The fast cruiser An Unlikely Angel is down on the surface of the planet Cruet. Not even a minor newsline on the net, as the Tabernacle system continues to degrade from simple resource scarcity and rising hostility from the DerBoa forces.
However, Octopotenta BioTech would very much like to retrieve some of their cargo, which was apparently on board. This raises the importance of this event from same-old to high priority as the Adherents are contacted to retrieve their cargo. Your contact on the OBT side is a person named Revel Hour.
The crash site is under jurisdiction of the Morel Central Bank, who have moved in and already formally denied Octopotenta BioTech‘s request to send in their own team. Nothing has yet been moved from An Unlikely Angel, as far as current intel suggests there is an advance mercenary planet-side force guarding the wreck. The main decomm and reclamation team is mobilising now from Baldachin Station, but a well-placed bureaucrat has been given a rather generous anonymous gift, and they are held up.
Get in past the Morel Central Bank mercenary forces, with Revel in tow, let them handle the cargo, and then get out. What could go wrong?
The crew has access to a small area comms shroud, to black out communications, attached to Mi-Tenz’s Feline Pain, and some single use jump jets, that could be used to descend from a high altitude (e.g. the top of a dam) rapidly and safely.
Mission Report
In and Out in Twenty Minutes
The adherents plan to move in over the frozen lake to the north of the Tor Elise Dome. They will attack the dam facility marked at A on the Tor Elise Area map. A quick surgical strike on any resistance, and then they hope to hack into the dam system and send out a fake warning alarm to clear the rest of the DLS mercenaries from the area. Then they can move in and recover the Octopotenta asset without issue.
What could go wrong?
First on the agenda, as the team moves up towards the dam facilities, they spy a relatively small group of DLS mercenaries. Perfect for a quick ambush.
Moving up, Mi-Tenz darts forward, the comms shroud flickers on, blanketing the area. Currently Yumai is not with the crew, as his player is off this week.
The mercenaries scramble, they are1:
- A tier 2 Veteran Bombard, In Vitro
- A tier 2 Veteran Assassin, Shivered Timber
- A tier 2 Support, In the Groove
- A tier 2 Goliath, Best Kept Secret
- Two tier 2 Scourers, Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
The fight kicks off with Gorn crashing directly through a long warehouse-like building to careen into the Best Kept Secret and grapple it. From here, he is resoundingly beat to shit by the Shivered Timber.
Mi-Tenz and Lonnie jump the In Vitro hiding at the back, and tear it to shreds, while Bill trades fire with the two scourers; the cover he is hiding behind disintegrating under a vicious hail of laser fire.
From here, the DLS squad begin to take the upper hand, pulling the crew apart with the assassin’s monomolecular sword and the scourers’ rifles. Luckily, Yumai is waiting to save the day (and he’ll definitely be very humble about it as well, that’s for sure).
As he swoops in, engaging with the Shivered Timber and the somehow still standing Best Kept Secret, the battle begins to turn. Mi-Tenz pulls out the Feline Pain’s ferrous lash, isolating the In the Groove and then Tweedle Dee and tearing them apart, as the rest of the squad finally takes down the assassin and the goliath.
The snow falls hissing softly on the red-hot wrecks of DLS mercenaries, the crew is just about still standing.
Hack the Planet
As the crew begins critical repairs, Lonnie explores the dam facilities, inside he finds the computer banks and control cores. They are heavy industrial, reminiscent of cold-war era military or power generation facilities.
He locates the main computers, and hacks in - he thinks he can do exactly what he’d hoped, drive off the mercenaries with a hab-dome wide alarm warning of impending dam collapse. Unfortunately, he could only do this by actually destabilising the dam, making it very likely to collapse in the near future2.
He makes the choice to hit the button, and the alarm sounds faint in the distance. Peering down at the dome far down below through the whirling snow, a group of mechs can be seen moving off at some speed away from the dome, this is almost certainly the rest of the DLS forces.
In the Pit
The group jet up into the sky, flying out from the top of the dam and through the winds, down into the ragged hole in the giant glass dome. They descend on bright energy jets from their jump packs, and come to a juddering landing amongst the wreckage at the very bottom (D on the map) of Tor Elise Dome.
Here, they find the wreck of An Unlikely Angel, and Revel gets to work. They hiss sharply over the comms, there has been a containment breach (they refuse to elaborate on this). They’ll need an hour or so to patch everything up here - not safe to move yet - and then we can leave.
Gorn yearns to return to the mines, and as such is looking around for a large drill to attach to his mech3. This is a mining dome, so an appropriately scaled drill is available, it’s not a combat drill per se so uses the drill stats from the Vlad III license but does not have the “Overkill” tag. Otherwise, it can be mounted and used right now! Gorn is grinning ear to ear.
In the meantime, Lonnie hacks into the habitat dome’s local net to get a view of the cameras, and confirms the crew is alone here. The rest of the crew set about fortifying their current position (subtle foreshadowing), and checks in with the train line out - confirming that there is a train here and it is operational.
Proximity Warning
Lonnie notices an irritant flashing in the bottom of their mech internal display, one of the monitoring systems from the local net is throwing out a “Large Atmospheric Disturbance” alarm. That’s probably nothing to worry about right?
At this moment, the air shudders, as a massive knife-like cruiser comes to a vicious quick-stop above the dome. The ground quakes, as the DerBoa carotid-class vessel Hell of My Making fires up drop chutes, illuminating the ground around the ruin of An Unlikely Angel.
The DerBoa mechs begin to drop, luckily the crew have dug in - this is a classic holdout sitrep. The enemy forces are primarily tier 2 assault, bastion, berserkers and pyros, along with:
- Helvetica Niven (they/them) piloting a tier 2 Veteran Scout, Seek No Glory.
- Gory Jet (he/him) piloting a tier 2 Vetern Operator, Curled Paw.
- Marco Vai (he/him) does not enter the battle immediately, and is waiting in the wings. He is the commander of the Hell of My Making and is piloting a tier 2 Elite Ronin, The Line of Division4.
Combat begins, as the DerBoa forces move forward, the crew knuckles down to defend the wreck and Revel still working inside.
Yumai skates out, moving into the enemy’s backline, as Gorn weathers a hail of fire in the centre. Things seem to be going as well as could be expected, but the Curled Paw teleports directly up behind Mi-Tenz and Bill and unleashes a monstrous hail of energy weapon fire into the both of them, causing critical damage.
Lonnie hacks in, and tries to overload a pyro’s systems - it is unfortunately the worst choice for him to deploy the Last Argument of Kings against however. As the fire rages over the outside of the insulated mech it is clear this mech was designed for this.
Gorn hits out at the Seek No Glory and berserker mech bearing down on him, and hefting his new drill. Unfortunately, the Seek No Glory is shimmering in and out of sight and sensors - and he misses.
Mi-Tenz is frantically trying to regain control of her stunned mech, as the Curled Paw zips away. It is chased down by Yumai, who eventually puts it down with the help of support fire from Bill.
The tide of battle shifts back, as Gorn wears down the forces in the middle. A small reprieve at the end of the third turn, but Marco Vai is about to arrive.
Trapped in the Meta Verse
From the skies, The Line of Division falls, and a long katana is unsheathed. The battle begins anew, as alongside Marco are even more DerBoa forces. As the fight continues Gorn charges further forward, meeting strong resistance and taking heavy damage.
Yumai shoots away from his engagement in the backfield, but is hunted down by an assault mech who guns him down and reliable damage ticks down to structure damage and a stun.
Lonnie activates his core system, the METAFOLD MAZE. This stuns The Line of Division instantly, on the interior Marco Vai’s perception of reality is shifting, each movement he sees leaves endless trailing afterimages. He is now stunned (and will be for the rest of the battle).
Assault mechs from the DerBoa forces push forward, but are picked off one by one, and as the clock ticks down Gorn announces he is going to perform an advanced manoeuvre.
He charges up to the centre of the battle, getting in range of a number of DerBoa mechs and The Line of Division, then hits the Big Red Button.
As the battle enters its twilight, Gorn ejects (and in another reality is skeet-shot out of the air by Bill). A huge fireball erupts from the Cruel World. Parting shots completely disable The Line of Division and likely kill commander Marco Vai.
Blood on the Tracks
Escaping the ruined dome, running through the wrecked city with DerBoa forces still dropping in, the team makes there way to the prepped mag-lev.
On the train, as it powers away from the station, Revel Hour walks out of the side hatch of their skimmer.
The entire crew feels a wind whip around them, and a voice echoes in their heads, “KILL THEM”.[^5]
Almost instinctively, Bill powers up mech weapons and ends them instantly. He feels close to abject fury that this is the first time Enlil has ever spoken in his ears.
Within the skimmer, Gorn finds the package they were asked to retrieve, it is a sarcophagus surrounded by a series of complicated wires and tubing. Inside is a woman in stasis. She has patchy, sick looking soft brown skin and lank black-brown hair. She is wearing a heavy jumpsuit, but up her neck is a brilliant gold implant. Her skin looks ragged and wounded where the implant meets her flesh.
Hacking into the skimmer’s systems, Lonnie discovers that Revel Hour is working for SSC. They were taking this woman (or really, more accurately, the implant) known as the Corona Mantle back to what is notionally an Octopotenta BioTech facility on Tabernacle I.
The crew’s lifter Enemy of Perfection skims down through the snow to meet them, they jump from the train into the open cargo hold, taking the sarcophagus with them.
Outcomes
- Secured the Corona Mantle and its host.
- Fought back the Hell of My Making and Commander Marco Vai.
- Killed Revel Hour.
Mission Setup
Plot Beats/Questions/Goals
- Who is Revel Hour really working for?
- Will the Lancers secure the package?
- What actually is the package?
Maps
Tor Elise Area
Tor Elise Dome
Tor Elise
Is an abandoned habitat dome deep in the mountains. It sits in a wide valley, just underneath a large hyrdo-power dam. The dam is owned and operated by Morel Central Bank, and thus Tor Elise was as well.
Parts running short and maintenance proving close to impossible, the dam has suffered some “minor” loss of structural integrity, and there are no supplies to repair it. The habitat dome at its base is now abandoned, along with the titanium mining operation (from ilmenite deposits) in the surrounding mountains that was powered by it.
An Unlikely Angel has crashed almost directly into the habitat dome.
The Glimmer Peaks
Is a mountainous region of Cruet, near the equator. Regions of the mountain range have been found to be rich in titanium deposits, and are one of the major industries on the planet.
The mercenary team DLS is in the area, contracted by Morel Central Bank to stand guard until they can send in their own team. DLS doesn’t stand for anything.
An Unlikely Angel
Is a fast courier ship operated by Apollo’s Promise. Charter is not necessarily easy to uncover. But - sent out from a station on Tabernacle I which falls under Octopotenta BioTech although is actually a cover for an SSC exotic materials laboratory. The cover story is bio-photonics research, the truth is the development of the Corona Mantle.
