Homeward Bound Again

The Opinionated Bastards pack up and head home from Propus, celebrating the New Year on the way through Sichuan. We’ve all survived 3050, and the company is in better shape now than when we started. 3051 looks bright.

You may recall that Propus was a long way from Piedmont. We keep an eye out for interesting contracts on the way home, but none present themselves.

Arriving on Piedmont, the mechanics get the mechs out of mothballs, training resumes, and the minor damage which accumulated on Propus is finally fixed. Woad‘s Grasshopper has its last jump jet back, and Ker-Ker‘s Frankenstein Lancelot once again has a large laser.

The techs put Double-Dog‘s new Thunderbolt into the repair bay, then spend some time digging through factory plans and archives. Veteran mech tech Kepano Endo finds something interesting in the public records of the Draconis Combine Mustered Soldiery…

Late in the Third Succession War, the Draconis Combine invaded Galtor III, led by the Bremond Draconis Mustered Militia. That unit’s commander, Mary Tallman, had a customized Thunderbolt TDR-5S, retaining the large laser but ditching all the other weapons in exchange for eight medium lasers, four in each side torso. The remaining weight and space was filled with heat sinks.

This seems like just the thing for money-conscious mercenaries such as ourselves. It takes a few weeks, but soon the

Status

It is now March 19, 3051.

Finances

We have 9,559,943 C-bils in the bank. Training and other expenses run to about 145,000 C-bils per month.

Training

Among others, Rook improves her gunnery to 1+. Her piloting remains at 3+.

The green pilots have all improved somewhat over the course of the last few months. Euchre and Woad are a mere few battles away from joining the ranks of the regulars, and Wojtek is only a little behind them.

Owing to her superb performance over the contract at Propus, Carcer Ngo has been promoted to Corporal.

Organization

Current lance rosters:

• Heavy Lance (275t)
  • Captain Drake Halit, Awesome AWS-8Q
  • Lieutenant SG Rook Ishikawa, Flashman FLS-7K
  • Corporal Carcer Ngo, Crab CRB-20
  • Private Woad Kohler, Grasshopper GHR-5H
• Medium Lance (190t)
  • Lieutenant JG Double Dog Dare, Thunderbolt TDR-5S-T
  • Sergeant Milspec Ortega, Phoenix Hawk PHX-1
  • Private Ker-Ker Ec, Lancelot LNC25-02 “Frankenstein”
  • Private Severe Payne, Locust (Custom, 3 medium lasers)
• Cadre Lance (275t)
  • Lieutenant SG Linebuster Atkinson, Lancelot LNC25-02
  • Private Hanzoku Yuksel, Guillotine GLT-4L
  • Private Euchre Kojic, Trebuchet TBT-5S
  • Private Wojtek Frajtov, Trebuchet TBT-5N
  • Private Teddy Bear Jamil, Vulcan VL-2T Custom

Spares

As far as big-ticket items go, we have two spare large lasers, one spare PPC, one two-ton gyro, and one three-ton gyro. We have a little short of 60 tons of armor; we’d probably want more going forward.

MechWarrior Claims and Assignments

• For the record, the following mechwarriors are claimed.
  • Captain Huri “Drake” Halit (Mephansteras)
  • Lt. SG George “Linebuster” Atkinson (Hasek10)
  • Lt. SG Mariamu “Rook” Ishikawa (Culise)
  • Lt. JG Sung-min “Double Dog” Dare (a1s)
  • Sgt. Jose “Milspec” Ortega (milspec)
  • Pvt. Ferdinand “Woad” Kohler (A Thing)
  • Pvt. Jan “Euchre” Kojic (EuchreJack)
  • Pvt. Cathrine “Severe” Payne (Burnt Pies)
  • Pvt. E-Shei “Ker-Ker” Ec “Frankenstein” (Kanil)
  • Pvt. Ed “Hanzoku” Yuksel (Hanzoku)
  • Pvt. Ik-jun “Wojtek” Frajtov (Blaze)
  • Pvt. Tedros “Teddy Bear” Jamil (Knave)
  • Pvt. Damayanti “Carcer” Ngo (Dorsidwarf)
• All mechwarriors are currently claimed. As the unit grows, there will be more mechwarriors to claim.

Schedule

It turns out that I will, in fact, be buying a house (or at least, it’s overwhelmingly likely that this will be the case). As such, I’ll have limited time to spend on BattleTech, what with the packing and things. I hope to stick to one post per week, but bear with me if the schedule slips. I’m not abandoning it or anything.

Action Items

Contracts Available

Contract time! Our options are…

• The Federated Commonwealth wants us to participate in a Planetary Assault against the Draconis Combine. Though it may seem unwise to participate in an attack against the same government which controls our homeworld, such arrangements aren’t unheard of among mercenaries. There are rules to protect us. As far as the details go, we’d be traveling two jumps to Nashira. Command rights are liaison, which I believe means we would control the allied mech detailed to keep an eye on us. Transport costs are fully covered, we would get 60% salvage rights, and, most interestingly, we’d also get 100% battle loss compensation. The contract would last five months, ending in early September, and would net us approximately 17,525,000 C-bills.
• The Draconis Combine wants to hire us for Garrison Duty on Darius, which is facing sporadic attacks from the Free Rasalhague Republic. I’m not sure how they find the time, given their current troubles with the Clan invasion, but such is life in the Inner Sphere. Darius is six jumps away. House command rights means we’d have to deal with a friendly AI unit. Transport costs are fully covered, salvage rights are 40%. We receive no battle loss compensation, but the Combine will cover 60% of our monthly operating costs. Garrison contracts always last a long time; this one is twenty-two months, ending in March of 3053. I believe we would have the option of taking side contracts during our garrison time; we’d also have access to good repair facilities and spare parts. Estimated profit over the nearly-two-years of time under contract is 52,650,000 C-bills.

We can also elect to take no contract and try again next month.

Long-Term Goals

• Are we interested in hiring more pilots? As Rince Wind noted, a bigger table of organization and equipment yields fatter contracts, which translates to better equipment and bigger contracts. Another lance or two would also give us better depth, allowing us to stand up to longer contracts more readily even if we run our spare parts stock down.
  • If we are interested in expanding the company, I’ll keep an eye out for good pilots on the personnel market and hire at my discretion.