Starlance

Knights of the Skies

Still here if we're doing roll call.

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

”...breathing mask, spare air tank, spare wristpad battery, tablet, two spare batteries, pain meds, crutches.” Vigdis went over her packing for the fourth time since she collected all the items. The engineer didn’t know how much walking they’d be doing or how long they’d be gone, but she decided to ask doc Feng for some weaker painkillers he wouldn’t miss too much and a pair of crutches just in case. The two air tanks should also last them a while if they rationed it well, even if all four would share the second one. Finally, she took advantage of the fact that one of her roommates had galley duty that evening and got enough ground coffee for about six portions. She’d spent most of the previous day explaining menial tasks to the working party so that actual engineers had more time to do the things that required a better understanding of the ship or the discipline and sought out the two children who were on board and entrusted them with caring for Fritjof while she was gone. Fortunately neither one was allergic to cat hair.

She didn’t like leaving the ship while the clock was still ticking, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to getting out. She wasn’t much looking forward to traveling with Lambert, the woman not growing onto anyone as far as Vigdis knew, but between the Captain, Kareet, Nellara and Shirik there’d be plenty of pleasant company to counterbalance and there was plenty of time to be killed by continuing their talk with the Seeker. With the Captain announcing departure in 20 minutes, she spent five parting with Fritjof, ten going around the ship to say goodbye to people she worked with and ask for souvenir preferences if the opportunity presented itself and went to wait for Zey at the ramp. ”Good morning ma’am. Did our new friends get us a map so we know where we’re going?” She asked when the captain returned.

Knights of the Skies

@Slypheed

You flying some late 1960s/early '70s fever dream that's still half-classified aren't you? :p

Knights of the Skies

Character Sheets

Pilot

Name: Astrid Weiss

Callsign: Wildfire - Obtained rather unceremoniously when she stumbled during a squadron cookout, tipped the grill over and set herself on fire.

Age: 31

Born: 21/10/1994, Hamburg, Germany

Species: Human

Nationality: German

Appearance

Standing at 168 cm (5'5") and weighing 59 kg (130 lb) with a wiry build. Frequently seen looking like she just rolled out of bed.

Personality:
Outside of a cockpit, Astrid is a stout patriot with a sarcastic streak and a brain to mouth filter that works on a part-time basis. Heard sooner than seen, Astrid takes her extroverted nature and makes it everyone else's problem, especially her WSO who "...needs to get out of his damn comfort zone". Shaped by the fighter pilot culture, she sees her peers as a caste above others, something that usually shines through when she runs out of patience with someone.
Inside a fighter or during other life threatening situations, Astrid becomes quiet and laser focused, the letter being equal parts good and bad as she may fixate less important things when left without direction.

Personal History:
Born to a Bundeswehr Tiger pilot and a historian, there was little doubt of where Astrid’s path would lead. Names of superheroes and fairy tale characters meant little to her, her childhood heroes were the likes of Yi Sun-sin and Franz Stigler. It was the latter’s tale - and her father’s stylish uniform - that first paved the way to museums and airshows since 4, a nearby general aviation field for ultralight pilot’s license at 15 and a private pilot’s license at 17. She obtained a bachelor's degree in information technologies and finally joined the Luftwaffe at 21. Astrid was an average student in the classroom, but she led the class whenever she was in the flight seat and graduated to active status in 2016, flying the Panavia Tornado IDS.

Astrid had been airborne when the asteroids hit, her squadron relocating away from expected impact sites. After landing, she and her WSO Gerhard didn't even have time to get out of the plane. Instead a refueler threw a bag with water, sandwiches and some maps into the cockpit and asked for current fuel status as armorers were outfitting the fighter for combat, something that would become an unfortunate trend during the Eltherian-Human War.

Astrid was forced to sit out the early stages of Operation Prometheus due to appendicitis, only joining the efforts once she'd been cleared by doctors and SaR found her MIA copilot, in Switzerland of all places. They continued to fly without incident for the remainder of the war, but their squadron fell victim to postwar reorganization and both were recommended for the Knights.

Personal Weapons/Gear:

• H&K USP Compact (9x19 mm)
• H&K MP7A1, taclight
• KM2000 combat knife
• Location-appropraite dictionary

WSO

Name: Gerhard Hauer

Callsign: Magellan - Awarded due to his atrocious sense of direction.

Age: 34

Born: 11/08/1991, Regensburg, Germany

Species: Human

Nationality: German

Appearance

183 cm (6'0") and 77 kg (169 lb) of German steel, easily mistakable for a gym rat out of uniform. Puts a lot of effort into his appearance.

Personality:
A studious, methodical type, Gerhard is never in a hurry, or at least appears that way. On the quiet side for a fighter jock, though no stranger to the odd verbal spat as anyone disparaging backseaters within earshot would attest, he's of the opinion that his extroverted pilot should "Shut up for a minute and make the zone comfortable."
His biggest asset is retaining his cool when things start moving fast, having in fact been paired with Astrid to reign her in when she starts going blood-knight in the cockpit and focusing on the wrong things. Strangely, he becomes more talkative in a fight in order to ensure everyone has all of the necessary information and nothing is skipped.

Personal History:
An aviation enthusiast since an early age, Gerhard's been building model kits with his father and older brother as soon as he could read the instructions. After obtaining a master's degree in meteorology at 23, he joined the Luftwaffe, seeing it as an easy way of getting the qualifications necessary to become an airline pilot. Although he completed pilot training in 2015, there wasn't enough demand for pilots and he ended up in the back seat of a Tornado instead.

In 2016, his pilot retired, freeing up the position he wanted. Much to his dismay, a rookie was instead put in that seat. Any bad blood was quickly put on hold by the asteroid impacts and the following alien invasion. Despite his desire to fly in front, the pairing of a more hot-headed pilot and a calmer WSO worked too well to be disrupted and Gerhard grew to enjoy his role with time.

When the start of Operation prometheus caught him with his pilot out of action, Gerhard had to make due with a different one. Unfortunately, an electrical failure disabled communications and navigation on the operation's first sortie, forcing them to RTB from their intended target near Luxembourg. It was then that Gerhard got his latest callsign, the aircraft somehow crashing in Northern Switzerland after running out of fuel. Although both pilots ejected safely, the ejection compressed the pilot's spine, leading to several herniated discs and requiring Gerhard to carry him, first until they found a stream, then downhill until they found a town whereupon they finally oriented themselves and arranged a pickup. Surviving the rest of the war without any incidents, Gerhard was sent to the Knights following his squadron's disbanding.

Personal Weapons/Gear:

• H&K USP (9x19 mm)
• H&K MP7A1, red dot sight, taclight
• KM2000 combat knife
• Garmin GPSMAP® 65s handheld GPS

Aircraft Sheet

Aircraft Name: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18D (RC) Hornet

Specifications

Modifications:

• Thrust-vectoring nozzles.
• Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System
• Large area cockpit displays.
• Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver antenna.
• APG-79(V)4 AESA radar.
• Integration with modern Western weaponry.

Colour Scheme:

Named after the operation that first saw German and American forces fight together, "Cowboy" sports an aggressor squadron camouflage styled after RF fighters, sans the red stars, and mandatory red leading wing edges and rudder. The left side of the nose below the canopy bears the names and personal callsigns of its crew as well as two pieces of noseart: A burning grill and a compass with "North" in all directions.

Preferred weapons:

• Cannon replaced with ATARS when mission-appropriate.

Knights of the Skies

Both of them are basically the first image that didn't have six fingers on each hand, wasn't cross-eyed or didn't have a broken mess of fighter-looking pixels in the background. AI still needs some time in the oven. XD

Knights of the Skies

*Appears out of thin air.* Did I hear "fighters"?

Character Sheets

Pilot

Name: Astrid Weiss

Callsign: Wildfire - Obtained rather unceremoniously when she stumbled during a squadron cookout, tipped the grill over and set herself on fire.

Age: 31

Born: 21/10/1994, Hamburg, Germany

Species: Human

Nationality: German

Appearance

Standing at 168 cm (5'5") and weighing 59 kg (130 lb) with a wiry build. Frequently seen looking like she just rolled out of bed.

Personality:
Outside of a cockpit, Astrid is a stout patriot with a sarcastic streak and a brain to mouth filter that works on a part-time basis. Heard sooner than seen, Astrid takes her extroverted nature and makes it everyone else's problem, especially her WSO who "...needs to get out of his damn comfort zone". Shaped by the fighter pilot culture, she sees her peers as a caste above others, something that usually shines through when she runs out of patience with someone.
Inside a fighter or during other life threatening situations, Astrid becomes quiet and laser focused, the letter being equal parts good and bad as she may fixate less important things when left without direction.

Personal History:
Born to a Bundeswehr Tiger pilot and a historian, there was little doubt of where Astrid’s path would lead. Names of superheroes and fairy tale characters meant little to her, her childhood heroes were the likes of Yi Sun-sin and Franz Stigler. It was the latter’s tale - and her father’s stylish uniform - that first paved the way to museums and airshows since 4, a nearby general aviation field for ultralight pilot’s license at 15 and a private pilot’s license at 17. She obtained a bachelor's degree in information technologies and finally joined the Luftwaffe at 21. Astrid was an average student in the classroom, but she led the class whenever she was in the flight seat and graduated to active status in 2016, flying the Panavia Tornado IDS.

Astrid had been airborne when the asteroids hit, her squadron relocating away from expected impact sites. After landing, she and her WSO Gerhard didn't even have time to get out of the plane. Instead a refueler threw a bag with water, sandwiches and some maps into the cockpit and asked for current fuel status as armorers were outfitting the fighter for combat, something that would become an unfortunate trend during the Eltherian-Human War.

Astrid was forced to sit out the early stages of Operation Prometheus due to appendicitis, only joining the efforts once she'd been cleared by doctors and SaR found her MIA copilot, in Switzerland of all places. They continued to fly without incident for the remainder of the war, but their squadron fell victim to postwar reorganization and both were recommended for the Knights.

Personal Weapons/Gear:

• H&K USP Compact (9x19 mm)
• H&K MP7A1, taclight
• KM2000 combat knife
• Location-appropraite dictionary

WSO

Name: Gerhard Hauer

Callsign: Magellan - Awarded due to his atrocious sense of direction.

Age: 34

Born: 11/08/1991, Regensburg, Germany

Species: Human

Nationality: German

Appearance

183 cm (6'0") and 77 kg (169 lb) of German steel, easily mistakable for a gym rat out of uniform. Puts a lot of effort into his appearance.

Personality:
A studious, methodical type, Gerhard is never in a hurry, or at least appears that way. On the quiet side for a fighter jock, though no stranger to the odd verbal spat as anyone disparaging backseaters within earshot would attest, he's of the opinion that his extroverted pilot should "Shut up for a minute and make the zone comfortable."
His biggest asset is retaining his cool when things start moving fast, having in fact been paired with Astrid to reign her in when she starts going blood-knight in the cockpit and focusing on the wrong things. Strangely, he becomes more talkative in a fight in order to ensure everyone has all of the necessary information and nothing is skipped.

Personal History:
An aviation enthusiast since an early age, Gerhard's been building model kits with his father and older brother as soon as he could read the instructions. After obtaining a master's degree in meteorology at 23, he joined the Luftwaffe, seeing it as an easy way of getting the qualifications necessary to become an airline pilot. Although he completed pilot training in 2015, there wasn't enough demand for pilots and he ended up in the back seat of a Tornado instead.

In 2016, his pilot retired, freeing up the position he wanted. Much to his dismay, a rookie was instead put in that seat. Any bad blood was quickly put on hold by the asteroid impacts and the following alien invasion. Despite his desire to fly in front, the pairing of a more hot-headed pilot and a calmer WSO worked too well to be disrupted and Gerhard grew to enjoy his role with time.

When the start of Operation prometheus caught him with his pilot out of action, Gerhard had to make due with a different one. Unfortunately, an electrical failure disabled communications and navigation on the operation's first sortie, forcing them to RTB from their intended target near Luxembourg. It was then that Gerhard got his latest callsign, the aircraft somehow crashing in Northern Switzerland after running out of fuel. Although both pilots ejected safely, the ejection compressed the pilot's spine, leading to several herniated discs and requiring Gerhard to carry him, first until they found a stream, then downhill until they found a town whereupon they finally oriented themselves and arranged a pickup. Surviving the rest of the war without any incidents, Gerhard was sent to the Knights following his squadron's disbanding.

Personal Weapons/Gear:

• H&K USP (9x19 mm)
• H&K MP7A1, red dot sight, taclight
• KM2000 combat knife
• Garmin GPSMAP® 65s handheld GPS

Aircraft Sheet

Aircraft Name: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18D (RC) Hornet

Specifications

Modifications:

• Thrust-vectoring nozzles.
• Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System
• Large area cockpit displays.
• Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receiver antenna.
• APG-79(V)4 AESA radar.
• Integration with modern Western weaponry.

Colour Scheme:

Named after the operation that first saw German and American forces fight together, "Cowboy" sports an aggressor squadron camouflage styled after RF fighters, sans the red stars, and mandatory red leading wing edges and rudder. The left side of the nose below the canopy bears the names and personal callsigns of its crew as well as two pieces of noseart: A burning grill and a compass with "North" in all directions.

Preferred weapons:

• Cannon replaced with ATARS when mission-appropriate.

Rise of Rasalhague

”On him, someone take over this One Victor.” Karel acknowledged Ulrik’s order before addressing Remy, not at all thrilled by the thought of letting any of these goons escape. ”Let’s squeeze that missile raft, old timer. Go from his left, I’ll take the right.” Calling something this small a missile ‘boat’ never felt right. Noting the explosion that signaled the Jenner’s end, he swerved to avoid what looked like a flying piece of a leg the ammo detonation launched his way. He briefly considered taking a shot at the downed 1E with his small laser, but he had to watch his heat by now lest the myomer start protesting too much. Making sure he didn’t overextend himself by outrunning Overkill or lag behind and leave him far too forward, he could almost imagine what the Javelin guy’s underwear would look like when the duo crested the rise he was hiding behind.

As soon as his cockpit popped up over the terrain, Karel immediately locked onto the goofy-looking machine, its appearance not helped by either the wannabe badass paint job nor what Jaromir’s PPC did to it. Noting the extent of the damage to its right torso, his ‘Mech confirming the innards were exposed, Karel snapped the crosshair onto the damaged section and fired all three medium lasers. An ammo or launcher hit would take care of that 30 ton problem nicely.

At the same time, the Javelin pilot noticed him and threw him a curveball, throwing the light ‘Mech to one side so hard it looked like it was going to topple over while accelerating before catching the fall with a turn, all three of Karel’s lasers scything through the snow behind where the rapidly accelerating Javelin was standing just a second earlier. It would seem like the biggest weapon in the pirates’ arsenal was making Karel look stupid. ”Very well, squirelly bastard, be that way…” Karel muttered under his breath as he continued closing the distance, adjusting his approach to better herd the pirate toward Overkill. He briefly considered ramming, but there was no point damaging his own machine, particularly since spare parts would be hard to come by. He wasn’t that mad. Yet.

Rolls

3x Medium Laser, JVN-10A: Miss

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

”The droids were outside as sentries for our protection. Worlds that support life - any life - are rare in the universe. We saw trees outside, we assumed wildlife and prepared in case the wildlife was aggressive. And wouldn’t you know it, something even rarer than life - intelligent life - came. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

”And per most human laws I know of, drawing a weapon is considered its use. How’s that for taking things seriously?” She finished her explanation, blaming cultural differences for the misunderstanding. Though to be fair, Ezra did seem to have a habit of waving his talking stick around and she had no idea what the fresh Hell Darnell was doing half the time.

The promise of multiple lightning mages was music to her ears. Getting rid of that sword hanging over their heads would make life so much easier and safer with the morale boost alone, nevermind practically unlimited time, proper lighting, unlimited tool use and actually hot water.

But with talk of being granted land getting thrown around, Vigdis waited for a break in the conversation before addressing the Captain, making a point of switching off her translator and speaking quietly enough that someone else’s wouldn't pick her words up. ”Ma’am, when, if at all, are we telling them that we don’t intend to stay? I was worried about it earlier, since Silbermine was convinced we’re his gift from the gods, though I’m not entirely convinced he’s come to think otherwise. Do we tell now that the other side is here too to potentially back us up? Or do we wait until the ship’s up and running again because we might piss them both off, because our departure deprives everyone of our knowledge? I’d really hate for them to go ‘We’re not giving you lightning mages because we want you here, you’re ours now.’ on us.” Paranoid? Maybe. But if the Yenge wanted to leave before the Humans could learn from them and she’d been there, she’d likely have taken a wrench to their engines herself.

The Conflict

What Belial said, no rush.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Marit just barely managed to suppress a happy giggle when she caught Ziska’s wink. Some might consider approval from Ziska a step in the wrong direction. Naysayers, the lot of them! And then she opened her mouth. Maybe the naysayers were onto something after all...

”Just because they paint us as deranged maniacs doesn’t mean we have a pass to become that. Isn’t it the average joe that’s gonna be scared shitless of us now, and running to report the ‘green baby killers’ to the nearest patrol as soon as possible? Last thing I want is to give them more reasons to believe the lie.”

”I’m going to act like I didn’t hear the part about nuking a city, let’s pretend that didn’t happen, but I get where you’re coming from. The people that hired us to be here have abandoned this place, the last ones upholding their rule are dead and the locals have hated us from the start, justified or not.“ She counted on her fingers, ”Besides needing FPA cannon fodder to pull the jailbreak off, nothing’s really keeping us here, is it?” Family Man would probably take objection to that, but she had a defense ready. But otherwise, grabbing von Kemp, staging a jailbreak, liberating any ship they could get their hands on that could get them away and leaving sounded good.

Truth be told, Marit was confused. By all rights she should’ve been a nervous mess lamenting the disintegration of her future, and while she understood this would have nasty repercussions on Espia and had the potential to become catastrophic in greater scope, it hadn’t yet and right now she was mad as Hell that they’d have the gall to try. Maybe she just didn’t fully grasp the depth of the swamp they’d just been thrown into. Still, being stuck in the mud was only really bad if one didn’t have anyone to lend a hand and pull you out. She should know. And they had a fairly loaded and connected helping hand, at least for now.

The Colonel thought along the same lines, and had a plan on top. Finally, nothing to protect, but a simple ambush. Perhaps not so simple given what the target was. Assuming the most common models, that was two PPCs, an AC20, two LRM 15s and a bunch of lasers, and given the nature of their target they probably had ammo left for the weapons that required it. ”Once they’re dead, do you think we’ll have time to salvage? I don’t expect we’ll leave much in working order, but you never know what you’ll find until you look. Maybe even some hints to the Fist mystery.”