GAMA: Redux [IC] Episode 1 "Bad Company"

[United Kingdom of Poland]

Nadya rolled her eyes at Leon’s response, the younger Valkyrie’s hyper tendencies and mannerisms having long since rubbed her the wrong way. Just as she was about to respond though, Alexandre replied to her as well.

Nadya’s initially scrawled as he called her “kid”. She was an Okhotnik, trained by some of the best soldiers in the Russian Army in the ways of death. As young as she was in age, she had long stopped being called a kid. Fortunately, she managed to catch herself when she saw his smirk, realizing wasn’t meant out of disrespect. Returning with one of her own, the two watched as one of the older members of their squad chewed out a new girl for daring to ask about kill counts.

“While you are correct about how pointless keeping track of kills is.” She said, turning to face Amanda. “Could you please explain to me what you mean when you talk about chasing kills that don’t serve the mission. The only mission that matters is wiping our enemies off the face of the earth, and the only way we will ever succeed is by killing every last one of them.”

[Castelia]

Michael Corvin| Meeting Room

Watching as his fellow Valkyries assembled in the meeting room, Michael remained silent while he stood near the back of the room. He had given them a greeting earlier, but it seemed everyone else was interested in the mission. And so, he stood at the back of the room, listening to music and playing games on his tablet, until by chance he heard an interesting remark.

"So… Who do you guys think is going to have the highest kill count in whatever this briefing is actually for?"

Looking up, he saw that a newcomer had uttered those words as she entered the room. She was then engaged in conversation by another woman; well, if you could call their interaction a conversation anyway. At this point, several other Valkyries also shared their opinion on the matter. And so, almost as if by impulse, Michael decided to share his as well.

"If you ask me, we shouldn't be thinking about such things, anyway. What's important is we beat back those hordes and save people. It really doesn't matter to me who gets the most kills, as long as we fulfill our mission objectives at the end. Don't get me wrong, competition is healthy. But while doing something as serious as our missions, competitions such as this can be dangerous. Like our fellow pilot said earlier, it endangers unit cohesion especially if some hotshot decides to run off on his own to get kills instead of fulfilling mission objectives and working together with our fellow pilots."

Looking up from his tablet, he felt eyes staring at him, almost as if his fellow pilots were gauging his very being. He felt a bit uncomfortable, so he turned his gaze back to his tablet and went back to playing.

Yikes, maybe I shouldn't have said anything.

[Forest State]

---

Alyxandra Jane Gray

---

Alyx raised an eyebrow, feeling like there were assumptions being made about her question and her intent by asking it. She had, after all, stated that she already knew that chasing kills at the expense of following a plan was harmful to the team. Didn’t mean they should throw the metric out entirely and never talk about it, and she would die on that hill. Being competitive and being a good member of the team weren’t two mutually exclusive things and she wanted to prove that.

“I get that the main goal is to go after the objectives but how exactly are we going to do that and meet our goals, which are to push back the hordes? Kill as many of them as possible, it’s not rocket science,” she said, slightly more animated than she had been when she first asked the question. “Get a bunch of kills and it means there’s less infected out there at the end of the day.”

She paused, before addressing the other criticism. The thing about how they didn’t need hotshots running off. “And well, I think you’re making assumptions about my question or about me or whatever, I never said anyone should run off and try to boost their statistics at the expense of following the plans. That’s not being competitive, that’s just being stupid.”

She considered talking about her experiences. No one wanted the horde problem dealt with more than her, after all, she had been out there nearly alone before coming here and she had seen first hand just how much the infected had fucked up this region as well as the country at large. She didn’t know just how many of the other Valkyries had upbringings like hers and how many had been more comfortable and volunteered willingly and not out of need, but she knew that she herself wasn’t just some hotshot who didn’t care about the main goal and just wanted the best numbers.

However, she kept her mouth shut for now. The past wasn’t something she talked much about.

[Sraelyn]

The rest of the Valkyries were ganging up on Alyx, and although he had little reason to get further involved and antagonize his fellow pilots, he had a severe inability to keep his mouth shut. God forbid he'd pass the chance to say something to all the stuck up people arguing over a issue that stemmed from a simple question.

“Judging by some of the responses, it seems to me that quite a few of you have very low kill counts. Either that our you urgently need to get that massive stick out of your asses. We’re supposed to be the cavalry. Our job mostly consists of going in, shooting, stabbing, burning, and overall making sure stuff is dead or incapacitated by the time we are done. Keeping a kill count is just a natural part of it.” Alexandre's voice got a little louder, yet it remained somewhat dismissive and taunting. “For crying out loud, all of us have gone through training and have been out in the field. I'd like to believe most of us have the mental acumen to behave ourselves during an operation. No one is advocating for the rest to go run of on their own to raise a number. And if anyone in this room decides to do so anyway, then natural selection will be doing us a favor by weeding them out.”

Alexandre assumed a relaxed stance, placing his hands on the back of his head and his feet on the empty chair in front of him. He seemed to be on the minority of people that weren’t insufferable killjoys. He let a small sight and closed his eyes, he’d simply relax until the briefing started, something most of them were seemingly unable or unwilling to do.

[Towers]

Holding back would probably have made her more friends but she was a lecturer by nature and couldn’t help be concerned about the girl. And in she found herself tilting into the flow of oration even more and another girl (even younger) her escape to ask questions. It was reflexive, someone was asking so Amada answered and was alredy halfway through the sentence before she consciously remembered what answer she was giving.

“GAMA Doctrinal Handbook, Chapter 3, paragraph 2. ‘The role of the Specialized Kill Team is for short high-intensity deployment against both infected and conventional forces. It serves to facilitate the actions of larger conventional formations. Extended deployments, garrison and clean-up operations are not within the SKI’s intended operational uses.’
You are not butchers and if anyone forgets I will continue to quote scripture to remind them. It’s very easy to say that you know not to chase when your bloods not up and you’re not plugged in, but plenty of great pilots have died very ignoble deaths because of a few seconds of overconfidence and battle lust. Please stop making me watch it.”

Stopping herself to summon a haggard excuse for a friendly smile she finished giving a tilt of the head to the original girl.

“Sorry if you all found that abrasive, it was a long and very hot flight here. I suppose I just… Mistook what you said for you meant.”
In a very clumsy attempt to be reconciliatory Amanda decided sitting alone would just pile on the perceived distain and quickly sat down next to the young girl that stopped her. Realising she had just given two sermons to two people without even asking their names she suddenly felt a little sheepish and just look towards the front of the room awkwardly, hopping that something would provide a distraction soon.

f

It wasn’t the storm of rhetoric she’d expect from the old gang but the needling from the boy in the back was still unpleasant. A small killcount was defiantly not something she had a problem with, but that wasn’t something to dwell on or vocalise. Trying to ignore him she couldn’t help but mutter a private, “I’d rather not have to watch anyone be ‘weeded out’.”

Once upon a time, all the way back in basic MACE training Amanda had keep a little notebook with a list of who she thought would do well and who might be first to get caught out. Three months later after she got sick of being right she threw the damned thing into the ocean.

[Xing]

Leon's ears perked up at the thought of talking kill counts. He understood the harmless nature of the question, but considering that his primary job as a Valkyrie was to clear the world of these things it did carry some importance to keep some sort of tally.

"I think you're all taking this question a bit too seriously, but come on she's got a point." Leon said gleefully. He laced his fingers behind his head as he meandered towards the front of the room. Jack, having heard him speak up, perked up to see what his friend was doing. He had known him long enough to see what was about to take place and a devilish smirk spread across his face. Perhaps the one time when Jack was most emotive was when his mischievous curiosity was piqued. The expression quickly faded back to his usual stoicism as he stood up, stalking around the side of the room to match Leon. "Our job is clearing the world of these things, how else are we gonna be sure of that than by keeping track?"

"The final tallies in a given day can all be added up and compared to the population of the city, cross referenced with the known count that managed to be evacuated." Jack said, his usual dry delivery contrasting Leon's cheeriness.
"Exactly, then we can at least get an estimate of how far along we are or how effective of a job we're doing." Leon stated matter of factly. He reached the front of the room and stood at the podium, jokingly acting as if he were a CO giving a briefing. Jack stood beside him, acting as his faithful lieutenant.
"Although all of that only really applies during clearing operations. Should we be up against one of our friendly neighborhood terror cells, we don't have anything to tell us what their numbers are."
"But at that point we just continue until the job is done." Leon said confidently. "As for the rash decisions; well it's all fine and dandy to blame the ones who make them, but that is what we have a team for."
"It's not at all what we have a team for Leon."
"But, the general idea is that if no one ever goes off alone there is no chance of being separated."
Jack blankly stared at Leon as he momentarily unpacked his friend's logic and determined how to proceed.
"While being attached to each other's hips is impractical, allowing the rules of nature to take their course is for sure to lead to reprimands and consequences from command. It's not just an individual life being lost-"
"One would argue that is probably the biggest loss." Leon interjected. Jack responded with a venom laced stare before continuing.
"It's also a lot of time in training, countless resources from the medical wing, and not to mention. Mace's aren't cheap."
"Exactly, so the most important thing here is how we work as a team." Leon said trying to loop his tangent back around. "What's the harm in a little friendly competition? Closer knit units get better results right?"
"Does that mean I'm not required to maintain the buddy system with you during deployments anymore?" Jack asked, internally relishing the question hitting Leon like an anvil. He fully understood where Leon was coming from, that didn't mean he was exempt from Jack's mischievousness.

[Monfrox]

Fort Carson, CO
Briefing Room 1

Seconds had ticked past the 1000 Hours mark. Seconds turned into minutes. Soon enough a whole half hour had passed by without even a semblance of activity from the front of the room. At a point when it would seem this would be a wash and the pilots would be sent back and put on standby again, the echoing of footfalls from heavy boots resonated into the room from the hall. First Lieutenant Susanna Clark, the Executive Officer, entered rather unceremoniously as the room had been called to attention and the Valkyries each stood up out of their seats in response. She swiftly hooked her tablet into the jack in the podium before tapping out on it a few times as the lights began to dim. Her movements were as fast as her mouth.

"Tech Sergeant, I don't care what they want. We can't perform miracles here. Tell them-...Technical Sergeant! Get a hold of yourself. Tell them to hunker down and await evac. That's all they can do at this point. Relay the message and keep me updated on their status. I want half hourly check-ins...good. That is all."

Susanna deactivated her comm link that hung off her left ear as she began to pull up the necessary data. A large map of the continental United States appeared on the screen behind her before it zoomed in to the state of Iowa, not that far into the Red Zone.

Briefing 1
"Seats, at ease!" The XO ordered. She waited only barely enough time for the Valkyries to take their seats again before beginning. "Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, your mission today is not what we planned for you. Just an hour ago, we received reports of a large den of infected making home in Sioux City on the border between Iowa and Nebraska. Our Survey and Recon Team reported an abnormally large amount before loosing contact with them. The dispatched Quick Reaction Force encountered heavy resistance and had to pull out. Just a half hour ago, the SRT reestablished contact and reported that they had been ambushed and were currently holing up in a hotel. They have requested evac, but due to the nature of the reports from the QRF, we cannot deploy a SKT on a Combat Search and Rescue mission without support. So, this is where you all come in."

The map expanded out a bit.

"Thanks to your efforts in clearing out Kansas City International Airport, we've managed to establish a forward operating base there. You will be airdropped in as response units are being shuttled to MCI as we speak. You'll be dropping in just about ten klicks out from the city to the West. From there, you will advance and clear out the surrounding area, locate the Survey and Recon Team, and hold position until the Evac convoy reaches their position. Once there, you will escort them all the way back to MCI, where you still be shipped back to base. The SRT location will be given to you when you deploy. Wheels up at 1100 Hours. Any questions?"

[Kassaran]

It almost couldn't have been better timing for the Lieutenant to appear when she did, Victor had been forced to take to counting the ceiling tiles to keep from taking part in the argument erupting in the rows behind him. The back of his head was the only target he was willing to give to the Valkyries that had begun to engage in the minor trivialities of discerning the importance of kill counts and mission roles and Darwin's theories of evolution carried out on the macroscopic scale. Sitting up a bit straighter in his seat as he sat back down, released to seats at ease, he let his right leg shift slightly outwards to give his forearm a better resting position. Well, it wasn't just his forearm's comfort he was going for, but that was besides the point. The notepad was busy scrawling down everything he could see on the screen before him- to within reason of course- and he was finding there were questions being answered as soon as they arose, but it didn't keep him from making more.

Questions were funny that way.

"Ma'am?" The older Valkyrie raised his hand, wanting to be first to get the funny questions that were creeping into his head answered first," while I understand the infected are known for overwhelming isolated units, I'm not too familiar with ambushes unless we're dealing with some sort of abnormalities, the type I've only seen once or twice in a dozen similar missions. Are we dealing with insurgents operating alongside the infected, or an anomaly of some sort?"

His pencil held stiffly in his hand, muscles taut, his eyes searching the officer's face for some sort of clue of restrained or measured response. It was touchy stuff, infected, insurgents, insurgents working with infected. Supposedly there was an organization out there whom was being held responsible to some extent, but that was being held to rumors primarily. He'd had yet to be briefed on any such organization, just the vipers to the south and the rebels to the north.

[Wolfenium]

"Ah, really," blurted the girl, still hugging on to Mako like a teddy bear as Nadya reprimanded her, "well, wherever those thugs are, we'll root them out as we go!"

Releasing her captive as she got to her seat, it was hard to tell if Yasmine was paying attention to the briefing. Her eyes fixed at the screen as she buttressed her head on her arms like posts, she was, at the very least, able to keep quiet for the briefing. When it came to queries, however, Yasmine quickly jumped, her hand in the air. But Victor was quicker to the punch, prompting a small pout as she lowered her arm. She clearly had the same query in mind, though it appeared she was more excited to fight such foes than worried.

"I was going to ask that..." she grumbled softly, her voice stifled by disappointment. Perhaps it was for the best she did not, given her penchant for jabbering incessantly.

[Castelia]

Michael Corvin| Meeting Room

I really should have kept my mouth shut. They misunderstood what I meant. Oh, well.

Michael groaned inwardly as he heard the responses from his fellow pilots in the room. He wasn't trying to infer anything, rather what he said was meant to have been a hypothetical scenario. He kinda felt bad for Alyx now, as she had taken what he meant the wrong way. He made it up in his mind to apologize to her later, but whether or not she'd be willing to hear him out, much less forgive him, was a different question.

However, what Alexandre said rubbed Michael off badly. He didn't mind the kill count remark, as Michael had decided not to count his own kills from the very beginning. He wasn't on this program to kill, but rather to save people, just as GAMA had saved him before. But to address Alexandre's other remark, he agreed with Amanda. Too many pilots have gone and become battle crazed, even the more disciplined ones, which all led them to their deaths. He hadn't witnessed them himself, but he knew from the various stories he heard. The very pilot who saved Michael and his family had fallen to such a fate, and it was something that Michael had resolved in his life to always avoid. Though he didn't like Alexandre and his attitude, he nevertheless said a silent prayer in his heart that such a fate would never befall the pilot. Too many comrades had been lost, and his attitude was just like one of those pilots who went off and never returned.

Hearing Leon and Jack's banter, Michael both agreed and disagreed with their argument. He agreed that a closer knit unit meant better unit cohesion, but he disagreed about the need to keep kill counts. He felt that they themselves missed the point. It wasn't about counting the dead, but about one's own personal number of kills. They were referring to the former, but the question was about the latter. Besides, counting kills wasn't their job, anyway. It was better left to analysts and technicians, and Michael very much doubted that tallies of personal kills by pilots would be useful in their data. Rather, it just added various unneeded factors.

However, just at that moment, First Lieutenant Susanna Clark entered the room, snapping him out of his thoughts. He then listened to the mission briefing, taking in all the details that would be needed in the fight. It appeared to be a rescue mission, saving trapped comrades in a hotel in Sioux City.

He had a couple of questions to ask, though. He raised his hand just after Victor finished his own question, and asked immediately.

"Do we have an estimated number of hostiles in the area, Ma'am? And will we have some kind of support, like air and artillery support, or will we be going in on our own?"

[Ormata]

Eedit Klemetti
“Mannerheim”

"Seats, at ease!" The XO ordered. She waited only barely enough time for the Valkyries to take their seats again before beginning. "Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, your mission today is not what we planned for you. Just an hour ago, we received reports of a large den of infected making home in Sioux City on the border between Iowa and Nebraska. Our Survey and Recon Team reported an abnormally large amount before losing contact with them. The dispatched Quick Reaction Force encountered heavy resistance and had to pull out. Just a half hour ago, the SRT reestablished contact and reported that they had been ambushed and were currently holding up in a hotel. They have requested evac, but due to the nature of the reports from the QRF, we cannot deploy a SKT on a Combat Search and Rescue mission without support. So, this is where you all come in."

"Thanks to your efforts in clearing out Kansas City International Airport, we've managed to establish a forward operating base there. You will be airdropped in as response units are being shuttled to MCI as we speak. You'll be dropping in just about ten klicks out from the city to the West. From there, you will advance and clear out the surrounding area, locate the Survey and Recon Team, and hold position until the Evac convoy reaches their position. Once there, you will escort them all the way back to MCI, where you still be shipped back to base. The SRT location will be given to you when you deploy. Wheels up at 1100 Hours. Any questions?"

"Ma'am?" The older Valkyrie raised his hand, wanting to be first to get the funny questions that were creeping into his head answered first," while I understand the infected are known for overwhelming isolated units, I'm not too familiar with ambushes unless we're dealing with some sort of abnormalities, the type I've only seen once or twice in a dozen similar missions. Are we dealing with insurgents operating alongside the infected, or an anomaly of some sort?"

"Do we have an estimated number of hostiles in the area, Ma'am? And will we have some kind of support, like air and artillery support, or will we be going in on our own?"

Eedit had kept in the back; she had little interest in engaging in the conversation between the few Valkyries that seemed to compose of an argument on how useful kill counts were in actually measuring the accomplishment of a mission. One argument said that the overall objective came first, not in killing as many as possible. The other said that it was simply a part of the job, that killing as many of the enemy was important and therefore should be measured. Eedit’s opinion was simple; the mission objective was separate from mass slaughter and she, for one, was not going to take part in wantonly engaging infected simply because they were infected. She’d let more than one horde pass through her net because a juicer target was going to be coming along, an enemy MACE for instance. One never really discussed that sort of thing, considering that under normal circumstances some would determine it to be a dereliction of duty. The fact that such missions had been taken part in very, very far behind non-controlled lines had ensured that it simply was passed-over in the reviews. What questions she’d gotten about such things had always been answered truthfully, though.

She was a precision tool. The rest of them, they can think of themselves as scythes in a field of wheat, targets all about them and a wide swathe to cut through all, all and always, because they simply had the capacity to do so. Her? She was no such thing. She wouldn’t waste ammunition on the little fish when larger things were always available to kill, when far more interesting targets were always there to be shot at. One simply had to be patient. One simply had to wait, wait and be still and be aware of everything about oneself. See, assess, report, eliminate, this was the list of things she always went down. One saw, one thought of what one saw in the tactical picture, in the strategic picture, and if it applied to either, one reported it. If one required it, one killed the damn target then and there. It was standard operating procedure, something everyone should follow. Some simply didn’t perform the reporting process before jumping straight to the mass murder and mayhem.

Some of the others seemed childish enough to do such a thing, despite whatever reputation they had. They’d gotten to the point wherein they were so confident of their abilities that they started to concern themselves with the smaller things in life, that they wanted to show off, to be able to brag. Too many people embraced the blood that came in war, the idea they were gods among men and that the enemy could do nothing to stop them. The idea had killed far, far too many. All Eedit really could do was shake her head at them.

Yeah, sure killing people was important. Killing infected meant there was less infected, but the root cause wasn’t the people who got caught in all of it, who caught the virus and went down to kill people. The root cause was important, it was the terrorists and crazed bastards who’d started the whole thing. The issue was like a weed, a massive plant that kept on growing up and up and up. Killing infected, that was trimming the outsides, trimming the outer portions. Killing the terrorists, that was tearing it out by the roots, breaking everything and burning it to the ground. That was how you stopped it all. Besides that, it was...revenge. That sort of idea sounded like a poor one, but it still drove enough. Eedit wanted revenge, to a degree, for all those poor bastards who’d been taken out and weren’t going by what they normally would. All those infected, all those people. It made her angry. She felt just a little bad for killing them when she had to, but in the end...in the end it was release for them. It was a release from a hell not of their own little making.

Poor bastards, though.

The questions people had were good ones at least. What enemy composition would give Eedit an idea of what she needed to bring; if they had insurgents and the insurgents had a Hind or twelve, well, missiles it was. She’d bring missiles all day long for that shit, considering Mannerheim hadn’t taken one down yet. Still had to see how that sort of thing worked out. If they had MACEs, well, she’d step a helluva lot more lightly than if they didn’t. If small teams of Anti-MACE units were in the area, well damn that all and urban combat could go screw itself. She’d just sit at range and pretend to be an artillery piece with better curves. If it was just a massive horde of infected, well, that would be a nice little surprise. Numbers was a good enough question, too. The question on how much support they had...well, the FOB at Kansas International should help with that. Should.

In any case, Eedit sat in the back, watched, listened.

[Vacif]

Claudia Kenora
Fort Carson, Briefing Room 1
1000 Hours

---

Claudia leaned forward in her chair, elbows resting on her knees, hands clasped together so that she could rest her chin on her knuckles. She arrived with little in any fanfare, and quietly took a seat while everyone 'discussed' Alyxandra's playful question. The question originally lingered in the air for a few moments like stale cigarette smoke before one of the older GEN 2s basically dissected the question into more than she (Claudia) bothered to give thought to. This prompted a number of responses in support of and against Alyxandra's question. They each had their own (good) reasoning, but personally Claudia just didn't think too much into her banter. It was really just that. Banter. Yes they did go into what kind of behavior kill counting promoted, and the legitimacy of competition in the unit, but they were getting a bit ... overboard. Maybe she didn't realize the importance of this question but it just didn't seem like that big of a deal. Eventually the discussion devolved into something that Claudia would rather not get involved with.

It had seemed like a hassle, her chiming in out of nowhere would probably get her words misinterpreted, and honestly she'd rather just avoid getting any tags put on her because of this conversation. She hadn't really brought anything with her to the briefing room sans the clothes on her back so she kind of just... thought about other stuff, and went from tangent to tangent in her head. Where did the cuts on her hands come from? Where did her hand lotion go? What was the industrial priority for consumer goods right now in the apocalypse? Could this even be called an apocalypse? It went like this for a good half hour or so.

Claudia Kenora
Fort Carson, Briefing Room 1
1038(?) Hours

---

The sleepy looking pilot groaned as she stretched in her seat. This was the epitome of hurry up and wait. The only solace she could find were that these chairs weren't complete ass, and that her briefing room was in air conditioned room in arguably one of the best still standing military facilities in the world and not some hut in the jungles of South East Asia like the one Olly got transferred to. She missed Olly, and the rest of the 19th, but that was the way it was. Most of them assuming they lived still probably wouldn't get to come home. She wasn't sure if she should be happy or sad she didn't get deployed with the others across the Pacific. Sure she wouldn't likely see home for a while, but at least she had the rest of the Dragoons with her. Here, she was on the same continent as home, but still very far away and with a team that was still very new to each other. A mix of veteran GEN 2s, and newer recruits like her.

Claudia was about to get up and grab a snack or something when she heard the sound of echoing foot steps. It was always when she was about to get up and do something that something else would happen. She wasn't complaining though (this time at least). The Lieutenant had come, but with a different mission. They were now on a time sensitive mission, time being however long SRT could hold out for.

Well people were asking questions now, she might as well ask hers. "Ma'am. What exactly is preventing an aerial extraction of the RST? What did the QRF report? Do the surrounding buildings pose a risk for extraction? On the note of buildings, are we to exercise restraint on hitting buildings for future reclamation or can we engage structures as we see fit?"

From her understanding of the situation, RST locates an abnormally large den of infected in the RZ, get ambushed. The QRF encounter more infected than they can cut through, but the SRT is still alive and holding in the hotel. Then in comes them.

[Forest State]

---

Alyxandra Jane Gray

---

The start of the briefing cut off the conversation about kill counts but Alyx wasn’t glad for the relief, really. Well, on some level it was nice to not have anyone going at her, since everyone’s attention was now turned to the briefing and what they had been called here to actually hear about. She listened patiently with the others while Clark talked and explained to them what they were going to be up to. Something with aiding a Survey and Recon Team and then going on escort duty as they tried to bring that team back safely.

She couldn’t help but groan a little bit at that. It was one thing to fight against the infected using a superior platform like a MACE. It was another thing to try to protect a weaker unit that had already been in danger since before they showed up there. They couldn’t take as many risks as an escort unit, it wasn’t their own lives that they were playing with in this case. Still, it was what they had been assigned to do so Alyx would do her best. And despite the earlier conversation, she knew she wasn’t going to give up the competitive fire that told herself to put herself above.

It motivated her, anyway. They could complain all they wanted but she made more of an impact when that was how she was pushing herself. It was something immediate, something important to her, the kind of thing that just naturally served as a good motivator for those reasons. More abstract goals such as getting their country back might be important but using them as immediate fuel was harder. At least for Alyx. But pushing herself to the top and getting the rewards that came along with that, or at least the ones she thought did? That was something that’d make her push herself a hard as she could go and more.

The conversation from earlier came back to her mind after Clark was done speaking. She didn’t regret asking the question and she would have asked it again if she had the chance, and a lot of that was because no one had quite realized her motive by asking. Which made sense. It wasn’t an obvious one at all, but she hadn’t only wanted to know the answer. She’d wanted to test the competition and now she knew a bit more about them, and she also knew a bit more about which ones she would likely get along with.

She knew that Amanda was the one that, while she didn’t seem like that bad of a person, probably just misguided instead, was a zealot for the manuals. It would be a good idea to not break any protocols around Amanda unless she felt like dealing with the chewing out, but that rigidity could help them in other times if they drifted off track. A balance had to be struck, really. Alexandre seemed like someone that was more her type, not too serious and also appeared to share her competitiveness to an extent. They might end up rivals in the field to a certain degree but they would get along outside of it well. The others fell somewhere in between.

Although, she suspected that as they were thrown into more combat, as well as herself, the group might see a drift away from being ‘by the book’ as it were.

She turned her attention back to the questions at hand. “Seconded,” she said in reply to Michael’s question. Support was the thing that she was going to ask about, but it looked like he’d gotten to it first. If they had to go alone, however, that was also fine. Even going in with just the team that was in this room right now, Alyx would still have more allies by her side than she’d ever had before, back when it was just her and her brother trying to survive this world. It was safe to say that going in with no support wasn’t exactly something that scared her.

[Monfrox]

"There's no abnormalities here. As you know, the infected are not mindless killing machines, but instead are still intelligent of sorts. They seek to survive, but we cannot seem to gauge their exact behavioral patterns. Know that no other reports from the SRT indicate any sort of armed insurgency in the vicinity."

The XO looked over to address each other question in order.

"Mr. Corvin, we do seem to have a high reading of activity in the, but as you all know this is to be expected. High-density population areas do house large numbers of infected. Until we are able to determine whether or not the city has been completely lost, mass cleansing operations will be on hold. To put it plainly: You are the support."

"Ms. Kenora, the SRT has no way of effectively telling how many infected are currently in the hotel. Rather than make the risk to fight to the rooftop, they've chosen to hold out. On normal circumstances, aerial extraction would warranted for a building that is rated for helicopter landing, but given that and the fact that there's no clear LZ aside from getting out of city limits, the convoy is the way we're going with this. QRF reported substantial contact from multiple sides and suffered losses trying to pull out. The coordination is primitive, as expected, but still deadly. Aside from that, please avoid bringing down any structures in the area. We don't want to have to reroute the convoy if someone collapses a building into the street."

"Alright, if there are no more questions, this concludes your briefing."

The room was once again called to attention.

"Dismissed."

Susanna waited for the pilots to file out before exiting herself. The MACEs had been already loaded up with each pilot's respective equipment configuration. The new C-251 Airmaster transports were among, if not, the largest airframes ever built. They made C-5s look like fight jets in comparison, and so finding actual runways good enough to field them were hard outside of utilizing the old Cold War emergency runways in the form of long stretches of straight highways with no bridges or streetlights. But, they were the fastest way to get the pilots to their objective. Within the hour, the pilot corps had been deployed and dropped outside of the city, just as planned.

[Rupudska]

The great thing about the Airmaster being huge was not, in fact, that it could load up an assload of MACEs at once and not need a whole fleet of aircraft to do it, thus requiring a whole fleet of escorts, just in case someone decided to try something funny with it.

No, you see, the great thing about the Airmaster being huge was that it was steady as a rock in flight, and damned quiet, too. A good place for taking naps on the way to the CZ, in Casey's opinion. Which is exactly what she did for most of the flight. The battle was simple, and as a long-range specialist her role was equally simple. Pick a spot, wait for anything stupid enough to find a way out of the killbox to exist, and blow it into a lot of very small pieces. Sioux City also didn't have a lot of tall buildings or curved roads, and nothing even remotely tall enough to be considered a 'skyscraper', so there would be plenty of places to set up for her once they got there.

Simple. She liked it that way, and reviewing the briefing went fast enough that she could take a nice cat nap in Requiem until they dropped.

[Sudbrazil]

Edward sprang up as he noticed the truck's engine stopped. He opened his mech's hatch, poking his head out, and addressed the nearest person he could see, checking if he wasn't late.

“Hey, are we on schedule?” he asked a grunt, who replied with a nod.

Satisfied, Gallagher lifted himself out of the cockpit and let practices drilled into his soul take hold of his body and mind. He ran his hand through his mech's frame, its plating, checking the Kevlar fabric that protected its joints for any tears and its missile tubes for any cracks. He polished the vision slits, the camera lenses as well as the lights, and verified any dark nook and cranny with his pocket light while making sure that the fuel cells, spare parts and extra ammunition were adequately strapped to the racks bolted onto the humanoid's waist.
The external inspection passed with no complication, he slid himself onto his seat, strapping his vest, helmet and seatbelt. The small, nuclear molten salt generator was turned on and a checklist akin to a periodic prayer, a layman's litany, filled his mind as the operating system booted and the light of four screens illuminated the young pilot.
Generator - check, gyros - check, he thought as he flipped a row of switches. The screens finished booting and his helmet HUD went online, both projecting panoramic images of the sky which quickly plunged down to show the city in the distance through grainy yet coloured screens as his machine was lifted up by its transport truck. Sensors & cameras - check. Now came the moment of truth. By a command issued through the lowest touchscreen, the mech's servos whirred and its hydraulic legs straightened, bringing it from a crouching position to a proud, upright posturr against the blue sky. Limb actuators & hydraulics - check. He spun his head around, which was mimicked by the 20mm cannon outside, then squeezed the joystick serving as a redundant control, causing its barrels to spin. MTADS & weapons systems - check. Finally, he tuned his comms to filter the static better. "All systems green," he announced over the radio.

Edward took a deep, air-conditioned, sigh, glad that none of the hydraulic pipes had a leak, no software disk had been corrupted, no circuit had been fried. None of the hundred thousand components had passed away. Now, he was no longer a teenager, a small creature of flesh and bone. Rather he was a war machine, a man seated in a titanium bathtub, itself inside a complex frame six metres tall weighing in at thirteen thousand kilograms, which — at lest in monetary terms — was worth more than him.

"God bless General Dynamics Land Systems and the VT-97," Edward muttered earnestly to no one in particular as he joined the other MACEs' ranks.

[United Kingdom of Poland]

Quickly exiting the room, Nadya made her way to the armory to collect her gear.

“Your weapons already set up for you ma’am.” Nadya stopped in her tracks as the head armorer handed over her rifle. “Command sent word about your mission, so I figured you might want a hybrid holographic sight with a 3X magnifier rather than your usual ACOG sight. Everything’s already been sited in.”

Nadya nodded, tempering her annoyance over someone touching her personal weapon. “Thank you, Sergeant.” Walking over to the hanger and entering her MACE unit, she began prepping the machine for the mission ahead. She smiled as the UI booted up, displaying the loadout her crew had prepared for her. Three rounds of high explosive 105mm shells with variable timed fuses to allow for airbursts, two cannister shots, and one round of High Explosive Anti-Tank just in case an enemy MACE unit showed up. Double checking the ammo count on her quad 20mm cannon, she moved her MACE over to the transport.
----------

Sioux City.

“It looks like Our target building is on the river front.” Nadya told the others as they got themselves organized after the drop. “If we follow it in, it should limit the amount of infected we run into until we reach the SRT. Once we get there we’re going to need to send a four man team into the hotel to link up with them while the others hold the perimeter. We should get moving.”

[Vacif]

Claudia Kenora
Fort Carson, Briefing Room 1
1045 Hours

---

With the briefing out of the way, Claudia made for the armoury to grab her equipment. The quartermaster had been informed in advance it seemed as the man had their equipment ready before they get there. Claudia happily signed for her equipment as everything had was checked out. Her MRR8.5SC was chambered in .300 BLK and fitted with angled foregrip, a 1x red dot, and a suppressor. The trigger reset on the gun was louder than the actual thing going off. Sure it had reduced range, but she didn't plan on engaging targets from a far with this weapon. This was her bug out rifle. if she needed to use it, she was in trouble, and would need to maintain stealth. Ideal for close quarters situations, or for when she didn't have much space, like in her MACE's cockpit.

A short walk later and she was in the MACE bay, where her Wolverine stood where she left it. The mecha ready for her to embark, she waved happily at her maintenance crew who walked her through the condition of her mech as she boarded. All systems were green and her weapons were loaded. APS fully loaded, ECM ready, and armour in top shape. 1,350 rounds of 30×173 mm HEI rounds loaded and a payload of CRV7 rockets. To top it off her hilariously over sized E-tool was extra sharp and ready for field engineering work. With everything ready, she engaged transport mode, to make her mech fit comfortably inside of the C-251.

Claudia Kenora
Sioux City Outskirts
1200 Hours

---

The C-251s were just positively massive, she wondered how or where they even managed to put these absolutely massive beasts together in the apocalypse. The damn thing probably costed more to operate per hour than the entire squadron of MACEs. She wasn't sure just how much her MACE's operational cost was, but she was going to estimate around 6-8 thousand per hour, on par with that of an A-10 (Which she was basically a walking A-10). Which honestly was a lot better than one would think. She was operating a mech several meters tall, weighing as much as a Leopard 2. She was surprised the other mechs weighed as much as they did, roughly that of an APC. Speaking of which, the last of them had made landfall as the C-251 roared overhead. Rising from her balled up form she spooled up her GAU to make sure it was in working condition. She knew it could take a hit (especially from a controlled fall) but peace of mind went a long way.

They appeared to have landed on the Nebraska side of the border as the viewed the city from the west. She agreed with Nadya's assessment that they should follow the river, but pondered if it really was the greatest idea to dismount their mechs to enter the target building. "Can't we just contact the SRT with our radios? They were able to radio in before. Who know's what's lurking in that old hotel."

[Hanafuridake]

"Morning, Mako," a cheery voice ringed in her hear, as a pair of hands curled around the Japanese girl's waist.

Oh no.

Mako's entire body felt like it was going to collapse on itself from how tense she was. The foreign girl's cheerfulness was completely alien to her, and she was never sure quite how to respond to her. “Hello, Mohajerani-san.” she replied, before the other girl started chattering away. She murmured a couple of suggestions herself, but was finally relieved when Yasmine released her. Foreigners were scary...

Briefing 1
"Seats, at ease!" The XO ordered. She waited only barely enough time for the Valkyries to take their seats again before beginning. "Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, your mission today is not what we planned for you. Just an hour ago, we received reports of a large den of infected making home in Sioux City on the border between Iowa and Nebraska."

With an almost mechanical precision, Mako immediately took a seat without uttering a word. She stared intensely as the officer briefed them about their mission. For all of the outer stoicism, in her interior, Mako had to struggle not to remember the sights in Tokyo. It happened all the time, she could see a horde of the undead, but her fear wasn't seeing the ones in front of her. It was the fear of remembering the sights on the day she lost her mother. No, I can't think about that, she thought to herself, I have to focus on what the commander tells me.

"Dismissed."

Mako rose from her seat, mind still troubled about the thoughts in her head, hidden behind the apathetic expression on her face. Her face seemed more like a mask concealing her real feelings than it did a part of her. She hurried to the armory, her mind less concerned about her record precision than it was making sure that the memories didn't come back.

Despite her troubles, she smiled as she saw her MACE. “My old friend.” it was a rare show of sincerity. Fenris was one of the few things which made her feel safe, despite ironically being in the middle of carnage with him. She looked at the maintenance crew. “Thank you for taking care of him for me.” she bowed to them, before ascending into the wolf-shaped mecha.

[Wolfenium]

The M12 Doug' was many things. General purpose, heavy weapons, close quarters, you name it. Easily customizable, mass-produced, a wonder for American industry, or what was left of it before the infected overran the Rust Belt. Such was the customizability of the Doug that Yasmine could outfit just about anything she desired, and her choice of gear, with heavy armour plating and a long-range cannon, was well suited for her desired form of combat, firing big guns.

"Well, if anyone needs a fire mission, feel free to call me up," she radioed in, awaiting further instructions as she stayed behind the rest, "I'm ready when you are."

[Forest State]

---

Ayxandra Jane Gray

---

Flying. That was something that Alyx could get used to. She hadn’t had much hope of being able to do something like that back when it had just been her and her brother. They had been focused on surviving and flying, that was something that might as well have been completely exotic. The ground was the natural home for humans and that was where they had stayed all of the time. So even flying on a small plane would have been an interesting experience for her, but one of the largest models ever invented? That was something else.

One of the perks of working for this place, she supposed. There were some bad aspects, some good ones too. Like everything, it was a mixed bag.

But before they dropped, Alyx turned her attention to the controls of her MACE and focused on that, going through the checklist in her head as she went over each thing and made sure that it was perfect. Never trust anyone else to do that. Repair crews and ground crews and the like could make mistakes, or sometimes they could just be lazy. Probably didn’t happen much at an elite organization like this but if there was a mistake like that, it could be fatal.

So it was generally better to check things for yourself before heading out into combat.

“Master arm, on… Missile launch cells, armed. Testing warning sounds… Clear. Sensors, active. ECM unit, on standby,” she muttered under her breath before going through a couple of other things and reaching a state where she was satisfied with what she saw. She was at peace by the time the drop happened. She knew the machine wasn’t going to fail on her because of something that could have been spotted, now she could turn her full attention towards doing her part and performing as a Valkyrie.

“This is Gray, also awaiting orders,” she said, following the drop.

[Towers]

Amanda spent a good portion of the trip studying the street maps of Suix and another priming her MACE, another drawback of her old design showing though. A quick change to the modified G-suit was proceeded by twenty-three minutes of connecting wires to the ports running up her arms and spine; calibrating the connections; administering hydrocortisone injection to manage any reactions and everything the Squire needed itself. Scramble time could certainly leave something to be desired in an emergency. It could be done in a fraction of the time in theory, one particularly traumatic episode of being in and out of the MACE in the field flashed thought her mind and was quickly banished, but it would hardly be optimal or safe.

It didn’t help that most of the techs were unfamiliar with her MACE model so needed some talking though or just to reference the literature to get everything right. The Squire was the product of pilfered technology (one of Amanda’s little gifts); the silhouette might be familiar to a GAMA operator that had been in combat against forces being bankrolled by Proteus. The skeletal from was deceptively powerful with the lack of any unnecessary features keeping the dead weight down. The trade-off was a total lack of long-ranged power but it was fast, powerful and the boosters were always a nasty surprise.

They put down in farmland west of the city and there was a bit of mulling around while Amanda tried to resist her urge to dictate like back her old unit and failed.

“Following the river’s, a good shout Yakovlev, though I must intonate water is no guarantee of safety. I have quite an educational story from my short time on the Yellow River but I’ll spare you the full lecture. Suffice to say we need one pair of eyes looking over the surface and at the banks why don’t you take point on that? I'd love for us to be talking to the SRT before we made contact, no doubt they'll know more than us can someone with a strong radio see if you can get though?

Okay let’s form a proper set of lances! We have about nine blocks to cut through when we get to the city proper and that is plenty of time and space to be set upon. Mendoza, Gray and Kenora how about you three take the left and uhhh Durant, Corvin and Klemetti why don’t you take those tall boys of yours and go on the right, you’ve got a bit more room for error with those machines.

I’ll hang back and look after Mohajerani, I can be with anyone in twenty seconds if you need it so shout if you’re in trouble. We’ll need a skirmish line and some eyes on the deeper city south from the rest of you, sound good? Let’s steel ourselves, keep an allied MACE in LoS at all times if you can and don’t ring the dinner bell before you have to the more furiously we rouse them the harder this will be."

[Xing]

Leon and Jack made quick work of gathering their bug out kits and the rest of their gear before heading off to the transport. They didn't have nearly as much field experience under their belts as some of the other pilots so they kept to just trusting the quartermaster's recommendations and judgement as far as what they took with them. Their MACEs however were a different story. They had both gotten plenty of practice behind the controls and as such their machines had been tailored to their strong points.

Leon made his way over to the Oracle and got the OK with the engineers before clambering into the cockpit and hopping in the saddle. The Oracle could be best described as a workhorse standard when it came to MACEs, it was pretty much middle of the road in terms of both size and weight. Where it excelled however was in it's reconnaissance capabilities, it's combination of sensors made it well suited for scanning for infected during urban operations. The Bulwark on the other hand, was far from an average MACE. As it's name suggested, it stood as one of the biggest around in both height and weight. It's multitude of armament's also meant that it was a force to be reckoned with. It certainly wouldn't be winning any contests for it's speed, but it was big and it was mean. And that's just the way Jack liked it as he mounted up.

Outside Sioux City

Jack and Leon were some of the later Valkyries out of the transport. Leon quickly walked the Oracle towards the front of the group.

"Castor here. I'll take the river ma'am." He called out to Amanda. The older pilot seemed to be the first one to take up the reins on calling the shots and he was more than happy to oblige. He tapped one of the buttons on his command console to switch to thermals. They seemed to be in the clear at the moment, but that was to be expected this far out from the city. The infected were no doubt gathering up near the objective, trying to overrun the team stranded there.

Jack was not nearly as gung ho in volunteering for special tasks as he lumbered into formation with the other MACEs. He reached back and pulled out the Bulwark's main shotgun from it's lower back storage, and racked the slide to chamber a round. Amanda had called for many of the other tall units to the right side of the formation, so he assumed he would be there as well.

"This is Pollux. I assume you want me on the right side as well?" Jack asked. He felt that the question was almost unnecessary, but with the way Amanda had lectured everyone back in the briefing room Jack knew that not communicating would be just as bad as running off on his own.

[Sudbrazil]

Edward Gallagher
Sioux City, 1105 hours

---

Checking on his helical mag, Edward verified that all was in order. Adding in his extras, that made up for a total of 3,600 rounds of 20 mike-mike with varying roles. He swiped aside the display before pushing his radio to transmit as he calibrated the GPS display on his HUD and checked if his radio was indeed encrypting correctly.

"This is Sentinel to all MACEs. FLIR & Gadgets are active and ready to provide southern overwatch as requested by Heartbreaker. I advise action pronto, otherwise our friendlies will be chewed up by the Zulus. Over."

Before the folks at GAMA screwed with his head, he wouldn't be able to keep track of such a large amount of information. Flooring the pedals, his MACE engaged its pre-programmed walk cycle to head forwards along the river bank as he checked the FLIR for any hostiles in the distance.

[Sraelyn]

He briefing ended just as abruptly as it had started. Most of the questions that Alexandre could think of had already been asked by the other pilots, leaving him not many reasons to talk. Once they were dismissed, he slowly stood up and stretched his back before heading towards the hangar and his MACE. The CNS-7 Lance was a rather fine and particularly fun piece of equipment, there being few things that Alexandre enjoyed more than the feeling of manipulating the nearly 6 meter tall death machine. It was finally time to pilot again, and he couldn’t stop the large grin from plastering his face at the thought of it

The flight towards their destinations was uneventful, and he proceeded to perform one of his favorite things before a deployment. Taking the large, diamond-engrained tool, he spent the remaining time meticulously sharpening the tungsten edge on the 2,5 meter titanium blade. Once he had finished with it, the large weapon would be able to carve through the infected as if they were warm fleshy butter. Despite the fact that the maintenance crew was perfectly capable, Alexandre always insisted on doing it himself. It wasn’t that he was not confident in their work, but it was because of the strange, almost meditative qualities that the process had on him. The menial task seemed to place him in a trance-like state, and he found that he enjoyed the calmness that it brought just as much as the sense of anticipation towards the imminent combat that was building within him.

Once his preparation was ready and he was inside the MACE, Alexandre run through a quick preliminary check of all systems, before making sure that the Ambrosia dispensing system was correctly placed. The tubes needed to be properly attached to the needle system on his modified piloting suit, connecting to both of his forearms, as well as on both sides of his upper back. At his command, this needles would inject into his body, supplying a dosage of stimulants during an operation, hopefully giving him an edge this time as it had many times prior.

When he finally joined the rest of the Valkyries on the outskirts of the city, he found that Amanda had de facto taken charge of the group. He didn’t see her as an authority figure, and he didn’t appreciate her attempt to become one. However, Alexandre was going to play along, and simply comply. “Whatever you say, ‘boss'. I'll be taking point on the right, and I suggest that we make ratio contact and move out ASAP, we don’t know how longer the SRT can hold on.”