This was a roleplaying-only session, so not a lot of dice were rolled. I also failed to capture good notes on the conversation because my players were entertaining the hell out of me. This will, therefore, be a little more fragmented than the usual posts.

---

After making their way back to Ponikla and crashing in their own beds for some much-needed rest, the team gathers over breakfast to discuss recent events and to plan their next moves. Magda takes charge of the kitchen again and is soon churning out eggs, bacon, and donuts filled with cherry and plum jam. Red and Miko are both eating one-handed, each with an arm in a sling.

---

Ellis spent the trip back interviewing the four rescued soldiers (well, three soldiers and an airman). Not without some discomfort, he leads them through a recap for the rest of the team:

Task Force Cobalt was a scratch force drawn from U.S. XI Corps’ remaining special operations assets: survivors of 10th Special Forces Group, a couple of SEALs who somehow weren’t on the Baltic coast, a handful of AFSOC personnel, and two squads from the 4th Ranger Battalion. They were joined by a small contingent of Air Force and Navy technical specialists. Their mission was to enter Lodz, using the U.S. 5th Infantry Division’s operations in the area as a diversion, and conduct a raid on the Politechnika Łódzka. Their targets were four researchers and a large amount of laboratory records and material.

(Arkadi is nodding a lot at this point. He was part of the intelligence support operation that set up safe houses and escape routes for TF Cobalt; this aligns with what he knew.)

Mission preparation was heavy on two unusual items. First, the team was well-equipped with radiological monitoring: a Geiger counter on each vehicle and a dosimeter for every person, with the tech team having additional specialized gear. Second, psychological monitoring was a priority, with the team specifically instructed to self-monitor and monitor their colleagues for signs of dissociation, hallucination, or psychosis.

The raid was partially successful. TF Cobalt made it out with two of the researchers and most of their material. The planned link-up with the 5th ID was impossible, though, so the team headed south to try to get clear of the Warsaw Pact force concentration in the region. This, too, was unsuccessful – as the 5th ID fragmented, stragglers broke out in every direction and Soviet forces pursued, resulting in a countryside crawling with innumerable small units.

Over the following weeks, TF Cobalt lost half its original personnel. It replenished its numbers, if not their hard-earned skills, through linking up with a few groups 5th ID survivors. In late August, their communications specialists finally established radio contact with XI Corps headquarters and learned of a planned extraction by helicopter (albeit with the prisoners and their material taking priority). On the prearranged night, they headed for the planned primary LZ, only to hear their ride shot down. Rushing to the rescue, they ran into a marauder ambush. Only the two rearmost vehicles made it out, and they were separated in the subsequent pursuit.

The other vehicle (a LAV-25 with a mixed USMC, Canadian, and Norwegian recon team) is still unaccounted for, as are three of the aircrew.

---

“As the paradigm shifts, people are losing touch with the world that was,” Ellis observes. He suggests that the team ask the White Eagles and Bracia Wilkow to keep an eye out for more POW convoys. He also suspects that the marauders who hit TF Cobalt may try to unload their loot or prisoners in Tomaszow.

---

So, Tomaszow. Ellis spent a good long while there and he has a lot of information to share with the team, starting with his and Miko’s sabotage escapade…

[The sabotage sequence was played out in a Discord text channel visible to all my players, but I hadn’t blogged it until now. Bad referee, no MRE cookie.]

---

The TL;DR is that the marauders in Tomaszow represent a significant danger if the team wants to move west. They have significant riverine power projection capability, including several armed boats (former fishing and pleasure vessels) and what looks a lot like an ex-USMC combat hovercraft (the T2k-fictional evolution of the real-world Vietnam-era PACV). With a solid agricultural and aquacultural base, a decent amount of industrial wreckage that can be exploited, and a commanding position of local transportation, they appear to be setting themselves up to be a post-nuclear Tortuga: a “pirate haven” for other marauder bands in the region.

A recap of Ellis’ briefing notes:

• Anatoliy Utkin, former Soviet Army major, is the marauder warlord. Ellis knows him by reputation. He’s an experienced and brutal counterinsurgency commander, seasoned (as many such Soviet troops are) in Afgahanistan in the ’80s.
• The total force strength is about 40, most or all from the Soviet 89th Air Assault Brigade, which was (and may still be, less these guys) the preferred rapid deployment force of Soviet Reserve Front Headquarters in Lublin. They’e abandoned their military rank, instead going with a neofeudal structure in which each soldier is allocated shares of land, loot, and property. They’re also recruiting from local shitbags, with about 20 low-grade militia raised so far.
• There is a small civilian fishing fleet on the river. Armed boat crews follow fishermen to make sure they don’t get harassed – or run away.based out of old power plant (defunct before the war)
• They don’t appear to have any armor heavier than the BRDM-2 observed at the airfield. Their additional ground combat power is a few technicals with machine guns and recoilless rifles… and the hovercraft, with whatever it mounts.
• They also appear to be existing with at least the tacit approval, if not some covert support, of the Soviet 20th Tank Division’s command staff. Ellis observed a handshake meeting between Utkin and a colonel from the 20th. Utkin provides enough stability to remove a lot of the hassle that Lodz would otherwise have to deal with in the region, and he seems to be avoiding direct conflict with Soviet forces who are still following orders.
• There are collaborators. Of Tomaszow’s 2,200 citizens, at least 100 are dedicated to working under (if not actively supporting) Utkin’s new regime. Maybe another 300 are waiting to see which way the wind blows. Ellis was unable to identify any real resistance but Fryderyka and her associates do have a few friends left.
• At least 3 marauder bands are operating in the area – 2 ex-Soviet, 1 US/British expats. All have peacefully come into the city to trade, resupply, and take advantage of local hospitality.
• Two trader groups have regular routes that stop in Tomaszow. The team is familiar with one; it’s the group that also loops through Opoczno. The other one operates north of Tomaszow and includes a band that provides religious and folk entertainment, as well as a former East German EOD crew that offers demining services.
• The city’s industrial base included textile production facilities that could be put back into operation (garment and rug/carpet); limited fuel production; a welding equipment factory damaged but tooling is usable; a derelict iron foundry, mothballed prewar; and lots of refined steel on hand. Its major needs are a larger skilled workforce; medical support; technical support; machine tools; and educated professionals.
• The marauders do take randomly-selected hostages to ensure good behavior from their subjects. They’re put to work in the marauder HQ or on other special projects, but they aren’t mistreated beyond the actual kidnapping, and they’re released after they’ve put in their time (usually a couple of weeks)
• Ellis saw no evidence of slave trading.
• The marauders do have some security around their hovercraft. It’s kept in a secure area of the former riverside power plant that is their HQ. When launching, they clear the streets and put out a perimeter. Ellis observed it going upriver (south) on multiple occasions.
• Ellis finds it peculiar that 2,200 people haven’t mustered the enthusiasm to overthrow 40 occupying troops.

While looking through his notes, Ellis comes to an uncomfortable realization. On a couple of occasions, he was apparently in some kind of fugue state or loop. He recorded the exact same observations for several days in a row, interrupted when he met with Miko or Fryderyka’s partians…

---

Ellis also has some intel on events west of Tomaszow that he’s pieced together from interviewing the various 5th ID survivors. The division did take down two Soviet motor rifle divisions during that fight. A couple of Polish formations appear to have stopped taking Soviet orders and have settled in for local defense.

The Soviet forces remaining in the Lodz-Kalisz area don’t appear eager to have any more attention from Lublin. Ellis infers that they may have lost interest in taking orders from whatever’s left of Moscow.

---

So, about Krakow…

Ellis looks at Pettimore. “So after you dealt with Florian, you stashed the painting…”

Pettimore leans in, squints, decides to put it out in the open. “You mean the Black Madonna?”

“Y’all stashed it in a copper mine, right?”

“Near as I can recall.”

“And what did you do with Florian?”

Pettimore infodumps: Dr. Wright was deprogramming Florian from whatever had gotten its hooks into him before the team met him. He eventually came on-side for monster hunting.

“Okay, just wanted to verify.” What Ellis is hearing from Pettimore matches up with what he received in The [REDACTED] Dossier… which Ellis now infodumps.

[Seriously, just go read it now if you haven’t already. There’s a lot of context in there…]

Ellis has… theories. The more he sees, the more he read in his fellow agent’s writing, the more he’s convinced that an unseen third hand is consciously acting to prevent reconstruction or recovery across Poland, if not farther. Neofuedalism, declining populations, systematic destruction of recorded knowledge… it’s starting to look like a pattern.

Pettimore: “Keep ’em poor, keep ’em stupid, keep the lights off, and keep ’em docile?”

Zenobia: “Pol Pot as a hostile alien?”

Ellis: “Well, yeah, he kind of was.”

Ellis states that there seems to be some indication that the memory/perception issues that the team has encountered – where people are confronted with papers or maps that their minds can’t recognize – are happening in Krakow, which is not a small city. And then there’s the evidence of cult activity…

Pettimore snaps. “He’s not talkin’ about the stuff we really need to know. This shit’s real, man. Do you know what happened in that field that caught fire? Do you know what I shot? I shot a goddamn demon, Red. A flesh and blood demon made out of fire. I wasn’t the only one.” He pushes his way out of the hostel, ashen and shaking.

Red sighs and looks at Minka. “Bring me a joint and the antispychotics. And one of the Cokes.”

Zenobia observes that the weirdness is taking advantage of the world’s current condition. “The world is closer to the way it used to be – the way they liked it – and they’re taking it back.” She doesn’t specify who “they” is. She doesn’t really need to.

Magda’s one-eyed, one-eared black-and-white kitchen mouser wanders into the conversation. The cat, who normally hates everyone but Magda and Tamara, walks up to Pettimore and rubs on him. This brings Pettimore somewhat out of his downward spiral. The cat then looks at Miko, bristles, and hisses.

Pettimore inquires about getting more silver… and bullet molds.

---

The conversation turns to next steps. With the Radom ZOMO receiving support from Lublin and pressing north toward Von Bahr, that’s the most immediate threat on the team’s radar. The consensus is that Tomaszow will keep… losing the hydroelectric power plant will be a major strategic setback, even if Von Bahr is an ally of questionable motives.

Ellis, Magda, Zenobia, and Pettimore begin preparing for a reconnaissance mission on the Soviet QRF base. Their intention is to gather intel for a possible raid, taking the QRF out of play. Red, Minka, and Erick (the chaplain’s assistant, newly-adopted as the backup PC of Leks’ player) will head to Opoczno and make contact with the White Eagles for some diplomacy, including enlisting their aid with the planned raid…

Flashback, adapted from the original playthrough in Discord chat:

Via Fryderyka’s ex-militia partisans, Ellis sends word back to Ponikla that he has need of Miko’s assistance with some recon and sabotage work. Miko happily loads up a quantity of demolitions that he has only a minimal idea how to use and sets off for the rendezvous on one of the motorcycles.

Ellis he wants to take a look at the airfield north of Tomaszow, which was struck by a NATO tactical nuke during the war. The locals are avoiding it because of radiation fears, but the marauders seem to be visiting it regularly with a work crew, a horsedrawn wagon, and a fuel bladder.

The early August weather is hot and sunny with clear skies. The moon is a waxing crescent. The airfield sits on mostly flat ground with abandoned farms to the north and west, forest to the east, and a low hill to the southeast (partially blocking view from Tomaszow).

The duo moves in quietly, slowly, and carefully, watching for observers (or snipers). Ellis’ main focus is on finding their source of fuel so he can gauge how much is left. He thinks he can estimate how much the marauders need for a [REDACTED SPOILER] he’s previously observed and, if it makes sense, sabotage that supply. Preliminary reconnaissance at long range gives them the general layout of the facility:

Ellis’ training and experience suggest the base was hit with a cruise missile. Yield would’ve been 150kt, more or less. It was an airburst, so the “crater” label is a misnomer, but there is a permanently glazed spot north of the runway. Not a direct hit, but close enough to put the place out of business:

• The base administration buildings are flat – scoured down to the foundations. The north half of the housing complex is the same, and the rest of it apparently burned after the strike.
• The hangars were hardened, but not for this. The frames are standing but they look rickety and unstable. The remains of three Su-25s are visible inside one of them.
•  The fuel farm was located in a secure area surrounded by a berm, with a razor-wire fence and security cameras on poles. It looks like the base armory and maybe some comms or crypto was also in there once. The fuel tanks are ruptured and scorched, and everything else in there burned. Wherever the marauders are getting their fuel, that isn’t it.  The aboveground tanks look to be about the right size for a small airbase like this one. Underground tanks are a possibility, but Ellis doesn’t see any of the usual indicators of their existence.
• The Geiger counter is reading slightly elevated radiation downwind of the impact site but the overall area isn’t so hot as to be concerning.

---

Miko and Ellis wait for sundown to move in closer. The crescent moon is casting minimal illumination conducive to a stealthy approach. Upon closer inspection, the base admin facilities are toast – no salvage to be had. The hangars are in slightly better condition and it might be possible to pick up some salvageable bits here and there. The Su-25s do not appear to have been stripped, probably because of radiation immediately after the blast (or because there was no one with enough knowledge of aviation to figure out what to pull off of them). None of them are ever going to fly again, though.

 (Judging from the stuff on the surviving interior walls, it looks like the Su-25s weren’t an original tenant unit at this facility. This appears to have been home to an Mi-8 transport squadron. The Su-25s must have been staging out of here for CAS.)

The high-security area is also a total loss, thanks to catastrophic fires. It’s evident the marauders aren’t getting their fuel – or anything else – from there.

The team heads to the tower. It’s leaning in a way that suggests major structural damage, but if it hasn’t fallen by now, it’s probably settled into a somewhat-stable alignment. The stairs creak alarmingly as Miko goes up… but they hold.

From the elevated vantage point, no activity beyond normal wildlife movement is visible. They can see that the rail line terminates over by the base admin area. There’s a single warehouse over there (the rectangular building with the metal roof by the parking lot), which burned in the fires that consumed the base housing area. However, there’s a larger cargo handling facility (at the “Rail Station” label,) with a cluster of eight warehouses built so that a rail spur actually runs through them (not reflected on the photo, but I’m improvising here). Those are scorched blast-damaged but still standing, and there appear to be a few rail cars parked inside them.

---

Ellis and Miko spend about an hour poking around the base, looking for signs of foot and wagon traffic. All indicators point to the rail freight depot. The marauders may have scouted the rest of the airbase, but that’s pretty clearly where they’ve been focusing their efforts.

They head in, checking for mines, tripwires, and other nastiness along the way. Miko does spot the wires of two directional mines across the service road leading into the depot. They’re affixed to the skeletal poles of scorched road signs – easy landmarks and reminders for a crew that probably disengages and resets them each visit.

The depot contains a short string of railcars. All of them bear signs of damage from the nuke and a couple are derailed; one boxcar is completely on its side:

• Two flatcars are both empty, with no sign of what they once contained (beyond the fact that it was probably massive machinery, judging from the heavy chain tiedowns).  
• The derailed boxcar is half-full of some sort of prefab construction material. Ellis recognizes it as the sort of runway matting used for emergency repairs after a runway has been cratered by bombing or artillery.
• One more boxcar has been forced open and thoroughly looted.
• A third boxcar also has been forced open, but it’s not completely looted (yet). There are four pallets of what, upon inspection, are Soviet-made chemical defense suits, gas masks, and extra filters. It’s probably enough to equip 80 people, subject to appropriate sizes.
• Last, there’s a tank car. It’s derailed and the outer envelope is dented, but there’s no sign of leakage and the valves show clear indications of recent use. It was parked by the fittings for transferring fuel to the airbase’s storage tanks. Cracking it open and dropping a weighted cord into it, Miko is able to estimate that it’s down to the dregs… but on something this big, the dregs are still about 4,000 liters of Jet-A.

Ellis and Miko back off and discuss. Neither of them is a demolitions specialist, but Miko brought along a good quantity of plastic explosive. How hard could a shaped charge be?

[I roll. Miko’s stupid luck comes through again: 3 successes on a pushed Tech roll.]

Miko scrounges around in the ruins. Finds a couple of flowerpots to use as a mold for the plastic explosive. Packs it in, braces it in place with rubble, plugs in three detonators. Wires it up. Backs way the hell up, to the very limit of the 100m wire spool he brought.

Miko and Ellis are behind the hardest cover they can find, so they don’t actually see the explosion. And it’s inside the rail depot anyway. But there’s a sound like the world’s largest soda can being crushed under a giant’s foot. And then the fire starts.

They probably heard the blast, and can see the glow, in Tomaszow.

The whole rail depot is on fire. Gonna make it hard to find any evidence.

They should probably leave now.

---

The response arrives in about fifteen minutes. Twelve guys on horses, backed up by a BRDM-2 Ellis hadn’t seen before – the marauders probably were keeping it in a restricted section of the power plant that’s their primary base.

The BRDM stays on overwatch while the riders dismount and search the area in trios. There’s not much for them to find, though, and they’re certainly not getting close enough to the fire to see any evidence there.

They stay on site until dawn, when a similarly-sized force comes out to relieve them. The relief force is led by the marauders’ warlord, Anatoliy Utkin. The flames have died down by then and the ashes are cool enough for him to approach. He goes in with a couple of dudes – not bodyguards, from the body language and equipment. They’re possibly his technical experts. They poke around for about half an hour, focused on the tank car.

From a few hundred meters away, Ellis can’t tell what conclusions they come to, but when Utkin comes out, he pulls in the sentries and they ride back to Tomaszow. It looks like, at least for the short term, he’s writing this off – there’s nothing left here for him to exploit.

Readers may recall a conversation between Pettimore and Ellis in which Ellis received an encrypted dossier from this campaign’s previous iteration. I’ll bet you were wondering what was in it, weren’t you?

Well, Ellis’ player decided to share some of it with you (and the rest of the party). Enjoy…

Yes, some of this will look familiar to readers of Later Days. I credit my sources – and I try to steal from the best.

Miko is running through the woods. It’s a moonless night. Glancing over his shoulder, he can see his pursuers’ torches drawing closer. With his night vision briefly spiked by the firelight, he fails to see the massive tree trunk in his path. He hits the ground hard. Rough hands seize and bind him and force him along a hidden path.

At the path’s end is a clearing. A single massive stump, planed into a flat surface, sits in the clearing’s center. Figures clad only in fur and hide await. Miko is forced to his knees and bent backwards onto the stump – the altar. As a blade descends, a massive horned head looms over him.

---

Miko wakes up. It’s midmorning at the helicopter crash site. Magda and Leks are still crashed out, sleeping off their own overnight watches. The rest of the team is awake and breaking camp.

Once everyone is up and more-or-less functional, the team heads north, back to the highway. They’ve just reached the scarred pavement when they catch the sound of a large wheeled vehicle approaching from the east. There’s a quick scramble for defensive positions and antitank ordnance before Zenobia recognizes the oncoming BTR. She should – she and Arkadi and Minka put enough hours into getting the damned thing back into service.

Ellis pops out of the commander’s hatch and waves. Bell is in the back on the radio; two more of the recently-rescued POWs, the MP in the driver’s seat and the infantrywoman crewing the turret, round out his crew. He dismounts and briefs his colleagues on his conversation of a few hours ago. From his prior deep-cover work in Tomaszow, he also knows the team is heading into an area saturated with small marauder bands that spun out of the Soviet 9th Tank Division’s disintegration. He’s been checking in with Gunstar Two-Two, who has reported two marauder patrols in his vicinity – troops on foot backed by technicals.

The team does a quick shuffle, putting Leks into the BTR-70K’s turret. Ellis stays in the commander’s seat. Red and Pettimore pile into the remaining troop seats. Miko takes point on horseback, with Magda, Minka, and Zenobia, also mounted, trailing him by about 50 meters.

---

The bridge across the Pilica at Przedbórz is mostly intact. The deck is cratered in places and the guardrails show evidence of a large and heavy vehicle punching through them for a high dive, but it’s passable. The highway skirts south of the town here. There are signs of habitation, both in Przedbórz and in some of the outlying farms, but no one comes out to greet the team.

About half a kilometer west of Przedbórz’s southern ruins, Miko spots two vehicles on the road. He reins in and raises his binoculars. They resolve into a clearly-destroyed BRDM-2 that appears to have been rear-ended by a GAZ-66. There’s no sign of movement – other than the corvids and vultures picking over some corpses.

The point team moves in cautiously, checking for snipers, antitank mines, and every other problem they’ve encountered on roads to date. There’s no immediate threat here, though. They wave in the BTR.

As the full team looks over the scene, a picture emerges. The BRDM appears to have been the point vehicle of a good-sized convoy. It was hit with two RPGs fired from the woods to the north, disabling it and killing its crew. The GAZ-66 behind it attempted to push it out of the road so the rest of the convoy could push through, but its driver and front-seat passenger were killed by autocannon fire – apparently from the now-burned-out BMP-2 to the north. A couple of discarded LAW tubes tell the story of how the ambushers’ IFV was taken out.

The Ural-375 halted off the road to the north [at marker 2] seems to have attempted to flee while the crews of the deuce-and-a-half and the UAZ-469 bailed out and took cover in the woods. The Ural was disabled by machine gun fire, while the M35 and UAZ took massive damage from light autocannon fire coming from the east. Marks and empty casings on the ground [at marker 1] show where some sort of tracked vehicle left the pavement and opened fire with a 23mm autocannon.

All in all, including the crews in the vehicles, the convoy took 23 casualties. Five of those are farther to the west, where they were captured, gathered together, and executed. Two more wheeled vehicles seem to have reversed out of the ambush and escaped back to the west. The ambushers paid for their victory, though. It looks like they lost 14, though it’s hard to get a definite count of the bodies in the BMP.

Red and Ellis check the bodies. The convoy was Americans – they’re still in uniform. About a third were 5th Infantry Division personnel. The rest are in sanitized BDUs, but tattoos and faces tell a story: one SEAL, a couple of Rangers, two guys Pettimore recognizes from his time working alongside 10th Special Forces Group. The ambushers fit the marauder profile: piecemeal Soviet uniforms, a few still bearing 9th Tank Division insignia.

---

All of the vehicles, except the burned-out armor, have been thoroughly stripped, as have the bodies. Scattered around the Ural, though, are a half-dozen smashed wooden crates. Some are still half-full of paper, and more documents are strewn around the area and blowing in the wind. It’s all written or typed in Polish, scientific notes and circuit diagrams. [Old school Twilight: 2000 fans should have some idea where this is going.] Magda is the first to take a close look.

Magda: “This is bullshit. It doesn’t make any sense and now I have a headache.”

Zenobia: “Let me see that.”

(pause)

Zenobia: “This is bullshit and now I have a headache. Some of this goes back to 1937 and they’re writing about generating electricity from zero point energy.”

Red: “What?”

Zenobia: “Imagine an infinite source of power that isn’t supposed to exist.”

Red: “Wait, what?”

[This scene was made even more hilarious by the fact that Zenobia’s player works in the energy sector and has an excellent idea of the level of bullshit involved here, so Zenobia’s incredulous-offended tone was 100% authentic.]

The discussion derails when Bell pops out of the BTR. “Mister Ellis! We gotta go! We gotta go now!”

Ellis gets the spare headset settled onto his ears in time to hear, “Ops, Gunstar Two-Two, they’ve found us. Our position is compromised. We’re abandoning our vehicle and moving east on foot.” A moment later, everyone hears the sound of distant gunfire from the west.

---

Moving to the sound of the guns, the team finds itself approaching a fenced farm set among a patch of woods. [A lot of their fights seem to happen in woods because battlemaps without cover or concealment are not very interesting.] Ellis orders the BTR to head straight down the road, drawing attention and fire, while the cavalry element circles south to flank. As the team splits up, they can see four figures in American woodland camo running/staggering toward the farm. Pursuing them are two small groups of aggressors and a GAZ-66.

Pettimore bails out of the BTR and heads north on foot with his bow readied, looking to flank the northern group of marauders. Minka, Zenobia, and Magda move toward the farm’s southern edge, intending to use the barn down there as cover. Miko, predictably, splits off from the group and drives toward the GAZ-66. The BTR, under Ellis’ command, slews across the road and opens up with a full broadside. Red and the unnamed infantrywoman successfully suppress the southern marauder trio, though Red’s M4A1 jams [as reliably happens every session that the player pushes an attack]. Leks puts a warning shot from the KPV into the GAZ’s bow, splattering the driver all over the cab. The three gunners in the bed bail out, leaving their own KPV and PKs unmanned.

Down south, Minka displays her equestrienne skills by vaulting from her mount’s saddle onto the roof of the barn. Zenobia follows in much less acrobatic fashion, drops prone, and prepares to engage the marauders. Magda opts to stay at ground level, dashing along the barn’s northern wall to the northwest corner, which looks like solid cover.

The fireteam to the north realizes that they have no interest in tangling with a BTR-70. They pop smoke and find cover. This exposes their flank to Pettimore, who promptly rewards their inattention with an arrow. The BTR crew and passengers ignore them in favor of suppressing the GAZ-66 gun truck’s crew so they don’t get any bright ideas about re-mounting their ride.

Miko continues riding toward the gun truck. He has a vague idea of doing something to it with a grenade. This plan meets abrupt disruption when two more marauder fireteams emerge from the treeline to the west. A moment later, their support arrives.

The BTR is in the worst possible place: stationary, broadside across the road, waiting for the survivors to board. The first burst of 23mm goes high, somehow missing the APC, but it also suppresses the people the team is here to save. They’re pinned down, unable or unwilling to move. Leks’ return fire also misses, a rare and untimely error for the Estonian.

Miko’s one-man charge out of the woods ends when one of the newly-arrived fireteams volleys into him. He turns his horse around with his one working arm; arterial blood is spurting from the other, which he can’t seem to use any more. [3 points of damage and a severed artery crit.]

Minka’s first war shot from her recently-acquired GP-25 pins the southern fireteam. Their injuries are minor [as UBGLs suck for actually inflicting personnel damage in 4th edition] but they’re more interested in staying in cover than in returning fire. Magda and Zenobia add to their misery.

Pettimore continues stalking the northern fireteam, putting another arrow into the already-injured member. His buddies abandon him, repositioning a bit south and screening their movement with more smoke.

One of the newcomer groups advances alongside the ZSU-23-4. The other pursues Miko. They briefly surround him, attempting to capture a prisoner [or hostage], but he manages to break free.

Leks and the ZSU gunner trade volleys again. The ZSU misses again thanks to its lack of stabilization. The team only had a single 40-round belt of 14.5mm and Leks now burns the last of it. As his KPV clatters empty, there’s a spurt of black smoke from the ZSU’s engine compartment. It falters – but then continues advancing.

Red, still fighting to unjam his M4A1, forsakes it in favor of sticking his arm out a hatch and waving a Glock 18 in the general direction of the northern fireteam. Dumping half a magazine is enough to suppress them again.

Two of the survivors manage to reach the BTR and haul themselves into it. The other two are so close, but still pinned by the fire hose of 23mm rounds.

Leks scrambles out of the vehicle, prepping his RPG-22 as he goes. Red follows him a moment later.

The gun truck crewmen take advantage of the PCs’ inattention by re-boarding their vehicle. One shoves his former comrade’s remains out of the driver’s seat and begins trying to crank the ignition. The others take up positions on the KPV and the starboard PK. The KPV gunner opens up on the BTR but continues the marauders’ streak of poor heavy weapons marksmanship. The guy on the PK sees Magda and walks fire into her. It’s not a serious wound, but she’s not in a good place. Zenobia takes note of this and pumps a half-dozen rounds from her M21 into the offending gunner. His partner reconsiders his recent life choices and drops below the lip of the bed’s improvised armor.

Bell and the infantrywoman jump out of the BTR and drag the last two survivors aboard. Ellis orders the driver to pull forward into the smoke, screening the APC from the ZSU.

The ZSU maneuvers for another shot on the BTR but its crew can’t reacquire the target through the smoke. Leks comes to one knee, aims, breathes, and fires. The RPG-22 warhead strikes squarely on the SPAAA’s turret. The gunner’s hatch belches flame and a severed arm. The quad 23s fall silent.

A blood-covered Miko gallops past Minka, Magda, and Zenobia. Having exterminated the southern fireteam and, from their vantage point, having seen the survivors board the BTR, the women decide it’s time to withdraw. They abandon their firing positions and begin heading for their horses. The second fireteam hesitates – they can’t catch Miko on foot, they don’t want to run into an ambush if their opponents are feigning retreat, and they don’t want to walk through the gunfight between the vehicles.

Pettimore abandons his skirmish with the northern groups, runs into the smoke, and hauls himself aboard the BTR. With every seat occupied, he pulls himself onto the roof and settles in to provide desantnik-style suppressive fire.

The fireteam that was escorting the ZSU draws ahead of it and opens up on Red and Leks. Leks takes a hit and is suppressed. Red attempts to drag him to the BTR but doesn’t have the muscle necessary to haul the machinegunner and his golf bag of weapons. The men drop prone in the middle of the road, exposed. Red takes a round through the arm and topples, spraying blood [from the night’s second severed artery crit].

Ellis, head out the commander’s hatch with his sidearm raised, sees this happen. “Driver! Reverse, slow! Easy left! Halt now!” The BTR hisses to a stop, shielding Red and Leks from the bulk of the enemy fire. The two men painfully climb aboard, Leks and Pettimore holding Red, who can’t quite cling to the hull with his one good arm.

Five minutes of aggressive flight gets the team out of range. Everyone not engaged in tactical medicine fans out into a threadbare defensive perimeter while Minka and Leks frantically work to stabilize Red and Miko. Miko’s wounds are relatively easy to get to the point that his little geometrically-regular friends can start their work. It’s touch-and-go for Red, but eventually he, too, is relatively safe. With that, the team cautiously crosses the bridge and begins the long trek back to Ponikla.

---

This was one of those fights where the team didn’t hold the field at the end. They came away with a net loss of supplies and four injuries – two of them critical. However, they did accomplish their mission with more success than I anticipated. I probably made the withdrawal a little easier than it should have been, but we were past midnight at that point and everyone was dragging. OTOH, the opposition had just lost both of their fire support platforms, so they probably weren’t too eager to press the issue, even with the motivations they had to finish the job.

This one is probably going to result in some hard conversations about tactics, both in and out of character. Especially around Miko.

The ZSU was an absolute monster, but like most SPAAA, it was a glass cannon, vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire. The fight likely would have gone much worse if Leks hadn’t made that RPG-22 shot, though.

The team is now out of 14.5mm ammo, leaving both their APCs without significant offensive capacity. Their remaining anti-armor assets are one LAW, two RPG-22s, and one HEAT rifle grenade. They also burned through about half of their trauma medicine supplies to save Red, Miko, and two of the rescuees. While they’re in no danger of running out of small arms ammo, they’re at a point where they need to approach enemy vehicles very carefully – and the Radom situation is not cooling off…

It’s an hour before dawn. Ellis’ face is lit by the glow of the BTR-70K’s remaining radio set. He occasionally blinks. Otherwise, his only movement is a turn of the wrist to adjust a dial.

He’s about to scan away from the frequency that, in the decrypted dossier from Broadstreet, was labeled “DIA liaison,” when:

“Any unit on this net, this is Gunstar Two-Two requesting assistance.”

It’s a male voice with a New England American English accent. Ellis blinks, frowns, adjusts his mic. “Go ahead, Gunstar Two Two.”

“Gunstar Two-Two to last unit, please identify. Over.”

“Gunstar Two-Two, this is Ops. Verify you are aware this is an unsecured transmission.”

“Ops, Gunstar Two-Two is aware I am transmitting in the clear. My crypto is down. I am requesting any available assistance, over.” The voice sounds exhausted.

“Gunstar Two-Two, Ops copies. Stand by for response.” Ellis removes his headset and strides the twelve meters to where Bell is sleeping. “Bell. I need your ears.”

The SIGINT linguist rolls awake, reaching for something before he processes his surroundings. “What? Yeah. Ugh. Gimme a second.” But he throws back his blanket, shoves his feet into his boots, and follows Ellis back to the BTR.

Ellis re-dons the headset and hands the spare set to Bell. “”Gunstar Two-Two, Ops. State your situation and location.”

There’s a distinct pause before the other guy keys up again. “Ops, Gunstar Two-Two is west of the Pilica River and south of the reservoir. No grid reference available. This unit has four personnel, all wounded, two trauma red. Our vehicle is disabled. We’re separated from our parent unit and have been unable to re-establish contact. Be advised, there is a heavy hostile presence in this area, presumed Soviet deserters. How copy, over.”

Ellis and Bell confer quickly. The speaker mispronounced “Pilica” the way a native English speaker would who’s seen the name written but not heard it spoken by a Pole. Speech and diction are giving both men the impression that this guy is either a legitimate Anglophone or as good a linguist as they are, and is also proficient with radio comms. Bell thinks he’s probably from Vermont or New Hampshire. It’s seeming less likely that this is a Soviet or Pole playing games.

“Gunstar Two-Two, Ops copies all. Hold it together. Help is on the way.”

“Ops, Gunstar Two-Two copies. Be aware, I have limited battery. Please advise time for next check-in, over.”

Ellis checks his watch, does some mental math. “Two-Two, Ops copies. Keep your heads down and your powder dry. Talk to you in an hour. Ops out.”

“Two-Two out.”

Ellis looks at Bell. “I’m going to need you on the radio. Get your stuff. Wake up that MP and the infantry chick. They’re going to be driving and gunning. We’re rolling out in thirty.”

The reconnaissance mission to Radom ended with the ZOMO and Soviet garrisons on alert. The team decides that further provocations may not go in their favor until they’ve had more time to prepare. Instead of keeping their focus east, they head south, intending to survey and map more of the area past Opoczno (and perhaps see if the ZOMO are probing westward).

After their last encounter with the ZOMO, there was some discussion about having a stealthier point element. Minka is the one trained horsewoman on the team, but Miko is a decent natural rider. Minka selects Kinga for her own mount and puts Miko on Tobi. The rest of the PCs going on this op – Magda, Leks, Red, Pettimore, and Zenobia – load into the UAZ-469.

[ A note here because I’ve failed to introduce some not-quite-NPCs. When the PCs captured their initial five horses, I rolled their appearances and qualities on my vehicle generator. The player behind Minka fleshed out their descriptions and personalities for us. I’ll post her work later, but for now:

Kinga is a black-and-white pinto mare. She’s loyal, fearless, and calm – good qualities in a scout mount.

Tobi is a dark bay gelding with white socks. He’s moody but intelligent, strong (+5 encumbrance units of cargo capacity), and trained to ignore gunfire if prepared or prompted. ]

The team heads out, moving cautiously once they cross the highway and head into unknown territory. The forest here is dense, and despite the lack of clouds in the sky, little sunlight penetrates to the twisting, unpaved road they’re using. Magda, navigating from the UAZ’s front passenger seat, is having trouble keeping her bearings. Miko, ostensibly the point man, is very out of his comfort zone – he’s on horseback for his first real ride, he can’t see more than twenty meters through the foliage, and this is about as far from his familiar urban environment as one can get in Poland. The wolf howls in the distance aren’t helping his composure, either. So it’s a surprise even to him when the road widens out into a cleared area.

At least, it’s a formerly-cleared area. The old-growth forest (which Zenobia does not remember being this dense before the war) was, at one point, cut back in an area about 500 to 600 meters across. In that area stand the remains of a small village – a lumber town, judging from the decrepit sawmill. The place looks like it’s been abandoned for a half-century: new trees sprout in the former fields, roofs have collapsed, rusted-out trucks sit on flat tires, birds nest in exposed structural members. There’s no sign of human habitation.

Most of the team dismounts, with Leks staying on the UAZ’s PK for overwatch. Minka, more attuned to spiritual elements than most of her companions, gets the sense that the place wants to be hospitable… but it’s forgotten how. She mentions this to Magda, who wonders if whatever effect is making people forget things is also making places forget things.

[ At this point, I may or may not have PM’d Magda’s player to award bonus XP for this insight. ]

The team pokes around in the ruins a bit. Miko unearths a chainsaw, broken and badly rusted but probably repairable. Zenobia takes a closer look at the vehicles parked along the village’s single paved street and realizes that while they’re in advanced states of decay, most of them are 1970s to 1990s production. Minka finds the village’s cemetery, which has nearly 40 grave markers with dates in January and February of 1998 – presumably victims of the first winter after the nuclear exchanges.

Pettimore walks a bit away from the rest of the group. One of the POWs who elected not to stay with the team was a fellow Kentuckian, and he offered to take a message to Pettimore’s family if he got home first. Thoughts of home have been weighing on the scout-sniper even since. He heads to the village’s church (Catholic, as it happens). Its condition is just as bad as that of the other buildings, with the steeple collapsed onto the roof and the roof more holes than wood. The doors protest a little, but yield to Pettimore’s arm. He steps inside, finds a box of candles, lights one, and kneels to pray for his brothers – and for the inhabitants of this village, wherever they may be.

A pair of songbirds flutter in through the holes in the roof and alight on the altar. A sense of peace suffuses Pettimore. He rises and turns to leave.

“We found one of your people, Bearkiller,” says a voice next to him.

Very slowly, Pettimore turns. Filip gives him a slow nod.

“Someone from the Fifth? Where?” Pettimore asks.

“West of here. She wandered into our territory, badly wounded. We have her at a mining village we use as a waystation sometimes. I was going to come north to find you, but since you’re here…” The Bracia Wilkow leader kneels and sketches a quick map in the dirt on the floor. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Thank you.” Pettimore runs for the door, yelling to the team to get ready to move.

---

The road climbs out of the old-growth forest and into wooded hill country. The town they’re approaching is eerily familiar to Pettimore – but for the language on the signs, this could be any one of a hundred Appalachian mining towns he’s seen over the years. The mine here extracts iron rather than coal, but it’s still the same rows of simple houses, the same general store, the same tool supply store, the same heavy bunkers for storing mining charges… the same story, the dark earth willing to exchange a ton of stone for a pound of flesh.

Three more Bracia Wilkow are waiting outside the small infirmary. Filip steps forward, meets Pettimore’s eyes, and shakes his head. He steps aside and gestures to the door.

Pettimore looks to Red. “Doc?” he says hoarsely.

An awkward silence descends over the rest of the group as Pettimore and Red push into the clinic. On the bed nearest the door is the body of a dark-haired woman wearing the remains of an olive drab flight suit. It doesn’t take Red much effort to determine what killed her: slow internal bleeding from a deep shrapnel wound in her lower back. Her dog tags – one around her neck, the other laced into one of her boots – identify her as First Lieutenant Danielle Flores, US Air Force. Pettimore recognizes an insignia on her flight suit: she flew for AFSOC.

(No one has seen an operational helicopter for two years. When Pettimore was doing Broadstreet’s work alongside the 5th Infantry Division, though, he heard rumors that U.S. XI Corps still had a small force somewhere for exceptionally high-priority special operations work. If Flores was part of that, someone back west had a strong interest in something in this patch of Poland…)

Flores’ personal effects are piled on a table across the room. There’s an aviator’s survival vest containing a couple of signal flares, a VS-17 marker panel, an M11 and a couple of spare magazines… and a knee board. One side is covered in math that Pettimore doesn’t immediately recognize.

The other side is a clear acetate sleeve containing an aviation sectional map for the area west of the team’s current location. Grease pencil markings point out two sites.

Outside, Filip’s two followers are not quite trying to stare down the rest of the team. Filip notices this behavior and says something that sends them slinking away.

A few minutes later, another of the Bracia Wilkow emerges from the nearby residential area with two freshly-snared rabbits. He presents them to Minka and Magda, then stares at them as if he’s trying to figure something out. Eventually, he finds his words, haltingly welcoming them and inviting them to prepare a meal.

Magda checks out the kitchen, such as it is. The Bracia Wilkow seem to be ignoring any kitchens in the houses around them, preferring to use an open-air fire pit with a rudimentary camp kitchen. While Magda is looking through the team’s travel rations to find something to make the meal more palatable, the rabbit hunter comes back with an ancient, battered leather case, which he proudly displays to her. “We use this. For… feast nights,” he explains. Inside, in padded compartments, are a dozen glass vials of seasonings.

This breaks the ice. Three more Bracia Wilkow arrive, including the first woman the team has seen among the partisans. They’re bearing hand-woven baskets full of mushrooms, nuts, and berries from the forest. With the aid of a couple of laconic helpers, Magda sets to work.

---

Leks has been standing back, observing the proceedings in his self-assigned role as security (and playing staredown games with the younger Bracia Wilkow). As he watches, something half history lesson and half cultural memory is simmering in the back of his brain. “Forest Brothers?” he muses in Estonian.

Filip looks up and raises an eyebrow. Leks repeats himself in his fragmentary Polish.

“We know the name,” Filip acknowledges. “The legacy.” He scrutinizes Leks. “I think you would have done well among them.”

---

Red and Pettimore emerge from the clinic, Pettimore bearing Flores’ remains wrapped in a sheet. They brief the rest of the team on what they learned from their examination.

Filip nods. “We found her unconscious. Blood trail from the west. Not our territory. If you’re going there… the one who claims that place won’t care, so long as you respect the land.” He looks sidelong at the UAZ. “No vehicles. But his followers are more territorial.”

The team discusses plans while they eat. The Bracia Wilkow are attentive but have little more to say. As things conclude, Filip clears his throat. “Bearkiller. I see you taking her back for your rites. Would she object if we sang for her?”

Pettimore, who’s been silent since reporting out on his and Red’s findings, manages, “I think she’d be honored.”

Filip nods. Gestures to the Bracia Wilkow. As one, they stand, pull the hoods of their cloaks over their heads, raise their faces to the sky… and howl a dirge.

As the team prepares to pull out, Filip pulls Leks aside and claps a hand to his shoulder. “If you grow tired of fighting for the world that was – the world that is dying – find me.”

---

It’s after dark by the time the team rolls back into Ponikla. Wilhelm and Leonard are waiting for them. Wilhelm goes stiff upon seeing the shrouded body in the back of the UAZ. He does a quick count, sees that all the PCs are accounted for, and asks, “who?”

Pettimore grits out a summary. “Can you find Father Maciej?”

Leonard nods and slips away to locate the priest. Red takes over and works out the details of storing Flores’ remains until the team can arrange a proper funeral. They have more pressing business to attend to.

As word spreads, a growing crowd (such as it is for a village Ponikla’s size) is gathering. Staff Sergeant Scott, still trying to function as the village’s most-senior NCO, pulls Red aside to get a briefing. When Red is done, Scott frowns and asks to see Flores’ knee board. “These are fuel calculations.” He traces it out. “They were planning to burn more fuel on the way out than on the way in. Could’ve been expecting a headwind but I think they were supposed to pick up a fair amount of cargo.” He scratches his head. “Big bird with long legs, too. I was a Blackhawk crew chief but this was something with a lot more fuel load. Maybe a Chinook or an Osprey.” He looks at Red. “If you’re going back out in the morning, I’d like to tag along.”

---

After a short night’s rest, the team turns right around and heads out. With five trained riding horses and a sixth who’s wagon-trained, there’s enough literal horsepower that no one has to walk – though Minka has her hands full keeping the less-experienced riders in their saddles.

Retracing yesterday’s steps is uneventful. They return to the mining town, which is now deserted – the Bracia Wilkow have discharged their obligations there and moved on. Distant wolf howls make it clear that someone’s keeping an eye on them, though. With the aviation sectional chart and Magda’s navigational skills, they’re able to make good time westward, heading for the nearer of what they presume are two marked LZs. There’s a paved highway which the partisans indicated should be safe.

About ten kilometers past the mining town, as the team approaches a crossroads, a figure detaches itself from the overgrown field to one side of the road. It’s the woman from yesterday. In a voice rusty from disuse, she advises them that the way ahead is clear as far as the river, but the Bracia Wilkow can’t say what lies off the road. Message delivered, she disappears into the terrain as effortlessly as she arrived.

The team moves on. As the afternoon winds down, they’ve gone as far west as they can reasonably travel on the highway. Magda turns them south, heading off the road about a kilometer short of the Pilica River.

Miko smells the smoke first. It’s harsh and acrid: burnt metal and petroleum fuel. The team spreads out, dismounts, and moves forward cautiously.

In a small clearing lie the crushed-dragonfly remains of a large helicopter. Red, Pettimore, and Scott recognize it as a Pave Low, shot to hell and almost certainly a total hull loss now.

The team moves in cautiously. Up close, the damage appears to be from a mix of small arms and light autocannon fire. The pilot is still strapped into the right seat. It looks like he was killed instantly by the autocannon hits; there’s no way he was involved in this landing. The starboard M2HB is trashed, with blood spray all around the gunner’s station. The ammo box at the rear ramp suggests a minigun was there, but the gun mount is sheared off. There’s a second M2HB on the portside mount, this one damaged but intact. From the amount of empty brass still strewn around the rear compartment, the aircrew gave a good accounting of themselves.

Miko and Pettimore begin a spiraling search pattern, working outward from the wreckage. At the edge of the treeline, Miko finds the body of an enlisted airman. He has a few shrapnel and bullet wounds, but his death was probably from a fall. Broken tree branches indicate that the MH-53 didn’t quite clear the canopy as it came down.

The ground is dry and the light is fading, but Pettimore finds tracks leading northwest. As best he can tell, four survivors left the crash site.

Scott finishes his survey and shakes his head. “You’re not gonna get anything out of the avionics but parts. Everything’s trashed. Both engines are fire hazards and all the fuel tanks have leaks. There’s a hole through the tail rotor drive shaft – I guess a fuse malfunctioned and a shell went all the way through. I don’t know how this girl didn’t burn. I dipped the tanks with a washer on a string and there’s like thirteen hundred gallons still on board.”

The team quickly strips the wreck of salvageable parts, including the remaining M2HB and all the ammo. Leks spends a moment cooing appreciatively to the battlebox next to the minigun mount, which contains close to 700 rounds of belted 7.62x51mm that his MG3 will happily digest. Miko claims the pilot’s bloody helmet and the miraculously-functional night-vision goggles clipped to them. There’s a brief discussion of tossing a thermite grenade into an engine and letting the whole wreck burn. Scott doesn’t say anything but his expression makes it clear that this is somewhere between cannibalism and desecration of a corpse to him. Greed wins out and the team decides to leave it for now and come back with a hand pump and a bunch of empty drums.

The final thing the team removes from the helicopter is a small red wooden box with a Plexiglas front, which was screwed to the forward bulkhead next to the flight engineer’s station. Inside is a bottle of Jack Daniels. In careful hand-lettering, a sign reads, “Break Glass In Case Of Peace.” Pettimore chuckles grimly, extracts the bottle, and passes it around.

In the last light, the team wraps the bodies of Major Gary Allen and Airman Alex Harris and loads them into the wagon. With Pettimore tracking on foot, they head off on the trail of the missing crew.

The trail ends at the eastern abutment of the bridge over the Pilica. There’s evidence of a lopsided but intense firefight. Whoever had the light autocannon must have brought it along, because the trees here show ample evidence of hits from it. It’s impossible to reconstruct details, but the team infers that the survivors ran into whoever shot them down, and this is probably where Flores started heading east. Pettimore can’t find any blood trails – but it is full dark by now.

While the team is halted, Minka has a crawly feeling of presence. Out in the darkness by the edge of the trees, about a hundred meters away, she can just make out a tall, spindly shape. It appears vaguely-humanoid, but it’s tall – well in excess of two meters – and the proportions are all wrong, too slim and with horribly-elongated limbs. She avoids looking directly at it, but as the team heads back south to make a cold camp at the crash site, she quietly leaves an offering: a jar of fresh plum preserves (Magda’s been supervising the harvest).

---

As the team sets watches, Minka pulls Magda aside. “Please don’t think I’m crazy…” she begins. She explains the barest details of what she saw, concluding with, “please, whatever you do, if it comes back, don’t let anyone shoot at it.” The two women agree to each take a watch… just in case.

---

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click... Miko is taking the first watch with Pettimore and Magda. It’s really an excuse to play with his new toy.

Click, the NVGs switch back on – and something is standing there, maybe a hundred meters away, well inside the clearing. It’s close to three meters tall, horribly thin and elongated, and it has antlers, a huge, branching rack reaching for the sky.

Miko freezes. Click. He can’t see anything – the green phosphors have trashed his night vision.

Click. And the tubes power on again to reveal… nothing. Whatever he saw is gone.

“Hey. Hey, Pettimore. I just saw the weirdest deer…”

The not-so-whispered conversation quickly rouses the whole team. Minka and Magda firmly admonish Miko not to mess with what he saw. Pettimore and Red forcibly remove the flight helmet and NVGs from his possession.

The rest of the night passes uneventfully.

Dawn comes far too early, and yet takes far too long to arrive. Amid silver-blue fog, Magda arises and heads to the wagon to prep the camp kitchen for breakfast. On a nearby flat rock, she finds an empty jam jar.

---

This session had a couple of obscure references which only those deeply-marinated in Twilight: 2000 fandom will get. One is a nod to the long-lost Black Winter.

This was a wholly non-combat session but, as is evident from the account above, contained a whole hell of a lot of plot. Pettimore got the lion’s share of coverage here but all of my players were heavily engaged. This group is an absolute joy to run for because they will lean into just about anything I throw at them and their characters are far more than the sum of the numbers on their sheets.

As proof, I offer the sketch Minka’s player drew of what she thinks she and Miko saw (and, yes, she did get bonus XP for this!):

The team really wants to continue messing with the Radom ZOMO, but they haven’t actually probed Radom yet. They decide to conduct an extended reconnaissance in the hope of identifying one or more of their desired targets. Of course, not all of the PCs are particularly suited to recon work, so this looks like something to be done during downtime rather than an in-play session.

---

Because this is a lot higher-risk than the typical downtime activity, here’s how I handled it:

The garrison has an Alert stat ranging from 0 to 5, representing how aggressively they are hunting suspected infiltrators/saboteurs. 0 is absolute complacency; 5 is full counterinsurgency. Pact-aligned forces in Radom are currently at a 2 because of White Eagle activity along the MSR and encounters to the northwest with the PCs and Von Bahr’s East Germans.

Each day of downtime has two Recon checks. The first is for observation of the city, using the best observation-focused Recon in the team (Scout applies). Each success provides a roll on the list of locations. If the result is a new location, it’s revealed. If the result is a revealed location, the PCs gain additional detail on it.

The second Recon check is for avoiding notice, using the worst stealth-focused Recon in the team (Infiltrator applies). This is opposed by a Recon roll for the opposing forces. If the PCs have more net successes, Alert stays the same. If the PCs and enemies have equal successes, Alert stays the same but each PC takes 1 Stress from the close call. If the enemies have more net successes, Alert increases by 1 per success and one randomly-selected PC receives one long-range attack as they’re spotted. If Alert reaches 5, the garrison mobilizes for an all-hands hunt and the recon team is forced to withdraw.

Stealth will also take a -1 penalty on clear, sunny days and a +1 bonus on rainy days (+2 for exceptionally heavy precipitation).

PCs do not regain Stress during this operation because of the constant lower-case stress of conducting close reconnaissance in enemy territory.

 The best observation in the team is Magda/Miko, both with an A+B roll after Scout is applied.

 The worst Stealth in the team is Miko, with an A+C.

---

Day 1 (August 21): The team drives to the vicinity of Radom and caches the UAZ-469 (they don’t want to have to run away on foot if their mission is blown). Their initial hide site is near the Rafil paint factory, which appears to be untouched – including a string of ten tank cars parked on a siding. However, a close call with a ZOMO patrol forces them to pull back. Alert 2, +1 Stress.

Day 2 (August 22): Not a great night. As the team is moving into position for the evening’s work, Miko finds a tripwire-triggered flare. Caught in the open, he narrowly avoids a snap shot from an unseen sniper. Patrols are out in force and the team pulls back to avoid detection. Alert 3.

Day 3 (August 23): Swinging south to avoid the area of the previous night’s incident, the team pauses at the grumble of engines. They’re able to creep forward and identify what appears to be the base for the Soviet QRF that’s covering the highway! It’s a few kilometers [1 hex] southwest of Radom, in a scrapyard. Avoiding it seems to be the best course of action, so the team continues on into Radom’s southern industrial sector. They move into the paint factory, confirming that it’s undamaged and was shut down in good order. Tons of organic solvents, resin, and powdered pigments are on site. From there, they’re able to check out the stockyards, which are a total loss from fire. The area is profoundly unsettling and, by unspoken accord, the team pulls back. Alert 3, +1 Stress.

Day 4 (August 24): The north side of Radom is tonight’s area of operations. The team passes through the mostly-intact rail yard, which was a major freight hub for the local industries. There’s probably some enticing salvage here, but there isn’t time to tarry. Pressing east, the team approaches what their collective memories say should be an airbase (formerly used for training Polish Air Force pilots). The base is shattered, apparently from conventional (non-nuclear) bombing… but between it and Radom’s silent shadows lies a moderate-sized compound with a double fenceline and guard towers. The guard force – and their dogs – are sufficiently alert that the team can’t get close enough for details, but this must be the prison camp! Alert 3, +1 Stress.

Day 5 (August 25): Probing the west side of Radom tonight, the team locates an unexpected resource: an abandoned warehouse containing the logo of Fabryka Broni Radom. It’s nowhere near the FB Radom factory, the world-renowned arms manufacturer. Curious, Zenobia slips the lock on a fire door and the team eases inside The building is full of industrial machinery, but not for manufacturing guns. No.. this is the mothballed production line for a side business of license-built Facit 1620 manual typewriters! Invigorated by this discovery, they press on. At the northern edge of the industrial sector, a blaze of light clearly marks the main ZOMO barracks. A passing patrol forces them back into the shadows before they’re able to gather too many details, but they now have a location for it. Alert 3, +1 Stress.

At this point, all of the involved PCs are at 4/5 Stress. They haven’t gathered much in the way of details on the enemy forces here, but they have three key locations for further investigation, as well as information on some valuable future salvage.

---

Meanwhile, back in Ponikla, the rest of the team is keeping busy:

• Red, Arkadi, and assistants fortify another 19 hexes of the village’s perimeter with earthworks/floodwall
• Ongoing fuel production ensures the net supply stays roughly stable despite the bulldozer’s thirst
• Ellis interviews all of the new recruits and is fairly certain that none of them are plants or major liabilities
• Minka completes one cycle of horse training, allowing her to add a positive trait or remove a negative one on one horse
• Minka finishes machining the necessary parts to repair the fuel pump on Von Bahr’s T-72
• Red and Arkadi deliver the fuel pump and provide medical and technical assistance
• Pettimore and Leks finish harvesting their assigned wheat fields
• Minka fabricates a gun shield (Armor 3) for the UAZ-469’s gun mount

The recon team returns and spends a day resting off their Stress and being interviewed by Ellis, who’s compiling all of the data he’s collecting into a comprehensive picture of the local threat environment.

The team continues to probe the area surrounding Radom, trying to develop a better profile of the ZOMO and Soviet forces there. Magda, Miko, Leks, Minka, Ellis, and Pettimore deploy, taking the UAZ-469. They leave Red, Zenobia, and Arkadi in Ponikla to continue infrastructure work and to serve as the core of a defense force.

The patrol heads southeast, picking up the highway at the abandoned town where they once fought some rather unusual dogs and subsequently acquired a large amount of agricultural equipment. Miko notices signs of recent travel through the area. The team dismounts to take a closer look. Magda and Minka put their heads together and determine that it’s probably a few people on horseback, a few pack mules, and an indeterminate number of people on foot. The footprints and animal dung are fresh – this group passed through within the last couple of hours.

The team’s initial assumption is that it’s another ZOMO patrol. They decide to follow cautiously, with Miko and Magda periodically swapping out on point and ranging ahead to check the road. The unidentified group is following the highway east toward Radom. As the team tracks them, the picture becomes clearer: six horses, three mules, and about twelve to twenty people on foot. The team begins to suspect [correctly] that they’ve found one of those POW convoys that their White Eagle contact mentioned.

With the superior mobility that the UAZ affords, the team has to be careful to not catch up to their quarry in an unplanned manner. They decide to loop around north of the road and try to find a point where they can set up for stealthy observation.

Magda is out on point, leading the UAZ through a small woods, when she hears muffled shouting. She sinks into cover on the north bank of a small creek. A few moments later, a man in tattered American woodland camouflage BDUs bursts out of the woods on the far bank. As he splashes into the creek, a burst of AKM fire cuts the leaves above his head and he dives for cover!

Two Soviet soldiers emerge from the woods, shouting at their quarry in broken and heavily-accented English. The rest of the team moves up quickly. They’re trying to be stealthy but someone [probably Miko] makes a bit too much noise in their haste. The Russians begin to react but the team is faster. Leks cuts down one with a burst from his MG3; the other falls to Ellis’ G3 and Magda’s Tantal.

The escapee scrambles out of the line of fire, taking cover in the woods. As the gunfire ends, Ellis calls out, “Hey! What unit?”

“U.S. Army Concert Band!” is the response.

“Oh, you poor bastard,” Pettimore sighs.

The team convinces their new acquaintance that they’re not going to shoot him [immediately] and brings him in for a chat. Ellis takes charge of the interview. The escapee introduces himself as Spec/4 Henry Bell. He’s a signals intelligence linguist (and formerly, in happier times, trombonist), a survivor of the U.S. 5th Infantry Division’s last stand who was captured after the encirclement at Kalisz. His brief account of the battle matches the intel Ellis has gathered – and Pettimore’s own memories.

Bell explains that he’s one of sixteen POWs from Kalisz who are being taken to the camp in Radom. The column had six guards – “four, now,” he observes, watching Miko loot and hide the bodies. His captors didn’t know he speaks fluent Russian, so he was able to gather a fair amount of information, though not much of is useful intelligence.

Suddenly, a signal flare rises above the treetops to the south.

The team doesn’t want to precipitate a massacre, but they’re unified in their desire to free these prisoners before reinforcements arrive from Radom. Magda leads off again, finding a route that arcs to the north and puts the team on the road just in time to lay a hasty ambush. The gunfight is quick and almost anticlimactic: four more guards down, no injuries among the team or the prisoners. One of the guards does launch a second signal flare, though.

The senior NCO among the prisoners, Staff Sergeant Andre Scott, comes forward. Ellis gives him a quick interview as well while the rest of the team pulls security, checks over the prisoners for injuries, and rounds up the horses and mules. The POWs are all basically healthy, though several are missing digits or hands, heavily scarred, or, in one case, wearing an eyepatch. They’re ragged and on short rations, but they report that they weren’t mistreated once this group of guards took charge of them. SSG Scott explains that the Soviets separated the officers and senior NCOs, interrogated them, and sent them on to Lublin.

Further conversation will have to wait. The team doesn’t want to stick around for what they expect will be a large and well-equipped QRF. Between the UAZ and doubling up riders on the horses, they have enough transport to get out of the immediate area. They head for an abandoned farm that Magda identified on the way in. About half an hour after they vacate the ambush site, Miko, who’s on rear guard, hears multiple engines and at least one set of treads from the direction of the highway. There’s no immediate pursuit, though.

After a brief rest, a more thorough medical assessment, and some polite but probing questions, the team decides to bring the POWs back to Ponikla, at least for the short term. They arrive back at town late in the afternoon. The expanded group assembles in the hostel’s common room and awkwardly begins to socialize while Magda ducks into the kitchen to check on dinner.

Ellis pulls Scott aside and asks what his intentions are. Is Scott still fighting the war? Scott… isn’t sure. “I left New York fifteen years ago,” he says, “and going back there didn’t much matter until it suddenly wasn’t possible any more. Now it’s on my mind a lot.”

Ellis probes a little more. Ponikla isn’t home, but it could be. It’s stable, the community’s agricultural capacity could probably support a few more mouths, and there’s a chance of getting more infrastructure back online and maybe even a regional defense coalition.

Scott scratches his stubble. “You got a point. Let’s circle up the troops and you can make your pitch to them.”

The team members present their respective cases for throwing in with Ponikla. Some are more effective than others. Magda pulls the five female POWs into the kitchen and makes the point that Ponikla is a place where it’s safe to be a woman – something that isn’t guaranteed in many places these days. Miko bumbles his way through a speech about Ponikla, unlike his hometown of Warsaw, being not-irradiated. Ellis is his usual silver-tongued self, expanding on his previous comments to Scott.

In the end, eleven of the POWs decide to throw in their lot with Ponikla and the PCs. The other five regretfully part ways with their fellow soldiers, but they’re set on trying to get back to friendly lines – and, from there, home. They’ll rest up a couple of days, then make for the Baltic coast. The team wishes them well and gives them the equipment captured from their former guards [thus neatly resolving the accounting for that].

---

This session felt somewhat rushed and disjointed to me because I had to make some hasty plot adjustments when I realized I’d mis-read my own map. The players seemed happy with it, though, and the PCs are counting the successful hit on the POW column as a win (as they should).

The recruiting scene at the end was fun to run. I had a list of the POWs and their MOSes. Each player got to make their character’s pitch, then roll Persuasion. Each success was one NPC recruited.

One of the things I wanted to do with this session was open up the opportunity for players to pick up secondary/alternate PCs by “adopting” a POW. I provided a limited amount of detail on all of the POWs, and some of it may get retconned if necessary to fit what a given player needs or wants, but right now, the recruiting pool is:

• Staff Sergeant Andre Scott (m) – MOS 67U helicopter repairer
• Spec/4 Henry Bell (m) – MOS 98G signals intercept linguist
• MOS 13B cannon crewmember (m)
• MOS 13M multiple launch rocket system crewmember (f)
• MOS 11B infantry (f)
• MOS 95B military police (m)
• MOS 45B small arms repairer (m)
• MOS 71M chaplain assistant (m)
• MOS 12C bridge crewmember (f)
• parachute rigger (British Royal Air Force, f)
• plumber (British Army, m)

(All are E-4 or below except SSG Scott. The five who left were an infantry sergeant, two more artillerists, another helicopter maintainer, and an Abrams mechanic. We wish them safe travels…)