So, had a day off and did a bit of writing. Based on the silly prompt earlier, the crossover nobody asked for or wanted, BattleTech/Monstergirls. Oddly enough I normally write crack, but starting with a crack premise seems to have made me write more seriously. Incidentally I'd like to ask if anybody's willing for me to bounce a few ideas off them, I think I'd like to continue writing this one.
Prologue
The hospital room was clammy cold, smelled like disinfectant, and had all the other discomforts common to all medical establishments. I didn't like burying my nose in my phone, and the magazines on the end tables were months-old gossip rags I wasn't interested in even when they were new. After about two minutes looking at the boring beige walls and stale painting of a tree got old so I decided to people watch the other patients because nothing else was going on, you know?
And we did have a motley assortment of people in there. The most striking person was a little girl with porcelain white skin in an amazingly elegant gown. I had once taken care of an old woman who collected rare dolls and this girl reminded me of her collections. It was a frilly outfit with layers upon layers of velvet and a hat decked in lace and feathers that would fit right in at a fancy party in 1920, but I couldn't see how she could even breath in it, much less move or walk without spoiling it.
The other sour note was her aforementioned skin, which had so much makeup on it it looked like clown face to me. I mean, it was expertly done no doubt, but it was just so thick, and I've always hated makeup anyway and use the absolute minimum to get by. She noticed me looking at her and smiled at me. I smiled back.
The makeup around her mouth actually cracked a little. The older woman next to her frowned.
“Not so wide Grizelda,” she scolded, “You are not some common person acting like a tourist, keep your expressions elegant and refined, reserved. Remember, dignity at all times.”
“Yes mother,” the living doll answered, suddenly downcast and blank-faced. I tried to catch her eye again but she never looked up.
With that line of interest gone I looked at the others. There was a swarthy man, a shade darker than myself, with a whacking scar. Not a hot-looking anime scar but a clearly horrible wound that started on top of his head (a white streak of hair amidst the gray marked it's progress) and bisected his ear before continuing to the neck. It was jagged and curved, and I suspect caused by a broken bottle. He had a ramrod straight poster that screamed “ex military” to me. Ex because the guy was probably already in his seventies at the least, though he had the incredibly healthy well-preserved look of a man who'd stayed active, kind of the Sean Connery look. He'd taken up a position in the corner and watched the room calmly without reacting much, though I got his eye and he nodded gravely to me before looking away.
A college-age kid in a shirt with a logo I didn't recognize was immersed in his phone, lost to the world. I pitied him a bit, so lodged in electronics he missed his fellow humans.
A bit of an altercation arose when another little girl, this one black with short fluffy hair, tried to get Grizelda's attention and play with her but the living doll's mother harshly rebuked her, leading the other girl's mother to nearly intervene followed by a venomous glaring match until well after Grizelda was called away to the back. I wished I'd had popcorn.
A few minutes later my own turn came up and I followed the nurse into the rear of the clinic. If you're wondering, we were all here for an experimental trial, an attempt to use a new and improved micro-MRI machine to scan our brains and get the most accurate examination of human thought patterns to date. Even better it was a head-only unit so the titanium rods in my leg wouldn't prevent me from taking part in the experiment. Now granted, despite BS in the flier I'd responded to, I wasn't going to get a position in the history books. The Doctors involved might well but I was just one of a couple hundred patients, probably not even a footnote, just a statistic. I would, however, get paid about twice as much for a couple of hours as I normally got for a full day's work so I was totally good with that.
They strapped on the helmet after laying me down on a table, and began their scans, all while monitoring my various vital signs. A sort-of virtual reality helmet let them plug images in which I responded to as they monitored how I reacted to each image. They started with simple patterns, then with crude images of people and objects, them more complex images and then finished with a weird one where I was seeing some kind of monster like a Xenomorph/human hybrid through a foggy glass jar of yellowish water while a tube was stuck in my mouth, and this one was animated as the monster peered at me through the glass and then it began to drain, and I realized I was tiny and the monster was huge, and I struggled slightly as it pulled a cable from the back of my head and held me up, and it was cold and miserable and I couldn't stop myself from crying out. The giant monster wrapped me up in a blanket and I wrapped my tail around her wrist, and I probably should have been more worried about that part but I was suddenly just so tired I couldn't really do anything but drift off as she rocked me gently.
16 Years Later. . .
Pink foam roiled around us and flowed off the viewing bubble as our bathyscaphe surfaced. The oceans around me were pink. It was night, and would be for another couple of months, so the sky was half yellowish purple and half black with stars only on the black half. The Caliban Nebula colored a vast area of space and we were right on the edge of it, far from home.
I coiled my tail under me into a noodle ball and enjoyed the view as the boat trundled along. Exoplanets were weird places. Beautiful indeed, but weird. This particular one was Mongkut 3.5, our current resting place, a world devoid of life with so much heavy metal, especially cobalt, in it's makeup that the dirt was purplish blue and the water was pink. Oceans covered 62% of the planet but which 62% depended on the hour. They were shallow, and the planet had a twin, Mongkut 3.0, which was 128% of this planet's size and closer than the moon was to Earth. Due to the immense tidal forces this generated, when low tide came the entire ocean drained away and left the seafloor a bare muddy mire. As a result, the ocean technically was this mobile blob that orbited along with the twin planet and rotated around the surface covering 62% at a time and leaving the rest a wide plain of mud the color of an eggplant. Only a few high blue mountains stuck up through the high tide and a handful of deep crevices held their water at low tide.
Currently it was ebb tide, the sea steadily lowering and in a day or so the surface would be revealed again at our location. That's why our little flotilla of tiny ships were on the move again, trying to solve a major problem before our seabed mining operation got beached.
A small volcano had up-welled a lava flow rich with valuable rare elements we needed. Cobalt in such absurd amounts we could practically use it to pave roads at this point, significant amounts of zinc we needed for industrial and health supplement purposes, copper in smaller amounts, trace but usable amounts of nickle, cadmium, and antimony. . . and significant amounts of germanium. The magic metal, germanium was what KF drives were made of and in this day and age, it was to gold what gold was to iron. By itself, the germanium was valuable enough to fund this entire operation. Oddly enough it wasn't what we were after because we really needed the zinc more than trade goods, but we were hardly going to pass up on a small fortune that happened to land in our laps. There would always be somebody to trade with eventually.
The problem was the extremely inevitable one that was so tiresome throughout human history. There are two ways to get a valuable resources, gather it yourself, or steal it from somebody who already did the work for you. We'd done the first, three guesses what happened as soon as we got supplies laid in, and the first two don't count.
There was a plume of fire high in the black sky, as a pirate DropShip came down to land on one of the few pieces of solid ground, a rocky mountaintop exposed only days earlier as the tide receded. We had a landing pad built there for our own use, along with a small fusion plant and storage tanks, it continuously took in seawater and extracted hydrogen to refuel our own DropShips.
I knew we could expect a second enemy dropship not far behind. One militarized ship to carry weapons and soldiers, a second hauler type to carry the stolen cargo away. We hadn't heard anything from our space forces in days, maybe jammed, maybe dead. I hoped they were jammed, and still alive. In the meantime we could only deal as best we could.
“Deploy a spotter drone,” I ordered and there was a thump and click as the ship launched a small camera rotodrone. “Pants, any chatter on their systems?”
My sister glanced back over her shoulder, wide eyed and innocent looking under her messy bangs, “Nothing doing, they're just, like, not talking right now,” she reported back.
I looked through the canopy bubble again into the distance. This was my first shot at command, a chance to show I could be a capable and responsible leader. It twisted my stomach in knots.
I'd been a manager in my previous life and I'd like to think I was good at it. But I knew now that some of my people were going to die. Maybe some of my sisters, maybe even me. If things went all wrong, maybe all of us. It was ever so much harder than knowing that if I screwed up, sales would be lower than expected this quarter. I swallowed down my own gizzard that kept trying to crawl up my throat, and looked again at the sensor scans. I didn't have enough information yet, but they weren't landed yet either.
I did a couple of calcs on the command console. We could be at the landing site about forty minutes before the enemy DropShip was able to do so.
“Move the transports in to close range and deploy Grizzly's Sappers,” I ordered finally, “Tell them to start planting minefields around the island, and deploy a spotter drone,” I decided aloud, and felt a thump as the hatch opened and a small rotodrone took off towards the descending plume of fire.
“Message sent,” Rabbit reported from the crew section of the sub. She sounded a little irritated and her ears were twitching. I didn't blame her. Rabbit was an elf, aquatic elf to be specific. Blue-Grey skin, webbed hands and feet, and a dorsal fin on her tailbone that lay flat when she wasn't using it made her a superb swimmer. Her hair was yellow and in a tight braid held together with some scrap wire threaded through her hair roach.
Seeing so much water and not being able to swim for so many weeks had to be hell for her. Grizzly and her crew would be swimming, but even they were going to have some nasty chelation therapy to get the hideous amounts of heavy metals they were going absorb out of their bodies. That was too expensive to use more than we had to and, well, Rabbit's crew knew how to drive a submarine.
“F*^#in' A!” came Grizzly's enthusiastic response, “We'll have so many F$%&in' mines around that S&#@ island they won't be able to F@^#in' P&%# without blowing their C&@#s off.”
I resisted the urge to “thank” Grizzly for that colorful image. I don't know where she got the idea that soldiers couldn't get through a single sentence without swearing, probably her previous life, but once she'd made LT of an irregular amphibious demolition team she'd never said another sentence without peppering it with profanity. The fact that nobody else talked that way, including the other soldiers, apparently eluded her.
“And stay under the surface,” I added quickly, “We've only got a limited window and they'll be able to see you if you hit the top.”
“Granny said thanks for the F*^#in' advice about the G#@$%!*& eggs,” Grizzly sent back acerbically before signing off.
“Rabbit,” I called to our pilot, “Move a couple of your ships closer and place sensors at these coordinates, not too close to the mines but I want to get some telemetry if we can.”
Rabbit twitched again but silently sent the order and on screen, I watched our forces close in.
Our assets were meager but I thought we had a decent chance. We'd built our own submarines, albeit on a tiny scale because our ancient oft-patched and repaired factory couldn't build anything at the usual scale of combat craft, we were limited to about ten tons and usually built lighter to save materials.
We had a dozen
Sea Spider construction vehicles, if you ever watched SeaQuest DSV you probably have a decent idea what they looked like, a spherical pressure hull with five manipulator arms hanging underneath. They were unarmed and really couldn't mount weapons on them but each carried sensor equipment of various types for surveying potential build sites.
We also had six of
Sea Pony class subs, more conventionally shaped than the Sea Spiders. Each weighed twenty tons. While we meant them for construction purposes, our engineers had wisely designed the craft to be easily up armed, it carried a small cargo bay that could be swapped in easily to hold a mine dispenser, sensor dispenser, or mount a few torpedo launchers.
I had Pants patch me through to our sister on one of the
Sea Ponies. Friday was my rock. My particular family was called the Odd Quad, four different monster girl species from one iron womb, all four implanted with memories of a distant Earth before we'd been born. I was the manager and organizer, Pants was the pretty one, Blammo was the angry rebel girl; but Friday, ah she was the stable one. The reliable one. The only one with actual combat experience from the Old World, she led our space commando forces. Which would have to be underwater commando forces for now.
“Go ahead,” Friday told me calmly.
“Yeah, I want you to be our ace in the hole,” I told her. “Move your commandos to this position here, and wait for a good opportunity. I've marked the minefields on your map to avoid.”
She examined the track a moment. I think. Since she was wearing her armor, her face was basically a big mirrored blank space, kind of similar to old-school Cobra Commander's outfit. As a cyclops, she needed a wide field of vision.
“Better to position us here instead,” she finally told me, “This heavy outcropping will shield us from view and we should be hard to spot on their sensors.”
“'Kay, do that,” I agreed. I wasn't dumb enough to disagree with her on her own turf.
“Bear Ribs. . . what's your plan?” she asked softly before I could sign off.
It pained me to tell her the truth but I wasn't going to lie, “I haven't got much of one,” I admitted, “It's going to depend on what's in that DropShip. Hell, if I think we have a reasonable shot at it I'll give them our metals to make them go away. We don't have enough juice in the Sub's batteries for more than a week, we never planned them for a siege situation.”
Friday thought this over calmly for a moment, “Good,” she finally told me, “Don't over plan on too little information. And quit stressing, you've got bags under your eyes like Fester Addams,” she added.
I sputtered a little and Pants laughed at me. “I'm not-” I started but Pants interrupted.
“Oh you so are,” she countered, “You keep looking over the same map over and over again hoping for new information to appear and help you. It's the same reason you lose at poker so hard, when you have a bad hand you keep staring at your cards hoping the suits will change or something.”
I filed that tidbit away in hopes of fleecing Pants next time. I was actually halfway decent at poker, though I hated gambling for more than pennies. The problem was that Friday could see so well she'd pick up individual muscle twitches and gauge your heartbeat by the expansion of your blood vessels from twenty yards away, it was impossible to bluff her. Pants on the other hand was somehow so good at muscle control (not to mention using her ink and shape shifting to change the way her face looked) that she could bluff Friday. The only way to actually play with those two monsters was a strictly mathematical style that ignored everything but the odds.
At least I usually beat Blammo. She couldn't bluff them and she wasn't good enough at math to play the odds.
I hoped Blammo was okay. My other sister was nominally in charge of our 'mech forces, nominally because we had one actual working 'mech, a ancient
Spider, so she was in charge of. . . herself and a couple of understudies who would sub in if she was unavailable for some reason. She was somewhere in space along with our DropShips. I hadn't gotten any signal in days.
As the enemy dropship cleared the pale wispy cloud cover a couple of kilometers up, four of the Sea Spiders began to place mines at key locations while Grizzly's mermaids deployed from a pair of Sea Ponies and began placing their own charges, concentrating on the ramps we'd installed for easier deployment.
“Signal! We've totes got unencrypted message traffic!” Pants suddenly interrupted, very excited.
“What's the message?” I asked quickly, before Pants could start getting carried away.
“Patching it through!” Pants told me agreeably, and there was a brief burst of static.
A holographic image replaced my map, of a cold looking man with iron-gray hair, cropped close to the skin. Veins protruded from his temples and his eyes were icy blue and bored into my own. His eyes dipped down a moment, and he smirked at me slightly. I felt dirt realizing he'd undoubtedly undressed me with his eyes. I could almost feel amused if I wasn't weirded out, the camera would only show me from the chest up so he didn't realize he was perving on somebody with wings and a fifteen foot tail.
“I am Warlord Bryce of the Blood March Warriors,” He told me in a dull, gravelly voice, “We have come for our tribute. If you surrender now and turn over your cargo, I give you my personal guarantee none of you will be killed.”
Yeah, of course none of us would be skilled. Slaves were a valuable commodity, miners and sex slaves alike.
“Has anyone, ever, fallen for such a stupid offer?” I asked him, and his eyes narrowed at me, “We've been here for years, we know this planet and we know it's oceans. You're taking on a school of sharks in their own territory. Go away.”
“So be it,” He answered coldly, after taking a brief moment to control himself. I'd been hoping his overly Chuuni name and style meant he was a drama queen and I could make him angry enough to do something stupid but it looked like he had good self discipline. Such men were dangerous. “Before a day's gone past, I'll have you on your knees before me and you will eat those boastful words.”
Pants chuckled as she cut the signal, “Joke's on him,” she said cheerfully, “You don't have knees.”
“Yeah. . . that's the important thing,” I agreed as I pulled the map back up.
“Drone data incoming,” Rabbit sent back from her front console, “We've got ID on the dropship, it's a Lion class. Can't tell if it's Clan or not, moving the drone in closer-” Rabbit suddenly swore. “Drone lost, they're entering extreme weapons range,” she informed us, “Took them a couple of shots but that was still pretty impressive, these guys know what they're doing.”
“Alright, pull Grizzly out of there, we don't need them picking up the
Sea Spiders at this point,” I ordered, scanning over the map one last time. I sent a few commands and the groups began to pull back, forming a skirmish line far enough away from the front to avoid easy hits.
The
Lion came down on our landing pad on plumes of plasma, not quite centered and with a thump as it basically just fell the last meter. Steam rose off the waters and a few puddles boiled dry in an instant. The doors opened and I got a look at our enemy.
He deployed his 'mechs first. I wasn't quite sure why, when most of them wouldn't do much underwater. There was a
Hunchback, looking menacing with it's gigantic cannon sweeping over the waves, and next to it a Catapult. That was a bad combination, the Hunchback was murder at close range and the
Catapult was murder at long range, they neatly covered each other's weaknesses. A smaller
Clint emerged next. The rest were lightweights and mostly bugmechs, a
Thorn, two
Wasps, and a
Flea.
Behind this line I saw a row of techs emerge and hook up to our hydrogen tanks, stealing our fuel supply for his dropship. Bastards.
Then the vehicles began to emerge and I felt my mouth go dry. Two heavy trucks pulled out a pair of Mantis attack subs. Each one weighing fifty tons, a single Mantis had more firepower than our entire fleet together.
I'd vainly hoped they'd not have any submarines, very few of the warlords bothered because most of the time what they wanted to attack was on the surface. Hovercraft were much more common. That would have given us a fighting chance to use our 3D mobility. Now? I was wondering if that surrender option was still on the table.
I bit my lower lip as the trucks pulled our doom around and began to lower them. The
Thorn and the
Catapult Battlemechs moved towards the boat ramp as well. I paused at this oddity, and used one of the sensors floating on the surface to zoom in. Both 'mechs normally carried long range missile launchers, but the seals on them indicated they'd been replaced. . . with torpedo launchers. So we had more even problems than we thought. These guys knew how to fight underwater and brought the right equipment to do it.
“He's signaling us again,” Pants told me, way too cheerfully for the situation.
The holographic image of Warlord Bryce appeared again and gave me a smirk, “As you can see, you are hopelessly outmatched by my forces,” he told me just a touch pompously, “Out of the generosity of my heart, I will give you one last chance to survive. You can't hide forever, the ocean is receding and soon it will be dry. Surface all your vessels immediately and I will forgive your- What?”
“Booyah!” Pants cheered happily, and in the camera view the oceans suddenly boiled. Massive sprays of pink foam rose fifty yards into the air as the two submarines and battlemechs walked right into the densest part of the minefield. One
Manta settled on the bottom, the streams of bubbles coming from it's holed structure slowly ceased and it died. The other was intact but made it only a little further before it, too, sank to the bottom. The
Catapult lost a lower leg cleanly and fell on it's face, while the
Thorn somehow managed to avoid touching any mines at all and slipped through.
“Well. . . that worked better than I expected,” I said, suddenly feeling like I could win. “Warlord Bryce, I'll extend your generosity back to you, leave here now and I won't lift a finger to stop you. You can even keep the hydrogen you stole”
I could see the warlord's temples pulse as he ground his teeth but he still managed to keep his self control. “Oh, you think you've won with single a petty trick, cunt?” he asked me, taking on a droll tone again. “I have every advantage and you know it.”
On the second image, a barrage of lasers lashed out from his Dropship and suddenly our hydrogen tanks and fusion generator exploded into a blaze of plasma. There was even a tiny mushroom cloud for a few moments. I felt a pang of loss, we really needed the fuel for our own ships and we couldn't replace that generator easily, it was going to be a real bitch to handle fueling in the future. Maybe we could use the
Spider's power plant as a temporary power source, rebuild-
The Warlord spoke again, interrupting my thoughts, “I have many VTOLs at my disposal and in about ten hours the tide will expose your mining base. If you do not surrender I will simply bomb it to rubble and wait. You have no food supply, no fuel source, no backup. I wonder how many hours of supplies your tiny little tin cans hold?”
“We have a second signal on the same frequency,” Pants suddenly interrupted, “Still in space, probably their second DropShip.”
Pants did something to the communications gear and the image of the Warlord shrank down while a second appeared next to him. The newcomer was. . . probably the most evil looking man I've ever seen. Pencil mustache, goatee, devilish eyebrows, and twinkling eyes that suggested he found all our suffering deeply amusing. What I mean is, if this guy had appeared in a movie we'd all know he was the evil vizier planning to poison the king by the end of his first line.
“Really you two are a pair,” he said cheerfully. I wondered if he'd get along with Pants. “Destroying their infrastructure to force a surrender? Not nice at all. Of course I'm not a fan of a weapon as soulless as mines either, but one can't expect a group of civilian miners to obey the laws of Zelbringen in their little bath toys against an over sized star of 'mechs and vehicles, now can one? Hardly a fair match for any true warrior. Terrible to see the quality out here in the more uncivilized parts of space.”
Oh. Crap. Extra Crap. With a side order of 'We're all going to die.'
The Warlord had about the same reaction, his mouth opened in horror and he cut the channel instantly. The clanner's face filled my view.
“I am Star Captain Ulrich of Clan Nova Cat, who do I have the pleasure of addressing?” he asked me, eyes twinkling madly.
On the other view screen the Lion immediately began to lift off. They didn't even bother to retrieve most of their units. The bug mechs all made a mad dash for the doors as they closed but the
Hunchback was left standing impotently on the beach, alone, as the
Lion fled before the real predator in the system.
I turned my attention back to the clanner who was waiting patiently, “My name is Bear Ribs, nominally in charge of this operation. You have my thanks for driving those pirates off.”
“Think nothing of it,” he answered magnanimously, “I followed the omens here and they have led me to exactly what I need. Your defense of your territory was quite impressive considering what you had to work with.”
I was immediately on guard. I didn't know why he was buttering me up but clan warriors didn't complement anybody else on their fighting prowess unless there was something afoot.
“Thank. . . you,” I said uncertainly, “And how can I help you in return?” might as well get the pain over with.
“Oh I demand no help, no, though as I said, I followed a most fortunate omen here. As it happens, the Nova Cats recently gained control of a mostly-water territory and we need a bit of expertise in mining it's resources.”
“I see. We weren't planning on traveling that direction, I'd be glad to make up some kind of manual and make a trade with you. . .” I started, wondering how to get out of this.
The problem is, clanners hate GeneCaste. They're raised on stories of how we'll come to eat them if they're not good in their little sibko creches. We're their literal boogeyman. I really, really didn't want Ulrich getting a look at my wings and loading up his guns for bear. . . ribs.
“Oh,” he said, seeming to find something deeply amusing in that, “You should have met a Diamond Shark for that. No, the expertise of a few practice bouts with you will help my warriors out as well. I challenge you to a Trial of Possession for your submarine blueprints and manufacturing secrets. Against them I wager, let us see, ah, a set of star maps acquired from a Goliath Scorpion Seeker, useful for navigating this region of space.”
Oh. Double crap.
I spent a moment concentrating. Fortunately I've lived through a great many emergencies and one thing I don't do is panic in a pinch. I usually fall apart after instead.
“I see, but I'm somewhat unfamiliar with your clan's policies and honor code. Would you consider sending me a few documents and giving me a little time to read them over, so that I don't accidentally violate your zelbringen?” I prevaricated.
He seemed to find this deeply amusing, nearly laughing before responding, “Certainly, my ship will be landed and unloaded in. . .” there was a pause as he spoke to somebody outside the holorecorder's range, “about an hour and a half. I trust by then you'll be prepared to make a reasonable bid?”
“Sure,” I answered with a certainty I didn't feel, “I'm sure we can manage.”
His face vanished with an evil looking smile and we pinged receiving a file which I didn't bother to open.
“Okay, so, like, you totes know the clan customs just fine, we all do,” Pants began, “What was that all about?”
“Buying enough time to get the word out and make sure we're set up,” I answered, “And getting a chance to talk to the others so we all have a plan in mind and work together.”
“Um. . .” Pants started in.
“Just get Friday and Grizzly on the phone, please,” I interrupted while Pants was still doing whatever passed for thinking in her head, “And Rabbit, send a
Sea Spider to this point,” I told her, marking the position.
While the Sea Spider was on the move I got the platoon heads on the line, Rabbit, Grizzly, and Friday split three ways on the holoview.
“Okay,” I began, “We've got maybe a touch over an hour before the clanners arrive and I have to answer their challenge,” I started. “I have a sort-of plan put together but I want your input before we move forward further.”
“We're the F*^#in' challenged party,” Grizzly's promptly spoke up, “We get the F$%&in' choice of contests under their stupid A$# rules, pick some B&*^S&#@ like a video game and we win.”
I paused just a moment to see who'd answer that staggeringly bad idea.
“I disagree,” I finally said when it was clear nobody else would, “Clanners can be notoriously sore losers and this guy's come an easy hundred light years outside his clan's normal stomping grounds, he won't want to do that and just walk away empty handed. I don't want to antagonize him any more than we have to.”
“Good thinking,” Friday nodded thoughtfully, “”In addition, their star maps are of no real value to us so winning shouldn't be our primary goal. Our focus has to be on not getting caught, not winning a fight we don't need to.”
“Well F@^#, I hate losing,” Grizzly grumped.
“I don't really care myself,” Rabbit finally spoke up, “I just want us to get this done with as few casualties as possible, let's get all our sisters home alive.”
“Well said,” I agreed, and Friday nodded as well, “So here's my plan, first I need to know what troops we have available. Specifically, are there any mechwarrior trainees among us or are they all on the JumpShip?”
“Mostly because we need a 'mech, the clanners aren't going to be interested in fighting barely armed cargo subs, and they respect mechwarriors above all others.”
“Fish was one of Blammo's trainees, she's in one of the
Sea Ponies,” Rabbit answered me, “She's halfway decent, good shot on missiles anyway.”
“But we don't have a 'mech for her to pilot, the
Spider's back on the JumpShip. . . if it's still intact,” Pants interrupted rudely.
“I don't know what you're talking about, we've got two 'mechs.” I told her with a cheerfulness I didn't feel, “We just have to figure out how to get the current pilots out.”
Pants followed my eyes as I marked two positions on the map, ID'ing the
Hunchback still sitting on the beach, and the
Thorn just a bit further into the water looking lost and alone. Pants was mumbling something from the side, but I ignored her.
“So. . . how's that going to work?” Rabbit finally asked after a moment.
“Well, first that
Sea Spider needs to surface over there and fire off some flares to draw it's attention,” I said, pointing to the one I'd sent away, “Then Friday's troops can ambush it from behind. A Hunchback doesn't have any anti-infantry gear. Friday, what are your odds of taking it from behind?”
“I'd say probably nine in ten we take it, maybe fifty fifty we don't lose anybody doing it. Depends on if they eject or not, if they do we might not be able to get the cockpit restored fast enough to fight.” Friday answered stolidly.
“Okay, all your girls are humanoid enough that they won't raise eyebrows in their armor?” I was pretty sure since we used the same space suit armor for them all but I didn't want to find out the hard way I'd missed one.
“Right, okay then, as soon as the commandos are in position signal the
Sea Spider to stage a distraction. Now, Rabbit,” I turned slightly, “The
Thorn is going to be trickier, it's tricked out with long-range torpedoes and if a sub gets anywhere near it we're going to lose a lot of good girls. I'm thinking-”
“Okay done,” Pants interrupted again.
“What's done?” I asked dumbly.
“The
Thorn, she's surrendered, I talked her into it,” Pants told me proudly.
“What the F%^&?” Grizzly asked, echoing the same thoughts we were all having.
“Okay. . . what terms did you offer?” I asked suspiciously, because I knew Pants. It was either going to be great or horrible, she never did anything by halves.
“I promised we wouldn't eat her.”
....
“What the hell did you say to her?” I asked.
“The F$%^& is wrong with her?” Grizzly spat while I was still speaking.
“I'm not sure how to respond to that,” Friday admitted at the same moment.
Sea Spider Construction Submarine
Mass: 10 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Motive Type: Naval (Submarine)
Rules Level: Advanced Rules
Era: Age of War/Star League
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/C-C-D-A
Production Year: 0
Cost: 160,400 C-Bills
Battle Value: 53
Power Plant: 10 Fuel Cell Engine
Cruise Speed: 32.4 km/h
Flanking Speed: 54.0 km/h
Armor: Commercial Armor
None
Manufacturer:
Primary Factory:
Communications System:
Targeting and Tracking System:
================================================================================
Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard 4 points 1.00
Engine: Fuel-Cell Engine 10 1.00
Cruise MP: 3
Flank MP: 5
Heat Sinks: Single Heat Sink 1 0.00
Control Equipment: 0.50
Lift Equipment: 1.00
Armor: Commercial Armor AV - 24 1.50
Armor
Factor
Front 6
Left/Right 6/6
Rear 6
================================================================================
Equipment Location Heat Spaces Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recon Camera FR 0 1 0.50
Searchlight FR 0 1 0.50
Lift Hoist FR 0 1 3.00
Cargo, Standard (0.5 tons) BD 0 1 0.50
Manipulator Arms (5) BD 0 1 0.50
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 1 Points: 1
3s 0 0 0 0 1 0 Structure: 0
Special Abilities: SRCH, ENE, EE
Quirks:
Ramshackle
Note: Armed Sea Spiders may replace the cargo hoist with an LRT-5 and 1 ton of ammunition.
Sea Pony Cargo Submarine
Mass: 25 tons
Tech Base: Inner Sphere
Motive Type: Naval (Submarine)
Rules Level: Advanced Rules
Era: Age of War/Star League
Tech Rating/Era Availability: D/C-C-D-A
Production Year: 0
Cost: 426,750 C-Bills
Battle Value: 112
Power Plant: 45 Fuel Cell Engine
Cruise Speed: 32.4 km/h
Flanking Speed: 54.0 km/h
Armor: Standard Armor
Armament:
None
Manufacturer:
Primary Factory:
Communications System:
Targeting and Tracking System:
================================================================================
Equipment Type Rating Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internal Structure: Standard 12 points 2.50
Engine: Fuel-Cell Engine 45 1.50
Cruise MP: 3
Flank MP: 5
Heat Sinks: Single Heat Sink 1 0.00
Control Equipment: 1.50
Lift Equipment: 2.50
Armor: Commercial Armor AV - 48 3.00
Armor
Factor
Front 12
Left/Right 12/12
Rear 12
================================================================================
Equipment Location Heat Spaces Mass
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lifeboat (Maritime) FR 0 0 1.00
Infantry Bay (5.0 tons) BD 0 1 5.00
Cargo, Standard (8.0 tons) BD 0 1 8.00
BattleForce Statistics
MV S (+0) M (+2) L (+4) E (+6) Wt. Ov Armor: 2 Points: 1
3s 0 0 0 0 1 0 Structure: 1
Special Abilities: ENE, EE
Quirks:
Ramshackle
Note: Armed Sea Pony Variants may sacrifice cargo space for an LRT-5 or SRT-2 and 1 ton of ammunition. One Sea Pony was built with a field kitchen in the cargo bay.
