The base, codenamed "Marco Polo", is one of the more important base of the Army in the area. As you leave the briefing room, you quickly leave the HQ building, which is rightly populated by people who abhor the presence of a "lord" in the camp.
The door of the building is guarded by an AM-4 "Cromwell", named after the man who overthrew the king, despite strong opposition from the Royalty. It is regarded as one of the first operational Mechas in the Army: it looks ugly, does not come with a auto-aim subroutine which is now standard (and retrofitted into), and does not have overhead cover for the pilot, but it is perfectly suited for guard duty, as he can quickly react to mecha or human-sized threats, and it is more enough as a deterrence.
In front of it is the great yard of the base, with a few mechas and vehicles - tanks and such are still heavily used in complement with Mechas - doing routine drills and exercises. Elsewhere you see two mechas practising the art of melee combat. Their moves are clumsy at best, and are no match to your silky execution. But they did the basics right: trying to disarm, find an opening, and use your sidearm or melee weapon to sent them to kingdom come, or at least sever something.
Shame that they are piloting AXM-01b "Smith+"s, which is only available to less "replacable" personnel. "How come they are already part of the elite?" you muttered to yourself. The Smith, and their upgrades Smith+s, reflected the pinnacle of the previous quality doctrine. On Specs they are twice as powerful as the Newtons and carries half as much more armor, not mentioning with the luxury of extra carrying capacity which makes them much, much more versatile. They are also manufactured with much better accuracy and love, unlike the Newtons which are basically a roving weapons platform.
Humming a tune and thinking of the mission, it actually does not make sense to carry such a high powered rifle on the Newton, since it does not really have the structural stability for it. No matter your mecha will be rigged to sustain higher forces, as you heard in the briefing. The gun itself is a monster - it can take out a Smith+ on one hit, at least theoretically speaking, and should at least seriously damage an enemy mecha if the conditions are right. It would usually take a few bursts from the standard rifle for a similar effect.
You still have 2 hours left before mealtime and mission, and judging the circumstances, you can only either do either one of these: Fully read the briefing papers, so you understand the tactically situation more clearly, or going to the hangar and take the mech around for a ride, so you have a better idea of how the modification affect the handling. Of course you can do something else or nothing if you choose to.
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Topic: You are a Mecha Pilot - Briefing done, prepare for 1st mission. (Read 1992 times)