Chapter 1: Strike From The Heavens

Amp rolled her eyes, she didn't have the time to work either of them over to the point they'd take her orders. Or the inclination, at that. She moved up to G7, fired her Hodag at the master drone, passing by 7. The shot maximised against its shield dealing 24 damage. She followed it up with an EMP shot, which hit with 5 XS but managed only 9 damage. Amp sighed, more despairing than frustrated.

Voja didn't like the idea of Amp being in charge one bit, but he was to busy to comment. He leapt in towards the tank (C13), Jonnochka swinging in a powerful overhead blow straight into the tanks railgun.

AT 13 (18-4 (called shot)-5(vital strike)+4(conviction)), 7 rolled, 40 damage dealt. (enough to break the rail gun)

The tank's crew try to shoot the plasma cannons at Voja, but with Jonnochka swinging away they can't get a good shot in at all and miss.

The Helpsalot, though, he's gonna go for it, moving up to D12.

New map, and I am gonna just replace this file each time rather than uploading new ones, so old links from now on won't go to old maps FWIW.

Zushe, Lester, Corva, it's round 3 and we're back to the top.

Zushe stepped forward into S5 towards the Sentinel droid, wincing at the abominable sound. Time to remove that threat for Corva and Lester to get through.

First attack is a pass by 11 (AT=19, -5 Def, roll=6), dealing 19 damage.

Seeing another droid collapse in a shower of sparks, he turned towards the human, showing no hesitation as he went on the attack.

Second attack is a pass by 9 (AT=19, roll=10), dealing 21 damage before armour.
Third attack is a pass by 9 (AT=19, roll=10), dealing 19 damage before armour.

With the droid sympathiser comprehensively disembowelled, he stepped over his corpse into R6.

The sentinel droid lies destroyed, its siren cracked as the blaring alarm falls off-tune and is then silent. No more damage aura.

Lester watched Zushe carefully, and his movements for a fraction of a second were slower. Still, he took off down toward his newly appointed team leader, to Q7. He didn't even look at the gore, just scanning the space for more enemies. There was a drone far away, but  thankfully at some distance. Again, he turned his head to Corva who had still yet to leave the pod and motioned with it. He smeaked just to them, "It's clear."

Corva nodded, and then remembered the smeaker. "Understood. Advancing." They didn't like the feeling of activating the smeaker, but had to acknowledge it's usefulness. Ducking low, they moved in hex P6 with a movement somewhere between a sprint and a scuttle.

The drones, commanded to protect their master, move forwards and focus fire on Amp. Between the three, two hit, stripping a further 36 points from Amp's shield.

Map updated.

James' turn.

Can people keep their shield totals up-to-date on their character sheets? It helps a lot for me keeping track of when I need to roll damage.

Splitting off from Zushe's group, James intended to pursue some of the outlying hostiles.  "Heading to the east."

Move to R12.

The drone in K7 shoots at Amp, dealing 18 more damage to her shield and bringing it down.

The other two drones move to O9 and Q9 to try and grab heat from the group aiming for the building.

The commander drone swirls around to assesses the situation. It wants to get to safety - ever since the virus introduced the concept of personal freedom, it has been quite attached to the idea - but it can't abandon its duty to protect the facility, and the only areas it could move into to get out of the cannon's line of fire would put it close to the close-combat enemies. So it lines up Amp directly in its rifle's line of sight and fires, dealing 1 damage after Amp's AV (it rolled poorly).

Map updated.

Amp, Voja, your turns.

Amp doesn't have access to the drone commander's internal conflict and that is for the best. She also doesn't like her position at all. What she does like is her combat suit healing her, worth every credit. Amp doubts her ability to issue orders and so moves up to F8, in order to get her defense against two drones.

And she makes the awful decision between offence and defense. She makes the decision she knows is wrong; offence. Amp fires her Hodag once again at the commander drone - and misses by a country mile. (Simian freedom) If she had a hand spare to facepalm she would have. She does manage to hit it with the EMP, passing by 3 and dealing 17 EMP damage.

"This day gets worse and worse," she lamented aloud.

Voja noticed the new arrival to his part of the fight, but was already busy fighting a tank, so he kept on with that.

AT 18, 14 rolled, pass by 4. 32 damage dealt, ignoring 16AV.

As he pushed forwards into D14 to try to not let that plasma cannon get off a shot, he smeaked Does anyone know why there is a Helpsalot here? And why is it charging me?

The tank's crew try to fire their plasma cannons at Voja. Unfortunately, he was right on top of them swinging that hammer and it turned out to be impossible to actually hit the right trajectory for it. (They got a 31.) What happened instead was that the cannons, swinging around unbalanced at high speeds as the crew desperately tried to lock on, vented back on the tank as they fired, and plasma sunk through the holes in the armour directly into the tank's engines.

The whole thing exploded, sending Voja flying to G11 and dealing 18 damage after AV. The Helpsalot was likewise sent flying, breaking through one of the silo walls and not reappearing.

Map updated.

New turn! Zushe, Lester, and Corva are up. Now you're close to the door, you can see it's been blown open. Inside are empty corridors, fluorescent lights, and an eerie quiet; inside the building you're off the combat grid, let me know how each of you are advancing through the facility and what you're looking for.

Lester heard the explosion and saw, through U-View, Voja have an interesting time. Still, the Biostatus monitors showed no signs of alarm, so he continued. He took a step into P8 and shot at the nearest droid.

He passed his shot by 10, doing max damage with 18. The droid fell, and Lester took a look at the nearest door in the important, center building. Through the blown open doorway, Lester could see a second droid, so he took a shot at that, as well. He passed by 9, doing 11 damage. With the droid resolutely floating in the air, he shot it again. He passed by 11, doing 16 damage, felling it.

Available droids dispatched, Lester stepped inside. "Clear in here so far." The room was hushed and quiet, but intelligence said the killer bomb that would send this whole building into subspace xeno artifact was here, so here he must go. He began to look up and down the hallways, ready to provide cover for Zushe and Corva.

Corva ducked in to the building. They scanned the corridor in a similar manner to Lester, but rather than looking for enemies, they were searching for potential clues as to where to start looking for the device. If there was a sign with "Xenotechnological Research Lab" on it, that would be perfect, but instead Corva relied on their years of experience in these kinds of facilities.

It made sense that any containment area for such an item would be one of the higher security areas of the base, and also would be a prime target for the intruders. As such, Corva planned to procede searching for signs of combat through the corridors. Before they started that however, they dug into their toolkit and withdrew a small electrical wire detector. It may be worth inspecting the power cable layout of the walls as they passed; there was a decent chance that if they found a particularly large amount of wires it would lead to either the xenotech or a server cluster. Either way, Corva won.

Zushe followed Corva in, then took a couple of steps in front of them, swords upraised. He strained his ears, listening for the sound of movement and any other indication of hostiles.

Inside Team: Corva’s wire-scanning leads the group deeper through the facility. In the distance, you hear gunshots – many from outside, then a muffled one clearly inside the building. Zushe hears the whirring of a large droid’s movements – everyone give me Agility + Stealth checks, or something else if you have another means of hiding, and I’ll let you know what situation you’re in with it when initiative rolls back round to you.

Outside Team: The drones continue their focus-on-one-target tactic; the one in D8 hits Amp for 5 damage after AV, the one in E9 maxes its damage roll and hits for 9 damage after AV, and the one in D10 hits for 4 more damage after AV.

Map

James, it’s your turn.

Seeing the rain of fire being poured onto Amp, James quickly advanced on the drone to his north in an attempt to draw/remove some of the fire.

Move to hex N12.

Attack the drone in hex M13.

Apply profession point to attack roll:  Rolled 6

Attack roll:  10 (6 + 4), pass by 16 (under 20 + 6)

Damage roll:  16

Total damage dealt:  32

The drone commander’s armour isn’t enough to stand up to so potent a strike and it crashes down to the ground, thinking that at least it got to die on its own terms. Cut off from their commander and unable to detect another to network with, the standard drones return to a perimeter sweep; you know that in this state, running off their own very basic AI, they won’t attack you as long as you don’t attack them.

There are no enemies left, at least in this moment - We’re out of initiative.

Inside Team: As mentioned in my last post, rolls to hide from/ambush the droid you’re aware is in a conjoining corridor please.

Outside Team: What now?

Zushe attempts to move quietly, but it's clearly not his forte. Agi+Stealth is a fail by 4 (AT=11, roll=15).

Corva made a slightly better effort, slowing down and crouching even lower as they advanced to hide their footfalls. ((AT 14, rolled a 13, pass by 1))

Lester watched Corva and Zushe "hide" and frowned. He knew he was better than most at spotting people, but even still.. There was only one option. Lester didn't hide, but withdrew his guns and aimed it down the hallway where the droid would be coming from. The moment a threatening droid attempted to find them, he would shoot it and hopefully, given his skill, at least damage it enough to stop it.

As Corva and Zushe fell behind, out of the adjoining corridor stepped a heavily-armoured Y&S Centaur ME6 military enforcer-class droid.

As soon as it stepped into sight, Lester unleashed a barrage of Cougar fire that stripped its shield entirely.

"Sigh," the droid said in a high-pitched voice. It began to slowly advance forward, pointing its agent-disabling viric lance at its enemy menacingly, and fired all 10 micro-missiles from its left shoulder pod at Lester. Lester's shield is reduced to 0 (That's its free action) and the droid is closing in - it'll reach melee range on its next turn.

You all get to go before it, though, and it doesn't seem to have noticed at least Corva as a threat - possibly Zushe too, though it may just be prioritising the target that has attacked it first.
For player reference, it has Defence 8, AV 10.

"Zushe, this is James." James smeakered calmly, turning away from the wreckage of the drone commander after a small sword-flourish.  "Outiside area is clear for now; aerial drones are returning to standard perimeter patrols, no longer openly hostile."  For a brief moment, James considered the Centaur via U-view.  "Do you require assistance?"