Spotted Wings

Spotted Wings
Date 2082-08-30 GM Dejapes Location Snohomish, Seattle Status Threat Level: Medium
Factions Involved
ShadowHaven Unknown Party represented by a Professional Johnson	SoySolutions, LLC
Shuffle Katherine Tyler Canter Oathbane	Corp Spider Corp Rigger Multiple Guards
Casualties and losses
	Several destroyed drones and a turret, property damage, and a guard's shattered pride.

Summary

A team of runners, after exhaustively researching a secure corporate facility, execute a bold breaching operation. They fight through the facility's defenses in the dead of night, wipe the data they were hired to destroy, and make a clean get-away.

Background

The Desmond-Saito Observatory, located close to Snohomish River, used to be a publicly-owned near space observatory. In recent decades, it has been acquired by SoySolutions, LLC, an agribusiness subsidiary that owns numerous factory-farms in Snohomish. The public observatory was converted to a private meteorological and data analysis center, which evaluates local weather patterns to a precise degree for the benefit of an agribusiness conglomerate.

On the day prior to the run, the meteorological instruments observed something they should have not observed. Four runners are hired to infiltrate the facility and wipe the data before the scheduled weekly analysis by the facility's staff.

The Meet

On an overcast Monday afternoon, several runners are contracted by their respective fixers concerning an infiltration and data wipe job. Their designated meet is located in club '77,' an exclusive private club located in Renton, close to Council Island.

Given clearance to bypass the club's normally no-nonsense bouncers and airtight security, they find themselves in a private room with a certain 'Samuel Johnson.' The nondescript man is clearly a professional Johnson, and presents himself as representing an unnamed client. He provides them some details about the facility they are to hit, the nature of its operation and the identity of its owner, and the parameters for their job. The runners agree to accept the job in exchange for a payout of 20k nuyen.

Soon after, 'Samuel Johnson' leaves them so they can make use of the room to plan.

The Plan

Oathbane begins their research with an exhaustive matrix search concerning the facility and its history. They uncover some leads, including the names of the two lead technicians and the fact that those technicians double as the rigger and the spider safeguarding the site.

After Shuffle inquires about the magical defenses, Canter places a call to BobbieJo McShane. After a heated back and forth, BobbieJo states that, in her experience, the site was very likely protected by an Astral Ward refreshed every couple weeks by contracted mages. If they were unlucky, it might also have a watcher spirit patrolling the grounds.

Interested about how the data might be stored, Oathbane places a call to Night Claws(Contact). Night Claws informs her that the Desmond-Saito observatory uses old tech and archaic file formats. On a daily basis, the data dump is downloaded to old-fashioned solid-state drives, to be sorted through and analyzed at the end of each week. The runners would have to physically enter the facility to wipe the data.

Canter and Oathbane then dive into the matrix and find the facility's host. The rural static and the natural foliage create a prohibitively high noise rating for Oathbane, but Canter manages to enter the host. Ably evading the matrix security offered by both the host's patrol IC and the on-site Spider, Canter manages to secure more recent floor plans of the site, place a Watcher's mark on the Spider, and flip the facility's alarm and fire response triggers so that one would engage the other and vice versa.

After the runners analyze the information they have on hand, they decide on a bold strategy that leans heavily on speed and Canter's preternatural driving skills.

The Run

That very same night, at an ungodly hour in the early morning, the team of runners pile into Canter's car and they take off at extremely unsafe speeds through the streets of Seattle. They conjure sprites and spirits in preparation while zipping straight through the neighboring town of Lionsvale on the way to the parking lot before the observatory. There, they encounter a wall recently built by the owning corporation soon after that corporation had acquired the facility, along with a closed gate and a rent-a-cop manning the booth.

Shuffle reveals himself to be a magical manipulator of minds and has the rent-a-cop open the gate for them, lowering the security strips, before having that same rent-a-cop forget the past five minutes of his life.

The vehicle speeds past the open gate and immediately the alarms are triggered. But as per Canter's matrix sabotage, instead of an alarm, the facility's fire defense foam begins kicking in, spraying and flooding the interior of the observatory.

Accurate and devastating fire from both Kate and Oathbane's drone eliminate incoming Steel Lynxes. Canter attempts to take out the defending Spider, but the Spider proves remarkably able on the defense. Canter suffers some feedback damage, and their Overwatch score gets dangerously close to convergence levels. Fortunately, Oathbane is able to best the Spider with a powerful data spike.

With the Lynxes destroyed, the Rigger jumps into a turret and opens fire on the car, but Canter's driving evades the assault cannon. Kate returns fire, eliminating the turret and causing enough bio-feedback and dumpshock damage to the Rigger to take him out of the fight.

Meanwhile, Oathbane's fault sprite is disabling gun smartlink systems while Shuffle's magic is making a fool of the guard sergeant, having him faceplant after a full run and then squandering time afterwards doing the chicken dance. The runners weather return fire from the guards on the way inside, taking some damage from stick-and-shock rounds but not enough to deter them in the slightest.

Canter speeds into an impressive spinning full-stop in the observatory's lobby, despite the narrow confines of the area and the slippery surface caused by all the fire-fighting foam. Oathbane's drone provides cover in the form of flashbang grenades, and Kate tactically maneuvers through the hallway to eliminate the final guard standing between the runner team and their objective.

With the way cleared, Oathbane enters the data room, extracts a key file labeled by the pattern-recognition software as an 'anomaly,' and deletes the data the Johnson wanted the team to delete.

Canter's driving gets them out of there, well before the arrival of a contracted Knight Errants HTR team.

Aftermath

Oathbane analyzes the data they found, and discovers that the observatory - by chance - had recorded a dragon's wings in the clouds above Snohomish. At a particular time last Sunday, one of the wyrms had been traveling over the area for unknown reasons. This snippet of information was valuable enough for a team of runners to be hired to eliminate the evidence.

They collect their expected pay from the Johnson, but in addition Oathbane goes through Night Claws and finds a third party buyer for the paydata, increasing the team's reward substantially.

Rewards

Everyone:
26k Nuyen (13 RVP)
2 CDP

For Oathbane: +1 Loyalty from Night Claws(Contact)

Game Quotes

Canter: "Pretty sure we can make 'em pressed if we need to, maybe even have 'em catch these hands. We're main characters, after all."

Player After Action Reports (AARs)

Katherine Tyler

Finally time to shine! I understand subtlety is important, but it felt good to get to blow something up again! Working with Canter again was a pleasure. That lady is very nice and sweet, but has ice water running through her veins when it comes to danger. Seeing the rest of the group perform was awesome as well. In the Navy, there weren't too many off the wall individuals. Most things were pretty standard. Cyber and bioware were standardized, Deckers were standardized. Don't get me wrong, we were effective. SEALs are some of the toughest people on the planet. Here at the Haven though all bets are off. I think I'm enjoying it.