Game Night Tales from around the gaming table

 

Continuing from the last episode of Task Force Mercury - Draka's Journal 2.

 

 

 

Toha Industries, makers of the many of the NEGs finest Power Armours and Mecha units -- now the factory was just so much scrap metal.  The Migou had hit this place hard, and then just left it.  Unlike Ashcroft, there were very few dead and even better, no piles of dismembered corpses.  We explored some of the factory, finding only partially built or destroyed Mecha, but our luck improved when we reached the testing hangar and found a submerged AMV-1 Falcata -- still hooked into the facilities computers by trunk-lines.  The only problem, it was submerged under 10 feet of water and had a large support beam from the roof laying across it.

 

The colonel arranged his men to secure the area as best we could while Sparks and Jack worked on getting the Mecha free and running.  Dan tried to crack the factory's mainframe, but found the thing locked up tighter than a sphincter in a prison.  While my team worked, I was pretty much in the way, so I took myself to one side, cleaned and reloaded my weapons and then took ten to meditate and refocus myself.  My Nightmare had been having a field day and wanted more -- I needed a quiet moment to get it calmed down.

 

Dan had failed at every attempt to hack the mainframe, switched directions and had clambered up into the roof crane to see if he could get that working on manual to get the beam off the Mecha.  Jack and Sparks had managed to release the testing equipment that was encumbering the Falcata and had begun the start up sequence.  Once done, Lockhart and Sparks got suited up to swim down and see if they might be able to remove the beam with the Mecha itself.

 

That's when the damn Migou showed up again, nothing big or directly threatening -- just 2 Dragonflies passing high overhead -- but that made the choice simple.  The colonel gave us 10 minutes to get the Mecha free.

 

Then the shit hit the fan.  Screams started to come in over the Battlenet; we could all hear Sparks manic cries that a Merrow had gutted Lockhart just before his comm cut out too.  Their vitals flat-lined but there was still a frantic rush to the edge of the dock to aid them, weapons raised to fire -- there was nothing to see but bubbles and bloody froth.

 

That cinched it for the colonel.  He called for everyone to saddle up; we were leaving without the Mecha.  I argued to stay for a few more minutes, to try to raise the Mecha without entering the water.  He would have none of that -- ordering everyone else out.  There was something not right, but I couldn't pin it down -- later I would kick myself for not listening to my inner voice.  In the end he left one of his machine gunners behind to watch over us -- that was the worst possible thing he could have done.

 

We needed to go Tager to get into the Mecha.  I called Dan down from the crane, waited for a minute and then ordered the gunner to catch up to the colonel.  As I outranked him he had to obey.  I switched to our secure comm and laid out my plan to get the Mecha out.  Jack would swim down and pilot the Mecha while Dan and I tried to keep the Merrow off him.

 

Once the gunner was gone, I went Tager and dove into the water on the far side of the dock from the Falcata.  I had never faced a Merrow before and even though I was far from it, I was unprepared for how fast the damn thing was.  I hit it 3 times with my shoulder pods and it still kept coming.  That's when it hit me, it was barely a glancing blow, but it almost cut me in half!  From that point on I swam for my life, firing my pods and using my tentacle sheaths to move things into its path -- water was its element not mine.  By this time, Jack had made it into the Falcata, so I told Dan to disengage and get the hell out of the water!   The damn thing almost caught me a second time as I followed my own orders and burst up and out of the water on to the dock.  Now it was our turn for some blood, well OK, Jack's -- whatever he did made the damn thing jump out too.  I happily blasted away at it with my shoulder pods as it ran from us, then Jack clambered out and blew it all to hell.

 

Now we had the Mecha and we discussed the best way to complete our mission.  If we rejoined Blue Squad, the Mecha would draw unwanted attention to us all.  Now that the Dragonflies had tagged this location as having activity, the Migou would most likely show up and level this place and be hunting for Mecha.  In the end we decided to use the Falcata to swim to the spaceport and hopefully meet up with them there.  Sure enough, before we got started the ground began to tremble -- Dan went into Whisper form and took a look -- there was a giant Migou Mecha, swarming with Dragonfly and other scouting Mecha, coming this way.  Within 10 minutes it would be here.  As this was our secondary exit point, we had to determine if there were any aircraft still viable to bother coming back here for.  Dan took his cue and raced out to the airfield and hangars to check -- there were none left -- which cinched it for us, we would not be coming back here.  The spaceport was our only way out now.

 

Dan and I, in our Tager forms, lashed ourselves to the Falcata with steel cables I had scrounged from the docks.  Just as we were about to dive into the water, the Migou fired their sky laser at the factory, incinerating the docks where the Mecha had been berthed -- then it started to track right at us.  Jack took a running leap and dove into the water.  From there it was a relatively easy passage to the spaceport, we saw some Migou Fleas, but with Jack's evasive piloting we lost them and arrived on a shore thick with death and a substance that would have eaten human flesh.

 

The spaceport was heavily damaged and there were still a few runways clear -- the defenders had used the remains of destroyed aircraft and Mecha, turning them into a barricade -- but they were losing the battle.  Sizing up the situation as best we could -- it was obvious that we would need to split up.  Jack would take his Falcata and aid the runway defenders as best he could, while Dan and I made our way to the spaceport to see if he could hack the network and find out if the doctor and his assistant had made it there ahead of us.

 

We stayed in Tager form and moved through the shadows.  The spaceport was trashed and as we moved through the rubble toward it, we ran across a Migou abattoir.  Dan had not been handling this mission well so far, and this place pushed him past his endurance -- he started to lose it screaming about the dead and lack of emotions from me -- but thankfully a slap across the face and some quick talking got him back under self-control enough to get us through the place unseen.  Once in the spaceport Dan started to hack into the system while I guarded his back.  Then from nowhere a grenade appeared between us, only by kneejerk reactions was I able to smack it away from us.

 

That was Ink's way of saying hello -- she was a Shadow Tager and Anchorage was her home turf.  We talked for a bit and then made a deal for her help -- it wasn't normal to have to barter for another Tager's help, but she had a good reason, 3 kids, presumably related.  I made the best promise that if I could, I would use whatever power I had to get them to safety, including giving up my seat on the plane out.  I gave her the low down of our mission and visualised the faces of our targets.  She thought that she might have seen them, which meant that we might be able to complete the NEG mission as well.

 

She told us she had been guarding the Humans and Nazzadi of the spaceport, but that there was something strange happening and bodies were piling up.  The 3 of us went to where everyone was hiding -- so that we could take a "look" at them.  She went stealth and lead us to the promenade so that we could stay in Tager form.  The people were mostly women and children with a few men mixed in, all civilians, no Dhohanoids that we could see.

 

That's when the colonel and what was left of Blue Squad showed up on the far side of the promenade.  I switched back to human form and contacted them, telling them that I was inbound with 2 friendlies.  We met up and started looking for the Doctor.  One of the Squad got lucky and picked up the Doctor's signal coming from the lower levels.  So, we all headed down at a quick march -- I should have clued in here but my mind must have been elsewhere.  We had gone into the secondary basement and had just split up, the colonel, two others and I went after the very large and obvious blood trail, while Dan and the 2 remaining troopers went down the other corridor.  As we went farther down, mist started to obscure the corridor and that's when I clued in -- almost too late -- that these troops weren't human.  I shouted a warning to Dan over the comms as they started to transform -- Dhohanoids, just great!

 

The colonel sank into the mist and started to spout something, but I was too busy going Tager and playing tug-o-war with the one firing the machinegun at me to listen to him.  After making short work of the 2 troopers, I called out to Dan to see if he was OK -- he was and had killed his 2 trooper-Dhohanoids as well.  We decided to stay split up and attack the colonel from 2 directions.

 

As I moved down the corridor I could see a blue flickering, as if dozens of TVs were on.  As I rounded the corner I saw it -- most definitely a blood ritual of some kind.  Almost every surface of the walls was filled with monitors flickering with snow and the cables that powered them littered the floor.  In the centre of the room was an office bookcase, made into a crude altar -- laying next to it, with his throat slit, was the doctor and tied to it was his still struggling assistant and the colonel -- standing over her and holding the statuette.  Surrounding them were 3 women dress as nuns, but instead of black their robes were a cobalt blue -- they were also covered in gore and wielding ritual knifes.

 

Dan and I made a quick plan. He would fire a Gossamer Bomb into the room to blind them and I would toss in a high explosive and an incendiary grenade, then shoot at anything left standing with my shoulder pods.  We would have to sacrifice the assistant, but it couldn't be helped, the ritual had to be stopped before it was completed.

 

The colonel wasn't polite enough to wait for us -- he killed her and then pushed the statuette into her and disgustingly it started to feed.  We didn't have any more time!

 

I stepped out into full view and roared at him as I grabbed a hold of the door frame and swung up and in, using my feet to hold on to the ceiling.  From that precarious place I focused all of my Tager's rage into the colonel, who was transforming into a Zabuth -- an ugly Cyclopsian Dhohanoid -- as I gathered my Mystic Blast.  He roared back at me as his own powers began to congeal within his eye.  But I was the more determined and as his eye began to glow with the release of his power, my own crackled out in all its black-purple fury engulfing him, the dying assistant, the back half of the altar and even one of the nuns, not to mention a good chunk of the floor and wall behind them.

 

He survived -- just barely -- but his eye blast was ruined.  I dropped to the floor and got the hell out of there as he roared and came after me.  I blasted him with my shoulder pods again and again until he finally fell still.  I saw Dan briefly during my fight as he took care of the last nun.

 

We were too late, the ritual must have been completed.  As I returned to the room I could see portals into hell opening from every monitor left intact.  That's when I remembered as old saying about applied explosives solving most problems -- I'd learn that this was not always the case.  I transformed into my human form, readied an entire charge from my demolitions kit, set the timer for 20 seconds, told Dan to get the hell out of here and hit the button as I tossed it into the room and ran for my life!

 

There was a boom and then the roof fell on me.  Next thing I knew Dan was digging me out and dragging me upstairs.  Seems that the building was less stable then I thought, the floors above had collapsed into the basement.  I had dropped scores of people right into the vortices -- which fed on their deaths and blood -- further powering the ritual and bringing forth an Old One!

 

My body may have been healing as we made our way upstairs, but my sanity was hit and hit hard as we felt it come forth into our reality.  I can tell you that we ran in fear the rest of the way!