The Siege of LeConte Hall
Michael
The screams come over the two-way radio as the three Men In Black approach LeConte Hall on "foot." The two commandos left outside in the front vestibule of the building to watch the approaches (I didn't mention these during the session Friday but they seem a vital tactical element of the commando raid) see the three Men In Black emerging from the car approach. The commandos hesitate a split-second. One of the MIBs lashes out in a flash at one of the hazmat-clad SANDMAN commandos, too quick for even Marshall's eyesight to track (this exhibition of supernatural physical ability will trigger another roll for Marshall to see what they really are: Will-21). You'll then need to make a Fright Check: Rule of 14 so you succeed on a 13 or less.
>>>> CRITICAL SUCCESS
>>>> SUCCESS
Michael
Crit on the "seeing through SANGUSH" roll, eh?
That should give you some kind of benefit, I'll have a think about it.
Suggestions welcome.
Brant
Uhhh yeah, I’m coming up blank. At least I can “see” them now I guess!
Michael
As an outgrowth of the Visualization roll, one way we could explain the crit fail then crit success is that the interference of an outside party in the form of these bašmu was at first "unthinkable" for Marshall but he's nothing if not adaptable to new conditions.
Brant
Marshall is starting to get the sense that GP didn’t send their best.
Michael
Well, we'll see how this first round of combat goes. Merrick is going to the van's weapon locker.
The radio crackles while Merrick helps himself to a rifle from the locker, "zzzt got hit with some kind of trap filled with an agent zzzt liquid nitrogen … casualties being triaged, we're continuing to the lair now zzzt."
Brant
Can Marshall talk on the radio to the team?
Michael
Yes, absolutely. And I think I know how I'll express the crit success too
Brant
OK. “This is Control: team leader, abort entry, tactical withdraw. You have hostiles entering the AO from the first floor, rear doorway.”
Michael
Okay, so your crit success on the Will roll will let you use Leadership without penalty at IQ this once (and I think Leadership might be a good skill for Marshall to add next CP time): So roll Leadership-16.
>>>> SUCCESS
Brant
(Yeah, there's a uhh lot of things I need to buy if Marshall survives this mission, which I put low-ish odds on at this point.)
Michael
Marshall also notices through the tinted side windows of the van that the combat and gunfire has allowed the driver of the car (who is human and likely enchanted by the now-apparent-to-Marshall bašmu) to wake up from his reverie. "Roger, control. We are coming out now. Nature and number of hostiles?" the squad's lieutenant copies.
(The squad now gets a +1 on all combat related Fright Checks and morale checks, and on self-control rolls for disadvantages from Marshall's Leadership)
Brant
"Three snakes. They appear to be men in black suits. Lose your mind; do not trust your senses. Shoot to kill."
Michael
First round of combat between the 3 bašmu and 2 commandos: One of the commandos unleashes a barrage of automatic fire at one of the bašmu (the one who moved speedily and sidewinder-style to try to grapple the commandos), crippling the snake-man but not killing him. The other two bašmu lunge towards the other commando, dodging his gunfire and looking to sink their fangs into him through his Hazmat suit. He fends one off with his rifle and dodges out of the way of the other. Beginning of next combat round, Merrick pops out of the back of the van and aims (but doesn't fire yet) at the injured bašmu. Marshall can act next.
Brant
Marshall's action is fairly quick. He just shouts to Merrick as Merrick exits the van: "Do we have a demolitions expert on this team?"
Because we're going to blow up this building.
Michael
"The whole team is demo-rated, yeah!" he shouts while aiming carefully at the injured bašmu. "C4 is in the other van."
The one commando who didn't get gang-tackled by bašmu takes a snap autofire volley at one of the two remaining uninjured bašmu. That bašmu sidewinds out of the way of the bullets but the dodge puts it out of position to continue trying to bite the other commando. The other commando fires point-blank at the second MIB/reptoid; it also dodges. It tries to tear through the hazmat suit to better be able to spit poison in the commando's face; the commando judos the bašmu out of the way and looks like he's attempting a rifle-aided judo reversal to throw the bašmu next round. The rest of the commando team will be coming out of LeConte Hall soon.
Brant
Marshall thinks, "Huh, maybe they didn't send the B-team after all."
Michael
(Even the 350-point basic Commando template is … I'm finding, pretty badass. The closest thing URIEL has to Commandos all multi-classed. )
Merrick pumps two very substantial bursts into the injured bašmu: a solid center-mass hit and the snake-man collapses to the ground. Merrick wipes some sweat from his brow as his final burst hits home. The two commandos are making a slight tactical retreat up the stairs of LeConte Hall, firing carefully into the two snake-men who continue to actively avoid the fusillade of bullets. But then the cavalry arrives in the form of seven of the ten squaddies who went into LeConte in the first place. Surely, outnumbered nine to two, the bašmu will be forced to retreat. One of the Snakemen in Black takes a small wallet out of its overcoat. Inside this small wallet is a piece of paper. And the nine commandos immediately go to avert their gazes... but two in the back were not so lucky and retreat back into LeConte Hall.
Brant
So, hypothetically, could we drive the van into the two snakes — or at least at them? Like, is the only thing between the van and the snakes a sidewalk and a stretch of lawn or whatever?
Michael
Yes.
Brant
OK … for this round he's going to play it safe. Driving a van into two snake men wasn't what he'd Visualized. Assuming he has a clear-ish line of sight, Marshall is going to spend a maneuver Aiming his handgun at the snake with the wallet, using both hands, and then next turn try to take a shot. My hope is that he'll be at like a +5 bonus (+2 for Aim, +1 for Bracing, +2 for Visualization) to hit.
Michael
Very cool. The unfortunate thing is that the SANDMAN Commandos have to fight blind right now (a couple might try to tough it out mentally and take their chance with the danger they might subject themselves to the KAR glyph) but the ones who are averting their gaze certainly are not going to fire blind so that does leave Merrick and Marshall with the opportunity to fire from their position, not able to see the glyph (at least yet). Are you going to go for a called shot to the hand? That's at a -4. So you'd have a net +1 with all that aiming. Merrick is going to shoot at the non-glyph using bašmu which means you'll both likely get only one shot before they turn the KAR glyph towards the two of you.
Brant
No called shot, just aiming for him wherever I can hopefully tag him.
Michael
Okay, go ahead and fire and I will work on folding in the results of the rest of the combat later today.
>>>> SUCCESS
Brant
Marshall's thinking at this precise moment — just as flavor — is that he wants to draw the attention of the snake with the glyph, thus creating an opening for the commandos to resume firing. Marshall believes he is self-actualized enough that he has a decent shot at withstanding the glyph.
Michael
Oh, I like that. I might have you make a roll using one of your psychological type skills, one sec
Shit, give me a Fast-Talk roll at 18, we'll see if we can't make this taunt/shoot combo happen.
>>>> SUCCESS
Michael
The Man in Black with the "ID" whirls around as soon as Marshall begins trying to get its attention. (Between Peripheral Vision, Danger Sense, and Combat Reflexes it wasn't going to get surprised by Marshall firing at it. It spins the KAR glyph at both Marshall and Merrick so you all need to make your Will vs. Anunnaki programming roll. For Marshall that is still a 21.)
>>>> SUCCESS
Impressive resistance enough for both Marshall (and Merrick, it happens) to open fire on this thing. Like I said, I'll do all the calculations now for this round of combat later when I have more brain power. But that has drawn the glyph-wielding bašmu away for a split second from the main body of commandos and it would behoove one of the two of you to shout in Danbe that the glyph is down.
Brant
OK, Marshall will absolutely shout: "EYES UP — FIRE!"
(He shouts that in Danbe, obv.)
Michael
Time for me to do a shitton of 3d6 rolls
The two remaining bašmu face the kind of onslaught rarely seen outside of active combat zones; the thunderous sound of automatic fire echoes across the Campanile plaza and these snake man literally just... slither out of the hundreds upon hundreds of rounds rained down upon them, Merrick's and Marshall's included. They speedily retreat across the courtyard and duck behind some neighboring buildings; they know they're outnumbered and Marshall's History B Lore and Psychology tells him that the bašmu know they can't stay lucky forever. (Literally rolled 11 successful Dodge rolls, it's fucking insane Brant).
Brant
Marshall barks, "I want a marksman up in that tower, five minutes ago." He points at Campanile Clock Tower. "The rest of you, secure this building — if the Old Man has not already escaped we cannot let him out now. No one — no one, not a single person — has authority to leave that building," he points at LeConte Hall. "Stay in teams of two. If someone attempts to leave the building, detain them and bring them to me and Merrick. If they resist, terminate immediately."
Michael
Merrick says, "Demo teams? Drop fire in the basement?"
Brant
"Yes. Demo authorized."
Michael
The team hustles to match Marshall's orders; the demo team begins gathering and wiring the C4, teams of two cover all the exits to LeConte Hall. The squad NCO, a gunny named Heath Garvey, says he'll get his squad's best marksman in the tower. "We need to evac the wounded. Two men with severe exposure to liquid nitrogen, sir."
Brant
"You have 5 minutes. Go."
Michael
Mainly Gunny Garvey just doesn't want his boys to get exploded when the basement gets lit up.
Brant
Yeah, of course — Marshall is basically saying he has five minutes to extract them, or however long it takes to wire the building.
Michael
Merrick says, "Wish we had your team's taisher to help flush out the bašmu. Hopefully the sniper can get eyes on them... lot of underbrush around here, and the snakes are good at hiding. But we have night-vision."
Brant
Marshall nods. "They must be here for the Old Man … to retrieve him, I'd imagine? Bring him somewhere? Unless they were just sent to protect him." Marshall gives Merrick a side-eye. "But if that were the case, it would raise a host of questions about the security of our communications."
"Merrick, law enforcement will be here any moment. There is no way we were not heard just now. You'll need to be the one to intercept them; I am too well known here in California. I trust you know what to do. I'm going to talk to whoever it was that drove the bašmu here."
Michael
"Yes, of course. This can all be handled with some precisely-applied memetics in the immediate aftermath. The fire emergency in the basement will create confusion and I already have three cover stories planned esmologically. This lab's safety record will be proven to be extremely poor when the university review eventually happens."
Brant
Can I just get a quick Body Language roll on Merrick, to get a sense as to how … trustworthy, credible he seems?
Michael
Sure thing!
>>>> SUCCESS
Marshall can notice that it's clear Merrick's never been tested quite like this before. But he's keeping his cool remarkably well at the moment in difficult circumstances. He's defaulting to his specialist skills, of course, and Marshall's own expertise in memetics and NLP does seem to indicate that a little bit of NLP and memetics judiciously deployed in the aftermath of the confusion here likely will allow the narrative to coalesce around a chemical explosion. Merrick is young but capable. Confident but deferent. He's all right.
So is Marshall headed to talk to the driver?
Brant
Yes! His plan is to immediately snap them into a receptive state using Rapier Wit, then use either Hypnosis or Enthrallment to find out how they got caught up in this — i.e. how they were abducted, from where, what did they tell you to do — THEN use Hypnosis to think they were abducted by actual UFO style Men in Black. He’ll implant all the coda into their memory as best he can, given that he’s in a rush: lost time, three identical men with reptilian features in black suits, etc.
Michael
Aw yeah. Okay so if you're starting with Rapier Wit that's a Public Speaking roll.
>>>> SUCCESS
Brant
16. Whew!
Michael
Lol, seriously
So with that Rapier Wit snapping this gentleman out of his reverie fully, I think Hypnosis to gather the information about his abduction is the right call.
>>>> SUCCESS
So his name is Robert Alvarez, he's an electrician who works downtown and lives in the Mission District and he was stopping at Union Square on his way home from work when these three guys hastily ran up to him as he was getting into his car and asked in a weird accent and a vocal monotone, "Can you take us to Berkeley LeConte Hall." It was like their voices appeared in his head; they didn't even move their lips. Robert agreed, which was bullshit, Robert says, because he doesn't let anyone in his car but he had no choice. It was like … his boss was telling him to do it. So he did it. He had no idea where LeConte Hall was, but they asked around enough to find out. "Fuckin' weird, man," Robert says under hypnosis. "Just a bad feeling all around."
Brant
Alright, good enough. Marshall will thank him for his time and for being so forthright, then hypnotize him into driving home and forgetting the incident, replacing any details with the UFO Men-in-Black gloss.
Michael
One final Hypnosis roll to give him the screen memories. I love it.
>>>> SUCCESS
Beautiful.
Michael
With Merrick handling any interaction with the authorities, and the sniper handling the remaining two bašmu, the rest of the team has isolated LeConte Hall and rigged the basement floor with C4 as best they can under these harried circumstances. A couple of shots ring out from the bell tower, and then the massive WHOOSH of a series of explosions in the basement of LeConte Hall. Glass flies out of the first floor windows, flames and smoke begin pouring out, secondary explosions hit the various lab equipment and gas tanks on the basement floor … this building's basement is thoroughly destroyed.
Brant
Marshall is immediately on the radio: “Report! REPORT!”
Michael
On the radio Gunny Garvey relays word from the tower. "Sniper reports killshot on hostile, sir. Explosives team reports successful detonation."
Brant
“One hostile remaining?”
Michael
"One hostile remaining, copy."
"Nothing could survive that explosion, sir, and definitely not a Pisces [code name for kulullûs on open channels]"
The sirens of local and university law enforcement (and fire) are approaching.
Brant
“Dangerous thinking, Garvey. Reconvene at the van. Merrick, I have to leave you in command. Have the team try to locate and dispatch the remaining hostile. I’ll have my people get in touch with the Central Office to send a survey team for clean-up.”
Michael
Merrick says to Marshall as he affixes an EPA badge to his lapel, brushes his hair, changes into a suit and gets ready to warp some minds as the sirens get closer. "Do you want to … evac and protect your cover now? We can handle it from here. Go down the street. Grab a cab. Get a drink at a student bar."
"The other bašmu … well, some days you collect all the chips on the table and some days you just get some."
Brant
“I’m going to take one of the vans. With one of those things out there, and with my leg,” he taps his leg with his walking stick, “I can’t risk us stumbling upon one another.” Assuming Merrick is cool with that, Marshall will commandeer a van and take off for Livermore.
Michael
Sounds good.
As fly-by-the-seat-of-one's-pants kill missions go, that has to be considered a B, B-plus right there.
Brant
Yeah. IC and OOC I’m profoundly skeptical that we succeeded in killing the Old Man but at least we interferes with whatever their plan was, apparently. At worst this HAS to be kind of a setback for them.