5 Parsecs from Home After Action Report 2

 This is a after action report of a 5 Parsecs from Home game that continues the adventures of Captain Bjorn Ivannox and the crew randomly rolled up here.  This is a narrative story version of the events that happened. A look behind the scenes at the in game events that influenced and generated this narrative will be posted soon. 

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Art by Christian Quinot in Five Parsecs from Home 3rd Edition, p40

Droplets sizzled on the concrete ground as the party of four stalked through the sundown shadows of the abandoned market town.  Anriel, the soldier, slowed to a halt in front of the others.  He made some adjustments to the tracker sight on his well-worn infantry laser as the acid rain formed rivulets down his Plas-Tek hooded poncho and spattered around his feet.  Instinctively, his gloved hands went through the motions of maintenance, actions he had repeated with this weapon on countless worlds in countless environmental conditions. It would work, he knew, even here on Lanrezac Gamma’s ruined boom-and-bust towns.

He snapped alert, mentally shaking himself. Nostalgia leads to distraction; and distraction on a mission can get you killed. He flicked on his throat mic. “Check-in time. Anriel, point. Sound off.”

 “Levian Nuende, second,” the mic crackled as the team’s counterfeiter and all-around scavenger responded, hunkered down in cover against the concrete of an empty raised plaza and racking the slide of his colony rifle. 

“Captain reporting, third,” murmured Bjorn Ivannox, glare sword bouncing in its sheath on his hip as he turned around slowly with colony rifle in hand, scanning the red-orange horizon for shapes. Eventually Bjorn’s gaze fell on Fallox Encia behind him, the last member of their party.

“Fallox here, rearguard,” chirped the musician as she readjusted her Plas-Tek poncho so the shatter axe affixed to her back was more comfortable.  Fallox Encia saw Bjorn’s look and gave him a wink, showing off her glitter encrusted eyelids as she gripped her infantry laser.  An unearthly pale face married to phosphorescent strands of purple and pink in her half-shaved brunette hair screamed that she had just come from a discotech.  In fact, Fallox had just headlined there; howling into a megaphone for all her screamcore fans just a scant couple of hours earlier. There hadn’t been time to change. Just throw on a protective poncho, grab a gun and go. 

Instinctively Bjorn crouched, mirroring Levian Nuende’s stance. The subtle tap-tap of rain on the abandoned buildings was only broken by the faint splashing sounds their boots made when disturbing the pools of the caustic downpour.  In this moment of quiet, Bjorn ran through his memory again. 

Recall pulled him back to the meet they had a few hours before.  Piklov Demir, their resident petty criminal, had been in deep conversation with a hologram before they got the nod that the team was to convene in an upscale rhinox steakhouse with a hungry patron.  Piklov Demir and Lemoes Gallo were still injured and were left in the ship’s sick bay as the remaining four crew members booked it to the glitterati sector of the spaceport to make their appointment.  

Arnav Ton was waiting for them, in impeccably tailored clothing and extravagantly cybernetic teeth.  Despite himself, Bjorn was fascinated by how Arnav’s palladium teeth…shifted and remolded themselves to finely cut the rare slice of steak Arnav was masticating. After a modest glass of red wine more expensive than a night out on the town for the entire crew, Arnav Ton outlined his need for the mercenaries to see after his interests in an abandoned area of the planet.  Bjorn remembered eying the empty wineglass and being dogged with his negotiations.  Arnav had agreed to hazard pay provided the team addressed his needs immediately.  Bjorn thought of Piklov and Lemoes still in the sick bay as he secured the promise of extra credits with a firm handshake. What he couldn’t forget, was that Arnav’s teeth mimicked those of a shark when he smiled.    

Breathing out slow and coming out of his reverie, Captain Bjorn racked the slide in anticipation.  With a modicum of mental effort his VR implant overlayed his vision with distance and tracking telemetry in brilliant goldenrod and phosphorescent green.  The team was only five klicks from the zone. Soon credits would be in hand and then—then he heard it. His name. Echoing from every building and tower in the abandoned marketplace. 

“Bjorn Ivannox!” the echo resounded over the empty plaza. Or once empty plaza. Disciplined footfalls and short, muffled commands of a cadre of men came from the buildings north of him.  Bjorn shot a glance at Fallox Encia.  She was looking around wildly, but caught his look and dropped to the ground immediately, pointing her infantry laser in all directions until she focused her attentions to the north. 

“Anriel Breckett!” boomed the mysterious voice again and Anriel, in the lead of their line, sprinted west to the cover of a hab tower, where he crouched. “Who the FUCK knows my last name,” Anriel exclaimed over coms, his targeting sight pinging with four hotspots detected to his north east, moving in and spreading out in a tactical formation across the plaza.  

“Is this a setup?” Bjorn thought, his memory briefly flashing back to Arnav Ton’s wicked shark-smile. “What do you want?” Bjorn yelled out, feverishly analyzing the battlespace for targets, chokepoints and kill zones. 

“Your Balance Is Due!” came a very unfriendly laugh as a figure appeared in the middle of the plaza, clad in a redlined leather trench coat and black brimmed hat, dropped a microphone device and crushed it with his heel. Something whirred in his left eye and he brandished his triple barrel shotgun, heavy with electronics and modifications. 

“Anriel! What can you see?” Bjorn queried over the comms channel. “Four, well, that’s five targets now,” Anriel groused. “That’s got to be a Bounty Tracker, and the others…black carapace armor and orange insignia’s…shit. That’s the snake and column, Captain.” Anriel reported grimly. 

A snake coiling around a column. A stylized combination of the letters “I” and “S”.  That could only mean one thing. The Integrated Syndicate had found them and had them cornered in an ambush, Bjorn thought as his adrenaline surged. For a millisecond Bjorn thought of his family, of lasers piercing the skies, of fire and death. His blood boiled.     

“Listen up,” the Captain spoke in a clear but low tone over the comms, “I know these bastards. Criminals of the worst kind.  I know they have a mark on me, and they’ve got a beef with Anriel as well; but you two, Levian and Fallox, if the situation gets too hot, you can both leave. Anriel and I will keep them occupied.”

“No sir!” Levian Nuende stated. “Captain, you have given me a second chance, a chance for a life with order and opportunity. If you stand, I stand.” Levian stated and pounded his fist into his chest. 

“Where would I be if you didn’t take me on when I hid away on your ship when you refueled at Nasic’s Lament?” Fallox Encia exploded. “I’d still be a servant to the dammed Ash People.  I would have never touched a musical instrument at all!” She shook her hair out of her eyes. 

Grimly, Bjorn Ivannox noted the slow-but-disciplined advance of his five enemies. “Alright then,” he said, raising his colony rifle to his shoulder and looking down the sights. “Let’s give them hell.” And a brief but defiant warcry came from the plucky crew. 

(First Round)

Bjorn and Levian Nuende fired within seconds of each other.  Both colony rifles spat out three round bursts, targeting the closest enemy, the Bounty Tracker. His trophies jangled on his belt, and his trench coat flapped in the wind as he dodged the fire, laughing with dark joy to be in the thick of battle as he started advancing and taking the stairstep on the north end of the plaza. 

Filled with adrenaline, Fallox Encia dove up the stairs of the plaza from the south, skidding to a stop as she slid, crouching against the plassteel fence that bisected the flat rectangle of the plaza. She swallowed hurriedly and readjusted her infantry laser to acquire a target. 

“Gaining higher ground”, Anriel’s comm crackled as the veteran soldier immediately threw himself into ascending a vertical fire escape ladder that would take him to the top of the four-story abandoned hab building, west of the plaza, he had been taking cover against. 

(Second Round)

One of the Guild Troopers in black carapace armor and orange IS insignia began making hand gestures to his team. For his trouble, Fallox Encia slicked her hair back under her hood and took a shot at him. The blast went wide. “Readjusting!” she cried as a hail of bullets came back for her in return.  One bullet hit home, exploding against her shoulder and spinning her around so hard her head slammed into the plassteel fence. Fallox gasped and fell unconscious from the wicked whiplash. 

The crew and its enemies exchanged further blasts of fire and laser beams, with nothing connecting.  Grimly Anriel climbed, his body on the west side of the hab stacks so he was safe from the field of fire. With one final pull he jumped onto the rooftops and strode over some forlorn cheerily colored banner of better times.  Crouching against a pile of boxes, Anriel surveyed the battlefield and began to plot his next move. 

(Third Round)

Bjorn surveyed the scene, his VR implant making it a dazzling display of real shadows highlighted with goldenrod and blazing red. One of the Guild Troopers was wielding a plasma rifle. “Can’t have that,” Bjorn muttered, slamming a burst of bullets into the concrete behind the trooper as he missed his shot. 

“Targeting the big guns,” Anriel’s voice came, calm and collected, as the plasma rifle Guild Trooper dropped to his knees to avoid a laser blast that would have bisected his helmet. 

Levian Nuende howled as he stepped out of cover and opened up on the four Guild Troopers, desperate for a lucky shot.  It was not to be however, as two Guild Troopers turned and fired down the plaza, military rifles making sounds of rock-and-roll as Levian got lit up and planted face first into the puddles of acid rain.  

(Fourth Round)

“We’ve taken casualties!” Anriel voice came through clear on the comms as he exchanged fire from the rooftop with a Guild Trooper on the ground. “I --,” Bjorn was cut off as he quickly wrenched his colony rifle away from an adjacent explosion that nearly ended him. “Just focus on killing these bastards!” Bjorn exclaimed, reloading and repositioning behind cover. 

Peeking up from his foxhole, the Guild Trooper aimed his plasma rifle at the demolished wall Bjorn was hiding behind. Adjusting a few settings, the weapon powered up until there was a *crack* as a laser blast from the top of the four-story hab block penetrated the charging plasma rifle.  There was barely a scream at all from the doomed Guild Trooper. Anriel surveyed the resulting exploding plasma ball as it fell and smoldered onto the concrete.  Disciplined, the Guild Troopers and Bounty Tracker eyed Anriel in the hab tower warily, but they repositioned as doctrine taught them and began to spread out towards Captain Bjorn Ivannox.

(Fifth Round)

Grim realization hit Bjorn as he saw the Bounty Tracker began sprinting towards his position, totems and trophies jangling against his belt and bandoleers.  Quickly Bjorn cracked open an emergency transmitter and began chanting codewords in a low voice. “Indigo Stardust Alpha Chi Sigma, initiate!” he rasped, his hands convulsively shaking as he heard a whirring from above him.  The Bounty Tracker’s left eye deployed a lens with crosshairs and its telescopic chamber whirred as it retreated back into his eye socket. The triple barreled shotgun appeared in Bjorn’s vision, it’s holes as dark as the void of space. “Be seeing you,” the Bounty Tracker smiled like a shark.