All these years in the cockpit, having assuredly been near-death and having undoubtedly killed many while sitting here, and you know what? Ingrid had yet to tire from it. Every combat deployment left her eager, even when on the lean or attending to the unimportant. This remained true now, as the Green Knights had a brief hold at the edge of the OZ. She knew that there was no other place for her in the Sphere, and that nothing else would come so easily to her, and in some way this limit brought relief to her. Having a place in life given to you by God himself isn't something that everyone could say, was it? What she would give to keep herself in the pilot's seat into old age!

Though, there was one thing different compared to usual. A tic she hadn't seen in herself in years, back when she was essentially a kid, going through training and her first combat drops. As she listened to the over-the-air chatter, something caught her eye below, just below the edge of the neurohelm. She held a loose grip on her Ostroc's yoke, but her fingers twitched. She looked at it and briefly forgot about the voices bouncing between her ears...

...did she feel anxious? Real anxiety, not just the anticipation of violence. Was it the stakes, her own or that of the entire unit, or did the opposition seem simply too much to handle? The others were discussing how quiet things seemed as she took ahold of her own wrist, took a deep breath and tried to push it back down. It didn't, not yet - and to be honest, it wouldn't until all eyes turned to her as the field commander. The line remained open, and she was expected to speak. With the push of shame to her benefit, she kept this anxiety as down low as possible.

In contrast to some earlier commands, her response this time was uncharacteristically brief. "Alright. You've already heard it, so no need to repeat myself - let's be quick about it!" She pushed her lever and thus the machine underneath it hard forward, tilting her in her seat. Sweat dripped down to her lap, and the jitters were put to the side. "We need to get as far ahead as possible before we get bogged down. Remember: this isn't just a skirmish, this for the lives of hundreds. Move!"

Raven Rivers

Raven's Shadow Hawk ran after Ingrid's Ostroc, even as its head looked around for some heights, a raised platform, or anything that counted as an elevated position from where he could fire at any armored divisions that came to reinforce the foe. After all, Marit counted on him, didn't she? That was enough to restore his spirit and sense of calm; now he just needed to move towards the Operations Zone and find the high ground.

He grinned; he was having fun at the enemy's expense. Once he found Katrina and Andrew and was sure that his wife and son were all right, he had so many stories to tell them. But for them to be all right, he had to stay calm, he had to follow orders but not unimaginatively, and finally, he had to fight with all the ferocity he had in him.

But after this campaign, if that black tar pit of despair and insanity that had almost undone him was still at the back of his mind, he was going to retire and leave his Shadow Hawk to Andrew; he knew his son was worthy of it.

The others were charging, not to their deaths but to victory, once Raven found a suitable patch of high ground, he'd ready his PPC and wait for the signal to fire...

One had to offer a certain level of appreciation when it came to Uncle Mack’s crew and being sneaky bastards. When it was confirmed that the Colonel’s challenge was going to be accepted and his mech delivered via a standard recovery flat, Mack cheekily suggested loading Jon’s Marauder onto a standard equipment hauler. With Ossie’s frame crouched low, it was easy to move at night like a piece of covered construction equipment. The steady seismic movement of a laden heavy hauler was concealed under the Knights’ lance, the Colonel’s mech on the flat and the incoming movement of the Crimson Fists. Apropos, conveniently adding to the subterfuge, two more trucks followed carrying a pair of tracked excavators. Before the sun was up a nice trench was dug for Jon to nestle into that overlooked the field where Wayne and the Crimson King would duel. It was a good looking set up, Jon had to concede. Mack’s men liked to work. He wished he could have taken a picture. The cooling turbines were just a few meters above the edge of the trench and a cargo net laced with vegetation was draped over everything. Only the lengthened barrel of the AC5 protruded unnaturally, but was likewise covered with loose vines and fauna that would burn off once the party started.

The ground shook as the Knights moved up and Jon crouched, taking a clump of grass and letting it fall, watching the wind take it, comparing it with the ripple of exhaust bellowing from Knights’ reactor vents in the distance. To the north the young engineer and a few other astechs were working quickly around a field scaffold getting the Colonel’s mech ready. It was already standing and he watched a green pennant that was mounted on the shoulder bearing the Knight’s standard sway gently in the breeze as well. Somewhere on that field the Crimson King and his entourage would appear. Sighted for 900 meters it wouldn’t be easy shooting even with little wind for the autocannon. He’d have to make the first few volleys really count. Looking behind him, in the dark of the tree line the mech’s presence was imperceptible. At the cooling depth of the excavation he reckoned he could probably crack off a couple extra shots before the jig was up. If he timed it right, they might even think it was Myrmidon hooked to a cooling truck. He reached in his pocket. There was time for one more smoke and he frowned as it was all he had left. He lit up and looked back at the Battlemaster thinking it had a very regal appearance with the pennant attached and he thought it was a little odd that Wayne referred to it in the feminine.

There was something different about the DCMS girl that he noticed during the briefing. When he found the Knights in the cave weeks ago, she was surrounded by the others, laughing and jovial at times, but this time during Wayne’s presentation she sat by herself and no one spoke to her. He shrugged a bit at the thought, not really making anything of the observation and watching the work continue. Even at this distance it was clear she was in charge and he could see her directing the others from the scaffold, occasionally going in and out of the top hatch or moving to investigate something on the ground. They seemed to be particularly concerned with the left arm and he continued watching them as he dragged down the last of the cigarette. She turned from the highest level of the platform and looked up towards his position. Her hair blew and something gave him an odd feeling, like she was looking directly in his eyes from half a kilometer away. He stood up slowly and shook his head, stamping out the butt in the mud as she turned away. It was time to fight, but before he turned away he opened the book tucked under his arm and as he often did, randomly let the battered spine fall open to one of the many dog-eared and battered pages. The underlined text drew his eyes as it had many times before:

He thought that in the beauty of the world were hid a secret. He thought that the world’s heart beat at some terrible cost and that the world’s pain and its beauty moved in a relationship of diverging equity and that in this headlong deficit the blood of multitudes might ultimately be exacted for the vision of a single flower.

He breathed in for a moment and stared at the page as his expression hardened as the words set him in a mind to point a weapon and kill.

Marit turned to the best way she knew to calm her nerves.. Perhaps the song of choice was a little bit pessimistic, but it fit in a way. She wiped the sweat off her palms into the fabric covering of her cooling vest for what felt like the millionth time, cursing that this was her body’s response to nervousness. Just when she needs a solid grip the most. Note for the future: Steal some gloves somewhere. A lot was riding on their shoulders on this sortie - they were about to fire the shot that would start the fall of the Crimson Fists and possibly the NPDRE - and she probably hasn’t been this nervous in a BattleMech since her first one ever. Even during their flight from the city or the land train with the nuke on board while stuck in mud, she felt like the fate of the objective was in part in her hands. But here, it was someone else doing the work entirely, while they get shot at by something that can hardly threaten the prisoners without also wiping out their own.


She hammered on the dashboard next to the push to talk and external speaker switches with her fist as she got back to the song to make sure they were off as they were supposed to be, not wanting to end up taken out of context in a NPDRE propaganda piece or repeat her sticky Push-to-talk accident from the depot raid.

At Ingrid’s command, she advanced the throttle, Archie breaking out into a run as she continued where she left off. Slightly lagging behind the rest of the lance, sticking close to the scrapper and her Catapult, Marit raised Archie’s arms to give the cockpit a bit of extra protection within the range of his shoulder actuators, looking for hills or other things she could use for cover once the missiles started raining as her sensors started pinging in her ears as the turrets started waking up.

Go time.