Starlance

The Conflict

“Being bullshitted? Since I was about eight. Also known as ‘Tuesday’ in Russia. Why, thinking of Sean, or something about this place?” She joked. Bethan had a point though. She hadn’t given this as much thought as perhaps she should have, but she also thought of them as too insignificant to be lied to. They were fresh off the boat - or truck, or however the other three got into the country - and thus pretty much had to take whatever anyone was merciful enough to throw at them, so why bother lying? But the district around her told a different story.

“You’d have to be pretty desperate to think that you need to lie to a bunch of nobodies.” The Russian opined, “Then again, it’s not like it’s Mensa county around this part of the world, and this scene is hard to argue with.” She gestured to the fairly nice looking district around them, “And no human windchimes hanging anywhere, picture that.” Yekaterina paused in thought, and Bethan could’ve probably heard gears grinding in her head if she listened carefully enough, “You think we should try our luck here? With ghetto hoodlums?” She would’ve much preferred to stick to one of the corporations, whether through Victor or through finding their own path, perhaps the centralized way of Russian life drawing her to a larger, outwardly more powerful and secure organization.

Then an epiphany struck her square in the head like a ricochet against an altyn helmet. “I may have just thought of a way of learning more about this place though. On my way here, the official line of bullshit I fed to customs along the way was that I was a humanitarian worker going to Matanbai to see how all this is affecting the locals. If I leave my gear with you, I might be able to ask how life is in this part of town without raising too much suspicion while we wait.” She offered a suggestion, “Unless curiosity kills the cat, this is all a very elaborate ruse and Edik tries to turn me into a hat for my trouble.” Despite the attempt to lighten the mood, it reminded her of Melani’s throne room again and though the scarf covered her expression, the shift in her body language clearly expressed a measure of unease at the thought.

BattleTech: A Band of Misfits

Stanislaw Kubit

Name: Stanislaw Kubit
Nickname/Callsign: Lawndart
Age: 29
Gender: Male

Crew Position: Aerospace Fighter Pilot

Nationality: Federated Suns
Biographical History:
Stan’s answer to being asked about his past would depend on who asked. If the person asking knew how he ended up with the Marley’s Misfits, the answer would be a prompt “Fuck you.”. If the curious soul didn’t know, the answer would be simple, yet truthful:

“I have no idea.”

Stan’s episodic, emotional and semantic memories are unfortunate casualties of the last few years of the Third Succession War. As such, the first 28-ish years of his life are a closed book to him. What is known is that he was a freelance mercenary pilot fighting for the Free Worlds League who suffered a traumatic brain injury when his damaged fighter finally lost the will to live, causing his amnesia. After the outfit he was flying support for was wiped out in an ambush, his crippled fighter managed to stay aloft long enough to get him far enough away that the attackers couldn’t get to his crash site to either capture or or put him out of his misery.

Stan was recovered by a detachment of Marley’s Misfits who were tasked to figure out what happened to the initial force. All they had to go on initially was a company’s worth of dead men and destroyed equipment and some tracks in soft ground left behind by the attackers, but recovering a survivor would’ve solved that problem, if the survivor in question didn’t have to be shown his flight suit in order to remind him of his name.

Trying the MRB to figure out who this guy was led to a dead end, as he’d never been registered with them for reasons lost along with his episodic memory. However, with his procedural memory still intact, that meant he could still fly, even if someone had to explain all the terminology again that he still knew, just couldn’t remember what it all meant. And with nothing more than a crash course in handling what fighters the Misfits had on hand, they had themselves a fully qualified pilot for next to no cost. And with nowhere else to go, accepting an offer made to him was a no-brainer.

Personality:
Outside of a cockpit, Stanislaw is a friendly lad with a sarcastic streak and a brain to mouth filter that works on a part-time basis. Living in the moment, since there’s no past to dwell on and he’d forgotten whatever plans and dreams he once had for the future, and what was lost once can just as easily be lost again, so what’s the point? Despite his recent misfortune, he hasn’t lost the absolute confidence in his abilities common to combat pilots. One without it would hardly fly around a metal box filled with fuel and ammo while getting shot at, and he’d already survived death once, hasn’t he?

Inside a fighter or during other life threatening situations, Stan becomes quiet and laser focused, the letter being equal parts good and bad as he may become fixated on something and miss something else when left without direction.

Though the fighter he was found in was too damaged to shed any light on this, Stan displays a subconscious fear of the Rifleman mech.

Assets

Asset Name: Stingray medium aerospace fighter

Asset Type: Medium Aerospace Fighter
Asset Tonnage: 60 t

Asset Crew/Staff:

• Aigar Eskola - A middle-aged technician originally from Dixie, Aigar is a long-time member of the Misfits, keeping mostly to himself - with the exception of card games and alcohol - in his single-minded goal to keep the aerospace fighters flying for as long as humanly possible since his days as an astech.

Asset Weaponry:

• 2xHellion-b II (Medium Laser, Wing mounts)
• 2xHellion-a III (Large Laser, Wing mounts)
• 1xSunspot (PPC, Nose mount)

Asset Equipment:

• Communications - Telestar E-67
• Engine - VOX 240a fusion engine
• Sensors - SynCom VAX
• Heat Sinks - 20

BattleTech: A Band of Misfits

Mark me in the interested column.

The Conflict

The feeling on the street grew by the minute, the fact that the two women were outnumbered and out of their skins never more prominent. It had to be said, Bethan trusted Yekaterina, more than she had initially imagined she would. She felt paranoid, weird around the general team, but around her, even in spite of all the fucked up mess, she felt a bond that she could trust her more than the other two. Not even a feminine thing- it felt more true to her that in the chaos, there was someone actually thinking shit through.

Still, it would mean whatever it meant when they had a job to do- and a Merc to slowly follow.

At least their newfound target would be hard to lose, standing out of the surroundings like it did. "Good eyes. One of us stays on it, the other tries to get ahead?" There wasn't enough of them for this, and they probably didn't even have the right sort of training to follow people around. She felt like the only thing they had going for them was whoever was in that Merc thinking they were above it all and not paying attention, and the lads once - if, that is - they got some wheels.

It was a feeling Bethan shared, nodding back to the Russian, a subtle one at that.
"I'll get ahead. If you lose me, call." Bethan replied, not needing to say much and guessing hopefully the Russian would understand her uncouth, straight manner, not really in the mood to go into semantics. SFSG training would have shown her the measure of that all the way, but even then, it was more in a reconaissance, combat capacity. This was far from it, it was gangland, and a measure Bethan felt completely out of her skin for. With that note on her mind, she separated from Yekatarina, making her way across the road and now speeding up her walk, a bit more brisk and trying to keep contact on it whilst taking a cut through in the alleys, trying to get away from prying eyes.

Keeping to the wall, Yekaterian continued along the road, one eye on the car, the other on the people around. For the most part ignoring the trigger men, she was trying to fit in, though she felt like a square peg in a round hole. After half a minute of weaving through the foot traffic, the Mercedes suddenly stopped at the side of the road, the passenger getting out and entering the alley running between two rundown apartments, the car continuing where it had been going previously. The Russian made a note of the sign on a nearby corner, staying on their quarry until it took a left inBethan's direction. Hoping the British woman would take over, she crossed the street and hurried through a parallel aley to head it off before it got lost in the district.

Bethan moved onto the pedestrian, the maze-like structure of the suburbs giving her a chance to run on after them, though not running at pace, but keeping up. She knew she couldn't do that, well, looking to obvious for one, but waiting if it really went to shit. The Merc still hadn't seen her, and neither had any of the other gangsters, more likely than not unable to see given how the hubub in the streets masked their movement. The passenger kept moving, and was headed towards another set of buildings, these looking significantly nicer than the shack that they'd gone into. It felt more upmarket, and if this Malkia was a butcher, he certainly had a higher taste in infrastructure, trading metal tin-shacks for actual shitty concrete and mud-brick of some sort, with a small apartment block. Bethan took her phone and put it to ear, leaning against the building wall she was by and looking over, watching the man enter the complex and head inside, no other armed men visible.
"Round the corner, looks like the passenger's out and headed towards a nicer complex. I say nicer, it looks like the only building up to any sort of potential code...written in the 50s. Can you pick up the car?" Bethan said once the phone's dial had finished, hoping her colleague had the other end.

"Yea, I got him, moving, eeehh... Southeast I think?" Yekaterina briefly stuttered as she tried to piece the map together in her head, "Should I stay on him or get back to you, we're spreading out pretty thin here."

Bethan muttered a curse, knowing full well they'd probably deviated too far now, and regrouping was probably a better idea. She'd picked up at least one of the passengers, and from the looks of him, he looked significantly richer than the rest of the people in the street, albeit not by much. Unlikely to be Malkia, but potentially a Lieutenant, or someone who he trusted, perhaps this wasn't even his abode but a store of sorts. Something worth staking out, and it resonated in Bethan's head that it was better to go for this than continue to stay divided.
"Shit, just keep that bearing in mind, let's regroup. I headed west, from you probably north-west. I'm by a building with a bunch of graffiti on it, lemme know when you have visual." Bethan replied, herself unsure but masking it as best as she could, knowing the two of them were not going to be good at this stalking thing, but could at least focus on one thing at a time at the least, right?

Yekaterina stopped, taking a few seconds to burn the image of the car - plate, make, model, the lot - into her memory before turning back. "I'll go back the way I came, place is a maze." As she walked, she sent a short message to the other 50% of the team to elt them know where they were and what they were doing. Having returned to the place where the passenger disembarked, she followed what she believed to be West until she caught a glimpse of a semi-decent looking building. A compass was added onto her eventual shopping list. "You see anything of note? Guards, cargo, communications equipment?"

Bethan could only eyeball, taking a look at what it was, the sight of the apartment block having nothing in the way of obvious arms or cargo, well, a satellite dish on the roof proved they had access to Football as it looked like one of the few luxuries they had managed to scrap together. Aside from that, a couple of Hiluxes outside and the fact it stuck out with nicer quarters did get Bethan thinking- this must have been some sort of focal point for Malkia's thugs to go to, not so much a barrack but a rally point. A couple of crates outside could have had anything, along with a lone cargo container that looked rusted to all hell.
"Not much at all, but they look like they're using it as a gathering point. Few more of them inside, the guy I followed looks like he's got some rank on him. Few bits of supplies, but not much at all." Bethan replied, adjusting the veil a little as she watched her back, aware that now in the quieter part of the residential area she would stick out, and that only boded poorly if she was caught out. No amount of running would get her away from bullets.

A gathering point, but for what, the thoughts raced around the Russian's head. Close to the border, somewhat out of the way, officer-type come to visit. It didn't strike Yekaterina like it was supposed to be a launching point for an attack, else Beth probably wouldn't have used the term 'Few more...'. No rush then. "I see it. Say we each stand around each on one side some way away and get the lads here, see who comes and goes?" The Russian asked, picking a shaded spot in one of the alleys connecting the apartment with a bigger street, unable to think of anything better they could do in that situation.

Star Wars: Invasion Terra

@Zarkun

I'm gonna have to bow out unfortunately, sorry.

Star Wars: Invasion Terra-Anyone for a twist?

Mark me as intrigued.

The Conflict

Was holding off on posting when Forty said he had something in the works, hope I'm not screwing up what you already have written up.

Forewarning: I expect next week (March 28th to April 1st) to be garbage, midterms coming up.

The Conflict

“No you aren’t, not yet at least, we want you two to live.” Yekaterina replied to Hayden’s inquiry, briefly wondering how much that was true for Bethan before banishing the thought. “Hands off the limo. Big, cumbersome, no doubt fitted with an immobilizer, probably costs an arm and a leg to fuel up and Victor would want it back, if not because he needs it, then to send a message he’s not to be fucked with. Look for older cars. Less electronics to break down or prevent you from starting it without a key in the first place, though if you could get one with keys, all the better. If you get a choice, get petrol over diesel engine. Shit petrol is a lot less likely to screw up the engine than shit diesel, and diesels generally have a shorter service life.” The Russian recommended, “I guess Beth and I are going shoplifting then. No one tell my mother.” she added with a grin.

Setting out to the North-West, Yekaterina ushered her British compatriot down a side street running perpendicular to the direction indicated by their unhinged employer after just a few dozen meters. “Through here, let’s circle around the block. I want to see how many of these butchers we have tailing us.” she said quietly, reasoning that anyone completing the normally pointless circle along with them was following them. She stopped at the next intersection to look at a signpost, sparing a glance behind them to see one of the men Hayden had indicated to them earlier rounding the corner, stopping to speak briefly with another, both continuing down the street afterward. She guessed the other half of the original pair was probably tailing the guys. Continuing the ring around the block, she looked back once again near the end of it, masking the movement by taking out her phone and turning around to look for an angle when the display was shaded from the sun. Both were still there. “Seems like just those two, at least for now. Best let them think we’re blissfully unaware, lest they might care enough to switch with someone else.” She noted to Bethan, unsure whether the two were concerned with being unnoticed. “From what I’m getting from the psychopath-in-chief, they’ll probably stop short of entering Malkia’s territory. Found something we can hide our faces with yet?”

Innocence Lost - A Science Fantasy RP [v.03]

Recognizing a mistake and taking steps to correct it. Maybe there was hope for him yet. And as far as she could tell, he wasn’t even talking out of his arse. And she knew. She was shamelessly reading his thoughts up until that point, the week preceding this briefing having continued in the spirit of the crew v. Albion. If only that was the end of it, as their numbers started dropping like flies in a room where the air was replaced with bugspray. At the very least there was a silver lining to the drop in numbers for her, as less people on board made it a lot easier to time her sleep so there wouldn’t be anyone around to unknowingly invade her mind with their thoughts when she hit the sack. And then the whole Titan nonsense happened, and any ease sleeping went to shit in the form of constant worry.

With the briefing concluded, Avelyn approached Joey wearing a barely concealed smirk on her face. “Apology accepted, though I need one more thing from you.” She paused long enough for him to ask what, “Some information, none of us know how to fly the damn thing.” She quickly grabbed his hand while she still spoke, focusing on any of Joey’s memories that had anything to do with the ship. “Oooh, so that is what that switch does, okay, don’t touch that, got it.” She joked as she finished, “Oh, ‘less-than-lethal - Weapons or equipment intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional weapons such as knives and firearms with live ammunition.’ Might be good to at least try, if circumstances allow it, we’re trying to convince the other rebels that we’re on their side, right? Good luck.”

After the briefing concluded, she made a detour to her cabin to clear out her things. Who knew how long they’d be gone? Upon reaching the hangar bay, she hung back to give the two lovebirds some space, only approaching once Flame had gone. “Hey, why the long face? Separation can only be beneficial, you can’t be together all the time. My father used to be gone for months at a time, but it only made us all the more excited to see him again and spend time with him.” She tried to cheer the younger Star Marine up, having eavesdropped from across the bay with her prosthetics. “So, when are we setting out?” She asked Ashton, implicitly considering him to be in charge despite having made it clear some time ago that she viewed the whole money debacle as his fault. “What’s on the itinerary, and in what order?”

The Conflict

Sorry for jumping out of the usual order, Fourty's post got the gears spinning a bit.