At Cross Purposes

At Cross Purposes
Date 2082-05-25 GM Aurora Location Bellevue Status Threat Level: High
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven	SeaTac	SegFault's Team
Apex Delphi Pell Scrappenny Skimmer	Unknown	SegFault, Ballista, Fearsome, Roadkill
Casualties and losses
None	None	None

Summary

The runners are hired to secure an undisclosed package from a Spinrad convoy, and find themselves tangled in a corporate cold war.

Background

Secretly, for quite a while now, inside the dacaying mess that is Spinrad industries, monads, the null sect and other third party agents have been fighting in a quiet espionage cold war, trying to plant agents in strategic positions. Now, the null sect was made aware of a transport that carried replicators, the emerged nanites responsible for CFD, probably already entangled in a full fledged fragment, and need it for unclear purposes

The Meet

The meet was in a secure position, with a faraday cage and multiple armed personnel. The team was immediatly put off by the Johnson's behaviour, to the point where only Skimmer actually bothered with the negotiations, while Apex and Delphi quietly panicked and tried to make sense of who they were talking to, settling on Null Sect pretty much instantly. Afterwards, there was some discussion on whether or not it would be morally acceptable to accept a work from the big scary matrix boogeymen, and it was decided that whatever they were going to do, it was on them and not the runners

The Plan

Before the formulation of any plan, a great deal of information gathering was required. A preliminary take was to do the regular ambush against the SeaTac team, one way road, sniper nest, the decker takes out the car, the rigger cleans up with suppressive fire, the usual stuff. However, with Apex's host dive inside Spinrad's datavaults, it was clear that there was a scheming game going on, and the apparent struggle between monads, null sect and unaligned agents was clear. Delphi, with the help of Pell, managed to divine the results of a battle, and realised that with all certainty, another team of runners was bound to be involved, team that was identified to be that of SegFault, an ex SK black ops squad went rogue.

The Run

It was decided to, instead of fighting both against the Spinrad's security forces and Seg Fault's, the wisest choice was to strike a deal. So, the runners contacted them, and discussed about the fact they know the cargo, which is incredibly dangerous, volatile, infectious and hard to destroy soulkilling nanites, and about a more pacific resolution. Masterfully leveraging on the other team's iron morals, Skimmer was able to get everyone on board on the following plan: the SegFault team attacks the convoy, gets the cargo, and gets away, only to be attacked by the runner team, armed with less-then-lethal weaponry, lose, and getting away leaving the target behind. The battle was hard as expected, given the great experience of the opfor team, with Apex's deck almost getting bricked and both Scrappenny and Pell sustaining some injuries. But, given the staged nature of the operation, victory arrives with no real consequences. Making sure that Pell's spirits only handle the cargo to avoid accidental infections, the nanites are safely shipped to the drop point.

Aftermath

The runner team has no way to certainly know what happened afterwards, but Delphi's after action divinations lead to believe that the nanites were used to further the Johnson's faction interests in the cold war, and while probably insufficient to provide a turning point, they were a nice edge over the opposition

Rewards

• 22k nuyens OR 44k nuyens in magical gear/nanites/cyberware
• 9 karma
• 2 CDP

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Apex

"This whole operation proved how machiavellian xenosapients can truly be. We worked well, and all my colleagues managed to keep their moral considerations in second, putting the operation's success in the first place, which is something I always appreciate. I will make ulterior researches on the arts of divination, as, even if the results are vague, it was evident that a capable diviner is an information gathering tool to not be understimated"

Pell

I'm not sure how many shadowy conspiracies and counter-conspiracies I've dipped a toe in, nowadays. Still, advancing the cause of a group of monads sounds like a terrible idea, but when they're against Null Sect, it might be excusable? I hope that this won't have that dire of consequences.

Skimmer

"I don't really understand the whole null sect/monad thing; aren't they just people trying to find their way in the universe? I hope they find their spot, I really do, as ultimately we should all be able to gt along right?"

Delphi

Whhhhaaatttt the frag??? I seriously went down the rabbit hole on this one, with that drek with the Headcases and Them... just getting into this Matrix stuff for real and now I'm dealing with this stuff. Great. Just great. At least we were able to anticipate that SegFault and her crew attacking us and come to an accord with them - I'm glad they were willing to listen to reason. I don't know if we made the right decision - it might have been better to just let them destroy the nanites and the entity inside - but it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity and despite everything I'm pretty sure those Monads are the lesser of two evils on this one. Hopefully.