Author Topic: Seven  (Read 73665 times)

Sir Chaos

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Re: Seven
« Reply #300 on: 11 November 2017, 13:50:07 »
Polcenigo, the world ComStar bombarded, used to be a Draconis Combine world.

Assuming the situation on the Smoke Jaguars front calms down sufficiently, would Theodore and/or Takashi be inclined to send whatever troops they can spare to Terra in order to punish ComStar? Would Hanse Davion be inclined to give those troops free passage? And how would the Ghost Bears react?
"Artillery adds dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl."
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"Ultima Ratio Regis" ("The Last Resort of the King")
- Inscription on cannon barrel, 18th century

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #301 on: 11 November 2017, 20:04:43 »
It's not going to be addressed directly until after Terra is settled, but one of the things the Smoke Jaguars were ripping at each other over was whether or not they should keep attacking the Combine, doing things the 'hard way' rather than bypassing the 'Spheroid Scum'.

The faction that won that conflict were the ones who favored continued attacks, so the Battle of Luthien is still on - after all, hunting Invisible Truth is a job for Warships, not for ground forces, so there's no reason not to do both at once. This means that something much like the canon interaction re: Luthien and mercenary reinforcement thereof is happening. It's an important moment in Victor and Omi's relationship, and I Ship It.

The Combine's leadership will not look kindly on Comstar, but by the time things settle, the universe will look rather different than canon.



ATLANTA DISTRICT, TERRA, SOL SYSTEM
DECEMBER 21, 3050

The orbital defense laser was placed to defend Hilton Head, of course; a massive fortress sunk into the seabed bedrock a few kilometers out from that coastal island, with its own fusion reactors cooled by the ocean water. Defensive weapons studded its meters-thick concrete walls, while torpedo launchers lurked below the waves.

The good news, as retrieved by a scouting run of daring pilots in Vandal omnifighters, was that the installation had obviously been thrown together in a great hurry in the six months or so since the initial clashes at Sol’s jump points, which meant that the defenses were far weaker than they might have been.

“Technically, the weapon can bear on the shoreline,” said the briefing officer, speaking for and from the intelligence sections aboard Dieron’s Run, in high orbit. “But the damage here-” a cursor played across the secondary screen the briefing was coming by, letting Vera monitor it out of the corner of her eye as her Warhawk advanced down the deserted megahighway that led through the outskirts of the major city that dominated the area, “-shows that shots like that, at the edge of the field of fire, run a serious risk of melting the rails used to track and elevate the emitter assembly. Our techs believe that the enemy were lucky not to cause permanent damage by continuing engagement for as long as they did.”

The screen split as the star of mechs thundered past a limited-access exit. “We have identified a number of similar installations in various stages of construction; one of them attempted to fire on the observation flight, another is complete in all exterior respects but did not fire, two more are believed to be within one month of operational status, and six will require up to a year of additional construction. Together, the network would be positioned to interdict all of Terra’s inhabited continents.

“Obviously, destroying or capturing the three completed laser stations, and preventing the completion of the others, must be an additional objective in this phase of the campaign. Reinforcements and conventional support troops cannot be safely brought in until they have been neutralized. Defensively, recon overflight has identified what are believed to be battalion-strength forces assigned to each station; weight of metal depends on the station’s completion status.”

The outskirts of Atlanta, spread around the road and the columns of Ghost Bear forces, already looked like a warzone, shattered buildings and charred-out burn zones graphic proof that some of the dropships and ground forces Dire Wolf had been forced to abandon in her ignominious retreat via the Terra-Luna jump point had in fact run the gauntlet and made it to the world’s surface - and fought there.

“The exception is Hilton Head; while an exact count has proven impossible, we believe that Comstar has stationed the majority of their available fighting power in the surrounding countryside, some six hundred mechs, thousand armored units, and ten thousand infantry.

“Opinion within the analysis group is divided as to Comstar’s reasoning; the three leading theories are first, that previously discounted rumors of a Castle Brian under Hilton Head are accurate, and something among the stored material there outweighs all of Terra combined, second, that the concentration of force is intended as bait to draw us over and into nuclear ground mines or other pre-located traps, or third, that Comstar’s civilian leadership has overruled their military commanders in a panic reaction.”

The screen’s imagery was of a stylized map of everything within a few hundred kilometers of Hilton Head, with known Com Guard positions hilighted symbolically.

“Analysis group has flagged suggested approach routes based on the assumption that Comstar is operating under the second reasoning. Many of these are known to be marginal; ease of passage and probability of mining are effectively opposed variables. We’ve attempted to provide backup routes, but all forces should be-”

The Anti-Missile System mounted to Vera’s Warhawk was sleepless, tireless, immune to boredom or distraction even as she and her fellow warriors, despite all their genes and training, were note. It announced the ambush to the tune of a shrilling alarm and the rasping sawblade sound that the AMS’s firing rate turned its gunshots into.

“Ambush, close!” she snapped into the comline as the scatter of short range missiles that ran the AMS’s gauntlet popcorned against her armor, at that moment unable to spare attention to the fact that it had gone out on the briefing channel as well as the one limited to her command trinary.

The Warhawk’s feet skidded on the pavement, all but glass-slick compared to the big ‘mech’s mass and inertia, as she threw it into a scrambling swerve off of the elevated superslab and onto the roof of a commercial building next to it, hurdling the ten-meter gap with ease and swearing to herself as the flat roof proved completely unable to handle an eighty-five ton burden and promptly collapsed in an explosion of dust and debris. At least the building’s structure slowed her fall enough to avoid damage, she thought, and pushed forward, wading through the lightweight wood and masonry and out into the street in front of the place.

Screaming, thrashing bodies fell past her as the Warhawk’s movement ripped the roof out from under the platoon of infantry that had been using it as an ambush site.

She forged out into the open of the street paralleling the elevated superhighway, glancing side to side and letting the HUD displays throw up the results of thermal and magscan, since visual was completely covered by clouds of dust and pulverized insulation.

When she fired, her ‘mech’s left arm pivoted almost perpendicular to her line of motion, the entire world lit up in hypersaturated green, sidescatter from the laser boring its way instantly through the billowing clouds; on the HUD, she could see the Black Knight that had been her target drop like a marionette. A corner of her mind hoped, knowing it was likely in vain, that the pilot was merely unconscious. Sometimes that happened, her ‘mech’s pulse lasers weren’t quite powerful enough to take a target’s head off completely.

A wheeled combat vehicle, probably a Demon, roared up the ramp that a partially dropped section of road to the south of her had created, a ramp leading down into some kind of tunnel or depot. Moving at top speed, the heavy tank reached the top of the ramp and kept going, launching itself into the air on sheer momentum, even as the turret started to track towards her. A second shot from the right arm, again pivoted ninety degrees off bore, put both lasers on that side into the vehicle’s exposed belly and its thin armor, gutting it before it hit the ground again.

The fourth shot caught a Crusader in the side, just aft of the join between heavy forward and lighter rear armor plates, and bored right through. There was a split second where she thought she’d only hit the missile launcher mounted in that side of the heavy battlemech’s torso, before the ejection hatches blew off and the pilot’s ejection seat rocketed free, moments before the entire machine blew itself violently apart as the magazine fire she’d touched off reached its culmination.

Despite the danger of whatever else lurked in the underground bunker, she turned away from it, trusting in the corpse of the Demon to block that exit’s potential danger for long enough. She didn’t have a choice; with a Crockett and King Crab both turning to bear on her and two more Comstar mechs mostly obscured behind them, any threat that was merely ‘potential’ had to wait.

She fired once, at almost the same instant that the King Crab cut loose - both of them missed their marks, her laser searing another dark burn mark across the hundred-ton monster’s already battered upper plating without actually penetrating, its shots going wide and wild as the pilot flinched away from the blaze of light only a few meters from the transparent armor over his cockpit. She fired again, this time burning straight through that vulnerable plating, and then again. The Crockett reeled, even as safety systems blew the ejection bolts on its cockpit armor and tossed the white-hot mess away before radiant heat from it could soak into the cockpit itself and kill the pilot. She could see the glint of daylight on the visor of his neurohelmet as he got his mech back under control and swung its arms and their mounted lasers up to bear.

“Fool,” she said to herself, and fired again, finishing the job, then looked past the falling assault mech to the remaining, lone Atlas II.

Behind her, metal screamed as the Demon was shouldered out of the way by the blunt, broad prow of the vehicle behind it, the triple-fanged turret of an Alacorn swinging to bear on her Warhawk’s vulnerable rear plating.

She stomped on the pedals and swung around, once more diverging her omnimech’s arms to let her fire in opposite directions but knowing that she’d left it too late, the Alacorn would certainly get a salvo off, and even one gauss rifle spike at this range…

The right-arm lasers, fired in unison, took the Atlas’s head completely off, skull-mask and all, but the left arm was still swinging, still swinging as the tank’s turret steadied, shivered slightly with final targeting adjustment…

Fear and adrenaline had her eyes and vision focused so tightly that the slender legs of Consuela’s Viper, both of the light medium’s feet landing squarely on the assault tank’s turret and driving it forcibly down into the chassis, the gauss rifle barrels bending wildly like jackstraws.

“Goomba stomp!” her love announced cheerfully.

Zureal

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Re: Seven
« Reply #302 on: 14 November 2017, 00:07:33 »
 [drool] more.....  [drool]

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #303 on: 15 November 2017, 19:26:04 »

ATLANTA DISTRICT, TERRA, SOL SYSTEM
DECEMBER 21, 3050

Quick questioning some of the survivors of the Com Guard unit that had ambushed the Command Keshik had been of more value than those men and women had expected. The medical facilities to keep a subject alive and functional under chemical interrogation were too involved and specialized to fit into MASH units, but Vera knew she wasn’t the only Clan warrior to be astonished at how much mercenary specialists were able to get out of their subjects without ever laying a finger on them, or even while being on the far end of a communication line.

The real specialists, that was. There had been all too many that would have fit right in among the Smoke Jaguars…

She pulled her thoughts off of that line; there were none of them assigned to the Keshik’s, and the overall force was too large for her to root them out alone. She’d have to rely on others, even if she hadn’t had more pressing concerns.

Like the fact that ComStar’s strength on Terra was a full three ‘Armies’, already blooded and battle-hardened by the campaign to reduce the last of the forces the Wolves had slipped to earth.

The same forces the that the Comstar force that had ambushed her had been hunting, before it found a more worthy prize.

“OK,” Consuela said. “Short version is, we’re in the shit.”

Under the circumstances, no one reprimanded her about her language. The forces she’d scouted enveloped the Keshik on three sides. “Looked like we’ve gone this long only ‘cause they were organizing and pulling together from a bunch of hunting teams. No sign of the Wolves, except that the Robes were still hunting them. No sign of MFBs, looks like they’re working out of underground bunkers; I spotted some at this set of waypoints, but if I was laying money down, I’d bet I didn’t get more than about half of them.”

“So,” Vera said, “when we attack, we must be aware of sudden reinforcements.”

“...Attack,” Consuela repeated.

Vera reached for the stylus that went with the relevant display, and traced several different routes. “I do not trust backtracking, not in this situation,” she said. “Aside from the way I begrudge the time it would lose us. Therefore we must break through and past the enveloping forces to link up with the Fifth Provisional Cluster… Here. Given the roads, thus, thus, thus… Our choices are… here, here, and here.”

“We could bunker up, put our backs to a wall until the Cluster comes to us,” Consuela suggested.

Vera knew that her lover could hear the raised eyebrow in the otherwise serious question: “Which wall?”

“...Take one of their bunkers away from them?” was offered in the full knowledge that it was a poor solution.

A warrior from the Keshik’s second star said what everyone was thinking: “Too vulnerable to booby traps.”

“Once we have picked a direction,” Vera went on, “and I intend it leave that decision as late as possible, to allow the situation to develop, we will strike and punch through the immediate enveloping force. Once we are on the far side of the perimeter, a fire mission from artillery will saturate the operational area-” a brush of her fingers clouded over much of the large, sprawling neighborhood they’d be fighting to win free of “-with smoke rounds, permitting us to break contact. This Com Guard force is a mix of assault-weight and infantry units, neither of which can match our pace.”

She paused. “Before anyone asks, breaking through the perimeter in smoke would shorten engagement ranges to a minimum, playing to their advantages in numbers and armor rather than our advantages in range. Questions or input, quiaff?”

“Aff, Galaxy Commander,” said one. “We intend to bypass this force, rather than destroying it?”

“One of the rearguard elements will be tasked with reducing them, on our own terms rather than theirs,” Vera said.

There were no further questions.

ECM suites and quick movement helped them approach the chosen strong-point in the Com Guard lines without early notice. Not, of course, with no notice - in an environment so close, and with so many infantry available, there were more than enough pickets posted to observe a formation of omnimechs on the move… But by the time they rounded the corner onto the avenue their target laager was parked at the end of, there were still men visible climbing onto and into their tanks, even as reactor after reactor came on line.

Vera settled her crosshairs onto the turret of an Alacorn and fired, oblique light sleeting nigh-harmlessly off of and around the protective jacket of the center gauss rifle but boiling away ablative layers on the gun mantlet with ease.

Not enough of them; the big tank fired moments later, the compression-contrails left by its rounds reaching past her Warhawk to the left.

She fired again, burning through into the fighting compartment this time with two sequenced shots, then switching targets to the next greatest threat. Fighting in a state of utter concentration, she was aware of the hits going home against her Warhawk’s armor, but the calculating element at the back of her mind. A large laser, a light autocannon… they weren’t going to stop her, not quickly enough to live. Around her, more fire crisscrossed the space of her peripheral vision, fire noticeably slacker in one direction than the other, and growing more so as units caught mid-start up died or were abandoned by crews more interested in diving for safety than in rolling long odds.

As the charging Keshik drew closer, other tanks advanced to meet them, Ontos and Demolishers lunging to reach their own working ranges under the cover of shoulder-launched SRMs stretching out from the buildings on either side of the avenue, and of the deaths of the last few long-ranged tanks that had been the first targets.

Consuela’s Viper landed on the tracking barrels of a Demolisher’s twin heavy autocannon, crushing them hopelessly out of true and bottoming the tank’s forward suspension out with a jolt, then launched into another soaring leap, hurdling through the torrent of fire erupting from a Rhino missile tank in a halo of smoke and fire as her AMS’s screaming barrels carved a relatively safe path towards her target.

Vera settled all four lasers on the Ontos that was even at that instant hurling itself into a bootlegger turn to follow the fast-moving medium, and erased it. “You will not touch her,” she said, mostly to herself, and then turned her attention to whatever had just hit her own ‘mech.

The end of the fight came, as always with the intense ones, as a surprise.

She sat in her command seat, reaching up to flip open her neurohelmet’s visor and wipe away the sweat that was stinging at her eyelids. “Damage report,” she said, and blinked her vision clear mostly on pure willpower to study her own display - about two thirds green, splotched with the yellow of slight-to-moderate armor damage.

She kept a mental tally as the reports rattled in; most of the omnimechs were about the same or a little better, while three had been targeted by multiple assault tanks and taken a battering. One had even had its leg armor stripped to all but nothing by tide of missiles from the Rhino that Consuela had crushed - the exchange of fire that had prompted her to do so.

“But no one is slowed,” she said. “Form on me in column, damaged elements in center. Break. Support, we will take that smoke now.”

The hissing roar of Arrow IV bodies leaving their racks was audible through the com line. “On the way,” were the words accompanying that sound.

“Move out,” Vera ordered, and pushed her Warhawk up into a run as puffs of light and smoke overhead started marking the dispersion of the submunitions that rained down over them, trailing dense, hot gray fog laced with radar-scattering chaff. Automatically, she flipped her ‘mech’s main display to sonar as the world vanished into the cloud bank, barely able to see the ends of the machine’s arms through her cockpit windows, much less the environment. On the main display, the ground underfoot and the building facades moving past were curtains of static, identifiable as masses if not coherent details.

It was enough for her to navigate by, and for the omnimech’s computer to place its feet.

At sixty kilometers per hour, it couldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to race the full length of the smoke cloud she’d ordered, but the time felt dreamlike, eternal, stretching out endlessly. Emerging into the open air was a shock and a relief. “We’re through,” Vera started to say to the rest of the unit as she charged forwards, streamers and contrails of smoke trailing out of caught crannies in her Warhawk’s armor and joints.

Then the Atlas stepped forward out of the side street, reaching out to seize her ‘mech’s arm on one massive battlefist and yank, hauling her smaller machine around and half-off its feet in a scream of metal. “Stravag!” she yelped in pure shock, as the Comstar-white skull mask filled her viewports.

The hundred-ton monster’s assault autocannon thundered, waking screaming alarms in her cockpit and shaking her hard enough to make the restraint straps of her seat bruise shoulders and breasts. She hauled on the controls, trying to swing her free arm around - it was caught in the Atlas’s other hand, leaving them locked together.

The autocannon roared again. The targeting computer display winked out and went black, and more alarms howled as its shells chewed deeper and deeper into her ‘mech’s vitals as she let most of its weight and balance rest on the hands pinning it so she could kick desperately, knowing as she did so that it was almost certainly futile. As soon as that cannon loaded its third cassette of ammunition…

The world flashed blue and green, mingled pulse-laser and particle cannon fire behind her attacker, and she swore again and fought desperately for balance as a red-and-orange-and-black explosion ripped her enemy apart, leaving its dismembered arms hanging from hers like strange fruit.

As the Atlas’s corpse fell away, she could see the attackers that had brought it down from behind - the savaged, nearly stripped wreck of a Dire Wolf, the right half of a battered Warhawk, and a shambling, melted mess that could be identified as a Kingfisher only because any other omnimech that size would have mounted a bulky extra-light engine and be long dead to lost reactor shielding by that point. What little armor on the three machines remained intact was Wolf gray, and hints of keshik silver.

Vera switched her comms to uncoded, line-of-sight. “SaKhan Kerensky, I presume?”

“That’s me, kid,” replied the voice of an older woman, and the Dire Wolf raised one arm in salute.

Terrace

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Re: Seven
« Reply #304 on: 15 November 2017, 20:26:00 »
I'm a little surprised that there's Wolves on the surface of Terra at all, given that I assumed all their Dropships were shot down before they could deploy troops.

On the other hand, it's not surprising that the Black Widow herself is one of the survivors.

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #305 on: 15 November 2017, 20:42:43 »
The final stages of the Wolf assault on Terra were an enormous fustercluck. Not only do I not know the full details, neither does anybody, on either side, who was actually present.

I will be working out more details on the ultimate result for the next segment, but suffice to say that Natasha's command star is about typical of the condition of the survivors. Without the Bears showing up, they'd have been completely boned after months on the run. OTOH, they were on Terra first...

Anyway, that may take a while. Latest Exalted sourcebook just dropped today, so I'm'a be in that place for a while.

Shadow_Wraith

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Re: Seven
« Reply #306 on: 16 November 2017, 00:01:47 »
nice update!

Chris OFarrell

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Re: Seven
« Reply #307 on: 17 November 2017, 18:36:31 »
I seriously thought you were about to do that infamous Atlas vs Warhawk pic :)

Good to see Natahsa is still up and kicking - I bet now several people owe Jamie Wolf chunks of C-Bills who were stupid enough to bet against her dying :)
Also good to see that the Ghost Bears are still rolling with the punches. ComStar may be bleeding them as they grind through to link up, but they are getting torn to pieces at the same time...

Did any of the Ghost Bears support make it down to the consolidated rally point everyone is heading for? I mean are there enough supplies ground side (I'm going to make the assumption that Vera in the leadup to this heavily biased her Galaxies Omnimech loads towards energy weapons specifically as a 'just in case' scenario?) to even partially rebuild some of the Wolf machines?
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #308 on: 17 November 2017, 21:22:56 »
If I'd remembered that image, I probably would have referenced it - but I didn't, so I didn't.

As for the supply situation, it's actually pretty good. Reloads, armor patches, etc, were shipped down on the same dropships as the units they were meant for, and the NL battery at Hilton Head had a very limited firing opportunity before the entire force had gone to ground. Ironically, using it the way they did has left Comstar slightly worse off - Vera had expected a conventional 'targets all across the planet' campaign, and the Robes would've had a chance to completely chew up whatever got sent after Hilton Head... But the emergency landing left everything that survived relatively concentrated in Tennessee and the northern halves of Mississippi and Alabama.

More importantly, the Com Guards' aero elements have pretty much shot their bolts, and Dieron's Run owns the orbitals. The laser station's positioning offshore was done for cooling reasons, but it also means that orbit-to-surface fire to take it out would basically be an ocean impact scenario, with attendant tsunamis and loss of life, so that option's off the table...

But small care packages of ammunition and other supplies, sent in on ballistic courses and disposable parachute aeroshells? One ton pallets in a slightly-more-advanced version of the old MOOSE? That's entirely possible. If the Robes want to waste energy and component time on shooting a fraction of those down, well, there's plenty more where those came from, and both sides would know it.

Chris OFarrell

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Re: Seven
« Reply #309 on: 18 November 2017, 23:44:37 »
If I'd remembered that image, I probably would have referenced it - but I didn't, so I didn't.

As for the supply situation, it's actually pretty good. Reloads, armor patches, etc, were shipped down on the same dropships as the units they were meant for, and the NL battery at Hilton Head had a very limited firing opportunity before the entire force had gone to ground. Ironically, using it the way they did has left Comstar slightly worse off - Vera had expected a conventional 'targets all across the planet' campaign, and the Robes would've had a chance to completely chew up whatever got sent after Hilton Head... But the emergency landing left everything that survived relatively concentrated in Tennessee and the northern halves of Mississippi and Alabama.


Interesting that she was focused on an 'all across the planet' campaign. I would have thought that while this might have been necessary, her first step would have been a full strength attack against Hilton Head to try and secure ComStars leadership (fat chance but at the least seizing their HQ if they leave it intact is a good starting point). Unless Hanse, Jamie, Theodore and so on quietly passed on all their intelligence about Terra and ComStar to her. But none the less before she split across the world she'd need to know what to hit and all that.

In either case, an initial first strike with the whole Galaxy(s) concentrated and only then fanning out would have probably made more sense than diluting the forces during the initial attack. But as has been said, junior officer made senior officer thanks to Clan rules. And yet hillariously is doing better than most of the far more experienced officers, even Ulric stuck his dic* in rashly and got badly mauled for his trouble.
Huh, I wonder how afraid he'll be when he hears that Natasha survived and is unhappy about how things went down...

Quote

More importantly, the Com Guards' aero elements have pretty much shot their bolts, and Dieron's Run owns the orbitals. The laser station's positioning offshore was done for cooling reasons, but it also means that orbit-to-surface fire to take it out would basically be an ocean impact scenario, with attendant tsunamis and loss of life, so that option's off the table...

But small care packages of ammunition and other supplies, sent in on ballistic courses and disposable parachute aeroshells? One ton pallets in a slightly-more-advanced version of the old MOOSE? That's entirely possible. If the Robes want to waste energy and component time on shooting a fraction of those down, well, there's plenty more where those came from, and both sides would know it.

That's a nifty idea.
But will there be enough spare parts, pods and so on to be able to refit and repair whatever is left of the Wolves?
« Last Edit: 18 November 2017, 23:49:07 by Chris OFarrell »
"I, the Baron of Strang, care not for your new names. Clans? Jade Falcons? I call you by your true name: Scum of the Star League, traitors of free will, persecutors of the Periphery come back to lord it over freedom-loving people. Come ahead, you steel-eyed robots! Come ahead and taste what a million like-minded people think of you and your damn Clans!"

-Baron Stepan Von Strang

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #310 on: 19 November 2017, 01:10:36 »
I picture the dropship flotilla in low orbit, dropping forces on each target in sequence, with Hilton Head first on the list. Hence running into the laser station, and being able to dive under it relatively easily. Granted, you know and I know that it'd be safer and less costly to land the entire force on your primary target and secure it as a beachhead if nothing else, but that's not what the Clan bidding system requires.

The surviving Wolf elements have been on planet, vastly outnumbered and fighting a guerrilla campaign with at best grudging civilian support for something like six months, a point which leads me to suspect that my revision pass when the story's finished will need to compress that part of the timeline to have any left at all.

A Cameron-class BC is listed as having a hundred and seventy-seven thousand tons of cargo space. Even assuming that Dieron's Run's inventories are running low by this point in the invasion, I'm pretty sure there's plenty to go around.

Besides which, while something like half the jumpships used for troop-moving were damaged firehosing them through the L1 point, half weren't, and are busily charging in preparation for a flit off to pick up more loads.

*pauses, makes note to mention in-story that the ones that brought the aerospace elements have already gone*

Fyrwulf

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Re: Seven
« Reply #311 on: 19 November 2017, 23:54:57 »
King Kong ain't got nothing on Natasha Kerensky!

Yo quiero mas, por favor!
"To Victor go the spoils"
-Precenter Atreus

pensiveswetness

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Re: Seven
« Reply #312 on: 18 May 2018, 10:37:22 »
Pinged for further reading

Greatclub

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Re: Seven
« Reply #313 on: 20 May 2018, 16:28:41 »
Fear and adrenaline had her eyes and vision focused so tightly that the slender legs of Consuela’s Viper, both of the light medium’s feet landing squarely on the assault tank’s turret and driving it forcibly down into the chassis, the gauss rifle barrels bending wildly like jackstraws.

Looks like the sentence lost coherence in the revision process; what is in front of the first comma does not match what comes after.

Also, where is Leo Showers? The donkey should still be alive at this point, since Tyra didn't go divine wind? Or was he on the Dire Wolf when it was shot up?
« Last Edit: 20 May 2018, 17:56:35 by Greatclub »

Valles

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Re: Seven
« Reply #314 on: 20 May 2018, 22:17:55 »
It should go, '...legs of Consela's Viper seemed to appear out of nowhere, both of the light medium's feet...', or something very close to that.

Leo Showers was eaten by the Great Star Goat Of Authorial Forgetfulness, like Army Group Sudeten was in canon. Not sure how I'll address that, whether in revision or latter-days saving throws.

Off the cuff guess, not to be taken seriously or topically, is that he's been neck-deep in the Smoke Jaguar civil war and ignoring his wider duties. Alternately, somebody with a Gauss Rifle demonstrated why it's stupid to have your supreme commander lead from the front in a battle armor. Determining which will take more consideration and probably need to wait until the muse cycles back to this one.

Alanith

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Re: Seven
« Reply #315 on: 02 June 2018, 20:17:31 »
It should go, '...legs of Consela's Viper seemed to appear out of nowhere, both of the light medium's feet...', or something very close to that.

Leo Showers was eaten by the Great Star Goat Of Authorial Forgetfulness, like Army Group Sudeten was in canon. Not sure how I'll address that, whether in revision or latter-days saving throws.

Off the cuff guess, not to be taken seriously or topically, is that he's been neck-deep in the Smoke Jaguar civil war and ignoring his wider duties. Alternately, somebody with a Gauss Rifle demonstrated why it's stupid to have your supreme commander lead from the front in a battle armor. Determining which will take more consideration and probably need to wait until the muse cycles back to this one.

Isn't Showers a Mechwarrior exclusive Bloodname?

Valles

  • Master Sergeant
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  • Posts: 271
Re: Seven
« Reply #316 on: 04 June 2018, 18:11:31 »
It could be. A different story, which I'm uncertain if I should post here, has been taking up all my creative cycles, so I don't have Clan-related info currently in ready memory.

Greatclub

  • Captain
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Re: Seven
« Reply #317 on: 25 July 2018, 16:04:47 »
Kai had confidence issues, but the real moping at Outreach was the result of Kai second guessing himself for sending that infantry back into the pass to be ready to detonate it, getting them killed when they ran into more Elementals.

AKA Kai not understanding the 1st and 2nd rules of war for officers.

This time around there may well have not been a Twycross scenario due to the massive butterflies, so he might not be quite so second guessing of his judgement at this stage.

Lost Destiny was conceived of and written during the late '80s. Closer to the end of Vietnam than 9/11 is to us.

Kai might have had issues, but from that perspective it makes a bit more sense. The butter-bar wasn't viewed positively during that period - "head filled with crap during OCS that you had to frag (Kill) to save your own life" would be closer

skychan

  • Recruit
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  • Posts: 1
Re: Seven
« Reply #318 on: 28 April 2023, 15:53:10 »
Careful coaching before hand, and a subtle hand-sign, cued Connie to step forward. “I do not claim to be a warrior, in any sense beyond bearing the rank title of ‘Mechwarrior’. I am, and am proud to be, a soldier, bearing arms under discipline rather than for glory or vanity.”

The horse-headed Khan’s voice was a vicious sneer. “A soldier is a servant of a nation, not of filthy lucre! You profane the honor the word with your blasphemous claims!”

She let the old mocking smile show. “I grant that the Regal Death is a far smaller state than most, and forced to trade the service of those assets it does hold for certain necessities - but if the Khan is so foolish as to doubt my loyalty to it, he is courteously invited to come and test my skills and resolve for himself.” Beat. “If he thinks he’s hard enough.”

I just binged this whole fic.  It was absolutely glorious and I'm very thankful to have done so.  I admit the only thing that would have made my day more, would be if this scene had had it's proper resolution.   I.E.  if the Hell's Horses Khan here actually did spend the next six months traveling to the Inner Sphere to challenge her.  I can I admit legitimately see that happening, because it would be glorious. 

I also desperately want to see a locust painted up as a pumpkin on green legs now, because that is one of the most fantastic mech name's I've ever seen.  I will forever more have a place in my heart for the Pumpkin Queen.