Asteroid Blues

“I don't know why you're so tense about this. We've stomped on Aleph pretty thoroughly before.”

Lieutenant Rashida Ghali looked over her shoulder, but didn't slow down as she led her squad through the darkness. “I know, we've been very lucky so far.”

Yara snorted. “I'm just saying, if we see another Dakini murder-squad I'll know better than to let them get the drop on me.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER...

Breath-of-Life-002 received new orders __run__hide run__. So that's what Breath-of-Life-002 did was exactly that. Its little legs pumped silently, its gangly arms swung wildly. It didn't know why it wasn't attending to the wounded – the man in the red turban was in particularly dire need of assistance – but Breath-of-Life-002 had its orders and it would carry them out.

It stopped, its little claw-feet skidding along the rocky ground. It then crouched low, its little body swinging down on its gimbaled leg joints. Its claw-feet then extended upwards on the tips of the toes, minimizing contact with the ground. It peered around the corner of the building, optic sensors focusing on the Aleph trooper on the catwalk. Breath-of-Life-002 waited with infinite patience, and the moment the Aleph trooper looked away from its direction it tip-toed across the alleyway, then dropped to its heels, elevated up on its gimballed joint, and moved at full speed towards the target.

The man in the trenchcoat awaited, and Breath-of-Life-002 was who he waited for.

- - - - -

This was a damn difficult game to force a draw on. Shamash was going first and deploying first, and I ignored my instinct to have my Ghulam/Naffatun fireteam form a line and open up on Shamash's fireteam as soon as it started moving.

So what happened was Shamash moved in a straight line and gunned me down, pinging objective points off of me even in ARO. At the bottom of turn three I had four orders, plus my Lieutenant order. Winning was impossible – Shamash had a lead on me, 6 to 2. I had to succeed perfectly at everything.

Order 1: My missile launcher Ghulam (and new Lieutenant) walked out in to the open and fire a single missile at Shamash's Lieutenant, scoring a crit with an AP+EXP round... and his LT was in NWI already, so that was that. Two objective points scored, bringing it to 6 – 4.

Lieutenant Order: The Ghulam runs to the intelligence operative, and succeeds her WIP roll to control it. One objective point scored. 6 – 5.

Order 2: Nasmat runs like Hell.

Order 3: Nasmat used Cautious Movement... WHICH WE FORGOT REMOTES CAN'T DO. This means I owe Shamash one (1) cheat.

Order 4: Nasmat runs like Hell, and manages to close within 6 inches of the intelligence operative. I now had a model within 6 inches of both the HVT and the intelligence operative, scoring me one more objective point. I tie the game 6 – 6.

Video choice: cartoonish sneaking music for my Nasmat's cautious movement for the win... but it was all a lie! Again, Shamash is owed one (1) cheat in a future game.