Once back in Tolkeen Drano returns to his family home, and spends time with his mother, father and younger sister. In the morning he swpas out his spent CTTP-40 e-clip with a freash one, and reloads his Chromium Guardsman's boom gun. He then goes about getting repairs done to his Chromium Guardsman, and has the SRM launcher replaced with a mini-missile launcher.

With repairs underway Drano returns to Pluto Companies staging area where he finds out that he is to command 3rd Squad. Looking over the roster, and conferring with the Russian Cyborg he sets up an initial breakdown of the squad into two sections, one led by himself and the other led by Silvermasque.

That done he finds McCloud and Comartin. Comartin is found in some whorehouse getting laid, and it is apparent he has a fetish for female Dee-bees. He instruscts Comartin to get a mini-missile launcher attached to the left shoulder, as retractable Vibro claws, a storage box on the left hip for small arms, and a large particle beam or laser rifle along with a reinforced holster to carry the weapon on the right hip for anti-infantry work.

Drano finds McCloud attempting to recover from a night of heavy drinking in some bar.

Drano then goes off in search of other members of his squad to meet with them on a one on one basis. The first of which was a new arrival from Mars Company, Sergeant Forge...

McCloud spent the night with a mostly-gorgeous woman from Uranus Company named Sasha. She is a power armour pilot, with a huge scar across her neck from an old throat-slit attempt in her early days as a soldier.

She promises to keep in touch, and maybe meet up again before he leaves Tolkeen, or when he returns next...

 For his part, come the morning after his tumultuous interview with the logistical chief for Pluto Company, in which he had to explain what happened to several million universal credits worth of Triax armoured personnel carrier and precisely how it came to be a smouldering pile of wreckage tangling the legs of an evern <i<more</i> expensive Triax giant battle robot, 'Masque is back in the saddle and too busy (as usual) to even get off the base.

 One of the projects he's quick to dispense with is - along similar lines to Drano - providing recommendations for upgrades to Conmartin, which are much like those of the other Lieutenant, except that being Russian he feels any arrangement where you need a short-range weapon is one in which you're going to need it badly and so he's more in favour of a forearm particle beam system for the Glitterboy suits than a bulky, balky power armour rifle like the CTTP-40 which is pretty much the size of a Boom Gun itself and slightly larger than a Glitterboy leg.
 Basically apples and oranges, when it comes down to it since the GB pilot in in Dranos platoon but 'Masque's fireteam.

 It's also a good chance to get to know the rest of that fireteam, several of whom he's only met in passing and so an 'after lunch' MeetMe request goes out to peoples personal communicators, specifically to the members of the Second section, Third platoon, Pluto company (which are currently Van, Conmartin, Shimrod and Forge).
This message was last edited by the player at 17:27, Fri 19 June 2009.

McCloud has no idea who the strange woman giving him her number is, nor does he remember anything after the ill-fated assertion, "I'll bet I can drink your juiced ass right under this goddamn table!"

But he's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  If you ignored the big ol' neck scar, the chick was hot!

He plays along, agreeing to keep in touch and look her up and whatever.  Then he goes off in search of some pain killers...

   After a bit of asking around, Drano is able to track down Forge.  She was in one of the hangars volunteering her time to help repair some of Mars Company's equipment - it would be her last chance to help them.  She had been out drinking with them the night before in a sort of good-bye celebration.  Her crew were all passed out by now.  It was 7am and Forge did not sleep.  She knew she would be expected to meet her new LT in an hour and was considering showing up late.  She was surprised when his voice shouted her name over the noise of a hammer drill.

   Forge released the trigger on the drill and stuck her head out from under the APC.  She looked up at Pierce, upside down from her current position.  She didn't know his face but recognized the rank.  She pretended to forget about military etiquette and just responded from the floor.
   "Sir? Can I help you?"

   Drano Pierce may not have known her face, but when he asked her old lieutenant, the description was hard to get wrong: Tall borg with blue lips and probably covered in axel grease.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:34, Fri 19 June 2009.

Drano didn’t mind having to go over to Mars Company’s ‘mecha ramp’ he knew most of the Chromium Guardsman fighting on the side of Tolkeen and was good to see some of them again. After being told in which direction Sgt Forge could be found in as well as a brief description ‘Tall sexy borg with blue lips and covered in axel grease’ Drano made his way in that direction and called out her name.

Looking down at the person fitting the description given to him peeking out from under an APC Drano cut to the chase. “You must be Sergeant Forge, I’m First Lieutenant Pierce.” Any attempt made by Sgt. Forge to leap up and salute is waved off, but this isn’t necessary, as the Sgt was ignoring military etiquette. “In case you haven’t heard your being assigned to my squad within Pluto Company.”

“I just want to meet with you and find out what your specialty is. I can assume you’re a mechanic of some sort?”

   Forge pauses for a second before responding.  "Engineer.  And I can drive this piece of junk I'm fixing.  Yeah, I was told about the transfer yesterday.  I was about to go report to you this morning as ordered, just needed to work out a few kinks in the transmission here."

The latest words from King Creed

The Coalition Forces are tightening their grip on Tolkeen. The Kingdom is completely surrounded and all supply lines from outside are cut off. Retreat is impossible at this point as they are executing everyone they see, claiming they provided enough warning, and our destruction is at hand. They are correct about providing us warning of their unjust attack upon our home. But they are gravely mistaken if they believe we are anywhere close to destruction. We will win this war! All of our psychics have forseen it, our victory is within sight. Even now our soldiers are in battle fighting them off, and proving to the Coalition murderers that they should have stayed home. I promise you fine people of Tolkeen, we will have our victory within the year!

“No need to apologize being here, just make sure you working in Pluto company’s area by the end of the day.”

“What kind of weapons do you use?” Drano would need this info to requisition the proper ammunition “and what do you have as a personal combat vehicle or mecha?”

   Forge sees that Drano is looking for actual details and decides to extricate herself from beneath the APC to better answer his question.  She rolls out on the flat cart she is laying on and gets to her feet.  "Let me show you."

   Forge grabs a rag from a table as she walks across the hangar towards a large ATV.  It is a Trailblazer, normally a technowizard construct.  "I ripped out all the technowizard garbage and added a few horsepower.  This thing will win a tug of war match with an adult dragon." she walks up and pulls open a side mounted storage box.  Several small arms are stored here, including a JA-12 pulse laser, two Long Pistols, something that looks like a forearm-mounted grappling hook, a modified bionic tentacle appendage that looks like it has been built into a robotic snake.  There is a grenade launcher, several boxes of various ammo and a large vibro sword mounted into a vambrace. "I keep my repair equipment in the box on the other side.  I can repair most any machine I've met, and I've got my cyberdoc's license too."

   Forge pauses after closing up her weapons locker and then looks at Lieutenant Pierce for a few seconds.  "Permission to speak freely?"

Drano inspects the ATV, and the weaposn held within it "Go ahead Sergeant, just be tactfully in what you say."

Back in Tolkeen, or perhaps now in Tolkeen for the first time Amy is rather impressed by what she finds and is available.  Still she just seeks out space to rent a storage facility so she can move her extra tools and personal belongings somewhere a bit more safe than the dropship and then spends the rest of her time making sure that its in tiptop shape.

 "I just wanted to advise you that I have become rather accustomed to Mars Company's way of doing things and I know every CO runs things a little differently.  In Mars, we always take our people home, even if it was in a box.  We're a family.  I've heard rumours about Pluto - stuff like in-fighting, demons running rampant and even some grackletooth that was killed.  Have you guys been able to clean up?"
   Forge's expression seems to suggest she's a bit angry at being transferred and also that Pluto Company might have a reputation as the "Problem Company".

Drano nodded in reply to Forge. “Yes there has been some infighting, the Commander Major Karno, I hear he used to be a platoon commander in Mars Company, had some Brodkil and his gang killed.

“There was some Rau Man who has a price on his head now.”

“During the last operation two individuals deserted, not sure what happened to them.”

“But I haven’t seen much of the infighting, I’ve just heard about it.”

After a brief stop at an aid station for a headache remedy, McCloud returns to the operator he'd left his GB with.  "So, how goes the repair?" he asks the mechanic.  "You probably have plenty of work fixing all the broken-ass robots that came back in from yesterday's fighting, huh?"

"Yup" is all the mechanic replies with. He pays no attention to McCloud and keeps working on it, while a dozen oher mechanics work on a dozen other machines fo war, with dozens more waiting to be repaired.

"Yeah, well, I'll just let you work then.  You think you'll have that list of upgrades ready any time soon?"

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