A Stone on Dark Waters
| A Stone on Dark Waters | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Free Marine Corps | Aztlan | ||||||||
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Kamillion Wraith Misfire The Librarian Major John Smith |
Character1 Character2 | ||||||||
Summary
The team engages in piracy! The job: steal a smuggled intelligence source from a container ship at sea.
Background
FMC Intelligence Officer Major John Smith has received a tip from one of his assets. A source of intel will be passing through Carib League waters. He has little info as to what this is, but aside from certain warnings has little specifics. His operative had used one of their carefully smuggled tags to enable tracking of the ship carrying the package.
Meanwhile, a Aztlan naval intelligence operative is tasked with smuggling an artifact. He is determined to do well, as their is much prejudice in the command structure towards a SURGE like him, and this is an opportunity to show his superiors the value of an agent that can sniff out magic without being magic.
The Meet
They meet the J at the Down Dog, a runner bar in renton. He lays out the mission: take package SIV-23 from the smuggling ship Mal Sueno, get clear, then activate a signal to summon pickup and payment. The pay is fair, and Kamillion is hesitant to try for more pay. Instead they negotiate for services, contact info, as this is obviously someone with ways of arranging international travel for 'runners and their gear. The J explains that because he couldnt get a runner pilot on short notice, he's arranged for a boat with a good pilot autosoft to be available.
The Plan
Legwork: Matrix searches pull up information on the Mal Sueno and its company, Obsidian Transport. The dock it left from in Savannah, and the dock it is scheduled to arrive at in Tenochtitlan, are both David Cartel controlled. Kamilion gets enough info to get the bones of a disguise ready. The plan: Pull along side the ship, get into the systems to disable sensors and make a switch. Kamillion for a convenient target. Find the package, abscond.
The Run
Early part of the plan goes off without a hitch. With The Librarian's sprite helping the boat pilot stealthily, they sneak up. The Librarian gets to work: boats sensors are taken down, and the manifest cracked into. They do find out that the real manifest is marked with a logo of a division of Aztlan Naval Intelligence. Troubling. The target is labeled SIV-23: Stone. Aegean. A note in the encrypted file reminds the captain to make sure their boys wear their grey gear.
wraith takes out a guard, and they stealthily make the switch. they notice the guard is wearing grey mana armor. The second guard on deck, hears something, and comes around and calls out to Kamilion in spanish. Not speaking the language, Kamillion shrugs, trying to deflect the questioning. It works. The proper shipping container is located, but it has a maglock and a small bolt lock. So wraith sneaks aboard, and picks those. They find the proper crate, but realize the heavy 1m square wooden crate is too heavy and too bulky to get to the ship quietly. Misfire will have to board. Rather than risk the large troll alerting the second guard, Wraith takes him out with a subsonic shot. Misfire gets aboard with a thump. Though they dont know it, the sound was heard by the captain inside, who moves to investigate what the noise was, expecting that his men are probably doing something foolish. As Misfire asks how they plan on getting the crate safely down to the ship, they decide to uncrate it. For this Unboxing Episode... As they open the crate, they see that it has been lined with grey mana material. inside is a odd red statue of a humanoid figure. Then they hear a hatch open, and the captain, sensing the artifacts magic, sounds the alarm. As he rounds the corner, Misfire pounds him into mist with their Panther Cannon. Wraith rounds the corner and puts flechette rounds into the 3 guards responding to the alarm Misfire carries the statue down, shoving aside an attempt to magically communicate(mindlink). An attempt at influence is made, but failed.
They leave, outrunning any pursuit from the remaining 4 crewmen.
Aftermath
When clear, they signal for pickup. A short time later a small FMC force sails up. A tough-looking dwarf gunnery sergeant grins and tells them that, as piracy is a terrible crime, he's going to have to confiscate the stolen property. "Unfortunately, the pirates resisted," he says with a roguish wink, "and we were forced to sink them. There were unfortunately no survivors, and nothing was recovered. A shame." He then tosses them a bag with credsticks and tells them they can leave the Wavecutter where they found it, and that their plane will be waiting for them back in Miami. A houngan comes out and takes charge of the statue, checking to make sure Misfire is clean of foreign magics, and that the free spirit is still caged in its psilosen prison.
Rewards
16k nuyen, 5 karma Opportunity to buy Major John Smith
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
The Librarian: "Operations complete. Acceptable execution. ShadowHaven agents appear competent, but too talkative. They ought to stay on task."
Wraith: "Hmm. The mission went as well as it could given the variables. The adept's powers intrigue me. I will have to keep that in mind in the future to look out for. That skillset could be useful."
Kamillion: "Not what I expected my first trip to the Caribbean League to be like, but still a well done op. I've learned a lesson today that I'll never forget. I must learn more languages and safe cracking skills. I was entirely too dependent on the others. A mistake I will rectify."