Entomologist's Cookbook

Entomologist's Cookbook
Part of Dance Around The Fire That We Once Believed - The Ex-Firewatch Story
Date 2080-11-22 GM Darklordiablo Location Seattle Roadways, Seattle, UCAS
Belligerents
Shadowhaven Ex-Firewatch Purkinje Trash Panda Slink Paladin	Knight Errant Ares Macrotechnology Subcontractors
Casualties and losses
None	3 Security staff

Background

"Hi. We need some data, but it's offline. That data is going to be inside Ares Tower within a week, so I need a team to go get it NOW.."

The Meet

The Johnson, who Trash Panda had worked with before, explained that a secure datavault would be going from one Ares facility to their main tower sometime during that week. Intercepting it midway was our only realistic chance to get the information inside.

The Legwork

The facility the datavault is coming from is located and placed under surveillance. Slink and Trash Panda attempt to do a physical walk-by and fast talk a wage mage guard that is not being paid enough to deal with random street weirdos. Weird technomancer stuff happens and by leaning against certain vans in the parking lock, the security decker's deck is hacked and the schedules downloaded. It appears a decoy fleet is being sent out first, followed by an actual semi with the payload.

The Plan

Ambush on the road, transport somewhere safe, open vault, run away.

The Run

Waiting for the decoys to pass, the team then starts hacking/jumping upon/and maging the resistance. The not one, but two riggers in cocoons the cab of the semi are rendered helpless with a combination of RCC spiking (via matrix hacking) and claymore sized blades being driven through the roof of the car into RCCs (literal hacking) before being ordered to surrender and stop the vehicle while the external drones are destroyed.

Things get dicier in the trailer with the three security goons inside holding off spirit assault long enough to plant something on the vault. Looking through yet another hole she has cut on top of the trailer, Paladin makes a decision to shoot it in case its a data scrambler or kill switch. Unfortunately its a grenade that makes short work of the guards and damages the case. Careful examination of the vault from looking inside the vault reveals its wired to blow when the doors are opened. The sword hole in the trailer is widened to let the runners in and disable the device. The riggers are ordered to exit the vehicle, cuffed, and left on the side of the road as Slink takes the wheel and drives off while the rest of the team tries to uncrack the lock. A combination of nerd elf and beef elf sees the complex locking mechanism popped right as Slink pulls into a barrens location. Inside is a datacube, the information inside is something to do with bug spirit experiments. The team decides to wipe the info on the vault drive before disposing of the truck. Trash Panda is back in the astral, cleaning up the metaphysical mess and sees HTR is far behind. The team retreats, regroups and hands the data off to the Johnson while Purk asks them if she can keep a copy of it for her own records. Surprising the J by showing shadowrunners actually employ Please and Thank You, they agree.

Aftermath

• Ex-firewatch now has data about the bug plans, Ares will have to redo most of the financial arrangements due to their copy being destroyed

Rewards

• 16,000¥
• 5 karma
• +3 faction rep (+4 for Purk) Ex-Firewatch

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Paladin

I'll admit, a lot was going on that I don't understand. We get a datasteal from a physical job vault while its mid way. I don't really know how they do it, but matrix wizardry and literal wizardry occur and we find out when and where and how. The part where I become relevant is climbing onboard a speeding semi and slamming my blade through the roof and into the second rigger's RCC after the driver's got spikes. Some drones are broken, and my focus proves its worth popping a magic barrier on the trailer. Can opening happens again and I see inside some goon putting something on the vault. Making a tactical choice, I try to shoot it hoping its a delete switch or something. No such luck, its a grenade. The goons inside the trailer cease to exist, we get the still living and very scared riggers out of the now stopped cab and cuff them before driving off. Purk and me try to crack the thing while its in motion. Long story short, and autopicker, a sprite, and brain and meat pry the damaged vault open and apparently there's something about weird bug spirit drek in there. Hell if I can understand it. We ditch the vehicle, get back to the Johnson and get paid. Purk gets Approving Glances from the Johnson for politely asking to keep her own version of the data. Fraggin' teacher's pet.

Trash Panda

Eva rushed back to her body. Her eyes flared open and there was a brief moment of disorientation as her mind readjusted to the world around her. She quickly took stock of the situation in her head. She was in her lodge, in bed. She wasn't alone. Another body was next to her, an arm wrapped around her. It looked like VR. She brought up her AR display and started messaging the team for updates on both sides. The astral space had been cleaned of signatures from the various spells cast. She started sending messages. Her work was done, and she wanted updates on the rest of the team...

The team was home free, and ready to meet up for the exchange. Eva was pleased, but a little sad. She'd have to be there for the exchange. and that would mean crawling out of this very comfortable position. She sent a quick message to her companion as she got up. It was time to get paid.

Purkinje

I've been building up rep with the Firewatch outcasts and the anti-Project Pyro resistance. The latter are misguided, thinking they can salvage Ares by treating the symptoms instead of cutting the tumor out directly, but they're important for their connections on the inside. I'm glad I was able to update my files on Project Pyro - the ones from Philadelphia are a few months old. I mean, I would've copied their files anyway even if they didn't say it was okay. This just means I don't have to social engineer the leak as hard. In other news, this was Galatea's first run, and she did a pretty good job shooting up those drones! I got her some nice upgrades. Can't wait to see what all she's capable of in the future.

Slink

The run went as described above. Vast majority of the legwork was discerning the schedule and routing of the transport. The actual run was a simple smash and grab, rather cut and dry too. The small army of drones the riggers had their disposal proved the most trouble. Somewhat disappointed we had to resort to bloodshed to deal with the guards in the back of the trailer, but couldn't be helped I suppose. Johnson was satisfied, we got paid, and I got to drive around a Mack Hellhound for a bit. I call that a job well done.