The smoke thins over the maintenance route. For one hard breath, the battery looks won.
Justin Forester
This signal is real, or someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look real.
Justin hunches over the radio set, fingers moving fast as he cross-checks the code burst against the spoofed loop. Sgt. Douglas keeps his rifle up at the ridge, jaw set, while the ROC men drag in breath and listen.
Sgt. Douglas
North, if command is clean, it proves somebody got through. If it is not, then we are still being herded.
Daniel North
The launch worked. The order may still be a trap.
Justin looks up, pale and certain at once. He taps the handset, then the battered battery pack, then the map board. The message matches command format, but not timing.
Justin Forester
It is live. But the rhythm is wrong, like the sender is copying a template. We can defend the battery, or we can move on false orders and lose the squad again.
Douglas turns from the ridge, already deciding. The coast is quiet for the moment, but the lie in the wire is not.
“With no more ASMs, the missile battery is leaving the area to reload. The launcher is on a truck. We can check on command on the way. "Mount up, this area is no longer important people!"”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +1)