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Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

All these years in the cockpit, having assuredly been near-death and having undoubtedly killed many while sitting here, and you know what? Ingrid had yet to tire from it. Every combat deployment left her eager, even when on the lean or attending to the unimportant. This remained true now, as the Green Knights had a brief hold at the edge of the OZ. She knew that there was no other place for her in the Sphere, and that nothing else would come so easily to her, and in some way this limit brought relief to her. Having a place in life given to you by God himself isn't something that everyone could say, was it? What she would give to keep herself in the pilot's seat into old age!

Though, there was one thing different compared to usual. A tic she hadn't seen in herself in years, back when she was essentially a kid, going through training and her first combat drops. As she listened to the over-the-air chatter, something caught her eye below, just below the edge of the neurohelm. She held a loose grip on her Ostroc's yoke, but her fingers twitched. She looked at it and briefly forgot about the voices bouncing between her ears...

...did she feel anxious? Real anxiety, not just the anticipation of violence. Was it the stakes, her own or that of the entire unit, or did the opposition seem simply too much to handle? The others were discussing how quiet things seemed as she took ahold of her own wrist, took a deep breath and tried to push it back down. It didn't, not yet - and to be honest, it wouldn't until all eyes turned to her as the field commander. The line remained open, and she was expected to speak. With the push of shame to her benefit, she kept this anxiety as down low as possible.

In contrast to some earlier commands, her response this time was uncharacteristically brief. "Alright. You've already heard it, so no need to repeat myself - let's be quick about it!" She pushed her lever and thus the machine underneath it hard forward, tilting her in her seat. Sweat dripped down to her lap, and the jitters were put to the side. "We need to get as far ahead as possible before we get bogged down. Remember: this isn't just a skirmish, this for the lives of hundreds. Move!"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Ingrid smarted a bit with the nudge. These lash-wounds take a while to heal, still visible with her lack of dress uniform at the moment. "I won't be stiff," she said as she rolled her shoulder. "I'll be prepared to move with the course of things, and..."

...she slowly looked up toward the taller man. Realization came to the forefront and she could barely contain her quite famous Daschke anger, "Stiff...is that why you call me Ramrod? Is that why it...nevermind," she exhaled in a most pained way, "forget it, leave this for when we return. Fucking hell..."

Moving past that, this was shaping up to be not only the most important hour of her life, but the most dangerous (the two were likely correlated). Not only that, but things were shaping up to turn out like the stories of heroes that she loved so much. The Colonel, what a man, had offered himself as the scapegoat! Others had concerns, but Ingrid had respect. She wasn't blind to the danger he was putting himself in, but by god it was the perfect sort of danger for a man like him. Two men, two 'mechs, arms and honor flying in the battlefield for a gallant cause! The fact that it wasn't going to be an honorable fight on the side of their enemies, and yet he was going through with it all in the name of the greater good of hundreds of others...

...it was no wonder that, out of the many companies who would have wanted an experienced Lyran officer in their ranks, she joined this one. This was the Colonel that she had seen, what felt like ages ago.

"Colonel, you have my vote of confidence, as if you needed it." She smiled genuinely. "I'd offer my cuirass to give you proper dress for the occassion, but...it wouldn't fit. You'll do fine without it. Regardless," she stood up with her head held high with pride, but also her neck brace, "I won't disappoint. We will finish this and return for you, mark my words."

Given a moment of time, she rose to the stand and offered her own words to the 'mech forces she would be commanding on the field. Her hand went up for a moment of quiet past the earlier hubub, which she received. "I'd ask that the charges be placed, yes. We're going to be the main force behind this prison break, and we can't afford losses early on in the operation - one pass from the Mechbuster could stop us cold. We will make up for the slack. Now, if you wouldn't mind listening to my own suggestion, lance..."

"The core of this struggle will come from getting to the fort in time, and the most obvious way to achieve this would be to run straight in - hence why I figure the main road is mined. They will be coming loaded for bear. I wouldn't doubt they're vibrabombs, they know what we're bringing now, or otherwise remotely detonated. My suggestion is this." It was an odd feeling to be 'suggesting' in this situation, but all she could do was append onto the Colonel's plan. She traced a finger along the southern edge of the operational zone and swung upward, through the narrow pass between two hills. "The entirety of our 'mech forces head through here directly, without pause, damn the turrets. The field is open and wide, and we'll be dealing with our enemy's air support, so the cover provided by the river and the hills to the immediate south of the Fort will be useful. Getting inside the minimum arming distance for these LRM emplacements would neuter much of their effectiveness, and they will be our main concern until we get to the generator."

Adding onto the line provided earlier, she split it off at two points. "Everyone moves as a group, with only the fire support - the Archer - able to afford to lag behind. Still, we need to be roughly one section up until this point." The large hill to the south, bristling with emplacements, was indicated. "The Phoenix Hawk should be best suited for being the close-in threat to the turrets while others move along, and the Shadow Hawk can make good work taking out the turrets from a distance while in cover. Use your jumpjets, they will save valuable time, as your avoiding death is more important than immediately killing their capability to retaliate. They can move through and then enclose themselves between the wall and the hill itself - it'll be difficult for the heavy turret to aim low and close like that, and it'll give your entire backside freedom from anything coming from behind."

"The remainder, which most likely will be myself and Alleycat, will have to make the move into Tieshan itself and offer support in pulling out our people. It won't be an easy entrance; I'll at least go first to give the Raven less opportunities to receive a mine to the foot, provided she detects them. If we get through that, it will be a quick duck into the south pocket, where I'll go for the generator directly and you'll provide designation for the Thumpers. Once that is done, that which we know of ahead of time should be dealt with. The fire support should move up to the front gate and the Phoenix Hawk should move in to begin helping us take out the remaining prisoners, should that be required."

"...I cannot ask that you consider your company over your loved ones, if it becomes a choice. I know I'd be that weak. I have my own person I'm looking for in the fort, and God willing, I'll find her."

"I admit," she said with a beleagured nod to the tank crew in the audience, "that this plan does have the glaring flaw of leaving the Von Lucker in a grey area. This isn't a...lack of thought on my part toward those not in possession of a Battlemech, but genuine uncertainty as to how to approach a heavily fortified complex with its least mobile piece of machinery. In a best case scenario, they are using vibrabomb mines and they are not tuned for the Von Luckner's weight specifically. If you approach them and they prematurely detonate, everything is grand, but can we really afford to be wishful?" She pointed back at the southern edge of the bridge and added "Otherwise, we will have Mechwarrior Saarinen take the time to fire at the route on approach. LRMs spread out over a wide enough area should give you room to drive along the road, where you'll serve as the main screen for any enemy elements coming in from the northwest. If resistance turns out to be too much attempt to link with Desperado."

It was quite the statement to essentially say "You're going to be the first in line to die in case we fuck up" to a group of people who she had just threatened to kill some days ago. Not escaping any allegations of Mechwarrior favoritism this time, she stood by her judgment. "Provided that they're going to be light militia forces, the Von Luckner should be a strong enough deterrent to make them keep distance. If the Crimson Fists come down, then we may have other issues...whatever the case is, avoid a mobility kill on your part. We most likely won't be taking and retaining the Fort, so anything lost on the field will most likely remain lost."

"And on the matter of a nuclear weapon, I cannot imagine a situation in which it is warranted to use such a thing," she said to no surprise at all among those listening. "Beyond the shame it would bring, the potential for loss of life among the prisoners is catastrophic in most scenarios I can imagine...the fallout alone would condemn enough civilians to make me think that a direct nuclear strike on the Fort is unconsciable to the point where I cannot authorize it."

"...I do choose my words carefully." She closed her eyes, and clarified that "In the event of my own death, I am not in a position to make objections. Were both the Colonel and I to be unable to withhold its usage, the situation itself would most likely be dire..." She gave a narrow and weary look to those present. Even if she seemed to be the kind of high-born woman who remained pristine in most situations, the salt and cold and struggle on this planet had visibly aged her in a way she wouldn't realize until she had left Espia behind. "Do with this information as you will. Forgive me for being selfish."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

For once, it seemed that Ingrid had no decorum about her.

She had arrived first to the tent, not wearing her saber and cuirass, not even wearing most of her uniform. Down to a tank top, her neck brace and a pair of pants that had clearly been shuffled on in undue haste. Her face still bore the heavy fabric marks of the rucksack she had been using as a pillow, and nothing about her suggested that she had been doing anything besides sleeping in the prior minutes.

Despite all of this, she was alert, possibly more alert than ever before. This is a very big statement considering how high strung she usually is, and should be taken with all importance placed upon it. Her eyes snapped to the Colonel immediately as she leaned against the pole of the doorway, adjusting her pants back into place with the other hand.

"The one? The Fort?" She sounded just as much hopeful as surprised. "What's changed? How are we able to..."

Her enthusiasm dwindled and her usual formality kicked in, and she bowed deeply. "Forgive me. There will be a briefing for this."

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

I'm sorry that I'm a bit late in expressing interest, but if you're still doing this I'd like to join. Would a kaiju character that has a human form be an acceptable character choice?

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

The arrival of the salvage crew gave her just a small reason to pause her premeditated assault. It wasn't a murder, it wasn't going to be a murder, but the first person with a bruise on their face to backsass her was going to catch a few inches of iron into his or her jaw instead of a few millimeters of lead. Ingrid's taken that sort of corrective measure before. She came out a fine officer. What kind of military academy didn't beat their students every once in a while? Presumably a Free Worlds League one, which is why they'll never amount to anything.

"Of all the times to arrive..."

She felt little of the joy the others did over the recovered 'mech. That'd be someone else's day made, not hers. Her pistol raised back up to threaten the sky instead of the rioters, with Ingrid's temper briefly turning toward someone else instead. "I could have gone into the infantry if it weren't for the physical requirements," she snapped back at Marit, which was an indirect way of admitting she was too short to be considered for the cor, "and I know exactly what I'm doing!" She stepped off her box, keeping any comments about it similarly unsaid, then unloaded and ejected the remaining rounds. Stuffing the gun into her pants, she then...

...also took a spot in line. Shameful as it was, she considered herself as much of a participant as the others, and she'd take those strikes like a fucking champ. Even with a fractured collarbone! This ended up with her awkwardly standing behind Marit, and this lead to a bit of an unwise discussion.

"In a real military unit, my decision would've been seen as sound. SOMEONE has to break it up, regardless of cost."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"...you." There was a sharp boot-stamp behind Sanders, loud enough to pull him from his duty. "Your sidearm, now."

The mechanic hadn't even stopped his work for the fight in the distance. He was old enough, most of those years being service one way or another, to have seen and participated in enough fights of this caliber that it no longer excited him. Truth be told, it only annoyed him by this point. Some spirit of adventure had left him by this point. Turning around, he saw Ingrid, her neck in a brace that cupped up to her frazzled hair. Her eyes were red and she was already holding out her hand like an expectant parent - somehow, Sanders knew that this Mechwarrior never enjoyed much of anything in the first place.

Even with the anger in her head already evident, he remained calm from fatigue. A night of slow work on the heat sinks had left him in a zen state of slow work, and slow realization. "Ma'am...you probably should just let them work it out."

"There is nothing to work out," she spat back, hand wringing the air in front of her. "I can't stop their issues with a sword, so I need your pistol." Something about how serious she was came out when she offered out-of-the-blue that "You cooperate and I'll clear the drinking debt between us, just tell me where it is!"

That was enough to get him to listen. He was going to regret it, but if anyone asked, Mechwarrior Daschke had stolen it. Not like anyone was around to contend with this, as everyone who cared was paying attention to the fight! He turned back to the fine assembly of tubes that made up the Ostroc's centuries-old coolant system, pointing his wrench back over his head in a vague direction. "My cot over there, ma'am. Under the mags. Don't look at them." Ingrid stomped away without any thanks. He looked from the corner of his vision as she carefully got down on her knees, bonked her neck brace on the metal of the bedframe, and swore in German when she saw what he was talking about.

And then he got back to work.
----
The Marauder that served as a backdrop for the violence was nothing compared to the terror that manifested itself, not too late after Ziska and Marit had joined in the combat. Three shots went out and they weren't even pointed upward; just a few feet above their collective heads, landing in a pile of junk behind them and sending a small avalanche of refuse metal downward. Standing on top of one of the machine gun ammunition crates was Ingrid, her recovery from her whiplash still ongoing but hardly an impediment to acting as the military police that Rivers sought so dearly.

If the bullets didn't get their attention, hopefully her shrill voice would. "DROP IT!" Her borrowed gun was now pointed directly at the helmeted head of one of the tank crew. "LISTEN, YOU LICE! IF I SEE KNUCKLES TOUCH A JAW OR RIBCAGE ONE MORE TIME, SO HELP ME GOD, I'LL MAKE A LATE ADDITION TO THE AFTER-ACTION CASUALTY REPORT!"

The fighters of the Green Knights had fought machines of death as a matter of standard course, they had already survived firefights on foot since their time on Espia had started...but did one mildly unhinged Lyran woman with a gun strike fear in their hearts where others couldn't succeed?

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Ingrid could've kept going. She could've pushed her 'mech to the limit, thrown caution to the wind and...most likely would have burnt up to a
walking cinder. This machine wasn't made to go hot. The heat sinks had been in operation longer than some nation states in the Sphere, and
firing past the safe limit was a great way to make them fail. She could have fired as if she had twice the amount of available medium lasers but did not. The opened cavity of the Hunchback was an opportunity, one that Ingrid was glad to have refused: one burst of missiles hit the wound and, in less than a second, the machine in front of her burst into a brilliant fireball. Ammo explosions can be scary to sit next to, but with a gun that big? It was practically a bomb in and of itself.

Not that the Duchess minded. She smiled, leaned forward in her seat and immediately called out on the comms, "Yes, like that, Alleycat! Right through!" Unbecoming of a knightly one like her, but everything about this engagement was. She continued stepping back carefully, and for her trouble got the worst of it.

There were flashes from the Crusader's lasers, but none as bright as the brief flash that consumed her vision. Ingrid's Ostroc stopped dead for a moment, mid-backpedal, as its pilot lost consciousness for a second - she came to quickly, awakened by the sound of something jingling in her cockpit.

She looked down. A single bit of spalled brass sitting between her legs that would've burnt her skin if she tried to grab at it. She looked up. There was a narrow crack in the bulletproof glass, with a menacing hole in it now. She pat at her head...her neurohelmet had a very pronounced dent in it. By god, she had heard about how tough these damn things are, but this was the first time in her career that it had been put to the test. The windscreen had done most of the ablation, sure, but this ancient and bulky thing blocked an .50 BMG round from entering into her skull! Ingrid, after her wits would be collected, resolved to never, ever let this helmet get cycled out for a new one. No matter how streamlined these things got.

Drawing back from that moment of miraculous luck, and trying to ignore the oncoming splitting headache from her brain rattling around in her cranium, Susser Tod was ready to tell her to not test it anymore. Sirens wailed about increasing heat, her engine plainly wasn't working at full capacity, and her machine was going to fall apart if she did anything besides leave. Ingrid's voice came over comms once more, calling "Pulling back! Don't let them get to close to the tankers or retreat; box them in on the bridge!" Of course, given how she was going so slowly, she wouldn't be leaving the bridge yet...

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Of everything seen in the field during her time in Espia, the loud report of...bodily...functions in the distance actually made Ingrid pause. At first she imagined it the report of high-volume autocannons that, ironically, would come soon afterward. But no, looking at an ejection chair and running the sound by in her head once more gave her what the punchline was supposed to be. She couldn't even be mad. Not to say she enjoyed it, but it was just too juvenile to take as some kind of lofty insult towards their profession. The kind of thing that seven year olds and drunk uncles took as the peak of humor. Perhaps they were drunk. Perhaps Ingrid felt, for a second, that she would be better served that way.

No. That would have to wait. A quiet "I feel sick" in German, to no one in particular, would comfort her in the meantime.

This action didn't leave her too unaware; she saw the Hunchback pull up towards her well ahead of their collision. She fired back into it, carving glowing trails in the metal with lasers, but as she backpedaled there wasn't much she could do to avoid its impact. In fact, it was backpedaling that left her in a bad space to begin with: there was nowhere near the amount of maneuvering room she usually had to work with, for any further back would lead to the chasm. The Ostroc's internal computers worked with her own sense to try and dodge the stocky swing of her opponent's metal boot, but it caught her in the leg still. Her practice kept her stable, but unable to roll with the blow for lack of space, she was left near-stationary.

To Raven she replied, "You keep going, Family Man! Fire on the Hunchback or let me deal with it - he's decided to make himself my problem!" She took a moment to breathe and added, "Tankers," (the best she'd give mere armor pilots), "you have a bit before the next pass, let them take their time coming back! The rest of you, keep it in mind - they'll take whatever's the most open shot."

This was fine. She could work with this. The Hunchback was falling over already, and she didn't even leave him time to process this: one more burst of light that sent her own heat back into troublesome territory raked across his left side, and she saw her moment.

Striking a fellow Mechwarrior while he's down is hardly forbidden under any code, though would she so willingly do so? After all, she was the honorable one here, even if her opponent was lower than human. Maybe it was finally time to get that pistol duel she's always wanted out of an opponent. In the end, she did not offer much in the realm of clemency beyond a brief, calm advisory notice over loudspeaker,

"Hunchback pilot, be a good man and DIE IN THE COCKPIT!"

and the compressing force of the Ostroc's long leg into the same damaged torso. It held the Hunchback down for a moment as it tried to right itself, crumpling the armor underneath. Then, through her connecting lines to the machine's balance, she felt the sudden collapse of internal structure as the Hunchback's chest cavity broke inward following a whine of bending steel.. A good portion of 60,000 kilos of weight went down on one point, and really...it was a quite rewarding feeling. Worth it. "He's broken," she shouted as she her foot slid off the righting enemy, "Land a shot on that left flank!"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Though she didn't realize it at the time, Ingrid's thoughts aligned with Jon pretty fittingly: everyone involved needed to pipe down. The only real bite back she gave to the enemy was the Hemingway joke, which was met with the following: "I don't need arms to take yours off as well, you cur!" Truly, what could Honk-Honk do after this? How could he ever recover?

Raven's request for a shot was overlaid on top of her view of the fight behind her. Wheeling around as she made it across the bridge, she could see the Firestarter and the Crusader off in the distance. Far enough to be safe, and sadly, just as likely to keep running for the moment - they were going to have to work quickly to try and run them down if they were to keep with the Colonel's orders. "God...no, hold on the slide," Ingrid called back to Raven, "we're going to need to try and cripple them before they pull away." To show her intent, back in place, she faced the Hunchback and let it try to kill her before she could kill it. Beams flew, lasers flew quite a bit more than they should, and she could only hope that the enemy's aim was worse than hers.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Much of her fire hit, even with the remaining snow on her windows sublimating in the sudden burst of heat and blurring her vision. It wasn't as if there was much to visually discern, just shoot at something that wasn't white didn't look like a rock! Ingrid's body broke out into a sweat immediately, her skin exposed to the suddenly sauna-temperature cockpit and only hidden by the bare cooling jacket. What she found with her initial burst of damage was...

...a still living Firestarter! She swore, looking up at the flickering target status display at the side of the window. Even with additional fire from her lancemates in the hills, the readout on the little shit hadn't recorded so much as a single systems failure. Either it hadn't picked it up yet, or that pilot was luckier than he had any right to be.

Comms chatter started picking up, both from the ever-fluent Family Man up in the hills and from the increasingly talkative enemy forces - she dialed down the volume on her neurohelm's headset a few notches as they just kept going, offering only a clipped "Stop with the alliteration!" back at the Firestarter's pilot. She pulled her 'mech to the north, ignoring the groan of internal structure from the heat.

Maybe it was this maneuver, or the gun being knocked around, that saved her from worse. Beyond the deafening explosion, Ingrid's main warning that something had went wrong was the way her entire mech's torso spun to the left! The force alone was enough to not only send the Ostroc's gait off-balance, but send her into the side of her seat with force! No, she wasn't large enough to fill the seat, even in something as tight as a Battlemech's cockpit!

Pushing aside the digital, calm report of "Left arm: destroyed," Ingrid saved that grief for later as she focused every bit of mental muscle she had into keeping her ship upright. Even through the bursts of napalm stretching across her flanks, everything came down to keeping up! Falling down in the enemy's midst would spell certain death. From an outsider's perspective the Ostroc looked as if it were about to fall on its face for a few seconds, its feet moving faster to try and keep under itself. She even touched her long arm down into the snow for a moment to push against the ground, and with that, she had barely just kept herself in the game.

Unfortunately, with both this and the burden of heat that she had forced upon herself, keeping upright was going to be about all she could do for the moment. Ingrid made her way slowly back to her lancemates' sides, saying "Hold! I'm not there yet!" across personal comms...