We had a full table, and the first in-character interactions were Clark using the party's drop system to call Simon and David back in from the wilderness to plan the group's operation against the SDS cannon. Cho managed to sneak back into the house without being detected, and when he did, Alexander confronted him regarding the party's discoveries regarding Cho's work as an assassin. A tense stand-off ensued in which David explained that he had been following orders given to him by ROM, and that he had no idea why he was killing the people he was sent to murder, but those were his orders so he presumed there were good reasons he was doing what he was doing. Alexander chose the path of forgiveness, given that Cho hadn't killed Alexander's parent specifically, and the party began planning their final operation.
It took about an hour of discussion, but the party eventually came up with the following plan: When the call came in, Alexander, Cho, and Alan would begin getting the Warhammer ready for action, while Simon left immediately with his climbing gear to scale the cliff-face and hack the station's communications system. Clark would prepare trauma kits and other consumables for the party, and once the 'Mech was ready, the four of them would proceed to the site, Clark in the truck, Alexander in the 'Mech, and Alan and David in the chopper.
They took the remaining ton of machine gun ammo from the Firestarter (buried in the mountain snow since 3068) and created an impromptu bomb out of it, and placed it in the back of Clark's pickup truck. Their plan was for the Warhammer to blow down the door to the facility, then have the truck driver into the facility and detonate its payload, the driver having jumped out just before.
The call came on 16 August and the team swung into gear. Simon climbed the mountain with no significant problems, and the party broke the Warhammer out of mothballs. Within 30 hours, they were ready and at the mission site.
Alexander began the attack, sending the bulk of the Warhammer's battery at the blast door covering the facility, while using some fire to engage the half-dozen guards stationed outside. Alan was flying the helicopter while David was in Shin's old PA(L) armor, and David worked his sniper rifle from that platform to assist against the infantry guards. Within a few turns, Alexander had blown the door down, and Clark sent his truck careening into the Word of Blake defenders inside the first floor of the facility.
Alan dropped off David on the ground, who hooked up with Clark to begin infiltrating the first floor of the bunker. Once David was aground, Alan flew up to the top of the mountain to collect Simon. Simon had already gotten wind through the Word of Blake communications system that reinforcements were on the way, so Alexander prepared himself behind a low hill around the bunker entrance to resist attackers.
The first reinforcements to arrive were a pair of Scorpion Light Tanks (LAC/2). They didn't pose a serious threat to the Warhammer, which engaged them as they came. Behind the Scorpions were a quartet of Vedette Medium Tanks (AC/5). These were a bigger problem, but still not a major problem. Shortly after Alan landed and he and Simon joined David and Clark in the bunker, a pair of Schrek PPC carriers made an appearance, the things started going downhill for Alex quickly. With astonishingly good rolls, the Schreks tore most of the armor off the Warhammer's torso, despite the cover afforded by the hill. Alexander was beginning to withdraw when Precentor Bruce Lecna, at the helm of his Siroco-class Assault Quad BattleMech showed up to the field.
Inside the bunker, the party forced a half-dozen Word of Blake defenders off the second level, and David dispatched the last pair of them in hand-to-hand combat. Alexander fled the battlefield, pursued by two Vedettes, while Simon hacked the gun's fire control. With an astonishing success by 19 on his Computers check, he successfully retargetted the SDS cannon to engage Word of Blake orbital assets.
Having driven off Alexander, Precentor Lecna and the surviving Schrek set up a blockade around the entrance to the SDS battery while they waited for two platoons of infantry to come up to clear out the facility. Their plan might have worked, had the Righteous Justice, the Word of Blake flagship on orbit, not taken it upon itself to silence the SDS battery with naval fire. Although the SDS battery was indeed hit, scatter from the Heavy NPPC's obliterated Lecna's BattleMech, along with the Word of Blake reinforcements.
When we rolled out the truly catastrophic amount of damage, it turned out Lecna actually survived the bombardment, so Cho went out, shot him twice, beat him, but brought him in alive.
After the battle, the party withdrew to the ranch. Having accomplished their mission, Alexander, David, and Alan traveled away to join the Coalition forces. They brought Simon along with them, since he had a contract on his head.
In November of 3078, Denver was destroyed by a thermonuclear weapon. Clark was at home at the ranch, but was far enough out to survive the blast, although most of his ranch was destroyed. In December the Word of Blake surrendered, officially ending the campaign.
I have a few more entries to write regarding the set up for the last session and overall lessons from the campaign. More of those later this week.
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