Sequence 2: The Best Laid Plans

Outline

The characters are now approaching the desert camp of Gaia's Vengeance and must proceed with their plans to rescue Cynthia.

Game Notes

Cynthia's kidnapping is a hoax. Cynthia and her father, Colonel James, are Earth sympathizers and have been working to build a secret army to aid Earth when it returns in force. Over the past several years, Cynthia and her father have been "losing" shipments of military supplies throughout the Great White and Western Deserts to be picked up by the members of the "rover gang." These shipments have been transported to several secret hideouts to await Earth's return.

Cynthia concocted the plan to blackmail several million marks out of the military, which they could then use to purchase more armament from the neutral military manufacturer, Paxton Arms. James felt that the plan could succeed, but knew that the military would take action before turning over such a large sum of money. He knew the military's first reaction would be to send in a commando team to "rescue" his daughter, but this was unacceptable. A commando team would successfully penetrate the rover camp and quite possibly discover the truth, which would make the entire plan pointless.

Therefore, James acted first by ordering a team of Gears in, citing the presence of rover Gears and the possibility that a commando would be out- gunned. Compared to a commando team, he knew a Gear team could easily be ambushed at the drop site - if one just happened to know where it was going to land. After the team of Gears was ambushed and destroyed, James believed the military would have little choice but to concede to the demands of the rovers, thereby funding his private army.

The one factor that was not taken into consideration was the weather. Due to the emergency change in plans, the characters have been dropped on the opposite side of the camp and will therefore avoid the ambush.

The camp is relatively empty since most of the rovers are about 6 klicks away preparing to ambush the characters. All that remains are a few guards and a Hunter Gear. Once the characters are discovered in the camp, the Hunter pilot will send out an emergency message to the ambush site before turning his weapons on them.

The characters will meet brief resistance before the rovers realize they are out-gunned and flee into the surrounding terrain. If the characters pursue them, the rovers will make use of the rough terrain to hide themselves.

The Hunter will have much more difficulty losing the characters should they give chase and will fight to the death if escape is impossible. If the characters use ECM to block the communications of the Hunter, any rover escaping into the surrounding area (and at least one will) will communicate with the main force and reveal that the characters are there.

When the characters chase off the rovers, they will have roughly 10 minutes to look through the camp before the main force returns. In the camp, the characters will find no immediate sign of Cynthia. They will not find any captives nor any sign that someone has been held there. Also, if players are very thorough in their search (Notice Roll vs. Threshold 7), they might discover a map of the region. Marked on the map is the route the characters were originally going to use to approach the camp, before their unexpected change in plans. Marked on the route, about 6 klicks away, is an "X."

Equipment

At right.

Characters

1 Hunter Pilot PER + 1, all combat skills at level 2
10 rovers (treat as 1 standard Northern infantry squad)

Objective

The objective is quite simple: neutralize the rovers in the camp. Once the characters succeed, they may have enough time to discover a few things about the rovers before the ambush force returns. They will likely have to wait until after the conflict with the ambushing force to sort out any details.

Potential Complications

During the confrontation, one of the characters recognizes one of the rovers, an old friend from Basic Training that he has not seen for about 2 cycles. If any attempt is made to communicate with the individual, he will fight more ferociously than before with the specific intent of killing his old friend.

Another alternative is to have the rovers who escaped decide to counter attack when the characters leave their Gears to search the camp, forcing the characters into a dangerous and difficult fight outside of their Gears.

Gaia's Vengeance Heavy Gear RPG Adventure

Introduction
Sequence 1: Drop Zone
Sequence 2: Best Laid Plans
Sequence 3: Endgame
Debriefing