• Last Seen: MIA
  • Joined: 11 yrs ago
  • Posts: 65 (0.02 / day)
  • VMs: 0
  • Username history
    1. Rata Tat Tat 11 yrs ago

Status

User has no status, yet

Bio

User has no bio, yet

Most Recent Posts

Name: Michelle Darrens
Breed: Homid
Auspice: Ragabash
Tribe: Get of Fenris
Rank: 2nd Rank







Planning on getting a CS up for a Garou by tomorrow, just so people are aware.
Sounds like we need a wolf or two for balance. I got a good ol' city girl whose teeth could use some sharpening... Wonder if she'd be playable...
Way to hit me in an old soft spot. Quite interested.
Tag.
Sasha whistled.

It wasn't really a whistle, of course--that would be annoying as shit over the comms and plenty loud within the machine itself. Really it was just kind of breathing in rhythm through her lips, but it had the same effect. In her head, resin'd bows ran themselves across metal cables, mallets beat on percussive strings and wind worked its was through odd shapes. The song always changed, it wasn't important, but the music seemed to help her keep pace with herself and, more importantly, think about something other than hurtling towards the earth in a tin can through gouts of bioacid. How much danger she was in, even under these circumstances, was questionable--the Ulanova had the heaviest shields and armor around, a sturdier than any production battle tank, but the sensation of immobility and inevitability was never a pleasant one for her. As the first group dropped and relayed the AA fire, she breathed the opening bars of her latest fixation--Apotheosis Act 7, D-Minor. As the second group dropped and made ground on schedule, she was working her way through the introduction. And as she was loaded up into the drop bay, eyes closed, the was starting the crescendo as the world gave way around her--

And off they went.

The display on the Ulanova was an impressive thing, coded very carefully to keep it sane and intelligible for an operator. She would have to see if the German boy could get he in touch with his company--it would be excellent from an ergonomic standpoint to integrate the sensory information directly into the mind, though to be fair it would be an awful lot to manage. Still, the system had already linked to a far greater depth with her teammates AWES's than all but the most advanced diagnostic systems allowed. She could see through their mission cameras, track the data from their sensors and integrate it with her own view of the battlefield as it formed. Slight motions of her eyes, lingering attention brought up increased analysis on specific aspects of the situation, including in this case the AA fire. Bioorganic acid, it would do messy things to metal but she doubted its efficacy on shields. Getting through it in tact wouldn't be the problem, but if they got too far off of course...

"Altering course. I've got a better route" She managed, extending a smaller fine-manipulator grasp from the palm of the Ulanova's massive grip to take the controls. As they broke the atmosphere she redoubled her efforts, humming her way into the refrain as she tweaked and altered course for the areas of lowest projected resistance, syncing ground reports with probably coverage spreads based on maximum lethal coverage areas--

A tag, but a small one, a slight ricochet off one of the port panels, but she paid it no mind but for a small correction made with a flick of her fingers. The roar around her, the shaking of the metal, any snarky comments made by her squad-mate... all fell away in focus as she worked them through the soft spots in the cloud of cover and adjusted more aggressively to reset them on course once they were past the bulk of the fire. If her breathing was hard, if the confinement and the heat was beginning to make a bit of sweat bead at her temples, if the ground was racing up to them in ten, nine--reverse thrusters, coming in too hot--eight, seven, six--slowing down, approaching acceptable speeds--four, three, two...

The impact was jarring, to say the least, but the machine took the brunt of it. It's shock padding cushioned the impact, the sheer weight of it and the thickness of its armor preventing any significant damage from occurring. That being said, as the metal props jammed the doors open with enough force to crush the roadwork beneath, she found that the bio-acid had done a bit more damage than she'd thought. "No smoke, there's was some damage done to the chemical chambers." Worse, they'd landed just ahead of the allied fortifications on the central bridge--it was a miracle it hadn't cracked under the impact. Sloppy, she reprimanded herself as she pushed forward immediately, taking the moment to regain momentum. First things first--while she was intensely armored, her squad-mate was not. Best, then, for her to draw their fire and their attention to let the stealth unit slip away unscathed. And with an engage at will order like that...

"Get going, Overwatch 2. Happy hunting." She offered with a smile as she brought the Valentin to bear, the beast of a gun settling into the AWE's massive hands and opening fire even as caustic acid spattered harmlessly on the hex-pattern pulse shield of the Ulanova.

"Engaging."

As it spun to to life, she would have sworn it kept time for her.
Sasha didn't mind that her plan wasn't accepted.

Really. Yes, the split personality boy was rude about it, but when it all came to the wire who care. If the rest of the team didn't think they could act like one then it wouldn't have worked regardless, so what more was there to say? Either way, a drop close to the front lines would work just fine--she had the Valentin to clear the ranks, her allies in front of her for easy integration and the hole battlefield to take advantage of. Obviously she'd need to move to higher ground and some point, but she was confident in her ability to master the situation and deploy fire as necessary. For her part, it was a simple matter for Sasha--do the damn job. Teamwork was a necessity, personal sacrifice a given, so do it. Sometimes she thought that they had put her in a fire support role so that she wouldn't be tempted to bogart the melee performance, as she knew would likely be her tendency--she worked well as the focal point of a plan, but was too used to accepting the position and capitalizing on it. Better, perhaps, for her to be back in a support role for the sake of removing her ego from the equation. Not that she thought much of this; work with givens.

The given reason she was piloting the Ulanova was made clear as soon as they were dismissed for their A.W.E's. If it wasn't quite as massive as Hu-Shi's Chrome Ex-Road, the Ulanova was a hulking machine some 2+ meters high. Roughly proportioned like a man, it bristled with armaments, armor and sensory equipment beneath it's matte-iron exterior, it's primary weapon stored read-for-access across it's back. As she moved to settle herself inside, she was reminded again why it took grace to maximize the machine's bulky potential--it's gyroscopic stabilizers were shit. Whoever developed it had loaded it to the gils with weapons, ammunition, armor... but they'd forgotten to take some basic ergonomic suggestions into consideration and accepted it's role as what amounted to a mobile turret. Sure, it would walk and move just fine with the installed limiters in place, but it would plot along like a wooden man, little better than a drone. It was only with a pilot that knew how to balance the weight, knew how to move with it and carry it, sway with it and swing with it that it could run, jump, dash and dodge when necessary without falling on their face.

And Sasha was nothing if not familiar with it, by now.

"This is Ulanova, ready to drop." She said simply as she bolted herself in, the armor securing her within the surprisingly comfortable interior and connecting via various interface nodes, the HUD coming to life as it began the integration subroutines with her comrades and the equipment on the field. It wouldn't be long before he had a better grasp on the action than the men on the ground, and that was just how she liked it. Flexing massive fingers and feeling the servos hum around her hands, she smiled.

Time to get stuck in with the boys.
"SCANNING NOW."

As she raised her wiry arms, Sasha closed her heavy-lidded eyes against the razor-wire laser that crawled across her lean form. Still as a statue, arms at her side, the familiar feeling of being weighed, judged and evaluated pressed in upon her, and she was not concerned. It was part and parcel with her passion--being a dancer was not, as many seemed to think, for the faint of heart. The conditioning, the diet, the exercise, the repetition, and then to have all of it be put into a purely aesthetic context was grueling. Plenty didn't make it, even plenty who wanted it desperately, but nothing had kept Sasha from perfection in her old career--even at her young age, it was still how it occurred to her--and nothing was going to keep her from it in this one. All it took was a different set of muscles, exercises, a different diet. Like changing her clothes.

"THE SUBJECT IS SASHA IVANOVA. FIRST YEAR. 1.75 METERS. PLEASE CONFIRM."

"Affirmative."

As she wriggled her way into her armor, let it bolt itself down around her, the same claustrophobia she had felt the first time she'd been saddled with the heavy equipment rose. A dancer, as many pointed out, was hardly used to wearing armor, let alone piloting one of the heaviest A.W.E.'s around, but she crushed it with the same iron-veiled discipline she always had. This mattered, her hang-ups didn't. It was as simple as that. The others...well, they mattered insofar as she could trust them to hold up their end. Teamwork was a matter of course--you did it because it was the job, and it was professional, and Sasha like the idea of being a young consummate professional. That the rest of her team, or much of it, had failed at this in the past was something she ignored even as it made itself apparent last night. The English boy and his tea, the German boy and his coffee... it was hard for her to consider herself on either side, though coffee at least kept her awake. By the time the others had gone to bed she remained in the common room, doing a few simple exercises and going over air-burst geometry in her head. She slept very little, ate very little, and if she had seemed relaxed it was only because the banter between them all was the least important thing in the room.
The colonel was his usual colorless self, adamant in steel grey and as authoritarian as it got. As much as it seemed an odd comparison, it felt natural enough to obey--he'd proven himself, they hadn't. Teacher and pupil, commanding officer and rookie, same difference... but it was irritating, quietly, that he reminded them again of the necessity of teamwork, of relying on one another. A mission was a mission, that was it--how much more of this talk was necessary? How remedial, she found herself wondering in spite of herself, was her team, to necessitate such reminders? As they slid into the Simulation Room, however, it became clear that this was not her companions first time at this simulation. Richard's familiarity with the machinery made that clear enough. And then Thessalia's plan came together, and things got a bit strange.

The wallflower--Roman?--all of a sudden decided to assert himself. His mannerism, body language, voice, all of it changed in an instant, and at once she felt almost at ease. Here, then, was why they kept him around. Perhaps in the face of danger he...

Completely changed personalities and names.

"How they let you past the psyche eval I'll never know," she said flatly, looking over the newly-arisen persona before turning to Thessalia, "but the clown is right. From what I understand of his profile, his A.W.E. is focused on stealth and has extremely limited shielding--not suitable for fire support. I propose that he join team Rapid instead, with the primary goal of reconnaissance and target neutralization. Likewise," she said as she moved for the map, "I propose a slightly different approach."

Moving to the hologram, she pressed a finger to the pair of buildings in the midst of the Saurian forces between the east and middle bridge, southwest of the Surian force there.

"Core team and I should deploy here. From the top of them I should be able to maintain a firing solution on most of the battlefield, and with the uplink from your units I will be able to monitor most of the field. Rapid--including Jack--will deploy near the eastern bridge and cut through the enemy behind us. Once they've been dispersed the Eastern defense forces would be able to advance to the structures and provide additional covering fire. From there Rapid team could continue South, pushing them into a concentrated group at the center. If we can concentrate them we can surround them, and heavy ordinance should do the rest." The thought that a different plan might be considered insubordination or an issue in the chain of command never occurred to her--she was simply, in her eyes, providing a tactical opinion as she turned and looked to Thessalia.

"It is riskier--I would have an enemy at my back, and it would require more prolonged combat from Core team, but I believe it better utilizes our drop capabilities and our team assets, as well as the defensive units already available. Your call, sergeant."
As the rest of the introductions finished themselves up--nothing surprising, Thessalia was a bookworm when she wasn't being a commander and Roman was barely able to speak up--the loudspeaker chimed in just as Sasha was beginning to lose interest. She found herself snorting at the exchange. Quite the chain of command they had around here, it would seem, but at the announcement of a sixth member of things her ears perked and she sat back up a bit. Another girl, Chinese, who promptly stepped inside and introduced herself.

...Thoroughly.

Thessalia seemed to be a bit closer to Sasha's temperament, at least in rest, but it was clear from the get go that the bubbly Asian brought a bit more to the social table. Good for her--Sasha had always been able to take or leave other people, and it would be good for the boys to have someone a bit more engaging. She was beginning to see where some of the cracks might have formed last time, though if she wondered quite which crack she would be filling she didn't say. If she wasn't one for sweets, or really eating much in general, no reason to turn down a perfectly good biscuit. She leaned forward without getting up, stretching long to pluck one of the crumbly treats from the box and leaned back once more to dissect it, pulling it into little pieces and popping them into her mouth with an easy 'mm' of approval.

"Thank you. And I'm surprised to say I'm with Wolf,"--the w's were closer to v's when they came from her, but she didn't seem to care--"have you any coffee? I drink too much of it. I always end up forgetting about my tea, coffee at least helps me focus." Propping her head up on the back of the couch, she smiled a bit and picked apart more of the biscuit before speaking to the newcomer. "I met a girl from China, once. She had the most beautiful legs. Do you dance, Hu-Shi? You don't look like a dancer, but neither did she."
"I dance."

Flipping a hand over idly, Sasha leaned back in her chair. Richard seemed droll enough, true to form from what she'd heard of his countrymen though she had nothing to judge by personally. In a world of military men where showing interest seemed tantamount to admitting defeat half of the time, she wondered idly how hard a boy like Wolf would have it when he was so proud of what he did and was. With luck, the battlefield would get him the limelight he wanted. Sasha's life had hardly been so military, so involved in the business as the rest, and so it seemed less important to her. Humility in humble beginnings, and all that.

"Ballet, I mean, none of the clubbing and grinding nonsense you hear about these days. I read a bit, but not much--trashy things, not important. I doubt you'd approve." She added to Thessalia with an easy chuckle. "And I play the piano, but not so well. You all have spent much more time in the industry, from what I understand, I'm sure it would seem dull to you. I've been learning more about martial arts, though, the comparison with dancing has been made so often that I can't help but wonder if it's accurate at all. You'll two will have to perform for me, some time, we'll see." Grinning slightly, amused at the thought, she relaxed bonelessly in her chair. So comfortable, around this place--in the lap of luxury for once in her life, she intended to enjoy it.
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet