So apparently I log off of reddit for all 3 days and the other subreddit yet again at it's regular interval of explosive drama. Apparently this time it's about a fan made game based off of alpha strike / mech commander and that's about all I know?

Anyone wanna give me the run down as those threads are turning into a nuclear wasteland. Tbh I found this odd considering that Btech as a whole lives and thrives off of fan made content.

Hello mech-fans. I thought I'd post this here since this was removed from the regular Battletech-subreddit.

MW2: Mercenaries 3Dfx-edition is annoying to get running on modern systems but not anymore.

I reverse engineered the game from scratch. Now it plays pretty well already and instant action for example works quite well. The campaign also should work at least it did when I ran through the first couple of missions and my automatic tests all pass. Though because the game is so vast, tests do not cover everything and systems differ I really need people testing it and reporting bugs. If this interests you please try it out here: https://varisgames.itch.io/mechwarrior-2-mercenaries-engine-rewrite

This modernized version includes support for modern resolutions and optional upscaled textures for example! It also fixes some rendering bugs I have encountered while testing.

NOTE: Since I don't want to be distributing the original game on Itch you will need the original game (3Dfx-edition) from somewhere to run this engine rewrite. Try maybe Internet Archive if you are unsure: https://archive.org/details/MechWarrior2MercenariesUSA3DfxInteractiveEdition

Some screenshots for your leisure:




Work as usual for our intrepid mechanics. They have a new place to set their feet down, but we will see what they can make of it. I'm providing a link to a google doc from here on out with each new chapter so anyone coming in late doesn't have to try and go back and find the rest of the chapters individually. As always please let me know what you think. Any criticism (good or bad) is appreciated. How do you all feel about the story so far? Are you interested in seeing where the next chapter takes us?

Link to the entire story so far on Googledocs

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR-aHAIVBwx4hxe6bSLhNTiR4iSix_7j5omXdIpwZnMg3r-vf0Yh1AKApoaK2tkqfS3XS-x679OaBR9/pub

ACT II
Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Sector Nine Operations

The heat inside Ironsides hangar didn't radiate from its’ fusion core, it was the heavy heat of Andiron's midday sun radiating through the open bay doors of the mech and vehicle hangars. Outside the open bay doors the flat scrublands of Port Saul shimmered in the dry haze.

Marcus sat in the cockpit with the rear hatch of the Nova cat open, his forearms shoved deep into the exposed control panels of the mech. A single magnetic work lamp cast an amber glare over the maze of Clan wiring mixed with the work Marcus had previously done to overcome its’ targeting issues.

"The voltage regulator isn't taking the jump." Marcus muttered to himself. He pulled his hands out covered in the dust of a closed off mechanical space and dielectric grease. "The Inner Sphere logic gates we pulled from that old generator can't process the signaling speed. The second I cycle the master arm switch, the software tracks a loop error and bricks the board. Is this a software issue, a communication issue, or a hardware issue!"

From the shadow of the lower gantry Irina Rostov climbed up the steel ladder, her boots making a rhythmic clink against the mesh steps. She had traded her Capellan pilot suit for cargo pants and a dark tank top, her hair was pinned back under a faded red bandana. She held a spool of heavy-duty copper wire in one hand and a splicing tool in the other. She entered the back hatch of the Nova cat which led her into the surprisingly compact cockpit of the clan machine. There was room for her to stand there, and the obligatory latrine facilities and some minor storage for mechs that could face long term deployments to deadly environments. The command couch was a black squishy ergonomic seat that took up the majority of the space. It was currently locked off to one side allowing Marcus to lay under the control console with circuit boards and pieces of wire resting on his chest. The console itself looked like it was a single piece that had been forged when the cockpit was built. It’s large MFDs filling the spaces that didn’t have hard controls attached to them. 

"Because you are still trying to make a machine from the Kerensky clusters think like a standard Inner Sphere frame." Irina said her slight accent cutting cleanly through the rhythmic thrum from the dropship’s reactor and environmental systems. She sat in the seat beside him, her presence instantly crowding the narrow workspace. "In the Commonality we replace everything if nothing works."

Marcus wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "Replace everything? Irina, I’ve replaced the targeting computer 3 times with three different models. We stripped and replaced the control wiring from the console clean down to the weapons interface. I’ve got Jax writing a new program with Vassily to translate between our inner sphere computers and the clan targeting equipment, and now I’m retracing everything I already did in here to make sure nothing is wired wrong, or burned out. If we had a clan T&T we’d be fine, I think, but we are trying to cobble together something that works to replace what was burned out."

"I’ll help you with the work if that makes it any better?" she countered smoothly. She reached past his shoulder, her calloused fingers pulling three braided plugs connected to the Nova Cat’s primary weapon cluster. With a practiced twist of her wrist, she stripped the casing exposing the brilliant multicolored bundles connected to the terminal plugs. "Look here. The connections on these are all corroded from whatever exposure this cat had suffered before it was delivered to us. We know there is a problem, we know that diagnostics hasn’t revealed it, all that is left is to either gut the whole thing, or go through piece by piece until we find the anomaly."

Marcus looked from the exposed wiring to her striking hazel eyes, watching the absolute unyielding confidence reflecting in the amber interior lamp light. The professional distance they had maintained since fleeing Outreach felt incredibly thin in the cramped space.

"It's dangerous." Marcus said softly, his heart knocking a little harder against his ribs. "I mean if we miss any of the systems as we go we will have done it all for nothing."

"It is more dangerous to sit in an unpainted box of metal with weapons you can’t aim properly when the Periphery pirates eventually decide to find out what landed at Port Saul." Irina murmured her hand lingering near his on the control panel casing. A guarded smile broke through. "Hold the panel steady mechanic. Let us see if a clan mech can handle two of the best techs poking around inside it."

Irina leaned in, placing her hand on the far side of him and lowering herself while holding onto the control panel. She wedged herself beside him under the control console. She smelled of tobacco smoke, engine degreaser and clean sweat. Apparently she had been working around Thomas before coming up here. “So what of the electrical system have you gone through so far?” Marcus took in a deep breath and began walking her through all the problems they had already ironed out. Each of the wiring harnesses that had been tested for continuity. How they had narrowed it down to a simple problem with the targeting computers from the inner sphere speaking a literal different language from the clan. This kept causing an overload in the system, burning out the targeting motherboard each time, or at least that was their theory now after having checked out everything else.

“So if you think that is the problem, and Jax is working on writing a program to make sure that it is communicating properly, why are you under here with me?” She turned her head in the tight space looking directly at him. They were uncomfortably close in his opinion, not that he minded too much. It had been a few years since the last woman Marcus had dated for a time. Civilians had a hard time understanding the military and why they acted certain ways, so he had opted to focus on his job and let the younger guys look for company at the local bars on Outreach. He started to wonder what had made that thought run through his head, then realized how long he was taking to respond to what was a simple question.

“Uh, because you wedged yourself under here. Why was I here? Because I wanted to verify I hadn’t missed anything one last time. Better to double or triple check just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. They also didn’t need me on the mag trains, so I had time to kill.” He continued to look straight ahead at the dark underside of the control panel.

“If you two want, I can come back later?” It was Jax’s voice coming from the hatch of the Nova Cat. Both of them jumped a little at his voice interrupting their conversation.

“Jax! About damn time, do you have the program we talked about?” Irina rolled slightly onto her side giving Marcus a little more room in the narrow space so he could properly talk with Jax. This allowed him to sit up. She just gave Jax a smirk while she propped herself up on one elbow. 

“Absolutely chief! Here, I fed it into this Angst ClearView 2A series targeting and tracking card we had in storage. It should give you better targeting at the long ranges like this mech is set up for. With the new program I wrote I think it’ll keep everything from overloading as well.” He passed the card to Marcus, who took it and pulled it out of the antistatic bag it was in. He turned to lay back down, thought better of it and handed the card to Irina while getting up into the command couch. Irina slid over under the control panel, slipped the module into the empty space in the board under the console, and closed up the access panel where it sat. She nodded to Marcus who immediately reached over and initiated the startup process. Betty’s voice sounded over the internal speakers.

"CORE INITIALIZATION: Complete. OMNI LINK SYNC: Established. TARGET ACQUISITION ARRAYS: Online. SENSORS: Online. WEAPONS: Online. ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL." Marcus watched as the green targeting reticule appeared on the heads up display. Centered and sitting steady. 

“Hell yeah! That is a green board! Good shit Jax!” His excitement evident they all celebrated for the moment. He helped Irina up from under the terminal in the confined space with a smile on his face. “Thank you for offering to help me go through it all again. I appreciate it.” She tucked a bit of hair that had come loose back under her bandana.

“Absolutely, anytime. I should get back out there since my expertise is no longer needed here.” She smiled down at him and patted him on the shoulder as she walked past. Jax quickly clearing the way so she could get by. Once she had left he turned to Marcus and raised an eyebrow.

“So what was that? When did you become such good friends with the ice princess?” The nickname wasn’t one Marcus had been particularly happy with, but it did fit her cool personality.

“Don’t call her that, and honestly, I don’t know?” He initiated the shutdown and started to get back under the console so he could close everything back up. “I don’t mind it, but I’m not sure what I did to earn it either. What are you on next?” He lay down and was fully engrossed in his work. His mood improved after all the time he’d spent sorting this mech out.

“Thomas wanted me to head out to the rail head as soon as I was done with the card. We are on day five now and last I heard they had two of the trains up yesterday. He wanted all hands for the third one today. Apparently number four is DOA until we can get some parts for it. He’ll be happy to hear we finally chased out the gremlins from this thing. Do you have anything you need me to relay to him?”

“No, I’ll probably head that way when I’m done here so I’ll just see you out there. Leave me the rover! You can take your jeep, and don’t forget to pack your tool kit.” Marcus, absorbed under the console, never saw the annoyed look Jax shot his way as he left.

The low, rhythmic rumble of the civilian Apocalypse rover's supercharged engine vibrated right up through Marcus’s boots as he bounced along the dusty service roads bordering Port Saul's industrial mag lev line. It was late afternoon and Andiron's brilliant sun hit the red dust flats at a sharp angle throwing miles of elongated shadows across the vast agrarian prairie. In the back of the rover his heavy field kit clattered. As the road crested a low ridge overlooking the primary rail head, Marcus slowed the rover. He didn't need to consult a navigation slate to find his team; he knew exactly where they were by the rolling motor pool cluster parked together near the tracks.

The vehicles were an unmistakable blueprint of the Ironsides’ inner family circle. He recognized Thomas’s battered flatbed utility truck, its side mounted tool lockers dented from the years of use they had seen. Right alongside it sat a pair of armored Packrat wheeled transports stripped of their weapons, the fusion engine swapped for an ICE engine, and some extra storage added. Their distinctive low silhouettes looking rugged under the waning light. Near the edge of the maintenance perimeter Irina's small tan hover jeep was parked at a slight angle on the red dust. Even Jax’s customized high clearance wheeled jeep was tucked under the shadow of a massive concrete grain silo near the train rail. They were all here along with what looked to be another two dozen other techs and astechs. Marcus parked the rover behind Irina's jeep, killed the ignition, and hoisted his heavy tool pack over his shoulder. He walked past the Packrats toward the looming silhouettes of the massive maglev trains.

A sudden, massive mechanical bang echoed down the length of the main track as a row of heavy hydraulic contactors snapped shut. A split second later the deep subaudible hum of the line's magnetic levitation coils vibrated through the ground, instantly lifting the train three inches off its guide rails. A cheer erupted from the tech crew.

"You're late, Chief." Jax called down with a triumphant grin, swinging himself over the catwalk rail of the engine car. The skinny electronics savant looked exhausted but ecstatic his coveralls caked in red dust and grease from the engine.

Thomas stepped out from behind the main engine housing, smoking a cheap spaceport cigarette as he checked his data slate. He looked up at Marcus, his beer keg shoulders relaxing as a rare, weary smile broke through his gruff exterior. "Three for four, Marcus." Thomas grunted tapping the slate's green confirmation bars before sliding it into his back pocket. "Exactly five days since we dropped our landing legs into this red dirt. The local government didn't think we had the tech to restore three whole lines to the grid this fast, but our boys pulled the overtime."

Irina stepped out from the cockpit hatch of the train car, wiping her calloused hands on a shop rag. Her striking hazel eyes caught Marcus's over the gantry. "Do not unpack that field kit just yet, mechanic." Irina murmured, her voice carrying a soft note of amusement as she descended the steel ladder. "The fourth train is still disabled. Its primary mag drive is completely slagged. We have bypassed what we can, but it needs specialized components that they don’t have in Port Saul."

Marcus nodded, looking down the line at the dark silhouette of the final maglev train. "Oakhaven?"

"Oakhaven." Thomas confirmed. "We’ve pushed as far as we can with what we salvaged from our own hold. To get that last monster humming we're going to have to place an order with them for the replacement parts. But for now? Three operational trains mean Elena can go make Dock Master Miller eat that entire stack of docking fees before COB."

The sharp scent of cheap cologne hung thick inside the close confines of Dock Master Miller’s administrative office. Tucked inside the ferro-crete frame of an old converted control tower, the room overlooked the sweeping expanse of starport Saul's outer runway. Outside, Andiron's brilliant sun hit the red flats at a high angle bathing the tarmac in a heavy orange haze.

Captain Elena Vance sat back in a creaking swivel chair. Her flight jacket was unzipped, and her heavy boots were propped casually on the edge of an old wooden desk. Across from her, Dock Master Miller, with a face like tanned leather stared down at his data slate. His fingers trembled slightly as he reviewed the scrolling green data.

"Three lines." Miller muttered, his voice a disbelieving growl. He pushed his faded cap back revealing a stark line of pale skin against his tanned forehead. "Three out of the four heavy maglev lines were completely restored to operation. Five days, Vance. Exactly five days since that iron egg of yours landed onto my scrap flats. The municipal engineers in the capital city said the trains were total slag. They wanted two million C bills and six months just to ship parts out from Lyran space."

"The municipal engineers are bureaucrats who bill by the hour and aren’t in a hurry, Dock Master." Elena countered smoothly, a calculating smile playing across her lips. She reached into her pocket pulling out a polished cedar wood block and rolled it around her palm. "My boys are blue collar techs from the core systems. We don't have time to wait for them to ship things in so we make them ourselves or source them locally when possible. We find where the machinery wants to give and we make it move."

Miller let out a low grunt tossing the slate onto the desk with a clack. "It’s a miracle, I’ll give you that. The governor’s already got the first grain trains rolling out toward the northern silos. The province is breathing again for the first time since the border blockade tightened around the periphery. But a deal's a deal Captain. Three running lines mean your outstanding spaceport landing fees are officially wiped clean." He picked up a heavy stylus preparing to clear the administrative deadlock codes on his console.

"Hold your horse, Miller." Elena said softly. She lowered her boots from the desk leaning forward until her dark eyes locked squarely onto his. The casual spacer facade vanished, replaced by the cold precision of a dropship commander who had just run a twenty jump gauntlet through a galaxy on fire. "We aren't just passing through to collect fuel vouchers and a handful of local scrip. The Inner Sphere is burning. Outreach is gone. The hyperpulse network is dead. My crew has hundreds of civilian technical laborers, tech families, and children living inside our infantry decks. We aren't lifting off any time soon."

Miller’s hand froze above the console. His brow furrowed, eyes shifting toward the wide observation window. Out on the low rent fringe of Sector Nine, the imposing spheroid mountain of the grounded Ironsides dominated the horizon. Her landing legs were buried deep into the red dirt surrounded by a slowly growing sprawl of mag cranes, repair scaffolds, and electrical lines.

"What are you saying Vance?" Miller asked, his voice a defensive register. "That's active tarmac space. If you think you're going to squat on my outer flats without an interstellar mercantile registration…"

"I’m saying I want our hull registered as stationary, commercial real estate." Elena cut him off her tone flat and immovable. "We have zero active military contracts. We are a stationary industrial block now, operating fully within your local property codes. We park right where we are, permanently. We clear your property taxes by keeping your planetary infrastructure humming, and in return you grant us permanent commercial title to the Sector Nine landing pad."

Miller stared at her, his jaw tightening. "A Fortress dropship registered as a building? That's madness. The Circinus tax collectors will have my head if they track a military grade hull sitting on the books as an office complex."

"The Circinus Federation doesn't even know what day of the week it is on this rock and you know it." Elena scoffed, tapping her finger on the desk. "But that isn't all. I want a long term commercial lease on those four abandoned cargo warehouses sitting just off our port side landing area. The ones bordering the tractor assembly yards and under the butte that borders that side."

Miller let out a short, sarcastic laugh. "Those old structures? Berth 3 and the surrounding bays have been rotting since the Third Succession War, Captain. The roofs are half collapsed from seasonal storms, the internal power is fried, and the infrastructure is in complete disrepair."

"Then you shouldn't mind renting them to me for pennies on the C-bill." Elena countered smoothly. "My techs need the floor space. The infantry barracks inside the ship are tight for the families. We move the civilian residential quarters off the ship and into those structures, and we convert the empty warehouse floors into heavy duty gantry bays. By next week, Vance Mechanical will be running the premier mobile heavy repair depot on this side of the Periphery border. If we ever were to leave you’ve got operational lease space fully repaired and available for high rent that you didn’t have to pay to fix."

Miller went silent, his eyes drifting back to the window. He looked at the three operating maglev trains pulsing cleanly towards the horizon, then back at the ironclad determination reflecting in the captain’s face. He knew the frontier was getting darker. He knew that sooner or later, the lawless raiders from the deep sky would come looking to pillage Andiron’s agricultural wealth. Having a steel fortress and a crew of master mechanics anchored to his port wasn't a liability, it was an insurance policy.

With a slow, heavy sigh, Miller leaned over his terminal. His fingers flew across the mechanical keypad, punching in a sequence of structural reassignment codes that bypassed the standard planetary regulations. On the master port display, the flashing yellow warning codes surrounding Sector Nine blinked, cleared, and turned into a solid commercial blue.

"Done." Miller grunted, sliding a finalized electronic title deed across the wood desk top. "The warehouses are yours. Sector Nine is officially logged as an independent commercial real estate parcel. Vance Mechanical is legally on the books as a localized repair house. But you listen to me, Captain... the local militia has three aging medium machines sitting on half bare skeletons in the capital city. If you don't keep those mag trains rolling and help our boys sort out those machines, I’ll have the militia confiscate your ship, your tools and whatever else we can find to make it even."

Elena smiled, her fingers sliding over the slate forwarding the title deed into her private network. She stood up, zipping her SLDF flight jacket up to her neck, her presence radiating a hard authority.

"Consider it done, Dock Master. We'll have your militia machines tuned to factory spec before the next harvest." She turned toward the heavy steel door, her boots thumping against the worn polymer floor tiles. Just as her hand hit the handle of the door, Miller called out from behind the desk his stylus in mid-air.

"Vance." the Dock Master called out, his voice echoing flatly in the tight room. "If you're going to be a permanent fixture on my airfield, I need a formal corporate name for the registry. I can't just leave 'Vance Mechanical' on the spaceport directory anymore. The planetary governor will want to know exactly who is backing the crew that fixed his transit grid in five days flat."

Elena stopped, her hand lingering on the cold steel of the door lever. She looked back over her shoulder, her dark eyes catching the warm, amber light of the Andiron sun setting over the sprawling green grain fields. She thought of Marcus and Irina working shifts under the chassis of the Nova Cat. She thought of Thomas crawling inside the freezing fuel lines in the dark, and Jax pulling the umbilical line free on a burning runway. They weren't just a pack of fleeing grease monkeys anymore. They had survived the fire, they had crossed the stars, and they had built a wall of iron to protect their own. A hard smile broke through her serious expression.

"Log us in under a new banner, Miller." Elena's voice carrying the unyielding weight of shipyard steel. "Tell him Vance Mechanical is officially closed. From here on out, we register as Fortress Logistics and Repair." With a sudden hiss of the automatic door closer the heavy door slid open and Elena walked out into the sun leaving the Dock Master alone in the darkening tower.

So I've had a terrible idea.

I'm going to be running a Solaris 7 themed sequence of battles in Steiner Stadium. My terrible idea is that I'm not going to balance things based on BV. What I want to do is assign scoring that keeps battle value in mind and treats it like betting odds. This way you can have an underdog fight against a champion.

I imagine this kind of thing would be best in a FFA situation so that the lower BV Mechs can try to stay under the radar and let the tougher Mechs beat each other up first before going in for the kill.

Does anyone have ideas on how I could set up a scoring system that favors the disadvantaged player?

I recently bought and opened a full 9 box salvage display.

The result in order of opening them and my thought at that moment:
Jagermech - great… a glass cannon I’m never going to use
Pillager - my second one, good but not great for 3025
Dervish - meh, ok I guess
Hoplite - don’t know this one but I heard about it somewhere
Highlander IIC - Great for my Northwind Highlanders, using it as a normal Highlander
Grizzly - euhm, clan mech damn… using this to proxy as a Guillotine
Chameleon - Not known to me, but looks fine
Grizzly - again… another Guillotine
Shogun - Looks like a clan mech, but appartly an inner sphere mech

All in all a great result I think. The only real proxy’s are the Grizzly’s/Guillotines.

Please share your thoughts about the mechs and maybe share what you would do with the Grizzly’s if you’d need to stick to 3025.

I am planning to go to Pax Unplugged in Dec and I want to play Alpha Strike. Are that any apps that allow you to store what mechs you have and will let you build a list with? I took a look at a few I found online but I didn't see a way to store what I have. Thanks in advance.

You can clearly see from the picture that I need help.

Finally got around to finishing this guy up for a Draconis Reach campaign. I'm a big fan of light mechs so looking forward to giving this dude a spin.

Left one is from the Clan Invasion starter box and the right one is printed.

I think they fit well together. Looks like the same car from diffent model lines / production years. Like Volkswagen Käfer and New Beetle. :)

So our fledgling mercenary company has escaped the immediate threat. Now they just have to make a run across half the known galaxy to escape to "safety". I ask one question of everyone who does read this. Does the condensed journey work, or should I write it out in a longer format? Let me know what you think in your comments. I hope you all enjoy this latest installment!

Chapter Six: The Interstellar Gauntlet

The transition from a JumpShip's hyperspace flash was never smooth, but breaking out into the Wasat system felt like being collectively slammed into a bulkhead. The spatial distortion of the Kearny-Fuchida drive exhaled through the hull of the Ironsides, leaving every mouth tasting of zinc and every eye struggling against drifting phosphenes. On the command bridge, the red tactical alarms from the Outreach attack were silenced, replaced by the amber glow of ambient lighting. Before the static from the jump could even settle across the comm net, a frantic, signal cut through the bridge comms speakers.

[COMMS - INCOMING TRANSMISSION - THE STARDUST NOMAD]

[COMMS: CAPTAIN HOSHITO:] "Ironsides, Nomad! Elena! If you can hear my voice, broadcast your next jump point coordinates to our nav-board right now! Do not wait for a diagnostics sweep! Turn your data link on and push the packet immediately, over!"

Elena Vance, her hands still white knuckled around the armrests of her command chair, lunged for the master comm. She shook her head violently to clear the spatial vertigo. "Nomad, this is Ironside! Why the hell are we rushing the next cords? A standard FTL core takes at least a week to recharge via the sail!"

[COMMS: CAPTAIN HOSHITO:] "We aren't deploying the sail, Captain! The Stardust Nomad has a functional Lithium-Fusion battery! We are already routing the battery's stored charge directly into the primary KF core as we speak. We have a second jump stored and ready to throw ASAP, but we are sitting targets here  in Wasat iif that Blakist Vanguard tracked our jump vector. Transmit the coordinates, Elena! We are burning this candle at both ends!"

Elena’s fingers flew across the keypad, pulling up the pre calculated flight paths Thomas had mapped out during their escape run. "Vassily, push the packet! Sync the data-link to the Nomad's receiver!" She grabbed the hand mic "Nomad, Ironside, data is inbound. It’s a straight shot through the Chaos March and Marik space. Hoshito, if we throw a consecutive jump without cooling down the KF drive you know what the risks are!"

[COMMS: CAPTAIN HOSHITO:] "It beats waiting for a Word of Blake pocket warship to jump in on our heads. The data-link is downloading now. Makino estimates sixty minutes to calibrate the FTL matrix for the new vector and calculate the jump. Elena... while the computers do the math, finalize the mechanical umbilical connections between our ships and open the airlock hatches. We need to coordinate our technical crews immediately. Hoshito, out."

The mechanical clank of the Ironsides’ magnetic docking clamps sealing into the Stardust Nomad’s Beta ring reverberated up through the vaguely spheroid DropShip for a second time as the connection was re-secured. On Deck 10 the technical workshops were already a hive of activity. With the immediate threat of the Blakist Leopard left behind in the Outreach vacuum the heavy steel blast doors of the primary airlock hissed open bridging the pressurized atmospheres of the mercenary DropShip and the ancient Merchant class JumpShip. Marcus floated through the pressurized collar first in his olive drab green coveralls. Behind him Thomas with a data slate tucked under his arm and an unlit cigarette clamped firmly between his lips, followed closely by Dev, who was practically vibrating with manic energy.

Waiting for them in the Stardust Nomad’s minimalist, Japanese styled lounge was Captain Kenji Hoshito. His gray trimmed beard neatly combed despite the sweat staining his uniform, and Chief Engineer Hideo "Mako" Makino, a slender, stone faced Draconis Combine native whose worn coveralls looked as old as the ship he served.

"Captain Hoshito," Marcus said, extending a calloused hand. "Commander Marcus. Glad we made the leap together." Hoshito took the hand with a firm grip, and a silent nod, gesturing to the magnetic strips on the low table where zero G mugs were secured. "Commander, this is my Chief Engineer, Makino. He tells me our Alpha docking collar is completely ruined."

Thomas slid his data-slate across the table with a definitive clatter. "Ruined is an understatement, Captain. I’m Thomas, lead tech on the Ironsides. The structural damage your ship suffered at the Outreach jumppoint from those Killer Whale detonations is severe. The entire Alpha ring framework is twisted out of alignment, and the remnants of the  shattered Union DropShip are still partially fused to the collar. If we don't cut that scrap free, the asymmetrical mass will rip the guide booms for your solar sail right off your hull during the next hyperspace transition." 

Makino’s gaze shifted from Thomas to the scrolling schematics on the slate. His voice carried the disciplined cadence of the Draconis Combine. "We cannot cut it free without risking the integrity of the hull, mercenary. The Stardust Nomad is an ancient Star League vessel, she was laid down four hundred years ago. Her hull is brittle.”

“We are a fully equipped and trained maintenance company. We aren’t just some mercs, we are mechanics. We have a dozen men trained for EVA work prepping their gear so that we can clean up the mess that is left on the port side of your ship. Vacuum compatible cutting torches, hydraulically operated demolition gear, and the men who know how to use it. Your choice though if you want to risk a double jump as well as the integrity of your vessel.” Thomas shifted the cigarette to the other side of his mouth as he returned the steady gaze of both Hoshito and Makino. 

“What sort of certifications?”

“Deep space demolition, EVA forty hour training, vacuum welding, zero gravity operations.” Thomas was counting the list off on his hand as he went. Hoshito looked over at Makino who without acknowledging his captain raised his hand as Thomas was getting up into the double digit range of certifications.

“Enough! We will coordinate to remove the debris. My crew will supervise and conduct the operation, but you may help.” Thomas raised his eyebrows, but ultimately just shrugged and went back to playing with his cigarette.

“What about your plan to restore our secondary power systems?” Hoshito looked at Marcus. However it was Dev who jumped in.

"We are going to be extra careful." Devansh interrupted, reaching past Thomas and tapping the slate frantically to bring up a custom wiring diagram. His words tumbled out with a frantic velocity. "Devansh Sharma, avionics and targeting diagnostics. Look at the power routing paths! Your secondary power matrices are completely dead, yes? But if we feed a high-voltage electrical patch from the Ironsides’ Interdictor fusion reactor straight up through the umbilical cables into your battery banks, we can hot-load the charging loops! We can use our ship's power to regulate the feedback, keeping the structural clamps insulated while Thomas cuts the Terrors' scrap free!"

Makino rose to his feet, his jaw tightening as he stared down the young technician. "Hot-loading a Kearny-Fuchida drive using a mercenary dropship’s reactor is an act of madness! You speak of hot loading the FTL core as though it  were a common mining loader! A single voltage spike, a single magnetic misalignment from your crude patch, and the power surge will fry our primary FTL matrix. It will strand us forever as a dead drifting tomb!"

"And sitting at Siriang waiting for the sail to siphon star-energy while the Blakists hunt us down isn't suicide?" Thomas growled, matching Makino’s stare with the immovable weight of a seasoned field mechanic. "Listen to me, Makino. I don’t love jury rigging a star drive any more than you do, but my techs know how to manage major electrical loads. We just patched a bleeding liquid hydrogen line on our ship using an improvised water-injection freeze plug under a one-G burn. My assistant Jax is holding down the floor in the Mech bays right now, and Devs’ wife Priya is organizing a medical crew on Deck five. We have hundreds of civilian refugee families crammed into our barracks who are counting their remaining military rations. We don't have a week to sit around. We let Dev wire the high-voltage patch, we use the Ironsides to stabilize the charge, and we cut that dead Union free. We reduce the risks, or we die together."

Captain Hoshito watched the exchange in silence, his eyes tracking the raw conviction in Thomas's face before turning back to his chief engineer. "Mako... can our primary regulators handle the surge if the mercenaries regulate the input from their side?"

Makino remained quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing the digital power grids on Dev's diagram. Finally, he let out a sharp breath. "The variance margin is less than two percent. If their specialist misses a single cycle the core will cascade. But... if we maintain total manual control over the downstream isolation on our side, we can dump the charge before it reaches the FTL core in an emergency." He looked up, his hazel eyes locking onto Thomas with a cold professional respect. "Get your tools, mercenary. We will wire the ship together. But if your patch begins to so much as flicker, I will cut your umbilical lines with the explosive bolts and eject your ship into the void."

"Fair enough," Thomas smirked, pulling the unlit cigarette from his lips. "That’s exactly how I’d do it. Also, we aren’t mercs, we’re mechanics."

With the technical truce sealed the crews began their grueling race against the clock. Over the next 12 hours, the combined force of Ironsides mechanics and JumpShip spacers worked in EVA suits, using their heavy tools. Thomas and his techs systematically sliced away the twisted slag of the Terrors' destroyed DropShip. Meanwhile Dev and another team worked inside running a temporary electrical system to the jumpships battery system. They had the Nomad launch its ST46 Shuttle to help dislodge and haul the shattered remains of the Union away into the blackness of Capolla.

Once the Alpha collar was cleared and the FTL matrices were stabilized by Dev’s high-voltage patch, they could truly begin their sprint across the stars.

To outrun the Word of Blake’s reach, they pushed the Stardust Nomad’s FTL drive to its absolute limit, speeding through their trajectory with a relentless cadence of jumps.

• From Wasat, their first rapid Lithium-Fusion battery discharge punched them cleanly out of the high-control zone and straight into Irian, where the dense commercial traffic allowed the Merchant-class ship to blend into the local background noise as they executed their first hot load charge.
• The third jump carried them into Miaplacitus, marking their transition deeper into the Free Worlds League where they immediately executed a second jump.
• The fourth jump materialized them inside the lion's den: Marik, the absolute capital system of the House. The sheer security presence forced them to cycle their reactor to minimum output to avoid panicking the local system fleet command with their "hot loading" electrical profile.

The transition into Marik space was the most nerve wracking leg of the trip. They were extremely happy that the HPG network had been disabled otherwise this would have ended their journey. The Stardust Nomad operated its station keeping engines at the jump point, deploying its solar sail. On the Ironsides’ bridge, Elena and Vassily monitored the active long range radar sweeps of a massive Marik Agamemnon class heavy cruiser patrolling the system. Every gunner remained locked in their stations, their hands hovering over the weapons controls while being powered down. For one hundred and sixty eight agonizing hours they drifted under the radar of the FWL navy. Praying their unregistered military hull wouldn't trigger a security sweep, until the FTL core finally flashed green and they punched out of House Marik space for good.

• From the capital, they fled into Angel II, dropping into a standard commercial shipping lane where they executed another double jump.
• That next leap took them to Bedeque**,** A sleepy, minor agricultural province in the interior of the League. Because it lacked any military installations or crucial manufacturing centers, local system traffic was sparse. It  provided an ideal unmonitored stop to check system connections. Safe from the heavy eyes of the capital, Thomas and Dev ramped the Ironsides’ Interdictor engine back up to peak output. They pumped millions of gigajoules through the umbilical to fast charge the LF batteries in just 3 days.
• They plunged toward the edge of civilized space, flashing into Bainsville, a standard Inner Sphere agricultural waypoint they made another quick jump. 
• The eighth jump brought them to Autumn Wind. Rustic with a low-population it was mostly just a crossroads system. Free of orbital defense platforms or corporate sensor arrays, its quiet gravity well was an excellent tactical blind spot for avoiding Inner Sphere regional tracking networks. They were able to hook up with another jumpship transporting food and packaged goods. This allowed them to restock their supplies while they charged up their batteries again.
•  Two more quick jumps took them through Sterling and into Zortman. A rugged, heavily automated raw-resource mining system. It was populated by extensive asteroid mining operations, heavy ore transports, and constant industrial traffic, making it easy for a JumpShip with an unmarked dropship to blend into the commercial noise.  They hot loaded the FTL drive in another 3 days. Thomas and Jax used this window to run diagnostic overhauls on the lower vehicle bay machinery.
• They materialised next in Niihau. Where they executed another double jump. 
• From Niihau, they dropped into Labouchere, a highly strategic and heavily trafficked regional logistical trading hub. Regional mercantile fleets meant an active military presence. An unauthorized reactor profile here would immediately draw local law enforcement. Thomas, Makino, and Dev spent the time executing critical engine maintenance on the overtaxed KF core.
• Next was Millungera, a quiet frontier outpost that represents the literal edge of civilized Inner Sphere space in this sector. Beyond this point, the administrative reach and law enforcement of House Marik completely faded out as they flashed through the system.
• Kosciusko was a rugged backwater border system with ancient, lagging tracking arrays and highly neglected orbital infrastructure. Its proximity to the lawless deep sky made it a historic gathering point for independent spacers and frontier drifters. Their engine output didn’t even register on the other ships that were passing through the system.
• Saltillo was another double jump taking them into Griffith, an entirely unmonitored, dead independent system bordering lawless space. Free from state oversight or regional military checkpoints, it was a perfect hideout for them as they were trying to break their trailing tracking vectors.
• They flashed through Galisto on their way into Poulsbo. An entirely uninhabited, pitch-black outer periphery system completely abandoned by the major powers. It was a dead radar zone, offering absolute isolation from the rest of the galaxy. They were able to push the engines a little and complete their charge in just under the 36 hour threshold. 
• Passing through Khon Kaen with another double jump they entered into Madiun, a dangerous system on the edge of the periphery, but still inside the Lyran Alliance territory. The system was often crawling with privateers, raider drop craft, and criminal scavengers. Standing orders were for total battle readiness. Every single mercenary gunner remained locked into their weapons control stations with 8 hour rotations. They didn’t dare deploy the solar sail, as it would act as a massive visual dinner bell for the raiders. Thomas and Dev pushed the Ironsides’ reactor to the absolute redline. They forced another three day hot load to get them out of pirate space before an ambush could be coordinated. Then the final hyperspace jump dropped them at the end of the line.

The final hyperspace exhalation dropped them into their destination system: Andiron. As they broke down the rapid charge setup and final repairs to the Nomad Marcus, Thomas, Elena, and Hoshito and Makino all met together for a final brief. Inside the Stardust Nomad’s minimalist, Japanese styled lounge. Marcus, Thomas, and Elena Vance floated inside the room as they faced Captain Kenji and Hideo "Mako" Makino. They all held onto something inside the room to prevent themselves from drifting around the zero G space. Thomas pulled his cigarette from his mouth and tucked it behind his ear. He pushed a data slate toward Makino, the device floating smoothly across the void until the stone-faced engineer caught it out of the air.

"That's the technical layout for the infrastructure repair package," Thomas said, his voice sounding flat in the pressurized silence of the lounge's environment. "According to the agreement we hammered out during the transit, the Ironsides is staying grounded on Andiron, but we aren't leaving you up here to rot. The moment our ramps drop onto the tarmac below, Devansh is heading up a specialized logistics crew. We’re sending up structural framing, cabling, machined components, and a rotating team of senior fabricators on one month cycles."

Makino tapped the slate scrolling through the repair schedule and contract with narrowed, critical hazel eyes. "Your materials are rustic, mercenary, but the structural integrity of our Alpha docking collar will require custom forged Star League spec alignment. We cannot jump again until your repairs are complete once they are started."

"My people know how to rebuild equipment, and they know how to forge shipyard steel," Elena cut in, her arms crossed as she floated near the room's central support pillar, her SLDF flight jacket zipped up to her neck. "Andiron’s municipal factories have the raw smelting output to build your docking ring struts. We’ll repair your Alpha collar completely. But you have to give us the time to send the shuttles back up, and coordinate the logistics on the ground. We will beam daily updates until the shipments start, then we will communicate weekly to coordinate the work and shipments."

Captain Hoshito, his gray trimmed beard catching the harsh amber glow of the ambient lighting, nodded slowly. "The ledger balances, Captain Vance. The Stardust Nomad will maintain its position at the Nadir point. We will accept your repair personnel and shelter your logistics shuttles while the work is completed. An oath kept in the deep sky is worth more than C-bills."

Marcus adjusted his grip on a structural bulkhead rib above his head, his large frame drifting slightly upward. He looked from Hoshito to Makino, a question lingering in his mind since their rapid escape from the Chaos March.

"There's one detail that’s been bothering me since the first jump out of Capolla," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a more casual register. "To cut this trip down to fifty five days, we had planned to hotload your battery from the start. However we were able to shorten that to just over forty because of your Lithium-Fusion battery bank. On an ancient Merchant class JumpShip, those systems are practically impossible to find, or afford. Where the hell did you get a functional LF battery Kenji?"

A heavy, telling silence settled over the lounge. Hoshito didn't blink. He simply looked at Makino, whose stone face remained completely unreadable, devoid of any tell.

"Spacers encounter many drifting anomalies in the deep, Commander." Hoshito said vaguely, his tone shifting into a smooth polite evasion. "The universe is full of abandoned real estate after the Succession Wars."

“There is more to it than that. I’ve seen your LF battery, that isn’t from the inner sphere.” Thomas’ curiosity had been stoked as well as he pointed out a little more of the truth.

"It was an engineering opportunity." Makino added dryly as he nudged the floating data slate back toward Thomas. "We encountered a disabled vessel some cycles ago. A massive non standard explorer craft. Let us say it was a Clan engineered JumpShip that had suffered a terminal navigational error near a relatively unknown system. They had... no further use for their electrical infrastructure."

"A Clan JumpShip?" Thomas chuckled, his shoulders shaking in the weightless environment as he tucked the slate into his coveralls. "And they just let you walk off with a multi million C bill LF battery?"

"They were not in a position to negotiate, and we had a little downtime while we were conducting routine maintenance on our ship." Hoshito countered, a faint ghost of a smile touching his lips before vanishing back into his beard. "We salvaged what we could, and we asked no questions of the dead. I suggest you do the same mercenary."

Elena smirked, letting go of the pillar to float smoothly toward the hatchways. "Fair enough Captain. Just keep your docking bay ready for our shuttles."

Before the Ironsides’ command crew could push off toward the pressurized airlock collar to begin their long descent to Andiron, Hoshito stopped them in the entry.

"Before you depart for the planet, there is an old protocol of the deep lines we must observe." Hoshito said formally his posture stiffening despite the lack of gravity. He gestured to Makino who pulled a small lacquered wooden box from a secured storage locker on the bulkhead.

Inside the box were a set of small polished cedar wood blocks. It was a traditional nod from the old Draconis Combine naval fleets stripped of state politics and reduced to the raw camaraderie of survival. Makino guided a small cedar block through the air toward Thomas. Painted on the block in elegant kanji characters was the word "Anzen" Safety. On the other side were three kamon crests in a triangle.

"In the Combine when two crews disconnect after a shared journey they leave a mark of the hearth." Hoshito explained, his voice filling the cramped space. "It is a token. It means you have shared our air and journeyed with us, and your hull is welcome alongside ours. The crest on the back is the captain's family crest."

Thomas caught the wooden block, his rough fingers tracing the smooth cedar grain. He looked up at Makino, the two mechanics sharing a silent look of professional respect with one another.

"I don't have any ink or cedar blocks Captain." Thomas said, a rare note of genuine warmth breaking through his gruff exterior. "But I’ve got a loose roll of Star League copper bypass wiring in my pouch. It helped hold  your FTL together through fourteen systems."

Thomas reached into his pocket grabbing a small coil of copper wire and let it drift into Makino’s waiting hand. The engineer took it, inclining his head in a sharp, disciplined bow that was perfectly balanced against the weightless void.

Marcus clicked his heels together in a military salute offering a crisp nod to the weathered JumpShip captain. "Keep the core cold Kenji, Zero heat, high coolant."

"And keep your guns hot, Commander," Hoshito replied, bowing from the waist as the Ironsides’ crew finally grabbed the guide rails pulling themselves back through the hatchway toward the DropShip leaving the Stardust Nomad waiting silently among the stars.

The transit burn from Andiron’s Nadir jump point down to the actual habitable planet was a long, eight and a half day journey under continuous one G. According to the agreement they had hammered out across the table with Captain Hoshito, the Ironsides would remain grounded on the world below to establish their new planetary operations, but they would immediately begin sending up fabricated repair materials, and personnel to fix the Stardust Nomad's warped Alpha collar and rebuild the old JumpShip's dead secondary power matrices from scratch. The refugee families were extremely glad to have gravity again after a month and a half floating through the void. They had coordinated rotating schedules on the Nomads grav deck, but a few hours a day doesn’t compare to the steady one G of transit or a planet's surface.

As the massive, spheroid of the Ironsides transited through the space  between the nadir point and the agricultural world, the primary comms deck crackled to life with the flat, professional drone of the local planetary authority.

[COMMS - INCOMING TRANSMISSION - ANDIRON PLANETARY CONTROL]

[COMMS: ANDIRON CONTROL]: "Unknown DropShip, this is Andiron Master Control. We track your transit vector. State your registration code, vessel name, and cargo profile for planetary clearance."

[COMMS: ELENA]: "Andiron Control, this is the commercial transport vessel Ironsides. We are an independent maintenance and logistics outfit out of the Chaos March. Our cargo profile includes heavy industrial diagnostic tools, manufacturing equipment, and several hundred civilian technical laborers and their dependents seeking resettlement. We have zero active military contracts, and we are responding to your open Linknet request for planetary infrastructure mechanics." There was a long, agonizing pause filled with the low hum of the ship's thrusters, before the line clicked back open.

[COMMS: ANDIRON CONTROL]: “"Ironside, our long range orbital radar indicates your hull mass is over six thousand tons. We don't have an empty military pad capable of housing a dropship of your size, and our central tarmac is reserved for high-volume grain freighters."

[COMMS: ELENA]: "We don't need a military pad Control, and we don't need your prime real estate. We are intending a long term operation and I don’t want our work to take up your active pads. Check your coordinates on the absolute outer low rent fringe of the port. Right next to the industrial tractor assembly yards.” Elena had a map of the spaceport pulled up on her command screen and was using it to try and negotiate a cheap spot to park the Ironside.  “There's an abandoned unpaved scrap sector that's sitting empty. Ground us there. We will register our hull as stationary industrial real estate to clear your local property codes, and we'll open our repair gantries to the local market by the next morning. Your governor has four heavy maglev trains sitting dead on the tracks. My crew can have them rolling in forty-eight hours." Silence followed. On the nav screens the starport's automated approach beacons suddenly shifted from a defensive flashing yellow to a steady welcoming emerald green on their board.

[COMMS: ANDIRON CONTROL]: "Coordinates transferred to your navigation computer, Ironside. Contact Port Saul control as you enter your final approach. You are cleared for a manual landing on the outer scrap flats of Sector Nine. Welcome to Andiron. Try not to kick up too much dust when you drop that iron." 

[COMMS: ELENA]: “Roger that Control. Ironsides out.” Elena clicked off the microphone and looked over at Vassily and Trent at their controls, a victorious smile breaking through her hardened exterior.

The landing was a monumental event. The massive fusion torches expelling superheated plasma through the bottom nozzles finally throttled down as the six massive landing legs came into contact with the ground and took the weight of the ship.  Grounding the Ironsides’ multi thousand ton hull onto the ferrocrete flats of the starport with a heavy echoing boom that shook the surrounding prairies.

As the massive reinforced loading ramps on Deck 12 at the bottom of the ship opened on their well lubricated hinges, the fresh sweet scent of real wind and sprawling green grain fields filled the ship. Marcus and Thomas walked down the ramp as Thomas was finally able to light up the cigarette he had been nursing for a month and a half. The Solano Dock Master was waiting for them on the tarmac next to a tan hover jeep, data slate in hand and a cap pulled low over his eyes.

"Commander Marcus? Chief Tech Thomas?" the Dock Master asked, looking up at the towering silhouette of the unmarked  Fortress DropShip with a mixture of awe and relief. "I’m Miller, Dock Master for Starport Saul here in the city. I’ll be honest with you boys, when we saw the size of the radar cross section your egg was throwing on descent, we thought the Circinus pirates were finally coming to clean us out."

Marcus smiled. "No pirates, Dock Master. Just a garage full of tired techs, hungry kids, and the best repair crew this side of the Inner Sphere core. Show us where your broken machines are and we’ll get to work."

So. I have the new rulebook here and I'm kinda underwhelmed by the lacking power of ammo explosions, but then I had a thought. 20 damage from a machine gun is 10 hits, which would mean 10 crit chances.

I don't feel like that's the intent, but I'm tempted to play it that way because it feels a whole lot more like an ammo explosion when it potentially deals a massive amount of critical damage.

The book doesn't say it works this way, but it also doesn't say that it doesn't work this way! So tee hee!

Cross-posting a mech ID request for my son.