Final Results of Operation Jagermeister

More data incoming. Stay tuned...

Campaign Save:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9qail44jaurq59/JM-Turn02-aftermission05-END.cpnx

Date:
October 18, 3048

Financial Totals:
http://www.uobgaming.com/showthread.php?5199-Financial-Reports

Location:
Kobe - http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Kobe

Wounded:
Val
Dihm
Hunter Gamma
Little Dave


Critical Losses:
Hunchback HBK-4J (Little Dave)

Missing In Action / Prisoners of War:
-allies-
Hunter Gamma (MIA/suspected POW)
Little Dave (MIA/suspected POW)

-neutrals-
Judith Shepard (in custody - injured)


Occupation: Mechwarrior - Instructor
Skills: Mechwarrior (Veteran), Communications Officer
House Affiliation: Steiner (in exile)
Homeplanet: ???

Judith Shepherd has been captured and is being triaged by our medics. Upon Sheo cracking open her cockpit to secure her, she pleaded not to be handed over to FedCom forces. Before losing consciousness again, she also briefly mentioned something about Hunter and Little Dave. It appears she may know of their location. From the ongoing behavior of local FedCom forces, you get the impression that not all is as it seems. Our FedCom liaison has been acting suspicious since the beginning of this campaign, a worldwide communication blackout is still in effect on Kobe, and all of our Skjaldborg forces have been conspicuously directed away from the majority of the fighting. It all appears like there is something the FedCom forces don't want us to see.

Perhaps Shepard can tell you more when she is awake...

 

It is one hour after Shepard's capture and FedCom forces have yet to arrive. Her Thunderbolt still lies in the middle of the city street where we left it. As far as we can tell FedCom forces are not aware of her capture. Her fate will be decided by y'all. What do you want to do with her?

 

May as well keep her. We could probably use another pilot to fill out our ranks. Besides, the fishyness coming from FedCom forces makes me think we should report that she passed away en-route to our triage facilities. And Sheo's been looking a little lonely.

 

GM NOTE: As in most situations like this, FedCom forces will likely comb the area with a fine tooth comb and will want to account for all enemy combatants one way or another. If we are keeping her, you will need to devise a plan that prevents her from being discovered. This also means you will need to cover up any evidence that we took her alive and into custody. The T-bolt has already been reported. You cannot "take it" outright without FedCom forces noticing (technically, we've already been paid for its capture). Someone will need to come up with a PLAUSIBLE solution. I can only describe your environment and provide reasonable situational awareness based on what your characters already know. Handing Shepard over will certainly make things easier for us, but it is possible she may have intel on the locations of Hunter and LD. It has been roughly 4 days since they went MIA. However, failure to keep her hidden from FedCom forces will have immediate and possibly long term ramifications of the worse kind (breach of contract, legal and/or law enforcement issues, etc.).

I recommend asking questions to get a better idea on all options available to you, but here are the basics:

Delta Lance has her secured and getting basic medical treatment by support staff. They are located in an average sized urban environment with a space port roughly 50km away. They have basic transport available for various support staff but our heavy transport assets are located elsewhere on Kobe. Our other forces are scattered about the less populated areas of the planet operating as semi-independent combat teams. Our dropship is located at the capital, docked at a larger space port. We have no privately owned Jumpship and are expected to remain on planet for another three weeks roughly (until 11/06/3048).

She is also not yet awake so we have no way of knowing for sure what intel she may or may not have. Our Medtechs say Shepard is in stable condition and likely to improve given time.

 

If no word of her survival from the fight has made it out Can we rig the ejection system on the t bolt to have an unfortunate misfire destroying the cockpit with some remains in it? If they do know of her then we will need to arrange for a sudden poor turn of her condition and possibly substitute a body for her.

 

UPDATE: sabotaging the cockpit could work, but we don't have an extra body that could pass for a body swap. whatever we rig up would have to be catastrophic enough that no human remains would be expected to be found. also, we are on a timetable. FedCom ground forces are likely to be on the scene in an hour... possibly less. Their aerial units have already confirmed that we downed her mech intact and that no emergency ejection was triggered. As far as we can tell, they do not know anything beyond that.

 

please tell me someone in the unit can figure out how to keep the shell of the cockpit intact and blow the ejection system! We might be able to incinerate the cockpit a bit more if there was an oxygen system in there for extra vehicular work on a toxic planet, or just plant said oxygen tank to help with the cockpit explosion. If there are any pigs around the meat could pass for a human if it were also blasted in the cockpit when it goes, or we just have to get 105-120lbs of beef and pork from the unit's food stores to toss in there. When the other pilot had the unfortunate ejection into the building would we have enough remains to try to pose it as two separate bodies from ejection accidents? Just trying to come up with someway to show some cooked and smashed flesh when the thing goes boom should they get nosey.

The quite possibly more simple thing is if they don't know who the pilot was say some asian looking male pilot took off on foot from the mech and escaped as we were trying to finish securing everything. But that wouldn't be as much fun as blowing up a mech we don't get to keep.

 

no flesh is better. this is the 31st century. DNA samples / dental records are not exactly hard to collect... especially if you gave them plenty to work with. I think testing positive for "beef and/or pork" in the cockpit is a sure sign of tampering on our part. keep trying though

also, giving a false description is no good. FedCom already has her file on record. The T-bolt is assigned to her. Saying she somehow escaped a medium lance of mechs with ground support is highly suspicious... even in a city. Someone would spot her soon enough. It might be a good enough excuse for short term, but we still have to remain on planet for another 3 weeks. Directing any suspicion at us will just make hiding her harder. You could do it, but it shouldn't be your first option.

 

Hrm... How about an inferno? Not sure where we are going to find one, but if we melt the cockpit to slag then they can't get any DNA for testing....

 

RP off
cup holders = lostech
quick dna testing = normal fedcom issue
dang you battletech!!
ok back on the job

I think you might be onto something there Trev, a mech/infantry launched inferno might be an issue if they already know we recovered it intact with no emergency ejection available, but... it is somewhat plausible that rather than rescue her from the mech, Sheo tossed some sort of inferno grenade in there to roast her and subsequently destroyed the cockpit completely with whatever satchel charges and hot burning objects we can add to the recipe. (I'm not up on my infantry weapons so this might not be plausible, need to read through on those more) It's somewhat fitting with our rage of losing two pilots, having several mechs shot to within an inch of their life and losing several others during the campaign, not to mention shooting their commander while under the flag of truce. That particular little maneuver, while not so good for the MRB, might allow us to pull this deception off.

 

well... i don't know about "quick dna testing". it is all about reducing "suspicion". if nothing looks suspicious, they are more likely to overlook the details. it is true they don't have the ability for in the field DNA testing, but all it would take is for one suspicious agent to take a samble to bring back to the lab and you guys are screwed. even if they didn't find out until weeks later, that could have serious ramifications. also, the pig meat is not a terrible idea in itself, but finding enough meat or finding a pig, then getting it in the cockpit in less than an hour before blowing it up is unlikely... at least doing all this without anyone seeing you.

you just need the right "ingredients" and then the right cover story. inferno rounds is the right ingredient. you guys are on the right track, you just need to ask me the right questions.

GM HINT(s):
-when in doubt, ask.
-also, skill check rolls could help reveal some things.

more info on the situation:
-none of delta's four mechs are equipped with infernos currently. where would you get them? what other assets do they have in the area?
-Sheo succeeded in extracting Shepard from the cocpit before drawing too much attention, but minutes have past and with it, you can't take the chance of revealing that the cockpit is already empty (it is currently closed).
-you need the right cover story to tell FedCom agents when they arrive on scene.

 

For a cover story the less you lie the less you have to remember to keep straight. Each time they have refused to surrender out of fear of being killed, we could possibly use that to our advantage. We can honestly say the commander refused to surrender and was killed in the ensuing gun battle after wounding our commanding officer. (this little stretch may help us avoid any issues with the MRB for going han solo on their leader, he totally deserved it but tell that to outreach) When her mech was approached an angry, injured, fiery redhead refused to surrender and took a pot shot at us. Now we have the lie portion, its fairly simple and follows with what we have already established. From here on we should just put the truth in there about what we do save for mentioning if she was or was not in the cockpit. We felt that we should help her out in not surrendering and proceeded to set off an inferno round in her cockpit. we have 4 pilots wounded, two of them mia, its not worth us trying to extract an angry enemy combatant that is still hostile and risk any additional personal.

With no inferno rounds on our mechs we have an issue, did the enemy have any with them or in their supply area? did we have any in our supplies or at least close enough to use the light transport to go get them? were there any ground forces with any? If we can get away with just the inferno round and not having to rig the ejection system it would be faster and would hopefully avoid any additional investigation for the system failure. Also by having this story we can get away with tossing the round in there right up until the fedcom forces walk up, there is no need for explaining the still smoking or burning cockpit to them.

Finally she needs a haircut and hair dye immediately, don't want to have them walk by our medics and see someone that clearly looks like her there.

of course this is all dependent on delta wanting to do this whole thing rather than turn her over. personally i see it as a challenge to pull off and want to get our guys back any way possible, and things have been fishy the entire trip so some answers would be nice. If she doesn't help us or agree to have a new identity then the solution to the problem is only an airlock away.

 

remember that there is a medical team with you in addition to various support staff. each lance is operating as a semi-independent strike team. support staff means transports. among these transports is also a munitions carrier. that would be the place to look.

the support team tells you they have both Inferno SRMs and man portable versions (we like to roll well equipped). these are fired like a typical missile launcher, though, they cannot be "tossed". they recommend the man portable versions since they will still achieve the same result and the full sized ones require time to load. also, FedCom forces could be here any minute.

 

Lets do it with the man portable ones. I'm assuming one of our techs or two might have some hair dye? And lets use those medical scissors to cut her hair right now. Make her out to be a tech that got hit by stray shrapnel.

 

Yep, Delta should roll Scrounge check to find out what they can about the surrounding area, if there are any witnesses, what they know, how soon until FedCom forces arrive, possible indication of where LD and Hunter might be, etc.

Just wait on roll until I can witness it please

 

Scrounge check reveals the following:

Gihzmo is able to do a recon sweep and deduce that civilians in the area still believe that Shepard is locked inside her mech. No one appears to have realized that Sheo already extracted her. If you are going to go through with the cover up of her survival, now would be the time.

Delta... you are the only group in the area. What do you want to do?