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https://a.pomf.cat/jfuwfq.mp3

You are Zaur Givi, codename Titan, a genius hacker that became the leader of one of the Seghu Maru’s mech’s platoon. The Seghu Maru is a corsair’s ship that was recently damaged in a battle against an Imperial frigate. It has been in repair since, hiding in a valley sympathetic to the nationalist cause.

You and your crew being mostly idle and the captain needing money for both the reparations and the pays made the perfect match. The Erean army needed help to reduce an enemy salient, in Aingstgaard’s sector that endangered the whole Erean second corps. A contract was signed and your platoon was selected to lend a hand to the Erean eighth division.

Your mission was pretty simple. Wreak havoc behind enemy lines just in the wake of the offensive on the Imperial first division. You were dropped from a high altitude, behind enemy lines, on Lavalette’s airport where you had to deal with an AA battery and an infantry platoon. There, you established contact with the local resistance. You learned from them that the mayor of Genareli, was arrested and about to be transferred to an unknown location. Incidentally, he was the leader of the local resistance, and the only man that could successfully mobilize it on such a short notice.

Your platoon moved undetected toward Genareli, a town occupying a central position in the rear of the imperials. You took advantage of the surprise to hit the Imperial’s first brigade HQ and another AA battery before moving toward the town’s hospital where the mayor was detained. After disabling the air transport sent for the transfer, you decided that the best moment to attack was when they would try to move the prisoner. You were able to rescue the mayor almost unscathed.

You left him to his own devices and moved to secure Genareli airport. With all known anti-air threats dealt with, you could call in some reinforcements from the Ereans.You would need it, because the Imperials were now aware of your presence. They were rapidly assembling a task force that they hoped could deal with the big thorn in their side you represented. With the help of the Erean seventh airborne company, Genareli’s militia, some ruse de guerre and the superiority of your mechs, you were able to repel what the Imperials were able to throw at you. The Erean general attack started right after, decreasing greatly the pressure on Genareli.

With your hands free you attacked the artillery battery near the citadel of Acroma. Even if you were unexpectedly targeted in a “short range artillery strike”, you managed to destroy it to blast the whole citadel open by detonating something that must have been an ammo dump or a fuel storage tank.

You could have continued to extend your path of destruction, however you decided otherwise. Call it a hunch, but something caught your attention during the mission. People kept complaining about power outages and the power plant being so close, you thought it deserved a thorough investigation.

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https://a.pomf.cat/ggdqqr.mp3

You moved north to inspect a surprinsgly undefedend district's powerplant. What you discovered here justified your concerns. Earlier this week, workers had been requisitioned to lay special power lines directly from the plant to Aingstgaard, the district’s capital. A dozen kilometer's long superconductor cable. The worker didn't know what it was needed for, but for the last days, whatever was on the other side had been fed most of the reactor output. This could only be bad news. You knew that the Imperials were preparing a decisive counter-attack, now, you knew they had an ace up their sleeve.

You dropped everything and rushed with your platoon at full speed toward Aingstgaard, a seaside town built to accommodate Imperial officials on holiday, veterans and citizens from the inner sphere. You needed to stop whatever the enemy was preparing. Once in the city, you made a quick detour to hit the first division HQ. That would be the last straw for the wavering imperial forces, and their collapse under Erean pressure. Every available troops converged on your position but you quickly realized that they weren’t trying to prevent the capture of the general Kempfer, but to delay you as long as possible. But it wasn't enough to stop you.

A bleeding Kempfer told you about how the planets governor had pulled a lot of strings for this operation. The hardware being powered there was imported directly from the inner sphere. But he passed out before answering more questions. You moved double time toward the ports but your group is ambushed by a platoon, codenamed Koenig, consisting of four Cataphracts. They were old mechs from the unification war. While they could be considered museum pieces, they were still a real threat. At least, greater than anything you had encountered until now. You still came up on top, without too much damage. Yet, you didn’t have time to celebrate.

You were soon to encounter the leader of the Koenig platoon. Following the power lines, your platoon entered the harbor area. You stayed back to provide cover. It seems the imperial staff had to pack up in a hurry. but the transformers were still humming and most of their equipement was still here. The stage was set for your final battle. The last antagonist could enter the scene. A pilot speaking the old colonial tongue, piloting a Paladin. A cutting edge medium mech that only seen combat in the outer systems. A weapon system designed for the vicious battles in the outer systems. And you were the only one able to take it down.

Even if you were able to catch it before it was fully charged, you still doubted that you would be able to fight it head on. The difference in firepower was overwhelming, and it seems the pilot was toying with your men. You decided to beat him using unconventional means: hacking. You were a tech wizard after all. A tech wizard with not a lot of room to maneuver: The very survival of the Erean second corp was now on your shoulders.

File: harbor.jpg (1.13 MB, 2560x1440)

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https://a.pomf.cat/omzpnt.mp3

Duster
<< He’s coming from the left! … No! The other left! >>

You hear rumble the rumble of pneumatic-auto canon spitting armor piercing shells. Defensive grenades make a hiss as they come out of their launchers. A gas tank is hit and explodes, containers are blown off by the shockwave. Only one thing remains still in this chaos. The Paladin. He rushes in, but Duster moves in time and meets him halfway. The threats of the magic lance deter the imperial once again. He falls back, looking for an opportunity. He knows that a single false step is what he need to deal the final blow against your men. Duster and Biscuit, ever vigilants, are working in pairs to keep him at bay, but how long will they last?

The final showdown is upon you. You have a clear plan: You’re going to use the old firmware source code you’ve found and introduce a backdoor. You’ll then pretend to be the master server informing the Paladin systems that an emergency update is needed. Once you’re done, you’ll have free reign on the mechs system. You’ll even have a higher level of privilege on it than the pilot himself.

The only thing you need now is time. And your platoon is paying the heavy price to afford you some.

Sunburn is out. Duster lost most of his weaponry. Biscuit is getting low on ammo. They are trying to contain the prodigious power of the Paladin, one of the most advanced mech in the galaxy. In comparison, yours are looking like glorified fenwicks. You try to see a positive side. If this work, you'll have an even better story to tell. And for that, you need to stop wasting time, and get to work.

You quickly open multiple files in the directory of the firmware's sources, trying to locate a main loop or an entry point in the software. You’re lucky, the army didn’t go for some esoteric architecture only government procurement manages to create sometime. You don't have as much difficulty as you expected because of that. It's pretty clear and straightforward, You promptly find what you need. Another explosion take you out for an instant. You can feel your cockpit shaking. Focus Givi.

You just need to introduce a system call that will directly read what you send through the datalink and execute it locally. Nothing too complicated, but it still needs to be implemented. No wild guess about how to do it here. You directly look through the firmwar's code to see how it usually interacts with the datalink. You end up copy-pasting whole parts of it into your own code. You don’t need complicated parsing or safety measures. You don’t even need it to forward any output to you. You can manage that once your payload is in.

You double check everything one last time, you increment the version number in the configuration file. It seems there’s nothing left other than to compile your version and send it to the Paladin. You set up a compile job on the Erean datalink you’ve hijacked and press the validation key.

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Koenig - 0
<< Ce fut amusant le temps que ça a duré messieurs, mais il va falloir baisser le rideau >>

You don’t like the tone of his voice. He almost gleefully fights your men like this was some kind of a game. He’s talking on an open channel to taunt you in this old colonial language of his that nobody here understands. Most of all, he sounds like he’s having a blast. Why is he even fighting for the Imperial? The furious combat of earlier gave way to something akin to a deadly game of cat and mouse.


You freeze.

Error: Not enough memory

Uh?

What do you mean not enough memory?

Your throat tightens as you try again. You execute the command again, and pay a great deal of attention.

And here you see it. The memory consumption is getting out of control. In less than 10 seconds, the memory of the whole network is voraciously consumed by the compiler. The task fails again. And the dreading words are printed yet again in your terminal.

Error: Not enough memory

Your breathing quickens. Adrenaline rushes hopelessly in some vain fight or flight reaction.
There must be a mistake somewhere, surely the compilation wasn’t properly shared. There’s no way a firmware would choke a datalink swarm that way.

Captain Preiss
<< Titan, this is Preiss, can you hear me? I repeat … >>

“Can you shut the fuck up! I’m trying to think here!” you answer in a barely contained hanger. Without pressing the press-to-talk naturally. You triple check everything, try to find what you did wrong, test with different configuration, ... everything! But it seems this operation actually need way more processing power than what is available on the datalink.

Maybe … maybe you can split the compilation and link everything at the end… No, it would take too much time! M-maybe the Paladin has enough processing power to compile it?! You… you could find a way to trigger a firmware update that compiles the source… and… and maybe...

With the exhaustion, it feels like your head is about to explode in the process of finding a solution.

Then the realization hits you.

You made a gamble.

You lost.

And everyone will suffer the consequences.

You start to feel completely numb. Powerless.

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The only thing you hear is the deafening sound of rain on your cockpit, thunder mixed with auto-canons shot.

What are you going to do?

You could come back to the security update attempts but it might already be too late.

You feel sick.

Captain Preiss
<< Ti-tan. this. is. Preiss. Can. you. hear. me. I. re-peat. >>

Your mind is blank. Without anything better to do, you answer half-heartedly: “Yeah… I can hear you Preiss.”. He snaps back immediately.

Captain Preiss
<< Good lord, what is happening, we lost contact with your, then we lost control of our datalink… >>

You’re sinking in your seat, his voice getting more and more distant. What is happening? Would he take “I fucked up” as an answer? You want to take off your helmet and put your head in your hands. But you have no will left. Of course it wouldn’t work, these firmware are built by computing farms in military institutes! Optimized to an insane level to the best level of performance and resilience.

In your hubris you had this ridiculous idea that you could break in a system designed by an armada of genius. You’d need a supercomputer to do that, not a diesel powered battlesystem. Only corporations, administrations or the imperial army have what you need for your stupid plan.

…

Wait?! An army?!! You have an army. A modern army needs to compute all kinds of strategic data to perform simulations, verify intel certainty, calculate probabilities of outcome, balance the logistical needs, identify bottlenecks in advance, manage manpower, create back-up plans, etc. Surely the Erean army couldn’t possibly compile all of this by hand, even considering that they are fighting on a colonial world.

You cling onto that last thread of hope and straighten up.

“Preiss, Titan speaking. Listen to me. You must have a strategic super calculator? I mean, the 8th, the 2nd corps, the Erean army?”

Captain Preiss
<<What?! I mean, yes, we’re using the quantum data processor of the university of Crémone. But what does this have to do with a- >>

You start to move your hands like to stress the importance of what you’re about to say, even if nobody is here to witness it: “I need their communication ID, and for you to clear me an unrestricted access to it. It has to happen in the next three minutes”

Captain Preiss
<< What the hell are you talking about, what is happening in Aingstgaard? I can’t - >>

“We’re fighting a Paladin. I may be able to disable it. But I need your help, and time is running out”

Captain Preiss
<< … I … understand … >>

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The wait is unbearable. You only hear the rain, yourself breathing heavily and the clicks of your keyboard. Nothing exists outside. You have no time to lose. First, you release your control on the datalink. The 8th might appreciate it and Preiss won’t be able to contact anybody without that anyway. If you manage to get access to a supercomputer, you might be able to pull this off. But you have to be ready to transfer data as soon as you can establish a connection. You’ve burned way too far in your time budget already. With a last stroke on the keyboard you’re satisfied with your work.

It feels like an eternity but when you look anxiously at the clock, barely more than a minute has passed. Your eyes are fixated on the digital display, each seconds are ticking like an hour. You risk a quick glance at the battlefield. Your men have been separated and they are trying to link back, but the Paladin is standing between them and frustrates any attempt. You realize the combat has almost come to a standstill. You can fill the tension. They are looking at each other, waiting for the first move. Your men having expanded most of their tricks, this combat is coming to a closure.

A notification appears in the corner of your field of view: “New communication ID received”

The next instants are a blur. the Paladin and the Vulcan start to move toward each other. In a few seconds they are almost at each other's throats. The Mars lags behind and is late to the party. Your opponent makes no move to evade Duster's Magic lance and its heavy duty shaped charge tip. Instead he plunges forward. Despite the surprise, Duster doesn't miss the opportunity. He swing back the weapon and thrust between the right arm and the Paladin’s chest. The spear detonates.

Duster
<< I got him! The fucker won’t be able to use his sword now. >>

Smoke is pushed away by the sea wind. You try to connect to the communication ID you’ve received.

Biscuit
<< No, he managed to take the hit in a non-critical area! Get out! >>

When the smoke clears, the Paladin still stands, almost unscathed. It raises its progressive sword, while Biscuit's armor piercing shells hopelessly bounce off its back. The blade goes through the damaged heavy armor plates like if it was butter, leaving a burning white scar on the mech’s body. The boiling metal gushes on the path of the weapon as Duster tries to maneuver out of the Paladin’s reach. But the powerful mech extends its mechanical arm to hold him still.

Once again electromagnetic actuators are clashing with their electric counterparts. But this time, in this position, raw power isn’t on the Vulcan side. The dreadful last stand ends when the Vulcan’s suddenly goes limp as the sword continues to cut through it. A few seconds later, the armor on the back is blasted by explosive bolts and the ejection capsule springs out, rapidly leaving the area, propelled by thrusters.

Connection established

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IT guy
<< Good afternoon, this is Lupin Huard from the university of Crémone, how ca- >>

You cut him off: “Listen to me, this is important, I’m with the Erean 8th division, I immediately need unrestricted access to your data processor. Just cut off the firewall. This is a question of life or death.”

Lupin Huard
<< What? Uh, do you have an order or something? I can’t jus- >>

You say in a plaintive tone: “Listen, I just need to compile some shit and the datalink isn’t enough. This is really important.”

Lupin Huard
<< I understand but how am I supposed to know you’re not some hacke- >>

You’ve run out of patience long ago: “I don’t have time for that fucktard. I If you keep playing this game, people are going to die. So open up everything and If something goes wrong you’ll just have to pull the plug okay?!”

A silence

“Did you hear me? You have back-ups, we both know it, worse case is you lose half a day of computing?”

Lupin Huard
<< Uh… yes… pull the plug… I mean, give me a second… >>

You can’t believe it worked, you raise a fist and your head, silently thanking some superior force being at work.

Lupin Huard
<< Should be wide open, the address is the same as the communication ID but on port 13 >>

You know that, you were pinging that stupid port 13 the whole time. The command is already running and you're sending a request for status every seconds. And it's… it’s working! Your errupt in joy, claping your hand before putting them on your head. You Check all the log that is pouring on your screen, it’s a heavy load, but the system ressources aren’t overwhelmed like your datalink was. It’s going to work! You let out a sigh of relief, ready to tell the good news to Biscuit.

But when you stare at the battleground, you realize there's nobody waiting for the news anymore. The Mars lay broken.It's upper half next to its legs, cut clean by the progressive sword. While your attention was away, the fight was ending. It seems the last member of your platoon was cornered against fallen containers and had no room for maneuver anymore. With its power hammer jammed, the mech was defenseless.

Biscuit
<< I’m sorry boss… *Koff* You’re out of time. >>

>The best defense is offense
>Running away is the best self-defense
>Other (write-in)

>I'll need a 1d100 for Zaur Givi, DC44 or DC64 depending on your vote (won't tell what is what)
>I'll need another 1d100, DC47 for some event that might help.

Rolled 40, 79 = 119 (2d100)

>>4496097
>The best defense is offense

Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>4496097
>The best defense is offense
This was a good run

Rolled 49 (1d100)

>>4496097
>The best defense is offense

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https://a.pomf.cat/iwtcaw.mp3

And here you are, alone. You sit in the pressurized, climate controlled cockpit of the Athena, your partner for the last months. The turbine is gently humming, all systems are nominals. You can feel the remaining warmth of the controls as your hands clench on them. You barely recovered from a hangover, you’re exhausted, you hardly had any proper sleep in two days. your head is burning, your back is hurting. Adrenalin, Dopamin and Endorphin are circulating in your bloodstream, making you feel the kind of sick only all-nighter can make you feel.

You’re the only person standing between a Paladin class medium mech and the Erean 8th division. Hell, the whole second corps.

Koenig - 0
<< Ah, le dernier, qu’est-ce que tu faisais là tout seul? >>

The Paladin turns toward the last target indicated by his tactical assistant: you. Each time the clock is ticking, it ticks in your favour. But you have arrive to a dangerous moment where each tick brings you closer to being impaled on a marvel of engineering. Your foot tests the accelerator pedal. The turbine RPM increases in response with a loud roar. You can’t run away, and you’re not going to give the pleasure of seeing your back to the bastard who took down your platoon.. You take a deep breath.

You push all your controls forward. One last time, the Athena turbine let out a call that echo in the storm and the emptied streets of Aingstgaard. Best defense is offense, said someone long ago, certainly before dying. The thought put a smile on your face. Haaaa. What would you give for a smoke right now. Your mech starts to move rapidly toward your enemy. You drop your gun, it won’t be of any use against such an opponent and you want to get the initiative, strike first. What an amusing situation, a weapon platform without a weapon. You raise the badly mangled ballistic shield in an attempt to hide your intentions.

Koenig - 0
<< Oh Ho? >>

That’s right smug motherfucker, I’m coming for you. You jump above the street while the Paladin slowly raises its sword in a defensive stance. You feel the weight of the Athena as it lands on the other side. “Lady luck, if there’s a moment I will need you, it’s right here, right now”. As you cross the last few dozen meters between your and your enemy, you finally raise the shield. In a last gamble, you throw it toward him. He’s visibly surprised and changes his entire posture trying to stop the multi-tons hunk of metal. [Success - 2 degrees]

You take advantage of his confusion and tackle him as low as you can, below his center of mass. Unbalanced, the mech is carried away with your momentum and you both crash in a warehouse behind. Half of the roof fall down on both of you as you bring the mighty Athena down, starting an unbecoming wrestle.

This is the moment where the binary compiled by Crémone’s data processor lands on your system. You had already contingency in place for this. The program is sent through the hacked datalink, disguised as an emergency update requested by the Paladin's main server. Your already racing hurt is starting to beat wildly as the Imperial mech automaticall send back a confirmation and queue the update. Your system start to ping the Paladin for status update at regular interval. The countdown have begun.

[############--------------------------------------------------------------------------------] 17%

>Focus on his primary arm. You can’t let him hit you with the progressive sword.
>Focus on pinning him on the ground. You can’t let him do anything.
>Other (write-in)

>I need the exact same rolls as previous post

Rolled 63, 19 = 82 (2d100)

>>4496734
>Focus on his primary arm. You can’t let him hit you with the progressive sword.

Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>4496734
>Focus on pinning him on the ground. You can’t let him do anything.

Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>4496734
>Focus on his primary arm. You can’t let him hit you with the progressive sword.

>>4496756
>>4496785
63, 17

https://a.pomf.cat/fyfajm.mp3

You remove the roof parts obstructing sensors as you try to locate the Paladin. You immediately notice him trying to recover. That’s not part of your plan. You rush forward and catch it before it fully stands up. Both of your mechs collide before rolling down as you wreak havoc in the ruins of the warehouse. Your head hit something hard in the process. In this vicious close quarter combat, you focus on trying to immobilize the arm holding the progressive sword, the biggest threat against you.

While standing on top of the enemy mech, you wrap both of the athena’s metallic arms around the Paladin’s primary’s one. But you rapidly realize that most of your weight has shifted toward it, leaving free reign to the rest of its body. You try to correct that but your opponent quickly takes advantage of the situation. Using it’s superior strength, the Paladin’s move your light mech on the side and manage to roll above you, inverting your positions. [Failure]

The table quickly turns, rotating its hand, the medium mech points its weapon right toward your cockpit. You push on your controls to raise the pressure in your arms hydraulic to the maximum pressure. Successfully staving his attack for a time. But it doesn’t last. After moving to a more stable position, your enemy finally moves the second arm to push the hilt of the sword. You start to feel the whole frame shaking as you do the only thing you can think off in the heat of the moment. Raising the turbine RPM to its theoretical limit.

Koenig - 0
<< Aller … Laisse toi faire bon sang … >>

But your mech is a weak one, not designed for that kind of standoff. You're slowly losing ground as the Paladin starts to use the weight of its upper body to push further its weapon. Various alarms trigger as the temperature on the surface of your mech begins to raise from the proximity of the blade. With one free hand you try to tamper with the Athena’s system to release safeties and push it beyond specification. But blood runs down your face at the worst moment, and gets in your eye while you try to set up.

You blink a few times trying to get rid of it but you missed the mark. The firmware still hasn’t finished to install and you only have a few seconds left… Until loud explosions can be heard, mixed with the whizz of deflected shells. Something is firing in the Paladin’s back. And for an instant you can feel the Athena’s hips rising ever so slightly. [ Success - 2 degrees ]

Your opponent's balance is slightly off and you immediately take advantage of it. You raise the mech’s knee and lean on your feet to give you leverage. In one impulsion you push both legs in the back of your enemy, trying to roll back and throw your enemy back. It doesn’t work as well as you envisioned, but the result is still here. Your back on your knee, facing your foe.

Biscuit
<< This is it boss… I’m out of ammo. >>

You can hear him breathing heavily. A quick glance on your back sensor lets you see the upper-half of the Mars, standing awkwardly on one of its arms, a trail of motor oil and hydraulics behind him. “Thank you buddy” you answer, wiping up blood on your face with the back of your hand. You scan the area. The last member of the Koenig platoon rolled out of the ruin and now stands on the pier. Surprise weared off, you have to improvise, keep the clock ticking.

[########################------------------------------------------------------------] 41%

>Grab a makeshift weapon and fight with it [roll lower to get better weapon]
>Try to push the Paladin’s in the water DC 44
>Other (write-in)

>Need a d100 for Titan
>No more event that might help

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>4500166
>Try to push the Paladin’s in the water DC 44

Rolled 97 (1d100)

>>4500166
>Try to push the Paladin’s in the water DC 44

>>4500166
>Set things up so that even if our mech is disabled, the firmware update still gets uploaded.

File: critical_success.jpg (1.3 MB, 2560x1440)

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https://a.pomf.cat/jajwog.mp3

You’re not trying to win the fight here, just some time. That’s the only advantage you have over your opponent. And seeing him standing on the pier, with the sea right behind him, an idea comes to your mind. As you approach slowly, you grab a steel beam from the warehouse's ruins. You go over a collapsed wall and surreptitiously circles around the medium mech, disguising the maneuver as an attempt to find an opening.

You gauge each other, both of you getting ready for the next set of moves. You angle your makeshift weapon like if you were preparing a cutting strike from top to bottom. You’re still hesitating between switching suddenly to a thrust midway and push the mech in the water using the beam or a try to pull off what you did with your shield earlier. But the train of your thought is interrupted. A small movement in its leg. Your foe is about to attack!

You throw your mech in the fray: flooring the pedals, pushing on the controls. The imperial pilot sure didn’t expect such an overly aggressive opponent today. Your behaviour must look almost suicidal to him. It sure feels suicidal to you. Your heart is about to explode and you forget to breathe. In this crazy dash, it feels like everything moves slower, that each and every moves is decomposed. You can see his posture that slightly changes to a more defensive one. He has the advantage, an unpredictable opponent after all. One step after the other you get closer from the Paladin. Now, it feels like your heart is forgetting to beat too.

You pull on one of your controls to abruptly change your stance a second before striking. He read your move instantly. You’re clearly not a master at fencing. But you may have a few tricks to teach him when it comes to brawling. If there is a thing a corsaire doesn’t lack of, it’s barfight, you think as you switch to Plan B and throw the beam directly toward the mech.

The leader of Koenig 0 is again a bit startled, but not as surprised as he was the first time. His sword moves to cut your right arm in its movement. Too bad for him, your arm will remain wound back. The Athena’s head comes first and hits the Paladin with a loud metallic sound that resonates through the whole cockpit. You're thrown forward in your seat but the belts stop you dead in your track. You’re left breathless like if you took a good bunch in the abdomen.

You raise your own head and see the Paladin stagger back, not enough. Fuck. You need just one last push and he’ll be in the water. But he’s already recovering. You shove your controls forward, trying to leap and finish him. But it’s too late his sword is ready, he’s almost back in position. You’re not going to make it, you think as you grit your teeth and rush to your demise. The enemy mech's left leg moves back to get into a stable guard and … find no ground to support it. You stop in extremis as you watch the metal hulk tipping backward and falling in the water. [Critical Success]

The imperial aligned pilot let out a string of infuriated curses as you watch him struggle to get up. Water gets roughly to its shoulder. “What are you going to do now, uh?” You ask on the open channel. With you on the pier, it’s virtually impossible for him to get back. While you taunt him you take a look on both sides to see if there is a place where he could easily climb back. You let out a deep sigh as you notice a dry dock a few dozen meters on your left. You move in anticipation to get there before him.

[####################################----------------------------------------] 59%

Meanwhile, you start to set things up in case your mech ends up disabled. This was way too close for comfort. It would have ended in this warehouse without the intervention of Biscuit. Fighting a Paladin heads on is even worse than you thought. You transfer all the things you need on a remote server far from this battlefield. Worst case scenario, you’ll just need a terminal with a connection to the network. During this time, the Paladin would be able to devastate the Erean lines, west of here, but at least you would be able to shut it down eventually. For this, you have to survive though. You don’t have enough time to explain the procedure to someone else.

Koenig - 0
<< Haha, ça faisait longtemps que je m’étais pas autant amusé >>

With that done, you start to look around to find an idea. You’re running out of tricks, and throwing something at your opponent's face will most likely not work anymore. You have little time before he gets back on the pier. You try to think, but your mind is blank. Containers, trucks, cranes, all kinds of things you can expect in a harbor, but nothing comes to your mind. If only you had slept a little more. Moreover you feel like it's inevitable that it will come back to a close quarter combat in the end. And you now have a first hand experience on how you will be at a disadvantage. Unless… You could tamper with the Athena and remove all the mechanical safety before your last stand. Your mech is in good shape after all.

[################################################--------------------] 80%

>tamper with your engine DC 84 ( mech was out for revision + wasn’t damage + field repair midway in the mission)
>there’s certainly something you can use in this port, but what? (DC depend on the task)

>Since I want all players to experience the intense pleasure of rolling, I'll need 3*1d100, I will select one of the result with a 1d3

Rolled 90 (1d100)

>>4501422
>tamper with your engine DC 84 ( mech was out for revision + wasn’t damage + field repair midway in the mission)

Rolled 6 (1d100)

>>4501422
>>4501429
this

Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>4501422
>>4501429
seconding this

>>4501422
>Implying you only have 3 players

>there’s certainly something you can use in this port, but what?
The port itself. Run away and hide. We don't need to fight the fucker, just survive until our firmware uploads. If we don't forget to grab our cannon, we'll be too dangerous for him to just ignore and go away.

Rolled 3 (1d3)

>>4501429
>>4501457
>>4501459

Koenig - 0
<< C’est ça. Fais ton malin. Tu vas voir ce que tu va voir. >>

You remember a discussion with the CMO before you were finally given the Athena. “Listen, if we’re going to work together, we need to make things straight.”. The first thing you thought when you talked to him was that he reminded you of your last teacher in highschool. The one that made you drop out. “I know you like to tinker with stuff. Computers mostly. Anyway, from what I understand the captain wants you inside one of my mechs. I’m not going to tell you how to do your work. But I know what mine is. And it’s to tinker with your mech. What I’m doing here follows the law of physics.”

You never listened to this teacher. He was boring as hell. But the difference with him was that he actually knew what he was talking about and was pretty perfectionist about it. The CMO would not let a brat like you fuck with his work. “The Athena software comes with all kind of tinkering subsystems. It’s okay for you to use them to your heart content. They are designed for us when we try to optimize them for different situations. I’m sure you’ll manage to squeeze some extra RPM here and there. But there are protections, because contrary to what you do most of the time. Mechs aren’t a series of 1 and 0. A wrong value somewhere, and you could destroy the engine. Anyway. They are here for a reason. You’re not allowed under any circumstance to remove those safety, Understood?”

… and its gone.

No limiter, no nothing. Only pure feeling and raw power. If you can one more mech than the 3 you already canned, the CMO won’t be any angrier. You’ll now be able accelerate the turbine speed by over-revving the engine, increase the pressure in hydraulics and so on. Your mech wont last long like this, but you don’t need that. As long as the Athena doesn't get shocked too much, the turbine shouldn’t change axis and destroy itself. Hopefully. You raise slowly the power, test the articulations, triggering a few warnings, but it seems to work. If things get desperate, you’ll be able to push it further. Until it breaks. [Success - 3 degrees]

Your attention comes back to the Paladin. It has done most of its way to the dry dock while you were working on the Athena systems. It is quite slowed down by the water but not as much as you would have liked. It starts walking up the ramp and you hesitate for an instant.
Should you attack while its moves are slowed down by the remaining water? You feel like you’d have better success keeping your distance with him and counting on two successive defeats at your hand for him to be overly cautious. Only one thing is certain, the firmware is almost installed

[######################################################----------] 91%

>Don’t let him out of the water, attack while you have the upper hand
>Let him come, you’re playing the clock

> need 1d100, DC 44 or 64 depending on the action

>>4503646

And
>Other (write-in)
naturally

Rolled 96 (1d100)

>>4503646
>Let him come, you’re playing the clock
Speedy as fuck boiiii

Rolled 18 (1d100)

>>4503646
>Don’t let him out of the water, attack while you have the upper hand

Rolled 68 (1d100)

>>4503646
>Let him come, you’re playing the clock

https://a.pomf.cat/ohwxtd.mp3

You decide to play it safe, let it come to you, try to avoid direct confrontation and maintain your distance until you win the battle in a few strokes of your keyboard. You anxiously keep an eye at the loading bar while the numbers are slowly increasing. Is it getting slower? You can’t tell. The Paladin is getting out of the water, its progressive sword caught in a cloud of vapor. The ultra-sonic blade instantly evaporates the water on contact.

Koenig - 0
<< Alors?! Qu'est-ce qui' se passe?! >>

Instead of being overly cautious as you had anticipated, the mech begins to walk toward you with determination. You first try to faint an attack, but he doesn’t react. You then fall back but he moves forward at a greater pace, quickly reducing the distance between you and him.
You’re tempted to run away but you know that it would let you both vulnerable to an attack and that your mech is slower to accelerate than his. Out of options you start to grab obstacles to put on his way. Container, van, lifting hook, everything you can get a hold on. But it barely slows the Paladin down.

You notice that he keeps its weapon low and you see an opportunity as he cross the final dozen of meters separating you from him. Realizing that the final confrontation becomes inevitable, you suddenly stop retreating and spring forward in an aggressive leap. You're entirely focused on the sword and the mechanic arm supporting it. If you can immobilize it for a few seconds, this fight will be in the bag. The Paladin is too late to react and you grab its dominant hand with both arms before it can reacts and press it against the Athena’s body to limit its movement. You are jubilant when you effectively block the weapon.

And then it drops. The progressive sword falls down on the ground with a loud metallic noise that reverberates in the yard as the constant whirring finally comes to a stop. “Wha- ?” you wonder out loud as you suddenly realize that something is wrong. You turn your head just in time to see the Paladin puts all of its upper body behind its punch. [Critical failure]

You feel your stomach going up as the Athena suddenly becomes airborne. It feels like time stopped mid-air for an instant. An instant where you realize you fell in his trap before your mech crash down. Everything is a blur. It feels like you're in a washing machine with all kinds of unsecured objects flying around. You tuck your head in your shoulders and grit your teeth for what seems to be an eternity. It finally came to a stop. There’s some liquid pouring on your face, you can hear electronics sizzling. The Athena is lying on its back inside a concrete building.

File: TitanLastStand.png (2.2 MB, 1920x1080)

2.2 MB PNG

>>4506261

Your head hurt.

Alarm are triggering one after the other as the damage report window shows in a corner of your screens. The simplified diagram shows entire parts of your mech in yellow and orange colors. Near the head it's flashing red. You’ve lost a whole array of sensors and you can see it yourself as a part of your field of view is now entirely black or glitchy. But you don’t have much time for damage assessment, the Paladin is already on you, hammering the athena with its fists, crushing metal plates and damaging internals.

Koenig - 0
<< Alors?! Ca fait quoi d’être de l’autre côté du rideau?! >>

You manage to catch one of its wrists midway. He pull on it to no avail and the fight devolves into you trying to keep a hold and him trying to free his arm. It's rapidly clear that on a raw power match, you're going to loose. You push the Athena's turbine to its limit and above, hoping it wasn’t damaged too much in the fall. It shakes the whole frame with an ever increasing pitch. You can smell something burning. At the same time you hear the clunks of valve blocks shutting off circuits, struggling to increase the pressure in the hydraulics as the pressure valves stay clogged. Quickly, the sound of actuators become deafening as all the power your mech can muster is used in this arm wrestling.

As the struggle become more intense, warnings are starting to appears on you HUD. Only a few one at first, but they multiply rapidly as the pressure in the hydraulics becomes critical. Yet the hydropump keeps building it up to obey your order. The movement of your arms start to get erratic as mechanical failures are piling up. You can hear the whole metallic structure whining. Compared to your mech that sound like a submarine about to be crushed by the pression, the paladin remain almost silent. You can barely hear the humming of the magnetic coil as it keeps applying more and more pressure. The turbine drinks oil so fast you start to wonder if you do not have a leak.

Then it snap. Parts of the Athena's left arm are fllying around as it gets in a weird angle. Exposed hydraulics are now leaking from everywhere. You can see ripped of cables emerging from the broken articulation. Suddenly, with almost no resistance, the Paladin manages to pull off its arm and rock back. You're astonished, watching the broken left arm lying on the side.

Your enemy doesn't wait and directly goes for the kill. Both arm plunge toward the area where you cockpit is. You can hear the hull creak under the pressure and red lights are lighting up one all around. You override the automatic ejection to be triggered only on manual input and keep a hand on the handle. The frame won't hold long at this rate, and the update is fucking stuck. You still have one arm operationnal


[############################################################] 99%


>Hit the Paladin
>Push back the Paladin
>Other (write-in)

>1d100

Rolled 65 (1d100)

>>4506322
>Increase pressure in the left arm's stump and direct a stream of oil right into the Paladin's cameras. Then push him back.
Oh man

Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>4506322
>Push back the Paladin

File: TitanLastStand2.png (1.54 MB, 1920x1080)

1.54 MB PNG

>>4506333
>>4506347
https://a.pomf.cat/haasdl.mp3

You roll on the right to bring the stump of your left arm towards the Paladin. You try to aim roughly for the sensors and allocate a steady supply of oil to the phantom limb. Black ooze burst into a geyser, ruining the paint of your foe. With that done, you move your right arm and aim for the Paladin's torso. You allocate every last bit of power to your right arm, pushing it back with everything the Athena's have left. If the pressure on your cockpit steadily decline it doesn't stop.

You can see it with the flashlight mode of your helmet. The walls are deforming, sparks are bursting out of broke panels, a fire have started next to your foot. "Come on beautiful, you held this long, you're not going to fail me to day" you whisper as you apply more strength on your controls like if it was going to change something.

[############################################################] 99%

>Push harder
>Hit him
>muffled screams
>eject
>Other (write-in)

>1d100

File: Power.gif (154 KB, 220x123)

154 KB GIF

Rolled 13 (1d100)

>>4506370
>Push harder

>>4506370
Wait, so what is the Paladin doing? Crushing us with its weight?

>>4506376
>Wait, so what is the Paladin doing? Crushing us with its weight?
both arms trying to rip apart the cockpit.

>>4506370
>>4506379
Then can we try to use our legs to push him off?

>>4506395
Paladin is too high I'd say for succesfully pushing it using your legs. Maybe hit him with them, or use them as a distraction

>>4506370
Okay, we're inside a building, right?
>Drag ourselves deeper inside so that the Paladin's elbows press against the walls.
This should deprive him of leverage.

File: TitanLastStand3.gif (2.4 MB, 1920x1080)

2.4 MB GIF

You try to push on your legs to drag yourself against a wall in an attempt to deprive your foe of leverage. But you move too slowly, your foe keeps you pin down and you know you wont make it in time.

You're reluctant to gamble when your life is on the line, but this is getting nowhere, slowly but steadily, the cockpit is getting crushed. You begin to push harder while you let out a guttural growl as a war cry. You can see once again the whole arm shaking from the effort, pressure valves are blowing up here and there, actuators are frying one after the other, armor plates are falling off exposing leaking hydraulics. Every parts are pushed way beyond their limits, navigating the thin line between offering the best they can give and breaking down. And it works. You can see the Paladin getting pushed back, centimeter per centimeter. Keeping you alive a few more seconds. [Success]

Every red lights that can be turned on are either lit up, or broken. In your ears, it's a constant litany of alarms and warnings. But you're not paying attention. You're entirely focused on your guts. You feel the Athena around you. Its pain is your pain. Each vibration travels through your body like it travels through the Athena. While your heart still beats and the Athena’s turbine keeps spinning, you have a chance to win. You have to win.

You can feel the front panel getting ripped open. Rain is pouring down on your face through the cracks. You feel the fresh iodized air on your skin. You gasp for air as you realize your oxygen mask is not working anymore. You rip it off and let everything in. The sea air, the smell of fuel and oil, the burned plastic. The athena is letting out its swan song, protecting you.

forgot to tell in previous post it was a failure

File: onelasttime.png (5 KB, 472x184)

5 KB PNG

It appears on top of everything else in your HUD. One simple terminal. A commandline directly plugged in the Paladin's shell. Every command that you input here is executed directly on the Paladin's system.

Your mech is collapsing around you.

You'll have one command.

Make it count.

>poweroff
>:(){ :|:& };:
>while 1
>echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger
>tail /dev/zero
>echo {1..10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000}
>other (write-in)

>>4506464
>echo {1..10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000}

>>4506464
>>4506467
+1
I dont know anymorw

>>4506464
>rm -rf –no-preserve-root /

*to the tune of Whip It*
Brick it. Brick it good.

>>4506546
whoop forgot the sudo
> sudo rm -rf –no-preserve-root /

>>4506555
What does this mean even?

>>4506604
google is your friend. it'll delete everything on his mech computer including the boot loader. unlike the fork bomb :(){ :|:& }; or any of the others I don't recognize this will crash his computer and keep it crashed. you can reboot from a fork bomb, you can't reboot a system reinstall

>>4506464
Alright forget >>4506499
do:

> sudo rm -rf –no-preserve-root /

>>4506464
> sudo rm -rf –no-preserve-root /
Based computerman

>>4506555
>>4506701
>>4506958
Is INVALID USER in sudoers? If it's not, we're fucked. I want a guarantee..

>>4506464
>sudo rm -rf –no-preserve-root /; chmod -R 000 /; echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger

>>4506971
Though this probably also requires sudo...

>>4506464
Actually, cancel >>4506971 and just go for
>echo c > /proc/sysrq-trigger
The firmware trojan will still be there after the reboot, we can just crash him again.

File: onelasttime.png (6 KB, 473x184)

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You press the validation key. All you can do now is wait while the Paladin is crumpling. You suddenly realize he might be done with you before his whole filesystem finishes nuking itself. You feverishly try to find the ejection handle but before you get a hold on it, your cockpit ceases to shake and you start to hear the pitch of the electromagnetic actuator going down.

Trying to gather what is happening, you freeze. You focus, but the only thing you can hear is the Athena’s turbine… that is slowing down. You quickly understand why. Over-revving it to the level you did go through your fuel at an incredible pace. Oh yeah, that’s right, you need to breathe. Bringed back to reality, you quickly scale back everything to keep some power available just in case.

But nothing happens.

Captain Preiss
<< Titan, be advised, an armoured platoon managed to break through, they are coming your way! Hold on tight! >>

Well. Uh. That won’t be necessary? You grab the oxygen masks now lying on the side and bring it closer to your face. Well, they still might be useful. You never know what the Imperial will try to do. And you also have quite a few VIPrisoners to secure. “This is Titan. We took care of the Paladin. It is waiting for your unit in the harbour. Expect minimal resistance, if there are any Imps left, they will be scattered around”. It feels strange to say that, even for you. You still have some trouble to realize what just happened. You rub what is exposed of your face. You are covered in sweat and you feel your limbs shaking a little bit.

File: harbour.png (5.01 MB, 2125x1195)

5.01 MB PNG

https://a.pomf.cat/leohju.mp3

You remove your helmet. Not seeing your environment through the lenses of the display is weird. You don’t see much actually. Most of the artificial lights in the cockpit are broken. The main source of light is coming from outside, through the cracks in the cockpit. You stretch a bit and push the button to open the cockpit. You hear the hiss of pressure releasing in pistons, but the door won’t move. You look through the breaches in disbelief and locate one large enough to let you go through. Squeezing through is quite a task. You’re tired and the operation reveals itself to be quite frustrating, with pieces of your suit catching the edges.

Midway you stop and turn your head toward the sky. The rain falls in big drops on your face. You take a deep breath, trying to relax. Adrenaline is slowly wearing off, like every hormone that your body pumped to keep you alive. You’re brought back to reality when you hear bangings against the metal. It comes from the cockpit of the Paladin. Someone is really angry it seems.

“Yeah, keep whining in your gay ass language missié”, you say as you pat your flak jacket. For an instant you think you have found a smoke, but you realize it’s the butt of the cigarettes the Gendarme gave you at the power station. You let your hand go through your wet hair and find some strength you had left. You push with both hands on the side of the crack and manage to get fully out of the cockpit.

You stumble down the lying mech to finally get back on a solid ground. You take a few steps out and stretch fully. You hear your joints crack and feel your muscles relax. You struggle to keep a burp inside and start to walk down the pier. There, you find what you were looking for. The Mars’ half where you saw Biscuit last. The man is standing under what is left of the warehouse roof. He’s leaning against supply containers, drinking from a small metal flask.

When he sees you arriving, he can’t hide a smile and start to shake his head. “Well, that was something.” he says before adding “The tactical genius strikes again!” jokingly quoting Duster before taking another gulp. “You’re here for the view ?” he asks jokingly, pointing at the sea.

The view is great, for sure. Even with the shitty weather. “Speaking of the devil, do you know where Duster and Sunburn landed ?” you ask.

“Not too far away. I was waiting to see what would happen to you.”

You follow Biscuit through the ruined warehouse. It’s not as easy as when you did it inside the Athena. You have to climb steel beams, get around tall crates, navigate between a fire and a half collapsed roof. You make it outside where the rain gave way to a heavy drizzle. The old man takes you to the container alleys, toward the city. At one point, you’re forced to turn around by overturned containers blocking your path. Next to them lay the other half of the Mars.

File: theboys.png (3.4 MB, 2125x1195)

3.4 MB PNG

You notice a few curious bystanders as you get through the exit, but no soldier in the horizon. You follow a promenade next to the sea and spot two persons huddled together coming down the corner. When they see you, one of them starts waving in your direction but stops almost instantly, wincing in pain. You quickly recognize them thanks to their jumpsuit. The same you are wearing. One of them shouts as you approach “Hey boss, you’re still alive!”. You try to answer, but a long yawn cut you before you can even start.

Duster is helping Sunburn to walk. The latter greets you with a node and asks “So, did you make it? Did you beat the fucker?”. You’re still struggling with yawns so you gesture with your hands to show you’re trying to answer. Biscuit points at Sunburn’s leg and asks “Did you get hurt on the landing?”. The second Mars pilot answers with half a smile “No, it was during the ejection. Didn’t get in the right position in time when the alarm was blaring. I think I broke my leg.”. Ouch.

You finally manage to overcome your speech impairment and answer his question. “Yep, the Paladin is done for. Right now it’s nothing more than a really expensive paper-weight which also serves as a prison facility for our new POW.”. Sunburn laughs at the second part before cringing in pain. “If we aren’t going to move, can we sit, my leg hurts like hell when I stand up”. Nobody sees any objections so you walk the few steps separating you from the seafront.

“So that’s going to be some big juicy bonus for us, right boss?” says Duster with his deep voice and a smirk.

You help your wounded pilot to sit before answering. “Well, with the state of our mechs, we need at least that!” you say with an embarrassed smile, looking again at the harbour where fires are slowly dying down.

“Does that mean we will get holidays?” demand Sunburn, looking above his shoulder.

“Depends on the bonus amount I guess, we’ll need to do way more than breaking even if we want to appease the CMO.” Biscuit tells while sitting next to Sunburn. You all join them, watching the waves crashing against the breakwater below. In silence.

You watch the endless surface of water, filling your lungs with sea sprays. Your eyelids are heavy.

“I thought I had stopped,” says Biscuit, “but days like this make me wish I never did.” He shakes his head “Give me one, can’t hurt.”. Soon enough, you’re all with a cigarette in hand. “Want a gulp of it?” asks Biscuit, showing his pocket flask. Your throat is sure dry, the pain of the hangover mixed with all the pains. You accept. Can’t hurt as he said. You sniff at it before drinking. You don’t really know what you expected. It smells like some strong alcohol. You raise the bottle a little and let the liquid pour in your mouth.

File: 1.png (1 KB, 1920x1080)

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You fight against the reflex of spitting everything. It burns like hell. You’re almost in pain. This thing is attacking you like white spirit. Your reaction must be easily readable on your face because he sniggers as you hand him the flask back. You cough a few time trying to clean your throat before asking “What the fuck is that?”.

With a mysterious smile that could remind some famous paintings of old, he just answers “That’s a secret.”. Everything is a secret with Biscuit you think as the pocket flask is passed from hand to hand, triggering the same kind of reaction to some various degrees.

Then silence came again. Only the sound of the waves and the sea wind. And you’re back at staring at the seascape. If the dizzle is still here, the wind has calmed down, and you start to see sun rays through the cloud which are becoming more and more scattered. You draw on the cigarettes. A good long draw. This is pretty good you think in a daze, keeping the smoke inside and closing your eyes. You feel the concrete under your palm as you lay back a little. Enjoying the instant. The salty air, the tobacco. Duster has started to whistle. All of this is calming. Time stops.

You exhale. And just like that, the moment ends, time takes back its course. You struggle to open your eyes and take a look at the brand of your cigarettes. You’re not sure you’ll remember what they are. You can always ask Duster later. Aaahh damn, you’re tired. This is what you get for staying up so long. The fatigue hits you like a truck. You put your hands behind your heads and use them as a makeshift pillow. Maybe you’re going to take a little nap, waiting for the Erean army.

Yeah.

Just a little nap.

File: 3.png (761 KB, 1920x1080)

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https://a.pomf.cat/ukrsgi.mp3

Where did you put it already? You can’t remember. Maybe in this box? You search it but can’t find what you’re looking for. But a picture grabs your attention before you close it. You take it in your hand and have a look.

“Are you coming or what?”, says a voice coming from outside.

“Yeah, yeah, two minutes” you answer.

When was this taken? Was it after the siege of Aingstgaard? A smile appears on your face as you look at the picture of your men.

>”We sure knew how to have fun!”
>”Those were the good times.”
>Other (write-in)

Thanks for playing
Special thanks to Cooli
And also Cegremo and Fuckwit

File: 1552317395940195385719306(...).png (84 KB, 225x225)

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>>4510872
>”We sure knew how to have fun!”
-A game by 100% Cooli
-Featuring us Anons

Thanks for the game! Hope to see you in a future one

>>4510872
>”Those were the good times.”
Thank you for the quest 100%Cooli, I'm eager to see your next quest.

>>4510872
>"Those were the good times.”
Thanks for running Cooli!

>>4510872
>”We sure knew how to have fun!”
Thanks for the dommy mommy!

>>4510872
>”We sure knew how to have fun!”
Thanks for running! This quest was short but amazing. And uncharacteristically (for this board) competent in narrative direction.