Asteroid Blues

"So, Journo," says Qadira, "Tarik aint telling me nothing, what are we looking for?" The Namurr is surprisingly unassuming, if you ignored her eyes. Quiet, and disarmingly informal when she started talking. It was easy to forget how she just kind of...moved over walls and barriers. How easily she hefted that spitfire. That time she took a rocket to the face and seemed wholly unimpressed.

"I'm not sure I'm allowed to say," said Miles. Qadira gave him a bored glance, and he shrugged before Khadijah elbowed him in the side.

Khadijah was taller than her Qadirah, lankier, and constantly tense with a repressed call to violence. She was disciplined, but terrifying in a way Qadirah never was, and her glare swiftly broke Miles' will to keep his secrets.

"We uncovered some data during a skirmish with the Tohaa. It was, uh, garbled," said Miles.

"V was gonna hand him over to the Threes if he couldn't find anything," offers one of the Ghulams in the raiding force.

"Yes, thank you Khalid," said Miles, "But we've, ah, detected another transmission from the same source. Here. We have permission from Yu Jing, so as long as we secure the data center for a few hours we should have a far more comprehensive view of what we're dealing with."

"So," says Qadirah, "If a few dozen angry mercs were here that would be a problem, yeah?"

Miles snapped forwards, following Qadirah's eyes across the cavern, to the enormous cargo elevator currently disgorging a small army of Ikari company personnel.

"Yes," he said, "Yes it would."

Deployment! I won Deployment, Orpheus got first turn. I took one end largely based on a safe advancement route for my Namurr Duo, good Tuareg spots, and an excellent Fort Kickass location.

Ikari deployed some aggressive Bashi, a Tanko missile launcher on overwatch with Core support, and a Brawler sniper in a Tanko haris that could push up one end. He was largely relying on a Rui Shi, Pathfinder, and some irregulars to push the other flank. I concentrated almost everything in a centrally located Fort Kickass, then scattered some Flash Bots and Baggage Bots to slow an advance and move into zones. I had a Sniper Tuareg to watch a choice Combat Jump spot as well as to pick off vulnerable dudes during his advance, and a Hacker Tuareg to punish the Tanko Haris if it advanced.

On his first turn he walked one Yuan Yuan on and tried to drop the other onto a flank of Fort Kickass. It scattered off the field and so walked on on his side. The Brawler Haris popped a Flashbot and advanced, only to start eating Oblivions and Carbonites from the Tuareg. One Tanko got immobilized, but another managed to kill the Tuareg, then move forwards further and, due to a mistake on my part (I rolled 3 dice instead of 2 for reactive fire with a shotgun, and so my Crit>16>12 turned into a 3 and a 4) my Khawarij got wiped off the board.

With his first group out of orders, his second group started to advance people towards the last zone he doesn't control. He brought up a Bashi, a Desperado, and his Datatracker. Only for my Tuareg Sniper to reveal and wipe his Datatracker off the map. No-one else was quite in range, and his Rui Shi was in group 1 with no orders, so he pulled the Bashi forwards to attack. Cover, TO, but good range, versus good range and no cover for him.

He crit me on a 5.

Whoops.

My turn! I'd lost the Tuaregs but I was in an OK place. His Haris was pushed very far forwards and exceedingly vulnerable. He had points in all the zones but those points were aggressively spread out and he didn't have a Datatracker, as long as I got a Namurr somewhere I controlled I could basically guarantee a one point advantage.

I cancelled my Impetuous order on Carmen and Batard (Here represented by an ABH and Tarik. I, uh, haven't finished their paintjob yet) and had them advance and drop smoke to protect my link team. My Namurrs advanced, killing the Brawler Sniper and wounding a Tanko, before my Ghulam Doctor walked up with a shotgun and killed both of the Tankos in one order. The Namurrs shot forwards and a Flashbot repositioned into a zone, killing the Bashi, wounding the Missile Tanko and forcing it to drop prone while my Core Link repositioned to put three AROs on the Tanko Missile if it decided to stand up, as well as control the Ninja's options for engaging my Namurr.

At the end of the turn my Namurr Spitfire Datatracker controlled his zone, my core team and Namurr Rifle controlled one of mine, and the Flashbot controlled another of mine. I had an early 3-0 lead.

Orpheus' second turn and he has some painful issues to deal with. He needs to hurt the ARO presence enough that his Tanko can stand up without dying. He needs to reduce the points and orders I can use to take zones. He needs to take some zones himself. In no particular order, he has the Rui Shi attack a Namurr, forcing it to drop prone but failing to land a wound, has his Ninja sacrifice itself dropping a Ghulam sniper and breaking the Core Link in the process, has a Brawler attack my Namurr, eventually dealing it a wound and forcing it to drop prone, and has his Tanko stand and attack my Ghulam Doc+ and last Sniper, failing to drop either of them but not taking a wound in return. With this done he pushes up his Desperado, a Yuan Yuan, and a Pathfinder, putting points in zones and dropping Batard.

On my turn Carmen rushes forwards, trading wounds with the Desperado and going Dogged, then rushes up and chain rifles down both the Yuan Yuan and the Pathfinder bot. My last Sniper drops the Rui Shi, while my Namurr drops the Tanko and Brawler Lieutenant with a few orders left to go, giving me both an insurmountable lead and the ability to put him into retreat by the end of my turn. We call it there as I hit 6 (7 with Secure HVT).

Retrospect: I took enormous risks but they pretty much all paid off. My Namurrs both survived and held ground, giving me both striking power and point coverage. My light deployment on the left flank was enough to control a single zone and provide flash pulse coverage. My Tuaregs both died but did so draining orders, denying points, and forcing plays to deal with them. With a bit of luck I would have had the Sniper into my next turn which would have been terrifying.

The biggest risk I took was Fort Kickass. If his Yuan Yuan had managed its drop I would have had to reveal my Tuareg sniper and likely would have taken losses and wounds if the Sniper shot failed to kill the Yuan Yuan, nevermind the lost opportunity that would have represented. I should have deployed a Namurr shotgun or Batard to cover that landing zone.

Khalid scrambles across the battlefield, tending to wounded Ikari and Haqq soldiers alike. Wounds are bandaged, cubes retrieved, and the captured assured that they will be treated and, eventually, traded home. His work is long and grueling and finds him rejoining his allies well after the data has been extracted, as the team prepares to retreat back to the garrison.

The Namurr are standing over Miles, who is scrolling through a readout as quickly as he can.

"Situation?" asks Khalid.

"It's some bullshit," opines Qadira.

"It's numbers," says Khadijah.

"Someone's paying off targets on the station," says Miles, "They have a kill list. They've been cleaning up amidst the chaos."

"Do we know who?" asks Khalid.

There's a long, slow pause as Miles looks over the data. "I have no idea," he says, "But maybe Command will be able to make some sense of this."