[u][b]Outskirts of Nishir City
Tarin
Armed Mobile Mining Platform [i]Beauty Queen[/i][/b][/u]

[img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/001/294/291/large/kory-hubbell-mining-rig-final-2.jpg?1443806705[/img]

Cole wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here. He was a miner, same as his father, and his father’s father. What was he doing in the middle of a warzone? Why had he even signed up when the Confederacy of Independant Mining Unions started putting together a military branch? He itched at his respirator and wiped his brow as he pondered these familiar questions. It was hot today. Well, it was always hot on Tarin, but today was a real scorcher, and he was keeping watch on the AMMP’s foredeck, directly in the sun. The faint shimmering of the shields overhead did nothing to reduce the heat or the glare.
The shield generator was Conk tech, like the massive graser cannons mounted around the AMMP, like the graser rifle in Cole’s hands. The Conks had been generous with their weaponry, and their investment was turning the tide of the war. The Unions were winning, if you believed the broadcasts. Cole personally wasn’t so sure; the Guilds had repelled their assault on Nishir a few days ago easily enough. Of course, now that the Unions had sent along [i]Beauty Queen[/i], they probably wouldn’t be so lucky.

The AMMP rolled along at a sedate pace, surrounded by a horde of smaller vehicles, ranging from armed trucks to full on tanks. It had been surprisingly easy for the Unions to adapt some of Tarin’s factories to make tanks. They packed a punch thanks to their Conk graser main cannons, but they couldn’t take many hits with their locally made armor. They struggled against Fed MBTs, but were plenty capable of handling Guild tanks.

The AMMP abruptly accelerated, and a voice crackled in Cole’s ear; “Fed dropships incoming, look sharp.” Cole hefted his rifle and scanned the skies. There, coming in from orbit. He popped off a few shots in their direction, hoping for a lucky hit. Theoretically there was no limit to the range of his graser rifle, but in practice the beam would be far too attenuated to peirce the dropships’ shields at this range. The same was not true of the AMMP’s main weapons though, and they swivelled upwards and opened fire. Gamma rays, even focused into a coherent laser beam, were not visible to the human eye, so there was no sign of what blasted one of the incoming dropships to smithereens. The guns fired again, but only partially caught a second dropship, sending careening out of the sky rather than destroying it outright. The pilot was evidently a capable person, righting the dropship and bringing it down onto the sand relatively gently.

“Scuse me son,” a voice called from behind him. Cole turned and surpressed a flash of surprise. An Ishkaan had come up behind him, but he wasn’t wearing a respirator. A Conk. Cole hadn’t known there were any Conks aboard. The Conk was carrying a graser rifle identical to Cole’s own, which he raised to his shoulder and pointed at the crashed ship. As Cole watched, the first Fed stepped out of the relatively intact dropship. His head promptly exploded as the Conk fired. The Conk lowered his rifle. “Take a few potshots every now and then kid, that should keep them pinned down until we reach them.”
Cole nodded mutely, and obediently popped a few shots off at the dropship as the Conk turned away.