Durgama Takeover

Raveneye Officer Finian sat in rapt attention as he nursed a half-empty bottle of whisky and listened to a surprisingly eloquent Jaguar tell the gathered off-shift troopers about his journey to the Raveneye complex.

"So there we were, minding our own business, making a beeline to the Raveneye Port Battery, as you know, when a signal come through on our back channels. Flagged Priority level X, for our commander's eyes only."

"Sally, our LT, kicked us all out of the shuttles comms booth. She must have been in there for about three minutes. My pal Wakko -" At this point the Jaguar crosses himself looks up at the ceiling, before continuing, "he bets me 2 crates of booze that we're about to go 'off the script', as it were."

"I take him on on that bet."

"Sally finally emerges from the comms booth to see all of our eyes on her. 'Suit up,' she says, 'we're making a pit stop.'"

"Wakko looks at me and grins. 'I like whiskey,' he says. I just grinned back at him and began sharpening my blades."

"The Jungles of Durgama are not known for their temperate climate. It was too warm. We set our shuttle down just a couple clicks West of that PanO stronghold and made the rest of the way on foot. I waved to Wakko as I followed the squad East. He watched from the shuttles loading ramp as the shuttle took off again in the air, leaving the jungles behind just as fast as it at arrived."

Finian interrupted. "Wait, so you're saying that you made a top secret assault on a PanO facility?"

"You got it, bossman. The opportunity was there. They've been distracted by Yu Jing aggression, and their attention was on some special toy they've got squirreled away on that facility. Our goal was to do a little Looting and Sabatoge and get the hell of planet before they even knew we were there."

Again, Finian interrupted. "Wait, so you had classified orders to ignore the Raveneye complex and get planet side just to blow up some PanO infrastructure? Doesn't that seem-"

The Jaguar threw his empty whisky bottle at Finian, hitting Finian solidly in the chest.

"Shut up! This is my story. Now, as I was saying, the only problem was, we weren't too far from our drop zone when we see movement in the trees. Lt. Sally put her hand up and gestured to take cover. So that's what we did."

"First, we set up some defensive ordnance. Our forward Morans put out their CrazyKoala's. Jazz's little helper bot, Billie, threw down an E/M mine too."

"And then, oh, you should have seen it. My boy, Wakko dropped in among the PanO forces, spitfire blazing. He took down a couple of those fools before they were able to get organized."

"Once they did, he put up a fight though. I heard his Spitfire blazing right until the end." Here the Jaguar wiped a tear from his eye.

"But we weren't done! No sir! Because of Wakko's sacrifice, the PanO forces were too stymied to make a real push at us. The made an attempt with some of their monks, but didn't get very far.

"Wait," Finian interrupted yet again. "PanO? Monks?"

This time a hand came from behind him and slapped him on the back of the head. He turned to see Sally standing over him in her Mobile Brigada armour. "Shut the hell up and listen to the story."

The Jaguar continued. "Thanks, Sal. So yeah, our Hellcats weren't done with harrying the enemy. Another one dropped in behind all the PanO troops. He dropped a repeater right smack dab in the middle of their back line. And you know what Jazz can do with a repeater..."

He paused for dramatic effect, before continuing.

"Then, one of our Wildcats shot down one of those monks. I guess they really can catch a bullet!"

"Because of that repeater, PanO was stuck again in their own deployment zone, dealing with our Hellcat. Regrettably, they got him too. But yet again, we were still in control of the battlefield."

An Evo Hacker did move up and trigger some Koala's but they seemed to hit nothing but air. Those PanO are getting real tricksy lately. The EVO hacker then goes get into a suppressive fire position in the midfield.

This time, Finian kept his reservations to himself.

"Now, to borrow an old sports term from when my Great Great Great Grand-daddy was just a lad, it was the bottom of the ninth, and the bases are loaded."

"Our Clockmaker sends one of his little helper bots running up the field. These bots are all tiny-like, so the PanO goons can't even see it as it approaches. On the way, it repairs a Transductor Zond that had gone down to an enemy heavy infantry."

"Eventually it reaches the enemy side of the field, where it gets in close to a high-value target and manages to retro-engineer it before finally being taken down by one of those pansy monks. Touchdown! Based on the explosion of gunfire, that little bot caused quite a stir!

"The enemy wasn't done, though. They came forward and the Evo hacker knocked our Wildcat NCO unconscious with a shotgun burst, while also opening a midfield weapons cache."

"Then, one of their own drop troops landed on one side of the board and snuck into our deployment to perform a net-undermine data injection, at the cost of its life."

"I guess it's only fair, we got data of theirs, so they took something of ours."

"Sally then pinged us all on our comlogs with new directions. Get out, and get out now. The shuttle was going to land 300 meters away from us for pickup, and wouldn't wait for any stragglers."

"We clamored aboard the shuttle and it took off, the loading ramp closing as it lifted above the jungle trees. We high-tailed it here to the Raveneye platform less than 6 hours ago. Our Clockmaker is still being grilled on whatever PanO tech his little bot was able to find out over in the makeshift HQ area."

"But luckily, I'm not going into active rotation until tomorrow, so for now, I'll drink another whiskey, for Wakko."

The rest of the gather crowd cheered and knocked back their own shots of whisky in respect for a fallen comrade.

Lt. Sally, standing behind Finian, threw back her own shot of liquor and pulled Finian to his feet, turning him around to face her. "Now, that's the story. You understand?"

Finian felt her powerful fist grip his collar and gulped. "Yes, Lieutenant. I understand."

Contents of the final transmission received by Lt. Sally REDACTED minutes before exfiltration off-planet:

BEGIN ENCRYPTION

INCOMING MESSAGE

We had an opportunity, but we lost it. Yu Jing forces proved more battle ready than we expected after their narrow escape from Cameliard with their found PanO secrets in tow.

We are now just at the point of plausible deniability. Retreat now, and we can likely convince the Yu Jing delates of the Durgama Defence Coalition that this was simply a case of misinformation and erroneous assumptions.

The shuttle will be there in 3 minutes. Be on it. If captured, your existence will be denied.

END MESSAGE

MESSAGE SELF-DELETE