Episode 2: Space Race from Space

"This is Griswold," said Griswold. "I'm not lifting this bird up unless you can pinkie-promise me the LZ is clear."

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If you'd like to estimate how much damage an axle or a truck will take, you'll need to make skill rolls for it. Let me know. Any amount of flame in a gas tank will cause it to explode (as long as there's oxygen as well); the size of the explosion depends on how much gasoline is in the tank. If you're lucky, you might trigger a chain reaction. Your chances are even better if you can find, unseal, and detonate Kespa's engine core - at which point your primary concern is being far enough away when it happens.

Where's a space ghost when you need her ...

Realizing that she was the Jack Harkness of this expedition, Amadea telecommunicated to Xiaoming, "Get away from the ship. I'll find the core and destroy it."
She insubstantiated and floated gently off the back of the snowmobile, heading for the wreckage.

Amadea, you move a lot faster on the snowmobile than floating along at your basic move. Are you sure you want to insubstantiate already? You have a few miles to go.

Miles? I thought we were closer than that. Preference to travel by snowmobile, please.

"What if I solemnly swear I'm up to no good? I'm currently at the crash site looking at our primary objective hitchhiking its way to, not the Galaxy, it doesn't have a guide, rather to northwest. I need a heavy object landing on one of the trucks, make it a crash landing, please. And yes, this is the means necessary. (OOC: GM, please note that Wang avoided mentioning hostile armed force)" After requesting the bossy boss, Wang licked his lips, "Here we go."

Wang activated the "Timed bomb" app from his iphone, threw it across the creek, hoping it will land far enough and make enough noise to make sure all the Russians' attention are drawn, even for a fraction of a second.

After that's done, he waited in silence for the opening made (hopefully) by his phone that he can sneak into the truck with the engine core. Since he couldn't see the content of the trucks, he would have to search one by one.
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Wang tried to persuade Griswold into disabling one of the trucks with Martha, using his Fast-Talk skill (not trained, IQ-5), skill at 11, roll gets 7

Wang Throw the iphone with the app running, making beeping noise and flashing red on its screen, location where it lands as shown on the graph.

The phone sailed through the air to great effect. The Omega soldiers scattered for cover, shouting in Russian and waving their carbines. Such an ugly language, Wang thought. He scrambled down the side of the snow drift and ducked into the nearest truck, past the oily white canvas tarp that covered it. Inside were shattered ship pieces, neartly sorted and numbered. In the center was a hard metal tube with a set of numbered buttons. This must be the engine core.

"Allright I'm powering up, you knucklehead," said Griswold on the radio. "But you better explain to me right now why I need to be crashing on the crash site."

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OOC: The truck in which the engine core was hiding was decided by a d4 roll. You're a lucky man.

"Go on, I will catch up," Dane told his companions. The snowmobile wouldn't move fast enough with him on it, so he resolved himself to flying through the bitter cold. Taking a shot of vodka, he heaved his body up into the air and began moving towards the crash site.

"Well hellooo beautiful." Seeing the engine core, Wang knew he hit the jackpot. Now what was the code again? 4518, right. Wang input the key, and viola, there it is, blue exposed engine core. "When in doubt, blow it up" Wang started to set up the explosive. He sincerely hoped his luck doesn't run out too fast, there's a fireball he needed to walk away from.

Wang willed his hands to stop shaking as he loaded the 5 packs of C4 into the glowing core. He pressed the detonation cord into the center pack and stood. He'd never rigged a detonation before ... no way of knowing if he'd done it right. Maybe it wouldn't blow at all. Maybe it would take him with it. Only thing left to do now was get clear and depress the lever on the spool holding the cord. He had 500 feet of cord ... but how far was safe? How far could he get before the Russians found the charge?

Meanwhile, Dane ascended into the air, the icy wind stinging his face with each flap of his wings.

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Wang's Explosives/TL8 (Demolition) skill defaults to IQ-5, or 11. I made his roll for him in secret. Wang won't know how he did (or any other modifiers to his skill). He just has to pray he got it right. He also doesn't know just how powerful the engine core blast will be - he's never encountered anything like it. Fortunately, the skill roll was for the C4 not the engine core, otherwise he'd suffer penalties for working with a more advanced TL.

Kespa kept driving the snowmobile towards the crash site. (OOC: what's the eta?)

She sighed, knowing that the ship and equipment were extremely expensive.

You're a little over 10 minutes away.

It seems like Wang needed to buy more time, suddenly a great idea came up. He picked the radio up again and called into it, "Ok Bulldog, I've got the charge set on the engine core, all I need to do is find enough time to get away from the blast area. So I thank you for your cooperation in advance. Here goes: You Americans are pigs, fat fat pigs." Without hesitation, Wang turned the volume of the radio to max, moved to the other side of the truck, and tossed it across the field.

Wang's radio skidded against the side of the truck and landed in the snow. Griswold's voice crackled loudly with a string of completely inappropriate racial slurs. The Russians sprinted toward the sound, guns ready. If ever there was a moment to escape, it was now.

Kespa and Amadea left Dane behind, their snowmobile throwing up snow in other direction as they plowed forward. Amadea held her breath. Kespa smelled like rotten eggs and burnt hair.

Meanwhile, Dane heard a distant hum of an engine. He glided for an instant to get a better listen and detected the distinct thwak-thwak-thwak of helicopter blades. They were getting louder by the moment.

Realizing that there was no way for Amadea and Kespa, or himself for that matter, to outrun one of the whirling blade crafts that humans called "helicopters", Dane whipped out his radio. "All of you have incoming. Sounds like a troop transport or heavy gunship, traveling fast by air towards the crash site."

His message delivered, Dane scanned his surroundings, searching for any kind of terrain that might offer cover. He checked his inventory. No flares, but he still had one concussion grenade remaining. This was going to be fun.

Taking a deep breath, Wang jumped off the truck and dived into the icy cold river. He started to count down from 3. He hoped this would work, he sincerely did.

Wang ducked under the truck and sprinted into the ice ditch, sliding at the last second into the icy water. It was deeper than he had hoped. He plunged through the thin ice and it slammed shut above his head. Wang fought for the surface amidst a cloud of bubbles and detonation cord.

It was cold. Very, very cold.

Meanwhile, Dane saw a distant chopper - a Huey gunship, armed to the teeth. It seemed to following the tracks of his fellow operative's snowmobile. It was still a ways behind, but closing fast. The chances of outrunning it were slim.

A Russian voice came on over the radio. Amadea grimaced at the vulgar dialect in which it was spoken.

Spoiler:

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Wang is in a state of constant shock (-4 IQ/DX) while in the frigid water. He is still trailing the detonation cord. He could blow it now, but there's a fine chance he'd be melted just a few yards from the engine core! The good news is that the cord is waterproof.

It's not clear whether or not the chopper pilot has spotted Dane. It's about a half-mile east.

Wang swam deeper into the river, trying to get to the bottom of it. So cold. Alfred's image somehow floated from the deep water, and with a hollow voice resembling his, Wang heard, "Remember, my young master, with greater responsibility, we gain greater power, trust yourself, Master Richard."

Wang pushed himself down into the black water, pulling with his arms and pushing with his legs. But suddenly he found that he could not push with his legs! He glanced back; saw the light rippling through the surface of the water above; saw 500 feet of det-cord swirling about; saw his own legs hopelessly tangled in the cords. He was tied up in frigid water, sinking fast, with heavily-armed Russians searching for him at the surface.

This was not good.

On the bright side, he was having no trouble descending into the inky blackness.

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Swimming defaults to HT-4. This roll determines how well you can scout out the water. In addition, you must make a Swimming roll every 5 seconds; failure means you lost 1 FP as you begin to drown.

Wang's skill is 4; roll is 15. Margin of failure above 10 means a critical fail! Wang's legs are tied together by det-cord. Untangling the cord is a DX roll, during which time Wang continues to sink. Remember that Wang is in shock from the cold.

Wang's first drowning roll will happen in 4 seconds.

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Excellent roleplaying has made your predicament slightly less high-octane nightmare fuel. But only by a little.

So cold. calm down. I'm sinking, now diving. Calm down. Will I be seeing dad soon? What did dad even look like? Oh gosh, I can't even remember how my father looked. Calm Down. Will mom be sad when she hears about my death? Will mom hear about my death? Alfred. If only I can repay him for what he taught me.CALM DOWN. OK, calm down, observe. Observation: leg tangled by detonation cord, sinking, cold water. Solution: untangle, swim deeper, pull the cord, get out. You can do this, you have a great responsibility, you have a greater gain in power.

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Wang attempts to untangle himself, DX at 6, roll gets 7

OOC: Travis, you are following my advice quite well.

Wang struggled in vain against the cords. The water darkened until he could see nothing. Then his head hit something and he settled onto the bottom of the lake.

Trapped.

The words of Alfred kept echoed in his mind.

Then he saw a blue light straight ahead. Not coming toward him; just glimmering in the distance. He might be able to crawl there with his hands - but if he did, he would probably never reach the surface again.

--

Wang has lost 1 FP as he begins to drown.

Need air. Can't hold breath any longer. As Wang started to try swim to the surface, his hands found the cord. A string? Is Dane here to rescue me? Maybe I should pull it.

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Wang pulled the detonation cord

Kespa and Amadea looked up as a brilliant blue flash illuminated the horizon. A shock wave slammed into them seconds later, knocking them off the snowmobile and sending them tumbling and rolling across the plain. A thick wave of snow followed; metal and ice rained from the sky.

The shockwave struck the Russian chopper, shattering the cockpit glass. It spiraled out of control and slammed into the ground in a cloud of fire. Dane struggled to remain airborne.

Martha, the SPERTS transport vehicle, slowly lumbered overhead. Griswold's voice crackled on the radio. "This is Bulldog. We just lost the Chinese dude ... he died heroically blowing that wreck. We'll put a star up on the wall. For now, you ladies get aboard."

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Wang's fate is not yet clear. You're free to stay if you'd like to find him, but your objectives have been completed. If you're ready to end the mission, post that you get aboard Martha.

Once they were aboard Martha, Amadea said, "if you bring me back there, I can check on Wang without endangering my safety. Either way, may I request eating the souls of the men we killed?"

"NNNNNOOOOOOO--" Dane shouted, realizing that Wang had not left the site. He flew furiously towards the blast zone, caring nothing for his own safety. "I WILL NOT LOSE MY BROTHER AGAIN." He ignored the calls on his radio.

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Spend 2 FP to fly faster, if possible.