Our story begins - Arn
Welcome to my story, in which I will record the tales of the mercenary company Gramps' Giants and their new Commander's attempt to achieve the highest possible rating in a campaign game. Each mission will be recorded and summarized, and I should be able to update the thread every day or two (story parts will take longer.)
I make full use of the Threadmarks feature, so if you only want to see the major / interesting story parts and skip the brief mission writeups, then please do use that. Comments and questions are welcome, and I hope you enjoy the run!
____Darius began, "Commander, so long as we keep doing what we're doing-"
____"I SAID, I'M DONE!"
____Silence spread across the bridge.
____"Darius, if you and the crew want to keep going that's fine, but this is the last straw - I am done. ... Gramps is in command."
____Eyebrows shot up around the room like they were fired from an autocannon.
____"I lost that bet with him last year, and since then he's always saying 'I told ya so' or 'If I were in charge' so now I'm gonna make him prove it. Old fart has enough years to think he knows how to run the company - well, now he'll wish he never signed on." Continuing after a slow deep breath, "I'm going down to the planet and taking my share of the company's cash, just like our agreement says. Arn isn't a bad place to rest for a while... good fishing, anyway. Here's my final order: Gramps is in charge, but he never gets to pilot a mech again."
____Needless to say, I was surprised. Excited, for certain, but completely surprised. With the look on his face when he told me, Darius didn't see this coming either. Probably thinks that I'll be dead before 1200 days are up anyway. Bah - I'm not that old, and my odds are way better if I'm not running around in my Jenner anymore.
____Financial reports. Engineering projects. Mechbay logistics. Medical supplies. I shrug my shoulders to myself. It's fine - just like running up heat; turn off a few medium lasers when you need to, splash through a river, redline the reactor if it's important. There are some new systems to get used to, but the Commander never really balanced everything all that well anyway - especially the people. My people, now. That's where I'll start.
____It took a whole day for everything to change over. I'm glad that I spoke with Yang first - seeing him ride down to the surface with the ex-Commander made me wonder if he was going to leave too. Darius told me not to worry, but that didn't help much. The other pilots seemed unconcerned though - I heard Jalopy taking bets with Moose and some mechtechs on what the new company insignia would be. A little ways away, Hangover was laughing with Moose, Sumire, and Farah. I learned a long time ago that when a bunch of women are laughing, you just leave them alone and hope for the best. Turning towards the mech bay seemed like a good bet.
____Two Vindicators, my Jenner, a Spider, and a Locust -1M. I got pretty good at being the spotter for the LRMs. As I was thinking about some past missions, Darius came up to talk about money. What we had in the bank, our costs, what we could improve, and the contracts that were out there. The local government had four contracts - two straight up battles, one base capture, and one base defense. The Capellans had two bases they wanted captured, and House Marik needed some art recovered. Nothing that looked too dangerous; my biggest concern was having a mech get too damaged to fight. We needed to get through as many contracts as fast as we could and then get away from Arn with a minimum of trouble.
____Fortunately, I knew that Yang was a miracle worker. He could assemble a fully working mech, weapons and all, from the scorched scraps of three enemies using the same model. He had also been talking with Farah about ways to cut the cost of improving the Argo by nearly half. Even with all of that though, not even Yang could bring back a mech that had its center torso destroyed. I really needed him to leave the ex-Commander on Arn and come back to the ship. I knew that running a mercenary mechwarrior company was a hard, lethal business with decent salvage (never anything rare, though) and stingy contract pay. It was also exciting, and the best way I knew how to make a difference in the galaxy.
____When I got up the next morning, I was immediately disoriented. Took me a moment to remember that I was in the Commander's quarters. Turning on the screen to check the time, I saw a message from Yang titled 'Surprise'. That woke me up faster than my coffee. As I read his message, I realized that not only was he coming back, he was bringing a present. A sealed crate "just happened to appear" on the Leopard, and being the curious sort, he opened it. A Vulcan -2T battlemech in the factory original shipping brace, a NARC Beacon launcher with ammo, and a COIL-L energy beam would be arriving soon. Plus, he'd instructed the mechtechs to start modifying the mechs like we talked about, dropping some components and adding on more armor. As I walked into the hallway, thinking about how to best put the new gear to use, Darius was already there, walking rapidly from the bridge.
____"Good morning, Commander Gramps." We both smiled a bit at the newness of the title. "Looks like Yang has already given you the good news."
____"Morning," I nodded. "I'll ask Farah to get the mechbay scaffolding up and running for her first project as a thank you."
____"Sounds good. After that, let's pick some contracts and drop some mechs", Darius replied.
____"First drop of Gramps' Giants - let's show the MRB what we can do."
I make full use of the Threadmarks feature, so if you only want to see the major / interesting story parts and skip the brief mission writeups, then please do use that. Comments and questions are welcome, and I hope you enjoy the run!
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____"A SCORE?! MRB barely keeps the backstabbers in line, and now they have the nerve to say they're gonna make us jump through hoops for a score? Forget it - I'm done."____Darius began, "Commander, so long as we keep doing what we're doing-"
____"I SAID, I'M DONE!"
____Silence spread across the bridge.
____"Darius, if you and the crew want to keep going that's fine, but this is the last straw - I am done. ... Gramps is in command."
____Eyebrows shot up around the room like they were fired from an autocannon.
____"I lost that bet with him last year, and since then he's always saying 'I told ya so' or 'If I were in charge' so now I'm gonna make him prove it. Old fart has enough years to think he knows how to run the company - well, now he'll wish he never signed on." Continuing after a slow deep breath, "I'm going down to the planet and taking my share of the company's cash, just like our agreement says. Arn isn't a bad place to rest for a while... good fishing, anyway. Here's my final order: Gramps is in charge, but he never gets to pilot a mech again."
____Needless to say, I was surprised. Excited, for certain, but completely surprised. With the look on his face when he told me, Darius didn't see this coming either. Probably thinks that I'll be dead before 1200 days are up anyway. Bah - I'm not that old, and my odds are way better if I'm not running around in my Jenner anymore.
____Financial reports. Engineering projects. Mechbay logistics. Medical supplies. I shrug my shoulders to myself. It's fine - just like running up heat; turn off a few medium lasers when you need to, splash through a river, redline the reactor if it's important. There are some new systems to get used to, but the Commander never really balanced everything all that well anyway - especially the people. My people, now. That's where I'll start.
____It took a whole day for everything to change over. I'm glad that I spoke with Yang first - seeing him ride down to the surface with the ex-Commander made me wonder if he was going to leave too. Darius told me not to worry, but that didn't help much. The other pilots seemed unconcerned though - I heard Jalopy taking bets with Moose and some mechtechs on what the new company insignia would be. A little ways away, Hangover was laughing with Moose, Sumire, and Farah. I learned a long time ago that when a bunch of women are laughing, you just leave them alone and hope for the best. Turning towards the mech bay seemed like a good bet.
____Two Vindicators, my Jenner, a Spider, and a Locust -1M. I got pretty good at being the spotter for the LRMs. As I was thinking about some past missions, Darius came up to talk about money. What we had in the bank, our costs, what we could improve, and the contracts that were out there. The local government had four contracts - two straight up battles, one base capture, and one base defense. The Capellans had two bases they wanted captured, and House Marik needed some art recovered. Nothing that looked too dangerous; my biggest concern was having a mech get too damaged to fight. We needed to get through as many contracts as fast as we could and then get away from Arn with a minimum of trouble.
____Fortunately, I knew that Yang was a miracle worker. He could assemble a fully working mech, weapons and all, from the scorched scraps of three enemies using the same model. He had also been talking with Farah about ways to cut the cost of improving the Argo by nearly half. Even with all of that though, not even Yang could bring back a mech that had its center torso destroyed. I really needed him to leave the ex-Commander on Arn and come back to the ship. I knew that running a mercenary mechwarrior company was a hard, lethal business with decent salvage (never anything rare, though) and stingy contract pay. It was also exciting, and the best way I knew how to make a difference in the galaxy.
____When I got up the next morning, I was immediately disoriented. Took me a moment to remember that I was in the Commander's quarters. Turning on the screen to check the time, I saw a message from Yang titled 'Surprise'. That woke me up faster than my coffee. As I read his message, I realized that not only was he coming back, he was bringing a present. A sealed crate "just happened to appear" on the Leopard, and being the curious sort, he opened it. A Vulcan -2T battlemech in the factory original shipping brace, a NARC Beacon launcher with ammo, and a COIL-L energy beam would be arriving soon. Plus, he'd instructed the mechtechs to start modifying the mechs like we talked about, dropping some components and adding on more armor. As I walked into the hallway, thinking about how to best put the new gear to use, Darius was already there, walking rapidly from the bridge.
____"Good morning, Commander Gramps." We both smiled a bit at the newness of the title. "Looks like Yang has already given you the good news."
____"Morning," I nodded. "I'll ask Farah to get the mechbay scaffolding up and running for her first project as a thank you."
____"Sounds good. After that, let's pick some contracts and drop some mechs", Darius replied.
____"First drop of Gramps' Giants - let's show the MRB what we can do."
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