Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH Part Eleven

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Eleven:

So, with the abrupt shutdown apparently a new intermittent issue (might have been CPU heatsink clog, might have been power lead, might be motherboard, might be PSU, only thing to do is keep using it a log time between failures).

First mission - max cash battle against the Taurians for the planetary government.

Same order as before: Lynessa in the Decapitator, Poppy in the Marauder Fair, Summer in the Phoenix Coil and Pseekie in the Shadow Punch.

The first opposition was two Ravens (why was anyone bothered about that one prototype again) and a Javelin, easily dealt with, considering they already had damaged armour. The enemy had reinforcement, but that was merely another Javelin, a Firestarter plus a Bulldog and Striker vehicle.

Next, a half-skull capture base for the pirates. It was such low pay and salvage, Lynessa decided to take next-to-bottom salvage and get the maximum reputation.

One Locust and a Commando, plus turrets.

There were only three pieces of salvage, total...

Next, a 1.5 skull battle against the Taurians for the planetary government. (Max cash again.)

Two Javelins, a Panther and a Flea, which the lance mostly just kicked to death.

Next! Half-skull pirate recovery mission. Max reputation and 1 off bottom cash.

Locust and a Commando, barely being noticed underfoot...

Next! First of two destroy base missions, this one for the Taurians against the Canopians for max cash...

Two Javelins, a Jenner and Panther and four turrets, too close to the mechs not to get in on the fight. While the enemy units went down easily enough, the inevitable did happen, and Summer took a head hit.

Still, the salvage was enough to make a new Jenner D (to be sold), which was an unexpected bonus.

Finally, a second destroy base for the planetary government against the Taurians, with Alarhan taking Summer's place in the Phoenix Coil.

A Locust, a Spider and two vehicles, plus four turrets.

There was something viscerally satisfying, Lynessa thought, about punching light mechs to death in the Decapitator...

"Darius, we now have 3.6 million cbills, will you stop moaning now."

"Commander, the mechwarriors needs trainin-awwwk!"

It took the combined efforts of the girls to pull Lynessa off him, though to be fair, they weren't trying very hard...

Alarhan upper her piloting to 7, so she'd get that extra +20% sprint. Summer max her piloting at 10, gaining an increase to defence as well. Pseekie upped her tactics from 5 to 7. Poppy raised her tactics to 9 for called shot mastery and her gunnery to 6. Lynessa maxed her tactics at 10.

Lynessa bought a +++Ac/20 from the store, since it was only 260k and they had some pennies spare. And then it was time to decide where to go next. But before they left, Lynessa finally found a new recruit: Shelat Valcoral, an althan and natural telepath. Shelat had some technical training, which would be useful.

The travel contracts went back in the wrong direction. Yang had a lead on something good (a 2.5-skull flashpoint), but it was 51 days away, right across the region and thus would cost the lance about 1.8 million just to get there (and it was a 3-skull world).

No, Lynessa decided, it was time to head to Tarragona.

The structural upgrades were finally completed! And that meant Gamma Pod could be added at a later date (at 2.25 million, while they could afford it, they also couldn't afford to add the most pressing Med Bay 3, a further 2.25 million). Lynessa elected in the meantime to have Farah build a hydroponic garden instead.

As they were leaving Tiverton, a mercenary captain called up, saying he'd heard Mechanic (Pseekie) was on the crew and that she was a criminal and not to be trusted.

"IT WAS A PARKING TICKET!" Pseekie shrieked. "Because the traffic warden had deliberately obscured the parking signs to catch people out so he could fill his quota, even!"

Lynessa scowled. Someone, somewhere was going to get a Stern Telling Off.

They arrived at Tarragona with no further incident.

They were contacted by the Draconis Combine liason Shugo Reynauld Yamaguchi (aka, for some reason Lynessa didn't get, "Bob Kurita;" Darius and Sumire seemed to find it hilarious, but the joke quite passed over the paladin's heads, which was quite impressive, since even Summer and Poppy were only short relative to the other paladin girls). He struck Lynessa as a sort of Kuritan Londo Mollari.

(And now every time anyone re-plays this mission you've going to read his lines in Peter Jurasik's voice.

"AAAAAH, Mister Oliveira!"

You're welcome.)

He'd brought them here because... he'd run out of wine?

Oh, no, they needed to rescue one Gaku Magorian of Tsubaki Salvageworks, who'd been captured by criminal syndicate. He was apparently a Bad, Horrid Man, but he was a Bad Horrid Man that Found A Thing that House Kurita rather wanted. Which was some sort unknown spacecraft in the Deep Periphery.

"ALIENS!" Second MechTechnican Rimmer shouted, but they all ignored him. (Politely, in the case of the paladins.)

So the paladins needed to go rescue him. Londo, sorry Shugo, had no idea of what the opposition was, that was down to the mechwarriors to go do there shooty thing.

(Crap, his dialogue really does work if you read in Londo's voice...!)

This was an important mission, so the best pilots would report in. Lynessa took the Decapitator, Mylassta the Fair Marauder, Alarhan the Phoenix Coil and Summer the Shadow Punch, except that Pseekie pouted so much Lynessa let her go instead. The rewards were a whole 6/27 salvage (WOW!)

The first job was to capture a forward base of the mysterious crime syndicate so that Farah could have good look through it to find where the good (sorry, the Bad, Horrid) captain was being held.

The was a lance of three mechs. A Hunckback 4G, an Assassin and a Vindicator. Lynessa held the lance back with the former approached and then moved in for a precise shot. She failed to head cap it, so Mylassta moved in with the Fair Marauder and...

Without even precision fire! Well, that was a turn-up for the books...

With a stunning return to form, the first enemy shot hit Alarhan in the head with a PPC.

Lynessa returned the favour with precision fire.

The Assassin went down quickly, as the enemy reinforcements arrived; a Commando, a Raven, a 4 Hunchback and a 7K Trebuchet.

The Raven made things slightly more difficult, but a sensor lock and shot in the back from Alarhan took it out. The 4P took a head hit, lost a torso and then the Shadow Punch and the Phoenix Coil knocked it over, taking out the pilot. Mylassta ran right up into the face of the Trebuchet and shot it in the head, but STILL managed to miss with the AC.

So Pseekie shot it with the Ultra AC, and Alarhan punched it, an Lynessa shot it in the head again (still not killing it, but blow up a torso) and the Mylassta kicked it and destroyed its leg and it fell over and the pilot was knocked out.

They captured the base, but then received a comm from Valentin "Il Rospo" Haas, who asked if they knew you they were messing with. Yang politely said they did not, actually, so maybe the nice gentleman could expound. Haas said they were with the Baumann Group.

There was a long pause.

"Er... Are we supposed to know who that is or something?" Pseekie asked.

"Notkor Baumann, you know, the-"

"We really don't," said Mylassta. "Buh-bye now." And they blocked the comms, cutting off the annoyed screech.

Farah then could look over the base at leisure.

Salvage was three parts 4G hunchback, three parts Vindicator (enough to finish it).

Captain Magorian was apparently in the ruins of New Vulci, being guarded by a "Zeta Lance" the Baumann's "fix-it-"detachment.

Apparently, this Notker Baumann runs the black market. And THIS appears to be where all the new weapons were coming from and presumably ultimately from this derelict. Except the COIL guns were not Star League weapons, so their origin was a complete mystery.

Pseekie increased her tactics to 8; Mylassta her piloting from 5 to 7.

So, time to hunt Zeta Lance. Summer took over the Phoenix Coil and they were ready to drop.

As they dropped in, Sumire picked up an odd blip in geosynchronous orbit. That wasn't ominous at all...

Zeta Lane seemed keen to attack the paladins, as it seemed the Baumanns weren't happy about not being famous or something.

As the lance approached Zeta Lance (a Griffin, Dragon and Jenner), Sumire picked up drop pods incoming - from a space station over three hundred years old disguised as space debris. That was unlikely to be good.

And the lance started to attack Zeta Lance, the drop pods landed, revealing shiny, undamaged drones - rather what Lynessa had expected, to be honest. Better mop up Zeta quick then!

Jenner down... (Summer got a lucky 30% hit that took its leg off, and it was doomed from there.)

That 35% head-hit from the Marauder's targeting was AMAZING!

OOF. And three head-hits from Lynessa's salvo, too!

(All without an blessings from Azurella! 'Bout time...)

The lance moved carefully to position...

This was what they were dealing with.

Lynessa was pretty sure it just shot a pulse laser at her.

The drones weren't too tough thought, and there were only two of them.

COIL-gun!

That wrapped it up for Zeta Lance. Farah, though was deeply concerned about there being a SLDF space station suddenly dropping drones as everyone was fighting over a derelict from beyond and Lynessa concurred. Londo, sorry, Shugo was not answering comms because he was drunk or something, and Sumire had picked up something else too.

Salvage was all six parts of the two mechs they took down (enough for a Griffon and half the next one) a ++LRM 10 and a bit of Jenner. Sadly, no Pulse Lasers, though, darn it.

Farah revealed that the SLDF station was pinging the Argo. Which was a bit disconcerting.

Lynessa didn't have any problems with talking to a 300-year old weapons platform; after all, some of her best (absent) students were magic robots or something, so she had Sumire put it through.

The comm screen showed a pretty landscape.

A pretty landscape that apparently has read the Azurella's Paladin's crew manifest.

'Kay... Well, Lynessa reflected, those aforementioned magic robot student-types DID treat their sensors not unreasonably like an additional sense, so this was hardly new territory...

It said it was SLDF_PT_CgvR, the last surviving product of something called Project Triage, which was authorised by some chap in 2765 and its nickname was any of Den Mother, Caregiver or Moderbjörn ("mother bear" in Swedish, apparently), so Lynessa was going to call it the first one, because it was easier to spell.

(And the game is using the one I have to copy-paste because... Actually I'm not even sure what the proper name for the punctuation marks is.))

"This is some of secret AI project, isn't it," Pseekie said, vibrating with excitement at a frequency usually reserved for Summer.

It basically apologised for shooting at the lance, but its objective was to protect the city, so it had to intercede.

"No harm done," Lynessa said and the paladins all nodded or make general noises of agreement, except Pseekie who was bouncing up and down in place an making a sort of high-pitched squealing noise.

Moderbjörn had been guiding the derelict to Tarragona for 50 years, but right before it arrived, some nasty tea-leaf nicked it and it - no, Lynessa decided, it was CLEARLY a "she," (this had nothing at all to do with the fact that the number of gentleman paladins of Azurella over the centuries being countable of the fingers of one hand biasing her in any way[1]) - needed the ship (the Dobrev) back.

[1]Strictly speaking, the Paladins of Azurella were just one (albeit the favourite) of the orders of paladins serving Azurella and they were a bit special-like. The other paladins and clerics and such of Azurella had a much more typical sex/gender mix. So you could be a palafin of Azurella without being a Paladin of Azurella, if you follow.

Lynessa was all for helping, but had a few questions, like what Moderbjörn was.

Turned out that the CgvR stations were supposed to be for disaster relief, the idea being they' be put everywhere and would be able to be brought online if something went badly pear-shaped, to work out what could be done to preserve the survivors until the Star League could arrive.

Moderbjörn seemed a bit sad that she'd failed, since New Vulci was all dead and stuff. She couldn't protect them, and no-on came when she called for help.

(Lynessa had a feeling, though, 2765 was when the Star League went all pear-shaped.)

Moderbjörn said she wasn't. like, a proper AI or something (Lynessa quietly thought that they could probably do something about that if true, and it was very rude of the Star League to tell her otherwise if it wasn't.)

Moderbjörn was willing to send support drone to help in exchange for access to the Baumann group's computers.

"Pssh, we'd have given that if you just asked, so Heavens, yes!" Mylassta said, Lynessa nodding in agreement. "Paladins, y'know?"

So, Moderbjörn's drone could either distract the enemy while a light lance snuck into the rescue the captain, or rescue the captain the paladin used a heavy lance to "distract" the enemy and there was no question which one was happening, was there?

"Heavy distraction coming up," whooped Summer.

Lynessa paused only long enough to up her guts to 9, for another boost to her overheat threshold and they were ready to distract the Baumann Group until they died from it.

The first defenders were a hapless Locust and an easily-dealt with Dragon.

OH! A Rifleman! They'd be having that, ta!

Heh. They would! Mylassta was getting really good at this!

"It occurs to me girls, we probably ought to have brought something with long-range missiles..."

Uh oh, Notkor Baumann appeared. Oh, he just wanted to look Lynessa in the eye before he sent his kill-lance after them, what a silly.

A hunter-killer lance consisting of a Javelin, a Flea, a Spider and a Panther.

"♫Iiii'm a punchin' all the light mechs,
All the live-long day...♫"

Needless to say, that enemy lance did not last long, and the armoury and its turrets were soon dealt with. Mr Baumann seemed to have Done A Scarper, however.

Lots of salvage (including three Rifleman parts, another Dragon part to finish one off, and a nice ++ Larger laser.)

Moderbjörn got her data and Shugo, I mean Londo (no, wait) got his captain.

Moderbjörn, meanwhile, had analysed the records. The derelict Dobrev had indeed drifted in from outside known space, crew long-killed by a misjump.

"Sorry, Mr Rimmer, not aliens," Poppy whispered apologetically.

No, Moderbjörn believed that the Dobrev was part of the Exodus of General Kerensky.

"Woah," said Alarhan, impressed.

Moderbjörn wanted - had to - report her failure to SLDF command, which meant she needed the Dobrev to track back where they might have gone.

Sumire was sceptical, Farah thought the idea of an advanced civilisation formed from the enlightened remnants of the Star League would be wonderful - all the things they could teach the barbaric inner Sphere.

All the paladins turned to look into the hard camera.

So, all they had to do was take Moderbjörn's core off the station and take it to the Dobrev (which had a functional, if knackered, K-T drive after all. Moderbjörn said they could have the drones as well, which suited the lance fine!

That was all they could do for the moment, until Darius had found a lead.

they got a few nice pieces of gear, the best of which was a Target Tracking System for +3 to ballistics! Neat!

Sadly, none of the three new mechs had really anything to particularly recommend them, all being fasts, when what the lance really needed was something a bit slower but would have lots of space and tonnage for missiles. So they all went to storage.

All the contracts save one were against the Magistracy of Canopus, and while they were in positive reputation, it would soon tank below that if they were to do all those missions.

So, with a LOT of pennies in the kitty, Lynessa decided they do the one base defence mission for the pirates against the local government, then pop off somewhere else.

Same line-up, it seemed to be working...

The enemy vanguard consisted of a Jenner, Locust, Phoenix Hawk and 7K Trebuchet.

Luck was not with the lance as they dealt with the vanguard - and the reinforcements from the other direction were a Javelin, a Spider, a Griffin and a 70-ton Grasshopper!

It was close. The enemy destroyed one building (5 of 6 the lance had to protect) before the enemy could be engaged. Mylassta managed to head-shot the Grasshopper, and the rest went down without too much damage.

The salvage was enough to complete a Trebuchet and Spider, which could be sold off.

So. There was five million in the kitty. It was time to head up towards Yang's flashpoint, all the way up at Electra. A 29-day trip would take them to the 2-skull black market planet of Pyrrhus; that would give them a good place to stop, get some cash back and a little bit of leeway to reach the other half of the trip (the flashpoint expired in 99 days). Also, it was a bit of a change of scenery!

For once, there wasn't a lot of work to do on mechs - just replacing some of the lasers on the Decapitator for improved version (another +5 damage +ML, and a +LL and ++LL).

The hydroponic garden was completed, so Lynessa elected to spend the cash on getting Gamma Pod underway - she really wanted that Med Bay 3!

Payday:

Lynessa kept the higher salaries for everyone.

In a surprisingly short time, the hydroponics garden had produced a wealth of new crops! Time for a garden party!

Everyone stuffed themselves with fruit or vegetables or both as they liked, and they'd even got some medicinal herbs as well. Everyone went away very happy and contented.

Shortly thereafter, they arrived at Pyrrhus.

There were a few nice bits in the black market. Most of the missions were against the pirates, but that was why they'd built the rep up a bit, so they had some latitude. There were a few nice short battle missions, but...

Was it going to be worth having to be so selective in the pirate battles just to keep the black market price down...?

It was coming to the point Lynessa was going to have to pick sides, rather than try and please everyone. The Magistracy of Canopus was an obvious once, since they thought in much the same way, but...

We will leave her ruminating for today!

Well, as of writing at the moment, no shutdowns for 12 hours, so that's something? I think MAYBE the fans don't sound like they're running so hard, potentially, too. We shall see...