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Turn
Campaign:Gamma Company
Adventure:Behind Enemy Lines
Send To:Cal, Erict, Mack, Marko, Peter, Rock, Shooter
Turn Start Date (ex. 12/31/6565)10/12/6569
Turn Number:4.4
Combat Turn:
Subject:The Land Bridge
The combined Imperial and Zhodani group continues heading south. They are now on the land bridge that connects the two continents. They travel a little slower now as they remain underground, and stop early to allow the foragers to find more food. Caerlina calculates that they should reach the Warning Barrier in about 20 days.

The group spends more time underground and less time treking overland as they continue south. The terrain is hilly but gets more and more mountainous as the land bridge starts to narrow towards the distant Warning Barrier. When the reach areas that are difficult to traverse overland, they simply take to the ground and Rock tunnels his way past the barriers.

Three days into the trip across the land bridge, Mack suddenly blacks out. The group is in a tunnel at this point. Rock stops tunnelling as Erict quickly moves up to check on Mack. His pulse and breathing seem fine and, after a few seconds, he wakes up. He is not sure what came over him. Erict asks him a few more questions as he checks him over some more.

After a time, Erict fails to find any problems and the group continues on.

Over the course of the next three days, Mack blacks out four more times. Each blackout is progressively longer and longer, with the fourth one lasting over an hour. In each case, their does not seem to be anything physically wrong with Mack.

GM: Let me know if there is anything special you want to do regarding Mack.

ERICT: Erict becomes increasingly worried about these bouts of, for lack of a better term, Narcolepsy. Each time it happens he gets farther and farther afield in his questions, asking about dreams Mack has been having, asking about family medical history, stuff like that. He asks Captain Insecki if their handheld computers have any medical files on them that he could review. He spends time each and every night sensing the internal physiological health of Mack, from a distance, without disturbing him. Base PER roll 15- [rolled 13] to find anything useful. He will also do a physical on him each night on a day that he passed out, using his touch based Detect Living Things sense [rolled 11], and his Detect DNA sense [rolled 7] (same 15- roll with each). He reviews all his anatomical knowledge as well, hoping for some insight (SS: Mutant Biology 15- [rolled 12] and SS: Anatomy 15- [rolled 11]). In the end, he's not a doctor, only a well trained medic, and this may be beyond him.

PETER: "Don't advance any farther than you and Rock went before, but you can go and take better look while we start pulling everyone back. We'll do more scouting later, but any additional inforamtion now will be helpful. Keep Rock with you and don't take too long. I'll stay here with the rear guard and wait for you. Sergeant, you and Cal take point along with anyone the Captain wants to send. Let's head back to the cave Rock hollowed out for our last rest period. That should make a good staging ground. Does that sound agreeable, captain?

PETER: After having Erict do everything he can to diagnose the problem, Peter will ask Mack if he'll let Marko and Peter do a mental scan to see if this is the result of any sort of implanted command or other outside influence. It's possible that before Peter and Mack got together he was assaulted by a Zhodani telepth. Unlikely, but once we've eliminated physical problems, mental is the next step. A scan might also show if he's under the influence of some other outside force, perhaps an automated defense mechanism to which Mack is particularly susceptible.

GM: Erict's questioning and examination leads him to believe that the bouts have something to do with his mutations. He has Mack try to use some of this mutations and the young soldier finds it very difficult to do so. It takes significant effort for him to be able to focus his vision to see through the earth to the land above. By the time he has had is fourth and longest bout, he is completely unable to focus his distance X-Ray vision. His mutant abilities are apparently undergoing some sort of change.

ERICT: Erict goes to Lt Sterling, and reports, privately. "LT, I believe Mack is undergoing some physiological changes and his mutancy is evolving in some way, this is probably at least partially caused by all this time using his special vision. He has recently found himself unable to focus his special vision at all, and I think it imprudent to rely on it. Thankfully Rock and I can still sense things as we move, but spotting a plane or skimmer just got harder. I would recommend that he spend a week without using his mutant powers at all, including his special vision, to rest them, and then start using them again only very infrequently, perhaps just his special vision only once or twice per day, under my direct supervision to see if he is in any pain. Hopefully with some rest mutant physiology will re-stabilize. If conditions were ideal, I'd suggest we all just sit and rest for a week after this long march, but we both know we can't afford to do that.

PETER: "Agreed." Peter nods and continues. "I'll take him off the watch rotation and limit his duties as much as possible. I'd like to allow him the equivalent of bed rest, but I'm afraid that's not possible. The best I can do is give him limited duties helping with camp tasks. I'll also order him not to use his powers except in case of emergency. He won't like it, and he'll no doubt complain. But he's a soldier and he'll comply. I'm sorry to lose his scouting abilities, but I'd be much sorrier to lose him altogether. Do what you need to keep him healthy. If you need time off from your other duties to attend him, just let me know."

PETER: "As for rest, I agree, we could all use a week off. But you're right, we have to keep moving forward. My hope is that once we reach the comaprative safety of the Zhodani outpost we can stop and rest there. It should have proper facilities, preserved food, and medical supplies.

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As the group continues south, the radiation scanners start picking up increased levels of radiation. Nothing dangerous or dramatic, but definitely slightly higher readings than further north. Captain Insecki gives one of the two scanners to Erict so that he can continue to monitor.

PETER: Peter will keep as careful track as he can based on the radiation readings they take as to what level of radiation exposure everyone in the group is subjected to. Doctors always seem to want to know that information.

Fifteen days into the trip, as the group is traveling underground, Erict suddenly senses an electronic device in the group about 15 meters ahead. Erict is currently walking right behind Rock so the device is about 13-14 meters ahead of Rock. Erict immediately whispers to Rock to stop tunneling and then quietly reports his finding to the lieutenant.

GM: Erict is not able to tell exactly what the device does with his Spatial Awareness, but can tell that it is an electronic device of some sort that is buried in the ground, about 5 cm below the surface. It has the shape of a 30 cm long metal spike.

GM: Actions?

ERICT: Erict immediately moves back to the main group, and suggests Rock do the same, and then suggests the officers order the civilians back down the tunnel to a minimum safe distance of 50m. He says, "L.T. I want to go back up to about 3m short of the end of the tunnel, and try to feel if there are any other similar devices nearby. My first thought is they are some type of landmine, though they could simply be this Warning Barrier if they are set to project a holographic warning whenever they sense someone pass nearby. If there are other devices nearby they might suggest a pattern. Orders?"

PETER: Peter recommends that the group pull back from the device by a good quarter of a mile and make camp for the day. We'll want to be careful bout this device and spend some time investigating it. (Please let me know if Insecki disagrees).

PETER: "Well everyone," he says to the gathered group, "we've run into our first man-made obstacle for several months. We suspected this would happen, and so it has. This could be something left here by the local Zhodani forces, something put here by the Maginites, or something entirely innocent. Regardless, we have to treat it as hostile. I know as careful as we've all tried to be, things have relaxed as we've gone weeks without any enemy contact. Unfortunately, our vacation is over and we have to get back to work." He smiles at his characterization of the last months as a vacation to show that he meant the comment to lighten the mood.

PETER: "Captain Insecki, are you aware of anything the Zhodani forces or civilian authorities might have used that fits Erict's description? For all we know it's just a radiation monitor left here to gather data."

INSECKI: The provisional baron frowns and then replies, "I can only state the obvious here. It sounds like it is either a sensor or a land mine."

PETER: "Well, your answer does tell us something. They don't appear to be anything your military has dropped there, and they certainly don't look like anything our military dropped. Here's a good question," Peter's face lights up with an idea. "Rock, if Erict can key you in on where this thing is, can you examine the earth around it to see if it's been in there a long time or just recently dug in? That would tell us a lot. If it's new then we can be it was put in by the Maginites. If older, well, at least we know it probably wasn't the Maginites."

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PETER: "Rock, you've got the best eyes and you can see through things. How close would you have to get for a good enough look to give us a better description? It might be we could tell something from the way it looks."

ROCK: "Sir, I should be able to get great detail about it once I get within 8 meters. Do you want me to get that close?" Rock seems quite willing to go investigate the supposed device.

PETER: "Let's hold off on getting any closer. That'll risk both halves of the group, so I want to make sure the captain and I are in agreement before we proceed with a closer investigation. I also wnat to get the civilians out of the way first. If they are mines of some sort, I want to minimize those in their area of effect."

ROCK: "Aye, sir. If we decide to investigate it closer, I can create a large stone wall to absorb most of the blast. The earth is very good and reducing the effects of explosions. Another option is I could investigate in my mud form. It might help if it's a sensor that picks up normal heat signatures or solid and/or large objects."

PETER: "You've keyed onto the real problem, Rock. If it's a sensor device, we want to disturb it as little as possible so that we don't give ourselves away. But if it's a mine, we need to protect ourselves. But it's hard to do both. That's why I want to get as much information from afar as we can. And find out if we can just avoid the device. That would be the safest option of all."

ROCK: "I didn't see it but couldn't we backtrack some and then just go deeper into the earth?" Rock turns to Erict. "How deep do you see it extend?"

ERICT: "It's buried right near the surface, maybe 5cm deep, and then extends another 30cm or so straight down into the ground, in a spike-like shape. My original thought was a seismic sensor, actually, but the Captain said the Zho haven't put anything like that down here. A spring-loaded air-burst mine would seem the next most logical, triggered by pressure, since it's buried too deep to sense anything above ground with normal sensors. Even radar and sonar are diffused badly enough to be considered blocked by 5cm of solid earth, after all.

ROCK (GM): How deep are we currently in the ground?

ROCK (OOC): There's no reason Rock can't tunnel the group 100 meters deeper into the ground or more. If the sensor is intended for surface or close to surface scans then it shouldn't go that deep. Eventually we should hit the water table, which would keep us from going deeper. Of course, I suppose Thengo Prime could not have a water table but I'm not sure geologically speaking how feasible that is (sorry, not a geologist).

ERICT: Since we already got within 15 meters of it without anything catastrophic happening, I'd say just dig down to 20 meters depth and bypass it. If we do bypass it without knowing what it is we will definitely have to go slower to make sure another one doesn't catch us by surprise, though.

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PETER: "I think we might give some thought to sending a few scouts laterally to see if this is an isolated device or if there appear to be a line of them. If it's something we can just skirt around, that might solve our problem. In the meanwhile, I think we should keep to the strictest security, keeping everyone underground as much as possible. I'm particularly concerned that if this is a monitoring device, we don't know what kind of sensors it has. Cal and I are good at fooling a lot of devices, but there are still a few that can detect us. If we're lucky, one of us could walk right up to it without a problem. But that has its own risks."

PETER: "Sergeant, you said that your protective shield should stop radiation. Can you extend that protection to anyone else, or is it only personal? It might be that the devices avoid irradiated areas and we could slip through there if we had proper proteciton."

SHOOTER: "I've experimented with that in the past, with varying degrees of success, but have never gotten to the point where I can do it easily. And even then, the version that I was able to extend did not have the same biological filters that I have on my inner field. If you wish, sir, then I could work on it some more and see if it can get it to work, but that will take some time."

PETER (OOC): BTW, has Cal made any effort to improve his invisibility to spoof radar? If not, we have to discount his invisibility as an asset for scouting, since the Maginites have demonstrated the widespread use of radar. Also, is animal life reasonable spread out across the land bridge? I ask mostly to figure out what illusions Peter could use to make himself appear unremarkable. For example, are there deer-like animals he could pretend to be?

GM: I'll let Doug answer that one.

PETER: None of this is meant to have Peter try and take command of the whole situation. He'll defer to Insecki as appropriate if the good captain has different opinions or wants to interject his own comments or orders. Other members of Gamma Co. are also welcome to voice their thoughts. But to keep things moving I've pushed forward with a longer post.

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ROCK (GM): Here's Rock's PER 12- [rolled 9]. He does have microscopic x10 on his earth sense and it might negate the PER modifiers for small size. I'm not sure if that's written up in the rules but it seems to make common sense.

ROCK (GM): Additionally, since we're taking time to look, you can get a +2 for a long look (taking a full action). Also, something that may help Rock notice it is the contrast modifier. I would probably give him a bonus as this object would have a higher contrast to natural earth that it's set in than typical.

ERICT (GM): Erict's PER roll, base 15-, -2 distance cancelled by PSLs, -6 for size, so need 9-. [rolled 9]

GM: Erict is not able to learn any more than he already has. Rock is still unable to sense it.

GM: Given the limitations of Rock's X-Ray sensing ability (i.e., only works through natural earth), I agree that contrast would play a roll and will cut the size modifier in half (-3 instead of -6). On microscopic vision, I've always played that you have to know what you are looking at before you can use microscopic vision to study it. I did some checking on microscopic vision at one point to see if it negated PER modifiers for size but never found anything. In any event, I'm not sure that I would allow microscopic vision to be used on something for which you are suffering range penalties for. In other words, you would have to be within 4" of the device to use microscopic vision on it.

ERICT (GM): That seems unusual, on both counts, now that we are taking good long looks and know at least indirectly what we're looking for, and where. Am I able to sense any other similar devices nearby? (doubt I get a new roll, but if I do, [rolled 17]) Can we spend even longer to look and get another roll? [rolled 7]

ERICT: Erict furrows his brow in concentration, eyes closed to block out other stimuli... "I can barely make it out even now, I'm not sure what's going on, I can't sense any more than I already told you..."
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