He shook his head and grinned while knocking on his bionic arm, "Gave them up when I left.  Docs said if I kept at them that I was going to need some ferro-titanium lungs to go with my legs and arm."

Adam then laughed, "Yeah my sponsors are still looking for me.  They were under the understanding I was going to take a dive...not the happiest that I took the last three in a sweep."

Svend pointed a cigarette Adam before lighting it. "That was your own damn fault. You know those boys don't like losing money. Still, if I can find you, they likely have and thought it was too much bother to come after you. Now, tell me about these Eden girls. I should try to find my officer to report in but my beer isn't done and you have peaked my curiosity."

"Just more likely they are taking their time.  Yakuza always like to make their point in...creative...ways.  Sides if I'm in the middle of a major scruff it's harder to have accidents and more expensive to them too." he laughed and shook his head.

He pointed his hand upwards at his girl's torso where the usual large AC/10 should be and Svend spotted not only a smaller one in it's place but a slew of what looked like machine-guns pointing all over the place, "Swapped out the big club for one of their smaller guns.  Almost the same range at one third the mass.  She's decked out in extra armour and those infantry swatters...plus some of that cellular ammunition storage equipment.  But that's not the reason those Bulls are interested in these Eden girls.  No for that you need to look over at your new CO's ride over there..."

His hand pointed over towards a truly strange looking mech that seemed to be about the size of a Valkyrie but sporting a sword in one hand and a pair of lasers in the torsos and little else.  That said she appeared to be sporting the new ferro-titanium armour in an odd armour pattern, "They seem to be able to produce not only actual battlemechs out here but ones that no one has ever seen before."

Svend shrugged his shoulders. "What do you mean? Solaris has plenty of oddball designers with money to spare. They produce strange configs all the time. I remember seeing a few of those Urbanmechs loaded out in all manner of equipment. Strange don't mean effective, you know that. Hells bells, you remember that Davion youngster that gussied up his little Flea and thought he could take on an Atlas?"

"'Cept these aren't strange configs.  They pump out distinct new chassis.  What's strange is..." he thought back to Solaris and matches that happened in the past before continuing, "...you remember that guy that brought in his family heirloom, that Mongoose from back in the SLDF days?  How he always took hits to those torso lasers and could hot-swap out replacements pretty fast?  These guys can hot-swap just about any weapon in the torso or arms faster than you can pull a laser off the arm of a Wasp.  In a full out war the capacity to effect battlefield repairs in minutes rather than hours...you could push front lines faster than a defender could re-position and repair their mechs."

Svend leaned forward, cigarette dangling in his fingers as he pointed. "You're telling me that the ten pound brains here have figured out how to make interchangeable parts for any mechanism, no matter make or model?" He snorted and laughed, "Now I know you're full of shit."

"Not 20 minutes before you got here that thing over there had a Doomblood SRM6 launcher with integrated CASE and a one ton 'clip'...a frakking 'clip' of ammo sticking out of it like some sort of crazy shotgun.  Now you could barely even tell it was there." he replied with another point of his finger at the X-3a that was sitting pretty and bore the Ironswords logo on his shoulder.

Svend shook his head. "Whelp, you're either a liar or the stakes for this place are a lot more than people back near the core realise. I'd heard nothin' bout this. I knew some planets had crazy tech coming out, but this beats it all."

Adam laughed, "Supposedly your CO picked up that ride back when they were in a better mood to selling them out...and that one isn't their top of the line either.  It's one of the line units.  Course the reason why they need us is cause while they've got brains they don't have skills.  They can build some serious tech but when it comes to using it..." he shook his head before looking around to make sure that none of them were around, "...they really fight like 1st year cadets.  And that's after they graduate.  Only a small handful of them fight as good as you and I and even fewer as good as the crazy Blake girl or your CO."

"Their fighting is not really the question, Now is it? What are the bulls like on the field? Do they play knights like the big houses or are they supported with air and troops like a real army? Do they have any of this tech yet, because that would make it damn tough to wrangle with them," Svend inquired.

"Some of the weapons yeah.  Don't think any of the mechs yet...they call them Power Loaders...but if they are attacking their home in force it's just a matter of time before they capture them and start using them against their creator." he shook his head a bit at the thought.

"Tanks, VTOL's and infantry are at least half of their force usually but they are a little weak on air power till this point.  Course it's possible they massed it for this assault.  If you've still got those flamers they will do a number on their infantry just like the mass of machineguns I've got on my gal."

It was 'go' time, the moments before the drop.

There was little news from Omni, what was received was not good news.

The Freelancers had determined that they were not going to drop without their conventional support.  One way or another, they were going to have the means to implement repairs, even if they had to drag it along on their own transports.  The Concordat has left a company of mechs and a line company of Conventional support.  Infantry remain to keep the civilians in line and keep the Concordat in control of the space port.

Unit assignments were worked out and passed out.  There were three important phases of the operation, that needed to be executed.  If all went well, they would be in and out of the Spaceport before the Concordat knew they were there.  Of course, that was a big 'If'.

The Pussycat Brigade were assigned the task of clearing out the Op Force reserves that were guarding the Control Tower and hanger.  Once their conventional support was cleared out, the Omni ground troops would have a chance to retake the buildings to contest Concordat control of the Space Port.

The Light Lancers were asssigned the task of securing a Dropship Pad for the Freelancer's Mule to drop long enough to get conventional units out and made available for deployment.

The Iron Swords were deployed at the Space Port's Main gate.  They were required to neutralize the sentries there and repel any effort by the Concordat to retake the Gate.

On paper the objectives were clean cut, the ease of execution was something that remained questionable.

Mission Fourteen Orders.

Pussycats take and hold Control Tower / Hanger.  {BM Omega}
Penny, David, and Teri
Reyvak, Michel, and (f) Regina


Lancers take and hold Landing Pad.  {BM Tau}
Pax, Akarian, Daniel, Joaquin
Donovan, (f)Jake


Iron Swords take and hold Space Port Gate.  {Kitten}
Lucius, Piotr, Svend
Olaf, Roger, Grayson,
(f) Adam


Damien, deploying with Lancer or Ironswords, being discussed.

Malcom, Mattias, and Quintin on Inactive List.

I believe that's everyone, if i missed you best speak up.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:16, Sat 27 Dec 2014.

It was minutes to the drop, and Regina went through her pre-combat routine of an inspiring sermon.  It didnt matter that for the most part it amount to her pacing about talking to herself.  There were many non-believers.

In her mind, she was Blake's chosen, charged with the duty of delivering the faithless masses into his guiding light to lead them away from darkness and ignorance.  While nothing has changed for Regina, her religious convictions couldnt be denied, nor could her impressive tally of wreckage left in her wake, on... and (* cough *) off the battlefield.

"... and Blake said that the worlds upon which we were blessed to call home was good.  It was only when the filth of humanity... the craven sins of greed and violence that contaminated the worlds that they became the living hells that they are now.

Blessed are the chosen of Blake.  For through his light will we be guided to the paradise and havens of good and plenty from days of yore."

Regina was in rare form this time around.  While much of which she spouted seemed to be inane gibberish, the blessings which she gave out at the end made it all worthwhile.  While these blessings were of dubious value, it couldnt be denied that those that shunned her sermons have  suffered horrible fates during missions, while Regina herself seemed to waltz through danger unscathed while leaving a trail blessed souls that she personally sends to Blake's keeping.

She was slowly starting to gather a following by the curious and those that were superstitious enough to hedge their bets by getting her blessings.

Despite having been at Reggie's blessing Luc had taken a total beating on the drop.  Still the more superstitious might argue that it was because of it that something worse didn't happen.

Calling together those that were in the Ironswords he laid out the game plan, "Olaf...Longsword is going to be command for the Ironswords in this next set of movements.  My Loader has taken a lot of damage and she's not combat ready yet...neither am I.  Doc says I've got two broken ribs and they had to use some resin for a crack in my skull.  Roger, Greyson you're part of Longsword and for this mission I'm having Adam join you to give a little extra umph.  So everyone listen up and listen to him as if it was me."

Pointing his finger at Piotr he added, "That means you're in charge of Broadsword Piotr.  Svend and Malcolm follow his lead and calls."

He grimaced and pulled out an auto-injector and tilted his neck injecting whatever was in the thing into it, "We're aiming for the arena...for those that were here for the games you know where that's at.  Those that don't it's our rally point.  Place has repair bays and is still linked to Omni assets and that means supply routes for ammo, armour and other needed supplies to fight the Bulls.  While you guys are moving through the city to get there I'll be staying with Big Mac and providing cover for it in a worst case scenario."

He looked over the faces and added, "You're going to be in close proximity with the Lancers and Brigade on this and from what I hear both Pax and Penny got beat up just like me so it's all on you guys to get us safely to the arena.  Any questions?"

"Freelancers!  Sorry for the rough reception.
 The neighborhood has gone to hell since the Concordat's been moved in and property values have been plummeting."

(* short pause as radio reception is lost *)

"Need to be brief, the bulls arent as dumb as they look and we might lose tranmission abrutly.  Civilian dropships are boosting off while we hold the space port.  We're probably not going to hold it unless we want to pay a steep price, but for now were' getting off as many civilians as we can.

 The 101st, 2nd, and 3rd have all come home and have dropped to firm up hard points around Omni.  A little over two klicks south of the Space Port is the Eden Sports Arena.  The 103rd have deployed to support the militia to hold the position.  It should be a good hard point... for a day or two at least.  We're dug in to hold the position, if you can make the march to us, we should be able to grant you logistical support."

(* theres another short pause and the rustling of paper *)

"There's about four lances of Concordats between us.  Three are confirmed conventional.  We have no confirmation on the fourth.  Omni Hawkeye support is reloading, so we wont be much help, but we've disrupted Concordat support as well, so it'll be a straight up fight."

(* There's an explosion in the background and the transmission goes dead for good *)

1 kilcks = 1000 meters ~>  33 Hexes

Pax addresses his unit wearing some obvious medical bandages, though he tries not to let them show.

"Well gang,

Sounds like we need to go on a little walk to meet up with the planet's defense forces.  According to reports there is a few lances between us and them and I don't think we can just avoid them.

We are going to need to punch a hole through them and get everyone to the other side.  My guess is the wounded, badly damages mech, and supply vehicles will skirt the confrontation zone while our lances strike."

Pax a bit unsteady for a few seconds before bracing himself.  He then decides to get to the point so that the unit can get ready for their mission.

"I'm be traveling with the wounded, Joaquin Cortez, you will be acting Unit Leader.

Its important that we get through but its also important we keep our mechs operational.

Joaquin, I'll forward you all incoming intell."

"Good hunting!"

Akarian listened to the briefing from Pax, the drop really seemed to have done him in, no doubt the unfortunate cost of slamming through a building on impact. He was slightly surprised to hear Joaquin named acting commander for the next mission, but in truth it tended to not matter a whole lot. They would get the job done, or they would be trapped in a vulnerable position that would be taken back soon, and with no ability to resupply. They didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

"Right, well I'll take lances of enemies I can outrun or destroy any day, over praying to the gods while dropping mostly uncontrolled. We'll get the job done, just heal up quick, cya on the other side boss."

Joaquin was hesitant to respond at first to Pax's decision. He had never really pictured himself one for Command. He knew he had earned the respect of the C/O in giving him the opportunity.

" Thank you for the vote of confidence Sir... Rest easy and we'll make sure to punch you on through to the end zone. "

He paused a minute hoping the C/O got the Football reference....

" Well you lot heard the boss.... looks like we've got a few dance partners for our next objective. I'll go over the scouting report and give my summary of the PoA (Plan of Action). Take the time to relax.... looks like we won't have much down time gents. "
- Will use our Ready Room for this -

"Roger that boss.  We'll make these culos pay," Piotr said.  Anyone Piotr hated was a Spanish culo and all Taurians were Spanish in his book.  The Spanish had driven his family from their homeworld on Poznan.  Old animosities and grudges died hard.  He would kill as many of them as he could.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:16, Fri 23 Jan 2015.

"Taking a knee on this one Luc?" Olaf said playfully.  "Didn't realize you were up for leave already, or are you too bogged down with paperwork to come out an play?" he added feigning disbelief.  "Seriously though, no worries about the team.  You've put together a solid bunch, 'cept for me of course.  It won't exactly be a milk run but I'll hold her together long enough for you get back to the fight."

Looking to Joaquin and Rix he added: "The Swords are probably best suited to be the vanguard for this run.  Put us in the centre along with the Freelancers, we're the heaviest and generally the slowest.  We can hold the Bulls' attention while the Light Lancers and Pussycats are better suited to move around and smack them in the ass."

Lucky, after mentally being away for awhile, watches the proceedings and agrees to them in philosophy. The briefing is depressing in the fact that many of our best are now inactive...however, having been there before, honor gained now, reflects well on our mentors.

Standing as the briefing lights dim, comes up to Pax, "I wanted to personally thank you for everything you have done for me, which is far above and beyond the normal protocols. I'll never forget it, and let's settle accounts, when we're both ready."

Looking at Wardog, "Rock and roll, brother."

Rixx nodded, "Splitting up could bite us in the ass, but, It makes sense to let the Conventionals think we are a smaller forces. Just be ready to collapse back together in the event the Lance of Mech's shows up at the wrong time."

"You would not believe what I have to do Olaf...you go and loose an arm and file injured on the job paperwork..." he grinned as he chewed on his unlit cigar.

"Keep it tight and focus your fire when you can and I'm sure you'll do just fine."

"Honestly I'm just glad to have a purpose...besides falling flat on my face continuosly, if i can stay on my feet in the next fight i'll do my damnedest to take out some of those drek's."

Anything Greyson went up against was considered a drek, a shithead, an asshole, generally to him, Drek was what you classified who you were fighting, which seemed to fit with the mood of everyone else fighting these Taurains