[center][b][h2][color=f26522]Jonathan McCord[/color][/h2][/b][/center]

When they were permitted to lower their hands, Jon tucked his back in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. The pack of cigarettes was still missing and he glanced around for the little bastard that had taken them while Cassandra talked. She was in her element: Center of attention and a completely captive audience. Looking at the conditions, they truly had no choice but to accept whatever she was going to offer and from what he had witnessed of her regular business dealings, she would be squeezing the turnip for every ounce of juice possible. It didn’t matter that there was a war on, [i]business was business[/i]. Standing next to her he returned the steady look of the Colonel, watching the way he walked and particularly the stiff nature of his left arm. Beyond that, the cave was a fanfare of makeshift mechbays, scattered equipment and a cacophony of smells that pulled and drifted towards the numerous ventilation shafts once used for the heavy equipment of the mine. He thought about the offer from the Crimson Fists then the rumors of the raid that bled through the grapevine of fighting men to Nui Awa. A Phoenix and Shadow Hawk, an Ostroc- something he’d never seen before, an Archer and a Raven, just like he had heard. His eyes shifted further, catching a glimpse of the turret of a Von Luckner tank around a bend in the cave, confirming his suspicions on the trail. All faced the Fists’ Longbow, Wolfhound, Raven and Jenner while protecting a convoy of unarmored transports. On paper it was a fairly even match given the conditions of battle, but he’d heard how they’d managed to still rout the Fists and escape. For a brief moment, he played out how he would’ve done it and his eyes zeroed in where he would have placed precision salvos across joints, hardware and cockpits. Where he would have set the ambush to kill them in one pass.   

A crowd was forming and he looked over the assembly in the same way as he’d looked over the equipment. Not many had the same look as the Colonel or Sergeant Dalton. Uncertainty dominated. Then there was ample amounts of fear and fatigue. With the portable reactor and the medical tent they liberated, there was at least some measure of creature comfort restored, however it was an operation on borrowed time. There were even children roaming about. He let out a small breath of unease at the sight of them. The Fists would eventually find this place. Even though the mines were a maze of tunnels and connections, the process of elimination would eventually tilt the math in favor of the hunters. He was glad he stayed with Cassandra. Marching women and children off to Fort Tie Shan was not something he could have kept on his conscience. That place had its own set of rumors. He thought about a clear shot at the cockpit of a Battlemaster or a Longbow, the glint of sunlight off the tinted canopy, the muzzle flash over his shoulder and the hot-white hatred that shrieked out of armored gauntlets. 


A cigarette would be nice.