The crew arrived at the port in Kitimat via shipping freighter and were transported in their metal shipping container to a nondescript warehouse away from prying eyes where they could disembark without the usual hassle of Customs.
The shipping container was offloaded from the big rig truck and the large metal doors groaned open. The five runners looked at each other, unsure of how to proceed at this point. Were they meant to contact the Coyote, Israel? Did they need to check in with Cruiser's contact, Esther? Kablisk and Wyrine elected to do some investigating on the Matrix because Wyrine was especially worried about the lack of information they possessed on this sabotage mission. Who would they be up against? Who was interested in sabotaging the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline? The team made a plan to get from Kitimat to Bear Lake, taking the most direct route possible, while avoiding main roads for two-thirds of the drive. During that time, Wyrine and Kablisk would do some digital reconnaissance while Richard, Trigger, and Cruiser did their own investigating with the help of their contacts. Kablisk began hunting down the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline's host to gain more intel on the location itself and any other information that might prove useful during the run. Wyrine tailored his search to comb through the mountains of data and picked out any sources that were having a conversation about the substation the team was planning to sabotage. Kablisk was the first to find his mark, coming face to face with a nondescript structure that sported a Native American motif, adorned with feathers and various imagery. He started his Hack on the Fly attempts to poke and prod the defenses for weaknesses where he could slip through undetected. After some time passed, Wyrine was able to track down a message board where a conversation had taken place between members of Nova Gaia, a well-known Eco-terrorist group that mentioned the pipeline station by name. Upon further investigation, the comments revealed a need for someone to procure a Shadowrun group to take of the hit they had planned on the pipeline. Wyrine passed on the information to his fellow runners as a curious side-post caught his eye. Apparently someone else lurking in the conversation had noticed that the entire thread had caught the attention of another party involved with the pipeline and proceeded to post a job opening asking for Shadowrunners to defend the Athabaskan property. Wyrine followed the link and discovered three groups interested in the run. Beyond that, further conversation was hidden behind a code and link that Wyrine would have to trace. He turned back to his fellow runners and asked them to do some social engineering and probe their contacts for any leads on the groups taking up the call to defend Athabaskan territory. Trigger checked with his Fixer, Jennette Amos, and Cruiser with his Street Doc, Esther. Both contacts promised to look into the call for security of the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline. By this point, Kablisk had breached the walls of the Athabaskan host with the aid of his sprites. He realized that the Native American architecture made his persona rather conspicuous, so he opted to morph his digital self into something more befitting of the environment. Of the three groups had available to investigate, Wyrine chose one of the local Shadowrun groups that had responded to the post and used his tracing skills to hone in on terminus of the message, where the code and cypher would presumably be found. A sleek Eurocar Westwind 3000 had begun to attract the attention of Cruiser's sensors, mainly because it had maintained the same protracted distance for close to ten minutes now. Richard used his Clairvoyance spell to look at the occupants in the luxury automobile. Dressed in black suits, white shirts, and black ties, the two Orks and one Native American woman looked like professionals of some kind. The passengers were cradling SMGs and pistols in their laps. The group agreed to test a theory to verify if the car was indeed pursuing them or was just a poorly-timed coincidence. Cruiser sent a mental order to his [van] to accelerate. At first, the Eurocar did not speed up to match the pace, but after a number of seconds it too accelerated, keeping the GMC Bulldog at a larger distance now. Richard's Clairvoyance spell found no change in the demeanor of the three occupants of the car. Some arguing took place between the five runners about the best course of action from here on out, but after it became clear that there was a strong possibility these three people would present a serious obstacle as the pipeline drew closer. Wyrine and Kablisk were still in the Matrix, but continuing to follow the events happening in meatspace. They had not met with much success, as Kablisk was unsure how to proceed in the Athabaskan host and Wyrine had only managed as far as tracking one packet message to its destination before triggering a defense of some kind that manifested as a toy robot circa 1950 USA. Both elected to jack out and aid Trigger, Richard, and Cruiser with the looming skirmish. Trigger mentally flicked on his wired reflexes and used his military training to hone in on one of the front tires of the vehicle. He squeezed the trigger and the high velocity round rocketed out of the muzzle, passing through the bumper. It still had more than enough velocity to strike the tire and shred the rubber, causing the vehicle to veer out of control. It swerved to a stop on the side of the road as Cruiser's van pulled away, down the forested corridor highway. Two of his drones were still trained on the Westwind and the occupants exited the car, opening fire. The roar of bullets echoed and a number of them managed to cause noticeable damage to the Nissan Rotodrones. Cruiser immediately recalled them to the safety of the van, cursing as they sped down the thoroughfare. The team again got into a heated debate about the next course of action - should they leave the Eurocar behind or finish the job? Since the car was only temporarily disabled, the five came to a consensus that the three should be dealt with, so as to not interfere with the upcoming sabotage mission. Several clicks down the road, the Shadowrunners took positions in preparation for the surprise attack. Cruiser pulled the van into a clearing off of the main passage, readying his rotodrones on the edge of the forest, hidden in the canopy. He was thirsting to avenge their wounds. Richard and Trigger took points on the other side of the road, camouflaged by the forest underbrush. Wyrine and Kablisk spread out, hiding outside of the expanse of openness in the clearing while readying their weapons. After a couple of minutes, the Eurocar approached their location. Trigger was the first to spot it, aided by the enhanced magnification of his cybereyes, in addition to the scope mounted on the rifle. Cruiser wanted his revenge and chambered a mini-grenade. An audible thunk resounded and it sailed right into the roof of the car, where it detonated. The Westwind swerved off of the road and into the forest, where it deposited itself smoking and on fire. It became a waiting game to see who would take the first shot. Richard opted to move from cover and drew one of the three out as he was crossing the road. Unfortunately, it was not without hazard because a bullet from a pistol connected and he staggered, frantically trying to get off of the road. The shot was enough for Trigger to acquire a target. Between his thermographic and magnification enhanced vision, he had no trouble putting a bullet through the shoulder of the Native American woman. The round exploded through her suit, out of her back and she lay still. With the help of Cruiser's thermographic imaging on his [drones], he spotted the other two crouched behind tree trunks near the burning wreckage of the vehicle. Kablisk lobbed a tear gas grenade, catching the ork off guard, and forcing him to double over in a fit of coughing. Wyrine took a number of shots with his SMG, pock marking the trees where the two were fortified. One after the other, Cruiser used his MCT Rotodrone to riddle one ork with gel rounds, immobilizing him, while Trigger snuffed out the light of the other ork, scoring a hit that blasted out the side of his neck. The firefight was finished and all that was left was to obfuscate some of the more obvious evidence. The car was moved deeper into the forest to continue its slow-burning roof fire. The five runners patted down the bodies, recovering weapons and commlinks. Wyrine looked through the car, tearing out a console computer, a small cache of computer chips, and the contents of the trunk. The equipment in the trunk gave a clearer indication that it was indeed Shadowrunners that the team had been dealing with. There was all manner of equipment inside: climbing gear, interrogation paraphernalia, and a variety of provisions. The team walked off with the one unconscious member that had not met death at the hands of Trigger's ruthless Cavalier Arms Crockett sniper rifle. Kablisk and Richard jury-rigged restraints with some climbing rope and they set off again towards the Athabaskan Oil Pipeline facility.
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AuthorI'm Dobie, GM of this Shadowrun group. I've been playing Shadowrun since Second Edition, though I had a serious hiatus and have just recently picked up Fifth Edition to get back into the Shadowrun universe. Archives
September 2017
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