This is a followup to where the "Minor Boskonian War Bit" (seen here) thread ended up, conducted in email between the 4 persons in question. There's more after this, but it diverges from the original point, and isn't finished.
5/22/2013, 1300 Kandor time.
Mal and I had met up on our way to the saloon, I as Kali in the near-parody kunoichi outfit. I wasn't really as bad as it looked, though to tie off my hair in the half dozen mini-ponytails had been irritating. Oh well, everyone knew I only wore the standard hawaiian shirt ensemble, so while it drew glances none of them showed any sign of recognition.
He and I paused by the bar before heading to the back room, and I noticed that Noah and Katz had already arrived. The pause of recognition as I walked in proceeded the comment only by a few seconds. "You're wearing that?" Katz asked. "Isn't it, you know, kinda chilly?" I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.
"You didn't comment about what I'm wearing," commented Noah.
"You're in Kandor and wearing something that looks like a supers outfit," Katz replied.
"And she's not?" Noah pointed a thumb at me as he raised an eyebrow.
"Point."
"You kinda get used to it, strangely enough," I answered as I took a seat and set my Guinness on the table.
"That's Kali?" Noah asked.
"The one and only," Mal replied. "Also known as my engineer, the indomitable KJ. Shall we get to business?"
"Sure thing." I untied the bandanna over my face and took a pull from my beer. "Needless to say, none of this goes any farther than here unless we set this in motion. Now, I asked Mal to arrange things because something came up in recent discussions that I felt that I may have a solution to. To wit, finding whatever's in the center of this web and doing something about it instead of picking at all the little symptoms.
"So, one of the key targets is the forced biomod setup being performed on captives, which I have reason to believe is associated with a lot of their other centers of operations. So I propose to infiltrate and take it until reinforcements can arrive."
Noah smiled. "I'm glad somebody agrees with me about the need to get the data about that biomod. Are you planning to get in and clean out their computers?"
"No, I plan to get in, take over, kill the reavers, and liberate everything and everyone else inside the base." Kali paused and chuckled. "Well yes, and clean out the computers."
"We're nothing if not ambitious," Mal commented dryly.
"How?"
I nodded to Katz. "You came up with an interesting creation, the Kobayashi Maru. I know from experience that navigational charts and entrance codes to the main facility are rotated often, and stored in volitale memory as a security precaution; it's easy to dump them and then you're screwed. In addition, even the location is time-sensitive, so things need to move pretty quickly after boarding. And obviously, something that doesn't look like the correct ship is boned too. To say nothing of comm warnings."
"How do you know about the Maru?"
"Ever wonder who's in the hardsuit? Anyway. The Maru has, in Trigon, a lot heavier slicing ability than we normally have access to, to overwhelm the computer system on the target vessel before it can do anything about it. So a squad takes the ship, and another pair board afterwards for a full platoon. We've got, by now, a pretty good handle on ship sizes vs. internal complement so a reasonable sized ship is taken." She took a sip from her beer, considering how to put the rest. "Two of the squads are taken aboard the target location as cargo, where we should all be directed to holding and processing cells."
"Excuse me... as cargo?"
I nodded. "If the captured ship doesn't have them, we'll onload them, but there's a fairly standardized shipping crate where captives are kept sedated. We even found a transport based on an airport baggage hauler. Obviously the two squads won't be sedated and, in fact, will have their weaponry with them along with additional arms in a few spares." I shrugged and took another pull from my beer. "From there we take and hold the relevant areas until reinforcements come."
"There's a couple things. For one... you're speaking as if you have an armed force ready."
"I do, actually. You're not the only one who's been militarizing senshi." There was a groan and an expression of interest; Mal of course knew this already. "The difference from the Dirty Dozen is, and no disrespect towards them, training. They're more towards straight Marines, whereas I've got something on the scale of Raiders."
"'Marines'? 'Raiders'? I'm staff, not line like you folks; you've lost me here. What are you two talking about?" Noah asked.
I chuckled. "Well, taking advantage of their toughness and yadda, Katz and I independently arrived at the idea of using senshi in military roles. Both his and mine are trained heavily in boarding actions and fighting in enclosed spaces because, well, there's a lot of that out here in the vacuum. Only... I've been doing a lot of crosstraining too. Okkane-chan?" Mal and Noah jerked with a start as the diminutive girl in a camoflage fuku dropped from the rafters and nimbly landed behind me, though Katz didn't seem surprised. I broke into a faint grin. "Suffice to say, we have the skillsets to do this and survive it... at least for a reasonable time. Thanks Oke, you made my point." The girl smiled and exited through the door.
Noah whistled softly - in appreciation, not a wolf-whistle. "Not bad. If she needs a job after the war, have her come see me. We're going to need people with _those_ skills in the space patrol that Mal and I have been talking about setting up."
I nodded. "Oke is good, but so are the rest of them, in various specialties. After... well, they're free to leave of course or do whatever they want, but I'd prefer to keep the girls in something closer to the current organizational setup than spread piecemeal. We've trained as a unit and staying as one would work better, by no small margin. But that's quibbling; of course we're available for the patrol."
Katz blinked. "Space patrol?"
"The other issue on today's agenda," answered Mal. "We'll get there in a minute."
"What I need is the use of the Maru to get us there and assurance that reinforcements *will* come. If we have to fight our way out, the catgirl equipment likely gets lost, we can't rescue prisoners, and the fact that we can find the place gets out and we're back to square one. And I'm less than enthusiastic about dicking around and losing girls while people sit on their asses."
"How long are you planning on being able to hold?"
"Neglecting battlefield pickup, maybe a week. Unless they've got something far tougher than we've seen that still fits in corridors, we're limited by ammunition more than anything... and we can bring a lot of ammunition. If needed, we can likely raid other locations too to prepare for the reinforcements."
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that we've a slim-to-none chance of a quiet exfiltration?" Katz asked. I nodded slightly.
"Aside from prisoner rescue, one of the main objectives is recovery of the equipment used in the forced catgirl biomod. Failing that, destruction of it. If it's sufficiently extensive, recovery may mean taking part or all of the facility." I shrugged. "Now, eliminate the idea of recovering it and a quiet exfiltration might be doable but..."
"But it's not what we _should_ be doing," interrupted Noah. "Get in quietly, definitely. Do the rescue and looting quietly, no problem. Get out quietly, absolutely not. We want the reavers _and_ Operation Great Justice to know that a major reaver base has been destroyed, if only for the propoganda value."
I nodded; some of the details were different, but that was the gist of it.
"Are you that annoyed with the SOS-dan, Noah?" Mal asked.
"No, Mal, I don't give a damn about Suzumiya and her circle any more, not after that 'insolent peons' crack she made. I'm thinking the front-line fighters would get a morale boost when they find out we gave the Boskonians this big of a bloody nose."
"Alright. So ... ideally, the equipment would need to be mobile, or easily _made_ mobile. Cutting tools or precision demo work. Or the section of whatever they're based out of could be blown free from the whole for pickup, though that could be tricky. Ideally ..." He chuckled. "... heh, well, pipe dreams. We know how likely 'ideally' is, don't we?"
I nodded, having been worried about what could go wrong since I thought of this. "The other factor is, we don't know how it's grouped. It's possible that some or all of their leadership would be in an attached facility, in which case pulling back out would give a lot of time to find a new rock."
"Recon through force, or playing possum for long enough to find ..." Noah cut himself off. "Wait. Skip it. Not the time, *so* not the place. I think I can give this an 'aye', and we'll hash the relevant details out when we've got the facts of just what we can organize for this. And when we're someplace that's more secure than a bar. Saloon. Whatnot."
"Right, recon through force is most of the size of it."
5/22/2013, 1300 Kandor time.
Mal and I had met up on our way to the saloon, I as Kali in the near-parody kunoichi outfit. I wasn't really as bad as it looked, though to tie off my hair in the half dozen mini-ponytails had been irritating. Oh well, everyone knew I only wore the standard hawaiian shirt ensemble, so while it drew glances none of them showed any sign of recognition.
He and I paused by the bar before heading to the back room, and I noticed that Noah and Katz had already arrived. The pause of recognition as I walked in proceeded the comment only by a few seconds. "You're wearing that?" Katz asked. "Isn't it, you know, kinda chilly?" I raised my eyebrows and shrugged.
"You didn't comment about what I'm wearing," commented Noah.
"You're in Kandor and wearing something that looks like a supers outfit," Katz replied.
"And she's not?" Noah pointed a thumb at me as he raised an eyebrow.
"Point."
"You kinda get used to it, strangely enough," I answered as I took a seat and set my Guinness on the table.
"That's Kali?" Noah asked.
"The one and only," Mal replied. "Also known as my engineer, the indomitable KJ. Shall we get to business?"
"Sure thing." I untied the bandanna over my face and took a pull from my beer. "Needless to say, none of this goes any farther than here unless we set this in motion. Now, I asked Mal to arrange things because something came up in recent discussions that I felt that I may have a solution to. To wit, finding whatever's in the center of this web and doing something about it instead of picking at all the little symptoms.
"So, one of the key targets is the forced biomod setup being performed on captives, which I have reason to believe is associated with a lot of their other centers of operations. So I propose to infiltrate and take it until reinforcements can arrive."
Noah smiled. "I'm glad somebody agrees with me about the need to get the data about that biomod. Are you planning to get in and clean out their computers?"
"No, I plan to get in, take over, kill the reavers, and liberate everything and everyone else inside the base." Kali paused and chuckled. "Well yes, and clean out the computers."
"We're nothing if not ambitious," Mal commented dryly.
"How?"
I nodded to Katz. "You came up with an interesting creation, the Kobayashi Maru. I know from experience that navigational charts and entrance codes to the main facility are rotated often, and stored in volitale memory as a security precaution; it's easy to dump them and then you're screwed. In addition, even the location is time-sensitive, so things need to move pretty quickly after boarding. And obviously, something that doesn't look like the correct ship is boned too. To say nothing of comm warnings."
"How do you know about the Maru?"
"Ever wonder who's in the hardsuit? Anyway. The Maru has, in Trigon, a lot heavier slicing ability than we normally have access to, to overwhelm the computer system on the target vessel before it can do anything about it. So a squad takes the ship, and another pair board afterwards for a full platoon. We've got, by now, a pretty good handle on ship sizes vs. internal complement so a reasonable sized ship is taken." She took a sip from her beer, considering how to put the rest. "Two of the squads are taken aboard the target location as cargo, where we should all be directed to holding and processing cells."
"Excuse me... as cargo?"
I nodded. "If the captured ship doesn't have them, we'll onload them, but there's a fairly standardized shipping crate where captives are kept sedated. We even found a transport based on an airport baggage hauler. Obviously the two squads won't be sedated and, in fact, will have their weaponry with them along with additional arms in a few spares." I shrugged and took another pull from my beer. "From there we take and hold the relevant areas until reinforcements come."
"There's a couple things. For one... you're speaking as if you have an armed force ready."
"I do, actually. You're not the only one who's been militarizing senshi." There was a groan and an expression of interest; Mal of course knew this already. "The difference from the Dirty Dozen is, and no disrespect towards them, training. They're more towards straight Marines, whereas I've got something on the scale of Raiders."
"'Marines'? 'Raiders'? I'm staff, not line like you folks; you've lost me here. What are you two talking about?" Noah asked.
I chuckled. "Well, taking advantage of their toughness and yadda, Katz and I independently arrived at the idea of using senshi in military roles. Both his and mine are trained heavily in boarding actions and fighting in enclosed spaces because, well, there's a lot of that out here in the vacuum. Only... I've been doing a lot of crosstraining too. Okkane-chan?" Mal and Noah jerked with a start as the diminutive girl in a camoflage fuku dropped from the rafters and nimbly landed behind me, though Katz didn't seem surprised. I broke into a faint grin. "Suffice to say, we have the skillsets to do this and survive it... at least for a reasonable time. Thanks Oke, you made my point." The girl smiled and exited through the door.
Noah whistled softly - in appreciation, not a wolf-whistle. "Not bad. If she needs a job after the war, have her come see me. We're going to need people with _those_ skills in the space patrol that Mal and I have been talking about setting up."
I nodded. "Oke is good, but so are the rest of them, in various specialties. After... well, they're free to leave of course or do whatever they want, but I'd prefer to keep the girls in something closer to the current organizational setup than spread piecemeal. We've trained as a unit and staying as one would work better, by no small margin. But that's quibbling; of course we're available for the patrol."
Katz blinked. "Space patrol?"
"The other issue on today's agenda," answered Mal. "We'll get there in a minute."
"What I need is the use of the Maru to get us there and assurance that reinforcements *will* come. If we have to fight our way out, the catgirl equipment likely gets lost, we can't rescue prisoners, and the fact that we can find the place gets out and we're back to square one. And I'm less than enthusiastic about dicking around and losing girls while people sit on their asses."
"How long are you planning on being able to hold?"
"Neglecting battlefield pickup, maybe a week. Unless they've got something far tougher than we've seen that still fits in corridors, we're limited by ammunition more than anything... and we can bring a lot of ammunition. If needed, we can likely raid other locations too to prepare for the reinforcements."
"I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that we've a slim-to-none chance of a quiet exfiltration?" Katz asked. I nodded slightly.
"Aside from prisoner rescue, one of the main objectives is recovery of the equipment used in the forced catgirl biomod. Failing that, destruction of it. If it's sufficiently extensive, recovery may mean taking part or all of the facility." I shrugged. "Now, eliminate the idea of recovering it and a quiet exfiltration might be doable but..."
"But it's not what we _should_ be doing," interrupted Noah. "Get in quietly, definitely. Do the rescue and looting quietly, no problem. Get out quietly, absolutely not. We want the reavers _and_ Operation Great Justice to know that a major reaver base has been destroyed, if only for the propoganda value."
I nodded; some of the details were different, but that was the gist of it.
"Are you that annoyed with the SOS-dan, Noah?" Mal asked.
"No, Mal, I don't give a damn about Suzumiya and her circle any more, not after that 'insolent peons' crack she made. I'm thinking the front-line fighters would get a morale boost when they find out we gave the Boskonians this big of a bloody nose."
"Alright. So ... ideally, the equipment would need to be mobile, or easily _made_ mobile. Cutting tools or precision demo work. Or the section of whatever they're based out of could be blown free from the whole for pickup, though that could be tricky. Ideally ..." He chuckled. "... heh, well, pipe dreams. We know how likely 'ideally' is, don't we?"
I nodded, having been worried about what could go wrong since I thought of this. "The other factor is, we don't know how it's grouped. It's possible that some or all of their leadership would be in an attached facility, in which case pulling back out would give a lot of time to find a new rock."
"Recon through force, or playing possum for long enough to find ..." Noah cut himself off. "Wait. Skip it. Not the time, *so* not the place. I think I can give this an 'aye', and we'll hash the relevant details out when we've got the facts of just what we can organize for this. And when we're someplace that's more secure than a bar. Saloon. Whatnot."
"Right, recon through force is most of the size of it."