01/12/3049. Day 10, 10:00

During the landtrain trip back to Argyre Ruin Dmitar and Jacques Dubois hatched a plot to have Lt. Samara Hellstrom‘s lance officially designated Hellstrom’s Hellions.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom and Layne-Lars Kinnesson did their best to avoid the Twilight hippies accompanying them on the trip.

01/12/3049. Day 10, 18:00

The evening news broadcast from Strata News Network featured an editorialised version of the exploits of Hellstrom’s Hellions as well as other planetary news.

The broadcast was recieved via the beacon pylon network

02/12/3049. Day 11, 12:00

The landtrain arrived in Argyre at noon on december second, day 11 of operations under Lt. Samara Hellstrom’s command.

On arrival the technical team, led by CPO Lionel Barclay began repairing the damaged locusts.

Jacques Dubois and Ruin Dmitar headed to The Drunk Rat Saloon to spend the rest of the day and to unwind from the trip.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom began investigating the remains of the smuggler leader and was joined by Layne-Lars Kinnesson after she had a much needed shower. The remains were identified as those of Leftenant Simon Trask, though how he came to be leading a cadre of gun-runners and smugglers remains undetermined.

03/12/3049. Day 12, 7:00

Repairs on Jacques Dubois heavily damaged Locust LCT-1T continued and were completed on 03/12/3049.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom conducted additional research regarding Leftenant Simon Trask and attempted to determine the legal ownership of salvaged equipment including one land train that had belonged to Stanton Mining, of which there were no known survivors.

03/12/3049. Day 12, 12:00

Ruin Dmitar discovered the Twilight hippies had occupied some of the abandoned buildings in the Old Quarter of Argyre and established what appeared to be the beginning of a permanent commune there.

03/12/3049. Day 12, 19:00

Mayor Kent McAlester contacted Lt. Samara Hellstrom to relay a distress call from a landtrain that had come under attack half way between Argyre and Perdix. Hellstrom’s Hellions were the fastest military unit in the vicinity and best suited to perform a rescue in the lowlands.

Mayor Kent McAlester also advised all landtrains to avoid the site until further notice.

Hellstrom’s Hellions responded immediately and headed for the stricken landtrain, even though it would take four hours to get to the attack site.

03/12/3049. Day 12, 23:00

On arrival in the mission zone Layne-Lars Kinnesson detected the landtrain and four IFF signals apparently from Dig-Lord-S6 miningmechs. The suspicious situation and the sensor information helped Lt. Samara Hellstrom to narrowly avoid an ambush.

The mechs were revealed to be a lance of scout-hunter 40 ton battlemechs. One Assassin ASN-21 possibly the leader, a pair of Clint CLNT-2-3T and one Whitworth WTH-1 for fire-support. The lance had light grey or white paintwork, presumably as fog-camoflage.

It was clear that Lt. Samara Hellstrom was the target of the attack, resulting in the destruction of her Locust LCT-1F after which the hunter lance withdrew. During the engagement communications intercepted by Layne-Lars Kinnesson revealed the Whitworth pilot was referred to as ‘Leon’, that they had what sounded like Lyran accents, and that Lt. Samara Hellstrom was their target.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom was forced to abandon her Locust LCT-1F and evacuate the battlefield riding on Ruin Dmitar’s Locust LCT-1F while Jacques Dubois and Layne-Lars Kinnesson covered their withdrawal.

Following the destruction of Lt. Samara Hellstrom’s ’mech the attackers withdrew into the fog.

04/12/3049. Day 13, 01:00

Using the fog as cover Ruin Dmitar snuck back to the landtrain. The vehicle had been sabotaged by two infiltrators who had taken measures to prevent any injuries or fatalities among the crew. The controls in both engineering sections of the landtrain had been sabotaged, but with deliberate effort to minimise the damage.

04/12/3049. Day 13, 02:00

Hellstrom’s Hellions assembled at the landtrain and salvaged the remains of the fallen ’mech. Lt. Samara Hellstrom decided the safest course of action would be to return to Argyre escorting the landtrain. They made the trip with no difficulty or sign of the attackers.

04/12/3049. Day 13, 14:00

The landtrain and Hellstrom’s Hellions arrived at Argyre. Mayor Kent McAlester was contacted regarding the safe return of the landtrain and all hands. Hpt. General Lucius Morgan was contacted regarding the loss of one ’mech and a mission report, and to request heavier battlemechs.

At this time Lt. Samara Hellstrom was informed that in response to the escalating threat in the Argyre region that her request for heavier battlemechs was granted and her lance was to travel covertly to Perdix and from there to report to headquarters to facilitate re-equipping her lance. Also a lance of Urbanmechs would be stationed as a permanent garrison for Argyre.

04/12/3049. Day 13, 18:00

The evening news broadcast from Strata News Network featured an editorialised version of the rescue of the landtrain by Hellstrom’s Hellions.

The broadcast was recieved via the beacon pylon network

04/12/3049. Day 13, 21:00

After resting Hellstrom’s Hellions set out at ‘dusk’ for Perdix. The cover of the lowlands fog and the relative ‘night’ conditions allowed them to reach Perdix without being intercepted by the hunter lance.

05/12/3049. Day 14, 07:00

Lt. Samara Hellstrom and her team arrived at the military airport in Perdix and were flown to Fort Enyo on Ares continent by fast VTOL. Their mechs were loaded into a cargo airship for later delivery.

Once at Fort Enyo, Hellstrom’s Hellions were placed under the temporary command of Lt. General Elisa Hayes to assist with the development of improved battlemechs using technologies that had recently become available.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom and Jacques Dubois joined a project to develop a ‘super locust’ heavy-recon battlemech using their field experience with locusts and light battlemech tactics.

Ruin Dmitar joined a project to develop a sniper quad battlemech, with the secondary objective of countering the Panther design fielded by the Draconis Combine.

Layne-Lars Kinnesson was assigned as a test pilot for one of two Raven battlemechs that had been salvaged by the Comm Guards and delivered on 01/12/3049. One raven was to remain at the Strata Institute of Science while the other was to be field tested, and hopefully modified to a tactical / long range electronic warfare support unit as opposed to the flawed point-blank support role intended by the Raven’s designers. Layne-Lars Kinnesson reportedly intends to equip the unit as a LRM fire support unit with electronic warfare capability.

Welcome to SNN, it’s December first, thirty forty nine. I am Paul Donahue.

Interstellar News: The Clan Pirates, Threat or Menace?

In interstellar news, reports are still flooding in about border skirmishes on the outskirts of Federated Commonwealth territory in the periphery edge of the former Lyran Commonwealth. The Lyran-Draconis border has been targeted by the mysterious ‘clans’, a minor power exploiting the contested border between the Federated Commonwealth defenders and raiding Draconis Combine forces.

The valiant Lyran forces have continued to hold their ground and defend their homeland against all invaders.

If you would like to contribute to the official relief fund to help support reconstruction efforts and humanitarian aid for the embattled border planets of the Federated Commonwealth, please donate using the quick-link provided. Your contribution will be much appreciated and go a long way to supporting our brother and sister worlds holding the line across the Federated Commonwealth.

Planetary News: Comm Guard Reinforcements.

As part of our strategic alliance with the Comm Guards, some lances that were training here on Strata have shipped off-world to engage the pirate clan, to gauge the threat. Demi-Precentor Saul Walker has made a rare public statement, saying that the harsh conditions training in the lowlands and the alternative tactics required will be employed to give a tactical advantage in engagements against the pirate clan.

Replacement Comm Guard personnel have arrived, and their lance leader Adept IX-Epsilon Bryce Alexander expressed his eagerness to commence lowlands training and to work alongside our local defence forces.

The departing Comm Guard personnel met their replacements at Daedalus Spaceport before boarding the Commstar dropship for the return journey to the Magellan class Commstar jumpship Columbus.

On behalf of SNN let me say “Good hunting” to our Comm Guard allies.

Daedalus Local News: Bandits Routed.

A special task force formed by Hpt. General Lucius Morgan has routed the bandits threatening the mining settlement of Argyre. Led by Lt. Samara Hellstrom, she is a recent arrival from the Lyran half of the Federated Commonwealth, and an expert in small unit tactics and anti-piracy campaigns. Her crack team of mechwarriours hunted down the bandits hidden base and made short work of the outlaws.

Are these the last of the bandits? Have we seen the last of piracy upon the lowlands miners of Argyre? Only time will tell! But we can breath a sigh of relief knowing Lt. Samara Hellstrom and her team are on the job!

Day Nine, 20:00
After the return of Ruin Dmitar and a brief planning session Lt. Samara Hellstrom led her lance in a raid upon the militants base at Stanton Company Mine Eight. Having avoided the hover-jeep patrols, the locust lance achieved near total surprise.

A series of watchtowers with searchlights and SRM equipped infantry defended the base, supporting two Dig Lord S6 Mod-A militarised industrialmechs.

Due to the element of surprise, the two defending ’mechs were out of position and the long range missile batteries they carried were often blocked by intervening buildings.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom successfully separated the two defending mechs. Her lance eliminated the one piloted by the leader of the militants, Leftenant Simon Trask. During the battle there was heavy damage to Jacques Dubois’s Locust LCT-1T before an internal ammunition explosion killedLeftenant Simon Trask.

Leftenant Simon Trask’s wingman approached from the other side of the settlement and engaged the locusts. Once his leader was eliminated, the wingman ordered a blackout of the settlement to try to use the fog conditions for a tactical advantage. A series of fires lit by weapon fire partially illuminated some areas of the battlefield. The locusts swarmed and surrounded the second target and eliminated it, by a headshot from Layne-Lars Kinnesson.

The remaining infantry forces in the two target buildings refused to surrender and fired upon the locust lance. The two facilities took heavy damage and were set alight in the engagement.

Day Nine, 21:00
Clean-up operations began after the battle.

After the militants were eliminated Lt. Samara Hellstrom opened discussions with the survivors and discovered the only survivors at Stanton Company Mine Eight were the effectively enslaved group of Twilight farmers. The gun-runners led by Leftenant Simon Trask had invaded and taken over the settlement after the peaceful Twilight farmers had created it. The hippie-commune of Twilight farmers were mostly ex-miners who had retired from mining or chosen to drop out of regular Strata society in favour of a new and independant agrarian lifestyle in the lowlands.

Following orders, Layne-Lars Kinnesson sought and destroyed any greenhouses growing Twilight but sparing any growing other plants, even though these were a mix of recreational drugs as well as food crops.

Ruin Dmitar took up arms and searched the main enemy facility for surviving militants. He discovered two more of the missing landtrains in the vehicle depot of the facility. The supplies and equipment-cache of the gun runners was found, enough to fully repair the previously salvaged Dig Lord S6 Mod-A and the one piloted by the second in command which salvaged from the battle. The stash included many personal weapons and vehicular weapons, vehicular armour, and other supplies.

Jacques Dubois took the lead on fire fighting. In one of the landtrains he found an un-modified Dig-Lord-S6 equipped with a dust suppression water sprayer system, which made quick work of the remaining fires.

Day Ten, 1:00
Using the two land-trains and a crew of Twilight farmer volunteers the lance set out for Argyre. Due to the heavy damage to his Locust LCT-1T and his greater skill at driving, Jacques Dubois was assigned to command the landtrains, which had been linked up into one combined vehicle. Lt. Samara Hellstrom, Layne-Lars Kinnesson and Ruin Dmitar escorted the combined landtrain and mopped up the hover-jeep patrols that remained.

At the end of his first patrol Ruin Dmitar talked with the Twilight farmers and acquired a stash of Twilight-wine and samples of the drug using other delivery-methods. Upon trying the wine, Ruin Dmitar found it was highly potent dose of Twilight and was strong enough to temporarily alter his vision.
Estimated 5 day duration.

Day Eleven, 13:00
Estimated arrival of the convoy in Argyre.

Session Three, Operation Three – Part One.

Day Seven, 12:00
The remainder of day seven was spent on interrogation and other post-operation activities after the second operation. Lt. Samara Hellstrom liaised with the local authorities, briefing them on the non-classified aspects of the second operation. Layne-Lars Kinnesson discovered from one of the captives that he had belonged to a long-term community but more recently a new faction had arrived there and led to the current militant approach.

Day Eight, 10:00
A mining mech travelling the streets of Argyre was detected by the command-post scanners, and the base went to yellow alert.
No-one in Lt. Samara Hellstrom’s command had seen or heard of a mining mech active on the streets of the town.
Ruin Dmitar knew from the reaction of the children (who he had nearly stepped on with his mech when setting out on Operation Two) that a mech was a rare site for the children in the Old Quarter of Argyre.
Jacques Dubois contacted his mining mech pilot contact Ken Tyler who confirmed it was unusual to have a mech travelling through the town like that.

Lt. Samara Hellstrom led her forces into an ambush position for the rogue industrialmech closing on the base.
Layne-Lars Kinnesson isolated the communications frequency the mech was using and monitored the communications to and from the mech, revealing it had allied units somewhere in the area and that it had been detected early, ruining some ambush they had planned.

The rogue mech close from town-side then charged when challenged. The fast scout mechs easily kept their distance, avoiding the slow heavy mech and its makeshift melee weapons (mining tools), until the mech attacked their base building and forcing them to close and engage. Like their namesakes the locusts swarmed the target and picked it appart, until a shot from Jacques Dubois penetrated its rear armour and set-off a load of inferno-fuel it was carrying in place of water. The raiders had planned to use the fluid gun (normally for dust suppression) to torch the two buildings of Lt. Samara Hellstrom’s command.

The mining mech was the anvil, intended to prevent the locusts fleeing into the town. The hammer was a lance of hover-jeeps with SRM2 launchers backed up by a modified (militarised) mining mech. The fast jeeps closed first, moving too quickly for the mech pilots to hit, though they were ineffective when they fired on the mechs as well. After this demoralising start the locust lance stood its ground and polished off the hover vehicles, which had fallen into the same trap intended for the locusts, they had gotten bottled up and prevented from using their speed. The hover vehicles peppered the mechs with return fire as well.

The harassers had blocked the line of fire from the modified industrialmech which was mounting a LRM15 launcher and some small weapons. The locusts swarmed the industrialmech, after being forced to choose between its long range missiles or close range weapons. In the melee the enemy charged for Layne-Lars Kinnesson but Jacques Dubois rushed to her assistance, presenting himself as a target. The enemy split his potent close range arsenal between the two, badly damaging Layne-Lars Kinnesson’s mech and slicing off an arm with the rock-cutter before being taken down by the concentrated fire of the whole lance. It was finally felled by a kill-shot from Jacques Dubois that hit the LRM ammo hopper, causing an ammunition explosion that gutted the target.

Day Eight, 11:00
Salvage operations began. Between the incinerated unmodified Dig Lord S6 and what turned out to be a standard-template-construction militarised modification of Dig Lord S6 enough could be salvaged to rebuild the Dig Lord S6 Mod-A. The mech could only be partially re-armoured and Lt. Samara Hellstrom’s force had no replacement LRMs since none of the mechs or the infantry force used them.

Repairs to Layne-Lars Kinnesson’s Locust LCT-1E took 6 hours led by her and some of the tech team. The other locusts had only suffered armour damage and were quickly patched up.

Salvaging the combat vehicles was conducted by Jacques Dubois and they recovered five of the SRM2 launchers.

Day Eight, 12:00
Lt. Samara Hellstrom visited Mayor Kent McAlester and managed to pass-off the raid on her command as a training exercise for acclimatising to lowlands conditions. Being based in the New Quarter, he had only rumours of the events in the Old Quarter, the major bought that story.

Ruin Dmitar took the chance to sneak out while the others were busy and visit the The Drunk Rat Saloon for a getaway and to raise his funds with a spot of gambling on the fights.

Game Note
At this point the AP for the first three sessions was awarded. All four characters chose to increase their mech gunnery and some their mech piloting, making the lance a lot more formidable. The team also increased a lot of ‘background’ skills and broadened their overall capabilities. As GM I was very pleased.

Day Eight, 18:00
Layne-Lars Kinnesson finished repairing her Locust LCT-1E and investigated the origins of the industrialmechs. She found the militarised one to belong to New Cairo Mining, which had been on the land train New Cairo Mining had lost to raiders. The non-modified one had belonged to Sheffield Incorporated Mining, and been booked in to the company repair facility that morning.

Jacques Dubois discovered that the SRM2 equipped hover-vehicles were a type of light hover-jeep used for short range fast scouting of the midlands and near-lowlands. They are lightly armoured, able to carry seven passengers (one squad) in addition to the driver and gunner, and not intended for any serious combat.
The source of the vehicles was not identified.

Day Nine, 8:00
The group set out to investigate the Sheffield Incorporated Mining headquarters and found Sherif Matthew Lee and his people investigating the site. The lower floors were a warehouse and mech repair depot, the upper floors were used for company offices and administration. The building had been raided and looted, all staff killed, and the industrialmech stolen. This mech marching on the base was a diversion that let most of the raiding party escape with what they had looted from the company headquarters. It was assumed the prospector teams had met a similar fate.

Investigation revealed a nondescript truck had arrived and carrying the raiders who had attacked, then looted valuable parts and supplies. They left but it was not clear if the militants had remained in Argyre or left in the truck.

It was further discovered that Sheffield Incorporated Mining had been attacked for exploring and prospecting too close to Stanton Company Mine Eight.

Day Nine, 10:00
Wasting no time, Lt. Samara Hellstrom led her lance from Argyre towards Stanton Company Mine Eight. The first two thirds of the trip was fast, following a beacon-pylon path. At this point the team had to seek out the next pylons and discovered a series of about eight pylons had been manually deactivated, roughly two years previously and about seven months after Stanton Company Mine Eight was closed down as an active mining operation.

The team proceeded, followed the beacons using passive systems only, so as not to alert anyone monitoring the beacon path to their presence.

Day Nine, 17:00
Using the map coordinates Mayor Kent McAlester had provided the lance closed upon the site and then Ruin Dmitar was sent forward to scout. The conditions were miserable, fog-shrouded, dark, and raining. His skill and the cover of the fog allowed him to approach the settlement built around Stanton Company Mine Eight.

Ruin Dmitar discovered the settlement included a lot of greenhouses, some were growing food crops but others were growing the Strata native plant used as a key ingredient in the illicit drug Twilight.

The scout identified the main building, which housed the main fusion reactor used to power the network of smaller satellite buildings around the original mine and also serving as a vehicle and industrialmech hanger.

On the way to investigate a second site of interest Ruin was spotted but he exploited the element of surprise and overcame the unprepared sentry. He clipped the man in each arm and managed to incapacitate his right arm, shortly before the man succumbed to the trauma and fell unconscious.

Ruin Dmitar cut his losses at that point and exfiltrated the settlement, and was surprised when no alarm sounded before he cleared the area.

Session Two, Operation Two.

Day Three, 21:00
After a planning session, Lt. Samara Hellstrom ordered a Packrat patrol vehicle and a squad of troops into the lowlands to a waypoint close to the more distant of the two suspected ambush sites. She also asked Mayor Kent McAlester to send a supply drop to that location as a diversion. The plan was to test for a mole by laying the story that they would rendezvous with the supply-drop and search that area. In truth they would return to the first site while the packrat and squad covered the second area and retrieved the supply drop.

Day Four, 6:00
The supply-drop was sent out on a fast landtrain from Argyre with an estimated delivery time of 22:00.

Day Four, 7:00
Jacques Dubois led Ruin Dmitar to the nearest saloon, and met up with Ken Tyler. Jacques Dubois had only one thing in mind, sized up the patrons, found the biggest and picked a fight. A quite friendly fistfight ensued, but ‘the slab’ was laid low at the end of the stand-up fight. Ruin Dmitar gambled on the underdog and won, adding some credits to his meagre savings.

Day Five, 9:00
Layne-Lars Kinnesson woke, late, and did some research into the missing landtrains and looking for any traits they had in common.

Day Five, 14:00
The lance set out timed to meet up with the drop in eight hours time, however they returned to the first operation site. After the four hour trip the lance powered-down and relied upon passive sensors to monitor the abandoned mine come chop-shop.

Day Five, 22:00
At the time the drop was due, four weaponised light trucks arrived at the site. These were missed by Layne-Lars Kinnesson, allowing the raiders to stop and disembark. The fog of the lowlands stopped the raiders spotting the mechs which were one kilometre away. Layne-Lars Kinnesson spotted the heat signiatures of the raider personnel once they were beginning the recovery of the landtrains, after being tipped off to collect the stashed landtrains now while the lance of mechs were supposed to be 500km away.

The mechs moved in, captured 10 technical staff and one surviving militant, but 25 were killed while resisting. The 25 dead included the leader and the 8 who were vehicle crew. That meant no-one who knew the location of the bandit’s base survived.

The Packrat, which had collected the supplies, was ordered to rendezvous at site one.

Day Six, 2:00

The Packrat and troops arrived, and helped the mechwarriors to transport the captives, captured vehicles, and the two salvaged landtrains back to Argyre. The trip took 22 hours.

Day Six, 24:00

The convoy arrived at base, the captives were handed over to the defence squad led by Sergeant Dirk Wolf.

Day Seven, 3:00

A well equipped intruder was killed by Corporal Sarah Langley while trying to break into the second building, the one being used to house the prisoners. Shortly afterwards, Jacques Dubois was fired upon while scouting the perimiter, but this flushed out the shooter and Ruin Dmitar returned fire and killed the second militant. It became clear the two were part of the same organisation that had hijacked the landtrains and that they were determined to rescue (or silence) the captives.

Day Seven, 7:30

Argyre was filled with rumours after the three gunshots in the early hours of the morning. Ken Tyler arrived to check on his friend Jacques Dubois. Ruin Dmitar, Jacques Dubois and Ken Tyler left the complex to get breakfast. The older landtrain was identified by Ken Tyler as the landtrain of New Cairo Mining, a small company that was wiped-out by the loss of its only landtrain and a season’s load of mined ore.

Day Seven, 9:00

Lt. Samara Hellstrom and Sergeant Dirk Wolf began the interrogations, although neither were trained in interrogations. Later Ruin Dmitar took over for Sergeant Dirk Wolf. However they got some information about the bandit base, a canyon-side mine-site named Stanton Company, Mine Eight.

Session One, Operation One.

Day One, 16:00
The group began to assemble at the main landtrain station in Perdix, as ordered. The first to arrive was Jacques Dubois followed by Ruin Dmitar. With their landtrain being loaded and not scheduled to leave until 19:00 the pair took the opportunity to visit the station-side pub which is where their commanding officer Lt. Samara Hellstrom found them. Layne-Lars Kinnesson arrived last and started by making her aquaintance with the tech team and the group’s battlemechs.

Day One, 19:00
The landtrain set out and the four pilots of the newly formed lance began to get acquainted. The landtrain exited the midlands and headed into the lowlands on the route to Argyre.

Day Three, 6:00
The landtrain arrived at 6:00, the trip took 35 hours, slightly above average for landtrain Travel between Argyre and Perdix. The team had been situated in an abandoned warehouse that was in good condition and on the outskirts of Argyre on a landtrain entrance route to the settlement. The similar but derelict building opposite was annexed.

The lancemates settled in. Lt. Samara Hellstrom made contact with Mayor Kent McAlester. Jacques Dubois explored the old quarter of Argyre, mingled with the locals and met Ken Tyler there. Layne-Lars Kinnesson busied herself with the techs and the technology. Ruin Dmitar also explored the settlement and acquired a stash of alcohol (due to the CO confiscating his supply).

The group reconvened and shared their discoveries to date and identified two likely ambush sites where the missing landtrains might have been attacked.

Day Three, 10:00
Lt. Samara Hellstrom led the lance of Locust battlemechs out of Argyre towards the closest of the suspected sites, four hours travel from Argyre. Layne-Lars Kinnesson interrogated the beacons along the path for the IFF from the last landtrain to go missing, until she identified the last beacon the missing train had pinged. Searching from that point Ruin Dmitar found and followed the fading tracks of the landtrain, and followed the trail to an abandoned mining complex. Jacques Dubois took point and led the investigation of the abandoned mine buildings and the group discovered two of the missing landtrains submerged in a flooded open-cut mine. Diving gear had let the hijackers access the environmentally-sealed landtrains, and the main shed had been made into a makeshift chop-shop. A mass-grave was also found at the site. The landtrain cargo was not found. The adjusted serial numbers and identification codes of the landtrains were recorded by the lance.

Day Three, 20:00
The group arrived back in Argyre and began planning their next move.

Mission Briefing

Welcome to Strata. For the newcomers, our planet might seem strange but you should get used to it pretty quickly. The short version is that there are plateau continents that rise above the clouds, below that are regions dominated by fog. We refer to them as the highlands, midlands, and lowlands. The highlands are above the clouds, the midlands are the base of the continents below the clouds, and the lowlands are the relatively flat land between the continents. The challenging conditions of the lowlands makes deep exploration virtually impossible.

Your team is being assigned to garrison duty in the settlement of Argyre. You will be equipped with light mechs for scouting and anti-piracy duties.

Daedalus continent is the heavy industrial center of Strata. Recently, mining expeditions have penetrated deeper and deeper into the lowlands. As the zone of mining activity expanded, a permanent settlement in the lowlands was deemed viable, as a supply hub and transport hub. Argyre settlement was originally a mining camp that then expanded to a small town to support surrounding mining outposts. The frontier of active mining camps has continued to expand since that time, but so far Argyre remains a useful transport hub. Materials and personnel flow between Daedalus and Argyre along one main land-train trade route. Also, from Argyre out to the mining camps, but this is off-road for the most part.

In the last two months, seven of these shipments have been reported missing. More importantly, they went missing with all hands. All evidence points to paramilitary level equipment and organization at most. Bandits and raiders. There is some concern that information on schedules and cargo manifests might be being leaked from personnel in Argyre to the bandits.

Your primary objective is to suppress any raiding in the operation zone, and eliminate any bandit activity.

Your secondary objective is to investigate and shut down any links between Argyre personnel and bandit operations.

Your tertiary objective is to rescue any surviving crew or passengers from raided
convoys. I have to be honest, hopes are not high that there are any survivors.

- General Lucius Morgan, Strata Military Academy