Five Parsecs From Home

The crew returned to camp at the Enlightenment, weary from the mission and ready to sleep. The fight was intense, but it was the journey that caused the fatigue. The consequences of keeping a low profile meant travelling overnight, mostly on foot. So it was to their complete dismay that they arrived at camp to find the fire lit and three figures casting long flickering shadows across the grass.

“Shit”, sighed Jaryk, “Petev’s here.”

As they approached, Petev turned and spread his arms wide. “Jaryk, my friend, welcome back! Your mission was successful – well done!”

“Yes. The upload was made as directed. Wait, I was planning to visit you in the morning, how do you know already? And to what to I owe the ‘pleasure’ of another personal visit?”

Petev motioned to his entourage to wait by the fire while he approached Jaryk.

“Friend”, started Petev, “things have escalated quicker than I had hoped. I need you to start the final part of the job immediately. As a token of goodwill, here is your pay for the first job, and there is more where that came from on completion of the second.”

Petev handed Jaryk a stack of credit chips and eyed each of the crew members in turn to look for any signs of hostility. All he saw was tiredness. Jaryk pocketed the credits. “Look,” whispered Jaryk in a low voice, “I don’t need to know why we just walked the soles of our shoes off and spent nearly all of our ammunition shooting our way through a nest of giant insects just to insert an obsolete disk into a relic of a computer. Heck, I don’t want to know. But asking my crew to turn on their heels and hike again without any rest? Why?”

Petev looked to the night sky for a good few moments, before sighing and nodding twice. “Ok. You are leaving this world after this job, and by my reckoning you have no desire to return any time soon. So there is little risk to me in sharing the nature of our predicament. I know I promised you information about the government shipment, and I will keep my word, but that will come AFTER the next mission. The two things are unrelated…mostly..”

Petev then proceeded to explain that he knew the previous mission had been successful because he had received an immediate encoded response from the recipient of the data. Before Jaryk could open his mouth to ask the obvious question, Petev continued to explain that he personally could not send such a data-heavy transmission off-world. The traffic would be noticed even if the content of the data was secure, and discretion in this matter was absolutely critical. Literal life and death. In every outward appearance, Petev was a legitimate and successful businessman, one of New Pallas’ social elite, but he also played another role, a vital but unofficial one, outside of the constraints and the bureaucracy of government. You see Petev, and a cabal of the world’s other wealthy elite, took it upon themselves to ensure the continued prosperity of New Pallas. Governments come and go, and they only serve themselves. There are myriad risks to the fragile ecosystem of commerce, and government simply was not agile enough to manage them, let alone the fact they rarely looked beyond their own pockets.

Petev and his associates had become aware of the biggest threat to their livelihood that they had ever encountered. The planet was being targeted for invasion, and the invaders were the Converted, a cyborg race that replenishes their ranks through captives and corpses, adding circuitry and machine parts to assimilate the conquered into their legions. Jaryk had heard of the Converted of course, they were one of the galaxy’s biggest threats, but to hear that they were so close was deeply disturbing. The data packet that Jaryk’s crew had uploaded was a full dossier of evidence of this fact, sent to Petev’s off-world contacts to perform analysis and ensure the government and military were informed through ‘official’ Unity channels. In the meantime, there was an immediate on-world threat that needed to be dealt with.

The source of the evidence came via one of Petev’s spies staking out an old freight hub. She had observed that an organised group of thugs had moved in and were displaying odd patterns of behaviour. At first glance they just seemed to be vagrants or nomads, looking to make the compound their home. However, their movements and actions were far too regimented and procedural for that to be the case. Further observation led to the only viable conclusion. Converted Infiltrators. Members of a world’s own population, taken and partially assimilated without altering their external features. Just enough cyberware to take control of the host to use them to make preparations for the invading forces, without alerting the locals. As far as Petev knew, these were currently the only Converted operatives in the area, and they now must be destroyed. The Converted must be delayed for long enough for the official channels to get their act together, otherwise New Pallas would be overrun before the bureaucrats had even assembled a planning committee.

This is why the next mission is important, and this is why there could be no delay. Petev suggested two hours rest and then head out, fully armed and ready for a proper fight. No wildlife this time!

As Petev and his goons headed off into the distance, Jaryk’s crew formed around him, and he filled them in on the details.

“But why us?” Asked Jase. “Ok we can handle ourselves, but there must be much better fighting forces around here who could obliterate that compound in no time at all? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense”, chimed Leela, realisation dawning as she spoke. “This isn’t about making sure the job goes right. It’s protecting the downside if it all goes wrong. We are mercs, unaffiliated with any official body. That gives Petev two advantages. One, if we get beat, the Converted will likely just assume we are chancers looking to take the compound for ourselves, no reason for them to suspect they have been discovered. Two, well, we are expendable. If we die, no-one cares…”

The crew stalked up to the compound early the next morning. Two hours sleep and a 4 hour hike after last night’s uplifting conversation. A little observation revealed two details. Firstly, there were 4 men working in the compound. They were armed and were indeed moving in an oddly procedural manner. Second, there was a woman watching the group from a nearby building, keeping out of sight of the Infiltrators, but clearly visible from their approach. A spy. Likely Petev’s operative, still hunkered down and making reports. Leela suggested that she make for the spy in an effort to speak to her and see if she could glean any helpful information. Jaryk agreed and asked Leela to see if she could persuade the spy to lend her gun to the fight. A long shot, but you never know.

As Leela made for the spy’s location, the rest of the crew moved in, silently until their weapons were in range whereupon they opened fire. It seemed their shooting skills were impacted by their lack of rest and most shots fired wide. Jaryk managed to hit and stun one of the Infiltrators, but failed to do material damage. The enemy, alerted to their presence, drew their weapons and made for the nearest cover. Their shots on the move were also wild but they had adopted strong firing positions from within cover. [The enemies have the “aggressive” AI traits. One of the features is that they will not willingly enter a brawl against characters with a higher combat skill. As their skill is +0, versus the crew all having +1, they would not seek a brawl, so I chose to move them to optimise weapon range and cover, but not advance just for the sake of it].

Jase, consistently the best shooter of the crew [nothing to do with his stats – his dice have been by far the best] stunned another Infiltrator. Again, no lasting damage but it limited their ability to fire back. But fire back they did, and with a crack of a rifle, followed by the bang of bullet on metal, Patrol Bot Jim fell in slow motion to the ground. The crew were shocked. This fight was real.

Leela reached the spy, who by this time was very well aware of the crew’s presence, allowed Leela to approach, and they had a short conversation. Yes she knew Petev, yes she knew who they were and why they were here, and no, she would absolutely not be leaving her position, raising her weapon, or in any other way alerting the Infiltrators to her presence, If the crew were defeated, her work needed to continue. [The “Notable Interest” rolled for this battle was “Person of Interest”, placed 2D6+2 in a random direction from the centre of the battlefield. Forgoing a combat action whilst in contact earns you 1 Story Point. So this is why this encounter was worked in. Story Point obtained.]

[At the end of Turn 2 I chose to roll on the optional Battle Event table. The result was “Renewed Effort”. Not good for me. At the end of each enemy turn, a random enemy gets to go again!]

Beyond the wall of the spy’s building was open ground, so Leela bided her time before stepping out. The rest of the crew, fuelled by adrenaline following Jim’s departure, allowed their full military training to kick in. They worked the available cover, firing from as secure positions as possible. But the cyber-enhanced thugs were equally cunning. One of them stepped up, and fired both barrels of his shotgun into Jaryk. His aim was true, and a shell pierced Jaryk’s armour. His vision went grainy, and the colour started to drain from the world. As he fell, he fumbled for the stimm pack on his belt, and just managed to inject it as he hit the ground. The drug worked immediately [wow, I was really lucky to acquire stimms last campaign turn!!], and Jaryk rolled to his feet, groggy but the pain feeling somewhat distant as he raised his hand cannon and returned fire on his assailant. Bullseye! Right between the eyes before the Infiltrator could duck back into cover. Jaryk sank back to his knees as the world swam around him. He would live.

The infiltrators seemed momentarily confused, perhaps the cyborg implants not entirely able to override the human emotion at the loss of a comrade. The opening was all the crew needed. Jeff immediately drilled the enemy lieutenant in the chest and he sank to the ground, and Jase levelled a third enemy with his trusty shotgun. The fourth managed to snap an ineffectual shot back before Jase blasted him out of cover, the shotgun once again doing the work [Jase’s rolls continued to be devastating!]. None of the enemies showed any signs of life. Job done.

[As the crew held the field they completed the mission and were able to explore the battlefield. They acquired some starship parts. A roll on the invasion table resulted in the planet not being invaded at this time. Perfect for the narrative! The crew also picked up a Rattle Gun from the Loot Table (decent!). A roll for Patrol Bot Jim’s injury resulted in “no lasting damage” which helpfully means no missed turns in repairs. I will narrative in that Petev had him fixed at his own expense as a reward. We rolled 6 credits as the reward, and spent two giving blades to Jaryk and Jase. For one credit, a basic melee weapon is fantastic value. The Campaign Event resulted in damaged Life Support on the ship (again!! On a D100 table that’s amazing. Clearly the Enlightenment has a weakness there. Luckily only one credit to fix this time. And the character event went to Jaryk (again!! The randomised D4 has rolled him every time!). This time his event gave him 2 extra XP which makes up for last round when he couldn’t earn any. He used all the XP earned this round to add a point of toughness.]