Asteroid Blues

"GUYS! The Miners need some medical and 'gocery' supplies. First of all 'Moloko plus'..."
"Oh, that's russian for 'Milk'! So why do we have to go on a milk run?"
In a sudden a crushing silence spread in the briefing room... after a minute that felt like ages Alguacil Lineros took the word: "Calling a mission a Milk Run is one of the three deadly sins here Briareos. Not because this might be a bad omen or other esotheric shit. It just highlights a person's attitude to take the mission lightly - which causes dead personnel! Didn't you read the newsfeeds about all this stuff that happens around us? A Bar that's under constant gunfire. CA troops hiding behind any rock or elsewhere, ALEPH on the verge!"
"Oh, my bad. I didn't know about these Sins. Won't be too bad there."
"Now you do. And you already comitted the second sin...
Prepare your team for a ride to the strip and bring them back safe with the supplies, Lieutenant Briareos. If the miners can't work we won't ge payed."

The third sin is to say: "What could go wrong?"
And while we're at it: shortly after they arrived on the Strip the Milk Runners were involved in a quarrel with a detachment of the Ramah Taskforce who weren't eager to deescalate the situation both parties where in.

Right after the Irmandinho's charge towards the Mukhtar Haris the Jaguar on the right flank advanced in coordination with StarCo's Wild Bill Bot and the Pte Gunn. Being in LOS with Ramah's FO Ghulam he successfully used his Smoke Grenade to avoid getting flash pulsed. A further advance of the three followed. Covered by the smoke Pte. Gunn could extract the supplybox from the righthand Tech-Coffin in the first try. Then she moved back covering her way with a Mine.
Meanwhile the Legenary Gunslinger's Copy tried to get StarCo rid of the Kawarij's presence but failed miserably - dead bot. Must've been a friday afternoon bot. So far during the game we were thinking one of the Fatality levels would've given the Kawarij Shock

On the left flank the Hardcase tried to make use of his camouflage and advanced towards the Red Fury wielding Mukhtar. Still confident to impact and disturb the opponent's battle plan the Harcase emptied his light Shotgun on the Mukhtar having no cover just to see the buckshot hitting everything but the enemy while getting killed by clouds of nanites.
Witnessing this the Mobile Brigada Link got active and a Burst of HMG rounds later the Mukhtar's career was terminated.

Now deprived of the easy Tech-Coffing the Ramah Taskforce detachment tried to build up a smoke screen to get LOS-free access to the Tech-Coffin in the theatre's center. This was intercepted by the HMG Brigada who shot the Ghulam NCO unconcious while Sr. Masscre hid the Daktari, the Combi Rifle Brigada and himself in Eclipse Smoke. Due to this the RTF had to reorganize it's main Fireteam. Thus the Kawarij, Dr. Ghulam and the Spec Ops formed a 3-man core and they proceeded towards the central Tech-Coffin along the left side of the building in front of RTF's deployment zone. Due to an unfortunate coincidence the Kawarij could get LOF to the BSG Brigada, killing it with a critical hit whilst the corregidoran failed to even hit the turban wearing wrongdoer. Few moments later the Central Tech-Coffin was opened, and the supply box carried onto a roof. The Irmandinho wasn't able to prevent Dr. Ghulam from doing so.
Further the Kawa went into Supprssion Fire and the Spec-Ops positioned himself in order to make the way to the lefthand Tech-Coffin extremely difficult.

After the Eclipse Smoke cleared the Combi Rifle Brigada realized he was being pinned by the Kawarij's Suppression Fire. Nevertheless the best option was to shoot and back away into total cover whilst letting Sr. Massacre move to a better position for his Eclipse Smoke. One wound later the smokescreen was established and the Brigadas were able to face the guy in the red turban. Another wound (for the HMG) and too many orders later that Kawarij was eventually sent to his creator. driven by heroism (=desperation) Sr. Massacre got onto the container in front of him and in LOF of Dr. Ghulam and the Spec-Ops. Instead of jamming the Spec-Ops opted for a Shotgun shot and the Doctor tried to dodge out of the way. Luckily she failed and was knocked out by a load of buckshot to her chest while the Spec-Ops was unable to harm Sr. Massacre.

If you've paid attention you might think "Hmm that's straaaange..." because I played that round normally despite I was in LOL. I realized that on my ay home and already apologized to HerrKalloy. I'm not used to LOL.

Now Ramah released Wild Bill's surrogate as well. The incorrectly programmed Bot adwanced to the building's leftmost corner just do let bullets hail onto the HMG Brigada, knocking him unconcious after a few attempts then the same happened to Sr. Massacre but also the RTF's tactical options were depleted. Only the Haris Mukhtar was able to advance a but further to the theatre's center.

With only four concious troops left and too close to the Jammer wielding Spec Ops and the still annoying Wild Bill Bot around the Daktari tried to heal the downed Mobile Brigada, which she failed, even despite the Apotheke-Bonus! Unfazed by this bungling the Combi Rifle Brigda took the killed Brigada's position and out of sheer luck Wild Bill got killed by a critical hit.
With a now more or less free way to get the enemy Spec-Ops killed in a heroic last action Sr. Massacre failed his regeneration miserably. This left the Milk Runners without a chance to at least intercept the retrieval of the other Supply Box the mission was already doomed to fail.

Totally unsurprisingly the Ramah Task force got the supply box back and one of the Mukhtars was able to fulfill the classified objective to map the uncharted stretch of asteroidal territory behind the Tech-Coffins.

Back in the HQ with just a third of the needed supplies and 56% of the dispatced troops K.I.A. this Mission turned out a total failure.

"'Lt. Briareos will be relieved of his duties as soon as, or better if, his cube is transferred into a new L-Host. Further he'll be defraded to the rank of a private and furhter sent back into Corregidor's training facilities.
Due to the circumstances the TriStar ltd. detachment's operational ability on Novyy Bangkok is in question and reinforcements are direly needed.'
Weeeell, the report is out, now we can just hope for these reinforcements arriving ASAP." Pte. Gunn ended her comment.
"Yeah, this a real disgrace for us, hopefully this has no impact on future contracts" Alguacil Lineros replied. "I'll be in my bunk if you need me."

The game ended with a 2:1 win for HerrKalloy since he was able to fulfill one of his Classified Objectives (Mapping) in addition to get his Supply Box back.
As a side note: we both had the same classified objectives (HVT: Inoculation and Mapping)