When Saars finished his debrief he waited for Collice to reply, rattling his ice around in his glass. He backed the last of his drink and sat back, waiting.
"I would like to send in a recovery team. If we have been able to locate the likely location of the stolen corpse this fast then OHRIF won't be far behind." Collice announced after completing his thoughtful pause. I have a team of three specialists ready to go. Very good at what they do. I would like you to lead them in. You'll be well-paid of course."
"What does 'well paid' amount to, exactly?" Collice smiled and stated a number which Saars definitely considered meeting the criteria for well paid.
"I'm sure your comms and computer skills are going to be necessary.. Your crew will handle anything dirty so hopefully you won't have to shoot at people. They also have strict orders not to let you get killed. Deal?"
Saars nodded. "We'll need another grav vehicle. The last one is trashed by plowing through a Wempeer flock. It will need some bodywork before you send it up again."
Saars assault team was made up by a Captain Green and "spiff-jacked" pair of brothers, Stab and Dab. You could tell by their comm units being implanted in their neck. These would be feeding someone on Collice's end the pair's vital signs, live video, tracking beacon, etc. All wore high-end tactical gear (lacking any kind of insignia, of course), auto rifles built to withstand Skalvil's constant acid rain, sensing equipment, targeting shells, "air-eaters", and plenty of clips of armor piercing rounds. Green was a dry, somber man who served in the Inner Systems. Straight army. Dab and Stab apparently served under Green and followed him to the Outer Frontier in search of high paying merc jobs.
Dab did all the talking. To Green. Stab didn't say jack. Phlegmatic and sneering, the most noise Stab would make was a slight clucking sound in the back of his throat. Off and on. He looked bored to be there. Dab went down preferred landing and approach vectors with Green one more time and got into the new grav vehicle. Stab stored a bag of rifles and assorted small arms in the rear hatch. The grav unit was another high performance, all terrain jeep fitted out to tackle the cracked and splintering canyons of the Skalvil Wastes and not break down under the strain of the acid rain storms which were constant on this planet. Saars could tell it was clad in heavier armor. He stuck his auto-mag in his jacket pocket and climbed in next to Green, who was driving.
The garage doors sealed, the roof peeled back, and the Grav lifted into the purple, cloud-choked sky. The lights of Kazawan City were quickly lost behind a screen of drizzle. The heads-up 3D diagram gave a luminous depiction of the ground they were flying over. Green and red lines displayed the canyons, elevations and weather patterns on the windshield. The purple haze and mist ate up the arc lights. Green flew fast and steady.
"Their is a decent sized bluff crowding the farm from the north. Land on the backside of that." Saars instructed. "This rig have good jamming equipment?"
"Please," Green replied, not taking his eyes off the wet, purple slop they sailed through. "Tell me something about these slug farmers." he asked.
"Not much to tell. The place has been a low output farm for ten years, maybe. The only anomaly I can find is they stopped doing business a month ago. Stopped shipping protein, turned back regular suppliers. I mean, it isn't anything they can't do, but hard to make a living if you aren't selling anything. Besides, these places have a clan size of 15-30 people. How much slug protean does a farm family need?"
"They've gone looney. Someone licked the wrong slug. We are going to find a colony of tripping sub-surface farmers. I sure hope I don't have to shoot one of these farmer raving and waving plasma cutters on a three-day burner." said Green shaking his head. Dab and Stab fingered and inspected their carbines again and again. The grav unit had to endure a sudden acid rain surge. It burnt out the exterior antenna and tight-beam transmitter. This meant communication between the squad and Collice was severed. Couldn't be helped. Once inside the compound Saars was sure he could hook something up and get back in contact.
"Strap in." Green announced. He cut speed, dropped the generator and the grav plummeted downwards. Ten meters from the ground, if the display was to be believed, Green popped the grav generator back on and the vehicle settled with a practiced, sudden stop. Green was able to make a slam landing without so much as a meter skid. They all pulled down their protective hoods and stepped out onto the rain soaked hill. Gravel-thick mud slurried around their boots and the rain came straight down. Their goggles pulled the disorientating purple of the atmosphere from their vision.
It was a short walk to the crest of the hill. The farm laid below them. Rain bathed the grounds. Marking lights winked from their perch atop the perimeter fence. No could be seen moving on the surface and no lights appeared to be on in the slug hatcheries. At the opposite end of the farm from where they looked down they could see the communications tower. This concrete, two-story bunker would also harbor access below ground where the colonists would be living.
"Looks quiet and clear. Only signal coming from the tower says the farm is closed to landings." This was Dab. He was looking at his scanner wrapped in a tough, clear plastic.
"Okay, lets descend in line, three meters apart. Once at the fence line Stab cuts it open and we walk right in. Any one approaches you, wants to talk to you, you put them down. We are here to pick up the package and assume the farmers don't want us to take it. No fracking around."
The squad picked their way down the slippery hill and in ten minutes were standing in the shallow puddles along the slug farm's northern fence line.
That was a great read. Sounds like it's going to be a good game.
ReplyDeleteI've never actually played Traveller (in any form) but I've spent hours and hours generating characters and planets using the Classic and MegaTraveller charts. Trying to tie together the disparate backgrounds of three to four PCs/NPCs and explain why they're all on a very strange world was some of the most effortless story generation I've ever experienced.
I'm always baffled by folks who say "we couldn't get into Traveller, we never knew what we were supposed to be doing." Seems like one could do anything one wants.
Thanks for the post pahoota. I do the same with my Classic version of the rules. Roll up three-four characters and come up with stories from each. I'm a big fan of the "other" class. Doctors, athletes, barbarians, lost world phantoms... literally anything can be made up as a character with the simple rules. The baffled have not read the rules of the game very well. Marc Miller tells you at the beginning of the book and again at the end of the book what you are supposed to do. And fans of sci-fi don't need the game to tell them what to do either. Do sci-fi stuff! Not a heavy lift.
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