Going off the rails on a Crazy Train!

Going off the rails on a Crazy Train!
Date 2086-10-30 GM Tidanshock Location Los Vegas;The Mojave Desert; PCC; Various Metaplanes Status Threat Level: Extreme
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Atlantean Foundation Red Dragon Triad Ghost Train Woooo!	MCT	Neohaven	Metaplanar Threats
Angra Mainyu Oberon Stryker Asura	Various HTR Guard Teams A large detachment of mobile deploy MCT base units	Mundane Street Sam Adept Mage Rigger/Decker	A giant swarm of Wraiths Enraged Passenger Spirits Crystal Entities lying in wait
Casualties and losses
By the end of the run several members had taken heavy injuries and Stryker was barely able to survive the Engulf of an enraged Force 8 spirit	At least 5 killed, 4 knocked unconscious, and a giant armored VTOL's worth of a unit stranded in an active manastorm	The mage was near death due to the attack of various shadow spirits, but was ultimately resuscitated.	A vast quantity of Wraiths and Passengers banished away, with about 3 wraiths and around a dozen passengers disrupted during the chaotic travels

Summary

Normally, reconnaissance missions are rather simple. You find the location of a target and observe it for a given time you believe is appropriate to study it, learn what makes it tick, and report back. Sometimes there is a greater risk involved than the job itself would entail, or the job itself is innately risky because the target itself is dangerous, but the detached nature of the mission objective means that involvement may be minimized for safety's sake and for time.

But not in this case. Not when the reconnaissance can only be done from directly within the cabins of a great vehicle spirit. Not when that vehicle spirit is said to take you to exactly where one needs to be, and it seems like every player in the business and on either side of the fence of legality wants to see what makes it tick.

So when a spirit train shows up and a guy gets evidence that a miracle train has arrived in the Mojave Desert and your boss wants reconnaissance done on it, you should be ready for the Hell that's awaiting you.

And hey, think of it this way:

You might just find what you've been looking for all this time.

Background

Jason Thornton was struggling. Looking to make it and get a higher education but struggling to get accepted to the university he wanted, he found himself lost. What does he do with his life? How does he support his family without a high paying job that a good piece of paper from college can get? What is he supposed to do now?

One thing led to another. He went for a drive. His fraggin' car breaks down and he's afraid that he'll attract some very unwanted attention and get his ass killed in the middle of the cold desert night. So he wanders, and wanders, and wanders. And damn, is he lost as hell. Nova, right? The poor bastard should probably have been dead by now. But he wasn't. Because he had a golden ticket out of this mess.

Really. A golden ticket that appeared in his pocket the night prior. Back then it was just a piece of paper he was carrying around. But when he heard a sudden train whistle off in the distance and soon found himself standing at the threshold of its doors, that value really shined in how it changed from worthless writ to something life saving. Once the conductor got his ticket and sat the man down, he saw all sorts of places. All sorts of metaplanes, frightening and beautiful and as varied as only vibrant life could be. all sorts of places, even the esoteric ones like the damn home of the Crystal Entities.

But when he finally got off, he didn't remember a damn thing. He wandered into the outskirts of Vegas, found an ad for another college he could rep to, and...maybe for a lot of people that'd be it.

But Jason had a flashback system. And he got to go back to a lot of things that didn't get to see after the fact. And that information was worth a lot. Especially to a group that could make a lot of use out of metaplanar travel like that. Like MCT.

Yeah, the chummer sold what he knew to MCT. They tried to keep it under wraps, but somehow that got leaked. And for MCT, that was a big problem. That was only going to attract more and more issues for them. It had begun a long, long chase for a special kind of service that people would want to control and use for all sorts of reasons.

Jason was kept under close watch by MCT forces, and outside parties like the Atlantean Foundation wanted to get their chance to find out more.

The Meet

Archibald of the AF contacted four runners to help run this operation. Ahriman (or Angra Mainyu) and Oberon were already quite accomplished runners in their own right and magically gifted, whereas Stryker and Asura were less well known but skilled fighters who could help the crew muscle through and stay safe throughout the operation. At a High-Dining Low-Intrusion type of bar in Downtown the crew was called to meet with their J of the evening, getting a few moments to enjoy themselves but ultimately preferring to be more business than pleasure as Archibald gave the rundown of what he knew. He informed them of the train and its metaplanar traveling capacities as well as the headshot and name of Jason, whose testimony and simsense of the events was leaked to the greater public, and gave them their reconnaissance objective as well as informing them of...some of the possible dangerous players there. Namely, MCT.

Ahriman was rightfully concerned, Oberon and Stryker were non-plussed and more focused on the pay, and Asura seemed determined to see this through to the end. They were offered 20k Nuyen as a baseline but that would be adjusted depending on the complexity of the job and inflated with hazard pay if they needed to directly contend with MCT. Furthermore, they were allowed access to weapons, vehicles, armor, modifications, ware, the works. It was quite the lucrative payout, and despite worries to the extent of what could happen to them the four agreed, and began making preparations for their travel the next day.

The Plan

Preparations for the trip were vast. There were plenty of calls to requisition extra gear like a Panther xl, vehicles to rent and use in the midst of their operation in Las Vegas, private airline travel to ensure they could bring their gear along, modifying their equipment for the heat, getting emergency rations in case they had to perform long stakeouts in the desert proper, everything they could think of. Upon landing near Las Vegas, the group made their way to rent a hotel, get into discreet street clothes, and slowly begin doing the long and hard legwork to find their target and extract the information they needed to really plan things out.

The Hierarchy of the Plan was as follows:

- Follow their main lead of Jason to figure out how to get to the train

- Board the train and scout it out, see where it goes and what it does (Asura had a flashback so they could get their own recording for the AF)

- Get out without crossing the MCT forces that could be crawling all over the place and without getting arrested.

Simple structure. Very complicated execution. Preliminary investigations, psychometric readings, and dealings with the local section of the Red Dragon Triad showed the team exactly what they were up again. Essentially, MCT had sent a whole detachment of essentially HTR forces who would (according to Ahriman's experience and some light assistance from Asura) be operating with effectively mobile zero zone bases they could put up and take down to get moving incredibly quickly. An upfront fight with the whole group would be impossible to survive, straight up. To complicate matters further, during some psychometry Asura managed to find in their search of the city exposed the presence of runners whom the team later found out with triad confirmation (at the cost of sharing information) were from a different network, the Neo Haven. And, finally, there were whispers of a blood mage out somewhere in the sands who may have been responsible for making the situation with the train even more risky.

Utterly fraggin' ridiculous, thank you.

Asura took a small detour for esoteric this-insane-fucking-woman-is-talking-to-a-tumbleweed legworking and made some headway on the timing of the train's arrival (inside of a Mana storm when the sun is down, and also figuring out that the blood mage was involved) but the information was incomplete. The little free spirit had no way of knowing what made the train appear for certain people. There was no evading a confrontation with MCT to get to Jason.

Jason was being held in a casino over in Vegas, with a specific HTR team assigned to guard him as he was basically on house arrest in there to ensure no one else could get the information he had while MCT was investigating. Before anything else could happen, the team would have to get through the casino's security and MCT's personal forces to get to Thornton. Infiltration via social means was already a bit dicey at other casinos and they couldn't afford to get spotted early, but after some time staking out the guard rotations for MCT forces the group realized that they had a particular meet up with a smaller unit of members and regularly swapped who was watching over Jason and giving their reports. And a weakness that Ahriman in particular noticed was that these were trained soldiers, powerful mages, specially trained watchman...but not social experts. With the right look, the right mannerisms, the right gear and place and timing...there was a gap. One that even a team like theirs with lacking matrix and social talents.

If they can substitute one of their own for one of the HTR team, they could slip into their base of operations. From there, with proper preparations and good coordination, they can prepare to wipe out the entire group. It would alert MCT and there would be eventual reinforcements, but with this detachment here in Vegas and them unaware in the Mojave it would be delayed. There would be an opening. That opening would make infiltrating the casino, a likely unavoidable step, far easier to pull off. Then they could extract Jason, get the information they needed, and get the frag out into the desert before the bulk of forces came to rip them a new one. They needed to get a few things together first though.

- First, they needed to secure a separate vehicle from their rental to switch out of.

- They'd need to tail a guy as they do their switch, isolate him, and take him down quietly to steal his gear

- Before actually going through with the hit they would want to ensure the Red Dragons didn't hear the gunshots and start assuming the runners were up to some shit. They'd wanna clear that with the boss first.

Then the plan would be as follows:

1. Asura would take the place of the guard due to her being a ok con artist (barely) who didn't stand out, but also due to her knowledge and experience in playing the part of a security force.

2. When she was inside, she would find a place to possibly drop pepper punch grenades around. It was a cheap remedy to an issue they didn't anticipate: Needing to very quickly incapacitate a number of soldiers at once. She was resilient enough to withstand it anyhow.

3. Once the rest of the group of MCT arrives, the group would descend on them from all sides. Pepper punch, guns blazing on all sides to ensure none escape, take them before they can retaliate.

4. Gather whatever information they can out of the forces, then go ahead and dispose of them out in the desert.

5. Once they were disposed of, they would need to infiltrate into the casino and extract Jason. Stryker would pose as Oberon's guard with Oberon as the eccentric high roller. Asura would be snuck in, invisible, and make her way up quietly that way as backup. Ahriman would be at the car, their getaway driver

6. Once everyone was in position to take advantage of a quick struggle, they would quickly barge in, take out whatever security was still there, and then get Jason out. They could exfil a number of ways as long as they were quick.

7. Once in the clear, they could get information out of Jason, and then work on calling the train.

Totally, most definitely simple plan with no chance of failure.

Game Quotes

Amusing quote from game.