Starlance

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

It went well. Initially. Then three contacts popped up almost right on top of them. One she could’ve ascribed to a phantom. But three in a formation? No, no, that could only have been...

…Indeed, a Raven, and two other anklebiters out for blood. Marit set the container she was carrying down as fast as she could without dropping it outright, hoping that whatever was in there wasn’t too fragile and opened up on the Raven, firing her four medium lasers at the light ‘Mech’s legs one at a time to avoid a heat spike and maximize her chance to get at least some hits on target. Her first thought even matched that of an experienced MechWarrior to her infinite delight, as obvious as that action was. Unfortunately in the time it took her to ditch her own cargo, one of the captured trucks changed its state from solid to vapor. Then the fourth BatleMech came to view, rounding out a whole lance. Nice of him to skyline himself like that. Cocky bastard.

Being talked to by the Colonel was somewhat expected at this point, but a message from the other side was not. Especially not… this. It was like a villain escaped from an Immortal Warrior episode. One of the weird ones. ”Gutless scum? Hi pot, I’m Kettle, för fan i helvete…” Marit grumbled as she turned the volume of the channel the inflamed bitch was being extra on way down. She had half a mind to send a LRM volley his way, but she also had a feeling all that would do is bring the hammer down on her head next, aided by that scarlet magpie running circles around her.

Speaking of which, she took a few steps to put Archie between the nearest water truck and the Longbow, ready to unload into the offending corvid’s legs again as soon as the cooldowns elapsed. She didn’t know what sort of ritual Reya performed to get their lasers to do what they were doing, but the decreased heat generation and beam duration were perfect for an Archer driven by a novice MechWarrior.

The Conflict

Hayden’s call to action perhaps should’ve been expected, but still made her sigh in frustration. Fuck’s sake, always something in this fucking country. What were the odds they were Edgar’s people and could just be told to fuck off? Yekaterina made sure she wouldn’t crush anyone’s fingers, slammed the hood shut and swung her rifle into her hands. “Sean, get the car going, start moving North-east and take the first turn North. We’ll move alongside until we’re out of sight, then we mount up and scram.” She didn’t want to be in an unarmored car in plain view of multiple firearms, “If the shooting starts before then, park it across the street and tear into them. Beth, come with me.”

She jogged over to Hayden to get a look at what they were facing, “I’d rather not waste rounds on them, but if they get within 150 meters and Sean isn’t moving yet, we’ll light them up while they’re still out of their effective range. If any weapon gets pointed our way, go loud. Once Sean’s moving, get in the bed, we’ll cover you.” It wasn’t quite a turret, but with one of the 100 round pan mags in Hayden’s BREN, it should be good enough to allow him to cover their retreat, provided she and Bethan could keep the skinnies’ heads down long enough for him to get on and get set up.

She made a point to switch her rifle to semi in plain view of the locals and waved them away with her hand, not really thinking it would have any effect, but it couldn’t hurt to try. Then she moved behind cover and shouldered her rifle in low ready, keeping an eye on the guy with the bubba-fucked shotgun. He would have to be the first to go. At 100 plus meters, the melee brigade was a non-issue and she trusted the others to pick targets accordingly. One thing she didn’t understand was why they were this intent on taking them on when half of them couldn’t even fight at range. They couldn’t be simply stupid, could they? That would be too easy. She leaned back behind a wall brace and turned her attention to the North-east end of the street. Having friends flanking the people who outgunned you would’ve been a valid reason for their behavior. It would also put the brakes on her improvised little plan.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

That was that taken care of, though someone would miss them eventually. All goes well, they’d be long gone. Only five more hours of walking now stood between them and a good meal. Hopefully a shower. Or so it seemed, until…

"Green Knights, this is Gawain Actual, Hostile mechs inbound, rendezvous at nav-point Echo! Repeat, hostile mechs inbou-"

Enemy ‘Mechs inbound. To quote an immortal classic: ‘Cock…’ How? Was their intel that off? Did they just happen to be moving toward the depot at the same time as they had? Bad luck, this planet, that was the problem. Can’t have anything nice around here. She closed the missile covers again and hauled ass to get away, lamenting Archie’s wide shoulders and short upper forearms which prevented her from dragging the container behind her like everyone else.

”Straight for the nav-point or zig-zag?” She asked, not wanting to lead any pursuers straight to it. Having turned Archie’s torso as far right as it would go, she was now able to look forward out the left hand side of the canopy and more importantly, able to look behind them out the right hand side. After a moment of deliberation, she armed and loaded the second LRM-10 launcher, setting it as a fourth weapons group. Reasoning that if the Meteors were to arrive, they’d have been here already and if they launched in response to the lost gunships, the Knights would be long gone by the time they reached the depot, Marit switched her focus to detecting BattleMechs. As soon as the depot was clear of jamming, they would no doubt start telling everyone what just happened and where the Knights went.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Hearing what Reya asked of Family Man, Marit walked Archie over to the containers closest to the entrance. Lifting three to get a feel for their weight, she dragged them over to the side of the gate, pausing to look around the sky after every one, then grabbed another one to steal on their way out and left it a little ways off. When suddenly…

"Family Man here; picking up hostiles,"

She would’ve preferred a direction and type. She’d been looking North-east at the time Rivers detected the gunships, making her usual proficiency with long range detection null and void. Seeing which way the Shadow hawk was turned, she quickly spun Archie’s torso to face the correct direction and hit the missile door switch, an indicator light and the correct duration of the hum of the motors behind her letting her know that the doors had opened. There! Three contacts, the radar identified them as H-7 Warriors, gunning right for them. Not the air support Marit had been expecting. Though family Man said he’d handle them, she judged fast and certain elimination a priority. If all three weren’t destroyed in rapid succession, the survivor would only need a second or so to dive for the deck to break line of sight and escape, exposing them. At least that was her line of thought as she locked onto the farthest contact, the square on her HUD around the dot in the sky and steady tone telling her the missiles were ready to fire. Ingrid’s order dispersed all doubts. ”Yes ma’am.”

She thumbed the trigger, the cockpit temperature instantly rising by a couple degrees and the deep ‘whoosh’ of fired missiles echoing through the cockpit as she watched her missiles arch toward the third gunship a second behind the quintet of Family Man’s ordnance. That autocannon shot was a good one, getting the lead, drop and windage this quickly and at that range, Marit thought with a bit of envy. One day, perhaps…

11 volleys left. She waited for everyone to get out of the base, ushering them with a wave of Archie’s hand, then placed one of the prepared shipping containers across the gate, piling two more on top in a haphazard fashion to make removing them by crane harder. Busted road, blocked gate, mines everywhere preventing bypassing them. The locals would have to work hard to get this depot back up and running. ”By the time we’re done here, there will be insults coined bearing our name.” She could vividly imagine someone calling their sibling ‘...such a Green Knight!’ for making their life difficult, doing her callsign justice as she spoke. Picking up her selected container, she held it below the cockpit, having to extend it forward due to where an Archer’s cockpit was and lean Archie’s torso back a bit awkwardly to balance the weight out.

Aces of the Void - Starfighter Squadron RPG

I think Silverwind has dropped completely due to outside stuff, he hasn't been online for 25 days and at least 40 before that.

The Conflict

It had been going relatively well, given the situation. Edgar even agreed to the terms without any discussion. She was looking forward to a bit of rest and a meal. And then they get booted into the rain. Wishful thinking, it was still as hot and dry as ever. And she still had no idea what that superstitious drivel was all about. “Yobannyy kusok chlena…” Yekaterina muttered incredulously with a shake of her head. She didn’t quite fancy raiding Melani’s pantry, worried it would turn out to contain the last guy who pissed her off. Worst of all it probably wasn’t even outside the realm of possibility with that broad. Military food rations were added to the wishlist. Some of the only food around they could be sure was safe to eat, not to mention other usual contents of MREs like coffee, water purification tablets and tissues.

“You want it, don’t you?” She jested, chambering a round and unfolding the stock of her AKS as Sean spoke of Melani’s machete. It was a good point though, bringing a whole body would be impractical and the odds of finding a working camera along the way looked slim. At least Victor and his skull crackers were pretty much guaranteed to be far gone, almost certainly hidden behind layers of reinforced concrete, mercs and razor wire. Not that she would mind an easy chance to crack him over the head with a brick if the opportunity presented itself. One day, perhaps.

Although they were headed back into the lion’s mouth, she still liked their chances. Urban combat was nasty, yes, but the same things that disadvantaged them also plagued the other side, and while the locals had quantity on their side, they had quality. They weren’t the only westerners in the country, true, but she’d expect most of those to be scooped up by the companies and not wasted on what was, by the looks of it, a proxy war using local gangs. More likely they were on alert to protect actual company assets from said proxy war. “One decently set up machine gun nest and they’ll turn the car into a sieve. The Hilux might survive that, us not so much. You think they’d buy that we’re journalists with escort or some such line of bull, or is that wasted effort?” Yekaterina wondered. And speaking of the Hilux…

She walked around the car, seemingly scrutinizing every square inch, “Not a bad catch. Not much rust, tires even and not too worn. Front brakes could use replacing. Nothing visibly wrong with the front springs and shock absorbers. Could steal a bed cap from another one if we find one…” The Russian reached down the driver’s footwell when Sean opened the door to pop the hood, “Battery even looks new-ish. Winch battery is missing though. Ah, well, you can’t win them all.”

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

With the rest of the tanks gone, mopping up the rest of the turrets didn’t take long. Now the fun part of the plan could start, like shopping at a duty-free. The ground literally trembled underneath their feet as the ‘Mechs stomped up to the base like gods of war. ”Say your prayers, evildoers!” She shouted at the remaining Espian Guards through the external speakers, her words in stark contrast to the inappropriately cheerful tone, ”You’ve got exactly until we run out of patience to dismount, disarm and surrender. Failing that, we’ll revoke your breathing privileges with extreme prejudice.” There was some reason to feel optimistic. Between the speed, surprise, violence of action and a lance of BattleMechs, very few seemed to have any fight in them. Smart choice, but like any time they let the other side surrender, she had to ask herself if they would’ve been shown the same courtesy were the roles reversed. She liked to think - no, hope - so, but they knew the answer to that when it came to the Crimson Fists was ‘no’, she thought glumly as muted shotgun blasts indicated some Espian Guards decided they’d rather hand over their breathing privileges.

But still they were only halfway done, no time to start celebrating yet. Early celebrations were a good way to call down bad luck on your head. In order to avoid the ground pounders flitting about the base, Marit walked Archie back toward the base entrance, turning in 90 degree increments every few seconds as she scanned the sky, thankful for the Archer’s good visibility, her left hand fingers resting right next to the missile covers switch. As the minutes ticked by and the timer approached the eight minute mark, she got more and more anxious. ”That air support is about to become a factor if I got my math right.” She cautioned. Perhaps she could’ve phrased that differently, it was no secret that wasn’t her strong suit. ”Should we grab some of those containers on our way out?”

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

”Shit, sorry!” Marit blurted out when Ziska made her aware of her mistake, giving the stuck button a whack. She had remembered to sacrifice two slices of the sausage that came with her breakfast ration to Kerensky and ask for the General’s blessing on this mission, but apparently - true to her species - she conserved energy and only blessed the outcome, not its full duration. In her infinite wisdom, Kerensky probably set it up this way so they could get all the bad luck out of the way before the shooting actually started.

Everything that was supposed to be on was on, everything that was supposed to be off was off. She pulled the seatbelts tight, leaving the shoulder straps a bit loose to help her with looking around and keyed the mic twice to confirm she understood the instructions, this time checking that the button had gone back to the ‘receive’ position as intended. She flexed both of the Archer’s elbows, making sure the right one moved the same as the left one. Minhas did a good job. As they were told to ready up, the Archer, towering over everything except Ingrid’s Ostroc, leaned forward, ready to accelerate to its top speed of… barely enough to trigger a speed trap.

And then the patrols noticed them. Some of them. One of the Scorpions didn’t get to look at them for long as Steel Rain fired, taking its hat clean off with their first shot, though both still managed to get rounds off at Ramrod and Family Man. Marit kept her launcher covers closed for the time being, her attention now split between the patrol, cursory glances at the gate and periodic scans of the skies. Archie being the slowest ‘Mech they had available at the time, Marit could ram the throttle open without worrying she would break station at the back of the formation. Raising the ‘Mech’s arms and aligning all four lasers on the nearest striker, Marit fired the arm-mounted pair first, followed by the top mount if necessary to keep the heat down as much as she could, trying to take it out or at least disarm it before it had time to shoot. Perhaps an overkill, but there were more weapons than targets to go around so far.

Now, what sort of air power were they supposed to have? It started with ‘M’, of that she was sure, was it Meteors? Or Mechbusters? Had to be Meteors, the Mechbuster was too new to have made it all the way here from the Dracs, right? Right. Now what sort of armaments did that have? A gun and missiles, but which? AC2 and SRMs? AC10 and LRMs? That would make sense, missiles strip armor at range, autocannon finishes it off up close. Plus hardpoints. Now how many? A wing. Two, four, six? Total, but how many would they send? Two sounded reasonable. As did four, but they’d definitely keep some in reserve, surely they wouldn’t send everything at once. When? Balya Zvezda spaceport was around 350 km away according to the map. How fast could Meteors be at low altitude? 1200 kph? 2400? Less than nine minutes assuming the latter, if they launched now. Even less if they were already in the air.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

The past few hours might have even been considered pleasant. The ‘Mech had warmed up after the trying affair that was taking off one’s clothes and putting on the cooling vest that had been stored in that cold cockpit for a week. Like getting into cold boots in the morning, except worse. She knew it wouldn’t last, that the pendulum was about to swing over to the other side in a matter of minutes. From chilly through the midpoint of mildly toasty to… well, a fighting BattleMech. Remembering the Colonel’s words about the weather forcing enemy air assets low and into range, she called up the ammo management system and set the missile racks to feed into the upper LRM 10 launcher, then set it to a separate weapons group and switched the 15 and the other 10 to safe to avoid accidentally pulling their triggers out of habit. She doubted anyone would fly in this fog, but it would probably clear up soon.

As they approached, she kept an eye on the patrol, paying extra attention to the Strikers. ”Gigs here. Master arm on, ready to rumble. Knight One, I take it the Colonel’s order to keep LRMs for AA duty stands?” She checked in with Ramrod, keeping her fingers well away from triggers to avoid a negligent discharge. ”And if you figured out a way to do this without shooting at poor truck drivers, now’s the time to share.” Despite the chafing between their viewpoints, Marit agreed that shooting at people wasn’t ideal, even if both women would’ve probably said the other one thought so for the wrong reasons. Now waiting for instructions, she returned to her usual method of killing time, picking up where she left off.

“Warriors of the northern lands; Madness forged into our hearts; Shields be shattered, arms of steel; Let the axes fly with fury.
Raging thunder shakes the skies; The Wrath of battle stains our minds; Rage of vengeful kings of war; Fearless sons and daughters fall.”

She sang quietly to herself, blissfully unaware her push to talk had stuck open.

The Conflict

“Toss in a meal on top of it if you can spare some, we’ve been running on hopes and prayers since sunrise.” Yekaterina added to Bethan’s bartering list, the stress of the previously dangerous situation washing away and reminding her the last time she’d eaten was at the SAMC compound before Victor approached them. “The person backing Bowaylo is one Victor Manar, head of SAMC human resources.” She added, thinking that maybe Edgar could use it somehow. “Had us steal a truck full of weapons from the Dry Trail, driver included, all apparently off the books.”

Hayden was onto something with the Greek allegory. Tangayi was their personal Labyrinth of Crete, with an awful lot of Minotaurs in it. It seemed like Edgar might be their Ariadne, getting them a line out of the labyrinth’s depths. Except a lot of things have so far seemed to be one thing and turned out to be something else and unlike Theseus, they weren't there to deal with whatever was in the labyrinth. They were after King Minos himself. And if she ever got out of there alive, she’d have a sternly-worded message for the Daedalus who engineered the whole mess.

“Right, okay, since we didn’t get a good look out the windows on the ride here, we’re either gonna need a good map or a guide to get us back into the den of madness. Given what’s going on outside, going on foot sounds more survivable, but time and distance do weird things when you’re blindfolded in the back of a van, so I don’t know if that is an option.” She started weaving an outline of a plan so they weren’t stuck trying to figure it out in the morning or making it up as they went like the last time, “If we’re lucky, most of Bowaylo’s cutthroats are going to be busy slaughtering or getting slaughtered by COGS mercs or your people, or both, leaving only a token guard to police the zones behind the front lines. Therefore, with the luck we’re having, her compound is going to make Fort Knox hide in shame. Either way, I suggest we go some extra distance and approach from a direction where the fighting is the lightest, if at all possible. One question though: Are you sure killing Melani won’t spur her lackeys into a vengeful crusade?” She wondered, “Yes, she doesn’t strike me as someone who commands undying loyalty from her people, more of a ‘rule with fear’ type, but you never know with nutters.”

Yekaterina then turned to address Edgar’s associate who asked about their desired information, carefully watching their reactions as she spoke. “The Hyena. Who, where, how, when, as much as you can get.”