Crush the Smouldering Rebellion
| Crush the Smouldering Rebellion | |||||||||
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| Part of Cold Union | |||||||||
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Chilbuk Khan | Petrovski Security Corp | ||||||||
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Dango Brunhilde Huntress Tsarina |
SGT Kurt Zlapowski Numerous Suppression Drones Patrolling Security Roto Swarm Technomancer Spider Contractor Artillery Teams | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| None, save for Tsarina knocking herself out with drain and spite | One swarm destroyed, along with a suppression drone, and one knocked out patrolling security member. The Sergeant is a wanted man. | ||||||||
Summary
Runners have worked for some time in Turkestan to assist with the rebellion, an effort to wrestle control away from the corporations, to make their own country free from their governance. This operation was no difference. Chilbuk Khan needed runners to help deal with a new agent in the plans - One Sergeant Kurt Zlapowski. A veteran, a hunter, and a pain in the ass. While the job is simply to help a future ambush for the Khan's people, tensions rise and the group finds their animosity for this utter warmonger rising higher and higher.
Background
For some time now, and after some prior help from other runners, Chilbuk Khan has amassed a great number of tribes in the plains of Turkestan to assist him in raiding along the New Silk Road and slowly unseating SK's PMC, Petrovski Security, out of a government contract to assert their legitimacy by taking it. But A new hire, the aforementioned Kurt Zlapowski, has shown himself to be a massively successful strategist - one better than Chilbuk militarily. With multiple tours in the Desert Wars, the Rad Wars, and a penchant for hunting down SHadowrunners for fun, he's shown himself to be a massive threat to their operations. However, he's in a bit too fortified a position behind strongholds, VTOLs, Drone Armies, and artillery. So for now, Chilbuk just needs to get a win to prove that his people are still worth backing and keep the tribes together. And in order to avoid reinforcements becoming a problem, they need runners backing them.
The Meet
The four flew over from Seattle to Turkestan on private charter. Dango brought along a number of explosives, drones, and other equipment, Brunhilde brought her helicopter, and Tsarina and Huntress kept it light as they traveled along with a fake shipping permit. They did some light research on the country, the client, and got some pointers from Huntress as they made their long trip over to the abandoned, polluted city the insurgents were hiding out in (to Tsarina's dismay). They were taken inside of a church that was thankfully purified and likely warded, escorted by men on horseback as they had to rely on a diesel car. Inside, a projection of Chilbuk explained the dire straits the group was in and gave the runners a dossier on the Sergeant giving his group so much trouble. He gave them two routes of likely assistance: either they ambushed the first wave responders who would be hitting the group as they hit their next target, or they served as a diversion to lure away that same first response team and give the insurgents the window they needed to do their work.
And when they were discussing payment, an artillery shell struck the northeastern wall of the church and knocked all but Brunhilde to the ground.
The entire city erupted into chaos, and the runners had to fight their way past swarms of roto drones and suppressive fire drones while escorting civilians out of the blasting zones and into safety. The city only calmed down after the Sergeant came up on the mic to offer a warning and an offer: Chilbuk Khan's head in exchange for a corporate life and 300k in nuyen. Oh, and to offer the "mercenaries" a chance to regroup and make the upcoming engagement more exciting.
So needless to say the group was a little motivated now.
The Plan
So, diverting the attention of the first responders was no longer in question - the group wanted blood. And they were hoping to get it in rivers. So, ambushing seemed more reasonable, until they came to the issue of artillery range. Huntress and Brunhilde had enough military experience to know that the artillery would be a problem, and they couldn't exactly ambush them - the insurgents were essentially hoping for the best with artillery rather than being swarmed by drones and a VTOL. That had the group thinking about ways they could sabotage the first responders instead. Which would require hitting the stronghold. This was incredibly risky, given the likelihood of a mage on sight to guard things on top of the already established threats, and the likelihood of detection rituals to cover the base. It was, essentially, a very big can that presented a lot of problems getting into it. With one very specific caveat: If someone who was good at sneaking had no aura, then they'd get through a lot of the astral defenses easily. They just needed an opening.
Brunhilde is a cyborg. And with a bit of reconnaissance, Dango found that even if they had a horrifyingly powerful host, they didn't have a lot of countermeasures that couldn't be penetrated if they were dealing with that kind of person. And that got the team thinking about a means by which they could sabotage the VTOL, and hopefully the artillery if they found it.
Dango makes the bombs and squelches the comms of the patrol member they needed hit. Huntress takes them out to give Brunhilde the opening she needed. Tsarina gave what magical support she could to help the others out. And Brunhilde gets the bomb planted on the VTOL and anything else they needed. If they fucked up, they'd have a whole base to deal with. If they pulled it off, they'd make this whole thing a breeze for the insurgents. Maybe they'd even get the sarge in the blast.
It was time to test that theory.
The Run
Huntress helped with camoflauge, and Brunhilde got moving on in. Dango's squelch went off without a hitch on both of the patrolling guards moving around, without their notice or the notice of the host - a flaw that she noticed being their lack of connection to the host to prevent marks from riding up. Tsarina provided some extra assistance to Huntress's mastery of the rifle.
The first shot knocked down the guard, blood splattering. His chest was still rising.
A bit worried, there were a flurry of other trigger pulls to hopefully bring him down, and thankfully it worked. Brunhilde crawled in quickly, barely getting past the drones all around the base. But she got in. And she set the trigger off and got moving. By the time the attack happened and the VTOL started flying up only to detonate into a ball of flames (and presumably radioactive material), Brunhilde was already far, far away, and the base didn't have the speed to catch up with the runners. So they thought they were home free, preparing to deal with any ambush past the mountains.
Brunhilde noticed a target lock on her heli, and Huntress realized distinctly that this route was likely their most obvious route.
With Dango's help and a break on the lock, Brunhilde managed to barely dodge the missile flying for their transport. Kurt was waiting for them, eager to take them on. And so was Tsarina, who commanded Brunhilde to turn around so they could murder him properly. Brunhilde, wisely, refused, but she did open the cargo door to let Tsarina cast her spells and let Huntress fire back. The two groups traded shots and spells, missing each other in the extreme ranges and failing to bring affect with spells. Dango noticed another persona nearby and began forking data spikes to deal with weaponry and that other persona before they got ambushed. Brunhilde's expert flying managed to get the group out of range, but not before Tsarina nearly killed herself trying to make Zlapowski eat Comet. He had time to run, but she won the moral victory of forcing him to take evasive action against the utterly massive meteor hurtling at him in a ball of fire and acid.
Despite the ways things could have gone wrong, the team was home free.
Aftermath
As is customary, the group was treated with a massive feast for their efforts (a day after, because Tsarina's pettiness nearly killed her and she needed time in the valkyrie module). Chilbuk was thankful, and the group was able to get paid despite no official agreement; he's good for it. But they still had a looming threat in Turkestan, and an enemy besdies. They'd have to deal with Zlapowski another day.