[X] Construct Building (Reactor)
[X] Patrol Rail Lines
[X] Patrol Forest
[X] Investigate Rumours
[X] Nomad Diplomacy
[X] Throw a party - Hold a major social gathering
[X] Solidify allies - Bring Samantha Sea and Massi Sturgeon into your corner
Yeah, Ella was going to make sure that she had all of her diplomatic ducks in order this year, and one of the first things she could do was go out and have a talk with the nomads. She was planning on doing regular patrols of the forest anyway, so she could accompany the first one in her mech and go say hello to the people wandering through and set up a dialogue. Showing up with a mech and a company of soldiers would also be a good reminder that this was Green Owl territory and, while they didn't mind the presence of the nomads, she was the one responsible for this region.
As always it was a joy to climb inside her mech, tying her nervous system into the monster of metal, feeling the thrum of power as she willed her machine to stand and stride as she willed her own body to move. Despite the size weight she was graceful - she in fact often felt clumsy within her own body immediately after piloting because her awareness was so much greater, and the difference in stride lengths made walking around on her own two legs a slow motion act.
Also, she couldn't kick through the equivalent of steel beams with her bare shins like she could in a mech. There was a certain heady rush to being able to simply smash through the majority of the dangers of the forest instead of having to be careful. Oh, there were a few species of plant and animal that she had to be careful of because the forest had a few dangers capable of damaging even heavy mechs, but for the most part the things that troubled infantry were utterly inconsequential to her.
The tonnes of armour wrapped around her body and sensor suit also allowed Ella to get a picture of the forest that few people actually got. Instead of the deep shadows intercut with the occasional shaft of light leaking down from holes higher up in the canopy to illuminate the grey-blue and dark green world of the forest floor, she got treated to multi-spectral scans that made everything light up in impossible colours, a chaotic, twenty hued rainbow that was like nothing else Ella had ever experienced. Her grandmother had become obsessed with mechs as a way of overcoming her own illness and frailty, but the technology certainly had a way of growing upon those who were exposed to it.
Leading the stride out into the forest, keeping her pace with her troops as they flanked her or occasionally followed in her wake of ruined stranglevines or detonated grenade fruit. The nomads were still fairly distant and it would be a few days travel out to where their outriders had indicated they would be roughly during this stage of their migration. Everyone would be pretty ripe by the time they got back to Razorleaf Meadows, but fortunately the nomads weren't big on traditional hygiene anyway.
Complications 100
The fifth day out on the excursion things went sideways in a hurry when they came upon the burnt out wreckage of a vehicle that vaguely looked like a bike without wheels made of something that looked disturbingly like bone sculpted like clay and had a durability in excess of most forms of armour anyone on the planet could produce. While the forest always sounded distantly like a battle, the smoke was still curling off of this thing and Ella's systems were registering that the rate of explosions was above normal. That could only mean one thing...
"Reavers!" Ella announced over the radio even before the analysis program finished telling her mind the probabilities. "We have evidence of reaver activity, most likely an active battle. Full combat readiness everyone, and remember your psychic combat protocols."
With but a thought the weapons on Ella's Centurion went from active standby to full combat readiness, additional power flooding them and their circuits snapping to full integration with the sensor network, adding their own targeting data to the multi-spectral overlay. Without an MMI it would have been far too much, and even with it the amount of information became taxing on the mind after prolonged use. The EM weapons also could only remain at a combat charge for so long before the additional wear and tear wasn't worth it. Still, as the safeties came off, Ella felt something like cold fire seep into her veins. While her own muse formed part of the interface, the mech itself had a number of LAI programs specifically for combat that had a certain methodical bloodthirstiness to them.
Right arm 84 mm EM main battle cannon? Full charge, a flechette shell loaded for anti-infantry work.
Left arm dual 45 mm EM autocannons? Prepped for anti-vehicle interception duty.
Left shoulder MLRS box? Cycling anti-personnel options into the firing tubes.
"Chin" mounted EM MG? Warmed up and tracking.
Ella grinned within her own coccoon, and as her muse tracked the signals indicating that the troops were also at full readiness. With a mental nod, she sent the advance signal over the comms. She would take point, moving as fast as she could without outrunning her infantry support, both moving to get into contact with the enemy and clearing a path for her men. Letting out a low pitched but incredibly loud mechanical battle cry over her war siren, the nearly subsonic wail carrying far in the forests, she pressed forward. Her sensors picked up more crashed reaver vehicles, but also the still bleeding remains of nomad warriors and their mounts, butchered by atom sharp blades or cooked by psychic fire. Time was sap slow as she held back the urge to break into a full sprint, her heartbeat feeling like it was synchronized to the thrum of her fusion reactor on full war output. Instincts honed in the academy coupled with the finest programming the nation could afford, and Ella practically salivated at the hunt.
One moment she was tracking the echoes of explosions about the trees and heat signatures, the next she was suddenly in the midst of a running battle. It took a second to process everything, there were so many contacts, and she had to make sure that they got the right IFF tags. Speedy alien jet bikes zoomed in and out of formations of riders on various Dandriss animals, cutting people down as they passed and leaving openings for those on foot to dart in and out, flashing blades across critical points of blood vessels and tendons. Against any other foe who insisted on fighting with melee weapons, even the slower firing long rifles of the nomads would have been more than sufficient to turn it into a one sided slaughter, but against the reavers the nomads were only barely holding their own. The fact that the metal and glass darts they fired had a bit of a splash effect on impact did help them compensate for the raw speed of their foes somewhat, as evidence by one warrior managing to put a shot into a tree right as a reaver zipped past, the corrosive liquid within bursting out to cause flesh to ignite in actinic white flames, the alien screaming almost sensually as it lost control of its bike and crashed.
Ella had experienced simulated combat with reavers before, but in this first instance of seeing them in the flesh she lost half a heartbeat once what her sensors were telling her actually sank in. As expected the nearly nude and uncannily lithe, pale and unsettlingly beautiful aliens seemed to wear their forms in mockery of humanity, because they weren't entirely there. With eyes one could catch moments where they seemed to flicker in the peripheral vision, revealing something without form, but under her sensors their outlines were blurry and lacked the solidity of everything else in the forest. There were theories that these monsters were so blase about the possibility of death because they weren't actually there, and in that moment Ella could definitely believe it.
Still, despite the blurriness, half a heartbeat after the realization struck her, Ella got a good lock and opened fire with her autocannons, turning one of the jetbikes to shredded bone shards and its rider to pink mist. While the arrival of a six metre tall war machine spitting hypersonic rounds was sort of hard to miss, she did have to admit that she got lucky with the way the battle moved so quickly into her line of fire as to get that initial drop on the enemy. All around her the troops following her began to open up with their own automatic weapons, not necessarily hitting any of the fast moving enemies in specific but certainly creating an unhealthy atmosphere all around them.
A warrior, his nearly three metre tall frame perched atop a diamondback tiger actually "eye-level" with the primary sensor cluster that formed the "face" of Ella's mech, rode up to her and shouted while gesturing in the distance, "Owl soldier! We fear for our families! Press on and we will finish here then join you!"
Ella...
[] Pressed on on her own to the rest of the people (Fast, risky to self)
[] Moved her soldiers through the running battle towards the rest of the people (Medium speed, medium safety)
[] Finished this battle first and then moved with the warriors and her soldiers (Slow, safest to self)
