This week's prompts come from GTAE with 'extraordinary micromanagement' (which kind of got pushed back during writing) and Aguido Horatio Davis with 'if we try hard enough', giving us another continuation of the as-yet-unnamed mech war series. Enjoy!
Planning:
There was a joke among the Lancer Corps that, just how pets were said to look like their owners and couples tended to look like one another, so too did pilots look like their suit. Ngan had never really thought about it, but Lieutenants Raszack and Korioto certainly fit the part.
Yosef Raszack was a big man with Jovian heritage. Like the Kalkye mechs, he was tall and wide, dominating the briefing room with his presence like his Lancer did the others at the depot. There was another Kalkye here, but it was in pieces and its pilot was in the infirmary. He exercised religiously, his brown hair kept short and a trace of a beard starting to come in. His eyes were a hard green, a hue common to the ‘jat’ population – the Jovian Atmospheric colonists, who lived on sprawling skyhook stations in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere.
Saika Korioto was, like Ngan himself, a Uranian. The Uranus Collective was settled mostly from Asiatic peoples, refugees and survivors of the Lotus War, an unassuming name for one of Earth’s most horrific conflicts. The Neso pilot was small, just about four foot six. If you bedecked her in cotton garments and then dunked her in water, she might weight ninety pounds. Ngan had heard from the rumour mill that she was sensitive about her size and went out of her way to make it plain that she was an adult woman and not a child.
Both of them were, as he’d seen already, the sole survivors of their units. Raszack’s Thunderstrike squadron had been wiped out by an Alliance Lancer. His suit had been severely damaged and he’d only survived because the Knight had withdrawn when a nearby TPA battlegroup came under heavy attack and called for support. The Void Stalkers were tapped to scout and secure a pass through the Carpathian mountains for the OWCF. There’d been no sign of enemy activity in the area, so Korioto, sick with food poisoning at the time, had remained at the mouth of the passage while her comrades advanced. None of them returned. The passage had been a trap by the Alliance. A Knight had been laying in wait, hoping that the OWCF would send a convoy through, but it had taken a trio of scouting Lancers instead.
Both pilots had been introduced to Skye. Raszack had pointedly not shaken the voidborn’s hand. Korioto had hesitated, but done it and the friction hadn’t ended there. This wouldn’t be as easy as Ngan had hoped, but even he had to check himself around the veeb – and that he called her a veeb, even in his head was something he was also trying to work on. He didn’t have to like her kind, but he didn’t need to address her with a slur.
As the doors to the briefing room closed behind him, the commander took his seat near the forefront of the table. Skye was on his left. Raszack and Korioto were across the table. There were eleven functional suits here at Mishi-Khar, but twenty-three Lancer pilots. Fourteen of those pilots were under medical supervision and the remaining nine men and women were in this room along with Captains Blessich and Mulgrave. The former was in the chair at the head of the table, the later in a wheelchair beside him, still wearing his medical gown, but he looked as serious and intent as if this was any other briefing. Officially, Mulgrave was supposed to be in the infirmary. His Praxidike had been shot to pieces and the doctors had said he was more shrapnel than man now, but he’d been such a pain in the ass that they’d agreed to let him to attend this briefing.
As Ngan sat down, Blessich rose to his feet. “Thank you for coming,” he said to the pilots. “Now that we’re all here, we can begin. I know the topic of this briefing hasn’t been revealed, but there’s a reason for that. The information here is to be considered highly classified and its dissemination has been restricted to the people in this room. You are not to discuss it in front of anyone else. Your squadmates and fellow pilots will be briefed as necessary once they are cleared for combat duty.” He paused. “We know Mishi-Khar has been compromised by TPA assets,” he admitted. “Operations are underway to identify and neutralize them, but until you hear otherwise, assume the walls have ears.
“That being said,” he continued. “I do have some good news. You’ve all heard the rumour that we were able to take down an Alliance Lancer and some of you probably know more than that. For those that don’t, I’m happy to confirm that that is the case. Commander Sayavong and Lieutenant Skye,” he nodded towards Ngan and Andrea, “will be the first Lancer pilots to have a Knight kill marker.”
Some of the other pilots looked at Ngan and Skye with surprise. Others gave him a respectful nod. “I don’t have to tell you that this will be a significant boost to morale,” Blessich added. “The reputation of the Alliance Lancers as ‘invincible’ has been spreading throughout our forces and the losses they’ve inflicted have fundamentally altered the course of the war here on Earth. That loss will hopefully make them slow down the rate of their attacks, lest they lose someone else.” The small number of TPA Lancers was the only upside of the OWCF’s situation. They couldn’t be everywhere at once. Normally only one was committed to a single front, but if the Alliance started to worry about losing their wonder weapons...
“To that end, we’ve been analyzing the data from Commander Sayavong and Lieutenant Skye’s suits and comparing it to previous intelligence and... other information sources and believe we have a possible tactic. I and Captain Mulgrave,” he nodded at the wheelchair-bound officer, “have already reviewed this plan. We believe it has potential and have directed it up-chain for further study by command. In the meantime, as the European theater has at least four of the twelve known Knight chasses-”
“Three now,” one of the other pilots corrected jubilantly.
“Don’t get cocky,” Mulgrave snapped before Blessich could comment. “South America’s only got two of those bastards and we’ve nearly lost the entire continent. Asia’s got three and we’ve been pushed back to our landing sites in Japan. Three is plenty.”
“And we’ve received reports of other Lancer types operating in Africa and Oceania,” Blessich added. That got the room’s attention. “We don’t have any solid intel, but based on the information we do have, they’re smaller and less armoured than a Knight, but they carry the same kind of firepower. Losing a Knight won’t matter one bit if the Alliance just builds more units that we can’t counter.” That brought a sobering quiet to the room, heavier and more pregnant than the attentive silence before.
Blessich met the eyes of each pilot in turn. “We need more than answers. We need solutions to this problem and that’s why we’re here today, to listen to one of the two people who’ve actually managed to kill one of these machines.” He looked over to Ngan, then his eyes shifted to the albino woman and her dark eyes. “Lieutenant Skye,” he said, ceding the floor. “You may begin.”