Heh, I wouldn't worry about your salary getting too high. Only reason most of us even get a salary is that, in a large number of planetary jurisdictions, in order to count as full-time employees for legal and tax purposes, a person has to receive a salary. Most of the money you guys get is actually from shares - 50% of our contract pay goes towards those, as a founding principle of the company. So when I say we're making 36 million from a contract, what I really mean is that 18 million of that is distributed to our mechwarriors, aero jocks and tech team leads. You currently get 4 shares (1 for being a founding member, 1 for being an officer, 2 for being a mechwarrior), so, for this contract, we'll divide 18 million by the number of shares (something close to the 150 mark), and that's the total payout you'll receive, in addition to your salary.
Let's all congratulate Adam "Archinerd" Belak on his promotion to Lt. Junior Grade.
Our employer informs us that they have detected several dropships burning out towards the nadir jump point and that Magistracy forces have ceased raiding operations for the time being. We are still obligated to deploy three lances to garrison duties around strategic facilities, but they are not expected to encounter any opposition. Additionally, we are still obligated to deploy one lance for offensive operation against "pirates or insurgents".
With that in mind, Lt. Adnan may not be able to handle combat duty, but she can handle instructing greenhorn scrubs. So, we re-assign her to the training lance while Zenn7 takes command of Delta lance again. Given that Alpha, Beta and Gamma lances will not be engaging enemy forces any time soon, we adjust lance assignments so that Alpha lance has the possibility of reinforcing Delta if needed. Sigil finishes her training shortly and is promoted to a full-fledged 5/4 Private.
September 1st, 3027
Without support from Magistracy dropships and forces, the local insurgents "wither on the vine". Allied command informs us that they have tracked down all vehicles stolen from the factory and destroyed the insurgent mobile field bases. Our employer pays out the rest of our subcontract, bringing operation Red Justice to an end, and immediately offers another.
Magistracy dropships have been detected coming in from both jump points. It appears they've brought reinforcements and our employer needs us to detach a lance for reconnaissance duty to help track down these vessels and destroy them. The contract pays out about 9 million C-Bills, so we'll take it. Operation Final Engine begins in a few days.
Archinerd is spared the burden of having to get in the Atlas as the doctor clears Lt. Adnan for active duty. For now, Archinerd is going to be in a Thunderbolt TDR-5SE (identical model to gbasden's), until I can find him a Jenner. Unless you want to keep the Thunderbolt, of course. Alpha, Gamma and Delta lances are on defensive operations, while Beta (headed by Scrub) is on recon duty.
September 14th, 3027
Here we go again with these Magistracy assholes. Several lances of enemy vehicles have "gone to ground" after being deployed by Mac dropships, and Delta lance tracks them down, in the middle of the night in the dense woods. We call in our air support and begin the assault. Currently, Delta is Zenn7, the Atlas, LordMortis and a Centurion. Not exactly the most mobile crew, but it's a lot of PPCs and AC/20s. Our liaison isn't much better, being a Scorpion quad mech. The opposition looks to be a bunch of Bulldogs and Vedettes with a sprinkling of light hover tanks and other heavies. As we make our approach, a second group of blips powers up in the distance, so if we don't take care of business quickly, we'll have more trouble on our hands.
The enemy scrambles, but they're going to have some trouble getting through the woods.
Round 1:
The less said about this round the better.
Round 2:
The Scorpion takes some minor damage advancing to the clearing.
Round 3:
Nothing exciting. We fire at the woods where the opfor is hiding in an effort to clear some space.
Round 4:
An enemy Vedette makes the mistake of poking out of the woods and gets pummeled, its armor stripped off. The Atlas wants to encourage the vehicle to leave so he gives it a quick boot. Unfortunately, a "quick boot" from an Atlas equals a splattered vehicle.
Round 5:
Right, time to get in there and mix it up. The Atlas brawls with the Manticore and Bulldog and kicks the little Vedette underneath in the process. The smaller vehicle bugs out, trailing smoke and debris.
Round 6:
The Atlas moves on top of the Bulldog and Manticore to try to avoid some of that incoming fire. The enemy reinforcements have arrived, but moving through the woods in the middle of the night is a laborious process. We can't hit jack, though, while the Atlas's armor is slowly being peeled off by SRM fire.
Round 7:
Our air support arrives. Our weapons fire dings some armor and the bombing run is pretty ineffective. We also miss all our kicks.
Round 8:
Finally, we make some progress. Shrugging off shot after shot, the Manticore's armor finally breaches. The Atlas is also finally able to blast through the Bulldog's armor, coring the vehicle out completely, then joins LordMortis and our Centurion in kicking the Manticore to pieces.
Round 9:
The enemy reinforcements advance very slowly while we continue to remain in melee contact with the main body. LordMortis blasts right through an enemy Vedette with his AC/20, while the Atlas stumbles a bit and takes an SRM round through the torso armor, hitting an ammo bin. Luckily, it was empty.
Round 10:
The Atlas stumbles forward again, plopping down in some deep woods, damaging the AC/20 with the impact. Our Scorpion liaison gets plowed with SRMs and goes down, the pilot blacking out. The Centurion breaches the armor on a Bulldog, knocking the crew around. Zenn7 and LordMortis team up on a little Galleon zipping around underfoot, kicking it back and forth like a soccer ball until it falls apart.
Round 11:
I pull the Atlas back and out, moving the Centurion, LordMortis and Zenn7 up instead, to try and protect the Scorpion. Unfortunately, that doesn't quite work out, as it gets completely blasted apart by SRMs, both external and internal once those detonate. The pilot is incinerated in the explosion. Meanwhile, we miss just about every damn shot. On top of it all, the Lucifer aerotech takes a hit and loses control, the pilot screaming about ailerons or some such nonsense.
Round 12:
Our aircraft crashes. Zenn7 manages to dive out of the way and winds up in the dirt, but at least he didn't get nailed by a 65 ton fighter. LordMortis braves the incoming SRM storm to land a solid AC/20 on the SRM Carrier in front of him, while the Atlas opens up with lasers and SRMs on a Scorpion tank off to the side, taking the armor off.
Round 13:
The Lucifer takes off like nothing happened (except for damage to the landing gear which will no doubt take another two weeks to fix). We screw up weapons fire again, although Zenn7 does manage to rip the armor off the side of an LRM Carrier (a little out of place in the dense woods here), forcing a retreat. A Bulldog gets a little too brave for its own good and takes an Atlas kick to the left side breaching armor as well. The Lucifer takes some fire as he zooms away, but retains control of the aircraft this time.
Round 14:
With the enemy heavies in retreat and their reinforcements unable to find a way to help them out, we finish off the rest of the lighter enemy units. LordMortis takes another full SRM salvo to the front, stripping off just about all his armor and inflicting some structural damage, but manages to land an AC/20 round on the SRM carrier, putting it out of action permanently. The Centurion lasers a nearby Scimitar hovertank, punching through the armor and blowing the engine apart. The Atlas nails a J.Edgar hovertank zipping next to the Centurion. It's just a medium laser, but Zenn7 had already stripped the armor away. The Centurion gives the nearby Vedette a boot to the rear as a send-off, stripping off the armor.
With 3/4 of the original enemy force destroyed, disabled or running away as fast as they can, the rest retreat in a more organized fashion, along with their ineffectual reinforcements (seriously, who brings hovercraft into the deep woods?). We call in the salvage teams and head back to base to lick our wounds. We do collect 315k in prisoner capture bonuses, and keep a Scimitar hover tank for salvage. We also hire a green scrub mechwarrior, recruit Imer Berisaj. 7/6, disposessed. Normally, I'd pass, but we need the manpower. Well, we'll stick him in a training lance. El Guapo, feel free to pick a call sign.
Since we won't get a replacement for the Atlas' AC/20 in time for its next scheduled sortie, we take one off a Centurion we had in mothballs. LordMortis' Hunchback is patched up just in time to get thrown back into the crap. Zenn7 and LordMortis are still nursing a sprained arm and leg respectively (which affects their gunnery and piloting skills, respectively), but we don't really get to pick which lance gets in a fight at this point and don't have the spare pilots.
Turns out we'll be getting plenty of fighting in the next week.