Orwell had been waiting for combat in a less than zen like state... muttering comfortable facts to clear his head. "Maximum effective range of an M16-A4 at a point target: five hundred and fifty meters. Maximum effective range of an M16-A4 rifle at an area target: eight hundred meters." He continued with a hand over the boom mic in fear he might be overheard, despite the fact his channel was closed.
Mecha combat was an entirely new experience for Orwell, the moment he had entered his Thor he strapped in and tested the quick release function... three times in rapid succession until he was satisfied he could escape in a timely manner. Then in further irrational paranoia secured the rappelling rope to a bulkhead safely out of his view, the end of the rope coiled at his feet . Despite the warnings of mechanics and ground crew that guided him out of the hangar he had left his cockpit open to the air, much akin to a knight leaving his visor up to gain a better view of the battle around him. Some of the monitors adjusted with little hassle while others forced him to lean forward and crane his neck back to view their readouts... either way he'd make due.
"Maximum effective range of an M-4 Carbine..." He trailed off as he heard the screech of incoming projectiles. "Eyes out fellas, I have ground impacts. Maintain overwatch and keep hunting I'll scream if I need help." He informs over the radio before rapidly switching to Mjolnir control. "Noriko, this is Fenris Three-Delta-One-Alpha... I'm sorry may I call you Noriko?" Orwell begins falling easily into the feigned confidence he had lived his entire life by. "We are engaged, negative on visual over." He continues feeling a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth and allowing it to distort his face into the wicked smile he couldn't face in the mirror.
He pressed his Thor against the corner of a nearby building of at least equal height, angling the mech so the thickest part of his armor was between the impact sites and himself... as well as one of the particle beam cannons. He played the scenario out in his mind, shoot first, shoot second, and pirouette around the corner of the building into cover only to rush to the other side and repeat the procedure.
... or if nothing else shoulder the building over in a desperate attempt to reach cover he reminded himself, immediately realizing his agility on foot would not necessarily translate to piloting a multi-ton automaton.
"*shhk* Fenris Three-Delta-One-Alpha, you may call me Noriko if it is more comfortable for you", she responds with a hint of a smile in her voice. "At present we have zero intel on the objects beyond their ballistic trajectory and the rough impact locations of three of them; grid squares 118156, 118111, and 118195." She pauses briefly before continuing, "We tracked at least five objects on descent but lost track of the others near impact."
"Thanks for the update Noriko, I'm Icarus by the way." He chats back while punching the grid coordinates into his equipment and zooming in on the locations. "If you could divert us some aerial drones with live feeds we'd sure be grateful... I need to contact our hangar and see if we have any available, if so I'll have my guys link it in with your system. Notify Mjolnir gunnery crews to keep an eye out to the north impact site, I'll have my air team divert to the eastern impact site first then jog back up north, over." Icarus requested as his eyes darted back and forth between displays.
He crept towards the western impact site, torso twisted to the side once again taking advantage of its thickest armor. The Thor's beam cannons were perpendicular to one another covering his forward and left arcs, pausing occasionally to check a corner with the camera mounted near the end of each cannon. He kept his back pressed as close to building walls as his amateur piloting made him comfortable with.
"This is Macabee, Tally-ho!," Mason checks his radar for the ground impacts and then visually scans the area for targets. "Ensign, I have no visual on those hostiles, can you help me out?" Ens. Fujikawa repeats the data she had given Orwell moments before. Without any clear targets, he checks that he has his wingman in sight. "Trout, do you have anything worth shooting at?" Continueing to scan the sky, Mason quickly considers tactics: stay in fighter mode, save hybrid as a surprise. Hopifully when the time comes that mode will be just like flying a Harrier with better agility.
"Negative, Macabee," Gregorov says into his radio.
"Combat control, have we got ground coordinates on the impacts, over."
Ensconced in the cockpit, Gregorov finds himself itching to gain altitude, but decides against making himself a more prominent target to any ground-based antiaircraft the enemy may have.
Ensign Fujikawa repeats her intel once more, giving the estimated coordinates of impact.
"Alright, Trout, let's head for Tango Delta and see what trouble we can get in. Do you have my six, or should I take yours?" Mason checks his on-board inventory, accounting for every bullet and missile. From the sound of things in orbit, he suspects that he will need every single one.
"Trout, Mac. I think it would be a good idea if you guys hightailed it to the eastern site to repel the enemy first. they have a better angle with Mjolnirs weapons on the north and I don't like how the eastern site is near their flank and engines... Search and Destroy then head back north and hammer them as they are moving towards the Mjolnir; it's guns will likely catch them in that killzone provided by the main runway and hopefully give them reason for pause. I'm moving in on the western point. How copy?" Icarus suggested as the plan continued forming in his mind despite having to divide his attention tactical displays, the sights of his weapons and movement.
You're overdoing it Brody, you're no good to them dead... yet. A small voice in the back of his minds cautioned, causing him to shake himself out of his trance-like planning session and encouraging him to begin sweeping his sectors of fire more attentively as well as focus on smoothing out his Thor's shuddering steps into a more predatory gait.
"*shhk* Icarus, Fujikawa. The Mjolnir has been ordered to avoid firing into the urban areas. Apparently top brass are concerned about property damage." The disgust is plainly evident in Ens. Fujikawa's voice.
"That's not a problem at all, just tell them to keep an eye out and inform you of any enemy troop movements. This might just be a technicality but I don't think the runway counts as incredibly urban... take from that what you will." Icarus responds suddenly happy at the distraction as he gingerly crosses yet another intersection.
"Copy that, Icarus," Gregorov says, nodding as he quickly scans the tactical display. "Looks like it's Tango Beta, Mac."
Search and Destroy. Nice and simple. No friendly fire to worry about, no conflicting orders, just targets.
The VF banks as he directs it to the south. Man, what do they call this? Reac technology? Reflex technology? Who cares, I want one.
"Mac, you're technically higher rank, so I'll step face first into danger like a good airman." Forcing down another dig at the UN marines with a small grin, he guns the accelerator.
"Copy that, Icarus, diverting to eastern impact. Trout, rank has nothing to do with it, so why don't you take my six, and let the Marines lead the way," Mason stops himself from continueing with: as we always have and always will. Now is not the time to restart old Corps-Navy rivalries. Mason banks the Veritech to the new course, thrilling to the mecha's response and power. It may have been based on the F-22, but no conventional fighter ever handled like this. It was almost like the craft was sensing what he was thinking, and responding to that.
"Ensign Fujikawa, this is Macabee. I'm concerned about possible colateral at our target. What is the current disposition of any civilians at Tango Delta?"
"*shhk* Macabee, Fujikawa. The civilian presence in that area is light, although firm numbers aren't available. Be watchful."
With slight irritation, Gregorov realizes that a supersonic jet is not the most ideal platform for fighting hostiles in an urban environment. The jet configuration of the VF-1, though ideal for aerospace superiority and passable as a bomber, is completely unsuited for close range search-and-destroy.
Okay, in the urban simulations, closing ground quickly without overshooting was best handled by the.. uh.... Ground Effective Reconfigure- no, Reinforced ... Wing? Wings? Winged? Ah chto za huy. Guardian mode. So much for a clean dogfight.
Moving his hands across one of the levers, he just barely remembers to ease off on the acceleration from the Overtechnology Reaction power plant at the heart of the craft. With a shudder that he is still unaccustomed to, the VF's aft thrusters suddenly bend forward as the fuselage seems to sprout arms, resembling a bizarre bird of prey.
"Trout, switching to, ah, GERWALK mode for approach. Eyes peeled."
Icarus eases his Thor into a suitable spot of cover and turns to view the Veritech transformation for the first time. "Fuckin' A Trout, it looks like your bird has scoliosis!" He forces out a laugh over the radio before returning to his arduous pattern of clear area, move, and wait before repeating the process.
"Damnit, I wanted to save this for a surprise!" Macabee growls into his comm. "Switching to guardian mode." With his wingman switching modes, he had no choice, as to remain in fighter mode would most likely split them up. Never leave your wingman. Besides, given the urban envirment, and the possibliblity of civilians in the area, the guardian mode allowed for more control and agility. Mac eased the trottle and settled the controls for the transformation sequence. As the Veritech sprouted limbs, it suddenly gained many of the characteristics of a helicopter. With the practiced hand of someone would had flown both Apaches and Harriers, Mac guided his mecha through the change into a VTOL. "Alright, Trout, if we are finished playing around, let's go hunting. We'll approach low over the terrain and see of we can catch the bastards napping. Ensign, do we have any movement from the impact zones yet?"
Just as Sgt. Mason asks the question, the radar lights up. Three unidentified moving targets near impact Alpha, another three near Beta, and a final 3 more at Delta. The three near Alpha appear on everyone's radar. The targets near Beta and Delta, though, are only picked up by the Valkyries; the distance and intervening terrain prevents the Thor from registering them.
"*shhk* Fujikawa to Fenris-Three-Delta-One - you've got several airborne tangos incoming. ETA five minutes". The Ensign's voice comes across the platoon frequency to everyone.
As Lt. Orwell clears his current intersection, he catches a glint of light-on-metal over the roof of one of the buildings about a hundred meters away.
Meanwhile, back at 1st Platoon's hangar area, a disgruntled Dr. Eckhard Sasche is roused from his work on a faulty leg actuator by the jarring impact of something nearby. Assuming the rest of his team is being their usual, annoying selves, Dr. Sasche shrugs into the regulation body armor before sauntering outside. Gazing up into the sky and squinting because of the bright sun, he mutters to himself in exacerbation. "Can't anyone get some work done here! WHY are you guys buzzing the tower?" He is about to continue his tirade when the sun is abruptly blocked by a rather large humanoid figure ...
Phew. I may have to start leaving out the dialog from the previous scene in the new scenes - it's taking up the majority of the scene, heh.
As of now no one has visual sight of the targets. They're keeping close to the buildings to avoid aircraft from being able to spot them easily.
We're about to enter combat, which will once again shake loose any problems with how I'm running the system, heh. Speaking of which, I did away with the hex numbering because it was essentially a hack. The virtual table top I'm using doesn't actually number hexes so I originally made a transparent hex field with numbers in a separate program and overlaid them on the Macross map image. This then became the background for the virtual table top but I could never get the hexes to line up properly. So, screw it - just use numbers and directions to describe where you're referring to in reference to yourself or something else. E.g. UT-002 is 2S+1SW of Icarus. Of course, for targets you can just use the designation.
We're gonna try using an actual initiative system. This will only come in to play when effect timings are important. The order of battle is:
| Macabee |
| UT-004 |
| UT-005 |
| UT-006 |
| UT-007 |
| UT-008 |
| UT-009 |
| Icarus |
| Trout |
| UT-001 |
| UT-002 |
| UT-003 |
Feel free to post outside of that order, just be aware that actions will resolve in that order.
Please limit yourselves to two actions per post (movement, shoot, etc). You may take additional actions, but each one past 2 will incur penalties.
