Asteroid Blues

8 Working Angel Orbital - Combined Rapid Response & Recon Company
"Time cum angeli cadent"

Rainbow Riot, quantronic gunslinger, and all around purveyor of mayhem sauntered into the makeshift command center aboard the Nomad ship The Times They Are A Purple. She grinned and saluted lazily as Major Etesiae, Bandit, and leader of the 8 Working Angel Orbital CRRC turned to face her.

"Tch, this is why you keep getting written up for lack of discipline, Rain," Alieze said, albeit with a mischievous lilt in her voice that the mask could never hide. "So, what do you have for me?"

"Here," Rain said, as she waved her hand, sending the datapack to Alieze's feed.

The highlights on the Bandit's mask flashed, as she grunted. "They misspelled 'li'l'," said unhappily before tilting her head as she considered the rest of the data. "Well, well, well...that's some scheme Nomad Command has going. Let me get this straight; we're raiding Xaraks Battery as 'pirates' to install backdoors, steal components while avoiding the Ariadnans and engaging only Haqqislam to illustrate their ability to react to threats on the battery. If we can't install the backdoor into the console, we're to wreck 'em, as I assume we'll get a second chance when Nomantronic Solutions LLC submits a generous tender to O-12 once the battery changes hands."

"Got it in one," Rain said.

"Who's the specialist they're sending us?"

"That's the second best part about the whole thing. May I present to you the one and only Mary Problems," Rain said, as she performed a bow and step aside as a lovely woman walked dressed in complete pirate regalia.

"Yarr! I thought I'd dress the part," Mary said with a toothy grin, as she placed her hand on the pommel of the sword on her hip and stood at ease.

"You're shitting me," Alieze said, laughing out loud. "What's the best part?" Rainbow told her and her eyebrows raised. "Really? The gravity well? And Clarke thinks he can pull it off on Rickety?"

"100% positive but we'll need you to sign off the whole mad scheme."

"Do it," Alieze said, still laughing. "And make sure to save the footage of the looks on their faces when you pull it off!"

~*~

8 Working Angel CRRC Task Force Freebooters' Sexy Lil' Shimmy

Group 1
-------
Rainbow Riot - Interventor
Savannah with AT and T - Moran Hunter and Koalas
Malaikah - Intruder
Rickety and Clarke - Gecko and Pilot
Mary Problems Pirate Cosplay Edition - Mary Problems (Gata Pirate skin as proxy)
Sinny - Sin-Eater
Gokiburi - Reaktion Zond
The Enlightenment of Man - Morlock
The Pitfalls of Hubris - Morlock
Sweetling - Moderator

Group 2
-------
Fugu - Tomcat Engineer
Chill - Alguacil
My Ex and Their Baggage - Salyut
Quincy Mayhem, Journalist at Large - Warcor

~*~

Preparation Notes
-I win the Lt. roll and decide to cede initiative in favor of gaining the better deployment zone. This is when Kampilan surprises me by giving me first turn, as I am much much more use to him going for alpha strikes with Haqq and my original plan was to let him walk his units in first before dropping my AD units.
-I nominate my Moran FO as Liaison and Mary Problems as Datatracker. Kampilan nominated Leila as Datatracker and Ghulam FO as Liaison.
-Nomad classified: Test Run; Haqq classified: Net-Undermine
-Haqq reserve: Fiday; Nomad reserve: Intruder

I will admit that the Daylami's infiltration attempt worried me as part of my reason for taking that side was that the building he was trying to squat in overlooked the Tech-Coffin and I was banking on having Mary Problems forward deploy there. Luckily for me, the Daylami failed the infiltration attempt so I was able to claim the building as planned. It was a daring move on Kampilan's part and would have made that the center a lot more contested had it gone through.

Nomad deployment was mainly focused on denying the center between the Sin-Eater, Moran, Reaktion Zond and Intruder with Mary sitting pretty near the Tech-Coffin.

"Unleash the philosophical dilemmas!" Rain messaged over the comms, the verbal command the cue for the Morlocks to be injected with their cocktail of aggression drugs. The Enlightenment of Man howled as the drug haze overtook him and he charged forward, heedless of any danger.

The Pitfalls of Hubris on the other hand howled, as she broke out of cover, her ingrained conditioning making her pull out a smoke grenade to cover her and Malaikah. She raises her hand only to stumble back as the Lasiq manages to land a killing shot before she can pull the pin.

"Well that went just about as well as can be expected," Rain murmured.

"This is Rickety on the approach with Fugu right behind me. We're rendezvousing with The Enlightenment of Man now," the light TAG reported as Clarke expertly piloted the Gecko through the Zero-G zones before emerging into the left flank of the battlefield." He halted, as he saw The Enlightenment of Man, who turned and gave them a wave. The handshake was momentarily interrupted however as Rickety was grazed by a Lasiq sniper shot. "Fuck, the dropzone is hot," he called out.

"I see 'em," Malaikah responded, as she raised her MULTI-Sniper, she breathed in trusting in her camo training to keep her from being spotted until it was too late. Two shots; one to lead and the other straight between the eyes. "There you go, Clarke. Good hunting," she said laconically as she continued to maintain overwatch."

"Thanks, Mala. We owe you one," Clarke said. He turned as Fugu approached. "One of your powerlines got breached. Lemme fix that," the engineer said as he took a length of duct tape and patched him together. He leaned in, whispering so only Rickety can hear. "Isn't Enlightenment acting just a little too calm?" he said, before pronouncing the fix done, nodding towards the smiling Enlightenment and proceeded towards his objective.

Clarke frowned, as Enlightenment began to move to shadow Fugu only for everything to become chaotic as another Enlightenment came barreling in, singing sea shanties along the way. "Fuck, Hassassin," Rickety said reflexively, as he aimed his bolt guns at the Morlock with a surprised look on his face, who transformed into a very startled Haqqislam operative in time to be riddled with holes.

"Field seems clear, I'm moving out," Savannah called out on the comms. "You lot stay here and guard our buddies, yah?" he said to AT and T, who chirped cheerfully, saluted and began to scan their surroundings. Savannah then proceeded towards Objective Beta, traversing through an area without cover. Unfortunately, the Nomad task force failed to notice a Muyib who managed to down Savannah with a spray of fire. "Shit, our FO is down," Malaikah reported, having witnessed the debacle.

"Dammit, Sav," Rain muttered. "Leave Beta for now. I want Rickety, and Fugu to encircle Alpha. I'll move in Gokiburi to provide covering fire," she announced. She activated the aging Zond who began to shimmy down the building it had been perched on towards Objective Alpha. Rounding the corner, it caught Leila Sharif as she peeked out of cover and downed her with a disciplined burst. "That's it; area clear," she announced, as Rickety then moved to set up an overwatch position over Objective Alpha while he waited for Fugu to join him.

"Yarr! This do be Cap'n Problems. Charlie do seem to be clear and I am approaching now to claim the booty," Mary announced enthusiastically, as she rappelled down the building she had holed up in in order to lay her claim on the Tech-Coffin.

Top of 1
-Morlock on the left flank charges for the Imp Marker but fails his Discover, just uses his irregular to move forward instead. Morlock on the right tries to give the Intruder smoke but dies.
-Gecko walks in, gets plinked for 1 damage by the Lasiq. The Intruder responds with a surprise attack that takes out the Lasiq.
-Tomcat Engineer walks in, succeeds in a discover against the Imp and then heals the Gecko for the Test Run classified before walking out of LoS to move towards the objective marker. The Gecko declares discover, the Fiday decides to try smoke, but gets shot to pieces.
-Thinking the path was clear, I activate the Koalas and move the Moran to the objective point in the right side. There was one valid ARO that went uncontested and the Moran goes down.
-Used a coordinated order to reposition the Gecko, and the TR remote towards the objective marker on the left flank while also sending Mary Problems down the building to touch the Tech-Coffin. TR peeks the corner of the long fire lane and proceeds to down Leila Sharif.

Rain settled back against the railing of the building she had appropriated as her command post. She was monitoring the situation; the Haqqislam defense had seemingly died down and her operatives were beginning to move towards their objectives. The without warning Rickety and Mary began reporting themselves under attack by Haqqislam warbands in an apparent counterpush. She watched tensely as the both signals Ghazi Muttawiah signals vanished, one a confirmed kill by Sinny the Silent Sin-Eater, who was providing cover for Mary while the other was taken down by Rickety whose signal then proceeded to fade from Rain's display. "Crap. I just lost Clarke. I need you to check on his status now, Fugu."

Meanwhile Gokiburi was chirruping as it fed Rainbow Riot a stream of data starting with strengthened life signs on Leila Sharif. Sure enough, Leila had been cured and the renewed fire team began to attack the beleaguered Rem in earnest, only to be beaten back time after time thanks to the Remote's commanding firing line and withering fire. When the smoke cleared, only the doctor and the forward observer was left standing, pinned behind cover away from the Rem's line of sight.

On the opposite side of the battlefield, a lone Ragik slipped behind Nomad lines eager to try to turn around a rapidly deteriorating situation. He struck, disabling My Ex and Their Baggage and Chill, who had thought he had lucked out in getting guard duty only to face the business end of a Spitfire. This left the Ragik free reign to momentarily disrupt Nomad communications.

Bottom of 1
-The impetuous units charge in. Mary Problems manages to dodge while the Sin-Eater takes care of business while the Gecko gets isolated while murdering the one attacking him.
-A series of crits on my end and poor rolls on Kampilan's results in the left flank completely collapsing for Haqqislam. Kampilan tried to brute force the Rem, and a lot of unlucky rolls saw the link decimated and too many command points spent on rerolls trying to raise the downed. (The Ghulam doctor apparently got its MD from Varuna).
-Kampilan then walks in a Ragik on the relatively sparse right flank, managing to sneak past my back line to claim a classified and take out two of the three regular orders in Group 2.

"Your with group one now, Fugu," Rain said over the comms. "I trust you know what to do?"

"Time to take care of business," Fugu said, as he rapidly clambered up the side of the wall, using the modifications made to his skin by the infamous Praxis labs of Bakunin. He reached a vantage point and spotted the Ghulam doctor, completely oblivious to his presence thanks to the menacing presence of Gokiburi. He raised his combi, fired and smiled as the doctor went down. With the left flank free of any hostiles, he then proceeded to hop down to Objective Alpha and Rickety's last known location.

"I've got you," he said, as he first took the time to activate the antenna before giving Rickety a swift kick just so to get the TAG back up and running.

"Whew, thanks, you really saved me just now," Rickety said, as the two then began to wait out the upload of their package into the battery's computer network.

Top of Turn 2
-Relatively short turn for me. With Group 2 reduced to 1 regular from the Tomcat and 1 irregular from the Warcor, I opt to shimmy (yes, I'll use this word a lot in this Batrep) my Tomcat engineer over to group 1.
-Engineer climbs to get into the Ghulam doctor's blindspot and gets her in one burst of combi fire. He then proceeds to saunter all the way to the objective to flip the switch (priorities first) before fixing the Gecko.

"Careful Rickety, Fugu, the Spooks say there should be an active HI unit in the area," Rain advised, as she carefully adjusted some settings on her HD+. Things had been good so far, almost too good, and she was worried about that crack fire team making a last ditch attempt to dislodge their troops.

"So...these guys, they don't happen to have D.E.P.'s and Spitfires do they because I'm under a lot of fire," Rickety suddenly piped in.

"Whatever you do hold," Rain shouted, gritting her teeth as she felt her jaw tense in anxiety.

"Just too many, fuck. They got Fugu. I think I wounded one of them but they're still very viable. Give me a second to reload and I'll deal with them."

Bottom of 2
-Kampilan tries to dislodge my units from the left flank's objective and succeeds, first by making the Gecko fail a WP check (after being reduced to 1str) and then turning my Tomcat engineer into a fine, red mist.

The Enlightenment of Man was, quite frankly, unmanned. He had seen his doppelganger, an omen of death. Worse, he had not had any chance whatsoever to smack something. There were still enemies about, however. He could smell them. He'd come to them unawares and--brppt! All that was found was fine mist as poor Enlightenment found failed to notice the business end of the Haqqislam Rem that had been left guarding the rear.

Rickety however fared better. With the help of Mary Problems providing interference, he wade into the fire team that had been harassing him, using all his Nomad trickery and Zero-G experience to take down their leader, forcing the survivors to back down.

Rain was busy conducting the battle and she then took the time to remind Malaikah that she was supposed to be covering the rear. The Intruder slowly snuck up to the Ragik. "Like shooting fish in a barrel," the Intruder murmured, as she pointed the sniper rifle down at close range and pulled the trigger twice.

"Alright, we're good here. We got Alpha uploaded, Charlie secured. I'm sending Sinny to smash Point B. Good job boys and girls, the Angels put in their fair share of work today. Let's head out to the extraction point, quick and easy like we've rehearsed. Also, please let the Major know we're coming home with the holiday flicks she requested," she said with a barely suppressed giggle.

"YARR!" Mary piped in over the comms.

"YARR!" the Angels exclaimed. Rain sighed, albeit fondly. She was going to get sick of the lot of them wearing eyepatches before this whole sorry episode in this miserable tactical rock was all said and done, she was sure.

Top of 3
-The Gecko gets into a firefight with the link. Manages to wound once before I decided to try to break it up with Mary. The hack attempt fails and a subsequent gunfight seals the deal and allows the Gecko control of the left antenna once more.
-Mary continues to sit pretty at the center supported by the Sin-Eater and the koalas.
-The Intruder sneaks up on the Ragik and downs him to prevent any last turn shenanigans.
-The Sin-Eater has just enough regular orders left to climb down and claim the right flank antenna for the Nomads.
-Kampilan, deciding that he no longer has the firepower to push my units off concedes the game.

Haqqislam Score
--------------
Classified Objective - 1
Total - 1

Nomads Score
--------------
Classified Objective - 1
Activated Antenna - 1
2x Controlled Antenna - 2
Tech-Coffin Controlled - 3
Tech-Coffin Controlled by Datatracker - 2
Total - 9