<div style="text-align: left;">(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j77/wulfjaeger/black_widow_png_by_sasha2000dog-d52srzs.png)</div><br/>Ranna Krannok<br/>Onboard Bastion<br/>Bastion Hangar deck.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"Yup, I've pretty much been in mock combats up until a few months ago, and even then I wasn't necessarily well liked at the Academy...Politics, you know?  I'm kind of hoping some bonus pay and salvage can help me pay down the loan faster.  I'm not sure I want to go for a different mech right now though, at least not without some thought into what I feel comfortable piloting.  I qualified on a Marauder so, I went out looking for one and was promptly swindled through the Port Barrow 'Preferred' dealer...but didn't know it at the time.  Hey Ranna, I'm kind of afraid to ask but how bad of a Lance commander was I?"<br/><br/>Ranna was rather surprised to hear Graff's revelation on his combat experience.  It wasn't very often that you ran into new recruits in the Merc world who have never seen combat, and to hear that up until recently he'd barely even had a mech was a little odd.  She watched him replace the armor plates and talk, providing a hand where needed but letting him do the work.  She knew how much pride she took in doing things for herself when it came to just about everything, but especially fixing Harlequin.<br/><br/>The real shock came with his question.  She hadn't expected it and locked up her expression as quickly as she could, thankful that Graff was distracted by armor and not watching her.  Everyone knew that Ranna wasn't the type to hold back on her opinions, but this seemed an odd situation she wasn't sure was a time when she should open her thoughts.  She regarded Graff for a minute. His young naive way about things tended to put him in less than optimal situations.  Ranna was almost glad her world started the way it did, to keep her from being suckered by a cruel uncaring world.  After a longer than necessary silence, Ranna sat on Double G's foot, a few feet from Graff, "I'm going to assume that you asked that question in the hopes that I'd be honest with you, so I will be.  You got lucky!" She shrugged, giving him a 'thats the way it is' look with a bit of a cock to one side with her head and a shrug of her shoulders.  "Walt had no business putting you in charge of anything.  That plan had so many holes in it, we should be glad the Clan's decided to take the base first.  We would have had mech swarming out of that hangar otherwise."  Ranna looked down at the metal plate on Double G's foot for a moment as she continued. "And honestly your lack of experience would have likely had a few of us dead by the end of the day."<br/><br/>Looking back up to Graff, she smiled, standing up to help him hold an armor plate in place while he tightened it.  "On the bright side, everyone walked away relatively unhurt, you've made it through a couple of tight missions and survived.  Although after seeing what I saw of the battle ROM, you should have been supporting Erich against the Pillager and Alroy and his crab should have escorted Janos out, especially considering we were down a heavy with Elisa's Black Knight out of the mission."  With a friendly pat on the back she smiled again, stepping close to Graff.  "Just remember, any time you walk away from a mission inside your mech, is a good day.  Don't dwell on the past.  You can't change it.  If you're interested, I know a way to network the mech diagnostic simulation systems so we can do combat training on our way to Outreach.  Little trick I learned from Wolf."