Ingrid looked through her cockpit's glass - it seemed as if a blueish cloud had settled directly onto her, tinted in strange ways by the visor on her neurohelm.  A layer of thick snow, maybe ten feet deep, lay on top of her [i]Ostroc[/i] and held it entirely within its cover.  She remembered seeing this view from her window before, though that was an accidental fall and not a thrown-together plan.  Not like she'd ever admit to falling on accident in this machine.  Every few seconds there'd be some faint thump as another part of the mountain's snowpack, or its unearthed stone fell down on top of her - her heart had stopped skipping a beat when this happened a minute or so ago.  If a second avalance were to occur on top of her, well, it'd have to do it fast.

Things were going to get considerably less tranquil in a few moments' time, either way.

At the base of the central peak, Ingrid's mech lay in wait for the trap she had devised.  The core of their forces had been assigned their positions back at safer ground - the northernmost ice bridge had been decided to be something that's only traversed when absolutely required, with Daschke urging caution here the most.  ([color=SteelBlue]"What's more expensive, all the shells you'll miss at range, or having to tow a 'mech out from a hundred-meter-deep canyon in the mountains?"[/color])  Their plan hinged on keeping the enemy as close as they could, and that meant blowing the southernmost bridge.

Would it be nice if, by a miracle, they were able to shoot it out from underneath the enemy?  Let them fall to their deaths?

Well, by Ingrid's standards, that would be a very ignoble death.  No, it wouldn't be nice.  However, it was still her plan.  The rest of the Green Knights had heard it all from her as they arrived, the distinct sound of Ingrid's saber rattling as it hung from her cockpit in the background of the transmission.  Lie in wait, blow the southern bridge, take shots at range.

The rest of the crew waited, hugging the mountain while shut down or kept hull-down with intent to give them as much lead time as possible.  If the Crimson Fists could cross the bridge before spotting them, everything would be going as smoothly, but she wasn't going to try and bank on the notion of keeping a lance of green-colored armor hidden in the white and black of the mountainside for long.  Family Man was given his go-ahead to try scaling the mountain, but to be ready to descend when need be - his long range weaponry wasn't bad, but he would be under-utilized from all the way up there.

She was going to have to be the ambushing force and the bait all in one.  They'd get close, cross in front of them, and with God willing, they wouldn't question the snow drift that lay right alongside their path.  Getting directly up in close quarters against the enemy wasn't at all safe, but who else would take this spot?  The rest of the Green Knights just weren't as sturdy.  Additionally, perhaps Ingrid was simply the most suicidal of the group.

A short burst of static preceded an update.  One more person would be joining them, not the Warhammer - potentially good if it was something more effective at close range...for the rest of the Knights.  Truth be told, there might not be much that's good to look forward to on her end of things.  Even the best possible outcome would mean a narrow win on her own right.

Something like fear was with her in the cockpit as she waited.  She couldn't do much more than keep staring at the snow in front of her, or uselessly click her saber in and out of its scabbard, or feel the odd way her weight was held in her seat as her [i]Ostroc[/i] was frozen in an awkard pose...

...though, her thought did drift to something.  She remembered something from long ago, in her days at the LCAF, that an elder statesman of a trainer said to her.  The man was in his sixties and he was still riding out in his [i]Griffin[/i] near-daily for exercises...

...anyway, what he said was that there was some degree of superstition needed to be a Mechwarrior.  Ingrid brushed off that kind of folklore, naturally, but they were already dealing with a miraculous bonding of man and machine.  Yhe pilot's mental state was its own influence on how well this connection worked.  Little anchors of hope would give them just a little more of an edge, and sometimes that's what you needed.  However, for all of those that he brought up as examples throughout the centuries, there was one he insisted was very real.

"Whatever you do, don't look at family photographs right before fighting commences.  You're just asking for it at that point, you hear me?"

Maybe Ingrid had forgotten those words or maybe she was intentionally telling narrative-induced fate to piss off, but she looked at a photo held in a crevasse of her cockpit.  It was a family photograph, yes, but her attention was focused on one face that remained held in a prison many kilometers from here...

She lingered on that face, but her ears remained alert.  All she'd have to wait on was the sound of approaching armor, getting as close to her position as possible...