●So, their leader appears to be waiting for something. She keeps checking a device on her belt. I imagine that it is either a timepiece and she is waiting for a specific time, or a communication device and she is awaiting a signal. The way she is checking it implies she is feeling impatient. The rendezvous is either approaching rapidly or already overdue. That means that whatever we choose to do, we should probably do it soon. If we can find a way to scout for any other approaching groups, that would be helpful. Do you know if there are any Simvan tribes in this area? If we could contact them, they would be a great source of information, and these folk must be using psi-stalkers to keep the Faelerin drained of their psychic potential. That would make us natural allies.●
●When it comes to the operation, I see a few options. First, direct. Move our squads up from multiple directions, fire off a warning shot, and demand surrender. If we get the squads in position, it has a good chance of success. Liabilities are that if noticed while getting into position, we could end up in a pitched battle. Whether we are noticed or not, we also run the risk of getting into a hostage situation with the Faelerin we came to rescue. I think we'd have to play it as though we don't know who they are or who the Faelerin are, and we are just a patrol wanting to know what an unaffiliated armed group is doing here.●
●Option two: guile. We drive up to them as though we met by chance, make conversation, and ask if we can trade for supplies. We gather as much intel as we can, and can then decide how to proceed next. Downside is, we don't know how much time we have, and this option needs time to pay off. If a second team shows up, our odds decrease.●
●Third: subterfuge. I go in invisible, sabotage equipment, and potentially even communicate with the Faelerin. I saw one walking about, so even if they are prisoners, they don't seem to be restrained. I could theoretically even bring them a few weapons. Even if they can't help us, weapons might be enough to hold off any of the slavers that try to rush in to try to use them as shields. This option would still require a direct intervention of some sort, but if their vehicles and heavy weapons are inoperable, and they can't use hostages, we could probably negotiate a surrender relatively easily. If they know they can't escape, it would also make a scorched earth strategy, killing the hostages, less likely, as we would be motivated to kill them, either to stop them or in reprisal.●
●There are probably other strategies we could use, but that is what comes to mind for me. Any of those appeal to you, or spark any ideas of your own?●
"I think a warning shot might just result in a massive retaliation. How about if we combine two of your ideas : the rest of us will approach as traders, and talk to them from a distance to distract them. Meanwhile, you go invisible and do everything you mentioned. Maybe you should go in before we show up, depending on how long you think it will take you. Then the rest of us attack, and when they discover their equipment is wrecked, they might give up, or at least be easier to kill.
Josiah, could you rig up some explosive devices that could all be triggered by an electronic signal simultaneously? That might wound some of them immediately, and cause confusion in general. Not sure how to disguise them, I guess Jingu would just have to hide them pretty well."
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Wednesday, December 27th, 109 PA (2395CE). 1201 hours. 16 Degrees F (-9 Degrees C), Light Wind (1 mph (1 Kph), Cold). CS Arkansas Territory, Thaytown. (Thayer, MO)
That was weeks ago and you have been out here for some time trying to find anything special enough to satisfy the dwarven commander’s demand. In the last few days though, you think you may have found it. You have been tracking what appears to be a smuggling ring through the Arkansas territories and it appears they are not only smuggling the usual stuff: books, meds, creds and guns, but also people. These people appear to be slaves and that rails against everything you have been taught by the Legion. Your team leader made the decision to follow them and found out two things. One, they are definitely in the slaving business and two, they also work with Coalition troops. Both are bad news.
Yesterday, you caught wind that they were camped out here in the ruins of Thaytown and sure enough, the intel was correct, though you didn’t expect there to be so many. As you survey the group from up on a hill a few hundred meters away, you counted at least twenty armed and armored individuals and a few vehicles. There are also at least twice as many slaves, all in shackles except for a select few. You also take note that there is a few of the slaves that are blue in color and stand taller than most humans. For those of you sensitive to such things, they seems to give off some sort of energy, though it is hard to tell from this distance what that might be.
Now though, you have to decide whether to simply observe, interrupt their activities stealthily, or bring the GlitterGirl forward and negotiate that way. All of you look to the leader, who is busy going over their options.
The pilot emerges after a day of travel, apparently only too happy to get out of the suit and walk around. You never can tell with G10 pilots; some are grizzled vets, some are eager young hotshots, some are humanoid D-bees. This one looks human enough: A woman in her twenties, with blonde hair and fair features. Even roughing it in the wild she has a statuesque allure, as if she should be wearing rumpled military fatigues in a pin-up calendar. Specialist Lance proves to be amiable and easygoing, curious about her teammates, and a fan of "real food" around a campfire over the synthetic nutrient mush that's stocked in most G10 suits.
Barbara is a little bit standoffish at first, which her colleagues pick up from cues as being likely the result of being treated predictably by other soldiers. Still, she is socially adroit, not an angry hothead or a brooding loner. During meals parts of her story slowly trickle out: She inherited the armor from another pilot, who died heroically and passed it on to her. She has fought the Coalition before, and hates what they stand for. She is an idealist, in spite of living a rough life and having been badly injured in an ambush some years ago.
She never strays far from the armor even when she's out of it. Every day she spends some time looking over the exterior for damage, trouble spots, and ceramic-eating or electricity-sucking dimensional parasites.
Once suited up, she assumes military standards immediately, treating the armor as mobile artillery in support of the group, hopping to scout or take up an elevated firing position when needed, positioning the armor near the front to draw fire in the event of an ambush in order to protect the rest of the team.
Terry removes the helmet of his Medieval style armour as he looks around with his Grey Eyes.
He scrubs his reddish hair with his hands as he wipes the sweat from his brow.
I hate helmet hair He comments to no one in particular, as he glances over at the positioning of the glitter boy armour.
That thing will give us away for miles, but if we need it, we will be glad to have it.
During the length of the patrol, he has lent his thoughts, opinions, and assistance to anyone that has asked with no complaints.
But everyone can see that he has a troubled past, even though he does not bring it up.
After coming back from his latest scouting foray Bart had a little down time. After getting some rest and being told he may be called for a new mission soon he passes some time wandering the castle area until he sees a tall glittery armored suit.
He walks near it, looking it over and seeing some of the details says,"Heh.Unicorn power. I like it."
Then he notices the pilot of said suit was just on the other side of it and may have heard him...
He stands there looking a little uncomfortable. He's a large man in camo clothing with some nasty scars across his face. Right now he's looking a little sheepish...
Barbara saunters around from the other side of the armor and puts one hand against the side. Somehow, she makes the Glitter Boy pilot jumpsuit look good. "Thanks!" she says. "I had it put on after I inherited the suit. The laser refraction is part of the ceramic layer on top, so it won't be affected by a li'l coat of paint."
"I figure, the G10 already kinda stands out, so why not put a little personal touch on it?"
She pushes off the inert power armor and extends a hand to the tall, scarred man. Unlike him, she is lithe, though reasonably tall (about 175 cm), and has blonde hair that is probably longer than regulation length. No obvious scars, and a pert nose, expressive blue eyes, and cheeks that could cut glass. (Where does someone find blush in a post-apocalyptic wasteland?)
"Barbara Lance."
Bart can't help but look the pilot up and down once before remembering his manners. He shakes her hand gently.
Bart. Bart Swanson. Nice to meet you. Don't see too many of those around. It is impressive."
Terry looks around the group that is gathering in the courtyard.
I wonder whom all we are going to have here for this patrol
He looks the glitterboy armour up and down, noting the personal touch, and the scarred man talking to a cute blond.
I guess I will go introduce myself.
With that, he walks over to the pair.
Morning, Terry here, and you are?
Bart turns to the new person in the courtyard and politely lets the lady speak first and then he speaks up. "Name's Bart. Nice to meet you."
She runs a finger down the gun barrel of the boom gun, still folded against the back of the armor. "They say when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The G10 probably has a little bit of that going on."
She shifts to face Bart again and says to both him and Terry, "So we're teammates? I'm guessing we'll be in the field a while, so, hope somebody brought a deck of cards."
She offers her hand to Terry as well, upon his arrival. "Barbara Lance."
Slowing his descent just above the helmet of her Glitter Girl armor, the young man exclaimed, ”Hey! You fixed the HUD wiring! Nice work, that looks brilliant!” Sentry beamed at Barbara as he landed beside her. ”G10 looks ready for anything … who are we meeting?” There were times x-ray vision seemed extraordinary; there were also times it seemed a little eerie and off-putting. Sentry was a good egg though, they’d known each other a very long time. Without powers, aliens like him passed for regular humans, just any other D-Bee really.
”Just kidding, I heard who we’re meeting.”
”Hey Terry! Hey Bart!
”I’m Sentry.”
He seemed as though he was about to say more, but something distracted him.
”So sorry … I swear someone in the castle is burning bananas …” he quickly turned to Bart, ”and that rifle really fires a primary energy beam, an ion stream, and propellant based ammunition!? How is that even a thing?”
Bart smiles at the mech pilot. A friendly smile that might look a bit scary to her. As the thunder rolls and he looks up, "Well. Even in this strange world, that's not something you see every day. Uh, Nice to meet you, Sentry. And yes, interesting gun indeed. Long story behind it, short version is that I met a Juicer before I made it to Castle Refuge. We became friends but he was an old timer Juicer. His last hurrah was only a week after we met. Good guy. He knew he was going out in style, told me to take Bertha here. Although.." He looks up at the Boom Gun, "That name might be a might pretentious now?"
"Bertha always means "big"? I think in my head I had thought maybe only some Berthas were big, and I guess I thought others might simply be talented. Size DOES matter though ... "
Sentry smiles, but there are clearly some wistful thoughts flitting behind his eyes as they dimmed and stopped glowing.
"I had to focus on my powers a lot growing up, my parents wanted to make sure that I knew how to control myself. They said that I didn't get to indulge myself, but what they meant is that I didn't get to be normal. To be honest, if Barbara hadn't told me stories, I would never have known what a juicer was."
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To Bart she says, "Yours is a heck of a sniper weapon though. The Boom Gun's mobile artillery. You have to think of it that way or you'll get yourself into some real trouble, it's not like you can just hip-fire it and get all sloppy around your colleagues. Different combat roles."
Terry looks at the growing group.
So it looks like they are covering all the bases with the current group.
I wonder what we are going to end up doing? I guess I will go find out
Terry takes his leave, to find the Captain, and figure out what we are intended to do, along with any specialized equipment that we might need to bring along.
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Y'all. I started reading from the beginning to get caught up and after 30 pages I finally looked at the date. This has been going for a while! I finally just skipped way ahead andread the last few pages this AM and noticed the mission info from the GM. I completely missed that.
On a related note, unsure if old scarred Bart would be the best leader here!
~~~~~~~~~~
Observing the Coalition position from afar, Barbara—keeping her G10 kneeling down and behind cover as much as possible to reduce its profile—says, "Well, I'm out of the action. The Boom Gun will cause too much collateral damage. If we are going in swingin', I can at least go hand-to-hand with some of the soldiers. If we are going to use some kind of trick, like an illusion or mind control or somethin', then one of you brain-burnin' sorts should come up with a plan."
Bart pulls some binoculars out to get a better look at the vehicles.
"Twenty troopers at least. One or two of those vehicles might be a problem. Not the best odds. We need to surprise them."
Bart pulls some binoculars out to get a better look at the vehicles.
"Twenty troopers at least. One or two of those vehicles might be a problem. Not the best odds. We need to surprise them."
"Wouldn't take much for me to get behind them, that might be a surprise."
Agreed, surprise them, but then you would be 1 vs 20.
Barbara, how much collateral does the boom gun do?
He starts sketching a rough layout of the slavers camp on the dirt.
[b]So Bart and Myself hunkered down here on the left flank, Barbara here on the road, Sentry, you kind of act as a mobile fire brigade, and reinforce anyone that needs it.
We may need you to also zip in and cut the slaves chains and get them running in our direction.
With the numbers there, I do wish we had explosives.
Also, didn't command mention another team in the area?
"The Boom Gun fires a hypersonic flechette round. This means that in addition to flechettes deflecting from the target and saturating the area with shrapnel, the energy transfer to the target essentially makes it explode. So, while the round itself doesn't carry an explosive charge, the massive impact makes the target explode as if it were hit with an artillery shell. Basically anyone who isn't heavily protected and within about... a dozen meters. Like those D-bees."
"In addition, the sonic shockwave from the Boom Gun will knock down anyone who isn't inside or wearing power armor if they are adjacent to me when I fire it," she says. "So I have to get a little distance from the rest of the team."
"The Boom Gun fires a hypersonic flechette round. This means that in addition to flechettes deflecting from the target and saturating the area with shrapnel, the energy transfer to the target essentially makes it explode. So, while the round itself doesn't carry an explosive charge, the massive impact makes the target explode as if it were hit with an artillery shell. Basically anyone who isn't heavily protected and within about... a dozen meters. Like those D-bees."
"In addition, the sonic shockwave from the Boom Gun will knock down anyone who isn't inside or wearing power armor if they are adjacent to me when I fire it," she says. "So I have to get a little distance from the rest of the team."
"or the team needs to get a little distance from you, yeah. My point in getting behind them was to be a distraction from the rest of our team being in front of them by the way, not to go in by myself. Might not totally be opposed to going in by myself either, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Do we have an idea how many captives there are?"
"Josiah - how long would it take you to rig up some medium-sized explosive devices that could be triggered by an electronic signal?
Jingu - can you make things you're carrying invisible too, like those explosives?
I suggest that we plant the explosives, mostly in their big equipment and in their hang-out spots (like bunkrooms and the mess hall), then trigger them, then rush in to the confusion.
Thoughts?"
"Not long, really. Depends on how many charges you'd be wantin' and how big an' all that. Prolly, 15-20 per charge. Don't know if Buzzbee'll go for it though. E's got a bit of a stubborn streak when it comes to cutting guys down when they're defenseless."
"Tell ye what though, what about smoke bombs? Or better yet, Somnolence Bombs! Oh, i think I have something like that on the go; i could have that ready in less than a minute!"
"OK, so each of these bad boys will send out a pulse, forcing everyone's brain into an Alpha-Wave pattern. They'll instantly go slack like they ain't had rack time in a week. The sleep will be pretty normal, so they can still be woken, but as long as you tip toe about, you should be fine! I can even set it to exclude our blue skinned friends! All them merc's should should drop like they been at the spindle o' a spinnen wheel. Buzzbee can either disarm em, or you guys can just march the blueberries right back to Elsie. We'll load em up, and could be gone 45 minutes by the time they wake!"
"Now that sounds like a plan! Get those made ASAP, so Jingu can set them and we can rescue those aliens!"
Ok, in that case, Barbara, can you set up in this location, if we need to, engage the vehicles.
Sentry, get yourself up to that high ground up there, and provide overwatch.
Terry points to a commanding height.
And try not to be seen getting there.
Myself and Bart will move 200 or so meters over there to the left giving us higher ground, and cover from return fire.
He pauses.
I don't like the fact that we may cause some casualties among the prisoners, but we can do our best to minimize them.
Once we are set, then Barbara can open the ball with a shot or two into the vehicles, so we don't have to worry about them.
Questions?
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Sounds like as good a plan as we can get in a hurry.
He heads off to the appointed area and tries to find a good sniper's hide.
Terry takes a route that should get him into a spot without being to obvious.
** spoiler omitted **
Waiting for Barbara to be fully entrenched in the G-10, Sentry then takes off for the highground Terry had indicated, flying nap-of-the-earth as he approached; he could go high and bright later if there were a need to draw fire.
When he arrived, he lit up his Telescopic Vision to review the camp, looking for any conversations he might want to overhear.
Last to arrive, perhaps indicating someone who likes to make an entrance, two figures approach the newly formed team. One is a young human woman, about five seven, 120 pounds (soaking wet), wearing light armor and sporting only a laser pistol for weapons. She has a nice overall tan that is probably about half what she was born with, the rest coming from time in the sun. She has coal black hair braided to be out of the way. She has some jewelry made of turquoise and jasper and some hawk feathers.
With her is a man of almost identical height, but much more buff build. He too is lightly armored with only a light pistol. His facial features are a mix of human and feline features, looking similar to a snow leopard, with mischievous grey eyes. He lets the woman do the talking.
"Team K12? Sorry to be late. I'm Ounce Felicitas and this is my partner Gummitch." She takes in the various heavy weapons and armor of the group and adds, "I'm a mystic, so while I'm not bristling with firearms, I am able to produce some bodacious magical effects. Also, my partner here is really a dragon. Show 'em, kid."
Gummitch's form shimmers and then grows into a not quite fully grown but still quite large dragon. He stands looking over Ounce from right behind her, looking stern. His head is less reptile and more snow leopard, although his long, scaled body, leathery wings, and swishing tail are all dragon. He resembles more of a Chinese dragon than a Tolkien model. After a moment of posing, he grins and says, "Pleased to meet you all."
Ounce adds, "He doesn't breath fire, but spits lightning bolts. He's very good in a fight."
Getting to know the two, the team learns her story. She was an orphan who got adopted by an old mystic who recognized her innate connections to mystic sources of power. He taught her spells and looked after her. They lived in a ruin of a library where she spent much time reading most of the books in the place.
They lived in Newtown. As Ounce turned 18, the Juicer Uprising developed and she spent her first days as an adult fighting for her life and trying to protect mundanes caught in the crossfires.
She eventually struck out on her own and decided she would head toward Castle Refuge, having seen enough of the Coalition to know she would spend her life opposing their fascist and racist ways. On the way, she encountered a trio of Coalition goons in a fight with something big. She fired energy bolts first and after a few rounds of fighting had no one to ask questions except the surviving dragon hatchling.
For saving his life, the dragon pledged to be her sidekick and help her get to Castle Refuge. Along the way, a solid friendship formed as Ounce taught Gummitch important things about the world and he helped defend her when trouble showed up. Since then, they had worked as a team on various Tomorrow Legion assignments until assigned to meet up with the new team.
