@Treue Edited sheet, sorry, forgot about the one gun. The knife is simple Tube made affair, more intended as a took; if she finds she needs a melee weapon she prefers the crowbar.
Surprisingly positive considering both her life pre-war and what she’s encountered afterwards, she still tries to hold others at a distance. She has a soft spot for the ‘Little Guy’ and despite her early actions in life, she loathes bandits with a passion.
Backstory
Life stacked the deck against her pretty much from the get go. The daughter of a junkie and whomever she’d fucked to pay for her next fix, Harper was a ward of the child welfare services from an early age. Ending being ‘fostered’ in one of London’s poorer boroughs, she quickly fell in with one of the interminable youth gangs as she entered the school system; by fifteen she’d been in youth detention centers twice (vandalism and robbery) and was what the media would call ‘Known to Police’. All in all her life was looking like it was to wind up a big nothing.
By the time she was eighteen, she’d been locked up a further three times and gotten out just six months before her eighteenth birthday when the world died. She was on a train, about halfway through her intended journey, when the bombs hit; the following several months are a bit of a blur, but the key notes where that she actually found a few of her ‘friends’ and some of their associates, and with this core group, they took to old habits. Bullying and harassing any solo travelers or small enough groups, they became bandits, doing whatever it took to survive. This lasted for several years, where they both gained and lost members, and Harper would have probably stayed in that life, sacrificing slivers of her humanity to survive, had she not returned to the camp one day to find they’d been attacked while she was off trading with a nearby independent station.
From what she could tell, her small group had been overwhelmed by a larger crew of bandits, who’d slaughtered everyone before looting as much as they could carry. She mourned her companions and scavenged what little there still was of value before beginning the long trek back to the station she’d last been at. As she grieved, the loss of her friends eventually made her realize that to survive they all had to work together, rather then preying on one another. From there, she started helping the small group living at Highams Park station build and gather what was needed and when necessary defend from attack. In the years since, she’s taken to travelling the Tube, offering assistance to Independent, Westminster or Commons stations that wish to hire her; that said, she utterly refuses to have any dealings with Lords stations.
Her heavy use of pre-war police gear stems from the fact that several years ago during a solo surface excursion, she found a mostly intact police van full of gear. It took several trips to get all of the worthwhile gear out, and from that she was able barter for some rather valuable items like her light, Geiger counter and straw. She used to have a police Glock 17 but lost it during an altercation on the surface.
When I get a moment I'll get a sheet together. @Kylia Quilor as a self-professed gun-nerd, if you have firearms questions I can (hopefully) help if you need it.
As usual, talking with Matina had a tendency to leave one feeling a bit like they’d just been accosted by a very excitable small dog. Waiting for a break in the verbal deluge, Fara merely shook her head in amusement at her co-worker. ”Don’t worry about it,” She said with a shrug as Matina admitted to not really pulling her weight. ”I may be a bit more annoyed if this was a busy shift, but…” She shrugged and made a motion towards the empty seats. ”Anyways, I took this shift partially because you don’t really have to do anything.”
Before she knew it, Matina was leaning over her shoulder and looking at her sketchbook, and she could feel her face heating up. Partially it was because apparently her hormones decided she was fourteen again and she’d just found a ‘dirty’ magazine in her brother’s stuff, and Matina was quite attractive, and partially because she was rather self-conscious of her work, especially the stuff in her personal sketchbook which she always thought was way too rough to show people. Thankful that her darker skin tone at leash somewhat hid her blushing, she managed to stammer out a thank you.
”Thank you…she’s a…yes I used myself for her. She’s my character in a video game.” Part of her almost launched full force into swamping Matina with the overly detailed backstory/canon for the ‘Raider Queen’ that she’d built in her head, but another part managed to stop that before it began…no-one else cared about that stuff. The ‘draw me’ request was generally considered the bane of existence to most, if not all artists, but Fara couldn’t help but find her bubbly co-workers amusing and a tad infectious. ”It’s fine,” She said, flipping through pages until she found a blank one. ”I can always use more stuff to use as reference material.” Adjusting her position to better see Matina, she set to work after a moment. ”I don’t have my good pencils, so it’ll be a pretty rough piece.” She added as she began to lay down lines.
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’.
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.”
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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…
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.”
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.