It's a cold day, even by Sparr's frigid standards. It's deep into the stormy season and another blizzard is building--you all know the signs, even the offworlders among you.
Despite the miserable weather, it's not a bad gig. The Union Administrative Department here on Sparr has re-activated their Disaster Relief Corps, and you spend most of your time training for operations in the extreme cold with the eventually aim of exporting this knowledge to DRC teams elsewhere in Union space. Your posting here has been mostly bureaucratic--the native Sparri clans pride themselves on their self-reliance, and offworlders rarely leave the shelter of Ynn, Sparr's partially-buried and geothermically warmed capital city. So it's with a mix of curiosity, elation, and dread when you receive a priority alert calling your team in to DRC Field Operations Station Hvitlukt-2.
Ylva Folstagsdottir, DRC Field Operations Deputy Director, sighs and gives you all a rueful look as she pulls up the operation details on the holoscreen that covers most of the briefing room wall. "It's a bit of an odd one, I'm afraid," she begins, only a hint of her native Sparri accent coming through.
"As you're already aware, six days ago we dispatched Argent Team to investigate a distress signal coming from near the base of the Fjallandir Mountains. There's an outpost near there owned by Fjallson Trading Company but it's supposed to be unoccupied this time of year, and the signal didn't include any ID codes--possibly Yesterday a blizzard broke over the peaks and is headed this way; Argent's deep in the storm now, and we haven't been able to raise them on comms for the last seventeen hours." The holoscreen shows a map of the Ynn Valley, highlighting the locations of the Fjllson outpost and the distress signal. It also shows the huge grey wave slowly spreading across the map towards Ynn: the blizzard. "With Bistre Team already making relief runs after the Blackhorn raid on Húsavík, we're going to have to move Cobalt Team's schedule up by a few months. The mission's simple: find Argent, bring them home. If you can determine the source of the distress signal and help whoever it is as well, do so, but not at the risk of your lives or Argent Team."
test post
It's a cold day, even by Sparr's frigid standards. It's deep into the stormy season and another blizzard is building--you all know the signs, even the offworlders among you.
Despite the miserable weather, it's not a bad gig. The Union Administrative Department here on Sparr has re-activated their Disaster Relief Corps, and you spend most of your time training for operations in the extreme cold with the eventually aim of exporting this knowledge to DRC teams elsewhere in Union space. Your posting here has been mostly bureaucratic--the native Sparri clans pride themselves on their self-reliance, and offworlders rarely leave the shelter of Ynn, Sparr's partially-buried and geothermically warmed capital city. So it's with a mix of curiosity, elation, and dread when you receive a priority alert calling your team in to DRC Field Operations Station Hvitlukt-2.
Ylva Folstagsdottir, DRC Field Operations Deputy Director, sighs and gives you all a rueful look as she pulls up the operation details on the holoscreen that covers most of the briefing room wall. "It's a bit of an odd one, I'm afraid," she begins, only a hint of her native Sparri accent coming through.
"As you're already aware, six days ago we dispatched Argent Team to investigate a distress signal coming from near the base of the Fjallandir Mountains. There's an outpost near there owned by Fjallson Trading Company but it's supposed to be unoccupied this time of year, and the signal didn't include any ID codes--possibly Yesterday a blizzard broke over the peaks and is headed this way; Argent's deep in the storm now, and we haven't been able to raise them on comms for the last seventeen hours." The holoscreen shows a map of the Ynn Valley, highlighting the locations of the Fjllson outpost and the distress signal. It also shows the huge grey wave slowly spreading across the map towards Ynn: the blizzard. "With Bistre Team already making relief runs after the Blackhorn raid on Húsavík, we're going to have to move Cobalt Team's schedule up by a few months. The mission's simple: find Argent, bring them home. If you can determine the source of the distress signal and help whoever it is as well, do so, but not at the risk of your lives or Argent Team."
She gives you all an assessing glance. "That's the brief. Questions?"
test
Dot?
Dot
Baywulf’s Sparri accent is far thicker as he speaks. Indeed, the man looks like he’s stepped straight out of some holovid about the life of the people of Sparr for an effete urbanite in the core worlds. Long hair flows down his back and intricate tattoos that blur the line between runes and circutry cover his skin.
”My clan’s lands were far from the Fjallandir Mountains. What beasts are said to dwell there? Beyond that, if it was not the children of the wilds or the teeth of the angry storms that has rendered Argent lost, have you any ideas who or what it could be?”
Sonya blows on her cup of coffee, the steam curling skyward, while she looks at the operational data. With a flick of her thumb, she downloads the information to her personal datapad. Grey eyes scanning the information, she takes a test sip and winces from the still too-hot liquid.
"What do we know about the distress signal?" Sonya asks. Unlike Baywulf, her voice has no trace of an accent. The two are different in many ways, with Sonya lacking the ornamentation of her more flamboyant companion. She wears a simple Union Navy jumpsuit with her greying hair pulled back into a ponytail.
When Baywulf and Sonya ask about the distress signal, Ylva taps on her datapad and the display screen flickers with the relevant metrics. "It's odd--it's on a DRC encrypted channel, and all the encryption markers are correct. We would almost think it was coming from one of Argent Team's mechs, except why would the IFF indicators be stripped out? The SigInt crew are guessing it's being send using DRC equipment by someone who wants us to know it's not coming from Argent, but that's just a guess. It could be locals, but stripping out the IFF would probably require a techshaman, and why would they bother? It's also been floated that it could be a Blackhorn raiding party, but if they're trying to ambush us why make it obvious the signal isn't completely on the level?" Ylva sighs.
"We have many guesses and suppositions, but what we need are concrete answers. You're going to get us some."
Generations ago, inter-clan warfare was endemic, but it has grown steadily less and less common over time. The Blackhorn uprising represents the first outbreak of open clan fighting in over thirty years. A wealthy and respected clan, the Blackhorns have also been at the center of a religious revival that has swept large parts of Sparr--this militant new faith is known as the Forfeðraráð--the Ancestral Council, which emphasizes a blend of animist and ancestor-worship combined with an intense hatred for NHPs, which they call "digital demons".
Calls for the eradication of NHPs and the expulsion from Sparr of their alleged slaves (a term applied to anyone opposing the Forfeðraráð movement) have grown more strident and explicit over the years. In addition to leveraging their wealth and political connections with other clans, the Blackhorns have become more and more open and using violence to attempt to seize and destroy NHP caskets.
"Any chance I can study the signal recording? I personally wouldn't be surprised that a techshaman did exactly that. We use improvised and recovered equipment all the time."
Ylva nods and taps the screen of her datapad a half-dozen times. "I can send you a copy of the signal data--we don't have time for you to eplicate SigInt's efforts independently, but you might have insight our core team lacks. Due to the storm's effects on comms, I'll have a courier drone hooked up to your mech, Melodee. If you find something noteworthy just upload the file to the drone and send it to us, we'll respond as necessary."
"Thank you. I will examine when the briefing is done."
Sonya looks over the data and listens to Ylva. The more she heard, the less she liked, but there was little time to waste. Argent was missing and needed a possible evac. She looks to the assembled team.
"Any more questions for the deputy director, or can we go pull Argent's ass out of the fire?"
"I have nothing more I feel I must know. Let us move out and bring back Argent."
"We should depart shortly. Conditions on Sparr are not kind to those who are not ready."
Ylva gives you all a final, long look and nods. "Good luck Cobalt. We'll monitor you for as long as the signal holds--remember your training, and all will be well. You leave at 0600, dismissed."
Filing out of the briefing room, you make your way to the pilot lockers and the armory to gear up before catching the elevator to DRC mech bay. Argent, Bistre, and Cobalt each have their own maintenance and repair hangars measuring 18 meters by 12, with smaller printers available for part creation and a ten-strong crew of subaltern mechanics supporting the human Chief Engineers in charge of each hangar.
The Chief Engineer for Cobalt Hangar is a wiry Sparri man of medium height named Ornar Ironarm--on account of the sleek metallic prosthetic replacing his left arm. Though he's an extremely skilled mechanic, Ornar favors the less spiritualistic approach of Union's trade schools rather than the more ritualistic approaches of the Techshamans. Cobalt Hangar is a flurry of activity as subalterns hustle this way and that, running final diagnostics and disconnecting hoses and cables from the rows of Everest frames in their bays. CE Ornar gives you all a nod of greeting and taps on his data pad, signing off on final safety checks.
"Welcome back, Cobalt, your frames are ready. All systems are nominal, weapons loaded, and the cores and purring like big metal kittens. Mount up and we'll finish your integration checks."
Melodee looks over at Onward, her inherited frame.
"That is good to hear." Melodee says. "I was worried my cousin would not have left it in a usable condition."
Baywulf smiles when he sees God-Bearer. It looks quite a bit like him, covered in the same stylized runic circuit patterns, and survival gear of all types is strapped onto it.
Mounting his mech is like second nature, and the soft, synthetic voice of Leita the Seeker echoes in his head as the neural links connect to the small silver neuro-studs on his forehead.
"The Thunder-Walker returns. What glories will we seek now?"
Baywulf chuckles and replies quietly, not broadcasting over his comm link, "We venture to the Fjallandir Mountains to save a team that has met an unknown fate."
"It's about time!" Mallory shouts down as the rest of Cobalt enters the vehicle bay. She sits atop her own frame, Hostile Witness, finishing off a protein bar. She stands up, yawning, and goes about gathering up her raven locks into a neat bun as she taps into the team's comm link.
"How was the briefing? I'd have joined you, but I had a previous appointment with breakfast. Let me guess, though: something's gone wrong, they don't know where Argent is, and they have no real information about what we're walking into." There's a pause, followed by a whumpf of air as she drops into her cockpit. "How close am I?"
Through a mouthful of alpacox jerky he says over his commlink, ”Almost exactly. Leita, give me a percentage.”
The smooth synthetic voice of his onboard NHP chimes in, ”Approximately 93.26% correct. Good work Cascade.”
The blaring of klaxons and electronic readouts fill the room and you all mount up on your mech rigs, running through gear and system checks. When the final box is checked and every indicator is green, Ornar clears you for deployment and the massive, 8-meter hangar doors rumble open. A gust of cold air buffets the hangar, unfelt by the pilots in their cockpits. With a heavy clang steps the armored frames of DRC Cobalt Team stride out into the Sparri winter.
"We can fill in the details on the way, Cascade," Sonya offers. "Comms test, Cobalt. This is Garuda checking in."
The Way She Goes stomps out into Sparr's seemingly endless blizzard, the drifting snow evaporating as soon as it touches the lumbering chassis.
"Always nice when the math checks out.. Thanks, Leita," Cascade replies, her smug grin clearly audible through the comm link. All trace of humor is wiped away, however, by Garuda's command to check in.
"Aye, Garuda," she says, her words clipped and efficient. "Cascade checking in. Pre-flight is good." Once out of the hangar, Hostile Witness falls into step with The Way She Goes, taking up a position behind and to the left.
With reactor cores humming under your feet and the metallic scraping whirring of mechanical legs, the armored frames of Cobalt Team march out into the Sparri winter. You pass by perhaps two dozen civilian half-tracks coming or going from Ynn, and at one point you spy a pair of heavy hydrofoil haulers out on the lake, but traffic is light as the Sparri also prepare for the oncoming storm. The going is easy, at first, your viewports dimming to block out the snow-glare but otherwise encountering no problems. It's not until the second day that things start to get interesting.
skrrt
>>>Cobalt Team, be advised that the storm has cleared the mountains and is still gaining strength. She's a big one too; satellite imagery has her at 500 kilometers across. You'll be in it be tomorrow. You have the command, Garuda. Over.
skrrt
>>>We're also picking up some scattered chatter in the area of the distress signal. Storm's playing hell with Signal's ability to pinpoint numbers or location, but the encryption is consistent with Sparrtungu patterns. Might be nothing, but it might be something. Stay alert, Ylva out.
A: The city of Ynn, and headquarters of the Disaster Relief Corps.
B: An outpost of the Fjallson Trading Company, currently battened down for the winter season and unoccupied except for a handful of maintenance subalterns.
C: The approximate location of the distress signal.
D: The Green Vault, a seed vault containing native Sparri seeds and plants in case of emergencies.
E: Godfall Crater. The location where the Sparri's original colony ship Yggdrasil crash-landed on the planet. Once a holy site of ancient Sparri technoshamans until it was razed by SecComm when they annexed the planet centuries ago.
F: Agartha Mines. During the struggle against SecCom this area changed hands repeatedly and served as a base for Sparri insurgents more than once. The mines are now played out and abandoned.
G: Death's Head Pass. Another site of multiple battles between rival Sparri clans and, later, SecComm armored cavalry battalions and Sparri resisters. Parts of frozen, half-buried mech frames can still be found there.
H: Shrine of the Mountain's Voice. An center of worship for those hoping to propitiate the spirits of the Fjallandr Mountains. The shrine is maintained by the seminomadic Yngling clan, who have a holdfast within the geothermically-heated caverns nearby.
We can print war machines on demand, travel across the stars, and even cheat death. But a radio that works in bad weather is still a miracle in progress.
"Roger, Command. Thanks for the heads up. No sign of hostiles, will keep you advised. Over."
Sonya eyes the telemetry data of the distress signal overlaid with a topographical map of Sparr's harsh terrain. It was rough country, but at least they'd avoid the mountains.
"Duncan, how long until we enter the mission area?" Sonya asks.
"Accounting for the weather is difficult, Sunny, but at your current pace you can anticipate arriving in nine days," the COMP/CON unit replies. It sounded like her husband, it even mimicked his mannerisms, but it was only a comforting ghost. Happy melancholy curves the corners of her mouth into something resembling a smile. It was better than nothing, better than no Duncan at all.
Sonya opens her radio to the rest of the squad. "You heard Command, Cobalt. Things just got a little more complicated. Fan out until visibility drops. Thunder Walker has point. We still have a ways to go until we find Argent's last known location, so get comfortable."
"Cascade, wilco," Mallory replies. Yawning, she adds some distance between her and her neighbors in the formation.
Gonna be a long trip.
Baywulf tries to help the party through the storm but can’t manage to get through the sensor interference the storm is causing.
"Nothing left to do but do it," Sonya intones, repeating the words she and her husband shared countless times.
She leads Cobalt into the storm.
As the wall of wind and swirling snow approaches like a living, hungry thing, Cobalt Team advances and is soon swallowed up in the blizzard. Your mechs are quickly lost to visual sight of one another, though omnihook pings remain strong enough to keep you in formation. Your scanners are struggling hard to keep your up to date on accurate terrain data, and Baywulf's native Sparri strategies are of limited use--even the native children of Sparr go to ground when storms this big roll in.
Luckily Sonya's years of hard-won experience keep Cobalt pointed in the right direction, relying on onboard topographical maps more than active sensor data. The deeper into the storm you go the patchier comms with HQ become--by the end of you second day inside the howling storm, their missives are heavy with static and that even the signal cleaners can't fully parse.
Mallory's thoughts turn to her SERE training on Europa, years and years back. Sure, the only real danger back then was washing out of the program, but her experience since had taught her that one frozen hellscape was much like another.
Still, Europa definitely had the best view, she thinks, recalling the spectacular vista of Jupiter looming overhead, seemingly fixed in place by the moon's tidally locked rotation.
"Such lovely weather here lately." It's not entire obvious if Melodee is being sarcastic or not. "Somebody remind me later to start building better sensors for storms like these."
Baywulf
Reading topographical maps for hours on end is mentally taxing work, and navigating for a path that is easily navigable for a team of eight-ton armored frames is sometimes difficult verging on impossible. By midday on the fourth day you realize you've been moving uphill despite correcting course three times in the last five hours--the topographical scanners don't seem to be reading the shifting snowbanks well. For better or worse, Cobalt Team now finds itself in the hills
You're picking your way across the icy scree of one hill, perhaps hoping a higher vantage point will let your topographical scanners re-align to the terrain, when your motion sensors start pinging--something, several somethings, burrowing just under the snowfall ahead. As your mechs crunch through the snow the motion pings get more active--and suddenly three large mounds, resembling termite nests, erupt with strange creatures! To the eyes of the Cradle-born they resemble a cross between bats, manta rays, and poison tree frogs--but winged and the size of a moose.
These creatures are Ice Vultures, native fauna who dig massive burrows under the ice and frozen dirt and hunt in packs. They're wing-claws have been known to puncture and tear apart civilian vehicles, and they bring down prey with long sprays of acidic spittle which help them the chew and swallow the touch hides of other Sparri megafauna.
Baywulf broadcasts over comms, ”Ice vultures! Hunters that feed off the frozen dead. They do not falter when it comes to bringing those living to the icy fingers of a cold death.”
The past several hours have seen Sonya sprawled across the cockpit of her Everest, pouring over an unfolded physical map of Sparr's terrain compared to their woefully inadequate telemetry. She sighs, taking a bite from a bar of compressed nutrients—field rations for extended stays inside a mechanized chassis, when hostile environments prevented proper cooking.
The Way She Goes trudges through the snow, her COMP/CON co-pilot following Wrench Witch's Onward as she rotates the map, trying to make better sense of their surroundings. The new perspective did little to help: they were f*%%ing lost.
"Contacts," Duncan exclaims. "Three contacts, native fauna, possibly hostile."
Sonya looks up, her chewing slowed as she squints through the plate glass of her cockpit. She throws the map behind her seat and assumes command of the mech, pushing The Way She Goes forward to stand beside Wrench Witch.
"Heads up, Cobalt," she says. "We have possible hostile contact at our 12."
Like most things Sonya has seen on Sparr, the creatures were strange, beautiful, and threatening. She had no doubt they could engage a mech and win. "What are we looking at, Dunk?" she asks, activating her sensor suite and locking on to the nearest creature.
As the ice vultures burst out of their nests, the first strafes off to the left flank of Cobalt Team like the pack hunter it is, half-gliding and half-crawling along as the howling winds allow. From its new vantage point it flares its wings out to the side and lets out a series of high piping sounds--though the noise is buried by the storm, the threat display is clear enough.
3 Energy Damage and Shredded until the end of your next turn.
Powering up her largest weapon, Wrench Witch points her weapon at closest of the ice vultures.
"Thanks for the lock Garuda, hate to waste my big gun on a bad shot."
With her first shot going wide, Wrench Witch fires off their rifle, which is just within range.
Realizing that her mech would lock up if she didn't move, Wrench powers up the reactor for one last push.
As Onward fires a volley and then falls back, the nearest ice vulture spits a glob of acid in response, but Wrench Witch has already moved out of range. Working themselves into a frenzy the other vultures come swooping in; one lands in a spray of snow and then spits a stream of spittle at God-Bearer.
3 Energy damage and God-Bearer is Shredded until the end of its next turn.
Ice vultures, sure.
Fingers dancing over the controls, Mallory designates one target for Hostile Witness's targeting computer even as she begins feeding telemetry from its partner to her allies. She executes the firing solution the instant it's ready, and suddenly Hostile Witness is briefly obscured by a steamcloud, the accumulated snow flash vaporized by waste heat.
Not for long, though, as the frame stomps its way through the snow, feeding telemetry on the other monster to the rest of Cobalt.
Mallor's shot strikes true, drawing a pained piping shriek of pain from the wounded ice vulture. The third member of the pack glide-lopes towards you, sending its own globule of acid arcing towards The Way She Goes, splashing against the mech's torso with a smoking, popping sizzle that scores armor and eats through more sensitive parts!
3 Energy damage and Shredded until the end of Sonya next turn.
Baywulf charges forward. Unable to get into melee range, he fires at the already wounded ice vulture with his assault rifle.
He then fires off a shot with his pistol, hoping to get some more damage in on the beast.
God-Bearer's weapons fire, spitting 40mm rounds towards the darting, agile form of injured ice vulture. Most of the shots are wide, and the few that land are mitigated by it's tough hide.
Baywulf charges in, switching from his rifle to his great-blade and swinging it at the ice vulture. He then slashes with his survival knife to try and get a bit of extra damage in.
The center ice-vulture lets out a pipping keen of its own as God-Bearer's blade slices into it, though the wound is not a fatal one. With startling speed and agility for a creature so large, the vulture twists around God-Bearer's arms and starts jabbing its wing-claws at the mech's joints, instinctively utilizing the same tactics that allow them to take down the mud mammoths of the equatorial taigas.
6 Kinetic damage!
The tactic seems no less effective here, as joint servos pop and wiring tears! Baywulf pushes the vulture off his mech, but its joints are not as responsive now.
Alarms blare inside her cockpit as the chemical stench of whatever corrosive bile the beast spat reaches Sonya's nose.
"They're to surround you," Duncan informs her.
"I see them," she replies, pushing The Way She Goes towards God Bearer.
Sonya presses a series of buttons, deploying a turret drone to watch her back as she spins up the on her chaingun. The drone lands on the ground nearby, its sensors feeding data to Duncan and allowing the COMP/CON homunculus to respond to threats.
"Assist Thunder Walker," she radios to Cobalt. "I'll hold this one off."
Whatever else they are, ice vultures are quick--faster than your Everest frames, certainly, though you know that yours are not the quickest models. While The Way She Goes is tracking the most injured vulture with her guns, its companion on the opposite flank rushes in!
6 Kinetic damage to TWSG
Moving forward to join The Way She goes. As they approach Wrench Witch lock onto the closer of the ice vultures. (Green)
"Way, use the lock-on to improve your accuracy."
She then fires upon that same vulture with her mech's reliable assault rifle. (Red in this case.)
Wrench Witch advances, her sensors sweeping the injured vulture and feeding a wealth of predictive targeting data to The Way She Goes. Her rifle fire only barely clips the creature, but the auto-turret takes the opportunity to fire a burst of its own into the limping vulture.
Piping more weakly now, the vulture tenaciously crawls forward, leaping upon the turret. Its wounds make the jabs both weaker and less precise, however, and the turret survives the assault with little more than some scrapes on its armor.
The Way She Goes opens fire on the badly injured vulture, guided by the targeting data from Onward. The heavy 57mm autocannon tears though the injured beast, putting it out of its injury. The drone turret's own burst was hardly necessary, but a double tap is just professional.