Erich's endeavours on-planet appeared to be the only good point in the first few pages of the report, though the veteran mechwarrior knew he was going to catch an earful for getting his 'mech's armour shot up, yet again; Durallex Heavy was an expensive brand, but, when push came to shove, the near-mythical durability of the specially-formulated Armour plates had kept the Brick alive more often than Erich's own impressive gunnery. Looking around at the assembled company, the de-facto Executive Officer stood up, and walked around the table, patting Perkins on the back with one massive hand to show he was going to speak up.<br/><br/>"Okay, kids. First off, Perkins will dissect all of our performances, so don't feel like you're being singled out. I won't tell you how many times I've gotten into a shouting match with him because I brought the Brick back with only the engine, Gyro, and legs working. Secondly; as you probably already know, at the request of the airfield commander, we have a dozen children scarpering about and making general nuisances of themselves; I don't expect you to like them, but I do expect you to be polite, and at least sound kind to them; they are being taken from their families, at their parent's request, after all. If anyone wants to volunteer to keeping them out of trouble, go ahead and tell me. I'd suggest at least two of you kids, because they're a handful, but they seem to like you, Yamina; I might fob the lot off on you.<br/><br/>"Thirdly, once maintenance and repairs are complete, I WILL be running each and every one of you through the basic primer of 'How to react to anti-Mech infantry in unfavourable terrain', as written by the Grey Death Legion. Fourthly, yes, we took a prisoner, though she claims to be a 'bondsman'. You will each meet her on occasion, but I want each and every one of you to put aside your knee-jerk reaction of trying to pick a fight with the person that tried to ventilate Walt with a SRM. In part, because she's around Seven and a half feet tall, and solid muscle, and in part because, from my understanding, her claimant of the status of 'bondsman' basically means that she has asked for asylum because we beat her in fair combat already. Which means, like it or not, she's part of the company now."<br/><br/>"Now, on positive news. Perkins may get to rip you kids apart all he wants, but I did convince him last operation to also point out what you lot did right, or at least, was impressive enough to catch his eye. So, once he's done part one, you get to suffer through being congratulated by him." Flopping back into his seat, he dug in a pocket for a cigar, belatedly remembering that he had, once again, quit smoking, even if he 'slipped up' a few times. "One final thing. I've been fighting for the better part of twenty years, and have seen a lot of crazy shit. What we encountered is so far off the map of crazy shit that it sets a new benchmark; the fact that we got away with Only armour damage and some embarassment is a minor miracle."