Mecha Space Pirate Quest XIV

Welcome back, me hearties, to the fourteenth chapter of Mecha Space Pirate Quest! As always, you are Admiral Roarke Susan Starwind of the Iron Kestrels space pirate fleet, master of the starship Rhinehawk, and pilot of the terrifyingly crit-prone Knuckle Kaiser.

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Last time, you turned a failed scouting mission into a successful rescue mission, committed another bout of mass-murder on the Green Skulls, and now you're back on the Rhinehawk, where you have time to interview the scientist you rescued.

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Rolled 1 (1d10)

Aw yes its that time again, time to see how the dice feel tonight

“Doctor Duncan Clancy, I'm a particle physicist working the the Solar System League's joint initiative.” The scarred man lights offers you a cigarette, you decline. He shrugs and lights it, puffing smoke across the table in the Rhinehawk's mess hall, “The little girl is my daughter, Athena. My wife died giving birth to her.” He adds the last point after a questioning headtilt from you. You'd been about to ask if the Green Skulls were holding her mother hostage, the last thing you want is a potential spy...even an unwilling one...with technical knowledge and access to your mechbay.

“What exactly were you working on, doctor?” You've set your PC to open a notepad and a speech-to-text transcription program. Samantha is sitting next to you, listening silently.

[Continue]

“This facility was originally a legitimate mining operation owned by a Martian sheikh, some wealthy bigwig named Abdul Ahmad. I've only met him a handful of times, but he seemed like a good guy. He's got a handful of daughters, so we were able to talk about that at least. Man appreciates an efficient mech design too, unlike some people.” He grunts scornfully, taking a long drag and tapping away the ash, which spirals into the smoke and towards an air purifier and recirculation vent, “He's a major investor in the joint initiative, and offered the military this colony as a secret facility and test site for new weapons, mecha, and systems. I was brought in as part of Project Skywalker, studying advanced uses of the A-Particle field used to contain fusion reactions. The UJCIDF read some of the papers I wrote back on Europa and thought my ideas had merit, unlucky me. Should've just stayed in the Jovian colonies with my daughter, but like every scientist I wanted to be remembered for my work. They put me in charge of building a prototype unit using some of what we learned through our research. Granted, it wasn't a traditional design, due to the weight of the thing we had to improvise to make it fulfill our goals for power output and sturdiness...but the Tarrasque is still, in my opinion, the finest space-combat mech that ever was. Unsurpassed range and firepower. A main cannon that could even reduce your mech to scrap in seconds. Complete 360-degree protection against flanking opponents. The latest Bahamutcorp Bichir Armor AND a miniaturized version of the defensive screen projector they're installing on the most modern starships. It's even capable of sustained gravity flight! I told them, once you mass-produce the Tarrasque, no war is unwinnable.” He sighs heavily.

[Continued]

>Tarrasque
OH GOD IT'S THE BIG ZAM

So were gonna steal that shit and cannibalize it to improve Kaiser

“Go on, doctor. Everything you're saying is helping me save lives.” You lean forward, somewhere between intrigued and worried. You're not sure you believe in anything that can scrap the Knuckle Kaiser without taking a beating, but on the other hand you aren't cocky enough to dismiss the possibility.

“I overestimated my clout. The UJCIDF had lot of interest in Project Skywalker for their new special forces unit, I even think I recognize some of the technology in the cloaking field her mech uses.” He points at Samantha by jutting his prodigious chin forward, “But mostly our more traditional upgrades. The Tarrasque was supposed to be assigned to one of the SOUL Squadrons, but here's the damnedest thing about all this, and the big tragedy of our current situation. So, they bring in the pilot, right? He's this kid, supposed to be some sort of genius. He looks at the Tarrasque, frowns like he's bitten into a lemon, takes it for a couple of spins around the colony, takes some shots at some targets from a much longer range than necessary...and then gives it back with the worst review I've ever seen.” His ugly face twists with anger, quoting in a high-pitched voice, “'It's too clumsy and heavy, it's not elegant at all. Why couldn't you make it look more heroic? Its main cannon isn't specced for sniping, it's unnecessarily powerful without being precise enough for my kind of work. Why does a unit with so much range need this much armor? I don't like the head, it's too ugly! I'll quit if my superior makes me pilot this hideous thing!'”

[Continued]

You forgot to sacrifice a goat didn't you?

They feel bad.

Fucking Kira being a bitch.

Dont worry like every night when we need it they'll come through

Almost forgot the mixtapes

drive.google.com/file/d/0B6iimHE85EZZWjJCLXRLem1mQ2s/view?usp=drivesdk

Oh god Jesus again

Why wouldn't we just get someone to pilot it for us?

>explicitly given an artillery piece
>"Why is this such a shit tank destroyer?"
Goddamn, he's literally retarded.

>bad mouthing the big zam
This fucking nigga.

His huge knuckles shift under his skin like big, white grapes as he clenches his fists on the table, “He raised such a stink that in the end they left it here. They took a lot of the scientists with them, but since I was in disgrace I got to stay here with my magnum opus. My career, ruined by a kid barely old enough to shave. The little shit even had the gall to tell me that something built only to kill people should be happy to be used for mining purposes instead and that I should devote my life to peace and understanding instead of building weapons.” He starts to spit, and thinks better of it in the zero-g environment. “At least the sheikh had some decency. He said if I wanted to come to Mars, I'd have a place on his staff, and that his eldest daughter would love the Tarrasque and make it famous. She's supposed to be some kind of Martian ace. I told him I'd think about it, not sure I wanna give up bacon sandwiches and at the time I thought SOUL would come back with a pilot who had good taste. Again, unlucky me. A few weeks after they leave and I start calming down, these Green Skulls jackasses show up and take the asteroid mine and the workers hostage. Turns out the kid screwed us again, because when some of the miners took him up on it and wanted to use the Tarrasque for work, I let 'em do it out of pique. Poor guys, I don't want to think about what the pirates did to them to get the access codes, but they have the Tarrasque now and I don't see how you've got a prayer of beating it with what you're riding. The defensive screen alone makes it impervious to anything any of your Harpies are carrying short of a lucky reactor breach...and if it goes down, it refreshes automatically within twenty seconds unless you take out the generator mounted in a pod on the back. Get through that, and you're looking at armor nearly twice as thick as your black monster's, and each of the legs alone can each take as much punishment as the torso of your mech."

[Continued]

..We need to get as many of these things as possible and then use them to smack Jesus' shit in. Hell, we could get a proper super robot chest laser going!

Miles has a new mech. Karen gets to research some new tech to play with. This gives her some new input on her armour research. We need that flanking opponent upgrade.

Maybe call in the favour to get the doc into our crew. To improve rhinehawks CP? Or Atleast so we can get that 360 degree protection upgrade.

If it really is the big zam wouldn't it have 360 degree protection by dint of being fucking massive and ringed by particle cannons? We can always find a guy to fly it for us.
Jesus christ the thing could probably take on a ship one on one from the sounds of it.

Wait.. female martian ace? Please tell me it isn't her royal bitchyness. Also I want to throttle jesus SO DAMN HARD now. Throwing even a decomissioned military piece in a place rife with pirates and looters is going to bite ANYONE in their ass.

>At least the sheikh had some decency. He said if I wanted to come to Mars, I'd have a place on his staff, and that his eldest daughter would love the Tarrasque and make it famous. She's supposed to be some kind of Martian ace.
Wonder if we should just give it to her ahead of time?

>they have the Tarrasque now and I don't see how you've got a prayer of beating it with what you're riding.
That depends entirely on how well we can dictate the circumstances of engagement, I think.

After we kick the shit out of his mech hes gonna want to join us to make an even better mech

A military ace could probably have figured out pirates were stealing her shit without giving ten bucks first.

Probably her sister

Being a good pilot does not necessarily correlate to being possessed of common sense. Just look at Jesus.

Being a genius pilot and fighter doesn't mean much when you are arrogant and dismissive of anything that is 'below' you. We also came way out of left field and managed to get them to surrender while she was still asleep.

Anyways, we must recruit the good doctor and his daughter. A man who is good to his child, makes big zams, and enjoys bacon sandwiches is a worthy man.

"Squadron B was here!? I...I don't understand at all. This wasn't even...it should have been in my files!" Samantha huffs.

You raise one eyebrow and look at Samantha, she shrugs, looking a little shellshocked, “Squadron A was never told about this. I mean, I knew Project Skywalker existed and that this was one of the facilities for it, but the most I expected was some of those theoretical plasma swords and maybe a new beam cannon or two. Nobody ever told us there was a prototype that powerful here.”

Dr. Clancy grunts, “Yeah, I got questions too. It's been weeks since our last transmission, and this is a goddamned military facility. Where're the UJCIDF battleships? I mean, I appreciate the rescue sweetheart, and your boyfriend here is obviously a good pilot even if he's just as obviously a space pirate, but shouldn't the Cincinnatus or the Jaburo or the new Mekong-class I've heard about have showed up by now? What the hell is going on, where's our backup?”

Samantha's normally polite and impassive face is haggard with guilt, “I...I'm sorry, I wish I knew. I'm not even supposed to be here, we have orders to hold position and do nothing, but I couldn't follow them and took matters into my own hands. Officially, Roarke here took me prisoner.” She places her hand gently on your arm, “Unofficially, I convinced him to come. He's a good man, a little rough sometimes, but he has a strong heart and hates the Green Skulls as much as you do.” She bows her head, “Please forgive me, you deserve better for your service. I'm ashamed as an intelligence specialist that I don't have any idea what is happening.”

[Continued]

And Oda. And Red Siren.

I blame Space Madness.

Jesus can spot a pirate to be fair. And just saying she would probably have to fight pirates being an ace.
Plus the one we have probably would have mentioned it during her tirades.

You take that back! Oda is a true bro, and all our prospective waifus are a best! A BEST! But some are more best than others.

Jesus would say anything that didn't look 'good' was evil and thus must be brought in. His only reason for going at us was because we had a scrapped harpy on our head, nothing more. He's also a giant hypocrite and a idiot.

He grunts again, finishes his cigarette, and crushes the tip to extinguish it, “Wish I could say something to make you feel better, but there are a lot of innocent lives at stake and I'm not exactly an optimist. It doesn't matter how many Harpies you throw at the Tarrasque, you'll just be feeding it kills. If anyone asks you, later on, you can claim you stole this file from me.” He takes out his PC and uploads a file to yours, “If you can find a way to bring it down, do it. It hurts to see my work destroyed, but I know it's for the greater good and ultimately I can think of it as extreme stress-testing of the design. When you're done, though, keep what's left. Use it. Let those bastards regret mocking the most efficient ultra-heavy combat mech ever made in the Belt!” He clenches his fist, before depositing the cigarette butt in a waste container, “My daughter should be waking up from her nap, she'll want me there.” Without waiting for permission, he gets up and walks out of the room, leaving you alone with Samantha.

You open the file, and feel something you haven't felt in a long time...a sense of not having the most powerful mech you're aware of. This thing is a monster. A real one. You feel your gut clench the way it used to as a Harpy pilot when you thought about going up against a Warmouth.

>[You might want to come up with a strategy, a serious one, for fighting this thing. Stats will be provided in my next post. Meanwhile, I believe you wanted to interrogate or at least talk with Samantha a little about what you learned from the Skull Brothers last session. What say?]

Seeing as harpy's are god damn pirate machines thats not the worst reason. They are basically pick up trucks with machine guns attached to the back.

Now we really have to sleep with Jesus's waifu to fuck with him, we could probably get Clemmy to help us for a favor

Do we have any idea what sort of field of engagement we can expect?

For Sam lets start fucking her and while were in the middle turn it into an interrogation

That sounds goofy as fuck man

Let's just do regular interrogation

So who exactly decided that you couldn't come here? And they are the ones in charge of your SOUL Squad right?

SOUL Prototype Tarrasque

Mega Heavy Torso: C/S/K 22, 11 tons
Mega Heavy Head: C/S/K 11, 5.5 tons
Mega Heavy Right Leg: C/S/K 12, 5.5 tons
Mega Heavy Left Leg: C/S/K 12, 5.5 tons
Armored Heavy Pod: 9 CP, 18 Spaces

Armor: Officer's Mega Heavy (11 SP, 16.5 CP, 5.5 tons, takes 4 Kills to ablate SP) on all locations

Main Sensors (Head): 4 CP, 1 Space, 2 Kills, 1 ton
Backup Sensors (Torso): 2 CP, 2 Spaces, 2 Kills, 1 ton

Options: Torso Cockpit with Environment Pod (2 CP, 2 Spaces), Liftwire (0.3 CP), Spotlights (0.2 CP)

Armament:
Primary Mega Particle Accelerator Cannon (Head): Range 800m, WA +1, 16K, 31 CP, 10 Spaces, 8 tons
Wide-Dispersal Particle Accelerator Defense System (Torso): Range 400m, WA+1, 4K, Wide Angle 360-degrees (hits all targets within range surrounding it), 39.9 CP, 18 Spaces, 2 tons
A-Particle Screen Projector (Pod): Automatically parries any attack with less than 7K damage, if hit by an attack with more damage the shield flickers out for two turns. 18 CP, 18 Spaces, 9 tons, 6K of damage to this system disables it permanently until repaired.

Thrusters: 12 per leg, allowing it to move 400 meters per turn in flight or run 150m

Total Weight: 76 tons
Total Cost: 269.9 CP

You have only yourselves to blame for making the QM wonder what this would look like statted.

Why not vice versa?

Shes trained in interrogation so i thought it would work better if we sprong it on her when she wouldn't expect it

Lock Sam up in a cell for interrogation. All this information we are getting is full of holes. It's making me doubt her a lot. It's only recently that Jesus was sent to SOUL B.

Take the Doc for a drink at the bar. Let's bond with the guy. He shares the same amount of hate of Jesus. Show him the email with Clemmy, "Seem familiar?", then entertain him with all the shit we pulled just to frustrate him. Have his daughter eat some sweets and some actual meal. I wan this guy on our team. That's valueable knowledge for tech.

Send a copy of the file to Karen. She'll be happy for something to work on.

but thats the thing. They are militarized pick up trucks. A civilian model thats weaponized. If you are going to pick up scrap and need a patch job, harpy scrap and its civilian half brother would be plentiful and cheap.

Hmmm.. best to think outside the box here. Outright wrecking it will be hard, but we could use traps and possibly a large enough 'ram' to puncture the shields. If the place is a mining colony there has to be tunnels, old mines and the like. If we could make sudden pitfalls, escape routes, and traps, we could get is stuck.

Also share what info we can with Sam that will help us with the mission. No point in making her go to heroic, but tell her anything that could make this operation tricky.

Can we just ask her about it without actually interrogating her and potentially alienating her in the case that it was just an honest mistake? You can't expect her to have perfect information about everything.

Holy shit. That particle cannon can one almost one hit our torso. That Particle screen projector is retarded strong. We can hardly even scratch its armour. We definitely need not one to one combat to mess with this guy.

We must have one.
The only ideas I have are we try to lure the thing out into space and smash it with the ships or we try to sneak in on foot and hijack it.

Because damn.

Shit with that type of defense this is gonna be a pain in the ass, Lets try and figure a way to have our grunts take out the shields then have us our ship and Oda's ship attack it when the defenses are down

What's its sensor range? Can we conceivably detect it from out of its effective range and dictate the engagement that way?

>if hit by an attack with more damage the shield flickers out for two turns

I'm thinking both the Rhinehawk and Yamato hit it at max range. They can fire at 4000m, Tarrasque fires at 800m.

Agreeing to not locking up Sam. She's probably just been played like a fiddle.

Then how bout we get her drunk while we drink with the Doc. See if she spills anything that's she is keeping secreft from us.It's subtle but we need to get her alone time after for more indepth interrogation to follow up on any leads she gives us.

I just got an idea were in an astroid field so what if we figured out a way to lauch some asteroids into the mech

But what would actually damage the thing its better to have the weaker attacks open it up for our strongest attacks

The same as your sensor range, actually. I might want to fix that later, it could use a longer sensor range since it can do long-range fire from well over the 7km mark we were discussing last thread.

Assuming said weaker attacks can actually penetrate its officer armor and screen projector.

What do we even have that doesn't require a ridiculous roll to damage it, anyway?

Probably just shoot them or fly out of the way.
Also the rhinehawk does 100k. Probably enough to sort it.

Fighting that thing in space would likely be a bad idea. It's what it's designed for. However, with how bulky it is, it likely can't fly right in gravity conditions. Pitfalls, traps and the like could work. Likewise dropping a building or tower on it could also work.

Mob combat isn't going to help us and aside from a ship, this thing is way too solid.

Asteroids or what have you might work. Could use them as shields and hit and run tactics. Wouldn't take much force and we could use salvaged thrusters to propel them.

>Fighting that thing in space would likely be a bad idea. It's what it's designed for.
So we lure it into a colony?

The two ships?
>It's even capable of sustained gravity flight!
THE BIG ZAM CARES NOT FOR YOUR PUNY GRAVITY!

What about Sam's sensor range? Or Miles'?

>Likewise dropping a building or tower on it could also work.
Clearly we should hijack one of the Green Skull's ships using Sam's cloaking and land it on top of the Tarrasque.

Our beat chance in space combat would be to take out the cock pit as fast as possible. Maybe use some mecha cores tied together

Or we just use the starships' main batteries.

The two ships armed with weapons with a range of 4km, that travel 800m per action, and will be shot up full of holes by all the crits they sustain attempting to close in from the Tarrasque's 7km range, you mean?

We won't actually be able to use our ships effectively unless we can somehow get the drop on it.

With two massive-as-fuck ships. Yes.

The aim penalty for that would probably be immense

>Pitfalls
Lol. The thing can fly.

It doesn't have advanced sensors. Maybe we can get a reaction explosion on it using a harpy core. Knock out it's Screen Projector at least. From there we can start punching out it's head. Having Oda and Sam help us take it out faster. As soon as it's head is gone then we can retreat, depending on how damaged we are, and let our bluegills with sniper cannons hit it from range.

I reckon we should use sam's mech to sneak in as many guys as we can and fucking steal the thing during a shift change or something. Or at least sabotage it.

Shit.. well, good news is if it's a mining colony there is likely plenty of places we can set up traps. If we can get past the shield and aim for it's head, we COULD remove it and the big gun before it could shoot us to death.

Once the gun is gone, it's just the generator and other things we need worry about. Lucky us, we can do 4 hits a action and can have our attacks treat it as half value. We just need to get close and make it focus elsewhere.

I'd support the Zamjacking plan, but we need more intel

I don't think we ever adressed this but Wong how good is Roarke at hand to hand putside his mech? Like is Roarke trained in any styles?

>From there we can start punching out it's head.

>Mega Heavy Head [...] K 11
>Armor: Officer's Mega Heavy
>Wide-Dispersal Particle Accelerator Defense System (Torso): Range 400m, WA+1, 4K, Wide Angle 360-degrees (hits all targets within range surrounding it)
Yeah, no. We can't take this thing on conventionally at all. Certainly not 1-on-1.

Any chance we can get a quick stat rundown of the other notable mechs we might field against this thing?

Dozle probably knows where they have service the thing at least. We could go in and scout the place with sam.

With her or in her?

Well, it's an asteroid used for mining. The outer surface is one thing, but most of the mine is below in the relatively cramped tunnels and galleries. Large enough for a mech, but not so large as to make dodging easy.

Likely not that easy, but we could use that for other ways. Like using the skull bros mechs or at least their signals to go 'all green'. Use some trojan trickery to catch them before they can fire the thing.

Honestly, sending in either of those two would be bad. They could be support though, helping us close the gap.

Actually, could we make some simply decoys? Like kaiser shaped ones piloted with some clunky auto pilot that it could fire on from extreme range so we can get close to it?

In her mech. After she got an idea of the place time permitting.
Looking easier than fighting the damn thing.

Just a reminder, Jesus was never in SOULS A. He was sent on ridealong as a temporary replacement for an injured A member before being formally assigned to B.

Normally the Doc would be up for drinking, but he's taking care of his daughter.

Well at least it isnt a neo zeong.

I agree with you, but both options are going to be trouble. We can't really rely on Sam since they are likely on guard if word about a stealth mech managed to get through to the main group.

Still, more than one way to stealth and a diversion could work as well. In the end, we want them not paying attention to us in either scenario While preventing the bugger from one shotting our buddies.

Can the doctor man tell us how long it can fight for?

>Oda
>Sam
> Bluegills
U wot m8? I never said one on one. Just need a few shots from Sam and Oda to actually help chunk down the armour for the head. Sam I don't think should be in the fighter apart from using the stealth to smuggle a fusion reactor near the Zam to take out the Projector.

Oda has enough armour on his torso not to get one shotted. If he does get hit in the torso he needs to LoS or we go infront of him to block.
Sam is only there for the reactor ambush. She BTFOs as soon as that happens.

Bluegills and Sam are back into the fight as soon as head comes off. We can tag out if we are damaged as fuck.

Lets not forget we still haven't seen their battleships yet

Have to worry about the 360 guns as well you know.

Wong I think you forgot to mark the Advanced Sensor update + CP expenditure. That is if you did decide to retroactively give us the advanced sensors. Please do, I just want Clemmy to smile.

Yes. Although the Bluegill isn't quite done.

Stats forthcoming, I have to update the Osano-Wo at least.

Whats the reload tike in that cannon since its just negging to have a harpy reactor to be put in it

4k Isn't much user. That's why I said to we back off when we are damaged as fuck. We can parry the big boy laser twice with shield. Our armour can tank us through 4k easy. The Zam has -7 on all their rolls.

Really whoever decided to write this thing off on one pilots review was an idiot. And thank god, imagine if they actually did start mass producing the fucker.

Aside from the range, do the Tarrasque's sensors have any limitations of note? Can they detect through rock walls, or do they purely rely on visual data?

Might we be able to use camouflage to stage an ambush?

I dont know man. How many turns did it take us to take out the warmouth last time?

Just to reiterate. Starships get -8 to hit mecha, mecha get +8 to hit starships.

How about we see if we can lead it into a mine and collapse it on him?