5 Parsecs from Home After Action Report 1

 This is a after action report of a wargame skirmish of a 5 Parsecs from Home game with the previous posts' randomly generated characters.  I have taken the most interesting events of each round and narrated them. Only some actions (like characters stunning other characters) that were not of tactical consequence were omitted. 

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The ornithopter’s frame shook violently as the craft juked and swerved over the belching smokestacks and humming power wires of the industrial center below. Captain Bjorn Ivannox swayed in his harness webbing, affixed to a hook in the ceiling, as he reviewed the battlefield data with his crew through his VR implant. Brilliant goldenrod arrows shimmered against an oldtech background of phosphorescent green lines, denoting the industrial battlespace his crew was about to engage in.

“How many contacts?” asked the soldier Anriel, not looking up from adjusting his tracking sight on the lean and smooth infantry laser. “Should be six at most,” Leomes Gallo chimed in, the technician studiously checking the social media presence of the Black Dragons, the asteroid pirate faction they were about to ambush. “Six. A match to the crew’s numbers,” Bjorn thought.

Bjorn leaned back in the webbing and ran through his memory of the past 24 hours. At a speakeasy, The Thirsty Engine, a corpo drenched in sweat had barged in and openly offered a bounty on the Black Dragons. Something involving a deal gone bad and a gene-locked suitcase full of data on the site. Sensing a good opportunity when he smelled it, Bjorn immediately riled up his crew and got them transport to the industrial zone on a creaky Shrike Mark II ornithopter. Flying low to the horizon, this dubious transport would cloak their approach from spaceship-seeking sensors and afford them a fast evac if things went wrong.

Bjorn waved away the VR display and took a steady look at his other companions. Fallox Encia was leaning down in her webbing-hammock, one hand tapping out a beat on her music synthesizer while the other was carefully locking the thermal clip into her well-worn scrap pistol. Levian Nuende was running his fingers over his shaved head as he studied the VR map of the battlespace, his blast pistol locked and loaded on his hip. Piklov Demir was polishing the blade of his brutal buster sword and nodding absently with his headphones on. Bjorn knew from experience that Piklov was listening to some commentator or another describing the fluctuations of planetary commodities and intersystem cryptocurrency. Always rooting after fat stacks of credits, that one.

“Five minutes until drop!” Bjorn yelled over the comms as his crew made last minute preparations to their various implements of murder and mayhem. Bjorn’s VR display crackled into life again with golden triangles and red lines warning of atmospheric disturbances. A storm front was mixing with the localized industrial pollution to a dense heady smog and gloom over the battlespace. “Expect smog as thick as tar!” Bjorn announced, “Visibility limited.” Piklov glanced up at Fallox with a savage grin and both crewmembers clanged their respective melee weapons together in excitement. “Should be good for some up close and personal action!” Piklov exclaimed.

The ornithopter buzzed up and down over the dropzone. Six filamentous ropes sprang from the bottom of the transport and the crew slid down as one unit, Bjorn touching earth first.

(First Round)

A couple of quick finger gestures, and Bjorn had ordered the squad to form out in a battle line in the midst of the industrial smog, each member securing themselves in cover behind a fabbed piece of concrete or a reinforced steel fence.

Bjorn peered out over the edge of his barricade, the green image enhancement of his VR clarifying murky shadows and formless obstructions as towering concrete pillars and a mess of industrial robots parked in stiff silence.

There, the entire squad heard it; radio crackles of men chuckling, at leisure. Coming from the forest of concrete pillars to the north. Just then, Piklov made a move.

Clutching, then parkouring over the chain linked fence, Pikov was already in motion as he saw it. A shiny suitcase propped up, forgotten, against an automated forklift; the gene-lock signature on it glowing steady phosphorescent and green. Payday.

Pikov’s heavy bootsteps echoed on the hard surface of the industrial park. The radio chatter cutoff abruptly and curt orders were barked over the enemy intercoms as Pilkov slid next to the forklift, slamming hard into its frame, his buster sword on his back bouncing in its sheath.

Bjorn could see a rare ray of sunlight shine off of Pilkov’s gold tooth as he grabbed the suitcase in triumph, then immediately hit the deck to avoid a spray of gunfire from what could only be the Black Dragon pirates saturating the area with military rifles on full rock-and-roll.

(Second Round)

“Contact! Contact!,” Bjorn yelled, sprinting towards the reinforced fence previously vacated by Pilkov as his sight filled with glimmering red crosshairs now moving in formation to the north. “Six! Count them, six contacts! Lets do this!” Bjorn roared as he ducked his head from a burst of fire that narrowly missed his camo beret.

Far to his right, Anriel coolly took aim and breathed out slow. The was the bark of pain from the Black Dragon’s side as Anriel’s infantry laser cooked one of the armor plates on the man that was shouting orders over the radio comms. Damn. Solid miss.

Levian Nuende sped over to the fence next to Bjorn and immediately spun his blast pistol up in a snap shot. “FUCK FUCK” came the response from the Black Dragons as the radio commands cut off abruptly and the man in Anriel’s sights crumpled to the floor. “Game over, Game OVER,” one of the pirates screamed upon seeing his commander bleeding on the floor. He turned tail and fled. Four contacts left.

(Third Round)

Breathing raggedly, Piklov Demir sprinted back towards Bjorn’s firing line, adrenaline and residual chems pumping in time with his heartbeat. As Piklov broke cover, one of the Black Dragons, the left part of his face ripped and replaced with targeting optics, casually spun up an oversized revolver and fired two incendiary red bolts downrange at Piklov. One bolt clanged against the gene-locked suitcase and ricocheted down the industrial park to explode into a mass of burning sticky chems. “Oh shit, that’s clingfire,” Piklov managed to think as the second bolt slammed into his back and turned him into an unfortunate inferno.

(Fourth Round)

“Piklov’s down!” Levian Nuende shouted to Bjorn who was adjacent to him behind the fence. “Then do something about it, goddamn it!” Bjorn roared back, spittle flying as he surveyed the incoming red-crosshairs encroaching on their position. Sweat apparent on his shaved head, Levian took a heartbeat to aim and then pulled the trigger on a Black Dragon to his right. The Dragon’s faceplate crumpled and the man shivered visibly, but he continued to rush forwards after a moment.

But that moment was all that Leomes Gallo needed. In an impromptu sniper’s crouch, his hand cradling a well-worn colony rifle, Gallo fired and the encroaching pirate who had paused fell to the ground, senseless.

The Black Dragons continued their advance. With the suitcase in sight, they were out for blood.

Meanwhile on the right flank, soldier Anriel was busy. Adjusting his position and toggling his range finder, he targeted the profile of the Black Dragon with the devastating clingfire revolver. A beam fired away. Miss. Not to be outdone, the Black Dragon fired his revolver back, missing twice.

(Fifth Round)

Eyes narrowed, Anriel fired off an angry last shot and leapt over the barricade back to safety. To his surprise, the laser connected, drawing a cry of pain as a cauterized line nearly bisected the revolver man’s shoulder. Unsurprisingly, the bark of a command was followed by the sounds of full auto military rifles firing against Anriel’s barricade. He was pinned down, but luckily unharmed and he knew it; he hunched over into a crouch and waited for a break in the action.

On the left flank, Fallox Encia kept up a steady flow of covering fire. Annoyed, a Black Dragon took aim and fired at Fallox’s exposed wrist on rock-and-roll. Struck, Fallox howled and slammed into the ground, her body quickly going into shock. Bjorn hissed through his teeth and mentally subtracted one on his side from the fight. The Black Dragons’ odds had just narrowed and he need to do something and do it fast.

One of the pirates had advanced out of position to get a good angle on Anriel. Leomes Gallo took advantage of this mistake by leaning out from behind cover and shooting the man center of mass. The Black Dragon whipped his rifle around at Leomes, bullets spraying a deadly rain in the area, as Captain Bjorn Ivannox seized the initiative, climbing over a reinforced fence and leaping, swinging his glowing glare sword down in a powerful arc that cleaved through the Black Dragon’s rifle and into his groin.

(Sixth Round)

His opponent finished, Bjorn scrambled toward the frozen forklift for cover, but it was too late. Bjorn had managed to cut down the Black Dragons to two men, but he left himself exposed and the man with the clingfire revolver shot two bolts, both impacting his lower body, starting an instant inferno. Bjorn was down, insensate as fire whorled around him. The Black Dragon laughed as his facial optics whirred and pulsed, searching for another victim.

The one remaining pirate with the military rifle fired upon Leomes Gallow, seeking an easy kill. “Fuck it,” spat Leomes, leaning out of cover again and exchanging fire with the pirate. Both men cried out as they were wounded, but the Black Dragon screamed louder; there was a hole in his midsection from Anriel’s laser beam coming from the right flank.

(Seventh Round)

With a speed that suggested chemical augmentation and desperation, the revolver wielding Black Dragon all by his lonesome, sprinted over to the wounded Leomes and giggled as he raised his gun and fired.

“Damn you!” Levian Nuende shouted and fired his blast pistol wildly downrange. But it was the soldier’s well developed cold focus that ended the engagement. Anriel’s sights coalesced at the base of the laughing Black Dragon’s spine. He pulled the trigger. There was no recoil. There was no sound as the target simply vaporized into a fine red mist.

***

Bjorn tossed and turned, groaning at the bright light piercing through his eyelids and the incessant beeping slowly reaching his ears. His nose filled with the scents of antiseptic and sterile gauze. He was thirsty, so thirsty. He coughed and nearly gagged at his dry throat. “Report” he managed to croak out.

“You’re in Med Bay” came Anriel’s gruff voice. “I can tell,” Bjorn rasped, bright lights and colored sensors assaulting his vision as his eyes fluttered open. “What happened?”

Anriel just laughed and slid his fingers into his beltloops. “All crew accounted for. Two have more serious wounds than you, old timer.” The old soldier nodded to the table in front of him, “And we secured this.” The green light of the gene-lock glimmered tranquilly on its indestructible steel suitcase.

Payday, Captain Bjron Ivannox thought as the warm inviting blackness crept up behind his eyes then gently engulfed him.