[dcs_p]Alec paused, considered telling the man about the comm malfunction. A
moment’s thought and he erased the concept from his mind. Politeness and
equality would be the main thing to shoot for in the short exchange with the leader
of the Strider’s Strikers ‘Skeleton Crew’ lance. The lance of missile heavy Mechs
were assigned to Alec and the Crusaders to round out their force with some long
range protection. Alec hated playing politician but he couldn’t chance stepping on
anyone’s toes this early in the two teams’ partnership.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]”Go ahead lance leader,” Alec spoke. He waited a second before hearing the
Striker Mechwarrior continue.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]”We are currently engaged with your folks on Assault…were hoping to give as
good as we got but those custom Mechs are a little tougher than the average
90-tonners.” Holden joked.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Alec smiled, and couldn’t help but let out a short laugh. He knew that Holden and
the other Strikers were seriously outclassed in the training simulator scenario,
especially given the respective tonnage comparison. Even though Alec himself
had proposed a fairer scenario, Holden and the others refused. They had
claimed that riding different sim Mechs than their own would do little to enhance
the lance’s fighting prowess. Take what you can get for real, Holden had said.
“Well I imagine you are doing the best with what you have, Holden.” Alec said.
He knew the lance leader was a highly respected member of the Strikers. It had
been Holden who first contacted Alec with an emergency broadcast crying for
help. The Strikers base had been left largely undefended and subsequently
attacked by an overwhelming number of Blakist Mechs. Only by deceit and a
clever display of tactics had Holden held the Blakists off.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]The Crusaders had provided the team with an ace in the hole. It had ‘invaded’
the base that was surrounded by Blakist forces, then helped to evacuate it by
breaking through the encircling Blakists a second time, permitting the two merc
units’ to escape from the base facility.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Alec had never quite known how the Blakists had been driven back during that
fantastic large-scale retreat, but he was sure that Holden Trumphay and the
Strider’s Strikers defenders had left some nasty surprises for any of the Blakist
pursuers.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]”That we are, Sir de Payens. We’ll be waiting for Sir Ridges call. Trumphay out.”
With green lights from all his lance leaders, Alec switched his communicator to
standby and exhaled a sigh of relief. After he had dressed, he next made his
way to the mess hall for breakfast. Only seconds before his first bite, he
received a distress signal from Rick.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Southern Gustus Mountains
2 hours later[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Alec’s 80-ton Grand Crusader rocked under the enemy’s particle projection
cannon fire. The blast scored a nasty hit on the missile launcher on his Mech’s
chest, but had fortunately failed to penetrate the armor plating that was shielding
the weapons system.[/dcs_p]