USCMRPG

<GAMEMASTER INFO

December 1, 2189, 06:30 a.m.

Polaris System, Planet Utica - Former Hiatt Corporation Mining-Complex
Mission Time 12:30, 24 grad celsius, no rain

First and Second Squads arrived too late to watch Sokolova's shot resolve the hostage situation at the personnel terminal. Nevertheless, the 12 year old girl was unharmed.
The marines took her back to the APC. A quick base camp was established to give the marines some rest, tend their wounds and restock their equipment.

A prolonged interrogation of the Chinese prisoners revealed more information:
- They wanted to leave the planet after escaping the laboratory, but found out that their Baile long class starship was shut down in their absence, presumably by the Jingti-Long splinter cell operatives.
- They guess, that the Jingti-Long splinter-cell operatives wanted to use their starship to escape the planet, once their experiments were concluded.
- They did not get the chance to send out a distress call before capture and also not after the escape, because the EMP detonation had taken out the mining-complex radio station and they had no access to their ship anymore.
- They overheard that the splinter-cell operatives experimented on human beings by injecting them a mysterious "black liquid", which they call "Polaris strain," for reasons yet unknown.
- The secret lab is beyond the former storage area of the mining-complex.

The kid, 12-year-old Mira Burns, opened up to the Marines, after being treated and taken care of. Her account backed up the information given by the Chinese prisoners, while adding some more:
- Her family (Father Sam + Mother Hilde + Younger Brother Jacob) stayed behind with some other families, after the Hiatt Corporation pulled out, as "maintenance staff" of the facility
- One day they were taken by invading Chinese forces.
- Her parents died trying to fight off the invaders. Her brother and her were captured and taken to a place beyond the former storage area/warehouse of the complex.
- They escaped when something detonated within the complex and opened their cell doors.
- She was separated from her brother during the escape, but they agreed beforehand to meet at the personnel terminal, should this happen. Unfortunately, her brother did not show up.

Lt. Harper had assembled her Squad Leaders and the NCO to inform them of the results of the prisoner interrogation and her longer chat with the 12-year-old civilian Mia Burns ...

"Ok, so our next move is practically self-explaining. We have to clear out that secret laboratory. I bet a grand, that we will find our primary target, the black goo stuff, down there. Unfortunately, we will certainly find other .... things ... down there as well. As I see it, we can't just drop our CN-20 gas down there, wait, and stroll in, because there could still be civies alive. So I will start with areal drone surveillance and check the status of the target area in order to find out, what is going on over there. Meanwhile I want you to get your people ready for action. Keep the hazmat equipment close by, we might need it over there. Now it is 6.30 am, I want to move out at 7.00 am to end this once and for all. Questions or Suggestions?"
<Tag Sykes, Morse, Hall, McKenna>

<Devil Dawgs; Describe what your character does for preparation, after a short nap>

Sykes reflexively squeezed his eyes shut and felt his stomach turn over as he heard the sniper shot ring out. Reopening his eyes, he felt a wave of relief pour over him as he realized he was still alive. In a heartbeat, he grabbed his pulse rifle and moved forward, directing the other Marines to do the same. He moved up to the bloody remains of the hostile with his gun raised. Seeing that the situation had been amicably resolved, he extricated the body of the child from the arms of the twitching corpse.

"Secure the room!" he barked to the other Marines. Then, pulling out a small cloth intended for cleaning weapons, he wiped the blood and brains off the kid's face. "Hey, there. My name is Danny. You're gonna be okay, kiddo. We're gonna get you out of here."
<Tag McKenna, Mills, and the kid>

The arrival of First and Second Squad was a huge relief. A quick discussion with Hall and Morse made it clear that the spaceport was now in their hands. They still had a lot of work to do to clear the whole area, and they did it methodically and professionally.

--------------------------------------------

Some time later, the Marines sat safely in a base camp, with some of the grunts doing perimeter duty. Sykes sat with Harper and the kid. He felt a certain empathy for a young person who had been through so much shit. Sykes himself had grown up with a pretty normal childhood and no particular trauma. He had to admit, the kid had bounced back impressively quickly and was showing some real spunk. "Mira, do you go by Mira? You're safe here, but we need you to answer some questions. Start at the beginning. What happened to your family?"
<Tag Mira>

Clint just barely made out the sound of the rifle round being fired by 4th squad and was relieved to see a good clean shot hit the merc, taking him down with little more than a flinch and reflexive trigger pull. After seeing that the sergeant was still intact, he moved forward keeping his rifle on target until they were able to confirm he was no longer viable. Clint checked the man for any identification and anything useful while calling out to the others, "Everyone good, answer up". He switched over to 4th squad's frequency "Good shot 4th Squad, target neutralized. How are you all holding up?" He kept an ear out with both 3rd and 4th squad's frequencies open.

<tag 3rd and 4th squads
<search body of the mercenary

Clint unloaded the suppressed pistol and stuffed it into his pack, never know when it may come in handy he thought to himself. He was glad to see the arrival of 1st and 2nd squad at the terminal and listened in to Lieutenant Harper and the information she was providing. "Do we know if they still have the ability to use another EMP? That could cause us some issues."

<tag Harper

He dropped a caffeine pill into one of his canteens and took a slow draw from it, trying to maintain his energy and awareness. He pulled out a ration bar and began eating as he continued to listen to Harper and the other squad leaders.

Paulson slowly dismantled and did a basic field strip of the Chinese sentry guns, they where essentially no different to their USCM counterparts he was fairly sure everything was going well but was fairly sure good enough. The good news was the ammo was the same so even if senior ranks decided not to risk having them as part of base defense stock piles of sentry gun ammo just went up and that was nothing short of awesome in his mind.

finishing reassembling it was now time to test, tracking and other systems, all seemed to be A ok, friend foe was set to USCM standard. to all intensive purposes it was another defense turret but would it work when needed? it should but Paulson was not an expert so he was not as certain as he would like, he shut the turrets back down and reported his progress to Morse,
<roll special weapons repair - certified>
<tag Morse>
may be they could leave them in reserve in case they failed, or even put them in a non critical area Paulson wasn't sure what to suggest, short of walking in front of them to make sure they didn't shoot you you could only test on thrown objects and all those had come out successful so far.
worse case Paulson had spent his time field stripping crap for just some ammo that in itself might be useful enough.

The new objective was not a surprise to Morse or any of the others really. How could it be? Any time there was something underground or hidden out of sight, the Marines were called in to investigate, and determine viability, or hostility. It was always a coin toss on which it would be, but Morse anticipated this one to be less then helpful or inviting once they breached it.

The Marines were a scary group by nature. They tended to appear unexpected, and they were unusually well trained at causing violence. Most military forces in the world weren't ready for that, and they weren't nearly as rapidly deployable. Marines were elite shock troops for US, UN, and Earth interests, a perpetual trump card that could not lose. Your entire operation would be destroyed by pulse laser and nuclear fire before the Corps admitted true to defeat. Even if they were not holding the most sophisticated technology, the fact that they had a tradition of victory and the mentality of righteous cause gave them license to do far more then most. Those that operated for money were always worried about their bottom line or how a bad move could influence their pay... Marines were within rights to glass a planet just because they felt it would "save lives", and that was left to interpretation as it was.

Morse received Paulson's report and found that the initiative was very useful. Enemy weapons could not always be trusted, but if nothing else these would make good guards. "Shit, we could use them to watch the prisoners." Morse half joked. He still did not trust their prisoners, even if they were a third party. They were a danger and Morse did not like it. "Get a proper ammo count n' hell... if your up for a muscle up, might be useful to heft one a them down to the facility I'm thinkin'. Always shit tons of hallways n' I hate gettin' flanked."

<Tag Paulson.

"First squad, git' that gear ready. Check your masks too. Might need em. We're goin' down to kick in the door on some secret shit. Don't know yet if that's a bad thing, but bad things what we tend to walkin' towards so full combat load n' ready to kill is what we'll be."

< Tag First Squad

Henniger rogered up to Morse via comm and dropped his assault pack on a convenient table. He peeled open his environment suit, checked it over for rips or stray bullet holes, then donned his environment mask and checked its seal. The environment suit, in true Marine Corps fashion, was the opposite color camouflage than his cammie uniform. Some thoughtful remf had emblazoned a PFC chevron on the left arm of the suit.
He chuckled. Some rear echelon type who made basically the same pay as he did, minus the jump pay and cryo bump, had the job of vacuum-packing environment suits. Not as exciting as a Recon platoon, but the same level of situational hilarity. Why didn't they just make the suits flat olive drab, or grey? Nope. Had to roll the dice with the camouflage pattern.

"Henniger up." He reported to Morse via his helmet mic. He double checked his comtech gear then strapped his armor pieces back in place over his jungle camouflage mopp suit. Lastly he hung his mask from his combat harness on a quick-connect lanyard.

<tag Morse and 1st Squad>

"Do we know if they still have the ability to use another EMP? That could cause us some issues."

"we don't know for sure, but the detonation of the first emp should have taken out all other emp charges down there."
<Tag McKenna>

<Game Master Info
Paulson <roll special weapons repair - certified> -> 0 success
you are not sure about the chinese sentry gun and you have a bad feeling about turning it on
>

Morse had suggested taking the gun with the entry team and although the thing was technically man portable Paulson had never really lugged one any distance. it would burden up one with the gun and another with ammo and Paulson was still not sure he had made a big mistake somewhere in reassembly.

"Morse this thing is really really heavy will need two men to move, want to go with that plan or strip it for its ammo?" Paulson reported.
ooc. i dont know i failed roll so just have a bad feeling that it might not work. also how many where there so we have an ammo count please.

mean while Paulson grabbed a coffee and some food no point fighting on an empty stomach.

Henniger had joined Paulson trying to help lend a hand with the reclamation efforts of his new toy. As his efforts became apparently frustrated Henniger kept his mouth shut. No point adding to his squad mates' aggravation.
He grabbed some caf and leaned against the table.

"Just strip the ammo dude. Or booby trap the damn thing and make it a mine. We're going to need to be light and fast down there like on the station reactor."

<tag Paulson/Morse>

OOC not overreaching his authority just making social remarks

Morse had not taken the time to notice the size of the captured sentry gun. The synthetic might have been able to heft something like that, but regular people would have a hard time, and that hard time would inevitably turn into serious fatigue right when you needed your energy. Inevitably it was not going to be much use if you lost a man just to have it replaced by a robot that was not necessarily going to be guaranteed functional.

"Ah, shit." Morse remarked. Morse smirked. "Whatsa matter? Aint none a you wanna git' strong, git' tired, n' git shot?" Morse remarked, noting their expressions. "Ah well fuck it. Differ to the Private, Lance Corporal." Morse referenced Henniger's suggestion to Paulson. "Strip it of it's blood n' spread that wealth around so we aint burnin' our own tax payer bought bullets."

The squad was good, and it was good that they were looking for better ways forward. It was important for squad cohesion, and keeping Morse from making a mistake in assuming that they were super humans... like he sometimes hoped he was. But in the end they were all just blood and bones and that was made all too clear when a mistake was made.

<Tag Anyone

<OOC : Don't worry about 'overstepping authority'. Squad leaders make bad calls all the time, and it helps the team if all eyes address the issue. Besides, we're in an RP. No one's getting an actual article 15 here >

Paulson gave up trying to fix the turrets he was as sure as he could be they would work just had a bad gut feeling he had forgotten something.
there was no real way to easily move them around and remain combat effective or quiet so at Morse and Heniger's suggestion he stripped the ammo out of them and began an ammo count.
<count ammo>
<drink more coffee>

Davros, meandered over to his new assigned squad. He lit a smoke and took a big draw. "Greetings gents." Davros flopped his pack down on the closest table and began to double check his equipment. "We got anyone on over-watch? Know the buildings secure and all but don't want to get close enough to see if the Xenos brushed their teeth or not today." Taking a swig of coffee he set about checking his medic bag for the um-teenth time. He took another big draw of his smoke, and pulled out his environmental suit to give it a good once over. "Here comes the frighteningly exciting part. We get to see fucked up science in action. We bullets start flying try to keep your heads, if anyone get hurt from these new Xenos shout that shit out, don't know what the affects from the black goo babies are going to be." After checking through all of his stuff he proceeded to strap everything back on in easy reach. Taking the last drag of his smoke and chug of coffee he stood up and decided to check the perimeter.

Henniger downed the last, tepid drops of his canteen cup and grabbed his carbine. "Hold up Doc we travel in pairs."
He got his squad leader's attention and nodded at the departing trooper. He mimed walking with his fingers and gave the hand signals for checking in regularly.
<tag Morse/Lordstrand>


He selected the platoon channel and quietly spoke into the mic.

"LT, two walking perimeter. First Squad time now, 08:02."
<tag GM>

He grabbed a spare motion tracker and caught up with Davros.
He checked the trackers screen and flanked the corpsman.
"We'll split at long corridors, other than that we work the grid."
He glanced over at Davros. "Standard SOP I'm sure you're used to."

He walked a bit in silence then in query, "how was the fight against the dirtbag with the kid?"

<tag Davros>

Samantha had nothing particularly meaningful to add, so she just asked; "Where ever you need us, we'll be dere".

She called out to her squad, "Okay, we go in a diamond patter if we got de room, Carlson in de lead, me and Dmitri behind him, I'm on de right, Barayev on de left, Doc you got de drag. Keep our heads on de swivel, look sharp and stay frosty".

<Tag Everyone>

Kelly came into the hall with the rest of first squad in time for the aftermath of the hostage situation. Marines were running everywhere, securing the perimeter and setting up a temporary base camp. SgtMaj Sykes was doing his best to clean merc brains off the unfortunate kid.
Kelly hustled over, nodding quickly to the Sgt as he began pulling items from his webbing. He smiled brightly at the child and held out a candy bar taken from one of his issue MREs "Hi, my names Darren and I'm gonna give you a quick checkup to make sure your not hurt, OK?"

<Roll Medical Aid - Expert: Health check on child>

Kelly was just finishing up his examination when his radio crackled
"Okay, we do in diamond patter if we got de room, Carlson in de lead, me and Dmitri behind him, I'm on de right, Barayev on de left, Doc you got de drag. Keep our heads on de swivel, look sharp and stay frosty"

Kelly, keyed his mic to respond
"Copy that, on my way"
Kelly slung the repacked Field Aid kit across his back and picked up his M41A. He winked at the kid who was still munching happily on the high-calorie USCMC issue chocolate, and jogged back to his assigned position in 2nd squad

<Tag everyone>