Nevada and the McKays spent some time roughing out the legal structures of the companies they were creating, while Wombat used the excellent facilities of the Trensham hangars to install the mountings for the new modular Low Berths in the cargo hold. A psi-shielded 'cage' was constructed for the rats to take refuge in when there was a danger of them being detected. They were not happy about this, but agreed it might be necessary. It occurred to Nevada that the rats might be able to operate the Ancient grav bikes, but it was going to take some work.
Feng and Nevada composed a message to Duchess Avaraja, expressing their loyalty and willingness to help but disinclination to come out of retirement and be drafted.
It had been a while since the they had had some downtime, so a month was spent on Trensham, doing some training, maintainance and study.
Then the Cats with Guns settled down to consider their next options.
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The ex-Services members of the group all felt that, were their Imperium to call them, they would answer; they also were fairly comfortable with being elsewhere if the call happened to be issued. Timo, however, was entirely uninterested in the wars of the Third Imperium, and was moreover feeling a little homesick. The time had come for a parting of the ways, and he accepted Barton McKay's offer of a lift home aboard the Tyrex courier on one of its' runs to Collace.
Aimo has decided to retire Timo in favour of a character more in tune with the group's aims, so Timo retires into NPCdom. Aimo went home to think this out and we carried on with 3 players
There were several possible options available to the CWG
After some thought, the last option seemed the best, and Wombat started scouring the PAN for possible hires. He discovered that the world of Kwai Ching, on the border between District 268 and Egryn subsectors, was constantly troubled by ihatei younger son land grab attacks and was hiring mercenaries to discourage them firmly. This seemed interesting, so they decided to head that way and see what was afoot.
This was selected as the most appealing, and a route was plotted via Kaldamar in the coreward Trojan reach. This looked like a pretty safe backwater stop to refuel on the way, and the Long Walk planned to jump the next day.
With this in mind, Nevada invested a fair chunk of change in one of Tyrex' better walkers, the Hoplite class, and a few more of the Shadowcat security robots.
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The ship emerged from Jump to find the Kaldamar system, just as listed in the Library Data ... except that there was a war on.
The entry had mentioned that the trading cartel McClellan Factors maintained an economic stranglehold on the mainworld. It appeared that the planetary government had reached breaking point with this and hired a mercenary company to break this hold. An 800-ton Broadsword class mercenary cruiser was orbiting the mainworld, and considerable fighting was in hand on the surface.
Fuelling at Lothav, the nearest of Kaldamar's three gas giants, the Long Walk headed insystem, broadcasting an enquiry to the orbiting ship. After speaking to the watch-keeper aboard, they were directed to the planetary government and one Jamal Thadison, Mayor of the city of Valthas - in a bunker under which the civilian government were hiding. Thadison was quite eager to hire on more mercenary help, but told the Cats to liaise with the existing hires, the Speargrinders, to find out where they would be best deployed.
A call was placed to the unit commander, Colonel Arlia Dorsey. On having the team's capabilities laid out, Col Dorsey suggested they tackle the secondary base and stockpile at the city of Porisal on the continent Vrindon. She reckoned they had around fifty security troops, equipped to TL 12 in carapace armour with lasers and gauss, occasional heavier weapons. She sent orbital images of the base and the group tackled up for the attack.
Landing behind the horizonin darkness, the Long Walk disgorged Wombat and Feng in full Battledress, Nevada in his new walker, and six Shadowcat robots. The base comprised a warehouse, with a concrete bunker in front of it and a barracks and living quarters at the back. A landing pad was beyond that with a 20-ton launch parked there. What was technically a wall, in fact more of a boundary, of 4' high concrete blocks, encircled the base. On the west side it joined onto the city proper. Three-metre high towers were placed at the corners, with some kind of mounted weapon, a searchlight and three men in each.
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Nevada spent a few moments tagging the towers with the targeting computer, then selected a favourite piece of music from his armour's library and fed it to the Hoplite's external speakers. With Black Sabbath's Iron Man blasting across the landscape, the walker strode over the horizon and launched it's missiles. Meanwhile, Feng and Wombat were approaching rapidly on foot, their 'cats spread out around them.
With a deafening series of explosions the missiles struck home. Only one crew reacted in time, their tribarrel laser clawing the missile out of the sky. Wombat's new backpack RAM launcher lobbed two grenades at the wall nearest them, breaching it easily, and he and Feng charged inside. While Wombat carried on towards the barracks and landing pad, Feng made for the bunker.
Rapid-fire laser bolts rattled against the Hoplite's armour, but while designed to make mincemeat of any local TL7 attackers, the weapon was not a challenge to the walker's prismatic aerosol defence. A second missile settled the matter. Nevada sent two massive slugs from the gauss cannon at the bunker, and was initially a bit disappointed at the results; a puff of concrete dust and a 40mm hole in the wall. A moment later, Feng arrived at the front wall and backhanded two stun grenades in through the firing slit. As she did, her audio picked up what sounded like a faint, agonized moan from inside. The grenades went off as she dashed round to the main door, the flash and bang horribly concentrated inside the concrete structure.
Wombat reached the landing pad, to discover the launch powered down and apparently empty. Crashing through the door into the barracks, he and the 'cat inBoots took the remaining soldiers by surprise and mopped them up with ease. Screams from the compound ouside pinpointed where the nearly invisible 'cats were dealing with the patrolling guard in the rest of the compound.
Feng opened the bunker door and blinked in some surprise. The inside was utterly wrecked; the two gauss slugs had punched downwards through the outer wall, glanced off the ground and bounced around the interior, destroying systems and soldiers with equal terrible efficiency. A couple of survivors looked as if immediate medical attention might save their lives and remaining limbs enough to be captured.