Session 66: Under Cover of Night

The Session began with the Liberators continuing their convoy to Norwood Depot. They arrived to find a massive Army Corps encampment surrounding the central depot. Beyond the town's concrete walls topped with barbed wire, they saw trenches, bunkers, and machine gun nests sprawling out on all sides. Vaultworks HQ's roof had been converted to a command post with tents and communications equipment covering it. The team was escorted up and met with Cait McLoughlin, but before they could speak, a golf ball came flying from beyond the town and landed perfectly in the putting range on top of the building. Gerrek then emerged from the woods and came to help the players. He informed them of a red tide weapon he had discovered while hunting anomolaies down south, a heavily armed and armored war train with a powerful railway cannon. The team had been informed of this asset, but Gerrek was able to study it closely with his thermal scope, and he had a last known location as of 12 hours ago. With this, the team's plans quickly switched from the presumed defense to a covert mission to assault the train.

The players assigned Jimbob to lead the defense in their stead, then got to work planning. They discussed ways to disable the train, thermites, gas, but ultimately decided the most reliable way to deny the enemy that asset was to daringly steal the entire thing. They went over the specifics with the details Gerrek provided. They would move in under the cover of night, dropping in with a HALO jump, then they would start at the engine, getting it moving to avoid fighting the entire base. Silence and Jason would hack in and take over the systems, then the frontliners would clear the cars one by one while Jason softened them up by running along the top, dismantling the HVAC units, and deploying tear gas into the compartments.

They set about implementing their plan. They asked Cait if Lucas had vertibirds to spare. She said she could ask, but she already knew the answer; they were strained on vertibirds as it was, and there weren't great with high altitude. She recommended they ask Warden Danse instead. Kutter and Jason radioed Danse, requesting he provide vertibirds for the mission, he reluctantly agreed, saying it was dangerous, but he'd learned not to doubt their luck. Jason also hesitantly asked him to pick up excess tear gas from that one operation that definitely never happened. Danse agreed, saying that definitely didn't cross the line for him.

Fredrick asked Gerrek if he also figured that at least one of them should be out hunting anomalies, and Gerrek agreed, also sending Finn with Fredrick to keep him out of harm's way. With that, the strike team mounted up on the vertibirds. Gerrek, Kutter, Rem, Kenny, May, Richards, and Cecile all jumped aboard. Once they were high in the air and deep behind enemy lines, May stared down at the snow-covered landscape, smiling and saying that this was going to be a fun one, showing renewed enthusiasm after getting through the withdrawals thanks to Kenny.

The team prepared their parachutes, but Jason told them they wouldn't need them. Kutter accepted this at face value, immediately leaping into the white abyss, quickly followed by Gerrek, then Kenny, and finally Jason and the rest jumped after the reckless crew. They plummeted towards the earth, and Jason got everyone on roughly the same level, and just feet before hitting the ground, he activated a device that slowed all of their falls with gravitational manipulation causing debris around to hover as they upright themselves, and they landed softly on the ground, also rendered invisible by Jason's cloaking device.

They surrounded the engine and quickly performed simultaneous takedowns of the guards. Gerrek one tapped his, Kutter speared one clean through the head with his blade. May took down one, and Kenny got another with a two-tap from his .45. Jason got the one in the cabin by knocking, drawing him to the door, and then shocking him through the door.

The whole team piled in, hiding the bodies, and Jason and Silence quickly got to hacking the train. They retrieved blueprints of the entire vehicle, disabled the construction robots, shut down the track-laying unit on the front, and Jason even managed to get remote control over the train's acceleration. Finally, they set the train to get moving, not yet alerting the residents of the base around them, and they got ready to take over the first cart. Silence hacked the door, and inside, they saw a group of Vex's lobotomized ghoul technicians.