Fresh Fish

Fresh Fish
Part of Taking Back Tacoma
Date 2082-02-26 GM Shadowhand Location The Deep Blue Sea Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Gianelli Family	The Octagon
Zenith Anathema Nogitsune Triple Trouble Ca1yps0	Triad Boss 7 Triad Security Ninjas Wusan
Casualties and losses
None	Total

Summary

Where the Gianelli Family decides to send a message to the Octagon by stealing some tasty seafood from a private yacht.

Background

The Octagon has a luxurious yacht, a Blohm & Voss Classic 111, which is currently headed back to the Tacoma Docks in Seattle, bearing a fresh load of fish and other seafood delicacies from the northern waters.  Antonio “Vice” Vecce would like to impress his boss and Consigliere of the Gianelli Family, Tony “The Chef” Gianelli by taking that fresh fish for the family restaurant and flicking the nose of the Octagon.  He has “chartered” a boat and hired some runners to stick it to the Triad, and maybe come back with a little something more, if they have the stones to pull it off.

The Meet

The runners each receive an invite to the Family owned restaurant "Il Formaggio Grande", from their respective fixers, with the promise of a lucrative job in the offering. Seeing an opportunity to profit from their respective skills, each in turn makes their way to the restaurant, Triple Trouble arriving late after a luxurious nap. Most encounter little difficulty upon arrival, but Zenith manages to rile the guard up a bit with some verbal shenanigans, while Ca1yps0 soothes the savage beast when it is revealed that he is a huge fan of her work. Nonplussed, the group enters the restaurant to be seated with none other than Antonio "Vice" Vecce, Capo of the Gianelli Family with an up and coming attitude destined to climb the ranks. Offering them all food and refreshments, Vice quickly gets to the heart of the matter, explaining that he want s the crew to hit an Octagon owned yacht, steal their fresh catch, paint it with signs of the Ragers and Spikes, and try and breach the secret rooms to gather whatever is contained within them. He further explains that he really doesn't want any civilian casualties, but understands that if security is tight the runners will do what they have to to survive.

To make the job easier to accomplish, Vice has "procured" a Sea Ray Cottonmouth for the runners, the fastest and stealthiest thing on the ocean waves. It has two mounted gun ports, each sporting HMG’s, but again he cautions them for doing any serious damage to the ship itself.  The Ship will arrive in port in roughly 3 days, so he suggests that they intercept it well before then as security measures will be extremely overwhelming at that point.  The Cottonmouth has tracking systems in place to follow the trajectory of the ship quite effectively, and if no one has the piloting skill, it comes with its own autopilot software.  This should be an easy smash and grab, albeit on the open sea.

As far as expected threats, he explains that while the ship itself is capable of carrying over 100 people, it currently has a skeleton crew to a small security detachment, and a few guests.  Exact numbers are unknown, but he does expect that the security team will be no slouch at open combat on a water vessel, and the standard camera systems and motion sensors will apply.  With regards to the private safe, he can only expect that it will be tough to crack, and really has no idea what is being concealed inside.  Not cracking the safe is not a deal breaker but will result in the loss of the bonus in nuyen.  

The Plan

The team decides that in order to properly represent the presence of the Ragers and the Spikes, they will need to arrange some specific details. Ca1yps0 searches the matrix for potential lieutenants of the Spikes gang, coming up with information on Sid Vicious, the Leader of the Gang himself. Triple Trouble studies the information, then morphs into a physical replica of the ork, complete with red katana provided by Nogitsune and Zenith's shopping trip at Ares Maximus Tactical Family Outlet. Zenith also acquires a Ragers Jacket from a gang safehouse, while Anathema and Nogitsune provide overwatch for his protection. Having acquired the means to "represent' the gangs, the team boards their boat and heads off towards the northern waters, to intercept the triad ship.

The Run

Thanks to Ca1yps0's fault sprite, the boat practically flies across the waves; unfortunately Nogitsune's stomach can't handle the constant bouncing and ends up with the poor fox boy hanging over the side of the boat retching endlessly. Several hours later, they reach the vicinity of the yacht. Zenith assenses the area for spirits, and notices a Free water spirit following the yacht out of simple curiosity. Beckoning the spirit over, Zenith and Triple Trouble convince the Force 10 water spirit to create a massive wave of water to rock the yacht and distract the outer guards. The spirit greedily demands 100 reagents to accept the task, to which Triple Trouble somewhat reluctantly agrees. Satisfied, the spirit does as promised distracting the guards with a wave of water. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zenith, Nogitsune, and Anathema take out the guards with silenced gel rounds, dropping the guards to the deck, safely disabled.

Boarding the ship, the advance team moves in, while Ca1lyps0 stays in the water, swimming around the yacht and disabling any security devices and locks as necessary. The team enters the aft of the ship on the first floor, directly next to the ship's office and the stairwell leading to the upper levels. Zenith and Nogitsune work on breaking and entering the office, while Triple Trouble and Anathema move up to the second floor. Zenith has no problem disabling the mechanical locks on the office and it's secret room, while Ca1yps0 handles the maglocks. Nogitsune grabs the prize, a quite normal looking briefcase.

Meanwhile, Triple Trouble encounters the civilians, all hanging out in the piano bar for breakfast. Thinking quickly, she sprays the room with enhanced suppressive fire of Stick -n- Shock rounds dropping all but the Triad boss, who while being clad in only a yellow banana hammock, is quick to shrug off the effects of the rounds. He takes a shot at Triple Trouble, wounding her, but not enough to put her down which is his last mistake, as she riddles him with stunning force from a simple full auto from her Raiden.

Zenith moves toward the fore of the ship, heading towards the other secret compartment. However he encounters another security guard, of which he makes quick work. Anathema and Nogitsune engage in a prolonged firefight with 3 other guards in the stairwell, trading bullets to limited affect as all are extremely well armored. Zenith and Ca1lyps0 easily crack the final security measures to the fore room, and claim a small money box for their troubles. The ship team converges on the stairwell fight, easily bringing down the last of the security forces with little reciprocal damage.

Having secured the ship, the team sprays tags of the Ragers and Spikes all over the walls, while Triple Trouble truly hams it up in her role as the Ragers leader Sid Vicious. As a final touch, Zenith leaves the Ragers jacket on the helicopter landing plan, the final insult for the Octagon leadership to find. Well satisfied with their results, the team boards the Cottonmouth and heads out.

Aftermath

Once again encountering the Water Spirit, Triple Trouble rewards him with the remaining reagents owed for his service. Zenith ask the spirit it's name, who replies "Woosah". Thanking the spirit for it's actions, Zenith promises to return one day with more "treats" for the greedy, but well-meaning spirit. Heading back to Seattle, the team returns to the restaurant to share the results of their resounding success.

Rewards

• 20k Nuyen or 40k in gear rewards up to 18 rating: Armor, Weapons, Vehicles, Medical, or Explosives
• 3 Karma
• 2 CDP
• +5 Gianelli Family Rep
• Antonio "Vice" Vecce as a contact for 6 CDP or 3 RVP

Game Quotes

"TT: Risotto? GM: Yeah, it's like rice, only better."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Zenith

Everybody makes mistakes. However I've been running too long to make this one as often as I seem to lately. We get a job from the mob, some real old-school types. They want Tacoma to be theirs again, and I remember back in the day when they were on top. I don't hate the idea, though having Shadowrunners do the jobs for that task seems against their old-school ideals. Don't really give a frag, a payday is a payday. So we're robbing this yacht right? It's owned by the Triads and it's got a bunch of fish that our J wants, though he also tells us that there's some secret rooms in the boat and that we'll get a bonus if we're able to grab them. Also we're supposed to make it seem like the Ragers are the ones who hit the boat.

Most of the people on this run I've worked with before. Ca1yps0 is professional and good at what she does, though the lack of mobility can make things sticky. Nogitsune is unique, but I can rely on him to cover my back with that rifle of his. Triple Trouble is... well faer Triple Trouble. So long as we let faem do faer acting thing, there's no problem. Anathema was new to the Haven, did well for the first time out too. I lent him my Raiden since he seemed excited by the hardware. Nogitsune, Anathema and I head to a Ragers base nearby, sneak in, grab a jacket and head back to my safehouse in order to give it to TT who is impersonating some Ragers ganger called Sid Vicious. We decide that we want to hit this yacht when it's a fair distance from Seattle to avoid any reinforcements. The mob provided us with a boat and Ca1 can just jump into it and steer the thing.

We start deciding how to approach the thing, and Ca1 asks me to check out the Astral in case they got spirits around. I dunno what the frag happened, but I've never seen the astral so slottin' clear. Not a whole lot happening around the Pacific, except for a giant frag-off Water Spirit. Delphi's told me about the Dumas scale before, and that I'm pretty high up on the thing. I think this thing was higher by an order of magnitude. Triple Trouble sees the thing too, and I get an idea based on stuff I've seen finger-wigglers do. I ask TT if fae have any of those fancy magic bits that mages like, and to offer a bunch to this thing. We give it something like 50 and ask it to make a distraction for us on the other side of the boat.

This is where I make a mistake. We should have gone in quiet and only gone loud when we had no other choice. Instead I make the call for Nogitsune to take a shot at one of the guards near the back and I shoot the one on the lower level. My guy drops, Nogitsune's doesn't. We barely manage to drop him before he puts in a call for the alarm. We get into the yacht proper and start looking for our goals, but TT decides to run upstairs and start opening fire on the guests. Obviously a gunfight breaks out with TT, Nogitsune, and Anathema keeping the guards distracted while Ca1 and I broke into rooms and got a hold of the secrets. I finally joined the fight, just as clean up, and we got the fish and got out.

On the way back, we gave the Water Spirit (apparently named Wusan) another 50 reagents to thank them for their service, and I promise to come back with more. We get back to the J, give him the fish, have a nice dinner and collect our nuyen. Job done, though should have been smoother. I screwed up on this one. Gotta stop getting careless.

Ca1yps0

First acquatic op I've had in a while - which is strange, one would think I'd be a specialist in them by now - and it went about as smoothly as attacking a boat full of triad goons could be expected to. I haven't dealt with syndicates recently, but the Gianelli's seem to be having a rough patch; thankfully Vice was pleasant to deal with and provided good seafood, plus his bouncer was just such a dear (it's always nice to meet a fan). The team did a good job with it - I've worked with Nogitsune and Zenith before, and both are good shooters, and Anathema and Triple Trouble handled themselves well in the fight. It'd have been good to keep it quiet longer, but honestly there's only so much you can do there, and I was just glad we managed to pull it off without anyone getting seriously hurt - not worth getting killed or making enemies of the triads over a bunch of fish after all, even if it's the good stuff. Oh, and I met a water spirit - they're usually pretty stand-offish, but this one seemed nice enough. I'll have to start carrying around some reagents to feed them.

Nogitsune

Once again doing some work for the mob, of course going over the information getting everything needed making sure we have a possible alibi in information to send them in another direction of course trying to hit some triads on their yacht proving a bit more of a difficult plan we nearly went completely loud in the beginning do too a chance of a man managed not to go down in a single shot but Luckily we managed to make sure he dropped to the ground, the problem was then moving into the place there were only a few guards but they were able to handle themselves pretty well and I took some hits but Luckily it's nothing that drew blood and especially why armor made sure I spilled no blood which is a good thing we don't need them tracking us down …it's also a smart thing I know about little stealth tags if not we would have led them back to the Johnson.

Triple Trouble

This was... a weird job. I got to play the action hero, playing a rival gang leader. I got way to into character though!