Hot Potato

Hot Potato
Date 2081-12-20 GM Sarcarian Location Everett, Seattle Metroplex Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	Federated-Boeing
Frag Face Relay Roadkill (Inactive) Sp4rks Vichnozeleny	Military Police High-Threat Response Spirit of Air
Casualties and losses
	Military Police x18, High-Threat Response x4, Spirit of Air
Potato was rescued from captivity. Fed-Bo believes that she is dead, so she does not have a Criminal SIN, however her former National SIN has been burned and she has lost her Day Job. Frag Face has earned a 75k nuyen bounty from Federated-Boeing to add to the growing price on his head.

Summary

In which the runners rescue Potato from Federated-Boeing custody.

Background

About a month ago, Potato was captured on a run against Fed-Bo (see: I Believe I Can Fly). She had her National SIN stripped and lost her Day Job, being charged with the murder of over two dozen security officers and the theft of a high-grade piece of military equipment after proving un-cooperative with interrogators (i.e. not ratting out her teammates); she has also been slapped with a Criminal SIN, but only long enough to give her a show trial and a death sentence. In that time her fixer, Mint, has been scrambling to put enough money together for a rescue operation – now that HTR is finally off high alert and Potato’s execution date is nigh, she is ready to send in a team to break her out.

The Meet

Mint contacts the runners individually, sending them eachother’s names and the details of the job before leaving them to their own devices to devise a solution to the problem. Relay suggests that everyone meet up at his new batcave lifestyle – a dedicated base of operations downtown for planning missions of this sort (big Team Dad energy). Everyone meets up there to put together a plan of attack.

The Plan

Examining the information they have on Potato and Paine Field, the team examine an AR map and look for points of ingress near the detention center where their target is being kept – it is over half a kilometer into the perimeter, making sneaking there a difficult prospect (at least for the less sneaking-inclined among them). Relay has a solution however – he proposes converting his Roadmaster into a Fed-Bo equivalent and forge a transfer order from the manufacturing facility in Auburn so that some of them can just drive right onto the ET grounds. Sp4rks hits the matrix and sees that Paine Field has several hosts (an industrial one for the factories, a data host for the on-site housing complex, etc.), spotting out the one for the prison as well as the shipping and logistics one that he would need to hack in order to insert the transfer order – he is rather intimidated by the high rating, but steels himself (and prepares to do a whole lot of drugs) for some cybercrime. Before the hacking though, the team need to acquire SINs – Relay calls up his contact and is able to get some R6 burner Fed-Bo SINs made up within 18 hours (just in time for a last-minute rescue before Potato is scheduled to be executed for her crimes against the corp). In the meantime, he, Roadkill and Frag Face work on modding the Roadmaster into a “McDonnell-Douglas Centurion” with an extended Automotive Mechanic test; during this time, Vic readies her gun and does a bit of scouting at Paine Field just to see that the security has gone back to normal while Sp4rks hits the matrix for some decker time.

After doing some overdrive and popping psyche, Sp4rks slips onto the Fed-Bo grid and manages to sleaze a mark onto Paine Field’s shipping and logistics host. Sliding inside silently, he is initially able to stay hidden from the IC as he searches for the incoming vehicles file – just as he spots it however, he is noticed by the spider, who puts the host on alert. Thankfully they have not noticed his target yet, so he still has a chance; as the host starts dumping more important files into the archive, Sp4rks manages to mark the file with instinctive hack before avoiding being marked himself and hiding from sight. With the IC and spider searching for the intruder, he surreptitiously (and just barely) disarms the data bomb before sneaking his edits into the file (the registry number of the vehicle and the SINs of those inside) as the host deploys Tar Baby IC. Sp4rks remembers to reset the data bomb with a blank password as the file is whisked away, but this delays him from jacking out long enough to be spotted – he manages to eat a data spike and an attack from the Tar Baby before exiting the host without his hacking being noticed.

The Run

With everything in place, the runners prepare for their assault on the air base - Team A (Roadkill and Frag Face) kit up in their stealth armor and approach Paine Field from the west, avoiding the drone and spirit patrols as they reach the extraterritorial boundary (marked by a pair of high fences tipped with monowire with a trench dug between them), while Team B (Relay, Sp4rks and Vic – or rather Sergeant David Davis, Specialist Symon Salvador, and Lieutenant Dimuha Ninja) roll up to one of the checkpoints in their modified Roadmaster looking like a trio of Fed-Bo troops.

While Team A cuts through the fences and stealth their way through the trench past the motion sensors (with a quick hack to assist them in going unnoticed, at least for the moment), Team B talks their way past the MPs at the gate, managing to use their knowledge of military jargon and Fed-Bo security procedures to avoid going through an arduous confirmation process and gaining access to the base on the basis of edge and well-spun bulldrek. They make their way to the detention complex where Potato is held while Team A RPC’s their way there (using their enhanced cybereyes and assensing to spot out meatspace and astral patrols to make their way around and employing liberal edge to remain as stealthy as possible in order to get into position).

Once everyone is in place it is finally time to go loud – with a look of joy on his fragged-up face, Frag Face starts singing his Sparring Song, manifesting his mentor’s mask (a full-body wreathing of demonic flames) as he Smashing Blows his way through the wall of the Death Row wing, easily deleting the re-enforced concreate as he makes his way into some poor fragger’s cell, who immediately starts running in the opposite direction – Roadkill just points him towards the hole in the fence before tossing a neurostun grenade inside (the two of them are, naturally, in chem-sealed armor).

The sec forces respond as quickly as they can, but Frag Face just laughs manically as he shrugs off gunfire from drone and guard alike, smashing cells open to release the prisoners as a distraction. Roadkill heads inside to toss out incapacitating grenades, but quickly gets filled with stick-and-shock before making a tactical withdrawal (the Guts addiction makes him foolish, not suicidal). While Team A causes chaos, Team B is approached by a security drone which Sp4rks prepares to disable with a data spike – instead, it orders them to re-enforce the position at the prison. Realizing their ruse is still in effect, they quickly make their way to the breach and ambush the security forces rallying there; Vic deletes a trio of them with a brutal split pool gauss rifle shot, while the remaining one runs for his life before being put down by Relay’s sniper drone.

While Relay acts as mission control from the tank, Sp4rks and Vic exit to re-enforce the team – while the sniper heads inside to start putting down guards and rally the prisoners, Sp4rks and Roadkill make their way towards a guard station which contains a terminal they can use to locate Potato. Frag Face meanwhile is in his element, causing rampant destruction and murdering corpsec while singing at the top of his lungs. While Vic picks off panicking guards and leaderships the prisoners to take up arms against them, Roadkill and Sp4rks manage to take control of one of the guard stations after using a monofilliment chainsaw to cut through the re-enforced glass and take out the backup spider inside. Plugging into the terminal, Sp4rks is able to get the location of Potato’s cell to relay to Frag Face. While directly connected to the database, he pulls up the footage of her cell and starts to edit it to make it look like she is killed by a collapsing wall, in order to make Fed-Bo think she’s dead.

One of the mooks manages a truly amazing lucky shot after pre-edging his roll, scoring 18 hits on the rampaging burnout adept and putting an ADPS round into his helmet right between his eyes; unfortunately for the Chad guard, Frag Face is an absolute monster and post-edges his soak roll to shrug it off, marching slowly towards him with a mad grin in his eyes. The rest of the sec forces start to panic and flee while the Chad is rooted to the spot – he sprays and prays with a complex full auto, and Frag Face decides he’s earned life as he punches him out with stun damage before throwing him over his shoulder and continuing the rampage towards Potato’s cell.

Outside, Relay notes that HTR is getting a VTOL in the air and tells the team that it’s time to go – he makes his way to Potato’s cell (which is about to have a hole in the wall) to provide a getaway vehicle as Roadkill and Sp4rks collect their target’s cyberarms (stored in the lockup in the guard station) and make their way there, with Vic providing covering fire with her impromptu squad of prisoners (who she directs to make their escape in order to provide the team with a distraction). Reaching Potato’s cell, Frag Face tears it open and grabs the arm-less dwarf, hauling her and the Chad MP into the Roadmaster; the others follow him inside, and Relay peals out, making his way towards the nearest exit.

Fed-Bo has no intention of allowing the runners to escape however – HTR is quickly making their way towards their position with drone and spirit backup, and the mooks are rallying (though they are more than a bit distracted by the prison break) to block the exit. Sp4rks takes out some of the drones before marking the bollards at the gate to ensure he can lower them at the proper moment, while Relay waves his way in between Jeeps and tanks as quickly as he can. While Roadkill applies first aid to Potato and their new MP prisoner, Vic and Relay take shots at the sec forces – as the VTOL gets close and prepares to open up with its assault cannon, Frag Face takes a shot at the pilot with his Raidan, however he avoids the worst of it and the cabin soaks the rest of the damage. Vic takes a called shot at the engine block with her guass rifle, and thankfully she doesn’t have to burn edge this time to pull it off, causing it to start plummeting out of the sky towards them.

Relay drives at full speed towards a Roadmaster blocking their path before drifting around it at the last moment with the power of edge and rigger bulldrek, causing the VTOL to crash into it in a suitably dramatic explosion. Sp4rks lowers the bollards at the last moment, raising them up again after they speed through the gate in order to stymie pursuit; now off ET grounds, they make their way towards the highway. Fed-Bo isn’t intending to make it easy for them however, calling up KE to close the district’s boarders and sending a high-force spirit of air to intercept them (as well as numerous drones and lower force spirits to peruse on the astral). The air spirit manifests as a tornado in their path, attempting to strike the vehicle with a lightning bolt that Relay barely manages to avoid; Frag Face opens the back door and dispatches the spirit with a magical kick, and Relay takes off towards the warded safehouse Mint arranged for them, pulling off the Crazy Ivans necessary to shake off pursuit.

Aftermath

The team makes it to their safehouse without being followed, laying low for a day or so before giving Mint a call to meet up with them at Relay’s batcave, where they return for a post-run party to celebrate Potato’s freedom; much drinking and drug use takes place as Mint arrives to give the team their well-deserved reward. Meanwhile, Vic calls up Warboss to tell him that she has a new recruit for him in the form of the Chad MP, who will earn his redemption fighting the ghoul hordes of the OU alongside her.

Rewards

• 18,000 nuyen
• 7 karma
• 2 CDP
• 1 Street Cred (for successfully pulling off a high-risk runner rescue)
• 1 Public Awareness (for Frag Face and Vic, because of their Distinctive Style)
• Optional Contact: Mint (C3/L3 Fixer) for 5 RVP or 10 CDP
• For Frag Face: Wanted (Federated-Boeing) – 75k dead-or-alive bounty for gross destruction of property, kidnapping, and murder, along with -50 Fed-Bo reputation.
• For Vic: +1 chip from Warboss for bringing him fresh meat.

Game Quotes

Frag Face: [as "Johnny Jails", speaking through his bootleg skillsoft subscription for Security Design] "Federated-Boeing bought the 'don't give out compromising details on our prisons' package."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Relay

We got Potato out. It was good to help one of our own instead of just worrying about our own skin or a little scratch. I'll be honest...I didn't know what to think about this team. We've got newbies and monstrosities and people I hadn't gotten to vet yet, but it went pretty smoothly all told. Let's see if we can be this efficient in taking care of our other runners in trouble.

Sp4rks

Relay's got quite the set-up, perfect for some SoyBurgers and planning. We quickly got to the point where i needed to enter our info in FedBo's host. It's a big one, so i pop some Overdrive and Psyche for good luck, get comfortable, and finally jump in. I get in the host just fine, it's sculpted as a baggage terminal, and i can see the spider behind thic glasses and mirrors over the thousand of tracks taking packages from place to place. Working my magic, seems like i got his attention as the whole host accelerate, a big hole opens up and every file starts getting dumped into the foundation. Quick thinking, ignore the spider and edit the file asap. Obviously, it had a huge protection mechanism liable to blow up in my face, but i had no time to think security. This day i might have died and god knows that spider and it's IC tried, but i just was straight up faster.

We got on FedBo's territory pretty easily thanks to that hack and my newly acquired tailored pheromones, and once there it was FragFace's time to shine. The ensuing brawl was legendary, and i got to data spike two drones into the ground in one fell swoop ! Once inside, we freed everyone and took potato home, while i edited the footage to make it look as if we killed her in cold fucking blood. Even just seeing this footage makes me feel uneasy.

The Drive back was eventfull, and we had bullards yet again that i had to take care of, but we finally got home with everyone in one piece. Oh and we crashed a million worth VTOL, so that's a thing !

Vichnozeleny

Log number two zero five. I am glad to have rescued a captive that I witnessed being caught. Organizing others to fight like that, it brought back unpleasant memories. NCO of the Finnish military, Preacher among the warriors of the Monolith... every time I had to be the one shouting orders. It is something I am no longer capable of. That urge, that emotional high I once had is no longer present. All I could do is send those prisoners to their deaths and take back the one mistake I had made. The dwarf is alive and not behind bars. THis is a good thing I have made.

Perhaps I should begin keeping track of downed VTOLs. It has become a hobby of mine. HTR must loathe me ever so...