EPISODE 2: Operation Wayward Falcon

[tomcat]

STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS
Episode 2: Operation Wayward Falcon

Clone Wars – after what seemed a success only to be
stripped away by treachery of the Sith Lord who ruled the
Republic, Derecho Squad was sent back to Kamino for healing
and additional training. With the loss of Booth, the team had to
be reconstituted and a new leader elevated from their ranks.

Now, with the needed down time coming to an end, the team will
be sent back into action. Unfortunately for the intrepid squad of heroes,
they will be thrust into a realm of the war that no one pays attention to
though it be a reality of every conflict - the underside of war. For with each
conflict comes opportunity for some to prosper and grow their wealth on
those who suffer.

Glitterstim - better known as Spice throughout the galaxy - has always been
in demand by the weak who wish to escape the hardship of their lives and
made available by those who wished to reap its rewards. Derecho Squad will
find itself immersed in this new form of war - a battle that they may not be skilled
at fighting - while the galaxy continues to rage with combat.

[tomcat]

The fog was always unsettling here. With it came the multitude of sounds from the denizens that inhabited the knotted trees that sat atop great knotted root systems above the swampy waters around the starport. The mists would lift off the swamps each night as the temperature cooled, mixing with the sulfur-smelling gases of biological rot. Occasionally, things would fly through the fog and swoop on some prey, startling any persons that might be strolling along the nighttime streets.

To call the moon, Rori, an inhabited world could only refer to the fauna that resided within its jungles. Yes, there was a population of Galactic residents here - primarily from the planet Naboo around which Rori spun - but they were confined to the few spaceports that were scattered on the moon's surface. These folk stayed predominantly within the technologically advanced cities, save the Gungans, and left the swamps to themselves. Still, there were many that also lived  and worked a primitive lifestyle in the rain forests catching animals, collecting plants for medicines, and also mining for Spice. It was the latter that kept Timar Gat busy on this adopted homeworld.

Timar was a man that many others relied upon. By day, he worked as a Port-hand loading and fueling vessels as they came to Rori; by night he served drinks in a local pub. In both of his professions, he met many types of people and as always, he did his best to make sure these meetings were financially rewarding for his pocket. Over the bar, he met smugglers and pirates that would entice him into helping them during the day when he worked the lifts at the starport. Timar helped move rare, protected, animal and plant-life off world; bring contraband in whether it be drugs, weapons, or even slaves; and also helped move the Rorian Spice trade. The Spice runners were his biggest clients with the biggest payoffs.

In all his dealings, Timar also came to the attention of the Republic Police and Investigation Bureau. To keep himself from being taken to prison, the shoreman began to rat out some of his clients. Now Timar Gat walks a thin line between two opposing sides - neither of which would care the least if he became more fodder for the beasts within the swamps. He nervously looked left down the star-dock, the wisps of fog obscuring most details until further down where the ports lights shone brightly. There were people there milling about, most of which were tourists or just the normal night life that came out to enjoy - or work - in the casinos and pubs that encircled the port. He was sure he knew both of the Twi'lek prostitutes that stood under a lamp post looking for business.

A noise brought his attention quickly back to where he was. A shadowy shape came out from between the many massive load crates that were stacked all around, then another and another. The three shapes stood with the fog and the dark veiling them, but close enough that Timar could hear the whispered commands, "Were all ready. Get the crates moving."

It was now that the shoreman really began to sweat, even in the damp cool air. The port was never operated at night and the load lifters were all in lockdown, but Timar had his own command code cylinder that could activate any of the machines he needed. Still, though on repulsors, they could generate some noise and he didn't need any strangers coming down on them. But his payoff tonight was pretty big and it would set him up for at least the year, so it was definitely worth the risk. Timar nodded to the faceless voice and moved to the load lifter's cabin and entered inside. He inserted his cylinder and immediately the machine activated. Once done, he brought the lift fork under a huge pallet of crates and proceeded to move four stacks from one place to another. With the crates now in their exchanged places, verification tags were removed from the one set and fastened on to the other.

In less than twenty minutes, Timar had moved two thousand kilos of Spice that was within crates that had yet to be checked and approved by the Port Authority inspectors into the load line of those that had been. The verification tags sealed the deal to make everything appear as it should. The shoreman moved his lifter back to where it was kept at night and shut it down. He had one more task - empty the other crates that had been exchanged, load the unwanted materials onto his swamp skimmer and take the stuff out to dump it. By morning, there would be four stacks of empty crates waiting to be loaded for a new shipment, a shipment of Spice would be leaving this world, and he would be 100,000 credits richer for his trouble.

Timar wiped the sweat from his brow and got busy, thanking the fog that clung to the dock every night. The shadows that had observed the transfer disappeared back into the darkness. Timar was glad that he would not have to see them again - at least until the next time.

[tomcat]

The planet Kamino was a dreary place, even for a Clone ARC trooper who had seen the worst locations in the galaxy. The rain was incessant. The planet was nothing but ocean, and so the only place to go and see was the white fluoresced cities of the Kaminoans. Hammer was ready to leave.

Derecho had been ordered back to their home planet after their last mission, the destruction of the relay station. With the death of Booth and the near death of Longshot, the team needed some time to heal and to re-organize itself. Fortunately, thought Hammer, no new nuggets had been assigned to Derecho. The team would stick with the same members as before, only one of them was reported to be gaining a new rank to sergeant. They had yet to be told who that would be.

Martel had also come to Kamino, but he had not spent much time with the squad. Instead, the Jedi had been pulled into meetings with higher ranked officers and Jedi Masters who resided on the ocean planet. Hammer was not surprised that he did not hang out with the clones - after all, he and his mates were not a lot of fun. As clones, their life experience was war and so their talk, humor, and insight on things was limited to just that - war.

Longshot lay in his bunk across from the rest of his teammates. The sniper was tossing a small ball straight up towards the ceiling to hit a small target roughly its size. Each time he hit, a chime would sound and a counter would increment up by one. The counter currently read 3,322.

"Bullocks, I'm bored!" said Mitts.

They knew it would come to an end soon. They were good - and the Republic did not leave useful weapons sitting around idle. Not during a war.

Two more weeks passed of PE, training, and firing on the blaster ranges. Finally, Martel reappeared, "Hammer, Mitts, Longshot - grab your gear. You, too, Haywire." The fourth clone was laying prone in his rack holding a small tablet device reading up the specs on some new types of access control systems and how to deactivate them.

Martel stepped out of their quarters and waited the ten minutes it took the clone troopers to armor up and grab the gear necessary to meet the high command. Where else would they be going on this big light bulb?

They followed the Jedi to the central operating chamber of the city and moved to a holding position. Men and women in gray uniforms, along with the occasional robed Jedi, moved around a holo-table that displayed the Galaxy. Highlighted in different areas were the current activities going on with the war - each area listed details of assets, losses, and status of combat. Moments later, a grey-uniformed clone with Colonel pips on his uniform came over to stand before Derecho. The team marveled a bit at the clone's rank and each felt that maybe there was a little something more for them out there than to be weapons.

"TEN-SHUN!" called Haywire at the colonel's approach and Derecho went to parade stance. "At ease, troopers," was the simple answer. The officer signaled them to follow him and they did just that. The group walked to a another table where another holographic image was rotating. It was a simple Action VI freighter, built by the Corellian Engineering Corporation for hauling the many needed supplies around the galaxy. It was quite a successful design and many public and private interests had fleets of the things. The ARC troopers wondered what this was about.

The colonel pointed to the image, "Brothers, this is the Ardent Falcon. I don't need to go into class or specs of the ship - you should all be up to date on the design - but this is your new mission. Word has come to us from our Bothan sources that the CIS has started a new campaign of subversion and terror within the inner Core Worlds in an attempt to break the public will and desire to continue the war against the Confederacy. Their tactic has been to use organized crime and saboteur-assassin elements inside urban areas of our worlds. The organized crime elements range from the Hutts, to the Black Sun, and some have suggested a terrible underworld cult known as the Bando Gora.

"One tactic is to spike many illegal drugs with a synthesized steroid called hydrophenodrone. The drug-users buy these tainted street drugs from their suppliers, who are unaware of their increased threat, and the new narcotic takes over. The effect is to turn a simple, calm, and sedated individual into a hysterical, raging, aggressor. These enraged drug-users have been reported to go on killing sprees throughout the inner-cities. They have been said to be able to take inhuman amounts of wounds from police forces that try to stop them. The drug enhances their strength and they have been said to literally tear limbs off of their victims. One report from Coruscant reads a woman tearing another woman's arm off and beating her to death with the appendage. It is not good.

"The Confederacy is also spreading propaganda within our Core Worlds to subvert the public against us." The colonel could see the confusion, "You see, troopers, the steroid, hydrophenodrone, was created to help create us. It is one of the chemicals used in the cloning process that can determine a clone's final design and purpose - makes one of us warrior and another a ship's yeoman. Does that make sense?"

Nods.

"The Confederacy has started a campaign of propaganda that states the Galactic Senate has ordered these drugs into the population to make regular citizens better warriors because we, the Clone Army, are not meeting expectations. The war is being lost because we do not perform. Thus far, it has not created hysterics and many see the message for what it is, but... there are whispers now within the senate; on the streets; on outer rim worlds. People are starting to wonder if Palpatine could order such a thing.

"So, you are to capture this ship. Not destroy it, capture it! We need every ounce of intel that can come from this vessel. We know where it stopped last, but not its origins. The Ardent Falcon is not listed on any B.O.S.S. ledger - it just appeared. You are to take the vessel and bring it to Coruscant where the Republic Bureau of Investigation will take over and tear the thing apart."

Haywire grumbled, "Seems that this is more of Bureau job anyway, not one for ARC's."

The colonel responded, "Every job is a job for ARC's, soldier! The 501'st was bred for this very purpose - to battle on the frontlines as well as the lines that aren't drawn on any map, understood?"

Again, nods.

"You have your orders. PADDS will be distributed to each of you with the complete details of the assignment. Hammer, Derecho Squad lost its commanding officer in its last engagement, you are being promoted to sergeant and will assume that role. I assume you have all taken the basic command courses that were ordered during your downtime here?" Nods. "Very good, well Hammer, you'll put them to use. Your training will continue between each of your assignments. I hope you can perform to level that Booth displayed while he was in command. Dismissed."

[GandalfOfBorg]

"At least we all know how to fly a ship," quipped Jalobar.  "Congratulations, Hammer.  You've earned it."  But it was back to business so the young Jedi locked it down.  "Everyone review the mission, we will meet in one hour in the squad conference room to discuss logistics."

[deadpool]

"Yes, sir." replied Mitts in a mechanic manner. On his way out he couldn't avoid thinking again about their expendability. Booth is dead so now we have a new seargent. It wasn't like he thought Hammer didn't deserve it, in fact, it was a relief that they had picked him instead of a newcomer, but he could never get used to the idea that they were replaceable.

Do we have new players or are Longshot and Haywire NPCs now?

[tomcat]

Shawn is picking up Longshot's role and disench4nted is taking Haywire.

[Stefan]

The colonel didn't expect any response from him than a nod at his promotion so once he was dismissed he turned and headed quietly out of the meeting room.  He wasn't surprised given the training that he'd been given over the last few weeks in addition to that which his brothers had been going through, but he was concerned about living up to the expectations set by Booth. 

Hammer acknowledged the congratulations of his team, but his mind was already on the mission.

Once the Commander had finished speaking Hammer turned to the rest of the team, "Alright men, you have an hour, go kiss your pillows goodbye and get your gear packed and ready to move out. Move out!"

After the rest of the team had headed on their way he followed them.  He'd been looking to leave this hole for weeks now though so packing everything he owned really only consisted of throwing the few toiletries he'd left out for use into his shaving kit and packing it back into his ruck.

He then pulled up the schematics on the Action VI and began looking over the deck plans, schematics, mechanical specs and any other information that he could in the 45 minutes that he had to spare.

[tomcat]

The hour given by Martel was used by the team to garner their new equipment. Kamino was a cloning planet, but the Republic had also made it an armory. Looking at their data PADDS, the troopers of Derecho Squad read the operation details and supplied themselves accordingly to make them 100% mission capable. Once the equipment was collected and stowed in an environmentally protective CET (COMBAT EQUIPMENT TRUNK), the team sat in pairs or by themselves taking more time to absorb the details of what needed done.

FROM: REPUBLIC ARMY COMMAND
TO: DERECHO SQUAD, ARC 2nd sqd, 3rd btn, 501st
OPERATION WAYWARD FALCON

Derecho will move offworld Kamino via Argon Star and transit from Outer Rim to Colonies Commenor region and intercept CEC Action VI: Ardent Falcon (no other identifiers).
Derecho will launch from Argon Star in 3-flight of Y-Wing fighters; attacks will be made on freighter to cripple the ship only
Once done, Derecho Squad will board Ardent Falcon and proceed to capture the ship; captured ship will be confirmed and RBI will be called in to take up possession
All other taskings secondary
ROE you are free to use all force necessary in your tasking
EMCON TIGHT

The details of the mission were three electronic pages long. Just after them, the team found an image of the ship they sought - intel had placed markings on the ship were it looked like various weapon emplacements had been added. Also included were the standard deck plans of the Action VI.



Okay, you guys are welcome to tell me what equipment you want to take, besides your standard gear. Armor has been repaired and it is once more the shadowskin stuff you used before.

Here is the website to the deck plans of the Action VI (not sure if it is canon, but they work)

A few of the decks are not even finished, but we'll make due via my tweaking the maps. The last revision done by the original artist go back to '05 so I don't think anything else is coming. I can't see one, but I may put a hangar bay on the ship. If not, we'll say the Y-wings are modified with docking collars and the Astromech units assigned will fly the ships off once you guys breach. This is actually stuff you guys can pre-plan in your own mission setup.

Attached is an image of the freighter collected via the Bothan spy network, with new emplacements highlighted. The freighters have no armament and only a simple defense system, so mods are likely based on the image of the ship.

[tomcat]

to my post above about the PC's - disench4nted has been away for 7 days. I will keep an eye on when he gets back in, but if he does not I will run Haywire as an NPC until someone else comes along.

[disench4nted]

Hey guys, sorry I was in vacation in the wilderness this past week. I'm halfway home and will be around regularly starting tomorrow. Sorry about the rough start, bad timing on my part

I'll probably try to get a post in when stop at a hotel tonight.

[deadpool]

For the equipment, I was thinking mainly about running into trouble in space. Our armors can keep us alive if the ships crash or something? Maybe we could have jetpacks that we can discard once we are in the ship to work as parachutes if we need to eject from the Y-wings. Some handcuffs and stunning equipment could be useful too if we expect to fight living creatures instead of droids this time. Some stun grenades for example or a contact stunner. Smoke and/or gas grenades would be good too.

[Stefan]

After reading the op order Hammer looked to the Commander. 

"Sir, Do we have any intel on the crew or what those weapon mounts might contain?"

As he waited for Martel to check on that he considered how to split the team into their fighter pairs.  They were all roughly equal in their piloting abilities.

"Mitts, Haywire, you'll be the pilots for this mission, Longshot, you'll be with Haywire and I'll ride with Mitts and the Commander will fly solo.  That will give us the best mix of combat skills for the gunners and the best chance of getting someone trained in mechanical repair onboard.

Sir, would it be possible for you to request one of the wishbones to be a Longprobe?  Any more info that we could get from sensors on the way in would be helpful, plus all the weapons in those ships are controlled by the pilot."

[GandalfOfBorg]

 Tomcat, you'll have to answer the question on crew intel and ship requisition. 

"Sounds good.  With the Y's, our best chance is to jump in, jam communications before they can send a message out, use our ion cannons to disable the ship, and dock at these egress points to begin our incursion.  I will head to the engine room to cover the engineer during the repairs while the rest of you neutralize any crew threat.  Having some of them alive would help I'm sure.  My biggest concern is if reinforcements or perhaps pirates arrive before we have things under control."

[disench4nted]

Haywire began putting together a requisition list after reading through the new mission briefing. While the engineered soldier in him analyzed the target ship specs and potential challenges he would face, the human in him still mourned the loss of Booth.

Haywire had been part of Dericho squad long enough to keep these feelings from interfering with his work, but he couldn't help but wonder what effect the loss of their commander would have on the team. And on top of that they were running with a man down from their normal number. Haywire was still confident in the team, but made a note to himself to keep an eye on Hammer and do whatever he could to help his brother with his new responsibilities.

"Back to the mission" Haywire grumbled to himself. He knew he had had plenty of time to sort out his thoughts in the previous weeks, and his misgivings about Dericho being tasked to this kind of mission would have to wait.

I think I'm going to go with the same load out that is already in haywire's stat block with the following changes. Drop the grenade launcher and take 6 stun, 6 frag, 2 ion, and 2 smoke grenades. I don't know how much weight the launcher saves me but I also want to carry 2 binder cuffs, 2 extra det-chord reels, and if possible 2 more ion and smoke grenades.

I like the idea of having jet packs on in case we need to eject, so I'd like to have one with me just until I leave my ship. Also, what are the chances of bringing along an astromech droid to help with repairs after we disable the ship? Or would that even be a good idea?

Also, hello everyone! My name is Steve and I'm pretty excited about playing with you guys. I really enjoyed reading your previous episode and it looked like you guys had lots of fun. This is going to be my first play by post game as well as my first Star Wars game, so sorry if I'm stepping all over myself for a little while, I'll try to be a quick learner.

[tomcat]

Welcome back, Steve! Glad you are here. You're just in time for me to take my trip to Florida! 

As for being a first time PbP player - it's easy. We move at a good pace here, never to fast but never fall off the face of the Earth slow either (although I can get distracted by things). If you have questions on how things work - just ask. I have ways of doing things - might be overkill, like when I post a combat round but I want you guys to have all the info. If you model the way I do my post set up then it'll be easy to see what you're doing, but you don't have to. There are two rollers on the board - an in-post roller and a pop-up window roller. Both are fine. So is rolling dice on your table, but I ask all players to be honorable when it comes to the out-of-post dice rolls. I've never challenged any player's rolls, but you guys are the ones who make the game fun and exciting by keeping the rolls that came up on the dice.

TO answer questions:

Yea, the weapon requests are doable. Remember, you have a military armory at your beckoning so feel free to put in the request (and assume it is filled - you don't have to wait for my approval). I will take a look at all your characters' equipment adds/deletes and if I see something that might be out of the norm, I will talk to you about it. Do me a favor though and make a complete list of what your PC will have with them and I will update everyones PC sheets.

Steve, I am not a big stickler on encumbrance - this said though, it needs to make sense that it can be carried. Whether in a utility belt, backpack, carried satchel, whatever - but I will play it in to the game if you are carrying a bunch of stuff and you want to do a number of physical actions. You will be hindered if you are carrying a ton of stuff that limits mobility and freedom of hands/feet. So, pick it out - feel free to add up the weight to make sure it works i you want - and put into your PC's story so that it is logical.

Jet packs are fine.

I sent Matt a PM to answer the questions directed at him, so I will leave it to him to carry on the details. I will post once you guys have all conversed and put together your attack plan with the Y-wings. Once inside the Action VI, we can worry about the next plan of engagement.