MechWarrior Log - Brody.J - A cracking job

van Zant's Prize

The morning after the night before and Hadji's corpse and the remains of the party had both been thankfully cleared away before we were called to another meeting with Musa, his Vizier and Ronnie van Zant. I cannot stress how pleased I was to see him standing there as we were escorted in... his chest all puffed out like a pigeon and strutting like a peacock with it's tail in full fan.

The Vizier started proceedings by offering us light refreshments, sweetmeats, coffee (or what passes for it in this shithole) and mint tea (see my former elaborated point). All of these I politely declined but Jakarai tucked in with relish. He then went on to say how his illustrious master, the wise and beneficent Caliph Musa had decided to take us up on our offer to betray our former master and return to his Caliphate with our recaptured 'Mechs... Increasing his military might while punishing Muhktar for his deceitful behaviour.

He suggested we spend some more time in the company of his esteemed 'Mech commander Ronnie van Zant and his crew but that we should stay away from his 'Mech bays after the unfortunate incident where his very loyal 'Mech Pilot had been killed after attacking Jakari. We of course thanked him for his wisdom and beneficence... he was obviously a very enlightened individual, I find it extremely amusing how they think of us 'ajaniib' as pawns to be used in their petty power struggles... they have no idea of the power of an inner sphere planet, even one like Solaris VII let alone a bloody House!

With that we were dismissed and returned to a common area where we were able to talk, relatively privately, you never truly know if the guards who hovered at the edge of our vision spoke English at all. We talked through how we would get back to Muhktar's compound in Ras Hafun and came up with a plan between the three of us to ambush Musa's forces in the desert.

A little while later we were summoned to a rather more luxurious area of the Caliph's palace where Ronnie sat holding court with his followers clustered around him. Pyle looked, a little fearfully I thought, at Jakari and then decided that he needed to spend some time cleaning his boots and disappeared double quick... I really need to speak to Jakari about what went down there. Cia moved off to talk to Thornton and I was left in the company of the king himself.

I outlined our plan to van Zant saying that we would sneak back to Muhktar's compound in one of Musa's technical, closely followed by van Zant leading Musa's forces to surprise attack Muhktar's compound. as he lead Musa's forces against one side of the compound we would overpower the guards on our 'Mechs, reclaim them and join the fray.

Van Zant liked the play... I guess it appealed to his nature, flashy, treacherous, devious and cowardly all at once. I asked him what he was doing there at Musa's compound and he replied that he was doing what everybody needed to do... Survive. Laughing I replied that each battle he fought brought him one step closer to having his own Caliphate at which his eyes lit up like flashlights and a wry grin crossed his features very briefly.

In a sudden flash of inspiration he asked how we would break back into the 'Mech bays as the keycode had most likely been changed. I replied to him ain a conspiratorial tone that I had some reasonable skill in hacking and I figured I could manage any security level this dungball had to offer. again his eyes lit up and he said in a conspiratorial tone of his own 'I have something you might want to take a look at... the real reason we are here' and from behind his seat he produced a battered metal case, opened it and revealed what can only have been a functional star league field computer!