Asteroid Blues

The Rifle in her hand still felt unreal. As Rose pressed herself to the wall looking around the corner into the dark room ahead of her, she thought of the briefing.
“Listen, you move out in 5. You move to restart a life support module on the outside of the Xarak Batteries. The Control module has shut down and in three hours a whole section of living quarters will lose heat and power. We will not let that happen. Lt. Ücüncü, you will lead this one. Hakim Ücüncü, you and Specialist Shaharazar will take point on repair duty.” She remembered how her heart skipped a beat at these words, but the Mukhtar had given her a reassuring nod.
“Visuals are low and the IFF seems weird, you all register as neutral. Kefra?” The Voice of the Mukthar came lowly over the com line. “Checking.” While their Hacker proved their link Rosa looked to the side. Bashur was standing there, he donned the small version of the Jannissary armour to provide fire support. He tilted his head toward her. As promised he had her back on this one. She felt a little bit better.
“I can´t clear it up. Someone has a strong interference in place.” “Affirmative. Be cautious then not to shoot one another or our comrades from of Strike Force Sandstorm. Be ready we have intel about alien activity in this area. Remember we have civilians in the AO, mostly they should be in their barracks right now. Move out.” That was the Lt. Rosa sprinted into the dark room, everything was visible in outlines and somewhat blurry. As she passed the first power unit, she focused on her mission. Get these running again. The control modules were up ahead. Her Vision lit up with signals. “Incoming from ahead and left.” Rosa raised her weapon and aimed in the half-light of the large room. She saw two large figures. “Ganymed.” She shouted in their direction. The figures stopped. “Houseboat.” She sighed in relief. Bashar was at her side suddenly and the two large men, Azra’il if she recalled correctly stood before her. “Good to see you Sandstorm.” “Likewise Shahb.” A smaller man came to the front, he had a multi eyed helmet. “Our IFF is down, we have a solution.” He held up a comlog. “This is rigged to cycle to all frequencies to break the interference, but it will take some time and has to be brought to one of the modules.”
“Incoming blips on 12.” “Everyone spread out, you take the high positions.” He nodded to the Azra’il they moved. “Give it to Shaharazar, she can stay low and make a run for the module in time. No one will stop her.” The man looked at her and Rosa instantly felt assessed, though not in a condescending way, more in the can I trust her to do this way. “Alright Kid, take it and take cover, we pave the way.”
She took it and acknowledged his orders. Bashar ushered her towards a small building he went on top of it. The door easily opened inside she saw no one. Probably they were on shift. She had to rely on the coms to know what was going on.
“Smoke on 12. I am under fire.” That was Bashur. “Returing fire. No effect.” “I see a TAG. Returning fire” One of the Azra’il, Selo. “Impact, Repeat impact. It retreats.” “Incoming missile. Returning fire. Hostile deleted.” The other Azra’il Mordai. “Enemy repeater. I am compr” -The first one “We have a bogey. On 2 marching towards the tower. I can´t get a bead.” – Bashur “Returning fire, No effect. He hides beneath me” – Mordai. “Back on track.” – the first one.
(Nomad turn one: The Jaguar covered the Intruder and he tried to shoot down the Hortlak, who dodges the shots with a 4, the crit number for shooting.. On the other flank a Jaguar shoots his Panzerfaust at the Feuerbach Azra’il and is killed for his trouble. The Gecko moves into a better position and trades Blitzen with HMG rounds with the other Azra’il and loses two wounds in the process. The Custodier shoots a Pitcher next to the HMG one and hacks him in the second try. The Bandit moves up, trades fire with the Feuerbach and ends in cover close to our DZ. Also his Moran Data Tracker moved into the Exclusion zone inside a building and deployed his Koalas.)

“Depyoing Sensor. Hostile found.” – That was Kefra. “Attacking. I´m h..:” “Friendly down, deploying Malware. Hostile neutralized. Rafiq on march.” – Kefra again.

“Identification of close Civilian. It a Nomad analyst. Marked on map.” One blip went green for a moment and then returned to grey. “I am hit. Enemy sniper ahead. Request support” – Bashur, she was worried. “Got you. Enemy down.” – Selo. “Shooting repeater. No damage.” – Farukh, “Got it” “Rafiq got eyes on Civilian. Registers identical to the analyst. Antipersonal discovered” Again a blip flickered green to grey. Another blip was added as a warning. “Watch them closely.” – the Lt.

(The Hortlak engaged with the Intruder and lost a wound, he engaged again and we both rolled only 12 so nothing happened. After destroying the repeater, it saved the first salvo the HMG Azra’il came over and shot the Intruder down. The Rafiq sensoe revealed the Bandit KHD and the CSU got into a Shotgun fight and lost. My Hacker activated and was in range of the Bandit, he gave me a Redrum and I crit with the -3 and he went down. With assisted fire the Rafiq Forward observed the HVT after our FO Ghulam had observed ours. In Extremis Designation done.)

“Smoke cover redeployed.” – Bashur. “Activity at the left module.” “Recycler 4 active, they helps us?” “Doubtful, temperatures are dropping fast, they don´t want to die.” “Tag neutralized.” – Bashur.
“Remote. They get it back online. Incoming Bogeys, one dropped deployables at the central module. Moving to supress movement on 10.” The first Azra’il.

(Within smoke the Moran activated the first console and heated the Nomad DZ, then he retrated and deployed the Koalas. The Gecko lost against the Hortlak and went unconscious. The Engineer Zondbot raced over, was shot by the Azra’il and brought it back. Prowler and Zero advanced coordinated, the Zero mined the central console.)

“TAG neutralized. Engaging bogey. No success.” – Bashur. “Data spikes from the hostile in the barrack on 2. Open a path.” – The Sandstorm Lt. “Affirmative. Path clear.” – The second Azra’il. “Engaging with Rafiq, hostile down, Data spike gone. Sending Rafiq to module. Rafiq hit by mine. Module activated. Cycler 1 active.” “Mine on central module, withstanding impacts.” “Affirmative. Engaging hostile on 11. I” “Lt down.” Rosa swallowed and drew a deep breath. The comlog in her hand signalled readiness. “Am I clear to move out? Package ready.” “Negative.” – The Lt.

(The Hortlak put down the Gecko, again. Then the Feuerbach blew a hole in the wall and the newly assisted Rafiq killed the Moran Data Tracker. Then it ran to the console, tanked a Koala and heated our DZ. The HMG went into suppressive to cover the left flank, after the Hortlak had spent three orders trying to kill the Prowler before us. The Zhayedan tried as well, but was shot for his trouble. Lt down on our last order.)

“Rafiq under attack, disabled.” – Kefra. “I am hit. Taking cover.” “Me too, keeping low.” – both Azra’il. She tensed. “Hostile mo.” “Djanbazan out retaliating. Hostile down. – Hakim Ücüncü “Path to module clear, another hostile down. Bogey out of sight.” – Bashur “Smoke deployed.” – Farukh. “Move Shaharazar, left module.” She snapped into action running low out of the door. It still was dark outside. Holding her rifle sideways she slid towards the downed form of the Zhayedan. Swooping him up, she was surprised how easy that was, she left him with Zinaril for the Doctors to revive him. Sliding along the wall of the building she kept put of sight from the enemy. Darting past she could not take a look. The module was right in front of her. She awaited to be shot all the time, but nothing happened. At the module, she first fired it up. Activating the Cycler, preventing their wounded from freezing to death, also two of the hostiles in the zone. She felt very relieved about that.

“The Lt. ist dead.” The message stopped her for a second, then she plugged the comlog into the module. Only seconds later the lights turned on and their IFF all to blue. She was shocked. “All units cease fire. Cease fire. We have friendlies.” Rosa shivered, it still was cold here, she saw a Nomad close by collapsing from the cold. She rushed over to carry him into the warm zones. He did not move. Reaching the warm zone, she saw the breaches in the ceiling and the damaged heat exchangers. They were right on time to save these people.

“Consolidate. I´ll sort it out with the Nomad Lt. And Someone find out who tampered with the Medkit. Aleyna, get everyone else stabilized.” Rosa leaned at the wall, she saw Bashur, his chest still bleeding. He gave her a thumps up. She smiled.

(In his last turn the Zero needed 4 orders to take down the Rafiq, which threatened the Prowler one salvo it saved with a 14, 17 and 18, the Prowler then wounded the HMG who went into cover, then the Grenzer wounded the Feuerbach, who went into cover, then the Zero shot down the Djanbazan. Finally his Moran moved to threaten my path to the console and he died to the Hortlak.
In our turn the NCO failed to smoke, then the Mukhtar took out the Zero, who threatened the Namurrs run. She ran out caseevaced the Zhayedon into the DZ, cautious moved around the Prowlers LoF, activated the console to heat our Deadzone, in which the Zero, the bandit, the CS and the Djanbazan were lying around unconscious. The NCO then smoked the Prowler and we used two Command tokens to run his doctor to the Zhayedan healing him on a 20, using the last command token he rolled an 18 and the Zhayedan died… We did not use the last orders.)
[In the end 10 – 1, his lack of long range firepower really stumped him, some bad rolls in the first turn didn´t help and his group composition was flawed. Still a game with very cool moments and times of utter incompetence on both sides.]