AndyC

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

I N T E R L U D E

NPDRE Forward Operating Base
North Nui Awa
1800 Hours
28 March, 3030

"What a goddamn mess," Jester 2 muttered to herself as she read the tactical debriefing on her noteputer, detailing the ambush at the Hiyan-Chia Mountain Pass. This operation was supposed to be easy; knock over a company of mercs who weren't expecting anything more than a few angry civvies, then keep the local yokels in line until the cavalry arrived. They had an army at their back, and the "resistance" groups they faced were a joke. Two thirds of Gawain's Green Knights had been wiped out in the initial coup, and they were supposed to be down to a single lance. The Knights were supposed to be on the way out.

So how the hell had they gotten the better of them twice now?

"Excuse me, sir?" the timid voice of one of the local AsTechs came from outside of her tent, with a light tapping on the front flap the closest equivalent to knocking.

"What is it?" Jester 2 growled.

"I, ah, was asked by Captain Albano to ask how long you and your Warhammer were planning to, erm, 'grace us with your presence' before you rejoined your Lance, and--"

The AsTech- a twentysomething blonde girl who always looked like she was trying to defuse a bomb when speaking to her- ducked with surprisingly fast reflexes as Jester 2's noteputer flew past where her head was a split-second before.

"I don't have a Lance anymore, you idiot," Jester 2 spat as she fumbled around inside her tent, looking for the full-face mask she wore to cover her identity from the people of Espia. When she finally managed to pull it over her face, she opened the tent flap and stared the AsTech down. "Haven't you read the reports?"

The ambush in the mountain pass had been a disaster. Stroheim-- or rather, "Yellow Jester"-- had gotten too lost in his gimmick, especially after they'd stomped that village. He was always a creep and an animal, but something had finally driven him fully looney. He led her Lance mates right into a trap, and rather than withdraw until backup could arrive, he'd charged in and gotten them all killed.

She didn't particularly like any of the other members of Jester Lance-- frankly, they'd all been assholes. Not that she was any better; she'd taken part in the carnage just as willingly as the rest of them. But that didn't make them any easier to get along with. She wouldn't be crying for 'Honk Honk' or 'Mister Dimples' or whatever other stupid names 'Jester' had given them. No, what got to her was the fact that if it weren't for her foot actuator acting up...she would've died right along with them.

"N-no, sir! I-I was told anything about your unit is n-need to know!"

"Well," she snarled, "What you need to know is that I'm waiting for Crimson King and Fire Witch to come here, so I can rendezvous with the other Crimson Fists."

The AsTech gulped. "Th-they're coming here?"

"They'll be here within 24 hours," she said, "And they're not going to like it if my Warhammer still has a busted foot actuator."

The blonde girl turned pale, and underneath her mask, Jester 2 grinned. Things might be getting out of hand, but it did make her feel a little better about herself to be able to make these indigs squirm.

"And whose responsibility is it to make sure that the Crimson King and the Fire Witch aren't upset about that foot actuator?" she said, twisting the proverbial knife a bit.

"...th-the maintenance te--"

"Yours," she snarled. "Which means if the repairs aren't done, then all of the repercussions of that are yours as well. Got that?"

"Y-yes, sir," the AsTech stammered.

"Now say it again. Whose job is it?" Jester 2 said, her hand wandering to the laser pistol by her nightstand.

"M-mine! Mine!" the AsTech all but screamed.

"Good, now go," she dismissed the shivering blonde. "And tell Captain Albano-- and use these exact words-- that if he has any more stupid fucking questions for his betters, he can take them up with the King."

The trembling AsTech ran from her tent, and Jester 2 laughed to herself. This 'masked villain' routine was ridiculous, but she did get a kick out of scaring people like this. She could see how Captain Humphr--that is, "Crimson King"-- and the others, could buy into this act.

"Mine...mine..." the girl kept muttering as she ran from the masked mercenary's tent. Tears flecked the corners of her eyes, and a few of the other techs sneered cruelly as she ran past.

Whoever this Mechwarrior was, she was just as much of a psychopath as the stories all said...

"...mine....mine...."

....which meant that she was going to sleep easy when the time came to kill her.

"....mine....mine...."

Since coming to North Nui Awa, the woman in the dirty faded jumpsuit had been any number of things. She'd been a hungry refugee, trying to escape the horrors of the conflict. She'd been a ditzy party girl, looking for some thrills with a hot young man in uniform. She'd been a desperate out-of-work wrench monkey who would do any job for a paycheck. And when backs were turned and guards were down, she'd been making quite a mess.

"....mine....mine...."

Killing NPDRE soldiers and officers had become almost second nature to her now, getting her the supplies she'd needed to escape Baliya Gora, the food and money to survive in a strange city, and eventually the credentials to get onto the NPDRE forward operating base without drawing attention to herself.

She was getting closer and closer to her ultimate target, but it wasn't going to be easy.

"....mine....mine...."

She was thankful that the Crimson Fist Mechwarrior always wore a full-face mask. And that she was close enough to her size that she could pass for her once she put on the flight suit. But it wasn't going to be a simple matter of jumping into the cockpit and strolling away.

There was a long list of checks and procedures that had to be followed. Security measures she'd need to overcome. The Neurohelmet itself was almost certainly neuro-locked to 'Jester 2,' so anyone else putting it on would likely have their brain fried. These were problems, but none were insurmountable. Just like she'd done back on Von Strang's world, if she couldn't figure out a problem herself, she had all sorts of ways to pressure the people who did know to do it for her.

"....mine....mine...."

Lena Von Kemp, 'Wrathchild' of Gawain's Green Knights, slowed her run to the collection of gantries and cranes that made the makeshift Mech bay. Pretending to be rattled and out of breath, she told the other Mech techs to double their efforts, overriding any and all security protocols if need be. When the chief tech asked who she thought she was, using the name of the Fire Witch scared him into compliance.

That itself was a bitter pill for her, since she'd learned the Fire Witch was in the Longbow that had killed her own Wolverine during the coup. But Lena would make sure that both she and this so-called 'Crimson King' would get what's coming to them.

She looked up at the 70-ton Warhammer, and while frightened and breathless on the outside, on the inside Wrathchild was hungry.

Mine.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

HOOOOONNNNKKKK!!!!!

As if in reply to Daschke's demands, the loud blaring horn of a big-rig truck cut through the air, causing no small number of the crewmen to flinch.

"What's that?" Sunny asked from inside a hollowed-out clothes dryer, one of the dozens of hiding places she'd found in the scrapyard where she could watch the Mechwarriors without getting in the way. Pops, who had been keeping her far enough away that she didn't get caught in the brawl but close enough that he could still watch and take bets, grunted.

"Ol' Maxie wasn't kidding," Pops said as the rumbling of huge diesel engines grew into a dull roar, "His boys work quick."

After another blast of the horn, the gates to Uncle Mack's Scrapyard swung open, allowing in a small convoy. The scrappers themselves, still covered in dust and grime from digging through the debris of the Green Knights' battle, mostly rode in on smaller vehicles, dirtbikes and ATVs and buggies, hooting and yelling with triumphant excitement about the haul they'd brought in.

Following behind on a trio of flatbed trucks, was the haul itself.

As the fray in the makeshift Mech bays parted, Colonel Wayne emerged from the Mobile HQ, just as "Honest" Ollie Maxwell poked his head out from the cabin of the lead truck. "Good t'see ya agin, Mister Colonel Sir! We done brought in one helluva catch fer ya!"

"I'll be damned," the Colonel muttered as he approached the lead truck, and Ollie Maxwell clambered out onto the roof of the cabin, then began climbing on top of his prized salvage.

Strapped to the bed of the lead truck, battered and crushed but still in one piece (for the most part), was the Crimson Fists' Catapult. Somehow, though for the life of him Gaius couldn't have guessed how, Maxwell's pickers had managed to dig a 65-ton Battlemech out of the rubble and drag it out from the bottom of the mountain pass.

"Weren't easy, I can tell ya that fer sure," Ollie answered the Colonel's unspoken question, beaming proudly from atop the ruined Mech. "An' I do b'lieve my boys'll be entitled to some proper compensation fer our efforts. But hot damn if this ain't the best scrap we ever got! Reactor's intact, gyro's stable, mosta the in-ternal structure's holdin' up. All she really needs is a few patches here'n'ere, a fresh licka paint, an' spray out the cockpit with a hose, an' she'll be ready fer some action!"

"A total salvage," Pops said, letting out an impressed whistle. "I'll be dipped in shit."

"That's gross," Sunny remarked.

"Maxvell not onlee vonn viz great syalvage," piped in the big burly Marozov from the second truck. "Vee heff pulled as much vyaluwabul eqvipment and veapons from enemy byattulmyechs as vas vorth taking. Enough to fix Mechs, to repair dyamage, to customize Mechs how you vish! All at very reasonable prices, of course!"

Maxwell and Marozov's crews began unloading ton after ton of equipment picked over from the ruined Crimson Fists.

Several tons worth of Battlemech-quality armor, bundles of myomer fiber and actuators, pieces of Mech "bones," enough raw material that an experienced crew of Mech techs with the right equipment could patch up structural holes and even rebuild lost limbs. Pops saw plenty of spare engine and gyro parts in the mix as well, and his mind began turning thinking of ways to tune up the Green Knights' machines.

The haul of weaponry wasn't half bad, either. Partial salvage on a PPC and an LRM launcher, full salvage on pair of medium lasers, a flamer, two SRM launchers, even the massive autocannon from the Hunchback, with spare parts from the Mechbuster's cannon as well.

"Not bad, Mister Maxwell, not bad at all," Colonel Wayne said, clearly getting plenty of ideas of his own. "I want a full inventory of the salvage, and then we'll discuss the best way to split everything up. Chief!"

Deck Chief Sol Aadil, a wrench in one hand and someone's lapel still in the other, looked up. "Sir?"

"Coordinate with Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Marozov on where to store the salvage while we negotiate. Green Knights?"

Looking over the scene of the brawl, the Colonel scowled. "Since we don't have a functional brig to administer Level 1 disciplinary action at the moment, we'll have to make do with something more short-term, but which will still get the point across. Ten lashes for everyone involved, before the day is out. Dismissed."

As the crewmen involved in the fight sullenly began to line up, Sonny tugged on Pops' overalls.

"Why's the Colonel being so mean to them?" she asked. "I thought he was happy about getting all this stuff!"

"I'm sure he is," Pops nodded, "But he's got to keep the peace, even if that means being hard on the people under his command sometimes. Besides, sticking our Mechwarriors in some rusty shack for a week would kill our morale way more than a few welts and bruised egos. This way, they can take their licks for acting out of turn, then still get to celebrate their win after they're done."

"Awright, boys, git the hose an' let's open 'er up!" Maxwell shouted as he started to pry at the cockpit of the Catapult.

"Now c'mon, squirt, let's go find somethin' else to do for a bit," Pops said, pulling Sunny out from inside the hollowed-out dryer. "You don't need to be seeing what's in there."

Rise of Rasalhague

"You stupid little--get offa me!" Remy snarled inside his cockpit as a det-pack went off underneath his Mech's right arm. The infantry trooper hadn't positioned it well enough to damage the actuator, so it did little more than blast off a few pocks of armor, but the fact that these ground-pounders were even on him in the first place chapped his ass something fierce. And it wasn't exactly a party on his stomach, either.

Twisting the Firestarter left and right, rapidly throwing the Mech's throttle from full-speed to full-reverse, swatting across the 35-tonner's chassis with his arms, Remy tried to shake the jump-troopers off. While they were like fish in a barrel during their initial descent, rooting the rest of them out had been a lot more difficult, as they'd gotten into cover and a few had managed to outflank him. If he'd been a more dedicated Light 'Mech jock, he probably would've been able to avoid the trouble, and could've used the Firestarter's speed and agility to put himself into a better position. But Murder One had always been a heavier girl in all of her past lives. He was used to wading into the thick of it and letting his guns and armor do the work.

Still, no time like the present to learn some new tricks.

Bracing himself from within his cockpit, Remy deliberately threw the Firestarter backwards, his stomach lurching up into his throat as the 'Mech toppled over onto its back. On impact, he was thrown hard against his command couch, and alarms began blaring, but as soon as he confirmed none of his bones were broken, he grinned. Any poor bastard clinging onto the Murder One's back would've been squashed flat.

Torquing hard on the control sticks and straining the Mech's gyro, he was able to get his Firestarter to roll over onto its front, crushing more troopers under its weight. 35 tons wasn't much mass to throw against another Battlemech, but against an 80kg human being, it might as well have been the weight of the planet.

Using the Mech's arms to push itself up and get its legs underneath it, Remy got Murder One back to a standing position and began looking for any survivors. Sure enough, a single infantryman was trying to crawl away from him, dragging himself by one good arm while his mangled legs hung limply.

"Lucky little bastard, surviving that," Overkill said over his external speakers, before pointing the arm-mounted Flamers at him. "Well....maybe not that lucky..."

With a loud FWOOSH and another sharp spike of heat inside the cockpit, it was done. "All clear, boss," he chimed in to the rest of the lance.

Remy looked at the aftermath of the battle, and couldn't help but wonder what the hell these pirates thought was so damned valuable to be worth getting wiped out like that. Most of the pirates he'd ever encountered weren't exactly the type to stick around for a fair fight, much less one against an overwhelming force. Not just that, but they had a lot more hardware than expected- artillery, jump troopers, even a damn Hunchback. He was pretty fairly convinced these guys had more going on than your average pirate band.

On the other hand, they'd also tried to use infantry to engage a Firestarter, and Remy couldn't have imagined a stupider move, so maybe he was giving them too much credit.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Oh, I see you've got some jokes of your own!" the Yellow Jester shouted over his comms, apparently oblivious to the stone bridge beneath him beginning to buckle from the combined fire of the Green Knights. "Stop me if you've heard this one!"

The Crusader turned its attention to the Green Knights' Ostroc, letting loose into the already wounded Mech with a salvo of Short-Range Missiles, Medium Lasers, and Machine Gun fire. Both lasers struck home, carving rivulets of molten armor from the Ostroc's left leg and scoring a direct hit in the center of its torso. While the Machine Gun fire sparked and panged harmlessly across the Mech's armor, six of the Crusader's twelve SRMs impacted. Armed with Inferno warheads, these missiles coated the Ostroc in white-hot incendiary gel, spiking the laser-boat's heat to dangerous levels.

"Hey, Jester?" Captain Waffles called out in his effectively pristine Catapult. "I don't think this ground is safe. What say we back off and--"

"NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BACK AWAY!!!!" the lunatic shouted, the bridge crumbling with every step. "NOW IS THE TIME TO HARTY-WARTY-PARRRTYYYY!!!!"

"Oh, to hell with this," the Catapult pilot said, triggering his jump jets and rising up into the air. "You can get killed all you want, Stroheim, I'm gonna--"

A volley of SRMs from the Green Knights' Raven cut off Captain Waffles' sentence, with most of the warheads blasting away chunks of armor but doing little else. One missile, however, struck the Catapult directly in the cockpit, throwing the Crimson Fists' Mechwarrior hard against the restraints of his command couch and smacking his head hard against a console. Reflexively, his grip tightened on the firing studs of his control sticks, returning fire against the Raven with a salvo of medium lasers just as he lost consciousness.

Two of the lasers went wide, but the other two connected. One caught the smaller Mech square in the center torso, while the other penetrated the remaining armor on its right side, and appropriately enough, disabled the SRM launcher that had killed him.

Rather than retreat back to safety as intended, the unconscious Captain Waffles brought his Catapult straight up, then straight back down onto the bridge, just as the combined fire of the Green Knights caused the bridge to give way.

"Ohhhhh," Yellow Jester said, seemingly finally aware of what his enemies had done. "...now that's funny!"

The mountain pass resounded with the thunderous noise of crumbling rock as the bridge gave way, the last two Crimson Fist Battlemechs plummeting down into the ravine. Amid the deafening racket, the Yellow Jester's laughter played out over the comms as his Crusader, the Catapult, and the remains of the Hunchback were swallowed up in the darkness and dust below.

"Sensors are showing the other Mechbuster is bugging out," Colonel Wayne called out on the Green Knights' channel. "The Espian Guard still has a wing of Meteor fighters on patrol, estimated time they'll be converging on the area within thirty minutes. Plenty of time for us to give them the slip. Return to base for debriefing and repairs."

Closing the channel, the Colonel let out a deep sigh.

"Whoo, that's how it's done!" Cadet Higgins shouted, pumping his fists into the air. "Scratch one whole lance of Crimson Shits!"

"I thought you were calling them 'Fisters,'" Cadet Windham said.

"Well, the latter eventually leads to the former," Higgins sneered.

"That's disgusting," Lieutenant Lyons scolded her cadets.

"Hey, what's disgusting is how one-sided our win was," Higgins laughed. "The Crimson Fists kept talking a big game about how they were gonna wipe the Green Knights out, and then when it came to an actual stand-up fight, they went down faster than a Canopian Cat-Girl on--"

"That's enough," the Colonel cut them off.

"Apologies, Colonel," Lieutenant Lyons said, rebuking Higgins and Windham with a dirty look. "We're just excited to have gotten a big win on the board. After what those guys did to that village, taking them down has to have felt pretty good, right?"

The Colonel looked at the monitors, showing BattleROM footage transmitted from Ziska's Raven.

"We've bloodied their noses, and collected data that will help clear our name of the massacre," he stated. "As for it feeling good, after what happened to Keahi, seeing what they did while wearing our colors....no, it really doesn't."

The rest of their trip was spent in silence as the Mobile HQ made its way down the mountain pass, slinking away into the night.

M I S S I O N S U C C E S S F U L

Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG

I was planning on putting in an application a week ago, but life happened. Now that life has settled down a bit:

Name: Heart of Dixie Wrestling
Territory: Alabama, east Mississippi. Shows (mostly) run out of the Gadsden Coliseum, an all-purpose sports complex, gym, and rec center in Gadsden, Alabama.
Style: old-school Southern rasslin'
Television: NWA-HDW Saturday Night Special, airing at 11pm Saturday nights on CBS-affiliate stations in the surrounding counties
Promotion Champions:
Heart of Dixie Champion: "Action" Jack Macklin- a muscle bound hunk now well into his forties, Action Jack was at one time the hottest up-and-coming contender in the NWA...until he got injured and Mighty Morgan took his spot. Macklin is a shell of what he used to be, and while he puts on a happy face for the fans, inside he's a deeply bitter, resentful man.
HDW Tag Team Champions: The Hollywood Express. A pair of cagey heels who know every dirty trick in the game, "Nasty" Nick Rogers and "Handome" Dan Henshaw used to terrorize the larger Georgia territory along with their arch-rivals the Rockin' Rebels. Once the Rebels broke up, however, the Express have been floundering, and are trying to revitalize their career.
Queen of Dixie Champion: Princess Pauline McLarty. A 20-year-old beauty pageant contender who is only there because her father, car dealership tycoon "Big Bill" McLarty, is a lifelong mark who pays HDW's bills.

Promotion Top Stars:
"The Outlaw" Bart McCall: an aging cowboy wrestler and former NWA Champion, everyone respects and reveres McCall as a legend, just as much as everyone knows the Outlaw's best days are far behind him.
"Disaster" Don Murdock: a 400-lb biker with a questionable past, Disaster Don has been HDW's top heel for years. Don is fiercely loyal to HDW, and doesn't like that the title and the spot of head Booker have both gone to "tourists" from up north.
Ricky Romeo: a good-looking rookie talent, Ricky Romeo is something of a local heartthrob, but hasn't really found his character yet. Most people agree he's only here until he's ready to move on to a bigger promotion.
"Rocketman" Shawn Dillon: a high-flyer and former NBA hopeful, Dillon is a reliable fan-favorite who struggles with cracking the main event. Shawn suspects he's being intentionally held back because of his race.
Mad Maxie: another rookie with a "crazy mental patient" gimmick, Mad Maxie is actually Maxine Macklin, Action Jack's daughter. While she was initially happy to follow in her dad's footsteps, she's beginning to resent only getting opportunities because of her dad, and is struggling to find her own identity out from under his shadow.

Booker: Dennis "Sonny" DeAngelo
Sonny DeAngelo started his career in the movie industry in the 1970s, working on low-budget action flicks, corny daytime soap operas, and trashy pornos. While he's always done low-brow work, he nevertheless takes the creative side of his job seriously, as he sees it as the only "honest" art there is, giving people the cheap violence and sex appeal that everyone wants on a primal level. In the 80s, Sonny found himself working for the NWA in the New York territory, and found it a natural fit. His proclivities for drugs, cheap sex, and gambling made him popular with the boys in the locker room, but also got him in trouble with some very shady people. When the NWA began to clean up its corporate image, DeAngelo was one of the first people on the chopping block.

Looking for work and wanting to put as much distance between himself and the shady types he owed back North, Sonny traveled South and found a rinky-dink rasslin' promotion in Alabama, somewhere he could ply his trade as a creative genius of the low-brow arts without drawing too much attention to himself. He befriended the promotion's money-man, the boisterous and dumb-as-a-brick Big Bill McLarty, and before Big Bill knew it Sonny was the head Booker of Heart of Dixie Wrestling.

Over the last year, however, Sonny has started to realize he may have bitten off more than he could chew. Heart of Dixie was always smaller than the larger Georgia territory, but now the Atlanta shows are starting to move in on their turf. The crowds simply aren't as interested in the old-school Southern heroes as they used to be, especially since most of them are getting old and fat and dysfunctional, and any up-and-coming talent is quick to get poached by Atlanta. HDW can barely afford to keep the lights on, even after squeezing more money from Bil Bill- and worse, Sonny's "friends" from up North have caught up with him. Both HDW and Sonny himself are on borrowed time, and if things don't change quickly, neither one might live to see 1991.

Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG

Edit: wrong thread

Territory Daze: A Pro-Wrestling Promotion RPG

I'm definitely interested.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

As Honk-Honk's Panther and Bing-Bong's Hunchback both exploded in short order, the Yellow Jester reflected for a moment on how quickly things had gotten out of hand. If there were any gods out there in the blackness of space looking over him and his deeds, he'd have supposed this was some higher justice being meted out. The massacre in that little speck of a town was just the latest in a long line of 'pranks' and 'japes' he'd pulled over the years, going back well before he'd gotten into the mercenary trade. It's possible that this was just all of his sins catching up to him.

On the other hand, though, pissing off the gallant and noble Green Knights to the point where they themselves would carry out a merciless massacre of their own was a pretty great gag.

Jester's Crusader leaned to one side from a sudden shift in mass, as the large laser of the Green Knight's Phoenix Hawk gouged out molten chunks of armor. As the lighter mech arced through the air, determined to plant its foot directly into his cockpit, Jester licked his lips.

"Ah, so you want to play tag?" He called out, suddenly hurling the Crusader's mass to one side and dodging the Phoenix Hawk's foot as it came crashing down into the snow. "All right, then, you're it!"

The Crusader swung its bulky oversized gauntlets towards the Green Knight 'Mech, but the Mechwarrior in the Phoenix Hawk was no slouch at melee combat. The Green Knight ducked under the first punch, and when the second one came arcing towards its head, the lighter 'Mech got its left arm up in time to take the brunt of the blow. As the Phoenix Hawk staggered from the impact, Yellow Jester took the opportunity to break away and advance on the other Green Knights.

"I believe it would be only fair to let your friends play too, ha-ha!" he jeered, surging the Crusader onto the ice bridge to close the gap between himself and the wounded Ostroc, then letting loose with his short-range weapons. The Inferno-tipped SRMs went wild, and Jester's manic smile turned into a frustrated scowl for a moment. His lasers and machine guns, however, found their mark, raking across the Ostroc's torso, a burst of 12.5mm lead stitching its way up the 'Mech to connect with its head.

"Ha! Going to need an aspirin after that, I'll bet ya!" he taunted.

"The situation's looking pretty dire, Jester," came the voice of Captain Waffles, the Mechwarrior in the Catapult on loan from the Fire Witch, as his 'Mech strode up beside his. "Seven on two is long odds."

As it advanced, the Catapult let fly with its LRMs towards the Knights' Shadow Hawk. While the first flight of missiles scattered harmlessly around the 55-tonner, the second flight found its mark, all fifteen missiles arcing directly toward the Shadow Hawk's head. While the Green Knight pilot shielded its head with its left arm like the Phoenix Hawk, a third of them did make contact, no doubt rattling the pilot inside.

"Ohhh come now, Captain Waffles!" Jester chided him. "You're a Mechwarrior, aren't you? Since when has a trifling little thing like certain death ever scared us away? What say we bring one or two of them along for the ride?"

"Well, the Witch did demand I burn one of these Knights in her name," the Catapult pilot said, turning his attention toward the Ostroc. "What say we take you down to hell with us?"

The 65-tonner's heat spiked as it fired all four of its Medium Lasers into the Ostroc. Two of them missed, but the other two carved more into the Ostroc's torso. One of the beams managed to pierce the enemy 'Mech's armor, and for a moment, 'Captain Waffles' hoped to see the telltale green smoke of a crippled gyro or the leaking plasma of an engine hit....

...but to his disappointment, he merely hit the internal 'ribcage,' and the glow of superheated metal quickly faded, as did their chances of killing the Knights' lance leader.

"Well, since we're not getting out of here," the Catapult pilot sighed as the enemy Mechs and heavy tank closed in on them from all sides, "I wanted you to know that, even though we never had many chances to work together.....I always hated your fucking guts, Stroheim."

"No names, Waffles!" Jester hissed.

"....whatever....come and get it, Green Knights."

Rise of Rasalhague

"Ohhh-ho-ho, it's my lucky day," Remy said as the sky filled with small plumes of enemy jump infantry. "You folks take care of the big guy; I'll take crowd control."

He turned his attention away from the hulking figure of the Hunchback and towards the incoming soft targets. As much as his instincts screamed at him to charge headlong at the larger brawler and duke it out, that all came from his years piloting heavier 'Mechs. He knew damn well a Firestarter didn't have the armor or the firepower to trade blows with anything but other light 'Mechs, and his only real hope of doing damage against the Hunchback would have been to get a lucky shot through an opening in the armor. Maybe if it was one of the 'Swayback' variants loaded up with lasers he could play hell with its heat, but against the standard model, he'd most likely just get on its nerves.

That jump infantry, on the other hand, was in for the shortest-longest day of their lives.

"Come to Papa, you stupid sonsabitches!" He shouted over his 'Mech's internal speakers as he charged headlong towards his unfortunate targets. He was still running hot after unloading his weapons into the now scrapped Jenner, so as much as it pained him to have to hold something back, he took aim at one of the incoming Rippers and fired his Medium Lasers.

The first Laser tagged the incoming VTOL in the rotor, turning to superheated slag the mechanism that kept the transport airborne. Immediately, the Ripper began to roll hard to one side, causing the second Laser to miss, but by then the VTOL's fate was sealed. As the Ripper careened headlong towards its doom, Remy switched to his next Target-Interlock Circuit, triggering his Machine Guns into the group of jump infantry that had just disembarked.

If those mud-marchers were able to get to the ground and start firing from cover-- or worse, get on his 'Mech or one of his lance-mates-- then they'd be a bastard and a half to deal with. In the air, though, they were such easy pickings that it hardly seemed fair.

Hot lead filled the sky, and Remy sneered as he saw some of those jump plumes snuff out with puffs of red. The Firestarter's .50 caliber machine guns were piddling against 'Mechs, but there wasn't any armor in all the Inner Sphere that could protect an infantry trooper from a hit. Bullets punched gory tunnels through the bodies of unlucky troopers, blasting off limbs and popping the head of one soldier like an overripe melon.

He'd heard of Battlemechs referred to from time to time as "walking war crimes," and Remy usually thought that was little more than tough-talk from overzealous Mechwarrior enthusiasts. You could put that label on just about anything capable of moving and shooting. His Firestarter, on the other hand, seemed like it was purpose-built for terrorizing anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. And as if to drive that point home, he triggered his primary Target-Interlock-Circuit, activating the weapons that gave the 'Mech its name.

Not wanting to cook himself completely, Remy only let loose with two of his four Flamers, but even that was plenty. One of the jets of plasma cut a swath straight through a tight grouping of troops, the poor souls frying before they even had a chance to fight back. The other Flamer caught only about half as many, but he'd effectively wiped out a whole platoon of jump troopers before they'd hit the ground.

"Hoooo-eee!" he let out a triumphant whoop as the air around him filled with the screams of dying men, right around the time the Ripper he had tagged finally slammed into one of the ferrocrete walls of the enemy compound, erupting into a dirty-orange fireball with the impact. "How do you fellas like your infantry: regular, or extra-crispy?!"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Shit, that's my arm gone!" called out Honk-Honk, the mercenary in the Panther, as a flight of SRMs from the Green Knights' Raven pockmarked its armor, before snapping the composite alloy bone, myomer muscle bundles, and power couplings that held the light Mech's right arm in place. With the limb fully severed, the Panther staggered, but the mercenary inside managed to keep its footing. "Hell with this, I'm punching out!"

Inside the cockpit of the Panther, the Mechwarrior reached up behind his head to a small black-and-yellow-striped handle hanging above his command couch. Yanking the handle down hard, he braced himself for the explosive bolts that would blow the 'Mech's cockpit open to let his ejection pod rocket away to safety.

Instead, the Mech's external speakers activated, letting out a loud, wet-sounding BRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAP.

"Phhheeeeewwwww-weee, was that you, Honk-Honk?!" called out the Yellow Jester.

"Are you kidding me with this shit?!" Honk-Honk all but screamed at his commanding officer.

"Oh, please, I'm always kidding," the psychotic Crimson Fists lance leader said as he advanced in the Crusader. "But let's be honest, I doubt the goodie-woodie-doodie-two-shoes Knights are going to let bad bad men like us get away anyway. Might as well see this show to the end, ha-haaa!"

"Us or them, Honk-Honk," said Bing-Bong, who pushed his Hunchback forward and drove his Mech's foot into the leg of the damaged Ostroc. Rather than give the Green Knight a full salvo, he turned the stout Mech's torso and instead opened fire into the back of the Knights' Phoenix Hawk. While the massive slug from its autocannon went wide, one of the Medium Lasers found its target square in the enemy Mech's back, boiling away what little armor the Phoenix Hawk had in that location.

"Right, right, us or them," muttered Honk-Honk, who limped his wounded Panther to also flank the Phoenix Hawk, letting fly with his four-pack of Short-Range Missiles, the only weapon he had left at his disposal. Two of the missiles streaked into the mountainside, but the other two hit the mark, one of them digging into the internal structure exposed by the Hunchback's laser. "Okay, now we're talking!"

While the Phoenix Hawk still had plenty of armor in the front, another solid hit from behind now risked coring the Mech out.

"Oh yoo-hoo, Captain Waffles!" The Yellow Jester called out to his lancemate in the Catapult. "I spy with my little eye, a missile boat on the other side of the ravine!"

"I see him, Jester," the Catapult pilot said as he moved his Mech to a vantage point and opened the bay doors of the boxy missile launchers on his shoulders.

"And if remember my math-o-magics," he said, "I do believe two missile boats are greater than one!"

"Sounds about right to me."

"Then what to you say we multiply our firepower together," the Jester continued, "and subtract that Archer from the equation?!"

"I'd say those numbers add up," Captain Waffles concurred, and the two missile-support Mechs let fly with a combined sixty long-range missiles. The warheads rained down on the seventy-tonner, kicking up clouds of smoke and dust all around it. In total, only a bit more than half of the missiles connected, but they shredded substantial chunks of armor away from the Archer's legs and torso.

For good measure, the Catapult opened fire with two of its Medium Lasers into the Phoenix Hawk, one beam catching the lighter Mech in the right leg, while the other caught it flush in the chest. "The Fire Witch wants all of your souls, but you and the Raven she wants most. I'll reduce the both of you to cinders in her name!"

"That's the spirit, Waffles!" The Yellow Jester egged him on as a low rumble began to fill the air. "Ooooh, and don't look now, but we might have a couple of special party guests!"

The Raven's ECM had kept the Crimson Fists from calling for reinforcements, but the Yellow Jester abandoning his Firestarter had caused its IFF transponder to go offline. Ironically, it was the sudden lack of a signal that had tripped the Espian Guards that something had gone wrong with the Crimson Fists, and they had scrambled fighters to investigate.

"Jester Actual, this is Sledgehammer One," came the unmistakably aloof, cocky voice of an aero-jock as the Espian Guards' two Mechbusters roared into the mountain pass. "Preparing to engage, danger-close."

The pair of Mechbusters were flying dangerously low, having to rely on eyeball recognition as the Raven's electronic warfare equipment was interfering with their ability to track targets on instruments. The sabotage that the Green Knights had pulled in the spaceport wasn't helping things either, as someone had been monkeying around with both planes' electricals, effectively shorting out their secondary weapons' fire control without extensive downtime. Once they had managed to get the Mechbusters' main cannons online, General Kwan had ordered them on near-constant patrol.

Without their guided missiles due to sabotage and without proper IFF thanks to the Raven's ECM bubble, the two Mechbusters swooped in and fired their cannons at the one target they could be sure wasn't one of the Crimson Fists: the Von Luckner. Sledgehammer One's salvo hit just short, ripping a deep trench in front of the heavy tank. Sledgehammer Two, however, was right on the money, with a torrent of depleted-uranium shells chewing off nearly half of the Von Luckner's substantial front armor.

Pulling up as they reached the edge of the valley, the two Mechbusters peeled off in either direction, wheeling around to make another pass. Between the lethal power of their autocannons, the monstrous cannon on the Hunchback, and the missile salvos from the Catapult and Crusader, a combined salvo from the Crimson Fists and Espian Air Guard could theoretically destroy any of the Green Knights' Mechs outright. It just came down to where the Yellow Jester directed his fire.

"Now, let's see who wants to make their acquaintance with the dirt first!" he taunted, raising the Crusader's humanoid hand and extending a finger to point at each of the Knights in succession. "Eenie....meenie.....miney...."

WARNING: ENEMY MECH DETECTED

"What the what?" the Crimson Fist commander asked, caught off-guard by the arrival.

Another Battlemech was approaching, coming up from the southeast corner of the mountain pass....from behind the Crimson Fists...