Daniel North hits the service lane in a crouch, boots skidding through brick dust and wet ash. Ahead, Sgt. Douglas snaps his compass up and points hard left. The rally point is still there, beyond the smoke, but a burning transport truck seals the lane with a curtain of heat.
Sgt. Douglas
North, cover us. Forester, stay with the set. We cut along the wall.
Justin Forester clutches the radio gear to his chest and stumbles after Douglas, eyes fixed on the sky. A sharp, foreign engine note stutters overhead, and a shadow drops fast through the smoke.
Justin Forester
That is not one of ours.
A CCP paratrooper slams into the lane beyond the truck, rolling clear with his rifle up. At the same moment, a squat tracked UGV grinds around the wreck, its mount searching the lane with a hard mechanical twitch.
Douglas throws himself behind a concrete corner. Justin jerks to a stop, radio nearly slipping from his grip. Daniel brings the heavy machine gun up toward the gap between the truck and the wall, the shortest path to the rally point suddenly becoming a killing lane.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the secondary rally point
✓ Quest Accepted
Get past the blocked service lane
“Daniel hammers HMG rounds into the sensors and turret ring of the UGV, aiming for a mission kill... and catches the paratrooper in the burst. .50 BMG is for killing airplanes, so it can do this!”
SUCCESS (Legendary Firearms, rolled +1)
Daniel squeezes the trigger, and the heavy gun tears into the UGV’s head. Sights burst, the turret ring sparks, and the tracked machine slews hard into the wreck.
The paratrooper jerks into the open to fire, but the burst walks across his cover and pins him flat behind the truck’s blackened flank.
Sgt. Douglas
Good hit! Keep him down!
The UGV keeps moving, but blind now, its mount stuttering uselessly as smoke pours from the damaged housing.
Justin Forester
The radio, I have to keep the radio with us!
Douglas leans out, spots the gap, and makes a sharp cut signal with two fingers toward the wall, the route still open if they move now.
The CCP Paratrooper
Contact! Contact!
“Sgt. Douglas takes precise shots at enemies as Daniel keeps their heads down... Justin uses his Five-Seven to put down a robot dog behind us.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Firearms, rolled -1)
Daniel keeps the gun chattering, stitching the truck’s far side with fire. The paratrooper flinches lower and vanishes behind the wreck.
Justin snaps around at a skittering shape behind them, raises the pistol with shaking hands, and fires. The robot dog jerks, tumbles into the grit, and goes still.
Sgt. Douglas
That’s it, move, move! Wall side, now!
Douglas leans out and drops precise shots into the smoke, keeping the lane’s far edge swept down.
Justin Forester
I’ve got the radio. I’ve got it!
The burning truck spits sparks across the lane as Daniel’s bursts hold the paratrooper buried behind cover.
Ahead, the wall route stays open for a breath, but the smoke thickens and another shape could be coming in low.
“Can Daniel or his allies make out who or what is in the smoke?”
YES (Even, rolled 29)
As the smoke swirls, a gap in the thick grey curtain reveals a second CCP paratrooper dragging a heavy, tripod-mounted weapon toward the wall route.
Daniel North
They are setting up a machine gun nest to cut off our only exit.
“Daniel cuts the enemy paratrooper in half as the group moves from cover, heading south!”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +3)