Through The City And Over The Flows To Salish We Go
| Through The City And Over The Flows To Salish We Go | |||||||
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| ShadowHaven | Highwaymen | ||||||
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Summary
A small tech firm hires a team of shadowrunners to smuggle stolen goods across an international border.
Background
Aekai Heuristic Technologies, a subsidiary of Mitsuhama Computer Technologies, came into some electronic equipment it needed moved out of Seattle and into the SSC. Unknown groups of interest appear to have learned of this shipment, and they prepared to intercept it.
The Meet
The shadowrunners met with an Aekai Heuristic Technologies representative by the docks in downtown Seattle. He explained that a shipment of goods needed to be moved across the border to a drop point in SSC territory, avoiding inspection where possible. He offered the team 80,000¥ or double that in Mitsuhama scrip. Chariot took offense to this and demanded triple in Mitsuhama scrip, though Jenny Glitz and Rabbit calmed down the negotiations and explained that by cost-benefit analysis, a discretionary fund for bribing some border officials might be in order; the liaison saw the wisdom in this and raised the offer to 104,000¥ or double in Mitsuhama scrip. The team agreed on this, and the product was loaded into the van with a warning they should not inspect the contents of the packages. They were assured the cargo was not hazardous or overly fragile, at least.
The Legwork
The team considered the routes ahead of them. One possible route out of Seattle involved traversing deadly lava floes, and though this would avoid a border checkpoint, it was also extremely dangerous. Jenny called her fixer in San Francisco who knew several smuggling operations along the West Coast. Sure enough, he'd heard about a group who were looking to smuggle some Ares-brand laser weapons out of Seattle, and they were willing to put some money toward bribes if the team would take the cargo into the SSC at a point along their route. They would have to go through some barrens after reaching the SSC to avoid a second border checkpoint later on, but this was seen as preferable to navigating the lava zone surely full of angry fire spirits instead of having the second checkpoint bribed to avoid the barrens.
The Run
Deals struck, the team hit the road. Unfortunately, they ran into trouble before they even got to the border. Knight-Errant had set up an emergency traffic stop and was inspecting all vehicles on this particular road. Suspicious, Chariot sent a Fly-Spy to eavesdrop on the K-E conversation while Jenny browsed local traffic and news reports. All they could tell was that K-E had gotten a report of a vehicle containing suspicious cargo of some unspecified variety that would be traveling this road. Jenny tapped into the police comm system and posed as a dispatch agent to (mis)inform the checkpoint they'd received confirmation the suspicious cargo had been non-plastique explosives and they should switch to chemsniffers. As the team's cargo contained no suspicious odors, they were cleared without incident.
After bypassing this checkpoint, they met up with the laser weapon smugglers and had them load their product into the spare seats. Then, they reached the border. A tired officer pretended to inspect the truck, and Chariot was rude to him. Nevertheless, they pressed on alright.
As they made their way through some SSC barrens that still bore signs of damage from the eruption of Mt. Rainier, they came across a second impromptu traffic stop. Chariot sent out his drones to get eyes and ears on the situation while Jenny looked at traffic reports. There were no official statements about this traffic stop, unlike the last one, though there was social media buzz talking about how there'd been a crash of some sort. Jenny surmised this was a poor explanation for whatever they were really up to and hacked their comms, listening in to what sounded like a coordinated group looking to steal their shipment. Rabbit hopped out of the vehicle and snuck in close under combination magical and technological cover after noticing a toxic shaman among them. Jenny spotted a decker on their side and escalated system access as best she could before the team sprung a surprise attack.
As things kicked off, Jenny smashed the decker with the full force of her hardware and superuser privileges, knocking them offline in one hit. Rabbit leapt at the shaman, slicing him to bits with her enchanted monowhip. Chariot commanded his drones to assault the four gunmen who began filing out of the wrecked trailer they'd been using for concealment during the ruse, and Sinister began took careful, measured shots with a sniper rifle. The gunmen attempted to regroup after the vicious assault, but between Chariot's drone swarm, Rabbit's deadly speed, Sinister's precision, and Jenny's combat optimization heuristics, they were dispatched within seconds, and the lone survivor dropped his weapon and fled.
The team met no further resistance. They were able to unload the laser weapons at a drop point convenient for their accomplices before dropping off the primary cargo at a small warehouse in a small town.
Aftermath
The warehouse manager laughed at the idea of corp scrip and allowed the shadowrunners to take equivalent value out of the electronics shipment instead. They were happy to oblige. They returned home no worse for wear.
Rewards
- 26,000¥ OR 52,000¥ of electronic equipment of no more than availability 15
- 3 Karma
- 2 CDP
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Jenny Glitz
What's up, it's your girl glitzkrieg here to tell you about the hottest new strats in delivery speedrunning. This week: Seattle to the SSC. Now what you wanna do is avoid border checkpoints to save time. You can see here at the beginning I exploited a bug in the cops' comm system to make their AI think nothing was wrong, and they used a faster scanner too. Definitely picked up a few seconds there. Now, the laser side quest is a risky move, because you have to spend time talking to the quest giver, but if you optimize your team comp, you can have someone do this while someone else is driving, saving as much time as possible. That'll let you skip the lava level, but you still have to go through the gang fight. Now this fight could've gone way worse, but we got the drop on them. We lost a few seconds because my processor was slow, but we made up time by sabotaging them in advance of the fight. See where I smacked the gun-rat with a baseball bat? One-hit KO, good RNG. Anyway, it's a straight shot to the end credits after that, so just hightail it through the barrens. They don't enforce the speed limit there.
Sinister
I am now the proud owner of a Aeroquip Dustoff medical evac drone. Why? I really couldn't tell you. But yeah, that thing accelerates. Picked up a few bags of miscellaneous electronic bits as well, gonna see what modifications I can make to my gear. Anyways, the run? Smooth sailing, though I was definitely outclassed by Rabbit. I'll need some higher-grade RPC if I want to compete. Oh yeah, finally got some use out of my sniper rifle again; those hand-loaded rounds really do pack a heavier punch.