We're away from Fletcher; I’m writing this
while we're accelerating, so my thoughts are probably not at their most
rational. I'm tired, I'm worn from the battle and I've got g-forces adding to everything
else that's on my mind.
That last fight was a mess, to put it
bluntly. The First Liao were dug in hard and were willing to fight to the death
to stop us from getting to our objective. They had hardened walls, TAG-guided
Arrow missiles, gun turrets, Battle Armour and plenty of top of the line and
Stealth armoured 'Mechs to make our lives miserable. We had a few tricks of our
own; using Artillery to root our their units and demolish their fortifications,
airdropping Battle Armour and the like, but it still hurt hard.
We lost Dimitri when his Archer
went down; a couple of Cappie lights made sure that he wasn't able to get
up. It's a nasty way to go, and it sent a pretty clear message that they were
not holding back. One of the Lampreys went down during a drop-off, it's crew
killed when a shot went through the cockpit. Katrya's taking that one hard; I
still don't know where she and her crews exactly came from, but I get the impression
that they were close before they flew into our camp. Finally, we lost six
Battle Armour troops; a third of the overall force. We can rebuild our numbers,
yes, but there's always that irreplaceable loss of life that goes along with
it.
There were several other close calls as
well. Carrie's Scourge went down with a wrecked gyro; it can be
repaired, but it’s still a mess. Shona's Phoenix Hawk
wound up losing both arms and one leg, and the rest is more gone then
there. Bruce's Scarabus was literally and figuratively disarmed. And it goes without saying that
Nikola, Takahashi and Lee's 'Mechs were all pretty badly beaten up., It's a
rare day when they aren't. Finally, our 'volunteer' also didn't walk away unscathed.
Ivar lost the entire right side of his 'borrowed' Hatchetman,
and it honestly seemed like he didn't care at all for his own health. I was
half convinced that he was going to run off in a frontal Kamikaze charge on the
Capellans at the first opportunity.
If it does help, the Capellans didn't get
off lightly either. It seemed like they were going to fight to the death for a
moment, but after their commander's Yu Huang
went down, the last few 'Mechs decided that they wouldn't gain anything by
continuing to fight a losing battle. Had they pressed on they probably would
have taken one of us down, true, but at a greater cost to them in the process.
Not that we really walked off with much salvage from them, as many of them were
determined to fight to the death which meant that we basically had to rip apart
their 'Mechs to stop them.
So that's the bad of it. The good news is
that we were still able to accomplish our mission, despite the sheer brutal
damage both sides did to each other. The AFFS dropped their lootship on the factory,
and were able to make off with a massive amount of stockpiled production,
equipment and even raw materials. Furthermore, they did their best to sabotage
the facility so that it will take the Cappies some time before they're able to
restart production. Definitely a win.
The material they took is going to be redistributed
to AFFS units; for security reasons I’m not privy to where they're going once
we part ways, but everything I've gathered makes it clear that it's going to be
much needed. The intel that Petrie shared with me painted a pretty grim picture
of their situation, and with the most recent CCAF advances reported while we
were on-world, they're going to need all the help they can get. Unfortunately,
Petrie also reported some problems with some of the material they had taken,
especially the electronics. It’s possible that the Cappies decided to spoil the
prize, so to speak, something that's perfectly in keeping with their track
record of being such gracious losers.
Sadly, we're not going to have much luck
making up numbers with what we have on hand. Neither of our 'strays' we
picked up along the way are going to be hanging around either. I did like Haki
Aardvarkssen, but it seems that life as a professional mercenary was more one
of convenience then professional dedication. Again, I cannot compel him to
stay, as much as I'd like to. He's a colourful character, and is friendly and
upbeat nature could definitely be a boost to morale, but at the same time, I
wouldn't want to force him into something that he's not interested in.
On the other hand, I'm going to be honest
and say that I'm glad we're offloading Ivar Wolf when we get to Galatea. There's
clearly some degree of tension between him and Bruce about something that
happened in the past. Added to that, Shona seems to be going out of her way to
avoid him as well for whatever reason. All up, he's just pain unlikeable;
disagreeable, gruff and clearly wallowing in bitterness. I have no doubt that
his skills will make him desirable to a potential employer, but they're also
going to have to put up with his award-winning personality as well.
Its times like this that I really think
about looking into a professional recruiter. Dad had one, yes, but they were
something of a freeloader who's job was less to find quality recruits and more
to throw any warm body that came his way at us. I let him go when I took over,
and I can't say that I regret it at all. It's definitely a case of the initial
cost versus the overall benefits and, while I'd like to think that I’ve done
well so far on my staff picks, it's also adding a lot more to my job.
Fortunately, I don't doubt that we'll be
short of work opportunities when we get there. Given what I heard from Petrie,
the Federated Suns needs help badly, and they're definitely going to be hiring
anyone they can. I'm still wary of the Lyrans given all that has happened, and
Kamenez didn't exactly help that even if a lot of what happened was beyond
their control (although some blame has to go to them if only for picking one of
the scummiest units that they could find). But the worst of it is that, right
now, the Combine are looking like the place to be for mercenary employment.
Crazy, I know.
Though there are a few people I should look
up when I get back there. Assuming, of course, that they're still on the
planet. It's the big risk of such a mobile industry, especially in this day and
age of no HPGs. Any relationships you want to have need to rely on good timing
and fortuitous coincidence to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment