Human Edge

There was a reason Felicity had eschewed a shower after the early excursion: she was hitting the sims. A shower could wait for after that. Even then, she'd need another come the late evening as she'd been asked to help with a lot of trips. A bunch of the other mechs were still undergoing work.

Felicity flicked on the lights in the Simulator room and strolled in. It would take her a few minutes to get one running and ready. She spent the time outside it, debating what sort of simulation to run. Simple target practice was perhaps too easy.

"Up for a match?" Gillian Chow said as she walked in and saw Felicity pondering the simulator. "I could use the extra simulator time. It sounds like we'll have plenty of action soon and I want to be ready."

Felicity turns and then nods to Gillian, her gaze moving up and down the woman. Assessing her a bit. She'd only seen her in the simulators once. She'd been quite capable.

"Morning. Yea, I am." She grinned cheerfully. "Anytime in fact. I felt like I could use a little more practice myself." Felicity moved to another simulator to get it started. "You're Miss Gillian Chow, right? I'm Felicity."

“Felicity...” Something clicked in Gillian’s mind and she nodded with understanding. “You were in the Phoenix this morning, weren’t you? We’ve met then... sort of. Just not in the flesh.”

“Let’s do a sim without scary undead mechs, hmmm?” She flashed a grin.

-
OOC: want to roll contested Tactics, then Piloting, then Gunnery? Whom ever gets 2 of 3 “wins” the sim?

"Yea, that's my baby. I call her Kiara. You pilot the Cicada, si? It's nice to meet in the flesh."

As the simulator began to warm up she walks over to offer a hand. "Can do. Maybe our two mechs against a small force of hostiles? Standard simulation. The most kills in the time limit, wins." She grinned cheekily. "My Kiara might have an advantage there. More tonnage and secondary weapons."

(That works. Tactics 18, piloting 35, gunnery 24)

"Sounds good," Gillian nodded, as she ducked into the simulator pod.

Inside the simulation, the two mechwarriors faced a small force of enemy mechs and vehicles in a wooded, hilly region - a randomly generated scenario roughly approximating the force composition of their earlier encounters with the Slate Eaters. Gillian deftly maneuvered her simulated Cicada around the obstacles and terrain, but had a bad habit of taking long shots while running, which rarely scored hits on the enemy. Before long, Felicity steadier gunnery caused her to clearly pull ahead on kills.

—
3LM Simulator PER/Tactics: 4d10o10k3 16
3LM Simulator REF/Piloting: 6d10r1o10k4 38
3LM Simulator DEX/Gunnery: 5d10o10k3 14

The fifteen minutes of simulated combat felt a lot longer. A few times her mech had grown quite hot, so she had ended up sweaty from the heat the simulator had thrown up. Both mechs had taken armor damage, but Gillian's mobility had let her avoid the worst of it. In contrast, the Phoenix had taken some heavy hits to the center and side torsos. A bit longer and it may have been at risk. Still, she had taken down more enemies. The SRMs had given her a nice advantage finishing them off too. One impressive thing to note was that they both used terrain to their advantage, limiting the vehicles from seeing and shooting them.

Felicity was impressed with the other mechwarrior.

Stepping out of the simulator she walked over to her backpack to collect her bottle of water. As soon as she saw Gillian she offered a high five.

"You're pretty hot in that Cicada Miss Chow. Good practice, si?"

Gillian froze for a beat, before understanding filled her eyes and she returned Felicity’s high-five.

“Yes, nice work in there,” she agreed. “And thanks for nailing that gravcar that snuck up on my flank. I’m a little rustier than I thought, so simulator time is doing me good.”

"And you're still somewhat new to piloting a Cicada, si? Whereas I've been in a Phoenix for years." Felicity points out, her voice quite bubbly. "You have good tactical sense. That's important. Whereabouts in the Sphere did you learn mech combat? I was taught at the Allison MechWarrior Institute on New Olympia, you?"

“I trained at Sarna Martial Academy, way back when,” Gillian replied. “I got attached to the Sarna Militia when war broke out.”

A shadow crossed Gillian’s face. “We had a lot of losses. I’m... not even sure there is a Sarna Militia anymore,” she admitted, a trace of bitterness in her voice.