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Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Ingrid rocked once more, this time sent forward! The explosions of a set of high-yield missiles were coupled with the instantaneous beeping in her helmet's speakers that warned her of a sudden and completely unexpected shot to the back. An early warning system like this had saved her life plenty of times before, but this time it was merely redundant.

Returning the Ostroc to its full stance, she did a backpedaling three-point turn that brought the machine about-face as fast as she could. That Jenner was going to be a pain until she could get rid of it - but first, the life of her comrade was more important. Her limited readout of Ziska's Raven's status on her screen flashed critical warnings, and a quick glance to the right revealed the same thing - the bird-like mechanical form on the ground, smoking from fire and pushing itself back upward. If there was one thing they couldn't afford, it was losing her...

She offered a mostly redundant call of "Alleycat! Full retreat, don't waste your time here!" before she did much the same. It took too long for her tastes to line the shot up on the much more nimble Jenner, and she knew she was making a sloppy, dangerous shot, but if anything would spell out "Hau ab" to the enemy pilot, it was this.

Four barrels of fire, four tubes of missiles, all fired at once in its direction. After that, she'd run for the hills, or the storm cell at least. The heat around Ramrod flashed once more, violently, and this time it stuck. Regardless if she hit, if anything was going to scare it off...

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Ingrid, heeding her own advice, had spotted the enemy coming visually and was quick to drop her cargo for a shot at self-defence. However, she wasn't prepared for the burst of fire that was coming her way - it was lucky that it was only the two who came after her, for the blast was withering enough.

Her whole world rocked about and she briefly struggled to keep a grip on the stick of her 'mech, Susser Tod's torso listing backwards and threatening to topple over entirely. Her armor was scored with still brightly-glowing marks of glittering heat, and in one moment, she was reminded why all battlemechs are respected on the field, no matter the size. It was only by a quick, if textbook, response on her part that she didn't fall flat on her giant metal ass: a joystick pulled backward to give a single step of reverse movement, alongside neurohelm impulses to put her weight onto her back leg, allowed her to recover and stand upright a moment later.

She barely heard her own order with the ringing in her ears, but nonetheless she shouted "Remember! Fighting retreat! Focus on breaking away - focus on the Raven." and turned.

The bite of the enemy commander's barbs was enough to elicit a reaction out of her on open channels, but as her mind envisioned great tales of valiant knights taking on witches and always coming out the victor, chivalric allegories that would be well-remembered in this battle...

...the urgentness of the situation made her response come out much less eloquently, and much more reflexively German. "Halt die Klappe, du Schwätzer!" She closed the line and focused.

Her physical response was the loosing of her Fuersturm-C Large-class lasers, aimed at the first enemy within her line of view: the Jenner. She braced, aimed, shot out two brilliant beams of blue light - feeling the wash of heat come over her instantly, the heat sinks of her mech struggling to instantly sink it.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"GREEN KNIGHTS, THIS IS GAWAIN ACTUAL."

Someone in the maintenance crew hadn't prepared for the (admittedly slim) possibility that the Ostroc would be receiving such a high-amplitude burst on the comms channel - some failure to calibrate the 500 year old comms suite in just the right way. The Colonel's message had been received at several times its actual volume, and Ingrid rocked in her seat as she slammed a palm against her neurohelmet to get the damn thing to quiet down. Luckily, it only lasted five seconds.

Regardless of Lyons' worries, it was very certain that at least one of them was listening.

The deep hum of the 'mech's cockpit and grinding of metal fingers against a cargo container resumed as her ears came back to full strength. She grunted, and flipped on comms for all friendly channels.

"I hope you heard him, lance!" Her voice came out even more staccato and commanding than usual. "Nav-point Echo! Double-time! This will not be as easy as the compound if the enemy catches up to us; eyes on radar and eyes on the horizon! Your battlemech and your life are more important to us than the cargo, remember that!"

He pushed her 'mech to move to its limit of speed, the container weighing her down and undoubtedly putting even more stress on the actuators. Occasionally there'd be a loud scrape as the box ran against some rock protruding from the ground. She didn't have time to treat the damn thing properly...

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Work was done quickly, smoothly, and efficiently. Ingrid's fears had been partially laid to rest. No outrageous dishonor was needed here, just solid work - she gave a small huff of contentment. Congratulations would be needed on all their parts...even the tankers. Yes, she did notice that napalm round going off in the corner of her vision, because it'd be hard not to notice the largest firework of the day going off. It was...not the ideal way of dispatching the enemy, but it worked, and what else were they there for?

In contrast to the grime and shock of the field that Reya was experiencing, the view from the Ostroc's cockpit made it all seem quaint. The most attention she had thrown the way of the infantrymen down there was a flash of green light that evaporated a man with a missile launcher aimed at her, and with the last weapons sounding off between 'mech and enemy, it all but escaped her mind.

It took her a moment to recognize the voice coming in on her comms, but it was clear enough. The slight Kuritan accent, hard to notice but never impossible, gave it away. "Copy, Sunflower. I will get him on that. Stay safe down there." That well-wish came across little stiff, but she's always stiff.

Just as, and she couldn't stress it enough, just as Giggles called out the arrival of air cavalry, so too did Raven manage to pick them up on visual. They're never slow like in the movies; they'll be on them in a moment's notice. Ingrid pulled over towards the shipping containers, and spoke on the comms again: "Good eye and good mind, respectively. Giggles, take out all air support first, then load up. Family Man, once we have all left, I need you to destroy the entrace to the base; fire into the ground and make it as hard as possible for them to come reclaim later."

She made Susser Tod perform a squat, which is far from the top of the list of what the designers of the machine intended - she could hear some groaning as the hip actuators strained in ways that they rarely had to in its centuries of service. Still, with the Ostroc's long arms, it was easier than kneeling. A shipping container was taken in two hands like a strongman getting ready to toss a caber, and then she was off and out of the base.

"We are moving out, Desperado. Don't stray too far from the APCs in case--when something else turns up, but now we're hauling. Copy?" It was going to be a fraught few minutes for her. With the container blocking her weapon's ports, the only thing she could rely on were her 'mech's SRMs, and those would be pointless. Unless the air cav pilots felt suicidal enough for a low, sweeping dive on the giant robots today.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Susser Tod accelerated one second after the others had begun. The weapons on that machine held the advantage of range over the others, and the terrain didn't do much to keep things stable - Daschke would have to bring her in below top speed if she wanted to be accurate, so she lagged slightly behind.

Her 'mechs right arm hung over the front of the torso, just below the the mountings that held the lasers' lenses, giving her that additional bit of armor to the chest. The enemy was hardly equipped to break through its armor anyway, and damage to the hand would endanger salvage operations later if it failed, but they couldn't yet afford repairs. All precautions had to be made.

Of course, as she advanced, she had to stop for a moment as Mechwarrior Rivers started swearing - not even a particularly good reason to swear, by her estimate. She mentally shrugged and decided to deal with it later if it became a recurring problem.

She fired at the lasers, briefly slowing to half-speed to ensure the best possible shot, and then raised her external speakers' volume to its highest - the enemy would, hopefully, hear her over the din of the fight.

"This is Duchess Ingrid Daschke of Gawain's Green Knights. We demand your immediate surrender!" she said, pushing her already commanding tone to its fullest. She hoped, though faintly, that the appeal to nobility would make them seem like more than mere thugs. "We do not see fit to execute you without cause - abandon your transports and we will leave you be! Fight, or run, and we will have no choice but to fire with intent to kill." She leaned back in her seat, reaching up to the cockpit's canopy to flip a couple of rarely used switches. Her message would repeat itself over the speakers automatically, having been caught by the 'mechs comms computer, until disengaged.

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

It was the small things that annoyed Ingrid sometimes - the atmospheric pressure gauge in her cockpit had been broken for some time. The Ostroc's designers made the strange choice to install it analogue in what was otherwise a decently advanced equipment suite. Made it very hardy and unlikely to suffer in feedback, made finding the replacement parts a nightmare. It broke sometime during her first engagement with the Green Knights, and not once had they found a way to fix it.

It was redundant anyway; the atmosphere's composition was often one of the first things you'd read about a planet before going into an operation. You had about the same effect by cutting out the line from the briefing's print-outs and taping it over the gauge anyway.

It still annoyed Ingrid.

She was out of it and she knew it, the knife-sharp wit she was brought up to exhibit being too dull to cut. She tried to focus and focus hard as the rest of the group called up and offered their readies - ultimately resorting to a quick hit to her own neurohelmet to get the fog out.

"Giggles, your answer is to aim for the first in line," she said with clear reservation. Ultimately, no she couldn't come up with an answer that satisfied her own sensibilities and her standing orders. "If one truck breaks down in front, the rest will be thrown into disarray - we will engage and demand surrender. If they do not capitulate, you act as you see fit. Keep your eyes skyward, though - air support won't be far behind."

A half-assed compromise that was going to make things worse in the end, even if it was just common sense. She turned off the line for a moment to grumble to herself.

"On my mark, Steel Rain fires - the rest will move upward, and I want Family Man to close-in to the end of the convoy to keep stragglers from escaping that way. Close enough to threaten, not close enough to trip mines. Alleycat, Desperado, move with me to encircle the column, and your first priority should be taking out their escort and defenses. The runners are your second priority. Giggles holds the rear and engages targets as opportunity provides."

She took a moment of pause. By her count, just a little bit more needed to give the tankers the time to prepare...the tension in her head grew in the silence.

"On my mark..."

The Ostroc leaned forward into running posture. She took in a sharp breath.

"Mark!"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"Short-sighted. Yes. The few of us who intend to leave after we get off this god-forsaken planet are few - we need to plan on the future."

Her nose turned upward. "But they have their reasons for doing so; if they wanted to be petty and spiteful, they would be taking flamethrowers to barracks right now. I understand the whole of the Colonel's plan in a most utilitarian and spartan sense. They wish to maximize our gains from this operation..."

"The cost, Rivers, is to our honor as noble Mechwarriors. Our integrity as greater men and women to have ever ridden on the battlefield." You could swear that you've heard this line before. "But...I figure your dilemma is more emotional than chivalric. It is wrong 'as a person', not wrong 'as a Mechwarrior'."

She stepped away, saying "You are in the right, but for the wrong reasons. I give you permission as Lance Leader to act in combat as you see fit. That will be all."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

"...Thank you for being quick about it." She gave him one, brief, look of discontent. "Usually, people wait a very long time to be honest with me. In exchange, let me give you my own honest estimation."

"There is little to be gained from the acquisition of this world by any major power beyond the Canopians - beyond the badge on the chest of whatever general spearheads the conquering of it. It's a meagre world barely fit to be a salt farming outpost, filled with costly discontent, and it lies on a border that is barely worth considering in the grand scheme of things. In truth, perhaps having an independent world to act as a buffer from Periphery dogs would be its biggest benefit - they take the brunt of the piracy, and you do not have to work to protect it. It kicks the problem down the line a generation or two."

Such she spoke with a very firm confidence. After all, this field was the forte of her kind. Even if House Daschke wasn't even a speck in the eye of the galaxy's political movers and shakers, it was certain that they spent quite a lot of time theorycrafting about what could be done. Ingrid was ultimately a professional scholar in this field of realpolitik.

"The Canopians would like any world they can get their hands on, but even then, they are being saddled with a burden they aren't ready to deal with. House Steiner has no need for a world this many jumps out from their border - there's a very old saying that you might be familiar with, 'Selling a bridge'? Buying something that sounds useful but ultimately can't be handed to you. And while the Mariks," there was a certain venom when she spoke that word, "could conceive some use in drawing another minor polity into their number...I do not wish to aid the Free Worlds League. I have my reasons."

"Now," she put her hands on her hips and looked right at him, "do you figure that you're going to play empire builder, Mechwarrior Rivers?"

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

Whatever faux pas Raven might have committed was kept a secret from him. She turned, looked him up and down, regarded him coldly for a moment before simply speaking: "I am."

Ingrid figured that this was just some kind of brownnosing tactic thrown at her in a moment of weakness. It never took any kind of expertise to speak as a genteel man, at least influently, just the will to do so. She expected little out of this conversation.

She pulled a pair of gloves that she'd be riding into battle with out of her pocket, and said "But speak like you normally would. I won't tolerate you if you keep trying to sound like a simple chivalric stock character."

Mechwarrior: Disposable Heroes

The Colonel didn't take her bait...or saw through it. Ingrid couldn't get a read on that man sometimes, and it worried her.

Their reputation was her concern, but so was her own personal interpretation of honor. To fire on unarmed people simply trying to run away was a shameful thought, and yet she couldn't get that across in a way that mattered to these people. It's true, yes, they were already being slandered. Did they need to fuel the fire even further?

Ingrid stepped away from the table with a composed look on her face. She was going to be leading them directly; didn't need to slander her own reputation any further - her reservations were kept to herself.

A short while later, she was standing below the green hull of the Ostroc, looking up at a man standing on a makeshift gantry - in the absence of real repair bays, the astechs had to find creative ways to get up to the Battlemechs' levels. "Sanders." She had taken the time to memorize the names of those on her machine's duty, though they often didn't care to remember hers. "Have you loaded this yet?"

"Not much to load, ma'am," he said, his gray beard hanging down as he looked over the edge of the gantry. "Just the SRMs, right? We'll get those done last."

"Tell the lead that I wish to have but one shot loaded. Distribute the remainder to the rest," she said, "I'll be fine without them."

He looked away from her at a printed sheet on a clipboard, flipping a couple of pages. "Ma'am, yer 'Roc's ain't even got a half-ton of ammunition for it anyway, without dipping into the Hawk's...does it make much difference? Don't think anybody else can even load these things with the long-ass name."

Her nose scrunched up. She tapped her foot, and put her hands on her hips. "Then so be it! If it's that much of a problem, I won't ask...and they are Totschlagens. TAWT-shla-gens. Not difficult."

"Ma'am, I'm from Bluford, Crucis area." He wiped sweat from his wrinkled head. Even with Ingrid's snappyness, he doesn't seem to have enough energy in him to get truly annoyed. "They don't teach German there; they barely teach English! I'm sorry, but I got to get to your hand actuators before the boss comes 'round. We can talk about pronunciation later, if you don't mind."

"...I'll leave you to it." She kept any further clarification to herself.