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Aberrant: 200X - [Gods of War] Intro: Falling Star


DigiGeist

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July 12, 0100 hrs, +1 GMT... somewhere approaching Kinshasa, Congo.

She readies herself on the platform overlooking the dark black below. The wind around her is oppressive, not that she feels it through her suit. She's been training for this, or at least been preparing for this for a few days now. Familiarizing herself with her gear, practicing with her powers in low-pressure environments, learning to watch her use of powers and keeping them at a minimum.

Her helmet has a clear face mask with a re-breather system attached. The helmet itself draws in as much air as it can, into the helmet, it's internal power supply and re-breather augmenting what she takes in with every breath. It's currently connected to a life support umbilical, supplying a starting oxygen supply.

"DigiGeist, you remember the mission?"

"Yeah, open at 1200 feet, land, find the radar facility and take it down. The SAM base is a cheeky bonus."

"We'd like it if you took that out too, to be honest. Most of those are manually controlled and some do have small radar systems of their own."

"Right. Just give me whatever needs to be done and it gets done."

She holds on to a handle near the rear exit of the high-flying and heavily modded 777 jumbo-jet. The drop-boss speaks up. "Okay, we're at 80,000 feet, with winds and drift you should reach the dropzone in no time. Disconnect umbilical."

She detaches the hose from the back of her helmet, and the system goes into a fully sealed mode. "You got 30 minutes, get low enough to rely on the air outside. You don't want to go bright until it's time to do the job. You have 3 hours before your Skyhook will be coming fast and dirty."

She makes sure the case with the compressed helium and the kevlar/synth-eufiber gasbag is in place. "If you miss your ride it's a long walk back and lots of unfriendly folk along the way."

"Understood." DigiGeist says, doing one last gear check to ensure her sword and pistols are securely locked down and the accessflaps are zippered and locked shut. She steps to the threshold and takes one more breath.

"Godspeed, Digi. There's a lot of people depending on you."

"And god have mercy on my soul." She says, diving off. At first the fall is quiet, but the rush of the air around her becomes louder and louder as she reaches terminal velocity. She takes a head-down posture, to fall as fast as she can for now. At the moment she reaches 10,000 feet she'll activate the wing membranes on her suit to start moving forward and to get some steering to close in on the final opening position at 1200 feet.

A long way to go until those benchmarks... 24.384 Kilometers to be exact. And falling fast.

7 minutes later

Digigeist tries as best she can to control her fall. HALO parachutes are notorious for not steering well. As intended since they're supposed to keep a drop on target. Unfortunately that means dropping into the Congo itself. She tries to flare, cursing how it's not an airfoil before falling short into the water and the fast currents. She disconnects the parachute immediately and starts swimming for the Ile M'Bamou. On it's South shore, on a separate island under DRC control, the Missile batteries were put in place to watch against a incursion from the Congo in the north.

She doesn't care who. All she cars about is getting to Brazzaville after this is all done if she misses her pickup.

She triggers a CO2 cartridge and air fills in several strategic air bladders in the chest and shoulders, helping her float as she reaches shore. Once she gets on the beach, she switches her re-breather into gas-mask mode and goes invisible. She activates an internal recorder she's going to turn in to her contact after the mission is over.

"Commencing mission. Radar facility is 1 click east of my location. Going invisible." She whispers as everything she is becomes invisible to anyone looking for her. "No sight of the SAM unit." She whispers as she moves as best she can without making noise into the brush. After hiding, she pulls out her pistols, and then holsters them, then un-buckles the sheath securements for her sword. She checks herself to make sure she attuned to her gear before scouting the area.

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The first thing that hit DigiGeist was the humidity. Even now, well into the night, the heat of the African day was still able to reach her. The croaks, rustles, chirrups and assorted other noises of small river-dwellers added to the distant roar of the waterfront was more of a hindrance, the sheer business of the wildlife here creating an effective audio screen that took a moment even for an experienced operative to insinuate themselves as part of, to make the right noises part of the background so that she didn't ignore the wrong rustle.

That done, the dark-suited nova glided through the brush, headed eastwards. The low, fat moon gleamed off the dark waters of the Pool Malebo as DigiGeist kept to the treeline of the lakeshore as much as possible. The radar site was on a raised, flattened area of ground, fenced off with two rings of razorwire-tipped electric fence and guarded by a platoon of men with dogs around the clock. A few armored vehicles, two choppers, and a heckuva lot of poured concrete bunkers to house the actual equipment which was DigiGeist's objective. And then there was the SAM site on a nearby hilltop, a cluster of Russian-made, truck-mounted SA-10's with their own shorter-range, but still effective radars. They were a favored anti-nova SAM, due to their excellent ability to track targets with small radar cross-sections.

DigiGeist didn't waste time wondering about why someone wanted this particular installation dealt with - she'd done her idle speculation before the mission had started. They were going to sneak something over the border, perhaps. Or create a diversion for something happening elsewhere. Sending a message. Or even just testing the DRC defenses. It could be any number of reasons, but none had been given to her. Her's was just to do or die, as the poem said.

C'est la vie.

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DigiGeist sees the dogs. She'd rather approach them downwind so she takes a couple blades of grass and watches how the wind moves. Good... just head this way... She says, moving around the base to a good angle so the wind is against her. She sees she's between the SAMs and the radar base. Figuring that the SAMs would stop whatever is coming later she decides the SAMs are priority 1. She sneaks over, making sure the brush she moves doesn't rattle enough to make a sound until she can at least move behind any base lights, only the moon lighting the area.

Why did I have to pick a full moon? she thinks in a mental complaint as she sneaks closer to the trucks. Close enough to send her gun-o-gram. She pulls out Frodo and Sam, and levels them on the fuel tanks of the SAM trucks. She takes a deep breath knowing there's no turning back... and unloads two shots one from each pistol, one for each truck. In Shining Star mode. Elven writing surrounds the muzzles of the pistols and engraves the sides of the pistols with elvish writing that she is yet to decipher.

Click to reveal..
Activating Multi-Tasking

The last die is the mega attribute in question.

The Professor *rolls* 6d10: 1+10+4+10+5+10: 40 - 0 +0 modifiers to rolls.

Shot 1 (to hit): The Professor *rolls* 13d10: 2+7+3+5+8+3+9+9+5+2+4+2+8: 67

Shot 2 (to hit): The Professor *rolls* 13d10: 4+2+5+2+2+7+2+10+2+8+5+1+4: 54

Shot 1 (damage): 7+9+3+7+7+7+3+6+9+6+9+2+7+10+10 Aggro

Shot 2 (damage): 10+4+6+3+6+7+7+7+10+4+10+3: 77 Aggro

Quantum Pool: 25 remaining

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The SAM trucks were light armored vehicles, suitable for repelling (maybe) small-arms fire. They stood no chance against the quantum-enhanced bullets from DigiGeist's pistols. The charged missiles ripped through engine blocks, fuel lines, and solid metal chassis with ease.

The results were pyrotechnically spectacular.

Large explosions echoed out across the river, drowning out the croaks, chirrups and assorted other noises of the night as the fuel tanks, then worse the missiles themselves, ignited and went up in a orgiastic eruption of fire and shrapnel. The SAM site was scoured clean in an instant, the men who'd been crewing it washed away in the roaring fire. As her ears recovered, DigiGeist heard sirens wailing from the direction of the radar installation.

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More than likely they will investigate... and fast. Kirsten thinks as she moves off, knowing damn well she just knocked on the front door HARD. She stays invisible as she moves into a position where she can observe the radar site while having adequate enough cover to come down on the site harder than the fist of a angry goddess. What she's particularly looking for are fuel tanks... propane tanks... anything that would make a satisfying level of collateral damage. Enough to bring a radar installation to the ground.

Meanwhile, she also observes the remaining guards, seeing what they're equipped with, and more useful; if the guards look more like overworked conscripts than ready and willing volunteers. Shock and awe might reduce the body count.

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  • 3 weeks later...

"There she is." Finn said with a wry smile as explosions started on the distant island. His partner grunted, a sound with a definite undernote of growl, and snorted.

"Noisy." Was all Dog said. The elegant man beside him glanced at the terrier-faced nova, eyebrow raised in amusement.

"So the lady likes to make an entrance."

"She's a bleedin' gifted amateur at best. But she's serving her purpose, so let's go serve ours." The two Elites turned and disappeared into the Kinshasa waterfront.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

From her vantage, DigiGeist saw one fuel-trailer hooked up to an equally-large generator - obviously the main power source for the installation. The problem was that the trailers were a good half-mile from the radar, power cables likely buried underground and, most inconvenient of all, no truck hooked up to the fuel trailer. As impromptu bombs went, it sucked. Logistically, getting a truck, then towing the trailer up the hill, then ramming it into the radar post and setting it off was a nightmare with no guarantee of success. No, if there was some way to set up a big boom, it'd have to be inside the bunker. Kirsten was beginning to wish she'd insisted on some ready-made explosive charges.

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She deletes the obvious from her mind. She stays invisible and considers heading to the bunkers. Looking to get right on top of the central one and assess the entrances, but, she stops. Wait a sec...

She runs to the radar installation instead. She has an idea. A clever one. She was though wishing she took electronics classes at this point. All I gotta do is find a way to access that installation...

She vaults over the fence and dashes to the power generator. Then again, I have a axe to grind.

Holstering her pistols, she walks up to a back entrance of the radar bunker. Seeing it's a hard-wired security system, not a advanced computerized security system, she wagers the personal touch is a better move. She draws her sword and goes to cut the door down. Elvish writing covers her blade as she brings it out in an aggressive arc.

Status
Quantum Pool 22

Shining Star -

To Hit: The Professor *rolls* 13d10: 7+6+4+3+4+8+8+8+8+4+1+2+10

Damage: 9+3+6+5+6+5+2+2+8+3+9+8+9+10+8

Pistols are holstered.

Still Invisible.

The poor fools don't know what is about to hit them... She is about to show them. She comes out of invisibility, stepping over the body of a guard cut in half from her first sword swing. By the time any of the guards could level their AK-47s on her their arms were cut off, Followed by their heads in quick succession. This bunker was hers now. By god these vermin are going to stink up the place... she thinks. She makes her way to the control room. Her dark bluish-purple suit making her look like a acolyte of the grim reaper himself as more fall to her. "DAMN FOOLS! RUN! DROP YOUR RIFLES AND RUN!" She shouts, offering them the only path to mercy they can receive. Some take her up on it, others blindly follow protocol and try in vain to attack.

The radar technician turns around and levels a pistol at DigiGeist's head. "S... Stay Away..."

Her bespectacled glasses cover the fear on her face, the light of the room glinting off of the lenses. "Please... Stay Away..."

"Sit down, woman... where's the main terminal?"

"O... over there." She says, pointing to the computer running the radar installation.

"Good. Now you can be a good woman and sit and relax, or leave... If you try to do something stupid..." She levels her sword, pointing it at her. "I am not above collecting your damn head."

She turns to the machine and begins getting to work.

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  • 1 month later...

DigiGeist spent a few moments sorting through the controls - communications technology not being her forte - all the while aware that outside the bunker, the defending forces would be figuring out the diversion and then looking for who caused it. Time was ticking.

So it was that she didn't at first realise that the woman's eyes behind her were slitting with contempt and anger. Captain Marie St-Claude was proud of her acheivement, rising to command a frontline defense network station like this one. For a 'mere woman', it was a notable appointment in the Congolese forces, and a testament to her loyalty and skill as a soldier.

The stupid elite hadn't even disarmed her. This foreign woman, who should have known better, had simply told Marie to sit as though she were a meek woman, so much like some of the soldiers she'd had to struggle against during her rise. Well, the bitch would learn, just like her rivals had, that Captain Marie St-Claude was not meek. The pistol slowly came up, pointing at the back of the white-haired head while the armoured nova pondered over the controls. With one hand over the hammer to muffle the noise, she cocked it back...

Wits and Stealth roll from Captain Marie

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 8d10: 8+7+3+5+5+10+4+2: 44

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 1d10: 9: 9

4 succs

Dex & Firearms: +2 for close range, +1 for pistol spec.

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 11d10: 3+2+6+5+1+10+4+5+10+10+3: 59

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 3d10: 3+10+10: 23

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 2d10: 6+10: 16

Owns-The-Night *rolls* 1d10: 6: 6.

6 Successes.

Digigeist, you need to make a perception and awareness roll with a two succ diff penalty due to your weak hearing flaw in order to stand a chance of dodging, so that's 7 successes needed. Otherwise, you're getting shot in the head.

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Kirsten's eyes light with rage, taught by her master to show no mercy to those given it but waste their second chance to try to get an advantage. "YOU FOOL!"

Awareness and Sword Roll
Awareness roll: Superball *rolls* 10d10: 4+10+9+10+2+10+6+10+9+8: 78

To Hit: Superball *rolls* 12d10: 9+1+2+9+3+6+7+9+1+3+1+9: 60

To Wound: Superball *rolls* 11d10: 7+3+1+2+2+2+4+6+1+5+4: 37

Something held her back... this only causes her to become more angry, but there is still the matter of that pistol. She prays that's not an armor piercer... That... would hurt.

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The sword lanced into the captain's left shoulder, thrusting her back into the chair even as the heavy automatic in her right hand came up and roared. DigiGeist felt the heavy bullet slam into her stomach like a punch, but the kevlar-nomex suit she wore took the edge off and her preternaturally tough tissues did the rest. It bloody well stung, though.

With a twist and a kick, she knocked the stricken captain back and over, sending her sprawling and groaning to the floor in her own blood as the blade came free. Teeth bared, the British elite spun the blood-slicked sword up and over... and paused.

The control room was a mess. Sirens and shouts could be heard, and on the monitors she saw men running around in the compound outside. Dead bodies lay where they'd fallen, limbs contorted from the sudden, violent death she'd visited on these soldiers. This was... all wrong. This wasn't the clean, surgical operation she'd been asked to do. This wasn't slick work that'd have the enemy guessing who was responsible. She'd come into the mission full of adrenaline and excitement... and had become a butcher.

Captain St-Claude was gasping on the floor, pain contorting her features as she wondered why the killing blow hadn't yet fallen. Her pistol had fallen and skittered out of reach, and that deadly sword hung over her head like the one over mythical Damocles. Squinting, she glared up at DigiGeist with a mixture of fear and anger.

"Go on, kill me." she shouted in French. "You kill my men. Finish the job!"

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Kirsten freezes. Then in a primal scream she grabs one of her pistols with her free hand and fires it off into the radar control. She then starts to walk away. "No... I deserve death... I'm the monster here..."

She leaves the radar base, the blood in her mind fading but the blood around her becoming ever clearer. "I'm the monster..."

She clears her mind for a moment and her only reflex now is to swim to her plan b. "Control...", she says over her comlink. "Bugging to plan b, scrub the skyhook."

"Mission status?"

"Missiles destroyed, not completely sure on the radar, but I gotta go."

"Why, DigiGeist?"

She freezes again. She then turns off her transponder and comlink and starts swimming, going invisible.

"Why..." She whispers."...I think my answer is clear. I left it behind me..."

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  • 4 weeks later...

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