Session 19

At Session 19, the party was introduced to their new member, Alan Fischer, of the Lyran Intelligence Corps.  The hook into this session was Clark receiving a letter from his cousin Pleatus on New Earth, i.e., his ComStar contact.  The letter told him to meet Alan at a diner a few dozen miles east of Denver.  The party quickly acquired Alan and returned to the ranch so he could bring them up to speed on the operation he had been sent to accomplish.

Alan has been given a mission plan profile to crash a DropShip into the Wyrm being launched from Galveston in late March 3076.  He had been instructed to acquire assistance from the Terran resistance as he did so.  He was somewhat dismayed to discover that the cell he had been sent to contact was only four men, and that they had limited ability to contact the other cells.  Despite that shock, the plan went forward.

Simon called a meeting with Alexei, representing the Denver cell, and the as-yet-unnamed woman who represents the Missouri cell.  He asked for their help in a new operation.  Alexei declined out of hand, indicating a lack of resources, while the Missouri group was interested in helping.  Alan explained the broad strokes of the plan to them, and the Missouri group agreed to help deal with the crew of the DropShip the party decided to steal.

In preparation, the party found a DropShip of suitable size and cargo for their purposes, and arranged to make a shipment on that ship via a shell company Clark constructed for the purpose.  They rented a panel truck and formed up a high-value "Escort Required" crate, and booked it through their target DropShip.

The night before the operation, the party called their Missouri contact, and gave him the name of the DropShip.  They arrived to learn that most of the ship's crew had been taken ill with food poisoning.  Moving quickly, they proceeded to use tranquilizers and stun sticks on the remaining crew members (many of which were taken from the previous raid on the ranch), and soon had control of the ship.

Their schedule was delayed four hours due to ground control issues and the fact that the crew had told the spaceport they would need to delay their departure, but soon Alan piloted the DropShip into the sky, and toward the Wyrm's dockyard.

About this time, Alan learned that the Wyrm had launched and was already clear of the channel and heading out to sea.  With a considerable quantity of both effort and edge, he was able to line up the DropShip on the moving Wyrm underneath, and at a significant penalty, bail out before the DropShip crashed into the Wyrm right on target, splitting the SDS in half and sinking it.

As Alan floated in the water, a helicopter pulled up overhead, containing Alexei in Search And Rescue gear to pull Alan out of the ocean.  Although unexpected, the rescue was welcome, and the session ended on a very positive note.