Tim (Kraid Naiben) ditches us to get free furniture from his Grandma. Mike (Hector) ditches us for some other reason. Chuck, Paul (Bob the Saurk), Chris (Caleb Kagan), Ernest (Liz Blessing) and Bruce (Goat Gulgusskun) are all around with nuthin' better to do than play Choctaw Bingo.
Just for reference, the current core team of mercenaries working with the characters consists of:
Under normal circumstances, Linda Oswald and Freaky act as a team. Oswald takes out distant targets while Freaky watches for nearby threats.
The session opens with the characters plotting their attack upon the Aetna City Spaceport, with the goal of seizing control of the Presidente, which at one time was the single armed patrol boat owned by the government of Aetna. The characters know that Presidente is a Jefe-class patrol boat. Standard weapons for the class include:
The characters' previous experience with the insurgents suggests that the two missile racks are currently empty (the missiles having already been fired at the Salt Witch), and that other ship systems may be in poor condition.
There will be two assault groups. The first group is composed of the mercenaries. Their role will be to create a diversion. The second group is composed of the characters, plus Freaky. Their role is to make for the Presidente and actually take control of the vessel. They will be infiltrating through the main gate in a truck disguised as a regular delivery vehicle. Everyone agrees that moonshine is probably the least suspicious cargo they could bring into a rebel military base.
The characters know that the Presidente has a ventral loading ramp for ammunition loading, and that it is currently open. This will be the characters' point of entry. The basic plan is to have Freaky watch the ramp while Liz and Caleb take the bridge and Goat and Bob take engineering and start up the engines. Once the bridge is under control, Caleb will move to the turret and bring up the PDS gun to suppress any resistance in the area. Once the Presidente is in the air, the characters will swing around and pick up the mercenary team.
On the mercenary team, both Weasel and Oswald will use silenced weapons to snipe at targets of opportunity.
There are two sentries near the patrol boat, and one or two sentries near each of the four hangars. The characters can see that some of the rebels near the hangars are armed with shoulder-fired missiles that can be used against either air or ground targets. Base range on a shoulder-fired missile is only 50, but the character-level DM is 140! The entire spaceport is surrounded by a chainlink security fence. Several machine gun nests are scattered along the perimeter, with additional emplacements near the main entrance and the control tower.
Liz and Goat head out into the city to steal a truck. They find some rebels loading boxes into the back of a truck from a convenience store. Liz comments, "You know, there are a lot of trucks out there. I don't think we should pick the one that has five rebels around it." Goat agrees. They walk on by very casually.
They find another truck near Jiffy Jack's. All the local militia are busy watching the Yeti Striptease down at 53rd Street Liquors. Caleb asks, "Oooh! Is that the one where the yeti shaves itself?" Everyone else ignores him. Liz hotwires the truck. Seconds later, Liz and Goat drive away.
The next step in the plan is to find something to put into the truck. At 03:00 in the morning the characters drive up to 53rd Street Liquors to empty the place out. Liz picks the lock, then Bob the Saurk heads in first with Goat right behind him. Bob hears someone whisper, "Oh crap! They're coming in the back!" from the front. Bob grabs a fire extinguisher and heads to the sound. Goat draws his Rat Gutter Combat Knife and follows. Caleb mentions to Liz, "This sounds like it's going to go badly. Want to check out the front?" She agrees.
Bob and Goat find two guys. One of them is fumbling with the lock on the front door, trying to get out. The other is armed with a pistol, and looks like he would really like to shoot someone with it. Goat stabs the gunman deeply, but he stays up. The goon tries to shoot Bob, but Bob takes him down with a fire extinguisher instead. The second goon pulls a pistol and gets off one wild shot before Bob and Goat crash down on him like a ton of bricks. Liz and Caleb arrive to see the second goon sag down against the front door, clutching his stomach. Liz figures out that they're both rebels, and that they both have rifles (standard 7mm). Caleb drags the body back into the store while Liz drives the rebels' Yugo around to the back. She notices that the rebels' car is stuffed with liquor, stereos, and whatnot. Apparently the characters aren't the only ones doing their shopping in the small hours.
Bob and Goat start loading liquor into the truck as quickly as possible while Liz and Caleb watch for any sort of armed response. Hearing none, within 20 minutes the truck and the Yugo are caravanning back to Agricultural Kibbutz 13, where the characters have the Salt Witch parked.
Caleb holds up a box full of grenades and asks the characters, "Who has Throwing?" Goat responds, "I have Throwing 1!" Caleb starts handing out grenades as if they were oranges, "Here, have a flash grenade. If Bob has any trouble clearing Engineering, throw this in." He also straps two smoke grenades to the side of the truck. As a final present, he wires up a crate of whisky with a block of C4 as a gift for the guys at the gate.
The mercenary team starts their infiltration first, sneaking up to the perimeter fence in the early morning. The characters and Freaky pile into the truck and drive up to the main gate a few minutes later, entering just before Oswald and Weasel start their diversion. Goat and Freaky are in the back with the hooch, doing their best to look like militia guys. Liz and Caleb are in the cab. Bob is hiding under a tarp; everyone hopes that nobody notices the smell.
Things go well on the approach. Liz bluffs her way past the checkpoint. The characters drive up to the Presidente out on the pad. Liz can see sentries dropping on the way over as Linda Osborne picks them off with her sniper rifle. She pulls up next to the Presidente's ammo hatch and Caleb sets off the smoke grenades. The sentries become very upset very fast and open fire, to little effect.
Freaky and Bob rush out the back of the truck. Freaky dissects one guard with his silenced SMG as machine-gun fire takes out one of the truck's rear tires. Liz sprints from the truck up the ramp then falls prone as soon as she sees the two guards approaching from inside.
Bob slashes at a guard, then continues running right past the man, past Liz, and up the ramp to crash into one of the interior guards so hard the man falls into pieces. Caleb finishes up Bob's handiwork with his autoshotgun, overkilling the man. Bob exults, "I love the way these vibro-swords cut right through armor, flesh and bone." The second interior guard steps forward, to shoot at Bob the Saurk and gets blasted to pieces by a shotgun-toting Goat. Caleb moans, "We're gonna have to clean this ship out with a hose."
The characters make very rapid progress into the ship, eviscerating shocked rebels as they go. Bob and Goat make it to Engineering in seconds, with Liz and Caleb taking control of the bridge only seconds later. Bob works on the engines while Goat secures the area (against a group of dead bodies).
It takes Bob four rounds to power up the engines. By that time, Caleb has already made it into the turret and powered up the gun. Everything seems to be going very well. And then there is a huge explosion. The loading ramp is completely blown off. Liz and Caleb spot rockets coming in from a gun crew on top of one of the hangars. Caleb responds by blazing away at the hangar with the boat's PDS turret. He scares the rocket crew, but discovers that shipborne weapons are not the best solution for shooting at infantry.
Liz kicks the boat into the air and swiftly discovers that the ship has terrible maneuverability now, thanks to a clever combination of poor maintenance and the rocket strike. She is somewhat relieved to hear Osborne's report that she managed to hit the rocket gunner.
As the Presidente shudders into the air, Caleb spots something that looks like a technical driving up one of the airfields. He sprays it down with gauss-gun fire, but not before the ship takes another missile. The ship shudders, then surges again as Bob starts replacing fuses with pennies to improve maneuverability ("They work a lot better that way!"). After a quick detour to pick up the sniper team, the characters head for the rally point leaving a horde of angry insurgents in their wake.
The characters take both the Salt Witch and the Presidente to the middle of nowhere and set Bob to working on the repairs. He removes a number of inhibitors and safety features on the Presidente engine to make it perform better. His changes work perfectly, though he points out that they might reduce the lifespan of the engine and increase the pollutants it puts out. None of the characters seem to care. He also keeps note of any systems on the Presidente that might be scavenged to improve or repair the Salt Witch.
The characters make contact with Colonel Hotsul of the Aetna Federal Defensive Police Force. Liz takes the lead on negotiations, informing him that under the leadership of Arman Dekravakian (better known as the Minister of Snack Foods) the Aetna Liberation Strike Force has retrieved the Presidente. Colonel Hotsul tells Liz that the government is now based out of the provisional City Hall on 516 Cabal Street. He also indicates that he is pretty much it for the government, which means that Minister Dekravakian is the highest-ranking civilian governmental official available. Unfortunately, most of the higher-ranking governmental figures were in their offices in the City Hall when the rebels took control three months ago, and have not been heard from since.
The mercenary leader Major Billingsworth agrees to accompany the characters and Minister Dekravakian to the Provisional City Hall while the rest of the mercenaries keep guard upon the Salt Witch and the Presidente. The characters take the luxury SUV ("The Escalade") Liz stole back on New Saigon, with the hopes of impressing the remaining governmental forces with their wheels. Liz also makes an effort to make Minister Dekravakian look rugged and leaderlike as opposed to shell-shocked and depressed. She provides him with a thorough pep talk: "You're in charge now! You need to put across a strong front and inspire confidence!" It isn't clear if her coaching is having the desired results.
On the way to City Hall the characters go through a couple of checkpoints. The government forces are more competent than the rebels, though there are a lot fewer of them. The Colonel meets us at his headquarters.
Colonel Hotsul tells the characters what he knows about the current military situation. The river divides the city and (for that matter) the entire valley. It corresponds very closely to the line of control. The rebels raided the Police Armory in the early stages of the revolution and took a lot of weapons, but the government forces have driven them back. The northern and southern bridges were good for truck traffic, but are now blocked and heavily guarded. The two smaller bridges are only pedestrian bridges six feet wide. The central bridge is guarded, but still passable. The Colonel has tried several assaults into rebel-held territory, none of which have worked. The rebels have made several assaults in return.
The government forces currently amount to about 1000 men and one VERTOL. The rebels have shot down two more VERTOLs. Rebel troop strength is unknown, but the Colonel estimates that they 500-600 assault rifles, 200-300 SMGs, and maybe 100 missiles from the Police Armory.
The characters retire to discuss their plans for helping Minister Dekravakian bring law and order back to Aetna City. As a side thought, someone mentions that there was probably quite a lot of money in the vaults of the National Bank of Aetna, which is currently under rebel control. Though it seems very unlikely that the rebels would have left the money in the bank building, they probably have it secured somewhere. If the characters could find out where the rebels put the money, they could really boost up the government's fortunes and take a nice "finder's fee" for themselves on the side.
This plan, for all of its native beauty, gets shot to bits when the characters check the contents of the crates stacked in the Presidente's crew quarters. They contain:
The characters already have the money. Hector estimates that the money amounts to a substantial part of the treasury, perhaps as much as half of it. The characters move everything of value to the Salt Witch.
At this point there is nothing more to be done on the Presidente to make it flyable. It is still fairly damaged: its armor levels are down to 26/52/78 (it started at 30 base armor), and it can't make orbit. But it is set up to be a fine floating weapons platform.
Step one is to get the Voice of Aetna radio station up. Minister Dekravakian does the talking, but the characters write his speeches for him.
Step two is a series of flyovers of Aetna City to demonstrate that the characters (and thus the government) are in control of the Presidente.
On the third day, the characters get a comlink message from someone with a heavy Russian accent. The caller asks, "You one of those creeps who stole my ship? We can work a deal?" Caleb takes the call, and quickly determines that he is speaking to the insurgent leader Capri Paolo. Paolo tells Caleb, "I got rest of Treasury here. You help me get off planet." Caleb rather nonchalantly responds, "Oh? We didn't pay attention, the ship was so overloaded we just dumped all that stuff out the back." Capri is not fooled, telling him, "You are a very poor liar, sir."
Recognizing that this is what the tactical manuals describe as a "situation", Caleb goes to wake up some other characters. He finds them strewn around the Salt Witch like dirty laundry, all fast asleep. Disbelieving, he shouts at Liz, "You are still asleep? But it is noon!" Liz just blinks at him through pharmaceutical-rimed eyes. Eventually Liz and Bob stagger to the bridge, both looking disheveled. Goat arrives, still knitting a sweater. Liz looks around, "You people are all freaks!"
The characters go through a lot of very paranoid steps before they are willing to meet and deal with Paolo. It eventually develops that all he wants is to get off the planet with enough money to survive. The characters come up with a plan to hold a show trial in orbit aboard the Salt Witch, and to exile him from Aetna. Paolo actually thinks this is a really good idea: it means that the Aetna government won't be putting bounties on his head later on. Hector is appointed as his defense attorney and Minister Dekravakian becomes the presiding judge (because he is easy to manipulate).
The characters take a 10% cut from the total treasury. Half of the money goes to the mercenaries, leaving Cr 200,000 to be divided among the characters.
The characters and several Aetna governmental officials are in orbit aboard the Salt Witch preparing to hold Paolo's trial when Caleb spots a ship leaving the planet. It has ECM, so Caleb is only barely able to make it out on the sensors. He can tell that it is bigger than a scrambler, but smaller than a patrol boat.
The characters react quickly. Liz pursues at maximum speed. Everyone is understandably concerned, because nobody had any idea that anyone had another ship on Aetna.
After a brief chase, the Salt Witch intercepts the fleeing vessel. The characters still can't get a good look at it, but Liz can hold steady with it. Caleb scans it and thinks it is armed about like the Salt Witch. He is confident that they don't have missile pods. Their transponder is off, which is enough of an excuse for the Aetna government to be able to demand a search of the vessel. Liz yells out over her shoulder, "Quick! Colonel! Deputize us!" Colonel Hotsul yells back, "You're deputized!"
As Liz starts to gain on the mystery ship, it stops running and turns around. It fires a single shot from a strange high-tech weapon, tearing massive pieces out of the Salt Witch's internal systems:
Liz turns the Salt Witch around and limps back towards Aetna. Fortunately, the mystery ship continues its escape. The characters suspect that it does not consider finishing them off to be worth the ammunition cost.
After the fact, the characters determine that the escaping ship used an XPG-Smart Gauss Gun Mark II on them. This is a state-of-the-art weapon only recently released onto the military market by ICBM. Several characters moan about the potential cost of repair. Caleb comments, "I was actually worried about being killed, so this is actually a step up..."
Nicki's crew shows up about a week before the Marines were scheduled to arrive to help with elections. He is able to confirm that whoever might have been in the mystery ship, it wasn't any of his people.
The session ends with the rightful government of Aetna back in control and elections scheduled. The Salt Witch needs extensive repairs, and the characters despair of finding some of the parts on a backwater, strife-torn world like Aetna.
Each character gains five experience points.