Rock and Roll Mercenaries - An MGT play account

[Klaus]

Note, this game is what I call Traveller Noir; it is gritty, and dark. While I've not gone into every grimy detail, it is a black tale indeed.

The flavours or inspiration for this game are a mix of The Wire, Burn Notice, with a touch of Eastern Promises and Taken.

This will tell the tale of Liam Murphy and Darcus McDubh, two ne'er-do-wells from the slums of Colichos, on the anti-spinward edge of the Solomani Confederation.

Colichos is a hard place to live. The best land goes to El Presidente and his cronies, while the rest of the people have to scrape a living on plantations or in the large slums near the few cities. Liam and Darcus (or Darko) grew up in one of these slums, and ran together in the petty gangs that roam the alleys and open sewers. They, along with Ali "The Cat" Oxon, ruled the Five Ways junction during their teens. Until they were caught by Confederation authorities for breaking into a Navy air base. A short hearing in front of a Party magistrate and a choice between a work camp and the draft: Ali was sent to the marines, while Darko and Liam ended up in the merchants, though with very different trajectories for both of them.

Liam was inducted into the merchant marine, and ends up on a Trilion Industries freightliner, he has been spotted by SolSec, impressed with his potential, and recruited. He actually goes on board as a SolSec monitor. He also develops a contact to keep tabs on his old buddies: Elise Oxon, Ali's sister and, currently, Darko's lover.

After a mundane four years as a spacer, Liam manages to transfer out and becomes a Plainclothesman in SolSec proper, but things go a bit wrong and he is suspected of treason. He submits to torture and is exonerated, but his experience leaves him with a chronic medical condition he will need constant treatment for. However, he does gain skills in interrogation and medicine.

Next he becomes an Analyst, where he undertakes a successful surveillance case, gaining a contact and some good surveillance skills.

Having had enough of sitting in grav-vans listening to criminals and seditionists, he decides he wants to break some heads and transfers to the Spetznaz. Here he has to extract one of his old contacts, Elise, who has now joined the Solomani Party. They fall in love this time and a son is born.

Using her political contacts, Liam is promoted to lieutenant and an intelligence officer, and gets a reputation as a hardliner. His tradecraft skills improve. Tragedy strikes, and his and Elises son dies, of complications related to Liam's illness.

Liam is ultimately promoted to major, and becomes a specialist in interrogation after special training. Liam's relationship with Elise has not survived the death of their son, although she remains a contact, and Liam has gained some enemies by his overzealous interrogation of some innocent business executives.

Liam is summoned to Sirranan, where he is interviewed by a Colonel Klobb. He has been selected for a mission. He will be going undercover as himself. He is to infiltrate a criminal organisation in the Tohira system, but he will be using his real identity. It seems he is guilty of embezzlement; his enemies have implicated him as stealing operational funds and not registering assets confiscated. He is to be arrested and tried, sent for interrogation, and he will be transferred to another penal colony. On this flight will be his contact, an asset he will recognise who will get him in with the gang. Liam is to take over the ship and get the asset to navigate it to the nearby Tohira. The crew, a bunch of corrupt incompetents, and the other prisoners, excepting the asset, are entirely expendable. He will be disavowed and burned by SolSec, so his cover is that of renegade.

He is then led into another office, where he meets a glamorous Party Commissioner. She reveals a deeper mission, his true objective. This gang has possession of some secret which is allowing them to make a lot of money with stocks and shares. Liam is to discover what this secret is and steal it, bringing it back to her. He is given the name and location of a contact, and the number of a storage locker on Pearson's Rock in Tohira, and then the commissioner shoots him with a tranq for attempting to kill a party official.

Liam is sent to an interrogation centre and beaten up, several times, by his former colleagues. After a week of this, he is again tranqed...

This was just chargen, with a bit of prologue play. The players got a character pretty close to what they had initially desired. I had always intended Darko would spend his last term in the gulag, as part of the set up, but the dice threw this up anyway, without GM fiat.

 

[Klaus]

Chapter 1

.... Liam comes to, hearing voices:

"I wanna sedate them again if we gotta carry them up outa here before we jump."

He feels a hypospray on his neck and the cold rush of the injection, but instead of the growing darkness of unconsciousness his nerves start to rage and his muscles twitch: it's a stimulant, not a sedative! Liam is hooded and restrained. He feigns unconsciousness as his shackles are unlocked, and as soon as the last strap is undone he leaps up, grabbing the figure in front of him, finding the neck and snapping it. He pulls off his hood.

He is in the narrow passenger cabin of a ship's launch. Five other orange boiler-suited and hooded captives are chained to their seats. He drops the body in his arms as the other SolSec crew member pulls her snub pistol and fires wildly at him, phutt, hitting instead one of the other captives in the head. Liam can hear another prisoner shouting: "What's going on?" as he dives at the woman in front of him. His brutal lunge snaps her back onto the prisoner she was about to 'sedate', and there is an audible crunch as she slams into his body. The shackled man goes wild, using his teeth, and in a lucky strike, biting down onto the poor woman's jugular through his hood. She expires on the floor, her blood pumping out through the grill down to the lower workspace.

Ten seconds of action and three humans lie dead on the floor. Liam takes stock quickly, and pulls off the hood of the prisoner that aided him. Amazingly, even through the blood, the newly broken nose, the wild, Rasputin-like gulag hair and beard, he recognises his old friend Darko, and Darko recognises him. Some unspoken communication passes between them ("So this is what they meant when they said I'd know what to do..."). Liam quickly unshackles Darko, and they both pick up the guard's snub pistols. Darko goes forward to the control cabin, and Liam tells the mewling prisoner to shut up.

>>>Some pretty good rolling on the part of the players makes short work of the guards.

Darko sees open space through the cockpit's canopy. Above is the structure of a Solomani courier ship, and it seems they are under hard acceleration. A shout comes down from the open access port in the roof of the launch. "Everything OK down there....? I’m coming down."

Darko conceals himself behind the cockpit bulkhead, Liam stands in the centre of the cabin and takes aim at the ladder. Another SolSec crewmember climbs down. Liam waits before he gets down and turns to face him before he plugs him. The crewman falls into the cockpit, wounded, and at Darko's feet, and the wild-haired former smuggler shoots him in the eye.

Darko and Liam greet each other properly, but leave the catching up to later. First, they examine the other prisoners: a talkative, cowardly wretch called Stavro Villa, a tough looking, broken nosed woman called Naomi, and a giant, insensible, bald, scarred, and with swastika-tattooed face, brute, who gurns and groans. They release him, and the monster leaps up the ladder. Subsequently, there are screams, gunfire, and the alarm starts.

Darko goes up first. On the next level is a broken body and a discarded shotgun. Further up, on the control deck, Darko arrives to see the brute hurl a pilot head first into the wall with a sickening crunch. The giant turns to the remaining pilot, who is screaming "Mayday" into the comm. The pilot fires his TAC-pistol, with a lucky shot into the brute's eye. The giant falls backwards, and then Darko shoots the pilot in the mouth. He moves to the cockpit, casually shooting the brute in the face as he passes. After an abortive attempt to bluff the SolSec authorities, Darko then proceeds to ascertain where they are and what is going on.

Liam arrives on the command deck, pumping a shell from his newly acquired shotgun into the face of the still-not-quite-dead nazi giant. The brute's body twitches and then lies still. Liam and Darko work on a plan.

The courier is en route out of the Sirranan system on a trajectory toward Tamarlane, back into Solomani space. There are half a dozen gunships on an intercept course. Tamarlane is a bad place to end up as a fugitive. However, Tohira lies in the opposite direction. They could reprogram the navicomp to Tohira, but without matching vectors with the target system they could jump in anywhere. They decide it's a risk they'll have to take (especially given that it is their main objective), as Tohira is more or less an independent system, a series of asteroid belts and an easy place to hide in.

While Villa whinges, Liam and Naomi prep the drives, while Darko works on the new plot. With the first gunship's missiles incoming, they jump....

While in jump, they take stock. The courier is peculiar. It has been in mothball for almost two decades, and they are kept busy with minor and not so minor malfunctions. Only the jump drive was overhauled before the vessel was put back into service. The ship's launch is also a non-standard design, but is in better condition than the courier is. The crew are also strange. All come from different divisions and precincts, and had never worked together before their fatal assignment. The escapees also equip themselves, with vac suits, while Darko takes a pair of combat snubs and a combat knife and Liam claims the TAC-pistol and the shotgun; both also take one of the snub revolvers.

Villa spends the jump trying to get the boys into card games and sleazing over Naomi, who makes it quite clear she is not interested in men. Liam and Darko catch up, but do not reveal all their lives to each other. Darko suggests that he has a friend in Tohira, an old gang enforcer, who will be able to get them in, if they can make contact.

 

[Klaus]

Chapter 2

A week after their escape they jump into the Tohira system. The courier's vector is way off course, and it is traveling at great speed out system. They pile the bodies into an escape pod, and after disabling the beacons they launch all four of them. Then the ex-convicts get back into the launch, and leave the courier to it's fate. With full tanks, there is just enough fuel to get the launch headed in system and to the independent asteroid habitat Pearson's Rock.

When they get close, and knowing that they have no id's or other legal papers, work on a way to get on the habitat. Liam calls one of his contacts, a bomb-maker called Santiago, and asks him if he can put them in touch with someone to get them aboard quietly. They are sent to a quiet dock on a rarely used part of the starport. They will be allowed aboard and given id in exchange for the launch itself.

They reach the dock to meet the new contacts. By coincidence, the guy leading the tough looking group that welcomes them is Mitch. After a tense conversation, where Darko decides against knifing the guy, they are given the location of a lounge and a comlink and told to wait.

Settled on some threadbare sofas, in their dirty ship-suits, Darko gets a call from Mitch. He apologises, but the team he is working for have decided to shop them to the authorities. Mitch is warning them as a favour, and hopes it goes some way to repaying his debt to Darko. He also gives them the location for a business where, if they are clever with computers, they should be able to get some temporary id.

All four fugitives flee the lounge, and make their way to the business, a cleaning company. Among the janitor droids and cleaning chemicals, they take some employee id and are able to produce some reasonably effective id cards on the computer system. At this point Naomi says sayonara and disappears.

Liam, Darko, and Villa make their way to the storage bay where Liam knows he has some kind of cache. Villa helps break into it, and Darko disables the alarm. There is 20Kcr in cash and a card for a medical clinic on another tier. Villa pleads and wheedles for some of the cash, and Liam gives him a thousand credits, on condition that he stays to work for them. Villa then promptly disappears into a crowd. Shrugging, the boys go clothes shopping.

They buy some incredibly expensive haute couture diplo armour, spending 3000cr, and then they make their way to where Darko thinks there might be a way to contact Ernesto Hunda. They use a local travel tube to reach the middle class township of Wilkie, a hundred kilometres or so along the circumference of Pearson's Rock.

Once in Wilkie, a pleasant open vault habitat with greenery and reflected sunlight, they make their way to the Toucan bar, and Darko asks the barman for Ernesto Hunda. The bartender claims ignorance of any such fellow, and the boys decide to share a drink while they wait for what comes next. Liam visits the head. Two men follow him in and hold him at gunpoint and frisk him. Meanwhile, a taciturn but well dressed tough sits next to Darko. They are disarmed, and taken into a back room. Another man takes to someone on a comm, and then shines a cam into Darko's face.

Luckily, despite his still hirsute appearance, Hunda recognises Darko as the man who saved his life years ago. It seems fortune has smiled upon Hunda, and he has gone from gang enforcer to the big boss of a successful organisation. Though he cannot meet in person, yet, he orders his chief henchman, Oleg Grundy, to give them a job, to disappear a guy and his wife.

A reluctant Oleg fills them in, while his second, the silent Barat, keeps watch. The other two, Felka and Drago, leave on other business. A young, married, pilot, who works for a subsidiary of the Hunda Organisation (The Kikl Brothers), has been having an affair with Hunda's beloved daughter, Claris. Hunda wants the boy, a Quentin Karas, gone, disappeared, and his wife too. It should look like they've moved outsystem. Hunda does not want his daughter to suspect foul play. The boys are given the address of Karas' home (in the township Benson) and place of work (along the 'south' end of the main ring), and they are given 5 days to do it. Grundy makes it obvious he is not happy that Hunda has them doing this, and he warns them of the consequences of getting it wrong. Tired and exhausted, Liam and Darko book rooms in a hotel nearby in Wilkie and turn in for the night.

 

[Klaus]

Chapter 3

They awake late in the afternoon, and after a fairly long travel tube ride, find themselves in Benson 14, a 'boulevard' habitat, deep inside the nickel-iron asteroid. Benson takes the form of a series of looping boulevards, high and wide corridors with a light strip on the roof, broken by safety tunnels every half kilometre or so, with iron walled buildings built along the sides. They take up position opposite Karas' apartment to observe, Liam in a cafe, and Darko in a launderette, sometime in the early evening. Liam plays around with his new hand computer and sets his agent off for a search on the Hunda organisation and for the local infrastructure (plumbing, power, cctv, etc) of Benson 14. After the cafe shuts at midnight he joins Darko in the launderette. At about 4am, a figure resembling the picture of Karas stumbles home, obviously drunk, down from the travel tube station up the slope.

Having laid eyes on the target, they return to the hotel, and during the hour long travel tube journey, discuss their plans. They will find some way to gain entry into the apartment, kill both Quentin and Michelle, and then find some way to dump the bodies, while they empty the flat as if they have left.

They get some more sleep, and this time get up early. At breakfast Felka and Drago come to hassle them, and getting them to buy them a breakfast too. Liam and Darko decide to split up. Darko goes down to the main ring to observe Quentin at work, while Liam tries to find some way into the Benson 14 CCTV network around the Karas' apartment. Because of the nickel-iron structure of the bulk of Pearson's Rock, normal wireless comms do not work very well. Voice comm can just about work, transmitting to local cells that are hard wired, but data traffic needs a hard connection. Liam travels to Gorling, a business district off the main ring, to the head offices of the company running the Benson 14 network.

He gets in to the offices after making an appointment as the name on his id, an employee of the cleaning company on the other side of the Rock. He gets in to speak to the manager, and due to an artful spilling of coffee gets himself alone in the manager's office. However, his attempts to break into the computer system are thwarted by time and security. He is not discovered, but he will need to access a different terminal. Claiming the need to visit the toilet, Liam trips the fire alarm, and in the ensuing chaos gets into a the back office and is able to penetrate the computer security, enabling remote access to the CCTV cams in and around the target's home. On his way out he has to pretend to be overcome by fumes, and is taken out by a paramedic trolley-car. A little along the road-tunnel and he beats up the medics and steals the trolley-car, later abandoning it far from anywhere he has so far been and makes his way back to the hotel in Wilkie.

Meanwhile, Darko spends the day watching Kikl Brothers Haulage and Storage, Quentin Karas place of work. It is run by two brothers, Udo and Spengi. At 7pm Quentin Karas leaves work and heads of down the main boulevard, with Darko following. He stops by a workers bar, and drinks with some buddies. Darko sits near the window and passes the time watching the bare-knuckle prize fighting on the vid. Giorgio the Magnificent, reigning champion for 18 months, takes on all comers. Darko watches him knock out three wannbes before, after a beer or three, Quentin makes his way to the travel tube.

Darko follows him and sits in the same car unnoticed. An hour later the car pulls into Benson 14, and Karas gets off. Darko makes an error and decides to stay on the car until the next stop, then double back so as not to reveal himself to his mark. As the car pulls out, Quentin is approached by three figures and pushed up against a wall. Darko sees no more, except the face of the shortest assailant, and by the time he makes it back to Benson 14 there is no sign of Karas or anyone else. He makes his way back to Wilkie to report in to Liam, who is livid at Darko's incompetent tradecraft. He tries to hack into the transit station CCTV network (different from around the flat), but cannot break through their security. However, one of the cameras from down the boulevard, which is on the hacked network, does look up the slope to the station. Liam and Darko watch as Quentin is pushed up against a wall by two heavies, while a smaller man jabs a finger at him. After a while they punch him and let him go, and leave. Quentin half runs, half stumbles back to his flat. Darko did get a look at the small man as the travel tube car left the station, but he has no idea who he is. Liam sets his agent off on a search for any local criminal or marginally legal activity, to see if they can get an identification.

They continue their plan. Liam goes out to set up his hand comp, plugging it into a municipal network port near a park, and conceals it in a bush, for it to record the CCTV feed and to search for other records, while Darko goes back to Benson to observe the flat at night. However, Darko gets bored. He tries to break into an empty property opposite the Karas' block, but fails, and is caught on the CCTV in all his hirsute glory. Darko gives up before 4am, and heads back to Wilkie. He goes for a haircut and a shave, and then heads down to the lakeside to pick up a 'lady of the night'.

Liam awakes early and manages to retrieve his handcomp before a local rentacop discovers him. It turns out his hack had been discovered, after suspicion after the false fire alarm. However, he has a lot of footage recorded in memory. Not having time to look at it, he heads over to the Kikl brothers to hire a trolley-truck. He also hires a lock-up in Benson 14 not far away from the Karas' place. This is where they will store the Karas' belongings after they carry out the assassination. Darko sleeps in; he stayed up very late....

Liam meets the Kikl brothers, who charge him through the nose for the hire, and he makes his way back via the tube roads that snake through the interior of the asteroid, dodging juggernauts in the flimsy open trolley-truck, a three hour trip, leaving it in the lock up, and then making his way back to Wilkie. He wakes up a now respectable looking Darko and they have dinner, reviewing their plans and checking the agent. Trawling through all the data picked up, Darko spots a photo with the phizog of the short man he saw intimidating the hapless Quentin, a local businessman and club owner Frank Bozman. The agent then quickly locates establishments owned by Bozman's holding company. While they are eating they watch Giorgio the Magnificent on the vid dispatch yet some more hopefuls. They also get a chance to review the CCTV footage. Liam is most amused, but also irritated, by Darko's klutziness trying to get into the empty building. He looked like a well dressed vagrant, wild eyed and mad. They then watch forward to the morning, and discover a vital fact that they should have found on the first day, not, by now, the third. They finally spot Karas' wife going to work. It turns out Michelle Karas is six months pregnant!

While Liam and Darko are both ruthless and somewhat bloodthirsty, even they balk at the cold-blooded murder of a pregnant woman. This is getting very complicated. They decide they need to know more, and head off to a snooker hall owned by Bozman.

>>> God bless klutzy players. The big reveal, that Michelle Karas was pregnant, should have come early, and would have done if the players had stuck to their plans, instead of changing it on the fly. I was a little alarmed at the enthusiasm they showed in planning the deaths of two citizens, but, in the end, even they were not total psychos.

 

[Klaus]

Chapter 4

It is early evening. Liam and Darko go up to the barman at the snooker hall and order drinks. Then Liam claims to be SolSec, and that the barman better get Frank down quick or else there'll be consequences. The few players in hear the word SolSec and all leave. The barman disappears into the back and does not return. After a few minutes, Darko gets bored, and heads round the back to explore. Liam stays in the hall.

Ten minutes later, a posse of thugs show up, led by the short, middle aged, balding form of Frank Bozman. He looks somewhat startled. After demanding an explanation, Liam affects a suitably sinister intimidatory demeanour and convinces Frank he has got in the way of a SolSec investigation. He and Frank go into the back to talk.

Frank tells Liam the deal with Quentin Karas. The boy owes Frank 10Kcr through gambling debts. Liam tells Frank that Karas is under surveillance, and not to mess with him. Frank refuses, and Liam grabs him, twisting his arm and pressing his thumbs on Frank's jugular. However, Frank has a short blade pointed at Liam's crotch. Liam gives Frank an offer. He will get Frank's money when he goes to question Quentin tonight. Now Frank reveals more: he wants Quentin to get his wife to steal shipping manifests from the brokerage firm she works for. Liam promises that he will make sure Frank gets them, and they shake hands. There is then a shout from the main hall.

While Liam waited, Darko wandered around exploring. He finds a kitchen, and looks at the knives. Finding a reasonably sharp carving knife, and bored again, he goes back to the snooker hall. He walks through the doors and is immediately confronted by half a dozen thugs sitting around. Seeing the knife in his hand, one of the thugs smiles and pulls out his own blade and stalks forward. Darko grins: he throws the carving knife at the thug, hitting his arm, then pulls his combat knife. The fight is vicious and short. Darko manages two decent cuts on the attacker, and is able to defend the counterattacks. Then both combatants attack together: Darko nicks the thug's neck, but the thug's bade gets buried deep in Darko's gut. Both men collapse on to the floor, bleeding profusely.

>>> The player did not roll so well at first, and then, worst luck, I, the ref, rolled double box cars on behalf of the thug. Absolute max damage, 16 points, enough to seriously wound Darko.

Liam and Frank come upon the scene, appalled. Liam demands they get the men to a safe doctor, and they are all bundled into a trolley-van and taken to a decrepit lock up. A fat, old, and very drunk fellow greets them, and gets his surgical equipment ready. Liam demands that Darko is treated first, trusting in his bluff that he has all of SolSec to back him up. The doc stabilises Darko, and leaves him sedated. Unfortunately the other thug bleeds out. Frank and his men leave after Liam pays the Doc, for the medical aid and for keeping Darko under care. The Doc goes to crash out, Darko sleeps, and Liam slips out and goes to meet his contact.

The clinic is quite far away, so it takes Liam two or three hours to reach it, near to closing time. He gives his contact, Dr. Anya Koudelka, the code phrase, and she responds. She fills him in on the Hunda organisation. Hunda had been a tough enforcer for the Ordelli syndicate, lucking out and marrying the boss's young daughter, Maryam. He was looking forward to a quite retirement when tragedy struck the Ordelli clan. Juan Ordelli, Boss Ordelli's only son, was killed in a launch accident along with all his family. Boss Ordelli couldn't take this, and he expired just a month later, leaving the syndicate in disarray. Ordelli's financial fixer, an Oscar Silke, persuaded Hunda to take over the clan, based on marriage (Maryam had been committed to an asylum a few years previously) and the fact that his daughter, Claris, was Ordelli's heir. After a short but bloody consolidation, Hunda managed to take control of most of the organisation. Whatever Silke was up to, it has proved successful for the new boss, and the Hunda Organisation has prospered, especially in the fact that now much of their revenue comes from legitimate endeavours in the financial markets, which have been remarkably successful.

Liam accepts another 10Kcr and an advanced medkit, and makes his way back to Darko in the backstreet doc's care.

Meanwhile Darko has been sleeping. He is awoken in the dark by noises coming from the next room. He takes stock of his surroundings. He is lying on a gurney and his whole side is cold and numb, looking down, he sees he is strapped up, with his jacket and shirt removed. His combat snubs are several metres away from him, hung up on a hook on the wall, but he still has the snub revolver at his ankle. The door opens, and two figures creep in. Perhaps they are Bozman's men, or perhaps not. He fires from the ankle, downing one, and then the other before he can react. Darko had forgotten his revolver was loaded with tranqs, so they are not dead. He muses on killing them, then decides just to rob them and tie them up. Clutching his side, he leaves the place, deciding that the doc was comatose after downing two bottles of whiskey and probably had nothing to do with the thugs.

 

[Klaus]

Chapter 5

On his way back to the hotel he calls Liam, who is enraged that Bozman seemed to pull a double cross. He tells Darko to meet him at Benson 14, the launderette. Rendezvousing together in the small hours, Liam and Darko slip the lock to the apartment door, and go upstairs. They break in the Karas' flat, and catch them asleep. While Darko watches Michelle, Liam interrogates Quentin...

Liam decides against torture, and Quentin spills the beans. It turns out he does have massive gambling debts, and Frank was threatening his wife unless she stole the manifests. However, he was not having an affair with Claris Hunda, at least, not in the way Ernesto thought. The Karas's wanted to escape Tohira, to emigrate into the Hive Federation. It was Michelle's idea: he was to take advantage of Claris's infatuation with him (he had ferried her around occasionally) and use her to get the money they needed to leave. Quentin and Michelle are completely in love, and Quentin didn't want to cheat on his wife, but Michelle said she did not regard it as a betrayal. They had to get their child to safety. Claris had promised Quentin the rest of the money tonight, when they have another date. Darko and Liam pondered.... They decided to expedite Quentin's plan, using their own money. They book tickets for both Quentin and Michelle to a human colony over the border. Because Michelle is heavily pregnant, low berth is out of the question for her, so they have to stump up almost all of their cash. After they make Quentin record a confession tape to Claris, they bundle them out and head to the starport, giving Quentin the cash to buy the tickets in his name. They wait until they make it aboard the liner, and keep watch until it departs. Satisfied phase one of their task is complete, Liam heads back to the Karas apartment to remove their belongings while Darko goes back to the hotel with the new medkit to rest up.

Liam gets to his lock up and puts on some coveralls, then drives the Kikl trolley-cart down to the flat. Acting like a removal man, he makes sure he is noticed by a neighbour and informs them the Karas's have left to start a new life elsewhere. He loads up all their belongings on the trolley-cart, and sets off. Immediately another trolley-car sets off in pursuit: Bozman's men who had had the place under observation (although they had got there long after the Karas's had fled). A low speed chase ensues (the trolley cars can only make 30kph), with the thugs firing on Liam, with boxes falling off his cart. Liam gets bored of this. He pulls up, jumps off the saddle, and sends a full burst from his TAC-pistol into the pursuing trolley-car, wrecking it's electric motor. It grinds to a halt and the thugs pile out. Liam squirts off another burst, downing one thug and injuring another, and the rest dive for cover as their trolley-car catches alight. Liam gets back on the cart, and manages to make it to the entry-way to the road tunnels before the cops show up. He does the long, alarming drive back down to the Kikl brothers, where he has to spend virtually all the rest of his cash compensating them for the bullet holes in their cart. He pops a stim and uses his last credits catching the travel tube back to the hotel.

Darko had returned to the hotel, applied the medkit, watched Giorgio beat up some more challengers, then slept. Liam wakes him up, red-eyed and sweaty. It's late evening, and they have got to deal with Frank. He needs to be silenced, unless he somehow is able to give away what's happened to Claris. And for the fact that he is a double crossing motherfrakker. Liam's done his homework: his agent has located what looks to be Frank's HQ, a nightclub back in Benson. They tool up, and use the petty cash Darko recovered from the thugs to pay for the travel tube back down. They locate a costume shop in order to get a disguise in order to gain entry into the club. They pick clown outfits! Big, mean, nasty clowns with really big shoes and flowers that squirt water.

>>>Imaginative players means it goes all Captain Spalding...

The endgame is afoot. The two clowns walk up to the nightclub. It's a busy night, lots of revelers are queuing outside. Using guile and being as daft as possible, they make their way into the club without being searched. They scope the place out, spotting the bouncers and the likely ways in the back: behind the bar, and through a guarded door on the upstairs balcony. They go up, approach the guard, and attack. He doesn't go down with the first blow, and pulls his gun. Revelers nearby spot the kafuffle and start to scream and flee, but no one else has noticed yet. Darko shoots the guard dead, and starts searching for a key. One of the guards downstairs notices the fleeing people, and makes his way upstairs. Liam takes him out with a controlled burst from his TAC-pistol, and now the whole club is aware a bunch of vicious, murderous clowns armed with firearms are rampaging among them. Panic erupts.

The clowns get into the back, and take out three more goons. With no sign of Frank, they head down the stairs in the back. Two more thugs get taken out, but Darko is lightly injured some more. Picking up a fallen shotgun, Liam moves into the lead, holds his fire when he sees a shadow (and avoids blasting a female party-goer) and heads out of the open back door. There is a small yard, and across it he sees Frank and more guards fleeing by way of a hatch into the escape tunnels. He shoots one guard then and there, while Darko takes out another following them from inside the club.

They head into the escape tunnels, running and gunning. Two more guards fall to Liam's shotgun, with Darko finishing them off with his combat snubs as he brings up the rear. Turning down another tunnel, they see Frank scrambling into a hatch into the lower depths. Liam blasts the last guard twice, and then fires blind down the hatch, eliciting a yowl from Frank. Liam and Darko pause. The hatch leads deeper into the interior of the asteroid, the domain of WAR (Waste And Reclamation, a secretive and powerful guild on the rock).

They climb down the ladder. There's blood at the bottom. They head out into a corridor filled with pipes and steam and a nasty smell. A burst from a gauss pistol rings out, missing them but hitting some pipes, spraying them in a fine mist of raw sewage. They return fire, getting another yelp as Frank drops his gun. The dirty clowns advance. Frank has squeezed into a crawl space, and is trying to get away. Liam gets in after him. Darko looks around, and seeing a brighter area head, investigates. He comes upon a large opening, and a warm breeze. There is a deep shaft surrounded by a gantry. A crawlspace emerges a little around the circumference. Darko waits calmly as Frank, cussing and whimpering, pushes a briefcase out and then gets halfway out himself. Darko shoots him in the shoulder then pulls him out, waiting for Liam to follow.

Frank pleads for his life. Liam interrogates him, getting the location of two safes and their combinations, then he takes out his snub revolver and plugs Frank in the forehead. They throw Frank's body, their guns, and the filthy clown outfits down the shaft, which seems to go on forever. Darko rummages for Frank's gauss pistol, and then they make their way out of the WAR tunnels, back into the escape tunnels. Having already obtained a map of the tunnels, they their way back to the streets, far from the cops who are just now responding to the club massacre. Before the night is out, they break into one of Frank's safe houses, and raid the safe. Between that and what was in the briefcase, they have 40Kcr. They divide it between them, and make their way back to the hotel in Wilkie (now with enough to pay the bill).

 

[Klaus]

Aftermath.

Felka and Drago call for them and escort them to the Toucan. Grundy meets them, with some grudging respect. They didn't take his order to necessarily mean kill the Karas's, and for some reasons this pleases Ernesto. The firefight at Frank's club was very noisy, but they managed to obfuscate the matter enough with their clown outfits and there is no DNA evidence as the main murder scene (the tunnel) was sprayed with several million folks DNA. The media is saying the crime could be a grudge or feud between Frank and the Guild of Players and Clowns. It also showed how far they would go, which is ample for the Hunda Organisation. They are given new ID, jobs, and an apartment, and told to lay low for a while. In fact, Darko has Quentin's old job, and Liam is taken on as a labourer, working for the erstwhile Kikl Brothers. They are given the Karas' flat to live in, rent free.

Darko takes his new found cash and goes a bit wild, especially after 4 years in a gulag. He spends 3000cr on a massive bed which he installs in the lounge of the flat, and goes out every night and burns most of the rest of his cash in bringing back 'alley-cats' to party hard with. Liam gets sick of this, and moves into the bare studio above his lock up, creating a spartan hideaway.

As a final epilogue, Liam and Darko are relaxing after work one day in a bar near the Kikls, watching Giorgio the Magnificent face his daily challengers. His next one is none other than Naomi, the tough woman they escaped with. The fight is brutal. Even though Giorgio is much larger than her, she gets under his guard and pummels him hard, hit after hit after hit. She gets him with a powerful blow to the head, and Giorgio staggers, the first time ever something like this has ever happened! As she prepares her knock out blow with her off hand (having broken her fist on his face), Giorgio gives out one last, desperate lunge, catching Naomi on the shoulder and felling her instantly; as she crawls away and tries to stand, Giorgio reels and collapses. A draw! Naomi has a broken her collar bone, but Giorgio is in a coma. Naomi was disabled but not knocked out, and was still moving when Giorgio fell, even though he was last man standing. There is no precedent for this.

>>>I let Darko's player roll for Naomi, and she brought the brute down to 0 End and only 1 Dex. I thought it only fair to allow her a rematch after such a mighty attempt.

Two weeks later Giorgio comes out of the coma, and a month hence, after both fighters have recovered, a rematch is on....

We will catch up with Liam and Darko one week before the legendary bout, where they will also have to contend with some petty theft from the Kikl's warehouse.

 

[Kilgs]

Awesome! Keep us tuned in.

 

[Whipsnade]

Klaus,

Let me ditto Kilgs here, this is good stuff! Please, please, please keep us updated!

Although it would mean more writing for you, could you add more MgT-specific details? For example, while their back stories are impressive I would have liked to see how the characters were created in chargen.

I'll make the same request true for the various action scenes in the text too. How was Quentin's interrogation handled with Mgt? How did the escape play out? All you mention is the three dead bodies on the floor. How did the MgT combat system handle that? And how did it handle the fist fight at the end?

I guess I'm asking to see the "nuts & bolts" you used to write the story you shared with us.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Klaus]

There won't be any more for a while. I get to play with my layers once every couple of months (or at least that's how it is turning out), but they stay for a couple of days so we get about 25 hours in. Next one is 3 weeks.

I did this more of an aide memoir so that we can pick up where we left off, and I had to write it down now lest I forget most of it.

There was more stuff, but it was inconsequential player faffing about at 3am, and I can't remember where it fits. They went back and forth betwee nthe hotel and the launderette so many times I lost track.

I do remember much of the dice rolling though, because the important stuff happened in distinct lumps. I will add more commentary when I get some more time.

Ta, btw.

 

[Klaus]

Regarding the brief hand-to-hand in the launch at the start.

I used the linked task rules.

Liam made a Stealth roll to avoid the crewman detecting he was awake and about to pounce. He passed well, giving a +1 to his grappling attack.

At Unarmed Combat Liam had a +4 bonus, now +5. As it was a grapple (they were already in personal range), but the opponent was unaware, he had no roll in the opposed check.

Liam rolled high (can't remember exactly but it was 14 or over on 2d6+5), and took the crewmans END and DEX to 0. Since I'm using the optional rule where npc's fall unconscious at 0 END, for un-named, stock npcs only, I decided this meant he was dead.

As it was a surprise attack, Liam had Initiative 14 (12 + Dex DM). The other crewmember now drew her weapon and fired. It was a near miss, so I ruled it hit the prisoner behind Liam just for the hell of it.

End of round 1, next round.

Now Darko can roll his initiative, which was higher than the gurard's. Liam makes his +4 Melee attack and rolls a 12 (+4 = 16), for 1d6+Effect(8), getting 10 or 11. Because of the angle of the tackle, it had to land on Darko, who also took 1d6 damage (3 or 4, I think). Darko's player pleaded to be allowed ot attack, despite being still restrained, so I ruled that he could make a bite attempt at -2, which he succeeded with a small effect, +1 damage, which totalled 14, and therefore the guard was mortally wounded.

2 combat rounds.
R1: Male guard taken out be Liam in a surprise attack, female guard draws and fires, missing Liam; rule, due to angle of attack, that prisoner behind Liam hit.
R2: Liam attacks female guard brutally, due to angle hitting Darko also, who succeeds at a desperate bite attack, dealing just enough damage.

So 3 dead, and, by the book, 12 seconds. I thought 10 sounded better.

 

[Whipsnade]

Klaus,

Thank you! You're description of how Liam took out the guard in the launch is exactly what I was looking for.

Please keep us in the loop.


Regards,
Bill