Welcome to the Tekfactory Morrow Project page. This one is dedicated to a friend's MP game that I am playing in currently. Our team wakes up years after the bombs have dropped.
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Our Cryotubes open, we lay there still, a voice cries out.
"don't try to move yet, don't sit up, don't take out the IV, and whatever you do, don't try to stand".
Mmmmmmrrrroooooowwwwwwfffff hack cough cough.... unnnnngh.
"I said don't move, don't sit up..."
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We lay there a little longer, silently, the cycling air smelled sweet, not at all like the recycled air in training.
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"Is everybody ok?" the same voice asked... that must be the medic. People call him Scalp.
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"I don't feel so good" and that must be the guy who was heaving earlier. We later learn that's Mike the LAPD SWAT team guy. There's supposed to be eight of us, but only a few of us are up now... all the shiny tubes are open, but only a few of us are awake.
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We get to our feet, all five of us, one tube is already empty, and two more have corpsicles DOA. The medic tries to wake them, pump them full of adrenaline, stimulate the heart, anything, but its not working.
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I stumble over to the chemical showers, and start to get cleaned up... another guy is fiddling with the terminal in the middle of the Bolthole. There are two Hovercraft facing the wall, a full rack of cryotubes, and some boxes of supplies. There is a man laying over in the corner by one of the hovercraft. I cover myself with a towle and go look...
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oh god... its the mission commander.
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His name was Connors, I'd met him during a training session in the 80's, now he's lying there with a Browning in his mouth and the back of his head is decorating the bunker walls. The air doesn't seem so sweet anymore.
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"I found him, the commander, he's over here, and he's dead." mindlessly I picked up his pistol
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"He won't need that anymore." I laugh, but not very loud.
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"Guys I think we have other problems" that's the medic, he's still over by the tubes trying to get the stiffs to wake up.
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I wander over there, joining Mike and Scalp. The object of our attention is a tiny medical vial, its empty, but if the label can be believed it used to contain 10 mililiters of the Ebouma virus. Only is doesn't anymore, and all of our cryotubes have been tampered with. All of them except the heavy gunner that is, the membrane on his is still intact.
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"Just great, we're freakin' dead" Mike chiming in...
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"Its ok, we take some universal antidote from our autoinjectors and we'll be fine" That's the Demolitions guy, he's come over from the main terminal to see the problem with our tubes.
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"That sounds like a good idea" Heavy weapons guy sweating more than he should be...
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"You only get five shots of this stuff, and its coded to your DNA, use it up, and its gone." I could tell Scalp was going to be the life of the party.
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"I wanna take one just in case" Heavy again... I'd call him gunny, but I think I'm the only Marine here.
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"Go ahead, but you only get five shots, you'd better make em count." I sound like my D.I. back in sniper school.
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"The computer has got some bad news for us" Demo guy making small talk.
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"It seems the commander woke up three weeks ago, checked our orders, and decided to punch out early." We all move to the console now. Two messges are on the screen, one is our orders, the other is an analysis report from the computer, it thinks either we didn't survive the thawing out, the whole bunker caved in, or the team woke up amd went rogue. It only woke the rest of us up because our air is running out. Seems its been pumping the stuff in wether we use it or not, and we only have 12 hours left. Our orders by the way are to leave the Baton Rouge are and head up North to a chemical weapon facility in Vicksburg. It must belong to the bad guys, whoever they are... one last thing the computer doesn't know what day it is, or what year for that matter.
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"OK, listen up, we need to break out the weapons packs, uncrate the supplies, and ready the vehicles."
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"The computer says we have 18 hours after we open the Bolthole before it self destructs,
and we only have 12 hours worth of air besides. Lets get to work."
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Mike, Scalp and the Demo guy start unpacking the Hovercraft, hooking them up, and charging the reactors. I'm off taking the weapons out of grease, and moving people's footlockers onto the hovercraft. The Captain's locker is already open, he's got a box of Cuban cigars, some bottles of Scotch, and a small bottle of poison, he also had some kind of goggles. I put the dead guy's box next to Mike's and dead chick's on the first hovercraft, Scalp's, mine, and demo guys on the other one. I pitch Captain Connor's box in the back with my gear.
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Mike and I go up the ladder as the gear is all assembled, and check out the surface for locals...
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We blow the bolthole, look around, find a National Park, or public works, memorial sign or something pretty damn near the tube entrance to the Bolthole. This might mean that our caches will be marked with other similar type markings.
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We drive Hovercrafts North up the river... the AutoNAV says we're heading North, it also says we should be moving over dry land, its like the river has shifted or something. Our radios work at close range with a lot of static, but signal drops off sharply over a hundred meters or so.
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Its hot, we don't know what time it is, cept for we left the bolthole when the sun was directly overhead, I called that noon, and set my watch. For a couple of hours we kept to the middle of the river, never too close to the shore in case we were attacked. From what we could see there were toepaths on either side of the river. Later we came across some survivors on a wooden barge, they pushed it away from the shore with sticks while an Ox pulled it slowly up the river. We tried to talk to this guy, on the barge, but he brandished his homemade rifle at us, and cursed us in something resembling French while motioning us to move on, and not bring him any trouble.
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We moved on. it was a couple days travel up the river to Vicksburg, and after we passed the old guy, we saw a fallen tree off by the shore meandering downriver... we'd forgotten the old guy and the first tree when we saw another tree heading up the river same as we were, and it seemed to be heading for the first Hovercraft... As it got very near we could tell it wasn't a tree at all, but a giant aligator... Gunny took a shot at it with the .50 and hit a lot of water... The gator got pissed off enough to chew one of the skirts on the first boat though. Demo man took a long burst off of our .50 and sent the gator on to glory...
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We pressed on we had a virus in our veins, and a mission to do... but the first hovercraft was listing from the damaged skirt. We all decided to stop and patch the skirt now before we really needed to, and while we still had daylight, Mike found a small tributary we could follow a ways, and put up for a while...
Gunny and I went on patrol to secure the area while Demo, and Mike worked on the torn skirt, Scalp walked up stream to make sure we weren't ambushed. The guys had the skirt ripped off, and I was up a tree with my Ghilly suit and Dargunov watching the river for locals... at first we heard noises off the water, rivers carry echoes for a long way... it sounded like a whine... an engine, a small, but high revving engine...
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"Guys we've got company" I talked, but didn't say... the subvocal mikes carried the vibrations in my throat to my radio set and into the waiting ears of my comrades. Scalp came back towards the river, ready to give me and Gunny a hand if we needed it, Mike and Demo were busy applying the patch to the skirt.
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Through the scope I could see the target now, he was riding some kind of water motorcycle, carrying a sub-machinegun and talking into a radio very much like ours. He wore a uniform, half wetsuit, maybe part body armor, floatation device but didn't have any insignia that I could make out.
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I tried switching channels on my radio... sure enough there was someone transmittng on channel 4, but the frequency was scrambled... he was talking to somebody... and somebody was talking back... I switched back to channel 6 where we had chosen to start the day... Scalp was plugging their frequency into the Hovercraft's computer and trying to get it to decode their transmissions.
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I got a bead on the river patrol guy, on his Jetski Gunny had called it... does this mean they're Soviets? anyhow he'd been in my sights ever since he stopped to call upriver... since we could hear their transmissions his friend(s) had to be close. In a minute we heard another Jetski engine coming down the river... while the first guy was on the opposite side of the water from us, his buddy was coming up my side of the river... and I couldn't see him yet.
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"Gunny, I have the first guy, can you see the second one?" Gunny was on the point of the outlet, where the stream met the river, and he and his Mini-MI were tucked just inside the treeline... if guy #1 spotted Gunny, I'd drop him... but we had to have somebody looking out for guy #2. I screwed Captain Connor's silencer onto the front end of his Browning. The 9mm would be useless for the man across the river, but if the other guy got within 50 feet of me I might be able to drop him without alerting his buddy. That would give me just enough time to drop him too... maybe.
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While Gunny and I took aim, and Scalp tried to crack the code... Mike came up with another idea... they turned up the engines on the hovercraft enough to blow up the air cushion, and he and Demo pushed them into the treeline... When Scalp saw wht they were doing, he fired up the engines on his boat as well... if all hell broke loose and they managed to see us anyway, at least we'd be engines on and weapons hot, and could splatter them before they called for help.
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Turns out they didn't see us, or didn't let on that they saw us, guy #1 seemed to be making dismissive gestures to #2 and headed on down the river... after a few tense moments #2 followed down after him. We moved back to our hovercraft and started back up the delta knowing there were well armed people there, that might be waiting for us around any bend in the river, or dense line of trees... just like in 'Nam
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Only now Charlie meant Cajuns.
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Further up the river we came to a fork... the river went left, and right... the AutoNAVs weren't much help right now since they thought we were on dry land to begin with. Anyhow the toepaths continued on each side of the river... there was a small dock like area off to our right, and a wooden fort built up on concrete pylons that might have held up a bridge in the old days. We figured that we'd been spotted, and decided to talk to the locals... we took the second boat up to a barge full of men, Demo seemed to be doing all the talking.
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The men were rowing the barge across the river fork to the right... behind them they were towing a chain... if we had to we could run for it overland on the toepath and through the docks... but for right now we kept the .50s pointed at the sky, and our hands out, nice friendly gestures. The oarsmen wouldn't have anything to do with us, they told us to talk to the men in the fort... so we wheeled on over to the fort... there the local Sherriff looked us over...
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"Two gold in 'ere, five silver over der" The sherriff pointed to the warehouses at the docks. The Sherriff stood half in and half out of a small doorway built into the wall of the fort.
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"That's ok I think we can take our chances with the river..." Demo smirked cockily
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"Sure you take the river, but it get dark, you take chances with the Bandits too"
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"I dunno we're pretty tough, and we have friends further downriver"
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"You call them too, it get dark soon, if they not in by nightfall they stay outside"
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Glances shot from hovercraft to hovercraft... and unspoken words came soundlessly across the radios...
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-I think we'd better stay for the night-
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-The old guy could just be scamming us-
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-We might be able to find out what's up the river if we ask around inside-
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"Two gold in here?" Demo asked the sherriff... pointing to the fort
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"Two each, two gold per boat... you stay tonight four gold"
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I rummaged around our trade packs, we had 100 gold Double Eagles, and 100 Silver Dollars for trading with the locals, I looked over at Demo "How do we know how much one of their gold is?" I tossed a coin to Demo... he held it up to the Sherriff
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"How much gold is two gold?"
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"You don't pay me, you pay inside... you got nice stuff, you stay here, I have boys watch it for you... you stay over there" pointing to the docks "you get robbed..."
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"OK we stay inside then" The sherriff called something to men up inside the fort, and the huge wooden gates opened before us... inside the walls was a cove, with many places to tie our boats off. We moved inside, and doors began to close behind us.
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Scalp and Mike stayed with the boats while Demo, Gunny and I walked over to pay the harbormaster... he looked more like a cashier, but he weighed our gold, and told us what the local barter rates were... one of our coin quartered was just a little heavier than four of theirs... same as four of their coins and three silver. The sherriff told us we couldn't take long guns into town, so we all went with pistols, we looked for something to drink and maybe some information. The other two guys headed off in search of the saloon while I wandered over to the local gunsmith who was locking up shop for the night. I asked him how long it would take to make a mold for my Dragunov's 7.62x54mm slugs I only had a few boxes, and the Project only resupplied us in 9x19mm, 5.56mm and 7.62x51mm NATO rounds. He said it would take 3 days and a couple of gold... 3 days we didn't have, and gold I didn't need to be spending right now. I asked him about settlements up the river, but he said he was the best gunsmith for 2 maybe 3 days up the river... but of course he is, I thought... we had plenty of 9mm, and 5.56mm I could use the M21 and 7.62 NATO if I had to as a backup to the Dragunov we had enough rounds chambered for those no sweat... I decided to see how the other guys were doing, and told the smith I'd keep him in mind.
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Gunny and Demo were at a table in the back... talking to a shifty looking Cajun over a few drinks... As probably the first Japanese American to ever walk into this place... I got more than a few looks. I walked over, sat down, Pierre here was bleeding Demo for money... couple of silver for information, he knows a guy who knows a guy... that sort of thing... it seems Demo managed to find a coffee shop here too. What's that I smell... chickoree?
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"Jack, meet Pierre, he knows people, he'll find us a guide to take us up the river." Demo seemed confident in this guy, Gunny did too, I keep looking around the room for guys I don't trust...
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"Ah, my friend, I find you a good guide" Pierre's English wasn't bad...
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"Why can't you take us?" Sniffing around for the setup...
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"I have business here, if I go away a few days, I lose more money than you can pay me" good answer, it might not be true, but the healthy dose of self interest doesn't stink like some people's answers do.
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"I know a man, Miguel, he speaks good English, knows the river..." Demo tosses in a few more coins, local silver this time... change from the coffeeman I'm guessing.
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"I get him for you" Pierre dissappeared into the back of the saloon... we sipped our drnks, and I told the guys how it went with the gunsmith.
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"I talked to him... three days to make a mold for my rifle slugs... probably the same for the fifty cal"
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Gunny spoke up "Three days we have to be up the river in three days... besides we've got plenty of ammo"
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"and the caches too..." Demo added.
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"unless they've been found, raided, sunk, bombed, or caved in..." my natural cynic taking over.
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"We have almost nine thousand rounds in five five six... another seventy two hundred in nine mil" totals from the crates and manifests in the bolthole for personal loads, and stuff on the hovercraft.
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"We've got less than two thousand rounds for the M21's and less than a thousand for the two fifty cals..."
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"If we meet anything bigger than a gator it might eat us or all our ammo before we can uncrate a LAW''
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Pierre walked up with Miguel, or at least we assume that was the name of the man next to him in the moleskin coat, then he left us to our negotiating.
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"Evening, I hear you men want to get up the river" Miguel's English was flawless, and he didn't have a discernable accent, hmmmm....
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"Yes, we do... we're looking for a guide, or someone with some information" Demo pulled out a couple of the gold pieces I had made for him with the double eagles and some bolt cutters.
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"We DO have silver you know..." I kicked Demo under the table
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Demo pushed the coins across the table anyway, but kept his hand on them. Miguel said he'd be back, and wandered over to another table and got a map out of his bag.
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"I didn't think this guy would work for silver" Demo said across the table to Jack
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"You didn't ask him either"
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"Guys... he's here" thanks Gunny
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Thinking better of a second kick under the table, I got my gameface on, and looked over at Miguel's map.
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<We talked to Miguel, and got some interesting information, I'm going to bullet it>
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-Miguel has seen other 'old ones' before, they show up every couple of years, and usually kill each other off.
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-There is an 'old ones' settlement in Ohio, or so he has heard...
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-There is a self-proclaimed Riverlord two settlements up the river.
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-The town of Vicksburg our objective is now called Vickers.
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-Nobody seems to have seen our Jetski buddies around here.
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-There are settlers near the only cache between here and Vickers.
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We got Miguel to draw us a map, and thanked him for his time, then we went back to the hovercraft... I went through the personal effects of the dead crewmembers to see if there was anything we could use for trade in the morning, or that might help us out on the road ahead.
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A boy came to the docks, and asked for Bill (Demo guy had been calling himself that) he didn't speak Englais, and only handed him a note... the note was from Miguel on pretty awful parchment in bad ink.
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<we really should have checked the writing against the map he made for us>
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The note said I have learned some new information for you, come meet me at the saloon at midnight.
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As requested we showed up in the saloon at midnight, not the saloon he originally met us in, but another one... we were suspicious, but loaded up for bear, and went anyway. We told Mike and Scalp to keep the fifty cals warm, and stand by the radios until we returned. Demo was carrying the dead chick's MAC-10, Gunny had a Colt Python that belonged to the dead cowboy, and I was carrying my Browning as well as the one I picked up off of our dead commander Connors. When we got into the saloon, we asked around for Miguel at the bar, the bartender pointed to a bouncer standing by the back door. We went over there, and he let us into the gambling room in the back... There were some poker games, a game of motley peg (the hand and knife game) and three guys playing war... in the back corner was Miguel sitting alone. When we saw that Miguel was actually here, we felt a little mroe at ease... we walked over to him, and that's when it all went wrong.
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The three guys at the table by the door playing war, kicked over their table, and pulled 'local' MP5's out and went full auto on us. I tried to snap off a shot but missed. We managed to evade their fire, but it didn't do the saloon any good. Demo let the MAC-10 do all his talking and ripped one assailant in two, with a short burst. Gunny took two shots with the Python, ending another bad guy's career, and then I plugged the third guy with my Browning and Gunny finished him off too. We looked around to see what was going on, but a grenade rolled in from the bar, and Demo grabbed Miguel and covered him from the shrap. Our resistweav BDUs took all the shrap, and we picked up the MP5s off the bad guys before we left.
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We still don't know who threw the grenade, who sent the message, or who ordered the three guys to try and kill us.
We let Mike and Scalp know that we were ok over the radio, and wanted to make sure no one was trying to nab the hovercraft while we were separated.
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<End Session two>
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I ended up asking Miguel some more questions, the takeaway points will be bulleted below, and a map of the area will also soon make an appearence.
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-There are two settlements along the river between the bolthole, and Riverfort at the fork.
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....-The one settlement is not far off the East side of the river
........-It has 200+ farmers with minor manufacturing capabilities.
........-We put in to repair the Hovercraft just South of their settlement
....-The other settlement 'Castlerock' is far from the river, further North, and West of the river
........-It has approximately 2,000+ isolationist people living there
........-They are protected by high stone walls
........-They have skilled Leatherworkers, Metalworkers, and Artisans
........-They make good farming equipment
............-The people across the river would rather buy Castlerock goods, than make their own
........-They do not talk with outsiders, and no one has ever seen them
........-They trade by leaving goods in an arranged place
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-The river forks at a place called La Puett, there is a fort in the middle of the river
....-1,000 people live in La Puett, in the fort, the settlement outside, and the docks.
....-No one is La Puett has seen the Jetskis
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-As we go North up the river from Riverfort we'll come across a series of Locks,
....-The Locks are run by Bandits who charge a toll for passage
....-The Bandits are a para-military group armed with bolt-action, clip-fed rifles
....-North of the Locks is a way station also run by the bandits where you can eat, sleep etc...
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-Just South of Lake Baton Rouge there is a settlement of 300-400+ crazy farmers
....-Their crops always do badly, but their alcohol could be used as a fuelsource
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-Off the end of Lake Baton Rouge's western tributary there is a settlement:
....-The settlement is near the very end of the tribuatry, and has 1,500+ people
....-They have a militia, and are building their power
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-Just North of Lake Baton Rouge is another waystation run by locals
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-Further up the river is the Riverlord's domain it is a city of 5,000 people
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<End me pestering Mark between cardgames>
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Back at the docks Miguel reminded us that he still had obligations, and maybe he would see us up the river. He wandered off into the night and we discussed taking shifts sleeping until the city gates opened in the morning. It wasn't long after that we heard gunfire. At first there were a couple rounds of small arms fire that went off these were automatic. The return fire was two rounds of semi-auto, and then nothing. Bill decided he ought to look so he wan down the gangplank towards the docks... Scalp took off after him, I took over a fifty, and Richard manned the one on the other hovercraft. As Bill reached the closest building, he looked up, and said
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"There's somebody on the roof."
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I'd seen the movement and was already trying to get a closer look through the scope of my Dragunov... What I saw was a man dressed not unlike ourselves, and carrying what looked to be an M-16... he brought it around towards ua, and I saw him pump a shell into the underbarrel attachment....
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"Light him up" I yelled....
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In a wonderful fit of misscommunication, Richard proceeded to put a short burst of fifty cal into the rooftop, and I threw a 7.62 at him just to be sure. Unfortunately the M203 went off anyways, and some poor slobs boat blew up, burned down and then sank. Getting back to my original meaning I told Richard to get the vehicle spotlight on the bad guy's corpse. The body was now slumped over the roof and missing most of its head. By now Bill had kicked in the front door of the building and was leapfrogging the stairs wtih Scalp. Mike looked pissed they weren't waiting for someone to cover the backdoor... So I told him to go, late cover is better than none. House to house fighting was really more Mike's specialty than ours.
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About this time 100 men of the local militia showed up, the cops showed up, and every other trader on the docks was awake. The guys kept going through the building, Bill and Scalp had gotten to the second floor when a guy stepped out of the shadows.
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"Freeze, Stop, Come over here, Don't move" Bill wasn't much of a cop that's for sure.
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Just then Mike comes plowing through the back, body slams the new guy into a wall, cuffs him, and puts his pistol to the base of his skull.
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"Who are you" Bill again
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"I'm on your side, I'm the guy that tipped you off"
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"How do we know that"
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"Check my guns" he says, and Scalp obliges him, relieving him of his Browning and MP5
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Jim, the new guy goes on to say how he was a member of the Morrow project recruited from the CIA to infiltrate a group named KRELL. KRELL we'd never heard of, but according to him, they are a similar project to ours, but with the singular goal of placing their leader in power as a dictator of the new world order. He'd been frozen in a cryotube, and woken up three weeks ago, he was a river patrol guy on one of the jetskis, and was based out of the BIO-lab at Vickens. Apparently the Ebouma virus was designed to thin the population, and make them easier to take over. Worse yet since we were infected earlier today, we'd be in stage two of the infection by dawn, then we'd be infectious to others as the disease went airborn. In three days our insides would be turning to liquid. It was also established that he didn't have Morrow project ID to show us, because it would have been found by KRELL and compromised his mission.
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The four of them.went up to the roof, saw the body sitting there under the searchlight, and grabbed it, they were just going to strip off the weapons, but when they saw all the police and militiamen around the docks they just grabbed his gun and radio and threw the body to the street, they'd get the rest down there.
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Mike returned the prisoner to the hovercraft, and Bill started talking to the police chief about the recent activity.
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The police chief was screaming... in broken English
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"This is an outrage"
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"You're damn straight its an outrage we paid you good gold for protection, and we still get shot at"
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"You come here and you cause trouble, you shoot up everything, you wake everybody up, you got to leave now or pay the tax"
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"Pay the tax, we already paid once, why do we have to pay anything more"
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"Dis guy with the boat sinking, and the building you shot up, somebody gotta pay"
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"How much is this tax?"
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"Twenty gold..." "that's outrageous, there's no way we're going to pay that"
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The militia guys started looking nervous
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"fifteen"
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"ten"
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"twelve" at that I cut up three double eagles, and said "do it" over the subvocals to Bill
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"fine twelve" Bill came over to the boat, got the quartered double eagles, and a bottle of scotch
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The police chief took the money, hid the scothc under his coat, and winked at Bill... the he sent half of the militia back home to get some sleep... the other fifty guys stayed there, we never quite figured out if it was to save the town from us, or us from the town. Again we started to hunker down for the night. I'd already taken a stim before the shooting started so I was going to stay on the first watch. Jim our captured KRELL agent said there was another KRELL guy in town, but he didn't know his face. He'd have to call him on the radio, and tell him the grenades didn't work out. We figured it might be easier on us for him to arrange a meeting with KRELL tonight so we could kill this guy before he sent word further up the river... We let Jim esape with his Browning, and try to arrange the meet. He slipped over the side of the boat and swam up to the docks all silent like, hell I assume that's what happened I didn't really ever see him leave. Anyhow I'm listening to the KRELL radio we got off the rooftop guy in one ear, and my project radio in the other...
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"Speeder 2 to homebase"
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"base here speeder 2" the voice on the other end of the radio had no local accent, and wasn't a voice we'd heard so far in town.
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"the grenades didn't work, they're still alive"
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"I see, I'll pass on this information to the next level, and let them take care of it."
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"Speeder 1 is dead"
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"Understood" with that the conversation pretty much eneded, Jim tried to arrange a meeting, but base wouldn't meet until morning, and we didn't have that kind of time.
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Curiously while Jim was on his way back from this call, two of the militiamen guarding us dissappeared. Jim got back, again he just kind of was there again... Bill and I were talking about how we were going to go up the river, and not infect survivors at the locks and whatnot. We also wanted to figure out how Jim could collect his and Speeder 1's equipemnt without leaving at the same time as us, and potentially blowing any semblance of cover he might have left.
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At dawn Jim left the hovercraft silently, we all made for the gates with all the other trader boats. The police chief asked Bill if he could arrange a trade for some more of our Scotch, but we had to leave and now we could infect him if we stayed to talk, we'll be back in a few days, we'll sell you some more then.
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(although in local currency the chief would have owed us like 9 silver in change, I think that, and the scotch might have bought us some goodwill with the chief, so in the end its not too bad for us, I now begin to wonder how far Cowboy, and Connor's bottles of Scotch and some fine cuban cigars might get us in the future)
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We sped off out of the gates, and off about 30 minutes upriver and then we waited for Jim to join us with the two jetskis and their equipment packs. We lashed both jetskis to a hovercraft, and stowed the gear, we covered all the new gear AND Jim under tarps, and went on our merry way.
..
A few hours later we came to the locks, we saw them from a distance, and slowed down as we approached them, over the KRELL radio I heard 3 clicks and then silence. We came up to the locks, Bill tried to talk to the toll-taker, but we had to cut the engines for him to hear us without getting close enough to infect him. We paid our 2 gold toll for both boats in a bucket on a pole that we had made while waiting for Jim. Boat two was the first one in since we were already close enough to talk. We went into the lock, doors closed, water rises, and we felt absolutely trapped... the second lock opened, we pushed through, doors closed etc... we got out the other side in a few minutes and it was safe for the other boat to come through. They got into the second lock before the Mortars started to fall. They guy filling the locks abandoned his post, and the water stopped filling, mortar after mortar pounded the water near our boat, and I had Scalp get us to the shore so I could give fire support to the boat in the lock. Bill scanned the treelines, and manned the fifty cal. Richard had told Jim to man their fifty cal, and climbed up the ladder in the lock to find the controls... when he got to the top, he figured out the controls, while I looked for shooters. Bill noticed a couple folks 50 yards off in the trees, he gave them a long burst off of the fifty, and when the third mortar pounded near the boat, it didn't seem to be adjusting to our movements at all. Enemy bullets shot at the hovercraft on the river, almost hitting Scalp, but Bill gave them a short burst off of the fifty, and quickly they ceased to be an issue. Meanwhile, found a shooter across the river in the treeline making trouble for Richard and I on the other shore...our boat wasn't up high enough to use its fifty, so I had to make do with an M-16 I let off a 12 round burst, and still the shooters returned fire. I let off another burst and they went silent. Richard manned the locks until one fo the actual lock personnel came back to relieve him.
..
"You guys have got to get out of here... " he grabbed the lock control, and let Richard and I get onto boat one. Another lock worker got out of a foxhole, and kicked open the doors so we could leave.
We searched the areas for survivors, but didn't find any bodies...
We went North across Lake Baton Rouge and some critter swam past us that ticked off the geiger counter, and set off our auto-injectors, we edged closer to the shore, and some irradiated locals shot at us, but the worst was yet to come.As we neared the North side of the lake, we entered the outskirts of Baton Rouge, we tried to stay near the center of the river, but only a little way up the river, the next KRELL ambush party opened fire. Bill kept the fire suppressed well on the West Bank, but Richard held his fire on the East Bank, KRELL let of volleys of small arms fire, and a LAW rocket went through Hovercraft 2's driver's section taking Mike out with it. Richard and Jim took their share of the small arms fire. I took an M-16 and a Jetski over to the East Bank and attempted to suppress the KRELL soldiers with bursts from the weapon while Bill hammered away at the West Bank. By the time I got on top of the East Bank all of the KRELL squad were dead except one who said he was project. We gathered up all the M-16s and MP-5s there, and loaded the KRELL humm-vs from both banks. We took both vehicles, 2 jetskis, and both hovercraft up the river and hid all the watercraft in the woods.
We went to the KRELL base up the river in one of their HUMM-V's radioed ahead, and said that we had wounded, we left a body on the hood of the car, and dressed in KRELL uniforms. We worked our way into the facility past the guards and everything, it was the med-techs that were the first to question us, and as we rushed in, Scalp killed his curious med-tech with his trusty scalpel. We sealed the doors, and told the tech to take us to the med bay, we descended to the bio-labs killing more KRELL guys along the way, and finding out 9mm is useless against class IIIA vests but not against people's heads. We got the antidote and left the med techs there, sometime while we were trying to decide what to do next and how to destroy their virus manufacturing capabilities, an alarm sounded, Scalp had set their reactor to overload. We scrambled to find out what to take with us, and hurried back up to the HUMM-V we left screaming its gonna blow, and crap like that, we took on KRELL refugees only to kill them and dump them on the roadside when we were out of sight.
We drove back to the Hovercraft, and signalled to Prime Base that the Biochem lab was destroyed. We caught our breath, and setup camp waiting for their reply, when it finally came, it seems a science team had dissappeared and we needed to head North to find them. We started to load up for another journey when a HUMM-V drove up on us, Scalp who was sitting in the .50 cal ever since we left the KRELL base decided to welcome them with a short burst. I hit his auto-injector's tranquilizer button, and down he fell, but it was too late we were in a firefight with another HUMM-V...
Lots of ammo and a smoking HUMM-V later Scalp was dead, and our location was sort of compromised. We cleaned it up, ditched the smoking remains in the river, covered tracks, and headed South to the nearest river crossing. We made camp and were fine until almost dawn when a radioavtive something approached the camp, we lost 4 Claymores and tooks some rads. We drove away as fast as we could, woke the ferryman, gave him a bottle of Scotch to cross the river, and told him we had more if nobody ever heard about us.
We headed North up the toe paths by the river, and found three stakes for burning people, only two had been used recently, the third was ready, but had no victim... we pressed on, and were startled by a young girl running into the road ahead of us, she just laid there in front of the HUMM-V and I took her in, we could hear the sounds of dogs chasing her, and a hunting party was ahead. We charged the hunting party, and I took a rifle round in the chest, Bill and Richard let the villagers have it with .50 cals, and not a few of them died... we pushed on as even more hunting parties were coming out of the woods. Apparently the villagers were Luddites and would have killed us for using technology, they killed the girl's parents back on the stakes when their motorboat broke down by the river. Her father was a smith who worked silver and gold, then travelled up and down the river selling jewelry. The girl spoke cajun, and english, and knew some of the local settlements along the river, as well as the location of the local band of marauders, we decided to take her along with us.