DAY 10 – April 27th 2000
EAST of DOBRODZIEN, POLAND – MORNING
LED suddenly opens his eyes and finds himself in the back of an HMMWV, slightly slumped down on the seat and leaning against the door frame. He composes himself while stretching his arms towards the front seat. The vehicle is travelling on a paved road still in acceptable conditions, dodging the occasional rusted husk of a vehicle while a forest of tall trees is scrolling outside.
“You snore sir, don’t know if you knew that” says a young 1/116th sergeant from the passenger seat in front of LED.
“Was it that bad?”
“We were concerned about you springing an ambush”
“Yeah, like I’m louder than the engine” mutters LED. “How long was I asleep?” he then asks a bit louder.
“Not much” says the other passenger in the back of the HMMWV, just past the lower part of the soldier manning the turret. He’s Command Sergeant Major JOHN BLUE ELK and as far as LED can tell, he’s WARREN’s right-hand man. ELK is an apt name: the guy is tall and bulky, has a squared head with receding hairline and his ears bend forward so that they’re very visible when he’s in front of you. He’s not wearing a helmet and appears not to carry one with him.
“Long night?” he asks.
“Long war” answers LED.
The HMMWV is leading the convoy, proceeding East at a speed as regular as the road consents, followed by the M1064A3 and its 120mm “death tube” as he heard some soldiers call it, then the M35 truck where the rest of the players are seated, and the second HMMWV closing the rear.
“I’ve been told you guys have dealt with these people before” says ELK.
“They attacked the town of Praszka, we were nearby so we lent a hand”
“How many of them?”
“Sixty, give or take”
“Any detail might come in handy lieutenant”
“Right” nods LED “they mostly had small arms, we saw only one LMG and they had an up-armored technical. There was a good number of deserters among their ranks, enough to have the rough structure of a small army; think combat units and the like”
“How did you deal with the technical?”
“We had an AT4 and put it to good use”
“And how did you deal with the infantry, sir?” asks the sergeant turning towards LED.
“We had luck and put that to good use as well”
WITH the EYES of the REFEREE [click to expand]
I drew a card to see if there was an encounter along the way, but it didn’t apply to road travel, so the road trip is uneventful.
The convoy leaves the main road and takes a narrow dirt path going North up until a clearance. The sergeant navigates the area with a map and a compass and leads the vehicles a few hundred meters away from the dirt road, and about 1,5 kilometers from the main road. There’s an open area of low vegetation and knee-high grass where one can hear crickets all around. The personnel dismounts while the vehicles are placed in a circular pattern, their guns facing outwards. Circling the wagons, that’s how ELK calls it.
“Good place for a picnic” observes the sergeant.
“This close to Czestochowa, I wouldn’t even sit on the grass” replies ELK “I’ll make sure everyone washes their boots when we get back. Corporal, get the Geiger and give me a reading”
The driver acknowledges the order and starts to look in the back of the HMMWV.
“What’s our next step sir?” asks LED.
“They’re somewhere around here. Assuming they didn’t see or hear us coming in the area, we need to look for them. I’ll have my men set up a perimeter and then send my scouts out; can you volunteer one of your men?”
“Yes sir, how many scouts are you sending?”
“Six, in pairs”
LED thinks for a moment, then decides he will join one of the pairs and ALEX agrees to join another. ELK therefore re-organizes the scouts in four groups of two men each, with LED and ALEX both tagging along one soldier of the 1/116th Cav.
When the camp is set and everyone is ready, ELK turns to the corporal who has spent the last ten minutes going around the perimeter taking measurements with the Geiger counter.
“How dirty is this place corporal?”
“Well, we’ll be fine as long as we don’t overstay our welcome sir, but I wouldn’t buy any real estate in this place”
Radio silence is enforced for both the main force and the scouts, as the Flock may have personnel monitoring radio waves. The scouts are therefore instructed to come back to the camp in three hours and report their findings. Each team gets assigned an area in which they will operate.
WITH the EYES of the REFEREE [click to expand]
As the scouts leave the camp, we’re entering the Day Shift of Day 10.
I’m not going to have the players roll for RECON to see if they can find the Flock, as I want them to find the camp and follow the narrative I’m going for. In the interest of the story, I’ll house-rule that the team who finds the Flock is one of the two the players are part of.
I’ll roll a D10: 1 to 5 is LED’s team, 6-10 is ALEX’s:
- Roll[D10] = 6 -> ALEX’s team is looking in the right place
I’ll follow ALEX with the next bit of narration.
ALEX is paired with PFC CRANE, a thirty-something years old soldier from Lewiston, Idaho. The two move light, having left their backpacks at the camp. ALEX has his P-83 pistol and hunting rifle, while PFC CRANE carries an M4 carabine and a stainless-steel combat axe on his back.
“I got it for Christmas when I was thirteen years old, I thought it was the coolest thing” he says to ALEX before leaving the camp “now, if I had a child and he asked me for a battle axe for Christmas, I’d think he’s a psycho”
The duo proceeds in silence, eyes and ears wide open as they traverse the Polish forest. After about 45 minutes they start smelling ash and burnt wood, and right after they see the remains of a cabin through the trees. The approach what remains of the building and settle in a small depression about 50 meters from the structure, where they have a clear corridor through the trees. CRANE takes his binoculars and starts scouting the scene as ALEX manages security.
“Looks like it’s been burnt down recently. There’s no one around, ah s**t…” CRANE stops and passes the binoculars to ALEX “check to the left of the structure, about 30 feet”
ALEX sees the corpse of a man nailed to a tree with his arms extended. He’s naked and the crows have already been at work on what remains of him. ALEX looks down, muttering something in Polish.
WITH the EYES of the REFEREE [click to expand]
Time for an empathy check.
ALEX rolls Empathy: roll[D10] = 1 SUCCESS (rolled 8)
ALEX takes a stress point.
The duo observes the scene for a good ten minutes, and then carefully approaches the burnt building. There’s no other corpses in sight but they can’t determine whether anybody was inside when the flames were consuming the structure. By examining the scene, they find a couple of casings belonging to an AKM.
At the base of the tree with the nailed man, ALEX sees a square of cardboard, propped up against the trunk by some rocks. On it are written a few words in Polish, the black ink traced with a finger.
“Can you read that?” asks CRANE.
“The day is near. Repent. Rejoice” says ALEX.
“This world has no shortness of crazy people; I’ll tell you that”
“Yes, and they always gather somewhere nearby”
“You got that right: there’s a trail of footprints, multiple boots heading North-East”
FINAL COMMENTS
I envisioned this bit of the campaign as being akin to a military-style operation one may imagine happening in real life, though with the added complications deriving from lack of manpower and resources.
WARREN cannot afford to have this many men and hardware away for long, therefore the mission demands a sustained pace. First on the agenda is scouting, and looks like ALEX and PFC CRANE are on the right track.
What they’ll find will shape the plan for how to deal with it, and whether the players will get a battle out of it.