Athol

The Coffee Shop of Whiteboroughs University

^@QueenNugget

She couldn’t help but laugh as Matina finally realized what she should have been doing, and then charging off in that direction with all her normal hyperactivity. Finishing up a last bit of shading on the piece she was working on, Fara shook her head when Matina tried to Shanghi her into baking as well. ”Thanks, but I think I’ll hang out here,” She said, flipping pages to another drawing. ”One of us should watch the counter while the rest of you trash the kitchen.”

Yawning slightly, Fara turned around and rummaged in one of the cupboards and came out with a small electric kettle. Once it was full of water and heating, she prepped herself a small teapot. Sure the cafe had a self-filling carafe that was full of very hot water that they used for customer’s tea, but she was of the firm opinion that making tea without using boiling water was positively barbaric.

While she waited for the water to boil, she began to go over the current drawing before her. It was a full body shot of the same character as the bust she’d been touching up before. Her clothing was a mishmash of cloth, leather and metal, decorated with odds and ends; everything from a series of broken watches, to a few dolls heads and a severed hand. Around the picture were notes on what colours things should be, the type of person this woman was and comments on gear that Fara hadn’t shown in the image. At the top of the page it was titled ‘Raider Queen Farahnaz’.

Metro themed RP

As @FoxFire said, what about London? Big metro system to work with, with the potential for fuckery that may lead to trying to cross the Chunnel

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

As the two infiltrators made their way inside, Gerad did a few last minute checks on the tank and made a rather useful discovery. Buried behind a rather poor repair committed by the previous owners, he found a storage port that contained a remote command console; after doing a quick self-test, it appeared to still function, so he gave it to Sven, so he could still use the tank without have to be in such a massive target. While a Chimera was a tough nut, there was certainly enough dug in firepower to pose a real threat to it.

”Roight den clanker,” He said, finishing the rundown by pointing out a large button under a safety cover. ”Las’ t’ing. Dat’s th’ demo charge, pop dat an’ watch th’ glow…my t’ink bein’ when th’ attack ‘fails’, an’ assumin’ the tanks no skragged yet, ye fake it goin’ down, let ‘em swarm past den….” He made a clicking sound with his tongue while smiling. ” ‘tween skragged comms an’ a glassed front door, th’y ‘ll be good an’ buggered.”

---

With the attack commencing, Gerad concentrated on drawing as much fire his way as possible. Lancing the dung in infantry with laser fire, he volleyed plasma at what power armour and tanks he could see. As return fire howled back, he took shelter behind his barrier and shields, while his armour’s onboard ECM suite did its best to scramble any hostile targeting systems.

Staying as mobile as possible, he also did his best to keep away from his teammates and the Resistance fighters as they were all so much more fragile than he was and he was drawing a lot of fire. His defences and armour seemed to be holding, and at least for the moment, the power armour troops and tanks seemed to be holding back for which he was rather thankful. Rock drop woulds been so much simpler…

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

Gerad took in the defensive position they needed to get inside, read the intel reports from the Resistance; all in all it looked pretty grim. Well dug in light infantry with heavy infantry support, armour and fire support. With the size of the towers, the OpFor had long sight-lines to spot any massing of troops for an assault and call down mortars, and the approaches to the towers proper where very exposed and covered by over-lapping emplaced weapons.

A Militia assault would’ve involved limited kinetic strikes from low orbit, followed by massed volleys of PRP fire as several cohorts of Militia troopers advanced from several directions, using sheer numbers and armour to force through the kill zones. The garundin mindset would accept the inevitable casualty numbers that no modern humans would.

He ran a few thoughts through his head while Silas called for ideas, eventually deciding to bring up two. He greatly favoured the first one though he had little hope that anyone else would appreciate the simplicity and practicality; the other one was actually sounding like a variation of what Ducaelia was suggesting, just from the other side of things. ”Got two knockres f’r ya Boss Man, though don’t think y’ll do th’ sharpish an’ go wit’ th’ firs’ one.” Grabbing a piece of dislodged reinforcing bar from the rubble, he used it as a marker to sketch out his plan as he talked.
”Firs’. We leave th’ tank here and skarper back t’ th’ End and make a hard burn f’r th’ local rock belt. We snag a couple o’ rocks ‘bout th’ size of a big hab block an’ then come back. On our way in we till the Rebs t’ make as big a clanger as th’y c’n and make th’ Lasminee lot hunker up; as we get to low orbit or high atmo, tell the Rebs t’ leg it as we drop th’ rocks. Firs’ rock is f’r th’ DefGuns, they skrag Rock One but Rock Two’ll be ‘ard up it’s shitter an’ th’y won’t ‘ave time t’ skrag it to. We c’n be of lookin’ f’r th’ las’ two ‘fore sundown.”

He looked about to make sure the other were still listening before he scrubbed out the sketch he’d made on the floor with his foot. ”But since you ‘umans always gotta do t’ings th’ ‘ard way, we got number two.” The tone of his voice made it clear which option he was in favour of. ”Like th’ clankie said, she an’ Cyen go in all knify-shiv-dark, play merry scrags t’ their gear an’ hopefully slip in and nap the target. Outside, I tie th’ tank t’ me for off-’and control and th’ rest of us lot, Rebs too, kick th’ front door. Tankie plays bait an’ takes th’ hits f’r us…let ‘m break their own toys while we push ‘ard. Once th’ sneakies give th’ call th’y Lasminee we fall back, let ‘m t’ink we don’ got th’ nerve t’ push t’ win.”

The Coffee Shop of Whiteboroughs University

Fara could only roll her eyes and chuckle softly in amusement as April took over. Between April and Matina, those two seemed to have enough energy for the rest of the staff combined, so she wished Amelia luck as she watched the pair disappear into the kitchen. With that bit of ‘excitement’ now over, she began to poke about behind the counter once more, looking for things that needed cleaning or stocking, though the previous shift seemed to have at least gotten that part right, so there was little to do.

The sound of the door opening once more caught her ear and she looked up, actually hoping for a customer for once, only to see another pair of stragglers coming in. Giving the two boys a small wave, she finished what little ‘make work’ cleaning she’d found and smiled; now that she’d been (nominally) productive for a bit, she didn’t feel so bad about slacking off. Ducking into the backroom for a moment, she popped open her bag and retrieved a small sketchbook and a mechanical pencil. She had much nicer, and pricier, art supplies and paper for her assignments and ‘professional’ work; the ‘back-to-school-special’ stuff she had on hand was more for her own amusement during slow times. Heading back out front, she set herself in an out of the way spot and opened her book.

Flipping through several pages of random sketches, she came to a piece she’d been working on for a few days now. The picture was a 3/4 bust of woman that looked very much like Fara, except for the ‘minor’ detail that the image was of a much ‘wilder’ person. The left side of her face was heavily scarred and a crude looking eyepatch covered her left eye. Her hair was long and braided, with small items woven into the braids; there was a small note beside the picture listing pistol shell casings, finger bones and beads as the items. What clothing that was visible was frayed and obviously many times repaired. Pencil in hand, she began working on a bit of shading and refining a few details around the figure’s collar.

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

Gerad

”Vairyo, A O/A Hom Va Ya Ray/Vairyo, A Ray/Jerhume Brunnen G” Tinkering with the blasted lift engine, Gerad inflicted move bodily harm to the machine as he cannibalized parts from its cross-hull counterpart; normally such a thing would have seriously upset him on a professional level, but it’s not like they were going to be taking the Chimera with them when they left.

While he worked, he tapped back into the weapons systems and did a bit more tinkering with the main gun’s OS. What he’d uploaded was still not great for what it was trying to do, but he made a few tweaks and cut out a couple of features to try and simplify the process, leaving the computer to run an update while he fiddled with the mechanical bits.
-
All-in-all, it was a success. The repair worked, to a point, and the gun was stabilized to reduce the risk of killing the driver/anyone near it. Before him was a small collection of odds and ends he’d stripped out of the tank, and after peering over them he had an idea; a rather loud part of his brain said it was a bad idea because of Ducaelia’s seeming ‘instability’…but given her stealth capabilities and short range combat style, she was the logical choice. His armour had finished its self-repair cycle not long ago and stood amid the corroded remains of the technical that the nanites had scavenged for raw materials.

Now he went over and triggered the reload sequence for the PRP, catching the partially used capacitor as it was ejected. As he set to work on his idea, combining the capacitor, some tank parts and a few small nano-forge components, he heard Ducaelia call out for him. ” ’ang on clankie.” He called out. ”Gotta banger f’r ya, jus’ need t’ kit it up, an’ get m’ clank suit runnin’.” Shortly after, he finished his little project and clambered back into his armour, slotting his tools and the loot he’d picked up, into the drop pod Silas had called down. That sorted, he headed for the smaller vandrell.

”Oi clankie,” He said as he got over to her. ”Le’s crack th’ case an’ ‘ave a look!” As he spoke, his armour mounted combi-cutter un-limber and swing into a ‘ready’ state; however, before Ducaelia could really react, the combi retracted once more and Gerad let out a short ‘chuffing’ laugh. ”Jus’ pokin’ ya, c’mon.” Her size, relative to his, made picking her up a tad awkward, but especially in his armour, her weight was no issue. Bringing Ducaelia over, he propped her against the side of the tank, while he had a look at her servo.

” ‘s no bad.” He said after a moment, bringing his smaller tool equipped, secondary hands into play. ”Got a bit ‘a scoring on th’ socket an’ a slight burr, but ah c’n clean tha’ up sharpish.” With his left secondary hand on her hip, he watched though his helmet feed as a series of nano-scanners fed data to him from inside the joint. With his right, he brought a set of microscopic set of grinders and polishers that he then used to smooth the damaged parts. In short order he was done and stepped back. ”All riky-tik, an’ like I said;” He added, pulling out the capacitor, which now had a small metal plate on one side, a power supply and some other odds and sods attached to it. ”Got a banger f’r ya.”

”Sucker Charge,” He said as he handed it over, pointing to a single use switch on the side. ”Hit tha’ an’ th’ mag plate goes ‘ot an’ ‘ll stick t’ most metals; but do it sharpish as it’ll pop about 30 sec after y’ push it…I’m sure y’ c’n find a proper spot t’ use it.”

With all that done, he comm’d Sven. ”Hey clanker, got th’ tank patched. Lifte’ works but ‘ad t’ nick bits from its twin, so ‘s no wha’ she once was…but better th’n ‘fore; an’ did a prop fix on th’ big burner. May still over-load, bu now’ll jus’ skrag the turret an’ no’ th’ ‘hole unit.”

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@Arthanus I like to think the tank's systems handled the actual aiming...

Tales of the Crimson Legion - Galaxy at War

@Arthanus Good to hear from you again!

The Coffee Shop of Whiteboroughs University

^{@Joshua Tamashii@TickTock}

While the others nattered, Fara raised an eyebrow as Amelia pulled out a pen and paper as wrote a quick note. For a brief moment, she considered asking why, but easily quashed that idea as she was sure Amelia was as sick of answering the question as Fara was answering ‘So where are you from?’, as if someone of her complexion couldn’t possibly have been born in America.

”Don’t worry about it,” She said instead. ”It’s ‘Starbucks culture’ thing.” She added, throwing in a mock shudder for effect. Out of the corner on her eye she spotted April moving their way, with her typical dancer’s grace. Though she was quick to push it back down, her over active imagination did its best to add its own take on that. Fucking Hell Fara, spend sometime ‘finger painting’ before work… It was on occasions like this, she was glad her complexion made it easy to hide a blush. Things didn’t get a whole lot easier when April sidled up right beside her.

”Don’t tell her that,” She said, reining in her thoughts. ”And Randy doesn’t really count; he’s here so much, they should just make him a part of the staff.” She added, throwing a smirk his way. As for April’s last comment, all she could do was chuckle; those two probably spoke more than the rest of the shift. Trying to at least seem professional for the first part of her shift, Fara looked over at Matina and gave an amused sigh. ”Since Matina’s gone and gotten herself distracted as usual,” She said to April. ”Do you want to show Amelia the baking, or me?” She almost said, and with no innuendo intended, ‘or make it a threesome’, but fortunately her brains stopped that before it crossed her lips.

She was pretty sure she’d have spontaneously combusted due to sheer embarrassment if that had happened.

The Coffee Shop of Whiteboroughs University

Working away at cleaning still, she was grateful for the distraction as the probably intentional flirting between April and Matina was doing a number on her thanks to an annoyingly hyper libido and an artists imagination, and Ursula was not helping matters. Stupid pretty girls, stupid horniness, stupid…. “Ghaa!” She muttered, working the cloth into the corners.

Looking up, she saw Randall wink at her, which earned him an eye-roll. ”Barkin’ up the wrong tree there,” She smirked, tossing her cleaning cloth into the sink behind the counter after wiping her hands. ”Though, bear with me a sec on the drink.” Chuckling at Ursula’sl little dig, she made her way over to Jules and Amelia. ”I’ve got this,” She said as she walked up. If we wait for any of them to stop goofing off, we’ll have all graduated before Amelia learns anything here. She added motioning to her co-workers with smile.

Waving Amelia around the counter, she pulled a to go cup from the stack, showed Amelia how much far to fill it and add the sugar. ”This one is pretty simple and easy, much like Randy.” She said with a smirk, Randall had been a regular for long enough that she felt comfortable giving him a hard time now and again. ”There are a few things that are kind of trick, but most folks just want coffee, and we’re not some place like Starbucks, so everything is named with real words…that said if someone comes in with their ‘Venti’ crap, feel free to mock them. Most everyone else does.”