Cry of the Condemned
| Cry of the Condemned | ||||||||||
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| Factions Involved | ||||||||||
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ShadowHaven Miyuki 7 | Renraku | Major Paige Jenkins (Allied Contact) | ||||||||
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Bannerette Knox Pell Spider |
Red Samurai Miyuki Kanekaw | One borrowed Scorpio Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||||
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Geothermal powerplant for a research island; Countless Renraku employees killed in the artillery volleys; Untold number of protosapient test subjects | One borrowed Scorpio RIB | |||||||||
Summary
The ShadowHaven team was contracted to free an apparent e-ghost from a Renraku research facility on a now-private island in the Aleutian chain.
Background
Renraku purchased a secluded island and turned it into a private research facility for sensitive (read: super-secret) projects. There was a geothermal powerplant built in the center of the island to run everything and five sites scattered around the island identified by letters: one administrative site, three operational research sites and one research site undergoing construction.
The apparent e-ghost of one Miyuki Kanekaw, research scientist for Renraku, smuggled a protosapient AI off the island with the resources and instructions to free her (it?). That metasapient AI, named 7, is the Johnson that contacted the runners.
The Meet
7, our Johnson for this caper, invited the runners to a meet in a privately rented Matrix server (kinda like renting a conference room or a temporary office) through a message in ShadowHaven's #ic-guest-node and all runners attended on the Matrix side. Over the tasting and testing of several alcoholic beverages (and I swear the Mac and Cheese Shots were tasty), the runners performed the usual bob-and-weave with their Johnson, though the Johnson was new to being a Johnson, to agree to take on a high-risk extraction from an island in the Pacific with high opposition from Renraku for 10,000 nuyen up front, 10,000 afterwards plus paydata and software.
The Plan
Infiltration onto the island was to hop a ride on a westbound cargo ship with a Scorpio Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) on board, inflate the RIB when the cargo ship's path reached it's closest arc to the island, and then approach the island from the south on the RIB.
Once the island was reached, reconnaissance would be the priority because the island's secluded location and high security prevented a lot of remote surveillance options. The team would have to discover where Miyuki was held on the island and then figure out how to break her out. Spider had enough space available in her gear to download Miyuki for transit.
There were three exfiltration options:
1) Wait three days on the island and link up with a returning cargo ship on an eastbound pass with the Scorpio.
2) Contact some local crab fisherman who were willing to make a buck and arrange a rendezvous.
3) Island hop to the east along the rest of the Aleutian Island towards Alaska.
The Run
The Infiltration
The team approached the island from the south at night and skirted around the western edge of the island about five kilometers out, observing no traffic on sea or in the air, buoys displaying AR warnings, and regularly spaced watchtowers around the perimeter of the island about every two kilometers. The island is extremely bare with little animal life, no plant life larger than lichen and a landscape mostly of windswept rock and snow. The team did see the lights and shadows of a couple of the facilities in the dark and after reaching the northern shore, deciding to head into land close to the Renraku docks due to relative cover it provided.
Two kilometers from the shore, the team hit a mine that had not been displayed any Matrix or communications signals. The blast shredded the borrowed Scorpio. And Knox. And Bannerette. Pell and Spider escaped significant injury and managed to pull their comrades to shore with the assistance of a water spirit. The team literally dug into a crevasse inside a small ravine (at roughly the 9pm position) to dry out, warm up and heal. It took two days for Knox and Bannerette to recover, with Pell providing concealment with spirits and deploying some spirits for Astral recon and Spider making several dives into the facilities Matrix grid. They're only excitement during these days was learning how to melt snow into drinkable water, eating puffins, and one poor watcher spirit.
The Recon
Between the recon efforts of Spider and Pell, the team learned the following about the facilities on the island:
Geothermal Plant - The entire island was powered by a geothermal powerplant built into the inactive volcano in the center of the island.
Site A - The large facility on the north side of the island (at roughly the 11pm position) with the docks was the main administrative center of the island.
Site B - The northern-most facility (at roughly the 12pm position) engaged in the research of self-directed nanite construction. Interestingly, even though the site had all the security and containment protections you would normally expect, plus seawater being a natural limiting element, Renraku had stationed heavy artillery elsewhere on the island aimed at this facility to decimate it should grey goo breach occur.
Site C - The southern-most facility (at roughly the 7pm position) engaged in the research and development of new hunter-killer AI and IC systems. The facility was also highly warded against Astral intrusion.
Site D - The newest research facility a little to the southeast of the Geothermal Plant (at roughly the 5pm position) and was only partially constructed. What sections were completely built were still empty, awaiting their experiments to move in. There was a lot of activity here due to the construction.
Site E - The eastern-most facility (at roughly the 2pm position) engaged in general AI research.
The Advance
After spending two days dug into the island to heal up, the team decided to head up to the inactive volcano to gain the high ground for further recon before choosing between Sites C and E. On their way, they discovered the inland roads used by Renraku to connect the facilities (more like beaten down snow paths) and saw two large trucks with security details heading towards Site C while the runners crossed into the innermost section of the island.
As the team trekked up the snowy southern slope of the volcano, Spider noticed that there were drone swarms passing high overhead and decided to pull the gloves off. She dove into the security host the drones were slaved to, took control of a drone swarm, and smacked the snot out of three Renraku security spiders in quick succession. She noticed that the drones were only armed with targeting lasers and, in a flash of intuition, realized what Renraku was using them for. Spider turned the spotter drones onto Site A and the team heard the distant pop and subsonic scream of artillery fire as Site A erupted. The drones were Renraku's control trigger for the artillery fire in case of a nanite breach, and it was quite functional in Spider's hands. Spider proceeded to turn the artillery guns onto the watchtowers around Site A (and the docks), then the Geothermal Plant to starve the whole island of power, and then aimed at Site D before Renraku employees managed to start ripping the remote control mechanisms out of the big guns. Without her new toy, Spider directed the drone swarm to crash into Site D.
After the big guns were silenced and the whole island plunged back into the 5th Age,
The Foundation
The Escape
Aftermath
Our electronic Miyuki is free from the clutches of Renraku.
Renraku has functionally lost a secure research facility that will be very, very expensive to rebuild.
An untold number of combative protosapients have been unleashed into the world at large.
Rewards
Base RVP: 36 x 2.17(time) = 78 RVP
Dollars:
Upfront payment of 10,000 nuyen (5 RVP)
Follow-up payment in a mix of nuyen or gear (0-30,000 nuyen or 0-60,000 gear) (15 RVP)
Sense:
30 Karma (30 RVP)
40 CDP (19 RVP)
1 Street Cred (1 RVP)
Contact: Miyuki (7/2, pending Thematics approval) (8 RVP)