Turn 23 - Sound the Horn Loudly…
You look over the notes that Jane had left you. Don Stanley’s crew was very small at this point, less than a half-dozen people. One of whom, unfortunately, was a tower controller at the small airport attached to the Palace that Willis had flown out of that fateful morning.
Careful snooping had discovered that whenever one of the Royal aircraft had flown this individual would issue an identically worded flight advisory to a non-existent track, which would be answered by a voice that sounded like Stanley’s. In this specific case, this controller had apparently mistook Sarah for you with her bundled up in her flight gear, and had given a slightly different flight advisory. Which was answered by Stanley.
One of the other members of his crew had been rated as a ‘master gunner’ with the unpowered AA mounts when he was in the service. His appearance matched the ‘skinny black guy with long hair’ description. He was believed to have been the actual shooter. Another was a tall white guy with a shaved bald head, who according to the files evidently specialized in kidnapping and extortion. All of the Asians (most of whom were not ethnic Japanese) had worked in the building in question and had been abducted just before the attack had occurred.
The third was the crew-cut Hispanic, who’d posed as a security guard in the foyer of the building and had given the warning when the police were on their way up, the real security guard was found with his throat slit stuffed in a closet.
There were two others, both of whom had been positively identified. One owned a janitorial supplies company and had used that to access all of the buildings used as platforms for the laser mounts, while the other owned a small one-truck transport firm which had been used to move the equipment about. Both were under surveillance.
Stanley himself had not yet been located, so surveillance was continuing until he was.
You’d already secretly established the Special Branch of the Queen’s Own Regiment, using your own personal funds and setting up a chain of command that went through Sergeant-Major Ngo (despite her objections to the idea). You already had a few people in mind for recruitment now that you had Jane working for you.
You had already set aside two sets of DEST Infiltration Suits produced without any of the chuuni flourishes by your labs for the use of the first two agents, Jane and a putative mafiosi named Michelle Carter, along with a pair of the new laser pistols and, the crowning item in your opinion, a suitably modified Chasseur painted all black with red trim and appropriate theme music cued up on the sound system.
You’d gotten help from Janet in coming up with some of that, while the two of you brainstormed over some truly excellent coffee.
Willis and Sarah were still in comas, no real change there, although the academy labs were working hard on cloning organs and hoped to have that ready in a month or so. They already had tissue samples and had assured you that so far everything in the datacores had validated experimentally.
Jeremy was in his senior year, he’d deliberately not skipped any years of school, unlike yourself. He’d gone in for neurohelmet compatibility testing and had shown a high aptitude. He’d already informed you that he intended to take a gap year and then enroll in the inaugural class of the Aerie when it became a full up university. Alita evidently had the same plan, although in her case she was intending to go into logistics rather than Mechwarrior track.
The proposed rebuild for the
Pathfinder, dubbed the Pathfinder Mk 1A, was on your desk. It would replace the frame of the mech with endosteel, the armor with the new ferro-fibrous, remove the medium laser from the center torso along with both small lasers, then place a pair of medium lasers, one in each arm. A recon camera, a pair of remote sensor dispensers, and sufficient jumpjets to jump a full 210 meters complete the upgrade. (QM Note, this will add the Scout quality to the mech, which permits the reroll of 1 failed initiative test per combat turn for any unit on the same side as the unit with Scout).
[] Accept - production and conversion of Pathfinders to 1A variants will be on hold until a Ferro-Fibrous factory is up and running. The initial conversion of the current lance will be free of charge and all future production will be of the new model. Stats will generally be the same, but cost will go up to 1422.8 per lance.
[] Decline - Look for something else.
[] Soldier on with the current flawed model
Parliament is rather quiet this year, with only routine legislation addressing minor issues that really don’t require much if any attention from the Crown.
You also receive the summaries of a number of internal and external design studies for a new assault tank to anchor the armored forces. Each is a heavily armed and armored design, and many incorporate the new LB-10X autocannon. In fact the only one without that new weapon is one of the two internal proposals, the Smilodon. Although the Smilodon still looks like an utterly fearsome beast indeed.
[] | Name | Cost | HP | Attack | Defense | Special |
[] | Smilodon | 2193.6 | 108 | 18 | 18 | Tracked Armored |
[] | Lion | 1803.6 | 104 | 17 | 17 | Tracked Armored |
[] | I Did It Tank | 2366.8 | 104 | 17 | 17 | Tracked Armored |
[] | I Did It Fuel Cell Tank | 1924.4 | 104 | 17 | 17 | Tracked Armored |