AC/DC - Thunderstruck

AC/DC - Thunderstruck
Part of Dance Around The Fire That We Once Believed - The Ex-Firewatch Story
Date 2080-02-09 GM DrBurst Location Ares Proving Grounds, CAS, near the Aztlan border
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Aztechnology	Ares Macrotechnology Bug Spirits
Commanders and leaders
Carbon Frag Face Rabbit Nora Inu	Head Researcher (Bug Shaman)
Units involved
Medical team, flight team	Numerous Mechanized Patrols, Mook Guards, Technicians, Bug Fleshform-HTR, Spirits
Strength
4	several hundred
Casualties and losses
0	approximately 30-50

Background

"There was no help, no help from you
Sound of the drums / Beating in my heart
The thunder of guns / Tore me apart
You've been / Thunderstruck"

Meet

This Johnson sure knows how to impress: The runners meet on yacht, driving out into the Pacific. They spot two cloaked patrol boats flanking them, and recognize that they are headed for waters under Aztech control. But that sure doesn't stop anyone from enjoying the food and listening to the job pitch. The Johnson wants scientists eliminated and a sample of a prototype stealth plane's outer coating. The awakened members of the team feel their mentor spirits urging them strongly to eradicate a terrible threat. This target facility belonging to Ares, they are not slow to drop the B-word. Bug spirits. After using this suspicion tu bluff out more information and consequently drive up the price, they request insecticides and APDS rounds to defeat the bugs' hardened armor. They even receive some samples of an experimental chemical agent named Blight. They go straight from meet to planning, transferring to an aircraft to take them south-east, towards Texas. The Johnson commandeers a satellite to snap some up-to-date pics of the facility, and generally works hard to provide the runners with anything they ask for. To steel them physically for the tasks ahead, they are even scheduled impromptu into an Aztechnology Delta-Clinic to receive some serious upgrades.

Run

From one plane to another, the runners board a stealth-craft to be airdropped into the facility. Performing a High Altitude Low Opening jump with ruthenium-polymer-coated parachutes under Frag Face's guidance, they insert unseen at night and divide into two teams to cut off the head and tie up the body of this sleeping beast. Targeting the entrances of the barracks with gas grenade booby traps, Nora and Frag Face prepare some area denial to cut off the bulk of potential combatants from providing backup in case an alarm is raised. Meanwhile, [[Rabbit] and Carbon go for the head, infiltrating the office building to take out central command, including all the security deckers and riggers, before booby-trapping this location as well. The low, muffled dud of HE-grenades going off in a reinforced concrete structure with heavy blast doors can just barely be heard across the grounds, and keys in the other team to attack the technicians working on the prototype: A plane coated in slimy, organic material. Frag Face provides a dramatic entry, punching in a large section of hangar wall, and the staff is suppressed nonlethally to prevent damage to the sensitive equipment. Bear points out Waspkeeper, an ork engineer working on the prototype. She seems to have qualms about where Ares is heading, and is quickly talked into aiding the team. Meanwhile Carbon and Rabbit, having just stolen a big slice of research data and ruined the data center's servers, slice and dice their way through a patrol team that has had a mechanical failure with their vehicle. Carbon takes a glancing shot from an Ares Thunderstruck rifle, then also takes the rifle, along with the previous user's life. The team reunites at the hangar, with alarms now mobilizing the whole staff of the facility. Consequently the booby traps on the barracks are triggered, incapacitating many Ares operatives with Narcoject. Having learned about the lead researcher, who is also an insect shaman, the team decides to investigate, finding her unconscious in a broom closet, where she was hiding after being hit with the incapacitating agent. They take her head to present it to the Johnson later. With the plane ready, the team takes flight, and as a parting gift they send missiles into underground gas tanks pointed out by Frag Face. The resulting calamity is more of a burn than an explosion, and while the team departs with all due haste, they see dark smoke rising out of the hangars and the flesh-form conversion plant.

Aftermath

The Johnson was impressed with the theft of the prototype, but less impressed that the runners wanted the technician to go free unmolested. Waspkeeper was thankful, of course, to be able to join the Ex-Firewatch in their mission to deal with the mess that Ares Macrotechnology is leaving behind in the world.

Rewards

20 Karma An all expenses paid trip to an Aztechnology deltaware clinic and gear mall (78,000 Nuyen, spendable on gear and ware at half price) 20,000 Nuyen in Peso Libre +3 Aztechnology