DAY 13 – APRIL 30th 2000
OUTSKIRTS of DOBRODZIEN, POLAND – EVENING
LED is sitting on an outside wooden bench, in the backyard of an old warehouse. The area is surrounded by a metal-wire fence covered by vegetation; the central part of the yard shows a big patch of dark brown dirt with the occasional tuft of green grass oscillating in the calm April breeze. Towards the perimeter the grass gets taller and darker, and partially obscures a few car carcasses and a stack of old broken pallets.
He is eating out of an old MRE bag; he sticks the fork into a bite-sized chunk of something dark floating in a thick beige sauce and holds it in front of his eyes a bit perplexed.
“Whatcha got there LT?” asks NASCAR, sitting a few feet away on a stack of rotten tires.
“The bag says beef stew” says LED “my mouth has a different opinion though”
“It tastes like cardboard, don’t it?”
“Yeah… that’s it”
DONNA is sitting on a blue plastic chair opposite NASCAR. In between them are a couple of wood floor planks, propped up by a few bricks on each side, and upon them are the parts of her M16A1 that she has already cleaned, an is now putting back together.
“Rally guys?” she says “we got a decent meal and you want to bitch about it?”
“Hey DOC if it sucks then it sucks, nothin’ I can do about it” comments NASCAR with a shrug.
“You just shut it and eat it. And thank whoever it is that still watches on us for it” is DONNA’s dry reply.
“You got that LT?”
LED checks the production date on the bag “I was just complaining about the quality of 1997 cardboard”
ALEX emerges from around the corner after taking a leak, joins the group and sits at the other end of the wooden bench. He takes the water canteen from his backpack. “So let me recap, just for clarity: we got the Russians to the East, the Markgraf to the South-West, more Russians in Kluczbork, and more Markgraf’s men up in Krzepice”
“And a sea of unknown everywhere in between” concludes LED putting down the empty bag from his MRE.
“Plus that Polish Unit in Lubliniec” adds DONNA, still focused on her rifle.
“So where do we go from here?” asks NASCAR “I mean, we’re gonna leave this place at some point, and it’s like a minefield out there”
“Everywhere is a minefield nowadays” answers LED “this particular one we may even be able to navigate though”
“You really trust that lady we snatched from the Russian, LT?” asks NASCAR.
LED oscillates his head left and right “I wouldn’t say fully trust, but I’m not far. WARREN seems to think that MARIA knows her stuff, and that’s the impression I got”
“So what’s missing for full trust?” asks DONNA.
LED leans forward and lowers his voice fractionally “she seems too confident”
“You got that sense chatting with her?” says NASCAR.
LED takes a deep breath “even before the war we never thought we knew everything the Russians were doing; we would always assume there was something we missed or we couldn’t see. Then war broke out and we realized we knew even less than we thought. And now, after all that happened, after the beating we took in Kalisz… this confidence looks a lot like arrogance to me”
“Do we know how she knows all of that?” asks DONNA “where she’s getting her intel?”
“Humint, I assume, the oldest form of intel gathering”
“What’s that now?” demands NASCAR.
“Humint” repeats LED “human intelligence. People, she talks to people”
“Like she goes around pretending to be a reporter or something?”
“No, more like she has a network of people she trusts, and they collect information”
“So she’s piecing together a lot of intel from different sources” comments ALEX.
“And we have to trust she can discern truth from rumors” concludes LED.
“Yet she’s been around, she’s got the scars to prove it” says DONNA “I mean, we found her while she was around. She’s not sitting somewhere waiting for… cyphered letters to arrive”
“Yeah” agrees LED “she scored quite a few points for that”
On the other side of the warehouse the noise of an engine makes its appearance, growing in intensity as the vehicle passes by, then fading up North.
“WARREN wants to see us tomorrow morning. She said she has something on the agenda for us” says LED “let’s see what it is before deciding our next move”
Everybody nods silently.
“She still owes us our part of the Flock’s supplies; you might wanna remind her that LT” says NASCAR.
“Will do, don’t worry”
“Are we staying in town?” asks ALEX.
LED nods “I was thinking one or two days. We could use a break, check our gear, barter, get some rest”
“Are we in a hurry?” asks DONNA.
“Not really, no”
“You made it sound like we are”
“I guess you’re right” admits LED “I’ve just gotten an overview of what’s around us, a lay of the land if you will. There’s a lot going on, and in my mind that means the worst thing we can do is sit here and wait”
“We need to know what we’re doing before we can do it” says ALEX.
“Ideally, yeah… but since we do not know what we’re doing yet, I figure we start moving first” replies LED.
“For the things we cannot learn before doing, we learn by doing them” says DONNA with gravitas.
LED smiles “23 centuries, and he’s still right”
“Who’s right?” asks NASCAR looking at LED and DONNA.
“That was Aristotle” she says.
NASCAR ponders for a few seconds “did he play for the Oilers?”
DONNA stares at him “I don’t even know how to respond to that”
“Anyway…” interrupts LED “…tomorrow we’ll be here, we can use a breather”
“Good” comments ALEX “tomorrow is May 1st, a National Holiday in Poland”
“What’s that?”
“Święto Pracy. Labour Day”
EVENING SHIFT [click to expand]
Cloudy weather persists during the evening shift.
LED talks shop with WARREN and MARIA first, then the group (I originally wanted to count it as a resting shift for LED, but he will spend the night shift sleeping, so it made little difference, Also, he is sleep-deprived, so he wouldn’t be able to recover stress). The conversations take quite some time (I’m imagining there’s more than I dramatized), but there should be enough time left for some gun maintenance. LED attempts a TECH roll to get the Combat Pistol DONNA is carrying up to full REL:
- LED rolls TECH [D10] = 0 SUCCESSES (rolled 4)
He pushes the roll:
- LED push-rolls TECH [D10] = 1 SUCCESS (rolled 9)
The Combat Pistol goes up to 4/5 REL; he also repacks his ammo for both pistol and rifle, so to have a full magazine in both.
DONNA spends the shift helping at the 1/116th Cav medical point (hospital is really too big a word for describing it). I didn’t bother with a MEDICAL AID roll, as there are no critical patients and no wounded/sick NPCs.
ALEX takes care of his bolt-action hunting rifle:
- ALEX rolls TECH [D10+D10] = 3 SUCCESSES (rolled 10 and 9)
His hunting rifle goes back to 5/5 reliability. He also repacks his ammo.
NASCAR is unharmed, has suffered no stress points, and has all his gear at full REL, so he takes care of ALEX’s P-83 pistol:
- NASCAR rolls TECH [D8+D6] = 0 SUCCESSES (rolled 5 and 10)
He doesn’t push it. Polish weapons are still a bit too foreign for his abilities. He also repacks his ammo belts so that he has a full 200 rounds in his M249, and a 141 rounds belt in his gear.
All players consume 1 ration of food and 1 ration of water, both provided by the 1/116th Cav.
NIGHT SHIFT [click to expand]
Still cloudy outside.
LED is sleep deprived, so he finds a comfortable enough spot and sleeps for the shift. Finally, he no longer suffers from the Slashed Forearm condition he got at the battle of Wanda Chotomska school, and has no longer a penalty for using two-handed weapons. He recovers 1 hit point and 1 stress point.
NASCAR is sleep deprived as well; he gets some shut eye too.
DONNA repacks her ammo and spends the shift taking care of her M16A1:
- DONNA rolls TECH [D8+D8] = 1 SUCCESS (rolled 8 and 3)
Her assault rifle goes up to 5/5 REL.
ALEX was asked by LED to try and repair his flak jacket, and so he proceeds:
- ALEX rolls TECH [D10+D10] = 2 SUCCESSES (rolled 9 and 6)
LED’s flak jacket is back to armor level 1 (I’ve expressed before my doubts about repairing a bullet-proof vest, but I’ll go with the rules as I’ve done before)
End of Day 13
FINAL COMMENTS
What I have dramatize here is – in my view – a conversation the players might have after having received intel from both WARREN and MARIA. As my characters concluded: there’s still one more item for them on the agenda according to WARREN, and they are planning on turning that particular card as well before committing to a plan of action.
Albeit with minor reservations, MARIA has been judged worthy of trust. Yet LED knows she knows more than what she laid on the table for him to see, that she has her own agenda, and whatever help she is offering will advance her plans too.
Gameplay-wise, staying in town provides much needed rest (with NASCAR being the sole exception, everyone needs to recover Hit Point or Stress Points), a chance for some maintenance and bargaining.