Status

User has no status, yet

Bio

User has no bio, yet

Most Recent Posts



She was second-guessing herself again. Rimau, the social media darling who had been graced with the highest honor Gyrland, could not help but wonder if she was finally going to be revealed as the fraud she felt she was. Ten years doing hit-and-runs, building a reputation for bravery under fire and a willingness to put herself in harm's way for her comrades, couldn't shake the feeling that she shouldn't have been assigned to this ultimate drive for victory.

It was a war between the intellectual and the emotional, the clinical soldier in her pushing against the nervous kid who had just wanted to find a fight with meaning. She was one of the most veteran Framers the Homeguard could dig up, her hours in the cockpit outnumbering nearly all of her peers. She was fast, she was smart, she knew the Chop Shop in and out and was prepared for an arduous offensive.

But what if she wasn't? The medal that said she was worth pinning the people's hopes and dreams on had been at least partially manufactured. You didn't give your propaganda producer a medal without expecting them to use it as propaganda, so how could she know that it hadn't been the only reason?

Well, at least she wouldn't be the only unqualified person on the team. The legendary Phantom Brigade now recruited untested greenhorns it seemed. Klara had been an officer allegedly, but not one valuable enough to try and get back. Ingram was a vet but an infantry one, and the twins Rimau had no real sense of. Royce was supposed to be well-trained, but apparently, he hadn't mastered the art of knowing when not to fall asleep.

That left Ramshackle as the resident old woman of the team, a position she didn't much care for.

The din of the monsoon wasn't particularly disconcerting, the thrashing of rain against the crawler's decks almost reminding her of home. Temasek was a wet country, with rain a constant companion to daily life. As such its troops practiced in mud more often than not, giving her an advantage over those poor Ruzi bastards and their love of solid ground.

"Ramshackle here, all green my end. Chop Shop's good to go."

The cockpit was cramped and barren, crammed with panels and instruments torn out of at least five different frames from across two different decades. 'Green' was not an adjective people often applied to machines in that condition, but Rimau had worked hard to figure it all out. She couldn't sabotage the pride she felt in her ride, as much as she might have tried.

"Chop Shop's not going to do great in the water but once we get to land I'll be taking off soon enough. Shikari, I'm going to stick with you until I get out of the waves."





I could be interested! Depends on how my schedule shakes out but this seems pretty cool













Hi, just saw this. will start working tmw


"You can keep your lines Slave, and I'll keep from getting captured."

She said it with a smile, easily reverting to the casual cruelty she had been taught to treat all captives with. Alvin was understandably touchy about the lives of future prisoners, but Fuka understandably didn't care what he thought. If he was going to get hung up on what happened to a bunch of pirates then that was his problem. Most of the troop seemed to agree, a collective eye roll spreading through the crowd.

"That's the point of being an outlaw. You're outside the protection of the law.

She punctuated the statement with a knowing wink toward Alvin. She had already sniffed out his weak point like a wolf, and now the rest of the pack had picked up on it. Maybe he'd learn to run with them, maybe he'd get too annoying for them and then be torn to shreds. It'd be fun to see either way!

The tremendous clattering of the jump put an end to Fuka's needling, the samurai focusing on gripping the table with her robotic hand so as to keep from breaking her nose on the surface. She was never going to enjoy FTL but she was more or less used to it now, enough to keep from hurling after each hop anyway.

Fuka had never been particularly religious, but she sent out a silent prayer of thanks as Ulrik clarified some of the questions. He might have been kind of an ass, but he at least seemed like he knew how to run an operation. She noted the terrain and atmosphere, aware of but not particularly worried about them. Snow and ice were hardly ideal to fight in, but at least there weren't any volcanoes or anything crazy.

More importantly, they wouldn't waste time with prisoners. If they weren't getting paid to bring in survivors Fuka was happy to ditch or destroy them.

"It all sounds good to me!" She said brightly, already edging for the door. "Let's go see what we got."

Maybe there'd be a Hunchback, that'd be handy enough.

Ankhanne, Mech Bay

Dragon dragon dragon d r a g o n.

Fuka's thoughts drowned out the complaints of the giant mechanic woman and only just allowed the CO's words to filter in. The specifics were fuzzy but she got the gist: "Don't touch the Centurion but everything else is fair game, ergo Fuka you need to run over to the Dragon as fast as your legs can carry you."

She followed Imaginary Ulrik's orders to the letter, crossing the bay at a speed that was probably pretty unsafe considering the amount of power tools and high-heat welding that was going on around her. They had loved to make the cadets run at Sun Zhang, and it had been one of the few non-combat activities she had excelled at. Fuka was a cheetah when given proper motivation, and a heavy mech was more than proper.

Skidding to a stop in front of the Dragon Fuka giggled like a schoolgirl, only just managing to resist the urge to clap her hands in excitement. Someone, probably the original DC pilot, had applied a sensible tiger-stripe style of jungle camo to the behemoth, a choice that Fuka found very boring indeed. What was the point of having normal camouflage if it only worked in one environment?

At least the salvagers who had gotten to it had edited the insignia. The Kuritan Dragon on the mech's left shoulder had been painted over and replaced with a snarling tiger clutching a dismembered arm in its jaws. Judging by the scimitar the bloody hand was limply grasping at, someone really hated the Capellans.

Fuka didn't care about the politics, only that it looked cool as hell. She'd change the tiger's eyes to match her own, maybe give it a metal paw, and then it'd be perfect.

"Found mine!"
Not a whole lot to say yet, a distant island nation with a relatively strong GDP and small population that’s allied with Vinland, relies on training and technology in combat to make up for its smaller military if it were ever invaded. It conscripts all able-bodied citizens for a period of two years, and after that they’re still liable to be called up as reserves.
© 2007-2025
BBCode Cheatsheet