caved in from the force of the impact.

“ Fucking A, Takka. I thought you said you had it!”

“ The wind threw me off!” Aroxy heard the frustrated slamming of a fist against a console. “ If only they turned the ECM on just a little later - “

“ Don’t give me excuses, give me results!”

”Shit, sorry!” Marit blurted out when Ziska made her aware of her mistake, giving the stuck button a whack. She had remembered to sacrifice two slices of the sausage that came with her breakfast ration to Kerensky and ask for the General’s blessing on this mission, but apparently - true to her species - she conserved energy and only blessed the outcome, not its full duration. In her infinite wisdom, Kerensky probably set it up this way so they could get all the bad luck out of the way before the shooting actually started.

Everything that was supposed to be on was on, everything that was supposed to be off was off. She pulled the seatbelts tight, leaving the shoulder straps a bit loose to help her with looking around and keyed the mic twice to confirm she understood the instructions, this time checking that the button had gone back to the ‘receive’ position as intended. She flexed both of the Archer’s elbows, making sure the right one moved the same as the left one. Minhas did a good job. As they were told to ready up, the Archer, towering over everything except Ingrid’s Ostroc, leaned forward, ready to accelerate to its top speed of… barely enough to trigger a speed trap.

And then the patrols noticed them. Some of them. One of the Scorpions didn’t get to look at them for long as Steel Rain fired, taking its hat clean off with their first shot, though both still managed to get rounds off at Ramrod and Family Man. Marit kept her launcher covers closed for the time being, her attention now split between the patrol, cursory glances at the gate and periodic scans of the skies. Archie being the slowest ‘Mech they had available at the time, Marit could ram the throttle open without worrying she would break station at the back of the formation. Raising the ‘Mech’s arms and aligning all four lasers on the nearest striker, Marit fired the arm-mounted pair first, followed by the top mount if necessary to keep the heat down as much as she could, trying to take it out or at least disarm it before it had time to shoot. Perhaps an overkill, but there were more weapons than targets to go around so far.

Now, what sort of air power were they supposed to have? It started with ‘M’, of that she was sure, was it Meteors? Or Mechbusters? Had to be Meteors, the Mechbuster was too new to have made it all the way here from the Dracs, right? Right. Now what sort of armaments did that have? A gun and missiles, but which? AC2 and SRMs? AC10 and LRMs? That would make sense, missiles strip armor at range, autocannon finishes it off up close. Plus hardpoints. Now how many? A wing. Two, four, six? Total, but how many would they send? Two sounded reasonable. As did four, but they’d definitely keep some in reserve, surely they wouldn’t send everything at once. When? Balya Zvezda spaceport was around 350 km away according to the map. How fast could Meteors be at low altitude? 1200 kph? 2400? Less than nine minutes assuming the latter, if they launched now. Even less if they were already in the air.

Raven Rivers

We might actually win this, Raven thought as he charged, the enemy fire either missing or 'plinking' off his Mech's armor as said Mech ran at full tilt towards the enemy position. "DIE, ASSHOLES!" he shouted loudly as days of pent-up tension finally released themselves, and he began to fire at the Striker already firing at him with his autocannon, hoping to perforate it in a few shots. Once that was done, he'd look for the nearest Laser turret or emplacement and fire a short-ranged missile or a spray of autocannon shots at it so that it won't be able to stop the Infantry force once they make their raid on the depot.

He made sure to be in a position where, once the convoy was flushed out, he can cut off its line of retreat as per Ingrid's orders; hopefully he had not misunderstood them. Either way, Raven tried to be meticulous as he took out anything which can concievably be Anti-Infantry, counting on Arroxy and his asshole crew (he still cannot forget the words said against the people of Espia) plus Marit and her Archer to take down the remaining Striker and Scorpion plus distract the defenders from how he was deliberately targeting the Laser turrets...

Susser Tod accelerated one second after the others had begun. The weapons on that machine held the advantage of range over the others, and the terrain didn't do much to keep things stable - Daschke would have to bring her in below top speed if she wanted to be accurate, so she lagged slightly behind.

Her 'mechs right arm hung over the front of the torso, just below the the mountings that held the lasers' lenses, giving her that additional bit of armor to the chest. The enemy was hardly equipped to break through its armor anyway, and damage to the hand would endanger salvage operations later if it failed, but they couldn't yet afford repairs. All precautions had to be made.

Of course, as she advanced, she had to stop for a moment as Mechwarrior Rivers started swearing - not even a particularly good reason to swear, by her estimate. She mentally shrugged and decided to deal with it later if it became a recurring problem.

She fired at the lasers, briefly slowing to half-speed to ensure the best possible shot, and then raised her external speakers' volume to its highest - the enemy would, hopefully, hear her over the din of the fight.

"This is Duchess Ingrid Daschke of Gawain's Green Knights. We demand your immediate surrender!" she said, pushing her already commanding tone to its fullest. She hoped, though faintly, that the appeal to nobility would make them seem like more than mere thugs. "We do not see fit to execute you without cause - abandon your transports and we will leave you be! Fight, or run, and we will have no choice but to fire with intent to kill." She leaned back in her seat, reaching up to the cockpit's canopy to flip a couple of rarely used switches. Her message would repeat itself over the speakers automatically, having been caught by the 'mechs comms computer, until disengaged.

"Blake's Blood," Captain Yorgei Park swore under his breath at the chaos that surrounded him. At the first sound of enemy fire, the outpost had erupted into bedlam, with most of the laborers scrambling in every direction looking for some kind of cover. A few of his troops had manned the wall-mounted turrets after they saw that their automated sensors had been scrambled, and he had to shield his eyes from the blinding light of laser fire as two of the emplacements had been blasted away. "What a disaster."

"Captain! Captain Park!" Lieutenant Admir wailed at the top of his lungs as he ran towards him through the chaos, a terrified laborer nearly knocking the skinny man off his feet as he collided with him while fleeing in no particular direction. Captain Park scowled with contempt at his underling, disgusted by his loss of composure. "There are too many of them! They've cut off our retreat! We--"

"Quit your womanly shrieking, you sniveling coward!" he bellowed, cracking his whip for emphasis. Lieutenant Admir visibly flinched, only fueling Captain Park's disdain for the man. "Today you face your greatest destiny as a warrior, and you meet it by pissing your pants and crying?"

"B-but we can't fight them, sir!" The lieutenant continued.

"We have weapons in the armory, do we not? Assault Rifles? Shoulder-mounted SRMs? By my last count, no fewer than three Inferno launchers?"

Inferno rocket launchers were a nasty piece of weaponry, one of the only conceivable ways a lowly infantryman could stand the slightest chance against a Battlemech. A single-shot, shoulder-mounted launcher fired a projectile which, on contact, released a flammable jelly that burned horrifically hot and was near impossible to get off. Already the stuff of nightmares against infantry, against 'Mechs Inferno rockets caused their heat to spike to dangerous levels. A hit in the right spot could cause a 'Mech's actuators to seize up, or cause its ammunition stores to light off, or if it struck the cockpit, cook the pilot alive.

"Y-yes, sir, we have three Infernos, sir," Admir stammered. "But we count five Battlemechs and a Heavy tank! Even if we score a hit, the others will kill us all!"

"Then we'll take a few of them to hell with us!" the captain roared, once again bringing his whip around to slash across the air, the sharp crack an exclamation point to his sentence. A few soldiers cheered at Captain Park's words, his image the very picture of the proud Espian Guardsman the propaganda posters had envisioned.

Inside, Yorgei's blood was ice. While he was no master of military tactics, he knew how badly the odds were stacked against them.

On paper, a crack team of infantry with Inferno launchers might be able to bring down a Battlemech, or at least soften it up for friendly forces to finish it off. With proper emplacements and months of rigorous training, a dedicated anti-'Mech squad could potentially bring down two Light 'Mechs, maybe a medium one.

But his men were not a crack team of rigorously-trained anti-'Mech infantry. These men were mostly conscripts, mostly barely competent at best, and mostly scared out of their minds. They were facing five Battlemechs, most of which were in the medium to heavy weight classes. And friendly forces had no way of knowing they were even in distress.

If they continued to fight, they would be slaughtered to the last man.

If the Captain surrendered, he would be labeled a coward by his superiors, and spend the rest of his life in the bowels of Fort Tie Shan.

There was only one thing for it.

"Comrades, brothers in arms of the Glorious Espian Revolution!" Park shouted over the din. "The mercenary scum will show you no mercy, so we must be just as ruthless in kind! Fight to the last! Laborers, double pay-- no, triple pay-- if you pick up a rifle and shoot! Guaranteed promotions to anyone who manages to kill an enemy Mechwarrior! Fight on, brave comrades! I will be with you every step of the way!"

Most of the laborers stayed in hiding, but a few began to timidly make their way to the armory. Some of the soldiers began to rally, taking up defensive positions and digging in.

"Captain! Surely you can't suggest we keep fighting!"

"We cannot allow ourselves to be seen as cowards," he said, straightening his coat and turning away from the Lieutenant. "Congratulations on your promotion, Captain."

"...sir?"

Lieutenant Admir--no, Captain Admir?-- looked on in confusion as Captain Park strode away from him, towards his office. Oddly, he dropped his bullwhip and left it behind, and Admir found himself staring at it idly as he heard the hatch to the Captain's office shut.

A few seconds later, from inside the office, Admir heard the muffled sound of a single gunshot.

“ Goddamn, they folded already,” Takka murmured into the crew comm, staring out into the burning remains of the small storage facility. Aroxy was inclined to agree. The small firefight had gone surprisingly well with little casualty on their side. Such was the nature of a shock and awe attack. They also owed their victory to the relatively small size of the garrison. The small little patrol gorup of vehicles had been completely demolished as the Mechwarriors mopped up after the initial spearhead that Merry Go Round had provided.

“ Alright, Helma. Park us a little closer so we can put them out of their misery,” The VOX 225 gave a throaty roar as the treads of the Merry-Go-Round sped up, ratcheting up their speed by a few miles or so. It was enough to keep up with the light mechs which were beginning to outpace them by quite a bit. Aroxy scanned the distance before spotting the last remaining Scorpion. The Scorpion was awkwardly struggling to scramble away to a better firing position, but it was impossible with the near catastrophic damage Merry-Go-Round’s AC had done to its fuselage. Aroxy could see the large divot where the round had penetrated clean through. Thick clouds of smog were pouring out from the cracks.

It was a dead tank walking.

“ Alright, Takka. It’s a fish in a barrel. Make sure to kill it this time. Helma, slow down a bit so he can aim properly.”

Aroxy could hear Takka quietly harrumph at his coddling. The turret slowly aligned with the retreating form of the Scorpion, the barrel dead-centre on target.

“ Ready.”

“ Fire.”

“ On the way.”

The cannon erupted. Instead of an explosion, though, Aroxy watched in confusion as the round exploded in a pyroclastic bloom, showering the Scorpion in a bath of scorching napalm. The entire wreck became a bonfire as Aroxy began to hear high-pitched screams in the distance. Within seconds, the damaged tank became an oven as the crew inside were roasted alive by temperatures hot enough to melt through plasteel.

“ Goddamnit, what was that, Takka?!”

“ Whoops, must have loaded the wrong type of ammunition,” Takka replied innocently. “ At least, we saved the HE, right, cap?”

“ You and I are going to have words about insubordination later, Takka.” Aroxy murmured in fury. He watched despondently, taking his eyes off the Scorpion once he saw a crew member jumping off, his uniform half-burnt. Half of his body was cooked, his skin bubbling like tar, before he collapsed onto the grassy field.

Reya Wyatt

The three APCs clamored in immediately as the last of the resistance was put down by Ingrid and her mechwarriors. The heavy entry arm was smacked away and snapped like a tree branch against the hull of the lead unit as they raced by with Reya’s drone humming along overhead. The mech lance had swept the field quickly and thanks to the birdseye view, in addition to the Colonel’s beloved GDK squad intel, Dalton was feeling supremely confident about having things under wraps quickly. A few rounds panged off the side of the APC and the gunner responded with controlled bursts. Overall resistance was a mixed bag from what he could see, mostly in favor of surrender. The boys would soon take care of the true believers he thought with a dark satisfaction. These would be the first shots since Balya Gora and they were sure to feel good for himself and for the men. Payback was a bitch. Anyone that didn’t heed Ingrid’s warning was to be put down without warning and his sharpshooters would be carefully scanning for anyone with an inferno tube. The ramp came down and Dalton, alongside Alpha and Bravo squad, were on the move in a flash.

Reya shuddered as she could hear rounds literally hitting the side of the APC she was riding along with Delta and Charlie squad. It was just like when they had escaped the capital. The memory triggered a wave of nausea that zeroed into the pit of her stomach and she thought she was going to be literally sick with fear. She gulped in air timidly but a firm hand rested on her leg, not suggestively, but protectively, to calm her nerves. She glanced up to see a hardened face looking back at her with complete sincerity. Lance Corporal Tucker was her escort and tapped his forehead the same as Sergeant Dalton. He was younger than her, though his expression was almost ancient. The pure warrior. His face was burned on one side and still red from firing an inferno missile during that same escape. Some of the others looked back and nodded, giving her a thumbs-up, some even had broad grins. They were almost ecstatic. Her intuition began telling her that the Espian Guard inside were about to be much more afraid than she was.

“If they had anything left, they would’ve fired it by now on Alpha and Bravo.” Tucker said into her ear over the rumbline of the APC’s engine. He was referring to the sound of the caliber of weapons being trained on them from outside. Reya chided herself instantly for not realizing that on her own. It wouldn’t do any good for the Guard to set a trap when they were already surrounded by the Knights’ lance on the outside. The machine gunner over their heads fired back in bursts that mirrored Alpha’s gunner while the volunteer APC that was third in line rounded out the chorus. “Just hang tight, we got this.” Tucker said.

Amidst the staccato crack of exchanged rifle fire came the unmistakable kapow of shotgun blasts and corresponding howls of terror. Reya thought she could hear Dalton’s barking voice, but the ramp came down for Delta and Charlie right in front of her. The squads filed out quickly and Tucker took a kneeling position on the edge of the ramp. He was one of the few that carried a select-fire rifle with a suppressor and variable optic scope. Seeing him there poised to defend her life with his own was one of the mostly wildly attractive things she’d ever seen.

The whole thing was over in less than a minute.

Tucker waved for her to come up, relaxing just a bit. The barrel of his rifle lowered slightly and he scanned like a sentinel, returning hand signals to someone Reya could not see. The gunfire had stopped and she obediently ran up next to him with a low gait even though she was still inside the protective cover of the APC.

“We’re clear.” He said. “Convoy is lined up for you, nice and pretty.” He tapped the mic that was fastened to his fatigues. “If you need to talk on the radio, keep it short and quick, don’t hold the button and don't say any names.” He stood up fully, seeing that she was still visibly nervous. “Don’t worry about a thing, I got your back, Sarge is up ahead. Let’s go.”

Stepping out into the cloudy gray morning, Reya’s senses took in a plethora of feedback. The air was thick with a metallic taste of diesel exhaust, spent ammunition, salt and earth while the slowly moving overcast sky held it all in like a blanket. The convoy was lined up in the exact order the Colonel had described. Three J-27’s up front followed by three flatbeds with armor, two with water tanks, two more that were covered and presumed to be food supplies and one more clearly marked from the outside with a red cross as medical. Her vision temporarily drifted towards what remained of the prefab warehouse. The rapidly assembled building had provided absolutely zero cover for the few Espian Guards that had chosen to fight and the machine gunners along with the vengeful Boys had absolutely massacred them wholesale. Bodies were visible in various states of shock death along with the surviving laborers and other staff lying face down with their hands behind their heads. Her mouth opened slightly at the twisted sight of it. She forced herself to look away.

Stay focused, Reya! She thought and breathed in a deep dose of the disgusting air. Beneath her feet she could feel the tremors from the lance moving on the other sides of the high walls. They needed her to be quick about it. Glancing at her watch she picked up her step, hearing Tucker moving in kind a few steps behind her. Focus-Focus-Focus-Focus-Focus-Focus. She kept repeating it as they ran up to the front of the first J-27. As long as the Guard was following standard hazardous shipping protocols, the manifest would be in the door jam or the driver’s seat. Since the small installation was serviced by regular container traffic, she didn’t see any reason why they wouldn’t and there was no way the Knights would have time to remove the protective tarps and check every crate on every load. However, before she opened the driver’s door, she reached in her jacket and pulled out a small tablet, turning it on and finding the drone feed waiting. Sergeant Dalton had released it just as they had planned and she looked up to see it hovering high near the main comms tower.

Dalton came up seeing that Wyatt had paused, but she quickly turned the screen for him to see. “We need to take this.” She said sharply. The drone camera focused over a trailer mounted, portable fusion generator on the far side of the facility still humming along undisturbed by the excitement. “The volunteer APC will be mostly empty and easy to tow with. It should have an emergency shutdown switch. Throw it and pull the leads.”

Dalton tilted his head slightly at the sight of it and her words. “Copy that, I’ll take care of it.” He said with an affirmative nod and set off.

True to protocol, the Guards put the paperwork in the exact place where it was supposed to be. Reya pulled the first one and scanned it rapidly, flipping the pages quickly in their neat binder as she went. The Archer and Shadow Hawk were easy matches and Tarak’s Phoenix Hawk only required machine gun ammunition. There was a lot of missile inventory and she wasn’t sure if the Colonel was just testing her reaction in regard to finding correct SRM ammo for Ingrid. The chances of coming across more Totschlagens were about zero and Hollys were just going to have to do the job. Missiles were not her forte, but she could make them work. However as they moved along to the last truck, she was getting seriously nervous about Aroxy and the Von Luckner. It was their hardest hitter and needed a specific 120mm round for its main gun. When she saw the line item for the exact type in the final manifest, she almost didn’t believe it and read the line over three times: Bryant 120mm. The memory jolted her- the Crimson Fists had a Hunchback with an AC20. It’s gotta be a field upfit.. That meant it had to be with the column headed to Yuzhny Portveyn. The logistics of pairing that mech with that weapons platform were beginning to form a story in her mind, but she shook her head to store away the thought. They’d have to figure it out later. Stuff like that was right up the Colonel’s alley.

The volunteers moved to their driving assignments quickly. The water trucks were the most vital and would be the heaviest and hardest to drive- they got the best drivers, then the ammo, then the armor and so on down to the rations and medical. Reya checked every truck while the drone zipped up and down the rows of unopened containers taking pictures of numbers and markings that hadn’t been painted over or scratched out to hide their origin. Hopefully, the GDK might be able to piece something together about what was really happening on Espia. Tucker briefly glanced at his watch as Dalton came up with the volunteer APC towing the portable generator and she knew their time was almost up. It had been the quickest ten minutes of her entire life and it was time to go. However, there was still one more thing. She saw Ingrid’s Ostroc stalking outside the gate, ready to get underway again. It wasn’t her place to order them, but she could make a suggestion. It was up to Ingrid if she wanted to listen. She keyed her mic to talk directly to Ingrid: “Ramrod, this is…” It immediately occurred to her that she didn’t have a callsign and that she had about a third of a second to come up with one- One that Ziska would probably use to make fun of her later. The first thing that came into her head was Sunny’s cheerful face. Sunny, Sunny, Sun, Sun…

“...Sunflower.” The word just came out, but it felt right. She liked it instantly. “This base is serviced by regular shipping containers hauled in on trailers, once we’re clear, if you have Family Man crater the entrance with his cannon. It will shut them down for months.”

Logistics were a big part of the family business and she had heard enough of her father’s endless lectures about it throughout most of her childhood. The facility had one way in and one way out and it was surrounded by mines on all sides. If they ruined the one travel path, the contents would be effectively locked inside until the NPDRE could get heavy construction equipment on site, dig up some of the mines to make room and rebuild the entrance, all while continuing to fight a war and diverting their container flow to somewhere they didn’t expect. It would be a nightmare and would be worse than if the Knights just razed the whole thing to the ground. Everything inside that they needed would still be there, just out of reach. She smirked darkly ever so slightly at the thought of it. Digging up those mines would be an especially dangerous business. Daddy would be so proud. She hoped Ingrid understood.

To the victor goes the spoils.

Aroxy saw the aftermath of war too much when the smoke had cleared and the air stung of cordite and burnt propellant. He knew many soldiers and mercenaries who saw looting as a means of coping with the brutality. After all, what better hobby was there for murderers than to keep mementos of their past glories? Aroxy wasn’t the type to engage in it. The Merry Go Round was the only memory he needed. The nicks, scratches and age of the war engine contained immeasurable wealth within it.

Here, though, the looting was purely for the sake of survival. The Merry Go Round grounded to a halt a good 100 feet away from the convoy of supply trucks. Aroxy clambered out of the port-hole and turned around to raise his hand against the face of a confused Takka who had climbed up after him.

“ Stay in there,” Aroxy commanded. “ We need an eye out for reinforcements and you’re both qualified to both gun and drive. If you’re nervous about gunning, you can let the auto-loader do the work for you.”

“ You sure that’s the only reason, Major?,” Takka grumbled.

“ No,” Aroxy said. “ But now’s not the time to chew you out. We have priorities to focus on.” The tone of finality ended the discussion between them both as Takka climbed back in without a complaint.

“ Someone’s grounded…..,” Greta mused as she climbed out of the hatch followed by Hansel. The blonde driver took off her helmet and ran her hand through her straw hair, loosening the tangles and frayed knots. Hansel meanwhile rolled his arms and gagged at the scent of burnt human flesh in the air.

“ Greta, Hansel.” His two other crew members stood at attention. “ Coordinate with the supply trucks and see what we can fit on the Merry-Go-Round. We need 120 mm shells, SRMs and LRMs stat. We don’t want to be caught out here by the Guard with our pants halfway down.”

“ Roger, major,” Both chorused as they ran to the warehouse. Aroxy took out his comm radio and spoke into it.

“ This is Steel Rain. Merry Go Round is keeping an eye on the horizon. Any who can assist my crew members in finding ammunition would be appreciated.”

With the rest of the tanks gone, mopping up the rest of the turrets didn’t take long. Now the fun part of the plan could start, like shopping at a duty-free. The ground literally trembled underneath their feet as the ‘Mechs stomped up to the base like gods of war. ”Say your prayers, evildoers!” She shouted at the remaining Espian Guards through the external speakers, her words in stark contrast to the inappropriately cheerful tone, ”You’ve got exactly until we run out of patience to dismount, disarm and surrender. Failing that, we’ll revoke your breathing privileges with extreme prejudice.” There was some reason to feel optimistic. Between the speed, surprise, violence of action and a lance of BattleMechs, very few seemed to have any fight in them. Smart choice, but like any time they let the other side surrender, she had to ask herself if they would’ve been shown the same courtesy were the roles reversed. She liked to think - no, hope - so, but they knew the answer to that when it came to the Crimson Fists was ‘no’, she thought glumly as muted shotgun blasts indicated some Espian Guards decided they’d rather hand over their breathing privileges.

But still they were only halfway done, no time to start celebrating yet. Early celebrations were a good way to call down bad luck on your head. In order to avoid the ground pounders flitting about the base, Marit walked Archie back toward the base entrance, turning in 90 degree increments every few seconds as she scanned the sky, thankful for the Archer’s good visibility, her left hand fingers resting right next to the missile covers switch. As the minutes ticked by and the timer approached the eight minute mark, she got more and more anxious. ”That air support is about to become a factor if I got my math right.” She cautioned. Perhaps she could’ve phrased that differently, it was no secret that wasn’t her strong suit. ”Should we grab some of those containers on our way out?”