Erich sighed to himself for a moment at Walt's 'request' for himself and Elisa to meet him in the hangar; between Graff over-extending the recon lance to the point where any reinforcements would take at least fifteen minutes to 'ride to the rescue' for the outermost elements, and the request pulling the two energy-armed 'mechs from base picket duty from the assault lance, the veteran felt dangerously overexposed. Opening his comms to the general channel, he spoke. "Graff; we're looking dangerously over-exposed here. Pull the inner and outer elements back to the five-kilometre range, at maximum. At the current range, if any member of Recon screams for help, it'll be fifteen minutes for Assault to arrive to pull you out of the fire, and we'll be down the Brick and Defiance for a few minutes to see what the hell Walt's banging on about. Vice, Kismet; if you'd be so kind as to patrol along the outer perimetre of the base while the Bastion sends out the salvage techs to yank off every bit of shiny loot from this place, I'll buy the beer once this op is over."<br/><br/>Turning his 'mech towards the hangar Walt's Highlander lay in front of, Erich glowered at the people he could see inside, before setting his 'mech into standby function, locking all of its functions with his personal command prefix code. Pulling off his Neurohelmet, he stowed the heavy piece of gear in its storage rack above the command seat, before pulling on his usual fatigues. Grumbling to himself, he opened a small panel in the side of his command seat, behind the ejection controls, and grabbed a large cigar, before settling a basic communication link into place so he could listen to the lance chatter. "What a clusterfuck. I need a smoke now."<br/><br/>Popping the hatch, he climbed out of his 'mech, using handholds instead of the retractable ladder, in part so he could dip the end of his cigar into the red-hot aperture of one of the torso-mounted heatsinks, lighting it neatly in a trick born of years of practice. Taking a deep puff from the hand-length stogie, he walked into the Hangar, and, while surprised at the height and tone of the eight-foot-tall amazon that stood next to one of the suits of powered armour the company had barely fought off, his only outward expression was to raise an eyebrow towards Walt. "Heard the whole thing, Walter."<br/><br/>Taking the cigar from his mouth for a moment, Erich exhaled a few smoke rings, then nodded towards the woman's armour. "Impressive piece of technology. Looks too new to be Lostech, but I've never heard of houce tech getting to this level." Looking over the muscle-bound amazon, he smirked slightly, then chuckled. "So, Walt. Finally found someone taller than me, huh? Guess you got tired of me threatening to use your head as an armrest, and met someone that actually can."