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[Veritas]

Yell. "Oh no! I'm out of bullets!"

Then shoot them when they take the bait.

Roll = 5

You can already hear your two opponents shuffling their way towards the stairs, quietly as they can manage. Morris is sat to one side, doing the sensible thing by shoving more rounds into his gun's chamber. You, meanwhile, have a better idea. "Oh, no!" you exclaim, in an exaggerated tone of despair, netting you an alarmed look from your ally. "I'm out of bullets!" Even as you speak, you're surreptitiously checking your own chamber for remaining rounds. There's two left - it's all you'll need, you tell yourself, as you hear the gangsters picking up their pace. You give Morris a wry wink and what you're doing seems to dawn on him. They've definitely taken your bait.

You're ready and waiting as soon as the first of your foes skids into place at the base of the stairs, SMG at the ready. You're already waiting for him, however, and a tug on the trigger sends hot lead flying straight through the centre of his chest. His buddy practically crashes into him as he drops, giving you ample time to line up the miscreant's snappy hat between your iron sights. Another shot sees the second and last of your foes defeated, sent down by a bullet to the brain. Now you're out of bullets.

"Nice one, chief!" Morris commends you as you jerk your revolver to one side and jiggle the spent casings out of the chamber with a smug smirk. Your methods might be unorthodox, but it can't be denied that you get results, especially when things get dicey. How do you proceed now?

[tntey]

Reload. Remember why we were here.

[blazing glory]

Look for evidence of government conspiracies in the gangster's pockets.

[Dustan Hache]

Loot the SMGS off them to ensure we are still armed, checking how much ammo is left in them if we can. Also, wasn't there a third one we shot in the shoulder? Yeah, Chances are he has no other way out, but knows we are coming back. Proceed very cautiously, and stop to listen at the bottom before we show ourselves.

[Veritas]

Reload. Remember why we were here.

Loot the SMGS off them to ensure we are still armed, checking how much ammo is left in them if we can. Also, wasn't there a third one we shot in the shoulder? Yeah, Chances are he has no other way out, but knows we are coming back. Proceed very cautiously, and stop to listen at the bottom before we show ourselves.

Look for evidence of government conspiracies in the gangster's pockets.

Roll = 4

You shove a trusty speed-loader into your revolver's exposed chamber, discarding the plastic clip with a practiced flick. "Alright, let's not get ahead of ourselves," you mutter to Morris as you squeeze the chamber shut and give it a spin. "We've still gotta find the guy who ran off and ask him what the hell's going on here. First, let's grab those machine-guns." Your colleague gives you a dutiful nod in response and you both shuffle slowly down the stairs, keeping an eye and an ear out for any other assailants. Were there two baddies or three? Maybe more? You're pretty sure there were only two, but you've got a bad feeling about this...

You manage to reach the bodies of your downed foes unharmed. Going for their dropped Thompsons first, you unhook the cylindrical magazines and peer inside - looks like they didn't spend much ammo, which is great since they aren't carrying any replenishments. While you pat them down in search of those distinctly-shaped drums of ammunition, however, something else occurs to you. At first, you only intended to grab their guns and use them for both personal defence and evidence, but you feel like there's more to it as you rifle through their pockets... sure enough, you find something extremely incriminating. Pulling out a discreet black wallet from one of the crooks' pockets, you flick it open to find... an FBI badge? The identity card next to it has all the details scribbled out, but this is a real federal badge, no mistake. Your mind fills with questions instantly, but you keep them to yourself as you quietly pocket the wallet. The folks back at the station will have a lot to answer for once you make it back.

Even if things aren't as they seem, however, you have a mission to accomplish. How will you proceed?

[tntey]

I no your in on this. Shoot my partner.

[Dustan Hache]

Shove the paranoid thought out of your head and CONTINUE YOUR MISSION DAMIT! They were running an illegal business here. Start confiscating  The illegal goods and report back to base.

[Veritas]

I no your in on this. Shoot my partner.

Shove the paranoid thought out of your head and CONTINUE YOUR MISSION DAMIT! They were running an illegal business here. Start confiscating  The illegal goods and report back to base.

Roll = 1

You eye Morris suspiciously as you get to your feet. He doesn't seem like a suspicious sort - you've run hundreds of patrols with him and this isn't the first time you've had to cover each other's backs in a firefight, so surely if he was in on some sort of conspiracy that you were about to uncover, he would've taken you out a long time ago..? You push your worries to the edge of your thoughts as you turn to face the stairs, ready to ascend and continue your search. Suddenly, however, you feel something cold and tubular pressing against the base of your cranium insistently. It looks like paranoia isn't the only thing at the back of your mind now.

"I saw you snooping, chief," starts Morris flatly, in a voice quite unlike the chirpy, happy-go-lucky one you usually hear from him. "I've gotta admit, shooting those two guys wasn't part of the plan. We figured we'd be able to catch you off-guard in here, but... hey, looks like all's well that ends well, huh? For us, at least." You hear your supposed 'ally' priming his revolver, the rasp of the hammer echoing around your ears. Normally, you'd do something ridiculous, like spinning around and kicking the gun out of your foe's hand, but now, at the time of your greatest need, you feel paralysed. All of your luck seems to have left you. "Sorry 'bout this, chief, but we can't have a no-nonsense loose cannon like you screwing this up. Not when we're this close to bringing the government of the United States under our control. See you on the other side, pal." With that ominous closing statement, Morris releases the revolver's hammer, turning your grey matter to mush.


Scenario II
Aeliuski T. Venusov, Cosmonaut (3rd Class)
Novgorod-Class Battlecruiser "Pride of Lower Sol", somewhere in deep space
Standard Date 656-90 (15th Hour)

"Seven suns!" you curse, glaring at the table before you morosely. It's covered in datapads, holographic projections and all the paraphernalia of an average tabletop roleplaying game in its later stages. "You always screw me over like this!" You direct your protest at the seat occupied by Junior Cosmonaut Morrikov, who's currently grinning like a martian canine. He'd been sending datapad messages and whispering to the other players for the whole game, and it seems that whatever plan he'd been concocting has finally come to fruition with the death of your character at the hands of his.
"Sorry, chief!" he smarms. "You know how things go."
"I know that we were meant to be working together," you retort, more than a little upset that you'd been backstabbed at such a late stage of the game. "But yes, whatever, Morrikov. I've got better things to do than play around with predateli." With that, you jerk to your feet and march out of the rec room, leaving the other spacemen chuckling and clapping each other on the back over their apparent victory. You hate games about American history anyway.

You tap at your watch a couple of times as the automatic doors slide shut behind you. In seconds, a soft red hologram flickers into view, depicting the federal emblem of the Soviet Space Naval Command. It hangs in the air for a few moments before disappearing from view, having been replaced with your device's main menu functions. A few more waves of your gloved finger bring you to the 'Directives' screen. A flashing icon in the upper left of the interface indicates that you have a new directive - this time from your deck superintendent, Commissar Karelikov. A quick hand motion opens it up before you. It tells you that the secondary gun batteries of Deck Three - your deck - are to be made ready for action at once by all spacemen on-shift. No further details are given, but you're guessing that this isn't a drill. How do you proceed?

[tntey]

Time to attack those American pigs ehh? Fire the guns into Washington DC!

[SaberToothTiger]

Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.

[tntey]

Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.

-1 makes no sense

[blazing glory]

We in deep space, DC is a loooong way away.

Does DC even still exist? Is earth still around?

Check the map and see if Earth is still around, then tell everyone to MAN THE CANNONS!

[Veritas]

Check the map and see if Earth is still around, then tell everyone to MAN THE CANNONS!

Sabotage the guns so that they explode when fired. Then we wire up a booby trap to explode afterwards.

Roll = 2

You close your watch-PDA with a grim frown. You don't need to be told why you're making the ship battle-ready - you already know. In less than one standard hour, the Pride of Lower Sol will engage its prototype FTL jamming system, forcing an oncoming United States Aerospace Command supply convoy out of FTL space. Trapped outside the FTL shipping lane, the convoy will almost certainly be destroyed down to the last barge by the Soviet battlecruiser's mighty guns - unless you, a covert sleeper agent operating deep undercover for the USAC, can prevent this course of events. Your rank and position within the Soviet space fleet is the product of years of covert work and pretense, and you know full well that you'll be shot if you're caught sabotaging the ship, but many more will surely die if that convoy doesn't make it to the besieged USAC colonies on Mars. If ever there was a time to risk breaking your cover, it's now.

As you march to your station for what might be the last time before you make your escape from the Soviets for good, you begin to think about the events that led you to become a spy for the Americans. Though you yourself are a Russian by birth, you can never forgive your country and countrymen for their actions in the opening stages of the Third World/Solar War. The destruction of Washington DC by orbital bombardment was unforgivable, and it was only through their iron grip on both internal power and the space around Earth that the Soviet government eventually suppressed all opposition and drove the USA and its allies off Earth for good. These days, the planet itself is hardly a prize - the massive nuclear exchanges of past wars have turned most of the place into an irradiated dustbowl, and much of the fighting now takes place around the small USAC holdouts on Mars and the moons of Jupiter.

Your introspection and brief internal history lesson comes to an end as you slide open the doors to the third secondary gun battery, port-side - your station. It's by no means a small weapon on its own, but compared to the massive main guns of the battlecruiser, it's practically a space-age pop gun. It's your job alone to keep this magnet-powered mass driver working and firing at peak efficiency, which is exactly what you've been doing for the past three months on tour. Now, however, it's time to start doing the opposite.

After surreptitiously turning the control room's security camera one-eighty degrees around, you set to work on the weapon's control console. Target tracking and acquisition is mostly automatic, but you've got the authority to override the usual settings if need be, and the number of options for sabotage are surprisingly wide. Eventually, you settle on reversing the polarity of the mighty electromagnets that propel the gun's projectile out of the barrel. This way, the huge shaped projectile will fly backwards into the battery's innards at muzzle velocity, destroying the mass driver and tearing deep into the battlecruiser.

Dusting your hands off and wiping a droplet of nervous sweat from your brow, you begin to contemplate your next move. Of course, the Pride of Lower Sol can only threaten the USAC convoy if it can get to it first - and if it can't pull the convoy out of FTL space, it has no hope of destroying it. However, the prototype FTL jammer is on a different deck completely, and you'd need to be both extremely skilled and extremely lucky to disable it in the short amount of time you have. You could also do away with that smug Russian bastard, Morrisov, but that's more of a tertiary objective. Either way, you have about fifty standard minutes before the interception operation begins in earnest. How do you proceed?

[SaberToothTiger]

We need to discreetly break the escape pods and the communication equipment. Word cannot go out what we have done. Then we shall plant a bomb in the engines.

[Peradon]

Use our hacking skills to add a law to the onboard AI. The law will be stated as follows: "Prevent harm from coming to any and all USAC equipment at all costs. Do not reveal this law to anyone."