Starlance

The Conflict

“Nope. Not English. And not a rescue party either.” She shook her head, switching to Russian to answer the Russian man before going back to English, “We’re a hit team. You guys are on your own, good luck.” She was ready to keep them at bay with force if they got agitated, but most seemed too confused and exhausted to do much besides stand there and try to make sense of a nonsensical situation. Poor fucking bastards.

With enemy reinforcements, likely closer to their level of competence, approaching, she didn’t need to be told to leave. “Never a fucking trip mine to leave behind when you need one.” She grumbled as they left the courtyard to the sound of Viktor’s voice. Not their mission. As far as they knew, Viktor thought the four died carrying out Melani’s orders. As long as the westerners don’t get captured and squeal, Viktor might never be aware of their involvement.

…Therefore he’d know in roughly 12 hours, because the westerners would get captured and they would squeal quickly.

Not ideal, but in order for it to matter they first had to make their way out. Following Hayden away from the front of the compound, they ran into the first hurdle about two corners in - a skinny on his way to the main yard from a side room. Yekaterina didn’t know if they were the most unpleasant surprise of his life, but they were definitely the last. Two rounds to the chest and one to the head - always deadcheck - made sure of that. “I’m gonna assume they heard that!” She yelled at her teammates, yelling to hear herself over the ringing in her ears. Catching up, she tapped the Canuck on the shoulder. “Hayden, hang back. I’ll take the front.” She moved ahead of him, his weapon not ideal to be in a building, nevermind at the front of the stack on a stairwell.

The careful ascent slowed them down somewhat, but roof access was now in sight. Locked, obviously. “Go as soon as it’s open.” She struck the door with the halligan high, mid and low on the handle side to check for drop bars before pushing against it with her boot and driving the duckbill in the resulting gap. A few seconds of labor later the door jamb failed and she flattened up against the wall after pushing the door open to give the others more room to pass. “Move!” She used the time to stow her tool and grab her rifle again, taking up the rear.

Rise of Rasalhague

The Locust guy’s transmission tugged at his ears. Clearly not a military guy, talked way too much on air. The Capellan guy, Jaromir, sounded much better. Crisp, to the point, keeping the air clear. Same with the other two former soldiers, Zohra and Fuka, as expected, the latter already tanking damage with her face like a good heavy. Firestarter guy sounded exactly the way he looked, but seemed professional enough. Live this long in this line of work, you get a pass to limit the amount of fucks at your disposal. This might not be a shitshow. Pleasant surprises.

On the note of surprises, a medium laser across his cockpit went straight into the ‘Not pleasant’ category, but tolerable. Not ‘My armor is evaporating.’ unpleasant. ”Pirate ‘Mechs ahoy!” He grinned over the radio. While he’d love to think the other guy was a good sport and was giving him a warning shot, the chances of that were pretty low and thinking that either Karel was hard to hit or the other guy was inept was just as good. Still, shooting at him was a sin that couldn’t be forgiven, and Karel turned to engage the closest Locust, the 1V, assuming that was the culprit. He briefly considered slowing to a walk, which would allow him to be heat-neutral even while firing all three medium lasers, but not getting hit was even better. He lined up the crosshairs and pulled the trigger of his medium lasers.

The first shot went wide.

The second went low.

The third hit… a rock Karel that didn’t notice before as the Locust passed behind it.

”Jebat křečka!” He roared at the top of his lungs, leaning against a pedal with all his weight and hauling the Mongoose around in anticipation of returning fire, kicking up a cloud of snow and ice as the feet tore into it to redirect the momentum of 25 tons of war machine moving at highway speeds. He didn’t need be that rought with the controls of course, but every MechWarrior knew that the harder you pulled a trigger or pushed the controls, the more damage the guns did and the harder the ‘Mech turned. Fact. Out of pure, pig-headed spite, heat be damned, Karel turned the torso back toward the 1V and fired his small laser.

By now the swearing must’ve been heard outside of the ‘Mech as the small laser’s beam viciously assaulted empty space near the enemy ‘Mech, the thought of the 1V missing him as well being only a small comfort given the vast gap in volume of fire between the two machines. Maybe he should’ve hit up the sims and learned how the new ‘Mech handled instead of bumming around the ship, but everyone’s a General after the battle is fought and hindsight is always 20/20.

Rolls

3x Medium Laser, LCT-1V
1x Small Laser, LCT-1V

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Vigdis looked up at the civvie from her seat. ”You don’t know who’s on the bridge. I do. He’s not gonna help.” In the unexpected festive mood, she let slip an opinion she probably shouldn’t have in front of a civvie. Keep up the Potemkin Village facade of a well-oiled crew, Vigdis... ”Let’s see if we can find something you can use.” Excusing herself from the table and leading the metalhead back into the ship, she let him go through the list of equipment on board that could possibly work for him, audio engineering being a complete enigma to her. In an unguarded moment, she also grabbed a pair of noise-canceling headphones. Just in case. Coming back outside, she nudged the musician with her elbow. ”Looks like the party’s breaking up a bit. Giddy up before you lose all of your audience.”

Curiosity getting the best of her, she started making her way to where everyone else was scurrying off to. Maybe some of the soldiers were handing out some food or booze from their private supply and didn’t want their commanders to see. Well, that was a nice thought, anyway. Catching the tail end of Kolvar’s explanation and seeing a… thing…? About to unalive itself, Vigdis turned right back around. She didn’t have to be everywhere and see everything. But something Nellara said made her stop, like a weak reading on a bullshit detector.

”You mean like you didn’t point a row of metal balls at me with magic when we first met? It’s natural to point weapons at that which you fear, and it’s natural to fear that which you don’t understand. That,“ She pointed at the Kriliteran, ”whatever that is, fits that description.” If she had a Krone for every time something that vaguely resembled Kolvar brutally murdered a person on the silver screen, she wouldn’t have had to take the Stavenger job. Humans being uneasy about something that looked this weird might as well have been a Pavlovian reflex by now.

”Besides, if he wants to off himself, having weapons that can do that faster and painlessly pointed at him is the least of his problems.” The engineer grumbled to herself.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

“You think this gets broadcast out beyond the system? What if your old company sees this?” Lovett turned to Marit.
”For Fedorov’s sake I hope they don’t, else a company of angry Vikingrs will show up to smack him so hard his mom won’t recognize him for being a lying little shit.” She said with conviction, but doubts and nightmare scenarios were swirling around her mind. ”No fucking way this lie can work, right? One, show me a merc who does something they don’t profit from, this is just a waste of ammo and two, we don’t even have any of those ‘Mechs.” Though she’d be lying if she said she would mind. A Warhammer and a Crusader, like second Christmas.
“And anywhere else you’d be right, but we‘re in Capellan territory. Critical thinking has been thoroughly bred out of them.” Lister countered, so mad about the false flag massacre he scrunched up his beer can and now even madder because of the spilled lager.
“You may have grown up around BattleMechs, but the average person can’t tell an Archer from a Crusader anymore than they can tell Ricotta from Mascarpone.” Kochanski shared a more realistic opinion.
”How? They’re nothing alike.”
“She’s right. Two arms, two legs, more missiles than the pilot has teeth and it’s big and scary. That’s all they see.” Lister said glumly, having skipped the third stage of grief straight to the fourth.
“SLDF will have their work cut out for them to re educate these-”
“Not this crap again, dinosaur breath. They’re not coming back. They’re dead!” Rimmer made Lister roll back to stage two.
The Colonel’s roll call provided a good excuse for Marit to extract herself from the conversation before the two Astechs could start arguing again, shooting Lovett a sympathetic look before making tracks.

---

”No, they’re already dead.” She replied to Family man flatly with a defeated sigh, ”It’s, what, four hexes on the map? 200 klicks, that’s around… three hours with our slowest ‘Mech at full tilt. Even longer if we bring the tank along. And besides, any survivors just got their lives destroyed by BattleMechs flying our colors. I doubt we’d be welcome.”

She looked around the assembly. Ziska was probably going to look bored or beaming. This sort of chaos seemed either like something she’d thrive in, or like a Tuesday to her. Instead, she lingered on Ingrid, expecting either the same dignified mask as always or an overheated boiler minutes from exploding. She just didn’t know what would be the last straw: the fallout of the false accusation or the insult?

”So, what now? I don’t suppose seizing a radio tower and saying our two cents about it would achieve much, would it?” Then, an idea. ”Hang on, when did this happen? If that’s this morning, then our ‘Mechs were inactive, some down for maintenance, so BattleROMs aren't much of a direct option, but logs from other missions could prove we don't have that equipment, else we'd have fielded it before.” It wasn't as good as a simultaneous mission and wouldn't help them in the short term, but being able to take a JumpShip ride without being arrested or shot sounded good.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”DON’T. Drink. The local brew. It‘s hard to describe the taste, but the word ‘despair’ comes to mind.” She quickly warned him.

”Oh, fuck, you had to remind me.” Vigdis sighed when Varen mentioned the working parties. ”Don’t really care what they like or don’t like. I don’t mind yelling at them if that’s what gets into their heads that we’re marooned and we can’t afford to coddle people. Right, you got the solar farm salesman in your party, you poor soul!” She was suddenly struck with realization, genuinely sympathetic to his plight. ”They gave me the mining equipment mechanic and one of the cargo haulers, so I might be good. I’ll let you know how it goes and if they’re decent, I’ll trade you one good one for one bad one. If not, we’ll have to get that still running fast. Good boss points for Zhao though, she could’ve taken the good ones and left us with the idiots. Still, were it not for them being pissy enough as is, I’d recommend cutting down their liberty time for more training. I’m gonna go ballistic if we start losing resources to dumb mistakes and god save us from the plebs if one of them gets hit by an ND.” It was times like these that made mandatory military service sound like a really good idea.

Bidding farewell to Varen for now and returning back to her seat beside Kareet, she waited for a break to rejoin the conversation. ”So, feasts, get togethers with music… Is this a common thing to do in the Ascendancy and Mythandia when two groups of people meet?” Vigdis continued to quiz the scholar, oblivious to or uncaring of any social awkwardness. ”What else do you do, at least when war doesn’t loom on the horizon? Board games, sports…? Any that require magic to be played?”

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Trading knowledge. Maybe some materials. And if they piss us off, we’ll flood the market with cheap aluminum and crash their economy.” The sarcastic grin audible in Vigdis’ voice. ”It’s expensive here, for obvious reasons. For a world where a portion of the population can summon lightning from thin air, they know jack shit about electricity... In addition to a lot of other things. From an earlier interaction it seems like geocentrism is still the name of the game here.“ She made a face, a silent condemnation of K-A scholars everywhere. Ancients Greeks figured that out 2500 years age for fuck’s sake. ”More knowledge we can trade I guess, if we can figure out how to do it without throwing the balance of power out of the airlock. But if we want to teach them stuff, we’ll have to get the electron microscope working because if we start telling them that everything, including them, is made up of tiny particles held together by forces generated by even tinier particles making those up, they’re gonna think we’re making shit up as we go to sound smart.”

Several people departed the party, following in the tracks of the out of control Life Mage. ‘Lightweight’ she thought, raised on the ethnically Russian Venera where rye bread was the norm because most of the imported wheat ended up in bottles. And rye bread was a key ingredient of kvass… ”Curious to see what kind of friends Kerchak has. If he has friends like I did at our graduation party, poor fucker. And we’ve given them markers, too.”

”What’s the mood like among the civvies?” As much as he was out of the loop on the alien front, she was just as out of it as far as the civilian mood was concerned, being either asleep, outside or working. Or working outside. ”A week cooped up inside a metal can is nothing for a crew, but a bunch of people who didn’t want to be there, injuries, kids… Can’t be good, can it?”

Rise of Rasalhague

“Reactor… Online. Sensors… Error. Online. Weapons… Online. All systems nominal.”

”The fuck?” He slapped the side of the sensor screen as if it would help, percussive maintenance nonetheless being an important ritual. Must’ve been a faulty sensor somewhere. Probably. Hopefully. ”Up and running.”

---

As they set down, he nudged the throttle carefully to get out of the bay, the light and overengined machine requiring a bit of precision lest he’d speed right into the ‘Mech on the opposite side. While the Cicada he piloted previously had the same rated top speed, being 15 tons heavier it took longer to accelerate and stop. Despite its venerable age, this thing was a rocketship.

”Chalupa, got it.” He confirmed the order and turned toward where he spotted a part of the valley’s wall that looked climbable, the 25 ton machine leaning into the turn under him almost like a motorcycle as he rammed the throttle open. No time to ease it forward like he planned to, it simply would have to hold. As the Mongoose built up speed, it started bouncing side to side with each step. So far nothing broke. Try hitting this cockpit now, fuckers. He leaned forward into the climb as he started ascending up the valley wall, the ‘Mech barely slowing down. When the user manual said the engine made up for the lack of jump jets, he was skeptical. Not anymore. He liked jump jets, but he could get used to this.

Karel stopped the ‘Mech as he reached the top of the canyon wall, raising its left arm to shield the cockpit from where he expected the enemy anti-Mech infantry to be. Taking a step further to get the head above the surface, he took a few seconds for his sensors and eyes to scan the horizon and make sure he wasn’t about to run into any nasty surprises. With the coast seemingly clear, he did something really fucking stupid and skylined himself as he ascended up to the open plain, and while it made him a prime target for practically anyone in or near the valley who wasn’t occupied by shooting something else or being shot at, it also gave him a clear view of the valley edges where the offending grunts were perched.

---

”Target. Re-engage.” The squad leader’s voice crackled through the shooter’s radio, barely intelligible due to the combination of the shitty headest in his helmet and the speaker’s Marian accent. A heat wave washed over them as a blue laser beam cut through the air mere feet above them, eliciting several curses loud enough to be heard without radios. He racked another round and fired again, the round bouncing off the Centurion’s shoulder.
“Miss, adjust left.”
“Ja, I can fucking zee that.” the shooter hissed, wisely keeping his microphone muted. Another shot, this time it looked on target, but a bead of sweat got into the shooter’s eye, forcing him to blink it away.
But boss man was silent. “Oh, zo now that I actually need it you decide to shut up? Wunderbar.” He looked away from his scope and to his left where the squad leader was laying. The man had half-raised himself up from prone, looking farther to their left, past the second squad. Was something moving there?
The squad leader’s unintelligible Marian scream was cut short when he simply disappeared in a flash of green light and a haze of evaporating snow. The shooter barely had time to process what he saw before he followed suit.

---

If they hadn’t known he was there, a salvo of three medium lasers striking the positions he could see would let them know. Those that hadn’t just become part of the atmosphere, that is. Combined with the rising pace, it was enough to instantly raise the cockpit temperature high enough that it was still warmer than before by a few degrees by the time the weapons were ready to fire again. Restricting himself to the two arm-mounted medium lasers, he could keep cool and far enough to make himself harder to hit as he ran back and forth along the edge of the landing site at full throttle, mopping up any infantry he could see. Just keep moving, you only have five and a half tons of armor.

But incoming enemy ‘Mechs were worrying, mainly because he couldn’t see them yet.”What contacts, how many, how far away, ETA?”

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Times like this, Ingrid confused her. On one hand, that was exactly something Marit would expect Ingrid to say. But on the other hand, how could someone with her experience be this… naive? If Marit’s view of their profession was incomplete due to inexperience, she’d call Ingrid’s skewed by romanticism. That being said, Marit would have agreed for once. ‘Don’t be a barbarian. Speak softly but carry a big stick.’ who could find a flaw in that thinking, besides the Crimson Fists, the NPDRE, the Heavenly Sword… Fuck, almost everybody on this saltbowl. But if they fought with gloves on while everyone else was swinging crowbars, all they would achieve is get their faces smashed in. Fuck that noise. Even if they didn’t use it, the threat of it was what counted. That was perhaps the best weapon they had. If they deployed it, it lost effectiveness because everyone would know where it was. If they used it, everyone would know they no longer had one. But as long as it was hidden away, the bad guys would be left guessing. Always unsure. Always unbalanced. Sure, a nuke painted a target on their back, but that had been there for a while now so who cares?

In the end, what Ingrid or herself thought didn’t matter. The opinion that mattered was the Colonel’s, which fortunately aligned with Marit’s view of the problem. ‘Don’t be a barbarian…’ And now that they had their big stick, all they had to do was to beat everyone else into submission, preferably without using said stick, so the soft speaking may commence. Preferably in the form of “Fuck this place, we’re leaving.” Still, she was glad that sort of decision making didn’t lay on her shoulders.

But for now, she had time to kill. She could sleep later, be fresh for the scouting party. In the meantime, she set out to find Reya or Ingrid so she could get an idea of what to expect in the city, at least the part they have been to.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”Still can’t believe you didn’t get light duty with a fucked up spine.” Vigdis shook her head, ”I guess we really are in the weeds, not just with power.” She wasn’t worried about things she knew well, the structure, the power... Or rather, she knew enough about them to conclude that she didn’t have to worry. And she was completely in the dark on the FTL drive and navigation. Not knowing how bad it was or wasn’t, she pushed it into a dark corner of her mind to be forgotten until it became unsustainable, and she was gonna deal with that impending mental breakdown later. What truly worried her at the moment - aside from conquest by a feudal lord - was their resource situation. They were already going through silver and copper at a rapid rate, and a good chunk of their steels would fall to structural repairs and that’s before accounting for potentially needing to replace a whole engine. Sure, they had the theoretical knowledge to make more, but could they direct the locals to build an entire steel mill or an aluminum furnace? Could they actually be built with locally-available materials? Maybe they could get a company of mages to help them liftoff…

”Well, put so many differences into a small area - not to mention a backwards shithole - and you’ll never get it straightened out without a hard reset.” She shrugged. At his question, Vigdis started pointing out people. ”One side is some sort of hyper-meritocracy from the mountains. Mostly birds. Except big lizardman over there. His folk hail from an empire… up North? I think.”

”The other group are some feudal shithole from the lowlands. Mostly the ponies. Religious bunch. Big boy over there is in charge of the detachment here. Mostly we’re going off what the first group and the independents told us, but he has been an unfiltered asshole at least since the translators started working...“ Unlike Ixtaro, Vigdis didn’t much care if someone from Silbermine’s camp was listening, though she was watching for piercing glares. If they were supposed to get to know the humans, they couldn’t hide behind masks. Figurative masks, she wasn’t risking blindness or something due to the atmosphere.

”Lastly there’s a bunch of randos from all over the place that just happened to wander in here. Two scholars, a blacksmith, a burning tree... Funnily enough, they beat both of the big groups to first contact. Personally, they’re my favorite group so far.”

”Mountain birds, Marsh ponies and Northmen Dragonborn are apparently in a cold war of sorts, each kept in check by the threat of the others. If you tie your army down attacking A, B will kick your ass sort of deal.”

”And to add to this wonderful mess, we’re on a disputed border between the birds and the centaurs. Both claim we’re in their territory. So, yeah. They know of each other, and it would’ve been better if they hadn’t.” He was probably hoping for better news than he got, but you play with the cards you get. Well, unless you fold, but that’s just bad life advice, ”On a positive note, both sides agreed to trade with us, with food and fabrics that won’t be a fire hazard on the way. I can’t see any way this can spiral out of control into another pissing match between them.” The last sentence contained a considerable amount of sarcasm.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

”So instead of an honor duel it’s gonna be a no-holds-barred beatdown. Great.” Vgidis said with a great deal of sarcasm. Kvarr seemed to be a bit more level-headed from what she could see, though Esedel’s deference to Silbermine still gnawed at any growing peace of mind. Maybe things would be easier if he met with a tragic accident when out looking for the lost cargo. Stumbled upon a crate of damaged mining charges, body couldn’t be recovered, impossible to prove foul play… The locals needn’t know how stable modern plastic explosives actually were. Eh, no worries, Ezra probably already had a plan.

She was going to ask something else, but seeing Kareet under siege, she decided the learned bird could use some breathing room. Instead she separated a portion of the Shirik Sea Monster, bringing it to the shotgun-toting stickfigure that was her fellow grease monkey. ”You look like you could eat something. How’s your back?” She handed him the leaf-wrapped fish and took over his watch with her weapon.

Looking at the gathering from ‘the outside’ was bizarre in a way. Twenty hours ago, things were… heated. Now they were sitting around the table, eating, drinking and singing. Or whatever passed for singing to these people. ”This week’s been a fucking fever dream, and I don’t know if it’s finally getting better or if this is the calm before the storm. Did your history teacher ever tell you that story of the Russian and German ambassadors meeting for dinner and wine as friends the day before World War One, both knowing their countries would be at war the next day?” Getting an idea of how people were feeling was hard when they were members of a species unknown a week ago. Nellara looked calm, but was she? Kvarr and Esedel seemed cordial, or was it an elaborate facade and they were already planning to shank each other?