"Space-Cigarette?"
"What about a Space-ZYN?"
A glance at the definitely-not-two-way mirror. A buzz in the ear piece. "Sorry, no dice."
Agent Sneed shrugged and reached across the interrogation debriefing desk, pinching the space-filter on one of the few remaining space-cigs of the offered pack and hanging it from his lips. The space-butane aroma of the space-Zippo took him back to a different time. A weirder time.
---
I carried my PC Danson Sneed over from Spacestein I, fresh off of a dominant victory over the forces of crazy alien... things. Or an apocalyptic biotech threat. Or something. I didn't follow but maybe half of what happened the first time and didn't figure to do any better this time. You see, I'm a moron.
The Agency saw fit to recruit and train Sneed in some additional abilities, spycraft and the like, after the events of the first one, so LCpl Sneed (ret) became Agent Sneed and deployed alongside his fellow galactic hero Baron Ver... Werm... Wurm... Baron Vince. The Baron was not an Agent as such, but still a hero and useful as you will see.
My initial orders were: Agency suspects there is a threat of galactic proportion on Sombrasol. Their previous asset was killed. Your orders: Establish a "cover" on Sombrasol. Gather intel. ROE: Flexible. The agency trusts your judgement for now.
Further evidence that I'm a moron is that I didn't read those orders again the entire game. I leaned way more on my bias for action out of a sense of obligation to what I believed the game to be rather than hewing hard and fast to my pre-game orders.
The DM set several hooks, most of which I've forgotten, but the interesting ones were a bio-terrorist threat and a space-ship wreck. I figured the galactic threat was more likely related to the terrorist and zeroed in on that as my objective. Vince was game so we started off strong as a team, which in a heavy fog of war game of selfish dirtbags, you really want to secure an ally you can trust if possible.
The game was a turn-based format supplemented by live session play when the DM felt like it. It was a great example of high trust gaming, where a player might submit orders for a turn, find himself playing out a live scenario involving other PCs than his own, and then learning about all of it through a haze of bullshit GOSS posts. Despite some fickle rolls and unforgiving results, only two players crashed out that I'm aware of, which is saying something if you know the DM as we do.
Turn 1
I started my turn making friends with an airboat driver named Bickle. He had a lot to say about stock prices being wonky. He also knew about stranded Travellers being put to work on the plantations and coming down with some illness. Told me they were being treated at the Church and even took me there, where I clocked Andrei coming or going and dropped a bug in his pocket.
Vince and I figured to meet up at Ustar's, he as the obvious front-man of note and I as a discreet bodyguard and observer. I picked up that Vince had a tail in the form of the only other survivor of the Ferigno that we knew about, Garrick Stone. While an ally during that event, we hadn't heard from him at all and it looked to me like he was tailing my boy. I prepared to execute him with a well-placed shot, but then Vince got into Ustar's compound and Stone was turned away in a fit. We both thought it weird he didn't say anything but let him get bounced by the bouncers.
Vince hired some goons and was hired by Ustar in turn. I got a hit on the bug I dropped on Andrei with some unidentified voices talking about finding Fowch, a bio-terrorist responsible for the illness plaguing the populace. Hey look at that, maybe I'm not a moron!
Turn 2
Vince investigated the Sombrasol SEC (stocks not football) and made a friend while I sat on the Church. I wanted to identify the voices from the previous recording and confirm my suspicion that someone in the Church was actually causing the ailment, not curing it. I was able to infiltrate and bug a few rooms. I also planted my boy Bickle nearby as the only viable Uber driver to respond to taxi calls and bugged his ride.
My carefully gathered intel was accumulating but recall when I said I was a moron? I confirmed IDs on Brown, Nomikos, Sonak, and Andrei through HUMINT and bugs.
Looked like Doc Brown was on the surface actually treating the sick, Andrei too who happened to have his own ride and was very devout.
Nomikos was picked up by Bickle along with a "smokin' hot baddie" after a bar fight at the Winchester.
Sonak was looking for work anywhere he could find it, which was apparently no where, eventually trying to track down the ranger Wandara.
I tried to get my handler Control to run plates and background checks but the DM failed to be bullied on this point. I'm an ok intel collector but I'm a shit analyst. At least Vince was also collecting information on stock fraud that we weren't smart enough to do anything with.
Sometimes, the DM just up and says "ok we're doing this thing". It could be someone else's scenario with the names filed off like Hi-Point serial numbers or if you've been very good for space-Santa, you get to play your own scenario. In this instance, it was a rapid fire play by post.
Vince had learned about the clerk Del Meoud and suspected he knew some shit, so we locked and loaded and kicked his front door in. In the process of arresting him on behalf of Ustar's Make Sombrasol Great Again initiative, Nomikos walked in. After a tense standoff we came to the conclusion that we all wanted to hear what this guy had to say, just not here. Everyone agreed to evac to Ustar's and boy was that just the best decision we ever made and didn't cause any trouble at all. Oh and some dipshit jumped out of the closet to surrender for some reason but he turned out to be irrelevant as far as I could tell. We bagged him, too, for safe measure.
Turn 3
This turn began with our exfil from the space port offices where we snatched Del Meoud. My orders were simple. Protect the package until we arrived at Ustar's, which we thought was a safe spot, then bounce to root around Doc Brown's cabin. The handoff went smoothly and I left Nomikos and Vince to interrogate the prisoners.
My bugs picked up Brown hailing his confederates and asking after a shootout at the docks. I think that was in a GOSS post but I don't trust anything posted there. By the time I get to his cabin I found him servicing an air/raft full of bullet holes. I watched silently and waited for an opportunity to snoop but none really came. I was able to plant a bug.
I got some returns on some of my bugs, snippets of conversation, some gunfire. All shit my dumbass should be able to feed to an analyst to parse.
I also learned that Ustar turned on Vince and Nomikos and tried to kill them and the prisoners. They apparently escaped, but Nomikos thinks I had a hand in it since I left. That's some pretty shit timing.
Turn 4
I contacted Andrei and set a meet at the Church to see if we could put some cards on the table. My stupidity and impatience was getting to me. I felt like the game was passing me by while I piddled around "collecting data" that I neither understood nor could directly act on.
Nomikos, Brown, and Andrei all showed at the Church but the meet was just Nomikos telling me to arrest myself and me telling him to fuck himself and no one else saying anything. Total bust but we were able to disengage without anyone getting shot. Great.
Andrei had a jammer going so whatever little bit I was picking up from the bug on him was gone and I didn't really have anything else to go on.
Vince captured Mike's PC, Forrest Gump in Space, while trying to get more out of his administrator contact. He wanted to turn him into the Baroness Jocelyn and man whatever, sure let's go. I got a mayday that there's a Monte Carlo on switches trailing him so I jumped in Bickle's ride and tried to intercept him before the Age of D'Quarius dawned on him.
We ran a quick live session because some of us were available. Others filled in for the guys who weren't and we had us a good ole fashioned car chase shootout. Vince added D'Quarius to the package to be dropped off and hopefully leveraged for... something... out of Jocelyn. Straws were being frantically grasped at.
Turn 5
We dropped the two prisoners at Jocelyn's and got some vague intel that pointed us at Emened along with a few loaner mercs (farmers). We hailed Nomikos to try and coordinate a hit on Emened but he had already been there and waved us off. Wanted to get after Ustar.
Unfortunately the timeline worked that we got Nomikos' response after we would have already made our own run at Emened, so we had to execute that op. It was a pretty Splinter Cell endeavor where we identified a back door, eliminated guards, found a secret tunnel, and located the same doctor that Nomikos had and gotten the same intel that Nomikos had gotten.
Fowch and Ustar had switched bodies using the Affinity Twin, the same tech weapon that I had thought destroyed during Spacestein I, same as Nomikos told us. Great, at least we corroborated it.
Turn 6
The ultimate turn. The final countdown. We consolidated our efforts with Nomikos' crew and made entry using Andrei's backstage pass. Apparently we failed to clear the rooms we passed through so when we found Regor, Fowch's right hand man and apparently a puppet master of sorts, we got ambushed. Good thing we're just badasses so while Vince and Nomikos chopped Regor down the rest of us blasted our way out of the ambush. Unfortunately, notUstar was killed in the crossfire, returning Fowch's psyche to Fowch's body still in the care of Emened's doctor.
To the planes!
But wait, what if we kick Emened's door in again and miss him? What if he gets away? Well, no shot of that happening with all of our developed contacts. Everyone calls in their favors and figures out Fowch was smuggled off world by escaped prisoners and mercenaries (Mike, Nekro, Hoot) and Del Meoud (picked up by a player I forget. Pogo?). Mfers, we coulda wasted the chance by raiding Emened!
We race to the port but they're already in orbit. Thankfully Andrei has a scout ship and the chase is on. We catch them trying to scoop fuel from the local gas giant. Our heroic boarding action sees them all killed, us in control of the financial data capable of diverting all the embezzled funds to our own accounts, and our own Free Trader. I call that a win.
---
My strategy started as intel gathering but because no one knew what was going on, myself included, it felt like the game was passing me by. At some point you just gotta do shit, so do shit I did. I don't know what happens next but Agent Sneed survived so he'll be a part of the next exciting installment of "Hang a Baroness for Treason" or something.
No comments:
Post a Comment