Battlefield Conditions - Gloomy
“Spread out, my brother’s flunkies are here!” Dask hissed as he gestured for P’Hol to cover him, then gestured for Whillem and Shoutheri to fan out up front. Estra took one step backward, then turned on her heel and faded away into the night.
“Where are you going!” Dask hissed at Estra, but she was already gone.
Estra ignored Dasks protests, she fought to control her breathing and glided through the darkness like a wraith, going wide around the gantries and darted from cover to cover as she closed in from the other side.
Shoutheri and Whilem grabbed positions under a decaying gantry by a mostly rusted through tank. Shoutheri readied his laser rifle and switched on the new battle sight, while Whilem cycled the action of the Auto-Rifle that he had withdrawn from storage and braced it against a decaying support pylon.
The sound of pounding boots on asphalt and the wooping of gangers psyching themselves up for a fight sounded from up ahead, and out of the murky dark. The lead ganger, a woman with an impressive hairdo clutched a crude flamer scanned the ground ahead for targets, and clapped eyes on Shoutheri first. Behind her, a rat faced ganger with a vibroblade revved the mechanism and grinned as he charged forward.
Estra stopped in the shadows as she caught sight of the approaching mob of gangers. She drew her shotgun, braced it and fired.
One of the gangers went down in a heap as his torso took the majority of the buckshot. His comrades gasped in horror, but turned their attention to Estra and charged.
The ganger with a flamer paused and braced her weapon, then sent a gout of flame arcing towards Shoutheri. Shoutheri took the brunt of it, and fell to the ground cursing and yelling. He rolled around in an attempt to smother the chemical fire. Whilem opened fire, and cut down the ganger with the flamer with an abrupt burst of machine gun fire.
Dask and P’Hol scrambled up a nearby ladder and found themselves on top of the gantry, in the perfect position to envelope the mob of gamers with incoming fire. P’Hol darted off to one side, dropped to one knee and fired a short burst at the ganger carrying the vibroblade. The shots hit home and the ganger went down in a heap. Dask stode forward and squared off with another ganger coming up the stairs of the gantry. The two men traded shots without hitting one another. Two gangers closed in on Estra and loosed shotgun blasts and pistol shots, but Estra faded into the dark long before their shots could find her.
Dask raised his hand cannon and squinted down the sights at the oncoming ganger, then held his breath and squeezed the trigger.
Dask’s shot hit the man in the head, who fell backward and came to rest on the stairs.
Estra darted out of cover for a split second, raised her shotgun and fired.
The shot caught another ganger, sending him to the ground.
The surviving gangers tried to dive for cover, but they were covered from up high and down low. Autorifle fire from Whilem and machine-pistol fire from P’Hol killed another. The only remaining ganger screamed in terror as he realised the futility of his situation and turned and ran.
Dask strode forward, sighted the fleeing man in, but didn’t fire. Instead he holstered his pistol and called out to him.
“You tell my pissant brother that you are going to have to do better than that!”
Dask then looked down to see Whilem tending to an unmoving Shoutheri.
”The burns are superficial, I’ve shot him full of painkillers, but nothing permanent.” Whillem said.
“All right, looks like we’ll have to cancel our meeting with ETU and get back to the Hand of Fortune. Let’s back it up and get moving before the enforcers arrive.”
Turn 3 Aftermath
Shoutheri sat on the lounge in the Hand of Fortune while Whilem applied another layer of burn foam over the side that had caught the worst of the flame blast.
“You’re very lucky, Shoutheri. The damage seems almost all superficial, it won’t even scar,” Whillem said.
Shouteri nodded, then leaned back.
“I almost dodged it, next time I’ll be a bit quicker on my feet,” Shoutheri replied.
Post Battle Injury for Shoutheri - School of Hard Knocks
“Dask?” P’Hol called out as she jogged into the lounge.
“Yes?”
“There is a man who claims to be from the Valeris Syndicate at the ramp. He wishes to speak with you. He came alone,” P’Hol said.
“Lead the way,” Dask instructed as he followed P’Hol down the ramp into the cool night air.
A small man with thick rimless glasses and dressed in a designer trench coat waited at the bottom of the ramp. Estra stood nearby and leaned on one of the landing struts, she had her shotgun cradled in her arms as she studied the man.
Dask approached the man and looked down at him.
“I’m Dask, is this about the incident that occurred earlier this evening?”
The man smiled at Dask and politely bowed his head.
“Yes, my name is Cherrun Signh, Envoy for the Valeris Syndicate. I come before you to express my profound sympathy and regret for this evening's earlier trouble. Rest assured, the attempted hit on you had indeed been arranged by Ernst Donovan, your brother I believe?”
Dask nodded and let Cherrun continue.
“Well, the leadership council for Harlen’s World did not sanction this hit. They have voted to remove Ernst Donovan from his leadership position and expel him from the Syndicate for his actions.”
A brief flash of worry crossed Dask’s mind, as much as Ernst deserved whatever fate he got, he was still his brother.
“What are you going to do with Ernst?” Dask asked.
“If Ernst was anyone else we would fly him out to a remote corner of Harlen’s world, put a bullet in his head, and leave his corpse for the Gellec. But given who he is and his connection to your father, we’ve expelled him from the Syndicate and he is currently boarding the next coreward liner under escort. We will deliver him to his father and explain the situation to him.”
Dask suppressed a smile as he heard this. With an embarrassing incident like this on his record, Ernst was now guaranteed to be out of the running for the inheritance of the family business, and hopefully that meant that none of his other brothers and sisters would try to take a shot at him in order to remove him from the competition.
“Good, I appreciate the mercy. I don’t like him, but for better and worse he is family,” Dask replied.
Post Battle Rival Roll - Rival gives up
“Along with this apology I also wish to convey an invitation for a meeting with representatives of the leadership council of Harlen’s World. You handled our people well and we could always use reliable professionals for situations where our own shooters aren’t up for the task. Are you interested?” Cherrun asked.
“Of course, I’d be happy to take the meeting,” Dask replied.
“Splendid, well, here are my contact details,” Cherrun said as he took a thin card out of a breast pocket and passed it to Dask.
Dask looked at it for a moment and saw that it was a series of unmarked network nodes and hidden interface ports with a couple of encryption keys. He put the card in his pocket and nodded.
“Thank you, Envoy Singh, I’m grateful that the Syndicate doesn’t wish to indulge my brother’s vendetta against me,” Dask said.
Cherrun smiled, “goodnight, Mister Donovan,” he said, then turned to leave.
Dask watched the small man disappear into the late evening murk.
Campagin Event - Made some business contacts (Valeris Syndicate)
Dask turned around and studied Estra, who in turn stared back with a vaguely sour expression. P’Hol glared back at Estra for a moment, then headed back up the ramp.
“Something to say, sir?” Estra asked with a little bit of sass in her tone.
Dask sighed, walked up to Estra and leaned on the landing strut next to her.
“You’re a stone cold killer, Estra, I’ll give you that. You handled yourself well and I appreciate it.”
“Thank you, Dask, I thought I could get around behind them while they were distracted. It worked out pretty well.” Estra replied.
“Yeah it did, but I did notice something. Your eyes, they’ve got a blue tinge around the edges. How long have you been using Blue Sap and are you still using?” Dask asked, bluntly.
Estra glared for a moment, an expression of vulnerable fury on her face, which quickly morphed into resignation.
“No, I almost screwed up today, but I’m not using right now. I’ve been clean years.”
Dask didn’t reply, instead he nodded.
“Listen, sir. I don’t want to get kicked out, I just got here and I want to make this work. The pay is good and you don’t seem like the worst boss I could’ve landed.” Estra said, almost in a panic.
“It’s okay, I admit, I wouldn’t have hired you. But Midori vouched for you quite strongly and I trust her judgement, now I’m beginning to see why. I’ve now come around to Midori’s point of view, but that is predicated on you staying off the sap, I need my crew to be able to see the galaxy with sober eyes,” Dask said.
“I… Thank you, Dask.” Estra replied.
“I don’t think we need anyone on sentry now, go inside and get some rest,” Dask told Estra.
Estra nodded, then headed up the ramp.
Battlefield Salvage - Vibroblade, Tracker Sight
Character Event - Dask, Time to move on but no effect because character is not currently in sick bay.
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