Part 409: Combat Theater Vote 14 Results

Combat Theater Vote Results:
- Redacted Redacted Redacted wins Redacted Redacted (28 votes)
- Adrian McKenna still has a fair chance in her Trial of Position (21 votes)
- The Kalma-Youngblood Mercenary Company, LLC. (name pending) (16 votes) haven’t found anyone who meets their high standards
- King of the Pirates (16 votes) gets to stay on the books for a while
- Thomas Hogarth attended a dinner function and missed the Steel Viper delegation by minutes, There’s No Way I’ll Lose (10 votes)
- The Widowmakers and Goliath Scorpions haven’t managed to find each other yet in Maelstrom (4 votes)
- People actually voted to get nuked by the Taurians in Larsha under Seige (4 votes)
- No one wanted to dodge Orbital Strikes in A Falling Hammer (0 votes), or faff about with the Ice Hellions’ Harmless Rebellion (0 votes)



The briefing auditorium fell silent as the booming footfalls of something huge and unexpected shook the sheetrock walls. Prepared for the show, the old hands in the back just grinned silently to each other as the new inductees in the front rows shifted nervously in their seats. Although she’d been in this room three times over the course of her career Sarah still found herself smiling in wicked anticipation along with the others even as the rhythmic noise ceased almost as suddenly as it’d started.

Some idiot in the front row coughed.

Without warning, the front wall of the auditorium buckled as something huge and heavy forced its way through the sheet rock. The newbies in the front row practically fell out of their seats in a mad dash to escape while the veterans in the back simply laughed. It was a hazing ritual they’d all gone through themselves, and not one of the veterans had to move an inch when a voice boomed.

“Siddown, and shaddup!”

The massive suit of olive-drab power armor stood oblivious to the destruction it’d wrought on the wall. There were no supports there, no power conduits, and the reason for the high ceilings and bare concrete floors would’ve been brutally obvious even to the thickest of newbies. Those who had either managed to escape or who had spectacularly failed to stay in their seats scrambled for them again as the troopers in the back rows fell to sudden, amused silence.

“Ladies,” the speaker’s voice boomed. Sarah extended her right arm in an instant, her middle finger extended towards the man in full power armor. The battlesuit canted forward slightly, as though the speaker were respectfully bowing his head. “—and Sarah. Welcome or welcome back to the finest combined-arms division in the Rim Worlds Republic, the Minnesota Three-Thirty-First!”

Sarah’s voice rose with the other veterans in a combined cheer that might’ve rivaled a BattleMech’s autocannon in volume. Some of the denser newbies joined in a half-second too late and kept cheering a half-second too long, while the smart ones kept their traps shut. The BattleArmor stepped forward, towering over a man-sized podium that barely seemed to pass its knees.

“Returning veterans,” the speaker drawled, “You have no idea how proud and happy I am that you’ve decided to give us another opportunity to get you all killed. Newbies, you picked a bad time to join us. Normally we’d give you six months to get to know us before dropping The Revelation on your fool heads; but we simply don’t have the time. What I’m about to tell you leaves this room only over your bullet-riddled corpses, so if you feel you’re in over your heads or don’t think you can keep your traps shut,” the power armor twisted, its right arm smashing through still more sheet rock as though pointing at the massive hole the suit had made on entry. “Here’s the door. Get the fuck out.”

Sarah blinked, and leaned forward as their “faceless” instructor broke the script she’d been expecting. None of the newbies moved, they probably thought it’d been a joke. Her hand fell to the laser pistol on her hip and the faint ‘click’ of several dozen holster snaps being freed in unison still wasn’t enough to make any of the new meat bug out. The returning members of the 331st had grown deadly serious, anyone they caught talking would be quietly “washed out.”

“Your funeral,” the speaker finally said after several minutes silence. He turned back to the assembled audience. “The 331st isn’t just the most elite military unit in the New Rim Worlds Republic. We’re also the last survivors of Clan Wolverine. For those of you who don’t pay attention to the news coming from the Inner Sphere—and believe me, normally I’d be praising your good sense rather than calling you fucking stupid—the Clans are the invaders who are currently laying waste to large sections of the Lyran Commonwealth and Draconis Combine. What you don’t know is that they’re what Kerensky’s SLDF turned into after spending way too much time alone in deep space. They tried to kill us once, and they’re coming here to try to do it again.”

“Those of you who are more familiar with the score are probably wondering: If we’re also the Clans, don’t we hate Our Supreme and Glorious Leader, President Amaris?” Some of the newbies laughed, the speaker waited until the last awkward vestiges died away.

“We do.”

The BattleArmor twisted, as though the pilot was taking satisfaction in the shocked expressions on the faces in the front rows. “But,” he continued theatrically, “Amaris wasn’t the one who tried to kill every man, woman and child who just happened to be born a member of Clan Wolverine. They will do the same here, to any who just happened to be born under the flag of the New Rim World Republic. This is not news to those few of you who share our ancestry. For those we have just adopted, you have joined a warrior tradition born a thousand light years from the Inner Sphere. By joining us, you must give up your history, your past, and your families to join ours. You don’t have a last name anymore and if your name happens to match that of a living soldier? Tough shit, you’ll have to change it. We don’t care who you were. We don’t care what you’ve done, or to who. We only care that you are with us and that you protect those who don’t fight for the duration of your service. Once your service with us ends we’ll protect you any your future families with our lives for the rest of yours.”

“Now, most of you have served with the Republic’s military already so you know a little about us: we’re independent, and autonomous, and we choose where we fight, when, and how. When the Clans arrive, we will be fighting them. They’re the Snow Ravens. We’ve got history of the worst kind. They’ll show us no mercy and we’ll show them none in return. No prisoners will be taken under Clan terms—and Amaris agreed to this as well. The Clans call their prisoners “Bondsmen,” but they’re slaves. We aren’t Clan and we’re not going to humor them. We’re going to kill them.”

“And this,” He raised the BattleArmor’s right arm, and slammed it bodily into the armor-plated chest. “Is just one of the tools we have to do just that. This is Wolverine BattleArmor, the standard variant but we’ve got others and you’ll be familiarizing yourselves with all of them. Some of you may have experience with PowerArmor, most of you probably don’t. Whether you do or not, you newbies will be learning to pilot one of these from scratch because the Wolverine is like nothing you’ve experienced before.”

“You!” The speaker roared suddenly, pointing the Wolverine’s left arm at a young man in the front row. “You’re in battle armor, with your squad. How do you silently tell them to advance on an enemy position?”

The newcomer turned pale, “Uh—hand signals? Sir?”

“Wrong!” The man roared loudly enough that his own voice echoed for half a second. “For three reasons!”

“One!” The Wolverine crouched, and launched itself in the air with the power of its legs alone. It barely made half a meter, and when it landed it crushed the wooden podium it’d been standing behind. “The Wolverine isn’t fucking silent! You want silent, join the Royal Guard. You want really silent, you join the Blackguards or the Black Watch. You want stuff dead, you want a Wolverine.”

“Two! As anyone who’s been paying attention should’ve seen by now,” The Wolverine’s arms snapped upwards, its clawed thumb first moving up and down, then side to side. The other fingers didn’t budge, they were permanently affixed to the Wolverine’s arm. “The Wolverine doesn’t do fucking hand signals.”

“Three! You’ve got brains and radios. Use both, or you’re not going to last long. This is the only moment of rest you’ll get from now until the Clans get here. Some of you—possibly all of you—are going to die. Yes, we’re fighting to protect millions because if the Clans win they will bomb every Republic world to a cinder. But we’re also fighting to protect ourselves, and I would rather die fighting in a Wolverine than eke out an extra six months by cowering in a fallout bunker waiting to get nuked.”

The Wolverine clapped its clawed hands together. “Now, I hope you’re all learn quickly because in three weeks we’re going to be taking you all up into space to see if you can handle the space-ops version of this monster. If any of you are prone to motion sickness you’d better tell me ASAP because the only thing worse than doing S&R for a drifting space trooper is having to hose the vomit out of the armor afterwards. There’s no stigma if you can’t cut it, some people just can’t handle fighting in null-g and it’s better to learn that now. Ideally I want every single one of you checked out for space operations, because our training program is going to be very specialized: by the time your training’s finished you’ll be able to assault a McKenna BattleShip in your sleep.”



********************



Their instructor’s Cicada didn’t quite pace, instead walking forward and reversing with such a smooth motion that it would’ve been difficult for a person who’d never seen a Cicada before to tell which end was the front. It didn’t help that the machine’s upper torso had twisted as far as the servos would allow, to enable the pilot to stare at the line of six waiting `Mechs assembled before it. It continued its motion in silence for a few minutes, as though waiting to see if anyone was foolish enough to speak or break ranks unprompted. All six machines stood smartly at attention.

Apparently satisfied, it stopped mid-backpedal and twisted on its ankles in a motion that Cadet Silas would’ve thought impossible only months before. The Cicada’s torso twisted back and forth one last time, as if checking to see if anyone had relaxed, and then the pilot spoke.

“Welcome to your Trial by Fire, Cadets,” It was a voice Silas didn’t think he’d ever heard before; but the electronic distortion used to remove any trace of gender made that impossible to tell. Their instructor had never piloted a Cicada before, and today’s training exercise seemed like it was supposed to be something out of the ordinary.

“I am The Watcher,” their observer continued in clipped, formalized speech. “I am Judge and Jury. It is I who decide whether or not you are worthy to join the 331st. There is no shame if you fail. Failure is a learning experience and can be overcome with hard work. You may be allowed to try again. We have watched you, these past six months. We know you can pilot a BattleMech. Your instructor says you are ready to advance to the next stage of training. We have our doubts. We don’t know if you can truly fight.”

“The inhibitors on your `Mechs have been released,” Silas swallowed at the implications. At The Watcher’s words, a secondary monitor that had displayed nothing for so long Silas had grown convinced was malfunctioning sprang to life as his `Mech’s battle computer began processing data from five unknown sources. Hovering crosshairs appeared in his peripheral vision, on lines drawn straight into the earth that let Silas see precisely what each of his lancemates was targeting.

“Your machines have live ammunition. Today’s exercise is be live fire. You will be fighting live opponents. If a `Mech signals surrender it is no longer a valid target. You may chose to surrender at any time, either individually or as a group. You are six in number, your opponents are eight. You are piloting Mk. VIII machines: the most advanced the New Rim World Republic has to offer. Your opponents will have nothing above a Mk. VI. You can survive a single direct hit to the canopy from every weapon in their arsenal save one, in use by the enemy commander. Respect your enemy’s capabilities and do not get shot in the head. The same cannot be said in return, so do not shoot your opponents in the head on pain of inquest and possible Expulsion. Questions?”

Silas thumbed his transmitter, but the red light that showed he wasn’t broadcasting didn’t even flicker.

The Cicada twisted again. “Good. You will be allowed to choose your objective for this mission. Complete this objective and prove to us that you know how to fight.”



Trial by Fire Mission Objective Vote:
A) Defeat All Enemy `Mechs
B) Destroy Supply Depot
C) Recover POWs
D) Capture Enemy Commander
E) Smash & Grab Raid



The McKenna Simulation

(This is the mission that may not work, if it doesn’t we’ll just scrap it right away)

Trial by Fire




Unit Lists






Mechwarriors
Z the IVth
Great Beer
JT Jag
Paingod556
Saint Celestine
Cloud Potato

Alternates
OptimusShr
Voyager I
Quornes
Tank Boy Ken
apostateCourier
Lord Koth