Asteroid Blues

Infinity

Hide The Guns, the Fuzz Is Here

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PanOceania
SpectralOwl
VS Yu Jing
NickyTT

Ryan Davis was sat in a booth in the low-scale end of a rather upscale bar, staring into an old-style mug of cheap beer. His intimidating, black-hooded armour and openly carried sword and rifle ensured he was left alone, for the most part. Most of the other patrons, like Davis himself, were PanOceanian soldiers who had come to the place for its lack of Mayanet connection, trying to hide from some responsibility or regret. The former Brother-Corporal of the Black Friars sighed as he put down his drink without taking a sip, for maybe the third time, and pondered the reason for his visit. After he’d escaped from the Imperial Service detachment sent to wipe out his team, he’d quickly received two unwelcome messages; one he’d expected from the PanOceanian military notifying him of his dishonourable discharge for disregarding orders, and a horrifying surprise from the NeoVatican explaining that he had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church for transgressions against God and ALEPH. He’d never heard of a full initiate of a Military Order being condemned to Hell for failing to retreat under orders before- indeed, soldiers who did so often earned medals and Resurrection- and had retreated to the bustle of the Strip to process what had happened. He was shocked out of his reverie by a woman in survivalist gear with a too-wide grin leaning into his booth and asking, with a voice that sounded like it was better suited for hissing than polite conversation, how much he’d sell his gun for.

Davis, speaking before he could fully process the unusual situation, simply asked “What?” The woman rolled her eyes and repeated “Your gun. How much are you willing to sell for?” “I couldn’t possibly… The Church had this rifle made for me upon my promotion to Friar! It would be heresy to sell it off like cargo!” Davis was incredulous. What kind of degenerate area had he travelled to, that random strangers had the gall to try and trade for PanOceanian military-issue equipment? The mysterious woman grimaced. “Look, if an Inquisitor’s down in the bad quarters of the Strip doing anything but purging it’s obvious they’re not going to be fighting anymore. Those MULTI Rifles sell like Teseum if you know the right people, and Harry’s down the block is the biggest hive of fences in the Edge. I can pay 4 grand Oceana, up front. That’ll cover enough indulgences to clear up whatever medical issue or scandal got you kicked off active duty, right?” Davis was about to respond with a firm dismissal, but hesitated when she mentioned the indulgences. Her grin split even wider, like a shark behind a lame seal, but fell flat when angry Mandarin started spouting from every speaker on the block. Davis’ translator processed the screeching into a warning: “Imperial Service! All citizens, submit to a search for contraband or you will be fired upon!”

Fortunately, it seemed like one of the Fusiliers wanted to part with his gun even less than Davis, and roused the rest of the bar into marching outside in a show of resistance. Davis, unhappy but still eager to support his country, decided to join them. A medical and maintenance team took up the centre with an ORC Trooper who’d brought along her armour. The shady woman sidled up to Davis and pointed out a civilian hiding under a platform. “Keep that guy safe if you want to see any cash, he’s my best contact and I won’t be able to offload your gun without him. I’m going to see if they guarded their investigator properly.” With a growl of frustration, she headed away towards the catwalk network in the centre of the block. Davis watched her go, but nearly froze as he saw a ripple of air rise over the lip of the building next to her. “CAMO, GET DOWN!”

The air was filled with tracers as neither the smuggler, nor the enemy soldier managed to evade a hail of gunfire. A Guilang Skirmisher, bleeding from a dozen wounds, fell back to the ground, but she’d clearly managed to disable the criminal hunting her investigator judging by the shriek of pain and the silence that followed. The Fusiliers lowered their guns warily, but jumped as a wave of superheated metal tore their Engineer to pieces. The ringleader swore; the Yu Jing team was led by a Guijia, and it was coming right up their now-unguarded flank. The team could only watch helplessly as their Doctor, the smuggler’s contact and an Auxilia watching the centre were brought down with high-powered Shock ammunition, but fortunately the man wielding the Missile Launcher spotted the massive TAG rounding the corner of a tower on the other side of the block, damaging the mecha and forcing it into cover before it could hurt anyone else.

The man who had rounded up the small fighting force took advantage of this break in momentum to order the ORC to advance and kill another Guilang, hosing the approach to the TAG with gunfire. Davis watched in disbelief as the heavily armoured trooper advanced on the flimsy skirmisher with automatic shotgun blazing, only for every shot to miss or fail to penetrate, while her own top-of-the-line power armour crumpled like pastry against the Ghost Wolf’s standard rifle.

With most elements of the PanOceanian resistance dead or unconscious, the State Empire squad advanced on the Fusiliers with the intent of boxing them in and destroying them. The Fusilier with the missile launcher, despite his moderately inebriated state, managed to thread a perfect shot between buildings across the block and slew four Kuang Shi soldiers at once, gutting the Yu Jing support team. Davis decided to break cover away from the Fusiliers, advancing into the enemy centre and gunning down a Celestial Guard while throwing one of his Drop Bears to delay the State Empire further. The distraction worked, as the TAG was forced to reposition to clear the way for the surviving investigators. Davis made a break for it. He threw down another mine, rounded the corner. Right in front of him was a woman with a rifle. He raised his own gun… and then fell backwards as though a truck had run him down. He could tell through his haze of pain that he had taken a round to the centre of his chest, right beside his heart. His only consolation was that by the screaming he heard from nearby, he’d at least taken one more infidel with him thanks to his Drop Bear.

Davis came to with a burning pain in his chest and the unsettling sight of a tired, bloody, too-wide grin in his face. He peered around and saw the Fusiliers he had aided with their hands up in surrender standing in line before the severe-looking pilot of the Guijia, the Imperial Service investigator storing pieces of armour and weapons in bags marked “EVIDENCE” while the unfortunate ORC was wheeled away by a local civilian paramedic wearing nothing but head-to-toe bandages, and the smuggler who had wanted to buy his gun standing over him with a bloodied Trauma-Doc issue medikit. With a start he scrambled for his precious rifle, and was surprised when he found it right where it had fallen. The smuggler grinned wider and winced, a rivulet of blood spilling from one corner of her mouth. “New deal. I help carry you to an infirmary, you help carry me to an infirmary. And since I need to profit somehow, tell me where to find an infirmary.” Davis only hesitated for a moment before holding his hand up. “Deal.” The smuggler pulled him to his feet, and leaned into his shoulder after nearly falling down herself from the effort. The woman with the reptilian grin asked “So, what’s your name anyway?” Davis told her. “Brother-Corporal Ryan Davis, Black Friar of the Dominican Order. Or rather, I was.” His new friend looked at him as they staggered away from the Yu Jing team busily cataloguing everything even remotely illegal, and then forcing the Fusiliers to pose menacingly for the WarCors. “I’m Drakeschild. And I think you and me could make one hell of a profit on this asteroid, Retired Inquisitor Davis.”

[OOC: Not going to lie, this game wasn’t much fun to play, much less read about, so I decided to do some character writing for the first time since primary school to keep it interesting. If people like it, I’ll do more in future. The scenario was Decapitation, without the campaign modifiers. NickyTT scored points for more Army Points killed and killing the Designated Target with his Datatracker. I scored no objective points. My link missed an approach to not only the Target but my backline, which I think cost me the game more than anything else, but the stupid Guilang taking my entire turn 1 order pool as he proceeded to dismantle my ORC while passing three ARM saves is what made it so solidly unfun since I basically couldn’t do anything after that.]

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Yu Jing
NickyTT
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