Skyrte

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

Spartan Alexander Mann

As soon as Alexander arrived, it wasn't long until another set of doors hissed open. It wasn't another Spartan, nor was it an ONI Agent. It was the Captain of the Supercarrier they were about to board. "So this is my squad of Spartans then?" He spoke. Already Alexander heard the authority in his voice, an experienced man, the Spartan thought. He heard that tone and inflection of speech before in seasoned NCOs and veteran Captains. Judging by the salad bar of ribbons and medals pinned onto his chest, the Captain, a Nicholas Roger Young, was certainly an experienced captain. Alexander saluted him, but was quickly waved to stand easy. "Welcome to my ship, the Solares. She is a Infinity Class Super-carrier designed by ONI roughly around the same time the Infinity was being produced. I'm sure all of you are curious as to what our mission entitles, if you follow me to the command deck of the ship, all will be explained by myself and the ships AI, Nova." After the introduction, Captain Young spun and marched towards an airlock, with the Spartans at his back. After the decon procedures, they were let in.

An Infinity Class supercarrier. A truly massive vessel, one of the most powerful vessels in both the UNSC and the Covenant, if they had any of those during the war they would have done far better. It embodied the will of humanity, Alexander thought, a war weary, battle tested humanity that still looked to the stars with hope and a curiosity that fueled exploration. The Spartan was no stranger to star faring vessels either, having been on at least a dozen UNSC vessels, and a few Covenant ones. But even still he didn't know how to navigate the halls of any of those vessels without a map. It had taken him a whole year to get used to the Space Station Aurora, the maps on the walls and the arrows on the ground helped, but he was just stepping onto one of the most modern vessels in the UNSC Navy. Without the other Spartans and the guidance of the Captain, he would have gotten lost in the maze of corridors and swept by the ocean of personnel. Captain Young spoke again, explaining that how he ran the ship, and that there were other Spartans on the vessel, of which Alexander had no doubt.

They reached an elevator and left the mess of sounds that made up a busy ship just leaving port. After a moment the doors opened to the bridge of the supercarrier, a much quieter, but still just as busy deck. Captain Young left the elevator and made a beeline towards the holotable at the center of the bridge. Alexander, not quite knowing where to stand, opted to stand near his fellow Spartans. The Captain and the AI in charge, Nova, exchanged a few words and the ship accelerated. Alexander wasn't an engineer, but he knew that the Infinity-Class Supercarriers held extremely advanced Shaw-Fujikawa engines in her, and it showed. The acceleration was hardly felt, but the view screen ahead swirled with streaks of light that turned into a tunnel. Alexander was mesmerized by the display of light for a second, having never seen slipspace with his own eyes.

Nova interrupted his sightseeing, materializing on the holotable in a new suit. This time a set of Spartan flight armor, helmetless. "So these are the Spartans that were referred to us then? Welcome to the Solares. I am Nova, the ships advanced AI. I will not only be helping the ship function to its full abilities, but I will also be picking one of you to join while on the field of battle. I can interface with both the ship and the person I choose to pair with at the same time, a little perk that was created not that long ago. Once we arrive to the Hyperion solar system, I will choose. For now though, I must review each and every one of your records, abilities, history and current status. Regardless of who I choose to pair with, I look forward to working with all of you. Please let me know if any of you need anything while on board the Solares." The AI saluted the Spartans, which Alexander returned, and then she disappeared from the table. Nova said she was able to link with both the ship and an individual at the same time. The Spartan looked at his fellow teammates and wondered which one she would choose. Captain Young stepped up and cleared his throat to get the attention of the team. He spoke up, in a tone that he recognized, that kind of voice that many officers took on while briefing a unit of troopers, one that silenced any conversation and kept all attention on the speaker. Spartan Alexander was silent, and kept his attention on the Captain.

The briefing was short but held important information, and it included a distress call. As Captain Young spoke, explaining that the star system, Hyperion, Erathellian Cluster, Milky Way had been attacked by an unidentified force. As an explosion cut the message short, Captain Young explained that the star system held a number of planets of importance. Highly populated, UNSC and ONI facilities, and a Forerunner world. Alexander closed his eyes for a second. Now he knew why he was selected. He pushed those thoughts to the side. Captain Young finished up and asked if they had any questions. It wasn't a heartbeat later that the Spartan in Argus armor voiced a concern. She spoke in a smooth, easy to listen to, English accent. She asked if there were any sensors, video feeds, anything that revealed the enemy. Captain Young explained that there was an EMP that disabled the majority of sensors on each planet. Alexander furrowed his brow, EMPs on a planetary scale were strange. That was conventionally a human tactic, he had never seen the Covenant use EMPs on a scale anywhere close to this. Captain Young brought up a video, taken by a civilian. Alexander understood why that wasn't on the briefing, civilians were unreliable sources of intelligence, he thought as the video continued. He saw as the camera was knocked away from the owners hand, and it fell in a position that revealed a soldier being sliced in half by an energy sword. Alexander grimaced at the sight, being sliced into two by an energy sword wasn't an uncommon way to go out during the war.

The Spartan in Argus armor continued, saying that it was clearly a splinter faction of the Covenant. Alexander disagreed, by now Covenant weapons would be in the hands of the Insurrectionists. A particularly clever Insurrectionist group could be using Covenant weaponry to hide their identities and to place the blame on the Covenant remnants. But that was unlikely. Alexander stayed quiet as Captain Young agreed with the Spartan in Argus, Aviza, he called her.
"M’dama makes sense. Halsey knows a lot of our secrets. I wouldn’t rule out a connection." A male Spartan agreed, wearing Warrior armor with white and red.
"It could be the Banished." A female Spartan offered, she wore Hunter armor, suggesting she had some connection to ONI. Alexander had only heard of the Banished, a mostly Covenant mercenary group, ruthless and deadly. Not bound by any laws of honor that the Covenant used to have.
Alexander only looked around, and stayed quiet. He was a soldier, not a strategist, nor in any position of leadership. He took a deep breath and waited to see if anyone else had any questions. Covenant, Banished or Rebels, there possible survivors, soldiers, scientists, people who had nothing to do with the military. If his superiors let him, he'd try to rescue all of them.

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

I'm currently away from home but I'll get a post up today, sorry for the wait.

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

Spartan Alexander Mann

Alexander slept soundly, dreaming of a sunny day and a juice box, peacefully on his bunk. At first it was strange for him, having a mattress, pillow, and blankets. Too many nights slept on concrete, dirt, starship floors, leaning on his fellow soldiers, anywhere but a bed. But now he was more or less used to it, that strange sense of peace and safety that reminded him of his early childhood. It was alien to him, but now he found himself dreaming and thinking more about those more innocent days. Juice boxes, bologna sandwiches, fried rice for dinner and egg tarts for dessert. In the dream he finished his juice box and dropped it into the trash can... then the world was wrong. A siren blared and he felt heavy, the weight of battle armor on his shoulders and a rush of adrenaline, he saw a rifle in his hands before abruptly awakening. His body tensed poised to strike, he found a pencil already in his hands, the closest sharp object he could grab. But there was no threat. No enemies. He was on a UNSC space station, over a UNSC world, in UNSC space. The alarm clock rang again.
"It is currently 0630 Universal space time on Friday, June thirteenth."

Alexander shut the damn thing off before it could say any more. He set the pencil down on his nightstand as the lights flicked on, sensing that he was up. The Spartan grabbed a bottle of water and took a quick swig, calming himself down. He hated the alarm clock, and he always set the thing on silent but it seemed to reset itself back to default settings. He hopped off his bed, his feet not quite touching the cold metal floor. A long time ago he'd found that the sensation of placing his feet on the cold as ice floor right after waking up wasn't fun, as a solution he had begun throwing his spare pairs of pants on the ground by his bed. It was infinitely better, and it wasn't like the floor was particularly dirty anyways. Having slept in his skinsuit, Alexander only needed to slip on his solid dark grey titanium nanocomposite bodysuit, the layer of armor sandwiched between his battle plate and skinsuit, it was shortened to 'techsuit' most often. He grabbed a cup with a brush and toothpaste before leaving his quarters.

The restrooms had everything a home bathroom would have, toilets, sinks, towels, showers. It was only down the hall, but the number of Spartans just waking up made the walk a little longer than it should have. Some talked and bantered, others waited for their friends to wake up, others like Alexander headed straight towards where they wanted to go. After brushing and washing his face, Alexander dropped his cup off at his quarters before heading to the mess hall. At an incoming T-intersection, he spotted a familiar face. A taller, caucasian man wearing a black ONI field agent suit.
"Ah! There you are!" The agent exclaimed, he held a datapad and walked quickly to Alexander.
"Agent Hayes. Sir." Alexander greeted, giving his a fairly loose salute. The ONI agent returned it, even though he didn't need to. The returned salute was something else, it meant that he respected the Spartan.
"Got some new orders for you." Agent Hayes said, waving the datapad, "Talk on the way to Spartan Town? You can speak freely."
"Of course, Sir." The Spartan nodded, and the two began walking to the mess hall. Agent Hayes handed Alexander the datapad, and the Spartan began skimming what was on it.
"An actual deployment. No week and a half vacation. By the way I visited the place, it's rebuilding well."
"That's good."
"Someone in the city's been selling action figures of you." Agent Hayes said, Alexander stopped and rose an eyebrow at the ONI Agent. "Yep, 'Spartan Mann- complete with rubble lifting arms', comes with a six inch you and a piece of plastic rock. Selling pretty well too, think you're a local hero to them now."
Alexander smiled and glanced away shyly. "I only did my duty."
"Yeah? So did the Chief, basically. You're a big deal to them now, so don't die on this deployment you hear?"
"Yes sir." Alexander simply said, feeling those warm fuzzies, and the two began walking again.
"I'm only going to let you have that stupid grin on your face for another five minutes soldier." Agent Hayes joked.

Spartan Town. The S-Deck. The Armory. It went by many names, while it wasn't as impressive as some other S-Decks in the UNSC, it was still a sight. Rows of Brokkr Armor Mechanisms, the circular Da Vinci rigs, mostly tucked in stand by. A few were active, and the pair could see a handful of Spartans suiting up, walking in, walking out. Alexander saw a technician wave him over, and the Spartan went over. On the ground next to another tech was his helmet, resting on a white towel. Just the way he liked it.
"Good morning." Alexander greeted the techs, they smiled at him and greeted him back as he stepped onto the assembly system. It was always strange, being helpless while suiting up, but the whole process thankfully only took a few moments in total. He watched the various arms move in with his armor plating, attaching them to his techsuit. In just a few minutes, the whole process was complete. The armor was unpainted, but his modifications were still in place. The many pouches he had the techs add onto his armor were empty right now, but during battle they would be full of supplies, ammunition, and anything else the team needed. One tech bent over, picked up Alexanders Scanner helmet and presented it to him. The Spartan accepted it, "Thanks." he said to the technician team. He slipped the helmet on, watching the armor systems link and his heads up display come to life. "Good morning, armor." Alexander said as he stepped off the platform.
Alexander made sure to greet his armor every time he donned it, he knew from casual conversation with the technicians that each GEN2 suit held a number of AIs of both sorts, helping the user by filtering through the incoming data during battle and doing all the paperwork. Although he knew that the suit AIs were passive helpers and they wouldn't reply back, maybe they could hear him.

Agent Hayes then lead Alexander to Bay A1-33, in the ONI section of the space station. On the way there, as they talked about Alexanders armor, the halls became more and more empty. Less Navy, Marine, Army and Spartan uniforms and more black ONI uniforms. Though the fully armored Spartan got a few looks his way, nobody stopped them. When they reached their destination, they were checked by two other ONI Agents, then the doors hissed open. Revealing a mostly empty hanger. What stood out was a gathering of Spartans. Alexander looked to Hayes, who nodded.
"Play nice, I'll see you around." Hayes said, waving good bye.
Alexander waved back and walked over to the gathering of Spartans, "Spartan Alexander Mann, reporting for duty." He said, snapping off a salute. They definitely looked his senior, every other Spartan there wore specialized armor, likely customized to their liking. Alexander however still wore the standard Recruit variant issued to all newly inducted Spartans, the only piece of special armor he had was his Scanner helmet.

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

Alexander Mann

Name: Alexander Mann

Age: 26

Sex: Male

Appearance without armor: Alexander Mann is of East Asian descent and he's shorter than most others, actually being one of the shortest Spartans in active service. Despite people expecting him to be a tiny terror, he is disciplined. He keeps his black hair regulation with a simple buzzcut, he is clean shaven, he has no tattoos whatsoever, and he's not particularly thin nor too beefy. Overall, he's very ordinary, and people could mistake him as not being a Spartan outside of his armor and uniform. The easiest indicator that he actually is a Spartan is his paler skin, like all Spartans he spends a great deal of time inside of his armor.

Studying his face, he has dark brown eyes, nearly black. His eyelashes are kind of long, his eyebrows are a little bushy, his face is slim and unmarked by any scarring. It betrays his experience. Other Spartans have in the past discriminated against him for being too 'green', too 'new' to the military community, but that's far from the truth. His scars aren't on his face. On his lower right side are two large scars, surrounded by hundreds of smaller scars from cuts, direct hits from a Covenant Needler. His left side just by the rib he was grazed by a plasma rifle, an energy sword just barely cut his left breast, leaving a scar about six inches diagonally. A handful of other minor scars from a variety of sources mark his body in other places, but his face remains pretty.

Armor Style: Mjolnir [GEN2] Recruit, with the Scanner helmet. He will always try and paint it in camouflaged colors appropriate to the area of operations.

Weapons:
Primary 1 - MA5D ICWS
Primary 2 - Will take anything the team leader needs. If given no orders, Mann will often go for the W/AV M6 G/GNR Spartan Laser
Secondary - M6H2 PDWS

Equipment:
Utility - Mann has had his armor technicians customize his Recruit armor, much to their annoyance, to carry a large amount of pouches of every kind. Grenade pouches, ammunition, common storage, Mann actually has more pouches than he needs to have considering his standard mission loadout. Better to be prepared, he says.
Explosive - 2x M9 HEDP Grenade
Disruptive/Support - 4x Multi-Spectrum Smoke Grenades or 2x Colored Smoker Signal Flares. Dependent on mission.
Medical - Health Kit.
Medical - An extra 2x cans of Biomedical Foam.

Personality: In battle, Mann draws from his experiences working alongside the Sangheili during the short alliance the UNSC had with them at the tail end of the Human-Covenant war. In closer quarters combat, he moves and fights like an Elite, constantly on the move, never stopping, graceful and practiced, but not quite up to a Sangheili's standards. When he meets an equal his dance usually grinds to a halt and he reverts back to his original training with the UNSC. He also maintains his human training when in a firefight, making operating in a team much easier. During combat he keeps communications to a minimum, partaking in conversation only when engaged, and even then he's not much of a talker. The only time he speaks up is when he needs to, giving contact reports, situation reports, tactical advice when asked, he keeps most of his remarks to himself. Even when 'talking' to his team members he often resorts to hand gestures, speaking is a last resort.

Some would think that off duty he would open up a little. They think wrong. Even when on leave Mann is a quiet person, not speaking very much, he tends to keep to himself. To really hold a conversation with him the other person really has to try to get him to speak, and even then it takes a while for Mann to get used to the other person. He's far more talkative in the company of friends, but today they're in short supply, with many of them dead and the rest retired.
He's very much a 'side character', not very outstanding in any way, doesn't really make himself known, seen or heard. The perfect soldier, you could say, follows orders and doesn't question them, doesn't speak out of line, and acts only with the team leaders permission. However if there's ever a chance to save a life, he'll request permission to try. Even an aliens life, somewhat reluctantly. ONI once borrowed him, for reasons Mann couldn't say, but they brought him to a colony hit by a massive earthquake. The whole city was in ruins, and emergency workers were already working hard. ONI gave Mann a brand new Scanner helmet and one simple order, to save people. The Spartan operated nearly one full week constantly with zero sleep, motivating nearby emergency workers with speeches, personally carrying people out of dangerous situations, lifting massive pieces of debris to get to a single person, even taking the time to recover bodies. When ONI tried to pull him out of the disaster zone, Spartan Mann respectfully requested that he stay until the last living person had been rescued, and the last body had been recovered. What should have been only a week and a half, turned into two months of constant searching and rescuing. By the time Mann reported that all rescue operations had been completed and that reconstruction had begun, the ONI handlers attached to him seemed pleased.

Characters Theme Song: Theme
Characters Voice: (Not required)

Changelog:
v1.1 added theme song

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

Approved, just please keep in mind that Aviza is the squads medic.

@Andromedai

Yeah, Mann is no medical specialist, but he carries the stuff around for someone who is. He’s more like a standard rifleman, can do a bunch of things for you but doesn’t excel at any of it, and he carries stuff for his other teammates. If we need more rockets or ammo, Mann will be the ammo runner, if we need to haul this big thing back to a pelican, Mann will gladly help carry it around.

Halo - The Hyperion Incursion.

Hey. Hope you guys have another slot still open.

Alexander Mann

Name: Alexander Mann

Age: 26

Sex: Male

Appearance without armor: Alexander Mann is of East Asian descent and he's shorter than most others, actually being one of the shortest Spartans in active service. Despite people expecting him to be a tiny terror, he is disciplined. He keeps his black hair regulation with a simple buzzcut, he is clean shaven, he has no tattoos whatsoever, and he's not particularly thin nor too beefy. Overall, he's very ordinary, and people could mistake him as not being a Spartan outside of his armor and uniform. The easiest indicator that he actually is a Spartan is his paler skin, like all Spartans he spends a great deal of time inside of his armor.

Studying his face, he has dark brown eyes, nearly black. His eyelashes are kind of long, his eyebrows are a little bushy, his face is slim and unmarked by any scarring. It betrays his experience. Other Spartans have in the past discriminated against him for being too 'green', too 'new' to the military community, but that's far from the truth. His scars aren't on his face. On his lower right side are two large scars, surrounded by hundreds of smaller scars from cuts, direct hits from a Covenant Needler. His left side just by the rib he was grazed by a plasma rifle, an energy sword just barely cut his left breast, leaving a scar about six inches diagonally. A handful of other minor scars from a variety of sources mark his body in other places, but his face remains pretty.

Armor Style: Mjolnir [GEN2] Recruit, with the Scanner helmet. He will always try and paint it in camouflaged colors appropriate to the area of operations.

Weapons:
Primary 1 - MA5D ICWS
Primary 2 - Will take anything the team leader needs. If given no orders, Mann will often go for the W/AV M6 G/GNR Spartan Laser
Secondary - M6H2 PDWS

Equipment:
Utility - Mann has had his armor technicians customize his Recruit armor, much to their annoyance, to carry a large amount of pouches of every kind. Grenade pouches, ammunition, common storage, Mann actually has more pouches than he needs to have considering his standard mission loadout. Better to be prepared, he says.
Explosive - 2x M9 HEDP Grenade
Disruptive/Support - 4x Multi-Spectrum Smoke Grenades or 2x Colored Smoker Signal Flares. Dependent on mission.
Medical - Health Kit.
Medical - An extra 2x cans of Biomedical Foam.

Personality: In battle, Mann draws from his experiences working alongside the Sangheili during the short alliance the UNSC had with them at the tail end of the Human-Covenant war. In closer quarters combat, he moves and fights like an Elite, constantly on the move, never stopping, graceful and practiced, but not quite up to a Sangheili's standards. When he meets an equal his dance usually grinds to a halt and he reverts back to his original training with the UNSC. He also maintains his human training when in a firefight, making operating in a team much easier. During combat he keeps communications to a minimum, partaking in conversation only when engaged, and even then he's not much of a talker. The only time he speaks up is when he needs to, giving contact reports, situation reports, tactical advice when asked, he keeps most of his remarks to himself. Even when 'talking' to his team members he often resorts to hand gestures, speaking is a last resort.

Some would think that off duty he would open up a little. They think wrong. Even when on leave Mann is a quiet person, not speaking very much, he tends to keep to himself. To really hold a conversation with him the other person really has to try to get him to speak, and even then it takes a while for Mann to get used to the other person. He's far more talkative in the company of friends, but today they're in short supply, with many of them dead and the rest retired.
He's very much a 'side character', not very outstanding in any way, doesn't really make himself known, seen or heard. The perfect soldier, you could say, follows orders and doesn't question them, doesn't speak out of line, and acts only with the team leaders permission. However if there's ever a chance to save a life, he'll request permission to try. Even an aliens life, somewhat reluctantly. ONI once borrowed him, for reasons Mann couldn't say, but they brought him to a colony hit by a massive earthquake. The whole city was in ruins, and emergency workers were already working hard. ONI gave Mann a brand new Scanner helmet and one simple order, to save people. The Spartan operated nearly one full week constantly with zero sleep, motivating nearby emergency workers with speeches, personally carrying people out of dangerous situations, lifting massive pieces of debris to get to a single person, even taking the time to recover bodies. When ONI tried to pull him out of the disaster zone, Spartan Mann respectfully requested that he stay until the last living person had been rescued, and the last body had been recovered. What should have been only a week and a half, turned into two months of constant searching and rescuing. By the time Mann reported that all rescue operations had been completed and that reconstruction had begun, the ONI handlers attached to him seemed pleased.

Characters Theme Song: (Not required)
Characters Voice: (Not required)

Battletech: Anabasis

AFFS Subaltern Johan Rosales-Eichberg
Rifleman RFL-5D

Teamwork. His father told him tall tales about his exploits as a mercenary, him and his fellow mercs tackling impossible odds and coming out on top, in a huge variety of situations in a plethora of environments. There was one constant in all of the stories that his father stressed. Teamwork. Through communication, effort and cooperative action you create teamwork, and with teamwork you can overcome things that would normally be impossible. Johan heard his orders, he was tasked with destroying the Urbanmech. The small pilot swallowed, he dictated his teams whole advance, if he wasn't able to destroy that Urbanmech quickly, all of his lancemates would be bogged down. Johan slowed his advanced and kept a large chunk of raised rock in between him and the pirates. Maybe... maybe he didn't need to explicitly destroy the Urbanmech. The most dangerous thing about the light mech was it's AC/20, which Johan recalled was mounted in it's right arm mount. He remembered that there was a massive textbook back at the NAIS, it had the armor values of nearly every single mech deployed in the modern day. Extensive live fire weapons testing gave that textbook highly accurate information as to how much firepower a mech could take before it's armor was stripped off, and how much it could take before being completely destroyed. The Urbanmech R-60L. Luckily the NAIS had their hands on at least one, since the data was listed on Johan's neurohelmet. He quickly scanned the information before stepping his Rifleman out and peering over the horizon, searching for the shape of an Urbanmech. The armor on the right arm mount of a UM-R60L was astoundingly light, and it would take only a little bit more than one PPC blast to take off the arm entirely.

"Rat 2-2 here, identifying a T-D-R variant, looks like a retrofitted 5S, nonstandard armament." Johan heard through his radio. A retrofitted mech was trouble, but for right now not his trouble. Johan focused on finding that Urbanmech... until he saw a blur of movement from the corner of his eye, and shot out from it a blue bolt from a PPC. "PPC fire. Far range, accurate," Johan heard again, he kept his eye near where he saw the fire.
There! The broad shoulders, inverted triangle torso shape, and iconic mouth shaped cockpit shape, it was most likely a panther. But as soon as it came up, it fell back down to whatever ground depression it was running along. Jumpjets. Johan knew there was a river, perhaps it was running down it? Johan clicked his communications open but whatever words that came out were stammered and incoherent, he shut it off, embarrassed and recalled his father once more. Every single time his father wanted him to look at something, a bird, a food stand, a nice looking car, he would always say 'look' first. The alert. Then where it was, what it was, then whatever additional information. His father always stressed that communication was a major part of teamwork. Johan tried again.

"Contact! Far! East-South-East, bearing One-Zero-Seven! Um... Likely Panther with PPC! Running southwards, using jump jets to fire at us!" Johan made sure to shout over whatever gunfire there was. He had his Rifleman step out a little more, hoping that the enemy Thunderbolt was busy engaging with Mattlov's Shadowhawk. Johan scanned for the Urbanmech, and he found it beyond the Thunderbolt, using it as cover from Mattlov, but the Thunderbolt couldn't protect the Urbanmech from two. Johan halted his rifleman, swung the torso around and took a quick second to sight in his target. The Urbanmech was running at top speed towards the treeline, Johan selected his Rifleman's left arm PPC and squeezed the trigger, a bolt of lightning shooting out towards the Urbanmech's rear right torso. The shot was intended to disable the ammo feed, and possibly disable the whole arm along with it, but at the last moment it twisted it's torso to the right. The shot smacked against the gun housing of the Urbanmech's right arm, where it had it's armor. The armor soaked up most of the impact and damage, though the internal systems of the arm was damaged. The arm began to spark and smoke, but it still wasn't destroyed, and the AC/20 was likely still in play. Johan was about to follow up with a single large laser to take it's arm off, but the enemy Thunderbolt responded. Johan saw it twist it's torso to aim at his Rifleman, and Johan reactively twisted his own torso to defend against the incoming attack. Johan looked over and saw two bright green lasers lance out, medium lasers, and they zapped at Johan's right gun arm. His BattleMech told him that it felt the lasers raking towards the gun barrels, scorching and melting armor plating as it went along. The Thunderbolt was aiming to damage his gun barrels! Johan lowered his gun arms to avoid this, and the last split second of the incoming medium lasers shot past Johan's cockpit, going past him now that his arms were out of harms way.

Johan grit his teeth and took another step forward, putting his Rifleman into a crouch. He only had a few precious moments now before the Urbanmech reached the treeline. Johan twisted his Rifleman's torso towards the enemy and brought his gun arms up to bear, the Urbanmech had just reached the treeline but if he was fast enough... the left gun arm again, large laser this time. A brilliant blue beam burned forward, striking the Urbanmech in the back. Johan brought the beam towards it's right, where the heavily damaged gun arm was, but it responded by twisting left, presenting its undamaged left side. Despite this Johan kept the beam on target, if he wasn't going to have it's gun arm, he was going to damage it as much as he could with this laser. The Urbanmech swung left, using the trees as cover and concealment. The laser sliced through one tree with ease, the palm tree falling over with a crash. The laser halted before it could cut through the second tree, it leaned, while on fire, splintered with an audible crack and impacted another tree as it fell over. Then the Urbanmech disappeared behind a cluster of denser trees.
Johan muttered a curse, frustrated, and stood his mech up again. He walked backwards back into cover, putting Mattlov's Shadowhawk and the rock between him and the Thunderbolt. He wanted to cool off his mech, despite it being only around the halfway mark. As soon as he got into cover, he thumbed his communications again, "Johan reporting. Urbanmech's right arm is heavily damaged, left side is slightly damaged. It disappeared in the trees. Currently cooling at half heat capacity and on standby."
Johan thought about that short engagement. There were Harassers reported with the Urbanmech... where had they gone? And that Panther moving south towards the patch of trees, where the Urbanmech disappeared into... they were regrouping their light mechs, possibly. But these were just speculations, Johan didn't want to bother the Captain with useless information. Once Johan cooled off entirely, he thought about repaying that Thunderbolt back with a large laser or two.

Battletech: Anabasis

AFFS Subaltern Johan Rosales-Eichberg
Rifleman RFL-5D

Johan heard the contact report. He inhaled sharply, what were the chances that there would be hostile contact, here, now? Just when he and this group of recruits were out on patrol. A group of 20t to 55t mechs and vehicles, more or less matching their own group. The only exception was that spheroid dropship. Fear gripped Johan when he thought about it, fighting a dropship was difficult even for experienced soldiers. He went though the types of dropships he learned in his combat identification course, and nearly every dropship that came to mind was armed to the teeth, with more than enough firepower to decimate a whole lance of mechs. Johan felt sweat on his palms and he wiped it off on his shorts, Captain Hart spoke again on the comlink, explaining their rules of engagement. The Captain was right, he was presuming they were all hostile, while not a bad thing, there was a chance that they were scavengers or maybe another group of mercenaries playing a prank. Johan swallowed and followed his group as ordered, slow and steady, he raised his guns to ready position poised to fire.

The young pilot glanced around, taking up the rear of his lance. He was their heavy hitter, their fire support. If these contacts were in fact hostile, anyone brave enough to peek out would have a face full of laser or PPC. He remembered some stories from his father. Larger than life characters, fellow mercenaries, his father talked about striding towards battle with his brothers in arms. He felt a little bit of pride, those people in his father's stories were veteran MechWarriors, pilots of hundreds of combat hours, with dozens of kills to their name. Johan felt like he was living his father's stories, the mechs moving in formation, the escorting vehicles, the chatter. Though he wasn't as good a pilot as they were, and neither were many of his Lancemates, maybe one day they would be up there and maybe one day someone would tell their stories to their kids. Johan, emboldened by this, gripped his control stick a little tighter and kept his eyes on the horizon awaiting further orders, a smile tugging at his lips.

"HQ to all units, be advised. Hostiles identified near the treeline, probably from the Oberon Confederation - pirates." Lt. Mazigh reported. Johan's smile fell, definitely hostile then. He listened to the rest of the Lieutenant's report. An Urbanmech with an AC20 and small laser... he thought about which variant it was, and with a little assistance from his Rifleman's computers, it was most likely a UM-R60L. Johan patted the side of his front console a few times as he analyzed the information displayed on his neurohelmet. The UM-R60L carried the immensely powerful AC20, but it had the drawback of being only 30t making ammunition was extremely limited. The weight of the cannon also required some armor to be stripped off the light mech. Johan recalled from his classes that the Urbanmech was a slow, often thought of as a joke battlemech, but in urban environments where its strengths lie, it was more than capable. In this open ground though, the Urbanmech was at a disadvantage. The Harassers, as Lt. Mazigh reported, were extremely quick hovercraft packing powerful SRM6's. The computer assisted again, listing their tonnage, estimated armor, and speed. He was right. They were fast, extremely fast, but their armor was light. Johan blinked a few times and moved his torso left to right, scanning the horizon with his weapons, half expecting a Harasser or two to come speeding by. The hovercraft concerned him, they had the speed to quickly flank his battlemech and put more than a few SRM's into his back, even though he had the UAV covering him he wasn't sure if he could respond in time... but the AC20 on that Urbanmech was a threat as well, strong enough to crack open his mech with a single volley. Johan dismissed these thoughts and checked his heat gauge once more, becoming more and more anxious as they approached their enemy.
Johan thumbed his communications, speaking quickly, "Our plan, Captain?"

Battletech: Anabasis

AFFS Subaltern Johan Rosales-Eichberg
Rifleman RFL-5D

Steelton. Johan had never heard of the world before. It was a warm place, not too hot, the briefing called it an arid planet. Arid it was, plateaus in the distance, sparse vegetation, brown and dusty. He'd never been to a place like this, and Johan found himself daydreaming about what kind of animals and insects were native to this planet. His father cashed in a few favors and got him a Comstar developed Combat Neurohelm, a prized item for any mechwarrior, his father said proudly. 'If I were still active I would take this helmet for myself' his father said. He glanced upwards towards the sky, his Neurohelmet not too restrictive. The faceplate slid up obscured Johan's vertical peripheral vision a little, but it also provided some shade against the sun, and in combat he could always just slide the faceplate down. He found himself thinking about what kind of birds soared these skies, until the beeping of his lance radio channel pulled him out of his daydreaming about the wildlife.

"Rat 1-6 here, we're redeploying the mechs from planned patrol to focus on sensor anomalies in the Pitt basin. Burns, von Wulfhart, Mattlov, use jets to obtain overwatch positions and maintain security. Rall, Bjornson, Eichberg and myself will push through along to grid 5-Bravo-9'er-Delta from here. Lieutenant Mazigh will oversee drone deployment and security to cover the flank approaches."

Johan swallowed, this was irregular, but it must have been important. He shifted in his seat, getting more comfortable, he took his hand off the right side joystick and slid down his faceplate. Screens inside the helmet displayed a small radar, displayed his heat gauge, his mechs armor and internal structure, and a host of other information. Despite having screens inside the cockpit which displayed the same thing, Johan enjoyed having the option between glancing at his neurohelmet information and his cockpit screens. He was more used to looking at the display screens anyways.
"Aye." Johan simply replied. He heard Bjornson's reply and saw his Wolfhound speed ahead, at his speed Bjornson was easily twice Johan's top speed. Johan was admittedly a little envious at the speed of the other mechs in his group, but considering the Rifleman's firepower... maybe he wasn't about to give that up. Johan shifted his direction to match his lance's, he turned to look at the other group, the ones with jumpjets. He twisted his mechs torso to face them and tracked them, though his guns were facing downward. Practice. Johan needed to practice getting used to moving in one direction, aiming in another, and hitting that target. Stationary Johan was a crack shot, but the enemy rarely lets people just sit around. The Star Guards taught him that harshly, the simulated battles they did made Johan's shortcomings glaring. Against other cadets, Johan could afford to sit around and take his time aiming, but against veteran mechwarriors, experienced in actual war it was clear Johan needed to be mobile and shoot at the same time. The Star Guard mechwarriors showed incredible prowess at controlling their battlemechs, one even ran at full speed then halted in only a short two steps. That agility boggled Johan's mind and he made a mental note to ask that pilot how he did that.

His radio beeped again, it was Bjornson. "Captain, if I may, how far are we from the sensor network?"
Johan found himself the same thing, but he stayed quiet. Instead he glanced down at his radar and noticed that a UAV was moving in to shadow him, a few hundred meters behind to reveal any hidden flankers if there were any. Johan quickly flipped his visor up, awaiting a reply from their Captain. He grabbed a canteen of water that he had strapped to the side of one of the consoles, and took a quick drink of water. He strapped it back in and moved the visor back down. In actual combat he had no doubt his mech would get steaming in this ambient temperature, considering his heat heavy loadout, and he would need to stay hydrated if he broke a sweat. He peered ahead, zooming in with his mechs optics. The area ahead was particularly sandy, he saw dunes and plateaus with no signs of any water, but he knew that anything could be behind those rock formations.

Battletech: Anabasis

<Snipped quote by Skyrte>
I can see that. She can probably relate given her own house is on a small unimportant planet in the boonies and shes probably faced her own ridicule from other cadets.

@GreivousKhan

Nice, teamwork makes the dream work. Our two characters would have been buddies for a while then.