Asteroid Blues

Former Black Friar Davis, supported by his new partner in crime Drakeschild the smuggler, was having a bad day. He’d been fired from his unit and his Order after pursuing a withdrawing Imperial Service detachment that had nearly wiped out his squad, been shot by a Yu Jing anti-smuggling patrol after leaving the bar he had gone to in order to process this, walked halfway down the asteroid relying on combat drugs and his mysterious criminal ally to stay standing, and now the field hospital at the Liberty Cargo facility had been shut down and looted by Ramah Taskforce goons using a warrant Davis was certain was fake. Drakeschild had easily found a way around their defences, but when the pair had arrived in the hospital proper all they had found were a few injured Fusiliers, a single Doctor dosing them with a medikit and a few scattered elements of Davis’ old team; Spencer the Machinist from Striga-2 and Henry the Auxilia from his own Striga-1. However, his practiced inquisitive gaze and sophisticated visor revealed a third familiar face- Agent Mitchell, the team’s Hexahedron handler, keeping watch under the cover of her thermo-optic camouflage systems. Noticing his gaze, the solitary sniper loaded a magazine of heavy Double Action ammunition and slunk over to his corner of the room, opening a private radio channel with him as she walked.

“So you’re back. Did you run into trouble chasing down all of Yu Jing?” Davis groaned. His beliefs had always been a source of constant mockery for the agent. “As a matter of fact I did. Encountered a TAG on the Strip and only got back here thanks to the smuggler. What happened while I was out?” “The Striga Teams were dissolved by the Hexahedron, I was fired since I left enough blood on that shed that I’d never pass a DNA scan again, Yu Jing attacked the hospital while everyone recovered and Striga-2 tried to burrow out of here into the Galleries with a repaired Guijia to evacuate the wounded. Haqq showed up with a warrant that we can’t check without military clearance, we sealed the basements before they could find the others and now we can’t find the manual override.” Davis looked over towards Drakeschild, unsuccessfully trying to barter for painkillers with the injured Fusiliers, and then out the window towards the small Ramah team milling about- and the familiar layout of their search area. “That zone looks like it’s arranged almost identically to where I was ambushed by that TAG earlier. If we can seize the initiative and take the right flank, we should be able to crush them before they have a chance to move. We can ask Drakeschild over there to search for the override under our cover fire.” Agent Mitchell nodded once. “I’ve sent a copy of the plan over to Corporal Evans- he’s the one in charge here. Send him a copy of your command software and get into formation to attack, I’ll head out and take down their overwatch.”

The team cautiously advanced towards the Ramah search team, trying to catch them by surprise. Evans’ team, backed up by Davis, Spencer, the Doc and a Sierra Dronbot she’d arrived with, advanced up the right flank towards an elevated platform that would allow for easy shots against the Haqq intruders while providing good cover. Henry and his Auxbot watched a narrow central chokepoint while setting up a secure connection to O-12 to report the illicit intrusion once the others secured evidence about the falsified warrant. Before the attack teams could close the distance, patrolling Haqq guards spotted the advancing soldiers and shouted warnings, spurring their comrades into taking up a defensive position around a central building. As Agent Mitchell crawled atop a gutted shuttle to remove a press officer and the Task Force’s gunner she suddenly gasped over the radio. Evans urgently inquired “What is it, Agent?” “They have a TAG.” Davis winced as he unwittingly recalled the images of a MULTI HMG ripping through the bodies of the small team at the bar. Evans didn’t waste time with flashbacks and directed the Sierra to charge while Mitchell cut down the invaders foolish enough to stand in her line of sight.
Davis couldn’t believe how well the plan went. Agent Mitchell caught her targets out of cover and cut them down before they even knew she was there, clearing the path for the Sierra (aided by active calibrations from the team’s Hacker) to race up into the enemy deployment zone, sight the TAG and bury it in hundreds of machine gun rounds. The enemy tried to repair the giant construct as quickly as it was damaged, but the pilot had panicked under the barrage and fallen back into Agent Mitchell’s line of fire allowing her to target the TAG’s cockpit with her powerful rifle and keep it down when the pilot tried to destroy the Sierra. Taking advantage of the flurry of activity distracting the enemy, the Total Reaction remote edged further out of its cover and strafed all but three of the Haqqislamic soldiers with its gun before advancing to cover the approach to the hospital as the entire team advanced to secure the no man’s land between the opposing forces. The enemy panicked and ran, their Doctor gunned down by Mitchell as she broke cover to flee. Some hero of a Ghulam loosed a lucky shot against the Sierra as he ran and struck the Dronbot’s hydraulics reservoir, finally silencing its red-hot gun, but that was all that the Ramah team was able to accomplish before the PanOceanian forces swept them off the field and Henry confirmed that the warrant they had arrived under was forged, reporting it to the O-12 Oversight Commission.

Drakeschild found the override terminal just as the team finished driving off their foes, surprising the whole Fireteam with an unexpected close-up of her unsettling grin in an AR window as she delivered the news. “The console’s not even locked. Looks like your friends cut through most of the failsafes when burrowing into the tunnels, but they’ve made it through. We should be able to catch up with them in a matter of hours, which is good because those pricks in the desert camo cleaned out all the medical supplies and nearly all of us are in need of treatment.”

Evans and his squad turned in surprise at the anguished cry that issued from the Black Friar. They didn’t understand the pain he was feeling. He’d take on the entire Combined Army with his boot knife if God would save him from another damned hike with a chest wound.

[OOC: This game was basically a mirror of my earlier match against a Guijia. Player going first runs an attack piece up one flank and ends the game, no fun for anyone. The scenario was Frontline, calza27 scored no points while I scored 9 OP for controlling the whole board and completing the Liaison Officer task. Unfortunately my opponent rolled no less than 6 20s throughout the game, while I had around 8 separate crits, and I lost only one REM while he lost all save his Ghulam Liaison and a Najjarun, having started bottom of turn 2 in Retreat! A quick and unenjoyable game, but at least the Admin Building is one step closer to security.]