Mythril Aces (Re)Union: Real Robot RP - Federation Roleplay Thread

— Christine Hepner —

Christine watched the reunion before her without comment. Saying anything at this point would require effort, and Christine was just tired more than anything. What she could really use right now was the only thing that kept her going under times of stress, and that was in the mess hall.

"If that's all I'm going to get some coffee."

"It is," Isra replied, "We have some need to discuss tactics now that we're a single unit, but that can wait until our next briefing."

With that she got up, "I'll be in my office, if anyone wants to speak with me."

Annoyed that her thunder was stolen by another old woman's joining the ranks, Becky stamped out of the room, heading straight to Isra's office and parking herself in the commander's chair, swivelling it to face away from the door for a dramatic reveal.

Isra walked in the door to her office. Things had just been a pain recently; they lost half their respective flights, their more experienced CO and now their latest addition seemed to be acquianted with their most troublesome (and potentially team-killing) Flightmate, presumably from time spent in a penal battalion.

The last thing she needed was another dramatic reveal.

edited 18th Nov '14 8:30:39 AM by Fauxlosophe

Becky swung the chair around to face her new commander. The ominous music was assumed.

"Hello Commander," she greeted her superior cordially, her elbows on the chair's armrests, fingers steepled beneath her chin. "Thank you for coming to see me. I'd like to know what your plans are to keep friendly fire incidents to a minimum on this new team of ours."

A brief smile crossed Isra's face, then a more serious expression overtook it.

"My chair," She said, not moving from the frame of the door, "Take a guest seat and I'll consider explaining my current agenda in that regard."

edited 18th Nov '14 9:19:15 PM by Fauxlosophe

"Of course I know," Lilith grinned, standing and leaving with everyone else as she chatted with Kara, because this thing needs to move along. "I'm actually not really, you know, allowed on certain planets anymore. Too many old friends that are in high places." She frowned slightly, "Halyk's not still trying to get me court martialed, is he? I sent him a card a few years back as an apology, but I don't know if he ever got it."

She shrugged, "So, anyway, how have you been? Keeping busy since the last war?"

"Busy..." Kara unconsciously rubbed her arm, thinking. "That's a word for it alright, but I've kept going. I might not have an illustrious career or a famous rival or anything, but I've done well."

As they walked into the common area, Kara stopped and stretched before scouting a place to sit. "So," she said after a moment, "I've been spending the last year or so since I've been out of the hospital helping train up kids to throw them into fire once that sparks up again, but that only has a few interesting bits." She sat down and spread out in her chair. "There was the years I spent after the 08th disbanded, bouncing around from place to place, though outside of a girl I was dating dumping me to run off and be a merc, that was more boredom than anything."

She stretched her right arm out to the ceiling, fingers outstretched. "I guess that just leaves the year I was on Skallen." Her arm plopped back down with a thud. "So, short version, or long version?"

Becky gave Isra a look which indicated changing chairs was a magnanimous effort on her part, and should not go unrewarded. She stood up and flung herself into one of the guest seats instead, waiting expectantly.

Isra gave another slight smile as she took her seat.

Once again, as she sat her expression became more serious as she took her seat, "I will assume you're referring to the incident of three shots which were poorly aimed; one which hit an already crippled frame which nearly damaged an ally, followed by a second round which, based off of my findings were aimed at enemies far away enough that the Rockets threatened to disrupt our own lines. In both of these cases I'm willing to write it off as a command failure, in regards to co-ordinating our respective lines; your team arrived far ahead of our own and rendered our own contributions more difficult."

"What I found troubling however," Isra replied, "And I suspect you did as well; is that Mac Donald didn't respond well to criticism or command. She did apologize for the first shot, however she suffered any further remarks poorly and didn't change her vantage point or cease firing."

Isra folded her hands below her chin, forming an arch with her forearms. A slight smile returned to her face.

"This speaks more to issues with authority which were already apparent to me. Not unlike another Frame pilot who commandeered hard-to-acquire rations before the mission only to render them pretty well inedible and then feed them to her flightmates; well after the point that they could do anything about it except drink water from their rather limited emergency rations."

Her smile cooled to a serious expression.

"However despite my comparison, I do consider the Mac Donald case more serious, for obvious reasons. I do not necessarily consider it to be performed due to incompetance or ill intent however and the damage done could have been mitigated with a stronger command structure as we'll have in the future."

"As such I will discuss matters with her, openly and expect anwsers and commitments. Should she not reassure me completely of her ability to follow orders and manage her weaponry responsibly, which would be difficult if I am to be frank with you, I have considered various measures; Recommending that she pilot the Genus for instance as there seemed to be no other takers at the meeting, installing an EMP failsafe that would disable her Frame completely should it be necessary, perhaps both. If I were forced to use the latter, it goes without saying that she would be indefinitely grounded, if not discharged."

With that she looked at Rebecca, "I trust this is to your satisfaction?"

edited 19th Nov '14 1:53:17 PM by Fauxlosophe

Becky nodded her head slowly, envisioning Lilith's frame getting locked down by an EMP in the middle of battle.

"I look forward to your disciplinary action," she said, springing to her feet. "Thank you for your time commander." She headed to the door, deciding to go check out her frame in the hanger.

Isra noddded and watched her leave.

She wouldn't have admitted it, but Becky's approval reassured her of the method. At very least in a worst case scenario, as Becky was one of Lilith's loudest critics on the field. It showed at least that it wasn't quite necessary to suspend Lilith yet, though the possibility was there in the long term.

Once she was confident that Becky was far enough ahead and her thoughts were gathered, she headed to the mess to grab a coffee.

As she looked for a seat, she found Christine still sipping at a cup.

"Lieutenant Hepner," She nodded, with her mug in her hand.

— Christine Hepner —

"Commander," Christine replied, finishing up her current mug. She had been thinking about a lot of things while slowly sipping the life-giving brown liquid. Thinking about old flight-mates from before this assignment, analyzing what went wrong, what she could have done better in the previous set of engagements. There was actually one thing that the commander could help with though.

"So, Commander, what are your thoughts on our order of battle and standard engagement tactics for the reformed squad?" Christine asked, while pouring another cup from the pot she had taken from the serving area over to the table she was sitting at.

Isra sighed and took a drink.

"To be honest, it is something I haven't fully concluded on. There's a lot of factors and things to be thought out. And it's obviously going to vary a lot depending on circumstances..."

She pulled out a data pad and started leafing through.

As she did she took another sip.

"Here's what I have so far; We lost a lot of our auxiliary units. We have two heavies, assuming Mac Donald is going to continue piloting her Cobalt, neither of which really have much other than raw fire power. Two Auxilaries, including myself and everyone else seems to be a piloting some sort of assault Frame. Cheslock frees up M'bala to act more as a Medic when we need it, since she's a Sniper. She's still not listed on the bloody registry though; I had to ask at the hanger."

"So that gives us two teams of three. A Cover team, which consists of our Heavies and Sniper; Harris, Mac Donald and Cheslock and an assault team, consisting of Yourself, Quinn and I. M'bala is wild; if we can hide him safely on a flank near us; we'll move him along. Where we want to go hit and run however, he'll slow us down and don't do too well as a sniper. I'll leave his role up to the circumstances of the mission or until I figure out better."

"If we do this, we don't have a lot of staying power in the Assault team. I'll be expecting you and Quinn to retreat if either of you get badly damaged. If my Shark is damaged or disabled, you should do a full retreat, since I won't be able to jam them or cover you otherwise and that'll hinder our staying power even more. And I don't want to be responsible for more deaths."

With that, Isra took a long drink.

"There's probably other draw backs, not in the least Mac Donald's showing in this making me less than confident in her ability to serve as reliable coverfire, but it's the best I have for now."

"Thoughts?"

edited 20th Nov '14 7:07:43 PM by Fauxlosophe

Angus slipped out of the conference room as soon as Commander Junayd gave the go-ahead and headed for his quarters. When he got there, though, he paused outside the door for a moment, then just kept walking as the song looped into its second play. The image of Arath's melting frame just wouldn't leave his mind, and he soon found himself aimlessly wandering the corridors waiting for the train of thought to run its course and move on to something else.

After a while, he found his new track when he wandered into the mess hall and the smell of coffee made a drink suddenly sound like the best idea in the world to him. He wanted something sweet and cold, though. He swerved toward the nearest vending machine and punched the red button without a second thought. A can clattered to the bottom of the dispensing chute and after retrieving it, he took a look around to see where the coffee smell was coming from, anyway, and saw Lt. Hepner sitting with the Commander.

Well, he supposed he ought to get better acquainted with the two if they were all going to be part of the same squad going forward. With a covert deep breath, he approached their table.

"Hey. May I?" he said, putting his free hand on the back of a chair at their table.

"Of course," Isra said, holding out her arm in invitation.

"Hepner was just asking me about how the new Squad will be organized," She said as Angus took his seat, "I think that you might be something of an asset both to our heavier main lines and the more mobile units which will be focused on close range assaults and flanking, so you end up working a bit with everyone."

Angus nodded and cracked the seal on his beverage. "That's the Doctor's lot," he said, taking a swig, and promptly spitting it out all over the table.

Isra jolted back reflexively.

After a moment's paused, she looked towards him with a flash of concern, "Angus?"

"Ugh, dammit!" Angus wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, wearing a look of disgust as he held up the can for closer inspection. "Sorry, Commander, wasn't paying close enough attention. Apparently this place isn't stocked by the same provisions company as Yaksha."

He held the can up for her to see. According to the label, it contained a bitter coffee drink.

"I was expecting fruit punch," he said. "I'll grab a towel."

He stood up and headed for the serving counter, dropping the shades resting on his forehead down over his eyes to hide his embarrassment. "Way to make a first impression, man," he muttered to himself.

Isra simply shrugged and took another drink, waiting to hear Christine's thoughts on the matter.

Lilith took a chair opposite her, and spread out immediately. She listened with interest, happy to get any news of old friends, nodding frequently.

"I don't really think we have anything better to do," she shrugged in reply, "so why not give me the whole version, if you don't mind?"

Graham looked up and saw that almost everyone had left. Somehow he had become lost in thought and failed to pay attention to his surroundings, though he did catch the notice about the new teammate. It wasn't like him to be this inattentive, and such distractions could prove dangerous if they continued to cloud his brain. "Ugh. Apologies, miss. Seems all this commotion's been occupying my thoughts so much I lost my politeness and didn't even say hello."

— Christine Hepner —

Christine raised an eyebrow slowly at Angus' performance, her brain processing what had just transpired before her. She began to double over slightly, failing to suppress a fit of giggles that quickly turned into full-bodied laughing that lasted for several seconds.

"I ha-" Christine started trying to calm herself down, "haven't seen something like that in a while. Feels like it's been years. Aren't snipers supposed to live and die by situational awareness?" Christine put her hands over her face to bring herself back into more proper composure, although decidedly more relaxed now thanks to Angus' impromptu ice-breaker.

"Anyway," Christine continued, wiping away a tear, "For the most part I think we were thinking along the same lines, Commander. My only input would be that putting yourself up front might put us in danger of decapitation. How much experience do you have with high-speed frames?"

"I've mostly operated with Heavies, personally," Isra replied smiling lightly at Hepner's giggle fit, "However, I know how our frames operate. Even some Cent frames. I've looked into it fairly throughly before taking command. In principle I should be fine."

"Aside from that the flight needs a Shark," Isra replied with a straighter face before pausing a moment, "...I'll be careful the first few missions, but without me you and Quinn will be sitting ducks. Someone has to cover you. But I'm going to need both of you to do the same for me, especially early on. However, I have a great deal of faith in the two of you. And M'bala."

She paused, "Honestly, one of my biggest concerns is what is left for the other team. Harris... well, I'm certain he won't repeat his previous mistake but he's sort of taking over my old job and so I worry about how it will be done without me. Mac Donald... I don't think I need to say much more on... and as I said before, I don't have a proper dossier at all on Cheslock. It's like Command completely forgot about her."

edited 21st Nov '14 6:11:16 PM by Fauxlosophe

Kara looked at the newcomer and smiled. Glad to see someone here who's not a kid. "My name is Lt. Commander Kara Cheslock, don't worry about looking rude, I don't mind being forgotten." Because I'm used to it. Not mad or anything.

She motioned to a nearby chair, "Come take a seat, I was just talking to Lilith about some of my 'adventures'," She said, even using her hands to air quote. "You can listen too, only costs learning your name."