[center][h2]Ziska[/h2][/center]
[hr]

Ziska frowned, what had been a wildly successful mission, was now verging on a disaster. Recon flights. Always recon flights. It occurred her for not the first time in her career as a professional mercenary, that air power was sorely underrated. Once, just once, she dreamed of fighting in the military command grown fat with BattleMechs, Combat Vehicles, and Aerospace fighters. She was tired of fighting on the losing side. She was tired of fighting on the poor side. She was tired of not having a lance of Assault BattleMechs ready to hot drop onto an enemy forces at a moment's notice.

[i]Next life, maybe[/i], she thought, not quite managing to smile. Maybe the Colonel could swing them a juicy Steiner contract. If they made it. It if they made it out of the battle. If they made it off planet. She'd always wanted to pilot an Assault Mech. Or steal one.

"Orders, Lance Leader?" Ziska said, fighting her natural inclination to react without hesitating, without overthinking, and without slowing down. Run or fight. Run or fight. Those were always the options. She preferred running, at least given the supplies they had just [i]liberated[/i], but they'd have to buy time for the transports. And they'd have to buy time for themselves. They needed to regroup, they needed to reorganize, and they needed to move. Together and fast. Souped up ECM would only do so much. All it took was one enemy aircraft to make it beyond the bubble, to get lucky, to send out a last desperate message. Even then, the happy times were over. Three dead VTOLs wouldn't go unnoticed. It wasn't going to be missed for very long that something was very, very wrong at Outpost F-10, no matter what they did now. 

Time was running out.

Ziska took stock. Her BattleMech was undamaged. The Guardian ECM was operating within expected parameters. Her cockpit was cool again, well cooler. Her SRM ammo count was still adequate, she hadn't had to waste any missiles on the enemy combat vehicles guarding the outpost. The rest of the Green Knights had been quick and brutal enough. Burnt ozone still lingered. The clean, pungent smell kicked off by her medium lasers as they scorched the air and then the armor of the enemy combat vehicles before the NPRDE troopers were bathed in fire and shrapnel.

The short battle for the outpost, if it could be called that, had been a slaughter. The best sort of battle, provided you were on the winning side, in Ziska's view. She had no interest in fair fights. It was why the incoming VTOLs offended her. It was why their mere existence rankled her. Now it might be their turn. Their turn to die outnumbered and outgunned. Their turn to burn. And their turn to curse their bad luck.

Recon meant more baddies. 

More baddies meant more problems. 

More problems meant more problems. 

And they were short of ammo, armor, and more than a couple of pilots for more problems.