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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)08/02/6569
Turn Number:4.3
Combat Turn:
Subject:The Long Trip
With all preparations complete, and all hidden caches of equipment, arms and ammunition recovered, the long trip south begins.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Maginites have not yet had time to deploy the Burrowing Sentries this far from their base at the starport, the group starts out by staying underground for the first three days. These means that Rock is in the lead, as he burrows through the solid earth. As suggested, the team starts off by setting a slow pace, taking frequent breaks, and halting early for the night with Rock hollowing out a larger cave for the group to sleep in. He also opens up a hole to the outside so that Cal, Shooter and Yed can do some foraging. Yed is, far and away, the best at finding food and water. He is also very good at preparing it. He is simple-minded, for the most part, but positively glows with pleasure when asked to forage for food and then prepare it.

ERICT: Erict keeps an eye on the diet of the group, and thanks each of the foragers pretty much every time they come back with food. If the group is sorely lacking in a particular food group, he will attempt to address it, either personally or by making suggestions to the foragers. This is well outside my skillset though, so he won't be very good at this and only notice the hugely obvious. (Anatomy and Paramedics don't exactly translate to KS: Dietary Nutrition very well ;)

PETER: At least it's a good idea to have someone paying attention to what people eat. Make sure people get as varied a diet as possible, that sort of thing. We've assigned one of the civilians as cook. Coordinate with her and the foragers with any dietary questions or requests you might have.

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On the third day, the group exits the tunnels and spends half the day traveling overland through mostly wooded hills before heading underground again. In this manner, even if the Maginites do eventually deploy the Burrowing Sentries further afield, and one should find a tunnel, it won't lead directly to the group.

ERICT: What of the suggestion to not have the tunnels heading directly for the land bridge? I was under the impression we were not going to be doing dozens if not hundreds of km in a pretty much straight line tunnel, it would be very obvious to anyone reviewing sentry logs from the burrowers that this was man-made and purposeful.

PETER: As I understand things, we're doing a great deal of our wilderness travel above ground. Underground travel is slow and potentially draining on Rock (in the long term, if not in the short term). We'll use it as needed to get past barriers and to avoid being seen. But I can't imagine we'd do much of the 1400 km underground. As for them following our path, underground or above, we're heading towards the land bridge. We really can't afford to do a whole lot of zig-zagging. Time, food, and health compel us to make as quick a trek as we can.

ROCK: Rock will take care to seal off and conceal both the entrances and exits of the tunnels. He'll use his rock shaping ability to make it appear like natural stone, hopefully hiding the fact that it was disturbed.

ROCK (OOC): Rock has great endurance and to accommodate the women and children will not be tunnelling at his full pace. I would suspect a good pace for everyone would be 12" per turn. Rock can maintain a pace of 24" indefinitely (short of eating/normal sleep) and his maximum pace is 48" per turn.

ROCK: Rock suggests that we travel twice per day underground for at least an hour. Combining this with a few degrees change in direction after we enter underground should be enough to make tracking us incredibly difficult. He also agrees that too many zig zags would waste precious time and resources and unless we have knowledge of pursuit most likely unnecessary. If the enemy knows of our presence on the land bridge that they can logically guess our destination especially if they know where we were starting from.

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Captain Insecki had indicated that the emergency shelter that was the group's destination was about 2500 kilometers away. The beginning of the land bridge is about 1400 kilometers away. The land bridge itself is about 1000 kilometers long and then the shelter is another 100 kilometers southwest, and is located on the west coast of the continent.

Although the group did not manage to find any grav sleds, they did manage to fashion several small wagons each of which can easily be pulled by one person. The wagons are loaded with food and supplies, and also have space for the smallest children to ride. This allows the group to average about 20 kilometers per day, while still allowing sufficient time for Cal, Shooter and Yed to hunt and forage. At this rate, the group expects to reach the beginning of the land bridge in about 70 days.

ERICT: As supplies are used up slightly and the civilians become hardened to the marching we can hopefully step this up slightly. I will do weekly brief checkups on all the civilians to make sure the forced march is not taking too much of a toll, etc. These would be mostly verbal in nature, though I would use my mutant sense to feel what was going on inside their bodies, both at rest and while on the march (it is ranged, so I don't have to get close to check up on them ;)

PETER: All the Imperial soldiers will submit to whatever checkups Erict thinks are appropriate. I will encourage Capt. Insecki to issue similar orders for the Zhodani.

INSECKI: Captain Insecki gives similar orders to his people.

ROCK: Rock submits to any checkups Erict feels are necessary. As usual Rock is fairly easy going and is used to following orders so there's never really any question in his mind.

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The days and weeks go by. Only twice during the 70 days, does the group see any sign of the Maginites. In the first case, it is an enemy Aerospace Fighter flying high overhead. In the second case, it is a strange bronze apparatus flying much lower and much slower. It seems to be scouting the ground. Rock quickly reports the sighting to the lieutenant. He continues to watch it until it disappears from sight. There was no sign that it noticed the group or the tunnel. Once it is well out of sight, the group continues forward.

ERICT: In each case I will attempt to see more of the inside of both flying craft, to tell how many living beings are inside, if any, or if there is a hollowed out space where a pilot could be, etc. Base PER 15-, +2 vs range, [rolled 10] for the Jet, and [rolled 12] for the skimmer.

PETER: "While we have a short break from our travels I wanted to make an announcement to clear up the Imperial chain of command. I know unofficially you've all deferred to Marko as a replacement for your sergeant. And you've done a great job, Marko. But we're still members of His Majesty's armed forces, and we have to maintain some military discipline. And so I'm giving Shooter a field promotion to sergeant. Corporal Findaleus, please stand."

SHOOTER: Shooter stands up.

PETER: Peter takes out his pocket computer and makes a notation in it. "As of 1200 hours on this date, corporal Doran Findaleus is hereby provisionally promoted to the rank of sergeant in the army of His Majesty Emperor Strephon, with all the attending duties and privileges. I also appoint you squad leader of the remaining squad in Gamma Company on Thengo Prime, and my designated second in command. Well done sergeant." Then Peter waves his hand and the rank insignia on Shooter's uniform change to sergeant's stripes. "We'll have to cobble together a proper set for you, but you deserve a little ceremony."

SHOOTER: Shooter shakes hands with the lieutenant. "Thanks for your confidence, sir. I'm honored and will not let you or the team down."

ROCK: Rock congratulations Shooter on the promotion.

PETER: "Marko, your thoughts and guidance are needed as much now as ever. You're of particular value now since you're outside the chain of command. That should give you a perspective and a freedom that may allow you to see things we'll miss. Please feel free to speak up whenever you have something to say. We'll none of us stand on formality."

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SHOOTER: During foraging expeditions, Shooter lets Yed decide the best place to forage, but makes sure to maintain military vigilance during the missions. He asks Lieutenant Sterling for permission to increase the foraging mission size to four by adding Private Sentice as a lookout. Private Sentice is extremely capable and follows orders without question. That would allow himself and Cal to participate more in the foraging and thus gather more food. This, of course, assumes the Captain Insecki also has no problems with it.

GM: If Peter approaches the zho captain about it, the captain has no objection.

PETER: Peter has no problem with adding a scout to the foraging team. If he thinks a second scout would be appropriate, that would be okay too. We're stopped when the foraging happens, so we have people to spare.

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PETER (OOC): I assume that after our travels people can buy up their language skills a bit more. (And I assume Cartographer Caerlina has continued to learn Imperial.)

GM: That is correct. Those that wish to do so can buy up their Zhdant. Caerlina continues to improve her imperial.

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PETER: Also, over the course of the travelling, Peter will try and sound out Insecki and Caerlina about how they feel about the Zhodane government. He will not say anything improper or imply they should so anything disloyal. He just wants to get a sense of how they feel about the Consulate. Conversation (14-), upping the time for the roll to one month. I'm not sure what you'd say the base time for a proper Conversation roll would be for this, so I can't tell how many steps up the time chart this will give me. In case you want two rolls, here's one for Insecki [rolled 4], and one for Caerlina [rolled 14]. Feel free to use just the first if you only need one.

GM: Caerlina doesn't really think much about it. She pretty much takes the government for granted. She doesn't consider it a bad system. She has spent her entire life in the system and sees advantages to it over the imperial system of government.

GM: Captain Insecki views both the imperial system of the zhodani systems of government as equally valid, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Under the zho, the proles lives healthy, productive lives, with a minimum of mental intrusion, and in an environment where crime just doesn't exist. He thinks that the imperial system is much more wild in that people are allowed to commit crimes before they are punished (as opposed to the other way around, where they would be punished or incarcerated before committing the crime). However, he readily admits that his outlook might be different if he himself were subject to mental scrutiny. His own immunity to mental probes gives him an admittedly biased approach to the manner. In any event, the captain enthusiastically discusses differing forms of government with an academics passion, mostly free from bias towards a particular system. He likes to weigh the merits and limitations of any form of government.

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GM: The beginning of the land bridge is about 300 kilometers wide. Are their any special preparations or precautions that you want to take as you travel the thousand kilometers south across the land bridge? The land bridge varies in width from as wide as 500 kilometers, to as narrow as 100 kilometers in a couple of places. Do you want to continue alternating between above ground travel and tunneling? If so, what ratio do you want to use (i.e., 60% tunnel, 40% above ground, etc.).

ERICT: I would suggest that we have the last tunnel come out at least a full km from what we would call the 'entry' to the land bridge, and well off the straight line path we might want to take. Don't make it obvious that we know where we're going. Once on the land bridge, within half a km I would say tunnel as much as you want, since they will know that we know what we're doing at that point, any attempt to feign confusion will be obvious. It's still worth closing the exit holes to cover them of course.

PETER: Given that the land bridge is hundreds of kilometers wide, I doubt there's really an 'entry' to the land bridge. But your point is well taken. We should increase our vigilence as we near the land bridge and take more precautions. Perhaps while we are stopping to gather supplies for the push across the narrowest part of the land bridge we can have a good pep talk from Peter and Capt. Insecki reminding people of the need to be watchful and careful about leaving tracks.

PETER (OOC): To try and put things in perspective, the land bridge we're travelling along is roughly the length of Central America without Mexico, and doesn't ever get as narrow as Central America (100km for our land bridge at its narrowest point, versus 50 km for Central America). So we're basically wandering across the length of all of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama to cross the land bridge (with the Warning Barrier somewhere in the middle). We're talking hundreds of thousands of square kilometers. If the Maginites can find us in all of that, we probably deserve to be caught. ;-) As I see it, the Warning Barrier is the worst choke point we'll reach.

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INSECKI: The Warning Barrier is about 400 kilometers south along the bridge at the narrowest point. I have never seen the barrier myself but understand that it is some sort of massive wall that extends all the way across the land bridge. I'm assuming that we will be able to tunnel under it. If we had not had the good fortune to join forces with your team, then our plan was to either scale it or go around it with inflatable boats. The barrier was probably built by the ancient race that once inhabited Thengo Prime. It's my belief that the barrier was built sometime during or after the devastating nuclear war probably by the survivors of the war and possibly to ensure that future generations never tried to head south. There are a lot of holes in that theory but it remains the most popular.

ERICT: As we get closer to this Barrier I'd suggest sending a scout or two to check for Burrowers, patrolling under the Barrier with a couple of those and above it with a couple of skimmers would seem a natural choice. Once past it, I'm not sure how we will detect the pockets of radiation, but I suppose if we have a simple hand-held geiger counter I can use that, since I am immune I am the obvious choice. Having me with Rock as he precedes the rest of the group by several meters making the tunnel means I could check for dangerous spikes in radiation before anyone else is exposed. I will of course be keeping a close eye on Rock's health, and if he begins to show any trouble I can treat him immediately for radiation exposure.

PETER: Good plan. As for radiation, the maps provided by Cartographer Caerlina are supposed to dodge us around the worst of the radiation. And Capt. Insecki said that they had portable radiation detectors. I'm also assuming that the base we're heading for has anti-rad drugs stockpiled and that in the Traveller universe the anti-rad drugs are pretty good. Still, it's nice to know that Erict is protected against radiation.

SHOOTER: "Just to let you know, sir, my inner field, which I always keep up except when I'm eating (TECH: 0 END, Persistent) protects me from all sorts of harmful effects. It acts as kind of a filter. Don't know that I ever tried it with radiation but I would suspect that it will be effective there too." (TECH: LS - All diseases, poisons, low pressure, high pressure, high radiation, cold and heat)

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PETER: "I think it's a good idea if we start to increase the amount of time we spend underground as we get closer to the Warning Barrier. In fact, it might be wise before we move onto the land bridge to spend some serious time foraging to stock up on food so we can push through the land bridge with a minimum of delay. My biggest concern is that this is a natural chokepoint, and if the Maginites are going to post a guard anywhere, it's at the Warning Barrier. Granted, you say it's a hundred klicks wide, and there's nothing of strategic value on the south continent - at least nothing public. So even if there is a guard, it shouldn't be large. But we should remain vigilent about the possibility of burrowers. If there's anywhere on our path they'll have them, it's here. What do you think, Captain? Anyone else have observations?"

INSECKI: "Given the fact that the southern continent is a dangerous place with many pockets of deadly radiation, it seems unlikely that they would bother guarding access to it. However, they might have guards stationed there just to catch anyone trying to flee there. Given that, your suggestion is prudent. We can stay below ground."

PETER: "That's probably true," Peter says thoughtfuly. "But we have to plan for the worst. I'm concerned in particular about the relationship between the original inhabitants of Thengo and the Maginites. It could have been the ancient race who shut the wormhole. And for all we know there could be more hidden on the southern continent than just your bases. Now I'm not saying that we should turn around. But a little caution is probably warranted."
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