The next two games involved the actual rescue of Alexander from the clutches of evil. They spent most of the first gathering information and resources, and then launched the rescue on the second.
Chris, wrote:
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Guess I had better mention a bit about the other characters first.
Our party
consists of the following misfits:
Lord Alexander, Academic/Professional/Noble
Primary Skills/Strengths: Medical, Law, Admin, and Xeno-Biology
Alexander's family originally wanted him to be a lawyer, but in his heart, he
was always interested in xeno-biology. After getting his law degree and spending
a few terms in the family practice, he decided to return to school and study
medicine. He picked up the necessary feats and language skills to treat Vargr,
Aslan and Droyne patients. During his Droyne studies, he picked up a few things
about the Ancients, and was planning on doing more research into the Ancients
when his family recalled him to Collace to work for the family again. He's spent
the last 12 years unsuccessfully trying to get out of politics and back into
research. Recent events, however, are forcing him to take a real hard look at
the political situation. Alexander's father gave Alexander the exclusive use
of a Safari Ship, which the PC's are currently running around on.
Mick Masterson,
Rogue/Army/Traveller, Ship's Steward
Primary Skills/Strengths: Melee Combat, Stealth, Cooking, Hunting
Mick came with the ship. After spending many terms in Covert Ops for the Army,
Mick decided to settle down and spend his retirement as a Steward on a Noble's
Safari Ship. He figured it'd be a relativly cushy job, but still have some excitement.
(The following characters I don't have a lot of detail on, since they aren't played by me, and I have a terrible memory for names... I believe Mick is going to become an NPC until the next time Alexander gets kidnapped...lol)
Nekko,
Navy/Traveller?, Ship's Gunner
Primary Skills/strenghts: Gunnery, Gunnery, and Ships systems.
Nekko also came with the ship. She also has some strange talent for reading
people's minds, but none of the other characters know this, except The Captain.
(Psionics. Life Detection I think...)
The Captain,
Navy/Traveller, Ship's Captain
Primary Skills/Strengths: Ship Combat and Tactics, Computer
The Captain (He just goes by Captain...) is an ex-Fleet Admiral in the Imperial
Navy. When he retired, he opted out of the Admiral Retirement Program, and he's
been on the run from the Impies since. (i.e. He refused the standard chemical
debriefing/reprogramming, and the offer to transfer to some quiet, low tech,
world somewhere and raise sheep :-) After drifting around outside the Imperium,
he eventually found himself in District 268 where he met Alexander and got the
job as Captain of the Safari Ship. He shares Alexander's interest in the Ancinets.
Lucricia,
Scout/Ace Pilot, Ships Pilot/Astrogator
Primary Skills/Strengths: If it moves, she can fly it or drive it, Jack of all
Trades, obscure knowlege, survival.
Lucricia also came with the ship. Lucricia has some unique skills that augment
her piloting skills.
Sanders?,
Army?/Merc
Primary Skills/Strengths: Combat
I don't have much on Sanders, mostly because he seems to work for Alexander's
brother, Harold. He's part of Harold's network that keeps an eye on things at
Elixabeth.
"Randin",
Merc/Marine
Primary Skills/Strengths: Combat, Sniper, Wet Work.
Don't have much info on Randin either...He also works for Harold. Both Randin
and Sanders were part of a team that got blown up by the same people that kidnapped
Alexander. They are working with Alexander's team for the moment, at least till
they get to the bottom of who's doing the kidnapping and killing. They are pretty
sure Harold didn't authorize it.
Now, on
to the story
In the game before last, the attending players (remember, I was absent for that
one...) managed to locate the warehouse where they were keeping Alexander prisoner,
and had found a small Cell of Lord Harold's agents (Harold is Alexander's evil
older Brother) that were willing to help out, since they hadn't been given instructions
otherwise. I think Harold's attitude is: "Nobody can kill Alexander but
me!"
Anyway, this last game opens with the party generally assembled at the top of a parking lot structure that overlooks the warehouse where they think Alexander is being held. The Captain, Lucricia, and Nekko were examining the warehouse. They were soon joined by "Randin" who advised them that they were being just a bit obvious. At about this time, Mick was being released from Jail again...(They can only hold him for 24 hours without pressing any charges...apparently he's been geting released and then picked up for the last week.) Lucricia went to go pick up Mick in the Air/Raft, while the rest of the group formulated the plan to bust out Alexander. Nekko, using her "Unreliable Alien Life Scanner" (i.e. her Psionics...we just think it's a scanner...) told us she thought Alexander was being held in the center of the warehouse, and that there were 4 other guard types, 3 on patrol, and one guarding Alexander.
The plan was to order a delivery to the warehouse to distract some of the guards, and then slip in the back door and tranq anything that moved. Then locate Alexander and free him. Then head back to the Star Port and eventually to the ship.
Mick managed to bypass the TL8 alarms around the warehouse and unlock one of the side doors as the delivery truck approached. I should mention that at this point, between Mick and Randin, we had assembled quite an arsenal. We had 2 single use rockets, 6 ACR's and 1 demolition kit (about 10k of C-4 with remote detonator), and several shotguns and handguns. Randin already had is Sniper Gauss Rifle with RAM. (4 tranq, one HEAP) We decided to have Lucricia hang out in the Air/Raft for pickup, while The Captain, Nekko, Randin and Mick would go in armed to the teeth. Mick took along one of the rockets and the Demolition pack, leaving the other rocket in the Air/Raft. Everyone took an ACR, except Mick, who stuck with his SMG.
The warehouse was about the size of a football field, with stacks of cargo containers everywhere. There was a small office trailer in front of us, but it was empty. We couldn't see that area though because of all the cargo containers. We did, however, spot a guard on a catwalk patrolling the warehouse. Using the noise of the loading dock door closing as cover, Randin used his sniper feat on the patrolling guard. A nice hit, and he dropped like a stone onto the catwalk. Mick decided to do a bit of stealthy recon and tried to make his way to the center. He left the Rocket and the Demo pack behind. Mick got near the center when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and stopped just in time to avoid being detected by what Mick assumed to be some H/K drones that were guarding the center area. (thankyou spot trouble feat and a good roll on the old hide/move silent skills!!) There were 4 of the damn things. they looked like silver teardrops floating about 1m of the floor. They were about 1m long. Moving carefully, Mick was able to sneak a peek at what they were guarding. It looked like another trailer and an Air/Raft. Mick was pretty sure that was where they were keeping Alexander.
Meanwhile, the guards that went to go see about the delivery truck had sent the truck on it's way and walked right into Randin's Gauss rifle rounds. (Randin dropped the first guy with his Sniper feat, and the second guy was just starting to take cover when Randin's next rounds shots took him out. Randing has a VERY high init. :-)
That left 4 drone thingies and 1 guard. As far as we knew, no alarms had been raised at this time. So far, so good.
We strongly suspected that the drones were keyed to ignore something on the guards, so we managed to get one of their uniforms off and on to Mick. Mick figured that if they ignored him, he could get into the trailer and kill whoever was in there and remotely disable the drones. We were wrong. As soon as Mick turned around the cargo containers, The closest drone took a pot shot at him with a laser blast (same as a laser rifle...YIPE!) Fortunately, it missed and just vaporized part of the cargo container Mick was standing next too, instead of his head. Mick decied to try to draw them away from the trailer and ran like hell. Only one of the drones went into pursuit.
We figured that at this point, we had to act quickly, before whoever was in the trailer decided to kill Alexander. Randin took pot shots at two of the remaining drones, which decided to pursue him, and The captain took shots at the remaining one. It was at this point that we discovered that the drones had an AR of 10! Randin was the only one with a weapon that even had a chance of hurting these things. Anyway, Nekko decided to charge up to the trailer and waste the guard inside. This part of the plan worked for the most part. The Captain, Randin and Mick kept the drones busy long enough for Nekko to crash through the door of the trailer.
Nekko only got a brief glimpse of the Darrian tech, before she unloaded on him with a 10 round tight burst from the ACR. Needless to say, since the tech wasn't wearing armor, he died instantly. She looked around and saw that Alexander appeared to be in some kind of low berth looking thingie. A quick glance around showed that the equipment in the room was
VERY high tech, and unfortunately for us, the Darrian tech was the only one who could shut the stuff off. Nekko, being the pragmatic gunner she is, decided to shut the equipment off her way. A few 10 round bursts later, and the equipment was rendered non-operational.
Meanwhile, outside the trailer, the rest of the party was running their asses off. Randin finally managed to down one of the Drones with a RAM grenade and a clip and a half of Guass ammo. So far, we had managed to avoid serious injury to ourselves by hiding in the cargo containers. When we heard the ACR fire from the trailer, and the drones DIDN'T stop moving, we decided it was time to leave. The captain called for Lucricia to drop our Air/Raft through the skylights and do a quick pickup. Then the Captain made a reckless sprint for the Trailer.
Nekko meanwhile was trying to figure out how to get Alexander out of the contraption he was stuck in...Think Matrix...tubes everywhere... Nekko managed to get his eyes uncovered anyway, and the gunk out of his mouth so he could breathe. Then she noticed that the "trailer" had a cockpit. Turns out that the "trailer" was more like a Grav RV. She jumped into the cockpit and started up the gravitics. The captain just managed to jump through the open door before the RV got off the ground.
The drones were apparently getting confused at this point, and that gave Lucricia an opportunity to land her Air/Raft and toss one of the rockets to Randin. Randin pointed at the second Air/Raft and waved her off. Lucricia, who has the survival instints of a scout, decied to follow his direction and leave the way she came in. Randin then made a dash to open one of the side cargo doors, hit the button, and then ran back to the 2nd Air/Raft. Mick, meanwhile was working his way through the cargo containers towards the same Air/Raft, while the frustrated drones took pot shots at him. Nekko managed to drive the RV through the now open door (it was too big and fragile to follow Lucricia's Air/Raft through the celing.)
That left
Randin and Mick with 3 angry drones. Randin managed to make it to the Air/Raft
first, and got the thing started. Mick mad a mad dash for it with the drones
in hot pursuit. Mick thinks that the drones must have been programmed to not
fire at the Air/Raft, because once he got on it, the shooting seemed to stop.
We followed the RV out, and when we cleared the building, Mick set off the demo
charge to remove as much evidence as possible. We fled into the night, with
the sound of sirens behind us.
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