Booyah took stock of the situation. With half his troops dead or wounded it was obvious the team would not be expanding their territory any time soon. He needed to hold onto what he had and hire more troops.
Chitzena and Drassen had both lost militia in the fighting and the Eastern SAM is undefended. Dimitri was sent east while Booyah personally saw to the expansion of the Chitzena militia.
The validity of the plan was proven a few hours later, when it was interrupted.
Booyah pulled out of the sector and the militia made short work of the enemies, losing a few in the process.
Booyah returned after the combat finished to help bury the dead and train up a new set of recruits. He finished early on the morning of the 22nd, just about the time our newest recruit arrived.
Booyah wasn’t sure about Biff “Darker” Apscott. First and foremost, his abilities left a lot to be desired. Secondly, he seemed like… well, a coward.
But having lost 3 team members in 21 days Booyah couldn’t be picky.
On the other side of Arulco Xeron was playing the part of the commander. He didn’t really want to and furthermore, he wasn’t really qualified. Shadowgandor was always the field commander but she was in no condition to be greeting new arrivals.
Therefore, it fell on Xeron, who would much rather be landing head shots.
But as much as he wanted to go out and shoot the Reds, the team was not currently in the fight. Instead they were resting, solidifying their positions and welcoming new recurits.
“I’mmm there… or uh… here…” Darker reported to Xeron when he arrived in Drassen.
“Whatever you say, man,” Xeron replied as he tossed him the choco-taco key chain. “You’ll be meeting the boss in sector D4, the abandon San Mona mine.”
Biff wasn’t great, but there is one thing he could do as well as any other merc.
Biff is here to kick ass and drive ice cream trucks. Right now we are all out of ass.
“Report to us if you hit a road block, dig?” Xeron asked casually.
“I, uh, I mean… row-road blocks? Maybe it’s better if I help the, you know, wounded, instead of, uh, driving, I mean.”
“No dice, man. As much as I hate tending to the sick, the boss expects to see
you in location and on time. That last part is the most important. On. Time. The boss hates late people… how do you think that local bitch Ira died?”
Xeron watched as Darker turned pale and hurried to the truck. Once the engine was started and Darker was on the move Xeron did something abnormal, at least for him. He grinned. Darker was as much of a coward as Euchr but even less important.
Turns out there are a few benifies of being out of the fight Xeron thought to himself.
Messing with new recruits and playing doctor.Xeron allowed himself a second smile and headed in the direction of Shadowgandor’s bed.
Darker’s drive was even shorter than expected.
Since the ice cream truck lacked the ability to go off road, Darker was stuck in B9 and Booyah was forced to make his way there.
“These roads aren’t safe… someone should do something about that.” Darker explained to Booyah when the two met up later.
Gumpy arrived a short time later. He wasn’t good at much of anything but showed some promise.
“Good news, man,” Xeron explained, “you get to change bandages and bed pans.” For some reason Gumpy wasn’t excited.
Shortly after dispatching Gumpy Xeron got the next bit of news.
Skyrider was once again completely grounded.
With the SAM site taken, Dimitri retreated back to Drassen and the team found themselves united once again.
Booyah wasn’t surprised to find Xeron running through medical supplies at an alarming rate so another order was placed with Bobby Ray’s.
Booyah ended up taking over for Gumpy and sending him down to the mine to practice his explosives training. The kid had some skill already but Booyah wanted to avoid another Hamos.
By the time the sun went down on day 23, Burntpies and Shadowgandor were back at fighting strength so Booyah assembled the team in Drassen. They met in the airplane hanger around 1800.
“It is time to get back into the fight,”
He took stock of his team. He knew he could count on Shadowgandor, Burntpies, and Xeron, but the additions he was less sure off. Darker would be joining this fight (equipped with Booyah’s own weapons and armor), as would Dimitri. He could not afford to have anyone on his team die.
“I am sending you 5 back to the Eastern SAM. It is vital that we continue to put pressure on Deiddranna. It is not vital that we take the SAM. I want you all to maintain the range advantage and trust your snipers. Retreat if it gets dangerous.”
By the time day broke on the 24th, Shadowgandor’s team was in position.
“I am a little tired of fighting over this spot,” she said as they moved in a loose formation across the field.
As expected, the enemy was idly patrolling the gate, none the wiser to the danger sneaking up on them.
Once the first shot was fired, the enemy responded in force, sending an additional 6 troops to the gate. But open field engagements are where Shadowgandor and Xeron shine and in no time they had 6 kills between them.
With the gate cleared the team did a sweep of the site (taking care to avoid potential ambushes from the building) and finally found the two remaining enemies cowering in the back of the SAM site, trapped by the fence that was supposed to keep the dangers out. Xeron made short work of them.
With the site cleared, Xeron and Dimitri set about recruiting a militia while the rest of the crew rested, repaired and practiced.
Once a skeleton force had been assemebled at the SAM, the team left to harass enemy patrols while Dimitri continued to train up the military. Instead of Reds, the team found something new.
Shadowgandor and the cat startled eachother and stood dumbfounded for just a moment, before she fired two bursts into the cat’s side.
“I hope they don’t want to fight…” Darker muttered, but in the distance the team could clearly hear a human being mauled and gun fire.
“Comeon, let’s get to that clearing.”
“An enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Burntpies drawled, “until he tries to eat me. Then I will break him.”
“Everyone hold your fire until one side has the advantage,” Shadowgandor advised and within a couple of minutes the red patrol had cleared the cats. As the last cat fell, Xeron and Shadowgandor sprang into action.
The reds were slow to respond to the new threat and as a result, several were dead before they began to actively engage the team. But even as enemies fell, more swarmed in, apparently called in as reinforcements to battle the bloodcats.
By the end of the fight, Xeron was completely out of ammo and the dead were stacked high.
The team noticed a couple of buildings and decided to go in for a closer look. Burntpies dispatched the guards and began looting the old structure.
Between the stash, bloodcats, and patrols, the zone was littered with hundreds of items including some decent upgrades to squad equipment.
Xeron rooted through the enemy stash, his eyes lighting up when he came across two SVDs similar to his own and enough ammo to keep him busy for months.
“Never mind that order to Bobby Ray’s, I’ve got enough.” He told Shadowgandor.
“Too bad I don’t. I am down to glaser rounds… no good on armor. Let’s head back to Drassen.”
Shadowgandor called ahead to get the ammunition on order and since Booyah had the checkbook out he offered to extend her contract by a day. Booyah was worried Shadowgandor would decline the extension in the face of the deaths and scaled back combat operations but she graciously accepted, collected her ammo, and headed back into the field.
The field team spent the next two days chasing and clearing enemy patrols in an effort to open the roads up to the mobile milita and the ice cream truck. The work was safe (as safe as it can be when someone is shooting at you) since most patrols were taken unawares. The team proved over and over that in open terrain they were second to none.
On day 27 the team was working in the area of Cambria when they came across a farm house. Xeron scoped the place out and the locals, while they were armed, seemed to be friendly enough.
“Let’s move in for a closer look.”
Shadowgandor moved in and started a conversation with one of the locals. It was pretty standard fare; the team was there to help clear Dederanna out and help the locals rebuild once the country was free.
“You’d have to be mighty strong for that,” the man said in a long slow drawl.
“We are strong, but we need support from locals like yourself to win.”
“Daryl says the inbreein’ keeps us strong.”
While Xeron nearly lost a mouth full of canteen water, Shadowgandor just blinked, then blinked again and finally said, “That is good to know. I would assume Daryl is your…” she trailed off, not sure of the family title a brother/father might prefer.
“Daryl’s the guy, yes sir, if Dary’s okay with you heck we all are.” The finished his sentence, spit a mouth load of chaw and moseyed off.
Shadowgandor stood silent a moment before heading towards the farmhouse to find Daryl.
She found a likely candidate hear the entrance to the house.
“Daryl?”
“Ya, I’m Darrel, but yer probably lookin’ for ma pa, Daryl.”
Pa Daryl turned out to be inside.
The team waited outside why Shadowgandor met with Pa Daryl. She came out a short time later, looking a combination of angry, discusted, and horrified.
Xeron started to ask her how it went but she cut him off.
“Not here, not now, let’s move.”
When the team was safely back on the move Xeron asked again. It started off simple enough.
“So the hick is protective of his land, big deal,” he said with a shrug but Shadowgandor only shook her head.
“He is protective of his cows too. Sounds like some of his boys have been taking liberties with them.” Xeron snorted and turned to walk away.
“There’s more.”
This time Xeron laughed, a frightening and abnormal sound.
“You could have been a hick. What are you still doing here?” Xeron said as he continued to laugh.
Shadowgandor rolled her eyes and continued explaining.
“So the inbreeder wants to make some kin with a pretty mouthed woman, huh? Seems an easy way to get on their good side.”
“You cannot be serious.”
Xeron shrugged.
“And why not? Would have been the perfect job for Ira.”
Shadowgandor prepared herself to give Xeron a verbal thrashing but decided against it. He was either joking or insane. Probably a combination of the two. Regardless an intelligent conversation on the matter was impossible. Instead she dropped it and walked away. The team fell in behind her and resumed their patrol.
The next day they came across a small building guarded by 10 troops. It took some time but the team managed to clear it again using their range to great advantage. As the team sorted through the dead they found the enemy had been well armed, they just never had a chance to get a shot off.
Inside the building was equally lucrative.
In addition to the regen boosters (a drug that heals you) there were also ceramic plates to stiffen our armor.
With the building clear the team looped around to clear the roads between Drassen and Alma. In all more than 50 reds are ambushed and gunned down before the team heads back to Drassen to resupply.
Booyah decided it was time to put Gumpy into the fight and as such, needed to free up some equipment for him. To do so he purchased Burntpies one of the best sub-machine guns on the market.
He was checking his email for notice of the delivery when something else came in.
Well, let’s see what we got.
Bubba isn’t great, but so long as Booyah is black balled from AIM MERC is really his only option.
Around 11 Burntpies’s new weapon arrives.
With the equipment change sorted out, the team heads over to the eastern SAM, not to fight or train up a militia, but to untrap some boxes. Gumpy’s secondary skill is explosives so we set him to opening the chests. The first one goes fine, but the second…
The jolt knocks him down but Xeron is there to patch him back up. A second attempt goes no better and the chests are abandoned again.
The team moves back out to clear the area around Alma again, but when they meet no resistance they decide to head south.
“Might be we can get back on AIM’s good side if we take another town. Balime is strategically worthless but would be a slap in the face to the Queen.”
If Arulco had a rich area it would be Balime. On the southern coast of the island nation it had great beaches and good weather. The entire community was walled and the road from Alma was gated at the entrance.
Xeron got into position with Darker spotting for him. There were two enemies visible at the gate and undoubtedly more inside the nearby buildings. Xeron waited for the rest of the team to get into position, Burntpies and Shadowgandor would be covering his flanks while Gumpy and Dimitri would be providing additional backup.
Just before the team was ready, a third enemy stepped out the door of the white building and Xeron took the opportunity to hit him before he ducked back inside. The bullet knocked him off his feet but didn’t kill him, so Xeron sighted in a second enemy and opened fire. The second man was luckier and only took a grazing hit to the torso, we would be staying in the fight.
When the shots were fired reinforcements flooded the gate, but the untrained enemy didn’t take into account cover. Shadowgandor notched up another kill while Xeron counted 4 before the flood stopped and the enemy pulled back.
“Only 4 left, man,” Xeron reported.
The team slowly advanced on the gate, keeping either Xeron’s or Shadowgandor’s weapon up at all times in adittion to Darker manning the binoculars.
Before they even cross into Balime proper, Xeron had spotted the last 4 enemies.
And killed them.
The team walked casually into town as Dimitri began explain the history of Balime’s museum
Shadowgandor looked thoughtful. “Hmm, I bet the artifact from Chitzena is here… We should make an effort to-”
She was cut off by a man coming up to the gate with a gun. “Kingpin sends his regards,” he growled before leveling the gun at Shadowgandor and opening fire.
Shadowgandor took a few hits but Darker took the brunt of the attack. The force of the blows knocked him off his feet.
In unison the team returned fire and the man hit the ground a bloody pulp.
Shadowgandor went pale.
“Assassins… that isn’t good. Kingpin was more serious than we thought.”
“I say we kill anyone who walks up to us armed from now on, man,”
“I just want to go home."
Shadowgandor ignored him and sat down to be treated. Her and Darker would require some medical attention before the team could do anything else. While they were at it, Gumpy might as well get some treatment for the trap shocks and Burntpies could repair gear. That left Dimitri to explore.
It turned out that the eastern part of town boasted 3 shops in addition to the Museum and a couple of personal homes. The shops included a hardware, electronics, and drug store, the last being the most important. The team managed to pick up three more regeneration boosters for a trivial $900. None would be used now, as the team was comfortably holding eastern Balime and could sit tight for a bit.
The homes were locked and Shadowgandor passed on opening them, possibly shaken by how the team’s previous theft had almost gotten her killed.
In the Museum Dimitri came across the Chalice of Chance. The full time security guard, who had to be pushing 80, explained how the Chalice was the pride of the town. The man had no idea how the queen acquired it and was oblivious to the fact that it belonged to the citizens of Chitenza.
“Let’s just take it,” Xeron said callously.
“And gun down an 80-year-old guard? I think not.”
The guard liked his job but let slip an important fact. He was off work at 10. At 11, Shadowgandor and Burntpies returned.
Burntpies picked the lock on the front door and moved in. In the back of the museum he found the security room and hit the large red button he hoped disabled the alarms. The moved back into the display room, grabbed the chalice and headed for the exit.
The night and most of the next day passed without note as the team rested and practiced. Early on day 34 the team rolled out to attack Western Balime.
Western Balime offered terrain more suited to our team. It was wide open with very little cover. Seconds after arriving in the sector Xeron had the center of town covered and sniped an emeny moving into reinforce the one Gumpy had just killed.
To the north we saw an unidentified armed man. Xeron was taking no more chances and scoped the man in.
But spotted a red behind him. Xeron decided to go with the known enemy. His first two shots hit but didn’t result in a kill. The red responded with a hail of burst fire that just missed Dimitri. Finally Xeron scoped him in and finished him.
That left the unknown. Xeron fired and missed.
The entire team opened fire. Shadowgandor and Burntpies landed shots of course, but they were mostly absorbed by Olaf’s armor. Finally Darker managed the killing shot.
“God damn assassins are everywhere!”
Xeron kept his weapon trained on the fountain while the rest of the team moved in. 5 of the 10 enemies were dead when he moved into the center of town himself and dispatched an enemy to the south west, leaving 4.
(Orange circles note the corpses of enemies)
It was clear those 4 were not coming out.
“They must be inside one of the houses, we have to be careful.”
Gumpy and Dimitri had covered the northern house while while Xeron advanced into the centeral part of town so Burntpies and Shadowgandor went to have a look at the southern house. Shadowgandor scoped it from a safe distance.
And
found a target created a corpse.
“That leaves two.”
With the building clear, Burntpies moved in for a closer look.
And ducked at the sound of gun fire and breaking glass (if you look close you can see a bullet hitting the wall above his head).
The enemy was at the far wall and ducked low. All Burntpies could see was his head. Not only that but Burntpies’s P90 was a short range SMG, putting the enemy out of range. He took one shot before ducking back behind cover, it missed.
Wait what?
“Grooving!”
(Steroid is clutch)
A third red panicked at the death of his friend and stood up to run from the building, only to be gunned down by Shadowgandor, leaving only 1 enemy.
All was quiet yet again. Shadowgandor and Burntpies didn’t want to advance further on the house from the south so instead the group in the center of town reorganized and covered Dimitri’s approach to the building but even with all of the coverage, the enemy spotted Dimitri first.
Thankfully nothing hit.
Dimitri retreated safely while Xeron and Shadowgandor moved in to cover from range and Burntpies moved around to keep an eye on the windows. No one had a shot at the enemy. The standoff stretched on.
Burntpies tried to flush the enemy out with a grenade through the window but it didn’t work. Finally Shadowgandor decided to risk and assault.
“Burntpies, I want you to head in through the kitchen and flush him out.”
Burntpies moved to the door but stopped.
“There is a large boob trap present!”
Shadowgandor was forced to call on the team’s part time explosives expert, Gumpy. The man was terrified of getting shot but loved to play with bombs… go figure.
After a few tense moments Gumpy completed his work, successfully. Burntpies picked the lock and moved in slowly; finally finding the enemy huddled against the wall, watching the entrance. The wrong entrance.
The zone was cleared.
Balime was captured but the town was highly loyal to the Queen and refused to form a militia. There was no obvious way to sway the town folk either; everyone we met just wanted us out of their town.
Shadowgandor knew that a counter attack was also likely, so the team took up the northern house as their defensive structure and dug in to meet the tide.
Meanwhile Booyah was going through his morning routine. Every day he logged on to AIM and attempted to recruit a replacement medic. Every day he was rebuffed. Today, 13 days after the death of Hamos and Euchr, everyone he contacted him still rejected his offers. He began to fear AIM was no longer an option.
