Mission Report Part (9/9)Flossmore Resort Rescue and DemolitionCovered in blood, CS gas residue, and now concrete & plaster dust, Salt rips off her caked balaclava in the backseat of the SUV.
Vic is hacking up a lung, but calls out, "Everybody up? ... Zero Cool... get us the frak out of here!"
Ethan can barely see through his inflammed eyes and the general obscurant throughout the parking lot, but finds his bearings.
Redbrick is alive, but mangled badly and incoherent. Salt rips off his balaclava to clear an airway. His legs were shattered by the car wreck, with broken bones protruding through his torn duty trousers. She pulls the tourniquets from the PFASK and ties not to think of MacGuyver back at the Red River Riot. She calls out as she works, "I got Wreckx back here, but he doesn't look good, Cowboy."
"How bad?"
"I've seen worse, but he's incoherent and non-ambulatory."
Vic punches the dashboard in anger before calling it in, "Greybush, Greybush. This is Pipehitter. We are Oscar Mike. We have one casualty. Wreckx is WIA critical."
In the lead vehicle, Simon grits his teeth through the casualty report. Redbrick was down, the Cooper Point Spaceport was a non-trivial distance away. He looks over to his driver, Hoxton. His eyes are blood shot from CS gas exposure, and like everyone else, he's taken off his contaminated balaclava. Heller and Nikita are in backseat, taking turns flushing each other's eyes out with a canteen of water.
Back in the trailing vehicles, Redbrick is babbling something as Salt cinches down the second tourniquet. His legs are a torn mess, but at least he won't bleed to death from them. His pain must be unimaginable, but the fentanyl lollipop will help. Salt was always duly suspicious of hard drugs, but this is exactly the situation they were meant for.
As the fentanyl settles in, so does Redbrick. He isn't writhing in pain anymore, and he's generally... sedate. He still winces whenever a bump in the road bends his legs wrong, but otherwise, his pain is managed. Redbrick's condition may be stable, but Salt keeps a dutiful eye on him. He gestures her close and pulls out the lollipop long enough to tell her something. She smirks and undoes his belt to take a gander.
She reassures him with a smile, "Still as magnificent as always, Wreckx."
To herself, she thinks, "Fraking men."
***
Your convoy makes decent headway into the forest. Your team did plenty of pathfinding and trailblazing beforehand, and the SUV's generally handle the rough wintry terrain well. Simon regrets having to leave the prison bus behind, but he had already learned that lesson from the Red Cross on Anghabar. He would've liked to stuff a few prisoners into the back of the SUVs, but the parking lot got too ugly, too fast for that.
Speaking of things getting ugly, Simon was fairly satisfied with how the final assault went. They were as savage as the plan demanded, and held their ground in their first firefight to boot. If what they just did didn't make DFUC happy, nothing would. He'd been too busy to confirm with Anna that Lise Schubert made it to the spaceport, but what could possibly go wrong there? They may've lost Redbrick, but at least they earned a six figure payday for the company. He hated this kind of cold math, but as long as Ocean PMC stayed in business, Redbrick will be back in one piece in just a few months.
Of course the new hardware helped too. Various pieces of the breaching kit came in handy: from cutting restraints on the bus prisoners, to forcing open doors inside the castle once the electronic locks were seemingly shut down. Simon's not sure how they would've completed either objective without them. The USMC plate carriers saved lives as well. The CERT and guards came at them with mostly buckshot. The exterior plate carriers were tore up, but the soft armor coverage was enough to keep stray pellets from puncturing their thoracic cavities. Simon personally took a more direct hit, likely shattering his front plate. It knocked him off his feet, but he's obviously still breathing.
But then there was the tear gas. Still, he should've anticipated that law enforcement, and especially a prison guard force, would rely so much on it. Everybody's a tough guy until the CS/OC hits, and he had no idea who would prove so sensitive to it. Redbrick seems to have had a particularly bad reaction, and that cascaded-
"Greybush, Greybush. This is Pipehitter. We got a tail."
Several dark blue Ford Broncos tear through the woods on tire chains. Your team recognizes them from the photos Jeff sent to Anna. Traditional blue and white lights strobe and sirens howl through the winter woods like wolves on the hunt.
Facing hot pursuit, your SUV's pick up the pace. Salt holds Redbrick secure as the vehicles toss about on the rough roads.
Vic turns in the front seat with his Val carbine, looking for a line of fire, "Trinity, I can't hit shit from up here. You got a shot?"
"My hands are literally full, Cowboy."
Vic unbuckles his seatbeat, "Gorramit, I'm coming back there."
Vic's a big guy, and even bigger in full kit. Climbing across the cabin of a moving vehicle is a task, and he gets snagged on something halfway through.
Ethan warns Vic, "Hey, hey! Watch the gear shift!"
Vic barks back, "Just frakin' drive, okay?"
"Your sling is snagged, just back up abit."
Vic flails about and the vehicle swerves after he inadvertantly kicks the driver.
"What the frak, man?!?"
Luckily the swerve was enough to jar Vic loose and he falls face first into the backseat. "My bad, Zero Cool. Just keep us enroute."
Between Salt, Vic, and the future double-amputee, the backseat is a tight fit and Vic can't help but throw some elbows and knees getting himself situated.
"Geez Cowboy, pretty sure there was an unspoken rule in 'TC Three' not to do that to the casualty."
"Eh... he'll live. Just pass me mags as I need them."
The tailgate window shatters and blows out as Vic begins laying down full-auto suppressive fire. The lead CERT vehicle falls back from the initial shock, but soon realizes the relative ineffectiveness of fire coming from your team. Vic's a good shooter, but from the back seat of a speeding vehicle, there's not much more he can do but spray and pray. Furthermore, the Val carbine may be full auto, but it lacks the range, firepower, and general performance of a proper machine gun.
As much as Simon would like to maneuver his vehicle to support the rear vehicle, the terrain keeps them choked in single file. It may keep Simon's truck out of the fight, but it also keeps the other CERT Ford Broncos blocked out as well.
Twenty round magazines don't last long in a firefight, and certainly not a full-auto one. Vic had already burned through most his combat load in the castle, and was now pulling mags off Redbrick's chest. As he reloads yet again, he calls out, "Zero Cool, what's our ETA looking like?"
"Almost out of the woods. Five? Ten minutes?"
In the lead vehicle, Hoxton can see the woods beginning to thin out and gets more aggressive in his driving. "Almost there, guys. Hang on, cause we're going pedal to the metal."
While they had hoped to get a shot at the CERT trucks, everyone instead buckles up and braces. Loose objects in the cabin become projectiles as Hoxton pushes the limit of the Landrover's off-road suspension. The lead vehicles charges forward in a sprint to the finish line.
"Nightmover, Nightmover. This is Greybush. We are coming in hot. Multiple pursuers."
Back in the rear, Ethan calls out to his truck, "Light at the end of the tunnel. Gonna hit it."
Ethan floors it as Vic opens up another burst of suppressive fire. He barely keeps his grip on the weapon but flings hot brass throughout the cabin. A hot casing ricochets and lands down the back of Ethan's collar.
"Shit, shit, SHIT!"
Painfully distracted, Ethan undercorrects on the steering wheel and the truck's fender clips a tree trunk. Before he can respond, the SUV spins out and rolls over at the edge of the woods.
Simon's lead SUV is waved through the front gate of Cooper Point Spaceport and squeals to a halt. Anna has her battle rattle on and rushes to the vehicle, "Did you see it?!?"
Simon looks across the clearing and doesn't see Vic's truck anymore. "Pipehitter, Pipehitter. Status?!?"
Anna points out the spot in the woodline, "They just wrecked right there, boss."
Simon hops out of the vehicle and pulls out the FLIR binos. The hot vehicles stand out in the cold, and he quickly sees other vehicles hungrily approaching the crash site.
Simon goes through the options in his head. His men are down and their truck is a write-off. He could try extracting them with the remaining Landrover SUV, but against a single vehicle, the OPFOR would just focus fire and wipe them all out. Two elements were the only way to go, but can he honestly risk an ATV in a firefight? The ATV driver would literally be bait with zero cover-
HONK! HONK!
A gunmetal-grey Ford F-150 Greywater Solutions technical screeches to a halt beside your team. Erik Heller yells from the driver's seat, "No time to explain! Get in!"
***
Evelyn Salt unbuckles her seatbelt and falls to the roof of the overturned SUV in a thud. She tries to reestablish her bearings, and immediately notices Redbrick is missing. Vic is crumpled in a pile unconscious. From what she can tell, Ethan is still buckled in the driver seat.
The whoop of approaching police sirens is unmistakable.
"Cowboy, Zero Cool. You guys okay? We gotta move!"
A moan comes from the driver seat and Vic stirs next to her.
She keys her radio when she hears Simon's call, "Greybush, Greybush, this is Trinity. We wrecked bad. Pipehitter and Zero Cool are down. Wreckx is MIA."
Salt doesn't have time for a conversation and crawls over to Vic. He's battered and dazed but she doesn't see any mass hemorrhages.
Ethan cries out from the driver seat, "Shit... you guys okay? I think I broke my nose."
"I'm good Zero Cool. Checking on Pipehitter now. Do you see Wreckx?"
Ethan notices the entire windshield has been kicked out. His eyes track a bloodtrail across the snow that leads to a badly mangled body.
"He got thrown from the vehicle. Looks KIA-"
"WE HAVE YOU SURROUNDED. STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE WITH YOUR HANDS UP," a stern voice commands on a bullhorn.
"Motherfraking gorram cocksuckers," Vic exclaims as he comes to.
"Well stated, but a tad homophobic, Cowboy. Can you move?"
"I've been worse. We gotta go... where's Wreckx?"
"He's KIA outside, Cowboy," replies Salt as she tries her door. It's either bent or stuck on the terrain. She tries throwing a shoulder into it to no avail.
"My door is jammed. Yours?"
Vic's door resists, but he slams it hard enough to jar it open.
"Wait, so how we doing this? We can't possibly sprint across the clearing without getting shot in the back. I'm telling you right now Cowboy, I'm not going back to those savages."
Ethan chimes in, "You two can Butch Cassidy this is if you want, but I'm not down for suicide today."
Salt replies, "I mean, it's only a short term trip to the undiscovered country, right? It'll be like a vacation. And I get to take a few of those motherfrakers-"
Her suicidal musings are interrupted by the hollow pop of a Milkor Stopper riot gun. A tear gas canister bounces off the overturned undercarriage of the SUV and lands nearby.
"Gorramit," Vic checks and reloads his carbine. He looks to Salt expectantly.
Salt laughs morbidly and clutches something in her pocket.
To the opening power chords of Dio's "Holy Diver," Anna lets rip a long burst of tracer'd 7.62mm NATO from the Greywater M60 machinegun. Heller is heavy on the gas pedal as they cross the clearing, and the shots go wild, but it's enough hot screaming lead to make their point.
Holy di-VAH!
You've been down too long in the midnight sea,
Oh, what's becomin' of me?Vic ducks back inside the truck, "Greywater finally got their thumb out of their asses! Keep yer heads down!"
Ride the ti-GAH!
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean,
Oh, don't you see what I meanDerived from the impressive, yet deeply flawed, Wehrmacht MG 42 and FG 42, the M60 was the US military's post-WW2 general purpose machine gun. Known colloquially as "The Pig," it was a heavy infantry weapon that ate through a lot of ammo and was prone to fouling. Currently pintel-mounted and fed from an ammo box, Anna isn't tremendously affected by these short-comings, and maniacly flings lead into the woods. Sure, it would be nice if she actually hit somebody, but that's not exactly the point of suppressive fire.
Gotta get away
Holy Di-vaaaaa-aaaa-aaaahWith the Greywater technical drawing all their attention to itself, Simon and Hoxton's SUV speeds towards the wreck. Expecting to carry someone out, Simon hops out with his Colt Python revolver drawn and a Halligan bar slung on his back. He's dismayed by the tear gas, but at least it's only one canister as opposed to the full volley back in the castle parking lot.
Got shiny diamonds,
Like the eyes of a cat in the black and blue,
Something is coming for you,
LOOK OUT!Heller pulls the Greywater truck up to the forest road and pauses long enough for Anna to lay down two long and accurate bursts. Despite their claims, most of the CERT trucks are still on a column down the road. Anna has them in enfilade, and she lights up the lead truck and over-penetrates into others behind it.
Race for the morning,
You can hide in the sun til you see the light,
Oh we will pray it's all rightDevastated by effective fire, the CERT falls to pieces. The driver and occupants of the lead vehicle are dead, immobilizing forward movement on the narrow road. Other vehicles try to pull out of the kill zone while they still can. Meanwhile, their dismounts in the woods cower in confusion, fearing machine gun fire and being abandoned by their trucks.
Gotta get away,
Get a-waaaaay,Simon baseball slides the final stretch up to the vehicle.
Ethan is impressed, "Geez Greybush, I never thought I'd be so happy to see Greywater machine gun peeps like that."
"It's complicated. Where's Wreckx?"
Ethan points the body out to Simon, "Looks pretty KIA from here."
"Eighth Commandment. You guys ready to assist on recovery?"
Between the velvet lies,
There's a truth that's hard as steeeeeel, yea-aa-ah,
The vision never di-ie-ie-ie-s,
Life's a never-ending wheeeeeel, saySimon and the three survivors bound the short distance to Wreckx's mangled corpse. The blood trail is obvious enough to follow, as his tourniquets were stripped off as he skidded across the icy forest floor. He was in bad shape to begin with and hopefully the traumatic ejection from the vehicle was a sudden death.
Holy Di-vah,
You're the star of the masquerade,
No need to look so afraidCERT trooper Jeff Malone peeks from cover as the machine gun fire stops. The gunner on the truck furiously waves at their assistant gunner to fetch another can of ammo. Everything may have gone to shit, but Jeff sees his opportunity and takes it. He levels his Benelli shotgun from cover.
Jump, Jump,
Jump on the tiger,
You can feel his heart but you know he's mean,
Some light can never be seeeeeeeen, yeah!With the truck at a standstill, Nikita passes off another ammo can to Anna. Anna frustratedly kicks aside piles of brass and black metal disintegrated link to seat the ammo can on the pintel, and then inexpertly opens and refeeds the machine gun. It's not rocket science, but it's not the kinda thing you want to figure out during a firefight. With the gun noticeably down, a few CERT dismounts pop up from cover and make a retreating sprint to their vehicles. With Anna unavailable, Nikita pops off a few snap shots with her carbine.
Just as Anna charges the M60, she squeals as her leg is raked by buckshot.
Nikita spots the shooter and puts him down without an ounce of remorse. "Nightmover, you hurt?"
Anna groans, "Not bad... I got this."
Holy Di-vah,
You've been down too long in the midnight sea,
Oh, what's becoming of me?
No! No!Vic hears Anna's cry and angrily burns a full mag firing blind into the woods. Rallied near Wreckx's twisted remains, the others join in trying to make up suppressing fire for the down machine gun. They can't however, as they reach their last carbine mags.
"Gibson, Gibson, this is Greybush. We have Wreckx, but we are running red on ammo. We need that gun back up."
Heller responds curtly, "Roger that. I'm already on it, Greybush."
Ride the ti-gah,
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean,
Oh, don't you see what I mean?Anna grimaces through the pain and lets rip on the M60 again. The temporarily emboldened CERT collectively decides it can't take anymore, and their vehicles make a hasty retreat back down the road.
Heller calls it in, "Greybush, Greybush, we got them routed. You're welcome."
Gotta get away, get away,
Gotta get away, get away,
Yeah!Jeff Malone wheezes from his sucking chest wound. Whatever carbine he was hit by managed to puncture his body armor. Rolling in pain on the forest floor, he sees the CERT trucks drive off without him. He could expect no quarter from these armed goons and his best option was to lay low and play dead for now. Surely his teammates will rally and come back for him.
Holy Diver, sole survivor
You're the one who's cleanThe threat abated, your operators switch to the inglorious duty of mopping up. Anna gets a bandage on her leg as Salt and Simon load Wreckx's corpse into the SUV. Ethan and Hoxton work on the vehicle recovery winches as the remainder dismount and start dead-checking the fallen.
Holy Diver, Holy Diver
There's a cat in the blue coming after you, Holy DiverJeff's heart drops as he sees the armed thugs slow walk through the woods, double-tapping every body they come across. "No way out now. A man has got to do, what a man has got to do." He draws his 9mm Glock sidearm and springs to his feet.
Oh, Holy Diver,
Yeah, alright
Get away, get away, get awayAnna finishes wrapping the Israeli pressure dressing on her leg, "Gibson, you can shut that shit off now."
"Hey, it's not my track, but makes a nice morale booster. Let's get a second opinion. What do you think, Ravenclaw?"
Nikita turns to join the conversation, "Yeah... definitely not my jam. Maybe-"
Nikita stumbles as she's shot in the back. Jeff gets a moment of satisfaction before Vic guns him down with the last of his carbine ammo.
Nikita tries to get back on her feet as quickly as possible. Almost apologetically, she tries to reassure everyone, "Nah, guys. I'm good. It hit the back plate."
Despite everything, mopping up goes without further interruption. The wrecked truck gets righted and the wheel alignment is intact enough to be towed by another vehicle. Everyone is aboard the shuttle and off Lossarnach, before a second counter-assault is attempted.
With many of your operators in various states of injury and generally tore up, most are dropped off at the Mothership before delivering Lise Schubert and Grace O'Malley to the city of Rattlesnake Ridge on Harad. Both a woman and your least injured operator, Salt volunteers to escort the trafficked women to the final hand-off.
Upon arrival, Lise Schubert is giddy as a schoolgirl and gently guided onto a leather upholstered shuttle on the spaceport tarmac. Her tuxedo'd bodyguard doesn't speak to Salt during the whole exchange and only acknowledges her with a nod.
As for Princess Anna...
"Well frak me sideways, you crazy bastards actually did it."
Salt laughs with a shrug, "Well that's one way of putting it. So where to?"
"Don't worry about me. You got me where I need to be. Time to disappear like a fish among the sea. You seriously don't know who I am?"
"That's a no. 'Your sister' there was the objective and we were paid a pretty penny for the blood we spilled today. You may not be able to afford that level of commitment, but I'm sure Mr. Goldman can negotiate an equitable settlement."
"Goldman? Sam Goldman? The interstellar merc lawyer? Well this all makes a lot more sense now. Heard your kind was abit on the pricey side. You took a chance on me though, and our organization will be grateful for that. The debt will be repaid, but you may have noticed I've been off the grid for a bit. You'll have to take an IOU for now."
Salt shakes Grace O'Malley's hand in farewell and palms her a business card. In parting, Grace examines the card. It features a light blue diamond with "Ocean's 10" printed on it. "Got a need? We will help."
Mission Results: Success. 1 KIA, 3 WIA (2 returned to duty, 1 light duty.) 21+ EKIA/EWIA. 250k profit. Personnel notes updated on Data Sheet.
Plan Rating: Good (+1)
Roll (2d4): 5
Plan Execution Result: 6 - Good
Objective Difficulty Roll (2d4): 7 - Much Easier than Expected
Operator Improvisation Roll (2d4): 5 - Competent
Plan Rating: Average (+/-0)
Roll (2d4): 3
Plan Execution Result: 3 - Didn't Go as Planned
Objective Difficulty Roll (2d4): 3 - Much Harder than Expected
Operator Improvisation Roll (2d4): 6 - Better than Average