The following series of posts spans one session of planning, two and a half sessions of gameplay, and some asynchronous private chat conversations, all focused on concluding one story arc. This occurs immediately after the events of Kamiensk Downtime and Radomsko Reconnaissance and Leks Takes a Walk,
Early on the morning of October 7th, Bell pulls Ellis aside at breakfast for a private chat. “Mister Ellis, did Sergeant Pettimore say anything to you about calling back to Ponikla?”
Ellis blinks, processing that for a moment. “No, I don’t believe so. Did you see him at the set?”
“Yeah. I was on radio watch late last night and a call came in for him from Alexei and Leks.”
The CIA agent frowns, considering the fact that up to this point, the team hasn’t maintained a radio log. Between a high level of internal trust and a general lack of radios, it’s been a non-issue. “Were they returning a previous call from him?”
Bell nods. “Yeah, they referenced him contacting them yesterday.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Bell.” Ellis pauses, then asks rhetorically, “what do you think about having a log for radio usage?”
“Shit! Why didn’t I think of that before?” A slight hangdog expression crosses the SIGINT linguist’s face. “I’m gonna blame the brain fog for that one. Yeah, definitely, we need to start. It’s data.”
“Mmm.” Ellis considers that. “Oh, did you talk with them or was Pettimore available to take the call?”
“I woke Sergeant Pettimore up,” Bell confirms. “He took it from there.”
“Thanks, Bell.” Ellis claps the younger man on the shoulder. “I appreciate you giving me a heads-up.”
Ellis digests that information for a couple of hours, then pulls Pettimore aside for a chat around midmorning. It’s cordial, but Ellis has concerns. The team hasn’t had a radio log until now, they have no radio SOPs and no encryption, and there are Soviets very close by (the 124th Motor Rifle Division is only 20 kilometers away in Piotrków Trybunalski).
Unspoken is the awareness, slowly permeating through the group, that people are starting to hear things on the radio that should not be possible.
After a few hours of maintenance, harvest assistance, and reinforcing Kamiensk’s fortifications, the team gathers over lunch. Conversation quickly turns to planning for next steps. There’s a fair degree of uncertainty about the situation in Radomsko. Will hitting the marauders weaken them or provoke them?
Cowboy opines that even if taking out Shotkin makes the marauders worse, taking out Shotkin and Rasputin will make the world an objectively better place.
Pettimore steps forward and briefs out on the information he obtained from Filip. “I thought Rasputin was this thing I thought I killed. Was gonna kill. Am gonna kill, hell, I don’t know, timeline’s fucked up, Ellis.”
Octavia seizes on Filip’s puppeteer comment. “So they made a deal with something. What?”
Pettimore shrugs. “Filip wasn’t too clear on that.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was this al-Khidr thing they keep talking about,” puts in Cowboy.
Ellis presses Petimore a but on how Filip has access to the information he provided. Pettimore can’t provide great answers – Filip wasn’t evasive so much as struggling to fight the brain fog.
Cowboy’s focus on al-Khidr redirects the conversation to old things, new things, and things that should not exist at all. Betsy interjects, “My question is, is something wrong with time, or is someone manipulating time?” The derelict semiconductor factory is still on her mind. “Did we fall into a place where time was a little soft and fluid or was that a trap someone set?”
Miko chooses this moment to toss in his two złoty. Despite the evidence of his own recovery from near-fatal wounds, he’s still having problems with the others’ acceptance of apparent supernatural influences in the world. Pettimore and Octavia are having none of it, and quickly shut him down. Miko does at least defend his general lack of education with, “I don’t have a high school degree because my high school was nuked.”
Betsy and Cowboy both start to speak up. The two women exchange a quick glance and rock-paper-scissors. Cowboy nods and cedes the moment to Betsy, confident that they’re both on the same page. “Look, we know where these guys have at least a couple of their bases, but we also have some of their patrol routes. How about we hit one of their teams when they’re far from backup and see if whatever is influencing them can stand up to our little healing friends?”
It’s an appealing prospect. Energized by the suggestion of direct action, the team starts really looking at their body of intelligence. The discussion gradually veers from intelligence collection by fire to a decapitation strike – there’s certainly enough evidence that Shotkin and his hirstute hatchetman are central to whatever is wrong in Radomsko.
It looks like it’s time for Ellis’ newly-acquired custom specialty to get a workout!
Battle Planner (Command)
Roll Command when you spend a shift or more planning your unit’s actions in an upcoming combat. You get a +1 modifier for each of the following factors that is decisively in your team’s favor, and a -1 modifier (or greater, at the referee’s discretion) for each one that’s decisively stacked against your team: numbers, troop quality, equipment, terrain, weather, intelligence, surprise. During the planned combat and while generally following your plan, each member of your unit may completely re-roll a number of their own rolls equal to the number of successes you received on your Command roll.
(Subsequent play determined that this may be a bit too powerful, so we’ll likely tweak it before Ellis uses it again. But this was the version that was in play for the following fight.)
After a lot of discussion and math and sand-table work, the team has a plan that everyone can live with (and hopefully can survive). They’ll split into two groups for this.
The infiltration element will consist of Ellis, Pettimore, Miko, Cat, and (after much debate about where to risk the medics and the one trained scientist) Erick. They will attempt a covert penetration of the marauders’ apparent HQ in the former Radomsko Regional Museum. Their objectives are to secure any additional intelligence, to rescue any prisoners or hostages, and to neutralize Shotkin and Rasputin.
The ambush element is Betsy, Cowboy, Octavia (with Comrade, of course), and Ortiz. They’ll take the team’s UAZ-469, with the recently-captured SPG-9 replacing its usual M2HB, into the heart of Radomsko. Ellis is confident he can predict the least-time route that a QRF from the nearest marauder outpost (the bank that Ellis previously surveilled) will use to reinforce the museum, so the ambush team will set up on that route and discourage any help from coming. If the infiltration team needs fire support, Cat and Cowboy will coordinate to use the SPG-9 in indirect fire mode.
The team will travel together to the east side of Radomsko, using the PTS-M for this one mission before turning it over to Kamiensk’s citizens. They’ll cache the amphibious carrier in the nature preserve east of the city.
Hernandez and Bell will remain in Kamieksk as the team’s designated survivors, and to provide some heavy weapons support if the village comes under counterattack. They’ll have Comms’ APU powered up so the BTR-80K’s big fixed antenna can serve as a radio relay.
At least, that’s the plan…