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Opinionated nerd for hire.

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In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 11 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


WARNING: CRITICAL DAMAGE DETECTED

RIGHT ARM DESTROYED

LEFT ARM DESTROYED

REACTOR SHIELDING BREACHED

EJECT

EJECT

EJ--

"Enough out of you!" the Yellow Jester barked at the automated voice of "Bitchin' Betty" as the cockpit of his Firestarter was filled with flashing warning lights and the blaring of klaxons. "I heard you the first time, and it wasn't funny then!"

The combined fire from the Green Knights' last salvo had left his Battlemech ravaged, the Mech's internal structure holding together almost entirely through spite. Firing his Jump Jets, the Yellow Jester tried to put as much distance between himself and the enemy Mechs as possible, and winced when he felt the Firestarter begin to crumple in on itself upon landing. Opening up a channel to the other members of his lance, he shouted orders and began unfastening the restraints that held him inside his command couch.

"Bing Bong, Honk-Honk, Captain Waffles! Form a firing line and start giving these spoil-sports something to laugh about!" One of his command consoles went dead as he began to work on the cable that connected his neurohelmet to the 'Mech. "Mister Dimples, come give me a kiss!"

"You sure about that, boss?" the pilot of the Crusader asked as a pair of lasers raked across the heavy Mech's armor, followed by a peppering of Short-Range Missiles. "They've already got me narced and tagged, and this maneuver is--"

"I said kiss me, you fool!" He shouted, the sheer ridiculousness of his idea making him more than a bit giddy. "The rest of you! These Knights like to hear themselves talk; keep them yammering for a bit!"

"All right, sure thing," said Bing Bong as his Hunchback lumbered forward, taking an errant swipe at the nearby Phoenix Hawk before taking aim at the biggest gun the Green Knights had: the monstrous AC/20 on their Von Luckner tank. Switching on an open channel, he shouted. "Hey Greenies! What has two thumbs and is about blow your fuckin' heads off!"

With a deafening thunderclap, the Hunchback's cannon fired a high-explosive shell across the ravine, catching the Von Luckner's turret flush. His follow-up attacks with his arm-mounted Lasers went wide, but the primary damage was done.

Answering his own joke, he flexed his Mech's hand actuators to point his thumbs to his Mech's cockpit. "THIS GUY!!!!" For good measure, he swung the Hunchback's leg in a wide swinging kick at the Green Knights' Phoenix Hawk, which the more nimble Mech easily dodged.

"Hah!" laughed Honk-Honk as his Panther painfully lurched forward. "Okay, okay, I got one....what's a Green Knight's favorite novel by the ancient poet Hemingway?"

As the Phoenix Hawk's Large Laser boiled away armor off of the Panther's right arm, Honk-Honk raised the Particle Projector Cannon on the damaged limb at took aim- not at the closer Phoenix Hawk, but at the fleeing Raven. Unleashing a cerulean blast of charged ions, the PPC smashed into the recon mech's right shoulder, severing the limb and robbing the Raven of its lasers.

"A Farewell to Arms!!!" Honk-Honk shouted, proud of himself. The other Crimson Fists just groaned at him.

For good measure, the Panther fired off its four-pack of short-range missiles at the Phoenix Hawk. Two of the missiles went wide, but the other two scratched the paint on the Medium Mech's torso and right leg.

"Okay, good stuff, guys," Mister Dimples called out on open comms as his Crusader closed in on his commander's ruined Firestarter, unbuckling his own seat restraints at the same time. Absent-mindedly, he tried his hand at a joke of his own. "Hey, what do you tell a Green Knight with two black eyes?"

"Nothing," Captain Waffles, the Catapult pilot from Fire Witch Lance cut in to answer him. "Because you've already told them twice."

Lobbing a volley across the ravine, the Catapult's LRM launchers pocked away chunks of armor from the Shadow Hawk's torso and limbs, though didn't breach. Still, that marked damage on every member of the Green Knights. While the damage was mounting up on both sides, it was only a matter of time before things began to give way.

"Are you ready for a smooch?" Yellow Jester called out as the Crusader reached him, opening the hatch to his Mech's cockpit and scrambling onto the top of the Firestarter's head as it began to fall apart around him.

"Boss, you're goddamn insane!" Mister Dimples said, his comms still on the open channel as he popped his own hatch. The Crusader leaned in as closely as it could, the open cockpits to both mechs at least two meters apart and still over ten meters off the ground.

"Has it really taken you this long to notice?!" the Yellow Jester shouted, and with a triumphant cackling howl, took a two-step run-up and hurled himself from the frame of his Battlemech, splaying wide like a bug on a windshield against the Crusader's canopy.

A normal person, even your average Mech jock, would have bounced off from the impact and fallen to their deaths. But the Yellow Jester hadn't always been a mercenary, and his career before that was hardly average. With a grip and adeptness with climbing that suggested a far different line of military service before his time in a Mech cockpit, the Yellow Jester pulled himself up to the top of the Crusader's head, where an open hand from Mister Dimples pulled him up.

"Holy shit, boss, I've never seen anything like that," he said, forgetting to turn off his open channel. "Now come on, get in the Mech, the Duchess isn't paying us to--"

Without a second thought, the Yellow Jester wrenched Mister Dimples' arm, yanking him out of the Crusader's cockpit and sending him tumbling down to the rocky mountainside below. With a dull thud, his body hit the ground and lay still. "No one likes a tattle-tale, Mister Dimples," said the Jester, looking down at his lancemate's corpse.

Quickly scrambling into the Crusader, the Yellow Jester reached back to plug the control cables into his neurohelmet, his whole body convulsing for a moment as the Mech's security measures attempted to fry his nervous system.

"Command Override!" he shouted as his body spasmed. "Clearance Xanthe-01-04-21!"

The consoles inside the Crusader then changed from danger red to a calm green, then a sickly yellow as he settled into the command couch.

"Oooo-hoo-hoo-hoooo," he giggled for a moment, "I smelled my own brain starting to drizzle-frizzle-sizzle for a moment there!"

Fastening his restraints, the Yellow Jester opened up the channel to his enemies.

"Now then, my pretty-witty-ditties," he called out to the Green Knights as the Crusader stepped forward, with a skipping, playful gait, "Where were we?"

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 11 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


In a matter of mere seconds, the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass had erupted into a cacophony of destruction. Hateful beams of laser light carved across the armor of the faux-Knights' Battlemechs, warheads from missiles arced through the frigid air to make explosive impact with the massive machines. Mounds of dirt, gravel, and snow were kicked up, filling the kill-box with a near-impenetrable cloud of dust and instantly-vaporized steam. Even using sensors, it became hard to discern one target from another in the maelstrom of gunfire and debris.

As the Green Knights' weapons cooled down, charged, or loaded their next rounds, an open comm line came online, and over it, the Knights heard the sound of laughter.

"Ohhh-ho-ho-hoooo, lookie-lookie who it is, my Knights!" While there was no indication which Mech was the source of the voice, there was little doubt that the sing-song tone matched playful skipping gait of the Firestarter. "Some of our adoring fans have come out to congratulate us on our happy little prank! Welcome, welcome, the Yellow Jester is here for the delight of all!"

"Ohhh, boy, here he goes again," came another voice as the Panther, clearly struggling to remain standing after an unexpected hit to the Gyro threw his Mech permanently off-balance, emerged from the dust cloud.

"And it sounds like they've got themselves a talker, too," came a third voice with a sneering chuckle, as the Hunchback advanced. "Hey pal, feel like giving us another monologue to record? I'm sure we can get some real knee-slappers playing it when we flatten the next civvie town."

To the side of the Hunchback, the wide-armed form of the Crusader lumbered into view. "Nah, a joke's never as funny the second time around. But I'm sure once we waste these guys, we'll have plenty of new material. Hey, maybe we use their own mechs to stomp on the folks we've got locked up in the fort?"

"Ha! Excellent idea, Mister Dimples! The looks on their faces will be priceless, heee-heee-heee!" The Yellow Jester laughed. "But first, let us deal with our soon-to-be dearly departed doppelgangers! So then, my lovelies, what say we bring a bit of the heat!"

The Firestarter, notorious for its quadruple Flamers that could wreak havoc on energy-dependent Battlemechs, started to move towards the laser-heavy Ostroc, which itself was already running hot from the opening salvo. Just as it looked like it was going to break forward into a run, the Yellow Jester suddenly slammed on his Jump Jets, sending the light Mech rocketing backwards.

"April Foo-oo-ools, hahahahaha!" he mocked, firing off the Firestarter's Medium Lasers in a parting shot that went wide. As the light Mech hurled itself up and away, in its place were the hulking frames of the Hunchback and Crusader, each bringing their weapons to bear on the Green Knights' lance leader.

With a thunderous BOOM, the Hunchback's enormous class-20 Autocannon erupted, a single high-powered shell bursting forward just as a similar shell from the Von Luckner skipped across the top of its barrel. The ricochet caused the brawler Mech to veer ever-so-slightly to one side, causing a shot which would have hit the Ostroc square-on to instead make impact on the Green Knight's left arm. The Ostroc's notoriously thin armor on its arms was no match for the high-powered shell, which detonated just below the shoulder, obliterating myomer bundles and alloy bones and wrenching the entire limb away. "How's that for bringing the heat?" the Hunchback taunted as the bigger Mech's arm tumbled into the snow in a mangled wreck.

"Good shooting, Bing-Bong," said the Crusader pilot, the one the Yellow Jester referred to as 'Mister Dimples.' "I was thinkin' of bringing the heat a little more literally."

From each of the missile-boat Mech's hips erupted a salvo of short-range missiles, about half of which made contact with the Ostroc, the other six careening off into the ravine below. Instead of an explosive detonation, these warheads burst open with splatters of gel that erupted into white-hot flames. Inferno warheads, which traded dealing direct damage for playing absolute hell on a Battlemech's heat management, and could immolate the crew of a tank with ease. As the Ostroc's heat began to spike to dangerous levels, its myomer muscles began to seize up, slowing the mech down and making targeting more difficult.

"Aaaa-hahahaha-haaa, as if the Yellow Jester would only have one way to keep things spicy!" The Firestarter pilot cackled. "Speaking of which, variety is the spice of life! Let's give the rest of our adoring crowd some attention!"

"On it, boss," Mister Dimples acknowledged, turning the torso of the Crusader to level its arms at the opposing Archer and let fly with a pair of 15-shot Long-Range Missile launchers. Between the two arm-mounted launchers, only slightly more than half made their mark, peppering the Knights' own missile-boat across the torso and right arm. "Find yourself a dance partner, Honk-Honk."

"Stop calling me Honk-Honk," the Mechwarrior in the Panther grumbled, before raising his Particle Projector Cannon and firing it at the Phoenix Hawk across the ravine. An arc of cerulean lightning connected along the left side of the Hawk's torso, obliterating over half of the armor in that location. The Phoenix Hawk had more armor than the lighter Panther, but in a straight gunfight, the Crimson Fists' sniper had it outgunned.

"Oh yes, there's plenty of laughs to go around!" the Jester continued. "And the hits Just! Keep! Coming!"

Over the tops of the Crimson Fist lance, two swarms of long-range missiles arced gracefully through the air, before thundering down and pelting the Green Knights' Raven. Twenty-seven of the fusillade of thirty ripped into the light scout mech, shredding armor mostly off of its arms and legs.

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we have a special guest!" The Jester announced as a fifth Battlemech entered the mountain pass.

The Mech was completely non-humanoid, with a rounded, egg-like fuselage, birdlike back-canted legs, and a pair of boxy missile launchers where its arms should be. While it was a comparatively rare sight on most battlefields, the silhouette of a Catapult was instantly recognizable.

"All the way from Fire Witch Lance, let's give a warm welcome to Captain Waffles!"

"That's not my callsign--"

"Roll with it, it's a thing he's doing."

"....right. Anyway, yes, Green Knights," the Catapult pilot continued, "The Fire Witch sends her regards, and I'll be all to happy to bring her back a handful of your ashes today."

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 12 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


Minutes passed as the Green Knights dug into their positions. With the Raven's ECM bubble operating, their prey wouldn't be able to detect them on sensors, and with the thick snow, even visuals would be difficult until the Mechs began moving. A cold wind began to howl through the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass, a wail that sounded almost mournful as it carried sheets of sleet across the treacherous cliffs. Below them, the heights gave way to a near 50-meter drop, with only a pair of narrow rock bridges connecting the rises between peaks. Above them, hundreds of tons of packed snow and ice sat precariously on the mountaintops, threatening to crush the unwary or the unfortunate.

Long after the intel had predicted the Crimson Fists would be entering the area, that sad wailing wind was the only sound that echoed through the pass. For a time, it seemed that the Green Knights' quarry wouldn't be coming this way after all, that they had taken a different route or turned around altogether.

Eventually, however, the rhythmic thudding of heavy footfalls began to echo through the mountains. Even with the snow muffling it somewhat, the tread of a lance of Battlemechs was unmistakable. One by one, they entered the valley, four Mechs falsely bearing the colors of Gawain's Green Knights.

Leading the column was their primary target, the Firestarter. While most Mechs tended to move with a lumbering, plodding gait, the 35-ton Mech was surprisingly light on its feet, its pilot maneuvering the machine with a spring in its step that made it almost appear as if it were skipping along playfully. It was said that some Mechwarriors were so in-tune with their Mechs that they could almost inject their own personality into the way the machine moved. If the Firestarter's swinging, almost carefree posture was any indication, then its pilot seemed to be quite pleased with himself- a disturbing notion, considering what the Fists had just done.

To the surprise of the Knights, the Firestarter was paired with a second thirty-five tonner, a Kurita-made Panther. Unlike most light Mechs which carried short-range weapons, the Panther was a light and mobile sniper, mounting a Particle Projector Cannon as its main weapon. While it didn't have much by way of armor, that PPC had the potential to do serious damage if left unchecked.

Just behind the two lights was the third Mech, the fifty-ton Hunchback. With its arms swinging wide from its broad chest and a bow-legged stride, the Mech seemed to strut its way into the mountain pass as if it owned the place. And with a massive Class-20 Autocannon that could cripple or destroy most Mechs in a single shot, the Hunchback's pilot had little reason to doubt that he did own the place indeed.

The fourth Mech was one of the two spotted Heavy mechs, the Crusader. While its LRM-15 racks didn't have quite the same output as Marit's Archer, it could still put a significant amount of damage down-field, and the footage from the massacre showed its leg-mounted SRM launchers were loaded with Inferno warheads.

Seismic sensors indicated a fifth contact, also a 65-tonner like the Crusader, was bringing up the rear.

Either unaware of the possibility of enemy presence or unconcerned, the Crimson Fists strode into the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass, walking right into the Green Knights' trap.

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 12 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"New contact, Colonel!" Lieutenant Lyons all but shouted, breaking the tense stillness inside the MHQ. Higgins and Windham nearly fell out of their stools, but the Colonel merely raised an eyebrow.

"Is it the Warhammer?" he asked.

"Ah, n-negative, Colonel," Windham answered, still shivering from the cold. "Ac-c-cording to seismics, it's an-nother thirty-five t-tonner."

"What the hell, W-Windham?" Higgins chided his crewmate. "How'd you m-miss a whole other Mech?"

"Sh-shut up, you didn't catch it either," Windham spat back. "Seismics must have c-confused it with the F-Firestarter."

"You sh-should've caught the extra channel on c-c-comms, Higgins," Lyons scolded the cadet.

"You're t-taking his side?"

"I'm not taking s-s-sides," Lyons said, "I'm saying you b-both should be paying more attention t-to your instruments!"

"Oh you're one to t-t-talk, the last 'instrument' you were p-paying attention to was--"

"Quiet," the Colonel interrupted, "all of you."

Light Mechs were typically best used for recon and support, but few if any of them could survive long in a direct fire-fight. The thirty-five ton range, however, had some Mechs that could make for a very nasty complication. From their earlier fight, Gaius knew the Crimson Fists had at least three other thirty-five-ton Mechs: a Jenner, a Wolfhound, and a Raven. The Jenner and Wolfhound had both sustained heavy damage in the last fight, however, and a Raven would only benefit the Crusader.

"ETA?"

"Less than a minute, sir," Lieutenant Lyons answered.

"They're within passive c-c-comms range now, sir," Higgins remarked. "If we tip off the Knights n-now, they'll pick up our s-signal and give away our position."

"And tip them off to the entire ambush," Gaius grumbled. "Damn it. Maintain silence on comms until the Fists enter the kill-box. Hopefully the lance can do enough damage up-front that an extra light Mech won't make too much of a difference."
In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 12 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


M I S S I O N S T A R T


Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass
50km Southwest of Geum Haebyon
0400 Hours
27 March, 3030

"C-c-coffee, Colonel?" Lt. Lyons held up a tin cup of steaming hot brown liquid, her hands trembling from the cold. Further down in their positions in the mountain pass proper, the Mechwarriors of Gawain's Green Knights were nice and toasty, their cockpits environmentally sealed. Even with their reactors shut down to avoid giving away their positions, the residual heat inside their mechs would keep them good and warm for hours. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for the Mobile HQ. Once upon a time, when the vehicle was a top-of-the-line piece of SLDF hardware, it had its own fusion reactor, environmental sealing, and creature comforts to keep a crew operating comfortably for days or weeks on end. Everything from the fusion engine to much of the heat insulation had been scavenged over time, however, leaving the Colonel and MHQ crew to layer up in heavy coats and huddle around battery-powered heaters while they waited.

"Thanks," Colonel Wayne gladly accepted the hot beverage, and quickly gulped some down. The coffee--if it could even be called that-- was bitter and sour and had an aftertaste like a mouthful of dirt, but at least it was hot. Even the Colonel, his composure almost always rock-solid, couldn't drink the stuff without making a face. "Any signals yet?"

"S-s-some scrambled ch-chatter, s-sir," Cadet Higgins, answered, deeply regretting the thin T-shirt he'd been wearing to show off his abs. "D-don't think we can descramble it without their c-c-codes, but th-they're in the area."

"The airspace s-s-seems clear for now as well, sir," Lyons added. "If their p-p-patrols are on their regular s-s-schedule, their response t-time should be about s-s-seven minutes."

"S-seismic sensors are q-quiet, but the m-maps we brought along show some p-p-potential weak spots that match what I got on my initial s-s-scan," Cadet Windham piped in. "A g-g-good shot into Bravo-Bravo 2 could bring d-down a rockslide, and a sh-shot into Quebec-9 can collapse the b-bridge. But there's the s-s-same risk on our s-s-side, in Ch-Charlie 13."

"Then we don't want to play that card too early," the Colonel commented, using an incredible amount of self-control to not let his own voice tremble. "If they see us try to bring down the mountain on them, they can try the same to us."

"S-s-sir! Seismics just picked up incoming s-s-signals!" Windham said as his monitor began to ping. "F-f-four contacts. A thirty-five tonner..."

"That's the Firestarter," the Colonel nodded, his blood beginning to boil as he pictured the faces of the innocent people that pilot had burned.

"A f-fifty-tonner..."

"The Hunchback," he confirmed. The monstrous AC/20 on the Hunchback was going to be a problem if they let it get close; the Knights would have to engage it at range to avoid risking a crippling shot.

"One s-s-sixty-f-five tonner..."

"There's the Crusader," Gaius said. The opposite problem of the Hunchback, the Crusader was a potent missile boat, with a mix of LRMs and SRMs, and he'd seen from the news footage that its SRMs were carrying Inferno warheads. Infernos were dangerous to a Mech thanks to the risk of excess heat, but since the Von Luckner wasn't environmentally sealed like the Mechs, one of those could kill Aroxy and his crew outright.

"And....and a second sixty-five tonner, sir?"

This made Colonel Wayne pause.

"Can you confirm that?"

"Ah, yes s-sir, sixty-f-five," Windham double-checked his readings. Gaius frowned.

The fourth Mech they had seen on the footage of the attack was a Warhammer, a seventy-ton Mech. Theoretically a lighter mech would mean an easier target, but not knowing what Mech the Crimson Fists had called in was troublesome. A second Crusader, maybe? A Jagermech? A Thunderbolt? Depending on what that fourth Mech was, their entire battle plan might be thrown into question.

"Higgins, open up a short burst to the Lance," the Colonel ordered. Higgins nodded, and the Mobile HQ's comms antennae aligned to send out a short ten-second transmission down into the mountain pass.

"Fingers crossed the Fists aren't paying attention," Higgins muttered to himself. "If I'm d-dyin', I d-don't wanna d-d-die while freezing my dick off."

At the Colonel's signal, Higgins switched on the comms equipment.

"Green Knights, Gawain Actual," Colonel Wayne spoke. "Targets 1, 3, and 4 inbound. Target 2 not located. New unidentified target inbound. Plan remains the same. Stay sharp, shoot straight."

In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Posting the proposed rules for how combat works here.

DISPOSABLE HEROES: MECH COMBAT RULES


For the sake of consistency, we are going to use the following example for all discussion of rules:



The Griffin in hex 0609 has three enemy Mechs on the map: a Rifleman in hex 0415, a Blackjack in hex 0111, and a Locust in hex 1516. This Griffin is a GRF-1S variant, equipped with a Large Laser, two Medium Lasers, and two LRM-5 launchers. Using these rules, the Mechwarrior piloting the Griffin is going to attempt to determine the best target it can hit, then make attacks and resolve the appropriate damage and heat effects.

For the status of these Mechs, we are using the record sheets found on Flechs.




In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
One by one, the Colonel fielded questions, deliberately walking towards the Mech bays as they spoke. They couldn't afford to waste time while the window for setting the ambush grew smaller, but there was no reason not to answer while they prepped.

"The longer we stay out in the open, the greater the chances are that we get spotted by their aerospace assets," he said, answering Giggles' question. "Mobilizing the salvage crews and getting them into the area will take longer than deploying the combat lance, and the NPDRE will likely have their own recovery team in the area by the time ours arrives. While we can have a skeleton crew ready to pick through the wreckage and bug out as quickly as possible, a full recovery probably won't be an option."

"Ehhh, beggin' yer pardon, Colonel Sir," Mr. Maxwell chimed in as he followed after the military personnel, "But I might respectfully disagree with that last notion. I'm sure your crews are good at their jobs, but my boys are born pickers. An' we know the mountains. We can be on those dead Mechs, pry out anythin' that looks nice, an' git before any o' Federov's boys kin find us."

Colonel Wayne gave the scrapyard denizen an appraising look. "I assume you'll want a share of whatever you recover?"

"Jess what's fair, is all," he said, knowing the two men both had wildly different notions of what "fair" might mean. His grin also told that he knew the Knights had few options if they wanted the job done right.

The Colonel's look was sour, but he nodded. "We'll work out shares when the job is done. Right now, dividing up nothing still leaves us both with nothing."

Maxwell's gap-toothed grin widened. He was going to enjoy putting such a self-serious man over a barrel and making a killing off of this.

"Awright, boys!" he called out. "Git yer shit and be ready ta move, we're gonna have us a helluva haul tonight!"

This brought up a chorus of whoops and cheers from the other scrappers, while Colonel Wayne turned his attention back to his Mechwarriors.

"I want this done quickly," he told them. "First, because there's a limited amount of time before the aerospace assets are called in. Fighting those Mechs is going to be hard enough; fighting them while they have air support will be a whole other story. Second, I want it on record that we are professionals, not butchers. We take them out quickly and efficiently, and we don't let them goad us into losing our composure."

"But make no mistake: the Crimson Fists gave up the right to surrender," he said as unconsciously, his good hand drifted towards his hip, toward the checkered grip of the semi-automatic pistol at his side. "I don't want this to be a spectacle, but it will be an execution. They die, simple as that."
In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


Fort Tie Shan
March 27, 3030

"It's about time I got to speak to someone in management," Captain Sally Roth said with a defiant grin, "the accommodations here are terrible, and the service is even worse. Though by the looks of you, you've been helping yourself to the complimentary breakfasts. See if I come here again next time I visit this planet."

The room was plain concrete, lit by a single bare light bulb. In the center of room was a small floor drain, and a leaky water hose in one corner-- all the easier to clean up with after the evening's 'entertainment,' she guessed.

Seated in a plain metal folding chair with her hands cuffed behind her, Sally measured up the fat balding man who looked like he fit even worse into his own body than he did into his clothes. Though she'd never met the man before, she recognized the dead look in the man's eyes. There was no anger, no remorse, no reaction to her jeering. They were the eyes of a killer. Or, more likely, a torturer.

"My name is Grigori Ilyanovich," the fat man introduced himself. "I am the head Minister of Justice for the New Democratic People's Republic of Espia. Before the revolution, I was trained in the arts of enhanced interrogation by agents of the Maskirovka."

"So you were trained in how to get your asses kicked by better FedSun spies? That explains all the rumors I'm hearing about how your little war is going," Sally sneered, but her poker face slipped just a tad. The Maskirovka were infamous as the most feared intelligence apparatuses in all of the Inner Sphere, if not for their effectiveness, then for their sheer brutality. The business of spycraft was often dirty and ugly, and agencies like the DEST and SAFE had all done more than their fair share of evil deeds in the name of their respective nations, but the horror stories surrounding the Maskirovka left them all in the dust.

Looking at the metal cart being wheeled in by a pair of assistants, and the various implements laid out in a meticulous order on it, Sally knew this Ilyanovich guy fully intended to live up to his former masters' reputation.

"Yes, the wounds of the Fourth Succession War do sting a bit, even if I am no longer loyal to the family Liao," Ilyanovich admitted with a sad sigh. "Still, such pains are not to be dwelled on, as they are now in the past. I am far more interested in discovering what pains await us in the future, aren't you?"

"Honey," Captain Roth scoffed, "if you think you're the first local yokel from some backwater nowhere planet to threaten me, you're in for some disappointment. I'm sorry if you flew all the way from the capital thinking you were going to scare me into cooperation, but I'm not telling you a damn thing."

"Oh, I'm not interested in information," the fat man waved her remarks away. "Today's session is more of an...introduction. I want you to know who I am, what I am capable of doing, and the true nature of your situation."

The first implement Ilyanovich reached for was not a pair of pliers, a scalpel, an ice pick, or any other sharp or blunt instrument. Instead, he picked a remote control up from the cart, and turned on a small holovid projector.

The holo showed Captain Roth the raw footage of the attack on the Keahi Township. The fires, the screams, the rampaging Battlemechs all bearing the sigil of Gaius Wayne's command.

"A truly heinous atrocity," Ilyanovich said, his voice dripping with false admonishment, "And one which Premier Federov and General Malenkov have already vowed to avenge. As we speak, Federov is asking ComStar's local Precentor to label the Green Knights as an outlaw command. When that happens....I'm afraid the protections granted to you and your people will be null and void."

Sally took her eyes off of the horrific footage to shoot an indignant glare at Federov. "You're full of shit," she said. "You know that's not the Knights, and ComStar will know it, too. Federov, Malenkov, your corny 'Crimson Fists,' you're all full of shit and you know it."

"Perhaps ComStar will reach a similar conclusion," Federov's man nodded, "or perhaps they will not care. As you said, Espia is a 'backwater nowhere planet,' and Gawain's Green Knights are a small command. In the grand scheme of things, I doubt it will matter to them who is 'right' or 'wrong,' merely who remains a paying customer. Rather than spend the time and money and effort on a lengthy investigation, perhaps they can be convinced to simply take the path of least resistance and make this problem go away. Surely a woman as well-traveled as you is aware how little the various players of the great game care about small pieces like Gaius Wayne."

"So that's the play?" Sally asked. "Tell me everything's hopeless, then either torture me and whoever else you can get your grubby sausage-fingers on until one of us gives up where the Knights are, or start executing hostages until Gaius gives himself up?"

Ilyanovich shrugged. "You are free to make whatever conclusions you wish. As I said, tonight I'm merely interested in--"

"An introduction, I heard you," Roth spat. "Well, while we're getting to know each other, maybe you'd like to know something about Gaius. Ever hear of the planet Sendai?"

Grigori shrugged again. "Should I have?"

"It's a Kurita world," Sally explained. "Back during the First Succession War, the Eridani Light Horse were stationed there, working under contract for House Kurita. When they heard about the massacre on Kentares IV, the Horsemen decided they couldn't work for a bloodthirsty lunatic, so they packed up their things and took off. The problem was, their civilian contingent was caught by the local Kurita troops before they could leave, and the planetary governor held them hostage. The Eridani had to either turn around and get back to work, or watch their people die."

"And I suppose the Light Horse pulled some daring rescue to break their people out of prison?" Grigori asked.

"No," Roth answered, "they called the governor's bluff. They appealed to the governor's better nature, hoping that he'd let their families go. But the governor was a true believer in the Kurita cause. All that jazz about honor and service to the Dragon, that mattered more to him than the lives of some mercenary wives and kids. So as the Eridani took off to leave Sendai, he gathered up their civilians and had them all shot, sending the footage on a tight-beam broadcast directly to the Light Horse. Once again, the message was clear: turn around and get back to work."

"That was the Light Horse's mistake, then," Ilyanovich scoffed. "They needed to be taught that actions have consequences."

"Oh, they learned that lesson," Roth nodded, "And they turned their ship around and they got right back to work. As soon as the Eridani Light Horse touched back down on Sendai, they went about killing every Combine official they could find. And I mean every one. Every Mechwarrior, every pilot, every officer, every soldier, every government official, from the highest-ranking government brass all the way down the goddamn mail clerks. Every man and woman on Sendai who was on the payroll of Lord Kurita was in the ground by the time the Eridani Light Horse were done. A small band of mercenaries took on the government and military of an entire world, and by the time they left, that government was fucking dead. Like you said, actions have consequences."

Silence hung between them for a moment, before Grigori snorted.

"An amusing story," he dismissed her words, "but an irrelevant one. The First Succession War was centuries ago. And I've read Gaius Wayne's file; he never served with the Eridani Light Horse."

"Oh, you're right," Sally nodded, "Gaius was never a Horseman. He's worse: he's a fan. Which means he'll stop at nothing to live up to the stories of the mercenaries he's idolized. He knows the story of Sendai by heart-- hell, he's the one who told me about it."

Sally glanced at the cart, the tools that Ilyanovich had laid out, and considered all of the sinister implications of each one.

"So by all means, Grigori Ilyanovich, introduce yourself to me," she said, her expression hardening. "Just know that when Gaius Wayne gets to introduce himself to you, whatever you do to me and the rest of my people? He's going to do ten times over, to you, to Federov, to the Crimson Fists, and to your entire goddamn outfit."



"Uncle Mack's" Industrial Scrapyard
Property of Maxwell Metals Incorporated
A subsidiary of the Aqua Vitae Corporation
100 km south of Geom Haebyon
150 km northwest of Fort Tie Shan

Rivers was the first to speak, followed by Daschke and Ziska. Little of it registered to Gaius, as his thoughts were filled with fire and thunder.

Pacing back and forth before his Knights, Colonel Wayne held his tongue until he could cool his mind enough. In desperate times, people tended not to rise to the occasion, but rather to fall to their training. And his years of training and experience in a Mech cockpit kept him from firing off while he was running hot.

Slowly, some of their words were penetrating the rage that clouded his thoughts.

Mount a rescue, perhaps? Unlikely; most of the people in that town were already dead, or would run screaming from the sight of the Green Knights returning.

Send exonerating footage to ComStar? Maybe, but there was no guarantee the Precentor wasn't already bought off.

Use the Davy Crockett in exchange for Sally and the others? As tempting as the thought was of erasing Federov and his goons in a mushroom cloud of righteous fire, the Crockett didn't have the kind of yield to guarantee success. And if anyone survived, that would only confirm the propaganda that the Green Knights were heartless war criminals.

Considering the possibilities cooled his thoughts, dispersed the haze of his anger enough so that he could see a course of action.

"Lyons," he called to the leader of the Mobile HQ team, "Map."

"Ah, yes sir!" Lieutenant Lyons nodded, scrambling about her person for the control to the holo-projector she had set up outside the MHQ.

After a few moments of fumbling about, Lyons sputtered "Got it, sir, sorry for the wait, sir," and activated the projection of the regional map.



"As far as we can tell," Colonel Wayne began, "Within the past hour- give or take fifteen or twenty minutes for broadcast editing- the Crimson Fists launched a false flag attack on the township of Keahi, in sector D-14. Their assets included four Battlemechs: a Firestarter, a Hunchback, and two heavy Mechs, a Crusader and Warhammer. The township had a small population, only a few thousand. It's likely that the majority of them are now dead."

The Colonel became aware of a sharp pain in his left hand. Looking down, he saw that his fist was clenched so tightly that his own fingernails were digging into his palm.

"The goal of this attack was two-fold," Gaius continued. "The first was to delegitimize us in the eyes of any possible allies. The FPA, any civilian support, any surviving loyalists to the late Governor Xiu; as far as they're concerned, Gawain's Green Knights are now an outlaw command. This was a deliberate attempt to destroy our reputation. My reputation."

Colonel Wayne felt his anger boil again, and he paused, holding his words until the heat passed over him.

"The second goal is to goad us out," he said once he had calmed down. "In all likelihood they still think we're somewhere in the north, and that we'll pop our heads up to show that we weren't the ones who attacked Keahi...which will then let them zero their bombers in on us and flatten us. They're expecting a fight, but I don't think they'll be expecting when or where they'll get one."

Gesturing to the holo-map, Gaius pointed out another sector, north of the massive city of Geum Haebyon.

"Sector K-7 has a forward operating base capable of supporting Battlemechs," Gaius said. "Going back to the Espian Guard's main headquarters would draw too much attention, but that FOB is far enough out of the way that the Fists can park their Mechs there and remove our markings from them now that they've done their dirty work. If I were a betting man, I'd put money on them heading there right now, avoiding the main roads in case they get spotted."

Tracing a zig-zag line between the two points, keeping away from main connecting highways or any other places that might draw too much unwanted attention, his finger settled on a sector not too far from them.

"Sector H-13," he said. "There's a pass through the mountains where a lance of Mechs can get through without much risk of being spotted. Everywhere else is either too crowded with highway traffic from Geum Haebyon, or too steep for the non Jump-capable Mechs to traverse. The pass has a sharp drop on one side, and a rocky mountainside on the other. I'd considered using the region for training exercises before the coup, but the snowfall on the mountaintops is so heavy that there was too much risk of causing an avalanche. Given that three of their mechs top out at 64 kph, we can expect them to reach the mountain pass in just under four hours. Once our Mechs are spun up, we can be there in two."

Without a word, Crew Chief Aadil nodded, and gestured for the Mech techs to get to work. A dozen technicians got up from the briefing and ran with purpose to the salvage yard's Mech bays.

"While we make our preparations to fight, I'm going to call in a favor," Colonel Wayne continued his briefing. "I'm going to ask Cassandra Jeong for a helicopter to transport a representative of the Green Knights north, and a meeting with a representative of ComStar. Assuming Jeong's connections are as good as she claims, I need someone to plead our case to the Precentor, so they'll drop Federov's petition to declare us outlaws. That will, at the very least, delay whatever abuse the NPDRE has planned for our people they've got captive. Wyatt, I want you on that helicopter. The rest of us are going to the mountain pass."

At Gaius's gesture, Lyons clicked the control of the holo-projector to zoom in on the mountain pass sector.

"The Knights will set up in ambush positions and wait for the Fists to come through the mountain pass," the Colonel stated. "Set up a kill-box with overlapping fields of fire. Once they're in the box, open fire, and don't stop until all four Mechs are destroyed. Alley Cat, your mission will be to capture as much BattleROM footage as possible, and tight-beam the footage directly to the Mobile HQ, which will be positioned high enough on the ridge to send out a long-range transmission. The Mobile HQ will send that footage to Wyatt, who can then present it as exonerating evidence to ComStar."

With the plan set, the Colonel allowed himself to feel that anger again. "This will be an ugly fight. Tonnage for tonnage, the Fists' lance has us outgunned. But we'll have the high ground, and the element of surprise. All else fails, we bring the goddamn mountain down on them."

Typically, Colonel Wayne liked to open the floor to questions and discussion after presenting the mission. This time, however, his word was final.

"They die," he said with finality. "No prisoners, no survivors, no mercy. They die. Actions have consequences. And today, those consequences are named Gawain's Green Knights."
In Rise of Rasalhague → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"Oh come on!" Remy grumbled as the "covering fire" he had asked for ended up destroying the Thumper battery before he could close in on it. Between most of the infantry scattering before his Firestarter could do what it was built to do, and the Trebuchet stealing his kill before he could get in range, Overkill found himself reminded why he generally hated driving anything lighter than 60 tons. As it was, "Murder One" was starting to look like it would be the name of his kill count on this outing.

While he was in the middle of stewing in his frustration, the call came out from their Commander: a lance of enemy 'Mechs inbound. Remy frowned as he heard the names of the 'Mechs approaching. The Locusts by themselves weren't much of an issue; the only trouble they might be was that their speed and nimbleness made them hard to hit. The Javelin had the potential to be mean, but that LRM-15 would lose most of its effectiveness if they closed in.

The Jenner, on the other hand, could be a problem. With a monster engine, it was slower than the Locusts, but only by a little, and its jump jets made it even more agile. Worse, while the Locust only carried one or two medium lasers, the Jenner carried four, not to mention a four-pack of SRMs, which let it hit well above its weight. If they didn't neutralize it quickly, that thing could do some major damage.

"Hell, maybe I'll get to party after all," Overkill said, his frown turning into a sneer. With a parting burst of machine gun fire into the remaining handful of survivors from the Thumper crew, Remy turned the Firestarter around and opened up the throttle to close back in with the formation. Carefully feathering his jump jets to keep the occasional misstep from wrecking his Mech's legs, he reached the bottom of the cliff in relatively short order, reaching the firing line just as the enemy Mech Lance came into range.

"All right, you pirate slap-nuts," he called out on an open comm channel, "Let's friggin' mosh!"

Breaking into a dead sprint, Overkill felt the heat buildup in his Mech already as he looked for his dance partner, the incoming Jenner. As he closed in, the enemy Mech let loose with a salvo of Laser and SRM fire. One of the incoming Lasers went wide, but the other caught his Firestarter on the right side of his Torso. Before Remy could register the damage, he felt himself thrown hard against the restraints of his command couch, and his world went white for a moment. Remy regained his senses to see that one of the Jenner's Short-Range Missiles had struck him in the head, and another had made contact with his right leg, the other two pockmarking the ground behind him.

"Sonofabitch," he growled, tasting blood in his mouth. "Now it's my turn; hope you like it hot!"

Remy let loose with nearly a full Alpha Strike, opening up with both of his Lasers and all four of his Purity L-Series Flamers. One of the Lasers dug a small trench of molten earth into the hill behind the Jenner, but the other hit it square in the torso. The Flamers, on the other hand, did virtually no damage to the enemy Mech's armor, but were instead meant to spike its Heat sharply. Heat was one of a Mechwarrior's worst enemies, with an overheating Mech prone to slowing down and having trouble targeting as its myomer muscles seized up. At intense enough heat levels, a Mech risked its reactor shutting down, or worse, its ammunition cooking off. While the Firestarter was outgunned by the Jenner, he could severely cripple its ability to fight.

As the gouts of superheated plasma dispersed, Remy grinned when he saw the enemy Jenner glowing from the excess heat.

"That's right, Feel the Fire, you shit," he snarled, spitting out a wad of blood from the internal injury that stray head-shot had caused. "Feel the fuckin' fire."


In Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


"Uncle Mack's" Industrial Scrapyard
Property of Maxwell Metals Incorporated
A subsidiary of the Aqua Vitae Corporation
100 km south of Geom Haebyon
150 km northwest of Fort Tie Shan
27 March, 3030

“I’m just sayin, let’s be reasonable,” Pops pled with the thin and wiry old man over the half-assembled frame of the Rotunda.

“Hell, I been reasonable all dang day,” “Honest” Ollie Maxwell said back, “Waitin’ on you boys to be reasonable back.”

“Po-o-ops, can we go???” Sunny tugged on Pops’s sleeve. “He’s not helping, and he smells funny.”

“In a minute, little one, first we’ve got some business to settle,“ the old man reassured her, then turned back to the scrapper. “Now look, the Colonel’s willing to pay you handsomely for it.”

“With what?” Maxwell responded. ”The last fella who was payin’ ya got blown up, an’ the gover’mint’s already pokin’ their noses into Mizz Jeong’s accounts. No sir, if Federov an’ his boys start followin’ a paper trail, I don’t want nothin’ leading back to me.”

Pops sighed. “It’s not even like you need it. I mean, who the hell ever heard of a car with a Large Laser in it?”

“Ees collector’s ityem,” the big burly Marozov chimed it. “Veel be vyaluwabul ven ees feexed.”

“Oh sure,” the grizzled old Mech tech nodded, “And if you believe that, I’ve got some wedding plates to sell you from military intelligence.”

“Look, fact of the matter is,” Maxwell said with a tone that his patience was wearing thin, “We’re already givin’ you room and shelter and plenty of other things without so much as a thank-you-kindly. And I’ve yet to be convinced as to why on top of our already generous hospitality, I should part with the Large Laser on this here classic piece of Star League era engineering. You ain’t got money, you ain’t got booze, an’ you ain’t got women lookin’ to spend time with the likes of me. So do tell, Pops, what do you have to bargain with?”

Pops frowned for a moment, then an eyebrow raised from behind his oversized mirrored shades. Hanging on the back wall of Maxwell’s workshop was an old beaten-up guitar, a Dobro from the looks of it.

“That six-string hangin’ on the wall,” Pops gestured. “You play, or is that just for decoration?”

“Oh I’ve been known to pick a song or two,” Maxwell grinned proudly. “Had that since I was a sprout; ain’t no one on this planet better’n me with it.”

”Ees vyery good,” Marozov added.

Pops nodded slowly, stroking his chin with his thumb as he inspected the guitar, then said “I’ll play you for it.”

Ollie sneered. “Play me for the guitar?”

“For the laser,” Pops corrected. “Your six-string against mine. Winner gets the laser, loser has to do the winner’s work for a week.”

Ollie and Marozov looked at each other for a second, then burst out laughing.

“Awww hell, Pops,” Maxwell said between bursts of laughter, “Now yer speakin’ my language!”

As the two old men shared a laugh, a young woman in filthy overalls and a coat of grime poked her head into the workshop.

”Hey Pa?” the girl said. ”Ma says there’s somethin’ happenin’ on the holo-vid. Somethin’ real bad.”

The expressions of everyone in the room soured. “There’s already a war on, Jenny, how’s it gonna git much worse?”

“Just come take a look,” Jenny said, and motioned for them to follow her.

In the next building over, an old Star League pre-fab Quonset hut with a few storage cubicles welded onto one side, a small crowd was staring at a large but static-filled holo-screen.

—appears to have been a supply raid gone wrong, the mercenaries then turned their guns on the civilian population. As of now, the estimated death toll is well into the thousands, and is expected to climb. We warn audiences at home, the footage we are about to show you may be disturbing.”

Few things ever got the man everyone only knew as Pops to lose his composure, but his jaw slowly dropped open as the newscast replayed the footage.

“Pops, who is that?” Sunny asked, her breath quickening. “What are they doing to those people? Why do they look like—“

”Go on back to the barracks now,” Pops gently shooed the young girl away. “This isn’t the kind of thing you need to be watching.”

“We take you now live to Balya Gora, where Grand General Malenkov is addressing these events:”

“People of Espia, it is a well-known fact that mercenaries are honorless dogs, barbaric sell-swords who care for nothing but coin. But rarely are we reminded how true this is, until it is too late. The heinous actions of Gawain’s Green Knights will not go unpunished! I will see to it that the People’s Justice is brought upon—"

“Pops, why did they do that to—“

“I said go on now!” Pops said with an authority in his voice he usually didn’t use.

As Sunny turned and scurried back to her corner of the big housing block, Pops turned his attention back to the screen, which was once again playing the footage Malenkov had condemned.

“Sons of bitches,” he muttered.



Keahi Township
50 km Northwest of North Nui Awa



The air was choked with smoke and dust, the groan of twisting metal, the deafening punches of gunfire, and a chorus of human screams.
Lumbering into frame of the Espian News Network’s camera drone was the imposing frame of a 70-ton Warhammer, using the club-like barrels of its Particle Projector Cannons to smash into the sides and roofs of buildings and houses. People scattered out of the crumbling buildings like insects from a hive, and the heavy Battlemech, taking big, bounding strides, began to deliberately step on them as they ran. As sparks and flames erupted in the Warhammer’s path, the camera drone zoomed in to show the logo of Gawain’s Green Knights painted on its torso.

A second heavy ‘Mech, this one a humanoid Crusader, fired its arm-mounted long-range missiles wildly into the sky, which then arced back down into the suburban sprawl. It let loose a second volley, this time of it leg-mounted short-range missiles, into a panicked crowd. Instead of explosives, these missiles erupted into splatters of white-hot Inferno jelly, engulfing the innocent people in a wave horrific molten death.

The camera drone turned, now showing a third ‘Mech herding what appeared to be a few hundred terrified civilians down the main street of the township. This one, a broad-shouldered Hunchback, stomped on cars and crushed its fists into storefronts, before aiming its massive shoulder-mounted autocannon at a church at the end of the street. With a cataclysmic roar, the AC/20 fired, obliterating the church and any unfortunate souls inside it.

As the horror-stricken crowd fled the Hunchback, a fourth ‘Mech emerged at the opposite end of the street. Smaller than the Hunchback, it was also humanoid, its arms ending in the barrels of Flamers. As the Firestarter raised its weapons, it played a familiar voice over its external speakers.



"Hahahahaha!" came the pre-recorded voice of Family Man, captured from the Green Knights’ battle with the Crimson Fists, "If you guys want to be psychopaths and sociopaths, I will oblige! I will kill you all! All!”

The Firestarter let loose with a hellish wave of superheated plasma from its four Flamers, as well as a spray of lead from its pair of Machine Guns. The air filled again with the screams of the dying as fire and lead washed over the crowd.

The sound of Family Man’s recorded laughter replayed from the Firestarter over the screaming, and the camera drone once again zoomed in on the logo of Gawain’s Green Knights painted across it.



“As of this morning,” The voice of Premiere Federov announced on the holo-vid, “I am petitioning to our local representatives at ComStar to have the Green Knights officially categorized as an outlaw command. This will strip them of any protections from the Mercenary Rating Board, and allow the Espian Guard and our heroic Crimson Fists to bring them to justice by any means necessary. My administration will not stand for such atrocities while—“

“GREEN KNIGHTS!” the voice of Colonel Wayne roared through the camp as he stormed out of the Mobile HQ, a deadly fury on his face. “NEW ORDERS, BRIEFING IS NOW!”
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