Five Parsecs From Home

Following their successful escape from the Pallas 3 military outpost, the crew jumped into the battered Enlightenment and made the short hop to the main planet in the sector, New Pallas. Between them the crew had three potential contacts [in game: patrons] who could offer them work. The plan was to make a few quick credits and then head further into fringe space and away from the clutches of the Unity army.

All three patrons offered work of some form or another, two that needed to be completed quickly [this campaign turn] and one not quite so urgent [within 2 campaign turns].

Jaryk chose a corporate job, working for Orbital Operations. A corp should be good for the money at least. And the job sounded simple. Break into Dynamic Aggregates (a bitter rival of Orbital’s) compound, make a mess and then leave. Don’t steal anything – just send them a message – then leave through the back door. When exploring the town before the mission, the crew was stopped by a hooded stranger who claimed to work for Orbital Operations, and said that there would be an extra 2 credits added to the job if “making a mess” would include killing a particular target. The stranger also informed the crew that the security at the compound were Black Ops [elite hired muscle] and highly dangerous, but if they performed the job at a particular time the stranger could arrange for only the special target to be on the Dynamic Aggregates site, alone. This all sounded too good to be true, but it seemed within the realms of shady corporates using mercs to do their dirty work, so Jaryk decided to believe the stranger and proceed with caution. If they got there and were confronted by a full squad of Black Ops they could always turn tail! [After an initial panic at rolling for black ops as my first opponents, relief quickly followed when the roll for the number of enemies was snake eyes, meaning only 1 enemy (you take the highest result on 2 D6 rolls).  I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth whilst learning the rules etc, so decided to narrative the situation in, and let it be (hopefully) easy!]

The crew arrived at Dynamic Aggregates’ compound at the time indicated by the stranger and, and after scoping the area for a few minutes  were delighted to find just one Black Ops security guard as promised.

Taking no risks with his own safety (as was Jaryk’s nature) he sent the patrol bots in first, with the rest of the squad following behind. K’Vani protested at being prevented from charging in, but was persuaded that her chance would come. [Due to the extreme fortune leading to me having a huge outnumber advantage, I created a choke point to enter the compound to prevent a one-turn barrage of fire. The enemy would have a chance to do some damage and perhaps make a kill.]

As the bots entered the compound, there was a sudden explosion in a nearby building. Luckily none of the crew were close, so aside from a brief panic, no harm done.
The black ops guard, alerted by the alarm, became aware that something was afoot and moved cautiously towards the compound entrance, staying in cover. He was surprised to suddenly be confronted by an 8 foot tall patrol bot, guns pointed right at him. The bot shot twice, hitting both times, but failing to penetrate the black ops armour. The trooper moved back into cover and shot back, also hitting but failing to damage. Then another patrol bot appeared from behind a stack of crates and the world went black…

Easy. Suspiciously easy. Mission complete, credits received and the crew also salvaged 3 krakk grenades from the compound and found a personal trinket lying on the floor. This could be valuable to its owner if they could find them in the future. Also, in the main office in the compound, Jaryk found a military ID which would allow for easier obtaining of trading licences on new planets. Leela managed to damage her cyber hand, in a non combat incident, so will need to attempt repairs before the next job. [The crew also received their XP, and K’Vani was able to add a point of Toughness. That should placate her following the lack of fighting in the last mission!]

A short time later…

”High Admiral Tarff, this is Leela, do you read?”

”Affirmative Leela. Proceed.”

”The mission went as planned, High Admiral. Your operative posing as an Orbital Ops corpo cleared the compound as promised, and it was a straightforward job. One enemy casualty. None from our side. Neither Orbital Operations, nor Jaryk, suspected a thing.”

”Excellent. Well done. Keep me appraised of what my ungrateful son does next. I can’t keep him out of trouble forever. If he doesn’t come to his senses soon, he’s on his own. For good.”