Alroy was characteristically quiet as he left the briefing room and headed back where the 'Mechs were parked, guiding himself over the rough ground by firelight towards the towering silhouettes that awaited. His mind was alight, though, musing over the day to come, and the meeting.<br/><br/>Walter was a good Mechwarrior, and a passable commander for one who'd taken up the old man's seat so unexpectedly. In time, he'd definitely be a good commander, assuming he lived long enough - that was never a guarantee for their profession. But he wasn't there yet, evidenced by the final commentary of the briefing session. The only slopes to speak of were the snowy parts, which was why he had asked about them, but if Walter hadn't realized that, it hadn't occurred to him to ask the purpose of the question...no savvy warrior wanted to march straight into the teeth of an enemy's fire if he could avoid it, Assault armor or otherwise, and the topography plot had shown what looked like a narrow valley due west of the base. If the scouts got tangled up with whatever was hiding in the hangar bays, they'd be on their own for a while before Erich, Elisa, Lilly, and Alroy could make their way up from the south. And when the four of them arrived, it'd be a point-blank slugfest while pinned between the enemy mechs and the base defenses, which he didn't trust to be incapable of firing in at hijackers or raiders.<br/><br/>As for his other comment...that was the old man's words tempered through Walter's somewhat less vulgar vocabulary. He was trying to hard to emulate the previous commander, copying his style without developing one of his own. Not that Alroy had any objections to intra-unit relationships, he'd engaged in liasons in the past and wouldn't have been against interest from one or two of the ladies he was fighting with now. But the night before a battle, there was only one girl he wanted to be inside, and she wore sixteen tons of ferro-fibrous armor. He wasn't the only one to be bunking in a 'Mech here in the cold valley, but he was the only one who'd taken advantage of the extra space an Assault mech's cockpit gave to cram in an actual military-style cot, just big enough for his compact frame. It was a habit he'd gotten into years ago, after the third or fourth run-in with the 'honorable messengers' of his 'distinguished relatives', and by now he spent as many nights nestled up in Tanya as he did in a regular bed. The faint hum of the fusion engine at standby levels was a soothing lullaby, just enough heat to keep the tiny chamber from icing over as he bundled up under a heap of insulation sheets till morning.