Let's play: Battletech via MegaMek

[Zenn7]

[x] Give it to the guy in the Wolfhound

[x] write-in: Put green dye in his shower head. So he will look as green as he is for a few days..

I'm so glad you are not in my lance (or on the same planet as me). :p

These are both good.

[gbasden]

[x] Give it to the guy in the Wolfhound

[x] Catfish on social media

[AWS260]

[x] Give it to the guy in the Wolfhound

[x] write-in: Put green dye in his shower head. So he will look as green as he is for a few days..

I concur (unless Drazzil wants the Wolvie).

[Zarathud]

[x] write-in: Put green dye in his shower head. So he will look as green as he is for a few days..

So YOU’RE the Commie Mutant Traitor who put the Fizz-Wizz in the High Programmer’s Shower Head!

[Drazzil]

I'm okay where I'm at for now. Oh and green shower dye is good.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Green shower dye - almost unanimous
Replace Wolfhound - almost unanimous

The Wolfhound is a pretty decent light mech, but, at the end of the day, it's a light mech, without a meaningful place in a front-line combat lance. So, we reassign Pvt. Tom Nidheesh to the Wolverine to match the rest of Gamma Striker lance's weight class and maneuverability profile. Except for their Warhammer.

Sneaking the hair dye into Spaceman Loc Do's showerhead proves pretty easy. "Borrow" a maintenance key from one of the dropship crew, apply hair dye liberally to inside of showerhead, return maintenance key quietly. The dye job is wildly successful - the aero jock in question winds up with green hair, green eyebrows, green eyelashes and a green moustache. And partially green towel. Gamma Strike flight's lieutenant barely manages to control her laughter at the next morning's briefing, but nobody else does.

On the subject of aerospace fighters and remedial training, let's check in on Basalt.

January 24, 3043
Low Orbit
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)

We get the replacement Lucifer in, with the Lightning being a day behind. The highlight of this week's training exercises is a mock assault against a dropship "attempting to break orbit and go atmospheric". The FedCom Triumph and escort fighters get practice trying to get past a determined force, while our guys and attached trainees get practice calculating intercept vectors and concentrating on specific targets while avoiding escorts.

Our fighters and the attached trainees intercept the Triumph just a few minutes before it hits atmo and begin the festivities.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Our guys catch the escorting units with their pants down. The Triumph tries to turn around, but our fighters are way too fast. Only two escorts are in range to pick at our guys.

Our gunnery could use a little work - our Lightning registers hits on the Triumph's aft laser bay, so now we can go in the aft firing arc fairly safely as well.

The trainees' piloting could use some work as well, at least three of the light fighters (including one of the guys on our side) drift out of control due to excessive use of thrust.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Sensors show the escort force getting their act together and moving to engage our fighters as we stick to the dropship like glue. The Lightning's AC/20 registers a hit on one of the Triumph's transport bays. If it was an actual combat, we'd see a whole bunch of tanks come spinning out - about a quarter of the dropship's transport capacity.

The escorts figure out who's got the biggest gun though and begin firing at our Lightning causing significant armor damage.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

The escorts swarm in while the dropship adjusts its trajectory with a main engine burn. It'll take it longer to reach atmo, but enables it to avoid our fighters temporarily.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Dogfighting continues as we regroup for another run at the dropship. Our Sabre and a Sholagar blast each other pretty good, the Sabre reporting engine damage, while the Sholagar shows severe sensor damage.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

As our Sabre drifts off and is eliminated from the exercise, so is the damaged Sholagar, coming under fire from our Lucifer and Corsair (with the Lightning serving as bait, but engaging in defense maneuvers to make it harder to hit). The other one doesn't get away quick enough and starts drifting after taking multiple simulated laser hits from our attached trainees.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

We continue picking on the damaged Sholagar, then burn for the dropship.

Round 7, 8:

Spoiler:

The Sholagar doesn't register as "out", so we detach one of the light fighters to finish it off (it's still drifting out of control for the most part). The guy in the Centurion does his job pretty well and is able to rejoin us shortly.

Round 9, 10:

Spoiler:

We inflict more damage on the dropship while the escorts decelerate to try to match vectors with us, blowing out the sensors and a vehicle bay door. Unfortunately, we came in too fast on that one, so we only get a little bit of time on target before having to turn around and decelerate at maximum speed.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

Some of the escort fighters catch up to us. A Sparrowhawk *really* catches up, but then the aero jock messes up his engine control and goes drifting off into the distance. We turn up the thrust to try to catch up to the Triumph, although it's not looking good.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

No way we're catching up. Another couple of seconds of inconclusive dogfighting and the exercise is called against us.

That was a fairly sad performance. Not only did we let the dropship get away, but we crippled just three of the fighters, "destroying" only one. Other than a need for better training in interception vector calculation, the main lesson learned on our end is that AC/20s are pretty good against dropships, as they're capable of punching through the thick armor and inflicting critical damage. One of our aero jocks suggests the idea of mounting "some kind of large warhead that can be fired at extreme ranges, perhaps using the existing attachment points for bombs that our aerospace fighters have." He gets laughed at.

The FedCom guys aren't that happy with their aerospace jocks' performance, either: a quarter of the dropship's tank complement would have gotten blown out into space, and its sensors would have been so shot up that it wouldn't be able to detect a hostile unit if it was broadcasting an emergency beacon.

Despite getting laughed at, the aero jock goes up the chain of command, talking to Zenn7 about it. While there's no such thing as an air-to-air warhead that can be fired at standoff range, it is possible to mount standard rocket launcher pods on existing bomb mounts, to give our aerospace fighters a boost of one-time firepower. Of course, the tradeoff is that said aircraft become considerably slower the more stuff we foist on them (for example, a Lucifer slows down to "average dropship speeds" when fully loaded with bombs).

He even gets a couple of techs to put together a demonstration rocket launcher pod, consisting of about ten hand-held, one-use infantry rocket launchers welded together with some trigger wiring and a mount attachment welded on top. At least they're just infantry weapons, so they're dirt cheap.

[] Request denied. In an actual campaign, our techs don't have the time to cobble together rocket launcher pods.
[] Request denied. You already have a bunch of rockets on your fighters, the hell you need more for? Learn to fly better.
[] Request authorized. Trial run during next aerospace exercise.

[Cylus Maxii]

[] Request denied. You already have a bunch of rockets on your fighters, the hell you need more for? Learn to fly better.

[Freyland]

Are we sure Guapo's not behind this? This could be one step closer to showing a legitimate blimp offense.

[El Guapo]

[] Request denied. In an actual campaign, our techs don't have the time to cobble together rocket launcher pods.
[] Request denied. You already have a bunch of rockets on your fighters, the hell you need more for? Learn to fly better.
[X] Request authorized. Trial run during next aerospace exercise.

Why not? In the unlikely event that it works, we get another tool to play with. In the likely event that it doesn't, the aerojock looks dumb, but who cares?

[Zenn7]

[] Request denied. In an actual campaign, our techs don't have the time to cobble together rocket launcher pods.
[] Request denied. You already have a bunch of rockets on your fighters, the hell you need more for? Learn to fly better.
[X] Request authorized. Trial run during next aerospace exercise.

Why not? In the unlikely event that it works, we get another tool to play with. In the likely event that it doesn't, the aerojock looks dumb, but who cares?

Sure... looks dumb... gets blown away (he's piloting this test toy)… Either way, if it fails, he won't suggest a dumb idea again.

[gbasden]

[] Request denied. In an actual campaign, our techs don't have the time to cobble together rocket launcher pods.
[] Request denied. You already have a bunch of rockets on your fighters, the hell you need more for? Learn to fly better.
[X] Request authorized. Trial run during next aerospace exercise.

Why not? In the unlikely event that it works, we get another tool to play with. In the likely event that it doesn't, the aerojock looks dumb, but who cares?

Yeah. That.

[El Guapo]

Also - can we film the test runs, so that if the idiot winds up blowing himself up spectacularly, we can monetize it by posting it on Space Youtube?

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Request denied - fly better: 1
Request granted: 4

"Uh... ok. But if you blow your fighter up, it's coming out of your paycheck. And we own the footage rights as well." Zenn7 responds.

The fighter jock is giddy with excitement and spends the next week acquiring (nobody asks how) rocket launchers from the nearby training cadre's munitions stockpile, welding them together and stripping out the actual explosives (it's a practice battle, we're not trying to blow the other team up). There's a close call in the hangar as he almost screws up taking the warhead off a rocket and everyone runs for cover, but it turns out to be a false alarm.

February 5, 3043
Low Orbit
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)

Our guy manages to make enough rockets to load up everyone in Beta-Strike to the gills. We swap out one of the Lightnings for a Shilone from Alpha-Strike, to give the other pilot a chance to go up. Plus, unlike our enthusiastic aero jock, the other guy didn't want a bunch of makeshift rocket pods strapped to his fighter. On the plus side, our buddies brought a Stuka, in addition to a pair of crappy Seydlitz fighters.

This time, the exercise is a straightforward dogfight. Three of ours and three attached trainees versus ten of theirs. Mostly light fighters - Sholagars and Sabres escorting four heavies, including a pair of 90-ton Chippewas, a Shilone (mounting a pair of AC/2s instead of the normal LRM complement, no idea who thought of that design), and a Lucifer II (R16K). Our aero jocks have trouble understanding this design philosophy - why mount 30 heat worth of weapons on a fighter with 20 heat sinks? It'd be one thing if you could bracket fire, but the long-range bracket still generates too much heat.

Well, whatever, let's get on with it.

Round 1, 2:

Spoiler:

Our fighters advance in a nice, tight formation while the RCT fighters move forward a little more haphazardly.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

We save the rocket pods for the heavier fighters, as the lighter units swarm in. A Sabre gets the worst of it, engines stuttering at just the wrong moment. It registers hits from pretty much every one of our fighters in range, showing two engine hits and an "aerospace pilot unconsciousness" status.

One of the lighter hostile fighters gives a tap to a rocket launcher pod mounted on our Lucifer. "Hey, I was gonna use that! On you. But still." he mutters indignantly.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Our Shilone lines up a shot on the opfor Chippewa as it passes by and lets rip with everything, including rocket pods. The simulated rocket damage removes all traces of armor from the heavy fighter, allowing one of the allied Seydlitz fighters to finish it off.

The other Seydlitz buddy lets rip with lasers on a Sholagar, dinging the cockpit twice but overheating his fighter so bad that his engines short out temporarily.

Round 5:
Some followup shots from our Lucifer and Shilone blow out armor and heat sinks on the Sholagar. The arbiter declares it crippled.

Round 6, 7, 8:

Spoiler:

We reform and break "south", to engage the two hostile heavies that have just shown up on the edge of our sensor range. When we get in range, our Lucifer and Lightning unload their rocket pods on the Chippewa, which the Shilone then polishes off.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

As the Lucifer breaks off for another pass, we re-form. The lighter hostile fighters come around and zip in, a Sparrowhawk getting a little ahead of everyone else. Our Shilone and a trainee Seydlitz manage to get the drop on it as it pings our Lucifer and the trainee scores several system hits on the light fighter, severely damaging avionics and sensors.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

Maneuvering with "blown out" avionics is pretty tough, and the Sparrowhawk is unable to avoid an engine hit from a pursuing friendly trainee Seydlitz. The arbiter "eliminates" it. A Shilone comes to the rescue, firing at our Lucifer, but eats lasers and LRMs from our Shilone and the other trainee Seydlitz - both of the enemy fighter's light autocannons show as disabled.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

That about does it, the dogfight continues for the rest of the pass, but what winds up happening is that another hostile Sholagar and the returning Lucifer are crippled, while we don't take very much damage.

We get bitched at by local flight control for leaving jettisoned debris in orbit, which means that our enterprising aero jock winds up getting another chance to go up into orbit and clean up after himself. He's still pretty enthusiastic about it and does some field tests with actual ordnance. Unfortunately, as it turns out, there are some issues with the "ad hoc" wiring that only manifest in the atmosphere. After shocking himself several times, frying half his cockpit electronics and nearly crashing the aircraft, the poor guy gives it up.

Back to the drawing board. Or maybe see if we can buy some actual rocket launcher pods from professionals instead of having people fooling around with live ordnance and welding torches.

Most of the rest of the cadre duty contract passes without any further incidents or major exercises worthy of note - we conduct minor exercises and continue our air watch until early april. The week before our contract is officially up, our employer stages some final exercises. We'll be taking a defensive role in these scenarios for the most part, our objective being to prevent the opposing units from carrying out close examinations of several designated facilities (four in all). What's our general approach going to be?

[] Run wider patrols. This should enable us to intercept incoming "hostiles" earlier, but will leave less opportunity for our forces to support each other.
[] Run closer patrols. This should let our forces support each other in case of trouble, but may make it trivial for the "hostiles" to gain line of sight on their designated targets.

[Zenn7]

[x] Run wider patrols. This should enable us to intercept incoming "hostiles" earlier, but will leave less opportunity for our forces to support each other.
[] Run closer patrols. This should let our forces support each other in case of trouble, but may make it trivial for the "hostiles" to gain line of sight on their designated targets.

Seems like what would happen to us if we get stopped on these things.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Run wide patrols - unanimous

So that's what we do. While we're practicing running around looking for intruders, let's check in on Gamma Company.

February 9, 3043
Earthwerks Quality Testing Plant
Asuncion, Free Worlds League

Once again, the part thieves get the drop on an Earthwerks facility. The reality is that there are so many of these mech construction (and related) facilities and complexes that it's impossible to defend them all. The guys that we capture from these raids always turn out to be hired mercs with little idea of who hired them, and we lack the manpower (or, frankly, the expertise) to carry out any investigations. We usually wind up handing the prisoners over to local authorities, where, if truth be told, they probably just get cycled out quickly.

Probe Lance is in position to respond the quickest, with Battle Lance being somewhat further away. Probe is Drazzil and AWS in Phoenix Hawks (Drazzil having one without machine guns), a Vulcan and an Ostroc. They're accompanied by a militia Hunchback.

The raiders are a couple of tank lances and a light mech lance, escorting some hauler type units. Oh, and they've compromised the facility's defensive turret network completely this time. Drazzil's opinion is telling. "Why do they even bother building those things? Bunch of cheapskates."

Round 1:

Spoiler:

A light fog rolls in as our mechs move in to intercept the escaping cargo carriers. There's a curious *puff* from the back of the facility as a building appears to collapse. We catch a flatbed truck out in the open and our Vulcan quickly fries the front cab with a laser. AWS opens fire on a construction mech trying to make it out of the base, blasting through the center torso armor and lightly touching the engine with a medium laser.

The militia Hunchback gets dinged by an LRM salvo from the Manticore, a few of the missiles slipping through a weak spot in its armor to damage the right shoulder joint.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

Drazzil steps over the debris from the flatbed and fires at a construction mech trying to make a break for it. Exploiting AWS' earlier armor breach, a medium laser easily finds the internal combustion engine, blowing it out. The construction mech keels over.

An AC/2 carrier sends a rapid stream of light autocannon rounds at AWS, plinking many rounds off the Phoenix Hawk's armor to little effect. A Manticore tank adds a PPC and some LRMs to the mix as well, forcing our mechwarrior to concentrate on keeping the mech upright. Still, the Phoenix Hawk manages a couple of solid laser blasts to the front of the Manticore.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

The militia Hunchback just isn't having any luck. As it moves towards the base, its left leg comes off under fire from the AC/2 carrier as AWS jumps out of line of sight.

At least our Vulcan disables the offending Manticore, blasting holes in the armor with lasers then filling the interior with MG fire, destroying the engine.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

AWS has an eye on the prize, tracking down a cargo truck escaping with stolen goods and disabling it. Unfortunately, the means by which the truck is disabled is ignition of the fuel tank, which doesn't leave much in the way of remains or equipment to recover.

Drazzil jumps north to engage a Javelin, while our Vulcan moves up to attack a Vedette, eating a couple of SRMs to the left shoulder. Annoying. Drazzil takes a faceful of SRMs from the 30-ton missile platform, but scores a laser hit and throws out a kick. The lighter mech blocks, but not well enough and is knocked over.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

Battle lance shows up to the north, which will let us mop up pretty quick. Probe lance moves into the base, driving a couple of retreating tanks and mechs before them. Except for AWS, who doubles back to disable the AC/2 carrier - apparently, the guy in the Vulcan thought it was out of action, but the militia Hunchback reports that it's firing on him. Well, good luck doing that with a knocked out engine and an armor breach.

Drazzil engages the enemy Vulcan, blowing a hole through its right torso with the large laser, while Xwraith snipes at the previously downed Javelin as it gets up, taking armor off the left leg. Him and our Ostroc also play a little football with the adjacent Vedette, cracking through the turret, which encourages the crew to leave.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Our Vulcan overheated a little bit, so the machine is sluggish, allowing the enemy Vulcan to catch up as it tries to take a break from Drazzil's harassment. Unfortunately for the other mechwarrior, it was a feint, as Drazzil and our Ostroc both pig pile on the poor medium, knocking it to a knee.

To the west, AWS engages the enemy Javelin, absorbing a good number of SRMs but breaking its leg off at the hip.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Our Vulcan jumps east, cracking several actuators on a ScavengerMech as it tries to clear itself out from the rubble of a building it had carelessly collapsed earlier, knocking it to the ground, then stomping on one of its legs to crack it off. And another while it's at it.

Drazzil and AWS engage the enemy Vulcan as it tries to get up, delivering a flurry of lasers to strip arm armor, then, while it staggers, AWS breaks its left leg.

To the north, Hyena, Xwraith, Scrub and Cylus engage the units and turrets present, Hyena doing some serious armor damage to a Cicada. Well, it wouldn't be serious for most other mechs, but the Cicada has about as much armor as it has weapons. Which is, to say, not very much at all.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

We converge on the hostile units, although one of them is pretty dangerous a "torso harvester" Centurion (CN9-AH) with an AC/20. It blasts Xwraith right in the center of mass, but the Thunderbolt's considerable armor holds up. The Thunderbolt is knocked over, though, and the Cicada dings one of its arms with a foot. Scrub gets revenge by blowing out one of the enemy mech's lasers with fire from the Crusader.

Cylus jumps along to the south and disables a Vedette, picking it out from a cluster of other tanks.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

Scrub, Xwraith and Cylus continue trying to break up the tank cluster to the southeast, while the lighter units work on the Cicada and Centurion. They'll switch off again in a few seconds.

Our Vulcan legs the Cicada, putting an end to that mech's combat effectiveness.

Cylus' Catapult eats a substantial number of SRMs from the carrier, but armor holds up mostly. Xwraith disables it almost immediately after with a couple of laser blasts, and then Cylus nails it in the fuel tank in revenge. Scrub lands the Crusader nearby and blows the treads off the adjacent AC/2 carrier.

AWS is going to need some spare parts for that Phoenix Hawk as the Centurion lets rip with a string of AC/20 rounds, completely disabling the medium mech's left torso, and knocking off the arm.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

AWS gets a little flustered and jumps out with the Phoenix Hawk's remaining jump jets, but lands on top of a non-sturdy structure and collapses it, cracking a couple of lasers and some engine shielding.

At least our mechwarrior survives. The guy in the Cicada yanks the ejection lever and blasts himself straight into a building.

We finally knock the Centurion down, after it takes about half of Hyena's armor off with that damn AC/20. As it hits the ground, the AC/20 arm comes off.

With that, we're able to stand off at range and disable the rest of the turrets, letting the Earthwerks recovery teams move in. The Centurion, we let walk off the field, in honor of the guy's ability to show us what-for with that AC/20.

AWS got 4 kills on this one, an AC/2 Carrier, a Vulcan, a Javelin and a random quad-legged industrial mech.
Drazzil wound up with two kills, a constructionmech and a flamer turret, although plenty of assists.
Cylus arrived late and got a pair of kills, a Vedette and an SRM Carrier.

It takes the better part of a week to fix up AWS' Phoenix Hawk, that AC/20 really worked him over.

We also capture a pair of mechwarriors. While we're not too confident that they'll provide us any info on who's raiding Earthwerks *this time*, it's getting a little tiresome having to repel well-armed robbers from facility after facility.

[] Hand 'em over to the local authorities for a small 50k C-Bill bonus. We're only here for another two months.
[] Ask them politely.
[] Break out the neuro-whips and interrogation drugs.
[] Have a volunteer mechwarrior seduce one.

[Cylus Maxii]

[] Ask them politely.

[gbasden]

We also capture a pair of mechwarriors. While we're not too confident that they'll provide us any info on who's raiding Earthwerks *this time*, it's getting a little tiresome having to repel well-armed robbers from facility after facility.

[] Hand 'em over to the local authorities for a small 50k C-Bill bonus. We're only here for another two months.
[] Ask them politely.
[X] Break out the neuro-whips and interrogation drugs.
[] Have a volunteer mechwarrior seduce one.

But politely.

[Zenn7]

We also capture a pair of mechwarriors. While we're not too confident that they'll provide us any info on who's raiding Earthwerks *this time*, it's getting a little tiresome having to repel well-armed robbers from facility after facility.

[] Hand 'em over to the local authorities for a small 50k C-Bill bonus. We're only here for another two months.
[] Ask them politely.
[] Break out the neuro-whips and interrogation drugs.
[x] Have a volunteer mechwarrior seduce one.

Send in the GUAP! Seems like a perfect follow-up mission to his solo adventure back at Butt Hold.

I'M KIDDING! PUT THE LASER CUTTER DOWN GUAP!!!

Ask them politely. That fails... Break out the neuro-whips and interrogation drugs!

[El Guapo]

We also capture a pair of mechwarriors. While we're not too confident that they'll provide us any info on who's raiding Earthwerks *this time*, it's getting a little tiresome having to repel well-armed robbers from facility after facility.

[] Hand 'em over to the local authorities for a small 50k C-Bill bonus. We're only here for another two months.
[] Ask them politely.
[] Break out the neuro-whips and interrogation drugs.
[X] Have a volunteer mechwarrior seduce one.

I am a weapon of love as well as war.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Hand them over - 1
Ask politely - 4
Straight to (polite) torture - 1
seduction - 3

"I am not going to be seducing anyone." Cylus states flatly. "Besides, what if he's gay?"

Hyena shrugs and grins sheepishly. "Just a suggestion. I suppose we could send El Guapo over in that case."

Scrub rolls her eyes. "I'll talk to him. Anybody got a neural whip I can borrow?"

----------------

The Moonraker's medical bay is well-used, and currently sparsely occupied by a couple of mechwarriors. Some previously-captured tankers are still under our medical care but currently simply confined to quarters, rather than under intensive supervision.

One of the captured mechwarriors is currently unconscious, having suffered a pretty major concussion when his Cicada got beat all to hell. So, Scrub goes to talk to the other one, a short, blond kid.

"I'm Zanthe. Lt. Pappathanassiou, if you prefer." she states. "You are..?"

"Private Letje Abendroth, Sixth Simko's Saracens." he replies. Three of his limbs are currently mildly restrained, that Vulcan also got beat up all to hell.

"What happened to to the other five?" Scrub asks, almost involuntarily. "Never mind. Here's the deal. You're currently being treated as a prisoner of war, as per the Ares Conventions. We'll keep you here until the doctors clear you, and then... well, that's going to be up to you."

"What do you mean? What happens then?"

"Well." Scrub says, pretending to examine her data pad. "We've got an arrangement with the local authorities to release prisoners to them. I don't know what they do with those guys, and, honestly, I don't ask."

The kid tries to remain impassive, but the heart rate monitor shows increased heart rate.

"But, I'm getting kind of tired of having my mechwarriors chase down raiders. So, why don't you tell me who hired you, and to do what exactly. And then you can continue hanging out here until we leave instead. If the info's good, we'll even let you keep your mech." Scrub goes shifty-eyed. "The parts we haven't stripped out to fix the ones you guys damaged anyway."

--------------

The captured mechwarrior doesn't really know who hired these raiders, but does know the coordinates of their planned rendezvous to drop off the stolen goodies. We don't really have enough mechs to leave our posts, so we contact Force Commander Adnan. She's more than happy to help. "As long as your guys fly air patrol. We're a little low on active aircraft."

The rendezvous is about ten days after our previous battle. Sure enough, a couple of dropships break orbit. Gamma-Strike is on station to intercept them as they hit atmo, along with a Marik Gotha. The GTHA-400 is bristling with guns long range and short, although it's a little lacking in the heat sink department. Our fighters get intercepted by hostile escorting fighters well clear of the dropships - a pair of Lucifers, a Corsair and a Stingray. This is a straight-up dogfight - by the time we're done here, those dropships will have grounded.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

"Hey Strike Three, your hair still green?"

"Yes. Still green." Strike Three answers, firing his Lightning's AC/20 at a Corsair.

"What about your moustache?"

"Yes."

"How about down under?" Comes a snickering comment as our other Lightning blasts through the engine compartment of a hostile Lucifer.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

"Cut the chatter, goddammit." the Lieutenant in Strike One warns. The damaged enemy Lucifer peels off, having a hard enough time maintaining altitude. This allows Strike Three to continue tailing the Corsair as it hangs on to our Stingray, scoring multiple hits but failing to breach armor or cause any critical damage.

To the south, our Lightning gets on a hostile Stingray's tail. It gets a little beat up by the Lucifer but keeps target lock, blasting chunks out of the hostile aerospace fighter with the autocannon. The enemy starts losing altitude.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Strike Two gets in behind the Lucifer that pinged it before and opens up with the AC/20. The enemy aerospace fighter plows into the ground shortly after. The Marik Gotha continues blasting away at the enemy Stingray, damaging the power plant with an LRM salvo - it peels off as well.

This leaves just a Corsair being chased by our Lightning. With a minimum amount of armor on its tail, it also breaks contact. The dropships "lose" our fighters, but then get bushwacked by Marik forces under FC Adnan. After blowing one of them to bits, the other surrenders.

That brings the raids against Earthwerks to an end. At least until our contract expires, which happens a little over a month later. We collect the remainder of our pay and sell off our salvage. The various local organizations pay about 15M C-Bills for our various salvage bits (with such amazing deals as "half-gutted Saracen hovertank", "Lucifer LCF-R15 bent in half after impact with ground", "Phoenix Hawk missing every limb" and "500-year-old Griffin with weapons, jump jets and half of its internal structure stripped out"). Pretty good profit.

Garrison Duty contracts are always tough. On the one hand, they're pretty cushy if you're stationed on a planet where there's a couple of nearby mech and aerospace factories, and excellent food. On the other hand, you're stuck there for almost two years while things in the outside world move at a breakneck pace. Or you can wind up on some stupid high-G hellhole with lava everywhere, guarding a seismic monitoring station.

Still, other than a few hiccups, Earthwerks is overall content with our performance on this contract. We prevented major damage to their facilities and stopped *most* of the thefts. They still ignore our advice on information security, though.

------------------

We hold a brief memorial service for the two mechwarriors we lost on this garrison duty contract - AWS Mk I and a mechwarrior who hadn't earned her callsign yet, but was a natural at gunnery. Hyena and Scrub also each make brief pilgrimages to the place where their Striker and Warhammer respectively got blown away. The damage has long since been cleaned up, and the locals are reluctant to let our guys into that orbital defense facility, but FC Adnan clears up any confusion by barking at the security personnel involved.

We keep our word to the captured mechwarrior, foregoing turning him over to the local authorities. He'll ride with us until we leave Free Worlds League territory, then can either switch ships or disembark when we get to Outreach.

As we're starting to load our mechs up into the dropship, Scrub is approached by an Earthwerks representative, who offers us a pretty good deal, refitting our remaining Warhammer here to a 7A variant using their factory facilities. The 7A design has been around since the Star League days and was used by the "Royal" divisions of the Star League army. It's got everything: double heat sinks, extended-range PPCs, small pulse lasers, near-maximum armor, and SRM/6 with Artemis IV targeting computer + warheads for better clustering. And "Cellular Ammunition Storage Equipment" (CASE) in case the SRMs blow up. We'd be expected to cover the cost of individual parts and labor, but normally we wouldn't be able to get half the parts, especially the endo-steel stuff.

The downside is that getting replacement parts for this thing would be a pain in the ass. Endo-steel stuff is currently being made only in the Draconis Combine, as are the pulse lasers and ER PPCs. Where they got the double heat sinks is probably a question of great interest to the various FedCom intelligence services. And we'd have to give telemetry and performance reports on a regular basis.

Also, the thing would be out of action for three months, so we'd either have to stick around on Asuncion that long or have them ship it over to Outreach after they're done.

[] Do the refit, that's a lot of cool toys
[] Do the refit, but only if they can do it on Outreach
[] Skip the refit, spare parts from the Combine are too much of a hassle

[Cylus Maxii]

[] Skip the refit, spare parts from the Combine are too much of a hassle - and it will be a big walking HVT

[Zenn7]

[] Do the refit, that's a lot of cool toys
[x] Do the refit, but only if they can do it on Outreach
[] Skip the refit, spare parts from the Combine are too much of a hassle

Is the only on Outreach that they do the refit on Outreach or ship it to Outreach. I don't want to stick around, but if they can do it or even just ship it to Outreach, let's do it! If they got the goods to do this once, they are likely to eventually be able to help with replacement parts (probably at a premium, but we can afford it).

Sides, Scrubb deserves a good ride, she's one of our best and been with us from the beginning.
Not to mention the crap she has to put up with from her lance! :p

[El Guapo]

[] Do the refit, that's a lot of cool toys
[x] Do the refit, but only if they can do it on Outreach
[] Skip the refit, spare parts from the Combine are too much of a hassle

Is the only on Outreach that they do the refit on Outreach or ship it to Outreach. I don't want to stick around, but if they can do it or even just ship it to Outreach, let's do it! If they got the goods to do this once, they are likely to eventually be able to help with replacement parts (probably at a premium, but we can afford it).

Sides, Scrubb deserves a good ride, she's one of our best and been with us from the beginning.
Not to mention the crap she has to put up with from her lance! :p

Agree with this.

Not to be too greedy, but can we tweak the 7A design at all? I vaguely recall small pulse lasers being fairly useless, so combining that with them being hard to replace, could we just swap them out for something more replaceable and less useless?

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Do the refit: 3
Don't do the refit: 3
Tie-breaker: Scrub does not like driving a Crusader.

Scrub sighs. "Look, we've got a jumpship already chartered and need to burn for orbit in a couple of days, we can't really stick around here for another three months. Can you guys have your techs to the upgrade on Outreach?"

"Sorry, no. We're going to be using it to set up test production lines here."

"What about shipping the mech to Outreach when it's finished?"

"That we can do."

"Great." Scrub says. "Now, to figure out how to get rid of those small pulse lasers. Maybe I'll have our guys put the machine guns back in instead."

---------------

April 3, 3043
Training Grounds
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)

Epsilon-Assault lance is one of the lances we commit to the final exercise, assigning them to patrol a couple of mountain passes that lead to the targets we have been assigned to defend, and prevent the identification of. It's a pretty heavyweight lance, with a Battlemaster, a Longbow, an Orion (driven by Private Karla "Wolf" Mellum, a recent hire and an expert in navigating mountainous terrain) and a Warhammer. The Battlemaster has had a minor modification, with its MG ammo bin reduced by half and the extra tonnage used for armor. The Warhammer is one of our recent tech upgrades, featuring double heat sinks, a half-ton MG ammo bin and near-maximum armor for the chassis. The regimental combat team trainees with us are a pair of Crusaders and another Warhammer. Anything that tries to come through these mountain passes is in for a world of hurt.

And something does, as sensors pick up a large number of blips moving in. A reinforced lance of light mechs backed up by almost two companies of light armor - hovercraft, tanks and VTOLs.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

"That... is a lot of sensor blips." Wolf states as our assaults and heavies lumber forward.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

About 2/3 of the incoming "hostiles".

Round 3:

Spoiler:

We open up at maximum range, but our weapons fire isn't terribly effective - missiles puff up small clouds from the ground, while PPC shots fly overhead.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

We see a VTOL kind of lose control and land pretty roughly in the distance. "Hey, you guys ok over there?" One of the attached trainees calls out on the general frequency. No response.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

We continue the exercise for now, exchanging weapons fire. Autocannon rounds whiz by us, while we finally manage to score one hit, a PPC from our upgraded Warhammer to a Scimitar tank that doesn't appear to have much effect. "Adjudicator computer's acting up." the the Warhammer's mechwarrior reports. "Says 'invalid target' or something like that?"

"Same here." Wolf adds. "I'll double check the IFF system."

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Weapons fire continues to whiff all around as the hovercraft dart back and forth, occasionally spitting out warheads, lasers and autocannon rounds.

"No way these are friendlies." Wolf states, watching a salvo of LRMs arc by our Battlemaster and impact the ground. Unlike the de-activated warheads we use, these ones blow up for real. "IFF isn't confirming, either."

Round 7:

Spoiler:

Our Battlemaster rocks back as a Saladin whaps it with a live AC/20 round. "Assault Lance, I am taking live fire. Opposing force, cease fire immediately, you are shooting live rounds at friendly forces." the lance leader broadcasts over the open frequency.

The response is silence.

"Assault lance and attached units, you are authorized to return fire. Power up your guns and switch to live ammunition." The guy in the Battlemaster punctuates this by firing at the Saladin that blasted him, breaching its armor with a couple of laser shots - the hover tank turns around and starts zipping away.

Wolf's Orion and the nearby Drillson exchange fire, the Drillson taking multiple SRMs and autocannon rounds as it closes in - its short range missile battery dings our mechwarrior's cockpit with one, sending shards of debris slicing across the left leg. Our mechwarrior holds fire with the arm lasers, waiting for just the right moment, then brings the mech's fists down as the tank crosses a nearby hill, breaching the armor. That's the last we see of that hovercraft as it zips off (although it takes the driver a while to regain control of his spinning vehicle).

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Our Battlemaster advances, firing its PPC and lasers at a Locust skulking around in the woods across the river. The lasers go wide, but the PPC shot strikes true, breaching the right torso armor and shearing off some engine shielding. Not really a problem for a Locust, but the PPC shot also gets the Locust's laser - which about does it for that particular mechwarrior who turns around and runs off at a healthy pace.

Wolf tracks a Saladin zipping between rock outcroppings, which allows our mechwarrior to watch as an enemy Javelin unloads SRMs at the Battlemaster. It's almost laughable, until one goes through the hole punched by the AC/20 earlier. The SRM ammo goes up, which would be enough to take the Battlemaster out of action, but then there's a secondary MG amo explosion, which just completely disintegrates our mech. This distracts our mechwarrior to the point where all the Orion's shots miss, although they force the Saladin to chip off a bit of its skirt as it crunches along a large glacial rock, then takes a laser to the rear from an attached trainee Warhammer. This stops the AC/20-carrying tank cold.

Our mechwarrior bails out safely.

To the north, our upgraded Warhammer wades into the water, firing short range weapons at a Scimitar tank zipping by. The hovercraft takes severe damage, causing it to dip into the water and sink.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

We continue moving up, the loss of the Battlemaster notwithstanding. Our Longbow unloads LRMs at a distant Goblin troop carrier, then pauses briefly to spear an attack helicopter as it tries to slip by, blasting it with the two medium lasers. The chopper breaks up in mid-air.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

Wolf bounds up the hill to the west, trying to get a better angle. The Orion takes a large laser hit from long range, fired by a Mongoose (never seen that one before - apparently it's a fast 25-ton command mech with a single large laser and nearly max armor for a 25-tonner).

To the north, our Warhammer finishes hunting down a Saracen which was trying to get away from it, popping it open with a pair of PPC shots.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

Wolf ducks behind a rock outcropping just in time to avoid several lasers scorching by overhead, delivering one back to the offending Jenner.

Our Longbow plants its feet and fires a cloud of 50 LRMs down range. The victim, a poor little Skulker scout tank, survives the experience, but all of its wheels are off.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

Wolf watches the target Jenner arc up on jump jets and disappear into a strand of trees, switching targets to a Javelin. The autocannon shots go wide, but the lasers strike true, piercing the left torso and the ammo bin there. The 30-ton mech disappears, leaving behind a charred patch of ground and clattering metal debris.

Between our Warhammer and Longbow, the hostile Manticore tank loses all of its armor and begins an attempted retreat.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

The Jenner that got away from Wolf gets into some serious trouble as it comes into our Longbow's line of sight. Say what you will about the 90-ton mech being slow and ungainly, but if you're in optimal range of those fifty LRM tubes, you're in a world of hurt. The bird-like 35-tonner's left leg comes off under the missile barrage, as do half its lasers on the same side.

Then our Warhammer blasts it with a PPC and the SRM ammo goes up.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

"Up and over!" Wolf calls out, leading the charge with the Orion. The two Crusaders follow, while our pockmarked Warhammer sits back and snipes with PPCs, blowing the right half off the second hostile Javelin. Wolf runs the Orion's lasers along the right side of a Scimitar hover tank, popping the skirt and trapping it in a small pit.

To the south, a Skulker falls victim to the trainee Warhammer, having managed to avoid him for the last half a minute.

With that, the remaining hostiles give up trying to force the pass and zip off. Since we're all in assault mechs, pursuit is basically impossible. Most of the attackers got away, and we were unable to capture any prisoners - they were either dead or managed to evade and escape. Salvage is kind of crap, but we grab a bunch of spare armor and some ammo before handing the hulks over to the local scrap yard for a nominal price. Even with the battle loss compensation, we took a bath on that one.

It seems that the Battlemaster is another one of those mechs that's just incompatible with our company, as it seems that every one we field gets blown up on its first deployment. Kind of like the ground-bound Thunderbolt curse we've got (the 5SE variants work just fine though).

We (and we assume, the attached trainees) report the incident to the local commanders. After some discussion, the two major categories of approaches are to either cancel the training exercises and look for the escaped intruders or continue the exercises. We don't really care one way or the other, since our contract is up in less than a week and then we're packing up and burning for orbit. Looking for the intruders might get us more salvage, but we also risk losing more mechs. Captain Allred looks at our command staff and asks: "Well, what's your recommendation?"

[] Cancel training exercises, spend the rest of our contract time running search patterns.
[] Keep going with the training, it's not really our problem.

[Zenn7]

[x] Cancel training exercises, spend the rest of our contract time running search patterns.
[] Keep going with the training, it's not really our problem.

It's our problem if they show up for a training exercise again. Don't want us firing training shots at live enemies lobbing live shots back at us. Might go much worse next time...

[gbasden]

[x] Cancel training exercises, spend the rest of our contract time running search patterns.
[] Keep going with the training, it's not really our problem.

It's our problem if they show up for a training exercise again. Don't want us firing training shots at live enemies lobbing live shots back at us. Might go much worse next time...

Very much agreed.

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Cancel exercises - unanimous

"You know what makes for great training?" Gbasden answers Captain Allred's query. "Actual combat."

"Can't argue with that." the man responds.

So that's what we do, deploy our units in a search pattern in an attempt to track down the intruders, working in lance pairs (well, the RCT supplies short lances, but still). Delta-Ranger and their FedCom buddies are the first to come up on a hostile force - a bunch of tracks and hovercraft supported by a light mech lance.

Our recon lance detects the hostiles before they detect us (sensor pings, no known friendlies in the area), and we move to surround them.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Archinerd (Mk III)'s Dervish flits through the woods as the mechwarrior nimbly avoids trees, briefly firing jump jets to execute rapid turns. The rest of Delta-Ranger kind of stomps along, Freyland grumbling about "stupid showoffs".

Round 2:
[Camera feed lost]
"Ha!" Freyland spots a clearing, picking up the Quickdraw's pace to charge at a Manticore tank, stepping aside as it fires its PPC and LRMs in our mech's direction. MadMarcus' Wolverine eats the PPC and LRMs, with a laser and an SRM six-pack going wide. Our mechs return fire, melting armor off the Manticore, while Freyland's SRMs rattle the crew and blow chunks off the heavy tank's treads. Freyland's boot takes the last off the armor off the Manticore's left side, which convinces the crew to wrap it up and try to slink off into the woods.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

We move on against other targets as the Manticore belches smoke and spins its wheels.

Archinerd runs up to a Hunter support tank trying to move through the woods, removing its left side treads with the Dervish's lasers and SRMs. The double heat sink upgrades really let our mechwarrior keep the weapons fire going at a good rate.

Freyland wades in, using the Quickdraw's lasers to cut through the front armor of a Vedette, avoiding its ineffectual counterfire (that AC/2 is absolutely no good at this close range), then sticks the Quickdraw's foot in through the breach, rooting around a little.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Freyland fires up the Quickdraw's jump jets, landing square between a Stinger and a Wasp. The Stinger fires at our mech, only succeeding in setting the surrounding woods on fire, then loses the left arm machine gun and its entire right arm to the Quickdraw's lasers and streak SRMs. This leaves it entirely weaponless. Freyland then turns to the Wasp, cracking its right leg in half and sending the bug mech flopping to the ground. It's no hat trick, but two mechs disabled in ten seconds ain't too bad.

Archinerd works hard on the adjacent Scorpion tank, blasting its weak armor with lasers and SRMs, then kicking it over.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

Freyland jumps out of the fire and north, cutting a Saladin hovertank in half while landing. One of the lasers brushes the fuel tank and being cut in half turns into being scattered all over several hundred meters of terrain.

The Wasp that Freyland legged earlier struggles up and opens fire on Madmarcus as the Wolverine moves up to try to catch up with our Quickdraw. Its reward is the loss of its right arm and the other leg, putting it down for good.

To the east, our FedCom allies report destroying a Scorpion tank and disabling a Tokugawa heavy tank. The hostiles quickly lose their nerve after that, and their remaining hovercraft and light mechs book it to the north. Unfortunately, they're a little faster than our units, so we lose track of them, but at least we've got a good fix on them.

We capture a few prisoners this time around, so maybe we'll get an idea of who these guys are and what they're up to.

Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault move into the area and conduct a search pattern along the hostiles' projected retreat route, so we'll have a couple more fights to go. Technically, our contract is up on the 8th, so we probably *could* tell our employer to buzz off. However, Cpt. Allred pulls Gbasden aside and suggests that, while he understands if we want to depart, if we stick around long enough to help repel these intruders, he'll cover our costs for any extra days of combat operations and also allow us access to purchase a Zephyr hovertank. Not just any, a Royal model. The Zephyr is a Star League design. Similar to a Pegasus in its functionality (multiple short-range weapons, in this case, three medium lasers), but, unlike a Pegasus it also comes with a NARC missile beacon and a TAG system. And also ferro-fibrous armor.

A NARC (nobody's really sure what the acronym stands for) is basically a homing pod that attaches to a designated target, and missiles home in on it, making it easier to hit NARCed targets. Unfortunately, we'd also have to buy a bunch of missiles with specialized tracking systems to take advantage of NARC data. It's also useful if we want to "catch and release" enemy units, although we'd need to stay pretty close - once a unit returns to base, any cursory inspection will easily detect a NARC beacon attached to a unit.

TAG stands for "Target Acquisition Gear", and is basically a way of designating a unit for indirect fire. Works with any kind of indirect-fired, homing long range munitions, so it's pretty generally useful. Technically, anyone can designate targets for indirect fire now, but you have to point your targeting reticle at it and maintain line of sight while the warheads fly in. TAG has its own automated target designation subsystem, so that process is a little easier. It'll work pretty well with our LRM-equipped units, allowing them to more accurately rain missiles down on targets out of line of sight.

The ferro-fibrous armor and NARC "ammo" are kind of a pain, since they're not exactly in general production, but a fast hovercraft able to designate targets for indirect fire could be useful.

So, the bottom line is, we can either call it done and leave, or stick around. If we stick around, we get extra pay, extra salvage (the 100% salvage portion of the contract is still in effect) and a shiny new toy, in addition to employer goodwill.

[] Pack it in and head out, that's enough of this 1.5G nonsense
[] Stick around, it shouldn't take too long to finish these scrubs off

[El Guapo]

[] Pack it in and head out, that's enough of this 1.5G nonsense
[X] Stick around, it shouldn't take too long to finish these scrubs off

Unless we have something better to do.

Re: the TAG system, does that also work with artillery? Would be great if we could have someone out on the field making our artillery shells more accurate.

[NickAragua]

It does, although to really get any effect out of it with regard to artillery, we'll want shells which are specifically designed to take advantage of TAG designation (e.g. Arrow IV homing, copperhead), which aren't in wide production yet.

[Cylus Maxii]

[X] Stick around, it shouldn't take too long to finish these scrubs off

[Stefan Stirzaker]

Stick around. We laugh at 1.5g now

[Zenn7]

Stick around, new toys!

1.5G? Really? I hadn't noticed a difference.

[gbasden]

[X] Stick around, it shouldn't take too long to finish these scrubs off

+1

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Stick around - unanimous

"Don't worry, Captain, we'll finish this off." Gbasden replies.

April 8, 3043
200km east of training grounds
Basalt, Federated Commonwealth (Suns)

With lighter recon units helping out, Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault are able to split up a fairly large hostile force that we track down. The hostiles figure it out and the western part of the hostile force (heavy mech lance, light mech lance and a reinforced tank company) tries to squeeze in and get past Alpha to join up with their buddies being attacked by Beta-Assault.

Alpha Command's attached buddies are a Wolverine, a Hunchback (4H) and a standard Rifleman. There's a snowstorm coming in, about to cover the rocky valley we're trying to hold with a layer of not-so-light powder.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

"That's... an intimidating amount of sensor blips." El Guapo reports, easing the Marauder into position behind a rocky outcrop. Our plan is to camp out on this ridge and nail the hostiles as they come in.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

"Let's see what we've got here..."

A bunch of hovertanks and bug mechs up front, heavy tanks in the back. Catapult K2 - PPCs instead of LRM launchers. Grand Dragon. Hermes II. Hunchback and standard Catapult up north. Definitely a Kurita-style loadout.

El Guapo starts the party off, lining up a PPC shot at a rapidly advancing Harasser (a fast hovercraft with couple of lasers, annoying if it gets in close). The particle beam shears off the right side of the hovercraft.

Gbasden puts the Awesome's extended-range PPC to good use, targeting the K2 Catapult in the middle of the enemy formation and melting armor off the right-side PPC.

Some LRMs come at us from the advancing enemy forces, but none make contact.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

The snow helps us cool off, letting our mechs maintain a more constant rate of fire. Of course, it also helps the other guys.

El Guapo swings the Marauder to the next target, the advancing K2 Catapult. A pair of PPC shots zap armor off, while the gauss rifle blasts the armor off the right PPC barrel. Unbalanced by the armor loss, the hostile mech keels over to the right, snapping the already-damaged PPC "arm" off.

Gbasden's attack against the Grand Dragon doesn't do much other than take a little armor off.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur aims the Hatchetman's autocannon up, putting that misplaced anti-aircraft tracking system to good use by blowing away a Warrior attack helicopter as it zips in.

Gbasden switches targets from the Grand Dragon to something a little closer, taking the left leg off an approaching Locust with the extended range PPC.

Stefan squares the Catapult's legs and shoulders and fires LRMs at a Pegasus, scoring hits and damaging the skirt but not disabling it entirely.

Mildly ineffective return fire comes back our way, but nothing really hits - between the snow, the gravity and us taking cover behind hill outcroppings, it's pretty tough to land hits.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

There's a lot of weapons fire, but it either misses or just hits armor with no real damage. A worrying development is that the hostiles appear to be trying to bypass us to the north, although the Locust doesn't quite make it as the allied Wolverine intercepts it and gives it a solid kick to the leg, cracking multiple joints and actuators, at which point it spins around and falls over.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

We redirect our Davion buddies to shore up the north flank. The Locust there somehow manages to get up, partially. Gbasden focuses fire on the K2 Catapult, hitting it in the left torso section with two PPCs, which takes out most of the rest of its armament, leaving it with just a single laser and machine gun. The severe damage unbalances the enemy mech again, causing it to keel over.

Isgrimnur opens up on the Pegasus that Stefan slowed down earlier, turning the tank into confetty with lasers and autocannon fire.

El Guapo targes the Grand Dragon to the west, blasting it in the right leg with a PPC shot - the results are pretty spectacular, with sparks, metal bits and actuator bundles spilling out from all over the whole leg. As it teeters, it also eats a gauss slug to the center of mass, falling over backwards. Still in the fight, but severely damaged.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

The guy in the Grand Dragon doesn't really do too well getting up - instead, it slips and stops moving. Probably the guy knocked himself out. Good chance for us to either leg the mech for good or focus fire on some other target. The K2 Catapult doesn't really have any better luck getting up either.

We focus fire on the standard Catapult, Gbasden melting armor off its right-side missile rack. El Guapo then follows up with a gauss shot, ripping said rack right off. Along with half the cockpit assembly. His Marauder takes a flamer bath from the nearby Hermes, heating the Marauder up a little more than expected, even in the snow, but it can handle it - not like he's trying to go anywhere fast.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Our hopes of salvaging the K2 Catapult go up with its machine gun ammo as the mechwarrior continues to struggle to get up, eventually scraping the ammo bin against some rocks and crushing enough rounds to set off a chain reaction.

The Hermes tries to get in behind El Guapo's Marauder, but our mechwarrior is on the ball and turns the mech around just in time.

"You got him?" Gbasden asks before ignoring the annoying 40-tonner and firing at a Hunchback passing to the north, the armor loss throwing off its aim at an allied unit and causing it to fall backwards.

"Yeah." El Guapo replies, pasting the Hermes with a PPC and a couple of lasers. Seeing that it's not enough, he delivers a bird-leg kick, but the damn Hermes just remains standing. Although at least it misses with its laser as a result.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

Isgrimnur is not about to let that Hermes get away, braving the flamer burst to get in close. The weapons fire is not very effective from both sides otherwise, each scoring a laser hit, but then Isgrimnur's hatchet sweeps across the 40-tonner's knees, breaking the right leg in half.

Gbasden continues targeting the Hunchback as it struggles up, blasting it with three PPC shots, including one to the dome. Our allies add some firepower as well, knocking the right arm off with some SRMs.

El Guapo fires north, hitting a Galleon tank as it skulks around a corner - the crew is disoriented by the armor breach and the tank is shortly wiped out by the allied Hunchback.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

The snow's starting to pile up, which doesn't really matter that much to our mechs yet. We pound the Hunchback and Panther to the north, inflicting major armor and internal damage, but not destroying any systems. Our allied Hunchback reports taking minor damage, but a quick glance at his mech's status shows just a little head damage.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

The hostile Hunchback breaks off to the north, accompanied by its nearly-legged Locust pal. We unleash hell on the vehicles advancing from the west, with Gbasden disabling a Manticore, El Guapo punching through the armor on a Vedette and Isgrimnur taking out a Galleon with the Hatchetman's autocannon.

The rapid loss of so many units has the rest of the hostile force retreating in pretty quick order. One of our FedCom buddies (the Wolverine) tracks them at maximum sensor range and concludes that their combat effective units (two lances of heavy tanks) are moving towards another valley, trying to work their way around us so they can get at where Beta-Assault is engaging a similarly-sized force. Our two options here are to either have Alpha-Command move to the next pass and try to cut those guys off, or reinforce Beta-Assault directly and face everyone down there. Alpha-Command is in almost pristine shape, although Stefan's ammo is running a little low. If we cut them off, they're likely to just retreat since there's no way those tanks can take us on with our range advantage. If we turn Beta-Assault's fight into a larger brawl, we'll probably get more salvage but also risk taking more damage.

[] Alpha-Command moves to cut off looping reinforcements.
[] Alpha-Command moves to Beta-Assault's location.

[El Guapo]

[X] Alpha-Command moves to cut off looping reinforcements.
[] Alpha-Command moves to Beta-Assault's location.

I hate to say it, because enormous brawls are just tons of fun, but unfortunately this seems like the more logical / sensible option.

[gbasden]

[] Alpha-Command moves to cut off looping reinforcements.
[X] Alpha-Command moves to Beta-Assault's location.

Given that we are in such good shape, it seems that reinforcing Beta-Assault maximizes our utility.

[Drazzil]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Cancel exercises - unanimous

"You know what makes for great training?" Gbasden answers Captain Allred's query. "Actual combat."

"Can't argue with that." the man responds.

So that's what we do, deploy our units in a search pattern in an attempt to track down the intruders, working in lance pairs (well, the RCT supplies short lances, but still). Delta-Ranger and their FedCom buddies are the first to come up on a hostile force - a bunch of tracks and hovercraft supported by a light mech lance.

Our recon lance detects the hostiles before they detect us (sensor pings, no known friendlies in the area), and we move to surround them.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Archinerd (Mk III)'s Dervish flits through the woods as the mechwarrior nimbly avoids trees, briefly firing jump jets to execute rapid turns. The rest of Delta-Ranger kind of stomps along, Freyland grumbling about "stupid showoffs".

Round 2:
[Camera feed lost]
"Ha!" Freyland spots a clearing, picking up the Quickdraw's pace to charge at a Manticore tank, stepping aside as it fires its PPC and LRMs in our mech's direction. MadMarcus' Wolverine eats the PPC and LRMs, with a laser and an SRM six-pack going wide. Our mechs return fire, melting armor off the Manticore, while Freyland's SRMs rattle the crew and blow chunks off the heavy tank's treads. Freyland's boot takes the last off the armor off the Manticore's left side, which convinces the crew to wrap it up and try to slink off into the woods.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

We move on against other targets as the Manticore belches smoke and spins its wheels.

Archinerd runs up to a Hunter support tank trying to move through the woods, removing its left side treads with the Dervish's lasers and SRMs. The double heat sink upgrades really let our mechwarrior keep the weapons fire going at a good rate.

Freyland wades in, using the Quickdraw's lasers to cut through the front armor of a Vedette, avoiding its ineffectual counterfire (that AC/2 is absolutely no good at this close range), then sticks the Quickdraw's foot in through the breach, rooting around a little.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Freyland fires up the Quickdraw's jump jets, landing square between a Stinger and a Wasp. The Stinger fires at our mech, only succeeding in setting the surrounding woods on fire, then loses the left arm machine gun and its entire right arm to the Quickdraw's lasers and streak SRMs. This leaves it entirely weaponless. Freyland then turns to the Wasp, cracking its right leg in half and sending the bug mech flopping to the ground. It's no hat trick, but two mechs disabled in ten seconds ain't too bad.

Archinerd works hard on the adjacent Scorpion tank, blasting its weak armor with lasers and SRMs, then kicking it over.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

Freyland jumps out of the fire and north, cutting a Saladin hovertank in half while landing. One of the lasers brushes the fuel tank and being cut in half turns into being scattered all over several hundred meters of terrain.

The Wasp that Freyland legged earlier struggles up and opens fire on Madmarcus as the Wolverine moves up to try to catch up with our Quickdraw. Its reward is the loss of its right arm and the other leg, putting it down for good.

To the east, our FedCom allies report destroying a Scorpion tank and disabling a Tokugawa heavy tank. The hostiles quickly lose their nerve after that, and their remaining hovercraft and light mechs book it to the north. Unfortunately, they're a little faster than our units, so we lose track of them, but at least we've got a good fix on them.

We capture a few prisoners this time around, so maybe we'll get an idea of who these guys are and what they're up to.

Alpha-Command and Beta-Assault move into the area and conduct a search pattern along the hostiles' projected retreat route, so we'll have a couple more fights to go. Technically, our contract is up on the 8th, so we probably *could* tell our employer to buzz off. However, Cpt. Allred pulls Gbasden aside and suggests that, while he understands if we want to depart, if we stick around long enough to help repel these intruders, he'll cover our costs for any extra days of combat operations and also allow us access to purchase a Zephyr hovertank. Not just any, a Royal model. The Zephyr is a Star League design. Similar to a Pegasus in its functionality (multiple short-range weapons, in this case, three medium lasers), but, unlike a Pegasus it also comes with a NARC missile beacon and a TAG system. And also ferro-fibrous armor.

A NARC (nobody's really sure what the acronym stands for) is basically a homing pod that attaches to a designated target, and missiles home in on it, making it easier to hit NARCed targets. Unfortunately, we'd also have to buy a bunch of missiles with specialized tracking systems to take advantage of NARC data. It's also useful if we want to "catch and release" enemy units, although we'd need to stay pretty close - once a unit returns to base, any cursory inspection will easily detect a NARC beacon attached to a unit.

TAG stands for "Target Acquisition Gear", and is basically a way of designating a unit for indirect fire. Works with any kind of indirect-fired, homing long range munitions, so it's pretty generally useful. Technically, anyone can designate targets for indirect fire now, but you have to point your targeting reticle at it and maintain line of sight while the warheads fly in. TAG has its own automated target designation subsystem, so that process is a little easier. It'll work pretty well with our LRM-equipped units, allowing them to more accurately rain missiles down on targets out of line of sight.

The ferro-fibrous armor and NARC "ammo" are kind of a pain, since they're not exactly in general production, but a fast hovercraft able to designate targets for indirect fire could be useful.

So, the bottom line is, we can either call it done and leave, or stick around. If we stick around, we get extra pay, extra salvage (the 100% salvage portion of the contract is still in effect) and a shiny new toy, in addition to employer goodwill.

[] Pack it in and head out, that's enough of this 1.5G nonsense
[] Stick around, it shouldn't take too long to finish these scrubs off

Why not keep the exotics to one or two mechs vs everyone to keep resupply needs to a minimum and see how they perform? Isin't alpha basically the lance that might benefit the most? We're the first point of contact.

I say this accepting that Drazzil may be a combat title rather then a name like James Bond.

We could even call the experiment Q.

[Zenn7]

[] Alpha-Command moves to cut off looping reinforcements.
[X] Alpha-Command moves to Beta-Assault's location.

Given that we are in such good shape, it seems that reinforcing Beta-Assault maximizes our utility.

We get more kills this way (it's like XP, gets us closer to more special abilities). And more loot = more Cbills in the bank!

[Drazzil]

[] Alpha-Command moves to cut off looping reinforcements.
[X] Alpha-Command moves to Beta-Assault's location.

Given that we are in such good shape, it seems that reinforcing Beta-Assault maximizes our utility.

We get more kills this way (it's like XP, gets us closer to more special abilities). And more loot = more Cbills in the bank!

+1

[NickAragua]

Vote Results:

Spoiler:

Cut off reinforcements - 2
Big brawl - 3

"Alpha-Command, moving to Beta-Assault's location. Most of the bad guys are coming to us, let's just get them together in one place and take them all down." Gbasden informs everyone. "Looks like we'll be there in approximately... 80 seconds. Sensors show approximately two heavy tank lances coming in down the northwestern pass, about twenty seconds behind us."

"Does this mean we'll have three Awesomes on the field?" Zarathud pipes up.

Beta-Assault and their FedCom RCT buddies are in some kind of situation - they're "surrounded" by a heavy mech lance, backed up by light mechs and light tanks. Of course, our guys are no slouches - two Awesomes (Zenn7, Zarathud), a Thunderbolt (Moley) and a Victor (LordMortis), plus FedCom pals with a pair of Crusaders and a Marauder MAD-3D. The 3D variant trades away the AC/5 for a large laser and more heat sinks. It's not enough to actually fire the large laser, but the extra heat sinks let it fire the PPCs.

Round 1:

Spoiler:

Zenn7 starts the party off by pegging a Stinger with a couple of PPC rounds. The first two nail it center of mass, cracking the gyro housing and engine shielding, while the third one flies overhead as the bug mech falls over.

Moley and Zarathud open fire on a Grasshopper approaching from the south, scoring hits with multiple weapons, but the heavy's armor holds. It returns fire with LRMs, sprinkling a few pockmarks across Moley's armor.

Round 2:

Spoiler:

A large number of PPCs and LRMs fly back and forth, but only Zarathud hits with one, continuing to target the Grasshopper.

Zenn7 evaporates an approaching Harasser missile platform with his Awesome's three PPCs, cackling a little bit as the cockpit heat goes up to sauna levels.

Round 3:

Spoiler:

Zarathud and Moley continue working on the Grasshopper as it makes its way up the hill, Moley scoring a hit with the Thunderbolt's large laser and Zarathud with a PPC. One of our allied Crusaders takes a couple of LRMs to the legs, while Zenn7 is forced to cool off as his target of choice, a Locust, goes hiding behind a hill.

Round 4:

Spoiler:

Zenn7 switches targets to a Firestarter running alongside a pair of heavier tanks, blasting it mostly center of mass with three PPCs. Armor is breached, but the mech keeps coming.

Zarathud doesn't quite destroy a Scorpion tank, but the PPCs remove all the armor off the front of the light unit and it takes its LRMs and breaks off, heading south, although not before delivering a parting salvo to the allied Marauder's legs.

Round 5:

Spoiler:

The Grasshopper is starting to show signs of damage, as the armor plating over its left torso section is blown off by concentrated fire from Zarathud and Moley. The damage forces the enemy heavy to the ground as well, as a bonus.

Our allied Marauder takes a PPC hit from a Warhammer approaching from the east, so hopefully we can wrap up this Grasshopper and its Panther buddy quickly.

Round 6:

Spoiler:

Zenn7 climbs up to the top of the rock in front of him and turns right, sending three PPC blasts towards a Wasp approaching from the east. The left half of the bug mech basically disappears under the blue onslaught.

Zarathud watches the Grasshopper get up, then planst three PPC shots into it. The first one takes the right leg off, effectively taking the 70-ton mech out of action.

Round 7:

Spoiler:

LordMortis tracks the sensor blip of the Locust skulking around just below a rock outcropping, then fires up the Victor's jump jets to land right next to the undoubtedly surprised bug mech. Well, it's not that surprised, easily avoiding the gauss slug. What it doesn't avoid is the Victor's foot stepping on one of its toes, ripping about half the leg off and causing it to slam against the ground and knock the mechwarrior out.

A Skulker sneaks up to Zenn7, avoiding his PPC shots and melting off a little armor with its medium laser, although the Awesome's small laser dings it a little in the front.

Round 8:

Spoiler:

Alpha-Command arrives from the north, intending to move south and southwest to mop up the hostiles there.

Stefan moves his crosshairs over the distant Warhammer, but there's no lock done. "What the? Oh, right." he notes as he looks up at the flashing red 'ammo depleted' indicator.

Zenn7 notes the forces to the northwest moving to react to the new arrivals, and turns the Awesome that way, blowing away a Hetzer as it unwisely leaves the protection of a protruding rock. Zarathud goes to "cleanse the palate" after taking out the Grasshopper, firing the Awesome's PPCs at a Vedette which had been pelting it with AC/2 rounds for a while. The vehicle disappears as the fuel tank explodes.

LordMortis comes after the Firestarter trying to hide, firing at the group of units to the northwest meanwhile. The gauss rifle expels a slug which lands center of mass on a Jenner. Gbasden also puts his extended range PPC to good use, blowing through a pair of heat sinks in a Wasp's left torso, spraying and flash-frying a significant amount of coolant fluid.

Round 9:

Spoiler:

Zenn7 focuses fire on the Warhammer to the east, landing three solid PPC shots, one of which breaches right leg armor, taking a PPC in return. The Warhammer is unbalanced by the armor loss and keels over.

LordMortis takes a bath in some Firestarter flamer, losing a bit of armor and throwing off his aim.

"Assault-Seven, you're out of position, what are you doing?" Zarathud calls out.

"Targeting enemy Dervish!" the Marauder pilot calls out. Indeed, our FedCom buddy nails the Dervish in the left arm, taking it off with a PPC shot. Then, there's a brief burst of static and the Marauder's icon winks out, the mech falling over with smoke protruding from its head.

Round 10:

Spoiler:

"Hostile reinforcements arriving northwest." El Guapo reports. "As we said, two heavy tank lances. Also, one beat-up Panther. Beta-Assault, looks like you guys are on your own for a bit while we deal with this."

"Should have just run them off separately", the mechwarrior grumbles quietly to avoid having the microphone pick it up.

Zarathud finally picks off the Skulker that's been zipping around in our formation, blasting our mechs in the back.

Gbasden engages the Panther El Guapo mentioned, taking a PPC hit and some SRMs, but completely annihilating the light mech in return, as two PPCs plow through the center torso, disengaging the reactor and gyro, and pretty much any semblance of structural integrity. El Guapo turns the Marauder around as well, pounding a nearby Manticore with PPC and laser fire, rattling the crew around a bit.

Isgrimnur and Stefan hunt down a loose Scorpion tank. Stefan may be out of LRMs, but his lasers aren't going to run out any time soon, and the little tank is melted down to slag.

Zenn7 must be showing off, as, of his three PPCs targeted at the Warhammer, two hit machine guns in the left and right torso respectively. Moley adds a few LRMs and a large laser to a leg actuator. The mechwarrior decides he's had enough and pulls back around a corner, retreating.

Round 11:

Spoiler:

With the eastern flank mostly rolled up (other than a loose infantry squad, a Packrat and a Dervish missing an arm to the southeast), Alpha-Command shifts westward. Zenn7 continues emulating Zeus or Thor, chucking lightning bolts down from the hilltop. This time, targeting a Wasp, both of whose arms come off. The bug mech is unable to stay on its two feet and collapses, at which point its engine shuts down.

Round 12:

Spoiler:

Notch another one for Zenn7, as the Firestarter that he started earlier exposes itself while trying to go after LordMortis, and takes a PPC through the back, dropping in a heap on the ground.

To the north, El Guapo and Gbasden engage a pair of Manticores, with mixed success, taking some damage. El Guapo does manage to finally drill through the armor on one of the heavy tanks, convincing the slightly burnt crew that a retreat is in order.

Round 13:

Spoiler:

Gbasden and El Guapo move west. The Awesome fires a pair of PPCs at a nearby Vedette, blowing it away, while El Guapo handles the nearby Manticore. Some people prefer to go for a vehicle's side so that it's easier to hit the treads, some people prefer to aim at the rear. El Guapo decides on the brute force approach, putting two PPC shots and a gauss slug directly through the thickest armor in the front of the tank. It's enough firepower to crack it wide open.

Zenn7 blasts through the armor on a Bulldog to the south, while LordMortis gets up close and personal with an Archer that's been pelting him with LRMs for some time. Both mechs take some damage, with LordMortis' right leg armor disappearing under laser fire and scraping metal.

At this point, the opposing force begins a retreat. Our faster units track them, but they move down another valley and towards a couple of waiting dropships. Before we can mobilize the rest of our force to follow, they load up and the dropships burn for orbit, escaping before we can get together sufficient aerospace firepower.

Salvage is pretty good. We get a Grasshopper, and from the previous battle, a Grand Dragon. We also scoop up a bunch of tanks, including a weird-looking Hetzer. It appears to be short one ton of ammo, but has a bunch of advanced electronics instead, which our techs identify as a Beagle Active Probe. The tank itself is wrecked, but we'll be able to pull the probe out.

We spend a little time discussing what to do with the more advanced salvage. The active probe is something we could mount on a helicopter or on one of our recon mechs (e.g. a Phoenix Hawk) to help track down concealed units. Right now, the only units we've got access to that can detect hidden units without having to blunder into them and get shot up are a pair of Ostscouts and a pair of Ostsols, and they can only do that at 90 meters max. The Beagle has a range of 180 meters. Or we could trade it to our employers for a spare double heat sink or something.

[] Keep the probe, mount it on one of our units
[] Trade it for a DHS

We're definitely keeping the Grasshopper, as it's an excellent chassis. However, there's some discussion around the Grand Dragon. It's an iteration on the Dragon that has been a hallmark of house Kurita for many generations. For weapons, it's got a PPC and an LRM/10 rack for long-range work and a trio of medium lasers for short-range (we'll have to turn the rear-facing one forward). It's only got twelve heat sinks, but that's actually good enough for bracket fire. Armor is middling for its weight class, with a significant amount of mass used up by an engine capable of moving the mech at a brisk 5/8 (similar to a Quickdraw). It's also got an exceptionally flexible torso, similar to the Wolverine and its squat form both makes it harder to hit and keeps its center of mass low, enabling it to stay stable where many other mechs simply couldn't. Not that it really helped when a PPC blew out practically every actuator on one of the legs.

In its current state, it'll sell for 1.7M C-Bills (the sticker price for a new one is 5.2M).

[] Keep the Grand Dragon
[] Sell it

Grand Dragon aside, our current war chest sits at about 1.95 billion C-Bills. Some other status updates: our latest attempt at jumpship repairs is approximately 60% finished, according to the latest HPG message from the crew. Our northern Lyran Commonwealth planetary survey group reports having arrived at its destination systems and started their survey. Our south-west-central Federated Suns planetary survey group reports being about 33% finished with their surveys and attaches a few survey results to their message. Nothing too inspiring there, but they've got some time.

It takes about a week to repair damage and fix most of our mechs up. It wasn't a very lengthy campaign in terms of actual fighting, so damage is pretty light, as is ammo expenditure. Once we fix ourselves up and pack it in, our projected return to Outreach is mid-May, with Gamma company arriving at approximately the same time.