1013
10/03/3095
DropShip Pad Seven Delta
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“It’s fucking bullshit is what it is.” Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman said in a loud voice, pitched to carry to the ears of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery officers some four meters away from where the mercenaries stood. Several of those officers gave hostile looks in the general direction of the mercenaries or even directly at Madman himself.

Beside him, Major Alexander “Random” Yau said nothing to discourage his executive officer’s thoughts on the whole situation because he agreed entirely. Instead, he watched as the Overlord Class DropShip the BLACK FLAG continued to rise into the sky on a column of flames as it headed into the atmosphere of Wolcott, laden down with DCMS BattleMechs and Aerospace Fighters. 

Earlier in the month, it had been carrying the Mechs and Aerospace fighters of Chaos Incorporated into the atmosphere of Wolcott. Now, it had been seized by the Combine and was back in the ranks of the its navy to transport Mechs and Aerospace Fighters to the front lines in the new fighting against not only the Ghost Bears but also Clan Snow Raven. The fighting had been fierce and the Combine was throwing everything it had at the two Clans to try and stop them. How well it had been doing was debatable.

He turned to look at his Professional Soldiery Liaison Officer, Tai-I Akio Wakai. “Nothing that could be done.”

Akio did not look to Alex but continued to watch the BLACK FLAG as it flew higher and higher. “That is correct.”

“I know.” Alex replied.

“It’s okay.” Captain Jeremy Allen, former captain of the BLACK FLAG, said very calmly.

“Okay? Okay?!? How is this all okay?” Jackson asked, anger still in his voice. “Hell, that was your ship just a couple of weeks ago!”

Jeremy shook his head. “Not really. Sure, I ran her after you guys liberated her from those damned pirates, but she wasn’t really my ship. Just… loaned out to me. Besides, it’s going to be okay. Those Drac bastards… present company excluded…”

“Of course.” Akio said without any emotion and his eyes still on the BLACK FLAG.

“… they renamed her. You can’t just go off and rename a ship… it’s bad luck.” 

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Oh… well then… that makes everything okay. Bad luck. Sure… that’ll show them.” 

“It will.” Jeremy replied calmly.

“So, what’s going to happen to them? Explode in mid-air? The engines going to quit and it will come tumbling down out of the sky?”

Jeremy gave Jackson a very shocked look. “Lord, I hope not. That would just be horrible.” He shrugged. “I mean, sure, it could happen like that but I doubt it. But it has been a rule since men were sailing wooden ships on the oceans of Terra: you don’t change the name of a ship. At least not unless it was captured in combat and even then, it wasn’t always the best idea.”

“It’s not proper or appropriate.” Agreed SRLT Tercius Sertoria, Jeremy’s XO when they ran the BLACK FLAG together. The former Circinus Federation naval officer had stopped looking at the former BLACK FLAG and had turned his attention to the Draconis Combine naval officers that were glaring at the mercenaries. His left hand gently caressed the pommel of the gladius short sword he wore on his hip as his looked at the officers. Some returned his stare frankly, their hands on the katanas they carried on their hips. 

“Cut it out, Tercius.” Jeremy said in a conversational tone. “Getting into a duel with someone over this is not going to help. It will just make things worse, actually.” 

“You continue to show wisdom, Captain.” Tynon Lu, Alex’s mentor and the lead tech for Chaos Incorporated, remarked. “it is better to stay one’s hand before drawing a sword… they are much more difficult to sheathe than draw.”

Tercius’ hand slid down from the pommel and his thumb hooked into the broad leather belt that hung the gladius from his hip. He did continue to return the other officers’ stares with his own flat and stern look. 

“Thank you, Tynon.” Alex said and looked to one of the other mercenaries in the group. “Player, I am going to need you to get with people and secure me some equipment and personnel.”

Nathan “Player” Hooker, Chaos Incorporated’s contracting agent sighed. He hated the moniker that the mercenary soldiers had hung on him, but knew that (1) they didn’t listen to him when he said that, (2) if he continued to protest, they would continue to use it and more frequently, just to piss him off, and (3) they could very well come up with something worse. “Sure, Alex, I can do that. What do we need?” 

“It’s all here.” Alex handed him a small reader chip that would fit into a noteputer. 

“Let me see.” Nathan plugged the chip into his noteputer and reviewed the document for a moment then looked at Alex with raised eyebrows before looking at the document again. “You’re sure about all of this?” 

“Yes. It’s what we’re going to need to have available to us.” Alex replied calmly.

“It’s going to be very… costly.”

“Very.” Alex agreed. “But it would be even more costly for us if we didn’t have it.”

Nathan let out a long and loud breath of air from his mouth. “I don’t know if I can make an argument for that right now, but you are the boss here so I’ll get it done.”

“I know you will, Nathan. Thank you.” Alex said to the other man and clapped him on the shoulder before turning to the other mercenaries. “Jeremy… are you sure you’re going to stay with us and not go back to your commission with the Combine?”

“After they let me rot there with the pirates for I don’t know how long? And then claimed the BLACK FLAG back after not lifting a finger to retrieve her themselves?” Jeremy shook his head slightly. “Not for me, thanks. I’ll hang out with you for a bit, if that’s not a problem.”
“Not for me.” He nodded toward Tercius, who was still exchanging glares with the Combine naval officers. “What about your crew?”

“Most of them stayed. All the bridge crew did for sure, some of the others didn’t but that’s okay. I can find more people to fill the ranks on whatever ship you provide.”

Jackson looked at the DropShip captain. “You think we’re going to be able to do that for you?”

Jeremy returned the MechWarrior’s look. “You will if you want to get all those pretty Mechs of yours off the ground again.”

Jackson looked ready to reply with something rude so Alex held up a hand to forestall the upcoming argument. “I’ve got some things in motion now, gentlemen.” He nodded towards Nathan, who was walking away from the group still looking at his notepad. “So, don’t get too worried quite yet. For now, let’s just head back to our compound and we’ll discuss a few things after some drinks. Sound good?”

Jackson smirked and gave Alex a smartass salute. “You are the boss.”

1013
10/03/3095
Room 319, Medical Floor
Third Floor, Building Seven
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 

“How you doing, kiddo?” Captain Dillan Fowler asked as he stepped into the room. 

“I’ve felt worse.” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond mumbled.

“Just got another dose of pain meds, huh?” Dillan said with a smile as he began replacing the four day old flowers that were in the vase besides Sara’s bed.

“More flower? What did you do, Dillan? Take out stock in the flower industry or something?” 

“Ah… no… I just… “He paused in the removal of the pink roses in favor of the new orange ones he’d purchased before coming back to the compound. “Well, I thought you’d like them is all.”

Sara gave him a weary smile. “I do, beloved. Truly. You just… well… it’s been a lot of flowers.”

“And balloons.” 

“And balloons.” She repeated. “Not to mention the chocolate and Snuggle Bear.”

“You like him?” Dillan asked.

“I love him.” Sara replied and gave the nearly meter tall teddy bear a hug then looked at Dillan. “But not as much as I love you.”

“Good.” Dillan chuckled. “Hate to think I would lose out to a bear.”

“Well, he’s good to snuggle, like you, but you have other… ah… talents…  that he just can’t seem to compete with.” Sara replied with a wicked smile.

Dillan leaned in and gave Sara a long, lingering kiss that turned into several kisses before Sara allowed him to lean back up again. “And here I’d thought you’d forgotten.” 

“It hasn’t been THAT long.” Sara said then smiled slightly. “Yet.”

“Yet.” Dillan agreed and gave her another kiss. “So, when are you out of here so I can… ah… impress you with a display of my skills?” 

“Another week or so.” She replied. “That’s what they told me anyway. The rejuvenation tanks really helped my body heal at a much faster rate.”

“That’s good.” Dillan said, his face going very somber. “I’d hate to think about what kind of shape you’d be in without that tank.”

“Then let’s not dwell on it.” She said and intertwined her fingers with his. “We’ll just think about what will happen in a couple of weeks and not about silly things that didn’t happen. Deal?”

“Deal.” Dillan replied and squeezed her hand in reply. The two sat there for a moment in silence before Dillan broke it. “We’ve gotten a few new pilots in.” 

Sara nodded slightly, then winced and regretted the nod because it made things spin slightly. “Are they going to work out?” 

“Don’t know. Mitch is running them through their paces and extolling your virtues to them every five minutes and how they’d better up their performances if they want to be in the unit and don’t want to lose chunks of their ass to your razor-sharp teeth.” 

“Oh, good Lord. “Sara muttered. “Tell him I said to ease up on the throttle just a little. If he doesn’t, then we’ll never get any new pilots in.”

“I tried.” Dillan said then chuckled lightly. “He told me to stick with piloting ‘oversized, tin-plated tennis balls’ and leave the ‘real’ flying to him.”

Sara laughed. “I would have loved to have seen that conversation. What did you say?”

“What could I say?” Dillan asked. “I surrendered and left the field of battle to him. Not much else I could really do at that point.” 

“True enough.” Sara sighed. “Once Mitchell gets his head stuck into something, he doesn’t stop until he’s gotten it licked. Should have called him ‘Bull’ instead of ‘Rooster’.”

Dillan said nothing for a moment then looked at Sara. “He’s in love with you, you know.”

“I know.” She replied softly. “Has been for years. I’ve done everything I can to make sure he knows that I love him as a friend most dearly, but it’s not going to ever go past that.”
“Probably shouldn’t have slept with him.” Dillan said. At the sharp look that Sara threw his way, Dillan just shrugged. “I am not yelling at you or anything, I am just saying.”

Sara said nothing for a moment, just looked away to compose herself, then looked back to Dillan. “It was a one-time thing. I was sad and lonely and more than a little drunk…”

“You don’t have to explain. Especially explain again.” Dillan shrugged. “It happened and it’s in the past. I am not mad at you or anything… glass houses and throwing stones and everything... it was just an observation.”

“Glass houses and stone throwing?” She asked.

“Yeah. You know… that old saying about people that live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones? How people that have done something themselves should not go off and come down on people that have done the same thing.”

“So, you’re telling me that you’ve slept with Mitchell too?” Sara asked with a sparkle in her eyes.

Dillan just looked at her for a moment then sighed. “I am so going to tell the nurse to up your meds.”

1013
10/03/3095
Hanger Building Four
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 

“Are you sure about this, Risky?” Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius asked as he eyed the suits of Void battle armor in their cubicles. “You guys just got them.”

“And they worked great, Felix, but I have something better for combat now.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien replied and gestured towards the new battle armor suits that Chaos Incorporated had been able to salvage from the battlefields of Virentofta. 

A total of twenty Clan made Elemental battle armor suits stood in cubicles that had been recently built to accommodate them. The cubicles were actually temporary units made of 32mm diameter nominal galvanized water pipe that Tynon Lu’s Madhouse Mechaniks had put together to keep the Elemental suits together until real cubicles could be constructed for them… somewhere.

The Elemental battle armor suits were examples of the first true battle armor to be produced and were one of the things that had given the Clans such an edge in battle when they first came to the Inner Sphere. The armies of the Inner Sphere had nothing like them and had no tactics or ideas in how to deal with them. Especially when these three-meter-tall beasts that could take a shot from a large laser and keep coming. 

These suits were armed with a small laser that took the place of a right arm manipulator of any sort, a battle claw on the left arm, a machine gun or other anti-personnel weapon under the battle claw, and a SRM 2 launcher on the back. They could move more than three times as fast as any standard infantry trooper and could leap 90 meters on the jump jet pack installed on the back of the armored suit.

While the Elemental battle armor was produced for use by the genetically bred and enhanced Clan warriors known as Elementals, who stood close to three meters tall outside of their armor, the interior of the suits were adjustable. Tiana had checked the interior adjustments herself to make sure that they would be able to adapt to the much smaller troopers under her command… well… most of them were smaller. 

She eyed the broad back of Kristoff, the only name the Elemental went by, as he checked over the Elemental armor suits. He was a captured Ghost Bear Elemental and genetically enhanced and bred for size, strength, and stamina. The speed, resilience, and reflexes he’d demonstrated were all trained into him since he was a child. Tiana had no worries about Kristoff’s allegiance since his capture… she knew some of the Way of the Clans… but she was worried more about how he’d mesh in with the rest of the unit. 

Tiana tore her gaze from Kristoff and returned it to Felix, who was just grinning at her. “What?”

“Not a thing.” Felix nodded towards Kristoff. “He’s a fine specimen and well worth a couple of moments of observation.”

“I was not looking at him.” Tiana replied and could feel the slight flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck. “He caught my eye and I was just trying to think of what the hell I was going to do with him.”

Felix grinned. “I bet.”

“Not like that!” Tiana felt the flush across her cheeks. “I meant how he was going to fit in with the rest of the unit is all.”

“Okay. Whatever.” Felix left the grin on his face and gestured back to the Void suits. “So, I should get myself some people to fill these things up with, don’t you think?” 

“Yeah… that would be good. Luckily, the Void was built here in the Combine so you might be able to find some vets that would be willing to get paid a bit more than they used to be and do the same job.” Tiana explained. “If you can’t find those, then you stick with some people that have had at least some battle armor training and you’ll be good. Those things handle like a dream, though I have to admit that I was thinking about trading these units in to get some with the Gauss rifles instead.”

“That’s not a bad idea, since I don’t plan to mix it up with Mechs or the like much. Maybe, mix the squads a bit and have the PPC there as a support weapon for the rest of the squad.” 

“There’s a good thought.” Tiana agreed and paused for a moment. “You know… I am going to have to run those Elementals in squads of four instead of the five that the Clans use. My people are just going to be used to running them like that instead of a normal five trooper point.”

“I don’t think there would be a problem with that… “Felix nodded towards Kristoff. “…excepting maybe your mobile wall over there. He might get his panties all twisted up about it.”

“We’ll see. But back to the Voids… yes, take them and use them with my blessings. You need some more integrated forces with you to help protect your units. They can even ride around in those two Packrats you have, like I did during that last op.” 

“It will be nice to have some sort of firepower with us. I hated what happened with the Mimic when those damned VTOLs came after us.”

Tiana nodded, her face somber. “How’s Janice doing?”

“Ah, she’s right as rain now. I knew she would be… alright, I hoped for it hard anyway.” Felix shrugged. “Still, she’s fine now and that’s all that really matters.”

“Is she going to be okay to get back into the thick of things again?” 

“She’s raring to go at this point. The doctors had to damned near strap her into her bed for the last week or so of her recovery.” Felix smiled and shook his head. “Poor bastards never knew what they were in for, eh?” 

“They never do.” Tiana replied with a smile. “Okay, I need to go hunt Nathan up so he can get to work on getting me some more people. Again.” 

“I was going to do the same thing, actually. You mind if I join you?” 

“Lead on, dear sir.” Tiana gestured towards the door of the hanger. 

“No, no, Madame. Ladies first.” Felix bowed low and gestured towards the door.

“I understand that you are being gentlemanly and such, but if I walk in front of you, then how can I look at your ass?” 

Felix blinked at that then shrugged and walked towards the door.

Tiana smiled then called out. “Think you could just, I don’t know, wiggle a little more or something as you walk?”

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 3174
Contract count:  3174
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000 

1033
10/05/3095
Hanger Two
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau stood at the feet of one of the newest BattleMechs that Chaos Incorporated had acquired. What made this acquisition one of the best was that the unit had not had to pay a dime for it… what made it one of the worst was that the payment had been made in blood instead of C-bills. The Loki or Hellbringer, as the Clans called it, stood proud and ready for battle… it had taken no small amount of scrapping from what little salvage the unit had acquired on Virentofta to get it that way, but it was ready.

It was one of three Clan built BattleMechs that the unit had captured and the only OmniMech of the three. At 65 tons, the Loki was classified as a heavy Mech but with the advanced electronics and construction used, it moved like it was ten tons lighter… unfortunately it did so at the cost of protection. The Loki’s armor was also more like a Mech that was ten tons lighter but it had several pluses to it as well.

The pluses were the advanced electronic warfare the Loki was equipped with including an advanced targeting computer that would make the Loki much more accurate in combat. That made the twin ER PPCs, Streak SRM 6, and trio of ER medium lasers much more lethal. The machine guns and leg-mounted A-pods were good against infantry and while Alex did not share most MechWarriors distain for standard infantry or “meatbags”, they did not worry him too much. Certainly, not enough to devote so much tonnage to them that would have been much better spent in armor protection.

He patted the OmniMech’s foot and looked across the hanger. It was full of BattleMechs, battle armor suits, and techs… lots of techs. More techs than any other time in the life of Chaos Incorporated. With the number of new techs in the unit, Alex only really knew about a third of them by name now. He was working on trying to get to know more of them, but there had been so much going on recently, there just hadn’t been time or chance.

“She’s pretty.” Simon Grobler said as he approached the Loki, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coveralls. 

“Hey Simon.” Alex greeted him without turning around. Grobler was normally a pain in the ass and Alex was not overly fond of the man, but he knew his tech so his eccentrics and lack of social skills were often overlooked. “What’s going on?”

“Tynon was wanting you.” Simon replied and directed a thumb over his right shoulder. “He’s in the office.”

“Thanks.” Alex gave the Loki another look. “What do you think of her versus my Cataphract?”

Simon gave a half shrug. “You lose about five tons in overall mass, most of that in armor, but you gain another 20 or so KPH in speed. The twin ER PPCs would run hot, so your Cataphract has the edge there but there’s that targeting computer in the Loki. Plus, the Loki has the active probe and an anti-missile system. Both have the ECM, but the Cataphract has the Stealth armor on it. Close call in my opinion.”

“Yeah, mine too.” Alex replied with a sigh.

“You looking to swap Mechs?”

Alex gave a half shrug of his own. “I was thinking about it, yes. I am just having the debate with myself on if I should or not. Been weighing all the pluses and minuses of the two Mechs.”

Simon nodded. “Better armor in the Cataphract and that Gauss rifle is hard to beat for damage and running cool. The Loki though has got the AMS and better electronics suite in it and is faster. Tough choice. Maybe some sims in both models?”

“Yeah, that’s my next step.” Alex agreed. “He’s in the office?”

“Yep. Drinking tea and mumbling in Chinese while he’s playing with a noteputer.”

“Mandarin or Cantonese?”

“Cantonese, I think. He was kinda hard to hear but he wasn’t gritting his teeth at all or stabbing the noteputer with his stylus.”

Alex nodded his understanding; both the grinding of teeth and stabbing with the stylus were tells for when Tynon was angry at something or someone. If Tynon was seriously upset, then he started grumbling in Mandarin until he found someone to yell at. “That’s good. I hate it when he’s pissed off and wants to see me specifically.”

“Same here.” Simon said and stood there with Alex, both men looking up at the Loki. After several quiet moments, Simon cleared his throat. “Okay, well as much as I love standing here and staring at Clan tech, I’ve got to go get to my trainees.” 

“No problem, Simon. Thanks for passing the word from Tynon.” Alex said and returned the wave the tech gave as he left. With a sigh, Alex adjusted his holster and headed towards the office where Tynon would be waiting. 

The office was a cinder block affair located in the back corner of the hanger. The cinder blocks were good at insulating the office some most of the noise in the hanger and even helped keep the smaller area warmer than the rest of the hanger. Several large tables with rolling chairs filled up most of the space but there was a desk in the far-left corner with stacks of papers and noteputers on it. A row of file cabinets ran against one wall with a commercial grade coffee maker on top of them. Right now, the coffee maker was brewing tea.

Tynon sat at one of the tables with a pair of noteputers in front of him and a mostly empty cup of tea. Not saying a word, Alex took the cup to the coffee maker and added more tea to Tynon’s cup then placed the pot back on the warming surface before taking the refilled cup back to Tynon and setting it down. Still saying nothing, Alex slid into a chair across the table from his mentor.

“Tell me your thoughts.” Tynon Le said as he pushed the small noteputer towards Alex. “I would like to see what you think of what I have done.”

Alex took up the noteputer and scanned the page. “You’ve broken your techs in to multiple units?” 

“Yes, one unit for each of the reinforced lances. It will make better sense when everything else is organized properly. You’ve said that we would be running with additional vessels.” Tynon reminded him. 

“Yes… I’m not sure I thought everything through entirely.” Alex murmured, more talking to himself than his mentor as he continued to scroll through the lists. “You’ve split up your team... made them your… squad leaders for lack of a better term.”

Tynon nodded. “Wisdom is worth nothing if it does not guide those that lack it.”

“So, you have reminded me often.” Alex said with a chuckle. “Very often actually.”

“And still… “

“Yes… yes… still I lack whatever it is that you believe I am lacking…” Alex said and scrolled back up the list. “This looks pretty good, Tynon. I think it will work fine.”

“Thank you, Alex. Does this mean that I have your approval for this organization of the techs, Major?”

Alex frowned. “Of course, Tynon. I don’t know why you would even ask.”

“I am your teacher, your friend, and your subordinate, Alex.” Tynon said softly. “I cannot and will not presume that anything that I say is what will happen. That cannot be what the others see and then think that I am the power behind the throne.”

“No one thinks that.” Alex replied.

“The ones that have been with us for a long time know that you are a strong man that will lead without being lead even by your mentor but in some moments, they may forget that.” Tynon’s left hand moved to the right and then back to the left. “The new ones that have just joined us, they do not know you yet and will have doubts.”

Tynon moved his hand to the center of his body. “I shall do my best to not feed either groups’ thoughts. You must do your best to not give them the beginnings of such thoughts.” Tynon smiled slightly. “Even with me.”

Alex looked at Tynon and nodded once then turned the noteputer that Tynon had given him around and edged it back towards his mentor with a single finger then tapped the frame of the noteputer. “The ‘L’ on ‘Lead Senior Tech’ should be capitalized.”

Tynon nodded gravely then picked the noteputer up and began making corrections. “I am chastised and ashamed of my misstep. Please forgive this most unworthy one.”

“I will consider it.” Alex replied, his tone as grave as Tynon’s was serious. “However, do not allow such foul behavior to occur again.”

“I find myself chastised.” Tynon hung his head low. 

“As I am a merciful leader, I shall forgive you… this once.”

“I am most grateful for your mercy.” Tynon paused and cleared his throat. “Are we done now?”
“I think so.” Alex said then gave a slight grin. “Though I could get used to that.” 

“Not too used to it, I hope.” Tynon replied with an eyebrow arched. 

“Oh… maybe.” Alex laughed at the look on Tynon’s face. “Are you done with me now? So, I can go?”

“Off with you, grasshopper.” Tynon waved a hand towards the door. “Have you decided if you are going to swap to the Loki?”

“I’ve not decided actually. Still weighing things but I am going to go hit the simulators and see how it handles.” 

“That would be ideal.” Tynon agreed. 

“Thanks.” Alex gave Tynon a slight bow. “I shall talk with you after I have been in the simulators.”

Tynon sighed and went back to his noteputer. “And have showered.”

“And have showered.” Alex agreed as he left the office and let out a sigh as he closed the door behind him. “Some things never change.”

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 1695
Contract count: 4869
Contract Minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000
 
1322
10/07/3095
Recreation Hall
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau plopped down in the comfy chair he’d claimed as his own for any and all staff meetings with a sigh and waved over one of the locals he’d hired to work for Chaos Incorporated as staff, ordering a beer and one of the tasty ham sandwiches from the kitchens. Give Emmitt "Cook" Lane a few hours and some standard rations, he’d make you a passable meal; but give him a real kitchen with a real pantry and the man would make a freaking banquet fit for a Davion on holiday… not the nationality, but the actual royal family.

Alex looked around the room. All of the unit’s officers were here as well as a number of the senior NCOs and department heads, even if the department wasn’t officially declared one, and the DropShip commanders. He saw a few raised eyebrows from the old hands of the unit at a couple of the new people that they didn’t know, which was just fine with Alex, that was what this whole thing was about… introducing the new people and how things were changing in Chaos Incorporated.

Deeming that everyone that was going to be here was here, Alex stood up and rapped on the table in front of him three times. Three times, very hard. The resulting sounds cracked through the room and caught the attention of everyone. Alex winced at the strikes but stopped himself from bringing his hand to his mouth to suck on his battered knuckles. Above and beyond it not being cool, doing so would also raise the eyebrows of his martial arts instructor and mentor, Tynon Lu, who would then have him doing “strengthening” exercise to toughen his knuckles.

Alex started off the meeting with his voice loud and clear. “Thanks everyone, I know you all wanted to attend another meeting as much as you wanted to get shot in the head with a PPC but this one is important.” 

“Aren’t they all important?” Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman, second in command for Chaos Incorporated, asked in an innocent voice.

“Yes, but that is a quiet understanding of all those that attend them, knowing that they are indeed not wasting time and energy by attending.” Alex said, taking a page from Tynon’s books of wisdom and quick comebacks. “By actually labeling this one as ‘important’, I hope to impart on all of you… “ he gave Jackson a raised eyebrow. “… especially you, about how important it is indeed.”

Jackson grinned and raised his hands in surrender. “Thank you, wise one. Please impart upon us your wisdom.”

Alex sighed. It was going to be one of those kinds of meetings. “Thank you, esteemed executive officer.” He replied to Jackson and bowed slightly from the waist. “In case some of you have been living under a rock on the other side of the planet, we are getting in a lot of new equipment and people. This is part of the reason that many of you are finding new rank pins and the like tucked into your quarters or given to you by your commanding officers. Congratulations to all that have been promoted.” He grinned. “For those that have not, better luck and bigger bribes next time.” 

Alex ignored the chorus of groans and single question of “Wait… we can do bribes?” from the assembled mercenaries and continued with his speech. “As we all know, the BLACK FLAG is no longer with us because the Dragon has taken back what they have found to be their stolen property.” Alex held up his hands at the chorus of boos and such that came from the crowd. “Stop that. We all know the BLACK FLAG was taken by the pirates and while I will miss that vessel and the firepower and transport it brought to us, I do not have to miss her captain or crew.” 
He made a gesture towards Captain Jeremy Allen. “Captain Allen has opted to stay with us and not go with the BLACK FLAG. The Combine didn’t have any choice in that as few of the members of the crew of the BLACK FLAG were actually part of the Combine’s navy, so most didn’t go with the ship. They’ve stayed here.”

“That’s good. I think that Emmitt was looking for another dishwasher.” Jackson said. 

“When you put your application in for that position, feel free to mention me by name, Madman.” Jeremy quipped. Jackson flushed red but laughed with the rest of the group.

“I think that instead of doing that, I am going to have Captain Allen command a new ship.” Alex put in as the laughter died down. He paused to enjoy the surprise on the faces of several of the mercenaries in the room before continuing. “Captain Allen will be in command of the BLACK JACK, a new Mule class DropShip that I purchased for us.”

“A Mule? That’s not a Mech DropShip, Alex.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien pointed out. “We need another Mech carrier… and something to put more of my battle armor in.”

“Thank you, Risky. I am glad that I consulted with everyone else but you about that.” Alex smiled at his battle armor commander to show he was kidding. “The BLACK JACK is to carry our dependents, a majority of our non-combatants, some of your battle armor troops, and our recon unit… not to mention supplies, expendables, and parts.”

“Why a Mule?” LTJG Christopher “Cupid” Reis asked.

“Large cargo capacity primarily.” Alex replied. “A good place to put all our people that aren’t going to be shooting guns at the bad guys plus it has enough armor and armament to get out of a bad situation without getting tempted to create one.” 

“Still doesn’t help us carry more Mechs.” Christopher said. “We’ve got eighteen Mechs or so right now, too many to haul around on the MARIANNE.” 

“Thank you to both you and Tiana for playing my straight guys today.” Alex said with a grin. “To carry our expanded unit I have also contracted the services of two Union class DropShips, the AWKWARD MOMENT and THE EQUESTRIAN, to carry Mechs, battle armor, and Aerospace fighters for us. Allow me to introduce their captains to you.”

Alex gestured to a small redheaded woman leaning against the wall over to his left, near where Captain Allen and Captain Dillan Fowler, captain of the MARIANNE, sat. She pushed herself off the wall to stand up in front of the mercenaries. She was dressed in a battered brown leather duster that spoke of age but not neglect and well-made blue button down shirt and tan pants with knee high leather boots. Barely visible from underneath the duster, a compact laser pistol rode high on her thigh.

“This is Captain Ana Rifkin of the AWKWARD MOMENT. She recently finished a contract with the Lyran Alliance and was looking for work when Nathan was able to get in touch with her.” Alex explained, referring to Nathan “Player” Hooker, the unit’s agent and premier recruitment officer. “She comes highly recommended and is known to our own Captain Fowler as a good ship’s captain and honest person.”
“Thank you, Major.” Ana said, her voice not seeming loud but still audible to everyone in the room. “I plan on making sure that this is an enjoyable and profitable adventure for everyone.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Alex said then gestured towards a man standing stiffly beside her. He was a slightly older man with greying hair but in a well-tailored, high-collared, black uniform coat with blue trim. His slacks were also black with a blue stripe running up the side and tucked into gleaming black knee-high boots. “This is Captain Edmond Cunningham II, commanding THE EQUESTRIAN and formerly of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns.”

Edmond clicked his heels and gave a slight bow to first Alex and then to the group as a whole. “Thank you, Major. As with Captain Rifkin, I look forward to serving with you all.”

Alex nodded as Edmond stepped back. “Thank you, Captain. 

As the older man sat back down, Alex turned his attention back to the rest of the unit. “With the addition of the two Union Class DropShips, I have expanded our Aerospace forces to get us to max capacity of what the ships can carry…”

“Whee… one new fighter.” SRLT Mitchell "Rooster" Pine said, spinning a single finger in the air. The Aerospace pilot’s face reflected the excitement in his voice. 

“Yes, one new Aerospace Fighter, but it let us field another flight.” Alex said with a tense smile on his face. This was one of those things that he and Mitchell had gone around about several times. “I’ve got slots for six Aerospace fighters and I have six Aerospace fighters available to use. Plus, I got you a couple of extra pilots so we can make sure you guys don’t fly yourselves to death.”

“Which I appreciate a lot, but we could use more fighters.” Mitchell replied, his voice betraying a bit of the tension in his words.

“Mitch, as soon as I can do that, I will. A lot of our bank account went into securing our new Mechs and DropShips and all that.” Alex explained.

“How much?” asked SRLT Felix “Dice” King.

“A lot.” Alex replied with a smile. 

“How much, roughly?” Felix asked again.

“Let’s say that we have enough for payroll and some of the parts we need. After that, there will be some belt tightening done by everyone.” Alex shrugged slightly. “It’s just a part of doing this business.”

“Alex… not to belabor this point…” Jackson said. “… but how much do we have left in the bank right now?”

“About six million.” Alex replied, nonchalantly. “Like I said, enough for payroll and some parts and supplies, but we’re going to have to hit some serious C-bills to get our cash reserves back up again.” 

Alex let his eyes roam the room, much of which had gone very quiet and were looking at him uneasily. “What? We’ve all been down this road before, people. Money gets tight, we go do some fighting and then we get more money. It’s a cycle… a vicious one, true, but still we have always gotten things back together before. Plus, this time, we’re low on money because we increased our ability to make money again.” 

He swept his hand across the room. “Look around you. How many new faces do you see? Techs, battle armor troopers, Aerospace Pilots, MechWarriors, DropShip crew, Medics… hell, even more cooks. All to take care of the unit and to help us do what we do best: wage other people’s wars.”

“It just seems that… well… that was a lot of C-bills to toss into this, Alex.” Jackson said.

“Jackson, I had to do something. They took the BLACK FLAG from us, we didn’t have enough space to carry all of our gear in just the MARIANNE. What else could I do?” Alex asked.

“You could have just contracted the one Union… “Jackson said then looked to where the DropShip captains were sitting. “I don’t mean any disrespect or want to make you all feel unwelcome, but I know that you guys don’t come cheap.”

Captain Ana Rifkin crossed her arms over her chest. “And we shouldn’t either.”

“No, no you shouldn’t.” Jackson agreed and held his hands up in surrender. “I don’t mean to imply otherwise. We couldn’t do the things we do without having you guys around to get us there.”

“Which is entirely my point, Jackson.” Alex interjected. “Yes, the unit spent a lot of C-bills to do this upgrade, but look at us now. We can field almost two companies of Mechs, two companies of battle armor… including Clan Elementals, I might add, and a full wing of Aerospace fighters. Plus, every one of us has good support on the tech front and the medical front. It was well spent.”

Jackson’s mouth twisted as he realized he’d made Alex’s argument for him then sighed. “I guess, Alex. I would still have rathered you had talked to us… at least the command staff… so you could get our input on things.”

“I listened to you guys on this. Another Shilone to round out the Aerospace wing, the Helepolis to give us some mobile artillery, and more battle armor suits.” Alex protested, gesturing to the various unit commanders that had made those same requests then to Tynon. “Even more techs. Enough to support all our gear, new and old, without any serious strain on anyone.” 

“We understand, Alex… “Tynon began but stopped in surprise when Alex’s face stormed up and he interrupted Tynon, a thing he seldom if ever did.

“I am not as sure about that as you are, sifu.” He said tersely. “I apologize to everyone, but I have an appointment with a new MechWarrior… an officer to step in for Kylie until she is back om her feet, so I am going to be bringing this to a much more sudden close than I anticipated originally. I am transmitting to everyone’s noteputers the Mechs and equipment assigned to each unit. I would like to have a full TOE from everyone within the next two days.”

He cleared his throat and concentrated on the noteputer in his hands. “Lawless Lance will have the Hellbringer, Gallowglas, Thunderbolt, Phoenix Hawk LAM, and the two new Black Hawk KU OmniMechs. Frenzy Lance has the Grizzly, Ostroc, Warhammer, Grand Dragon, Grasshopper, and the Cataphract. Tempest Lance has two Archers, two Apollos, the Helepolis, and the Crusader. We all pretty much know which ride is who’s but I would like to make sure that the lance commanders get their TOEs back to me as I requested anyway.”

“For the DropShip assignments… Lawless Lance and Havok Flight are in MARIANNE. Frenzy Lance and Marauder Flight are in THE EQUESTRIAN. Tempest Lance and Boomer Flight are in AWKWARD MOMENT.” Alex looked up from his noteputer to the mercenaries in front of him. “Tynon, Tiana, Emmitt, and Duke… I will need each of you to draw up rosters of which parts of your units will be going to which DropShip. Please do not forget that we will need some of each of your people on BLACK JACK as well.”

“Of course, Alex.” Tynon replied with a small nod.

“You got it.” Tiana said.

“Ah… sure.” Emmitt “Cook” Lane said then hesitantly raised his hand. “So, we put whoever we need where ever we want?”

“Pretty much, Emmitt. I just want you to make sure that the number of people you provide can deal with the needs of the DropShip their assigned to and that the people you assign can get the job done. I don’t care if that job is baking cakes, setting a broken limb, or recalibrating a sensor module… you need to have your people distributed well enough to make sure that there is an adequate number of people and adequate skills available to get things done. Clear?”

Emmitt nodded, more sure of things now. “All clear, Alex.” He chuckled. “Can I send Andrea to a different ship? Ow!” 

Laughter cut through the tension of the crowd as Emmitt sat there rubbing his shoulder from where his wife, Andrea “Chef” Lane had punched him. While the man made an excellent flambé, he needed to work on his tactical skills since he said that with her sitting right next to him. 

“I was only kidding, darling…” Emmitt protested and took another shot to the shoulder.

Andrea batted her eyes at him. “Me too, sweetheart.”

Alex shook his head and looked to the chief medical officer for the unit. “Duke, you good?”

Captain Wesley “Duke” Forrest nodded his head. “No problem, Alex. Especially with all of the new staff you were able to bring onboard for us. I appreciate it.” 

“You’re welcome.” Alex said with a grateful smile. “Anyway, everyone get me those TOEs and DropShip assignments as soon as possible but no later than two days from today. I would recommend that those non-combat personnel with dependents and families in the unit be given preference to BLACK JACK. This is so we don’t have to worry about civilians underfoot during combat operations and we have less to worry about concerning our loved ones being in combat operations. Do what you can with that, but please be sure to get the needed people to the needed places. I leave that to each of you to deal with as you see fit.” 

Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius stood up. “What about me and my lads and ladies, Alex?” 

“Felix, you and the rest of the Recon Element, will be on the BLACK JACK as your home base. If we need your unique skill sets with a particular unit, there will be room aboard any of the Unions, but consider BLACK JACK your home base.”

“Excellent. Thank you.” Felix replied and sat back down.

“That it? Anything else?” Alex looked around and saw no one raising hands or asking questions. “Alright then, we’re done for the now then.” He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. “I’ve got to go. You all have something to eat and drink and all that if you haven’t already… I’ve got a MechWarrior to meet.”

As Alex started to leave, he was intercepted by Jackson, Felix, and Mitchell. Jackson was apparently the spokesperson as he started the conversation. “Hey Alex… look, we weren’t trying to bust your chops or anything with the questions about money and stuff.”

“Sure, you were.” Alex replied with a slight smile. “But they were valid questions and I shouldn’t have gotten all defensive and shit. I’ve just been a bit on edge with getting all of this together and trying to pull together a new gig for us.”

“Do we have a new contract?” Felix asked. The veteran mercenary knew that getting another contract soonest was best for the unit… it kept everyone sharp and kept the unit’s coffers filled. Which was more important was always up for debate.

“Yeah… probably. I need to go over the details of it with Akio.” Alex said, referring to the units Professional Soldiery Liaison Officer that had been assigned to them by the Combine when they started operating inside the borders of that star empire.

“Good stuff? Or at least easy stuff?” Jackson asked.

Alex shrugged. “Probably not. Not with this new war going on. With both the Ghost Bears and the Snow Ravens looking to take chunks out of the Dragon, I don’t think anyone is going to have easy duty for a while.”

“Yeah, I guess not. However, with that bit of news…” Jackson sighed and looked at the other two mercenaries beside him. “Beer?”

“Beer.” Mitchell and Felix agreed in a chorus and took the lead back towards where bottles were chilling in mostly cleaned galvanized tubs full of ice. 

“So, the new guy… he’s going to take Tempest Lance?” Jackson asked.

“That’s the plan… unless you want to give up Frenzy Lance and take Tempest instead.” 

Jackson shook his head. “Oh no… I am going to be taking my new Grizzly out there to mix it up with some bad guys, that’s for damned sure.”

Alex nodded. “Then, yeah, he’s going to be running Tempest Lance.”

“Well okay then. You get to that.” Jackson pointed back to where the tubs of beer and ice were sitting. “I am going to go secure all that beer… make sure that no ninjas come steal it or something.”

“Well, this is the Draconis Combine” Alex replied with a light smile.

“Then I better be on a double look out.” Jackson said and headed in the direction of the beer.

Alex sighed and headed towards the outside of the building where he had one of the unit’s Defiance Bluestreak motorcycles waiting for him. He was to meet the new MechWarrior, one Maximilian “Preacher” Soles, in the small restaurant just outside the compound and had just enough time to get there, as long as he ignored the speed limit signs posted all over the damned place. Which he always did.

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 3,389
Contract count: 8,258
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1403
10/07/3095
Mess Hall
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander "Random" Yau sat down at the table where the other man was already sitting. "Mr. Soles? Sorry I'm late. I was wrapping up a meeting with the rest of the unit. How are you doing tonight?"

Max scrambled to his feet, flashing a salute to the commanding officer of the new unit he had joined. At a nod from Major Yau, he settled back into his seat before answering. "Sir, I am doing fairly well. Your subordinates have made me feel very welcome. The quarters for my son and his nanny are more than adequate." Max made certain to maintain eye contact with Yau. One thing he had always felt was a person to be trusted was one who made eye contact and maintained it.

"Glad to hear it." Alex slid a noteputer from a pocket in his fatigues. powered it up, and sat it on the table. "I reviewed your file and I was very impressed by your experience. Is there anything else you'd like to share about your experience as a MechWarrior?"

Max thought for a moment as he contemplated the question presented by his new CO. “Well sir, most everything that is relevant has been documented in my file. However, there is one thing that isn’t there. An off the records mission that I was involved in. During the Landfall Campaign, I helped to establish a beachhead on the planet. It was the first and only time I actually saw combat in Battle Armor. We were sent in as scouts and due to my training I was selected as a part of a ten-team unit to make landfall and locate the best site for establishing the beachhead. Beyond that there isn’t much that I can truly say. I was mainly seeking to make my mark within the Marian Hegemony and didn’t want to work under my brother as a farm hand or tenant farmer.” He paused to reflect on the matters. 

“After I retired I settled on the land bequeathed to me for my service and there I completed the schooling necessary to earn my Licensing as an ordained Minister. So, I ran a farm and a small parish there. Unfortunately, word of the retired Mech that I also had got out and an unsavory group attacked my Villa and killed my wife and my two older children. That is what brings me back out of retirement. At my age, I am too old to serve in the Hegemony Army but, I think I can still be a strong addition to any unit.” The pain of the loss can be heard in his strong and rich baritone voice. 

Looking briefly to the ceiling to collect himself, Max begins again, “All total sir, I have spent over twenty years in the military in some way shape or form. Seen active duty in more missions than I care to remember and seen more than my fair share of friends die. So, death is nothing new to me.”

Alex nodded appreciatively. "Damn. You've been around and seen some things, haven't you? That's a good thing because that's what I need to help me." He tapped the noteputer screen a few times then turned it towards Preacher. "I have a reinforced lance of support Mechs that need a lance leader... someone to get them to point their LRMs in the right direction anyway. Would that be something you'd be interested in?"

Preacher pulled the noteputer closer to examine the Lance which consisted of two ARC-7L Archers, two APL-2s Apollos, CRD-5S Crusader, and a HEP-3H Helepolis. While he had not used anything as quite as heavy routinely he knew that a Mech was pretty much a Mech regardless of the weight class. Looking back at Alex, he started to nod his head repeatedly, “Yes Sir, I would be interested in this and I think this definitely something I could handle. I would want to operate one of the Archers. Granted I am used to being in the front lines as a scout, but I have definitely had plenty of campaigns in which the boys with LRMs have protected my flanks as we crashed into the enemies.”

"I am sure that we can do something about you being back into scouting at some point in the near future. Hopefully. Right now though, I have a lance leader that is down because of injuries sustained in a tussle with the Clans and I need someone to work with coordinating them. This whole business between the Ghost Bears, Snow Raves, and Draconis Combine seems to have started out in middle of one of our operations. Which is the sort of luck you will find dogging Chaos Incorporated, I'm afraid." Alex gave Preacher a wry smile. "Hopefully that doesn't put you off of joining our merry group of mercenaries."

Smiling Preacher replied, “Let me see if I get this straight I am supposed to be afraid of a little bit of action with the clams and the combined. Yeah, I guess I better now out now. Wouldn't want to have to face them.” Makes to stand up and walk away. “On second thought when do we get to strike back at them? Because I don’t believe in luck. Luck is what you make of it. The Good Lord allows things to happen for a reason. So, you can believe I don’t scare off that easily!” He sat back down as he finished.

"That's good to hear. I'd hate to think I'd scared you away so quickly." Alex tapped the top of the noteputer that Preacher was holding. "If you scroll through there, you'll find the basic information on the rest of Tempest Lance. You lance XO is Parker 'Thorn' Rose and your other veteran to the unit is Adrian 'Left' Morgan... he recently lost his twin brother in the some of the same fighting with the Ghost Bears that wounded Kylie. He's been okay, so far, but I worry about how he's going to take it when things get hot again and his brother's Apollo get used in combat by someone else."

"The other three members of your lance are new to the unit as well. We've got Martin 'Fox' Baard in the other Archer, Spencer 'Whack' Greene in the second Apollo, and Amile 'Boom Baby' Ducette in her Helepolis. They've all seen combat, but they haven't had to work together in the field so far, which is where they are sure to have some weakness in team operations. I would suggest you work that first, but how you run things is really up to you. I am not a micromanaging type so, unless things get fucked up by something you've done either on the field or off, then I am pretty going to much leave you alone to do your job. But... and I say this only so there is no misunderstanding... if something bad happens to my people because you are not holding up your end of things, then you will be lucky if I don't kill you out of hand. Please do not mistake me in this or take it as some idle threat, I do not say anything that I do not mean."  

“Major if you didn’t feel that way about your group I probably would think a little less of you for it. When I served, I viewed each man and woman underneath me as my own children. Especially as I got older and they got younger. Each life lost weighed heavily on me. That's why I wear this.” Sliding his sleeve up he showed a titanium bracelet. Etched in the bracelet was the names of each warrior who had been lost during his service. “So please understand me I have no intention of personally adding someone to this bracelet. It is my intention to bring everyone back from each mission. Unfortunately, God has a time set for everyone and when our season is finished He will call us home regardless of how well planned we may think we have things.”

"That's what I've heard as well." Alex replied. "I am going to give you about 48 hours to get you, your son, and the nanny all settled into quarters here. After that, I would like you to get with your people and start getting ready for our next operation. We've only got about six days before we lift off so you have about that long to get more familiar with being in that Archer instead of something lighter. There's time for training and all that while we're enroute, but I have never considered simulators to be as good as being in the cockpit, no matter how good the sims are. We'll have a staff meeting 24 hours before lift-off so everyone can tell me how wonderful everything is and how much ass we're going to kick when we meet up with the Clans again."

"Tempest Lance is going to be assigned to the DropShip AWKWARD MOMENT, which is captained by Captain Ana Rifkin. She's new to the unit too and outside of a couple of brief meetings, I don't have a good handle on her but she's known by one of our other DropShip captains and he gave her good marks. The lead tech for your unit is Lead Senior Tech Khalid el Meziane... a good man with a spanner and very quiet type too. He's been with the unit since we started and I have never had any issues with him. I'll get a list of all the techs and everyone else that's assigned to the AWKWARD MOMENT forwarded to you in a little bit. Your son and the nanny can either ride on the AWKWARD MOMENT with you until combat operations begin or they can just ride on the BLACK JACK, our non-combat DropShip; that's your call. However, once we hit combat, then they will need to be on the BLACK JACK for their safety and ours."

Alex leaned back in his chair. "I don't think I've missed anything, but if I have, I'll update you on it later. You have any questions for me right now?"

“I would love to have a proper set down with the people of my unit as soon as possible as well as set up a maintenance routine that allows me time to inspect my mechs as well as the team's. I would feel more confident in missions if I knew that I had done everything within my power to ensure that the mechs were solid. Not that I don’t think the mechanics and the other pilots are incapable of doing so themselves but this is not my first rodeo and it was a habit I developed when I was actively serving on the battlefront.” 

He sighed, the rich timbre of his voice changing ever so slightly as he began to speak about his son, “I would prefer to keep him with me for as long as possible. He is all I have left of my family. I suppose I could send him to live with my brother but, I want him with me.” 

Max’s shoulders rose and stiffened as he changed topics again, “Sir, while I appreciate the 48 hours I will only need 32 hours to get them settled. We packed sparsely and I want to make certain my first mission is not also my last. So, if we have nothing further to discuss I will go see to it that my little party’s stowed away properly and I will meet with my group at 0500 in two days.” Max stood and saluted the Major as he awaited permission to be released.

“Excellent, Captain.” Alex stood and returned the salute then shook hands with Max. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

A Joint Post by,
Major Alexander “Random” Yau
Hellbringer Prime
Commanding Officer
Head Cat Herder
Chaos Incorporated
&
Captain Maximus “Preacher” Soles
ARC-7L Archer
Commander
Tempest Lance
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2014
Contract Count: 10,272
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

0207
10/19/3095
Officer’s Quarters Alpha One
Second Floor, Building Two
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau sipped at the slowly warming bottle of beer in his hand as he continued to sprawl across the comfy chair he’d claimed and looked out the transplex window of his quarters. The entire compound was asleep, besides those few souls with the poor luck to be assigned to overnight duties. Luckily for everyone involved, those required number of souls for such duties were few.

Tonight, like several other nights in the recent past, Alex couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t sure why either. There was nothing pressing his mind more urgently than any other time. The unit was slowly coming back together after the recent expansion and bringing in of new people… the event even looked to be progressing in a most harmonious fashion.  

Even the losses that the unit had sustained on Virentofta and the grief associated with them seem to have mostly passed or at least the unit was dealing with them well enough. That had been a little touch and go for a time but everyone got through it in their own ways. Alex chuckled softly and swirled his beer in its bottle… each in their own way. So far, the drinking hadn’t caused a problem for him, personally, or anyone else in the unit on a professional level, but he was keeping an eye on it.

Suddenly, Alex stood up and set the bottle on the small table by his chair. He couldn’t just sit there any longer… sleep was not coming and he was restless, needing to do something physical. With this sudden desire for action decided upon, Alex pulled off the sleeping pants he’d been wearing and got dressed into loose fitting workout clothes; the kind he preferred for anything from sparring to jogging. After pulling on a set of running shoes and slinging a small pack of what he considered essential items, Alex headed out the door of his quarters and into the night.

0422
Gym, Administrative Building
Military Command Site Delta One Nine

Alex spun on his left heel, arcing his right leg around and down, striking the heavy bag hard at chest level. The several kilometers worth of running had not satisfied the need for activity, but Alex knew that a bit of a workout on the Wing Chun training dummy and the bag would do the trick. Catching the bag as it swung back at him, Alex pressed his forehead against the vinyl covering of the heavy bag and took a moment to catch his breath.

“Yeah… done with that whole being physical thing now.” Alex panted out. 

After a moment, he turned away from the heavy bag and took a long drink from his water bottle as he sat down on a bench along the wall. Leaning his back against the wall, Alex reflected on life in general and what the hell he was going to do with it next. Oh sure, going off and stomping on people in a BattleMech for fun and profit was a certainty… at least when he got the next contract… but he had no idea of what was going on past that.

Ever since Nikki had left with one of the crewmen of the MARIANNE… a woman no less… Alex had been feeling down and even, surprisingly, a little heartbroken. He really hadn’t realized that Nikki had meant so much to him and was surprised at his reaction to her leaving. He recognized it more now, which only seemed to make things worse as he was starting to realize what he’d lost. In previous relationships, Alex had been able to bounce back from the end of them with nowhere near the same amount of heartache as this time. Plus, other women didn’t really seem to interest him much right now. 

In addition, Alex found himself feeling a bit lonely. Certainly, he had friends in the unit and could impose on their company, but it wasn’t the same. Talk almost always lead back to the unit and what was going on, not to mention the inevitable war stories or how a common friend met their end then the maudlin dwelling on that. He was looking for someone that he could talk with about something besides 30-meter-tall tin cans and how brilliant a PPC blast looked. 

Jackson tried to help, but was finding himself buried more and more into his role as executive officer. Plus, he’d found a young woman in the nearby capital city of Blenshireton. While Alex would never deny his friend the company of any woman, unless she was truly bad for him, he found himself a bit jealous of the woman taking his time away. He almost felt pathetic about it and did his best to ignore the feeling, especially when it concerned a woman whose name he couldn’t even remember most of the time.

Alex stretched then stood up and stretched again before glancing at the clock on the wall. The red digital read out shone in the darkness and Alex groaned at the time displayed there. It was almost 0430 and he needed to be up again in less than three hours for a meeting with Chaos Incorporated’s assigned Professional Liaison Officer, Tai-I Akio Wakai, about the next contract for the unit.

The mental debate between a couple of hours of sleep or a large amount of caffeine won the way he thought it would after several minutes. Alex threw his discarded shirt over a shoulder and headed for a cold shower to be followed by no small amount of FRANTIK Energy Drink, preferably the new blackberry one but he’d settle for just about any flavor but the lemon one. His path decided, Alex headed for the shower.

0736
Conference Room 01-130
Administrative Building
Military Command Site Delta One Nine

Alex sat slumped in his chair, sipping his third can of FRANTIK Lemon Laser, and cursed the world in general, the Mai Lan Convenience Store chain, and whichever damned Ghost Bear unit that had hit Schuyler, destroying the FRANTIK distribution center for this section of space during their operations. He hoped that the well and truly caffeinated unit fell over from a heart attack induced by his favorite flavor of FRANTIK, Blueberry Buzzbomb.

“Are you well, Major?” Tai-I Akio Wakai asked from the other side of the table. 

“Well enough.” Alex almost growled and held the can up. “Any chance we’re going to Schuyler? I need to get a different flavor than this.”

Akio, used to the antics of more than one of the mercenaries in Chaos Incorporated, smiled slightly. “I shall see what I can get done for you.” He slid a noteputer across the table, his dark eyes were more unreadable than normal, which boded ill in Alex’s mind. “The details of the contract are listed here.”

“Okay…” Alex took the noteputer and spun it around so he could read it better. His eyes got big at the name of the system they were going to. “What the hell, Akio? We just got our asses handed to us on Virentofta!”

“Then this is your chance to get a measure of payback for such.” Akio replied, his voice calm and mild.

Alex wasn’t fooled by the calm voice in the slightest. “Somehow I don’t think that the Dragon has thoughts of mending our pride in his heart.”

“Of course not.” Akio admitted. “Please continue to read.”

Alex grumbled to himself, but continued to read the noteputer. As he read, Alex’s eyebrows started crawling up his forehead. “You must be joking, Akio.”

“I am not.” He paused. “Actually, High Command is not joking.”

“We both know what I meant.” Alex replied, a bit of anger in his voice. “Virentofta is not the place we want to be. Especially doing this… this… this thing. You trying to get us killed, Akio?”

“Of course not, Captain.” The other man replied calmly. “High command needs to recover these assets and we need the assistance of your unit to do so.”

“Get someone else.” 

“There is no one else.” Akio paused for a moment before replying, his face becoming more animated then it had been in Alex’s memory. “Captain, there truly is no one else. War looms large across all the Dragon’s borders. We are surrounded by enemies and beset on all sides with few allies to assist us. In addition, with conflicts raging all across the Inner Sphere there are few mercenary units that are both available and that the Dragon trusts with this mission.”

He leaned forward. “Your unit… Chaos Incorporated… we trust for this operation.”

Alex said nothing as Akio leaned back in his chair, his calm demeanor returned to his face. Alex would have thought the look on the other man’s face was either his own imagination or a ruse, but the remnants of it still lingered in Akio’s eyes. “Son of a bitch.” Alex growled and tapped the screen of the noteputer. “Are these terms firm?”

“They are too low?” 

“I would never turn down more C-bills.” Alex replied. “Salvage?”

“That can be arranged. You have already benefited from Clan salvage with your last contract.”

“I received a lot of things from the Clans on my last contract… too many of them lethal.” Alex said, his voice not quite a growl. “I am going to discuss this with people and get back to you later today.”

“That is satisfactory.” Akio said then stood and bowed to Alex. “I will speak with you later today.”

“Indeed.” Alex stood and returned the bow then collected the noteputer and left. He headed out the door of the conference room to head to his office, intent on getting his people together and deciding exactly what the hell they were doing.

Posted by,
Major Alexander “Random” Yau
Hellbringer Prime
Commanding Officer
Head Cat Herder
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1670
Contract Count: 11,942
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1922
10/19/3095
First Floor, Building Three
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“Alright then… let’s get me up to date. I get shot down as a lieutenant and wake up a captain a few weeks later, so let’s go slow.” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond said with a grumble. She nodded towards the two unfamiliar faces in her group of pilots. “Who are these four people that I don’t know?”

SRLT Mitchell “Rooster” Pine cleared his throat. “Well, while you were incapacitated, Random decided that we needed to expand the number of Aerospace pilots we had on hand. So he shuffled and expanded our roster.”

“Heh… Rooster said ‘roster’.” LT Manny “Turbo” Reis chuckled in a sotto voice as he elbowed his wingman with his left elbow. “Ow! What was that for, Cruel?”

LT Sierra “Cruel” King grinned. “That was for two reasons, Turbo. The first reason was because you were being a dumb ass and second reason was that I found it amusing.”

“Bitch.” He grumbled. 

Cruel’s smile widened slightly. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“This… “Rooster cut in to stop the bickering. “… Is Christopher ‘Scribe’ Thorsen. He’s lately from the Lyran Alliance. He’s Turbo’s wingman, flying the second Shilone in Marauder Flight.”

“Ma’am.” Scribe nodded towards Bandit, who returned the nod.

“That’s Charles ‘Saxon’ Allen… he gets the dubious honor of being Cruel’s wingman and flies the second half of Boomer Flight.”

“Good to be flying under your command, Bandit.” Saxon said and gave Bandit a casual salute.

“Wait until you do it before you say that.” Bandit replied and eyed the last two people that she didn’t know. “Okay, we’re out of fighters so why do I have more pilots?”

“Random thought it might be good to have some extra pilots around. Reduce fatigue and have people ready to go if we got a hold of some more Aerospace Fighters really quick.” Rooster explained. “This is Linda ‘Siren’ Dowd and that’s Thomas ‘Fish’ Mitlan.”

Bandit blinked and looked at Thomas. “Who did you piss off enough to get saddled with ‘Fish’ as your call sign?”

Fish looked a little sheepish. “Well… I answered to it.”

Bandit narrowed her eyes at the brief and very detail absent explanation. “What does that mean?”

“See, I was walking through the hallway and one of the instructors went off and yelled for me. She did it multiple times and I didn’t answer… didn’t hear her I guess.”

“Uh-huh… and then what happened?”

“Well… see… she yelled out ‘fish’. Something in my head registered ‘fish’ and said what the hell so I turned around to see who would answer to that and… well… “

“It was you.” Bandit finished.

Fish shrugged and nodded. “Yeah… it was me.” 

“Right… if it makes you feel any better, that’s not the worst call sign story I’ve ever heard. I knew a guy with the call sign ‘Snorkel’ because of how long he could hold his breath underwater. It was a great party trick really.” Bandit smiled as if at a pleasant memory. “Especially when he did it in a hot tub.”

 “Um….” Fish began, unsure of what to say to that.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” She said and turned to Rooster. “Did they get some simulator time at least before Random got them to sign on the dotted line?”

Rooster nodded. “Yeah, I got them a few hours each in the simulators and liked what I saw. There were about three others that didn’t really pan out so I didn’t give them the nod.” He gestured towards the four new pilots to the unit. “These fine, outstanding pilots did so here they are.”

“That’s good then. Hate to think that he just railroaded over you to get some warm bodies in here.” Bandit turned back to face the new pilots. “Now, don’t get all riled up on me about that. I wasn’t saying anyone wasn’t good at piloting, just worried that good old Alex wouldn’t listen to Rooster about getting the best of the best.”

“Then we should be flattered or something?” Siren asked, a bit of sarcasm in her voice.

“That’s probably the best way to take it, yes.” Bandit replied sweetly and turned back to Rooster. “Did his Random-ness say when we’d get more fighters? Having some depth to the bench is nice and all that, but I’d rather have more PPCs in the air.”

Rooster shook his head. “There’s no room right now for more fighters… we’ve got a flight going to each of the Union Class DropShips and that Mule can’t carry fighters. Not without going through some heavy construction anyway.” 

“Well… fuck.” Bandit replied. “I wanted more fighters in the sky.” She paused for a moment, thinking and pouting inwardly before continuing. “You’ve got everyone assigned a DropShip?”

“Yes… we’re in the MARIANNE. Marauder Flight is in THE EQUESTRIAN and Boomer Flight is in AWKWARD MOMENT.” Rooster pulled out a noteputer and showed Bandit the display screen. “Tynon has assigned lots of techs to each of the DropShips, so we’re way covered in that area too.”

Bandit smiled at her executive officer. “You did good, Mitch.”

“Thanks, Sara.” He replied with a smile of his own and a light blush.

“Alright, enough of all of this chit chat and such.” Bandit said and stood up.  “There’s only one… no, two… wait… three ways to really get to know a pilot.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” Scribe said and looked at Bandit. “And what ways are those, fearless leader?”

“First is fighting beside them.” Bandit said and held up a finger. After a moment for dramatic pause, she held up a second finger. “Second is in bed.”

“Oh my.” Fish said, blushing again.

“You are so not my type.” Siren said as she made a face. 

“Third…” Bandit said, ignoring the comments of her pilots. “… is with a lot of drinking. We’re going to be doing the third one. First two rounds are on me, so make it good because after that, it goes round.”

“Fair enough.” Scribe said and stood before offering his arm to Bandit. “Let’s get to it.”

 “Oh, lets.” Bandit replied, accepted his arm and led the way out of the barracks.

Posted by,
Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond
SL-15 Slayer
Havoc Flight
Aerospace Commander
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 1069
Contract count: 13,011
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1203
10/20/3095
Recreation Hall
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau thumped the table in front of him with the bottom of the empty bottle of beer he had in his hand. He’d attempted the same thing earlier with the bottle being partially full… that resulted in the bottle becoming empty as the beer suds up and flowed out of the bottle. Alex made a valiant attempt to save as much of the golden amber of life as he could, but had little success. Still, the bottle was now empty and he had a new bottle in his other hand, so life was good.

“Here’s the deal, people.” Alex began, speaking with Chaos Incorporated’s assemblage of officers and department heads. “The Combine wants us to go back to Virentofta.”

“What?” Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman blurted out. “Back to there? What the hell for?”

“Please tell me that you told them to fuck off.” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond said as she stretched out her right arm, the one that had been broken when she crashed her SL-15K Slayer into the ground on Virentofta when Chaos Incorporated had been there previously.

“Well…”

“Alex…” Sara began with a sharp edge creeping into her voice. 

Alex held a hand up. “I need you guys to listen to me for a minute before you lynch me or anything. Okay?” He waited until all of the attendees gave an affirmative. He took Sara flying the bird at him as her affirmative and continued on. “I have not agreed to the contract yet, but I told Akio that I would pitch it to you all first because there is a solid need here.”

Jackson nodded. “Alright, Alex… tell us about it.”

“As we all know way too well, the DCMS got rolled over on Virentofta by the Ghost Bears. Now, what I don’t know at this point is when the planet swapped hands, but now the Snow Ravens are running the show there. Whatever the hell it was, it hurt the Combine pretty damned hard, especially with all the other strikes happening along the Clan borders.”

“I’ve heard that things have gone to all-out war.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien said quietly. Like the rest of the unit, she’d lost friends and comrades during the fighting on Virentofta as Chaos Incorporated was committed to a fighting withdrawal.

“They have.” Alex confirmed. “Things have gone from bad to worse and then some. The Combine have been knocked back on their heels… maybe even a little more than that since they were so committed to the fighting with ULTRA and the Free Worlds League.”

“They aren’t ULTRA anymore…” Jackson corrected. “They are the ‘Confederated Systems of Tikonov’ now. You really need to keep up on the political landscape, Alex.”

“Whoever the hell they were or are now; the Combine was heavily committed to that region of space as they tried to get some of their worlds back. Since the Ghost Bears and Snow Ravens have come calling, the Dragon is finding itself stretched more than just a little bit thin.”

“How is that our problem?” Sara asked. After being laid up for more than two months from her injuries, she was not in the most charitable of moods when it came to the “needs” of the Draconis Combine.
“It’s our problem because they are the ones employing us.” Alex reminded her. “You know; that paycheck we all like to get? It’s coming from them. Plus we’re the only ones available.”

“Start from the top, Alex.” Tiana said then glanced at first Jackson and then Sara. “Without interruptions this time, if you please.”

Jackson held his hands up to shoulder level and nodded, he would offer no complaints.

Sara just crossed her arms over her chest and looked away. It was no guarantee on her part, but it was something none the less.

“Okay.” Alex cleared his throat. “When we… meaning both us and the Combine… had to retreat off of Virentofta, things got left behind. That includes some armor and infantry forces.”

Sara rolled her eyes and slapped the table with both hands. “Please tell me we are not going back to rescue some stupid-ass ground pounders that didn’t have the sense to get out when they could.” She glanced at Tiana. “No offense, hun.”

Tiana pressed her lips into a tight line. “Sure, fly girl. Tell you what, you go stick that pretty little blond ponytail of yours out of your canopy and refill your head.”

Sara sighed at that. “I operate in space… there’s no air to fill my head with. It would just explode in the vacuum.”

Tiana shrugged, a predatory smile creeping over her face. “That works too.”

“Ladies.” Alex interrupted. “May I continue?”

“Sorry, Alex.” Tiana said and turned away so as to both ignore and also piss Sara off just a little bit more. She crossed her left leg over the right and placed both hands, one on top of the other, on her knees. “Please do continue.”

“Besides the troopers left on the planet, there were a number of space vessels left in the system. A fleet of about ten DropShips got stranded their without their JumpShips and were either destroyed or taken by the Snow Ravens.” Alex started. “What the Combine has been able to find out is that at least four of these captured DropShips are under repair by the Snow Ravens. The exact condition of these four vessels and of the other six members of their fleet is unknown at this point.”

“Oh, I have a bad feeling here…” Sara muttered. 

“What the Combine wants us to do is to cover the DEST teams and crewmen that will be going in to clear the DropShips and recover as many of them as possible. In the process, we do as much damage as we can to them and gather whatever intelligence we can gather on the Snow Ravens, their forces and any plans of action they may have in mind.”

“Oh… that’s not as bad as I thought…” Sara said. “I figured we were going to have to recover the damned things. If we’re just playing shepherds to their lost sheep, that’s better.”

“That’s too bad really.” Jackson said and turned to Sara, batting his lashes. “I had visions of you climbing up the hull of a Union Class DropShip, dagger between your teeth, a spanner in your back pocket, and your jumpsuit hanging half open. It was truly inspiring.”

Sara blinked at him. “Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Jackson just smirked and turned his attention back to Alex. “So, do we have a plan of attack on this?”

“Not an immediate one, no.” Alex said with a shake of his head. “However, I also don’t have the intel on the space port or anything like that right now. We won’t get that until we secure the contract.”

“We’ve got the recordings of the area that MARIANNE took when we were parked there.” Captain Dillan Fowler, commander of the Union Class DropShip MARIANNE said and tapped the noteputer in front of him. “It would take a few minutes to pull the data, but I can get it from here.”

“Please.” Alex requested then looked at some of the other officers. “See that? He’s being helpful. Everyone take notes.”

“Suck up.” Sara muttered and reached under the table.

“OW!” Dillan rubbed at his leg where Sara had pinched him and slapped her hand away. “Stop it or I’m going to tell.” 

“Suck up tattle-tell.” Sara said and glared at Dillan, suggesting more tortures to come later on in the night.

Dillan did his best to ignore her as he continued to attempt to pull the needed data. “Yeah… here you go, Alex.” He tapped a few commands into the noteputer and the holographic display on the table crackled to life, displaying a map of the Virentofta space port. “There.”

A line drawing of the space port came up, showing the buildings that were there when the MARIANNE was docked on the planet in green outlines. The various DropShip pads were dull grey in color and numbered by the computer system using the same numbering system as the space port. Long rectangular shapes of the same grey color indicated the runways, with small icons showing what they were meant to be used for. 

A single red square occupied a portion of the screen, representing the main control tower. Various small red circles came to life as well, mostly situated around the perimeter but some scattered across the interior. Four clusters of four circles were situated around the main control tower. 

“What are the red circles?” Jackson asked, pointing at one of the offending shapes.

“Those are defense turrets.” Dillan replied. “At least the ones that were there when we were.”

Sara let out a long and low whistle. “That’s a goodly number of turrets. Probably most of them set for anti-air defenses.”

“All of them were, actually, and they have overlapping fields of fire so they can well and truly shred the shit out of anything coming at them from the air.” Dillan responded. “None of which helped them for shit when the Ghost Bears began overrunning the space port from the ground.”

“I bet the Clanners took note of that when they took the place over.” Tiana said.

Alex nodded his agreement. “Yeah, probably so.” He paused. “But, the place is being run by the Snow Ravens now and they prefer Aerospace over ground forces, so they may have kept it the same.”

Tiana shrugged. “Maybe, but I am not going to count on it until we see it ourselves.”

“Either way, they’ll be controlled by a central computer from somewhere, so they can coordinate their fire.” Dillan explained. “And that’s probably from the tower, at a guess.”

“Agreed, it makes the most sense anyway.” Alex replied. “That makes the tower our number one target… kill it and they lose all those defensive units.”

“So that comes down in the first few minutes of the engagement, then what?” Jackson asked then answered his own question. “I would guess we clear out the bad guys while the DEST teams do their work on the DropShips.” 

“That would be ideal.” Alex pointed to three separate points on the hologram. “Mech forces deploying to those positions with battle armor back-up. Aerospace to push back or at least delay any reinforcements.”

“What’s the ground situation look like?” Tiana asked. 

“We have limited intel on ground forces in the area.” Alex responded without looking from the display. 

Tiana gave him a look. “Can’t you just say that you don’t know?”  

“That might shatter everyone’s notion that I am infallible and all knowing. It would be bad for morale.” 

“Too late for that already, big boy.” Sara said with a smirk on her face.

Alex ignored her. “The last intel we had said that Virentofta was now considered a rear area. So, we could be looking at a second line ground unit with a good amount of Aerospace support. And the Aerospace support part is just me talking… I have absolutely no numbers above and beyond that the garrison includes ‘elements of the 1st Raven Phalanx, 4th Raven Wing Cluster’. I hope they can give us more than that at some point.”

“What about those ground pounders that got stranded on the planet because they were stupid?” Sara asked.

“They have been fighting a guerilla campaign, but with limited success. I am going to go on a guess and say that we’d be dropping them some supplies too, but I don’t know for sure.”  
 
“Do we know how effective they’ve been so far?” Tiana asked.
Alex shook his head. “Not with the data that I’ve seen so far. I am going to guess they are doing pretty well because they are forcing the Snow Ravens to garrison a large number of potential target sites.” 

“That’s probably a good guess.” Tiana said. “I am hoping they are using hovercraft for speed or else they’d get chased down by those damned OmniMechs.”

“Don’t talk bad about Jester like that.” Alex pouted; a mock frown on his face. He’d named his captured Loki, a 60-ton OmniMech that had been captured from the Rasalhague Dominion, “Jester” and had it painted in particolors like he’d seen in vids of ancient Terra before space flight. Right now, those colors were a classic red and black, but he planned on changing that as needed for combat operations.

“I meant the bad OmniMechs only, of course.” Tiana assured him with a small sigh and roll of her eyes included.

Alex smiled. “That’s okay then.”

Tiana shook her head. “Do we have any intel on these guerillas? How many or their equipment?”

“Nothing on them at all… and if the Dragon was going to be honest with us, I bet they don’t have a clue about what’s on the ground either.” 

“You think they’ll be honest with us?” Jackson asked.

Alex shrugged. “Not entirely, but enough to make us happy-ish with what they give and still get their objectives completed.”

“That sounds about right.” Jackson said with a small sigh and shake of his head. “Sure wouldn’t want to have all the information we need or anything like that.”

“It is what it is, right?” Alex said with a slight bit of resignation in his voice. “Okay, before I ask for everyone’s opinion on taking the contract, does anyone else having things they want to add to this discussion?”

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 2281
Contract count: 15,292
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

0500
10/08/3095
Mech Compound
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Max walked through the corridor that led into the holding bay for his new mech. He had named it Rota Tormentum which stood for Missile Chariot. His plan was to have it painted in flight to help blend into the environment they would be entering. The upper levels would be some shade of blue so that it blended in with the horizon. 
The corridor echoed loudly with the sounds of metal on metal with the occasional swearing adding into the tempo of the work being performed. He looked down at the freshly pressed and starched uniform. Even though they were simply BDUs over a decade spent in service had instilled in him the need for perfection. He glanced at his collar which didn’t hold the Butter Bars he had expected but, instead the Major had seen fit to give him a promotion. He was a Captain and this was his first command in over a decade.
He entered the large cavernous gold that housed the ARC-7L Archer that he would be operating. A short skinny male figure was walking one of the gangways that surrounded the torso of the Archer. He stopped and extracted a spanner and used it to opened a small hatch. The man leaned in and began to work. Max couldn't see just what exactly he was doing but based on the location that he was working he was pretty sure that he was testing the Missile Servos.
A tenor voice that carried a lilting accent that Max was very familiar with called out from somewhere around the left leg, “Khalid, looks like we have company.” A male figure stepped from behind the leg followed by a petite tanned female. Her blonde hair was done up in bangs and a pony tail. A smudge of dark grease was underneath her left eye which indicated that she was either right handed or ambidextrous. Khalid stepped back from the hatch securing it into place before entering the freight elevator to the ground level.
As Max approached the trip he put names with faces gleaned from the dossiers. The dark haired male with the neatly trimmed beard was Khalid el Meziane, Lead Senior Tech for Monkey Wrench. He was 35 years old, and he was married with no children. His psych-eval stated that he was shy and awkward around strangers but, highly capable and competent.
The male and female were the Craig Twins: Julia and Julian. They were 27 years old and both had witnessed events that had shaped their personalities. Julian had been walking home from school when he saw an elderly man mugged. His psych-eval stated that he was gentle and caring towards everyone; especially the elderly. Julia had been swimming with friends when she began to cramp and drown; her friends all panicked. She was fortunately able to struggle to shore and after that point she rarely hung out with anyone. Her psych-eval labeled her as Independent and Solitary with a fear or water. She listed her brother as her best friend.
“Good morning people! My name is Maximillan Soles, but you can call me Max. I am the new pilot for that hunk of metal there,” Max stated as he drew closer.
Julian spoke up, “This is Senior Tech Khalid, my sister Julia, and I am Julian,” he extended his hand as he spoke. 
Max shook his hand and motioned for them to give him a tour of the facility and the Mech. The remainder of the morning was spent going over the details of Archer. Learning the idiosyncrasies of this particular model and machine. That afternoon he got on board and took it through some paces within the confines of the hall.

1203
10/20/3095
Recreation Hall
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine
The last twelve days had gone by in a blur, between settling in, learning the nuances of the Archer, and meeting the rest of the unit he worked from literally Sunup to Sundown. His morning routine was kept a little short so that he could get bathed and in uniform to attend a staff meeting concerning a potential job. He listened attentively to the veterans of Chaos Inc giving their input. He finally spoke up after it seemed most everyone had said their piece.

“Major, I know that I am new but, I also know I wouldn't be here if you didn't feel In was capable.” He paused waiting to see if anyone had anything to interject when nothing was forthcoming he smiled and continued. “In my opinion there is only one way to do this job. We slip in some ground pounders of our own to rendezvous with the assets in place. Maybe we send in a few techs, Aero-pilots and Mech-pilots as well to give our perspective. We hump in supplies and help aid in the Guerilla Warfare to help learn more about their defensive strategies. Once we have reconned the situation we can establish a more thorough battle plan. That's my 10 Denari worth of input!” He settled back and waited to hear the rest of the group's thoughts.

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 879
Contract count: 16171
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1219
10/20/3095
Recreation Hall
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“Preacher, that’s not a bad idea. There are only two issues with the plan…” Alex replied. “… the first is the speed that we need to do this. We don’t have the time necessary to do the insertion and get in contact with the guerilla forces that are there.”

He took a drink from his beer. “Second, the liberation of the planet is not our objective. We’re there to get the DropShips that the DCMS high command wants and get the hell out. Sure, we’re going to shoot the shit out of some things in the process, but that’s entirely secondary. I am also pretty damned sure that the DCMS has already shed their dragon’s tears for those troops still on the ground on Virentofta.”

Alex felt a grim certainty about that. While the DCMS would shed more blood, and lose more men to get the DropShips caught by the Snow Ravens off of Virentofta, they wouldn’t do anything near the same for the few line soldiers left behind as well. 

He cleared his throat to get that line of thoughts out of his mind before continuing to speak. “That’s the long and short of it, anyway. Since everyone seems to on board for this one, I am going to get back in touch with the Tai-I and let him know we accept the contract. The DCMS High Command are wanting a fast turnaround on the contract so we’re going to be lifting off in about four days.” 

Alex paused to ponder the number and scratched at his face with the back of his hand. “Yeah. Four days. Get together with your people and with the techs, let me know if that number is going to be too soon. I don’t think it would be but there’s always something, right?” 

He let the murmured chuckles and general chorus of agreement go by before continuing. “Alright then. Get you asses out there and get your units ready. I am off to talk to the Tai-I and get this rolling. Report lance readiness tomorrow by 1000 hours… if there’s something that’s broke, get it fixed. If it’s not broke, make sure it’s not going to any time soon.”

“Okay. That’s it. Go away and do whatever it is you do to make things work. I need to go sign on the dotted line.” Alex made a shooing motion with his free hand, using the other to take the last swig of his beer. “Away with you.”

1421
Admin Building

“Tai-i.” Alex said as he opened the door to the Professional Soldiery Liaison’s office. As the compound, itself was owned by the Draconis Combine, a holdover from the days prior to the destruction of Clan Smoke Jaguar when Wolcott was a raiding post for Combine forces into Clan held space, the PSL office was a permanent fixture of the compound. 

“Major.” Tai-I Akio Wakai calmly set the stylus in his hand down on the desk in front of him and look up at Alex. He had grown more used to the way his charges behaved and the sudden interruptions they often made of his life and schedule. “What can I do for you?”
“We want to take the contract back to Virentofta.” Alex proclaimed calmly.

“I see.” Akio folded his hands on his desk. “You have discussed this with the rest of your unit then.”

Alex nodded. “I have and we are all agreed. We will assist the Combine in recapturing those DropShips.”

“Good.” Akio returned the nod and pulled a noteputer from his desk, sliding it and the stylus across his desk and towards the mercenary commander. “Feel free to read over the contract and sign at the bottom when you are finished.”

Alex quirked an eyebrow at the other man. “We’ve already gone over the details, Akio. You know that I already agree with your terms.”

“Then you should perhaps review them.” Akio suggested, hands open wide as if in invitation. “It is all too often in this universe that one does not notice all things going on inside it.”

“Now you are starting to sound like Tynon.” Alex said with a roll of his eyes. He picked the noteputer up, but left the stylus on the desk and plopped down in the chair across the desk from Akio. “I shall now take the time to review this document for completeness.”

Akio nodded and made a gesture for Alex to proceed with the review. He watched the mercenary commander as he read over the contract. Akio knew that little to nothing had really changed, however, it was best that Alex reviewed it and did notice the one change that might cause a… 

“Hang on.” Alex paused in his reading and backed up to the beginning of the paragraph. “Akio, why does this say that there will be another lance of Mechs riding with us. A lance of Combine Mechs?”

“Because the high command would like to be certain that this mission will be completed properly and with as much safeguarding of their interests as possible. The addition of a lance of PSL Mechs to your force will assist in doing so.”

“So, you and three of your DEST buddies will be coming down with us.” Alex said flatly. 

“No, that is not the case.” Akio said firmly. “I and three of the yakuza will be going down. All DEST troopers in this sector that are not assigned to other missions have been tapped to assist with the capture and crewing of the DropShips. So, I am forced to rely on the yakuza to provide MechWarriors to assist me.”

Alex smirked slightly and leaned back in his chair. The distaste for the entire situation was spread all across Akio’s face… if you knew how to read stone that is. Alex did. “Why, Tai-I, all members of the glorious Mustered Soldiery are true sons and daughters of the Dragon, equal in the eyes of their lords.”

“I am not their lord and they are all equal to me as the expendable assets they are.” Akio said with no warmth in his voice at all. 

“You really need to not hold in your emotions like this, Akio.” Alex said, his smirk firmly in place. “It’s not good for you to keep them all bottled up inside like this.”

“I shall keep that in mind.” Akio replied, his stone mask firmly back in place.

“Good… good… wouldn’t want you to burst a blood vessel or something.” Alex murmured as he went back to reading. “The only addition that I saw was you and the rest of your lance of baby sitters. You’ll ride with me on the MARIANNE and help act as a big stick for all possible acts of badness that the Snow Ravens will be sending our way.” 

Akio nodded. “That is acceptable.” 

“Good thing.” Alex replied and looked at the Tai-i. “I am going to recommend one of your lance comes in with a Rifleman or something like that to shoot at all the damned Aerospace fighters we’re going to encounter on this op.” 

“So noted. I shall see what we can come up with.”

“Somehow I don’t see that as a problem.” Alex paused and seemed to quickly scan over several pages on the noteputer. “I don’t see anything that’s going to take away my command.”

“You would not.” Akio said calmly. “You are in full command of the operation. My lance will be there to provide additional firepower and to safe guard the interests of the Dragon. We are not there to take command of the mission away from you.”

“That’s good. I’d hate to have to humiliate myself to make a point in another valiant attempt to beat you in hand-to-hand combat.” 

“It would disturb me greatly to have to pummel you with great vigor and zeal in the line of duty.”

Alex snorted at that and paused in his signing of the noteputer to look at Akio with a raised eyebrow. “Sure. Your whole chi would be out of whack after something like that.”

“Exactly.” Akio did nothing to hide the small spark in his eye. 

Alex said nothing further, just signed the noteputer and slid the device back towards Akio. “Okay. We’re in.”

“When can you lift off?” Akio inquired as he reviewed the documents.

“Four days, barring any accidents or other problems.” 

Akio nodded. “Everything seems to be in order.” He stood and gave Alex a brief bow that the mercenary commander returned then offered his hand to Alex. “We shall be ready to be onboard the MARIANNE in four days, if not sooner.” 

“I shall see you then.” Alex replied and accepted Akio’s hand. He gave the PSL officer a firm shake then released his hand.  Alex headed towards the door, pausing at the door long enough to turn around and look at Akio. “We’ll get this done.” 

Akio nodded and waited until Alex closed the door behind him. “Yes, you will.”
Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 1529
Contract count: 17,700
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1407
10/20/3095
Mess Hall, Building Four
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Captain Tiana "Risky" Anders-Hsien removed the slide from the top of her automatic pistol and set it to the side, on top of a soft cloth where the rest of the pistol’s parts would end up. The mess hall was sparsely occupied at the moment, being partially filled with only squad leaders and the two officers, which Risky was one of, that completed the command staff for the battle armor unit within Chaos Incorporated. Without looking up from her work, Tiana asked: “Okay. So, who’s got questions for me?”

“So, what are we doing, Risky?” SRLT Isabella “Cutter” Fisk asked from where she straddled one of the chairs in the mess hall. Her favorite three knives were spread on the table beside her, waiting for the application of both the oil and the whetstone set beside them.  

“We are dropping in and killing bad guys.” Risky responded blandly, looking up at Isabella but not stopping in taking the pistol apart. “Anything else?”

“Risky…” Cutter said, drawing out the “I” to an improbably length. “… I knew that.”

“Then why did you ask?” Sergeant Major Andrei “Ram” Ramius asked with a straight face. He was in the middle of cleaning his 15mm revolver, swirling a soft brush through each chamber of the cylinder of the archaic weapon. However, he’d done that particular chore enough that he could complete it properly even while playing the straight man for his commander.

Knowing a losing battle when she saw one, Cutter ignored the senior non-commissioned officer in the battle armor group and kept her attention on Risky. “I meant, how are we doing that and do we have a plan and all of that.” 

“See, you were not specific enough when you asked your question.” Risky pointed out and began wiping down the various parts of her pistol with a light gun oil liberally applied to a soft rag she kept for that purpose. “We go down with the Mechs, dropping out of the DropShips with them, and hit the targets. We will be responsible for sweeping out any buildings at the site for hostile infantry and battle armor forces, supporting the Mechs when the Snow Ravens’ garrison come to play, and giving any support to the DropShip breach teams that try and recover the Snakes’ DropShips. What else?”

 “Nothing more specific than that?” Cutter asked with a frown. While she could roll with changes to a plan, she really liked to have a plan to roll with before the changes hit.

“Sorry, Cutter.” Risky replied with a shrug. “I don’t have a lot of things to go with. We’ve got a map of the base, but that’s really it right now.”

“Maybe the Captain can provide a general order of action?” First Sergeant Oscar “Grouch” Martin asked. Unlike the rest, Oscar was not working on honing a knife or cleaning a weapon. In contrast, he was gripping and releasing the hand exerciser in his right hand. A man that prided himself on his boxing skills, Oscar was often found working out in one fashion or another and had himself limited to this particular exercise instead of doing push-ups or the like during a meeting. “It might settle the Senior Lieutenant’s mind some.”

“Sure, Grouch.” Risky said and looked at the First Sergeant. “After we jump out of the DropShips, probably a standard low level combat drop, but I have not confirmed that with Random yet, then we’ll head to the closest building to clear it of unwanted Clanners...”

“Hmph.” Grumbled Kristoff. While the man was not an NCO or officer, he was a former Ghost Bear Elemental that had been captured during Chaos Incorporated’s last foray onto the planet. He had been invaluable in training the nineteen troopers, Risky and Ram included, in the use of the Elemental battle armor that had also been captured. This was one of the few times that Kristoff had interjected anything into a briefing.

“I said ‘unwanted’ Clanners, Kristoff.” Risky repeated. “You’re one of us now so you don’t count towards that total anymore.”

Raised his head and looked directly at Risky, his frown clear on his face. “I was previously in that total.” 

Risky sighed. Not for the first time, Risky thought that the man was awful damned emotional for a Clanner. “Previously, you were probably also shooting at us. Now, you are helping us shoot at them… whoever ‘they’ may be at the moment. The point is, now you are with us. Are we good now? Can I get back to doing this?”

He nodded. “Apologies for interrupting, Risky.”

“No problem.” Risky smiled and went back to looking at Oscar. “As I was saying, we drop in and start hitting the nearest building with the intention of clearing out any Snow Ravens that we meet. After that, assuming we have not been interrupted by the local garrison forces, we go help in clearing the DropShips and getting them secured. If the garrison forces show up, then we go help Random and the other MechWarriors get rid of them. Once everything is cleared out and the DropShips are secured, we bug the fuck out.”

“That’s almost a plan.” Cutter said.

“It’s almost crap, that’s what it almost is.” Risky said and began oiling another part of her pistol. “However, it’s all I have at this damned moment.”

“Maybe we can get some more intel on the place.” Ram said. “Get a better idea of what the hell we’re going to do when we get to the ground.”

“Same thing we always do, Ram.” Risky said softly as she looked down the disassembled barrel of her pistol, checking for imperfections in the metal. “Just shoot the fuck out of anything that moves.”

Ram watched her for a moment, saying nothing, then look at the rest of the mercenaries in the room. All of them looked at him expectantly. He sighed lightly and looked back to Risky, who was in the process of reassembling her pistol. “You good with that?”

“I suppose.” She replied and placed the slide back onto the pistol, racking it back to test the action after she did so. “But even if I wasn’t, it is what it is. Right?”

“As often as you say that these days, you should get it stenciled on your armor.” Sergeant First Class Anthony “Reaper” Bell said. 

“Not a bad idea, Reaper.” Risky replied and slid her pistol into the holster on her left hip. “Maybe I’ll even get a tat of it or something. Right across my thigh or something.”

Reaper shrugged. “Whatever you want, Risky.”

“Exactly. Okay, people, we’re done here. Four days to lift off so get your squads checked out, your gear checked out, and all that crap.” Risky said. “I want double ammo loads stored on the DropShips. Normal load for parts, but double ammo. Rations and all that too… pretend we’re going to have to hike it over rough terrain for a week or five.” 

“I’ll get it handled.” Cutter said.

“I know you will.” Risky spared a slight smile for her XO and stood up. “I’ve got to go run or something. I am tired of sitting around, I need to move. Everyone dismissed. I’ll see you guys at chow.”

Posted by,
Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien
Elemental Battle Armor
Battle Armor Commander
Chaos Incorporated

Word count: 1254
Contract count: 18,954
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000 

0558
10/24/3095
Bridge, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
DropShip Pad Seven Delta
Military Command Site Delta One Nine 
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“Who the hell made it a rule that lift-off had to be so damned early in the morning?” Major Alexander “Random” Yau asked as he rubbed at his eyes. 

“No one.” Captain Dillan Fowler, commander of the MARIANNE, replied. The DropShip captain looked much too awake for Alex’s tastes… obscenely awake even. Dillan, however, either was ignoring Alex’s grumpy morning look or was too enthralled in the MARIANNE’s departure to care. “You’re the one that wanted to be on the bridge during lift-off. You could be down in your bunk like all the other ground pounders on board.” 

“Most of the other ground pounders.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien replied.

“Most.” Dillan acknowledged and tipped the bowler that he’d taken to wearing towards her. “However, you are normally awake at this point no matter what the hell is going on. You’re out running or bench pressing small buses or whatever it is you do for exercise. So, I don’t know if that counts.”

“Because it shows I am an early riser?” she asked.

Dillan turned his head towards her, a smile on his face. “No because it shows that you are most likely insane.”

Tiana laughed at that. “You may have a point, Captain.”

“Indeed.” Dillan tapped the shoulder of his pilot. “Rene, do we have clearance yet?”

LT Rene Fonck paused as he listened to something coming over his headset then nodded. “Yes, Captain, it just came through. I am bringing engines to full power and will lift off on your mark.” 

“Thank you.” Dillan adjusted the microphone that was attached to the ear piece he was wearing and opened a channel through the small communications panel on his command couch. “This is MARIANNE to all vessels. We are clear for take-off. All units to lift off when you are ready… no worries about when to do it, we’ve got lots of room and clear skies. Acknowledge, please.”

[[BLACK JACK acknowledges, MARIANNE.]] came the voice of Captain Jeremy Allen from the BLACK JACK. The Mule Class DropShip would carry the bulk of the supplies for the unit and would normally also be carrying the unit’s dependents, but Alex had opted to leave the non-combatants on Wolcott… this was a raid and not a place for women, children, or anything else in between. 

What they were carrying besides supplies though was the newly formed reconnaissance element that Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius had put together along with that unit’s equipment, munitions, battle armor, and vehicles. Alex hoped that having the additional and highly trained infantry plus the recon drones and other equipment that Felix had brought together would give Chaos Incorporated a bit of an edge when it came down to fighting the Clanners.

Added to that newly and yet unnamed unit, were three squads of Fa Shih battle armor: Icepick, Joker, and Killer squads. These three squads were the newest in the unit, but with BLACK JACK not really meant to face combat, this didn’t bother Alex too much. Tiana had made some noise about rotating squads around each DropShip so they wouldn’t get too complacent. Alex reminded her that such things were up to her and as long as there was a body where he needed it to be to do what he was expecting it to do, he didn’t care who’s body it was.

[[AWKWARD MOMENT acknowledges, MARIANNE.]] The voice of Captain Ana Rifkin, commanding the Union Class DropShip AWKWARD MOMENT, cut through Alex’s thoughts. Captain Rifkin, her vessel, and her crew were new to Chaos Incorporated and this would be their first combat mission with the unit. Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman and his Frenzy Lance would be onboard AWKWARD MOMENT along with Anarchy, Bedlam, Confusion, and Disorder Squads from the battle armor troopers and Marauder Flight for air cover.

As soon as Ana was clear, crisp Davion tones came over the commline. [[Captain Edmond Cunningham reporting, Captain Fowler. THE EQUESTRIAN acknowledges and will comply. Out.]]

THE EQUESTRIAN, like AWKWARD MOMENT, was new to Chaos Incorporated and this was their first combat run with the mercenaries as well. THE EQUESTRIAN was a Union Class DropShip, again like AWKWARD MOMENT, and carried aboard her Tempest Lance with their new commander Captain Maximillian “Preacher” Soles, who had taken over for Kylie “Red” Fong after she had been injured in the last contract.

Like so many others in the unit, this was Preacher’s first run with Chaos Incorporated, but from everything that Alex had seen in the man’s dossier, he was no stranger to combat and wouldn’t cause any sort of problem on that front. There has been some bristling from other members of Tempest Lance when Preacher was brought in to command them instead of just boosting one of the current members up in rank, but no one had officially come to Alex about it. 

Besides the one that everyone had said should have gotten the job, SRLT Parker “Thorn” Rose, had been the only one that came to Alex about the situation and he’d been glad that someone else was brought in. At least for now. Given that, Alex had quietly let the rest of the lance know about the conversation and things had died down a bit. Hopefully it wouldn’t cause any issues in the lance.

With THE EQUESTRIAN able to hold twelve BattleMechs and Tempest Lance only numbering six Mechs, there’d been more than enough room to add in a few more troops without getting things too claustrophobic in the DropShip. To that end, he’d also assigned Entropy, Freak, Ghost, and Haze squads of battle armor to the DropShip as well as Boomer Flight for air support. 

These assignments left the last third of Chaos Incorporated combat troops onboard the MARIANNE. Like both THE EQUESTRIAN and AWKWARD MOMENT, the MARIANNE was a Union Class DropShip and meant to carry a full company of BattleMechs along with some support equipment. Like the other Union Class DropShips, the MARIANNE was running with her combat compliment at about half full.

The DropShip carried Alex’s command, the six Mechs of Lawless Lance, and Havok Flight inside her. Along with that, she carried the newest battle armor equipment to fall into Chaos Incorporated’s hands: twenty Clan-made Elemental battle armor suits. Tiana and her best troopers, her Kill Team, used the newly acquired Elemental armor as their normal battle gear and were itching to get it into combat for the first time.

Alex glanced towards the door of the bridge where a former Ghost Bear Elemental, Kristoff, stood guard and kept his gaze face front, but only because it let him see everything near his commander, Tiana. For reasons unknown, the Elemental had decided that Tiana was in need of a bodyguard and that the only logical choice for that position was him. 

Senior Specialist Fraser “Jackal” Kearns had words to say about that and told Kristoff those words in as abrasive fashion as possible. Kristoff had challenged Fraser to fight for the position in a “Circle of Equals” in whatever fashion Fraser chose. After making sure the fight was sanctioned by Tiana, Fraser chose to fight Kristoff in battle armor… the new Elemental battle armor that Chaos Incorporated had just acquired. Kristoff accepted the challenge with a nod then suited up while Fraser did the same. Despite the eye-rolling that Kristoff did, both suits had their weapons removed or disarmed, leaving both suits with physical attacks only and with strict orders given that this fight was not to be a lethal one.

Four minutes and nineteen seconds later, Fraser was faceplate down in the ground with Kristoff’s foot planted in his back and his left arm cranked behind him to a point where he couldn’t move it without pain, even in the Elemental armor. After another minute or so of twisting about and trying to get free, Fraser tapped out. When Fraser got up, Kristoff offered the best two out of three. 

Nine minutes and twelve seconds later after both bouts finished, Kristoff offered Fraser the best five out of seven. Fraser removed his helmet and shook his head, declining the fight. He offered his slot in Tiana’s command squad to Kristoff and made to leave the unit entirely. Senior Specialist Donna Jean “DJ” Kern stepped in at that point. 

She told Tiana and the rest of the Kill Team that she was uncomfortable in the Elemental armor and wished to move back into the normal ranks where she would be able to use the Fa Shih armor that she’d grown accustomed to. Tiana blinked at that request and consulted with her executive officer, SRLT Isabella “Cutter” Fisk, who offered DJ a spot in her command squad which DJ accepted gleefully.

With that part done, Tiana reassigned Fraser to command one of the Kill Team squads as a First Sergeant and put Kristoff in her command squad as a senior specialist. However, the former Clansman had to have a callsign, which he didn’t understand really but shrugged and agreed to because Tiana said it needed to be so. Tiana looked to Fraser and asked for Kristoff’s callsign. 

The newly minted squad leader smiled and said: “Grumpy.”

Kristoff frowned for a moment, then stoically nodded and went to find a tech to paint it on his suit of Elemental battle armor. This was done within an hour of the request, using a standard military stencil and the grey paint used for lettering over the black base color of the armor. However, later that night, the lettering color went to a light blue and a small raincloud was mysteriously painted across the Elemental’s lower torso. No one claimed responsibility, everyone giggled over it after the reference was explained to them, and Kristoff continued to ignore it… which just made everyone giggle more. 

Tiana followed Alex’s gaze to Kristoff and shrugged slightly. She took a half step closer and lowered her voice slightly before speaking. “I told him that I didn’t need him to do this all the time.” 

“What did he say to that?” Alex asked in the same low tone.

“That just because I was lucky before, didn’t mean that the luck would continue… or something like that. He’s made it pretty clear that he’s going to be following me around everywhere.” Tiana paused and Alex was almost sure that she blushed slightly. “Well… almost everywhere.” 

“Okay. Well if you’ll put up with it, then I guess I can too.” Alex said and looked over at Dillan. “We’re all good?” 

“Good to go, Major.” Dillan said and gave him a half-hearted and sloppy salute. “Permission to get our asses off the ground.”

Alex chuckled and returned Dillan’s salute. “Permission granted, Captain.”

With a continued grin, Dillan clapped Rene on the shoulder. “The word is given. Bring me the horizon.”

“The word is given, aye.” Rene repeated and brought the MARIANNE’s engines up to full. The Union class DropShip shuddered slightly as it began to rise from the ground. As the MARIANNE’s engines began roaring out their power, her 3500 tons of mass slowly began lifting off of Wolcott’s surface and into the sky.

“And here we go.” Alex whispered.

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1886
Contract count: 20,840
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

0958 Operational Hours
10/28/3095
Captain’s Ready Room, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Pirate Point Alpha-Seven-One-One-Tango-Three
Wolcott, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau sat back in his chair and watched the holo-table in front of him as the images being broadcast and projected solidified. This was his first time in the MARIANNE’s ready room, but then again, he hadn’t need to be here before. Noting the number of cardboard boxes and other debris that were filling various corners of the room, despite the quick and frantic cleaning that had been done, no one had needed to be here for quite some time.

Right now, he only needed to be in this room because the commander of the task force needed to brief all his commanders on this mission and wanted to do it all at once. Alex was fine with this method of doing so, it meant he didn’t need to leave the MARIANNE and go hop some shuttle over to another DropShip or something. Which just really annoyed him to no end. Space travel wasn’t his favourite thing in the universe to begin with; bouncing around between DropShips in a shuttle wouldn’t help a damned thing.

The room itself was hot and crowded. The boxes and other scattered items that were in it took up a good amount of space. This was compounded by the number of people that were in it. They included all the command and intelligence staff for the combat units of Chaos Incorporated plus Tynon Lu, the head tech and Alex’s mentor. It was only six people, but the room was damned small to begin with. Luckily, the rest of the officers were attending from their own vessels.

The holo-table gave a wave of static that set Alex’s nerves on edge and he looked over at Captain Dillan Fowler, commander of the MARIANNE. “Dillan… what the hell is wrong with this thing?” 

“Beyond neglect and a lack of use?” Dillan shrugged. “I have no clue.”

Alex gave him an exasperated look. “Well, fix it.” 

“How would you like me to do that?” Dillan asked, looking genuinely interested in Alex’s answer.

“Your table… your room… your ship. Fix. It.”

Dillan quirked an eyebrow at Alex. “With that sort of logic, then I guess it means you can fix the engine on your Mech if it breaks down, right?”

Alex slapped the edge of the table with the flat of his hand, making a sound that made everyone in the room wince. With the impact of Alex’s hand, the holographic image wavered for a moment then went to a clear picture of Tai-sa Edward Hu, the task force commander. The older man, to Alex anyway, looked directly into the camera, his face made of stone. His black uniform was high-collared and bereft of any decoration beyond his rank on one collar and a DEST insignia on the other. 

[[Commanders… we will be jumping to Hanover in the next few hours. Once there, we will be in a holding pattern for as long as it takes the JumpShips to recharge their batteries. While all the JumpShips in this task force are equipped with Lithium-fusion batteries, we wish the batteries to be full when we reach our target, Virentofta, in the event of an emergency that would require the JumpShips to jump away from the system.]]

A small map appeared next to Tai-sa Hu’s head with the task force’s jump route highlighted in green as it moved across the red that marked Draconis Combine space. Wolcott, Hanover, and Virentofta all flashed white and stayed flashing as the green line connected them. 

[[Please note that all times are based on the operational clock that has been established by our computers and will be working from Wolcott time and calendar. This is so we do not have to worry about translating the time over after we leave this system.]] Hu explained. 

[[We plan to jump from Hanover on November 10 at 0710 to Virentofta and will be jumping to a known pirate point to reduce our time in transit to the planet. We will be approximately 39 hours away from the planet’s surface when we emerge from our jump.]] Hu paused to let this sink in.

Alex could hear some murmuring across the open commchannel and could sense the trepidation in many of the commanders’ voices. That was echoed by a surprised “holy fuck” from Dillan as he really began to take notice of the meeting. Alex looked at him as Dillan slapped the mute button on the console. 

“Hours? 39 hours from the planet? That better be one damned good pirate point or we’re all going to get dead but quick.” Dillan shook his head. “This is one hell of a risk to take.”

[[They apparently want those other DropShips bad.]] Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius said over the private channel on the mercenary’s commline. [[I am not sure it’s worth it personally, but I suppose that’s why I am not a general or admiral or something.]]

[[Thank God for small favors.]] SRLT Janis “Amber” Rider said. Alex shook his head, picturing the two intelligence officers sitting side by side in the ready room of BLACK JACK, kidding each other about the situation. He almost missed having them there, but that was quickly supressed when he considered another couple of bodies in the MARIANNE’s already cramped ready room.  

Hu continued after a moment, his voice overriding anyone else on the channel. [[While we recognize the dangers in this approach, the Admiralty has assured us that the objectives of this mission warrant such drastic measures and will help assure us of achieving our goals. This pirate point is well charted and has been selected for its stability for this time of year for the planet. Please note that the JumpShips will not be deploying their solar sails as is the norm after a jump.]]

“Why the hell not?” asked Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsien. 

“Takes too long to get them back.” Dillan said. “Besides, we won’t be there long enough for them to get a full charge anyway, so there’s not a lot of point in deploying the sails, especially since they’ll have a charge ready to go on the batteries.”

“Oh.” Tiana shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.” 

[[With this insertion point, the point units will burn down at a speed of 1.3 G’s to arrive approximately two hours ahead of the follow-up forces. All point units will drop at approximately 2300 on November 12. Aerospace fighters will remain aboard their DropShips until and if needed to intercept enemy fighters. If they are not deployed prior to hitting the atmosphere, they will deploy at that time to provide air support for the point units.]]

[[The point units will consist of six DEST teams, the SILENT WIND and her compliment of fighters, and the mercenary command, Chaos Incorporated. The mercenaries will secure the perimeter of the base and remove any threat that the local garrison could pose to our operations. After they secure the perimeter, they will hold that perimeter until all or as many DropShips as possible are secured.]]

[[The point DEST teams will secure the DropShips that are on the landing pads, giving priority to CHERRY BLOSSOM, an Okinawa-class carrier, and to IRON MONKEY, a Fortress Class command vessel. Secondary priority is to any Mech carriers with all other units being taken as opportunity arises.]] Hu paused for a moment. [[Due to the nature of their abilities and the intelligence aboard them, it is imperative that these vessels are rescued first, even forsaking the recovery of all other eight vessels.]]

[[The drop of the follow up units is scheduled to occur at 0100 on November 13. These units will be crews for the DropShips we are to recover as well as four companies of marines to help secure and then protect the acquired DropShips. For this operation to be fully successful, all ten vessels must be recovered and ready to launch back into the atmosphere within six hours, approximately 0700 on November 13. Our analysts predict that we have that long before the entire Snow Raven garrison can mobilize against us, assuming all goes well.]]

[[Oh God… why did he have to say that?]] asked Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman, Chaos Incorporated’s executive officer, over the commline. Jackson was onboard AWKWARD MOMENT, attending the meeting from the DropShip that he and the rest of his unit was assigned to. “I hate it when they say that.”

“Quiet, Jackson.” Alex said to himself as he watched the small map showing a plan of action for the task force. He didn’t hit transmit the message, but thought about it hard enough that he was sure that Jackson had received the mental kick in the ass that Alex was giving him.

[[Once the DropShips are secured, all DEST teams and marines will board the DropShips. Chaos Incorporated will remain at the space port for approximately 12 hours to destroy enemy forces, equipment, and installations before lifting off in their own vessels. The longer that the mercenaries can delay the Snow Ravens from pursuing us, the greater chance that we will have to recover all of the vessels.]] 

“Um… “Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond raised her hand, one finger extended, concern on her face. “Alex?” 

“Just hang on, Sara.” Alex replied as he continued to watch the holo-table.

[[The SILENT WIND will be running escort for all DropShips, lifting off with them at 0700. Air support from the SILENT WIND will not be available to ground forces after the vessel has left the space port. Their Aerospace Fighters will deploy to protect the DropShips at all costs and can be recovered later by other vessels if needed. Major Yau… I apologize but you and your people will be on their own for air cover.]]

“Alex… “Sara said, again holding her hand with single finger extended in to the air.

“Sara, we can discuss it later. Now pay attention.”

[[At 1200 on November 14, the second part of our task force will arrive. This consists of four Invader Class JumpShips, enough to carry all the vessels that we are being sent to recover. The delayed time will lessen the exposure that the JumpShips will have to any possible enemy action.]]

Alex nodded at that. Prior to the Clan invasion, JumpShips were sacred and were never engaged in active combat; they were just too precious and too valuable to risk destroying one. With the Clans coming to the Inner Sphere, the became not open targets, but at risk of being attacked by Clan forces that didn’t have the severe loss of technology that the Inner Sphere had experienced.

[[Our recovered vessels should arrive at the pirate point at approximately 0200 on November 15, as they will be burning at approximately 2 G’s of thrust or greater. Once the recovered DropShips are attached to their JumpShips, those vessels will immediately jump for Combine-held space. Once these JumpShips are gone, SILENT WIND will be released to assist Chaos Incorporated in returning to their JumpShip.]]

[[We expect Chaos Incorporated and any other ground forces to arrive at the pirate point at approximately 1400 on November 15. The two JumpShips remaining at the pirate point, the BRASS LILLY and TIGER TAIL, will stay in position to recover all of our forces until 0000 hours on November 16 or until forced away by the Snow Ravens. All efforts will be made to recover all members of this task force, but the Dragon cannot needlessly risk such valuable assets as JumpShips during this time of war. We know that all here understand this.]]

“Alex… I really have some concerns about this whole… “Sara started.

“Dammit, Sara, I know.” Alex replied, anger creeping into his voice. “Just give me a minute.”

[[All operational and tactical data will be encrypted and delivered to all unit commanders and all vessel captains. We can adjust the plan and will have time to do so while we recharge the JumpShip batteries at Hanover. Please review the operational and tactical data for any flaws and bring those to the attention of my command staff no later than 2200 on October 28 so the data can be analysed. We shall reconvene again at 0900 on October 29, unless an emergency arises. If that is the case, all commanders will be contacted through my command staff.]]

Hu lifted his chin slightly to regard everyone on the other side of the holo-camera with an imperious look. [[This plan has a tight and complex schedule. All parts of it must work harmoniously together to achieve success. I have only the highest regard and confidence in all forces that are a part of this task force and know that success will occur. The Dragon needs our strength and unity of purpose to regain these vessels. Hu out.]]

The holo-table winked out, leaving the room dimmer for a moment before Dillan leaned over in his chair and flipped the lights on in the ready room. Alex sat there for a moment, his chin in his hand and his fingers splayed across his face. He blinked a couple of times and then sighed. 

“Alex…” Sara said.

He waved her down. “I know, Sara. I know.” His hands tapped out a command on the console of the holo-table bringing the plan up on the screen. He then turned to the communications console and opened a channel to the other three DropShips in Chaos Incorporated’s little fleet of vessels, bringing the rest of the unit’s officers into the conversation. “Okay, people, let’s take a look at it and see just how badly we’re going to get screwed.”

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2302
Contract count: 23,142
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1423 Operational Hours
10/30/3095
Captain’s Ready Room, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Hanover, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau cleared his throat slightly, took a drink, and adjust the high-collar of his shirt nervously. He wasn’t sure why but the thought of speaking with Task Force Commander Tai-sa Edward Hu made him more nervous than he had been since… since… forever. Something about the man just seemed to bring that out of him. That was why he’d been sitting here for more than ten minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin at 1430 Operational Hours.

Right now, he was sitting in the MARIANNE’s ready room with Tai-I Akio Wakai, the Professional Soldiery Liaison officer that was attached to Chaos Incorporated. He and Akio had become… well… not friends per se, but had gained a mutual respect and comradery after the past several months of working together while Chaos Incorporated was contracted to the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery. The relationship had not always been the friendliest, especially if they disagreed on what was best for the unit versus what was best for the Dragon, but it had always been respectful.

“You should not worry so.” Akio said quietly.

“Why is that?” Alex asked as he took another drink of his orange-flavored BLAM! a drink favoured by MechWarriors and athletes to replenish nutrients and electrolytes after sweating them out.

Akio kept his face straight. “He can smell fear.”

Alex choked on his drink and nearly spit it out his nose in the process of trying to not choke on it. After a moment of gasping to get his breath back, Alex glared at Akio. “You just think you’re funny.”

“I have it on good authority that I am not.” Akio replied, his eyes sparkling.

“Later on, when you are asleep, I am going to beat on your head.” Alex promised and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

Akio shrugged. “That would be the only way you could.”

“That’s it. You and me… in the sparring room… best two out of three. Right after this meeting.” 

“It is scheduled to end at 1500, correct?”

Alex nodded. “Yes.”

“Good, then I will have time to shower before I get to my 1515 meeting.” Akio replied and pretended great interest in his noteputer.

Alex turned to Akio and poked him with his left-hand index finger in the shoulder. “I am so going to… “ 

The holo-table in front of Alex took that moment to flicker to life with an image of Tai-sa Hu coming up in the middle of the table. The connection was established as Alex was half way in the middle of his threat to Akio and the Tai-ai had apparently caught a part of it, judging by the frown on his face. That or the frown was always there. Alex shut the hell up and spun to face the image. 

Tai-sa Hu’s frown seemed to deepen somehow. [[Is there a problem with Tai-ai Wakai, Major?]]

“No, Tai-sa.” Alex smiled and folded his hands-on top of each other to keep from strangling Akio in front of Tai-sa Hu. “I was just discussing today’s exercise schedule with the Tai-ai.” 

Tai-sa Hu grunted slightly and nodded. [[You had concerns to bring to me?]]

“Hai, Tai-sa. My first concern is… “Alex faltered for a moment as he saw Hu’s eyebrows raise slightly at the phrase “first concern.” He mentally shook that off and continued. “… the acceleration rate to be used as we approach the target. A 2 G acceleration would create a level of strain on my combat personnel that would deteriorate their effectiveness after we reach the ground.”

Hu frowned for a moment as he thought then nodded once. [[That is true. I would not wish to cause your… warriors… any discomfort during the journey. We can decrease the acceleration to 1.75G.]] He raised a hand to forestall any comment from Alex. [[We cannot go any slower without ruining any chance we may have for surprise and allowing the enemy to prepare their defences any more completely than they will. From your comment, I take it that you had other concerns.]]

“Hai, Tai-sa… one other major concern. My officers and I are concerned over the extended stay that Chaos Incorporated would have on the planet, holding off the enemy garrison for twelve hours. Twelve hours of unsupported fighting where we would not have room to maneuver does not make for an attractive proposition for a command as small as mine.”

[[You have… what?... near a company of battle armor and three demi-companies of Mechs, yes? Not including the wing of Aerospace forces at your command.]] Hu made this more a statement than a question. 

Alex was certain that the Tai-sa knew his entire TOE, the names of the majority if not all the men and women in his combat command, and probably the techs. “Yes, Tai-sa.”

[[I am not certain of what the problem is then, Major.]] Hu said. [[The garrison force for the entire planet is not estimated to be more than a cluster. Many of those forces will be destroyed when we arrive at the space port or tossed into disarray at the least. Others will have to maintain their positions to guard against potential attacks from our force, as they will not know our targets well enough to discount the threat we present towards them. I would not think that you would face more than a trinary, if that, in reinforcements.]]

Alex licked at his lips. A trinary, assuming a standard formation, could include as many as fifteen Clan BattleMechs or OmniMechs. The actual composition of the formation would change depending on the units assigned to it, especially since the Snow Ravens were more Aerospace-oriented, and would challenge his unit to an extreme.

“Ah… Tai-sa…” 

[[Besides, Major, I never stated your force had to stay in place. I merely stated that you would need to occupy the enemy forces for approximately twelve hours.]] Hu raised his chin slightly. [[So long as you succeed in that, I do not care how you do it.]]

“I see.” Alex glanced at Akio, who was sitting there with his stone face on, looking at the image of the Tai-sa and saying nothing. “As we have operational command of our deployment, do we also have our own options open as to rules of engagement?”

[[You may engage any valid military targets, Major. I will not condone the wanton destruction of any civilian targets or the population at large…]] Hu paused and his face tightened slightly. [[Especially the sort that has been attributed to your unit on Galatea.]]

Alex blinked at that and ignored the sudden clamping of Akio’s hand on his thigh in warning. “Tai-sa… I protest.” Alex said in a controlled voice and he could feel the first flicker of anger in his heart and behind his eyes. “The event that you are referencing was not a civilian target. The target was the estate of a crime lord that had opened hostilities with my unit.”

[[I have read the official reports from the authorities on Galatea, Major, and they agree with what you say. However, I do not agree with them and find that the use of BattleMechs upon a civilian population to be… contemptable.]]

“Now wait a fucking minute…” Alex said and stood, brushing away Akio’s warning grip on his arm. “Not only did that SOB kill two of my people, he was able to field his own Mechs when we went calling on him. He was far from a defenceless civilian that the mean mercenaries decided to go trash on a whim.”

[[He was a merchant defending himself. Hardly a worthy opponent, even for mercenaries.]] 

The heat went out of Alex’s voice, which was a bad sign when he was mad. He ignored Akio’s sig as the man shoved his chair back and stepped away from Alex. It didn’t matter at that moment, all of Alex’s attention was centered on the holographic image in the middle of the table. 

“Anthony DiLeo was a son of a bitch and a bastard. I am glad that I leveled his house and made him into red goo, personally. If I would have had enough salt to do it, I would have salted the ground of his entire estate. Just because.”

Hu’s lips pressed firmly together and his eyes narrowed. [[A barbarian in truth then.]]

“Before you start labelling me and mine as such things, I would remind the Tai-sa of several facts.”

[[Such as what?]] 

Alex swapped to Japanese from the English they had been using. “First, my targets were all armed… primarily small arms that stood no chance against my force, but they were armed. Second, they had BattleMechs and armored vehicles… again no match for me and mine, but still there. Third… “

Hu let Alex’s deliberate pause hang in the air for a moment. [[Yes, Major?]]

“The fight on the DiLeo estate had nothing on Kintares.” Alex said with a deliberate and cruel smile on his face. Reminding the DCMS officer of the massacre of the Kintares system by forces from the Draconis Combine.

Hu’s eyes went wide in shock and then narrowed again, anger on his face. He stood up and the last image of the task force commander was of the man’s hand stabbing out to turn off the holo-camera, ending the meeting.

Alex closed his eyes and let his head hang for a moment as the adrenaline went out of him. “Well… fuck.”

“I believe that would be an accurate statement.” Akio said softly. “You realize that this will do nothing positive for your association and relationship with the task force commander.”

“Yeah… yeah, I do.” Alex said and sat down. “I’m sorry, Akio. He started down that road and I just… just…”

Akio nodded his understanding. “I do understand and it was… impolite, at best… for the Tai-sa to bring that incident up. Almost as impolite as the reference to Kintares.”

“Yes, almost that bad.” Alex agreed and put his forehead on the warm surface of the holo-table. “How do I get out of this?”

“Without debasing yourself in his presence?”

“Yes, please, because I don’t think I could do that anytime soon.”

Akio nodded. “The best would be to not mention it until he does. Anyone on his side of the meeting was a subordinate, there to take notes at best, because that is how Tai-sa Hu operates. He prefers to keep a hand in everything that happens in his task force, as long as it is not too mundane… and even then, he had a hand in making the mundane tasks easier.”

“So, anyone that would have heard my outburst would be too low on the totem pole for him to lose much face with.” Alex said as he thought out loud then looked towards Akio. “That’s why you slid back when you were certain that you couldn’t contain the situation.”

“Hai. It was better for me to not be a party to the situation at that point. Losing face in front of an audience of Combine officers is a disgrace… but if it’s just with a money soldier gaijin, it means nothing.”

“I am so glad that I have such a low standing in the universe.” Alex said with a sick grin. “What about the rest… can he fuck with us during the operation?”

Akio shook his head. “He is too much of a professional to do that. He would not even arrange to have something unfortunate to happen to your unit after the DropShips were recovered. The loss of a mercenary force that has gained some amount of favour with both the ISF and the DCMS High Command while under his command would also be a disgrace.” 

“But later… after the shooting is all done… then he could do something to fuck with us.”

“He could indeed.” Akio agreed.

“Well… fuck.” 

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2017
Contract count: 25,159
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1603 Operational Hours
10/30/3095
Mess Hall, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Hanover, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“That dude seriously needs to not be a door.” Muttered Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman as he was finally able to enter the Mess Hall on the MARIANNE. 

Like the other officers not stationed on the MARIANNE, he’d made the journey over through the connective passages of the JumpShip BRASS LILLY, which all the mercenary DropShips were attached. Also like many of those officers, he had a small challenge in sliding past the bulk of Kristoff, a Clan Ghost Bear Elemental that had pledged himself to Chaos Incorporated after being captured.

“That would be helpful.” Captain Jeremy Allan, commander of the BLACK JACK, a Mule class DropShip and fellow mercenary to Jackson. He too had issues getting past Kristoff’s bulk, but not as much as Jackson did. Jeremy had spent most of his life in space and getting around obstructions were part and parcel for that sort of life.

“Hey… Risky.” Jackson called out to the battle armor commander of Chaos Incorporated. “Your boyfriend is out there filling up the hall with his wide-ass shoulders. Think you could have him suck it in or something so people can get down the hallway?”

“First, he’s not my boyfriend.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsein explained, ignoring Jackson’s leering grin so he wouldn’t think the attempted barb actually affected her. “Two, he’s my bodyguard… that’s not my fault either.”

“Speaking of that, how’d you get him to not follow you inside?” Jackson asked.

“He’s not an officer and this is an officer only meeting and he was having issues getting through the doorway, so I told him to stay outside.” Tiana said then went back to her original countdown. “Three, if you want him to move, you tell him to move yourself, because I would pay money to see that.”

Jackson licked at his lips for a moment as he pondered that. “Do I get to use my Mech?”

Tiana smiled. “No. Close combat… no weapons, no armor.”

“Fuck that.” Jeremy threw himself into a chair which he used as a base to sprawl out from. “He’d rip my head off.” 

“Which is what I’d pay to see.” Tiana responded with a laugh.  

Ignoring most of the banter, Jeremy let the door swing close behind him then turned back around when he heard the door’s lock being engaged. Jeremy aborted his hand’s move towards his side arm when he saw SRLT Isabella “Cutter” Fisk and Sergeant Major Andrei “Ram” Ramius lingering near the door. The two battle armor troopers were about as close to an officer pool as the small group of troopers currently had available to it.

Isabella smiled at Jeremy and threw him a wink… as she’d been trying to attract the slightly older DropShip captain’s attention for some time and had little opportunity to do so. Ram nodded and tried to keep his smile over Cutter’s antics contained. Jeremy replied to each in the same way he’d been greeted and nodded to the officer sitting nearby as he went to his seat near Jackson’s.

Major Alexander “Random” Yau returned Jeremy’s nod and waited for a moment after the door to the Mess Hall had been locked then stood up and placed his hands behind his back, waiting for the assembled mercenaries to quiet down some. This was something he’d some actor do on a tri-vid holo-series about space exploration and meeting aliens and boldly going where no one had gone before. The posture always seemed to make the character in question look like he was talking about something important and everyone always seemed to listen to him.
 
Of course, it always seemed like everyone was listening to that character really… even when he was practicing his own form of diplomacy: a smirk and a laser blaster. Maybe even especially when he was being diplomatic… laser blasters seem to draw the attention of all intelligent life forms when they were pointed at them. Funny how that worked.
 
He glanced towards the assembled officers and was satisfied that he indeed did have their attention. Then Alex wondered if maybe he sat in something and they were just not laughing at him yet. Pushing that thought firmly out of his mind, Alex began the meeting. “Now that we’re all here, we can get started with this.”
 
He tapped a button on the small controller in his hand and the holo-projector attached to his noteputer came to life. It displayed their target planet, Virentofta, and then slid down to a much lower shot of the planet that showed only the space port proper, which was their target. The holographic image was accurate for when it was shot down to the placement of small three-wheeled vehicles that security used inside the space port.
 
“As you all know, we’re to be the point unit for this operation.” Alex began then stopped so he wouldn’t be fighting to speak over the several disgruntled comments that came out of the crowd. “I know, I know. I did speak to Tai-sa Hu and expressed our concerns.”
 
“How’d he take those concerns, Alex?” Jackson asked, his voice and face reflecting the pinnacle of innocence. 
 
Alex briefly wished for a rock to throw at his executive officer, who knew exactly how well that whole conversation with the Tai-sa had gone. “The initial part of the meeting went very well. We’ll be coming in at about 1.5 Gs instead of the original 2 Gs… still rough, but slightly better, I think. The Tai-sa also expressed his full confidence in our ability to deal with the few reinforcements that might come to assist the space port.”
 
“Those are good things.” Tiana commented. 
 
“More like ‘mostly good.’” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond corrected. “Coming in at 1.5 Gs is better than 2 Gs but it still won’t be a picnic and will be hard on everyone coming in. I’ll be sitting in my cockpit for that, thanks.”
 
“You enjoy that.” Tiana replied and looked to Alex. “How come I have the feeling that things may have gone downhill after that?”
 
“Yeah, Alex, how come?” Jackson asked, still beaming an aura of innocence that everyone in the room knew was bullshit.
 
“Hush, Madman.” Tiana said and looked over at the MechWarrior. “You obviously know something already; I just want to hear it from the man himself as to what went down.”
 
“Um…” Alex began, not knowing exactly how to delve into the events of the meeting. Tiana raised an eyebrow at him and he sighed. “So, the discussion was going along fine and then I asked if our rules of engagement could be a little looser. The Tai-sa then started in saying that he wouldn’t condone any action against civilian targets or wonton destruction and then started on about what went down on Galatea with the whole DiLeo thing.”
 
“Wait a minute…” Sara spoke up. “He brought up our razing DiLeo’s estate and compared that to this op? What the hell’s with that?”
 
“And in what context did he do it?” Tiana asked.
 
“The tone of the conversation made it sound like we were going to be feeding babies to the wolves and burning down hospitals after dumping coolant into the water purification tanks.” Alex replied. “He didn’t actually say those things, but that was the tone of what he said. I know that the words ‘contemptible’ and ‘barbarian’ were used.”
 
Tiana nodded and closed her eyes in dread. “And you said…”
 
“I explained that the operation was against a crime lord and his associates, not some frail civilians. That all of our targets were armed and that they even had BattleMechs present for their defense. I even allowed that despite all that, the enemy was no match for the forces we brought to bear.” Alex explained and then cleared his throat slightly as his face flushed with embarrassment. “And then I may or may not have made an off-handed reference to how the whole thing didn’t hold a candle to Kintares.”
 
“Oh God.” Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius said.
 
“You didn’t.” Tiana replied, disbelief in her voice.
 
“He did.” Jackson said as he shook his head. “I heard the transcript.”
 
From the other side of the table, Tynon Lu, the head tech for the unit and Alex’s mentor since his before his parents passed, stood up from the table and walked to where Alex was standing. He paused just to Alex’s left for a moment, saying nothing. Alex waited, not really wanting to look at his mentor. Tynon reached behind Alex’s head and smacked him in the back of his skull with an open palm slap then silently returned to his seat.
 
“Okay, look…” Alex began to explain, ignoring the sting of Tynon’s slap. “I totally admit that I shouldn’t have said anything like that… he just got on my nerves about everything that went down with DiLeo. Like we had gone off and burned down some church with everyone inside and DiLeo was the leader of the choir or something.”
 
“Alex…” Tiana began.
 
Alex nodded. “Yeah, a total fuck up on my part of this.” 
 
She nodded then shrugged slightly. “It happens. And at least it happened in the process of sticking up for the unit and its honor instead of something stupid. “ Tiana gave him a look. “Like over a woman.”
“I would never…” Alex paused and his eyes met Tiana’s. She arched an eyebrow. “Okay. I would, but I didn’t. That shows personal growth.”
 
“Or that you haven’t gotten into a situation… recently… that gave you the opportunity.” Tiana replied. 
 
Alex nodded. “There is that.”
 
“You two need to get a room or something.” Sara groused. “What are we doing about this?”
 
“Nothing.” Alex shrugged. “We are going to let it ride for now and, maybe, if the chance comes up to apologize, I will do so. If not, we don’t do anything unless the Tai-sa does something first.”
 
“We can’t send him some… some…” Sara floundered for a word. “… flowers or sake or polish for his sword or something to beg for forgiveness?”
 
“Heh…” Jackson elbowed Captain Dillan Fowler, commander of the MARIANNE and mostly steady significant other to Sara. “She wants to polish the Tai-sa’s sword to apologize.”
 
Dillan grinned but said nothing. The grin stayed on his face even under Sara’s withering stare. That he kept the glare going made him go up a point in Alex’s mind as he addressed Sara’s question. “Akio said to let it ride for now, so we are letting it ride. I am not sure if that’s the entirely correct thing to do or not, but that’s what we’re doing.”

“He would know best on this.” Tiana said firmly. 

“Yeah, I suppose.” Sara was less convinced despite knowing both that Akio would know best the customs and pitfalls of the Combine… he was a citizen of it after all… and wouldn’t steer Alex or the rest of them wrong. At least not when it wasn’t against the interests of the Combine and even then, not covertly.

“Glad that’s settled.” Alex said with a forced smile. He was certain that he’d not heard the end of this who thing, especially when he saw the evil glint of amusement in Jackson’s eyes. “So, we’re going to get past this and go on to the actual battle plan. That good with everyone?”

“Hang on, Alex.” Sara said. “So, we don’t worry about you pissing the Tai-sa off at all? Just let this ride? Seriously?”

“As serious as we get, yes.” Alex replied. “We let it ride and just watch our asses after this operation is done. Akio believes that the Tai-sa would do nothing to endanger the operation so we’re safe at least until this is all cleared up. Probably.”

“Probably?” Sara echoed.

“Probably.” Alex repeated with a forced smile. “Anyone else?” He paused long enough to take a breath in then went ahead with the briefing. “You can see the space port here on the holo-projector. Before signing off the meeting rather abruptly, the Tai-sa did tell me that we have operational control over securing the space port, which I shall be using to its fullest.”

“Oh Lord… they’re going to have to rebuild the entire thing.” SRLT Janis “Amber” Rider said. She grunted a moment later when Felix planted an elbow in her ribs before both intelligence officers shared a knowing smile and a soft chuckle. 

Alex ignored them, partially because it was very probably that Janis was right. Alex ignored that as well and pulled out a small laser point to assist him with indicating where he was talking about on the holo image on the table. “There are two main entrances into the space port’s walled perimeter. One here to the north and another on the opposite side of the port to the south.”

Everyone knew that a wall was not much of a deterrent in modern warfare where the primary war machine was likely to be as tall as the wall and many of them could leap over the wall if they weren’t. However, it did form a good perimeter against civilians so they didn’t get into things they weren’t supposed to and helped to funnel traffic.

“What we’re going to do is put the MARIANNE down basically on top of the north gate and then AWKWARD MOMENT down on top of the south gate. This should basically cut off the entrances to the space port. Once they are in position, Lawless Lance and Frenzy Lance will disembark and clear out any opposition they encounter as they head towards the center of the space port.”

“Meanwhile, BLACK JACK and THE EQUESTRIAN will land in the center of the space port, to provide base of operations for refits and repairs plus to give fire support. Tempest Lance will deploy to both protect the two central DropShips and provide fire support for the rest of the unit.” Alex used the laser pointer to indicate where the two DropShips would land.

“What about the Aerospace?” Sara asked loudly. She was mostly interested in what she and her people were going to be doing instead of what ground would be seized. 

“All of our Aerospace assets will be up providing air superiority in the region of the space port as well as close ground support. Your primary mission though is to hold the sky above the space port so we can get the second wave in and then get those DropShips off the ground. You good with that, Bandit?”

Sara smirked. “Like that should even be a question. We’ll keep those crows off your backs.” She looked over at SRLT Vincent “Crow” Hobbs where he was leaning against the wall not far from Alex. “Present company excepted of course.”

Vincent nodded slightly in her direction but otherwise said nothing.

“And my Bedlam Brigade?” Tiana asked.

“Do what?” Sara looked over at the battle armor commander. 

Alex blinked and looked at Tiana. “I’m sorry, T, who?”

“I’ve finally decided what to name the battle armor troopers… the Bedlam Brigade.” Tiana said with firmness in her voice. “Is that a problem?”
Alex shrugged. “Nope.”

“I wanna name my wing.” Sara whined.

“Later, dear.” Alex said with a sigh and great amounts of patronization. “Right now, I am trying to get everything planned out so we don’t all die. Okay?”

Sara growled slightly and folded her arms under her breasts to pout but nodded her agreement. 

“Thank you.” Alex turned back to Tiana. “Captain, I would like the elements of your… your…”

“Bedlam Brigade.” Tiana supplied.

“Thank you. You and your Bedlam Brigade are to ride into the star port with your assigned DropShips and deploy from there to help in securing the star port. You’ll need to either clear the buildings of personnel or secure the buildings themselves so the people can’t get out.” Alex explained.

Tiana nodded her understanding. “Shoot them down or bottle them up.” 

“Exactly. Do not break down into smaller than two squad elements though… I don’t want one of our squads of four troopers to run into a point of five Elementals by themselves.”

“Damned straight on that.” Tiana replied with a small shudder. “That would seriously suck.”

Alex nodded his agreement as he continued. “There are going to be a couple of buildings that you are not going to want to do that to or even enter.” The laser pointer lit up each building as Alex pointed them out. “Air traffic control tower. These two power generators. The radar tower located there. The communications array there. And, the Aerospace hangers here and here.” 

“Those are all targets of opportunity and should be destroyed as quickly as possible after we neutralize any garrison or guard forces inside the space port.” Alex looked over at Captain Maximillian “Preacher” Soles, the commander for Tempest Lance. “Actually… Preacher… if your unit does not run into any immediate opposition or calls for fire support. I want Tempest Lance to shoot the shit out of the Aerospace hangers and then the control tower, in that order. Don’t stop on the hangers until they are burning.”

“Shouldn’t we, maybe, see if we can salvage some of those fine looking OmniFighters the Snow Ravens are sure to have stashed there?” Sara asked, a bit of eagerness in her voice. 

“No.” Alex shook his head and shrugged. “I’d rather just make sure they were dead and not going to bother us later in life or at least have their houses shot up when they finally get to land there again. Besides all of the OmniFighters will probably all be up in the air by the time we get landed.”

“Yeah.” Sara sighed. “I suppose.” 

“Thanks.” Alex turned to Tynon. “Sir, if you would set up immediate repair and reload facilities out of the BLACK JACK and THE EQUESTRIAN, I would appreciate it.”

“As we have made all needed repairs and scheduled maintenances of the equipment, I will have most of each tech platoon report to the BLACK JACK with their tools and such needed equipment as we can move to the Mule through the corridors of the BRASS LILLY.” 

“Thank you, sifu.” Alex replied with a slight bow toward Tynon then turned towards Captain Wesley “Duke” Forrest MD. “Doctor… the same for your people please. The majority of those with us should be on the BLACK JACK with the minority on their assigned DropShip. The BLACK JACK will be as good a medical facility as it will a repair base.”

“You got it, Alex.” Wesley replied and waved an imperious hand towards Specialist Malcolm Johnson, the young medical assistant that got stuck with playing secretary for Wesley during the meeting. Malcolm was scribbling furiously on the noteputer with a stylus trying to capture everything that went on. 

“I think that’s it.” Alex said. “We have about fourteen days before we jump and release from BRASS LILLY so I am sure there will be changes to things. If there are any, then we will make sure and get those passed along to the rest of the unit. Last meeting before the drop will be at 0900 on November 11. Other than that, we’re done here. Go away so I get less sober.” 

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 3238
Contract count: 28,397
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

0912 Operational Hours
11/01/3095
Captain Yau’s Quarters, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Hanover, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau slowly came awake and rolled over against something warm and soft. His eyes came open suddenly then he blinked several times at the fuzzy person shaped form that he could barely make out as more than a blur. Part of that blur reached out and brushed his hair away from his eyes then ran down the side of his cheek. 

Alex caught the hand against his chest and smiled slightly. “Hi there.”

“Hi yourself.” Carol said with a smile. “You looked panicked for a moment. Like you were getting ready to get in a fight.”

“Sorry about that. It’s been awhile since I woke up to someone else in the bed with me.” Alex said, sheepishly.

“Not a problem… that’s not a bad thing to hear, honestly.” Her smile went a little wicked. “Means I don’t have as much worry about who or how many others have gone traipsing through here.”

“I think I have a guest book…” Alex half sat up and looked around the room like he was searching for the mythical book in question. “You should sign it before you go.”

Carol lifted her trapped hand and slapped it back down on Alex’s bare chest with an audible snap. “See, just when I thought you were all sweet and everything.” 

Alex laughed and went back down on his back, pulling her down with him. Carol didn’t resist, instead she laid her head on his chest and pressed the rest of her body down the length of his. Alex closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of skin on skin… it really had been a long time since he’d shared his bed with anyone else. Much too long actually.

He kissed the top of her head. “So, when do you have to be back at your station?”

“Not until 1600.” She replied then paused. “What about you?”

“I run this place… well… not the DropShip but you know what I mean. I don’t have to be anywhere at any time in particular.”

“I see.” Carol paused again then brought herself more fully on top of Alex before looking down on him. “So, now what?”

“Well… I don’t know.” Alex replied honestly. “I didn’t expect to be in this particular position this morning so I didn’t plan ahead.” He shrugged and blinked innocently. “I didn’t even get to arrange to have someone come get me for an emergency meeting or anything.”

“Yeah, poor planning on your part, but I was just as bad.” Carol said with a knowing nod and made a vague gesture towards where her clothes were scattered across the floor of Alex’s quarters. “I have my communicator over there somewhere but didn’t get the alarm set so I could pretend to have a maintenance call I had to get to either.”

“Well, damn.” Alex shook his head sadly. “As I see it at this point, we have a couple of different options available to us.” 

“Oh?” Carol sat up more fully, straddling Alex now and letting the sheets slide off her. “Do tell.”

“We could do the awkward, no-eye-contact, parting of ways. Where we murmur something vague about seeing each other later while getting dressed and then you scurry out the door.”

Carol held her hands up at shoulder level. “Wait… wait… why is it that the woman is always doing the scurrying out the door in shame part?”

“In this case, it’s because we are in my quarters.” Alex pointed out. “And I said nothing about shame.”

“Fair enough. Please continue with your perceived options.” She replied with a solemn face. Alex then poked her in the belly button with a finger, which brought an involuntary laugh out of Carol’s mouth. She didn’t resist when Alex brought her down to him then kissed her, instead she responded to with some vigor for a moment before sitting back up. “Sir… we are having an intellectual discussion here that concerns our paired and most immediate fates. Please continue.”

“Of course, of course… my apologies.” Alex said and let his hands settle on Carol’s waist. “A second option would be… well… “he wiggled his hips under her, slid his hands up and then back down her torso, and waggled his eyebrows. “You know.”

Carol laughed again then reached down and pinched Alex’s nipples, bringing a yelp of surprise from Alex. “Yes, I do… and maybe. I’d like to hear my other perceived options first. Especially if one of them includes some sort of breakfast.”

“Breakfast would involve getting dressed and going to the mess hall. The staff here is lacking in as they don’t really do room service.”

She shook her head sadly. “You really should complain to the management, that’s just terrible for such posh accommodations.”

“Regretfully, that’s what happens when you don’t hand pick the staff yourself.” Alex sighed. “That whole getting dressed and mess hall thing is an option, of course, but I liked the second one better.”

“Oh, I am not discounting the second option at all… or some variation of it… “

“Variety is the spice of life.” Alex pointed out as his hands started to move up her body.

Carol ignored his words as she pushed his wandering hands back down to her waist and left her hands covering his. “… however, I do wish to hear what other options that devious brain of yours will come up with.” She gave Alex a slight smile as she met his eyes. “C’mon, big boy, amuse me.”

“Let’s see…” Alex pondered for a slight moment. “I think that I need to show you exactly how being multi-lingual makes your tongue extremely nimble, then we take a nice hot shower and get dressed. I would happily take a long time making sure you were meticulously explored inch by inch in the process of that… for reasons of cleanliness.”

“Of course.” Carol nodded and slid Alex’s hands down past her hips to her thighs and back up again. “Continue.”

“Then we’d get dressed and head to the mess hall to enjoy Emmitt’s excellent omelets and some juice… coffee if you’d like some… and continue to amuse each other with silliness. At some point after that, perhaps with another detour to here if I am lucky, we could part ways with thoughts about seeing each other again later.”

Carol’s eyes lost a little of their shine and her smile faltered slightly. “What if we skipped that seeing each other part again at the end? Just sort of parted ways and remember a most excellent All Hallows Eve?”

“That’s doable too.” Alex replied after a moment and shrugged. “I enjoyed your company enough… in and out of bed…  that I would not mind repeating the experience. I wasn’t going to ask you to marry me.”

“That’s probably a good thing.” She replied softly as her eyes slid away from Alex’s.

Alex blinked at that and put things together in his head. “Oh.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… “

Carol shook her head. “How would you? I don’t wear the ring most of the time any more. He and I are… on a break.” Her hands tightened on Alex’s. “Besides, you have nothing to apologize for. It’s not like you got me drunk and drug me to your room to molest me or something.”

“Well… there was that closet on the way up here… “

She laughed again and tightened her grip on his hands slightly. “Even then, I didn’t resist… hell, I think I was the one that suggested it.”

“Yeah, you were.” Alex agreed then paused for another moment. “Is this going to be a problem? For you, I mean.”

“Like am I going to hang my head in shame and feel I should paint a red ‘A’ on my chest or something?” She chuckled. “Not at all… I am actually going to wish I had video of some of those things you did last night so I can enjoy them again.”

Alex sighed and let his eyes wander over Carol. “That could happen anyway. No strings, just a bit of laughter, and some good times.”

It was Carol’s turn to pause for a moment. “That wouldn’t bother you?”

“Not in the slightest.” Alex said with a shrug. “I am going to be very honest with you, Carol. My last lady left me just before we lifted off for an op… and she did so riding on the back of her lover’s motorcycle. I hadn’t even known there was another lover around.”

“Ow.” Carol winced. “Shitty way to find out.”

“It happens.” Alex shrugged; there were times now that he felt as nonchalant about the whole thing as he sounded these days. “Being the commanding officer around here makes it a little more difficult to find someone else in the ship or the unit to be with. It’s just a bad idea.”

“I can see that.” Carol replied. “What’s your point?”

“I’ve been lonely since Nikki left.” Alex said factually. “And you are not someone that’s under my command.”

“So, I am available to be your squeeze and not complicate anything in the unit for you.” 

“That and you can Jump away… literally… at any time. So, it’s not like we can or would set up house… especially since you have a home with someone else.” Alex saw her wince. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know you didn’t.” Carol replied and sighed. “That’s all too easy. What happens when Ben comes back onboard the BRASS LILLY? He took some time on another JumpShip to have some space between us.” 

“That’s up to you.” Alex said simply. “I am not going to fuck up things for you.”

She nodded and went silent for a long minute then looked at Alex. “I have an option.”

“Which is?”

“You show me how nimble your tongue is, I fuck you in gratitude, then we shower and go get some food.” She slid Alex’s hands down her thighs again and kept them there as she kept her eyes on his “After that, we part ways and just see what the hell happens. No promises and no regrets, just a good time.”

“We can do that.” Alex agreed. “But you have to do one thing first.” 

“What’s that?” She asked softly.

Alex grinned. “Scoot up higher or trade me places. I can’t use my tongue on you when we’re like this.”

Carol laughed then leaned down and kissed Alex hard. The kiss lasted for several long moments before they broke apart and Carol started to slide herself up Alex’s body with no further prompting. 

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1810
Contract count: 32,175
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

0912 Operational Hours
11/09/3095
Captain Hammond’s Quarters, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Hanover, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“I bring this meeting of the unnamed Aerospace ass kickers to order.” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond said in mock solemnness to the rest of the Aerospace pilots that were scattered about her quarters. She made a vague wave towards her XO. “Please read the minutes from the last meeting.”

“There were minutes for the last meeting?” SRLT Mitchell “Rooster” Pine asked with some confusion.

LT Manfred “Turbo” Reis raised his hand and waited for Sara’s imperious nod before asking his question. “There was a last meeting?”

Sara sighed and leaned her head back to stare at the ceiling. “You people really have to learn to work with me more.”

“Kinda difficult to do when we have no idea what the hell you are talking about.” LTJG Linda “Siren” Dowd pointed out.

“Sing something instead of bitch, would you?” Sara replied, referring to Linda’s costume during the All Hallows Eve party at the end of the previous month.  Linda flushed slightly, both her singing and her costume, had made her a more popular person during the party.

“Anyway…” Mitchell stepped in, as he often did, to cut off the fight that was going to happen if he didn’t. “What do we need to discuss, oh Captain my Captain?”

“How’s everyone doing on the sims?” Sara asked, following Mitchell’s lead and getting to business. “I hope you’ve all been putting in some time on there since we’ve got nothing else going on right now.”

“We have CAP to worry about.” LT Sierra “Cruel” King said with a shrug. Like the rest of the Aerospace fighters in the task force, the pilots of Chaos Incorporated took their turn running Combat Air Patrol around the flotilla of JumpShips and DropShips to make sure no Clan force took them unaware.

“Flying around in circles is not going to help your dog fighting skills.” Sara pointed out.

“Agreed.” Sierra nodded towards her wingman, LTJG Charles “Saxon” Allen. “But Chick and I have been doing some maneuvers together, making sure we are running on the same page and all that. It’s helped us with being coordinated and getting into each other’s brains.”

“Which is freaking scary…” Chick muttered to Mitchell. Without looking back, Sierra punched him in the thigh. “Ow…”

“Deal.” Sierra said, still not looking at him, then smiled at Sara. “See? I knew right where he was the entire time.”

“Not bad.” Sara said, mischief in her eyes. “What about the rest of you?”
“Scribe and I are doing some of the same thing.” Manny said and glanced towards his wingman. “Right?”

“Yes. Manny’s been showing me some of the ropes.” LTJG Christopher “Scribe” Thorsen said and tossed his head, throwing the thick braid of yellow hair back over his shoulder. 

“How long is your hair?” Sara asked suddenly. “I just realized I’ve never seen it unbraided.”

“Ah… “He glanced at Manny, who sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, leaving Christopher on his own. “It hits right at the base of my back.”

Sara nodded and looked at Christopher with a gleam in her eye for a moment. “I am going to have to see that someday.”

“Ah…” Christopher said.

“Oh, calm down. I am not going to jump your bones or something.” Sara rolled her eyes and looked over at some of the other pilots. “What about you two? Siren? Fish? Are you getting some flight time in?”

Linda nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Sure thing, boss lady.” LTJG Thomas “Fish” Mitlan said. “We’ve been swapping out with the others in both Marauder and Boomer flights to make sure we have a good feel for the Shilones. I wouldn’t mind some time in either of the Slayers though.”

“Poorly shrouded hint is noted and probably ignored. I hate letting other people fly in the Purple Eater… they never put the seat back in the same place.” Sara said with no heat in her voice. “Maybe when we get some more of them or something.”

“Sigh…” Thomas replied and looked slightly morose.

“Cheer up, Fish. You still have me around.” Sara said with a bright smile that wiped itself away when she slapped her hand down on the table beside her. 

“Okay, down to serious business here. As you may know, the battle armor troopers have decided to call themselves the ‘Bedlam Brigade’. This means that there is a sub-unit of sorts inside Chaos Incorporated that is now named. The two worst parts about this situation are, one, we didn’t do it first and, two, we still have not named ourselves. I feel this needs to be corrected.”

“Is this really that big a deal, Bandit?” Linda asked. “I mean… so we haven’t got a name for the wing… each of the flights are named.”

“Both your question and observation are noted and promptly ignored.” Sara said. “This is not about being first… since we weren’t… but it is about unit pride. And that I can’t let Tiana be the only one with a named unit inside the larger unit.”

“Are you sure this isn’t about your pri- “Linda started but was cut off by Sara’s sweeping hand. 

“Noted… interrupted for being absurd… and ignored.” The Aerospace commander said to Linda and then let her gaze sweep over the rest of the pilots in the room.” C’mon people… you can’t tell me that we are going to let some ground pounders have something we don’t have, are you? Especially something that’s as important as this?”

“What would you suggest, Sara?” Mitchell asked, certain that she had more than one suggestion residing in her head.

“Honestly, Mitch, I’ve got absolutely no suggestions right now.” Sara replied, startling the entire room to the point that a gasp of surprise escaped Christopher’s lips. “What? I’m allowed to not have an opinion about something?”

“For once?” Linda asked sweetly.

Sara didn’t even look at Linda, just shoved an upraised middle finger in her general direction. “I would really like some input here, please. Just start tossing things out.”

“Sara’s Sky Riders.”

“Bandit’s Bastards”

“Mitchell’s Mighty Moon… somethings…” 

“Wild Cards.”

“Purple Sky Hogs.”

“Newton’s Nemesis… nemesi? What’s the plural for ‘nemesis’ anyway?” 

“Wobbly Mother Fuckers.”

“Wait… wait… wait.” Sara waved her hands in the air, cutting off the conversation. “You are all just… absurd.”

“The Absurd Ones?”

“Just… stop.” Sara closed her eyes for a moment. “I knew I should have done this alone with a bottle of vodka. It would have made more sense, been more productive, and my head wouldn’t hurt.”

Mitchell raised his hand. “What about…” 

“Wait.” Sara cut him off and looked at Linda. “What did you say?”

“Uh… “Linda blinked and thought about it for a moment. “‘Wild Cards’?”

“Oh… oh… “Sara paused as she bit her lip and thought about that. “Dammit. I like it, Siren.”

Linda smiled, pleased to be recognized by her commander, especially as she and Sara had butted heads all too often. “Thanks, Bandit.” 

“Whatever.” Sara waved her away with one hand and went back to thinking about the whole thing. “Tell me what everyone thinks about this. We ditch the random paint jobs and all go a single paint scheme with personal heraldry and various odds and ends to make our rides ours but still show some unity among ourselves.”

“Doesn’t that fuck with the whole ‘chaos’ part of ‘Chaos Incorporated’?” Manny asked.

Sara nodded. “It does, which would piss Alex off, but that’s just a bonus and shouldn’t be a prime motivator for our actions… no matter how amusing it is.”

“We could put that Chaos Incorporated symbol on one wing and our own symbol on the other.” Chick suggested. “Something like a spread of cards… with a joker in there somewhere.”

“Oh… oh… wait… I got it.” Sierra said. “The spread of cards would be aces and eights… the dead man’s hand… with a joker tossed in there for good measure.”

“Instead of one of the aces or eights?” Mitch asked. “Or in addition to those? Which would be cheating since that’s six cards instead of five.”

Sierra gave a wide grin. “Since when have we cared about playing fair?” 

“Now there’s a valid point.” Sara said and nodded. “I like it. Who’s the best here with doing image work?” 

“I can do it.” Mitchell said. “I’ll put together a color scheme for our fighters and the Cheating Deadman’s Hand logo too. Have it for you later today, if you want.”

“That would fucking rock, Mitch.” Sara said. “We might even get the techs to repaint the fighters before we hit the Virentofta if we can get it together soon enough.” 
 
Mitchell nodded. “What colors then?”

“Black and… and… “Sara looked around the room and spun her hands at the wrists to prompt for more ideas. “… and… and… I can’t think of everything around here, people… and… “

“Not black.” Thomas said firmly then faltered slightly when all eyes went to him, but continued anyway. “Everyone does black. We need something that makes us stand out… you know, unless we’re camouflaged up so we don’t stick out.”

“I say we go with purple as our main color and… a deep green… like a forest green… for the trim.” Linda said. “The Chaos Incorporated logo on the right wing, the Cheating Deadman’s Hand on the left wing… same for the tail art… and then fangs and swirly eyes on the nose and fuselage. Personal heraldry would go on the nose behind the fangs and in front or below the cockpit on both sides.”

Sara nodded. “Dammit, two good ideas in one day. Keep that up and I might have to start liking you or something.”

“Well… I… “Linda stammered slightly, not sure what to say. 

Being merciful and not wanting to hear Linda talk anymore, Sara cut her off. “Whatever.” She turned to Mitchell. “You can get all that done? Or at least put into an image file so the techs can actually do the painting?” 

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know about the personal heraldry part though.” 

“That’s up to the pilot. It always has been.” Sara explained and looked at the rest of the group. “If you have something personal you want on your rides, then you figure out and get it into an image file that the techs can use to put it on your fighter.”

“What about those of us that don’t have fighters?” Linda asked.

“Yeah.” Thomas agreed. 

“Do your images and we’ll get them onto some sheet magnets that can go over the normal personal heraldry when you’re in the fighter.” Mitchell said. “That’s about all we can do. Everyone okay with that?”

When the rest of the group gave their agreement, Sara clapped and bounced around in her seat. “Yay us! The Wild Cards are born! Everyone get your stuff done and leave Mitchell alone about your image files until after he gets our paint schemes figured out.”

She glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “But for now, get the hell out. Dillan’s going to be back soon and I have some things to discuss with him that don’t need an audience without charging admission.” She made shooing motions with her hands towards the door. “Go… go on… out with you. We’ll talk again soon. Bye-bye.”

Mitchell was the last one out of Sara’s quarters and heard the door lock behind him. He looked at the other Aerospace pilots crammed into the hallway of the MARIANNE. “What?”

“Has she always been a bitch?” Linda asked. “Because I am about ready to tell her to fuck off then where to put her attitude.”

“You have no idea, Linda.” Mitchell said with a smile. “It’s just her… she doesn’t mean anything by it.”

Linda crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m still going to tell her where to go.”

“You do that. She might like you better afterwards.” Mitchell replied. “Anyone else? No? Good. I know it’s kind of a silly thing to worry over but let’s get this handled and over with, ok? If you need something, let me know and I’ll do what I can to help. For now, though, head on back to your ships and we’ll get together again at the last mission briefing if not sooner.”

He said goodbyes to the other pilots and watched everyone head towards where the MARIANNE was attached to the BRASS LILLY, which would connect them all to their respective DropShips. Mitchell took a final look at Sara’s door and sighed. 

“I wish you’d make this all just a little easier.” He muttered at the door, figuring it would do just about as much good as saying the same thing to Sara. After another moment, he headed down the hallway, towards his own quarters.

Posted by,
Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond
SL-15 Slayer
Havoc Flight, Wild Cards
Aerospace Commander
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2177
Contract count: 34,352
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

1422 Operational Hours
11/09/3095
Mess Hall, MARIANNE, Union Class DropShip
Attached to Invader Class JumpShip, BRASS LILLY
Hanover, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“Okay… does everyone have pizza? Or did Jackson take it all again?” Major Alexander “Random” Yau asked from where he sat on a table towards the nominal front of the room.

“Hey… I don’t take all the pizza.” Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman protested. “Just all the good pizza. You can keep anything with sun-dried tomato, sardines, or avocadoes, and can keep all that vegetarian ‘pizza’ crap to yourself. Everything else is fair game, as far as I am concerned.”

“Let me guess, pizza is your ‘perfect’ food.” SRLT Janis “Amber” Rider said, air quoting the ‘perfect’ part.

Jackson leered at her. “Only when you aren’t around, my dear.”

“Oh geez…” Janis rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair, shaking her head, while Jackson laughed. She grinned and gave him the bird, which only made Jackson laugh harder.

“Can I have another piece of pepperoni?” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond asked the room in general. “I need something to eat so I can wash it down with the rest of my beer.”

Alex looked at her for a moment, bewilderment clear on his face. “What? Isn’t that backwards? That sounds backwards.”

“You heard me.” Sara said simply, ignoring the rest of what Alex was saying as she accepted the plate of pizza her executive officer, SRLT Mitchell “Rooster” Pine brought her. “Thank you, Mitch. You’re a doll.”

“Sure thing, Bandit.” Mitchell replied and took a seat a couple of chairs over to Sara’s left.

“Right… whatever.” Alex shook his head. He’d yet to figure out why the hell Mitchell was so madly in love with Sara, but he was… everyone knew it, including Sara, who just chose to ignore it while taking advantage of it at the same time. Alex thumped his empty bottle of beer on the table and heads swiveled around to look around at him.

When everyone was done chattering and had their attention on him, Alex smiled. “I have always found that, for us anyway, the best reason to get out into the field is so we are done with meetings.” He waited for a moment for laughter and then sighed quietly when he got none. “This is our last meeting before the operation goes live tomorrow, November 10, at 0710.”

“As you know, we’ll be jumping into Virentofta at that time and will immediately release from the JumpShip to begin a short 39 hours drop into the planet’s atmosphere. Our primary target is the space port located near the capital city, which is where they are holding the Combine’s DropShips.”

He tapped a button on his noteputer and a holo image of the space port came up on a table in the middle of the mess hall. “We all know the deal and what we’re going to do, so that’s going to make this a very short meeting punctuated with pizza and beer.”
“Lots of beer.” Jackson called out.

“After the meeting, sure.” Alex replied.

Jackson scowled. “Then let’s get on with the damned meeting.”

“The task force will jump from here to Virentofta at 0710 tomorrow morning. When we get to our destination, all DropShips assigned to the first wave will release immediately after we complete the jump. The first wave will consist of MARIANNE, BLACK JACK, AWKWARD MOMENT, THE EQUESTRIAN, SILENT WIND, MERCY’S END, and VERMILLION DRAGON.” Alex reported. “That’s all the DropShips from our command, an Okinawa class Aerospace carrier, and two Leopard CV DropShips which will be carrying the DEST teams.”

“That’s a goodly amount of Aerospace Fighters we’re going to be coming in with.” Sara said. “Not that I am bitching about it, I thought we were going to be a bit short-handed when it came to an Aerospace escort.”

“We were… the Tai-sa and I had a second meeting and got some things smoothed out.” Alex said. “Remember though, we won’t’ be able to launch the fighters until we get probably into the atmosphere. There are 39 hours between the pirate point and the ground. For the first 24 hours, it’s a hard burn in at 2Gs… the next 15 hours will be at 1.3Gs. I am hoping that the 15 hours will give us some time to recover from the higher G burn for the first part of the drop in.”

“That’s still going to be rough.” Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsein said. “You expect us to be mounted up for this drop?”

“No one will be mounted until just before we hit the upper atmosphere. Then I expect people in their Mechs, armor, and fighters… most of that is for just in case. And you’re getting ahead of me, T.” 

“Sorry, Alex. I would hate to steal your show.” She replied and gave him a slow blink.

“Whatever.” Alex rolled his eyes theatrically. “Anyway… before I was so rudely pre-emptied… when we get closer to the plant, which is about the ten-hour mark, assuming no intercepts from the garrison, we’ll have a full wing of Aerospace forces on combat air patrol and another wing on ready five duty with a two hour rotation. When a pilot is not on CAP or ready five, they will be on stand down for any repairs, reloads, and rest.”

“About time I got some rest.” Sara groused.

Tiana looked at her. “If you are going to spend all night playing hide-the-salami with people, then you don’t get to bitch about not being rested.”

Sara smirked. “Jealous.”

“No.” Tiana replied with a sweet smile. “I just have better endurance than you do so need less rest even if I am doing the same sort of activity.”

Now Sara rolled her eyes. “I’ll have you know that… wait… “She looked at Tiana. “Who are you playing hide-the-salami with?”

Tiana smiled again and turned back around to Alex without saying anything else to Sara. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to interrupt the meeting.”

“That’s okay… uh…” Alex paused and looked at Tiana with a question on his face.

Tiana shook her head slightly and smiled. “Ladies don’t kiss and tell.”

“Of course… I…. right. On with the meeting. Sara and the rest of our Aerospace fighters…”

“The Wild Cards.” Sara interrupted.

Alex looked at her. “What?”

“We’re called ‘The Wild Cards’ now… we decided on the name a couple of days ago. I sent you a message about it.”

“Right… you did.” 

“Could we please get on with this?” Jackson interrupted. “I can hear the beers calling my name.”

Alex nodded. “The Wild Cards will be in their fighters before we hit atmosphere and all the fighters in the task force will be in the air to clear the enemy’s Aerospace and escort the DropShips to the space port. MERCY’S END and VERMILLION DRAGON will air drop the DEST teams on top of the DropShips that our objectives and then maintain station in the general area. The SILENT WIND will also maintain station above the space port. The three DropShips will assist in obtaining and maintaining air superiority above our target.”

“The MARIANNE will land at the north gat of the space port. AWKWARD MOMENT will land at the south gate of the space port. BLACK JACK and THE EQUESTRIAN will land at the center of the space port to provide fire support for the rest of the unit, establish a fallback position, and assist in securing the space port area surrounding the objective DropShips.”

“Our job is to secure the space port long enough for our forces to capture the DropShips and then to cause a delay in any pursuit by the garrison. The follow up forces that will finish securing the DropShips and then help pilot them back to the JumpShips will be on the ground at 0100 on November 13 with lift off scheduled to be at 0700 that day.”

Alex cleared his throat. “After they lift off, we are onplanet for another twelve hours to delay the garrison forces and cause as much destruction as possible to the space port and anything else we can find to shoot at. Our task is to cause lots of destruction, smoke, and fire with minimal civilian casualties… that’s almost verbatim.”

“So, the fuel tanks… towers… communications… “Jackson ticked the list off on his fingers and look at Alex. “All the shit we were going to shoot up anyway.”

“Pretty much.” Alex agreed with a nod. “After the DropShips lift off at 0700, we are on our own until they link up with their JumpShips and get out of here. We’ll be in the air ourselves before we’ll get any support from the rest of the task force and then it will be Aerospace cover from the SILENT WIND and any of the fighters she has left.”

“We’ll keep things covered from the air until we get back up.” Sara assured the group. “Don’t worry about that.”

“What do you have for target priority while we’re on the ground?” Tiana asked.

“Air control tower and communications towers are primary targets… I want those reduced to their foundations. Radar facilities and any grounded fighters are secondary targets. After that; fuel storage, electronics, repair facilities, and anything else that will piss the Dominion off to have lost.”

Tiana nodded her understanding. “Personnel?”

Alex shrugged. “If you can get ahold of some officers or intel types to capture and interrogate, that would make the ISF happy which would make me happy. Otherwise, if they shoot at you, shoot at them. We don’t need to make a body count here or go headhunting, but we don’t have to handle these people with kids gloves either. Do what needs to be done.”

“Felix…. I am going to need you and your people…” Alex began.

“The Crazy Eyes.” SRLT Janis “Amber” Rider corrected him.

Alex looked at her and then to Felix. “You’re kidding.”

Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius shook his head. “Nope, we decided to name ourselves as well. When Tiana started it, I decided that we should do it too… especially after hearing that Sara had done it with her ‘Wild Cards’ as well.”

“See what you started?” Alex asked Tiana, who just shrugged. “Alright… I need the Crazy Eyes to deploy from BLACK JACK as soon as it hits the tarmac. Get eyes out and drones launched immediately. I want to know when the bad guys are coming with as much warning as possible. Alright?”

“We’ll do that.” Felix assured him. “I’ll deploy the Void troopers as well. They can support the clearing of buildings and gathering of any intel from offices and the tower and all that.”

“Good thinking. That might help make the ISF happy too, but I am not counting on it.”

“Probably for the best.” Felix agreed.

Alex nodded his agreement. “That’s the plan in the barest of nutshells. Drop, secure, delay and destroy, then withdraw. Any questions?” He looked around then sighed at the one hand that went up. “Yes, Jackson?”

“Can I have another beer now?”

Alex sighed again. “Meeting closed.”

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1867
Contract count: 36,219
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

2103 Operational Hours
11/12/3095
Cockpit of SL-15K Slayer “Bandit”
Upper Atmosphere of Virentofta
Virentofta system, Albiero Prefecture
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine

“We’re off to fuck up the wizard…” Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond sang in a surprisingly good soprano from the cockpit of her 100-ton Slayer Aerospace fighter. The Slayer had once sported a custom purple paint job but with the decision to call the Aerospace fighter force of Chaos Incorporated “the Wild Cards”, the pilots had opted to go with a unit paint scheme with a bit of personal heraldry instead. She smiled about it though… the new paint job wasn’t too far from her old one.

The Slayer’s fuselage and stubby wings were purple… much like her original paint job… but with some of the surface control panels and other bits painted a deep green. On the nose, below the cockpit, were the sharpened shark’s teeth from ancient Terra and a yellow, blood-shot eye on either side of the fuselage. The right wing sported a white chaos star in the middle of a black square, the symbol of Chaos Incorporated. 

The left wing had a fan of six cards: two aces, three eights, with a death’s head joker at front of the fan. Simon Grobler, lead troubleshooter for the Madhouse Mechaniks, had pointed out that the famous aces and eights hand was two pairs, not a full house. Sara disagreed. Simon showed her historical evidence of the hand from a search his noteputer. Sara disagreed. Simon showed her the noteputer again. 

Sara smiled sweetly, took the noteputer from Simon, looked at the image, smiled again, and then threw the noteputer as far across the bay as she could. Simon watched it fly across the bay then smash against a support column, shattering into pieces. He turned back to Sara, blinking in open-mouthed disbelief. Sara smile and disagreed. Simon threw his hands in the air and walked away. Sara called it a victory and ordered the painting to continue.

With eyes, teeth, and the primary color of purple already on her fighter; Sara decided to do something else for personal heraldry. She settled for the cowboy hat wearing skull with a bandanna around its lower face; the logo she used a long time ago with her callsign of “Bandit.” She did make one small change to it from the old days though: the skulls bandanna was now a sparkly color like it was covered in sequins instead of being red like it had been.

Sara rolled the Slayer in a tight barrel roll and laughed in delight. She loved to fly. “Alright Wild Cards… sound off.” 

[[Rooster here.]] SRLT Mitchell “Rooster” Pine called out. He rode on Sara’s high six as her wingman in his own Slayer. His personal heraldry was the same as he’d had with his previous paint scheme, the skeleton of a rooster in a yellowed bone color. Even the rooster’s comb and tail were there in the bone color. 

[[Turbo here.]] LT Manny “Turbo” Reis said. The personal heraldry on his SL-18 Shilone continued to be the number “88” in bright yellow letters that were about a meter tall. This was the number that he’d sported on his racing vehicles back in the day. 

[[Scribe present.]] LTJG Christopher “Scribe” Thorsen reported. As Turbo’s wingman, Scribe flew in a Shilone as well. His personal heraldry was a scroll with a feather quill with a drop of red blood coming off the tip of the quill. 

[[Cruel here.]] LT Sierra “Cruel” King said in clipped tones; she hated to talk on the comms when it wasn’t necessary… at least if she wasn’t saying something nasty to her opponents or even her wingmates. The cockpit of her Shilone was painted to look like it was wrapped in a spiked silver vine. Skewered on many of the thorns in a random fashion were small red hearts, each with a single drop of blood coming from it.

[[Saxon reporting.]] called out LTJT Charles “Saxon” Allen. The personal heraldry behind the cockpit of his Shilone was a skull with a Viking’s axe chopped into it. During one very whiskey-filled night, Chick had boasted his family could reliably trace their ancestry back to when Vikings sailed across the seas of ancient Terra, raiding and conquering. He passed out not long after and claimed to not remember the night or the boast the day after that.

“Alright, Wild Cards…” Sara smiled inside her helmet… she loved the new name. “… line abreast for the lead, wing on high six. Hit them hard and plow through. After the initial pass, swing back in and engage any targets you encounter. The DropShips have to get through.”

Flying about ten kilometers behind the screen of Aerospace fighters, a total of seven DropShips were flying in at high speed. Four of these DropShips were from Chaos Incorporated and the other three were from the Draconis Combine; two Leopard CV class DropShips and an Okinawa class DropShip. The other twenty-four Aerospace Fighters that were flying along with the Wild Cards came from those Combine vessels.

“Violet Wing to Ebony Command…” Sara called in to the SILENT WIND, the Okinawa class DropShip was the perfect vessel to coordinate the actions of the four wings of Aerospace Fighters. “… I have ten contacts bearing six-seven, range four klicks and closing… say again, ten contacts bearing six-seven and closing range.”

[[Ebony Command confirms your contacts. Warbook says a mix of OmniFighters… Sabutai and Visigoth as best we can tell at this range. Clear a path, prolonged engagement only to protect the DropShips.]]

“Violet Wing copies… dogfight only to protect the DropShips.” Sara closed the commchannel and flexed her fingers around the control stick of her Slayer. “I am pretty damned sure that the DropShips are going to need a whole hell of a lot of protection.”

[[Ebony Wing to Violet Wing… Ebony and Ivory Wings are forming on you to engage incoming bogies.]] 

“Violet Wing copies, Ebony Wing.” Sara chuckled. “Let’s go protect the DropShips.”

Sara could hear the smile in the voice of the Ebony Wing’s leader as he replied. [[Copy that. I am certain they are on an intercept vector.]]

“My readings confirm yours, Ebony Actual.” Sara said and shoved the throttle forward to maximum thrust. “Let’s go send these bastards back to their canisters.”

Later in life, historians of the Draconis Combine would have the wing leader of Ebony Wing, Tai-I Kelly “Zero” Hu, give a rousing speech to the two wings of fighters accompanying him, exalting the Dragon and pledging glory to the Combine. Everyone involved with the writing of the histories agreed that the fact that the Tai-I was the son of the task force leader, Tai-sa Edward Hu was entirely coincidental. However, one or two of the more honest and non-political historians would report that with the less than historic words of the mercenary wing commander, the battle for Virentofta began.

Posted by,
Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond
SL-15 Slayer
Havoc Flight, Wild Cards
Aerospace Commander
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1183
Contract count: 37,402
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000

2303 Operational Hours
11/12/3095
North Gate
Theodore Kurita Memorial Space Port
Renamed: Space Port Alpha Tango Nine
Virentofta, Snow Raven Occupied Territory 
Albiero Prefecture, Pesht Military District
Draconis Combine

The MARIANNE brought its 3500 tons of mass down just on the inside of the northern gate of the space port, smashing the guard towers located there and scattering the few guards left there with its mass. The weapons of the Union class DropShip continued to blaze away as it landed, blasting anything that moved or looked like it might pose a threat to the mercenary forces. The ramp for Mech Bay Two began opening before the Union touched the ground. 

As soon as there was enough space to get past the ramp, Major Alexander “Random” Yau lead the way out, leaping his captured Clan OmniMech, a Loki to the Inner Sphere, but a Hellbringer to the Clans that made it. Alex preferred the Clan’s name over the one tagged on it by some Lyran MechWarrior that was getting his ass kicked at the time. He began laying down fire with his energy weapons before the OmniMech had completed its jump, more looking to cause chaos than hit something or do lots of damage.

Behind and to Alex’s right, SRLT Vincent “Crow” Hobbs jumped his GAL-2GS Gallowglas out. The twin large lasers on the heavy BattleMech carved furrows into then through the APC that was trying to get away from the suddenly arrived mercenary force. The Gallowglas then let loose with its Gauss rifle, sending the silver ball through the air to… wherever it landed. Crow’s curse over missing whatever he’d been aiming at echoed over the commline. His haste to get into position to protect Alex threw his normally pin-point accurate aim off. 

On Alex’s left, LTJG Fiona “Ice” de Wynter stormed forward in her TDR-9SS Thunderbolt. The bulk of the Mech made it look heavier than what it actually was, but reflected the Mech’s actual power as much as its name did.  Fiona let out her howl of a war cry and send a stream of emerald pulse laser beams across the front of a nearby hanger, melting the metal and setting a small security vehicle on fire. Neither was a threat to the mercenaries, but the pink color of the security vehicle offended her greatly so it became a prime target.

The twin Black Hawk-Ku OmniMechs that marched out behind the first three Mechs of Lawless Lance were holding their fire for fear of hitting the friendly Mechs in front of them. The design of the two OmniMechs were some of the first Draconis Combine OmniMechs built and were still very viable units despite the nearly twenty years since their inception on the drawing boards of Luthien’s weapons engineers. They were based off the smaller Clan Nova OmniMech, called a Blackhawk by the Clans, and like that OmniMech, their forearms consisted of weapon pods containing an array of energy weapons.

The last Mech had a familiar shape to it, at least at first, but it was then noted that it looked broader and blockier than a Phoenix Hawk had any right to be. It leapt out of Mech Bay One, took three steps, leapt into the air again, and then… twisted. The Mech did not twist its body in the air making itself into a 45-ton ballerina… the Mech’s body twisted its shape in mid-air, shifting parts from one section to another until its transformation was complete.

Where a broad-shouldered and blocky Phoenix Hawk BattleMech stood, was now an odd hybrid of BattleMech and Aerospace fighter. The legs of the Mech were visible with a fighter attached on top of it and the Mech’s arms hanging below the wings, clutch at the laser weapons the Mech had carried there. The rare Land-Air Mech or LAM bounded across the space port, firing its lasers at any targets that presented themselves and generally adding to the level of chaos already being experienced by the space port’s defenders.

“YEEEEHAAAA, mother fuckers!!!” came bellowing out of the external speakers of the LAM quickly followed by the screaming guitars and thundering beats of heavy metal music. 

Alex shook his head at the glimpse he had of LTJG Tyler “Grim” Grimm. The older MechWarrior knew his piloting and shooting, but he was still one odd man more often than not. Still, he could shoot and get the most out of the ancient war machine he piloted and cared for, so Alex was fine with him being as fucked in head as he wanted to be off the battlefield.

“Don’t get too far away, Grim, or we won’t be able to support you.” Alex called into the commline. 

[[Support me? Against what?]] Grim took that moment to land beside a small jeep, who’s occupants bailed out of it immediately, and then gave it a solid kick with his Mech’s left foot. The small wheeled vehicle spun through the air and landed on top of a cargo carrying truck, smashing whatever had been in the bed of the larger vehicle. 

Crow lifted the Gauss rifle that made up the right arm of his Gallowglas and pointed it towards the center of the space port. [[Against that.]]

A star of five Clan OmniMechs were marching towards the mercenary BattleMechs, staying in an arrowhead formation with a Gargoyle leading the charge. A Thor was behind and to the right of the Gargoyle with a Mad Cat behind him. To the Gargoyle’s left, there was a pair of Nova OmniMechs… which were moving farther to the left, in hopes of flanking the mercenaries. 

“Son of a bitch…” Alex growled out and let loose with both ER PPCs mounted in his Hellbringer’s forearms. The man-made lightning arced towards the Gargoyle with one beam cutting into the assault OmniMech’s right leg, making it hitch for half a step. The other beam passed to the left of the Gargoyle, making one of the two Novas scoot to its right and avoid the particle beam.

Alex snarled and opened fire with the three ER medium lasers mounted in the Hellbringer’s chest. The three scarlet beams carved into the Gargoyle’s chest, leaving a trail of molten armor behind it, but not doing more than scratching the surface of the OmniMech’s protection. Knowing that bad things were about to happen, Alex made sure his AMS and ECM were both on and running… they might not help much but every little bit helped.

From Alex’s right, Crow brought his Gallowglas forward, Gauss rifle still raised. The advanced weapon spat out a silver ball near the size of a basketball ball and down towards the Gargoyle. Twin large lasers chased the ball towards the Gargoyle and arrived there first, despite being fired second.

The lasers melted away more armor, sending a shower of sparks out as one of the two beams intersected on the damage that Alex had already done. The Gauss rifle slug impacted with the Gargoyle with a solid impact just below the OmniMech’s right hip. Armor shards went everywhere with the impact as the slug skittered away through the space port like a pinball, bouncing off buildings and vehicles. The Gargoyle’s step hitched again, but the MechWarrior inside was able to wrestle the war machine back up and keep it from toppling. Barely.

The Clan OmniMech raised one arm and sent six beams of energy towards the mercenaries. Two of the beams cut into Alex’s armor, leaving molten scars across the front of his Mech. The other four cut furrows in just about everything else except the mercenaries. Alex put it down to luck and that the Clanner was still reeling from the multiple hits it had experienced. 

Alex didn’t care why the Gladiator had missed his shot, just that it did. His warbook had settled on a configuration for the Gladiator and the weapons available to the Mech made his blood run cold. The six ER medium lasers were bad enough to deal with, but the only variant of the assault Mech that had that many medium lasers mounted on it also carried a massive Ultra autocannon. That particular ballistic weapon spat out enough depleted uranium shells at one time to saw many Mechs in half.

“Crow… keep that son of a bitch down!” Alex ordered and dropped his crosshairs on the OmniMech. 

[[Got it.]] Crow replied and opened fire on the Gladiator again. The Gauss rifle slug flew true and slammed into the Gladiator’s leg again. Armor plating was crushed with the impact of the slug, sending armor shards across the ground. The twin large lasers mounted in the Mech’s right torso let loose a pair of scarlet beams of energy, one of which cut into the Gladiator’s right arm and the other carved a ditch in the ground. Alex smiled at Crow’s cursing; the man hated to miss.

The OmniMech returned fire with its ER medium lasers, spearing Alex with four of the six beams before raising its other arm. The gigantic maw of the autocannon mounted there looked like the mouth of a tunnel to Hell to Alex’s eye. It opened fire… then continued to fire for what seemed like hours. 

Alex felt the impact of the first rounds all the way through his body as the depleted uranium shells hit the Hellbringer in the shoulder and continued down the OmniMech’s left arm. The arm emitted a shower of sparks as the armor on the limb was shattered. The Hellbringer staggered as the arm fell off, trailing wires and a shower of coolant from a severed line. Alex felt the OmniMech stagger and then tilt as the loss of the limb threw off the Mech’s center of gravity. Knowing he wasn’t going to be able to keep upright, Alex twisted the Mech to help lessen the blow when it hit the ground.

When the Hellbringer impacted with the ground, Alex was bounced around inside his command couch enough that his head smashed into the side of the couch. His neurohelmet protected him from injury but he still saw stars because of the collision with the command couch. The next few minutes were more blur and stars than anything coherent to him. The battle raging around him and the chatter in his ears made absolutely no sense… until it suddenly did again. 

[[… rally on me!]] That was Crow’s voice, Alex realized and took a moment to figure out exactly what the hell was going on. 

The Gladiator was face down on the tarmac, a smoking crater in its back. He could just make out Grim’s LAM as it swooped away and lined up for another pass.  Razor and Echo in their twin Blackhawk-Ku were slowly walking backwards towards Alex’s position, exchanging fire with the two Novas the Clanners had fielded. He spotted Ice’s Thunderbolt just as it landed a looping left handed punch into the cockpit of the enemy Thor; the OmniMech reeled from the blow and went down like a drunk boxer. The looming shadow hanging over his Mech would only be Crow in his Gallowglas and he was exchanging fire with the Mad Cat, the two Mechs were standing each other off. 

Alex cleared his throat and opened a commchannel. “Random online.”

[[Good.]] Crow replied and leapt his Mech off to the right, drawing the Mad Cat’s fire away from Alex’s position while clearing room for Alex to get the Hellbringer back on its feet. 

“SITREP… wait… wait…” Alex slowly stood the Hellbringer up and leveled his remaining ER PPC at the Mad Cat. “Never mind… let’s just shoot these bastards.”

The Mad Cat began giving ground as it saw the Hellbringer stand up, but couldn’t get into cover in time to avoid Alex’s shot. The PPC bolt caressed the Mad Cat’s left LRM launcher, cutting through the outer casing of the launcher and set off the munitions loaded in it. The Mad Cat toppled to its right, crumpling the side of the hanger it was standing beside and staying there, smoke pouring out of its torso. 

A scream across the commline pulled Alex’s attention from the toppling OmniMech. He turned his Hellbringer around just in time to watch Razor’s Black Hawk Ku topping nose first into the tarmac; the cockpit of the Mech was a smoking ruin. Echo’s yell of rage followed Razor’s death as she pushed her Black Hawk Ku forward, throttle wide open, to engage the Nova that had killed the other mercenary.  

The two Novas began leaping backwards, heading towards the perimeter of the space port and the safety that represented. Echo followed, chasing the retreating Clanners with both her Mech and her weapons fire. Grim flew by in his LAM, weapons blazing at the Nova closest to him. 

That OmniMech toppled from the plasma column it was riding on when two scarlet energy beams caught one of its leg-mounted jump jets. The jump jet exploded and the Nova fell to the ground, crunching the tarmac and much of the armor that was left on the Mech. The Nova hadn’t even gotten back to its feet before Echo got there.

She lashed out with her Blackhawk KU’s left foot, collapsing the arm that the Nova was using to get back up. The OmniMech toppled back to the tarmac with a crushing sound. With the Clanner back on the ground, she placed the right foot of her OmniMech on the Nova’s back then began unloading her compliment of weapons into the thin rear armor on the Clan OmniMech. Pinned in place and extensively damaged, the Nova could do nothing but die.

The second Nova continued its escape, leaving its companion to die. When it landed on the ground, the Nova would activate its jump jets again and leap back into the air. Grim attempted to follow it, but peeled off his attack run when the Nova opened fire… he wasn’t willing to risk his precious LAM just to kill one more Clanner.

The Thor that Ice had been fighting was able to get free from the melee combat that Ice had forced it into. It had done something that Alex had missed and knocked Ice’s Thunderbolt down, allowing the Clanner to disengage from combat. Like the Nova, the Thor was jumping away and heading towards the perimeter of the space port. Alex called off the pursuit that Crow started. 

“Lawless Lance… clear the interior. We’ve gotten rid of the immediate threat. Give me an idea of how your Mechs are doing… we’ll rotate back to the BLACK JACK for refit and repairs.” Alex swapped channels. “Random to Gearbox… we have salvage here and a dead CI Mech. Requesting salvage pick up on what we’ve got here.”

[[ “Gearbox”?]] Tynon Lu asked over the comm.

Alex chuckled. “You answered, right?”

[[I will have Mechaniks onsite immediately. Shall I have medical respond as well?]]

Alex shook his head. “Negative, Gearbox. Not for our people anyway.”

[[Understood, Random. Be safe.]]

“Always.” Alex replied and cut the channel. He turned the Hellbringer towards the downed Blackhawk KU, its cockpit still ablaze, and whispered a short prayer for Maximus "Razor" Sweeny. Then thanked all his ancestors it wasn’t him before turning away to get ready for the Clans to come back.

Posted by,
Major Alexander “Random” Yau
Hellbringer Prime
Commanding Officer
Head Cat Herder
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2567
Contract count: 39,969
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000 

2305 Operational Hours
11/12/3095
South Gate
Theodore Kurita Memorial Space Port
Renamed: Space Port Alpha Tango Nine
Virentofta, Snow Raven Occupied Territory 
Albiero Prefecture, Pesht Military District
Draconis Combine

AWKWARD MOMENT hovered in the air above the south gate of the Theodore Kurita Memorial Space Port and began opening fire. The Union class DropShip began a slow spin as it fired, turning a fresh and ready set of weapon pods towards the two guard towards flanking the gates every minute. Missiles and laser beams cut apart the towers, sending masonry and steel in every direction. With the destruction of the towers, AWKWARD MOMENT stopped spinning and began descending further. 

The doors to Mech Bay One opened before the DropShip got to the ground and four squads of Fa Shih battle armor suits leapt from the open bay. The armored troopers rode jump jets down to the ground and began dispersing immediately. The troopers didn’t stop to do leap and cover tactics, they just ran balls to the wall for the nearest buildings. They were looking to get lost in the clutter and do as much damage as possible.

When AWKWARD MOMENT settled on the tarmac, the door for Mech Bay Two opened and the six Mechs of Frenzy Lance came out at a trot that went to a run almost immediately. They deployed in a V formation with two Mechs flanking the point Mech and the sixth Mech in the demi-company enclosed in the middle of the V by the rest of the unit.

Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman took point on the formation in his captured Grizzly Clan-made BattleMech. Like Major Yau’s Hellbringer, the Grizzly was a Clan built Mech, using Clan technology, but it was not an OmniMech so could swap out weapon pods and equipment on almost a whim. That didn’t matter to Jackson though; it was still a Clan built Mech using Clan technology… which meant he could reach and kill people before they could reach him.

Unless they were fighting the Clans.

Which they were.

Deploying to Jackson’s right was SRLT Felix “Dice” King in his OSR-4L Ostroc. The advanced technology of this Mech surpassed some of the Clans’ technology as it was equipped with stealth armor that made it more difficult to target unless you were almost on top of the Mech. Of course, that was a bad idea too as the Ostroc weapons were all torso mounted, allowing it to fire those weapons and still strike with the two broad knuckled battle fists it was equipped with.

Behind Felix, LTJG Antoinite “Lobo” Lobo came charging with her salvaged Grand Dragon. The Mech was one of several captured by Chaos Incorporated during their sweep of the area of pirates… of course that was before the Clans came knocking at the back door of the Combine. There were no pirates to be found no for sure.

Off of Jackson’s left, LTJG Richard “SoCo” Mansolio stomped forward in his WHM-8D Warhammer. The ancient design had gotten a makeover at one point, making it broader and more imposing while still retaining enough of the original design for it to be recognizable as a Warhammer. The twin ER PPCs the Mech sported was tied to an advanced targeting computer that increased the accuracy of the weapons mounted on the Warhammer. 

Behind Richard, LTJG Christopher “Cupid” Reis stalked the CTF-4L Cataphract, that had once been his commanding officer’s ride, down the ramp of the DropShip. With an arm mounted ER PPC and a torso mounted autocannon, the heavy Mech was designed to duel at long range with other Mechs. That was even more true when you added in the stealth armor that it, like Felix’s Ostroc, was equipped.

Positioned in the interior of the V formation that Frenzy Lance was in; LTJG Renee “Wildcat” Wilde piloted her GHR-6K Grasshopper. The heavy Mech was more suited for close combat fighting, like its MechWarrior, so stayed more to the center of the formation until it could leap over its lancemates and into the middle of the enemy forces. 

Coming through the audio pickups on the exterior of the Grizzly, Jackson could hear Lawless Lance engaging an enemy force at the north gate and smiled. Hopefully, Alex wouldn’t steal all of the fun… Jackson felt like he had a bone or twenty to pick with the Clanners and wanted to get a little closer to evening the score on that. 

As if to grant his wish, a star of Clan OmniMechs came charging out of a nearby hanger. The lead Omni was a Ryoken, followed by a pair of Nobori-nin, a Shadow Cat, and a Vulture. The five OmniMechs swiveled almost as one towards the deploying mercenary force and began opening fire. 

The Vulture and both Nobori-nin opened fire with LRMs while the twin Nobori-nin also added the weight of light autocannons to the barrage. Missiles and shells exploded among the ranks of the mercenaries, but with minimal effect. 

Due to its position as it came out of the hanger, the Shadow Cat had to circle wide to bring its Gauss rifle into play, but could get a shot off none the less. The Gauss slug slammed into SoCo’s Warhammer, crushing armor plating on the Mech’s right torso, but not penetrating the armor there.

The Ryoken leveled on of its blocky arms at the mercenaries, firing a cluster round from the LB10X mounted on its left arm. Jackson was able to dodge a part of the cluster, but not all as some of his Mech’s armor was sanded away by the shotgun-like autocannon round. Twin streams of emerald energy also came from the Ryoken and one of the two large pulse lasers the OmniMech carried melted away not quite a ton of the armor on the Grizzly’s left leg. 

Jackson struggled with his controls and managed to, barely, keep the Grizzly upright. With a snarl, he pulled the triggers on his weapons, returning fire on the Ryoken. LRMs peppered the Clan Mech while the beam of a large pulse laser missed high over the Clanner’s right shoulder. The Gauss rifle that the Grizzly was armed with hit dead center on the Ryoken, making the lighter OmniMech pause in its charge like a man hit with a solid blow to the body. 

The mercenary Warhammer leveled both of its arms towards the enemy Shadow Cat and bathed the lighter OmniMech in both ER PPCs that the Mech was armed with. The man-made lightning played over the Shadow Cat, shattering armor plates into small pieces and melting deep into the Omni’s body. Sparks flew from the Shadow Cat’s torso as the energy beams ate into it. 

The Grasshopper leapt up and forward, looking to close with the enemy Mechs, while firing its center torso mounted ER large laser. The blue beam cut a furrow in the ground at the feet of the enemy Vulture, who stopped in surprise and swiveled its bulky body upwards to draw a bead on the flying Grasshopper.

As it did that, Dice’s Ostroc slammed into the OmniMech, knocking it back a couple of steps in the process. The Vulture swiveled back around to meet the new threat, leveling the four energy weapons that made up its arms at the Inner Sphere Mech. The Ostroc stepped inside the Vultures arms and opened fire with its torso-mounted energy weapons. 

Twin ER large and twin ER medium lasers carved into the heavy OmniMech, melting away much of the armor across its beak-like torso. As a follow-up, the Ostroc made the last steps necessary and punched forward, going through the already weakened armor on the Omni’s torso and into the internal structure inside. The Vulture staggered as the two Mechs were locked together from the blow.

The twin Nobori-Nin OmniMechs circled wide of the Vulture, looking to fire into the back of Dice’s Ostroc as it was locked in combat with the other Mech. As they came around, they were met part way by Lobo in her Grand Dragon and Cupid in his Cataphract. The Mechs exchanged fire, each landing shots on the other and sending pieces of Mech in every direction.

Jackson refocused his attention on the Ryoken that he was facing off with and opened fire again. Again, the Gauss rifle slug slammed into the lighter OmniMech and shattered armor plating. His large pulse laser missed this time, sending a line of melted craters down the tarmac, but one of the medium pulse lasers did hit. The emerald darts of energy cut into where the first Gauss slug had hit he Ryoken, penetrating the Mech’s internal structure and spiking the heat in the OmniMech.

“Yes!” Jackson yelled. An engine hit was always a good thing and normally the beginning of the end for an opponent. 

However, that didn’t mean it was the end right now. The Ryoken returned fire, hitting with both large pulse lasers and the LB10X. The armor that melted down the front of the Grizzly didn’t stay long enough to cause a problem in the Mech’s joints as the LB10X cluster munitions helped to remove them. A flash of green mist coming from the front of the Grizzly indicated the loss of a heat sink. 

“No!” Jackson yelled and opened a commline, yelling into it with his best panicked voice. “Frenzy Lance… pull back… pull back !!”

The other five Mechs did as they were told, though Dice slapped the Vulture with an open backhand, nearly crushing the cockpit as he did before leaping backwards on his jump jets. The others backed up, firing for several steps as they did then turning and running. Jackson did the same and it looked like the mercenaries were in full retreat.

The Clanners paused as if in surprise then leapt forward to chase the cowardly mercenaries. The Grizzly stumbled and fell to the tarmac for unknown reasons, but it caused the other mercenaries to stop their flight and form up on their downed comrade. The Clanners all but howled as they increased their speed and ran forward… into the firing arcs of the AWKWARD MOMENT.

The Union class DropShip opened fire, spraying the Clanners with spreads of LRMs from a pair of LRM 20 launchers. ER PPCs and Gauss rifles also fired, shredding more of the Clanners’ armor and digging into now exposed internal structure. The Clanners skidded to a halt, one of the Nobori-Nin tumbling to the ground as it tried to stop but found its leg was no longer attached.

Even as the first rounds fell on the Clanners from the AWKWARD MOMENT, the Mechs of Frenzy Lance advanced slightly and opened fire. Jackson brought his Grizzly back up, slowly, and fired as well. Realizing they were outgunned but with no way to get out from under the Union’s guns, except to retreat: they charged. Their plan was obviously to get mixed in with the mercenary Mechs and make it impossible for the DropShip to fire on them for fear of hitting their comrades. 

However, as the Clanners tried to advance into the storm of fire, Frenzy Lance began moving backwards, luring the Clanners deeper into the pocket of the Union’s firepower. When the medium lasers on the AWKWARD MOMENT began cutting into the Clanners as well, they knew they were caught too deeply in the trap to get out alive or even to have a chance at winning. 

Of the five Mechs that had started the fight, only the Ryoken and the Shadow Cat, which was limping heavily. Both Nobori-Nin had succumbed to the mercenaries’ fire while the Vulture had never even made it to charging the mercenaries as they retreated. Dice’s parting shot had knocked the MechWarrior inside the OmniMech unconscious. The MechWarriors for both the Shadow Cat and the Ryoken ejected, signaling their surrender. The Shadow Cat toppled over as a last shot from one of the AWKWARD MOMENT’s Gauss rifles severed its already damaged leg.

“About fucking time…” Jackson panted. His cockpit was a sauna from all the weapons fire, advanced Clan tech or not it got fucking hot in a BattleMech in combat. He flipped open a commchannel. “South Gate secured. Let’s get this shit taken care of and get the hell out of here.”

Posted by,
Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman
Grizzly
Executive Officer, Head Beer Taster
Frenzy Lance, Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 2067
Contract count: 42,036
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000 

1403 Operational Hours
11/13/3095
DropShip Pad 112A
Theodore Kurita Memorial Space Port
Renamed: Space Port Alpha Tango Nine
Virentofta, Snow Raven Occupied Territory 
Albiero Prefecture, Pesht Military District
Draconis Combine

Major Alexander “Random” Yau stood his Hellbringer at the base of the ramp into the MARIANNE and held his ground. Standing beside him were SRLT Vincent “Crow” Hobbs in his GAL-2GS Gallowglas and LTJG Fiona “Ice” de Wynter in her TDR-9S Thunderbolt. The three heavy Mechs were being backed up by the weapon pods of the MARIANNE as they held their position, firing at anything that showed itself. The rest of the Mechs of Lawless Lance were already onboard, including the wrecked Black Hawk KU of LTJG Maximus “Razor” Sweeny, who’d been killed in the fighting.

Right now, three Clan OmniMechs were sniping at him from behind the few buildings still standing in the space port. Also lurking inside those same buildings were an unknown number of Clan Elementals, the fearsome troopers that had introduced the Inner Sphere to battle armor. Like their larger brothers, the Elementals were having problems finding cover to fire from or shelter behind as most of the buildings had been reduced to skeletons of their former selves or were just plain ashes, depending on how well the troopers of the Bedlam Brigades did in their arson work. 

Some of those same troopers were now charging up the ramp of the DropShip he was standing in front of, heading to the safety represented by the DropShip. Alex fired his ER PPC again, miraculously hitting an Elemental that had found a perch in the ruined third story of a building that had been taller at one point. The PPC bolt slammed into the Elemental, shoving it back through the space the opposite wall of the building would have been before. 

Alex counted it as a kill and opened a commchannel. “Risky… SITREP. Are your people onboard?”

[[Most of them, Random.]] Captain Tiana “Risky” Anders-Hsein replied. [[I have two MIAs but their squad leaders are pretty sure they are KIA.]] 

“Dammit.” Alex muttered then flipped the commline back open. “We can’t hold here long, Risky.”

After a pause, she answered. [[I know that, Random. Ever forward.]]

“Ever forward.” Alex agreed and watched her jog up to the top of the ramp. She would make sure that she was the last one on the DropShip from her people stationed on the MARIANNE so getting to the top of the ramp allowed her to do that while staying out of the way of the Mechs as they moved around at the base of the ramp. “Risky, get me a SITREP on the rest of your squads, let me know they are aboard.”

[[Copy that, Random.]] 

“Random to all elements… SITREP and let me know you are loaded.” 

[[Crazy Eyes is loaded on BLACK JACK.]] Captain Felix “Ghost” Cornelius reported. His reconnaissance unit, the Crazy Eyes, had maintained a watch for incoming Clan reinforcements from the moment they’d hit the ground. They also accounted for a full point of Clan Elementals that had attempted to go headhunting near BLACK JACK and THE EQUESTRIAN. Two other points had been killed or driven off by a concentrated effort from the DropShips themselves and Tempest Lance. Alex had no clue where the last ten Elementals went, but figured they were hiding in the area somewhere.

[[BLACK JACK is loaded, Random.]] Captain Jeremy Allen reported, indicating that all the forces assigned to his vessel were accounted for.

“Copy that, Ghost and BLACK JACK.” Alex replied.

[[THE EQUESTRIAN is loaded, Random.]] Captain Edmond Cunningham II said.

Alex let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. THE EQUESTRIAN was one of the question marks of the current contract because this was their first outing with the unit and he’d been unsure how they’d do in combat. Also, with Captain Cunningham’s report, it meant that Tempest Lance, commanded by his newest officer, was onboard the DropShip and safe. 

“Copy that, EQUESTRIAN.” Alex paused and snap shot his ER PPC at a enemy Thor that was peaking around the remains of a hanger. He missed but the Thor went back into cover, so that was fine. “My compliments to your captain and crew for a job well done.”

[[Thank you, Major. THE EQUESTRIAN is clear.]]

[[Random… all the Bedlam Brigade is accounted for, one way or the other.]] Tiana reported as she backed up the last few meters of the ramp. [[We need to get out of here.]]

“We will… “Alex panted. The heat from combat and damage sustained to his Mech was starting to get to him but he needed to hold his position. “Madman?”

[[Frenzy Lance is on the ramp and loading up.]] Captain Jackson “Madman” Tallman said from the cockpit of his Grizzly. Like Alex’s Mech, the Clan-made BattleMech was shot to shit and barely operational. [[You need to do the same.]] 

“Roger that.” Alex agreed. “Lawless Lance… pull back.”

[[Copy that, Random.]] Ice said and turned her Thunderbolt around to race up the ramp. She was chased by a couple of LRMs and received two of them into the thin back armor of her left torso, but was able to get the Mech inside.

[[You first.]] Crow said and made to shoulder Alex’s Hellbringer to the side.

“Negative. You first or we go together.” Alex replied and stepped his OmniMech to the side. 

[[Together then.]] Crow said through gritted teeth. He’d appointed himself as Alex’s bodyguard for reasons that Alex didn’t know and had never left the field of battle before Alex did. It was a thing for him and Alex appreciated it beyond belief. 

The two Mechs went shoulder to shoulder and reverse marched up the ramp. The Clanners broke cover at that moment, seeing their last chance to do any damage to the mercenaries. A badly damaged Nova slipped cover and opened fire, carving away the remaining arm on Alex’s Hellbringer, but then was smashed to the ground as it was enveloped by waves of LRMs from both MARIANNE and AWKWARD MOMENT, the third Union class DropShip in the mercenaries’ fleet of vessels. 

Alex cursed and was able to keep his balance only because Crow’s Gallowglas steadied him with a hand that clamped down on the Hellbringer’s shoulder. The two Mechs took their last steps into the Mech Bay as the ramp was already starting to close. 

[[AWKWARD MOMENT is loaded.]] Captain Ana Rifkin said over the commline.

Alex nodded and replied. “Copy that. Lawless Lance is loaded.”

[[MARIANNE is loaded then.]] Captain Dillan Fowler said. Around him, Alex could feel the MARIANNE start to rumble as its engines went to maximum thrust. [[All vessels, maximum thrust. We are the hell out of here.]]

“Copy all are loaded.” Alex said. “Bandit?”

[[Bandit is here and the Wild Cards have your backdoor.]] Captain Sara “Bandit” Hammond said. She and the other four Aerospace fighters left to the Wild Cards were streaking over the top of the space port, engaging enemy OmniFighters and blazing away at any ground targets they could fire at without getting shot down.

“Copy that, Bandit. Good hunting.” Alex let out another sigh and slowly marched his Hellbringer to its cubicle in the MARIANNE. Luckily, the DropShip was going straight up and not doing any odd maneuvers or what was a difficult task would have become impossible. 

It took nearly ten nerve wracking minutes, but he was finally able to traverse the twenty meters to his Mech’s cubicle then back it into place so the hydraulic clamps could get a hold of the OmniMech, securing it in the cubicle. With a final sigh, Alex began the shutdown sequence for the Hellbringer. 

Nine of the ten DropShips that the Combine had wanted to recover were recovered… the last was left a smoking ruin of a vessel, the costly machine wrecked by many explosive charges that the ISF had rigged when they determined the vessel would not be recovered by the Combine. 

Casualties to the unit had been relatively light, all things considered. He knew he’d lost a MechWarrior and an Aerospace pilot, but was unsure of the rest of the butcher’s bill right now and was secretly glad of that. No matter how few names were on there, it was always too many.

Now though, with them buttoned up in their DropShips and heading into the atmosphere, things were out of his hands and the responsibility of others. Normally that made him crazy and he hated the loss of control, but right now all Alex wanted to do was rest. 

Posted by,
Chaos Incorporated

Word Count: 1445
Contract count: 43,481
Contract minimum: 42,000
BSBT: 99,000